Author's Note: There is a CW at the bottom of the chapter.
Emerald Green
Chapter Sixteen
Wildfire
Molly wrapped her arms a little tighter around the Doctor's neck, trying to hold on while also trying not to choke him.
She failed. "Molly. Air." The Doctor made a sound like he was legitimately choking, so she decided to loosen her grip.
"Sorry."
She held his backpack on her back, and he carried her on his. They only did it for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, but those ten or fifteen minutes were a relief. Not only was it difficult to walk with a shredded boot, but blisters were forming all along wherever the boots were tight around her skin. Her backpack had been abandoned; the bobcat, it turned out, had gone to investigate it, and had likely smelled the food at the way it clawed at the fabric. She was in for a surprise when she found it could crawl inside, but the Doctor and Molly decided it wasn't worth staying to watch. At least they'd managed to grab the detector on their way out, and the Doctor continued to hold it out in front of him.
The Doctor let her slip to the ground a few moments later.
"Okay," he said breathlessly. "Break."
Molly nodded in agreement and let the backpack slide off her shoulders the way she'd slid off of his, then took a seat. "How much further to the next location?"
The Doctor looked around, then set the detector aside and pulled out the sonic. After a quick scan he said, "Maybe another hour or so."
"We should probably think about camping out there. It's safer than the middle of the woods, maybe, and the sun is probably going to be going in down in another…" She looked up at the sun, immediately regretted it, and said as she rubbed her eyes, "Three hours-ish."
"I'd like to get a little further out. I'm not worried about the fire, but I'd like to stay out of the way of the smoke, just in case."
Molly nodded as she stretched her legs out in front of her. What she would prefer was to leave the Pine Barrens and not have to worry about burning to death at all, but they'd need the TARDIS for that, probably. She hoped it was nearby and not in Australia or something. "Should I be worried at all?"
"Of course not." He paused. "Well, not of the fire. Wild animals fleeing the fire…"
She blinked a few times before saying, "Rattlesnakes and bobcats and bears, oh my?"
"I should think so."
Molly groaned, lowering her head to her knees. "Are we going to have a single trip where we don't maybe die?"
"Hey, it happens!" the Doctor objected as he took a seat across from her. "…sometimes."
She glanced up as he opened the backpack. "Any anti-bear spray in there?"
He peeked inside. "I have some spray sunscreen. D'you suppose that would work?" In response, Molly lowered her head to her knees again. "Oh, we'll be fine."
"You mean 'probably'?"
"I probably do, yes."
Molly sighed and sat up again. "The Doctor lies."
He grinned. "And I'll never tell you when."
"At least I know you well enough to start looking for tells," she responded, shrugging.
His smile faltered. "You really do know too much."
She laughed, and shook her head, but a thought did occur to her. "My show didn't actually say any of the major things about me, about what happened when I was thirteen, about the names. What did it say? What do you actually know about me?"
The Doctor looked at her curiously. "You didn't want to know before. Are you sure you want to know now?"
Molly stretched her arms over her head as she considered. "Tell me some things. I'll tell you if it's too much."
"Alright," replied the Doctor. He leaned back and held himself up with his hands behind him, looking up at the sky as he searched his memory. "Well, it did open with police sirens when you were thirteen, and you sitting in the back of a police car, watching the rain on the windows. It showed you going to your first foster home, and throughout the series had flashbacks to various other ones." He hesitated. She knew why. There must have been scenes that would be difficult for her to hear. But she wanted to know how well he knew her. Needed to know.
He continued. "It showed the reason the first foster home decided you weren't…a good fit." She was quiet and strange and her flashbacks were frequent and intense. They didn't know how to handle a crazy girl. She didn't blame them. The only time she was remotely stable was when she was in front of the television watching Doctor Who, because it anchored her. Most of the rest of the time she was just staring into space or screaming. Some of the time, without meaning to, she'd hurt herself, or them.
"And why the second one did." The mother walked into her room without knocking and caught her kissing a girl. They'd wanted to send her to conversion camp, but her case worker took her out instead. "And…and some of what had happened at the third." That was the abusive one. They'd had another foster kid, ironically named Foster, and he'd warned her to keep her mouth shut around the adults unless being directly spoken to. The few times she'd mouthed off she'd ended up with a split lip, and a threat of more pain if she tried to tell her case worker. Foster was the one who'd been brave enough to call his case worker at school, who called hers. "…are you still okay?"
Molly nodded. These weren't the best memories, but they weren't her worst. "I'm okay. I got through all that okay." Maybe not okay okay, but while they seemed horrific to some people, for her they were merely things that had happened. It was just her life. "You can keep going."
He leaned forward again, brushed the dirt off his hands and onto the backpack. He reached in and tossed her a water bottle before continuing. "There were a few other foster homes, but there weren't many details of them, except the one you spoke about with Jack." The others had been fine, really. She'd been lucky and never ended up in one that was overcrowded, never ended up abused again, or neglected. To their credit, despite her reputation and the town's general dislike of her, they'd still tried to support her. She'd been the problem - skipping school, staying out all night, sneaking marijuana into the house, refusing to help with chores or cooking, shoplifting, getting into fights, blaring Doctor Who the few nights she did stay in so no one else could sleep. Skipping from home to home at that point had been her fault. No one could control her, not even herself.
The Doctor continued. "It showed a little of you living with your aunt and cousin. Enough for everyone to be annoyed whenever they appeared in a scene." Molly snorted at that one. She was also annoyed whenever they appeared in her life. "The publication of your book was one of the major flashbacks. It never gave details of what was in it, but it showed that you regretted it when it became a bestseller. That you'd been forced to change your identity. Mostly, though, it was about your life in New York City. Those adventures, forcing a negotiation with companies and lawyers and doctors for various reasons, helping people who needed shelter or food or healthcare. My favorite episode was when you went on that volunteer mission, and found out some of the higher-ups were stealing funds, and got them to accidentally confess through sheer annoyance. A couple of the people you briefly dated, but mostly your relationship with James-"
"Ohhh," Molly breathed. "We don't need to talk about James." James had been a messy relationship, and she'd done things in it she wasn't proud of. She was too desperate to keep him (and his penthouse, as she was verging on homelessness), and had resorted to emotional manipulation and even a little stalking. James had done the same sort of things, not that it was any excuse for her own behavior. It was toxic for both of them, and it didn't end pretty, and she didn't like the idea that the Doctor had seen that part of her. In this case, she really wasn't that person anymore. "We can stop. I get the idea. You basically know everything except what kicked it all off."
The Doctor's face was a little apologetic. "And what happened after you were shot. Where your father is. And a lot of the smaller details, the things that make a person a person." His voice had shifted from apologetic to something more earnest. She thought he wanted her to believe that she still had some things to herself. It was kind.
But untrue. "My favorite flowers, probably my favorite color, the fact that I tend to just throw clothes and keys and books in the general direction of where they belong and hope for the best. Probably my favorite snack, too, though maybe not. It didn't show my Doctor Who obses-" Back up, back up, back up. "Uh, that I watched it a lot."
Sheepishly, the Doctor reached into his backpack and tossed her a little bag. She looked at it and smiled. Sour gummy worms. So, it had shown her favorite snack. She ripped the bag open as the Doctor said, "We're only just getting to know each other as real people. The things that make us laugh. The things we enjoy talking about. The unremarkable things we do with our time, when we're not trying to save the world in our own ways. Our little facial expressions and gestures."
She decided it wasn't wise to mention that she had already memorized his every facial expression and gesture while watching the show, and had since compared Matt Smith's interpretation to the real Doctor, and found they matched up almost exactly. It might have come off a little creepy. A little James-era stalker-y. But, "You have a point." These were things she'd thought of before, but she'd thought of them in terms of her knowing him, not the other way around. Her stomach squirmed again at the thought of people knowing her so well – of the Doctor knowing her so well – without her ever having told them a thing. She figured a gummy worm would settle it and stuck one in her mouth. When she finished it, she took another out of the bag. "Catch." She held it up to warn him, and then tossed it in the general direction of his mouth.
But she had bad aim and it landed in his eye. "Ow," he commented, rubbing his eye, and tossing the candy that had fallen to the lap aside. "Try again."
The next one was another miss, but he caught the third. She gave him a little applause and he took a fake bow.
There were plenty of little things to learn, Molly decided. And it was fun along the way. Even with the rattlesnakes and bobcats and bears.
She decided not to wonder just how much longer she was going to have to get to know him personally.
They arrived in the ghost town just as the light was beginning to turn less the bright yellow of an afternoon summer sun, and more the white of an autumn evening. They decided to search the town together, in case they came across another bobcat, or a bear. Molly watched the ground constantly for snakes. She also watched the sky. It seemed to her the smoke was getting closer, not further away, but the Doctor didn't mention it, and she trusted his eyes over hers.
This one was smaller, mostly a few collapsed walls or arches, a handful of buildings. Molly could sense the Doctor's disappointment as time went on, and there were no traces of an Osain.
"There's still a few more ghost towns to check for the Jersey Devil, right?" She was trying to reassure him.
"It's an Osain," the Doctor corrected, though his heart didn't seem to be in it. "Yeah, there are a few more."
"And then we could get a few dozen miles between us and the fire and just look around the forest. We have all the time in the world. I mean, we still need to know where the TARDIS is. If the TARDIS is in the Pine Barrens, maybe the Jersey Devil will recognize non-Earth technology and will wait by it."
"It's an Osain. And you're right. We have some time," he replied, giving her a little smile. She wasn't sure if he believed her, but he seemed to appreciate her attempt.
She grabbed his arm and squeezed gently. "It's only been one day of searching. We can't give up yet."
His smile brightened a little. "Who said anything about giving up?"
"That's the spirit," she said, grinning. It was getting cooler, so she untied the flannel and pulled it on. "Is the next one close enough for us to get there before sunset?"
The Doctor looked up at the sky and shook his head. "No. You're right, we should probably just stay here for the night."
Something in his tone made her suspect there was something he wasn't telling her. Whatever it was, though, it couldn't be worse than the encroaching wildfire and the possible stampede of wild animals. And if he was lying, there was probably a good reason. And maybe he wasn't lying at all.
"Should we pick a couple buildings and then build a fire? Or…maybe not a fire." Still, she looked around for a potential place to sleep and a place that might be safe to build a fire.
"We should probably stay in the same building. Safer to get away, if an animal wanders in, and besides, we only have the one tent now," he replied. "I think we can start a fire safely enough. Plenty of rocks, plenty of dirt. It'll keep us warmer."
Molly nodded and peeked inside the nearest building. It was small, with one room. Harder for any wild animals to shelter in without them noticing, and just in case a bobcat was outside one door, there was another on the other side. There was also space for a fire, and very little roof left, so smoke could vent out. "How about here?"
The Doctor looked inside and stepped in. "Perfect. I'll set up the tent. You find some more firewood."
Molly winced. "What about bears?"
"You're very concerned about bears."
"I'm scare-"
"Scared of bears, yep," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Scared of firewood, too?"
"I will, absolutely, hit you again."
The Doctor slipped the backpack off and reached inside. "Okay. I'll go look for firewood, and you start digging a hole for the pit."
She winced again. "What if the bear comes in here?"
"First, importantly, I want to point out that this is a theoretical bear," he replied. "Not a real bear. A potential one. An imaginary bear, if you will."
"I repeat: will hit."
"Second," he went on as though she hadn't threatened him with physical violence, "If a bear is going to wander by, it will happen regardless of if you're collecting firewood or digging a hole. If one shows up, we'll leave."
"And walking away from a bear is the best plan you have?"
"Yep."
Molly sighed. "Okay. I'll get some firewood, you put up the tent. But if I get eaten by a bear, I'm going to haunt you for the rest of your life. We both know how potentially long that is. And I'll sing 'The Song That Doesn't End' the entire time, until you utterly lose your mind."
"That's hurtful."
"So is getting eaten by a bear."
"Noted. Don't get eaten."
"Well, now you've dissuaded me," she said, and headed back out.
It was a pretty ghost town. She'd always loved looking at old things, imagining their history. Moss covered brick. Bits of stone fallen here and there. Historical buildings even had a certain smell she loved. She wasn't a history buff at all, but she enjoyed things with a past.
Maybe that's partially why she'd liked the Doctor so much.
Molly headed towards where the trees were thickest, picking up a branch here, a branch there. She stuck some leaves in her pocket, in case they worked as a starter. She didn't really know anything about building a fire. After gathering a few more sticks, she turned to head down a different direction, just to get a better feel of where everything was in the ghost town.
She bent down to pick up a longer stick she thought they might be able to break into pieces, and all the branches came tumbling out of her arms. She groaned, looked around to be certain there were no snakes hidden among the debris of nature, then bent down to pile them up again. Her first attempt to pick them up failed, with them spilling out of her arms once more. It was on the second attempt she saw it again: the flash of white out of the corner of her eye.
The branches fell from her arms for the third time, and she stood quickly to look around. Nothing. Not a deer, not a rabbit, no new branches on trees.
"That's it. This time I'm doing something," she muttered to herself, then turned and ran back to the little house she and the Doctor had claimed.
The Doctor looked up and saw her distress. "Don't tell me there's actually a bear out there."
"Give me the thingy."
"Thingy?"
"The 'ding' thingy."
He seemed offended. "It's not a 'thingy', it's advanced-"
Molly growled. "Would you just give it to me?!"
The Doctor stood and went to the backpack, and as he pulled it out asked, "What's wrong? Did you see it?"
"No, it's not the Jersey Devil-"
"Osain."
"I know, I say that to irritate you," Molly said, waving her hand dismissively. "It's the white thing again. I think it's following us."
The Doctor seemed remarkably unconcerned. "I told you, sometimes there are deer that-"
"That follow people for miles?" She walked up and grabbed the detector from his hands. "I'm going to go check it out. If it doesn't go 'ding', fine, it's nothing. But what if it does? Could an Osain have albinism?"
The Doctor frowned. "I hadn't considered that." He seized the detector from her. "Lead the way."
Molly took off to where she had left the firewood, the Doctor trailing behind her. She spun around a few times until she spotted the tree she'd thought she'd seen it disappear behind. "That way," she said, pointing.
The Doctor held the device up and waved it back and forth as he walked towards the tree. She held her breath, and she thought she could see him holding his breath, too. It seemed each step echoed with the crack of a stick or the shifting of a rock. He moved around the tree, and then around a few in the other direction. No sound came from the device. He went a little further in, and still, nothing.
He turned back to her, a little disappointment on his face. "There doesn't seem to be anything here but usual Earth wildlife."
She sighed the breath out. "Sorry. I could have sworn I saw something."
"It's alright, don't worry about it," he said, walking up to her. He patted her on the shoulder a few times before walking by. "It's better to have hope."
Ever the optimist. One of her favorite things about him. She wanted to be like that so very much.
She picked the branches back up and they set up their camp properly, with the tent and a little fire, just big enough to heat a pan for more pancakes. When Molly asked if he'd brought anything else, he'd just grumbled something about it being last minute.
They sat outside on a fallen pillar of some kind and watched as the sky turned a brilliant orange. Molly breathed the fresh air into her lungs that was perfumed with pine and maple syrup. It felt oddly like being home, though home had never smelled anything like this.
"Question for you," she said.
"Answer for you," the Doctor replied past the pancakes in his mouth.
She speared a few pieces of her pancakes onto her fork. "Do you think time is still moving ahead in my universe? I mean, I know it isn't frozen or anything, but when I go back, will I go back to just after I disappeared, or will as much time pass there as time is passing for me here?"
The Doctor didn't reply immediately. She put the pancakes in her mouth and turned to watch him chew, though she could have sworn he was chewing slower than he had before. There was a hesitance around his eyes, a tenseness in his shoulders she hadn't noticed before. She prepared for him to lie to spare her knowing that her world had moved on without her.
He swallowed, and kept his eyes on the sunset. "I don't know, really," he said. "It depends on the path the TARDIS finds. It may be seconds after you left. It may be weeks. It may be…"
Molly waited, and when he didn't finish the sentence, she finished it for him. "Years."
He looked over at her, some amount of pity in his eyes. "Yes. It could be years."
She took a deep breath, pursed her lips together, and nodded. She looked back at her plate, but found she wasn't hungry anymore. She gestured for him to bring his plate closer and shifted her pancakes onto his. "I thought maybe…" she paused to clear her throat. She hated being a crybaby. She was supposed to be strong. "I thought that might be the case. I'd go missing. Not really anyone to look for me but the hotel staff. They'd figure out who I really am through the papers under the mattress. Maybe my aunt would ask the police to keep an eye out, but…" And that was it. Her aunt would go through the motions of caring. Her cousin would, too. Maybe Isla would notice she was gone when Molly never called again. The job she'd had lined up would shrug their shoulders. But that was it. That was all she had anymore. Her disappearance would barely be noticed at all. "It's alright. If that's the case, I'll just make another identity. I've done it before; it couldn't be too difficult to do it again. At least everyone would think I'm probably dead and I'll never have to deal with a call from Aiden or anyone shooting me because of the book again."
Molly set her plate aside. She kissed him on the cheek as she stood, as though it was already second nature. Her little way of saying she forgave him if he couldn't get her back until years after she'd disappeared. "I'm tired and my feet hurt," she said. "I'm going to go get some sleep."
The Doctor seemed to have lost interest in the pancakes, and set his own plate aside. "Sleep well." His voice sounded tired. She wondered how long it had been since he'd slept. Time Lords could go months without sleeping and still only need an hour or less. Maybe it'd been long enough he needed a little nap.
She patted him on the shoulder before she went back into the tent, took off her shoes and socks, and slipped back into the sleeping bag. The flannel would help keep her warm through the cold night. Sleeping would probably be even more difficult than the night before, she thought, but she was so thoroughly exhausted she was asleep the moment she closed her eyes.
It felt like a minute later that the tent door opened and the Doctor came in, but glancing back at him, the light was gone. It must have been enough time for the sun to set, at least.
"Mmmf?" was the best she could ask as she looked sleepily at him.
He stretched out on the ground beside her. "I might just…doze for a minute."
Probably a literal minute, she thought, but closed her eyes again.
Another perhaps-minute later, she woke to the high-pitched screaming they'd heard the night before. She gasped and sat up just as the Doctor did the same beside her. It was immediately apparent that it hadn't been a minute. It had been long enough for something flickering to surround them with light.
The Doctor reached around and tore at the zipper of her sleeping bag and threw it open. "The fire!" he shouted. "We need to get out, now."
There should have been a wave of panic, but instead she felt remarkably calm and clear-headed. That was what scared her most. She was only ever this focused in an emergency.
Molly sat up and got to her knees while the Doctor tugged the zipper of the tent open, and looked out. The fire hadn't invaded the house yet, but it was licking the inside of the door to their right. Smoke filled the room so thick she couldn't see the other side of the room, and she immediately started coughing. The Doctor shrugged his waistcoat off and threw it to her.
"Hold that over your nose and mouth!"
"What about-" she paused, and coughed into the fabric. "What about you?"
"I'll be okay," he said. "My lungs can hold oxygen longer than yours. I just won't be able to talk for a few minutes."
She nodded as he took a deep breath, and followed him as he stepped out of the tent, wishing desperately there was time to put on her boots, as in shambles as they were, but she grabbed the backpack he'd stored inside and threw it over her shoulder. He grabbed her hand, and they ran out the left door. A loud growl greeted them, and they jumped backwards, Molly's heart in her throat. A coyote sped by them with a glare. Molly turned her head back and she saw the fire that was already consuming their tent dance in her eyes. The heat was choking her as much as the smoke was, the burning on her skin almost unbearable.
The fire behind them. A horde of scared wild animals in front of them. Molly's calm increased as she felt death near.
But the Doctor squeezed her hand, and pulled her out behind him. They raced forward until they saw flames jumping in front of them, and then turned to follow the path the coyote had taken. Sparks exploded from where the fire ate at the wooden houses, but she didn't have a free hand to put them out as they burned through the flannel. If she let go of the Doctor's hand, he would have to slow down to her pace. Better to have little burns and live, if they could.
They were soon met with another wall of flames, and Molly felt sick as she heard the cries of some animal inside burning. The Doctor darted to the left and picked up speed, but now she felt like she was going to suffocate between the heat and the heavy fabric. All she wanted to do was lower the coat and take a deep breath of air, but she knew the smoke would burn her from her mouth straight down her throat and into her lungs. She couldn't afford to hurt her lungs now, but the faster they went, the dizzier she became.
Finally, the Doctor seemed to have found a path that led into the darker woods. She felt mice dart across her bare feet as their steps slowed, which only brought attention to the little wounds at the bottom of her feet, the bursting blisters. They were only maybe twenty feet from the fire when her lungs gave out, and her vision went dark as she fell.
She woke seconds later to the Doctor pulling her up by a grip under her arms. "Get on my back!" he gasped. He turned and she threw the jacket over his shoulder and hopped up. As he lifted her, she buried her face in the jacket and covered his mouth and nose with the sleeve. She held on tight around his chest with the other arm as he started running, but he immediately stopped dead again and she felt she would slip off by the force of it.
At first, she thought it was a large, dark shadow shifting in front of them, but the longer she stared the more she saw the orange reflecting off the dark fur, and the odd circular shape began to shift into a bear. She screamed into the jacket as the Doctor backed away a few steps.
The bear saw them. All they could do was hope it was more afraid of the fire than it was hungry or angry with them, or that the fear made it violent.
It approached them, one large, clawed paw after another, its struggled breathing getting louder and louder as it got closer and closer.
The Doctor slipped his mouth out from under the sleeve. "You have to go away now! You have to get away from the fire! Bad fire! Bad, ouchy fire!"
Molly watched as the bear hesitated. "Do you speak bear?"
"Of course not, no one speaks bear, bears don't have a language," the Doctor said. "But just in case I'm completely wrong…" He took a tentative step forward and shouted again, "Fire bad! Running away good! Go on! Go!"
The bear started and Molly almost swore it growled. This was it. It was going to charge at them, kill them, or knock them into the flames.
But then it took a few steps back, and with a grunt, turned and began to run. Molly felt the wave of relief like a cooling blanket, until the heat blisters on her legs started to ache, along with her lungs. As she coughed, she covered the Doctor's mouth again. He waited a moment, and then took off in the same direction the bear had gone, before turning right again.
As the light slowly dimmed, the Doctor slowed. She pushed against his shoulders to tell him to let her down. He set her down more carefully than he had before – perhaps mindful of her bare feet – and Molly took the coat away to take a few breaths. The air wasn't entirely clear here, but it was better than it had been.
They both took a moment to catch their breaths, but as Molly was still wincing from the oxygen deprivation headache, she saw a flash of white. "Doctor," she choked, and pointed in its direction. He looked at her, and then followed her pointed finger. They could both see it clearly now: an unusually tall stag, with enormous, intricate antlers, and all white from the tip of them to the hooves on the ground.
"Okay," he said steadily. "I see it this time."
It made a short screeching sound, and Molly realized that this is what the screaming had been. The screams that first night, when they hadn't known about the wildfire yet. It had been warning them.
She looked around. Fire to the right, and probably ahead. Wild animals to the left, behind, and ahead. Likely more bears, and snakes we won't be able to see. White stag that's warned us of danger. "We need to follow it," she decided.
The Doctor took out the screwdriver, scanned, and then slammed it against his palm a few times, groaning, "Come on, come on!"
"What is it?"
"The TARDIS still hasn't told me where it is!"
Molly gestured back to the white stag. "We really need to follow it." When the Doctor looked a little hesitant, she continued, "You said it yourself. Stories of a white stag that helps people. It warned us about the fire. I think it'll get us out of here."
He looked back at the stag. "Ghost deer. Yeah, lets follow the ghost deer." She wasn't sure if the note in his voice was sarcasm or excitement, but he helped her back up onto his back, and ran towards the deer. It took off, and Molly hoped it really was a ghost deer leading them to safety, and not an albino deer they'd spooked that wasn't leading them anywhere at all.
They ran after it, and the forest grew darker as they moved away from the fire and the smoke. When it got too far ahead, the stag would pause and look back at them. Sometimes it would bolt off in an entirely different direction. Molly began to despair that it really was just a deer, until far ahead of them, it darted right, and she looked left to see another coyote wandering too close to them.
Molly lost track of time as they followed, and felt guilty when the Doctor's breath grew labored, but she wasn't sure what else they could do. She'd move at a snail's pace across the forest debris in her bare and blistered feet. This wasn't like walking down New York City sidewalks.
Flickering light appeared up ahead, and Molly's heart raced. They were headed back into the fire. Why would something trying to help them lead them back in?
"Aha!" the Doctor screamed so suddenly, she screamed in response. She saw the corner of his eye wince at the loud sound directly in his ear.
"What is it?" she whispered, hoping not to make his ear ache any further.
"Look ahead, slightly to the left!"
Molly narrowed her eyes, and for a moment all she saw was trees and darkness. But then, as they approached, there it was: a flash of blue, partially surrounded by flames.
"Oh, thank the universe!" Molly shouted, now heedless of the Doctor's ear. "She didn't go to Australia!"
The Doctor ran to the door and set Molly down, and shoved the door open. Molly turned, but couldn't see the stag anywhere. She stepped inside and shut the door. "Do you think the stag will be alright?"
"If it's a ghost stag, I think it'll be fine," replied the Doctor as he ran to the console. "If not, it's clearly clever enough to lead us here, so it'll be clever enough to get away from the fire."
Molly jogged up to join him and dropped the backpack at her feet. She gripped the edge of the console, and resisted the temptation to kiss it in gratitude. But the console behind her suddenly shot sparks, and Molly jumped. "What's happening?"
The Doctor moved around, and pushed her back away from the center console as he flipped switches he needed. "She's overheating! The fire is too close. I can't get her engines going!"
"Oh. Good. That's great," replied Molly dryly. They'd escaped the fire, only to be trapped in it again.
The Doctor turned and ran to the other side, doing something with a side console as Molly held her breath. What would happen if the TARDIS started to burn? Could she burn? More sparks exploded along with a few flames and Molly hit the ground to get away from them. Clearly, if the TARDIS couldn't burn, there would still be consequences. Yet another layer of fire.
It was as she started to get back to her feet that she heard it. Ding. Ding. Ding. The sound was muffled by the fabric of the backpack. She hurriedly opened it, reached inside, deep, deep inside, and grabbed what she hoped was the handle of the detector. She pulled it out, and the dinging got louder.
"Doctor!" she shouted, jumping to her feet. "It's going ding!"
She saw him peek up from the other side, and then rush to the monitor. She leaned over to look into it, and at first saw nothing but the flames approaching them. But the trees began to take shape, and then – there it was. A creature with goat-like legs, a human though fur-covered torso, a deer-like head with goat horns, and great bat-like wings.
"It's there!" the Doctor shouted. "It's right there!" But then he dropped to his knees, opened a panel, and began ripping wires out.
Molly knelt to watch him. "What are you doing?!"
"I'm fixing the HADs!"
"What?!"
"I can't have the TARDIS disappearing again while I'm trying to get the Jersey Devil onboard!"
"It's an Osain!"
The Doctor gave a frustrated yell and gave one more yank to the wires. In half a second he was back on his feet and running for the door. He swung it open, and then jumped back as smoke began to invade the TARDIS. She saw him cover his mouth with a corner of his shirt, and then step out of the TARDIS. She moved closer, but the smoke grew thicker and heavier and she was forced to move back as her lungs began to burn.
"It's okay!" she heard the Doctor shout. "I'm a Time Lord! I'm one of the good ones! Let me help you get back home!" Then she heard his footsteps moving away.
She waited with baited breath to see if the Osain would trust them or not. The seconds stretched on and she wondered if the fire would meet the door of the TARDIS before the Doctor would come back. She started to wonder: could she get a bucket of water and dump it over her and go out after him? Was there a handkerchief she could tie around her nose and mouth? Maybe she could use a rope tied to the door to lead them back?
But just as she started to move towards the stairs down to find something – anything – that could help, the Doctor burst back through the door, and behind him she heard hooves clicking on the metal floor. The Doctor snapped his fingers and the door closed, and he ran back to the console. "Just give me a moment! I'll find a way to get us out of here!"
Molly stared at the Osain, unable to help it while something so unearthly was in front of her. "I can't believe you were right," she mentioned softly to the Doctor.
"I am, sometimes," he responded distractedly. A moment later, and the tell-tale shaking of the TARDIS moving began. She'd never been more grateful to be in space.
The TARDIS, she realized, had refused to leave until the Osain was rescued.
The Doctor peered over the console at the Osain. "You'll be home in a minute. I've tried to get you back not long after you disappeared, but I may be off by a few months. Or years. Just prepare yourself."
The Osain nodded. "Thank you," it said, it's voice seeming to almost have its own echo, a reverberation. "We crashed so long ago. The others died. I never thought to go home again."
"Just in time, too," Molly noted as she slipped her flannel off and began using it to put out the fire inside the TARDIS that still burned.
"Yes," the Osain agreed. It approached slowly, and turned to the Doctor. "A Time Lord?"
"Yeah," said the Doctor. "I know our species were once at odds with each other. I'm not one of the ones that wanted to control your planet; I stood against it."
The Osain didn't respond for a moment. "I thought Gallifrey was gone."
Now it was the Doctor's turn to be silent for a stretch of time. "…it is," he admitted. "Gallifrey and the Time Lords are gone. It's just me, now."
"It was just me, too, on this strange planet."
The Doctor looked up at the Osain with a small, but grim smile. It was a moment of strange comradery. "But now, it's time to go home." He gestured to the doors.
The Osain looked back at the doors, then turned back to Molly, then the Doctor. "How can I repay you?"
As Molly shook her head, the Doctor replied, "Just go, see your people, enjoy your planet. Be home."
The Osain made some expression that looked like it might be a smile, and without another word, turned and rushed out the doors, home at last. She followed and closed the doors behind him, catching a glimpse of the Osain's golden planet.
She turned back to the Doctor. His clothes were singed, and his face was covered in grey and black ash. She looked down and saw she was in much the same condition; there were holes burned into her top, and quite a few red marks on her arms from the sparks. Her hands were grey, and she assumed her face and hair had the same color covering them. Her flannel had been burned to pieces by the flames in the TARDIS. She walked to the Doctor's coat where she'd dropped it, and saw that it also had holes where the flames had licked at it. She hadn't fully realized how close they'd been to burning.
She held the coat out to the Doctor. "Sorry. You might need a new one."
"That's okay, I have plenty of backups," he said. He took it, but just flung it over the railing nearby. He then took to the controls to move the TARDIS. He probably didn't want anyone too curious about the rescuers of the lost Osain to wander in. At least, Molly didn't want that.
The TARDIS settled, likely somewhere in space. She set that fear aside for the moment. "You look pretty good in just the shirt and suspenders, anyway."
The Doctor grinned. "Oh, do I?" He took another breath, but didn't say anything. Molly tried to think of something flirtatiously teasing, but her mind was blank. They were both too exhausted to be witty. Instead, the Doctor knelt to begin looking through the wires he'd ripped out from the main console.
Molly stepped a little closer. "The kittens are dead, aren't they? And the mama?" Her vision went blurry, and she hated herself for crying again.
The Doctor paused, and looked up at her, before slowly standing. She knew the answer by his somber expression. After a moment, he stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. "Yes. Probably. I'm sorry. I know you wanted to save them." She felt him kiss the top of her head as she wrapped her arms around his middle. It felt nice, being held while she cried, even if the tears were few and falling silently. To be comforted while her heart ached. How was she ever going to go back to believing she could do everything alone?
She stepped back and gave him an appreciative smile, and patted him on the cheek. "Thanks. We got the Osain out. I'll focus on that." It was easier said than done as her mind wandered to the screams of the animal burning and applying it to the little kittens, but she forced the image of the Osain smiling in its place.
A beeping sound came from her pocket. With a frown, she reached in, and pulled out the Tamagotchi she'd forgotten all about. "Of course," she breathed. "It died." What a mockery of reality.
The Doctor patted her on the head, then knelt back down to keep working on the wires. "We'll need to spend a day or so just repairing her," he said, and Molly was grateful for the change in subject. "She took some heavy damage from overheating. Plus, I may have torn out more than just the HADs wires."
Molly sunk down to sit with crossed legs beside him. "One more thing."
He was still working on detangling the wires. "Yeah?"
"The White Stag," she began. "It tried to warn us of the fire, and the animals. It led us to the TARDIS. It couldn't have been an alien, because the detector never went 'ding'. And real ghosts seem unlikely, so…what was it?"
The Doctor glanced up at her through a curtain of his hair. "I suppose some things just…can't be explained."
CW: Animal death