Title: Wrapped in the Wind: Whirlwind
Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No
infringement is intended. Emma's mine, thanks.

NOTES: Unfortunately, I was halfway through this and realized that there
is already a book out called Whirlwind, by Charles Grant. Huh. This
isn't the same. I make a tiny reference to the book so that it will not
go completely unrecognized. Also this is set in June, 2000, making
Mulder and Scully married about two months. That means Emma is ten
months old. And it also means that this story happens right in the
middle of the  first one, so hopefully it will clear up some little
hints I dropped in the first story.

=-=-=-=-=
"Wrapped in the Wind"
=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind

=-=-=-=

"For they sow the wind
     and they reap the whirlwind"

--Hosea 8:7

=-=-=
June 2000
=-=-=

"This is going to be bad," I told him, glancing from my desk to his.

Mulder ran a hand through his hair and then skimmed his eyes over the
file folders that had collected ever since the beginning of this whole
thing. We had three cases in Oregon alone, and we had to start clearing
some of them before our work performance started to suffer. Someone
would notice. The X-Files would be gone forever.

"Mulder?"

"I know, Scully!"

I closed my mouth and watched his eyes flicker across all the cases, all
the many cases that had been collecting dust as we had gotten every
single piece of paperwork done as we possibly could in the last two
months. There was nothing left to do. Nothing but the cases themselves.

He glanced up at me with a weary smile and I immediately forgave him for
snapping. Just like that.

"I think Oregon is desperately needing some help," he said and shuffled
out the three folders from all the others.

"We should have spread all these out over the past few months, Mulder.
Now we'll be gone for weeks. . ."

If my words sounded bleak, it was because I felt bleak. This was going
to be very bad, leaving Emma with my mom. She was moving into a clingy
stage and she would sob her heart out when we left. It was going to tear
*my* heart out.

"We'll just hope from case to case to case in Oregon. Then come on home,
take a break-"

"Then head out again?"

He nodded and I sighed.

"Scully?"

My name on his tongue sounded forlorn and fearful and when I looked up
at him, he wasn't looking at me. In fact, he was looking everywhere but
me.

"If you. . .if you don't want to do this anymore-"

"Mulder."

"Let me finish, please. If you don't want to do this anymore, then-"

"Mulder. I want to do this. You don't have to finish, because my place
is here."

His face rose to my probing eyes and he smiled softly, shaking his head.
I got up from my desk and came around to his side, leaning against his
desk. He stroked his thumb along my thigh and sighed.

"How long have you been worrying about this?" I asked, because I knew
that he probably had thought of my leaving for a long time now.

"Since we got married."

"Mulder. . ."

"I can't help it, Scully. You. . .you just light up around Emma. . .how
can the X-Files compete?"

"I don't know, Mulder. But they do. This is important to me, will always
be important to me. And maybe you haven't noticed, but I feel pretty
good when I'm around you too."

He shot me a little look of both incredulity and amusement, as if
this was something he should have thought of but didn't really believe
in, even now. His fingers curled around mine and squeezed tightly and I
leaned forward to kiss his forehead. After everything, I still liked to
press my lips there. It was like a seal of faith, a promise.

"Okay, so Oregon it is. I say we take the freshest case and start
there--it will be the one we have the best chance of getting evidence
from."

I nodded and moved from his desk, all-business again. Sitting down at my
own place, I called up the case file from my computer, scanning the
details as my stomach churned. For the first time in a long time, I was
nervous about a case, about leaving for a case.

But Emma would be okay. Hopefully it wouldn't be more than, at most, a
week for each case. That would be three weeks without her. Three weeks.

We really should have spread these out more.

=-=-=

I watched Mulder's fingers fumble with her tiny snaps as I packed
carryons for us both. My sleek black suitcase on wheels, small enough to
fit in any overhead compartment, was nearly full while Mulder's bag was
rather small. I couldn't figure out what it was he would usually take,
no matter how much I thought back to former cases.

I had packed his bag many times before heading back home from a case,
but I couldn't remember more than his electric razor and bathroom things
and clothes. That was it. That was all I was bringing anyway.

"Is this it, Mulder?" I asked and glanced up at him.

When his eyes met mine we laughed. I was frustrated about packing for
him and he was frustrated about getting Emma dressed.

"Why don't we switch?" he said.

I nodded and we moved around the bed, meeting in the middle for a brief
touch of fingers, then heading for the opposite side. I snapped together
Emma's pants in record time and looked over to see that Mulder was
zipping up his suitcase. We smiled and I carried the baby into the
living room, looking for her socks.

My living room was a mess. Some of Mulder's things had gotten moved in,
and Emma's toys and clothes and books were strewn all over the carpet,
on the couch, even on the window sills. I wondered which home we'd come
back to after these cases, mine or his? Emma had stuff at his place too,
but it didn't look as messy.

"Look at this mess, Emma-jean."

She laughed at me and wriggled around in my arms until I let her down.
She inched her way to a book and dumped it open in front of her,
knocking her head in the process, but not seeming to care. Emma had more
bumps and bruises and scratches than Mulder did on our cases. No matter
how many soft surfaces we placed around her, Emma managed to find the
sharp corner to knock against.

"Are you planning on helping me find your missing socks, Emmy?"

She swiveled her head to see me and grinned again, then shook the book
in her hands, making it pinch her leg. Her grin crumbled and her chin
wrinkled and I sat down next to her.

"Emma. . .honey what did you do that for?"

She looked back at the book and made noises at it, then looked back to
me. I smoothed my finger over her little leg and winked at her.

"You're not hurt, Em. Stop being melodramatic. You fool your daddy all
the time, you know."

She ducked her head as if ashamed and I laughed, making her look back to
me with those dark eyes and grin again.

"So. Socks, remember?"

I stood up, leaving her to the book and searched through the rubble of
my living room for the folded socks that used to be lined up on the
couch. I had done laundry only three days ago--where could they be?

"Scully?"

"Yeah?" I called back, rifling through the mess of blankets on the floor
in front of the television. Mulder and Emma liked to camp out there all
day, watching television and communing or something.

"Where's the case folder?"

"In the front pocket of my carryon."

"Oh."

I smiled to myself and triumphantly held up the socks, grinning like an
idiot, but still feeling rather good. It was crazy how life had changed.
I was happy about avoiding minor catastrophes within our little family,
rather than the pride I once felt about shooting perfectly on the range
or discovering important evidence.

"Come on, Emma, let's get you ready."

=-=-=

I watched my mother tickle Emma and change her diaper, realizing that I
did it in the same way she did, and wondering when I had picked it up.
She looked back at me and winked and I smiled, but I felt rather sick.

"Don't worry, Dana. Emma knows me. We'll be fine."

I slumped down into the kitchen table, watching my mother with my
daughter. It was a strange feeling, but good, proper. My mom was in love
with Emma.

"How can I be so willing to leave her?" I blurted out, biting my lip
when my mother looked back at me.

"Honey, this was something I never understood. I was the one who stayed
at home, remember? You've got your father in you. That spirit for
adventure. If you tried to smother it, you'd only hurt yourself and ruin
your family."

My father. I had nearly forgotten how similar our jobs were in that
respect. My mother must be used to being left with the kids, left to
worry and wait. She may not like it much, but it was something she did
wonderfully, with her calm and her joy in simple things. The simple
things gave me joy, but the complex things gave me a thrill.

"I don't know. I feel awful that I'm leaving her, but I'm also so
excited to be back."

My words sounded like a mixture of feelings, both sorrow and excitement,
regret and a dizzying kind of anticipation.

"This isn't going to hurt anybody, Dana. As long as you come back alive,
we'll all be okay."

I smiled tensely and moved in to kiss my mother's cheek.

"Thank you so much."

She patted Emma's leg and snapped her pants back on, then gathered her
up and settled my girl on her hip. I smiled at them both and leaned in
to kiss Emma. She smelled of my mom already, but with the baby smell
over it all, skin and softness. I blew in her ear and made her giggle,
which eased my heart and allowed me to move away.

Mulder found us in the kitchen and reached out for Emma, who opened her
arms immediately to him.

I watched them together and willed myself not to cry, reminding myself
that we would be back, we were not leaving forever. Mulder's forehead
was balanced against Emma's and she was patting his cheek. It looked
sweet and I glanced back to my mother, who was laughing at the picture
they made. I was going to have to buy a camera.

"Bye, bye Emma," Mulder said and kissed her fingers, then her cheeks.

Emma wrinkled her nose at him and said, "Daddee."

He smiled hugely and looked to me, as if to say, 'this is my little
girl.'

I reached out for her and she went smoothly into my arms again, like she
was meant to be there. She seemed to catch on to the current of sorrow
in me because she hunched in  my arms and leaned her head against my
chest.

"Emma," I said into her hair. "Emma, momma's gotta go."

She wriggled around and jerked her head up, knocking into my chin. She
did that a lot, enough to where I should have been ready for it. Her
eyes were dark and questioning and I couldn't say anything more; I
kissed her bye and gave her to my mother.

Mulder took my hand and we left the kitchen as my mom called good-bye to
us. The door  swung closed and I could already hear a pitiful cry from
the kitchen. I wanted so badly to turn around and run back, but I also
wanted to get in the car and run.

When the front door shut behind us, the sounds of Emma were gone too.
Mulder looked to me and sighed. I shrugged and we moved to the car,
neither one of us sure about how we should feel.

Freedom mixed with guilt.

=-=-=

Garibaldi, Oregon, had a child killer. Monster under the bed had never
been this gruesome. I scanned the girl's ankles again with the special
light, looking for prints, fibers, fluids, anything to have evidence
against the newest monster.

With three dead four-year olds in the ground already, and this fourth
about to be too, I was feeling light-headed and dizzy. I had autopsied
the other three girls yesterday, trying to cram it all in so the
families could finally bury them. And then the girl I was working on now
had been found this morning by her younger sister.

Mulder had theorized that for a week, the man had hidden in the victim's
house, eating what food wouldn't be missed, then hiding under the girl's
bed at night. Two of the girls had told their parents they had monsters
under their beds, but how many parents believed four year olds?

I made a little promise to myself that I would always listen to Emma.
Always, no matter how much like Mulder her fears or complaints or
stories were, I would listen and take them seriously.

Having that little moment, I sighed to myself and carefully worked the
victim's legs so that I could see better. The light reminded me of black
light, and the strange things glowed purple against the girl's skin. I
found two prints and felt an inner rejoicing.

I stepped back for a moment, studying the prints, studying the angles
and the girl, thinking about her house and her room and her bed. Mulder
must be right, the prints were angled and the girl had a high bed. She
must have woken during the night, maybe wanting a glass of water, and he
had reached out and a little bit up--

He must have a good upper body strength, but his fingerprints were thin,
so it was a ropy, lean kind of strength. Like Mulder, I thought, but
shivered that thought away.

My phone rang and I grabbed for it, somehow frightened at disturbing the
rest of this little girl before me.

"Scully."

"Hey, it's me. Have you got any evidence from this one?"

"Yeah, two prints."

"Oh good. He's moving. We've followed him a ways and I think he's
getting ready to spend a week at another girl's house. I'd rather get
him now than wait for the solid proof of him in the house."

I sighed. "There's two on this one, and some hair on the first. That
would be the only physical evidence we have Mulder. He must have been in
a hurry on this girl; he didn't clean up as well."

Mulder's silence was comforting, but I knew he was thinking about our
chances of getting a conviction with so little physical evidence. What
if the hair turned out to not belong to this guy? Hair could be
anyone's. . .

"I suppose we should wait. We'll call the family he picks and get them
out."

"Call me." I said. "I want to be there."

"Are you almost finished?"

"No. But I can get the medical examiner here to finish. There won't be
anything new in this girl's body, I'm sure of it."

"All right. I'll call."

The phone clicked and I thumbed it off, throwing my gloves in the
biohazard trash can before slipping the cellular back into my coat
pocket. I grabbed more gloves and looked back to the little girl on the
table, glowing in the phosphorescent light.

I began to photograph and collect the prints, hardly daring to breathe
lest they disappear.

=-=-=

I'd never been so tense in my life. Maybe because there just seemed to
be so much riding on this last moment. The little girl trapped inside,
the Houston family waiting outside with fear on their faces, my own
life, Mulder's, Emma's, my mom. Our family.

When Mulder and the FBI had called the family, they had muttered
something about prank callers and hung up. The father had answered the
second time and yelled at them for not taking phone privileges seriously
enough and for making light of important government bodies, like the
FBI.

So Mulder and the others had shown up at his doorstep, which had tipped
off the man inside, and while they had gotten the four year old girl out
safely, the killer was holding the baby hostage. A baby boy who had been
laying down for his afternoon nap.

We could hear him crying through the special "eyes and ears" the techs
had sneaked through on the snake line. The family outside was in tears,
and I nearly was too. But this was my job, and I could feel my walls
shoring me up.

Mulder and the Special Agent in Charge, Minder, were coordinating a plan
of attack. Hostage negotiation had been met with a chilling silence, and
Mulder was convinced that Max Branci would not talk. Max had been in his
world far too long to start coming out now. Mulder was looking to pin a
total of thirteen murders on this forty-three year old man. I couldn't
believe he'd been around that long, killing without remorse.

I listened as Minder outlined the idea, pointing out the special
positions, the rooms of the house, the things to look out for. The
Houstons had shown us the little obstacles in their house, like the
hamper that was in the middle of the downstairs hall, and the baby gates
at the entrances to the kitchen. Their home was real to me, and it made
the entire thing that much more awful.

They could be us.

Two men interrogated the family, looking for things they had not already
said, little clues that would give us the edge or surprise over this
guy. The father was shaking his head in bewilderment, and the mother was
clutching her daughter tightly. They looked like they'd never seen guns
and police officers before.

Snipers from Hostage Rescue Team were in the upstairs and downstairs
rooms of their neighbors' houses, facing the Houston's home, and even on
the roof of the soon-to-be besieged house. Five HRT agents were
belly-crawling into position as we spoke, and were reporting all clears
as they checked the second floor windows.

Mulder and I and three others were waiting outside the back kitchen
windows while an HRT member quietly scraped away the lock and raised the
windows. The cool breeze from the Houstons' air conditioner felt relaxing
and out of place as it washed over us. I could smell their home, the
cheese and deli turkey from their lunch, the laundry soap as the washer
ran even now, and the telltale baby and little girl smells. These were
familiar things, though slightly different from ours, and I had to close
my eyes and blank out everything before I felt ready.

We were given the go ahead and Mulder and I slithered through the
windows about two feet apart that we had been assigned to. The kitchen
was clear, but I kept expecting Max Branci to walk in and shoot us both.
I knew, realistically, that Branci only had a knife, but still, the
thought was there.

Mulder and I got to our feet and waved the HRT members inside. Since the
FBI was in charge of this operation, we had to be the first ones in, and
the first in the lead. There was a team on our right as well, and they
waited for everyone to get inside before starting forward. I stepped
ahead of Mulder, letting him cover me over my head, as we always did,
and we started for the entryway on the left.

The agents who'd had the two windows about five feet down from us were
already heading for the right side of the kitchen, stepping carefully
over the baby gate and into the living room, one at a time. The baby
gate was a dangerous thing, keeping us from moving quickly through the
doorways, leaving us exposed. There was nothing to do about it.

I leaned against the doorjamb, feeling my heart pound, then swung out
carefully, using a trick I learned with Emma. I could lean over far
enough to see around the corner, but not even touch the baby gate.

I pulled back and shook my head, indicating to Mulder that no one was
there. I repeated the move to check the opposite side of the entryway,
and then we stepped over.

The entry led to the side door, where the garage attached to the side of
the house. The area was dark without the sun pouring through the tall
window on the left, and it held still air that seemed oppressive and
heavy. The floor was cold marble lookalike, with stairs that swept
upwards and turned into a balcony.

When I saw the balcony, I knew we were trapped. I knew it and I pushed
backwards, crashing into the baby-gate even as the HRT members behind
Mulder and I stumbled and kept us blocked. They weren't supposed to come
in after us so fast, but they must have been anxious and--

Explosions sounded in my ears and I realized we were being shot at. The
wood on the doorjamb blasted apart and into my cheek and I felt a body
behind me stiffen with impact, then crumple.

I fired at the balcony, seeing Branci there, the gun held between his
hands in perfect firing stance. Even as I pushed backwards, urging the
men behind me to move, I was shooting back, hearing the rounds leave the
chamber of my weapon and silently counting.

I was out of bullets. I was trapped. Even as I knew this, I felt Mulder
behind me, taking up where I had left off, pushing me back.

I kicked the baby gate out of the way and stumbled over a fallen man,
managing to right myself only when the countertop caught my elbow with a
sickening crack. A sharp, agonizing pain shot through my arm and I
caught my breath, blinking to clear the fuzziness. Bullets discharged
far off, meeting lamps with a crash, couches with a thump, bodies with a
sound somewhere in between.

I grabbed Mulder's belt and pulled him back, knowing it was suicide for
him to just stand in the doorway like that. I cursed whoever hadn't
known about the balcony, and dropped to the floor to help staunch the
downed man's wounds. His head was nicked and bleeding the floor slick,
and people were tripping as they shot around to the right side and into
the living room. Where had Branci gotten the gun?

I couldn't tell from here, but it looked like the balcony opened up onto
the living room too, and Branci was picking them off now. Mulder touched
my head as he slid around to the other side, letting me know he was
leaving.

The man on the floor had blood-shot eyes and his hand was a mangled
puffy thing of flesh and bone chips and blood. An HRT medic was wrapping
thick white gauze around the man's head and I grabbed some to wrap his
destroyed hand. The smell of blood intruded upon the scents of the home
and it was something I wished to never smell again. Home and blood.

I heard shouts of 'agent down' from the living room and I couldn't
understand why so many people were being shot. Branci had high ground,
yes, but he couldn't possibly have that much ammunition--?

A man came slithering through the partly broken window and over to my
side, his jacket front bloodied now.

"The snipers have no visual on Branci, plus, Mr. Houston just remembered
his gun collection."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "His what?"

The man looked as angry and shocked as I did, as if the Houstons
themselves had betrayed us. We had gone into their home like we had
because of the limited capacity of Branci's weapon of choice, the knife.

"He has an AK-47, among other specialties. I wanted to personally
throttle him."

I closed my eyes and said a prayer, then turned back to the young agent
before me.

"Get a sniper in here, set him up at the left side, where the entryway
is. Branci can't cover two sides, and when he moves just a little bit,
he exposes his back to us."

The agent nodded and slithered back through the window. I wondered when
it was that I had been put in charge. Mulder--

Mulder. Mulder was in charge after Minder, and Minder had come in on the
right side. Where were they both? How come I was the one making the
decisions?

My blood chilled and I left the HRT medic to the man on the kitchen
floor. Glancing down, I realized that it wasn't only his blood coating
the linoleum, but several people's. Emergency medics were already
pushing stretchers out through the windows and across the backyard to
the waiting ambulances.

"Hey, there's a guy over here-" I yelled to the paramedic, pointing
towards the man I'd just left. The ambulance driver came running over to
help them and the paramedic turned to nod in my direction.

"We know. He can hold on for a few seconds. These guys can't."

I stepped back, feeling my heart pound and then turned for the agent
again. His eyes were open still, and roving around, and the medic was
talking to him calmly. I patted the guy's waist, looking for his weapon
and extra clips; my own was empty.

The bleeding man's eyes met mine and I felt awful, but I smiled softly
at him and held up his gun.

"I need to borrow this."

His hand raised and he choked on his voice before sounds came out.
"Shoot the bastard for me."

I nodded and scrambled from his side and to the doorway, stepping
carefully over the bloodied floor to keep my balance. I had to
consciously forget about Mulder in order to keep moving, knowing that
there was nothing I could do except cover him.

As I stepped to the doorway, I had to keep wiping blood from my neck and
readjusting my arm. Whenever I squeezed off a shot, pain lanced through
me. My elbow was probably cracked in a few places and it stung every
time the gun kicked back, but I couldn't *not* shoot. There were two
agents in the living room who were leaning underneath where the balcony
jutted out, both cradling wounds. I could see Mulder hiding behind a
bookcase across the room, blood on his leg but it didn't appear to be
his. He would randomly pop out and sweep bullets across the balcony.

Branci had the added protection of the walled balcony, which opened out
along the living room but about chest high. He could look down, but we
could not get to him when he ducked. On the entryway side, where he had
first caught us, it only opened out for about a foot and then descended
with the stairs. Branci was keeping his back against the wall, so a shot
from the entryway was impossible.

Unless someone climbed the stairs.

I felt my heart hammer and I darted back into the kitchen, searching for
the sniper I had asked for. But there was no one with a high-powered
scope anywhere, not in the entryway, not in the kitchen, not in the
living room. Bullets rained to the right entrance of the kitchen,
catching a knot of agents and piercing two of them. Most were winded as
the Kevlar caught the impact, but I saw blood.

This had to stop. I collected more clips and rested against the
doorjamb, waiting for that lull from the balcony as Branci either
changed guns or reloaded.

After another minute, there was a pause and I spun to the living room,
the clips in my hands.

"Mulder!"

His head darted in my direction even as I tossed him the ammunition. I
quirked my lips as he caught the two clips, then scuttled back into the
kitchen again. My weapon was shaking in my hands and I noticed that the
medic was tending to the agent who'd been caught in that last spray of
bullets.

The man I'd raided for his gun was gone and I had a clear view into the
entryway now. I heard someone call for more ammunition and I felt
relieved I had given the two clips to Mulder. He wasn't the best shot,
but I felt better knowing he was covered.

Out of every agent with us besides the snipers, I knew I had probably
the best score in range shooting. I couldn't help liking to shoot; it
was empowering to know I could stop someone who was bigger and stronger
than I.

My weapon was slick with the man's blood and I wiped it on my jacket,
cleaning the grip and barrel. My hand was sweating but my grasp was good
and I stepped to the left side kitchen entrance, licking my lips.

Branci was nowhere to be seen. A sniper wouldn't get a shot from here. I
was positive this was the best chance we had. Despite the determination,
I crossed myself and kissed the cross at my throat.

The first step creaked, but it was a sound only I heard, what with the
yelling in the living room and the shots firing like a shooting gallery.
I crouched on the steps, fighting off panic and holding on to my
determination. The carpet smelled like plastic and blood and clean feet.
Part of the smell was because my hands and gun and jacket were stained
with drying blood, and because the entire house was filled with the
smell of hurt.

I wondered where the baby was. Did Branci have it there with him, or was
he in a room somewhere? I probably should have checked with someone to
see if they could still hear the baby crying.

Slithering up the steps, taking one inch at a time and trying to keep
down, I prayed over and over in my head for God to protect me, protect
Mulder. It was a comforting mantra and I found a little strength in it.
I was more than halfway up the stairs, gun held tightly before me, when
I saw Branci.

He was crouched not four feet from me, quickly reloading a weapon. I
couldn't tell what model, but it looked big and powerful. I crept
further up, wondering if this was a good position to be in, but not
having a clear shot. I wanted to incapacitate him, not just wound him.

A piece of hair caught in my eyelashes and I swiped a cold hand across
my face to displace it. My jacket crinkled alarmingly and I froze, my
heart beat positively thrashing inside me--fast and wild and frightened.

Branci stiffened, straightened up. His arms were hairy; his mouth was
tight and sweat ridged his upper lip. I could taste his hate like thick
water.

I tucked in close and eased the safety off my weapon, sweating in the
heat of summer and the flash of fear racing through my veins like
poison. His body turned quick like a cat and his gun whipped around,
pointed at my head.

His eyes narrowed, his teeth flashed with his snarl.

I froze.

=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind--Part Two

=-=-=-=

There was a bitter taste in my mouth, a ring around my tongue that was
like chlorine and salt and badly burnt toast. I wondered if I had
drowned in the pool, but this didn't seem right either. Did I have a
pool?

I couldn't open my eyes, but that didn't seem all that important. I
could hear sounds like echoes in a tin can and my ears felt like they
were plugged with cotton. Tin can noises and cotton ears didn't exactly
go together either, but I was too far away to notice.

As I got closer, I realized that the air was thin, too thin, and it was
hard to breathe right. My chest went up and down but I wasn't
controlling any of it. Panic startled to curl around my brain.

I could hear my heart beating in my chest and throat. The rush of blood
through my body was loud, like elephants thundering across a savanna,
trampling everything in their wake. The dust did not clear and settle,
but swirled dangerously in the air and choked my lungs. It was getting
harder to breathe. Hard and I was straining in the bed to just breathe,
gripping the edges because the breath wouldn't come like I needed it and
my heart was pounding, *pounding* please--

"Scully. Scully, stop, relax. You have to relax."

My eyes flickered open and blinked, resting on . . .on Mulder. His face
was tight and tense, but I couldn't understand why he wouldn't help me.
My face was covered with something tight and my nostrils flared to
simply breathe, eyes panicked and crying for him to help me--

"You're on a ventilator, Scully. Just calm down and let it do all the
work. Please, Scully, trust me."

His fingers were clenched around mine and I shook my head, blinking to
rid myself of the image, confused and bewildered and not understanding
why he would be suffocating me like this, not Mulder, please--

=-=-=

Darkness swirled. I hadn't been aware that it was black, really, until
it started to lift. What had all this vastness been before it was black?
Had I been staring into this nothing all this time before it separated
and congealed and lifted?

I blinked and Mulder was watching me intently. His hands came to caress
my face and I sighed at the feel of it, gentle and warm and strong.

"Hey," he answered and I let my lids fall to wet my eyes. They were dry
and hot and scratchy. I licked my lips and found him staring at me
again.

"Hey," I replied finally, trying to smile at him. "Is he dead?"

As the words left my mouth I remembered what had happened. The gun, the
flash, feeling my weapon recoil in my hands and getting kicked back down
the stairs.

"Your shot hit him in the chest. He survived."

"Darn," I said and gave Mulder a coughing laugh. He stilled me with a
palm to my chest and shook his head.

"He shot you, Scully. You need to lie still."

"Hmm. . ."

"The baby is okay too. He was hidden in the bathroom closet, but we
found him. The parents kept apologizing for not remembering the gun
collection."

I let out a little growl and licked my lips again. "Where. . ."

"--Were you shot? In the stomach. . .it shredded scar tissue and skin,
but not much else."

I glanced to my belly, seeing the thick white gauze plastered over
stitches, I was sure, and probably a mean looking bruise. I remembered
what it looked like from before.

"Again?" I said and shook my head.

"The doctors had you on a ventilator, do you remember?"

I wrinkled my eyebrows and shook my head. "Not. . .no."

He smiled and shrugged at my questioning eyes. "Well, you woke at one
point, and I wondered. . ."

I sighed and ran a finger down his arm, then played with the cuffs of
his dress shirt. His button was loose and probably needed to be sewn on
tighter, but I wasn't very good at sewing in the first place.

"I'm glad you're okay, Scully."

I glanced up, amused with the understatement, and tapped his chin with
my finger.

"Come here," I said and waited until he leaned in close. His lips felt
harsh and chapped against my mouth, but it was good and reassuring,
letting him know I was alive and he too.

"Thanks," he said and winked at me.

"Where are we?"

"Still Oregon, Scull. Sorry."

I shrugged and bit my lip. "What about the other two cases we have to
work?"

"I've been in touch with the police at Wamic--they're willing to wait.
However, the mayor at Estacada wants get help from VCS. Their case is
getting stale, so I agreed that it would be a good idea."

"As soon as I can leave, we'll head out to Wamic--"

"No. Scully. I'm not letting you go with me. You're going home."

I stared at him for a moment, disbelieving. He wanted me to stay at home
while he went on ahead? He was nuts, crazy, being stupidly
overprotective again. There was no way on earth I'd let him go on his
own.

"Mulder--"

"Scully, don't start. Skinner is sending up an extra."

I gaped at him, feeling the urge to cry but fending it off rather
nicely. It had to be the pain killers making me dopey, because this
usually would not make me feel ready to cry. He was getting someone to
take my place. It still felt cruddy.

"Mulder. No. I *will not* let you do this. Even if I have to stay in bed
in a motel room in Wamic, I'm coming with you."

"Scully. You need to rest after this. Your stitches could tear, you
could start bleeding internally,--"

"Mulder, listen to me. I'm a doctor, I know that. I'm also not that
stupid. But this is my place, Mulder. My job. You can't keep me from
going, and you can't suddenly make my decisions for me. My place is at
your side, Mulder, and I'm going to be there."

He was watching intently, his eyes like burning coals, flames in his
fingers when he touched my hand. I wanted to fall asleep again, so tired
from talking, but I couldn't lose this one. I couldn't go home without
him.

"Scully," he said softly, and his voice was graveled with
sleeplessness. "This isn't an attempt to get you away from me. Believe
me, I want you right here with me. But too many things could go wrong if
you stay. I need you to go home, to be safe. Otherwise I'd be constantly
worried about you."

"Mulder, I may be your wife, but I'm your partner first. I belong here.
I'm staying here."

His eyes got dark and he turned his head from mine, his fingers slacking
in my grip. I felt an icy panic wash over me like a cold river and my
heart shuddered.

"That's funny," he said softly, still turned from me. "Because I'm your
husband first, and your partner last."

He rose and stepped for the door, his shoulders hunched and his clothes
rumpled. I felt the tears cascade down my face but I didn't call out for
him. He had to understand me, he just had to. I couldn't go home, I
couldn't.

He meant too much to me to let him go alone.

=-=-=

"No. NO! Mulder, please. . ."

He leaned down and kissed my cheek, but I couldn't feel his lips for all
the tears on my face. I wanted to throttle him; I wanted to beg him; I
wanted to kiss him.

"Mulder, you can't. You can't."

The chains were wrapped around my legs tightly, like cords of steel,
pressing into my flesh. The handcuffs were too tight, biting into my
wrists and causing them to bleed, and the links between them were heavy
and dragged me down.

The wheelchair was brought in and there were spikes in the seat, like
tiny needles all jutting up. I turned in horror back to Mulder but he
smiled tightly and shook his head at me.

"You have to be punished for fighting with me, Scully."

I felt terror clutch my heart and I thrashed on the bed, hearing the
stitches rip and burn, bleeding me dry until I couldn't move at all,
until I was like a vegetable, parched and pale.

"Mulder," I mumbled, my dry eyes looking to his. He was just standing
there, shaking his head at me, sighing.

Two orderlies picked me up and deposited me in the chair, tightened
Velcro straps around my arms and legs, then turned me to face the door.
I knew Mulder would die if I left, but he thought he was teaching me a
lesson. I knew the truth, didn't he see it? Couldn't he understand he
was only killing himself?

"No, Mulder, please," I sobbed, straining for him but only moving
centimeters.

He waved good-bye like a stupid cartoon and grinned goofily at me. I
wept, knowing he would die, knowing that after that, I would die too.

=-=-=

"Shh. . .Shh, Scully. It's okay, It's all right."

I blinked and felt the tears on my face, Mulder holding me tightly. His
arm was around my stomach, but high up, right under my breasts to keep
from aggravating my bandage. I was crushed against his chest, my cheek
to his shoulder.

Had he freed me? Had he changed his mind and undone my restraints?

"Please don't send me away, Mulder. I couldn't bear for you to send me
away. You'll die, don't you see? You'll die and it will be all my
fault."

"Scully, hush. It's just a dream, it's all a dream. I'm not sending you
away."

I managed to struggle from the nightmare and found myself cradled by
him, wrapped in his arms and his love like a blanket of forever.

"I'm not going to send you away, Scully. It's okay, please don't cry."

His hands stroked the tears on my cheeks and I caught a disoriented
glance of his face to see the tears in his own eyes, the humiliation
stamped into his lips, the shame.

"A dream."

He nodded and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. "I would never, Scully. I
would never. . ."

I wondered how much of my dream he knew about. It was slightly
embarrassing, but he was holding me tightly and keeping away the
ridiculousness of it all.

"I'm okay," I said and gulped down the egg in my throat at the look in
his eyes.

"I heard the way you. . .you were begging me, Scully. I'd never never,
please don't think I'd ever hurt you like that."

"You're going to make me go home," I pointed out, indignant.

"Not anymore. No. You ought to, but I won't make you."

I managed to relax at his words, the tremendous relief like a yoke
lifted from my shoulders. I gave him a watery smile and pushed forward
to kiss his lips, despite the flinch in my stomach and the sting
afterwards.

"Jeez, Scully. You've got to rest, all the time. Understand? You'll be
in the motel room, in the bed. No getting up."

I nodded happily, but I knew I could convince him to let me autopsy or
go with him to the interviews when I felt stronger. It felt good to know
he wouldn't be alone. But I felt bad about our fight earlier.

"I didn't mean it, Mulder."

He frowned and his brow wrinkled and his fingers smoothed a line down my
neck.

"Didn't mean what?"

"About. . .what comes first. My family comes first, Mulder. Don't doubt
that ever."

He nodded and sighed. "But I understood what you meant. If our family
comes first, how is it that we're out here in Oregon? Risking our
lives."

"Because it's not fair to either of us, to Emma, for us to be less than
we are."

Mulder stared at me for a moment, then gave a sort of laugh, like I
continued to amaze him. I gave him a small smile back, reaching up to
curl my fingers around his neck.

"Go to sleep, Scully. I'll be right here."

=-=-=

We'd spent a total week in Garibaldi, Oregon, not seeing much of its
rocky coast, before heading to Wamic for our second case. We flew from
Garibaldi to Portland, and then to a city called The Dalles. From there
we had to rent a car and drive. On the drive down, which was about
thirty miles, I winced at every bump in the road, trying to keep my
muscles relaxed, but also trying to brace myself. I kept my face turned
away from Mulder, trying to not let him see the pain, but when we got to
the motel he turned to me and shook his head.

I felt ashamed of hiding from him, and ashamed of pushing for myself to
go, but once I got into bed and slept for five hours, I felt better.
When I woke, Mulder had gone for dinner and I began to wonder about my
wound.

How had Branci shot me in the stomach? I hadn't even thought about that,
but the angle was right, because the bullet had merely nicked my belly,
shredding the scar tissue where a previous bullet had done much more
damage.

I must have moved, thinking he would shoot for my head, and fired at the
same time. No one else had been up there with us, so I couldn't check
that against fact, but it seemed the most likely.

I'd been very lucky. Branci could have aimed just a tad bit higher and
blown my brains out. As it was, my new scar started just above my
original scar and nicked across my left hipbone, where some
reconstruction had to be done to the bone. It ached like crazy, but I
hadn't let Mulder know that.

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember where I'd been on the stairs, how
my body had been. I was crouched down, still on my toes, and Branci had
turned--

Oh. That moment of panic and then I had sprung up, firing and twisting
at the same time, slammed into the right side of stairs, against the
wall there, and collapsed. That was why my stomach was nicked. My
stomach was where my head had been. If I hadn't moved, I'd have a bullet
in the brain.

I shivered, thinking about how very stupid it had been to climb those
stairs, how idiotic to not wait for the sniper, yet how determined I'd
been to stop the dying. Everyone was falling, I couldn't let Mulder join
those.

I sighed and glanced up to see the doorknob turning. A shudder vibrated
the walls as Mulder opened the door and stepped through. He had Chinese
boxes in his hand and a soft smile on his face. I smiled back and
beckoned him forward.

"Tell me about the case while we eat," I said.

Mulder sat down on the side of the bed, regarding me carefully, then
handed over my favorite foods.

"All right."

=-=-=

The wind flared suddenly around us and I glanced to Mulder. He was
squinting his eyes against the dust and I shielded my forehead to see
him.

Wamic was hot and dry from being on the wrong side of the mountains. No
sea breezes here, no soft ocean, no cooling rains. It was dirty and
sandy and stretching into a craggy forever. The bodies of a father and
son lay pulverized at our feet.

Sand was caught in their blood, turning it into a hardened clump, almost
like cement. Their faces were bloated with the June heat and stank under
the sun. Mulder had a hand to his nose to halfway block the smell, and I
was trying to call up thoughts of baby and powder and softness to combat
the stench.

"I don't understand what's happening here," I told him and tried to
relax my muscles. If I tensed suddenly, my stomach flared in pain. I
needed to rest, but I hadn't been able to.

"I'm not sure I do either."

I felt afraid at that, but I tried not to show it.

Matthew and Will Kent were the first humans dead here that Mulder and I
had seen, but there had been others. Their pictures were in the case
file, the horribly beaten bodies and the broken, mangled bones. It was
like they'd been smashed completely, obliterated. An old woman, from the
Warm Springs Indian Reservation, had been the first to die so horribly.

"It's almost like they've been dashed against the mountain itself," I
said and glanced to the looming shadow before us. Mount Hood was to the
northwest of Wamic, and roughly thirty miles away, seeming to tower over
everything, desert on the east and shore on the west.

Mulder glanced to Mount Hood and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. I shook
my head and tried to stay as still as possible. I hoped he wasn't going
to take me seriously.

"I think it's time we visited the Warm Springs Indians."

I looked up at him, wincing but hiding it. The Indian Reservation was
south of us, and fairly large, but it was so dry and dusty, I felt
ashamed that the government had ever placed them there.

"Why?" I asked, glancing south as I worried my bottom lip with the
sudden spurt of pain.

"Because this isn't natural."

I looked once to the mangled bodies and sighed, immediately regretting
the movement.

"What's your theory, Mulder?"

"Wind."

"Wind?"

"A mean, vengeful whirlwind. We've seen it before, Scully."

I licked my lips and remembered even bringing those deaths to Mulder's
attention. The flayed flesh and bloodless corpses. This was different
though, and I told him that.

"So, are you telling me then, that you believed in that blood wind,
Scully?"

I tried to find a way around it but there had been things. . .there had
been frightening things and those people. . .

"Maybe I do. But this isn't California."

"Yes, but there are some things that are universal, Scully."

I pressed my lips together and shrugged tightly, trying not to use much
movement. Mulder looked over at me and narrowed his eyes.

"I think you should go back. I'll talk to them and we can compare
theories, Scully."

I started to protest, of course, but he shook his head and teased me.

"You need the time to come up with something scientific, since this is
outside the realm of possibility."

I shook my head slowly and curled my fingers into fists, realizing that
he was right. I wasn't even supposed to be up yet, the bandages were
tight and I was afraid I had pulled the stitches.

"Okay. I'll see you. . .?"

"Don't expect me before four. It's already one o'clock."

I wondered vaguely what he would do with three hours on a reservation,
but nodded and walked carefully for the rental car. Mulder had ridden
with the sheriff earlier that morning, leaving me the car. It was
somewhat difficult to drive because pressing the pedals somehow took the
strength of my stomach muscles, don't ask me how.

As I drove away, I clutched the steering wheel and hunched over, trying
to dissipate the pain. I was going to be sorry for getting out of bed.

=-=-=

When the Wasco County Sheriff was revealed behind the motel door, I knew
something had gone awfully wrong.

"Where's Mulder?" I asked.

"Agent Scully--"

I backed up, letting him come inside, but my heart pounded and my mouth
went dry. It was six o'clock and I had been trying to call Mulder's
cellular since three thirty.

"What happened to Mulder?"

Sheriff Duniway rubbed his hands together then proceeded to explain, as
best he could, the events.

"Well, we went to the Warm Springs Reservation and one of the sheriffs
met us. A man named Danny Wimica, whose family has been very powerful on
the reservation. He's about twenty-three, a good kid really, but he
didn't know anything about what Agent Mulder proposed. I didn't believe
it either. . .wind?"

I didn't say anything, still straining inside to know what had happened.

"Where is Mulder?" I asked again, feeling frustrated and frightened.

"He's stuck there."

"Stuck. Where?"

"On the reservation."

My face must have paled because he held out his hands and shook his
head. "No, no. He's not in trouble, Agent Scully. Oh, jeez, I'm sorry.
He's trying to get some more information from one of the older men. Sh-"

"He's still there? He's. . .nothing's happened to him?"

"Oh no. I didn't realize you thought he was hurt. No. He's stayed to get
some more details. Wimica thought there might be some old legend about
Chief Joseph, but really, that doesn't seem that important to me. . ."

"He's down there now?"

"Yeah."

I nodded, but I didn't feel much better. There was still a sickening
coal of fear burning in me about Mulder.

"What about Chief Joseph?"

"Well, you know he was the leader of the Nez Perce Indians, who
traveled from southern Oregon to try to make it to Canada in uh. .
.1877, I think. They were stopped at the Canadian border, but along the
way, a lot of them died, fighting US troops or simply  exhausted-"

"Yes, I remember from history class. What does Chief Joseph have to do
with the Warm Springs Indians?"

"Well, he headed up this way and there's this myth that a hundred of the
Nez Perce stopped running and tried to surrender, right where the Warm
Springs Reservation is located."

"What happened to them?"

"The US troops slaughtered them." Sheriff Duniway shook his head and
sighed, leaning against the wall beside the door. "That was a bad time,
a greedy and mean time. I don't know why they ever thought it was okay
to kill people like that--"

He stopped and I realized that the Oregon people were sensitive to their
history, sensitive to their environment and the forests and parks and
mountains surrounding them. It would make sense that Sheriff Duniway
would be grieved that a people who lived in harmony with nature were
brutally murdered by his own government.

In some ways, it grieved me too.

"They had a curse," Duniway continued. "The breath of their bodies would
leave them and be empowered by their spirits to take revenge."

I gaped at him, remembering what Mulder had said about the wind, and my
own comments about the bodies looking like they'd been dashed against
Mount Hood.

"I was looking at the family records of that boy and his father. They
were faintly related to John Jacob Astor. . .he founded Astoria in the
early 1800's as a trading post. I read that and I got to thinking, so I
looked and saw that his grandnephew was in the regiment that would have
been in this area when the band of Nez Perce tried to surrender. Of
course, this is all a legend, the stories about the innocent Nez Perce
have never been confirmed."

I nodded. "So Matthew Kent and his son, Will, were distant relatives of
a man who might have been involved in a myth about killing a band of
supposedly surrendering Indians?"

Duniway had the decency to look faintly ashamed, but I found the story
very much a Mulder theory, and wondered how much of this Mulder had set
into motion in the sheriff's head.

"I know it sounds nuts."

"And what about the other two victims? One of them was a Warm Springs
Indian. You can't tell me an old woman has anything to do with an old
vengeance."

Duniway shrugged at me as if to say, 'what can I do' and fumbled with
his sleeve cuff, glancing around the motel for courage or strength or
maybe patience with me.

"Well, Agent Mulder wanted me to come tell you he'd be gone, but I got
caught up in the history. But as an interesting little fact. . ."

"Yes?"

"Astor had a son, William, who doubled the family fortune but died in a
mysterious illness. He had two sons himself, one called John Jacob, who
died in the sinking of the Titanic."

My mouth dropped and I could see the fascination in this, see how Mulder
could get caught up in conspiracies, especially when everything was so
neatly packaged together.

"But weren't the Astors a New York family?"

Duniway nodded. "Yeah, they never actually lived in Oregon. But some of
the family came out here, some of them moved to England. It's all
speculation, and the ways in which most of the male members of the Astor
family have died are rather strange, rather tragic in most occurrences,
but. . ."

"It's not proof of anything."

He nodded again and I wondered what Mulder was hoping to learn from the
elderly members of the Warm Springs Tribe.

=-=-=

He crawled into bed with me at nearly two am and I felt his silence like
a veil over my eyes. His hand touched my shoulder and smoothed down my
arm in a sensual caress. It almost felt like a sorrowful good-bye.

But when I turned to look at him there was only empty air and a cold
spot on the bed.

My breath hitched in panic and I rolled over to turn on the light,
moving too quickly and causing my stomach to twinge painfully. The
sheriff had left at seven thirty and I had ordered pizza, hoping Mulder
might want the cold leftovers when he got in. But I had fallen asleep
around midnight, and now I'd been awakened.

By his spirit.

I shivered and pulled a sweatshirt over my head carefully, trying not to
stretch much. The light was soft and illuminated the emptiness of our
motel room with a gentle touch, but I felt devoid of him and almost
frightened.

Why had he come to me like that? Maybe it was a dream.

Even as I told myself this, I knew it hadn't been. He was reaching for
me--I'd felt this before, at a time when I thought him dead in a boxcar.
He needed me. He'd been here, touched me, and he was calling for me.

I stood and moved slowly to my carryon, searching for my weapon and
holster. They slid roughly around my arms, stretching the skin on my
abdomen tightly, but I merely squeezed my eyes and fought through it.

This was why I had fought to stay with him. This was why. Somehow, I had
known.

I reached down for my shoes and pushed tears of pain from my eyes.

=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind--Part Three

=-=-=-=

It wasn't particularly flat along the Warm Springs Indian Reservation,
and being the sprawling base of Mount Hood tended to create a rocky
landscape. The roads were paved to a certain point, and then dirt and
gravel took over, making my entire body ache.

I went faster than I should have, but when the dust got so thick that I
couldn't see two feet ahead of me, I slowed down, creeping into the
darkness and fog of dirt that choked out the headlights.

My stomach was throbbing, and I knew that couldn't be a good thing right
now, so I forced myself to relax and slump in the seat somewhat. I took
the rest of the dirt road slowly enough to keep the flares of pain down.
When the car pulled onto a main street of the reservation, I saw the
sheriff's well-built office standing to one side. There were about seven
homes in this section, the northernmost corner of the reservation, and I
figured that more people lived farther south.

I was trying to remember what kind of Indians these were, but there were
so many different tribes and nations and cultures, so many peoples we
killed or removed or betrayed. They could be Shoshone; the Shoshone had
traveled all along Northwest for a time. Of course, they could be
anything. They probably just thought of themselves as Warm Springs
Indians. I wondered how much of their culture was left in tact.

When the car crawled to a stop, the door of the office opened and two
bright eyes gleamed at me from the darkness, curious but harmless. I
pulled myself out of the rental and stepped to the office, my FBI badge
in one hand and my gun tucked safely at my back. If I closed my eyes, it
nearly felt like Mulder's gentle pressure guiding me.

"Sheriff Wimica?" I said and the man stepped down to meet me.

"Yes?"

"I'm Agent Scully. . .Agent Mulder met with you earlier."

He gave nothing away, his dark face was stone hard and flinted with sun
and wind. His hands were jammed into deep jean pockets and his eyes had
the look of a man who had seen too much. A look Mulder and I probably
had. How old was he? 23 or 26?

"Mulder is my partner. . .I need to know where he's gone."

"What do you mean? He went to talk to the Old Man."

I was growing rapidly frustrated with Sheriff Wimica's stilted end of
the conversation. He was offering nothing new and I was giving
everything.

"He never came back. He's in trouble, and I have to know where it is he
went."

Wimica looked me over and then pointed to a house that stood like a
beacon on the edge of the settlement. It was painted in a bright yellow
that stood out even in this darkness. The moon painted sickly white
light over it like a tomb and I shivered despite the need for
professionalism.

"He went to talk to the Old Man. He's there. He'll be awake. I don't
know where he went after that . . .but tell me, how do you know he's in
trouble?"

I looked straight in his eyes, ready for his laughter. "He came to me,"
I said simply and set my jaw.

His eyes might have danced with amusement, but he did not show anything
more. He respected that in me, I guessed, because he merely nodded for
the Old Man's house and turned to leave.

"Wait, what's his name?"

"Henry Wumaran. . .his wife died in this thing you are investigating."

I paused, glancing once more to the Old Man's house, trying to
understand why Mulder would question this grieving widower. The man
couldn't have much information about Mulder's wind theory, could he?

I glanced to the sheriff's office once then turned and made my way to
Henry Wumaran's home, clutching my badge still and feeling the warm
press of my weapon at my back. I wished it were Mulder instead.

=-=-=

He was patting my hand and staring into space, his thin body hiding a
kind of natural grace and strength which revealed itself when he had
pulled me into his house and sat me down on a kitchen chair.

His place smelled like warmth and cooking, but I was reminded that it
was early in the morning and I didn't have much time. Instead of
commenting on the trivial things, I got straight to the point of my
visit. But he had figured as much already.

When his eyes returned from their far off place, he looked straight at
me with a sigh and grasped my hand.

"You are in much pain, woman. Why do you do this?"

A ripple of fear and surprise slipped through me and I was conscious
again of my stomach, of the pulling even as I sat very still.

"I have to find Agent Mulder. Please, what did you say to him? Do you
know where he might have gone?"

"Yes. But there is a story-"

"No, I need to know now. I don't have time for stories."

"In order to hear the end, you must hear the beginning, little one. You
remind me of my granddaughter."

I gave an exasperated sigh and leaned forward to impress upon him the
absolute importance of my finding Mulder, but he pinched my lips shut
with his quick hand, chuckling at my look of surprise.

"You hush. Listen. Your partner respected the story. You must respect
the story. It will bring you the end."

I leaned back, pursing my lips and crossing my arms, but realizing that
I could not rush him.

"Good. I suppose you know of Chief Seattle? He had a famous speech. .
.How Can You Buy or Sell the Sky? Very good. . .so true. The land is
all, the land is tied to us in small invisible threads that know no
boundaries. It is wrong to claim land as one's own, even though many
natives all over this country do it, going to court for their land. Just
as it is with the sky. . .it is linked to us immensely."

My hands tightened under the kitchen table and I had to forcibly
restrain myself, biting into my bottom lip to keep from pulling my gun
and making the man tell me what I had to know.

"When the Nez Perce made their doomed escape to the Canadian border,
there were some who decided that it would be easier to just rest, to
stop and surrender and make a new life. Many were tired of the
fighting."

Henry traced a design onto the plastic tablecloth that covered their
small kitchen table. His voice was trembling a bit and his hands were
shaking as they moved in delicate patterns.

"Most of this little group were slaughtered. A few ran, escaping into
the lava caves near here where they could be protected. Children died
that day, and I guess the sky and the land just could not take it any
longer. No more killing their people, no more death of the spirit."

He looked like he could feel the pain of the land, the sky, the
forgotten people, even Chief Seattle when he made his plea. It made me
feel guilty for being white, it made me sick to be working and living
and being in the habit that I always was.

"My family is Nez Perce, of the original group that stayed behind to
surrender. Every generation, the boy of the family goes on a journey to
find a bride, a Nez Perce bride, to keep the line strong and untainted.
I thought it was silly and backwards, and I was in love with a girl
here. Rose. My dead wife."

His heavy pause echoed in the room.

"There were stories that the line had to be maintained, kept alive and
strong to keep the dead in check. I didn't believe it. My family had
buried those dead ones in the lava caves and I had forgotten their
lesson. I did not care. . .it was a story."

He stood suddenly and grabbed a picture frame from the china cabinet
behind us, then handed it to me with a small smile. A woman smiled
brightly from the picture with two little girls in her arms.

"My daughters. No sons. . .I did not even want sons after those two
girls. My girls."

I smiled up at him, thinking of Emma and me and Mulder.

"My girls have moved to Portland, both of them. I was sad at first, but
now I am very glad. I hope they have enough concrete and steel around
them to keep them from the sky's revenge. The sky killed my Rose, killed
the others. . .I have not kept the spirits of the dead in check."

"What do you mean, the sky? If you're their descendant, why would they
kill your wife?"

"She is not Nez Perce, not one of us. That is why. I should have married
my own, to keep the spirits settled, to show them that they continue on.
But after me, it is all dead, all the Nez Perce here in this area, where
the last ones were slaughtered. So now they seek their revenge for their
death."

I sat back in the chair, cradling the photo of Henry's wife in my hands,
handling it carefully, watching the smile lighting on her face, the
beauty of the two little girls. It was such a long time ago, to me and
to the other people my age. But to Henry, this was only a blink away,
and he had to be hurting greatly. Enough to conjure a myth?

I didn't think so. He truly thought his wife had died because he had
married her, plain and simple. I knew that Mulder would have found a
common spirit in this man, perhaps he had even felt Henry's twisted
logic made a certain kind of sense. But I could see the family, and I
could see my own, and I wondered if I would blink and it would be thirty
years later and one of us dead.

"And Mulder went to the lava caves where they're buried?" I asked,
looking up at him.

He nodded. "I will take you. If he is not back, there is something very
wrong happening."

=-=-=

When we stepped out of my car, the wind was cold and fierce along my
skin, picking my hair up and scattering it. Henry looked determined but
also fearful and I crept ahead of him towards the entrance to the caves.
My flashlight was powerful and illuminated everything, which made me
feel better. Henry's was weak and needed batteries, but he kept it on
anyway.

We had to crawl on our hands and knees to get inside, and with every
breath and every movement forward, I felt that my gut was going to rip
open and spill to the rocky floor. Every so often, Henry would put a
cool hand to my ankle and we would pause, but I think he did it more for
my benefit than his own.

When the passage stretched out and opened up, I saw a huge cavern, with
branching tunnels on every side, like a maze without a center, the huge
expanse one confusing cosmic joke.

"Come this way," Henry said and led us to a tunnel on the far side.
"This is where they were buried."

"How could Mulder have gotten there?" I asked, feeling panicked. There
had to be at least twenty other passages, and he could have wandered
down any one of them. I shined my flashlight against them all, looking
for signs of him.

"One of the boys took him out here. I did not think I could make the
journey. The boy came back hours ago. . ."

I felt an intense sense of doom descend on me and I couldn't even
breathe, so great was the pressure. Mulder had been left here. . .

"The boy must have gotten frightened. . .but the way back to the top is
well marked."

He turned and pointed to the blue chalk lines on the tunnel we had just
come from and I felt even worse than before.

I watched Henry shake his head and I wordlessly followed him down the
tunnel. Henry had to stoop over to walk, but my head was about a
centimeter below the roof, sometimes I could feel my hair catch on
protrusions. We walked for ages, it seemed, until my chest and belly
burned with the exertion. It was like a fire had been lit inside me and
it licked its way up with every step.

"You need to stop," Henry said suddenly and pushed me to the wall,
indicating that I should sit.

"We don't have time to stop," I replied, struggling to my feet.

"How is an old man and a hurt little woman going to help a big man, eh?
If you do not feel good enough to walk, you could not possibly drag an
unconscious man out of here."

I froze, feeling sick and cold and hot all at the same time. I wanted to
retch, but that would be agony, and I needed to just collapse. If I
stopped now, if I began to think about how impossible this was, I would
give up and die in this cave with Mulder.

"I'd find a way," I said fiercely.

He glanced around at the bare rock walls, the lack of tools or rope or
anything to help me in this regard, then he smiled. "I have no doubt of
that. . ."

"Let's go," I said and pushed away from the wall carefully.

Henry took my arm and we began walking again.

=-=-=

"Run, little one!"

I was frozen, watching the wall of wind rushing for us. Chunks of rock
swirled in its dark interior and it snapped with electricity, charged
and hungry. I couldn't move, stuck where I was with the sight of this
living wind.

I felt a shove and Henry was yelling for me to run.

"I can't leave you here. . ."

"You run now! Do as I say. It wants the one who spilled the bloodlines.
It does not even know you. Go find your partner!"

I turned back to the raging wind, remembering the instant we had seen
it, coming for us fast and thick and howling, and the noise that had
been at the back of our hearing ever since we had walked into these lava
caves. A hiss, a whirl of pain and anger that seethed in the darkness.
It had come from behind us and now it approached.

I felt another shove and Henry's help propelled me forward, enough to
break the spell the wind held over my scientific, unbelieving mind. I
stepped and twisted to the right, dodging the wind that already was
being sucked into the maelstrom's rage.

I began to run, feeling the absolute horror of the thing behind me, but
not knowing really where I should be going. How could Mulder have lived
through that horrible, raging wind?

I ran headlong into a rock wall and crashed to the ground, bleeding and
dizzy. My breath ached in my body and everything was very dark for a
long moment. My flashlight had to still work, I thought, panicked. It
had to work. . .

Sight returned after a second and I scrambled to my feet, pushing pain
from my mind with a force I didn't know I had. The wall in front of me
was just a turn in the passage, but it shone strangely in the beam of my
flashlight, looking like there was more emptiness behind it.

I backed away warily and wondered how many of these invisible walls I
would run into before I found Mulder. I peered at it carefully, hoping I
could detect something that would give me a clue to how to avoid them
from now on. The rock looked melted from the lava that had once rushed
through here, and it sparkled strangely in the light.

I realized there was some kind of reflecting agent embedded in the rock,
making my flashlight look as if it went farther than it did. But the
crystal faces had to be very smooth and pointed at exactly the right
angles to do that. . .

I wondered how natural this was, thought maybe it was a clever trap
designed by. . .

who?

No one could do this perfectly, not with lava rock, not at all.
Computers could, maybe, in a simulation, but this was nature, and that
wind back there. . .

This place was possessed. I was sure of it. I didn't care about facts
anymore, I only wanted to find Mulder and get out. It was starting to
remind me more and more of the haunted house we'd visited on Christmas
Eve. Frighteningly unreal, with no hope in the reality of things since
all was not real, all was an illusion.

I moved forward again, fighting back panic. I could still hear the sound
of the wind behind me, harsh and furious.

=-=-=

I wiped sweat from my forehead and sucked in another tight, hot breath.
My hands were sticky with the blood that trickled steadily down my
forehead. I had run into two more lava walls before recognizing them
when they came up. I could spot them now, but I was bruised and bloody
from the times before.

The air in the cave was hot and stuffy, thick with carbon and hydrogen
but not with oxygen. I wondered if the wind was sucking up all the air
back there, and figured it was as good a theory as any. All my lungs
knew was that they were not letting me run any longer; every breath was
a knife shredding the thin tissue of my bronchial passages. Sometimes it
was awful to know how many ways a human could die.

I leaned wearily against the rock wall for a second to catch my breath
and my balance, but moved forward soon after, keeping one hand on the
wall.

My flashlight was small comfort now, because it did not illuminate the
one thing I wanted to see most in the world: Mulder. Even if it was only
to die at his side.

I was being morbid. I shook myself awake and stumbled forward again, the
sound of the wind pushing me forward where the hope of Mulder could not
pull me.

God, please. If it's just to die with him, please. . .

I closed my eyes, still moving forward, avoiding rough spots with just a
touch, wishing with all my might, praying with the leftover energy I
had. . .

A flash made me stop short and I opened my eyes, confused. There was
another light, strobing from the side of the passage and into my eyes.
It was bright and white and strong, just like my flashlight.

I turned to my left and found an entrance, leading to a huge open cavern
littered with burial markers, the place of the dead. I stepped inside
and found the flashlight on the floor beside a towering statue, or maybe
it was a totem, or something.

It was Mulder's flashlight, though, I knew for sure. I ran forward,
ignoring the limp and the stitches pulling and the scar bleeding and
everything. I turned the corner, hope flaring tightly, and found
emptiness.

Stunned with the disbelief of not finding him, I dropped to my knees,
gathering the flashlight in one hand. I turned, bewildered, and saw the
lump just behind me, across the row, shadowed by a raised kind of burial
mound.

Positioned the way it was, the flashlight would have shone directly on
the still figure. My hands shook, afraid to hope and be so bitterly
disappointed, but I stepped forward, then crouched beside the small
thing.

Mulder. Curled in on his side so that he seemed so much smaller than
himself.

I touched his cheek, afraid to hurt him, but needing to feel something
of him. He stirred and groaned, his eyes flickering. I felt such an
amazing surge of relief that it shattered my will and had me burying my
face into his neck with the tears spilling over.

"Mulder, Mulder."

A hand reached my cheek and I kissed his fingers, so relieved, so
relieved, shutting my eyes to the fear and panic of the past few hours.

"Can't move, Scully."

I pulled back, wiping my face clear of tears, feeling ridiculous for
falling apart, especially since we were both hurt. His hand tightened
around mine and I wiped his cheek free of my tears before skimming my
hands down his body, looking for broken bones or blood.

I got to his waist and he winced, making me pause. I rested the
flashlight near his stomach and carefully slid my fingers around the
waistband of his jeans. He went rigid when I got to his hip and I prayed
it wasn't broken, but had to admit it was probably cracked. I pulled
down the waistband and saw a nasty bruise, large and covering most of
his hipbone.

"What happened Mulder?" I whispered, squeezing my eyes for a moment.

"The wind. . .I got down here, was looking around the tombs. . .it just
blasted into me. Threw me against the wall. . .oh. . ."

He groaned and his eyes rolled back; panic snaked through me again and I
patted his cheeks to wake him.

"Mulder, tell me where it hurts. . ."

His eyes blinked again, then focused on me. His fingers worked around
emptiness, and he took in a deep breath, then choked on the heat and
oxygen-starved air.

"My leg. . ."

I moved down to his legs, shining the flashlight along his jeans,
looking for tears or blood. A nasty piece of rock was embedded in his
upper thigh, like a spike through his muscle, no longer bleeding but
festering with infection already. I pressed my hand to the skin around
it, felt the heat of a fever and tried to push the panic down. It didn't
seem wise to take it out.

"Mulder, I have to get you out of here. My phone doesn't work down here,
I'm sure yours doesn't either."

I had tried the phone after running from the wind, feeling ashamed of
running but realizing it was the only practical thing.

"Go, Scully."

I looked up to meet his intense eyes, frowning. "Mulder, I'm not leaving
you here."

"Go back out, call for help. They can come in and get me. I don't want
you in here. . ."

I shook my head, recognizing his concern but wanting him to know I
wasn't leaving. Surely he knew that by now?

"If the wind comes back, both of us will be in trouble. . ."

I took his hand and shook my head. "Henry came with me. . .he distracted
it."

I couldn't think of a better way to explain, and I hadn't seen the
outcome either. I had a feeling that Henry was holding his own,
especially since I had not heard the wind behind me in a long time.

"Scully, please, I don't want you dying down here."

Horror curled through me at the pitiful hopelessness in his words. I
squeezed his hand tighter and bent down to kiss him.

"I'm not going to die. Neither are you. We'll get you out of here and
then you're going to a hospital."

He reached up and dipped his fingers in the blood still coating my
hairline like sweat, his face a mask of pain and regret. He sighed and
brought his fingers down to touch my lips so that I tasted the blood and
the sweat and his own fear.

"We're going to get out of here," I said fiercely and pulled him to a
sitting position, flinching when a shot of pain rippled through me.

I paused, catching my breath in the stale air, and he leaned against me
heavily. I felt his fingers reach for my stomach and I knew I couldn't
hide it from him.

"Scully!"

I ignored the shock, the fear that coursed through him and pushed him to
lean against the burial mound, then helped him to stand.

"Scully, you're bleeding a lot," he whispered tightly, furious with me.

"Well, so are you," I shot back and tried to forget the pain I saw in
his face, the pain I felt in mine.

I had felt it soak through my shirt about thirty minutes before. I had
already had that panic attack, afraid I'd bleed to death before I got to
Mulder. I was with Mulder now; somehow I could make it.

"Scully, dammit. Don't do this! Get out of here."

"I'm not leaving you now. It'll bleed whether or not you're here,
Mulder. And if I'm going to die, which isn't likely, I'll do it right
here."

He reached out and grasped my neck with his cold hand, shaking his head.
I didn't know what to expect, but I was surprised when he leaned down
and kissed me hard, his lips crashing into mine and pulling the breath
from me.

He didn't say anything when he moved away, merely slung his arm around
me and limped on one leg, shuffling towards the mouth of the burial
cavern. I could still see the blue chalk marks in the swinging beam from
my flashlight as it moved wildly with my hand.

=-=-=

We heard the roar at the same time, like a muted dragon in a cave far
away from ours, but getting closer and closer. I had known, rationally,
that the wind was between us and the exit to the cave, but I had tried
not to think about it too much.

Mulder gripped my shoulder tightly and we moved forward again, taking
the steps slowly one at a time. His leg was hot with infection and it
was throbbing too, I could feel the pulse going through him with every
heartbeat. I was ignoring everything from my chest to my knees,
concentrating on placing my feet in the right spot and on holding on to
Mulder.

I'm sure my stomach was slick with my blood, but it had curiously
detached in my head. I could probably feel it if I wanted to, but I
didn't try, telling myself it was a defense mechanism. I was
dissociating from my pain; I should be grateful.

Occasionally Mulder would touch me, bringing his hand away stained with
the blood, but I only felt that on a far away place, and he did not look
at me when he checked how bad it was getting. I had a feeling he didn't
want to think about it either.

When we got to a hospital, we were going to be a mess.

The roar of wind slammed into my ears again and I felt the breeze
whisper across my cheek.

Mulder stopped and pushed himself into the wall, leaning against it
heavily. Already, I could see the wall of wind heading towards us, thick
and ferocious. Even without the wind, I was beginning to have doubts
that we could make it out. He was pale and tight lipped and I was so
weak, I wasn't holding him up anymore.

"Crouch down," he whispered between shocks of pain.

He held his arms out to me and I went into them easily, letting us both
sink to the floor, hoping that our smaller size would let the wind pass
right over us.

"Maybe it'll be okay out here," he whispered. "We're not in the burial
cave any longer. . ."

But I knew he was afraid and I had to admit that I was too. I gasped for
breath in the thin air, trying to breathe as it got even thinner, the
wind heading straight for us.

It began to howl around us, my hair thrashing wildly, slapping into my
cheeks and eyes and into Mulder's face. He pressed his hand to my head
to keep it down and I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face into his
chest.

It was like having a storm at my back, only this one was angry and
ferocious and wanted to kill us. I could feel it pulling at me,
wrenching me from Mulder, but I hung on to him, my arms tightly around
him. I knew I was hurting his bruised hips, but I couldn't help it.

And then I was pulled free. I opened my eyes and caught the panic on his
face.

=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind--Part Four

=-=-=-=

There was an odd silence in the midst of the wind, like a peaceful eye
of a hurricane, and I closed my eyes to enjoy it before I would be
dashed to the walls, crumpled like a doll.

"Little one, open your eyes."

I was on my back in the wind, still and unmoved, feeling it whip around
me and hold me in its grip. I opened my eyes and twisted to see the
ground.

Henry was in the middle of the wind, smiling.

"What?"

"It has made peace. I control the wind now, Little one. You are too
tired to walk any longer. You bleed slowly, but still, it is enough to
be dangerous."

I glanced around in blind panic and then felt Mulder's hand closing
around mine. We were in the midst of this wind, held buoyant by its
pressure and I couldn't wrap my mind around the reality of it. Surely
this wasn't possible, not in physics or nature?

"Relax, Scully."

I squeezed Mulder's hand tightly and we were pushed closer together as
the wind began to move. We tilted a bit so that we could see ahead of us
instead of the rock ceiling, but I was so rigid I couldn't feel anything
but sharp pain.

And then Mulder's arms were wrapping around me, tight and secure, his
hand pushing my head to his chest.

"Close your eyes and pretend it isn't happening," he whispered and I
closed my eyes quickly.

Without my sight, wrapped in Mulder, I could imagine that we were
outside, laying on the side of a hill with the soft breeze of summer
teasing us. I felt my muscles relaxing slowly, my brain letting go of
the impossibilities, and I tentatively opened my eyes.

"This is amazing," I whispered.

Mulder chuckled softly in my ear and I knew that he was still hurting by
the strangled gasp of air after the laugh. "Good for you, Scully."

I knew he was proud that I'd gotten over that and his grip loosened. I
realized I was probably making his broken hip worse, and the piece of
rock jammed into his thigh had to be killing him.

I moved away slowly, still touching him but no longer needing to be
wrapped in him. Mulder's hand stayed tightly in mine and I realized that
was more for his comfort than mine. Below us, Henry was walking steadily
in the front of the whirlwind, his hands calmly held out to touch a rock
or a wall for balance. I didn't know how he'd managed to communicate
with whatever controlled this wind, but I was immensely relieved he was
okay.

I put my free hand to my stomach and carefully explored the reopened
wound, trying to see how bad it was. The blood was already thick and
clotting, but I had probably torn more of it than was stitched before.
It wasn't a good thing, but I wasn't going to die. It hurt like crazy
too.

It was strange to feel every part of my body held up by something
intangible, the wind like feather pillows that were alternately cold or
warm depending upon which current of air was holding me up. I closed my
eyes and could detect a pattern to the howling, a soft rhythm that
relaxed me.

=-=-=

I opened my eyes to a crowd of people, all talking softly and watching
me. I closed my eyes again, wanting to sleep and escape all the eyes but
a hand pressed to my neck, cool and comforting, and I heard a voice in
my ear.

"No you don't, Scully. Open those eyes back up. I've been waiting for
you."

I smiled softly at Mulder's voice and struggled to raise my lids. When I
did, he was the only one in my sight and I smiled broader, feeling
loved.

"Hey there, sleepy."

"Who's here?" I asked.

He glanced around and then back to me. "Henry, Sheriff Duniway, the boy
who took me to the lava caves in the first place, oh, and best of all,
your mom and Emma."

I flashed awake at that and sucked in a deep breath. "Emma?"

"Yeah. When I called, your mom wanted to come up here to see you. I
figured it was only right."

I smiled again and closed my eyes for a moment.

"I'll let you sleep," he whispered, but I shook my head.

"Wait. . .what happened?"

"Henry called 911 and they took us here, Warm Springs Hospital. It's on
the reservation so they let me bend some of the rules."

"What about your leg?" I asked, opening my eyes again.

"Just some stitches," he said, but I knew he was grossly understating
it. "My hip was just bruised, not broken. It sure felt broken to me,
though."

I wanted to laugh but was wary of my stomach. It felt numb at the
moment, so I gave in to another small smile.

"You're all stitched up again," he said to me and patted my hip.

"Mm, nothing too bad?"

"Nope. Some infection, but you've got an IV full of stuff."

I closed my eyes again and sighed. "Maybe I will sleep."

"Yeah, you do that. I'll be here when you wake up."

=-=-=

I was having a good dream with Mulder and some kind of pool or something
wet, it was all over me, cooling my skin from the sun. Mulder was
kissing me--

My eyes opened and Mulder was kissing me.

"Taking advantage of me while I'm sleeping?"

He pulled back with a grin, winking at me. "You looked like you were
having too much fun."

"I feel good," I said, and realized that the painkillers had to be
phenomenal.

"Yeah, I do too. The stuff they use here, wow. It must be natural. . ."

He leaned over and brushed his lips against mine, threading his fingers
through my hair. I knew it was probably dirty and nasty looking, and I
could feel how ripe I was, but Mulder didn't seem to care.

"Emma's waiting to see you," he said.

I pushed against the bed to sit higher up, realizing that the bed had
been raised while I was asleep. Maybe Mulder knew I would want it like
that.

"Where is she?"

"In the hall with your Mom. Everyone has either left or is out eating. I
figured that if I could wake you up now, you'd have a bit more privacy."

I smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "Let me see Emma."

He nodded and moved for the door while I waited. Whatever was in my
system worked great, because not only was my stomach completely numb,
but I was also feeling rather  disconnected from myself.

My mom walked in with Emma in her arms, both of them smiling at me, and
I felt a kind of solid acceptance click into place, as if I had been
missing something but didn't know it until now. I held out my arms and
Emma leaned forward to me as my mother relinquished her. She cuddled
into me and I sighed softly.

"Hey Emma, how've you been?"

She glanced up at me and bounced in my arms, causing a fissure of
feeling to crack the shell of drugs surrounding me. I settled her next
to me on the bed with a little regret, but Mulder just nodded and
reached out to tickle Emma.

She was too bouncy, too active to sit in my lap right now.

I wrapped an arm around her and curled my hand over her leg, trying to
see if she had gotten any bigger while we were gone. I couldn't really
tell, but I thought she might have. It had only been two weeks, but she
seemed different somehow.

"Mumma, Daddee."

I grinned, relieved that she still said Momma in that funny way. If that
had changed, I might have cried. She patted my leg and wriggled around
to lean against me.

"Hey, Emma. Did you have a fun time?"

She glanced up at me and scooted forward on her hands and knees,
crawling over my legs quickly to sit on my other side, closer to Mulder.
She was fast.

"She can stand better now," my mom said, knowing that I was looking for
changes.

"Really? Hey, Emma, you can stand up stronger?"

She clapped and smiled at me and I noticed something very obvious.

"She's got a tooth!"

Mulder peered over the bed railing to see, pushing her lips open with
his finger. Emma smiled, then began to gnaw on his finger with her gums
and one bottom tooth. I laughed and looked to my mom.

"It came as soon as you two left. She was crying and I let her suck on
ice cubes."

I pouted at Emma and curled a finger around her hand. "Poor baby. Daddy
forgot to send you with a teething ring."

Mulder poked me and I glanced up at him, smiling.

"I think Mommy forgot that one," he muttered and wiped his finger on his
shirt.

I grinned, not able to help it, and offered my thumb to Emma, letting
her chew on the thick pad to relieve the tenderness.

"Maybe we can get some oral gel," Mulder said, frowning.

"Or ice cubes," I said and glanced back to him in time to receive a kiss
on my mouth.

My mom was watching us with smiling eyes and I shifted to ease Emma into
a better position. Already ten months old and I couldn't believe it.

"Hey, Em, you're growing up too fast," I whispered and kissed the top of
her head.

=-=-=

My mom and Mulder talked on the drive from Warm Springs Reservation to
The Dalles while I tried to talk with Emma. She wasn't so verbal this
trip, and I realized that we were both tired.

Somehow, my Mom had found a carseat for rent in The Dalles, and Emma
liked falling asleep in the car. So I stopped teasing her and closed my
own eyes, ready to let sleep claim me also. I had a package of tea
leaves in one pocket, given to me by Henry for the pain, and some pills
the hospital had supplied in my other pocket. Already, I could feel a
tenseness start in my muscles and I knew I would have to take something
before our flight.

I woke when I felt Mulder's hand across my cheek. My eyes opened and he
grinned at me, then unstrapped my seatbelt.

"We're here, Scully."

I slid to a sitting position, my neck tied in knots, and stretched as
carefully as I could, taking care not to move my stomach. I let Mulder
help me from the car and saw that my mom was pulling Emma from her
carseat, who was sleepy and rubbing her eyes.

"Do have any change?" I asked Mulder, glancing past him to see the Coke
machine.

He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a dollar.

"Here."

"Do you want something?"

"I'll just steal a sip from you," he said and turned to take Emma from
my mother.

I stepped quickly over the parking lot of the Budget Rent-a-Car
building, noticing the bright orange trim and white grainy adobe walls.
Adobe was more southwestern, but I guessed no one had ever told the
architect that before. Or maybe he had ignored the advice.

The Coke machine had Diet and Dr. Pepper besides the regular stuff. I
was tempted to get straight Coke but I knew Mulder didn't like it, so I
got Dr. Pepper. It was his dollar anyway.

They were all inside the adobe rental agency when I stepped around the
side of the building, so I opened the door and winced a bit, biting back
the little thread of pain that lanced from my gut to my chest.

Mulder hurried over and held the door open, grabbing the Dr. Pepper from
my hands. He twisted the cap off and handed it back to me as we walked
inside. It felt cool and crisp  going down my throat and I put two pills
on my tongue and swallowed them. Mulder watched me with interest, then
took a sip himself, smiling when he tasted it.

My mom was signing the papers with Emma in her hands and I motioned for
Mulder to catch her. After rescuing my mom he handed her to me and I
placed her gently on my right hip, away from any damage she could do.
Emma wriggled once but remained still and I thanked her silently.

She reached for the bottle and I held it to her lips, wondering if I'd
ever let her have soda before. She drank it eagerly and I pulled the
bottle back, watching her. She puckered her lips and clapped her hands.

"Good, good, Mumma."

I smiled and wrinkled my nose at her. "Where have you had soda before?"

"Daddee."

My eyebrow rose and I glanced to Mulder, wondering if she were really
answering me or just talking. Emma wasn't very talkative, just active,
moving all the time. So this had to be more than just coincidence.

"Remind me to talk to him later."

She reached for the bottle again and I sighed and pressed it to her
lips, helping her drink. She clasped her hands around it and tried to
tug it from my grasp, to drink on her own. I refused and pulled it away.

"No, Em. Momma's got to help you with this one."

She pouted and turned her head into my shoulder, so I sipped it myself
and felt the coolness of it slide down my throat. The air conditioning
in the rental place felt good too, and I realized the medicine was
taking hold, doping up my blood.

It was a funny thought but I kept the laughter from bubbling through my
lips, knowing it was the drugs. Mulder and my Mom came over to where I
was standing and announced that the shuttle for the airport left in ten
minutes.

We all trooped over to the benches where we were supposed to wait,
Mulder taking Emma from me as we walked. I was glad because she was
heavy and digging into my side, plus my arms felt too shaky to hold her.
I was afraid I'd drop her.

When we sat down I curled into my Mom's side and closed my eyes, feeling
strange and disconnected but recognizing the feeling from the hospital.
I fell asleep like that, my Mom stroking my hair and kissing my
forehead. It felt good. I felt like a little kid, like Emma's age again.

=-=-=

When the plane took off it set something aflame inside my head and I
felt like I was burning and being shot through the sky like a star,
falling and rising at the same time. It was as if all my fears of
flying--and falling--were sharper and clearer and more frightening than
ever before. Mulder must have noticed and he wrapped his arms around me
tightly; I must have cried a little bit.

Then I fell asleep and had strange dreams about my stomach splitting
open and Mulder reaching his hands down inside me to pull out a baby and
we were so happy, but I was bleeding everywhere and it wouldn't stop. He
put the baby in my arms and held his hands over the big hole in my
belly, but it just bled and bled until I couldn't hold it anymore.

I must have died because then Mulder was waking me up and I blinked and
we were in the plane still. I glanced to my stomach and it was in place
and everything, still where it was supposed to be. Emma was next to us
in my mom's lap, chewing on a teething ring Mulder had bought her in The
Dalles and I guessed it helped keep her ears popping too.

"You okay?" Mulder said, frowning at me.

I nodded. "These drugs are making me just a little nuts."

Mulder grinned and shook his head. "Come here, you can sleep some more."

He pulled me to his chest and I leaned against him gratefully, wondering
if my dreams were supposed to mean something or if they were kind of
like hallucinations. It made me feel better to smell him, so I put my
nose against his shirt and inhaled softly.

He dropped his chin to my head and kissed me tenderly. It felt so right,
so amazing and I realized we had only been married for two months and a
scattering of days. It felt like forever.

"Love you, Scully."

But I was halfway asleep and all I could do was smile and let my eyes
fall shut.

=-=-=

I was on a dirt road, naked and cold, but feeling trapped despite the
long stretches of nothing on either side of me. I was trying to find a
hospital, but it was a long walk and people kept jumping up in my way
and leading me in the wrong direction.

I was trying to get to the hospital because I had a long slit down my
chest, like an autopsy incision, from clavicle to pelvis, and I had to
hold my skin together on either side like holding a robe closed.
Otherwise my guts and lungs and heart would spill to the ground and that
wouldn't be good.

I was wondering if they would put a zipper in my skin so that they could
unzip me at any time and peer in at my organs. I could even unzip it
myself and teach Emma the organs and their functions when she got older.
Yes, see, nose, eyes, ears, heart, lungs.

When I woke this time, I was holding my shirt front just as I had been
holding my skin together. Strange.

Emma was patting my back to get my attention and I pulled gently from
Mulder, who was asleep too, and turned to see Emma.

"Mum, Mum, Mum," she said and held her hands to me.

I picked her up out of my Mom's grip, noticing that she too had fallen
asleep. I hoped she didn't wake up and notice. She'd be so horrified.
Emma was a good kid and I didn't expect the few minutes she'd been awake
while we were asleep had done any harm.

My Mom's hold on her was pretty tight anyway.

"Hey, Emma-jean," I whispered. "We have to be very quiet for daddy and
your grandma."

She glanced over at Mulder and poked his ribs, too fast for my grabbing
hand. I tucked her arms to her sides and shook my head no, then settled
her further back on my lap, closer to my knees. She leaned her head back
and stared at the seat in front of us upside down. I tickled her and she
shrieked.

"Hush," I admonished her and couldn't help grinning anyway. She pushed
at my hands and I held her tightly as she bounced, upside down looking,
in my arms.

Her hands reached out and touched the back of the seat, but I pulled her
up again to get the blood back down into her body. She looked at me,
sort of dizzy and drunk seeming, her eyes shining with the redness in
her skin.

I laughed and kissed her. "You looked silly like that," I said.

She had to be bored out of her mind, but I couldn't think of any good
games to play with her that were quiet and wouldn't disturb anyone. We
ended up with peek-a-boo, which had to be the most redundant, boring
thing in the world, but she loved it. I draped my jacket over her head
and pretended to search for her, calling her name softly.

She lifted her arms and pushed it away, giggling at me and saying 'here
I am' with her smiles. And then we played the game all over again. I
switched it up and hid myself under the jacket, but she didn't like that
so much and peeked up under there to poke me.

When I took it off, she was pouting, and looked like she might cry, so I
started the same game all over again, getting worn out with pretending.
Mulder was much better at this than me.

But the smile and her giggling kept me going.

=-=-=

"Home," I said with relish and dropped my bag in the floor.

Mulder pushed me forward and lugged his carryon and Emma inside too,
dumping the baby in my arms and his luggage to the floor next to mine.
He looked a bit cranky so I moved out of his way and shut the door
behind him. We had dropped my mom off at her house, and I had given her
a check for the two weeks. She tried to refuse the money but I wouldn't
take it back. She had helped us immensely.

I moved into the kitchen and put water on to boil, hoping to calm us
both with hot tea and maybe a good movie on television. We could unpack
tomorrow, even though it would probably annoy me to no end all night,
those bags on the floor.

I heard him flush the toilet and smiled to myself, jiggling Emma to keep
her from kicking my stomach. I headed back to the living room and looked
around for some clean pajamas for her. The messiness was driving me
crazy. I found a white T-shirt with the words "I'm an alien baby"
written in sparkly green across the front. I couldn't remember where
Mulder had gotten it, but I thought it was cute and decided she could
wear it to bed.

I let Emma play with the shirt and looked for clean diapers and baby
wipes, trying to remember where I'd last put them. Oh, on the mantel. I
grabbed those too and laid Emma on the floor, hoping the carpet would
come out unscathed.

"Here," Mulder said and I jumped at his voice. He was holding out her
sweatpants.

"Thanks," I said and unsnapped Emma's corduroy pants. They tugged off
and I worked at changing her diaper while Mulder flipped through the
television channels. It wasn't too bad and I managed to save the carpet,
so all in all, I was pretty happy.

Emma wasn't happy though and she pouted and cried, but I wasn't in a
tolerant, baby-amusing mood. I pulled her shirt and socks and shoes off
and then put on her sweatpants, wondering idly if she'd be too hot,
then pulled on her T-shirt.

She cried and I hushed at her, but she was cranky from the trip. I was
ready to just deposit her in the crib and let her cry herself to sleep,
but Mulder stepped up and took her from me. Which was probably a good
thing.

I threw the used diaper in the trash and took all the dirty clothes I
could find to the hamper, which was overflowing too. Mulder hummed to
Emma and was trying to rock her to sleep, which made me feel worse
because I'd been so grumpy with her.

Feeling foul, I cleaned up the living room, straightening her books in a
pile by the fireplace, shoving her clean clothes into her drawers, then
throwing all her toys into the large basket by the television. The
kettle screamed at me and I yanked it off the burner, then closed my
eyes and tried to calm down.

We were all tired, all cranky, all needing sleep.

Calm again, I removed two mugs from the shelf and poured hot water into
both, then dunked tea bags into them. I went back to the living room,
letting the tea leaves dissolve, and sat down next to Mulder on my
couch. We needed a new apartment, I thought sadly.

I wondered if Mulder ever wanted to go to his own place, to just take a
break and sleep for twelve hours on his couch without interruptions or
baby cries or my arm thrown over him. It was a hard thought and I
watched him closely, noting weariness but not much else. It was probably
unfair to ask him now.

I stood again and went into the kitchen for the tea, dunking the tea
bags a few times and then carrying both mugs into the living room.
Mulder took his with a thanks and sipped it carefully. Emma was hunkered
down against his chest, her eyes closed and her breathing even. I traced
her spine with my fingertips and leaned into Mulder, resting against him
with a sigh.

He moved his head and kissed my forehead, then sipped at the tea.

Did it matter if he wanted to leave sometimes? *I* wanted to leave
sometimes. No matter how he thought, he didn't quit. That's what was
important.

I leaned over and kissed Emma good-night.

=-=-=

end all
adios
RM