A Cold, Dark Place
By RocketMan

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are the property of CC, 1013, and Fox
Productions. No infringement is intended. Edgar Allan Poe's story is
his own, and no infringement is intended. I rather hope he'd be proud.

SPOILER FOR BEYOND THE SEA::::TAKES PLACE AFTERWARDS

=====
A Cold, Dark Place

=====
"To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these
extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality ... The
boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague ...
A certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again
sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels ... But where,
meantime, was the soul?"
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Premature Burial"
=====

Scully dropped the collected anthalogy in disgust, her mind traveling in
repulsive waves in the darkness of a premature burial. She could imagine
Mulder reading this to himself at night, consoling his dark soul with
the horror of another. If someone else is just as demonic, then surely
he is not so horrible ... 

But Poe? The idea of lying under the ground, cold and dark and the smell
of rich loamy earth assialing you, the vibrations of other's feet as
they walk above you, the crushing weight of death sitting on your chest,
waiting for you to actually die ...

She shivered and jumped when Mulder walked in from his motel bathroom,
the shower running and his eyes glancing toward her as he quickly
grabbed a change of clothes and scooted back into the bathroom.

Scully realized he'd only been wearing a small motel towel after the
fact and sighed.

She sank to the bed, picking a spot as far from his book as possible,
wondering at just how dark this man was, just how much she did not know
him.

What had she really gotten herself into this time?

She still didn't even know what case they were on, and he refused to
speak to her about it, saying he had to shower before anything.

He'd been down in Virginia, near Richmond, for two days already, doing
preliminary work on their case, he'd said, and allowing her some time to
grieve.

She hadn't wanted to grieve; she needed work. Work allowed her to grieve
in her own way.

But ... here she was finally, and wishing she had not come.

She had emailed Mulder continously, recieving with a delight she did not
question his own replies to her querries. But he did not write of what
was going on.

She wondered if the dog-eared Poe anthalogy had anything to do with it,
if this particular story was marked for a certain reason.

The narrative story gave descriptions of other cases, but how could she
know if they were real, or made up?

Mulder came sauntering out of the shower then, the towel in his hands
and rubbing his wet hair viciously, his T-shirt and jeans looking far
too normal after her musings on a premature burial.

She had told Boggs that Mulder was not facing a cold, dark place, yet
she now wondered if he was.

His eyes regarded hers and she felt the very nature of evil catalyzing
within them. His cheeks were scrubbed apple red and the bits of hair
haloing his face made her impression of his dark eyes seem skewed.
But looking in them once again, she felt for the first time, truly
afraid to be with him alone.

Not because he would hurt her, but because of his deadly power over her.

She went up to him and ran her fingers through his still soaked locks,
letting them stroke some semblance of normality into the chaos.

His surprise made him look childish, not at all like the evil she had
imagined in him and she stepped away in half embarrassment.

He wasn't quite sure what to do with her, but he threw the towel back
into the bathroom and stepped to the extra bed.

"I couldn't reserve a room for you Scully. Once word got out, everyone
was flocking here to see it. I didn't realize it would be so fascinating
to tourists. This turns out to be the only motel within miles. So, I'm
sure you can sleep on the extra bed this once, FBI regulations or not."

She hesitantly looked over at him, worrying about the regulations
already and breaking them so soon after her recent partnership.

But of course, she'd lied on the police report stating how she'd found
the boy and girl in that condemned warehouse, hadn't she? So what was
she making pains about?

She nodded to him and he relaxed into an uneasiness she hadn't ever
really seen him carry.

"So, bet you're wondering what's going on."

"Yes. Why didn't you tell me before?" she said, sitting down with him
and perching away from the book, as if it were contaminated with the
madness.

"I didn't want you to start thinking about it yet. Wanted it to be fresh
for you and not something else for you to deal with."

"Oh. I think I can look out for myself, though, Mulder. You --"

"Scully. I know you can look out for yourself, but believe me, when
you're saturated in it, you get the nightmares. And I didn't want you in
that yet."

"I guess I'll be in it soon enough, huh?"

His eyes turned to hers as he picked up Poe and laid it across her lap.
"Turn to page 258. 'The Pre-'"

"'Mature Burial,' yeah. I noticed it." she finished with a shiver.

"That's what's going on, Scully. That's what's going on."

She looked up and into his eyes and stared straight into a cold, dark
place.

A cold, dark, familiar place that had come to be home for him.

"Scully, you got to help me." he whispered. "This isn't going right. I
profiled him and he kills again, just as it is outlined in the story."

"Wait, what?"

"It isn't going right. It's gotten messed up. He deviated from the
profile -- he's got no signature anymore and it's tearing me up. You
have to help me."

She frowned, her eyebrows knitting togther and her hand reaching out to
touch him. 

He flinched and his eyes rolled, almost making him demonic.

"Mulder! You need to rest. This is affecting you way too much. Just --"

"Scully! I can't! Don't you see? *He's there*"

His words sent shudders throughout her bones, polishing them down to
nothings.

"He's ... where?"

"In my head. In my head and heart and the only thing keeping him from my
soul is my conscious. I have to stay awake. Awake. Or else he sneaks in,
steals from me ..."

"Mulder, you're incoherent. You need to rest. Now, just --"

He giggled. "I'm incoherent because I'm exhausted. I can't sleep! I
can't."

She raised her eyebrows, wondering where she could get a sedative out
here and how she could slip it to him.

"Stop it!" he suddenly roared. "Stop doubting me! It's the truth. I
can't fall asleep, Scully. I *CAN"T*"

His passion made her stop still.

"Read Scully. Read page 258." he said weakly and collapsed nearly on top
of her, eyes wild and still awake.

She had wondered why her email was dated at odd irrational times like
three a.m.

But she turned her eyes to the page and read. The man in the story
outlined a few cases of the premature burial and then how he himself had
almost been buried alive, in the same exact location. Near Richmond,
Virginia.

She looked up onto his very cold eyes, the fever of fear ocassionally
rekindling them, and wondered just what he meant.

"The Fiend. It's what the man calls himself. He's been caught twice and
not been able to be held. He somehow takes over the man guarding him,
causes him to go into this trance like in the story, a sort of catalepsy
which made us think he had killed the guards at first. Until I dreamed
of them, banging on the coroner's metal door, screaming to be let out. I
checked to make sure, and I found them, just as in my dream. But dead
now.  Scully, you have to help me. I dreamed again, and it was you."

Her mind bolted in revulsion at the thought and she shook her head.
"Mulder, you're-"

"No, it was you. There. At your house. I had to get you out of there."

"Mulder, it's just dreams that time, all right. Just dreams. Nothing
would have happened."

"Scully, I dream and it came true, and I saw him. Felt his freezing hand
just as the narrator did when he was in that sort of trance. I need to
make sure ...  make sure that doesn't happen again."

"What? Make sure what? Mulder you don't make any sense!" she said,
exasperated and fearful as his eyes grew in fear and the evil climbed up
her skin.

"Scully. Just stay here. Okay? Leave it to me. I'll get him and it will
be over. Just stay here. Otherwise ... who knows what will happen to
either of us?"

She shivered and moved the book off her lap, anxious to have the cool
touch of fresh air across her legs.

He grabbed her by the arm and she gasped, her eyes flying to his.

Cold darkness greeted her.

"I'm in a cold dark place, Scully. Just help me out."

She nodded roughly, her mouth filled with cotton, and she imagined a
death shroud clung to her nose and mouth.

"Thank you Scully. Thank you." he sighed and drifted off to sleep,
falling right in her arms.

She could only hold him and pray he was stronger than whatever force was
out there, waiting for him.


=====
"From that memorable night, I dismissed forever my charnal
apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which,
perhaps they had been less the consequence than the cause."
--Edgar Allan Poe, "The Premature Burial"
=====


She watched him moan and struggle, but restricted, as if he were bound
in a coffin too small for his long body. Scully wanted to ease him, but
knew he needed the sleep, knew he needed to defeat whatever it was that
had haunted him.

But she held him tightly, afraid that her narrow-mindedness had caused
this and that he would go into a kind of psyche induced fever and not
ever come back to her.

His head stayed in her lap, although it twisted and jumped and strained,
as if straining against hands that pushed him down.

She stroked his forehead, letting him know she was there, ready to
revive him if necessary, ready to hold him if necessary. His eyes rolled
violently under the lids and his lips grew as pale as Death's horse
riding out at the end of the world.

She traced her fingers across his lips, needing some comfort, for his
hands shook and his entire body trembled and she knew he was fighting
something horrible, something not even touched upon in Poe's work.

His body shuddered once and she placed her hand on his heart, to make
sure it still beat regularly and found that it thumped as if racing
against time itself.

She could not help but hold him harder, head held tightly to her stomach
and her breath exploding across his bangs, lifting and ruffling them as
if a spring breeze was wafting across.

"Come on Mulder. I'm here, I'm here."

His body was racked with seizures that made him buck more wild than a
man in the throes of love and she held him harder even, if it was
possible. His body slacked after that and she felt nothing under her
fist.

No beat.

No thump.

No rhythm in his heart, no breath from his pale lips, no life in his
body.

She gasped in horror, sobbed in sorrow, the moan issueing from her
throat like the death-knell from an animal.

She thought back frantically to the short story of Poe's. Premature
burial.

He could still be here, right? Still ... alive?

And then a shudder drawn from the very depths of him as if to call to
her, to tell her he was still there.

The evil closed upon her, circling through her and stabbing her heart.

His breath resumed after a long pause that had felt like eons to her and
she eased her hold on him.

His face grew somber, less panicked, and she hoped it was coming to an
end, whatever battle he had fought was closing and he was emerging
victorious.

The Fiend ...

It shuddered through her, whispered into the parts of her soul that
entertained the notions she would not let herself consider.

The part of her that loved him, the part of her that could believe in
this, the part of her actively reacting at the moment.

His eyes fluttered open and saw her blue bright lights catching him and
dragging him out of the cold dark place.

He sighed a great terrible sob of thankfulness and wrapped his arms
around her.

"I made it. We made it, Scully. The Fiend is gone. The premature burials
are gone. The death is gone."

She buried her head into him and allowed the part of her still
whispering to kiss his forehead.

He let his lips dance across hers, en pointe.

Treading carefully she moved away, letting her fingers fall from his
forehead and her heart from his hands.

"Thank you Scully. I know I wasn't making sense. I know you were
confused --"

"I trust you Mulder. I trust you."

His eyes grew dark again and she wondered fleetingly if the Fiend was
back.

But then they lightened to a green of grass and beauty.

"Thank you." he whispered and placed a small kiss on her eyelid.

Sensually soft, it made her shiver.

She let him go and he rose and stepped away.

"We'll leave after everything gets cleaned up here. All I need is to
pick him up. He'll be there."

And a nod from him was all she got as he turned to his own bed, pulling
down the covers and falling into it with his jeans and T-shirt still
clinging to him.

For hours she sat up watching him, making sure it would not come back.

But he was right.

It was over.

end
adios
RM