A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Sixteen

[amberfocus]

A/N:  Before anyone asks, no Jonathon is not going to remember being the Doctor.  Something else entirely is occurring.

                                                           Chapter Sixteen

The problem with Rose staying an extra night at Jonathon’s flat is that when Friday morning dawns it is just as difficult, if not more so, for both of them to realize that Rose has to go home. She makes a half-hearted attempt at packing and he stills her hands.

“Tonight,” he says. “You can pack it tonight. I’ll pick you up after work and you can come back here, pack, and then I’ll drive you back home.”

“I think it’s best,” Rose says slowly, “that I pack now. We can store my things in your car and you can drive me home directly after work. If I come back here, I’m not going to want to leave.”

“You don’t have to leave,” he blurts out. She glances at him, sees that he is shocked by his own outburst.

“Jonathon,” she begins.

He shakes his head, his hand coming up to rub up and down her forearm. “Stay with me. Another night, just one more.”

She shakes her own head no. “And then what? The next night and the next after that?” she asks.

“What’s wrong with that?” he wants to know.

“Jonathon, I need to go home. I need to check in with my mother and pay my bills and play with the cat and get back to my life. These past few days have been wonderful, and as much as I don’t want to leave here, leave you, I’ve got responsibilities at home. My mum needs me--.”

“I need you.”

“No, you don’t. You want me. There’s a difference,” Rose disagrees.

“I need you,” he insists stubbornly, pulling her up against him.

She smiles at him softly and kisses the corner of his mouth. “And we’ll satisfy your needs soon enough,” she tells him. Her eyes sparkle a bit as she adds cheekily, “And mine, too. Promise. I have Sunday off from work this week and my—my cycle’s almost over. We can…we can make love. But I need to go home tonight.”

He sighs and gives in reluctantly. “Okay, but…if you have Sunday off can you…will you…spend Saturday night here with me?”

“I…” Rose sighs, meets his eyes. “Yeah. But only Saturday night. Not Sunday night. Not other night’s next week. We need a few boundaries between our lives.”

“Why?” He sticks his lower lip out in a pout and she just wants to suck on it.

“Because,” she says in frustration, “it’s going to be hard enough not to lose myself in you. I’ve got school and work and Mum and I can’t just drop it all, everything I’ve worked for my entire life to be at your beck and call.”

“I don’t want that,” he says. “Rose, I understand you have a life outside of me. I want you to have a life outside of me. I just…don’t want to be away from you anymore than I have to be.”

“You won’t be. No more than you have to,” she replies. “It’s not like I don’t want to be with you. I do, all the time, but I can’t give up on my goals to do it, no matter how tempting it is to just be with you and only you, all the time, as much as possible.”

His lip is still sticking out and she can’t stop herself from leaning forward and nibbling on it. His response is instantaneous, as if his hands are programmed now to reach for her breasts the minute she starts kissing him. She rather hopes they’re not quite because if it were to happen when they’re snogging in public it could be quite embarrassing, not to mention perhaps leading to a charge of outraging public decency. But it’s rather the nice effect in private.

Maybe too nice an effect because she’s already thinking again about skipping school and she really can't when she has to prepare for the big Illuminate Kids Through Science presentation on Saturday that the university is putting on and she volunteered for ages ago, calling in sick, or at least injured, to work, and spending the day with Jonathon. He’s taken over control of the kiss and his tongue is gliding smoothly in and out of her mouth as if he’s attempting to show her just what it’ll be like when he’s sliding in and out of her body later this weekend. His hands remain busy at her chest, caressing the rounded flesh softly, thumbs ghosting her nipples.

When he finally releases her she reels back into the counter. “Work,” he says. “School.”

“Yeah,” she agrees reluctantly. If it’s this hard to stop touching him now, how hard is it going to be to stop when they fully become lovers? Because already she’s aching at the loss of his hands on her, his mouth on hers, his body pressed so firmly into hers. Maybe it won’t be so crazy making once they’ve taken that step. Or maybe it’ll just make it that much worse, her need to touch him that much harder to resist. She’ll find out soon enough, she supposes. It’s just two more days and everything changes. Forever.



Jonathon walks Rose to the bus stop and then heads off to work. His hand itches and he clenches it unconsciously. It is the one that was holding Rose’s and it feels ridiculously empty. It’s starting to feel like he’s addicted to this girl. He’s a grown man. He should be able to get through a work day without aching to be with her.

It’s not even a physical ache. He can fairly well control that, when he’s not with her, anyway. It’s a mental ache, his mind almost at a loss as to what to do with himself without her there. It’s ridiculous. He’s a brilliant man by anyone’s standards and yet ten minutes since leaving her and he’s missing her so badly he wants to rush back to the bus stop and whisk her away from the rest of the world again.

How is he going to get through the night tonight without her in his bed? Is he that dependant on her already? All he knows is that the past few nights sleeping next to Rose have been the calmest he can remember in nearly a decade. Nights without the formless bad dreams that so often plague him waking him in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and with even colder fingers wrapped around his heart.

Rose is right, he knows she is, about how fast everything is moving, about there needing to be clear boundaries between their lives, and yet he doesn’t want there to be. He wants to be by her side and he wants her by his. He wants to forget what the meaning of personal space even is when she’s with him. She is right when she fears getting lost in him, as all he wants to do right now is get lost in her. He has to get a grip, find the line, remain himself. Sometimes though, lately, he’s not quite as sure of who he is as he can remember being in the past.

Maybe it’s just because he’s been on his own for so many years, and now he’s finally met someone again, someone he feels so passionately for and needs so very much that he’s rushing headlong into this. It’s fast, too fast, and Rose has tried from the start to apply the brakes, not because she doesn’t want him or this, but because she wants it too much. He hasn’t even been trying, ever the fool willing to race pell-mell into danger.

But wait, that’s not right either. The last ten years have been a study in cautious behavior. He’s been steady, careful, slow to change his personal life and fully focused on his work, his inventions. Where is the idea that he is impetuous and foolhardy coming from? He is not a reckless man. Yet Rose makes him want to be.

He finds himself in front of the Illuminate campus with no memory of actually walking there. He slides his ident card into the pedestrian gate and sticks his thumb against the print scanner, then waits for the little buzz before walking through, fastening it carefully behind him. Lumin is a stickler for security. Being the world’s most brilliant technology company has made him a target for all kinds of unscrupulous businesses to commit industrial espionage.

Lumin doesn’t mind visitors in the building as long as they are thoroughly identified and accompanied at all times by a legitimate employee, hence his easy ability to bring Rose in with him the other night. Cameras follow his path as he walks across the cobblestone courtyard. He is only barely aware of them anymore. Like much of life in London, it’s become par for the course to be under near constant observation.

He needs to remember that when he’s out in public with Rose. Lately when he’s kissed her he’s had a very hard time keeping his hands from creeping to places they probably shouldn’t be except in private. It’s just so difficult to keep his hands off her.

He enters his building with his pass and signs in with the main floor receptionist who then allows him past her to the bank of lifts leading upstairs. He catches sight of Donna’s crop of copper colored hair heading into one and almost shouts for her to hold the lift, but then thinks better of it.

He’s still a little miffed at her for her behavior the other night at the Watford Costco. That was the last time he went shopping with the woman. She had enjoyed embarrassing him entirely too much. If he hadn’t wanted to know where the store was located and she hadn’t needed to pick up a few things herself he never would have taken her.

Jonathon knows he’s quite likely behaving a bit like a child. He genuinely likes Donna, gets along better with her than most people, almost as well as Rose, but in an entirely different fashion, of course. But she has a way of unmanning him at times that he finds disconcerting. He’ll sort it out by lunchtime, he’s sure. Their daily trips to Lombardi’s for a meal have become a ritual he looks forward to a little too much.

It doesn’t matter in the end. When she turns around in the lift to press the button for her floor she sees him and her hand slaps out to hold the doors open. “Oi, space man, hurry up. The lift’s not gonna hold itself all day.”

With a sigh he scrambles across the floor where the office manager greets him with such a genuine smile the last of his irritation fades away. It’s impossible to stay annoyed with Donna, at least in her presence. He smiles back. “So,” she says as the doors close and they are left in the privacy of the lift, “how was your night? Did you and she,” Donna bumps her hands together in a suggestive manner, “yet?”

Jonathon blushes and takes back his previous sentiment. It is, he discovers, possible to stay a little bit annoyed with Donna in her presence. “Did anyone ever tell you that you are entirely too nosy, Miss Noble?” he asks her by way of an answer.

“All the time,” she replies blithely. “Doesn’t stop me from asking though. So did you?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

“Rose still holding out on you, then?” she pries further.

“Not exactly. Look, Donna, I don’t feel comfortable discussing this with you at--.”

“At work?” she interrupts.

“I was going to say at all. Some things should be private, you know,” he says a bit sternly.

Donna snorts with laughter. “You should have thought of that before you took me condom shopping.”

“I didn’t take you condom shopping! We were at the store. I needed them. That’s an entirely different thing!” He has a feeling she is winding him up, but he still can’t stop himself from being embarrassed. He rubs at the back of his neck nervously.

“Yet you still bought them in front of me. If it had bothered you that much, you shouldn’t have done,” she says.

“We were there. They were there. I didn’t think you’d be so silly about something so personal.”

“Oh, how could I not be? Especially after you bought the mega pack.”

“That was your fault!”

“My fault? How’s it my fault then? It’s not like I’m the one going to be using them with you,” she says.

Jonathon gives her an irritated glance. “I couldn’t very well not buy the 48 pack once you’d embarrassed that poor employee into finding it for me.”

Donna rolls her eyes. “You’re entirely too easy,” she says and starts giggling. Now he knows she’s been teasing him. He sighs.

“You are turning into quite the pain in my arse,” he tells her but there is affection in his voice.

“Count on it,” Donna replies. She schools her features into a pleasant expression as the lift dings and the doors open. Back on camera in the Illuminate corridors she is once again the ultimate professional. “Lombardi’s today, Dr. Smith?” she asks as she puts her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk.

“Yes, I think so,” he replies.

“Take away or dine in?” she asks briskly.

“Oh, dine in, I think,” he says. He quite likes getting out of the lab long enough to get a bit of fresh air.

As the camera pans away from Donna’s desk she gives him a saucy wink and says, sotto voce, “Well, what’re you waiting for? Get to work then.”

Bemused, Jonathon heads down to his office. Opening his briefcase he takes out the little lump of coral that he’d finally decided to snatch off the mantle before leaving his flat that morning and sets it on the stack of papers that are forever flying about his office when he gets up too quickly. It looks happy here. He runs a finger over the top of it and smiles at his whimsy. It’s silly to think of it as almost a pet as he sometimes does.  He really needs to get out more.

He heads into the lab and makes the final breakthrough on the biological signature masking device an hour and a half later. He calls James Lumin who immediately heads down to see the working prototype. Lumin brings Donna into the lab with him as his guinea pig. “So how’s it work?” she asks dubiously.

“It won’t hurt you,” Jonathon says.

“Of course not,” she says disparagingly. “Mr. Lumin would never let me be hurt.”

“That I wouldn’t,” the man says softly.

“Well, basically I irradiate a piece of metal with a certain frequency of light and another frequency of sound--.”

“Irradiate?”

“Poor choice of words. Bathe might be better,” Jonathon says with a frown. “Then if you put the metal on your person, it will mask your biological signature.

“Here, use this,” Mr. Lumin directs. He pulls a plain silver band out of his pocket and hands it over to Jonathon.

Jonathon picks up a small narrow tube the size of a biro, aims it at the ring, and flicks a switch. It makes a tinny, high-pitched humming sound. He flicks the switch one place further forward and then it emits a soft green light. Then he hands the ring back to Lumin and he puts it on Donna’s left hand.

Donna blushes and for a moment looks like she is about to bolt. With a steadying glance from Lumin she settles. Jonathon files that away for future teasing reference. He is, he knows, going to have to give as good as he gets with that woman or she’ll run roughshod all over him. Donna is already a bit defensive about whatever her relationship with Lumin is. He will have quite a bit of fun with that later on.

“Now, I set it to read Donna as a feline,” he says. “This device,” and he holds up a small rectangular box that is smaller than a deck of cards, “reads the biological signature.” He points it at Donna and a small red light shoots out. “Life source identified,” it says in a pleasant female voice. “Object scanned is a domestic feline, female.”

He points the object at himself. “Life source identified,” it repeats. “Object scanned is a homosapien, male.”

“Now, Donna, take off the ring.” Donna looks slightly rebellious at that but she slides the ring off her finger and sets it down on the table. She is now identified as a human female.

“And the perception filter?” Lumin asks.

“Should be ready by the end of the day,” Jonathon replies.

“Good man,” says Lumin and claps Jonathon on the shoulder. They troop back out of the lab and into the office. Lumin stops suddenly and focuses on the coral sitting on Jonathon’s desk.

“What’s that?” he asks pointing to the paperweight. “That wasn’t here before today.”

“Just a souvenir from a dive I did off the Inner Australasian Reef,” Jonathon says with a shrug.

“May I?’ asks Lumin. Jonathon nods and the other man picks it up. He gazes at it intently for a long minute, Donna looking at him like he’s gone spare. “It’s lovely,” he says a moment later and then puts the coral back down. Without saying anything further he sweeps from the office. Jonathon picks the coral up again, telling himself that he is being silly as he puts his hands possessively all over the little lump. It’s fine, though why he thinks it might not be he doesn’t know. Lumin is just a man and for all intents and purposes, the coral is a simple pet rock. And he himself? He might just be a little bit barmy even worrying about it.

He puts the coral back down and with one last stroke to reassure himself he returns to his lab and the inner workings of the perception filter. The device he had shown Lumin hid reality from machines. The filter would hide reality from the human eye and the camera lens. He gets back to work.

By four o’clock he completes the last bit of the perception filter. He looks around his lab to find a few things to test it on, lays it on the microscope and his eyes slide away from the machine. Again he tries to focus on it, but he can’t. He reaches out and removes it and his vision returns to normal. He repeats the process with various tools and every time it works.

He needs to test it on something biological and heads out to his office. He picks up the phone and buzzes Donna. “Miss Noble, can you come down to my office for a moment?” he asks.

A moment later she appears at his door. “What is it?”

“I need to test the perception filter on something organic,” he says.

“Do I look like a lab rat?” she asks him in annoyance.

“No. I’ll wear it. I just want you to try to look at me when I do.” He slips the filter into his front pocket and Donna’s eyes grow wide.

“What do you see?”

“I can tell you’re there…sort of. But not who you are or what you look like. You just sort of…blend in to the office. I have a feeling if I didn’t know where you were standing I wouldn’t even see you.”

“That’s as it should be. Can you go ask Mr. Lumin to come back down to the lab? Tell him I’ve finished the perception filter.”

Donna nods and goes off to call their boss. Jonathon tosses the filter down on his desk. It rolls across it and comes to a halt against the piece of coral. A sharp burst of light flows across the surface of it and for a moment it seems to glow. Then it disappears. He frowns and picks up the filter then touches it to the coral again. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. He touches it again to a few other items and they are affected as they should be.

He frowns and touches it to the coral one more time. Still nothing. He picks up the little lump and sticks it in his pocket. He rubs at his forehead, a slight headache starting behind the bridge of his nose. Mr. Lumin enters the office a moment later and he runs through all the tests again. Satisfied at the success of the inventions, Lumin leaves with them to rush them into whatever level of production they’ll go into next.

Jonathon takes a couple of paracetamol from the first aid kit and clocks out early, going home to lie down. He manages to call Rose at work and cancel their nightly dinner and then collapses on his bed. He wiggles around on the bed trying to get comfortable, realizes the coral is digging into his hip and pulls it out. He falls asleep almost immediately, clutching the coral against his chest, a strange melodic humming echoing in his mind as he loses consciousness.

Ch. 17:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/146979.html