Emerald Green

Chapter Fifteen

Hiking (and Running)

"Molly! Wake up! I made breakfast."

Molly groaned and rolled over to look at her door. Instead, she found herself looking at the Doctor, standing unexpectedly close. She shouted and sat up so quickly the room spun for a moment. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Waking you up for breakfast."

"You couldn't do that from the other side of the door?"

"You might not have heard me from the other side of the door. You're a heavy sleeper."

Molly stuck her tongue out at him, and he responded in kind. Then she yawned. "How long did I actually get to sleep?"

"I don't know. Couple hours. I don't keep track of those things."

Molly ran her fingers through her hair. "Fine. Get out."

"But I said-"

"I need to change!"

"Oh." The Doctor shifted his gaze to the side has he pressed his palms together, and then looked back at her. "Right." He turned and left the room.

With another yawn, Molly got out of bed. She did a few stretches, washed her face, and changed into what she hoped were decent camping clothes: jeans, tank top with red and black flannel tied around her waist in case of more cold wind, some hiking boots, and long socks with jeans tucked in, in case of ticks. After slathering herself in sunscreen, she realized she'd forgotten to repeat the names again. "Phoebe, Heather, Olivia, Eleanor, Nina, Ivy, Xyla." A quick ponytail, and she was ready to go.

She headed out of the TARDIS, to where the Doctor stood beside a fire. Beside the fire was a cast iron pan, and in her chair was a plate of bacon and pancakes. A classic campfire breakfast.

Molly headed over and picked up the food, then took her seat. "So, what's on the agenda today?"

The Doctor swallowed his mouthful of pancakes. "On the agenda today," he began. He looked around their campsite and then gestured behind him with his thumb. "We're going that way."

Molly waited for him to continue. "…that's the whole plan?"

"That's about it, yes."

She pointed behind the Doctor, and said flatly, "We go that way."

"Yes. And we bring the backpacks," he added. "We're going to be going that way for a while."

"A few hours?"

"A while more than that."

Molly stared. "We're not sleeping out there again, are we? Last night didn't exactly end well."

The Doctor waved a dismissive hand. "We'll be fine. I doubt whatever it was will follow us."

Molly was skeptical, but if they were searching the massive Pine Barrens for a potential stranded alien, it would probably take more than a day, and they'd have to look a little further away than where the TARDIS had landed. "Okay. So, I'll just keep my fingers crossed some screaming monster doesn't eat us."

"That would be preferable," he replied.

It was definitely the prettiest hike she'd been on. Granted, that may be because she'd always given up in the first twenty minutes, but she doubted she'd been many places lovelier than this. The trees, the bits of sunlight and clear sky peeking through, the gentler wild animals scurrying about. Of course, she was on high alert for bears and bobcats, but still. It was relaxing.

Also, a bit tiring.

"If we keep stopping, we're going to get nowhere," the Doctor complained as she sat with her back against a tree.

"Just give me a minute. I only started being able to walk without pain a few days ago, remember," she reminded him.

The Doctor grumbled, but took a seat in front of another tree. He used the opportunity to examine the weird metal detector-looking thing he'd been carrying outstretched in front of him.

Molly stretched her legs in front of her and leaned over to touch her toes. "What's that do, anyway?"

The Doctor was adjusting the handle so he'd have a tighter grip. "It goes 'ding' when there's stuff."

Molly looked up at him, raising her eyebrows. He'd said the same thing in Blink. She thought about calling him out on it, but decided to be nice this time. Just this once. He hadn't thrown anything from her show in her face yet.

She sat up and stretched her arms over her head. "And it's going to help us find the Jersey Devil?"

"Osain," the Doctor corrected, then frowned. "Well, possible Osain."

"So…Jersey Devil."

"Yes. It will help us find the Jersey Devil. And, hopefully, a ghost pirate."

Molly thought of the night before and shivered. "I'm going to hope not," she said.

The Doctor made a face. "You're no fun."

"Hey, I'm all for ghosts!" she objected. "Of all the things I'm scared of, I'm not really scared of ghosts. Some of the kids from my school would go to this supposedly haunted bridge, or to this nearby abandoned asylum and ghost hunt. They let me tag along a couple times. It was great. I'm down for the wailing golden woman, or whoever it was. But I did a paper on pirates in high school. I have zero interest in meeting one, even if it is a ghost."

"Maybe he'd lead us to his treasure."

Molly snorted. "No way a pirate gives away his secret treasure horde, even if he is dead," Molly commented as she folded her legs under her and got back to her feet. "Okay. I'm good to go."

The Doctor stood and flung his backpack back over his shoulders. "Great. I think I know what our next step is."

"You mean walking aimlessly in another direction?"

"No," said the Doctor. "Kayaking aimlesslyin another direction."

Molly stared at him a moment, and then looked around them, at the empty space of earth. "With our hands?"

"I've got one in my backpack."

"…you have one in your backpack?"

"Of course. Where else was I going to keep it? You have one in yours, too."

Molly's mind felt like a tangled mess. Where to begin? "So, it's like a Bag of Holding?"

"Bag of Holding?"

"Bigger on the inside."

"Ah," replied the Doctor. He pointed to her briefly as he said, "Yep."

"Okay. Next question," Molly started as they began walking again. "Where are we kayaking? I don't see a river."

The Doctor led the way. "There's one about a mile ahead. I checked the map before we left."

A thought occurred to Molly. "You'll know the way back? We're not going to be lost?"

"Of course not!" He paused to turn back to her with a reassuring smile. "I have an innate sense of direction."

This did not reassure her. "You have the map on you, too, though, right?"

"Don't need one!"

Molly stopped suddenly and watched as he kept walking forward. "This is one of the times you're lying, right? Tell me this is one of the times you're lying."

In response, he peeked over his shoulder and winked at her. This also did not make her feel any better.

They walked for another half hour before they reached the river, the silence mostly being filled by the Doctor rattling off information about various trees and animals, or whistling. Molly spent most of it trying to keep her breath even. It was getting hotter, and the backpack, while not extremely heavy, was feeling heavier over time. She'd done a lot of sprinting lately, but not a lot of marathon walking. She genuinely reveled in the lack of back pain, but not so much in trying to act like she'd never stopped being able to walk easily.

They arrived at the bank of a beautiful and calm river. The Doctor set down his backpack and reached inside. And out came a kayak, that kept going on and on, and seemed to go on forever. It made her a little queasy to watch this impossibility come true. A whole kayak, including oars, came out of such a small space.

He looked up at her. "Well? Get yours ready, too."

She slipped the backpack off her shoulder and held it out to him. "You do it. That's way too freaky for me."

He sighed as though heavy-burdened, but did so anyway.

It took some time and setting up before they finally headed out, the Doctor again leading the way, the detector across his lap. Molly had been kayaking once before and wasn't over-confident in her abilities, but besides a few near-misses with the bank, it went fairly well. It was a beautiful day, and though the water did invade the inside of her kayak at times, it was cool and felt good. She almost wished she'd brought a swimsuit so she could jump right in and cool off. Kayaking itself gave her arms the workout they probably needed, and the views were nice.

They'd been going for maybe forty-five minutes when she was a flash of something moving out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, afraid to see a bear even if it was on land and she was in the middle of the river. She stared hard, looking for the cause of the movement, and again saw something flash between trees, though she couldn't get a good look at it. But she swore she saw antlers or horns and a deer-like head, but all in white.

She put an oar in the water to turn towards the embankment. "Doctor!" she shouted, as he'd gotten quite a bit further ahead. As she made her way to the bank, he turned.

"What is it?"

"Is the thing going 'ding'?"

"If it was going 'ding', I would have mentioned it," he replied. "Why?"

Molly rowed a little closer and peered up at the ground. "I thought I saw something with antlers or horns and a deer head."

"Possibly a deer," the Doctor suggested. He had that 'everyone around me is a little bit slow' tone of voice.

She glared over at him. "It was all white."

"Well, Osain aren't all white," he said, and started to turn his kayak around. "Might be an albino deer, that happens sometimes. Let's keep moving."

Molly stared a moment longer, but couldn't spot anything. With a sigh, she turned her kayak around and continued to follow the Doctor.

After another hour, they pulled up on a small beach – more a clearing with pebbles – and took a break. The shared a lunch of various kinds of trail mix, some not from Earth, while they were stretched out on a woven blanket the Doctor had in his bag.

Molly took a sip from her canteen and then leaned back to look up at the clear sky, enjoying the warmth of the sun. "So, do you have a particular destination in mind, or are we really just wandering around aimlessly?"

The Doctor was packing up a trail mix that was mostly just unmeltable chocolate. "There are a few ghost towns in the Pine Barrens. We'll be coming up on one soon. If I was stranded on an alien planet – well, they're all alien planets to me. But if I was stranded on one, a ghost town full of empty buildings is where I'd spend most of my time at, if I had to hide."

She turned her head slightly to the side and looked down to peek over at him. "We'll look for evidence of an alien living there?"

He nodded. "We'll check out all the ghost towns. If we don't find anything there, I'll have to come up with another plan."

She gave him a thumbs up, which he returned, and turned her face back up to the sun. "How will you know if it's really just a coincidental myth?"

The Doctor took a little while to answer. "I suppose when I know, I'll know."

Molly prepared to say something snarky in return, but his tone was too serious to mock the statement. It was, after all, not just a pleasant hike. It was a rescue mission.

With that thought, she sat up, and reached for her hiking boots. "Let's not waste any more time, then," she said, slipping them on her feet and lacing them back up.

The Doctor finished packing the rest of their things, and then the blanket once they were off it. Detector in hand, they headed off again.

They'd been walking for another twenty or thirty minutes – entertaining themselves by teaching each other camp songs they'd both learned at some point – when they arrived at what was most definitely a ghost town. A collection of short, empty buildings, some of wood, some of stone stood before them, forest debris spread across what must once have been walkways. A few of the buildings had graffiti sprayed across the side of a wall. Inside the mostly glassless windows was pure darkness. Molly could almost imagine phantoms of the previous residents walking by them.

"What do we look for?" Molly asked.

The Doctor was making his way down a path, stepping over branches and peeking into the nearest building. "Well, the Osain are grazers, so there won't be bones or really much sign of food. There may be signs of a fire for the cold nights, but it also may be trying to remain hidden and chose not to light one."

Molly shifted the backpack off her shoulders and set it down to make it easier and quicker to move through the buildings. She opened it and started digging for a flashlight. Searching a bag that was bigger on the inside was tricky. "So, some kind of bedding, maybe a water supply, maybe something that can be used to treat injuries. Anything else?"

"Possibly bits of technology from the ship they crashed in," he said, though he looked over his shoulder with an appreciative look that she'd thought of some signs on her own. "Something it may have brought here with it initially hoping to find a way to send a signal. It would be worn down, probably not working, maybe even with moss grown over it at this point; easy to miss by random passers-by, but since we're specifically looking for it-"

"We'll be better at spotting it. Got it," she replied, finally finding the flashlight and standing up. "Do you want to split up? You take the buildings on the left, I'll take the right, shout if we see anything?"

"Sounds like a plan," the Doctor replied. "When you're done looking, I'll do a quick sweep with this," here he held the detector a little higher, "And we'll move on to the next location."

Molly nodded. "Okay. See you in a bit." The Doctor gave a thumbs up in response, and they went in opposite directions.

Molly entered the first building, switching her flashlight on and shining it around. She jumped as unexpectedly two squirrels leapt out the back window, but managed not to shriek. Carefully, watching for any other wildlife, she stepped inside and shone the light all around her. There was a scattering of leaves and pine needles all around the floor, half of a wood bedframe standing with the other half collapsed. In the top corner was an abandoned wasp nest, which made her shiver. There was an old folded table by the window that was fairly new, at least in comparison to the rest of the room. But it had also been covered in graffiti that was faded, so it had been at least a couple of years. Maybe some campers had brought it and not bothered to take it away. There was nothing else in the room to suggest any kind of occupation, not even junk food wrapper litter. She stepped out and headed to the next building.

This one was a multi-room house, and took some time to explore. Multiple birds had made nests there, most of which were abandoned but one had a couple of angry little birds that swooped at her and tried to chase her out. Her search revealed nothing but abandoned furniture and empty spray paint cans, and a wall with so many tags she couldn't make a single one out.

This went on for some time: enter the building (mostly small houses, and one brick building that might have been some kind of fire station), find nothing but potential places the Osain could have slept, avoid mice and birds and squirrels, and then move on to the next one.

She came upon one of the last houses, a two-story but tiny wooden house. She hesitantly looked through the cupboards – in one of the other buildings a family of mice had practically leapt at her when she'd opened the door – and then headed up the stairs, wincing as they creaked as though they would collapse. There were three rooms here. One old bathroom, with the copper tub beginning to sink into the floor, and one small bedroom that was empty save a large branch that had crashed through the window in some storm or other. The last was the master bedroom. She opened the door, using some force as the hinges were rusted. There was a large window behind the bed, the glass and most of the inner frame broken away. Branches from the tree behind the house had started to grow through the opening. There was an old dresser missing some drawers, the bed frame with a rotten mattress, and to her left what seemed to be a walk-in closet.

She heard an odd scratching sound in the closet. Molly tried to think of what kind of animal it could be – squirrels set up with a nest? More mice? Something bigger? – but really just hoped it was a ghost. She was tired of dodging wildlife.

Still, there was no avoiding it. It might be the Osain hiding. She took a deep breath and took a few steps forward to peek inside. At first, all she saw were black spots against tan, and she thought for a moment it was a cheetah print coat. And then she saw the paws, the wriggling kittens nursing, the ears, the nose – the eyes. She was making eye contact with a mother bobcat.

Shit. Shit. Shit, she thought in place of the usual names. What was someone supposed to do with big cats? Make themselves look bigger? Back away slowly? Were you supposed to keep eye contact, or look away?

As the bobcat made a deep growling sound, Molly settled on slowly backing out of the room, closing the door, and bolting down the stairs, barely even touching a single one. She heard scratching on the ceiling above her and slammed her way out the front door. "Doctor! Doctor!"

She ran so fast that everything around her was a blur. She tried to tell herself that the fact she hadn't been tackled and disemboweled yet meant the cat had decided not to follow her, but she could hear a sound like ripping bark far enough back to be at the house.

"DOCTOR!" she shrieked, taking off into his side of the town. She saw him bolt out of a two-story stone building, detector in one hand, sonic outstretched in another.

His face looked eager. "Did you find it?"

"BOBCAT!" she screamed. Evidently, it really was following her, because his eyes darted behind her and went wide. He dropped the detector and grabbed her hand, and dragged her into the building he'd just exited and slammed the door shut. But there were windows empty of glass.

She turned to him. "Now what?!" She screamed again as the bobcat hit the door they'd closed, and raked it's claws down the wood. It would head for a window soon.

In response, the Doctor grabbed her hand again and dragged her up the stairs, went into a bedroom and shut the door behind them. He ran up to a window and used his foot to kick out the rest of the glass, and stuck his head out and looked up. "We can get to the roof. I don't think it can climb stone."

"Well then, go go go!" She ran to the window and stood so close to him she might have felt his body heat if he had any, and watched as he slipped the sonic back into its pocket, stepped onto the ledge, and carefully turned on a dime. Then his legs slowly disappeared upward.

"Come on!" he encouraged, but she didn't need it. She heard the bobcat scratching at the bedroom door. She gripped the edges of the frame as she stood, and ducked so she could stick her head outside. She straightened, and tried not to lose her breath at the height. She turned and faced one foot the other way, and slid her other foot around. That's when she heard the door break open, followed by a loud hissing.

Molly screamed and reached up to pull herself up, but was met by the Doctor's hands. She gripped them and jumped, just in time for the first swipe to go under her feet. The Doctor pulled and she was nearly to the top when the second swipe tore a large chunk of the sole of one of her boots clean off. The Doctor dragged her up the rest of the way, and she got to her feet quickly. They both backed away from the edge, and waited for the bobcat to find a way to climb up.

When she saw a paw appear at the edge of the roof, she grabbed the Doctor's hand again in terror. But she heard the cat screech when it slipped and fell. A new kind of fear gripped her and she rushed over to the edge to peek over to see if the bobcat had broken its neck, or its back, or a leg, and felt sick thinking about the litter of kittens. But it had gotten to its feet, and was pacing back and forth while growling up at them. She heaved a sigh of relief, backed from the edge, and sat down.

The Doctor sat beside her as she pulled her boot off to look at the damage. "What happened?"

She struggled to catch her breath enough to speak. "I checked the walk-in closet of a house, and she was in there nursing a litter of kittens."

The Doctor frowned. "Late in the season for her to be having a litter."

"I don't think she cares," Molly replied. Yeah, the sole of her boot was shredded. She'd been lucky the cat had been low enough to miss her foot. Walking was going to be even more of a challenge now. "I bet she's going to be trying to find a way up for a while. Mama cats don't take too kindly to strangers near their babies."

The Doctor nodded in agreement and glanced around them, and Molly did the same. No nearby roofs or trees. It would have to climb straight up the rock. By the thudding sound, it was trying to jump up. "We'll be able to wait her out, and move on. I didn't get to every building, did you?"

Molly shook her head. "No, but I only had a couple left. You'd think if someone was living here there would be more evidence of them walking around. A hoof print, or something."

"I agree," replied the Doctor. "We'll just move on to the next town when we're free. Avoid her hearing us and coming after us again."

Molly pulled her boot back on. "Actually, can we head back to the TARDIS, and just move her a bit closer to the next one? This shoe is going to be hell to hike in."

The Doctor peeked over at the sole of her shoe. "Ouch. Fortunate it wasn't your foot." Molly nodded in agreement before he continued, "Yes, we can head back. I know we could have taken the TARDIS to each town, but I wanted to be able to look through the forest itself."

Molly shrugged. "The hike's pretty, too. I don't mind." She pulled the laces on the boot tight. "So should we just go back the way we came?"

"We can take a more direct route; the TARDIS is right over-" He stopped speaking suddenly. Molly looked over at him and followed his pointed finger off to the distance. Out a few miles in that direction, she saw it.

She pressed her lips together a moment before she said, "You mean in the direction of the giant cloud of smoke?"

"Er. Yes."

She sighed heavily through her nose, trying to control whatever it was she was feeling that felt hot. Frustration? Anger? Fury at the fates? "We didn't do that, did we?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. That must have been burning for a while now."

She decided not to mention that this was something he probably should have checked before they arrived. He didn't travel like that. "So…is the TARDIS exactly under that cloud?"

"Uh…" the Doctor quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out the sonic. He opened it and checked…whatever it was he checked when he was looking for information. She wasn't sure how it worked. "No. The HADs got it out of there."

"Do we know where it is?"

"…not yet."

Molly sighed and fell back. She stretched her arms over her head and stared at the sky a moment. "It's gonna send a signal to you at some point, right? Like in Cold War?"

"Cold War?"

"You, Clara, Russian submarine."

"Oh! Yes."

"You've fixed the HADs since then, right? It's not like, on the other side of the world, is it?"

The Doctor hesitated. "I meant to get to it."

Molly looked over to where the Doctor sat. "Come here."

"Why?"

She reached an arm out towards him. "Because you're too far away for me to hit."

The Doctor looked chastised, yet insolent, but still he leaned back and laid down beside her. She gently tapped him on the shoulder. He was quiet for a moment. "That was nice of you. Clara would have hit me harder. And Amy. And Donna. And Ace. And…all of them."

"I'm tired," was Molly's excuse, though really, she didn't think he deserved too hard a hit. He was stranded in a wildfire now, too.

They listened together for a while as the bobcat continued to circle the house and make attempts to get up. It made Molly a little nervous, but if there was still danger, the Doctor would likely be on alert.

"So, something I've been meaning to ask you," Molly said, finally.

"Yes?"

She turned her head to look at him, uncertain how to approach the subject. "How long has it been since Christmas?" The direct approach was usually her go-to.

The Doctor's eyes drifted across the sky for a moment. He looked to be counting. "I don't know. I think maybe ninety years? A hundred and twenty? A hundred and fifty? No, not a hundred and fifty. Can't be a hundred and fifty. Probably closer to a hundred. Yes, that seems about right. A hundred years or so."

Molly's eyes widened, and she turned to look at the sky again so he wouldn't see her surprise. She hadn't expected it to have been so long. She supposed that wasn't very long to the Doctor, but still. "We've been traveling for a little while now. I know the TARDIS is a time machine and all, but aren't you due to meet Clara by now? You could drop me off somewhere for a bit. You must miss her."

There was a long moment of almost-silence, save for the sound of the cat's claws on the stone and birds in the distance. She wondered if she'd crossed some sort of line, but she couldn't figure out what that line might have been. Did he want to keep her entirely separate from Clara? Why?

"Yes," he said, finally. "I do miss Clara. I miss all of them." He paused another moment. "We don't travel together anymore."

Molly felt an ache in her heart for him. Of all his companions that she'd seen, she really thought the two of them had the best chemistry. Not just romantically – although, it occurred to her, that might have been part of her reasoning to be certain she didn't develop feelings for him, because clearly, they had feelings for each other – but the way they worked together. It had been beautiful. And he missed her.

Of course he did. He missed all of them.

She didn't want to ask. It was none of her business. But, again, she found the direct approach her go-to, and her mouth ran away with her. "What happened?" She took another quick breath and was able to add, "If you want to talk about it."

"Nothing, really," he replied, his voice soft. "For her, it had been minutes, hours. For me, it was a thousand years. My lifetime, all over again. Things had changed. The way I felt about…" The sentence drifted off and the implication of it hung in the air for a moment. "Anyway, things had changed. I still wanted to…you know, travel with her. But she wanted me to promise I wouldn't leave her behind or send her away for her own good again. And I…you know. I lie. I could have lied. But I didn't want to lie to her about it, I couldn't break her heart that way again. And I couldn't promise her. She wasn't sure if she could travel with me anymore, knowing I might do it again. So I dropped her off. She asked me to check in, every few months for a few years, to see if she'd change her mind. For her a few months, anyway, for me a few minutes. Eventually she asked me to stop." He turned his head towards her and added quickly, "We're still friends. We still talked. She asked me to come round for Christmas. I did, for a while. Sometimes the same Christmas twice, accidentally," he seemed for a moment to wince at an embarrassing memory. "But it's done now. Clara is happily settled, teaching, married, kids. I like her kids. She should have kids. But I don't see her anymore."

Molly waited a moment before speaking, to process the story, to let him have a moment to remember. It was, maybe, one of the happier goodbyes to his companions. But still, so sad. It was hard, sometimes, to remember that everything she'd seen on television had been real. Had this story played out on the screen, she'd have cried. Now she didn't have a right to it. It wasn't her story.

"I'm sorry I asked," she said softly. "It wasn't my place."

"It's alright," he assured her. "You're just asking about someone I used to know. Like friends do."

Molly gave a little smile. That was still a nice thought. Friends. "Have you met anyone else since?"

"Well…I met Molly Quinn."

She gave a small laugh. "You know what I mean."

"No," he replied, faster than she would have thought he would. "No, I've been traveling alone. I didn't want to…" he paused a moment. 'Lose anyone else', were the words she thought sat on his lips. "I've been traveling alone."

Molly considered a moment, that she didn't need to say every thought that came into her head. But no, she really did. "You're not supposed to do that."

"What are you, my mother?" But his tone was light-hearted.

She elbowed him in the side, as lightly as when she'd swatted him on the shoulder. "Everyone tells you that. I figure it's my turn now."

"Oh, I was fine."

"Were you?" Maybe if she whispered it, it would be less invasive, she decided.

"I'm always fine."

"No, you're not," she replied.

"No, I'm not," he admitted, and then sat up. "I was probably about as fine as you were, changing your identity and running to England."

It was a fair enough comment. Molly sat up, too. "So…not fine at all, in other words."

The Doctor was silent. "No," he finally confessed, and turned to her with familiar big, sad eyes. "Not fine at all, in other words."

She gave him a sad smile. The lonely god. She was no goddess – Phoebe, Heather, Olivia, Eleanor, Nina, Ivy, Xyla; focus, stay here, don't slip back, not here, not now, not with him - but the loneliness she understood.

Molly turned back to the ghost town. She saw the bobcat slinking away. And then her eyes went to the smoke. "If the fire gets too close to this ghost town, do you think we can come back in the TARDIS and try to save the babies?"

She felt his eyes on her a moment before he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Yeah. We can try."