ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (1/18) by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) Author's notes: Those of you who have been following AHE, may find it hard to believe that it was started Halloween 1995. The true turning point of the story, however, began with part II, Extreme Unction, which was released around Halloween in 1996. The response to that story was so overwhelming that I was inspired to write a 'little' Christmas story. Unfortunately, my little Christmas story (AHE III: All Christmas Eve) didn't get out until Easter 1997. I almost didn't write another but then summer ended. I had written Carnival and was still working on Revelations 1:DawnI when I started getting requests for the Halloween 1997 version of AHE. Didn't make it again, did I? Here it is, February 1998. At least it's still cold, the only problem is that most of the action takes place in early spring. Sigh... I just can't get my seasons right. Since Extreme Unction, in which Mulder nearly died of cancer, Dana almost did in the series. I had some anxious moments over the summer wondering if they'd cure Dana the way I cured Mulder in Extreme Unction, but they didn't and that actually was fine because CC did a terrific job. It did leave me having to deal with Dana's cancer here and I do but very briefly. Samantha's appearance in Redux is harder to explain so I don't even try. Just pretend that little scene didn't take place in Redux. I know mine is far from the only fanfic story which was thrown into a tail spin by THAT little revelation. Ah, the hazards of trying to write in the present. Also note that the title, Miracles, has nothing to do with the miracles discussed in Redux/Redux II. Summary: Tannis, a young witch, is invited to a certain Halloween party by a certain good-looking FBI agent in hopes that she can prevent tragedy sweeping up our heros once again. No luck, but you probably figured that out. This begins in Tannis's voice but soon moves to Dana's and Mulder's with some surprise guests by the end. Angst, angst and more angst. Rating: PG13 the vast majority of the time. A few bad words and lustful thoughts, a couple of steamy dream sequences, but nothing truly graphic. Our friends are a little too busy to be thinking much about sex. For new readers of the All Hallow's Eve series: Though I provide a clumsy synopsis of sorts in chapter 1, please don't try to read this without having read at least AHE II at some time. It would be nice to have read AHE III which is a very non-Christmas Christmas tale. You may also find the non-dream sequences of AHE I informative for understanding our heroes fondness for this particular Halloween party. Disclaimer: These characters were developed by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions and I use them with respect and no hope for ever getting paid for any of this. ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (1/18) By Susan Esty (AKA Windsinger. If in the future I'm no longer on AOL, I'll ask Gossamer.Simplenet to store my new addy someplace. I like e-mail too well to miss getting it.) Chapter 1 : Tannis The tool in my hand felt like a normal garden trowel and the earth certainly looked like normal well-turned earth. That was, however, before I plunged my little trowel into that earth. Up rose such a stench... Such a grave smell. You would have thought something had died there. I had already been warned that it was going to be a turbulent day - my morning tea leaves had refused to settle but just kept spinning about in my mug - but this! If I were the superstitious sort, I would have jumped back into bed and pulled the covers over my head but then no self-respecting wicken would have let himself or herself be caught dead doing such a thing - especially not on All Hallow's Eve. At that moment I heard a swish of vines and spun around. Charlotte, an ancient marmalade cat, had put in an appearance. Char has been my buddy, my pal, my familiar since I was very young. She walks oddly because of the arthritis in her hips. She now claws up the furniture rather than leaps and I swear has lost a nine-tenths of her decibel range, but she's always been a good friend of mine. "It's going to be a hell of a day, Char," I told her. I didn't bother raising my voice because as far as I can tell her sense of smell hasn't left her and so she must have caught the odor of the grave as easily as I had. Then near the raspberry canes came another movement. The source finally came striding out from under the huge pumpkin leaves. It was another feline. This one was steel gray from the tip of his tail to just behind his little pink nose. "Yes, Char, you're right. He also has a little spot of white under his chin, his own little witch's spot. How stupid of me not to have looked for that immediately." That it was a 'he' I had no doubt even though he was too young to have started developing his secondary sexual characteristics yet - the widening of the face and shoulders, the general thickening of the neck and body. I've gotten pretty good over my twenty-eight years at picking males out of the herd at a glance. This particular male very pleasantly strode up to where Charlotte had plopped herself down, stopped, looked up at me and uttered a hearty and very proper good morning. "My, Char, have you gone in for cradle robbing now? Nice work though at your age. Well, whoever you are, you've been very well brought up. Still I don't think this is the best day you could have picked to come visiting." In response he made a sort of shrug and just sat down beside his new friend, giving no sign of moving along anytime soon. "Stay if you want to then but keep out of my way. I've got a lot of work to do today," and then I began refilling the hole I had started. It didn't look like I'd be burying any cut potatoes before sunset today. Hanna's wart would just have to hang around another day. Worked better under a full moon anyway. Besides, I had other work to do. There were brews to make that were date sensitive, committee meetings to attend and tonight there was Samhein, of course, the celebration of which would last until dawn. Before then, however, I needed to stop at the grocery and - drat - the library. I had two overdue library books with fines. The day was certainly going downhill fast. I had just tapped down the shovelful of earth when Charlotte's new friend meowed meaningfully. I straightened and increased the range of my radar. He was right. Charlotte wasn't the only one who was going to receive a visitor this morning. Mine was even now making his way up the front walk to my house. Long strides, solid. A young man. I sighed. Just my luck, some lovesick teenager. No, too confident for that. Definitely young and male though both of which were good enough for me. My digging had been in the back yard. Brushing the dirt from my hands I trotted up the back steps so I could pull open the front door just a second before the new arrival had a chance to ring my bell. It's just one of those little things I do which drives the headblind absolutely nuts. Counting the slight sound of his hesitant steps on my front stairs, I waited until just the right moment and pulled open the door. Right on schedule there he was, a tall lean presence in my doorway. I admit I was blown back a step - a real physical step. Oh, the effect wasn't in response to his overwhelming beauty though - as I found out soon enough - that was pretty overwhelming but by the marks of a creeping yet powerful curse that encroached upon his aura like a second skin. He'd been touched by one of Them and one who means him harm. A creature very high up the hierarchy, too, though I couldn't tell who. Whoever it was obviously knew how to cover a power signature and that's hard to do. This little fact should have sent me running. Instead, I found myself distractedly gazing straight on into the most gorgeous set of startled hazel eyes that I had had the pleasure to see for a long time. Straight on meant that he must have been just over six feet. So am I. Recovering from his surprise quickly - surprise both at my height and at how I had known to magically open the door before he could knock - my caller introduced himself. 'Fox', now that's an interesting name. Not so unusual among my associates but rare in the world in general. Amused, I watched how he pulled back his shoulders and straightened. Added at least another inch to his height. Happens every time with tall men who suddenly have to deal with me. "Ol' Mom and Dad had a weird sense of humor," I told him as if that explained everything, then I leaned against the door frame, arms crossed. "Well, Mr. Fox Mulder, you don't look like you need a love potion so if you're in the market for something to keep the hoards of female admirers away then, sorry, I've never managed to get that one right. Besides,not many men see the need." He blushed. At the same time the corners of his mouth inched upwards. "No hoards," he answered in a voice like cream. Adorable. Then I remembered the tea leaves and the earth and the cancer on his aura and sobered up pretty fast. "How can I help you?" I asked switching rapidly to all- business mode. "I have a problem and I need an expert. Someone in your... field. A colleague of yours gave me your name. Teven?" Ohhh.... Now there's a name. Got my attention. I opened the door. "Come in. Any friend of Teven's -" He came in, his eyes taking in the mundanity of the accommodations almost with disappointment. Did he expect to find me living in a dungeon or maybe a hallow tree? I swallowed my irritation. There were more important matters to discuss than the pitiful state of my abode. Those eyes finally came back to me. "I didn't say he was a friend exactly," he admitted. "Our paths simply crossed." Teven's involvement began to explain the icky okra color of Mr. Mulder's aura. I began to feel slightly uncomfortable - slightly meaning that it felt like only about a thousand ants had decided to begin crawling up my spine. I excused myself and went to make tea. I didn't ask if he wanted any. 'I' did. Once back with one of my special blends - slightly weak because it, too, refused to brew properly - I sat in my favorite consulting chair and faced him or at least tried to. He'd sit on the couch for a while and then get up and pace. He did drink his own special tea, but absently as though he had much on his mind. With the stamp of 'the touch' on him and it being the day it was, I'd be distracted, too. "So how is Teven?" I can't believe I asked that so casually. He's not high up in my family's table of organization but he's about as far up as you can get in a discipline that wields his kind of power. "Very old, very tired, which is why he sent me to you." He took another sip. "He says you're a witch," he said calmly as if he were simply asking whether I had a degree in business administration. At least he's up front with the basics. "Wicken Master," I corrected. "I know in some circles it's considered trendy but that is the more accurate term and carries less emotional baggage." He sat again, balancing his cup on his knee and smiled at me. After an announcement like that most normal thinking beings find a good reason to head for the hills, but what does this creature do? He SMILES. I projected to the cat on the mantle. She had followed me into the house. She always does when I have company. Since she can't follow the spoken word very well any more, I try to keep up a running commentary so she doesn't feel left out. Her young stud was with her sitting close beside her recumbent body like some courtier. He was very young but there was something about him - noble and clean and sleek - that spoke volumes to me. Well, we'd have to talk later. I had a client. At least I think I had a client. "So under what circumstances did your path cross with Teven's?" "You can ask but I'd rather not say. It's not relevant." "Then the current - problem?" I asked. He was standing at this point by my fireplace, leaning against the mantel. He took a long breath as if to center himself. "A crowd of about a hundred or so of your local young people hold a Samhein party every year in a field half way between St.Mary's and Leonardtown. A 'gentleman' crashed the party last year. I have reason to believe that he's not quite 'normal'." but that was not something I thought he was prepared to hear. "And by 'not normal' you mean?" I prompted. "Some kind of supernatural being." <'Supernatural being'? Oh, that's rich.> "What makes you think so, Mr. Mulder? And even if this 'supernatural being' did decide that it wanted to party what makes you think he meant anybody any harm?" "Because I was there last year and he threatened some of the children very badly." He did more than that, I deduced by the hard, vengeful expression that settled over my visitor's very nice features. "You're not ready for the retirement home yet, Mr. Mulder, but you're no teenager either. What were you doing there?" "We came upon the party two years ago by accident. The high school crowd made us feel very welcome. We came back last year. Besides, studying the customs that link people's connection to the afterlife and 'otherlife' happens to fall within a particular interest area of mine. We came back last year only to enjoy ourselves. We didn't expect, or want, the kind of trouble we found." "You're a ghost hunter? All the ghost hunters I've ever met have been old maids or older English professors short of funds and desperate to find something to write a book about." I didn't bother to tell him that there was no such thing as ghosts - lots of other things - but no such thing as ghosts as most of Western civilization thinks of such things. "I've been known to spend a night or two in a supposedly haunted house but that's not my primary field of interest." "The paranormal then." He didn't look at me straight on. "You might say so." He was on his third cup of tea, refilling it himself from the chipped green tea pot. Consumption in excess of politeness. The blend will do that to you if you're not paying attention. At this rate he'd tell me where his father hides the family jewels if I asked him. In fact his eyes were even now looking a little glazed. Suddenly, he sat down on the couch with rather less than what I expected was his usual grace and just sat there. He certainly was sensitive to the stuff. Quickly, I moved the tea pot out of his reach - took it all the way into the kitchen as a matter of fact - and made a new pot with the restorative. I felt a little badly about using the big guns so early in the conversation but I really didn't have time for sparing today and he was beginning to frighten me. When I returned he was staring only slightly stupidly into space. I just stood and appreciated the view for a long time before I set the new pot down. My, but he was good looking and I had only to crook my little finger and he'd follow me into the bedroom as sweet as you please. Too bad the stuff makes men about as much fun as a limp rag. "I'm going to ask again, Mr. Mulder, and I want a straight answer because this could be important: Under what circumstances did your path cross with Teven's?" This time he tried to catch my eye but had trouble finding either one of them. "Two years ago - almost three. There was this little boy. An exorcism..." His voice faltered. His eyes went from unfocused to glassy. That was the hook. It was all coming together now. "Damn, you were there, weren't you. Fool, you watched. It SAW you!" He looked a little shaky. No, he looked a lot shaky. "You can tell?" "Absolutely. And this was the same one who recognized you at the party last year? He touched you, didn't he? It would have saved us a lot of time if you had just told me this to start with." "We were exorcising a demon. Maybe an acquaintance of yours. You may not have approved." "You'd be surprised what my profession approves of." I plucked the empty cup from his limp hand and poured in some of the new stuff. The restorative worked more slowly than the first so I wanted to get a head start on introducing it into his system. As long as he kept on the subject, however, and didn't try to evade the answers to my questions, he'd be perfectly lucid for hours. "You've said 'we' a couple of times. You aren't completely alone in this then. Who was your companion?" He was clearly uncomfortable answering that question. His long fingers shifted nervously around the cup. "My partner." Slightly dazed, he frowned and switched that to, "My friend." "Mr. Mulder, you have to be up front with me. Your friend could be a bible-thumper who thinks the Inquisition was a pretty good idea. I can't just go off with every curiosity seeker or every crazy who comes to my door. They burned witches once you know." "I know. And hung them and stoned them and drowned them and pressed - " "You can stop now," I said testily, rather uneasy with that litany myself. "So you've done your homework. Let's try this again. "Who is your 'partner' and why is he/she a 'partner' even more than a friend? I can't see you taking a business partner out to a place like that on Halloween night. And why do you feel it's your responsibility to protect these kids anyway? Good Samaritan's don't have a long life expectancy these days." He hesitated, then reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out - Shit! a badge. He had that flip of the wrist down just fine. I'd been shaken down often enough for weird behavior and strange hours to know a cop when I saw one. I took the time to read this one a little closer than usual. It might be useful in the future to know what branch of law enforcement hired strange dudes like Fox Mulder. Double shit - FBI! I'd just drugged a federal officer without his consent! I wonder what trouble he's going to get into the next time they do a urinalysis? I wonder how much trouble I'm going to get into when they find out where he got it? "Have some more tea, Mr. Mulder." Unfortunately the harm was done and in my experience increasing the quantity of the restorative won't speed up the process though it can't hurt. Meanwhile I did my best to pull my wits back together. "Okay, I'm impressed, the FBI. Never saw one of those before. Now the concept of 'partner' makes some sort of sense. So why is the FBI interested in invading a one-bonfire Halloween party?" "What I told you at the beginning was the truth. We found the party by sheer accident. Had an - interesting time. Sought them out a second time and - last year happened. It was a nightmare. Both times we were acting as private citizens. Same as tonight." He indicated his flannel shirt, jeans and comfortable utility boots. "Even though I'm not here in any official capacity, protecting the public is still very much part of who I am. I need an expert with me who can help if Jack Skelington decides to put in another appearance. Will you come?" Despite his attempt at levity - yes, I'd seen 'Nightmare Before Christmas', too - this man was scared and from where I was sitting he had good reason. "I'll come," I said. There really wasn't any other decision I could have made. I couldn't let him go off alone to bump into the wrong people all over again. He might get more than a few bad dreams next time - he could get toasted - and what a waste that would be. I leaned forward. "Now, tell me. Just how much of a nightmare was last Halloween." * * * * * * * * After an hour of one of the most fascinating and yet unsettling interrogations I'd ever performed, I fled the house for the serenity of the earth and my plants. Until almost noon I dug and snipped herbs for drying and tried not to think about my visitor. I concentrated instead on finding my balance in the warmth of the sun on my back, the feel of the good earth between my fingers, the scent of it in my head. No stench of the grave now. The message - or had it been a warning? - had been delivered. Having calmed down I decided it was time to start on those two potions which had to be made today or there would be none until next year. In the potting shed I pulled out mortar and pestle and began pulverizing the leaves and roots and seeds I needed. It was mindless work. Good for thinking which was all right to do now that I was centered. The pungent odors released by the broken plants drifted up. I could almost feel the last of my knotted nerves begin to loosen. Charlotte crawled arthritically up onto the workbench and plopped herself down. Her friend soon followed with a sinuous leap to settle beside her with a grace poor Charlotte had lost years before. His name was Eli. Don't ask how such knowledge is passed. You don't question after a while, you just accept. Just as I was not going to question how I had come to have the sweetest lump of manflesh I'd seen in a long time sleeping off too much Thor's Leaf tea on my couch. The fact that he'd brought me a problem in the shape of a demon with an attitude I consciously ignored for the moment. Instead I conjured his lean form up into my mind and I allowed a little wistful sigh to escape. He was a sight stretched out helpless like that. Oh, for the good old days when a witch could entice a young man who caught her fancy up to her room and keep him for a night or a week or a month or forever. A clay flower pot crashed. A message from Charlotte. Absently, I reached over to scratch her between the ears. "You're right, dear. I'm procrastinating. We have a problem. Special Agent Foxy Mulder's scared. So am I." Charlotte complained with a distinct "Yeowl!". "Sorry, I was so distracted I forgot to translate earlier. What you didn't hear about was the curse our unknown demon cast last year. A nightmare so vivid that it was indistinguishable from reality - a nightmare that actually created its own reality - a split - a spin-off from this world that still exists. I can't conceive of such power. In his 'dream' Mulder survived death by cancer only through the injection of non-human - i.e. alien - proteins. Yes, I know, hard to believe, but considering what I believe in I guess I have no reason to be skeptical. The treatment nearly killed him - certainly changed him, definitely scarred him. But just when most humans and most of our folk would have realized that this must be a dream because it is just TOO horrible, there was Scully, his 'partner', in there with him. They suffered, they loved, they married and yet they endured. They even produced a child. I guess you can survive anything if you have incentives like that." Setting the much-mashed vegetable matter aside to breathe, I took Charlotte into my arms and buried my face in her fur. As has been true these past few years, her thinness appalled me. How frail and light my friend had become with age. Approaching death hadn't robbed her of any of her wits, however, for from Charlotte there came no rumbling purr. She always had been good at picking up on the seriousness of the situation. "Maybe, it's just one of the oldsters playing a very nasty trick," I considered without much conviction. "I said I'd come so I will. Maybe this Power just needs a talking to, a little dose of reality. The old ones forget sometimes that the age has changed. They can't expect the blind and immediate subjugation they came to expect in the old superstitious past." So I was still technically a minor in the coven. My strength had grown considerably over the past year. I had hoped for some minor recognition of my gains at the meeting on the winter solstice. "If it became known that I had actually negotiated with an oldster..." A loud cat cry interrupted my plans for glory. Charlotte leaped out of my arms with a scrape of old claws that didn't retract so well any more. The cry, however, had come from Eli. I have seldom seen such a look of destain on a feline face as I saw on Eli's just before he followed Charlotte back out into the sun. "Everyone's a critic," I yelled after him. "So do you have a better idea?" No response except for a distinct projection of warning and distress. With irritation I reached for the alcohol lamp to complete my tincture. "Just you calm your ardor, Mister Eli, and let Charlotte get some sleep this afternoon. It's going to be one hell of a night." End of Chapter 1 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (2a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For disclaimer see Chapter 1 Chapter 2a: Tannis My unexpected house guest woke up from his nap at noon. Walking gingerly as if embarrassed down to the soles of his long feet, he slipped out my front door. Only after some hesitation did he add that he'd return at five o'clock to pick me up. From my porch I watched him go with a smirk of satisfaction. He knew. What about, he wasn't sure, but something. Enough to sober his already sober mood with some good healthy respect for my abilities. If he had emerged from our first meeting completely clueless, I wouldn't have thought much of his intelligence. He returned as promised, but not a minute early. Silently, he held the car door for me then waited wide-eyed as Charlotte and her young suitor followed me in, heads high and tails swishing. He didn't say a word though there were some leery shadows in those hazel orbs of his. 'Spooked' I think would best describe the way he felt about the morning's tete-a-tete and now he had this menagerie to chauffeur around. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck that though he was clearly alarmed by all of this he wasn't weirded out enough to go off to the evening's party alone. 'Alone' is an interesting word. As he drove, I asked about that when he made no mention of hooking up with his partner. I admit I had ulterior motives. If she was out of the picture and the evening's 'negotiations' went well, he might be in a celebratory mood by and by. He took his time answering. "She won't be coming - but not for lack of courage. You'd have to look very far to find someone with more guts than Scully but there's our connection we have to this other world - to our other selves. We feel as responsible for them as surely as if they were our own children. In the past we've only been able to hook into their world when we're together. Scully's determined that that won't happen tonight." "You mean if you're not together -" "- then there can be no link. And Scully has a point - they've earned their peace." "But you still have a devil of a problem." His hand gripped the steering wheel harder. "Scully knows me too well, and knowing me, knew I couldn't stay away tonight." "So she will," I finished. As he spoke, his eyes had been fixed on the glow on the setting sun on the horizon but a muscle in his set jaw jumped. Clearly, he was less than pleased with the arrangements. Comforted only by the two cats lying across my feet, I settled back in my seat and crossed off my hopes for snaring a date from this particular client. He may not know it, but he was 'taken' but good. As he drove slowly through the small town of Adamsville, both of us kept our eyes open for trick-or-treaters. There weren't many along this street of sad, decades-old strip shopping centers. As we passed a large regional high school on the edge of town, we picked up speed. From here we were only a few miles from where the party was being held or at least from where it had been held for the two years previous. Soon we joined a long line of cars all going the same way we were. Loud, bass-heavy music boomed from most of them. It looked like the kids had not given up on their tradition despite the trouble of the year before. Mulder peered down the line of cars and then turned briefly to look behind. "We never came this way before. Scully and I first noticed the lights of the bonfire from the interstate and that's where we always parked." With the rest of the pick ups and Saturns and who knows what all - I've never been good at classifying car styles - we turned up a rutted gravel drive and a quarter mile of so later parked with the others. As we left the parking area where the teens lingered around their cars many of which sat idling with head lights blazing, the dark closed in. It was clear night, however, and once our eyes adjusted, there was moon and stars enough. Soon there was added to these the glitter of penlights and jack-o-lanterns and glowing cigarette. The party ground was a large and mainly flat field surrounded on three sides with woods and on the fourth by a sort of rolling plain. Mulder pointed down the plain and with a wry smile said he'd chased a moose that way the year before. "Uh huh," I replied, "and I'm Tinkerbelle." This drew a short laugh. Being here had taken some of the tension away, at least temporarily. I'd already sensed that Mulder was not a patient person. Clearly he felt more in control now that the waiting was nearly over. We circled the party grounds. The two cats were gray and yellow wraiths flitting along the ground in our wake. Our being at least fifteen years older than anyone else here, the younger party- goers eyed us suspiciously. Some of the older ones, however, nodded towards Mulder in a friendly way. In particular there was a group of three tall girls all with streaming hair and swathed in long black capes like the three weird sisters. I'm talking MacBeth, here, not the singing group. Each thanked Mulder for coming with great solemnity and they quite genuinely meant it. They stared at me and then went off whispering with their heads close together. Obviously, my sturdy six foot frame didn't bear even a passing resemblance to Scully's. At the edge of the last bit of woods before the plain, Mulder dropped down on a fallen tree trunk, dejected. Whatever release from the stress of waiting he had found with our arrival had pretty much evaporated. "You must think I'm crazy for coming back here." That thought had occurred to me. "We are a little out of place." "What you don't understand is that everything's changed. The first year we were here, it was magic. Last year, a little shabby, more violent, definitely tragic. This year? This is not the place we knew. There's no life, no spontaneity." I sat beside him. I could sympathize with his disappointment. Mulder was exceedingly empathic for a 'norm'. He could probably sense the difference as an almost physical pain and, truth be told, what he had told me of the party two years before bore little resemblance to what we found tonight. Oh, in the outward trapping yes, but in spirit - not a bit. "They do seem to be trying awfully hard to have a good time but none of them actually seems to be having one," I noted. "It's as if they're just going through the motions." The silhouette of his head nodded slowly against the very last hint of the sunset. "I'm sorry. It's that way sometimes. You have one perfect day when everything just fits right, then when you try to recreate it - the sparkle is gone." I stared up at the moon feeling the pull of this night, appreciating his companionship and feeling an uncontrollable urge to share my special feelings with this mortal, who, rare among norms I've known, I thought would understand and appreciate a few wonders. "I've known some glades enchanted by moonlight," I told him. "I've seen the fairies dance by starlight. But never have I seen these wonders reappear in the same place twice. The magic never dies. Oh, you may catch it again, but not here, always someplace else. It passes on." His head was down now, his hands together between his knees. He wasn't laughing but I caught a glimpse of a little secret smile. "'The magic never dies.' Disney will be happy to know that." He raised his head as the party-goers began drifting towards bonfire. "Come on," he said, rising. "They're getting ready to start. If it's going to happen, it will be now." When I got up to join him I rose perhaps too eagerly because he added, "If it were up to me, my hope would be that we have a very boring time." "No more than I, Agent Mulder," I told him and it was true. I had already decided that a few extra limbs up the old coven tree weren't worth a scorching. The only disappointment I'd really feel would be if I let this lovely creature beside me get away unkissed. But that for later. Serious business now. When we were within ten yards of the bonfire, I decided we were close enough and stayed him with a touch on his arm. "Stop here." For a second I let my hand linger. For all his fear, he was steady. Good for him. Guess you learn something about nerve in the FBI. "Now stay still. You hired an expert and now you have to listen to her." I pulled out the heaviest of the string bags I'd brought and began to circumscribe a circle on the ground about his feet. I dropped white stones first, ones I'd collected years ago on a pilgrimage to the headland of the Colorado. Then I retraced my path sprinkling the blood of a wild Canadian goose on the stones. At least I told Mulder it was goose blood. It was really my own: I was that frightened. What I did do for Mulder's benefit was throw in my creepiest incantation though I kept it low so as not to attract attention. The spell wasn't necessary except for its psychological impact. He had to believe in the power and the seriousness of the situation if I was going to have any hope that he'd heed my instructions. Lastly, I scattered the ashes. An Episcopal hymnal. A phone book would have done as well but hymnal was what I had. Carbon is carbon, the bones of the Earth. "Now just stand there," I ordered. "You can't be serious," he said indignantly, though I imagine he knew that I was. "Protection, Mulder. At least I hope it will prove to be so." Standing on the edge so as not to break the circle, I stared him straight in the eye like the first time we'd met. Had it only been that morning? "You stay," I told him, then continued before he could begin his protest. "Not a foot outside, do you hear me! And it's not just for your good, but for all of us here. If it's you he wants, then maybe if he can't get you he'll just make like a tree and leave." "Leaf," he murmured, arms crossed. Amazingly, he was standing still. The man had some sense after all. Maybe there WAS hope for the human race. That was the end of any time for talking. The ceremony had begun. A tall girl stepped up before the modest beginnings of the bonfire and before my unbelieving eyes dropped her cloak. There was nothing underneath. Eeeek!!! Mulder muttered something appreciatively behind me about the scenery and I relaxed. So far so good. At least he'd maintained his appreciation of the absurd. Then the poor naked child began to chant. At her first words I reared up to my full height in astonishment. Incredulous, I concentrated to catch the next phrases. They were badly accented and shaky either from fear or cold but unmistakable. Where in the Ellotian Fields had she gotten this ceremony from? Certainly she had no idea what she was saying. No wonder a big, bad devil came running. If I were Satan himself, I'd come. She was promising him an orgy of lust and blood such as he hadn't gotten in - oh, a few thousand years at least. I was about to stop her, had even taken have a dozen steps when hell, quite literally, opened its gates. The bonfire exploded, sending these overgrown children shrieking and stumbling back, and something you would not want to see in your worst nightmare, burst through. There he was. One moment it was just the flames leaping high and roaring in the firestorm. The next moment a thick black shape hovered, silhouetted against that earthly fire. For just a flicker of a second I thought I saw immense leather wings raised heads and heads taller than a man. Then the image seemed to shrink. Still inhumanly tall, the figure solidified into a thin, thin fire- shrouded cutout against the night. Iron hard it was and tall, two or three head taller than either me or Mulder, but mostly of arm and leg. Around us rustled the murmurs and cries from a hundred throats. I was aware that there was fear, but also fascination on the young, fire-lit faces. Father Storm and Mother Earth, protect me, but he was an old devil, a very, very old devil. I'd heard of such but never seen one. He was cackling with menace, his voice like dead bones rattling against stone. A girl screamed as a sweeping bony finger came to rest in her direction. As he made a motion to snatch at her right through the flames, the bravest of her companions took her by the arms and dragged her away to comparative safety. He laughed deep and long at the futility of their action, such a chilling laugh to come from all that heat. At my side Mulder's face was a perfect mask of rigid anger. Only the fear kept his feet rooted to the ground inside the circle. I could smell that fear. I shot at him. A growling only rumbled from somewhere deep in his chest and involuntarily he took one step. Just in case he hadn't heard my mental snarl - which I couldn't imagine how he had not - I commanded, "Stay!" I even used the Voice this time just as I had been taught and that was all I could do for Mulder short of sitting on him. By itself that wasn't an unpleasant prospect, but not now. Alone, I stepped towards the fire. There was some comfort in the fact that I had followed my instincts and worn my blood red ceremonial robes. It was rather like a uniform and would give me some authority though the picture that devil and I made could best be compared to a crossing guard trying to stare down a battle-hardened Green Beret. My blood flowed so cold already that within half a dozen steps my numb feet could barely feel the blessed ground. My hands were just as icy. I swore to myself. I should have brought more help. Even better, I should have entranced this knight errant who had appeared at my door and stayed home. If I had, we would have been safe and snug in my bed now instead of facing near certain incineration if not worse. End of Chapter 2a ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (2b/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For disclaimer see Chapter 1 Chapter 2b: Tannis "What is this?" Rattled the devil's voice in what I realized was satisfaction. "A little witchlet?" I could feel an icicle stab into my breast at each crystal-sharp syllable. The Norse were right. Hell WAS a cold place. "Father," I said in greeting, bowing slightly. Much as I hated it, 'Father' was the correct address for one as old as he. "Well met... daughter. What brings thee here? Looking for a companion to walk the stones tonight?" His mouth stretched in a leer, all black stubbed teeth and pale blue lips. I thought I had been cold before... Now there was a lump of ice in my belly where my womb should be and I had good reason. Many of the old ones had acquired certain - appetites - from long years studying the children of earth. "Companions I have already and in respectable numbers. They await me at our own gathering place." How quickly the old stilted language comes. But there is force in the words, power in the syntax, some comfort in the ancient forms. "I sensed your presence in passing and wondered what could interest such a one at such a pitiful play." The fleshless, skull-like features twisted slightly disapproving. "Don't insult me, child. There's only one who would have the naivete and the audacity to enlist the aid of one such as you against me. If not for him, how could you have come to be here?" The elongated head on its skinny neck stretched forward as the Old One sniffed the air. "Where have you hidden him? You might as well speak because I know the smell of him. Come here, little Fox. In the old times a man wouldn't hide behind a woman's mist and mirrors. Haven't you learned yet not to meddle in business that is not your own." Loudly enough for Mulder and half the field to hear even over the crackling of the fire, I cried, "Listen to me, Mulder. Keep to the circle!" I dared not look back to see if he obeyed, however. Despite the taunting words, I had the devil's attention and there was where I needed it to stay. I was nearly ready to offer my first born that I could. Perhaps he would get bored in time and leave for unguarded prey. Perhaps... "I warn you, little witch. I do not wish to burn you but stand between me and what I have marked as mine and I promise you that you will burn like chaff in the summer sun." "Father, you are old, as ancient and wise as the stones. Everything there is to see, you have seen. What pleasure can you derive from their young fear." I indicated the clumps of tall children, everyone frozen in place. His arm swept in a parody of mine. "These?" he cackled. "I have no interest at all in these." "Why this one man then?" "Let's just say that I've acquired a taste for his insolence. Infinitely refreshing, you should try it." At that he paused and then like a snake striking his black eyes stabbed with one quick dark stroke into my mind. "Ha! I see you've been tempted already. Is that the true reason why you wish for me to leave? So you may have him for yourself? I will strike a bargain with you, little witch. We can share him, you and I. Would that not be a fine experience to fire your soul on this of all nights?" Then in my mind, between one pounding heartbeat and the next, there we were. More vivid than any dream. Three naked bodies on a humid summer night, legs and arms intertwined in a sweating and passionate tableaux under the fiery stars. One body was pale with a mortal beauty and a mortal frailty, the second as red and fertile as a harvest moon, the last as dark as the darkest sin. The wings of the dark one hovered over all three as their owner stood, legs spread wide over where the male and the female strained and groaned and whimpered and sobbed. His pale skin burning, my knight, my pet, my chosen mortal love was moving above me in the shadow of those all-sheltering wings. I too was on fire from the Earth below me and his desire above. It was luscious to be so wicked. Bliss to be so filled. And then suddenly he went rigid, throwing back his head in a silent scream of mingled passion and terror, his hands convulsively reaching out to clutch at my shoulders as the long claws of the third member of our unholy trio slid seductively from one of my lover's muscled shoulders down the long back, over a firm hip to - As if I were saving myself from drowning, I thrust myself out of the vision and into the cool, blessed freshness of the October air. For long moments after, however, my innermost self still shuddered with the intensity of a desire such as I have seldom known. My palm hurt from the fresh wound where I had dug the nails of my hand in with pressure enough to draw blood. If only that scent, his precious, special scent would get out of my head. Another shudder. The old devil had a point about acquiring a taste. I had only to lick the sweat from my own upper lip... and there it was. Every being has its own scent and texture. Mulder's was warm as chestnuts and yet as spicy as the richest curry. His fear could drive a sensitive drunk with longing. "Thank you..." I forced out with no little effort," but I find willing companions the sweeter." Speaking had been nearly impossible. To forsake the lingering dream and the taste of lust on my tongue proved harder still. "We could make him willing you and I, more than willing. Impaled and impaling between such as we for all eternity? Only one in ten million can say they have the chance to fall to their 'petite morte' from a greater height." Steady, my heart, I commanded. "Is that all you wish from eternity? Then I'll let it be known. There are those who would take you up on your offer of such sport. I'll even help you. I'll tell them, I'll tell them all. 'Who among you has the taste to ravage the weak and mortal flesh?' Who shall I say they should ask for?" I heard his teeth snap in fury like the jaws of a trap. No, I wouldn't get his true name out of him that easily. Instead, with a toss of his head he frowned. "Enough! I bore easily, girl, and you bore me. Go away. And if you think I have qualms about grinding your bones to dust, you are even more of a innocent that I thought you were." "You're a bully..." "You are a child. Go back and play with your pins and your dolls and your pitiful bits of leaf and root." "Coward..." "Your heart honestly bleeds for these creatures and how that disgusts me..." I made a sign. Among his folk it's an insult of the worst kind inferring that here was one who took his comfort with animals who were ever so much further down the evolutionary scale then Man. Humans had at least a passing acquaintance with the divine. In response he roared, the skin of his face stretching over unholy bones. A skeletal arm raised in power and anger to point... at me. Somewhere thunder began to rumble as if stuff of life itself in the deep Earth itself were being roused to fury. I prayed. A ball of spitting fury at that moment leaped across the firelight dead on with the old devil's eyes. Dulled claws were unleashed, ancient teeth bared to attack, to protect. Not expecting an assault from that quarter, the devil lunged back, throwing his arm up to protect his face. At the last moment, however, as he saw who and what his attacker was, he slapped away the fierce, little warrior, his iron arm of sinews and tendons meeting the frail and angry beast as a child might swat at a gnat. Later I remembered the lightest of dull thumps at the impact, the last breath expelled with a whimper of pain. My unbelieving eyes followed the boneless ball of fur as it was hurled past the flames and into the darkness beyond. A group of the teenagers screamed. "Charlotte.... CHARLOTTE!" My feet moved. I don't remember where or how. Over coals, possibly. I never remembered only that it was the shortest route. All I recall clearly was finding the rag of golden fur in the dark, laying my hands under the silent little body and feeling the head on its broken neck lull as I picked up the tiny featherlight form and cradled it in my arms. There was no blood. There could be no blood, she was so frail and thin. Damn, damn, worm. Bloody, spineless worm! A shineeka... to kill a shineeka! One of that race of rare and wise beasts Time stretched as it sometimes does, so I don't know if seconds or minutes passed before awareness returned. For that time my grief was like a hole, black and deep and silent. There was no end to it and for that moment I wanted no end to it. Hearing returned first though the sounds were muffled by the roaring in my ears. Then feeling, cold on my sweaty skin. Finally sight. There was a stirring in the air. Bodies moving, slowly and then faster and faster as more of them, like ghosts, whipped by me in the dark, shouting, fleeing, stumbling in twos and threes, crying in terror. I lunged back towards the fire but my legs became entangled in the folds of my unaccustomedly long skirt and I fell forward to sprawl heavily on my stomach on the grass and stones. The night was oddly silent now and empty as if in losing my breath I'd expelled all life and sound. For the first time I concentrated on what was happening near the central writhing blaze. There are only three forms anywhere near the fire now. Only three. Mulder, still miraculously in his circle, the damned devil, wreathed in his fiery coat as before, and a third, the only element on the whole plain with the exception of the flames themselves which seemed in motion. At first, I took this to be one of the teenage girls who had panicked though I couldn't conceive of any reason why she would be coming this way - towards the conflagration. Then I realized that the form ran too fast and too strong and with far too much determination to be any of the girls I had seen. In fact, I thought for a second that this must be another shineeka, this one in human form. She had the size and the fire and the spit. Turning, the hellraised saw her, too, and made a sound, hungry and satisfied. His arms whirled as if he wielded long, sharp knives and between them formed and spun huge balls of red, unearthly lightning - fire devils - which he sent boiling out towards the newcomer. "SCULLY!" The bonfire had been between them, so Mulder had not seen the newcomer approach before this, nor she him. Now, however, as he followed where the devil had focused his attention, he caught sight of the slender body, the flame-touched hair. Fear for her must have overwhelmed his own for in one bursting heartbeat he was out of the circle, sprinting to intercept her. "MULDER! YOU FOOL!" How gloriously, courageously stupid you mortals can be. A straight line is always and ever will be the shortest distance between two points, unfortunately the bonfire pit lay far too close to that line between Mulder and who was now, quite clearly, a young, petite woman. The woman's progress slowed slightly as she tried between the dark and the glare of the fire to find the one who had cried her name. Oh, God and all his souls and devils, what had I done? Charlotte was already dead for my stupidity and pride. How many others would die? My anger snapped - and was replaced by despair. This Old One had to be insane - it's possible for one of the Old Ones to go insane - and if this were the case my puny powers would be next to useless. Still, I had to try. Only just when I knew I had to do something, I found nothing inside. Nothing. No power, no spell, no goddess, no help. Only a voice, mine, screaming, "MULDER, NO!!!!" but my warning cry was far too late. Seconds before, Mulder had launched himself across the edge of the firepit. When he started that corner had been dark, but that was before the Old One began feeding power and more power like gasoline into the expanding flames until the long hell-tongues roared up and out in an exploding blaze that roared like thunder. And the section nearest the man reared higher than any other taking the form almost as some burning monster hand from hell - a hand that reacheded and caught. As the red and gold, the horrible heat and the burning took its prize, the devil let loose a whoop of conquest. Helplessly, I watched that slender human plucked as if from the sky itself, like a sparrow snatched out of the air by a ravaging phoenix. Screaming, body writhing, I watched him borne towards the old devil who reached out for his prize with lecherous glee. As the near naked skull crowed its horrible laughter in anticipation of its owner's triumph, the flames flared three times, six times, the height of a man now into a thousand shades of red and gold, yellow and black and crimson. And now the devil opened his foul mouth and a darkness spilled out forming a fathomless pool of insatiable hunger and infinite pain. Death would be a sweeter destination. Lurching forward trying to rise, I felt tears of anger and defeat burn my eyes. I had failed. I had only wanted to help. How was it possible that everything could go so wrong? How? Because I had abandoned by charge. I had left him alone and unprotected. But failed? No! Mother help me, no not yet! Not without a fight. The Earth was my rock, the Earth my strength. Never had I asked for such power before, never has it been granted. Compared to that of an Old One it was nothing but enough to take him unawares. From where I still half lay on the damp ground tangled in my skirts I wove a shield of righteous fury and my own stubborn will and sent it flying. Just that. Just a power of Earth strong enough to slice its way through the grasping flames that had been drawing the devil's helpless prey towards that abyss of never ending despair. How long did Mulder hang suspended in the air? Three seconds? Five? Ten? I know I saw his body convulse at least twice, his mouth stretched open in a tortured, silent wail. Now as the earth shield dropped between he and the Old One, he fell like a stone, a puppet shorn of its strings. If it were possible for such a dark devil to turn purple with wrath, this one did. Screaming his outrage, the demon raised his arms in invocation. I alone saw what followed. Wings emerged from the furthest reaches of the night - leathered, blood black wings - wings which expanded to reach from horizon to horizon as the skeletal arms clawed in their fury at the heavens. Like great leather bellows they beat down - once - twice - three times, then faster, ever faster, too fast to see. The wind, oh God, the wind. I could hear it coming like a hurricane racing towards us over the tops of the highest trees. Instinctively, I dropped to clutch at the safety of the earth. Above the rising moan of the approaching storm I heard the old devil's foul shrieking as he spirited skywards. Only at the very end did I dare look. Riding a crest of flame, I saw him go, crying a last howl of triumph towards the cold dead moon. Triumph? How could this be triumph? He was going. I had no more time to think on that. Those immense barren wings had captured the still air of acres, of a township, of a county between their bloody veins. He had roused the earthpower against us. The tops of the trees whipped as if a tornado's long finger was reaching down towards us from the black, now boiling sky. I forced myself to stand. I was never so glad for my height and sturdy build as the wind like giant hands buffeted by body trying to force it down. But I stood for as long as I could because there was still Mulder to worry about as well as the others whom he had trusted me to protect. My cries were ripped and shredded from my mouth like so many leaves. Upright, I felt the full force of that horracious wind. Bred of evil, evil lingered in that unnatural storm - power and intelligence and pain and sorrow and betrayal - but mostly evil. A crumpled mass, Mulder lay crushed by it, a small curled ball just where he had fallen. His arms were wrapped protectively around his head as anyone's would be for across the open field blew a blizzard of splintered branches and ripped leaves, dirt and even bits of stone and fire. Mulder would keep as well where he was as anywhere. Now I searched for the newcomer whose unforeseen arrival had not started all this but hadn't helped. Certainly she must be this Scully, the partner who wasn't supposed to have come, the woman for whom Mulder - like a fool - had left the safety of the circle to protect. As if he could have done anything to help. Although furious with her intrusion, I felt I had to make certain she was all right. Raising my hands, I sheltered my eyes from the flying debris but it was so dark now. The clouds had come racing in with the wind so now the moon and the stars were gone. Even the bonfire was little more than a shredded mass of sparks now that the source of its supernatural fuel had departed. I searched one, twice, across the area where I'd last seen that slender figure. I admit that I have a bias against such trim, petite symbols of femininity. That and a tinge of jealousy turned down the corners of my mouth. On the third sweep I found her. She was lying flat on her stomach sheltered from the storm in a shallow hollow near where the land rolled a little. Now there was some sense I could appreciate. No, that wasn't quite the way of it. She wasn't keeping to this place of safety voluntarily. She was struggling to get up and not being allowed to. Someone had thrown her down and was sheltering her with his body. A slender boy, all gray like a ghost. As the storm rose to a shrieking climax, I dropped to the ground myself meaning to make sense of that gray apparition. At that moment, however, a ball of pure lightning exploded over the field simultaneous with a deafening crack of thunder. The sheer implosion of air sucked the air from our lungs. I cried out in pain as the sudden explosion and just as sudden plunge in air pressure slammed with agonizing force against my eardrums. As the white bomb of light and the thunder collapsed into darkness, so the wind dropped in a heart beat to a deafening silence. Even the little that remained of the bonfire flickered down into nothingness as if the light itself had been swallowed up by that silence. No one moved at first. After the light show of the bonfire's demon blaze and the explosion of the fireball, we were all blind in the sudden return of night and its total velvet blackness. Only gradually did the seamless dark come to be sprinkled again by the low golden glow of coals and the return of the cool, pale light of distant stars. Of sound there was only the sobbing of a single soul, the sound becoming fainter and fainter in those first seconds of paralyzed calm as if the weeper was being carried away with the wind. End of Chapter 2b ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (3a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 3a: Dana I'm going to pull a Mulder here. It was all my fault. If I hadn't showed up when I did, everything that happened that night would have been different. Impossible for it to have been worse. Only how could I have done it differently? Was my mistake not coming to the gathering to start with or was it in coming at all? The day had been hell, like the week before Christmas the year before only a hundred times worse. Something in the air, in my skin, in my head telling me that I was needed and of course the only place I could possibly be needed was at that damn field, the one place I had sworn I would not go. But the walls of my apartment kept closing in, the temperature first too hot then too cold. I must have put my hand on the phone to call Mulder to tell him that I'd changed my mind at least fifty times. Finally I just had to go. I kept telling myself that I'd be careful but instead I was just - stupid! What was I thinking of? I should have stayed in the shadows and analyzed the situation as we're taught to do. Instead I went rushing in. At the very least I should have known by the very brightness of the fire that events were moving. But, no, I had to run right into the middle of it, stumbling in to upset some kind of balance. He had been protected, I'm not going to go into how and I don't know if that protection would have held out against the power of our old 'acquaintance', but I do know that when he saw me arrive he left that safety to warn me so I wouldn't come upon that horror unaware. Damn you, Mulder. When are you going to stop and think about yourself first for a change? I'm a big, tough, FBI agent, too, remember? I won't go into what I thought I saw that night because it doesn't fit into any frame of reference I can deal with right now. For just an instant there was Mulder. He must have seen me first because he was trying to reach me but with that glaring blaze between us I couldn't make out his expression. Knowing Mulder it would have been intense but would it have been intense and relieved to see me or intense and pissed? I'll never know because at that moment all hell broke loose. Literally. A barrage of gunfire would have been more welcome. An impossible image is burned into my brain of Mulder suspended in the air, in the flames - twisting, burning, screaming. I lost precious seconds after that because just then a form leaped at me out of the darkness and pulled me to the ground. He wasn't very big but he was wiry and as strong and scrappy as a wild cat. By the time I was able to lift my head our trouble-making old friend had left the scene and Mulder was on the ground. He was quite a distance from me and very still but from what I could see mostly scorch free and no longer under attack. At least not under attack any more than the rest of us. A storm had erupted out of nowhere, out of what seconds before had been a clear night sky. Its howling winds caught my hair and snapped it back into my face. I remember that sharp pain. Bits of branch and limb and grass and leaf were all being driven through the air like snow in a blizzard. The impression was that of a solid - and lethal - wall of debris like the tornado scene from the Wizard of Oz. Of course I wanted to get to Mulder, but there are times when I have to accept my own limitations and trust that Mulder can 'usually' take care of himself. This was one of those times. There was nothing to do but stay down with my unknown protector until the mother of all thunder claps had rolled away in booming echoes against distant hills. To have done otherwise would have been to welcome serious injury and left me unable to help Mulder or anyone else. There was weeping in the sudden calm, or so Tannis says. Either the temporary ringing in my ears from the noise and pressure changes kept me from hearing it or the heart wrenching sobs were all in Tannis's head. From what I know of Tannis now, I assume the latter. It's not that I refuse to believe that Mulder would cry so, what I refuse to believe is that if he had, that I would have been unable to hear him. With the storm's passing I had to push my protector off in order to get to my wobbly legs. Even for this crowd he was very young, just a boy and he wasn't in the best shape. Covering me with his body had left him exposed to the storm and he'd been quite thoroughly bruised and battered by the debris. Mostly though he was just dazed. Leaving him slumped on the grass to recover, I set off to find Mulder and appraise the damage. For damage there would be. This was Mulder after all. Would it be a 'patch him up and take him home' operation or were the effects of the night going to require something more extensive. Who did I think I was fooling? This was Halloween and this little piece of real estate was Mulder's and my own personal slice of hell. I should have known setting this night right would take more than yet another trip to the emergency room. * * * * * * * * I've seen Mulder fall in battle before. I've seen him shot twice - once by me - and watched his blood spill out upon the ground. I've held him in my arms to keep him from falling down in fever and sickness, I've seen him paralyzed both from mind control and from a rare poison delivered in a dart. I've seen him nearly catatonic, caught up in the circles and circles of his own dark and obsessive logic. As he was laid before me clinically dead from hypothermia, I've shocked his heart into a stumbling beat. I've heard him in the throes of his nightmares. I have never seen him as I found him that night. First there was the 'find him' part. While my boy protector sat on the ground at my feet catching his breath, I found myself turning round and round trying to get my bearing. It was SO dark after the phosphorescent gleam you get during storms and I'd dropped my floodlamp somewhere long before that. Finally locating the bonfire which had dwindled to a few red-orange coals, I ran down the slope to where I was certain that I'd last seen Mulder lying so still there was nothing by the edge of the fire pit but crumpled grass. I cried for light and in response a tall, dark- haired woman came up to the side of the pit, waved her hands and hastily uttered a string of words in a language unknown to me. That's all it took. The coals leaped into a healthy blaze. I know a few thousand girl scouts who would love to learn the technique but other than that I didn't give her little talent another thought. Time was too precious; I had Mulder to find. Mulder hates it when I turn a blind eye to the wonders and switch off the receptive part of my brain but when I'm wading through Mulder's world, there are times when I just have to if I'm going to be able to function. Now was the time for basics, not metaphysics - food, shelter, clothing and medical attention. With the fire renewed I was finally able to convince myself that he wasn't anywhere near where I'd seen him last. Filling my lungs, I called his name. Four years of chasing after that slippery devil had taught me how to bellow with the best of them. The fire burned bright but quiet. The air moved in the trees with barely a whisper now, almost apologetically after all that had gone before. What party-goers were left seemed afraid to speak even as loud as the breeze. In other words, if Mulder had been anywhere in the field and for a good distance into the woods he should have been able to hear me. If he were conscious, that is. If he were sane. For when I closed my eyes that one scene kept replaying my mind - the hellish burning brightness reaching for my partner, engulfing him while that laughing demon waited to receive him with open arms. I see Mulder's terror in my mind. Fire is not one of Mulder's favorite things. An open candle flame makes him flinch. That disastrous case with Phoebe, the male-eating arachnoid, forced him to face it and he manages but he doesn't like it. Why do I feel that it's time to make a few more discrete appointments for him with his phobia clinic? But that for later. Much later. Mulder still wasn't responding to my calls. Surprise. Surprise. I approached a group of teens whose curiosity was stronger than good sense and who had started drifting back towards the fire. "Did a man pass you a few minutes ago?" Blank stares. "Tall, dark-haired, early middle age?" Mulder will kill me for that last one. Not that it mattered, no one had seen him. I noticed that the boy who had tackled me on the hill had recovered and was talking with the woman who had revived the fire. She caught my eye. I think at that moment that my expression must have looked much like hers. We were both deeply worried. I extended my search to an area further from the fire and towards the plain, while she began to question the teens who had clustered near the woods. We hadn't needed to speak. The boy, my protector, followed her like a gray shadow tenderly carrying a small bundle for her in his arms. As I climbed a slight rise, an irregular shape of shadows and golden light lay in my path. A group of five or six of the teens were sitting in a close ring out beyond the light of the bonfire. They had a couple of jack-o-lanterns with candles lit. By that eerie light I recognized the frightened girl in their center. Even closely wrapped in a cloak she was shivering. I'd seen her before. It was the tall girl who had flirted shamelessly with Mulder during the two previous parties. Crouching down close to her, I asked, "Remember me? I'm looking for my friend. My FRIEND." I thought for a moment that all she was going to be able to do was blink. I saw in the depths of her eyes a struggle to focus. Amazingly, she inclined head to indicate farther into the dark field. "Hurry..." She couldn't find the words to describe what she had seen but it was enough. I started running. As I ran, the lay of the land began to seem oddly familiar. Then I remembered. This was the way he'd come the year before, chasing that stupid moose call. There was the place where he'd rolled down the hill and into the barbed wire. No, he hadn't really done that, had he? Had that been part of the reality or part of the dream? The wind must have picked up just a little then for I suddenly felt a chill walk up my spine. No...No...No... No...Not again, please God, not again. Not now... not like this. I began a routine search pattern. I knew I could call in help from the local officials but my instincts told me that he couldn't have gotten far. Besides, I wanted to find him myself. As the minutes passed and no Mulder, the finding-him-myself part took on less significance. I was honestly relieved when Tannis and the boy joined me in the large field. Now that the last of the clouds had drifted away there was bright moonlight and I could clearly see their dark shapes moving over the uneven ground. We three were enough for now. We crossed back and forth across those hills and hallows for more than fifteen minutes and found nothing. Not even barbed wire. Frustrated, I looked down the long slope towards the main party field where the bonfire seemed just a fingertip of light now. I needed my floodlamp, the one I'd dropped way back at the beginning of this. Yes, the moon was bright but not good enough to see far into shadows of any size. I had turned back towards the fire. There I knew I could at least borrow a flashlight, when I passed a small stand of beeches. My attention was caught by the gleam of moonlight on the white bark of the slender trunks. Then there, on the ground, a dark smudge. Was that just a shadow cast by a stone and some downed branches... or was that a man curled in a tight ball and trembling in the tall grass? I stood still, concentrating. It WAS a man. I was troubled though. Something about the scene didn't make sense. Only a few feet away there was deep shadow under the trees, shadows dark enough and large enough to hide a small car, but this figure was lying outside in the moonlight so he couldn't be trying to hide, and yet that's what it seemed that he was doing. If he had been only a few feet closer to the trees, I would not have found him until morning. "Mulder?" No change in the figure's movement which was not much to begin with but the kind only Man makes. I stepped closer remembering the ravaging fire and its incredible heat. 'Mulder's out of it', I thought. He had just needed to get away, as far away and as quickly as possible. He was huddled, head down, legs drawn up, but I had no doubt it was Mulder. Still didn't make sense though. If he needed to be alone, why stop out here in the open? "Mulder... It's all right... It's Scully..." Again no change. Just an endless nervous twitching and I still hadn't seen his face. I tried moving quietly as if I were attempting to approach some wild animal because I knew what I could be walking into. Mulder's PTSD is well documented and though he lives and functions with it amazingly well considering all he's been through, I've learned to anticipate their little reoccurrences. With the fire as a trigger this could be a major attack. He was only a few feet away from me when my worry gauge went up a notch. I'm reasonably proficient at moving quietly but not that good and he still hadn't acknowledged my presence. Just then a branch snapped under my foot. It wasn't a large one but it was dry and sounded like a small caliber shot on that lonely hillside. Again no response. More secure that he wouldn't spook and run but more deeply worried for other reasons, I crouched down beside him. "Mulder, you silly, what are doing here?" Nothing changed, just more profound shivering. Fine, just fine... He hadn't heard my coming, my calls before or even my voice now. He was off somewhere in his head. How far away was he, I wondered. Physically, his arms, his hands were curled at odd, unnatural angles. His back was bent too. Over all, he looked very uncomfortable. I reached out a hand to touch his arm. End of Chapter 3a ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (3b/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 3b: Dana I'm not stupid, I was very careful. I've seen Mulder lash out with lethal force when he's startled. He either does that or bolts like a deer. I was prepared either to defend myself or take off at a sprint after him. What I wasn't prepared for was that he'd feel that first light touch so intensely. I'd thought he was far too deep for that. But he did. Did he ever! His head came up with a jerk that made his whole body quake and then he went absolutely still. Slowly, his attention turned to where my hand rested on his arm. By the pale moonlight it was hard to see his expression, but it was oddly blank, though his lips were parted as if he might speak. "He's gone, Mulder. It's just us, just you and me." No reaction to my words but he seemed both fascinated and terrified by my hand. I pulled back and he reacted, frantically reaching out to clutch at it. "Okay, okay.... calm down. I'm not going anywhere." His hands were on my arms now and working themselves up towards my shoulders. Something was very wrong. His touch didn't feel right. His fingers were hard, clumsy, stiffly curved. I realized that every move he'd made since I'd found him had been unlike himself. On top of that now he was agitated. He began feeling me all over, sizing me, the length of my arms, the width of my shoulders. He even cupped my - What the hell! - and all the while the only sounds he made were little grunts as the breath struggled out of him. There was a moment of stillness when his questing hands touched my throat. After the pause, his awkward fingers continued on to slide along my jaw then to caress my cheek with an achingly eternal slowness. All through this I'd been too shocked to respond much except that I kept muttering inane little reminders to myself that were intended to be comforting. The trouble was, I was rapidly losing track of who I was trying to comfort. Both of us were breathing in rapid little gasps now as those very intimate, very un-Mulder-like hands ran over my face and his stiff fingers combed through my hair. If only he'd listen! But listening wasn't on his mind or mine. His mouth was suddenly so close to mine that I could feel his breath against my lips and, damn it, but my own heart was pounding like a teenager's in the throes of an infatuation. His arms were around me now and he was drawing me close. I had spent enough hours 'talking' with my dates in dark corners to know where this was going. But with Mulder - never. "Damn you, Mulder. Stop. Mulder, you're scaring me." I might have rejoiced at finally getting his undivided attention after all these years, I might have been able to convince myself that the shock of having survived the demon at the bonfire had finally broken through that wall he had built around our relationship - if it weren't for his eyes which really did scare me. They looked right through me as if I wasn't even there and yet - and yet - Long before I saw the tears, he began to tremble. "They - " That first word was spoken so softly and was so oddly muffled that at first I didn't understand. "They told me you were dead." And as if that broke the dam he began kissing me. Hard at first. Frantically. On the lips. His taste was both spicy and yet so touchingly salty. Then his kisses began to petal my face. It was hard to breathe, harder to think. Warm lips were now hungrily nibbling my neck. Brown hair was soft against my cheek. It really was possible for the world to tilt on its axis, to feel as if you were falling when you weren't. Only his strong arms held me. So strong. As strong as his desperate need for this contact. But no. No... no...no! This wasn't right. Not for Mulder it wasn't. This wasn't Mulder. This wasn't us. Why now, Mulder? Then I remembered the one statement he had managed to make. 'THEY told me you were dead.' Who told him? When? It was Mulder who kept dying, not ME! When the truth finally broke through it was like a velvet knife plunging into my heart. Only then, free from uncertainty, did I allow my arms to go around him and hold him. A sigh fluttered out from between his trembling lips as he allowed his head to fall forward to lie between my breasts as if he were a lost child come home. Footsteps. I didn't turn around though moments before I would have been grateful for an excuse to break free of those confusing arms and those lips. Tannis and the slight, silver-haired boy were standing in the dew-covered grass staring at us. As far as Mulder was concerned, however, he and I were alone under the moon. "You can come closer," I told them. "You won't scare him. He can't hear you." The footsteps approached cautiously. "He can't see us either, can he?" Tannis said. "No, no, he can't." I stroked the bowed head, teasing out some bits of leaf and weed that must have gotten there when he fell. He must have fallen often in his flight from the fire. It was a wonder he had been able to force his twisted body so far. I rocked him as I've rocked my nephews and my godson and for the first time I felt just a little of the unnatural rock-hard stiffness dissolve from his rigid muscles. "At least you found him," Tannis said as if that were some consolation. "But I haven't. This isn't Mulder. Not mine anyway." * * * * * * * * Damn that bloody demon and his theatrical machinations! All Mulder's problems come from some hysterical reaction or so I tried to tell myself. So since when do hysterical reactions trigger convulsions like the ones he had when we tried to help him stand and walk with us back to the bonfire. It took all three of us to hold him down just to keep him from hurting himself. I saw those looks Tannis and the boy passed to each other. So sympathetic. Well, their sympathy was pretty damn useless at the moment. I wanted Mulder out of this! I snarled for someone to bring the drug bag from my car and two of the more responsible teens who had followed Tannis took off at a run. Which is how he came to be sedated. I told myself that he had needed that needle under the skin for his peace of mind when really it was for mine. As the minutes passed, he showed no indication of additional seizures. This was fortunate since sedatives are actually contraindicated in such cases without a more thorough evaluation. What I hadn't wanted to do was face again that expression of pure happiness that glowed behind those blind eyes when he touched my face. But for all that I couldn't leave him which explains how I found myself sitting by his cot in this borrowed tent and stroking that familiar dark head until long after the sedatives took him under. Even in drugged sleep his limbs maintained their unnatural rigueur. With those cold chill fingers he kept a death grip on my hand as I numbly sat and just tried to understand where there was no understanding. He was functionally blind when my examination showed that he was not blind. He responded to no sound when all of my tests showed that he should not be deaf. His joints had hardened into stiff bends and refused to relax where I could find no injury. Over the hours I sat here I went full circle. I had told Tannis that this was not my Mulder. As often happens during my dealings with Mulder, I then denied my initial gut feelings. Of course it was. It had to be. He'd just lost it utterly and completely this time. You can see how this was not a particularly comforting alternative. So now I am back where I began. Tannis dunked under the tent flap. The boy she calls Eli is still with her like a shadow. "How's he doing?" she asked softly as if she thought she could wake him. "Some first degree burns on his face and hands we hadn't seen before, otherwise the same," I answered only to grumble lower, "as if you cared." "I do." "So why did you let him go through with this? You were obviously aware of the danger." Tannis was clearly distressed by my accusation but that didn't even begin to appease my anger. "What did you two think you were doing? How did that monster get hold of Mulder? How did he get so close?" The woman's eyes were red and moist. I could see that in the lantern light. "What can I say? 'I'm sorry' is pretty lame. When Charlotte died - I -" "Your cat? You left Mulder alone with that maniac because your cat died?" The tall woman's eyes glowed suddenly with a smoldering fire. "Who are you to judge? Charlotte was my friend and not just some cat. But how would you know, you -" And she spat out a word that was in a language I didn't know but I sensed it was old, very old, and that my parentage for several hundred generations had just been insulted. "And where were you anyway - you who were supposed to have been his friend. You let him come alone and you LOVE hi-" Embarrassed, her mouth shut tight with a snap of as if she had just said something she knew she shouldn't. But I had heard that four letter word well enough and from her reaction I must have stared at her as if she had broken some taboo which, in truth, she had. At least that word and all that it implied was implicitly forbidden between Mulder and I. For what Mulder and I share there is no word so we use none. Now to hear it from this woman... I forced down a biting comeback and let it slide. I had problems enough in that area with my current Mulder. As if she thought it would help to change the subject, Tannis looked down at the empty prescription vial lying on the camp stool. "Did you have to put him out?" "Probably not," I replied my guilt and anger evaporating somewhat as I looked down on the gently sleeping form, "but once won't hurt him and I couldn't continue having him think I was -" That I was what? "That you were HIS Scully?" "Sara. He thinks I'm Sara. After their escape from the Compound they changed her name to Sara just as they changed Mulder's to Joseph. They knew she would never accept 'Sandy' and no one had the bad grace to suggest 'Mary'." Tannis picked up the empty vial and sat on the vacated camp stool. She was a tall, sturdy woman and took up most of the remaining space in the small cabin tent. She obviously wanted to talk but talk with her was not what I wanted just then. Instead, I touched the broad forehead of the sleeping man, the silky hair now somewhat brittle on the ends from the fire. His skin was a slightly warmer than it should have been. "He should be in a hospital," I said. "Why?" Tannis asked. "What could they do? This is where he needs to stay. It's peaceful here. No one will disturb him. He's warm, comfortable." Her eyes fixed on our clasped hands. "He has you. He feels safe. Considering how he is, how do you think he'd react to a strange place like that? Think of all those 'helpful' people touching him." I shuddered. It went against all my training but I was relieved to just be able to stay here. I needed time, just as 'Mulder' did, to get everything sorted out in my head. It was kind of the boys who pitched this tent to lend it to us though I did worry. They went off to drink their strained nerves into a stupor at a friend's house. I hope none of them tried to drive home afterwards. "You think that there's another reason why we should stay here, don't you?" Tannis eye's lifted to my face. "There's precedence. It is where the transfer happened twice before and ended twice before." "It's not the same! We just looked in on their lives before, like watching television, only it was so real that we didn't even realize we were only watching until we weren't any longer. We didn't displace them before. We didn't replace their personalities or their memories with our own." "I know it's different, Dana, but it's got to be related. No, we don't know where Mulder's spirit is, or why Joseph is here and Mulder is not but if you took him away my guess is their chances of finding their way back to their proper places would be far less." "Is that what needs to happen? As simple as that?" I snapped. "The devil just conjured up a storm which blew Joseph's spirit here and sent Mulder's - someplace else? Where? Into the ether?" "You know what you believe, what you believed from the very beginning... that Mulder is in Joseph's place as Joseph is here. I personally don't believe it's necessarily all that simple. Devils care really very little about balancing equations. Besides, there's a really big factor missing here. You. You didn't transfer which has always happened in the past. Who knows what affect that has had." I stared at the youth, Eli, who stood looking scratched and wretched. If he hadn't stopped me, Mulder and I might have been together when the storm hit. If that was when the transfer occurred, it all might have happened like before - just a nightmare to wake up from. Or would I have switched places, too? I felt a surge of irrational anger towards the boy. At least Mulder and I would have been together. "A lot of 'if's, Dana," Tannis admonished, gently. "And don't take it out on Eli. He did only what he was born to do - to protect. Blame me if anyone. I made the devil angry. I played his game too long. I had no idea how insane he was." I turned away. I had no wish to listen to her explanations. I was already angry at her. I needed someone else to turn my fury on. Unfortunately, Mulder was the only one left. I stared down at that face again, my Mulder's face. But it was NOT Mulder who had held me and kissed me and cried on my shoulder. Why was this being Joseph the one thing in this hellish, unbelievable night that I was absolutely certain of? By flashlight, I had even checked his sleeping face for the scars. I had - God help me - even pulled up his shirt to look for the well-remembered mottled pattern of human and alien skin which Joseph bore. No, this was Mulder's body down to every new scar, mole and hair follicle. Only Mulder wasn't here. Where are you, Mulder? "That other place?" Tannis said, irritatingly answering my unasked question. "At least it's a place to start. We'll just have to hope that the supernatural abhors a vacuum." Hope. That's not much of a basis for an investigation. Meanwhile, Joseph's hand was still bruising mine. I looked down at his quiet face. "What did you do before to bring everything back to normal?" Tannis asked. She'd been zeroing in on my thoughts again. I was still looking at that face when "Nothing" came out, and for the first time I could feel the tears behind the words. "We didn't DO anything special. Certainly nothing consciously. We just came back to ourselves in six to eight hours." Tannis's expression was not encouraging. "It's always a good idea when dealing with the supernatural to muddy the waters as little as possible. Perhaps you should just wait then. Perhaps it will all - revert - by itself." For the first time I realized what I wanted to do. For the first time I knew what I HAD to do. Six to eight hours here translated sometimes to YEARS there. In that case... Oh, Mulder... "I can't wait. I have to find him," I heard myself saying. Tannis straightened in her chair. "From all you've both told me, I thought you couldn't - not alone - and even then not without an overpowering emotional need." Mulder was in a strange place - alone and most likely blind, deaf and crippled for this was what Joseph believed even now. Joseph had thought I was dead. He had been certain of it. Finding me had reduced him to tears. What had they done to him there? What had they done to my counterpart? Where were Skinner and his group throughout all this? They were supposed to have been protecting that vulnerable little nuclear family. And Adam - oh, God, what had happened to Adam. "I HAVE an overpowering emotional need," I hissed, "only I don't know if I can go alone." "And perhaps you shouldn't," came a soft voice, one I had not heard speak before. It was the young, fair-haired youth, Eli. "What if you ARE dead in that Other Place the way Joseph thinks? Where would your spirit go then?" I felt suddenly very cold and it wasn't from the dropping temperature of the October night. I had no desire to be a ghost haunting a world that wasn't even my own. "What then?" "I have a suggestion," said the strange young man. End of Chapter 3b ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (4/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 4: Dana After a heated three-way argument, Eli and Tannis put me to bed in the cot next to Joseph, his arms around me to keep him calm. I'm ashamed to admit how oddly comfortable it felt. "This can't possibly work," I grumbled. At the time what I meant was that what they planned had better NOT work. To my great dismay and genuine terror, it did. I woke standing before a mirror with a hair brush in my hand. Well, I wasn't exactly standing before the mirror. A young girl of about sixteen was and the eyes I looked out of were hers. In addition to the girl, the mirror reflected a cluttered room filled with bright morning light, an unmade bed, a dresser piled with odds and ends. Clothes were thrown haphazardly over a chair and on the floor. On the dressing table before me there were the dozens of bottles of make up and nail polish common to any teenage girl. I concentrated on the girl again. Her light gray eyes looked out of a pale wistful face that went with a slim, petite body. All in all she looked enough like Eli to be his sister. Considering how this night was going, she probably was. Thank all of Mulder's little green men, but at least I was going to be time-sharing in a woman's body, a rather young woman, but at least female. No, time-sharing is not quite the right description. Co-inhabiting is more accurate and I was relieved not to have to deal with the added complexity of a sex change. Still, it was scary. Always before when we had come, Mulder had slid into Mulder's own self and I into mine. Seamless. Like a dream that you didn't know was a dream, but this wasn't like all the other times. Joseph was in my world showing signs of having been horribly tortured in this one and Mulder had vanished. And my other self in this world? I am terribly afraid. Before we decided upon this drastic chance, Tannis, Eli and I made a sort of circle and, overwhelming need or not, I couldn't feel a trace of Sara. Before, as her due date approached, I had felt her anxiety both for the labor and their impending escape. This time nothing. I could find no trace of my other self. So instead I am here. I'm not even completely certain that I'm in the right world. If there are two why not three or a dozen or a thousand? Am I panicking? Yes, probably. How Mulder would smile if he knew what I had agreed to try. If he knew that I'd actually managed it, he'd laugh himself silly. How I would like to hear that laugh right now but my options are rather limited. I'm stuck instead doing whatever my host wants to do until I can figure out how to make contact. Eli promised it could be done but wasn't long on particulars. The girl is brushing her waist length, silver-blond hair in long strokes. A thought came to me, As if she heard the thought, the brush paused in the girl's slender hand. Slowly, a curious smile formed on the young, full lips and the girl gazed into the eyes of her own reflection giving me the oddest sense that those gray eyes were focused on my very soul. "Hello in there. I'm Ellie." I felt a surge of definite panic. Found out so quickly? At least I'm welcome. Wait until she finds out what fun and games we're going to have. First order of business though, how to communicate. "Just think in clear sentences. I'll be able to hear you." Ellie has a nice, steady voice. Deeper and more mature than her apparent years. A hint of a laugh. "He's not exactly my 'brother' though you could say he is one of the family." Ellie resumed brushing her hair. Amazingly, I can FEEL the weight and silkiness of it. I hadn't expected sensation at this level. The revelation made me light headed. "Steady," the girl said gently. "If you get dizzy, I get dizzy." Mentally, I took a breath and closed my eyes. It helped. "Oh, yes." Leaning on the glass dresser top, the girl Ellie paused to think. "Four times before. The earliest was when I was seven. You are?" I blushed or would have if I could. "Shhh. Don't apologize. I can feel your pain and that's not just a cliche under the circumstances. You've lost someone very close to you." Another pause. I feel a sort of movement inside my head like a breeze, nudging me. Gently, she said, "It's all right. Really it is. You can think about him. In fact if I'm going to help you I need you to as long as it doesn't hurt too much." Think about Mulder? Where to start? The intensity of him was what I always thought of first, that and the quick way the intelligent fire lights in his eyes. There is his weary sorrow, too, and the way so much of life has rejected him. His coping mechanisms - the seed cracking, the sexual innuendos, the jokes, the black, bone-dry humor. Then there is his immeasurable loyalty and his great heart that bleeds a little for every victim of every case. Only after these does his physical self come to mind, his unique and beautiful face, his lean, model's physique. Overlaying that image, however, was how I had last seen him - body contorted in pain, face so pale, hands like claws, living in a black and silent cage with no lock, not even a door. The brush came down gently on the dresser top. When Ellie gazed once more into the mirror, there were tears in the gray eyes. Her tears or mine? "Your friend... we'll find him," she said. "I promise you we will. Now, help me decide what to wear and then you can finish the make up. It will be good practice for you when you need to be in control which you will need to do now and again. Much faster than trying to explain everything to me." Ellie had opened her closet. What faced me was a jumbled mess, mostly t-shirts and ripped and faded jeans. The things I do for you, Mulder. * * * * * * * * I drove. I didn't ask where Ellie got the little Saab; I was just glad for the freedom and glad that with the selection of the girl's one serious suit and my hand at the make up and hair that the girl could now pass for eighteen or nineteen. At least before we took off on our little road trip, Ellie directed me to a nice empty church parking lot where we practiced shifting - and I'm not talking about transmissions here. I'm feeling increasingly confident about this arrangement. Ellie's body is slighter than mine and not as strong but about the same height and weight, and we do well as long as Ellie doesn't try to 'lead' at the same time I do. Most of the time I ride along like taking part in some high tech visual reality game but more and more Ellie is fading out to let me direct. At those times she's just a still, small voice in the background. Sort of like my conscience, like Jimminy Cricket. When I told her this she laughed which comes off like a pleasant buzz in my head. I was having such a good time, almost like being out on a holiday with a girl friend or a sister, that when I saw Mulder out of the corner of my eye I didn't think it odd since he is always popping up at odd moments in my life. I saw him through the rear view mirror lounging across the back seat, his head thrown back, a little simpering 'I told you so' smile on his lips. When I turn my head to get a better look, however, there is no one there. Of course, he never had been. I had just wished him there. If Ellie notices the sudden plunge in my mood, she is diplomatically silent. Back in Ellie's little apartment, once we were as professionally dressed and presentable to the world as I could make us, Ellie had asked, "Where to now?" I had been pondering that problem myself. After their rather miraculous Christmas Eve escape from the Compound, Joseph and Sara had disappeared by living in a cave with Skinner and Dr. Helen Janus, Skinner's new wife, and Zeke and the pony, Sphinx, for about six months. My memories of the time in the cave were warm but unusually hazy. Had Mulder and I been 'along for the ride' for a day or a month in that magical place? For me, it certainly was the most dream-like of all of our memories from this world, as if I only received echoes somehow, a scene here and there in bits and pieces. My clearest memory is probably of our arrival. It was dawn on Christmas morning. A cold mist swirled Avalon-like around Sphinx's tired legs. Every muscle in my body ached but especially where my backside connected with Sphinx's saddle. Padded or not, after four hours it still hurt like hell. The good part is, I can still sense Adam's slight, warm weight in my arms. Less than twenty-four hours old and content to sleep his way through a fourteen hour long flight through the Pennsylvania woods in the winter with nary a whimper. Then there was Mulder. Once we finally made contact with Skinner and the others, he walked beside Adam and me the entire way ready to steady me if I nodded off which I'm certain I did from time to time. As I remember, Sphinx only stepped on his foot twice. Towards the end I was the one who dared not sleep because Mulder was stumbling so. I think at that point he was staying close to the pony more to keep himself from falling than to be there for me. It was cruel the demands he put his body through that night, but then no one had expected that he would have to spend a tenth of the time he did either carrying me on his back or pulling Adam and me on a travois. I saw Skinner and Helen exchange worried glances. Like any an old married couple, no words had been needed to communicate their concern. Partners can do that too. It was Skinner's strong and steady arms which lifted me from the saddle as Sphinx finally stood blowing outside the dark hole of the cave's mouth that frosty dawn. It was Helen's gentle hands which supported me into the cave. She helped me change and wash and forced food and warm liquids into me even though I was too tired to eat. Yes, I know I should say 'Sara' and not 'me' but we really were one and the same at the time so I hope you can excuse my occasional lapses. Helen does a good massage which kept me awake long enough to nurse Adam. After that she tucked me into the most civilized and yet the most barbarian bed I could have imagined. They must have air lifted in the firm queen-sized mattress and there were warm flannel sheets, even though the walls were raw, undressed stone. Since all electricity came from a generator and was thus at a premium, the only lighting came from the golden glow of torches thrust into iron sconces along the walls. To round out the affect the bed was piled with furs. Even though all but the sheepskins were artificial, the look was there. Dr. Helen was clearly a dyed-in-wool romantic. I remember wondering what her and Skinner's section of the cave looked like. The only thing missing in the chamber besides groveling peasants was Mulder. Both Helen and I had expected to find him snoring away when I came from my bath, but the big bed was empty. Skinner and Zeke went searching but it was Sphinx who found him. The pony was not too pleased to find a trespasser passed out in his bedding. Mulder had collapsed into the clean straw in an alcove just off the cave's entrance which had been designated as the pony's stall. Between them Skinner and Zeke brought Mulder in, some pieces of straw still clinging to his hair. Even when Skinner had stripped him of his sweaty clothes thus exposing his parti- colored skin to the chill air of the cave Mulder didn't twitch. He was that far out of it. I'll never forget the sadness that passed over Skinner's face as he saw for the first time all those new scars as well as the alien patchwork. It was with a tenderness that I never thought I'd see that he dressed Mulder's limp body in a long RedSkins night shirt and placed him in bed beside me. <> I jerked with alarm at Ellie's words. I had faded out, faded down, that is, and let the girl's personality rise to the surface. Good thing Ellie is skillful for her years both as a driver and as a 'host' but then I suspect that Ellie is no more sixteen than her 'brother' Eli is thirteen or so. Ashamed, I mentally ground my teeth. Ellie deftly steered through a curve, one hand on the wheel. <> The next few miles passed quietly and this time I paid attention to the road and the feel of strange hands and feet and to the sound of Ellie's calm voice in my head. A road sign glided by. <> she remarked. <> So do I. Back at the apartment I'd pored over maps. I wouldn't approach the cave except as a last resort. For one, there were no roads and the time spent would probably gain us little. By the calendar, three years had passed since the planned move from the cave so the place was most likely deserted. Two, if the Consortia's hounds had finally succeeded in sniffing it out, unfriendly eyes might be watching that peaceful place and I have enough problems at the moment without calling the goons down on us. Instead, tracing the roads and rivers on the maps had coaxed a surprisingly useful memory from my foggy brain. It was a conversation 'Sara' had had with Skinner one afternoon after they'd been living in the cave for weeks or so it seemed. The winter was at its height and everyone was feeling claustrophobic. Joseph was working in what could be referred to as 'the shop' trying to build a cradle for the baby. It actually wasn't his idea - neither Joseph nor Mulder is as domestic as all that - but Sara had challenged him if only to give that restless body and mind of his something to do before he drove the rest of the group crazy. To help take the shut- in's minds off the miles of uninhabited snow between themselves and the outside world, Skinner had talked about their future and pulled out maps. He told Sara that his group, the ones who resisted the Consortia and their alien contacts, were putting the finishing touches on an elaborate headquarters and that all five of them would move there when the 'heat' was off. It was being built underground using technology from URSULA's own alien allies. The main entrance was through a currently working quarry and involved tunneling down to an existing aquifer, pumping it out, and supporting the remaining structure. Very ambitious, but then there were hundreds of people on the project and money was no object - not with a war as important as this one to win. Interestingly, he pointed out that the place wasn't so far away, less than fifty miles. That area of Pennsylvania was blessed with a lot of old mines and quarries. As they talked about their future, Sara voiced her concern about Adam growing up isolated from so much that was 'normal'. To reassure her, Skinner described the public entrance which was through the basement of a modest house some miles away from the quarry. The house was situated at the very edge of a neighborhood that was so middle American it would make Sara's teeth ache. Their conversation never went any farther because at that moment there issued from the 'shop' a string of very loud, very colorful swear words. A carving tool had slipped and Mulder had cut himself. Not badly, but considering the toxicity of his altered blood and the limitations of the cave's medical facilities, this was no minor emergency. I have no memory of further discussions on the topic of Sara and Joseph's future home though I couldn't think of a better place to start. A working quarry within a fifty miles radius of the Cave and within a few miles of a modern housing development should not be that difficult to find. The Internet is a wonderful thing and Ellie had a good set up. The national stone and masonry unions have a quite elaborate list of quarries and it wasn't long after that that I was scanning Census Bureau aerial maps of neighborhoods. Most are available at a variety of elevations with the most detailed showing individual buildings. Within twenty minutes I found a likely candidate. Ellie was referring to this when she saw the city limits sign slide by. We elected to try the neighborhood loop before investigating the nearby quarries of which there were three. For two women traveling alone - excuse me, ONE very young woman - the action would attract little attention. As with most subdivisions, its design on paper was like a maze or the schematic of an ant farm. Skinner would want privacy so we drove slowly by all the cul- de-sacs that terminated on the perimeter of the property. There were two dozen at least. Which one if any? How would I know? I'd never thought the plan down that far. As Mulder had said once, 'That's why they put the 'I' in 'FBI'.' Which meant that it was probably time to dig. My mood plummeted. Title searches, tax returns, birth records - it could take weeks. I was actually reaching for a pen in Ellie's purse to start taking down addresses when Ellie turned into the next street on our route, Oak View Lane. At first it was just another long stretch of gray asphalt lined with houses and cars, flower beds and mailboxes - then I felt a shiver. I 'knew' this place though there was no reason why I should. 'I' had never been here though Sara and Joseph and Adam had known it well, of that I was certain. A sort of dizziness passed over me as my eyes settled on a large sixty's era split level. It sat by itself at the end of a drive. Trees were all around it - more than around it - they seemed to loom, blanketing it in shadow. The only part of the property that got any sun in summer would be the front yard. Tearing my eyes away from the house and the memories I shouldn't have, I found the building on the aerial map I'd brought. There was only woods beyond the house, a marshy wet lands preservation area. The tall trees were actually a part of that forest. Beyond the woods the land rose up becoming Salem Ridge and on the other side of the ridge, Trenton and Son's Stoneworks. In the driveway was a Ford Bronco. I let Ellie park the car and extract our stunned body out from behind the wheel. At least my part was stunned. The house was well maintained but no different than a thousand others. There were daffodils and tulips blooming in beds beside the walk and around the mailbox. I'd left my world in dark October and here it was an early but brilliant spring day. I knew that didn't mean much. Time moved at a different rate here. I had no more time for memories that weren't mine or even to wonder how they got there. A man walked around from the side of the house, a big, solid man in jeans and a light suede jacket. As he came out into the sun from the heavy shade, he pulled keys from his pants pocket and headed towards the Bronco. I stood still beside Ellie's Saab too overcome to move or make a sound. He looked older than the last time I'd seen him but then I'd know the top of that head anywhere. Before he had even put his keys in the door of the Bronco, Walter Skinner sensed me, but then he's a man who knows the importance of vigilance at all times. I would have been more surprised if he had not been instantly aware of a stranger standing a hundred feet away and staring at him. We just stood for the longest time, just looking at each other. I don't know what I expected him to see. Other than being small and female, Ellie didn't resemble Dana Scully in the least. I was a thin teenager who, even wearing her grown-up suit and tasteful make up, must have looked barely old enough to drive. Maybe it was the suit. I had picked it out. I had applied the make up and pulled up the long white-blond hair. Maybe it was the way I stood, the expression in my eyes. He put the keys back in his pocket and walked down the drive towards me, hesitant even with those long purposeful strides of his. "Sara?" he asked. I had been afraid to believe the dream memories, but this man and that name was part of no dream. All I was and believed in at that moment coalesced into one bright, shining thought. For the first time, for the very first time since this incredible nightmare had begun, I knew with certainty that I was in the right world and in the right place and time - and come hell or high water I was going to find Mulder. There was nothing in this or any other world that I wanted more. End of Chapter 4 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (5/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 5: Dana "Sara?" Walter Skinner asked again. Now I know what a deer caught in headlights feels likes. Nothing he could have said would have surprised me more. He came closer but warily as if he didn't believe what he was seeing himself. What was he seeing? A small, trim woman in a neat suit, weight balanced securely on both feet hands deep in the pockets of her all-weather coat? That certainly was my style. On the outside I was all coolness, on the inside I was the falling apart, the reins of control slipping through my fingers. "I apologize," he said when he had halved the distance between us. "For a moment there, by the way you were standing, you reminded me of someone." When Skinner appeared, Ellie had evaporated like smoke leaving the playing field to me. Becoming aware of my fumbling, however, she came to my rescue. "Someone?" Ellie asked. "Didn't I hear you say 'Sara'?" His jaw hardened in response at having caught himself doing something so stupid and potentially dangerous. "A friend." His tone turned icy. "Are you lost? Can I help you?" His intent was clear. Get rid of this woman, correct the damage as quickly as possible. Ellie still seemed to be waiting for me to take charge, but now that the moment had come I realized with some real panic that I didn't know what to say. Subterfuge has never been my strong suit - if it were, I would have applied to the CIA. Even after all those years managing Mulder, Skinner would have found this truth rather hard to accept. I just couldn't hear myself saying, "Director Skinner, I'm Agent Scully. Dana, not Sara. The real one. I'm from another time dimension, another world. But that's not important. It's really just my consciousness which is in this body and I've come for your help because I've lost Mulder and I don't know where to find him." No, even after four years of the X-files Skinner would have been suspicious of a story like that. He had to be, that was his job, and this place was far more of a fortress than the FBI ever was. Even if Mulder were inside, security would be tighter than Ft. Knox and the staff much more paranoid. Like Skinner they had to be, they had more than cold, hard gold to protect. So I was embarrassingly adrift. On the other hand, my companion, I'm relieved to say, had poise. <> she projected with brazen confidence. <> Out loud she said, "Thank you for your concern, Mr. Skinner, but I'm not lost. I was sent." His eyes narrowed. Yes, he was suspicious. Good for him. "By who?" he asked. "Whom," Ellie corrected with a hint of a smile. "Zanth sent me." I wondered and then realized that Ellie had maneuvered Skinner into thinking about the very information she needed, in this case a code name, and then she had simply plucked it from his mind. Why should I be surprised? Ellie, like Eli and Tannis, probably has more than one useful skill normal people don't have. Meanwhile I could see Skinner tasting the word and studying Ellie with his almost X-ray eyes. More often than not that steely gaze had succeeded in making Mulder squirm. "If you're on his team and he sent you here then you must be going in undercover?" "Undercover," Ellie confirmed without hesitation. "You're very young." <> Ellie returned to me. <> In response to Skinner's observation about her age, Ellie merely shrugged as if age was not a factor. Skinner must have approved of her attitude because I sensed a relaxation of the tension in his shoulders. With the relaxation, however, I sensed a far deeper emotion. Sadness. "Are you going to bring her out?" he asked. There was no confusion between Skinner and Ellie about who 'she' was or where she was being brought out 'from', but I was floored. Ellie didn't hesitate despite the fact that she was probably distracted by my outburst. "I'm being sent in to lay the groundwork. I've come today to learn all I can about security at the Compound and, of course, as much about Dana Scully and Fox Mulder's years there as I can." An eyebrow rose beneath that high forward. "Now there are two names I haven't heard for a long time. Even here we are careful to use 'Joseph' and 'Sara' so people are unlikely to make a slip when they're on the outside." The car keys went back into his deep pockets. "I'm more relieved than I can say that something is finally being done. It's past time. To that end any information you need is yours for the asking." "I also need the most recent information pertaining to their last mission." That was a guess but a good one. An emotion even deeper than sadness drifted across the familiar face. This was where the added years came from I'd seen reflected on his face. "The details are in all the reports." "I'm newly recruited. Once I passed muster I was sent straight here without time to commit the reports to memory. Besides, I've always thought first person accounts more reliable." "Then we'd best go downstairs so you can talk to Louis." When I have time to pull my nerves off the ceiling, I must apologize to Ellie for sending a shriek of that magnitude up her backbone. Louis wouldn't come out and abandon either Joseph or Sara. Something extraordinary must have happened to prompt him to leave the Compound which, as dangerous as it was, was still a place where he felt he was doing some good. Skinner was leading Ellie towards the house. "I have only your word, you know, that you are who you say your are. I don't suppose that your fingerprints, school records or driver's license are on file anywhere?" "What you found wouldn't do you any good." "I didn't think so." "Mr. Skinner, I want to help these two, but to do that you must help me. That's the bottom line." He opened a side door that lead directly to the sub basement. Inside was what you would expect - basement stuff. Boxes, laundry, ironing board, washtub, furnace, water heater, two boys' tricycles. The tricycles got to me. Adam was most assuredly here and Skinner's Helen had been expecting in my last clear memory of her. So Adam had a brother, in mischief if not in blood. My chest constricted unexpectedly at the pleasure of that thought. Skinner walked to the side of the furnace and brought his visitor over to stand beside him. After he gave what was clearly a voice command, a section of floor four feet square just dropped straight down from under our feet. Surprised and off-balance, Ellie grabbed for Skinner's arm which was solid. We found that if we flexed 'our' knees that we could balance easier. "All the latest in Maxwell Smart toys, I see," Ellie remarked. Skinner shrugged as, smoothly now, the floor settled to a stop. In his low key way he was very pleased with the set up. We were now in a bare, brightly-lighted, steel-walled room which, Ellie guessed with a whisper, was the equivalent of three floors below the basement where we had started. Here there were two elevators. Skinner took the first. We descended a short way, then he gave another voice command and a door startlingly slid open on the side wall of the elevator. We were now in another room, facing another set of elevators. These had one destination, straight down and quickly. Ellie and I both cringed as our collective stomachs dropped. Only now did Skinner truly relax. Doubtless, we'd been scanned by a dozen security devices since we entered the house so he now felt secure that not only was his visitor unarmed but she was Human. The instruments were such that he could probably have also told us what we had for breakfast. I was fairly certain that Ellie was NOT Human, at least not entirely, but clearly she was close enough to pass. Certainly she wasn't the alien shapeshifter Skinner feared. The broad ex-Marine leaned against the wall in the car's corner and studied the young woman who had just walked unexpectedly into his life. I could see it in his eyes. Somehow he associated her with critical events to come. I quailed. In order to disrupt this world as little as possible I had hope to keep my activities as quiet and seamless as possible. There seemed no hope for that now. "Where do you want to start?" he asked. "The escape," Ellie said knowing what I did about the Christmas Eve flight from the Compound. "Both I take it," Skinner assumed. <'Both?'> I prayed my confusion didn't throw Ellie. Ellie flinched only slightly from my inner outburst. "Of course both. All the information you have." "Then you'll want to know about the botched rescue attempt, too." This time Ellie had to make a grab for the elevator car's railing, disguising her dizziness as due to the car's descent which was plummeting. <> "Yes, please," Ellie responded with matter-of-fact professionalism and I knew I needed to 'get a grip' and do the same. "All the rescue attempts, successful and not. Everything." "Again," Skinner was saying, "if you want first person on the details you'll want to talk to Louis." He sighed then and his face underwent a change that aged him, if that were possible, even farther. Such misery. "Afterwards I'll take you out to visit Joseph. I was on my way there when you came." This time I let out a full-bellowed, mental scream, the sort of thing that I had learned not to show on the job but which had always made my spirit turn cartwheels. The fact that I was only spirit at the moment made my exhilaration impossible to hide from Ellie. I couldn't help it, I seized control and spoke with my own voice. "Is he safe? Is he well?" "Safe? As safe as he'll let us make him. Healthy? Better than he was. Don't worry, despite the rumors he can talk when he chooses." He studied Ellie thoughtfully. "He might even talk to you but you mustn't say anything about your going for Dr. Scully." Taking control back, Ellie said, "So, it's true, he doesn't know she's alive." He seemed surprised that his visitor had to ask. "That would raise hopes and be crueler than cruel, don't you think? You'll have to think up some other reason for why you're going in." The dizziness Ellie had faked before I felt now. * * * * * * * * From the elevator shaft about forty stories down we took an electronic golf cart through wide, wide, corridors. At one point we briefly entered a huge cavern larger than a football stadium. I tried not to stare but Skinner noticed. "Ninety percent of this was part of a aquifer. Our engineers removed the water, shored up the ceiling and leveled the floor. Instant cavern." As we whizzed by, I tried to see inside the areas draped with miles of milky plastic. There were large dark shapes and by their outlines they were not examples of any experimental aircraft I had ever seen before. Back during the years of digging bulbs in the front yard, before whatever tragedy or tragedies had befallen these two, Joseph must have felt that living here was heaven. Before the tragedies... whatever those proved to be, though I already had my suspicions. On a freezing, stormy night, under a cleft of rock which was the only shelter they could find, Joseph and Sara had admitted to each other their worst fears. Was this nightmare those worst fears realized. Oh please, God, no... Skinner pulled up the electronic cart before a towering terraced structure of red stone - a gentler facade than all the stark white and chrome. It reminded me more than anything of a pueblo cliff dwelling. This was clearly the human use area. Stores and services, he explained, cafeterias and a barber shop, apartments for most of the hundreds of workers and the hospital. On foot now, we followed a colored-coded walkway towards the medical complex. Suddenly, two waist high forms came hurdling around a corner towards Skinner like a couple of little tanks. When they tried to veer away from him, Skinner crouched down and grasped one of the small boys in each of his strong arms. They squealed and twisted but it was obvious they weren't going anywhere and weren't the least bit upset about having been caught. "Hey, you two," Skinner said with mock severity. "What have I told you about running about in here. Roof level for your games, you know that." "Sorry, Daddy," one boy giggled. He was a sturdy boy, strong with wheat-colored hair and Skinner's broad face. His son without a doubt. With my heart in my throat I turned to the other. He was a much more slender boy with dark, thick hair and a somber face which at the moment was so full of guilt and which looked so much like Mulder's that I wanted to weep. In his eyes burned an intelligence that seemed far too large for his tall, thin body. "Okay, Uncle Walt," the second boy said and with a lingering curious glance at me followed his friend back in the direction they had come. "Your son and Adam?" I said almost stumbling on the words. Getting up and brushing off his knees, Walter Skinner didn't seem to have noticed the catch in my voice. "How could you guess? They're like brothers. Adam's lived with us for more than a year now and of course he and Michael have always been friends. I do what I can to help him remember his parents, but it's hard at his age." As the dread settled into my stomach, from that off-hand remark, we neared the medical complex. Skinner began talking about the work they were doing. There was even more diversity in alien physiology than they had suspected. Losing both their most experienced researcher and their most respected liaison with the alien community within such a short time had been a critical set back but they had pulled themselves together and were making progress again. I heard very little else of what he said. * * * * * * * * When we walked in the laboratory door, Hamilton Louis had his large hands deep in the guts of some electrical monster. When he looked up from his work and came walking towards us in that rolling gait of his, it was all I could do not to go rushing into his arms. He was just as I remembered - massively dark as a huge, strong black bear. Wiping grease from his hands, he eyed Ellie, then Skinner, and then Ellie again. In mass he made at least three of her. "Louis, this is Ellie." Skinner raised an inquiring eyebrow at the new arrival, realizing that he'd never been given a last name and Ellie didn't offer one now. "I guess just Ellie. She's a new member of Zanth's team and is being sent into the Compound -" "- as your replacement." Ellie went on to explain, "I have a background in medicine and electrical engineering so in large part I'm being sent in as a medical engineer in the tank room. Zanth has heard that there have been problems which is how he's managed with his contacts to get me in. They're rather desperate." This seemed to make perfect sense to Louis and I noticed his shoulders relax as Skinner's had. Ellie certainly had a gift. By inferring that his old employers were finding it hard to get along without him, she had deftly stroked the big man's ego. "Do you need me to fill you in on the equipment there?" he asked helpfully. I nearly had a panic attack. I'd go mad if I had to listen to hours of techno-babble about pumps and fluid dynamics, diodes and capacitors when what I had to know had nothing to do with any of those things. "A detailed discussion of the process would be helpful, but later," Ellie said much to my relief. "My main mission is Sara." Skinner nodded. "She needs you to fill her in on whatever you can remember about the escapes and the assault." Brows narrowing unhappily, the big man whistled. "It's all in the -" "- reports," she completed. "So I've been told. I'm sure they are very detailed but I need to sense emotion here and not just words." "This is going to take time," he said, reluctantly. This Louis was very distant from the one I had known. I reminded myself that he should be. Despite the ego-stroking, he had never seen Ellie before in his life and was only taking Skinner's word that we were safe to talk to. "Do what you can," Skinner said. "I'll leave you two alone for a while." Which he did, his expression grim. Louise was silent for a moment. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. Without waiting to be offered a seat, Ellie found a low stool and sat down, obviously prepared to stay as long as was necessary. "From the first escape..." she prodded, forcing us to start at the beginning much as that would stretch my patience probably to the breaking point. Louis stiffly shrugged his massive shoulders and went on to explain the security systems around the Compound they had bested that night. Images of the grounds, the lights, and the hallways on the floor where Sara had given birth came back to me. The memories were as clear as if I had seen all those places yesterday while, in fact, I had visited those places only in my dreams. "How long did they hide out in the cave after that Christmas?" I asked. Louis was clearly startled by the question. "What's the problem?" "I'm just surprised that you know about the cave. Only a handful of us know where they hid those first months." That I had been trusted with that knowledge raised me significantly in his eyes. "How long?" I asked again. "How long? Six months, give or take. I wasn't there, of course. They lived at the Center for nearly two years after that. Mostly happily. Everyone worked like slaves in those early days. Work was good for Mulder though. Excuse me, Joseph, or as I call him 'Joe' because it irritates him. The others could go out, even Dana because it was fairly easy for her to disguise herself, but he had to stay undercover. The Consortia was still hot to recover them both. Their escape had been a blow to their pride. So Joe worked at his translations and was even hustled off to a rendezvous or two with alien representatives. Still, I heard he got a bit gloomy from time to time." "Can you blame him?" I asked. Even being free of the Compound would not be enough freedom for the Mulder I knew. "No, I guess not." There were deeper lines beside the big man's mouth and a sprinkling of gray in his wiry hair. He looked tired, too. The years since I had seen him last had not been easy ones. "After their escape communication in and out of the Compound nearly stopped but I was able to get one message out. I curse the day I did. Kenneth Lesse wanted out, he and his pregnant wife. He was a hybrid like Joe though very highly placed because he was the son of one of the Inner Circle. He had helped Dana and Mulder at a critical point in their own escape, so they felt duty bound to help. The plan was for them to lead the rescue attempt together...." * * * * * * * * Thirteen months earlier Joseph Link, once known as Fox Mulder, adjusted his headphones for perhaps the four hundredth time that night. It was night, wasn't it? Four a.m. He'd only been at this for five hours. Felt like fifty. And he wasn't getting anywhere. It wasn't a clear signal and he couldn't concentrate. He should never have agreed to this - not that he'd been given any choice. Skinner had appeared at the door of the armaments room where Joseph had been checking out his tools for the evening - gun, clips, extra clips, more extra clips, extra gun, smoke bombs. It had felt odd, it had been so long since he had done anything like this. "Mulder, we have a problem." That had gotten Joseph's attention. Skinner only called him Mulder when things were really bad. He paused, primary gun midway to its holster. "What kind a problem?" "Ursula Minor reports a transmission. It's status critical. They need you there now. The helicopter is waiting." Joseph knew his mouth had dropped open. He was packing for an assault on the Compound. He'd been obsessing on it for two weeks now and had the ulcer flare up to prove it. He and Sara and the other four members of the team were due to leave within five minutes. "What about the raid? What about Kenneth?" Skinner's face was grim. He was used to delivering unpopular news but he didn't mean he had to like it. "I've talked with Sara already. She's willing to go in without you. I think she actually prefers it. She was a little worried about you. You're pretty wired about this." Wouldn't anyone be? The first time facing that hell hole since the evening Adam had been born. "Certainly someone else can handle the transmission." "They've tried. You know you're by far the best." "Let me talk to Sara. I hope this isn't just an excuse to dump me from the team. " "The emergency is genuine and Sara is gone already. She thought that would make it easier on everybody." The shock was still settling in so it took a moment for the anger to surge up. "Gone! Fuck her!" Skinner had grabbed his arm in a iron fist before Joseph had gotten three feet. Deftly, he extracted the gun and ammunition from holster and belt as his former agent quivered, shocked and fuming. "Suck it in, Mulder. She's AGENT Scully, too, remember. She's trained, she's experienced, she's willing. She'll bring Kenneth and his wife out if anyone can. Now you have work to do. She gave us a list of everything you'll need tonight and it's already in the chopper - dictionaries, grammar, Frohike's new noise filters and a whole pound of sunflower seeds. Is there anything else?" Nothing important. The only truly important ingredient of his life had just taken off without him and without even a good solid pinch for good luck. Still numb, Joseph let them escort him still in his black assault clothes out of the center and into the waiting helicopter. The trip to the SETI station in West Virginia where Ursula Minor kept its radio telescopes was completed without incident and within the hour he had been sitting there listening to the clicks and wails of the incoming transmission while Sara was invading hell without him. That had been five hours ago. The message coming in over his earphones was proving to contain some time sensitive material, what parts he make sense of, but none so much that decoding couldn't have waited a few hours. Joseph tried to swallow his irritation. There was no one to blame, there was no way anyone could have known. That didn't keep the waiting, however, from being intolerable. They said they'd bring him a update, even fly Sara here to deliver her report in person. It shouldn't have taken very long, a quick in and out, surprise and speed being their most dependable allies. Where were they? Stupid that they could imagine that he could concentrate under these circumstances. Skinner came to the door of the radio room. He didn't knock. Mulder had left the door open for the very reason that he wanted to know immediately when the call came in. He felt the man's presence behind him even before he turned to see that it was more than Skinner. There were two military police in full uniform with helmets and rifles behind his old boss and Skinner was deadly pale. "Mulder..." Joseph's heart stopped in his chest. "I'm so sorry..." "The helicopter's back. Sara's not with them..." "According to the rest of the team Kenneth's wife got cold feet, changed her mind, alerted security. They walked right into a trap..." "If it helps, Kenneth didn't know anything about it until they'd all gotten in and were supposedly on their way out. Martin Hays says that they had to hold Ken off his wife. They thought for a minute he was going to murder her right then and there. Finally, Ken told Sara and the team just to go on without him, to try to get out as best they could. But they got to the roof too early. The copter wasn't due to come for five minutes. They had to hold off the Compound's entire security force." Skinner's voice kept going, stumbling now, less of a monotone but he had to say this... "By the time the chopper got there it was obvious that someone would have to stay behind. Mulder, every one of those men volunteered to stay behind but Sara wasn't about to let them. She even leveled her gun at them. I can see her doing that. Like the good commander she was, she covered their backs while her team made their escape." Why was it so hard to see Skinner and the two police or the room or anything. His vision was so blurry. Why did his voice sound so odd. "They won't... kill her. They'll take her alive." Skinner took a step into the room. "They tried. She had other ideas." He felt his knees giving way, felt Skinner's body breaking his fall. He didn't ask what the MPs were there for. It was obvious... ...for his own protection as well as for the protection of everyone around him once he had a chance to go really crazy. * * * * * * * * Heartsick, I heard Ellie's voice as if from a great distance ask, "Have you ever thought that the Consortia may have ALLOWED your message to get through?" she said. "The message about Kenneth wanting out." Louis's emotion-twisted face relaxed ever so little. "More than once. Doesn't matter now though, does it?" "What did Sara do?" Ellie asked. I didn't need to hear. I knew. There had been a similar situation that Christmas when capture had seemed imminent and death preferable. Thanks to another woman's understanding, Dana had not needed to make that sacrifice, to plunge from that open window and remove herself from being a hostage to trap Mulder. Two years later there had clearly been no sympathetic onlooker. Louis was having trouble getting the words out. Ellie read my thoughts. The warmth of her understanding flooded over me, keeping me from falling apart entirely. "She threw herself from the roof, didn't she?" Louis nodded so slowly. "Got it in one. In her rush to be so unselfish and heroic, however, she erred: the building wasn't high enough nor the ground hard enough for her purpose." Now it was beginning to make sense. "She lived." "Skull fracture, internal injuries, broken bones - but they pieced her together in time." "And Mulder slipped his MP guards and came in guns blazing to get her out -" "- and they were waiting for him." End of Chapter 5 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (6/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 6: Dana Louis's words cut the world out from under me. I could put the pieces together from here but I felt I owed it to them, to the Dana and Mulder they once were, to hear the story to the end. "What happened?" I asked. "How did they know he was coming?" Ellie had been sitting at Louis's desk in the electronics lab watching him pace as he told the tale as he had heard it. Now he stared off into the open air as if his mind looked at something I could not. I think part of what was to come he had seen with his own eyes. "That's not really the question, is it? The question was only when and how. Of course, they knew he was coming it was just when and how. He wasn't stupid, I'll have you know. He didn't march up the front gates of the Compound and demand to be exchanged for her or something so obviously suicidal. Though if it hadn't been for the MPs shadowing his every move for a week, he might have. In the end he did slip free but he had his friends to help him." "Friends?" "Frohike and his bunch." I let Ellie's lips form an 'oh'. That's right. The Lone Gunman had gone legit and were helping the Center with security and surveillance. "Despite their best efforts Compound security knew he was there within seconds of his getting inside the perimeter and we're still trying to figure out why." * * * * * * * * Thirteen months earlier. Smoke trailed lazily out of his mouth, a little leaking from his nostrils. The meeting took place in a little blind courtyard between buildings Two and Three just before dawn. The CSM's expression showed displeasure, almost disappointment which was a far cry from Dr. Esaki's almost insanely beaming countenance. Despite the terror eating away under his skin Joseph stood tall, shoulders back and chin up. Sara was not the only one who could be a good soldier. "Welcome back, Agent Mulder," the CMS drawled. "I must say I'm disappointed. I thought you were smarter than this." "Where is she?" "Under care." "Take me to her." "I think you've rather given up the right to make requests here," the tall man replied, flicking ashes. Esaki, the physician who made Mengle look like Dr. Welby, spoke, his voice gleefully high. "We accepted you with open arms, Mulder. Cured you. Gave you a life with us. You got one chance. You've wasted it. You don't get another." The three were not alone. Six security guards stood in a circle around the prisoner. They each held a four foot baton, electrified surely like a cattle prod. Mulder could almost feel the magnetic field each one generated. One would hurt, a lot. Six? Inconceivable. "There's been entirely too many people in here getting ideas," Esaki observed. "The Inner Circle has decided that an example has to be made." Fear tied another huge knot in Mulder's belly. "I take it that I'm to be the example? I've never been a very good role model." Nervously, CSM lit a new weed, let the smoke trail away. "You brought this on yourself, Fox. It's certainly not what I ever wanted for you." The hand with the cigarette raised slowly. Each of the six guards took a step. The circle closed in. The pain in his stomach and the bruises on his legs and back which he had gotten minutes before when he'd been taken just inside the fence, throbbed afresh. "First, let me see, Dana." In answer the hand came down. Mulder could not just stand still and be a target. He sprang. A prod caught him on the elbow. Such pain exploded that he had to look down to see if the appendage was still there. The arm was but hung limply. Sensation other than blinding pain may come back but it would take time. He spun, dipped, but here was really no place to run. Two prods caught him in the back and the right hip. He fell, rolling, screaming, the world graying out. Somehow he got his knees under him and found himself facing three of the unwavering points. "I suggest that you run, Fox," the CSM advised. The thought curled up in Mulder's brain that that wouldn't do much good. They'd catch him eventually. Still, even seconds away from the prods was away from the pain and maybe there was a breath of hope that way. He struggled to his feet, dodged, crouching like a cornered animal, caught one glancing blow which forced him right. Now he saw an opening through the red haze of his fogging vision and launched his body towards it. Just that easily he was out of the circle and in the open. Even as he ran, his body threatening to crumble from the seven or eight shocks he'd gotten already, he knew that he had been allowed to get this far. Why? For their pleasure? No, these people were into efficiency. The question stayed with him as he lurched down the walk which ran along the long side of Building Two. At the end three guards blocked his way. Turn left. Two more guards. A burning stab to his thigh when he didn't move fast enough. Turn again, limping badly now, the leg collapsing at every staggering step, eyes tearing with pain so that he could barely see. The far end of Building Three seemed to take forever. He scraped his fingers on the bricks of the wall as he did whatever he could to stay upright. Two more guards. Where had they come from? Turn left again, the only way. The last tendrils of morning mist were curling up from a decorative pond to his right. He knew that pond. He was in the center courtyard which all four buildings faced. Three prods caught him before any more could make sense. He screamed, his shoulder hitting the pavement hard as he fell. The shocks were like being kissed by lightning. He lay on his back waiting for breath and sight to return but there was never any time. There was only a red, watery burning glare across his eyes. Blood vessels in his eyes had burst. His tears streamed red. Eight hundred eyes saw those tears, four hundred witnesses to what happened to those who betrayed the Consortia. From every window and balcony, from the roofs. From clumps of staff in lab coats and bathrobes clustered around the doors to the residences they watched in complete silence. And not one raised a hand to aid him. Not one. The six were around him again as well as the two old men. Panic overrode sense and pride and courage. He began moving backwards like a crab always keeping those six points in his burning sight. There would be nowhere to run now. He was where they wanted him to be. In sight of all. Esaki nodded to the six. "Now. Just remember to leave something alive for later." The six closed in, their batons lowered like spears and he was the kill of the day. It went on and on. The screaming. The stabbing. The clawing at the ground with now bloody fingers as if there was escape that way. Many of the watchers averted their faces only to meet the stern glances of supervisors and so were forced to turn back. In time, however, the cries lessened as tissues in his throat were burned raw. The body will give out in time. Then a few more pokes for good measure to make the tortured flesh jerk like a child's toy. Only when the convulsions began did they stop. And still everyone watched and still no one came. No, one person did come. A young man similar enough in build and coloring to have been a younger brother. Kenneth Lesse finally was allowed to wrench himself free of restraining hands to throw himself down on the walk. Crying, he took his almost-sibling in his arms and held him as the convulsions came again, and again, and again. In between he tried to wipe away the red tears and the bloody spittle which ran down the prisoner's chin from his lacerated lips. "Enough," Ken sobbed. "I'm here, Mulder. I'm here. It's Ken." As the two old men walked forward, the guards retreated. Esaki's nostrils flared at the stench of urine and vomit, feces and spilled hybrid blood. "Enough," the doctor agreed and the guard gratefully evaporated in the crowds. There was still no sign that anyone could leave. Kenneth held his friend - and they had truly been friends back when Mulder and Dana lived here in their comfortable prison. His own acid tears fell, washing the battered face. Long minutes passed before the last of the tremors died away. Finally the pain-filled eyes opened, though they did not seem to focus much. This seemed to be what the two older men were waiting for. Shaken, the CSM forced himself to look down. He had know Fox Mulder since childhood. Earlier, as these things are sometimes judged, he had promised to protect. He looked ill and gray now. But Esaki did not. His wizened face was as alight as any contented prophet's. "Now you know!" He shouted so that all within the courtyard, which was everyone in the Compound, could hear. "We will not abide traitors here. You all know what Kenneth Lesse tried to do. He is a traitor just as surely as this man, even more because of who he is. They will both go back into the tanks tomorrow. That will continue their punishment... but it will not end it." Kenneth's handsome dark-head reared up, terror in his eyes. He had known there would be hell to pay for trying to get his family out but not this. Mulder was too weak to react other than with a renewed series of violent tremors as his eyes closed. "Go back to your duties!" Esaki cried. Like ghosts, as silently as they had watched, the witnesses melted away. * * * * * * * * Dana felt as if Ellie were going to be sick. "You watched?" Louis looked down at her for the first time and almost as if he'd forgotten who he had been talking to. "I had to. We all had to. I would have tried to stop it if I had thought it would have done any good. I knew my best time to help would come... later." "And he went back into the t-tanks?" She had tried to keep her voice from breaking but she failed as she knew she would. Louis shut his eyes as if the memory itself was physically painful. "As was ordered. The next day after a hasty surgery to put in the artificial placenta. After they told him exactly what they were going to do to Dana." "They cut into her brain, didn't they," I said remembering. Oh, yes, I remembered that fear as Joseph and Sara, before they were Joseph and Sara, crouched under that cleft in the mountain, freezing in the storm. That had been Dana's fear just as Mulder's paralyzing terror on that cold winter's night had been about going back into the tanks. "They would perform the surgery when she was strong enough which would be soon and they made sure he understood what that meant." Louis's eyes stared into the far distance. "I worked slowly those last few minutes hooking all the leads and tubes up. It was the only time we had been given alone together. He lay naked and helpless in the sling ready to be lowered in. He was too weak and uncoordinated from the shocks and the surgery and the dope to move then but I knew he would struggle when the time came. They all do when they feel the drowning panic come upon them. "The last thing I did was cut his hair. We cut it short because, like fingernails in the womb, it grows while they're in the tanks. We'd already talked of Dana, about what I could and could not do for her which was practically nothing either way. He was so far down. Mostly he suffered because he felt that he had failed her. He also kept looking around more than a little frantically, his eyes straying more and more often towards the door to the technician's ready room. "'You're expecting Grace to come with the contacts, aren't you?'" I asked. "His eyes found my face. He wanted to be prepared but he also wanted to see as much as he could for as long as he could. The thick contacts would protect his eyes while he was in the tank but you couldn't see through them. All by themselves they were like being blinded. "I couldn't stand those bruised eyes. I tried instead to concentrate on my work. 'There won't be any this time,' I told him as I clipped the long hair across his forehead. "He didn't speak after that for a long time. It was a several minutes before I dared to look at his face. There were tears running down from the corners of his eyes but not a sound. He didn't even have the use of his arms or hands by this time to wipe them away. I did it for him the way Ken had. ""Kill me,' he whispered in a voice so weak that I had to bend low to hear. That hurt but nothing I hadn't expected. He'd asked something similar years before. I told him I would if I could but only if I didn't have to endanger my position to do it. There were so many others I had to help. He wasn't the only one. Scabbed lips tight together, he gave me one brief nod. He understood just as he knew what the toxicity of the tank solution would do to his eyes. "'If it's what you really want, though, there may be a way,' I told him reluctantly. 'You know that it's important that the incubant struggle when they go into the tank. The hormone release triggers initialization of the placenta and some critical biochemical reactions. Just don't. We lost a lot in the beginning when they tried to put them in under sedation.' "'Don't struggle,' he repeated almost in awe and almost smiled in a deathbed sort of way. Taking away their fun, it appealed to him. Then he locked his eyes with mine and I knew he was going to give it a try. "And he did. When the gawkers had ringed the tank and the sling was raised over the surface of that still water I saw him close his eyes on the world. With his hair cut he looked so young. At that moment I think he was the most beautiful being I had ever seen. Like some fallen angel looking hopefully but without hope towards his God only I suspect what he was really looking at was her in his mind. Or maybe he was looking at a memory of the two of them together which is the only time I ever saw him truly at peace. "When they lowered him in they got nothing out of him. His body tensed just before he took the water into his lungs. The breath itself was as if he were welcoming in Death. His hands gripped the sides of the litter bars until every knuckle and sinew showed and his back arched a little, but that was all they got. "If they wanted to hear him scream, he would keep silent. If they wanted him to live, he would die." Louis had been standing in the middle of the room just talking and I had let him. I let his own silence go on for a long time. "He didn't die though, did he?" He turned back clearing his throat but even. "No. It was a near thing though. I could have let him go, I just couldn't." "You're glad now you didn't, right?" Louis shrugged. "You haven't heard all the story yet. There's worse to come." * * * * * * * * Louis voice was painfully bitter; if we had not heard the worst, I wasn't certain I wanted to. We wandered out of the research center to find ourselves on an overlook three stories above the immense underground hanger. Louis leaned his brawny forearms on the rail and peered into the huge space. His dark eyes, however, didn't see the ships or the workers. "Dana. As promised, they'd put her body back together almost like new. When she was well enough to make sense of it all they rolled her wheel chair down to the tank room and showed her what was in Tank 42. I'll never forget the expression on that pale face. She was too weak to fight them physically, but not too weak to cry. Then they prepped her for her own surgery. She went under the knife knowing that they could more easily have just killed her. That's powerful hate. They took him from her. Him and Adam, her family, everything personal. At least they left her intelligence. They told her she'd been in an automobile accident, a very bad one. They let her keep her name so she could look back on the records she had kept when she been allowed to work on actually helping the incubants but they gave her a new past." Louis's face curled in disgust. "In this new past she was a long term and respected resident of the Compound and so they had gone to heroic measures to save her life. It was unfortunate, they told her, that they had been unable to save all her memories, but they had left her her medicine and wasn't there evidence of her work in her own handwriting, in her own name? With all that, how do you think she felt?" I know how I felt. Sick to death. But Ellie had the firmer grip on our joined being. "When she had recovered sufficiently to prove that her loyalty was unquestioning, they gave her a project to experiment on, her own little 'volunteer', or so they told her -" I was screaming but luckily Ellie was there to put a firm hand on my torrent of denial. I felt myself mentally backing away, ready to bolt. Only, like Mulder, I found that sometimes there is no where to run. Louis had no idea that a storm had formed, raged and burst into a thousand cutting pieces in the space of time it took him to rub his unexpectedly weary eyes. "She's blind in her own way, as blind as they made Mulder. I tried to 'enlighten' her to the morality of the situation which was the only level on which I thought we might reach her but she refused to take any hints from me. Why should she? I was just a tech. Kenneth she might have listened to but he didn't exactly have the king's favor either. I heard his wife divorced him. Took their child and was posted in some exotic country. I still have some contacts, though the information is sketchy. I hear he's back now though much humbled. A mere shadow of that bright young man he once was." As Louis straightened up, a long breath rolled out of him and drifted over the hanger below with all its frenzied activity. "What a disaster." Dimly through the remains of my shock and disbelief I heard Ellie ask with maddening calm, "How did you come to be here? I assume you brought Mulder out." "I did but only after six gruesome months. Dana wouldn't come, of course. I didn't see a point of even asking but at the last minute, Grace -" his voice broke for the first time. "Grace just had to try. She didn't come back from that meeting. I had to take Mulder -" Louis struggled to keep his voice steady. "I had to take Mulder and go without her." Grace, no, not Grace, too. How? That strong, perky woman with her grizzled hair and warm touch had been my first friend in that place. She had risked her life for our first escape. Had she lost it for this second one? "How did you get him out?" "Took a chance. Nearly killed him. Every day I watched him twisting, twisting in there, like some damn specimen in a jar. It kept getting worse. His face showed so much pain. The incubants aren't supposed to feel pain but he did. I just couldn't let it go on. He wanted to die. He'd asked me. I couldn't do that but I had to do something, not only for him but for her. What if she ever learned the truth of what they had been to one another? How could she live with knowledge like that? "So I damaged the placenta. Easy to do. They would have to revive him and take him back to surgery to implant another one and then start all over again. It gave me a window. Not much but I had to take it. I just started his 'labor' earlier than the records indicated. Since we were leaving for good this time - both Grace and I, or so I thought - I didn't mind being sloppy. I left a trail of my 'activities' a child could have followed. A little sabotage here, a little sabotage there. The important thing was that Grace and I got him into the birthing pool at 1:00 AM. The place is supposed to be deserted at night but we couldn't take a chance on his crying out so we drugged him to keep him quiet. It was like bringing out a baby by C-section when the mother is sedated up to her armpits. No normal birthing reflexes at all. We had to aspirate his lungs out with a suction pump like a preemie. Suction doesn't do a very good job but best we could manage." Louis shifted, rubbed his eyes. "I wrapped him in blankets, had him in my arms, we were out in the yard, it was so cold. He began asking for Dana, soft like, as weak as a half-drowned kitten but distinct enough." Louis stopped, his voice tight. "That was what got to Grace. She said she had to try to get through to Dana. I knew it was useless, I tried to stop her but I had him to care for. Anyway, she was supposed to meet me at a certain time at a particular spot by the perimeter fence but she didn't come and she didn't come. I waited for as long as I could but when the first alarm went up I just had to go." "You carried him? By yourself? All the way out?" My question roused him from a darker misery. He shrugged his huge shoulders. "The 'treatments' didn't include feeding him well. He was about as thin as that time five years ago when I first saw him. Just a twisted mass of long bones and not much flesh, so he wasn't heavy. Hey, he was my brother." At that moment how I wanted to hug and kiss this man but that I dared not do. Talk about blowing your cover. <> Ellie replied. End of Chapter 6 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (7/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 7a: Dana... and later Mulder After that Louis took me down to the cafeteria for some coffee. I think we both needed it. The cup looked small in those large, but I knew, gentle hands. "I said I nearly killed him. It's true. It was cold and suctioning just doesn't do a good enough job. Plus he was just so weak from having from the tanks. It was a stupid, desperate plan. His lips were blue by the time I found my contact. After they rushed him back to the Center and poked him full of tubes he did better for a while - at least as long as he was unconscious. The blindness we had expected and fusing of the cartilage in his joints - that was obvious. But when we found out about the deafness that just about killed us all. The adhesions had melded those little bones in the inner ear into nearly a solid mass." The big man threw back half of the remaining coffee in his cup. I don't know if the moisture around his eyes came from the steam or not. I suspect not. "The first day he was strong enough to talk above a whisper - dear Lord, I'll never forget. How he cried for her, how he called her name, over and over and over. For four hours he cried. I hear that voice in my nightmares sometimes, unceasing but growing fainter as he grew weaker. We finally got him to understand. We used this set of carved alphabet letters at first to communicate. It was slow especially because he was so sick and yet so angry. It took days. I was the one who told him she had died from their 'operation' though all of us made the decision. Better than his coming to realize that she had she worked around him all those months while he was in the tank and never cared a mite whether he lived or died except that his death would ruin her experiment. Better than his torturing himself by wanting to go to her when he couldn't." "How did he take the news?" I asked, though I already suspected. Hadn't I held the weeping Joseph in my arms in that New Jersey field just yesterday my time? Hadn't I felt the crush of his hand? Yesterday... and a million years and a hundred lifetimes ago. "What do you expect? He didn't want to live. Gave up. Now I think he must have just gone insane for a time. Can you blame him? From what I've heard marriage to Dana was the best thing that ever happened to Fox Mulder. Gave him a center, a family that had always been denied. Finally there was improvement - though slow. The heart had gone out of him. Guess though that he remembered that he still had some family left. Adam. That's a good deal to live for though he won't allow the child to see him much." "Where is he?" I asked, surprised by the softness of my voice. I hadn't meant the child. Adam I'd seen. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a need as strong as breath to see if this was Mulder. Mine. I'd heard enough horror stories. "Skinner said that after we talked he'd take me to see him." Louis looked impressed. "That's right, he did. Joe's at the cave but he doesn't like visitors." Before I had time to react to that I noticed Skinner in the doorway of the dining hall. He was clearly ready to go whenever I was. I rose feeling awkward, not knowing how to take leave of this huge, wonderful man who stood when I did. I took his hand. It dwarfed mine. "Thank you, Louis, and not just for today but for all you did for them both over the years." He accepted my thanks with only a little awkwardness. His concerns were elsewhere. "When you see him, just don't tell him about her," he called after me. "He's lost so much. He's suffered too much to bring that up again." Not to tell him that his Dana lived? That which one of us lived - Sara or Scully? This was getting complicated. * * * * * * * * Chapter 7b: Mulder By the position of the hands on my wrist watch it's after seven o'clock. I woke cold so it could be morning or evening. The exercise mats I lie on retain some warmth yet so I guess it's evening. Thought so but I've learned not to trust my instincts. My instincts lie. Sometimes I dream and only minutes pass. Sometimes more than half a day goes by which disrupts my time sense completely. Messes up the almighty schedule, too, which must be obeyed. Keeping to the schedule is a major part of the contract I signed which allows me to be here but it's worth it. It has earned me my freedom, blessed freedom. Sovereign power over my body such as it is. Ruler over the squirrels and the spiders and the birds. Maybe deer, too. Who knows? An elephant could be grazing twenty feet away and I'd never know it except, over time, by the smell I suppose. My sense of smell is fine which tells me I need to wash and change clothes because Skinner comes tomorrow on his every- other-day inspection. Must be clean. Must have eaten the right amount of food. They know if I don't eat because it's hard for me to dispose of leftovers any way they can't find. If I don't wash, that's even more obvious. The records must show when I've gone to bed though they can't make me sleep. I hope I don't get the sniffles from being out so late. It's damp. I can tell by the ache which is everywhere from toes to fingertips and all the way up my spine that it will rain tonight. Now to roll off my lilypad - no, have to stow everything first. He'll check that, too, to make certain nothing is wet or eaten by deer or drug off to be washed in the stream by the raccoons. * * * * * * * * Ugh! That took about fifteen minutes. Now let me just lie here for a moment and take stock. Sometimes my brain just wants to split from having to hold all these details in my head. You'd think this would be easier for someone with an eidetic memory but I have to see what I'm supposed to remember before that little trick works. Instead I'm stuck with lists. Bolsters and blankets are undercover. Water bottle here, trash there. Snacks in the airtight bin with the hasp to keep the raccoons and the ants out. CD player there also. A CD player seems weird but this one has a super bass so I can feel the beat. Makes me feel less alone. Got to ask Skinner to put a Braille label on the CD's themselves if he can. I think I put Simon and Garfunkle's 'Bridge over Trouble Water' in the case marked for the 'Beatles Greatest Hits'. I don't need to hear 'Bridge' again. I've used up my quota of self-pity for the month come to think of it. Though 'Help, I need somebody' can sometimes stab just as deeply as 'When you're weary/feeling low. When tears are in your eyes/ I will comfort you./I'll take your part/Oh, when you need a friend...' At least that's how I think the words go. I can never get any further than that these days. I didn't sing that out loud. I should have. Skinner worries that I'll lose the ability to talk out here all alone by myself. I am reluctant, I have to admit. How can I possibly know what I sound like any more to anyone? Like an idiot? Like a retard? I know that I'm not being very Politically Correct here. I shouldn't even think such things much less say them out loud but shouldn't slugs like me be cut some slack? Hey, I'm blind as a stone, and not a joint in my body has the range of motion a third of what it once was. Mostly it's less. And I can't hear a damn thing because it would take a seven-point-eight earthquake to get those three little bones in my inner ear to vibrate ever again so I might as well be mute as well as deaf. Bad thinking, Spook... bad... bad. Stuff like that can get you thrown back under the care of Dr. Janus and her colleagues who are all so fucking understanding. Stop....Right...There. This isn't getting me anywhere. Think less and just move. Roll over. Good. Rolling I can do. And there's the lip of the platform where I spend my days in good weather. Knees hit the ground... heels of my hands hit a combination of dirt and grass. Soft new grass. Spring. I can smell the flowers sometimes when the wind blows right. Time to crawl off towards home and see if I left the burner on over the hot water tank or hit it again by mistake. If I turned it off then it's a cold water wash again. Makes you feel like you're alive but I hope it's hot. I'm glad it's time to wash, shave and change clothes. That takes about forever and will use up all the time until my schedule says I have to be in bed. I least I actually sleep now or at least more than I used to. Maybe it's because I want to. Maybe it's because sometimes in my dreams I can see and hear and run again and I don't much care anymore what I see or what I'm running from or what's running after me. I'm running. All that matters is that I'm on two feet again. * * * * * * * * Eleven o'clock. So I'm late tonight. Had to record in the computer about my day. Typed it in. I want to be able to do that. Skinner says he'll get me a voice recognition system but there are times when a man needs his privacy. That is one of the worst things about my current deplorable situation - to be so alone and yet to never know, never, whether I am truly alone or not. Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs in one of those little foam-covered metal cups you can put in the microwave. Thank the god of technocrats for microwaves or I'd be pretty sick of peanut butter by now. I don't like this brand of 'prepared food' as well as the last so I put the can aside to ask Skinner not to get this one again. Round off with a banana and an apple from the bin. Hey, a bag of Galas this time, guys. You're spoiling me. Lots of roughage because I'm not getting a lot of exercise. Skinner at least doesn't ask me about that but his wife, Dr. Janus, will when she comes next time. At least you were always more discrete, Scully. You never asked to know ALL the nasty little details of my hospitalization, or if you did you never said a word about notes you and the nurses were comparing out in the hall. I guess that was because you knew that you'd have to face me in a week or two when they gave me my gun back. Wish you were here now though, ultra-personal details hanging out and all. If you were, I'd tell you everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask. Well, maybe not everything. Since I should at least make an attempt to keep your good opinion, I won't answer that burning question about whether or not I ever fantasize about you. And I couldn't act like I actually wanted you here where you could see me like this. Just like always, I'd have to whine and grumble until you used The Look on me. But then I wouldn't be able to see The Look. Even my daydreams are depressing me. You'd have to use your voice which is almost as good as the Look. You do have these comebacks. What I wouldn't give to hear that satin put down now. To hear anything now. It's the silence even more than the darkness. The eternal nothing. Good night, Scully, wherever you are. Anytime you want to come visit is fine with me. Until then I think I'll sleep and maybe, maybe the dreams will be good ones. * * * * * * * * When I first woke like this I thought that I had finally gone too far around the bend, that I had gone mad. Like God, did I dream that I was once a man or was I God alone... alone... alone in the void before any of this began. Was that what it was like, oh, Almighty Architect of the Universe? Did you just get so tired of the silence? How about a little noise? Just a little Big Bang. I like the sound of that. Bang. Then let there be light. Delusions of godhood vanished quickly as I tried to wake up and couldn't. No matter how I tried there was no break in the either the darkness or the silence. I really must have done a job on myself this time. I assumed I was in a coma, however, there were so many... people. People with hands which stuffed tubes down my throat and stuck needles in here and there and everywhere. There were a lot of IV's. IV's to put fluids in. I know that rush of cold down your veins when they turn one on. Then, of course, for every input there has to be output. But why wouldn't anyone talk to me? I called for you, Scully. Must have called for days but you never came. Then I became aware that the someone or someones who were always with me kept doing something with my aching right hand. What the hell...? Then it came to me like a knife in the gut, and I've had a knife in the gut and I know. They were finger spelling. I'd learned a little American Sign Language years ago in scouts and this was the finger alphabet that's used when there's no sign for a concept. It's a simple alphabet which can be used for the poor wretches who are both blind AND the deaf. Oh, hell, no. Hell because God has nothing to do with this! After a few days of sheer panic during which I convinced myself that this condition had to be temporary I accessed some old references in my gray matter and came up with the arrangement of fist and fingers and knuckles which make up each of the letters. Only over a few more days did it get through what they were spelling over and over: You are safe. You are among friends. You must calm down. You must get stronger. And then a name 'Joseph'. Oh, damn... oh, damn. I know I lost it then though for how long I have no idea. How could this have happened? How? This was not MY life. This was his. I'd been... I'd been... Where? Doing what? It took some time to track down my last memory. I finally decided that the last I could remember being me was when I was blasted by fire - one hell of an enlightening experience. No wonder it was the last thing I could dredge up. I remember the heat. I remember being terrified out of my frigging mind! I remember being willing to do anything, to go anywhere, just to get away from the burning and the roar and the flames all red and yellow and the smell of my hair beginning to singe and reaching for Scully so far away. Then there was wind and darkness and more wind and then silence and... this place. Okay, so I'm stuck in Joseph's life. Fine. Let's go on from there. So where's Scully? That's what finally brought me back - thinking of how pissed she'd be that I was behaving so badly. How disappointed. So I held it together. I stopped screaming. I guess I was screaming. My throat hurt and they told me I'd been making a lot of noise so I'll take their word for it that there is nothing wrong with my vocal cords. I could feel that just about every bone in Joe's body seemed to be rubbing against every other bone, so I started eating the gruel which they kept pushing on me, and that seemed to please everyone involved except me and my taste buds and my stomach. I concentrated and picked up on my fluency with the finger spelling. In every way I could I assumed Joseph's identity which is who they all assumed I was. Under the circumstances, it was certainly a simpler plan than trying to get anyone to believe the truth. Then one day when they realized that I was cooperating sufficiently, they started taking out some of the tubes. That was when I asked the question that had been burning up my mind for more than a week. I spelled it so I was certain I got it right. Where was Scully? Why hadn't she been to see me? I used 'Dana' however. Probably I should have used 'Sara', her cover name, but close enough. Dead, Louis told me. He took his time about it but that was the essence of the poor man's announcement. Dead? No, it wasn't possible. No Scully? Couldn't happen in any life. They explained it all patiently for obviously this was a story I was supposed to know already. They reminded me about the assault on the Compound that I'd been pulled out of at the last minute; the betrayal by Kenneth's wife; the last stand on the roof of Building Two waiting for the helicopter which came just a little too late to get all the team off; Scully, as leader, electing to go last; Scully leaping into black night sky; falling. She didn't die though, which sent me rushing in like some demented Don Quixote. Which is how they got their talons into Joseph again. Their worst nightmares made reality - the tank again for Joseph, an operation of revenge on Sara that went bad. Even while I reeled from the sheer horror of it, I had to try to hide the worst. After all I'd been told all this before. All I could do was plead forgetfulness because I'd been so ill. Hell, I pleaded forgetfulness for everything that Joseph should have known which is a pretty huge gaping hole, but they are so understanding. Everyone's so willing to forgive a lot from someone as 'damaged' as me. Still it's hard to admit that I could have forgotten so much. Supposedly, it's been weeks and weeks since Louis brought me out of the Compound and he had told me about Dana's death before. I have a dread feeling that that was what sent Joseph into the tail spin I found this body in. He believed Louis so he must have had good reason. Then the truth really struck home. If there was no Sara here, how can my Scully come? That was when the hopelessness, the black depression of total abandonment closed in. I must have spun off into my own inner darkness for a few days so my psyche could have a good screaming fit because when I fought back all the tubes had been replaced. Even some new ones. I improved from then on. Hell, there was nowhere to go but up. If he'd stuck around, Joseph would also have realized that in time. Or would he? I have to remember that I have one thread to cling to which he did not have. I know that MY Scully lives and that she'll make sense of all this and somehow find a way here to rescue me. I remind myself that finding me in fucking Alaska is going to seem like child's play compared to finding me here and yet she will. I know that just as sure as I know that I am blind and deaf and can't hold a pencil and can only move by scooting along on my belly like some lizard. Without that thread maybe I would have gone as completely and truly mad as Joseph seems to have done. Hmmm... maybe he's on to something there. At least he found a way out of this misery. When the days are really bad - and almost all days are really bad - I'm tempted to stop being so damn brave and follow him down his twisted path. If I did, where would it take me? If I did, could I ever find my way back? Like those two times when Scully and I lurked unseen and unfelt in Joseph and Sara's lives, I search for him inside myself sometimes but I've never found him there. Where have you gone? Are you sleeping... Are you sleeping, Brother John, Brother John? Why am I torturing myself this way? I've been over this so many times it's become boring even to me. Why? Because it's three a.m. and I can't get out of bed yet or I'll break the rules and yet I can't sleep. I dreamed earlier but not the kind of dream I wanted. I wanted July 14, 1996. I wanted the sight of that sloppy barbecue on a Kaiser roll which I'd bought to eat during the stake. I tried eating it in the dark and it made the biggest mess. I wanted the sounds of Scully chomping on salad to my right and going over the case one more time as we sat in the dark staring out the window looking for signs of movement from our target. Not looking at each other, not touching, just talking. But what did I get? In this unasked for vision I woke in a warm, soft bed. I am not alone. Okay, not a bad start. Only it's Joseph and Sara's chamber in the cavern. The golden glow of lantern light spills over her face. Her beautiful hair is spilled out across the pillow. We sleep between flannel sheets under mountains of furs and thick light quilts. I'm not only warm but my limbs are languid with the sleep that comes after extreme exertion. Just that well-wrung ache everywhere that isn't really like pain, not at all like the cramping agony I feel now in my every waking moment. Dana snores ever so softly in my ear. It's a pleasant sound. I try to snuggle towards her but we are not two, we are three. This is a very early vision from the cave because Adam is so very tiny as he lies between us within the rolled blanket which keeps us from unintentionally turning over on him. Maybe it's even our very first morning. My body certainly feels like it spent a night slugging like a pack mule through snow. I look down at Adam again. His eyes are shut like a little puppy's, his little pouty mouth is sucking even in this sleep. He'll wake soon, hungry. I do not move and not only because the air in the cave is cold. I don't want to wake either of them. After a while he sighs, whimpers, stretches again like a puppy and Dana is instantly alert. Our eyes meet. She smiles and leans toward me. Her kiss is warm and sweet and full of love. It was - oh - an hour ago that I woke with my tears burning into my cheeks. It is a lie, that dream. A lie of love and safety and fleeting happiness too painful to endure. It's a lie because it never happened to me. I've carried the guilt for Joseph for two years. Isn't that enough? I've accepted this stay in purgatory for him. Isn't that enough? Now I get this dream. There have been other times when I seem to almost know things I shouldn't. The smell of the Center air in the big room after a rain storm outside, the way I just know that Adam is going to twine his little fingers through my hair when he hugs his 'Daddy'. But I clamp down on those times. I will not see, I will not listen, I will not feel. I have memories enough of his hellish life which I lived when I thought it was mine. I want nothing else that belongs to that tortured soul and certainly not the few little crumbs of happiness that life has thrown his way. Bring on the nightmares. Those I'll accept as mine. Scully, please. I'm not asking for so much. I just want my life back. Mine. I want my own dreams, not Joseph's. I want you to come and rescue me. I want to hear the faucet in my own kitchen drip. I want to see my own face in the mirror when I shave, I don't want to feel this scarred approximation. I want to run till I can taste the salt of my sweat. Do you have any idea what my sweat tastes like now? No, you don't want to know. I need to see your eyes again. I am so... alone. End of Chapter 7 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (8/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 8a: Dana Spring. The leaves were tender green, bright and bursting with life. Underfoot, the years of old leaves were thick and soft as Skinner and I walked the final half mile to the cave. With the ground cover still sparse, the wild flowers and flowering bushes and trees had their way with the landscape. Out of the corner of my eye I would see a particular arrangement of white and pink and red and purple and an eerily familiar chord would play briefly around my heart. Shouldn't have. Mulder and I had returned to our own lives long before spring had come to the cave. More deja vu like recognizing the house on Oak View Lane? To my right lay the trunk of a huge fallen oak. I knew that tree. Joseph and Sara used to go there to read on mild winter days to get away from their crowded quarters and feel the sun. I can still feel that welcome sun. More haunting memories that had no reason to be. Being memories, however, they were not my concern now. Skinner and I were no more than a hundred feet from the cave mouth. Skinner pushed the rhododendron branches aside which had grown up to partially block the path and there we were. Not that you could see the actual opening to the cave. That was screened by a cluster of tall evergreens in front and the darkness of shadow behind as if the hill that rose up had eroded away at some long ago time. Before was a flat open area we had referred to as our 'front porch'. It wasn't empty. My heart leapt to my throat. The lump was so large that I couldn't get breath around it for what felt like eternity. A platform had been built in the center of the clearing. Not a very large platform and only a few inches high but it was enough to raise the space off the damp ground. The platform was covered with blue exercise pads and ringed with at least ten of those large Rubbermaid bins. Among other things they must have been used to store the large number of blankets and pillows which were scattered about. In the center of the clutter was awkwardly curled a man whose face I couldn't see but who I recognized in one stumbling heartbeat. His dark head was bent over a large book. His right hand was clumsily moving across the page. Seeing the hard, wicked twist to that too thin body, the need for all the bolsters and blankets was painfully obvious. The platform and storage bins had obviously been arranged for its occupant's benefit so he wouldn't have to go far to either retrieve an item or to stow it to get it out of the night damp or rain. Such attention was all very commendable but shouldn't have been all that necessary. I looked around the clearing and towards the cave entrance for a companion or a caretaker. There was no sign of any other person. "He's here alone?" I asked, incredulous. Skinner nodded gravely. "And has been for three weeks now. He fought for this, worked night and day, negotiated the terms. He said he needed to be alone. He needed to prove to himself he was not an invalid. He has a point. It is hard for us to watch him and not want to help and what he can do is remarkable..." Skinner's voice broke and it was with no little effort that that familiar mask reformed over his features. "We do keep a close watch on him and he has a lot of rules, a lot of routines he has to follow. Someone comes out every other day with food and there's a dead man's switch which he has to initialize daily or we come running. He's improving his Braille here. He's been an incredibly fast learner but that comes as no surprise to anyone." I almost choked on my words as Skinner had had trouble with his. "How can he -" I could almost feel again that rigid, clawlike grip as I sat beside Joseph in the tent on the edge of the party field. The hands which trailed across the wide pages of the book were the same. "Somehow he manages. Notice he wears a brace on his right hand to help extend the first two fingers. I know it pains him but he has never complained. I have a doctor coming in two weeks, a Dr. Libewitz, who might be willing to hazard an operation on his joints. In addition to about a dozen kinds of abnormal adhesions, the cartilage is partially fused. Although it's the same process which caused his hearing loss, that's too delicate an area to experiment on. Libewitz will concentrate on the hands first." "What's the prognosis?" I asked so appalled by what I was seeing that I didn't even notice that I was running the risk of falling into Agent Scully patterns. "Not good. We've taken a few hundred MRI's and the doctors don't hold out hope for much improvement. Considering the composition of his blood, it's a dangerous proposition for all involved, but Libewitz is willing to try. He's proposing some new laser technique but there we hit a stone wall. Without Sara you can imagine that Joseph's been minimally cooperative as far as medical goes. Here he's drawn the line. This is the deal. A month on his own if he follows the rules. Only then will he allow Allen to bring in his toys." I watched, both abhorred and fascinated, as the mangled form sprawled on his stomach within his nest in the clearing turned a page in his large white book. His whole body had to twist just to perform that one simple action as if the joints were connected in one long string. My chest had ached before. Now it ripped as if by a single stroke from a bright, sharp knife. I forced my burning eyes to the ground. I shouldn't be watching when he didn't know. It was betrayal. Whatever Mulder was trapped within that body, he had also come here not to be seen. "Holy Mother, pray for us..." came in a breath from my lips the rest of the prayer finishing silently. I should have been more prepared. I should have expected this after Joseph's handling of Mulder's body in the party field. "Can he stand?" I asked pitching my voice barely above a whisper as if he could hear. "Can he walk?" "He can stand with support for maybe a minute then the muscles cramp up. He can take a few steps with a walker... about as far as from his bed to a wheelchair." I looked. I expected to see a Cadillac of a motorized wheel chair - something with four wheel drive and a stick shift. Nothing. "Where is it?" Skinner crossed his arms, clearly frustrated. "He won't have one here. He used one for distance at the Center so he wouldn't be in the way, but here he wants no part of it. Doesn't want to be dependent in case there are mechanical problems. If he were too far from the cave and it broke down, there'd be no one to help." I thought, but then why should that surprise me. He needed to know he could do anything, and knowing Mulder it was also his idea of some kind of penance for who knows what sins. "How does he get around then?" That was one question too many. I saw Skinner's nostrils flare for a moment. "If he lets you stay long enough, you'll see." His face was grim as he stared off towards the clearing. "I wish you didn't have to talk to him at all, but if he's willing to provide you with any information that may help then we'll risk his temper. If he gets too upset though, you leave and no complaints. There's still a small chance the seizures will return though we haven't seen them in months." He started forward then stopped. "I hope you have a good story about why you're going in. As Louis said, it can't be to bring Sara out. Even if we do succeed in rescuing her, she won't be the person she was. She's one of them now and we may never be able to change that. Under those circumstances I'm not even completely certain about whether we are in the right here. We'd be kidnapping her and for what? To do to her what they have? To put her in a prison? To mess with her mind? Can you imagine showing him to her the way he is and saying 'This is your husband? You remember the last time you met, don't you? You made him what he is today.' Joseph's trying...he's really trying to hold it together, to do something with the rest of his life no matter how hard it is. I don't want to make that any harder for him without a very good reason." Skinner's hand went to his pocket. He pulled out a small black box. "He wears a little pager around his neck which vibrates in response to this. A sort of doorbell." As he pressed a button, the head of the figure on the dais raised with what seemed a painful jerk. It was as if he were listening, though I knew it wasn't sound he was listening to. Skinner replaced the box in his pocket. "Stay here until I call. 'If' I call," he amended. "He doesn't like strangers. Let me talk to him first and be patient. This might take a while. We have some Center business to take care of first." As Skinner moved off towards the platform, I was actually relieved by the man's stern directions because if I had been asked to speak at that moment I don't know what I would have said. I couldn't just come out and tell this poor creature who I was. What if this wasn't Mulder? What if this was just Joseph? Certainly he'd been in the party field but that was hours ago - weeks ago in this time. What if my very appearance here had flung him back? What if the sedative had? There was no logic to what had sent Mulder and me sliding back and forth. We only needed to be sleeping in one world for our spirits to pop up, unexpectedly in the other. Did that also explain why I had bits and pieces of knowledge I shouldn't have? Did I visit in my dreams? None of this, however, helped me prepare for what I would find now. It could be Mulder. It could be Joseph. If I could find myself merged with a - whatever Ellie was - then there could be who-knows-what inside of that poor body. What would I do if I found out that underneath there was no one I knew, only something seriously disturbed. Who wouldn't be under similar circumstances? As I slowly panicked, Skinner had crouched down beside the platform and reached for the crippled right hand. He took the brace off with the ease of long practice and yet with surprising tenderness. Into the palm he began to spell quickly. Always high, my admiration for Skinner rose appreciatively. Most likely he had learned that silent alphabet just to speak to Joseph and was clearly fluent. The first part of their 'conversation' probably was spent discussing topics like the weather and how his Braille reading was progressing. While he had been unaware of us as he studied his book, Joseph's expression had been rather blank with creases of concentration. When Skinner had first announced himself, the expression had initially been welcoming. As I watched their exchange, my sorrow deepened. Joseph, whom I had found near the party field, had thought of himself as crippled, deaf and blind. This one actually was. Above and beyond that were the four-year-old scars which even the skin grafts had not been able to entirely alleviate. That more than anything hit home to me that this was - honest and truly - not my Mulder. Certainly not physically. Skinner had brought a fairly heavy canvas shoulder bag along with him. He unpacked it now, talking while he spelled, "The boys have made some adjustments. They'd appreciate your opinion." To that Joseph grumbled and swung his legs around awkwardly until he was sitting, or at least as near as he could manage. Skinner had taken from the bag a leather hat like an old aviator's cap. After that he pulled out something about the size and weight of a large brick which came with a small back pack of its own. He helped Joseph on with the back pack and fitted the cap on the dark head. Wires connected the pack to the head gear and there were two more wires which ended in what I recognized with interest as electrodes. The electrodes Skinner planted on either side of the blind man's temples. Finally, he pulled out a pair of dark, large- lensed glasses. Awkwardly, Joseph put these on himself while Skinner completed the connections. "Ready?" With what seemed like reluctance Joseph nodded and Skinner did something with the controls on the back pack and then similarly to the head gear. Instantly, Joseph uttered a sharp groan, his hands going to his head, primarily in the area of the electrodes. After a couple of full body shakes he straightened to 'scan' the woods that ringed the clearing though the deep furrows in his brow showed he was still in pain. Clearly having done this before, Skinner had taken out a microcassette recorder, following the turn of the younger man's head. "This is better, boys. Frohike, buy the guys a six pack for me. The interface still hurts like the devil but at least the picture is clearer." A warmth spread deep in my chest as I heard that voice. Mulder's voice. A little slurred and unsure as if he didn't use it much, but Mulder's. It was also somewhat lacking in expression even from normal but then he was simply describing what, amazingly, he was 'seeing' through the strange contraption Skinner had brought. "Two trees at five o'clock, by their silhouettes, maples maybe. A mass of bushes at three o'clock. A dark shape at one - the hill. Though I can't see the cave entrance I can make out the tops of the pines." So he went, turning from his central position and noting what he could 'see'. Suddenly I realized that those wondrous 'eyes' would pass the place where I stood soon. Would he be able to 'see' me against all the foliage behind me. Did I even want him too? Was I ready to face that wreck of a body that I, or Sara at least, had once held in her arms and loved? I soon learned that Frohike and friends had done too good a job. As his eyes reached my location, he stilled as only an animal in the wild can still, his mind sharpening even while his body ceased all motion. While he wore the darkly mirrored glasses I couldn't make out his eyes, but there was now a slightly puzzled expression around his mouth. Obviously, he did see something, but what? Just a form that was not a tree or a bush, an unexpected presence in the shape of a slim young girl, or could he look right into her soul and see - me? If damage had been done, then there was no way to undo it. To help him distinguish what must be a fuzzy static picture, I took a few steps around the circle of the clearing. As his head moved to follow, his mouth turned down into a definite frown which deepened all the scars. "You brought someone!" He snapped accusingly at Skinner. "Damn you, I thought we had an understanding." Angrily, he ripped off the glasses and tore free the electrodes. The new lines around his eyes were deep with strain. With practiced skill Skinner made a grab for the flailing hand so he could spell furiously into it. "At least you can see her, be glad for that. She's going into the Compound undercover. She's going to be posing as an instrument technician. She would appreciate some words with you." "What for?" "Why is she going or why does she want to talk to you? To answer the first, I didn't ask. As to the second, I thought that was obvious, though if I were her I don't know that I'd waste my time with an ungrateful bastard like you." Skinner picked up the glasses with this left hand and touched them to Joseph's arm to get his attention. "Watch it with these, they're one of a kind. Let's try again." "No!" Joseph said sharply, then seemed to realize how childish his outburst had been. I could actually see him take his anger in hand then and dampen it, the effort almost physical. Mulder has a temper, quite a violent one for such a gentle person, and doesn't mind showing it. That he should be angry under these circumstances was understandable. That Joseph should take such care to control it, I found mildly alarming. This was not the Mulder I knew. Extracting the captured hand from Skinner, Joseph massaged his temples where, to my amazement, something metallic glittered just under the surface of the skin. Permanent implants? "Please," he said in a much subdued tone, "that thing really does give me a headache. Leave it. I promise that I'll work with it tomorrow." More roughly, he nodded in my direction - or where I had been the last time he'd seen me. I'd moved a few steps in the meantime. "Since you brought her all the way up here, you might as well introduce us." Skinner caught my eye and I moved towards the platform. With every step my knees assumed more and more the consistency of jello. Harder still was crouching down in an attempt to put myself on Joseph's level. Even then I was too tall. The platform was very low and pretzeled bodies not only can't stand for long, they can't sit well either. "Ms. Ellie - I'm sorry that's the only name I know you by -" Skinner said, "meet Joseph Lincoln." "Charmed," Joseph murmured sulkily. 'Joseph Link' had been Mulder's original 'safe' name when he escaped from the Compound. 'Link' as in the 'missing link'. It was supposed to have been a bad joke considering Mulder's unique hybrid status. Over the years, they must have changed it to something a little less obvious. Still in that sulky tone Joseph asked, "What can I tell you that Louis can't, 'Ms.' Ellie." The unaccustomed indecision which had disappeared for a time was back. What do I do now? Just as a starter, I know only a letter or two of Joseph's alphabet. <<'I' do,>> Ellie assured me. It had been so long since I had heard her voice that I had almost forgotten our arrangement. <> And I felt the control plucked from my hands. * * * * * * * * Chapter 8b: Mulder They've brought in another damn doctor. Doesn't matter what they say she's here for. Someone's pushing Skinner. One of his bosses is afraid that I'm not stable enough to have my - that is, Joseph's - top secret security clearance reinstated. How I hate this. When I first caught 'sight' of her in that ghostly other-world vision from the Gunman's temporal scanner, I thought she was a dream. The images are rather nightmarish. The way she was standing at that first moment, so still, so solid, with her hands deep in her pockets, reminded me so much of Scully I almost called her name. Then she took a few steps and it was worse. 'Her' walk. After so many months of agonized waiting and dreaming and praying and hoping, to think for even the length of a breath that it might be she, dumped about a year's worth of adrenaline into my system in one pounding heartbeat. By the time the initial shock wore off I'd gotten a clearer look. This woman's face was too thin, her hair far too long and its color too light. The joy slipped like water through my open fingers, leaving me with just the control-blowing affect of the chemicals and an almost uncontrollable urge to cry. It's a wonder I didn't snap worse than I did, something I must never allow to happen if I want to stay free. Skinner should not have sprung this on me. He apologized later; he hadn't meant for it to be such a shock. If he only knew how much of a shock. My visitor is surprisingly young. Must be a child prodigy. Believe it or not that will help her cover, but I can't help but think that she is playing more than one game here. She could as easily have been sent to catch me off guard as any of the goons from the Compound. Since this is not the first time Skinner and Company have tried something like this, I can only assume that they're digging for something. Early on I must have babbled a lot of confusing nonsense. It probably happened when I thought I was only badly injured and nearly comatose in the hospital again. Being unable to see or hear anything, I was scared shitless. Not all that surprising then that I would rave. All of this, of course, was before I realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. All right, time to play Joseph for them again. I've become very good at it. In fact, one of the reasons I keep going over and over the same old litany in my head is because if I don't, I'm afraid that I really will forget who I am. She's gone off with Skinner for the moment so I don't know what they're saying. Even after all these months that makes me so angry. When I was under close watch in the medical center about a dozen alarms would go off every time my caregivers went 'off line' to talk privately about something that I really wanted to 'hear'. Ugh, they're back and it's even worse than I expected. He's going to leave her here overnight. He has a meeting he has to get back for and hadn't realized how long this was going to take or even if I would accept her. I can't think of a worse way to spend an afternoon and an evening. Besides the fact that I don't make a very good host these days, I'm used to having the place to myself. There's little here to startle me. Now I've got this 'wunderkin' shrink. Wonder if she's into touchy-feelie. Wonder if she's going to offer to scrub my back. Maybe I'll give her a thrill; maybe I'll let her. It does itch and there are other places I can't reach. I just need to remember to play it cool. * * * * * * * * I suppose you want a report, eh, Scully? Me and Ellie-shrink talked about the Compound for hours. I had to really dip down but I think I gave all the right responses. I did after all 'live' in the Compound for three years, first to cure my cancer and then not only as the winner of the Phantom of the Opera look-alike contest but also as Dr. Dana's husband and transcriber extraordinaire for the enemy. True, it was before either of us knew that this was a split off from our own world. We thought that was our reality and later, that it was only a dream. Wrong on both counts as it turned out. That doesn't matter now, however. I believe I successfully negotiated her first trap which I assume was to see if I could talk about that time and Dana without falling apart. I wish I could see her face. Then I'd know for certain if she's bought it all. I will say this for Ellie-shrink. She may be young but she's very bright and has definitely done her homework. At the moment she's gone off to the visitor's 'facilities'. Skinner must have told her where they were because she didn't ask for directions. I have my own but believe me you don't want to hear about the adaptations Louis made so I could be self sufficient. Ellie-shrink is also extremely proficient at the ASL alphabet. Her hand is very small and quick and soft, and her gestures are almost lyrical. I'm not trying to make you jealous or anything, Scully, but after Skinner she just feels so good and smells so good. I notice she's not afraid to touch me but she's also very careful not to touch me too much. I'm surprised about that. It's as if she knows how seductive such contact can be. Not in a sexual way. Just comfort. I can't let it happen. That invites pity which I will not abide. On the other hand, maybe having her around for a day or two won't be so bad. I know it doesn't make much sense but the quiet seems not quite so quiet since she came, as if there was something building just outside of my little sphere. Not a storm, something better, something momentous. Enough of that kind of thinking. I must be lonelier than I thought. You'd think I would have learned by now. How many times at the beginning did I head blindly down that road, certain because of some dream or tides of the moon or scent on the wind that you would come THAT day. How the hours would crawl by, how many minutes and seconds. Still I waited, concentrating so hard that I swore I could feel the earth turning under me, expecting that every vibration would be your step, every touch your hand. Only you never came and all I had left after my little bout of self-deception was a pillow which was a little bit soggier than normal in the morning. Ellie-shrink and I continued our 'conversation' all afternoon. As before, she 'spelled' and I talked. She assured me that my speech was still clear though it takes a lot out of me. I know that I have to focus on every syllable or I'll slur. All the feedback I get is a kind of buzz. She's wrapping up for the day right now, telling me nice things about how much she appreciates my time. If she starts in on how brave I'm being, I think I'll puke. I know she doesn't have everything she wants, but I'm sure that she notices that I'm fading. The 'words' just go on and on in a kind of fog. My hand has also been cramping for the past half hour but I'll be damned if I'll let her know that. "I know you're tired," she says, "but I have one more question." Thinking back on it now, she was so cool. Not a tremor in those slender fingers. She would have passed a polygraph test hands down. "When it became known at my office that I was coming to see you, one of my colleagues, a former FBI agent himself, asked me if I'd ask you about John Roche. Do you remember that case? Whatever happened to him? I know it was a long time ago." At the mention of John Roche all the synapses in my weary brain snapped to attention. Damn them! I thought I was finished with all the hiding from their tricks and their traps. The Paper Hearts case has been closed for more than a dozen years in this world. It reappeared and in the most terrible way possible, but only in mine and only AFTER the split in the worlds. Joseph couldn't possibly have fucked up the way I did considering how he's been spending his time. 'I', therefore, should know only the official history from the original investigation and prosecution, nothing of it's bloody and humiliating aftermath. I massaged my hand and tried to look as if I were thinking. What I was doing, however, was panicking. This was the real test, not the hours of questions about the Compound. Had I raved about my good ol' dead friend John and his head games during my delirium? Had I wept over how an innocent child had almost died? Had I admitted how, with single-minded hatred and without a shred of remorse afterwards, I had shot the bastard dead right between the eyes? I mustn't let her catch me, must show no change in expression even though the emotions - fear, despair, rage, and raw, festering humiliation - ran through me like wild fire. Good thing I've learned to be a stone. I'm very good at being a stone, but even stones can crack and I came very near. Instead I gave her the book answer. Inquired with concern whether he'd escaped or - damn the legal system - had been paroled. If so I commented that that would be a crime. He was a monster. How she reacted to my controlled non-reaction I'll never know. There was a pause in the conversation while she thought of another question on which to trip me, so I jumped in and turned on the good host charm and asked if she needed anything. Since she was spending the night, had Skinner shown her where she could bed down? I wanted to make it perfectly clear that this interview was at an end and that I didn't want her 'conversation' later in the evening. "Mulder," came her voice a little strained - or was that my imagination - "is there anything -" I made an abrupt thumbs down signal. Close enough to a 'no' and dismissal at once. Oh, but how distressingly wonderful it was to hear my own name spoken again after so very long. Still, for her own sake she needs to be more careful. "Haven't they told you never to use that name? As an undercover agent, you can't afford that kind of a slip." After that I excused myself, rolling off the platform to land oh so very gracefully on my knees and elbows in the dirt before I slithered off towards 'home'. Let her get an eyeful. How I hate these games. No back rubs for you, sweet thing, which means no backrubs for me either. And, by the way, I'll lay out some of that spaghetti I don't like and you can make your own damn dinner. End of Chapter 8 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (9/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 9a: Dana All afternoon I let Ellie run the show. She was good. I learned much about this Joseph. He was definitely sane, clearly hostile and has erected a force field around himself that the Starship Enterprise would have been proud of. Still I held out hope that it's Mulder - that is until he didn't break into even a mild sweat when I brought up John Roche. There are few cases which Mulder has tormented himself over more than Roche. Letting himself be raked over by Roche's mind games was one thing. Going against Skinner's expressed orders and continuing to see Roche was just plain stupid. Removing the monster from Federal prison and letting him out in public was criminal and nearly suicidal. But fucking up to the point where Roche got his gun and ID and nearly took an innocent life - that very nearly got Mulder fired. As a result of that, he was suspended for a month. In my opinion it should have been more. That was until the depression and nightmares which made his previous late night movies look like Saturday morning cartoons forced him onto medication and then into therapy. Skinner was more in tune with Mulder than I usually give him credit. Policy required suspension, but just as surely Skinner knew that Mulder's own fine- tuned sense of guilt would supply punishment enough. Eventually a compromise was reached - six weeks working off his penance chained to a desk in the bowels of the Investigative Support Unit. Better for Mulder's head, better for the FBI, and yet the censure was undeniable. Now if the little girl had died, no amount of brilliant mind- twisting, gut-wrenching, psycho-immersion profiling would have been able to cleanse that tortured soul. If Roche had pulled the trigger first, I know what I would have done. I would have thrown Mulder into a psychiatric ward on suicide watch within the hour, and even then I wouldn't have placed bets on his surviving a week. In other words, my mentioning Roche should have had some affect. I'd held off asking the question until I saw that exhaustion had settled in and his guard was down. When there was no reaction, none at all, something broke inside. Hope, I guess. I sort of faded out after that, only coming around as he ended the interview and pushed himself off the dais. As he began to make his way like some huge serpent towards the cave, I forced Ellie to turn her back. The sight was past enduring. I know this phrase is right out of trashy romantic fiction but in this case it fits. To see Joseph like this IS past enduring. It only makes it worse that for so much of the afternoon he was so completely Mulder at his most stubborn. As I discovered with the Roche ploy, however, this plainly was not Mulder. He also refused to acknowledge or be suspicious over my use of his real name, which an agent of Ellie's supposed talents would never have forgotten. Then there were those endless questions about the Compound where I knew details no one else should have known. I would have expected alarms to go off in Mulder's head just because that's the sort of thing that would have triggered my partner's knife-edge paranoia. Instead, nothing. No Mulder. Floating inside Ellie like some ancient fetus, I wanted to scream. Then where is he!?! Was he back in the tent with Tannis instead of the sedated Joseph? If I had let my patient regain conscious, would I have found my Mulder back in his own place? Had I come for nothing? Or had his soul been spirited off to some other realm entirely, ripped away by the wind and sent into what? Even Christ once sent a host of demons into a herd of swine. Has he been caught in the body of a child, a bird, a thief, a whore? Or had the fire driven him mad or catatonic? In that case was he hiding under Joseph's too-sane madness either here or in his own body? She is intense but secretive. Something is brewing but she has put some kind of distance between us. I had put all my hopes - all - into finding Mulder here. Instead I have found only this bitter mind inside this wreck of a body. It's going to be a long night. * * * * * * * * Chapter 9b: Mulder This was not an evening I wish to repeat. Ever! I'm going to lay down the law with Skinner - no more overnight guests! Ellie- shrink must move like a ghost because I never knew where she was. This meant that she could be anywhere - watching. From time to time I did feel a vibration. But maybe that was only her radiating pity. About a half hour after I'd belly-crawled into the wash area to clean off the affects of the day, she appeared as if from nowhere to place a hand on my shoulder. Since I felt her footsteps on the ground at the very end, this didn't totally unnerve me. "I can manage," I replied to her more curtly than I should have. I know she was just offering to help. I regretted my response a few minutes later as I tried to wiggle out of my stinking shirt. After the first treatment in the tanks this body's sweat had certainly changed but not so much in its odor. I can't say that the affects from the second trip were nearly so innocuous but much of that may be from my own heightened sense of smell. I'm disgusting even to myself and the long afternoon session with Ms. Ellie had made it far worse than usual. After the hour and a half it takes for me to finish my toilette - oh, for the days of the five minute shower and change - I eat. Who knows what. Something from the microwave and some fruit. Not enough to satisfy Helen when she checks my input but I can plead fatigue and I am tired. The problem is when I try to sleep I can't. Surprise. It's those eyes of hers again. I don't know where they are. I don't know where she is. Is she sleeping in the big bed in the far cavern? OUR bed. It gnaws at me and gnaws at me until I need to know. It's not a trivial decision. I roll off my low bed to feel the dense pile of the carpet which has been laid on the cavern floor and I make my awkward way down the short maze of tunnels. I've built up a good, stinking sweat by the time I make it. Now what? If I reach up my hand to see if she's there and touch her, what will she think I want? Will she scream? I wouldn't blame her. If something like me woke me out of sound sleep, I'd scream, too. I crouch and listen for a long time like some forest creature afraid to venture out for fear of a larger predator. What do I think I'm doing? Do I possibly think that I'm going to hear her breathing? I can't even hear my own. I take a chance and slowly reach up. My first evidence that I should not have worried is that the blankets that hang over the edge are unwrinkled and fall straight as if the bed is still made. Unlikely she's there then but I need to know for certain and make it to my knees. Finally, I slide my stomach over the edge of the mattress. The bed is empty. I feel both relief and an inconsolable sadness. Dana should be here but she isn't and at the moment I can't decide which one I had expected to find - Scully or Sara. That, after all, is what had driven me here - the hope of finding her - not any real fear that my newest spy has in any way invaded places she shouldn't. Now I am gone way beyond tired. More, I've passed into a kind of twilight which I seem to be entering more and more lately where I lose myself in his life. This is frightening enough but there is worse - what if there are no two worlds? What if I am the one and only Fox Mulder and this is my only life? What if I am mad waiting in vain like some beast-prince to be awakened by his own princess lover. Only there is no princess, is there? There is no salvation because she is dead. I will sleep here tonight. I tell myself it's because it is a long way back to my pallet in the front cavern and I am so cold. Having been trying to sleep before, I am wearing only a T-shirt and gym shorts which isn't enough for a place where central heating is wishful thinking at best. As I wriggle under the mounds of blankets, I realize that there's another reason for staying here only I'm so tired I can't seem to think of any words to describe this odd tug at my soul. A premonition? I fall asleep before I have a chance to feel uneasy about the possibility. * * * * * * * * Chapter 9c: Dana We - if one body and two minds can be considered 'we' - are standing over 'the' bed - Sara's and her husband's first bed in freedom. At the moment, however, it's only Joseph's bed. Lying on his side like a child, those beautiful lashes lying along his cheeks, he looks so thin, so vulnerable. It is frustration and depression for all that he's lost, added to the constant pain from those twisted limbs and spine, that has so deeply carved his face. Ellie is chanting something but so low I cannot hear her well. Then I realize that I can't recognize the language. This scares me. I warn her, though I know she can't. I just have a bad feeling about this and I want her to stop. <> I notice her hands are moving in the air and the slight smoke from the candle's flame is thickening. It's as if she is painting something in smoke or fog in the air above Joseph's sleeping form. <> she murmured low. Now she closes her eyes. It seems part of the ceremony but it also means I can't see what's going on. She must have found my grumbling distracting. <> <> The girl is in deadly earnest. Her thoughts, though sharp and intense, are not meant to be cruel. <> I hesitate. That is my undoing. All at once I am swallowed as in a cloud, cocooned in cotton. Sound is muffled. I can see only shadows. I am like a little child bundled by her mother into a snowsuit so big and puffy I can barely move. I have been put in my place. I am frightened, but, oddly, very little of my fear is for myself. * * * * * * * * Chapter 9d: Mulder This is a long, deep sleep such as I have not known for many months and there's this dream. Like the extremely clear ones can, this dream seems to have a reality of its own. I dream of this place. I'm outside. It's spring like now only earlier in the season. Although the air still has a bite to it, the sun is unexpectedly warm as sometimes happens in March or early April. I am alone on this glorious morning, but unlike my waking self I'm not entirely alone. There are others within the cave. I have been taking in Spring. Drinking in the sunshine. After the long winter I'm intoxicated by it. It's the sort of a day and a feeling that needs to be shared. I RUN towards the cave. My legs and arms are long and straight and strong. No matter what else happens I'm thankful for this. I drop to a walk only when I'm inside the entrance. The odors of too many bodies inside for too long hits me as I enter like a wall. After five months it's pretty pungent. There's the sweat of people - five human, one nearly so - and the scent of cooking, oil fumes and, of course the organic richness of Sphinx. I go to our room to find Dana. I try to remember to call her 'Sara' but it's hard. She laughs that at least with 'Sara' she only has to remember to change two letters and not six as I do. In this dream I see every twist and turn of the cavern such as I have not 'seen' in longer than I can imagine. Remember, I was dropped into my current life already blind. Back in our room which has no natural lighting, it could be night just as surely as day. It could be raining just as easily as filled by glorious sunshine. Dana is bent over the bed having just put the baby down for his nap within the ring of blankets which will keep him from rolling off if he's restless. He is already asleep, his arm around the stuffed fox Helen produced on Christmas morning. The animal looks more than a little like a dog except for the coloring but he's much loved and smells of milk and baby and so it doesn't matter what he looks like. Adam's a long, solid baby who takes in solid food as greedily as his old man did at his age, but he still likes a good suckle before he goes to sleep. Wonder if he'll still be doing that when he's thirty-seven - just like his old man? Dana smiles up at me in amused welcome as I rush in like some school boy with spring fever. My hair is mussed and I'm still trying to catch my breath from my run. She's not any more together. Her shirt is unbuttoned and a large part of one rounded breast shows where the nursing bra is still open. She is SO beautiful. Before she can finish dressing, I grab her hand and kiss that naked orb. That image is the clearest one - how gentle the skin of her hand is in mine, how soft the breast on my lips. A tiny part of my brain worries. Why is this so clear? My voyeur time within Joseph here at the cave had long passed by spring. Or did my soul wander back here from time to time in my dreams in the months since? I wish Dana were here so I can ask if she's had similar experiences. This dream is also different because I feel that I'm the one making the decisions here. I decide what to say, what to do. I control. Vivid dreaming I've heard it called. Happens sometimes but usually near dawn in that shadow world between waking and sleeping. This seems deeper. Stop, I refuse to analyze this experience to death. This is a good dream and I just want to enjoy it. All right, I admit that I was angry before when I relived Joseph's happiness - of waking up Christmas morning and finding myself in bed with Dana and Adam. I had wanted a dream of my own. But yesterday was a very long day and I'm feeling low and so I'll take what I can get. I'll give myself over to this and to all that comes after. So what's wrong with a little self-deception? "Let's go for a swim," I suggest wickedly, taking her slight body in my arms. She has a milky smell of her own which I've learned to cherish. "You're crazy," she says. "There's snow run off in that stream. Can't be more than fifty degrees." But she isn't protesting really, just being Scully-responsible. Her eyes are shining with the very idea of the daring deed. Before you can count to ten, she's straightened her clothes and we're running down the path towards the stream like two children. The stream is about a quarter mile from the cave which isn't far when you have two good legs. During the winter I tried fishing there but it's not a large stream nor a deep one and froze early. There is a rock that rises above one of the deeper places. It's not really that high, maybe four feet above the surface of a natural pool, but I'd always thought it would make a good diving platform. This is what I prepare to do now though I'm not stupid enough to dive. I had shed my clothes piece by piece over the last fifty feet or so of the path. Now I climb the rock, wave idiotically to Dana and jump in. I do this for two reasons: one, all this little excursion was my idea to start with, and two, if I took the time to really think about what I was doing I'd chicken out - no doubt about it. SHIIIIIIIIIT!!! The first thing that happens is that my heart stops. Then my feet go numb, then my hands. Everything contracts. I forget for a moment to breathe. Luckily, the water is only four feet deep so my face is only splashed and my head is dry. I scramble out to the sound of Dana laughing. She doesn't do it often, so it's a sweet sound even though what she is laughing at is that certain parts of my physique have shrunk to the point of being nearly invisible. In retaliation I swing her up into my arms, clamber up the rock again and throw her in. I realize a split second too late that her howl of protest is for real. Really stupid, Fox. You can kill a person with that kind of shock if they aren't used to it. Dana goes under entirely - and doesn't come up right away. It takes about two seconds for me to panic. Back in I go being careful not to land on her. I am calling her name and feeling in the water with my hands and feet. Nothing but mud and the occasional rock. Just then she erupts screaming from behind me, kicks one of my legs out from under me [,] and leaps onto my head. We are both totally wet now and shivering so badly that we generate ripples standing still. At least we have sense enough to get out in a hurry. I carry her out, again only fair since I threw her in. There is mud dripping from her delicate little toes and freezing water streaming from her hair. My eyes, however, are glued to her breasts which since she became pregnant have become - oh, so very nice. In addition, her nipples are now about as large as marbles and as hard. I can't resist and lean down and take one in my mouth and she moans in bliss, but that may be more in response to the warmth of the blanket I've just thrown over us both. Somehow we end up on the ground rolling about in not just one blanket but now two and now three. Her skin is wet and warming quickly against mine. Her lips are soft and as hungry as mine are. Those temporarily shrunken parts of my anatomy are no longer in hiding. Never one to miss an opportunity while still being respectful of the toxicity of this body's physiology, I had scooped up other necessities besides the blankets on my way out of the cave and so we make love. Like it never was the first time five years ago when I was so sick. Like it should be for everyone - every time. * * * * * * * * Part of me wakes to velvet blackness and silence and that familiar itch on my cheeks from my tears. The other part, the greater part, wakes floating, sailing, upheld in bittersweet joy by the lingering wisps of the dream. My body is exhausted but in that very GOOD way which I have not felt for such a very long time. The secular humanist in me would describe my current state as 'spiritually satiated' and I think I'll leave the descriptions at that. This is not a time for words. It's a time for lying still and just being. Remembering the sensations is all I want right now. Oh, Scully... if what initiated all of this was that small, soft hand of Ellie's which reminded me for the first time in a long time of a gentler world, then perhaps the afternoon wasn't such a waste after all. What would have happened if I had asked her to wash my back literally boggles the mind. As the heat of the wondrous dream fades, I'm cold. Reaching down for one of the extra quilts, I realize that I'm a little more undressed than when I went to sleep which wasn't much to begin with. Also my hand comes in contact with a wet spot, quite a wet spot. Slightly sticky, too. I'm suddenly warm again with five alarm humiliation. No wonder I feel so good but - locker room humor aside - I'm not fifteen any more. How am I going to explain this to whoever is going to have to change the sheets. Not that anyone will be mad - that would actually be easier to bear - but the ribbing may kill me. Then the real down side of what has happened comes to me and most of what is left of the beauty of the dream drifts off like smoke. Ellie and I are here alone together here. I'm going to have to explain all this in detail to someone before the well-meaning gossips start putting pieces together and come up with something that never happened. Oh, I'd be secretly congratulated that my instrument is still in tune, but Ellie... Damn double standard. I don't want her reputation tainted with this in any way. With all of this on my mind there's no chance of getting back to sleep now which is unfortunate - I had hoped for a reprise. Instead I lay awake. Or do I? I realize I can still feel spots of bright happiness sparkling around me like beads scattered in the grass. Mentally, I gather the beads. I fill my hands to overflowing until their small, bright rainbows create one single enchanting image. In it there's the steam, the rock, and the patch of soft, sacred ground on which we tumbled. The scene is deserted and yet... waiting. Yes, waiting. A shiver runs through me which, because it crosses damaged joints, causes no small amount of pain along its path. It's waiting for... me. Like the SETI signals in Puerto Rico, like the flickering red willow-the-wisp in the dreams just before Roche reentered by life, I know that if I follow there will be a message, a gift for me at the end. A gift which, I hope, I can touch and taste and smell because it's a hellish long way to the stream. The journey is no sweat for a man who can walk, which I can't. Then there's the little complication that I'm not even certain I can find it. Two years ago there would have been a path which maybe in my current state I could have followed by touch alone. The stream was a popular place to go to get away from the cave and Sara and Joseph weren't the only couple to use it. After two winters, however, there will be little of that path left. A man would need eyes to find what landmarks there are left - eyes which, unfortunately, I don't have. Wait, I do. Eyes of a sort. Frohike's invention. It's my own little torture chamber but at least with it I can see - or at least a close approximation. It's even on the way since I stowed it in one of the air tight storage containers out in the yard. And if I get lost on my way to the stream, I'll say I was just giving it a test run. They may even believe it. Before I can begin my little adventure, I drop back into a kind of doze. The dream wraps its arms around me as if I'm a good bloodhound who has just picked up the scent and this is my reward. Instead of being patted on the top of the head, however, I'm granted a flashback of the original dream in all it's heady beauty. I'm seduced by a dizzying sense of well being. Luckily, I'm not too dizzy otherwise I might have broken my neck getting down from the tall bed. There is never any question that I'll obey the summons. As I followed a dancing red light once to a shallow grave in a park and the bones of a little girl lost for too long, so I will obey this 'sending' and see where it leads me. It is so far, however, this silent, dark path. Oh, Scully, I wish you were here. End of Chapter 9 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (10/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 10a: Dana The distance Ellie has wrapped me in is not all of a piece. Sometimes I exist as in a cloud. Sometimes as if I were walking in a fog or in a dream. Sometimes the distance is so great it is as though I exist in a world of one. At the beginning I seethed with insulted indignation but that kind of anger won't last, besides Ellie assured me patiently that this is temporary. She needs a few hours so she can concentrate and do her work and on most levels I believe her - as if I had any choice. Nothing to do then but peer through this frosted glass and attempt to make out what the shadowy forms I can see represent. One image which I wish had not been so clear is that of a dark figure alternately pushing and pulling itself along the floor at my feet. Ellie stood nearby so still that she was as invisible to him as a ghost. Upon waking from Ellie's conjured dream, or perhaps still in it, Joseph left the big bed, dressed in the big cavern with aching and awkward slowness, and was on his way outside even though it is barely dawn. What business he has, I have no idea. By the time Ellie has gathered some items from the kitchen and follows, he is by the platform in the clearing. He's searching for something in one of the big storage containers. Even in the gray dawn light I can recognize the components as he pulls them out. They are all part of the scanner Skinner had brought. Ellie moves softly towards the opening to the path I came in on yesterday so we are well out of sight before Joseph manages to clumsily don the power pack and head gear. Even from this distance I can hear the sharp intake of breath and his low twisting moan as the electrodes start shooting images into his brain. Ellie is out for a long walk and to my profound irritation she doesn't hurry. Her wanderings take her first one way and then the other. As she goes, she reaches for the occasional leaf. Sometimes she bends and digs for a root. She doesn't travel in a straight line but still has some destination in mind. At its end I realize that she is heading towards her car. Skinner had ridden with her the day before. Since Joseph was still being sought with some fervor by the Consortia, Center staff tried to keep their trips to the cave random and changed vehicles whenever possible. It made sense then that he had taken advantage of having Ellie's car available. When he realized that Ellie would be staying the night, he had radioed Helen and asked her to pick him up from a side road some miles away. Arriving at the car, Ellie went to the trunk and took out a tripod, a black iron pot and some other mysterious items and proceeded to make a small fire. Only dimly can I feel its warmth and sense its wavering light. As she chants in that tongue I don't understand, she cooks, throwing in at odd times and with more chanting the withered fruits of the long winter and the fresh ones of the new spring which she had gathered on her way. She concentrates on her work with a single-minded devotion. As if she has forgotten me entirely, there are no hourly updates, no little reassurances. All I know is that whatever she is brewing is a mixture of strong, sharp odors. As distanced as I am, I can still feel how its fumes sting her skin and make her eyes water. After what seems hours it boils down into what can fit into a large jar about the size of a sack of flour. She pours it in and, while it cools, extinguishes the fire and puts away her implements. I ask. <> I demand to know. <> is all the answer I get. In response to my anxiety she dampers me way down. All I know is that she must be capable of ignoring me entirely, for while I'm still complaining she curls across the back seat of her car and goes to sleep. * * * * * * * Chapter 10b: Mulder The ground is soft and almost muddy. These last dozen yards or so I've felt the dampness sucking into my clothes as I twist and pull with my nearly useless arms and twist and push with my equally useless legs. Tired does not begin to describe how this body feels but I cannot stop now even if I wanted to. The seductive quality of the dream has faded, but not the pattern it has written inside me. This is how a salmon must feel, compelled, helpless before unreasoning instinct. I know that this will not be over until I've fulfilled all that is written in the plan. I just hope that, like the salmon, the main purpose of all this is not just to mate and die. If so, my assigned mate is in for a disappointment because this body has been sterile for years even if anyone would want these hybrid genes. Because of the Lone Gunman's newest invention, my head aches even worse than this reject of a body even though my 'eyes' are switched on only about a tenth of the time. I have been crawling for nearly four hours. There is mud under my fingernails and on my face and, despite the physical effort required, I'm shivering as the cool air tries to dry my sweat and mud-dampened clothes. The pale morning sun doesn't help much except to tell me that it's well past dawn. The path under my hands has narrowed but under its scattering of last year's leaves it is hard-packed from the time it was frequently used. When the land begins to slope consistently downhill I grit my teeth and turn on the scanner's power pack. Mentally squinting through the blinding headache, I eventually make sense of all the ghostly forms. There's the rock with its almost unnatural stairway and to the left - that must be the bank below which flows the stream. I push the glasses up onto the top of my head after that. They've served their purpose. I've found the place from my dream. I need only manage a few more yards. Calculating that I've covered that stretch of ground, I reach out and down with my hand and all too quickly feel the wet chill of the water and a surprising current. The stream is here, but from the force of its flow and the nearness of the water level to the bank it's no stream today. It must be a small river and even colder than I remember. Of course, there had been rain two days before. Skinner had complained about some washed out roads. Such a storm at this time of year would have gone a long ways towards melting the remaining snow in the higher elevations and the more shadowed ravines. I had been stuck inside for days as the cold front slowly passed, which was why I had been working so contentedly outside in the sun when Skinner and Ellie came visiting. From the exertion of the past hours and the emotional high of having made it this far, my heart is pounding. Now what? I turn towards the rock, not that I can see it, but because it must be there looming over me to my right. Follow the events of the dream. Once I've reached its base, I remove Frohike's contraption entirely and pile its parts in a dry spot. I've sweated under the leather cap so the spring air is refreshingly sharp as it stirs my wet hair. Now I begin to climb, which is not such a different process than my lizard navigation, only more vertical. It proves more difficult than I thought, steeper and more smooth, but finally I haul myself over the lip and onto the nearly flat surface at the top. It's nothing like making it onto the big bed in Joseph and Sara's room. The granite is rough under my scraped and bruised hands but gratefully has warmed under the sun more than the rain-sodden ground. Somehow I rise to my knees. The breeze is stronger here, fresh and invigorating. In my mind I see two streams spread out before me. I see the stream as it was in my dream, quietly flowing by. Inviting. But I also see it as it must be from having touched it with my hand only moments before, higher than I had ever seen it, rolling and plunging in a spring flood. Despite the fact that through my knees I can feel the vibration of the rock as it resists the pressure of the water, it's the first image that persists. How can I say what happens next? Actually, describing is easy, explaining why would be impossible. More salmon logic? The lingering seduction of the dream? No, in the end I'd like to believe that it is my spooky sense which tells me that this is what was meant to be. I've learned to listen to that sixth sense over the years - to keep me safe, to know where the bad guys are, where there is danger. Doesn't mean I always heed it, but I'm warned. Over the past few months it has become in large part my eyes and ears. I trust it, and, trusting, I quite simply scoot to the rock's edge and push myself off. For a heartbeat I hung suspended in the air. Won't I be surprised if I've rolled off this nice safe rock only to plummet a hundred or more feet to my death. I calm the panic with the memory of that vibration under my knees. There must be water here. It occurs to me a microsecond too late that there may be a bit too much water. It would take tons of water rushing against a rock this size to make it vibrate. Water has power. Didn't it cut the Grand Canyon, literally shaping the earth? My flight of faith comes to an end as I hit the water which, I must admit, happens rather sooner than I expected. I know that I didn't have time to take a good breath. When the COLDNESS of it hits me like the slap of a huge hand, I realize that any breath I would have taken would have been knocked out anyway. Certainly the cold has temporarily stilled my heart. Why the hell have I done this anyway? I mean my life was bad but not completely without hope. Whatever the reason, it couldn't possibly have been strong enough. What if I died here? I have never felt any serious desire to commit suicide and I wouldn't want either Scully or Skinner to think that I had. I go under, no surprise there. The icy water locks onto my skin, goes into my mouth, into my ears, freezes my eyes. Fuckinshit but it's cold. Where's the surface? I'm in complete darkness, of course, and the current is so strong that I don't know which way is up. The starving ache builds up and up in my chest. It's like knives are stabbing me in my ears. I should open my mouth and swallow to equalize the pressure but I'm terrified that if I tried the force of the river and my body's uncontrollable need to breathe will drown me. The only good thing I notice as I fight to find the surface is that my headache is gone. To add to this tricky problem of searching for air, I'm burdened by the fact that I now swim about as well as a four branched stick does but without the buoyancy. This means not very well at all. There's also the current which is far, far stronger than I expected even from dipping my hand in the flow earlier. I am tumbling faster and faster in the churning water. A rock catches me in the ribs, another on the hip. This is not just a flood, this is a torrent, a rapid. I am swept helplessly away from the area of pool in my dream. Dozens of yards every second. I'll be miles down stream before I get out at this rate. On the other hand I won't need to worry about that if I can't get to the surface for a breath soon. My lungs are past aching for want or air. They are burning. Panic seizes me. I must MOVE. I Reach UP with those rigid, nearly useless arms, push OFF with those equally useless legs. It's my spine that cracks first as I rear my head up for just a moment when I sense the surface near. I feel the fused bones snap. Only the knowledge that opening my mouth will certainly drown me keeps me from screaming. I'll save the screaming for later. I find the surface. My mouth stretches open like a starving baby bird. When my ears pop it's like an explosion but at least I get a gulp of half air, half water before I am spun around by a mini-whirlpool and pulled down again. Before I can rise, I am caught underwater at the waist by a thick post which is fixed somehow to other debris. Rapidly blackening terror overcomes pain and I heave away at the post, pushing my body back against the current in order to free myself. The strain on my right elbow nearly fixed at a ninety degree angle is horrible. It snaps. I can practically hear that brittle sound which is astounding considering that I'm not only distracted by a pain, which is indescribable, but because the river is roaring so loudly in my ears. The right knee goes next and then the hip. I am on fire from the pain which I realize the numbing cold actually helps. More importantly, I'm finally free of the post. I use it now as an anchor to push against. I find the rolling, washing machine action of the surface. Sweet stuff which is actually more air than water this time is sucked down into my starved lungs. I cling to the post for, as they say, my dear life, certainly for my skin, but the current is relentless. The other hip joint and knee, which I thought were fused nearly solid, are ripped free at a time when I really needed their rigidity. I am below the surface again and tumbling now like a broken toy further and further from where anyone will ever look for me. Not in time anyway. I am battered by a series of rocks in this stretch of the rapids and slashed once across the chest by something sharp. My old enemy barbed wire, perhaps? I get a gulp of air here and there. I am fading in and out of consciousness. By now all the minor joints have broken lose, all the little bones in my hands and feet, wrists and ankles now float free though my extremities are so numb that I don't remember feeling each individual bit of agony at the time. They do respond to my will, however, as I push away at the debris that batters me but, they are like tools which have no feeling. Thank fickle Fate, I am in the free flowing part of the stream now, going a little slower and with no obstructions, though by now I wonder if I have enough strength to raise my head. Always too dense to be much of a floater, with all the water in my belly and probably my lungs, I know what the Titanic must have felt like towards the end. I feel a different darkness descending, my world closing in until only the tiniest pinprick of awareness remains. No! I won't die. I can't, not like this. If I did, Scully's going to be really pissed that she came all this way for nothing. With that encouraging thought I know I must break free of this downward spiral, this deadly passivity. In order to release the adrenaline surge which I need to hold on for just a little while longer, I crack the fusion in my last major joint, my left elbow, all by myself. While red lightning going off all along my left side, I somehow get my head up. Air again for my aching lungs. The river is quieter than before and over its more distant thunder someone is crying, sobbing. I am. I am so tired and so cold, I want this to be over. Within seconds I feel a pressure of something large on my right. The surface is prickly, somewhat sharp - but most important of all - it's solid and not showing any inclination to go anywhere. I am caught on a mass of flotsam and jetsam, mostly roots and dirt. Always loved that chapter in the Rings trilogy. Such wonderful words. They are wonderful here. The mass stop my helpless flight. Somehow I find the strength to heave myself up so that my head and one arm are above the surface. I am overcome with the simple relief of not moving. After a few minutes to cough a lot of flood water out of my lungs and breath in some dry air, I take stock. My limbs are limp and floating free, though so numb from the icy water that I can barely feel them. Still, it is so odd a sensation after being locked in my tree shape for so long that I don't know what parts are supposed to move like that and which are broken. Of course, I am still in darkness so I am without direction except for up and down, and upstream and downstream. Which is the shortest way to solid ground? And even if I manage to make it to land, will there be any people nearby? The cave was selected for its solitude. I'll be a sight staggering into someone's kitchen. I've lost nearly all my clothes so there's this mixture of greenish and Scots-Jewish skin to explain, though with all the bruises and contusions I've received in the last few minutes I probably won't need to. If I'm bleeding, though, that's a problem for my would-be rescuers. But I'm thinking far ahead of myself. Land first, and I don't have the time to wait for the level of the stream to fall. Long before that I will die here of hypothermia. Just now, however, I am incapable of finding the strength to move. I'm still having trouble controlling my limbs, too. After months of being carved into that single curled and rigid shape my hands and feet seem miles away. After a while I give up trying. I am so tired. If it weren't for the support from the roots of this mammoth tree there would be no way to keep my head up. Love that good solid feel of natural wood. The pile of debris must be much more extensive then just my root ball protector. There seems to be a kind of harbor here for the current is slight. As the minutes pass and my heart slows, I begin to think that I was wrong about how cold the water is. I am almost comfortable and having gone way past exhausted it is pleasant just to lie here. I think I will sleep a little. I do that and the darkness becomes entire. It is a voice that wakes me. It is calling sweetly, "Mulder, wake up, damn you!" It is far way and a little fuzzy because there is still water in my ears. My impression is that the voice has been calling for some time, but I'm still having trouble finding the strength or will to move. The voice seems suddenly nearer but then I may have faded out for a while. Certainly the tone is familiar. Scully's voice? Could it...? A little energy spurts though me making my legs and arms tingle. All at once I want to go to that voice but first there's this little problem of extracting myself from my jealous tree stump lover. A few seconds later and I wish I had stayed with my faithful friend. I literally flounder in the tide. Only a few feet from the tree the river becomes interesting again, full of current and eddies and undertow. It's not anywhere near as bad as it had been upstream but too much for me. My arms and legs are useless, as weak as water, and I go under. It is almost pleasant to give up if for no other reason than to die knowing someone has come for me. Then arms catch me, warm, urgent arms which hold my face above the flood and pull me crosswise to the current. I wonder if it is the Nexie of the Mill Pond come to capture for herself a human lover. Big surprise she's going to get. * * * * * * * * Chapter 10c: Dana Ellie overslept. I know she has because when she did wake she sprang up like a deer, grabbed her jar of potion and the armload of blankets she had pulled from the trunk and took off back towards the cave at a dead run. In her haste, she forgot to phase me out so I stay quiet because I am as eager as she to get to wherever she is going. To Joseph, I'm certain. We don't pause at the cave but take another path. I know this path. I know where it leads. To the stream. The grass is new and long and not much used but something has dragged itself along it not so very long ago. The stream is a quarter of a mile from the cave. The trip must have taken him hours but still we arrive too late, in other words, we slide into view just in time to see a dark form disappear from the rock which overlooks the stream. There's a solid splash. Even over the rush of the water, which is thunderous because the stream is running nearly at flood stage, I hear that splash. We run past the foot of the rock and the neatly piled components of the scanner Skinner had brought the day before. So that's why he was putting it on back there in the clearing; he needed it to find his way here. I break my silence but not intentionally. I shout to her. Ellie is concerned but light years calmer than me. <> and I feel the fog settle over me again though it's more like white noise this time, like the sound of the overgrown stream as it roars past sounding like a locomotive. With the jar still locked tight under her arm, Ellie begins to run again. Her calm quickly evaporates. I'm certain that she's miscalculated the speed and ferocity of the flood. Frantically, she begins to tear at the brush along the shore trying to keep pace as he is borne helplessly along by the rush of the water. She is chanting again and more passionately with every step. It's a pleading cry, a prayer, but to whom I have no idea. I only know that where she is going is where I would go if this were my choice. It is the chanting she is isolating me from. We can't run along the bank all the time. The lay of the land won't allow it and, besides, it is shorter to cut across bends. From time to time, though, I still see the racing grayish-brown of the once quiet stream which has turned to raging white water. I search frantically for some glimpse of a man's dark head but there is too much debris bobbing and rolling about. Usually what I see is a log or submerged rock but at other times I see something that looks like an struggling animal. I feel Ellie's tears drying cold on her face. We are caught in a thicket. No way through without a machete or a bulldozer. Nothing to do but retrace our path and go back. It takes so long and it seems like an hour since we last saw the water. Finally we do but though Ellie stands on the bank and looks up and down there is no sign of him. At least the river is quieter here and the land more level so we can stay near the edge. We begin running again. Ellie is crying his name. I won't remind her how useless that is, how she is using up energy she may need later, but she has lost her calm just as I have found mine. I have always been good at keeping my head in an emergency, of keeping my cool while others are losing theirs. That time Mulder was dying from lack of water on that death ship, I rooted through the galley looking for fluids to save his life. That day I was the coolest mad woman you could ever hope to find. That frantic search yielded me sardine water and lemon juice and snow glob water. A disgusting concoction and never used as it turns out because Mulder insisted on maintaining his own brand of stubborn nobility. But I still remember that search. The booming of those empty kettles and pans in the deathlike quiet of that floating tomb. We are still madly searching. Only when Ellie lets me loose a little am I finally allowed to get in a few good curses of my own, but mostly I stay centered. I know that there will be time to cry and wail later. Ellie seems to feel my calm and draws on it gratefully. In growing despair, we attempt to check out every clump of debris in that broad expanse of dull water but there is so much of it. It must take us fifteen minutes to find him. A third of the way out in the center of the widening flood, his head is floating above the surface resting entangled in the roots of a tree whose foundation must have given way in the saturated ground. He is lying so quiet out there in his own little universe that I am suddenly filled with despair that we are too late. When Ellie splashes down into the water I'm certain of it. Far too long. Ellie lets me call to him though it's still her voice and 'Mulder' is what I call because I'm not thinking straight any longer and it's the name that comes most naturally to me. It never enters my head that 'Fred' would probably have as much affect. While we are still only half way to him, up to our chest in muddy water and leaning forward against the force of the flood, he stirs. He even raises his head and turns our way. How can he know? When he pushes off from the debris where he's been protected from the current, I call out for him to stop and wait for us but he keeps coming. He is not swimming strongly or well and after only a few seconds goes under. We see him disappear but almost immediately we're there. Taking a deep breathe, I duck, flailing out for him with Ellie's arms. Nothing. I kick with the current since this is the way he would be sweep along and this time when I reach out I catch hold of a long foot which is attached to a naked leg. I wrap Ellie's arms around his chill body and heave him up. As always, there's so much of him. I'll always remember the trip back. He is so waterlogged that it takes all of my strength to keep his head above water and still make progress across the current. We are both so cold that my only plan for the future is making it back to where Ellie dropped the blankets. There's little time for being grateful that we have found him alive. Not only is he alive, but he's even of some use when it comes time to get him up the bank, though he is far more helpful in the water than on land. He's so limp. He crawls a few feet and then collapses onto his face. Ellie rushes for the blankets which are a hundred yards or so upstream. It's as Ellie shakes out the first blanket that my medical eye kicks in in full. He is scratched, battered, and bruised and there's that acid scent in the air that stings my eyes from his blood but this is not too bad. All the water dampens it down. I'm rubbing one dripping arm dry with a corner of one of the blankets when I notice how long he is. He's rather like a boneless and much battered fish but at least he's stretched out and not curled into the rigid, carved toy he had been. Whether this is good or bad I don't dare guess. He collapsed onto his stomach and that's good because I don't know how much water he's swallowed, lots probably. I'll risk him throwing up on the blanket in order to take the time to roll him on his side and get a blanket between him and the damp ground. This will also give me a chance to check for injuries. He moans in response to some pretty minimal prodding. We get him on his side and after Ellie has smoothed the good sturdy wool under him, I take my hand and wipe the mud and grass from his face asking automatically, "Do you hurt anywhere?" Sightless eyes closed, he wheezes, "Everywhere." He proceeds to throw up about half a gallon of disgusting water before abruptly passing out. I lean back on Ellie's heels and let Ellie's mouth drop open. He HEARD my question! He'd heard me call to him in the river, too. I'd forgotten there at the end that he was deaf. And so he had been, but not anymore. End of Chapter 10 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (11/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 11: Mulder It is good to be alive. It is good to finally feel warm again. It is even good to feel this lethargic, like there isn't a muscle in my body that is willing to move. Whether they can or not I haven't tried and have no desire to. I just want to lie here on my back with the thick scratchy wool under me and over me and listen to the crackle of the fire Ellie has made for both of us and which she is eagerly feeding with dry branches from the woods. The crackle of a fire. When it was the roar of the river after that first desperate, life-saving gulp of air, I was a little too busy to notice. When it was the voice calling my name across the water, I was too tired to care about anything except that, miracle upon miracles, I was being rescued. I don't know if Fate is being kind or cruel with me but she certainly likes to play her little games. As far as being able to hear again goes, I'm reluctant to admit it even to myself. I think Ms. Ellie feels the same way. She'll ask me the occasional question - "Are you warm enough?" - and I'll answer 'yes' or 'no' and both of us seem to take it as a gift that I've heard her and don't dare question. There's an explanation I'm sure, but I don't think I want to know what it is. I'm afraid it will break the spell. I feel the same way about the changes in this body except that, while I can't stop hearing, I can refuse to move and thus maintain some sort of illusion about what works and what doesn't. Even though curiosity must be killing her, Ellie hasn't tried to examine me either, at least not while I've been conscious. What I can say is that I'm stretched out flat, arms at my sides, palms up, back and legs straight - a position this body hasn't been able to assume for at least ten months. This explains why everything hurts so. Not anywhere in particular - just one humdinger of an overall muscle ache. I still don't have use of my eyes. Well, you can't have everything. I'm not disappointed in any way, just grateful for what I've got. I smell food, warm food and I'm ravenous. After Ellie first built the fire she ran back to the cave for provisions, it being obvious that I wouldn't be moving so far for a while. I felt a sharp loneliness while she was gone. An surprising emotion considering all the time I'd spent alone these past weeks, but she's back now and has added more fuel to the fire until it's roaring again. She's warming up something to eat so pretty soon I'm going to have to try sitting up and moving at least my arms or she'll have to feed me and I don't want that. * * * * * * * * My stomach is full but my humiliation level has reached some new heights. I had to be fed after all. When I tried to move, I found I could but don't want to ever, ever again. The pain was so bad that I blacked out. It's as if there was cut glass in all my joints, as if all those fusions didn't just break, but shattered, and all the little pieces are in there just cutting away whenever I try to move anything. Luckily, my jaw was never much affected so I can chew soft food but I'm not up to talking much. Like Scully, Ellie senses this which is a great relief. She has hands like Scully's too, far too much like Scully's, and she gave me a cursory examination following the episode that preceded dinner. I'm embarrassed that there's so much to check out and that it's all so accessible. As I've said, the fury of the flood ripped off most of my clothes. Oh, I have replacements now, I just don't have the strength to put them on yet. On her trip back to the cave Ellie changed out of her own wet clothes and brought me dry ones. She comes and sits beside me now. I hear her footsteps, the soft thud as she places something heavy beside me on the ground, her breath escaping as she lets herself down. She's tired, too. She didn't come here to buy into this. What she must think of me and what I did, I don't know. I hold myself back from her and concentrate on the plus side of the equation which is something I hope everyone takes into consideration. Hey, I got Joseph's hearing back which is pretty earth shattering, and even though the jury's still out on how much mobility I'll have in time, let's just say I have hopes despite the current level of pain. Pain I've managed to live with before. These improvements will change all the rules with Skinner and Helen in terms of my independence, but if Ellie reports that I tried to kill myself I'll be in bigger trouble than ever, even if I am hearing and up on my own two feet. "Better?" she asks. Actually, yes, the food has helped. My inner core, which had been so cold, has a little flicker in it now. Somehow I manage nod. "Still hurts when you try to move though?" She's as astute as a certain partner of mine. "Like the devil." Is that faint voice mine? She laughs lightly at that, I wonder why. "I have this little homeopathic remedy," she offers. "This happens with arthritis patients from time to time. They'll suddenly have a good day but twenty-four hours later they're right back to square one. I've seen this therapy work wonders." A pain which isn't all physical pierced up through my back like a lance. I could go back to the way I had been? A twisted pretzel more than a man. No.... The fear must have registered on my face for she added, "With some people this salve helps, especially with the young and otherwise healthy. It's not without a cost of its own, however. I'm told it burns a bit but I think it's worth a try." I'm not so sure. I know Scully would be skeptical. She'd have had me in a hospital hours ago, but I don't think Ellie has even called Skinner. I can't help but be suspicious about that. She seems to want me at her mercy, which I don't like. On the other hand, I mistrust hospitals with all those strangers hovering around, each wanting their pound of flesh. Since she's taken excellent care of me so far, I have no reason to complain. Besides, the medical staff at the Center admitted to being totally ignorant on how to treat my previous condition and so it's unlikely that they'll be any more successful with this. At least my Ellie-shrink, who was clearly more than any simple shrink or spy, is willing to try, so why not let her? Can't hurt. "What does it do?" I ask, still hesitant. She picks up my right hand, careful to support the joint so it has to move as little as possible. I'm alarmed by how weak and rather floppy the arm is, but then most of the muscles haven't been extended like this for months. "Make a fist," she says. I try. It hurts. It REALLY hurts. It's as if stuff is moving around in there. Scully would have called it a free-floating - something. I can't pull up the term because the pain has short- circuited my brain. I've had such bits in my left knee but this is a hundred times worse. It's like there's sharp gravel in there rubbing against sensitive nerves. Ellie can tell I'm doing the best I can and doesn't say anything. Instead I hear a sound like she is unscrewing the lid on a large jar. Suddenly there is this scent. Strong and pungent, like the crushed leaves of grass and herbs, but also something tangy and sharp like pepper vinegar. The whiff I get up my nose really clears the sinuses. "Let's see if this makes it better." She rubs something on my fingers. It's cool at first and then begins to burn. You know those athletic rubs? Multiply the affect by about a few factors of a hundred. My hand felt as if it's caught fire. The pain races up my arm all the way to the shoulder. It catches me so by surprise that I swear and try to jerk away, but she's stronger than I thought and I can't shake her. Nothing to do then but let the agony come until my body goes rigid and my back arches like a bow, all of which triggers its own torment, and so I swear again, but still she holds on. "Does it sting?" she asks innocently. Sting? She has got to be kidding. "Like a forty ton bee." "Give it a minute. Work the joint." Okay... I try that and, amazingly, it IS better, much better. It's as if the gravel has dissolved away. "Can you take some more?" she asks. "I should treat as much as I can." I nod slightly and even that is without enthusiasm. She leans over to get some more of the goop from her jar and rubs more onto my wrist. I hiss but keep the scream down. "What are you going to tell Skinner?" I ask in a tight voice. I really want to know, but bringing it up just now is more of a distraction for the treatments than anything. "About what? Today? What do you want me to tell him? I have problems of my own. I don't exactly have a license to practice medicine." I force a smile though my wrist feels as if it has been burnt off. So I have a co-conspirator. She isn't going to go to Skinner about my pitiful attempt to make it up river like a salmon. Even better, she isn't even going to talk about it. Things were looking up. Then she starts in on my elbow which feels like its become home for the Rock of Gibraltar. The magic salve works on it with the subtlety of a twenty megaton bomb. I pass out. As I'm flaring, I think about what a long afternoon it's going to be. * * * * * * * * Chapter 11b: Dana <> Ellie responds back into my head. I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore. This is all so incredible - and scientifically makes about as much sense as a lot of Mulder's theories which means none at all. Then it hits me just as Joseph passes out for the second time. I've settled into this co-habitation with Ellie better than I ever thought I would. Viewing all this from my new definition of normality I had forgotten what Eli was, and Ellie probably is, and how I had gotten here in the first place. I cried. When she didn't respond I knew I was right. <> She laughed gently as she worked the shoulder joint on her unconscious 'patient'. Even this far out of it he moans. <> <> Ellie had not used those particular words by chance. She had clearly selected them for their shock value. <> she asked. <> Shocked I asked, <> I am not appeased. Joseph is suffering, perhaps unnecessarily, and I can't bear to watch. I don't even know if this will work, and she gives me no explanation except pseudophilosophy. <> I don't have a choice, do I? So I will retreat and let her work, or at least that's what I intend to do. Instead, when she begins to touch him, to comfort him, I want to be a part of that, so I creep forward and we do it together. It makes it easier for me though not for him. After he passes out from the pain for the sixth time, we have to wait longer than any of the times for him to come around. He is growing weaker. I fear for his heart. I'm about to turn on her again, but he's the one who raises a shaky hand to stay her hand from beginning work on his right hip joint. What he went through during her treatment of the left one I don't care to recall. "Please, no more." His voice is so faint I can barely hear him. Ellie speaks and her voice is firm and unwavering. "You have to hang in there. This must be done today, preferably before sunset, because the salve won't keep." There are tears in his eyes again. They'd been there on and off all afternoon. "Is there any other way?" He has been trying, he has been, but no one should be asked to endure so much - and for what? That's what he needs. Some incentive. After all, what is he enduring all this for? Even healthy, he's still the curiosity, still the lone alien hybrid among pure humans - or at least the only free one we know of. He is scarred inside and out. He has a son he barely knows and no true friend since - I say anxiously, <> I lean down and take his face between Ellie's hands. He is so like my Mulder even while he is so unlike, that I can barely keep from weeping I miss him so. "Joseph, listen to me." He is. In fact his expression is thoughtful and less strained as if he can actually sense somehow that I am out, the kinder,gentler side of this firm woman he has had the most contact with. It's almost as if he knows it is someone else. My heart quickens. Should I tell him? No, the same rules apply. If he survives, he has to be able to live in THIS world, and right now his world has lost its center. I can give that back to him. His hand hasn't moved from Ellie's arm but he changes the grip now into something more - intimate. It's Mulder's most gentle touch, the one he uses to get my attention when he's afraid that he doesn't have the right to intrude. "What's your name again?" he asks. I can barely hear him. I stare at him which, of course, he cannot see. He knows my name - er, Ellie's name. Has the pain rattled his senses? Then I realize that he might think that 'Ellie' is like 'Joseph', a code name because of all the talk about going underground. He's probably asking for her given name. "Ellie really is what my parents called me." That was the right response, wasn't it? He sighs and pats my hand and the little spark I had seen in him seems to fade. He still manages to get out, "Thank you. For all of this." He fingers the blanket but I know that it's the whole day he thanks her for - the necessities: food, clothing, warmth, rescue, miraculous cure. His expression, I note, is still his soft, private one. Hesitantly, his hand returns to Ellie's arm, only it slides slowly down to her hand this time. A delicious sparkle runs through Ellie's body just as a wave of quite undeniable jealously surges through that part who is Dana Scully. 'I' want to be there for him; I don't want Ellie to be there for him. Physicians have to develop this sense when their patients become too... close. This is what I sense in him. It's understandable, this gratitude which can so easily be confused with something else because he has been so lonely. If not Ellie, then I must give him something or someone. Luckily, he does have someone and he does have a reason for living. More than a reason, he has a mission. He just doesn't know it yet. "There's something I need to tell you." * * * * * * * * Chapter 11c: Mulder Fighting back from nowhere land is getting tougher and tougher, and Ms. Ellie, for all her help, is confusing me. One moment she's reserved. So tough. The next moment she's softness itself, like Scully when I've done something stupid or noble and hurt myself. Odd, isn't it, that it doesn't matter if what I've done is stupid or noble, she's there anyway. A mad thought trickles through my brain. Could I have been wrong? Could this somehow BE Scully? Some part of her? No, not her body but her essence. Scully? Now that is insane. The image is so impossible I nearly burst out laughing. No, that's not true. Even if I were the type to burst out with the occasional hearty laugh, I'm too weak, and even a chuckle would hurt like hell. Still, just in case, I touch her the way I have so often touched Scully and ask her her name. It's lame, I know, but I'm not thinking clearly. Of course she's Ellie. These warm and cool sides to her - maybe she's just having a PMS day. Scully had those. Good time for catching up on paperwork. Don't laugh, it's a more likely explanation than where my wild flights of fancy had briefly taken me. So, another hope is dashed. It was an insane idea to start with; still, the disappointment is a deep ache unlike any physical pain. On the subject of physical pain - which I am in a boiling pot of right now - I'm thinking of turning on the charm since she's showing her warm side. Maybe I can get out of some of this 'treatment'. I know hospitals and there's always a way to get around the nurses - at least there is when Scully isn't there. Ellie, however, isn't a nurse. I don't know what she is but she's the closest thing I've got at the moment. She is flustered when I put the moves on her. I feel awful. This definitely is not playing fair. Then she says to me, "There's something I need to tell you." Somehow I don't think it's the old 'Sorry, I'm married' or 'Sorry, I'm in a relationship right now' line. This is important. I can hear the 'important' in her voice. Is she going to tell me she's Scully after all. MY Scully? She doesn't but what she does say is almost as incredible. Since I was half expecting the Scully admission, I must have seemed a little dense at first. "They lied to you," she says, "Sara is alive." Sara. For a moment I really and truly couldn't imagine who this girl is talking about. Then it comes to me and I'm the one who's flustered. Here I am trying to play Joseph and I haven't thought about Sara for months. Sara, who is HIS Dana. Sara, who they said was dead as a result of an operation gone wrong at the Compound long before Louis got Joseph out the last time. It's the news of her death that I think drove poor Joe over the edge and why I'm bloody stuck here to be begin with. But if she's alive, why does everyone act as if she weren't? Why did they tell Joseph she had died? I don't know or care what Ellie sees on my face at that moment because the reason is suddenly and horribly clear to me. "Then they succeeded, didn't they? They did to her what they always threatened they would." "Her memory?" she acknowledges. "Yes, they did. She doesn't remember you at all, not Adam, not your years with the X-files, not even her own childhood." Oh, shit... Scully.... No wonder you never came for me. You can't. The pattern has repeated itself after all. We always traveled to this world together. So when I was sent here to take Joseph's place ..... you took Sara's. Oh, shit... all these months you've been a prisoner in the Compound and there's been no Louis, no Grace, not even a half-crazed Mulder in a tank to keep you company. Even more than me who has been a prisoner in this body, you have been completely... alone. "There hasn't been a rescue attempt, has there?" I accuse angrily. Ellie may have shook her head, she forgets I still can't see for all that my hearing has been shocked into returning. "Of course not, why should they?" I say answering my own question. "Everyone thinks she doesn't remember and doesn't want to be rescued, so why risk more lives by sending in the marines." And now I know what Ellie was sent here for, to prepare herself to go in to bring Sara out. No, no, not that. Whoever sent Ellie, sent her, not for Sara, but for me - maybe some fairy godmother or something. I'm not going to ask who sent her or what she is, but why she's here I do know now. She was sent to cure this body so I can face my worst nightmare and walk blindly into the Compound to bring out both Sara for Joseph and Scully for myself. Blindly is a very accurate term because though I can now function, or I assume I will be able to after I recover from Ellie's treatments, I'm still blind as a bat. Considering how Frohike's contraption works, 'blind as a bat' is amusingly descriptive. It is all so clear now. I realize that I had zoned out into Spooky space as all these pieces came together and that Ellie has been amazingly patient as she waits for sanity to reappear. What has she been reading on my face? Resolve, I think. Knowledge that I know what I must endure now to be ready to do my part to make all this right. "What are you waiting for?" I ask her, and I can't believe I'm saying this. "Let's get going on that right hip and try not to tickle this time." End of Chapter 11 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (12a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 12a1: Dana Four days later I drove Joseph back to the Center. On the drive he is alternately apprehensive at what his reception will be and as percolating as a six-year-old. A quite beautiful Mulder smile keeps creeping back to his lips. It's the sounds he can hear again. Music and talk shows and news on the radio. Horns and wind. He whistles, badly, then stops, grinning sheepishly to himself. When he thinks my attention's on the road he stretches out his fingers then makes a fist and smiles. For the first time in more than a year he is sitting upright in the passenger seat of a car, though after an hour he shifts to lean into the corner by the door because keeping his balance for so long has tired him. Even with the incredible progress he has made, his muscles still lack that minimal tension most of us take for granted. Not that he's in any way discouraged. He seems to KNOW with the certainly of a child and the faith of the blessed that in time he will come back all the way. This mood is not constant, though. Sometimes he sinks into a place where only he can go, and then his expression is grim. We don't talk much. We didn't even during those days by the river after what we are calling his 'swim' and later at the cave. I think he'd gotten out of the habit of making conversation so I don't press him. Besides just having him near is comforting. Ellie was able to treat all his joints before the sunset deadline. Even with the new determination I was able to impart to him with the news about Sara, it was a struggle and so painful to watch. As the sun dipped behind the trees, he received his final treatment. As if determined not to pass out again, he clung to my hand so tightly that I thought he'd break some bones. Somehow he did manage to bite his lip. Even though the fumes from even such a slight wound made my eyes water, I made no attempt to release my hand. He needed it there and so did I. "It's over," I told him, dabbing the sweat from his brow with the edge of one of the blankets. "Sleep now." And did he - for thirty-six hours with breaks only for calls of nature and what fluids and foods I could force down him. After eating, since he was still too weak to move himself, Ellie would work all the joints and muscle groups for him and finish up with an over all massage that never failed to send him back to sleep for hours. As a physical therapist, Ellie is amazingly competent. On the morning of the third day he roused himself and, after a few false starts, managed to stand and eventually to walk. I don't know which gave him the most trouble: the weakness of the muscles which had been in a state of either perpetual contraction or relaxation for months and now had to do both, or the battering from his trip down river. Either way it took us until noon to return to the cave, even with his leaning heavily on my arm most of the time. Of course I called Skinner that first day and told him the minimum of what he needed to know about the situation so he wouldn't worry. Subsequent calls were equally reassuring but as uninformative even when Joseph did the talking. Joseph wanted to surprise his old boss. This he most thoroughly did. After we drove into the quarry entrance, he unfolded himself from the passenger seat and, using only a pair of makeshift crutches for support, walked tall and straight through the main Center doors. Eager to see even an approximation of the expressions on the staff's faces, he had choked down a triple dose Excedrin ten miles before our arrival and wore the scanner. He more than got the reaction he expected. Even my Mulder would have been blown away by the outpouring of concern and affection and delight at his miraculous improvement. I think he could have managed the embarrassment better if Skinner hadn't cried. At least Helen Janus Skinner, after her own initial shock had passed, had the good sense to propel their prodigal friend unceremoniously into the medical complex to poke and prod. The examination was a blessing in a way. It gave Joseph a good excuse to pull out all his macho stops in order to properly scowl and complain. Good way to cover up all those disgusting feminine-side emotions. As for me, I should be happier about his recovery. Oh, I am happy. For Joseph. For myself, however, there is so much emptiness. They are so alike that for a few moments back at the cave I had almost convinced myself again that he was my Mulder. After I told him that Sara lived, however, and I saw the naked tenderness and determination light his face, I knew he could only be the other. I asked Ellie. It terrifies me to think that he could be - like me - hitchhiking in some other body altogether, and I have no idea where to start looking. Almost ten days have passed since we returned to the Center. Over that time he has continued to improve steadily. Within two days he was walking with only a cane. Within the week, jogging again though slowly. He's even acquired an occasional jogging partner and potential guide dog - a young lean mongrel whose mother was an Irish setter and whose father was some kind of large hound. His name, appropriately, is Max. The dog is a sort of Center mascot, but to Joseph and Adam he's much more. He's a critical link between the two. Joseph is still very reserved around his son, which has Skinner and Helen concerned, but is understandable considering what he's been through. Probably the boy is too bitter a reminder that the family is still incomplete. When he gets Sara back that will put at least one ghost to rest, though if she is as changed as we all expect then there will be some very serious new challenges for everyone. Notice that the phrase is 'When gets Sara back' and not 'if'. He won't abide anyone saying 'if'. But first things first. Sara has to be rescued and he is determined to be the one who makes that happen. Unfortunately, being able to take a slow jog around an indoor track is not sufficient for the kind of guerilla work everyone is talking about. He works on his agility and physical strength in the mornings and evenings and then goes nose to nose with the 'boys' for a couple of hours in the afternoons to try to smooth out the bugs in the scanner. The rest of the time he's slaving with the rest of us on the plan. Ellie's been included on the team, 'de facto', because of our initial cover story and because we've become such an integral part of this weird series of events. Everyone is too polite to ask exactly how this strange young woman fits in. I can relate to their confusion. On the plus side, the team is impressed by Ellie's knowledge of the Compound and its security, so chances are I'll be included on the assault team. I can't tell you how odd I feel about that. What will it be like facing a person who is, in essence, my own self, but a self who has no knowledge whatsoever of the people I care most about in the world? A woman who knows nothing of the person I am or she was? A woman who tortured Joseph when he was under her care? A woman who may be more than willing to kill any one of us? <> Ellie remarks. 'We' are eating a sandwich on a balcony which overlooks the Center's lap pool. Two stories below, Joseph is swimming, has been swimming, consistently back and forth for more than twenty minutes. Watching him brings back such painful memories of when he was toughening his body in preparation for breaking the newly postpartum Sara out of the Compound. <> Ellie muses. << I'd be surprised if he didn't sense something familiar when he interacts with you, despite my buffering.>> I respond, I leaned forward in our chair mesmerized by the rhythmic rise and fall of the swimmer's arms. It would be selfish of me to say what I was thinking. At that moment he pulled himself from the pool. The water ran sparkling off his sleekly muscled skin. Reaching out, his hand easily found the slender white cane he had left propped against a nearby chair. As if sensing he is being talked about, he looks up, not directly at me but close enough for me to see that too familiar face. <> Ellie said. It was not a question. Does she mean do I miss Mulder? Like a part of me had been cut out. I reply to Ellie as Joseph makes his way with confident steps towards the changing rooms. <> she assures me. <> Can I believe that? The days tick off. Two weeks we've been at the Center. More mornings than not I think seriously of severing this relationship with Ellie. Sometimes she acts as if this were just some long, dress up vacation. I calm my nerves with the certain knowledge that something must happen soon. Joseph is doing impatient Mulder things like walking at night instead of sleeping. I hear the restless click of his cane as he walks and walks. It's eerie, too, because he never carries a light. Even now, after all this time, it makes me sick deep inside to I realize that there's really no need for him to carry one. I admit I'm anxious, too. I've quit thinking of where Sara came from and how we are the same. Instead, I concentrate on what has made us different. Her life in so many, many ways is totally different than mine, and now we don't even have that old common bond of childhood and family and the days of the X-Files and Mulder. What will Joseph find when he scales that high tower for his lady love? Unfortunately, he will not find his lady love - but a stranger. Chapter 12a2: Mulder The main cavern is so quiet at this time of night. There are two work shifts - day and evening - but that leaves the dead of the night free for the likes of me to wander in peace. When I stand still I can feel the vibration of the power generators through the soles of my feet. That's a hold over from being deaf so long. One becomes more aware of certain things. One of the rewards of returning to the Center with this new and improved body is that I can now night prowl when I've slept my fill. Believe it or not I have met other troubled souls at least a dozen times on my wanders. Mostly I just hear them. They all stop, probably when they first notice me, and wait until I pass by. They don't speak to me and I don't speak to them. None of us have come out here at this hour to be sociable. Actually, one of the other insomniacs did speak to me once. Henri DuCour, a mechanic. He cautioned me, almost apologetically, that I was about to run into a slick patch of oil someone had failed to clean up. I had been sweeping the path in front of me with my trusty cane, though I seldom actually touched the floor, and so I would never have sensed that and might have fallen. I don't like to tap or actually the brush the floor because I hate to disturb this silence which for me is still so full of sound. These people. They have no idea what silence really is. Anyway, I raised my cane in salute to Mr. DuCour and went on my way. Occasionally, I tap the floor now. I walk to familiarize myself with the terrain. One floor down and thirty steps from my door to the Med Center reception desk, fifty-six to the commissary, ninety-two including two right turns to the cafeteria. It's easier to fill in the map in my head when there is no one else around who wants to stop to talk, and during the day everyone seems to want to chat. It's amazing how much we communicate with eye contact and visual gestures like nodding. Because those things just go right past me, the staff I meet have to say something like "Mornin'" or "How you doin'". In response I can get away with a nod a lot of the time because most of these people are just being polite and really don't want to know the details of how I'm doing. How I'm 'doing' is - I'm ready to crawl out of my skin. These scenarios keep running through my head of Scully at the Compound being asked to... Shit... I don't really want to know what, but it will go against her ethics just because they know they can. I found out about what Sara did to Joseph while he was in the tanks. I forced Louis up against an examining table one day in the Med Center and made him tell me. It's not as if Louis couldn't have crushed me with one blow but I guess he has this thing about not hitting blind people. Why does the Consortia hate us so? I should say hate me so. If Scully/Sara had never become involved with Fox Mulder she would be safely married with a house and kids and a husband with a stable job. She and those she loves would all be safe at night and wouldn't have to live a secret life deep inside a mountain under tons to solid rock to feel protected. I owe her SO much. I owe both Sara AND Scully so much. I owe them my life. I owe them my sanity. Don't think I haven't considered offering them a trade. Scully/Sara for me. That way I'd be sure to be saving them both. The only problem with this is that it's too late. Both Dana's have already been cursed by their association with me. Perhaps the only way to bring us all lasting peace is to find out the source of their hate, in other words, to continue my search for the truth. That, however, is what the management and psychologist types call a long term goal. I have this little immediate goal of having to walk into the Compound somehow to get Scully out. And that... scares me... shitless. You want to talk about anxiety attacks? I'll give you anxiety attacks. You want flashbacks, mine are in technicolor and hooked up fully to every sense I possess and even a few I don't. You want nightmares? Waking or sleeping - take your pick. And I must not show a hint of any of this to anyone or I am off the team. Oh, I know it's not healthy. I just have to hold it all together a little longer. I just hope the 'little longer' is not too far away or I'm afraid I'll just explode one day, fly apart, melt down. Then there won't be anything for either Sara, Scully or Joseph to come back to. Oh, Scully, how I miss you. I swear I'll try not to let you down. I just wish... Damn, there's just so much I never said. I just wish there was one person I could talk to. The problem is... that one person... is you. End of Chapter 12a ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (12b/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 12b: Dana Four a.m. Ellie and I got a beep from the phone/computer in our small room in the visitor's quarters. Team Gabriel is meeting in the Boardroom at six. 'Gabriel' is the code name for this mission. I guess they feel they need an angel on their side and a few miracles of their own. I am silent on the subject of miracles with Ellie. How I would like to have one now. No, not just one but half a dozen. The way hers work, however - not without its share of sweat and tears - it may be that we are in the middle of the miracle right now. I can only pray it's true and that everything will work out as she says it will. I only know that her help is not something I can ask for. This is a 'birds of the air' scenario. 'They neither toil nor spin and yet their heavenly Father feeds them.' I must believe that that is what is happening now and that it is for our good. I must have faith that we will be given what we need and work for our hands and the strength to endure. If this is the case then I need to pray a little bit harder. My strength to endure is slipping badly. The problem is, every time I pray I end up seeing Mulder's face. The question is, is he my angel or my temptation? I would really like to hear one of your really bad jokes on the subject right about now, my friend. We come into the meeting on time, which makes us one of the last in the conference room. You can feel the excitement. This is what we have all been waiting for. Obviously a six am meeting is significant. By the ringed caffeine-bright eyes around the room, no one went back to sleep after the 4 am announcement. Skinner is at one end of the table, his hands folded before him, right tightly over left. Joseph sits on the other end, the end near the door. As he has taken to doing, his chin rests on his expressive hands which are crossed on the top of the white cane he holds between his knees. I see a glitter from one temple. One of the contact points for the scanner leads. It testifies to how painful the mechanism still is that he doesn't wear it even to a meeting as important as this. What he does wear, unbelievably, is a suit. Mulder had given up suits with his cancer years before but he wears one today. It's one of his old ones. It occurs to me for the first time that there must be an apartment in this place filled with physical memories of Apartment 42. When Mulder's old apartment was abandoned long ago when Dana - she who would become Sara - made that deal with the smoking devil, everything was put into storage. The suit fits Joseph's lean, long frame loosely but I know that beneath the folds of the fabric is a strong, healthy body. A body which, because of all its owner's hardships, has enough differences from Mulder's now that I would never confuse them, not even in the dark. Still I almost weep at the sight of the tie. It's tied so poorly, he obviously tried to do it by himself, and in my world it's still one of my Mulder's favorites. I turn away, afraid to be caught staring. He's not Mulder. I remind myself and deserves his privacy. Poor Job. So many scars outside and at least as many on the inside. Down on the far end of the table Skinner moves impatiently. I realize that I never actually saw him move but everyone snaps to attention as if he had, even Langly who is the laid back one of the group. "Mr. Frohike," Skinner says, "I believe we're all here. Are you prepared to present your findings?" <'Mister Frohike'?> I guess I never thought of 'Frohike' as a last name or really any kind of a legitimate name at all. The small, balding gnome with the quick eyes link to Byers' equally quick eyes who passes the glance to Langly, who, unique among the men here, still wears his jeans and T-shirt. "We're ready," the gnome replies, "though I doubt that our recommendation will be met with much enthusiasm." His eyes hand off the introductory material to Byers. "The security at the compound is standard in many ways," the questionably 'normal' member of the trio explained. "Security monitors, electrified fences. Those we can handle. However, they have one twist which is entirely unique. It was installed after Louis and Joseph's escape. DNA sensors. They're at all the building entrances and near the elevators and stair wells, too. You slip your hand in and - " Byers held his hand out as if it were being scanned and " - its reads specific sequences on your DNA. Each person's is absolutely unique unless you have an identical twin. You have to submit to the scanning, too, otherwise you'll trigger another kind alarm." Langly nodded agreement. "Oddly enough, the overall security design seems most concerned about keeping tabs on their own people, to make sure that they don't 'wander' into areas they shouldn't." "Kenneth and Grace," Joseph said, understanding. "They walked right by the security cameras in our clothes. You're saying that could never happen now? That they couldn't pass by the sensors now except as themselves?" "Got it in one," Langly replied. "And even as themselves they would need access to the specific floor in your building." Frohike hung his head, his face suddenly stricken with guilt. "We were unaware of this little improvement when Sara and her team went in after Kenneth Lesse and his wife. I can't say how sorry we still are about that. Maybe Dana Scully's ID would have allowed her access but the poor volunteers with her didn't never a chance." Skinner was grim. It had been a bitter blow. Almost the most bitter of his career, of any of his careers. "Very little of that was your fault. Our 'friends' at the Compound were tipped off that the raid was coming." "All ancient history," Helen said, her face showing little expression other than determination. "What can you do for us now." It was Langly who, fidgeting, managed to speak for the three. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" No one took him up on his request. "The bad news is: We can't create a record for new staff in their security files. We don't have the access privileges and even if we did we don't know how to encrypt the DNA traces. If we try to bring in anyone who's not in their database, their security boards will go up like a Christmas tree. The good news is we can access the records of one inactive staff member, a person who's DNA is already on record. We can reactivate his status. We can even give him some stratospheric security clearance." It took about five seconds for everyone to focus on one lone figure, the one figure in the room who couldn't focus on anyone. "I think you've all figured out who that one person is... Fox Mulder." It seemed to take Joseph longer than anyone to put all the pieces together. His pale skin, if possible, want even paler than normal. "And at the first check post I go through they'll know who -" I hate feeling helpless almost more than anything. That's how I felt at that moment. Utterly helpless. I couldn't go to this man who needed me even though, God knows, I wanted to. I wanted to hold him the way I had at the party field, I wanted to tell him that I understood the terror that was growing huge in his belly. He could be caught again. He could come out of the tank the next time as something not even remotely human. Byers' voice distracted me. Crisp, emotionless Byers, but it was what we all needed to hear at that moment. "Joe, your concern is understandable, but all of our analysis indicates that though they are still looking for you - that they have never stopped looked for you - their nets are all set outside. They seem to see no reason to search in their own back yard." "Why not?" Helen asked. "Certainly they must know that we know that Sara lives and that we'd consider a rescue sometime. Even if Joseph had died on his way here, Louis knew and Louis got out." "Because," Skinner said with bitterness, "if we were going to come we would have come for her sooner. God knows we should have." I found myself talking for the first time. "Everyone seems to have missed the really impossible part of this plan. You expect Joseph to go in alone? Alone? You can't be serious." "Safer that way," Frohike said, "besides we haven't told you all. Once he's inside he'll have help. Kenneth Lesse has let it be known that he's coming out this time, no matter what." Uneasy grumbling all around. Helen asked the question everyone was thinking, "Can he be trusted?" This was a statement that had far more emotional affect on Joseph and I than the others. Kenneth had been a good friend. He had risked his life so that two captives and their baby could be free. He was intelligent, young, handsome, charming and physiologically as unique as Joseph. But he'd been sent back to the tanks as a disciplinary action after his own botched escape attempt. How many of these admirable traits did he still possess? "It was Kenneth's wife who blew the whistle the last time," Louis said, defending the young man. "Rene panicked. Remember, it was Kenneth who made the decision to get her out when he found out she was pregnant. His error was not getting her full cooperation. Probably he rushed her because of the baby. She wasn't ready. Remember, she more than Kenneth was born in the Consortia and didn't have the contact with Mulder and Dana the way Ken had. We are all boogie men to her." "What's the status of the family now?" Helen asked. Frohike sent a sidelong glance at Byers. Byers looked up, uncomfortable. "The news is sketchy but a week after the failed rescue, Kenneth's wife went into premature labor. End of the second trimester. Too soon. The child died." A muscle twitched in the small man's cheek. "They told Kenneth the news seconds before they pushed him under. These people really go out of their way to give their victims sweet dreams, don't they." There was shocked silence in the room and it took a lot to shock this group. The first to speak was the one who seemed the most removed from hearth and home. "Bastards," Langly blurted out. "And the marriage?" Joseph asked, though he probably knew the answer his face was so bleak. "It's over, we're told. Didn't last long after the miscarriage," Byers informed them. Probably was over before that, Dana thought. The woman had lost her nerve and betrayed her husband and those who meant only to help her. "There's potentially a more important development than this," Skinner said. He hadn't spoken for a while and he was grim. "It was Kenneth Lesse the senior who contacted us - through an intermediary of course. He's the one orchestrating this. He WANTS his son out. He didn't know we were in the planning stages for this assault. We're letting him think we're doing him a big favor and in return we get one, we get Sara. He's the one who arranged for Kenneth to be at the Compound tonight." "Tonight?" I found myself asking astonished. "That's the reason for the unreasonable hour for this meeting. It must be tonight." Byers said. "We had no more warning than that. Supposedly the son's there for some kind of medical check up but he'll only be resident for about the next thirty-six hours, possibly less, and so... tonight." Skinner turned to Joseph sitting so straight and still in his chair, those long, sensitive hands ever folded over the head of his cane. "Agent Mulder, what do you think?" The former FBI Assistant Director caught himself. "Sorry... Joseph. Dressed like that you looked - " The smile Joseph returned his old and present boss was almost wistful. "I don't mind. It's good to hear you say it." "So what does Agent Mulder think?" "Many things. Cabbages and kings. In addition to the advantages of my security clearance, a blind man doesn't need a light and I can manage well enough with the scanner and an economy- size bottle of Advil." "You know what more this signifies, don't you? If the father feels a need to get his son out, it may mean he doesn't want any hostages left where the dragons can get their hands on them. It could mean the first crack in the Consortia. The beginning of the end. That's how important this is." Skinner's expression was firm. "I know I can never completely comprehend what you suffered in that place, but I've seen the results. That's why I ask you to think this over very carefully before you commit." The next words came slowly, pulled out by the heart. "In all the years I've known you, Agent Mulder, I've never doubted your personal courage, though I think you'll forgive if I say that I always depended greatly on Agent Scully's common sense. For reasons we are all well aware of, you need both now. I have no doubt that you'll accept this assignment, the question that you must answer is - should you?" Joseph tried to smile at the use of the name again but there was too much going on behind those blank eyes. "I'm no hero. No amount of courage would get me in there again if it weren't for Scu - for Sara. You know I won't leave her. You know I can't. The fact there is more at stake here than she and I and our future complicates the issue but changes nothing. As I said before. I believe I can do it. From what I've heard here, it sounds like I'm the only one who can. There is no decision." Skinner nodded assent, then realized with the slightest flush that the person he had intended that communication for hadn't seen it. "Very well, then that's how it will be." Skinner addressed the entire team with his next comments, "Gentleman and ladies, I think that is it. We all have a lot of work to do before this evening. As far as who will go to the site, we need to keep the primary force small to minimize the chances of detection. Mr. Frohike and his team obviously will go with Joseph. I will head the back up force. We'll stay some minutes behind." "Director Skinner?" I heard myself saying. It felt odd to still use the title but he was officially the director of the Center. "As the person here after Joseph and Louis who has the greatest knowledge of the Compound, I'd like to go with the first team." At my words, Joseph's chin had risen from his folded hands just a little but he said nothing. Skinner checked briefly with Joseph and then with Frohike, Langly and Byers. "I see no objection. Till this evening then." As if on cue, everyone rose. I couldn't help looking at Joseph who had gotten to his feet more slowly than anyone. No jokes at the end. What was going on in his mind? I could sense that brain, so much like Mulder's only more wounded, turning over alone in its darkness. I found myself walking over to where he stood, separate within his own formless world. "If there's anything I can do, you only need to ask." He didn't show surprise at being spoken to, not even by me, even though we hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words since our arrival except during group meetings. He spoke quietly now so that none of the others who were busily filing past could hear. "Why do I think that my little swim will seem like a picnic in comparison with this little escapade. You don't think I'm insane to attempt this, do you?" "Knowing you? Knowing her? Not at all." At that I turned to leave but at the last moment he stilled me by reaching out. I don't know what he intended but the tips of his fingers brushed mine. "Thank you." I continued forward, out of the room. The heat of that touch that was Mulder's, and yet not Mulder's, surged up in this body, filling my cup to overflowing, forcing tears from Ellie's eyes that dared not be shown to anyone. End of chapter 12b ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (13a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 13a: Dana We waited by the Center's darkened south entrance which was through an old warehouse. Plenty of space to pack the specially built Land Rover with the sensitive electronic equipment which Mulder's special glasses required. The 'boys' had also acquired some new toys for deactivating the barriers and masking the car's presence as it approached the Compound so they didn't have to pack mule everything in from miles away. Mulder - I'm sorry, but ever since Skinner called him Mulder I've been having trouble thinking of him as anything else - was fidgeting near the doorway. The moonlight streaming in through the dusty warehouse windows illuminated his anxious face. He wanted to be doing something to help but couldn't without the scanner and he didn't dare start wearing it this early otherwise the headaches would immobilize him before he even go to the Compound. Not being assigned anything useful to do either I joined him. Even if he wasn't my Mulder who was - God knows where - I still craved his company. "It's only me." He tilted that faintly scarred but still uniquely handsome head in my direction. "I know." "How did you know?" "Your footsteps. You walk like someone I knew once." His statement for some reason made me uneasy. Ellie had been strangely quiet all day as I helped with the preparations. The woman who had just walked across the floor had been as nearly Dana as possible. I must be confusing him totally. "Scared?" I asked, trying to turn the conversation towards the business of the night. "Scared of failing and I can't, not this time." His head was up, his chin out, his eyes blankly staring straight ahead. "They're wrong when they say that once here she'll just be a prisoner. She's a prisoner now, locked away from who she is. I know my Scully. No matter what, she'd want to know the truth." Odd that he would call her Scully. He'd been referring to her consistently as Sara up until now. Maybe like the use of 'Mulder' the old patterns just reasserted themselves as he prepared to plunge into the field. But he was also distracted. Likely just a slip then. "She's alone among people who hate her," he went on. "No matter how much they pretend, otherwise they are still her enemies. I can't leave her there." "No one expects you to, though you realize she probably won't come willingly." Slowly, he pulled a long metal object from a thin case attached to his belt. A dart gun. "I have help." After he'd put the tranquilizer away we stood silently, not touching. I watched the team pack for perhaps a minute while he listened. At some point he must have taken a step towards me because suddenly his arm brushed my shoulder. "May I ask a favor?" he said quite softly. Unexpectedly, heat rose in Ellie's body. Was my psyche having trouble telling my Mulders apart? "I've already offered," I replied. "This is personal." I thought the request would have something to do with his blindness - something he needed help with and was ashamed to ask anyone else. "I think we've already been about as personal as two people can get and not - you know." Oh, he knew. His mouth stretched into one of Mulder's little half smiles. "Can we be seen here?" I maneuvered him away from the window. "The moon was playing spotlight," I explained. "Only the rats can see us now." Even though we were now in shadow I saw that smile widen for a second before he became serious again. "You were so patient with me those days at the cave. Thirty percent of the time you pampered me. The other seventy percent of the time you were busy kicking my butt. In that way you're so much like her. There's no way I can repay -" "You don't need- " I stopped because his hand was suddenly there again, touching Ellie's hair. Oddly enough it wasn't sexual but almost fatherly. That wasn't so surprising. Having no sight, he wasn't affected by Ellie's 'glamour' and probably saw her more clearly than anyone. She must have just seemed like some ancient fifteen year old to him. "Despite how I've acted these past few days, I'm not ungrateful. I was - uneasy. I didn't want for people to see us together. I was afraid that they'd start asking questions about my sudden 'recovery' again." Pause. "And I thought that you might have talked to Skinner." "I told you I wouldn't." "I remember. It just took me a while to trust what you told me, that you have as much to protect as I - probably more. Selfish of me." "Under the circumstances, I think I can understand." In response, his face showed a hint of his old investigative fire. "Of course, I have my own suspicions but I'm not stupid enough to ask questions for which I might not want to hear the answers." <> Ellie mused, but I was not so pleased. If he'd only go ahead and indulge his curiosity maybe I could find a way of telling him about who and what Ellie was. I don't know why. I guess I just wanted to tell someone and who better to understand. Maybe I should have told him from the first. Maybe it would bring him some comfort to know he was not alone in this morass. "Thank you," I said, though I didn't know why. "I mean thank you for not asking for explanation." "You're welcome," was the automatic response. This didn't seem to be the end of the discussion, however. I felt his fingers hunt for and finally brush my arm. "Ellie..." He began and then hesitated. That was when I realized that he was just now getting to the part he'd really wanted to discuss when he began this. "Ellie, I'm going to walk into a terrible place and from our talks I believe you're one of the few who really has some conception of how terrible. If they take me again -" "Don't dwell -" I warned, but I was too late. I felt the tremor in that strong, sensitive hand. "I have no choice. I've even made out my will. Skinner witnessed. He and Helen have Adam, of course." He voice faded out as if it had gone dry. "Ellie, there's another issue here but you and I seem to be the only two sensitive to it. Don't you think that Kenneth's sudden reappearance - and for such a narrow window of time - is awfully convenient." I hadn't thought of that. I should have. "Not convenient for us." "Obviously, it's convenient for somebody." "If you think it's a trap, then don't go." "Not going is not an option. It's just that I feel a need to tie up as many loose ends in my life before I go. I..." His voice trailed. "What is it?" This was what he had called me over for. His feet shuffled restless, almost shyly. "I just wanted someone to say good-bye to," he stammered. "Stupid thing to say." "No, it's not, only I wish you wouldn't. Good-bye is so final. In any case, you don't have to do it now. I'm going with you to the mountain." When he answered he seemed miles away. "But there's always a need to say good-bye, Ellie, just as there's always a need to say thank you. You never know if you're going to be given another chance. That's something that I've learned to appreciate only recently. There are people I've never said the important things to." "I take it you're talking about Sara?" His face registered a mild confusion. "About Sa- ? Yes... Sara." He seemed to need to switch gears. It was clear that what he said next was not what had been on his mind when he'd started. "I wasn't there when she left on that mission to pull Kenneth and his wife out. I was called away on an emergency. It was so sudden that we never had a chance to meet. I never even had a chance to wish her luck. I never saw her again though Louis has told me - under duress just a couple of days ago - that we lived, one of us on either side of one of those damned tanks, for months. I never kissed her good- bye. Never spoke the words I should have. I waited too long." I don't think I've ever heard Mulder sound so wretched, and that's going some. "What would you have said if there'd been time?" His shoulders drooped a little. "The old cliche 'I love you', I suppose." He must have felt my confused eyes on him at that. "Sorry. Of course I did tell... Sara... that I loved her but never often enough. It hurts that even if I survive tonight and bring her out she may never want to hear those words from me again. On the other hand if I don't make it out and she does - then at least I want to tell somebody. You, if you don't mind. In that way if you two ever meet and if she ever wants to know, you can tell her." He shuddered all over. Even in that shadowed place I could see the movement. He made an abrupt move to stalk out. "Sorry, that was terrible. Didn't even make sense to me." I held him back with a touch. He didn't take much convincing. "No, it didn't, not entirely, but the sentiments are part of being human. You know, don't you, that this is all unnecessary? I know that she loved you. I know that she loves you still. That sort of thing... it has no time. It has no beginning... no end." I saw him switch his white cane to his left hand and roughly wiped his sweating forehead on his dark sleeve. "That's pretty eloquent stuff, Ms. Ellie." "Read it off a Hallmark card, Agent Mulder," I admitted. "You don't mind me calling you that, do you? Like Skinner did at the meeting this morning? All the records I read on you before this use that name." "Just between us, it's fine. In fact, though Skinner's been trying to drum into my head for years about how dangerous the old names are, I still prefer them." An uneasy silence. Was that it? But he seemed to be waiting for something. For me to agree? To what? "For Sara's sake -" I told him in all earnestness "- for Dana's, if we're using old names - I'll carry your message for you." This was awkward as hell. For both of us. I know I just wanted out of there. I suspect he was blushing. I wished it wasn't so dark. No, maybe I was glad for the cover. I can't imagine what the expressions on our faces must have been like. "Is there anything else?" His hand raised then hesitated to see if I'd moved away. I should have while I had the chance. I didn't. I didn't because I realized that I wanted him to touch me again, even if it were only Ellie's body. I was as lonely and as lost as he was. Lightly, he found her hair again and smoothed it. "Ellie, could you be her surrogate for just a moment longer?" I swear he must have heard my heart stop. They say that the physically challenged develop their remaining senses to a fine pitch when one is lost. All at once he protested in that soft voice of his, "Oh - no - it's not what you think." Odd, he sounded so young but then, come to think of it, Mulder has sounded that way every time we ever tried to discuss anything personal. "I just want to say good-bye to you as I would have said good bye to her." That hand again, a single finger sliding down my cheek. Who was blushing now? This was maddening. "From the beginning, you frightened me. You reminded me so of her. Not just physically, but other things. The way you walked, the words you used. The way you took care of me back at the cave." He bent, closing in. It was like all the air was being sucked from that cold, dark building. I could sense the warmth of his skin, could feel his breath meet my breath even though we hadn't made contact yet. "Should I take that as a compliment?" I asked though my voice was none too steady. His face was very near Ellie's and I certainly wasn't the only one trembling. "I meant it to be," he said. Then he placed those hands of his one on either side of my jaw. Clearly, he didn't want to miss and hit my eye. He didn't miss. Our lips met. His were warm, warm and deliberate and unhurried and quite... wonderful. Then he was gone. Just a few inches away but too far for my liking. He drew further away. Below the blank eyes he was biting his lower lip, embarrassed by what he had done. He definitely regretted it. I didn't. End of Chapter 13a ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (13b/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 13b: Dana Before there was even time for my heart rate to return to normal, I heard Frohike swear loudly. This gave me the excuse I needed to take my leave of my silently overwrought companion. A box of spare electronic parts had fallen open and hundreds of little pieces were scattered everywhere. Fine, I needed something to do with my hands that didn't require that my mind be anywhere near functional. We were just finishing when I heard a familiar voice. Skinner's. He was dressed all in black like I was, like Joseph was, like everyone on the primary and back up teams. In that way of his he scanned the room. At the end he gestured for me to follow him outside. Mildly alarmed, I complied. Skinner must have used hand signals for only one reason - if Joseph was around, he hadn't wanted him to know we were talking. What Skinner wasn't aware of was that Joseph was still in the shadows where I'd concealed him before, barely more than a lean black shadow himself. At the very least he must have heard the door open and Skinner's boots scuff on the concrete pad. He would know that we left together. I followed Skinner down into the woods the warehouse backs against. He was as restless as the rest of us with the waiting. I checked my watch. Half an hour till the first group, my group, was due to take off. "Problem, sir?" I asked when we were beyond where anyone in the warehouse, even Joseph, could have heard us. "Not a problem exactly." He hesitated. I thought barely suppressing a groan, "I thought you might feel more free about talking here. You were troubled at the meeting, any particular problems you see with the plan for tonight - other than the obvious, of course." I carefully considered how much I should say. My status was still uncomfortably unofficial. "By the obvious, you mean about Joseph. I just can't believe that you're letting him go at all, much less alone." "Since when does Mulder of all people wait for permission from anybody. Besides, he has a point about who has the best chance and his does seem to be a charmed life." "Cursed would describe it better," I murmured. A smile gleamed briefly in the dark. "True. Things do happen to Mulder that never seem to happen to anyone else, both good and bad. Back when we were both with the FBI, I can't tell you how many times he'd come walking into my office after I'd been having waking nightmares about calling his mother to tell her that he'd never be walking anywhere again. What about all the things he's seen or said he's seen? When it comes to Mulder, you just have to have faith." I heard a little chuckle from Ellie which I quickly suppressed. This I knew wasn't Skinner's main reason for our little hike just as Joseph had taken his own sweet time to get around to the important stuff back in the shadows at the warehouse. I felt Ellie's body react to the memory. I seriously needed time to sort out my feelings about that little event - tenderness, disappointment, jealously, desire even? - but now was definitely not that time. Skinner walked on, hands in pockets, his booted feet making surprisingly little noise. Finally he spoke. To the point this time. "Ellie, I need your input. Off the record, you understand. Just between you and me. The time you spent alone with Joe at the cave... Don't think that you've gotten away with anything. Neither of you have satisfied anyone's curiosity about those lost days. I'm not trying to pry into anything personal that may or may not have happened, but it's essential to the success of this mission that we can count on his mental state, his stability. If the Consortia's finally cracking, it's more than his life and Sara's at stake." I felt like a spy being debriefed and didn't like it. "He is Fox Mulder," I said. Another unexpected smile. "I guess that does rather say it all," he admitted then the broad back of my companion turned to me as he took off on a new path, one which I knew from the map in the staff cafeteria followed the perimeter of the quarry. "Did Joseph ever say anything to you during those days that made you question his being firmly connected to the here and now?" Considering Ellie's input into all that had happened at the cave I didn't dare answer that one truthfully but something, something deep in me - a hope when I had nearly lost hope - needed to know what Skinner was referring to. Only how much would he be willing to tell me? Even with Ellie's 'glamour' and our cover story, we were to him just a twenty-one year old counterintelligence agent who had been preparing to go underground to assume what had been Louis' job at the Compound. Sometimes you need to give a little to get - and I needed whatever he was offering. "You realize that I've been trained in more than medical electronics." Skinner walked on kicking some leaves in his path. "I've noticed. Though from the results you achieved with Joseph in such a short time I'd say your medical training has been both extensive and highly unconventional." "You could say that," I freely admitted and I didn't even need to lie. Certainly the medical training was mine even though the unconventional part definitely came from Ellie. "With that said, could you describe a little more fully what signs of instability you think I might have witnessed?" He stopped in the middle of the path he was following. The moonlight was bright here and I could plainly make out his strong features. He took his time, seriously considering what he should say. "Maybe it's nothing. It's just that there was a time during his recovery when two and two weren't making four." For Mulder's sake I owed Joseph. My support if nothing else. "He woke up blind and deaf, weak and sick and in pain. He was lost and unable to communicate. I think he can be forgiven for a lot." "Of course there was that, but this happened weeks later. He'd overcome so much, was showing some actual improvement, but then he hit a wall. He was definitely on the edge, physically and mentally, and we thought what he needed on the subject of Sara was closure. That's when we told him -" Skinner stopped. He voice had gone tight at the end. I knew where this was going. "That's when Louis told him Sara was dead." "We thought there would be always time in the future to give him the 'good' news, if it was good news. That wasn't the best decision I've ever made in my life. He relapsed. We almost lost him. It was when he was finally recovering from that that he became delirious, though it was an odd sort of delirium." My instincts picked up on something. The events, out of sequence, or perhaps just with a different emphasis from what I had been led to believe. "You say he came close to dying several weeks after his rescue and he become delirious only after that? Can you be more specific? Give me all the details from the beginning." "I thought Louis had -" my companion began but something in my face - an intensity that was like a deep pain behind my eyes - must have communicated itself. He looked at me for a long time then down at the path at his feet, hands in the pockets of his jacket. "From the beginning then.... As you've been told, Joe was in bad shape by the time Louis got him to the Center. Only hours out of the tanks you understand. They hadn't fed him well at all. He was skin and bones." Over the years I've learned that Skinner is not a gentle man, but the depth of the anger I sensed now surprised even me. "You add that torture to the condition of his lungs and he should never have been taken outside. He had a raging case of pneumonia for a few days but it responded in time to the antibiotics. With IVs and feeding tubes he improved. Of course, as you noted, he was terrified. Blind and deaf. The impact of his physical limitations came later. First, we had to learn to communicate with each other. We actually made some progress. Then he hit the plateau I talked about." "Confusion over Sara's whereabouts?" I guessed, though it wasn't much of a guess. "Yes, Sara," he agreed. "But he'd been told before he went into the tanks what they had planned for her." "He refused to believe that she could be made to forget him. He had himself nearly convinced that she was just outside in the hall afraid to see him because of her complacency with his 'treatment'. As you can imagine none of us wanted to tell him that she hadn't wanted to leave; worse, that we had simply left her there. In retrospect we realize that we should have told him the truth but all we considered at the time was how impossible it would be to control him if he knew she was still in the Compound." "So you lied and had Louise tell him that she died as a result of the operation." "As I've said, not a decision I'm proud of. At the very least I should have done the dirty work myself but Louis offered. He thought Joseph would be more likely to believe a first hand account. Obviously, he did. He went downhill. No, not just downhill but more like someone had cut every string that connected him to this world. Within twenty-four hours he was literally at death's door. We had about given up. Then one day, for no reason, we saw some improvement." A lump suddenly appeared in my throat which I found impossible to swallow. "A sudden reversal and then, just as sudden, a recovery?" I gagged. "Well, the recovery wasn't so sudden. Blood pressure and heart rate picked up first and few hours later there was some spontaneous movement. In those days any one of these signs would have been reasons for rejoicing. As far down as he was, I guess you could call it sudden. I know it gave us hope. His health was so fragile, however, that it was some days before we felt confident that he had turned a corner. It was as if he had made a decision to die one day and a few days later found a reason to live. "What worried us, however, was that when he regained consciousness this second time it was in bits and pieces and his reality was all confused. It was as though he had lost everything he'd been told since Louis had brought him back. Even a lot from before. Helen was deeply concerned because there had been no trauma. He had a fever for a few days but it had never been serious enough to explain what we were seeing." "Nothing physical you mean?" I whispered because my lips, like my whole body, felt numb. "More psychological. Like denial?" "Yes. And so our concern for his mental state. Ellie, he scared us. He didn't seem to remember anything about what had happened with Sara at all. Not her capture, not his rescue attempt, not their threats, not what we had told him about her death. He demanded to know where 'Dana' was and why she hadn't been to see him. Worse, he had to become acclimated to his blindness and deafness all over again. They seemed a surprise to him even more than the first time and he refused to acknowledge anything we finger spelled to him for days." My hands were beginning to shake so badly that I had to thrust them deep into the pockets of my coat to keep them out of sight. "What are some of the things he talked about in his 'delirium'?" I managed to ask without too much of a tremble in my voice. "Cases. It was like he was back in the FBI, but cases he had never been assigned. He wept over Dana having cancer which she never had. Helen was truly concerned about that one. That he would transfer the focus, the beginning place, of all his problems onto her. That was so unlike him. When I first spelled out his name with some of the plastic letters from Adam's alphabet, he swore violently that that wasn't his name. That incident produced the most violent reaction of all. It made no sense. He'd never liked losing his name but had always understood the reason for it." Skinner ran a restless hand over his bald pate. Somehow I managed to swallow the lump in my throat. Fighting for calm, I balled the hands in my pockets into fists so hard that I could feel the pain from the nails in my palms. With maddening composure I forced myself to say, "Temporary post-stress dissociation and delayed memory loss due to shock. It's possible." "That's what the final conclusion was or something like it. Whatever it was scared us there for a long time. The night after the episode with his name was especially bad. Heart wrenching sobs that went on for hours followed by hours of screaming. We were forced to use restraints because we were afraid that he might hurt himself but we all agreed - no drugs." Skinner head drooped from his bowed shoulders. "That was - a bad time - but he must have worked something out of his system because since the next morning he's been like you saw him first at the cave. Internally driven, determined, withdrawn, anti-social even, but at least he began working with the therapists. Certainly he's depressed but not clinically so. You've seen the way he's been this past week or so. That's how he was then only it went on for months. He worked with a frenzied desperation that was painful to watch. Regaining as much independence as possible under the circumstances was all important to him." "Which is how he came to be allowed to live out at the cave alone." Skinner stooped and picked up a white rock that had caught his eye in the moonlight and turned it over in his hand before arcing it far out into the night. "Of course we weren't happy about that, but even though he'd never opened up to us about what was going on inside, he earned every minute of that time. Besides, we felt that we were building a bridge of trust with him, hoping that when he came back that he'd let us in." Skinner smiled wanly. "He didn't come back exactly as we expected though, did he? Oh, we couldn't be happier about his physical improvement, but his internal balance is still a complete mystery to us. That's the reason for my question to you and why we're uneasy about his undertaking a critical mission like this. If his perception of reality isn't dead on..." Skinner shrugged his coat back up on his shoulders and began walking again but coming back my way, back towards the warehouse entrance to Center. The only problem I had with that was that he wasn't walking nearly quickly enough. I fell in alongside him. "Trust me. You have nothing to be afraid of," I assured him. "He's there. He's very definitely all there." Skinner paused to study me to see if I could be believed. It was all I could do to keep a serene and professional expression with all the crying, laughing, dancing and swearing going on inside. He must have been satisfied because he grunted a kind of acceptance and resumed his walk back to the warehouse. In the evening silence filled with only our footsteps the words rang clearly in my head - All this time had it been Mulder just pretending to be Joseph? Of course, it made so much sense. As Joseph he had freedom. If he kept on denying being Joseph, if he kept denying what everyone thought was his 'reality', then they'd have locked him up with the shrinks for sure. It would be like Mulder, MY Mulder, to distrust everyone - especially Ellie whom he felt was Skinner's spy - and keep the truth to himself. On the other hand, I thought forcing myself to consider other options, maybe not my Mulder. Mulder and I must have occasional dreams about Joseph and Sara's life, otherwise, how had I recognized the house entrance to the Center. How else could I have 'remembered' the conversation with Skinner about the Center's being built near a quarry? And all those little snatches of domestic life at the Cave? What if Joseph dreamed too and looked into OUR lives. Mulder's panic over my cancer would have communicated itself to this world very clearly. In the same way he may have gained enough knowledge of the cases he had never been part of to become confused. But I had to remember to be careful. If Joseph and Sara spent even a fraction of the time looking in on Mulder and me as we had spent looking in on them, then Joseph must certainly have gathered enough information to make a guess at the truth of this twisted horror movie of a life. He had been, after all, my Mulder only five years before - his time. That left a lot of nearly sleepless nights to chew on the problem. The last thing he needed was verification from someone like me that his nightmares were true. Meanwhile, this walk was definitely taking far too long. I was about ready to jump out of my skin. Only I didn't know which direction to jump first. Should I confront him? My target would be on his guard as much as ever. Seeing red, I picked an oath out of one of the store I'd learned from my father. If I had to freeze his balls off, I'd find some way to yank the truth out of that devil! Anxiously, I looked at my watch. I still had fifteen minutes before my team was due to depart. What I needed was a quiet walk back to calm my nerves. No, enough was enough! I gave Skinner an excuse about having some last minutes preparations and took off at a run back to the Center. Only a few minutes later I slid breathlessly to a stop on the concrete floor of the warehouse. On my lips was his name - all of his names, even a few I bet he didn't know I knew - but the Land Rover was gone. Frohike and his boys were gone, Mulder/Joseph, whoever he was, was gone. At my consternation one of the members of Skinner's team who was reviewing the contents of a trunk of armaments informed me that the first team had finished loading and, being anxious about the limited set up time and being unable to find me, had left. Oh, first they had made certain that there would be room for me to ride with the back up team. Damn the man... whoever he was! Was that what that kiss was all about? A distraction? An apology before the fact? Had he been planning to ditch this spy of Skinner's all along? If I found out that it was Mulder in there - my Mulder - then after I kissed him back - I'd probably have to kill him. Five minutes later, I had forced directions out of the startled back up team, retrieved a backup electric car and was tearing up the roads heading for the one place in the world I most wanted to reach at that moment. And most dreaded. It was a long two hour drive and my mind was bursting with questions. Understandably, I let Ellie take the wheel. I snarled to her. <> she insisted in all innocence. <> Which gave me hope even as I gave her a mental 'finger'. My mind went back to those long, lonely days at the Center when he'd removed himself so from me. I'd been the blind one. Why had I found that behavior so odd? Mulder, my Mulder, had always been a loner. To everyone, that is, except his Scully. End of Chapter 13b ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (14/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 14a: Mulder Byers and Langly were for once silent as Frohike drove. I thank them for that. They are all more subdued than in the old days. Maybe working for Skinner had done this. Then again maybe it's the fact that this is no longer a game of shadows. The conspiracy, the danger, is real. A living, breathing thing that actually bites. They so often surprised me in the past. For the sake of my skin and that of the woman I am going in for, I hope their skills are as good as they always were. Better if possible. Odd that I'm willing to put my life in their hands and yet there are still secrets I must keep to myself. On the long drive I concentrated on bringing up views of the Compound - obstacles like buildings, walkways and stairs and more important things like alarms and security monitors. But in the back of my mind a question kept repeating and repeating: If I do succeed in getting out again with myself in one piece and with both Kenneth and my 'prisoner', then what? Damned if I know. If I consider only this reality, the woman I will be bringing out will be a stranger in Scully's body. Correction: Sara's body. But what really tortures me, of course, is the other reality, the thought that my Scully has been in there - in that body - for as long as I've been in this one. I hope the devil had his fun - imprisoning me in this cage of damaged flesh while Scully has been lost and alone among our enemies. I shudder to think of how she received the joyful news of where she was and who she was blithely working for. And the records certainly showed what 'Sara' had done in the interests of science to Tank 42. Surprise. I'm coming, Scully. I'm coming. I just hope that it's you I find. I just hope that I'll be received with open arms. I don't need a spitting, snarling hellcat as a welcoming committee because regardless of the past - or the present - this will still be Scully and I will bring her into the light, even if I have to gag her and drag her out by her lovely hair to do it. We arrive, not at the Compound, but as close as the boys from their analysis feel that a shielded electric car can come. The equipment is parceled out. Backpacks and shoulder bags for all, the blind guy included. I'll allowed one arm free so I can hold onto Langly's back pack. Even if the scanner were operational, which it isn't at the moment because the components haven't been unpacked yet, there is no way that I will wear that torture device until I have to. We trudge in for about half a mile. I've become good at sensing the approaching lay of the land and Langly proves to be amazingly sensitive at giving me warnings about unexpected stones and dips without embarrassing us both by having to micromanage every step. The things you can learn about people you thought you knew. It's Frohike who announces that we've reached our destination. It's all one big sphere of black to me until Byers describes the buildings and the perimeter fencing he can see. At his description, some ghostly fingers do their walking up my spine. From memory I help them fine tune our location and there we make our little camp. The electronics have gone as far as they're going to. I stay with the equipment this time as the boys head back to the Rover for a second load. Byers even gives me his Skinner-issued gun. He still handles it like it's going to bite him or something. It's a heavy Glock like in former times and, oh, it feels so good in my hand. I actually choke up that he would trust me not to shoot them coming back but then, other than by sheer luck, it's unlikely that I could hit anything anyway. Still it's reassurance and much appreciated. I find myself listening until I can no longer hear the rustle of their passage and then it is all peace. Frohike has set us up far enough away that even the rumble of the Compound's power plant is silenced by distance as is the buzz of the halogen lights that make the yard within the fence as bright as day. The quiet is like being back at the cave. Solitary. But lonely? No. There has always been peace in aloneness for me and for the past few days there has always seemed to be far too many people around. After all those weeks at the cave this unlooked for quiet is a relief. Still I am anxious for their return. I want to get this over with. Twenty minutes later I hear their footsteps brush at the foliage, only it's a different combination of sounds than when they left. Is it because they're burdened with equipment this time? No, something else. I figure it out. There's another person with them. I sense the newcomer stopping further away than the boys. Awkwardly, I stand. Around me the boys are opening equipment bags and boxes. There's the click of connectors snapping into place. Frohike comes up and slides the heavy scanner glasses over my eyes. The power pack is heavy on my back. His hands are surprisingly gentle as he presses the cool pickups into my temples. "Video check," Byers whispers abruptly, all business. I flip the switch on the pickup control behind my left ear and the visions spring up like green ghosts. The pain also stabs behind my eyes like a knife, no less intense just because it's expected. Blinking mentally until the visions make sense, I scan the area, ignoring the slender form who waits in the trees to my right. I stand for at least half a minute staring towards the bright green blob with its unnaturally straight lines, a view so different from the forest. This was how the Compound appears to me - a fortress glowing in all its evil glory. "Fine," I said irritably turning back to Byers. At that moment Langly walks by with the pulse generator whose output will, if it works as planned, jam the electrical signals to a small enough section of the fence to get us in and out. As he passes, he leans close to whisper, "Target at ten o'clock. Man, what did you do to get in so much trouble?" Of course, I'd identified her long before the scanner brought her familiar image up in my head. Might as well take my punishment. Squaring my shoulders, I head in the direction he indicated. She comes to meet me. Having acquired a pain in my stomach to match the one in my head, I switch off the scanner and tilt the glasses up. I don't need a head ache on top of the stomach ache. It is those steps - so confident, so sure, so angry - that make my gut twist in longing. Scully's steps. But this is Ellie who despite all we went through at the cave is still a mystery to me. A girl-woman/spy/head doctor/who-knew-what who throws me a loop every time I try to make sense of her intentions. Do I miss Scully so much that the first small, gutsy woman I meet just has to be like her to me? She speaks first. Her lead-in is intended to be cordial but there's an underlying irritation which is unmistakable. "Why do you turn off the scanner every time I get close?" Like any good card-carrying male, I ignore the question which would only get onto topics I didn't want to discuss. Instead I say with some sincerity, "I'm glad that you didn't miss the party." "I just bet you are. If I had, I know whose fault it would have been." Her tone has an all too familiar chill that makes me so homesick for Scully that it feels as if a certain small hand has just laid itself softly on my chest. Bloody hell - to use an old Oxford phrase - but I refuse to cry in front of this woman. "Do you have a point, other than the obvious? I'm rather in a hurry." "No you're not. Byers says they still need at least fifteen minutes of set up time and you're all wired." She stops, probably to finalize the plans of her attack and I know better than to offer any information that has not been specifically requested. Lawyers tell me that all the time. Usually I don't listen to them. Today I will. "I thought I'd been approved to accompany you on this thrill ride," she snaps. "What I want to know is why you ditched me back at the Center." Another twist to the gut, the worst yet. Heavens that hurt. Damn her for using Scully's phrase. I wonder if she saw me flinch. "We looked but couldn't find you. I see you made it though." Shit, that sounded lame even to me. "Don't give me that," she says icily. "You left without me and it was intentional. Is it because I went out with Skinner? I know you heard us leave." That was partially right. I had also gotten closer, a lot closer, to her than I had planned and that made me feel very uncomfortable, almost as if I had betrayed Scully. What I had said to her, however, had been the truth though partially from Joseph's point of view and partially from my own. Then she had gone and betrayed me. At least that was how it had appeared at the time. "And why shouldn't I be suspicious when you sneak off with Skinner? I know what he's fishing for. He feels so damn guilty over what happened the last time, both to Sara and to me, that he's looking for anything which will keep me off this mission." "You're still afraid that I'd tell him something? Use your head, Mulder. Anything I could tell him about what happened at the cave would raise more questions about Ms. Ellie's status in the universe than yours. Who's more likely to get kicked off the team then?" She stepped closer and lowered her already quiet voice. "Relax, I didn't tell him anything. However," and at this her tone changed perceivably, "there are a few details you left out when you told me about your recovery at the Center." I didn't really note the tone change because I was so relieved to find nothing in my way now. Well, relieved is actually not the word I would use. I had just exchanged uncertainty for a little raw primal fear. "This is hardly the time for reviewing my medical records. Is this important?" "To me it is." I wanted to get back to the safety of Byers and Langly where she wouldn't dare lay on the third degree. She was fishing for exactly the same thing Skinner had been asking about. She could spoil everything. But what did she think she would gain by keeping me from going? Did she think she would then go herself? Spy, spy... in my mind's eye. Who had sent her to administer to my physical - and mental - needs? I must have transmitted my desire to escape pretty clearly because the next thing I know she has gripped my arm in an all too familiar fashion. If I had my sight and looked down now, I swear I would have seen the top of Scully's red head. Gods, spirits, Fate, let me out of here or I WILL go mad. "When Louis initially brought you in to the Center you were critically ill but showed some improvement - until they told you about Sara's death, that is. Then you went downhill big time. They thought you had given up. Everyone expected you to die." "And I told you that I made gradual recovery later." "Skinner appended that. 'Physical' recovery was gradual because you were in damn bad shape but your mental attitude improved almost overnight except for a little matter of being pretty thoroughly confused." I shrugged. "Happens with shock sometimes." What had this to do with anything? "Helen found the disassociation rather exceptional mostly because she could find no clear cause for it. You talked about cases you never had, you grieved over Dana having cancer, you even refused to answer to your own name." I tried to disengage my arm but not very convincingly. This mere girl was going to keep me from going to Scully. "That was then. I was sick. Just drop it," I heard my voice hiss angrily. "I can't." Her voice was as earnest as the tightness of the fingers of her small hand on my arm. "We need to discuss this." I knew from experience that, like Scully, anger or any attempt to intimidate this woman physically would be a waste of effort. I'd try pleading. Living as a deaf, blind cripple for a few months can shatter a person's illusions about pride. "Please, let it drop. Lives depend on this... hers AND mine." I could hear her breathing. Little short breaths. Why was she so eager for me to stick my head in the noose for her? She already had the rope. She already had the knowledge and the power to stop this if she chose. She had only to tell Skinner about my swim in the spring flood which for the depressed cripple I was at the time was about a clear an attempt at suicide as you can get. "Trust me," she whispered intently. "As you would trust her, trust me. Who are you? Who are you REALLY?" She can't make me speak, she can't make me condemn myself to a few dozen years of confinement and therapy in this world. I am stubbornly silent for so long that I hear her sigh. I used to pull sighs of exasperation like that from another woman on a regular basis. "Mulder... please." Oh, please, I wish she'd stop that. My name, Scully-style. It went right to where it hurt the most. "Mulder, I won't tell. It will be just between us. 'I' need to know, no one else." It was the aloneness that made me speak when I knew I shouldn't. If just one other person knew what I was going through, what a lie of a life I had to live, then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. That was the main reason why I so irrationally kissed Ellie back at the warehouse. I'd felt this desperation to feel connected to Scully on any level, even if the connection was only to this young woman who reminded me so of my dearest friend. I needed so much to leave Scully some sort of message in case I did 'go down' in the next few hours. "If you must know, than listen because I'm going to say this just once." I'm sorry to say that I growled more sharply than I'd intended. "Who am I? Oh, I'm Fox Mulder, only I don't belong here, not in this life. Is that what you wanted to hear? None of this was supposed to have happened and wouldn't have if it weren't for me and so I feel responsible. Somehow I've got to put it all right, to atone for creating this hell hole to begin with, though damned if I know how I'm going to do it. Now are you thoroughly confused?" A beat. Two. Short as it was, my explanation had rambled and hopefully would make no sense to anyone. Just another Spooky hypothesis to go in one ear and out the other. Hopefully one with enough 'spin' to get it past management review. The important question was, would it occupy this woman long enough so I could get on with the business of rescuing Scully. "Relieved to get that off your chest?" she answered though too low for Langly or Byers to hear. Inexplicably, if I read the tone of her voice right and the near warmth of her body, what she wanted to do most at that moment was to throw her arms around me. Try explaining that to the 'boys' who had had Agents Scully and Mulder's relationship up on a pedestal since year two of their partnership. Instead, she caught up my hand and lifted my startled palm to her cheek. "Mulder.. it's Scully," and though the voice wasn't hers, the tone was, the cadence just as she had said it a thousand times before over the phone. "I'm HERE, and don't ask me how. Just as," she poked me in the chest with a finger, "you're there." Everything went a little dark then. Not that it's not always dark unless I'm wearing the scanner but I keep these images in my mind of faces and places to keep me stay oriented in space. At her words, so impossibly possible, every reference point flickered out like so many burst out light bulbs in my mind leaving me temporarily afloat in a black nothingness. Scully... here. She'd come... actually come for me just as I'd always prayed she would. Just as I always knew that she would. Well, no, not at all as I'd expected but close enough. I wanted to hug her and I wanted to kiss her and I wanted to tell her I loved her and I wanted to press her fingertips to my lips in thanksgiving that she had come for me but all I could do was cry. That's how I came to, kneeling on the damp ground with her arms around me, my hydrochloric acid-laced tears probably burning holes in her shirt. I hoped she pulled me into the shadows before I disgraced myself before the boys. I allowed myself this - one good grope. Yes, still Ellie's too slim body, the more narrow face, the long hair, the A-cup brea- "I think that's enough," she chuckled as her hand playfully slapped mine away. Her words weren't loud, but loud enough for me to hear since she couldn't send me one of her 'looks'. "Funny, but that was also Joseph's very first act when we met back at the party field. You two really do come from common stock." "Joseph's there? In my...." Joseph meeting Scully unexpectedly in a body that WORKED? Joseph who thought his beloved Sara was dead had suddenly beheld her again? The concept boggled the mind. "Did he...?" With the heel of her hand she hit me a glancing blow on the side of the head but carefully away from the scanner pickups. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Mulder." Mulder... and she really meant it. Wonderful. I reached out and from the location of her voice managed to find the bridge of her nose and luckily not her eye. I almost kissed that nose but settled for following its curves with my finger. Not Scully's nose. "At serious risk of catching hell may I say - Scully, you've changed." It spoke to the truth of the matter that I never once questioned her fantastic story. The slender shoulders shrugged, I could hear that much. "I'm not alone in here," she confessed almost apologetically. "O...kay...," I heard myself answering slowly. It made about as much sense as anything else in this nightmare. "Actually, I didn't think you could be unless you've attended some radical new medical seminars since I've been away." I allowed myself to touch her again. On her part she brought her palm up to lay against my wet cheek. She didn't flinch, even though I knew my tears can sting. "Damn it, Scully," I began, nearly losing it again, "why didn't you tell me days ago!" "And how could I do that? What if Joseph had flipped back since I've been gone? Now that would have started some ideas brewing which I don't think either of us would want to be responsible for. If I know my Mulders, he'd only need that kind of spark to figure the whole thing out in time. I couldn't lay that kind of burden on him. How would you like to be just the figment out of someone else's nightmares?" How do we know we aren't? But I let that pass. She didn't need that kind of burden either. I reached out and stroked her hair, not Scully's hair but as close as I could come. She seemed to accept that since I couldn't see her that I needed this contact. "There were clues. I should have guessed. I was so stupid. So - " "Blind?" She offered, the black irony of her words clear in her voice. "You have to be Scully. No one else around here has the guts to make such a tasteless joke." "No one else around here knows that, if I hadn't said it, you would have." "True." I felt no desire to get to my feet, to stand and return to the boys, to leave what I hoped was a private corner. I just wanted us to be together. Just the two of us. It felt so good, it felt so safe. Like coming home. The problem was, I knew it couldn't last. "Joseph's still at the party field," she explained. "When I left he was sleeping off some of your favorite sedatives. By now he's probably been spoiled to death by that witchlet Tannis. By the way what happened that morning you went over to her place." The all-so-Scully-voice was playfully chiding. She was as relieved as I was to have the partnership together again. For me it was hard to think back to the last day I could walk, hear and see all at the same time. "I asked her for help, she fed me tea, I fell asleep." "Before or after?" came that chiding voice. Amazing how I could I see that lifted eyebrow so clearly. "Before anything. I don't know what was in the tea but I remember what happened later which was nothing but talk. Story of my life. I hope Joe's had better luck than I had." Suddenly for the space of half a dozen soaring heartbeats the thought struck me: My primary reason for assailing the Compound had just disappeared. I wouldn't have to go now. Scully was here - sort of. At the very least, not in the Compound. The relief was nearly orgasmic. Joseph's terror of returning to his own personal hell had become mine. I had convinced myself that only the irrefutable need to free Scully would get me in there ever again. There was no more need now. Or was there? Scully squeezed my hand. "What is it?" She knew something was wrong. "I thought I'd find you in the Compound. That's why I was going in." I heard the rush of breath from her. This was a surprise to her. She hadn't anticipated that I'd made that kind of connection. I imagined the shine in her brilliant eyes as she put the pieces together. "Oh, Mulder. I had no idea. My timing was lousy, wasn't it," she confessed. "Would it have been better for you if I had waited until you got back with...?" I could easily fill in the unspoken name just as I filled in so much more which was unspoken. Never had it occurred to her that I wouldn't go. Guiltily, it had occurred to me. Of course, I must rescue Sara for Joseph. "Scared, Mulder?" Was my fear so obvious? "Nearly to death." "This is what heroes are supposed to do, you know." "I never signed up to be a hero." "But you are." "Flattery will get you nowhere." "I just want it to get you somewhere. Should I have waited? Would it have been easier?" Why did she have to go and be so understanding. I hate it when she does that. I feel so vulnerable. I intertwined the fingers of one hand through hers. "No, better that I know now otherwise the disappointment of not finding you in Sara's body might have killed me - that is, if she and about fifty armed guards don't first." I paused. Maybe I'd give it one more try. "Do you still think I need to go?" I knew she did but I needed to hear it from her. Maybe she could help convince me otherwise. "Of course you do." "Thanks so much, partner." "'Partner', I like the sound of that." I slid the heavy glasses down over my eyes though having them over my eyes had nothing to do with my 'seeing' other than my nose helped steady them on my face. Ignoring the shooting pains across my templates, I tried to 'see' the figure at my side. Faces are very subtle, the set of the lips, the angle of the head. Knowing what I knew now, I could almost imagine her. "I should have suspected." "You did." "But not seriously." Turning my head, the solid outline of the Compound glowed green just beyond the trees. "I have to give her back to him. I have to at least try to give him something to come back for," I felt one of those half smiles on my lips, "otherwise he may not want to leave Tannis' tender loving care and come home." We still knelt hand in hand. The gentle squeezes and the whisper light stroking of our palms would have to replace our silent communication here in my eternal night. How I missed that eye contact. Words were so clumsy. "Thank you... for coming. It was so long I thought... I thought I was trapped here. I may still be. What if they catch me again? They may kill me this time. If they do..." She tightened her grip on my hand. Despite the coolness of the evening her skin was damp. "Don't you dare let them do that. Get out. Don't think about anything else." I look off towards the 'boys' but my eye is caught by the mass of the Compound again. "Wait, Scully. Before we go I have to say this. If the worst happens and you have to return without me, he'll be there. He'll need to know the truth. I know you'll get him through it." I found my mouth too dry to speak but this needed saying. She needed to go on without grief or guilt. " Eventually, he's going to expect -" Her voice is the barest whisper. "- intimacy?" Damn, I couldn't get the word out but she could. "Don't think about me. You must do what feels right -" She put a hand over my mouth. Very soft. "Stop. Absolutely none of that. You ARE coming back and you're bringing Sara with you and we all are going home to where we belong." "Hey, Mulder," Langly's voice called out quietly, sounding more than a little mystified about what the two of us were doing alone in the shadows for so long, "I don't what to put the nix on any extracurricular activities but you'd best wrap up whatever you're doing. We're about ready." No more time. One last squeeze and we each loosened our hands until only our fingertips touched. Too quickly even that contact had to be broken. I made a move to stand. Instinctively, she tried to help but I nearly pulled her over. Ellie is not as strong as Scully. "I wish I was going with you," she said as I threw back half a dozen Advil and washed them down with water from my water bottle. "Not nearly as much as I do. She may not come quietly." "If there is any of me left, then use reason and you'll convince her," my Scully assured me but with not quite as much confidence as I would have liked. Who knew better how stubborn Dana Scully could be. "On the other hand, you can always make an exception for once and turn on the charm. I know you have it in you." Before I could respond she gently pushed me in the direction from where I'd heard Langly's voice. "Go on, you're keeping the boys waiting." That sounded like a command, sounded wonderful. It was hard to breathe suddenly as if an elephant was sitting on my chest. For some reason the emotions of all those long months came rushing back at once. The despair... The loneliness... The hopelessness. From behind me, fading with the distance, came her voice, breaking only a little as she added, "Just remember to come back all in one piece. I didn't go to all this trouble to go home empty handed." Home. How were we ever going to manage that miracle? I had no idea but we would. Somehow. End of Chapter 14 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (15a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 15a: Sara I, Dana Scully, M.D., Ph.D., have managed to make it to the bathroom in time for once. Not a very graceful performance though, I'm sorry to say. How I hate this. Still there is something about leaning over the white throne and feeling your stomach struggle to turn itself inside out which equalizes us all. Dry heaves this time, thank goodness, but reminds me that I've skipped too many meals again. No wonder I'm light headed. I think I'll just sit here for a few minutes and take inventory on how well Housekeeping is cleaning the gunk from the corners and the soap scum from the shower walls. I have to remind myself that I live a life of luxury. I don't have to clean my own bathroom. I'm a star. Well, I used to be. Now I'm sick and I'm dizzy and I want this to all be over. All of it. Damn them but they are monsters! But then if they are then I guess I'll have to damn myself as well. Plenty of innocent blood - both red and green - to go around. How could I be a party to this? But I have been. My hands are stained with the misery of many. Louis tried to tell me. Not straight out, of course, he was understandably wary, but now I know what he was getting at with his pointed little asides. They are people, those poor things in the tanks. People. Not prisoners or 'volunteers' for the most part as I was told. True, some are truly sick and these sufferers have no other recourse otherwise their cancer will kill them, but these are few and becoming fewer all the time. The vast majority are 'political' prisoners who never did anything to deserve this. In particular there was one... Oh... God.... I lean over the basin again, gagging. I think I may have lost my tonsils that time. The porcelain is cool and I'm sweating and shivering at the same time. I make it to the sink on my knees and wash out my mouth, splash water on my face and wash my hands. That's better. I should go back to bed but the bedroom is too far away. I turn off the bathroom light and sink down onto the soft pile of the small oval rug which sits in front of the sink. I'm still cold so I pull a dry bathsheet down from the towel rack and drape it over my shoulders. If the pattern continues as it has, I'll feel better in fifteen, twenty minutes. Maybe then I'll try to make it back to my bed though what I'll do there I don't know. Try to sleep I suppose though it's unlikely that I'll succeed. The nightmare woke me up to begin with and it's still with me. Can't read because it's 2 a.m. in the morning and it raises suspicion if your light is on for too long at such an hour. They watch. I have come to realize that they have always watched only I know it now and so it has become intolerable. I wrap my arms about my knees. I'm warmer now and this little impersonal room feels safer than most places. For one, there is no monitor. For two, I'm less likely to find any ghosts here. Who ever heard of a ghost haunting a bathroom? But, his ghost has got to be here in this apartment somewhere. Got to be. He lived in these rooms with me for two years. With me. For two years. Together. One life... one bed. THAT bed where I have brought - I have to stop thinking about this. It wasn't my fault. I didn't know. They LIED to me. But why then does the guilt tear so. It's not as if I can even remember him. Ugh! I've lost it again. I'm back with the tile cutting grooves into my knees, the sick sweat cold on my face. Please God, just let me die. Why did I harden my heart against everything Louis tried to tell me? Besides encouraging me to think of the incubants as individuals, as people, he had another reason. He asked me questions. Silly, insignificant, disjointed questions but I know now what he was trying to do. He wanted to see if I could remember anything personal from before the accident. The 'accident'. What a joke. I can remember nothing of course. There is nothing left to remember. There had been brain damage from the automobile accident or so they had told me. Even now I think about how very kind all the doctors and nurses and therapists were during my recovery. So understanding with my panic about my blank, white page of a life. While in their kindness they retrained my body they also filled my mind, giving me all the fairy tale memories and stories I needed to replace the missing ones. I came to trust that the stories they gave me were truly mine and why shouldn't I? The medical staff had never given me any reason to feel other than grateful for all their kindness. They saved my life. They were my friends. They were such good people. Such good people would never lie to me. Only they did lie. It is all a lie what I carry around within me. What do you believe when everything you know is a lie? Only very recently have I learned part of the truth, or what I think is the truth. After I was released from the Compound's small hospital I returned immediately to my work - or what they told me was my work. It must have been my work once. So many notes and journals are in my own handwriting, years of them, and I know so much about my patients - both human and partially alien - and about the ecosystem of the incubants in their tanks. I didn't even have to be taught the right way to hold a scalpel. When I notice that all of the dates in the old journals are more than two years old, I'm told that I was in a coma a long time after the accident. They tell me it's a wonder that I survived at all. It is so rational an explanation and I am so eager to please them that I dug in with convert's energy and determination. Prepare a new alien exudate? Of course. Test it on which subject? Tank 42? Certainly. He is a death row volunteer in any case. All that mattered was the job - to learn all we could learn about the alien faction resisting us. Lies, lies, oh, Blessed Mother, so many lies. Much as I fight, I can feel every moment of that hated morning rushing down on me. No, please, not again. I'm awake and sitting on the floor of my bathroom wrapped in a damned bathsheet, dammit! I'm not in my bed drug by exhaustion into sleep and nightmare. But it's here beside me anyway. I can smell the machine oil from all the equipment, the cleaning fumes, the antiseptic, the slightly ammonia reek of the tank room. I am standing beside Tank 42. I do not look at him. I've never looked at him since that first morning when I came in fresh from the hospital, still limping a little and eager to earn the respect and admiration of all those who helped me so much during my convalescence. I remember a face from that first morning, a handsome face, a fairly young face but not a peaceful one. I remember his body and how it floated. I was astonished by the male beauty of him. So many of the others are old, wasted or hardened by life. I was pleased at the time that he was given to me. Only 42 is beautiful, a dream suspended in amber. But that was then. They kept me busy the days after that. How easily we become desensitized to the anguish around us. How quickly do the patients become subjects and numbers on a chart. This is one reason why I don't look at 42 on this particular morning. My eyes are for the printouts and equipment readings while my mind is looking forward to the cocktail party I have been asked to attend that night. I wonder what I will be given to wear, how I shall smile, whose jokes I will be asked to laugh at. This is the first time that I've been invited. I am nervous and honored. Attendance at such functions is critical for my career here where who you know and who you please is everything. Do I think of the consequences of the experiment I am beginning this morning? No, I do not except in terms of the data I will glean. If only I had looked again at that eerily beautiful figure in all his imposed stillness. Would I have felt some doubt, some warning? I'll never know. I have come to learn that there was something special, almost disturbing about Tank 42. Not a memory but a flurry of activity about him, a wariness whenever his case is mentioned, a motionless silence from the technicians on the floor. A cloud. He is a specimen apart from the others. For one he has been to the tanks before. If only I had heeded Louis that morning, Louis who stood so silently just within my range of vision. He didn't try to stop me but his face was blacker than black with disapproval and an incredible sadness. If only I had looked once more upon my subject, would I have seen how much different he was from the others? No, I don't think so. I doubt anything would have detracted me. I was too full of Them and their agenda. Instead, I took the prepared syringe in my hands. I remember that part like it was yesterday. The instrument was a heavy glass one, the kind you seldom see any more in this age of plastics. Its bore was cool against my fingers even through the glass. I can still feel the resistance on the barrel as I drove the plunger home. Fifty c.c.'s of the most invasive alien structural genes the research group has been able to isolate so far. What will be their effect in a living body? Kill the host? How soon? Or simply 'evolve' this specimen even more completely into one of them than he is already. That is what I will find out over time. That was ten, eleven months ago. With the knowledge that I have now all I want to do is throw up when I remember the misery I begun that morning. How little I considered the effects of my actions and how much my thoughts dwelled upon the evening that would follow. At the end of my half shift that day I was met with all courtesy and escorted from Building One to a little known club the officer's women have in the basement of Building Three. There I was body wrapped and permed, washed and pampered by the group of 'personal attendants' who service all of the Compounds first ladies. I'm given as a gift a little black dress and a string of very expensive pearls and am whisked off to the party as the chosen 'date' of Henson Utag, the Consortia's newest Norwegian representative. He is tall, dark, and lean with a dry wit. Just my type, I'm told. That night Henson Utag slept in my bed and everyone was all smiles for this new dutiful daughter of the Consortia. Everyone but Louis and Grace. Everyone but Tank 42 who twisted in pain all alone as the new poison began hungrily to eat at his remaining human tissue. I wake sweating. I wake with my heart pounding in horror and disgust. I am slumped over my knees on the floor of my bathroom where I have fallen asleep. Oh... Sweet Mary... please make it go away. Please. Please. Please. How much time passed before the three vanished from the tiny circle that had become my life? Six months? I have the records if I want to look them up but I don't dare. I know that enough time passed for my little alien brew to turn Tank 42's beautiful body into a travesty of what it once had been. Long enough for me to acquire a dozen replacements for the little black dress. Long enough for my bed to be warmed by a dozen hand picked 'dates'. Grace and Louis and Tank 42. All gone now. While they were here I did not know how critical they were to my life, how real and solid compared to my smiling but fair-weather friends. While he was here I thought Louis just a competent but pushy engineer. I thought Grace just a busybody, an aging technician, a piece of the furniture. And Tank 42? Nothing but database of figures and a few dozen binders of printouts. Certainly nothing definitive or in any way useful had come out of his treatment. Only a chaos of fused cartilage. A failed experiment. Waste. It was late in the evening. I remember I was in my robe having just come from my bath. I had just checked my schedule for the next day. A meeting with research, a treatment for Tank 6, a new arrival. New arrivals require complete evaluation and there was always the surgery to schedule. It's time consuming. And then there was Tank 42. His placenta continues to fail. Earlier in the morning I gave orders to Louis to begin the hormone treatments which will reject his dying placenta in time for 'birthing' by mid morning. I don't know why we bother. The experiment hasn't gone as planned. In my opinion we should do nothing, just allow the placenta to fail and let him slip away. As professionally detached as I've become, I am well aware of what we have done. Let him die without waking or any additional misery and misery he certainly will feel if he regains consciousness. But Dr. Esaki has told me 'No' in most definitive terms. All resources must be expended to salvage Tank 42. Esaki wants to evaluate the specimen's mental state. Does he honestly think that there will be anything to evaluate? Then the committee will decide the next steps to be taken. I see the black fire in that old devil's eyes, the insane hate. Tank 42 will be allowed 'out' only long enough to heal so that a new placenta can be inserted. Then he'll be sent back in. Seems a waste of time and effort to me. But then maybe it's because I don't want to listen to his scream when he wakes. They echo so in the birthing chamber and I have a feeling that this one will scream louder than most. I've retrieved a book and am on my way to bed when there is a soft knock at my door. Grace of all people at this hour. What does she want now? But her attitude is not that of the almost servant- like technician I have come to expect. She looks both ten years younger and ten years older. Full of life and full of anxiety. She reaches for the sleeve of my robe. Alarmed, I've pulled it away. "Come with me, please," she asks with undisguised urgency. "He's asking for you." "Who's asking for me?" I thought she was referring to one of the doctors. When she didn't come out with an answer right away, I asked, "Grace, do you know what time it is?" She gets hold of my arm on the next attempt. "There's no time, just come." I held back from her, confused by the wildness in her eyes and her manner. "I'm not coming with you until you tell me who needs to see me." She stepped close to me. She is just over my size but the fingers of her hand on my wrist were like iron. "Dana, please. Try to remember. HE needs you, your husband. If ever he needed you, he needs you now." I reared back and in a harsh whisper that matched hers I asked, "Husband? Grace, this is crazy. I'm not married, I've never been married." "You ARE, it's part of the lie. I know how hard it is for you to believe me but there's no time to explain. Think about your life here. Is this a life? You had another, before your accident, but it was nothing like what they've told you. And the accident? Look back at your chart. Those weren't injuries from any automobile accident. You threw yourself from the roof of Building One because you couldn't allow yourself to be taken by them. Only you didn't die. And they did what they swore they would do if ever you were caught again. They took your life from you - your memories of your life before, of us, your husband, your son." She pulled at me but I held fast to the door knob too stunned to move. Husband? Son? She's talking nonsense. I am Dana Scully, I have an M.D. with a Ph.D. in Internal Medicine. My father and mother were members of the consortia until their deaths at the hands of resistance and I have lived my life within this family. What makes her think that I will go anywhere with a mad woman. "Grace, you're obviously distressed about something. I think the best thing is for you to get out of here - now - before I call Security." 'Distressed' is not a strong enough word for what I saw on her face. "Oh, Dana," she nearly sobbed, "I don't want to leave you here. Trust me. Come with us." But she must have seen the hard glint in my eyes and knew it was useless. "At least think about what I've said. Look at your chart. Find your records. Find HIS. If you need anyone to talk to after we're gone contact the first incubant you ever treated. He can help. He can see that someone comes for you, only, please, don't betray him and don't betray us." She turns to fly out my door, glancing my way for a moment only at the last. "I only hope that if you decide you want out that you'll hurry. He's going to miss you so." And then she was gone. I was confused after she left, confused but also angry and more than a little frightened and frightened people do things they shouldn't. I called Security. I only called to report that Technician Grace Bastian was behaving erratically. I only wanted her stopped. I couldn't conceive of her or anyone WANTING to leave. The fences were here to keep the others out and, of course, our secrets in. What she had babbled had sounded like escape. I only wanted her restrained for her own good and so I could talk with her again. I thought they would just hold her for observation, treat her for stress. It's an occupational hazard here considering what we see and what we do. I didn't wonder at the time why the lower six inches of her skirt was wet. I slept poorly that night, disturbed by all my visitor had said. It was madness, I told myself, except that there were disturbing parts which did ring true. I always knew that the pattern of my injuries was odd for a traffic accident though if you work in medicine long enough you see everything. The most inexplicable was the cranial incision. It was too regular to have been made to repair a fracture, too large and oddly placed to have been made to relieve pressure. In the morning I inquired after her and that was when I heard the whispered stories for the first time. Astonishingly, they were not all about poor Grace. Sometime in the middle of the night, ten hours before he was scheduled to do so, Louis, the lord of the tank room, had taken Tank 42 to the 'birthing' pool to spew his lungs out. No doctor had been in attendance. I immediately realized that Louis must have triggered the placenta 'failure' himself. In order to move up the birthing time by nearly half a day and still expect to have something viable, he must have also falsified the records and started the hormone treatments early. Louis had then left the Compound, heaven knows how, taking the newly reborn incubant with him. Inconceivable and futile. The big technician could only have escaped on foot and it was November. His frail and wasted 'newborn' surely must have died within hours. Then I remembered the condition of Grace's dress. No, Louis had not been alone. She must have helped, her visit to me an impulse after the fact. That impulse turned out to be fatal. Security caught up with her within minutes of my call. She was taken to one of receiving rooms, the one equipped with heavy locks. Within an hour after she had refused to divulge any information as to Louis's destination they had prepped her for emergency surgery. She would be implanted with a placenta of her own. I was horrified. Even taking into account her betrayal, to send one of our own to the tanks? But then I thought, no, they're not serious. Not at her age. It's just a threat. Pressure to get her to talk, to tell where Louis was headed. Of course, that's all it is. Only hours later, whispered furtively from mouth to mouth, I heard she is dead. She had been left alone for a moment - thought too groggy from the pre-op medication to get into trouble. In the 'sharps' waste she found a syringe from which someone had failed to clip the needle. She injected air into her own veins. And I am left bereft with a thousand questions and no one I can ask for answers. The guilt of Grace's death has left me numb but just as disturbing is that one cry of hers that keeps echoing in my head - 'He's asking for you.' Who's asking? Who needs me? No one NEEDS me here, not in the way she used the word. I remember sitting alone at breakfast, coffee going cold between my hands as my brain whirled. The concern, the frantic caring in Grace's voice that night made it clear that it was someone for whom she felt a deep affection but though I have acquaintances, even friends, I realized with a sudden emptiness that there was no one for whom I feel such a strong emotion and no one feels so for me. Whoever it was, Grace risked and lost her life to try to bring me to him. This supposed 'husband' from my past? Louis? Surely not. And then I knew. The styrofoam cup collapsed from the pressure of my hands, coffee flew everywhere. Tank 42. Dr. Esaki, the division head, had been so insistent that I use Tank 42 for the most radical of all of the experiments. That gentle, sad face flashed back to me, that beautiful body and then, interposed upon that image, Tank 42 as I had so recently seen him. Even deeply comatose, that same face now twisted in agony, that same body now arthritically crippled in the worst way from my gentle ministrations. When his placenta began to fail I had urged Esaki to let him die. I thought it would be kinder. Leaving the splattered coffee, I walked - no, I nearly ran - to the records room. Guiltily, I realized that I did not even know Tank 42's name. I had never even bothered to ask. And there it was in black and white. 'F.Mulder' but very little else other than my status reports on the recent experiments. There must be more, there must be! Surely there were research records from his first trip to the tank. Only if what Grace tried to tell me was true then those have certainly been purged. What was left? Not much but there was one oddness - though I'm single my apartment is a double. I had never questioned that. Now I remembered that once when I felt particularly lost and depressed during my recovery one of the nurses who was brushing my hair at the time told me not to worry, that they had held my old apartment for me. So at one time there had been a reason for me to have a double and I had never asked why. It was another lead, but now where? Days later I found it in the commissary records. The 'smoking gun' as it is sometimes referred to. I had just purchased a few groceries when I remembered a meeting I was late for. There was no time to take my purchases up to my apartment. "No problem," the clerk told me and entered my name and residence ID - Block D, Apartment 4C - into his computer, tagged my parcel and had it delivered. Not such a big deal except that this particular little database hadn't been purged in years and was completely open to just about anyone with any kind of a security clearance. That afternoon from a dark cubicle in the library I tapped in. Three years back I found my name several times and then between two of my entries I found what I feared I would find - 'F.Mulder; Block D, apartment 4C.' I remember stumbling outside into the blinding winter sun unable to see. What should I do now? There wasn't much going on in my mind which made sense but one thing I was certain of - I didn't want to end up like Grace. To prevent that I would have to keep up my act. I don't know how I knew this. Between Buildings One and Three, my vision cleared just enough for me to see a section of the high perimeter fence through the autumn-bare branches. And I had been told that the fence kept us safe. At that moment I wanted to just start walking and keep walking. I knew, however, that if I tried I wouldn't get very far. Instead, after only a minute or so of hesitation, which I hoped was not too obvious, I headed for my next appointment, an autopsy. I don't like autopsies but on this afternoon I was grateful for the quiet and the solitude. It was there that a desperate idea came to me. Before I began, while the room was still plunged in darkness so that I could load the X-ray plates, I set the X-ray machine on an extra long delay, slid up quietly on the clean, cold metal of the table and took an exposure of my own pelvis. That wait for the autopsy to be completed so that I could develop all the plates seemed liked an eternity but by the time I left that day, I had the last piece of information I needed. My official medical records showed that I had never borne a child but the thickening of the cartilage between my pelvic bones and the position of the uterus in my secret X-ray showed every indication that I had carried at least one child to term and had had a normal vaginal delivery. I, Dr. Dana Scully, golden girl of the Experimental Biology department, had refused to believe an aging woman's wild story. Now that woman was dead by her own hand and in a way by mine. Louis, who could have told me the truth, was gone. My 'family' was suddenly populated by people I couldn't trust. I had a child - somewhere - and likely in that same somewhere - and surely near death by now if not dead already - I had a lover, if not a husband, whom I had tortured to that death. So shattered my world, so began the nightmare which has become my life. It was only then that I realized how alone I was. End of chapter 15a ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (15b/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 15b Sara From the moment I read that entry in the commissary database and traced the shadows on my X-ray I struggled to face up not only to what I had done but to what I must continue to do. I knew within a week that I would not be able to return to my old self and my old ways even to save myself. Both waking and sleeping become little more than nightmare. I looked back on my actions through new eyes and I was not proud of what I saw. Some of my work involved legitimate healing - that I still do - but there was much that at best could only be described as amoral, at its worst, as evil. I found I could no longer order the medication or perform the procedures which were for purely experimental or - let me be blunt here - sadistic purposes. Over the weeks, it became more and more difficult to hide my project's lack of progress behind illness, accidents, incompetence and record tampering. All the while I continued to smile and be just like what everyone expected even though I died inside a little more each day. I fooled them for a while but I could not live a lie. I found myself shunning my army of acquaintances who had so enthusiastically befriended me after my recovery. I gave excuses. A headache. Extra work. The turning point came at my next cocktail party. I could sense their eyes on me. My irregular behavior had been noted. I did not sparkle, I did not shine, I did not flirt. My assigned 'date', a visiting Consortia leader as they all were, was annoyed. He was more than annoyed when I did not ask him up to my apartment after he walked me home. The asking in is expected as is the staying over. I am one of his perks. I felt for a moment that he would force his way in and would probably have raped me but instead I found my body moving in ways I never expected - kicking and stamping and stabbing with the automatic responses of a trained soldier. Where had an experimental researcher ever learned self- defense moves like that? It was the beginning of the end. The door to my world began to close. I was asked to no more cocktail parties. I do not need to shun my friends any longer, I am shunned. I am watched. I am no longer trusted. Almost overnight, I learned to see the rot. What I scream into my pillow at night is my despair over how I could have been so blind never to have seen it all before. I make no excuses. So they took part of my brain? Down in the very marrow of my bones I should have known right from wrong. And for all which I have done - especially to Tank 42 who was my husband, my lover, and the father of my child - I can never be forgiven. For weeks I existed like a ghost who had no purpose. I went about the most menial of my tasks without life. They whisper openly now and I no longer care. When the pain and the loneliness and the hopelessness become too great I sometimes wondered if this was all mirrors. Did Grace say what she did just to poison my mind? Had I given up my 'life' because of one old woman's ravings? The findings from the X-ray were 'indicative' only. The 'F. Mulder' entry in the commissary database could have been planted just as a test for me. Grace could have been part of that test, just as surely as Louis and Tank 42 for all I know. Had this all been part of one great test, intended to certify me for greater things, and have I failed? Have I given up my life for nothing? I had only one place to turn. Her last night Grace told me that if I had questions I could turn to the first salvaged incubant I had ever treated. Certainly, she hadn't meant the first one from this life. The survivors I have known in the past months are all pitiful wrecks - truth be told, they were pretty much all pitiful wrecks to begin with - so she must mean from the life before. But I don't know who that was and the records are all closed to me. Then one noontime a month ago, as I was dragging my body through the cafeteria line, a young man nearly bumped into me. He was dark-haired, slender and handsome. His genuine smile warmed, just for a bit, my desolation. He greeted me with honest pleasure. "Dr. Dana, it's been a long time." I studied him desperately but as always there wasn't a flicker of recognition. "Kenneth Lesse," he reminded me, almost bowing. So he has a father who is a Consortia member. So I am no longer impressed with such credentials. What does catch my eye is the olive color of his skin and the special medical alert bracelet on his wrist that only our tool shop makes. He is a hybrid. There aren't that many out and about and never have I met one so highly placed. Because I am almost afraid to hope, I have to force my mouth to open in order to ask, "I'm sorry. As you've probably heard I had an accident and my memory's not what it was. Was I involved in your case once?" His smile is full of sympathy now. "I'm sorry. I did hear about your accident and, yes, we worked very closely for a while. You were, you might say, my 'birth' mother. I was your first success or so I like to boast." Before he can continue someone calls to him. More men in suits. They are frowning. He is being warned off from any contact with me. He nods pleasantly and excuses himself and that is all I am given. All but it is enough. He is the one. A week passed before I had a chance to connect with him again. Good thing the time wasn't longer because I wrapped my carefully composed message to him around a stick of gum and it was getting rather worn-looking riding for so long in the pocket of my lab coat. I managed to slip the gum onto his tray as I leaned in front of him in the cafeteria line to retrieve a carton of yogurt. The message contained a single line. "What is the truth?" The next evening as I emerged from my shower, I found a thin envelop under the door of my apartment. It had not been there ten minutes before. Casually, I went about picking odds and ends off the floor of my apartment. In the process the envelop ended up in the pocket of my robe. I returned to the bathroom. The sound of the water filling the tub masked the sound of my shaking hands as they carefully unsealed the flap. It is a photograph, nothing more. The photograph of a woman and a man. I am the woman. I am in the foreground laughing. A lean, dark-haired man has his arms wrapped around me from behind. He is handsome but in a different way from Kenneth's football hero good looks. He has his own male beauty. He's also about ten years older than Kenneth which would make him just a few years older than me. His face is shown in profile only but even so I pick out the scars and that unique complexion. His expression is a heart-rending mixture of pleasure and sadness. I know this face even though I looked at him closely only once. When I was treating Tank 42 it was common knowledge that this was his second trip to the tanks and that the first time had left him scarred. For two hours, while my skin wrinkled in the cooling water of my bathtub, I stared at that picture desperately willing for some memory to come. I should be able to remember such a day, such happiness, such a person in my life, but there is nothing. There were many tears in that cold bathwater before I left it for my even colder and lonelier bed. That is all of my story until tonight except for one night I will not discuss here because it is too painful. I live for two things now, the picture which I keep in a slit in my mattress and the hope of seeing Kenneth again. This time my message to him will be a cry, "Please, get me out!" Another wave of nausea decides to hit me at that moment. It's mild in comparison to the attacks earlier but reminds me that I have another reason to live, a secret given to me six weeks ago during that night I won't speak of when I crossed that line between research leader and research subject. I pray I can find Kenneth soon because every night, every hour now, I fear they will come and harvest what they have sown. Their research has entered a new phase. They are less enamored of experimenting on adults than they were. There is only so much change possible before the subject succumbs. Now with the young, especially the very young, the effects can be so much more dramatic. If I can't find Kenneth soon, I'm afraid that I must seek other options while I still have the freedom to act. They won't make the mistake with me that they did with Grace. When they realize how completely I have turned from them I will be taken to a closed room and kept pliant with drugs for months or even years or, worse, maybe put into the tanks myself. I will not let it come to that. I have a little arsenic which I took from the lab early on. To end this hell to embrace another does not take so very much and is relatively painless. The only decision I have left to me is when to do it. Maybe tonight. Maybe now. I only wish... I only wish that before I died I could remember the dark-haired man in the picture who looks both so happy and so sad. End of Chapter 15b ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (16a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 16a: Sara I think I must have fallen asleep again because the next thing I know I am still on the floor of my dark bathroom. The difference is that my heart is pounding, pounding, pounding even though the rest of me is frozen into stillness. A sound at my front door woke me, a soft sound, the click of the lock. It opens. I know that sound. I continue to sit perfectly still. The door closes as quietly. I hear the metallic whisper as the dead bolt is turned from the inside. I am no longer alone. Who is here? I'm not the only one who has a key. Housekeeping does, Facilities, Security, of course. But no one should be here at this hour and no one has any reason to move with such stealth. Whoever it is, it must be someone with a very high security clearance because the computer has sent me no warning of any unauthorized person. It must be Security then. They can go anywhere at any time. Still, it is odd especially because Security has no need for silence. Whoever it is doesn't even turn on the light. Somehow I get my legs under me and use the counter to help me stand. This pins and needles feeling in my feet had better not last long. The belt of my long terry cloth robe needs tightening but even that sound I dare not risk. The only thing I can think of is that they've come for me and that they feel they need to catch me unawares to keep me from making a scene. There are still no lights. Have I waited too long? I will not be one of their experiments. The little vial of white powder is in an envelope in my night stand. It may be my last act but at least it will be mine. If I leave the bathroom now, if I act as if I suspected nothing, I think they will let me get as far as the drawer. It's not as if I'm were trying to escape, at least not in the way they think. That is what I'll do. First, I closed the bathroom door and turned on the light. Then I flushed the toilet and ran a little water in the sink. I'll leave the light burning when I go out but close the door most of the way. They may not need light but I do so there's no fumbling when I get to my bedside. I listen. Still no footsteps. Where are they? I am so accustomed to being alone now that I can almost hear the breathing of another person, however, I have no sense of this one. Once in the hallway I step to my right towards the bedroom. My back, which is towards the living room where I assume my visitor still is, is unprotected but I force myself to move as if I suspected nothing. Ten steps to the night table now. Eight. I will not let them stop me. The killing and the hurting must stop here at least with me! I'm now inside the bedroom. Four steps is all I need but just then a darkness comes up behind me. There is an arm around my throat. It's tight enough to prevent speech but not enough to strangle. How did they get in here so quietly! I have been pulled up tight against the figure of a man, a tall man with a lean, hard strength. I go dead still in his arms. It occurs to me that I really have no idea what's going on. Now more than ever I realize that this cannot be Security. They have no reason to apply such methods. When people cry out here no one will come to your aid. I only realized that after Grace's visit. He seems to sense that I'm not going to struggle. He whispers, "Are you going to scream?" His is a - soft voice. Smooth. Tense but not menacing. Though not able to move much, I shake my head enough to get my point across. I will not scream unless he gives me cause. I have no reason to. He loosens the pressure on my throat just a little. I croak, "Have you come to kill me?" It takes a second for him to respond as if my question surprises him. "Why would you think so?" "I have reasons." Before he can stop me, I've reached out with my free hand and find the wall switch which turns on the dim closet light. At the same time I turn in his arms and stare up at him. My visitor has made no attempt to prevent any of this. As I thought, his is a good lean build looking even more svelte thanks to the black outfit he wears like a second skin. Even his face is blackened. I'm facing a guerilla warrior. Most surprising of all is the bulky glasses he wears over his eyes. These prevent me from seeing much of his features. I assume they're some kind of night- vision glasses. They have that military look to them. "If you're not an assassin, then have you come to rescue me?" That stops him again. I can't even hear his breath when I could before. He's not entirely cool though. He's standing so close I sense a slight tremor from his body. "Actually, I've come to kidnap you. Do -" he hesitates. "Do I still need to do that or are you trying to tell met that you'll come voluntarily?" "Depends on who you are. I've got enemies I don't even know about yet." I can't believe I'm playing this cat and mouse but I think it's necessary. It's almost like a code. Ground rules. I reach up to remove the glasses which he shouldn't need now. He is definitely not Compound Security. He raises a hand to help me, releasing my left side. I'm surprised that the spectacles are attached to his temples with thin wires. He groans slightly as he slides them onto the top of his head like sunglasses. The eyes blink unfocused right above my head. My heart stops. Never, never, in all of my fantasies over the past months had I ever dreamed of this. Beneath the blackening I KNOW that face. I've stared at it for weeks in the photograph. I've seen it, though much distorted, in the tank room videos. The blind eyes are about as subtle as a hammer thrust but still confirmation of what I already know. Silken voice faltering, he asks, "Do you remember me?" What I would give to be able to say in all sincerity that I did, but at the very least I owe him the truth. "I'm sorry, I don't." Then I add quickly, "But I know who you are. I'm told that a long time ago we used to... mean something to each other." His released breath drifts across my face. He's a hybrid through and through. It's not a bad scent but a unique one. "That will have to be close enough," he says as if he's decided that I can be trusted. I've noted the tranquilizer gun even though he hasn't touched it. For my own good he would have taken me unwilling. That's so romantic that if the situation weren't still so serious I would have kissed him. "Can you leave now?" he asks. I know what's under my bathrobe. I'm wearing a thigh length T- shirt and that is all. "I think I should dress first. It is the middle of the night." He gets the idea. A slight smile comes to his lips. "Sorry. Just hurry." I can strip rapidly. Med School internship was useful for something - if I ever even went to Med School. I don't even know that for certain any longer. Only a leftover wave of nausea makes me waver for a moment. He takes my hesitation for something else. "Would you like me to turn around?" he asked wryly. I drop my gaze. Even though I had no part in causing that particularly cruel and totally unnecessary mutilation, my guilt is almost too painful to bear. "I'm fine. It's not that." As I rapidly slide jeans on over my slim hips, bonier than they had been two months ago, he turns anyway to face the dark hallway and pulls the heavy glasses back down over his eyes. His breath catches. Awkwardly, I ask in the same hushed voice we had been using all along, "Can you really see with those?" A shrug. "Some, though it's not so much like seeing as a projection of memories, but of experiences I never had. At least I won't run us into any walls." I pull a sweater down over my head. The device hurts him. That much has been obvious from the first. "You don't have to worry about that. I can help now." I can't see his eyes any longer but by the way he is biting that full lower lip I can tell he is troubled. "Don't you trust me?" His head comes up. Something about my words clearly hit a nerve. "Do I have reason to?" That hurts. "Touche. I could tell you that I've seen the light though I'd still have to prove that. I just regret it took so long." The silence that follows this omission is awkward. "I'm almost ready," I add to reassure him as I tie on my most comfortable running shoes. He waits impatiently and when I'm finally ready I precede him towards the front door. I take nothing from here. There is nothing I want... except. I run past him back into the bedroom and search under the mattress for the slit and draw out a well fingered and water-spotted photograph. He stops me at the front door. There is a look around his expressive mouth, the look of someone who sees potential trouble ahead. "Why did you think at first that I was someone sent to kill you? Who did you expect?" "They don't trust me anymore, the ones who run this place. I expect them to come for me but really not to kill. They have other plans." I reached for the door knob but he held me back with a strong hand on my arm. "In the middle of they night? What plans?" "I don't think I want to go into that right now." "I need to know. It may affect our escape and I for one do not want to be caught here again." "Really, they're unlikely to come tonight, it's more than a week too early." He is not smiling. "You really don't trust me, do you?" The set of his jaw says no, the slightest quiver of his lips says maybe. "What if I told you that there's something we need to do before we go, that you left something behind before?" "I'd ask what," He said, suspiciously. Just coming out with it will be faster than this game we've been playing. I tell him all in halting whispers. If there had been enough light in the room and his skin hadn't been darkened, I'm certain that I would have seen him blush. It is a flash of anger that whips out though, "Louis said he destroyed all the samples which weren't couriered out!" "Most were but Dr. Esaki kept a small private stock." "How small?" "Just a milliliter or so, but as you know a little can go a long way." A muscle leaps on his right cheek. "Have they used any?" I feel the warmth, the guilt, spread up my neck and I'm relieved that he isn't able to see it. "Just once." A suppressed "Damn them!" burst out of him, quiet but intense. Instinctively, I put a restraining hand on his arm. He pulled his arm away with a jerk. I didn't realize then how painfully familiar my gesture had been. "Don't worry, it's well protected," I tell him. He stops breathing as I take his warm hand and place it gently on my abdomen. When he doesn't speak for the shock, I add quickly, "It wasn't my decision, you know." His voice is barely the whisper of his previous words. "It isn't that. Did they DO anything to it?" So that is his fear. He has every right to be afraid. So am I. "They thought I was drugged past hearing but I wasn't. I heard - and felt - just about everything. That's why I know they haven't done anything to affect it - not yet. But soon they will. That's who I expected. I thought they had come to take it. 'After the first trimester' I heard them say which is why I said they'd be early if they came tonight. But they will come and once this one is in their hands then they'll do it all over again. Earlier and earlier. A whole host of monsters -" For the tears in my eyes I didn't see his hand coming or the finger tip that comes to rest lightly on my lips to still the panicked words from coming faster and faster. Slowly, he takes me into his arms, not like a lover, like a friend, but still it feels so right. Not anything like any of those other men. At the thought I nearly melt into the floor for shame. His heart is thrumming warm and sweet just under my ear. He smells sharply of good male sweat and that alien spice, and his body is strong and steady. I'm relieved to realize that I could get used to this. He pulls away first, almost embarrassed. "It seems we need to talk, but not now. We have to hurry. You're right - it seems I do have some unfinished business here." End of Chapter 16a ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (17/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 17a: Mulder "Mulder, are you all right?" asks a voice to my right which I barely recognize. I know the tone and the cadence, however, and my heart literally leaps. Scully. Her fingers are intertwined with mine. "Mulder?" This second voice coming from my left is more familiar in one way, completely foreign in another. Scully's voice has never sounded that hurt and betrayed. Boy, am I in trouble now. Groaning, I make it to my knees and gently shake away both these women as I turn towards the fire. The inferno roars like a horrible wind. Every building within the Compound must be engulfed by now. Even from this distance the heat warms my face and the exposed skin of my neck and hands. The buildings groan and wail and crash as they fall. So is destroyed my prison, my nightmare and my hell. In the basement of Building One the poor incubants are boiling in their tanks. Dying. Is this what they would have wished? At least there is no pain. There were definitely times when I would not have minded this end for myself. But then there were other times... Life is so addictive. On the subject of life, I reach into my pocket and feel the tiny vial. It's now well thawed. At least Joseph won't have to worry about where it is. I hand it to Sara and hear her giving it to one of the boys for safekeeping. They'll have a first aid kit and some cold packs someplace. Maybe none of the little guys will be viable after all this but last time I heard there was more sample preserved at the Center from before Joseph's cancer so future generations of Mulders in this world are safe. I'm still turned to the heat when there is one final, tremendous explosion. I'd not expected it. I stagger backwards but not so much from the blast and the heat. I am shocked because at the height of the explosion and noise - I see light in my head. Light? Diffuse but definitely light. And in color no less, yellow and orange and red, the colors of flame. And there is no pain like the kind my now-molten scanner gave me. As the glorious colors fade and go out I hear a whimper that must be from me. I realize that the heat and the roar of the flames had risen and fallen with the light, just as the explosion-sired fireball violently lives its short life and dies as it ravages its fuel. Sara must have interpreted my inarticulate sounds because she is soon all over me, efficiently demanding that someone hand her a flash light. She gets one from some helpful soul and I can feel her face in front of mine as she peers into my eyes. I DO see the flickering beam - a tiny white pinprick - and this is as a mind- blowing an experience for my colleagues as it is for me. For my colleagues? No, for my friends. "Alien hormones have great recuperative powers," Sara announces unable to keep the excitement and relief from her voice. "It certainly took long enough for your optic nerves to throw off the paralysis from the toxins but it seems like they're finally beginning to. Now we only need to get some replacement corneas for the scarred bits..." She is relieved to have something to do. She is in her element. Alien-hybrid medicine. She is not just a refugee without skills or purpose in a potentially hostile world. She has lost the home her enemies gave her and has no memory or any other but I can tell that she is clinging to the promise of one which once existed. What is frightening is that a very large part of that promise hinges on Joseph and that puts me - as his surrogate - in a very uncomfortable position. It's terrifying to think of a mind as sharp as Scully's making those kinds of plans for me. Joseph, you know that I don't want to hurt Sara but I don't want to hurt Scully even more. I can sense Ellie standing off to the side. She is being ignored by everyone almost like one of the hired help and that I find intolerable. A few moments later, however, when Sara in her Dr. Dana role is otherwise occupied, I feel a furtive light touch on my back. Scully's just letting me know that she's okay with this. She knows that Sara needs to fuss, to feel useful. She also knows that Sara can do more to help Joseph's body than she can. Without warning the depth of this woman's heart overwhelms me. If I weren't on my guard, I'd be at serious risk of describing this blissful emotion with a certain four-letter word that I never allow myself to use. It's fortunate that I can't do anything about this feeling at the moment or I might do or say something I'd regret. Then again, maybe it's not so fortunate. I think I'd much rather handle a single interpersonal crisis with Scully than be forced to deal with this multitude of current problems. The three - or rather four - of us are still essentially stranded. Scully and I have done our part. Scully saved my life and got me out of my corporeal prison. With a little help from my friends I got Sara out of her physical one. She was lost but willing to be found. A sharp pain low on my right side where I might have cracked a rib reminds me that Joseph's body is, if not in the best shape, at least a damn sight better than it was when I found it. We are finished here, I realize wearily. Sara needs Joseph now. She needs someone to tell her stories about all she can no longer remember, someone who spent years with her building a past and planning a future. I don't have years to build an entire history in the air for her. At least I certainly hope I don't. She belongs to another whose life I have only borrowed, a life I tried to redeem when the burden became too great for poor Job. True, my intervention was involuntary but I still did my best. It's the least I could do for causing this hell to begin with. I guess what we all really need just now is another miracle. * * * * * * * * Chapter 17b: Tannis I don't like sleeping in chairs, I always get a crick in my neck, but the tent floor is damp October earth so I let my neck hang loose and I do sleep a little. Eli is sitting at my feet leaning against my legs with his head resting on his raised knees. I fancy he'd rather be curled in my lap in his more familiar form but now is not the time. It's Eli who wakes me. His head jerks up. Trembling with anticipation, he rises to his feet with his sinewy grace. I read it all from his mind in one sweeping image. I see the burning mountaintop and the figures watching it from the edge of the forest beyond both the light and the twisted remains of a broad, imposing fence. I see Ellie/Dana whom I've come to know so very well. She's a center of calm. I hope Dana will forgive us from preventing her from deducing the true location of Mulder's soul all these weeks but it was necessary for all to come full circle. I see Kenneth - now there's a handsome and unattached hunk. I see the 'boys'. Frohike and Langly are high-fiving it while Byers watches more sardonically from the sidelines. I see Sara - fire smudged and dirty but so strong. I even sense the new life in her. I also see how cruelly she is starving for all the parts of her life which have been stolen from her. Lastly, there is Mulder. He's harder to see because of his darkness and not all of the darkness is part of his outfit. He's utterly exhausted. His aura is dim but, I'm glad to say, quite healthy. What to him has been months of silent torture have burned away the devil's curse. Sometimes, even in this life there is mercy. He is waiting, Dana is waiting, Sara is waiting, though for what she does not know. One left. Joseph has heard Eli's sudden movement and raises his head from the cot's thin pillow. He still clasps Dana's body which has been resting coma-like in his arms ever since Eli and Ellie made the bridge to ferry Dana's soul across. I could not think of a safer place for that slight form or a more conscientious caretaker. Over the hours of alternating periods of sleep and lethargic wakefulness, Joseph's muscles have relaxed so he is far from the twisted creature he was when we first met. This is fortunate because the body he is returning to is mobile now. He also realizes he can hear. That's been coming back slowly. Even now his head is cocked towards the Colman lantern amazed that he can hear the hissing of the mantle as it burns. He doesn't see its light, however. I bound his eyes tightly just after Dana left. It would be cruel to restore his sight here and then take it away. It pleases me more than I can say that at least some recovery is on the horizon in that respect as well. I move my chair closer and sit beside the cot, Eli at my elbow. Joseph is as wary as a wild animal. I don't know what he thinks about where he is. Some kind of prisoner in a benevolent prison, I suppose. He's been very quiet. But I can sense him taking it in, analyzing every movement and sound, even to the coarseness of the weave on the wool blanket one of the party-goers lent us. "What now?" he asks with apprehension. "Time to go." Reflexively, he clutches Dana's slight body tighter as if afraid she's going to be taken from him. She sighs a little in response but not in protest. "Be calm. No one will hurt you or her." "Go where?" "Back to where you belong." Seconds passed as I let that sink in. It's amazing how much we depend on a person's eyes to read the currents of their soul. If I could have seen his now, they would have been swirling with suspicion and fear. It's the fear I can smell as I did with Mulder's back when he first faced the Old One. This is not an auspicious sign because I can do nothing without the cooperation of all the participants. "I know it's hard but you have to trust me," I say to him, but I see no easing of either his suspicion or his fear. Could I blame him? 'Back' to him can only mean to a world where he is crippled and deaf, a world without a certain small, fearless helpmate who he now believes he safekeeps in his arms. "Joseph... Mulder, whatever name you're most comfortable with - admit to yourself what you already know to be true - that this is not your Sara. I need you to do this." I see a hand contract experimentally on her shoulder, a long finger hesitantly caress her cheek. Something changes in the shape of his mouth almost as if there were tears that must be held in. He gestures down to the woman in his arms. "Then who is -" "That I can't tell you. In fact there aren't many of your questions I can answer other than your Sara is waiting for you. In fact, she needs you more than she ever has. I can also promise you that there have been a lot of improvements to your own status since you left. I think you'll be rather pleased." If only I could have seen his eyes at that moment. He looked down out of habit at the woman in his arms. I sense that he is reviewing every word she said when she found him in the field and all I've said since, but more than anything, the very feel of her. Ultimately, she is the key, I've always known that. What finally tips the scales I'll never know - there must be something un-Sara- like about her. All I do know is that a few long seconds later he relaxes his embrace, reaches out, and, with a composed face, unerringly grasps my hand. That is enough. * * * * * * * * Chapter 17c: Dana I've never waited well. I don't know what I would have done if I had been born in the years before women's liberation. Donned men's breeches and marched off to war beside my brother or father, I suppose. Certainly any husband would never have allowed it. Thus you can understand how I felt about being left behind to cool my heels while Mulder walked all alone into that nest of vipers. I about gnawed Ellie's lower lip raw. I definitely wore of path between Frohike's command set up and a particular cluster of scrub oaks. This spot, twenty feet inside the tree line, was the closest approach to the Compound which the boys considered safe. I have seldom felt so helpless. All I had to hold onto were the count of the minutes that ticked by with no alarms raised. Only so long as the silence continued could I allow myself to believe that all was well. When the alarms finally did go off - the combination of which sounded like an ambulance siren had mated with an air raid horn - I thought I had lost it all. Not only Joseph and Sara's future, but Mulder's and mine as well. Very quickly it became evident that these wailing, hooting sirens signaled no simple security breech. This could only be a diversion of some mammoth proportions. And there was no doubt in my mind about who had concocted it. Mulder has seldom been accused of subtlety. In addition to the three people we waited for, I began worrying about our own safety when the guys started passing each other worried glances. I reassured myself that much of their anxiety came from the fact that they had not been battle tested in the field all that many times. Then Frohike got on the security radio and called Skinner. At the sound of Skinner's worried voice my knees went for a moment weaker than I'd ever admit to Mulder. How I wanted Skinner and his team here but they were fifteen long minutes away and, considering the Compound's current state of alarm, they'd have to approach with far more caution than before. All we could do in the meantime was keep close watch on the gap in the fence which Mulder would aim for and hope. Considering the clusters of panicked staff running here and there across the Compound grounds, I guess it's not surprisingly that we didn't see them coming until they were within a few yards of the fence. By that time they were unmistakable - three across, two tall and one almost a head shorter. I'll give Mulder credit, the figure I pulled out of the hole under the fence looked like hell. How can a man get so messed up in such a short time? He was filthy, he limped slightly, the absurdly expensive laser glasses were gone, one arm supported what must have been a damaged rib cage and there was a jagged wounds on either side of his head near the implants. Blood had run down the sides of his face and neck and then dried. But for all that he could still run. In fact he was the one who half dragged me away from the fence with a harsh inarticulate warning. Whether I understood the words or not it didn't matter. The tone of his voice was enough. I hate to think about the loss of life in that compound after that first series of explosions. Sara followed very quickly. Being side by side with Sara disturbed me more than I can say. Oh, she had clearly appreciated being rescued, but I found myself being more than a little offended by the frightened expression in her eyes. There was also the ownership with which she regarded Mulder. The jealously in her eyes as she saw how I took his arm would have curdled milk. But could I blame her? Hadn't I felt the same about Dr. Bambi and Detective White? It wasn't easy for Mulder either. From the tension in his posture, he didn't want to hurt her any more than I did. Hardest for me was having to hang back and watch as Sara ran to catch him as he staggered back unexpectedly from that last great explosion. You heard no complaints from me a few seconds later, however, when she announced that he could see! Maybe at this stage it was just intense light and colors but it was a start and I was happy to agree with Sara on her optimistic prognosis. Afterwards, Ellie chuckled somewhere deep down. <> <> They? Which they? Sara is standing by Mulder's shoulder, her eyes too bright. There are tears not so far below the surface. Since she is clearly bewildered by Joseph's coolness, I deduce that it's Sara's aid that Ellie means for me to come to. This will also help Mulder who, in addition to dirt and blood, is wearing an expression of helpless desperation. This tension can't last. There is no recognition in her eyes for Frohike or Byers or Langly or even for Mulder though she still treats him like they're on a first date or something. It's obvious, however, that she's found out about the marriage. I put an arm around her shoulders intending to draw her away and expecting resistance but it's Ellie who acts by pulling out her trump card. Doors, pathways in Ellie's mind open. There's power here which I never suspected, not in all the weeks we've been 'together'. And in that opening I feel such an outpouring of grief and guilt and utter wretchedness. But this unhappiness is not Ellie's, it's from Sara. The incredible hope that her husband's sight might return has forced her to remember how he had lost it in the first place and the part she was forced to play in causing so much of his suffering. "It wasn't your fault," I tell her out loud though I know that she's unlikely to be comforted by any words of mine. At that moment I feel a unsteady touch on my hair and a breath against my ear. Mulder has bent down. "We're both here," he whispers only to me. In his unsteady voice there is both awe and an incredible distress. I don't understand what he's talking about and then it hits. Mulder AND Joseph. Together in one place at one time? I pity Mulder having to be in contact with that tortured soul. They'd always passed each other before as in a dream. <> This comes from Ellie. <> That is when I feel a certain quicksilver laugh that is nothing anyone not connected to Ellie could hear. <<>> <> I'm blessed with an echo of that laugh again, then a hand tightens on my shoulder, as if its owner needs to reassure himself. At the very end a light kiss brushes my cheek. Before I'm given a chance to fully appreciate that bright mind, its shimmer - ghostlike - disappears leaving - emptiness. <> Before there is time to ask further, I'm distracted. Between one breath and the next the man at my side - changes. The affect is almost physical as Joseph settles back into his much changed 'home'. His body straightens slowly from the posture Mulder had assumed when he bent down to kiss my cheek. His head turns slightly, as he tests his blindness. He clears his throat as if he just needs to hear that sound. Then he shakes himself all over very slightly, almost like a dog, checking that everything works. So he's a bit bedraggled at the moment and certainly exhausted but I know that this body is in far better condition than he remembers. And finally I sense him shift his weight - a small effort - but decidedly away from me and towards Sara. Which is as it should be. His hands come to rest on her shoulders. The gesture turns her towards him. Though Mulder had been nothing but kind, he had given this lost woman little to no encouragement, so she is reserved at first. But soon she senses the change, there is real tenderness in his touch, in his face unconditional acceptance. Her face brightens with surprise and pleasure at his unspoken invitation. Come here. She comes, and as he folds her in his arms, I hear something like a sob but from which one, or both, I cannot tell, nor do I need to. Certainly, he has as much need of her comfort as she does of his. I tell Ellie. <> It takes me longer than you might expect to understand what she means and when I do I haven't the least idea of where or how to begin. I protest. <> <> With that I can find no argument, besides events are moving so swiftly that my head is spinning. I take a long centering breath and yield control to Ellie. Nothing happens at first. Then I found I was thinking back to what it had been like when I was very small. First memories. Most are hazy images. A few sharp events stand out like Christmas, a family reunion, fights with my siblings over a favorite toy. Faster now. My mother's face when she was younger, my father at the same time. My brother in a crew cut, my sister in braids. I start to school. Teachers. Writing my name. More is happening now, time is beginning to fly. Moments of triumph like riding a two-wheeler, climbing a tree. Moments of grief and confusion. My grandfather laid out in his coffin. Moments of childhood guilt like the one time I took money from my mother's purse. Junior high, high school. Too fast now. The images are merging. It's like being sucked up into a great wind where time, years of my life, fly by in the blink of an eye. Boys and kisses in the back seats of cars, high school and college. The night I lost my virginity. Med school and my first operations. My first autopsy and how - to my utter mortification - I'd upchucked my lunch. The Academy. The first time I fired a gun. That smell. The first time I realized I might have to kill. The first time I killed. A commendation in my file. Mulder. I can feel the warmth flowing out of me now but leaving me no less filled. All along I had felt her reaching out like a starving person grasping for food. She has devoured every thought but this is special. His eyes behind those wire rims. That smile. That mind. From the very first day. Now the cases come. No time. Never enough time. The long hours, the arguments, but also the bond, the trust, the sharing, the companionship, his bleeding or frozen body between my hands to save, the too seldom-felt touch of his hand, our unique brand of love. Now we enter into the time that is uniquely hers, that I had only thought I had lived. Mulder's cancer. That frail skeleton of skin and bone. My deal with the devil. His pitifully weak but still violent animal-like struggles as he was introduced into the tanks for the first time. The infection, his disfigurement, the slow coming to some sort of balance with that. My guilt. The life we made both within the Compound and within me. Adam. Escape. The Cave. Viewed from under Joseph's supporting arms, Sara's eyes had gotten wider and wider as the years poured in. So much won't make sense, not for a long time, not for years, but I have no doubt she and Joseph will work it out. Joseph has the years I cannot give her. Besides, he has recently acquired a few mysteries of his own to add to the stew to help explain all the extra bits that don't seem to fit. Mind weary beyond imagining, I manage just at the end to send a few warm, private messages of eternal gratitude to Ellie. With a smile I wonder if she's even heard. While I've been reviewing my life at fast forward, she's been reviewing other things - such as Kenneth's lonesome yet handsome figure. <> she assures me. I ask, glancing at Kenneth, who, by the way, it is good to see again. Ellie turns my glance into a deceptively shy smile which he returns with a boyish grin of his own. <> <> As I felt the doors begin to close, contact fading, I had a last strong image from Sara. She knew. She was looking upon HER Mulder and running her hands unbelievably over his body. And she recognized every curve and every scar and loved every one. End of Chapter 17 ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (18a/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 18a: Mulder There is fluid in my mouth - gritty, disgusting-tasting stuff and I am fighting those who are trying to get me to drink it. Considering all the times I've been in the hospital, I should know when to surrender gracefully. The problem is I'm too stubborn for that and so, naturally, some makes its way into my windpipe. Let's just say that for moment there I thought I was back in the birthing pool. There is more than one pair of determined hands holding me and doing their best to get me to swallow. I finally do - once - but only to satisfy my tormenters. Finally, I'm allowed to thrust the cup and the hands away. "Looks like he's finally decided to join us." I don't recognize the voice, I am too busy coughing the filthy stuff out of my lungs, but then I haven't awakened in the best mood for serious concentration. The stuff is foul enough to wake the dead. The voice, a woman's voice, speaks again though she's not speaking to me. "Can you tell which one we have?" "Mine," replies a second speaker jealously. This is a voice that I know well. "Do you mind if I sit there? If he hauls out and hits someone, I'd rather it be me. I have no qualms about hitting him back." The first speaker had been sitting on a stool beside me all this time. I sense her exchange places with the other. "Are you absolutely certain he's spoken for?" inquires the first woman to the second as they side by each other in the tight space. Something must pass between them, woman to woman, because very soon the first one sighs, "Story of my life." Though I hear the words, all of this is making very little sense. I've been too busy trying to tell 'up' from 'down' to catch it all. When my world finally rights what I see first is a tall woman in a long red dress. Tannis. I remember her name with some difficulty both because it seems like such a long time since I last saw her and because beside her is a triangle of incredible brightness. Light. Blinding sun. It's either sunrise or sunset - I have no idea which and at the moment I don't care. It's daylight, and nothing else is quite like that. The important point to note is - I can see. Eagerly, I turn from Tannis to Scully who, of course, was the second speaker. Scully. Her belovedly familiar and slightly bemused face is half lit in the golden light. I study her face for longer than I usually allow myself that pleasure and she doesn't find an excuse to turn away. Maybe she's as relieved to see herself reflected in my eyes as I am to have her image there. Have we changed? We should have. It seems like years since I last saw her. Then again, like coming home after a long trip, it also seems like only yesterday. We don't speak, it's not really necessary. Instead, I turn back to Tannis who has not missed our silent communication. She seems to find it amusing. How dare she? I challenge her with a narrowed stare down the length of my nose just as a large, sleek gray cat leaps onto the witch's shoulder. The young woman must adjust her balance slightly to accommodate the weight of the cat. I notice that under her arm she carries a lidded basket which seems to have been newly woven from the reeds and grasses of the field. So long ago... Wickens, potions, a circle of white stone, a demon in fire, an animal cry of anger, a human cry of loss - and then all hell breaking loose. "I'm sorry about your - " Cat was definitely not the right word here "- friend." Tannis smiled, warmly this time. "It speaks - and in complete sentences even. I was beginning to wonder whether we'd need to bring in Teven to perform an exorcism. Many thanks for your concern, Agent Mulder," she looked down at the basket, "but I can't think of a more noble way for Charlotte to make her exit. It's how she wanted to go - in battle with the rings of magic flying about her. Slipping away quietly in the sunlight was not her style. And her worth isn't over yet. We're going off to the meeting now. I'll present your case before the coven. They'll all be a bit hung over, but when I tell them about last night's fireworks I'll get their attention and the support I need. It's a sin to kill a Shineeka and another for tampering with the fabric of the world the way your fiend has done. They'll deal with him. There will be no more trouble here, not this year, not next year, not ever. I sorry to say, however, that what is done is done. That other world exists. Your other selves. We can't rollback time for them." "None of us would want you to," Scully assured her. "They have their own lives. They've survived through the hard parts - at least I certainly hope these past years have been the hard ones. Now they deserve their peace." Inclining her head in agreement with the sentiment, Tannis turned to push aside the edge of the tent flap. My groggy mind had finally deduced that we were in a fairly large cabin tent. As she leaves, the triangle of liquid gold widens, dazzling our eyes briefly before the flap falls back into place. It must be sunrise. The air has that crispness about it. Even with the door closed, the canvas still allows plenty of light to filter though. In that diffused brilliance I study Scully again. Her expression hasn't changed significantly but I'm more aware this time of how deeply the worry lines stand out on her classically beautiful face. As usual, those lines are largely my fault. "Where were you?" she asked in all seriousness. "You left first and I've been back for hours." Taking a spin around the Universe? "Thinking," was what I said, "hard as that might be to believe." "I hope you didn't strain yourself." She is perturbed, a least a little. I HAD worried her. I've been lying on my back. Now I swing my legs around and sit. What I want to do is pace but even if there had been room the ground is spinning slowly. I still feel the pull of being somewhere else, but this time just a place I visited for two hours in my sleep. "Scully, have you ever had a dream that is so intense, so vivid, that if you concentrate, if you really, really concentrate you can stay with the story line long after the time when most dreams would be history? That over time you can consciously affect what happens and you are so intent in the dream that you wake up hours later than you normally would?" "Occasionally," she replied, keeping her staightman cool. "I just never thought your dreams were ever much worth sticking around for." "This one was." Her eyes brows lifted slightly. She was willing to play this out to see where I was going. "What was it about?" "The future - and the past. The fact that despite everything there are parts of their lives - Joseph and Sara's - which I almost envy. The fact that I don't think we're going to see them again." I stretched. "But maybe that's just as well. It's about time that we got on our lives and let them get on with theirs." Scully smiled. One of her good ones. "Amazing, for once we agree. It's well past time to cut the cord. I'm satisfied, however, that we were able to help." Then she is quiet and I see from her face that she is thinking about all that happened. "Mulder, does it bother you, what Joseph did? Giving up I mean." I was wondering if she was going to bring that up. When he and I passed each other, I felt his despair and it was so - familiar - because I have felt it in myself. A shudder passed through me now like a ghost of that passing. "He wasn't a coward. He had every right to be afraid. He had been given more to endure than anyone should be asked to. Would I have responded the same way if I thought you had died and there was no hope? Obviously I did because Joseph did and Joseph is me." There in the golden light under the canvas roof Scully's eyes widened perceptively. I'd surprised her and that takes some doing. She had expected me to skirt all subjects having anything to do with a personal relationships between us - past, present or future - in this or any other universe. On our late night walk last Christmas Eve, I'd tried my best to explain that I saw the world as a big scary place and I wasn't talking only about ghosts and mutants, little gray men and government conspiracies. I was also talking about men and women alone together. This is especially true for me considering the role models I've had in my life. I hope all of this explains why, at that moment, it took just about every fiber of courage I possessed to pat the cot beside me and slide down to give her room. With a quite beautiful but tentative smile she accepted my invitation and moved over to join me. She is no longer as cool as she was. I detect a tremble here and there. It's a relief not to be the only one. Maybe we should try matching harmonics? It could also be just pre-caffeine jitters. We both mainline coffee in the mornings. What a disappointing thought if that's all this is. Then again, it was November and a cold frosty morning. Ever the chivalrous one, I picked up a blanket and put it around her. On second thought, I inched a little closer and put it around us both. It was instantly as warm as either of us could have wished and then some. When I looked into her startled but very friendly eyes, I knew that for once in my life I had done something right. Now what? As usual, Scully came to my rescue. "Do you think they'll be safe now?" Good, a nice neutral topic. "The Consortia had a huge set back - it will take them a while to pick up the pieces. Joseph and Sara will never be completely safe but I think they'll be left alone for a while." "Long enough to raise TWO children?" Scully asked with that smile she reserves for domestic stuff like kids. Even while he scared me to death I had found Adam amazing, his very existence a humbling concept. "Considering what over-achievers they both are and that they have a huge extended family to help, probably more than two." Though only her eyes changed, Scully must have found something about my observation amusing. "What's so funny?" I asked. "Not funny, just incongruous to think of you living in a place like that. Such a warm family atmosphere. Like a village or a commune. It must have taken you some time." "To do what?" "It must have taken you some time to get used to having so many people around who cared." As a matter of fact, it did. She must have read my mind and moved on quickly. Scully knows where the quicksand is. "It wasn't really such a bad place for a safe house." "No it wasn't. Very - home-like." I caught the rise of one eyebrow. She remembered our discussion from last Christmas just as I did. One of the issues that kept us apart was how very unsettled and un-home-like our lives were - our jobs, the stress, the travel, the erratic hours, the danger. "There are all kinds of homes, Mulder. Personally, I think for all its coziness Sara must spend a fair amount of her time pulling Joseph down off the walls." That drew a smile from me which encouraged her to go on. She placed her hand so lightly on my chest and for such a short time that I barely felt it. "Home can be inside, too, as the old saying goes." Home is where the heart is, she means, but she knew better than to use certain five-letter words like 'heart' any more than to use certain previously mentioned four-letter words. Not only is it a disconcerting to have someone know me so well, but that touch was very much a surprise. Involuntarily, I stiffened. Immediately, I realized that she had read my response as a rebuff because she clutched her edge of the blanket a little more tightly around her left shoulder, effectively increasing the distance between us. For once, however, she'd read me wrong. Don't go... But as much as I wanted to keep her close I was all too aware that I had only to turn my head and there she'd be, our faces within inches. That would be too close, too soon. In the end I compromised. I turned half way. "Do you remember what we talked about last Christmas?" I asked hesitantly and then wished I hadn't. It was suddenly far too warm under the blanket. She responded so quickly that clearly it had been on her mind as well. "We discussed a lot of things," she said softly. "True. I remember I said that I needed time to get Joseph's life out of my system." I think I actually saw her expression fall. "Are you trying to tell me that you have to start all over again?" It hurt her to think so. She cared. Unexpectedly, that made a warmth begin to kindle down low which was purely hormonal. "Actually, no. It may have been Joseph's life but it was my thoughts, my actions, my decisions. And I definitely had time to think. What I want to tell you is that all those months, what I missed most was not sight or hearing or even the full use of my body. When Skinner finally pounded into my head how to communicate, you were the only one I really wanted to talk to." Those lips of hers had protruded a little, nearly quivering. A small sign but one that spoke volumes to me. "I'm sorry it took so long for me to reach you." The way she said it, it sounded like a confession. "There's no need for apologies, not between us." "Not true," she corrected. "Between us there has to be time. Our lives depend on it. Despite what you may think, I don't always know the way your mind works." I thought that statement came out with more than a little sadness. We sat in silence a little longer, like statues barely touching. As though she thought the conversation over, she inched away a little as if preparing to leave the warmth and me. I felt a little surge of panic. I could feel the situation slipping out of my hands. "Speaking of minds," she went on, "you've been under a lot of stress lately. We have the tent until noon. You should rest." She gave my hand a sisterly pat. "Rest. And you'd better get used to not being blind and deaf and crippled any more because Skinner will run us ragged tomorrow." I caught myself frowning. She had struck a nerve. More than one in fact. The edges of my mood turned dark. "Scully, don't go. Not just yet. I need you to be honest with me. You know me better than anyone. You know that I don't perceive the world the way 'normal' people do. If that's not being half blind and half deaf, I don't know what is. And crippled? Emotionally, psychologically... I'm a mess." "Mulder," she began, then stopped. I felt my jaw tighten as I ground my teeth. I shouldn't have spoken. I'd said far too much. But her eyes were still on me and they were soft. Deliberately, she leaned towards me to brush that unmanageable lock of hair from my eyes. Normally I don't mind when she does that. Like my hand on the small of her back, it's one of the few physical gestures of affection we've allowed ourselves over the years, but today I don't want her mothering or her sistering. Today I'm afraid that we'll never go beyond that and I know that if that happens it will be all my fault. Something in my face must have betrayed me because she withdrew and I nervously pushed that hair back on my own. There's pain in her expression. "Mulder, I don't like to hear you tear yourself down so. You are so much better than you think you are." The air feels heavy in my chest as if it doesn't want to move. If I say nothing else here, she'll rise, pat me on the shoulder and allow me to get some rest - alone. And we'd go on - like always. But not this time. I don't want to be alone. I don't ever want to be alone again. So tell her, you idiot! Instead I panic and for the strangest reason - I can't find the words. I was so eloquent last Christmas, reciting all the reasons why we cannot, as Scully puts it, 'be together'. Now when being together is all I want... Somehow I stammer. "I know you believe in miracles, Scully. I guess I do now, too. Would it be greedy to wish for one more?" I sense her relaxing back into the cot. She had been preparing to leave but I realize happily that she hadn't really wanted to. "Depends on what the wish is. Hopefully, this time it won't require either divine or supernatural intervention." I turn all the way towards her. As I expected, this is close. So close that her blue eyes widen in not only surprise but also - interest. "This time," I tell her, "only human intervention." And that is when I did it. I very intentionally kissed Dana Scully. Dana Scully - friend and defender, my strength and my anchor. After all these years I kissed her on the lips for the very first time. I won't say that at the same time I didn't also have very intense memories of Joseph and Sara kissing and doing far more than kissing, but this was the first kiss for us and so - special. As first kisses go it was soft, unhurried and not intended to set off any fireworks. I didn't want to scare her away. I've been told that I can be a very scary person. And best of all, I realized - kissing didn't require any words at all. Dana sat very still afterwards, obviously trying to think of a snappy comeback. She found one. "That's it?" she asked, her voice a strangled whisper. "That and what comes after," I hinted in a miserable attempt at being romantically roguish. Now the whites showed all around those blue eyes. With an effort she cleared her throat. "THAT's what you've been thinking about for the last two hours and forty-five minutes while I sat here worrying that you'd gotten lost - who knows where - on your way back from Neverland." Lamely, I answered, "I guess so." Now I remember why I don't date much any more. Rejection makes me feel like a mongrel who's just been whipped for tracking mud into the front parlor. Before I could slink away too deeply into that metaphor two slim, soft fingers raised my fallen chin so that I was forced to meet her eyes. They were shining. These were not the eyes of a woman who'd just been insulted. My heart started beating again. "So where's the miracle fit into this?" she asked with - I could have sworn - mischief in her voice. "That you wouldn't slug me for suggesting such a thing. I know I said last Christmas that I needed to wait until I got my life together. I know things still aren't together, but waiting until I'm fifty or sixty or dead has rather lost its appeal." She hadn't moved before. She was the one who moved closer now and planted a kiss that put the Fourth of July to shame. An astounding time later I got my breath back. "I guess you're not angry." "Only that it took you so damn long, Fox Mulder. If you'd chickened out one more time, I think I would have had to shoot you again." Then her hand raised and she brushed the hair back from my forehead and this time there was nothing in the fashion of a mother or a sister in the way she did it. Now I know what free fall feels like. "As you may remember, we have this tent until noon," she purred. "Why don't you demonstrate to me the 'what comes after part'." End of Chapter 18a (Don't forget the epilogue ) ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (18b/18) By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger) For Disclaimer see chapter 1 Chapter 18b: Joseph (Epilogue) And they lived happily ever after. The End.... At least that's what I'd like to write but Sara says that after slaving away at this thing for six months that I should end it right. "People are going to have questions," she says, "about how we all turned out." "No, they won't," I replied. We are the only ones who think this is important. Walt and Helen have read drafts and they smile and think it's a very imaginative little piece, but Science Fiction/Fantasy was never their preferred genre. They see it at its worst as a twisted bit of dark fiction which Helen would love to turn over to a proper psychoanalyst. At its best they consider it the product of a mind that finds life here boring after the years of the X-Files and the seven years since which, until recently, have been marked by so many crises. Sara and I, however, we know better. We know it's all true. Being not only true but truly dangerous to the stability of our lives here and perhaps to our very world, I never intended that the story should be recorded but Sara decided that I should either 'write the damn thing down or quit spewing angst' about how I should. Sara has such a colorful way with words. If plotted, I predict that the disintegration of her vocabulary would be found to be directly proportional to the number of years she's been married to me. In order to maintain harmony on the home front I've written it, or rather I should say, I've compiled it. Sara agrees that it's only fair that that task should fall to me since I'm the only one whose voice was never really heard during the most recent crisis. I admit that I did miss a lot but to tell you the truth I really was just as glad to let Mulder take the hits for a while. What it also means is that I had to depend heavily on Mulder and Dana and Tannis and Sara to providing all the exciting parts and for that I thank them. While I'm musing about what to say next, Sara comes to drape herself over the back of my chair. She wants to see how I'm doing now that I finally have a chance to add my own voice to the saga. I remind her that it was my voice in the journal at the end of Book II. And the dramatic Christmas Eve escape? Most of that was mine. Grudgingly, she grants me that this is all true but it's been a while since then and what have I done for her lately? She gets a swat on her lovely bottom for that which sends her out of the room laughing. At least now I can get some work done. Correction, now I can try to get some work done. Inspiration doesn't exactly hit when you need it. All right we'll go with the tried and true method and bring everyone up to date for starters. Eighteen months have passed - my time - since the destruction of the Compound. Sara and I have two children now and a third on the way. Our second we call Tara. We couldn't use 'Dana' but got as close as we dared. Tara is twelve months old now, a non-stop talker, a terror on two legs, and an expert on wrapping every male in the Center around her little finger. In other words, perfectly normal in every way. My vision has improved, thank you for asking. The improvement took its own sweet time, but since the lens replacement I see at least as well as I ever did. In fact, unless I'm very tired I don't even need my reading glasses any more. Sara misses them so much that she had the lenses in my wire rims replaced with glass for my last birthday. It must be a female thing. For some reason they turn her on. Whatever the reason, let's just say that I'm wearing them now which means that she leered at me on her way from the bedroom to the kitchen. I guess this summation had better be short. Where was I? Sara's leers distract me? No, before that... Ah, yes, changes over the last year and a half. What was briefly hinted at the end of the previous narrative has proven to be true - the alien proteins do continue to evolve their host even after we are removed from the tank. Kenneth is also affected so at least I'm not alone is this. Kenneth and me and .... there's another but I'll get to that. The changes are gradual outside of the hibernation-type environment of the tanks but measurable if you know where to look. Only the Center's inner core is kept informed - Sara, of course, Skinner, Helen, Louis, Kenneth and Ellie. What is the affect? I'm still trying to figure that out but being able to 'touch' Mulder's life at will is certainly part of it. It's an odd kind of telepathy. Where do you think I got Mulder's part of the story from? Do you think he would have just told me? So much of it was so personal and, as you might imagine, so close to home that the process of putting his soul down on paper was almost physically painful. Tannis's part came through Ellie from Eli. (Eli tells us, by the way, that Tannis has found a passionate six foot six wicken master to connugle with and is very content these days.) Ellie, as you must have gathered by now, is a fixture here at the Center. She's in charge of the parapsychology department. Once Scully 'departed' she set her sights on poor lost Ken who was quite happy to be found. In fact I don't think either Ken or Ellie were seen except for meals for several days after our return to the Center. Not that I know that from personal experience - Sara and I weren't much in evidence either. Dana's part of the story came not from Ellie - since Ellie considers anything that happened during her co-habitation with Dana confidential - but from Sara who knows all. Note that it took quite a few months of digging to separate out all the time lines and for me to supply the missing bits that Dana wasn't around for. It was a wrenchingly stressful time but also very rewarding. Both of us had holes to fill. We are certainly closer for it. For a while there we had a game of Twenty-Questions going like no one has ever had. When the tension got to be just too much, we just fell back upon non-verbal communication. I'd be willing to bet that for a few weeks there we must have set some kind of record for the percentage of time spent engaged in non-verbal communication. (Sara has drifted back in. The vixen is waving a corned beef sandwich under my nose as she reads over my shoulder - being pregnant always increases Sara's appetite about three hundred percent. I think she is trying to hurry me up. She almost gags when she gets to the 'non-verbal communication' part which leads her to suggest that I write a marriage enrichment book after this. I just told her that I hope I don't have to get paid by the word because there is just so many ways you can say F*ck. In payment for that I just got whacked over the head with her latest medical journal.) Of the two significant clouds that still hang over my head, one is not really a cloud, at least Sara doesn't see it that way. Somehow during all this intimate time we've spent together over the past five years, Sara has became exposed to me and all my 'foreign' antigens. 'Exposed' is her term. She equates it to a vaccination. I've learned - under pain of a night's banishment from the connubial bedroom - not to call it 'infected'. What it comes down to is that she is changing, too, and in her own way. She is actually pleased about this because it means that my uniqueness will be less likely to pull us apart this way. For all Sara's sophistication, she had a very real fear that, like some tragic hero in a B-grade Sci Fi flick from the sixties, I would somehow grow beyond her. That I would develop into some kind of intellectual giant and come to look down upon mere humans as only so many ants. What she's found, as I have, is that nothing could be further from the truth. We grow but 'out' rather than 'up' and in what we see and feel we have grown rather closer to the earth and to life than above it. Sometimes we take the children and lie all day in the woods listening to life like some New Age hippies and never speak a word, a least not in a language anyone but the wind would understand. How this is going to affect the children or whether it already has, we don't know. Adam is a deep, serious boy with a frightening IQ. I was that way as a child. What goes around, comes around, I guess. With Tara it's too early to tell except that her vocabulary seems pretty extraordinary for a child her age. Our third had already been conceived by the time we knew for certain about Sara's 'exposure'. When she 'got it' is unknown but more than one physician believes that the first molecules were transferred almost immediately and that its affects have only become strong enough to be measurable now. So much for safe sex. Actually, my personal belief is that the mode of transmission was the buckets of tears I cried on her shoulder over the years. As far as the children are concerned, time will tell, but then life has always been a chase after the unknown. Except for our concern for the children, our current situation is no different then the X-Files years, except - Sara reminds me - we don't have to spend a third of our time living out of a suitcase. Ah, I tell her, but if we were still with the X-Files and traveled as we used to, we would be cutting our motel bills in half. But, she counters, we would be getting only about half of our customary amount of work done in a day so our cases would take twice as long. True. In the narrative a great deal of angst was made of my 'giving up' when I was told that Sara had died. I won't try to weasel out of that one. I was fucking depressed. (There I said it. In this case it's a swear word and has no sexual connotation so I can spell it out and we don't have to give this an 'PG17' rating, or at least that's what I'm told.) My depression, however, was caused by more than the loss of Sara and my guilt and even more than by my abysmal physical condition. It was when I emerged from the tanks for the second time that I began to receive 'emanations' from Mulder in 'Life Prime'. Not a lot of information, just flashes, and certainly not enough to make sense, but enough to lead me to believe that either I had really gone over the edge this time or I was a pawn in the most devilish power trip in history - or both. This is the second significant cloud in my life only this one has no silver lining. It's huge and black and erupts far too often. When it happens to me, Sara just leaves me alone or holds me as I sob out my self-pity and fury at the unfairness of my life - of all our lives here. I don't like being used. I have never liked it. Even as Mulder I never did and my capacity for putting up with that sort of sh*t is considerably less than it used to be. (Sara has swatted me again, this time for my language. All right, I apologize. I'll put in the asterisks. I just think I should be allowed to lay it on the line for once. She understands and is trying to distract my anger by nibbling on the back of my neck on the sensitive spot just above the big scar from my first trip to the tanks. It's unfair - she knows that drives me to lust. But then maybe it's not unfair at all. She has her own vocabulary when it comes to this non-verbal communication thing and she is trying to remind me of what we DO have. What we have is something special and wonderful and something which Dana and Mulder were just getting around to experimenting with the last time I peeked in. What this is all coming down to is that, angry as I am at how I've been jerked around, and as much as I abhor at times being my own personal X-File, I am not Fox Mulder any longer. I am - me. I have my own fears and my own nightmares which are neither very much fun. I live my life in protective custody, which is not what I would have chosen, but I do have my linguistics work which is fascinating and important and which puts me closer to the truth than I ever thought I would come. Someday the alien group Sam is with will come back and then I suspect the fur will fly. In the meantime, I'm respected, I have a home, I even have - gasp - friends. I have a real family now. A family of blood and ties closer than blood. I have children and so I hold the future in my arms - and I have Sara. I would not trade any of these for Fox Mulder's current hell. I just hope that he'll have gained as much as I have once he comes to the end of his own quest. End of Chapter 18b and.... The End I hope you enjoyed this series. No more parts are planned but who knows. 'No one - and nothing - ever dies on the X-Files.' I love e- mail so please write and I encourage you to e-mail the authors of all works you enjoy. Thanks for reading.