by Lisdean Warner
xangst@marina-pt.com
 

Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 15:54:18 -0600

This story was written in response to a challenge on the Mysterious and
Suspicious list, called "Why Planes Go Down."

Charleyne, honey. A word of advice--never challenge the Dean when it comes
to angst.

Here, for your enjoyment, is an angst-riddled story of planes, and what
happens *after* they go down.

**********

Oooops, sorry. First things first. All that
no-infringement-intended-gosh-aren't-CC-1013-Fox-and-Rupert-all-so-great
bit has to come first, doesn't it <grin>.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled plane crash <smirk>.

**********

Fireflies
by Dean Warner

Part One
 

En route to Portland, ME
3:35 am
Monday

"I still think you're crazy, Mulder," Scully said seriously, looking at her
partner, who lay sprawled across three seats on the other side of the
aisle.
   "I know, but Skinner would never approve your transfer now," he joked.
"You've been contaminated."
   "By *what*?" she returned, looking at him strangely.
   He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Spookiness."
   "Sure. Fine. Whatever."
   They'd be in Portland by five, giving them enough time for a couple of
hours' sleep before they had to meet with the local commish about a rash of
rape-murders that had been firing up the press in recent weeks. Mulder had
given Scully some hare-brained scheme about aliens or mutants or--God, she
could hardly remember it now. He was only doing it to razz her, but she
realised he'd have no fun if she didn't rise to the bait. So she did her
best.
   Now, though, all she wanted was to get a few moments rest before they
touched down. At least it might take the edge off.
   "I'm going to sleep now grey-boy," she joked.
   "Okay. Don't let the fireflies keep you up."
   She straightened up, looking at him. "What?"
   He smiled a rare, full smile--his happy-memory smile. "Sam used to think
that fireflies were actually fairies, and that they would whisper in her
ear to keep her awake when we went camping."
   "And why would she think that?" Scully asked suspiciously. "Certainly
not because her big brother told her so?"
   "Oh," Mulder agreed seriously. "Certainly not." He smiled over at her
gently. "Night Scully."
   "Night Mulder."

4:15 am

Mulder was jolted awake by the turbulence. He peered out the window and
encountered a driving rain, accompanied by the most terrific lightening
he'd ever seen.
   At the next jolt, Scully was awake as well, eyes wide. "What's happening?"
   "I don't know," he shrugged. "Looks like a rainstorm." The cabin lights
chose that moment to go out and Scully could *hear* the thunder rumble
through the plane's body.
   "Oh, God," she whispered.
   Mulder reached across the aisle to take hold of her hand. "Don't worry,
Scully. Planes like this are made to fly through all sorts of weather."
   She glared at him. He was kidding, right? That was the second Flood they
were seeing out there.
   As if to make her point for her, there was a punishing flash of light,
and a sound rumbled through the fusilage.
   It was definitely *not* thunder.
   The co-pilot came on the intercom. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're
experiencing just a little bit of difficulty with the weather out there, so
if you could please stay in your seats with your seatbelts fastened--" he
broke off in a yelp.
   "Mulder..." Scully hissed worriedly.
   "Scully," he said seriously, "it'll be okay. I promise."
   She smiled at that. "You can't fly the plane, Mulder. Don't make
promises you can't keep."
   His hand tightened on hers suddenly as the plane carreened madly to the
left, and a baggage compartment two rows up slammed open, accompanied by
the frightened yelps of the people below it.
   Scully wasn't at all surprised when a harried flight attendant came on
the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen. We are going to be making an emergency
landing at Hillhana Municipal Airport. Please keep to your seats and remain
calm. We *will* get down safely." She did actually *try* to sound like she
believed it. "We'll be touching down in about twenty minutes. There will be
heavy turbulence while we descend to the airfield, so please remain still."
   Scully laughed out loud at that, and Mulder looked at her strangely.
   "I'm sorry," she said finally, "but who the hell would *want* to run up
and down the aisles in *this*?"
   Anything Mulder might have said in return was drown by the sickening
sound of wrenching metal. The plane began to plummet, and, with another
terrifying screech of iron and steel, Scully felt Mulder's hand being
ripped away from her.

******
Somewhere in Southern Maine
6:47 am

"Oh, God!" Scully lay exactly where she was, not making the mistake of
moving again. Something was crushing her stomach and she was effectively
pinned to the metal wreckage below her. Somehow, she'd come out of her
seat, and now lay in the twisted remains of the plane. She took a deep
breath, hissing at the pain it caused. "Mulder!"
   There was no answer at all. "MULDER!"
   "Lady?" came a faint voice, far off.
   "I'm over here!" she called, as loudly as she could. The pain was making
it hard for her to stay conscious. "I'm over here!"
   She saw a flashlight bobbing through the predawn light toward her. As it
neared, she could see that it was held by a fireman. He knelt down, a bit
away from her, surveying the wreckage she had become part of.
   "Can you move, ma'am?"
   "No," she grunted painfully. "I had a friend on the plane. Tall, dark
hair. Can you see him?"
   The flashlight bobbed away from her, traveling over the smoking rubble.
"I don't see anyone, ma'am," he said, though she knew he meant he didn't
see anyone *alive*. He stood up. "Look, I'm going to go get a couple of the
others to help me get you out of there, okay?"
   She could barely nod. Where the hell was Mulder?

"Okay, sir," the young policeman said quietly, sitting next to Mulder's
head. "We're going to put a collar around your neck now. It'll keep your
head from moving too much until we can tell how badly you're hurt."
   The EMT beside him slipped the cervical collar carefully over Mulder's
bleeding neck. The tall FBI agent tried to tilt his head up slightly to
look at the policeman. "I had a friend in the plane..."
   "Sir, I promise we'll look for him. The wreckage is scattered over half
of this county, but I promise we'll look." He helped the EMTs lift the
lanky man onto a backboard. "What does your friend look like?"
   "She's small. Red hair..." Mulder whispered sadly. "She's beautiful."

******
Hillhana County Hospital
Hillhana, ME
9:45 am

It had taken an hour to pry all the metal away from her, and when they had,
they'd found that she'd been not only pinned, but impaled, by the fragment
of wing plate that had settled onto her. She'd gone shocky on them in the
ambulance, and they'd been fighting to keep her from fading on them while
waiting for the surgeons to get to her.
   Richard Beckwith ran a soothing hand through the beautiful woman's hair
for the thousandth time. He hadn't found out her name until they'd stripped
off her jacket, and her badge had fallen out. Now, he whispered to her
gently, over and over. "It's okay, Dana. It's okay. You're going to be
fine..."
   He had no idea if she could hear him, but he was so heartbroken at the
pain around her eyes, the weakness of her moans. This was the part of the
job he really hated--waiting with someone while they died.
   "It'll be okay, Dana. I promise. Everything will be okay."
   Barely conscious, a young FBI agent started to cry.

Maitreville Community Hospital
Maitreville, ME
11:45 am

Doctor Gillian Forrester sat down heavily as her friend Sarah handed her a
cup of coffee. "You okay, Gilli?"
   Forrester looked up at her through red-rimmed eyes. "We lost another
one," she said quietly.
   "Oh, Gilli..."
   "It was so sad. He didn't seem like he was too bad off when they brought
him in--just some bruises, a couple of broken bones." She sighed painfully.
"He was cute, too. Tall, dark hair. Had the most beautiful eyes..." Gilli
sniffed mightily. "He just... You know, he just asking us to hunt for his
girlfriend--like it was more important that we find her than save him...
And he just slipped away..."

Hillhana County Hospital
Tuesday
3:45 pm

Richard walked into the private room quietly, a bouquet of daisies in his
hand. He put them silently on the table by the window, and watched the
young redhead sleep for a minute.
   He'd been amazed when they told him she'd actually survived the surgery.
He'd been so sure that he had spent her last few hours with her when they
wheeled her away. She wouldn't have been the only one. Sixty-five of the
one hundred and ninety passengers were dead now. They had no idea how many
more were missing. The plane had fragmented as it came down, and they had
found bodies as far away as Cartersville, some twenty miles off. The
newspeople were saying that it was some kind of mechanical failure--the
plane was hit by lightening, they thought.
   Richard had no idea what had happened, but he did know that, out of the
seven people his team had brought in, only this strong, beautiful redhead
had survived.
   He turned to go, and heard a weak voice behind him. "Stop, please."
   He turned back to her, face shining. "Hi, Dana," he said gently. "How
are you feeling?"
   She looked at him seriously for a moment. "That's a stupid question,"
she observed. What she was reallt thinking about was how often Mulder had
been there to ask that very same question.
   "S'pose so," he agreed with a smile.
   "You were with me in the emergency room?" she asked tentatively, not
sure how much of the day before had been dream, and how much reality. "You
stayed with me?"
   "Yeah," he agreed, suddenly bashful. "Yeah, I just... I didn't want you
to be alone."
   She started crying at that, and he rushed over to the bed. "I'm sorry,
Dana," he whispered, automatically running his hand through her hair again.
"I'm sorry..."
   "No," she whispered. "I'm sorry--it's okay--it's just that..."
   "What?" he prompted gently.
   "I had a friend on the plane..." she tried to stop her crying, but it
only made it worse, and the way she just lay there weakly, tears running
down her cheeks, made his heart hurt. "He... promised me it would be all
right... And I don't know if he's..."
   "Shhh," Richard said quietly, soothing her as he would his young
daughter. "Shhh... What's his name, Dana? I'll find him for you."
   She almost didn't want him to be found. She was sure that, given the
death toll she'd already heard, he was gone. She wasn't sure she could deal
with finding out for sure.
   "Fox Mulder," she finally whispered brokenly. "His name was Fox Mulder."

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

County Sherriff's Office
Hillhana, ME
3:17 pm
Wednesday

The switchboards were going crazy. People were trying to call out, with
information to loved ones about their husbands or wives or sons or
daughters. The very people who needed that information were also trying to
call *in*, creating a nightmare for operators all over Hillhana county.
   "Cyndie!" Richard called over the chaos.
   "What?" a dark-haired young woman snapped. "I'm really busy, Rick, okay?
Go bother somebody else."
   "Look, this is important. I'm looking for a guy who might a survivor."
   Cyndie looked around incredulously at the dozens of ringing phones.
"So's everyone else! Take a number."
   "Who're you looking for, Rick," a tall woman with gently greying hair
asked. "I'll help you out."
   "Thanks, Anna," Rick replied, glaring at Cyndie for a moment before
moving to the other woman's desk.
   "She said his name was Fox Mulder. He's about 6'2", brown hair, hazel
eyes. He's an FBI agent."
   "Ooh!" Anna replied with a smile, moving to the makeshift register
they'd started up, cataloging the dead and wounded.
   "Let's see... Mulder... Mulder... Fox Mulder? ...Mulder..." She looked
up. "Nope, sorry. I can't find him."
   "Does that have the names for the whole county?"
   "Are you kidding me?" she asked with a tight laugh. "Rick, there are
tweleve hospitals taking part in this. It's going to take days to get
everyone logged in. Not to mention the fact that a number of the dead
haven't even been identified yet."
   Richard nodded sadly. He couldn't go back to her empty-handed. "Do we
have descriptions of the John Does?" Maybe he was there. For Dana's sake,
Richard hoped not.
   "I've got some..." She flipped to the back of the book. "Tall, brown
hair, hazel eyes... They've got two at the morgue in Sillia, and... God,
four at Maitreville Community."
   Richard sighed. Time to go on a road trip. Sillia was in one direction,
Maitreville in the exact opposite. He'd start in Maitreville first, he
decided.

Maitreville Community Hospital
Maitreville, ME
4:15 pm

"I hope you can identify at least one of them," the young orderly said. The
fatigue in his voice was now a standard fixture in the area hospitals. Some
people had been on shift almost since the crash--catching sleep when they
could. With forty people still unaccounted for, and more of the newly-found
trickling in each hour, there was no clear end in sight.
   "We tried to keep pieces of clothing and baggage that was found around
them, with the bodies. A couple of these had some sort of identification
nearby, but we're still not sure it's them."
   Richard nodded and bent down to take a look at the first corpse. He fit
Dana's description--but they all did. He looked at the dark trench coat
beside the body. It had apparently been found next to him, and they were
assuming it was his, but there was nothing in the pockets that could
identify him.
   He got to the third corpse and grimaced slightly at the wound on its
neck. The orderly nodded. "That one came in here the first morning. He was
absolutely frantic that we find his girlfriend, and--"
   "Did he give a description of her?"
   The orderly shrugged. "Not to me. I think Uly Johnson--local deputy--was
with the group that brought him in, though. You could go over to the
sherriff's office and ask him."
   Richard nodded, straightening up. "Hey, do you have a polaroid or
something around here? I want to take some pictures of these guys."
   "Sure," the young man said, going off to one side to retrieve the
camera. "Police from all over the county have been doing that all day."

4:45 pm

"Thanks a lot," Rick said, trying not to let the frustration in his mind
leak out with his words. It wasn't the orderly's fault that one of these
guys was probably Dana's boyfriend--no, "partner," she'd said. He smiled at
that. Working partners were close, but the fear in her voice when she asked
about this guy was for a lover, not just a friend.
   Rick really didn't want to go back and show her these photos. It was
damn near the last thing he wanted to do.
   "Hey," he asked suddenly. "Do you guys have IDs on *all* your patients?"
   "Yeah," the orderly said. "Why?"
   "Can I take a quick look at your log book?"

Hillhana County Hospital
Hillhana, ME
7:45 pm

Scully stared hard at the ceiling, trying to forget everything. Richard
hadn't been back yet, and she almost didn't want to see him when he did
arrive. Her stomach hurt--even the pain-killers they were feeding into her
now weren't enough to dull it completely. All in all, she was very lucky to
be alive.
   Except that she didn't feel lucky. She felt like she'd almost rather
they'd left her there to bleed to death.
   No, she didn't really feel that way... But to lose her partner, her
*friend*, in something so stupid. A simple redeye flight. Something they'd
endured a thousand times in their three years together...
   To lose him now... She dashed her tears away angrily. It was just so
*stupid*! He was gone now, and there would be no more alien jokes, no more
ugly ties, no more... Mulder.
   She gazed sadly out the window of her darkened room, and caught the
images of light flashing in the darkness. They were ambulance lights of
course, but they reminded her of him.
   And of fireflies...
   She cried softly to herself. "Wherever you are, Mulder," she whispered.
"Don't let the fireflies keep you awake..."

"Dana?" Richard's soft voice woke her from a dream filled with frightening
images. A dream that was dominated by the feel of his hand being ripped
from hers, and the sound of screaming metal.
   "Dana? Are you awake?" He had such a gentle voice. Gentle... Like
Mulder's had been.
   "Hmmm," she replied sleepily.
   "Are you up for a visitor?"
   So her mom had finally gotten there. It was only yesterday morning that
they'd been able to get word to her. "Sure," she whispered, much less than
half-awake. "She can watch me sleep."
   "I'd love to watch you sleep, Scully."
   She knew now that this was just more of the dream--the creullest part,
really. In her dreams, he was alive...
   She never wanted to wake up again.
   "Scully?" The word was accompanied by a strange squeaking. She almost
recognised it. Like a hospital gurney, she thought sleepily.
   Just like a hospital gurney...

Mulder looked over at her as she dropped immediately back to sleep, his
mind replaying the previous hours with a quiet joy.

He had looked up at the handsome young fireman who'd entered his silent
room, and had almost hated him for the bright smile he'd worn. How could he
*do* that? Scully was gone--they hadn't even found her body yet--and they
were sending in the friendly neighborhood chuckwagon.
   "Can I help you?" Mulder had asked, just this side of murderous.
   "Are you Fox Mulder?"
   Mulder just nodded angrily. If they'd sent this guy in to tell him
they'd found her body, he was going to kill someone.
   "I've been looking for you," the young man replied. "And, uh... So has a
certain young redhead."
   Mulder had looked at him for a full minute before it registered. When he
tried to speak, he couldn't. "Where...?"
   "She's in the hospital in Hillhana--"
   "Is she okay?" Mulder asked tensely, trying to sit up, and wincing at
his wrenched back.
   Richard shook his head speculatively. "I wouldn't say she's okay--but
she will be. Especially once she knows *you're* okay."
   "I want to see her," Mulder demanded.
   "I don't think they're going to let you out of here, Mr. Mulder."
   Mulder just seethed for a minute, knowing he couldn't get out of this
bed if he wanted to. Damnit! After two endless days of trying to deal with
the fact that he'd never see her again, he *needed* to touch her--to prove
to himself that she was there... That he wasn't alone.
   Richard watched him carefully for a moment. "I'll be back, Mr. Mulder,"
he said quietly.
   Mulder never even heard him leave.

And now, after the fireman had spent nearly an hour talking Maitreville
Community into transferring him to Hillhana, he was engaging in his
farvourite pasttime--watching his partner sleep. She was alive! He'd spent
the last day certain that she was gone forever, certain that he'd have to
face day after day after day without her. And now...
   And now, she lay before him, sleeping peacefully--as beautiful as ever.
   "All right, Mr. Mulder," the charge nurse said quietly. "I'll take you
up to the ward now."
   Mulder unleashed a puppy dog look. "Can't I stay here?" he asked
timidly. "I mean, with all the chaos, you must be pretty crowded, right?"
   Richard Beckwith smiled. This search had clearly been worth it. His last
minute question at Maitreville--a question he almost hadn't asked because
he'd thought Hillhana's records were complete for that hospital--had paid
off, in that loving smile on a puppy dog face. He grinned slyly at the
nurse.
   "Come on, Sandy," he cajoled. "What's it going to hurt?"
   She returned the smile, and with Richard's help, tooled the gurney over
toward the window.
   "Goodnight, Scully," Richard heard the lanky man whisper, as he and
Sandy left the two of them alone.

******
Hillhana County Hospital
Hillhana, ME
7:00 am
Thursday

Scully woke slowly, the painkillers slowing her brain down to a gentle
daze. She looked over at the window to see the sunrise, and saw the other
bed sitting there, still indistinct in the grey before dawn.
   They must be really backed up, she thought, to just wheel the gurney in
here.
   She didn't want company, but the  other patient seemed to be well
asleep, so she could probably experience the sunrise by herself. She didn't
think she could enjoy it, though. The memory of Mulder, calling softly to
her in her dreams, still hurt--more than her gut.
   As the sun rose, she got a better look at him, and she thought she was
dreaming again. "Mulder?" she whispered incredulously.
   She tried again. "Mulder?" Her voice was on the edge of tears, but if
he'd only answer her, none of that would matter.
   And then he turned toward her, carefully, gingerly, and she smiled the
widest smile he had ever seen from her.
   "That," he commented softly, "is a *great* way to wake up."
   She smiled and cried and laughed. "Yes it is, Mulder. God... Yes it is."

************
END
 

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and Myth Patrol                             the *only* one I trust."
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xangst@marina-pt.com--------Die-Hard Skinner Chick---------Dean Warner

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