A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Nineteen

[amberfocus]

                                                     Original banner artwork by theotherwillow

A/N:  The first 2/3 of this chapter is action/adventure, the final 1/3 is leading up to the smut that will be in chapter twenty.  It is lightly smutty.  Probably a hard PG-13.  You may recognize certain actions and a bit of reversed dialog from the episode Rose.
 
                                                      Chapter Nineteen

James Lumin is more frightened than is humanly possible, which of course is normal, being as he is entirely not human no matter what face he presents to his adopted world. He is paranoid, not by nature, but by necessity, both because of what he is and what he is protecting and because of his particular line of work and the corporate espionage that runs rampant within the industry.

This fear, though, is unlike anything he’s felt previously. He was a child the last time any of his people had to face this enemy. The sense of dread has been rising within him all afternoon and he feels the deep and utter despair projecting from the Caligo, the total darkness within them as they advance across the city of London, seeking the light they are determined to extinguish forever.

His eyes flick to the windows again and again, waiting for the enemy as it closes in. As the skies outside begin to darken he activates the biological signature dampener and the perception filter, the two working together as a cloaking device. He hopes he did not wait too long, but they are dangerous for him to use in human form, draining his precious energy reserves. He wishes he could use it out of human form, but they are useless to him in his natural state.

He heads over to sit with Donna and Jonathon during the show and is pleased that it comes off without a hitch, and yet his eyes stray throughout, back to the nearest window, back to the approaching storm. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll be lucky and the menacing presence will pass him by, the harbingers of death will not notice him, they will not harm those he has come to care about, or the innocents around him. But as the chill of foreboding washes deeper into his bones he realizes that he is a fool.

He never should have left the Illuminate campus. The Caligo bring death in their wake this day. He vows to protect Donna with every ounce of strength left in his being, but even that cannot be much as the powerful inventions of Dr. Smith begin to slowly sap his strength, dispersing his much needed energy into the atmosphere. It will come back to him if he reverts to his regular form but if he does that they will know precisely where he is. He tries to say something, anything, to indicate the need to evacuate the building, but his mind begins to cloud as the enemy surrounds the building.

He can’t function like this. He can’t save anyone, let alone himself, unless he turns off the device. But if he does that, they will find him for sure, and through him, his charge. He has already given up a lifetime to be guardian. He has sworn, also, to give up his life if necessary. But he has never sworn to give up the life of another. If it comes down to it, he will put himself forward to save the life of the woman he loves. And if the last guardian is dead, then the creature in the vault will just have to manage to survive on its own.



Sarah and Elliot are ten minutes late returning to the staging area and Rose glances over at them in surprise as she sees their reddened faces. Sarah rubs anxiously at her own. “What happened?” Rose asks.

“I think I got frostbite,” Sarah says.

“What?” asks Rose, unsure she could have heard the other girl correctly.

“It got cold,” Sarah says her eyes showing her confusion.

“Cold?” Rose echoes.

“The temperature outside has dropped dramatically,” explains Elliot.

“I could see my breath,” says Sarah. “It just froze in the air, like it was the middle of winter.”

“But it’s the end of April,” protests Timothy.

“No kidding,” Sarah says sourly. “It’s really getting dark, too.”

“Well, if the clouds are heavy--.”

“More than that,” Sarah cuts Rose off. “I don’t like it. I think we’re in for one hell of a storm.”

Rose frowns and leaves the stage. “Rose? Rose! Where are you going?” Timothy hollers after her.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she calls back. She heads out into the exposition hall and over to a window. It’s quite dark outside, almost as if night has fallen already. The sun shouldn’t be setting for another half an hour. There isn’t even a hint of color in the sky, just darkness that is rapidly turning black.

She bites her lip and then turns, searching for Jonathon’s face in the crowd. She locates him next to Donna in the front row on the left hand side of the middle aisle. They are chatting amiably and she feels better just knowing where he is. Her eyes move to James Lumin and he looks worried. Maybe he’s just concerned about how the finale will come off. Maybe she’s reading the expression on his face completely wrong. He looks as unsettled as she feels. With a sigh she heads backstage again and finishes the final positioning of the robots. The four of them climb back up to the gallery and wait for the signal to start their part of the show.

The feeling of unease stays with Rose as the music starts and the lights go down low. The expo goes off without a hitch and Rose thinks that whatever it is that has been bothering her has passed. The lights come back up for half a minute when the windows to the exposition hall suddenly shatter and everything goes dark. The emergency generator kicks on and the faint lights on the wall turn on.

In the dim glow a wafting darkness enters the room from every conceivable exit, except for the closed steel doors of the emergency exit. At first it hovers at the end away from the stage, but slowly it begins to spread across the floor. The children and some of their parents start screaming as the cloud of darkness moves. The sounds that reach Rose’s ears are not sounds of terror or fear of the dark. They are sounds of pain and despair and as the darkness crosses the room an overwhelming fright wells up in her stomach.

She is frozen for one brief moment and then her eyes meet the others. “We have to do something,” she says. “We have to get these people out of here.”

“How are we meant to do that?” Sarah questions. “Whatever is going on down there, we’re safe here. We can hide.”

“For how long?” questions Timothy. “What if that…whatever it is…stuff starts to rise up here?”

“They look paralyzed in fear,” Elliot says.

“Well, we have to do something.”

“Fire alarm,” says Rose.

“Yes!” exclaims Timothy. “One of us needs to go down and pull it. It might wake people up enough to try to get them moving out the emergency exit.”

“We’ll go,” says Elliot grabbing Sarah’s hand.

“Speak for yourself,” snaps Sarah. “I’m staying up here where it’s safe!”

Elliot frowns, but Timothy speaks up. “Come on, I’ll go with you. Rose, it’s darkness. Whatever it is, it’s darkness. And lasers are light. Maybe it’s a long shot, but if you shoot them into the cloud, maybe it’ll dissolve it or hold it back or hurt it—or—or something!”

“I’ll try!” she says. Elliot and Timothy race for the steps and hurry down them as Rose shifts a laser so she can point it in the direction of the cloud. “Help me,” she yells at the frozen Sarah. When the other girl doesn’t move she redoubles her efforts and the first laser moves. She turns it on and it fires into the cloud. There is a violent scream, a rending sound coming from the darkness itself.

The fire alarm goes off and she sees people starting to move for the big steel doors of the emergency exit. Some people do not move at all, have fallen where they stood, including several children. Rose fears the worst. “Damn it! Come on, Sarah! Shift it! We’re not as safe here as you think!” She points to the rising darkness. Sarah comes alive at last and helps Rose in her struggles to move the other lasers and align them with the new target. They get four turned on and aimed into the cloud.

“It’s working,” Sarah says, shock and a bit of hope coming into her voice.

It is and yet there is a small bit of cloud hovering near the stage that has broken off from the rest, following a brief flash of light. It’s got three people cornered and with horror, Rose realizes that it is James Lumin, Donna Noble and…Jonathon Smith. Her heart falls as the thing advances. Jonathon turns to look up at the gallery, his face a mask of fear and hopelessness, his eyes begging for help against something he cannot possibly understand anymore than she does.

Rose rises up on shaking legs. "There's nothing more you can do!" yells Sarah.  Rose cannot tell if Jonathon can see her or not, cannot tell if he even knows she’s really there, but even in his moment of terror she knows he is looking for her. Perhaps not to save him, perhaps only as the last thing he wishes to see before he dies. All she knows is that it can’t end like this. She won’t let it. Her eyes fly around the gallery until they land on a large chain hanging from the wall. Her gaze shoots back to the smallest laser. It’s just small enough that if she’s careful, she should be able to hold onto it and aim it by hand when she gets to the ground.

“Sarah, can you get that chain loose from the wall?” she shouts.

Sarah looks at her like she’s crazy. “What? Why?”

“Those people. They’re trapped. I have to save them!” Rose wrenches at the laser, trying to free it from its casing.

“With a chain?” she asks.

“Yes! Just do it!” She gets the laser loose, sees a bag on the ground and picks it up. She puts the laser in the bag and then she loops it over her shoulder. Sarah has unfastened the chain from the wall and hands the end to Rose.

“You’re crazy!”

“I don’t care. I’ve got an education. I’ve got a good job. I’ve got a future. But I’ll tell you what I haven’t got. I haven’t got the chance to make love with the man I want to spend the rest of my life with and I’ll be damned if I’m just going to stand here and let him die without doing everything in my power to save him!”

“But…but this… Rose, think! You could fall, you could be hurt.”

“Jericho Street Junior School under sevens gymnastics team,” Rose says with a mad laugh. “I got the bronze!” And she takes the chain from Sarah and before she can think any further about it she holds on tight, leaps onto it and swings down to the floor. She thuds into the wall with a groan but refuses to take the time to feel the pain, instead slinging the bag from her shoulder and pulling out the laser. She turns it on the cloud menacing Jonathon and the others and fires the button. A violent scream rents the air and the small bit of cloud dissipates, brushing lightly against her as it does so.

Rose drops the laser to the ground and stumbles, adrenaline draining from her system in a sudden rush. Jonathon catches her as she collapses. The overhead sprinklers, reacting to the heat of the lasers, activate drenching everyone with water.



Lumin grabs Donna and pulls her out of the building, yelling at Jonathon to help Rose. Rose manages to take a frantic look around and sees Sarah, Elliot and Timothy helping the last of the children and their parents from the building. “What about them?” Rose asks pointing to the still forms on the floor.

“They’re dead, Rose,” Jonathon says softly.

“I didn’t save them?” she asks in a lost little girl voice.

“You saved everybody else,” he says reassuringly. She stands there in shock, her eyes unable to tear away from the bodies. “Come on, we have to get out of here. We’re getting soaked.”

She doesn’t respond but she allows him to lead her from the building. A tall, dark-haired man with dimples and sapphire blue eyes who is dressed in black meets them at the door. He ushers them out. “Anyone else in there?” he asks.

“Not alive,” Jonathon murmurs.

“All right. You best get her on home. My team will take it from here.” Jonathon moves around him with Rose, but the man calls out to him. “I saw what she did,” he says. “What’s her name?”

“Rose Tyler.”

“And you are?”

“Jonathon Smith.”

“Good job, Rose Tyler and Jonathon Smith,” he says.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jonathon says mildly.

“You inspired her,” the other man says. “And that was obviously worth a lot.” He squares his shoulders and turns back to the building.

“Who are you?” Jonathon asks.

“Just part of the cleanup crew,” the man says with an odd look in his eyes. Rose shivers and leans heavily into him and the man says, “She’s had it. Go on. Take care of her. My people have it from here.”

Jonathon glances around him at the other people dressed in black advancing on the building with various pieces of equipment, including what looks like an oversized vacuum cleaner with the suction end pointing up. He suddenly notices how cold it is. How very, very cold it is. His breath is frosting over. He puts his arm around Rose and leads her back to the car. The beautiful flowers that they had walked through on the way to the science building have iced over, brilliant pink and white crystals picking up the lights of the campus buildings.

Rose is shivering violently by the time they get back to the car and he gets her inside. He turns the heat on full blast and retrieves a blanket he had put in the boot of the car in the hopes of a spontaneous picnic at some future point with Rose. He drapes it around Rose and then joins the queue of cars leaving the University after the devastating events of the day.

Eventually they get back to his apartment building and he leads her from the underground car park and into the lift. They make it up to his flat and he brings her inside, by this point half carrying her. Rose’s eyes are glassy and she is barely responsive to his murmured query asking her how she’s doing.

Rose is shaking so hard now Jonathon is afraid she’s never going to stop. She was brilliant today, so incredibly brave. She has saved his life and the lives of countless others. He’s frightened at her reaction.

“Cold, so cold,” she mutters.

“Come on, let’s get you warm.”

He leads her to the bathroom, his arm still protectively cradling her shoulders and sets her down on the closed toilet seat. He reaches over and starts the bath running, adjusts the temperature to a pleasing heat and adds in some lavender scented bubble bath he tries not to be embarrassed he owns. The scent of the herb has always eased his sleep on evenings when the nightmares of his past threaten to overwhelm him.

Jonathon reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a large towel for Rose’s body and a smaller towel for her hair and puts them over the bar beside the tub. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it,” he says.

He exits the bathroom but Rose’s voice calls out to him, weak and still frightened. He returns quickly. “What is it, love?” he asks his voice low and soothing.

“My fingers are numb,” she says. “I can’t work the buttons.”

He takes one of her hands in his and blows on it, then rubs it between both of his to warm it. He repeats the process on the other hand and then asks, “Better?”

She nods, but her fingers pick ineffectually at the buttons of her blouse. He worries she’s gone into shock. “Rose?”

She meets his gaze, but doesn’t say anything else and hesitantly he reaches out for the bottom button, waiting for her to stop him. She doesn’t. He undoes the first button, his fingers slowly working their way up her abdomen, fingertips grazing the smooth pink skin of her stomach. He stops just beneath her breasts and raises his eyes to hers. Her beautiful brown eyes are enormous and infinitely trusting and she gives him the tiniest nod and a brief little smile that quickly fades away as she closes her eyes and breathes deeply and he can’t help but admire the rise and fall of her chest.

His own hands are shaking now as he undoes the final three buttons and eases the blouse gently off her shoulders and down her arms. He closes his eyes and swallows hard, taking in a deep breath. He wants to touch her so badly, but does not want to push forward when her mind is so addled and traumatized by the day’s events. He’s afraid he’s taking some kind of advantage. He will control himself, even if it means that undressing her will be the death of him.

He reaches for the snap on her jeans and unfastens it, grips the zipper and pulls it down. He kneels before her and pulls off her shoes one at a time and then the wet socks that grip her feet tightly. He takes her hands and helps her to her feet then tugs the soaked denim off her hips down to the floor and she steps out of it.

Jonathon stares at her body, risking no shortcuts as his eyes rise from her ankles to her face, for he doesn’t know when he might see this image again, despite her earlier declaration that she is ready to make love to him tonight, and he wants to burn it onto his retinas. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and he doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard in his life. He wants her, wants to make love with her so badly, curses himself for being such a man when she is so obviously vulnerable.

“Can you...?” He has to stop as his voice fails him. “Can you take over from here?” he finally manages at her quizzical look. If he has to remove the red satin knickers or the lacey white bra and not touch her naked skin it is going to kill him.

“It’s okay,” she says.

“It’s okay, you can take over from here?” he responds.

“No,” she says. “It’s okay for you to do this. To touch me.” She lifts his hand then and places it against the cup of her bra and he hisses at the contact, as his fingers find the bare flesh above it. “Anywhere you want.”

“Rose, you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re in shock.”

“I do know what I’m doing and I’m not in shock,” she says. “I’m just cold. And scared. But not of you. Not ever of you. Touch me.” Her words give him permission to move and his hand squeezes her breast gently, his thumb finding the nipple through the rough fabric and brushing across it. It is already slightly raised from the cold, but it doubles in size at his touch. Rose moves forward a bit and her thigh moves against his. He turns her around, he was never good at doing this blind, and reaches for the tiny sets of hooks and eyes, quickly undoes them and turns her towards him once more.

He finds her eyes again and discovers certainty there. She lets the bra fall forward and to the ground and stands there exposed to his gaze. He groans and reaches for her, pulling her into his arms and bringing his mouth down on hers in a crushing kiss that she returns with furious passion. He ends it far sooner than he’d like to when he realizes she is still shaking with cold.

“Come on, Rose. Let’s get you into that tub. This can wait until after.”

“But--.”

“After,” he insists.

His fingers slip into the sides of her knickers and he eases them down her legs until she steps out of them. His eyes focus on the apex of her thighs, the soft brown curls, and as she turns from him, her pert bum. He licks his lips unconsciously. She steps across the little room and into the tub, lowering her body into the warm suds.

“I’ll wait out--.”

“Don’t go,” she tells him.

“I need to get out of these wet things,” he says. “Put on a warm robe at least.” He picks up her wet clothing. “Get these in the washer, too,” he adds.

“But you’ll come back?” she asks in a small voice.

“Oh, Rose, nothing is going to keep me from you tonight,” he says and his tone is rich and full of all the promises he intends to keep to her.



The warmth of the water soaks into her bones and her shivering stops fairly quickly, her mind losing the fuzzy quality that has been with her since the end of the attack. That thing, when it touched her, it was like icy fingers on her soul and she’s not shaking it off the way she’d like to. It’s made her very tired, as if it’s drained away some of her vitality. She tries to dismiss the fanciful notion of how a cloud could do such a thing. But then that cloud had killed people. Her mind skitters away from that thought.

When Jonathon returns she tries not to laugh at the fact that he’s been shopping without her and somewhere he has managed to find a fluffy, brown, pinstriped robe. It matches his luggage. Jonathon grins as if he knows precisely what she is thinking then sits down beside the tub and reaches out for the shampoo bottle.

He washes her hair and Rose has never felt anything so sensual in her life. His fingers against her scalp are gentle, tender, and erotic. Finally he has her cover her eyes and he pours water from the sink tap over her head, washing away the suds in her hair and the bubbles clinging to her body from the bubble bath. She doesn’t care. She is no longer shy before his heated gaze; no longer afraid of what comes next. She’s ready. She wants him, wants this.

Jonathon wraps a towel around her hair and then helps her rise from the bath. He dries her body gently, layers kisses across the back of her neck and shoulders as he does so, then helps her into a fluffy pink robe. At her questioning look he shrugs. “I got it for you…for when you stay over.” He blushes but doesn’t look away.

“It’s lovely,” she tells him.

“Yes, especially with you in it. All pink and yellow.”

She wraps her arms around him and hugs him tightly to her. She can feel his erection through their robes. “What about you?” she asks. “Do you need a bath?”

“I’ll take a quick shower,” he says. “Just to warm up.”

“I’ll…” Rose falters; tries again. “I’ll wait for you in bed.” She exits the bathroom nervously and looks around.  He's lit a few candles and they glow warmly at her from their perches on the windowsills and the bureau.  She smiles softly and then her eyes glance over at his huge bed. She isn’t technically a virgin, but in so many ways she might as well be. They’ve done so much, but they haven’t done what she means for them to do tonight. She slides the robe from her shoulders and slips naked into the bed. She only means to close her eyes for a minute, but the blankets are warm and cozy and she drifts off to sleep.

She is wakened briefly by Jonathon getting into bed beside her. “Jonathon?” she asks sleepily. “Do you want to…?”

“Shh, love. We can wait until morning. I’m not going anywhere,” he says soothingly. She is aware enough to realize he is as naked as she is, but even that is not enough to keep her from sleep in her exhausted state. As he fits his body against her back and snuggles his arm up under her breasts, she gives a contented sigh and lets the world of dreams claim her.

Ch. 20:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/150157.html