Hudson glanced up as the loudly creaking door broke through the monotonous pattering of rain on the tin roof above. He stood quickly, dropping the contents of his lap in the process.
“Ms. Wildfire!” He exclaimed.
The woman in the doorway was soaking wet and dripping onto the chapel’s wooden floor. Her long tunic was stuck against her legs; her hair hung in wet strands around her face. The rainstorm billowed behind her, and the clouded light silhouetted her already dark form as her blurred shadow fell down the aisle. Her eyes wavered between him and the floor, dark and distant.
“Oh, I’ve been mighty worried about you,” the preacher stepped over his books, pulled around the pew, and hurried toward her. “You haven’t been here in a few Sundays, and then you weren’t here for market day—”
“I lost track of my days,” The Wildfire spoke under her breath.
He slowed his movements when she spoke. Her voice seemed dull and pained. He took her shoulders with concern. “Let’s get you out of the rain.”
He ushered her inside and sat her down on the last pew. He jogged around to a different pew to find an old quilt, and he was quick to wrap it around her shoulders.
Her fingers gripped the edge near her chin as she shivered.
“I need to get you an umbrella,” he attempted a smile. It was not returned. “I’ve missed you,” he cupped her cheek in his hand, gently wiping away rain—or possibly a tear—with his thumb.
She shut her eyes.
“I don’t have to keep talkin' if you don’t want,” he offered gently.
“Some days, I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going.” She muttered. Her green eyes were obscured by the rain streaking her glasses and the thin strands of wet hair.
Hudson frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m tired,” she said, her eyes focused far beyond the man in front of her. “I’m tired of fighting the beasts. I’m tired of being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m tired of my hope constantly being dashed into pieces.”
He frowned further. “What happened?”
She sniffed through her nose, but otherwise remained silent as she bowed herself within the blanket.
Hudson knelt down beside the edge of the pew to reach her eye level. He held out his hand to her, and at last, she shifted her arms within the blanket to take it.
He looked at her hand, thin and pale within his tan fingers. “I know you’ve been given a tough race to run; tougher than I’ll ever know. But even when nothin' seems to be going right, you’re still headed for the goal.”
“What goal?” she asked, her voice sharp with pain.
“To be with God, and all those who have gone before, in the next life.”
“I don’t want to wait,” her expression scrunched.
“Some days, I sure don’t either,” Hudson squeezed her hand. “But every day, we’re a day closer.”
She blinked, processing his statement as she looked at him. His dark hair was speckling with gray, concentrating more within the long sideburns that ran down to his chin. His skin was weathered and the wrinkles were deepening across his forehead.
Meanwhile, she looked exactly the same as the day she had crashed onto Braecia eleven years prior.
The same Gallifreyan blood that caused her injuries to heal rapidly was keeping her from aging at a regular, human pace. Her eyes grew darker. “I’m going to have to wait a lot longer than you,” she whispered.
Hudson’s face flushed. “Oh, I don’t believe I’m that much older—”
“I’ve got a couple hundred more years to live.” She interrupted him.
His face paled; there were times he forgot that she wasn’t human.
“I’m going to sit here and watch everyone in this town grow old and die—and I’ll still be here.” Her lips puckered as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “I could barely handle William’s death; how am I going handle yours??”
His eyes turned down at her caustic tone, but her words struck his heart with a deeper poignancy. He wanted nothing more than to take care of her however he could—through all the ups and downs they had experienced over their years together. He knew that no matter what ultimately became of their relationship, he would love and care for her until the day he died. He couldn’t imagine the pain of losing her.
He swallowed a lump in his throat. He couldn’t imagine living hundreds of years with that pain. Yes, it would dull with time, like the pain of losing a mentor like William, but he could understand completely why the thought frightened her.
“Listen here,” he said gently, squeezing her hand. “We’re all runnin' towards the goal. We’ll all get there one day, and in that moment, the sorrow and the sighin' of this world will all flee away,” he bowed his head in empathy. “If I get there first, that just means I’ll be waitin' at the finish line for you.”
She broke down, dipping her head into the blanket with a sharp sob.
Hudson tried to recollect her hand, but she buried it within the blanket. She curled her body away from him, tucking her legs up to her chest. He winced at her sorrowful cries, muffled within the fabric, and he slowly stepped around the pew to scoot across from the other side. He quietly sat down at her side and remained there, if only for comfort.
She shuddered through sobs, feeling the pangs of loss despite Hudson sitting beside her.
If she could find hope, it would only be through tears.
- - -
The Wildfire opened her eyes to find clouded light bathing the room around her. She blinked as if trying to decipher where she was—despite the room being the same one she had woken up to for thirteen years.
She pushed out of the high-backed chair and stood in the sitting room of her cabin. She hadn’t expected to fall asleep in the chair, but her irregular sleep habits had undoubtedly caught up to her. She crouched to remove the Bible from the ground; it figured the one time she tried to pick it up again she’d pass out while reading. She set it on the table beside the still-burning oil lamp. She pinched out the flame and walked away.
After washing her face and hands in the bathroom, she looked up into the tarnished mirror that hung over the sink. Through the dark streaks ever-growing through the glass, she could see the same face that always looked back at her. Only her hair, long and draped over her shoulders, had grown since the day she had first looked into the mirror.
She turned to the cabinet and found a fragment of a loaf of bread. She pulled it out and frowned when she discovered it was covered in mold. The peaches in the bowl beside it had also grown soft and shriveled. She turned to the ice box and found half of a roasted chicken. The smell informed her it may have been past its prime as well.
How long had it been since she had gone to market day?
How long had it been since she had gone into town at all?
She returned to her bed where she slipped on her outer tunic and bound the corset at her waist. She sheathed her sonic blade into its sling and strapped it to her back, and she grabbed her goggles from a hook beside the door before stepping outside.
She almost tripped over the bundle of food and jar of milk that had been placed beside her door.
“...Hudson,” she muttered into the air.
Since she hadn’t arrived for market day, he had brought her food to her. Even after all this time, he was still the only one able to freely walk through the forest without being harmed by the beasts.
Even after all this time, he still cared for her despite her efforts to distance herself from him and the rest of town. She didn’t want to become any more attached to them; not when they were all growing older with the passage of time.
She could hold on to hope all she wanted; that didn’t change the fact she’d have to hold it for centuries before seeing it come to fruition.
She sighed and set the food inside, and the action caused a blue strip of cloth to slip down around her wrist. She looked at the bracelet for a moment before digging two peaches out of the bag and returning outside.
The air was damp and cold, and trees were dropping their leaves in full force, leaving many bare along the creek. She walked to a pair of trees beside the creek and sat down in the grass beside them. She slowly ate the peaches, tossing the pits into the creek, before leaning on her arms on her knees and staring out into the gently flowing water. She tried to clear her mind, but her thoughts were just as heavy and clouded as the sky above her.
A rattling in the trees across the creek caused her movements to slow. The beasts were still very much alive in the forests around town. With as many as she had killed over the years, she still found it surprising that their population had survived.
Although, she supposed, it could be surprising that population of Westfall had survived as well. There had only been one birth in recent years, but multiple deaths as older residents succumbed to illness or age.
It was only a matter of time before she would be the last remaining life form on the dying planet of Braecia.
After a while longer, she got up and returned to the cabin. Her garden was nothing more than a plot of dirt with one dying squash plant, and she found nothing left for picking. She kicked a piece of wood from the wood pile and shot the middle with her blaster. The wood snapped and the edges caught fire, and she picked the pieces up to bring inside. She tossed them into the wood stove to begin heating the chilly cabin.
From the open door behind her, she caught the distant cry of a beast. It was a warning call.
She stepped outside, brows lowered. Why would they be shrieking a warning call?
A rippling of growls and gurgles nearby pushed her into high alert. Something had happened; someone, or something, had been noticed.
She lowered the goggles over her eyes and rushed into the woods. Gripping her blade tight, she tracked the sounds until she came across a fallen beast with a rock bashed into its head.
“Someone else is here,” she gnashed her teeth in worry. “Who??”
The Wildfire followed the trail of broken limbs and fallen branches until she caught sight of three creatures darting through the shadows ahead of her. Her path was derailed when she came upon a beast gurgling through a log wedged into its teeth. She winced and ran around it.
“Where did they—there!” She caught a glimpse of the beasts breaking through the trees and into the clearing.
She squinted her eyes. Was there a man on the ledge?
She threw out her blade and fired a shot beyond the beasts, quickly igniting the pine needles and fallen leaves in front of them. The beasts scattered, through one still bounded over the firewall.
She panicked as the beast rushed to the man, obscured by the rippling of the air above the flames. She fired another shot and picked the beast off the man’s fallen form like an insect, and it careened off the cliff.
She turned her attention to the other two beasts, now zipping erratically toward the flames. She rushed at one, slicing through its side as it retched in pain. The other shrieked fearfully and turned around, but she chased it and fired a blast into its back. Its wooly hide was singed, and its staggering allowed her to catch up and stab it in the back.
Gurgling in fear, it broke through the firewall and fell heavily on the other side.
The first beast had recovered enough to dart through as well, but she pushed forward to slice through its rear leg like a twig.
The beast screamed as she leapt through the fire and climbed onto it. Gripping its hide and digging her heels into its back, she plummeted the blade into its side and ripped through with a mighty swing. The blade in her right hand dripped yellow as it stopped its swing behind her back.
The Wildfire whipped her head in the direction of the second beast as it attempted to rise. Her mirror-like goggles were splattered in yellow blood, but they still reflected the glow of the flames that surrounded her. She grit her teeth, jumped back to the ground, and fired another shot. The beast was quickly consumed, and she disappeared again into the fire to make sure the forest had been cleared.
She lowered her stance as another beast was found clobbering toward her. She prepared to shoulder the blow, only for it to scramble around her and frantically rush through the fire at her back. Eyes wide behind her goggles, she slipped through to the flames to find the beast and the man sliding toward the edge of the cliff.
Her eyes narrowed to slits and she roared, running at full speed to the squealing beast. Her teeth were bared as she jumped, blade first, upon its back.
It choked on its roar and seemed to gag. Its eyes, wide upon their stalks, bent backward, and the blade emerged from its mouth. The Wildfire grunted and pulled out the blade from the back of its head and dismounted before it flopped lifelessly off the cliff.
Perched with her feet and one hand on the ground, her form rose and fell as she huffed to catch her breath. She soon straightened her posture and wiped her goggles clean before noticing the man, head bent over his shoulders, was struggling to climb back up. She bit her lip and walked over to him. With a firm grip on the back of his plum-colored coat, she pulled him up the rest of the way. She stepped back when his hands and knees were back under him.
“You idiot, you can’t just stand out in the open like that when there’s beasts—”
The rest of her words were gasped out into the cold air.
The man had straightened up and was looking squarely at her. His weathered face was plastered with apprehension beneath the messy bangs strewn across his forehead. The fire behind her shoulder reflected in his blue-green eyes.
The man she had just rescued was The Doctor.
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Chapter Notes