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There’s a young woman peddling matchsticks on the corner of 7th and St Jack’s street, and Wilson does not know her name.
She has found herself a particularly interesting spot to sell her wares, as small and useless as they may be, in the front of an alleyway next to the cathedral and shop he often passes by when he’s being house called for one reason or another. People pass there frequently, especially on Sundays, and there’s always a busy bustle of people heading out and about during the months of autumn. You’d think it’d be good for business to have smack in the middle of the city, but hardly anyone gives her a glance. Wilson almost didn’t until he hears the sound of someone in distress. His instinct as a doctor pulls his attention over before he could even think about it.
She’s sitting in her usual spot, trying to sell off a handful of matchsticks to some wealthy looking bloke who’s spared the time to even look at her. He can’t hear them talking from across the street, but the man grows a wicked grin and says something to her as he runs fingers over her shoulder, and Wilson watches as the woman’s eyes goes wide and promptly slaps the intruding hand away, cursing what he supposes obscenities at him.
The man is less than impressed as he pulls a hand back, and Wilson’s heart drops when he see’s it whip across the woman’s face. She crumples to the ground, he can hear her hiss in pain (He found himself walking towards them as soon as he saw her fall, it’s only in his nature) and the stranger walks away without so much as a word, haughtiness in his step.
Wilson crouches down, asks if she’s alright, and reaches out a hand to help her up. The woman glares up him from her spot on the cobblestone with a mix of anger, hurt and confusion before softening at the hand outstretched to her, but she waves it away, picks up her belongings and attempts to set back up.
“I’m fine.” She says, as if this isn’t the first time this has happened. “Worry bout yourself, sir.”
Wilson hasn’t quite heard manners as curt as that before, (unless you count the patients complaining about pain and illness on his examination table) but it doesn’t quite phase him as he thought it would. He’s much more interested in the red mark that’s dawned itself across the woman’s cheek. There’s a cut, a small one, but it’s bleeding. Prone to infection with it open as it is. The man must have been wearing a ring.
“Your cheek is bleeding, Miss.” He points it out as if it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. The way she looks at him tells him that he knows it was a redundant statement. “Please, let me help.”
“Help? You want to help?” She raises a brow at him, taking her spot on the cobblestone ground and glaring up at him. There’s suspicion in her eyes, and he finds them a warm shade of amber. Hesitance, then the woman digs through her pockets (her dress is in shambles, just layers and layers of old clothing wrapped over each other) and pulls out a tiny box. “Buy some matches. That’ll help.”
Wilson stares at the offer before shaking his head. “I’m not in any need for them, Thank you.” He had enough for the furnace and fireplace at home, and he certainly didn’t need any for smoking; the practice was horrible for the lungs.
She rolls her eyes at him. “Then bugger off.”
Perhaps he should walk away, her attitude wasn’t welcoming and he’s sure that she’d accuse him of scaring away business. The blood on her cheek has dropped to her jawline, Wilson’s eyes narrow at the sight. “I’m a doctor. I saw what happened. Will you please let me take a look at your face?”
If she were a dog, he’s certain she would have snapped at him. “Don’t kid me. I ain’t got any money to pay ya, doc. In case ya haven’t noticed, I’m a bit down on my luck.” Gesturing to her little ‘shop’ for emphasis, the brunette gauges her reaction. She’s got half a sneer, half a smirk on her face. It’s completely distrustful of him. “I don’t want ya help anyways.”
Wilson’s glove hands tighten around the bag he’s holding, and he tilts his head. “If I buy a matchstick box, will you let me take a look?”
She blinks, taken aback. “…why?”
“Doctor’s duty.”
She furrows her brows. “Sounds superficial.”
The physician straightens his posture and places a hand over his chest. “Doctor’s duty, that’s all that it is. Gentleman’s honor.
She squints at him, briefly looking back out onto the crowd of passing people as the conversation pauses. Not a single soul has turned to notice them, not that they ever usually do with her, and while that’s usually bad for sells, she seems to relax that no one is really paying attention to the two of them. She turns back around and shuffles the tiny match box out. “I don’t know why you’d treat someone for free, but sure. Deal.”
It’s a scratch, probably not even that serious but Wilson finds her dramatic attitude about the whole exchange a bit amusing. Regardless, he asks her for the price and she tells him a couple of shillings, (a modest price, though he thinks she raised it a bit high with the guarantee of a sell) and hands her the money. He pockets the box she gives him quickly without so much as sparing it a second glance, and sets his medical bag to the ground to unzip and rummage through it. The woman stares at him with a mix of distrust and interest.
When he pulls out a bottle of alcohol and a clean rag, he can practically hear her hiss. “That’s gonna sting.”
“Yes, it will.” Wilson muses, thumbing the cloth over the opening of the bottle to rub a little of the alcohol on it. It has a pungent smell, but it’s efficient disinfectant. “Hold still please.”
The woman tenses up, and for the first time he’s noticed she has a lit matchstick in her hands. He sub-consciously moves the alcohol away from the flame as she puts it out with a pinch of her fingers after catching him eye it. There’s a nervousness about her now. “Do I have to?”
“It might get infected. Please, try not to move Miss.” Wilson offers. Her eyes dart from him to the rag, before turning her head and avoiding his gaze. He waits another moment to be doubly sure she is still before lightly dabbing the side of her face. The woman flinches, her nose scrunching up but no other sign of pain. “…You’re pretty weird.”
He wipes the blood off her skin, pinches the side of her face upwards and uses his free hand to shift through his bag again. “How so, Miss?”
Well, he did just pay a homeless street peddler to treat a simple scratch she has, he’s well aware of that. Still, he wasn’t going to dare ask for payment for something as simple and (somewhat) harmless as this. In this day and age, even the faintest of scratches could fester and prove damaging. Though, it doesn’t look too deep from what he can tell, and certainly doesn’t look like it’s going to scar.
The answer she provides however is none of what he was expecting. There’s a tiny twitch in the corner of her mouth. “Your eyeglass thing looks weird.”
Wilson frowns, finding the bandage he was looking for stashed away with other many medical supplies (he almost nicks himself on the scalpels and other tools he keeps in there, but with his gloves it’s hardly a problem) and holds it up to her cheek. “My monocle looks very nice, thank you. Hold still. We’re almost finished.”
The bandage sticks on neatly, and he pulls away as she raises a hand to pat the new feeling on her face. She mummers about it still stinging a little, but there’s less harshness in her voice, just soft, stating a fact. Wilson turns to gather his supplies and when he stands to look down again, he finds her staring at him. “Thanks, I guess.” She says. “Whoever you are.”
Wilson briefly considers taking out one of his business cards, but goes against the idea and settles for bringing out his hand instead. “Dr. Wilson P. Higgsbury, at your service.”
Eyes stare at his hands, dart back up to him, and the woman shuffles out another matchstick and sets it in the palm of his hand with a quaint, faint smile. “Nobody.”
The doctor hesitates before accepting the matchstick, placing it in his pocket, and he bids the strange woman good day.
He doesn’t turn back around to see her as he walks home, nor does he stop to say hello or exchange other pleasantries when he catches sight of her two days later. She like to change spots, he’s noticed, just as often as she likes to have a match lit as she tries to convince passerby's to purchase her little wares. But Wilson is a very, very busy man, and the season of influenza was coming up and he needed to be at the top of his game. He does not speak to her again.
He does, however, see her at the corner of the street a week later. The bandage is gone and there is no indication of there ever being a scratch there, and the doctor decides that it’s enough for him. She spots him through the crowd once, doesn’t smile nor wave, but tilts a little matchstick in his direction to acknowledge her recognition. He decides that is that, looks away, and makes his way to the next house call of the poor fool that drank pig fat oil in a drunken stupor.
That was the last week of autumn, and Winter has hit the city like a train.
There’s a winter storm going on at the moment, the winds weren’t particularly harsh but the cold was. If you’d put a cup of hot water out, it would freeze in a matter of minutes, and there have already been multiple cases of children brought to his office with a broken limb from playing in the snow, slipping and falling onto the icy roads. Broken legs and arms were a slap on the wrist, however, compared to the raging threat of pneumonia running rampet across the city.
But despite his work, Wilson still finds the moonlight casting over the snow pretty as he gazes out of his window, seated at his desk covered in papers and ink. The streets are barren, there’s no footsteps in the white, and the comfy heat of his fireplace was enough to keep him cozy.
It’s when he takes a sip of his tea does Wilson wonders how the matchstick girl is fairing.
He hasn’t thought about her in quite sometime, so the sudden presence of her in his mind is slightly startling. Through the glass of the window he can see the snow falling out onto the city, blanketing the streets in a thick white cover. There’s frost on his window seal, ice siccles dripping from the moisture coming down from his rooftop, and the doctor’s brows furrow at idea of anyone lasting through this hellish cold clad in nothing but rags and thread.
Survivability was little to none, especially in this weather. Even those poor and couldn’t afford basic household heating had a chance as long as they had shelter, but for someone out on the streets with only the income of peddling a common, almost redundant item, freezing was a guarantee. That is, if starvation didn’t get them first. But for a doctor of his status and class, this was really none of his business.
It took him quite a few years to learn that you can’t save everyone you meet.
So Wilson turns away from the window, returns to his paperwork and goes to sip on his tea only to find the mug empty. The house is quiet, his office is messy and it’s a solemn trip down the stairs into the kitchen, the stairs creak as he walks downstairs to pour himself some more.
The cup probably makes it to halfway full before Wilson drops what he’s doing, throws on his coat and hurries through the front door. He was a doctor, god damn it. He was supposed to help people.
Being outside during this time of year was hazardous as it is, running on slippery ground is even worse, but he finds himself going from a brisk walk to to a steady jog to a full out blitz when he checks every spot he can remember ever seeing her in, and finds the space empty and barren except for the blanket of snow that has covered there.
The empathetic sense of him drops to a near guilty feeling, though he’s quite aware that he’s under no obligation for feeling so, he tells himself it’s not his fault when he comes to the corner of 7th and St Jack’s street and there’s not a soul in sight. Just the dim lights of the overhead streetlamps, and the cloud of breath he gives out into the cold air. At least he tried. It’s time to go home-
A color catches his eye. Red, a faint faded color a stark contrast against the white ground, and Wilson runs down the alleyway towards it. He finds her there, curled up against the wall with her arms wrapped around herself, snow covering her like a statue and completely and utterly lifeless to a first glance. Her fingers are blue, her skin is pale. A coroner will need to be called before morning, (they won’t ask questions whenever it’s a street urchin. They never do.) because she is quite clearly frozen and he’s quite certain she’s dead.
But maybe it’s the guilt in him or his stubbornness as a doctor, Wilson leans down and puts his thumb to her wrist and checks for a pulse.
It’s there. It’s faint, slow and quickly fading. But it’s there.
Wilson hisses and curses words he hasn’t used in a very long time and tears his coat off with a speed a race horse could envy, brushing the snow off the woman’s shoulders and wrapping it around her as snugly as he could make it. The cold air stings him immediately but he doesn’t take the time to acknowledged it as he’s hoisting her upwards into his arms and bolting back towards his office. He can’t afford to spare even a few seconds, and she obviously couldn’t. A woman’s life was on the line.
She’s stiff, unmoving and unresponsive as he carries her through the streets and back to his office, managing to open the door and shutting it behind him. The fireplace is still roaring (not a smart idea, considering his abrupt departure) but it’s a blessing at this current moment. He brings her to it, laying her out against the carpet and thinks.
Hypothermia. Dangerous. Deadly. But can be treated, but he needed to act fast before the body shut down, whether from the cold itself or the sudden change in temperature causing organs to malfunction and causing cardiac arrest. Frostbite was a particularly horrible thing accompanied when struck by the cold, and it has clearly affected her fingers and legs. The color and the rigidness of her limbs does not look good. (Amputation was usually the answer for preventing the affected limbs from harming the rest of the body, but with that brings along the risk of death from blood loss.)
He’s debating with himself when he see’s a slight movement. She shivers, faint but it’s there, and her head has turned slightly towards the fire twisted up in an expression that can only be described as pain.
A shiver is good. A shiver means that the body recognizes it has a fighting chance and is attempting to create more body heat. Good, but not good enough. She’ll need a way to keep whatever heat she makes with her, and her clothes were wet and covered in bits of snow melting into her skin. The frost that was on her eyelashes had melted into freezing water streaming down her face.
Wilson reaches out in doctor instinct but freezes when his fingers curl around her raggedy clothing. Abducting a woman off the streets and undressing her while unconscious was, in the name of all science, not a gentlemanly thing to do. (Good intentions or not, that was still pushing it for him.)
His fingers twitch, eyeing the woman before standing and searching for blankets. Any blankets. Thin blankets, old blankets, really anything he can drape over her to trap the body heat she manages to give off. The doctor runs back and sits her upright, wrapping them around her and holding her close enough to the fire just far away enough for the cloth not to catch fire.
A few minutes pass, and Wilson is doubly checking her fingers gain color back into her hands when she groans, shifts in her spot and curls up into a little ball against his chest. He’s not going to lie to himself and say that it doesn’t startle him, that it not exactly appropriate but the doctor in him is screaming about body heat and making sure she’s getting her core temperature up to something much more warmer than wetness in her hair and he forces her nervousness back down for the sake of his patient.
A while passes, and he feels the rate of her shivering increase. It’s a good sign. “Miss, can you hear me?” He’s got her curled in his lap facing the fire. There’s no answer, she’s still out of it. Though a slur of words and mummers come from her mouth and Wilson sighs in relief. She was responsive. Not awake, but responsive. She’s out of the danger zone.
The wet from melted snow has seeped through the blankets and onto his clothing, but it’s beginning to dry up. Her breathing has stabilized, her pulse seems to be falling back to normal and her skin, although a burnt a bit pink from the heat, was no longer a startling shade of blue.
Wilson takes a deep breathe, lets the tension release from his shoulders and inwardly congratulates himself on another patient saved.
It’s still the dead of night. The winter storm was still going strong outside and frankly he is certain that if he was any bit later then he really might have been too late. But he wasn’t, and this matchstick woman is alive. He knows he should be wondering about what her name is or what to tell her when she wakes up, but his mind is drifting from the exhaustion of his panic and thinks back to the half poured cup of tea sitting on his kitchen counter.
Wilson wakes up suddenly and harshly to a hard slap to the face.
A feminine voice rings out. “Where the HELL am I?!”
The doctor tilts his head back in pain, scrunching his eyes closed as he feels for the mark forming against his cheek. Any sort of sleepiness he might have had has been overcome with the sting in his skin. Oh, and the sound of a woman frantically removing herself from his grip and scrambling about in his living room. “Where am I? What the fuck am I doing here? What…What’s going on!?”
He opens his eyes to glare, and the woman has backed herself away from him and holding out a matchstick out in a threatening, panicked manner. (It’s been doused and completely unusable, so really she was just holding a tiny toothpick at him) The blankets have been tossed away and her hair was wild, adding it the look of fear. That doesn’t catch Wilson’s eye, however, the fact that she had her back so close to the fire, nearly in it, did.
She shakes the tiny matchstick at him and Wilson raises his hands in peace, deadpanning at her expression. “I found you nearly frozen to death. So I brought you back to my office to save you.” He tells her, watching her eyes dart around the room. He doesn’t blame her, different people process sudden surprises at different speeds. “Please try to calm down. I’m not trying to scare you-”
“Bullshit!” She yells at him, scrambling back a little further. (He swears that the flames touch her skin for a moment, but he decides it’s just the grogginess of sleep getting to him because she shows no sign of pain from a burn.) “Why the HELL would you do that?!”
Wilson scoots back to give her some breathing room, lowers his hands and places them in his lap. “Doctor’s duty.”
She sneers at him. “Like I’m stupid enough to believe that. You’re up to something.” She glances around the room. Looking for an escape route, perhaps. “You have no reason to save me unless you want something out of it.”
He feels ever so slightly offended, but keeps his tone neutral as possible. “No one should have to need a reason to save a life.”
The brunette doesn’t look convinced. “I can’t pay for it, though.”
“I don’t see why that matters.”
His response triggers another fit of panic in her, and she brandishes the matchstick more boldly, going as to so much kick towards him so he scoots back a little further even. “People like you make me SICK!” She grits her teeth at him. He’s dealt with unruly patients before, but no one has ever threatened him with a puny piece of wood before. Lawsuits? Of course. A walking cane? Yes, even that. But never a matchstick smaller than his finger.
“No one helps anybody for no damn reason.” She’s continuing, and he briefly notes she has a very bold, fiery voice. “Always trying to prey on the less fortunate for your own fucking benefit, they always want something in return. It’s sick and I ain’t want nothing to do with it!”
It takes him a moment to process the accusation, but when he does his eyes widen in realization and he immediately brings his hands up in defense. “What? No, no no you’ve got it all wrong! I want nothing like that, truly, Miss you are mistaken.” He’s the one that looks a bit panicked now. “Please understand that I’m not asking anything of you.”
Her hand lowers a bit, but he can tell her guard is still up. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
Wilson huffs. “What kind of doctor do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. What kind of doctor ARE you? If you’re even a doctor in the first place!”
She touches a nerve with that one. Wilson takes a deep breath, stands up and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I understand you’re under a lot of stress right now. I’ll give you some room. I’m going to go make you some tea.” He notices her give him a stare at his words but ignores it. She probably needed some water, Hypothermia could dehydrate someone very easily. “Please try to calm down.”
A moment passes, then she lowers her hand for once but says nothing. She looks a little less frantic, but still tense. It’s during this time she seems to finally notice the coat she’s wearing and looks down in surprise, blinking at it. Wilson thinks for a second before turning on his heel and walking towards the kitchen, waving a hand towards the front door. “It’s unlocked if you really want to leave, by the way.”
It’s still freezing outside, and it would certainly not mean well for her to go out there but he can’t deprive her of that option (no matter how bad he’d feel if she went right back out into the cold after all that mess) and he leaves her alone. The tea from before is sitting out on the counter, he pours it out and sets a fresh kettle on the burner, taking the few minutes he has in silence to timidly rub the faint throb in his cheek as the tea boils.
He can hear footsteps against carpet, the front door opening and he thinks she’s leaving before it closes again and footsteps across carpet again. Odd, but she’s making the decision to stay again. Perhaps she took a look out onto the snowy landscape outside and decided that one trip to the doctor’s was one too many. (He chuckles at his own joke. It’s too early in the morning for him to think straight quite yet.)
A few minutes later, Wilson is pouring two cups of tea when he hears a loud sneeze. Then another sneeze. A whole fit of sneezes. It would be comical if he didn’t imagine the whiplash from all that sneezing.
The doctor returns to the living room to find her stationed right by the fire again, only a slightly safer distance away. She looks away from the flames to tense as he enters the room, but her expression falters into soft confusion as he sets the steaming cup down next to her without a word, taking a seat on the sofa half a room away.
Wilson leans back and sips at the drink, noticing her pick it up, eye it warily and watching him drink his own before giving it a sniff. She takes a tiny sip, hardly a drink before tilting it back and practically chugging it. He raises a brow. (That’s hot enough to burn her lips, but she doesn’t say anything on it.)
She’s the first one to speak this time. “So, uh….” She trails off and fiddles with the coat around her. It’s actually being worn now, with her arms through the sleeves instead of it just draped around her. “Is this yours?”
Wilson nods at her. The brunette squints at the fabric, looking away from him. She doesn’t ask why she has it, and Wilson hopes that she’d taken clues to put two and two together. “Oh. Okay. I got snot on it.” She trails off. “Sorry.”
He just shrugs. Between blood and snot and other questionable things in his line of work, it’s not the worst thing that’s been on that coat. He doesn’t tell her that though, the poor woman was already incredibly suspicious of him as he is and the last thing he needed to tell her was that he regularly performs surgery in that coat. “Don’t worry about it.”
She looks pensive. A thought that irks her must have passed her mind, because she looks back up to him with a fire in her eyes. “Why the hell were you all cuddly with me a bit ago, huh?”
“Body heat.” Wilson interjects. “I wasn’t lying when I said I found you nearly frozen to death. I’m surprised you made it though the night myself.” He takes a sip of his tea and feels only a little, just a little bit of guilt when her eyes turn downwards and avoids his gaze. Wilson musters up a reassuring smile, (he’s practices many times when treating children, especially) and uses a kinder tone. “You are very lucky, Miss. You’re quite the fighter.”
She thumbs over the sleeves of his coat and hides behind her cup of tea. “Right. Lucky.” Her tone sounds like it’s heavy in thought, her eyes scanning the living area before resting on Wilson again. Her tone tightens and falls back into the previous suspicious tone. “…Do you…really not want anything out of me? Really?” He tone sounds hopeful. And defensive.
“Well,” Wilson starts off, “A name would be nice.”
She hesitates, sips her tea as she stares into the fire before taking a deep breathe and turning back to him. “My name is Willow-”
She bursts into a fit of sneezes, Wilson watches as she ruins her tea (and his coat further) as she tries to steady herself and catch her breath. Once Willow has stopped, she blinks at him with wet, red eyes and a snotty nose. Wilson nearly laughs at the irony. “Miss Willow, it’s my professional opinion that you’ve caught something sickly.” He muses. “Luckily for you, I know a doctor.”
She sticks her tongue out at him, and chugs the rest of her tea.
House calls we’re the most common type of work Wilson had to do. There were those that were able to make it to his office yes, but those without the transportation or simply not well enough to leave home he had to come to himself, and with that being a large portion of the city during this time of year, Wilson found himself leaving home more often than not with Willow watching the premises.
Yes, she’s still there, taking up the single patient’s bed he has in a spare room for people who are terminally ill or are in need of around-the-clock treatment, though there hasn’t been a patient stationed in that room for over a year now (aside from Willow, of course. Though he’s not sure whether to call her a patient or a ‘guest’ when her illness was a little more than a cold.) He’d like to let his pride have a treat for once and boast that his doctoring ability prevented anyone from needing that room for a long while.
Wilson didn’t let her leave after she showed the first signs of sickness. (Well, he gave her the option to. But he insisted she’d stay.) Living on the streets for a long time can’t be good for one’s immunity system, and being exposed to hypothermia could very well trigger a dormant bacteria the human body had managed to hold back, he’s not surprised she’d fallen ill so quickly.
She did not like to take medicine. She also did not like to part with any of her belongings she had prior to her sudden staying at his home; the matches, the raggedy clothes (all he had to offer was old patient gowns for her, to which she declined) and a teddy bear she bolted out one afternoon and returned with without explanation. It must have been hidden away somewhere, the fur of it was scorched and it didn’t look very sanitary, but he doesn’t say anything. She seems fond of it, and anything that calms a patient down is frankly a good thing.
Willow really likes fire as well. She’s almost always near his fireplace, she likes to dote on the candles and lanterns he keeps in his office. The brunette mostly does her own thing, as long as she doesn’t do anything mischievous. She once asked why he kept her around when she could easily steal all his valuables and run off. The man just shrugs and tells her she’s free to try and make it back out in the cold. He’s pretty sure she sneezed on him on purpose that time.
She will be staying until she is well again. (It took some convincing, but he’s a doctor and he has a duty to do, regardless of her suspicions.) Wilson is not home as often as he should be, what with her being there and all. But there’s a part of him that says he shouldn’t have to worry that he’s invited this stranger in, because it feels much more like he’s adopted a stray cat.
As if to prove his previous thoughts, Wilson returns home and finds her stretched out across the carpet near the fireplace face down, and sighs. “Beds exist for a reason, Miss Willow.”
She peers up at him from the floor though messy bangs. “I’m cold though.”
“Well, you can’t stay there.” He shrugs off his coat and places it on the rack next to her own, (he went ahead and bought one for her a while ago so she’d stop trying to steal his.) He goes ahead and strips to his vest and tie for the day. The room is a tad uncomfortably hot; she must have had that fire roaring for quite some time now. “There’s a patient coming over for an appointment.”
Willow groans something inaudible. “I’m a patient too, though.”
A twitch of a smile comes across his face. It’s not forced, it hardly breaks through, and Wilson never thought he had a nice smile with all the horrors that he’s seen. But there’s a playfulness in her tone that brings it about him. “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable here.”
She glints at him, propping herself up on her elbows and resting her head on her palms. Her nose looks bright red from a mix of her rubbing it and the fire’s light upon it. She looks like an elf straight out of the newspaper's Christmas articles. (The holiday wasn’t even for another three months, the timing of the articles always made him roll his eyes.)
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Willow pouts at him.
He waves a hand off towards the space near the kitchen and the stares. “It means shoo, please.” Wilson crosses his arms and watches her as she gets up, complaining about being cold and leaving the fireplace. One of those complaints turns into a sneeze but she finishes her sentence with it anyways, and it’s enough to make him chuckle. “Sounds like you’re due for you’re next dose of medicine.”
She swivels around to say something but a knock on the door interrupts her, and both adults go quiet. It’s a soft, timid knock with a sense of hesitance to it, and Wilson recognizes it immediately. He gives the brunette a look, and Willow groans and walks away from him. “Whatever. Medicine sucks. Doctors suck.” He hears her mummer as she makes a sharp turn into the kitchen, but not before turning around and sticking her tongue out at him. Wilson has half a mind to do the gesture right back.
The doctor shakes his head, musters up a friendly smile (He’s already wearing one for some reason, so it doesn’t take alot of effort) and opens the front door. A little girl with blonde hair and sad eyes stares up at him. Wilson gives her a reassuring glance, and takes the tone of voice he’s used with many sick children before. “Hello, Wendy. Are you ready for your next session?”
Wendy’s eyes are blank and unreadable, and Wilson remembers that specific tone of voice does nothing to help this particular patient feel any better. “Good afternoon, Dr. Higgsbury.” She greets him, her voice is small and blunt. She doesn’t answer his previous question, he notes.
“And to you.” He responds. Her face makes him feel sad. (But emotions interfere with work, and it was frankly unprofessional so he beats the feeling down.) “Please, come on in. Take a seat and we’ll begin shortly.”
The child nods her head in appreciation, moving past him and taking a seat in the same chair she has many times before. The movement is muscle memory at this point, she’s been visiting him for three years now, quite often he’s not sure if she even see’s her parents about the same amount of time as she does him. Not that he’s had any problem with this, Wendy has always been a bright girl.
Miserably depressed, but she’s a bright girl none the less. She has the potential to heal. It’s startling a little bit, Wilson realizes, how much he see’s his younger self in her. But now is not the time to dwell on the fact.
Wendy is sitting with her hands in her lap, as she always does, with one hand closed around a familiar item. It’s always accompanied her in her sessions, though she hid it the first time around. (These appointments didn’t start out willingly in her favor, but Wilson is glad she’s become more comfortable with him.) A pink silk flower cradled in her fingers, similar to the one pined always in her hair. A comfort object, one she might be slightly obsessed with, he notes, but a comfort none the less.
Wilson sits across from her and leans back against the sofa, clasping his hands together and offering her some peace. He doesn’t pull out the notebook for the sessions anymore, she didn’t like it when she did that. “How has your week been, Miss Carter?” He asks her. “Anything exciting happen?”
The girl doesn’t respond immediately. That’s okay, he’s gotten used to that. She shifts in her spot, looking down to the flower with half-lidded eyes before turning back up to meet his. “No.”
“I see.” Wilson hums, “Did anything boring happen?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
The doctor hums, leaning back and thinking for a moment. “I take it you don’t really want to share any of your thoughts today, do you?” He asks her. She doesn’t respond verbally, but the slight nod of her head is enough for him. Wilson simple nods back. “And what about Miss Abigail?”
He almost misses it, but he spies it quickly before it disappears. The flash of trust over her face, the slight twitch of her fingers around the flower, the way she straightens her shoulders and looks at him more directly. Her eyes are still sad, they always have been, but even Wilson can feel happy when he sees the the corner of her mouth twitch ever so slightly. She always pipes up the slightest when he acknowledges her sister. “…Abby thinks a lot of exciting things have happened this week.”
Wilson leans forwards and gestures for her to continue. “Oh, truly? What, exactly, would those be?”
Wendy Elizabeth Carter, daughter to a highly respected and very wealthy family of aristocrats, lost her twin sister three years ago in a very sudden, very tragic death. Sickness fell quickly and fell hard upon young Wendy and her sister Abigail. Illness does not discriminate between the wealthy and the poor, and while money could afford medicine and treatment, there’s just so much that a tonic could do, and some unfortunate souls just cannot be saved.
Wilson would know. She was one of the first patients he had ever lost, and that number was few if any.
Wendy doesn’t hold it against him. From what he was aware of her understanding of death was beyond what her parent’s perceived it to be. She understood he tried his best, he really did. He knows this, but it still took a while to be able to look at her directly without picture her sister sickly and approaching death while her twin cried and begged for her to stay alive. It’s a haunting memory, one of the worst ones he’s gained as a doctor. Being able to save one twin but not the other can be a uniquely jarring experience.
He held her when she cried back then. Wendy was younger, smaller back then. She’s grown a bit now, but the effects of her sister’s death was still prevalent in her mental state. Her parents, devastated by the loss of one child, clung to Wendy like leeches.
Imagine their horror when Wendy loses all the personality of the child she was before, cradling her dead sister’s flower and whispering to no one in particular in empty rooms.
At first they believe her to be possessed. Perhaps she should be thrown into the loony bin, their poor little girl. They were already acting as if they had lost both children instead of one, with how they’ve stormed his office and sent some choice worded letters. He’s not sure if they even know if she’s still coming to her appointments anymore, if they even still approved of it.
Wendy tells him about the flowers they planted on Abigail’s grave, and the new dress she got for their birthday, all the while Wilson is smiling and letting her ramble in a timid, little voice. There’s no need for the loony bin, the girl just needed someone to talk to.
Suddenly, Wendy goes quiet looking at him. But her gaze doesn’t quite land on him, but somewhere behind him. Wilson catches her eyes narrow and turns his head towards the kitchen. Through the opening of the doorway he can see a pigtail darting back into the room as quickly as possible.
He’s about to apologize for the interruption, but Wendy speaks first. “…You got married and didn’t invite me to your wedding?” Her voice is so bland, he honestly can’t tell if she’s teasing him or genuinely hurt. Ah, the assumptions of children.
“No, Miss Wendy. That was just a…” He trails off, and feels the eyes of the child on him burrow. “A patient of mine. A guest.”
Wendy tilts her head, either in curiosity or scrutiny he’s not sure, but she tightens her grip around the flower and her gaze rises to the doorway once more. When he looks back, Willow is peeking out onto the living room, partially hiding behind the wall. Her eyes are wide. If Wilson didn’t know any better, he’d say it looks like she’d seen a ghost.
Wilson glances at a clock on the far side of the wall and sighs. “You can stop hiding, you know. Miss Wendy and I were just discussing some few things before she leaves.”
Willow hesitates, pulling back into the kitchen for a moment before taking a few steps into the living room. She’s holding a tray of something, he realizes. Two cups of what he can smell to be tea. She looks nervous, fidgeting in her spot. “I uh…” She glances towards Wendy, the girl does the same. “I made you guys some tea.”
Wilson smiles, rises to take the tray from her before setting in down on the coffee table. The matchstick woman takes a seat besides him, her eyes have not left the child. “Thank you, that’s very kind of you Miss Willow.” He holds a cup out to Wendy, urging her to take it. She doesn’t seem to notice the offering. “I’m sure you’d like something hot to drink before going back out to the cold again, right? Hot liquids keep the sinuses clear, you know. Good for fighting colds.”
Wendy blinks, and without taking her eyes off of the newcomer, accepts the cup and lets it sit in her lap. “…Thank you.” She mummers. Wilson says something else mannerable but the child seems to ignore his continuation, instead turning to the raggedy clothed woman. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Yeah, we haven’t” Willow sounds suspicious, just like when she first met him. He wonders if she acts this way with every stranger she meets. “…I like your pigtails.”
Wilson blinks, looks over to Wendy to see her reaction. The blonde hums something as she looks down to the flower, (Willow’s eyes dart from the flower back to the air, and she appears to be a little surprised.) and takes a sip of the tea. “Your pigtails are nice, too.”
A moment passes, and matchstick girl puts up a little smile. She points a thumb at Wilson. “Do you think he’d look cute with pigtails?”
Her response is a raised brow of interest from the child, and Wilson doesn’t know whether he should be impressed by Willow’s ability to achieve that sort of reaction or be insulted by the idea of his magnificent hair twisted up in some sort of horrific style. His hair was perfectly fine as it was, thank you very much.
Five minutes pass, and they have told each other their names. He’s slightly astonished, actually, at their conversation. Wendy is not friendly to Willow, not familiar in a way with her like she is with him. But she’s speaking to her, and that alone is a feat that took Wilson weeks to get to. It only took Willow a matter of minutes, a few jokes and telling the girl about a teddy bear named Bernie that she was quite fond of. He doesn’t even speak, he just sips his tea and observes.
Until the clock chimes and Wendy is forced to return home. He watches as she rises, patting down her dress (black, the same funeral dress she wore many years ago. She liked to dawn it from time to time, she would never truly stop mourning) and bids them both good day. Willow seems nervous when she leaves. (Wilson swears he sees Wendy mouth something in her direction as she goes, but it may have been a trick of the light. Or perhaps even his own nerves messing with him.)
He’s cleaning up the teacups and tray when Willow approaches him quietly to ask him if he believes in ghosts.
The doctor gives her an odd look. “There’s no such thing. It’s an offense against science.”
Willow doesn’t look very satisfied with his answer, going quiet and looking away from him, settling in her spot near the fireplace and staring into the flames. His brows furrow and he sets the tray down to lean down and place a hand over her forehead. The sudden contact makes her blink up at him. Her face is twisted in thought and confusion, but it could easily be mistaken for something else. Wilson tuts at the temperature against the skin of his hand. “I think you’re seeing things. You’re fever has gotten worse.”
Willow swats his arm away, mumbling something under her breath. “I don’t feel hot. I feel fine, just…snotty.” She says. Wilson’s mouth thins into a line, squinting at the little space between her and the fire pit. “You should really be in bed resting.”
She sniffles at him. “I’m cold, though.”
She’s stubborn, maybe one of the most stubborn and smart-ass patients he’s ever had, but he eventually relents anyway. So he allows her to stay there for as long as she likes, bringing her a blanket to sleep near the fire (the amount of times she complains about the cold when so close to the flame concerns him about her ability to tell the temperature) on the condition that she takes her medicine without spitting it out.
She nearly does, coughing and hacking after she swallows and says that it taste like dirt, onions and other nasty things. Wilson simply throws the blanket atop her head and laughs, for once, as she pulls it down and her pigtails are wild and unruly.
A week before Christmas, there is a carriage accident.
Wilson doesn’t even get to have breakfast before a panicked knock is at his front door. Willow is almost the one to open it but he’s running in front of her, telling her to step back. No one comes to his door this early in the morning, not unless he’s needed urgently and it’s important enough for a man twice his size to come nearly knocking his door down, rambling words of panic and distress covered in blood with an clearly broken arm and a bleeding neck.
The doctor in him kicks in, and he somewhat forgets that Willow is even there, throwing on his coat as he grabbed his medical bag, leaving her alone in the house in a hurry with no word of what was going on or when he’ll return. The door is left swung open as he follows the stranger to the crash site, the matchstick girl watching as he leaves.
She’s alone there for most of the day. Willow nearly thinks that she’ll be alone in the house for the night as well until she hears the downstairs front door click, it opening and the sound of him stepping inside. She sets Bernie down onto her bed (the patient’s bed, really. But she’s gotten into the habit of calling it hers.) and creeps down the stairs to see him. “Hey!” she calls out, socks running down the stairs. “What was that whole thing about-?”
She stops. Wilson stares at her with tired, tired eyes. His hands and his coat are covered in blood.
The matchstick girl takes an involuntary step back, swallowing as she takes in the sight. She doesn’t mean to look scared, but she does, and Wilson must have caught onto it immediately because he’s taking off his gloves, his coat, folding them around his arm and turning away from her. “Work.”
Willow gives him a look over. He doesn’t look injured, not a single scratch or bruise on him, he appears to be perfectly fine. (if you didn’t count the exhaustion radiating off of him) The coat of his soaked in multiple spots with blood stains. She can’t smell the copper from here, and the color tells her that only half of those stains were dried and old, some of them fairly new and still sinking into the fabric.
The doctor walks towards her and she instinctively stiffens, but he just pushes past her without a word, heading up the stairs and into his office. She can hear the door click shut and the sound of him throwing his medical bag onto his desk. Willows only been in that room maybe once or twice, but it she knows it’s his favorite spot, better than any other room in the house. And it’s also where he disappears to when he doesn’t particularity feel like talking.
The fireplace is inviting her to come sit and poke at the flames, but the pull in her chest is starting to drift up more up towards the stairs and to his door. Willow hesitates for a moment, considering the options. She could just leave it well enough alone, it’s none of her business. Just go back into the patient’s room and hide under the covers and play with her matches until she falls asleep and pretend that she never saw the vacant look in his eyes as he passed.
She tries to tell herself not to, but it’s a failed attempt, and she finds herself knocking at his door regardless of her inner dialogue. “You okay in there?” She asks through the wood. “You looked kinda…down.” Her choice of wording is poor, but she hopes her meaning would get across.
There’s no immediate answer, and it makes her swallow in concern. “Hey, you know you didn’t finish your breakfast, right?” She tries again, taking on a lighter tone. “If you want… I can try to make you something? I promise I won’t burn it this time if you let me!”
His voice sounds out from the room, and it sounds very low. “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”
Her fingers twitch towards the matches in her pocket in a nervous manner, but she refrains. Instead, she puts her hand on the doorknob. Not turning it, but it creaks a little and she’s sure he heard her move forward. “Can I come in?”
“I’d rather if you didn’t.”
She should probably do what he says. It’s only fair, and it would be rude to just barge in. (But there’s a tiny fire in her heart that’s burning with worry and she doesn’t have the will nor the mind to put it out) so she’s turning the doorknob, grateful that there’s no lock on the door, and peeks inside.
He’s sitting at his desk, elbows propped up and head hung low. She see’s it pipe up a little at the sound of her entering but not enough for her to see his eyes. His hair is a mess, like he’s been pulling at it and running his hands through it in frustration. Maybe it’s the dim lighting of the room, the lanterns and candles didn’t really lighten this place up as much as the fireplace would have but the circles under his eyes look darker. He looks tired, tired and strained.
Wilson’s mouth is pressed into a flat line and he glares at her when she steps into his office. “Remind me to buy a lock for that door, later.”
Willow matches his frown, shutting the door behind her and putting her hands on her hips. “You’re freaking me out over here, doc. You’re acting weird.” She tells him. She’s not sure, but he seems slouch at her sentence. “What’s going on with you?”
“Work related things. Nothing you’d understand.” He runs a hand down his face and slinks lower into his chair, glaring at the papers scattered across his desk. There’s a bloody fingerprint on one of them, and he curses as he rubs the remainder of the substance onto his pants leg and sighs. “Please, just leave me be. I have paperwork I need to fill out.”
To his chagrin, she does the exact opposite of what he wishes and approaches the desk, eyeing the fingerprint with a squint. “What kind of paperwork?” She asks. Silence is her response so she continues. “You’ve been out and about all day, I thought you said that rest was good for you or something.”
He gives her a look between annoyance and exhaustion that she can’t describe, and it only fuels the stubbornness in her. That look doesn’t look like him, and she doesn’t like it. He looks better when hes laughing or drinking tea. “Death certificates. I’ll need to have them ready by tomorrow morning. This can’t wait, so please excuse me for the night.” He gestures towards the door. “Please, excuse me.”
Willow’s posture falters at the mention of death certificates, but she holds her ground. A moment passes and she thinks of her next choice of words. “You sound sad.”
“I’m just tired.” He refutes. “I’ve had a busy day.”
She cocks her head at him and leans against the desk. He eyes the motion but says nothing about it, inwardly sighing that she’s taken no movement to leave. Willow crosses her arms, and furrows her brows. “Do you…want to talk about it?”
Wilson leans forward, dips a his writing tool into an ink pot and begins to write something in scrawled handwriting that Willow can’t read, seemly trying to ignore (and failing at that) her presence. “No.”
She hesitates before asking. “Why not?”
“I don’t discuss my work with other patients.”
He doesn’t look at her to see it, but he can feel her face twist into a frown and sniffle at him. “I’m not your patient though.” She protests, leaning a hand onto the desk. It covers one of the scattered papers, and Wilson eyes it warily. The corner of his flat mouth twitches downwards. “You’re not?”
“I haven’t been sick for a good while.” Willow leans forward, scanning for a reaction. “I got better a long time ago. Like, two weeks ago. Or something like that. You get whatever I’m saying.”
The doctor uses his free hand to rub one of his temples, letting his hand run down his face. When he meets her eyes, she’s staring at him with warm amber. Pretty, warm amber. It sends a feeling to him that makes him feel vulnerable, he doesn’t like it one bit. “If you’re not my patient, then what are you still doing here then?”
He almost regrets his words when he sees her pull back a little (it came out harsher than he intended, he didn’t mean it in the context she’s probably taking it either) but manages to keep his expression neutral as possible. He watches her think for a moment before responding. “I’m your friend.”
“I don’t make friends with my patients.”
“That’s a lie.” She calls him out. “And I’m not your patient anyway. Not anymore. So we’re friends now.”
He wants to protest, tell her to leave him alone and say something he doesn’t actually mean and he’ll probably regret later, but the doctor recognizes the emotions fueling his thoughts and shuts them down. He had work to do, and those feelings will only get in the way and cause troubles for the future. So he mumbles something incoherent under his breath, drops the pen and whatever he was doing prior so he could rest his head in his hands and try to ignore the dryness in his throat.
He hopes she’ll take the hint but deep down he knows that she won’t. A moment of silence passes before he feels a hand come down on his shoulder. Hesitant, soft, but comforting. It’s a gesture Wilson has performed many times on others but never had done to himself and that hand alone is enough to make his breath hitch. He wishes she would leave. No one could see him like this.
Willow puts her arms on his shoulders, her voice has dropped to a softer sound. “What’s bothering you?”
Wilson doesn’t want to tell her. He really doesn’t, these kind of things happen all the time. But he still hates it when it does and the words are coming out of his mouth before he can think twice about it. “There’s been an accident. A carriage accident.” He finally tells her. Willow’s sure there’s a croak in his voice. “Something spooked the horses, they tried running off with reigns still attached but the roads are slippery. Iced over. They fell and brought the whole carriage down before coming lose.”
Willow listens, opening her mouth when she thinks he’s finished but shuts it closed when she hears him take a shuddering breath. “The couple inside made it out fine, until they got trampled.” When he speaks, there’s a pause in each word, like he’s playing out the scene in his head. “The husband made it. His wife didn’t.”
Broken arms, sliced neck. Cracked skull from the cobblestone street and her ribs shattered and caving in her chest as hooves pushed her down. It’s not uncommon, these types of things. They happens as often as snow, Wilson remembers. Willow must be confused because she’s looking at him with furrowed brows and squeezing his shoulder.
“She was alive when I got there.” He says, “I couldn’t…save her.”
The end of his sentence breaks off into a choked sob and Wilson realizes how dangerously close to crying he is. He body is nearly shaking now, the arms around his shoulders have wrapped tighter, almost in a hug but not quite, and Willow running a hand up and down his back. “It wasn’t your fault.” She tells him. He’s a good guy. It hurts to see him like this. “It’ll be okay-”
“No, it will NOT be okay.” He snaps, brushing off her hands and standing abruptly from his seat. The sudden motion is enough to make her stumble back in surprise, eyes widening as he slams his hands on the desk with tears streaming down his face. “Do you have any idea what I went through today? What that poor sod went through? His wife is dead, Willow. He had broken ribs and an arm and was bleeding profusly but he demanded I treat her first even though she CLEARLY wasn’t going to make it. Her head was caved in like a bloody tin can! The street side looked like a god damn massacre.”
He’s shouting, it loud and it’s broken. Willow steps forward and holds her hand out again. “But that doesn’t mean-!”
“Mean what, exactly? That I shouldn’t at least try? Just throw away my principals as a doctor when I could at least try and save her? Tell the corners that they missed a body? Tell her husband that she’s a goner and she didn’t stand a chance? The man was a bloody lunatic over her for fuck’s sake, do you think I could just not..not try?”
Willow cuts him off. “You did everything you could! You can’t just pity and act like it’s your fault when you saved who you could-”
“No.” He cuts her off, his fingers curling up into a fists and keeping his arms straight to his side. Wilson’s mouth has turned up into a maddening, sad smile, and he gives a joyless, breathy laugh. “She was pregnant, and he had no idea. I had to tell him….after we had brought her body to the morgue and discovered it.”
Willow goes silent and says nothing more. Wilson holds back a hiccup, watching her process the information and shakes his head at himself, looking down and away from her face. “These…things happen sometimes.” He whispers. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m sorry.”
He sees her shadow move across the floor, and he thinks she’s about to leave the room but her arms wrap around him instead. Wilson takes a sharp inhale of air as Willow slinks her arms under his own, around his torso and hugging him with her face pressed against his collarbone. She’s warm, she’s quiet, and she’s holding him with more affection than he’s felt in decades.
His own arms are slack and frozen at his sides as tears drip down from his face into her hair, and he briefly wonders if she can hear his pulse rate skip. “I don’t really know what to say. I don’t really know anything about any of that but…” Willow starts off, squeezing him a little tighter. “I’m here for you, doc.”
It doesn’t feel like he’s breathing, or at least, he’s holding it in. “That’s supposed to be my sort of thing.” He says. “I’m the one supposed to be comforting my patients.”
She just closes her eyes. “Not this time.”
Wilson stares blankly, silence takes the room. It’s a few more seconds before he brings his arms around her and holding her tightly against him, shoulders slumping over and Willow can feel wetness against her clothes as he shudders and sobs and cries into her shoulder.
On Christmas day, Wilson wakes up to the smell of something burning and cursing coming from the downstairs kitchen and he quickly gathers himself together to run down to find Willow standing over a ruinous, soot colored breakfast cooking over the burner, and the sheepish look she gives him as he walks into the room.
“Whoops.” She grins at him, nonchalantly scrapping off the inedible food onto a place (he supposes for herself, she seemed to prefer her food scorched and near ash) “Was just trying to make ya something special for Christmas and all but uh…” She shrugs, “Sorry.”
Before, he might have sighed. But a smile comes to his face instead. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re trying to poison me.” He laughs at her expression, Willow sticking her tongue out at him as he sets a kettle of coffee on the burner. He stretches, giving out a yawn. “At least you’re in the spirit. It’s not much different from how you usually are. Tell me, do you plan on burning my house down as a Christmas gift?”
She fakes a gasp of surprise, a mock show of offensive on her face and Wilson snorts at the expression. “How dare you. I’d never burn down my own house!” Willow laughs. The doctor raises an eyebrow, sparing her a glance as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “I’m quite certain this house is mine and not yours, little stray.”
“Well, you’re stuck with me now.” She waggles a fork at him. “Get used to it. Shoulda got rid of me when ya had the chance.”
Wilson chuckles, leaning against the kitchen table and sipping his drink, giving her a look over the side of his mug. “Does that mean you accept the job offer of being my assistant? Or do you just plan on freeloading off until the end of my days?”
Willow shoves a burnt crisp of whatever she was cooking into her mouth, a little bit sticking to the sides of her cheek as she tries to hold back a bout of laughter. Wilson glances at it, but only briefly. “Oh yeah, that offer.” She waves him off. “I don’t know. Seems like a lotta work for me.”
He takes his free hand and thumbs the excess food off her cheek, lightly thwapping her nose in the process. She wrinkles it at him, stuffing another bite into her mouth. “You’d get full privileges over the fireplace.” He grins, pointing to her plate. “So as long as you don’t make us both look like that.”
She takes a piece and holds it out to him, to which he blocks the intrusion with his mug. That burnt food cannot be healthy to consume, but she seems perfectly content with it. Willow blows air at his face, spinning away from him with a twirl of her dress. It’s one of her new ones, he notes. (It looks nearly identical to her former clothes, only within a few minor differences and without scorch marks and tears. She’s quite fond of the look.)
It took some convincing, but she lets him buy her some new clothes on the basis that her old rags were terribly unsanitary and she gives him a single matchstick for his troubles. He still has no idea where she keeps hiding those things.
She has a hatred for corsets, though. Wilson understands, he can’t imagine being stuck in one of those suffocating things. “Throw in a couple thousand bags of shillings and you’ve got yourself a deal!” She teases him. Wilson huffs, crossing his arms. “How many matchsticks are you going to give me for that price?”
Willow eats the last of her ‘meal’, setting the plate to the side and points a finger to herself with a smirk. “Ya get me. I’m the matchstick.”
If Wilson didn’t know any better, he would have thought she’s flirting with him. “Hmm. Seems terribly overpriced.”
Willow’s mouth drops and he takes another sip to hide his own smirk, spying her shuffle in her spot out of the corner of her eye. She opens her mouth to say something else but the sound a knock, soft and barely audible but they manage to hear it, interrupts her. Wilson pulls back from the counter, pushes the mug into the brunette’s hands and excuses himself. He spies her chugging the coffee as he leaves the room and debates on if giving her caffeine was a good idea.
Swinging open the door reveal a familiar round little face, Wendy dawned in her Christmas attire and holding two small boxes, each no bigger than her own hand. Wilson blinks at her arrival, and stares at her back in confusion as the child welcomes herself into his home without so much as a word of greeting. “Miss Wendy! Merry Christmas!…” He exclaims, shutting the front door to turn to look at her in surprise. “…Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but you know you’re appointment isn’t for another four days, right?”
“I’m well aware, Dr Higgsbury.” She answers him, bypassing her usual spot in her chair to seat herself on the sofa. “I’m here for personal reasons. Merry Christmas to you as well.”
The arrival of the child must have peaked Willow’s interest, because she’s barreling out from the kitchen at the sound of their voices and looks happy to see her. It’s a small motion, but at the brunette’s arrival the child also pipes up. There’s a faint hint of a smile on her face, the grip on the boxes tightening. Willow flies to the sofa and plops herself down next to her, (not ruffling her hair, as much as she told Wilson she wanted to, he told her she didn’t really like that) but greeting her with a wide smile. “Wasn’t expecting to see you two today.”
Wendy blinks, brushing a hand over the flower forever pined in her hair and nods. “I have presents for the both of you.” She states, “It wasn’t my idea, but I picked them out myself.
The brunette clasps her hands together and lets out a coo. “Ya really shouldn’t have. I don’t have anything to give to you.” She smiles. Wilson watches the exchange from his place by the door, brows furrowed in confusion. He’s quite sure they have an inside joke that he’s not apart of. Each week with Wendy’s arrival she’s been invalided to speak to the older woman when she was available, not that Wilson would involve her in their sessions, (Confidentiality, and all that.) but he finds it routine for Willow speak with her before she leaves.
Odd, not exactly a bad thing but not something he can explain. The one time he asked Willow about it she only gave him the answer of ‘girl time’ and didn’t elaborate. (He feels a bit left out. Maybe just a little bit.) But both girls seem to enjoy each other’s company, and he can’t say it doesn’t bring a smile to his face either.
A keyword breaks through his thoughts, and the doctor stammers for a moment. “Wait, did you say presents?” He interrupts. The child gives a tiny nod and he pauses, waving a hand off before making his way up the stairs. “Excuse me for a minute.”
Willow watches his back leave with faint interest before turning back to the child. “Psst. Wanna know a fun fact?” She grins with a whisper. Wendy raises a brow at her direction. “I’m pretty sure he dyed some white in his hair on purpose. To look all smart and stuff.”
The matchstick girl giggles, and while the bereaved doesn’t, her head still tilts in interest. “That does sound like him.”
The sound of rummaging coming from upstairs, presumably Wilson shifting through his desk’s contents before exiting his office and making his way down the stairs, two poorly wrapped items in his hold. “Well, I was planning on giving these to you both later but I suppose if we’re doing presents now-” He looks up to find both girls staring at him. Or really, his hair. “What?”
Wendy looks away from him and Willow snorts. “Nothing! Nothing, don’t worry about it. Whats that supposed to be?” She points at the concealed items, to which he holds closer to him and squints in her direction. She was giggling about something, surely. That face is one he’s come to recognize as mischievous, but he can ask about it later. “Presents, for the two of you.”
Willow’s smile falters in the slightest. “You didn’t have to do that. I didn’t get you anything.”
“I didn’t expect you would.” Wilson jests back, taking a seat across from them and setting them out on the table. She inspects them both, trying to eye through the poorly shaped wrapping to see what exactly were the contents but Wendy speaks up and she directs her attention to her instead. “I can not linger here for long. I would like to give mine first, if able.”
The doctor gives a faint nod. “Of course, go ahead.” Christmas is a busy day for many folk, he doesn’t doubt she has business to attend to elsewhere. The blonde leans forward, holding out one of the small boxes to him and handing the other to Willow before falling back to her seat, folding her hands in her lap to wait patiently. Her face has fallen back to it’s neutral state, so a little touch of embarrassment has come over the brunette’s.
The doctor catches on, thankfully, and is the first to open his. He tears the wrapping away and peers inside, a kind smile coming to his expression. “A new monocle! You know me well, Wendy.” He pulls it out, setting it properly and giving a wink. “Suits me perfectly, don’t you think?”
Willow snorts at him mid-unwrapping of her own present. “You still look like a dork.” She hears him hum something as she peaks into her own present, a little gasp as she pulls out a few ribbons, holding it against the firelight. They’re gold (not real gold, of course, but painted a pretty color like it. They glimmers her favorite colors against the firelight) “So pretty!”
Wilson hums a word in agreement, and Wendy tilts her head downwards. “Do you like it, Miss Willow?”
“I love it!” She’s giddy, letting the box drop to her lap as she unties her pigtails and replaces the bands with the ribbons, little bows that match well with the color of her hair. (She’s always been fond of that hairstyle, he notes.) The brunette twirls a finger around one end of a pigtail and gives him a haughty look. “I’m lookin pretty smokin, right?”
He raises a brow at her as he hands Wendy her gift, “I have no idea what that phrase means. It does suit you, though.” He lets the child fall back with her gift, gesturing for her to unwrap it as he send Willow a look. “My monocle looks better.
She sticks her tongue out at him but stays silent for sound of ripping paper as Wendy unveils her gift. A piece of leather breaks through, and the child hesitates. When she finally tears away the last of the wrapping, a small book is present in view. Small hands bring the covers to open, and finds the pages blank, spare for a little message written in the corner of the last page.
“A journal for which to draw with.” Wilson speaks up, “I remember you saying that you used to like doing that sort of thing.” Long ago with her sister. She had stopped after her passing.
Wendy has gone quiet, her fingers tightened around the book. Something slips out from the cover and falls into her lap. She picks it up with timid fingers and holds it out to the light. It’s a thaumatrope made of string and wax paper, a cage on one side and a bird painted on the next.
“For Abigail.” The doctor continues. He knows it’s a stupid gift. You don’t give gifts to dead children. But maybe Wendy would appreciate the gesture in her memory.
Wendy sets the items in her lap, touches the flowers pined in her hair and Wilson little smile on her face. Her head is tilted low, so it’s hard to tell in this light, but he swears he sees a little bit of light come into those blank eyes of hers. “…Thank you.” She looks back up to him. “I…greatly appreciate this.”
Wilson smiles, taps the monocle and feels relief at her expression. She was never great at expressing her emotions, the poor dear. But she smiled for once, and it’s a good sight to see.
She doesn’t stay for very long after that, what with it being Christmas and unfortunately she is one of the poor souls roped into caroling from house to house in the fresh hours of the morning. He thinks her parents might have had a say in this one, but the child brushes it off and bids them both good day and Merry Christmas, and leaves the two of them alone.
Wilson waves the child off and shuts the door behind her, but not before a breeze of cold air comes through the opening, causing Willow to groan and complain from her usual spot she’s taken by the fire. “Ugh. Cold. I hate it. Shut the door, will ya?” She tells him.
The doctor rolls his eyes, pick up the remaining present and holds it out to her without a word. Amber eyes dart to the offering before looking back up to meet his own, a sheepish, guilty kinda of expression taking over the matchstick woman as she stands up. “I don’t know how I feel about taking this. I didn’t get you anything.” It’s not like she can just go out and afford the nicest coat she sees anyways. What did he suppose she could get him, a new scalpel?
The doctor simply sighs, urges her to take it. “It’s nothing extravagant. Consider it ‘get well gift’ a few months late, even.”
Willow squints at him, cautiously taking the item into her hands. She shakes it a little to her ear but hears nothing (except for the chuckle the it earns from the man besides her) and tears apart a small piece of the wrapping paper. She see’s something metallic, and a pretty yellow edge. The rest of the paper falls away and she tosses the remainder into the fire as she marvels her gift.
It’s a lighter. A little thing with a handle big enough she can fit two fingers in, yellow edges around the lift arm and a picture of a white daisy on the side of it. Willow’s eye grow wide and her mouth goes slack as her thumb finds the switch and clicks it to life, a tiny flame spurring from the ignite point.
Wilson decides to take her silence and her facial expression as a sign that she likes it. “You can stop throwing your used matchsticks around my office now.” He jests. The woman doesn’t speak back, just staring at the item and a small spike of nervousness enters the doctor. “…Figured you’d like something more reliable-”
“I’ve never seen something like this before.” She squeals, there’s a grin stretching across her face. “Where did you get this?!” Her face has lightened up, bright and happy, a flushed color across her cheeks against the fire’s light. The ribbons in her hair really do suit her well.
Wilson blinks, wrings his hands together and looks away. “I made it.”
She stares at him. “You MADE this??”
“I dabble in other things besides medicine, you know.” He trails off. The carpet floor looks pretty interesting. So does that vase over there. “Science has always been a hobby of mine. Inventions and other things.”
She plays with the lighter as he goes quiet, watching her from the corner of his eye (or really, his monocle does a good job at concealing his peaking) as she flickers the flame on and off again. He never asked why she likes to do that, it’s just a part of her character that he accepted.
She flashes her teeth at him, bright wide smile. “Wilson, I love it! This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever really….” She pauses for a moment. “Actually, pretty much everything you’ve done for me is the nicest anyone’s ever did.”
He doesn’t show it, but the thought of her in her previous life (Even if she had somehow survived the cold, sickness would take hold of her eventually. She would have never made it to the holidays.) makes the doctor within him tense. “I’m glad you like it.”
The brunette’s smile drops a little bit. “I feel really bad about not getting you anything.”
He opens his mouth to protest but is cut off when she meets him in a hug, wrapping around his torso in a fashion he’s starting to get used to. (She liked doing this sort of thing. He briefly wonders if she ever got the chance to hug anyone before her staying with him.) The slight thought in her voice makes him hesitate, but he waves her off with a laugh. “I said don’t worry about it. I wasn’t expecting anything in return in the first place.” He tells her. “Really, don’t stress out about it too much. It’s not good for your heart.”
He goes to pat the top of her head but his hand freezes when she looks up at him with a mischievous smile and leaning close towards his face, her breath is warm against his chin and her hair brushes against his neck. “Actually. I just had an idea.” She grins at him. Wilson stares down at her. “And what would that be-”
She kisses him. Quickly, softly, just a little peck on the lips but it lingers for a moment and Wilson is quite sure that the skip in his heart beat is dangerously not normal. “Oh.”
Willow pulls back, still hugging him but some inches between them so she can laugh at his expression and watch the color flood his face like a roaring fire. “You okay there, doc?” She snickers. She can feel blood rush to her own cheeks but between her amusement and the giddiness she can’t feel it’s burn over the sight of him becoming so red. “You’re lookin’ a bit burnt in the face ther-”
A hand gently cups the side of her face and tilts it upwards, he’s kissing her this time. It’s longer, firmer, and she feels him pull her body into his with his other hand wrapping around her waist. It’s still soft, nice and warm and she finds herself kissing back with her fingers curling around his coat shawl.
Then it ends, he pulls away and she stumbles backwards towards the fire, not in it but close, and their faces are a bright, comical shade of red. Wilson’s eyes are wide, as if he didn’t really expect that out of himself and Willow has decidedly to look everywhere else in the room, anywhere aside front he doctor and fiddling with her new lighter in the palm of her hands.
She takes a deep breath, glances at him and starts to speak. “So, um…about that-”
He holds up a single finger to shush her. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Willow. But I think I’m about to go into cardiac arrest.”
For a split second, panic and fear flashes across her face with a tiny dose of confusion. Then she see’s the slight tug of his mouth, stretching up to make this loopy, goofy excuse of a grin on the doctor’s face and Willow makes a noise that’s a mix of an annoyance and relief as taps the bottom of the lighter against his chest. “You are a HORRIBLE flirt.” She laughs, “You’re just ASKING for me to set you on fire.” She jests a playful threat, it’s an empty gesture and he can see the blush extend to the tips of her ears.
“Well, I could be mistaking heart burn but,” He pauses for dramatic effect, and he can see her squint at him. “You’ve lit my heart on fire.”
“Oh my GOD, Shut up!”
She bats at him and he laughs at her, pulls her into a hug and makes medical puns and little jokes with a feeling of giddiness he never imagined he’d be capable of feeling. The symptoms are quite clear in his affection and she’s the best medicine for the problem (he mentions that corny little joke too, makes her flush an intensity he’s proud of and burst into a fit of giggles against his coat.)