Again, please see Part 1 for FULL header...
Title: The Raging Blaze (3/5)
Author: Me aka Sharma aka jsl aka S'sLC
Word Count: ~2684 (for this part only)
A/N: Yes, I have added an additional part to this story, so it will now be 5 parts in total, not just 4, which is what I'd originally planned.
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PART THREE: OF AIR & TRAVELING
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Rose's gaze switches sharply up from the floor to a point just over her left shoulder, as her dad purposely strides from the lounge area.
The look on his face is serious, grave. But, then, upon seeing her, his expression softens and a small smile graces his lips.
Rose can't ask the question fast enough, voicing the question that's been burning its way through her mind for the past 10 minutes. "How is he?"
"Comfortably resting in there," Pete explains, pointing back to the separate room that resides behind him. "He still has a bit of a headache and his ribs are tender, but I think he'll be okay with some rest and recuperation time."
"Thanks for picking us up, Dad."
"I'm just glad he didn't die in that towering inferno. Not only because he's a good man and has helped scores upon scores of people on this planet, but also because, if he'd gotten killed, I would've lost you too."
"No, you still would've had me. I just wouldn't have had him."
"No, that's where you're wrong, Rose. You might not see it yet, but...you and the Doctor...you two are forever bonded. For better or worse. There is no way you would've survived in this place without him for a second time. Remember that I saw how glum and depressed you were before you found him again. You barely ate, and you slept even less, waking up the entire Estate with nightmares minutes or hours later. You were doggedly determined to find your way back to him. No matter the cost or consequence. So, to weather his death now after all you've been through? Well, it would've been the death of you too. And I'll be damned if I let either of those things happen under my watch."
Perception, thy name is Dad.
"Yeah, well. That didn't happen, so we won't have to find out the accuracy of that statement."
"Not now, anyway. Not yet."
I nod, letting him have the last word on that particular discussion, before quickly starting another. "So, can I see him?"
Pete's smile grows. "Of course, ya can. He's still a bit groggy, but he is awake and a familiar face would do him wonders."
"Okay..."
"I'll let you know when we land, although I'm pretty sure you'll figure that out pretty quickly for yourselves. You can sit with him for as long as you like. Just try to keep him calm."
"That, I can do."
With another gentle smile aimed at my assurance, Pete and I take our leave of each other, me intent on seeing how John is doing, him intent on overseeing the safe piloting of his craft.
Quietly, I push open the door that Pete had previously come through, and stand there briefly, just to take it all in.
Currently, my boyfriend is stripped to the waist. And there are bandages all over him. One affixed to his forehead. A neat column of four encircling his ribcage. One encircling his right bicep. And quite a few bandaids covering up the scrapes on his hands. His right leg is elevated on a couple of pillows, but no cast yet resides there. Plus, he's hooked up to an IV too, just for good measure.
His eyes are closed as if he's still unconscious, but, as I approach, I hear him talking for the first time since our altercation right after the fire. The voice he uses is rough with exhaustion and constrained pain, but it's still his. "...looks worse than it is, Rose, honestly..." He opens his eyes then and peers at me expectantly. "Come to spring me?" he jokes, a ghost of his usual wide grin lighting up his face.
"No, I came to make sure that you don't go wandering off."
"Oh." The tone in his voice says that he's disappointed, but it can't be helped. We're in close quarters and the last thing my dad needs is someone trying to make things better by tinkering.
"I almost lost you today, John." I feel tears already welling up in my eyes, blotting out bits of the sight before me.
"Yeah, but you didn't lose me, Rose. I'm right here. See?" The man on the cot reaches out to me, imploring me to take his still too-warm hand.
I readily accept the gesture however, happy he's making any gestures at all.
"Told ya before that I'm never going to leave you. I've got only one life, and I'm spending it with you. Remember?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I remember. But..."
"No buts. I meant that. Not even a 'towering inferno' could keep me away from you."
"So, you were listening in on me and Dad?" I comment, only mildly surprised.
"Not trying to. Just... Small ship."
I nod, accepting.
"I love you," I suddenly blurt out. Where did THAT come from?
"Quite right too." John's immediate, rueful reply.
The eerie echo to all those years ago, to hours spent standing on a desolate, windswept bay in Norway, is not lost on me and I can't help but shudder, quickly becoming wrapped within that distant ache of a memory.
But, this Doctor doesn't stop there. Doesn't tease me. Doesn't taunt me. He comes right out and says it. Like it was nothing in the world. Only, it means everything to me.
"And I love you too, Rose."
The sudden compulsion to kiss him overrides any other additional words that I can say back, be they slightly wiseass or similarly sentimental.
I surge forward. Capturing his lips with my own. Finding my fingers carefully running through the shaggy hair on the nape of his neck.
A content moan of pleasure soon meets my ears.
The moment passes all too quickly, but I finally feels like he won't vanish into thin air, that this illusion of happiness is really truly real and won't likewise disappear. That these precious moments won't abandon me in a reality where, instead of kissing him, I'm claiming John's burnt remains in the city morgue.
"Stay with me?" He puffs into the air, drowsy and breathless with the momentary lack of oxygen.
"Of course. Forever, remember?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I do. Hop on then. This cot is easily big enough for the both of us."
"Are you sure that I won't hurt you?"
"Nah. I'm all right. Just can't get close enough to you is all."
Carefully obliging, I toe off my boots and slide up onto the bed. I feel John shifting behind me, making room. A sudden hiss of mild frustration from behind, however, almost has me trying to scramble back into the chair sitting next to the cot. This is silly. I should get back down...
But, then, I feel an arm slowly snaking around my waist. Then, the heat of John's bare torso is radiating through the back of my shirt as he shifts closer to me once more.
"Ta. That's better," he rumbles. The vibrations of his voice in his chest tickle me. His actual voice even ruffles my hair. "You comfy?"
"Still worried I'm hurting you, actually."
"Nothing to do with you, sweetheart. Just hit a particularly tender place when I was making room."
"Your ribs?"
"Uh-huh." A drowsier-than-earlier rumble.
"Are you going to sleep?"
"Still a bit tired."
"Go on then."
"You'll still be here when I wake up, right?"
"Yeah. Of course."
I feel him plant a kiss on the top of my head that lingers for minutes after. And the next thing I hear is a soft sigh, followed by a light snore. He's gone on back to the Land of Nod. Restful slumber is my only wish for him now. His steady heartbeat eventually sings me to sleep as well.
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A violent gasp wakes me up from what had been a lovely dream.
I had been dreaming there had been no fire, that John and I had simply taken off in my car to a small bungalow right next to the seaside, and that he was lounging around in nothing but board shorts, his injuries nothing but a distant, faulty memory, and I was dressed in nothing but a colorful sarong and a two-piece swimsuit.
But, now, there's a visceral shaking feeling. A wild jostle. It takes me a minute to realize the wild jostle is coming from the other person in bed with me. I quickly flip over, and peer at John. He's practically convulsing. His eyes are flickering and the pleasantly warm body heat radiating from earlier is now outright searing. Fever, my brain distantly supplies. Internal bleeding? A punctured lung? A seizure?
Tears of exertion collect at the corners of his eyes.
His lips part and words tumble out. "You've got me already. Don't you hurt her. Leave her alone! Rose, Rose, run! RUN!"
A vision of our future? A spectre from our shared past? Or simply a nightmare of an unrealized imminent separation?
Regardless of whatever it is, I try to soothe it away, forcing a sense of reassurance into my words. "John, listen to me. I'm right here. I'm safe. No one's trying to hurt me. Can you wake up for me? Come on. Wake up. Please wake up."
I lean over then and kiss him on his forehead, on his cheek, on his lips, trying to bring his mind back to the present, to the real.
Abruptly, his words halt, as if sensing I'm nearby, and he quiets back down. Stills, sighs.
"John? Can you hear me? Are you awake?"
"Yes, to all of the above, love."
"Everything okay?"
"Why wouldn't it be, love?"
"Well, you were talking in your sleep."
"Oh, really? What'd I say?"
"Nonsense, mostly," I lie. No need to scare him in his waking moments too. Especially if a bad dream was all that it was.
"Ah. Must've been some dream then."
"Um. Do you remember any of it?"
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"Can't say that I do," I respond. A small lie. Rose doesn't need to know that I actually DO recall some bits of fleeting mischief and some pieces of pervading danger, although I can't yet remember anything concrete. I also get the sense that she might be lying a bit to me too. About what she heard me say. Maybe she doesn't want to frighten me like I have already clearly frightened her...
"You had me worried. You were practically convulsing. And you were burning up. I thought you were having a seizure."
"I never seem to rest well when I'm hurt. I used to be able to go into a restful healing coma, and wake up fully fixed. Everything takes much longer now. My temperature was elevated because my body is fighting off infection, as I still can't tolerate any type of aspirin. The convulsions feed into that same Time Lord phenomenon."
"Part Time Lord," Rose corrects, with a small smirk.
I'm still too weak to sustain an argument, so I wage a tepid agreement. "Fair enough."
The blimp changes course abruptly then and we slide off the cot like wet towels off a rack. The fall to the floor isn't that far, but it still jars my aching head and leg. Luckily, Rose was able to catch herself and not land on top of me.
"What the hell was that!?" Rose yells, annoyed at the rude interruption. She is already up, however, up and stalking towards the doorway and the pilot's room beyond.
A voice calls over the intercom, Pete again.
"Hang on back there! We might have a problem..."
"Define problem," I puff, breathless and sore once more.
"We might be under attack from the ground. We're taking evasive action. There's a cloud bank up ahead. A rainstorm's coming. We should be able to hide in it for a while. We're only picking up rain and wind on our radar, so no thunder or lightning. We should be fine. Sorry about the late warning," Pete explains. "Is he all right?"
His last question is obviously aimed at Rose. Even though I'm right here and fully capable of answering it for myself. "Yes, yes, I'm quite all right," I grit, trying to not lose my cool at this new subtle indignity.
"Rose?" Pete prompts, as if I'd said nothing at all.
"We both fell. He's fine. I'm fine. No one's hurt any worse than before. I think he just got the wind knocked out of 'im. But, warn us next time, yeah? Preferably before we go flying..."
She's looking at me now, worry coloring her expression for a second time.
"Good. Good. See that he stays off that right leg. His ankle is sprained. And his knee has a rather bad bone bruise. We're going be up in the air for a while longer yet, what with our alternate landing station becoming our new destination. We should put down near Liverpool. Our little problem will soon be but a fleeting memory, because we're currently going 500 miles an hour, and his top speed can't be more than 70. Thus, you two can freely observe the advantage of having an airship."
Finally, after taking a deep breath, I find my ability to speak normally again. "Did you get a good look at him? Or her?"
"We saw a motorcyclist briefly, right before the explosions started. Looked like a Molotov cocktail the first few times. Then, they switched to sticks of old-fashioned dynamite. Pretty low-tech, if you ask me, although I have no idea how they were able to throw it so far that it came close to hitting us. We were a good fifty feet up up in the air."
"I don't know either, but I'm going to find out."
"No, that's quite all right. After all, you can't do anything from up here. When we entered the wall of clouds, we lost all visibility of the ground. We can't see them anymore. Luckily, they can't see us either."
Sure enough, outside, there are strands of clouds almost totally obscuring the shadowy ground far below. Well, that's a relief then. Maybe whoever it was simply gave up.
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But, what Pete, Johnny, Rose, and even their personal pilot, Joshua, don't know, is that their grounded pursuer has not given up. Not at all.
In fact, the motorcyclist still travels hard and fast far beneath the airship's windswept wake, determined not to let her quarry slip away quite so easily. Dangerous deluges and fierce winds, be damned.
She will have her revenge.
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To to be continued...
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A/N, continued: So, I really have no excuse for this latest obscenely long delay. But, I still am sorry for it, guys. My muse up and left for greener pastures for a while. Luckily, he finally returned so that I could finish this chapter. Currently, I'm working on the final two parts of this unexpectedly lengthy saga. Hopefully, there won't be another 2+ year gap for that next update. We'll have to see though...
As always, reviews are greatly appreciated & cherished fully, as is any amount of constructive criticism.
