MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH01: PARTING (1/1)
By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger @AOL.COM)
6/19/00

RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst
SUMMARY: In a cone of brilliant light, surrounded by silent and compliant
former abductees, Mulder comes face to face with the Hunter. Why does this
scene seem not unfamiliar and what will happen now? This series traces
Mulder's abduction and begins with the events of the first few minutes. A
companion story to this one is Scully's PRAYERS RISE UP.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission and as
long as the author's name is retained.
DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of Fox
Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David, thank you, thank
you for giving us a great season finale and NOT a Mulderless Eighth Season.

Author's Notes: I have trouble enough going a summer without a new X-File
(with Mulder). Now I have to wait till the depths of winter! I need my fix
and so I've created my own. I hope it will help other addicts as well. This
will be a series of short episodes of posted approximately once every three
to four weeks.

My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the newer
pieces at
http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH01: PARTING (1/1)

One's mother is supposed to teach you not to touch things when
you don't know where they've been. I guess I wasn't listening that
day. In my case, however, it is more likely that good 'ol Mom
neglected that part, her maternal genes, at least in respect to me,
never being particularly dominant. Who I can't blame are the nuns
at the Catholic youth camp my parents sent me the year I turned
thirteen. They knew what hands should be used for and what not...
but let's not go there right now. Instead, I think it's sufficient
to note that it was curiosity that finally killed the nine-lived
cat.

Clearly, the same goes for the over-inquisitive FBI agent.

What exploding trains, gushing oilwells, burning railcars,
green bugs, poison darts, shot gun blasts, hospitals, Black Oil,
ghosts, hundred-acre fungi, water-sapping free radicals, and
million-year-old sociopathic worms couldn't do, curiosity has done.
Caught me good.

I was only going to touch it. I expected at most to encounter
a bit of static or the edge of an invisible bubble. Instead, it is
as if a net of electricity grips my hand. As it begins to vibrate,
I stare at it unable to speak, unable to cry to Skinner for help.
It's as if my hand is not a part of me any more. There's no pain,
and yet I can't pull it back. Instead, I am sucked within seconds
into a whirlwind, a whirlwind without wind. It is only my body that
is moving, all of it gyrating now in a totally bizarre fashion.
There's not even any time to be afraid because, all at once, it is
over.

I'm aware of my feet first. They are on the ground, only the
ground is as unstable as the rest of me. Think of the way you feel
just after you walk off a really serious roller coaster. You know
the world is standing still, and yet it isn't. In the same way I'm
aware that I am in the same Oregon forest I started out from, and
yet I'm not.

This is why I don't run or cry out. I don't even try. Running
and screaming my lungs out won't do any good. Maybe it's not a
change in space, however. Maybe it's a change in time. Lost time
phenomena has been associated with UFO sightings from the
beginning. It would start to explain why this place is invisible
except to intensely phased light. Bent time, bent space. Einstein
would have understood. Believe it or not, I remember the thesis you
wrote -- "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation" -- so I
would love to hear your theory on this. At the moment, however, I
would just as happily settle for hearing you read the phone book.
 

What do I see? Very little and yet so much. There's a
brilliant funnel of light only about forty feet from where the
ground is calming down under my feet. A hum seems to be coming from
it that fills my whole body. But do you know what the scariest part
is, Scully? This is all so familiar. We are talking serious deja
vue. Scientists say that there is no such thing, that the phenomena
is caused by memories of something similar that happened to you
before but which you've forgotten. It's either that or a minor
explosion in the brain. If it is the second explanation working
here, then I need to go back and consult my neurologist. If it's
the first, then by reaching past the barrier that the Gunman's
military-issue mini-lasers could not penetrate, I have made a
really serious mistake. Most assuredly, the worst mistake of my
life.

And here I'm reported to be so bright.

Of course that would depend on whether I ever had any choice
in the matter. I suspect I have been led here. Step by step,
embarrassing moment by embarrassing moment, empty year after empty
year -- I've been led to this moment. Some might say it was why I
was born. That's a depressing thought.

Did I say empty years? Empty except for you, Scully, hopeless
except for you, meaningless except for you.

Oh, Scully I am so sorry. The time we wasted.

What it comes down to is that I think I've been here before,
or in a situation very much like it. I don't have an implant, we
checked that out, but if I and the other abductees who have gone
missing were not selected by that then what? I always assumed that
the microchips were the key, that their use was how humans were
tagged...

... chips... and smallpox vaccinations and who know what else.
How soon we forget.

I don't mean to be cruel or insensitive, Scully, but did
something happen to you when you were out here that you didn't tell
me about? You didn't just faint did you? You weren't taken, but I
think it was a near thing. I think they thought about it. I'm not
trying to place blame for how things have turned out for, like I
said, chance may have had nothing to do with it. Still, if I had
known, it might have got me thinking along a different path and I
wouldn't be standing in this one now.

On the whole, I'm relieved. I am thankful to your God that you
have been spared this. You have suffered enough. I will admit,
however, that there's a small, cowardly lion part of me that wishes
with all the wishes that I may ever wish that you were here with
me. That we could be seeing this together. That I wouldn't have to
go through this alone.
 

Sorry. Got to take couple of deep breaths here. Can't let fear
set in. Get a grip, Spooky. Blood pressure up, palms damp. Got to
think logically like my Scully. This -- I tell myself -- is just
another X-Files experience, which I've seen and you haven't and
which you won't believe. As always, I'll write it up, you'll edit
out the most extreme theories, and we'll go on to something new
next week. Back to the same desk, same coffee, same Washington
Post, Baltimore Orioles lost another one, FBI management on my
back.

But that's not going to happen this time, is it? Why? I have
no idea. I guess I have somehow pissed the Grays off as much as I
have everyone else in my life.

Wait... I have a thought.

Maybe they made a mistake. That's right! That's all it is!
They got the wrong one! Hey, guys. Look! It's just crazy Fox
Mulder, the FBI's most unwanted.

The wrong one? Really? Try again. Reality check time.

The fact is that I'm where they want me to be. I'm where I'm
meant to be. I'm wanted.

Now that's a novel concept, though I'd rather be wanted by the
New York Knicks. I'd even rather be wanted by the fuckin' FBI.

Now when I come back to this deja vue thing, I realize that
what I'm experiencing is memory. There's no doubt that I've seen
this cone of light from just this position before. And then there's
the hum and its terrifyingly familiar tingle. Want to know more?
I'm walking towards the light. Another brilliant move, you say? No,
this time it's really not my fault. I don't want to walk towards
the light, in fact it's the very last thing I can imagine wanting
to do. But I am. My body is doing it all on its own the way it
knows how to drive through a familiar neighborhood while you mind
is on everything but the car and the road.

As I approach, more becomes clear. For example, I thought I
was alone. Just me and the light. I'm wrong. There are a dozen
people, probably more, standing in the beam. It's actually crowded.
I sense this is new. I've always been alone before at this stage.

I can feel panic rising inside me, clutching at my throat. I
expect that every time I start to accept this I'm going to have
this reaction. Full denial, no doubt about it. I haven't been
abducted, I keep repeating to myself. I never have been. I would
have remembered.

Like the flare of a sputtering candle, the surge of emotion
suddenly vanishes. Neither anger nor fear seem to last long in this
place. Instead, I'm made to face up to my own stupidity cold sober.
They say physician heal thyself. Well, the same should be said of
psychologists. There are many, many examples in the UFO literature
of individuals who have been abducted from childhood, for years,
for decades, who have no memory of the experience until an eager
therapist uses hypnosis to try to figure out why they are so fucked
up. I'm talking high functioning disabilities like chronic, low
level anxiety; paranoia; insomnia; night terrors; a certain level
of antisocial behavior. Sound like anyone you know? And here all
along I thought it was simple, everyday Post-Traumatic Stress
Syndrome from Samantha's abduction. I didn't know otherwise because
Weber never asked the right questions. He only asked about the
night of Samantha's abduction.

Not of mine.

Damn. How many times did it happen? Not too many times or
there would have been scars. There are always scars. I feel a
tingle at the base of my skull and fear once again struggles
through this odd tranquility that has seized me.

Maybe not all scars are ones you can see.

I force myself to look at the faces, afraid of more
revelations. I recognize some of these people; you would, too.
Billy and Teresa are most familiar, but there are others though I
don't remember our ever meeting. I'd like to think I am going
crazy. I'm afraid I am not. Scully, remember those women, the ones
with the chips in their necks who said they remembered you from
'the other place', from when you were abducted? I think this is
what I've got here. I have known some of these people before and
known them in this second reality, the one that my subconscious has
been keeping secret from me.
 

The truth has finally sunk in. The truth. Inside I hear an
echo of hysterical laughter. The truth is that I'm not walking out
of here. I am going on this little trip. I've even taken them
before. Okay, I breathe; no big deal. I've always come back,
haven't I? On a conscious level I've forgotten or have been made to
forget, but my real life, such as it is, has gone on. What comfort
this gives me is short-lived for I hear my own words to you coming
back to haunt me. 'They are picking up all the abductees. And they
aren't coming back.' Whyever did I say that? How do I know? Am I a
prophet now? I hope in this I am wrong. At the very minimum, I fear
that it will be a much longer trip this time around.

I never told you, Scully, but I had this plan. I thought that
when I retired, that I would like to travel. For someone who for
the past ten years has spent a third of his life traveling, that
probably doesn't make much sense, but I was thinking about writing
a book. Something wise and humorous. Unlike my case reports,
something intentionally humorous. Something like John Steinbeck's
'Travels with Charlie' although Charlie was a poodle and I'd never
be caught dead owning a poodle or a Pomeranian. A golden retriever,
maybe, or a husky, though probably a mutt. A mongrel like me. Just
as long as it was something with lot of fur to keep my Scully's
toes warm at night. You see, in most versions of the dream you're
there, too, reading the 'AAA' guides and finding out-of-the-way and
unique places to visit like 'South of the Border' in South Carolina
and the Corn Palace in South Dakota and any place where water is
reported to run uphill. We'd eat the local produce and...

But that's never going to happen now, is it? I'm coming closer
and closer to the light and my feet are not stopping. Guess I'll
just have to keep a diary, like Samantha did, though I seem fresh
out of pencil and paper right now. I can record all of this in my
head though. Eidetic memories are good for that. I can picture
myself writing or typing and then I'll take a snapshot of the
output. Better than flow of consciousness for organizing your
thoughts. I'll play it back to you when I see you again.

This side of heaven, I pray God.
 

I'm only three steps from the light now. I can see the edge of
the beam and the fine particles of dust dancing in the light. They
must have refined their technology in seven years and because
there's none of the wind that we both remember from before. Only
the best for yours truly it seems. Faces turn towards me. So many
faces. Something wrong about that. If what Billy told us is
correct, people have been disappearing for weeks yet here they all
are. Waiting. But they couldn't have been just waiting here all
this time. If so, then what have they been waiting for?
 

Only a step away now. I tell myself that I won't actually go
in the beam. I'll just look. That's right, observe and report. In
a second, I'll run like hell and Skinner will perform some
fantastically heroic feat and put me back to reality.

Our reality.

I try to turn back. I try just to stop moving.

I... can't.

It's like my body isn't all mine anymore. It's related to the
hum and the tingle in the back of my skull that makes it hard to
think. I know I've become increasing more frightened and more
desperate with each step I take, and yet it's as if I were
functioning under half a dozen valium and all the emotion were just
shriveling up somewhere deep inside. Even the sweat on my palms has
dried.

Now the expressions on the faces of my fellow abductees make
sense, or perhaps I should say their lack of expression.

They are like cattle. Dumb cattle. Or like a crowd of little
gelded ponies crowded onto a merry-go-round, their future
preordained. I am like that, too, I realize as I reach the edge of
the light and with barely a second's hesitation just walk in.

This is like some really bad '50's 'B' movie.

Above all, what I really wish I could do now is cry.
 

I enter between Teresa and Billy. They are at least a little
more animated than the others zombies. Guess their reaction could
be considered ecstatic around here. They are pleased to see me and
not in the least surprised, which confuses the hell out of me. I
didn't know I was coming. I didn't even know I was returning to
Oregon. How did they know? They each place a hand on my shoulder in
welcome. I hope I manage to force some reaction through the nearly
numb muscles of my face to let them know that I appreciate a
friendly face because I really do. I am piss-shitting scared.

Their touch does something else to me, Scully. It's as if we
have this bond. Not a new one but an old one, like family members
meeting after a long absence -- or is that like soldiers who have
been through hell together. Either way, another pretty persuasive
argument for my having come this way before. There's a part of me
that realizes that I'm suddenly very curious about all this; how,
like an amnesiac, I want to uncover what I have lost.

To embrace this new life, however, I realize that I must turn
my back to a certain extent on the old. Odd, maybe it comes with
the fuzz on my emotions, but I don't have many regrets about that.
What am leaving behind anyway?

Friends? The Gunman will do fine without me. My disappearance
will give them a fine main story for their next issue and
speculation for years to come.

The X-Files? Since I found Samantha, the spark is gone and
management hates me anyway. That shit of an auditor rather summed
it up. Sister dead, conspiracy dead. The die was cast. They were
going to take it away, anyway, close it down. Even if Skinner were
willing to use his influence to save it, they would have continued
to nibble away at its financing and its scope like rats until all
the substance was gone. All my work for nothing.

Family? Dead, dead, dead. Even my fish are rather recent
acquisitions and don't care who feeds them.

That doesn't leave much. Only you, Scully. Only you. You are
all I regret leaving and I am helpless to do anything about that.

Talk about ditching you... This is the big ditch of all time.

I'm so sorry.

I wish we had held out a little longer. Maybe if we were still
uncertain about our feelings for each other, it wouldn't be so hard
on you. Don't waste your life looking into every shadow for me the
way I looked for Sam. Don't do that. Know in your heart that when -
- and if -- I can come to you, I will.

For me? I'd like to say that this will kill me. That I will
die of sorrow, but it's more complicated than that. As I look up at
the source of the light, a wave of dizziness flows over me. It's
the underside of one of their ships, like the ship of sand from my
dreams. Remember? I told you about those while we were basking in
the afterglow and while I was trying very hard not to do the very
male thing and fall asleep.

This is it then. It's the only place left for me to go,
Scully. I wonder if, in time, I would not have sought this way out.
I was in a box. No way forward. No way back. I'd burned my bridges
and there was no where left on Earth for me, except in your arms
and neither of us would have wanted me to hide there. I never did
fit in anywhere except with you and you deserve better. You belong
in the world and I belong -- here, where I will find my answers if
they are anywhere. Why did the Consortia let me live all those
years when I could have so easily have been eliminated? Who is my
father and was Sam my biological sister as well as my sister in
every other way? Half-sister? How did I come to be and have that
thing in my head? Did the Consortia know about that all along? I'll
hopefully find answers to questions I haven't even thought to ask
yet.

This doesn't mean I'm not scared, Scully. This doesn't mean
that a part of me wouldn't rather be slaving over quarterly expense
reports right now. Worse, I realize that Billy and Teresa are
looking at me as if they expect something of me. What do they think
I can do? Save them? I can't even save myself. Ever since I heard
the voices crashing through my head, I should have known a day like
this would come, that I was special. Only I don't want to be
special any more than Special Olympics kids want to be special. I
never have.
 

There is a rustle in the cattle pen. A opening is made by the
subtle shifting of bodies. A new form joins us.

May I live and breath, I'm almost happy to see that it's our
old nemesis -- Mr. square-jawed, runner-up-for-the-Arnold-
Schwarzenegger-look-alike-contest himself -- the Bounty Hunter. A
villain, of course. Can't have a melodrama without a villain. He
comes right up to me. He stares into my eyes. I'm as pleased as
punch about the valium-like fuzz now because it allows me to remain
completely impassive before him instead of weeping and cringing
like a dog as I did the time we tussled in the sub. I suspect,
however, that he knows how frightened I am. He can probably smell
it. His nostrils even flare a bit, the smug bastard. And why am I
frightened? It's because by coming up to me and no one else, he has
singled me out. The specialness I didn't want to be -- that I have
never wanted to be -- I am. Even here.

What did he say to me the first time we met: "I could have
killed you many times before." When? In the womb? As an infant? Has
he been watching me from afar forever? Have I been his little
science project? Can he go home now because it's the end of the
term and I'm being pulled in as a little show and tell for all his
hard work as if I were some hot house plant or prize-winning sheep?

Oh, Scully... even here, I'm not like the others. Not just
another anonymous steer destined for McDonald's. No, I'd say from
the way he's looking at me in that alpha-male way of his that he
does not see me that way at all. There's contempt but also a need
to prevail, like papa bull letting the young bull know in no
uncertain terms who is boss around here.

I feel my self-confidence twitch back into life. Somewhere
inside, I'm still myself, that cocky, impudent guy you learned to
love.

This new strength is what I cling to when everything suddenly
turns white. Knowing that the Hunter is still out there, I feel a
need to say something to make him realize that I can't be
intimidated with light and mirrors.

"You lied to me," I hiss, though maybe the accusation is only
in my mind. "You told me she was alive."

More amazing than my question, he answers back in that Nordic
cadence of his. "She was when last I knew. They betrayed us, your
Consortia. They lied. It's why they were eliminated. Remember
that."

I was analyzing this threat when I sense rather than feel
Billy at my side begin to move. Actually, what he begins to do is
rise from his place, to float. I sense his feet pass the level of
my shoulders. When he is above me another from the herd begins to
ascend. We are being taken up one by one as you described Cassandra
being taken. What is most astonishing is that there was no sound,
no struggling. There are even a few smiles.

"Why do so many seem pleased to be going?" I ask Teresa on my
left. "Does this trip come with beer and a movie, too?"

To that the Hunter snaps, "Quiet. Your irreverent patter has
no place where you are going."

"Sorry, Charley," I murmur not thinking that he can hear me.
Clearly he does for one massive hand came up under my throat.

"You had best learn your place and quickly, Mulder Mooncalf.
Even among these other >belagani< you are as a child where they are
no more than cattle to us."

"It's Mulder. Just Mulder."

"You will be called, and you will answer to, what we choose to
call you. Your other life is over. That you will come to accept."

"And we will continue to exist only so long as we serve you?"
I ask in my best vintage SciFi movie impersonation, which at the
moment is not very good. My head is so full of hum and cotton that
even with such an easy target I can't come up with a better line.

He doesn't catch the irony. "Good, now you understand," and he
releases me.

While we have been marking our territory, more abductees have
gone. They are drifting skyward like so many white ghosts. What was
the name of that Science Fiction novel? "Unto Our Scattered Bodies
Go"?

Finally, there is only he and I left on ground level within
the light. "Are you coming with us, Charley?"

">Belagani< do not address >Yei<."

"If '>Yei<' is you, then I just did. I asked if I am going to
see you again."

"I do not know if my next assignment will be to this ship. Why
do you want to know?"

"Because I have questions. I have many questions."

"For what good it will do you, you may ask one question,
little mooncalf." His snarl is like the rumble of a hungry lion.
"In your new life questions are not allowed. You will learn
patience, you will learn discipline. You will learn to do what you
are told without questions."

Chills, Scully. I'm seized with nasty chills but not for this
goon to see. "Sorry, but I'm not the behaving type. Ask my first
grade teacher. Ask Skinner. I'm just not put together that way."

A smile turns up the lips of the Hunter. I think I liked his
scowl better. "You have no idea how you are put together, Mooncalf.
But then neither do we. But we will learn."

And then he reaches out and he touches the side of my left
temple with just two fingers of his right hand. The touch is very
light, but I feel an instant surge of heat and something like
electricity jump from his fingers into the empty space in the back
of my skull. The world explodes in a foaming crash of unpleasant
sensation.

I think I lost consciousness for a moment because, when the
white pain becomes simply the white fog again, everything is
different. The stone face of the Hunter is staring up at me from
what seems to be a long way away. There is no weight under my feet.
This is what weightlessness feels like. I am ascending, only not
like the others. They all seemed so relaxed as if they were being
lifted up by angels in white robes. I can't seem to keep my
balance. I feel like I'm falling. It's like riding a bicycle for
the first time -- over compensation this way, over compensation
that. If I were an Apollo spacecraft, I'd be tumbling. I feel like
God's clumsiest fool, but mostly because Charley Hunter is
watching.

Eventually, I realize that if I hold my muscles very still and
not move at all, my ascent is smoother. I learn this useful lesson
just as I sense the iris of the ship's massive eye close in around
me. There's still light everywhere, but I can sense enough to know
that Hunter is following. He's the last. There is no more reason
for our to be here. Below my feet I can still trees and grass as if
through a Martha's Vineyard mist. Slowly, the ship closes its eye,
cutting off my last view of Earth.

The ship has swallowed me whole. I close my eyes and for the
first time truly realize that this is for real.

That shit of an auditor has won after all. "You need to go
where the aliens are, Agent Mulder. You need to limit your scope."

I've done that. Can I go home now?

The End

~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH02: 'G-Force'(1/1)
By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger @AOL.COM)
7/27/00

RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst, Muldertorture
SUMMARY: Mulder and his companions have been taken inside the alien
ship. They are accompanied by the bounty hunter whom Mulder has
begun calling 'Charley Hunter'. Mulder's first few minutes in the
alien ship, however, are nearly disastrous. To surviving he finds
he must make a bargain with the devil.

ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission
and as long as the author's name is retained.
DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David,
thank you, thank you, for giving us a great season finale and, at
least, only a Mulder-light Eighth Season.

Author's Notes: This is the second is a series of short stories
chronicling Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and
wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'. My older work can be found on
Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the newer pieces at
http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH02: G-Force (1/1)

     I rise rubbing my tailbone and happy that I bruised no more
than that in my ungracious fall from the ship's teleporting beam.
No one else seems to be picking themselves up off the floor so I
assume a modicum of nonchalance and take a look around.

     Remember the interior of the alien ship in Antarctica, Scully?
The way it seemed part mechanic and part organic? You say you don't
remember much -- some dark corridors, the wailing of an alarm and
the cold -- but in your nightmares, if you see a place with fewer
right angeles than we are use to and designed with sturdy,
masculinely curves, then you would be remembering that place. This
loading dock, for that's what it seems to be, was clearly designed
by the same architect. It's dim to start with and darker still in
the corners if there were corners. Though it is not cube-shaped by
any stretch of the imagination, in volume it's about the size of a
school gymnasium though not so tall. The marines around Quantico
would love the colors, all greenish or brownish black. There are
dozens of huge clamps and belts attached to heavy brackets along
the walls. I assume they are used to fasten down heavy equipment
during flight. At the moment, however, the dock is barren of such
cargo.

     Not barren of human cargo, however.

     That's when I hear your voice, Scully, as if you were right
beside me. "Yes, what about the other --" You stop, unwilling to
say the word and start again. "The others, Mulder. Tell me about
the others."

     Abductees, Scully. We're abductees. You've got to learn to say
it. They are alien abductees; I am an alien abductee. It's the
breed it took you so long to believe truly existed even though you
were probably one yourself for at least part of the time. My fellow
abductees are gathered in a rough circle around the iris in the
floor that we all were brought though. It's closed now, no more
view of earth. No escape that way. I am farther from the circle
than the others, my landing being not so smooth. I would move to
join them, but first a pair of flint-black eyes hold me still. It's
my own Charley Hunter yards away in the gloom, though he can
certainly see me as surely as I can see him. If I had had a hard-on
at the moment -- which, believe me, I don't -- it would have
withered and then some. Those eyes of his could shrivel steel. He
says nothing, but he's giving me one of his I'm-king-of-hill-and-
you're-not grins, if a millimeter of arch can be considered a grin.
Having confirmed that I've gotten the message, he turns and leaves
us. Just leaves, not a word. No instructions, no threats. He simply
aims for a section of curving wall and disappears into a shadow. I
think I hear a sound like moving air. Some kind of door opens and
then closes.

     We are alone.

     He has not been gone ten seconds when I hear that sound of air
again and from the right there is a bright concentration of light.
Two sets of wide double doors have slid open along one section of
the wall and from within flows out brilliant white light. The
others begin moving towards those doors. I can't help thinking of
cattle, one following the other to the barn.

     I take two steps and stop dead. Is it home they are returning
to or for milking?

     It's unnatural what we do to cows, you know. Their milk should
dry up naturally when their calves learn to like the taste of grass
and hay better. But we keep milking and milking and filling them
full of hormones so that the flow never ends. Neither does the poor
cow's need to be relieved from her discomfort. Have you heard what
a cow sounds like who is far past her milking time? I have. It
doesn't agree with our picture of the contented animal at all. It's
the sound of a beast in agony.

     Now consider my companions who have been accepting their
capture without question. Are they reacting to the inevitable, or,
like cows with bloated udders, are they responding to a more
sinister motivation?

     I do not like the way this is going, Scully.

     I eventually approach those doors but only to see inside the
rooms better.

     <Silence...>

     "Mulder? Mulder, what's going on? You've very quiet."

     <More silence...>

     "Mulder..."

     Sorry, Scully, I just got a shock and I need a minute or two
to get a grip. A minute or two.. or maybe an hour.

     "Mulder, you're scaring me..."

     You think _you're_ scared. Okay, I'll try. The pounding of my
heart has slowed enough for me to think now. It's these lighted
rooms... Men to the right side, women to the left. I can see that
within they are taking off all their clothes. There are hooks on
the walls for those and they line up their shoes neatly beneath.
Beyond that... Very well, I can't see beyond that, but the intense
whiteness through which these vulnerable bodies weave is like a fog
of steam and my all-too-fertile imagination fills in the blanks
with all the subtly of a jackhammer.

     Showers, decontamination, delousing. Rough, hasty hands seize
me and I can feel my long hair being hacked off, each jerk defiling
my body and I am ashamed.
 
     A matron with a neck as thick around as a man's thigh orders
us to the showers in harsh German. We go... like cattle. We huddle,
trembling, standing front to back. In our humiliation we dare not
meet other eyes. Instead we wait, silent, for the water to erupt
from the taps, for this to be over.

     The water never comes. Instead, there's a hiss and we breathe
in bitter herbs and offer our bodies up to the flames.

     There are tears. I blink them away even though there is no one
to see. I am myself again if badly shaken in both body and soul.
Remember my past lives regression? When was that fiasco, four years
ago? For obvious reasons we never discuss it. If we did I would
tell you that I don't believe most of it. Certainly not the
soulmate nonsense. But there was something true in all that tale
like the germ of reality in a dream. In this case, it's the old
Germany connection and the Holocaust. My death, even my sex, has
always been more than words. It has been sound and smell, thirst
and cold, fear and hopelessness and bone-deep memory. That's where
it comes from, isn't it? Both my sympathy for the victim and that
refusal, that terror, of going sheeplike anywhere ever again.
 
     For this reason I remain outside the doors of the room through
which the others have gone. They have all stripped and vanished
into that fog. Nothing moves. Any minute I expect some beefy
shepherd to come swaggering out of that fog, club swaying, as he or
she seeks for their lost sheep. I'll allow myself to be taken, but
I will not surrender meekly.

     Hunter said that I would need to learn. Well, let them learn
about me.

     I continue to peer within. Still nothing but the hum of
distant motors. I have taken a step forward to see a little better
when, without warning, the doors snap shut inches from my face.

     I am outside in the dark and totally alone.

     It's a shock. You see, I had made certain assumptions. One was
that I am somehow important. The Hunter certainly led me to believe
so. Maybe I really am the conceited bastard you thought I was for
all those years. If so, that conceit has been cut down a good deal
already and is shrinking with each minute that passes and no one
comes.

     Since I arrived in this place, I've been aware of a constant
hum which is as much a vibration under my feet as anything. That
hum suddenly increases. My irritation and mild dismay of being so
easily forgotten subtly shifts to a mild anxiety. The hum increases
still further. I go to the closed doors and try knocking first with
my knuckles then with both fists. Whatever this material is --
ceramic or metal or both -- it feels like it's about a foot thick.
In other words, no one is going to hear. With the hum now rattling
the bad filling in my lower right molar from that silly brawl we
were both in, I run into the shadows in search of the door Hunter
must have used. There is no obvious door, however, just too many
seams that may be part of one.

     As the hum becomes a whine, I try shouting, but it's too late.
My anxiety is bordering on panic now. I know the sound of engines
ramping up with I hear them. It's only a matter of time until we
are --

     --off.

     In an instant the unearthly but unmistakable scream of power
soars to an ear-splitting pitch, and I am flying through the dark.
Wrong. I don't move, but the ship does, not that the difference
matters. I end up squashed like a bug against the nearest surface
in the opposite direction to that which the ship is traveling and
all the surfaces I encounter on the way are either very hard or
very sharp or both. Even over the roar from the ship, I'm certain
that I hear the crunch of bone. I know I feel it. It's my lower
left arm, I think. It's hard to tell since there are at least a
dozen places that hurt like hell. I've only just sorted out my
limbs so that my joints are angled more or less back in the right
way when there's a sudden change of direction of about ninety
degrees and a rapid acceleration. I plummet down what is now a
'wall' towards what is now the 'floor' hitting every clamp and
protruding piece of metal on the way. Something blunt and hard
impacts with that most sensitive spot between collarbone and
shoulder. Someone screams. It must be me.

     I finally reach ground zero, but the pain is just getting
started. The 'G' force continues to increase. It _is_ like an
elephant sitting on your chest. I can barely draw breath. When I
try, ribs crack. My knee caps are reaching for the floor. Warm
liquid runs from my eyes and from my mouth. More spreads out from
between my legs; my bladder has its own way of dealing with the
unbearable pressure. As I am currently being crushed to death, I
don't get too upset about the details.

     In the final moment as I hurtle towards darkness, a last
breath struggles from my lungs and out through lips stretched
tight, like those on a mocking death skull. "Sku...ly," I think was
the word, or if it wasn't, it should have been.
 

     I've floated in pain before. Pain so incredible that there is
no end. On a scale of one to ten, however, with that experience
being a ten, I'd have to give this one a twenty. There is not an
inch of skin or bone or hair that does not scream to the heavens
and, if I remember where I am correctly, those heavens are closer
than they have ever been before.

     I wake to darkness. That's because of the blindness more than
the presence or absence of light. What feels like two raw wounds
are where my eyes should be. Lids slide with reluctance over these
pits of pain. There is no sound. The engines are purring now. They
are creating a warm vibration that rises up from the floor to
radiate through the entire wound that is my body. From more places
than I can count, bone grinds against bone.

     I am, as if you haven't guessed, still alone. As best as I can
determine, my limbs are in the same nearly impossible positions
they were when I went into the dark so no one has been here since
frail flesh brought merciful relief. How long have I been out?
Minutes? Hours? From the dampness between my legs and the smell,
I'd say maybe an hour. Not so bad yet. Considering that I have
nothing to get up for, even if I could, I think I will pass out
again.

     If I don't wake up again, which I think likely, then I guess
that the next time I will see you, Scully, will be in your heaven.
That, of course, is only so long as your faith is strong enough for
both of us. As you know, I lost what faith I ever had by the age of
twelve.
 
 

     They call it swimming through pain. That describes it well,
that bodiless sensation of being completely surrounded by something
which is overwhelmingly larger and stronger than you are. I'm not
just referring to the physical either. The mental processes are
just as much adrift -- rising, sinking, nudged this way and that by
the current. Sometimes drowning.

     What this means is that I'm not dead. Considering how I'm
feeling, that is not necessarily my preferred state if being.

     Somewhere beyond the pain I am aware of the roar of surf. I
look for the boy on the beach and his spacecraft and then remember
that I don't need to search for that alien machine any longer. It
has become all too real. It isn't made of sand either, but stone
and hard iron.

     Only slowly do I realize that it's not waves rolling endlessly
across the shore that I'm hearing, but voices speaking in the air
above me, their pitch rising and falling. The words are obscured by
the current of agony that is my reward for every hard-won breath,
and swimming to reach the place where the words are is just not
worth the effort. Surprisingly, where the payment for striving
against the current would surely have been too high, doing nothing,
just floating, allows me to rise far enough to catch some of the
meaning. There are at least two voices. One is the deep, sonorous
bass I know all too well. The other is a stressed and hesitant
tenor.

     "You should not have let this happen," Hunter is saying, his
voice dripping with displeasure. "You should have watched out for
him."

     The tenor clears his throat. "He was shut down. What could we
do? He clearly wanted his privacy. Besides, it was only the scrub
room. He's been through that before just as we all have."

     "Has he? Couldn't you tell, couldn't any of you tell that
something was wrong."

     "I could," came a soft voice. Teresa's. "He spoke to me. It
didn't occur to me at the time, but why did he do that? He didn't
need to."

     "This is not the time for discussion. While you question, he
dies. If you want him living, then you best see to it that he stays
that way."

     There's a pause in the conversation. I wonder what's going on
when pain explodes in my right wrist. Broken, too. I think someone,
probably Teresa, has attempted, clumsily, to take my pulse.

     "Sir --" I don't like the tone of her voice. "You _are_ going
to help us with him, aren't you?"

     "You should know the answer to that by now. The strong
survive."

     Teresa's next words are bitter and there are shushing noises
in the back ground as if someone was trying to silence her. "How
could we not know, but he is not just any >belagani<."

     "I do not know what you mean. You are all the same to us."

     "Not true." Now the shushing noises nearly drown her out, "You
have your favorites; he's one. We all know it. If you leave him
with us, he's going to die. The >Yei< must help."

     There's a cold pause and something like a sniff of contempt
from Hunter. "Let us see what together the flower of the >belagani<
can accomplish. Strive to mimic the animals in your wilderness.
They have remarkable recuperative properties."

     "We are not animals."

     "Better that you were. Remember I lived on your planet for
many years. Not animals?" A snarl this time. "Raping your world,
breeding out of control, killing your fellow creatures to
extinction, pissing in your air and water, undisciplined,
purposeless. Even we, who are as compassionate as the lion, who
kill the weak and the old and the sick, know better. If you think
yourself superior, then save his life." At that Hunter leaves. I
can feel the vibration of his steps through the broken bones in my
back.

     There is no more discussion. There is only survival on a
knife's edge. I'm aware of their clustering around. Many bodies.
Now what? They stoop as one as if they had done this before. Hands
clasp wrists behind by neck and shoulders, waist and hips, knees
and legs.

     In the black and swirling panic of erupting pain, I cry, 'No!
Don't touch me, God, don't touch me!' but there are no words. I
think my jaw is broken. They move gently and with care and skill,
and yet if I could have cursed I would have. Bone scrapes against
bone, bone tears into muscle, internal bleeding that had slowed
begins anew. I gag on the acid of my bile, vomit being all gone.

     My eyesight has not improved and yet I know that I'm being
carried into one of those disrobing rooms that I should have
entered before. I can actually feel the brilliance of that dazzling
light on my skin. Here is the smell of the locker rooms --
dampness, the homey smell of old shoes and newly bare feet and
discarded clothes. More hands -- gentle hands, large hands and
small hands, calloused and smooth, hands not involved in carrying
my body -- cut off my clothes. They cut them off in small pieces so
that the hands carrying me don't have to change their grip except
to ease the small pieces out from under. I find out later that they
must have used their teeth to cut what won't tear because the
abductees aren't allowed anything sharp. It's not that their
captors are afraid of a riot. Nor do they fear that their prisoners
will take up murder as a hobby. I think you know what's left.

     Clothes off, I am cold. I was cold before and now I'm
freezing. I would shiver if I had the energy so I'm just cold.
There really are showers in that room whose dimensions and hard
ceramic walls I sense by the echoes. At the most the water comes
out in a fine mist which is just as well because I don't think I
could have stayed conscious though a harder spray. The water is not
very warm and smells distinctly of antiseptic, but it is a shower.
They rinse off the blood and the gore and worse. There is, I think,
something like soap, but it doesn't smell very good. Where there
are open cuts, the 'water' stings like a hundred pesky bees, yet I
am thirsty from the blood loss and try to open my broken jaw enough
to lick a few drops from my lips. It tastes like stale, thin
vinegar. A soft, smooth hand notices and places itself over my
mouth so I cannot drink any more.

     They are gentle. They take their time. Since they hold my body
very still there is no more grinding or gushing of blood. It is
almost -- almost -- like being cared for as if I were a very small
child.

     It does not take long before I am shivering for real and that
alone hurts like hell. This seems a signal that I've had enough,
and a rough, light cloth is laid over my bare skin. We leave this
place that smells of disinfectant and the pain erupts anew. They
notice and slow. We inch along for some interminable distance. We
meet no one.

     Finally our little procession passes over a threshold. I sense
this because the light which I can still somehow sense, dims. I
don't know why, but the relative darkness is greeted almost with
relief by my aching body. Being narrower than any hallway, there is
more jostling at this doorway. I try not to cry out because I know
that they are doing their best, but a sob manages to get out
anyway. In an attempt to calm me, a hand passes over my brow and
pauses in my hair and I cannot hold back the tears. I cry, not
because the action was physically painful, but because the memories
that the act evokes are more than I can bear. It reminds me of how
you use to touch me when you thought I was too far under to know.
Surprised? Did you think I never knew?

     I'm finally stationary. I'd sigh with relief if that didn't
bring it's own little visit to hell. A warm body snuggles in on
each side, more layers of light cloth are laid over us and that is
all. No doctors, no IV's, no machines, no tubes or wires, no blood-
letting. I sleep. I wake when the shift changes and my bedwarmers
go and new ones come. Water, real water, if a little stale, is
trickled through the small gap I can produce with my broken jaw. I
escape into unconsciousness each time attempts are made with well-
meaning clumsiness to splint the worse of my broken bones. I am
changed like a baby. I try not to think about that. I'll never
complain about catheters again.

     And this is all. Day after day of this. I know now why they
took their time in the washing. Other than encouraging me to
swallow the dribbles of water they offer and some thicker,
tasteless stuff, and splinting that will produce bones that will
never heal straight, it is all they can do for me.

     As time passes, everything -- my body, this room which I still
haven't seen, the silent people (Did I mention that they have never
spoken since Hunter left them?) -- become more and more distant.
Unconsciousness is a black hole punctuated with the occasional bad
dream. Consciousness is a gray void, which is all the sight I have
recovered. When I am attended to, it is by faceless, silent hands.
Mentally and physically, I am as light as air. My mind floats above
the pain -- it's the only relief I can find. Down there in my body,
fever is burning flesh. When they touch me, their hands seem to go
all the way to the bone. When I try to move, which isn't often, I'm
as weak as a day-old kitten and just as blind.

     This is dying the slow way, Scully. Kidney failure, fever,
congestive heart failure, liver failure, sepsis, dehydration,
malnutrition. You could name more. Which will pick me off first,
fellas? I don't even care.

     A week, maybe a month passes, and there comes a time when I
pass from the darkness to the gray to hear singing. Well, not
singing, but humming. It's like a mantra. In my mind's eye I image
my fellow abductees gathered in a semicircle before the door to our
prison, humming and waiting. After what seems forever, during which
time the gray and the black exchange places a few more times, I
hear our prison door slide open. Hearing is about the only sense
left to me which in itself is a miracle considering the fragility
of those little bones. Amazingly, there are voices again though the
words stumble over each other and are too distant for me to make
out their meaning. The discussion in those rising and falling
voices goes on and on and lull me back again to the beach. As
sometimes happens now, I am the young boy, abandoned by all who
should be caring for him. The sun is burning his skin. The sand
rubs in the burns. He has been wandering for days and he is very
tired but he has no home and no bed. When he falls asleep on the
sand, he wakes more tired than before. He weeps almost all the
time. He wants this to end.

     Someone comes to sit beside my bed. It's not another
bedwarmer, there have not been any of those since the fever came to
stay. It's Charley; I can smell the difference immediately. They
were calling him with their mantra. Like praying. Homage.

     What did they have to promise to get him to come?

     "They've begged me to keep you from dying."

     Even if I could, what does one say to something like that.

     "Do you also beg for your life, Mooncalf?"
 
     Ah, almost forgot about the nickname. The calf that is so
fascinated by the bright, strange light in the night sky that he
doesn't notice when the herd wanders on without him. The half-wit,
the dreamer. As far as the Hunter's question goes, I can't say 'no'
because I haven't been able to speak for days. Unable to even turn
my head to the wall in defiance, I close my eyes a little tighter
even though they are closed already and manage to thrust out my
chin about a millimeter. Clearly, it is enough to get my message
across.

     "I didn't think so. That is what has always set you off from
the others. You will beg for others, but never for yourself. That's
your price. You see I remember our meeting on the submarine. You
would have died before begging for your own life, but you wept for
information about your sister's."

     Talk... talk... Get to the point. I am so tired.

     "Very well, no games. In short, we would prefer you living but
we won't force that. What I offer is healing of a sort but such
healing that will still require a great deal of effort on your part
if you truly want to live. Maybe we have waited too long. Maybe it
is beyond your strength at this point, but we think not. You've
already survived far longer than we expected."

     What is he offering? Life? All right, I'm listening. Death is
waiting on the threshold, and I'm still not anxious to open that
door, but he also talks about a price that must be paid. Oh, be
quiet and let me die in peace. But he knows me too well. He knows
that I don't want to die. There's too much to do. If nothing else,
I have to see you again, Scully. If only I weren't so tired and so
sick. Sick to death has come to have real meaning.

     He touches the side of my face and the pain, my constant
companion, takes a few steps back. A stillness comes over my mind
and I fade out. Surprisingly, I'm back on the beach, only this time
I'm lying curled on the sand in the same position as they found me
in the hold after the unrestrained acceleration of the ship had
smashed my body into a bloody mass of broken bones and exploded
blood vessels. I'm lying in a tidal pool, that shallow hallow of
ocean left around objects on the beach when the tide goes out. I am
that object, and the water is warm from the sun. I haven't moved in
a very long time and can't now. Like a fish out of water, living is
no longer my element.

      A shadow passes over me. It has to be the Hunter. He comes
upon my broken body as I once found a dying tiger shark, its gills
feebly straining, all the fight gone.

     The water in the tidal pool feels too good and I am tired of
holding up my head. How easy it would be to just lower it down...,
down...

     When I try, however, I find that he has crouched down beside
me and lifted my face clear of the water. He literally holds my
life in his hands. This is also when I realize that I can actually
see him. It is good to be able to see again. Incredibly, he's
shirtless and dressed in khaki shorts and stout work boots like
some healthy laborer just off the construction site and here I am,
a bundle of broken sticks within a skinbag of misery.

     "So it's not all gone," the Hunter says in awe. "You have this
place left. What happened to you, child of earth? What did those
devils do to you?"

     "I don't know what you're talking about." The words come
hesitantly and sound strange, dry as pebbles baked in the sun and
weak as a breeze. They are literally the first words I have spoken
in days and these in a dream.

     "I think you do. You are still a mystery to us. We offer you
a chance for life, and as we are not sure that you do wish it also,
we will bargain."

     "Even if I agreed, I have nothing with which to bargain."

     "Your word is all we ask. We have watched you for many years
and we have learned that, unlike so many of the other >belagani<,
you keep your promises."

     "You've been hanging around with the wrong crowd."

     "Too true. We erred in those we chose to work with. We will
not do so again. But that also for later, if you live."

     "I will and without your help."

     "A hollow threat. Life is flowing out of you like this tide.
I can bring you back over to this side, not all the way -- we will
leave you some choice in the matter -- but far."

     "And you want my soul in payment."

     "We have no use for souls. Your cooperation in some tests,
that is all we require."

     "No."

     "It's not like you'll be betraying those who you think of as
your people. The colonization will go on in any case."

     "No." But he's right about the tide, Scully. It's going out
and for the final time. The last grains of my strength are being
washed out into the vast, impersonal ocean. I'd afraid. I reach for
a memory with your face and can't find even one.

     "What do your people say? Do you need me to 'sweeten' the
deal?" asks the far away voice of my tormenter. "I offer what you
want more than anything, even more than your freedom."

     "There is nothing I want more than that."

     "What about that for which you have risked your life over and
over? Knowledge, little mooncalf. Answers. I cannot provide details
about our current plans but there is much I can tell an individual
in your unique position. One test, one question, one answer."

     'No' is on the tip of my virtual tongue. It lingers there.
Knowledge. The forbidden fruit. He says he won't, but I know that
he has the power to save my life for the tests even without my
consent. What would I be then? A slave kicking and screaming in
agony? How can that save anybody? Albert Holstein told you that I
had to save the world. How could my death save anybody? Christ
could, but I'm not he. Dead, nothing is saved -- not the world, not
you, not anybody. But with life and knowledge there may be a
chance, abet a very small one. Would fraternizing with the enemy
make me a traitor? Many would think so; I've watched too many gung
ho World War II movies not to have learned that. But if I could
somehow get information back to you, Scully, or to Skinner or to
the Gunman's network of conspiracy believers or -- heaven knows --
maybe even to the fuckin' federal Government, wouldn't it be better
to return with pearls than ashes? Are we talking traitor then... or
spy?

     For years I wanted to believe, Scully, and I was right. I want
to believe now that I will return some day. If I do, I want this
time of separation -- this time of trial for both of us -- to mean
something.

     It's worth a try. Won't be fun though, if what he hints about
the tests is true.

     I'm not on the beach any more, yet it's a seamless waking. His
hand is still cradling the back of my head. I manage another chin
thrust in defiance which soothes my conscience somewhat, but I also
manage to nod about a millimeter.

     Am I going to need Daniel Webster to get me out of this?

     I don't have time for further literary imagery for he doesn't
waste any time. Maybe he doesn't feel like I have any time to waste
or maybe he's afraid that I'll change my mind, but he immediately
raises his free hand and encircles my broken jaw. I know now why he
has already taken a good hold on the back of my head. He touched me
once before just before I was taken up into the ship and I felt his
strength back in Alaska, but neither time was anything like this.
I am thrown physically and mentally into a technicolor netherworld,
into the heart of a summer storm of lightning and thunder that only
begins with my jaw. Soon the lightning is making deep and repeated
strikes all over my body. The energy flowing from his hands is like
dozens upon dozens of electroshock sessions. Fire, flash, burn...
I know about those. I've had them. They were part of the treatment
the doctor's didn't tell Scully about last summer when the voices
drove me mad. They didn't help a damn then; I assume his will do a
better job. They'd better. I'd hate to survive this kind of torture
for nothing.
 

     I awake more in the present than I've been for... weeks?. I've
been given water, I know, many times as I've drifted semi-
conscious. There has been more of the thin and nasty substance like
Cream of Wheat, too, stuff which I have always detested. I sense
that I've been sleeping a long, long time -- real sleep -- yet I
still have no particular desire to wake. Part of it has to do with
being impossibly tired, though for once I'm neither feverish nor
suffering the agony of the damned. The other part has to do with
facing up to the bargain I have made.

     He is sitting beside me as if he has never left. Perhaps he
hasn't. I can still smell him. It's not a bad scent, but just one
I have come to associate with 'them'. I try my eyes. It takes
effort, but they work. For the first time since I was tossed like
a badly thrown rubber ball from one side of the ship's cargo hold
to the other, I can see. My eyelids, however, are about the only
things I can lift.

     "Sleep well?"

     It is an odd salutation coming from this one. I don't bother
to answer.

     "Remember our agreement?" His eyes, as well as his voice,
demand an answer this time.

     "I'll co...co... op..." My voice feels and sounds like it is
rolling over course grade sandpaper. My jaw works stiffly, but at
least it works.

     "Cooperate," he supplies with irritating amicability. I
despise the way he gloats.

     "Didn't pr-promise... s-small talk." I find I'm out of breath
already and have to struggle with the last bit.

     It's depressing to see how easily he stands to go. I think I
could perhaps raise a finger, but as he'd probably miss the
reference, I don't.

     "I could have healed you long ago, if you had asked," he
throws back at me with lazy arrogance.

     Wrong, he knew my price from the beginning and still he let me
suffer. With more will than strength, I hiss, "Bastard."

     He gives me his shark smile. "Using your definition of the
word, all of my race are bastards." He places a heavy hand on my
one good shoulder. I would have squirmed out from under that hand
if I had been able. "Rest now. There will be time enough for work
later and we have much work to do."

     And, damn me, but under that devil's hand I fall into a deep
and blissfully pain-free sleep.

END Of CHAPTER TWO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH03: STOCKHOME (1/1)

DATE: 8/23/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst
SUMMARY: Finally recovering from his nearly fatal first few
minutes aboard the alien ship, a lonely Mulder talks to an
absent Scully of his surroundings and his fellow prisoners.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with
permission and as long as the author's name is retained.

DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters
of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and
David, thank you, thank you for giving us a great season finale
and only a Mulder-light Eighth Season.

Author's Notes: This is third is a series of short stories
chronically Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and
wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'.

My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with
the newer pieces at http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH03: STOCKHOME (1/1)

     "Mulder..."

     Sleep's gentle arms slowly release me. The smell of coffee,
rich and thick and hot, wafts through the air. Someone has taken
the trouble to cook bacon, too, as well as toast and eggs. My
stomach rumbles in happy anticipation even as my arms reach up
to embrace the slender form in the flame-red hair who hovers
above me, smiling.

     "Scully, you shouldn't have."

     "You're right, I shouldn't have. All that cholesterol is
just going to lay down and die in your arteries. But then I
thought -- for my handsome traveler, just this once. Why not?"

     She is warm in my arms, skin truly as soft as silk. She
snuggles into me, lowering her head to bite down playfully on
the side of my neck. A thrill of anticipation and pleasure flows
through my singing body. Slowly, she begins to undress for me,
sliding the white film over first one creamy shoulder, than the
other --

     The buzzer that reaches my ear doesn't just intrude on the
mood, it shatters it. I tell myself that it's the timer on the
stove, but I know that isn't true. My right hand falls limply to
my side.

     I'm hiding in my 'cubby' -- short for cubbyhole as you
probably know --  where I seem to be spending most of my time
lately. Roughly two meters long and less than a meter wide and
a meter high, this coffin-shaped and lightless hole is the only
place in this alien prison that is all mine. We all have them.
They line the walls like quadruple-high bunk beds except that
each is completely enclosed, even down to the hinged door that
opens up across one long end. Mine is on the bottom of one
stack. In fact, it's actually on the floor, so much so that I
have to get down on my hands and knees to creep inside. But it's
all mine. It's home now. The only home I have.

     I must admit, the accommodations are a bit sparse. Have you
read about those little 'hotel' rooms they have in Japan? Like
overgrown bus station lockers, you can whip out your credit card
and for the night have a more or less comfortable single bed. As
you might expect from the Japanese love of gadgets, all the
electronics you could ask for are tucked into the walls a few
inches from your face: TV, video player, internet access, CD
player, razor, hair dryer. My box on the alien ship is a bit
more spare. It's furnished with a thin pad to protect my bones
from the floor. That's it. No sheets, no pillow, no blanket.
Instead, we huddle into balls when we sleep. At least I do. It's
the only way I've found to even begin to stay warm and I still
dream of cold winter winds more often than anything else. Of
course, I stretch out when I attempt to engage in one of my
fantasies. Haven't had any success yet, but then it hasn't been
very long since I've been able to manage the physical activity
required or been able to concentrate long enough without falling
asleep. This morning was my best attempt yet. Such rich visions.
I even had the smells down right.

     Don't scold, Scully. I know that this isn't good for me. It
hurts too much when I come down. I grieve all over again for
what I have lost - what we both have lost. I should learn to
accept this curve ball Fate has sent my way. Embrace the
challenge! Sorry, I'm not that much of a masochist. Besides,
what else do I have to do?

     Actually, at the moment I do have something else to do. I
have to roll out of here and get in line for breakfast.

     I flip up the door to my combination living room, bedroom
and garage. Ironically, the door is exactly like the one on
those flipper cabinets that you find in all modular office
furniture. The trick is to get to my feet without clipping an
elbow. At least I don't have to dress. Now you're probably
thinking that I'm naked. Maybe it would be best if I started
from the beginning.

     "Oh, good. Just what I could use right now... a tour." Your
voice in my head is so sweet, despite the irony, that it hurts.
Very well, this will be today's chapter of the travelogue. I
guess I'll start to make these regular now that I'm no longer in
danger of dying anytime soon.

STOCKHOME:

     The >Yei< -- I still do not know where this word comes from
but it refers to the group or the sub-race that runs this ship -
- must have spent years studying old World War II training films
on how to inflict psychological torture. Considering that the
Consortia was deeply in bed with the inventive Dr. Shiro Zama
and other Axis ex-patriots from that infamous time in the Human
race's recent past, I wouldn't be surprised if the aliens
weren't equally as acquainted.

     First, the male and female abductees are separated for all
but a few minutes of each day. Who would have thought that we
would end up with prudish aliens! I'm of the opinion, however,
that the arrangement is intended just to irritate us. I've not
seen women's accommodations, but since they wear the same
clothes and the same vacant expressions as the men, I'd say they
were treated pretty much the same.

     Now about Stockhome. First, that's only my name for it.
Cattle images... Home.... Get it? Anyway, it's one large room.
Three of the walls are lined with our private boxes like so many
shelves in a crypt. There are forty-four cabinets -- four rows
of four high on each side and three rows of four high on the end
that doesn't have any doors. At six feet six inches length per
box that leaves a central open space of twenty-six feet by
slightly less than twenty feet. And an open space is all it is.
No furniture. Not even carpet or padding. Just a resin-like
floor. At least we are running at only half capacity or we'd be
on top of each other during the day. I've counted a maximum of
twenty men at one time. This should leave empty cabinets, but no
one opens the unclaimed ones on the opposite wall and so neither
do I.

     I don't think I'm ready to know what's inside.

     As far as decoration goes, it's all sort of greenish brown,
like the cargo hold. It's not army green, not that bad. There's
some mottling, rather like creeping mold, but not really enough
to be interesting.

     In contrast to what we have always heard about the abductee
experience, there is not much light here. In fact, much of the
time you feel like you're sleepwalking in a brown haze. Not
dark, but not light enough to read a book with fine print for
long.

     If I only had a book.

     They keep this half-light on all the time and, of course,
there are no windows, so there's no night and day. Since the
others all tend to sleep at the same time, I've come to think of
that time as night under the assumption that, at least this
early in our confinement, their biorhythms have got to be more
normal than mine.

     In one corner there is what can only be called a pit
toilet. There's no flush. Everything just goes down, down, down
somewhere. At least there is minimal smell. Oh, and they do
provide a few sheets of toilet paper that I swear were last seen
on a cactus. Not that we need to make use of them much. Most of
the bacteria in and on our bodies were destroyed in the
sanitation process when we came through the shower room and
we're not given much solid food.

     I'll get to the topic of food in a bit. For privacy around
this privy, someone has hung a couple of shirts, which have been
decoratively shredded into strips and fastened to the relatively
low ceiling that is no more than ten feet high.

CLOTHES:

     This will be a quick topic. Loose drawstring pants and a
loose short sleeve pullover shirt. All gray. When new, the
fabric would have been rough, but it's rubbed smooth now from
long use. We have one set.

     I've only been up and about on my own a couple of days so
I haven't asked yet about washing or changes of clothes. There
is little smell here, however, unless we just become use to our
own stink. I think, however, that there is less because, as I
mentioned before, the sanitation process kills off most of the
surface bacteria and that takes a while to grow back. It's only
a matter of time however before things begin to get pretty rank
in here.

     At least there's no laundry do.

ACTIVITIES:

     Which brings me to my next topic -- activities. This topic
will be even shorter than that on clothing.

     There are no activities.

     Oh, there's feeding time, but I'll cover that under food,
and from time to time -- very irregular times -- the door to the
'outside' will slide open and one of the inmates will get up
from the floor or roll off their slab and without a word will
walk out. It's creepy. Why does this one go and not that one?
More importantly, none have come back yet. That may not mean
very much because, as I've said, I've only been up and about for
a short time and I still sleep the majority of the time. Some of
them could have come back and how would I know? I'm not even
familiar with all their faces yet. It's amazing how hard it is
to tell one of us from the other when we are all dressed alike
as we are. Interestingly, we also all tend to be of a similar
body type -- lean and fairly tall.

FOOD:

     Okay, I know you've been waiting for this one. As I've
mentioned, I've been on my feet only a few times since Charley
the Hunter left what was almost my deathbed. A growling stomach
got me up the first time. I was lying on my side with my flipper
door open and staring at nothing -- since nothing is all there
is to stare at -- when a very faint buzzer sounded. The next
thing I knew, many pairs of legs were shuffling past on their
way to the front of the room. Finally admitting that my stomach
was thinking seriously about digesting my backbone, I decided
that this was as good a time as any to assume verticality. I
rolled out carefully -- my ribs are still astoundingly painful -
- and crawled about for a while on my hands and knees until the
shakes had subsided sufficiently for me to attempt to stand. It
was an iffy thing and I had to claw my way up a stack of
cabinets. That was when I grasped the logic of my being assigned
a floor-level bunk; less far to fall.

     Having obtained uprightness, more or less, I stood for a
good two minutes, cradling my aching ribs, while I waited for
the room to stop revolving slowly on its axis. I was so weak
that it took at least five more minutes -- with some on and off
graying-out time -- for me to make it to where the others had
gathered. There was a slot near the door, a shadow, and from
this shadow they were pulling grayish bowels. I will say this:
they are a well-mannered lot; no pushing or shoving. I was soon
to find out why. But first I got in line -- I was the last --
and when it was my turn, I reached in for a bowl as I'd seen the
others do. Nothing. I wondered if this was some cruel version of
musical chairs and I was now 'out'. Billy reached around me,
however, and pressed a thumb on a depression in the hole that I
hadn't seen. A bowl appeared. I took it and wished I hadn't.
 
     Just in case you're eating, and because I have to eat it,
I won't say what it reminded me of. Let's just say that it was
the thickness of gravy and brown and a little lumpy.

     This is what I received two days ago on my first morning
up. This is what I've received ever since. This is what I was
spoon fed during my convalescence. We are fed twice a day.

     Enough said.
 

MY FELLOW INMATES:

     Let's go back to that first meal. Billy must have seen my
pallor when I got my first look at the food, for he took my bowl
from me and with his free arm led me over to the section of the
room where the stacks of cabinets are that I haven't seen anyone
open yet. He helped me to sit on the floor. I can see that at
least I'm going to keep limber living here. He handed me my
breakfast and sat down beside me with his own. There was no
spoon. He lifted the bowl to his lips and sipped. He watched me
from over the rim of the bowl, urging me silently to try it.
There was no discussion. Not a word. That's the way it was.
That's the way it's been since I got here.
 
     I took a sip from my own bowl and gagged. It's slimy and
cold and tasteless stuff. It's also a little gritty. For fiber,
I assume. The dirty water with the bug they gave me in that
Russian gulag tasted better.

     I put my bowl down. I was not that hungry any more.

     I became aware of Billy studying me. His brow was deeply
creased, he was concentrating so hard. But, as always, he said
nothing.

     "Is this all there is?" I asked. "Ever?"

     Billy frowned and there was such sadness in his face.

     "What's wrong?" I asked.

     His sorrow, if anything, increased.

     Sensing a problem, I whispered, "Can't you tell me what's
going on around here? The Hunter is the only one who has ever
said a word to me. Are we forbidden to talk?"

     Billy's mouth actually moved and with eyes closed he
managed a "Yes", though the worded sound odd. It was what you
might hear from someone who hasn't spoken for a long time. It
was as if he had nearly forgotten how.

     Billy carefully placed his bowl on the floor and then
shifted his position so we were facing each other. All at once
he placed his right hand on the side of my head. I flinched even
though it didn't hurt because it reminded me of the two times
Charley has touched me in that same spot. I did not want to go
through that again. This time, however, I felt nothing, though
from Billy's expression - distress - he wished that I had.

     "I'm sorry. I don't know what you want."

     I became suddenly aware that we were surrounded, not only
by the men, but also by the women who are allowed to visit only
on an irregular basis. Everyone from my abduction group seemed
to be there. Since I was still sitting on the floor and they
were standing, they made an intimidating group even though they
clearly didn't mean me harm. These are my bother and my sister
prisoners, I reminded myself, but they continued to be, as ever,
frighteningly silent. And people call me Spooky.

     Teresa came forward. I am certain that I remember her
speaking to the Hunter though I was injured near to death at the
time. She doesn't now. Instead, she placed her hand firmly on
the top of my head. Her eyes hold me still. So anxious. Other
hands raised me to my feet and I found myself not only ringed by
them, but now they were all trying to make physical contact one
way or the other. When they couldn't get close enough to latch
onto some part of my head or face, they settled for whatever
part of my body they could reach.

     Now you know that I don't like close spaces, Scully. And
you know that I don't like to be touched except by you and then
I need some warning, so you can imagine the panic attack that
started to brew.

     Billy stopped this gentle assault. He either felt my
muscles hardening, or he caught the wild fear of a cornered
animal in my eyes. At least no one in the crowd seemed
particularly upset about being sent away. Instead, their
expressions were all similar to Billy's, a sadness like that in
a child's eyes when he finds his pet mouse dead and cold in its
cage.

     It was the manner in which they all stepped away and began
to move into far corners of the room without a word being spoken
that finally broke though my blindness.

     Only the issue is not that I'm blind. What I am is deaf and
dumb, at least compared to everyone else here.

     "You're telepathic," I whispered. "You all are. Like I
was."

     A tear rolled down Teresa's pale cheek.
 
     "No, not like you."

     I spun around because those four thickly accented words
definitely didn't come from Billy. Charley Hunter's smile was as
irritatingly patronizing as ever. Teresa and Billy hung their
heads as if in defeat and began to inch away.

     "I should have known. It was you who stopped them and not
Billy. You're such a popular guy around here."

     "They are ashamed. They are like babies, or like the stoke
victim, restricted to communicating the wonders of the world in
half a dozen of the simplest words. I intervened because they
might have hurt you. Not intentionally, but, in their
frustration and by their sheer numbers, they may have."

     "Frustration over what? What did they expect to get from
me?"

     His eyes are like flint. "You know. You said it."

     "Telepathy? I don't know how they can expect me to
understand."

     "Don't you?" Without taking those eyes from me, he called
over his shoulder, "Teresa, tell Mooncalf what it was like
before."

     And then he did something with his hand, and a veil seemed
to drop from her eyes. It was like the whole woman stood before
me for the first time since we met in her home that day now so
long ago.

     "Having you with us was like being in the middle of a
symphony -- a symphony of words and music. It was like the works
of Shakespeare and Mozart and Beethoven and the Brownings and
Tolkien and Webber and Wagner and Robert Frost - all being
performed at once and in the most marvelous combinations. And
all of us in the same skin." The shadow returned to her eyes.
"Not like this. Not this aloneness. Not this stone against
stone, chalk squeaking on a blackboard the way it is when you're
not here. Or like now."

     "I think that's enough." Hunter waved his hand again and
the veil descended once more.

     "Does she want me to believe that I once could do all
that?"

     "Is that a formal question? A part of our bargain?" asked
my own personal Satan.

     "You owe me. I passed your test."

     A shrug from those massive shoulders. "I would not call
mere survival a test."

     "I didn't have to."

     "True."

     "Then give. Could I? What she said?"

     "If you ignore the excessive imagery, she was essentially
correct, only we have only their word for the content."

     It took a while, but the light finally brightened a little
more and he waited, knowing that it would. "You have only their
word," I ventured, "because your little lab rats may be able to
think to each other... but not to you or your people. That's why
Billy and Teresa and the others have to make actual sounds when
they want to communicate with you." Something in his eyes
confirmed everything I was saying. "What I don't understand is -
- if you people can't hear anyway, why are you forcing them to
try, especially since their telepathy is so limited."
 
      "But we can hear, we just can't understand. Before it was
like a roar, like your sea. There was some chance of eventually
translating. Now it's rather like... the scratching of a very
small rodent."

     How I wish looks could kill. How I wish you were here to
give Mr. Acromegalic Jaw one of yours.

     I came closer than I cared to in order to keep my voice low
as there was nothing wrong with my fellow abductees' hearing.
"So they don't live up to your expectations, so they're not
allowed to talk!" I demanded. "That's senselessly cruel even for
you. What's the point? Oh, of course, why do I bother to ask.
Another test."

     A shrug. "It's only part of a test -- or you would more
accurately call it a breeding program -- one that has been on-
going for centuries. But it's true that they can barely
understand each other any longer. Without your presence as a
catalyst, it all falls apart. By forbidding speech between them,
we hope to jump start their latent abilities, but that may take
months, if not years. It's no wonder they are confused. What
both your people and mine are anxious to know, however, is why
with you here -- even before your accident -- all was still so
silent."

     Could it be that they don't know about the events of a year
ago, when a dizzying trickle of voices in my head became
suddenly an overwhelming flood? Could it be they don't know how
I lost it? It's possible. Except for Smokie Spender, the
Consortia has been executed to the last man.

     "What happened?" he asked. "I see it in your eyes.
Something. I suspected before, but thought the problem was
related to your injuries and would return in time. But it's more
than that. What did they do to you?"

     I am the silent one now. The Hunter is right -- knowledge
is power and here's something that I seem to know which they
don't. What else do I know that they don't? The Air Force's
tests with stolen alien aircraft at Ellens? Some aspects of the
Gregor experiments? Whatever Krychek is into? The Russian's
successful vaccine against the Black Oil?

     "I think that is enough for today," I replied. I am
surprised by the sound of my own voice. I could be some prince
announcing that the audience was over. I wish my nerves were
that confident.

     Surprisingly, he smiled. "Very well. As you are not
completely recovered, we will wait a little longer. We would not
want to undo what progress has been made."

     He turned to go and then changed his mind about leaving
just yet. "Something for you to think about. In addition to your
forgotten telepathic abilities, you do not seem to remember the
ship, or any of the previous tests. Very unusual."

     "Not unusual as all. Most abductees have only spotty
memories of their 'visits' with you and your people."

     "Because they are given what you would call a post-hypnotic
suggestion to forget. It remains in affect until they next see
the light. A thought or two may break through, but the process
works well enough. Not that it matters. 'Abductees' are never
believed except by the few who are thought equally mad." I
didn't like the laughter behind those cold eyes of his. I know
when I've been insulted.

     "Your response is unusual," he went on, "in that you do on
some level remember the light -- you were drawn to it -- but you
remember nothing more. And then there's the missing symphony, as
Teresa calls it. As I said, we need to know why and we will find
out why." His glance was as surgically precise and calculating
as that of a taxidermist evaluating the best way to mound a
prize fish. "Because of these drastic changes, little mooncalf,
my superiors want a new baseline to compare with your old one.
I'm told that our 'physicians' will perform the required tests
soon. Very soon. Until then..., " he grinned his wolf grin,
"sleep well."

     I was finally left alone. Billy and Teresa and the others
did not return but clustered in the corners. I understand their
distracted air now. They are thinking. Hard. They are trying
with all their might to awaken something in themselves... and in
me.

     Sorry, guys. The well has been tapped dry.

     Or I certainly hope so.
 

     That was, as I've said, two days ago. Even now, the men of
Stockhome keep their distance thinking their baby talk to each
other while I don't hear even that. Understanding more now, I
feel bad about the 'Stock' pun but the name has stuck in my mind
at this point. God, after all, did create Man to name things.

     I came out here this morning only to eat, but now as I look
down at yet another gray bowl of brown sludge, I find I have no
appetite. I don't feel like continuing this travelogue either.
Sorry, Scully. I think I will crawl back into my hole and close
the door and lie in the dark.

     But I don't believe that I will sleep.
 

     Epilogue: The retreat to my cave is interrupted by the
whispered opening of the main door. Four inmates stagger in. One
is limping and holding an arm, one is visibly shivering, one
walks as if he is even more in zombieland than usual, and the
fourth takes two steps and then falls and begins to convulse. I
stand as if frozen, but not my fellow inmates. They activate at
once in silent efficiency. Even without telepathy, I know what
I am seeing. Four were called away for testing over the last few
days and they are just returning; those who remained at home
have swung into action to pick up the pieces. They did this for
me. I remember marveling at how smoothly they moved and how
gentle their nursing. Now I know how that was possible; they've
had lots of practice.

     Being the son of loving and sensitive parents, I can't help
but note that each one of these people must be keenly aware that
he or she will be in a similar state of need sooner or later.

     "Mulder!"

     You're right, Scully. Even for me, cynical bastard that I
am, that was really shameful. In truth, it was only a passing
thought. At least I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. Their
caring means far more than that, they mean far more than that to
each other. I know. It's just not an emotion I've felt from
anyone except you.

     Yet I felt it through their hands.

     They. I am still saying 'they'. It's 'we'. What I said to
you before, Scully, about my being one of them is even more true
now.

      My paralysis leaves me and I go to the head of the one who
is still convulsing. His arms and legs are drawn rigidly
together as he thrashes about. I know about convulsions -- that
helpless, out-of-control humiliation. I have seldom felt so
alone. It's almost as bad as trying to live elbow to elbow with
more than two dozen silent people whose eyes, when they turn my
way, are filled with both disappointment... and pity.

     I take the man's shoulders in my lap and force a wad of his
shirt into his mouth. I scarcely recognize him now, but he is
Roy, Teresa's young husband, who had, as she told us, been
tested too many times before.

     And I will go soon, Charley Hunter told me so. I'll be
taken for the Tests. Will I come back like one of these?

     I realize that I won't be going to huddle in my hole alone
again anytime soon, but then that no longer seems very
important. My place is here for the time being, for here, but
for the grace of God or the whim of Fate -- go I.

     Have I told you recently, Scully, how desperately I miss
you?

End of Stockhome, Third Chapter of 'My Travels With Charley'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL

DATE: 10/18/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst
SUMMARY: Having somehow survived the first terrible moments on the
ship and his first days (at least the ones he's been conscious
enough to remember), Mulder has become bored with the routine. Time
to liven things up. Time for a little first hand knowledge with The
Tests.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission
and as long as the author's name is retained.

DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David,
thank you, thank you for giving us a great season finale and
subjecting us to at least a Mulder-light Eighth Season. Better than
no Mulder.

Author's Notes: This is fourth in a series of short stories
chronically Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and
wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'. An 'All Hallow's Eve' chapter
will come out next and will be... quite... different.

My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the
newer pieces at http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL (1/2)

     Morning, Scully. Note that there's nothing 'good' about it.
Nothing out-of-the-ordinary either, so being at loose ends for
anything to talk about I'll start with an observation. I've come to
the conclusion that I really have lived a very selfish life. Oh,
I've given my heart and soul and my blood to the job, and I've done
my share of sympathizing with the victims -- too much you would say
-- but in the end I've always been able to walk away. For so many
years my eyes have been focused ever ahead, seeking my own answers:
to what happened to Samantha, for the reason for your abduction,
for why my father was killed.  This place and these people,
however, I can't leave behind. For the last three 'nights' I've
lain next to Roy and held him as he convulsed and did my best to
keep him warm. I told you about the limited (i.e. non-existent)
medical facilities in my last virtual journal entry. Without
warning he'd been taken for Testing and without warning he was
returned.

     I could see in his eyes how scared he was whenever he felt
another seizure building. I know how terrible that loss of control
can be. The humiliation, the helplessness. There isn't much that
can help, but if it brought him any comfort then I would stay. This
is what family is for, isn't it, Scully? When I was growing up, I
never knew what it was like not to be so alone all the time.
Families were something you lost, or if you didn't lose them, they
disappointed you. For years after Sam disappeared I could have used
a hand holding mine in the dark. Now I have a family or something
like one. Ironic, I'm the disappointment now, the broken and
damaged one, and yet they are willing to still treat me as one of
their own.

     When I come back to you -- and I do mean 'when' -- I'm going
to be a better person for this. Dare I softly say, better husband
material? Maybe even 'father' material? I know that's a problem,
but we can adopt. I wouldn't mind. After what I've been through my
sperm are probably swimming in circles anyway. You would make a
terrific mother. That's what I thought about all those hours as Roy
shivered and sweated next to me -- that this was what it must feel
like to be a father sitting up with a sick child. Only, to be the
father, the child's pain would be even more my own.

     You seem surprised that I would find this revelation so
surprising. You lay dying within reach of my hand twice and it hurt
so much inside that I nearly died along with you. The difference is
that, feeling as I do towards you, I didn't think I could have
anything left for another human being. I seem to have been wrong
about that.

     When I'm not on Roy-watching duty, I exercise in an attempt to
rebuild my strength. I must be ready. Unlikely as it may seem, an
opportunity to escape may present itself at any time. Look at all
those escaped convict movies. More often than not, the prison bus
has an accident. Maybe this ship will crash.

     No, maybe that's not such a great idea after all.

     In any case, I exercise. I like swimming and running best, as
you know, and I can't do either in the Stockhome yard. Just not
enough room and too crowded for running and a distinct lack of
water. It's calisthenics then, which I loath, but I've built up a
little mantra of my own to keep me going that I repeat over and
over in my head. The tune is to the Bridge on the River Kwai and
the words are pretty scandalous even for me. Too bad I haven't had
a chance to get really bored with it yet. That's because I haven't
been able to build up to more than ten pushups before my arms give
out. It's a pretty pitiful sight and I seem to be losing even more
weight as a result of my exertions. I wouldn't mind so much if I
seemed to be building up any muscle. To make the situation even
worse, I'm beginning to smell rather rank. I asked Billy about
showers and changes of clothes, but he just looked at me as if I
had three heads.

     The fourth 'day' after Rob's return while I am sweating over
my tenth set of sit ups since our breakfast of glag, the buzzer
announcing the opening of the main door went off. As it's not time
for either breakfast or dinner, I look up with some apprehension.
It could be visiting time for the women -- that makes it sound like
more goes on than actually does -- but more likely this is a signal
that one of our group is going to be taken. No one is getting up to
leave, however. Instead, everyone is looking at me. It still
unnerves me that even though this group practices telepathy with a
vocabulary of about ten words, they are still able to communicate
far better with each other than I can with any of them. I'm going
to take it as a given that I've finally been called.

     I get to my bare feet. My legs are more shaky than I would
like to admit -- Jell-o Jigglers have more substance -- but the
empty doorway beckons. It closes with a hiss of air behind me.
 
     The light in the corridor beyond is blinding. I stand blinking
for several seconds. I had forgotten how dim they keep our
quarters. I'm still squinting when I see my escort. I don't know
why it should surprise me, but it's one of the little Grays. Its
smooth round head with its malevolent almond eyes comes up to about
my sternum. In the flesh they certainly are more sinister than
Spielberg depicted them. Soundlessly, it turns and heads off down
the white corridor to my left. Having nothing better to do, I
follow.

     I don't know why I should have been surprised but I am. It's
taken me to the sanitation room, to the showers. I grasp at a
thought: Perhaps they don't intend to test me this time after all.
Maybe it's just that my stink offends them. That's a victory of
sorts. In any case, I can't shed my rank clothes fast enough.
Fleetingly, I wonder if the little Gray is male or female. My
striptease doesn't seem to affect it one way or the other. It's
with gratitude that I dump my reeking gray fatigues down a chute
and watch them disappear into the bowels of the ship.

     I only saw the disrobing room once before and that from a
distance when I was first taken up into the ship. That was just
before my 'accident', not something I'm likely to forget. The only
time I was actually under the showers, I was blind from the
acceleration injuries to my eyes and being washed of blood and gore
by my fellow abductees while Death and I played tag. This time I'm
on my own two feet. Even as I slide under the showerhead, I stare
curiously around. It's only a shower room, the kind they have at
the older 'Y's and Boy Scout camps -- one big room and a dozen or
so showerheads placed at regular intervals. Still, for me it's the
first new thing I've seen in weeks.

     The mildly acidic fluid that comes out of the taps is warmer
than I remember and there is less of it, but it doesn't sting. Not
having any open wounds this time probably has something to do with
that. Still, it is as near to heaven as I've found yet on this
budget airline and I take my time. As I slide the hard bar of brown
soap over my skin, I try to ignore the feel of my own bones under
my hands. I spy the almost mirror-like shininess of a stainless
steel tank that stands in the corner and side over to access the
damage.

     Should have known better. The comparison to World War II
concentration camps comes back as it did once before in this place,
only I'm a survivor this time... if you want to call this survival.
Protruding hip bones, ribs like a xylophone, arms and legs like a
bundle of long, brittle sticks. You would be shocked, Scully. My
face... No, you don't want to know what my face looks like. All
nose and jaw, cheekbones and hallow eyes. None of the other times
when you have fussed over my having lost weight has been anywhere
near as bad as this. I could use you fussing now as well as a few
dozen Big Macs.

     Hastily, I retreat back to my dripping showerhead. I must
concentrate on this opportunity to get clean. I wash my hair with
the same course soap and even wrestle with the fuzz between my
toes. Who knows when I'm going to get a chance again? Going
barefoot all the time, the bottoms of my feet look and feel like
leather.  It's a while before I'm again aware of my guide, or it
could be any of the Grays. It's standing in the doorway looking
very anxious as if it's the one who'll pay for my taking so long.
The problem is, there's no towel, nor any clean clothes. Even my
old ones would have been better than nothing, but they're long
gone, and so I make it plain that I'm going to stay planted where
I am until I get some service. My escort, meanwhile, is still
standing and waiting and doesn't seem to have any idea that
something is missing in this scenario.

     Finally, I peer at him from around what functions as a shower
stall and shout, "Hey, I could use some clothes here!" and gesture
pulling on pants. If it understands, it ignores me and makes
nervous little motions like a certain tardy white rabbit with a
pocket watch. For quite a while I stubbornly refuse to follow it
while it stubbornly refuses to agree to my demands. Finally, it
gives a very good impression of stalking off in a snit.

     And people say that the Grays have no emotions.

     Ten minutes later, during which time I've completed my
examination of every inch of the dressing and shower rooms, I have
a visitor. Charley Hunter. As usual, he seems twice as large and
twice as real as everything and everyone else I've encountered in
this place.

     "I expected you five minutes ago."

     "I have other duties besides watching over you. You should
have followed the -" He says some word that sounds like ">Denay<"
only that can't be right.

     "If you mean the little bell-hop, not naked I won't."

     "That hardly matters here."

     There's some truth in that. Neither the Grays nor their elders
of the tall and spindly physique wear anything that looks like a
garment, though with the glare from the brilliant light the elders
always seem to be bathed in, one can't be certain. Still... "It
matters to me. Besides, I don't see your inhuman flesh gracing the
decor."

     The Hunter makes no answer to that other than to toss a bundle
at my feet. The jumble of gray cloth lands in a damp spot, but with
relief I retrieve them and dress anyhow. My ego has been bruised
quite enough by how badly my manly physique has deteriorated since
I was abducted. I don't need to provide Hunter or any of his kind
with any more of a show than I have to. But Hunter did come at my
call. Another point for the home team. The long, loose draw-string
pants and even looser short-sleeve shirt are exactly like my old
ones, but at least they don't smell like a inside of a high school
student's gym locker.
 
     I'm finally as ready as I'm going to get. While I dressed, I
kept an eye on Charley. He has waited for me with what for him is
the utmost patience. This makes me suspicious. Hell, everything
about the 'man' makes me suspicious. Seeing I'm finished, he starts
back down the brightly-lit corridor I had traveled with the little
Gray. Seeing no other escort, I fall along beside him. I should
keep silent and make him do the talking, but living with the
zombies as I have, I'm so starved for conversation that I have to
say something.

     "No lecture?" I ask. "No complaints about my incorrigibility."

     "What would be the point," he drawls. It is not a question.
"Aren't you going to ask if it will hurt?"

     I don't like the direction this conversation is going. "I
believe I already know the answer to that one."

     His smile broadens. Lucifer must smile like that.
 
     We arrive at a doorway. He activates it somehow and the panel
slides open. He gestures me inside with almost languid courtesy.
It's even brighter in this room than the hallway though the air is
thick with a dense, white fog. That's all I can see. Another
decontamination procedure? Poor aliens. They really must find the
human animal a dirty lot.

     I step into the mist. It's damp and surprisingly warm. It
tickles my nose like vinegar. Like a small child facing his first
jump into the family pool, I take a deep breath and hold it. I
would take things slower, but Charley is on my heels so I keep
walking. Besides, I don't dare slow down because the only
alternative is to turn and run and that I won't do. I have the
honor of an entire species to uphold, after all, and I can feel its
weight heavy on my bony shoulders.

     The mist thins as suddenly as it appeared and between one
second and the next I am bombarded with two sensations. Either
alone could have stopped me dead where I stood. The light is
suddenly, not just bright, but piercing, as painful as thousands of
tiny razor-sharp knives that attack not just my eyes, but every
inch of my skin. And I can't breathe. There is no air. Or perhaps
I should say that my lungs refuse to take it in. The foul stuff is
instantly in my mouth, in my nose, invading deep into my sinuses.
Tears of protest roll down my cheeks. Its taste even beats against
my eardrums as if pounding vainly against a barred door. Pervasive
as a cesspool and acrid as a foundry, it's pure poison, metal laced
with a reeking level of ammonia.

     I'm on the floor, doubly blinded by tears and light. The pain
and fear are so terrible I have no memory of how I got down here.
I haven't actually breathed in the vile stuff yet, and I don't
intend to, but I'm rapidly running out of options. I run and I swim
-- or I did, enough so my lungs are good -- still, I can't hold my
breath indefinitely.

     The Hunter is at my side. I can't see him, but I can sense him
and how utterly calm he is about his pet writhing on the floor at
his feet.

     Something attacks, and only after I jerk away do I realize
that he's sprayed something onto my face. The bad part is that I
feel like my skin has just been shrink-wrapped with a fine coating
of plastic or wax, the good part is that the membranes around my
eyes, nostrils and mouth don't burn as much anymore. I'm still
going to die sometime soon though.

     Now he cups the back of my head with one hand and, despite my
struggles, stuffs a huge wad of something soft and squishy and vile
into my mouth with the other.

     "Breathe!" he orders. "Breathe deeply!"

     The hell I will! With this junk in my mouth! Even now I can
feel it softening, spreading out, creeping up the back of my throat
as if it has a will of its own. I start to gag, but he clamps a
heavy hand over my mouth so I can't eject the stuff.

     "Breathe!" he commands again. "In with it, you fool!"

     I don't have much choice. Damn, traitorous, autonomic
reflexes! Despite the distraction of the searing light, it's all
going dark. I open my throat in a strangled gasp and the gunk
slides in and in and in.

     Now there is nothing coming in no matter how hard I struggle.
I'm choking to death. As for the Hunter, he's still got a heavy
hand on my forehead and is holding me down so I won't dash my skull
to pieces against the floor, which I surely would have.

     "Give it a few seconds," he suggests, "just a few seconds.
Then try again, only more slowly."

     Yeah, sure, let's see the bastard try it, but surprisingly the
gunky tightness of the obstruction, which feels like the largest
clot of mucus of all time, begins expanding in my windpipe. (I
would have used another word, which begins with 'SN' and ends with
a 'T', but the very idea disgusted even me.) It's still like
breathing through a soda straw, but it's breathing.

     I'm managing to control my own panic now -- just barely, but
managing -- so Hunter doesn't need to hold me down any more. Still
he hovers. "Very good, little Mooncalf." He runs his hand over my
forehead and down into my hair. I want to bite it but he stays out
of range of my teeth. "Yes, very sensible. The 'k'nikk' forms a
barrier against the poisons. Your people refer to it as the 'slug'.
I'm sure you can understand why."

     I think I would like to throw up now. I'm distracted from
further mortification along these lines by his hand that is still
hovering, shadowing my face. "Open your eyes. Go ahead. This will
help. Wider."

     Something like a the moon eclipsing the sun plops into my
momentarily open right eye. Precious dark descends, or at least
shade. "Again," he orders, and I do, and my left eye gets the same
treatment. Obviously it's something like a large, nearly black
contact lens. I lay still blinking and wheezing. Both seeing and
breathing are becoming easier, but with agonizing slowness. The
brightness of the room could still be compared to the full sun of
winter reflecting off a mile-high snowfield, and the tightness in
my chest is like an octopus has decided to hibernate in my lungs --
yeah, I know, I've been there, done that before -- but both are
better than they were.

     "You b-breathe this stuff?" I choke, meaning the air, not the
slug. I didn't see Hunter sucking down any of the repulsive gunk.

     "Why should that surprise you? In your blood is mirrored the
sea in which you were spawned and which hangs in the air and falls
as rain. In our blood is reflected our sea and our sky." Lightly,
he touches the area under my left eyes and then my upper lip, both
of which are raw. "You were exposed to our blood before, even mine
as I remember. You're one of the few living who knows what happens
when it mingles with your air. So you know, the same would happen
if you swam unprotected in our seas or walked bareheaded under our
sun."

     There is something else about his planet I can deduce from all
this, otherwise, why the need to colonize on a world as clearly
inhospitable to them as ours obviously is. "You don't by any chance
have a fierce white star for a sun that is burning itself out too
soon?"

     I don't think Charley wants to answer. From behind, he puts
his hands under my armpits and raises me to my feet, as easily as
another man would lift a child. Dizzy, I sway and nearly go down,
but he catches me. When I try to break his hold, he only laughs and
propels my bag of bones up onto... of course... an examining table.
It couldn't be anything else in this place, only this one is more
elaborate than any I've seen. There's a special platform for each
limb and it seems infinitely adjustable to any size and shape. They
must have already known my size because the length is right in all
the right places. Charley and three heretofore-unseen pairs of
pale, dry, long-fingered hands come out of the light beyond my
field of vision and tighten things down with depressing efficiency.
Soon there are straps across calves, thighs, hips, arms, wrists,
shoulders, torso and head. The straps need to be pulled tighter
than I think even they expected.

     There was no time to fight before and useless after as a half-
hearted test of their effectiveness demonstrates. "This isn't
necessary," I growl.

     "Yes, I can see that." Charley seems mildly surprised that I'm
taking this all so calmly, but that emotion is quickly replaced by
one that is closer to his normally saturnine self. "Let's just say
that we wouldn't want you hurt yourself. If you stumbled around in
here, you could run into something sharp."

     This is probably a true statement. The room, which I can still
barely see for the glare, does seem to be just stacked to the
ceiling with hard, shining edges. In truth, I'm also not taking the
restraints and their hands on my body all that well. I've just
learned that it's usually best not to let on to what really bothers
you, however, or they'll just do whatever it is with renewed
determination.

     The tall, thin creatures are milling about now, poking and
prodding, and the chair swivels and dips and opens and closes in
every possible configuration so that my body's in just the right
position for whatever they need access to, which is just about
everything. Despite the fact that what flesh I have wants to crawl
right of my bones when they touch me, the examination is almost
warmly reminiscent of my usual trips to the emergency room --
everyone wants a piece of the pie. The big difference is I try not
to look at my 'doctors' this time. Oddly, it's actually better than
most of my experiences with ER's. At least I don't have anything
broken or shot to hell to start with. Whoever performs the spinal
tap doesn't even do a half-bad job. I've had worse performed by the
med students of George Washington University on a Saturday night.
They stick sharp objects in about ten veins, something cold into my
mouth and another cold something way down in my ears. I won't tell
you want they push up my nose. They pinch or prick about three
dozen sites to check my reflexes. In response, the chair loosens
the proper restraint, but never enough to allow any chance of
escape. Where would one escape to anyway? Next, they shine little
portable suns into my eyes -- to see the back of my eyeballs, I
assume -- and even the nearly black contacts can't lessen the
excruciating pain. It's worse because I can't move my head more
than a centimeter in any direction during this process, but it's
quickly over. Now comes the really bad part. The chair tilts back,
really far back, and they strip off my pants and start spelunking
into orifices they have not right to. I lost my shirt so fast at
the beginning that I don't remember when it went, so I'm naked and
cold and helpless, every inch of me exposed to wandering fingers
and prying eyes.

     I could have put up a fuss. I could have screamed and swore
and foamed at the mouth, but there would not have been much use to
that. Within easy reach of half a dozen long-fingered hands, I see
hanging what can only be a muzzle of human-size and the Hunter is
in the room waiting for me to disgrace myself. I won't give him the
pleasure. This is when I realize that what they are doing down in
my nether regions is no longer painful. Not painful at all.

     Damn it.

     Within a minute or so, it's obvious that I'm not the least
cold any more either. What I'm doing is blushing 'six ways to
Sunday' as my old aunt might have said, if I had had an old aunt.

     "Not in the contract..." I murmur to that pervert Charley
between clenched teeth, clenched because my body is vibrating,
thrumming like a plucked string that goes on and on, higher and
higher.

     "Almost there," says a soft voice. "They just need a sample."
Where in the hell did that voice come from? It sounds... No, it
couldn't be. But it is a woman's voice. A human woman. I want to
find that voice, I have to... but, before I can start, the maestro
working down below turns up the gain. Not a lot, just a notch.
Enough to make me lose all point of reference and go soaring
somewhere into the stratosphere. What part of my ego I still can
connect with is much miffed that I'm responding far better now than
to any of the times that I've tried this on my own since my
abduction. Then I remember that I don't have to expend any energy
this time and the unexpected is always better. I'm also being
treated to heaven from two directions -- inside and out -- and,
though I was pretty pissed at the getting inside part, it's all
perfectly placed now and, perfectly, perfectly timed. I want to
come and then I don't ever want to. It's flowers and colors and
bliss and passion and wonder and heaven and the other place.

     How are they able to do this? Hell, I guess I should be
surprised if they couldn't. They've had decades of practice at
finding ways to get their pets to do exactly what they want.

     I can think of being asked to perform worse tricks.

     Did I just say what I thought I said... or thought ... or
whatever? Nothing's staying around long in my head. Very quickly
I'm back to rolling in animal perfection. Still, a part of me is
fighting this orgy of sensation. It's really not fair of them to
make me feel so good when all I want to do is keep on hating
them... and hating them... and hating them.

     I'm just making progress towards building a reasonable level
of resistance when something truly astonishing sweeps away my shaky
walls. It's the voice again. "Mulder, it's all right. Mulder?"

     My name, oh God, my name. Not that Mooncalf crap, but my name.
Even better, this time the voice is yours, has to be yours. I can't
help it, I know it's a trick, but I open my eyes to look for you...
and there you are. A disembodied face, but your face, so sad and
yet so full of love...

     Oh... my... God... I lose it. Lose the whole thing. I've
reached Everest and there's no place else to go but the moon, so I
go there, too and the arc is high and full and glorious and -- yes,
it does hang in there a full ten second past peak -- the bastards -
- but that can be considered either heaven or hell, depending on
the way you look at it. Eventually, the coming down is almost as
good as the going up.

     My eyes fill with tears -- of grief or joy I don't know -- but
it takes a while for me to be able to see again. You're gone, of
course, if you were ever there at all. Did they project your image
on my contact lenses or what? I don't care. It was you and clearer
than even a memory like mine has been able to come up with since
the Baltimore airport where we said good-bye. Do you think I didn't
see your red-rimmed eyes? Had you slept at all? I meant to show up,
I really did, but the night got later and later and the Gunman kept
coming up with this and that gadget. Soon they and Skinner were
hipdeep in a whole arsenal of clandestine military toys and I
couldn't just leave. I should have though. I should have said the
hell with them and appearances. I should have spent that last night
with you. Yes, you begged me to, not with words, but with your
eyes. How was I to know that it was going to be the last night, the
last night for a long, long time. The last night forever? No, I
won't think about that. I'll think about this gift of your face and
not worry about how it happened.

     It takes time for me to realize that the restraints are all
gone and that I'm curled up uncomfortably in a ball on the alien
table with something like a blanket over me. I think I actually
slept for a little while. A few minutes at least.

     The afterglow is ruined, however, because the first face I see
when I poke my head out from under the blanket is Charley's.

     If I didn't like his smirky little smile before, I loathe it
now.

     "Have a nice nap?"

     That doesn't really require a response and I don't give him
one. He doesn't seem to care.

     "Time for Phase Two," he announces as he tosses me what from
the pattern of wrinkles can only be the prison duds that I wore for
barely ten minutes. I slip a little shakily off the examination
table and dress with my back to him.

     "And what can I expect from Phase Two?"

     "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

End of My Travels with Charley CH04 (1/2)MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL (2/2)

DATE: 10/18/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com

     I am surprised with Phase Two of my Tests though not nearly so
surprised as I was with some aspects of Phase One. Phase Two is
plain old weight lifting and endurance stuff. Treadmill and sit-ups
and range of motion. And no sensors stuck all over your skin and
trailing wires. Instead there's this light. It's not that much
brighter than the ambient blast of the spectrum that's normal for
this room, but it's -- heavier somehow. I can feel it touching deep
here, there and everywhere, reaching under my clothes, even under
my skin. I have no doubt that it's reading heart rate, blood
pressure, respiration, temperature, blood gases, even what I had
for dinner at that little Oregon diner with Skinner just before we
set out into the woods.

     I run, I lift, I bend nearly backwards as I'm instructed to do
and, blissfully, the exercise frees my mind as running or swimming
have always done. How I've craved that endorphin high. Not that all
is perfect. Through it all, what keeps coming back is how badly I
messed up that last day and what you must be going through.

     I'm sweating and gasping by the time they finally halt the
treadmill. I nearly fell half a dozen times. I would have given up
long before, but they control how fast it runs and for how long. I
guess I could have begged them to stop, but I never quite reached
that level of desperation. Now that we are stopped, I instinctively
look up.
 
     The Grays are a very graphical people, which shouldn't be much
of a revelation considering the exquisite decoration of their
ships. Above me are rows and rows of scrolling numbers just like
the old New York Stock Exchange although they are floating in mid-
air like holograms. From time to time there's a graphic of some
part or all of a nude human male body followed by bar charts and
line graphs. There is always three sets of data, two showing
similar readings and one clearly inferior. I don't need a road map
to figure out that the inferior readings symbolize my current
effort and, if the Hunter is to be believed, the two far higher
readings are from previous baselines of mine. You would have found
the technology fascinating, Scully. How clearly it shows the degree
to which the strength and efficiency of each and every muscle group
has declined since this subject's last two evaluations.

     I don't know why I'm looking. It's all depressing and I'm
already depressed. I don't need pretty pictures to tell me that I'm
in a pretty bad way. As I stand there gasping, I've got a pain in
my chest, a stitch in my side and there's a boneless feeling in my
legs. But do I give up? Of course, not. I never was that smart. The
next set of exercises requires the pushing and pulling of weights
from odd directions. I didn't have to try as hard or for as long as
I did, but you know my stubborn streak better than anyone. I
continue to push this sorry excuse for a body far beyond what I
should. It's seemingly hours later and I'm collapsed over a weight
bench, when I realize that there are no more instructions being
hurled in my direction. I am cold with sweat, which is a bad sign
and my muscles are not just twitching, I've got a full blown case
of the shakes and there's a huge hallow pain in my stomach that
HURTS! You know the signs. You've seen me often enough during those
fun, little serial killer cases they keep asking that I profile. I
was running on empty, only this was far worse than just about any
other time I can remember. I hadn't realized before just how near
to starving I was. When offered a bowl of sludge, I actually swill
it down with something like greed. When Charley offers me a second
bowl, I didn't even hesitate to consume this one as readily. All
the while, Charley looks on, but there are none of his irritating
little smiles. He is as glum as a parson -- or an undertaker.

     My jailer then offers me what I assume is a rare courteously -
- a second shower. It's hell getting muscles with the rigidity of
rubber bands to move, but I do. What with the time it takes to
lever myself off the bench, I have to hobble as quickly as I can to
catch up with my guardian devil. If I'm too slow, he may withdraw
the offer.

     In the shower room I am rewarded for my efforts with a burst
of spray from the tap that is almost painful in its intensity
which, considering how I am feeling, is just about right. And it
isn't tepid this time, but hot. I nearly cried. I think I did. How
low the mighty have fallen when just a decent shower can mean so
much.

     What I nice, obedient little lab rat I'm becoming.

     Wearing my second new set of prison grays for the day, I
emerge from the shower room to find you-know-who waiting. I'm
moving better now, or I would be if it were not for the soles of my
feet. We've never been given shoes so my soles have toughened with
time. After my hours on the treadmill, however, -- at least it felt
like hours -- they are exceedingly tender so I'm still limping.

     We walk or, in my case, shuffle in silence. I don't ask where
he taking me -- because it wouldn't do any good anyway -- but what
I really want right now is to go home.

     Home. At the thought I feel my face reddening, reddening
because at the suggestion of home my mind and body conjured up the
image and dimensions of my Spartan, coffin-sized hole in Stockhome.
Is that what I think of as home now? What about my nice, soft couch
in Alexandria; or your nice, soft couch in the District; or your
nice, soft bed and nice, soft.... No, Spook, don't go there.

     As if he can read my mind -- at least part of my mind --
Charley informs me, "Not much more. During this last phase you'll
be lying down."

     So there is a last phase. I didn't think that this was the way
back to the gulag. My intestines make a queer twist; the lying down
part is unlikely to be optional. I don't think that I should have
had that second bowl of sludge.

     Less than two minutes later I am reclining on a different kind
of examination table in a new room. There are restraints, of
course, fewer than before but considerably more substantial. Hunter
is still with me, all business-like. Something is definitely up. I
thought there had been equipment before, buzzing and beeping, but
they must have bought out the entire contents of an electronics
superstore this time. The largest monster of all is hovering just
behind my head, lurking like a bristling Guardian of Forever. The
sharp edges of dread begin carving up my insides again. Why do I
have this feeling that I may have gotten off easy until now?

     Neither of us have spoken since the shower. Hunter will tell
me when he wants, dangling the carrot always out of reach. That's
how he gets his jollies. So I'm surprised when he asks, "Any last
questions," as he turns back to me from whatever he was doing.

     "I haven't asked any first questions yet."

     I get a little smile from him for that, but he doesn't offer
any information about what's gone down and I'll be damned if I'm
going to inquire politely.

     A tall Gray approaches and hands Hunter a long piece of
flexible tubing. Instantly, I know what it is, or at least what it
looks like. I've upchucked enough of them in hospitals after waking
from particularly nasty traumas. I don't have any memory of how one
feels going down, however, never having been what you would call
'aware' at the time, and I don't fancy finding out now.

     "No way," I tell him.

     "You don't have a choice. It must be done. We usually
anesthetize, but I thought you'd like to go through the
preparations conscious just to show how tough you are." He's
holding the tube in front of my eyes and he's not grinning. He's
very serious as if, honest and truly, he's giving me a chance to
show what I'm made of. What I'm made of at the moment, however, is
goosebumps and bones and skin -- and butterflies. Butterflies the
size of bats. All I can say is that the bats had better watch out
for the scythe, which is still working around inside.

     "What are we talking here?" I ask.

     "Brain scan," he replies, gesturing towards the equipment
almost matter-of-factly. "We need to find out why you can't
remember about the ship, about where your gift has gone. You never
asked why we nearly allowed you to suffocate before. It was a test
to see if you were misleading us about your loss of memory about
the ship."

     "And? Did I pass?"

     "Let's say that you proved you didn't remember. Having been
beyond the elder veil once, none of your kind will try it again
without getting protection first. So you truly have lost it all.
How?"

     I ignore his need to know. I can tell him, at least in part,
but I'm not so whipped that I'm ready to turn over information
without a fight. Instead I say with, I think, more nonchalance than
I feel, "I've had brain scans."

     "Like a meteorite to a moon. Same basic concept, but, in terms
of scope, not in the same universe."

     "Will I be conscious?"

     "I've heard it described various ways, but conscious isn't one
of them."

     That doesn't sound encouraging. Maybe coming clean with what
I do know would not be such a bad idea. "How long is this going to
take?"

     He's busy with something, or wants me to think he is.

     "How long is this going to take?" I ask again, louder.

     "Earth time? Two weeks."

     Oh, he timed that well, the Nordic rat. He sees my jaw drop
and springs. They've had practice at this, too. All I know is that
there are big, stubby fingers all over my face and pinching my nose
and putting pressure on my Adam's apple and my exhausted limbs are
struggling against the restraints for all they're worth. The next
thing I know, the tube is down. With that huge hand of his, Hunter
holds my head against the headrest and the tube in place until the
gag reflex subsides. He pats my cheek as he steps away.

     "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

     At that moment, Scully, I would have sold my soul for your
homicidal eyes. Still, I did well enough. We went eyeball to
eyeball for a tense half minute or so and it was Charley who found
a reason to drop his gaze first. Still, I regretted not opening up
about Smoking Man's solution to my surprise X-File-ishness of a
year ago. I don't know how Smokie did it, but I'm certain that
Charlie doesn't know a thing about my brief bout as the poster boy
for Parapsychology Today. Would admitting to the hack and slash
surgery have gotten me out of this? I doubt it, but from the fear
building up inside I know that it would have been worth a try. Two
weeks... Bloody Hell -- as my Oxford chums would say -- what are
they going to do, pull out each individual neuron and examine it
under a microscope? I wish I could talk or gesture, anything to
communicate but with a plastic tube between my vocal cords and
trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, there's little chance of
that. I've also antagonized my only possible advocate. I make eye
contact with Hunter again and I see that he knows that I'd really
like to stop this, that I'd be willing to talk. That brings the
smirk back to his face again. So now he knows that I've been
holding out on him. He's going to teach me a little lesson about
that and is going to enjoy every minute of it.

     While the silent macho posturing has been going on, the rest
of the team has been proceeding with their preparations. They've
stripped me -- again. What is it with these people and clothes,
particularly mine? Two weeks with my emaciated unloveliness exposed
for all the world to see? Damn them. They've also started
installing tubes in all kinds of orifices, some to put stuff in,
some to drain stuff off. I've had it done before but, like I said,
not while conscious.

     It takes quite a while and Hunter's soon in the thick of it.
Finally, he straightens up. "Very good," he says and with, I think
I detect, some pride that his pet Human has behaved so well in
front of his peer group. "Time for the last bit. Just assume as
comfortable a position as you can." He makes certain that I'm
paying attention. "Two weeks from now you will appreciate the
suggestion."

     I'm blown away by what happens next. The chair drops towards
the floor with me still on it. Other than leaving my stomach
behind, that's not the weirdest part. Out of the corner of my eye
I can see low walls rise up close around me until I am reclining as
if in an open coffin. I don't care for the symbolism any more now
than when I'm 'at home' in Stockhome. Then I hear an odd sound, for
all the world like beer flowing out of a tap or espresso. That's it
-- espresso. Whatever it is, something liquidish is flowing up
around my bare ass and my legs and back and shoulders. In time, it
gets between my toes and rises to puddle in my groin which -- I'm
embarrassed to admit -- tickles. But that's a passing sensation for
the level keeps rising. My head is slightly elevated so after
creeping up my chest, the level is soon up to my chin.

     Up until now the sensation hasn't been unpleasant, just weird.
Not cold, just wet, and not entirely wet either, but like being
submerged in whipped cream.

     Tsk, tsk, Scully! Such dirty thoughts. I wish mine were as
depraved, but bowel loosening terror -- which has been increasing
with the fluid level -- is a big detractor from that sort of thing.

     The level finally stops rising. Too close. It's in my ears and
nearly in my mouth. I hadn't realized that Hunter was still close
by, watching with pleasure, I'm sure. He leans down. "Sorry, forgot
this," he says and pops the black contacts out of my eyes and
places soft pads over them instead.

     I don't like this. Helpless before, now I'm in the dark. At
least my arms and legs aren't strapped any more. The restraints
have fallen away, but I still can't move them more than an inch.
They are now encased. The foam has solidified, not to something
hard like cement, but to something very much like stiff foam
rubber. The examination table seems to be gone, too, as if I've
floated out of it, but with my neck in traction, I still can't move
my head.

     Hunter wipes a little of the hardening foam, and a good deal
of terror-driven sweat from my upper lip. What I'd like to do it
spit it out at him, but I have no spit. In my panic my mouth is as
dry as bone.

     "In case you're wondering, your people call this 'the sponge'.
The matrix is a naturally occurring colony of single-celled
organisms, creatures very like the sponge. In its natural state,
which is on neither your planet nor mine, the colony is more or
less solid in situ. The cement between the cells breaks down when
the colony needs to move from place to place. Another race -- again
neither yours nor mine -- enhanced it over centuries with tiny
telecommunications devices so that they can both receive simple
instructions and transmit data. They solidify or gel on command,
just as you have seen so aptly demonstrated."

     He pats me clumsily on the head again, or at least the few
inches that are still above the surface. "Don't be afraid, the
matrix will liquefy just as readily. My people travel through space
for months or years, contained very much as you are now, so two
weeks is not so very long. It's truly a symbiotic relationship. You
get a soft bed even a kind of massage from time to time, and they
live on your waste. They transmit back to the central receiver
every minute fact of what your body is doing, every twitch of every
muscle, every hundredth degree of temperature change -- even the
delta change in the length of your toenails -- and from that they
derive purpose. We believe in symbiotic relationships," he adds
with emphasis. "We believe in everything having a purpose. Your
race exists for the most part without purpose and in a chaotic
jumble. This will stop."

     At this point I feel the gel soften ever so slightly and
sluggishly begin creeping again over my mouth reaching for my eyes.
Hunter is ready as every muscle in my body goes into frantic
spasms. He holds my head down.

     "Now there, now there, little Mooncalf. Don't fear, we'll meet
again. We're just going to turn out the contents of your head -- in
a controlled way, but rather rapidly for you, I'm afraid. As the
images tumble out, keep in mind that our machines cannot read your
thoughts, only activate them, and record how you react. We'll find
out what works and what no longer works. That's all we're
interested in. What use have we of the minute details of your petty
day to day existence? Remember that, if that knowledge gives you
comfort. Remember... if you can."

     The moving foam has closed completely over my head now.
Sensing the Hunter withdraw his hand I surge upward, but the
'sponge' has already gelled too solidly around me. Like a fly in
amber I am caught. What if they forget to release me? I could be
locked in this Plaster of Paris mold for months as the ship speeds
on to... where? Certainly further and further from home... my true
home, this time. My true home, which is and always will be by your
side, Scully. Have I lived forty years to end up the tootsie roll
inside the tootsie roll pop? Or, considering how my insides feel,
like the jelly inside a donut? I don't think so. Charley Hunter
still has plans and yet more plans for me. I'm too much fun to
torture. I, therefore, think I will live a long, long time yet.
Alone and in misery, maybe, but live. And where there's life...

     I sense something. As the sponge is sensitive to my skin, I'm
sensitive to it. There's a lumbering rumbling sound, felt even more
than heard. They must be bringing up the mucking big machine I saw
before to surround where my head is. It is more comfortable than
being clamped down, only if something doesn't start happening soon,
I fear that two weeks of this nothingness will drive me mad.

     Just then a muscle in my leg jerks, then another, and another,
and now my whole leg. Though there is nowhere for it to go, I feel
it push against the sponge, the movement quickly absorbed. It's all
going faster and faster now. Like the rays of light that recorded
my vital statistics as I ran and pumped iron, there's this
impression in my mind of pin points of lights reaching out and
triggering this neuron and that in my brain, in an efficient and
logical sequence. And here I assumed that memory was all they were
interested in. No, they're doing a brain scan of the entire brain.
Autonomic and sympathetic, midbrain, hypothalamus, forebrain and
brain stem. In addition to what I did on my third birthday, it
seems that I'm going to be treated to a smorgasbord of sensation:
every imaginable taste and smell, the memory or every touch and
pitch of sound. I can see why all of this is going to take a while.
As my eyes fly open and then close beneath the pads Hunter placed
over them to protect them, I wonder how they are going to test
logic and the ability to analyze. There's RAM inside as well as --
ouch -- ROM.

     Scully... ugh ... I'll do my best to keep up this journal
entry, but I'm losing rapidly ground here. Or rapidly losing...
or... Oh... oh, gaaawwd... My body is buzzing and jerking like some
mad scientist's puppet so now that it's nearly impossible to
concentrate. All I can do is endure and bad as it is -- which is
tortuously horrible -- I know that it's going to get h-harder.
Hunger, thirst, heat, c-cold. Oh, y-yeeeesssss... and new and quite
original sources of pain.

     Shit! It's all moving so fast, too fast. One second I'm
freezing to death outside the sub and nobody knows where I am. The
next and I'm sweating inside the SETI installation on Puerto Rico
and, again, no body knows where I am.

     In a breath everything changes and the wind is screaming
around me and the rain is driving at me so hard that I'm drowning.
Horribly dizzy. I'm trapped outside all alone in the hurricane with
the water monster sucking out my life. Please stop, please stop.
God, make it stop. I'd scream it if I could, but I can't, so I'll
pray instead. Where is that hand in the dark when I need it now,
when I need you now, Scully.

     There is a s-silver lining of sorts. I'll probably
reexperience every flavor of ice cream I ever t-tasted...

     ... and I'll relive every moment of my years with my Scully.

     Two weeks will not be nearly enough to replay all that I
remember about you.

End of My Travels with Charley CH04

Author's note: I hadn't read about Harry Potter's experience with
the Gillyweed, that magical Mediterranean plant, until long after
I wrote about the slug. How I laughed to find parallels even here.
For those dozen or so of you who have not read the Harry Potter
books, find a few days over the holidays where your hip friends and
co-workers can't see you and give these a read. They're better than
the vast majority of main stream novels and with enough humor and
angst and plot twists to please any XFF devotee. There is a
surprising amount of angst and a mythology almost as complicated as
the X-Files. There's just no sex... Hey, it's juvenile fiction.
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH THE CHARLEY 05: MESSENGER (1/2)
DATE: 10/31/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA, Story, MSR
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst, Scullyangst
SUMMARY: In the midst of his unbearable suffering aboard the alien
ship, Mulder reaches out and makes unexpected contact with an
amazing ally. With the help of another old friend, the messenger
sets forth. It's All Hallow's Eve and anything can happen.

ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission
and as long as the author's name is retained.

DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David,
thank you for giving us a great Seventh Season finale. As far as
Season Eight goes, I guess a Mulder-light Eighth Season it getter
than no Mulder at all.

Author's Notes: This is one weird story. I originally posted it as a stand-
alone because I couldn't figure out what series to put it under. It's
especially for the fans of my 'All Hallow's Eve' series which I
'finished' over two years ago. Consider this an epilogue. In fact
it will probably make much more sense to them then to anyone. I'm
also placing it as Chapter 5 of 'My Travels with Charley' series (a
little something for Dana.) To make things even more confusing,
Jake of my two-novel Jake series (Jake of Red Shoes Diaries) also
makes an important appearance. To help out everyone -- even for
those who have read everything but who need a refresher -- a
synopsis of what you need to know about All Hallow's Eve, My
Travels with Charley AND Jake are included at the end of chapter 2
of The Messenger. Just for fun -- try to figure it out by yourself
first. I dare you....

All four parts of 'All Hallow's Eve', 'Jake's Luck', and all my
early work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue'.  'My Travels with Charley', which will have 9 parts when complete, 'Jake and Fox Join the
Club' (Warning NC-17) and my newer pieces can be found at
http://members.aol.com/windsinger.

THE MESSENGER (1/2)

     Woods at night. The cool breeze slips between the trees. All
is silent except for the rustle of new-fallen leaves and the nearly
imperceptible movements of the wary night animals. The slight form
of a woman moves alone through the moon's blood-red light, at least
what patches of it has made its way to earth under the black limbs
of the winter-naked trees. She can hear it now, the sound of music
and many distant voices, but she does not move as if she is very
eager to reach the gathering. Her heaviness speaks of a weariness
far beyond the early second trimester burden she carries. Hers is
a burden of the spirit, of a soul worn out with worry and care.

     So why come here on this night of all nights where, as the old
stories say, only the evil and the dead ride the wind? Why indeed.
She has not come for the warmth of the bonfire or the company of
the energetic young dancers, both of which she can now see across
the field before her. She has come to find again something which
she feels closer to losing at the end of every endless day. All she
wants is a memory. One true memory. She can feel the stirring of
the air at his passage even now. If she tries very hard, she can
actually hear the intake of his breath, the rustle of leaves he
disturbs as he shifts his feet beside her.

     "Be here," she whispers, softly but out loud. "Be here," as if
the speaking makes the spell more potent. She can stay where she
is, but then realizes that had been her inclination on that first
night as well. She had wanted to stay behind and he had been eager
to go forward, the mischievously adventurous spark in his soul much
more than just the little word games they played. So he had gone
and she had followed. She follows again tonight, follows the wisp
of a ghost of his memory across the damp, thick grasses of the
field.

     The bonfire is a large one, the music loud and harsh from
over-driven speakers. The beat is the product of some satanic rock
group from her youth, not theirs. Better were the drums and pipes
that had played the night when she and he had danced shamelessly
around the fire with the other party-goers. At least the teens
still danced, though in groups, not in a ring. She could join.
Maybe she would catch the eye of some handsome face made unworldly
by the fire light, a young man whose countenance would be enough
alike to his to stir her faltering memories. Maybe she'd even let
the stranger lead her by the hand to the deep grass and they'd make
use of the blanket she carried. All she wanted was to lie with
someone. What a wondrous thing it would be to be held again in this
dark and in this place where he had been and imagine she was in his
arms one more time.

     Wake up, Dana. Such things never happened in real life. In
fantasies maybe. Even if she truly wanted it -- which in her heart
she knew she didn't -- which of these healthy, young males would be
attracted to her tired body and tired face even if they happened to
be too drunk to miss the pregnancy she hid beneath the loose coat
she wore.
 
     Suddenly more weary than she could bear, she found an old
wooden fence just beyond the light and straddled the top rail.
Perched there like some sorrowing bird, she sat as the night cooled
and watched the comings and goings between the bonfire and the
shadows. Who was she kidding? These were children, talking too loud
and drinking too much. The magic had never been the same since that
first night. She should leave.

     And she would have done just that, only two fists suddenly
clasped in the pit of her stomach. This wasn't the baby's doing
despite the fact that he/she seemed to sleep as little as its sire
ever did. Something had registered in Dana's brain without her
conscious knowledge. Hastily, she studied all the figures who had
recently passed her peasant throne.

     She only saw the shape of his head, his height, the set of his
wide shoulders and narrow hips, the slight slouch, the easy
panther-like step.

     Couldn't be he and couldn't be anyone else.

                         * * * * * * * *

A few days earlier.
A metaphysical universe away.

     When he did not return to their rooms before the supper hour
so that they could all go down to the commissary together as a
family, Sara felt a twinge of concern. That her husband would work
on his translations through the midday meal without noticing the
time was not that unusual. That his team of eager young resistance
fighters would allow him to, was. The scruffy lot of fresh-faced
idealists watched over her easily distractible lover with the care
of a gaggle of self-appointed godmothers and godfathers. "Go home
to your wife, go home to your children, you imbecile!" they would
shout at him, usually in badly-accented Reticulan, as they pushed
him out the door of the data center, sometimes with earphones still
dangling from his head. And Joe would come home and take his son
and his daughter and his wife in his arms and like normal people
they would walk hand-in-hand down to the cafeteria where all the
inhabitants of URSULA, the hidden resistance base, took their
meals.

     But not today. Sara buzzed down to the bunker but he wasn't
there, had left hours before. He'd told them that he wasn't feeling
well and, in fact, he had been sweating and his skin had appeared
more blotched than usual. They had assumed he would go home and
then head for the infirmary. Anna who took the call was alarmed and
produced a rambling string of apologies. "He didn't seem exactly
what you call ill. Just a little off-color. If he had looked very
bad, we would have called you or marched him down to the infirmary
ourselves."

     And they would have. Kid gloves for Joe. In their manner,
there was both pity and pride. If he only knew how much they all
cared. But Sara knew that on one level he was aware. To be loved
and cared for was just a state he had a hard time accepting.

     "Do you want us to activate the phonetree?" Anna asked.

     Sara had felt some dizziness herself that morning. This
explained it. "No, I think I know where he's gone. If he's not
there, I'll ring and then you can call out the militia."

     Bundling up two-year-old  Mags, Sara took her down to URSULA's
preschool. With her budding intelligence, Mags was easily able to
keep up with the other children even though she was at least a year
younger. Then she called Skinner's apartment and was surprised to
find he and his wife both in. "Just a little afternoon delight,"
Dr. J said contentedly. "Ah, the advantages of a five minute
commute." Then with sudden insight, the older woman asked," What's
wrong?"

     Of course something was wrong. "Joe's missing. He didn't feel
well. He left the bunker but didn't turn up at home."

     "Did he go to the Park?"

     "That's my guess. I'm on my way there. Will you intercept Adam
for me?"

     "You know that he and our own little terror are inseparable.
They always come by for a snack after classes. I'll keep him here
when he shows."

     Next Sara heard Skinner's voice, sounding a little husky. His
wife had put the com unit on speaker so he had heard all. His tone
was full of concern. Alarm would come later. "Let us know if you
need anything, anything at all."

     Getting to the Park was not a simple operation. The journey
required going down many levels in multiple elevators and then
traveling west at least half a mile. Sara hailed one of the
electronic carts that criss-crossed that underground road. At the
Parkland entrance she found what she had expected: Joe's ID code in
the security log as having gone outside three hours before and not
having returned yet.

     The Park was the only spot of green under the open sky where
it was secure for Center inhabitants to go and then it was
cautioned that they must not visit too often or too many at a time
and that they must stay under the trees. This is where she found
him, his lean, fit body curled as if in sleep under what she knew
was his favorite tree, the oak with the strongest, widest branches.
He would have built a treehouse for his son and his son's friends
here if it had been allowed. She didn't tiptoe but made, if
anything, more noise than needed to give him warning. But he didn't
stir, not even when she touched his shoulder. He wasn't simply
asleep either, not from the stone-like rigor of his muscles.

     Gently, she touched his face. It was wet with sweat and yet
pale and white or pale and green depending on where the skin grafts
had taken and where they had not. "Joe...?" Her voice was soft and
careful as her slender fingers parted his hair. "Joe...?" Nothing.
She turned him over so that his head lay in her lap. So rigid and
hard was he that she was able to move his body only with
difficulty. His eyes were so tightly shut that hundreds of pain
lines radiated from the closed lids. As always, it was a wrench to
her heart to see him this way and this was far worse than normal.
It reminded her of that bad week nearly eight months before.

     "What's he done this time? That's it, isn't it, Love? Joe! Fox
William!"

     Groaning, Joseph wrapped his arms more tightly around his head
as if that could somehow block out whatever was tormenting him.
When she received no other response, Sara shouted louder, "Mulder!"

     This time his head turned blindly towards the sound of her
voice. A little gleam peeked out from under his long lashes and the
furrow across this brow eased ever so little.
 
     "Scully? Oh, Scully, is it you?"

     Soft as the words were, it took a while for Sara to recognize
the old name he had said. True, she hadn't heard it more than half
a dozen times in the past three years. The back of her fingers
caressed the soft skin of this temple. "Hardly, you silly goose.
Does this mean that Mulder is giving you trouble again?"

     A sigh whistled faintly through tightly clenched teeth.
"Shhhhhiittt...' came the response on a straw-thin trickle of
breath.

     "Let it go, Joe," she whispered. She tried to keep her tone
light, as if that would help to ease what was a very painful
subject.

     "What mess has he stumbled into now?" he grumbled though so
weakly she could scarcely hear him.

     "Don't you know?"

     His head, still unbelievably handsome in his askewed sort of
way, lulled listlessly back and forth. "C-Can't think."

     Sara fished in the large pockets of the comfortable jumper she
wore and came up with a small ampoule and tiny syringe. Its
contents seemed to help. After a few minutes the beloved face
relaxed a little. Even the eyes managed to crack open far enough
for her to see down into their glassy orbs. She didn't like how
unfocused they still appeared.

     "Need more alpha blockers?"

     He answered with a curt nod, cut short as if even that small
movement hurt.

     "Sorry, lover, I'm fresh out. Can you walk?" Hesitation and
then a weak nod of the head. With effort and help he made it to his
feet and slowly, very slowly, they made their way back to the
entrance. All the way he leaned heavily on her strong, slender
frame.
 

     Night. Joseph slept on as he had all that afternoon and
evening. He was tucked into a bed in URSULA's infirmary. An IV
snaked down into a soft needle on the side of his wrist. Beside him
Sara sat watching. She had sat just so when the pain lines smoothed
away and the scribbling EEG showed that his agitation was
subsiding. She had caught the last apologetic gleam from under a
drooping eyelid. Knowing the pattern, she had left him with Dr.
Janus and the rest of the medical staff to sleep so that she could
go and see to their children and arrange to be back when he woke.
She'd managed it all and here she was, if anything a little earlier
than she expected. His heart rate was just beginning to rise and
the restless movement of his eyes under their lids had just begun
to increase. Finally, his eyes fluttered open and after focusing
they roamed, taking in the few furnishings in the tiny room. His
gaze even strayed to the 'window'. It wasn't a real window -- they
were a hundred feet underground -- but a projection of the area
from the Parkland entrance. At the moment the scene depicted was of
velvet night illuminated by an unnaturally large harvest moon. The
great glowing globe hung just over the horizon to the right of the
black boughs of the oak. Finally, his eyes drifted to the blank
spaces beside and above the door.

     "Looking for something?" she inquired, her voice reflecting
her relief to find him so aware.

     "I've been in this room so often, I was just checking to see
if they'd put my name on it yet."

     "I hear that comes up for a committee vote next week."

     He rolled his eyes at her.

     "Feeling better?" she asked.

     A single nod. Not that much better then, but just enough to
function. Sara and the staff knew that this was the way he
preferred it.

     "It was bad this time," Sara said. It was a statement. "Do you
have any better idea of the cause?"

     Joseph considered that question, his sight seeming to turn
inward as he tried to find the words. "Fear. Overwhelming fear, but
not the suddenly coming and going kind, like so many times before.
This time it just kept coming, on and on, waves and waves of it."
Not a thing of the moment then, like twisting an ankle, which Sara
knew Joseph would have felt as a brief sharp pain.

     "Drowning," Joseph added all at once, as if he had suddenly
found a word that fit. "Drowning. Way too many thoughts." He was
sitting on the side of the bed and now he bent over, heels of his
hands pressed into his eyes as if they pained him.

     "Like it was -- when was that? -- just after Mag's birthday.
Eight months?"

     Joe remembered. How he remembered. A week flat on his back
drugged out of mind on alpha blockers and tranquilizers just to
keep from going mad from the pain. Reluctantly, he searched the
memories to try to determine how similar or different the two
attacks had been.

     "Actually, not the same. That was like being smothered by a
thousand strangers' hands all reaching out to demand your
attention. Strange voices, strange visions, incomprehensible
emotions. This was more like it was all flowing out of me, just
me... I mean... him. No, not flowing. Far faster than that,
gushing. And he's terrified that he'll be empty when it's all gone,
for though it's all coming out of his own head, he can't control it
and he... can't... stop... it! That's what so terrifying."  Joe
bowed his head, rubbing his aching eyes with the heels of his hands
again, even with the stiff hand which, even after all the surgery
still felt 'wrong' somehow. "I'm sorry, I'm not explaining it very
well."

     "You're doing fine. Is it still going on?"

     He didn't even have to think more than a millisecond about
that. "Oh, yes."

     "This isn't good, Joe. Do you get anything else? Place, time?"
A weary shake of the head. "Where's Scully? Why isn't she there
helping him?"

     "Scully?"

     "You were channeling for a second earlier and you looked at me
with his eyes, with this hunger, as if you thought you would never
see me again. And you called me 'Scully'. You never call me that
any more."

     "You called me 'Mulder'."

     "To get your attention. Nothing else worked."

     Sara sat and studied this husband of hers, this best of
friends. As if knowing what was on her mind he didn't meet her eyes
but laid his head down into his folded arms as if it were too heavy
to hold. Sara didn't know where to start. The whole subject of
Mulder had to be approached with caution for despite the endless
delicate surgeries and skin graphs that had so largely smoothed
away the damage to face and hand and body, she knew that the
majority of the scars were still within.

     "Maybe you should go back to find out more about what's going
on." In response to the sudden flare of anger in his eyes, she
replied, "Well, something certainly is wrong, something pretty
terrible."

     "Give me one reason why I should?" Joe snapped, temper on a
thread because of the ache in his head. "He should be more careful;
let him take care of it. Besides, he's the main event, I'm just a
side show."

     "Am I also a side show, and Adam and Mag?"

     "Of course not." The lines stood out harsh and deep on his
face. "You don't understand," he sulked.

     "Don't I? You've got it into your head that we've not living
parallel lives but alternate ones and that he's somehow the trunk
and you're just a little branch. You blame him for that... for
going back to that party, for interfering with that demon and
getting himself cursed. You think that that caused the split in the
time line, like you somehow became multiple personalities."

     "I can't help it, if that's the way it seems to me. Remember
we shared memories in passing that night we got you back and the
Compound went POOF! Our lives were identical as far as I can tell
until that Halloween night. That's when the tumors started growing
-- that night -- the cancer that led us to where we are now." His
eyes were hard now, like she didn't like to see them. "He went on
with his life, he had choices."

     What Sara knew Joe meant was that Mulder didn't have to feel
IT moving in him, growing stronger and stronger every day. Didn't
have to face the helplessness as the beast ate away at his fine,
young body. And when there was no pride left, then, only then, had
it begun to feed on his mind. It had been like being eaten alive.
Now he lived, but it was only by the grace of alien grafts and
alien technology and that made him, in his own eyes, very much a
monster.

     But pity was not want Joe needed. Understanding was, and good
swift kick in the butt from time to time.

     "Joe, you have to go, you know you do. There's been too much
of this lately. He clearly needs help." She leaned over his bowed
head. "Maybe you can even stop what's going on." She lifted his
head until his face was between her hands. "Joe, I love you. I
can't go on watching you like this. I need this to cease as much as
you do."

      He raised his head from his arms but there was no softness
anywhere. In the dim light of the room the orange light from the
Holographic moon showed only the shadows in his eyes.

     "Joe, they came when we needed them."

     "Only because Scully wanted her Mulder back." The unspoken
emphasis was on 'her' Mulder. Not him.

     "Without Scully they never would have found me. I was at the
point of suicide. You know that."

     The furrow between his eyes deepened. "Right, I was well
informed -- after everything was over. During most of it, I lay
like some catatonic corpse while the rest of you risked everything.
Real helpful."

     "Is that the problem? Joe, you've done your bit in this soap
opera. Before and after, you've had the hardest road."

     He suddenly winced, his hand going to his head again. "Maybe
not any more. This is really bad and I'm just getting the
backlash."

     "Do I sense some yielding here, my stiff-necked one?"

     He sighed, his face going a brighter shade of green than
before. "Let just say that I'll try."

     Sara smiled but knew she had won no battle. Carefully, she
took his hands between hers. "I know it hurts, I know it's not that
easy, but remember that I'll be here. You'll never be alone."

     And so it was done. Joe let the drugs fade away gradually. It
was easier than the full unexpected attack, like adjusting your
night vision slowly instead of plunging full into darkness. There
was nothing peaceful about what he found, however, though dark it
had certainly become. After slugging through virtual sheets of icy
rain and screaming winds, he came to a place of the blackest dread
where a mind slowly sobbed itself from one nightmare to another.
 
     Hours and hours later, long after concern had turned to alarm,
Sara watched her lover's spirit come back, like dawn coming slowly
to fill a dark glass.

     "You were gone a long time," she said, gently, when one of his
small smiles confirmed that he had returned to his proper time and
place.

     "Not what I expected," he admitted, his voice a little hoarse
and very weary. In stumbling tones as if he were slowly uncovering
the story from a jigsaw puzzle of fractured images, Joseph told
what he had been able to discern about Mulder's abduction. He spoke
of the ship, the tests -- especially the current one where Mulder
was helplessly entangled in a forced outpouring of his own mind of
which only one thought in a thousand was moving at his will, and
yet all were his own. "And the worst part is, he's going to wake at
some point realize that a snowball has a better chance of surviving
Hell then he'll have of ever seeing home again." Joe looked up into
his Sara's eyes. "And worst of all, in that place without hope, no
one will be waiting for him when he wakes the way you are always
there for me."

     Sara came and wrapped herself around him.  He had least was
not alone, would never be alone as long as his Sara lived.

     "This time," he continued now with the woman entwined about
him, "there was dark, a hell of a lot of dark." He paused as if
shocked by the unsteadiness of his own voice.

     "You didn't mention dark before," Sara said as she did her
best to warm her husband's body for he was cold.

     Gratefully, Joe snuggled into her warmth. "He has this power
-
- HAD this power. We had it. In was in his head. It became active
suddenly. Last year, around the time of Mag's birthday. When I was
so sick."

     "So that's what it was," Sara whispered. "Joe, this view into
each other's thoughts we sometimes share...

     "In comparison, like a drop in the bucket to what Mulder was
assaulted with. Maybe the cancer ate away mine. What paranormal
communication I have," he took her hand, "what we both have, comes
from a different source entirely." Or has my copy of the lobe yet
to be activated, he silently feared and realized too late that she
heard anyway through their on-again, off-again link.

     "But your recovered," Dana said, "so they must have cured him
somehow."

     "They performed surgery, but hardly what most people would
call surgery. Smokey had his paid butchers rip it out, left a large
and nasty hole in there. Fortunately, it wasn't a part he needed
for function what we would call normally, but, unfortunately, the
Reticulans who have him under their control now tried to perform an
inventory of his brain. The scan ran into this black hole. It was
like running into a brick wall and then falling down a mile-deep
mine shaft. Too many memories dead ended there. That's where I
found him when I went back in. He was lost and seriously going down
for the third time."

     Sara leaned over and gave him a kiss on his cool, damp
forehead. "So that's why you stayed so long, you couldn't just
leave him there all alone. Held his hand, did you, you old softy."

     "Just don't let the guys in the gym know."

     "Not a word. So how is he now?" she asked, becoming serious
again.

     "It was still bad but he seemed to have a handle on things. I
would have stayed longer but he sent me away." He gave her a slight
lop-sided smile. "Said it was time I got back to you."

     Sara noticed that the expression in his eyes was still solemn.
"There's more."

     "Knew you'd figure it out. He did ask for something. A favor."

     "Not an easy one, I gather."

     "No, not easy."

     Sara didn't ask but waited expectantly. She thought she knew
what it would be. It was what her Joe would have asked for under
similar circumstances.

     "I'm going to need some help. I guess I'm going to need a
witch."

     Sara's nodded. It was as she had expected. "You've never
crossed over by yourself before."

     "That's why I need a witch. That's how Dana managed to come
before."

     Sara signed. "Ellie could probably still be reached, she still
has her security clearance. I sent her an anonymous Christmas card
last year. Since it had foxes on it, I imagine she was able to
figure it out so she knows we're not dead. It is dangerous,
however, contacting the outside directly."

     He gave her a hug, even pulling her slight form down more
snuggly into his lap. "Danger's our middle name."

     "Not any more, Buster. People depend on us. Though you have to
admit that you miss the excitement."

     "So do you. At least this time I won't even have to leave
home, not physically at least. Ellie can come here and you can
hover, you do it so well. That should be safe enough." He looked up
into her face and saw that she wasn't convinced yet. "Sara, he
asked me to do this one thing for him, just this one. He's so
unhappy. I think that's a good enough reason."

     Sara looked down into his face with love. "That's good enough
for me."
                     * * * * * * * * * * * *

Time: Dana's time though a few days earlier.
Place: An alien world (i.e., California)

     Jake Simmons pushed his chair back from the drafting table and
raised his arms high over his head so all the long muscles from his
back to the tips of his fingers stretched. Bones cracked softly.
Sighing with relief, he stared over at the antique grandfather's
clock. Six hours and he'd hardly moved. Looking down at the lines
of the new building he'd just designed though made all the tedious
work worthwhile. The structure seemed almost to be bursting from
the paper. What he had created was something special, very special.
He could hardly wait to have it copied. Then he could begin adding
color. He knew what it would look like already though. He could see
it in his mind. He also knew that ninety-eight architects out of a
hundred would have used the new drafting software tools. Well, he
had a twenty-one inch monitor and a dozen gigabytes of his own, but
there were times when he found such tools restricting. No one could
have made this with a software package, no matter how
sophisticated.

     Now he needed a break. It was a beautiful day for northern
California, in other words, no fog. Perhaps he'd toss the Frisbee
around a little. Only there was no one to toss it to. His faithful,
four-footed companion was already out. The leash was missing from
the hook in the hall. The neighbor boy must have come and taken the
poor thing out. Jake had a way of being too wrapped up to notice
the time. Only when he was dressed in gym shorts, his basketball
under his arm, did he become aware that his stomach was rumbling.
When had he eaten last? It was while munching a graham cracker, his
passion since grade school, that his doorbell's mellow six-tone
chime sounded. It was unusual to hear it chittering among the rich,
airy spaces of his loft.

End of THE MESSENGER (1/2)

MY TRAVELS WITH THE CHARLEY 05: MESSENGER (2/2)
DATE: 10/31/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com

     As he stepped across his great room, a Spartan expanse of
light color and shadow, Jake wondered who the caller could be.
Friends come to visit? Jake Simmons had friends, quite a few since
he had reentered the mainstream, but they knew better than to just
drop in. When inspiration hit, Jake would run with it no matter how
many days and nights it took. Good friends E-mailed their
invitations. The presence at the door wasn't likely to be just
someone lost and looking for directions either, not three stories
up and above the offices of the construction company of which Jake
was part owner.

     The person at his door was a young woman with striking, raven-
black hair, which had been worked into an elaborate coiffeur
consisting of many intricate braids. Her make up was heavy but well
done, and her clothing had that unmistakable theatrical twist. A
pendent in the shape of a pentagram hung between her breasts. She
smiled into the security hole in a gentle, unassuming way. If she
had grinned with one of those pasted on smiles, he would have just
told her to go away and peddle her incense and whatever else she
was selling somewhere else. There was something about this one,
however. Cautiously, he opened the door though not without some
misgivings. Exotic, dark-haired young women made him nervous, even
after all these years.

     "Jake!" she announced with pleasure as if she were an old
friend and they were meeting after a long separation.

     "I'm sorry, have we met?"

     "We haven't exactly," she admitted, her voice subtly changing,
"but I have a friend of yours here with me who is very happy to see
you again. He needs your help."

     A little anxious, Jake looked up and down the little hallway.
No friend. Gracefully, she raised a hand and tapped her temple with
a long, red-polished nail. "Let me explain."

                         * * * * * * * *
Midnight under the Moon
All Hallow's Eve

     Dana kept her eyes on the back of agonizingly familiar figure
even as she slid hastily from the fence. She followed the man into
the shadows, her eyes taking time to convert to moonlight. She
didn't have to go far, though she heard him before she saw him. Her
ears picked up a murmuring, barely a vibration, but she knew the
pitch and the frequency, the cadence of his speech. The fists
closed tighter in her stomach. Even though she had been unable to
capture his voice in her dreams, she had listened to his recorded
field notes every night for a month until she got tired of having
to dry out her pillows. It had to be, and yet it couldn't be.

     Closer now, she could hear the words, and odd words they were.
A mad conversation was going on, back and forth, and it seemed that
she heard two subtly different though distinct voices where there
could only be one for the man she had followed was alone.

     "She IS here. You said she would be, and I tried to believe,
but I guess I never really did."

     "So talk to her!"

     "And say what?"

     "You knew her better than I did."

     "Now there you're wrong if what Miss Aquarius told me was
true."

     "I've put that all behind me. It's like a story I read once,
that's all. Not real."

     "I have periods in my life that seem like that."

     "If that dinner you took me to last night with that couple
from Seattle was any indication of how weird your life can be...
Did you know you were going to be dessert?"

     "You told me to go ahead with whatever I had planned --"
 
     "Californians! And artistic Californians are even worse!"

     "Please, we have a mission here and we have to do this right.
Remember who we've come to see. She's nobody's fool and certainly
not anyone to believe what we've got to say."

     "You would be surprised what this woman is capable of
believing."

     Dana stood and listened in wonder and growing alarm to this
totally surreal conversation. Her FBI instincts had clicked in from
nearly the first mad words and she wished desperately that she had
brought her weapon. Anyone this crazed could be dangerous and
certainly wasn't Mulder. Couldn't possibly be. It had to be that
changeling she had wished for under the full moon, only she should
have wished for one less physically perfect and a good deal more
sane.

     But what if this is Mulder? she whispered to herself. But if
so why didn't those clenched fists relax in the pit of her stomach?
Because even Mulder had never been as strange as this schizo. And
yet if he really had been taken up into one of the alien ships as
Skinner believed and they had tortured his body and played with his
mind, anything was possible. There was no question that she'd take
him back any way he was offered, even if the package did come with
a whole new set of problems. Even Mad as a Hatter, she would love
him. Anything to have him safe and with her again. Anything to even
know he lived. How she wanted to believe in miracles. The problem
was she had been fooled before, had even seen an alien in his form.

More likely, this was just some other man with his height and
manner, a resemblance that her heart had fashioned out of all those
sleepless nights.

     As the conversation took another mad twist, the figure on the
rock turned his head in her direction so that the red-orange from
the bonfire and the harvest moon dramatically illuminated his face.
Unconsciously, her soul let out a tiny sob of praise and welcome.
Although she immediately stifled any additional sound, that one had
already betrayed her presence.

     Hearing, the figure whipped around, lost his balance on the
sharp peak of the tall rock he sat upon and racked his legs coming
down. The oaths that burst forth told her a lot. They were an
inventive collection of colorful multilingual expletives. The kind
one picks up from construction sites and not on the streets of
Oxford or Martha's Vineyard. The way his body fell also told Dana
all she needed to know to confirm the man's identity. Mulder had a
way of shielding parts of his body, like his shoulder, that had
been injured too many times before. This man didn't.

     It was with a dizzying mixture of terrible regret and relief
that she stumbled forward with a greeting. "Jake!"

     "Doctor Dana!" His face lighted, not only with pleasure but
also with relief of his own that she had recognized him so easily.

     "What are you doing here?"

     "It's a long story." His expression became quickly grave. "I'd
glad that you didn't think I was..." He stumbled on the name.

     "Mistake you for Mulder? I did for a bit. How did you find
out, for you don't seem surprised to find me here without him. In
fact, you don't seem surprised to find me here at all."

     "Part of the same story." He seemed unsure about where to go
from there and in that pause she got a better look at his face. She
was one of the few people in the world who could tell Jake and
Mulder apart unless they were standing side by side. He looked
well. Not as pale and haunted-looking as he had seemed when they
last met.

     "Dana, there's someone here who needs to talk to you."

     Dana didn't even look around to find this 'other' person.
She'd heard Jake talking to himself and with his history wasn't
entirely surprised. From her studies on the subject (which she
would never tell Mulder she'd looked into) she had learned that
possession tended to be more of a chronic state than an acute one.
Once you've opened that door, it's not always possible to keep it
closed.

     "Alex troubling you again?"

     He was totally taken aback by her question. "Alex? No, nothing
like that, but maybe something even more strange. Joseph's here."
He gave her time to absorb that. Dana only blinked. "Joseph... You
mean like... Joseph? Mulder's Joseph, Sara's Joseph. THAT Joseph?"

     Uncomfortably, Jake replied, "He tells me that the answer to
that is 'Yes'."

     Dana tried to swallow but her throat had gone entirely dry.

     "He said you'd understand," Jake continued, becoming alarmed
by her continuing silence. "That you'd gone through this sort of
thing yourself with a witch named Ellie once --"

     "Yes, yes, I know. So he's there with you? Inside you? His
spirit? His essence?"

     "Whatever."

     "But how and why now?"

     Jake whispered the only answer she needed. "Mulder sent him."

     Dana didn't remember falling. She didn't remember being caught
either, but she found herself on the ground with Jake's extremely
expensive sports coat between her and the dewy grass. Kneeling over
her was Jake, a trembling hand protectively and expertly resting on
the slight bulge of her gravis, his eyes... his eyes... Not Jake
any more but the third member of this very strange trio. Joseph.

     "Scully..." Her name just breathed out of him like a soul all
its own, full of wonder and sorrow. "He doesn't know. He would have
told me if he knew. And if he had known I would have felt the news
from him months ago in such a burst of happiness..." The words
tumbled out of him with so much heart and with such certainty that
Dana knew they were true.

     "Oh, Joe... You've talked to Mulder?"

     Solemnly, "Communicated rather, but that in a moment. Are you
all right? Do you need a doctor, a hospital?"

     "I need to know what Mulder told you! Where is he, oh God, how
is he?" She sat up edging a little away from him in the process so
he couldn't see how much she was shaking. "Just tell me. Tell me
everything."

     And he did. About his continuing -- and unwelcome -- link with
Mulder over the years, though the years in his universe and hers
never quite coincided. He told reluctantly of his history of
'attacks' when Mulder was in distress, especially about the latest
one and Sara's insistence that they needed to know more. He spoke
quietly of his recent communion with Mulder's desperate and
terrified consciousness and the snatches of sane facts he'd been
able to gather between the storms of madness and the plunges into
blackest despair.

     "He's sorry, he's so sorry, that's what I got over and over."

     There were tears on her cheeks now but she seemed unaware of
them. "Oh, Mulder, that's so you. What could he possibly be sorry
for?"

     "For everything. A lot about a last night and his not spending
it with you. Does that make sense?"

     Dana's hands went to her mouth to sniffle a sob. "Yes," barely
made it out.

     "And for leaving you. He's sorry for that. Like the hapless
fly, he feels that he could have evaded the web if he'd been very,
very careful. He's sorry for not being careful. He MISSES you. He
is so..." Joseph had trouble with the word himself, Joseph who knew
better than anyone what it meant. "He is so -- alone."

     Dana huddled in a ball on Jake's coats and hugged her knees.
Alone. That seemed to be the word of the night. Jake/Joseph sat
nearby so close that she could feel his heat, but he didn't touch
her again, which was how it should be. There was no one for Mulder
to touch. From what Joe said, he wasn't even aware his own body nor
did he have all but the merest control over his own thoughts.
Instead he was trapped within a tornado of old pain and new pain,
old horrors and new horrors. How she longed to stretch out her arms
to gather in his sorrow, to relieve his grief and her own. Only he
was so far away. Far, far away. There wasn't anything she could do
but huddle around her center, rocking the miracle he had given her.

     After what must have been several minutes out of time and
space, Dana became aware of Joe again, waiting so quietly and so
patiently. Her eyes lowered reverently to her lap and she began to
speak though more to the child within that to her unexpected
visitor.

     "Hey, you in there," she called softly. "News, real news, this
time. Both the best and the worst that I could have expected. Your
Daddy's alive... but in such a hell. I made you a lot of promises
-
- walks in the park and baseball games -- but in truth I didn't
know if you would ever see your father, not even once. They could
have brought him down the moment he was taken up into the ship. I
wasn't even certain he was ON the ship. I've tortured myself over
this so much. Is he dead? If so how and when and by whom? Would I
ever know? If alive, then where and how? Held by whom? What are his
chances of escape? I expected him every hour those first few days.
He'd gone missing for short periods before. Underground. But when
time passed, weeks and then months and no word..." Dana rubbed her
nose, surprised to find tears on her face. "Then it was where
should I look for his body where Skinner hadn't already looked?
With both of us and the Gunmen trekking back and forth there's not
much grass left in that part of Oregon. Would I even be given a
body? Then there were the times when I tore up his apartment
looking for ransom notes that I must have overlooked. At least it's
clean. Clean and sterile like the packed ground of the den where
the female paces the same earth again and again, unable to rest,
endlessly waiting for her mate to return. But so much of the time
he doesn't, does he? He's either dead or been caught in the jaws of
a trap. Injured and alone, they've hauled him off in a cage but to
where no one can tell her."

     Dana heard a sob, felt the tightness in her chest. So there
was that left as well as the tears. "I tried to tell myself that I
wasn't special. Women since the beginning of time have stayed
behind to keep the home and the children safe while their men went
off to hunt, to sea, to war. Days, weeks, months without a word.
That was the norm. How did they bear it? Probably, because they had
no choice. They also had widow's walks. My widow's walk is every
hilltop under the stars. My neck and eyes ache constantly." A
question came into Joe's attentive eyes. "From looking up," she
explained, "looking for a dark mass moving across the sky, or a
spot of light. Looking for my M.I.A., for that's what he is."
 
     "Not M.I.A., not any more," Joe corrected, his voice very soft
so not to break the grieving spell of her words.

     "P.O.W. then. That is better, though where are the diplomats
to negotiate his return? Where are the prisoners on our side for
the prisoner exchange? All dead! Specimens in a morgue. Bodies in
bottles won't buy anything! And I still don't know where he is.
Joe, tell me where I can find him."

     "In truth, Dana? I don't know, not on this planet. Far from
here. What I do know is that he loves you, every minute, every
second." His eyes went to her abdomen. "It would mean so much to
him if he knew."

     "No, no, you must promise not to tell him!"

     Joseph's expression on Jake's face clearly showed the hurt
Mulder would have felt.

     "Joe, if he knew he would try something even more stupid and
dangerous than he's thought of already to get back to me. Yes, I
want him back, but not dead."

     There was something in his eyes. The wicked hint of the light
Mulder's shone with sometimes. "I guess I can think of a stupid and
dangerous thing or two that he and I have done ."

     "Don't I know. Even what you're doing now is not without
risk."

     "Somethings are so important that they are worth the risk. On
the other hand, sometimes even when you win you lose."

     The mirth dimmed from those eyes. He was thinking about his
body back in his own universe, scarred, damaged, full of alien
poisons. All for life and love of his own copy of this woman. No,
not a copy. His own, unique Sara.

     "I'm sorry you had to come," Dana said. "I'm sorry that Mulder
troubles you."

     "Story of my life," he murmured absently with a trace of
bitterness.

     "I guess none of us really has a choice. We must all play the
hand we're dealt." Her sigh was deep and heartfelt. "Though from
time to time, it would be helpful to know what the rules are for
the game we're required to play."

      It was Joseph's turn to look into blue eyes and he saw there
the years of fear and struggle and more recently this terrible loss
and her aloneness. Then there were the years he and Sara had had
which Dana had Mulder had never had and perhaps never would. In a
gentle tone he admitted, "I'm a self-pitying sonovabitch. How did
you even put up with me all those years."

     A sad smile. "It's the tragic-hero syndrome, the fatal flaw.
A woman needs to be needed even by the strongest man. If you had
been a superman, where would there have been a place for me?" He
looked down, embarrassed and momentarily speechless. "Don't worry.
I'll never let on to Mulder that I'm an incurable romantic. but you
I can tell."

     He laughed softly and helped her up until they were standing
side by side. Neither spoke but let the sights and sounds of the
celebration wash over them. The innocent young had finally
abandoned their electronic screech boxes and were using drums
alone. The savage pounding was like a second pulse in the watchers'
bodies. The moon was high now and had lost most of its pumpkin glow
but that meant it was able to illuminate the gyrating bodies all
the more.

     The familiar brow wrinkled. "Jake says he was in New York two
weeks ago and there was a full moon then. That means that there
can't be one now."

     That was the least of the miracles Dana had been privy to this
night. "Earthshine," she replied and then to Joe's quizzical look
added, "at least that's what Mulder would say. He wouldn't question
the mystery so neither will I."

     A few of the couples were beginning to break off from the
dancing now and drift into the shadows with blankets over their
arms to find places to commune in the thick, tall grass.

     Dana felt distinctly uncomfortable. Joe, as Mulder, had been
to this party. The cancer in his brain that had split his time line
in twain had happened in the year after their first visit here. He
was the one who had suggested bringing a blanket the next time, a
single blanket. Was he remembering that? What if he did? He was
still in so many ways her Mulder.
 
     As if he felt her unease, his voice came from above her.
"Dana, I have to go soon. I can feel," he struggled for the word,
"a loosening. This was only intended to be temporary, to deliver
the message."

     "And I thank you for that with all my heart. And, as sorry as
I am for you to go, I'm glad that you won't be separated from Sara
for too long. She'd worry. By the way, do I need to find you a
witch or anything to see you on your way."

     His laugh was a non-laugh, like Mulder's. "Not at all. We're
high tech now. There's a tea-leaf reader in California that's
handling it all, probably over the internet. Seriously, I don't
understand how it works and I don't think I want to."

     They continued to stand uneasily watching the dancing and
paying no attention whatsoever. Dana could tell just from his
manner that he still had something to say. "What's the problem,
Joe?"

     "That is the problem. Are you certain that there isn't
anything left that you want to know -- or want to do -- before I
shuffle off Jake's mortal coil?"

     He had stood back a little so she could look up at him more
comfortably. He was so much like Mulder it brought fresh tears to
her eyes and started a hunger sweeping through her that she didn't
know if she would ever be able to satisfy.

     He seemed to sense her indecision. "Dana, this is as close to
Mulder as you're going to get for probably a very long time. You
haven't... you haven't even touched me." Clearly uncomfortable, his
voice faded. "Are you certain you don't want to?"

     She patted his arm to comfort his embarrassment and wished she
hadn't made even that much contact. It had felt so ... right. It
had awakened soul-deep memories that should perhaps have been left
sleeping. "Oh, Joe, of course I do and that's my problem. I want to
do far more than touch you."

     "Then do." He waited for her answer and saw her hesitating.

     A cool swirl of wind breathed between them and neither moved.

     "It was cruel," she said at last. "Sending Jake was cruel,
looking like he does."

     "Yes, I can see that, but you must forgive Mulder. It was the
only way he could think of in his present state to send a message
you would believe without question. We and you have been lied to
too many times."

     She smiled at that remark and the pronoun. In the early years
of the X-Files before the split, he and Mulder had indeed been one
if the metaphysics of the situation could be believed. She had
learned to love Mulder then, but later she had fallen out of love
with him, and then fallen back in. She had walked through hell for
him since and he for her. No, Joe and Mulder were not the same, not
any more. Too much water over the dam, too much blood. Which only
brought them back to what was going to happen between now and when
Joe took his leave.

     She looked into the eyes that were more brown than they should
be and for the first time questioned the identity of who had really
asked for this more meaningful farewell. It wasn't like Mulder, and
considering how terribly careful he had to be with his own toxic
body, not what she would have expected from Joe. That meant that
the suggestion must have been made by Jake, gentle, loving Jake who
craved physical contact as hungrily as Mulder shied from it.

     "Jake, that was you," she said.

     "What?" Jake asked, starting guiltily.

     "That was your idea. That Joe and I should make... contact
before he leaves."

     "Oh, you figured that out."

     "She's not as dumb as she looks," she told him, crossing her
arms and trying to look stern.

     "Dana, Joe's not against the idea. Anything you want would be
fine with him. He just felt too awkward suggesting it. He really
will be gone within a very few minutes and before he leaves he
wants to do everything he can for you and for Mulder. This has been
as painful for him as it has been for you, but in the end it's what
you need that's important. All of us feel that way. Joe does, I do
and Mulder does. Mulder most of all."

     As if someone had flicked a switch, there was Joseph glowing
darkly out of those eyes, nearly bleeding in sympathetic sorrow for
both she and Mulder and not knowing what to do. Dana never made a
conscious decision. Instead she found herself nearly running into
those arms and giving herself over to a kiss the like of which she
had opened her heart to only a handful of times before. If it were
possible to suck the very sadness out of someone's soul and take it
as her own she would have done so. Maybe a little of Mulder
remained. God! More than a little! Suddenly, he was with her,
beside her, inside her. A piece of him anyway, a spark of his
light, which was what she had needed but had not known she had.
Under that light the sputtering hope in her own heart blazed into
flame again. Worn out with searching and despair, it gave her
strength and illuminated her way. Not a path to him, as she had
expected, but a way to go on living without him and yet never
without him.

     In time she felt him go, felt Joseph's spirit dissolve as if
indeed worn thin by her desperate need. Not without a word,
however, not without a prayer for her to find strength to bear the
bearing in her aloneness.

     Not alone anymore, Dana realized.

     Almost as an afterthought, she became aware that she was still
in a man's strong, caring arms though the kiss had long faded away.
Gently, she extracted herself, though her attention lingered on his
face. She liked the light in his eyes, which, she had to admit, was
like Mulder's, too. Mulder in one of his playful moods.

     "Better now?" he asked.

     "Much better." She suddenly realized how awkward she felt
distancing herself from him. "Jake, it's not you..."

     "I know. You've just always been able to tell the difference,
even when I was brought to you oiled and permed like a Greek
slave."

     She blushed, remembering his beautiful nakedness, kneeling at
her feet. "I was actually too distressed and angry with both of you
and Skinner to appreciate the view at the time."

     "We could try again?"

     Unexpectedly, she laughed. A real laugh such as she had not
had in a long, long time.

     "Scully, you wound me!"

     "Jake, you were kidding!"

     "All right, I was kidding. For us to do anything would be like
doing it with my sister. I'm depraved, but I'm not that depraved."

     "But a brother can ask his sister to dance, can't he?"

     Taking her offered hand, he began to lead her towards the fire
and the gyrating bodies. "Of course, he can. It's a time-honored
custom for hopeless wallflowers, though no way are you a
wallflower."

     "In this company and in my present condition I am."

     "Nonsense, you glow, sis. You positively glow.'

END of The Messenger (2/2) (AKA Travels with Charley part 5)

Below is all you need to know about 'My Travels with Charley', 'All
Hallow's Eve' and 'Jake' to understand this story. Not that you
really need any of it because it can, of course, mean whatever you
want it to. If you'd like little help, however, read on. (And, of
course, I'd love for you to read the originals if you haven't.)

A. In 'My Travels with Charley' things have gone from worse, to
bad, to worse for Mulder after his abduction. His particular devil
is the Bounty Hunter or as Mulder calls him, Charley Hunter. At the
end of Chap 4 Mulder has just been put in a coma-like state for two
weeks by the Hunter in order for his captors to perform an
exhaustive brain scan. They want to find out why Mulder is no
longer telepathic. Charley doesn't know about the CSM's solution to
this little problem of Mulder's. The Messenger is the unofficial
Chap 5 of the series. Chap 6 of 'Charley' will be out in November
or December and returns to the story from Mulder's POV, or at least
as well as Mulder can manage. He's not functioning too well.

B. In 1996 and 1997 I wrote a four story series (well, 1 story, 2
novella and 1 novel) in an alternate universe. The series was
called All Hallow's Eve. I've been asked to return to this world
but felt the story was over, all except for Joseph's (the alternate
Mulder's) lingering anger over all he was made to suffer. I wanted
to do a story about that but couldn't think of how to get my
Mulders back together. Well, not so much how as I needed a reason.
There are three reasons for my merging this with 'Charley'. One:
At this point in 'Charley' Mulder is undergoing terrible emotional
and physical trauma and needs someone to talk to. Two: Scinut at
EMXC had issued a challenge for a Halloween story featuring a full
moon. Three: The Travels series needed some Scully. Why Jake? I
really like Jake and what better vehicle for Joseph's soul.

In AHE1 (All Hallow's Eve I), Mulder and Scully stumble onto a wild
neopagen Halloween party and have an incredible experience there
full of angst and romance.

In AHE2, they attend the party the following year. A few weeks
later Mulder finds that he is dying of cancer and Scully is able to
save his life only by turning him over to the Consortia. The
treatment is nearly disastrous but Mulder survives. As a result of
Scully's 'deal' they end up as valued but carefully watched
prisoners/employees. The only bright spot is Scully becomes
pregnant. AHE2 ends when they find out that their experiences were
all a far-too-realistic 'nightmare'(?).

AHE3 takes place at Christmas. Scully is having a terrible holiday
season. She has ever reason to believe that the shared horror of
AHE2 was only a dream but she is still irrationally depressed to
have left that other Scully and Mulder, imprisoned, and with a
child coming. To make a very long story short they reconnect with
the second Mulder and Scully who are not dreams but live and
breathe in an alternate universe. Our Mulder and Scully look in as
their other selves escape with their newborn to the relative safety
of a hidden city of human resistance fighters. Their code names
become Joseph and Sandra, which Scully hates and later changes to
Sara.

AHE4 is pure hell for them all. Cursed by a devil's malevolence at
yet another Hallow's Eve dance, Mulder's soul is switched with that
of his counterpart, Joseph, to whom horrible things have happened
since Joseph and Sara were left relatively happy and secure at the
end of AHE3. Scully gets her Mulder back and everything is set
right eventually but not without mega-angst for both couples. At
the end of AHE4 Joe and Sara have just discovered the embryonic
beginnings of on odd telepathy, caused, they believe, by Joseph's
exposure to the alien proteins and Sara's subsequent exposure to
him.

C. Jake's Luck is a dark novel. Jake Simmons, barely recovered from
the suicide of his fiancee, Alex, comes to D.C. to attend an
architect's conference. He is mistaken for Fox Mulder by a couple
of the Agent's enemies, kidnapped and tortured. Mulder gets him out
by switching places with his unhappy look-alike and Jake and Scully
end up having to rescue Mulder. An unhappy consequence of the
encounter is that the ghost of Alex, who has been quietly haunting
Jake, decides to take a much more active part in his life.

Jake and Fox Join the Club is very NC-17, but is much more than a
story of Jake's life at the sex resort where Alex's insatiable
appetite has driven him. (She more than haunts him now, it's full
blown possession.) It's also about friendship and bad choices and
there's plenty of Mulderangst and Muldertorture, and Jakeangst and
Scullyangst as Jake tries ineptly to rescue Mulder from the drug-
induced slavery where he finds him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~