Hi everybody... It's been a LONG time since I've written fanfiction. Wrote this right after watching the movie, been sitting in a notebook for while.
Thanks for reading! Enjoy!
After the demons had left Earth, Jake moved on. Nobody was looking for him anymore; he had no thoughts or feelings to speak of. He was numb.
Jake found himself wandering back to the caverns were the demons once slept. Once he saw the familiar shadow of the mountains across the sky, he grit his teeth and turned his horse around. But he always came back to that same charred stretch of earth, time after time.
He bent low over the horse's back, holding his temples. The heat blurred his sight, but he had come back to the cursed spot again. Swinging carefully off the horse, Jake pulled his canteen off the saddle. He threw back his head and let the water trickle down his throat. The prairie filled his nostrils and he coughed harshly, beating his chest with his fist to gain back his breath.
An odd tree stood a stones-throw away. It was tall, thick around the trunk... its long branches had seen years of sun. Wide, hardy leaves basked in the sunlight and protected delicate pale buds.
Approaching the tree, Jake drunk in its strange appearance. Wide, blue eyes alert, he scanned the empty desert. Nothing moved. He extended both hands towards the tree cautiously, as if it was a small, frightened animal. The bark was smooth and waxy against his palms.
Jake.
He blinked, his face twisting with the unfamiliar contact, smooth baby breaths tickled his mind.
Jake? Is that you?
The words sounded clear, ringing through his skull. Somehow he knew.
"Ella?" he whispered.
Through the leaves he saw two wide green eyes, several shades darker than the foliage around. Jake's breath caught in his chest as she emerged. Her outline wavered like heat floating from desert stone. Ten slender limbs missing hands or feet extended from the column of light at her center. From her narrow head extended two feathered appendages thinner than a child's finger.
"Ella?"
Yes.
Jake couldn't find any words to reply.
This is my true form, Jake.
"How the hell did you survive," his voice was cold, distant, flat.
The fire of the explosion allowed me to heal.
"Are you going to leave?" Jake choked.
The pipalians destroyed my people. There is nothing left for me beyond this world.
"Then...what?"
I'm very weak. I cannot heal myself fully. If I survive, I will raise a brood and reproduce my race.
Ella's wide green eyes turned to Jake. You must promise to never reveal me to the humans.
Jake shuffled back from the tree. His head bobbed in a wordless promise. "They'd think I was crazy, anyway," he muttered, as an afterthought.
This must be the last time you see me Jake. There will not be another goodbye.
He clenched jaw and set his feet apart. "Goodbye Ella," he rasped.
Goodbye Jake.
Turning sharply he closed his eyes against the harsh arid wind. He grabbed at his horse's reins and slid quietly into the saddle.
Jake.
The cowboy couldn't help gazing back at Ella's alien form once more. All that remained was the tree, alone against the endless sky.
There is no such things as love to my people. But you Jake, I think I might have loved you.
Jake let his face pull into a bittersweet smile. With a tip of the hat he left her forever and never returned. It was better that way.