Title: Someone Beyond
Author: Patty Hayes

Spoilers: No spoilers. 

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the television program 
"The X-Files" are the creations and property of Chris Carter, Fox 
Broadcasting, and Ten Thirteen Productions, and have been used 
without permission. No copyright infringements are intended. This 
work is not to be forwarded or distributed to any newsgroup, FTP, or 
WWW site without the permission of the author.

Author's note: Ok, Rhonnda, here is my answer to your Halloween Mask 
challenge. Hope everyone enjoys it.

I do give permission for it to be put on atxc.

Summary: Halloween mask challenge - A mask draws Mulder to Scully 
when danger is at hand.

***************

October 22, 1996

It had been a long week for Dana Scully. She and Mulder had finished 
a gruesome case yesterday and she finished the paperwork today. It 
was Thursday, October 31, Halloween and as typical, it was a dark and 
stormy night. It would be good to have a three day weekend for a 
change. Mulder agreed that they would both take a long weekend to 
rest and relax before jumping into the next case. He asked if she 
wanted him to come over and dish out candy to the 'little ankle 
biters', but she said no. She just wanted to be alone. She hadn't 
had much of a life the past year or two. Working all the time. She 
had only two dates in the past three months, both were disastrous. 

The first bored her to tears and the second just flat out scared the 
hell out of her. He was a little too obsessive for her. 'Look who 
I'm calling obsessive, I work with Mulder for God's sake.' She 
smiled at the thought. Scully stopped by the grocery store on her 
way home. Her kitchen was empty and despite the rain, there would be 
a few children coming by tonight for treats. Besides, she didn't want to 
leave her apartment for the next three days. Stretch out in a hot 
bubble bath with oreos and a good mystery. That's what she wanted to 
do.

As she approached her apartment she saw the package at the foot of 
the door. 'The postman must have left it.' Scully unlocked her door,
 sat the groceries on the kitchen table and went back to retrieve the 
box. Something was strange about the box. It didn't have a postmark 
on it. Someone other than the postman had left it. The package was 
one foot square and four inches in depth. She held it up to her ear. 

 'No ticking. That's a good sign.' Then she chided herself. 'Come 
on Dana, your mother probably left it for you.' 

She waited until she put away the groceries before she opened the box.
By then, her curiosity was getting the better of her. She opened 
the box. Inside was a porcelain mask. The face was painted in muted 
colors of blues and grays. The hair was a faint shade of auburn and 
the eyes were exquisitely designed. They had a realistic quality 
with pale emerald irises and an indigo liner. The lips were the only 
bright color on the mask. They were bright red and slightly parted. 
It was almost sensual. In fact, the mask itself looked almost alive. 
 
She noticed a fine powdery dust covering the mask. 'I hope a part 
of it didn't break.' She blew gently on the mask and the powdery 
dust scattered upwards and away from the mask. Scully coughed as the 
dust infiltrated her nose and mouth and eyes.

She went to the kitchen and grabbed a dust rag. After Scully dusted 
the mask, she sat it upright in front of her computer and stared at 
it. It was beautiful, but where did it come from? Who had sent it? 
Mulder. Of course. He surprised her sometimes, but why didn't he 
just give it to her at work? She thought about calling him, but 
remembered their agreement. Rest and relaxation. She was getting 
sleepy already.

There weren't as many trick or treators as there had been the 
previous year and Scully had a lot of candy left over. She sat on 
her sofa munching on peanut M&M's staring at the mask. She was 
mesmerized by it. She couldn't take her eyes off of it. She began 
to think it resembled her face. 'That's ridiculous.' She had a hard 
time keeping her eyes open, she didn't realize she was so sleepy. 
The doorbell brought her back awake. More treators. A princess, a 
batman, a cowboy and a pumpkin. They were adorable. She loved this 
part of Halloween, seeing the children in their costumes. But her 
head was beginning to pound and she felt dizzy. Her vision was 
becoming blurred and as she closed the door she fell to the floor, 
candy scattering all around her. She didn't know what was happening 
to her. She couldn't move, her breathing was shallow and her head 
felt as if it were going to burst. The bright room grew darker as 
she fell into unconsciousness.

***

Fox Mulder had only a couple of kids come by. There weren't many 
children living in his building and he didn't expect many. He was 
bored. He knew he needed the rest but it wasn't him. He didn't just 
do nothing. He was always 'on'. Thinking, contemplating, theorizing,
doing. He couldn't sit still. He picked up the phone to call 
Scully several times but never completed the calls. He promised her 
he would give her the weekend and that's what he would do. Hell, 
he'd give her anything. He lay on the couch, flipping through the 
channels, unable to sleep. 

***

Scully opened her eyes a couple of hours later. Her mind was still 
in a fog, she tried to stand up but the room was spinning far too 
quickly. So she remained sitting on the floor surrounded by candy. 
She began picking up the sweets and putting them back in the basket 
when the nausea hit her. She stumbled to the bathroom just in time 
to throw up everything she had in her stomach. 'I was fine earlier, 
it must be something I ate.' As if things couldn't get any worse, 
the electricity went off. 'Great!' She made it to her bed and 
crawled under the covers, still fully clothed. She was chilled, she 
couldn't stop shaking. Scully was dosing in and out of sleep, but 
during one of the times in which she awakened, she could've sworn she 
saw the mask staring at her from her dresser. She never saw the tiny 
spider that had crawled out from under the bottom flap of the box. 
She never felt the bite as it had landed on her foot and scurried 
under the table. The poison was slowly flowing through her 
bloodstream.

***

Mulder finally fell asleep in the early hours of Friday morning. He 
dreamed as he always did. Only this time his dreams were not of 
Samantha being taken, calling to him for help, they were not of 
Scully's voice on his answering machine, calling to him for help, 
they were of a mask. A beautiful porcelain mask with green eyes and 
full red lips. The hair painted auburn with sparkles of sunlight. 
It danced in his mind and he thought he could see the mouth smile. 
He loved watching that face, circling him, smiling at him. It was a 
sensual dance. It struck him suddenly that it was Scully, he was 
seeing. 

Then it turned ugly. The eyes were no longer vibrant and alive, they 
were cold and dead. The mouth was no longer smiling and laughing, 
it was still and sullen. The lips weren't painted red anymore, the 
red paint was trailing from the corner of the mouth as if blood were 
pouring from the lips. The hair had become limp and gray. Mulder 
awoke with a start. He knew something was wrong, he felt it. He and 
Scully had a sixth sense that defied space, time and distance. He 
quickly dressed and headed for Scully's.

***

Scully was dreaming. It was more of an hallucination than a dream. 
She was experiencing cold sweats and in her mind she was floating 
above her bed. She knew something was wrong with her but she was too 
out of it to make sense of anything. She thought she heard banging, 
knocking. In her dream state she floated to the living room and 
opened the door. There was terror and pain beyond the door and 
suddenly she was afraid. The nightmares of old haunted her. Visions 
of a monster transforming into a man, Pfaster, visions of another 
monster staring at her through her front window, Barry. And visions 
of beings unknown, performing untold tests as she lay paralyzed, 
helpless. She cried out in her delirium.

***

Mulder drove like a possessed man through the rain and arrived at 
Scully's just as the rain was easing up. The entry was in darkness, 
in fact, as he looked around, he saw no lights in the building at all.
 
The storm must have taken out the electricity. He felt his way to 
her door as quickly as he could and knocked as he called out to her. 
"Scully!" . He kept looking around, if nothing was wrong, he didn't 
want her neighbors to be upset with her for his disturbances. He 
found her key on his ring and tried the door, only to find it was 
unlocked. When he entered, he tried the lights, but as he suspected, 
they weren't working. He called to her again. "Scully?" No answer. 
 
He gingerly walked through to her bedroom. He saw her form under 
the comforter, small and still. He shook her gently. "Scully?" He 
whispered. Still no response. Then he noticed how hot her face felt 
and the sweat pouring from her forehead. And as a flash of lightning 
struck, he noticed how pale she looked. He phoned for an am
ulance.

***

In her dreams, she was being lifted and carried like a baby by a 
handsome man and she was no longer afraid. Scully felt comfortable 
and safe. No harm would come to her as long as she was in his arms. 
Then she felt herself drifting away from him. She held out her arms, 
reaching, reaching for him but never making contact.

***

As Mulder laid her on the gurney, she opened her eyes and without 
saying anything, she reached for him, her eyes pleading with him. 
His heart broke as they wheeled her to the ambulance.

***

The next afternoon, Scully opened her eyes to see Mulder sitting by 
her bed. She looked around and found herself in a hospital bed. "Oh 
God, Mulder. What happened?"

He smiled at her. "You were bitten by a spider, they think. The 
doctor said you had an allergic reaction. He said you'll be fine in 
a day or so."

***

Mulder drove Scully home from the hospital on Sunday morning. As 
they were walking up to her door she observed that the weekend wasn't 
as she had planned. "So much for a nice peaceful weekend." She 
smiled at him.

"Well, you did get a lot of rest." He grinned back.

He sat with her for a few minutes before he noticed the mask sitting 
in front of her computer. "Scully, where did you get this?" He 
recognized it as the one from his dream.

"I thought it came from you, Mulder. It was left on my door step."

"This is what made me come here. I saw this exact mask in a dream, 
Scully, and something about it told me you needed help." He looked 
puzzled.

"I think the box is still in the kitchen, let me look." Scully 
returned with the box and slowly pulled out the tissue paper it had 
been wrapped in. A note lay at the bottom. "Here it is." The note 
was from her mother. It said, 'I was going through Melissa's things 
and thought you might like this. Give me a call later. Love Mom.'

They looked into each other's eyes. Something or someone from beyond 
was watching out for them.

THE END