Delirium.
Glasgow, Kentucky.
May 20, 2010.
He awakened from a familiar nightmare. It had been playing in his head all night, since the moment he shut his eyes. He was so accustomed to seeing her lying on the floor, blood rolling away from her body, that it no longer startled him. His eyes just opened, and he stared at the wall, quietly dealing with the fear and anxiety the nightmare brought with it.
His head was resting on her stomach, both arms wrapped around her torso. She had fallen asleep with her hand draped across his back. When he sat up a little, getting a look at her tranquil face – partly to confirm that she was still alive – she stirred, groaned, and turned her head in the other direction. He smiled, carefully removing his arms and pulling the covers up to her chest. She stayed that way for just a moment before she curled up on her side.
He went to the bathroom, inspecting his beaten up face. He looked like he had gotten into a bar fight with the cave walls. His bandages were clean and white again, thanks to his overprotective partner in the other room, but he still felt soiled. He felt that he had spent the night running through that dusty forest, searching for her in that old cabin. Watching her die over and over.
While she slept, he raided the continental breakfast downstairs, hoarding food on two plastic plates and sneaking them up to their room. He set hers on the crappy little desk and went onto the balcony to eat his, hunching uncomfortably in the warm chair. It made his back ache.
He tried to drum up some of the passion he had experienced the night before, but the desperation to take action was slowly draining away from him. Perhaps Scully had been right. The ghost had gotten into his head. But she still needed help, and she would continue to hurt people, intentionally or not, until someone got her out of those caves. He had a duty to the people who had gone missing, to the family members he had spoken to. If they were still alive, he would bring them home.
But there was still the matter of getting a ghost out of a cave. He had heard about burning personal possessions of the deceased to free their spirits, of salting their bones and cremating them, but he had no way of locating her body. It could have been anywhere within those caves. The rituals he had read about the night before involved professionals waving incense around the house – something he was skeptical could really work – until the spirit could move on, but he doubted anyone would take on four hundred miles of caves to expel one wayward ghost. He was left with his own ideas. If something was troubling her on Earth, like the reason for her death, he could try to explain it to her, or bring whoever killed her to justice – metaphorically, of course.
Scully awakened and tapped on the sliding glass door, beckoning him inside. He joined her on the bed, shaking the rest of his eggs onto her plate. She was really chowing down.
"Long flight?" he wondered.
"Rough couple of days," Scully responded. She glanced at him, debating something. He laid on his side, rubbing the skin around his stab wound. It made the throbbing a little more intense, but it kept him alert. She popped his arm. "Leave it alone."
"It was the ghost."
She smirked, setting her plate down. She pulled out her phone and showed him the homepage of the museum he had been trying to visit the night before. "I looked up the hours while you were sleeping. We can go whenever you're ready."
"I'm ready now."
"How about you shave that thing off of your face first?"
He touched his cheek, and then went into the bathroom, gazing uncertainly at the beard that was starting to grow on his face. He swore it wasn't there when he checked himself earlier. When he looked back Scully was in the doorway, dangling a razor and a bottle of shave cream. "Here. I bought it while we were getting bandages yesterday."
"I didn't see you buy that."
"You were too distracted by the celebrity magazines."
"I was with you the whole time…"
She set them down on the sink, shrugging. "I don't know what to tell you, Mulder. You have a head injury. You're not seeing things clearly right now. Just shave and we'll go. Don't even think about taking a shower with that wound on your back."
He was ready in under half an hour. He came back to Scully lying on the bed, ankles crossed, looking through his tablet. She had a dark expression on her face.
"Whatever you found on that, it was Gene's."
She smiled softly. "Right. I was just looking at this journal you were reading. It's pretty dark stuff. I'm not surprised you were having nightmares."
"Not just nightmares," Mulder corrected. He took the tablet from her, stuffing it safely into the backpack in the corner. He held out his hand, helping her off of the bed. "I had the same nightmares as Rousseau before I read about them."
"There's a phenomena with dreams where you proactively replace blank faces and confusing events with things you see in real life. It's connected to déjà vu."
"That's not what happened here. I remember them all clearly."
She put her hand on his shoulder, motioning to the door. "I'm sure you do. We should get going, if you want to beat the crowds."
"Don't you think that's a little violent?"
"Shut up. Start walking."
When they got downstairs, Mulder noted that the doors to the dining room were shut. It was only a few minutes past eight according to the clock hanging over the front desk.
"Wow, they shut that down pretty fast," he mentioned.
She looked up, and then at the doors. "Shut what down?"
"The breakfast."
"Oh, that reminds me, do you want to stop and get something before we go to the museum? I'm starving."
He stopped. "What do you mean? We just ate. Eggs and bacon and stuff."
"Maybe in your dreams," she said nonchalantly, nudging his shoulder as she continued. She stood at the front door, holding it open for him. She frowned. "Come on. What's wrong?"
He stared at the doors, grasping at the memory of what had been behind them. It was slipping away from him. He followed Scully out and stopped her on the sidewalk, glancing around to make sure no one was listening in. "I didn't bring you breakfast?"
"No…" she seemed remarkably unconcerned, more like a giddy tourist. "You moped on the balcony for twenty minutes and then we left."
"Did I shave?"
She tilted her head back and forth, inspecting him. "You're stubbly, so no."
She tried to go on, but he stayed where he was. He pressed his hand to his temple, trying to gauge his temperature. "I think I'm losing my mind, Scully."
She came back to him, finally displaying the worry he expected. She grabbed his arm and guided him to the nearest bench, sitting down beside him. She turned his head toward her, looking into his eyes and frowning. "You seem fine to me. Do you feel nauseous?"
"Yeah."
"Here, sit back and take deep breaths."
He followed her orders, taking a few breaths of warm, humid Kentucky air. He spoke rapidly, trying to convey everything without being interrupted. "I thought I got you breakfast… you gave me a razor to shave… I remember it happening, Scully."
"It's the concussion," she murmured.
"I think… I think I should go back to the hospital."
"You wanted to solve this, so we're solving it," Scully insisted.
He looked at her, unable to detect the slightest hint of a joke. She was always the one suggesting medical help, and now she was ready to jump on his irresponsible bandwagon? It was miles away from her character. He shut his eyes, letting his head roll back. "What are you… talking about?"
"Just give yourself a moment to calm down."
He did as she said, sitting as still as he could for several minutes until the nausea rolled away. He felt much calmer, but he was still unsure about what was happening.
"Let's solve this, so we can go back home," Scully said, helping him off of the bench. She supported him for a moment, then let him walk on his own. She kept looking over at him, a weirdly relaxed expression clouding her face. "Do you think this museum will have a picture of your ghost? It seems kind of farfetched, but I guess that's your specialty."
Mulder went on walking, surprised when he saw the sign for the museum coming up on the right. He could have sworn it was on the other side of town. "Yeah… something like that. If I can find her face, I can try to find her name, or at least someone who might have some information on her death. Scully, I thought we were in the business district."
"We are," she responded.
"But I was downtown yesterday, and the museum was near the library."
"You must have been mistaken." She turned down the little walkway and headed for the front door, leaving him there. She opened it for an older couple, glancing over the packed parking lots on either side, and then she beckoned him. "Come on. We're losing daylight."
She disappeared inside, and Mulder stayed where he was, staring after her. He couldn't quite grasp the logical parts of his brain. He was trying to jam the puzzle pieces together, but none of them matched. "I must have been mistaken," he decided at last, looking behind him. The roads were empty. It barely registered. "I must have… mistaken."
Inside, thousands of years of Native American history covered the walls. It ran like a mosaic from the right side of the entrance, through every hallway, until it came to modern times on the left side of the entrance. He followed it from the moment he saw it, immediately taken by the hand painted faces and elegant script, translated carefully into native languages at the bottom. Scully followed him, often stopping to prompt him about the ghost. Every time she found an image of a young girl, she asked him if it was the girl he had seen, and every time he found an unfamiliar face.
He was following the timeline when he crashed into one of the museum employees. When he looked up, he was surprised to see a face that he knew.
"John?"
"Hello, Fox," John said. He pointed out the timeline. "Were you actually reading this whole thing? I think it takes a lot of liberties with our history."
"I was looking for someone, actually," Mulder responded. John had been one of the ones to help force him out of the cave, literally carrying him at one point when he refused to walk any further. He didn't blame him, but he was a little cautious of him. "Uh, a young girl."
"Still looking for that ghost, huh?"
Scully appeared behind John. "Yep. And Mulder can only draw stick people, so we're relying on his memory. Of the ghost. The ghost in the caves."
John looked back at her, cocking an eyebrow. "You don't believe in ghosts, ma'am?"
"And this is having literally met two of them," Mulder said. "She literally had a conversation with one and then got tricked into shooting me with an imaginary gun. That's how far in denial she is."
Scully shot him a glare, and then looked back at John. "I believe in ghosts… sort of. Just not this particular ghost. You don't, either, I assume. Otherwise you wouldn't have dragged Mulder out of that cave kicking and screaming."
"I believe in what he saw," John corrected. "But he did need medical help. It seems he still does."
"He staged a jailbreak so he could track down this ghost of his," Scully said.
Mulder waved his hand, cutting off whatever she was going to say about how reckless he was. "Do you know a lot about the people indigenous to this area?"
"Considering that I am one of them, yes."
"Well… that simplifies things. Do you know of any young girls who died in those caves? Possibly of a violent death?"
"No. I would suggest you check the tribal records, but if your ghost existed before that journal was written, there won't be any history of her."
"That was your whole plan?" Scully wondered.
He shushed her. "John, do you know of a man who was murdered in or near those caves? He would have been stabbed in the back – literally – about right here," he pointed out the spot on his back.
John gave him a weird look, like surprise mixed with uncertainty, and then he nodded. "I know of one… maybe. It's not really a story, but sort of a legend. Something mothers would tell their children to keep them out of the caves. They still say it today."
"Well don't stop for a dramatic pause, tell me!"
"Uh, give me a moment to think of the translation." He put his hand on the wall, staring up at the ceiling briefly, and then he spoke in a rhythmic way. His words put Mulder in a trance. "Stay off the rocks… away from the dark… or the bone knife… will pierce you." He looked between them, unsure. "Mothers were afraid their children would fall into the river, so they told them a man would stab them with a knife made of bone if they disobeyed."
"A knife made of bone?" Scully repeated blandly.
Mulder slid down onto the bench, his hand pressed against the wound on his back. It was starting to become cold again, like the blade was still brushing against his spine. He thought of his nightmare suddenly, of Scully lying on the floor of a cabin, bleeding out from a wound in her back. He saw the edges of bone protruding from it.
"Bone fragments," he murmured.
Scully looked up. "What was that, Mulder?"
"Someone used bone fragments… like a knife."
"So someone was really killing children with bones?"
"No, no, I mean…" He looked between them, finding weird expressions staring back at him. He knew they couldn't understand his train of thought. He barely understood it. "Uh, nothing. I think my head is getting to me again. We should keep looking for her face, Scully."
She shrugged, exiting to the next room. John stared at Mulder, putting a strong hand on his shoulder. He bent down and whispered softly, so softly that the others touring the room would not hear it. Mulder wasn't even sure he heard it.
"You should find that cabin."
When Mulder looked up, John was gone, and Scully was standing in the doorway. The room was otherwise empty. She beckoned him. "Come on. There are more portraits in the next room."
"What did they give me at the hospital?" he grumbled, following her to the next row of pictures. He barely saw them. His memories of the past few moments, of the conversation they had had with John, were fading rapidly, but one sentence remained. It kept repeating over and over again, until he started mumbling it to himself, until the image of the forest came back to him in living color.
He stopped where he was, shutting his eyes. He was seeing the leaves for the first time, now green instead of gray. He could smell the sap, hear the birds singing. It must have been spring. His skin was heating up, the mulch around his bare toes was as warm as beach sand.
"I should…" he blinked, flashing between the forest and the museum. "I should find that cabin."
Suddenly neither of those places were within his grasp. He was in a hospital room, machines screaming on either side of him, people rushing around his bed in blurs, lights blaring up above. He could hear Scully, and some familiar voices – the nurses and doctors who had tied him to the bed before – but everything was blending together.
"He's flat-lining! I lost his pulse!"
His eyes bulged. He tried to sit up, panicking, to tell them that he was still breathing, but several sets of hands held him down. He saw Scully staring at him, her hand over her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes, looking horrified, and the lights started to flicker.
He felt a jolt and the machines beeped furiously. He threw up his hands, trying to black the paddles from touching his chest again, but he was restrained by a sea of arms. "I'm alive!" he yelled, doing everything he could to escape their grasp. It was useless. It was like trying to swim through quicksand. "Hey! Hey! Look at me! I'm alive!"
Scully was shaking her head, and despite the madness all around him, he could hear the soft words that she spoke. "Why did you have to do this, Mulder? We could have been happy."
And then the moment passed.
He opened his eyes in a hospital bed, now completely alone. He saw something move near the door, but it was gone too fast for him to track. He tried to move his hand up to rub his aching head, but it was cuffed to the bed. Fuzzy beige cuffs. He stared at them, dumbfounded, and tugged at them a little bit. The railing was loose. He gave it another tug and it tumbled away, freeing his hand. Once he got them off, he sat up, pressing both hands hard into his skull.
"I'm just reacting badly to the drugs," he said to himself, banging his palms to his forehead to try and force himself to wake up. "I'm still sleeping. I'm still dreaming. Wake up."
He tried to stand up, but he fell hard to his knees, taking the piece of railing with him. He grabbed onto the bed, struggling to pull himself up as the room spun around him.
"Mulder?"
He looked up, a moan rolling up through his chest. He had definitely lived this before. Scully fell to her knees in front of him, embracing him, and then she kissed his cheek and whispered his name.
His words bubbled up. "Scully… how did you get here so fast?"
"You were out for half a day," she said, smiling at him. She fiddled with his bandages. "Oh, Mulder, I told you this would happen. What did I say before you left?"
"I think… we've done this before, Scully."
She frowned. "Yeah, I bail you out all the time."
"No, I mean this exact moment. We have done this before."
Scully looked up, and Mulder noticed Gene hovering in the doorway. She spoke to him. "How long has he been like this?"
"Since yesterday, but I felt it brewing the whole trip."
"Felt what brewing?" Mulder demanded. He tried to stand, but Scully held him back. "I'm not crazy, Scully. We did this already. You got mad about the restraints, and then-"
Scully stood up suddenly, grabbing one of the restraints and holding it up to Gene. "Damn right I'm made about the restraints. Did you put these on him? That was completely unnecessary!"
"He's gonna say that he barely got me here," Mulder interrupted, clawing his way to his feet. Scully helped him back onto the bed. He rolled his wrist at Gene. "Go ahead and tell her."
Gene frowned. "Uh, he's right. I barely got him here. He wanted to go back into the caves."
"And then you ask me if that's true," Mulder cut in.
Scully had already opened her mouth to say it. She shut it with an audible click. "Of course I would ask that. Why would you want to go back into the caves?"
Mulder stared at her. He was sure about it now. He was completely losing his mind. He could recall this entire conversation – she doubted his memory of the ghost, called him crazy, and then laid down with him. He had dreamt of the meadow… the meadow…
Everything stuttered to a halt. "The meadow," he said aloud, trying to connect the dots. "What if the meadow… leads to the cabin?"
Now both of them were giving him crazy looks. Scully put her hand on his forehead. "Mulder, you're burning up. I'm going to call the doctor to give you some more morphine. Are you in pain? How does your head feel?"
He shook her hand off. He could recall the girl standing in the meadow, running away as he pleaded for her to return. Why was he so desperate for her to come back? He was afraid. There were eyes in the forest, perhaps the same eyes that wielded the blade made of bone. She was running from him, but he had found her. He had found her in the cabin. But then how did she get to the caves?
"Mulder, you're scaring me," Scully said.
"It's okay," he responded, measuring the honesty in her eyes. "It's okay… you're just a dream. Both of you are. I have to… I have to figure this out, or I won't wake up."
"Watch him, I'm going to get the doctor," Scully said. She left the room, glancing back at him anxiously before disappearing into the shadowy hallway. Mulder craned his neck to see her, but the lights had suddenly gone out. He could hear her talking, but he didn't understand what she was saying. It was all gibberish. It was all nonsense.
Gene came up to his bedside, putting a hand on his arm. "This is not a dream, Fox. You let that ghost theory get into your head. What do you see right now? What do you think is happening?"
Mulder put his hands over his face. "I'm in a hospital bed, talking to you. Scully left. It's dark outside. What is she saying?"
"It's not dark outside. Open your eyes. Fox, open your eyes."
Mulder obeyed, staring into the hallway. It seemed normal again. Nurses were walking around, someone was talking over the PA system, and Scully was standing just shy of the doorway with one of his doctors. She was looking at him, fear in her eyes.
He kept blinking, waiting for everything to go dark again, but it stayed right where it was.
"Can you see it now?" Gene asked.
"I was at the museum," Mulder said. He knew he had been there. He had touched the rough walls. He had sat on the plush benches. He had felt the heat and humidity outside. He had stumbled through the rain and encountered that old lady in the library. "I was at the library… I can't be back here… I can't be here…"
"Listen to me," Gene insisted, pulling his hands away from his eyes. "Hey, just calm down and listen to what I am saying. You never left this hospital. You've been unconscious for a little while. You were probably hallucinating because of your concussion."
Suddenly it occurred to him that he was cold. He felt damp. "What happened in the cave, Gene?" he asked, scowling when he received no answer. "What happened in the cave?"
Gene was quiet for several minutes. He stared at Mulder with the intensity of a wax figure. His blank expression faded into sadness, and he shook his head, his eyebrows pulling downward.
"I couldn't get you out."
Mulder drew a blank. "What?"
"I couldn't get you out. I had to leave you."
"I don't… I don't…"
"You should find that cabin."
With those final words, the image of him faded, and Mulder opened his eyes again. He was in the same hospital bed, in the same situation. Gene was standing in the corner like he had been the first time, looking out into the storm. When he looked back, Mulder saw no indication that he remembered their conversation. Mulder flexed and rattled his restraints.
"Would you stop doing that?" Gene asked quietly.
Mulder, mystified, responded, "Would you get these things off of me?"