REVELATIONS 1: DAWN (27/30)
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)
Begun 7/95, completed 9/98

For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 27
At the edge of the woods
Monday sometime before dawn

     The drenching rain ceased abruptly. That was what woke
Dana. No, that wasn't quite right. It hadn't stopped, it was
just unable to reach them. Instead it drummed on a tin roof far
above her head. The sound was muffled, yet echoing. She felt
Mulder stoop awkwardly to put her down. Protesting, she moaned.
Not that cold, wet ground, not again. It sucked the life from
her. Then she realized that he laid her down on something which,
though not immediately warm, was not hard. Instead it was rather
springy in a lumpy, prickly sort of way and not wet but dry.
Something like a thick bed of pine needles. No, not that. Straw.
She heard the distinctive rustle as he pushed armloads of the
stuff around her.

     Dana must have faded away for some time then because she
was next aware of a body - Mulder's - dropping down beside her,
heavy with utter exhaustion. But why was he lying so far away?

     The rain had softened. Just a drizzle now. By the depth of
the dark when she cracked her eyes, it was still night. She
almost slept then, back into the darker dark where her body
really wanted to be, when something deep down and elemental
warned her to fight that particular seduction. She should not
sleep, she should be very afraid of sleep. The warmth she was
beginning to feel, like a fire behind her eyes, was a clear sign
that the fever had finally begun to rise in earnest. The cold of
their night journey, that had worked at her even as she lay
cocooned in Mulder's jacket and the plastic sheeting, had masked
the fever before. She knew that the bullet could not have hit
any vital organ or she'd be dead. Left unattended much longer,
however, and it wouldn't matter how non-critical the initial
injury had been. How would a certain person who had a propensity
for taking the guilt of the world on his shoulders feel when he
learned that she could have lived if help had been found sooner?

     Dana wished that her head was pillowed on the shoulder of
that certain person now, as it had been when they had lain
together in the cellar. She worried over the memory of his last
desperate stagger across the fields in the icy rain to reach
this place. The sound of his breathing then had cut through her,
just as surely as it must have cut him. How she longed to be
reassured by the beat of his heart and not only for the comfort
of his physical presence. But she could not touch him, for even
though they were only separated by inches, the distance was far
too far for her to reach now. To keep her company in the dark,
she had only the sound of his chattering teeth and the rustle of
the straw around them as he shivered.

     At least this wasn't the cellar. There was no sense of
being buried alive in an airless grave. Here there was a sense
of peace and unlimited, though chilly, air. As for whether Dana
shivered, she didn't know. Her own body felt so far away. Such
a limp, dead thing. If she was past shivering, then there wasn't
much time left.

     Mentally, Dana lay back against the straw. The sound of the
rain was like a lullaby. It should be a good time to pass into
the quiet, away from the lump of fiery iron that had taken up
residence in her side. That was what it felt like, a hard,
blistering mass that had turned her left side into burning stone
hours before. Slowly, the leaden feeling had crept over the rest
of her. Now she barely sense even her right hand any more, the
one she had raised hours before to touch Mulder's battered
cheek. She wished again that he weren't so far away. To be alone
was so hard. Especially now. Now when she might be dying, when
he might be dying.

     Dana tried to remember how to move her mouth and speak, and
with an effort that was pure will, managed to get to lips
together, to force a little extra air out of her lungs and past
her larynx. The 'Mmm' came out as only the slightest vibration.
A tear rolled down her cheek that felt surprisingly cool. How
empty her brave words to Mulder back when they stood at the
ravine.

     They weren't meant to die now?

     How could she not?

     Death was so very close.

     <Mulder...>

     It was only a cry in her mind and thus useless; however,
the straw beside her shifted. Long fingers of cold, cold hand
sought awkwardly for hers and found them. Somehow Dana managed
to return the slightest pressure. It wasn't much, but he must
have felt it. She heard a sound, almost a sob, and with great
tenderness he drew her into the circle of his arms like a child.
Dana didn't mind that he was cold, that his clothes were wet,
that his body trembled with uncontrolled weariness. She didn't
even mind that to be moved into his arms hurt so badly that if
she had had the strength she would have screamed. All that
mattered was that she could feel the frantic beat of his heart
and that being together was better than being alone.

                        * * * * * * * *

     Even in the sleep he had anticipated so, Mulder was still
trapped in the forest, still moving. With every step his arms
felt heavier and heavier. His lower back and shoulders burned as
if the hands of a sadistic giant had taken hold of the muscles
there and was squeezing... squeezing. Tired as his arms were,
however, they were empty. He had lost something along the way
and - as often happens in dreams - he couldn't remember what.
For hours, forever, the rain had beat down burrowing like shafts
of ice right down into the very core of his being. His only
relief were pauses here and there under spruce and pine, but
even there protection was sporadic. When the contrary gusts
stirred the massive branches, thick drops and steams of icy
water would rain down on his head and nearly naked shoulders.
And always there was the lost to find, and he would force his
failing body back out into the woods.

     The problem with the woods was that the snake dwelt there.
The snake lurked in the forest waiting for prey that moved.

     When he stopped to catch his breath, that was when the
snake attacked. It lashed out of a red haze, black and long. Its
bite was viciously sharp and cut deep. He wanted to cry out,
couldn't cry out. Must not let the snake know how much it hurt,
must not let her know. He twisted, trying to anticipate its
head. Sometimes he could, but then it would only strike from
another direction, driving him stumbling through the bitter
darkness and the sting of the winter rain. His escape was always
short-lived, however. There was no losing the snake for long.

     The pattern repeated itself: Searching for the lost. Rain
pounding on his head, driving him mad. The overwhelming need to
stop, to rest. Cowering for a breath or two. The rise of the
wind, the answering streams of icy cold. Out into the woods
again - where the snake lay in wait. Sometimes there was even
more than one serpent - brother snake and sister snake.

     Over time he found he was moving slower and slower. It was
getting harder to think, harder to move leaden legs. The snake's
single poisonous fang had sunk deep into thigh and arm, shoulder
and ribs, and a dozen other places. Fire burned up his veins and
as it gorged on his strength, it pulled him down.

     He would have been able to wake himself from the dream
sooner if his exhaustion had not been so complete. What called
him out, however was a touch far softer than the snake would
have given him and the memory that she had called him once, that
she had been able to call him, and he had gone to her. It was
enough to move him once more from the dark and cold of his dream
to the dark and cold of the waking world. He sat up too quickly.
All he could do at first was sit and clutch at his head while
from his throat came a low, nearly inaudible moan. With all his
other aches and pains he had almost forgotten about his head. He
shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, daring only to look from
time to time to see if the black shadows were still spinning.
Recovery took longer than it should have. Exhaustion still had
its arms wrapped so tightly around him that he could only have
slept an hour or two at most. He had no desire to return,
however. The dream hadn't made that brief period of rest very
restful. The taste of the dream still lingered in his mouth,
bitter enough to drive out any thought of sleep. It was not as
if he were missing anything. He had a feeling he would be seeing
that particular nightmare again - and again and again and again
for a very long time.

     Involuntarily, his eyes slid shut at the thought.

     "Hi."

     At the faint whispered greeting he cracked one eye open.
This time he found that the shadowed, though clean, right angles
of the barn's cattle stanchions and feed troughs were staying
still. Scully was beside him, her body warm against his. Her
face was more palely luminous than he would have expected from
this continual darkness, as if all the ambient light in the room
had gathered there. He touched her cheek with the back of his
hand. In his estimation her temperature was significantly warmer
than his. This meant little, however, since he had no idea where
his sat in terms of normal.  Her voice was ghost light.
Certainly that thin glow in her eyes seemed more of spirit than
life.

     With obvious effort she managed a few more words. "Sorry
to... wake you."

     "No problem. I wanted to wake up anyway. I hate snakes...
and that was the good part." Too true. The emptiness of his
arms, the sense of loss and failure, and the futile,
interminable search had been worse.

     "Amos's whip?" came the breathy voice again from where she
lay motionless in the straw.

     "Mostly." He rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes, or
tried to. He'd not gotten enough, not nearly enough.

     The direction of her gaze shifted across the interior of
the shelter he had found for them or at least across that which
she could see without moving. "N-Nice place."

     "I can't take any credit. It found me." That wasn't quite
true. After the altercation with Mary Amos, Mulder had found a
cliff path, which followed the rim of the meandering ravine but
he'd lost it somewhere in the dark in an area of dense
undergrowth. Some nightmare time later his feet stumbled as they
found that the terrain had suddenly changed. The ever-present
trees had suddenly vanished. He had come upon a field, wide open
and rutted with the stubble of newly harvested feed corn. The
blessed openness, the signs of human impact on this virginal
landscape would have been relief enough. Against the horizon a
few hundred yards across the field, however, stood out the
sharp, black silhouette of a building against the skyline. Here
was something built by the hands of Man and, therefore, maybe
man himself or herself. The disappointment he had felt to find
it was only a barn had nearly broken him, but by then he had
already staggered half way across the field through the heavy
rain. His shivering had stopped by the time he reached it. Even
his deadened mind he knew how dangerous that was. If he
succumbed to hypothermia now, they would both die.

     Sliding open the heavy wooden door took almost all his
remaining strength. They don't use wood that thick any more, his
tired brain realized. Nor do they build barns with massive walls
of field stone. Not anytime within the last half century at
least. This was an ancient structure, but in good repair and
blessedly dry inside. After having laid his burden down as
carefully as he dared, and covering all but her face with
armloads of old straw, he had staggered back again into the
night. Limbs nearly frozen into immobility, he frantically
circled the structure looking for the farmhouse. There must be
one.... but nothing. He was nearly weeping when he again reached
the door he had slid aside with such effort. There was not even
any animal smell inside except that which was decades old. This
didn't seem to be a working farm then. Just an artifact left
behind when the government took over the land for the park. Just
a structure which was too solid and too much a part of the
country's rural heritage to be torn down.

     That was when his knees had given way and he had collapsed
into a nest of the straw himself to pass out, to be called to
her side, and to sleep again and dream horrible dreams.



     "At least it's dry and out of the wind," he offered,
dismally.

     Dana actually smiled. Not much of one but a little. "Not...
complaining. Not as good as a hospital for either of us,
though." This last she managed to get out on one breath.

     "Two out of three isn't so bad."

     The gaze she returned was warm and nearly fond. "Not bad at
all but...." How could she tell him that his best wasn't going
to be good enough? Fear alone had given Dana the strength to even
attempt just to say his name. Fear of dying. If the dark angel
herself were standing behind her, she could not have done more.
That feeling that her body was being transformed into throbbing
red-hot iron had grown over the last hour or so. It felt as if
it were swollen to three times its size. There was no sensation
but this from mid breast down, and no strength above. This was
the end. There could be no more blundering in the dark. "I'm
sorry.... I need..."

     He was sitting cross legged in front of her, arms lying
limply across his knees, one hand stretched out to touch her
fingers. "I know... I'm leaving. Right now. I..."  his lips
quivered just a little. Odd that she could see him so well.
Maybe it was all a reflection from the remnants of his once
white shirt. "Scully, I'm so sorry. I can't carry you - not any
more - or neither of us will make it."

     She let out a sigh. Eerie how in sync they could be
sometimes. She hoped that could continue for a long time. She
hoped they would have the opportunity. "That's all right. Best
that you don't try then..." She didn't need to explain further.
The expression on his face reflected, all too clearly, the agony
he felt at not being able to make it all better or even just to
give her some hope. It hurt just to look at him.

     With both hesitation and haste, if that can be imagined,
Dana watched as he got to his poor injured knees. Reaching out
with long, dry fingers, he touched her cheek. "It will be better
for you here," he assured. His voice was a little shaky but
unmistakably his. "It's out of the weather and the place must be
a century old. It's got to be a local landmark. They'll be able
to get back to you quickly." He was searching her face. Dana
knew that he'd find no fear. She hoped that he'd see resignation
there. Both knew that it had to be this way now.

     "I'll be fine," she whispered. Then with a little catch in
her voice. "Hurry back."

     "No one had better try to stop me."

     Another twitch of that small hand and her lips moved as if
she would speak again. When they came, the words were so low he
had to bend down and put his ear close to her face to hear. "If
something should happen while you're gone..." she began, the
longest sentence she'd attempted so far.

     "Scully, no. Don't waste your strength. Nothing will
happen."

     "Of course not," she assured him for he seemed the one most
in need of that assurance, but she was all too aware of her body
thickening, swelling, burning. In time it would become just so
heavy that her soul would have no choice but to fly free. Then
the pain would be over and all choices of this world gone.

     Then she became aware that Mulder was leaning over her, his
face so dark and troubled. As if he sensed her soul's loosening
and would stay its flight, he had laid his hand lightly on her
chest. Wavering above her, how bright and determined his eyes
were. How like stars swimming in deep pools. How pale his face
despite the darkness of his two days of beard.

     It was like a promise, that touch. Tethering her to him. It
was a promise she needed at that moment.

     "Go on... Go now. I'll wait, I promise."

     His mouth opened as if to protest that, of course, she
wasn't that close to dying, but then he must have decided that
he was the one not facing reality. Clumsily, he pulled himself
up to a standing position. He rubbed his red eyes. Maybe it was
the straw dust. Maybe something else. More importantly, he was
clearly still dizzy.

     "Isn't it lighter?" she asked suddenly with a voice
strained to cover the distance.

     His head turned from side to side. "Still looks dark to
me," he murmured.

     Dana's eyes tracked back and forth across her own field of
vision. It wasn't far, since she could no longer turn her head,
be enough. "Certain?" she asked as close to playful as she could
manage. After that last touch - the blessed coolness of which
she could still feel on her cheek - she realized that she wasn't
as close to going into that final light as she'd thought. Maybe
another kind of light, but not that one.



     Blinking to focus, Mulder strained to see in the darkness.
Scully was right. There was some gray mixed in with the black.
He wanted to see more, to be certain, but there was no open
windows on this floor.

     A glance in Scully's direction showed that there was
actually one of those tiny smiles on her pale lips. "Go," that
smile urged him.

     Tilting his head back to see what she was seeing, he moved
too abruptly and the all too familiar dizziness returned with a
vengeance. Recovering, he found his groping hand had touched the
rough wood of a ladder rung, a ladder which was fixed to one of
the barn's massive supports. More slowly this time, his eyes
tracked upwards following the rungs. They led to a square of
quite definite gray in the ceiling. Damping as best as he could
a surge of excitement, Mulder called up the size of the building
from his trip around it the night before and compared that to
the height of the ceiling. A loft! There was certainly another
story, and from the brightness of the access hole, it had at
least one open window. He debated the time and energy it would
take to climb up and get his bearings. He decided it was worth
it. From there he could choose a direction, see a road, perhaps
even see a house. There had been none visible the night before,
not even lights.

     He climbed the stout ladder slowly. The building may be
ancient and abandoned but the ladder was solid as iron. They
built to last back then. The only shaking came from his own
limbs. Amazingly, he could climb without much problem. It
actually felt good to use different muscle groups after all the
walking and carrying, falling down and crawling back to his feet
again that he had done over the last thirty-six hours.

     For once Mulder found no surprises as he pushed his body
through the square opening in the floor of the upper story. As
expected, he found a hay loft though it contained only a few old
bales of straw. More importantly, there were six windows - five
small, dusty squares, two each on the north and south walls, the
fifth on the west, and a wide rectangular opening on the east
wall through which the pearly gray of the pre-dawn sky glowed.

     The night before, the ancient barn had given the impression
of a stone fortress rising full grown out of the acres of its
surrounding fields. As Mulder looked out of each window in turn,
he became increasingly disappointed to find how right he had
been.  For at least a quarter of a mile in every direction, he
saw no other buildings. There was only more stripped autumn
fields such as he had traversed the night before with such
effort. Groaning softly, Mulder fell back slightly against the
rough window frame of the large east window. Looking down, he
had plainly seen the foundations of what long ago had been the
farmhouse. It had been gone for decades. Perhaps it had burned
down and its owners had decided to move the residence closer to
neighbors. More than likely, Mulder had been correct the night
before and the structure lay inside the park now. In any case,
no poles strung with wire marched up the dirt drive. No
electricity then and no telephone.

     Turning heavily from the window, despair sapping what
little energy the arrival of dawn had brought him, Mulder saw
what he thought was a smudge on the sky. Automatically, he
blinked to clear his vision. The spot was still there. He turned
his head. The distortion remained at the same place above the
horizon. It was actually a column of wavering air as if that
tiny section of the atmosphere was being seen through a lens.
Following the distortion down, he saw it. A neat, white house.
Even as he watched, the sky brightened enough for him to make
out the scene more clearly. At this distance the tiny building
was barely visible even from his lofty perch because of the
trees which marked the extent of the cultivated fields. With
effort he could make out red shutters against clean, white
paint; the straight line of a good, solid roof above a front
porch; and beds and beds of fall flowers. No abandoned relic
this. To the left of the small house flashed the mirror-like
brightness of chrome. A car. Transportation certainly more
dependable than his poor, dead legs. The distortion in the sky
must be due to furnace exhaust, like the affect of superheated
air above blacktop in summer. In this case the warm air was
vented above the roof line and the chill air of the morning
provided enough of a contrast. After the last two days, it all
looked so incredibly normal that he wondered almost with panic
if he was on the verge of having another hallucination.

     At that moment a breath of fresh breeze came in through the
window and chilled the still damp clothes on his body. He
shivered. No, this was definitely real. He knew the difference.
There *was* a house out there, the distance nothing compared to
what he had traveled the night before. A furnace was pumping out
blessed warm air, and a car was parked in the driveway. He
imagined the owners at home, safe in their beds and blessedly
ignorant of the visitors they would soon be having. He hoped
they were the friendly sort. No ID, wet, bloody, bruised,
ragged, injured, staving - he and Scully were enough of a horror
show to make anyone call for the police. If they did, all the
better. In any case there would soon be warmth, help, a phone,
and a hospital for Scully.

     Mulder nearly broke his neck hurtling down the ladder to
inform the woman who waited below that he soon would have her
home. Not to her home or to his, not likely to the home of
anyone they knew, but someone's.

End of Chapter 27