Dreamcatcher 27
Ally

Dreamcatcher May 16th, 1999. Time unknown.

Scully flinched at Felicia's words but stood her ground, grasping the child's thin arms even as she attempted to squirm out of Scully's grasp.

The wind swirled around them, reminding Scully of the way the sand had stung her skin when the vortex had risen and swallowed up her partner. Now, however, there was no sand, just the force of the wind as it buffeted them both. It had become noticeably darker, the storm clouds gathering above their heads.

Fliss struggled against Scully, eyes wide and terrified, no longer the confident character she had been only moments before. "Let me go! He's coming!"

Her screaming plea was almost swallowed by the chaos around them, but Scully didn't falter. It was becoming harder and harder to hold on to the girl, especially one almost as tall as she was, but Scully knew that the only way to end this was to somehow make Felica confront her demons.

She needed to prove to her what she had suspected for what seemed like an endless time.

Scully didn't pretend to understand everything that happened in this terrible place, but there was one thing she was certain off - that Fliss's nightmares were no more real than her own.

Terror without substance. The product of a mind tortured with a crippling guilt of things past.

Beneath her, the child's screams became louder, more frantic. "He's here!"

Scully narrowed her stinging eyes against the wind stream, squinting against the gathering darkness in an attempt to see what the child saw. And there was no doubt in her mind that Fliss did indeed *see* something.

The horrifying specter of her long dead father had no doubt risen to haunt this child on night after endless night, and from the way the child had become rigid beneath her grip, Scully had no doubt that she saw nothing different now.

It was becoming almost impossible to see as the darkness crept upon them, slowly and ruthlessly devouring everything in its path. The wind screamed, making it almost impossible to hear Fliss's cries beneath its force. But nonetheless, Scully did hear her. As clearly as if the child was screaming directly into her ear.

"Don't you see him?!"

For just a second, Scully could make out a shifting form to her right. A dark, pulsating mass that crept closer, as though waiting for a formal invitation. A face, twisted in a grimace of such fury, such evil, the likes of which Scully had never witnessed before.

But then she shifted her glance slightly and the vision was gone.

She spun Felicia around so that she was facing the child, shaking her as she did so. "There's *nothing* there! Can't you understand that?!"

Fliss's eyes were glassy, uncomprehending as she struggled against Scully, locked in a nightmare world that she had conjured for herself. But deep down inside of her, the words reached her.

"You don't see him?"

Scully softened her voice slightly. "No, I don't see him."

For a second she thought she had won, thought that the child beneath her was ready to accept the truth. She loosened her hold slightly, realizing her mistake immediately as Fliss twisted away from her. The tears still streamed down the child's face, an expression of such agony that Scully could feel her own throat begin to tighten. She took a hesitant step toward the child, swallowing as she did so.

"Fliss..."

"NO! NO! NO! Leave me alone!"

The child slammed her hands over here ears, and Scully was unsure for a moment whether the frantic plea was directed at her or at whatever this child could now see. Fliss's next words, though, confirmed her fears.

"He's real. HE IS! WHY CAN'T YOU SEE HIM?"

Scully shook her head, taking another step, holding her arms out in a placating gesture. But a sudden blinding flash of light stopped her in her tracks.

Behind the light came a familiar voice that called out to her, hard to decipher as the sobbing grew louder.

<Mom?>

And suddenly she could see her. Could see *herself*, lying silent and still in a hospital bed, as her mother hovered over her. Scully watched as her mother brushed a strand of hair from where it lay against her cheek.

There were other figures clustered around the scene, but Scully had to narrow her eyes in order to see them. Doctors. Two or three of them. All talking softly as they did their work.

One of them, the older of the three, seemed to be concentrating on an area around her face.

Scully swallowed and took a step closer, heart hammering in her chest. Every fiber of her being screamed out to her that this was different somehow. That it wasn't a nightmare. Clamping down on the thought, she continued to watch the scene unfold before her, hovering on the periphery like a spectator on her own life.

And then she realized. A blinding realization that caused her heart to cease its relentless beat for long seconds. The older doctor turned to Margaret and raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Scully watched as her mother closed her eyes. Nodding affirmation to whatever unspoken question had just been asked.

<I'm dying.>

With the realization came pain. Scully stumbled backward as the scene before her became fuzzy around the edges, like a bad television picture that has lost reception for a minute.

A searing pain in her chest drove the breath from her body, making breathing an impossibility. Even as she began to fall, losing her hold on consciousness, Scully realized, finally, the reason why Mulder hadn't tried to find her.

**********

St Mary's Hospital. May 16th, 1999

"She looks so peaceful."

Margaret Scully spoke softly, not wishing to disturb the silence that now surrounded them, but needing to say something, anything to once more receive confirmation that this was real.

Mulder raised weary eyes toward the older woman, a ghost of a smile flittering across his lips for just a second before settling them back to his partner. "Yes, she does."

It was impossible. He knew that.

Despite all he had seen, all he had experienced before, he knew that what they now viewed was a medical impossibility. The fact that Scully was still with them defied all explanation. The fact that she was breathing independently when all the medical personnel had told him time and again that such a thing wasn't possible made no kind of rational sense.

But Mulder would take it.

As he had sat in the hallway, waiting for Margaret Scully to emerge, he had clasped his hands together and prayed for the first time in years. Long-forgotten prayers from his childhood, stolen from a time when he still *believed.*

Whispered words. Desperate words. Words he had no right to even utter. Mulder knew he had no right to ask Him for anything, so long had it been since he had even acknowledged His existence.

But for Scully he had prayed, imploring whatever higher power might be listening to please not take her away from him. Not like that. Never like that.

And somehow, somewhere his words had been heard.

She was still with them. And as Mulder increased the pressure on her hand, he prayed that wherever she was, that she would know he was there with her.

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