World Without End Book Three: Chapter Two

by Rachel Anton

I haven't been having nightmares anymore. Not since the night she told me she loved me. Not since she forgave me. No, I haven't been having nightmares, but my dreams haven't been good. They've been the kind of dreams I used to have when I was a child. Not horrific enough to be called nightmares, but not good enough to be enjoyable. Anxiety dreams. Dreams of showing up to school with no pants on or starring in a play and forgetting all of my lines.

Today the feeling from those dreams infested my reality. The meeting wasn't as bad as it could have been. No one took out a gun and shot me. Not horrific maybe, but not good.

Dana's hasty exit left me feeling even more vulnerable and untethered up there, and I found myself unable to concentrate on the matter at hand because I was so worried about her. The crowd did calm down a bit, and I got a chance to lay out some of my plans, but nothing I said was received with much enthusiasm. And without Dana there, I found myself unable to muster any real excitement or conviction. They saw through me, right into the heart of my fear and confusion. I might as well have been naked.

Even though they were quiet, I could sense their anger, their disgust with my helplessness. I felt those things myself. Why wouldn't they? They knew it as well as I know it. The Emperor really has no clothes. Or food. Or toilet paper.

The sky is dark tonight. No stars to light my way as I walk home. No moon to shine on the trees and show me if anyone's hiding behind them. I start walking a little faster, checking over my shoulder every so often and wishing I'd decided to go back with Bryan. Or even Mulder. Talk about pathetic.

By the time I've made it to my door, I've actually taken my gun out of the its holster and I'm holding it in my hand. A little paranoia never hurt anybody I suppose. It's certainly helped me more times than I can count.

When I open the door, though, I find Roseanne on the other side, looking more than a little horrified at my display.

"What are you doing with that thing? You trying to kill somebody?" she whispers harshly.

The room is almost as dark as it was outside. She's only got one small light on over the stove. I drop the weapon on the kitchen table and look around for Dana.

"Where is she?"

"She's sleeping, Alex. Keep your voice down."

"Well…but, is she okay?"

"She's fine. She's gonna be fine."

I start to walk back towards the bedroom and Roseanne holds out her arm, blocking me.

"Just let her sleep, Alex. She needs to rest."

"Well what the hell is wrong with her?"

She just stares at me for a moment with an extremely peculiar expression on her face. Pity? It almost looks like pity.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong with her, Alex. Just…just be quiet. And when she wakes up, make sure she drinks some juice."

"Juice?"

"Yes, juice. You've got some, don't you?"

"I guess. I dunno."

God, I can't think. How the hell does she expect me to know if we have juice or not? How am I supposed to remember something like that right now?

"Just take care of her, Alex. Make sure she gets something nourishing and…just take care of her."

Take care of her? What else does she think I'm gonna do?

"Roseanne, what is wrong with her?"

"Just…just a stomach flu, I think."

She's lying to me. I can tell. But I don't want to hear the truth from her anyway. I need to talk to Dana.

"Stomach flu. That's very interesting. Look, Roseanne, could you…um…"

I make a gesture towards the door and she nods and hurries over there, looking as anxious to leave as I am to have her gone. I open the door for her, but just before I can close it behind her she turns around and tells me one more time, "Take care of her, Alex."

If she says it again I'm going to smack her, so I close the door in her face before she gets the chance.

When I turn back around, Dana is standing, sagging really, against the wall.

"Dana."

"I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Come and sit down."

I walk over to the couch and pat the cushions, but she doesn't move. It's so damn dark in here. I can hardly see her face. She looks weak though.

"What happened? Roseanne said you had a stomach flu?"

"Uh…" She pushes herself off the wall and her legs start to wobble immediately.

"Here, come and sit down."

She makes her way to the couch and it takes an inordinately long time. Every step seems to be a struggle for her. When she finally sits down next to me, she sighs with relief.

"How did it turn out?" she asks.

"It was…something. I dunno. Not great."

"Well, you're still alive anyhow."

She smiles weakly at me and I smile back, even more weakly.

"I got to tell them some of my ideas."

"And?"

"Not much of a response. But nobody had any other ideas. Not that they mentioned anyway, although I'm sure they're out there plotting a mutiny right now."

She takes my hand in both of hers and pulls it onto her lap. She's wearing those fuzzy flannel pajamas I love and her legs feel so soft and warm. So safe. I almost feel safe for the first time all day.

"Alex, you have to realize that they're just as confused as we are. And what's making it worse is that they can sense you're feeling ill at ease. What did you do to gain their confidence in the beginning? Before I was here?"

Before she was here. That seems like another lifetime. A million and one years ago. I do remember though. I remember a similar struggle and the confidence I had back then.

"I knew things. I had connections. I knew how to keep them safe."

"Well, you still have some connections. Or maybe you don't even need connections. Maybe we can be self-sufficient now."

"I'd like to believe that."

"No," she squeezes my hand and looks into my eyes intently. "You HAVE to believe that. Do you understand?"

"I'm trying, Dana. It's just, looking at things realistically, it's hard to see how it's going to work."

"You have to stop fighting against them, first of all. You have to make them feel like they are personally responsible for their own survival."

"Fighting? I'm not the one fighting, Dana. How am I supposed to react when they're looking at me like a pack of rabid dogs?"

"See, this is what I'm talking about. Quit being reactionary. I'm not saying they're right and you're wrong. Or vice versa. You've got to guide them into self-sufficiency, in every way. It's the only way we are going to survive. And I believe you can do it, Alex."

Oh, devotchka, I know you're right. But I don't want to guide anyone to anything right now. I just wanna curl up in your arms and sleep.

"I'm just so tired, Dana. So tired of it."

"I know. But you've come so far already. Don't give up now, Alex."

I put my head down on her shoulder and bury my nose in the crook of her neck, not ready to give up just yet but so ready to rest. So ready to curl up in the cocoon of our bed and enjoy the one good thing left in the world.

"Alex…"

"Hmm?"

"I need…I need to tell you…something."

"What's that, baby?"

"It's something you're not going to want to hear."

I lift my head from her shoulder, look at her face, feel the first palpitations of a cardiac episode.

"What?"

"Something I hadn't intended to tell you…"

"You're sick. You're sick again, aren't you? It's back."

"No. No, Alex. No."

"No?"

"No."

Okay. Okay, then. It couldn't be anything worse than that. There is nothing worse than that.

"So, what is it then?"

She gives my hand a final squeeze and then drops it, running her fingers through her hair and looking up towards the ceiling.

"Oh God, how can I do this?"

"Dana, what is it? It can't be that bad."

"It's bad, Alex. So…God."

A thousand possibilities bounce around in my mind but only one rises to the top and it is the only thing almost as bad as the cancer. She's leaving me. She doesn't love me and she's leaving me for Mulder. Or just for the hell of it.

But that couldn't be right. She told me she loves me. She told me. Why would she bother if it wasn't true?

"Dana, please, just tell me. You're scaring me."

She inhales a deep, shuddering breath and when she lets it out, I see a tear form in the corner of her eye. I watch it slide down her cheek as she says, "Mulder. Mulder and I…after you left, after our fight, when you…when you wanted me to leave. I…"

"You what?"

"I was so confused. So hurt. So guilty."

Oh God. No. Just…no.

"What did you do?"

"I…"

She looks up at me, openly crying now, and I know what she did. I know. And I feel the walls closing in on me, the floor swirling under me, threatening to swallow me into an abyss. My heart is beating even faster than before, and though it's about 20 degrees outside, I'm sweating and want to open the window.

But I also feel a hope, sickening in its futility, that it's not as bad as I think it is.

"I went to him, Alex."

"And?"

She just stares at me, begging me with her eyes to figure it out so she doesn't have to say it. Well maybe I have figured out, but she's not gonna get off that easily.

"Please don't hate me. Please."

"Just tell me what you did."

"Oh, Alex. I was so…I felt so lost. And I, I went to the only thing that was familiar to me."

"Dana…?"

"I spent the night with him, Alex."

My mouth dries up and my throat seems to close in on itself, and for a minute, I can't manage to utter a word.

"What does that mean? Did you….please tell me you didn't."

She just sits there, shaking and crying and not saying another damn thing. So, there it is. She fucked him. Just like I thought in the first place. I threw her out because I thought she was fucking him so what does she do? She goes and fucks him. Way to prove my point, Dana. Jesus Christ.

But what can I say, really? What am I supposed to say? I don't know what to say.

"How many times?" is what I end up saying. She continues to stare and weep.

"Once, Alex. One time," she whispers, with some indignation. As if it's an unreasonable question. As if there's something wrong with me for thinking it could possibly be more than that. What the hell am I supposed to think?

What the hell am I supposed to do? I feel like puking. And then hunting down Mulder and shoving his balls down his throat.

But Dana…God, Dana. What am I supposed to say to her? I can't even stand to look at her teary eyes anymore. I can't be angry at her when she's crying. I feel like strangling her and then I look at her and just crumble.

I stand up from the couch and move over to the kitchen table, turning my back to her so that I don't have to look at that pitiful face and feel sorry for her. Sorry for HER.

"Alex, whatever you're thinking right now, I want…I need you to remember that I love you. I always have. Nothing could change that."

An image of the two of them together, her moving on top of him, sensually, sinuously, and him lying under her with a revoltingly blissful expression on his face, pops into my mind at that moment. It's all I can do not to turn on her and ask her just what the fuck she thinks that word means.

But the frustrating part is, I know she knows what it means. And I know that she loves me. After everything we've just been through, everything she said to me earlier about her faith in me and her support, how could I even question it? And after everything she's forgiven me for, how could I begrudge her one sin?

But how could it not make me sick? How could it not make me hate?

"That…son of a bitch."

"No, Alex, don't. I went to him. As my friend, my…my lover from the past."

"I don't care, Dana! I don't care if you danced a naked mambo on his head. That fucking bastard lied to me!"

"Lied? What do you mean, lied?"

How soon we forget. I suppose that little "truce" Mulder tried to thrust on me all those months ago was as meaningless as I'd thought at the time. It sure as hell impressed her though. But now she's forgotten. She's forgotten that he told me he'd given up on her. That he was willing to let her go, let her be with me and be happy.

"It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter anymore. Worse than that, he took advantage of you, Dana."

"No, Alex, it wasn't like that."

God, please. Please just shut up, Dana. Please stop defending him and telling me you wanted it. I need to hate someone. I don't want to hate you, Dana. Please.

"Listen, I don't want you to blame him for this, Alex."

"No, of course you don't."

"Look, if I recall correctly, I was no longer allowed to sleep in our bed."

So, what, she's gotta make a whore of herself in someone else's bed two days later? Aren't there any empty beds in this place?

Oh, God, calm down. I can't let her see this.

"So, what is your point, Dana? It's not his fault, it's mine?"

"No! Alex, God. Does it have to be someone's fault all the time? It just…it happened. It's done. I did it. What the hell does it matter whose fault it is now?"

"I don't KNOW Dana! Why the hell are you telling me this now if it doesn't matter to you? Do you just wanna make me feel even shittier than I already do?"

I'm shouting now. Shouting and close to tears myself, and that just isn't good.

"No. No, Alex. I'm telling you because I have to. Because I…because I don't have the stomach flu."

She sniffles and wipes her face with the sleeve of her pajamas as I turn back to look at her.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I didn't throw up in the hall because of a stomach virus. I threw up because I….because…I'm pregnant."

We stare at each other for a good long time after that one. After a few minutes, during which I contemplate pulling my hair out strand by strand or, better yet, just jumping out the window and ending it all fast, she gives me a strange little shrug, breaking the stillness.

"Dana, I don't…I don't understand. It's not possible. You can't be."

She shrugs again and wipes some more moisture from her face.

"I am. I've run every possible test short of injecting some poor bunny rabbit with my urine, and I am, without a doubt, pregnant."

"But it's not…that's not physically possible, Dana."

"Stranger things have happened."

"Not lately."

"The point is, it's an undeniable fact. I'm pregnant."

The reality of this second earth-shattering statement she's made tonight starts to settle in a bit and for one pathetic moment, I feel sort of happy. She's going to have a baby. We're going to have a baby.

But then I remember the first statement.

"So, so you're telling me these things at the same time because…."

Her head drops and she starts chewing on her lip, a sure sign of more bad news to come.

"You're pregnant with his baby."

Heavy sigh and then a very quiet, almost inaudible, "Maybe."

"MAYBE?!"

She nods and I sink into one of the kitchen chairs, my legs unable to support me any longer.

"You and I…um, it was less than seventy-two hours after Mulder. Less than forty-eight I believe."

"Oh my God."

Oh my God. Oh God. I'm gonna be sick. I really am.

"Alex, I…I don't know what to say."

"Have you told Mu…have you told him yet?"

"No, no I haven't. I don't think I'm going to."

"Well, it's gonna be pretty hard to keep it a secret when you start blowing up like a balloon."

"No, Alex, no. I, I'm not going to keep it. I'm going to terminate the pregnancy."

"You….what?"

"Roseanne can help me. It's perfectly safe."

"No, Dana. You, you can't."

"I have to, Alex."

"I don't…I don't understand this. I don't understand any of this."

"Alex, think about it. First of all, if it is Mulder's, it might not even be human. Who knows what it might be? And then, if I have it, what if something happens? How can I bring a child into this world, Alex? When we don't even know how we're going to survive from day to day?"

"I don't…I don't know. I….God, is there anything ELSE?"

I'm half expecting her to peel off her skin and reveal the green, scaly innards or to tell me she's decided to give up resistance fighting and go to clown college. But she shakes her head, no. There's nothing else.

"I can get my things together quickly if you want me gone."

"Do you want to go? Is that why you're telling me all this? So I'll kick you out again and you can be free?"

"No. I want to stay. I need you, Alex. Now more than ever."

I slump down in the chair and rub my eyes, trying to blot her out of my vision for a minute so that I can think clearly. How the hell am I supposed to think clearly? How am I supposed to keep myself from crying or screaming or tearing the place to pieces? How did she do it when I confessed to her?

But that was different. That was about the past, about things I'd done to her years and years ago, before I even knew her. This is now. This is personal. Very personal.

After a few minutes I feel her behind me, touching my shoulders and rubbing lightly.

"I do love you, Alex. I do."

"This is just…it's a hell of a lot of shit, Dana."

"I know. I'm sorry."

She leans her head down and kisses my ear and whispers it again, "I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Isn't there some way to find out whose it is?"

"It doesn't really matter, does it? I told you, I can't in good conscience bring a child into this world."

"But what if it's mine? If it's ours? Don't you want that?"

"I-how can I, Alex?"

"What happened to don't give up? Don't you see the hope in this?"

"I've got hope. Hope is you and me. How can a child be expected to have hope being born into this world? It wouldn't even have a point of reference like we do."

I can see the logic in what she's saying. But something inside me is just screaming that this is wrong. Even if it isn't mine. Even though that would kill me. Even though I feel like I'm slowly dying right now just knowing there's a chance.

"We could give it to her. Maybe she'd be better off without that point of reference. She'd be totally new and fresh, without those expectations and needs."

"I don't know, Alex. I don't know. I just…don't know."

"Well, think about it. Please."

"I will. I will think about it. But right now, Alex, right now I need to know about something else."

She kneels in front of me and puts her hands on my thighs, looks up at me with a wide-eyed, pleading expression.

"I need to know that I have your forgiveness, Alex. Or that you will be able to forgive me in time, if not now. I need to know that you want to try."

Forgiveness. You are so good at that, Dana. I am not. I am not good at forgiving or forgetting. And right now…right now the images are assailing my mind, twisting and turning like some surrealistic, pornographic slide show. How am I supposed to touch her again without seeing this crap? How am I supposed to give her what she has given me so easily? How am I supposed to look at her and not hurt?

I want to forgive you, Dana. Please tell me how.

End Chapter Two
Continued in Chapter Three

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