A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Forty-Two

[amberfocus]

                                                                                                                        Banner by Mitashade

A/N:  There be smut in this chapter.

Chapter Forty-Two

The days pass in a blur of school for Rose, and caring for the baby alien, work and sex for both of them, and that sense of happiness, that sense of life being perfect, continues. There is something small, something infinitesimally tiny within Jonathon’s brain that is telling him that it can’t go on like this, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop when it seems like the first one has no intention of ever hitting the floor. He’s not used to just being happy. It’s almost like he feels he doesn’t deserve to be, though for the life of him he can’t conceive of why not.

He takes the baby coral to Illuminate with him Monday through Friday, leaving her in the company of Caelum while he works, but every evening he retrieves her and brings her home with him. She’s grown four inches in circumference since they returned from Paris five weeks ago and he isn’t entirely sure, but she seems to enjoy her time spent with the injured alien. She’s taken to making a thrumming noise whenever he leaves the two of them together, but she also seems to have her own special hum for him and a slightly different one for Rose whenever they pick her up.

For his part, Caelum has been healing at a rate that has shocked Mr. Lumin. He says the baby girl has given the battered alien a reason to go on, and with the visible day to day improvements Jonathon sees, he has no doubt of this. The creature has started whispering at the edges of Jonathon’s mind as if seeking contact of his own but Jonathon has no idea how to attempt letting him in. It’s nothing like the naturalness of how he feels about the baby girl, or how sometimes when he and Rose make love he can feel all of her emotions.

Rose is happy to spend all of her weekends with him, though as graduation gets closer she’s spending a fair amount of that time studying. He has to force himself not to distract her, which is really hard when she insists on walking around the flat in nothing but his shirt most of the time. Sometimes he loses that battle and there has been more than one occasion when Rose has had to rewrite her notes because they became casualties of vigorous love-making. She hadn’t scolded him once for that and not once did she insist he stop pouncing.

He isn’t sure what to do with himself the week of finals. She doesn’t even work at Illuminate that week and except for a few rushed phone conversations, he has no contact with her. The longest they’ve gone without being together was the four days when she was in the rush to finish Kit-10 and turn it in as her final project in Robotics. That had been hard enough but they’d only spent one night together and then she had declared she couldn’t see him until finals were over, starting the weekend before them, because he was just too much of a temptation and she simply couldn’t resist him. He had just about gone out of his mind with loneliness. He hadn’t realized how much he had come to rely on her presence in his life.

So it is with great joy that he opens his flat door the day of her last final and finds her standing there, key still in the lock. “I came straight here,” she tells him. “I think I aced everything. Thanks for leaving work early today. I—.” He pulls her into the apartment and tosses her schoolbag on the couch, her books scattering across it as they fall out. He pulls her to him and starts kissing her roughly. He’s taking off her hoody and breaking the kiss only long enough to pull her shirt up over her head.

“I’ve missed you,” he says before his mouth is on hers again and his fingers are reaching eagerly for the fastening to her jeans. Rose has to tear her mouth away from his as he gets them open.

“Jonathon, slow down,” she admonishes him. “I missed you, too, but—.” Her words are cut off by his lips and his hands are reaching around her to unclasp her bra.

She gives him a hard shove and he stops, realizing he’s pushing too hard. “Just give me a minute, will you? I’m bursting. I had way, way, way too much coffee today and if I don’t get to the loo soon you’re going to need to call in professional carpet cleaners.” She kisses him gently on the nose then says, “I’ll be right back and you can take me straight to bed. Then after that I want to see how big our baby girl has grown.”

He nods at her as she disappears into the bedroom and sighs, running his hand over his face. He’s so hard he’s aching, desperate to be inside her. It’s hard to believe that he spent so many years being celibate when all he wants to do now is throw her down and shag the daylights out of her. And then do it again. What happened to his control? Well, he knows the answer to that. It walked out the door the day Rose Tyler walked into his life.

He sighs and heads over to the couch to pick up her books and put them back into her school bag. He gathers them together and flips through them a bit. His foot kicks against one last book that has fallen to the floor and he leans down to pick it up. He stares at in shock and then sinks down onto the couch, his fingers mindlessly flipping through the pages his eyes can’t manage to focus on, or maybe he can’t interpret. It’s like language suddenly has no meaning to him. She can’t be. But if she is… He closes his eyes and swallows hard, blinking back tears. Too many memories rush to the surface of his mind, thoughts and feelings he hasn’t allowed himself to have in years.

“Jonathon, are you coming?” Rose calls from the bedroom. When he doesn’t respond to her she comes to the door. “Yoo-hoo, love. New and improved Rose, now with twice the naked goodness,” she calls to him. When he still doesn’t respond she comes all the way into the room and around to the front of the couch. “Jonathon?”

He looks up at her, barely registering that she’s no longer wearing clothing. “Rose?” he asks her with a voice that is shaking far too much, “Rose, are you pregnant?”

“What? No. Why on earth would you think that?”

“Well, we made love without a condom and—.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’ve had a period since then,” she says.

“I don’t remember it.”

“It was when I was working on my cat. We didn’t make love then,” she says. “Why do you think I’m pregnant?”

He holds the book up to her with shaking hands. She stares at it for a minute and then back at him. “200,000 Baby Names,” he says, reading the title of the book.

Rose’s face clears of her confusion. “That’s for the baby alien,” she tells him. “She needs a real name, like Caelum has. We can’t just keep calling her baby girl. I thought it might give us an idea on what to name her.

“Oh.” He pushes his tangled up emotions back down, but Rose can already tell that there’s more bothering him than the fear she might be pregnant.

“Are you…disappointed?” she asks tentatively.

“No, of course not. We’re not ready to have a child. You’re just graduating and starting your career. We’re not even engaged. I’d love any baby we made, but no…I just…I’m not ready.”

She takes his hand in hers and looks at him. “Tell me,” she says, “what’s going on in that big brain of yours.”

“Rose, I…I was a dad once.”

Rose freezes for a moment, shock and horror at the implication of what the word once means crossing her face, before visibly forcing herself to relax. She strokes his hand. “What…what happened?”

“Elisabeth got pregnant when we were in college. It’s why we got married so young,” he says haltingly. “I didn’t just lose my wife and my parents that day on the boat. I…I lost my child, too.” He shudders, on the verge of tears. “He wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. Our sitter broke her leg an hour before we were to leave and he wanted…he wanted so much to come with us. I should have said no. He shouldn’t have been on that boat. I should have cancelled that trip! They’d all be alive if I had.” He’s sobbing now.

Rose immediately reaches out and pulls him into her arms, cradling his head against her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she tells him soothingly. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t know.”

“But it is, Rose. I killed him by letting him come. I killed them all.”

“No,” Rose says firmly. “No. It was an accident and you are not to blame. Do not do this to yourself. It was horrible and tragic and painful. But it was never your fault.” He looks up at her with eyes desperate to believe. “It’s survivor’s guilt. That’s all it is.” She hugs him tighter.

“I’ve tried to tell you about him so many times but it was never…I couldn’t find the words.”

“It’s all right,” she says stroking her hands lightly through his hair. “Please don’t feel bad about not saying anything. That’s got to be…the hardest thing.”

“I miss him, Rose. I miss him so much. He would have been…he would have been twelve in a couple of weeks. I haven’t…I haven’t even gone back to his grave in…I don’t remember how long it’s been,” Jonathon admits.

“Do you want to? I could…I could go with you. If you want,” she offers.

Jonathon pulls away from her and sits up. “Yeah. I’d like that. Graduation is next week, then your mum’s wedding and then your move, so…if you’re free this weekend we could catch the night train up to Edinburgh, then head on to Hamilton. That’s where…everyone is buried.”

She nods. “Your son? What was his name?” Rose asks quietly.

“Adam. Adam Richard Smith. We called him Adric.”

“Tell me about him,” she encourages. With a pressure lifting from his heart that he hasn’t even been aware he’s been feeling all this time he tells her everything he can remember about the short life of his dearly beloved son.



Using his privileges as a well-placed Illuminate employee, Jonathon is able to make a last minute reservation of the new first class extended sleeper berths. The train only has two of them and they are basically two adjoining sleeper berths, each with a slightly wider single bed. “Think we can manage to sleep in one of these together?” Rose asks him eyeing the closer one rather dubiously.

“I think we can manage to make love in one,” he says. “I don’t know about sleep. It’ll be awfully close quarters.”

“I’ve gotten used to that. We sleep all tangled up in each other anyway. Let’s see,” Rose says. “Lay down on the bed against the wall.”

Jonathon scrambles into his bunk and rolls on his side facing her. Rose lies down in front of him, her back to his chest and he slips his arm around her waist. The thick straps suspending the outside edge of the bed from the ceiling will keep her from rolling out. There’s not a lot of room but if they want to they can manage.

“It’s doable,” Jonathon says, “but if you want to nip off to the other bunk in the middle of the night I won’t be offended.” He strokes from her waist down to her hip. Rose can feel him getting hard against her bum.

“We’ll see,” she tells him. “I don’t want to unless I have to. It’s one thing sleeping on my own at home. When I’m with you, well, I want to be with you,” she tells him. “Being held by you all night is my favorite thing.”

“Just being held?” he asks. He brushes her hair away from the back of her neck and kisses the nape. Rose shivers against him as delicious sensations begin to course through her.

“Well, maybe…and I’m just saying maybe, making love with you rates up there pretty high,” she teases.

Jonathon slides his hand back down her body and up underneath her shirt, gently caressing her breast over the soft fabric of her bra. “Not top of the list?” he asks allowing his accent to seep more deeply into his voice, making it thicker and far richer with the promise of things to come. He knows by now what effect it has on her.

“Definitely in the top five,” she says breathlessly as his hand slides down and into the front of her jeans.

“Guess I’ll have to figure out a way to move it up the list, then,” he says huskily. “Make it number one.” He unfastens her jeans and runs his hand back up and over her abdomen. Her stomach lets out a huge involuntary growl and Jonathon starts laughing. “Maybe we should grab something to eat before we make love,” he suggests.

‘You sure?” she asks as she fights down her arousal. “I can wait.” Her stomach makes another ridiculous noise, firmly disagreeing with her.

“Doesn’t sound like it to me. Come on.” He pushes her slightly forward and she climbs back out of the berth. They wait a couple of minutes for Jonathon’s obvious ardor to subside and then make their way to the lounge car. They could have gotten room service but Rose doesn’t particularly fancy getting crumbs in the beds, which is about the only place to eat in the small cabins.

The lounge car is full enough that they are only allowing in first class passengers. They gratefully show their tickets and make their way inside. The menu is a lot more limited than what they are used to when eating together, whether at some lovely little restaurant Jonathon has found for them or in one of Rose’s elaborate cooking lessons for Jonathon.

Jonathon tries to tempt her into trying the Haggis, neeps and tatties, but Rose settles instead on the simpler Scotch pie. Adventurous she may have become since meeting him, but she’s still not eating sheep’s stomach. Even after discovering it’s made with a casing and not an actual sheep’s stomach she can’t bring herself to try it.

Jonathon mooches some of her Scotch pie which is made with beef and onion. She does make the concession to try the neeps and tatties, but she’s never been a big fan of swedes and finds them a rather awful vegetable, even well mashed together with potatoes. They split a black bun for desert and relax for a bit over Scottish ale for Rose and malt whisky for Jonathon, before the lounge car begins to feel too overcrowded and they decide to head back to their compartment.

It’s crowded enough that Rose retreats into the second room to get ready for bed while Jonathon takes care of his own evening rituals then takes off his clothing and arranges himself on the bunk to wait for her return. She takes down her hair and after finding the sink by popping up a small shelf and attaching it to the wall, she washes her face. A small container of water has been provided for brushing teeth as the washing water is apparently not safe for drinking. Rose takes care of that small chore and then undresses and joins Jonathon in his room.

He is lying on the bed idly stroking himself and she flushes as his eyes meet hers. She gets a very strong urge to take him in her mouth, but the impracticalities of space in the compartment render oral sex of any sort impossible. Jonathon’s eyes rake across her body as she comes up to him and he scoots toward the wall to make room for her. She lies down facing him and he captures her mouth, one hand going down immediately to her sex where he seeks out her clitoris.

He’s been like this since the day she came to the flat and he told her about the death of his child; hungry for sex to start as soon as possible. She misses their extended foreplay and if he keeps it up too many more days longer she’ll say something, but for now she understands his intense need to prove that he is still alive by doing the most basic of human things. Her body responds to his quickly, the powerful thrusts of his tongue and the stroking between her thighs working their magic.

Jonathon presses a finger against her opening and finds her wet. “You ready?” he asks her and she nods. They squirm around until Jonathon is lying on his back and Rose straddles his thighs. He pulls a condom out from under the pillow and Rose takes it from him, opening the packet and rolling it onto his penis. She tosses the packet on the floor and then rises up above him. Positioning herself on his shaft she slides herself down until she meets his pelvis. He hisses at how fast she goes.

Rose rests there for a minute, accustoming herself to his size as she always does when she’s on top. She smiles down at him as his hands reach up to knead her breasts and play with her nipples. He squirms impatiently beneath her, anxious for her to start moving. With a low laugh in her throat she rotates her hips. The bed swings a bit, whether from her movements or the motion of the train she’s not sure. It takes her a moment to adapt to it, to catch the added swing so she can keep her rhythm steady.

Her slow up, down, and around pattern soon has him closing his eyes in ecstasy. Their lovemaking has been so fast and furious in the last two days to make up for being apart during her finals that she is happy for this chance to slow things down a bit. Not that fast and furious doesn’t have its appeal, but after a while it tends to leave her tenderer than she likes for the frequency with which they have sex.

She adjusts herself, bringing her hands down on either side of his head and leaning low over him. He takes advantage of the moment to bring one of her breasts to his mouth. He sucks the nipple inside and rolls his tongue around the hard, pebbled peak. She whimpers as his teeth gently tug at her and her motions become shallow, tethered as she now is by his actions. He’s barely inside her, just one or two inches and it’s hitting her just right so she takes advantage of it to press her clit tightly into his shaft.

She’s not sure how long she’ll have. He can never hold out long with shallow grinding. He always has to give in to his desire to be as fully buried within her as he can get. She pushes herself into the perfect rhythm, her breath going into little pants as she concentrates on the slowly building rise corkscrewing tightly within her. “Close, so close,” she tells him in a voice unrecognizable with its heavy need.

He lets go of her breast and sets her free to focus more firmly on her goal. He likes to watch her face when she comes, something that no longer embarrasses her. She’s almost there and she teeters on the edge, riding him, riding him, riding him just enough. Her eyes close tightly, her mouth purses and she rubs, scrapes, grinds down just that little bit more that she needs and he says in that voice, in that accent that is almost enough to make her come on its own, “Open your eyes and look at me when you come.”

They fly open and meet the deep brown depths of his own, and oh, it’s just that little bit more, that commanding tone that is such a ridiculous turn on for her that she needs, and one, two, three more little plunges up and down. She flies apart, a rough, ragged sound ripped from her throat as she comes, sliding down hard on him and spasming forcefully around him. She collapses on top of him and lays there trying to catch her breath.

“Think we can roll over without falling off the bed?” he asks her.

“Not sure my legs are strong enough to stand up yet,” Rose tells him. He scoots them over to the edge of the bed and then tilts Rose towards the wall. He carefully grips himself so the condom doesn’t come off and then rolls out of the bunk. He gets to his feet and Rose shifts onto her back. She raises the far knee and keeps the other flat so he can scramble over it and between her thighs.

He’s back inside her so quickly she thinks it’s going to be another race to the finish line for him, but he surprises her by holding her close and going at such a slow and measured pace it reminds her of their first time. Her leg slips off the bed and she shifts a bit so she can wrap it around him. He reaches down to hold it in place and resumes his gentle thrusting.

“You feel so good,” he whispers in her ear. “So nice, so deliciously tight all around me. How I love being inside you, Rose.” She shivers. He usually doesn’t talk like this and it just makes something inside her so damn hot. “I love making love with you. I love you. Oh, I love you, Rose.” He starts to make the little noises that he makes when he’s close to coming.

She’s rarely tried talking like this to him before either and she wonders what effect it will have on him if she really goes for it. “I…I love how it feels, too. You’re so deep inside me and when I clamp down on you, you’re so hard, so thick, so perfect. It’s so hot. So good. So right. I love you.”

His pace quickens, his eyes locked on hers, obviously loving what she’s saying to him. She continues, her words becoming less and less polite as his control weakens. His eyebrows rise at some of the words she says, but the manic grin on his face tells her that though she has shocked him, he’s enjoying every minute of it.

He whimpers and then he is coming so hard he’s shoving her back on the bed. Her head just misses banging against the wall as he empties himself inside her. He leans down and kisses her fiercely, taking her mouth in a way he hadn’t taken her body. She battles with his tongue but finally allows him to assert his dominance and claim dominion over her. When he stops her mouth feels bruised and her jaw is aching but she doesn’t care. He sighs heavily against her shoulder and then pulls away from her, moving to the rubbish hatch and tossing the condom inside.

“Where’s the sink, Rose?” he asks her.

“It was under that shelf in my room,” she says pointing. He pushes it up out of the way and washes himself off. He stays long enough to brush his teeth then brings back a warm, wet flannel to clean her up with. Once done he crawls back over her and settles at her back. He pulls the covers up over them and wraps his arm around her, his hand coming to rest on the breast closest to the mattress.

“I need you so much,” he tells her. “Do you know how much I missed you while you stayed away from me?”

“Yeah, all that reunion sex was a dead giveaway,” she joked.

“I mean it, Rose.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I missed you, too. But we shouldn’t ever need to be away from each other like that again. From now on we’ll work together every weekday and spend every weekend night together and—.”

“Rose, I want you to move in with me.”

Ch. 43:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/250651.html