From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 17:59:54 -0500 Subject: becoming judas (1/12) by darkstar Source: direct Reply To: clone347@aol.com from: darkstar (clone347@aol.com) rating: pg-13 violence classification: msr, angst, post-colonization disclaimer: inserted here is the obligatory "not mine, never were and i'm not making any money" speech for the benefit of all those greedy Fox executives, *none* of which will be on *my* Christmas card list. :) thank yous : a world of thanX to Suzanna, Christine, and LixyQ Ziut for their patience, encouragment, and words of wisdom on this. you guys are awesome! note : This is set in an alternate universe in which the events of SUZ and Closure never happened. I intended to write it as, among other things, a possible conclusion to the Samantha arc. That unpredictable Chris Carter changed things, but the story was already finished. So, for all intents, and purposes, Samantha is still alive when our story opens up. summary: In the nightmarish realm of earth after colonization, Mulder is offered everything he wants if he betrays everything he has ever believed. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - becoming judas 1/12 darkstar - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Two thin bracelets of blood adorned his wrists, only slightly less garish than the tight metal handcuffs that bit into his flesh. He shoved the pain they caused in the same place he stowed the rest of the agony drowing his body. His teeth sank into the soft skin inside his lip, trying to keep from crying out as his captor jerked him forward, embedding the steel even deeper into his wrists. Another slant and it would be fatal. He found the thought oddly pleasant. Quick, painless death would be a sweet mercy compared to the horror waiting for him behind the unmarked door at the end of the hall. The Chamber. The place where they took you when you weren't coming back. The place where you could scream all you wanted but relief never came. Evil radiated from that room. Like it radiated from the man dragging him inch by inch into the darkness. "No...please mister...I haven't done anything wrong...." His fear doused the dying embers of heroism and he began to blubber like a baby. "Please m-mister...i'm just thirteen... !Please!" The man might as well be deaf. The dull thud of his boots on the cement floor never quickened, never slowed, each step multiplying the boy's terror a hundred fold. His captor wore the flesh and blood mantle of a man, but humanity was one trait long dead to the flat hazel eyes staring so intently into space. The boy bowed his head, a film of tears that he could not wipe away filling his eyes. They blurred his vision, like he was looking at the world through a water drop, until they escaped in hot rivers down his cheeks. He may be old enough to hold a rifle and fight in the Resistance but he was too young to die. Too young... They paused a moment at the door, just long enough for the man to punch in a four digit acess code. The metal panel slid open. The boy wished he had enough food in his belly to throw up, to purge the bitter taint of terror from the back of his throat. He wished his lungs would unfreeze so he could scream or breathe or cry or even pray.... His captor let go of his shackles and shoved him into the room. The boy half-ran, half-stumbled a few steps before collapsing to his knees, retching violently. His eyes rolled back, wide with terror, reeling around the room in a drunken arch. Actual human beings were in the room...old men in suits staring at him in frigid detachment, devoid of any sympathy for another of their race. Other "humans" began to mutate reveal hideous creatures with smooth grey skin lined with a thin layer of slime and huge obsidian black eyes. Eyes that seemed to suck in all the light in the room. Then one of them moved. His brain shrieked for him to run, to flee, to escape the pure menace of the eyes and the alien behind them. His body refused to move, transfixed with utter horror as four inch claws slid out on the creature's fingertips, glinting in the dim light. His pulse beat faster and faster and faster until all he could hear was the thunder of his heart echoing through his brain as the thing slit it's own wrist, holding it so the blood fell on him. The boy tried to squirm away, but there was no way to avoid the oily black liquid that splattered his shirt. It was cold...slick...*alive*. He realized in horror that it was moving, pooling over his rib cage. Then it melted into his skin. A searing pain ripped up from his gut like a bolt of lightening before exiting his body in a shriek more animal than human. He could feel...*them*...a thousand tiny worms crawling through his body. He saw them burrowing under his skin...up his arms....into his brain.... The boy's screaming was cut short as the virus invaded his brain, rendering him a twitching heap of flesh and bone on the floor. The alien cocked his head in mild curiosity then his face resolved back into his human form and he rejoined his comrades. From the shadows of a corner the man watched the nightmare from behind the chiseled stone mask of one who had grown accustomed to horror. It wasn't until after the medics came in, loading the body onto a cryolitter for transportation to any one of the many gestation facilities that he stepped into the light. "I believe you owe me something." he said, his voice soft like the whisper of a dagger along satin and just as dangerous. One of the humans, a pasty old man smoking his third cigarette of the meeting, nodded, a smile of vague satisfaction creasing his worn face. "Indeed we do." He inhaled smoke from his cigarette and let it trail in gray tendrils out his nose. "You can pick up the bounty at the door, *Agent* Mulder." Mockery was a privilege belonging to the victors. And he had, after all, defeated his nemesis, turned the bloodhound into a lap dog running forth at beck and call. Mulder nodded in deference then turned and silently left the room, blind to the child's blood smearing the floor behind him. ************* Ten months earlier: The room was filled with the sticky-sweet odor of sweat, dust, and stale air as old as the building itself. Sunlight filtered in through numerous cracks and chinks in the walls and flooded in from the windows, transforming the room into a tawny landscape of golden light and gray-brown shadow. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face as she divided her attention between the street and the gun she was cleaning. The sun outside burned her eyes and the metal burned her fingertips, but by now she was used to both. This was her ritual, one of the only things she made routine anymore. The simple act of rubbing away dust then reloading was valuable far beyond the better protection a well-cared for weapon would bring. The feel of her gun in her hand was a constant reminder that Dana Scully could still control something in her life. Outside the noon sun poured out its wrath on the scarred face of a dying world, leeching to color from the landscape until all that remained was the tan of dried out soil and the sickly blackish-green of trees that had gone far too long without rain. The sky was an unforgiving blue, and cloudless, giving the illusion of peace when there was none to be found. The little town was trapped somewhere between the brown and the blue, a dusty collection of buildings as worn as the rest of the landscape. A paved road reminiscent of a time long passed away snaked towards it then curved away at the last moment, as if to avoid the town if possible. The whole scene looked like a cut out from an old Western movie. Maybe they were out west. All the terrain looked the same nowadays. The people mirrored the buildings- weather-beaten and tired. Even the young looked old, and the old seemed ancient. She knew that all but the youngest children would bear the memories of a time short eternities ago when each of them had better lives- real jobs, plenty of food, clean water. Those memories were something like fairy tales now, told at night to wide-eyed toddlers who couldn't imagine such luxury. There were other stories as well. Stories of the silver craft that swooped down from the heavens, of the swarms of bees spreading a new Black Death over the face of the earth, of the nightmares that rose from the very bodies of anyone who became ill. Of highly sophisticated methods of genocide, aided by some who even dared to call themselves human. Of near extinction, prevented only by complete and unconditional surrender. She knew these were stories the children did not hear. Life was bleak enough for them the way it was. They did not hear that half of them would be taken to laboratories or sold as slaves before they reached the age of twelve. Nor were they told about Earth's growing attempts at covert resistance, for it might plant seeds of free thought in their minds. Horror of horrors, she thought to herself, the bitterness in her mind never disturbing the mask of calm over her face. Free thought was dangerous not only for the individual but for the entire community. The very fact that the town was still in existence meant that the people had sacrificed much to survive, too much to cash it all in on some hollow dream of freedom. Not to mention that any aid to "counter-revolutionaries" would result in the annhilation of every man, woman and child without mercy. That was the very reason she read suspicion and downright hostility on those who noticed her watching them. Scully didn't suppose she could blame them. If it was her family on the line she'd be wary of strangers too. But then all the family she had left was the resistance. Her sole baby was the Sig Sauer 9 mm her fingers caressed so lovingly. She could hollow out a nickel from five hundred yards easily. She considered herself a good mother. Counter-revolutionaries. Such a nice, positive sounding way to condemn thousands of dissidents to any one of a hundred deaths. And most of them merely perceived threats slated to be weeded out just to be cautious. Not like her. She was a real threat, or at least the Colonists seemed to think so, and as a result there was not a place in the whole planet safe for her. Not even this little town, as sleepy as it seemed. She turned away from the street, finished with her task for today, to see a chipped mirror. The view startled her, and her reflection jumped when she did. Had it been three months since she had last seen a mirror, or four ? Not, she thought to herself, that there was much of anything to see. Dulled hair, falling just to the bottom of her shoulder blades, dyed brown and pinned away from her face with two somber black barrettes. Paper thin skin that had long ago lost it's ivory pale to the sun and sand and wind. A simple charcoal gray dress barely managing to hang onto a gaunt frame that bordered skeletal. Eyes the color of faded blue satin. It was like a stranger had inhabited her body. Only her eyes remained the same, and yet even they were different, haunted by the years of one who has seen too much too soon. She rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the musty maroon quilt, and emptied the contents of her lungs in a long, slow sigh. For her, life after colonization was something of an let down. It had taken so long to arrive and then it was over so fast she found herself wondering exactly when her life had collapsed into this depressing montone of existence. When Mulder came to get her from her apartment, at the very beginning of things, with a story that she didn't want to believe? When it turned out he was right, and they could never go home because of the price on both their head ? When she had found what was left of her family's bodies and together with Mulder killed the monsters that had gestated from them? The thrill was definitely gone and now even the jagged arrows of reality failed to penetrate her defenses. Or at least never enough where she'd let it show. There was a creak of wood and a blast of hotter air as the door opened and footsteps padded across the floor. Her fingers curled around her gun, bringing to up dead level with the intruder's chest as the rest of her body twisted around to see who it was. A breath later, the tension in her eyes drained away and she dropped the gun beside her. "Mulder...." His name fell from her lips as a sigh more weary than she had ever wanted. Truth be told, she was bone tired. Tired of running and hiding, and pretending to be someone she wasn't just because there was a price on her head. Tired of town after dirty town, night after night spent on the ground or in cheap motels. So tired but he didn't have to know. "Aw c'mon Scully." White teeth flashed out of the stubble covering his chin as he tossed her a smile. "You don't have to sound *that* happy to see me." She smiled in return but it barely reached her lips. Mulder watched her out of the corner of his vision as he set the brown paper bag that held dinner on the table. It was still strange to see her like this, a long-haired brunette, but the disguise was necessary. Up until now he had thought it was working. They had been running so long, and he could feel more than see her weariness. She wasn't the only one that wanted to stop. He had nutured the tiniest of hopes that this time, this town. they could find a resting place, if only for a little while. His face fell into a grimace as he studied the piece of white paper in his hands. That hope was gone. "What is it Mulder?" Her voice pentrated his thoughts, already sensing something was wrong. She knew him too well for either of their goods at times. "When I went out to get supplies I found this posted in the town square." Without turning around he handed her the paper, unable to face her reaction to the fact that the hunters had caught up with them once again. Scully's first impluse was to scream, then to bolt for the door and never stop running. She didn't move. Or make a sound, as her eyes studied the black lines of print with a practiced detachment. WANTED FOR HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE STATE !!! The headline shouted the words out like a medieval herald in tall, bold lettering. Underneath was two names, and two sketches of the crimnals. Dana Scully was on the left side. Fox Mulder was on the right. Anger at the injustice of it all closed her fist around the sign, crumpling it into a little ball. Mulder was waiting, back turned, for her answer. "Sketch artists these days." She shook her head and tried to infuse a casualness that wasn't there into her words. "I look at least twenty pounds heavier than I am and did you see what they did to your nose?" It was like a heavy weight had been lifted off the room, and he turned around, smiling wryly. "It can't be much of an exaggeration there." Scully laughed out loud just to prove to herself that she could. The sound tinkled like broken glass across the air then shattered into silence. She took a deep breath and freed a nagging question from her mind. "When do we leave ?" "Tomorrow." Mulder hated himself for having to break the news, but better him than a Colonist Bounty Hunter. "It's too dangerous to stay here long. I tore down all the posters I could find but I might have missed one. Someone could ID us." "I thought we'd be safe here." Scully heard herself accuse him but it wasn't him she was angry with. It was the faceless men who dangled her life on a very short chain. He stopped unpacking as her words cut straight to his bone. "I thought we were." She stood to her feet and crossed the room to stand beside him, the floor warm on her bare feet. "Where to this time?" She rearragned the ration containers into a little pyramid as she talked, an old trick she had learned to avoid full impact of a situation. You take your mind off it by little meaningless things that don't require thought. Not thinking can be a good thing. "South, I think. Try and make the border. The Colonists have much less of a presence in South America." It was a good idea. The thinking part of her brain quickly dissected it and found no fault. "How close are they this time?" He shrugged. "I'm not sure. I'm betting they still don't know we're here or we'd be sweating bullets right now. Could be they're just fishing for leads. I mean, you have to admit, your disguise has worked everywhere so far." "Huh." Scully half-smiled. "I've almost fooled myself." A little voice in her head reminded her again that the situation at hand needed to be dealt with, and she sank into a chair. "So we leave tonight." Personally she hated the thought of spending another night running through the desert, but survival came with a price and this was just one part of it. "As soon as it's dark." Mulder regarded her carefully before he answered. They had been on the run for nearly a year, but the past month had been the hardest yet. Most of the time they had ran at night and slept during the day, on foot because the few cars left attracted unwanted notice. Sometimes capture had seemed inevitable but they had always escaped. Not once had he heard Scully even say she was tried. He should have known that was a sign that the strain was catching up with her, that she was becoming exhausted. Mulder kicked himself for not noticing it earlier. Of all their enemies, exhaustion was one of the most deadly because not only did it sap your strength, it drained your mind and made you lose focus. Losing focus led to mistakes. Mistakes led down a one way road to the prison camps. "No." he said, noticing the surprise arch in her eyebrows. "We can leave tomorrow morning. It'll give us both time to rest up." Nothing changed about her expression, except a subtle shift in her eyes, the color melting from light blue to sapphire for one instant. She liked the idea. "Fine with me." A shadow of worry crossed her forehead. "What if a bounty hunter shows up in the mean time?" He smiled as he pulled his sawed-off shotgun from out of the shopping bag and checked to see if it was loaded. "We'll be ready." It was his new weapon of choice, although Scully preferred to stick with her Bureau-issue handgun. His gun was harder to conceal, but it made up for it by the raw firepower. He could keep her safe this time, with this gun. Setting the weapon carefully on the table, he picked up one of the ration boxes and tossed it to Scully. "So, what do you want for dinner- beans, beans, or beans?" ************* Boss Gordon was the Marlboro Man aged a couple years past billboard prime. His hair remained jet black, but the stubble of his beard was salt-and-pepper gray. His skin was weathered until it was like leather or the hide of one of the deer he sometimes killed. There was no mistaking the intelligence glinting in his sharp black eyes, or the strength in the muscles rippling his skin. The man watched his face carefully, looking for any reaction to the wanted poster he had handed him a moment ago. "The man, he is familiar, but the woman could be anyone." Gordon drawled, his hand running up and down the length of his shot gun at the same time. It was an action no doubt designed to make strangers nervous but the man had been around guns longer than he could remember and it was more amusing than disturbing. "We've had some strangers here recently, but I can't rightly say they fit this here description." "Then you'll be doubly interested in what I have to say. Both are here. Staying in that motel right across the street." The man gestured to the boarding house. "And we both know how serious that could be for your town." If the news shocked Gordon at all, he recovered before it showed, more angry than afraid. He picked up his shot gun and clicked the safety off it. "Why don't we just go see about that ?" he growled. "If you're right, us locals will take care of them fine. No need to bring your people in on it. We're law-abiding, loyal citizens. We have our own ways of taking care of trouble." The man laid one hand on Gordon's shoulder in a gesture meant to show comraderie. "I don't see the need to work it any other way." He smiled broadly. "Think of this as nothing more than advice from a friend. But as a friend, I say wait until night. She shoots like a sniper and he has eyes like one. If they so much as get a hint you're coming, you'll be faced with a small battle trying to bring either of them in alive." The man glanced over at the boarding house. "Chances are he'll be picking your men off through the window while she'll be running out the back, if he can convince her to leave- which isn't likely. The two of them have taken down more than their share of strike teams." "You talk like you have personal experience." "Let's just say I have had some scores to settle with both for quite some time." Gordon forced himself to relax and regarded the man in new eyes.He was near six feet, with eyes that shifted between almond and coal black, like a jungle cat. Gordon decided that's what the man was, a predator long used to the thrill of the chase. But the hunt had cost him something, so he noticed. The hand that held his shoulder was real enough but the other was shiny like plastic. Krycek noticed Gordon's scrutiny and released his shoulder to pull the glove tighter over his prothestic hand. He turned to find the cantina and a pretty girl. The hard part of his job was over. Now all he had to do was sit back and watch the fireworks. ************* The night was restless, hot and too silent for either of their tastes. Scully lay in the bed, pretending to attempt sleep, but instead watched Mulder as he paced back and forth across the room, the moonlight slipping through the blinds to paint stripes across him. She could see his face twisted into the familiar grimace of deep thought, his teeth pulling at the skin of his lower lip as the wheels of his mind raced at warp speed. The muscles in his arms and shoulders were tensed. He was worrying again, for her, for both of them. Once he got started, he'd be at it all night. "Mulder." Her voice was soft in the darkness, a whisper. "C'mon and get some sleep." It had been awkward at first, sharing a bed, but after about three weeks of taking turns with floor shifts they had both decided it was the easiest way. Besides, she trusted him where she wouldn't trust any other man and knew that if anything besides sleep was on his mind, he would keep it to himself. He stopped to face her. "You're supposed to be asleep Scully." His voice chided her gently. "And you're not ?" She sat up in bed, her hair falling around her face in a wave of tangled curls. Mulder was glad it was night so she couldn't see him staring. *She is so....* Words were elusive and hard to find. All that he knew was she looked like a silver goddess in the moonlight, and he didn't know whether to hold her or worship her. He settled on watching her, but it wasn't nearly the same. "No. One of us has to keep watch. It might as well be me." His voice left no room for argument. She might as well let him play the white knight....goodness knows her body craved the rest. His reply melted into the thick and heavy silence of a dark summer night. She brushed a rebellious strand of hair out of her face before she spoke again. "Do you ever get tired?" she asked him. "Not sleep tired. Tired of the running and the killing." "Every day of my life." "I always feel like I need to wash my hands." she said, holding her hands out in front of her. "Like the blood won't come off, even after it's gone." Scully looked up at him. "In the past month I've killed more men than I ever did in my whole FBI career. And the thing is, now I don't even know why I'm killing them. For survival? For this?" She gestured around the room. "Is it really worth the death?" "Don't think of them as men, Scully." Mulder told her quietly. "We do what we have to do to fight back. That's what it's all about. Not just survival." "Life has to be better than this somewhere, doesn't it? Some place where we can be normal again." Normal. She had only dim memories to remind her what the word even meant. "I don't know about you but I never did fit the normal description all that well." Mulder sat down on the bed beside her, easily covering her tiny hand in his. "I know what you mean though." His voice was low and urgent, like honey over gravel, the only "normal" thing left in her world. "And we can find that place." It was not an idle wished breathed into air. It was a solemn promise. "Far away from this wasteland and this death. And you won't have to wash away the blood." "Sounds good to me." She smiled faintly. "Let me know when you get there, okay?" "Why can't you ever believe me?" Mulder asked her, noting the wistful glow behind her eyes. "You want to, but you don't." The curves of her lips flipped downward in a frown and she pulled her hand away. "You're right. I want to, Mulder, but I find it a little hard. We've had extremely good luck this long, and idle dreams aren't going to keep us out of the camps." He started to interrupt her, but she silenced him by placing one finger on his lips. Her hand dug under her pillow until she found her gun. Holding it up, she let the metal drink in the moonlight. "This is our future Mulder. You can dress it up, and idealize it, and pretend we're fighting for the greater good all you want, but this is it. This is us. We will run and we will fight and we will kill until we die and then it will be over. Or even worse we'll be shipped off to one of those death camps they scare children with rumors about. You'll be executed and I'll be dissected. One lab rat, coming up." She traced the metal edge with her finger. "Those who live by the gun...." She placed the barrel against her temple. "Die by the gun." Mulder closed his hand around hers, lowering the gun until it sat in her lap. "Point taken." She redefined stubborn, and it hurt to see her falter under a world of burdens simply because she insisted on carrying them all herself. "Scully." He cupped the side of her face in his hand, knowing that the heat of her words was not meant for him, but for the same people he cursed in his nightmares. "Go to sleep. You're tired, and you're angry, and it makes for a bad combination. Don't even think about the camps. You aren't going there. I won't let you." The intense sincerity in his tone crumbled her walls just enough for her body to remind her of the overwhelming urge to sleep. Mulder was right. She could keep herself safe. And if she ever faltered, he could keep her safe too. He always did. She squeezed his hand one last time and then sank back against the pillows. "G'night Mulder." she murmured, already slipping into dreamland. "Wake me...if you....tired." Her eyelids floated shut and she was in oblivion. He was loathe to leave her side. The empty half of the bed beckoned him, making him keenly aware of how long it'd been since he slept through the night. There was no one else to keep watch, but if he just closed his eyes and rested for fiteen minutes what harm could it do....Mulder was halfway to the pillow when he jerked away, rubbing his eyes with his hands. Sleep was not an option, no matter how seductive. He picked up his gun and resumed his path across the floor, not even bothering to cover his yawn. It was going to be a long night. ************* The air was clogged with smoke and fog and death, the lining of his throat burning more and more with every stolen breath. A wall of fire, worked it's way up the streets of downtown Washington DC, devouring everything in it's path. Mulder was running down the street as fast as he could, just one body in a sea of panicked humans although he alone was pushing against the flood, pushing toward the fire despite the fear that ate his stomach like acid. Overhead, the stars fell to earth, taking the form of spaceships. So much for the truth being *out there*. It was here. And he didn't care. All he felt was fear of the fire, but even that succumbed to concern for the woman whose hand he had somehow lost in the confusion. "Scully!!!" His cry was swallowed up by the roar of the fire and the screaming of the crowd. Where was she? How could she have slipped away so easily? The waves of people parted before him as if by magic, just enough so he could see her. She slumped unmoving on the pavement even as the fire drew closer and closer. Mulder shoved his way toward her with renewed intensity, desperate to reach her. His throat clenched in horror as man came walking out of an alley scarce feet away from the fire, his attention focused solely on Scully. Mulder could only watch as he lifted her helpless body into his arms, her blood soaking his clothing. The man looked at Mulder, his face split in a leering grim. It wasn't just any traitor. This Judas had a name, had a face. "Leave her alone Krycek!" His curses, prayers, and threats were lost in the pandimonium, but her scream scraped against the burnt velvet of the sky to echo in his ears as the crowd surged ahead, pushing him away from her. "Mulder!" The crack of a gunshot drowned her scream. ************ The sound bridged the void between his nightmares and reality, jolting him awake as the report of the gun shot slid like a bolt of lightening down his spine. His eyes flew open, adjusting to the darkness, even as his hand grasped for a gun that wasn't there. < !!Wasn't there!!>. In the murky black he could barely make out the shapes of strange bodies crowding the room, of a dark mass falling away from Scully, clutching his stomach as two came to take his place. The thunder of her gun spit bullets amid yellow sparks, but the larger of the two men grabbed her wrist and wrenched it away from her. "Make the little witch pay !" a rough voice came from the darkness. "She killed Bernie and Tomas is wounded too." The next thing Mulder heard was Scully's scream of rage as the goons rushed to follow orders, the guttural cry quickly changing into a sound of pain as her slight frame kicked and writhed against the larger men. Adrenaline mixed with the sudden fury of a typhoon cauterized his veins, propelling him through the hands that reached for him, onto the bed. Mulder let his momentum carry his foot full force into the solar plexus of the nearest enemy, deflating him like an oversized balloon. He grasped Scully's shoulder's and pulled her close to him, barely managing to hang on as the second man slammed a meaty fist into his face. Shaking his head to sling the blood away from his eyes, he felt her fingernails sliding down his arms and realized they were trying to drag her away again. A torrent of words poured from her mouth, either cursing or praying. Probably both since he didn't recognize any of *those* adjectives from the Hail Mary. She screamed again, a cry born not of fear but of anger, and he found himself cursing too as her body slid against her will closer to the edge of the bed and the shadow strangers. Their hands met in one last desperate effort, fingers lacing until the joints were white. Scully became the focal point for a human tug-of-war. Her face was turned toward him, whiter than the sheets beneath them, but her eyes shone for one instant with something beside anger. They glowed bright with one stab of terror that pierced him to the core as her fingers begin to slip away. It was a heroic battle but one they had lost from the start. Strong hands surrounded him, pummeling his body like so many iron mallets as they pried his fingers loose. He was losing his grip....and in a heartbeat she was gone, wrenched away as a giant shadow hauled her off the bed by her ankles. There was an audible *thunk* as her head struck the wooden floor, followed by the sickening thud of a boot striking flesh. "Take that, sow." Another thud, this time followed by her sharp gasp and a mangled curse hurled defiantly at the man. Sheer hatred turned Mulder's blood to fire, and he lunged toward the tall brute that had kicked her, planning to crack his skull open and present his brain to Scully on a silver platter. He never made it. There were too many others, waiting to pin his arms behind him and shove him to the floor. His face collided with the floor in a solid smack, knocking the contents of his brain around. Under the bed he had a clear view to Scully, just in time to see the ogre pull her up by her hair onto her knees. His hand snaked out toward the edge of the bed, hoping to pull away, but a heavy bone crushed his effort and almost did the same to his fingers. The same boot or one much similar to it delivered a punishing kick to his ribs, emptying his lungs of air. Mulder abadoned all hope of resistance in favor of another breath of air, gasping as his arms were twisted back behind his back with such force the joints popped. Something rough like rope chagged the skin of his wrists, nearly cutting off the circulation, as a voice hissed in his ear. "You want to see what's going on ? Fine. We can watch it together." The floor slid away underneath him as he was dragged past the edge of the bed, out to where he could see what the giant and his friends were doing. The giant was taking his turn in the fun, and from what Mulder could see he had forced Scully to her knees in front of the man she shot. A large pool of blood was collecting on the man's chest, and her muscles quivered as she tried to resist the man's efforts to push her face in it. "You see this? That man was my brother. He had a wife. And a kid." Even the moonlight couldn't soften the ugly hate written across the man's features. "You wanna take a good look at what you done? C'mon, a little blood never hurt anyone." Scully turned her face to the side as the nauseating smell of warm blood hit her head on. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Mulder straining against no less than five men, could see dark lines of crimson begin to form around his wrists as the rope rubbed away his skin. She had to get out of this nightmare before the giant had her face in the blood. She paused for a moment, gathering her strength, and then whipped her whole body to the side, out of the man's hold. Scully rolled to her left, snapping her leg out to catch the man in the stomach. He grunted, doubling over, and she used the opportunity to swipe his left leg out from under him, toppling him like an overgrown bush. Face down onto his brother's body. Shock of what she had done numbed her senses until she found herself on her feet, the joints in her arms screaming as two men bound her hands behind her back. The giant rose to his feet, blood dripping from his face and hands, then lunged at her with nothing less than murder in his eyes. Out of the darkness the familiar shadow of Mulder's body appeared in front of her. She could see his muscles tense as the man's fist connected with his body, the force behind the punch sending them both onto the floor. Obviously certain members of the crowd were beginning to worry about the survival of their prisoners, because she found herself yanked to her feet once more and swiftly herded toward the door. The rope around Mulder's wrists bit into his raw flesh as the men jerked him forward, the static electricity of pain doing little to clear his head. All that remained of consciousness was a cumbersome burden, a view of the world dominated by tiny red balls of pain dancing before his eyes. His lower lip was split in two by the giant's final punch, and now the metallic tang gagged him as he began to choke on his own blood. His feet began moving down the stais but the rest of his body wasn't as willing to please, his legs folding under him halfwar down. He didn't even have time to regain his beath before two hands clamped around his neck in a bruising grip and hauled him up. "What's the matter *rebel*?" A voice sneered. "Can't take a little pain?" Mulder's mind staggered back a couple steps with the implications of the thoughts. So that's what this was about. They had been discovered. A cold chill started at the base of neck and slithered like icy tentacles down his spine. Rebels. The five letter word spelled their death sentence. The door burst open under someone's foort and the part spilled out into the street. The glow of at least a hundred torches painted the dancing shadows of a mob on the walls of the buildings. A very angry mob. Even the faces of the children were twisted in hatred, as they shouted for the rebels to be murdered in ways that it shocked Mulder children even knew. Something small and soft brushed against his arm. Scully. There was a cut on her forehead that dripped blood in crimson rivulets down her face. Her hands were tied behind her back. She met his gaze, residual anger simmering in her eyes. Mulder was amazed that she wasn't afraid. He hadn't been, until now. Now he was terrified because the reality was beginning to sink in that she was going to die in front of him and he could do nothing to save her. He only prayed that her death would be quick, painless. That they wouldn't make him watch. "Scully, I'm sor-" His words were cut off as a rope collar landed around his neck, yanking him forward to his knees. An overripe tomato landed on the ground in front of him, splattering red goo all over his shirt and pants. The crowd cheered. A strangled cry cut under the noise and Scully landed on her side in front of him, chest heaving as she wrestled with the noose for breath. An egg sailed through the air and hit her head, oozing the contents down her hair and neck. "Get up!" The vigilante on the other end of Mulder's rope demanded, pulling so that pressure began to build on his windpipe. Mulder scrambled to his feet, waiting for Scully to do the same. She didn't. She tried, she really did, struggling until she was on one knee, but it wasn't fast enough for them. A boot caught her in the shoulder from behind, sending her flying as far as the rope would allow. Mulder recognized the giant from upstairs as the man delivered a brutal kick to her stomach. This time, she didn't even move, just lay with her face pressed into the dust to muffle her groan. The blood from her forehead turned the dirst around her into scarlet mud. "Leave her alone!" Mulder lunged forward only to be pulled back at the end of the length of rope. He tried again, throwing all his weight into it, until suddenly the man's grip was loose enough for him to pull free. He stumbled to her side, shielding her body with his own as he drew up to his full height and stared her tormentor dead in the eye. It was not a request. It was an order. "Leave her alone." The man cussed violently and spit in Mulder's face. "Don't make requests....the filth killed my brother!" The man punctuated his statment with a crushing blow to Mulder's already sore ribs. Mulder felt his knees weaken but forced himself to remain standing. "Leave. her. alone." It took all of his energy to repeat just those three words, to continue defiance. He had faced men like these before, overgrown bullies drunk with power and fed by rage and he would not back down. The man's fist drew back again like a loaded gun and Mulder tensed for a blow that never came. Instead the man dropped his fist and stalked away. "Let Boss Gordon decide how we gonna kill 'em." he growled. Mulder allowed his lungs to breathe again. Boss Gordon, he remembered, was the leader of the town. A reasonable man, or so he hoped. Prehaps he could work a deal, persuade him to let Scully go. He had plunged willingly into this crusade, and dragged her along with him. She had never once wanted out. She had never quit. She of all people deserved anything but this. He turned back toward her, watching her scramble to her feet as best she could, grating coughs wracking her body with each attempt at movement. Moving as close to her as possible, he supported her weight with his shoulders, pushing her up until she was standing, albeit leaning heavily on his shoulder. "Are you all right?" That was all he had time to say. She nodded and then the ropes pulled them forward, straight into the thick of the crowd. Mulder took a deep breath and braced himself for the inevitable. ************* Scully didn't know how much longer she could stay on her feet. It seemed every human being- she used the term quite loosely at this point- wanted a piece of the "criminals". Pieces of rotted fruit, eggs, and even stones pelted them from all angles. She heard curse words she didn't even think existed hurled in her direction. Some of the men, smiling lewdly, reached for her dress, tearing the cloth as she stumbled by. She twisting to avoid their reach, too concerned about how she was going to walk to fight back. Every step jarred her body like she was on the rack. But once she hit the ground in this mob, Scully harbored no illusions that she would be getting up again. Mulder fought back for her, shoving his body in between hers and their hands, snarling curses and even spitting in their faces. His stand earned him more than his fair share of their abuse; his face was beginning to take on the color of a bruised melon. Scully felt both immensely guilty and intensely grateful. Every stolen touch brought the bitter tang of bile to the back of her throat. It was her fault- if she could just get the world to stop spinning she could tell him that she could take care of herself. She wanted to, but the simple truth was that for right now he was all that stood between her and the crowd. Both of them knew that, which was why he hovered around her like a misplaced guardian angel. Twice she stumbled, nearly falling. Twice he was right there under her to push her right back up. Her whole body was becoming numb, tired of the punishment and detaching itself from the pain. She only wanted to fall, to sink to the ground and never move again no matter how much they beat her. He wouldn't let her give up. She owed it to him to keep going. She owed it to herself. Scully pushed the crowd, the torches, the night out of her mind, and latched her gaze onto Mulder like a drowning woman clinging to a life line. One step. Another step. Life had gone from complex to simple in a matter of moments. It had ceased to be filled with the worry of how to escape, where to go, and become nothing more than the motion of putting one foot in front of the other. It seemed one moment longer than eternity, but the crowd parted around them and they were standing on the edge of town. Beyond them for miles piled on endless miles stretched the desert, and a sky full of glittering stars. The moon was full. It was a beautiful night to die. For one moment hope coursed through her veins, giving her new strength. Prehaps they were simply going to be beaten and then turned out into the desert. Alive. They knew how to survive...they'd done it before. All hope was dashed when she saw Mulder's face, the unbridled horror bleeding from his eyes. She traced his gaze to the far outskirts of town, when two objects stood straight as sentinels against the night sky, surrounded by piles of dry grass and brushwood. Two stakes. With flaming torches planted in the dirt on either side. She closed her eyes and begged God to kill them now. to be continued. . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - becoming judas: 2/12 darkstar - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - She felt a tremor of fear pass over her body and knew that she was shaking. A glance at Mulder brought relief that he had not noticed, that he too was staring at the stakes. Just two seemingly insignificant pieces of wood, surrounded by even more insignificant brush and grass. When all was said and done, the most horrible deaths were the most commonplace. Here they were, fugitives from the government of the next millenium and beyond, and their fate would be almost perfectly similar to the fate of many during the middle ages who had stood apart from the masses. Even in a world ruled by aliens, the basics never changed. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. She had never planned on *dying* for the cause, things had just worked out that way, but at least she had Mulder with her... Scully choked on her next breath as she remembered. They couldn't burn Mulder- they couldn't. Let them do whatever they wanted to her, but not to him. Not this. Her heart began to pound wildly in her chest, first with frustration, quickening into out and out anger. "Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, you stand accused of high treason, of aiding the rebellion, and the murder of one of my people. The penalty for that is death." A gruff voice snapped her attention to the man standing in front of them, flanked by two others, each armed. The man himself was unarmed. "In your treachery you have endangered the lives of everyone in this village. What do you have to say to these charges?" She recognized him as Boss Gordon. The man who held their lives in his hands. "I am a member of the resistance." Mulder spoke up before she could open her mouth. "I make no apologies." An wave of angry shouts rippled across the crowd, along with cries of "Burn him! Burn them both!" Gordon held up one hand and all was again silent. Mulder plowed right ahead, spinning a lie he silently begged Scully to go along with. "She is innocent." He looked at her in rank disgust. "As innocent as a government spy can be." The contempt melted into pride. "I captured her, and was taking her to my superiors for questioning." Scully's mouth dropped open to form a perfect O. He had his moments of insanity, but this....this was unacceptable. If she died, she died. Living alone would be just as bad. "He's lying." She said, the hot strength of anger pushing her forward. "I'm every bit as resistance as he is." "Scully!" Mulder hissed her name, his voice razor sharp. "What are you doing ?" She ignored him, turning toward Gordon. "We are rebels. If you can call it that. You talk of treason, of treachery...well let me tell you something of treachery! *Treachery* is when human beings turn against human beings, when they are willing to destroy them for the simple crime of standing up to oppression! *Treason* is when we hunt each other down like cattle for a government who thinks of us all as nothing more than pests to be exterminated!" Scully whirled to face the crowd, jabbing her finger in their direction accusingly. Mulder watched in stark admiration as her blue eyes hurled electricity down on the mob. This was his Scully in full battle armor, and he never ceased to be amazed. "You are the traitors here. You think yourselves so brave with your guns and your vendettas. In truth you are but cowards! Weakened dogs, killing off those who are different from what you will never be. You can kill us, but it will not change your state at all." Her voice was calmer now, as the eruption faded away. "We may die tonight. But you will die every day for the rest of your miserable lives." She was finished. Nothing more to say, no more strength to say it with. She turned her back on the crowd, desperation beginning to creep back into her eyes as she waited for Gordon's decision. The whole world was silent. He shifted in his stance, his eyes meeting hers in a mix of regret and steel. "Kill them." That said, he turned and walked back into a building, taking all her resolve with him. His words struck her like a physical blow, and she stood with her head bowed for a moment before looking up at the only thing she wanted to see. Mulder could barely look at her. The face of death was in no way as crushing as the complete despair rampant on her features. But he could no more look away than cease breathing, held captive by her eyes. One tear slid down the side of her face, carving a path through the dirt and the blood. It carved a gash right down his soul as well. He hardly felt the crushing grip of the men pushing him to the stake, barely acknowledged the burning on his skin as they re-tied his wrists behind him. Another length of rope lashed his ankles to the wood. It didn't matter. She filled his gaze and mind and soul so completely, that even death was momentarily forgotten. They were not dragging her. Scully was *walking*. Slowly, stately, more like a queen surrounded by her court rather than a martyr condemned to die. The monsters hovered around her, waiting for her to try an escape. She didn't. She walked up the stake and drew herself up to full height, staring straight ahead as they tied her. Her arm was no more than a foot away from his. So close... but too far away. The men were going for the torches now. What were his last words going to be? "Scully..." He called her name in a whisper, and she turned her head until she could see him. Scully could almost feel the torture in his eyes. She knew she could take the pain of dying but she couldn't sit and listen to him take the blame for it. "Mulder, don't." "Don't what?" "Apologize." She smiled sadly. "You're not responsible. I'm here for the same reasons I always was. Because I want to be." "I wouldn't mind dying this way if it could save you." It was true, but his thoughts were a thousand miles from his words. He couldn't say the three words in his mind. Even though he'd never get another chance. Some secrets were best carried to the grave. Besides, what good would it do, now, here? "You have saved me Mulder." She whispered back, then her eyes widened, and he followed her gaze. Two men stood in front of them, the flames from their torches orange-red against the backdrop of night. "Let's see how rebels burn." One of them said, a sneer on his face. "Not hardly as hot as she talks." The other added, laughing loudly. He passed the torch slowly across her face, inches above her skin. Scully turned her head, trying to keep from screaming. "Let her go." Mulder said, not caring if he was begging. "Please. If you have to kill her, do it some other way." The man pulled back, laughing again. The kind of laughter of a boy who is about to pull the wings off a butterfly. "Now what would the fun be in that ?" He ran his fingers down the side of her face and along the ridge of her shoulder where the cloth had been ripped away, then pressed his lips to her neck. She pulled her head away. He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked it back toward him, then placed his lips on hers for a long moment. Every muscle in Mulder's body quivered with rage. Just five minutes alone with that scum was all he'd need. Five minutes and then maybe he'd let Scully finish him off... She spit in the man's face. He merely wiped it away with his hand and turned to Mulder, a huge smile on his face. "Too bad she has to go to waste like this. I'd have liked to take her out for a spin. How would you have liked that, hero boy?" Mulder let him know in a very lengthy string of four lettered words he saved for just such occasions. "No more chatter." The first man said. "On with it." The tips of the torches touched the grass, the flame kissing it just long enough to set them on fire. ************ His fingers tightened around the rope as the brush flared up around his feet, the hungry flames already lapping at his shoes. For the moment the smoke was worse than the fire, filling his lungs and stinging his eyes until each breath was stinging hot and painful. Fire. His worst enemy. It was like his dream all over again. Or a scene from one of his darker nightmares. But this was real, and searing pain began to shoot up his legs as the heat reached his feet. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, the image shimmering in the heat as she fought to breathe.Mulder couldn't tell whether smoke or pain or both caused the tears that trickled down her face. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to look at her anymore, to carry this last image of her into eternity. Not like this. So he closed his eyes and tried to remember any sort of prayer. *Hail Mary, full of grace...hallowed be thy name.. blessed art thou and forgive of our trangressions..." This was useless. He had to see her again before he died... Mulder opened his eyes. A pain so intense the fire was nothing ripped through his gut. Her body slumped against the restraints, her head lolled to one side. Mulder wanted to believe she was unconscious. He refused to believe that she was dead. That this was really it. But believing or not believing had no bearing on cold reality. His head dropped to his chest as the black hole of despair came rushing up to swallow him whole. He wanted nothing more than to embrace the flame, to let it carry him to a place where he could see her again. His thoughts were frozen and his eyes shot open when a wave of freezing cold water doused him, turning the fire into nothing more than a smoking pile of wet embers. Mulder snapped his head toward Scully so fast he practically heard the vertebrae in his neck popping. She was soaked too, but she wasn't moving. Not at all. He tore his eyes away from her long enough to thank their savior. And instead found himself face to face with the man from the dream himself. A very smug Krycek stood before him, holding an empty water bucket in his good hand and smiling like a cat that had just caught a mouse. Two mice to be exact. Krycek held his gaze a moment, then turned back to a very disappointed crowd. "I hate to ruin your evening, " he said, setting the water bucket down. "but the barbecue's been called off. These two belong to me." "Says who??" The man who had kissed Scully stepped out of the crowd, brandishing a crowbar. "We found 'em. We do what we want with 'em." A murmur of agreement swept through the crowd. "Is that so." Without so much as a change of tone, Krychek pulled a 9 mm from his leather jacket and squeezed off two shots. The man screamed horribly as he crumpled to the ground, two masses of blood and bone chips where his kneecaps used to be. The mob shut up, no one daring to move even to help him. For the first time in his life Mulder agreed with Krycek. The vigilante had gotten exactly what he deserved. He only wished he could have pulled the trigger himself, although if he had been holding the gun he would have aimed a little higher. Krycek was talking again, clearly in control of the crowd. "See this?" He held up his left sleeve, showing the crowd the yellow and black insignia of the Enforcers, the Colonist's secret police. "This means that they are my prisoners, and I decide what happens to them. If anyone else has a problem with that, step forward and join your friend." No one so much as breathed. "Good. Now I need four of you to untie them and two more to get the trash out of the street." He gestured to the man writhing at his feet. "Your services will be duly noted, as always." Mulder forgot about the urge to lunge at Krycek the moment his hands were free in his concern for Scully. The moment her ropes were severed, she slid down the stake into a small heap on the ground. To his surprise, no one tried to keep him from her side. He was there before a breath had passed. She had never looked so tiny. Her eyes were closed and if her chest was moving he couldn't tell. The rest of the universe blurred around him as he covered her mouth with his, emptying his lungs into hers. No matter how much he tried to keep her safe, things always ended up this way- with her breathless and him trying to hold her on the planet for just a little while longer. Maybe it would be better if he just let her go... No. It wasn't even an option. If she died, he would die. And if he died, the bad guys would win. But didn't they always anyway? Time unfroze at the sound of a small cough, then another. Her eylids fluttered like butterflies trying their wings for the first time then opened. The blue of her eyes danced with bewilderment and hope as she tried to speak, her voice thick and raspy from the smoke. "I'm not dead..." "Shh." He noticed that soot from the dead fire was smudging her hair. She shouldn't have to lie in the dirt like some kind of animal. Sliding his arms underneath her, he pulled her half-into his lap. "Can she walk?" Krycek's voice demanded attention which he grudgingly paid. "I doubt it." Mulder said, not bothering to purge the hate from his voice. "Be nice to me Mulder." Krycek smiled. "I saved your life. And hers." "Why? Did you want to kill us yourself?" "You misjudge my motives." he said. "As alluring as the prospect may sound, I don't want to *kill* either of you. There's a hefty price on your head and it will belong to me in a matter of hours." He felt Scully's muscles tense and remembered their earlier conversation. How many promises would he break? "I don't suppose you'd let her go." Mulder said. "After all, I'm the big prize. She's not a threat without me." It was a lie and they both knew it. "Oh but you don't give her enough credit. I am full aware of what she's capable of." he looked at his watch. "Well it's getting late, or I should say early, and we have a long way to go." He leveled his gun until an invisible arrow from the barrel bored into Mulder's forehead. "So if you will follow me, we can all walk out of this nice and peaceful like." "And if I refuse? Will you shoot my knees out too?" The sarcasm was clear, and Mulder was satisfied when Krycek stiffened. "No." He snarled back. "I'll shoot out hers." His tone made it clear that it was no idle threat, and Mulder kept his arguments to himself as he willingly followed the man he hated most into the midnight. ************* The moon was falling like a burned out rocket toward a horizon tinged with gray dawn and they were still walking. And walking. And walking... Each movement jarred his tired body one inch past the unbearable. The rough terrain was unforgivable on his bare feet as he moved from patches of silver to shadow to silver again. Unfortunately most of the sharp plants seemed to prefer shadow. Not for the first time he wished for his shoes. Or that he could rest. Or even ease the weight of the body in his arms. He felt a bit guilt at even associating Scully's featherweight with "heavy", but his arms could only take so much in one night without turning into noodles. She had held her own for the first few hours, telling him she was fine right until the second she dropped unconsious in the sand. To tell the truth, Mulder was surprised she stayed on her feet as long as she did. Krycek had offered to carry her once but Mulder's quick and rather nasty refusal made it clear to him not to offer again. The thought was almost sacriligious, not to mention the fact that it was beyond an insult to admit to Krycek that he was getting tired enough to consider the offer. So he carried on, step after brutal step. Krycek, for his part, stayed a wary glance away from Mulder's side, the gun never wavering in his hand. The flint hard shine in his eyes telegraphed to Mulder's the ready consequences any escaped attempts. The very notion made Mulder want to laugh. To be absolutely fair, he *had* thought about it, but the ideas had began and ended with the woman in his arms. Escape was impossible as long as she was out of things. But as soon as she returned to the world of the living.... Maybe it was sunrise or maybe his swollen eyes were just playing tricks on the rest of his brain. Either way he was fairly sure the black blur three paces ahead of him that made up Krycek was stopping. He gave his body the order to stop; it just sort of died on him instead, leaving him standing like a robot with a rag doll in his arms. Was this it? Their execution? He wanted to at least be able to see the end of his life, of his quest, when it came. He blinked twice, slowly and deliberately, until the world came into clearer focus. The reason for their halt was far less final. Krycek had a car- a rusty black Jaguar that had seen far better days. Mulder was both surprised and impressed, then surprised he had been either. Only influential members of the new hierarchy were allowed the privilege of cars. But then Krycek's insignia had been Enforcer. You didn't get any more influential than that. They were made up of a potpourri of aliens, humans, and hybrids with one common ground. Each was the best at what they did, and there was talk that the *real* power of the government rested in their hands. "Nice wheels." He croaked. mainly to see if the parched remains of his vocal cords still worked. They did, but barely. "Well unlike you," Krycek turned his back to him long enough to fiddle with something on the trunk. "I know how to pick sides." "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you. How does it feel to be a lackey? Oh...how silly of me...you've been one all your life." The trunk popped open with a whine and Krycek spun just fast enough to let Mulder know that he had hit another nerve. The smile wanted to come but he remained deadpan for full effect. "Lackey is one thing to call it." Krycek said, the muscles in his jaw twitching as he tried to match Mulder's calm. "Although I'm not going to end up in some alien death camp having my brains fried out of my head, like you are. But you're used to that." he edged forward as he spoke. "No, the real hard part will start when they hook her up to the machines. You know what I'm talking about, don't you Mulder. When she screams your name and you'll wish you were deaf because deep down inside you know..." He stopped inches away from Mulder, his breath hot and sour like hard liqour. "That there's not a thing in the world you can do about it." The hate made Mulder forget how tired he was but he remembered that his arms were full of Scully just in time to keep from attacking the man. As it was, he let the heat of his anger forge the lines of his face into steel and denied his enemy the privilege of a reaction. "Put her in the trunk." Krycek ordered, stepping aside and waving at Mulder with his gun. "Put her in then get in after her." The steel cracked over his eyes and allowed the tiniest sliver of shock to register. Krychek had not only known about Scully's abduction, he had *orchestrated* it. So he would have known about the last trip she had made in a trunk and what it would do to her to wake up in another one. Sadistic little... "What are you waiting for ?" Krychek's voice broke into his thoughts. "We have a long way to go before the heat of noon sets in. Get in the trunk." "No." Mulder looked him eye to eye, their pupils dancing as he refused him for the first time. "Not the trunk. She can't go in the trunk." Krycek laughed, a thin cynical croak devoid of all mirth. "Still haven't curbed that defiant streak, have we Mulder ?" The smirk flipped into a snarl and he pushed the barrel of his gun deep inbetween Scully's ribs. Her lips parted slightly in a silent moan but she came no closer to the surface of consciousness. "Maybe you still had smoke in your ears when I said I would shoot her. My orders were to take you alive. She is expendable. And I know a lot of slavers between here and there that would love to get their hands on a pretty piece of work like her-" Mulder's spat a curse that broke him off. Instantly, he felt chagrined for letting the little weasel get under his skin. Perhaps if he tried another approach. "Let me go in the trunk then. Put her in the back seat. Look at her...she's unconscious. What plan could she possibly have?" "I don't know." Krycek said. "But I have heard the recent stories around you two. You seem to specialize in convenient miracles. No less than half a dozen of Their best bounty hunters have lost you and I have no taste to follow their path. Now get in the trunk and we can all be on our way." Two heartbeats thundered like crashing boulders in Mulder's ears before he made his decision. Biting his lip and silently begging Scully to forgive him, he walked over to the trunk. Three short steps was all it took. The air inside hit his face like a blast of heat from an oven. As gently as he possible, he laid Scully inside, her hair spilling around her like a sea of chocolate froth. His eyes met Krycek's one last time and he let the hatred pour through with one additional promise. The vow did not need words to be understood, and he let the full weight of impact sink in before he climbed into the trunk after Scully. A second later he heard the trunk slam shut behind him, locking out the light. Musty air assaulted his nostrils with maddening intensity. But he hadn't looked back, hadn't watched Krycek's face as he shut them in like another game prize. He hadn't wanted to see the triumph. ************* Hot. The air was hot. Stale air, like it hadn't seen sunlight in eons. Her lungs shuddered when she breathed in the stuff. For the moment she allowed her eyes to remain closed, until her mind could bring her up to speed on what exactly had happened. Oh God. Now she remembered. The crowd, the men, the ropes, the fire, the blackness that she had thought was the abyss of death itself swallowing her whole. But it hadn't. She was here, and obviously alive, so what had happened? Maybe if she opened her eyes, she could find out... Still black. Was she dead after all? Or perhaps her brain was still a little smoky. It wasn't until she blinked that she realized her eyes were open. The smothering darkness around her just made it impossible to tell a difference. She sensed a wall no less than four inches away from her face, so close her breath bounced off it and back into her face. At least what little breath made it past the sudden constriction binding her throat with cords of iron. Step two. Find out where she was. Her fingers stretched out tentatively, above her head. Another wall- or was it a ceiling ? The first edges of panic began to creep around her like demons from the dark. The fear compounded when she recognized the heavy weight of another body pressed up against hers in a very small, very confined, *moving* space. They were in a car. Or the trunk to be exact. Just like before. Just like when the nightmares had started when her own government sold her out for the first time and not for the last time.... She didn't mean to scream. It just sort of erupted up from her gut in one lightening fast wave, filling the tiny compartment in an earsplitting shriek. The world blurred around her, her fists flailing helplessly against the demons in her head. "Scully." The sound of her name formed an uneasy tether back with reality. Or maybe it was just the voice that said it. Mulder was here. He was alive. She wasn't alone after all. "Mulder?" His name tumbled out of her lips in a breath, , half-ashamed of her scream but at this point too consumed with the double potion of terror and relief to care. "I'm right here." Somehow his hand managed to find hers in the ebony. He pulled her even closer to him, and despite the thick heat of the trunk, she felt herself shivering uncontrollably. A desperate need overtook her to make sure it was him, and her hands fumbled in the dark until she found his face. He must have known what she was doing- he didn't so much as breathe until her fingers had explored every feature to her satisfication. "It's me Scully. It really is." His hand over hers tightened to back up his words. "What happened to us?" She breathed, allowing her head to come to rest against his shoulder. "Why aren't we dead?" "Krycek didn't kill us.." "Why?" Scully wasn't entirely positive she wanted to know but she had a guess. "The bounty brings more alive." Every muscle of her body stiffened ramrod straight as she fought to regain the trappings of dignity and control she needed so much. "Alive." Her whisper was a dim echo in the darkness, waiting for affirmation of the cold truth. Alive meant something far worse than death. Life in the very camps Mulder had promised her she would never visit. If that was to be Fate's final say to them, she refused to shy away from it. She was strong and more than that she was a Scully. What would her father have done? Or her mother, or Bill or Melissa or Charlie? The grim reality was that she didn't know. They were all lucky, all were granted the privilege of death as opposed to an endless cycle of dying commonly known as life. No, she would never scream again. But she would be strong for herself, and for Mulder too. He blamed himself for far too much as it was. "Where are we going?" She listened to the ghost of her voice fade away after she finished talking and was pleased to her that it had not shook the way her hands were. There was an uncomfortable gap of silence before he answered. "Enforcer headquarters I figure. Krycek will be eager to get his greedy little plastic fingers on the reward for us. From there...I don't know....we can be shipped off to any of the facilities in the nation. Since we're such high profile catches we'll probably wind up in one of the Arizona camps." He didn't tell her of the other possiblities. That they could be split up, that he would never see her again. Or even worse, that she would be sold into slavery as a diversion for the rich and powerful. Mulder had come to the firm resolution that he would be willing to kill her before he let her go that way. There was no need to tell her of all this. Scully was smart, and chances were she already knew twice as much as she was letting on. But there was always the slim chance she had been able to shove it somewhere besides the forefront of her mind, unlike him, and he wasn't planning on dragging it up if she didn't want to face it. He knew he sure didn't but better him than her. "At least we're alive." She was moving into a layer of Scully that came out whenever she was faced with something that was both horrible and inevitable. It was predictable. She had gone from fighting reality to confronting it and now she was trying to find some shred of optimism for both of them to cling to. "We're alive." Scully was right, he knew. And though for now it seemed a blessing, in the days and weeks and endless months ahead of them, it could turn into a curse. Krycek's words echoed inside the caverns of his mind like the whispers of a thousand nightmares. Whoever coined the phrase was right- the truth hurt. Like fire and needles and barbed wire but most of all like helplessness. He could not protect her from the monsters any more. That had ended when a night and an eternity ago when he had slipped in his vigilance once and lost their freedom, maybe forever. Krycek had said their escapes were legendary. And perhaps there was a grain of truth to it. They *had* eluded five or six Bounty Hunters in their time. Mulder had personally turned three of them into piles of green goo. Scully preferred dealing with humans, but she was deadly in her field of choice. But this time was different. Because he had been thinking of escape options, racking his brain every moment since the trunk lid slammed shut. And the most painful truth of all was that he could not think of a single way to earn their freedom. Not one. to be continued. . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - becoming judas: 3/12 darkstar - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - He had come to grips with the very real possiblity that Krycek had forgotten that human beings needed air in order to survive when there was a small click and the lid of the trunk popped open in a rush of fresh air and blinding sunlight. Mulder squinted to see through the haze of golden light, his lungs working greedily to make up for the staleness of the last few hours. "We're he-re." Krycek leered, giving Mulder a not-so-friendly hand out of the trunk. "I noticed." Mulder growled, more intent on keeping his balance than on anything the little ferret had to tell him. A slightly smaller blur emerged from the trunk, and he assumed it was Scully. She seemed a little worse for the wear but Mulder noticed that she had no trouble pushing Krychek's hand away when he tried to help. He charted a course for her side, his eyes still watering from the million rays of sun hitting them like tiny needles. "Hey." he mumbled, not quite being able to stop bumping into her. "Sorry." Obviously they wouldn't have that much time. The sound of hurried footsteps to the left drew Mulder's attention, just as a group of black distinctly threatening blurry...soldiers?....emerged from the sea of morning. Their voices faded in and out, like a bad radio transmission, but Mulder had the whole litany memorized anyway. "Stay still sir.....hands behind.....escape attempts..... severe punishment." The familiar pull of handcuffs tugged at his wrists as they secured his arms tightly behind his back. Mulder shifted uncomfortably as the tiny steel teeth of each one bit into his skin. Class-six containment bracelets. Whoever the men in black belonged to was taking no chances. Then they were moving, again, or at least trying to. From his view the world was underwater and he was trying to swim with his eyes open in chlorine. Mulder stumbled once, but Scully spared him the humiliation of falling down by a well-placed shoulder. Straight ahead, immense and gray and forbodeing, was a building. The guards conveniently "forgot" to tell him there was a door until *after* he had walked straight into it. Mulder may be dizzy but he hadn't forgotten his manners. He explained their stupidity in a few clear vivid sailor words he'd learned from Bill. Hey, sometimes it paid to be the man everybody hated. Now was definitely not one of those times. Inside the door the breath of cooler air on his face and the muted lights did wonders for his eyesight. Within moments the needles stopped and he could regain the awareness of his surroundings he needed. He immediately wished he had remained blind.The name of their fate was written in iron lettering across the top of the huge stone doorway. Enforcer Headquarters. Vive Novus Ordo Seclorum Long live the New Order of the Ages. Such a grand title for the birthplace of so much carnage. There wasn't much time for staring, since the guards were already shoving them into the belly of the building, a sprawling room abuzz with activity not unlike a police station of the old times. They were manuevered through the maze of desks and soldiers and secretaries, up a flight of stairs, and into an office reading Minister of Police. Most of their escort fell away at that point, leaving only one guard for each of them when they walked into the room. It would have been called luxurious even in the height of the world's glory. The carpet was at least four inches thick, the color of red wine, and something his bare feet were very, very, grateful for. The walls were paneled with mahogany stained to a golden brown shine, almost glowing from the inside out. A chandelier sprawled like a great golden spider in the middle of the ceiling and the mellow strains of Bach in the background didn't quite drown out the quiet breath of an actual *air conditioner*. Because of the splendor, it took Mulder exactly three and one half seconds longer than normal to hone in on the real source for the invisible power of the room. He was sitting behind a large, antiquated desk, probably "confiscated" from the office of a dead Senator, with no less than three lightening bolts adorning the shoulders and cuffs of his jet black uniform. The name on the desk read Richard Matheson. Disbelief whipped Mulder's eyes up to the man's face just as "Matheson" turned around. It was like looking into the face of a ghost. No, it *was* looking into the face of a ghost. The real Senator Matheson had been killed in the same mass execution that terminated- literally- Congress. This imposter was very good, however. Same snowy hair, same ernest face...no, wait. Different eyes. The eyes of the Matheson he knew were alive, intelligent, human. The eyes of the man who stared back at him were cold, and utterly foreign. They were lacking any pupil at all , totally black like the void of space. Which was another reason why this wasn't his one time friend and mentor. Merely another of of the aliens, wearing his face of choice. Mulder stiffened in spite of himself, and the Matheson noticed, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Agent Mulder. How very nice to meet you at last." "The agent part is as dead as the man who's face you wear," Mulder said flatly. "Yes, well, there are those among our race who believe it advantageous to keep trappings of the old ways about us." "Some trappings," he snorted, casting a pointed glance at the finery. "The original Senator Matheson appreciated such things. I have attempted to become as much like him as possible, since he is my chosen persona." "Chosen persona. He was a human, not a halloween costume." "You are too easily swayed by your emotions, Agent Mulder." The Matheson put slight emphasis on the Agent. "Which is why you were caught." The door slid open and Krycek entered the room as if on cue. He saluted the man, then fell into a lax imitation of attention, his trademark smirk threatening to split his face in two. "I believe these two are worth something, sir." Mulder was semi-impressed. Even Krycek showed respect to this man. Krycek, who had threatened the Smoking Man on more than one occasion. "You shall have your bounty in full." The Matheson said, leaning back in his seat. "I merely wanted to take a look at the man who was said to have started the rebellion and the woman who belongs to him." Mulder noticed Scully's jaw tighten but she had more sense than he did and kept her voice cooler than ice. Her eyes were blazing though, a fire that reminded him of the way her hair used to be. "I belong to no one," she said, soft like silk over steel. The Matheson regarded her critically. "Scully, isn't it? Your name is familiar- I've seen it in the data files from our scientists. I think they should be eager to have their wayward subject back on the table." Scully may have been ready with a response to that one, but Mulder beat her too it. "You or your cronies so much as *touch* her and I'll personally see to it that they'll be scraping what's left of you off those nice walls with tweezers." The Matheson laughed. "False heroics never got anyone anywhere. You'll learn that soon enough. In the mean time," he waved to the guards. "Start processing them. I'll have their destination orders down in a moment." The guards snapped back to life like good robots and herded them out into the hall. Scully's head was down, but he caught a glimpse of the stark paleness of her face, the way her eyes glittered with an emotion she was trying hard to keep from him. He knew that look. She was afraid. She would never let him know but he could read the emotions brought on by the Matheson and his innuendos about continued testing. He could only hope it was a mind game. Either way he knew from now on that Bach and red wine carpet would go on his list of things he hated. As would the alien behind them. ************* Scully would ultimately forget a great many things about her imprisonment but processing would not be one of them. Even years later, it would amaze her that such a detailed, organized process for stripping away humanity existed. But it existed. No denying it. The first step into the nightmare was the strip search. A pale cold room and a female guard- their only concession to decency throughout the whole thing- to give orders in curt monotone icier than the white walls. Even worse, the red eyes of cameras above her mocked as they recorded the whole spectacle. For a moment she allowed herself to feel enough bitterness to wonder if the alien with the face Mulder knew was watching everything, that same maddening smile on his face. Bitterness led to hate, and it was the hate that sustained her through the rest of the ordeal. It was a privilege though, being able to feel at all. After the primary humilation was over, she was a thin cotton shirt and pants. The shirt and pants were both a pale grey-blue, small enough not to hang too much from her body. And she had shoes, at long last. As soon as the thought crossed her mind she wondered if there even was a God left to thank, or if the aliens had killed him too. She rebuked herself for doubting. Her faith was the one thing that they couldn't take from her unless she gave it up. But she never signed up for martyrdom. She never signed up for this. It was not until after she had dressed again that she was hurried along to the next station and met up with Mulder again. Almost subconscious relief eased the tension in her bones, and from the mirrored emotion in his eyes, he was feeling similar. Also she read worry, even fear that she couldn't fully understand until he brushed close enough against her to whisper a question in her ear. "Did they..." "No." She lied not for him but for herself. She couldn't not bear the weight of his guilt and make it out of this a whole person. Not this time. Was it a trick of her eyes or was that the tiniest hint of a smile playing near his lips ? "Terrible liar." he whispered, the words falling almost like a caress on her ear before the guards noticed and pulled him away with shouts of no talking. No talking. Did that still leave room for screaming? Because that's what she was afraid she would do, if they tried to put needles in her again. Scream and scream until the fragile cord of sanity snapped and she was allowed the blessed haven of madness. If only she could go insane without betraying everything she was. Everything she had left. The second part was simple in and of itself, but if she had known what was coming she would not have let herself think of it that way. Intstead of the old fashioned ink and paper method of fingerprint identification, their retinas were scanned using tiny lasers that irritated her eyes like sandpaper but captured her true self for all time. People could, if they tried hard enough, change their fingerprints. It was a little harder to pop out your eyeballs. She may have let her guard down just a hair's length by the time they reached the third room but Mulder had become tense, even as far as to suspect what awaited them. So maybe that was the reason when the door opened and the horror smacked them across the face he was able to keep walking and she was paralyzed. But then again, he hadn't seen the Chairs before. She had. Right at this second her mind was filled with nothing else. Black like the eyes of Death, they were reclined just enough to pass as macabre impressions of dentist or barber chairs, with a few "minor" alterations. Dentist chairs didn't have straps for your ankles, wrists and head. Barber's may nick you once or twice with the razor but they didn't drain your blood from you like mechanical vampires, taking part of it for records. Most of it for the amusement of the aliens. The paralysis crept over her rather slowly, compounding the sudden dizziness that swirled the room around her like one too many times on a carousel. It was like powerful yet invisible hands had clamped around her arms, around her legs, around her very heart so that it was forced to fight for just one more beat. Scully did not hear the men telling to move forward, did not feel their hands tugging at her, did not see Mulder's eyes trying to pull her back to life. The calm came slowly but the storm was lightening quick and that powerful. Her arm snapped out, catching the nearest guard square under the chin. The others rushed in like wolves for the kill, and in scarce heartbeats she found her arms pinned behind her back. A second later a numbing wall of pain crashed down around the back of her head as the rigid edge of someone's hand collided with the base of her skull, hard but slightly under the force that would have knocked her out. She could hear Mulder now, see him thrashing against the guards and the restraints as they shoved him into the chair. Was he screaming her name? She needed to answer. She had to be fine. It couldn't be a lie. She herself believed it until the soldier she had hit buried his steel toed boot in her gut. The pain sealed her off from the world around her, sucking in all light and sound and feeling until all that was left was numbness, white and cold like the first room. She saw Mulder's mouth forming her name, saw his eyes turn to the guards and spit out soundless words that she could probably guess if she wanted too. But she didn't want to do anything anymore, least of all see, hear, or feel. They were all symptoms of a disease called life. Very slowly, stiffly like the robot she wished she could be, she rose to her feet, bent over from the pain that felt like someone had folded her gut and then stapled it, then sat down in the chair. Mulder struggled when the needles began to pierce his flesh. She didn't. She scarcely acknowledged the pain save as another layer of novacain to coat her world. It was a privilege to feel. A privilege she no longer had. ************* Clickety clackety. Clickety clackety. Her brain melded to the rhythm and hummed along. Clickety clackety. It took a while before she could place it. Train tracks. She was on a train. Her hands felt the floor beside her. Wood. She continued to reach out until she bumped into something warm and soft. Flesh. Oops. Before Scully could recoil a large hand swooped down and captured hers. She flinched in spite of herself. "It's okay. I'm right here." As her eyes adjusted to the dark inky blue of evening she could see Mulder sitting beside her as well as a train car packed full of gray blue bodies. She recognized the slats in the walls from cattle cars. Cattle? So that's what they were now. Her internal clock told her that time had passed since the Chairs but for some reason the memories were slippery and elusive, like tiny fish in a vast and stormy sea. "We're alive." She was bordering surprised. Alive to Mulder meant living and breathing. Alive to her meant anywhere but the manacles and the needles. "Yes." His voice smiled so he assumed his face was too. "I don't remember." Scully blurted out, frustrated with her mind that seemed to love playing such games with her. "It's gone." "It's there somewhere. But you'll have to think about it." He was tentative for some reason, sounding unsure that she should take such a risk. "I would let it slide Scully. You don't have to remember everything." "Not everything." she agreed. "But this I need to." He sighed, and she couldn't help a near smile. It was his "I don't agree but I can't argue with you" sigh, reminiscent of happier days. The smile carried with her when she closed her eyes but vanished like a candle in a hurricane when the memories began to come out of hiding. Her lungs began to constrict and she had to order them to keep breathing. The smile hovered on the brink of recovery but was doused again by the next string of memories. Her eyes shot open and her fingers flew to her wrist. Crinkly waves of red hot pain worked up her nerves and to her brain then back again. "They burned us." Scully turned to Mulder, her eyes widening with disbelief. "Like some kind of animals." "Identification numbers." Mulder said grimly, pulling back his sleeve and running her fingers lightly over the rough skin of his burn. "Looks like our friends took lessons from the Nazis. Or taught them." She leaned her head back against the splintery wood of the box car, feeling the beat of the tracks pound with her pulse inside her head. "So where are we going?" "I heard Arizona. Least that's what they put on our records. It's not to say that it's where we're really going." "I guess it could be worse." Scully wasn't sounding as convincing as she needed to, even to herself. Mulder didn't understand. He lived too passionately to survive the camps. Everything was a fight, everything was a battle. She was going to have to be strong enough to submit to the routine, to make sure he didn't get himself killed. She was used to being the strong one. Not that today had been a brilliant start. How could she take care of Mulder if she couldn't take care of herself? "Mulder, about this morning, I'm sorry." "Sorry? What could you possibly have to be sorry about ?" "I was totally out of control." She felt her soul twist in disgust with herself. "I freaked. I was unacceptable." Her words were clipped, detached. She insisted on doing this, didn't she? Mulder fought the irrational frustration her words brought. But then again, what had he expected? He took a deep breath before he spoke. "The only thing unacceptable about you is the brand on your wrist." he said. "You don't have to be so John Wayne all the time. Look how many times I've lost it, how many times you've pulled me right back in line." "But I...." Whoa...that voice was too close to the tears trying to leak through her defenses. She gave up on explanations and waited for him to do something, anything to break the dangerous silence. His arm slid around her shoulders, securing her against him. He spoke slowly and she could feel the hesitancy in what he said, the way he dragged his words out as his brain racked itself for the right words to say. "You weren't alone, Scully. You'll never be." Her heart stuck in her throat, and she was forced to look away before he noticed the change on her face. How did he do that? Know just what to say and when to say it? Scully let her body relax against him into a warm, dark sleep. She knew she should be awake, turning the events of the day over and over in her mind. She knew she should be coming up with some sort of self-survival plan. But she slept. The world was very, very strange at times. Mulder's words had been just short enough to strip away the novacain. He made her live life outside of her shell, pulled her out of her fortress no matter how much she kicked and screamed. He made her feel again. Looking ahead to the danger and the pain awaiting them at the end of the tracks, Scully wondered how long it would last this time. ************* Morning was somehow lost in a gray shroud of mist when the train stopped and the doors opened. The protesting gears and the shrieking of the brakes roused Mulder from uneasy sleep, and it took him a moment to figure out where they were. Opening his eyes didn't help much. The sea of people in front of him blocked all view of the outside. Everything except the mist, or fog, or whatever it was that reached for him through the slats like the death camp had grown fingers and wanted to pull him into it's belly. Scully stirred restlessly on his shoulder, and though he thoroughly hated to pull her into this warped reality he shook her awake, trying to give her the bad news as gently as possible. "We've stopped." She nodded, blinking as she chased the sleep from her eyes and mind. From somewhere out in the fog came a frenzy of angry shouts, punctuated by the cracking of whips and agonizing screams. He felt her shrink against him, as if she was trying to disappear, but from the look on her face she didn't know she was doing it. The subconscious gesture served to strengthen the resolve he had built up all during the night. Life here was every bit as brutal as the horror stories told and he was going to do everything he could to shield her from that. "C'mon Scully, we have to move." He helped her to a standing position as they waited for the herd of people to shift forwards. "They're probably going after stragglers. So we stay ahead of them, right?" She nodded again, chewing on the corner of her lip. "Ahead of them." "Keep your grip on my arm. It'll be chaos out there and we can't be separat-" He didn't have time to finish his sentence, barely long enough to grab her arm, because the mass of gray blue shirts ahead of them surged forward with all the speed of water bursting through a dam. Chaos was the understatement of the year- the confusion was a living, breathing entity that sucked people into it's vortex left and right. The fog was *everywhere*, obscuring the landscape from five feet away on, and the cracking of whips mixed with screaming beat an otherworldly rhythm just under the surface of things. In fact Mulder found himself wondering if the train hadn't transported them into another universe all together. The thought was hurridly shoved aside by the louder voices of his survival instincts coming into play. Of course it would help if he knew exactly where he was moving. The jam of people seemed to know, or at least they all were heading toward one general direction. He stood on his toes, grateful for once for his six feet of heighth advantage, and was able to catch a glimpse of the goal. It was the camp itself, a black congolmeration of buildings peeking out through the fog like some ogre's castle. Instinct told him that inside the gates was where you were supposed to be and they couldn't beat you if you were obeying them. Instinct was wrong. Mulder was still on his toes when the rifle sharp sound of whips punched holes in the fog behind him and the crowd pushed forward like a stampede of panicked cattle. Scully's thin cry was swallowed whole by the roar of frightened humans as her hand was torn away from his in the craze. He spun on his heels, shoving people out of the way on either side of it as he fought to keep panic of his own kind from freezing his spine. Hopelessness was the first emotion to latch onto his back, raking it's claws across his soul. The fog was gray. Every other human being in the crowd was grey. Scully was gray. The guards were waiting somewhere in between all the grays like sharks ready to strike at any who fell. The blood red of her scream dislodged the demons of despair from his back onto another hapless victim, but he was intent on only one thing. His fists and his curses carved a path through the crush of people in the direction of the sound. Even the fog parted in awe of him, disappearing just enough for the situation to sink in. Scully lay on the ground, clutching her ankle with one hand and attempting the shield her face for the whip poised above her with the other. The guard was barking orders in a stream of slightly marred English, but Mulder was more interested in his hand and the slight flick of his wrist that would drive the whip down into her soft skin. The muscles of the guard's arm twitched. The spring of tension inside Mulder released, exploding him toward her. The black snake of the whip curled through the air, cracking once then hissing as it descended. Mulder heard her grunt as his full weight slammed into her, but his mind was quickly consumed by the knife of pain ripping across his shoulders and back as the whip fell. He gritted his teeth against the sensation, looking down at Scully to reassure himself that it really was her. The guard continued to yell, pulling his arm back for another blow. "You! Keep moving! Into the courtyard! NOW !" The hybrid or whatever it was followed his orders with a few of the curse words he had obviously learned since his creation. Mulder nodded his agreement, hauling Scully to her feet and pushing her in front of him as he rushed as fast as was possible in the direction of the gates, leaving the guard behind to hurl his fury on the next who stumbled. She was running too, but her mouth sucked in lungful after lungful of air in dry gasps of pain. He was torn between watching her suffer or picking her up and delivering a near irrepairable blow to her independence. In the end he chose to let her alone, more by necessity than anything else. If they stopped again they could very well be crushed. The gates of the camp opened before them like the gates of hell itself and he plunged through them willingly. Once he realized they were inside he dragged Scully away from the main stream of people. She collapsed to the ground, panting as she dealt with her pain in that frustratingly silent way of hers. It wasn't until her eyes fell on his back and were filled with fresh shock did the thought of his own pain registered. "Mulder. You're bleeding." Her voice was surprisingly low in the whirlwind of noise around them. "He hit you." "It's nothing Scully." "It'll be fine." She rewarded him with another of her almost smiles. "Isn't that my line ?" "How's your ankle?" "Sore, but I think I'm lucky. It's just bruised." The fine lines of her face twisted in a grimace as she rose to her feet, testing her weight on it a little at a time. "Someone pushed me down." "Well show him to me and I'll kill him while he sleeps." That one got an outright laugh, tinkling from her lips like fairy bells and then skipping out into the fog, the only beautiful thing in the ugliness of the place. "You have such a way with conflict resolvement." "When we have time you can tell me what that means." The sharp shriek of a whistle demanded their attention just as the last of the prisoners ran through the gates, followed by guards snapping whips at their heels. Shouts came to "form a line! form a line!" and Mulder fell into place beside those around him. They were near the front, luckily or not so. At least he could see what was going on. A man strode out of the fog, the black of his uniform standing out sharply amidst the prisoners around him. This man was only two lightening bolts strong, but there must be power there if he ran the whole show himself. A black leather riding crop completed his ensemble, and he carried it tucked under his left arm in imitation of an earth general. Mulder wondered if he had seen it on a movie. He knew the Colonists had preserved some for their "historical records". Then the man began to speak and even without the threat of the whips, every soul in the camp fell to a stone dead silence at the power in his voice. "Welcome to Camp 118." he said, gesturing around him with the riding corp. "The place all you rebel scum will call home for the rest of your pitiful little lives." His eyes raked the crowd like twin daggers. "I am Commander Mastof. You are to call me Commander and if you do not call me that call me Sir." Maston. "Now that we are all accquainted, I'm going to lay down the rules once and only once." He paced from on end of the line to another as he talked, the harshness of his eyes and voice causing more than a few prisoners to flinch and look away. "Disobey, you die. Attempt escape, you die. Follow the rules, you live. Is that simple enough for all of you?" No one answered him but the silence spoke their agreement. Mulder felt an overwhelming urge to break free of his place in line and scream that no, he would not follow the rules and they could just shoot him now. But he didn't. He didn't because of the woman standing beside him, trying to camoflauge the pain that cracked her mask of cool indifference. Mastof's gaze did another searing run across the prisoner's and this time it collided with Mulder's. What Mulder saw shook pieces of his soul because it wasn't the inhuman black of the Matheson's eyes. No, they were the gray of tempered steel. A collaborator. Despite the revulsion the word conjured up, he refused to look away and Mastof refused to back down. The standoff could have come to more than just staring if the loud shriek of moving metal parts hadn't stolen Mulder's attention. The huge gates were sliding shut, grinding together until they slammed shut, locked like the jaws of a monster. Locking them inside. Away from hope, away from help. Away from life that had somehow been swallowed up in the fog. He couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before the prison consumed them too. to be continued. . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - becoming judas 4/12 darkstar - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Whoosh. Thud. Whoosh. Thud. His hands slid down the splintery wooden handle of the shovel as it scooped another mouthful out of the dry soil at his feet. Tiny beads of sweat that stung like salt rolled down his forehead and sometimes into his eyes although the sun had risen only a few hours ago. A few hours that had seemed to take all day because of more than just the drudgery of ditch digging. Scully wasn't with him. He was glad that she had been assigned lighter work indoors, away from the brain-frying heat but she belonged by his side. It just felt wrong without her. At times he forgot just how well. She wouldn't want him to worry about her any more than he would want her worrying about him. It was inevitable though. The worrying. "You must be new here." A voice behind Mulder caught his attention in that it was the first friendly greeting he had received all day. He turned around to see a bone thin young man with a bushy mop of blonde hair and eyes like a jade statue. The odd thing was the man was actually smiling which made Mulder wonder about anyone who smiled in this place. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "I noticed you look the guards in the eye. Nobody does that. So I figured to myself that you were either a new arrival or newly out of your mind." The better part of a grin creased Mulder's face. "Some would say you're right on both counts but I am new." "The name is Fess. Johnny Fess. But everyone calls me Trader. " He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "If you need anything that the Commander and his goons wouldn't exact approve of, I'm the one you see. I can get it. Everything from razors for you to real dresses for your wife." "Back the sales pitch up." Mulder said. "Wife?" Trader looked up at him, surprised. "The cute little red head you walked in with. She ain't your wife?" "No. She's not." "Well here's a piece of friendly advice- don't spread that. Women of her...*caliber*....don't last too long around here between the guards and the inmates. It'll make life a whole easier on her if you let people assume she's with you." "She is with me." Trader switched from surprised to slightly confused. "Not your wife. But she's with you. Girlfriend?" "No." Mulder started shoveling again, hoping that Trader would pick up the hint that he was more than slightly annoyed with this turn in the conversation. "What is she to you then?" He stopped shoveling and turned around to face Trader, keeping his favorite expression of non-expression on his face. "She's the reason I'll kill you and any other punk who treats her as anything less than the lady she is." "You'd do it too." Trader said, holding his hands up in a gesture of complacency. "Hey, man, I don't go for that kinda thing. Women are bad for business." Mulder felt himself relax, wondering why everyone and everything seemed to be a threat now. But this wasn't like the old days, when he knew the general direction his suspicions came from. Now he couldn't look at a person without wondering if they had some sort of ulterior motive in mind, or walk into a building without checking for traps. And all of it had failed. He was stuck in this oven and Scully with him. Maybe that was why he was a time bomb ready to explode on himself. A piece of Skinner's gruff advice drifted to the surface of his mind. . Skinner. Mulder wondered just how his ex-boss was doing. At the last report he had been heading up recon missions in the North. Was he still out there or had he ended up in a place just like this one? The sting of a horsefly on his cheek woke him from his reflections into the present. "Sorry, Trader." He said. "I, umm, well, the last few days have been tough." "How'd they capture you?" Trader asked, picking up his shovel. "I mean, it's obvious you're resistance or something." "We were ambushed." "You and the woman." "Her name is Scully." Mulder smiled. "It's best you call her that or anything else but "the woman" if you want to avoid a split lip." "She likes a good fight?" "More than she should." They were silent a few minutes, then Mulder spoke up again. "Trader, thanks for the advice. About the wife thing." "No problem." Trader shrugged. "If Eddy and his potheads weren't around I wouldn't have to give so much of it." "Eddy?" "Yeah." Trader straightened and pointed across the field. "You can't miss him. He's the scruffy looking one in the shade." Mulder followed Trader's gaze until it stopped on a man built like an upside-down triangle with greasy black hair and a leering scowl twisted on one side of his face. The skin of the other side was withered and puckered in a long scar that twisted like a snake from his temple to the base of his neck. "Where'd he get the scar?" "Knife fight. It's Eddy's speciality. Him and the rest of those muscle-bound idiots pretty much run the show around here. Rumor has it that Eddy does dirty work for the guards in exchange for a little money, a little power, and the white stuff he's always snorting or selling. He practically owns the barracks after the lights go out." Trader leaned back on his heels, his eyes distant with memory. "That scar came from a fight that nearly cost him his life. Eddy tried to push around this girl- she couldn't have been older than seventeen- when someone decided that it wasn't a nice thing to be doing. So there was a fight. Eddy almost got his throat cut but in the end he won. Stabbed the other man right in the skull. Just shows you what you get when you interefere." "You knew the man, didn't you?" Mulder asked, noting the familiar flickering of stale hatred in Trader's eyes he himself felt so many times. "You could say that." Trader said. "He was my brother." His shovel punched the earth after his words. "Too idealistic for his own good, always picking the impossible battles." He shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs of memory away and looked up at Mulder. "So what exactly got you in here in the first place?" "Idealism." Mulder smiled wryly. "Among other impossible things." ************** Scully stared into the bowl of grey muck the cook called soup- which was an out and out lie- and swore she counted three eyes staring back at her. The bread- or was it a soft rock- wasn't much better, but she picked it up anyway. At least she was sure the bread was dead. Well, relatively sure. "This is *not* food. Nope. No way." "Sure it is." Mulder's voice floated over the dull roar as he kept his hand on her elbow, trying to make a path through the chaos of the mess hall. From where Scully was standing, or trying to stand, it seemed every prisoner was trying to get their food at the same time and as much of their neighbor's as possible. She'd counted eight fist fights so far, and another one in full swing. It almost reminded her of the cheerful insanity of one of the rebel mess halls. Scully shoved the memory away. Past was past and present was how to hold on to her bread. She swore if one more person tried to take it she would *personally* shove it up down their throats for them. "Mulder!" she shouted in exasperation as her toe was squashed for the third time by the same person to the left of her. "We need to find a seat *now*!" "I'm working on it, I'm working on it!" he shouted back. Obviously he could see something she didn't, which was most likely since all she saw where people's shoulders and arms and elbows, because he began to direct them through the crowd to a less violent corner of the room. Scully stood on her toes to see a thin kid of maybe nineteen waving his hand and smiling at them. "Who's that?" she asked Mulder. "Trader. He's a friend." "Uh-huh." She felt her eyebrows raise in critical appraisal of Mulder's new "friend" but made no protests when she discovered Tripper or whatever his name was had saved them two seats. "He's got seats, Mulder. I don't care if he's a Bounty Hunter, let's get going." "Greetings Mulder. " the young man said once they had manuevered through the crowd. His face brightened considerably when he saw Scully. "This must be Scully." She didn't want to smile but the grin splitting him from ear to ear was infectious and spread to one corner of her mouth before she could stop it. "Yes." Scully offered her hand to shake his. "Dana Scully." He bowed slightly but caught her off guard by planting a kiss on her fingertips instead of shaking her hands. "Mulder didn't tell me he was consorting with angels." he said. "Ok Trader." Mulder cut in. "Enough with the charm." "Was I convincing?" he leaned back, looking at Scully hopefully. "At all?" That did it. The smile escaped to the other corner of her mouth and burst out in a laugh. "You don't by chance know a Melvin Frohike do you?" "Frohike??" Trader shot a questioning look in Mulder's direction. "An old friend." Mulder explained. "Now that you two know each other, can we sit down? My soup is getting cold." Scully felt her eyebrows do the arch again and noticed Trader's face was mirroring hers. He spoke before she could. "You call that stuff food?" "What?" "Listen to the man Mulder." Scully sat down. "I knew I liked him." Mulder had no sooner moved onto the bench beside her than the sound of heavy footsteps rumbled toward them and a large shadow fell across the table. A gruff cough behind him froze his muscles in wary readiness for whatever loomed behind him. Moving with deceptive casualness, he turned to see Eddy. Up close he was even more repulsive, his face resembling a squashed fruit covered with dirt and other things Mulder didn't want to imagine. Somewhere in between the filth and the grime two tiny eyes gleamed a gray so pale they were almost clear, rimmed by the redness that indicated an alcoholic. Mulder's gaze gradually widened to include the three giants standing behind Eddy, looking about as solid as concrete and twice as dense. The power of reason would have very little effect in this situation. "Can I help you *gentleman*?" He couldn't resist the urge to sprinkle sarcasm over his comments, ignoring Scully's rather pointed glare telling him to be a nice boy and keep his face in one shape. "Yeah, ya can." Eddy took a swig of something black and disgusting that reeked like only homeade liquor did. "You can move yer keister outta my seat. And introduce me to your lady friend." "I don't think she's quite your type." "Buzz off or me and my friend's are gonna make you." Eddy moved closer to her, his huge hands balling into fists. Mulder didn't so much as blink. "Real slow and painful like." "Move along." he said. "There's nothing here to see." Yeah, he would give reason one last chance. "Yer wrong." Eddy's gaze fastened on Scully like a leech oozing slowly down her body. She kept her disgust to herself. Right now it was her reponsibility to keep Mulder from doing something incredibly rash, and if it meant she had to take a little leering, well she'd come through far worse in one piece. "She's quite any eyeful." "Not for your eyes, scum." The response was automatic, like the firing of his old handgun. Pull the trigger and bullets came out. Mess with Scully and his temper came out. "This 'scum' could break you in so many pieces so fast..." "That won't be necessary." Scully stepped between the two men, drawing herself up to her full height, which was dead level with Mulder's chest and Eddy's neck. It was getting absurd. Mulder would !not! get in a fight over her like she was some piece of !cattle! as long as she had a say in the matter. "Oh, baby, you decide you want a real man? Let me tell, you, I've got e-v-e-rything you could want." A rotten grin curled his lips inwared as his eyes swept her body again. "So whaddya say, little lady? Ditch the loser and come with me? His fingers brushed the side of her face, starting to move down her neck. She moved before she thought. Her left hand shot out and grabbed Mulder's soup bowl, flinging the contents in Eddy's face. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight up in anger. For a moment Eddy stood in surprised disbelief, his face covered in a thin film of gray grease and liquid. Then he seemed to come to his senses, his arm swinging for Scully's face. She intercepted it mid-air, her fingers digging into the hollow of his joints where she didn't have to be strong to dislocate the bones. It was really nothing more than a reaction, the way her knee shot up to catch him in the groin with every ounce of power in her body to back the blow up. The effect was predictable- his face took on the pasty coloring of pain and he dropped to the floor, whimpering softly. But she wasn't finished. Bending over the man until her mouth was close to his ear, she hissed words around her anger. "Don't touch me again, and the next time I hear you call me little lady, I'll make it so people can call you that too." The other three seemed unable to decide whether they were supposed to attack her and Mulder or help their fallen comrade, but in the end the choice was all but made for them. A path cleared through the crowd as the black uniforms of a guard headed toward them. "Ok, you two start moving that way." Trader pushed them in the opposite direction. "As in split. I'll handle this situation." Scully opened her mouth to argue, but Mulder grabbed her arm and started pulling her behind him as he went. "Thanks." he called to Trader over his shoulder. Keeping a firm hold on her arm, he more or less dragged her after him, not stopping until they were outside the mess hall. "Mulder!" She jerked her arm away as soon as the door closing, sending him a look that clearly said "back off" in all capital letters. "You should have let me handle that." he told her, knowing she wouldn't like what he was saying but saying it nonetheless. "This isn't the Bureau where you can count on the forces of law and reason to back you up. Jerks like him kill people for far less than what you just took it upon yourself to do." Scully was floored. She had saved his butt from whatever punishment that idiot drunk was probably being hauled to and he was !angry! at her for it ? "Let *you* handle it, oh that would have done a lot of good! Let you two big, tough, macho men play cowboy over the little woman and *you'd* have ended up getting your face arranged." The world could have been on fire and she wouldn't have noticed. The focal point of her angry little universe was the man in front of her and nothing else registered at the moment. The words continued to spew, hot and angry like chunks of rock flung from a volcano. She knew she should stop herself. She didn't care. "He wasn't expecting resistance from me- it caught him with his guard down. As much as it may shock you to learn this, I am all grown up Mulder, and certainly capable of taking care of myself when I need to ! So why don't you just realize that and stop acting like...like my !brother!" The look on his face after she compared him to Bill resembled wasn't entirely different from Eddy's after she had kneed him. It froze her, reminded her of all the times she had needed him to be strong for her, had relied on him to face the things she couldn't. Even if she had wanted to tell him, the walls of her leftover anger were too high for her to admit she had been wrong. The sudden energy rush that had sustained her drained away within the space of a heartbeat, and left her with a dizzy emptiness that swirled and mixed the colors and sounds of the night around her. If she didn't get away she would faint and wouldn't that top things off nicely. She leaned against the wall, sliding to the ground and closing her eyes. "Are you ok?" It was amazing how concerned he sounded even when she had just finished chewing him out. "I'm fine Mulder." She didn't bother opening her eyes. "In the past forty-eight hours I've been through at least three of the nine levels of Dante's hell and to top it off you go Rambo on me when I try to save your butt from the detention cell. Sure Mulder, I'm fine and dandy." "You can't take risks like that. What if he'd had a knife?" This time she opened her eyes, not bothering to close of the windows to the bitterness inside her. "Then I'd be dead and I wouldn't have to put with this place, now would I?" He flinched as she spoke, almost as if her words had physically cut him. She wanted to care, she really did, but all that she could feel was hate and resentment, not towards him but to a world that had wrapped her future in a barbed wire box and thrown it away. He was just the handiest thing. "Scully, I'm sorry...." The words were choked, almost as if he was having trouble breathing. She sighed and made a conscious effort to soften her voice before she spoke. "You're always sorry Mulder. Why don't you find something else to be for once ? Too bad it's just a little too late for us but maybe you can still help yourself." "Hey guys!" Scully turned around to see Trader heading towards them, a big smile on his face. "Man, you two are famous! The whole camp's talking about it. Tough man Eddy, taken down by a *woman*! My merchandise is at your disposal, Scully, as am I. And please- dispose frequently. The smile drained like a limp noodle as he looked from her face to Mulder's. "Am I interrupting something?" Scully dug deep down inside her and found one remaining smile to plaster on her face. It felt phony and she was sure it looked the same but she didn't care. "No, Trader, nothing at all." She got up and stood beside him. "What's next in camp schedule?" "Curfew's in about ten minutes, but I was wondering if you two didn't want to go see if we could find some real beer and celebrat-" "No, that's ok." she interrupted him. "I'm tired and I'm sure Mulder is too. Will you walk me to the barracks ? I'm afraid I might get lost." "Sure!" he brightened instantly, taking her arm. "I know this camp inside and out...." His talking continued in a steady stream as they walked, but Scully couldn't keep from turning her head back for one last look at Mulder. He was standing in the light from one of the mess hall windows, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed slightly. Against her will, a lump began to form in the back of her throat, aided by the the urge to run back and say she was sorry. But they didn't call her the Ice Queen for nothing. She erased as much of the image as she could and walked away. Mulder took a deep breath and tried to think through the dull, heavy pain settling over him like a mantle. The tiny daggers of her words and accusations had cut easily through his defenses and into his heart. If she hadn't met him, she would have been happier. If he had fought a littler harder, colonization wouldn't have happened. If, if, if. He danced of his own free will the bed of nails her anger had laid for him. At this point it didn't matter if she hated him. He remembered why he had been angry at her for challenging Eddy in the first place. She hadn't heard Eddy's parting words. She hadn't heard his promise of revenge. *********** The darkness of the prison barracks was the thick, sweaty black of a room filled with crowded bodies in the middle of summer. Scully rolled over for the fourth time in five minutes, trying to relieve the unwanted pressure a knob in the concrete floor was putting in the center of her back. This time she ended up flat on her back, staring out through the tiny barred window at the slivers of moonlight that managed to sneak their way past the bars. From the position of the moon it was getting past midnight, and everyone else in the barracks sounded lost in the depths of sleep. They were the lucky ones. She couldn't sleep. Or wouldn't. Scully wasn't sure which. Her own words played back to her like a broken recorder, accusing her in all the eloquence silent thought could. How could she blame this on him, knowing how much every one of her words would crucify him ? She wasn't blind. She knew that her opinion of him was the only one he cared about, but enough to make up for everyone else whose advice he ignored. Images flooded her mind, images of the night they had been captured, of a thousand other times he had been there for her, taken things for her she knew she deserved. Mulder was not some charm she could dangle from her finger, and turn on whenever she needed it but then toss away the rest of the time. Her eyes fell on him as he slept in apparent peace the distance of a foot or two away from her. It wasn't the measurement of inches that made it seem so far. It was the tension filling the gap. It was beyond her how he slept at all, when he barely closed his eyes at all on the "outside". That was Mulder. A walking paradox. Maybe he wasn't so peaceful after all. Maybe he was just using sleep as an excuse to get away from the hell they were in and the heat of her words. Was it guilt when your conscience weighed so heavy you had trouble breathing? Was this how she made him feel? Now she wanted- no, needed- to sleep. To take advantage of the few hours of solitude it would give her. To get away from the world and more importantly, get away from herself. Scully closed her eyes, so intent on her escape that she failed to notice the squawk of hinges as the doors opened, the shuffle of many feet passing the room and one remaining pair of feet walking with purpose toward her. "Ain't so brave are ya now....when yer friend ain't here to play tough fer ya....let's see how well you fight this !" A heavy fist landed in the side of her face, strong hands pinning her shoulders against the ground. Her mind wouldn't work, wouldn't get past the horrible fear spreading through her veins like a poision. She couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't react and for a second she couldn't breathe. Scully marshaled the fleeting remains of sanity and pushed the air out of her lungs, screaming the name she didn't deserve to speak. "Mulder!!" He was off the ground before his eyes opened. Through a thread of moonlight Mulder could make out two forms struggling, one on top of the other. Scully was one of them, and his stomach turned inside out when he realized she wasn't the one on top. By that time he was already sailing through the air headlong into the side of her attacker. The man grunted as Mulder's body weight rammed into him full force, knocking him away from Scully and onto the floor. Mulder struggled to keep him pinned down, his nose filling with a familiar odor of sweat and dirt and cheap liquor. Eddy. A second later the bulk underneath him exploded up, and it was Mulder who found himself flying through the air, crashing into the unforgiving floor hard enough to send the air whoosing out of his lungs. Gasping for breath in the vacuum that remained, Mulder scarcely had time to steal another lungful of oxygen before a black hulk came flying through the air, on top of him. Eddy outweighed him by at least seventy pounds and he used every bit of it to his advantage. Two hands found their way around his neck, tightening like steel bands, and Mulder began to despair of ever breathing again. A wall of unconsciousness came rushing towards him. He waited for it to crash down upon him and end his fight. It never came. Instead a fierce shriek shattered the night to the left of him followed by an instant loosening of the vise grip around his throat. Forcing his protesting eyes to open, his vision cleared in time to see Scully all over Eddy, her fingernails digging into his face and eyes like some red-headed wild cat. In time to see Eddy grin and sling her away without a second thought. She soared over his head and into the same pavement that had broken his fall. She wasn't moving. Mulder scrambled to his feet, gasping for breath as his starved lungs burned from the lack. Eddy turned his attention back to Mulder, the two men circling like tigers about to do battle. The rest of the barracks was awake by now, clearing a circle around them. A silence like the silence of death's waiting room filled the air, silence that was almost expecting. Mulder wondered what the others were waiting for until he saw the moonlight slide along the blade of a knife. Then he knew. They were waiting for him to die. There was no more time for rational thought, only reactions. The silver streak of the knife was flashing toward him in a dead line for his throat. He reigned his muscles in until the last possible second, then released them to dodge to the side, his fingers closing around Eddy's wrist and twisting as hard as he could. The resulting sound of popping bones was pleasant to hear, and the knife slipped from Eddy's grasp, shining as it spun toward the floor. Mulder dived for it, fingers outstretched in anticipation for the prize when the bone of an elbow drove into the hollow of his back, driving him yet again into the floor. Something inside him cracked and Mulder could only hope it was his ribs and not his spinal column. A foot slammed solidly into his rib cage, and the fireworks of pain that erupted over his vision only confirmed that it was indeed his ribs. Through the tiny red dots he was able to make out Eddy's form bending over to retrieve the knife. Instinct propelled his body up only to catch Eddy's fist solidly in his shoulder and end his efforts right back where he started. On the floor with iron weights flattening his chest and lungs. His ribs screamed under the pressure and Mulder nearly screamed with them, sinking his teeth into his lips to lock the sound inside. Eddy's face loomed above him, spilt in a filthy smile of gloating his eyes reflected. The gleaming point of the knife bit into the skin of his throat like a overripe peach, drawing a thin line of blood. When Eddy spoke his voice was disorted, filtering down through the pain and the shock but there was no mistake the note of victory. "Any last words before you die, tough man? Before I take your woman over there as my rightful property?" Mulder didn't answer him, ignoring the pain as he rotated his head until he could see Scully. She was still lying flat on her back on the floor, but her eyes were open and they met his in a rush of deep blue. The crystal ice of tears rimmed her eyes and streaked her face, her lips moving in words he couldn't make out. An ache different from that of any of his injuries began to pound in and out with the beating of his heart, to hold her and comfort her and fix her world. All he could do was hold her with his eyes. Scully felt pieces of her soul crumble into dust as she watched ruby red blood well up around the knife blade. She felt moisture on her face and realized she was crying. She was silent outside but inside she was screaming his name over and over again. Maybe one time the scream would reach her voice. A prayer slipped on silent wings from her lips as all sound died away from her lungs. The word echoed through Mulder's mind in a soft whisper not unlike Scully's. It unlocked the door to a strength he didn't know he had, rushing life and energy throughout every fiber of his body. A roar tore out of his throat as he twisted to the side, grabbing Eddy's body and pushing him as the two rolled over and over in on the floor. The knife. He had almost forgotten about the knife. Eddy still clenched it in one hand, the hand Mulder had pinned by the wrist to the floor. He banged Eddy's hand against the concrete, waiting for his grip to loosen. Again and again and again. Finally Eddy's fingers uncurled just enough for Mulder to wrench the weapon out of his grasp. Now he owned it. Now he made the rules. Letting the blade kiss Eddy's throat ever so slightly, he hissed his words down to the man. "If you ever come near her again, I *will* kill you." Eddy's smile returned as he replied. "If you don't kill me, I will take her. Doesn't matter when. One of these days you won't be around and she will be mine. Nothing you can do to stop it-" He never finished his threat. The last syllable came out in a gurgle as his own knife sliced through his gut. His eyes bulged out, white with shock and disbelief more than pain as his hands fumbled over the gash spilling his blood and other vital organs onto the floor. Mulder's face was the only thing Eddy saw when he fell into eternity. As the man's eyes froze open, Mulder slowly rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on the body at his feet. In a court it would hold up as self-defense but in truth it was cold-blooded murder. Murder to protect the only thing that mattered anymore. Bit by bit the world around him began to come back into play to the sound of....clapping? Mulder looked up to see Trader standing in the front of the onlookers, a nod of approval on his face as he applauded. Like waves in a ripple the applause spread until the entire barracks was clapping in solemn thanks for what he had done. It was only then that Mulder wondered how many of them had wanted to do the same thing and never got up the courage. Or how many of them had friends who tried and ended up where Eddy was. He didn't want their applause. He didn't care for the hero's position. He only wanted to cross the room and touch his universe. Mulder walked across the room, kneeling beside her. He wiped the blood smearing his hands on his pants then took hold of her shoulders and gently helped her up. His fingers traced the side of her face, wiping away a stray tear sliding down her cheekbone. "Are you..." his voice failed on him and he had to try again. "Are you all right ?" His mind pleaded with her. She nodded, then wrapped her arms around him in a crushing embrace. He couldn't help wincing as his ribs protested. "Sorry." she whispered. "For making it your fault." "It's ok." he told her, sliding his arms around her in a protective circle. "Everything is ok." Her fingers smeared something warm and sticky, and she pulled back quickly, noticing the line of blackish-red liquid oozing in a thin line down from his neck. "You're bleeding." she said. "It's nothing." "Is he dead?" Scully knew the answer already but she had to ask, had to hear the truth from his lips. Did he...did he *kill* for her? Was there blood on his hands because of her? There was a long moment of silence. "Yes." "You killed him." No, she didn't want to believe it. She wasn't worth it. Not after what she had done. "It couldn't be avoided," Mulder whispered into her ear, smoothing her hair with one hand as he talked. "Scully, this is not your fault." Then it came, the overwhelming urge to pull away from him. This was her life, and she was supposed to be handling it, wasn't she? She could control herself. It kept her from leaning into his embrace but guilt kept her from pulling away totally. A flood of light, blinding in its sudden appearance, washed over the room. She looked up, feeling his arms tighten around her as the doors to the barracks swung open and a pack of black uniforms rushed into the room. They stopped short when they saw the body surrounded by an ever growing pond of crimson and intestines. "Who did this?" the leader, asked the crowd. No one answered and Scully prayed Mulder wouldn't, but he stood to his feet, meeting the guard in the eye as he spoke. "I did." The lieutenant waved his hand and two guards rushed forward, tensed for a fight but he gave them none, making no struggle as they secured his hands behind his back. Scully winced as the handcuffs slammed shut, seeing how they dug into his skin. Without speaking they began to walk away, and Mulder followed them. "Mulder..." she reached for him, her voice conveying the pain in her eyes. He tried to send his reassurance into her, tried to find some to give. For a split second he turned his glance to Trader. "Watch over her." He waited only long enough to receive a nod in return then sent Scully his goodbye. Mulder didn't want to look away, but a cough from the lieutenant reminded him he had to go. He wished she could hear him. Scully breathed the word inside her mind and let him go. Mulder didn't look back as he walked with the guards out the door, tall and proud like a warrior who had won a great battle. She stared after him for a very, very long time until the gore was cleaned up, the lights went out and Trader came to move her from the middle of the floor. ************* Mastof was no less impressive in person than from a distance. His steely gray eyes regarded Mulder cooly across his desk, and there was no doubt in Mulder's mind that if he had done anything wrong, the Commander would find out. "I read your file." Mastof said, leaning back in his chair. "Used to be FBI, even then you had an uncanny knack for sticking your nose in places it didn't belong." "What can I say?" he shrugged. "It's a gift." "Since you are- or at least you were- one of us, I'm not going to waste any time in baby talk." Mastof was FBI? Talk about your low blows. Mulder forced the thoughts aside while he concentrated with new interest on what the man said. "You've been here less than twenty-four hours, so I can see why you'd be a little new to the way we do things around here but murder is murder and that, Mr. Mulder, is not something I am going to have in my camp, do you understand? You and all the rest of the scum here don't have much of a life but what you have is worth enough to keep. If you take a life in cold-blood, you pay for it with yours. Do you understand?" "Yes...sir." The sir was a hastily added afterthought, an idea that might soften whatever wrath was about to fall. Would they let him say goodbye to Scully... "But I don't think this was murder, or that it was your idea." Mastof said. "I knew Eddy. He liked women and he liked to fight. Based on that I can guess what happened. You tell me if I'm off somewhere. I had Eddy in my office last night for an altercation in the mess hall. She was with you wasn't she? The little red-head who managed to dislocate his wrist and minimize his manhood?" Despite himself, Mulder couldn't help smiling at the way Mastof put it as he answered. "She was my partner." For a moment he thought about adding that she was his wife too, as Trader had advised, but somehow he didn't think Mastof would fall for it. "We stick together." "Ok, so I see things this way- he attacked her tonight after he was returned and you defended her. When it turned out he had a knife, you defended yourself too. You walked away from it, Eddy ended up painting the floor with his guts. " "I had no choice but to kill him. He would have killed me and maybe Scully too." Now that there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon, Mulder could talk more freely in his defense. "That was how I thought things went." Mastof sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I know you Mulder. I used to *be* you, a tough young agent running around thinking if I found the truth that the rest of the world would give it a second thought." He shook his head, frowning at the taint of bitter memories. "I wised up enough to take the offer of a lifetime years before you ever came on the scene. Now look where I am and look where you are. Times have changed Mulder. You're in here because you haven't changed with them. "I'm not going to tolerate any trouble from you but I'm not going to punish you either. Killing Eddy probably did the rest of us a favor. So I'm going to do you one. I usually enlist the aid of one the prisoners to keep an eye on the rest. Since you killed him, I'd like you to take his place." "You mean be your stool pigeon." "I mean do yourself a big favor. You don't exactly have a history of cooperating with authority. Headquarters flew in some shrink special order just to interrogate you and your partner. Specially trained for the task of breaking stubborn minds like yours, so I've heard. If you cooperate with me, I will be more than willing to sign the order that will make him go away. Of course you'd have to give me some other tiny details about the Resistance, but take it from me Mulder, it's not worth the pain." "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not interested. Is that all ?" He managed to keep any questions off his face but his mind was busying digesting the information he had received about the new interrogator. "Yes. You can go. Find someone to bandage that neck wound. But think about the offer. If not for you, for her. I've seen his resume and she doesn't deserve him. No one does." Mulder couldn't agree more and the thought sparked an chain of ideas ending up in a request. "If you still want to do me a favor I can think of something." "What would that be?" "I know what all an interrogation means around places like this. All I'm asking for is your word that you'll wait at least a week before you start on her. Give her time to build her strength up before you break it." There was no denying the cynicism in his last sentence. "What about you?" "I don't care what happens to me. But I need your word you'll wait. For her." Mastof stared at the younger man for a moment, noting the intensity that darkened his eyes whenever he spoke of his partner. Yes, he was staring at would may have once been himself if life had worked out a little differently. And the truth was, he envied Mulder even if he did not envy him the long painful weeks ahead. He said yes to Mulder but it wasn't as a favor to him. It was a favor to himself. Mulder nodded his thanks and then left the room without further words. "Brilliant strategy." A voice hissed like a contented snake from the shadows beside his desk and a man stepped into the light. Mastof corrected himself- it looked like a man. It was something else entirely, a being whose presence made the tiny chip of metal in his neck itch like a bug bite. "Earn his trust now. The bit about the week was perfect." This alien's human form was young, about thirty-five, with jet black her and jet black eyes, a trait all the alien's shared. "I was telling the *truth*." Mastof regarded the being coldly. Just because they owned him didn't mean he had to like it. "Of course you were. Of course." He walked toward the door. "We'll take him and the woman tomorrow." "No." Mastof stepped in front of him, using his heighth to his advantage. "You can interrogate Mulder tomorrow. You won't get your claws into the woman for another week." "I think, perhaps, that you forget your place. We made you what you are." His tone dropped a few degrees and the hiss turned threatening. "We can destroy you." Mastof refused to be bullied. "I know what you are. But this is Earth and more importantly this is my prison and in both places my word is my bond. You will wait a week." "A week then." The alien was clearly angry, stalking out of the room as fast as his short legs allowed. Pausing at the door, he threw one last threat in Mastof's direction. "This may be Earth but it is our Earth now. And as for the prison....look around. It's ours too." After the door shut, Mastof allowed the shiver lurking under his skin to come out. The room was colder, almost icy in the wake of that creature. He never pitied his charges. In his eyes they had done wrong and deserved their punishments, no matter how unpleasant they were. But he could still hear the voice, the almost joyful sound when the alien had earlier described to him his methods of choice. And with all the heart he could find, he pitied Mulder. It didn't matter, really. The alien's words were true- his life and position hung in the balance. Nothing was worth the risk of intervention. Not even two human lives. to be continued.... - - - - - - - - - - - - -