Dreamcatcher 29
Ally

Dreamcatcher. May 16th, 1999. Time unknown.

Mulder was unaware of the journey. Unlike the last time, there was no pain, no violence. Just the weird sensation that somehow he was moving, transcending from one conscious plane to the next.

He felt no fear. Instead there was just an overriding sense that this was *right*. That the child beside him would allow no harm to come to him. She guided him, gently, almost reverently through the fine mists that now surrounded them. Mulder somehow knew that there was no danger here.

It was a beautiful sensation, an abiding peace that cloaked him protectively as he became ever more detached from reality, that floated around him, tickling his senses pleasantly. And all the time he could feel her, could feel Scully's presence. He knew that with every step he took, he was travelling closer to her as she reached out to him through his mind.

He had no concept of how long the journey actually took, had no way of judging the time that passed. And truthfully, it just didn't seem to matter.

Finally, a touch on his arm brought him back as the mists fell away, leaving Mulder feeling as invigorated as if he had slept for hours. His every sense seemed heightened, sharpened somehow by the magic of this place he now saw before him: a forest glade where the trees stood like tall sentries all around, reaching up to a sky that, to Mulder's eyes at least, seemed impossibly blue. Patterns from the sunlight above dappled the soft ground with a million ever-changing patterns, coloring the grass pleasantly with its golden hue.

Flowers grew in abundance. A dizzying array of color swayed and shifted in the light breeze, transforming subtly in to ferns as they crept toward a sparkling pool set in the center of the glade.

A scene from a child's fairy tale. So breathtaking that for a moment Mulder couldn't speak.

Beside him Fliss watched his reaction, seeing the scene as though through his eyes, taking in the beauty that surrounded them. Knowing that he was seeing it as it should always be seen.

"What is this place?" he breathed, the sound catching on a summer breeze where it seemed to dance, suspended in the air.

Fliss smiled softly, the act transforming her face, giving it a lightness that Mulder had not yet witnessed. A child's face. Suffused with all the innocence she had once enjoyed.

"This place?" She let her eyes swing lazily around to take in the landscape. "This place is a dream, Agent Mulder. *Your* dream."

Mulder tentatively reached out a hand and captured a maple leaf between his thumb and forefinger, needing something tangible to hold onto, to affirm that this was indeed really happening. "And Scully? Is she here?"

In answer to his question Fliss simply lifted her arm slowly, knowing that Mulder's eyes were fixed intently on her. He followed her outstretched finger, almost afraid to look too far should the picture before him disappear.

For just in the distance, half concealed by a bank of dazzling white lilies, lay his partner. She was curled up atop the emerald green grass, barely discernible against it. Knees drawn up to her chest, she appeared to be sleeping. As Mulder moved closer, he could just make out the curve of her lips against the pale skin. Smiling slightly in her sleep.

He reached her finally. He was unwilling to disturb the silence around them by rushing to her side. He sensed that there was no need for haste, that regardless of how long it might take him to get to her, the end result would be the same. But eventually he allowed himself to kneel beside her, touching a hand to her face, feeling her warmth through his fingertips.

It was enough for his throat to close painfully. To feel her like this, to know that she was alive beneath him was almost too much to bear, and unable to restrain himself any longer, Mulder slipped his hands beneath her, lifting her slightly so as to gather her against him. He burrowed his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of sunshine and flowers like a drowning man taking a last sweet taste of air before he died.

His eyes, when he finally raised them to Felicia, were wet with tears. "Why doesn't she wake up?"

Felicia smiled. "It's not time yet. Soon, though. Soon you'll both wake up."

Even as she uttered the words her face clouded over. Her expression took on a faraway look as she shifted her eyes away from Mulder, fixing them on the mountains that loomed in the distance, their caps shining snowy white in the sunlight. "And then you'll leave."

Mulder gently disentangled his arms from around Scully, laying her down softly on the carpet of green beneath them, turning his attention to Felicia. "And you?" he queried. "What will you do?"

Fliss kept her eyes fixed ahead, working her mouth slightly as she fought to keep hold of her composure. "I have to stay here."

She inclined her head slightly towards Scully. "I thought she would be the one to help me. I know now that no one ever can."

Mulder shook his head. "I don't understand."

Fliss finally turned toward him, meeting his eyes with her own, sending that same jolt of energy through him that he had felt the first time they had met. A child who was old before her years. A child who knew more than he could ever hope to wish for.

Her tone was dreamy. All traces of her earlier tears were gone. "I *made* this place. It's my mind. Just like this is yours now. The things we see here are controlled by us. We see different things. It's what we can make it. What we can imagine it will be."

She shrugged.

"I have to make it right again. I have to stay here. To make sure no one ever gets hurt again...like...like my father got hurt. Like I hurt Lilly. It was my fault, you see. All of it."

"No." Mulder grasped her hand, squeezing it tightly. "Your father's death wasn't your fault. It was an accident. I read the police report..."

He trailed off then, knowing more than anyone that simple reports rarely told the whole story. That the truth could never be confined to a few pieces of paper. There were so many different kinds of truth. Truths that would never be acknowledged. He knew.

Oh, yeah. He *knew*.

Even so, the thought of this beautiful child, suspended in this world of dreams, of *nightmares*, was almost too much for him to bear.

"You don't belong here," he suggested gently. "Not like this."

Fliss tightened her fingers around his. For just a few moments she allowed herself to hang onto him before she stepped away, severing the connection between them as she shook her head. "Sometimes I think this is the only place I *do* belong."

Mulder didn't attempt to follow her as she backed away from him. He just stood and watched as the image of her became hazy. It was as though the mists had returned, come to cloak the glade in darkness, but he knew this not to be the case. The sun still shone above him, warming him pleasantly as his body drew its rays toward him. The light was still here. Constant. Reassuring. Safe.

Just as it should always be.

And from within that light came form and feature. A winding, shimmering vortex that danced before his eyes, swallowing everything in its path. He watched, awestruck, as the vortex hung suspended in midair for a few moments before it began to tip gently toward him. But Mulder felt no fear, could hear no sounds aside from a whispering voice that seemed to fill his entire being. A voice that came to him through the mists. Telling him all he needed to know.

The mouth of the vortex was upon him now, encasing him in light and a gossamer-like softness that enveloped him like a blanket as he watched the images before him.

Fragments of his life. Pictures that played out before him, giving him access to memories he had thought long forgotten. A myriad of swirling images that had lain deep in his subconscious until now. Until he had come to this place and been allowed just the tiniest glimpse of what lay inside of him.

And in the center of everything she stood there. Arm outstretched as she offered him her hand. Smiling softly at him, she seemed almost radiant, her blue eyes shining as he walked toward her, knowing that it was time to leave this place. Knowing that it was time for him to bring her back.

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