*************************************
The Forgotten Ones - The Collector's Edition
by
Deborah L. Wells
<DLWells55@aol.com>
*************************************

Disclaimer: This work contains characters and situations of the televi-
sion series "The X-Files", which are the creations and intellectual 
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and FOX Broadcasting
Company. The author makes no claim to ownership over these elements, and 
this work should be distributed only in a free manner without promoting 
monetary gain.

Dedication: I would like to make mention of some people who have given
me the gift of support, both as fellow writers and as friends.  
To: Laura Capozzola, Carol Gritton, Melody Lanier, Patty Hayes, and
Xphile324 - Thank you all!  :-D
And a special thanks to Patricia S. Martinez, the Disgruntled Law Student.

Classification: T S A

Rating: PG-13 For violence and a particular scene you may find disturbing.
Warning: Mulder angst.  Scully angst.  A hint of MSR and UST.

Summary: Mulder and Scully are taken prisoner and held against their will.

*************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES I: THE TAKING
*************************************

12:52 A.M. August 16th
Deep in the Woods
Hadden, West Virginia

Emily struggled to keep up with her older siblings as they trudged through
the forest.  It was the middle of the night and the air was quiet and flat.
It was still warm, but not humid.  She like the nights, especially nights
like these when the hot heavy air finally got around to cooling itself 
down enough to be bearable.  She was falling behind again, as she half
ran on bare feet just to keep the rest of her family in sight.  She tugged
at the rope wrapped loosely around her waist, as she felt behind her for
the reassuring furry feel of Widgit her stuff bunny.  Her biggest brother
Ethan had fashioned the rope tether so she wouldn't lose him, as she so
often had in the past.  She would cry for hours until one or another of
her brothers or sisters would happen to stumble upon his missing stuffed
self, and would present it to her in exchange for no more tears.  She
smiled to herself.  Ethan was so strong and smart.  He was the eldest and
the head of their family.  Ever since their Ma and Pa had died so suddenly
they all looked to Ethan for the answers to all their needs and problems.
Emily fought a moment of panic when she snapped out of her rambling 
thoughts and looked ahead of her.  She couldn't see hide nor hair of her
family at all.  She stopped in her tracks listening for their sounds, 
but there was nothing to be heard.  Not even the wind was stirring to-
night.


Suddenly from behind a nearby tree Ethan jumped out and gathered Emily 
up in his well muscled arms.  She giggled delightedly and let loose with
a half-scared, half-relieved shriek.  "What did I tell you about lolly
gagging Em?", he said in a stern voice tinged with amusement.  "Sorry
Ethan, I won't forget no more", she smiled up at him.  He lowered her to
the ground and took her tiny hand into his large one.  "Come on now Em,
we still got us some work to do tonight."  She nodded silently as they
made their way down the barely discernible path leading towards the center
part of the woods.


Ethan and Emily came out of the woods into a small clearing.  There they
found the rest of their brood waiting patiently for their arrival.  Nine
children in all from eldest to youngest - Ethan, Earnest, Edgar, Eve,
Eloise, Emmet, Evangaline, Evan, and finally little Emily.  Their Pa had
been fond of "E's", as their Ma had never tired of telling them, always
followed by her inevitable laughter.  She had always surrounded herself
with smiles, up until the end when even she had been hard pressed to find
merry in the face of the sickness that stole her laughter as well as her
life.  Their Pa had followed her into the grave not long after that.  
Died of a broken heart he did.  But all that was the past, as it had been
going on six years behind them now.  Em had still been just a baby.  She
couldn't remember her real Ma and Pa, but Ethan and the others always
play talked her the stories.  In that way at least, she felt she knew
them somehow, and Ethan took pains to make sure they never forgot.


Ethan had taken his rightful place as head of the Wilstead clan after 
that.  Once he got grown in body they never questioned him.  Least ways
never twice.  He could tame a wild animal with just a look if he wanted.
And he could tan the backside of each and every one of them if they pushed
him to it.  Now as he bowed his head solemnly, the others soon followed
suit.  He began reciting the prayer for the dead from memory, as he had
no need to follow the book anymore.  Ethan, being the only of them that
could read, had memorized the few books his family had possessed.  And
this here particular ritual was becoming a familiar enough routine.  
Ethan always insisted on seeing folks out respectable like in their
journey unto the next world.  After finishing up the prayer, Ethan nodded
over to Earnest and Edgar to help with the burying.  The two strapping
young boys moved forward, shovels ready in their well callused hands.  All
the Wilstead folk had work hands, which were rough and toughened from
many years of back-breaking hard labor.  They prided themselves on their
self reliance.  They would never dream of taking a hand-out from an 
outsider.  It just wasn't done.  At first Ethan had been somewhat over-
whelmed at the responsibilities laid upon him by the passing of his 
folks.  He had only been thirteen at the time his own self.  In the begin-
ning the others just jeered him when he tried to bring about some order
of things to their homestead.  They just plain refused to listen to his
preaching and prancing about being the man of the house now, when he was
only another child in their eyes.


Ethan had become afraid that if he didn't do something quick like his 
family would be torn apart.  Each of them going in different directions
maybe never to be together again.  He couldn't let that happen.  It was
all up to him then.  But he had needed an adult to take the place of his
parents.  So the little ones would know their order in the matter of 
things.  The first had come a little over five years ago.  Passing through
he had said.  A traveling salesman.  Ethan had seen him over at the 
grocer's while he was turning in some deposit bottles that he had found 
for change.  The nice man had ruffled his hair and grinned.  Ethan had 
grinned back.  The stranger had a kind smile and had even reminded Ethan a
little of his Pa.  That's when the idea had come to him.  He took it as a 
sign, that his parents were sending him the answers to his searching.  Here 
was a way to keep his family together.  This man could be their Pa.  It 
wouldn't be like taking help from an outsider, because the man would be 
made part of their family.  He just knew it was for the best, as he followed 
the man out to his beat up old car and plain lied to him outright.  He told
the man that his Ma would sure be beholding to him if he could stop on
by.  She was in need of some new sewing supplies, as she had just told
him that the other day in fact.  Wasn't that what he had heard him telling
the grocer?  That he was in the sewing supply business?  The man had come
willingly, eager to make a quick sell.


It had been so easy.  As were all the others that had followed since.
Ethan shook himself from his thoughts as he joined in with the burying
detail.  The clods of moist earth were arranged in neat piles beside two
open graves.  Ethan plunged his shovel into the nearest pile and began
filling in one of the holes.  He looked on over to Emily as she settled
herself down on a nearby tree stump.  She pulled old raggedly Widgit out
from his bonds and propped him up so he could watch the goings-on with
her under the light of the almost full moon.  He gave her a quick smile
and she waved at him from her perch.  She needed a Ma.  He had to keep
doing this he repeated to himself.  For the others.  For little Emily.
He had to keep the family together whatever it took.  He had promised
his Ma and Pa on their deathbeds.  He sighed loudly as he settled into
his work.  These two had lasted the longest.  Pert near seven months.
Ethan had thought they had been settling into the hard fact of things
quite nicely towards the end.  Then out of the blue they had made a run
for it in the middle of the night.  Ethan shook his head sadly.  When
will they ever learn?  Ethan and his family knew these woods inside and
out.  There was no place to run.

*****

4:55 P.M. August 22nd
Hadden, West Virginia
County Road 5

Mulder removed one of his hands from the steering wheel and used it to
rub his sore neck.  He began stretching his cramped muscles one by one.
Scully was sleeping in a reclining position beside him in the passenger
seat.  She started awake from her light nap at his quiet movements.  
Mulder smiled to himself.  Even when she was sleeping she wasn't far away
from full awareness.  A habit she had picked up from their routine need
to be ready for any emergency.  She yawned behind her hand and gave him
a lazy smile.  "Want me to drive for awhile Mulder?", she asked as she
ran her hands though her sleep-tousled hair.


"Well actually Scully I was hoping you could take a look at the map.  I
think we're lost", he said as he scrunched forward to get a better look
at the passing scenery.  "All I've seen for the last hour has been trees
and more trees.  I think I've made a wrong turn somewhere.  I can't seem
to shake this back road.  We should have come out on the main road by 
now."


Scully repositioned her seat setting from reclined to sitting as she 
pulled the map out from the rental car glove compartment and began to
study it.  She smiled to herself.  "You know Mulder at least you were a
little original this time.  You could have just said we ran out of gas,
instead of dragging me out here to the middle of nowhere to investigate
reported UFO abductions.  Which I might add were proved to be totally un-
founded claims caused by mass hysteria."


Mulder feigned mock shock.  "What?  Are you doubting my motives to be
anything but righteously sincere?"  He turned to her and gave her a
lecherous grin.


Scully was about to tell him what he could do with his motives, but was
never able to complete the verbal jab.  From the corner of her eye she
caught a quick movement by the side of the road.  A small child had
suddenly appeared from within the dark coverage of trees.  She was moving
straight into the direct path of their on-coming car.


"Oh my God.  Mulder watch out!", Scully yelled.  Her hands shot out in a
reflex action to brace herself against the dashboard.


Mulder snapped to sudden attention at her warning, as he simultaneously
slammed on the brakes and fought the uncooperative steering wheel.  In
a mere split second he analyzed that there was no way to stop the car in
time to miss the child.  This fact assessed and no other options available,
he swerved the car away from the child over towards the side of the road,
straight into the path of a grove of massive trees.  "Hold on Scully!",
he managed to yell out just before the crushing impact.


Their car slammed head-on into a tree with a sickening squeal of burning
rubber and twisted metal.  Steam billowed heavily from the smashed front
end.  The hind end of the car was elevated somewhat on the uneven floor
of the forest.  The right rear tire spun endlessly and noisily around
and around, finally slowing and coming to a dead stop.  Then no sound at
all.  The sudden silence of the forest was replaced after many minutes by
the sounds of the coming night.  Birds chirping, and small animals scamp-
ering across the brittle dead leaves as the forest life resumed its 
activity after the sudden interruption.


*****

5:38 P.M. August 22nd
In The Forest
Hadden, West Viginia


Mulder tried to gauge the fogginess that was surrounding him.  His mind
was muddled.  His body and head were sore.  He could taste blood in his
mouth, and he strained against the sudden gagging sensation that followed
this realization.  After a moment when he felt more self-control return-
ing he opened his eyes to a view of the roof of his rental car.  He 
lifted his head gently from the head rest, moaning with the stabs of pain
that accompanied this task.  He looked over to his right and saw Scully
slumped against the passenger door.  He reached over and felt for a pulse
in her neck, and was relieved to find a steady rhythm.  "Scully?"  No
answer.  She was unconscious.


He unlocked the buckle of his seatbelt as he moved over in his position
to get a closer look at her.  She was bleeding from a gash over her right
eyebrow.  But it didn't seem serious.  He winced loudly when he saw that
her right arm was bent at a very unnatural angle at the forearm.  It had
obviously been broken.  He reached between them and unbuckled Scully's
restraint as well.  Then he fumbled for his door release, but had to push
heavily against it with his shoulder in order for it to finally open.  He
fell heavily from the car unto a bed of pine needles.  He groaned as his
battered body screamed out its protest over his continued rough treatment
of his bruised shell.  He crawled on hands and knees over to the other
side of the car.  Reaching up he pulled on the door handle of the passen-
ger side until it opened.  He caught Scully's body as she tumbled out and
lowered her gently to the ground.  Trying his best to be mindful of her
broken arm.  Once she was settled to his satisfaction he began looking
around until he found two strong pieces of tree limb to use as supports.
Then he removed his belt and fashioned a makeshift splint which effectively
immobilized her arm for the time being.  He was about to reach into his
jacket pocket for his cell phone when he heard the unmistakable sounds
of breaking twigs and approaching footsteps coming from behind.


He turned around in his kneeling position and took in the sight before
him.  Children.  All ages and sizes.  They stood in a group fanned out
around the car.  He took an unconscious count and ended with nine.  All
no doubt from the same family as he could see similar features in 
common.  Their clothes were thread-bare and had seen a lot of use.  Their
faces and hands were dirty and smudged.  There wasn't a shoe in sight.
The littlest one, a girl, stood in front of the tallest one, a young man.
She was jumping up and down in place with a huge smile of her face.  
Mulder wondered if this was the same child that had caused their accident.
If so, she didn't seem the least bit scared or sorry for her actions.
She pointed at Mulder and Scully as she looked up into the face of the
young man standing behind her.  "See!  Didn't I tell you Ethan.  I done
caught me a couple my own self."  The young man silently nodded back at her
which caused her to giggle with delight.


Mulder stood unsteady on shaky feet.  He unconsciously moved himself in
front of Scully in a protective stance.  His FBI training as well as plain
old common sense was telling him something was terribly wrong here.  He
cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts before beginning.  He motion-
ed to Scully lying on the ground behind him.  "Listen, she's been hurt.
I need to call for an ambulance."  The young man stared at Mulder for a
moment before finally motioning to one of the older girls who came forward
at his beckoning.  "Eve here has got some doctoring experience.  She'll
see to your wife."  Mulder didn't bother to correct the young man's 
assumption about their relationship.  He put his hands up in front of him
stopping Eve from coming any nearer to Scully.  He knew he was just fol-
lowing a gut reaction; but he didn't want this girl, or any of them for
that matter, touching Scully.  It may have only been intuition, but he
had learned to trust his intuition from his many years of field experience.


"I appreciate your offer.  But I think she needs some more professional
help", Mulder said as he started to reach inside his jacket for his cell-
phone.  Behind him he heard the unmistakable sound of firearms being
cocked for ready.  His hand froze in mid air.  He turned around slowly
to find two of the young boys armed with shotguns aimed squarely at his
back.  He turned back to face the young man who had come forward to 
stand in front of him.  "Look", said Mulder.  "I don't know what your
game is here, but I don't want to play."


The young man looked Mulder square in the eyes.  "This ain't no game
Mister.  I promise you that."


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

7:25 P.M. August 22nd
In The Forest
Hadden, West Virginia


Mulder's arms were beginning to cramp as he looked down at the still un-
conscious form of Scully he was carrying.  He was trying not to become
alarmed at the amount of time she continued to be out.  He stopped walking
for a moment so that he could reposition her body for better leverage.
After a moment he felt a prodding from the barrel of a shotgun in his 
back.  "Keep moving", one of the boys said from behind him.


Mulder called out to the young man who was leading this group, wherever
the hell it was they were going.  "Hey listen, could we stop to rest for
a minute?  We've been walking for at least an hour."  The young man stop-
ped and then back tracked from his forward position to stand next to
Mulder.  "If you're spent I could carry your wife the rest of the way.
It ain't too much further."


"No.  I'll carry her", Mulder said stubbornly.  The young man shrugged
his shoulders and returned to his position at the front of the line.
Mulder sighed angrily under his breath before resuming the trek.  He
could just make out in the dimming light the shapes of his and Scully's
FBI badges and guns from within a sack carried by one of the children.
They didn't seem to understand their meanings, but they had searched both
him and Scully, as well as their car before beginning on this journey.
They had taken their cell phones, and everything else that could possibly
be used as a weapon.  And they had been amazingly thorough.  This thought
disturbed Mulder, because it meant they had probably done this kind of
thing before.

*****

8:32 P.M. August 22nd
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia

Mulder's tired arms shaking in spasms by the time he was finally able to
lay Scully down on a bed.  He removed her shoes and then grabbed a patch-
work quilt hanging over the wooden footboard of the bed and spread it out
over her.  She had been stirring and mumbling the last twenty minutes or
so of their forced march.  It looked like she was beginning to come out
of it.  He hoped so.  He placed his palm over her brow, and smiled as he
confirmed the absence of a fever.  A good sign.  He checked the splint 
again on her broken arm, making sure it wasn't cutting off her circula-
tion.  Satisfied, he grabbed a pillow from the other side of the bed and
used it to prop up her arm.  He racked his brain trying to think of any-
thing else he could do to make her more comfortable, but he knew he had
just about reached the extent of his boy scout first aid training.


He backed out of the bedroom and quietly shut the door, and then turned
to face his and Scully's captors.  Mulder felt suddenly disoriented, 
almost as if he had walked through a time warp back into some bygone
era.  There was much activity and movement as the children went about
their chores in the cramped open living space of the wood cabin.  Mulder
surveyed the room starting with the stone fireplace, complete with a
heavy black kettle hung by a rod over a roaring fire, bubbling hot with
some unknown concoction.  Most of the rest of the room was taken up 
with a large wooden table, sturdy and obviously built for many genera-
tions of use.  Several of the children sat there now on one or the
other of the two bench like pieces on either side that served as chairs.
Two regular type wooden chairs sat at each end of the long table.  For
their parents he wondered?  And if so, where were they?


The eldest young man came in through the door, carrying a bundle of
chopped wood for the already well-stocked fire.  He dropped his load next
to the fireplace, and then returned to the door.  He locked it with an
old-style bar bolt which he pulled from a box next to the door, shoving
it securely into place in its latches with a concentrated effort.  He
moved over to the table and sat down.  Almost immediately one of the girls
placed a piping hot bowl of some kind of mush or stew in front of him.
Mulder couldn't quite guess exactly what it was judging by the unfamiliar
smell.  But the young man dug in with enthusiasm.  Mulder took a seat
across from him, and was also presented with a bowl.  But he wasn't
interested in food.  He wanted answers.


And he could wait patiently for them if he had to.


Only after the young man had cleaned his bowl and promptly had it removed
for washing did he finally turn his attention to Mulder.  "My name is
Ethan.  These here are my brothers and sisters.  No need for their greet-
ings now.  You and your wife will learn their names in time.  I'll get
to the point here Mister.  It'll be hard at first, but as time passes
you'll both forget what it was like on the outside.  I have to tell you
it will set a might easier on the two of you in the long run if you 
point your thinking in that direction right now.  Save a lot of sweat
and tears on both sides.  I guarantee it."


Mulder stayed silent, sensing there was more.


"We've always provided everything we need here for ourselves.  Food.
Clothes.  Everything.  But there be one thing we can't grow from the
earth or make from cloth."  He stood up and walked around the room as he
continued.  Mulder couldn't shake the feeling that this little speech had
been played out before with other unsuspecting victims right here in this
very room.  He wondered fleetingly what had happened to the ones that
had come before him and Scully.


"Parents."


Mulder's attention snapped backed to Ethan.  "What?", he stammered.


Ethan continued his stroll around the room patting the heads of the younger
children, smiling encouragingly at the older ones.  "We've been alone
for a long time Mister, but we can still pay honor to our folks.  They 
tried hard to teach us the ways of life before they was taken away.  But
there is still so much we don't know and can't teach ourselves.  We...they
still need the firm hand of older kin, a Ma and a Pa, to show them what's
right and what's wrong.  They...."


Mulder stood up angrily interrupting Ethan.  "Well I'd be pleased to give
all of you your first lesson in 'what's wrong' now.  This.  This is wrong.
What you're doing is wrong.  Kidnaping me and my part...my wife.  Denying
her proper medical treatment.  This is wrong!"  His eyes blazed with the
fury of his increasing helplessness in what was becoming a highly absurd
and disturbing situation.


Ethan sighed.  He had heard it all before.  They were always angry in the
beginning.  And he knew what would follow as well.  First they would make
pretend, acting sweet, seeing if they could just talk their way out.  Then
after that don't work they would start taking up secret plans to break
away.  But Ethan knew, it would come down to a matter of wearing down their
spirits, just like wild stock.  All just a matter of time.  He met Mulder's
fury with a calm patience.  "Best you go now and see to your wife.  Eve is
making ready and will be along in a bit to doctor her up.  There'll be
plenty of time for talk later.  Because the facts be that neither you nor
your wife are like to be going anywhere."


Mulder closed his eyes, trying to bring his anger in check, while consider-
ing his options.  Scully was in no condition right now to try and make an
escape with him from this parallel Walton Family universe that they had
somehow stumbled into.  And he would not leave her behind to try and go 
get help by himself.  There was no telling what these 'children' would
do to her in retaliation.  There was also the fact that he didn't know
exactly where he was either.  He couldn't take the chance that he would
not be able to find his way back.  When she was stronger.  


"In the morning Ethan.  We'll talk first thing in the morning."  He turned
and walked over to the bedroom door, opened it and went inside.

*****

9:15 P.M. August 22nd
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Mulder closed the bedroom door behind him, fighting the urge to slam his
fist through the solid wood.  He would welcome the reality of the pain
right now as a counter balance against his intense anger.


"Mulder?", Scully called to him weakly from behind.


Mulder whirled around at the sound of Scully's voice.  He hadn't realized
until now how much he had missed hearing it these last hours.  He rushed
over and sat down next to her on the bed.  She was making an attempt to
sit up, but Mulder pushed her gently back down on the bed.  "Don't rush
it.  You need to rest.  How are you feeling?"


She took a deep breath before speaking.  "Okay I think.  I've got a killer
headache and my arm hurts quite a bit."  She looked around the unfamiliar
room.  "Where are we anyway?"


"Scully, we're in big trouble.  I'll need to bring you up to speed fast."


Scully assumed a questioning expression which continued to deepen as Mulder
summarized for her all that had transpired within the last few hours after
their car accident.


When he finished Scully continued to look at him in amazement.  "You mean
that little girl walked out into the middle of the road deliberately?  She
wanted us to crash?  And now they won't let us go?  I...I just can't
believe this Mulder.  Who are these...."


Their conversation was interrupted when the bedroom door slowly swung open.
Ethan, Eve, and few of the older siblings entered the room.  Ethan carried
a large bowl of steaming liquid.  Eve had toweling, cloth bandages, scis-
sors, and other assorted items obviously meant for use in medical treatment.
The last boy who entered carried a shot gun pointed in Mulder's direction.
He kicked the door closed behind him.


Ethan looked at Scully for a moment with a sad expression.  "Ma'm", he said
in greeting.  "I'm pure sorry that you've come awake just now.  It's gonna
make this terrible hard on you.  I'm heart grieved for that."


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

Ethan carefully lowered the large bowl down to the table beside the bed.


"What are you talking about?", asked Mulder trying to keep the mounting 
sense of dread out of his voice.


Eve, who couldn't have been older than fifteen by Mulder's estimation,
walked over to the bed and stood next to Scully.  "There be no other way.
We gotta set that arm of yours Ma'm.  I'm real sorry.  It's gonna hurt
like all get out, but if we don't it'll heal all crooked like and not be
at all useful to you."


"Listen to me", Scully began slowly, trying desperately to keep the growing
fear she was feeling from surfacing.  She couldn't stop the sudden images
from the books and films she had studied in med school about medical treat-
ment before the age of technology.  They were playing in her mind like a
bad horror film.  "I'm a medical doctor.  I can take care of myself.  You
don't need to do this."


Eve looked at Scully in a new light, with a mixture of awe and respect.
She had never met anyone who could share with her the love of healing.  It
was going to be wonderful to have a woman in the house to share her think-
ing against.  She gave Scully a shy, but regretful smile.


Mulder stood up quickly from the bed and walked over to Ethan.  "No Ethan.
I don't want you to touch my wife.  Leave her alone."  Ethan made a barely
discernible nod with his head and the young boy with the shot gun moved
forward.  "Take him on into the other room and make sure he's...."


"No", said Scully quietly from the bed, having made the rational conclu-
sion that there was no way out of this situation.  She didn't want Mulder 
to get himself killed trying to protect her.  "I want him to stay with me.
Please."  She would need his support to get her through this ordeal.


Ethan considered her request and finally nodded his agreement that Mulder
would be allowed to stay.


Mulder walked slowly back over to the bed and gently set down beside her.
"Scully?", he questioned in a sad and guilty voice.


She gave him a weak smile, trying her best to be strong enough for both of
them.  "It's all right Mulder.  The arm does need to be set, and since it
doesn't look like we're going to make it to a hospital anytime soon."  She
paused, swallowing hard as she saw Eve and Ethan start to remove the
splint, which immediately awakened the pain that had been settling down
into a dull throb.  She bit her lip and turned her head away.


Mulder moved over as close to her on the bed as possible.  He lifted her
up until her head and shoulders were draped over his lap and they were both
facing the same direction.  He braced his back against the headboard, and
put his arms underneath her shoulders until they came out in front of her
on the other side.  She leaned against him, as she reached out with her
good hand and grabbed one of his within its grasp, clasping it tightly 
against her chest.  He could feel the thunderous beat of her heart against
his hand.  He could smell her fear.  He hated these people for causing 
her this terror.  And he hated himself as well, for not being able to pro-
tect her.


After the splint had been completely removed, Eve made quick and careful
work of cutting off the sleeves of Scully's jacket and blouse to expose
her broken arm.  Mulder's breath hitched when he saw the misshapen lump
that had formed at the point where the bones had broken in two.  The arm
had bruised and swelled to nearly twice its normal size.  Scully moaned
softly whenever Eve touched a particularly sensitive area.  Eve followed
the removal of the sleeves by gently washing Scully's arm down with the
hot water and a cloth.  When this was finally done she stepped back and
nodded slightly to Ethan that it was time.


Ethan joined Eve standing next to Scully.  He held out a strong tree stick.
"You can use this to bite down on when the pain gets too bad."  Mulder took
it for her and guided it to her mouth.  She bit down heavily on it.  Two
of the other boys came forward as each grabbed onto one of Scully's ankles.
Mulder held on as tightly as he could to Scully's upper body without crush-
ing her in the process.  He felt like he just couldn't get close enough
to her to satisfy him.  She in turn increased the pressure hold she had
on his hand.  


Ethan reached out with both hands and took a firm hold of the end of 
Scully's broken arm at the wrist.  He lifted his foot and braced it against
the bed frame.  "Are you ready Ma'm?", he asked her solemnly.


She nodded once quickly.


"On three then Ma'm"


Scully held her breath.


"One..."


"Scully close your eyes", said Mulder.


"Two..."


Scully closed her eyes tightly.  A single tear escaped from underneath her
closed lids.  Mulder leaned down and kissed it gently away.


"Three!..."


Ethan pulled back on her arm with a strong jerk, as Scully's world exploded
into a tidal wave of all-encompassing, searing, and unbearable pain.  The
stick fell useless from her mouth as she gave way to the torrent of her
agony, which filled the night woods echoing with her deafening screams.  
Her body bucked violently against the injustice of the pain that she was 
being made to endure.  She could feel the broken bones moving and scraping
against each other in her arm.  She wanted to cut her arm off.  She wanted
to die.  Anything, just to escape from the pain.  And still it went on as
Ethan pulled back roughly on her arm once more.  This fresh cycle of pain
hit her anew with heart-stopping fury.  "Oh! God! Please!", she screamed.
Over and over again.


Mulder held Scully down with every ounce of his strength, and still he
could just barely contain her.  He had never heard such agonizing, almost
inhuman screams before.  Made all the worse because they were being torn
from this woman.  This woman that he cared for more than anything else in
the world.  She was crying out from the very depths of the pain-filled
hell she had been thrust into.  Out of her mind with the agony.  He wanted
to stop this torment for her.  He wanted to take her place.  He would
give up anything right now to give her some peace.  His life.  The truth.
Sam.  Anything.


"Stop Ethan!  I heard it.  The pop.  The bones have snapped back into 
place", cried Eve loudly in an effort to be heard over Scully's misery.
She rushed forward and began wrapping Scully's arm still in Ethan's hands
using 
heavy cloth bandages and wood splints.  After sometime Scully finally came 
down to a point in the pain where she was able to stop screaming, but she
continued to cry in shuddering spurts of anguish.  Mulder held her body 
close, mopping her moist brow with a soothing touch.  Calling her name softly.
Trying to bring her back from that horrible place she had thrown into.  Soon
she quieted completely, as she was at last able to drift off to sleep in
Mulder's arms.


As he held her he made a vow <We'll get back home Scully.  I promise you.>


****************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES II: LOST SPIRITS
****************************************

11:22 P.M. August 22nd
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


"She's journeyed past the hard hurt of it now.  She's like to be sleeping
deep tonight, maybe on into most of tomorrow I expect", said Eve as she
began to gather the materials she had used to fashion the heavy cloth
and wood splint on Scully's broken arm.  "I've mixed up a batch of tea.
It's made up with some herbs and moss, special picked for soothing raggedly
nerves.  I've left a cup here by her bedside.  If she stirs any with the
pain tonight try hard on forcing some down into her.  "It's supposed to 
be drunk cold, and it tastes like pure sin, but it'll help her down the
healing path."  


Eve paused in her tracks to give the man sitting before her on the bed
a careful look over.  He had his wife's body tucked in snug within his
hold.  His head was just touching soft near her cheek, as his fingers
worked quiet like on smoothing down her hair.  His eyes were grief filled
and worried.


She thought on it was possible he had suffered twice hard as his wife did
just being made to witness her through the hurt of it.  He hadn't moved,
not one inch from his place since the woman had settled.  He sat there
now, looking afraid she might break in two if he weren't careful like.
Eve had told him it wouldn't hurt her none to have him jostle the bed a
mite if he wanted to get up and stretch his legs a bit.  In the sleep
place she was now, she wasn't like to stir for awhile even if the Lord 
Himself chose this day to end the world on.  But he wouldn't leave her, 
not for one split second.  It pleasured her heart to see married folk like 
these. They were one - these two.  What was her was him and what was him 
was her. That was just the plain facts the whole world could bear truth 
against.


It was going to be hard on them she knew.  But at least they got to be
together.  One of the ones that come before them had liked to never stop
talking about his loved ones left behind in the outside world.  It had
pained Eve greatly to hear the breaking of his heart when he had finally
settled on the hard truth that he was never like to travel back home
again.  


He had been found stone cold dead one morning.  He had took his own life
of purpose, by wrapping the sheets tight around his neck, and up unto the
wood beams of the roof.  Eve had been the one to stumble onto him that
morning.  The picture of his body swinging still wove its way into her
night terrors now and again.


"Eve, hurry up and get along now", said Ethan as he came up behind her,
startling her out of her deep thinkings.  She stole another quick talk
at the poor man before leaving.  "Don't worry Mister.  Your wife's a
strong woman, that's the truth sure enough, and the worst part is past
now.  Any pain that follows for her now, she'll be able to match up
against the sorrow she had tonight.  It'll never be as bad for her.  I
promise you on that."


Mulder looked up for a moment at the slip of a girl standing before him.
He considered thanking her for her help.  She seemed like a nice enough
young girl, somehow mistakenly mixed in with the rest of her deranged
family.  But he couldn't bring himself to utter the words.  Somehow 
thanking her for the horrific pain that Scully had been put through, how-
ever well meaning her intentions, seemed a betrayal to Scully in some
way.  Instead he just nodded his head, and gave her a slight smile as
she turned and left the room.


Ethan moved up to the side of the bed taking Eve's place.  Mulder fought
hard to contain the raging hatred he felt for this young man.  It was
because of *his* actions that Scully had been forced to endure their
backwoods idea of medical treatment.  He could not forget the heart
wrenching sight and sound of Ethan pulling on Scully's broken arm while
she screamed and screamed and screamed.  


He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, knowing he would never be able
to erase that memory from his mind.  Or the echoes of her screams.  It
had seemed almost like she had been taken from him again, only this time
he had been made to watch.  Powerless to help her.  That part never seemed
to change.


"I'll be locking the door behind me.  The windows have been boarded down
strong with wood pine on the outside.  Don't waste time trying to break
through'em.  You and your wife are welcome to make yourselves to home in
this room.  It was our Ma's and Pa's in their time.  Now it's yours.  If
you have the need to visit the outhouse, knock hard twice on the door
and one of us will be in directly to see you there and back.  Until your
wife's able for herself, there be a chamber pot lying neath the bed for
her needs.  Eve can help her through it if she'd rather have a woman's
touch on that.  There's fresh water in the water pitcher over there on
the table, and some soft cloths to wash down with.  If there's anything
else you be wanting, let one of us know the need and we'll try right hard
to get it for you."


He stood there for a moment more, possibly waiting for some reply from
Mulder.  When none was obviously forthcoming, he turned and walked toward
the door.  Just as he put his hand on the doorknob Mulder spoke out in 
a quiet, but deadly serious tone.


"If you ever touch her again Ethan - I'll kill you."


Mulder couldn't see Ethan's expression with his back turned toward the 
door, but he saw that his shoulders twitched ever so slightly.  He said
nothing though, as he opened the door and walked out of the room.


The noise of a wood bar bolt being lifted and locked into place soon 
followed his retreat.

*****

3:25 A.M. August 23rd
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


"Don't.  Please."


Mulder eyes snapped open.  He realized that he must have fallen asleep
at some point with his head resting back against the headboard.  He
leaned forward, as he kneaded his neck trying to rid himself of the aching
crick he had gotten from being in the same position for so long.


He looked down at Scully asleep in his arms, illuminated only by the dim
light provided by the old-fashioned coal-oil lamp.  She looked deathly
pale in the somber glow of the room.  Her cheeks were sallow and drawn.
Her eyes were still closed; but they were scrunched together tightly and
her brow was furrowed deeply.  She must have been talking in her sleep.
Dreaming.


"No more", she whimpered, stirring against him restlessly, as she began
to turn her head from side to side.  It was the fear he realized.  
Invading her sleep and stealing her much needed rest.


A nightmare.


"Scully?", he called to her softly.  He wanted nothing more than to break
the hold the nightmare had on her before it became too intense.  He was
afraid that she might hurt herself further by thrashing about.  But he
wanted to be careful and not wake her up too quickly.


"Oh...God.  It hurts", she said a little louder and with increasing 
anguish.  Mulder could judge by the rise and fall of her chest that her
breathing was beginning to become more rapid in response to the obvious
replay of the earlier events in her mind's scenario.  Her good hand rose
slightly in the air almost as if she was trying to ward off some imaginary
foe.  He grabbed it and held her hand tight against her chest.


"Scully?  Can you hear me?  Wake up", he called to her firmly, in a voice
just above a whisper.


She seemed to pause for a second as her eyes flickered.  The deepness in
the furrows of her brow lightened a measure.  She opened her eyes all
the way after a moment.  Slowly.  He could tell she was coming out of it
disoriented and confused.


"Scully, I'm here", he said as he squeezed her hand reassuringly.


"Mulder?", she questioned groggily, as his face hovering over her slowly
developed from a fuzzy focus into a clear picture.


He gave her a playful grin.  "You were expecting maybe the flukeman?"


She smiled softly at his attempt at humor, and then winced.


"Pain?"


"Some.  It's not bad though."  She caught his worried expression.  "I'm
fine Mulder."


Mulder relaxed inwardly at her words, the tension built over the last 
hours leaving his body at last.  This was just like the Scully he knew
so well, to cover up her misery with her casual 'I'm fine Mulder'.  It
spoke volumes to him about her recovering state of mind.


"Scully, I'm going to try moving off the bed for a minute.  Eve said if
you woke during the night with any pain that I should give you some of
her tea.  She said it has some kind of medicinal herb ingredients that
will help ease the pain.  I'll do my best not to cause you any more
discomfort."


It was only when Mulder made this statement that Scully even registered
the fact that she was still lying within him embrace.  The same place
they had last been when....She closed her eyes for a moment, not ready
yet to dredge up the jagged-edge memories of so recent an open wound and
pour salt into it with her reflections.  


She pulled her mind back to Mulder.  She colored slightly with an unex-
pected moment of pure contentment, thinking of him holding her in his
arms during the long and painful night.  She unconsciously equated the
thought with feelings of peace and safety.  She hoped he wouldn't see her
sudden flush in the shadows of the room.


Mulder carefully extracted himself, one leg at a time, as he released her
hand.  Then he lowered Scully's head ever so carefully from his lap down
to the bed, resting it comfortably on a pillow.  


Scully held her breath, refusing to utter a single sound in response to
the sharp stabs of pain issuing from her arm, caused by his slight move-
ments.  He had already done enough for her.  She didn't want to add to
the guilt she knew, without even having to ask him, that he was carrying.
He would probably be blaming himself for their predicament.  For all that
had happened since.  She would not contribute to his burden by succumbing
to the pain again now.


"Are you all right Scully?", he asked her when he had finally reached a
standing position by the bed.


"Hmm...Okay Mulder.  I'm fine."


He knew she was lying to him.  The way she bit her bottom lip and tightened
her hold on the quilt.  She was in pain.  She was just too stubborn to
admit it to him.


He picked up the tin cup filled with a thick liquid from the bedside 
table.  He put his hand out and slid it under Scully's head, lifting her
up slightly from the pillow.  He brought the cup up to her lips, as she
reached out and grabbed it with her other hand.  He noticed that her hand
was shaking lightly from the effort.  She coughed and sputtered at the
bitter taste of the brew, pushing it away from her after only one sip.


"Just a little more Scully", Mulder insisted.


She managed to get down a couple of more sips before turning her head 
away.


"That's enough."


He nodded, lowering her head slowly down to the bed and setting the cup
back on the table.  He came back around the other side of the bed, and
gently sat down next to her.  "Is there anything else you need Scully?
Are you warm enough?"


"I'm just tired."  She sighed deeply.  "And...I feel so weak", she said
trying to keep her eyes open, but it was becoming a losing battle.  She
turned her head on the pillow in his direction.  She looked at his half-
lowered head.  She could see he was wrestling with his own pain.  it was
there in his eyes.  The guilt.


"It wasn't your fault Mulder.  There was nothing you could have done", she
said quietly, reaching out her hand to cover his fingers.  He shook his
head sadly, as he squeezed her hand gently in return.  He hesitated for a
moment, wordlessly seeking her permission.  She nodded her head slightly,
and he moved over to lay down beside her again, shifting her carefully
so that she could rest her head on his shoulder.


She relaxed against him, surprising herself at how easy it had become in
the last hours to change her mindset from the years of a partner-platonic
relationship to suddenly lying here on a bed.  Having him so close and
intimate next to her.  


It was, of course, a not so completely unexpected reaction to the intense
trauma she had experienced.  She was just seeking comfort from him she 
told herself.  And it was only this same comfort that he was offering 
back to her in return.  Simple.  Nothing more.  She closed her eyes,
satisfied with her logical rationalizations to explain the feelings she
was experiencing.


They were both quiet for several minutes. Listening to the strange and un-
familiar night sounds of the woods. He thought she had even fallen asleep, 
but after a moment she spoke. 


"They're just children Mulder", she said softly, as her breathing began
to slow perceptibly, beginning to fall into that lulling pre-sleep pattern.


"They may be children Scully, but don't underestimate them.  You didn't
see them in action when they were searching us and our car, confiscating
our weapons.  They're armed and dangerous.  Don't let their years fool
you.  I think there's a lot more going on here than Ethan's willing to
let on.  He's got some kind of hidden agenda.  I just haven't figured
it out yet.  Tomorrow...."


He let his words trail off as he looked down at Scully.  She was fast
asleep.  He pulled the quilt up around her so that she was warmly 
covered.  Then he leaned back against what was becoming the all too
familiar hard wood of the headboard, trying to get comfortable.


'Tomorrow', he thought.  'Tomorrow we'll get some answers.'

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

7:35 A.M. August 23rd
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


"Eve", Ethan called out to her in a harsh voice.  "Get on in there and
fix that woman up with your sling.  Hurry on up now.  We've got a lot
to get on with today."


This was shaping up to be a worrisome day.  Ethan had woke up mad at the
world and ready to fight it square.  She knew what was ailing him too,
but none of her poultices or herbs could heal up his hurts for him.
That's cause they came from inside his own self.  


He was thinking on the man and the woman.  They were different, nowhere
near like all the ones that had come before them.  They didn't fuss and
whimper over their lot of being brought here.  They took the truth of
things and dealt with'em up front.  And they was strong of heart and
spirit.  Like the woman stepping right up to it last night, knowing the
pain that was coming and set ready for it anyways.


But this morning it was the man that was working at tearing Ethan's insides
out. Ethan had been so long used to folks jumping up quick when he said 
'git'. The man had pure hate showing plain in his eyes last night for Ethan,
and strong words too.  They had burned within Ethan's mind, she knew.  And
they had stayed on within him through the night and into this morning it
seemed.  His words.  His looks.  Ethan was plumb set on showing this man
the straight fact of the ways here.


Eve turned her mind's thinking back to the work at hand, as she picked up
a wooden tray from the table.  "I be set now Ethan."


Ethan pushed himself roughly back from the table, pulling out one of their
loaded shot guns from underneath it.  One of the other children rushed over
to pull back the bar bolt from the bedroom door, knocking on it hard twice
in warning.

*****

Mulder sat up straight in bed, coming out of a almost completely restless
half-sleep in response to the knocking.  He could hear the sounds of the
bolt being removed from outside the door.


Scully stirred beside him, woken by his movements.  She struggled to bring
herself up to a sitting position, ignoring his reproachful looks of protest.
Finally he gave up and reached out to help her up.


The door swung open as Eve stepped into the room just before Ethan.


Eve carried the tray as she moved over to set it down on the bedside table.
She picked up the tin cup left there from the previous night, taking care-
ful note of the level of liquid left in it.  Calculating quickly in her
mind how much the woman must have ingested, and if it would be enough to
provide her with the expected healing results.  She finally looked over to
the man and woman sitting silently close together on the bed.


She smiled, right pleased with the rosy color showing up in the woman's
cheeks this new day.  "Morning Ma'm", she said.  "You sure do surprise
me some I have to say.  Look at you, all woke up and sitting here now
like last night was only another time much like any other night.  I'm
sure glad too you was able to get some of that tea down into you.  I know
of the bitter taste.  But I fixed it up from the root bark from off the
wild black cherry plant, as it helps to soothe the nerves and calm the
spirit.  But you gotta be careful that you use it fresh or its power will
draw off.  I'll bet on you slept right nice after your sipping of it too.
It has the sleeping power in it as well."


She moved forward to lay her hands gently on Scully's arm, checking the
bandages. Then she removed a hand-fashioned sling made of burlap from her 
tray.  She pulled it over Scully's head, and helped her move her arm to
rest within its cradle.  Satisfied, she stepped back to admire her handy work.


"Later on I'll want to change the dressing off your arm, so I can rub it
down good with a poultice made up from witch hazel.  It works right well
to bring down swelling.  There's not so much swelling as there was before
but it's still far from normal sized as yet.  There be much pain troubling
you any now?"


"No, as a matter of fact there's hardly any pain anymore.  Unless I move
it too much.  And you're right, whatever ingredients you used in that tea,
wild black cherry plant did you say, put me right to sleep, and I'm 
feeling much better this morning.  Thank you Eve, for all your help."


"Oh you're right welcome.  I was pleasured to help you out.  I love to help
folks feel right again."  She smiled at Scully warmly.


"You have some amazing medical skills for someone so young", said Scully.
There was something about this girl.  She was obviously smart beyond her
years, and she had a natural bedside manner.  Scully felt connected to 
her on some level, as women, and with their shared love of medicine.
"Wherever did you pick up your knowledge of medicinal plants and herbs?"


"It was my Ma who started me out....", Eve began in answer to Scully's
innocent question, but was interrupted by Ethan's angry voice.


He stepped up next to the end of the bed, shot gun pointed slightly off to
the side.  His face was flushed with anger.


"Just cause we live here, away from your big city world, don't mean we
ain't any the less skilled in our ways of doing things", he fairly spit
at Scully.


Scully took in Ethan's anger with a deliberate patience.  He was a strange
and moody young man that was quite clear.  But there was more.  She knew.
Last night his words had been gentle when he had spoken to her of his
regret over having to hurt her in order to set her arm.  But there was
something else there as well.  Hiding.  Beneath the surface.  Something
going beyond the cover of his voiced apology.  Something she was positive
that Mulder hadn't picked up on yet.  It was no wonder though, because
he had been so engrossed with his worry over her these last hours.  Too
worried to see what was happening around them.  But she knew.  The same way
she knew that the sun would be setting this evening.  She knew.


Ethan had enjoyed what he had done to her last night.


She had seen it in his eyes.  First, when he had come into the room last
night and had seen that she was no longer unconscious.  She wasn't sure
then, thinking perhaps she had read his expression and body language in-
correctly.  But then later.  When he had a firm hold of her arm.  Getting
ready.  Asking her if she was ready.  Counting to three.  He was playing
it out.  Not for her sake.  But in answer to some inner and sadistic need.


She saw too.  His eyes glinting with half-disguised pleasure.  The deter-
mined set of his jaw.  The way his mouth had trembled with an almost
frantic anticipation, just before he had pulled back hard on her arm.  It
had scared her seeing the depths of violence in his eyes.  It was then she
had closed her eyes.  Only then.  


He had wanted to hurt her, and he had loved every minute of it.  


Finally, when it was over.  When she was climbing the walls from the
cataclysmic pain, just before she had all but passed out. She had struggled
to come out of it just long enough to focus on his face for one second.  And
then she knew for sure that she had been right.  He did have regrets.  But 
his regrets weren't for her.


His only regrets were that it all had been over so soon.


Pushing these disturbing thoughts to the back of her mind, she addressed
his anger with a calm serenity.  "Ethan, I meant no disrespect to Eve.
In fact, I was complimenting her.  She's a very intelligent and talented 
girl."


He stared back at the woman fiercely.  Hate and fire burning in his belly.
These two.  They had thoughts they were better than him and his. He would 
have to bring them down a peg or two.  They still were playing with rules 
from the outside world.  But things were different here.  He smiled. He had
broken better lot than them before.  


"Eve, if she's feeling so spry, take her on out and get her taught on
helping you with the chores.  There's plenty enough work around here for more
womenfolk."


Mulder stood up.  "Ethan, it's too soon.  She needs rest."


"No Mulder", said Scully, throwing back the quilt.  "I'm fine."  She stood
up on shaky feet, with a stubborn set to her features.  Eve came over to
her hooking an arm around her waist. 


Mulder watched them as together they started to walk from the room.  And he
wasn't the only one.  Something about him and Scully was setting Ethan on 
edge. Mulder could tell by the way he studied Scully and Eve as they passed
him on the way out.  Mulder was quite sure Ethan had never met a woman 
quite as strong willed and capable as Scully.


Finally Ethan turned his attention back to Mulder.  "And you city man.
It's now on time we dirtied up those city bred hands of yours with some
real work.  Come on with me now.  The day's started late, but get used
to the fact from here on in.  You and your wife will be rising before the
sun's up and working clear on into the dark of night.  The wood's here be
a hard life.  Everyone's got to pull their weight of things.  Forget your
ways before now.  That life is over now.  This one's just begun."

*******************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES III: FACING TRUTHS
*******************************************

"Ma?"  "Ma?"

Scully turned around from the table where she was helping Eve prepare the
evening meal.  Emily stood there tugging on her skirt.  She held out her
stuffed bunny 'Widgit'.  His stuffing was falling out again and she wanted
Scully to help her push it all back into his well worn hide.  Scully took
the obviously well loved toy into her hands and set to work on it.  Her
mind wandered, as it did so often lately.  A way for her to escape from
her everyday reality.  She looked down at Emily, as she twirled around
and around in front of her, laughing out loud at the dizzying feeling it
produced.  


Funny, she thought, how she still had trouble with that word - 'Ma'.  
Would she ever get used to it.  Everyone else called her Scully, she had
insisted.  But little Emily had took hold of the word almost from the
first day, and just refused to let go of it.  Emily, along with Eve, held
special places in Scully's heart.  When she had first woken up into this
strange world so very long ago it seemed now, Mulder had told her that
the little girl who had walked in front of their car, causing their
accident, had done it deliberately.  That little girl had been Emily.
Scully had a hard time believing it at the time.  But now that she
knew Emily so well, it didn't surprise her a bit.  Poor Emily.  She
would never really grow up.  Her body would age with the inevitable time,
but her mind would always stay seven years old.  She lived in her own
little world, Emily did.  Sometimes, how Scully envied her that freedom.
She finished her task, patting  ole' 'Widgit' on the head for good 
measure before handing him back to Emily's eagerly awaiting hands.  
"Thanks Ma!", Emily cried, jumping up to wrap her tiny arms around 
Scully's neck.  Scully hugged her back tightly, and then shooed her 
away to play.


Eve called to her from across the room.  "Scully, you best go fix your
tea afore the rest of them get here.  They be back right soon."  Scully
nodded her head, and moved off to prepare the ingredients of her 'special
tea'.  After the first couple of weeks she and Mulder had been imprisoned
here, Eve had pulled her aside quietly into a corner.  She told her that
she had something special for Scully.  'Something to stop the babies
from coming until she and her husband was right ready for them'.  It
took a minute for Scully's mind to kick in that Eve was talking about
contraceptives.  She had handed her a box holding an assorted selection
of bits of plants and herbs.  Eve had gone on, carefully pulling out each
one, naming it for Scully, and explaining how they were prepared for 
consumption.  'Rag leaf Bahia, Indian Paintbrush, Dogbane, Milkweed, False
Solomon's Seal', and several others Scully couldn't remember the names
of now.  She had almost blushed when she realized that she was being
schooled in the art of 'medicinal plant' birth control, by a fifteen 
year old child.  And that Eve assumed Mulder would be the father of any
babies she would ever give birth to.  She had thanked Eve for her con-
sideration of her 'plight'.  She and Mulder had discussed the fact later
that they had to project the image to these people that they were a
normal, happily married couple.  Which meant making Eve believe that
they were doing the things that normal, happily married couples do.  
But it had to be more convincing than just having Scully taking the
contraceptives Eve had offered to her.  It also included showing public
displays of affection towards each other as well.


>From the first day Ethan and the rest had made the assumption that 
Mulder and Scully were married.  Mulder had never corrected them the
first time it had surfaced at the scene of their car accident.  And
later he had tried using this assumed relationship as a ploy, in hopes
of getting through to Ethan that Scully was his responsibility, and
Ethan did not have his permission to touch her when he made to set
her broken arm.  It hadn't worked of course.  Later, as time passed,
they had decided that if Ethan and his family ever knew they weren't
actually married, they would probably separate them from the bedroom
they shared.  Good old-fashioned morals coming into play, in that 
they had become convinced that the Wilstead family would not take
kindly to Mulder and Scully 'living in sin' under their roof.  They
couldn't risk the chance because they needed the short time they
were allowed to actually be alone together each night.  To discuss
plans of escape.  To let down their defenses for a short time.  They
barely saw each other during the day because Ethan forced Mulder
along with him to 'chore' at the crack of dawn.  Mulder, Ethan and
most of the boys would be gone for the entire day, and sometimes way
past dark as well.  Scully was left back at the cabin each day, involved
in her 'choring' as well, guarded by shot gun from one or the other
of the boys each day.  It was a way, they knew, of keeping Mulder and
Scully in check.  Both of them knew that if one tried to make a run for 
escape the other would be left behind to suffer the consequences.
Neither one ever considered the option though, as they refused to
put the other in jeopardy.


Scully continued with her musings as she went about gathering her
'special tea' preparations.  Heating the water.  Grinding the ingred-
ients.  Taking out a cup and a piece of cheesecloth to strain the tea
once it was ready.  She thought back on the first few days here with
the Wilstead family.  It had been well past sunset before Ethan and
Mulder returned the first time.  Scully had been sitting up in bed,
trying not to worry about him.  Ethan had been so angry at them that
day.  She half expected him to return without Mulder.  Ethan was
capable of muder, she had no doubt on that subject.  The thought of
Mulder dead, lying out there somewhere in the woods where he would 
never be found again had frightened her down to her very core.



Later that night when the door was finally unlocked and Mulder was
pushed roughly through it from behind, she barely recognized him for
a second.  Her eyes widened and her breath quickened as she rushed
over to him.  The bolt was immediately locked back into place behind
him.  She reached him just as his knees gave way.  She followed him
down to the floor, wishing she was able to put both arms around him.
She had to settle for one though, as the other was hanging in its
sling, cushioned between their bodies.  His head hung low and she 
had to lift his chin to get a good look at him.  His face was covered
with dried sweat and dirt.  His clothes were torn and filthy.  But
it was his hands that really shocked her.  They were covered with
angry red blisters, and embedded dirt.  From the looks of things he
had come as close to being worked to death as a person was liable to
get.  


Somehow she managed to get him over to the bed.  She spent the next
few hours tugging off his shirt, and washing him down as best she
could with one hand.  He had fallen asleep almost the first second his
head had hit the pillow.  Later, finally convinced she had done all 
she could to ease his pain she had laid down beside him, cradling his
head in her lap.  Her turn now to minister to his wounds.  This ritual
repeated itself again and again for many days that followed.  Ethan
was trying his best to break Mulder's spirit and will.  Mulder refused
to kowtow to Ethan's less than subtle torture.  Each night he would
return to her physically exhausted and mentally fatigued.  She did her
best to soothe both damaged realms.  She wasn't sure when exactly it had
happened, but Mulder finally built up a tolerance for the grueling, and
back-breaking work he was forced to do each day.  His blisters hardened
eventually into calluses.  His muscles firmed.  His internal clock 
attuned itself for the early morning to late evening schedule of work
so that he was able to stay awake for longer periods of time after he
was returned each night.


Her part had been no picnic either.  Eve was patient with her, and she
caught on quickly.  But it was the monotony of the work that wore her
down.  She was used to a life of applying her intelligence and instincts
developed from her many years associated with the FBI, as well as her
medical training.  Her world used to consist of mental stimulation and
using her skills as an agent, and a doctor, to route out clues and 
solve cases.  Now it was just following a schedule, endless and tiring
work, and living with an almost abject boredom.  She wasn't meant to
be tied down by routine.  Neither was Mulder.  And both were suffering
from the increasing strain.  There were moments of course, when they
were actually able to forget their circumstances for a minute and share
a laugh.  She smiled now.  Like the time Mulder had come back one night.
She could tell by the way he had this mischievous grin plastered on
his face as he had walked into the door that he was up to something.
Later that night he stood before her with both hands behind his back.


"Scully, I have a present for you.  Can you guess what it is?", he asked
her.


"A schematic of the woods, complete with an escape route drawn in blood
and a teaspoon to dig the tunnel with?, she had dead panned back at him.


"Nope", he said as he produced a rather large rounded pine cone from 
behind his back with a theatrical flourish.


"Oh, a pine cone.  Well, that would have been my second guess."


He had gone on to explain that the pine cone was for her arm.  To 
strengthen it with isometric exercises.  He had instructed her to raise
her right arm.  Which was no small feat in that it had still nowhere
near reached the level of 100% usefulness that it had once possessed.
She had struggled for a moment trying to get her uncooperative arm to
lift from her side to eye level, refusing to resort to a manual method
of using her other arm to help her lift it.  Mulder finally got tired
of watching the battle of wills in response to her frustration over
the slow healing process of her broken arm.  He came up behind her,
slipping his own hand underneath her arm, raising it to the desired
position using his strength as her leverage.


"That's cheating Mulder", she had told him playfully, using her other
elbow to nudge him in the ribs as he stood behind her.


"Yeah well, I don't have all night you know.  I've got me some pigs to
slop and cows to milk come the morning light.  The wood needs chopping.
The roof could stand some patching.  And don't even get me started on
the drainage ditch I have to dig for the outhouse."


She laughed, as he placed the pine cone in her outstretched hand, resting
atop his own.  "Okay now.  You need to work on building up the strength
of that arm.  Squeeze it as hard as you can."


Scully nodded, as she squeezed with all her power.  The hand barely
closed around the shape of the pine cone.  She relaxed her fingers and
tried again.  Repeating the exercise until a fine layer of sweat 
began to break out on her forehead.  It had fast become a ritual for
her now.  The exercise.  They knew they would both need to keep in top
physical condition for the day when they could risk their escape from
the nightmare that had enclosed their lives for so long now.


Yes, she thought, they did still have moments of laughter, but they were
becoming fewer and further between as more time passed.  The first 
marker of time, an unconscious anniversary of sorts, had been when they 
could stop counting the days of their confinement on their fingers. After
that they made a point of not counting.  It was easier to lose track
of the passing time.  Because each passing day.  Each passing minute.
Each passing second.  All those measures of time, now only served as
reminders that another day of their lives was forever lost to them.  
Another day they would never be able to recover.


Scully poured the boiling water from the fireplace kettle carefully 
into the cup, straining the pulverized ingredients though the cheese-
cloth, just the way Eve had taught her.  'Her special tea'.  That was
another good laugh they had shared.  Back when they still believed with
a fierce devotion that they would find a way back home.  That they
would be searched for and found, and finally set free from their prison
any day.  But when each of their plans for escape had failed and no 
one ever came, and time marched endlessly on, they silently and indivi-
dually began to lose hope.  


Then the unthinkable started to happen.  At least it was something 
Scully had never believed would manifest itself, but it had, as their
relationship had slowly, and perceptibly begun to change.  it was
moving from the serious and professional business partnership and
friendship that they had always shared into something different.  She
didn't know what to call it now.  Neither did he, she was sure.  But
it was there in the air between them.  Their public displays of 
affection, which they had agreed would have to be shown in order to
cover the fact that they had not revealed the truth about their marital
status, were in part to blame for it she guessed.  Each day now when
Mulder returned from his daily trek she would approach him or he would
come to her.  At first, it had been agonizingly awkward for them both.
A forced display.  There was nothing behind their actions except self-
preservation.  


The first time his lips had touched hers there was nothing romantic
about it.  It was just a friendly kiss, only lengthened for effect.
It was probably the most platonic kiss she had ever given or received
in return.  But it had its desired effect on the Wilstead family as
they watched them playing out their little performance for their bene-
fit.  It was just another ritual she had told herself.  Another 
monotony in her new life.  Put on the list of things to do - kiss 
Mulder hello, and then checked off when completed.


Somewhere it had changed.  She couldn't pinpoint exactly when it had
happened - kiss #12, or maybe kiss #26.  She didn't know.  But it *had*
changed.  She did know that.  When had she started looking forward to
the kiss each day she wondered now.  When had he started to move his
hands to her hips, pulling her close.  When had she started to entwine
her fingers in his hair, bringing his head down to her in anticipation.
When had they both not wanted to stop at just the one kiss each day.



She sighed, returning the kettle to the fireplace rod.  She lifted the
steaming cup to her lips.  Then there was the 'special tea'.  She knew
that was a part of it as well.  The fact that they could if they wanted
to, without the fear of bringing a child into this nightmare life along
with them.  But they still held back.  Afraid to cross this last barrier
because of what it would mean for them both.  It would signal defeat.
It would be acknowledging that they were giving up on ever finding their
way back home.  Of ever returning to their normal life in the outside
world.  of ever reverting back to their platonic/friendship/partner
relationship that had been more than enough for them in that other
world.  And even if they did decide to carry over their new found close-
ness when they returned.  If they returned.  God, how she didn't want
to think of their first time being here.  If it should ever happen,
the memory should be special for them both, to be carried in their
hearts forever.  There was nothing special here.  Nothing she ever 
wanted to remember.  It stirred little in her that she would want to
associate with her growing feelings for Mulder.  Here there was only
pain.  Only fear.  Only overwhelming hopelessness.


Only the hate that emanated from Ethan for them both.  The way he drove
Mulder down into the ground everyday with his demanding schedule of
work.  The way he took pleasure in having her serve him his meals or
clean up after him.  They hated being subservient to him and he knew
it.  He reveled in his power over them.  She still had never mentioned
to Mulder about her observations into the warped mind of Ethan Wilstead.
Her knowledge of the fact that he had immensely enjoyed inflicting
his sadistic pain on her their first night here.  She was afraid of
what Mulder would do with that information.  He and Ethan seemed set
on playing a game of one up man ship in testing each other's wills.
Everything that Ethan dished out for him Mulder followed through with
a home run effort, when a single would have fit just as well, and would
have saved them both a lot of time and sweat in the process.  They
were like high schools rivals sometimes.  It would be funny in another
setting.  A friendly competition between nemesis's.  But Ethan was a
very dangerous man.  It wasn't smart to engage him in games.  She no
longer thought of Ethan as a boy anymore.  There was nothing remotely
childish about him.  He possessed no innocence.  Sometimes she wondered
if he ever had.

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


She and Mulder had spent many nights lying in their darkened room dis-
cussing Ethan.  What his real motivations were for bringing them here.
His first night explanations that they had been brought here to fill in 
for the missing elements of parents to the children just wasn't fitting 
into the picture of all that had transpired since.  For one thing, Ethan
constantly went out of his way to belittle them in front of his brothers
and sisters.  Telling them not to listen to their 'big city ways', as
they were wrong and evil.  He had nearly exploded with rage when he
had found out that Scully had been secretly teaching Eve to read.  He
had taken the few books that Scully had found in the cabin, which she
had been using to teach Eve with, and thrown them into the fireplace.
Scully would never forget Eve's stricken face as she watched the books
burn.  Eve had just recently gotten a glimpse of the world waiting for
her there in the words.  She had just been beginning to grasp what
reading was all about.  And now it was gone, figuratively and literately
in a puff of smoke.  It was obvious to them that Ethan wasn't interested
in having them teach the children anything.  He would never relinquish
the power he relished so much, knowing he was the king of all he sur-
veyed.  Even if the subjects of his kingdom were a captive one.  Scully
thought back on the conversation she and Mulder had that same night.


"Eve told me there have been five other people taken and brought here
before us", said Scully, looking up at the shadows of the trees playing
in the wind, as they danced across the ceiling in the soft light issuing
from the window.  She could also make out the outlines of the boards
nailed into place on the windows as well.


"One committed suicide", came Mulder's disembodied voice from next to
her on the bed.


"Yes", she said, turning onto her side, trying to make out his form in
the subdued light.


"And the others?"


"She won't tell me exactly.  Just that they tried to run away and were
never heard from again.  I think she's holding something back from me.
Something she's too scared to share right now.  I'll keep trying."


She could see his shadow head nodding in agreement to her plans.  They
were both silent for a few minutes, as they treasured these times.  The
quiet.  It was hard to find quiet anymore what with living in a cramped
cabin, eleven people strong.  But it was more than that.  Once they
crossed this threshold into this room.  Their room.  Only then could they
truly be themselves.  They could talk to each other without wondering
if the rest of the inhabitant's would be monitoring their conversation,
making assessments on whether 'that' sentence, or 'this' intonation
would be one used from a husband to a wife, and vice versa.  In this
room, and this room only, normalcy resided.


"Scully?"


"Hmmm?"


"Do you think Ethan killed those other people?"


"Yes."


"You answered that question pretty fast", he said, propping himself up
on an elbow to face her direction in the dark.  He could see in outline
that she had her hands tucked under her cheek, angel prayer fashion.


"I've had more than enough time to formulate my opinions about Ethan.
He....", she paused.


"What?"


"Nothing."  She was going to tell him about that first night.  Her pain,
Ethan's pleasure.  She had started a dozen different times, but something
stopped her each time.  Mulder could be very rash and impulsive when it
came to protecting her against anything threatening her in any way.  He
wasn't known for his prudence.  If he knew or even suspected that Ethan
had gone out of his way to induce and prolong her suffering, she didn't
want to think of what he might do.  And more than likely his lack of
judgement would only succeed in getting himself killed.  


Maybe it was a selfish desire, but she was sure she would have gone com-
pletely mad a long time ago if it weren't for the fact that Mulder was
caught up in this insanity along with her.  It was her only saving grace.
Her only real reason for living anymore.  And a part of her knew she was
his as well.


Mulder reached out in the dark and placed his hand next to her cheek.
She closed her eyes savoring the feeling of his warm palm next to her
skin.  "You can tell me Scully.  I know there's something you haven't
been telling me.  What is it?"


Scully took her own hand and placed it over his.  "He scares me Mulder.
I don't think there's anything he isn't capable of doing.  And that 
includes murder.  Yes, I think he killed those people, all of them.
They're probably buried out in the woods somewhere right now."


Mulder moved closer to her in the dark, as Scully shifted herself to
accommodate his body.  He gathered her close in his arms.  They had
spent many such nights lately, wrapped together in this way.  Seeking
comfort from each other.  Where else were they to find it?  This was
their only sanctuary.  Each other.  She felt his lips kissing the top
of her head.  She ran her hand down his back, feeling the strong expanse
of the muscles that had built up over the long and grueling weeks.  She
closed her eyes, knowing that tonight at least she was safe from the
nightmares that had been plaguing her sleep so much recently.  That was 
all she could expect anymore.  One night.  Just one night free from the
pain.


Scully's returned to the present as Eve came up behind her.  "Penny for
your thoughts?"


"You're bidding on the high side there Eve.  They're not worth that 
much."  Scully finished the last dregs of her 'special tea'.  Then took
the cup over to wash in the old-fashioned water pump sink.  Scully could
hear Emily outside playing an imaginary game of hide and seek with her-
self.  "One, Six, Ten, Twenty-five, Three", she called out the numbers in
the order that they were assigned in her universe.  "Ready or not I'm
coming.  Right now.  I'm coming."  Scully smiled.  This strange family
covered all the bases she couldn't help but think.  From Ethan's dementia,
to Emily's innocence.  The one's in between she had assigned similar 
titles to as she had gotten to know each one in turn in the long days of
confinement.  Earnest was the provider.  He made sure there was food on 
their table, and clothes on their backs.  Edgar was the musician.  He had 
a beat up old guitar that he played sometimes, singing along in his strong
and clear voice.  Eve was her dear friend and a gifted healer.  She was 
the core of the family.  She held them together.  Eloise was the tomboy.
Running after the boys trying to keep up with their games.  She reminded
Scully of herself as a child.  Emmet was the clown.  Full of mischief
and fun.  Evangaline was the shy one.  Afraid of her own shadow.  Locked
inside her self made shell.  Evan was the dreamer. The one most likely
to forget his own head if it wasn't attached to his neck. They were all
special children, except for Ethan.  They deserved better than what they
were getting.  Mulder and Scully didn't want to be here.  They didn't
love them the way parents should love children.  They weren't their
parents.  


Scully caught her reflection in the window.  Her hair had grown out some 
and she currently had it pulled back into a ponytail.  Her smart business
suits and taylored blouses had been replaced by thin cotton dresses that
reached down to her knees.  She was barefoot.  A sensation she still was
trying to get used to.  Ethan had taken their shoes and burned them.  
Another measure to ensure it would be that much harder for them to run
away.  She knew without her customary make-up she barely looked older than
Eve.  Mulder's face had become covered with facial hair.  Not quite a 
beard, but close.  It had taken her awhile to adjust to the scratchiness
of his stubble next to her face during their nightly kiss ritual.  His
suits and ties had been replaced with overalls.  The first time she had 
seen him in them she had burst out laughing.  She smiled now slightly 
bringing the picture to her mind.  There hadn't been much lately that had
moved her to laughter.  It was hard to laugh when you moved methodically
from one sorrow to the next.  She closed her eyes, feeling the tears 
begin to fill up behind the lids.  It was becoming so hard to hold on
to hope.  God how she just wanted to turn around and walk out that door.
She missed the simple freedoms of her other life.  Being allowed to sleep
late.  Driving a car.  Reading a book.  Most days she steered away from
these kind of reflections.  It was too painful.  And it only served to 
deepen her depression.  But sometimes it was impossible. Her head lowered,
as the first tear slipped out.


Then she felt his hands slipping around her waist from behind.  She hadn't
heard their return. She turned into his body wrapping her arms around his 
neck tightly.  He held her close.  "Bad day?"  She nodded, as she suddenly
realized how normal those words would have been in their other world.  If 
they had really been married.  If he was really returning to their home 
after work, and had found her crying over the sink.  In that world it would 
all fit. But in this world it only meant one thing - today the pain had 
taken its toll again.  Today Ethan and his torture had won out over her
perseverance.  Today Ethan had won, and she had lost.  She wasn't actually
keeping score, but she knew he was gaining on her.  She gave way to the
tears as he held her body.


*****************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES IV: BROKEN HEARTS
*****************************************


1:55 A.M. December 16th
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Scully turned over restlessly in her sleep, as her hand automatically
reached out, seeking Mulder's warm familiar form beside her.  Her fingers
traced lazy patterns in the wrinkles of the sheets before she realized
that he wasn't there to fill them.  She sat up looking for him in the
darkened room.  As her eyes slowly adjusted to the enveloping night, she
was just able to make him out, sitting on the floor very still next to
the window.  She threw her legs over the side of the bed, dragging the
heavy quilt behind her as she moved to join him.  She shivered violently
against the biting chill.  Her bare feet felt like blocks of ice as she
crossed the room.  How things had changed she couldn't help thinking.
It hadn't been all that long ago when she had been so sure that nothing
could rival the misery of the blistering heat and humidity of the long
and hot summer days.  But now that winter was settling in she was fast
coming to the conclusion that there was indeed some things worse than
the heat.


"It's cold Mulder" she said softly as she came up behind him, wrapping
the quilt around his shoulders.  He said nothing, instead he reached up
to her taking her hand, guiding her down to sit on the floor next to 
him.  He extended the cover of the blanket's warmth to include her body
as well.  She followed the path of his gaze to the window, knowing ahead
of time what she would see there.  The moon.  A small sliver slice of
the moon anyway.  A tiny fraction of lunar brightness peeking through
a crack from one of the pine boards criss-crossed in front of the window.
It had always reminded her of a dandelion stubbornly growing half-hazard
through a crack in the sidewalk.  Defeating the odds.  Refusing to be
kept from its destiny.  Much like the moon's destiny was to shine, 
whether or not Ethan tried to keep it from them.  It was a tiny view, but
their only untainted access to the outside world.  They sat together 
in silence this way for many minutes.  Watching.  Hoping.  Wishing.  All
they myriad kinds of reflections that are saved only for moonlit nights.


"Have you ever noticed how short the nights seem here?", he spoke 
quietly, almost reverently.


"And the days are endless", she added, comfortably finishing his sentence
for him.


He nodded, returning to his thoughts.  A part of him just now realizing
that he was trying to lengthen the shortness of the night by his sheer
will and stubborn refusal to sleep the short hours away.


"In the beginning, I used to think it was just me.  That the days only
seemed long because I am hardly ever allowed to go outside.  I miss the
feel of the sun on my face."  She unconsciously lifted her head towards
the window, seeming to strain, searching for the lost rays of the sun
that had been stolen from her for so long now.


He marveled once again at the complexities of this woman.  She never
ceased to amaze him.  They were so opposite, yet still so much a part of
each other that sometimes the depths of his feelings for her scared him.
Here he was pining for the quiet nights, while she was aching for the 
warmth of the sun.  He looked at her closely for a moment, touching
her cheek lightly, taking his time as he made a careful inventory of her
face.  The way her hair had grown, touching just below her shoulders
now.  The angles of her face.  The sadness of her eyes.  


"You've gotten so pale Scully", he said at last.


"I've always been pale Mulder", she breathed against his hand warmly.


He smiled slightly, dropping his hand from her face, leaving it to rest
in her lap.  "Maybe I just never bothered to notice before then.  But
you're even more pale now.  It's a different kind of pale somehow."


They let the word hang between them heavily.  Different.  A little word,
but it spoke volumes about their lives now.  Different.  Their thoughts.
Their relationship.  Everything was different now.


"I wish I could give you the sun Scully", he said after awhile in a
solemn seriousness.


She leaned her head on his shoulder.  "I know Mulder.  I know."


Their silence filled the room with its weight.  Then finally.


"Do you remember the song 'Killing Me Softly' by Roberta Flack?", he 
asked her, as he quietly hummed a few bars off key.  "It's been going
through my head for hours now.


She nodded her head, smiling at his impromptu serenade.  "I know the
song."


He turned his face away from her looking back at the moon before speak-
ing.  "He's killing us softly, Scully.  Slowly.  I don't know how long
it will take to finish us off.  But he's killing us softly."


"Only if we let him Mulder", she said as she reached out and turned his
face towards her, memorizing it, looking for the answers to her ques-
tions, reading the subtle lines of anguish that had only been added
recently.  "What brought this on Mulder?  Did you have a nightmare?"


"No", he said lowering his head for a moment.  "I don't have to go to
sleep anymore to find my demons.  They never go away now.  They've found
a way to bridge the gap between their world and ours."  He leaned
forward, touching his forehead to hers.  "I only have one unrealized
fear left now", he said in a voice barely above a whisper.


"What's that?", she asked, running her fingers lightly through his hair.


"That Ethan will take you away from me."


She smiled as she stood up, taking his hands in hers, pulling him from
the floor.  "I'm not going anywhere, not tonight anyway.  Come on Mulder.
It's cold.  It's late.  I'm tired.  let's go to bed."


He stood up with her taking the blanket and wrapping it around her
shoulders.  She faced him as he began walking her backwards towards the
bed.


"Agent Scully, I'm shocked.  What would Skinner say to such an indecent
proposition?", he asked her in a playful tone.  


When her knees reached the edge of the bed, they folded and she dropped
across the expanse of the mattress, pulling Mulder down onto it with her.
She laughed softly, feeling his weight settle atop her body.  Welcoming
his warmth, covering her like another blanket against the cold of the
night.  But still not able to stop wondering when the strangeness of it 
all would wear off.


"The hell with Skinner", she said.  "He has no power in this world."
She reached up with her hand moving a lock of dark hair away from his
eyes.  "No power here, just like us."  


Her words were bold and brazen on the outside, but she was still trying 
to get used to all this inside.  She and Mulder, together each night.
Moving ever closer each minute.  Together in spirit, as they had always
been, but now matching that closeness more and more intimately each
passing day with their bodies and hearts.  They had slipped only recent-
ly, almost quietly, like the turning of a page in a riveting book from
one chapter to the next, into this higher level of their relationship.
Closer, but still not quite all the way.  Yet still undeniably closer.
Just holding each other during the night had stopped being enough for
them one day.  And they had simply moved on.  Too little comfort spread 
too thin trying to cover all the dark corners of their painful world.  
Comfort had now transformed itself into a greedy monster that kept
demanding more and more of them before it would be sated.


Mulder's face turn serious as he leaned his head close, just touching
his lips to her, looking deep into her eyes before closing his own as
he pressed against her lips with a deepening kiss.  Scully's body 
immediately responded to the kiss, as its tender and hungry effects 
began to spread warmth into every region.  So different from that first
platonic kiss he had given her so many months ago now.  Different.
There was that word again.  But this different was good she thought,
as her heart began to flutter like it always did when he kissed her this
way.  But sometimes secretly she couldn't help but wonder.  If she had
been given a choice in the beginning.  If she had been forced to choose
between living in this nightmare world, but allowed her and Mulder's
growing closeness, or staying in their other world with only the 
platonic/friendship level they had shared before.  Which would she
choose?  Which would he choose?  The road taken, traveled and familiar
to them leading through to all the carefully safe mapped locations and
landmarks of their past, without any surprises along the way?  Or the
road less traveled and new, offering possibilities of never before
explored territories and emotions?  Security or Possibilities?  
Friendship or Love?


He began moving his hands down and over the length of her body, as she
shivered against the feel of his touch.  Her own hand found its way 
inside his shirt, as she ran her fingers across the skin of his chest.
She loved the feel emanating through the heat of his skin, and the
resonant thumping beat of his heart pounding through her fingertips.
She returned his kiss with a fervent passion.  But as always their
combined desires heated up and moved things along too quickly.  Their
hunger, their need to transcend the boundaries of this world, manifest-
ing itself into an almost uncontrollable demand before they had barely
begun.  She could feel his need burning and growing with an urgent
insistence between them, and hers rushing to match its pace.  He groaned
quietly, breathing hard, as he buried his face against her neck, her
arms wrapped tightly around his waist.  Then with a mutual, but unspoken
agreement he pulled back, away from her, moving to lay down against
his pillow.  After a moment she lay down on her pillow next to him
with her front to his back.  Not touching.  Waiting for their breathing
to return to normal.  Controlling their desires.  It wasn't time.  Not
yet.  Not tonight.  But soon.  They knew.  It would be soon.  


After many long minutes he turned back to face her, under control now.
He pulled the quilt tight around them, holding her in his arms securely
as they slept peacefully through the last few waning hours of the 
night that were still left to them.


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

2:45 P.M. December 16th
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Scully was bent over the fireplace stirring a concoction of Eve's design.
Some kind of mush that she was sure she was better off not being privy
to the list of ingredients it contained.  Suddenly the door burst open.
Earnest, who had pulled guard duty over Scully this day immediately 
jumped from his perch in a chair across the room pointing the shot gun
in her direction.  It took him a moment to realize that the commotion
was not of Scully's making.


Ethan rushed into the room carrying the limp body of Emily.  Eve and
Scully raced over to him as he placed her rag doll slack body on a cot
near the fireplace.  Scully could see that her clothes were soaking wet,
and her lips had turned a bluish-gray color.  She was breathing though.
"Scully", Eve called out to her sharply.  "Get on to work heating up
the water til' it's boiling to the touch.  Go on now."  Scully turned
quickly, grabbing the kettle in one motion, as she took it over to the
sink and started priming the pump impatiently.


"What sorry did she come upon here Ethan?", Eve asked him, kneeling down
next to her little sister as she began working on removing her sodden
clothes.  She struggled with the knot on the ever present tether tied
to her waist, holding her beloved 'Widgit' in place.  She rolled Emily
over on her side just long enough to free the stuffed bunny from around
her waist.  He was dripping wet with the freezing water.  Eve tossed
him over her shoulders.  The toy landed close to Scully's feet who was
now standing next to the fireplace just putting the water on to boil.
She picked him up quietly.  She rubbed her hands over his worn stuffing
and wet material before laying him on the hearth to dry out, knowing
that Emily would want him back as soon as she was awake.


Ethan ran his hands through his hair frantically, looking as close to
attaining a human emotion other than his standard range of anger and
hate as Scully had ever seen.  He loved this child.  She had never 
doubted that fact.  They all loved this child.  Kin and captive alike.
United together only by the innocence of a child.


"She was off make-believing in the woods like she always plays at.  
Next thing I know I hear her a crying loud and miserable like.  When
I set off after her sounds, I come on her in the creek.  She must of
been playing on the stones, and just slipped right off."


"Did you pull the water on out of her, up through the stomach with 
your hands Ethan, like I showed you?"


He nodded quickly.


"Did you see the water come bubble on out of her mouth?"


"Yes.  Yes.  I did, and she spit up a whole bucket full of it too.  But
she wouldn't answer me any when I called out to her afters.  She was
cold.  So cold Eve.  I run her back here right after that."


Eve stood up.  "Scully work on getting the rest of her clothes off of
her quick like.  Then dry her down right good with the cloths.  After
that dress her up warm, clear up to her neck and back, and cover her
warm deep with the blankets.  I'm going to set on mixing up a poultice
brew for her, to draw out the heavy mucus."


Scully nodded and set to work.


"Ethan, go on and stoke the fire til' it burns up the night sky.  It'll
need to be plenty warming for her for sure tonight, maybe straight on
into the next night and beyond.  Don't let it burn down none.  You make
sure on that Ethan.  Don't let it burn down."


Scully sat down next to Emily on the cot, as she started removing the
child's wet clothing.  She couldn't help but wince as she came in contact
with the iciness of her skin.  She estimated that her body temperature
had fallen by dangerous degrees.  She would be susceptible to hypothermia,
pneumonia, and several other possibilities that were competing for a
place of honor in her mind now.  She dropped the dress the child had 
been wearing on the floor, picking up the toweling Eve had put out on
the table next to her.  She worked quickly, drying off Emily's skin.
Putting on heavy dry clothes.  Bundling her up with blankets.  


Finally with her tasks completed, she lowered her head to Emily's chest,
trying to use her ears as a make-shift stethoscope.  She frowned.  Even
without the enhanced auditory aid she could hear the rattle in Emily's
chest.  Meaning only one thing.  Fluid in her lungs.  She used her
vision as well to help in her diagnosis.  She watched Emily's chest
rise with a ragged pull.  A struggle attached to every breath.  She
caught the faint whistling and rattling echo which followed these
efforts as well.  Finally, she placed her palm against her brow.  Fever.
A high fever. So soon too.  All of these observations added up to an
increasingly bad feeling in Scully's stomach.  This child needed the
attention of a well-staffed modern hospital if there were to be any
hopes of saving her life.


She looked over to Eve standing at the table.  She was flustered.  
Obviously over her head on this one.  Trying desperately to match the
right herb or plant to Emily's symptoms, as Scully could almost hear
her mind turning over each possibility - dismissing that one, consider-
ing this one.  But time was not on their side here.  She turned back
to the child.  She hadn't stirred.  The bluish-gray color against her
lips still remained.  Scully had never felt so helpless in her life.
She was a doctor, but there was nothing she could do.  Not without
the proper facilities and medicine.  She stood.  There was only one
other possibility.  She had to try.


Ethan stood next to the fireplace.  Trying in vain to stuff one more
log into the already jammed packed roaring fire.  She knew he had heard
her approach, but he continued to ignore her.


She spoke to his back, refusing to be put off.  "Ethan, listen to me
please.  Your sister's life is at stake here.  She needs to be taken
to a hospital before...."


"No", he interrupted her, not loud, but final.  The tone leaving no doubt
that he considered the conversation to be over.


Scully clutched and unclutched her fists spasmodically.  Trying to bring
her raging anger under control.  The absurd futility and her own feelings
of helplessness in this situation were increasing in time to her weaken-
ing patience.  "Ethan, your sister is very sick.  She has fluids trapped
in her lungs.  Do you understand what that means?  She needs to go to
the hospi....."


He turned around and in one fell swoop back-handed her hard on the left 
side of her face.  Her head snapped back painfully from the force of
the blow.  But she held her ground.  She could hear Eve's startled
gasp in the background.  She turned her face back to stare at Ethan with
hate-filled eyes.


"Your arrogant pride is going to get this child killed.  If she dies
Ethan.  You will be to blame.  Do you hear me?  You will be to blame."


For tense minutes they just stood there staring at each other.  Their
warring anger thick in the air.


"Get on into the other room.  Now Scully", he said finally between
clenched teeth.


Eve came behind her slowly as Scully made no move to leave.  She whis-
pered in Scully's ear, putting her hands on her shoulders as Scully
continued to stare darkly at Ethan.  "Scully go on now.  Things is bad
enough here.  Don't bring further worry to this mix.  Think on Emily
right now.  She don't need to wake witnessing all this bad air between
you two.  I'll cater to her now.  Go on."


Scully pulled her gaze finally from Ethan, as she looked over to little
Emily.  'I'm so sorry Emily', she thought desperately.  'I'm so sorry.'
She turned then and walked silently over to the bedroom door, opened it
and went inside.

Ethan bolted the door quickly behind her.


*****


5:25 P.M. December 20th
In The Woods, Wilstead Family Burial Ground
Hadden, West Virginia



They stood together in the almost freezing mist falling steadily from 
the sky.  The ground was already over-saturated, making the mud turn
into slush in places.  Despite the light rain, the sun was shining 
brightly, almost as if the heavens were having trouble making up its
mind as to what kind of weather to send them on this solemn occasion.


The littlest ones were fidgety and restless.  They had yet to under-
stand the meaning of this day.  The loss it signaled for their family.
The turning point it would be in their lives.  They would come to
understand later though.  In small doses.  The empty place at the
dinner table tonight.  The bed still unslept in when they woke tomorrow.
The laughter that would never again ring out in the woods, echoing
with the pure unbridled joy of living.


The first fine, moist, clods of earth left the end of the shovel, 
flying in slow motion before Scully's red and swollen eyes.  Falling
and turning in the air before coming down to cover the tiny body that
waited there for its cold embrace.  It would be her last blanket of
sorts, for her last sleep.  


"Oh God wait", Scully cried rushing forward weakly.  "Not yet.  
'Widgit' She needs him.  We have to...."  She suddenly forgot the words
she wanted to say.  She looked back desperately at Mulder behind her, 
pleading with her eyes for him to help her find the right words.  In
a second he was beside her.  Holding her.  "Scully, it's okay.  He's
here.  He's right here.  In your hands."  


She looked down.  He was right.  She was holding the stuffed bunny
tightly in her hands.  She noticed his stuffing was coming out again,
as she frantically started working to push it back inside.  Emily
would want her to fix it for her.


Mulder watched her shaking fingers desperately trying to fix the child's
toy one last time.  For Emily.  He wiped his eyes quietly, clearing his
throat against the sudden lump that had formed.  Then he reached out
and gently stilled her hands with his own.  Pulling the tightly held
bunny from her fingers and handing it over to Eve, before enfolding
Scully securing in his arms.


Eve quietly walked to the edge of the grave and placed the stuffed
toy beside her little sister's body.  "Bye little one.  You're always
be walking with us, near our hearts.  We'll not never forget you
darling.  I promise you on that."  She stood straight and returned to
her place.


Ethan formally began the prayer, as the other boys silently worked to
fill in the grave of little Emily Wilstead.  Scully turned to Mulder
unable to watch the outline of her sweet little face underneath the
burial cloth as it was covered with the cruel dirt.  She lowered her
face to his chest, covering her eyes tightly.  Her agonized sobs
tore from her body with painful jolts.  She was mumbling something so
low that only Mulder could hear, and even he had to strain.  When he
finally caught the words it nearly broke his heart in two.


"She didn't have to die.  She didn't have to die."  Over and over again.


"Scully.  Shhh.  It's all right", he said not knowing what to do to
soothe her tortured pain.


"He killed her", she said suddenly.


"Scully?"


"Ethan killed Emily.  I....", she paused to looked up at him.  Her eyes
darted wildly, dazed with grief.  "She called me 'Ma' Mulder.  And I
didn't like it.  I told her not to at first.  But she did it anyway.
And now....now I'm never going to hear her say it again.  Oh God, what
I would give to hear her say it again.  I feel like...."


"What Scully?", he asked brushing her hair from her eyes.


She searched his eyes, as her own clouded with fresh tears.  "I feel
like I've lost my own child."


********************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES V: DANGEROUS GROUNDS
********************************************

8:25 P.M. February 16th
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Mulder's jaw muscles clenched and unclenched watching Ethan play out his
little game.  He looked at the young man closely.  It was becoming harder
and harder to believe that the seemingly unending depths of evil that he
was revealing more of everyday, could possibly be contained in a person
so young.  How could someone only nineteen years of age managed to acquire
so much hate in so few years of actual existence.  Mulder had never sub-
scribed to the idiom that people could be 'born bad'.  But Ethan was fast
becoming an exception to the rule.  Mulder tried focusing intently on his
food, stirring the bland stew around the bowl with a determined concentra-
tion.  But he wasn't hungry, and he couldn't force himself to eat around
the gnawing pain in his gut.  He hated feeling powerless in this manner.
His natural instincts were screaming at him to do something.  Stop this
game.  He turned slightly in his chair, bringing Edgar just into his line
of vision.  When he caught Edgar's gaze staring at him in return, shot
gun sitting at ready aim in his arms, Mulder turned his attention quickly
back to his meal.  It was just as he figured.  Edgar was watching him 
very closely.  More interested in Mulder's reaction to the events unfold-
ing, rather than the actual events themselves.


Mulder sighed deeply in frustration.  Things were coming to a head.  The
tension of the last long weeks following Emily's death had been all but
crushing the occupant's of the cabin under its weight.  Ethan openly 
blamed him and Scully for the child's death.  Despite the fact that 
Scully had begged him to take the little girl to the hospital for treat-
ment.  It had been Ethan's decision.  It had been Ethan's fault.  But
somewhere in the illogic of his warped reasoning he had found a way to
blame them.  To punish them for his own misguided actions.  His justifi-
cation being that if he hadn't been forced to spend so much time and
effort guarding him and Scully he would have been able to prevent Emily's
accident.  It never occurred to him somehow that their captivity was his
making, not theirs.  


Sometimes he punished them in little ways, like the subtle punishment
he was dishing out to Scully right now.  Sometimes though he punished 
them in larger ways.  One of the first larger punishments had manifested
itself only a week after Emily's death.  One morning Ethan had just not
come for Mulder at dawn to 'chore' as had always been the rigid and
rigorous schedule for these past many months.  And Eve had never 
appeared to summon Scully to her work as well.  They had just sat there
on the bed for several hours after the rising of the sun.  Waiting.
Wondering.  They were almost pathetic, he realized now, in their 
resemblance to obedient children waiting to be told what to do.  But
they waited nonetheless, and still no one came.  Even when they had 
banged on the door trying to get some answers.


Finally they had relaxed, as they tried to view this new turn of events
as a sort of vacation.  They had returned to bed and slept the rest of
the day away.  The first time in so long that they had been allowed to
sleep late.  But then later, as they awoke hungry and in desperate need
of a trip to the outhouse, they suddenly knew this could only be con-
sidered a punishment of some kind.  Ethan was angry at them again.  For
what, only he knew.  It was probably just some imaginary slight blown
out of proportion in Ethan's twisted mind.


The next morning the door was finally unlocked.  Eve rushed in with her
head lowered, obviously flustered, but not speaking.  She wouldn't even
look them in the eyes as she went about her task of removing the chamber
pot to empty.  He and Scully had been forced to use it the night before
for the first time ever since their imprisonment.  It had leveled them
with shame and embarrassment to have to sink to this stage.  Their simi-
larities to caged animals was becoming more apparent each day, as yet
another dignity had been taken away from them by Ethan's dementia. That
new day following their twenty-four hour lock-up had proceeded exactly
as any other before it.  No explanation.  No apology.  Mulder and Scully
had fairly inhaled their breakfast that day, they were so hungry after
the prolonged time without food or water.


As the days passed endlessly on, they could see a slow pattern building.
After the first day locked away, Ethan had been almost friendly towards
them for a day or so.  Then his anger and hate would return.  Slowly.
Building.  Spiraling towards the next outbreak of torture.  He was
especially hard on Scully.  Mulder felt sure this was more than likely
attributed to the fact that she had tried to challenge his authority
in order to try and get help for Emily.  


Scully had told him hesitantly and only two weeks after the fact about
the way he had slapped her that day.  Despite this confession from her,
he still felt there was something she was holding back from him.  Some-
thing about Ethan she was afraid to tell him.  He had tried to push her
for more information, but she refused, insisting that was all she knew.
Mulder was sure Ethan had probably never had a woman stand up to him
before.  Mulder could tell that Scully's deep strength and intelligence
intimidated him.  Ethan went out of his way to flaunt her forced
subservience to him whenever an opportunity rose.  Just like he was
doing now.


"Scully, get me some more stew", Ethan ordered her now for the third
time.  He rarely ate more than one bowl, but he continued to force the
food down his throat tonight.  Just so he could have the pleasure of
making Scully serve him more.  Mulder watched Scully's eyes close for
just a split second in anger.  Eve started to rise in Scully's place, 
a worried look on her face as she tried to play peacemaker in what was
turning into an increasingly stressful situation.  Ethan motioned to
Eve angrily to sit back down. "No Eve.  I want Scully to do it."


Scully stood up slowly putting her hands on Eve's shoulders.  "It's all
right Eve.  I'll get it."  Mulder watched a small smile work its way 
to play across Scully's lips.  She was up to something.  He studied her
closer, almost afraid of what she might do that would work to set 
Ethan off again.  It wouldn't take much.  Scully moved over to Ethan's
place, reached over him taking his empty bowl.  "My pleasure", she threw
back over her shoulder to him smiling, as she moved towards the fire-
place.  Mulder closed his eyes.  Oh yeah, we're in big trouble now, he
thought.  But a small part of him was relieved as well.  Emily's death
had taken a huge toll on Scully.  She hardly ever smiled anymore.  She
was losing weight.  Too much weight.  Her eyes were always cast over 
with a sadness these days.  This was actually the first evidence of a
spark of life returning to her that Mulder had seen for weeks now.


She spooned up the stew carefully, filling it to the brim with the 
steaming brew.  She turned and walked back over to Ethan, placing the
bowl in front of him.


"Is there anything else you would like me to get for you Ethan?", she
asked with the sweetness fairly dripping from her tongue.


"No", Ethan answered gruffly.


"Are you sure?", Scully continued innocently.


Ethan ignored her, refusing to look at her.


"Water?  Bread?"  Mulder almost laughed. "How about a fresh napkin?", she
went on relentlessly.


Ethan turned around in his seat roughly, giving her a hard glare.  "I
said no", his voice raised.  Scully only smiled back at him.


"Okay, but only if you're absolutely sure there's nothing else I can 
do...."


"That's enough Scully", he said interrupting her, as the color rushed to
his face.  He harpooned the stew with his spoon in rage.  Mulder smiled
to himself.  Scully was turning the tables on him.  Using his own power
over her in this situation to play on his continuing demands of her.
Some of the younger children were snickering as well.  Ethan was just
about to reach the edge of his boiling point.  Then Scully proceeded to
make it worse.


She walked over to Mulder.  She stood behind him pressing herself close,
as she ran her hands down his shoulders and arms.  She leaned close to
his ear.  "What about you darling?"   Mulder's mind was whirling.
<Darling?>  Scully was never one for personal endearments, even in
light of the advent of their growing relationship.  She moved one of
her hands up to play with his hair, all the while watching Ethan out
of the corner of her eyes, watching her.  She spoke to Mulder in a deli-
berately seductive voice.  "Would *you* like some more stew?  Or is there
something *else* I could do for you maybe?  Anything you really *need*
right now?"  


Mulder gulped noisily at her innuendoes.  Suddenly he realized what it
was she was doing.  She was showing Ethan that no matter how hard he
tried he would never own her.  He could force her to be his personal
slave, but she would always be her own woman.  And in some respects,
Mulder's as well.  But she would never be his.  Mulder took hold of one
of her hands, kissing the back of it lightly.  He looked up into her 
face.  "No thank you Scully.  If I need anything, I'm more than capable
of getting it for myself."  She gave him a delighted and mischievous
smile, pleased that he was joining in with the mind games she was playing
on Ethan this night.  "I'm sure you are Mulder.  I'm sure you are", she
told him sweetly.


Ethan stood up suddenly from his chair.  "Eve, you and Scully work on
clearing this table up right.  Get on with it now."  He moved quickly
towards the door, grabbing his coat from the peg beside it.  He stormed
out into the cold night.  He slammed the door shut behind him with a
tremendous force.


Scully looked over at the door with a surprised look.  "Gee, was it
something I said?"

*****

11:45 P.M. February 16th
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Mulder turned over on the pillow, reaching for Scully next to him.  He
had become sensitive to the signs now.  She was having the nightmare.
The one about Emily she had told him about back when they first began
plaguing her right after the child's death.  She had told him it always
unfolded in the same fashion.


She would be alone in the woods, just walking, in the middle of the
night.  It would take her a few minutes to realize that she was
searching for something.  At first, she was confused, not knowing 
exactly what it was she was seeking.  Then she would hear the tiny
voice.


"One...Six...Ten...Twenty-Five...Three...."


It was the ghost echoes of Emily's voice, once more alive and playing
her imaginary games.  The voice floated over and around her mixing and
repeating itself, confusing Scully as to which direction they were
emanating from.  Then the childish voice filled with joy would change
tone suddenly, turning into an agonized and desperate plea for help.


"Ma....Ma....I'm so scared afraid Ma....It's so cold.....Mmmaaaaa!"


Scully would start running towards the creek, knowing suddenly, with 
the intimate and cruel fore knowledge that only nightmares can give
you, that was where the child was waiting for her.  She would 
burst forth, panting and out of breath, from a grove of trees to find
Ethan holding little Emily's head under the freezing cold water.
The child's legs and arms thrashing wildly, desperate for air.  Scully
would run over with a frantic, tearing need to pull this demon off of
her child.  In her nightmare Emily was always her own child.  She could
even feel the link to the child's birth and growth in that moment,
known to her dream world heart as much as the pages of her own past.
But she could never reach her in time.  She was always too late.  She
could see Emily's fight go out of her, along with her last breath, just
as she reached the edge of the creek.  She would fall down to her knees
on the cold earth, breaking under the searing pain that only the loss
of a child could possibly tear from a mother's soul.  


Then Ethan would turn to her.  Smiling.

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

"Scully?", Mulder called to her.  She was moaning now, her breathing
coming in short gasps.  "Wake up Scully", he said again, shaking her
slightly.  Finally she opened her eyes slowly.  "Mulder."


"Was it the nightmare?  The same one?"


She closed her eyes for a moment, almost ashamed.  "Yes", she said 
finally.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to wake you."


He moved closer next to her, as he brushed her damp hair from around
her face.  "You didn't wake me Scully."


She smiled sadly.  "You're lying."


"Creative embellishment I like to call it."


"Yeah, well a rose by any other name is still lying."


He looked into her eyes in the darkness, changing the subject of their
conversation purposely.  "We need to talk Scully.  You were playing a
very dangerous game with Ethan tonight.  That wasn't smart."  He could
feel her tense up, going on the defensive.


"Mulder, I don't need any lectures.  I can take care of myself", she 
said in a suddenly angry voice.  She started to turn her face away from
him, meaning to roll over onto her side shutting him out with her
actions.  Mulder reached out grabbing her arm almost roughly, knowing
he had to get this out in the open between them before it was too late.


"Scully dammit, talk to me.  I know what you're trying to do."


"You don't know anything Mulder.  Let go of my arm."  She tried to jerk
it back, but he held on tight.  "Mulder I'm warning you.  If you think
what happened with Ethan tonight was dangerous ground, it's nothing
compared to where you're thinking of going right now."


"You want him to hurt you, don't you Scully?", he demanded of her 
quietly, increasing the pressure on her arm against her attempts to pull
free.


"You're crazy", she said, her voice rising.


"You blame yourself for Emily's death.  You've given up.  You don't care
now whether you live or die."


"Stop it Mulder!  I don't want to hear this", she said with all the pent-
up rage and frustration that had been building in her these last weeks.
She began to thrash about, trying to get away from him.


He rolled over on top of her, holding both her arms down.  "Scully, I
won't let you destroy yourself over this."


"The only one I want to destroy right now is you Mulder.  Why are you
doing this?  Let me go!"  He held fast to her arms.  She was beginning
to feel crushed and trapped under the combined weight of his body and
his words.  Then she began to sob, followed by even more anger directed
at herself for losing control and appearing weak.  She had never felt
such depths of anger.  She hated Mulder right now.  Hated him.


"It wasn't your fault Scully."


"Please....", she cried, struggling.


"There wasn't anything more you could have done to save her."


"Stop....Please....Mulder, I'm begging you", she pleaded desperately 
with him.


He could feel her body shaking with her anger beneath him.  He hated 
hurting her like this, but he was more concerned with her state of mind
lately.  He had to force her to work through the grief that had been
bottled up inside of her ever since Emily's death.  She had returned
from the gravesite changed in ways that scared Mulder to death.  It
wasn't just the fact that she never smiled anymore.  Or even that she
was losing too much weight.  She had simply stopped caring.  About
everything.  She had pushed Ethan tonight for one reason, and for one
reason only.  She wanted him to lash out at her.  To punish her for
Emily.  She wanted to be blamed, because she blamed herself.  And as
much as he didn't want to believe it - he felt sure she didn't want to 
live anymore.  Even if she wouldn't admit it to herself.


"I won't let you go Scully.  You're not leaving me that easy."


"God, you're as sick as Ethan.  Worse, because you pretend to care about
me.  You don't own me Mulder.  I wish I had never met you", the words
left her mouth wrapped in venom.


And they cut through him like a knife.  He knew it.  She knew it too, as
she suddenly stopped struggling.  There followed a strange silence in
the air between them for a moment before Mulder finally broke it.


"I wish you had never met me either Scully.  You wouldn't be here right
now going through this pain if you hadn't", he said quietly.


"Oh God, Mulder.  I...I'm sorry.  I didn't mean....I was angry."


He lowered his head to her neck, burying his face in her warmth.  She
could feel his hot breath against her skin.


Her own breath caught in her throat, as she cried softly.  "Mulder,
please, I'm so sorry.  You were right.  I was pushing Ethan tonight
on purpose.  I was just so tired of the pain.....", she paused.  
"Mulder.  Please.  Let go of my arms.  I won't walk away from this
now.  I promise."


He slowly eased the pressure off of her arms, raising his head, as he
propped himself up on his elbows.  He made no move to remove his weight
though, as he waited for her to continue.


"I don't know when it happened.  After Emily I'm sure.  But I finally
admitted to myself that we're never going to get out of here.  We're
going to die here Mulder."


"Scully.....", Mulder started, but she put her fingers against his
lips to quiet him.


"Mulder please, no creative embellishments now.  Okay?"  She nodded to 
his unspoken agreement to let her have her say before continuing.  "We
were lost at the time of our car accident.  We were on a case investi-
gating possible UFO abductions, totally unrelated to where we ended
up.  It's not all that unusual around here for people to disappear and
never be found again. I mean look at the five people that fell into
this trap before us.  So first of all, any search for us would have
begun around our last investigation.  When that panned out, then it
probably widened into the general area.  But Mulder, we both know this
part of the country is covered with woods.  Miles and miles of woods.
Even it they had stumbled onto the right general area, it would still
be almost impossible for them to find us.  We don't even know for sure
where we are ourselves.  Eve told me that they went back during the
first week and camouflaged the car so well that nobody could possibly
see it from the road."


She reached up and draped her arms around Mulder's neck, as he rubbed
his own up and down the length of her arm.  "I know we said we weren't
going to keep track of the time.  But I can't help it, and I think you
know too.  It's going on six months now Mulder.  There are no more
search parties.  We've been given up for dead.  We no longer exist
anymore to the outside world.  I know it and you know it too.  We
tried Mulder.  How many times have we tried to escape?  Ten?  Twenty?
I've lost count.  But they've always failed.  Ethan's had a lot of
people to practice on before we came along.  He knowS our every move."
She looked up into his eyes, with tears coming back fresh into her 
own.  "Yes Mulder, I had given up.  When Emily died....I wanted to die
too.  I was just so tired of everything.  I had failed Emily, and I
thought I wanted to join her.  By pushing Ethan...."


"Scully please...."


"Wait Mulder.  Let me finish."  He nodded.


"I don't want to join her anymore Mulder.  I mean it.  What I said a
minute ago, that I wished I had never met you.  As soon as I said it
I knew how wrong I was.  I have never in my entire life wanted to
retract something I have said so very much.  If I could go back again
to the beginning when we first met, even if it meant knowing I could 
have avoided all of the mess we're in now - I would still, without a 
single hesitation, open that door into the basement of the 'FBI's most
unwanted.  You asked me once before if I would ever change a day?
The answer is still 'no' Mulder.  Not a day.  Not a single day."


God, Scully I....."  She interrupted him again, but this time it was
to pull his head down to her lips.


Their kiss was deep and hungry, full of all the built up tension they
so desperately needed to release.  He could hardly control his passion
as she moved underneath him with an equal urgency.  He smiled into
their kiss.  She was back.  Scully was back from whatever hell she had
been living in since the days following Emily's death.  


Then suddenly she reached between them pushing firmly against his 
chest, breaking their embrace.  He pulled back slightly.  She looked
into his questioning eyes seriously.  He could feel the thumping of
her heart reverberated back strongly through his hands.


"Mulder, I think we've waited long enough", she said softly.


He looked into her face, searching.  Asking a million questions and
having them answered before he actually spoke out loud.  "Scully are
you sure?  We can just go on like it's been.  We don't have to go any
further.  I don't want those words to be ones you'll also wish later
that you could take back."


She smiled at his concern for her.  "I'm sure Mulder."


He nodded, as he sat up on his knees slowly.  Smiling down at her.  He
started to unbutton his shirt, but she reached up to move his hands 
away so that she could finish the job.  She moved the halves of his
shirt apart and off of his shoulders, as she bent forward to kiss his
chest.  Her lips so warm and tender against his skin were enough to
drive him crazy.  As much as he wanted to draw this out, the sheer
fact that they had waited so long, he knew would ensure that this first
time was going to happen in a frenzy of passion that neither of them
was going to be able to control.


He shrugged the shirt the rest of the way from his body, as he pushed
her gently back down unto the bed.  He covered her mouth greedily,
barely allowing either of them a chance to breathe.  He ran his hands
down her body.  Almost lost in the realization that tonight he didn't
have to worry about control.  About stopping before they went too far.
He reached for the hem of her light cotton frock, pulling it back 
and up over her body.  He could feel the tremors of pleasure running
through her body.  She broke their kiss just long enough to lift her
hips so that he could remove the thin garment over her body and off
in one motion.  Then she reached back up to him, pulling him down
until finally they were touching skin to skin.


It was too much.  The sensation of being this close to her.  He could
not wait any longer.  He paused though, long enough to look into her
eyes once again.  He could see and feel her passion mirrored back at
him.  He reached down between them removing the last article of her
clothing, before sitting up long enough to remove his remaining clothes
as well.


He leaned down, nuzzling her neck.  "Scully, I love you", he whispered
in her ear, just before they finally became one.


********************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES VI: GATHERING STORMS
********************************************


1:15 A.M. February 17th
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Scully's heart was racing, lost within its effort to out run the next
beat.  For four years now she had been many things to this man, and he
to her.  All save one.  Lovers.  And in just one moment they would 
become that as well.  She mentally tried to count how many times she
had brushed aside the rumor mills and sly innuendoes of fellow workers,
family and friends.  The suspected intimacies of their lives becoming
the hot topic of many Monday morning coffee break gossip and water
cooler fodder.  Her family get together flights of small talk conversa-
tions.  Chance meetings in grocery stores and bank teller lines.  
Hurried conversations.  Catching up on the lives of old friends left
behind, who asked for quick synopsis of the passing years they had
missed in her life.


All questions sent with practiced aim in an effort to fit their rela-
tionship into one neat and tidy package.  One they could understand.
A friend, she would answer.  A partner, she would insist.  'That's
all?', their reply.  Delivered in customary tones of shock.  Dismay.
Some with a raised brow of disbelief.  Others with a look of pity for
her loss.  Still more with a wink, and the unspoken promise - 'it's
okay you can tell me the truth, I won't tell'.  How many of them
already believed that they had been sleeping together almost from 
that very first day.  More for than against she suspected.  


It was true what she had said all those time, Mulder was all those
things to her and more.  But the intricacies of their relationship
stubbornly defied simple categories.  He was her friend.  Her partner.
Even her nemesis at times.  He was capable of sparking the full
gambit of her emotions and responses.  Sometimes with just a single
look.  Respect.  Pride.  Sympathy.  Apathy.  Anger.  Disappointment.
Laughter.  She thought of all the possibilities, realizing that there
was not one that she could not attach to some aspect of their relation-
ship.  And love?  Yes, her heart left no doubt on that point.  But
before now she had never realized the depths of that love or even 
that it was possible that this love, first grounded in friendship, 
had always possessed the elements to change over time.  And until
tonight she had honestly believed that what they shared before now
had been enough.  That she could not ask or expect more.  It was 
also in part that they both knew how much of themselves had been
invested in all that they had shared before.  Could it be that they
had held back, just on the simple belief that they would not have
anything more left of themselves to give each other.  She knew now
though.  They had been wrong.  So wrong.


The cold air of the room, still chilled from the withering effects of
the long winter came into contact with her skin.  The frost of the
air fighting the fever heat of her body, compromising finally on a
warmness that spread throughout her being.  She watched transfixed
as the dress he had just removed from her body fell now in a liquid
pool from his fingertips, to gather in a bundle on the floor.  She
pulled his head down to hers.  Demanding.  Reveling in the first
shock of his naked chest to hers.  Kissing his lips, tasting his 
body with each breath.


She lingered there until her lungs demanded that she breathe again.
And she did so, but only reluctantly.  He reached between them,
deftly removing her last article of clothing.  Ripping the thin
garment in his haste.  She ran her hands across his chest, lifting
her head to kiss and taste his nipples.  He arched.  Then suddenly
moved away to the edge of the bed, removing his remaining clothes
with a record speed.  


Standing before her now as he kicked his trousers away.  His need
full and hard now before her eyes.  He was all she had imagined
and more.  And then he reached for her again, as she fell back
pulling him unto her.  She felt his hands moving, roaming, touching
her over the firmness of her breasts.  The arousal of his touch
burning the sensitive flesh to hardened nubs.  It felt like animated
magic, leaving trails of pleasure in their wake.  His hands.  She
wanted to watch them.  She wanted to show him where to put them.
Where she wanted them to touch.  Then as if reading her mind he
knew, exactly, where and how, and showed her each move with careful
and exquisite detail.  Then her body raced, followed languidly by
her mind to the next sensory flood of sensation.  The feeling of
his hardness straining for attention between them.  The knowledge
of what it meant, and where it would be taking them.  Their relation-
ship.  Their bodies.  Their lives.  All of these awareness' were
fighting for premium space, as one pleasure rolled unto the next.
Until there was no break in the unrelenting momentum.  And just
as quick, all else forgotten as she could focus on only on goal,
and one goal only.  She wanted him inside her.  Now.  Her body
writhing beneath his desperately, aching and ready, urgently
trying to telegraph her wants.  Her needs.


And his as well.  He moved his knee forward, spreading her legs
wide.  Moving his length to hover over hers.  She could feel him
poised just on the edge of her opening, almost there.  So close she
wanted to scream.  Her breath was leaving her body hard becoming
swept up into her passion.  She ran her hands down his back, encir-
cling his hips and the firm roundness of his cheeks, pulling, urging
him to give her what she wanted.  He paused, as he lowered his head
to her neck.  She could feel his breath, almost panting.  


"Scully, I love you", he said, the words tingeing the fine hairs on
the nape of her neck like sparks of lightening.


She smiled with happiness into his neck.  Scully. He had called her 
Scully, even now.  And it was right.  So right.  They had started
the journey this way.  It was only fitting now that they should
give them their due.  Scully, not Dana.  Mulder, not Fox.  They were
two other people.  They did not belong here.  Mulder and Scully had
been the ones who had worked together these past years, forging the
beginnings from amid the doubts and subjective theories.  Her facts
to his fancies.  Mulder and Scully had been the ones who had suffered
through the pain.  Fought all the battles.  Paid all the dire conse-
quences.  And felt the myriad losses, both personally and profession-
ally.  Even now, in this demon world they had become trapped in, 
they were still caught here as Mulder and Scully.  They had paid 
their dues, and now it was their sovereign destiny to be allowed to
reap the pleasures.  


Fox and Dana belonged to family members and long lost school chums.
Peripheral people, those just met once and then forgotten.  Formal
documents and official statements.  Address labels and paychecks.
All these things they could have.  But this?  No.  This belonged to
Mulder and Scully.  Only to them.  It would be too simple to fall
into those other personas now.  To distance themselves from this
decision.  To say it wasn't Mulder and Scully about to make love
now.  If called by Dana and Fox they could still go on with some
semblance of what they had always been, no ripple to upset the 
fabric of their lives.  No complications.  Regrets could be assigned
to the impetuous natures of Dana and Fox.  


"Mulder, I love you too", she breathed back into his ear, needing
to let him know that she understood the meaning behind his use
of that name.  She could see the last vestiges of his doubt about
the strength of her complete willingness in this decision evapor-
ate from his mind before her very eyes.  Yes.  Mulder and Scully.
It was their turn now.


She reached her hand between their bodies, no longer able to wait.
Grinding her hips in anticipation.  She took hold of his shaft,
feeling the length and texture.  Smiling softly at his answering
groans of pleasure caused by her touch.  Guiding him towards her
waiting body, as he followed her lead.


He began pushing himself inside of her slowly.  Her breath caught
as soon as she felt him enter her.  Before he had even filled her,
she knew she was forever lost.  "Ohh...Mulder", she moaned softly.
Almost forgetting what the meaning and concept of language truly
was, as no words could begin to express this experience they were
sharing.  Raw.  Wild.  Unbridled.  The words rushed through her
mind, as she dismissed each one.  They were all inadequate.  No,
none of those words did this justice.  


Her body began shuddering almost immediately.  Caught up in the
throes of this long awaited release of pleasure.  He grasped at
her body, tugging at her hips, urging the intensity of their union.
He pushed down deeper and deeper until finally reaching her center,
and then back again, almost completely out of her.  And diving
deep once more, increasing the pace and force with each thrust.
The rolls and waves of pleasure assaulted her senses.  She arched
her back to meet his thrusts, grabbing the headboard with both
hands in a desperate effort to focus what was becoming for her
a very tenuous hold on reality.  Turning her head from side to
side on the pillow.  Biting her lips with the deepening and oh so
quick race towards complete satisfaction.  Trying not to act on
the sudden and overwhelming need to scream out with the echoes
of ecstasy resounding through her body.  Oh God, just the feel
of him moving inside of her was enough to bring her over the top.
The thought alone might do it as well, she realized.  The heat.
The desire.  The simple need.  All of it.  He moved forcefully,
pounding into her, equally lost.  No more able to slow his frantic
rhythm than the world from revolving.


He reached up, his hands sliding along the path of her arms from
shoulders to wrist, pulling her hands away from the spindles of
the headboard.  "Scully", his breathing labored.  "I want all of
you.  All."  He moved his hands underneath her body, grabbing
and kneading the flesh of her buttocks as he lifted them still
joined.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, as he lowered her
down once again.  Her head was near the edge of the bed, almost
hanging over now.  He ran his hands down her thighs, bending her
knees back high, as he increased the demands of his thrusting to
ever strident levels.  Harder Deeper.


She moaned and gasped, almost losing complete control.  She forced
her mind to remember the dictates of their surroundings.  The
door locked from the outside.  The people just beyond.  Ethan.
It seemed almost as if their love making were some forbidden fruit.
One destined to be hidden behind closed doors, and carefully muted
noise.  Not only an outcropping of their captivity, but their long
denial of this moment as well.  But she refused to let Ethan take
this from her, as he had taken their freedom.  This was hers and
his.  It belonged to Mulder and Scully.  Not Dana's.  Not Fox's.
And never Ethan's.


She could feel the intense inner pressure building within her yet
again, as she wrapped her legs around his hips tightly.  Trying to
become an extension of his body, as his mouth covered one of her
breasts with searching lips.  "Oh God...", she whispered desperately,
as their bodies slid and rocked against the bed.  'Too much', her
brain tried to tell her.  'Not enough', her body argued.


"Scully, you are so beautiful", he whispered.  She opened her eyes
to see him staring at her intently.  They smiled at each other, mar-
veling and matching the mirror of their eyes to the pace of their
bodies as their love built to the final ebb and flow of its cres-
cendo.  


She met his kiss with red and swollen lips, almost bruised in some
ways from the journey they had made tonight.  A journey that had
begun four long years ago.  These same lips had eagerly and with
welcomed anticipation explored his body tonight for the first time.
Making discoveries.  Revelations.  Some blissfully expected.  Some
wondrously not.  But they were all hers now.


She touched her lips to his ever so lightly.  Promising more, and
giving it all at the same time.  "Scully", he moaned against her
lips, playing out the syllables into a half song, filled with his
aching tenderness.  She captured the tone of the name just as he
had said it.  Memorizing it and playing it back.  She had heard
him utter her name a thousand times before.  Each one played a
different tune to her ears.  There was the - 'I'm sorry Scully'.
The - 'Why can't you believe Scully', and so many more stored and
categorized in the recesses of her mind.  But this 'Scully' she
had never heard before tonight.  This 'Scully' had been hidden from
her until now.  Perhaps only uttered in his dreams?  This 'Scully'
spoke of his love for her.  His need for her.  


His thrusts were becoming almost brutal, and she knew that neither
of them would be able to last much longer.  She felt his hands
slide underneath her back, lifting her, pulling her up into his
arms.  They clung together this way, face to face, as their bodies
hurled toward the explosion of the culmination of their union.
Her lips began to tremble from the force of the pleasure
that suddenly rocked her body.  She threw her head back, supported
by his arms, riding the waves.  Then she felt his release follow
her, as he emptied deep inside of her.  She wrapped her arms around
his still quivering body, with her own shaking arms as she buried
her head in his shoulder.  Lightly biting it in an effort to cut
off the cries in her throat as she raked her fingers down his back.
Exhausted and fairly dripping with sweat they grasped their bodies
close for many minutes.  Coming down from the intense experience.
Their breathing ragged and hard, but finally beginning to slow.

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


Mulder played with the damp hair around Scully's neck and face as he 
brought his forehead down to touch hers.


"Scully....", he began.


"I know....", she finished.


He nodded slowly as he gently withdrew himself from her body.  He
reached behind them, drawing the heavy quilt around both of their
shoulders, as they lay down together on the pillows.  He pulled her
body atop his, looking into her eyes.  Their spirits seemed so in
tune at this moment that even their breathing settled into matching
patterns.


She traced the firm line of his jaw with one finger, up and over his
lips in a slow and easy fashion.  


"Mulder, if you had asked me six months ago I would have said with
every conviction that we would never have reached this step.  I don't
regret, not for one single moment, what happened here tonight.  In
fact, I'm almost grateful in a demented sort of way, for the car
accident, being kept here against our will.  Without all that, I don't
know if we would have ever gotten to this point on the outside."


"Why Scully?  Didn't you ever think about it?  Imagine it?  Fantasize?
I know I have."


She smiled thinking of him thinking of her that way.  "Yes Mulder, I
won't lie.  I did.  But I was so afraid of losing what we have 
together.  I wasn't willing to risk, what has become over the past
four years, the most satisfying and intimate relationship of my life.
You aren't the easiest person to figure out Mulder.  But you are, with-
out a doubt the most fascinating, multi-faceted, complex and caring
person I have ever known.  And....", she paused.


"What?", he asked running his hand through her hair absently.


"And I've always felt lucky and blessed knowing that no matter what,
I've somehow managed to become the most important person in your
life.  Just as you've taken that role in mine.  I thought it would
be less complicated to distance ourselves from further intimacy.
We had grown so very close.  I couldn't stand the thought of losing
that, and I've always thought you've felt the same way."


"And now?", he prompted.


"And now I feel cheated.  It's so ironic to have all my fears about
our relationship proved unfounded in the reality of it.  Only to have
to deal with a whole new set of rules in its place.  New rules.  New
fears.  As a matter of fact, all this time during the last six months
the one thing I've felt has held me back from you for so long is
the total unreality of this place and situation."


"You thought by giving your love to me it would signify that you are
acknowledging the power Ethan holds over us.  It would give some
tangent and physical proof to the belief that we are never going to 
escape from here?"


"Yes", she said quietly.  Once again amazed at the knowledge this man
had of her very soul.


"Scully", he said as he brought her face close to his.  "I made you a
promise once.  That time I was holding you in my arms as well, only
you couldn't hear me because...."


"That first night?  My arm?", she asked.


"Yes.  Scully, we'll get out of here.  I promised then, and I'm 
reaffirming that promise now.  We will get back home again."  He kissed
her deeply.


She smiled into the kiss, as she felt the stirring of his awakening
arousal. "Mulder, don't start something here you can't finish.  We've 
only got about two hours left to sleep before we have to get up.  And 
besides that", she said nestling down into his arms, "I'm about a quart 
full of Mulder right now, and I'm too exhausted to take any more to-
night. "Sleep Mulder", she commanded  "Sleep."


*****


8:45 A.M. February 20th
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


But Scully had been wrong.  No one came for them in two hours.  


Mulder crawled across the cold wooden floor.  He grimaced as he felt
the tiny splinters from the rough and unfinished pine board floor
painfully enter the skin of his palms.  He had been using his hands
to drag himself over to the bedroom door.


It had been three days now.  Three days since Ethan had locked him
and Scully here in their room.  Three days since either of them had
been given food or water.  As he finally reached his goal he pushed
himself up awkwardly to rest his back against the door.  He was out
of breath, almost heaving from the exertion.  He looked over to
the bed.  Scully was lying on her stomach, draped across the bed with
her arms hanging over the side.  Her hair was thrown down over her
head.  She hadn't moved for a long time now.


Mulder reached behind him, banging on the door weakly with his fist.
"Ethan", he called, knowing he would not respond.  "Dammit Ethan.
Give us some water."  His hand dropped to his side again, spent from
the amount of effort it had taken him.  He shivered.  The room was
cold, filled with an icy chill.  He moved forward determinedly on
his hands and knees, working his way back to the bed.  To Scully.


Once there he crawled in beside her, turning her over on her back.
She was sleeping deeply.  Too deeply and for too long.  "Scully", he
called to her.  He slapped her lightly, trying to get a response.
Finally, she opened her eyes.  "Mulder", she said sleepily.


He smiled at her, reaching for the quilt, as her pulled her close
wrapping his arms around her waist.


"You were right Mulder", she said after a minute.


"Right about what?"


"He is killing us softly."


*******************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES VII: TROUBLED SOULS
*******************************************

4:25 A.M. February 21st
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Eve pressed her ear tight against the cool wood grain of the locked door
leading into the bedroom.  She was so scared.  Her heart was pounding,
ready to burst from the strain.  She had never felt this depth of fright
before.  The cabin made a settling noise around itself, which caused
her to jump nearly out of her skin.  She was afraid that Ethan had woken
up.  He would be so angry to find her here.  Ethan had never raised a
hand to her in all her fifteen years, but now she was afraid of him.  Of
her very own brother.  Since Emily had died....no, before that even, she
realized now, he had changed.  


She turned her scared rabbit-wide eyes back to the door.  Four days.
Four days since Ethan had Mulder and Scully locked in there.  No food.
No water.  Nothing.  And now, she couldn't hear anything from inside.
There had been no noise coming from behind the door for most of the 
night. The first days had been horrible.  Listening to them pounding 
on the door.  Confused and demanding an explanation.  Then later 
pleading and begging for water and food.  She could feel their misery
during those times.  But she had been helpless.  Ethan had threatened
the rest of them that if they even thought of going to their aid he 
would tan their hides good.  


She had thought then that there could be nothing worse than listening
to folks crying out for help, and not being able to give them that
help.  But then the silence came.  And she found she actually missed
the noise.  Because it had meant that at least they were still there
in spirit.  Still fighting.  Now she was so afraid that they were....
she couldn't even bring herself to think of the word.  But she knew,
they had already been weak before this.  Ethan worked them nearly to
death each day.  She just wasn't sure how long they would be able to
last.  She leaned against the door, until it was flush with her open
palms and one side of her face.  She mouthed the words she was too
afraid to speak out loud.  Trying to communicate somehow with the
tragic occupants on the other side.  'I'm sorry', her lips mouthed
with silent echoes.  She turned slowly away from the door.  Reluctan-
ly. But she couldn't push her luck any further as far as Ethan find-
ing out.  She crossed the room, returning to her narrow cot.  Feigning
sleep.  Because she knew there would be no more rest for her tonight.


****


Ethan watched silently and secretly seething from across the room, as
Eve returned to her bed.  His cold eyes reflecting off the beams of
moonlight coming in from the window.  The glow that issued forth was
like the hungry and rabid mad orbs of some mythical beast animal.  
Eve.  His Eve.  His very own blood.  She was going against him.  For
them.  Why couldn't she understand.  Why couldn't she see things the
way he knew them to be.  These people.  Mulder and Scully.  They 
were the cause of all the misery that had befallen him and his family.
Just like all the others before them.  They deserved this punishment
and worse.  Especially after that little play act Scully had pulled
the other night.  She had been making fun of him.  Him and his family.
I'll bet she isn't laughing now, he thought with no small satisfaction.


His mind changed tracks suddenly.  He would let them out tomorrow.
He had already reached the decision.  He would even let them off 
work details for a couple of days so that they could recover.  He
could be fair.  More than fair.  He looked over at Eve tossing and
turning on her own cot across the room.  He was doing all this for
her, and the others.  It was his responsibility to make sure that 
they would be taken care of in his absence.  If anything should 
happen to him, he had to know there would be someone to take his
place.  But whoever it was had to follow his rules, and his thoughts
about what was right for his family.  To ensure this, he had to keep
showing them who was boss here.  Who made the decisions.  It was only 
because he wished it that they were even allowed to breathe.  Surely
they knew that by now.  Once they came around straight to his way
of thinking on things it would be that much easier on them.  He had
told the man that on the very first night.  He should have listened.


It was only when they disobeyed that he lost control.  But even then
it only got real bad when they pushed him too far, he rationalized to 
himself.  They made him do the things he did.  Only when they went
against his wishes.  Only when they talked back.  Only when they...
they....she....they....she....his mind suddenly began flipping back
and forth.  They....Scully and Mulder...Scully...Emily...Scully...
Emily.  Emily.  Emily had talked back to him.  She had told him
'no'.  He drifted back into his muddled thoughts.  Remembering.  Re-
membering, but not wanting to remember.  He fought in vain against
the direction his mind was heading.  He didn't want to go there
again.  But he had no choice tonight.  The door was open, and some
things would not be denied.  He closed his eyes, resigned.


He had found Emily playing near the creek that day.  She had been
singing.  Something about a frog, and a rock, and a rainbow with a
pot of gold.  It made no sense, except to her.  She had sang out loud,
with youthful abandon, strong and sweet.  He had loved Emily.  Emily
had loved him.  It had always been that way between them.  She had
never once disobeyed him, never talked back to him.  Until that 
fateful day.  She had smiled happily as soon as she had seen him.
She had run to him with her arms outstretched, hugging him tight.
He had told her it was time to come with him now.  That it was get-
ting too cold for her to be playing near the water.  She had nodded,
so quick as always to understand that what he was telling her to
do was for her own good.  He had always looked out for her best
interests.  She had been his world.  She had put her tiny hand in 
his as they had started walking back towards the woods.


Then suddenly she had stopped. "Widgit", she had cried, running back
to the edge of the creek.  He had followed right behind her.  She 
had scooped him up from his resting place atop a large and decayed
tree log.  She had frowned, seeing once again that his stuffing was
starting to fall out.  Ethan had reached down, meaning to take the 
toy from her and fix it.  But she had pulled it away, hiding it 
behind her back.  


"No.  I want 'Ma' to do it.  She does it up real good.  Better than 
you", she had said to him, with all the sincerity and faith that a 
child holds in such things.


Scully, he had thought darkly.  She's picking Scully over me.  I've
broken my back raising this child all these years, and she's abandon-
ing me for a woman she barely knows.  Emily was choosing to leave
him.  Just like his parents.  Just like all the others. A red fog
had begun to invade his thoughts and senses, blocking out every-
thing at that moment except his fiery need to take this toy from 
this child.  To fix it.  *He* was Emily's family.  Not Scully.  It
was his responsibility, as it had always been.


"She's not your 'Ma' Emily.  Now give it here.  I mean it."  It was
a warning.  A plead.  A desperate attempt to stop the events from
proceeding any further.


"No!"  Her one word, forever sealing her fate.


He had reached down, grabbing her thin arms roughly, wrestling the
toy from her tight grip with a simple tug.  


"Ethan!  Give it here", she had wailed, tears starting to run down
her face.  She had encircled his body, jumping up trying to grab
her beloved toy back from him.  


"Stop it Emily.  Stop it!  I'll fix it and give it back to you.  
Just stop it now you hear."


But she wouldn't.  She wouldn't.  God help him, she wouldn't.  
Finally exasperated and angry beyond the limits of his own beliefs
he had thrown the toy.  It had landed at the edge of the creek,
further down the bank.  It had toppled on its final bounce, falling
into the freezing water.  Emily had looked at Ethan stricken.


"I hate you!", she had cried.  "I hate you Ethan!"  She kept repeat-
ing the sentence over and over again until he thought it would
sear itself straight into his brain patterns.  She had run over
to where 'Widgit' had landed, with Ethan close behind.  "I hate
you Ethan", she had said again, picking up the sopping wet bunny
from the water's edge.


"I want 'Ma".  I'm gonna go home right now and fib on you to 'Ma'.
You're bad Ethan.  You're bad and you're mean.  I'm not gonna be
your friend no more.  I love 'Ma'.  Not you.  No more.  Not you
Ethan...Not you"


"Not you...Not you...Not you...Not you..."


He closed his eyes now as the vile words grew and repeated over and
over in his fevered brain.  He covered his ears, trying to block
out the sounds.  The voice.  The memory itself.  Finally, when they
had receded back into the dark pit from which they had sprung he
opened his eyes again.


He could never remember for sure what had happened after that.  Or
maybe he didn't want to.  He only remembered waking later and 
finding Emily there in the water.  Her eyes closed. Her lips blue and
cold.  His own clothes soaked to the skin.  He had desperately 
pulled her nearly lifeless body from the depths of the frigid water.
Trying to pull the water out of her body with shaking hands.  Then
as he lifted her tiny form into his arms, he had grabbed 'Widgit'
as well, tucking him into his tether rope place.  Returning him to
her.  She had asked him, and now too late, he was complying with
her wishes.  He had turned stumbling, with Emily cradled in his
arms and had run back to the cabin.  Where she had later died.


Now as he was forced to concentrate on the confusing images and
thoughts rushing at him.  He could almost make the lost connection
between himself and Emily's death.  His last remaining vestige of
humanity fighting to bring a sentience and some small spark of
remorse to his cancerous soul.  But just as quickly it passed.
The cold hard glint of his eyes returning to their former burn of
a monstrous glow.


And there was nothing left mirrored there that was remotely human
anymore.


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

12:55 P.M. February 21st
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Scully clutched her stomach under her arms, with her knees pulled
tightly into herself.  She would never have imagined it was possible 
to be this hungry and thirsty.  The sensations intruding and influenc-
ing every breath she took.  The constant pangs never letting up or
allowing rest anymore.  Their bodies, she realized, were beginning
to consume themselves.  Attacking the reserves of fat in an age-old
involuntary attempt at self-preservation.  But as bad as the hunger
was, it still paled in comparison to the thirst.  And she knew that
was their worst enemy right now.  The lack of moisture.  Life-giving
moisture.  She tried to lick her dry and cracked lips.  Her mouth
felt like sandpaper, rough and arid dry.  


She turned unto her other side.  The small exertion made her head
start pounding.  And her body began to tremble, shaking like a leaf.
Mulder was asleep next to her.  She was grateful.  He needed the
rest.  Whatever rest he was able to steal.  She looked into his face
closely.  She reached out tentatively, needing to touch his face,
yet afraid to wake him.  But she needed to know that he was still
here with her.  She ran her hand along the contours of his face,
and was once again flooded with and amazed at the depths of her
feelings for Mulder.  God, how she loved this man.  She smiled now
at the memory of their love-making that even this small touch of
his face rekindled in her mind and body.  She hoped fervently that
it would not end up being their one and only time together.  But as
Ethan seemed so hell-bent on killing them, it very well could end
up being just that.  He always found a way to steal their moments
of happiness.  No matter how much they tried to keep him from
stifling their will and resolve.  Ethan was a master, unparalleled
by none, when it came to inflicting pain.


Mulder began to stir against the caress of her hand on his face.
He opened his eyes slowly.


"Hi", he said softly, lifting her hand from his face to kiss her 
palm.


"Hi yourself", she answered back.


"Chocolate", he said suddenly, smiling mischievously.


She groaned, envisioning unwrapping a candy bar with all the pomp
and circumstance of a political office candidate being sworn into
office.  As the thought equaled in importance to her food less world
right now.   It was a game they had started playing two days into
this ordeal.  A way to pass time, and also a sort of 'in your face' 
way of dealing with the lack of food and water.  They had taken turns
naming what would be their first choice of food once they were freed
and away from the shackles of this insanity.


"You're heartless Mulder."


"Sorry, I was dreaming about it", he said sheepishly.  "Well, actually
about chocolate and you."  He rolled over slowly and with some effort
to rest himself lightly atop her body.


"Let me guess.  Does it involve a life-sized fondue pot?", she teased
him.


He laughed.  Then turned serious.  "Scully, I wish I had the strength
to make love to you right now."


She smiled sadly.  "Me too Mulder.  Me too."


He reached down and underneath her dress, slowly moving the material
high up on her leg.  He ran his hand over the top of her thigh strok-
ing the skin lightly.  She closed her eyes trying to savor the feel
of his touch for a moment between the ever present gnawing aches of
hunger and thirst.  He continued his light caress as he laid his 
head to rest on her stomach.  She reached down bringing her arms up
around his shoulders, entwining her fingers in his hair.  


They were quiet.  He concentrated for some while on the gentle rise
and fall of her breathing.  He listened to the soft beat of her
heart, and the quiet murmurs of her stomach echoing back through his
ear pressed against it.  They had long passed the noisy and intru-
sive grumbling stomachs most associated with normal hunger.  But
every now and again he could hear her body voice its displeasure
over this sad state of affairs.  He turned his head impetuously
into her belly, kissing it through the material of her dress.  
Perhaps a sudden and irrational turn of the 'kiss it and make it
better' quick fix going through his mind.  Desperate times called
for desperate measures, he figured.


It wasn't fair, he thought not for the first time.  Here they had
finally found some measure of happiness.  Something to get them
through the long and hard days.  Something to hope for. Live for.
The new found extension of their previous friendship into love as
well as the physical expression of that love.  And now.  Now they
may not live to see the natural growth of that relationship.  


The fingers of her hands that had been moving lightly through the
locks of his hair relaxed softly against his scalp.  He looked up
and saw that she had fallen asleep.  


'Sleep Scully', he thought quietly.  'For as long as you can.'  He
turned his head back, resting it once again on the concave surface
of her stomach.  He closed his eyes, hoping reverently to join her
there in that dream world.  Sleep.  Blessed sleep.  It was their
only avenue of escape anymore.


*****


5:17 P.M. February 21st
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Mulder's head snapped up at the noise.  It was the sound of the bar
bolt being pulled away from its cradle.  "Scully", he called to her,
shaking her lightly.  "Wake up."  Scully opened her eyes, rubbing
them, as she forced herself to come fully awake in response to the
urgency in his voice. 


The door hinges creaked and groaned, the wood and metal having settled
in place after so prolonged a period without use.  Finally the door
swung open slowly.  There stood Eve, holding a tray, looking worried
and something else.  Frightened?  Her eyes darted wildly from Mulder
to Scully.  They could hear the sharp intake of her breath as she took
in their state.  The room was like a tomb, and it reeked of the near
essence of death.  As well as the combined smells of two bodies 
unwashed for four days, and the absence of proper facilities.  Eve 
wanted to cry as she just stood there for a moment, unable to move.


She looked at them.  His arm around her shoulders, as she leaned
against his chest, one hand clutching tightly at the material of
his shirt.  They just stared at her, and she stared back.  There were
no words to convey this horror properly.  These were good people.
She had known that from the start.  And now they had been reduced
to this.  Treated like rats in a cellar.  Being made to suffer.
Scrounging.  Hidden.  They didn't deserve this.  She almost bowed 
her head.  She was grieved ashamed to be called a Wilstead this day.


Her feet somehow started to move finally, breaking her thoughts
as she rushed forward with her treasures.  Two cups brimming full
with cool water.  Her eyes began filling with tears, watching them
as they reached for their first nourishment in four days.  Hands
shaking.  Him holding out a cup to her lips first.  Her pushing
it away, insisting that he take it.  Eve turned her head away.
The way they felt about each other was too beautiful to witness
sometimes.  It filled her heart with a warm and wondrous glow. 
Finally, they took the offerings, choking and sputtering in their
haste to get the sweet liquid down their parched throats.  


Then Ethan entered the room from the shadows of the doorway, shot
gun in hand.  Eyes burning with gloat over his absolute power over
them.  


"Eve get on with it", he commanded.


She nodded, wanting to hurry, afraid he might change his mind any
moment.  "Eloise", she called out to the other room.  "Come here
child and help me out now."  The young girl walked quickly into the
room at the call of her name, waiting for further instructions.
Eve turned back to the bed. 


"Scully, your suffering is done for this day.  Think on that now
and work on forgetting what come before.  I've got you a soothing
bath drawn up, just waiting in the shanty shed out back.  And 
there's some food cooking up on the fire that'll warm up and fill
your insides when we're finished up with the outside.  The other
girls are set to come in here and make up your room.  Air it out
some and fill it with sweet smells to carry away the bad ones.
Tonight you'll sleep deep with a fresh scrubbed body, and a full
belly, snuggled under clean bed clothes.  Come with me now."


Scully pulled back from Eve's outstretched hands.  Eve could see
the turmoil in her eyes.  She desperately wanted these things
that Eve was offering her, but she still hesitated.  She turned
to look at Mulder.


"But Mulder....", she began.


Eve smiled.  "Don't you worry on that darling.  The boys will be
taking him on the same journey.  I promise."


"Scully, go on.  Don't worry", Mulder encouraged her.


Scully looked in his eyes deeply, before wrapping her arms weakly 
around his neck.  She kissed him lightly.  "I love you", she whispered
in his ear.


He hugged her back.  "I love you too Scully."


Eve gestured for Eloise to join her by the bed, as they stood on each
side of Scully.  When she was upright finally, her head began spinning
immediately.  If not supported by Eve and Eloise she might well have
fainted from the vertigo feeling, and lack of strength.


Once they had left, Ethan and Mulder stared darkly at each other for
tense moments.  Mulder bit his tongue from the sharp words he wanted
to hurl at him for all the anguish and suffering he had piled on him
and Scully these last months.  And especially for these last four
days.  But he controlled his anger.  It would do nothing to help the
situation, only serve to worsen an already tension frought scenario.
Ethan took his silence as acquiesce, and he reveled in the victory
of his perseverance over them.  


Yes, Mulder thought, giving Ethan his dark winning place in this
round.  You've won this time.  But you haven't beat us down yet.
We'll still here.  And we're still fighting.  And we will win in 
the end you bastard.  There will come a day when he and Scully would
be able to walk out of this cabin.  This life.  This nightmare.
Together.


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

Scully's eyes were closing again.  She shook her head, trying to clear
the cobwebs of her mind.  She felt so comfortable.  A feeling she wasn't
sure she would ever feel again after the events of the last four days.
She was clean now, her skin fairly bristling from the hard scrubbing
she had given her body trying to wash away the dirt.  The grime.  The
stink of hopelessness that had pervaded her very pores.  She was full
too.  And only after eating half a bowl of the ever present and bland
stew.  Although tonight, she could have sworn the ingredients included
ambrosia, it had tasted so good.  Her stomach had shrunk and it would
take some time to stretch it again to its normal size.  So a little
food went a long way for now.  And the bed.  It was warm.  Clean.  
Fresh.  She stretched her body, digging her toes into the folds of 
the sheets, feeling invigorated by the warmth.


But there was still something she needed.  She turned her head, 
splaying out her arm to caress the empty pillow next to her.  Mulder.
He still wasn't back, and she could not fall asleep without him next
to her.  Her soul hungered for him with the same kind of need that
her body had craved the missing elements of food and water so very
recently.  And the pangs of his absence went as deep, and hurt 
just as much.


Suddenly the now familiar sound of the bar bolt being moved away
alerted her.  She sat up in bed.  Mulder walked through the door,
and it was closed and locked quickly behind him.  She smiled broadly
seeing his freshly washed self, his hair still damp from shampooing.
He crossed the room in two quick steps, throwing back the covers
and gathering her tight in his arms.  


It felt like home.  And all the comforts that resided there.  A warm
fire.  A shelter from the storm.  A place where you belonged without
question.  A undeniable sense of being one half of a whole.  He kissed
her deeply, taking in the sweet smell of her soft hair.  The feel of
her warm body next to his.  They were far from being physically able
yet to make love, but still.  


He took hold of her thin dress, pulling it over her head and away.
She unbuttoned and removed his shirt as well.  Then reached for his
trousers next.  With combined efforts this piece of clothing and the
rest of their garments soon too joined the others on the floor.  They
couldn't be together completely this night, but they needed desperate-
ly to feel the intimate warmth of each other's skin.  To touch.  To
reassure themselves that they had survived.  To know they had made it
through the long and dark tunnel of their suffering out into the light
of a new day once again.  Not home yet.  But alive.  And together 
still.  And as long as they were alive and together there was always
hope.


Long moments later they collapsed against the coolness of the pillows.
Sated.  Exhausted.  Ready now and willing to go into the journey of
sleep tonight entwined within each other's arms.  It didn't seem like
much to the standards of the outside world.  But to them.  Tonight.
After all that they had been through.  It was enough.  More than
enough to bring joy to their hearts.  And joy was such a rare commod-
ity in this world.  They took it where they could, and in whatever
small doses were allotted them. 


Before the next full sweep of the minute hand from the missing tell-
tale clock of their passing lives had completed, they were asleep.


*****


12:52 A.M. February 22nd
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Eve was spending another restless night.  The events of the last days
had weighed heavily on her soul.  She had always been taught that
family came first, above all else.  But she had doubts now.  Her
loyalties to Ethan were conflicting with her deep-rooted conscience
about what was just plain right and wrong.  She could no longer even
recognize the 'thing' that had once been her beloved brother.  To 
give him his due though, he had stepped forward and taken this family
from a lost and parent less wandering group.  He had formed it into a
unit.  He had only been a child himself at the time, but she had 
always thought he had handled things amazingly well.  Until now.


She had only been nine years old when he had brought home his first
substitute 'parent'.  And even though it had seemed strange, she had
been but a child.  They had all been.  Ethan had a way with the
persuading talk, and soon it was just another part of their lives.
But then the man had just disappeared one day.  Found later in the
woods by Ethan, caught in one of their animal traps.  He had bled
to death.  And soon others came to take his place.


They had all disappeared too.  All dead.  Lost and frozen in the woods
from the cold nights.  Or fallen over one of the steep ravines.  Always
something like that.  But death made sense in her world.  Life could be
very cruel, and the woods were a terrible hard and deadly place, when 
you didn't know the ways of it.  She had believed it.


She had believed him.  He was her brother.  She had always believed
him.  They all died that way, except for that one poor soul who had
found his own way back home.  By his own hand.  That had really
bothered Ethan too.  She could see it on his face.  Not so much the
fact of his death, but almost like he felt cheated out of something.
She could never really put her finger on exactly what it was, but 
something there never felt quite right.  


And now what he was doing to Mulder and Scully was beyond punishment.
Beyond cruel.  Oh sure, Ethan had always been hard, even with all the
others, but never openly this way.  The way he was with these two.
Even the little ones were scared of him now, and scooted out of his
way when they saw him coming.  Things were bad, worse than they had
ever been.  Since Emily's death, his behavior was becoming unbearable
and more frightening every day.


She knew the direction she was headed towards tonight, but she didn't
know if she would be able to find the strength to follow its course.
Because she had gained a secret knowledge tonight.  One that she
almost wished she didn't possess.  A wrench had been thrown into
the correlation that begged her questions.  And now that it was here,
she could not turn back on the implications.


While she had helped Scully, so desperately weak, with her bath out
in the shanty shed, she had laid eyes on the sack.  The one Ethan
had taken and hid away.  The one they had brought back with them
that first day from the scene of the accident.  The one that held
all of Mulder's and Scully's other world belongings.


The one that held their guns.


She closed her eyes tightly, feeling a well of tears slide from under-
neath the lids to fall down her cheeks silently.  


God forgive her soul - because she had betrayal on her mind this
night.


*****************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES VIII: FINDING HOPE
*****************************************


11:52 P.M. March 21st
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Scully moved behind him on the bed where he sat naked.  Quietly.  She
brought her arms up around his neck, as she lowered her lips to nuzzle
his left ear.  She moved his hair back and away under her fingertips.
Softly. 


"Again", she sighed under her breath.  The word not so much heard, as
felt against his skin.  He shivered.  She started to nibble on his ear
lightly, as she snaked her hands out to cover his already closed eyes.


"What do you see", she questioned him.  Her voice taking on a lilting
smoothness.  Encouraging.  Expectant.  Yet demanding.  All at the same
time.  He swallowed trying to concentrate.


"I see....", he began.


"Yesss", she prompted, drawing out the syllable.


"I see a ring of woods surrounding the cabin door as I open it. It's
chilly.  She pressed her own naked form tight against his back, 
almost as if offering her body's warmth as shelter from the non-
existent chill.


"On my left is the chopping stump and cords of wood needing to be split.
On my right are the animal pens and the dirt path leading around to
the shanty shed out back.  I'll need to move quietly, so as not to
disturb the animals and cause them to fright.  The noise might alert
Ethan and the others."


She could feel his eyes moving back and forth beneath their closed
lids, sliding against her palms as he focused them on the scene playing
out in his mind.


"No, wouldn't want to do that", she said quietly, moving, coming 
around like a phantom spirit to whisper the words now into his right
ear.  He shifted slightly at the feel of her warm breath cascading
across his tired senses.


"Go on", she said after a moment during which he had remained silent,
lost and content in the pleasant sensations of her gentle touch.  He
took a deep breath before continuing.


"I'll need to stay close to the cabin walls as I make my way around
the corners to reach the back.  There's a hidden trap, a fine line of
mesh wire running just above the dirt further out in circumference
that will trigger an alarm if tripped."


He felt her lips move lower now, kissing his neck softly.
  

"Something noisy", he continued, moving his head slightly to give her
better access.  "Cans, I think.  Bottles."


She could feel his pulse pumping strong beneath her lips.  "And the
shed?", she questioned him on cue, the words escaping lightly around
her mouth between kisses.


"It's to the right in the very back.  Hidden behind a sloping hill,
under a tree.  The door is always propped open during the day.  There's
a sturdy wooden ladder next to the rain barrel just inside the door
on the left.  I can use it to reach the sack.  It's on the highest
shelf, just near the edge.  Under a blanket, with one corner peeking
out."


She could feel his shoulder muscles contract, almost as if they were
reaching for the imaginary sack.


"Lie down", she said suddenly.


He smiled, the shift in his features molding around the palms of her
hands still resting against his eyes.


"I thought you wanted to practice?"


She didn't say anything, but he felt her hands pushing against his 
chest, and he complied with her wishes.  He lay on his back, stretch-
ing his length against the bed.


"Just relax.  Keep your eyes closed, and start talking, Agent Mulder",
she commanded authoritatively.


"Ma'am", he saluted, as he settled down against the pillows, keeping
his eyes closed as ordered.  "Where was I", he pondered.


"The next part's mostly mine.  So start with the woods", she said,
as she moved to lay down beside him.  Her fingers trailing languidly
against his chest the whole way down.


She has been so restless lately he realized now.  The tension of
the last month had been building ever more each day.  And now that
they had finally worked out an escape plan that posed some possibi-
lity of success, it had only served to increase the pressure.  The
anticipation.  Somehow both of them knew.  Without ever even saying
the words out loud.  Or wanting to either.  This was their last hope.
If it failed.  If they were caught.  That would be the end.  Ethan
would kill them in retaliation.  There was no question.  But one
way or another, by escape or by death, they would finally be free.
It was worth the risk and the possible consequences.  But it still
did nothing to quell the building uneasiness of the last weeks. 


He thought back on the almost child-like excitement that had shown
on Scully's face when she had related to him what Eve had told her
one day, just shortly after their near death four-day punishment.
Eve had confessed that she not only knew where their guns were 
located, but was willing to help them escape.  With their guns and
Eve's intimate knowledge of the woods passed along the information
lines bit by bit everyday.  From Eve to Scully, and then from Scully
to Mulder, they finally had their first real chance.  


He reached out to cradle her in the crook of his arm. But she pulled
away.  Intent on her own pace and agenda this night.  And he was
willing to follow her lead.  For now anyway.  


"I'm waiting", she said quietly, as she lowered her head to his,
kissing him sweetly.  He reached his hands out trying to keep her
close, but she took his hands into hers, laying them down at his 
sides.


"Patience Mulder.  First, the woods."


He knew what she was doing, and why is was so important to her.  To
them both.  This envisioning game was just a way of reinforcing their
combined and individual knowledge of their planned escape route.  But
it was more than just that.  Each one was searching for reassurance
that if separated, the other would be able to find a way to freedom.
Scully especially had become almost obsessed with this need to repeat
the exercise at every opportunity.  She had also displayed an almost
unequaled tenacity by seizing upon Eve's lingering fears and doubts.
Desperately.  Unrelenting.  He had started to feel concerned that
she was pushing Eve too hard.  Eve was torn, faced with making a
conscious choice which would betray her own family.  Mulder felt Eve
was reaching the breaking point over this divide in her loyalties.
Yet even with these concerns, he never brought the subject up to 
Scully, or even asked her to back off.  Eve was their only way out
now, and God help them both, they were using this child even at the
cost of her own peace of mind.


"Tell me what you see", Scully began again.


He frowned for a moment, working to deepen his concentration. Whereas
the area around the cabin he had been exposed to on several occasions,
the woods were still a mystery.  Finally he could feel the picture
taking shape.  He could see the greenness in the color of the leaves
now becoming evident after the stark bareness of winter.  Spring
beginning to make its natural order known with the returning presence
of life to the foliage.  The dense coarseness of the tree trunks,
gray, brown, and black mixtures, sometimes overlapping each other in
places.  Making it that much more difficult to determine where one
tree ended and another began.  


The sky was wafting through the treetops in jigsaw puzzle snatches,
blue and heavy with cottony clouds.  He turned his head slightly in
response to the ghost-like sounds he could almost hear that also
served to bring the scene into further focus.  The gentle and
chilled, but ever present breeze stirring the dry leaves that paid
final homage at the gnarled feet of their former masters.  The
picture now firmly in place, he began.


"There is a path.  A definite path.  But it's not easy to find."
He followed his senses and instincts quietly in his head, matching
his mind's scenario to his array of experience as an agent.  "We'll
need to go in at the point just at the apex of the outhouse.  Look-
ing over the roof we can see that there is one tree that is slightly
taller than the rest, but bent at its tip to the left.  From an
especially bad storm years back.  It's the first trail marker.  
That's where the path begans.  Next...", he stopped. His breath
coming out in a surprised rush as he felt her straddle his hips.
And then a whole new vision replaced the woods scene in his mind.


She leaned down, her hair wisping across his face, her breasts 
resting against his chest.


"You're making it very difficult to concentrate Scully", he whispered
in mock seriousness. 
 

She sat up on top of him, running her hands across his chest, knead-
ing the muscles.  "I have full confidence in your abilities Mulder.
Tell me what you see", she urged him again, the words almost hinging
on need.


He moved his hands to rest on her waist. "I see a beautiful red haired
woman sitting on my chest."


She leaned down again, close to his face.  "I'm not talking about 
those abilities Mulder.  Focus."


He smiled, at least she hadn't moved his hands away this time.  Pro-
mise of things to come in that.  And he wanted to give her what she
wanted, even if at this moment thinking was the last thing he felt
like doing.  But, for her.  Slowly he returned to the place he had
been in his mind, picking up where he had left off. 
 

"Next, we'll need to follow the line of trees straight until we can
no longer see the cabin behind us.  The ground should stay level
for quite awhile."  Eve, of course, had no concept of measured time
clocked by watches and meetings.  She had relayed this piece of
information by saying simply that 'the ground won't have any up or
down places in it, for a good while.  Like maybe as long as it 
efforts me to beat out and hang a day's worth of washing on the 
line.'  They had estimated that to be about forty minutes.  


"If the ground slopes or deviates any before that, we'll know that
we've gotten somehow off track.  We'll need to move quietly.  This
will be the time when we will be in the most danger of being heard
by Ethan and the others out working in the woods.  He unconsciously
lowered his voice, like he was crouching and searching the woods
ahead, afraid of detection.  They could even be on the trail them-
selves if they decide to return to the cabin for anything around the
same time we'll be crossing it."  


His breath had quickened slightly, stress showing as he got caught
up in the mind exercises.  Scully caressed his face, not wanting to
break his concentration again, but needing him to know that she was
here for him.  Would always be here for him.  After a moment he
started again.


"The next trail marker will be on the right.  A bush, growing at 
the base of a tree.  It has tendrils reaching up high along the
truck of the tree.  Encircling it.  Almost like they are growing
together.  Here we'll need to turn right, and follow the path
until we reach a fork, maybe half a mile down.  The trick here is
not to follow the forks in either direction.  Instead we'll need
to climb over the small hill in front and continue on over the 
path that's behind it. 
 

He suddenly tensed beneath her body.  She could feel it.  This was
always the most difficult part for him. 
 

"It'll be darker here.  Even in the full sun of day, because this
is where most of the trees have overgrown the tops of their branches.
It's like a canopy blocking out the sun.  There's barely any light.
This will be the most dangerous place we'll have to get through.
The dark makes it hard to see the steep ravines and it's easy to
lose your footing and fall into one.  Also this is where Ethan has
most of his traps."


He was silent for a moment.  His hands tightening around Scully's
waist.  She knew where this apprehension was coming from, and she
knew why.  Eve had not been able to supply them with anymore infor-
ation on the subject of Ethan's traps.  Only that they were there.
And that there were a lot of them.  This is the area where most of
the others before them had died.  According to Ethan's version
they had supposedly been killed by their own ignorance of the 
terrain, based on what Ethan had told Eve anyway, and she had then
relayed to them.  But Mulder and Scully suspected that these people
had been hunted down and killed in cold blood.  Just as they would
probably be hunted once their escape had been detected.  Time
would not be on their side.


She placed her warm hands over his suddenly cold ones, urging him
to finish.  She felt almost guilty forcing him to face these
unpleasantries, like a mother holding a child down about to get
an injection.  The child struggling and confused as to why the
person who proclaimed to love him the most was now responsible for
giving him pain.  Empathy and guilt, mixing together with the
subtle responsibility that is the foundation of all love.  Mother
to child.  Friend to friend.  Spouse to spouse.  Lover to lover.  
But this justification didn't make it any easier.  It still hurt
her, in ways similar to the mother and child example, to see him
suffer.  But she needed to feel secure that he could recite this
information backwards and forwards, no matter what the price
to his state of mind.  He was always too off-hand glib and evasive
when she had tried others ways of testing him on this.  He was
forever citing her his near perfect memory.  But ever the skeptic, 
her heart demanded tangible evidence.  This was the only way she had
found that seemed to work. 
 

Finally, almost as if he had worked his way through the darkness
of his mind he eased up, relaxing his muscles, releasing the tension
in a heavy sigh.  And in truth he had.  Because she knew he had
now reached the other side of the darkness in the woods setting of
his mind.  Away now from the unknown place that they would be en-
countering in real life soon enough.  There wasn't much he could
play out for her on that scene anyway, except for the fear.  
Because Eve had not been able to give them too much information
in this area.  And this lack of forewarning was of course, the
basis for the fear itself.  


But Scully could not ascertain whether he had fully absorbed the
details of the escape route she had been supplying him with, without 
first taking him through this part.  But it was over now for the time-
being, at least in his mind.  And in hers.  But it hung there, a 
waiting and tangible final darkness.  Preparing even now for their 
arrival on that final day.  


She leaned down resting her head against his chest.  She knew what
this took out of him, and that he did it only for her benefit.


"Tell me what you see", she repeated once again.


But they both knew this time it was different.  The sentence wasn't
as serious as the others before had been.  Because the rest of the
journey would be easy compared to the part he had just completed.
He could do it in his sleep.  He brought his hands up clasping them
tight around the bare skin of her back.  And she now allowed the
comfort that his touch brought.  The peace.  Both hers.  And his.


"We'll come into a clearing.  We'll need to cross it heading left
until we reach the point where it falls back into the woods.  The
path will be more defined here, and easier to follow."


His hands started moving slowly down the curve of her back, and
then under to cup her breasts.  Kneading them between the fingers
of his hands. 
 

She smiled.  He was tired of the game now. Never a willing partici-
pant in the first place.  But patient, and pleased with his own 
performance.  He was now ready to reap his promised rewards.  She sat 
up again.  Arching her back into his insistent hands, giving him 
full exposure.  She braced her hands down behind her, one on each 
of his legs.


"There's a grouping of rocks, five of them."  He sat up lowering his
head to her neck, and moving his lips over the crevices of her shoulders.
Slowly.  She moaned softly.  "All the rocks are similar in size, and
shape."  He brought his hands around to her back, shifting her, to
lay her down on the bed beneath him.  He trailed kisses down her body
and back up again.  She began moving restlessly.  Impatiently.  He
smiled.  Now it was his turn.  "This grouping is the last trail marker.
This is where we need to reenter the woods."  He moved forward settling
his body between her legs.  "We continue on a straight path for maybe
another half a mile. Once we get to this point, we should be able to see
the road from there.  The road we were on when we had the accident."  
He kissed her hard and deep, opening her mouth with his tongue.  Finally,
pulling back he looked down at her.  Her eyes glazed over in passion. 
The undeniable look of love meant only for him.  She had never looked
more beautiful to him. 
 

"Then we go home", he said quietly. 


"Home", she murmured underneath her breath. The word spoken with an 
awed reverence.


And then he was inside her, moving slowly.  Sweetly.


She closed her eyes.


"Tell me what you see Scully", he whispered, his lips now against her 
ear.  Caressing.  


"I'm home.  And I see a beautiful dark-haired man, making love to 
me."


****************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES IX: RAGING FIRES
****************************************

April 6th, 7:35 P.M.
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


"Go to hell Ethan", Scully repeated angrily. Her eyes narrowing to slits.
Mulder stood up forcefully down at the other end of the table.  Earnest
followed him quickly, turning the shot gun level with his chest.  Mulder
slowly returned to his seat, palms displayed in a supplicating gesture,
but his eyes never left the scene unfolding before him.  The cabin was
stock still quiet.  Waiting for the next turn of the screw.  Or nail in
the coffin.  Ethan's facial expression embodied hate, surpassing known
human concepts of the emotion.  His fingers reached out, and talon-like,
clawed the edge of the table in front of him.  Each one turning ashen
with the force of the pressure he applied to them.  A stray piece of
potato trailed down the contours of his cheek, until it reached the end
of his chin and fell.  It landed on the table in front of him.  He 
looked down at it, almost studying it.  The starch whiteness spattered
inconsistently with the murky brown sauce, congealing rapidly.  At
first he couldn't remember the connection.  What did this seemingly 
innocuous thing have to do with his raging anger?  And then he remember-
ed.  She had thrown it at him.  The bowl of stew.  She had thrown it in
his face.  Scully.  Scully had done that.  To him.


Eve moved quietly from her place, rounding the table to hover near
Ethan.  Her carefully controlled movements were like a small humming-
bird in flight.  "Ethan", she began, but was interrupted.


"Earnest, take Mulder on into the bedroom.  Now."  Ethan spoke with an
eerie calm.  Earnest immediately stood, gun still pointed at Mulder
as he dipped the barrel slightly in the direction of the bedroom door.
Eve moved over to Mulder when she saw him stand, knowing that he was
about to protest leaving without Scully.  She placed her palm against
his chest lightly.  "Mulder, you go on now.  Don't make things worse
like.  Please."  He could see the ravages of worry bringing an almost
centuries-old wisdom to her otherwise youthful face.  "Please", she
said again.  The word was broken up by an unexpected quiet sob.  Edgar
had now joined Earnest with his own shot gun, also pointed at Mulder.
Together they began prodding him back towards the door.  Eve moved
behind him, opening the door.  Mulder tried to catch Scully's eyes, 
but she was immersed in some kind of test of wills with Ethan's.  
"Scully", he called out plaintively, just before the door was shut in
his face.  But she wouldn't look at him.


Ethan stood slowly, pulling his long legs out from under the bench
like structure in a deliberate measured pace.  Scully followed his
movements.  Eve bent down to pick up the bowl Scully had dropped to
the floor after she had thrown the contents into Ethan's face.  "No
Eve", Ethan commanded.  She stopped her actions at his tone.  Her
mind was caught in a loop.  A repeating mantra.  'They lied.  They
lied.  They lied'.  Over and over and over again. It wasn't supposed
to happen this way.  She stood up straight.


"Eve you go and take the others out back.  Let'em play or set them
to work.  It don't matter.  Just go", said Ethan, his voice was cold
and distant.  Eve knew better than to argue, and quite frankly she
was afraid to let the little ones witness anything that might happen.
She hurried them together.  They were scared and full of unasked
questions.  She could feel their fright, and it matched her own.  She
just couldn't figure out how they had reached this point so quickly.
One minute things had been running smoothly.  And then.  This wasn't
part of the plan.  They had been so close too.  But now.  She turned
at the door just before leaving.  She wondered what horrors she would
find upon her return, as she closed the door quietly behind her.


The cabin was suddenly awash in silence.  The only sounds that were
evident would have been in other circumstances, soothing.  Not here.
The crackling of the fire was now reminiscent of hell's own scorching
fire, burning the flesh off some poor helpless sinner.  The occasional
creaking and groans of the cabin were now only reminders of the 
confinement and constriction of the cage that was the cabin's inter-
ior.  A cage without a key.  Ethan moved slightly, as Scully repressed
a shudder.  His movements were reptilian in nature.  She would not
have been surprised if his lips had parted just then, revealing a
blackened tongue, split and forked, followed quite naturally by the
devil's own hiss.  He was evil.  The soul of pure evil.  Although she
had always known this; it still had all the first time capabilities
to produce the fear.  And this was the core of his power over her.
He reveled in it.  He fed on it.  He crossed the room to stand 
behind her silently.  


Scully allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment.  Knowing he
couldn't see her face just then.  She only now realized the true 
scope of what it was she had done.  She had tossed away their only
chance for escape.  It wasn't supposed to have happened like this,
but when she saw him....his hands....what he was doing with them.
She had lost control.  Completely.  The next thing she could remem-
ber clearly was standing there seeing his face covered with the stew.
She opened her eyes to the bedroom door.  Mulder.  Her heart lurched.
Not only had she thrown her own chances away, but his as well.  She
had no right to seal his fate along with hers.  Her eyes lowered
in shame.  All their planning.  That small spark of hope that had
ignited with the return of their resolve to escape.  It was all
gone now.  She was filled only with the complete and overwhelming
hopelessness and defeat that had almost destroyed her before.  
Made worse because she knew, if given the chance....she would do
it again.  


She waited.  She could feel the heat seeping through her skin from
behind.  But it wasn't the fire.  It was him.  The heat of his 
soul-less self wafting off from his body like the shimmering hot
mirage heat of an acrid dry desert landscape.  His breath was foul
next to her neck.  Putrid.  Sulfuric.  This was what madness smelled
like she realized.  He placed one hand atop her shoulder, and she
flinched instinctively, shrugging it off.  She turned to face him
head-on.  


And he laughed.  Low.  Throaty.  Raspy.  There should be another
word to describe it, she thought suddenly.  Not laughter. Because
this could only be looked upon as a mockery of laughter.  His eyes 
danced within the pools of their own insanity.  Reflected back to 
her with a reddish glow from the fire.  


"I know", she whispered.


"I wanted you to know", he acknowledged, with no small pleasure.


There was a pounding.  She thought it was her own heart for a moment
before taking in the fact that it was coming from the bedroom door.
It was Mulder.  Afraid for her.  And she was indeed afraid herself.
Very afraid.  She fought to maintain eye contact with him.  But it
was like staring straight into the sun.  His image burning itself
permanently into her corneas.  He was the devil.  He was.  He moved
again, backing away slightly.  He leaned lazily against the edge of
the fireplace's mantle.  She watched intently, as he began again.
His left hand lifted, overturned and cupped.  His right hand moving
against it, under and back.  Over and over again.  She closed her
eyes finally, but the picture was still there.  When she opened her
eyes once more she looked down with surprise.  She was repeating his
movements with her own hands.  But then she knew them so well.
By route, and repetition.


How many times had she repeated this ritual for Emily.  Holding the
stuffed bunny in one hand while pushing the stuffing back in with 
the other.  She stilled her own hands, while his increased their
tempo.  Until they were but a parody of the original movements.
He was turning it into some obscene and grotesque gesture.  Fren-
zied.  Trying to warp even this memory for her.  Why?, she thought
desperately.  Why must evil seek out innocence and destroy it?
Why?  He had killed Emily.  She, who had been the very embodiment
of all that is pure and innocent.  And this walking apparition of
death had killed her.  She knew this now.  As soon as she had seen
him making the hand gestures during dinner.  Displaying them for her
benefit only.  Down in his lap while she had stood near him dishing
out his dinner.  It was then she had lost control, and thrown the
stew.  Emily had not drowned accidently.  Ethan had killed Emily.
She remembered blurting out that accusation at the graveside, but
her reasoning then had only been based on the fact that he had
refused medical treatment which could have saved her life.  


The dreams.  They took on a whole new significance now.  They
weren't only a sad product of grief.  The dreams had been real.
Her head shot up.  She looked again at his hands, moving with a
frantic speed now.  Those same abominations had been locked around
sweet Emily's throat.  Killing her.  And Emily *had* called for
her.  Just like in the dream.  She knew this.  She knew.  Her eyes
filled with hot salty tears of soul-wrenching pain.  "No", she
wailed.  "No."  She sank to her knees on the hardwood floor. And
quick, like a vulture descending unto carrion, he was behind her
now, encircling her with his arms.  


Evil has a touch.  It's an encompassing cold, filled with cruelty.
A total absence of comfort.  Whispering of pain endured and endless
more yet to come.  "Yes", he hissed into her ear, and it was death 
talking.



"Mulder", she whimpered softly.


"....can't help you now", he finished.


He pulled her to her feet, her form locked within the steel mesh of 
his arms. He was moving her body forward, towards the roaring fire.  
She watched the embers and flames leap high, intertwining and embedded
throughout the cords of burning wood.  It was beautiful and deadly.  
Offering warmth and death.  Coming closer and closer.  He ran one of 
his hands down the length of her arm, stopping at the bottom, as he 
took her limp hand in his at her wrist. He lifted her arm. He felt 
like ebony ice, an agony of coldness.  A coldness that even the heat 
of the fire was powerless to extinguish.  His legs molded behind hers 
as they pushed her forward even more.  Towards the gaping mouth of the
fire's fetid breath.


"I want to hear you scream....like that first night", he whispered, 
as he moved her hand ever onward.


Her fingers automatically retracted against the increasing degrees
of heat.  He bent her body with his own, folded around her at the
waist from behind.  She resisted an overwhelming urge to become sick
as she felt his hardness straining against her body.  It was a 
desire.  But it wasn't remotely sexual in design.  His desire wasn't
for her body.  It was for her pain.  He lived only for other people's
pain.  She was darkly mesmerized as she gazed into the encroaching
fire.  Lost.  She fought to gain control.  The first iron hot lick
of flame searing her tender skin brought her back to reality.  She
bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood in order to quell the scream
that was trying to escape in response to the pain.  She would not
give him his desire.  Refused.


Instead she reached out with her other hand, using it to cover both
his and her own where they conjoined within the heat of the flames.



"Together then Ethan.  We'll go into hell together", she said with a
firm resolve.


She purposely began moving their hands now firmly fused together deep-
er into the fire.  She felt him stiffen against her with a stunned 
surprise, as he now too felt the effects of the flames.  The smell
of burning flesh assaulted her senses.  She registered the concept
of the pain, but for now at least was separated from it as if sus-
pended on another level from its grasp.  She turned just enough to
watch his face contort in agony as their hands were engulfed in the
fury.  No more the monster now to her.  Just a man-child.  He held
no power over her this night.  She smiled, even as he screamed.


In that single micro-moment a strange reversal took place as she 
saw that she had now become as much the monster as he had been.  
And she tearfully mourned the loss of herself.


He jerked back, pulling her with him.  They fell to the floor and
he immediately pushed her away roughly.  He stood, running to the
sink, working desperately to prime the pump.  Cursing her.  Whimper-
ing with the pain while the cool water gushed over his hands.  The
cabin door burst open then, as Eve, Earnest and Edgar rushed in from
outside.  Eve stood motionless for a moment, trying to make sense
of the conflicting images in front of her.  Ethan yelling out
obscenities directed at Scully, and in obvious pain.  Scully on the
floor, leaning back on her knees almost serenely.  Her hands held
out in front of her, obviously burnt.  But she didn't seem to be
acknowledging the pain.  The pounding and yelling coming from behind
the bedroom door, as Mulder demanded to know what the hell was hap-
pening.  


This madness had to stop, Eve thought fleetingly.  All the remaining
lingering doubt she may have had over her own participation in the
plan falling away.  Tomorrow.  As scheduled.  Come what may, the
escape would go on as planned.  Tomorrow.  She rushed over to Scully,
helping her to her feet, wanting nothing more than to get her into
the bedroom before Ethan had a chance to hurt her further.  Scully
looked at Eve like she didn't know who she was, but responded to 
her directions as they worked their way over to the door.  The bar
bolt was removed in record speed as Eve pushed Scully into Mulder's 
waiting arms.  And then locked the door firmly behind them.

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


Mulder grabbed Scully as she came through the door, pulling her into a
relieved hug.  It wasn't until he heard her muffled groan of pain that
he realized that something was wrong.  He pulled her back to arm's 
length and that was when he saw her hands.  Burnt.  Blistered and red.
In some places blackened.  "God", he said as he steered her over to
the bed and sat her down.  He then went over to the dresser, removing
the water pitcher and bowl, along with the wash cloths that sat next
to them.  Returning to the bed, he sat the items down on the table,
pouring the bowl full of water.  He guided Scully to sit up against the
headboard, as he placed a pillow on her lap.  He laid the bowl of water
carefully on the pillow, and gingerly lowered her hands into the cool
water.  She grimaced at the sensation, sucking in her breath through
clenched teeth.  He began ripping the cloths into strips.  


"Scully....", he began, then faltered.


What had gone wrong?, he wondered.  What had possessed her to do what
she did tonight.  The plan had been to only irritate Ethan enough to
merit another lengthy lock-up punishment.  It was to have been the
first phase of their escape plan.  So meticulously planned over these
last weeks.  They both knew he would not need much provocation.  Any
little thing would have set him off.  But what she had done was no
little thing.  Why had Scully thrown the stew?  It was overkill.  It
was like the lamb blindly walking into the lion's den.  What had she
deemed so paramount in importance that it equaled worth in her mind
enough to risk their only possible avenue of escape.


"Mulder", she spoke quietly, as if reading his mind.  "I'm sorry."


He nodded slightly, not trusting himself to speak right now.


He lifted her hands from the water, touching them as little as possi-
ble. She frowned some, and shifted a little, but that was all. It 
bothered him that she didn't seem to feel much pain.  It was if she
was completely detached from reality.  He wrapped them carefully with
the cloth strips, as best he could, tying the ends at her wrists.  He
returned the bowl to the table, and then sat down beside her on the
bed.  He pulled her into his arms.  


"Tell me Scully", he said quietly after awhile.


"He killed her Mulder.  Emily.  And he was taunting me with it like 
she was some piece of garbage thrown out for disposal.  I...I just
lost it...I don't know what else to say."  She turned around to face
him, moving next to him to wrap her arms around his neck.  He could
feel the soft cloth bandages on her hands as they rested against his
skin.  "I'm sorry", she said again next to his ear.  


She stayed there, resting against him for many minutes before finally
speaking once more. "I was there with him Mulder. Inside his madness."
She pulled back to look deep into his eyes.  He could almost see the 
dark abyss of despair that was Ethan's essence reflected back in her 
own eyes for just a split second, and then it was gone.  He held her 
tightly.


"You're back now Scully.  You found a way out."


She searched his eyes for answers.  "This time", she said weakly.


He opened his mouth to speak and then changed his mind.  She would not
want platitudes now.  She was being honest, and in truth he knew there
could well be another time when she was faced with even worse trials.
Only she would be able to know whether she had the inner strength 
within herself to breach the bridge back from the edge of darkness.
Their combined silence lengthened as they both drifted off to sleep.

*****

April 7th, 5:25 A.M.
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Scully was pacing.  Mulder watched her out of the corner of his eye.
She was in pain and trying to ignore it. She had woken several times
during the night drenched in sweat from the throbbing ache of the 
burns. But there wasn't much she could do, nor he to help her.  The 
blisters had started weeping and it had taken all her reserves of 
strength to tolerate the pain while he had washed her hands and 
changed the bandages this morning.  His only comfort was knowing 
Ethan was going through the same agony. Although he was sure he was 
afforded some relief via Eve's medicinal plant medicine.  Ethan would
never offer the same treatment for Scully of course.


But it wasn't the pain making Scully restless now. It was the waiting.
Would Ethan revert to his practiced method of locking them into their
room for days on end without food or water by way of punishment?  Or
would Scully's accelerated act of defiance last night push him into 
some new and seemingly unimaginable higher plane of punishment?  


They both jumped as they heard the sounds of the bar being removed.  
Unconsciously they moved together.  Awaiting their fate.  Mulder was
reminded of that story about the doors - one holding a tiger meant
to kill, the other a beautiful lady.  Which would it be he wondered
now?


The door swung open slowly.


There stood Eve, worry etched on her face.  "Are you ready?", she 
whispered urgently.


****************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES X: SHATTERED BONDS
*****************************************

April 7th, 5:30 A.M.
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia



Mulder pulled Scully into his arms, and she leaned heavily against him.
He held her tight, feeling the slight tremors of apprehension run through
her body.  He wondered if she felt his as well.  Hurried and scattered
scenes from the last many months rushed through his mind.  Their car
accident.  Scully's screams of agony that first night.  Sadly, turning
out to be only a small foreshadowing of things to come.  Ethan's strange
agendas, and their first sickening fear that came with the realization
that they were prisoners in this world.  The slow and monotonous passage
of time.  Days into weeks.  Weeks into months.  The back-breaking hard
work forced upon them.  The loss of their identities and simple freedoms.
The absence of control over their own lives.  The planning and failing
of each subsequent escape attempt.  A part of them knowing the futility
of each one before hand.  Yet the desperate need to keep trying nonethe-
less.  The slow, but deepening loss of hope that dawned and strengthened
with each new day.  The tortures, and spiraling acts of dementia in-
flicted upon them by their captor.  The days of punishment, with no food
or water.  Reduced to groveling.  The subtle eclipse of their dignities
with Ethan's never-ending determination to break their spirits. Emily's
death, and the depths of Scully's grief over her.  The tears.  The 
terror.  The hopelessness.  Each painful remembrance branded forever
upon their souls.


"Are you ready?", he whispered now against her ear, repeating Eve's
words.  He held her closer, content within the embrace of her warmth.
The sudden melancholia he had been feeling reviewing the events of 
their captivity lifted.  Because he couldn't help but be thankful for
the one truly good thing to come out of all this madness.  Their love
for each other. The spark always there, but perhaps never to have been
acted upon without their catapulting into this alternate reality.  He
envisioned the memory of her face in his mind.  Her body.  Her very
essence.  Remembering how beautiful she had looked and felt when they
had made love for the first time, and each time since.  He loved her
more than he had ever thought possible to love a woman.  And still
more besides.  She was his friend.  His partner.  His lover.  Now his
life.  His one reason for living.  Once again she seemed to reach
inside his very being, connecting with his own thoughts and voicing
them back to him.


"We're going to make it Mulder", she said, pulling away just enough
to look into his eyes.  And he knew she too had been thinking of that
first time together.  The wonderment and awe it invoked in their
hearts.  This one golden treasure found among the ruins of their 
imprisonment.  She trailed her palm lightly against his face.  The
cloth bandages of her hand warm and tender against his skin.  He
touched her cheek in return.  


"I love you", he mouthed.


She smiled, repeating the words in silence.


Eve watched them.  These two had been through so much.  Over the 
months she had been an unwilling witness to their pain and struggle.
They were indeed remarkable people.  Alone they were strong and
capable enough, but together they formed something that defied simple
explanations.  And it was a bond strong enough to be reckoned with,
and acknowledged by virtue of its infinite power.  If ever two
people deserved happiness, it was them.  Yet somehow she felt that
even before they had come here their lives had been scarred with
pain and loss.  Almost as if the gift of their love was such that
they were forced to offer sacrifice on every level for the privilege
of a relationship that few are ever lucky enough to share.  And she
was sure that even though it was a personal heartache that only
they could fathom the depths of; it was a price they were willing
to pay.  Time and again.  Mulder and Scully.  They had both found
a place special in her heart.  So much so that she was now deep
set in the very act of betraying the only family she had ever known
to try and help them escape.  Even though she was absolute in her
resolve, it was still the hardest thing she had ever had to face.
And time, cruel time, was once again not on their side.  She 
coughed softly to get their attention.  They pulled apart quickly,
almost as if they had forgotten that Eve was still standing there.
She moved forward towards them placing a hand on each of their
shoulders.


She hesitated as they looked at her intently.  Waiting.  She had
felt a sudden need to say something.  To communicate her feelings.
Her wishes.  Her fervent desire that they would be successful.  But
now somehow the words alluded her.  Until she saw the twin mirrors
of hope that lived stubbornly in their faces.  The belief.  They
would find a way it said to her.  Or die trying.  She smiled warmly
at them as she at last settled on the words she wanted to share.
"I wish I had the look ahead sight to know what this day will 
follow for you.  But I can only keep in my heart the pure gladness
that seeing you reach the safe place of your home again would fill
me with.  I'll hold that feeling close and tight.  I can only set
you on your way now with my warm wishes, and loving thoughts."  She
bowed her head solemnly.  "And my heart grieved sorrow for your
worrisome pain these last long days with us."


Scully reached out to Eve, enfolding the young girl into her arms.
"Eve you have nothing to be sorry about.  Nothing to feel ashamed
of.  Without you I....we....would never have lasted this long.  You
have to know that."  Mulder stepped forward, placing his hand on
Eve's shoulder.  "Eve, please reconsider and come with us.  When
Ethan finds out we're gone he might...."  Eve stopped his words with
a defiant look.  Stubborn.  Determined.  "He won't never hurt me
Mulder.  I know this."  The sincerity and absolute faith she placed
in the limits of her brother's tolerance for brutality was one of
the few times that Eve appeared as the child she truly was in
actual years.  With a child's unerring and honest belief that 
those closest to them are infallible, above the frailties of human
weakness, and its inherent trappings of good and bad.  It's one of
the most difficult lessons a child, any child, must learn.  That
those they love are still after all only human.  Capable of being
wrong.  Capable of being cruel.  And in some extreme cases, capable
of being evil.  Eve, like any child, was destined to learn her
lesson the hard way.  Experience.  


Mulder and Scully exchanged looks, both of them thinking of Emily.
They had considered telling Eve about their knowledge on their
suspicions of Ethan's part in her death.  But they knew, she would
refuse to hear them out.  Mulder nodded, accepting Eve's decision,
knowing there was nothing he could say to change her mind.  "We'll
come back for you Eve, and the others", Scully said quietly.  Eve
was silent, realizing all was said that could be expressed on both
sides.  She stepped back from them, turning towards the door.  They
followed her into the next room.


The first sight to greet them was of a deeply slumbering Earnest.
His head rested on the table in front of him.  His arm outstretched
next to an overturned cup, looking as if he had fallen mid-sip.
Beside him propped up against the bench he was sitting on was his
shotgun.  Eve looked at her brother.  A trace of guilt clouded her
features for a moment, and then just as quick disappeared.  "The
root I used to bring on the sleep is hard to time on its effects,
but I chose it because it wakes the sleeper up easy like when it
wears off.  Just like coming out of a daydream.  It's sits well on
the insides too.  No bad ills follow like a headache or stomachache.
With luck, he'll just think he nodded off for a short bit, and get
right back on with his business."  'With luck.'  The words hung in 
the air.  They would need a lot of that this day.  "Ethan and the 
rest have gone on already to chore.  I sent the smaller ones out to
gather some herbs and plants for my medicine store.  They're off
looking on the other side of the woods.  I made sure."  Mulder 
nodded, as he moved towards the front door.  His mind already pic-
turing the path to the shanty shed out back.  He knew the route and
plan so well he felt he could make the trip without the aid of his
senses if necessary.  A fact he was sure Scully would be pleased 
with, as it had been at her insistence that they had repeated the
escape route over in their minds again and again.  He opened the
door, closing it quietly behind him. 


Eve moved over to a cot on the far side of the room, pulling out
a bundle from underneath it.  It was a burlap sack with cloth
strips sewn loose unto the back.  Its shape bulky, outlining the
items placed inside it.  "I made this up late last night after
everybody had gone off to sleep.  She moved over to Scully.  "I've
loaded it with some food and a water jug, just in case you should
get lost and end up spending more time out there in the woods than
you're figuring on.  Then she walked over to the bedroom, replacing
the bar bolt across the outside of the door.  Turning she caught
the furrowed brow of Scully as she reached up to adjust one of 
the straps laying against her shoulder.  She released her breath
through tightly clenched teeth in a soft hiss.  Her hands, Eve
realized.  She was in pain.  No wonder, considering the severity
of the burns.


Eve crossed the room, taking Scully's hands gently into her own at
the wrists.  She shook her head slowly.  "I wish there was time 
enough for me to doctor these up for you."  Scully said nothing,
lowering her eyes.  Sensing where Eve's thoughts were heading now.
"Why?", Eve asked.  Knowing there was no need to fill in the particu-
lars of her question.  "Eve, I can't explain what happened last
night.  Not now.  There isn't time.  And I have a feeling you aren't
ready yet to know.  But you deserve an answer and I promise,
when this is over you'll get one.  For now you'll just have to
believe me when I say I had my reasons for doing what I did."  Eve
opened her mouth to speak again, but was silenced when Scully 
shook her head.  Scully looked deep into Eve's eyes, trying to
convey the seriousness of her next words.


"Promise me Eve.  Don't underestimate Ethan.  When he finds out
we're gone....if he...."  She paused unsure suddenly how to put
into words the fear she felt for Eve's safety once they had gone.
She was as much afraid for Eve as she was for herself and Mulder.
"Protect yourself Eve.  Whatever it takes.  I know he's your brother,
but he's also a....danger.  He's capable of anything.  Promise me."
Scully could see the range of emotions as they crossed the land-
scape of Eve's face.  Her eyes reflected back many things - dis-
belief, confusion, uncertainty, guilt.  But finally.  Acceptance.
"I promise Scully."  They both jumped slightly as Mulder walked
through the door.  Scully met him halfway, alarmed at the look
of anger on his face.  He avoided her eyes as he threw the burlap
sack he was carrying unto the table.  Just by the muffled sound
the sack made upon contact with the wood, Scully could guess the
reason for his distress.  The sound had been entirely too light.
It most definitely wasn't the sound that the weight of two FBI
standard issue guns coming into contact with an unyielding sur-
face would make.  It could only mean that there wasn't any guns
in the sack.


"They weren't there", Mulder said, bringing fact to her summation.
"The guns weren't there."  Eve picked up the bag, spilling the
contents out across the table.  Two FBI badges in their cases.
Two cell-phones.  She picked up one of the phones, turning it over
in her hands.  She held it up, facing the wrong way, as she had
never actually seen one before.  "What about these things here?
Can't they be of some use to you?"  Mulder shook his head 
impatiently, running his hands across his face.  "No.  The batteries
are dead after all this time."  Scully came over to him.  "Mulder
we have to go without them.  There's no turning back now.  We've
come too far to back out."  He looked at her face.  "Scully, those
guns were the only edge we had.  We have to have something to defend
ourselves with in case....."  He trailed off, not wanting to say
the words he was thinking in front of Eve.  Mulder looked at the
shotgun still propped next to Earnest.  He started to reach for
it, but Scully stood in his way.


"No Mulder.  If you take that gun then you'll ruin what chance we
have to put any time between us and Ethan.  We have to leave it.
When we go Earnest may well wake up and realize something's not
right, and go into the bedroom to check on us.  But then again he
may not.  But if he sees that the gun is missing, he'll know for
sure.  We're already outnumbered.  We've lost the guns.  We can't
afford to lose this too."  Eve quickly walked over to the kitchen
area, opening a drawer she extracted a long handled butcher knife.
"Take this then.  It's better than nothing."  Mulder took the knife
from her, wrapping his fingers tightly around the wooden handle.
It brought him little comfort.  But as Eve had said, it was better
than nothing.  


The air in the cabin suddenly felt super-charged with tension.  As
all three determined they had reached the point of final repose.
There was nothing left to do or say.  It was time to go. Scully gave
Eve another quick hug, surprised to find her eyes misting over with
emotion.  Mulder reached for the badges and phones, returning them
to the sack in his hand.  He came up behind Scully putting his 
arm on her shoulder.  Eve opened the door, suddenly anxious to
have them on their way.  Scully walked out first.  The sun was just
beginning to rise.  There was a chill in the air, and she shivered
involuntarily.  Mulder came up behind her pressing his body close
to hers, almost as if he was returning the favor from his mind
simulation scenario when she had done as much for him against the
imaginary cold.  But there was nothing remotely imaginary about 
this she knew.  Her body responded to her heightened anticipation.
She could feel the blood racing through her veins.  The pounding
of her heart.  The fear.  But somewhere in the midst of all that
foreboding, there was something else as well.  As she crossed the
threshold from the cabin to the outside it hit her with all the
power of her being.


Freedom.


After all this time.  After all the horrors. For the first time she
was able to make a conscious decision without being told.  Without
being forced.  A decision that wasn't against her will.  She was
amazed at how light her body felt suddenly, as she symbolically
shed the shackles of her captivity over these long months.  True,
it did little to quell the fear, as this decision, conscious or
otherwise, could very well end in her and Mulder's death.  But it
was exhilarating nonetheless.  She couldn't help but smile.  It
seemed somehow sacrilege given the seriousness of the moment.  She
turned almost apologetically towards Mulder.  And her smile widened
as she saw his own face marked with the same evidence of pure joy.
Together they turned towards the direction of the first marker on
the trail that they hoped would take them away from this nightmare
forever.  Back home.


Eve watched them from the door frame.  They weren't the same two
people who had been taken here so long ago.  That was apparent
enough.  Neither was she, she realized sadly.  She watched them
until they disappeared into the woods at exactly the point where
she had told them to start.  She looked up at the tree that was the
marker of that starting point.  The sun was just now reaching up
over the horizon, topping the crest of this tree that was just
slightly taller than the rest.  It was silly she knew, but she 
wanted to think that the heavens were lighting their way.  The 
tree their unofficial guardian.  Its damaged tip bent slightly
towards the left from a ravage storm.  Bent, but not broken.  
Not the same, but still alive.  Still fighting.  Like Mulder and
Scully.  Like her.


The sunrise was bringing changing colors to herald the start of
a new day.  A new and very different day.  One that would change
their lives forever.  Or see the end of them.  She sighed deeply,
turning back inside and closing the door.  She went back over to
check on Earnest.  Satisfied that he was doing fine she removed
the overturned cup that had held the tainted tea she had given
him earlier.  She had already disposed of the rest of the pot.
She moved over to the fireplace and poured a half cup of the 
regular tea she had brewed since then.  She placed the cup back,
close to his hand.  She was about to sit down across from him
with a pile of mending ready to fill the time with a mindless
task until he woke.  Instead she crossed over to the kitchen
area.  She returned to the same drawer from which she had taken
the large butcher knife she had given to Mulder.  This time she
removed another knife, but smaller in size.  More compact.  She
hesitated only a moment before taking it with her.  She buried it
under the bundle of mending she was working on, as she sat down and
patiently began the chore.  She concentrated, wanting nothing more
than to push Scully's words from her thoughts.  But they refused
to do her bidding.


'Protect yourself Eve.  Whatever it takes....Promise me....'



**************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES XI: RACING TIME
**************************************

April 7th, 6:02 A.M.
In The Woods, Wilstead Cabin
Hadden, West Virginia


Eve tried to keep her features from betraying her as she glanced over
at Earnest.  He was moving restlessly.  His eyes flickering with nearing
consciousness.  Slowly he sat up, rubbing his hands over his face in a
tired gesture.  Eve continued with her mending, as if there was nothing
out of the ordinary taking place in front of her.  Earnest gave her a
confused look.  She smiled.  "Well hello there sleepy head", she said
in a slightly teasing tone.  His brow furrowed at her words, as if he
was having trouble narrowing down his train of thought.  He hands 
gravitated towards his shot gun.  Her heart leapt as she watched him
check the chambered rounds.  "Bad dreams?", she tried again.  Hoping to
convince him with her words that he had only fallen asleep.  


"What's going on here?", he questioned her.  She rose from her seat,
going to the fireplace and picking up the hot kettle with the aid of
a dishcloth.  She brought it back over to the table.  She gave a 
slight dip of the kettle in his direction.  "Would you like me to warm
that up for you a bit?"  He nodded, watching her intently as she poured
the hot liquid into his already half-filled cup of tea.  She replaced
the kettle and returned to her place, picking up the mending she had
been working on before.  Slowly, Earnest reached for the cup of tea,
blowing on it absently as it made its way to his mouth.  After a 
moment he placed the cup back down on the table.  She could feel his
eyes on her again and she willed herself not to react to the close
scrutiny.  But her fingers were shaking and she accidently stuck her-
self with the needle.  "Eve, what hap....did you....", he paused as
if he had forgotten what it was he wanted to say.  His eyes strayed
over to the bolted bedroom door.  He gave her a quick glance before
rising and heading in the direction of the bedroom.  Eve's heart
jumped.  Her breath felt like it was being squeezed forcefully 
through her lungs.  Her eyes widened in an absolute petrifying fear.
She stood up quickly, her mouth open, trying to think of something
to say to detract him from the door.


Suddenly the front door opened and Ethan stormed inside.  He was
clearly angry.  He kicked the door shut behind him and hurried over
to the sink.  "Ethan?", questioned Earnest coming up behind him at
the sink.  Forgetting momentarily about the bedroom.  "What's
wrong?"  Ethan cursed silently under his breath.  "It's these damn
hands.  I can't get any work done without them hurting like all get
out.  Earnest, I want you to go on out and help the others with
clearing the field for that new holding pen.  Everytime I try to
get a grip on the ax it starts to paining me something awful.  I'll
look after things here."  Ethan was so intent on trying to remove
the bandages he didn't see the look of hesitation that crossed over
Earnest's face.  Earnest was about to say something about his feel-
ings that something wasn't right here, but was silenced by Ethan's
no-nonsense tone.  "Go on now Earnest, there's a lot to be done, 
and little time to waste."  Eve gave Earnest a hurried pleading
look, as if saying you had better go before Ethan really gets mad.
Earnest, not wanting to be on the receiving end of Ethan's anger,
especially after the episodes he had witnessed recently, turned
and left without another word.


Once he had gone Eve reached out to try and help Ethan with the
bandages.  He moved slightly aside to let her near.  She took his
hands into her own with a tender touch, much as she had done so
very recently with Scully's same injuries.  Eve's hands were shaking
and she willed them to stop, lest they voice her betrayal.  She
was afraid to speak.  The words were caught in her throat.  When 
the bandages were removed she guided his hands expertly under the
water pump as he flinched slightly against the rush of the soothing
water.  Her heart was just beginning to get its rhythm under control
concentrating on the grounding familiarity that came with applying 
her doctoring skills.  Then he spoke.  Shattering her last remaining 
thread of control.


"Did you think I wouldn't find out Eve?"


She froze.  Her eyes refused to move from their viewpoint of his 
hands.  She stared at them with an almost awed reverence.  
Contemplating the angry red coloring and raised blisters of the 
weeping sores. Just beneath the damaged burned outer covering, in 
places, she could see tiny patches of his normal skin.  Unblemished.
But the majority of it was tainted and scarred.


Like him.


She closed her eyes.  Realization settling in like a heavy shroud
on her soul.  Slowly he removed his hands from hers, grabbing a 
towel from the counter he worked carefully drying them.  She could
hear the soft whisper of cloth against skin behind her, but she
didn't turn around.  She was afraid.  


He knows.


This thought pounding over and over in her mind.  And she screamed.
Or she thought she did.  But there was no noise.  It was only in her
heart.  Finally, she gathered her last reserves of strength and
spoke in a halting and strained whisper.


"Let them go Ethan.  Let them be."


She turned to face him.  He was smiling.  And it was the most unsmiling
smile she had ever seen in all her life.  Ethan?  This wasn't Ethan.
But it was.  It was.  And it wasn't.  


He moved backwards towards the bedroom door, reaching for it.  He
leaned against it.  Facing it.  Caressing the wood in a manner that
was obvious elaborate mockery, but familiar in some way.  Her brow
furrowed trying to understand his meaning. Then it came to her.  That
night when she had stole away from her cot and had pressed herself
against the door trying to hear some sign of life from inside.  Afraid
that Mulder and Scully had slipped from this life into the next after
four long days of being punished without food or water.  The very
night she had battled her inner demons and reached the difficult 
decision to help them escape.  He was letting her know that he had
seen her.  And he had known all along of her intentions.  He was
playing with her.  Like a predator just before pouncing on its
intended prey. 


And just as suddenly as any predator he pushed away from the door.  
She cried out in surprise, the anguish barely having time to leave
her lips before she felt his hands grabbing her arms in a painful
grip.  She wondered how he could possibly stand to hold her so 
tightly against the pain that he must be feeling from his burned
hands.  *He doesn't feel it.*  He doesn't feel anything.  Except
hate.  She looked into his eyes.  They were so dark and angry.  How
could she have not seen this before.  This was her brother.  She
had lived with him all of her life.  But that was no excuse.  How
could she have not seen this before.  He pushed her roughly away 
and she felt the corner edge of the table digging painfully into her
hip.  Her eyes strayed to the reddish blotches that now stained the
sleeves of her dress.  The residue from his burned hands.  On her.
It made her sick to her stomach, and she couldn't help but wonder
why.  She had seen much worse.  She had doctored broken bones and
had carried all eight of her brothers and sisters through every
imaginable illness.  But this.  She had never imagined anything
that rivaled this in horror.  This was like having the mark of the
devil himself on her soul.  Made all the more intense because it
was her first tangible proof of Ethan's state of mind.  His inherent
evil.


Scully.  Oh God, Scully had tried to tell her.  And Mulder.  But
she wouldn't listen. She wouldn't....her eyes widened as she suddenly
remembered.  The knife.  She would have to use it . But she couldn't.
She couldn't.  Her mind whirled relentlessly, flashing kaleidoscope
pictures of her brothers and sisters.  The little ones.  What if 
they came back and walked in on this?  Would he hurt them?  He
wouldn't.  He couldn't.  He would never....and in this one split
second her mind and heart lifted the barrier of the shield that had
been erected in protection of her peace of mind.  A shield she now
realized that she had placed there herself.  A way to separate her-
self from the truth.  She closed her eyes, and the tears fell with
unequaled force down her face.  


Emily.  Oh God.  Emily.  My baby.  My sweet little baby.


And she doubled over at the waist, clutching her arms around herself.
The onslot of the truth causing a horrific spasm in her that nothing
from her medicinal plant storage could ever hope to counter.  She
wailed.  An agonized sobbing that tore the very breath from her body.
Hate.  She had never felt it before.  This was hate.  And it consumed
her.  Totally.  She didn't care anymore, closing herself to further
lament.  She turned swiftly.  And without having a cognizant recogni-
tion of the exact sequence of events that had brought her to this
point, suddenly she could feel the grip of the knife she had hidden
under the pile of mending on the table.  Pliable wood and gleaming
steel.  It was in her hands, hot and slippery against the clammy skin
of her palm.  Her hands weren't shaking anymore she thought.  This
absent random rambling flickering across her fevered brain, and then
passing away just as quick.  All sequences of normality and order 
lost forever against the avalanche of data being inputted into her
already over loaded system.  Revenge it shrieked in banshee reverber-
ations.  Self-preservation it demanded with utmost urgency.  She saw
herself as if from a distance.  The person she had once been taking
note of the loss of her innocence and carefree abandon that had
now marked her tortured passage from childhood straight into hell.


She watched as Ethan retreated towards the fireplace.  If he was
surprised to find her suddenly brandishing a knife in his direction
he didn't signal it to her.  He turned his back.  Taunting.  Daring
her to make a move.  And she wanted to.  Desperately.  But her feet
were grounded in place.  The hot sting of sweat droplets pulsed down
her face, blinding her eyes with the salty wetness they left in their
wake.  He was still turned away from her, but she watched the muscles
ripple underneath his shirt as he reached down.  Slowly he turned.
Pointing a gun in her direction.  One of their guns.  Mulder's and
Scully's.  He really had known the entire plan.  How?  But it didn't
matter anymore.  As it was no longer relevant how he had come about
knowing.  He just had.  


The events were unfolding with surreal implications - her own 
brother was standing there with a weapon pointed at her.  And she
knew without a doubt that unlike her....he would use it.  He would.


He did.


It happened so fast.  The sound echoing like the loudest crack of
thunder she could ever remember having heard.  But it still took a
second for the pain to register.  She was already halfway to the
floor, her eyes closing in darkness before she could even acknow-
ledge the reality in her heart.  


Ethan had shot her. The knife landed useless next to her body on
the floor.  


And Ethan laughed.


After a minute, he moved over to her form, nudging it slightly
with the toe of his boot.  Curious. But nothing more. She remained
still.  He watched with fascination and an almost lupine hunger as
the thick flow of blood spread in a sticky pool from the source of
her wound.  But the satisfaction he had garnered with his actions
were only a momentary euphoric fix.  Quickly, the anger flared 
again as he returned the FBI issue gun to the waistband of his
trousers.  The still amost red-hot barrel where the projectile 
had issued forth stinging against the skin of his abdomen.  He
welcomed the sensation.  A reminder of the reason for his hate.
Mulder and Scully.  He ambled ungainly towards the front door, 
ripping it open, and nearly loosening it from its hinges in the
process.  He scanned the periphery of the woods.  Then he closed
his eyes tightly, letting the intensity of the last months fill
the abnormality that was himself.  Repeatedly closing and opening
the taunt burned skin of his hands.  Using the pain as a further
enabler of his need for blood.  And he filled his lungs with the
excruciating hot tingle like some mythical dragon's putrid breath.
His chest swelled to mammoth proportions, as he let loose with
an ungodly and completely inhuman bellow.  It filled the woods
with its power.


As death has a touch, so can insanity be manifested within a
voice.

*****

Mulder and Scully stopped in their tracks, their ears straining
to interpret the sound that rippled through the woods.  The
last resonant echoes dying in the wind.  Around them the life of
the woods reacted, preparing itself with an age-old mode of pro-
tective actions.  The birds scattered from treetops above them 
seeking safety as far from this place as possible.  The woodland 
floor around them suddenly became alive with scurrying creatures 
of various shapes and sizes as they burrowed into their shelters.
It had been a sound like no other heard before in their world.
It was as if the very bowels of hell had reached up and given
birth to a monstrosity of nature.  Giving it free reign to feed
upon the comparable innocence that would be absent from their
own domain.  This horrid sound that had so quickly followed the
unmistakable discharge of a loaded gun.  They looked silently
at each other, communicating with widened eyes and quickened
breaths.  They knew they had just run out of time.  The hourglass
was filling with sand.  And it was balanced against them.  
Suffocating them symbolically with its crushing weight.  Burying
them alive.  They moved together closer.  Touching.  Trying to
anchor their last vestige of normalcy and reason, before returning
to their journey.  Quickening their pace and purpose.  


Maybe it was only apprehension.  Maybe it was only an irrational
outcropping of fear.  Surely it must be, as they still had at
least a half hour gain on any hunter.  Be he....it....real or
imagined.  Still.  They could swear they could hear the crashing
of foliage and fallen bushes behind them.  The quaking shake of
the ground being rocked with the force of this thing's power and
presence.  The embodiment of evil lumbering towards them with
purposeful harm and deadly intentions.  Its only reason for exis-
tence to steal their own from them.


Their bare feet were being literally shredded by the various sharp
objects they encountered.  Stones.  Pine needles.  And all the other
myriad obstacles that fate threw their way.  They left bloodied
evidence of their flight.  Mulder stumbled, falling hard.  Scully
stopped and bent down next to him, her breath ragged.  They rose
quickly together, arms about each other.  Clutching.  Supporting.
Running.  Desperate in their quest to outrun the devil.  

*****

Ethan moved with a frenzied force never before felt.  He was on the 
hunt.  The prowl.  The others before Mulder and Scully had never
brought out this kind of reaction in him.  He could feel their
very presence.  Their fear.  And he fed on it.  He dropped to the
ground on all fours like the animal he had become.  He burrowed
deep within the leaves.  Searching.  Sniffing.  Tracking.  They
were definitely close.  He could smell them.  His tongue snaked out.
Lapping over a crimson spot on a dried leaf.  Blood.  He ran the
tip of his tongue around the coarse contours of the inside of his
mouth.  Tasting it.  Becoming one with it.  He smiled.  Hers.  And
there - beside it.  Another leaf with tell-tale spots.  He repeated
his actions.  His. He brought the leaves to his face breathing in
deeply, capturing their essence.  Searing their scent into his core.
Their tracks.  He bonded with them.  Consumed them.  This done, he
released the mummified remains of the leaves to float upon the
light wind.  His lips parted with pleasure, tiny spots of redness
staining the surface of his teeth.  He smacked his lips reveling
in this small taste of things to come.  


He stood. But not erect. Regressing in form to match his mental state
into the animal shell that had been his ancestors.  His features
transforming into a beast-like form.  The brows heavy, sloping, 
and over-hanging.  His gait gangly and stunted.  The knuckles
of his hands curled and large.  His body heavy and powerful with
muscles.  All geared towards the hunt.  


He now *was* truly the beast.

*****

"There!", Scully cried pointing off into the distance, the one word
wrapped in strain as she made a conscious effort to slow her heart's
rapid pace.  Mulder followed her lead, feeling the stress build to
ever increasing levels in his body.  He let out a breath he hadn't
even realized he had been holding as he confirmed her sight.  It
was indeed the next marker.  Just as Eve had said, and they had
visualized.  A bush, growing at the base of a tree.  Having tendrils
reaching up high along the trunk of the tree.  Encircling it.
Almost as if they were growing together in a symbiotic fashion.  He
reached for Scully pulling her close, almost afraid to let her from
his sight.  The blood was pounding in his temples.  Loud and fast.
He could feel the tremors of Scully's own heart thumping erratically
against his body. Ethan was gaining on them.  They could feel him
getting closer and closer. 


The enveloping silence marked only by their muted attempts to catch
their breath was suddenly shattered.  The air was filled with an
animalistic howl.  Closer.  Louder.  And something neither had not
thought possible - even more threatening.  


He was coming.  *It* was coming.


They began moving again.  Quickly.


***************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES XII: FINAL STAND
***************************************

April 7th, 7:30 A.M.
In The Woods
Hadden, West Virginia


He was the master of his environment and as such, it bowed subservient
to his approach.  Cowered.  All that he had been before this time was
no more.  There was no turning back now.  The transformation was 
complete.  This was his destiny.  This was his place.  And they were
his quarry.  This was his right.  Just as he had been born the hunter.
They had been bred the prey.  There could be no sentient conqueror
without the conquered.  All that had come before this point in their
mutual existence had only amounted to a farce.  A masquerade.  An
illusion.  Now that he had succumbed he no longer felt the tearing
struggle of inner conflict that resulted from trying to obtain what he
could never possess.  Sanity.  It had only held a tenuous hold at best
on his being anyway.  He was the dark and he accepted fully its 
influence over him.  It was only when he had tried to fit into the
constraining mold and mores of the others that he had been forced to
battle the rife of discord within himself.


The snake can only slither and crawl.  He was the snake.  Its kin.
Its brethren.  Its master.  And servant.  They were one.  Merged as
they had always been meant to be.  This was his time to bring honor
to those that had come before him.  And brand the path for those
that would follow.  And there would always be more to follow.  Since
time began.  There is a time and place for life.  There is a time and
place for death.  This was the time and place for madness.  And he 
was the bringer of madness.  


His hungry eyes searched the woods.  Gleaning with a tempest hot
glare straight from hell.  They could hide, but he would see.  They
could run, but he would chase.  His nose was pugged and toughened 
with extra skin now.  Resembling more a canine snout than human
cartilage anymore.  He sniffed the air, his heightened senses keenly
separating and categorizing the aromas through the extremely sensitive
nerve endings.  Blood.  His ears perked up in anticipation.  Wanting.
Needing.  He had the taste memory of their blood still fresh in his
mouth.  From the leaves.  He would recognize it.  He was a part of
it.  He sniffed again deeply, taking in all the information the wind
had to offer.  Ready as always for the hunt.  


And then dismissive.  Disappointed, but not diswayed.  Never.  The
smell analyzed now - not human.  A fresh kill.  Animal.  All the
woods was joining in the hunt today it seemed.  That primitive 
quest.  He nodded slightly, giving credence to this connection made
not far away.  Congratulating this other hunter on his kill.  And
somewhere over the valleys and deep hooded canopies of the woods
another animal lifted its head in answer.  The blood of its kill,
a small animal, still warm on its snout.  The animal accepted the
acknowledgment of this strange beast.  Determining the hunter 
connection to itself.  The animal/man wove the tapestry of itself
through the tendrils of the wind.  Its past.  Its history.  Its
proud lineage.  Telling the tale of those that had come before it.
Communicating.  And the other listened.  Understanding.  Learning.
And then bowing deeply in reverence to its awe-inspiring power.
Clearly the man-beast's skills overshadowed its own.  It was the
undisputed master.  As this other animal's own ancestors bade it
remember now.  And never forget.


The one that had been Ethan returned to his own hunt, shrugging off
the smell of the other.  It wasn't what he was searching for.  Not
his prey.  He turned back.  Trying again.  Filling his chest.  There.
It was them.  Not blood.  But almost as sweet.  Fear.  It was close.
Very close.  And it was so achingly strong.  He moved away in the
direction his centuries old hunter instinct commanded him towards.
His four powerful and sinewy limbs lightly touching the ground in
a lopsided gait.  First one side and then the next.  Working 
together like the well-oiled machine they had become.  And once 
again he bellowed his pleasure and anticipation into the four winds.


The hunt.  It was his destiny.

*****

"We've gotten...off course...somehow", Scully said stopping suddenly
in her tracks.  She leaned over at the waist, breathing hard.  She
shook her head dislodging the sweat that had plastered her hair to
her scalp.  She was really feeling each step of this journey.  She
had been locked inside of that cabin for nearly everyday of the last
seven months.  Ethan so determined to put her in her place, had 
hardly ever let her see the light of day.  As such even though her
extremities had toughened from the hard and relentless work, she
wasn't used to this kind of strenuous physical exertion anymore.
She had lost weight, mostly muscle.  She was weak and malnourished.
And the sun, even filtered through the treetops, was beating down
unmercifully.  Burning its searing rays into her sensitive and
exposed skin.  She could feel the heat that radiated off her body.
This combination of events was making her feel slightly unbalanced
and decidedly dizzy.  She felt an even more intense hatred of
Ethan for taking away not only her very life and freedom, but now
her strength as well.  She was a trained FBI Agent.  She should
have been able to run this distance in her sleep.  But no more.  She
would never admit it to Mulder, but she was having a lot of trouble
keeping up.  


Mulder had pulled up short, stopping and coming back to stand beside
her. He was winded, but nowhere near to the point of her exhaustion.
His lot in this had been different.  Each day he had been sent to
work outside.  His muscles had strengthened.  And he was already
deeply tanned from the sun.  Although just as malnourished and thin
as she, he still possessed considerable strength.  He paused a beat
before answering her.  Not wanting her to know he was giving her 
time to catch her breath.  She would never forgive him for making
allowances for her.  'Damn', he cursed to himself.  As many times
as they went over this in their minds, neither one had taken into
consideration what it would mean physically to make this run for
freedom.  Perhaps both were still stubbornly clinging to the hope
that if they were no longer mentally the same, at least they were
physically the same people they had been before.  But it was not
to be.  All that they had been before was gone.  Stolen from them.
"No, we turned right....", he paused breathing deep again before
continuing.  Drawing out the breath to give her even more time.
"We turned right at the last marker, and we've been going straight
since then.  It has to be...."  He looked around at the massive
trees encircling them.  His actions betraying a lack of faith in
his own words.  Each tree looked much the same as the one before
it.  "It has to be around here somewhere."


Scully straightened up, her breath finally regained, making a slow
circle.  Trying to define a path amidst the wood maze.  "We should
have reached the fork by now Mulder.  Maybe we should go back.
Retrace our steps.  We can't afford to get lost."  They both jumped
slightly as the eerie echo sound slithered its way through the
woods once more.  Familiar now.  But still never to be understood.
And always chilling to their souls.  The sound of the beast.  Death
calling out its domain. Reinforcing the fear.  Reminding them once 
again that they were not alone.  Never safe.  


Mulder put his arm around Scully's shoulders, urging her silently
to start moving again.  "You're right Scully, we can't afford to
get lost", his eyes scanned the landscape.  "But right now we can't
afford to stop." 


Scully nodded, ready to continue.  But then paused once again.


As she suddenly heard so very clear in her mind the ghost echo 
timbres of Eve's voice.  Sweet and strong.  It held all the 
qualities that Scully had come to know and love over their long 
time together.  A beguiling combination of old and young.  Wisdom
and innocence. Frailty and strength.  And now.  Something else as 
well.  The kind of sorrowful intonation that only bitter experience
and cruel life lessons can lend to intimate knowledge.  Eve was 
somehow here now. Scully knew this without hesitation.  Guiding 
them.  Reminding them. Helping them.  


She listened.


<<Take my strength Scully.  Use it.  You're set on the right path.
  Don't slow down now and doubt yourselves.  It feeds on fear.
  Follow the path Scully.  It's there.  Follow it until you reach
  the fork.  Maybe another quarter mile down.  Remember don't take
  the fork in either direction.  Climb over the hill in front and
  follow the path behind it.

  Hurry Scully.  Hurry.  It's coming.  It's coming!>>


"Scully?", questioned Mulder, shaking her slightly.  Concerned over
the glazed look that had clouded her eyes for a moment.  "Are you
all right?"  


She looked up and realized his face was out of focus and she closed
her eyes.  Opening them again she was relieved to see his features
before her now in a crystal clear image.  "Sorry Mulder I....I guess
I just got dizzy for a moment.  I'm all right."  She turned away, out
of his arms, and he reluctantly let her go.  She moved ahead a few
paces, and then pointed.  "This way Mulder.  It's just ahead.  I know
it", she said in a voice filled with renewed strength.  He joined her
quickly, resisting the urge to question her sudden resolve and sense
of direction.  They both started running once again.  Towards their
freedom.  Straining to put distance between themselves and the night-
mare that had taken on a frightening corporeal form.

*****

And only fifteen minutes behind them it appeared from the cover of 
the woods.  Stopping suddenly it lingered over the place where they
had rested.  It bent down placing its ear to the ground.  Scuffing
the area with its paws.  Stirring the leaves and pine needles.  
Listening.  Feeling.  And it was pleased.  They were weary.  Tired.
Wearing down.  The woman was....he struggled with the human concept
of words.  The woman was sick....no....not sick....weak.  If this had
been a true hunt in every sense of the word she would have been
separated from the other.  And left to fend for herself.  A diversion
to appease the hunter.  To ensure the survival of the prey species.
Sometimes one must die so that others could live.  This was the way
of the hunt.  It had always been. 


But this wasn't like the majority of other hunts that played in his
brain.  Hunts of the past.  Before his time.  Retold and revisited.
This was the forbidden hunt.  This hunt belonged to his species
alone.  All hunting skills were passed on from one generation to the
next. But somewhere his species' vision had been skewered.  Altered.  
Bastardized.  It had begun with the One who had come before.  The
First One.  Its hunger and need one day no longer quelled with the
myriad selection of species of prey it had been hunting since time
began.  It had turned to the others.  The Forbidden Ones.  The ones
that were never to be taken.  The ones that were then their masters.
The humans. 


To hunt one of the humans was a taboo.  A line never to be crossed.
It would bring certain knowledge of their existence.  The Ones who
were the hunters would become themselves the hunted.  But the temp-
tation had proven too much for the First One.  It had finally
taken one of the humans.  And fed on the sweet taste of their
intoxicating blood.  The thrill of this hunt unsurpassed as it had
been with an undisputed superior.  All this was captured forever in 
their one collective.  Passed down in memory from one generation to
the next.  It was indeed the greatest hunt of all.  The ultimate
experience between hunter and prey.  But it also proved their undoing.
Their presence known now they became the hunted themselves.  Almost
into extinction.  But a few survived.  And ever since that fateful
combination of events his species and all its progeny had been
condemned to prowl the sparse areas.  The back lands.  The periphery
of existence.  Hidden in plain sight.  Masquerading as humans.  
Forever banished.  Only resurfacing when the need proved too much.
The call to the hunt.


Ethan, he was one of them.  One of The Forgotten Ones.


With him now he carried the life blood and memory of all that had
come before him.  And he was destined now to reenact the human hunt
once more.  To satisfy the animalistic savagery that consumed his
soul.  To offer this human sacrifice in honor of the Ones that had
come before.  His family line had carried the genetic markers for
centuries on his mother's side.  Dormant.  Until the right combina-
tion of time and genes.  Heredity and environment.  Genetic markings
and strategic couplings.  His mother had never even known until the
very end the monstrosity of nature she had given birth to. It was a
one in ten million birth. The final knowledge had killed her.  Seeing
her first born, her son, display these tendencies that were counter 
to the very laws of the universe.  He had still been young when she 
died, and she had been extremely intuitive.  She saw the evil in him.  
Before he was even aware of it.  She had noticed his surreptitious 
acts of cruelty. And even more disturbing to her, the pleasure he 
derived from them. Increasing over the years in intensity and 
frequency.  


She had also carried the memories of the Ones that had come before.  
But her memories, there, but not carrying the same need to be acted
upon, had only been awakened by witnessing the slow transformation
of her son.  She had control, because unlike Ethan she had been
more human than one of The Forgotten Ones.  She had made him promise
on her death bed that he would try and fight the urges.  That he
would never turn on his own.  And he had stood there and sworn his
loyalty to her.  Given his word.  To her.  To the humans. And he had 
truly believed that he would be able to keep his vow.  And for awhile
he had.  Until the first human he had taken captive, the one he had 
brought home to be their 'parent' from the grocer's.  He had only 
intended to play with him.  Taunt him.  Torture him.  It might have 
been enough to stave off and quell the hunger.  If only.


If only he hadn't tried to run.


The chase that had ensued was the first time he had ever felt 
complete.  Grounded.  Connected to something that was infinitely
bigger and more powerful than anything he had ever experienced
before.  He was an active part of the past.  He was the master of
the present.  And he was the shaper of the future.  All these things
in one.  From that point on the hunter in him could no longer be
denied.  


Standing now he felt the wind shift.  Carrying their scent.  He
breathed in deeply.  Savoring.  


And the voices of his ancestors cried out in unison around him.  He
could hear them.  He could see them.  As all joined in with him now 
in the hunt.  The chase.


The final stand.


The kill.

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


They stood before the hill.  It was higher than they had envisioned and
overgrown with foliage.  The twines were massive and rope-like, reaching
and stretching.  They flowed up over the crest of the hill like a reverse
waterfall.  Disappearing over into the darkness of the other side.  If
they hadn't been given prior knowledge of the locale it would have been
so easy to miss the significance of this marker.  The forks beckoned
them.  Promised sweet safety in their sense of order.  A pot of gold
waiting at the end of their respective rainbows.  But they knew this 
was only a subterfuge.  They were placebos.  A false sense of security.
If taken, they would only lead deeper into the woods.  The only way
out lay on the other side of this hill.  And beyond it the place where
Eve had told them Ethan had set unknown traps.  Deadly traps.


Mulder reached out testing the strength of one of the vines.  Pulling
it taunt to see if it would anchor his weight.  Then he released it,
and silently began removing his shirt.  Scully furrowed her brows.
Questioning him, as he neatly ripped it in two.  He took one of her
hands in his, wrapping the cloth from his shirt around the makeshift
bandages already in place on her injuries.  And then repeated his
actions with her other hand.  Once completed, he smiled at her, and
touched her cheek gently before taking hold of the vine once more.
He began climbing.  One leg reaching up and capturing a foothold, 
and then the other.  His hands moving upwards on the vine.  One on
top of the other.  And then again.  Until he had reached the top of
the hill.  


He looked down and saw Scully below, as she reached for the same vine
he had just used himself.  Slowly she began making her way to the
top.  Grunting initially at the first flare-up of pain in her hands.
Which no doubt would have been much worse without the extra padding
of his shirt.  She concentrated on her journey.  And above Mulder was
watching her progress intently.  His head lowered towards the ground.
But then something caught the corner of his vision. 


A movement.


He lifted his head slightly.  Scanning the woods.  Nothing.  The wind
stirred the leaves restlessly.  A raspy sound like dried skin moving
against itself.  Wringing its hands with a purposeful malevolent 
intent.  Feeling decidedly uneasy, but unable to pinpoint the exact 
cause, he was about to return his gaze to Scully - when he saw it.  
And this time it wasn't imagination.


There was a palpable evil potent force crashing and moving through
the woods.  Towards them.  From his vantage point he had an almost
panoramic view of the woods.  Down the path they had only recently
emerged from before reaching the fork - it was coming.  The brambles
and brush parting.  Bending.  Falling away in an almost suicidal
reaction from the locomotive power of the entity that barreled its
way through.  Intent on its destination.  Its goal.  Its need.
Mulder was strangely rooted to his spot.  Mesmerized by the scene
unfolding before him.  He could only see bits and pieces through
the coverage of the trees.  But it was enough to send tidal waves
of terror down to his very core.  It was Ethan.  And it wasn't.
Part man.  Part beast.  But all of it determined on killing them.


He tore his gaze away long enough to check on Scully's progress.  
She was about halfway up.  She was sternly focused on her task,
unaware of the nearness of the approaching demon.  He looked back
again and nearly collapsed with fright when he couldn't see the
beast anymore.  Where was it?  He started to panic.  It was here.
It had to be.  But where?  And then he caught sight of it again.
Closer.  Too close.  And moving faster now.  It had seen them.


"Scully!  Hurry!", he cried out to her.


He reached his hand down.  His fingertips straining to touch her,
but she wasn't close enough yet to take hold.  She looked up at
him, startled at the level of desperation in his voice.  The fear
she saw mirrored in his eyes.  She swiveled her head around.  He
could hear her horrified audible gasp as she caught sight of the
thing that was coming their way.  She hurriedly turned back,
redoubling her efforts to climb the vine.  But she misplaced her
foot, lost balance, and slid several feet down the length of the
vine before catching hold and stopping her descent.  Sweat was
cascading from her pores.  Pain radiating through her hands.  She
was now only a third of the way up.  Closer to the ground than
from the top.


Mulder grabbed the vine from its top stem, pulling on it.  Trying
to aid her ascent.  The muscles of his arms rippled in outline
underneath the skin of his frame.  He gritted his teeth.  Put
everything he had into his objective.  Scully could feel herself
being pulled upwards.  She braced her feet against the face of
the hill.  Pushing out, almost horizontal.  Walking up the side.
She used her hands as additional leverage, even as they betrayed
her with the agony.  Each time she placed them as far up on the
vine as she could reach, and followed their lead with her feet.
Using her efforts together with Mulder's strength to pull her up 
at a steady pace.  They worked together. Making progress.  But not
fast enough.


The beast emerged.  At the apex of the fork.  It stopped.  And
all around them time seemed to stand still.  Scully couldn't see
it.  Her back was turned away, towards the hill.  But Mulder had
an almost cruel unencumbered view.  It had traveled on all fours.
But now it was rising to stand on two legs.  The front limbs were
markedly shorter than the back ones, but not heavily distinct in
their differences from each other.  An odd mixture of human arms
and legs, along with animal fore and hind quarters.  It was 
covered in a dark coarse fur.  Thick and bristly.  The tips of
its ears were almost triangle in shape.  And large.  Its face
was a mantle of facial hair.  Not as dense as that which covered
its body, but leaving very little skin showing through.  The 
points of the face were centered around the extended snout. And the
gaping maw.  From which protruded the rows of sharpened yellowed
teeth.  Razor-edged.  The incisors impossibly huge.  And in
contrast to this mammalian image, countering it; was the pair
of jeans that covered its lower half.  Torn and split in places
where animal and human form battled for dominion and had split 
the seams.


There wasn't nearly enough chill in the air to manifest fogs of
breath, but they were there nonetheless.  Leaving the animal's
putrid mouth in waves.  Not condensation.  Decay.  A visible
decomposition.  The staggering smell reached even to the vantage
of Mulder's perch.  It was the foulest odor he had ever smelled.
He gagged involuntarily.  


As the animal/man reached its fully erect stature. It lifted
its head in their direction.  Bringing the pads of one of its 
paws in front of its face.  Displaying the claws.  Fanning them
out from front to back.  Finger to finger.  The fatal daggers
that they were.  The weapons that promised agonizing death.  


Theirs.


Mulder saw all this in a split second moment of time.  Then reality
rushed back in with vengeance as the aberration charged forward
with a sprint of speed that was maddening calculated, despite its
seeming spontaneity.  Mulder yanked back urgently on the vine.
Pulling Scully upwards forcefully another foot.  Two-thirds of the way
up now.  Almost there.  But not enough.  He pulled again.  The veins
of his neck standing out in hardened and pulsing cords.  


The beast reached the bottom of the hill and sprang upwards in one
continuous fluid motion.  Its claws extended like stiletto blades.
Aiming for Scully's legs.  Meaning to pull her down from the vine
she now clinged to with every ounce of her remaining strength.  
Just inches short, the claws connected only with empty air.  And
quickly as it fell to the ground it regained its trajectory and
launched itself again.  And in synch with the animal's efforts,
Mulder tugged savagely on the vine that had become Scully's only 
lifeline. Pulling her over the top to him with one gigantic final 
tug.


Together they toppled over the crest of the hill.  To the other
side.  Where they were immediately engulfed in an almost complete 
darkness.  The canopies of the trees coming together in an almost
dome-like structure. Blocking the rays of sun down to pinpoints.
They slid down the slope quickly.  The exposed parts of their 
bodies becoming immediately skinned and scraped from the friction
and speed of their descent.  Small rocks, leaves and dirt embed-
ding themselves into their sensitive skin.  Both landed on their 
feet.  Quickly standing.  Every nerve in their souls screaming at 
them to run.  Escape.  They fought against this overwhelming need
knowing they had to proceed cautiously.  There was more than the
horror behind them to contend with now.  They were also battling
the unknown, as they had just entered the very lair of the beast 
they were trying to outrun.  Giving it a homeground advantage. A 
cruel ironic edge allotted to the thing that already held the cards 
in its own favor.


As if recognizing and savoring its conquest they could hear the
beast behind them.  Climbing.  But slowly.  Making its progress up
and over the hill in a languid pace. The paws slapped and pounded
against the surface of the hill.  Loosening debris and plant life
around it.  Each foothold and grasp it captured was marked. 
Deliberate.  It pulled its body up.  Agonizing in its unrelenting
determination. Telegraphing its imminent arrival and purpose.  
Closer.  Coming.


Mulder and Scully moved away slowly from the side of the hill.  The
path here, unlike the other markers, was easily defined.  Afterall
there was no need to camouflage it.  Between the unknown traps and the
protection of the beast it had all the built-in safeguards it needed.


And the animal voiced its approval.  Its roaring pleasure.  It was
staking its claim of victory.  There was nowhere now for its prey to 
run.  It crested the hill and stood there for a moment.  Basking in
its superiority and hunter's skill.  Highlighted against the sun
that shone through over its shoulder from the other side.  Contrasting
against the darkness in front.  Its form was silhouetted for a moment.  
A combination of shadows.  It's breath shown in gray-like tendrils of 
shadow smoke.  Part light.  Part dark.  Part animal.  Part man.  A 
merging of tortured souls.  An unnatural hybrid.  Lifting its snout 
to the winds.  Howling in evil and decadence.  Raising its powerful 
paws in homage to his centuries-old species.  This ritual an ancient 
tradition of rites.  Offering the sacrifice of its intended kill to 
appease all the Ones who had come before.  His species.  Its kind.


The Forgotten Ones.


Moving with a lupine gracefulness it easily traversed the slope of
the hill, down to the other side.  Pushing itself away from the 
curve of the hill, it moved in for the kill.


The pain took a moment to register in its consciousness.  Confused
it stumbled a step before whirling to face its attacker.  Mulder 
stood in front of it, still brandishing the heavy tree limb that he
had just brought down on the side of the beast's head.  The blood
it now smelled was its own.  It opened its mouth in a furious howl.
Regaining its composure and senses quickly.  It moved a step forward.
Mulder lifted the stick once more.  The creature was quick.  Lightning
quick.  Now aware of the danger, it would easily be able to sidestep
the next attack.  This one.  This man.  He would die slowly.  It
promised.  It extended its claws menacingly.


And then pain again.  But not from the same place as before.  It was
confused.  The man still stood before him.  He hadn't moved.  This was
different.  The pain was intense, radiating from the back of his neck.
Iron-hot.  Searing. It whirled.  The woman stood there.  Backing up a 
few steps.  In her hand a knife.  Dripping with blood.  His blood.  She
had plunged the knife deep into his neck.


And just as he had been compelled to repeat the actions of his 
ancestors.  Reenacting the hunt.  Reveling in the power of the kill.  
So it seemed he was destined to repeat their mistakes as well.  As now 
the hunter became the hunted.  Once again. He felt the surge of anguish
that was the essence of his species.  He had greatly underestimated 
their wills to live.  Realizing there was no way to outrun the hunter, 
they, these pitiful humans, had elected to stand their ground. Surprise
being the only factor in their favor.


They moved together now.  Circling. Advancing on him.  His weapon and 
hers raised and ready.  He retreated.  But strategically.  Mulder
surged forward, but the beast lunged.  Rolling on the ground it used
its claws to rake down the length of his leg in a sweeping pass.  
Mulder fell to his knees, dropping his weapon, clutching his leg in 
a stifled scream of pain.  The animal stood over him, ready to finish 
the job. But then Scully rushed in to his aid raising the knife high 
in both hands. It roared with the onslaught of fresh pain, as she deeply 
buried the knife to the hilt into his lower back.  Agonizingly out of 
its reach. It had gone in so deep and so quickly she had not had time 
to pull it back out.  She stood now defenseless.  As it staggered 
towards her.  Weakened.  Bleeding.  But still powerful in its deadly 
agenda.


Scully was fighting to retain her sanity.  Her brain kept insisting 
that the thing that stood before her was just not possible.  It wasn't
real.  It couldn't be real.  But it was.  Coming towards her.  But
then it stopped a moment.  Smiling.  Like the false calm of the eye
of the storm.  An only temporary sanctuary.  And it suddenly surged 
forward, launching itself into the air.  Forcing Scully to back up 
even further.  It hit her, knocked her off her feet, and they rolled 
together under the continuing momentum force of his attack.  


She felt the ground literally fall away underneath her body.  She was 
falling.  And she landed hard.  Into a complete darkness.  A pit.
More than likely one of Ethan's traps.  By accident or design the
thing had dropped her here. And then she heard it.  A ragged breathing.
The devil's breath.  Behind her.  Around her.  


It was in here with her.


She could hear Mulder calling her above.  Confused.  Not sure what had
happened.  And then she was knocked off her feet once again.  It moved
over her. Pinning her to the ground with its weight.  Droplets of saliva
dripping from its open mouth onto her neck.  She couldn't see the 
details of its face.  And she was grateful.  But she could feel the hot 
rotted stagnation of its breath on her face growing even hotter as it 
slowly descended its bared teeth towards her. Going for her jugular.  
Ready for the kill.  She closed her eyes tightly. Knowing she was going
to die. Only wishing now for it to be quick. Praying at least that her 
death would afford Mulder his escape.  Forever thankful for the short 
time they had together as lovers.  Wanting so fervently to tell him she 
loved him one last time.  All these thoughts and feelings rushing 
through her mind in a single second span of time.  


It shifted its body atop hers.  Leaning in.  She felt the rough scrape 
of its fur against her neck. Its tongue lashing out to taste her skin. 
She tensed her body.  Trembling with a force she had never thought
possible. 


Not ready to die. Afraid.  Afraid.  Oh God, so afraid.


She opened her eyes suddenly in the darkness. She wasn't hallucinating.
It had been unmistakable. The outline feel against her belly. Machinery 
steel and mechanized power.  A gun.  In the waistband of its jeans.
A last vestige reminder of her human world in this nightmare realm.
It was held tight in the snug fit of the material against its fur.
Forgotten. Pulled taunt by the transformation it had made from human 
to animal.


<<It feeds on fear>>


She remembered Eve's warning.  And her own resolve that night at the
fireplace.  She would not give him what he wanted.  Her fear.  Her
pain.  Never!


She pulled her knee upwards slamming it with as much force as she could
garner into his body.  He roared.  Screamed.  Falling backwards.  She
caught hold of its upper body.  Following it down.  Not wanting to lose
sight of him in the dark.  They fell together against the far wall.
And she reached down.  Grabbing the gun.  Pulling it out.  Moving back,
even as it regained its senses and scrambled towards her again.


The woods rang out with the recoil of the shots.  Echoing again and 
again until the clip was completely empty.  Fully loaded except for 
the one shot that had befallen Eve back at the cabin.


And then silence.


Mulder followed the sounds to the edge of the pit.  Calling her name.
Desperate. Throwing one leg over the edge, ready to jump in, but afraid 
of what he would find.  And then.


"No Mulder.  Don't come down here.  I need you to pull me out."  Her
voice was exhausted.  Drained, but controlled.  


"Ethan?"


There was an audible pause.  His heart hammered in his chest.


"He's dead."  Mulder waited a second, but no further explanation was
coming.  Only silence.  He moved away to find a strong vine to pull 
her up with.

Down in the pit Scully pulled her knees up into her chest.  Rocking
gently.  As far away from the body of the beast as she could get.

*****

Once again time held no meaning in their existence.  They made the rest
of the journey in near silence.  Slowly.  Their pace no longer dictated
by fear.  By chase.  By death.


They held onto each other.  Leaning.  Supporting.  


When they reached the edge of the forest, they stopped.  Staring.  
Unbelieving.  There under the seven-month natural growth of foliage,
along with a careful effort of camouflage was the wrecked remains of
their car. 


And they fell to the ground together.  On their knees.  Hugging. 
Crying. Kissing. Touching. Desperately clinging to one another.  


It was over.  


They had survived.  


They were going home.


****************************************
THE FORGOTTEN ONES XIII: THE RETURN
***************************************


April 7th, 3:43 P.M.
County Road 5
Hadden, West Virginia


Mulder winced underneath his breath.  Tightening his arm around her
shoulder.  Scully shielded her eyes from the hot sun with her hand and
looked up at him.  Concerned.  He had been limping heavily for the last
half mile or so.  His face was a mask.  Trying to conceal his pain from
her.  The sharp razor-like intrusive wounds that had been inflicted
upon his leg by the claws of the beast were serious.  Very serious.
He had lost a lot of blood.  Too much.  She had applied a make-shift
tourniquet by tearing off material from the bottom of her dress, but
he needed proper medical attention.  His skin had taken on a ghastly
pallor underneath the ruddiness of his tan.  She was afraid he was
going into shock.  She brought her right arm across his stomach, 
reaching around to clutch his waist.  Her other arm was around his
back across his shoulder.  She raised her hand, laying it beside his
chin to encourage him to lean against her and drop his head on her
shoulder.  She tried to take much of his weight, but she barely had
enough strength left to support herself.  And it didn't help that 
they were so uneven in height.


They had been walking for hours along the same county road they had
been driving on originally so many months ago.  Barefooted.  Tired.
And injured.  When they had started out it had been an easy trek as
they had traveled on a sheer euphoric energy.  Brought on by the
unbelievable relief and giddy happiness that came from knowing they
had finally escaped their prison of over seven months.  Upon 
initially emerging from the confines of the woods they had been in
an almost shell-shocked state.  Caught in an eerie essence of 
unreality.  Safe now after the harrowing chase that had ensued 
between them and Ethan, or what had once been Ethan.  And even 
knowing they had survived.  That they were now free.  Somehow still,
it was only when they had seen the remains of their car that they
had truly been jolted back into the present.  This had been the
tangible evidence that had finally caused the impact to hit them
with a hammer force realization.  As much as they had physically
stepped from underneath the heavy tree canopies of the darkness
into the light.  So too in this one single moment they crossed
the invisible mental barrier that had existed between the nightmare
world that they had been held captive in, and their own world.  The
one they had once belonged to before.  And had so desperately been
trying to return to ever since.  


It was really over.


They had fallen to their knees. The broken hull of their rental car
standing as a strange monument background behind them.  Shaking.
Crying.  Holding each other with trembling arms.  Trying to sort
through the staggering array of emotions that threatened to over-
whelm their spirits.  Finally, after many long minutes they had
hesitantly parted.  Standing together with arms held tightly
about each other they had started to walk.  With an unspoken but
matched resolve, they had headed off in the same direction they
had been traveling that fateful day.  That day that had started
out much like any other, but had served to change their lives and
their relationship forever.  These thoughts and feelings carried
them.  Supported them.  But as the day wore on the sun's heat
began to take its toll on their already battered and bruised
bodies.  Not one car had passed by them in all this time.  It
seemed almost as if they had become the only two people left
alive in a world gone somehow mad.  Yet they continued.  Even-
tually, they began to feel the full force sting and jarring pain
of their combined injuries.  Their weakened state.  They were
close to heat exhaustion as well.  Scully ran her tongue over
her dried and cracked lips.  They had no water as the back pack
Eve had prepared for them had been lost during the pace of the
chase.


Mulder stumbled suddenly, and with her arms clasped around him
in support, Scully couldn't stop herself from falling as well.
They landed in a heap on the side of the road.


"Mulder", Scully called to him.  He was moaning softly.  His 
eyes closing.  And then silence.  "Mulder", she tried again.
They were both laying prone on the ground.  She crawled over to
him, leaning over his chest.  Shaking him slightly.  She placed
the palm of her hand against his forehead.  His skin was clammy.
She lowered her head, brushing her cheek next to his.  Feeling
the fever heat of his body radiated back to her.  He was uncon-
scious.  "Mulder", she whispered softly, burrowing her head
into the hollow of his neck.  She spoke quietly against his
ear.  "Don't leave me now.  Please."  She lay there for a
moment.  With him.  Her arms around him tightly.  Not moving.
Willing him to wake up.  But he didn't stir.  Finally, she
sat up, looking morosely off into the distance.  The crudely
paved road offering the only break in scenery.  A shimmering
river of blacktop and tar that split the woods neatly in half.
The painted divided lines thinning and diminishing in perspec-
tive over the horizon.  She turned her head, looking the other
way.  And was met with only an exact mirror version of what
lay on the other side.  Deserted.  She was alone.  Completely
alone.  


She stood up on shaky feet.  There were spots swimming in 
front of her eyes, and her head pounded steadily with an almost
deafening headache.  The sun beat down strongly on the top of
her head, reminding her of its power.  And potential threat. She
knew she had to get Mulder out of the sun, into some shade.  She
bent down over him, putting her hands underneath his arms.  She
pulled back hard, straining with the effort.  Her burned hands
strongly announcing their displeasure at her course of action.
He didn't budge.  She tried again, leaning back using every ounce
of leverage and strength she had left.  Grunting with the
monumental effort.  Finally he moved, almost imperceptibly.
And struggling, inch by inch, she managed to drag him over to
a nearby large tree, which offered generous shade.  Once he was
settled to her satisfaction she dropped exhausted and covered in
sweat next to him.  Pulling him into the comforts of her arms.
Her hands throbbing in a staccato beat in time with the pounding
in her head. She leaned back against the tree. Almost immediately
her eyelids began to close.  For a moment she fought their inten-
tion.  But total exhaustion had finally caught up with her and
would settle for nothing but her complete surrender.  Never
releasing her hold on Mulder she fell unwilling into a deep,
but restless slumber.

**********

It was nearing dark when she awoke again.  She tried to sit up
and was at first startled to find that she couldn't move.  It 
took her a second to realize that she was pinned underneath
Mulder's weight.  Her hands still clutching his shoulders against
her body.  She drew in a sharp breath as her body began
signaling a painful tingling, as it chastised her for her sudden
movements of sore limbs held in one position for far too long.
It took a concentrated effort, but she finally was able to
extract herself, lowering Mulder's head carefully to the ground
behind her.  She checked his pulse.  Slow.  But strong.  And
then rearranged the tourniquet on his leg.  The wounds were deep,
ragged, and still seeping blood.  Too much blood.  She was
worried as well about infection. 


She braced herself against the tree and tried to use it as an
aid to help her to her feet.  Almost immediately she fell back
down again.  Her legs felt like they were made of rubber.  Weak.
Too weak now to even hold her own weight.  She brought her
aching arms across her face, to her eyes.  Rubbing them roughly.
'Dammit', she thought angrily.  'How much more?  How much
more could they be expected to suffer?'  She slammed her fist
hard against the bark of the tree.  A futile gesture.  Anger.
Nothing more.  She stifled a scream at the red-hot flare-up of
pain in her hand which only served to fuel the growing fury in
her soul.  Her feelings of complete helplessness.  She was
suddenly seized with the irrational feeling that somehow the
woods around them were as much their captors as Ethan had been.
Still refusing to let them go.  Working against them.  Throwing
obstacles in their path at every step.  Reaching out with an
animate malevolence.  


She had never felt so alone.  She slid down slowly until she was 
laying next to Mulder.  She used her body to cover his.  Offering 
her feeble warmth to him against the coming chill of the night.  
She was so tired.  So very tired.  Her eyes began closing once
again.  And she was too exhausted to fight anymore.  Sleep.  It
called to her.  Beckoning like an old friend.  Her body began
relaxing, which allowed the constant pain to recede slightly.
Drawing her further into the waiting arms of total unconscious-
ness.  And she welcomed it.  

**********

Later, only minutes she was pretty sure, as she was still in that
limbo place that is part wakefulness, her eyes fluttered open.
She had felt something.  A vibration.  She sat up gingerly.  
Tense.  Waiting.


There it was again.


The quietness and almost cocoon-like setting of the woods afforded
something like an early warning system.  It was transmitting
information to her even now.  Through the tiny vibrations coming
from the ground.  And now adding to that, a far-off soft sound as
well.  She hadn't heard this sound in a long time, but it was
unmistakable.  There was a vehicle approaching.  A car.  Still a
long ways down the road.  But it was coming.  She hurriedly tried
to stand.  Forgetting. Only to be betrayed once again by her own 
body.  Falling to the ground she immediately assessed that she could 
not afford to waste time on this useless endeavor.  Her legs could 
no longer support her.  This was a fact.  So, she began to crawl.  
Determined.  Towards the road.  Painfully moving first her knee and 
then pulling her body forward after it with her elbows.  Then the 
other side.  Her arms were shaking violently.  Threatening to 
collapse.  But she continued her pilgrimage.  An almost horizontal 
reenacting of her earlier vertical climb on the vine.  This time 
though instead of running *away* from something, she was trying 
fervently to get *to* something. 


But the same muscles that had been tortured then, now stubbornly
refused to be abused anymore.  Just like the woods it seemed -
working against her.  She cursed and muttered under her breath.
Damning the world and all that had transpired over these last
months.  Yet this very anger dared fate to stop her now.  She
reached the break between woodland and blacktop, just as the
headlights of the on-coming car could be seen cresting a not 
too far-off hill.  She quickly realized that she could not take 
the chance that the car would pass her by.  Unable to see her 
on the side of the road.  This car being the only sign of
civilized life they had come across all day.  She had to be
sure she was seen.  


She pushed herself forward again.  Onto the road.  Until she
had reached the very middle.  Straight into the trajectory
path of the on-coming car.  She wanted to at least sit up.
Wave her arms. Something. But all strength left her completely
in a rush of air that exited her chest in an agonized breath,
as she fell upon her back.  She lay there on the pavement, 
heaving, as her body completely shut itself down to her further 
entreaties to move.


'Move!  Dammit!'


But it wouldn't.  Arms outstretched.  Eyes to the sky.  She
was frozen in place.  She waited.  Praying.  Pleading.  A
mantra playing in her head over and over again - 'See me.  See
me.  Seemeseemeseemeseeme.....'  She could feel the increasing
vibrations echoed through the pavement and then up along the
entire length of her body.  Magnifying their frequency with the
car's velocity and approach.  The mounting power of its engine
only outweighed by her own fear.  She was able to turn her head
limply, dropping it to the side weakly.  Watching.


And was suddenly blinded by an intense light.  She panicked.  Her
heart hammering.  At first thinking it was the headlights of the
car, closer than she had estimated.  But it wasn't.  As this
intense light was immediately followed by a stabbing dimming
numbness in her brain.  It seemed her mind was now matching her
body's lead, following it into a total eclipse.  She was slipping
away again.  Falling into unconsciousness.


The last things she registered before it took her was the sounds
of a horn blaring, and the unbearably loud, screeching sound of
brakes.  The smell of burning rubber assaulting her nostrils.
The impossibly huge image of the car barreling down upon her, close
enough to spray her with a sheet of gravel that painfully imbedded
itself into the skin of her face and legs.....And then, mercifully.
Nothing.


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


April 10th, 11:37 P.M.
Memorial Hospital
Culver, West Virginia


Mulder opened his eyes.  It was raining.  But somehow this was wrong.
For some reason it didn't feel right.  It took him a moment to under-
stand the reason for his confusion.  He could see the rain.  But he
couldn't feel it.  Because he was no longer outside.  In the woods.
He was inside a darkened room.  Lighted only by a soft glow coming
from somewhere over his head.  The rain he had heard was tapping
against the window at a steady beat.  He looked around, trying to
orient himself.  He was in a hospital.  That was obvious.  There was
an I.V. line trailing a tube from it's steel pole down into his arm.
The clear liquid dripping slowly from a half-empty bag of fluids.
He could see and feel the heavy outline of bandages covering his
leg underneath the blanket over him.  He twisted to the side looking
for the nurse station call button he knew from many past experiences
that he would find there.  He pushed on it insistently until the
door opened on a hiss of cushioned air.  A tall blonde nurse 
entered, turning the light on as she came through the door.  Mulder
blinked against the sudden glare.  She smiled at him. "Agent Mulder.
You're awake.  We were wondering....."


He interrupted her.  Needing to know.  "Scully?  Dana Scully?  
Where is she?  Is she all right?"  He could hear the urgency in
his voice.  The nurse walked over to the side of his bed reaching
up to check the I.V. as she spoke.  "Dr. Scully is fine.  She's in
another room.  One of the other nurses went to wake her as soon as
you rang the station."  She paused, frowning slightly.  "Dr. Scully
has been quite....vocal....in her instructions to be notified when
you regained consciousness."  Mulder almost laughed, knowing that
one little word - *vocal* - actually meant that Scully had probably
been breathing down their necks.  Generally throwing her weight and
title as Dr. around to ensure that he would get the care that *she*
would give him herself if she could.  A sure sign in his mind that
she was okay.


And then she was there.  Standing in the doorway, leaning slightly
on the arm of another nurse.  Looking very small and tired.  But
alive.  She smiled at him from across the room.  She moved away
from the supporting arm of the nurse, shuffling slowly towards him.
She was wearing a hospital gown and slippers, covered by a thin
robe.  Her hair was freshly washed.  It was longer now reaching
below her shoulders in soft waves.  It shimmered in the subdued
light.  By the time she had reached his side, the two nurses had
discreetly backed out of the room, closing the door.  Leaving them
alone.


Mulder reached for her, pulling her against him.  She breathed
warmly against his neck.  'Oh God, she feels so good', he thought.
He never wanted to let her go.  But she pulled back from him.
Turning away from him.  She worked her way back to the door.
For a terrible moment he thought she was leaving.  Maybe regretting
now what had happened between them during their captivity.  Wanting
to begin the break of their relationship easy.  Now that she had
had time to consider its implications on the dynamics of their real
world lives that they would soon be returning to.  He tried to
swallow around the lump forming in his throat, as she reached her
bandage covered hand towards the door.  But her hand passed the 
doorknob, instead lifting towards the light switch, turning it off.
And he breathed out again in relief, as she came back to him.


She climbed on the bed beside him, lifting his arm with the I.V.
attached.  Carefully she nestled next to him, lowering his arm
tenderly around her shoulder.  She looked up into his face.  Seeing
the traces of doubt that had crossed his features for a moment.  
Knowing he wondered if she still felt the same way about him now.  
She lowered his head to hers.  Kissing him gently.  When they parted 
she looked into his eyes before speaking.


"I can't go to sleep anymore without you next to me Mulder."


He closed his eyes.  Unable to speak for a moment.  Finally, he
opened them again, holding her tight.  


"You won't ever have to again Scully.  I promise."


They were silent for several minutes.  Listening to the rain.  
Content.  "Tell me what happened Scully", he asked her after
awhile.  She took a deep breath before beginning.  "After you
passed out, I was able to flag down a car."  She used this simple
sentence to skim over her ordeal with the car that had almost
driven right over her back there in the woods. "We were taken here.
We've been here for three days now.  Both of us were unconscious
for the first day.  When I came to later, I found out that they
didn't even know who we were.  It took awhile, but I finally
convinced them of our identities and connection with the FBI.
And the kidnaping.  I contacted Skinner.  He was....", she
hesitated.


"Angry?  Speechless?  Flabbergasted?", Mulder supplied playfully.


"Surprised", Scully finally settled on the tactful word that came
closest to the flurry of expletives and shocked silence that had
flown across the phone wires.  After all it wasn't the first time
he had witnessed their miraculous return from the dead.  "He'll
be here tomorrow by the way", she added.  Mulder nodded.


"And I called my mother", she said quietly.  He looked down at her.
Seeing the pain in her face.  Knowing she was blaming herself for
the grief that her family must have suffered thinking she was dead
after all this time.  "My brother said she had to be sedated after
talking to me.  I shouldn't have called her Mulder.  I should have
waited until we got back so she could see me in person.  She was
so upset, crying and.....", her voice dropped off, strained around
her choked-back sobs.  Mulder held her tight, letting her work
through the sorrow until she was able to speak again.  "I was 
going to call your mother, but after talking to mine, well....",
she trailed off.  "We'll go see them both first thing Scully."
She nodded, drawing her arm across his chest.  They were quiet
again.


She drew deep breaths.  Steeling herself.  Knowing what he would
want to know next.  And he didn't disappoint her.  "What about the
Wilstead family?  What happened to them?"  She was silent for a
moment.  At first he didn't think she was going to answer him.  
But then.  "By the time the authorities went back there.  Using
my directions to the cabin.  They were gone Mulder.  We think 
maybe they are hiding.  They know how to live and survive in those
woods.  There is still a search going on, but I don't think we'll
find them."  "What?", he stammered.  "Gone?  All of them?"  She
shook her head sadly.  "Not all.  Eve was still in the cabin."
Scully lowered her head.  "Her body was there.  She had been 
shot."


This time Scully held Mulder tight.  Feeling the grief rack his
body.  The tears slip from under his closed lids.  She smoothed
his hair down around his face.  Whispering to him softly, calling
his name.  She let him have all the time he needed to adjust to
this sorry event.  She had her own time to grieve already.
And a part of her had somehow known even before the police officer
had given her the news in person.  Back in the woods, when she
had heard Eve's voice.  She thought now maybe she had known even
then.  She could feel Mulder's body relaxing against her now.
Drifting off to sleep.  He was exhausted.  So much to absorb.
She let him sleep.  Kissing his cheek lightly before closing her
own eyes.  But there was still more to tell him tomorrow.  He 
didn't know about Ethan.


When they had gone back to the pit to retrieve his body.  It was
gone.

**********

May 9th, 7:45 P.M.
Scully's Apartment


Scully tapped her fingers on the table where she had been reading
a medical journal.  Still trying after a month to catch up on
everything that she had missed during her long absence.  Her eyes
kept straying towards the door.  She finally slapped down the
book impatiently.  Knowing she would not be able to concentrate
until she got this out of the way.  She walked over to the front
door of her new apartment.  After being gone for over seven months
both her and Mulder's apartments had been let go.  Life had to 
move on.  Luckily though, both their mothers could not part with
their possessions yet, and had placed them in storage.  


She and Mulder had decided to use this convenient need to relocate
and had rented apartments within minutes of each other.  Skinner
had grandly given them both a month's leave of absence to recuper-
ate from their ordeal.  This time frame would end in a couple of
days and they would return to work.  To the X-Files.  This all of
course had involved a governmental battle of unending proportions.
First, the red tape paperwork that was required to change their
official status from deceased to living was still on-going.  And
re-opening the X-Files was major challenge.  But with Skinner
on their side and taking into consideration all that they had gone
through.  It had finally been accomplished.


Scully reached for the door and began the irritating ritual that 
had become so ingrained in her routine over the last weeks.  But 
it was getting better now.  She only had to do it once or twice
a day at most anymore.  She started at the top.  Sliding and 
slipping the chain lock from its cradle.  And then the bolt.
She reached down and turned the lever on the deadbolt to the
right.  This done, she grabbed the doorknob, yanking it back.
She opened the door.  Stepped outside for a moment.  And then
came back in.  She was about to lock the door again when there
was a soft knock.  She opened it right away.  Knowing ahead of
time who it was.  


Mulder stepped in encircling her with one arm, while holding a
full grocery bag with the other.  He moved back looking at her
closely.  "You opened the door rather quickly.  How many times
does that make today?"  She smiled.  He knew well of her
ritual.  The need she had developed over the weeks following
their imprisonment.  The need to know that she could get out
if she wanted to.  To know that she wasn't locked inside.
Trapped.  Confined.  As they had been for so long.  It had been
bad in the beginning.  As were his nightmares.  But the mandated
therapy they had received, along with having each other to lean
on had made things much better now.  "It was the first time 
today", she told him, a tone of accomplishment evident in her
words.  She walked with him over to the kitchen.  Curious to
see what he had brought with him for their dinner.

**********

May 11th, 1:45 A.M.
Scully's Apartment


She still missed her old apartment, but she loved having the balcony
that this one had.  She sometimes had trouble sleeping and she would
come out here for awhile.  Letting the soft cool wind play with the
tendrils of her hair.  Her nightgown rippling lightly against her
legs. It was another way to make her feel her freedom.  A realness
in being able to walk outside whenever she wanted.  And as always it 
wouldn't be long before he would miss her warm body next to his and 
he would come to join her.


He slipped his arms around her waist from the back.  Drawing her close.
Nuzzling his face against her neck.  She reached her arms up draping 
them around his neck.  "Are you worried about tomorrow?", he asked her.
Tomorrow.  It was more than just another day for them.  They would be
returning to work. But first they had a meeting scheduled with Skinner.
At their request.  They had sat down together when they had gotten back
and talked.  Argued.  Cried.  But always coming to the same conclusion.  
They loved each other.  There was no going back now to what their 
relationship had been before they had been kidnapped.  Nor did they 
want to.  But being back in the real world demanded they live by the 
rules of the real world.  Their work was a part of who they were.  It 
was what had brought them together in the first place.  They both loved 
their jobs. But if it came down to it.  They would give up the X-Files.


They came first. Their lives together. They had already lost too much
time. Both held their own visions in their mind that centered around this
decision.  For Mulder it was that first night.  When he had held Scully
as Ethan had pulled on her broken arm.  Hearing her screams.  Vowing
that he would give anything in return for her comfort.  His life.
The X-Files.  The Truth.  Samantha.  And he was just as willing today
to make those sacrifices.  And for Scully it was that last day.  In
the pit with the beast poised over her ready to take her life.  Her
final thoughts only of her fervent wish to tell Mulder once again how
much she loved him.  And how grateful she was that they had become
lovers.  And for them both, all that had happened in between.  As 
each horror filled day had managed to bring them closer together.


They would try to have it all.  The X-files and their life together.
It hinged on their meeting tomorrow with Skinner.  They owed him the
truth.  If he was willing to keep their secret.  If they could prove
to him, and to themselves, that they could have a relationship and
still work together on the X-Files.  Then they could indeed have the
best of both worlds.
  

And if not, well they had already typed and printed their letters of
resignation.  Ready to hand directly to Skinner tomorrow if the
meeting went against them.  


But they were ready either way.  For either outcome.  Because they
would go in together and continue their work.  


Or they would walk out together for good.   


She turned to face him.  Smiling. The strands of her hair moving 
against his cheek in the wind.  "No Mulder, I'm not worried at all."
He returned her smile with an equal one of his own.  She lay her 
head upon his shoulder as they walked back into the apartment.


THE END