From: Brandon Ray Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 00:27:02 -0600 Subject: Straight on 'Til Morning Source: direct Reply To: publius@avalon.net ========= Headers & Notes ========= TITLE: Straight on 'Til Morning an X-Files Fantasy by Brandon D. Ray BEGUN: October 19, 1999 FINISHED: December 23, 1999 EMAIL ADDRESS: publius@avalon.net DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Do not archive at gossamer; I've already sent it there. Anywhere else is fine, so long as my name stays on it and no money changes hands. FEEDBACK: Go ahead; knock yourself out. Ephemeral: *FEEDBACK*publius@avalon.net SPOILER STATEMENT: Anything through "The Goldberg Variations" is fair game. RATING: NC-17 CONTENT STATEMENT: MSR. Explicit sex. MulderAngst. ScullyAngst. Character death, sort of (not M or S). IMPORTANT NOTE: Several of the most important characters in this story are children. However, *all* NC-17 content involves ONLY consenting adults. CLASSIFICATION: Crossover, Romance, Angst SUMMARY: All children have to grow up, eventually. THANKS: To Brynna, Jen, Paulette, Robbie, Shannon, Sharon and Trixie, for the beta and brainstorming and all that good encouragement stuff. DEDICATION: To Trixie, without whose threats, pleading and cajolery, this story would not have been written. ;) NOTE OF AMUSEMENT: On December 27, 1904, Peter Pan, by James M. Barrie, opened at the Duke of York's Theatre, London. So if coincidences are just coincidences, why do they always seem so contrived? ;) DISCLAIMER: In my dreams... ================END HEADERS & NOTES================ Straight on 'Til Morning by Brandon D. Ray ========= Prologue ========= Somehow, I always knew it would come to this. I'm not sure when I became aware of it. Surely that day when I walked into the basement office for the first time, the connection was not already there. That entire first year we were just work partners, thrown together against our own wishes, each pursuing our own goals. We were like children, really -- gay and innocent, and perhaps a little heartless. But all that has changed, and now we are children no more. We have been through too much; we have seen and heard and done too much. We have finally grown up, as all children must, and now, tonight, we are taking the final step to adulthood. Mulder is poised above me now, his body strong and warm and masculine. His weight is pressing me down into the mattress, and the feel of his skin against mine electrifies me. All of my senses are alive tonight -- touch, taste, hearing, vision, scent -- and all of them are contributing to the arousal that is boiling within me. I lift my gaze to meet my partner's, and I shudder in anticipation at what I see there. His eyes are dark with passion, and the expression on his face is naked and primitive with longing and need -- longing and need for me. Just for me. Only for me. I feel my own desire surge as I recognize the emotions on his face. I 've been waiting all my life for a man to look at me this way, and the knowledge that it's finally happening is nothing short of intoxicating. I shift my hips restlessly, impatiently, trying to signal with my body that I want him as much as he wants me. A smile of acknowledgement tugs at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes darken even further as he leans down to capture my lips with his. Our tongues flirt with one another, exchanging intimate caresses, and I tighten my arms around his shoulders, trying to draw him closer, closer. Mulder moves against me, pressing the firm, unyielding planes of his chest against my breasts -- and then his erection brushes my center, and I moan into his mouth. Instinctively, I lift my legs to embrace his hips, tilting my pelvis in preparation for his entry. I am completely open and vulnerable, and I am so, so ready. Truth be told, I've been ready for years, but now I'm finally admitting it, to Mulder and to myself. Thank God. With one arm I continue to hang on to Mulder, holding him as tightly and as closely as I possibly can. With the other I reluctantly let go, and slip my hand down between us. The space between our bodies is hot and tight and slick with perspiration, and my seeking fingers slide easily downwards, downwards, downwards .... At last, I reach my goal. Mulder's cock is hot and hard and a little rough, like raw silk, and as I take it lightly in my hand he breaks the kiss and gasps his pleasure. Despite the urgency we both are feeling, I can't resist the urge to take a moment to explore, and I focus my gaze once again on his face as I let my fingers trail slowly up and down his shaft. And dear God, what a vision he presents. His eyes are closed, and his head is tilted back, with his mouth hanging open. His breath is now coming in short, sharp gasps, and as I reach the very tip of his cock and gently squeeze it, he whimpers, very, very softly. It's time to do this. Once again I lightly grip my partner's erection and tug gently on it. He immediately gets the message and lowers his hips, even as I'm raising mine to meet him. There's a moment of breathless anticipation, and then, finally, I feel the head of his cock lightly touch my entrance. I promised myself I would watch Mulder's face at this moment, but I find that I cannot. I want to see his expression; I want to drink in the emotions I know I would find there. But it's just too much, my senses are overloaded, and as he slowly, slowly slips inside me, I find that my eyes have drifted shut. Gradually he moves downward and inward, stretching me and filling me, sending new waves of pleasure racing outwards through my body. Finally, he's all the way inside, and for just a moment we pause, completely and irrevocably joined together -- partners in every sense of the word, at long, long last. I feel tears burning in my eyes, and I bury my face against Mulder's strong, hard shoulder as I try to adjust to the feelings that are bubbling and boiling around inside me. I want this; there is no doubt in my mind that I want this. I have had lovers before; men I loved and cared about. But never have I experienced the intensity I'm feeling at this moment. Never before has it seemed so perfect and essential. I really do feel as if I'm finally leaving childhood behind, and that the past thirty-five years have just been preparation for this moment. Then Mulder begins to move, drawing slowly out of me with the same deliberation with which he entered. Finally, only the head remains, and he pauses -- and a moment later he's easing back down and in, filling all my empty places once again. At last he's all the way inside again, and somehow it's even more fulfilling and satisfying than it was the first time. My face is now pressing into the hollow of Mulder's neck, and I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with his scent as he begins to pull back for another stroke. This time his withdrawal is a little quicker, the pause at the top a little briefer, the downward thrust a little harder. He does it again, and again, getting faster and deeper and stronger with each new stroke. And my hips are now arching to meet his, my fingernails are digging into his back, and my teeth are nipping at the hard outline of his collarbone. We are surrounded by the soft sounds of our lovemaking: grunts and moans and happy cries of pleasure. The mingled scent of our mutual arousal pervades the room, filling my lungs and nostrils, reminding me with every indrawn breath of why we're here, and who we are. Mulder's pace continues to increase, and from the frantic neediness of his thrusts I think he must be almost there already. Unfortunately, although my own arousal still burns hot within me, this is not a good position for me, and I'm nowhere close to climax. For a moment I'm unsure what to do. There are other methods -- other positions -- that work better and are more pleasureable for me. But Mulder is obviously so very near to his own orgasm, and this is our first time, and I'm feeling a little tentative about asserting my own wants and needs. And besides, I remind myself, he's already given me what I most need, at least for tonight. He's given me his trust and his commitment -- and, yes, his love, although neither of us has actually used that word as yet. Just having Mulder inside me, knowing that it's him, is making this experience more profoundly intimate and emotional than any act of love has ever been for me. Mulder is slamming into me, now, and I'm throwing my hips up to meet his thrusts. His breath is hot and moist against my ear, and with each stroke he makes a sound halfway between a grunt and a moan -- and I suddenly realize that it's my name he's trying to say, over and over and over, and that causes yet another wave of love to go coursing through me. This is for me; he's giving it all to me .... Then abruptly he shudders, and his body bucks against mine once, twice, three times. He inhales sharply, then finally empties himself into me with a low, guttural groan. For a minute or two I lie perfectly still, my arms and legs still wrapped around my partner, his spent cock resting inside me. His body shudders intermittently as he gradually recovers from his orgasm, and I'm gently stroking his back and making soft, soothing sounds into his ear. Gradually, he seems to settle. The aftershocks die down, and his entire body starts to relax. I don't know exactly what he's thinking, but even as I'm petting him and cuddling him, I'm preparing a response in my mind for the apology which he will almost inevitably offer. I've been in this situation before, of course; I suspect that most women have. And in all honesty, when the man is selfish about it, and just rolls over and goes to sleep, oblivious to the fact that I did not reach climax, I do find it irritating. That was one of Jack's more annoying habits. But this isn't Jack; this is Mulder. And Mulder won't be selfish; I know him well enough to know that it just isn't in him to be that thoughtless. If anything, he will be overly apologetic, and I may have to soothe and reassure him before he finally accepts the fact of my contentment. I'm drawn from this introspection as my partner's body begins to shake again. For a few seconds I'm confused. This can't be another aftershock; it's been too long, and he'd become too still and calm. But in another instant I realize what's going on. He's crying. Mulder is crying. I don't know what to make of this. He can't be this upset over the matter of my orgasm; that's a bit much, even for Mulder. I had expected embarrassment; perhaps a misplaced sense of inadequacy. But not this. A chill passes over me as it dawns on me that there could be other reasons for this reaction. Automatically I tighten my arms around him, seeking the security and reassurance of his body's warmth even as my thoughts are turning to darker places. This was not a mistake, I tell myself firmly. And Mulder is not going to lift his head off my shoulder in a few seconds or minutes and tell me we were wrong to do this, and that everything has to go back to the way it was. We've gone through too much to get to this point, and it was so very right. We both need this; we both need each other. And I, for one, am not going to give it up without a fight. I find that my hands have once again started stroking Mulder's back, gently touching and caressing him, trying to ground him. His shoulders continue to shake in soundless grief, but I still don't understand why. I want to ask him, but at the same time I'm afraid to ask him, because I don't know if I will like the answer. And so I continue to offer silent comfort, trying to pour all the love and commitment I feel for this man into my touch. Trying to make him understand that whatever it is that's upset him, we can face it, and overcome it. Together, we can do anything. Slowly, so very, very slowly, he begins to wind down. His quiet sobbing ceases, and I reluctantly allow him, finally, to withdraw from my body. We wind up curled together in the middle of the bed, Mulder lying on his back, my head resting on his shoulder. I have one arm stretched possessively across his chest, and the corresponding leg is twined with one of his. I can feel, rather than hear, his heartbeat. I still can't bring myself to speak, though. The fear engendered by Mulder's unexplained outpouring of grief has drained me, and I find that some of my walls have gone up, despite my best intentions. I do take reassurance from his continued presence, and the fact that he allowed me to comfort him, and continues to permit this physical closeness. But past this point, I cannot go -- not right now, at any rate. His breathing finally steadies, and begins to deepen, and I realize that he's drifting off to sleep at last. This is a good thing, I tell myself. Falling asleep after an emotional catharsis can be cleansing, giving your mind time to adjust to whatever was upsetting you, so that you can deal with it when you wake up. And again, his willingness to drop off into slumber in my bed, in my arms, helps me to fight off my own worries and insecurities. It will be okay, I think drowsily. Mulder and I will be okay, and when we wake up in the morning, we'll fix whatever it is that's bothering him. I slip my arm a farther across his chest, and press myself a little closer to his warmth. I'm mildly bemused at how easy this is, at how natural it seems for me to follow Mulder into the land of dreams. But my last conscious thought is that I shouldn't really be surprised. I'd follow this man anywhere. ================END PROLOGUE================ ========= Chapter One ========= Dana awoke in near-total darkness. For a few seconds she was confused; disoriented. Her mind was awash with strange, disturbing thoughts and images. Images of monsters, both human and otherwise; thoughts of pain and suffering and heartache. And fear. There was so much fear pervading her mind, and she didn't know where it had come from, or why. And there had been a man -- tall, dark-haired, hazel-eyed. His face was worn and lined, and so very, very sad. He was crying .... Dana felt herself flushing as more of the dream -- it must have been a dream -- started coming back to her. She had been in bed with the man, and she had been naked. They both had been naked. And they had been doing ... things. The sorts of things that were in those magazines she'd found hidden one day in the back of Bill's closet, wrapped up in his football jersey. Strange, terrifying things. Wonderful things. She stirred in bed slightly, and as she moved her legs she noticed the odd, unexplained dampness between them which had been there a few times when she woke up the past several months. She was pretty sure the dampness was associated with sex in some way -- and in this instance it was also associated with the dream she'd just had, and with the odd, fluttery tremors in her abdomen .... There was some surreptitious giggling about such things among the other girls at school, but so far Dana had been too embarrassed to pay much attention, and she hadn't been able to work up the nerve to talk to her mother about it. She had asked Melissa about it one day recently, but Missy had just laughed, and said she'd understand when she was a little older. Darn Missy anyway. Dana's eyes had finally adjusted to the dark, allowing her to make out the familiar, comforting shapes that constituted her bedroom. There was her bureau, with her collection of snow globes dimly visible on top of it. Her study desk sat in one corner, the small stack of school books making a neat, rectangular outline. Her father's old telescope, a present given to her on her thirteenth birthday a month earlier, stood by the window, ready to plumb the mysteries of the universe. Dana frowned as she realized the window was open, the curtains fluttering in the soft evening breeze. She had closed the window before going to bed; she was sure of it. But now it stood wide open, and as she gradually came to full wakefulness she realized that there was a chill in the air. She shook her head and sighed; she must have just *thought* she closed the window. With a groan of protest Dana threw back the covers and climbed from her bed. The floor was cold and unforgiving beneath her feet, even through the carpet, and she wasted no time in crossing to the window and sliding it shut. She then turned and hurried back to bed. She was about to slip beneath the blankets once more, when she heard a quiet rustling noise, coming from under her bed Great. Her room had mice again. Just what she needed. For a second she considered turning on the light and looking for the mousetrap she'd used last time, but then she shook her head. Morning was soon enough. The bed suddenly shook a little, and Dana felt her eyes widen as she stepped back in surprise. Her back bumped against the wall; instinctively, she reached out and flicked on the light. Nothing. There was nothing there. Dana took a deep breath, and waited for her heart to slow down. There was nothing there, she repeated in her mind. Nothing there. She lifted her hand to turn off the light again, her gaze drifted over to the bureau ... and she furrowed her forehead in confusion. One of her snowglobes seemed to be missing. Dana gave a sigh of frustration. Darn that Bill! He was constantly coming into her room, moving stuff around, borrowing things without her permission .... She found herself standing in front of the bureau, looking at the snowglobes in turn and counting under her breath. There were supposed to be an even dozen, but now there were only eleven. And the missing one was the pegasus globe -- the one that was a gift from Grandmother Kinsella. The one Bill was making fun of just the other day .... She heard a rustling noise behind her, and Dana spun around, her eyes narrowing into slits. Her bed was definitely shaking this time, but now she thought she knew who it was. "Bill!" she said, sharply but softly. No need to get Mom involved in this -- yet. "Bill Scully, I know you're down there. You come out of there this minute!" Immediately, the bed stopped moving. Dana took a cautious step forward, and put her hands on her hips. "Bill!" she repeated, a little more loudly. "Do you really want me to go get Mom? Or are you going to come out of there on your own and give me back my snowglobe?" There was moment of silence. At last, a muffled voice said, "My name's not Bill. It's Peter." Dana rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever," she said. "Just give me my snowglobe back and get the heck out of my room!" More silence. Then: "But my name really isn't Bill." A head popped out from under the bed. "It's Peter." Dana felt her eyes widen in surprise, and her mouth dropped open. It really wasn't Bill. She found herself staring down at a face she had never seen before. It appeared to be a boy, about her own age or a little older. He had a full head of chocolate brown hair, with a stray lock falling over his forehead, and his eyes were a dark greenish-gray color. Hazel, she decided. His eyes were hazel-colored .... Dana shook herself, and realized that she was still just standing there, staring at the strange boy whose head was poking out from beneath her bed. She should do something, she thought. She should call for her mother -- or for Bill. Ahab had told her that while he was at sea, Bill would be in charge, like an executive officer. That announcement had hurt Dana's feelings -- *she* was supposed to be Starbuck, after all. But orders were orders .... With greater ease than she would have thought possible, the boy scrambled out from under the bed and hopped to his feet. He was tall and lanky, and was wearing black denim jeans and a dark gray t-shirt -- and there was now a broad grin on his face, an expression that Dana somehow found reassuring rather than menacing. No, not reassuring. It was more than that. A sense of ... something about him, almost like one of Missy's auras. He seemed interesting. Intriguing. Exciting. Almost as if he were reading her thoughts, the boy's smile broadened, and he took a step towards her. That was enough to break the spell Dana had been falling under, and she stepped hurriedly backwards, maintaining the distance between them. This *was* a stranger, after all, and he was in her room, in the middle of the night -- "What's the matter, Wendy?" the boy said with a frown. "Don't you recognize me?" Automatically, Dana shook her head. "Recognize you? How could I recognize you?" But even as she said the words, she knew that they weren't entirely true. The boy *did* look familiar, in an eerie, deja vu sort of way. She hadn't seen him before; she was sure she hadn't. Nonetheless, he did look familiar. But why was he calling her Wendy? "Come on, Wendy," the boy said, breaking her concentration. "You've got to recognize me!" As he spoke, he moved a little closer -- and this time Dana stood her ground, despite the voice in the corner of her mind telling her that this was dangerous, and that she should call for help. She *knew* this boy. She didn't know how she knew him, but she did. She could trust him. "Maybe I do," she temporized, "and maybe I don't." Part of her -- the part that wanted to call for help -- couldn't believe she was standing here calmly talking to a stranger in her bedroom in the middle of the night. But the rest of her -- the part that seemed to be governing her actions at the moment -- was fascinated by him, and the exotic sense of ... something ... that seemed to surround him. "You know me," he said, nodding wisely. "I can always tell." He took two more steps forward into her personal space, until he was standing directly in front of her. Abruptly, he thrust out one hand. "Here's your snowglobe." Dana blinked in surprise at the sudden movement, then reached out and took the snowglobe from the boy's hand. Without really thinking, she gave it a couple of quick shakes, then held it close to her eyes and looked at it. It really was beautiful -- the most beautiful of all her snowglobes. It contained a small figure of a pegasus, its wings outstretched and sparkling as it galloped along the tops of the clouds. She held it a bit higher for better viewing and shook it again, and watched as the tiny flakes swirled around the little winged horse. "It's so lovely." The sound of the boy's voice, right next to her ear, startled Dana so badly that she jumped. She whipped her head around, and saw that he was now standing by her elbow, peering over her shoulder at the snowglobe. And how had he gotten there without her hearing him move? And why wasn't she moving away from him? "Look," the boy went on, in a low, almost hypnotic tone of voice. "Look how the snowflakes swirl and swirl around the pegasus. See how his wings are beating against the wind? Hear how his hooves are drumming against the clouds? It's so beautiful, Wendy -- so beautiful!" The third use of the strange name jolted Dana back to reality, and she shook herself and took a step away from him. "Who are you?" she demanded. "What are you doing here? What were you doing under my bed? And why do you keep calling me 'Wendy'?" "I told you," the boy said with a shrug. "My name's Peter. Peter Pan. But just call me Pan, because I hate my first name. As for what I was doing under your bed --" "Oh, right, Peter Pan," Dana said sharply, cutting him off. "Like in the kid's book. And I suppose you were under my bed because you were looking for your shadow!" Abruptly, all the energy seemed to go out of the boy, and his shoulders slumped. "No," he said, dropping his gaze from hers. "I was looking for my sister." He shrugged, then turned away and started walking towards the window in slow, leaden steps. Dana felt her eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the sudden change in his mood. After a brief hesitation, she set the snowglobe on the bureau, and hurried after him. "Where are you going?" she asked, suddenly as disturbed by the boy's apparent leave-taking as she had been by his unexpected presence. "I've gotta go," he mumbled as he struggled with the window. "I've got a lot of places left to look." "Through the window?" she asked, not bothering to keep the amusement from her voice. "Yeah," he said, still struggling. "That's how I got in. Why'd you have to go and close it?" "I was cold," Dana replied. She sighed in exasperation, and reached out and jiggled the window in its frame. Bill had promised a month ago that he'd fix the darn thing; she really ought to just get Ahab's tools and do it herself. It probably only needed a little oil -- Suddenly, the window leapt upward in its track -- and a small, golden ball of light zipped into the room, buzzing angrily. Dana jumped back in surprise, and watched in amazement as the ball of light swept around the room, finally arcing up towards the ceiling before diving back down to come to a stop two inches from Pan's nose. "So *that's* where you were!" Pan said, rolling his eyes. "I should have realized. Honestly, Tink, if you can't keep up --" The golden ball of light -- which Dana now saw had a tiny human figure at its very center -- bounced up and down in apparent agitation, and more buzzing was heard. Pan seemed to be listening intently. Finally, he shook his head. "It's not her fault," he said to the ball of light. "She was cold." He glanced over at Dana. "Weren't you, Wendy? By the way, this is Tinkerbell. She's a fairy." The ball of light buzzed again, and swooped in a wide, looping circle around Dana's head before coming to rest, once again, in front of Pan. "No!" the boy said sharply. "I don't want to hear it." He batted lightly at the fairy. "But we're done here, anyway." His shoulders slumped again, and he turned once more towards the window. "C'mon, Tink." "Wait." The word was out of Dana's mouth before she quite realized she was going to say it. Again, part of her was horrified at the indiscretion; he was leaving, and she should be thankful for that. But it was too late for second thoughts; already, Pan was turning to face her again, wearing an expression of surprise mingled with hope. "Uh, I mean, you can go if you want to," she stammered, suddenly feeling very awkward. "That is, if you need to. But ...." Her voice trailed off. She didn't know what she wanted to say; how could she be expected to find the right words? Pan was looking at her intently, now, and Dana felt herself flushing under his scrutiny. He almost seemed to be peering inside her, and Dana reflexively crossed her arms across her chest. Finally, Pan took a cautious step towards her, and said, "Do you want to come with me, Wendy? Do you want to help me look?" "Look?" Dana's thoughts spun wildly as she tried to process his question. She shouldn't even be considering this. But she was. "You mean help you look for your sister?" Pan nodded, and stepped forward into her personal space. "That's right," he said, his voice suddenly dropping into a lower register. Dana was distantly aware of Tinkerbell chittering in the background in apparent agitation, but most of Dana's attention was focused on the boy in front of her. Pan was dominating her with his presence, now, looming over her and gazing down at her with compelling, liquid eyes. "I need your help, Wendy," he said. "I've been looking for her for such a long time, and I can't find her anywhere. Will you help me?" He slowly leaned down, until his face was only inches from her own -- and Dana realized that he was about to kiss her. Her hands twitched at her sides, but she didn't know whether it was to grab onto him or push him away. Then he stopped, and for a few seconds neither of them moved. At last, although she was not quite sure what she was agreeing to, Dana said, "Yes." For just another moment, Pan seemed almost to hover over her. Despite her best intentions, Dana found her eyelids starting to drift shut. This was really going to happen, she thought. It was the most bizarre set of circumstances imaginable -- but it was really going to happen. Her first kiss .... Pan's war whoop took her by complete suprise. Dana's eyes snapped open and her head whipped around, to see him *soaring* through a seemingly-impossible double backflip, and finally coming to rest on the windowsill. "Y'see, Tink!" he exclaimed, as the fairy swirled erratically around him. "I told you she'd help us!" Tinkerbell buzzed in apparent fury, and the golden light around her thickened and brightened. For a moment Dana wondered if Pan might change his mind, but he just rolled his eyes at the fairy, and batted her lightly away. Then, still crouching in the windowsill, he turned and extended his hand to Dana, a happy smile on his face. Dana hesitated, then started walking slowly towards him. The fairy swooped past her, coming within an inch of her face, and Dana flinched -- but she kept on walking. She was no longer able to question any of this. As strange and unfathomable as the night's events were, she couldn't stop herself from going to join the boy. Tinkerbell continued to zip around her, chittering and buzzing without pause, but the fairy seemed to be bent only on harrassment, and offered no actual hindrance. Finally, Dana was crouched in the window next to Pan, balancing herself against the frame with one hand while he clutched her other hand tightly in his. Everything was so strange tonight, she thought. Everything was so different. Even the moonlit vista of her own backyard seemed mysterious and wonderful. She was vaguely aware that she was still wearing only her pajamas, but somehow that didn't seem to matter. She didn't even feel especially cold anymore. "Ready, Wendy?" Pan asked in a murmur. Now that the two of them were together in the window, Tinkerbell seemed to have given up on her campaign of harrassment, and was hovering a few feet in front of them. Pan seemed to be waiting for an answer, but Dana couldn't find her voice. At last she simply nodded. He said, "Okay. Just hang on tight. You can do this yourself, but you need to get the hang of it. You just have to want to believe." Dana felt doubt reasserting itself within her. They were perched in a second floor window, and the ground seemed a very long way down. It was only 15 feet or so, she reminded herself. And somehow, she knew she wouldn't fall, in any case. She could trust this boy; somehow, she just knew she could trust him. "Here we go," Pan said. He slipped his free hand behind her and lightly traced his fingers down her spine, finally coming to rest on the small of her back. She felt his body tense slightly, and she knew the moment was here. "On three," he whispered. "One ... two ... three!" Dana closed her eyes and jumped. ================END CHAPTER ONE================ ========= Chapter Two ========= For an instant, Dana thought she was falling. Her feet left the relative safety and stability of the windowsill, and the bottom seemed to drop out of her stomach, as if she were on a rollercoaster. The cool night breeze was rushing by her ears, and she felt a growing sense of panic -- And then as abruptly as it had started, it was over. The fear was gone, and so was the vertigo. Dana cautiously opened her eyes -- and gasped. She was flying. More accurately, *they* were flying. Pan was still at her side, his right hand resting on the small of her back, his left hand lightly holding on to hers. The warmth of his body pressing against hers was strange and exciting, and banished the chill she might otherwise have been feeling. Looking down, she saw that the ground was already more than a hundred feet away, and was rapidly receding. For a moment she was disoriented; it was dark, and she wasn't used to seeing her neighborhood from above. The streetlamps made a grid of light against the darkness, like a network of tiny diamonds, punctuated here and there by a lighted window. Abruptly, her view of the ground was cut off, and Dana felt cool moisture against her face. Her field of vision was restricted to only a few yards, and all she could see was a mass of dark gray loops and whorls. And Dana realized that they had flown into a cloud. It was like being lost in the fog, she thought -- only more so. In the fog, at least, she would have the ground beneath her feet, but now, flying through the clouds, there was no sense of right or left, forward or back, up or down. No sense of direction at all .... Then as suddenly as they'd entered the cloud, they left it again. And for the second time in less than a minute, Dana gasped in amazement. They were above the clouds now, soaring ever upward into the night sky. And what a night sky it was: the sky was clear as crystal, and the stars shone down like thousands of multi-colored candles twinkling in the darkness. The stars were so thick and bright that for a moment Dana had trouble picking out the old, familiar constellations. Gradually, things started to organize themselves into their accustomed patterns -- but Dana only found herself growing more confused. Wasn't that Lyra, low on the horizon? And off a little to the right -- that was definitely Ophiuchus and Serpens, and that meant that they were flying to the east .... But those were *summer* constellations, and it was just barely spring. It was impossible. She turned her head to look at Pan, to see that he was looking back at her, his face only inches from her own, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It's always the first day of summer in Neverland, Wendy," he said, as if that explained everything. Dana found herself openly staring at the boy. He really was remarkably pretty, she thought -- despite his somewhat bizarre way of thinking. The large, fleshy nose and full, almost feminine lips might have seemed out of place on someone else, but on him, they were just right. And his eyes .... Tinkerbell chose that moment to reassert her presence, looping around Dana and Pan in a fast barrel roll before flitting directly between the two of them and zipping off into the distance. Dana followed the fairy with her eyes until the tiny golden light was no longer visible, then turned to look at Pan once again. "That Tink," he chuckled. "Such a cut up." Dana sighed; the moment -- whatever it had almost been -- was apparently past. She looked away from Pan, and back in the direction they were traveling. As best she could tell, based on those impossible stars, they were still flying to the east. She shook her head, and said, "So where are we going, anyway? I thought you wanted to look for your sister?" "I do," he replied. Out of the corner of her eye, Dana saw that Pan was now also looking straight ahead, the moment of near-intimacy apparently completely forgotten. "But first we have to regroup. I want to show you my hideout, and introduce you to the Lost Boys." "The who?" "The Lost Boys," he repeated patiently. "They're my men, and I'm their captain. And you're gonna love 'em, Wendy! I just know it!" Before she had a chance to respond Pan abruptly angled downwards, and they started to descend at a rapid rate. Within seconds they had plunged once more into the clouds, and Dana again felt the cool mists of water vapor blowing against her face. Then they dived out into the open air again -- Into bright sunlight, under a nearly cloudless sky. Dana was somewhat hardened to impossible things by now, so she didn't gasp, but simply shook her head in disbelief. She turned her head again and craned her neck -- and, yes, the sky really was a brilliant blue, as far as she was able to see. There were just a very few white, fluffy clouds, way up in the sky -- nothing like the gray, threatening overcast she and Pan had just flown through. "Look, Wendy! There it is!" Dana looked around to the front again, and saw that they were over the ocean, and that they were rapidly approaching an island. It was roughly circular, and heavily covered with dense, green jungle, and looked like nothing quite so much as a brilliant emerald floating in a sea of sapphire. As they drew closer she saw sparkling white beaches with waves breaking along them -- "Look out!" Dana's head whipped first one way, then the other, but even as she tried to make out what had prompted Pan's shout, he was wrapping his arm tightly around her waist and veering sharply up and to the right. She heard the sharp, distant crack of an explosion; Pan changed course a second time, and Dana had a brief, dizzying glimpse of what looked like a sailing ship sitting just outside a small cove, far, far below. But the ground was rapidly dropping away, and then the ship -- if it was a ship -- twisted out of her line of vision, just as she and Pan plunged into a cloud. Almost immediately they burst out the other side, but now the cloud was between them and the island, and all she could see down below was water. They slowed to a stop, and then Pan guided her to the left, skimming the surface of the cloud until they came to the very edge. Cautiously, he peered out over and down, and after a brief hesitation, Dana followed suit. It *was* a sailing ship -- a Dutch flute, if she was reading the rigging correctly from this distance. As they watched, a puff of smoke appeared next to the ship, and there was another distant crack of what Dana now realized was cannon fire. Was the ship shooting at them? If so, surely they were safe here ... they were far out of any possible range. "That's the Smoker's ship," Pan announced. Dana glanced over at the boy, to see that he was also looking down at the vessel, a look of excitement on his face. "I guess we got a little bit too close." "The Smoker?" "Yeah. The Smoker," Pan replied, sounding preoccupied as he continued to peer down over the edge of the cloud. "The leader of the pirates. He's the one who took my sister." Dana felt her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "The Smoker took your sister? Then why were you looking in my bedroom?" Pan looked at her in apparent surprise. "Because it was someplace I could get to," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He gestured down at the ship. "You fly too close to that ship, and they shoot at you. You try to swim --" and here he shuddered "-- well, let's just say there are monsters in the water." "Monsters?" "Yeah." Pan said absently. He was once more staring intently down at the ship, apparently calculating something. Finally, he nodded. "Looks like they're done shooting at us for now." He tightened his grip around her waist slightly, and together they slid down off the cloud and resumed their flight towards the island. Dana was finally growing accustomed to this flying thing. She still didn't understand how it was possible -- she didn't understand how *any* of this was possible. But there was no denying what she was seeing with her own eyes, and one thing Ahab had drilled into her was that denying facts because they failed to mesh with your preconceptions was unacceptable. Of course, he probably hadn't had anything quite this extreme in mind ... but the principle remained the same, in Dana's estimation. The cove with the pirate ship lay behind them, now, and they were actually flying over the island, skimming low over the treetops. Pan was no longer holding her quite so close, but merely had her hand lightly clasped in his. Dana remembered his earlier comment, that she could do this herself; she wondered what would happen if she just let go for a minute? Would she really be able to fly, all on her own? The very idea seemed ridiculous -- but so did a lot of other things that had already happened tonight. Or today, considering that it was now broad daylight. Whatever. She glanced over at Pan again, and saw that he was paying no attention to her at all. She wished she understood what the heck that was all about; one minute he was crowding her personal space, and looking at her with a fascination and intimacy that made her shudder inside -- and the next he was totally ignoring her. Dana wished he would just make up his mind which it was going to be. She could deal with either one, but these lightninglike changes back and forth were making her a little bit crazy. Or more than a little bit, she amended. Of course, if it had to be one or the other, she knew which one she'd choose .... She shook her head and pushed the thought away. She wasn't going to get into that, she told herself firmly. She'd just met this boy, after all, and although he seemed strange and exciting, she really didn't know anything about him. Besides, she wanted to find out if she really could fly on her own. And so she took a deep breath, and, forcing her eyes to stay open, she let go of Pan's hand. And she didn't fall. For a moment Dana felt giddy at the experience. She'd been flying for quite some while now, but that had been under Pan's control and guidance. And this ... this was completely independent. She was actually doing it, all on her own. She could fly. She looked to one side, wanting to get Pan's attention and let him know about her accomplishment -- but he wasn't there. Frowning, she turned back to the front -- only to see Pan moving rapidly away from her. She growled in annoyance, and increased her own speed in an effort to catch up, but he was still pulling away, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that she was no longer flying at his side. Even as she felt the annoyance at his disregard building within her, Dana found her own speed increasing. In a matter of seconds, she was no longer falling behind; a few seconds more and she was actually starting to catch up. She'd show him; she could fly just as fast as he could. Faster, maybe. She considered calling out to him, letting him know that she was catching up. But that wouldn't be as satisfying. Better just to go zooming past him, and let *him* try to catch *her*. She nodded slightly, and increased her speed further. That was the way to do it, she thought. She was still gloating in anticipation when something struck her full in the chest. Dana cried out in surprise, then doubled over in pain and plummeted towards the ground. ================END CHAPTER TWO================ ========= Chapter Three ========= She's afraid. It's dark, and she's afraid .... The door opens, and he's standing in front of her, holding a candle against the gloom. He speaks to her, and she asks him to look at something, and he invites her into the room. She's still afraid, but somehow his company is already making it better .... She turns away from him and slips off her robe, and for a moment she waits in nameless dread. She can hear him moving behind her; she can see the shadows shifting on the wall as he kneels behind her, the candle still in his hand. She feels a touch on her lower back -- his fingers, she realizes. And then he speaks, and she can almost hear his smile of relief .... //Mosquito bites,// he says .... //Are you sure?// she asks .... And he is sure, and he reassures her with a few calming words. And then she turns to face him, and throws herself into his arms .... The first thing Dana was aware of was the pain. Pain in the center of her chest, radiating outwards to her shoulders. A dull, throbbing ache, that seemed to be everywhere all at once, and was worse when she inhaled. The second thing she noticed was the smell: a damp, earthy odor, like that of her mother's garden after a spring rain. There were other scents mixed in as well: the faintly acrid smell of too many bodies in an enclosed area, and the lingering, slightly stale odor of old cooking. People lived here, she realized -- wherever "here" was. She opened her eyes to find that she was lying on a bed in a small, curtained-off space. The lighting was dim, but enough illumination filtered in through the cracks in the curtains to allow her to see the rough, earthen floor -- and turning her head, she saw that the bed she was lying on was set against a wall that was also composed of packed earth and sod. The bed itself was hard and lumpy, and was covered with rough linen that irritated her skin wherever it touched her. The stuffing gave only slightly, and crackled as she shifted her weight. Straw? Abruptly, the curtain was thrown partway open, and Dana's eyes watered slightly at the sudden increase in light. There was a figure standing in the entryway, but he -- or she -- was backlit, and she couldn't make out -- "Hey, Wendy!" Pan. Even as she made the identification, he was bounding across the two feet of intervening space, bouncing to a stop in a crosslegged position on the foot of the bed. "Glad to see you're feeling better." Automatically, Dana scooted up into a sitting position, and as she did so she realized with surprise that the pain in her chest was gone -- just like that. It was almost as if it had never been there at all. She drew an experimental breath. Not a twinge. "You sure slept long enough," Pan went on. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to wake up." "Wh - what happened?" Dana asked. She touched her fingertips to her chest. Still no pain. Strange. "Oh, it was Tink," Pan said with a wave of the hand. "She gets a little weird sometimes, and for some reason she told the guys you were a U.F.O., and convinced them to try and shoot you down. But I banished her, so hopefully she'll learn her lesson." "You *banished* her?" "Yeah," he said, with apparent unconcern. "Forever, too. Or until next week, or something like that." Dana could see that he was rapidly losing interest in the topic, but before she could say anything, he went on, "So anyway, now that you're awake, what do you think?" Dana felt her eyebrows rising up her forehead. "What do I think about what?" she asked. "This place!" Pan made a sweeping gesture with his left hand. "My hideout. What do you think?" Dana blinked, and shrugged. "Well, I really haven't seen enough of it to have an opinion --" "Well, come on then!" he interrupted, jumping off the bed. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "I'll give you the grand tour." A moment later, Dana found herself standing in the middle of a large room. As had been the case with the curtained-off sleeping area, the walls and floors were plain and unfinished -- but there the resemblance ended. Where the bedchamber had seemed rude and primitive, the larger space of which it was a part looked like something out of science fiction. Everywhere she looked, she saw scientific and technical equipment -- from things as simple and straightforward as microscopes and oscilloscopes, to strange and enigmatic devices of unknown function and purpose. The budding scientist within her longed to fly across the room and delve into all the wonderful mysteries awaiting her perusal. But she held herself in check. Something else caught her eye: across the room, hanging on the wall above a slide projector, was a large poster. It depicted what seemed to be a flying saucer hovering over a hillside, and the caption on it read, "I want to believe!" Dana glanced at Pan and raised her eyebrow as she gestured at the poster. "That's not serious, is it?" she asked. "Of course it is!" he exclaimed, gliding over to the poster -- and Dana noticed that his feet didn't quite touch the ground as he did so. "Don't you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, Wendy?" Dana felt her jaw dropping at the question, but before she could muster a response she was distracted by a distant thud. It sounded like a heavy door being opened, and suddenly there was a draft coming from the far corner of the room. Looking more closely, Dana realized that there was an entryway of sorts in that corner -- a dark hole, about two feet in diameter, and partly concealed by another curtain. The curtain was now swaying slightly in the sudden breeze, and Dana found herself walking slowly towards the entrance. There was a babble of voices coming from the hole, growing louder by the second -- and in the next instant a head appeared. It was a boy's head, Dana realized. A boy's head with long, stringy blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses. As she watched, the boy wriggled on out of what was obviously a tunnel, winding up in a heap on the floor. Even as the new boy was struggling to his feet, another followed, and then another and another and another, until finally there were five of them milling around the room and all talking at once. She heard snatches of conversation, words and phrases such as "grassy knoll", "extraterrestrial biological entity" and, of all things, "Elvis". But there was so much talking going on that she found it impossible to make out the thread of conversation -- or even a coherent sentence. Dana glanced over at Pan, hoping that perhaps he would rein the group in -- or at least provide an expanation. But he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the chaos, and was standing with his arms crossed and a happy smile on his face. "Aren't they the greatest?" he remarked, as he finally noticed Dana looking at him. "These are my men -- the Lost Boys!" "The Lost Boys?" "Yeah!" Pan stepped forward and started cuffing the other boys. "C'mon, guys! Straighten up!" Somewhat to Dana's surprise, the blandishments worked, and in short order she was facing an only somewhat-disorderly row of boys, each standing at a vague semblance of attention. The effect was spoiled, however, by the intermittent whispering and shuffling of feet which continued unabated. Quickly, Dana let her gaze skip down the line, as Pan proceeded to introduce them. First was Ringo, the one with the stringy blond hair, who was wearing jeans and a Ramones t-shirt. Second was John, incongruously wearing a three-piece suit. Next to him was Melvin, who was frankly staring at her with his mouth hanging open. Fourth in line was Jeff, who Dana thought looked vaguely like a ferret, and finally a boy with the unlikely name of Pendrell -- "because nobody knows what his real name is -- not even him," Pan concluded. "Report!" Dana's attention was drawn back to Pan, who now was strutting up and down in front of the other boys, his hands behind his back. Each time he came to the end of the line he would pop in the air, spin about, and then resume his pacing. And of course, the babble immediately started up again. "Faceless guys are --" "Black oil aliens --" "The Trilateral Commission --" "Found a plam in a table lamp --" "She *is* hot!" "Enough!" Immediately the chattering stopped, and Pan came to the end of the row and did the pop-and-spin maneuver one more time, finally coming to a stop at full parade rest. "Men!" he exclaimed. "Do I understand that you are all in agreement?" There was a confused-sounding chorus of assent. "And you believe you've found the Rebel hideout?" More incoherent nattering. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Before Dana had time to react, Pan had her by the elbow and was hurrying her towards the entrance to the tunnel. It was dark and musty smelling, and for an instant she hesitated -- but then Pan prodded at her, and she reluctantly started crawling up the shaft, which was slanted upwards at a steep angle. It seemed to take forever, and with each foot she moved forward, Dana felt more enclosed; more trapped. She was acutely aware of the harshness of her own breathing, as well as that of Pan and the other boys, following along behind. Why was she in the lead, anyway? They were the ones who knew where they were going, and what was at the other end of this tunnel. For that matter, it wasn't really clear to her *why* they were doing this. Pan had made that comment about a "Rebel hideout", but she didn't know what that meant -- and she hadn't been able to glean anything coherent at all from the chatter of the other boys. At last she reached the tunnel's far entrance, to find that it was covered by a heavy steel door, held in place with half a dozen bolts, padlocks and other fastenings. Dana was rapidly losing her capacity to be surprised by anything, and simply shrugged and began unfastening the locks. Two minutes, and the job was done, and she pushed open the door, climbed out of the tunnel and stood up. She was in a small clearing in the middle of a forest. The trees made a lovely, green canopy overhead, and bright sunlight filtered down through the leaves. The air was fresh and sweet, a welcome change from the dank earthiness of the cavern from which she'd just emerged. Dana couldn't help smiling at her surroundings. It was so beautiful here -- Without warning, she was grabbed roughly from behind, and she gasped as an arm was wrapped around her neck, nearly cutting off her air. She was lifted off her feet, and as her assailant dragged her from the clearing, she instinctively started to struggle. But then a voice whispered in her ear, low and harsh and menacing: "Resist or serve." ================END CHAPTER THREE================ ========= Chapter Four ========= For a few seconds after hearing those words, Dana continued to struggle. She was distantly aware of other people rushing by her, and she heard shouts of alarm from the direction of the tunnel. But then the arm around her throat tightened, and all she was aware of was the need to get enough air. "Resist or serve," the voice said again, more insistently than the first time. Dana didn't know what those words meant, exactly; nevertheless, she felt a chill race down her spine at their repetition. Then the arm tightened still further, and she saw stars -- and then everything went black. # # # Dana was never sure, later, just how long she was out, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. She was now slung over someone's shoulder, and that person was walking, taking her somewhere, his shoulder digging into her abdomen with each step he took. Unfortunately, she had no idea *where* she was being taken. Her captor had blindfolded her, and her hands were tied behind her back. Even her ankles were bound. She was completely helpless. For just a moment, Dana felt panic building within her. Things had moved so far and so quickly, and now events seemed to be completely out of her control. She didn't even know who had taken her. Somehow, she managed to fight down her fears. From somewhere, a phrase popped into her mind: "I had the strength of your beliefs." It seemed to be her own voice saying the words, but she had no idea who she was speaking to. Nevertheless, they seemed to be giving her strength and comfort, and so she repeated them in her mind: "I had the strength of your beliefs." As her racing thoughts gradually slowed down, Dana started to be more aware of her surroundings. She was still unable to see, of course, but as she continued to calm down, she was able to pick out sounds: the breathing and footsteps of her captor, and the rustling of underbrush and occasional murmur of conversation that indicated the presence of others. She strained her ears each time someone in the procession spoke, but try as she would, she couldn't make out anything intelligible -- nor did she hear the one voice she was sure she would recognize: Pan's. She wasn't sure what she expected to hear him saying, or how it would help; probably it wouldn't help. But she desperately wanted to hear a friendly voice. It occurred to Dana to wonder if Pan had even been captured. She wondered about his "men", too, but she didn't really know them the way she did Pan, and so it was on him that she focused. He could have flown away, she suddenly realized. Heck, *she* could have flown away. She still could. If only she could get free of her bonds and whoever was carrying her, she could just fly off into the sky. Then if she had any sense at all, she would just keep on flying, and head for home. She could do it. She was sure she could do it. All she had to do was get high enough in the air that she could see the whole island, and she was confident that she'd be able to pick out the correct bearing. Then she'd fly home as fast as she could, leaving this strange place behind -- Dana was dragged abruptly from her thoughts, as her captor suddenly heaved her down off his shoulder and dumped her unceremoniously on the ground. She was still trying to catch her breath when a pair of hands grabbed her firmly by the shoulders and dragged her a few feet across uneven ground, before finally propping her up against something hard and rough. A tree, she realized. She was leaning against a tree. A moment later, another body was deposited next to her, and then she felt a thick rope being stretched tightly across her chest. Automatically, Dana began to struggle again as the rope was drawn tighter and tighter, digging into her flesh through the thin material of her pajama top. Her wrists and ankles were still bound, however, so there was really little she could do -- "Relax, Wendy. Don't try to fight it." Pan's voice. Coming from the person sitting next to her. Immediately Dana stopped struggling, and turned her head in the direction the words had come from. "Pan?" she asked. "Is that you? What's going on?" She wished she wasn't still blindfolded; she wanted to see his face. It would reassure her that he was really there. "Yeah, it's me," he replied, his tone surprisingly light and cheerful. "As for what's going on -- we've been captured by the Rebels." "The Rebels?" "Yeah," Pan said. "The Rebels. They used to be part of the Smoker's pirate crew, but now they're their own gang." There was a sharp jerk on the rope, as whoever was working on it apparently finished tying it off, and Dana heard Pan grunt softly. Then he continued, "Anyway, they're not really that bad; they'll turn us loose in a little while. Won't you, Alex?" Dana heard a light, menacing chuckle coming from directly in front of her, and then the voice of the person who had captured her said, "Not a chance, Pan. This time you've gone too far." Suddenly Dana's blindfold was whipped away, and she found herself staring directly into a pair of malevolent green eyes. For a moment the eyes simply stared at her, and Dana felt herself becoming mesmerized and falling into them. The eyes were dark and intense; seductive and dangerous. They reminded her strongly of Pan's eyes -- but where Pan's gaze had seemed enticing and alluring, the eyes now looking at her were empty, and ultimately destructive. Abruptly the eyes pulled away, and as the figure standing in front of her straightened up, Dana was finally able to focus her attention on something other than his eyes. He was, she realized, a man rather than a boy. He was tall and dark-haired, with features which seemed more pretty than handsome. He wore black jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket, and on his face was a smirk which looked rather permanent, as if the man had no other facial expression. "You've gone too far this time, Pan," the man repeated -- Alex, she remembered. Pan had addressed him as Alex. "I don't give a good God damn what your reasons are; you're going to give her back, and you're going to do it now." Dana felt herself flushing at the use of profanity, but before she really had time to process her own reaction, Pan replied, "Sure. Fine. Whatever." His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and Dana craned her neck in an effort to see his face. But the tree the two of them were tied to was large, and Pan was far enough around the trunk so as to be out of her range of vision. "I mean it, Pan!" Alex said sharply. "I know we screw around a lot, but this is serious. What have you done with Diana?" "Diana? She's missing?" The sarcasm was suddenly gone from Pan's voice, replaced with doubt and concern, and again Dana craned her neck, trying without success to get a glimpse of his features. Who was Diana? Obviously, it was someone who mattered to Pan -- "As if you didn't know," Alex replied. Suddenly his eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward until he was out of Dana's line of sight, presumably directly in front of Pan. "Where is she?" Dana shivered at the man's intense, menacing tone. "Oh, please, Alex," Pan replied. "This isn't my week to watch her." His words were flip, but his tone seemed even more worried than it had been. "Look, turn me loose, and I'll find her for you." "Yeah, right." There was a moment of silence, and Dana had the eerie feeling that Pan and Alex were communicating somehow without speaking. Then: "Fine. But you better not screw this up, Pan. Be a pity to have to send your friend, here, to the boxcars." Another brief silence, then Alex laughed. "Whatever, Pan. Just remember what happened to Cassandra." There was a brief, quiet rustling sound, which quickly faded away to nothing, and Dana realized that Alex must have left. For a moment she wondered if Pan had gone with him -- but that couldn't be, because the rope binding both of them to the tree hadn't been disturbed. At least, she *thought* they were both bound by the same rope. She hadn't actually seen it of course, so she didn't really know for sure. One way to find out. "Pan?" she asked, hating herself for the quaver in her voice. Still, she'd been through a lot today, she reasoned. Surely she was entitled to a *little* uncertainty. "Pan?" she repeated, more strongly. "Are you there?" "Yeah, Wendy." The response was immediate, and Pan's tone seemed to be surprisingly good humored. "Pan, what's going on?" she asked. "Who's Diana, and why does, does Alex think you have her?" She wanted to ask more -- she wanted to ask what Alex had meant when he talked about sending her to the boxcars. But she couldn't quite bring herself to ask that question. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer. "Oh, Diana's just this girl," Pan replied. His voice sounded casual, but Dana thought she also detected an overlay of ... something. As if there was more to it than he was saying. Dana felt an inexplicable surge of annoyance, but quickly tamped it down. There was no time for that -- and no reason, either. "Just a girl?" she persisted. "But why does Alex think you've got her? And why does he care?" "That's complicated," Pan replied. Dana waited for a minute or so for him to continue; when it became plain that he wasn't going to do so, she shook her head in exasperation, and tried another tack. "So why are you still here?" she asked. "I thought you were going to rescue her, or whatever." "Not now," Pan replied. "We can't do it until morning; we have to wait for low tide. You know how it is." Dana raised her eyebrows at the use of "we" rather than "I", but before she could comment, he went on, "So for now, we just hang out and relax. Alex'll be back in the morning." "So we just ... wait?" Dana didn't even bother to try to keep the incredulity from her voice. "Sure," he replied, the tones of good humor back in his voice. "Try to get some sleep if you can. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day." And that, Dana realized, was all that she was going to get out of him. She'd only known this boy for one day, but she'd already discovered him to be amazingly adept at avoiding any serious discussion of anything. Or was he adept? She pondered that for a minute. Despite the fact that she frequently found him to be little short of infuriating, he truly seemed to have a good heart. He just needed to find a little focus in his life, she concluded sleepily. A little direction. He needed ... a partner. She was still considering the matter when she drifted off to sleep. ================END CHAPTER FOUR================ ========= Chapter Five ========= She's bound and gagged, trapped in a small, confined space. The trunk of a car, she realizes. She's in the trunk of a car, and it's hot and very uncomfortable. She doesn't know how long she's been here, or where she's being taken .... He will come for her, though. Of that she is certain. He will come for her, because he has to; they mean too much to each other for it to be otherwise .... The car comes to a gradual stop, and after a moment she hears the murmur of voices, gradually increasing in volume. A man's voice is giving orders, speaking harshly, but the other is protesting, resisting: //You don't understand; they're waiting for me. I can't be late .... Please, for your own sake -- don't stop Duane Barry.// Then she hears two gunshots, and a moment later the trunk lid opens. And someone is looking down at her, but it isn't her partner .... "Wendy!" Dana was drowsily aware of someone shaking her shoulder. "Wendy! Wake up!" Dana reluctantly forced herself to wakefulness. She felt like she'd been asleep for a week -- groggy, lethargic and lacking in motivation. Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw Pan crouched in front of her -- and even as she processed that information, he gave her shoulder another shake. "Great," he said. "You're awake. Let's get going." Pan proceeded to grab her arms and drag her to her feet -- and much to Dana's surprise, she saw that the ropes which had bound them to the tree were gone. Not just untied; not just lying in her feet in a loose heap -- they were simply gone, as if they'd never been there at all. She had little time to ponder the matter, however. In the next instant, Pan had taken her hand in one of his and placed his other hand on the small of her back. Dana shivered as she felt his warm, moist breath tickling her ear. "Remember, Wendy," he murmured, "you have to want to believe." And then they were rising off the ground and soaring up past the trees. And for the second time in as many days, Dana was flying. The day before, on the flight from her home to Neverland, she'd been too overwhelmed by what was happening to really grasp the reality of it. And then she'd been shot down, ending any possibility of reconciling herself with the experience. But now .... Some things she remembered, of course: The wind rushing past her ears; the ground dropping rapidly away beneath her; the hollow, elevator-going-up feeling in the pit of her stomach. These things -- the simple, physical sensations of flying -- these things she remembered. What she did not remember was the almost intoxicating sense of freedom and power that was now sweeping through her system. Her half-formed plan of the day before, to fly away home at the first opportunity, was all but forgotten. Dana felt as if she could go anywhere; do anything. It was wonderful -- glorious -- "Isn't it great, Wendy?" Dana glanced over at Pan, and saw that he was grinning like a fool, his face only inches from her own. And as had happened in her bedroom, she felt a sudden rush of awareness of his physical presence. His body was nestled close against hers, his hand was resting gently but firmly on the small of her back, and those eyes .... Dana shook her head sharply, trying to force the thoughts away. A distraction; she needed a distraction -- something that would give her a chance to get these strange, swirling feelings under control. Everything had been happening so fast, and she was so confused. She took a deep breath, looked down at the passing scenery, and tried to steady herself. They were flying about thirty feet or so above the treetops, she saw. It was an evergreen forest, and the trees were so densely packed that she only had rare glimpses of the ground. There were no obvious landmarks, and Dana wondered idly how Pan could possibly know which way to go. The thought worried her more than a little bit, as she realized with a jolt that she had no idea at all where she was in relation to Pan's hideout -- or even in relation to the tree where Alex had tied them up. If she became separated from Pan, she'd be lost. She glanced again at the boy flying next to her. His face looked calm and serene, his eyes closed to mere slits against the early morning sunlihgt. "Where are we going?" she asked abruptly. Pan looked at her, a puzzled smile on his face. "We're going to rescue Diana," he explained patiently, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Dana shook her head in exasperation. "I know *that*," she began -- "She's a really wonderful person," Pan went on blithely. "I just know you two will really hit it off!" "Uh huh," Dana replied. "I'm sure she's swell. But how do you know where to look?" "Oh, she's on Marooner's Rock," Pan replied carelessly, looking back to the front. "In the cave." "The cave?" "Yeah," her companion replied. "And we're almost there -- look!" Dana suddenly smelled salt in the air, and as she craned her neck to look ahead, she saw a break in the treeline. An instant later they were leaving the forest behind; they passed rapidly over some cliffs, folllowed by a strip of sparkling white beach, and then they were soaring out over the sea. "There it is!" Pan exclaimed, as he guided her through a broad, sweeping turn. For a moment they paused, hovering only a few feet above the water, and for a few seconds Dana let her gaze drift across the nearby shore. And then she saw it. It was a cave; a dark hole in the cliff face, only a few feet above the water line. The beach had dwindled to nothing at that point, leaving an array of sharp, ugly looking rocks in its place. "She's in there?" Dana asked doubtfully. The hole in the cliff was only three or four feet across, and wasn't very accessible; it hardly seemed to be a likely place to hold a prisoner. "Yeah," Pan said -- and even as he spoke the word, the two of them were swooping in towards the cave. "How do you know?" Dana objected, trying not to flinch as they approached the cliff at a dizzying speed. "Where else would she be?" Dana felt Pan shrug slightly, but before she could respond, he added, "And here we are!" And indeed, here they were. Without quite knowing how it had happened, Dana found herself perched precariously on a small ledge just below the entrance to the cave. Pan clung to a similar outcropping a few feet away, and was peering cautiously into the hole. "Do you see anything?" Dana asked. Pan shook his head. "Nah. Too dark." He looked over at her with a grin of childish enthusiasm. "Looks like we'll have to reconnoiter." And before Dana had a chance to object, he'd let go of the cliffside and plunged into the hole. Dana hesitated for a moment, unsure what she should do. No, she immediately corrected in her mind, she knew full well what she *should* do -- she should fly away from this place, try to gain enough altitude to get her bearings, and then head for home. On the other hand, she couldn't just abandon Pan; who knew what sort of danger he was subjecting himself to. On the third hand, he had brought it on himself -- Dana shook her head in frustration. Who was she trying to kid? She was going after him, and there was no point in denying it. And so she took a deep breath and murmured, "I want to believe." Then she jumped up off the ledge and cautiously entered the cave. It was, as she had expected, almost completely dark inside, the only illumination coming from the three foot wide opening she had just traversed. For a moment Dana simply hovered there, just inside the entrance, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the small amount of available light. There really wasn't much to see, she gradually came to realize. There was bright morning sunshine outside, but the opening was so small that the light was focused into a single, narrow shaft, which didn't really serve to illuminate much of anything. About all she could tell for sure was that the cave had rapidly opened up once she'd passed through the entrance, and that she was now hovering along one side of a rather large chamber. Quiet, lapping noises coming from below told her that the bottom of the cavern was filled with water, and Dana realized that at high tide the entire place might be flooded. Where the heck was Pan, anyway? Once again, Dana shook her head. He'd been the first one through the entrance, but he'd only been ahead of her by a few seconds. Surely he hadn't just flown off into the darkness. Had he? Abruptly, Dana heard a sound, very faint and far away. She held her breath and listened intently, and after a moment it was repeated. It was a voice, she realized; a female voice. And then she heard a second voice -- a man's, low and rumbling, and somehow filled with menace. Dana strained her ears, trying to make out what was being said, but the voices were too quiet, and the acoustics in the cave were producing strange echoes. Without really thinking about it, she started drifting slowly forward, in the direction she thought the voices were coming from. And finally, she was able to make out the words being spoken. "Are you sure this is going to work?" the woman's voice was saying. "What if he doesn't come?" "Don't worry," the man replied. It sounded low and sibilant, like a snake hissing in the grass. "He'll come. What else can he do?" "You know how he is," the woman persisted. "Erratic. Undependable. Spooky. He could --" "Diana, you worry too much," the man said sharply, cutting her off. "He'll be here." There was a brief pause, and suddenly Dana smelled cigarette smoke. "He'll be here," the man repeated, "and the Project will continue according to plan." "That's easy for you to say," the woman answered, a tinge of anger in her voice. "You're not the one being used as a decoy. You're not the one who'll drown if he *doesn't* show up." Dana heard an evil chuckle. "You worry too much," the man said again. "Besides, you won't drown, Diana. Remember -- there are monsters in the water." "Hey, Wendy!" Pan's whispered exclamation made Dana jump, and it was all she could do not to shriek in surprise. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "I thought --" "I just finished reconnoitoring," he said, as if he hadn't heard her. "Looks like the place is clean. And Marooner's Rock is dead ahead." "Pan, wait!" Dana said. "There's something you need to know." She wanted to tell him about the converation she'd overheard; she wanted to warn him that this woman, Diana, was apparently in league with his enemies. But before she could utter another word, he was speaking again. "There's no time," Pan said. "We have to rescue Diana now, before the tide comes in. There are monsters in the water, you know." With that, he moved forward into the darkness -- and Dana had no alternative but to follow. "Peter!" It was Diana's voice again -- but now it seemed more high pitched and tremulous than it had been before. "I knew you'd come for me!" Dana growled at the phoniness in the woman's voice. Surely Pan would see through that -- "You bet, Diana," he replied cheerfully. "Just give me a minute with these ropes." Dana continued to fly forward, until a huge, hulking mass loomed up out of the darkness, ahead and slightly to the right. Marooner's Rock, she thought. It had to be Marooner's Rock. She altered course slightly, and a few seconds later she came to a bumpy landing, a short distance from two shadowy figures. "Pan --" she started. "Wendy!" he exclaimed happily. He hurried towards her, dragging Diana along by the hand. She was tall and large-busted, Dana saw, with long dark hair, and her mere presence was making Dana's hackles raise, as well as making her feel oddly inadequate. But Pan was still speaking -- "Wendy, this is Diana. Good thing we got here when we did, huh? Now let's get out of here before it's too late." Then, without giving her a chance to respond, Pan and Diana took off in the direction of the light that marked the entrance to the cave. Fine, Dana thought in annoyance, as she flew off after them. Just fine. They did need to get out of here -- heaven alone knew what dangers were lurking out there in the darkness. But once they were clear, she and Pan were going to have to talk. But even as she thought the words, Dana had a sinking feeling that it was going to be easier said than done. ================END CHAPTER FIVE================ ========= Chapter Six ========= The trip back to the Rebel encampment was uneventful. At least, Dana assumed they were returning to the place from which they had departed, but to be perfectly accurate, she was unable to recognize any landmarks. Just pine trees, as far as the eye could see. Not that she was spending a great deal of time admiring the scenery. She had other things occupying her mind -- not least of which was that Pan and Diana were flying ahead of her, hand in hand, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to catch up. The two of them were also evidently talking more or less nonstop, although they were far enough ahead that Dana wasn't able to pick up more than a word or two out of any given sentence. And occasionally, they laughed. She tried to tell herself that she shouldn't let it bother her. Pan had obviously known Diana for some time; they were friends. It wasn't surprising, then, that they would have things to talk about, especially considering the harrowing circumstances of the rescue. Dana, on the other hand, had known Pan for only a little over a day, and there was no real reason why she should be upset that he was paying attention to someone else. Or at least, so she kept telling herself. Of course, there was the small matter of Diana's apparent disloyalty. There had been no opportunity during the flight to the Rebel camp for Dana to bring this to Pan's attention, but *that* was something she intended to rectify as soon as possible after their arrival. And now, finally, Pan and Diana were angling downwards, towards a clearing in the trees, and Dana followed suit. She had a brief glimpse, off to her left, of a small group of structures scattered through a section of forest where the trees were a bit thinner, but then Pan and Diana made a slight course change and slanted even more sharply downwards, and Dana had to concentrate on her landing. This time it was a bit easier, although she still stumbled a bit upon reaching the ground. She found herself in a large grassy space that was almost large enough to be called a meadow. She glanced around quickly, intending to find Pan so she could unload some of her annoyance at his recent behavior -- and, incidentally, tell him about the conversation she'd overheard in the cave. But it was already too late. Pan and Diana were standing close together, about 30 yards away -- but it might as well have been thirty miles. The two of them were surrounded by a group of at least a dozen people, with more streaming out of the treeline with each passing second, and a happy babble of voices was filling the clearing. As Dana watched, Alex burst out of the trees and elbowed his way through the growing crowd, a happy smile on his face. A moment later he was hugging Pan and Diana and pounding on their backs, and then the crowd was lifting the three of them off the ground and carrying them into the trees -- leaving Dana, once again, with little alternative but to follow along behind. The trees in this part of the forest were fairly thick, but the brush seemed to have been cleared, which made the walking fairly easy. And it wasn't very long before Dana found herself entering another cleearing. This one was smaller and cozier than the previous one, and there was a bonfire roaring in the very center. People were milling about, talking and laughing and obviously having a good time -- but Pan, Diana and Alex were nowhere to be seen. Dana frowned as she walked slowly through the happy throngs. Where could they have disappeared to? And then she glanced into the treeline, and what she saw there caused her frown to deepen. There were more people back there in the forest. At least, they seemed to be people; they were shaped like people. But try as she could, Dana couldn't get a good look at any of them. Everytime she moved close to the treeline, whichever of the figures she was closest to drifted away, remaining little more than dark shadows skulking among the trees. "Wendy!" Dana spun around in surprise at the sound of Pan's voice, to see him bearing down on her, still dragging Diana by the hand. This was her chance, then. She was a little hesitant to raise the issue with Diana standing right there, but it didn't look like she was going to have another opportunity, anytime soon. And so she took a deep breath, and said, "Pan, I --" "Dance with me, Wendy!" Before Dana could respond, Pan had let go of Diana's hand and taken hold of both of hers, and in another instant he was whirling her about the meadow, apparently moving to music and a rhythm only he could hear. Despite herself, Dana found herself being swept up in his movements, and soon the two of them were dancing madly about the clearing. Dana was distantly aware that the crowd of people had gathered into a large circle around them and were watching -- but all she could really see was Pan's face. He was looking at her, staring down at her intently with his large, unblinking, hazel colored eyes. He seemed to be staring right through her skin, right down inside of her, into her very soul, and she was helpless to look away. A small part of her was scared of the loss of control, and wanted to pull away, but most of her was simply captivated and enthralled. No boy had ever focused this much attention on her -- not in this way. She realized that she could no longer feel the ground beneath her; glancing down, she saw that they were a good five feet in the air. Pan had literally swept her off her feet -- Somehow, that enabled her to break free, just a little. She looked back up at the boy, and said, "Pan, we need to talk." "Not now, Wendy," he replied, shaking his head, a dreamy expression on his face. "Not now." "Yes, now!" she said sharply. "There's something you need to know." Before he could object, she proceeded to rattle off a summary of the conversation she'd overheard in the cave. As Pan realized what she was talking about, his forehead furrowed, as if in thought -- but by the time she finished, he was shaking his head. "No," he said. They were no longer dancing; they were simply hovering in midair, about ten feet off the ground. And as Pan spoke, they slowly started sinking downwards. "No, you don't understand. Diana's not like that. She wouldn't --" "Pan, I heard her!" Dana snapped. "I heard her talking to someone, and I ... I smelled cigarette smoke." Dana wasn't sure why that last was so important, but somehow, she knew that it was. "And they were talking about 'the Project', whatever that is, and about how they were sure you'd come for her." "Well, they were right, weren't they?" Pan said blithely. Dana felt her mouth falling open in disbelief. He went on, "Wendy, you're making this personal." "That's because it *is* personal," she replied. She was shocked to hear herself saying those words, but she seemed to be unable to stop herself. "Because personal interest is all that I have. And if you take that away, then there is no reason for me to continue." And with that, she pushed herself out of his arms, and turned and stalked away, across the clearing, through the happy crowds of people, and on into the forest. "Dana! Wait!" It had only been a little over a day since Dana had heard someone call her by her right name; nevertheless, she almost didn't recognize it. The call was repeated, and she stopped and turned around, to see Alex bearing rapidly down upon her, a concerned look on his face. For a moment she was tempted just to turn away and keep going -- she had no real use for Alex, after all -- but then she shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. What did she have to lose by listening to whatever he had to say? "I'm glad I caught you," Alex said, puffing a little as he came to a halt a couple of feet in front of her. "Where are you going?" "I don't know," she said, gesturing vaguely into the forest. "Away. Home, I guess." As had happened the day before, Dana felt a sense of uneasiness building within her simply from being close to Alex, and she took a couple of steps back from him. "That's not the way home," the man said with a smirk. The man who was so like Pan, and yet so different. Dana shivered, shook her head, and backed away a few more steps -- but this time, Alex followed her. "I -- I just need to go," she said, now steadily backpedaling. She bumped into a tree and winced in surprise, but then moved around it and turned and started striding determinedly away. "It's about Pan, isn't it?" Alex's voice was close to her ear, and she turned her head briefly, long enough to see him walking along next to her, an amused look on his face. "It's about Pan," he repeated. "He really can be hard to get along with, can't he? Erratic and undependable. And a little spooky, sometimes, too." Dana stopped in midstride, and turned to look at Alex. Erratic and undependable? The words were familiar; she had heard them before -- only a little while ago, she thought. //You know how he is,// Diana had said to the man in the cave. //Erratic. Undependable. Spooky.// But was Alex's choice of words just a coincidence? He and Diana both obviously had known Pan for some time; it shouldn't really surprise her that they would use the same words to describe him. They had probably even talked to each other about him. But somehow she felt that Alex had chosen the words with care and deliberation -- almost as if they were a code of some sort. A code which Diana's mysterious companion in the cave had also been familiar with. She shook her head violently, and turned and hurried on through the forest, trying to ignore the fact that Alex was still walking next to her, matching her stride for stride. She was so focused on ignoring him, in fact, that she didn't notice that the footing had changed until she tripped over a root and almost fell. "Damn!" The word was out of her mouth before she could stop herself, and she felt a strong hand grasping her upper arm and steadying her. Alex, of course. She shook him off, and continued on through the woods, now having to pick her way through increasingly dense brush and undergrowth. "You really don't want to be going this way," Alex commented. Dana glanced at him, then looked back to the front. It occurred to her that she could just fly away, and maybe Alex wouldn't be able to bother her anymore. She hadn't seen *him* fly, after all -- and besides, she was going to have to fly, if she ever wanted to get home. But for some reason she didn't want to fly just then. For some reason, it seemed to be important to keep her feet on the ground, at least for the moment. "Dana!" The man's tone was sharp, demanding, but still Dana ignored him. It seemed to her the trees were a little thinner now, and the undergrowth was getting easier to deal with again. Perhaps that meant they were coming to a clearing .... And then, suddenly, she burst out of the treeline, and found herself on the edge of a large-ish open space -- almost as large as the one she and Pan and Diana had landed in, upon their return from Marooner's Rock. But unlike that clearing, this one was not empty -- it was filled with buildings, scattered in a haphazard way across the meadow. And her eyes widened in fear, and her heart beat faster as she realized what they were. Boxcars. Railroad boxcars. "I *told* you that you didn't want to come this way," Alex said, his voice now low with menace. "I told you, but you didn't listen. Now you have to choose." And he grabbed her upper arm, squeezing so hard that it hurt, and repeated the words Dana had first heard when she was taken captive the day before. "Resist or serve." ================END CHAPTER SIX================ ========= Chapter Seven ========= As soon as Alex touched her, Dana started to struggle. The sense of uneasiness she'd felt at his initial approach rocketed in seconds to full-blown panic.She shouldn't be here, she thought wildly. She shouldn't be with this man or allowing him to touch her. Without quite knowing why, her free hand flew to the small of her back -- but there was nothing there but the shirt tail of her pajamas, and in another instant the instinct driving the motion had evaporated. Alex laughed. "It's too late for that, Dana," he commented, almost as if he knew better than she what she was reaching for. Then his grip on her arm tightened further, and he was dragging her across the clearing, in the direction of one of the boxcars. Dana renewed her struggles as she realized where he was taking her. She didn't know *why* she was so terrified of the boxcars, but she was. A scrap of something Alex had said the day before flashed through her mind: //Be a pity to have to send your friend, here, to the boxcars,// he'd said to Pan. //Be a pity to have to send your friend, here, to the boxcars.// Then her body was slammed up against something hard and unyielding, and for a moment Dana saw stars. When her vision cleared again, she saw Alex's face, hovering a few inches from her own. "Can you hear them, Dana?" he murmured, his voice low and rough and threatening. "Can you hear them now?" He moved a little closer, pressing her against the wall until she could barely breathe -- and, yes, Dana could suddenly hear them. Voices. Women's voices. Crying out, screaming, shrieking in fear and agony and despair, pleading and begging for it simply to stop -- "There's a place for you here, Dana," Alex whispered, his breath hot on her ear. "A nice, warm, comfortable bed, just for you. And you can have any roommate you want: Penny ... Cassandra ... " He pulled back slightly and looked into her eyes again, and the perpetual smirk he always seemed to wear deepened. "Emily ...." "No!" Dana's knee jerked upwards, catching Alex full in the crotch, just as Bill had taught her to do. She saw his eyes widen in pain and surprise, and he grunted softly as he let go of her, doubling over and clutching at the offended area. And then Dana was running, running, running ... across the clearing and into the trees once more. Behind her she heard Alex's voice, once again calling her name, but that just made her run faster, ducking under low-hanging branches and jumping over roots and small bushes. At any second she expected to hear him crashing through the brush behind her, his longer legs making up ground until finally he would lay his hand on her shoulder and drag her to a halt. But try as she might, she couldn't hear him following ... and after a few more moments she realized that even his voice had faded away to nothing. Nevertheless, Dana kept running. A few more minutes, she thought, her chest heaving as she gasped for air. Just a few more minutes, so she could put a bit more distance between herself and Alex -- and the boxcars. Just a few more minutes .... Finally, she came to a stop at the base of a towering pine tree. She leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath. This was getting ridiculous, she thought, as her pulse and breathing slowly returned to normal. In fact, it was well beyond ridiculous. In the last 24 hours she had been lured away from her home by a total stranger, taught how to *fly*, shot out of the sky, taken prisoner, left tied to a tree overnight -- Dana shook her head sharply and cut those thoughts short. Rehashing the whole, unlikely adventure wasn't going to get her anywhere. Going over it all in her mind was simply going to overwhelm her, and make it that much harder to come to any rational conclusions. And what she really needed, right now, more than anything else, were some rational conclusions. But even as she thought the words, she found her mind drifting back to what had just transpired. And as she remembered what had happened, and her own reaction to those events, she felt a sudden wave of shame flooding through her system. She was afraid of the boxcars. No doubt of that. Even yesterday, when Alex had mentioned them in passing to Pan, Dana had felt an unexplained shiver of fear. And of course, now that she had actually seen them, and heard the screams of agony and despair coming from within, her terror was even stronger and more concrete. She was afraid ... she was so afraid .... But that was not enough to excuse how she had acted -- not in Dana's own opinion, anyway. There were human beings in those boxcars -- living, breathing human beings -- and they were suffering something that sounded very close to mortal agony. They needed succor; they needed to be rescued; and Dana should have found some way to help them, rather than fleeing blindly into the forest. She was going to have to go back. Ahab would expect it of her. "Are you lost?" Dana had been so absorbed in her own thoughts that she hadn't heard anyone approaching. Now she spun around at the sound of the man's voice, and automatically took a couple of steps back. If Alex had found her again -- "Don't be scared, girly girl." Dana felt herself relax a little bit. It wasn't Alex; it was a stranger. And while ordinarily being accosted by someone she didn't know was cause for worry in and of itself, under the circumstances -- "I just want to help," the man continued, taking a step or two closer. There was a friendly smile on his face, and Dana couldn't help but respond with a small smile of her own. "My name's Donnie. What's yours?" "Dana." The answer was out of her mouth before she could stop herself -- but even as she spoke, all her anxiety was zooming back to the forefront. Despite his easy smile and friendly manner, there was something wrong here. Something about Donnie -- She quickly suppressed the emotion. Ever since Pan had arrived in her room the day before, she'd been responding to that sort of visceral reaction -- gut instinct, her father and brothers would probably call it. And she had to admit that in the case of Alex that seemed to be the correct response. But Donnie had done nothing to her; he seemed friendly enough. He said he just wanted to help -- and hadn't she just concluded that she needed to pay more attention to logic and rationality? Of course, he *was* a stranger, and that meant she would have to be cautious -- "Dana," the man repeated, apparently savoring the feel of her name on his own lips -- and despite her new resolve to be sensible about all this, Dana shuddered. "Dana. That's a lovely name. I knew someone named Dana once. She was such a lovely person. She looked a lot like you, in fact, girly girl -- although, of course, she was older." Dana nodded slowly, still trying to work out what she was feeling, and why. Donnie looked so normal, and ordinary -- yet, at the same time, just being in his presence was making her uneasy. The way he was looking at her -- "Look," she said suddenly, "I'm fine. I don't think I need any help. I just got separated from my friends. I'm fine," she repeated, wincing at the weakness of her own words. "I think you look lost, girly girl," Donnie said, moving a little closer -- and Dana had to fight the urge to back away from him. "And you have such lovely hair." He reached up and touched a lock of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers .... And Dana broke and ran. She wasn't even aware of whether she was being followed, this time. She just ran. Through the trees she ran, unmindful of lowhanging branches that slapped and grabbed at her, stumbling over roots and forcing her way through the undergrowth. He had to be following her -- she was sure of it. Donnie was following her, and probably Alex, as well. He'd been behind her all along. She was breathing in short, sharp gasps, now, and her vision was blurred by the sweat pouring down off her brow. Somehow it had gotten dark in the last few minutes, and not just from the thick canopy of pine trees overhead; the sun had actually set, and it was so dark now that she could barely see where she was going. It was dark. It was dark, and she was lost, and she was alone .... Suddenly there was a flash of light in the rearview mirror -- and Dana realized with terror that a pair of headlights was rushing towards her. She barely had time to brace for impact before the other car struck her. She fought for control, but then it struck again, and then a third time, forcing her from the road .... Everything went black. ================END CHAPTER SEVEN================ ========= Chapter Eight ========= She's riding in a car, and she's consumed by guilt .... She should have remained silent; she shouldn't have said anything. All her training and experience tells her that her captor is using her to get what he wants. He's using her, somehow, someway, to hurt her partner. To hurt Mulder. She should not have cooperated with this plan; she should have refused to speak, even if it meant her death. But he thrust the phone in front of her, and she couldn't help herself .... //He's got my gun,// she'd said, trying to ignore the blood trickling down her face. //He says he's going to kill me if you don't give him what he wants.// Already knowing what her partner's response would be .... //All right,// Mulder replied. //Tell him we'll negotiate ....// //He doesn't want to negotiate.// Trying and failing to keep the desperation from her voice. //He says he wants to make a trade ....// And now they have arrived. She's dragged from the car with a gun to her head, and her partner is there, he came for her -- as she knew he would. The dark-haired woman gets out of the other car and walks slowly towards her. It's Samantha, she realizes; he's exchanging his sister for her. And even as she brushes past the other woman and hurries to the safety of her partner's car, her feelings of guilt and culpability rise a thousandfold .... Dana awoke slowly; so very, very slowly. She was lying on the ground, she realized, and she was cold. And she was hungry. And it was dark. Suddenly she was wide awake, and struggling to a sitting position. Her gaze flitted about, trying to make sense of the shadows looming all around her. Something moved, and Dana rolled to her hands and knees and scuttled frantically away -- From a tree branch, swaying gently in the cool, night breeze. Just a tree branch. Only a tree branch. Not Alex, and not Donnie. And not a cold, implacable man, come to use her as a weapon against someone she loves. Just a tree branch. Dana remained where she was for a pair of minutes, crouched down in the underbrush, trying to get her thoughts in order. It had been a dream; she knew that much. And yet, at the same time, it had seemed so real -- almost as if it were a memory. She shook her head sharply. It was impossible. None of those things had happened to her. It was only a dream, and she shouldn't be wasting time worrying over them. She needed to get herself oriented, find her way out of this forest and fly away home. That should be her first, last and only priority. Dana took one more deep breath, still trying to steady her nerves, and then she stood up and looked around. While she'd been crouched there, thinking, her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and now she was able to make out a fair amount of detail. She was, of course, still deep in the forest; that much was clear. The trees in her immediate vicinity were packed closely together -- so closely that she couldn't help but wonder how she'd been able to run between them without tripping over a root or in some other way injuring herself. She remembered low-hanging branches slapping against her face, and she carefully stroked her cheeks and forehead with her fingertips. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it didn't look like there was any blood. And this still wasn't getting her anywhere. The real question that needed to be examined was which direction she should walk to find her way out of the forest -- or at least, to find a place where the trees were thin enough to allow her to take to the air. Unfortunately, she could see no clue of the answer -- the forest looked equally dark and menacing, no matter which way she turned. Finally, she just chose a direction, and started walking. Almost immediately, the ground clutter began to diminish, giving Dana a clue that she had chosen correctly. She carefully controlled her emotions; however. She'd jumped to quite enough unfounded conclusions in the past two days. A few more minutes, and the trees started to thin out, just a little -- and Dana began to walk a little faster. This really was the right direction; somehow, she could tell. And now she could hear something that sounded very much like surf pounding on a beach, and suddenly there was the smell of salt in the air. Dana started running, but this time she wasn't fleeing from the strange and terrifying -- she was running *towards* the familiar and friendly. The ocean, the sea -- it had always been her friend, for as long as she could remember. It reminded her of so many, many happy times; it could never mean anything to her but goodness and joy. And then, with almost no warning, she burst out of the forest, and found herself running across a wide beach towards the water. She slowed to a walk as she approached the waterline, finally stopping just short of the high tide mark. She was here; she was home. Not literally home, of course -- although her real home, her parents' house, was surely waiting for her, just across the horizon. But the soft, white sand sifting between her toes and the gentle surf dancing softly at her feet -- these things said //home// to her as surely as if someone had whispered the word in her ear. And yet, something wasn't quite right. She had run up to the waterline intending to wade out into the surf, just a little ways -- just far enough to get her feet wet, and feel the water rushing around her ankles. Just far enough to get reacquainted with the sea. But she couldn't do it. She'd come to a stop here, just past the reach of the incoming tide, and something wouldn't let her go any farther. Something was making her shy away from it. //Let's just say there are monsters in the water.// That was Pan's voice, she realized, echoing inside her head. He'd spoken the words to her casually, the day they'd arrived at Neverland, as part of the explanation of why he didn't dare approach the pirate ship. //Let's just say there are monsters in the water.// Dana couldn't keep herself from shivering at the memory. Monsters. In the water. She didn't believe in monsters. But somehow, she had believed Pan when he told her, in an offhand, by-the-way manner, that they exist. The water slipped up the beach a little farther, dark and glistening in the moonlight, and now filled with nameless menace. The cold wetness lightly kissed her toes, and Dana stepped back hastily, suddenly not wanting any contact with the sea. She realized she was standing transfixed, staring down at the waves, and she forced herself to look away .... And she saw the ship. It was an old-style sailing vessel, several hundred yards from shore, moving up and down on the incoming swells, its motions deceptively gentle at this distance. A line of breakers, frothy and luminscent in the dim lighting, marked the presence of a reef -- and Dana realized that, somehow, she had found her way to the cove where the pirate ship was anchored. The pirate ship. It never occurred to her that it could be a different ship. She'd only had a brief glimpse of it, the day she and Pan arrived in Neverland, but that brief look had been enough to burn it into her memory. And this was the same ship, she reassured herself, as she allowed her gaze to travel over the shape of the hull -- and the rigging, silhouetted against a night sky filled with stars, confirmed the identification. It was the pirate ship. The one that had fired on her and Pan that first day, driving them into the clouds to hide. It was the Smoker's ship. //Yeah. The Smoker. The leader of the pirates. He's the one who took my sister.// Once again, Pan's words rang in her head. The Smoker was the leader of the pirates, and he had taken Pan's sister. Samantha -- that was her name. Samantha. Dana shook her head in frustration. No, no, no. That was from the dream; it wasn't real. She didn't know what Pan's sister's name was -- but it didn't really matter. What did matter was that she had been taken, and she was on that ship. At least, that's what Pan believed. He could be mistaken, after all -- although he hadn't been mistaken about Diana. At least, she amended, he hadn't been been mistaken about where the woman was being held, although he certainly did seem to be blind to her evident treachery and disloyalty. Dana shook her head again, and pushed thoughts of Diana from her mind. This was about Pan's sister -- Samantha, or whatever her name really was. And she *was* on the pirate ship; Pan had been sure of it, and for reasons she wasn't able to articulate, Dana was also sure of it. His sister was there; she was being held captive -- in durance vile, to quote those old sea stories Ahab was so fond of reading to her. Pan's sister was there, and she needed to be rescued. But how to go about it? All thoughts of returning home were banished as Dana considered the matter. There were only two ways to gain access to the pirate ship, she thought: she could fly, or she could swim. And Pan had warned her against either approach. What was it he'd said, that first day, as they perched together at the edge of a cloud? //You fly too close to that ship, and they shoot at you. You try to swim -- well, let's just say there are monsters in the water.// Monsters in the water. So it was back to that again. She knew she couldn't fly -- the pirate ship *had* fired on them, after all; she'd seen it with her own eyes, and heard it with her own ears. That left swimming -- but she couldn't swim either, because even though she hadn't seen any of these monsters, somehow Pan's words had penetrated all the way to her marrow. She hadn't seen them, and she didn't want to believe in them -- but she did. And that made them real, somehow, whether they were actually there or not. Dana found herself pacing along the beach -- pacing, stalking, prowling. There had to be an answer; there had to be a way. And she, Dana Scully, was going to find it -- or die trying. She realized that she had stopped pacing; she'd stopped her implacable movement along the waterline. She was standing still now, hands on her hips, staring blindly ahead of her, looking, staring -- At a small field of driftwood, scattered carelessly across the sand, looking like a child's collection of Lincoln Logs, left strewn about the living room carpet at the end of a long day of playing. A field of driftwood. Dana's eyes widened as she realized what that meant, and she ran eagerly forward. It was the answer. ================END CHAPTER EIGHT================ ========= Chapter Nine ========= Wrestling her chosen piece of driftwood down to the water turned out to be easier said than done. But somehow, Dana managed. She had, of course, picked the largest piece she could find, in hopes that she might be able to completely avoid touching the water. Which was pretty unlikely, she realized, as she stood there at the water's edge, hands on hips, surveying her impromptu boat. She'd been on enough small boats to know that it was going to be impossible to stay completely dry. Well, she could only hope that the aforementioned monsters needed more than a little sea spray in order to be a threat -- assuming, of course, that they couldn't just climb up on her makeshift boat with her .... Dana shook her head sharply, banishing the thought. No time for that. She needed to get out to the pirate ship; she had no time for irrelevancies. And before she could second-guess herself, she picked up the flat piece of wood she'd chosen as her paddle and tucked it under one arm, then pushed and dragged the larger piece of driftwood out into the water. A few moments later Dana was perched precariously atop her tiny craft. Her lips quirked slightly; using the word "craft" to describe this arrangement was more than a little ridiculous. Still, as Ahab had said to her on more than one occasion, the sailor is what makes the difference, and she was nothing if not a sailor. She was Starbuck, after all. And Starbuck needed to get to moving, she thought, nodding to herself as she dipped her paddle into the water. It was at least three hundred yards to the pirate ship, and the tide was still coming in. She had her work cut out for her. But much to her surprise, the first part of the journey was fairly easy. Her body quickly fell into the old, accustomed patterns, paddling first on one side and then on the other, in deep, even strokes, as she'd learned to do at summer camps, and on those rare canoe trips with BIll and Charlie and Ahab. As she paddled, she tried not to pay too much attention to what was going on in the water. It was still night time, of course, and the sea was black as pitch, seemingly impenetrable. Yet there were shapes down there, moving about -- strange, angular shapes that were even blacker than the water, but that were nevertheless clearly alive. They were little more than shadows, deformed charicatures of the human form, that flitted and darted on either side of her, sometimes diving deeper into the water until they almost disappeared, then turning and rushing towards the surface -- but never quite breaking into the open air. They seemed to be pacing her, she thought. Waiting for her to make a mistake, and fall off into their domain. If she did, what would happen? She didn't know, but she had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that it would not be as quick and simple as being torn to pieces -- and suddenly, she could again hear the women screaming in the boxcars -- Dana forced herself to look away from the water, and stared ahead into the gloom in the direction of the pirate ship. She had already made considerable progress; in fact, she was more than halfway there. And so, keeping her eyes fixed on her destination, she redoubled her efforts. Sooner than Dana would have thought possible, she found herself bumping up against the pirate vessel. As far as she could tell, she hadn't been detected -- at least, there had been no outcry from on board as she approached. And so she began paddling quietly around the ship, looking for a means of access. She briefly considered the possibility of flying up the side of the ship. Surely *that* would be safe. Wouldn't it? And yet, Pan had warned against flying: //You fly too close to that ship, and they shoot at you.// Pan knew more about Neverland than she did -- and he'd been right about the monsters, after all. Dana supposed she should heed him in this, as well. And in any case, here was the anchor cable. Without further thought or hesitation, Dana moved carefully to the end of her tiny craft, rose to a crouch and leapt across the small intervening stretch of water. Her hands slipped for a moment, but then her fingers found their purchase, and she began to climb laboriously up the cable. This turned out to be no mean task. The cable was cold and wet, and seemed to go up and up and up, forever. Every foot of progress was a battle, and several times she almost lost her grip on it entirely. Don't look down, she told herself firmly, and don't look up. Don't think about how much farther you have to go, and don't dwell on how far you'd fall if you let go. Just climb. Finally, she reached the top. Still clinging to the cable with one hand, she cautiously reached out for the gunnel with the other, and a moment later she was chinning herself up and over it. At last, she dropped lightly to the deck of the pirate ship. For a pair of minutes she simply crouched there, gasping for breath and getting her bearings. She was fairly close to the prow -- perhaps a fourth of the way back -- and not too far from the first of three masts. She remembered that upon first seeing this ship from the air, she'd thought it looked like a Dutch flute, and now, as she studied the rigging, silhouetted against the starry night sky, she saw nothing to make her change her mind. She turned her gaze back to the deck. It was plain and flat, made of hardwood planks -- but as she looked more closely she realized there were dark, man-sized lumps scattered all around her. The crew, she realized. The men who crewed the ship were taking advantage of the balmy weather by sleeping sprawled around the deck. Which was very understandable -- from what she'd read, the below-decks area on a ship of this sort were not exactly the Hilton. But it did mean she was going to have to be very careful not to make any noise at all. Slowly, carefully, Dana straightened to a standing position and surveyed the deck. As such things went, it seemed to be unremarkable. Even the sleeping crewmembers seemed perfectly ordinary. Well, as ordinary as a band of 18th century cut throats could be expected to be, she amended. She started moving carefully towards the stern, staying close to the gunnel and watching where she put her feet. In addition to the sleeping men, the deck was cluttered with partially coiled ropes, abandoned tools, scraps of lumber and other bits of this and that. Once, she accidentally kicked a hammer, and it went skittering across the deck, making enough noise that she was sure it would wake the dead -- not to mention the sleeping pirates. But nobody stirred or made any noise, and after a moment, she continued on. After what seemed like an eternity, she came to a hatch, set in the deck a few yards from the main mast. It was standing open, and an eerie, blue-white light shone from down inside. Cautiously, and very, very slowly, Dana approached the opening and peered down inside. And gasped. It was nothing like what she'd expected. No makeshift, unsteady ladder; no narrow, badly lit companionway; no barrels of half-rotten food or chests of stolen treasure. No, the view that greeted her looked nothing like what she imagined below-decks on a sailing vessel to be like. This looked more like the inside of a spaceship. And a familiar spaceship, at that. Even as her gaze was traversing the cobalt-blue, metallic walls, and taking in the strange machinery lining those walls, Dana felt panic rising in her throat. She had been here before; she was sure of it. It was all so familiar, so well-known, so ... so terrifying. She closed her eyes for a moment, and tried to remember, but she couldn't get anything much to come. Just vague ... impressions? ... dreams? ... memories? ... of being carried down a catwalk much like this one, with blue-white metallic walls much like these. She was paralyzed, literally unable to move, but she was awake and aware as they forced the tube down her throat, and she was so very, very cold .... Dana shook her head sharply, and tried to thrust the images away. None of that had happened, she told herself firmly. It couldn't have happened. She would remember it if it had. Wouldn't she? Dana shook her head again, even more violently than the first time. There was no time for this; no time. She was here for a purpose -- to find Pan's sister -- and she had to get in and out as quickly and quietly as possible. It was only a matter of time before someone discovered her, and then the game would be up, the opportunity lost. And so she took a deep breath, and started down into the bowels of the pirate ship. Despite her intentions, she felt her fear building with each step she took. It was only a dozen or so feet down to the catwalk, and then she was stepping outward into the mysterious, blue-white gloom. The room was huge. Dana felt her eyes widening in shock and amazement as she took it all in. Everywhere she looked was strange, futuristic-looking machinery and equipment -- machinery that looked as if it were half alive. Everything faded away into the general gloom -- and Dana realized that this room was *too* big. It couldn't possibly fit within the hull of the ship. As she moved deeper into the chamber, her attention was drawn back to the immediate vicinity of the catwalk. She'd now passed well beyond the entryway, and the path she was taking was lined with large, glass cylinders. Puzzled, unable to determine their purpose, Dana stopped for a moment to examine one -- and her heart almost stopped. There was a man inside of it. A real, living man. He hung there, nude and motionless, suspended in some sort of translucent, green fluid. His eyes were wide open, his features frozen in an expression of abject terror. Dana didn't even realize she'd been backing up until she bumped against something. She whirled around at the unexpected contact, and found herself looking at another cylinder filled with green goo. This one held a little girl, perhaps four or five years old, and oh dear God, she looked like Missy -- like the old pictures of Missy at that age in the family scrapbook. Again Dana backed away. Her heart was in her throat, and she was having trouble catching her breath. She could feel her mouth working, but no sound was coming out. This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. It wasn't happening. It was a dream; a nightmare. Once again she backed into a cylinder; once again she spun around -- and this time she couldn't suppress a gutteral moan of fear and despair at what she saw. This one was alive. Oh, it was most definitely alive. But it was no longer human -- if it ever had been. It was black and spidery-looking, with a hard, chitinous exterior, and huge, menacing claws. It writhed and struggled in the fluid, and the claws beat against the glass, trying to break out. Trying to get to her. Dana turned and ran. She had no idea where she was going, or what she would find, but she had to get away from the monster in the cylinder. She had to escape, and running was all she could do. She was dimly aware that she was running away from the entrance she had used, and the sensible, logical part of her mind was telling her to turn around and go the other way -- but no power on earth could have made her move closer to the thing she had just scene. She rounded a corner, and the rows of cylinders suddenly came to an end. She was facing a heavy metal door -- it looked very much like a bank vault door, in fact, although there was no combination in evidence. She glanced back over her shoulder; she should go back the way she'd come, and try to escape. But the monster was that way. If she went back now, the monster would get her; she was sure of it. Her attention was drawn back to the front as the door abruptly swung open. Automatically, heedless of the risk, Dana stepped forward across the threshold -- And gasped. She was in another huge room. But where the first chamber had been dark and foreboding, and seemed almost to be a living thing in its own right, this room was brightly lit, cold and sterile. More high tech equipment lined the walls, glittering mysteriously, speaking of some ominous purpose that Dana wasn't sure she wanted to understand. Standing directly in the center of the room was a strange metal table in the shape of a cross. And lying on the table, his arms stretched out on the crosspiece and held in place by harsh, metal restraints, was Pan. ================END CHAPTER NINE================ ========= Chapter Ten ========= It couldn't be Pan. Dana shook her head as she whispered the words in fierce denial. It couldn't be Pan; it just couldn't. Pan wasn't on this ship -- he was far away, safe, on the island somewhere. He was with Alex and the Rebels, and was probably still dancing with Diana. He was safe. He was fine. He was with Diana. He was with Diana .... Dana felt a cold knot forming in her stomach. If he was with Diana, he definitely was *not* safe. Diana was not to be trusted; she was betraying him. Maybe she already *had* betrayed him, and he really *was* here. God. What was she supposed to do? Without really thinking about it, she found herself looking more closely at the body stretched out on the table before her -- and frowning. It was Pan; there was no doubt that it was Pan. He had the same large, fleshy nose, and the same pouting, feminine lips. It was definitely, positively Pan. Yet it wasn't. The body spread-eagled on the table was not that of a boy, but of a man. Not just any man, though -- it clearly was Pan. But Pan has he might look in 20 or 25 years. Pan as an adult. Pan as a grown man. And suddenly a confused jumble of images were flashing through her head: This man, bursting into the darkened house, just as Donnie regained posession of the gun. A shot ringing out, granting her salvation, just before the axe could fall and end her life. This man again, crying by her bedside as she lay dying. His hand reaching out for hers as the ambulance carried them away to safety .... And she was bending over him as he lay on the table, so still and quiet, with only the barely detectable pulse in his throat to tell her that he was alive. But he was alive -- thank God, he was alive, and she knew who he was. Finally, after all of this, she recognized him. She remembered. Dear God, she remembered. "Mulder," she whispered. His name was like a song on her lips. How could she ever have forgotten him? She touched his cheek, and a jolt of electricity rocketed through her. How could she ever have forgotten *this*? "Mulder," she repeated, "you've got to wake up. I've got to get you out of here. Mulder, can you understand me?" Dana could feel herself beginning to cry; she could feel the tears slowly making their way down her cheeks. But there was no response from the man on the table, and Dana felt desperation bulding up inside of her. He had to hear her; he had to. "Mulder," she whispered, "you've got to get up. I don't know how much time we have. You've got to get up, Mulder. No one can do it but you, Mulder. Mulder, help me. Please, Mulder." A single tear fell from her face, and landed on his closed eyelid. His eyes flickered open. "Scully," he said, very softly. A gentle smile began slowly spreading across his face. "Scully." "Mulder," she whispered again, "we have to get you out of here. Can you walk?" "For you, I can do anything," he replied, his voice still low and hard to hear. With some difficulty, Dana managed to get him to his feet. He was heavy, and he was obviously very weak, and it was all she could do to support him as he stood on trembling legs, one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. God, she thought, we're never going to make it. We're never going to get out of this room. But somehow, they did. Somehow, they made it through the door and back to the end of the catwalk. Thoughts of finding his sister -- of finding Samantha -- had fled. Likewise the other victims, each trapped in their own cylinders, made no impression on her. Even the monster that had scared her so badly no longer seemed to matter. None of that seemed real, anymore. Only the man next to her, leaning on her, was real. Only Mulder was real. Now all that stood between them and the deck of the ship was a dozen steps. Just a short staircase, she told herself. They could do this; they'd got this far. Just a little bit farther .... One step. Two. Put your back into it, Dana. Support this man and hold him up; keep him from falling, because he's all you've got. Three steps. Five. Eight. Ten .... And finally, they were there, stepping through the hatch and out onto the deck. Only to find themselves surrounded by pirates. "Going somewhere, Agent Scully?" Even before she smelled the cigarette smoke -- even before she turned to face him -- Dana recognized that voice. Only one man in the world sounded like that. Only one man in the world invariably reminded her of a snake slithering through the grass. The Smoker. For a moment Dana stood in shocked silence, surrounded by the ring of men. Her gaze flicked from one face to another to another, and she recognized them all: Eugene Tooms. Alex Krycek. Donnie Pfaster. Phillip Padgett. And more .... "Actually, you've done us a favor, Agent Scully," the Smoker continued, moving slowly forward, until he stood directly in front of her. "You saved us the trouble of having to hunt you down." He took a long drag on his cigarette. "As I think one of my colleagues mentioned, we have a place all prepared for you." And suddenly, the Smoker burst into flames. For just an instant, Dana thought perhaps his cigarette had ignited his clothes -- but then just as abruptly, Alex was on fire as well, and so was Donnie, and in another second the three of them were rolling on the deck, shrieking in mortal agony. Dana felt her eyes widening in shock. She should do something about this; she should try to save them. She looked wildly around, trying to find something she could use to douse the flames. Already, the rest of the pirates were beginning to surge and mill about in fear and confusion -- and even as she watched, a fourth member of the crew was engulfed in his own personal inferno. "Oh, my god!" Dana whirled around at the sound of Mulder's voice, glanced at his face, and then looked quickly in the direction of his gaze -- and she felt her own eyes widening even further. Approaching them, through the suddenly smoke-filled gloom, was a row of at least half a dozen men. Large, hulking men, shambling forward one slow step at a time -- and Dana abruptly realized that these were the shadowy figures she had seen skulking in the forest outside the Rebel encampment. Each man held a short, dark wand, and everything the wand touched erupted in flames. She turned back to Mulder, to see him simply standing there, slack-faced and staring, his hands hanging at his sides in apparent futility. Dana suppressed the urge to swear; if they were going to get out of this, she was going to have to do it herself. "Come on!" she said, taking his hand and dragging him away from the approaching men. The members of the pirate crew continued to rush about the deck in aimless panic -- but despite their efforts to escape, they continued to burst into flame, one by one by one, as the men with the wands hunted them down with ruthless efficiency. Some were jumping over the side, taking to the water in desperation -- but within seconds Dana heard the blood-curdling screams that told her that the monsters Pan had warned her about were claiming those men for their own. Finally, she and Mulder broke free of the crowd, and immediately Dana turned to him, and said, "Okay, now we have to fly out of here!" She turned away from him and prepared to launch herself into the sky. "I ... I can't." Dana turned back to Mulder in surprise. "You can't? Why not?" He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I just can't." She shook her head in confusion. "But it's perfectly simple," she said. "You just have to want to believe." Mulder shook his own head, very slowly. "I've tried," he replied. "I really have tried. I've tried to fly. But just wanting to believe isn't enough for me." It never occurred to Dana to doubt him; she knew this man would never lie to her. She looked frantically around, seeking another mode of escape. They couldn't swim -- any doubts on that matter were banished by the continuing screams from the water, below. Her makeshift boat must long since have drifted away on the tide. And Mulder couldn't fly. But there had to be a way. There had to be -- "This way!" she said, as she suddenly spied the mainmast, only a few yards away. It was a short term solution, she knew, but it was better than nothing. Better than staying on the deck to be burned to death, or jumping into the water to be torn to pieces. A moment later, she was climbing up the mast, with Mulder close behind her. Climbing the mast turned out to be both easier and harder than she had expected. Easier, because hardwood pegs had been driven into it at intervals of twelve to eighteen inches, providing a rudimentary ladder. Harder, because the air about them was now filled with smoke and the stench of burning flesh. The cries of the victims also assaulted her ears, making it difficult to concentrate on the task before her. At last, they reached the yard, and they were able to pause and rest. Dana moved out a short distance on the yardarm, being careful to maintain a good hold on the rigging, while Mulder clung tightly to the mast, his eyes tightly shut. Dana shook her head in despair. She didn't understand what was wrong with him, why he was being so passive. It was almost as if some essential part of him were missing -- his drive, his imagination. His courage. And right now they needed those qualities -- they needed them, if there was to be any hope for survival. The ship, itself, was now on fire. Looking down, she could see the plumes of flame rising from the deck and the gunnels; as she watched, the roof of the foc'sle collapsed with a whoosh, sending more smoke billowing into the night sky. "Wendy!" Dana turned again, to see Pan, hovering a few feet off the end of the yardarm. Tinkerbell was there, too, buzzing and chittering, looping around Pan in wide, crazy circles. "Pan!" Dana exclaimed. "You've got to help us!" "Help?" Pan's face took on a puzzled expression. "What sort of help? All you have to do is --" "Mulder can't fly!" Dana interrupted. "And there's no other way to get him out of here." "Of course he can't fly," Pan answered, rolling his eyes as if she'd just stated something blindingly obvious. "He hasn't got the heart." He grabbed Dana's hand. "Come on; let's get out of here." Dana snatched her hand back. "No!" she said. "He does have a heart -- and we can't just leave him here." Pan shrugged, and if it were possible for a fairy to fly in a smirk, Tinkerbell was now doing so. "Why not?" the boy asked. "Because she won't leave without me." Dana spun about in surprise, and almost lost her balance. Mulder had spoken the words, of course, and now she saw that while he was still clinging desperately to the mast, he'd opened his eyes, and was staring right at Pan. "Why not?" Pan repeated, drifting past Dana and coming to rest on the yardarm a few feet from Mulder -- and there was a note of stridency in his voice that Dana couldn't remember hearing before. "Why can't she leave? She can leave anytime she wants to. She *should* leave." Mulder shook his head. "She could leave; she even *wants* to leave. But she won't. Not without me. Not without *both* of us." There was a moment of silence, broken only by the crackling of flames coming from below. The screams of the pirate crew had ceased, and a quick glance at the deck showed that the entire ship was now engulfed in flame. Nothing moved -- nothing alive, anyway. "She's right to want to quit," Pan said suddenly. "She's right to want to leave. She should get as far away as she can -- she should go be a doctor while she still can!" "It's too late for that, Fox," Mulder said quietly. "It's too late, and you know it." "My name's not Fox!" Pan yelled. "It's Pan! It's always been --" "Your name is Fox," Mulder said firmly, somehow overriding the boy's outcry. "No matter how much you want to be someone else -- anyone else -- you can't escape your heritage. You're your father's son, whether you like it or not --" "That's a lie!" "But you can still rise above that!" Mulder insisted, finally raising his own voice. He climbed shakily to his feet and, still holding tightly to the mast with one hand, he reached out to Pan with the other. "Come back to me, Fox," he whispered. "Scully needs both of us -- she needs your drive and imagination, but she also needs my maturity and capacity for love. And this is the only way we can give all those things to her." "But Samantha --" "We'll never stop looking for Samantha," Mulder said. "Never." Even as he spoke, Tinkerbell reasserted her presence, zooming back into the tableau from wherever she had been, buzzing within inches of Mulder's face and hovering there angrily. He didn't flinch; he didn't even seem to notice her -- until, abruptly, his free hand flashed up and grabbed her out of the air. "This is not Samantha," he said to Pan. "It isn't her, Fox. Samantha is out there, somewhere -- we'll never stop believing that. Nothing disappears without a trace, and we'll never stop looking. I promise." He opened his hand again, and Dana's eyes widened in surprise as she saw that the fairy was gone -- simply gone. "But that wasn't her." That seemed to be the final straw, as Pan slowly began to topple forward. For just an instant, Dana thought he would fall, and she was about to reach out for him -- but Mulder beat her to it, grasping Pan's t-shirt and pulling him into a one-armed embrace. He hesitated for a second, then let go of the mast, and wrapped that arm around the boy, as well. They were still speaking to each other, Dana realized -- man to boy, and boy to man. She could see their lips moving, and she could see the tears streaming down both their faces. But somehow, she could no longer hear their words -- as if the things they said to one another were too intensely personal and private even for her ears. As if they were invoking some sort of magic -- And then, suddenly, it happened. Seemingly from nowhere, Pan and Mulder were abruptly bathed in a pearly, white light -- a light that seemed to grow stronger with each passing instant. In a matter of seconds, it had become so bright that Dana had to shield her eyes. Ahab had taken her to a Navy practice range, once, and she had seen a phosphorus flare used, but this was even brighter than that. The light was overwhelming her, even through her hands and her tightly closed eyelids. It was too much .... And then, as suddenly as it began, it ended. The light was gone, and after a moment's breathless hesitation, Dana lowered her hands and opened her eyes. She was in bed. Her own bed, in her own room, in her parents' house in Maryland. Everything seemed to be where she had left it -- everything seemed to be where it should be. Her schoolbooks, her telescope ... even her snowglobes all appeared to be in their proper places. And the window stood wide open, the curtains fluttering in the soft evening breeze. "Hey, Scully." Dana's head snapped around, and her eyes widened in surprise, as she saw Fox Mulder kneeling on the far side of her bed, looking at her intently. At the look of surprise on her face, he smiled slightly, and said, "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." "Th-that's okay," she replied. "I was just ...." She let her voice trail off, not quite sure how to finish that sentence. "I understand," he said. And he started to climb to his feet. "Wait!" Dana reached out and grabbed his hand. "Where are you going?" He hesitated, then shrugged. "Where I have to go," he said. "I brought you home, but now I have to go. I have to keep looking for Samantha." "You're leaving me," she said, flatly. She had known, somehow, that it was inevitable, but still she felt an emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Mulder shook his head. "No, I'm not," he said. "I have to go away for awhile, but I'm not ditching you this time; I swear it. It's just ... well, you have to finish growing up, first. Just as I did." He knelt down again, and lightly stroked her hair. "But I'll be waiting for you when you do," he whispered. And then he smiled again, and added, "After all, you made me a whole person." "I'm not going to remember any of this in the morning," Dana said, fighting to keep the sadness from her voice. "Am I?" "Of course you will," he replied. "You'll remember -- when the time is right." And he hesitated just a moment before leaning forward and kissing her chastely on the lips. ================END CHAPTER TEN================ ========= Epilogue ========= I awaken in near total darkness, and for a moment I'm confused; disoriented. I think I've had a dream, but already the details are fading ... slipping away ... gone. Then I turn over in bed and I feel the unaccustomed ache in my muscles, and I smile as I realize that one thing, at least, was not a dream. There's an indentation the size of his head on the other pillow, and his scent still clings to the bedclothes. Mulder was here. The real question, of course, is whether he's still here. Has he just gotten up to go to the bathroom? Is he, perhaps, suffering one of his bouts of chronic insomnia? Or did he awaken in the night, realize what had happened, and flee from my bed, from the heightened degree of intimacy implied by his presence here? He's not gone, I decide. Not only are we long past the stage in our partnership where that might have happened, but I can see his clothes still strewn carelessly around my bedroom, lying where we dropped them in our haste to undress each other just a few short hours ago. So he's not gone; he hasn't run from me. He's still here, somewhere in my apartment. But he doesn't seem to be coming back to bed, either. I've been lying awake for several minutes, now, waiting for him, and he's now been gone long enough to rule out the possibility that he just got up to pee. And so without further thought or hesitation, I throw back the covers and climb from my bed. I pause long enough to pick up his dress shirt from the floor and slip it on, and then I pad down the hall to the living room. And he's there, as I had expected, clad only in boxers, looking out the window at ... something. Even before I can see the expression on his face, I know that whatever he's seeing, it isn't what I will see when I follow his gaze. He knows I'm here, of course. Even if I couldn't tell from the set of his shoulders, Mulder always knows when I'm there, and watching him. So I'm confident it comes as no surprise to him when I move up behind him and slip my arms around his waist. For a long minute we just stand there together, my arms wrapped loosely around him, the side of my head resting comfortably against his back. I could stand here forever, I think, inhaling his scent, listening to his breathing, feeling his warm body pressed against mine -- and for just a moment, I consider doing just that. But then he moves slightly in my embrace, and I realize that it's not to be. Mulder is far too restless to remain still for long -- and to tell the truth, so am I. I realize, somehow, that we've reached a watershed in our relationship. I'd thought we'd reached it last night, when I finally took Mulder into my arms and into my bed, but I was wrong. That moment, as sweet and wonderful and soothing to my soul as it was, also had a certain inevitability to it. And once we'd set the chain of events in motion, of course our bodies knew what to do. But this moment -- this moment is different. There's no script for this, no advance planning, no guaranteed outcome. How each of us acts in the next few minutes -- how we adjust to our first meeting in our new status as lovers -- will affect the entire shape of our future together. It may even affect whether we *have* a future together. These are uncharted waters we're sailing through, and the only thing more dangerous than forging ahead would be to try to turn around and go back. Mulder stirs again in my arms, straining and impatient. He wants to talk; he wants to say something. He probably wants to apologize for what he presumably sees as the failure of his lovemaking. But I don't want those things; not right now, anyway. I don't think he really wants them either; when we've tried to talk about important things in the past, the results have not been encouraging. In the long run, we will have to face the myriad questions that have formed in both our minds. But for tonight, we'll be better off if we simply feel. I allow my hands to flatten against his abdomen, and I smoothly and quickly slide them downwards, until I reach his boxers, slung low on his hips. Even as I feel him tensing at my sudden motion, I've hooked my thumbs into the waistband, and then I'm slowly but steadily moving them down past his hips before finally allowing them to drop to the floor. He barely has time to whisper my name before I'm reaching for his cock, cupping his balls in one hand and gently grasping his shaft with the other. Already he's semi-erect, and his soft murmur turns to a groan as I begin to slide my fingers up and down his length. It's such a simple act, and yet a transforming one. It changes us from Scully and Mulder, the work partners who must discuss everything and come to intellectual agreement, into a man and a woman, who can find our compromises on another playing field. Now fully erect, Mulder turns within my embrace, and looks down at me with those liquid, hazel eyes, as I continue to stroke and caress him. I look back at him just as steadily, and I know he sees the same passion and longing in my gaze as I find pouring down at me from his. In another time we might have found this connection, this completed circuit, to be too powerful, too overwhelming, and we might have looked away. But now, tonight, it's just right, and only gives us strength. I find myself rising on my toes just as he bends towards me, and then our lips meet, our mouths wide open, our tongues probing and tasting, loving and exploring. I feel his hands on my shoulders, pushing back the cloth of his shirt, and I let go of him only long enough for the garment to slip down my arms and whisper to the floor. Then my hands return to their place and resume their ministrations. The kiss increases in passion and in urgency, and I feel my own arousal building within me. Kissing has always been an intimate act for me, and tonight those effects seem to be multipled a thousand fold. Mulder has barely touched me; his hands still rest lightly on my shoulders, but already I feel the familiar aching need deep within my body. A need that can only be filled in one way, and only by this man. Abruptly, Mulder breaks the kiss, and for a moment he rests his forehead against mine, eyes closed, apparently trying to catch his breath. Then his eyes flicker open again, and he looks down at me and smiles. It's a beautiful smile, a lovely smile, and it's also quite possibly the most erotic thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm mesmerized by this smile; completely absorbed and fascinated by it. The ache of need inside me has now become a dull throbbing as he drops his head and his mouth finds one of my breasts -- Oh. God. This was good last night, when we first made love; now ... now, somehow, it's even better. His lips enclose my nipple, the same nipple that his tongue is lightly caressing, moving in slow, intimate circles. His large, warm hands have slipped around me, and now they cup my buttocks -- which is a good thing, since that's all that's keeping me from collapsing on the floor. I also seem to have let go of him, something which becomes obvious only when he drops to his knees in front of me, forcing me to stoop slightly to keep his mouth on my breast. My hands grip his shoulders, and my fingernails dig into his flesh as he continues to lick and suckle at me. I'm breathing through my mouth, now, in short, sharp gasps, and his fingers are massaging my ass. His mouth suddenly leaves its place at my breast, and I cry out in disappointment -- but then I feel his tongue, tracing the outline of my ribs, moving slowly, slowly downward. And I realize what his destination must be. Oh, but he takes his time in getting there. This man .... my man, my Mulder ... he can work magic with his mouth. I've suspected it for years, and now these last few hours I've had all the confirmation I could ever need. But not all that I could ever want. Yesssssssssssss .... At last, Mulder's mouth reaches its goal. His tongue slips easily into and between my folds, and I feel ripples of heat lightning racing through my body. His hands grip my behind more tightly as he pulls my hips closer to him -- and my own fingers are tangling in his hair, grasping his head and holding it in place, as I reflexively open my thighs in my quest for even more contact with his wonderful tongue. I don't know if I can do this standing up, but I am so unwilling for it to stop, even for an instant. Mulder's lips and tongue are everywhere, licking me, teasing me, driving me higher and ever higher. I hear myself gasping his name, and he moans his response, and never once does he stop, nor even slow down. I am so close ... so very, very close .... And I'm there. I can feel it all through my body as I teeter on the edge. It will only take a few more firm strokes of that wonderful tongue to send me crashing over -- and that is unacceptable. I don't want it to be over this soon, and I don't want it to end this way. I want it to end with us together. With a supreme act of will, I manage to pull Mulder's head away from me. He looks up at me for a moment, his gaze a breathless mingling of disappointment and desire. And then I lightly caress his face as I drop to my knees in front of him and take him in my arms once again, capturing his lips with mine. The flavor of his mouth is different, now, of course -- different because the aftertaste of my passion is mingled with his own sharp tang. The combination of the two -- the essence of what we are together -- is driving me wild. I just can't get enough of it, and I plunge my tongue deep, deep into his mouth, seeking more, as I wrap my arms tightly around his neck, pulling his body close against mine. And I simply can't wait any longer. Gently, urgently, needily, I pull Mulder down to the floor, never breaking the kiss. He willingly follows my lead, and allows me to move him onto his back ... and then I straddle his hips and impale myself on his cock, all in one smooth motion .... *This* is the moment I live for. This first instant of union, as Mulder's pelvis rises to meet my downward thrust, in an act so new to the two of us, and yet somehow so very familiar -- if all I ever had was this, it would be enough. Fortunately, I don't have to settle for that. Already, I'm beginning to slide against him, automatically adjusting the angle of my movements so as to maximize pleasure and stimulation. Sometime in the last few seconds I broke our latest kiss, and now my hands are braced against my lover's chest, while his tightly grip my waist, his thumbs grinding against my hip bones as he thrusts upwards in time to my own, rhythmic motions. My eyes are locked on his, and what I see there is everything I ever hoped to find: love, desire, passion, need .... And I reach an epiphany. I suddenly know why Mulder was crying last night, after the first time we made love. The memory of those tears has been hovering in the back of my mind ever since I awakened, but I've avoided thinking about them consciously. Now, however, as I hover over him, watching as his face contorts in a mask of pleasure, it all becomes clear. Mulder was afraid. As impossible as it may seem, he was afraid. He was not afraid of me, or even of our relationship -- not as such. He was afraid of himself. Of the adult within him. The little boy who lost his sister has ruled him for so long, for so many years, and that inner child -- sad and lonely and hurting -- was terrified of the man who has been struggling to break out for as long as I've known him. But that was last night, and now, somehow, some way, something has changed. As I raise and lower myself, giving myself to Mulder more fully and completely than I've ever given myself to any man, I can see it in his eyes. Something has changed. For the better. Mulder and I keep on moving, building towards our mutual release. And I realize, as I feel the waves finally washing over me, and as Mulder shudders and empties himself into me, that this is our true first time. Last night we were children, but now, in the early morning darkness, we are finally adults, and we are finally together. Some long, blissful time later, I find myself lying curled on top of Mulder, my head resting against his chest, my fingers tangled loosely in his hair. I'm listening to his breathing, so slow and soft and steady, and the only way I know he's awake is from the gentle movement of his fingers against the small of my back. And suddenly, I remember; I remember it all. I remember learning to fly, meeting the Lost Boys, the beauty of Neverland and all the other strange and wonderful things I saw and did there. And of course, I also remember the bad parts: the pirates, the rebels, Donnie and Alex and Diana -- all the monsters, both human and otherwise. Those were part of it, too, I remind myself. But most of all I remember the boy. The boy who took me away from my parents' home and dared me to face all those things -- things that I would never have sought on my own -- and who finally defied his own fears and grew up into a man so that he could love me. This man, the one now lying beneath me and sharing his warmth and strength and love with me. My man. My Mulder. I lift my head from his chest and look into his eyes -- and I'm unsurprised to find that he's smiling at me in a warm, sleepy way that's impossible for me to misinterpret. He remembers, too. "Second star to the right, Scully," he murmurs, sliding one hand up my back so that he can cup my head and draw it towards him. I return his smile, and as I lower my lips to his, I whisper my response: "And straight on 'til morning." ================THE END OF THE WHOLE STORY================