Epilogue:
Left Behind
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"There are a million ways we should've died before today. And a million ways we can die before tomorrow. But we fight…for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it's two minutes, or two days…we don't give that up. I don't want to give that up."
-Riley Abel, "Left Behind"
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He awoke to the sound of something was beeping.
It was a steady, monotonous noise that at first was soothing. After a time it began to gently but thoroughly bore its way through his consciousness and transitioned into the territory of annoying. When he stirred at last, he found his entire body hurting, like it was one giant ball of fleshy ache that wouldn't go away. He was lying down, though. He had blankets covering him and it was a little chilly.
Allen opened his eyes and found himself staring at dimly glowing lights above him. He allowed his vision to clear and his first impression was how odd home looked. All white and tan and…and…
Allen turned his head, felt the panic rush up and settled in his chest as he tried sitting up, only to collapse back into bed with a pained whimper. His stomach protested greatly at the movement and not-so-gently reminded him that he was injured. It didn't quite distract him enough for him to realize a few things: He wasn't home. This wasn't the cave, this wasn't his room, and there was no sign of Ash.
Ash…
Flickers of memory began to piece themselves back together, bit by bit. The trickle soon turned to a roar, flooding through as he laid there remembering in agonizing detail what had happened and how he got to this place.
The werewolves, the fire, and then Ash…she was gone in a flash of light, and with it her warmth, her tears, her apologies…
"Oh, you're awake."
Allen turned his head toward the intrusive noise and winced. Light and colour seared his eyes and he had to blink and squint to see someone standing in a doorway across the room. A woman stood there, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her clothing immaculate and primed for work. She wore a crisp white lab coat over her clothes, completing the look that he immediately associated with 'doctor'. How unusual. There weren't any female doctors that he could recall in his time. That felt like another lifetime ago…
The woman's eyes roved over his form for only a moment before she was at his side by the bed, checking a series of instruments and machines. When she turned to him, she smiled, if only briefly. As she leaned closer, he caught a faint whiff of her perfume, but it was enough to make his stomach churn. Just how much was she wearing?
"How're you feeling?"
"Like a Trike stepped on me," he admitted, pushing aside his queasiness as best he could. "And I was chewed on by a pack of Compies for good measure."
He at least knew how one of those experiences felt like.
The woman furrowed her brow at him in confusion, her mouth opening to speak, but she stopped short when someone else stepped into the room.
"Hello, hello. What's this? He's finally awake? Dr. Hadley, I thought you'd have come to get me first."
"Doctor," the woman said curtly over her shoulder, her pretty lips pursing thinly. She glanced back at Allen.
Allen craned his body over as much as he could, seeing a wild-haired and lanky looking man donning a blue pinstriped suit, hiding beneath a large brown coat with his hands nonchalantly stuffed into his pockets. He beamed at Allen.
"Hello there. You must be Allen Walker. I'm the Doctor."
"The Doctor…?" Allen parroted, glancing between the man and the woman, Dr. Hadley. She seemed unconcerned by his presence as she checked Allen's arm, and more importantly, at the IVs that were there. She turned toward a stand with a banana bag in it, the liquids inside it nearly half-gone. He noticed his right forearm was bandaged up rather heavily, but he was sure everything else was similarly dressed. His entire body simply ached.
"He's not a medical doctor, so don't ask him what's wrong with you. He just likes to call himself a doctor."
"I don't call myself after a medical doctor. I'm just the Doctor," the man said, sounding mildly hurt. He glanced back toward Allen. "Although to be fair, I am rubbish at anything medically inclined, besides knowing the various diseases and ailments across the universe, so she's right, don't ask me if I can fix you in that field. I'd probably bugger it up even more."
The Doctor beamed again and winked at Allen.
"Mind if I have a few minutes with Allen alone, Dr. Hadley?"
The woman paused, turned to assess the Doctor, then Allen, then the Doctor again. She sized him up in the brief span of a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity passed between them all. She exhaled slowly.
"If anything happens—"
"Yes, yes, I know. Call for a 'real' doctor. Although I don't think I'll be inclined to call for Dr. House anytime soon, not after the last incident."
"Right." Dr. Hadley agreed as she smiled thinly again and she huffed a soft laugh. Then she was gone and Allen was alone with the strange man who called himself the Doctor. As soon as the woman was gone, the Doctor seemed to transform. His jovial appearance melted away and he seemed to almost sway on his long legs before he moved to collapse into a chair beside Allen's bed.
"Where am I?" Allen asked softly. "Where's Ash?"
"Ash? Ash, Ash, Ash…oh. OH. Right. That Ash." The Doctor hissed air between his teeth, a light of recognition belatedly going off in his dark eyes. "Where do I start…"
The Doctor hummed for a moment, drumming his fingers against the armrests of his chair. Allen was immediately reminded of Ash; she was never truly idle herself, not unless something was upsetting her. Then it was time to worry when she sat very still and did nothing.
"Where is she?" He pressed again, his voice soft and strained and urgent.
The Doctor's face fell, even as he locked gazes with Allen.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but…she's…she's still on Yamatai."
Allen felt sick and his stomach twisted painfully like a knife had been buried in it. "Where am I?"
"Safe. Relatively speaking. Safer than on Yamatai. Look, Allen…" The Doctor scooted a little closer, dragging the chair with him. "If you'd stayed with her, you wouldn't be alive right now. I'm sure you've noticed you haven't had the best of luck trying to move, right? Do you remember how that happened?"
Allen's throat was dry and growing tight and pinched, so he didn't trust himself to speak. He nodded.
"The werewolves…they came to take Ash. They were going to kill me and…we fought back. They tried poisoning her, to make her complacent, but it wore off. They didn't…"
He wracked his brain and found it slipping away already. He had had it, he could remember it just fine earlier, but now…
The Doctor nodded along as he spoke, patiently waiting. Allen groped for the words, the memories, but it was muddled.
"If you're having troubles remembering, it's because of your time spent on Yamatai. Your memory is probably clear one moment, fuzzy the next. There's a bit of a time distortion around the island that causes fluctuation with memory, but it'll pass."
"Time distortion?"
"How to explain…imagine a bubble, if you will, around the island. Time is moving a lot faster inside the bubble than it is outside of it. It's sped up inside that bubble. In there, it's been about five hundred years, give or take a few decades, and out here…it's only been a few months. That's roughly how long Lupin—sorry, you know her as Ash—has been there. You, however…you've only been on the island for a few days, outside the island, for us."
Allen stared at the Doctor dumbly, processing what he had just said. Only as it began to sink in and actually make sense did it hit him.
"She's…she's been…alive for that long?"
He vaguely recalled one of the werewolves mentioning just the same, but he hadn't really registered it. He had been too busy bracing for a fight, not on the trash talk being exchanged. Something else occurred to him.
"You said her name—it wasn't Ash. That it was Lupin…she doesn't remember that name. She doesn't remember anything."
"A side effect, yes. It affects long-lived beings like werewolves a lot worse than it does humans. You'd think it'd be the other way around, but well…" the Doctor nodded, looking less and less like the lively man that had stepped inside the room earlier. He looked so much older behind such a young face. He couldn't help but recall how Ash looked much the same; almost like this man and she were mirrors of one another. "With time sped up, she's aging a lot quicker and her memories decay at a faster rate. If she were able to leave that island, it's theoretically possible for the memories she's lost to return. But until we can actually get her away, we can't do much."
"But you know who she is?" He pressed, both hopeful and anxious at the answer.
The Doctor smiled, but it was sad and fleeting.
"She took a bullet for me. Saved my life, even if she knew they were made of silver and could have killed her on the spot. Barely knew her at the time, but when I learned more about her later on, the more I realized what a brilliant person she was."
Allen's throat pinched shut for a moment and he struggled to swallow past it.
"She can be," he agreed when he trusted himself to speak again. The Doctor shared another smile, before another light went off in his eyes and he jolted up, rushing around to the other side of the bed. Allen followed his movements, puzzled, as the Doctor bustled toward a bedside table on his other side. He produced a decently filled folder and offered it to Allen.
"I figured you were going to have questions. For once, I'm prepared. Well, I'm actually always prepared. Well…to be fair, it's never in the right sequence and order, but things tend to work out regardless."
The Doctor's smile flickered, faded, returned. Allen hesitated as he took the folder.
"There's…something else, and I'm afraid it's not entirely good news."
"What is it?"
"Your arm…"
Allen's eye flicked to his left hand—the one the Doctor had handed the folder to—then back to the Doctor. He smiled sparsely.
"I was born with it. There's nothing wrong with my arm."
"Not that one," the Doctor corrected as he nodded over, and Allen's smile faltered, disappeared entirely. He glanced at his right arm, the bandaged one.
"You were fighting werewolves, Allen. Like Lup—Ash, sorry. She's got so many names now—do you know anything about them? I know you lived with one for some time, but…" He trailed off, twirling his hand as though trying to conjure the right words.
"Ash…she had a book. She would add things she's encountered on Yamatai into it. Werewolves were in it," Allen replied slowly, glancing back at the other man. It clicked seconds later. "Wait…wait. I never…I didn't…"
"You're having troubles remembering, but it's going to come to you. You were bitten and a few of your organs and part of your small intestine were both ruptured and shredded. You were nearly dead when you came to us, but we fixed you enough for your body to recover naturally. I'm sorry, Allen. I'm so, so sorry, but…you're already changing."
Allen stared at the Doctor, a strange and surreal feeling of detachment taking hold of him.
No, that…that couldn't be right. The werewolves…they hadn't bitten him, had they? He remembered the big one, Mercer, trying his best but Allen was much faster after he knew what to expect. The lumbering monster was fast, true, and nearly had Allen a few times, but…
He couldn't have been bitten.
He was already tearing at the bandage on his arm. The Doctor waited, unalarmed as Allen ripped away the gauze and the tape holding it together. He could see bits of his arm, slightly pale and discoloured here and there, and when it was all gone at last, he stared.
There were divots in his arm. Pale and smooth and jagged in appearance, they were streaked in comparison to the healthy tissue around it. The longer he stared, the clearer the pattern became, though, even when he tried to deny it, explain it away as something completely different.
Bite marks.
The sight of the scars brought back the memory and the iron vice clamped itself around his lungs and throat and squeezed hard.
He had taken out Mercer, decapitated the big hulking werewolf with his claws, but it was the quiet werewolf that Allen thought Ash had been fighting that did it. The dark-haired one who he hadn't seen until the last moment, when his furred snout had clamped around his forearm and crushed it easily as though it had been made of fragile glass. A fiery pain had shortly followed up in his gut, although at the time, he hadn't known the werewolf was trying to disembowel him as well. He had been too busy trying to focus on getting the werewolf off of his arm.
Now his arm was completely healed, like nothing had transpired, and the only evidence were the scars left behind. Allen could scarcely breathe as his other hand hovered just above the damning marks on his arm. Without looking up or at the Doctor, he asked, "And Ash?"
"I told you…she didn't make it. She's still on Yamatai. Alive. But she's…"
The Doctor trailed off, sounding so wretched and sincerely apologetic and Allen hated him in that moment for his pity. Hated him because he knew that Ash was on Yamatai, and yet he had done nothing to get her off the island, nothing at all.
"How did I get off the island?"
"Those werewolves that were attempting to retrieve Ash, they had personal transporters. They can only work on the person they are being worn by. Ash…I'm assuming she used the one they meant for her on you."
"The other werewolves had their own; I saw a few of them leave using them. The ones that stayed behind must have had their own!"
"Allen…we're able to see, from time to time, a feed on the island. It's…complicated to explain away in detail, but in short, we can catch glimpses of things that happen. That's how we knew you were living there for quite some time. That's how we knew about the other werewolves. It's difficult to keep the feed going, considering the time distortion and the amount of lag we get, but…we saw the fight. Or the aftermath, rather. The one she used on you, however…its circuits burnt up. It was purposefully made for a one-time trip only. We couldn't use it to return even if we wanted. I'm sorry." The Doctor spoke gently as he rounded the bed, although he seemed less interested in sitting back down again. There was just too much energy in his frame for that now. He had pulled something out of his pockets on his coat, some kind of long metal tubing with clear bits and baubles of some sort and he was flipping it in the air and catching it distractedly.
"You were there. Try to remember. She burned them all up. To save you."
Allen groped for the memory and he could only vaguely recall the smell of charred flesh, burnt fur, and Ash holding him. She had asked if he trusted her and kept telling him to hold his breath and close his eyes, don't open them yet, not yet, not yet, not yet…
And he was trying to grit his teeth past the pain in his arm and the other in his gut.
"They almost killed you. We managed to catch the tail end of things, prepped up the operating room for you just in time when you came in."
"'We'?"
"The other people here. You'll meet them soon enough," the Doctor replied flippantly, casually waving his hand dismissively at Allen. He sighed and it sounded like such a burdensome thing to elicit. "Allen, she used the transporter they were intending for her on you. She chose to save you rather than herself. She gave up her chance for freedom to try and make sure you had a chance for survival."
Allen closed his eyes, sinking back against his pillow. He was drained of what little energy he had. His head was pounding, his gut still ached from apparently nearly being disemboweled, but most of all, his heart hurt. Of course Ash would choose him over herself. She always seemed to do that, whether it came down to the big or little things. It wasn't that she was utterly altruistic and selfless in her acts; it was mainly in part because she saw herself as less in comparison to others.
"She does that sometimes," he finally said quietly past a tight throat. "I left her behind."
"You didn't choose it."
"No," Allen agreed reluctantly, his eyes growing hot with tears. "But I broke my promise to her."
"What promise?" The Doctor pressed gently. Allen swallowed past the hard lump in his throat and had to struggle to breathe when his throat pinched shut. Only when he trusted himself to speak did he answer the Doctor.
"I promised her that we'd get off the island together."
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The Doctor left and Dr. Hadley returned shortly after, checking in on him. She stared at the torn bandages decorating his bed with disapproval, although she said little on the matter when she saw the healed state of his arm afterwards. When she left, he was alone with his thoughts and the incessant beeping—a heart monitoring machine, he was told it was.
He distracted himself with the file the Doctor had left him, realizing he hadn't taken a peek at it yet, not once. He almost didn't, hesitant on prying into Ash's life without her there. She would have wanted to know, but if she could remember anything concrete, would she have wanted him to know? For a while, he abstained, but curiosity finally got the better of him and he popped the file open.
The first thing he caught sight of, besides the wall of text on a few sheets of paper, was the photograph paper clipped to the front. Or rather, a series of photographs, he came to find.
The first was a picture of her, a bust photograph in colour and she was noticeably younger. She looked to be in her early teens, if he were to judge accurately enough. Perhaps around thirteen. She had no scars, both her eyes were a stormy blue-grey, and her dark russet hair wasn't tipped with the red he was more familiar with. He almost believed he was looking at someone completely different if it weren't for the winsome, crooked smile she sported. She also didn't have the choker-styled tattoo on her neck he had grown accustomed to.
The next photograph, she was perhaps a few years older, more or less the same in appearance, but her hair…it was rainbow-coloured! Dyed that way, most likely, he reasoned after the shock wore off. And she had the tattoo around her neck, as well as the paw print and the star on her shoulder, and he could just see the green four-leafed clover with the number thirteen imprinted on her left hand. She was leaning up against a car with her arms crossed over her chest as she was decked out in a simple outfit consisting of boots, black tank top and jeans with a myriad of doodles on them. She was so much shorter, too, he realized, without her back paws giving her added height. He had to do a double-take. He wasn't used to seeing shoes on her. It looked so strange on her. He was so used to the paws.
The car she leaned against was big and sporty and flashy and it was a bright golden yellow, with black stripes along its hood. Ash had a cocky grin plastered on her face, a challenge declared clear as day in the way she held herself and looked. So determined, so sure of herself. He could practically hear her taunting whoever was watching, laughing at them even.
The third one photo, she wasn't alone in it. She was in a military uniform of some kind, tan and fitted to her form with the sleeves rolled up neatly to her biceps to show off her lean and muscled arms, a hat perched on her head. Her eyes were mismatched in this photo, it was clear to see, but she was more or less the same. She had a small, crooked smile on her face that belied her self-assurance, arms crossed over her chest in a defiant and challenging manner as she assessed the photographer coolly. Behind her, a very large man that was nearly a foot and a half taller than her and twice as broad as she was in the same uniform and stance as her: arms crossed, sleeves rolled, hat perched on his shaved head, a smirk on his dark face. Behind them, a tan-painted military vehicle similar to the ones on Yamatai—but more advanced in design and structure and more heavily armoured, Allen deduced—sat idly by. At the bottom of the photo, a line of text was boldly printed: Come at us, bro.
Somehow, Allen was unsurprised at the declaration and it brought a smile to his lips, but it was short-lived.
The last photograph was of her reclining and relaxed on a couch, the lighting set low and she had an acoustic guitar in hand, appearing unaware to the photographer. Her attention was more on the strings and the placement of her hands than anything else, her mismatched eyes half-closed and her mouth partly open, as though she was going to sing. The fingers of one hand were splayed along the neck of the instrument, the others curled in preparation to strum a chord along the body. She was the most similar in this photo to how he remembered her now: red-tipped hair, the scar across her nose and cheek, wolfish ears on display, the scars on her wrists and arms.
Whoever it was that had taken the photo, they had managed to capture a softer side of her that she's rarely shown to others. To him. Allen stifled down the slight of jealousy that burbled up in response and instead, he focused on the gratefulness that Ash could show this side of her to others, period.
Allen pulled the photos out and set them aside, turning to the dossier inside, skimming over the words typed there: Name, London Marie Ferus; Born 8 April 1985; Blood Type, O-negative; Species, Mutant-Werewolf; Mutant Abilities, advanced pyrokinesis, minimal electrokinesis…
The list went on and on, a record of details that most would have found mildly interesting or incredibly dull, but Allen found himself absorbed in them, focusing on the important tidbits.
Her name was London but she preferred Lupin. He'd have to remember that for the future, but deep down, she'd always be Ash to him. It was going to be hard to break that train of thought, especially after seven years. The more he read, the more he wished she could have told him all of this herself. The more he learned, the more he felt both guilt and elation that he was finally learning more about Ash.
If we can get her off that island…she might come to remember all this. I can read a file all I want, but the memories…they'll be expressed differently by the person who experienced them compared to any record.
She had been a former street racer—he assumed it had something to do with her car—and had also been an accomplished musician: formally trained in piano and violin, and then learned on her own to play the guitar. She had been born a mutant—the ability to summon her flames made so much sense now—and had later been bitten by a werewolf. She had been a military member—evidenced by the photograph of her in uniform—and worked on the repairs of the vehicles and was also a driver. That made sense too, how she knew the mechanics of the boat and the trucks and how she lamented their rotten states on Yamatai. So much of herself and her own foundations she fell back upon, and yet she didn't know about it at all or why either.
After a time, he deposited the file back on the table, his head spinning and the words on the pages were melting into one another and not helping matters much. He was asleep in a matter of moments after he pulled his hand away and back onto the bed.
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"Hey. Wake up."
Allen blinked, slowly at first, then rapidly a few times. When he sat up, he was blissfully free of any pain his stomach had given him from the last time he had been conscious. He looked around and immediately spotted the source of the insistent voice: it was an older gentleman, donning a casual ensemble of jeans and t-shirt whilst leaning on a cane and sporting a two-day stubble on his face. Piercing blue eyes were boring into his own, a half-smile pulling at his lips. Allen felt like he wasn't being observed like a person, but as an object. The feeling left a shiver rolling down his spine.
"What is it?" Allen huffed back. He was still so tired. Everything still hurt, but thankfully not as much as before.
"You're being discharged. That means, you're vacating the premises, starting in about, ohhh…" The man made a great show of looking at something—and Allen quickly realized it was really nothing—on his wrist before looking back at Allen. "Five minutes ago."
"What? But I was injured. I…my arm and…my stomach…" His arm was healed, he belatedly realized. And his gut no longer ached and he could actually sit up now without pain.
"Not anymore," the man continued, limping around to the side of his bed. His long stride, while impeded by the limp, didn't lessen at all. He quickly snatched up something from the bedside table, and came away with the file Allen had left there. He quickly scrambled after the limping man, throwing covers and driving his legs over the edge. He was immediately reminded of the machinery he was still connected to when the IV line in his arm jerked painfully and he stopped. The limping man continued well away from the bedside, popping open the file with only mild interest.
"Who the hell are you?" Allen demanded, splitting his attention between trying to figure out how to disassemble the tubing from his arm and the man with Ash's file.
"Greg House. Medical Doctor-type. And you, you are something of a hot ticket item at the moment. I've had people skulking around my office asking questions about you over the last few days, harassing my team, and more importantly, me." He paused, as though for an added affect as he watched Allen struggling to get the medical apparatuses off of him. "There's quite a lot of interest in your target-practice for a girlfriend."
So this was the man that the Doctor and Dr. Hadley both knew. Did they have to work with this insufferable person? Allen pitied them both if they did. He was an utter ass. Allen glowered mildly at him and finally managed to unsnag everything, pulling the needle out and letting it drop on the bed.
"And what does that mean?" Barely two minutes with the man and he was already disliking Dr. House.
"Haven't you read?" House remarked as he smiled thinly, waggling the file. "Oh, no, you didn't, because I have it now. Let's see…says here she was shot in the head with silver—fatal for werewolves, apparently, and you're lumped in that group now, so I'd be careful touching cutlery for a while—and the first thing the surgeons did was to have her ruined eyeball replaced with a cybernetic implant. Because that's the completely rational thing to do with people who are just a few shades shy of being dead."
Allen stopped halfway of the bed, his thoughts of snatching back up the file coming to a grinding halt. He didn't recall reading any of that in her file. The telling smile on House's face made him doubt the man's words.
"You're lying. She hasn't been shot in the head." Certainly not by a silver bullet, at least.
House shrugged. "Sure. I'm lying. It's not in this file. It's in another file that's been sitting on my desk for almost a year now. But let me ask you this: why were her eyes so blue as a little girl and suddenly, she's got half-and-half nowadays?"
Allen didn't have an answer. Dr. House tucked the file under his arm, reached into his pocket and pulled out a pill bottle. He rattled it for a moment, popped the top off and dumped a few into his hand, downing them into his mouth. When Allen opened his mouth to speak—so many questions were now rattling in his head—he was promptly interrupted when the door slid open and admitted Dr. Hadley into the room. She took on cursory glance over Allen, then Dr. House and the reaction was instant annoyance.
"House," she said sternly.
"Ruh-roh!" House remarked as Dr. Hadley strode forward and snatched the file away, glanced at its contents, then doubled back toward Allen.
"You shouldn't be up."
"He's being discharged. He's on his way out."
"Did he sign the paperwork?"
"What paperwork is there to sign? We're not even being held accountable to a proper system or even a legitimate medical board! We're on an island that nobody knows exists! Who the hell is going to read all that boring legal crap, let alone draft it up? Not me, that's for sure. Maybe Ted, that sad lawyer. If he hasn't jumped off the building yet. Or got pushed off by the Janitor." House exclaimed, sounding mildly exasperated. Dr. Hadley shot him another annoyed glance over her shoulder as she assessed the delicate medical equipment before she sighed, turning back to Allen. She handed him Ash's file and he took a little too quickly, hugging it closely in one arm protectively.
"Unfortunately, he's right. We're lucky we have the things we do right now, but we're running low and can't keep you here for much longer. Someone else in more critical condition might need this bed soon."
"Going on ten minutes over discharge time," House said behind them. Both Dr. Hadley and Allen ignored him as she began to methodically help remove other items on Allen's person and checking his other various bandaged parts.
"Amazing," she muttered softly as she finished peeling away the bandages that had covered Allen's abdomen. There were faint traces of puckered scarring beneath the stitches where he'd been stabbed in his stomach and it overlapped the larger one from his sword. "This was a complete wreck when you were first brought in…we almost didn't think you were going to make it. No offense."
"None taken." Allen said, offering a nervous smile. From what he could recall, Dr. Hadley was right. He had been an utter wreck. He certainly felt like it when he'd first woken up.
Dr. House had grown ostensibly silent in the background, unnervingly so. Allen met the man's gaze when he glanced across the way and was startled to see his intense blue gaze locked onto him. There were gears turning in the man's head, but what he was thinking, it was anyone's guess.
"We'll remove these stitches before we release you. The Doctor will be picking you up."
Nearly an hour later, Allen had been moved from the room he had been staying in to another smaller one He was checked over thoroughly once again to ensure he was healed, had any stitches removed, and given a fresh pair of clothes to wear before being discharged. It all felt too surreal and he didn't quite soak in the details for the duration of that last hour spent in the hospital. He barely even realized he had slipped on some donated clothes until he was well enough out the doors.
The Doctor wasn't outside as promised as he stepped outside, blinking into the bright afternoon sun. He scanned the area and nearly had to do a double-take. Across the way, perched atop a rotund-roofed home, was the strangest creature he'd ever seen. And he's lived with peculiar-looking dinosaurs for roughly seven years.
He was almost fooled into believing it was one, if it weren't the excessive spikes that adorned its skull, spine and long, crooked tail or the incredibly loud and deep purple its scaly hide was painted. A huge, bulbous yellow eye blinked at him, head bobbing as it turned its entire body and fluttered its arms—no, its wings—and squawked curiously at him. They stared at one another for nearly a minute.
"Oi! Allen!"
Allen turned at the voice and saw the Doctor—still wild-haired and decked in his blue suit and long brown coat—waving at him from down the street. He grinned broadly as he approached and immediately pulled Allen into a crushing hug as soon as he was within arm's length. Startled, Allen stood there dumbly for a few belated moments before hesitantly returning the gesture.
When the Doctor broke the embrace, he held Allen at arm's length, surveying him all over and still grinning.
"Look at you! All healed up and in record time! Not bad for almost a week's worth of sitting in bed after surgery!"
"A-a week? Has it really been that long?"
The Doctor didn't miss a beat. "Yes! And what a week it's been! Quite a lot of buzz surrounding you, old boy, and it's because you did what no one else did."
"And what exactly is that?" Allen asked, distracting himself to glance back at the strange creature on the rooftop. It was gone, he came to find. The Doctor grabbed his hand and started tugging him along.
"You stayed with her."
Allen felt his heart skip a beat.
"Ash?"
"Yes. Everyone else wasn't willing to stay there. Not on that island, no. Bit of a daft move on your end, but it worked out all the same."
Allen pulled a face behind the Doctor's back as he turned on his heel. Allen took the time to survey his surroundings as they walked. The hospital behind them was a tall building and looked nothing like the ones he was used to—either the ones from in his time or the broken sad husks of Yamatai. There was an eclectic mess waiting for him up ahead. There were similarly designed wooden homes—brightly painted and over the bowers of the homes were the carved heads of great beasts, and lounging on their rooftops were more wild creatures—all of them spiked, scaled, and winged in various shapes and sizes.
There were other homes as well—some that looked more modern and robust in design, others a little more rundown but homely and lived in well enough. The streets alternated between cobblestones, packed dirt, stone flagstaffs, and paved road. The more Allen saw, the more it became apparent just how cobbled together this place was. It was as though somebody had decided to take vastly differently designed homes and places of business and simply stitched them together to create a smelting pot of a town. It was all so mismatched and bizarre to look at.
"Um…Doctor?"
"Yes, Allen?"
"I don't understand. What is this place, exactly?"
Compared to the sterility and vaguely familiar design of the hospital's grounds, the rest of this place was too esoteric for his tastes.
"Well, it's…it's all pushed up together, isn't it? King's Rock Isle, we've come to call it. Don't ask me why, I didn't get a vote in. I wouldn't have called it that myself, but it was done before I got back here."
"Doctor…"
He stopped walking and when he wouldn't budge, even after the Doctor tugged him along twice, the manic man stopped as well. His beaming faltered and a solemn look crossed his face.
"How are we going to get Ash off of Yamatai? If I've really been out for a week recovering, then that means years have passed on Yamatai for her. Surely you've at least had the time to come up with a plan to recover her."
The look the Doctor gave him was so pitiable and the answer that accompanied it nearly broke his heart.
"Allen…we can't get on the island. You, me, and nearly every person and creature on this island…we can't get past that—well, bubble isn't the right word, but neither is barrier, but it's the closest thing to it. I'm…I'm sorry. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be able to get back on the island."
"Then what have you been doing? Simply watching her and seeing how she gets hurt, how she lets herself get injured saving people? What have you been doing in the meantime?"
The Doctor didn't even flinch at the snappish tone. Allen almost felt badly for it after, but not quite. He was still reeling at the fact that Ash was still there, and he…he wasn't. He wouldn't want to go back to Yamatai, ever, if he could help it. But as long as she was still stuck there, he wanted to get her away from that place. The Doctor waited for a few extra seconds before he answered, and it seemed as though he was choosing his words with great care.
"Allen, listen to me. I promise you, we aren't just sitting idly by while she waits on that island to be rescued. She's a survivor, you know that better than anyone else here. And as long as she keeps on surviving, she knows we're coming, regardless of whether or not she remembers us. She knows, deep down inside, she knows this. And she's holding onto that. I know she is." He stepped forward, keeping his dark eyes locked on Allen. Carefully, he reached forward and placed his hands on Allen's shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. "We are working on a way to disable the—well, again, barrier isn't technically the right word, but it is the closest we can call it as such," he paused, shaking his thoughts away. "We're working on a way to get it disabled, either way. We can't broach it, but it can be disabled. Not easily. It's taking a lot longer than we'd like. And believe me, you're not the only one who wants her off that island, far from it. So please…patience."
Allen wanted to argue. It wasn't good enough, he wanted to tell the Doctor. Waiting idly by, twiddling his thumbs and sitting off in a corner wasn't going to get anything done faster. He found it ironic that he wanted to leap into action so readily and so quickly. It was something Ash would have done as well.
"Yes, yes, I know. If it was you, she'd be riding on dragon-back this very instant, if not sooner, charging ahead to try and breech Yamatai to get you back. Believe me, we tried, and it was not a pretty aftermath."
The Doctor grinned at Allen's baffled look. "Oh, yes! Dragons! Just what did you think those things were up there, what with all the wings and spikes and scales, eh?"
He made a grand sweeping gesture toward the creatures, some flying now and others leaping off rooftops and across the streets. They were all so wildly different in design—broad crooked jaws, jagged toothed, knob-scaled, snake-necked, stumpy limbed, lizard-like, finned faces, massive claws, whipping tails, bright and dull colours alike—they were so similar and yet so vastly diverse than the dinosaurs he'd grown to know. A few dragons belched out bursts of flame, causing several others to take flight, screeching and hissing all the while.
The Doctor chose that moment in Allen's bemused state to give a sharp, piercing whistle. Allen winced at the volume, and cast a cursory glance at the taller man.
"He'll be here soon."
"Who—?"
A roar cut him off. He lifted his head and noticed out the corner of his eye, the other dragons stilling as well, craning their heads in the direction of the noise. Movement caught his attention and before he could respond, a large slinky something came hurtling over the rooftop of a building. It landed before him and the Doctor, hunched over with its wings billowed out around it and back hunched like a great cat preparing to pounce. Bright green eyes glittered menacingly like wildfire, pinning him and the Doctor in its stare.
Shiny black scales, a triangular head, piercing gaze—another dragon, but this one was sleeker in build and design than all the others he's glimpsed. The dragon snorted through flared nostrils, turning its gaze toward the Doctor. A softer light grew in its eyes and the tension that had riddled its frame eased up a considerable amount. It mewled at the Doctor, as though inquiring something.
"Yes, yes, it's him. I know, it took him long enough."
Allen glanced at the other man, but was immediately beset when the dragon leapt forward, head-butting him down to the ground. The black dragon's face was all Allen could see now, bright green eyes and wide black pupils, a toothless smile greeting him while a giant paw kept him pinned to the ground. Allen wasn't sure what to worry about more: the weight of a very heavy animal on top of him that could easily cave his chest in or the sharp claws tipping the paw holding him that could easily tear him asunder. The creature, however, seemed less interested in that and more focused on purring and nuzzling his face. Allen was justifiable taken aback by the onslaught of sudden affection.
"Oi, play nice now! You don't want to be the one to put him back in the hospital!"
The dragon lowed softly and snorted against Allen's face, coating him in a fishy smell. Allen tried not to gag and the dragon mewled concerned little noises at him, stubby snout twitching.
"C'mon now, Whiplash," the Doctor stepped forward and pulled at the dragon, and after a moment's recalcitrance, finally got off of him. Allen carefully picked himself back up, keeping his eyes pinned on the creature.
"Whiplash?"
A sad smile briefly touched the Doctor's lips. He didn't meet Allen's gaze. Not quite.
"He's Lu…Ash's dragon. One of the only Night Furies in existence. There's eight in total, to be exact. Chief Hiccup was the first to ride one, though. You'll meet him and Toothless later."
"There're others?"
"There were."
"What happened to them?"
The sad smile dissipated. Whiplash visibly wilted.
"They were taken away."
"By who?"
The Doctor gave him a level gaze and it chilled Allen with just how much quiet fury there was in the man's dark eyes, an anger he hadn't ever quite seen in Ash even. And he's seen her angry before, time and again. This was a man not to be trifled with when furious, he reasoned.
"Chimera Dynamics."
OoOoOoOoOoO
According to the Doctor, the cottage by the sea had been Ash's. Or Lupin's. Whichever one she preferred to be called. She could tell him herself when she was back and could recall everything from her life.
The cottage itself was sizeable enough: two story, with a mixture of hard wood and stone on the outside, with a spacious covered porch that covered the whole front of the structure. The property around it was bare except for the wildflowers and weeds that choked the area. It looked underused and abandoned, almost. Whiplash danced excitedly behind him as he mounted the steps, the wood creaking tiredly beneath his shoes. The front door was locked, but the Doctor had a key for it. Of course he did. He seems to know the Ash before she ended up on Yamatai. The one I didn't get to know. The one who took a silver bullet for him.
He sighed, pushing away the thoughts. She'd remember everything once she was off the island. He wanted to believe that, wanted to have faith in the Doctor's word, but Ash had certainly rubbed off on him. Her realistic views on things had tainted his own ideals and he would reserve that judgement until otherwise proven wrong.
Inside the cottage, it was dark and dusty. He crinkled his nose as he stepped into the threshold. Whiplash gently butted his head against Allen's backside and he reached behind him to gently pat the dragon on the head. The Night Fury lowed softly in return, his excited energy suddenly dropping almost to nothing. The ear nub-horns atop his head drooped considerably as his nostrils flared while he sniffed experimentally.
"He hasn't been the same since she's been away. But maybe you'll be able to lift his spirits. You'll smell like her," the Doctor had told him, right before giving him a crash-course lesson on learning how to fly on a dragon without a saddle.
Allen sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging as he looked into the room and saw through the murky grey shadows that covered the place. To his right, there was a small office space, complete with stacks of books, papers, pens, pads, and an array of screens. Computers, if he recalled what Ash had called them correctly. Their screens were dark and dusty, just like everything else.
There were no signs of intrusion, if the buildup of dust was anything to go by.
No one's been in here, not since she left, he noted sadly as he glanced down at the undisturbed hardwood floors. Whiplash trailed in after him, sniffing at this object or that, grumbling softly all the while. He ventured into the living room and after turning on the lights, found the hardwood floors covered in all manner of Oriental rugs and throws, the couch plush and comfortable with throw pillows and soft, warm blankets. The coffee table was nearly identical to the one she had at home on Yamatai, except this one was piled with books of all sorts and not covered in dents and dings to mar the polished finish. In the corner of the room, hiding in the shadows just out of reach of the light from the windows, Allen could see a piano and bench, the keys hiding from sight.
It made his stomach twist a little at the sight, a painful reminder skittering across his mind. He quickly turned away from it.
The kitchen was clean, not a dish to be found, although there was also no food. There were plenty of spices and bags of coffee and some tea, however, stocked inside the cabinets. A lonely footstool sat hiding in the corner of the kitchen. Most likely because she couldn't reach anything in the cabinets without assistance, not with her shoulders being the way they are.
The dining area was small and cramped but strangely comfortable at the same time, with an old oak table and four chairs carved with floral designs on their backs. A plain ceramic coffee mug sat on the table, the only conspicuous thing out of place. On the side, he could read out text that said, 'I Run on Caffeine and Hate'. Allen felt a wry smile tug at his lips briefly and he huffed a laugh.
How appropriate, if a bit vaguely concerning.
Allen ventured upstairs, hand tracing gently along the banister as he ascended when something odd hit him. He could smell her. The faint whiff of her mixed scent, of wood smoke and crushed pine and that hint of sea salt and…and something else. Something unique, something new, something indescribable. It was something that made him yearn.
Allen knew it was old, but in the split moment he caught a whiff of it, it felt new and sudden and it wouldn't go away now. He found five bedrooms upstairs, most of them small and furnished in a very Spartan manner, except for the master bedroom. It was only slightly larger than the others, and it had signs of Ash written all over it. The rumpled comforter on the bed, the piles of blankets and furs, and over in the corner a recurve bow unstrung with a full quiver of arrows, and beside it an acoustic guitar on a stand. There was a set of clothes on the floor and an old sneaker, its toe just barely peeking out from beneath the edge of the bed. There were little figurines that sat on the nightstand—little Night Furies, each carved and painted in unique patterns and shapes and not just the uniform jet black that Whiplash was. Beneath their wooden forms, there were charcoal sketches, these more dragon-themed and at least one bird's eye view of the island town proper. Sunlight was just barely able to filter past the dust-smattered window to illuminate all of these things in the room, casting it in a faded gold light.
And all around, he could smell her scent, concentrated strongly in this one absolutely lived-in room, a tantalizing smell that was both old and familiar to him. It mingled dangerously with the smell of abandoned dust. Whiplash whimpered behind him, snuffling at Allen when he didn't move for a full minute as he took in the sight. The full brunt of the fact that she wasn't here and he was hit him hard in that moment and he broke down, falling to his knees and curling up against the edge of the bed. He cried for what felt like hours and perhaps it had been. He cried until he felt drained of energy and dry-eyed and with an aching raw throat and his head pounding away.
He was partly grateful that Whiplash was the only one to witness it, and that the Doctor had strangely and abruptly decided to not intrude on exploring the cottage with Allen. He was grateful that no one else had ventured out to see him, that the cottage was alone on a seaside cliff far from town proper. He was glad, as the Doctor had told him, that most of everyone was having a town meeting in Meade Hall and weren't due to be released for quite some time.
Whiplash, he decided after he'd calmed to slow hiccupping breaths, was a much better support to lean on. The dragon was in mourning as well for his lost rider, and Allen was probably the next closest thing he'll get to Ash. The Night Fury had curled around Allen while he cried, blanketing them beneath one of his wings. He smelled like the air that had been electrified right before the strike of lightning, and of the deep woods, and a hint of fish. It was strangely comforting, blanketed under the canopy of a leathery wing and pressed to the side of the dragon. Whiplash was surprisingly warm, and that comfort reminded him of Ash all over again.
She was like a dragon herself sometimes, he mused. Calm one moment, raging the next, and always warm to the touch. Wild and willful, and not completely tame, even when she seemingly appeared to be at times.
He was almost lulled to sleep by the long, peaceful breaths Whiplash was taking when they were both startled awake by a loud pounding noise coming from downstairs. Allen jerked upright and Whiplash leapt up with a yowl and an arched back and narrowed slits for pupils. When his lips peeled back to reveal his gums, conical teeth sprang up into existence, giving the dragon a more menacing and ominous appearance. It was almost dark outside, but there were still inklings of sunlight still lingering as he and Whiplash made their way downstairs. The pounding against the door came again, making Allen's head throb in time with each percussion. They sounded like every hit was being struck right up against his ears, not all the way downstairs.
When he reached the front door and opened it, he was nearly sideswiped by a fist raised up to hit the wood again. He ducked out of the way just in time to allow the young man at the door to resettle his balance. Shaggy, wind-blown hair, bright green eyes, a leather ensemble reminiscent of a riding uniform—and there was another Night Fury right behind him on the porch steps. He looked nearly identical to Whiplash. This Night Fury was larger, broader. Except for the nick in Whiplash's right ear nub-horn and smaller stature, they could have been twins.
Perhaps he was older?
Allen refocused on the young man, who sheepishly ran a hand through his hair, offering a faint grin.
"Ah. Okay—okay, good, you're actually here. I was afraid there for a minute, when you didn't come to the door right away. Ah…the Doctor, he's kind of a little nuts sometimes. He forgets where things and people are, or he mixes them up. A lot."
"You must be…Chief Hiccup."
The young man, taller than Allen by at least half a foot, shifted his weight and nodded heartily.
"Yeah, that's me. Chief. Chief Hiccup. Still kind of weird, but I'm getting used to it. Ah…mind if I…oh. It's…a little dirty in there. I thought someone was coming out to clean this place up before you got here. Oh, hey, Whiplash. How you been, buddy?"
"It's fine. I can talk out here, if you'd prefer." Before Allen could step out, Whiplash had already slunk around him, knocking Allen aside to leap at the other Night Fury with giddy abandon. The two promptly began to tangle and wrestle on the grass outside, yowling and growling playfully as they went. Hiccup watched the two for a moment, a wistful smile on his face.
"He hasn't been this happy in a long time. Not since she left."
Allen didn't need to know who 'she' was. He was already well acquainted with whom he was referring to. Who else but Ash?
"How did it happen?"
Hiccup turned toward Allen, perplexed by the question at first before his expression slowly fell.
"We…we were attacked. By a company called Chimera Dynamics. They've been…stealing people. Things. Places. From different periods and even different worlds. They show up randomly sometimes, but most times…there's concentrated drop points where they end up pulled into. Yamatai's one of them."
"What do you mean by that? Different worlds?" He could already feel his stomach turning sour.
Hiccup sucked in a breath between his teeth, running a hand through his hair. "Ah, man…how do I explain this…look. I know that it's hard to believe, but trust me. I already went through that phase, struggling to wrap my head around it, but…you might not be from this world. You might be from some other world, parallel to this one, the one you're currently in. I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous and at first, I didn't believe it either."
Allen stared at Hiccup for a long time, teetering between disbelief and rejection. That…that couldn't be right. What other worlds were there other than this one? Hiccup grit his teeth uncertainly and glanced over at the Night Furies still wrestling playfully with one another.
"I know it seems unbelievable, but it's true. You'll see it soon enough. There are things in this world that don't exist, but they do in other worlds. Like…oh! We have this man and young girl. Uh…Joel, I think is his name. And the girl is…Ellie. Yeah, that's right. They come from a world where it's…zombified? I think that's what they called it. Or Ellie called it that. And there was an outbreak in the year 2013. Out there, it's 2015 right now. The world didn't have an outbreak and turn everyone into…zombies. Mushroom zombies. It didn't collapse, so far as I've seen. Not from that, anyway."
Allen stared at the young man, a little flabbergasted before it hit him. Mushrooms were funguses. And there had been something in Ash's book, something that mentioned zombies and fungi…
"Are you sure it wasn't called…Cordy…ceps?"
"Oh! That's it. Hey, how'd you know about that?"
He frowned heavily, hesitating. He averted his gaze. "It was in Ash's book. She faced it before, apparently."
Hiccup faltered in answering, awkwardly dropping his eyes.
"I know this is hard. You stayed the longest with her out of anyone that's come out of Yamatai and you two probably grew pretty close. I don't think I'd feel any better if I lost Toothless like that. I have, once. It's painful losing people you love." Hiccup looked back toward where Whiplash and Toothless had finally settled in a heap of tangled tails and bodies, panting heavily with gum-lined mouths gaping open. He looked back at Allen, a resolute expression painted on his face.
"But we're going to get her off that island. We have double agents that work for Chimera Dynamics and they're helping us. Trying to get past whatever it is that's preventing us from getting too close to the island. As soon as they disable it all, including whatever machine they're using to pull people out of their worlds and times and dumping them on Yamatai and these other drop points, we're going to bring her back. I promise you, we're not leaving her there on purpose."
Allen felt some confidence bloom in him at Hiccup's words. He wanted to believe Hiccup and he wanted to believe the Doctor. He wanted to believe in that promise, but he unexpectedly felt like he was in Ash's shoes: listening to people talk was well and fine but until he saw them doing something, it was all just smoke and mirrors in the end. Words were nothing but wind. When Allen didn't respond, Hiccup's face slowly but surely fell and he awkwardly lapsed into silence.
"Did you know her well?"
"I knew her for a little while before she was taken, yeah," Hiccup answered quietly. He was watching the sun setting out across the ocean. "She loved flying with Whiplash. And the other Night Furies, when they were still here. She was…quiet. But smart. A little rough around the edges, but she meant well most of the time."
A ghost of a smile flickered across Hiccup's lips. "You can stay here, if you'd like. I know it's probably dusty and a little…lonely being this far away from the village, but—"
"It's fine. Really." Allen offered a faint smile of his own to the other. "Dust can be cleaned up, and…if Whiplash is willing enough to let me ride on his back, we can fly in anytime."
Hiccup looked relieved and he offered another placating smile. "Great. Well, I-I guess it's settled. Uh…we'll have some supplies sent out here in the meantime. Oh, that reminds me… Have you eaten anything yet?"
At the mention of food, Allen's stomach gave a twist and a grumble. He laughed, embarrassed.
"No, I haven't. I suspect I haven't really eaten much since…" His smile fell and his laughter died away. Not since Yamatai. The unspoken word was left hanging in the air between them.
Hiccup fell quiet as well, mulling in the silence before he perked. "We can get you some food to tide you over, over in Meade Hall. Just follow me and Toothless."
Allen stared after the young man, debating on whether he really wanted to go out or not. Toothless disentangled himself from Whiplash, slinking over to Hiccup with an expectant wiggle in his step. Toothless shot Whiplash and then Allen eager looks. Even Whiplash seemed less subdued and trotted over toward Allen, lowing softly. Allen sighed, running a hand over the dragon's snout.
"I suppose if I'm to get any food anytime soon, we should follow, yes?" He said softly to Whiplash. The dragon stared back for a long time, unblinking and nose wriggling. The Night Fury exhaled softly and leaned forward to nudge him gently. He felt a faint smile tug at his lips.
"All right, then…let's go."
OoOoOoOoOoO
Final Notes: Ash will return. Allen will also return. In fact, a lot of characters will return, and many more still will make their appearances! Please be on the lookout for installation of the Multi-'Verse crossover fic, Crash, in the future!
Dying Light drabbles are still available for reading; bits and pieces that didn't make the final cut for Left Behind. Interactions and development in between the time lapses that occurred, if only behind the scenes of the main story line.
Finally, thank you to all who stuck with the story, especially jy24 and alexc123. I'm so very glad you enjoyed this crazy little adventure and I hope to continue meeting and exceeding your storytelling expectations!