From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 22:45:54 -0500 Subject: inside the lightning by darkstar Source: direct Reply To: clone347@aol.com title : inside the lightning author : darkstar email : clone347@aol.com disclaimer : these are Chris Carter's toys. I am just twisting them into new and different shapes. Don't sue! They'll bend back.....I think. distribution : anywhere, but please ask first. spoiler warning : post-Requiem, but nothing actually mentioned. more of an implication. rating : R for violence which may disturb some people. Don't read this is you are prone to nightmares. classification : angst, character death keywords : angst summary : do you believe in miracles? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - inside the lightning darkstar - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The teeth of rocks shredded the skin from her feet as she ran, every step leaving behind a heartbeat's worth of blood on the water-swollen ground. A thousand tiny needle points of rain drove into her face and against her eyes. Instinct guided her steps, not sight. The sky writhed in agony as jagged spears of lighting ripped wounds into its side. As the hammering thunder rang out the beat of nail's into heaven's flesh. (My God! My God!) She would have screaming if only she had breath in her lungs. (Why have you forsaken us!) Only her mind shrieked the cry to the smothered stars. Her body shook under the heavy weight of the life within her, but she only drove herself faster. Faster. Behind her the earth trembled under the tread of heavy boots and pure evil. Any moment now the bullets would carve death's initials into her back and then it would be all over. That, or her lungs would tear in two from the struggle to escape. Her heart would explode inside her chest and leave her soul naked before the lightning. One more step. Blood on stone. One more breath. The pain! One more step. The hope. One more breath. Fear on her tongue. One more step and it started all over again. Voices now, snatched up by the wind to nip with bloodthirst at her heels. There were the words of the cruel. (Stop or we will kill him!) There were the words of her lover. (Don't you dare stop! You run! You survive!) There was the voice of God himself in the pounding of her heart, perhaps giving a reason for martrydom, but the language was one she did not understand. A blur of heat and metal seared a tiny path across the edge of her shoulder. Other slivers of lead vanished into the rain or bounced off the rocks to pepper her skin with dagger-like shrapnel. Bullets. Shooting. The end was near. One step. One breath. (Godwhyhaveyouforsakenforsakenforsaken......save us.....) In one second between the lightning and the thunder, the struggle was lost. The prayer tore from her mind to erupt in one scream as an invisible battering ram caught her from behind, twisting her body into a convulsion and slamming her to the ground. Underneath the storm, she could hear him screaming. For a moment that was all she heard. A pain started in her lower back, just left of her spine, a white-hot ball of fire that boiled all blood in her beins. It tore through flesh and bone and hope until all that remained was the hell of it. She tasted defeat in her throat, thick and bitter like week old meat. One....step..... (Someone else was screaming and it was a child's voice. A child that would never be.). The steel cords of her nerves frayed and snapped as she extended one hand to claw at the ground. Skin and fingernails peeled away; blood seeped into cracks in the stone. But she moved an inch. And another. Screaming, shoving, until she was on her knees. One breath... All feeling was drowned by the defiance pulsing inside her. Her fingers stretched upward to pull herself up by the stars, by *him*. For one wild moment, she stood, and the sky held its breath in awe. Then the demons descended. * * * Three hours before, they had lain in silence on a rented bed, arms tangled in arms and dreams caught up in dreams. The only light had been a silver whisper of moon and stars peering through the cracks in the blinds. It was not a cold darkness, but rather the darkness of two people who did not need their eyes to see the other. He had held her so close they shared heartbeats, the muscles in his arm slightly tensed as his hand rested on the swell of new life inside her. The tips of his fingers were warm and alive against the bare skin. (You are beautiful, he had whispered in her ear not so very long ago. You are beautiful and I would die for you.) She had remembered his words because his other hand had gripped the death metal of his gun, his fingers iron even as they were satin with her. This had been in case the door should open and the shadow men appear. They had run until they had hit the dead center of nowhere but that was rarely far enough. Everything had been left behind-- names, family, identities. This had bought them time, but they both knew how quickly time was spent. Especially when you wanted to hold onto it. The hotel was supposed to be safe, and anonymous, and she had been so tired of running. He had only returned a month ago. Three weeks of that time had consisted of endless miles in a cheap sedan, trying to outrun the men who wanted him back. They wanted other things to, and she had been afraid to tell him at first what they would do for the baby. But eventually he had found out all her nightmares, and somehow managed to take away their poison. The night air had been thick with a brewing storm, and the heat of summer blanketed the room. His lips had sent tiny ripples of coolness and heat over the skin of her shoulder. Four days ago they had been married, because every child should have a father and because she loved him. The honeymoon was spent in a homeless shelter in downtown Atlanta, but all they needed was the darkness and each other.... But that had already been so far behind her, pushed from her mind by five hundred miles of terror and don't-look-over-your-shoulder. The enemy was close. Deadly close. The chill of fear had frosted her bones despite the heat. "Do you believe in miracles?" she had whispered, hearing her own voice shiver as a rose before a storm. "Sometimes." "Do you believe we will live?" A moment of quiet thought. "Maybe. Maybe not. But we have a moment, and let's enjoy it while we can." Forty seconds of silence. "I want more than a moment." Then he had rolled over and kissed her full on the mouth. She had tasted love on his lips, but as the passion waned she could have sworn she also tasted goodbye. * * * The men surrounded her to crush her body back to the earth. They could break her flesh but not her spirit. Her soul raced madly through space and time, a ruanway comet searching for some stray spark of him. He was in the air. His anger birthed the storm and his love slid down her cheesk in rain that hid her tears. (She had whispered one night that she never wanted them to see her cry.) Rebellion electrified her until she no longer cared about the pain. The cruel voices were so close..... "Thought you could escape?" A blow to the mangled side. A sudden spasm of pure nightmare. Strange hands ran over her belly in a perversion of her husband's caress. "Are you ready to become a mother?" She began to shake as they dragged her off the road, into the cover of the tress. Biting, kicking, screaming curses and prayers to make them understand. They could not do this. Please.... No one listened. Once they were inside the iron curtain of the forest, the darkness thickened but she could still see him by the glow of the no-identity sedans. Tiny droplets of blood and rain formed patterns on his skin, strangely delicate like lace and needlepoint. Once his eyes met hers,the broken pieces of his voice melded together with new desperation. (Take me! You can do anything you want to me, but don't touch her....) Someone had to hear him. Someone had to stop it. She wanted to touch, to kiss, to hold. Dying messiahs were always beautiful. He was supposed to save the world. He was supposed to save her. Oh but he tried, seventy times up Golgotha and back he tried, even with a crown of thorns around his wrists and ankles. The sadists had tied him with barbed wire. Maybe they were afraid ordinary ropes wouldn't have held him back. Even now, they feared him. Cowards, she denounced them in her mind. May God send you to hell for making him bleed. Inside she was afraid of the wire, but they used handcuffs on her instead that chafed her wrists as they bound her into helplessness. For a moment she fought back, but then the butt of a gun drove into her side and her self-control shattered like a china doll. She could not keep back the scream. Mulder jerked forward, spittle and vengeance flying from his lips, but the wire held and it was his flesh that tore. He'd managed to hit one of them. Brave, stupid, beautiful man.They punished him for it, but for just that long they weren't touching her. He looked at her while they beat him, and his eyes said that's what he had intended all alone. (You are beautiful.) he said without words. (You are beautiful and I will die for you.) She stared back at him. (But I want you to live.....) Soon enough they turned back to her. The thunder could not mask the ripping of cloth as they tore her dress open over her belly. Night air was so cold on the skin..... By now it was pointless to struggle but she did so anyway because any good mother would. One of them had to hold her shoulders down, and it took two to pin her legs. The lightning slid across the edges of the scalpel as the blade neared her flesh. It was at that moment her heart exploded into a sheer horror and agony that crashed down on her shoulders like fire and brimstone. Not this. Anything but this. In the background, Mulder was sobbing. Her mind was on fire. (MYGODmygodforsakenmeNO!no!NOTMYBABYnot myangel!CAN'TyouSTOPTHEMwon'tsomeone...st...op.... th...em.....) Pain took her long before darkness did. * * * Thirteen minutes before, they had been running, hands tangled through hands and fear bleeding into fear. There were no more bullets in his gun and three of the shadows were dead. But there were more. There were always more. She hadn't been able to realize why he'd stayed by her side, when they both knew he stood a decent chance of escaping if he was on his own. "Leave me." She had whispered, dodging a tree and stealing a breath. "I can't run for much longer." He had wrapped his arm around his waist and dragged her forward. She had jerked her body away. "You can live if you are on your own. Don't you hear me? I'm not fast enough." Silence. "You're right." He had burned a kiss onto her lips. "Don't stop for anything." Then he had turned to fight the mighty men. She had seen him fall but had not stopped to mourn. * * * She dared God to turn away as the scalpel finished the first incision. Dared heaven to close its eyes. (Don't you have a place for miracle babies? Don't you have a place to take mine?) Her own blood dripped from the edge of the blade back onto her own skin as the monsters prepared to cut again. The child within her screamed, but heaven remained silent. She turned her face away from the sky. God was dead. They had destroyed Him and now they were killing her. Her body trembled with the force of sobs she had been too proud to release. And God spoke. The darkness was ripped down the middle by a light so intense it was as if she had stepped into the heat of a star. She shut her eyes in horrible fear of alien ships and gray demons, yet no chill came to her blood. No panic. Slowly a warmth began to sweep over her, strange and comforting against the walls of her veins. The earth ground to a stop. Time stretched from firecracker seconds to the long, slow burn of eternity. She felt a peace inside her belly and knew it was the peace of her child. Her baby. A child's voice whispered goodbye. Then her womb was empty; she knew it even though her mind could not comprehend. As the bulge of her stomach flattened, she realized the shadow's couldn't touch her angel anymore. All fear vanished and she opened her eyes to stare her salvation in the face. Yes, there was a place in heaven for those too pure for earth. Yes, there was a place for innocence. When time returned, she did not know whether to scream with joy or agony. The men were jabbering to one another like frightened apes, touching her now-flat stomach then cursing as shock changed to anger. One of them kicked her in the side, and a whirlwind of pain swept her senses into chaos. She barely heard the click of the automatic, the soft "pop" of a silenced gun, but the tearing agony that ripped apart her stomach was loud enough. Death roared in her ears. Perhaps they would spare his life, if she begged.... When she tried to speak, the words were lost in the blood filling her mouth. The monsters left her side, and one of them cut Mulder's wrists and ankles free. For a moment she felt hope. He was useful to them. They could not afford to let him die. The gunshot cut off her thoughts as a winter wind destroys flowers. The wound was not in his head, for that would be mercy. In the chest and he would drown in fluid from his own lungs. The shadow demons vanished and they were left alone to await the death angel. She watched the rain fall as slender fingers of water attempted to brush the blood from her skin. No one should die like this. No one should die alone. So she began to move. Her hand stretched in agonizing inches toward his. There was one dying wish on her mind; to be close to his body so she could time her heartbeat by his. They had started the journey together. They would finish it the same. But the pain was too great and her body would not move. Despair threatened until his hand caught hers, their fingers kissing goodbye in the darkness. She was not sad. She was not afraid. The child was safe and therefore evil had not won. "Do you believe in miracles?" she whispered, as the pain began to wrap around her bones to squeeze the life away. It may have been the wind but she swore she heard him whisper that he did. In the silence between the lightning and the thunder, the Reaper came. Not long after, dawn broke, and the sunlight sent golden fire through the raindrops dripping from two joined hands. (Were they lovers?) The trees whispered to the flowers. The violets nodded, but it may have only been the breeze. * * * Seven hours later, the police found the bodies, fingers caught up in fingers and blood pooled into blood. No identification was found on the victims, and after the autopsies they were buried side by side in the municipal cemetery of the nearest town. That same morning, the preacher's wife opened her door to get the paper and discovered a child on her doorstep. A baby girl, with a tuft of golden-red hair in the center of her head and a nose that seemed a little too big for her face. No note was attached to give any clue to the child's identity, so it could be assumed she had been abandoned. The woman was overjoyed-- the doctors had told her she would never have children of her own, but she and her husband had been praying. A gift from God, they decided. It had to be. If only they knew. finis. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - alright, before you rise up en masse and commit me to the nearest insane asylum, let me at least get in a few last words-- thank you all for reading the story, and i hope i haven't scared any of you too badly. i actually intended this start out dark and then end up as a happy little mulder/scully reunion, but the Muse decided otherwise. And hey, I did include a somewhat happy ending.....give me a little credit :) if you'd like to comment, ask questions, or throw tomatoes, my email addy is clone347@aol.com the Mulder clones and I await your feedback.