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She hits the planet’s surface hard. Harder than normal, at least. Something in her hand pops on impact, her body ricochets across the hard rock surface, something strikes her thigh, she grits her teeth and keeps her arms locked around her cargo until she comes to a stop and the torrent of abuse ceases. She breathes through the pain, catalogues where the it’s coming from (mostly her right side) and doesn’t move because she doesn’t want to. From between her caged arms a small orange head squeezes out with a meep and Goose stretches out to lick at the point of her chin.
Carol takes that as a sign to let go and forces the deadlock of her arms to relax. It hurts to move, for several reasons, but laying on her back, arms flung to the side and trying to catch her breath. Goose rests on her chest exactly where Carol had cradled her to protect her from the blast when the ship had blown, and she looks at Carol with big worried flerken eyes.
“You-” Carol coughs up a lungful of dust, the flerken wobbles on her chest with each heave, but clings like a melted marshmallow and doesn’t move. With a weak hand Carol unclips a water pill, pops it in her mouth and chews until that part of her starts to feel kr- human again. She swallows the remainder to let it do its job and rests a clean hand across Goose’s soft rump. “You okay?” she asks, prioritising.
Goose makes a little chirp noise, and kneads her front paws into Carol’s collar bones which she takes as an adorable yes. She lets herself lay still for a few more seconds wallowing in her own misery and the moment she starts to roll Goose hops off her chest and lands on dainty feet. Carol only makes it to sitting before she decides maybe she needs to triage herself before she can make it all the way to her feet. So she sets to that task.
Goose explores the terrain around them with twitching whiskers and cautious little steps and once Carol sends out a distress beacon she pokes and prods at her injuries. Her right side has taken the brunt of the landing, right thumb broken, something has pierced her right thigh as she was thrown across the planet’s surface but it’s been dislodged and she’s bleeding rapidly. The rest of her injuries are painful but irrelevant, stinging cuts, friction burns, maybe a broken rib. She finds her liquid bandage spray and plugs her thigh up with it. It stops the bleeding (for now) but doesn’t make it any less painful.
“Didn’t miss that,” Carol tells Goose who recognises she’s been spoken to and trots over with a trill of interest. Carol plonks her left hand on the ginger menace and flattens its ears in a wobbly pat. Goose seems happy with this and lends into the affection. In truth Carol had forgotten this kind of pain, let it wash away into her past like so many other things, turns out she can remember it now it’s there and it sucks. A lot.
The computer on her wrist beeps an alarm and although she doesn’t want to Carol swipes it awake to see what’s coming to kill them now. It won’t be the ship that had rammed their own, nothing could have survived that explosion. It had been fuelled by the kind of something that had sent her flying and with only the most basic of protections. She’s surprised she survived the explosion at all, yet alone re-entry on this alien planet, but she is worse for wear. The other guy must look a sight, if they made it at all. With a quirk of a smile she wiggles her fingers in Goose’s face, “There’s not going to be much left of them after that, is there?” Goose watches her fingers like she’s considering an attack and Carol snatches them away before any damage can be done.
The warning is for a storm, a big storm- the kind of storm that knocks out cities if she’s reading it right. It looks like they have two hours, if the storm maintains its current speed, before the leading edge hits them. The computer offers up three viable shelters, all within two hours at a light jog- if you could jog at all. Carol’s not entirely sure she can walk, but there’s not time like the present to find out.
“Alright,” Carol tells no-one and forces her protesting legs under her body and to get her feet. Her right leg spasms when she puts her weight on it, and her whole body tries to crumple back to the ground. She stumbles, nearly steps on Goose, but manages to stay upright through sheer determination (it’s luck, but she’s not letting it on). “You ready?” She asks the little ball of fur glaring at her indignant at having nearly been stepped on. She takes it as a yes because there’s not really another option and scoops the flerken up with her good hand. Ruffled Goose climbs her sleeve with sharp claws to take a perch on Carol’s shoulder, and it’s as good as anywhere but Carol still gives her a look, “Comfortable?” she checks sarcastically, and Goose looks from her perch at their new domain like a great queen mildly unconcerned by their conquered lands. There’s nothing else to say on the matter so Carol sets off at a hobble.
They make it to the shelter just as the storm front states to overtake them. The rain and wind have been whipping at them for the last twenty minutes. Carol has barely noticed except to grab Goose and hold her close so the flerken wouldn’t make a run for it into the middle of nowhere. But Goose hadn’t shown any signs of struggle, just stoically taking the rain against her orange fur and pressing in close to Carol’s chest.
The shelter is a welcome sight when Carol steps in and it’s dry and empty. She drags the big door closed behind her with the last of her strength, latching it tight before letting herself sag against the thick metal. Whatever the building is for it looks like a bomb shelter dug into a cliff and with the door closed behind them the storm is a muffled rampage.
Goose meows at her in such a piteous way that Carol wakes up, only to realise she’s passed out against the door, which isn’t great. She looks down to her feet to find the ginger flerken staring at her face with big green eyes.
“I’m fine,” she lies, and from the look on Goose’s face she’s not very convincing about it. What she is is exhausted, and in pain, and desperate to fall into her bed and sleep the whole incident away. It’s been so long since she felt this worn down.
She pulls the bandage on her thigh out, her hand throbbing with every micromovement, she can feel the bruises that haven’t had time to form starting to come into their own, soft and tender with every step she makes to get deeper into the building and find somewhere hopefully comfortable to sleep. What she finds is an almost empty cell like bunker with something in blue written on the wall with military precision. Whatever it says she can’t read it and neither can her computer, but she assumes it says something dire. They always say something dire.
She starts to shiver, which isn’t a good sign, and Goose keeps meeping at her loudly. For an animal that has barely made a noise before now Goose’s gotten pretty vocal since the crash. Carol pretends she’s been offered encouragement because no-one can contradict her, not even Goose herself. As if in response Goose sets off to explore the space they’ve been confined to and abandons her.
She sits on a pile of discarded material she can’t identify (but has enough give to be more comfortable than the floor) and settles in to wait for the storm to pass and the rescue that will hopefully follow it. No-ones coming during the storm, no-one could.
She repairs her leg bandage, uses up the canister, and checks her signal is still transmitting: it is. Then she has nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait, and hope someone rescues her before she bleeds out or dies of boredom.
It’s been so long, so very long since she’s felt this helpless, and the exhaustion and pain all mingle into a cocktail that pries at her defences until there are tears trickling down her nose. And it’s ridiculous, of course it’s ridiculous, she’s had so many things to cry over before. She’s faced death, and glory, and heartbreak, and betrayal and she didn’t cry and knowing that makes the tears thicker and heavier and she feels weak, stupid. Because crying doesn’t solve anything, but there’s nothing else she can do but wait. Wait for rescue, wait for her powers to kick back in, wait for the storm to intensify and rip the building down around her ears. Just wait. Alone again.
She’s surprised out of her thoughts, tears still trapped in her eyelashes when Goose jumps into her lap.
They stare each other down, then tentatively Carol reaches out and rubs the soft spot between Goose’s ears. For the first time ever Carol hears a flerken purr and if the tentacles hadn’t given it away as alien the purrs would. Goose leans into Carol’s hand, seeking out affection like any touch starved kitten, but her purrs reverberate through the walls of the shelter, not loud but resonating, and soothing. It’s like every muscle in her body unlocks at the sound, and Carol melts against the wall Goose purring and purring and purring. Carol can feel the purring through her muscles and bones. Then Goose leans up against her chest, wet nose against Carol’s chin, little merps that sound very uncatlike coming from deep in their throat, and Carol tilts her head to boop Goose with her own nose. She scratches her fingers through Gooses short hair, grateful, so very grateful for the company. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she says and falls asleep to warmth across her chest, and a sound like a jet engine roaring in her ears.
When she wakes up she’s on a cruiser and Goose is tucked into the curve of her right arm.
“Thank you,” Carol says quietly, and Goose blinks up tiredly at her before tucking her head back down to go to sleep. Carol thinks that’s a great idea, their rescuers can wait.