REVELATIONS 1: DAWN (16/30)
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)
Begun 7/95, completed 9/98

For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 16
Amos homestead
2 p.m.

     Scully was concentrating so completely on retracing her own
tracks in order to find Mulder's and then so pleased when she
found them that she nearly missed his first low call. His voice
was so soft and yet so intent that her name came out more like
a hiss. The second time she heard it clearly. Abruptly, she
turned her head, her mouth opening automatically when she saw
him rise into view from behind a thin screen of brush.

     "Mul -"

     The expression on his face silenced her. Stern warning over
all, a demand for caution. Maybe even a little fear. Not what
she had expected. Just to be certain the first finger of his
left hand was raised in front of his lips urging her to silence.
Urgently, he gestured her to a shadowed area under a low
overhanging tree a few steps away. Dana had known Mulder long
enough at this point that she didn't need to see his own weapon
come up beside his head to begin reaching for her own.

     She was too late. A figure appeared suddenly from behind
Mulder. Lean, brown and sturdy as a tree, the man was tall and
looked infinitely taller because of the club that was already
moving in a blindingly fast arc even before Dana could call out.

     "Mulder!" Her eyes were warning enough. Her partner lunged
but, unfortunately, he dipped and spun on the side that his
phantom attacker thought he would. The blunt end of the ax
handle was a blur, coming far too fast. Pain and light exploded
on the left side of Mulder's head. There was only that. No time,
no sense of self or space or earth or sky. He had no memory of
falling, only that suddenly there was world shattering pain,
dust in his mouth and something thick and warm and salty was
running down his face and over his hands. Somewhere in the dirt
and gravel he fought for consciousness. Scully... Scully...
Through rapidly darkening sight he saw that she had her weapon
in her hand but a big man, a very big man, still held the
swinging club. As the darkness closed in, Mulder could only
listen desperately for the sound of the shot from her gun. None
came. Instead her single shriek of agony followed him down into
the night.

                        * * * * * * * *

     Dana's long hours of training clicked in even before Mulder
was struck. Without needing to think, she brought up her weapon
and crouched to steady her stance. "Hold! Federal Agent!" she
heard her voice cry, depressingly weak in the wilderness. The
figure before her, however, was still in motion. The three foot
club of solid oak had been slowed only the tiniest bit by the
solid but glancing blow to the skin and bone and hair of
Mulder's skull. Now it came on as the weilder followed through.

     Dana realized too late that he had also adjusted its
trajectory. She realized too late that she should have fired
instantly, but then the focus of her career had been in trying
to understand death and thus prevent it. Besides, a tiny part of
her brain had refused to believe that he would not yield. After
all she had a gun and he did not.

     A split second later, the heavy Glock was ripped from her
hand taking a chunk of skin and maybe breaking a bone or two in
the process.

     Involuntarily, Dana screamed clutching her arm. Even
through the red haze of pain, however, she was aware of Mulder
at her feet. He was lying face down in the blood splattered
dust, frighteningly still. Dana had no time for more than that
one glance. In the next instant she was aware of long, brown,
sinew-corded arms reaching for her like thick snakes. But fast
as he was, she was faster. Her heel drove into his instep. He
grunted but other than that hardly seemed to notice. The stout
work boots provided too much protection. Dana spun, a knee
seeking his groin, fingers his eyes, teeth his hand, his arm,
the image of Mulder down at her feet propelling her to a fury
she had never known in training. But for all that her attacker
was too strong - as unyielding as the trunk of a tree which his
weathered skin resembled. Only the most dedicated of her
instructors had ever approached being as hard as this. He
snarled, barked something unintelligible, and let out a whoosh
of air as her elbow with her entire weight behind it went in
under his ribs. The blow didn't stop his huge, callused hand
from catching her painfully by throat, however. Dana struggled,
wriggled, spat like a wild cat. He lifted her. There was no
weight on her feet any more. He held her at arm's length where
she could not reach him. Not that it mattered any more. She
couldn't breathe. Her strength was rapidly leaving her limbs as
the bright flashes before her eyes became dark blotches that
grew and grew and grew until they blotted out the sky.

                         * * * * * * *

     The pain of being hauled up from the ground by the unkind
jerk of the man's strong arm brought Dana back to unwelcome
awareness. The strength of that arm she knew only too well. Her
own felt like a huge dead thing hanging from her shoulder only
nothing dead ever felt such agony. Desperately, she wondered,
what he was doing. But he was only turning her roughly over so
he could reach her pockets and her holster. Having found what he
wanted, he dropped her without a thought.

     The light, only gray at its best, darkened again and went
out.


     The sun was still shining when consciousness returned for
the second time but the awakening was not any more pleasant than
the first. Dana was in motion. Her body had been flung over a
hard shoulder. By the roughness of the fabric of man's clothing
and the smell of very old sweat, this was definitely not Mulder.

     Mulder... Mulder... How much time had passed?

     Dana tried to force her eyes open, to focus, to search the
ground where she had last seen him lying, but she had been
carried away from where they had fought. As she struggled,
twisting to see, a huge calloused hand came up to wrap itself
around her mouth and nose. There was no fighting the strength of
the man who held her and there was no sign of Mulder. Could that
be a good sign? Had he regained consciousness and crawled away
to safety while Dana was having her life's breath choked out of
her. Not likely. Dana had seen the way his head had snapped back
with the blow. She had felt a drop of his spurting blood fall on
her cheek.

     Such contrary images pulsed through her - on and off, on
and off - with the plodding swing of the man's gait. Try as she
might, Dana couldn't stay conscious any more than that. The
man's large, hard hand was cutting off too much of her air.

     Dana was only vaguely aware when they stopped. She blinked,
trying to shake her head enough to clear her eyes. They were
near the tumbled remains of a old wooden structure of some kind.
She was flung to the ground. Immediately there was the sound of
wood on wood. In front of her was...  The word never had time to
come to her mind for at that moment the man heaved at the pair
of shutters at this feet. They fell back with a deep, solid thud
on the ground on either side of a black, black square. Knowing
what was coming didn't make it easier. Dana felt herself lifted
roughly and flung down into the hole. On the way into the damp,
earthy darkness, she met half a dozen stairs or more. She didn't
know exactly how many because as she hit each one, the velvet
explosions became darker and darker until by the final one she
no longer felt the pain at all.

                        * * * * * * * *

     Dana woke and despite the pain hoped she'd stay conscious
this time. She hadn't been able to hold a coherent thought for
she didn't know how long. Her back and ribs and hips hurt from
every place that had impacted with the rotting cellar steps.
Despite the absolute blackness, she knew that she was being
confined in a storm cellar. The term had eventually come to her.
Maybe she had even dreamed for a short time of Dorothy vainly
trying to open the wide shutters of the storm cellar in her
Auntie Em's yard even as the wind howled and the tornado roared
across the fields.

     There was nothing like that screaming tempest here. All was
silence. Absolute. Dana was almost afraid to breathe, afraid to
make any noise, afraid to see if she could. Tentatively, she
tried a soft, shallow breath. It caught so in her abused throat
so that she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out. She
was fairly confident that nothing was broken, but she'd have one
hell of a crop of bruises on her right side... as well as on her
hip, her shoulder, and around her throat. Her left arm cradled
her right and added to the list a sprained forearm where the ax
handle had landed forcing her weapon to fly from her senseless
fingers. Her head didn't feel right either. Dizzy. Not
surprising, considering the pain, the shock and the near
asphyxiation. Making a clinical note of every ache and pain, she
slowly rolled onto her knees. Except for her right arm the
bruises would slow her down but they wouldn't stop her. Not if
given half a chance.

     At this point, however, half a chance was being optimistic.

     The smell of urine and other waste hit her senses but was
not as strong as the scent of earth and decay. Mushrooms, she
thought, trying to concentrate and identify of what the earthy
smell reminded her. Mushrooms. The floor under her good hand was
soft, rich loam. Everything else about her prison she would have
to guess at. It was darker than dark. Eyes opened or closed made
no difference. There was just the chill, damp air, the smells,
the earthen floor and the ten splintery steps - she had counted
them by now - which she had gotten to know so intimately.

     Slowly it was coming back. The mistreated tissues around
her throat reminded her of a man's iron fingers which had closed
and closed until she had passed out in their grip on the road.
Later, when the man had taken hold of her to throw her over his
shoulder, he had touched her injured arm, which had propelled
her into wavering sort of semi-consciousness, and in that state
he had carried her and thrown her down here. Dana shut her eyes.
It helped to put the pieces together but at least two
significant blocks of time were lost, though neither could have
been for very long. She wasn't that cold yet and her injuries
had just started to stiffen. During that lost time what else had
happened? Had the man....? No, he'd only pawed her for what
she'd carried.

     The image of Mulder, his head jerking back from the impact
of the blow, the droplets of his blood splattering across the
blue sky, flooded back in rush of horrible memory. The last
glimpse she had had of him, he had not been moving.

     Mulder... where was he now? Was he even alive? Their
attacker had wielded his club with all of the force of his tall,
sinewy frame.

     "Mulder..." she whispered into the formless quiet. Her
voice was harsh, strained, not sounding like her own. That was
from her bruised larynx. Even so, she got the impression that
the cellar wasn't extensive, no larger than a very small bedroom
or large closet. Her own words were all that came back to her.
No answering voice, no Mulder, though with no light in this
black place he could be next to her at this very moment and she
wouldn't know it. During either of the blank periods, their
attacker could have brought Mulder here just as he had carried
her. The man was certainly strong enough.

     Something like bile rose in the back of Dana's throat. She
was being selfish. She should be wishing Mulder free and on his
way to finding help. Instead, she was hoping to find him here
with her. Perhaps it was just because if he were here, she'd
know that he wasn't lying dead in the road, his head pillowed by
the gravel and the dust and his own blood.

     Dana began a slow search in the dark, her knees pressing
into the soft earth because she did not yet trust herself to be
able to stand without fainting. Besides, the impression of
weight, of tons of damp, solid earth all around her was so
strong and so close that Dana doubted that the ceiling would be
high enough even for her. Wrapping her injured arm across her
stomach and bringing one knee forward and then the other,
therefore, she reached out with her left hand. Walls she soon
found, dirt like the floor. Her shoulder identified some
ancient, rotten wooden shelves. Roots and stones dug into her
knees.

     Then her right thigh brushed against something soft. She
groped in the blackness. Cloth, suit quality. A man's trousers,
a body, unmoving and cold but not as cold as she had feared.

     "Mulder..." No response. She touched the leg again, then
moved up his thigh. She read his body like a blind person. He
was twisted, partially on his back, partially on his side, arms
limply around his head as if he had tried to protect his injured
skull as he was dropped. Her hand came away sticky with the
blood that still oozed from the wound on his head. As she felt
the rise and fall of his chest, however, she sighed with relief.
His breathing was shallow and a little irregular but under her
hand at that moment it felt wonderful.

                        * * * * * * * *

Friday, 4 p.m.

     Skinner leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil eraser
on the top of his desk. The remains of a hasty lunch were spread
across the desk top. Four in the afternoon was a hell of a time
to finally get lunch. As he expected from his staff assistant's
announcement, Bull blustered into the room with his normal
solidly-spread stride. Crow followed with his customary slouch,
his long face unsmiling.

     Skinner slid the remains of his vending machine meal into
the trash. "Well? Where are they?"

     "I left a status for you at two on your e-mail," Bull
reported a little defensively.

     "I've been in a budget meeting since then. I haven't had
time to log on." Irritably, Skinner flicked on the power to his
computer. The thing would take five minutes to boot up, or
seemed like it. When could they get some equipment around here
which was less than five years out of date?

     "This is going to take forever, just tell me."

     "I asked around. They've been a busy pair. Mulder was seen
here, alone, about five a.m. wearing sweats. He takes out a car
at nine looking on top of the world - you know, looking the way
that makes the support staff go all atwitter. No guy," Bull said
as an aside, looking up from his scribbled notes, "has the right
to look so good in a suit after what he went through last week.
Dr. Scully comes in right after he left wearing her trench coat,
but she's got some fancy exercise outfit on underneath. Not her
style. She's up to something, but whatever it is my blood runs
cold just thinking about it. She's up and down for the next hour
bugging the analysts and the reference staff. She even got
authorization to tap into Mulder's query logs down in the
reference section. Then she grabs a car, she's gone for less
than an hour, comes back, bugs the reference section some more
and finally tears out of here for good, looking all the while
like she could bite someone's head off and I can guess whose."

     Fighting down emotions of both relief and irritation,
Skinner continued to divide his glare between the two agents and
the nearly blank monitor on his desk. A blinking light was all
he was getting. "As we expected then, Mulder's bolted and she's
on his trail. That was five hours ago and neither of them have
bothered to leave their cell phone on! Where the hell are they?"

     A little guiltily, Bull pulled a yellow 'sticky' note out
from between the pages of the notebook he carried and extended
it to Skinner. "I did find this on my desk about two hours ago.
It's from Agent Scully. Written just before she took the car out
for the second time. She just says for us not to worry, that one
way or the other you and Benchley would know everything she did
by three p.m. but she asks me not to let on about her little
problem with Spooky until then. I figured I'd let them fight it
out. Partners need to squabble now and again, especially new
ones, and I figure she has more of a right than most."

     Skinner read the hastily written note over for the third
time. "She says that we'd know *at* three if not before. It's
four now."

     "Sounds like an e-mail with a delayed posting to me.
Nothing else can be that accurate. Probably in with your
messages." Anxious, Bull peered over at the nearly blank screen.
"Can you bring it up?"

     "What do you think I've been trying to do?" Skinner
growled, giving the monitor a glancing blow in irritation. In
retaliation it just continued to blink mindlessly at him.
Abruptly, he punched a button on his intercom. "Denise?" he
called into the speaker. "I need you to bring my e-mail up on
your machine now! And get someone from I.S. to come up here and
haul away this antique!"

     A second later, Denise opened the door to reveal her trim
middle-aged figure. Her face looked older than her years, the
way it tended to look when she had bad news. "Director Skinner,
it's not your machine. They just announced... the whole system
is down. A virus, a brand new one and this one is bad. They
don't know when they're going to get it back on line." With an
apologetic shrug she slid backwards shutting the door as she
went out.

     With a "Damn," Skinner shot out of his chair and began to
pace with agitation. Bull was finding nothing to smile about
either.

     "Where does that leave us with Mulder and Scully?" he
asked.

     "We've got worse problems than those two. We've got a
couple of dozen other agents and a few hundred cases we can't
track at the moment. Mulder and Scully are trained agent's.
They'll just have to take care of themselves for a while. Either
that or call in."

     Bull frowned unhappily. "Walt, Mulder's not just rambling.
He's clearly on a trail. The analyst Mulder worked with was
Daniels. Danny gave me a list of the possibilities he dug out
for Mulder. They're all over the map. He gave Scully the same
list. It was after receiving the information from Daniels that
she dug into Mulder's research logs, so it's a bet she now knows
what he did. Could they really be on to something?"

     "It's Mulder, what do you think? Either they're a bit busy
and can't call or they assume that this e-mail - the one we
can't access - will tell us all we need to know. In any case, we
need this system up. Bull, make yourself free and set up a
command center to manually track and prioritize all incoming
calls. We need a triage. With these computers down the volume is
going to go through the roof and I'm going to need someone who
can think the way I do to keep on top of things. Agent
Thompson," Skinner said, looking for the first time directly at
Crow, "I can only spare one man on the Hunter case for the next
few hours, maybe even for the next day if it takes that long to
clear up this mess and you're it. I want you to begin looking at
the information Daniels gave Mulder and Scully and see what
Reference can help you without the aid of their electronic toys.
Mulder found something useful in there and I want to know what
it was."

     "You want me to try to think like 'Spooky'?" Crow grumbled
under his breath as he took a folder from Bull. "Lots 'o luck."

     Skinner didn't appear to have heard. Fingers massaging the
bridge of his nose, he seemed to already have moved his
attention to other matters. Assuming the audience was completed,
Bull slowly followed Crow to the door. With his hand on the knob
to close it, he paused to turn back towards his old friend.

     "Walt, what if they've actually found the Hunter? From what
I learned about Agent Scully night before last, she wouldn't
have just left an e-mail. She would have followed up with a call
long before this. The Hunter's a mean customer. I have a really
bad feeling about this."

     Skinner looked up, eyes blazing. "And you think I don't?
I'm furious at Mulder - not only for getting himself into this
situation, but Scully, too. But let's worry about disciplinary
actions later. Under current circumstances, with hundreds of
Bureau agents and cases at risk, I can't justify pulling
resources to look for one rogue agent who has a history of going
off half-cocked, no matter how brilliant he is. Mulder's history
indicates that he's even scrappier in a fight when he's crazed.
He'll be hard to bring down. I'm betting on that to keep him in
one piece."

     "And what about Scully?"

     "From what I'm told about what happened at the meeting
yesterday, she's not about to allow herself to be intimidated by
either Mulder or our perp. Though why she'd be dressing the way
she was when she was last seen, I don't want to think about." He
held up Scully's note to Bull. "Clearly Agent Scully had a good
idea of where Mulder went. She's just going to have to handle
this for the time being. We'll make the most efficient use of
our resources by going to the aid of those agents whom we know
we can help while we wait either for a phone call or for the
system to be rebuilt. I'll prioritize the retrieval of Mulder
and Scully's accounts as high as I can but the tech crew have
their orders just the same as we do."

     Bull nodded in understanding. "Just as long as I'm not the
only one worrying here."

     Skinner sighed. "With Agent Mulder involved, there's always
reason to worry."


     Crow was waiting for Bull outside Skinner's office. The
senior agent's shorter legs were moving so quickly that Crow
didn't need to slow his longer ones down much so the older man
could keep up. "You're really wound up about those two, aren't
you, Bull?"

     "Crow, the best I can hope for right now is that she's
caught up with him and is boiling his ass for running out on
her."

     "Maybe they'll shack up someplace and make up," Crow
commented with a smirk.

     Bull skidded to a stop, whipping around to glare.
"Thompson, doesn't the profession have enough problems without
our being dragged through the mud by hogs like you? I won't even
credit that remark with a response."

     "Okay, okay. You think it's more likely that she's just
shot him?"

     Bull paused in his search through his pockets for cigars to
chew on. It was going to be a long night. "Now that I could
believe. If it comes to that, I doubt we'll have much trouble
getting a ruling of justifiable homicide."

                        * * * * * * * *

In the storm cellar
Sometime....

     Pain. Mulder knew pain. His wasn't an easy life, never had
been. He knew how to sink below the pain and let it go away for
a while. He also knew how to rise above it,  though that was
infinitely harder. This time he rose, frantic for the light. It
was a long way, and dark, as though through deep waters. There
was a need for him to do so, though for the moment he couldn't
recall why.

     Only that he was not safe and someone in his care was not
safe, and he needed to know what had happened while he was in
dread sleep's arms.

     Up and up he rose but where he should have met with azure,
then midnight blue, then shadowy gray and finally pearl there
was nothing. Only more black. Oh, the dark seemed more tangible
than before, not so distant, almost something he could feel, but
still a nothingness, a void he could taste and feel, smothering
him. His fingers came up clawing at the blackness. A voice
murmured nearby, sounding muddy. Someone touched him. He
flinched away violently. In his experience, hands, like hearts,
were seldom gentle. He heard his own voice cry out. The movement
of jaw and throat opened up the worst of the pain in his head,
threatening to send him back down again into the deeper dark.

     "Mulder... relax," came the voice again. It was the one
he'd been hearing, urging him back to consciousness, but he had
not understood the words before. "It's only me, Mulder... It's
only me..."

     Who? It was a woman's voice, but no one immediately came to
his aching mind. Not his mother. She'd never been there for him.
His clearest memories were of her standing grim and close-
mouthed while her husband handed out his own brand of
discipline. They fought only late at night. Never in front of
the 'children'. Later, never in front of the 'boy'. Getting the
divorce was the only time he could remember her taking his part,
that and insisting that he apply to schools outside of the
country. "You need to get away," she had said her expression
only slightly less remote than usual.

     "Mulder... come on. Wake up."

     He had drifted again. Into the shallows this time, sideways
into memory. The vision of his mother faded. At least memories
and nightmare images had substance, you could see them, unlike
this formless consciousness.

     "Do you hear me? Wake up for me, Mulder." This anxious tone
struck a chord. He had heard it before, reaching to him through
a web of confusion. "Get in the car, Mulder.... Mulder, get in
the car...." Car? That was before. His head had hurt then, too,
but different. An inside pain. His eyes had burned. He'd been
sick to his stomach and was unsteady on his feet, so much so
that he could barely shuffle one foot in front of another. He
could barely remember who he was and not a bit of where he was
or should be. But there was someone. Someone who had come for
him, only him. He had not been abandoned in that tiny cell,
friendless, confused and sick while the doctors and the men in
uniform stood over him and asked him questions...asked him
questions... The same ones, again and again and again. But he
could not answer, he couldn't, because he didn't know the
answers.

     When he drifted up to the dark surface again, someone was
touching him with cold hands. He tried to jerk away like the
last time but the hands were on either side of his face, firm
but gentle, holding him still. The hands hurt but only because
his head did.

     "Mulder... Mulder come back. You're not in that place.
You're here with me." The woman's face was so close to his he
could feel her breath against her skin and even that caused
pain.

     He moved his jaw. Tried to get the air to flow. There was
dirt in his mouth. Scully? Her image came back to him. Small and
serious, stubborn and strong.  The top of her red head didn't
even come to his chin. Then there was that expression she had
when she looked at him, as if she was exasperated by the antics
of an unruly child. He realized he hadn't spoken. "S-Scully?"

     "That's right!" she responded with obvious relief. "I
thought I'd lost you there a couple of times."

     Scully. They were together in the dark and it was cold. He,
at least, was parched dry and had a concussion or worse and yet
he wasn't in a hospital. Mulder did not like how all this was
adding up.

     He started to sit up. Maybe that would get him out of this
darkness.

     "No..." warned a soft sound nearby. "Don't move or you'll
regret it."

     He moved... and he did regret it. Pain exploded in his
head, his stomach convulsed violently. Instinctively he turned,
retching, again and again and again as if his body would turn
itself inside out, but there was nothing in him but enough pain
to send him back again into the lonely place.

End of Chapter 16