A/N: This one's for Toester, who tells me that it's okay for me to post more than one chapter a day.
It's a short one, but hopefully a good one. :)
I hope you enjoy!
GK
~~oooOOOooo~~
The heat that assaulted Rose when she stepped out of the vehicle was intense, but was not so much so that she couldn't take a long moment to appreciate the view outside. It was spectacular. The convoy had stopped in a clearing in front of a large waterhole surrounded by high red-faced and jagged cliffs and smooth barked trees with khaki-green leaves that swayed in the warm breeze.
She lifted her hand to shield her eyes against the blazing sun burning overhead to look into a blue sky absent of any clouds at all. There wasn't even a light swoop of white to break up the perfect blue.
"It's beautiful," isn't it?" John Smith said to her softly from behind. He stepped up beside her and slipped his hands into the pockets of his knee-length camel-coloured shorts. "I've been around a bit, myself. Travelled a lot. Seen plenty of amazing sights."
"Too touristy, though, most of them," Rose offered.
He turned to her with surprise. "And you don't find fascination in the locals?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes the peaceful and untouched places are the most awe inspiring. People can be annoying."
"Yeah," Jack muttered as he walked past the two of them with his arms lifted high enough so that Mark could swing off it. "Especially pompous twits from London."
John smiled. "You know, if I didn't know better, Horn, I'd say you were jealous."
"Of what?" he scoffed. He eyes him up and down with contempt. "Pale skinny white guy?" He ran the hand of his free arm down along his body in presentation. "Versus this carefully crafted physique. God spent a lot of time creating me, Smith."
John Smith rubbed at his chin with exaggerated scrutiny of the man in front of him. Finally he smirked and shrugged. "Adonis though you may be, the skinny pale white boy was the one that won the girl, which is the entire purpose of it." He looked to Rose with a smile. "Isn't that right?"
"In my experience," she answered back coolly. "It was the skinny pale white boy that lost the girl who loved him." She held her hand out to Mark and shifted into Gallifreyan to ask him to leave Jack alone and come to her. She could feel John's eyes on her heavy with much more scrutiny that he'd used on Jack, and did her very best to ignore it. "Jack, is there anything I can help with to set up?"
He shook his head. "Nah, Gorgeous. I've got it in hand. How about the pair of you cool off in the water."
She eyeballed the water suspiciously. "Is there anything in there that might try and kill me?"
"You're really quite safe," John offered quietly. "Although I would recommend sunblock. I can apply it for you if you like." He held up a tube and gave her a toothy grin. He took a step toward her, but found himself held back by a small little hand pressed into his belly from the young boy at her side. His green eyes were dark in warning as he shook his head and he cautioned him in Gallifreyan to back off to a more respectful distance from his mother.
"My," he breathed out. "A rather protective little fellow, isn't he?"
"He learned that from his father,' she said with a smile down to her youngster. Her eyes lifted. "My husband."
His mouth dropped open and his face lifted with realisation. "Ahh. Yes. The not so subtle warning that you are well and truly off the market and so all marauding males should stand down." His eyes flicked to her hand. "As if the gigantic diamond you're wearing wasn't warning enough of your marital status." He shrugged and walked away. "I was only being polite."
Martha brushed past John as she moved down to meet up with Rose and Mark at the water's edge. She noted his straightened shoulders and his lip curled in annoyance. "Everything okay, John?"
His face split into a smile. "Perfectly fine, Martha. On a day like today, why wouldn't it be?" The smile fled and he slipped his hands into his pockets as he walked toward the group setting up tents near the trees. "Peachy, very peachy."
She turned and walked backward, her brows high. After a few steps she shrugged and spun to walk forward toward Rose and Mark. She held out a bottle of beer for Rose, and a triangle-shaped frozen juice box for Mark. The youngster's eyes widened with curiosity and glee when he squeezed the bottom, and a raspberry flavoured frozen treat popped up. He didn't even look to his mother for permission before he plonked but little butt on a rock and noisily slurped at it.
"What happened with John?" Martha asked Rose.
Rose shrugged as she drew back a long draw on the ice cold beer and despite it having a far stronger flavour than she was used to, she purred at the taste. Her eyes looked up at where John was not happily chatting with the other teachers. "I think I managed to offend him by reminding him that I am married."
"Dare I ask why that had to even come up?"
Rose huffed a laugh. "Best you don't. But it may have involved the suggestion of sunblock and if he should apply it."
"Brazen," Martha noted with wide eyes. "And very unlike him."
"Him as in John," Rose remarked with a shrug. "Not so much for the Doctor. Tends to forget, sometimes, that he can be suggestive, even when it's unintentional." She hooked her hair over her ear. "For someone so smart, he can really be so very dumb sometimes."
Loud music began to pump across the park, blaring from the open doors of one of the trucks. "Hey," one of the female teachers cheered out to the group. "This is the newest one by Salt-n-pepa. I love this song!"
Martha and Rose both looked to each other with wide eyes of utter amusement as the woman began pumping and grinding along to Let's Talk about Sex.
"This song is so old," Rose murmured.
"But still a good one," Martha offered with a smile over the lip of her bottle of beer. Her eyes flicked to Jack, who was happily joining in the dancing. "If I'm not mistaken, it was probably written specifically for Jack."
~~oooOOOooo~~
The day wore on with plenty of beer and liquor being consumed by the entire group. No one seemed to really consider that alcohol and hotter-than-Gallifrey temperatures was a bad combination, but when heads began to get hazy, the party shifted into the water.
For the most part, Rose sat on the water's edge, dangling her feet in the water and kicking a spray of water up at herself to cool down. This place was no Crystal Cascades, but it was beautiful in its own way. The water was murky and in some places cloudy and green, but she was assured of its safety by almost every member of the party, most of whom had spent many weekends camping here in an attempt to escape the relative boredom of a tiny little town with not a lot of excitement to offer outside of football matches and the local pubs.
She kept a wary eye on her child, who was happily bouncing between the party-goers. Although the youngster couldn't communicate verbally with any of them, he seemed to quickly make friends of the men, and was adopted in a cooing kind've way by the girls. At all times Tiallu was protectively at his side, nudging him out of the deeper waters, and letting him climb into her back to ride as she swam.
Sitting by the water, she didn't seem to get involved in as much of the fanfare as all of the others. The unsettling feeling in her belly and in her head weren't lending her to want to have too much of a good time. Much of that was through guilt, of course. She knew that across the other side of the Universe, millions of light years away, her husband was probably out of his mind with worry for them. How could she possibly fully immerse herself in such fun when he was obviously in distress…
…because she knew he would be distressed.
A shadow fell over her in the form of Jack Harkness. He was dripping wet and swaying slightly with too much alcohol. His hands were set firmly into his hips and he had a glare in his eyes that was most discomforting.
She held her hand up over her eyes as a visor against the sun and looked up at him. "Hello Jack. You okay?"
"No,' he answered in a huff.
"Why, what's wrong?" She looked around him. "Tell me you didn't drown him…"
"No,' he sighed as he released the hold on his hips and slumped. "Not through lack of trying, of course. But for a skinny dude, he's surprisingly very strong."
She focused on the group in the distance. There was currently a shoulder-fight battle going on. John had Joan up on his shoulders and they were sparring against a man called Steve and his Vietnamese partner Thuy for supremacy.
"Oh my," she said with a chuckle. "Who was your partner?"
"You," he huffed out. "And by not joining us, you're forcing me to forfeit the match. Which I don't believe is entirely fair of you."
"You have Martha," she offered with a smile. "I bet she could take down any competitor."
He shook his head. "Alvin's with her," he muttered. "Slippery goat got to her before I could."
She beamed a grin. "You just don't seem to be having any luck at all with the ladies, do you?"
He held out his hand. "I've got you."
She shook her head. "No, Jack. I really can't."
He kept his hand out. "You need to stop worrying about the Doctor and try to enjoy yourself while you're here."
"But…"
"He'd be disappointed to know that you spent your entire time here pining away when you could have enjoyed yourself," he argued. "And don't argue me on that. I know him, Rose. He'd want you to experience the beauty and thrill of a place you've never seen before. I bet he'll want you to tell him all about it and have that cheesy grin of love and adoration for you on his face the whole time."
He was right. Of course he was. The Doctor might be having a fit now, but he would be more tormented to know that she was a mess for the entire time they were apart if she didn't have to. With a nod she took his hand and let him pull her to a stand. "Okay, Jack. Let's do this, then."
He pulled her flush up against him and slopped a big, wet kiss to her mouth, pulling back fast before Mark could come running and cursing at him in that adorable language of his. "Come on, Rosie. Let's kick the arse of John Smith and Joan Redfern, shall we?"
~~oooOOOOooo~~
John watched the interaction with Jack and Rose at the water's edge out of the corner of his eye. He didn't quite understand why it bugged him so much that the two of them were so friendly and even affectionate toward each other.
He didn't even know why it was that the woman seemed to be able to command his entire focus. Why it was that she seemed so damn familiar to him… And why all he wanted to do was to curl her into the crook of his arm and protect her from harm…
…And from Jack.
Joan shifted hard on his shoulders, signalling that she'd won the battle against Marth and Alvin. Her elated bounding atop his shoulders was heavy and uncomfortable and he staggered a bit to maintain balance.
"Who's next?" Joan called out victoriously. "Who wants to take on the reigning champions?"
"That'd be us,' Rose called out as she and Jack waded into the waters. "Prepare to be usurped!"
John watched them approach with wary eyes. He'd been standing in shoulder-deep waters with a woman's legs wrapped around his head for a good half hour now. And as delightful as that image should have been, it was right now anything but delightful. He was tiring and ready for a drink and a sit down.
"Mama!" Mark called from the rocks, where he sat next to Martha with a sausage wrapped in bread and tomato sauce in his hand held up over his head in greeting and excitement. "Win this for Gallifrey!"
"Will do, baby," she called back in their shared language. She then looked to Jack. "So. Ehm. How am I supposed to get up there…"
He grinned salaciously and waggled how brows. "Just open up your legs, beautiful, and I'll get myself between them."
"I bet you will," John snarled.
"Jealous?" he teased and then disappeared underneath the waters.
Rose looked around her with a frown as she felt him swim around her, then his arms hooked around the back of her legs, his head popped through in between them. With a shrill yelp of shock and thrill, she was quickly thrust up and out of the water, firmly seated on the broad shoulders of her best friend.
John's face lengthened into an unreadable expression as he watched Rose being lifted from the water. Her head was thrown backward and her mouth open in a gleeful laugh. Sun shone like glitter off the water on her shoulders and the swell of her breasts not covered by her lycra swimsuit. He felt his breath catch and a similar image course past his consciousness, an image from long ago… a different life..
"John?" Joan wriggled on his shoulders, practically kicking him like one would a horse to get it to move. "Snap out of it. We've got a battle to win here."
"Yeah," he drawled out wetly, spitting out a mouthful of water that he'd managed to suck in after sliding in the mud at his feet. "What's the score now, Harkness," he asked with a curl in his lip. "Smith 3, Harkness 0?"
Jack's head angled to one side. "The name is Horn," he corrected with a tic in his eye. He hadn't gone by Harkness since arriving in town trying to escape the Judoon, who were on his tail. He had certainly not used it since meeting Smith.
Curious.
"Let's do this," Jack seethed out. "My Rose will slaughter yours."
John's shoulders locked as he tried to maintain the weight on his shoulders as the two women battled each other to tear the other off the shoulders of her partner. Jack's eyes eye high on the fight, ad glistened with excitement as he cheered on his Rosie to kick her skinny little ass.
John's eyes lifted with an attempt to show as much enthusiasm, but the paused at the expose gap of skin just above the waistband of Rose's bikini, and to the edges of the silver striping of stretchmarks. Her badge of honour from carrying her little boy.
Images of that belly heavy and swollen with child, bare and exposed to him as he trailed soft and reverent kisses on each line suddenly danced across his mind. Kisses up and over the full rise of the stomach, on the popped bump of her navel. He paused to look into her heavily lidded eyes and followed the crook of her finger inviting him to crawl up and along her body to finally settle against her back, his swollen length pressed against her rear. Words in a language he didn't even know he understood fell reverently through his lips as he drew her leg up and over her hip and with a single forward thrust of his hips, he sheathed himself completely inside her…
John gasped out almost painfully and dunked himself completely in the water. He threw Joan off his shoulders and scrambled quickly to shore. He crawled out of the water rather than stand and run and with one hand braced against the tree, he retched into a spinifex bush at its base.
He heard his name called from the water and merely waved backward at them as his stomach lurched again. When done, he pressed both hands into the tree ahead of him and pressed his forehead against them.
Images of a life he'd never lived flooded his mind. His nightly dreams of a life with a faceless woman on another planet, of laughter and of love, most of them somewhat nonsensical and out of place for a Science geek who had only ever travelled between London and Australia – despite stories he told otherwise.
He panted and looked over his shoulder toward where Rose and Jack were sharing a victory hug with Martha and little Mark. Her laughter, and the lyrical sound of it skipping across the waters toward him confirmed his suspicions. The sudden clarity had his hands clutch tighter at the tree trunk.
The faceless woman in his dreams. The one who held his heart in her hands and promised him her entire world, was Rose.
