Chapter Text
He crashed into her life like a falling star. The brightest star in the cosmos.
The world was always a lonelier place at night. Rural Kansas appeared much more desolate in the dark; the roads and the land seemed to stretch on forever, both leading to nothing. The whistling of the evening breeze was the only voice to be heard for miles.
A half-drunk glass of whiskey in hand, Sara craned her head skyward to gaze at the stars. At most times, it seemed, they were her only friends. At least there were plenty of them to go around.
Her shift at the Hillsboro Community Hospital had been a grueling one this evening. She had just managed to drag her weary bones home a little more than an hour ago and already the night was creeping into day. Though exhausted, she’d suddenly found herself wired the second she’d pulled into her driveway at nearly 3 a.m. Now coming up on 4 in the morning, she downed the rest of her whiskey in hopes of calming herself long enough to drop into dreamland.
She had no reason to be awake so late, or early, rather. Sara had no one to pass the wakefulness with. The last of the only family she’d ever known had vanished from her life nearly a decade ago, leaving her with nothing but an old country house in the middle of nowhere that was far too big for a solitary woman such as herself. That house and memories.
There shouldn’t be any joy in thought of coming home to an empty house. No happiness at the thought of eating alone, sleeping along, living alone. But, as it began to happen more frequently, Sara came to realize that this rush of adrenaline she felt upon returning to her solitary homestead night after night was from the hope that she wouldn’t be lonely for long. One night she’d come home and there’d be someone worth coming home to. Someone waiting for her.
For now, though, Sara pulled herself to her feet, blinked the stars from her eyes, and prepared to head inside where she’d climb the stairs to her room and finally sleep the sleep of the dead.
She had just yanked open the finicky screen door when she heard a peculiar thoom! Her tired eyes returned to the sky to see that it was ablaze with light. A star, like a white hot ember, arced through the night, tumbling, tumbling down. So bright. So fast. So BIG.
That is not a star, she thought.
Sara watched the object’s decent with her heart in her throat. What if it was a meteor? Or a guided missile gone astray? Should she take cover? Would there be enough time? Would it even matter?
The time she could’ve spent moving was lost to an endless string of “what if’s” playing on a loop inside her head, and by the time her brain managed to squeeze a logical thought about running into the mix, the object was crashing to earth in the field behind her barn.
She felt the impact from her porch; wobbled unsteadily on her feet as a tremor passed through the ground below. She could see the glow of flames in the distance. With the threat of a wildfire from space igniting the field beyond, with her house and all its memories in danger, she sprang into action.
Sara darted inside and made a beeline for the kitchen, retrieving the fire extinguisher from under the sink. Then, opting to take the back door, she darted back out into the chilly pre-dawn and ran as fast as her legs would carry her toward what she could only assume was Fox Mulder’s wet dream.
***
So, it definitely wasn’t a star. It wasn’t a meteor or a missile either. Nothing in her wildest dreams could have prepared her for what she was seeing. It was in pieces and it was on fire, but even partially destroyed Sara could positively identify (having watched enough cheesy sci-fi movies with her gramps to do so) an alien ship when she saw one.
“What kind of Superman origin story bullshit is this?” she wondered out loud.
The flames licking at the wreckage weren’t too big, and the small extinguisher did the trick for the most part. The dented silver exterior was still smoldering in some places by the time the canister was empty. Tossing the empty red cylinder aside, she stood and stared at the UFO in a mix of wonder and fear as another round of silence incessant questions bombarded her brain. Should she call someone about this? Who the hell was she supposed to call anyway: the cops, a scientist, the news, or all of the above?
With a startling groan of metal and a hiss of pressurized air, a large door at the rear of the ship (or was it the front? She had no fucking clue) descended, assuming a new role as a ramp, or so it appeared. It was almost as if the ship were inviting her inside.
Sara took a moment to peer into the vessel’s dark innards, then shook her head. She’d seen enough Ridley Scott movies to know that going inside was a terrible idea. Blindly investigating a mysterious extraterrestrial ship is how people ended up dead or, at the very least, pregnant with an alien baby. She wanted no part in either one of those scenarios if she could help it.
The rationalist inside of Sara urged her not to take another step farther; practically shouted at her to turn around and run the other way. But the nurse in her wouldn’t, couldn’t allow her to abandon someone who might be aboard and may be hurt, human or...otherwise. Damn. Sometimes she felt like she’d chosen the wrong profession.
Taking a cautious step up onto the ramp, jumping a bit at the echoing of her own footsteps, Sara called out to the darkness.
“Hello? Is anyone in there?”
When she got only silence for a response, she decided to forge on ahead into the belly of the great metal beast.
“Okay, I’m coming in so please just...don’t eat me and keep your tentacles to yourself.”
The cavernous ship was as black as night. In the distance she could see lights blinking, like stars in the night guiding her way. Sara felt along the walls blindly and inched forward with small, cautious steps.
“If anyone is in here be warned. I do not like surprises and, so help me, if you jump out at me here in the dark I will punch first and ask questions later.”
As she drew closer to the flashing lights, she began to hear noise. What sounded like about five different alarms were blaring, but still nothing resembling a voice.
Suddenly, the floor seemed to rise by a foot and she stumbled at the sudden change in elevation. Her arms flailed dramatically as she desperately reached for something, anything to grab onto. Sara hit the ground hard and loud, her cry of surprise cut short as her head thumped against the cold floor.
Disoriented from the blow, she looked up and took in her surroundings with blurred vision. The alarms screamed at her from every direction, which was doing absolutely nothing to help her gradually building headache, and the lights blinked furiously in sync with the shrieking sirens. She could make out other objects now, what looked like buttons and knobs and levers and screens all illuminated by the incessant flashing of the warning lights. Damn her shit luck. Alone on this alien ship and she’d managed to stumble (literally) into the freaking cockpit.
But where was the pilot? Okay, maybe whatever had been flying this saucer never heard her, had no idea she was here. Maybe it was an unmanned craft. There was still a chance she’d make it out of this incredibly foolhardy endeavor alive. Stiffly and carefully Sara rolled onto her back, glanced up, and immediately screamed.
A face, or at least what she assumed was a face, more like a mask of some sort, peered down at her from above. Stifling another cry, she scrambled up to a sitting position and shinnied away until she felt her back hit wall. Even with that outburst, the creature didn’t appear to stir. After a few minutes of heavy breathing and vigilant observation, it didn’t appear that the alien was conscious.
Before she even realized she was doing it, Sara was on her hands and knees, creeping closer to where the sleeping being was collapsed heavily in what she figured to be the captain’s chair. Upon closer inspection, it looked more like a man than a monster. A man (or a woman) encased from head to toe in a suit of shimmering silver armor. Hell, it could have been a robot.
Through the small t-shaped visor in the dome-like helmet Sara could see no traces of a face. She had no definitive way of knowing if the spaceman was truly slumbering or just waiting for her to get close enough to grab, and for a moment she hesitated to move any closer. But when she saw the small trickle of blood leaking from beneath the helmet and onto the right pauldron, her fear instantly vanished. Definitely not a robot; a living, bleeding person. RN powers activate!
“Hey! Hey, can you hear me?” Sara gave the shiny helmet a light tap, trying to conjure a response. “Come on spaceman, spacewoman, are you with me? Wake up!”
His or her head rolled limply to the side as the blood continued to run. Unconsciousness following a vehicular (or spacecraftular) crash was never a good sign, but Sara couldn’t know for certain until she saw the source of the blood how bad the damage was. Gripping the helmet between her sweating palms she began to slide it upward carefully. Before she could even get it past the wearer’s chin, a hand reached up and wrapped around her wrist, stopping her instantly. She flinched, in surprise rather than pain; their grip was unexpectedly gentle.
“Don’t-don’t take it off,” a very male voice stammered weakly. “You can’t...”
Sara was momentarily stunned. The alien spoke perfect English, and in a voice as soft as their grasp. She shook her head to reorganize her thoughts. This situation called for the utmost professionalism. When you’re a nurse, first impressions are everything. And she wasn’t representing just herself at this moment, but potentially the entire human race.
“Sir, I...it’s going to be alright, sir. I’m a nurse. I can help you, but I’ll need to assess the injury. I need to remove your helmet in order to-“
“Please...”
Sara had entered this ship expecting to find a monster. What she’d never anticipated was that the monster could be just as frightened as she was. And that’s what she heard in the spaceman’s voice: fear. He was scared. Of her. And that’s when any remaining trace of her own fear vanished. She reached down and found one of his gloved hands and squeezed it gently in her own.
“It’s okay. You’re going to be alright. I’m going to help you. You’re safe.” With her other hand she caressed one side of his helmet and tried to imagine that she were stroking his own cheek. “You’re safe.”
He seemed to relax a bit under her touch, but that may have been from the second wave of sleep overtaking him. Sara released his hand, took a step back, took a deep breath, and began mentally preparing herself for the task ahead.
Dragging a snoozing spaceman all the way to the house was not going to be an easy task, but it was one that had to be done. As a nurse, she’d be damned if she’d let a patient, extraterrestrial or otherwise, die on her watch.
Sara slid her arms around the limp man’s chest and began the first chore: hoisting him out of the chair.
“Welcome to Earth.”