DW Fic - Simmer Dim (10/18)
Title - Simmer Dim (10/18)
Author - joely_jo
Characters - Ten/Rose, Mickey, OCs
Rating - R (for language and adult content)
Summary - With the events of Doomsday just a distant memory, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith make a discovery that they cannot leave alone. But what they find will take Rose on a journey she never expected. Will she come to terms with what she’s faced with, or will the carefully constructed life she’s built for herself come crashing down?
Author’s Notes - I confess to a little recycling with this fic. The idea for this story actually began with the fic I wrote for the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon, The Storm Inside, which in turn was inspired by watching the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. I thought it would be interesting to look at what happened to Rose post-Doomsday, but also to try to portray what I perceive to be the unconditional attraction between the Doctor and Rose. I swore I was going to scale down my DW writing after Myths and Legends, but here we are again… It’s another long one, so I hope you enjoy it!
Many thanks to my betas sensiblecat and most especially aibhinn without whose reassurance I may never have worked up the guts to post this.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
They returned to the harbour a short while later and Rose watched, fascinated, as Smith moored his boat back up again and swept the deck meticulously. He climbed over the edge then helped her to do the same. They walked up towards the Esplanade, Rose listening to the sounds of boats docking and off-loading catches and gulls screaming and wheeling above her. For the first time she noticed the modest beauty of the town, its functionality and imperious crenulated rooflines. “Dinner?” he suggested as they neared the shops again.
“Are you paying?” she teased with a flirtatious air. He looked her up and down, taking in her expensive clothes.
“Perhaps it should be you paying,” he suggested. “I’d hazard a guess that you make more in a week than I make in a month.”
Rose laughed. It was true that they made a mismatched pair, Smith with his worn jeans and old jumper and she with her cashmere and designer labels. She wondered what establishment would allow him to eat dressed like that, but no sooner had she thought it than he suggested, “I’m going to just nip home and change my clothes. I won’t be more than a couple of minutes. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
He sat her in the kitchen with the local newspaper and disappeared back upstairs. After a moment, she heard the sink being filled, then his footsteps through the boards as he passed back through to his bedroom. Her mind filled with unbidden images of him standing half-naked in front of his wardrobe, picking out appropriate clothing to wear, and then chastised herself as she realised what she was thinking.
She was just scanning her eyes over the front page when a sound made her look up and what she saw made her smile broadly. He was standing in the doorway in a pair of brown pin cords with an open-necked white shirt and a camel-coloured jumper on. His hair was neat and smoothed down and he was no longer wearing the shabby brown boots from before, but instead had on highly polished brogues. He saw her smile and looked self-consciously at the floor. “Will I do?” he asked.
God, he was beautiful, she thought.
“You look wonderful.” Moving towards him, she couldn’t help her smile growing further. He returned the smile and offered her his arm, which she took willingly, feeling a buzz run through her. “You make me feel underdressed.”
He shook his head and told her, “Rose, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen.”
And Rose couldn’t stop her heart from missing a beat.
****
The restaurant he took her to was small and tucked out of the way down a side street. It served mostly homemade food made with local produce and had a quiet ambience about it that Rose instantly warmed to. Although it was still light outside, the owner had lit tea-lights on every table and turned on strings of fairy lights in the shape of leaves in the archways, setting the room in a soft glow. In this light, everything that was difficult or awkward about their association slipped away.
“You’ve lived here all your life, then?” she asked as they ate. She was curious to know what memories he had if not the ones she had expected and what he’d told her so far was limited.
Smith nodded. “I grew up here, but my parents are dead now and there’s just me. I don’t have any other family. I went to the local high school, but I never really fitted in and I was pleased when I had the chance to leave and do something meaningful. Everyone from my year either went to sea, to work on the land or got married, and neither of the last two things appealed to me, so I signed up to one of the local trawlers. It wasn’t long before I found I had a talent.”
It was the most he’d spoken in hours, and Rose nodded, encouraging him to continue. She wanted to know more about this life he believed he’d lived. After a moment, he did. “I never particularly liked the company of others. I’m solitary, and when I got the chance to buy a boat outright, I did it without question.” He paused. “I like the sea. I like the quiet and the way it’s a give and take. If you respect the sea, it will work with you. Not like other men, who you have to figure out and work around.”
He toyed with his monkfish, sweeping a chunk of it through the rich sauce again and again. Rose watched his distracted actions. His love was apparent, threading through his words and permeating his expression. It reminded her of how the Doctor had talked when he’d shown her strange new worlds and once-in-a-lifetime phenomena. She took a drink of wine, impressed by his reverence and the trust he imparted in her by telling her.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Yes. You must work somewhere to afford all those beautiful clothes…”
She smiled, glancing down at her grey jumper. “Have you heard of Torchwood?” When he nodded, she continued, “I work for them, as a consult on unusual cases. Very unusual cases.”
“There were stories in the papers a while back about Torchwood being involved in dealing with aliens and so on… Is that true?”
Rose nodded. “It’s very true. It’s what I do, what I’ve done for ten years. Even when I was…” She paused, wondering if she should go on. “When I was with the Doctor that’s what we did as well.”
The reaction was obvious. Smith inhaled slowly and set down his knife and fork. “Chasing aliens?” he questioned doubtfully.
“Well, not chasing them as such. More… making sure they didn’t blow up the planet and stuff.” She smiled at the simplicity of her words and how their adventures had been anything but simple.
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine myself like that,” he said. “Like some kind of global saviour.” He looked down at his clothes. “It doesn’t fit too much with this skin.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Rose allowed.
The waitress arrived at their sides and took their empty plates, then returned with coffee and mints. Smith poured a generous dose of milk into his cup, and then peeled the foil wrapper from his mint. They looked at each other across the table. Rose willed him to remember something, to get a flash of recollection at her words, but there was nothing. After a moment, he looked away, nervous.
“You said you had a son…” he said.
“Yeah. He’s called Jonny.”
Smith smiled self-consciously at the name. “And you think I’m his father?”
There was a fathomless depth of uncertainty in his voice, but also a curiosity. He swallowed. “I never imagined myself having children.”
“Neither did I,” Rose admitted. “I mean, I thought it would happen some time in the future, but I wasn’t prepared for it when it did happen. I grew up a lot in those few months before he was born - I had to.”
“What does he look like?”
Like you, Rose thought, but did not speak those words. Instead, she looked down and studied the self-pattern on the tablecloth, tracing her fingernail in the faint ridges. “He’s beautiful. He’s tall for his age, skinny, but he eats me out of house and home. His hair has a life of its own and I gave up trying to tame it a long time ago. He’s got the sort of smile that means he just has to look at a woman and he gets what he wants - including me…” She trailed off, smiling at the thoughts of her son.
Smith chuckled quietly. “He sounds like a good boy.”
“He is,” she replied. “I love him. He’s why I’m here…” She sighed. He worships you, she wanted to add, and he’s never even seen you.
The coffee stood between them like a boundary, but Smith reached through it and took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he murmured and his tone was heartfelt, genuine. Rose looked away to avoid tearing up. He squeezed her hand, then threaded their fingers together, crooked his finger under her quivering chin and lifted her face to him. He kissed her.
Rose dissolved under his touch, the tears mingling with the passion, and kissed him back. “Oh, God,” she breathed when he backed away. It was so real, feeling exactly like it had done ten years before, the same power, the same burn. Flushed, she turned her head away, embarrassed by the need she’d shown. Smith smoothed his fingers over her cheeks, then stood and offered her his hand.
“Come with me,” he murmured.
****
Stars - a million of them, spread out across the heavens like spilt diamonds on grey-blue velvet. The sea caressed the sides of the boat as they slipped through the Bressay Sound and out into open water. It was midnight and cool, but not cold enough to require anything more than the raincoat she’d brought with her. He felt a little odd, standing here on his beloved boat in such formal clothing, but she’d insisted that he remain as he was and he’d agreed.
He’d set the boat on auto and they were steaming out into the North Sea, then came to join her and she leaned over the prow, watching it cut through the water effortlessly. He pressed himself alongside her, his shoulder resting against hers. “Are you still scared?” he asked in a soft voice.
She shook her head. “I’m trying not to be.” It was clear that she was indeed trying not to betray any sense of unease and he sympathised. Just because he felt at home out here, there was no reason to suppose that anyone else did. Sometimes, though, it was easy to forget that for others, this was nothing but a vast expanse of potential danger, an unknown and unknowable depth.
“You’re doing really well,” he told her and when she turned to smile at him he felt his stomach turn a somersault. What was this woman doing to him?
He leaned down and kissed her, the sounds of the sea drifting through him and fusing with his bubbling blood. He could have stood there for hours, kissing her, but the engines began to slow and he pulled back. “We’ve hit open water,” he murmured. “Out of the Sound.”
She turned to look at the sight and realised that, for the first time, it seemed as if they were the only things for miles around. Lerwick was nothing but a series of faint dots of light in the far distance and everything else was grey, the sun still peeking vaguely through the clouds on the horizon. He released a slow breath, then said, “Do you trust me, Rose?”
“Of course,” she replied.
With a nod and a pleased smile, Smith held out his hand and she took it without question. “Push yourself up onto the prow, then swing over and slip down onto the stem,” he instructed, pointing to the thick wooden post sticking about a metre out from the prow of the boat and to which several long mooring ropes were tied. “Go on, I’ve got you.”
She paused only a moment, then climbed up so she was sitting on the side of the boat, her legs dangling over the edge. He tucked his hands underneath her arms and eased her down so the post was directly between her legs. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she realised what he was doing. “Oh, God!”
“It’s okay, Rose,” he soothed. “I won’t let go. Just lean forward and hang on tight.”
She did as she was told, trusting him unequivocally, and he climbed up too, sliding himself behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and his legs around the stem, crossing them at the ankles. They were suspended above the water, with nothing between them and the sea but fresh air. He could feel the tension running through her, the tightness in her body as she tried to contain her panic at the realisation.
“Shhh…” he murmured into her ear. He breathed in her scent and closed his eyes.
She laughed nervously. “You’ve watched Titanic too many times, haven’t you?”
He didn’t reply, but just held her a little tighter. After a few moments, he felt her slowly beginning to relax. “You know, my son wouldn’t be the least bit scared up here,” Rose told him. “In fact, he’d be loving it.”
Smith smiled against her neck. “Really?”
“Yeah… He loves sailing.”
There was a weighted silence. The power this woman held over him scared him and the strength and speed with which it had hit him had knocked him for six. Just thirty-six hours ago, he’d felt truly alone in the world and now here he was, holding a woman who trusted him implicitly and loved him unreservedly, and he found that he was beginning to consider himself as the father of a nine-year-old boy. He didn’t feel worthy enough.
Was he in love with her? It seemed ridiculous that he should feel so much after so little time. And he wasn’t the type to believe in love at first sight. That was far too romantic, and John Smith was a practical man who saw things in facts and figures, not in chances and dreams. But whatever it was that was happening between the two of them, he was finding his world being capsized and his identity was about go down with it.
His hands rubbed her waist and slipped beneath the hem of her jumper, touching for the first time her soft, soft skin. Arousal shot through him like an unexpected white-hot bolt of lightning and… Oh God…
Rose chose that moment to wriggle back against him, sighing with happiness, and when she inevitably pressed against his groin, she froze. “Rose…” he said in a tight voice. “I’m… I’m…” he stuttered.
She twisted in his arms and tilted her head up to look at him, smiling. She didn’t seem offended or frightened by what she felt. “It’s okay,” she told him.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said and eased backwards, giving himself a little space. She nodded.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Smith said nothing for a moment. Finally, he turned his head upwards, towards the wide night. The stars were just visible, despite the thin light still emanating from the sun lying low on the horizon, and the night was the clearest in nearly a week - the perfect conditions for sailing. “It is beautiful out here, John,” Rose murmured. “I can see how you would come out here to think.”
He gave a soft grunt. “I can lose myself,” he admitted. “Forget about everything except me and the sea and the stars.” He paused. “Rose, do you know what celestial navigation is?”
“Something to do with the stars?” she guessed.
“Mm hm… It’s how ancient sailors used to get around, before radios and global satellite positioning and all the mod cons we have on ships these days. When I was learning how to sail, I was fascinated by the idea that you could get out in a boat in the middle of the ocean and all you’d need to find your way back home again was a clock, a sextant and a star in the sky.”
Rose smiled. “‘Second star to the right and straight on till morning’?”
“It’s a wee bit more complicated than that, but that’s the basic idea, yes,” he allowed. He heard her amused chuckle and looked at her questioningly. “What?”
“Oh, nothing… it’s just that sometimes you sound so much like him.” She fell quiet for a moment, then sighed.
A long pause turned the air thick with unspoken emotions. “Maybe… maybe we’re not so different after all…” murmured Smith.
To be continued...
Author - joely_jo
Characters - Ten/Rose, Mickey, OCs
Rating - R (for language and adult content)
Summary - With the events of Doomsday just a distant memory, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith make a discovery that they cannot leave alone. But what they find will take Rose on a journey she never expected. Will she come to terms with what she’s faced with, or will the carefully constructed life she’s built for herself come crashing down?
Author’s Notes - I confess to a little recycling with this fic. The idea for this story actually began with the fic I wrote for the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon, The Storm Inside, which in turn was inspired by watching the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. I thought it would be interesting to look at what happened to Rose post-Doomsday, but also to try to portray what I perceive to be the unconditional attraction between the Doctor and Rose. I swore I was going to scale down my DW writing after Myths and Legends, but here we are again… It’s another long one, so I hope you enjoy it!
Many thanks to my betas sensiblecat and most especially aibhinn without whose reassurance I may never have worked up the guts to post this.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
They returned to the harbour a short while later and Rose watched, fascinated, as Smith moored his boat back up again and swept the deck meticulously. He climbed over the edge then helped her to do the same. They walked up towards the Esplanade, Rose listening to the sounds of boats docking and off-loading catches and gulls screaming and wheeling above her. For the first time she noticed the modest beauty of the town, its functionality and imperious crenulated rooflines. “Dinner?” he suggested as they neared the shops again.
“Are you paying?” she teased with a flirtatious air. He looked her up and down, taking in her expensive clothes.
“Perhaps it should be you paying,” he suggested. “I’d hazard a guess that you make more in a week than I make in a month.”
Rose laughed. It was true that they made a mismatched pair, Smith with his worn jeans and old jumper and she with her cashmere and designer labels. She wondered what establishment would allow him to eat dressed like that, but no sooner had she thought it than he suggested, “I’m going to just nip home and change my clothes. I won’t be more than a couple of minutes. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
He sat her in the kitchen with the local newspaper and disappeared back upstairs. After a moment, she heard the sink being filled, then his footsteps through the boards as he passed back through to his bedroom. Her mind filled with unbidden images of him standing half-naked in front of his wardrobe, picking out appropriate clothing to wear, and then chastised herself as she realised what she was thinking.
She was just scanning her eyes over the front page when a sound made her look up and what she saw made her smile broadly. He was standing in the doorway in a pair of brown pin cords with an open-necked white shirt and a camel-coloured jumper on. His hair was neat and smoothed down and he was no longer wearing the shabby brown boots from before, but instead had on highly polished brogues. He saw her smile and looked self-consciously at the floor. “Will I do?” he asked.
God, he was beautiful, she thought.
“You look wonderful.” Moving towards him, she couldn’t help her smile growing further. He returned the smile and offered her his arm, which she took willingly, feeling a buzz run through her. “You make me feel underdressed.”
He shook his head and told her, “Rose, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen.”
And Rose couldn’t stop her heart from missing a beat.
****
The restaurant he took her to was small and tucked out of the way down a side street. It served mostly homemade food made with local produce and had a quiet ambience about it that Rose instantly warmed to. Although it was still light outside, the owner had lit tea-lights on every table and turned on strings of fairy lights in the shape of leaves in the archways, setting the room in a soft glow. In this light, everything that was difficult or awkward about their association slipped away.
“You’ve lived here all your life, then?” she asked as they ate. She was curious to know what memories he had if not the ones she had expected and what he’d told her so far was limited.
Smith nodded. “I grew up here, but my parents are dead now and there’s just me. I don’t have any other family. I went to the local high school, but I never really fitted in and I was pleased when I had the chance to leave and do something meaningful. Everyone from my year either went to sea, to work on the land or got married, and neither of the last two things appealed to me, so I signed up to one of the local trawlers. It wasn’t long before I found I had a talent.”
It was the most he’d spoken in hours, and Rose nodded, encouraging him to continue. She wanted to know more about this life he believed he’d lived. After a moment, he did. “I never particularly liked the company of others. I’m solitary, and when I got the chance to buy a boat outright, I did it without question.” He paused. “I like the sea. I like the quiet and the way it’s a give and take. If you respect the sea, it will work with you. Not like other men, who you have to figure out and work around.”
He toyed with his monkfish, sweeping a chunk of it through the rich sauce again and again. Rose watched his distracted actions. His love was apparent, threading through his words and permeating his expression. It reminded her of how the Doctor had talked when he’d shown her strange new worlds and once-in-a-lifetime phenomena. She took a drink of wine, impressed by his reverence and the trust he imparted in her by telling her.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Yes. You must work somewhere to afford all those beautiful clothes…”
She smiled, glancing down at her grey jumper. “Have you heard of Torchwood?” When he nodded, she continued, “I work for them, as a consult on unusual cases. Very unusual cases.”
“There were stories in the papers a while back about Torchwood being involved in dealing with aliens and so on… Is that true?”
Rose nodded. “It’s very true. It’s what I do, what I’ve done for ten years. Even when I was…” She paused, wondering if she should go on. “When I was with the Doctor that’s what we did as well.”
The reaction was obvious. Smith inhaled slowly and set down his knife and fork. “Chasing aliens?” he questioned doubtfully.
“Well, not chasing them as such. More… making sure they didn’t blow up the planet and stuff.” She smiled at the simplicity of her words and how their adventures had been anything but simple.
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine myself like that,” he said. “Like some kind of global saviour.” He looked down at his clothes. “It doesn’t fit too much with this skin.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Rose allowed.
The waitress arrived at their sides and took their empty plates, then returned with coffee and mints. Smith poured a generous dose of milk into his cup, and then peeled the foil wrapper from his mint. They looked at each other across the table. Rose willed him to remember something, to get a flash of recollection at her words, but there was nothing. After a moment, he looked away, nervous.
“You said you had a son…” he said.
“Yeah. He’s called Jonny.”
Smith smiled self-consciously at the name. “And you think I’m his father?”
There was a fathomless depth of uncertainty in his voice, but also a curiosity. He swallowed. “I never imagined myself having children.”
“Neither did I,” Rose admitted. “I mean, I thought it would happen some time in the future, but I wasn’t prepared for it when it did happen. I grew up a lot in those few months before he was born - I had to.”
“What does he look like?”
Like you, Rose thought, but did not speak those words. Instead, she looked down and studied the self-pattern on the tablecloth, tracing her fingernail in the faint ridges. “He’s beautiful. He’s tall for his age, skinny, but he eats me out of house and home. His hair has a life of its own and I gave up trying to tame it a long time ago. He’s got the sort of smile that means he just has to look at a woman and he gets what he wants - including me…” She trailed off, smiling at the thoughts of her son.
Smith chuckled quietly. “He sounds like a good boy.”
“He is,” she replied. “I love him. He’s why I’m here…” She sighed. He worships you, she wanted to add, and he’s never even seen you.
The coffee stood between them like a boundary, but Smith reached through it and took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he murmured and his tone was heartfelt, genuine. Rose looked away to avoid tearing up. He squeezed her hand, then threaded their fingers together, crooked his finger under her quivering chin and lifted her face to him. He kissed her.
Rose dissolved under his touch, the tears mingling with the passion, and kissed him back. “Oh, God,” she breathed when he backed away. It was so real, feeling exactly like it had done ten years before, the same power, the same burn. Flushed, she turned her head away, embarrassed by the need she’d shown. Smith smoothed his fingers over her cheeks, then stood and offered her his hand.
“Come with me,” he murmured.
****
Stars - a million of them, spread out across the heavens like spilt diamonds on grey-blue velvet. The sea caressed the sides of the boat as they slipped through the Bressay Sound and out into open water. It was midnight and cool, but not cold enough to require anything more than the raincoat she’d brought with her. He felt a little odd, standing here on his beloved boat in such formal clothing, but she’d insisted that he remain as he was and he’d agreed.
He’d set the boat on auto and they were steaming out into the North Sea, then came to join her and she leaned over the prow, watching it cut through the water effortlessly. He pressed himself alongside her, his shoulder resting against hers. “Are you still scared?” he asked in a soft voice.
She shook her head. “I’m trying not to be.” It was clear that she was indeed trying not to betray any sense of unease and he sympathised. Just because he felt at home out here, there was no reason to suppose that anyone else did. Sometimes, though, it was easy to forget that for others, this was nothing but a vast expanse of potential danger, an unknown and unknowable depth.
“You’re doing really well,” he told her and when she turned to smile at him he felt his stomach turn a somersault. What was this woman doing to him?
He leaned down and kissed her, the sounds of the sea drifting through him and fusing with his bubbling blood. He could have stood there for hours, kissing her, but the engines began to slow and he pulled back. “We’ve hit open water,” he murmured. “Out of the Sound.”
She turned to look at the sight and realised that, for the first time, it seemed as if they were the only things for miles around. Lerwick was nothing but a series of faint dots of light in the far distance and everything else was grey, the sun still peeking vaguely through the clouds on the horizon. He released a slow breath, then said, “Do you trust me, Rose?”
“Of course,” she replied.
With a nod and a pleased smile, Smith held out his hand and she took it without question. “Push yourself up onto the prow, then swing over and slip down onto the stem,” he instructed, pointing to the thick wooden post sticking about a metre out from the prow of the boat and to which several long mooring ropes were tied. “Go on, I’ve got you.”
She paused only a moment, then climbed up so she was sitting on the side of the boat, her legs dangling over the edge. He tucked his hands underneath her arms and eased her down so the post was directly between her legs. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she realised what he was doing. “Oh, God!”
“It’s okay, Rose,” he soothed. “I won’t let go. Just lean forward and hang on tight.”
She did as she was told, trusting him unequivocally, and he climbed up too, sliding himself behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and his legs around the stem, crossing them at the ankles. They were suspended above the water, with nothing between them and the sea but fresh air. He could feel the tension running through her, the tightness in her body as she tried to contain her panic at the realisation.
“Shhh…” he murmured into her ear. He breathed in her scent and closed his eyes.
She laughed nervously. “You’ve watched Titanic too many times, haven’t you?”
He didn’t reply, but just held her a little tighter. After a few moments, he felt her slowly beginning to relax. “You know, my son wouldn’t be the least bit scared up here,” Rose told him. “In fact, he’d be loving it.”
Smith smiled against her neck. “Really?”
“Yeah… He loves sailing.”
There was a weighted silence. The power this woman held over him scared him and the strength and speed with which it had hit him had knocked him for six. Just thirty-six hours ago, he’d felt truly alone in the world and now here he was, holding a woman who trusted him implicitly and loved him unreservedly, and he found that he was beginning to consider himself as the father of a nine-year-old boy. He didn’t feel worthy enough.
Was he in love with her? It seemed ridiculous that he should feel so much after so little time. And he wasn’t the type to believe in love at first sight. That was far too romantic, and John Smith was a practical man who saw things in facts and figures, not in chances and dreams. But whatever it was that was happening between the two of them, he was finding his world being capsized and his identity was about go down with it.
His hands rubbed her waist and slipped beneath the hem of her jumper, touching for the first time her soft, soft skin. Arousal shot through him like an unexpected white-hot bolt of lightning and… Oh God…
Rose chose that moment to wriggle back against him, sighing with happiness, and when she inevitably pressed against his groin, she froze. “Rose…” he said in a tight voice. “I’m… I’m…” he stuttered.
She twisted in his arms and tilted her head up to look at him, smiling. She didn’t seem offended or frightened by what she felt. “It’s okay,” she told him.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said and eased backwards, giving himself a little space. She nodded.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Smith said nothing for a moment. Finally, he turned his head upwards, towards the wide night. The stars were just visible, despite the thin light still emanating from the sun lying low on the horizon, and the night was the clearest in nearly a week - the perfect conditions for sailing. “It is beautiful out here, John,” Rose murmured. “I can see how you would come out here to think.”
He gave a soft grunt. “I can lose myself,” he admitted. “Forget about everything except me and the sea and the stars.” He paused. “Rose, do you know what celestial navigation is?”
“Something to do with the stars?” she guessed.
“Mm hm… It’s how ancient sailors used to get around, before radios and global satellite positioning and all the mod cons we have on ships these days. When I was learning how to sail, I was fascinated by the idea that you could get out in a boat in the middle of the ocean and all you’d need to find your way back home again was a clock, a sextant and a star in the sky.”
Rose smiled. “‘Second star to the right and straight on till morning’?”
“It’s a wee bit more complicated than that, but that’s the basic idea, yes,” he allowed. He heard her amused chuckle and looked at her questioningly. “What?”
“Oh, nothing… it’s just that sometimes you sound so much like him.” She fell quiet for a moment, then sighed.
A long pause turned the air thick with unspoken emotions. “Maybe… maybe we’re not so different after all…” murmured Smith.
To be continued...