From: Lyle Bontrager Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 15:46:35 -0500 Subject: Collection 6 Source: xff Reply To: sfgiants@bellsouth.net Title: Collection 6 Author: RM >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. see 1 ===== C O L L E C T I O N ====== Dahlia -- instability ====== He woke gasping for breath, sweat bathing him in rivers of dirt and salt, and his muscles contracting painfully. Mulder struggled to rise, then dry heaved on the beach until he could control his stomach. He crawled from his makeshift shelter as the heat of his sunburned flesh seared into him, and grabbed his T-shirt from the palm leaf, pulling it gingerly over his torso. The material scratched and clawed at his sensitive skin, but he grimaced and left it on. He knew he had sun posioning. He could feel it all over him, that hiss of pain that accompanied every movement, and the little tremors of agony that ran through him for no reason at all. He needed water, needed to just bathe in the coolness of it for the rest of the day. Mulder glanced out at the ocean and blinked in the glare of the sun beaming clear and bright and harsh along the waves. If he went out there, he'd get fried all over. No choice but to try for the river again. He could walk, so far, and he needed the fresh water anyway. Mulder pulled himself to his feet and gripped the tree trunk for support before stumbling off into the depths of the rain forest. He made sure to watch precisely where he put his feet and hands; he was wary of snakes and other creatures. The forest floor was thick with leafy plants that looked like posion ivy but he hoped weren't. The dead limbs had green wet moss growing in broad clumps, and the trees were massive, larger than the width of his hands, or small, like his pinky finger. A song kept running through his head, but all he could hear was the tune of the chorus, up and down, the notes scaling through his foggy mind. When he came to the slow moving river, it looked browner and more disgusting than he first had thought. It looked like sewage and he wondered if there was some kind of population of humans further upriver, or if this was natural, with all the mud and animal wastes. Mulder began trudging along its banks, wiping his forehead every other minute, keeping the sweat from stinging his eyes, and wiping his nose and chin with his T-shirt. The song was right there, on the tip of his tongue, trying to escape his confused mind, and his inability to remember it was grating on his nerves. A tree snapped back in his face and lashed his forehead. Blood immediately dripped from his face and he rubbed it away as best he could. The snatch of lyric was gone though. His jeans were sticking to his legs like wet sackcloth, and he yanked on the fabric, needing a breeze. The wind was kept far from the inside of the rain forest, leaving it muggy and sticky. While the thick conflagration kept out the wind, it also blocked the sun, so it could have been worse. It was still pretty bad. He grew more and more dehydrated, and his eyesight dimmed and wavered as he forced himself forward. None of the song remained. Bugs attacked him fiercely, and he swatted at all the itching and burning places, trying not to think of all the diseases he could get from mosquitos. There were probably just as many potential life-threatening things in that river too. He was feeling ready to collapse when the rushing of the water met his ears and he found the spot. The clear bubbling of the water was so completely different from the slow chugging of the brown river that he almost wondered if he had not stumbled onto a *different* river, with an entirely new channel. This just couldn't be clean. It looked good enough for him, panting at the riverbank and riddled with heat and sunburn. The sound of the water was almost in the same rhythm of the song tantilizing his mind with a faint memory, and he hummed absently as he stood there. He stepped in, dismissing his wandering thoughts, and waded through the small rocks that the water churned and frothed over. It was like walking while someone hung on to your ankles, dragging you back and down. Mulder got tired of trying to beat the tide and simply sat down, soaking his jeans and the rest of him in the coolness. The sun managed to reach in at this point, but if he stayed close enough to the shore, then the shadows of a huge tree blocked out the worst of the heat. He let his head lay on a rock to keep it out of the water, and his back was soothed by the current's constant movement, the cool water bubbling through him. He let his eyes close, his mind drift away. Mulder knew that even if he wanted to, he could not move. He felt feverish again, sick to his stomach. He'd been granted a small window of time, just enough to get to the river. He couldn't stop sweating. ~~~~ The words exploded through his head as he came back to consciousness, the tune clear and ringing in his mind, the chorus high and throaty, a version sung by Pearl Jam just weeks before he'd ended up on the beach. The Last Kiss. It seemed so shiveringly appropriate. Where, oh where could my baby be? Mulder opened his eyes and watched the blue sky so still and infinite before him, like stretched canvas that no artist had yet begun to paint. No masterpiece in the skies yet. Simply the absolute blue and the very tops of the trees. His neck was sore and stiff from lying on the rock, and his body was chilled in the water, making him shiver and his muscles jump. He painfully rose to his feet, shaking the river from his sleep and stripping his jeans off. The sun couldn't burn him if he was in the shade, so he didn't feel too concerned. HIs back was still on fire, but it seemed soothed, and his fever didn't rage as it had before. He felt better, clearer in the head, evidenced by his remembering the song's words. Mulder waded out of the river and thought about the narrow escape he'd had that morning. What if he hadn't been able to make it to this river? He could be on that beach, panting and thirsting right now, without a hint of respite. He needed to have the fresh water right beside him, and he needed to be on the beach in case a ship went by or an airplane was searching. . . He ignored the niggling fact that Scully had no idea where he was, and probably would not even come looking for him, considering his history with her. He glanced down at his jeans, thick and wet, and wondered if he could somehow get water back to his little shelter. Shrugging, he tied the legs of his jeans in knots, tight and hard, and then dipped the resulting sack into the river. Water flowed through and around and filled it up slowly, ballooning his pants out and making them look strange, like the body of a drowning victim after it had been in the water awhile. . .swollen and grotesque. He shook his head and brought his jeans out of the water, watching the river literally pour from the wet cloth, hearing the splash of water hitting water. But most if it stayed. He felt thrilled. Quickly, Mulder made his way to the bank, slogging through the muddier parts and slipping up the bank. His jeans dripped constantly, but he thought he might get some of it back, at least. He tried not to think about what he would do once he got to his lean-to of palm branches. ~~~~ "Where, oh where could my *baby* be? The Lord took her away from me. . ." Mulder sang loudly as he trudged back to his little river, because somehow, it had become very important that he know this song, that all the words were there. It was a link to his life. Strangely enough, to forget the words would be to give up. He lifted the jeans high to step over a fallen tree trunk, whistling the melody, then breaking out into the chorus. He had never known all of the words to the verses, but he struggled to remember those as well, making it up when memory left him. He had two cocconuts hollowed into drinking cups, and he'd fashioned a jug from a large, dead fruit that looked like a cocconut, bt he couldn't be sure. This was his third trip to and from the river, and his last. He was starting to feel the fever again, and his mind skittered along subjects like a water spider on a lake. Mulder saw his shelter in the heat of the day and strode forward eagerly, his jeans leaving a trail of water from the river to the sand, wet and dark against the white of the beach. He let it drip into his bigger jug, filling slowly as the river water leaked from his pant legs, and he felt good for thinking of this. The jeans acted as a kind of filter, and he had layered the insides with sand, to help in this process. His water looked fairly clean, clear and drinkable. He had tasted it already, enjoying the tang of fish it left. Finished now, Mulder left his jeans hanging over a palm branch to dry, then crawled beneath his shelter, feeling exhausted and heat-battled. His fever was creeping back, and it made him unsteady. He wasn't sure what was reality anymore, the life he used to live, or the one he had now, with his cups of river water and his back hot and gritty from sun and sweat. Scully seemed far away, a different place and time. A past life. "The Lord took her away from me. . .she's gone to heaven so I've got to be good. . .so I can see my baby when I leave. . .this world." His throat was too sore to sing anymore and Mulder closed his eyes. Where, oh where. . . ~~~~ end 6 RM