Disclaimer:  Fox and Samantha Mulder, Dana Scully all belong to Chris
Carter (creator), Ten Thirteen and 20th Century FOX.  Borrowed with loving
care and without permission, malice or misuse.  No copyright infringement
intended.
	Please email all comments and creative criticism to nonnie72@aol.com
(Nonnie 72)

"Dreams" 
	A sequel to "Rain"

(c) 1995/1996 Jocelyn Delmar (also:  "Rain" (c) 1995/1996 Jocelyn Delmar)


12:29 am

	Mulder shivered unconsciously under a soft grayed blanket.  His
fingertips burned and the soles of his feet tingled.  The shifting blue
lights of the television cast shimmering shadows across his taut face. 
Mulder arched his back tightly as a smooth ripple of pain shot along his
spine.  His muscles were paralyzed, he hardly could move save for
breathing.  Under his closed eyelids his eyes darted rapidly and he
clenched and unclenched his fingers into hot balls of fists as he slept. 
The lights from the television pierced his dreams.
	His jaw was pushed tightly into his skull; the skin of his head was
stretched so thin and the blood boiled so hot underneath he felt ready to
burst out of his epidermis.  A light, warm layer of smoke blew gently
across his face.  The smoking cigarette end glowed, and the man exhaled
the smoke onto Mulder's writhing body.  He stood stiffly and unemotionally
as to keep himself from doing something to stop Mulder.
	On the slick leather couch, his hands lay frozen at his sides, rigidly
stopping movement.  In the faint cigarette light and the television's
glow, the man standing across the room could detect the slight
discoloration that tinged the pale moons of Mulder's chipped fingernails.

	The light glowed hard and fast from above, unyielding in its pale blue
intensity.  The table was cold and glassy.  Faint mist drifted over his
bare skin and he shivered in the contrasting interface between heat and
cold.  His burned skin was parched but a rapid tongue kept his lips
temporarily moist and he longed for the feeling of beaded sweat that
rolled of heated skin.
	In the foggy mist Mulder saw images through the light, though his eyes
burned before recognition.  Haunting voices whispered above him and he
strained to hear their conversations.  His forehead wrinkled painfully and
his muscles were stiff.  His voice wouldn't work so he pathetically mouthed
words in the bright darkness he now inhabited.
	The skin on his feet tingled in a line from heel to toe and Mulder's jaw
tensed and trembled uncontrollably.  The line burned with a quick heat and
an acute ripping sound resounded in Mulder's ears.  His skin was dry, cold
underneath and painful; he shuddered and his body jumped on the table. 
Every bit of his skin tingled unbearably and scorched in the mist.  His
skin stretched across his taut muscles and something soft slipped over his
painful body, touching every inch of exposed, blistered skin.  It was so
light in touch Mulder trembled in the darkness, eyes squeezed shut.
	A scrap of sound whispered over him: "Fox..."
	His ears pricked up and for a blinding second he opened his eyes to a
burning mist.  His pupils wildly contracted and he plunged himself back
into darkness from the sheer pain of vision.  Mulder's lips moved
desperately and his mouth widened into a silent scream.  He writhed back
and forth on the frigid surface that pulled his skin away from him, slowly
peeling off thin white layers.
	His ears strained for the sound again; he knew this voice.
	"Fox..." It drifted slowly, lazily across this agonizing chasm in which
Mulder lay tortured.  He couldn't bear the sound of the voice again.
	It came again: "Fox..." A little more persistent, whiny, hauntingly
beckoning.  Mulder licked his lips and tried to take breaths not as
edgy.  His entire body disconnected itself from logic and strained against
the paralyzation which held him down.  His pulse pounded in his ears as his
skin boiled and froze on the same plane.
	Over and over again his lips mouthed silent words and they became more
familiar every time repeated.  The name always lingered in his view, for
every lead he took in his job he held on to the faint hope that at the end
of the case lay the name, sweet and unharmed, pristine in its forever
eloquent youth.  In its originality it called him by name to stay here in
this place where pain was rampant to living being and contrasting
everything collided messily.  For every saddened plead there was a denial
of choices.  From the leads Mulder took in his job he knew that to every
inquiry was a cross purpose; to every comment a result.  Mulder burned in
the harsh intensity of cross examination.
	The glassy metal of the table became pliable, hot and slick with sweat
and his muscles were unparalyzed.  The sudden ability shot Mulder's body
off the sweaty leather of his couch and he landed painfully on a cold
carpet.  Still in deep sleep he returned to his living room and slipped
inside his pale winter skin, cool and clammy but comforting.  His nose,
still sharp in unconsciousness, detected the smoky smell of the mist that
lingered long after the man's presence had disappeared.  Forgetting the
returned ability of speech, Mulder's eyes opened to see a ghostly Samantha
sitting next to him and his screams echoed in the silence of night life.

	The corner of the bathroom was wet with perspiration but a haunted Mulder
sat there anyway, eyes wide and darting in the shadows.  For every clap of
thunder and flash of lightning, Mulder jumped, curled in the corner of the
cool tiled room.  It was hours after he had slept and hours since he had. 
Sleep came relatively early on the couch that night, without help of his
mail-order video friends.  Rain pounded on the walls and flashes of
blinding light came in through the shimmering windows.  His skin crawled
and shivers ran across him.  He couldn't close his eyes from the light; he
was unable to bear the visions of scarlet blood that ran down Scully's
cheeks from her eyes as she cried in his dreams.  The thunder rolled and
Mulder hunched in the bathroom, scared of himself and the hallucinations
that were so real.

end.