amberfocus | A Sky Without Stars: Chapter Two

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Title: A Sky Without Stars (2/?)
Series: The Zeppelins 'verse (Book 2)
Author: amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Ten2 (Jonathon Smith)/alt!Rose Tyler, alt!Donna Noble/James Lumin, alt!Martha Jones Milligan/alt!Tom Milligan, alt!Jack Harkness, Renee Pascal, Frank the Talamangan, Yumi, Caelum, Cariad, Dr. Raji Singh, alt!Adeola Jones, Dr. Eriko Sasaki, alt!Dr. Owen Harper, Mrs. Hampton
Genre: Alternate Universe, Romance, Action/Adventure, Fluff, light Angst, Smut
Rating: Adult, NC-17 this chapter
Betas: amyo67
Summary: A mysterious object falls to Earth, ejected from the newly formed Time Vortex, burying itself in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. At first it seems harmless, but soon enough all hell breaks loose. It's up to the team at Illuminate to try to figure things out before it's too late. With Lumin still recovering from his last go around with the Vortex and Donna seven months pregnant, it's up to Rose and Jonathon, Martha and Tom, Renee Pascal and Captain Jack Harkness to save the day, with a little help from their alien friends and a precocious, sentient whale. A sequel to A Sky Without Zeppelins.
A/N: The second half of this chapter contains graphic sex and is not appropriate for work or school or children.

Ch. 1: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/305751.html

Chapter Two

Rose wiggles in her sleep as something brings her to the edge of consciousness. She bats at the soft, tickling sensation on her cheek and tries to snuggle back down into dreamland. A moment later the tickling comes again and she lets out a little noise of irritation. It takes a few minutes more of the sensation before she opens her eyes to see warm brown ones staring back at her hopefully. She closes her eyes firmly. “Sleepin’,” she says, losing the g in the thickness of exhaustion.

She turns herself over and tugs the duvet up over her shoulder and relaxes back into sleep for a little while, but again she’s awakened, this time by a warm hand sliding across her back and then down to softly caress her bum and the tops of her thighs. She opens one eye, looks at the clock on her nightstand, and firmly closes it again. 4:30 a.m. is too early to get up. She needs at least another two hours if she’s going to function with any degree of clear headedness. Even for sex with the most amazing man in the world.

Rose makes a grumbling noise, but doesn’t push the hand away as it snakes its way up under her baby doll nightgown to rest on her stomach. She feels Jonathon fitting his body to the back of hers, his warm, naked chest snuggling up close, his thighs pressing into hers. He’s half hard against her bum and she knows his intentions are to caress her into wakefulness and then have his way with her, like he has every morning since she moved in. His fingers wrap gently around her breast and he strokes very softly against the skin. “Happy Christmas,” he says softly in her ear.

“Christmas!” Rose says coming awake with all of the clarity and adrenaline of having a bucket of cold water dumped suddenly over her head. She springs from the bed. “Come on! Presents!” She dashes into the loo.

“I don’t think we keep them in there,” he calls after her with an amused chuckle.

When Rose reappears a moment later she sticks her tongue out at him. “Come on,” she repeats.

“I was trying to seduce you awake, you know,” he says with put on disappointment.

“I know,” she grins at him. “Presents,” she insists. Her eyes are sparkling like a kid’s and she’s shifting from foot to foot. “Then afterwards, as your final gift, you can shag me rotten under the tree.”

“But I don’t want to wait that—,” he begins.

“Without a condom,” she adds.

A grin washes over his face and he jumps from the bed, takes his own trip to the loo, and returns to an antsy Rose who is practically bouncing in impatience as she waits for him. She reaches out for his hand and tugs him along after her.

Jonathon pauses to pull open the blinds and wash the room with the faint light of the city while Rose plugs in the tree lights, sending blue and red and green and yellow reflecting across the ceiling and walls. It’s enough light to see by and they sit on the floor cross-legged in front of the big Christmas tree.

Rose fishes around and grabs out a shiny red package topped with a gold bow and hands it to Jonathon. “Here. You go first.”

He holds the small, book-shaped package up to his ear and shakes it. “Is it a toaster?” he asks with a grin.

Rose laughs. “Yes. It’s a toaster. Only makes one slice of bread at a time on account of it being so skinny.”

He runs his hands all over the package and then slowly picks off the bow and flips it over. Very carefully he removes the tape. “Jonathon, you’re supposed to tear the paper off in a frenzy.”

“This is the first Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten from you. I want to savor it.” He finally gets it open and turns the book over. “Songs of Travel and Other Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson,” he reads.

“You mentioned he was your favorite Scottish author. And we talk all the time about wanting to travel so it seemed appropriate. Since you lost all your books in the move to London and haven’t had a lot of time to start rebuilding your collection I thought…” She looks down suddenly shy. “Do you like it?” she asks hopefully.

“Rose, it’s perfect.” He leans forward and tilts her chin up and kisses her gently before returning his gaze to the book. He opens it up. “It’s a first edition. Can you afford this?” he asks.

Rose laughs. In the past she has always been so concerned about money, but now that she’s making a good income of her own most of that anxiety has left her. “Don’t worry about it,” she tells him. “I’m not.” And she’s not. With her entire signing bonus in the bank and forty percent of every paycheck since she started working at Illuminate in there as well, she’s got enough financial security to feel safe with spending for the first time in her life.

“Look, there’s an inscription,” he says. “To Thomas on our first Christmas together. Love, Isabella.” He runs his index finger over the old, faded black ink. “I wonder what their story was. Wouldn’t it be fun to go back in time and find out?”

“Is that what you’d use time travel for if you had it? To go back and spy on a pair of young lovers?” Rose asks.

“Hopeless romantic, me,” he says with a grin. She giggles and grabs him by his shoulders and pulls him forward to give him another soft, sweet kiss. “Umm,” he says as they separate again. Jonathon fishes under the tree and pulls out a tiny package wrapped in silver and green paper with a matching ribbon tied round it.

“Here you are,” he says.

“A waffle iron?” she guesses. “You shouldn’t have!”

He grins. “Open it.”

She tears the paper off and pulls a long, flat, red velvet box out. She cracks the lid open. Inside lays a thick, silver link bracelet. A small charm of the Eiffel Tower dangles from it. “I got the charm when we were in Paris, when I bought the snow globe. I thought, well, I hoped, that we’d still be together for Christmas. I want to give you a charm for it every time we travel somewhere.”

“It’s lovely,” she says. “I love that idea of adding little souvenirs as we go on our travels.”

He helps her put it on and then she reaches under the tree again. This time the package she hands him is blue with red candy canes on it. It’s bulky and squishy and awkwardly shaped. “Is it a new mobile?” he asks.

“It is,” she agrees with a giggle. This time he tears into the paper with gusto and bursts out laughing as he pulls out brown, pin-striped slippers.

“How on Earth did you find these? They match my robe perfectly.”

“It took some doing,” she says. “Finally found them in a catalogue.” He slips them onto his feet. “Hold on.” He bounces up and into their bedroom and emerges a moment later with the fluffy, brown robe wrapped around him. He struts through the living room, catwalking like a fashion model. “Work it, handsome,” Rose calls out, giving him a wolf whistle.

He laughs and settles back down beside her. Jonathon fishes a larger, heavy package out of from under the tree and places it solidly in her lap. “Fruit of the month club?” Rose hazards cheekily.

“Most definitely. But not pears.”

Rose pulls off the metallic green paper in one large tear and tosses it aside. “A photo album?” she asks wrinkling her forehead in confusion. Her hand gently caresses the buttery soft, dark blue leather.

“Open it,” he says.

Rose flips the cover back and stares in surprise. “This is me…as a child.”

“I know how devastated you were when you lost all your photographs in the building collapse the day we almost lost Lumin. I know we had far more to worry about at the time than your keepsakes, but I know it hurt you to lose so much. So for the past few months I’ve had your mum making copies of your childhood photos that she had. And she asked all your mates for what they had so she could copy them as well. Then in November when you were doing that special project with Frank and you were so busy all the time I got together with Jackie and she helped me put this together for you.”

Rose turns the pages slowly, tears coming into her eyes. “That’s my daddy,” she says softly, her fingers moving gently over the face of her father holding a three year old version of herself. “That’s what I’d use a time machine for,” she says. “A chance to meet him.”

“I wish I could give you that,” he says.

Rose smiles and wipes the tears away. She flips through the rest of the pages, drinking in the evidence of her past that she thought would be lost to her forever. Photos of Keisha and Shireen and her on their first day of school, one of her and Mickey working on a car together that had a tricky computer, and even one of her receiving the bronze medal in gymnastics fill the pages. Towards the end of the book she sees a few photographs of her and Jonathon together in Paris and at her mother’s wedding to Howard and at Mickey and Keisha’s wedding as well. There’s one from the Illuminate Halloween Party and even two from the Christmas bash at her mum’s last weekend.

“This is perfect. Thank you. I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

“I wish…I wish I could do this for you,” she says softly. “Reconstruct your past.”

Jonathon looks down and away from her for a moment before raising his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t need it, Rose. All I need is a future with you.”

“And that you will always have,” she says. They kiss again for a few long minutes before turning their attention back to the tree. They continue to exchange gifts one at a time until they are all unwrapped and then Rose reaches for the tie of Jonathon’s robe. “You,” she says with a delighted smile, “are the best thing I get to unwrap today.” She pushes it free of his shoulders and he shrugs out of it.

As Jonathon lifts the nightgown she is wearing up over her head, he smiles. “That sentiment is extremely mutual, I assure you.” He sighs as he stares at her. “You are so beautiful, Rose.”

She blushes hotly under his admiration and he smiles. He loves it that after all these months together he can still make her turn crimson with a compliment and a lusty look. He spreads the fluffy robe out to protect the carpet while Rose shimmies out of her knickers and while she lies down he strips out of his pajama bottoms and boxers.

They lie down together, neither in any rush, and softly stroke each other’s bodies. “Are you sure, Rose? About not using a condom?” he asks.

“Yeah, I am.”

He moves his body closer to hers, his hand trailing up and down her arm before moving onto her breast. His index finger lightly circles her nipple before his hand slides up to the hollow of her throat and back down again. He traces the outline of Christmas lights as they reflect against her skin, bathing her in patches of red and blue, green and yellow. Rose trails her hand up and down his back and then he eases himself lower, his lips starting at her collarbone and kissing their way down. His tongue flicks against her nipple and it pebbles sharply against him. He delights in her pleasure as he swirls about the reactive little bud.

Rose sighs as he plays with it, her eyes closing to soak in the sensation as a flood of arousal rushes to her sex. One hand finds its way to Jonathon’s hair and she buries her fingers in the strands. He pauses a moment in what he’s doing, tilting his head responsively into her touch until a small whimper of complaint comes from her and he lowers his mouth to her breast again. He lays soft, sweet kisses from one side to the other then gently pushes upwards to slide his tongue along the soft underside before making his way back to the nipple and sucking it sharply into his mouth.

Rose hisses and bucks against the sudden suction, her hand tightening in his hair. He smiles and moves his hand down the length of her body, sliding from her waist, over the gentle swelling of her hip, and as far down her thigh as he can reach, before slipping back up to land on the breast he isn’t already caressing. He teases the second nipple into a tandem response until Rose is writhing under his touch.

When she can stand no more she pulls at his hair, bringing his head up to lock lips with him, her tongue battling against his to take control of the kiss. Both her hands cradle his face as he lets her win, her kiss aggressive and powerful and full of so much desire it doubles the hardness of his penis and makes him ache to be inside of her. He slips one hand between her thighs, his fingers finding copious wetness as she parts for him. He plays with her clit as she lightens the kiss, sucking at his lower lip before darting inside again and once more taking possession of what he’s allowed her to own.

Jonathon slides one finger inside her gently thrusting several times before adding a second. Rose widens her thighs, never releasing his mouth as he mimics the act of sex with his hand, his thumb rubbing more forcefully against her clit as she deepens the kiss. Part of him wants to break away, take his time, taste her, make her come slowly. The more persistent part burns to simply take her, to be inside her flesh against flesh, no barriers between them. He wants to come without latex stopping him from laying claim as she’s only allowed once before.

Finally she breaks the kiss and rolls fully onto her back. She pulls at his arms, encouraging him to line himself up properly, her hand wrapping around his shaft and guiding him into place. He looks into her eyes and she nods quickly, her hips lifting as she slides the head through her slick folds and to her entrance. She lets go then, moves her hand up across his chest, fingers tweaking at his nipple before moving to his shoulder. “Please,” she whispers and he waits no longer to thrust home.

Nerve endings come alive more forcefully than usual and he closes his eyes at the extreme rush of pleasure he feels at being buried inside her tight, wet walls. “I love you,” she breathes.

“I love you,” he repeats back to her. He takes a moment just to savor the sensation before Rose is moving impatiently against him.

“Please,” she repeats. “Make love to me now.”

He goes for slow, near total withdrawal, the entire length of him but the head coming out before sliding fully back inside her and holding himself still, trembling for several seconds before repeating the gentle, gliding motion. It’s sweet, agonizing rapture and he loves every precious moment of it. Rose’s hands clutch tightly at his upper arms, her eyes enormous and full of love as she watches his face. She whimpers and moans at each patient thrust, each movement held for pure anticipation of the next.

Rose does nothing to protest the pace, alternating each cry of delight or moan of pleasure with his name, repeating it like a mantra. He whispers back words of love, of joy, names her as she names him, holds his tempo until with a sudden gasp Rose comes around him, the muscles contracting tightly, nearly making him break his control as he rides out the powerful orgasm. She cries out loudly as it rocks her body and deep, masculine pride fills him at seeing her come so completely undone.

At last she comes to a panting end and he allows himself to pick up the pace, driving for his own pleasure now, his eyes closing as he concentrates fully on what he wants. Rose urges him on as he drops his body down, wrapping his arms around her back, gripping her shoulders from behind, taking all space from between them. Every bit of his focus narrows down to the cycle of plunge and thrust and push as he reaches for what he needs. Rose’s fingernails dig into his back and he groans, coming almost savagely inside her. He shudders as wave after wave of his seed leaves him, filling her deeply.

He collapses atop her and her arms hold him firmly in place. Her breathing is as labored as his and he can feel her heart beating in time with his, something almost familiar in the double thud thump, thud thump of their rhythm. She groans softly, refusing to let him go as he tries to back away. “Just when I think it can’t get any better…”

“It does,” he finishes for her.

“It does,” she agrees, kissing the side of his face. She holds him tightly for a few more minutes before finally loosening her arms and allowing him to roll off her. He comes free and his seed spills from her body. She cuddles into him. “Messier this way,” she says. “But I like it better.”

“Me, too.” They lay quietly in the afterglow of their lovemaking for a few moments.

“About that,” Rose begins. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What?” Jonathon asks with curiosity in his tone.

“Babies.”

“Babies? Is that why you said it was okay to do it without a condom. Are you…?”

“No!” She smacks his arm lightly. “I wanted to do it for you for Christmas and I’m at the safest point in my cycle to do it, so I did. How come every time the subject comes up you think that I’m pregnant? Something I should know about the efficacy of your swimmers?” she asks.

“Well, Elisabeth did get pregnant with Adric the first time we had sex,” he admits.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Didn’t know how to use a condom properly then, though. It’s why I’m generally so careful with you.”

Rose thinks for a minute. “Well, it’s going to be a while before we want to have children, right? Even after we’re married, we’ll have that whole project coming up exploring the Earth’s oceans. When they launch the exploratory vessel in eighteen months, we’ll be out on that mission for a year. So it’s going to be at least three years before we’d even be able to think about it and even then I’ll only be 25. I’m pretty sure I’d like to wait a few more years than that even,” she says.

“Yeah, we agreed on that, to wait at least five years, possibly even until you’re thirty or so. Why are you bringing it up now?” he wants to know.

“Well, it’s Martha.”

“Martha? What’s she got to do with anything?” he asks.

“She’s had this birth control implant in human trials for the last five years and it appears to have a hundred percent infallibility rate and it’s completely safe. The only side effect reported was tenderness at the implant site for a few days. It just came out of a five year trial of 50,000 people and not one pregnancy was reported. It got government approval for usage last week. Illuminate is offering it to its employees as part of their benefits package. The thing is it’s a five year implant. So it’s a definite commitment to not have children for five years. I wanted to make sure you were really okay with it before I brought it up,” she says.

“Yeah, I am. If you want to get this implant, go ahead.”

“Well, that’s the thing, Jonathon. It wouldn’t be me getting it. It’d be you.”

“Me?” A surprised squeak raises his voice an entire octave.

“The implant was designed to render sperm impotent,” Rose explains.

“Impotent?” He still isn’t speaking quite right.

“Just the sperm, not you,” she says hastily. “There wasn’t one case of penile dysfunction reported.”

“You want me to get an implant?” he asks dumbly.

“It’d be a lot easier than me remembering to take a pill every day and we wouldn’t have to use condoms anymore,” she says.

“Yeah, but—.”

“So it’s okay for me to do it, but not you?” she asks with a frown at his hesitation.

He thinks for a minute. “No, no, I just need to get my head around the idea. I had no idea they were that close to a male birth control that would actually work is all. I know you don’t like taking the pill. Tell you what. Let me read the trial reports and if I feel comfortable with their findings, then yeah. I’ll do it.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Rose, if it can make things easier on us, no pill for you, no having condoms on hand all the time for me, then it’s a really smart idea. Especially considering we’re going to be on that mission for a year. It’ll be two less things to worry about,” he tells her. “Besides, the idea of not having to use condoms anymore is definitely worth it if we know for sure it’s safe. I’ll go to Martha after the holidays.”

Rose smiles. “Thank you.”

“Welcome,” he says.

“Happy Christmas,” Rose says.

He kisses her temple. “Best one ever.”

Ch. 3: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/312614.html