by Windsinger
Windsinger@aol.com
 

10/30/95
(This version is slightly revised from that posted on EMXC10/29/95)

WARNING for our British Friends: this is a post Anasazi, post Clyde
Bruckman story. (Clyde who? Oh, you'll find out.) Rated PG-13 for
sexual innuendo and little yucky dead body type stuff and other
topics children are not equipped to deal with. Brits, I guess
you'll have to read it NEXT Halloween.

SYNOPSIS: Driving back to Washington on Halloween evening Mulder
and Scully see strange lights in the sky over rural Maryland, stop
to investigate, and find themselves spending a night they will not
soon forget.

DISCLAIMER: As always to CC and company for these marvelous
characters and to Gillian and David and all the X-Files fanfic
writers for inspiration. (see more acknowledgements at the end.)
 

ALL HALLOW'S EVE
By S. Esty (AKA Windsinger@AOL.com)
10/30/95

Chapter 1 of 2

     The golden harvest moon was making a brave attempt to show its
pumpkin face above the horizon, only the wisps of racing black
clouds kept obscuring the view. Dana found the sight irresistible
and continued to stare at it just as she had since the first bloody
edge had appeared above the black trees. Unfortunately, Mulder
found the scene similarly entrancing.

     "Mulder, if you don't keep your eyes on the road we're going
to end up in a ditch."

     "I'm a good driver," he sulked.

     "Normally, yes, thank God and little grey men. But cars don't
steer themselves. If you want, we can pull off for a few minutes to
let you have a good, safe look."

     Mulder sighed and dutifully turned back to the road, straight
and empty and boring. "I thought you wanted to get home,"

     "Home to my own bed, Mulder, not to a hospital bed." Dana
leaned back in the seat. "It certainly is a beautifully creepy
moon. I guess, as a kid, you loved Halloween." Feeling her partner
tense, Dana halted.

     Oh, that was definitely the wrong thing to say.

     "I'm sorry. Before Sam disappeared you probably enjoyed it."

     Green flecked brown eyes stared fixedly at the road. "I was
born on October the thirteenth, Scully, which is too close to
Halloween for comfort. You could not possibly imagine what the VC
guys came up with the last time my birthday fell on a Friday." Just
the thought made him shiver, but other memories were more pleasant.
He sent a little smile her way. "By the way, thanks for the nice,
normal birthday." Her company, dinner at an upscale restaurant, two
videos of his choice, and a bag of Halloween candy large enough to
make him sick  - this year had been perfect. Just being alive
hadn't hurt either.

     But the childhood memories were grim. "Even when Sam was with
me, even when it wasn't Halloween, I was unique enough so I
attracted all the wrong kinds of attention."

     "The smart ones generally do," Dana admitted. She knew first
hand how cruel children could be to those who were different - the
teasing and the jeering and its resulting loneliness. Even without
an eidetic memory, growing up had been rough.  "Girls weren't
supposed to fight back. At least you were a boy."

     His tenseness relaxed and perhaps she had imagined it after
all. "I like being a boy," he said with a roguish gleam in his
eyes, then sobered as he returned to her original question. "But
you're right. I never went out once Samantha was gone and no one
ever came to our house either. At least not to trick-or-treat. As
a family, we were touched too closely by tragedy for parents to
feel comfortable about letting their children come. We're talking
Massachusetts here, not that far from Salem, and New Englanders
have long memories." Mulder continued with more than a little
bitterness, "Not that Halloween wasn't a special time for me. Every
year I spent the day after Beggar's Night cleaning up. I still get
squeamish at the sight of raw egg."

     The moon rose a little. Mulder continued to look over at the
rosy-orange disk from time to time. When his hazel eyes chanced to
catch hers, which were more grey than blue this evening, he smiled
mischievously before pulling his attention back to the road.

     Dana was sympathetic. She could tell he was restless. The case
they were returning from had been a waste of time. More crop
circles, but what they found was that one of the farmer's neighbors
had had too much time on his hands and had watched one too many
episodes of 'Unexplained Phenomena'.

     Dana studied her partner's profile. At the moment his
expression was serious. Still, she was continually surprised at how
well he looked since his reappearance after having 'died'. There
were fewer lines in his face. He was still intense, still razor
sharp on a case, but there seemed to be a stillness in him, a calm
meditative center, that had been missing before. He had been a
bastian of strength to her and her mother during that farce of an
inquest over Melissa's death. He had even stood up to Skinner and
that cigarette smoking bastard, solid as a rock, and, amazingly, he
had not lost his temper.

     No, no more of that horror, Dana told herself. Not tonight.
Let it go. Enjoy just being with him.

     The wheels on the road made a sleepy white-noise sound. For
some reason, neither suggested slipping in a tape or turning on the
radio. Anything like that would break the mood. "Amazing sky," Dana
remarked and it was. High cirrus clouds were glowing in the remains
of the sunset while lower, small, black cumulus clouds raced by on
a faster wind, like air-borne witches, seeming to move crosswise to
their loftier cousins.

     "Front coming in tonight," Mulder mused, craning his neck to
see up into the sky beyond the windshield. "It's going to be cold
by morning."

     Dana waited for more, but he had lapsed again into silence.
"Mulder, you've been very quiet lately."

     "Hmm? Oh, sorry. Do you want to talk about a case?"

     "No, I don't want to talk about a case. You've been back for
four weeks and you haven't talked about what really happened to
you. Albert said something about finding you in the desert, but
that's all I know. 'I have returned from the dead' just doesn't cut
it."

     She saw a corner of his mouth tug upwards. "When I'm able to
sort out illusion from reality -"

     "- which will be about the time hell freezes over."

     He raised amused eyebrows in her direction. "IF I'm able to
sort out illusion from reality, you'll be the first to know. If I
told you what I think happened, you'd be convinced that I'm even
crazier than you already think I am."

     "You have no idea how crazy I think you are, Mulder. But to be
honest, after what we've been through these past few weeks, I'm
currently leaning on the far side of gullible."

     Mulder let his thoughts drift to Clyde Bruckman, the unwilling
psychic they had met. "Could have fooled me," he murmured largely
to himself. Scully had refused to believe in the man's abilities
despite the accuracy of the man's predictions, at least those they
could verify. Unconsciously, Mulder flexed his hand where the
bandage constricted its movement. By the time he had let her take
him to the local emergency room, he had bloodied a half dozen of
the hotel's kitchen towels. Worse, the young, blond med student in
the ER had happily given him twenty stitches where - and this
Mulder knew from experience - ten would have done nicely.

     Dana noticed the movement. "Better your hand than your throat,
Mulder."

     And, Clyde, she thought fervently, wherever you are, thank you
for your warning.

     Dana was not ready to go so far as to call Clyde's talent
precognition, but she freely admitted she had been intrigued. A
sadness settled over her. The gentle man had fluctuated between
perfect normalcy and perfect lunacy in a heartbeat, and yet his
pitiful death had hit her hard.

     "I don't always enjoy being the Devil's Advocate, Mulder, but
that's my job, and you were being so totally..." she paused
searching for a word that would not be too uncomplimentary.

     Mulder guessed she must have heard his earlier muttered
comment. "You think I was sucked in?" he offered. "Enthralled?" On
the last word he had let his tongue linger on a rolling 'R'. His
long fingers moved restlessly on the steering wheel. "Within his
own unique specialty Clyde was amazing, but too accurate for
comfort, even for me." Mulder's voice tightened. "The death he saw
for me... that's unsettling."

     "Do you mean what he mentioned in the car? I can't see you
doing such a thing. But if you ever feel the compulsion to try, let
me know first."

     Despite the chill between his shoulder blades Mulder let his
eyes glitter. "Promise?"

     "I meant I'll be there to back you up so things won't get out
of hand."

     Mulder shot a look of utter stupefication in Scully's
direction then had to make a grab for the steering wheel as the car
threatened to make a nose dive for the berm.

     "You said you went to a Catholic school, Scully?" In answer
she sat there, smiling enigmatically with those red lips, the
picture of perfect innocence. Mulder allowed his brain to churn for
a moment. "Because I value my life - I certainly worked hard enough
for it - I'm going to take, what is for me, the moral high ground
on this one. Can we reroll that?"

     "For you, Mulder," Dana said, twitching her nose ever so
slightly, "anything."  With deliberate care, she repeated, "I mean
I'll be there to back to you up so things won't get OUT OF
CONTROL."

     "Oh, I thought you were offering me a better alternative."

     "In your dreams, Mulder."

     "In my dream you do, I assure you."

     It was Dana's turn to stare. Quickly fighting down the images
of those supposed dreams and the butterflies that soared in her
stomach, Dana caught the glint in his eye and they both laughed. It
was good to laugh, and rare for them. Certainly, there had been
little enough to laugh about lately.

     "Actually, Scully, if I may continue," her companion said when
the gentle laughter had subsided, "I've pretty much convinced
myself that our friend Clyde was playing a joke on me. You said you
saw him smile. What I had started to say before was: I just hope
that the death Clyde foresaw for me - the one he says I don't want
to know about - has already happened. Maybe the next one will be
less - traumatic."

     She started to shake her head in disbelief." Mulder, are you
trying to tell me you really did rise from the dead? That's
blasphemous."

      "Hey, don't get Papist on me. You're the one Clyde said would
never die."

     "Mulder, even the Virgin Mary died, or so they say."

     "That she was a virgin or that she died?"

     "Here we go again. Mulder, just drive."

     They settled back, each filled with their own contemplations
upon each other and death. Individually these were not unusual
subjects for them, but in combination, not to be dwelled upon
overmuch. In their line of work, it was not a good idea to harbor
morbid thoughts, but this night seemed appropriate for such
musings.

     The miles slipped by before Mulder spoke again. "Scully, look
over to your left... those lights in the clouds..."

     The area of the sky his attention was directed towards did
warrant a second look. The earth-turned edges of the clouds were
glowing with white and orange lights tinged with green which
flickered, but not with lightning or moonlight.

     "Looks like a reflection from the ground," Dana analyzed and
added with a worried tone, "maybe fire, and it's close. I'd say
just a mile or so in front of us and beyond those trees." Their
eyes touched. She did not read any worry there. The prospect of
fire did not seem to overly disturb him. "Should we call it in?"
she asked, her eyes straying towards the cellular phone.

     "Let's investigate first. This is the middle of nowhere,
Southern Maryland. We can be there in a few minutes and I don't
want to drag out the local volunteer fire department on Halloween
night for a chicken processing plant working the night shift."

     As Mulder braked and carefully scrutinized the clouds and the
road side to find a safe place to park the car, Dana pulled a small
zippered gym bag out from behind the back seat. His eyes betrayed
his curiosity. She slipped off her low heeled pumps as she took out
a pair of inexpensive flat-soled walking shoes. In response to his
amused expression she replied. "Do you have any idea how many pairs
of shoes I've ruined since I met you, Mulder? The salespeople all
know me by my first name. When I find a pair I really like I've
started buying two pairs."

     "Did I say anything?" he remarked innocently as he put on the
parking brake. Sliding out of the driver's seat with the slightest
groan - his legs, economy transportation and long car trips did not
mix well - Mulder came around, opened her door, and waited
patiently for her to finish changing her shoes. Then he did an odd
thing. As if opening her door was not unusual enough, he reached
in, took her by the hand and helped her out of the car. Dana's eyes
were wide with surprise but he did not even seem to realize how
uncommon his action was. She was perfectly able to get out of the
car without help and he knew it, but from the look on his face, his
mind was obviously somewhere else entirely.

     So, Dana thought ruefully, Mulder's a closet chauvinist. No,
that was unfair. He had just been raised around those who had what
now would be considered old-fashioned manners. This made him, in a
way, a throw back to an earlier era. He probably had to consciously
remind himself that certain behavior was no longer considered
appropriate, at least not in the work place. Well, women had
changed the rules so quickly, it must be hard for the male of the
species to keep up. And, if the truth be told, in this instance
Dana enjoyed his slip. It was good to feel his warm, long fingered
hand in hers. They touched, really touched, so seldom and every
time was a joy and a revelation. If they let themselves, such
intimacy could become habit-forming and they both knew it.

     The two agents started out across the weedy, rutted open space
between the road and the tree line. The light in the clouds they
were following was difficult to see here because of the trees that
loomed over them. They moved in under their shadow and the dark
closed in. Not too dark, though. The moon had risen above the thick
edge of the atmosphere and shone white and pure now and for the
moment its light was not obscured by the racing clouds. Dana looked
over at Mulder and could see him clearly. He had worn a light grey
suit that morning - interestingly, so had she - and the lingering
twilight and the moonshine made them both glow ghostly pale, even
under the trees. He had his powerful flashlight in his left hand,
though it was turned off for the moment, and carried his gun safely
down beside his right leg.

     Dana drew her weapon as well and followed his broad shoulders
through the shadows. They would not need to travel far for the
woods were not dense, nor large. Within a few minutes they saw a
glow before them, a dancing blend of orange and yellow and white
and that odd green they had seen on the under sides of the clouds.
Fire indeed.

     Let it be an industrial site, Dana prayed, or someone burning
off a natural gas bleed from a well. We could use a break here.

     Their attention was fixed so on the scene before them that
they heard - rather than saw - their visitor first. A large
presence moved quickly, noisily through the trees. Guns drawn they
both swiveled in the direction of the sound. Something man-sized,
but willow-thin, ghost-white and gleaming, ran close by them,
running, leaping over logs, and weaving in and out of the shadows
of the trees. It ignored them and ran off towards the glow.

     Dana let her gun hand come down slowly. "Mulder," she
whispered, "that man was naked."

     "I'm glad to hear that all those years in med school have
finally paid off," her tall companion said, lowering his own
weapon. "Though I'd say he was a boy, not a man. No more than mid
teens. They are the only ones who can keep it up on a night as cool
as this."

     Dana was just barely able to catch herself on that one.
Secretly, she wondered if Mulder was keeping score. She focused a
level stare on his back. "And how would you know?" she asked.

     Even in the dark, Dana detected the sound of a slight stumble
and an oath lightly sworn from his direction. Gleefully, Dana drew
a vertical line in the air with her index finger of her free hand.
Point for me.

     They reached the edge of the trees to face a large, open
field. There was a bonfire. No doubt about it. A huge one. Jack-o'-
Lanterns burned eerily. No happy, smiling pumpkins these, but faces
which glowed demon-orange in the night. Outside the lights was a
ring of cars, mostly pickups, the norm for this rural area, and
between the fire and the cars were many still, dark shapes. Now the
two agents could see that one figure, a tall one, was standing
before the blaze and speaking, though Dana and Fox could not make
out the words. Even in silhouette the figure was obviously dressed
in some costume with a mask, what looked like ram's horns and a
flowing cape.

     The figures began a low chant. Along with the occasional
chilling chime of finger cymbals, a drum began to beat. First there
was just one but then others quietly joined.  The shape raised a
roundish object into the air and with a raised voice shouted,
"Mighty Samhain, reveal your will to your people!" And with cry the
object was thrown into the flames. "Ohh's" and "awe's" came up from
the congregation. One voice cried out, seemingly in agony. Dana
started forward but her partner touched her arm.

     "Not yet. That didn't seem quite right. It sounded too
theatrical. Let's wait."

     In a few moments the raised voice from the leader cried out
once again, "The omens are good!" At that, the figures leaped to
their feet in unison. Now that the group could be seen easily, they
clearly numbered at least fifty and nearly all were wearing some
fantastic dress. There were many disguised as animals, and many
others were dressed hardly at all. Bells rang, drums beat sudden
and swift and deep, horns blew - an ancient music. Voices raised
and shouted animal-like in excitement and alien joy. Beyond the
most immediate of the raucous clamor, Mulder and Scully stood on
the tree line and watched.  With guns down, because no one seemed
to have noticed them, the two agents began moving cautiously
forward.

     "Samhain, I've heard of that," Scully said softly. "An early
name for Halloween."

     Automatically, Mulder shortened his stride so that she could
keep up over the dark, uneven ground. "Specifically, in Celtic
mythology, Samhain was the name given to the Lord of the Dead,"
Mulder explained as quietly as he could. "It was also the name
given to his festival. They honored him out of fear on this, his
night, when the ghosts and spirits returned to visit the earth. As
a way of protecting themselves, the people felt it was important to
appease the spirits by letting them know they were not forgotten."

     "And I'll bet they left food," Dana guessed, "in hope that the
dead would accept the gifts and go away quietly. The origin of our
trick-or-treat? But I thought bonfires and masks were supposed to
ward off evil spirits."

     The two agents moved toward a small, unattended fire, off to
the side, away from the huge blaze where the others were now
dancing in wild, primitive abandonment. "Only evil ones, Scully,"
Mulder said with an odd expression in his voice that made her turn
and look at him, "Remember, not all spirits were considered
undesirable. The bonfires also draw the spirits of loved ones home.
When there was nothing else, no scientific explanations for why the
sun rose and set, why your children died or you wife and cattle
were barren," Dana threw him a bemused glance but Mulder was in his
professorial mode and failed to notice her reaction," your dead
relatives were often your only protection against the unknown."

     The small fire pit that they found was already filled with red
coals. In the center was a large black pot, a caldron. It could be
nothing else. Like something out of MacBeth, Dana thought. Inside,
floating in its murky, bubbling depths, there were undefinable
lumps of matter. Dana eyed her partner for some response but became
attracted, instead, by the way the light reflected off his pale
suit until he seemed to glow like the coals, the planes of his face
alternately bright and dark.

     Scattered on the ground were packages and other objects hard
to make out in the dark. The partners crouched down for a closer
look. Dana came up first and approached Mulder until he, too,
stood.

     Gingerly, he held up a package that leaked and dribbled dark
fluid over his hand. "Chicken entrails," he said in a sepulchral
voice. "Gizzards and livers and kidneys - " his tone changed, " -
and all neatly packaged in little, wax paper bags."

     Dana could see his teeth gleaming in the golden firelight.
Quickly raising something long and thin that wiggled in her hand,
she thrust it in front of his face and suppressed a chuckle when he
jumped back about two feet.  "Got you," she whispered loudly.
"Gummy worm."

     Relief and humor flowed into his voice. "I guess we've found
our satanic cult."

     The drums and horns and bells had risen in volume and moved
from being random noise to an eerie rhythm that freely throbbed in
the marrow of their bones.

     Dana bent to inspect another pile of what had looked in
silhouette like pumpkins, but she came up with a round, head-sized
basket with a lid. "I saw these on sale at Walmart's last week when
I took Mom shopping."

     After wiping his hands on the grass, Mulder studied more odd
shapes in the shadows. "Ever heard of the 'Wickermen', Scully? The
Celts would sacrifice a man or an animal by placing them within a
cage of wicker, a kind of basket, and they believed that by the way
the basket burned and the sacrifice died that they could foretell
the future. We saw the leader throw in one 'sacrifice' and you have
one of the baskets. I think I've found some more 'sacrifices'." He
stood up with something in his hands. "At least they burn in
effigy."

     "Effigies of what?" Scully asked, recognizing the request for
a straight line when she heard it.

     "Cultural icons."

     The expression in his voice made Dana smile. "Such as? Carter,
Newt, Dole?"

     Mulder came up holding a purple, stuffed animal. "Barney."

     Dana sent him a tolerant smile. She was surprised Mulder even
knew who Barney was. She flipped the basket casually over her
shoulder. Her eyes strayed to the gyrating dancing forms. "Case
solved, Mulder. High school kids playing Halloween. Can we go home
now?" She asked, sliding her gun back into its holster.

     Mulder did the same, but his head was raised. He sniffed the
air. The smell of burning wood and incense was strong. "We are
officers of the law, Scully. Should be some good stuff around here.
Of the drinkable AND non-drinkable variety."

     "Mulder," Dana said, "we can silently slip away and let these
kids have their fun."

     "Hey," he said with an injured tone, "maybe I want a little
fun, too."

     "I know exactly what kind of fun you're usually after, Fox
Mulder, and it has nothing to do with inhalants or potables."

     As if on cue, a cluster of the dancers began to weave their
way over to the cooking fire. Dana would have slipped off but
Mulder lingered watching them, she thought, a little wistfully. A
hounded teenager, full of guilt and grief with few friends, he had
probably never been this silly and carefree in his entire life.

     The teens slowed, suspicious of the strangers, but they must
have seen Mulder's amused and non-threatening expression
illuminated by the fire and Dana knew he looked simply magnificent
in that light. Four of their number - all girls, Dana noted - came
forward giggling. "Friends are welcome," said a tall girl wearing,
sarong-like, a large piece of tie-dyed cloth around her body and
little else. Dana had to admit, for October, it was a warm night
and would continue to be, at least until later when the front came
through. "Would you like to worship Samhain?" the girl asked in a
slow, sultry voice.

     "Depends." Mulder said. "Do you pass the collection plate at
the end?"

     "For you," one of the other four giggled huskily, "we'll take
it in barter."

     Dana glided by his shoulder. "Jail bait," she whispered,
warningly.

     "I can count," he murmured his eyes still on the girls, then
he looked inquiringly down at his partner. "Want to join the
party?"

     Bewildered, Dana glanced up into his face. "Mulder, you don't
dance."

     "Who says I don't."

     "I've never seen you. Even at those awful Christmas parties
Skinner makes us attend." Dana refused to count those few steps
with Phoebe Greene in the hotel lobby, which had been a different
kind of dancing entirely.

     "That's why I don't," he was answering. "I just don't dance on
command." He took Dana's unprotesting hand and the hand of the tall
girl who had greeted them. The girl led them, laughing, towards the
fire and the other dancers. "I'm also not very good," he whispered
in his partner's ear, "but it's dark and no one knows me here,
except you, and you won't tell, I hope."

     "Not a word, Mulder," Dana promised, her voice still shaky
from the effect of his warm breath in her ear, "but mostly because
no one would believe me."

End of chapter 1a (continue with part 1b)

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: All Hallow's Eve 1b/2
Date: 30 Oct 1995 16:32:54 -0500
 

ALL HALLOW'S EVE by Windsinger (chapter 1b)
10/30/95

     The group danced in long lines around and about the fire,
moving mindlessly to the unceasing beat. Dana noted that Mulder did
not actually dance, but, eyes closed, he swayed to the throbbing
beat, letting it fill his whole body. Dana felt odd. Out of place.
"We are too old for this," the sensible voice in her head said.
"No," she admonished herself. "We are NOT too old for this. At
least not in years." But the horrors they had seen, the grief they
had experienced, the way they had been betrayed - that had made
them feel old. Still, Dana felt she should not be doing this. Not
dancing with Melissa so recently dead. She glanced over at her
partner. There were tracks of moisture glistening in the fire light
on the cheek she could see. Mulder was not enjoying this either.
This was not fun for him, but cleansing. So much had happened, and
they had jumped back into work so quickly, that neither had had
time to grieve. Dana gripped his hand tighter and he returned the
gesture in shared sympathy.

     No, I will dance, Dana told herself, for Melissa, who would
have enjoyed this.

     As for Fox, he was as concerned for her as she was for him. He
did not need to see her face in the twisting light. He could tell
by the way she held herself, by the way she moved her body, the
exact moment when his friend finally shed Agent Scully and became
just Dana - a woman forced to bear too much, too quickly. Her red
hair in this light was amazing, like flame, especially when she had
loosened up enough to really dance. From under nearly closed
eyelids he allowed himself the pleasure of watching her.

     That the young men were not more forward, distressed him. It
would do Dana good to be flirted with, to know she was desirable.
Many, Fox could tell, were interested but put off by the formal
severity of her business suit and her cool expression. At this age,
Fox knew, boys were not only more shy than girls but found older
women more frightening than any Halloween ghost - unless, of
course, they were encouraged and in her desire to become the
consummate professional, Dana had trained herself too long and too
hard to send those kinds of signals, even unconsciously.

     No, Dana saved her hints of the female animal beneath, her
radiant smile, for special times. Fox held a precious memory of
waking up from his coma in Alaska and seeing one of those smiles.
Unfortunately, he had been too groggy from drugs and weak from
fever to appreciate it properly. Just a few weeks ago, at his
apartment building, minutes after their reunion, when they had
finally gotten out from under Skinner's eyes, she had hit him with
another one. Not a word was spoken - or, if so, neither remembered
- as the elevator glided down to the ground floor. They had stood,
each on his own side of the car, and let their eyes say all. Then
she had smiled at him and only him, that long and luscious smile,
her eyes glistening with, he could have sworn, mists of tears, and
for a few seconds, time had stood still. Warm to the marrow of his
bones, Mulder had found it hard - very, very hard - to walk away
from that elevator with any sure step, his hand only lightly
touching her back.

     If she ever grew more generous with those smiles, Fox knew he
would be lost. The boys here did not know what they were missing.
In their lusting after the tall, willowy models, the big breasts
under tight sweaters, they failed to recognize that the whole woman
was so much more alluring than society's image of physical
perfection, not that Dana's pert body was not near perfection
itself, albeit in a small package. Fox sighed. How stupid he had
been, not to have learned that lesson long ago. Not that he did not
enjoy a good, lustful look, but the looking only fueled his lonely
fantasies and he was smart enough not to mistake those for reality.

      Suddenly, he found himself reaching for Dana's other small
hand so that they now held two hands and he swung her around,
pulling her closer than he should, all too aware of the danger of
playing with that kind of fire.  It had taken this gently laughing
lady - who should laugh more - to give him a glimpse into the
potential life offered. Just his luck - she was the one woman in
the world denied him.

     Time passed. They danced, they watched the other dancers.
Sometimes bodies would break the line. Dana noted that the tall
girl latched onto Mulder at one point and tried to lead him away
with her into the shadows where Dana had noticed many other couples
had vanished like ghosts, but he resisted, politely willing to
dance and flirt but that was all. Dana was pleased when he flirted
with her as well, but a little sad that he did not flirt as
shamelessly with her as with the others. Maybe he was afraid she
would take him up on it. Dana admitted she did feel a distinct pull
to have him all for herself.

     Dana knew a few of the older boys had looked her way. Never
comfortable with flirting, Dana politely ignored them while
watching their shy advances from under her lashes. Oddly enough,
when any of them got too close, it was her companion's steely gaze
which put them off, though she was sure Mulder had no idea he was
doing it. Dana knew she should be angry, but in this instance, she
didn't mind. She liked being with her partner. When, and if, his
possessiveness became a problem, she would let him know.

     At one point their line of dancers passed a group of laughing
teens who were crouched very close to one edge of the bonfire. They
were pushing hazel nuts onto a flat rock near the flames and
watching them burn. Mulder left the line to investigate, brow
furrowed.

     "This one I know," Dana said coming up behind him. "It's a
form of Irish fortune telling. A couple places two nuts near a fire
and by watching them cook you can predict how successful your
relationship will be."

     Mulder smiled wickedly in her direction, bent down and put two
of the oval nuts on the rock. Dana noted that he pushed them toward
the fire with a very LONG stick. They waited and watched, neither
speaking. The rock was hot and the nuts quickly began to jump and
sputter in the heat. Then they began to smoke and finally they
burst into flame. Dana only licked her lips knowingly and sauntered
away.

     "What did that all mean?" Mulder asked the tall girl who never
seemed to be far away.

     The girl smiled, though with some disappointment. "That you
two will have a very long and stable relationship. Your nuts did
not break open and fly apart in the heat."

     A few long strides brought Mulder back to his partner's side.
"What did she tell you?" Dana asked.

     "Oh," he told her nonchalantly, "just that we're going to burn
together."

     "Mulder, I can hardly wait."
 
 

     As the evening went on, the wild beat continued, the drummers
were insatiable, as were the dancers. At times one of the group's
members would throw a handful or part of a bucket of some chemical
into the flames and the fire would shoot up in the green glow the
agents had seen from the car. Always curious, Mulder examined the
source, a large barrel sitting well away from the fire. "Probably
a fertilizer base," he said after a cursory inspection. "There
would be enough magnesium and nitrites in it to make the colors."

     "If so," Dana said, "I'd suggest we stand upwind. It's not a
healthy mixture to breathe." Even this far from the merry-makers
they had to raise their voices to be heard over the drums and the
chanting and the crackle of the fire.

     On the way back they stopped at what seemed to be the
refreshment dump to get something to drink and catch their breath.
Dana's partner gazed longingly at the jugs of, obviously, home made
brew. "Not on your life, Mulder." She handed him a can of nice,
safe, industrially-packaged Coke. "Who knows what that stuff's
laced with."

     Sipping their staid drinks, they watched from the shadows and
thought about how young the dancers were. Dana leaned her head
lightly against his shoulder. The wool of his suit coat felt good
against her cheek. Since that night in the hospital after Melissa's
death, both had felt more comfortable about such casual touching.
"Mulder, I'm amazed. This is fire. Big, close, hot fire. After what
you've been through, I'm surprised to find you within a mile of
here."

     "Oh, I'm scared to death," he told her matter-of-factly and,
in truth, he was sweating more than Dana would have expected from
the dancing.  "But it's contained, in a wild sort of way, and what
better night to stand up to your demons than on Halloween."

     He took her arm and they headed back, but before they could
join the ring someone thrust drums into their hands, so they
politely and, quickly, enthusiastically took their turn at
percussion. They laughed as more sacrificial dinosaurs were thrown
into the fire. Later more logs, more brush, and additional
bucketfuls of chemicals were flung into the flames, making the
colors dance in the night. The scent of herb cigarettes flowed over
them and more incense. If there was any of the 'weed' it was well
camouflaged and neither wanted to go looking the trouble. The
flames leaped higher. The dancing, if possible, became more
frenzied.

     Time seemed to stand still. The wood smoke and fire, the
dancers and the drumming, the dark and the light, all seemed to
blur together. Suddenly, Dana jerked awake as she realized that the
drumming was becoming too mesmerizing. Alarm tugged at her brain.
Perhaps it was time to leave, but turning she found Mulder was no
longer sitting on the log at her side where she had last seen him.
He had left, but she had never noticed. Dana looked around
frantically. On the far side of the huge fire she finally saw him.
He was unmistakable, taller and, with those shoulders, bulkier than
most of the teens and, then, he was wearing that grey suit that
glowed in time to the dancing flames. He had dropped his drum, his
steps did not seem steady. Dana saw him back away from the fire as
if it had finally become too much for him. For a moment, two girls
clung to him, one on each arm, but Dana saw him shrug them off.
Alone he staggered away from her. Even from this distance his
agitation was obvious.

     Dana struggled to her feet. This was not good.  She took a
step, and realized she could not feel her legs. She took another
step but before she could fall she was held upright by hands that
in their way were no more steady than hers. All around her, bodies
were dropping onto the soft, damp ground. Dana fell, a body closed
itself onto each side of her, she felt a blanket being wrapped
around all three of them. She raised one hand beseechingly in
Mulder's direction, but she could no longer see him or anything....

end of Chapter 1 of 2

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: All Hallow's Eve 2a/2
Date: 30 Oct 1995 16:32:56 -0500
 

ALL HALLOW'S EVE  (Chapter 2a of 2)
By S. Esty (AKA Windsinger@AOL.com)
10/30/95
Disclaimer at the beginning of chapter 1.
 
 

     "Dana?"  a voice was there with her. A familiar one.

     "What?" Dana asked groggily. "Oh, let me alone. I don't feel
so good."

     "Dana, we don't have much time. Come on. Open your eyes. It's
me."

     Obediently, Dana opened her eyes. If she turned her head, she
could see fire and, as she took the wood smoke into her lungs, the
evening came back. Halloween. Dancing. A crowd of crazed teenagers.
Mulder's sad face. Two hazel nuts cooking contentedly side by side.
The bonfire was smaller now than she remembered and there was only
the sound of the fire crackling as the water trapped in the logs
spit out in a rush of steam. There were no drums, no horns, no
laughing, aging children. Perfect silence reigned, except for the
fire and the breeze singing softly in the leaf-empty branches. Dana
was also aware that she was lying snuggled between two young,
sleeping strangers, warm under a thick blanket.

     And then there before her eyes was Melissa's image, woven in
smoke and gentle flame.

     "Hi, Dane Monster. Don't be afraid. You walk in my world now,
that's all. I couldn't believe it when I found you here. I didn't
think this was your style at all."

     Dana struggled to rise but found she could not, and blinking
made the fire and smoke take on more certain form, not less. The
long familiar face, that waving hair, red as flame, as her own...
"Melissa ...but you're..."

     "Dead? Dana, it's 'All Hallow's Eve' when the dead walk, or
didn't you know? Just imagine: Fox Mulder, the great skeptic of
white magic, helped me find you. His thoughts were like a beacon.
I would have known him anywhere, but especially here in this place
which he so rightly calls the bridge between two worlds.  Finding
him was the only reason I thought to look for you. His mind flies
in the heavens, seeking and touching, searching and hungry, so sad
and sorrowing."

     Sorrowing...

     "Mulder..." Dana said with concern. 'Sorrowing' described her
friend too well and he had been alone when she had last seen him.

     "He's fine for the moment," her sister reassured her. "I've
visited him. He's been here before. He knows the ropes."

     Dana stared, finding it hard to believe that she was actually
seeing her sister again. "Melissa, they killed you. You died
instead of me. That was so unfair." Unfair?  Words were completely
inadequate. "Oh, Mel, I'm sorry -"

     The red hair tossed with the dance of the flames. "So am I.
Those bastards." Her voice betrayed her annoyance. "But I don't
blame you, sis. Though this... existence... has its advantages, I
would have gladly waited."

     "Mom misses you, Mel. I miss you."

     "As I miss you, but, Dana, I really will exist as long as you
remember me. I do exist, you just can't see me as you used to. By
the way, please tell Fox for me that I won't be there to pull him
out of the dark next time. He'll have to do that for himself, but
then I think he's learned that lesson. He's seen the real dark...
and the light. As have you, haven't you?"

     Dana looked in her mind beyond the smoke and flame image of
Melissa to a quiet pond, a boat, a small house, a door. The door
opened and pure white light burst out, engulfing her, drawing her
in. "Starbuck?"

     "Daddy..." she whispered. And there he was, as white as sun on
snow, in his dress uniform and Melissa was beside him with that
irritating, know-it-all smile on her face.

     "Starbuck," he repeated contentedly, "I'm so happy to see you
again. I was glad you decided to go back, Honey. I would have been
happy to have had you with me, but it really wasn't your time.
You'll be coming here soon enough. Everyone does." His hand touched
Melissa's wrist. That was their gesture, Dana remembered. Melissa
had stopped kissing her parents when she was ten, but she and her
father had this. "And I'm not alone. Especially now. Now that
Melissa's come, well, we're here for each other."

     A worried expression touching her face, Melissa hand went to
the glowing crystal at her throat. "Dad, I know you'd love to chat,
but Dana's needed." Her voice had tightened. "Dana, you have to go
-"

     "What? No," Dana protested, "I don't want to leave you yet. I
just got here."

     The crystal between Melissa's fingers flared. "Dana, you can
come back and visit us anytime, we're not going anywhere," her
sister said testily, "but he needs you NOW. He has just received
some visitors I don't think he's prepared for."

     Dana knew her sister could only mean Mulder who could get into
trouble anywhere, even here. Hesitating, Dana gazed at her father.
"Daddy, I'm sorry you never had a chance to get to know, Mulder.
He's..." What word described Mulder? "... special."

     "I'm sorry, too, Honey," her father said with his gentle
smile, "but Melissa tells he's okay, more than okay. A good match
for my little girl. Now, go. I know he was there for you, well, he
needs you now."

     With concern, Dana searched, but could not sense his presence
in the blazing white. "Where?"

     "Just think of him," her father told her. "That's all you need
to do."

     She focused on the form of him, the sparkle of his intellect,
the strength of his convictions, the selflessness of his mission.
"Mulder... Where are you?"

     As sudden as that thought, the white room blacked out with a
man's scream, incredible heat and the flaring brilliance of flame.

                              ****

     Not the bonfire in a meadow, but another kind of fire, cruel
and artificially hot, blazed fiercely in a small space. Lustily, it
consumed the air which had already been nearly too hot and dry to
breathe. Dana panicked. She felt herself trapped, confined beside/
within a body which had trapped itself, buried itself in righteous
fear under - she realized in horror - a terrible mound of brittle-
leather skeletons, all stiff, bent arms and legs and bulbous,
horrible heads.

     A soldier had come, falling through the roof hole. His thick-
soled boots had pounded on the metal floor, a sacrilege to this
hallowed ground, where the one he hunted had curled unbreathing,
heart pounding, enclosed by the dead where no sane man would hide.
When the soldier departed, the long limbed, dark haired one allowed
himself to breathe, but he had time to take only one long, shaking
before his hunters delivered their deadly gift.

     And with their gift the fire-panic swept him up like the
vulture's ripping talons.

     Fear exploding and blacking his mind, terror scrounged, he
fled deeper into the mound of the dead, to dig, to claw towards the
wall like an animal with his long arms, even though the torture of
his fear and the pain in the shoulder made it almost impossible to
move. But he moved, he fought, because something deep and sane,
something that survived amidst the madness, screamed at him that
this was his only chance.

     Throw aside the huge, desiccated, dead insects, all too much
like bird bones and dry wings. Hurl them into the fire behind. Seek
for the escape route that must be there, the tiny space which would
be clogged with their remains - the big headed, dead-for-decades
bodies. And all the while the fire roared hungrily, screeching and
eager.

     At last, under his aching, grasping hands, he found it - the
break in the wall of the metal tomb, his and theirs, a split in the
metal skin from when the car had been buried too hastily long ago.
But... "Oh, so small! Too small!!!" his mind bewailed, almost
throwing her from him.

     "Mulder! No!" Dana tried to reassure him. Deadened at first by
the panic, his desolate cry had called her back. "Mulder, this must
have happened before, this is only a dream!" but in his terror he
could not hear her. Hands and muscles tore at the metal that would
not give. But then his hands snatched back from the space for he
realized he was not alone, but it was not Dana, his friend, his
companion, he felt. Small grey bodies crowded around the tiny
imperfection in his prison, crying and wailing, clawing and
straining and pulling at the metal, frantic to help but
insubstantial, just memories, only the haunting images of terror
remaining. Weeping like frightened children, they finally crawled
into his mind, trying to flee the fire and fueling his horror.

     But there was no time to let this new fear take its numbing
hold, the other terror was enough. Frantically, he swung around
within his prison and the kick that followed from the long, terror-
ironed legs carried all the strength of his fear behind it. A
second kick followed the first and then a third, before he felt the
warm metal give. Turning like the lizard of the desert seeking the
safety of the smallest of shadows under the rock, he made for the
gap, but the sharp, hard edges snatched at his body, lustfully
greedy and clinging. Terror-seized, gasping, choking on the acrid
stench that made the tears run from his eyes, still tortured by the
craving cries from the little grey bodies who remained ever before
his eyes and his mind, he raged, wrenching and turning against the
unyielding metal jaws.

     Almost too late, with a tearing twist, the shoulders came
free, only to tumble him face first into dusty, hard darkness
beyond. The slimmer hips followed more easily, and then the long
legs that felt the heat from the ravenous fire that would have been
pleased to consume his sweet, wet flesh.

     There was no time to suck in the still, dead air now filled
with the smoke which burned his throat. No time to rest. No time to
notice that the floor of this tiny chamber was strewn with more of
the bones and the dead, dry skin. Still frantic to escape the fire,
and now, as well, the death-laden smoke, he forced himself up onto
bruised elbows, his left shoulder, his entire left side, screaming
where the wound flared like a flame. Fear drove him onward, to
crawl animal-like, stomach in the dust as they had, for the rock
enclosed him tightly on all sides. There were only two paths he
could have taken - one path stretched out before him, and, of
course, the second led behind.

     Painfully, he drug his body over their dry carcasses, crawling
away, ever away from that place, crawling within a blackness which
would have been total except for the hint of the hell fire's golden
light through the oily black clouds of choking smoke. At his back
the metal skin groaned and screamed, shriveling and reshaping
itself in the heat behind him, deforming the hole from whence he
had come, leaving no way back.

     Over the road made by their bodies, he crawled, desperate
hands and knees coming down and breaking brittle bones, numbed
hands clamping upon skins that crumbled into dust, fingers falling
in eye sockets and mouths - and all the while the little grey forms
sighed sorrowfully, eternally in his head along the length of their
road of tears where they had died so long, long ago. As the smoke
cleared a little, as the fire-panic began to loose its strangling
hold on his mind and body, the horror suddenly overwhelmed him. The
realization that he was causing this desecration in his blundering
flight stiffened his limbs, held him paralyzed within his tiny
prison until he could only lay and cower just one more rock, like
just one more of the ancient mountain's bones.

     But the grey moths around his eyes, which was all he could see
now, would not be denied. They cried in his skull, imploring, "Do
not be afraid. Use us. These are but dry shells, cast off and
nothing.... for we have had each other and you are alone. We know
you are panicked and exhausted, that there is so little of the
living air to breathe any more... but do not stop. Move on," they
beseeched. "There is no staying here. If you desert the living
world for ours then who will remember us?  For surely, if you lie
here among our skin and our bones you will die here as we did and
we do not wish to be forgotten, to die again as we surely will with
your last breath."

     But he could not find it within himself to move. His head
dropped into the dust, his cheek coming to rest upon the death-dry
skin and bone that he could not see in the blackness. He took the
dust of their death in with his gasping breaths. Dana, who was with
him still, tried to sooth him, to relieve his lingering terror with
the cool steadiness of her spirit but he could not sense she was
there. He wanted only to lie down and for a moment, or perhaps
forever, to be still.

     In time his stubbornness and the small grey forms that would
not let him be prevailed, demanding that he overcome the weakness
and the fear. Once more, with weight on aching elbows, he began
again, pushing with exhausted legs and pulling with quivering arms
against the dry, lifeless bodies within the bowels of the mountain
that pressed down with all its smothering weight.
 

     Hours of misery merged, seemingly, into days, sweat in his
eyes and then no more sweat, a mouth full of sand. With only thin
and nearly useless air to breath, with no light and no sense of up
nor down, he was dizzy and sick. No, that was not all true. 'Down'
he knew, down was where he collapsed to lie again and again cradled
among the dead as one of them, only to be dragged into tortured
wakefulness by the sound of the crying children. "...Do not join us
here," the hundreds of voices sighed like the wind against mummy's
bones. "Rise and walk or, if you cannot, crawl on like us, like the
least of the creatures of the earth, as they believed we were, like
the undying insects, one with the mountain among the rocks and the
dirt. Follow the meandering fissure like the river in the desert.
Move the rocks with your bruised and bloody hands... and live."

     Finally, at the limit of strength, came a taste of air with
some substance to it, air that took the blackness from his brain.
Soon after, a greyness came to his eyes, a stirring, a sun-blazed
breeze, painful to breathe but air. Finally, an end.

     Yes, an end, a cruel, horrible end. The desert laughed at him
blowing its dry breath into his dirty, exhaustion-ravaged face. A
slit of true sunlight falling between the rocks, a little dusty air
were his only rewards. That was all. No freedom. No going to ground
willingly like a fox to escape the deadly sentence of the sun. No,
rather caught like a fox in a trap with not enough strength left to
move the rocks that barred the exit from the snaking hole in the
mountain he had crawled through for, he did not know, how many
days, just as they had barred the path for them so many years
before. To suffer and give one's soul for life and then to find
only another prison was a vicious joke. To find no choice, no
strength left any more, no muscle, no bone, just a spirit dying.
...

     As the cold desert night descended, the heat from the sun-
baked rocks warmed his useless body. Dry cracked lips moved, but
made no sound a living man could hear. "Oh, my cell mate, my little
grey brother, I have stretched out one hand towards the dying sun.
That is all I can do, that and curl about you and lie and die with
you as you died with all of your kind behind you, so close and yet
so far from freedom. What if the way had not been barred? What
freedom could there have ever been for you? They would only have
hunted you and you would still have died, as they have hunted me
down and killed me and all those who loved me. So there is no point
to it all, is there? Only senselessness... finality...  death..."
 
 

     Darkness descended. Complete and utter. The loss of his
thoughts was darkness. Dana felt her heart stop within her as the
mind she had clung to faded utterly into silence. Again she called,
"Mulder... where are you?" She seemed ever to be saying that. But
there was no answer, only a sound like wind, like many whispering
voices in a place where she could not follow....

     She waited.... waited expectantly... knew this was not the
end. Outside herself she felt a change. The storm, which the black
witch clouds had heralded, was gathering itself to explode its
magnificence across the earth.

     A blaze of lightning, long-fingered, searing, streaked across
the sky from cloud to cloud... reached into her mind. The thunder
cracked like a cannon, its echo rumbling like a giant laughing deep
in his belly. More lightning within and without shot through her
again and she screamed. No, she did not scream. He screamed,
remembering. The lightning in the night sky brought life and
anguish and knowledge as painful as that which had burned with its
horrible energy along the nerves of his dying body dragging him
back to life. The cry, terrified and lost, was in both their minds,
as he was flung back to her, like a star shooting across the black
heavens, flung into the embrace of her mind.

     He was with her, of that she had no doubt at all. "Mulder...."

     The reply was surprised and very weak. "Dana? I thought I was
alone." Softer. "Again."

     "Not this time." She saw his eyes, only his eyes, like two
stars.

     "Wasn't much fun the first time. Can't imagine why I would
want to relive it." She could sense him trying to catch his breath.
That was probably real, occurring somewhere where his body laid.
"I-I gave up. I wanted to die, I thought I had, but they wouldn't
let me go, none of them would let me go."

     "Shush, quiet, it's all right now..."

     "They sent me back to continue the search. B-But once back,
nothing was clear." He was still caught up in the fire horror, the
hellish journey, dying then living. His thoughts drifted like
fireflies when she tried to hold them. "I remembered my name but
not what it meant, my quest but not its purpose, your form but not
your strength." Slowly, as if a dark fog were lifting, she began to
see him, the familiar face looking wan and weary. "I'm sorry,
Albert didn't call. I suspect it was because he felt that the
outcome was too uncertain and he saw no point in raising your
hopes. But he also feared for us both if our enemies were to find
out that I lived." Fox paused and looked unblinkingly and with
gratitude into her eyes. "And then one day, when my mind was
wandering... wandering here looking for purpose... I found you."

     Dana quivered under his eyes which were too warm, too
intimate, eyes which penetrated the very veins and muscles and
bones within her.

     "I sensed you searching for what had happened to you. And your
search renewed my own."

     Dana started. The regression session with that psychologist
friend of Melissa's.  Now more of what she remembered from the
dream that had pulled her awake from her grief that night made some
sort of sense.

     "You were the key." His face was almost solid now in her
mind's eye though she could still see the stars through him. "My
oath to Sam and to the truth brought me back to life. But my
promise to you, to help you find what had happened, my oath to you
brought me back to myself. I'm just sorry it took so long to let
you know. When I realized how long it had been, I was desperate to
reach you. I tried the only way I could because, like Albert, I was
afraid that contacting you openly would put your life in danger."

     "I heard you, Mulder." She told him gently. "How else would I
have known."

     His eyes widened. "That's more than I could ever have wished
for." But the sense of wonder that thought brought him, faded.
"Never again. Never again will someone I love suffer for me and my
work -"

     "It's my work, too," Dana insisted.

     Dana felt him wearily smile in her mind. "OUR work, then."

     They stayed close and silent for a long breath of time,
watching the stars falling above their heads. Finally, Mulder
asked, "Are you tired, Scully? I think we should call it a night."

     She warmed with his smile. "If you say so... It's a night,
Mulder."

     She felt the sparkles of his inner laughter, then he turned
his eyes to the right and then to the left. "Go, little
brothers...." For the first time since they had left the horror
behind, Dana was aware of the small grey beings, very much like
moths which had gathered around the edges of his mind that glowed
so brightly. "Sleep in peace, little sisters. I won't forget."

     Dana felt his mind begin to fade, to drop away from its hold
on hers. She began to miss him already.
 
 

     But before they could go, out of the dark came an anxious male
voice to shatter their peace. "No, son. Please, stay..."

     A heart beat of pause for recognition, another for denial.
"You..." This came from Fox, the space flooding with his sudden
anger. "Don't you dare speak to me!"

     The image of Bill Mulder, lined face and sunken eyes, came
into Mulder's light. Dana trembled. She had never seen Bill Mulder
before, but she had heard enough. Funny, he looked like a sick,
prematurely aging man and not like the monster she had expected.

     The ghost's spirit flared in practiced indignation as if it
could read the young man's mind. "Oh, son, what you're thinking,
that's not how it was - " he protested.

     Dana moaned. She wanted to cry out, "Oh, please, he's been
through enough. Let him alone! Let us go!" Mulder had not told her
everything about what he had learned about his father's history -
when he was ready he would talk - only that the revelations had
been painful. All she knew for sure was that she wanted more than
anything at that moment to slide away and take him with her, only
she did not know how.

     "Scully..." Fox was beside her, within her, tense and
uncomfortable. "Do you mind... this is - "

     "Private?"

     "If you really want to stay, you can."

     "No, I really don't, Mulder, unless you want me to."

     Melissa was suddenly there. "Dana can be with me," she
offered. "I'll know when you're ready to go back." Fox passed
Dana's sister a look of gratitude which he had never offered her in
life, but should have.

     With the tendrils of Dana's strength and support lingering in
his mind, Fox hardened his mind and his heart and turned to face
the last person, either in life or death, he wanted to see at that
moment.

     His father's form had retreated before Fox's anger, outlining
itself, black against the stars.

     "You gave her to them. Why her? I was older, stronger and not
Mom's precious Sam. I should have been the one to go!"

     "Would you find it any easier to forgive if I told you I
prepared the first file," the well known voice rumbled. "The first
one," he repeated with rare anguish. "With blood on MY hands I put
that folder into theirs. It was the ransom to save your life, her
life, your mother's, but it still damned my soul. Don't you think
I didn't beg them to take me instead? But they refused. They said
they still needed my services. A day or two, a week, a month, they
said, until they were assured again of my loyalty. But none of the
terrible things I did for them were ever enough. Only that fact, in
my arrogance and my misplaced loyalty, I learned too late."

     Fox remained stubbornly silent, grieving. Finally, the words
came, but as if pulled from him against his will, "Your whole life
was a lie. Please don't expect me to believe you now."

     "Fox, son, they took who they wanted. They would have, no
matter what. Do you think what I wished was at all important to
them? They laughed at me. And so they should have. I was so
trusting to think I had any choice at all. My choice only served to
tell them where lay the sharpest knife."

     Fox tried, he did, but could find within himself no pity. "I
was just a little kid.... you let me think it was my fault." There
were too many years and too much between them and Bill Mulder saw
that in his son's cold face.

     Gentler now, without hope. "For a while I clung to a dream,
that when you were older we could work together to get her back.
But how was I to know that every time I looked at you I would see
her face and your grief, and the guilt you carried like a shield
against the world and that I would hate myself even more for what
I had done. And, yes, that I would come to hate you for never
letting me forget."

     "So what's the point of telling me now?"

     "I said you were a smart boy, Fox," and there was a sort of
pride in the rough voice. "You know that I haven't really told you
anything that mind of yours would not have come up with on its own
once the shock of these days has worn off. I sent you back for the
truth. You found part of it, now find the rest. And if I've
followed your career correctly, you also know that there is always
more than one way to interpret any truth."

     Fox looked up at him warily. "I didn't think you cared. I
didn't think you ever noticed what I did."

     The form full of darkness stepped back into the darker
darkness without. "Fox, part of me was afraid to love you for fear
that if I did, they would take you from me, too."

     Eyes burning, Fox raised his voice to be heard by the
retreating figure. "At least then Sam and I would have been
together," he accused. "She would not have been alone. I would not
have been alone." Crushing sorrow mingled with Fox's anger. "Damn
you! They hold her against ME now."

     To that the spirit, at first, had no answer, except to pause
in its flight.

     "Only as I lay dying, did I realize that my sin would
transcend generations. Oh, son, to prevent that I would have died
a hundred times. I was only a man who thought he was doing what was
right." His form could barely be made out now. "I just wanted to
see you one more time. To try to explain. Maybe some day, when you
learn more about the Committee and their ways, which I fear you
will, maybe then you will find it in your heart to forgive." Then
Bill Mulder turned his head to see the loss of stars in the east
heralding the dawn. "My candle burns low. And I have kept you
overlong. You don't want to be caught with us. Now we both must go
and quickly."
 

                               ***

     Dana bid farewell to her sister on what Melissa called the
Step of Returning, the first step of the Bridge. The light
retreated as Melissa departed leaving Dana wrapped again in night,
a night filled with the promise of approaching day. Their parting
had been warm and filled with love, mingled with the sadness of
loss. How different to the turbulent emptiness and guilt left by
the tortured spirit of Bill Mulder as he had fled to his own side
of the bridge at their approach.

     Gazing across the star-filled plain, Dana saw only one figure
and that one so far away, only her friend, bowed in grief, alone in
the dark, facing a fight that seemed too hard, enemies too
numerous, the distances too vast and cold.

     "Come home, Mulder. I'm here," she called across the fading
sea of stars. "When you need me, I'll always be here."

     And she reached out her hand to draw him to her light... and
the little grey ones, those that had lingered at the edges of the
heavens, followed.

End of chapter 2a

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: All Hallow's Eve 2b/2
Date: 30 Oct 1995 16:32:57 -0500
 

ALL HALLOW'S EVE by Windsinger
10/30/95
Chapter 2b
 

     Dana woke, cold and stiff, her head aching, to a pale, chill-
grey dawn. Dew sparkled like frost on the long grass now matted
down by the countless dancing feet. The front had come through with
its lightning and thunder but, thank goodness, no rain. She raised
her head. Nothing stirred. The fire in the bonfire pit was dead and
cold. Just a little smoke curled up into the white fog. Only with
difficulty could she sit up because a body lay snuggled close on
either side of her, a blond-headed boy and a dark-haired girl who
slept on with gentle, sweet-dreaming smiles on their faces. No
ghosts in their pasts.

     Dana struggled out of the blanket that surrounded them. It was
cold and the goose flesh rose on her skin. As she stood, she
stumbled. The two bodies did not wake but rolled together onto the
patch of earth which her body had warmed.

     She was amazed at the sight that met her eyes. Bodies
everywhere scattered upon the ground. In ones, twos and threes, and
even more, they laid wrapped in blankets. Many had sleeping bags.
They had known what was coming and had come prepared. She and
Mulder had not. The two she had awakened with had taken her and
protected her in the night. But Mulder... Mulder had pushed the two
away who, Dana realized now, had sought to shield him. Frantically,
Dana ran from one dew covered bundle to another, searching, praying
she would find him in the warm arms of some young thing and not
lying alone, unprotected, in this cold, damp place.

     With relief and then a little pang of jealously she found him,
saw his hair first, showing from under the edge of a large green
wool blanket whose surface blended in with the long, matted grass,
both sparkling with the heavy dew. When she gently pulled back the
blanket, Dana saw him lying on his side, one girl cradled
protectively within his arms, the tall girl snuggled against his
back. His face was creased and sad and there were tracks of dried
tears on it. Everyone was fully dressed - well, for the tall girl
as dressed as she had been to start with. They slept like tired
children.

     Dana touched his cheek. The muscles twitched. She touched it
again. "Come on, Casanova," she whispered. "Rise and shine before
the kiddies wake up and we have to answer a lot of questions.
Worse, before their parents and the police come looking for them
and start asking a lot of questions."

     His hazel eyes opened groggily but obviously pleased at the
sight of her. He wiped his face with the back of his hand then took
a beat to remember where he was, took two beats to fully
acknowledge the girls warming his body. The consternation was
obvious on his face.

     "I swear, Scully, I don't know where these girls came from."

     She smiled down at him. "For once I believe you. I woke up in
a similar situation, but try explaining that to Skinner."

     Carefully, he extracted himself from first one girl and then
the other. The tall girl did not exactly wake but she frowned when
she was separated from him. Dana made a mental note that she
wouldn't mind trying this sleeping arrangement herself. Missing two
flashlights, but for once with both their weapons, the two agents
started back across the tall weeds, heading for the woods and then
for the road where they had left their car.

     "So what was it, Mulder? They must have thrown something into
the fire. A hallucinogen?"

     Mulder had paused to look back at the sunlit scene behind,
which reminded him not at all of the night before. "Peyote, maybe,"
he answered finally, "or some mushroom extract. I'm fairly certain
Albert used something like it at the Hogan, something mind-altering
or consciousness-expanding. I was curious at the time but they had
just saved my life. It would have been impolite to criticize." He
shrugged. "Their culture, their medicine. All I know is that I had
the weirdest dreams. At least I think they were dreams."

     They started on again towards the car. "Did you dream
tonight?" she asked, hesitantly, wondering how much he remembered.

     For once her accident-prone companion skillfully skirted a
gopher hole almost invisible within the grass tufts. "Dream?" he
asked oddly. "You might call it that." He tried a smile, testing
her. "Did you? Or have any ghostly visitations?"

     Realizing with pleasure that she still felt Melissa and her
father's presence, Dana allowed herself a gentle smile. "Maybe.
You? Any ghosts in your dreams?"

     A shadow of discomfort passed over his face. "Some... friends,
friends who kept me going when nothing else would." His face
darkened. "And my father."

      As she moved a strand of red hair away from her face, Dana
asked carefully, "What did your father say?"

     "I'd like to think about that." He put his hands in his
pockets and walked some distance before moving his shoulders
uncomfortably. "You were in the tunnel with me tonight, weren't
you?"

      They were under the trees now. The forest was not nearly so
dark, nor dense, as it had seemed the night before. "I think so,"
Dana answered. "THAT was what you didn't want to tell me, wasn't
it?"

     The words came haltingly, "I didn't want you dragged into
that. I'm sorry. I needed..." The voice trailed away.

     "It's alright to need someone, Mulder. You've been there for
me and my family these past weeks. I never realized how it had been
for you. No one should have to go through that twice alone. Once,
I'm sure, was enough."

     Her tall companion paused by the trunk of a dark tree. "If you
were there, you must know I wasn't exactly alone."

     "I noticed," she said, chin tilted towards his face,
questioning. "Was that a dream, too, Mulder?"

     He shrugged. "If so, it was the clearest of them all. I think
it was real."

     "All of it?"

     He looked down at her from under wary brows. Somewhere in New
Mexico, under a mountain, he was certain as breath that grey ghosts
haunted a lonely tomb.  "Does that bother you?"

     "I'd like to think about that one," she said echoing his
earlier statement.

     Not a direct refusal, Mulder noticed. Progress. "Life isn't
simple, is it, Scully?"

     "Neither is death," she said enigmatically.

     She felt his surprised eyes on her. "When we get back to the
car, can you find this place on the map?"

     "Close enough, Mulder. Why?"

     He had increased the length of his stride as they began to
pick up the sound of the occasional car moving on the road ahead.
"Oh, next year, or maybe the year after that, I might like to come
back."

     "Think the girls will be old enough for you then?"

     Mulder threw back his head in a silent chuckle and the light
breeze ruffled his hair. "For once, not my first thought, oh
skeptical partner of mine. No, to let the spirits know that they
are not forgotten."

     Dana shook herself. She couldn't quite believe she had heard
correctly. Couldn't believe at all what she replied. "I think they
know already." And then she asked carefully, "Would you mind if I
came along?"

     Dana saw a look of pure amazement cross her friend's face. He
reached out and found her hand. Their fingers entwined, as they
neared the car. "You know that you're always welcome." His tone
lightened. "Only next time we come prepared. We bring a blanket."

     Her hand felt very small but very right curled in his. "One
blanket?"

     Dana could have sworn Mulder winked at her as a ghost of a
smile touched his lips.
 

The End...at least until NEXT Halloween.

      *****************************************************

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: First, thanks to my editors who worked on very
short notice to get this out, especially to Youkneek and the
Canadian Coyote. As to how Mulder got out of the box car, the
scenario I've proposed here is based on the disposition of the
bodies, the finding of the body where Mulder was found and the
action of the 'merchandise' during the flash back when the gas
canister was dropped. The trip though the mountain, without the
ghosts, actually comes very close to that Jennifer Lyons proposed
in 'Safe Havens' and I'm sure I was influenced in some way. So
three cheers to her for prophetic visions.  And three cheers to the
author of The Voice of God who also noticed that Mulder seems
'different' since his return. Thanks to MacSpooky who has noted
that Dana's father never got a chance to know Mulder very well.
This story was complete before the posting both of Henry Lee's
story 'Resurrection' and Sheryl Martin's story 'Dragons of the
Pale', so blame coincidence for similarities.

AUTHOR'S NOTE to the fans of my REVELATIONS series: This story is
completely separate from any of my others. For those of you waiting
for JUST THE TWO OF US (JTTOU), the finale to my REVELATIONS series
(THE BOX, THE ABDUCTEE, MILE HIGH, MEMORIES), I apologize for
taking time out from that for ALL HALLOW'S EVE but I just needed a
break. Now I'm ready to jump back in again. JTTOU has got plot,
emotion and relationship twists that need time and care to come out
right and it's going to be as long as THE ABDUCTEE. (Sorry about
that. Blame the muse.) A story takes as long as a story takes to
tell, but I think you'll like it when it's done - realistically,
that should be in December. While you wait, I hope you liked this
one. Let me know. Good and Bad, well, Good and Constructive criticism.  I
love e-mail.