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Title: Lighter Shade Of Pale
Author: Shawne
E-Mail: shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com
URL: http://www.shawnex.freeservers.com
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing themes
Category: VA
Spoilers: post-ep "Tithonus", Redux II mention
Keywords: M/S DAL
Summary: 'I don't need to count my blessings,' she declares
proudly,
defiantly, 'I'm not going to die.' But the shadow in the shape of
a man
moves, the sand curls around him...
Archive: I love visiting my little fic-children when they're
released to the
world at large, so please let me know where this ends up. ;)
Disclaimers: If Mulder and Scully were mine, they'd be over here
right now,
enacting the whole of Season Seven for me. But since I *don't*
own them
(dammit!), I've got to rely on my slightly rusty memory and
produce post-ep
fics for somewhat ancient episodes. <siiiigh>
Author's Notes: To Dreamshaper, CazQ and bugs for the amazing
betas,
especially in the face of the little war I declared on
punctuation. <eg>
Huge thanks for the much-needed encouragement on what was
essentially a big
experiment in style for me, for the thwapping and yelling and
whip-cracking
that always makes me feel so loved... and most of all, for always
believing
that I have a story to tell. :)
Thanks also to Shannon, for very neatly averting beta-reading
Armageddon (in
the space of a few minutes, no less!), and to Piper, for letting
me whine
and then telling me to shut up.
======================================================
She stands in the eye of a hurricane of sand, watching it
rise and spin and
fall, fiercely, giddily, painfully. It's almost beautiful, but
she shields
her eyes from the raging mist. She cannot bear to look; her eyes
are already
tearing.
What he said was wrong -- he was only scaring her, telling
her lies he knew
would affect her. He wanted her to drop her guard, to lose her
self-control.
And still the sand whirls arounds her, swooping, dipping,
forcing her to
hide her face... but she is one second too late.
A wall of light crashes through the gritty barrier of sand,
then it melts,
collapses onto itself, fading in, out... becoming the
midnight-coloured
shape of a man. It's Mulder, her mind whispers, isn't it? He will
come, and
he will believe like he always does, and she can be doubtful
again.
Oh, but the light is burning her eyes... how can one think
when it is so
bright? So bright, so glaring, so she doesn't think anymore. She
can't.
It is mere seconds before the sand whips itself back into a
funnel,
churning around, in her; she barely notices her body, her arms,
her legs.
She is immaterial.
'I don't need to count my blessings,' she declares proudly,
defiantly, 'I'm
not going to die.' But the shadow in the shape of a man moves,
the sand
curls around him...
He explodes into her, shards of sharp white-hot light
stabbing through her
every muscle, nerve, thought. She feels whatever supports her -
her legs? -
slip, and cries against the thundering pain that shudders through
her, comes
to rest, coagulates, in the pit of her stomach. She falls, and it
is slow,
pained, graceful, like the passage of a swan crossing a
near-frozen lake in
the dead of ebony winter.
It must be centuries, or may be only seconds, before she
really, really
feels her body again, solid, encasing her bones, the flesh
clinging so
tightly to her skeleton that it begins to hurt.
She drops onto burning, yielding sand, slides on it, tries
to grab a
handful, a handhold, fails. Her legs - they are legs after all,
then - fold
beneath her, clammy cold skin meeting burning, yielding sand. The
grains
burrow into her, like moles channelling their way through earth
-- she is
sinking.
The soundless cacophony of dust swirling around her
suddenly stops, frozen,
still. She watches the walls around her in fear: are they closing
in? Why
can't she breathe, why does it hurt? She struggles against the
sword of
flame slicing through her abdomen, draws in a torturous gasp of
air, chokes
on it, for it becomes tangible in her throat, a rocky lump she
can't swallow
past.
'I'm dying,' she shouts, but no one hears.
The walls of relentless sand shiver, hover in the air
around her, real and
yet fantastical... maybe her eyes can see through them. She
strains, trying
to collect her scattered thoughts. But three of the walls, in
front, behind,
on her left, begin to melt, dip, fade into nothingness. The one
on her right
shimmers, flickers, coalesces into a moving, living skeleton.
She almost screams, almost shuffles back, but finds that
she cannot make a
noise, cannot move. She is chained to the ground, pinned to the
air around
her by the wound in her body, the body that is still tightening,
becoming
more compact and concentrating the pain, the ache, the
intolerable heat.
Fear, her mind whispers, irrational fear. But the sight of
the skeleton,
creamy-white skull, dark caverns watching her over a double row
of tiny
marbled gravestones... fear, I'm afraid, I'm going to die!
She coughs again, tasting salty-sweet blood, feeling more
pulse up through
her veins, her neck, ebbing and spreading into her mouth. The
metallic burn
of the blood against her lips matches the poker-hot lashing
against her
heart, as if someone is whipping this errant piece of meat into
submission,
curling a thick metal chain around it, snapping and then
tightening it.
Pain.
The skeleton next to her, not hers, can't be hers,
she isn't meant to die
today!, reaches for her with bones, only bones. Then the
gravestones fall
open, and it speaks. 'Do you see him? Do you see him?' The words
echo in her
ears, and her eyes slide half-shut, cutting off the garish sight,
its
mocking screech.
No, I don't want to, a voice in the left side of her head
protests. Yes, I
do, the right side retaliates, and the conflicting urges mix with
her
unvoiced fear that she is dying, her worry that Mulder will never
know she
is lying here in the sand with a skeleton telling her not to look
- look at
what? Her eyes open, because she must know, *should* know what is
killing
her. What it looks like, why someone... why Fellig could have
spent years,
decades, chasing, hunting it.
Don't look! Close your eyes! the command shoots through her
brain,
reverberating, and she is defiant at first. Why, she wants to
know, why
close what is meant to be opened? She cracks her fever-dried lips
to
protest, ignoring the blood, crimson-red and sweet (she is
growing
accustomed to its taste), as it dribbles down her chin.
Close them, comes the command again. Don't look!
Why? she wants to ask, feeling the lids of her eyes sink,
grow heavy, like
a down blanket, like another person holding her close. Her hand,
it is a
part of her body after all, and someone else's hand is covering
it, strong
and firm, relentless. The hand is talking to hers, syllables
slipping
through skin, saying the same thing: close your eyes -- don't
look. It must
be a conspiracy... everyone wants her to close her eyes, but why?
Because you are not meant to die today, the hand whispers,
and the fear
bubbling in her stomach comes to the boil, weaving itself into
the pain. She
can feel the flesh of the hand lying on top of hers softening,
first into a
mass of jelly, then evaporating into the stiff, unyielding hand
of Death.
She tries to focus, wants so much to see... but he is tricking
her; it's not
the skeleton. It's only an old man, a man so old he could try to
capture
Death.
He was the one who told her to count her blessings, told
her she was
*lucky*, it was him. He'd said she was going to die, wanted her
to die, was
almost happy that he would be alive when she wouldn't, happy for
all the
wrong reasons.
She wants to strike out at him, he has killed her, he must
have, but
watches in suspended horror as his face begins to tremble, melt,
fade into
nothing. He is disappearing, disintegrating, dying before her
eyes! His skin
is burning... and there is something, something flitting around
the room,
just out of the corner of her eye, she can almost see the shadow
as it
hisses past.
But it is too terrible, the sight of him imploding on
himself, terrible.
Close your eyes! the command tears again through her mind, is
issued by her
mind, resonant, compelling, and this time she no longer has the
strength,
the courage, to disobey.
She closes her eyes, watching the shadows of light chase
themselves across
the dark blackness of her mind. In the split second that follows,
she tastes
blood, sand, feels coarse grains settle around and in her, comes
too near to
the elusive shadow, feels the skeleton's hand tighten around
hers... and
then the fire in her side leaps, and she gasps, and the stark
night claims
her for itself.
%%%
Darkness.
She is swimming in darkness, upwards, pushing against the
weight of the
thick black water, wanting so much to breathe. Through the dark
oppressive
silence, she hears the airy notes of a long-forgotten song in her
head, and
maybe it guides her upwards, up, up, and she just barely breaks
the surface,
flailing, gasping for air, for light, for life or anything,
anything at all.
Don't move, the gentle words play to the tune in her head,
don't be scared.
You're safe.
I am? she asks, or maybe she doesn't, there are strong arms
holding her
down, pressing her against softness. She feels someone's
efficient hands
tuck warmth firmly around her tired, sore body.
The whisper comes to her as in a dream: go to sleep, you're
safe, you're
alive. How good to know that! And yet... she lifts her head,
struggles
against the suffocating iron belt she is wearing, the iron belt
that eats
into her movements, enslaves her, marks her for sleep. 'I can't
move,' she
whimpers, afraid, and peels her eyes open with the greatest of
efforts.
Colour explodes before them, a blinding swarm of blue and
red and green,
yellow and purple, churning, swelling, and she blinks once,
twice, thrice,
against the brightness. White, she reassures herself that
everything is
really a cool comforting white, and white is real, she decides.
It means she
is alive, colour is elusive, transient, but she sees only white
here.
Why is everything white?
Don't ask questions, another voice slips into her, like a
wave through the
ocean, you should rest. Sleep, be well.
'But I can't rest, I shouldn't,' she protests, 'I'm on
assignment!' She
twists half around in her cotton prison, chained to a unyielding
lump of
soft feathers, and she wonders dully why there is a hole right
through her.
She can't see anything beyond the white, and she cannot recall
what
happened, all that is black. But she *does* know there is a hole
somewhere
inside her, clean, thorough, piercing.
The assignment is over, and you must rest! the voice
insists. Aren't you
tired?
Yes, yes, she agrees, I am. But why is there a hole in
me... and now that
the memories are returning, tumbling back, where is the man?
Where is
Fellig?
Still, lie still, she is told. But she doesn't want to! She
struggles
helplessly against the warmth strapping her arms and legs down,
even as
those limbs grow heavy, like bricks... thick, like wood...
sleepy, like her
eyes.
She wants to say she doesn't need sleep, wants answers, but
the soft white
cloud she is lying on refuses to cooperate, to wait for her to
begin.
Suddenly, it detaches itself from the ground, spins slowly up
into the white
white sky, and she watches as it turns a chilling black...
Before she knows it, she hears someone's quiet sobbing, and
she stiffens.
Is she the one crying? She never cries, hates it, thinks it weak,
especially
in public. She is strong, and it would be awful if... no, it is
not her,
there are no sticky trails of moisture on her face, her face is
cool, dry.
Not her, but she recognises this sound, has heard it before
through this
same cloying haze lingering around her senses, and she wants to
reach out to
silence it, to comfort, to reassure.
I'm fine, she tries to say, but her lips are welded shut,
her eyes screwed
tight against all her efforts. Mom, mom, don't cry. Not for me,
I'm alive,
I'm still alive, it's not the cancer. I'm not Melissa. Not dead.
Not
Melissa, alive.
But no one can hear any of it, she is only half-conscious,
reacting to
sounds so wrenching, sensing worry so strong, that it penetrates
even the
foggy balm of sleep.
Her sleep is too deep, too powerful, and already it is
reclaiming her,
drawing her back into its deepest and most comfortable folds, its
oblivion,
its soothing complete warmth. She wants to tell her mother not to
worry, but
already her tongue grows, thickens, fills her mouth, her mind's
whispers die
down, the black, the black returns, and she sinks back into it.
Maybe an eternity passes, or maybe just one night, but
moments crystallise,
then shatter, and is it her imagination or a dream? There is the
skeleton
again, chanting its mournful dirge: do you see him? Do you see
him? Don't
look, close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes.
It stands, shakes, bones rattled by the wind of sand
whipping around them
both, and she shrinks away in disgust. 'Don't come near me, I'm alive,'
she hisses, backing off, adding as much distance as possible to
the stretch
of desert between them.
The skeleton's midnight-deep caves, set deep in its smooth
white skull,
suddenly snap into life, glow bright red, and she screams,
thrashes about,
go away, I'm safe now! Her throat is torn and scratched, bleeding
raw, the
words lingering, clinging to the tender walls, and she turns,
wants to run,
but cannot, trapped by warmth, body immobilised, paralysed.
'No no no,' she mutters aloud. She cannot turn away from
the sight of the
skeletal frame swaying towards her, watches in horror, pain,
fear,
transfixed as it extends a thin bony finger in her direction. 'No
no no,'
she chants, 'safe, alive, not Melissa, safe, alive'... but she
cannot
convince herself, not as the finger draws nearer, points straight
at her,
catches fire and burns brilliantly.
Bone, bone can't burn like that, she tells herself
desperately. This is a
dream, and bone can't burn! But the finger draws so near to her
face she can
feel the flame jump against her skin, feel the heat as it shivers
through
the air and into her flesh, straight down through her body, to
her toes,
spreading, so so hot.
She continues to watch the finger of flame in awed fear,
wondering where it
will strike, what will happen, how she will die for the second
time. It
seems inevitable, necessary, fate, when the finger, Fellig's
finger, plunges
into her stomach, blazing a hole clean through to the other side.
She chokes
around the pain, feels her flesh tense around the wound, even as
the fire
licks at her blood, flows into it, becomes it.
So much pain it hurts to think, and she is still looking,
terrified, into
the deep glowing wells embedded in the skull, falling away into
nothingness,
into forever. Such a fearsome, horrible sight, and she forcibly
pulls at
herself, scrabbles against the sand that quakes and jolts beneath
her feet.
Get up! she pushes, pinches, nudges at her mind, don't look!
don't look!
"Don't look at what?"
She pauses, surprised, and the fire in her stomach suddenly
dampens down,
until it's just a glowing ember, occasionally sparking to life.
Who asked
that question? Did she? She waits tentatively in the darkness,
pleased to
realise that the nightmare has been vanquished, has vanished, but
she still
has no idea who - what? - saved her.
"Are you awake?" The words, deep golden honey,
wrap around her, warm,
thick, sun, and she delights in them, like a cat arching its back
in the
dappled yellow light streaming through a window.
Slowly, she pushes one eye open, is greeted by a canvas of
white, and
decides it is safe to open the other. The light blurs, the
shadows fade,
then darken at the edges, sharpen into recognisable shapes, into
objects,
and there he is.
He's sitting by her bedside, and she is in a hospital,
waist firmly
bandaged, blanket tucked tightly around her, trapped by all the
white. It is
him, he has found her, and it is awfully warm here, turning dim
like the
inside of a church, but he's here.
"You shouldn't be here," she blurts out loud,
"why are you here?", and she
almost hits herself for asking such a stupid question first. Why
not 'thank
you for being here' or 'I was so afraid' or 'I love you'? Why
never the
truth, her tongue must hate the truth, and the moment,
the chance to say
so much more, is gone again... and she must watch it go as she
has all the
others.
"I have to be here," he whispers, and
drops a warm, gentle hand on her
cool, dry forehead. She allows him to smooth her hair, push it
gently off
her face, his hand dips to follow the curve of her cheek, and it
is warm, so
warm that she can feel the world stop spinning, the sand is
disappearing
quickly, fading to white. She is on solid ground again.
She is beginning to remember what happened, the skeleton,
the man, the
nightmares, the brief dream-like moments of consciousness, and
she is too
glad that he is here, too glad to push him away, to turn her back
on his
concern like she would normally do.
I am strong, alive, safe, she tells herself, but maybe that
is not always
good enough.
She takes his big hand in hers, feels his warm flesh
against hers, solid,
not dissolving, and squeezes it, feeling his heartbeat through
the thin
barriers of skin separating them. "Thank you," she
says, and turns her head
to the side before he can see the liquid crystal that has formed
in her
eyes, is poised to fall onto her eyelashes.
She blinks it away, she is strong and does not cry in front
of others, but
she is also so tired, so sleepy, so lost, and feels her heart
constrict in
fear when he speaks again. "Close your eyes." She wants
to protest, saying
that it will all happen again, exactly as it did before, the
sand, the
skeleton, the man, the bony hand, and she can't face up to it,
she is
strong, but not that strong, and...
But then he repeats himself. "Close your eyes,"
he says, his hand gripping
hers tightly, not going to let go, squeezing back, "Rest.
I'll be here." His
other hand traces the length of her arm, slips whisper-soft
across her neck,
and two fingers gently kiss her cheekbone. "I'll be
here."
He'll be here, her mind echoes in a singsong, he, Mulder
will be here, and
this bed is soft, so soft, and her eyes are losing the will, the
ability to
stay focused, open. He'll be here, she can close her eyes, maybe
one day she
can tell him why he shouldn't look, but he'll be here, because
she can feel
warmth - his warmth - flowing through her.
Her eyes blur, colours merging, fading into a brilliant
sharp white light,
eyelids flicker, he's here, he'll be here, and maybe that makes
sleep
possible, desirable... maybe that even makes it good enough.
======================================================
Feedback is like a cashew nut, because... um, because...
<thinking> I'll
have to get back to you on that. <g> In the meantime, talk
to me at
shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com. :)
Added April 12, 2000