Title:  Kraken
Author: Wylfcynne
Email: wylfcynne@aol.com

Originally posted to Ephemeral on Sat 23 Feb 1999
SPOILERS:  Agua Mala
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: Missing Scene; MT, SA, UST
SUMMARY:   What really happened to Mulder on the other side of that 
door.

FEEDBACK: The Wylf howls at the moon for feedback...


The Kraken: An Illumination

The tentacle lashed down out of the ceiling and grabbed by the 
throat. Mulder flinched, and tried to pull away, but the tentacle was 
too strong.

(*How can something made of water be so strong?!*)

Pain encircled his neck, and he felt his flesh being pierced, felt 
what he knew was the injection of eggs, or of larvae.
  
(*God, I'm the host, now...*)

The horror of it was making it hard for him to breathe.

(*Or is it the things in my neck...?*)

The deputy sheriff had needed a tracheotomy.  Frightened, fighting 
panic to breathe, Mulder turned to head back toward his partner.

(*Scully!>*)

*****

The door slammed in his face.  Dimly he heard Scully yelling; she was
trying to get to him, to help him, but that loony survivalist was
holding a gun on her.

(*She can handle him,*) he knew.  He had perfect confidence in Scully.  
She would not let him die.  (*If she has a choice...*)

He considered just sitting by the door and waiting for her, but that
was too passive; he was too restless, too anxious, to sit that still
and just wait for Fate to take him.

Mulder stumbled away, moving slowly because his breathing really was 
becoming constricted.  He fell again by the exit, and stared
uncomprehendingly at the smug cat sitting outside in the rain.

(*Out in the rain?  Aren't cats supposed to be smarter than that?

(*Unless being outside in the rain is the lesser of two evils...*)

Certainty came with its familiar flash of insight, and he crawled 
outside to lie on his back in the downpour.  The cool rain felt good
on his skin, and he recalled dimly that the deputy had had a fever. 
He closed his eyes.  This felt better...

*****

Scully had been searching the building for him desperately, calling
his name until her voice was hoarse, when she had spotted him from a
second story window and dashed down the stairs.

Mulder was lying motionless in the grass, in a low spot in the lawn,
half-covered in water.  Face up, eyes closed, it was still raining 
too hard for her to see if he was breathing.  Her heart spasmed in 
her chest.

(*Oh, my God.  He can't be dead...!  My partner never dies!*)    
"Mulder?!"  She dropped to her knees beside him.  "Mulder?!"

He moved, and she could breathe again.  He blinked his eyes open, 
focused on her tiredly, and he smiled.

"Hi, Scully.  Was it a boy or a girl?"
 
"What?"  The question came from so far out of left field that she 
could not grasp it for a moment.  "Mulder, are you all right?  Can 
you breathe?"
 
"Yeah.  I'm fine, Scully."  He saw her blanch at that fateful phrase, 
and sat up, slowly, cautiously.  "I'm all right, Scully.  The 
rainwater worked."

He pulled his collar down, baring his neck, and she could see the wounds
were no longer red and angry-looking.  They seemed smaller, and all the
inflammation was gone.  "See?  The rain washed the critters out.  
Or dissolved them.  Or whatever."
  
She stared.
  
"There are documented cases of oceanic creatures surviving briefly in
freshwater environments, but the fluid balances are different.  The 
fresh water floods the cells by osmosis, and the creature drowns from 
the dilution of the natural salinity that the body requires for nerve 
impulses to travel across the synapses."

Scully swallowed hard.  "And you think that's what happened?"

Mulder nodded.  "The rain washed them out, or they dissolved..."  He
shuddered.  "It wasn't particularly pleasant, but it worked.  I can
breathe just fine, and I can't feel the little wormy things wiggling
anymore."

Scully was horrified.  "You could feel them?!"

Mulder nodded slowly.  "Yeah."

She took his pulse, put her hand on his face to test his temperature. 
She watched him breathe for a full minute.  Everything seemed normal. 
"You seem to be okay..." she admitted reluctantly.

He grinned at her.  "Don't sound so disappointed, Scully!"

"I'm not!"

They reached for each other; the hug was mutually desperate.  They 
had both believed him doomed like the deputy, but Fate had turned Her 
face away one more time.

They each had the same thought.  

(*How many more times can we cheat Her?*)

Neither shared it.

  
end