Hello, I'm back!
This is the sequel to For a Little Fire Beside Me. You need to have read that first. It is referenced throughout this story.
This story contains adult themes and language. I'll post a warning in front of any particularly strong chapters.
The title is taken from the Coldplay song 'Til Kingdom Come.
Reviews and comments are always appreciated. Thank you!
Lisa xx
XX
He was trembling. It was freezing and he was in pain and it was dark. He was alone and scared and something bad was going to happen. Something bad was coming down a steep flight of dark steps, and it was going to take him away – take him away from Linka and he'd never see her again.
It was coming, and terror welled up inside him.
-x-
Wheeler sat up with a gasp, the sheets stifling him, the night hot and heavy around him. It took him a few moments to realise it had all been a nightmare. He tried to cling to it, needing to analyse it and tell himself that none of it ever happened, that it had been some twisted trick his mind had played on him while he slept. He could remember a huge sense of fear and panic, which still clung to him like a second skin, smothering him and making breathing difficult. Pain and cold and darkness, and the feeling that he was about to be taken far, far away, and nothing could help him.
He glanced down to the sleeping figure beside him; the day's events proving too tiring to wake her even as he had thrashed about beside her. She had kicked the sheets down, the skin of her bare back smooth and perfect in the moonlight. One arm cushioned her face, and the other disappeared under her pillow, her face turned away from him.
Wheeler felt his heart slowing as he watched her breathe peacefully, the fear starting to leave him and the memory of how exhausted he was becoming prominent again. He fell back into the pillows, rubbing his forehead and closing his eyes – but despite his craving for sleep to fall upon him again, he remained awake.
For a brief moment he considered waking Linka – but the idea disappeared as quickly as it had come. They'd had a rough few days – chasing Sly Sludge and his latest intricate plan for the illegal dumping of garbage. Wheeler had nearly been crushed under a bulldozer and Gi had almost drowned herself in a fit of passion as she beached Sludge's motor boat – his attempt at an escape vehicle.
Then, after finally tracking Sludge down and handing him over to the appropriate authorities, they had to clean up the mess, which was physically demanding in itself.
He rolled quietly out of bed and slipped into shorts and a t-shirt. It was still a couple of hours until sunrise but he felt incredibly awake. He trudged down to the beach and sank into the sand, listening to the waves and the crickets, and the odd bird ruffling its feathers and chirping softly for the sun to appear.
X
He wasn't ever aware of falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes again the sun was up, and the sky was blue and clear. Linka was smiling down at him in amusement, her hair tousled about her face. She was clad only in a t-shirt of his, which fell half-way to her knees.
"Morning," he muttered, running a hand over his face.
"Good morning." She sank down beside him. "Do you care to explain why you are sleeping on the beach, Yankee?"
He rolled onto his side and threw an arm over her lap. "Can't remember."
She tousled his hair tenderly, leaning back on her elbows and gazing out at the gently rolling waves. "Is something wrong?"
Wheeler concealed a smile – barely. He didn't want to explain the childish fear of a nightmare to her, but he knew if he'd found her sleeping on the beach he'd have a deep worry about why she was there.
"I went for a walk to clear my head and I fell asleep," he mumbled. "I meant to come back to bed and snuggle up to you, babe, but the beach won out."
He heard her sigh a weary expletive in Russian, and he chuckled and wriggled into her, pressing his face into her hip and curving an arm around her waist.
"I'm okay," he sighed.
"Are you sure?"
"Mmhmm." To be honest, he could do with another hour or two of sleep, but he thought that idea was useless, now. It was a new day, and if history had taught him anything, Gaia would be calling them into The Crystal Chamber in a couple of hours to describe some new eco-crime they had to solve.
He waited for his fiancée to say something else, but she was quiet, tousling his hair gently with her fingers, her eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon.
"You all right?" he asked, his voice somewhat muffled in the sand and her nearby presence.
She smiled down at him, her eyebrow raised. "I am fine," she said smoothly. "I did not fall asleep on the beach."
He laughed and sat up, pressing his palms over his eyes. "I had a bad dream," he said. "It was nothing – I just wanted to clear my head a bit but I guess I sat down and fell asleep. I haven't been here long."
"Are you sure?"
He nodded and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. Her hair smelled of coconut and lychee – not that he knew what lychee was, just that Linka smelled of it – so it was something he liked.
They sat there for a while in silence, the morning clean and warm around them.
"How are your bruises?" Linka asked after a moment.
He checked his knee, mottled and purple thanks to making rough contact with a piece of lumber in his scramble to avoid the bulldozer bearing down on him.
"Pretty impressive," he said, rubbing his hand over it gently. "I guess it could be worse though. I'd rather a bruise than a crushed leg courtesy of Sly Sludge and his terrible driving skills."
She nodded, and looked to be on the verge of saying something else, but Ma-Ti's voice interrupted them.
"Good morning, lovebirds," he said, flopping down in the sand next to them with a smile.
Wheeler offered a tired sigh and a grin in reply, and Linka nudged him.
"Good morning, Ma-Ti," she said. "Did you sleep well?"
Ma-Ti shrugged. "I had very strange dreams last night." He looked at Wheeler for a brief moment, but the Fire Planeteer looked away, not really wanting to discuss his own sleep troubles.
"Wheeler had strange dreams too," Linka mused. "Something in the water, as you say, Yankee?"
"I guess," Wheeler shrugged.
Sensing he didn't want to talk about it, Ma-Ti turned to Linka. "How did you sleep?"
"Like a tree," Linka said.
"A log, babe," Wheeler corrected automatically, his mind wandering slightly.
"Da, a log," she sighed. "I think I am going for a swim."
"No run this morning?" Wheeler tried not to show his disappointment. It was part of his daily routine to run with Linka each morning. He looked forward to it with a stupid sense of longing – a lot of the time it was the only time he had alone with her before they returned to their hut at night.
"It is getting too warm," Linka said, squeezing his hand and getting to her feet. "You can come swimming, if you like?"
The thought of Linka in her bikini was enough to hurry the last cravings for sleep from his mind. He was well and truly awake. "Why not?" he said, leaping to his feet.
"Coming, Ma-Ti?"
"Thank you, but no," Ma-Ti said, suppressing a grin at the look of sudden disappointment on Wheeler's face at the thought of a third party. "You two go ahead. I'm going to help Kwame do a little maintenance on the geo-cruiser."
"Yell out if you need help," Wheeler said.
Ma-Ti nodded and watched Wheeler and Linka disappear back up the path into their hut. He looked after them a little worriedly. He couldn't remember, exactly, the dreams he'd that night, but it had all been tied to Wheeler somehow, and the sense of panic had hit Ma-Ti's stomach just as it had hit his. He looked down at the ring on his finger anxiously. Sometimes it caused him more trouble than not.
X
"The idea of swimming was to get some exercise, Yankee," Linka huffed, squirming around in his arms.
He laughed and held her tightly – kissing her neck. "I'll show you some exercise," he muttered.
"Bozhe moy," she exclaimed. "Are you going to let go?"
"Hmm..." He pretended to ponder the question for a moment. Taller than her by quite a way, he was standing on the ocean floor, the water lapping about their shoulders. Without being able to reach the bottom, she didn't have enough purchase to squirm away from him.
"Am I going to have to make you?" She raised her eyebrow at him, but her arms slid around his neck and her struggling had lessened significantly.
"You don't want to do that..." he grinned and sucked a bead of water from her neck.
She gave sigh of resignation and placed her forehead gently against his. "If you refuse to let me exercise this morning, you will do something else for me instead?"
"What's that?" he asked, his fingers brushing against the tie that held her bikini bottoms together at her hip.
"Tell me why you slept on the beach?"
He stopped his exploration of her body for a moment. "I told you, babe," he murmured. "I went for a walk to clear my head after a bad dream. I didn't mean to fall asleep on the beach."
"What was the dream?" Her eyes were slightly widened with worry, gazing up at him intently. He could see a light scattering of freckles across her nose and that, more than anything, indicated the season of long, lazy days of summer they'd had.
He sighed and kissed her forehead. "I don't remember much of it. It was dark, and cold, and creepy. Something about a woman with dark hair. I don't know."
"Just what sort of dream was this?" she asked.
He laughed. "Ugh, not one of those dreams. Have a little faith in me, babe."
She grinned and took his moment of distraction to work her way out of his arms, paddling just out of arm's reach and treading water. "It was just a bad dream? Not something else?"
"Like what?" he asked, running hands through his hair. He was getting hungry and the thought of breakfast entered his mind.
She shrugged. "Something to do with me?"
"No, nothing to do with you, gorgeous." He lunged for her and pulled her under the water with him. He emerged laughing – she, spluttering.
She ran off a few choice swearwords he hadn't yet managed to translate into English, and splashed him, her worry forgotten.
As they made their way back to the shore though, the sick feeling in Wheeler's stomach returned, and he couldn't seem to shake the dreadful foreboding the dream had left with him.
XX
