From: ravenwald@adelphia.net   
      
   The Chilmark Project IV:  Ancient Evil part 2 of 3   
   Ravenwald & Wylfcynne   
      
      
   The ring of flame leaped to life and became a cold   
   white fire raging all around them.   
      
   ("Nothing can reach us in here, Mulder - we're alone.   
   Just you and me.  Fox, look at me.")   
      
   He shuddered, and sank to his knees.   
      
   She kept her feet, felt him shaking, hugged him close.   
   ("Shh...it's all right.  It's over.  It's just you and me.  It's   
   over.  Come back to me...")   
      
   He sobbed then and clutched at her.  ("Oh, my God,   
   Scully!  He was just a baby...!")   
      
   She held him tightly, crooning wordlessly, stroking his   
   hair.  ("I'm here.  I'm here.  You're not alone... I'm here.")   
      
   Finally he looked up at her.  His face was streaked with   
   tears, and all the horrors he had seen were visible in his   
   eyes.   
      
    Scully took a deep breath.  "Were you really there," she   
   asked hesitantly, "or were you just projecting?"   
      
   He backed far enough away to sit on his feet on the   
   floor, and held out his left arm for her inspection.  The   
   sleeve of his white dress shirt was soaking red with   
   blood.   
      
   "Oh, my God!"  She took hold of his wrist and he   
   flinched, grimacing in pain.  "What happened?"   
      
   He swayed slightly and braced himself with his right   
   arm.  "First cut," he forced the words out past set teeth.   
   "He joints 'em.  Like a butcher joints a chicken."   
      
   His shirt was not torn or cut.  She ripped his cuff open,   
   not caring where the cufflink flew, and carefully pulled   
   the white cotton fabric away from his arm.  She glanced   
   at the vicious cut that completely encircled his elbow,   
   and grimaced, wrapping the fabric back around firmly,   
   hoping to inhibit further blood loss.  She looked up, and   
   only then realized that the shield she had built was still in   
   place.  She could not even see the room in which they   
   knelt, much less their fellow agents.   
      
   (*I wonder if they can see us?*)   
      
   Mulder sagged against her, his head down, panting.   
      
   Scully looked around blindly, realizing only then that she   
   did not have a command to lower the white light barrier.   
   It took her a moment to recall that Blair had assured her   
   that the barrier   
   was under her control, and that its properties could be   
   changed by an act of will.  She closed her eyes and   
   concentrated on lowering the wall, reversing its growth   
   until it shrunk back to the single line of the original circle.   
   Then she wound that up into a ball and opened her   
   eyes.   
      
   The circle was gone.  The other agents were reacting   
   with shock and surprise, standing around the fallen   
   Sentinel and his frantic Guide.  The closest man was   
   Walter Skinner.  He took one look at Mulder's   
   blood-smeared form and turned to the nearest agent.   
   "Call an ambulance!  Now!"   
      
   The agent fled.   
      
   Skinner dropped to kneel beside Scully.  "Agent Scully?   
   What happened to him?  How could he get hurt in   
   here?"   
      
   She shuddered and turned haunted eyes up to her   
   commanding officer.  "Sebastian Lane is being killed   
   even as we speak," she whispered.  "First cut is   
   through the elbow..."   
      
   Skinner sucked in an extra lungful of air, horrified.  He   
   looked more closely at Mulder, and saw that he   
   seemed to be unconscious, pale, breathing light and   
   fast.   
      
   "Agent Scully?  Is he in shock?"   
      
   "Yes, sir."   
      
   "The ambulance will be here momentarily."   
      
   "All right."   
      
   "This is insane, you know."   
      
   She looked up at him.  "I have never been more certain   
   of what constitutes physical reality, sir."   
      
   He shivered, unnerved by the look in her eyes.   
      
   +++   
      
   Mulder was unconscious when they arrived at the   
   emergency room.  The emergency room doctor was   
   puzzled, but efficient.  He quickly determined that the   
   cuts, while deep, proved to not be deep enough to have   
   involved cartilage or tendons, but had involved some   
   major blood vessels.  Dr. Jameson called for a vascular   
   surgeon and sent Mulder up for surgery.   
      
   Skinner and Scully waited.  Scully briefed her   
   supervisor on what had happened, and he was   
   incredulous but not disbelieving.   
      
   "I believed you and Dr Sandburg when you promised   
   me that Mulder would get better at what he was already   
   the best at," Skinner said slowly, trying to assimilate   
   everything.  "But this is   
   insane."   
      
    Scully shrugged.  "That's the only way I can explain it,   
   sir.  He was uninjured when he walked into the room.   
   No one went near him, and he hasn't got a knife.  I don't   
   believe he would do this to himself, now.  There have   
   certainly been moments in his life when suicide seemed   
   a viable choice.  This isn't one of them."   
      
   +++   
      
   Much to Scully's shock and Mulder's satisfaction, after a   
   unit of blood and an initializing dose of IV antibiotics,   
   Mulder was signed out to the care of his own physician   
   the following afternoon.   
      
   "You're kidding!"  Scully stared at the doctor.   
      
   He shrugged.  "Managed care.  You're a physician; if he   
   needs anything else, bring him back to the ER.  You can   
   get the scripts filled at the dispensary on the ground   
   floor near the cashier's   
   window."   
      
   "He had surgery less than twenty hours ago!"   
      
   "He was under for less than an hour, he woke up without   
   even a trace of difficulty.  He's young and healthy, the   
   surgery was clean and simple without complications.   
   We need these beds for sick people.  Get him out of   
   here, Dr. Scully."   
      
   +++   
      
   Muttering under her breath, Scully bundled Mulder into   
   the back of Skinner's car.   
      
   "I'm sorry, Scully," Mulder murmured yet again.  He was   
   exhausted, and Scully was reasonably sure that he was   
   more than half asleep.   
      
   "I know you are, love," she said softly.  "Don't worry   
   about it now... just rest."   
      
   Skinner, from the driver's seat, turned around to study   
   his agents.  He had been about to ask for an   
   explanation, but it was obvious that Mulder was falling   
   asleep.  "Both of you relax," he advised instead.  "It's   
   only ten minutes to the hotel."   
      
   That got Mulder's attention.  He tried to sit up.  "No, wait   
   - I want to go back to the Task Force..."   
      
   "Forget it, Mulder!"  Scully and Skinner chorused.  They   
   traded amused glances, and Skinner turned forward   
   again, and started the car.   
      
   "You're going to bed, and you're going to sleep,"   
   Skinner instructed, carefully not looking at them in his   
   rearview mirror as he pulled out of the hospital parking   
   lot and onto the street.   
      
   Mulder slumped against his Guide and let her hold him.   
   "Yessir..."   
      
   He was almost asleep when Skinner stopped the car.   
   "We're here.  Pick up your feet."   
      
   Scully waited while Skinner climbed out of the car and   
   made his way around to Mulder's side of the car.   
      
   "C'mon, Mulder.  Swing your feet out."   
      
   Mulder obeyed, grumbling.  "'S nuthin' but a lousy cut...!"   
      
   "A lousy cut that took a hundred stitches to close!"   
   Scully snapped, her patience wearing thin with worry.   
   She was immediately sorry, but Mulder was so groggy   
   he had not even noticed her outburst.   
      
   Skinner helped him stand and walked along side him   
   toward room 315.  Skinner opened the door with a   
   keycard and guided Mulder inside.  Scully followed   
   them and realized that Mulder's luggage was here and   
   that the door to the adjoining room was standing open.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)