Title: Empathy: A Mile in His Shoes Author: Luan D. Lascy Rating: PG Category: X Spoilers: Pusher also a line from Eve, if that counts. Keywords: alternate universe Summary: How the episode would have gone if Mulder could step into Modell's mind while under hypnosis. . . Second in "Empathy" series Disclaimer: Repeat after me: Mulder and Company are NOT LUAN'S. They are CHRIS CARTER'S. CC will NOT SUE, because Luan is VERY POOR. Got it? Good. Anybody not recognized from the show is mine, but you can use them if you pay my next four years in high school the tuition is astronomical, and my scholarship's not enough. "Dracula" and all characters thereof are Bram Stoker's. Excellent book. You don't need to have read it, but it helps to understand this whole telepathy- hypnosis thing. Author's Note: Being poor and not having neither money nor car to drive to a video store, and not being blessed with you-know-who's photographic memory, I'm not very sure about dialogue. I made do with the novelization "Control", but it's not entirely accurate, so don't blame me. It took out some juicy curses and changed lines, I'm killing the author (Everett Owens). "Pusher" is coming up on FX soon, but my VCR's from the Stone Age and I can't tape it. Shame. It was the first XF I saw. Love at first sight. ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() The quarry was strolling through the store as casually as if he had all the time in the world and he wasn't on the run from the FBI. Lowe followed warily. Was the casual manner an elaborate act, or was the man really ignorant of the agents tracking him to the checkout line? Lowe doubted it. He tensed, ready to spring, a cat springing on an unsuspecting mouse. Except this mouse was not only suspecting, he was perfectly calm about it. That in itself was unnerving. Textbook arrest. The hard part was over. The most mental strain from now on would be driving the police car back to the station. "So what do we call you?" Burst was asking the man as they sat at a stop sign waiting for a line of cars and a semi to pass them "Pusher's fine," he replied, unruffled in the least by his arrest. "You know, I have to tell you, your uniform is the most soothing shade of blue," he told Lowe, who glanced down at his shirt uneasily. "Cut it out-" Burst began "No really, I notice these things," the Pusher-guy continued, cutting off Burst effectively. "I believe the name for it is cerulean. Cerulean reminds me of a gentle breeze. . ." "Hey! I said, cut it out!" Burst shouted. "Cerulean is a gentle breeze," their passenger repeated. Lowe glanced up suddenly from the reverie he'd been lost in. Good, the semi was out of their way. He pressed on the gas "Lowe! What the hell are you doi-" It was the last thing he heard before having the breath knocked out of him by a close encounter with the steering wheel, and later the windshield. He was dead before he hit the ground. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() Mulder looked at the totaled car with a small measure of disgust. He loosely held Modell's handcuffs in one hand, toyed with a sunflower seed in another. Scully sized up the amount of blood at the scene and winced inwardly. "So how did Lowe end up plowing into the truck?" " . . . Right before we plowed into that semi," Burst was relating in the X-files office, "Pusher was rambling on about cerulean. Said it reminded him " "Of a gentle breeze," Mulder finished in a strangely light, almost musical tone. The hand holding the cuffs gripped the metal. His eyes, pupils dilated until there was only a fringe of green outside the black, had a glazed, faraway cast. "He was tired, but he did it. The crazy SOB did it." Burst looked at Mulder critically. "What? What did he do?" Mulder shook his head slowly. "Don't know. But he's good at it. Doesn't even have to talk. He was showing off for you." Burst looked at Scully quizzically. She shook her head. *Never seen this,* she mouthed. "You said he was tired," she said carefully. "Is he still? Enough for us to find him?" "We'll find him, but we can't hold him." Scully made use of their telepathic link to see what Mulder was doing. She found surprisingly little activity in his mind almost as though he was asleep, or hypnotized. . . Outside a fire truck sped past, its siren blaring at full throttle. The noise startled Mulder out of whatever trance he'd been in. His eyes snapped back to normal. Brain activity sped up to its normal speed, and Scully got out of his mind with an apologetic telepathic message. Burst stared at Mulder as if he had laid on a bed of nails and come up unscathed. "How did you know about the cerulean bit?" "I have no clue," Mulder said honestly, looking a bit pale for the whole experience. When Burst was gone, sent off by a strangely taciturn Mulder with a promise that he'd look into this Pusher, Scully turned on Mulder. "What did you do back there?" she demanded. Mulder shrugged tiredly. "I'm still not sure. I was letting my mind wander off the case, and. . . I guess I self-hypnotized." "You what?" "Well, how else could I have known about the 'cerulean is a gentle breeze' and how he was showing off for Burst, and how he's leaving us a bread-crumb trail to follow?" Scully raised her eyebrows. "Come again?" "He's waiting for us to follow him. It's a game for him, Scully." "This you figured out from a slideshow and a pair of handcuffs?" Scully said incredulously. Mulder slowly shook his head. "I don't think so." "Then how?" "I'll get back to you when I figure out the answer." ()-()-()-()-()-() "Scully." "Agent Scully? It's Burst." "Burst. How'd you get my cell phone number?" "Asked Skinner. Listen, I'm not too sure how to tell you this, but yesterday, when Mulder figured out the cerulean breeze thing. . ." "Yes?" "Well, it's kind of weird, but . . . Pusher's voice is the kind you're never going to forget once you've heard it do whatever it did to Lowe. And yesterday, well, Mulder was using the exact same voice." ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() "Scully!" Mulder enthused as she walked through the door the next day. "I figured it out." Scully rubbed her eyes. "What did you figure out?" she asked out loud. "How I knew all that stuff about the Pusher." "Okay, spill it." "You ever read Dracula?" She thought a moment. "Ninth-grade English, I believe." "Remember Mina Harker, the one who turned out half-vampire, half- human?" She nodded. "So Pusher's a vampire? Come on, you can do better than that." "I will. Towards the end, the whole gang went on a cross-country trip to Transylvania to catch Dracula. The only way they knew where they were going is because Mina was psychically linked to Count Dracula. Van Helsing had to hypnotize her regularly so they'd know where to go next." Scully could see where this was headed. "And you think you're psychically linked to Pusher." "It would appear that way, yes." "Mulder, you're not psychically linked to anybody," she objected, automatically slipping into her role of skeptic. "Don't get me wrong, I believe you self-hypnotized your brain looked like it was asleep. But you were tapping into clues your conscious mind couldn't pick up. There was nothing supernatural about it, and not any psychic links to killers." "Why, Scully, are you jealous?" he teased. "Of course not. I just think you got these answers from somewhere in your subconscious, not from a telepathic link." "Scully, how do you get information about Modell being tired, this ability of his, and how he's playing a cat-and-mouse game with us all from a slide show and a pair of handcuffs? I don't know how many subliminal clue there are in a hunk of twisted metal and cuffs." "Modell?" Mulder nodded before doing a double-take. "See what I mean? How else could I have known the guy's name?" Scully conceded with a nod. "Okay, then, you really believe you can telepathically link with this Pusher?" A nod from Mulder. "Could you do it again." It was Mulder's turn to look at her incredulously. "Yeah. Self-hypnotize like you did yesterday. Se how much information you can get from him if you link, that is." He seemed about to object, but closed his mouth and nodded. "All right, if that's the only way I'll convince you." He tipped back his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. Scully noted the same drastic drop of activity in Mulder's brain, like yesterday. She sensed him searching for something, looking frantically. Three minutes later, Scully was ready to tell Mulder to forget about it, when he suddenly spoke, in the same higher, almost musical tone he'd used yesterday. "He knows they're there." "Who's there?" "Burst's men. He's tracked Pusher there." "Where is he?" Mulder frowned. "Golf I can't tell. A golfing range?" Scully couldn't resist a look at whatever Mulder was seeing. She found his mind unusually concentrated, and she saw quick flashes of what looked like a driving range. "Is he worried about it?" she inquired regarding the FBI men surrounding the range. Mulder laughed a harsh barking sound, devoid of mirth. "They've walked right into his trap." "Trap?" Scully began getting worried. "What kind of trap?" She couldn't tell from her secondhand view in Mulder's mind, and eventually withdrew. Not much use in staying around, and Mulder would get annoyed if she stayed too long. "I don't know. I can't tell much yet. He's moved away from the range. . . he knows they're following him." Mulder hissed in breath through his teeth, his hands pressing at his head. "Mulder? What happened?" "Don't know," Mulder gasped out. "He's doing something to the guy who went in after him it hurts him, oh it hurts, but he keeps at it. Draining too much energy. . . " "What's he doing?" "Pushing them. . . forcing his will on our guy." He let out a strangled cry of pain. Mulder, wake up," Scully insisted. "Tells him to 'light up'. . ." His eyes flew open. "My God." Scully breathed a secret sigh of relief that he was out of the strange self-imposed trance. "What?" "He burned him, Scully. Got our guy to pour gasoline all over himself and light up." She was about to reply when the phone rang. Scully jumped a foot, then answered it. "Scully." She listened a moment in growing disbelief. "Oh my God, Burst. . . yeah, we'll be there." She slowly hung up. Mulder had already guessed it. "I was right, wasn't I?" "Mulder, they tracked Modell to a golfing range. Agent Collins went in after Pusher without backup. He came out drenched in gasoline, lit a cigarette lighter, and would have died if Burst hadn't put out the flames. He's being taken to the hospital as we speak. Collins kept repeating 'light up'." "Did they catch Pusher?" "Yes." "Five bucks says he gets off." ()-()-()-()-()-()-() "Robert Patrick Modell. 3083 Roseneath Avenue, apartment 9, Alexandria, Virginia." Scully had been surprised to find that Modell's voice was exactly the same as the one Mulder spoke in under hypnosis. It hadn't been a big surprise for Mulder, he'd half-expected it. Mulder fixed a suspicious stare at the man. He was way to calm for someone about to be tried for fourteen murders. Scully would have said it was the attitude of someone who didn't give a damn whether they lived or died, just so they brought someone along with them the most dangerous kind of criminal. Mulder said it was the attitude of someone who knew they wouldn't be punished for their crimes, some- body with a carte blanche. It was a morose way of looking at the trial, but it was also completely accurate. Modell pushed the judge into letting him go free. A few seconds before the verdict was announced, Mulder had felt the starts of a splitting headache, the kind he'd experienced the other day when he'd witnessed Pusher controlling Collins. Fortunately it didn't go beyond a mild ache if he had been hypnotized it would have been much worse, but he knew what the verdict would be before Modell said the words that would carve it in stone: "I'm not guilty, your Honor." The headache had peaked and quickly ebbed away. After the trial, Modell sauntered up to a steaming Burst and said smugly, "I believe you owe me five dollars." Scully glanced at Mulder, who gave her an "I told you so" look. she said silently. Fuming, Burst took out his wallet. "Anybody got change for a twenty?" Mulder volunteered a five. Just before handing it to Modell, he said casually, "Oh, your shoe's untied." Modell glanced down at his feet, then reached for the bill. Mulder snatched it back. "Made you look. Now, how do *you* do it?" Modell smiled crookedly. "Stay out of this, Agent Mulder." He turned on his heel and walked off slowly, whistling "Zoot Suit Riot". Burst couldn't resist a parting shot: "I know where you live, Modell! We'll find you!" "Like hell you will!" came a faint response. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() "Can I help you?" Holly asked the tall man who entered her office. He smiled crookedly and began pulling down the shades. This seemed kind of odd, but Holly made no move to object. "I need to know some things, Holly." A few minutes later Modell was sitting in front of the computer, looking for something Holly couldn't see. She still wasn't sure she should have let him in I mean, giving him the password seemed a little too trusting but at the moment it seemed like the most natural thing to do. As natural as breathing, or ignoring Skinner demanding to know who this guy was. . . Whoa, wait a sec. Where did Skinner pop up? Why was he asking who the man was? Hadn't Skinner let him in? Suddenly Holly didn't know what to believe any more. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() Mulder was plowing his way through the necessary papers for making an arrest and taking it to court. Booo-ring. He could finish this stuff in his sleep. His head hurt like hell, and his arm was aching, probably result of leaning against it for an hour. Mulder tried to change position, but his arm sent back a painful protest at any motion. Reluctantly he kept his arm still and tried to go back to the paperwork, but images of Holly wouldn't let him, Holly and Modell. He would know just how to get into the building, pushing the guards, pushing Holly to get him into the computer system. Suppose Skinner walked in on them when Holly was monkeying around in the system at Modell's "request". Modell might try to use Holly as a distraction she was fairly easy to push, still scarred physically and otherwise from her mugging at Georgetown the right push with the right suggestion could send Holly at Skinner's throat. Did she still keep that Mace in her purse. . . He stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair in his haste. Scully looked at him questioningly. "Call security," he told her, feeling sick dread creep over him. "Modell's with Holly." She was about to object, then saw the awful conviction in his face that demanded obedience. She picked up the phone and dialed for security. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() They arrived too late. Modell was gone, the computer was on one of the agents' profiles, and Holly was preoccupied, namely by kicking Skinner's ass across the office. It took four guards to pull her off the Assistant Director. Sobbing with rage and frustration, she screamed, "It's *him*, you bastards, the SOB who robbed me, let me go, let me finish him off, I'll shoot his head off with his own ----ing gun!" Scully was forced to sedate her pretty heavily Modell's mind control had a strong hold on her. Mulder waited outside the office glumly. Scully joined him in a few minutes. "I gave her enough to knock her out for a few hours, but she should be okay. I'm guessing Modell got his hands or his will on her?" Mulder nodded mutely. "Look, Mulder, I know how you're feeling, but nobody could have prevented this. You didn't know Modell was going to come in here, you couldn't know. . ." "No, Scully, I could have found out. I could have linked with him again and found out. But I didn't think to, I could have found out and protected Holly and Skinner. . ." Mulder shook his head. "I can't believe I was so stupid." Scully sighed and gave up any further argument. If Mulder chose to take the blame upon himself, she couldn't convince him otherwise. She'd tried before, unsuccessfully, with other things. "AD Skinner says he pulled your files off the computer. Nobody else's." The color drained from Mulder's face. "Oh no. You don't think he knows about. . ." "I don't know, Mulder. I hope not." "Well, we still have *his* number," Burst interjected, walking by. "He trespassed on government property, that should be enough to arrest him." Mulder thought. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() He was not disappointed. Burst called in SWAT teams with vests, rifles, all the gear. Adrenaline-pumped agents burst through the door. "He's not here," Mulder had called out while they were still a block away from the apartment. He didn't seem hypnotized, so Scully looked around for whatever Mulder had seen to let him know. She looked at him questioningly and tapped her temple, tacitly asking whether he'd gotten the information from the link. He understood and frowning, shrugged. At the apartment, Mulder proved to be correct Modell was nowhere near. The agents spread out, setting up tracing equipment while Mulder checked the bedroom. "Tegretrol," she called after a moment. "What's that?" Mulder wanted to know, coming into the bathroom. "It prevents seizures." Mulder quickly closed his eyes and checked on Modell's brain. "He's got temporal-lobe epilepsy." "But he hasn't taken his medication in months. He was supposed to refill it in April, that was five months ago." She looked at Mulder curiously. "Can you tell why?" "Give me a minute," he requested. "And make sure nobody sees me and takes the opportunity to make a 'Spooky Mulder' crack." He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes again, and sank into another trance. Scully obediently positioned herself in the doorway so nobody would see Mulder, and waited patiently, knowing the strange connection between Mulder and Modell would deliver in due time. She was soon rewarded. "The Tegretrol puts a damper on Modell's ability to push his will onto other people." "Anything else?" "Yeah he's got brain cancer. Well, that explains his pushing ability." "Like in that one movie with John Travolta. . . 'Phenomenon'." "Uh-huh." "Where is he now?" Mulder frowned and forced himself deeper into Modell's mind. "A hospital. Not too far from here. Fare Fairfax. Fairfax Mercy Hospital. A pay phone in front of it." He groaned and raised a hand to his head. "He's getting ready to push somebody. . . Oh shit." His eyes flew open and he jumped up. " Scuse me," he murmured in apology to Scully as he pushed past her. "Frank, whatever happens, *do not* pick up the phone," he commanded the agent. Burst stared incredulously at Mulder. "Agent Mulder?" "Please, Frank, it's a matter of life and death. Somebody will die if you pick up the phone. Modell's going to make sure of that." "And how exactly did you end up privy to this information?" Burst asked sarcastically. "Did Modell give you a telepathic message?" "It's a long story," Mulder said truthfully, knowing that if he tried to explain to Burst he'd end up out of the investigation altogether. As if in defiance of Mulder, the phone rang shrilly. "Frank, *don't answer*." Mulder's eyes were slightly pleading, a look alien to his face but capable of melting steel. he begged. Evidently Burst was stronger than steel. He picked up the phone, despite Mulder's shouts of protest. "Hello?" "Hey, hey, hey, whaddaya say?" came Modell's jaunty voice. Some of the SWAT crew members looked at Mulder questioningly. "Frank, hang up!" Mulder went for the phone jack. Agents descended on him like the plague of locusts in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh Burst's head was too hardened to hang up. Mulder knew, without knowing quite how, that Burst would die if he didn't hang up immediately. He wished to God telekinesis had been among the powers he'd been given in the Olhado case. Scully spoke up. "Agent Mulder is right. Hang up *now*, Agent Burst." "Is that Agent Mulder I hear? And the *enigmatic* Dr. Scully?" Modell continued in the same teasing tone. "Unfortunately," Frank muttered, half to himself. "No, no, the more the merrier. I don't mind." A deep sigh was heard over the tracing equipment. "Tell me, Frank, how much do you weigh?" ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() Scully went cold when she heard the words that sealed Burst's doom. She wanted to pull out her gun and shoot the phone jack right out of the wall, but Mulder was blocking her way. For his part, he struggled like mad against the agents, then suddenly stopped and went limp. "Mulder!" Concerned that Modell had somehow affected her partner as well, she rushed to his side. The agents were easing him to the ground, and he raised a hand weakly to let Scully know he was all right. The hand dropped like a wet rag and Mulder's eyes rolled up in his head. He was gone. Scully could do nothing but wait. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() Mulder found himself in the dreamy half-sleep where images from Modell's twisted mind came to him. He usually posed a question and waited for an answer or half-answer, as was most often the case to manifest itself. Now that was not enough. He needed contact with Modell, not a buffer zone. He searched for the connection itself, found it, and was suddenly in the guy's head, deeper than before. If he'd had a body, his nose would have wrinkled, the lips grimaced in disgust at the psychosis he was seeing firsthand. His mind, for lack of a better term, sufficed with strong loathing. Modell's brain tumor had effectively driven him over the edge. Knowing he was going to die didn't help his psychosis any he wanted to go out with a bang, taking as many people with him as he could. He'd been present when those other "suicides" had taken place he'd pushed the victims into taking their lives. The thought surprised him. Mulder thought back to Mina Harker, the half-vampire. A mild tinge of surprise rippled through the warped surface of Modell's mind, gone as quickly as it had come. He broke off suddenly, effectively evicting Mulder from Modell's mind. ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() Mulder remained prone even after Modell had finished with Burst and had hung up. Scully had performed CPR for a while even though she knew it was hopeless. The SWAT guys let Mulder go tentatively, giving him wary glances as though a gun would magically appear in his hand and he'd start shooting. No such luck. The trace had been finished before Modell hung up. A pay phone outside Farifax Mercy, just as Mulder had predicted. Just before Modell had hung up, he'd said almost casually, "Oh, and Agent Scully? See that your pal over gets to Fairfax safely. We have some business to finish up." Scully tentatively entered Mulder's mind. Empty. The lights were off and nobody was home. He was still in Modell's mind. She jumped a foot as Mulder reappeared in his head again. "Frank's dead." It wasn't a question. She nodded grimly. "Heart attack." He groaned and shut his eyes another moment, as though marshaling his strength. "Fairfax Mercy Hospital, Scully. He's there waiting for me. We've got to get over there." "You read all this from his brain?" "He told me." "WHAT?!?!?!" "You're wearing the line out, Scully." She ignored his vain attempt at humor. "How the hell did he know you were in there? He was busy pushing Burst!" "He's known all along. Evidently the connection was two-way. I should've thought of that, it was in the book as well." She ignored the raised eyebrows from the SWAT guys, who were completely baffled by their conversation. "So what'll you do in the hospital, Mulder?" He shrugged. "Cross that bridge when I get there?" ()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-() Scully would not let him go within ten feet of the hospital without being hooked up to a camera and radio. Mulder protested half- heartedly, but they both knew he was just as nervous as the agents waiting outside. He cautiously opened the door to Fairfax Mercy Hospital --and was assaulted by the same brainwaves he'd picked up in Modell's apartment. They had the same warped, psychotic bent to them. A non- psychic would simply have sensed something odd in the hospital, but Mulder's unusually sensitive mind reeled from the blast. he sent back. The link between him and Modell acted like a GPS, homing in on the source of the brainwaves. He followed the brainwaves to an EKG room on an upper floor of the hospital. Suddenly two shots rang out. A headache coursed through the link briefly and was gone. Mulder groaned, realizing that Modell had pushed someone else into shooting themselves. He poked his head out the door and saw two guards lying on the floor, bleeding badly from shots to the head. He didn't need to come close to them to figure out they were both dead. Scully requested. Mulder obligingly moved closer to the screen showing the most recent EKG scan so everybody outside the hospital got a better view of the EKG. Scully pointed out. Suddenly Modell's face loomed in the camera lens. With a crackle of static, he cut off the transmission. "MULDER!!" Scully shouted, verbally and mentally. No response, either telepathic or spoken. ()-()-()-()-()-()-() "Get out of my head," Mulder insisted. "If we're meeting face to face, we don't need that telepathy crap." "Fine with me," Modell vocalized. "Well, let's get down to business, shall we?" "What business would that be?" Mulder asked cautiously. "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies," Modell said with a smile, gesturing for Mulder to follow him. As they passed the dead guards, Modell nonchalantly plucked the revolver from one's holster. "Sit down," he said once they were in a comatose patient's room. Mulder sat warily at the sterile white table, looking cautiously at the revolver in Modell's hand. "Two equally-skilled combatants fight to the death," he said softly, taking a seat himself and popping out the cylinder. The beginnings of a headache built in Mulder's head. "One is a student of Japanese Budo the Way of War." Modell methodically removed three shells, leaving one bullet in the cylinder. The headache began climbing steadily. "Budo teaches the warrior to leave himself outside the battle in other words, to disregard his own death." Mulder felt his legs and arms turn to lead. He tried to open the connection between himself and Modell, tried to force the headache and paralysis through to his opponent to distract him. A block appeared where the connection was, as ominous as a locked door. Mulder threw himself at the block for a few seconds, then gave up. He wasn't going to get past it. Anyway, he was wasting precious time he needed to block Modell's pushing. As it was, he felt his body stiffen as if turning to stone. It would no longer respond to his commands, only to Modell's. "Because of that, the Budo warrior always wins." Modell's lips curved in a smile that looked more like a grimace. "I am that warrior. I don't fear my death." His body might have been under Modell's control, but his mind was still free for now. Modell reached into his mind and turned off the connection Mulder had with Scully as easily as if flipping a light switch. Mulder was alone in his head, and he felt desperately hopeless. ()-()-()-()-()-()-() The agents in charge of the bugging devices had been baffled by the sudden stop in transmission, but Scully knew better. She sat silently for a few seconds, searching out Mulder's mind. She didn't find much, she wasn't as good at probing as her partner was. . . She sat up ramrod straight suddenly. "Where's a vest?" she demanded. "What are you " "Mulder's in trouble, and I need to go after him. Now give me the damn vest!" An agent reluctantly gave her a bulletproof vest and she jammed it over her head. She remembered her gun and gave it to the agent at the computer. "What-" "I don't want to end up pointing this at anybody but Modell," she explained, and entered the hospital. "FBI. Go about your business as usual," she ordered the desk clerk, holding out her badge. No answer. Modell must have gotten to the telepathic link they had. She wandered aimlessly for a few seconds, then stopped in a stairwell and leaned her head against a concrete wall, trying to think. She forced her mind back over the images she'd seen on the monitor while Mulder's camera had been working. There was the door to the EKG room- what had it said? 419. Okay, that helped, fourth floor. She ran up the stairs and burst into the hallway. The first thing she saw was the two dead guards. The gun was missing from one of the holsters. Oh shit. That meant Modell had it. And if Modell was near Mulder. . . "Thanks for joining us," came Modell's voice from a room across the hall from the EKG room. Scully looked up and saw Mulder staring woodenly at Modell, who held a pistol loosely. "Modell, we've got a dozen law enforcement officers right outside this room," she bluffed. "And another thirty in the parking lot." "It's a regular convention," Mulder said, except the voice wasn't his. It was Modell's voice, sounding exactly like the times Mulder had self-hypnotized and reported images from Modell's mind. She ignored Mulder's/Modell's arrogance. "Whatever you've got planned, Modell, it's not going to work out the way you want it to." "You don't know what I got planned," Modell said through Mulder, with a low, ominous voice, like a tiger's growl. An alien voice reverberated in her mind, strained as if he was speaking while trying to lift a heavy weight. "Mulder, listen to me," she shouted, as loud as possible. "Fight him, you're stronger than him, fight back!" The only indication he'd heard her was a flicker of an eyelid. Scully felt desperately helpless. ()-()-()-()-()-()-() Mulder heard Scully's shout as if from a great distance. He would have answered her telepathically, but Modell had stopped him from doing that. The only thing he could do was wait for something to distract Modell from his singular purpose of holding Mulder in his power. Around the edges of the block, like the edges of the sun visible through a lunar eclipse, he saw a hint of desperation in Modell's implacable facade. And he also glimpsed what Modell wanted him to do. Oh God, no. *No*. He fought against Modell's control with renewed vigor, but it was a doomed fight. Modell pushed the revolver across the table to him, and his hand began moving towards it. It was only by an act of will that he slowed the movement to a crawl. "I'm giving you one pull of the trigger against me," came Modell's unctuous voice again. "That's a one in six chance. Remember," he added as Mulder grabbed the gun, "*one* pull." Mulder didn't want to pick up the gun, he didn't want to cock it at Modell's head, he didn't want to pull the trigger. . . *Click* An empty round. Modell blinked, smiled nervously, and said, "Piece of cake. Now your turn." If he'd had control of his eyelids, they would have widened in shock and horror. But since he had no power over anything, he remained stony-faced. The hand holding the gun lifted it to his own temple, and a traitor finger began tightening on the trigger. "Mulder, no," he heard Scully say with a slight tremble in her voice. "Mulder yes," Modell contradicted. "Do it!" ()-()-()-()-()-()-() "Mulder, give me the gun," Scully commanded intensely, pressing with her voice and mind. "We can stop this right now, we can just walk right out of her-NO!" Grimacing, Mulder put the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. *Click* Empty chamber as well, thank God. He would have dropped the gun like a hot potato and given Modell hell if he could, but Scully seemed to be doing fine. "Damn you! You bastard! Mulder, give me the gun so I can shoot out his brain. . .oh my God." Without even saying anything, Modell forced Mulder to point the gun at Scully. He was weakening imperceptibly, and Mulder hoped horror would provide energy to hold him off until Modell weakened enough to let him go. He nearly choked out her name, but not quite. Modell didn't relinquish control over this part so easily. "Mulder, you're stronger than him. Fight the bastard." With a reluctant jerk, Modell weakened enough to allow Mulder to talk on his own. "I'm going to kill you, Modell!" he promised. "Yeah! Pull the trigger and you get another crack at me," Modell said enthusiastically. "Come on, Mulder, she shot you in the shoulder once, I saw it in your files. Payback time! Shoot the damn spy!" "Scully, run. Run!" he ordered. She hesitated, pain showing clearly on her face. Modell's control on the telepathy weakened slightly. His finger slipped a notch tighter on the trigger as he fired a message at her: For a millisecond she didn't understand and stared blankly. The gun was a hair away from firing. . . Then he felt a blast of mental energy fired at Modell with the speed of a 9mm Sig Sauer. Scully had given Modell the equivalent of a Jackie Chan karate kick in psychic energy. In a second Modell's control evaporated, and Mulder swung the gun around to face Modell and fired at point-blank range. Modell jerked back from the gunshot, red stains blossoming like flowers on his hospital scrubs. Mulder knocked over the flimsy table and kept pulling the trigger even thought he knew there were no more bullets in it. He faintly heard Scully behind him radio for backup, but didn't stop shooting until Scully pried the gun from his hand. ()-()-()-()-()-()-() She was sound asleep when something woke her up. She recognized it as a nightmare from her partner. He was still asleep, so she saw the nightmare clearly. It was the scene from the incident yesterday afternoon, only this time Scully didn't stop Modell in time, and Mulder ended up shooting her. She shuddered as her nightmare self crumpled to the floor with accusation in her eyes, clouded by blood. A mental scream, and Mulder was awake. she said silently, trying to keep her tone light. They'd seen him that afternoon, hooked up to a thousand life support machines. The doctors said he'd never recover, if he lived very long at all. she cut him off. The equivalent of a sigh came across the connection. she reminded him, smiling. The rest was lost as Mulder fell asleep. ()-()-()-()-()-()-() "You've got all the money you need. You can't take it with you." -Martin Vanderhoff, "You Can't Take It With You" "Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy." -Scully, "Pusher" "See how I suffer and who makes me suffer/because I gave reverence to what claims reverence!" -Antigone, "Antigone" (Sophocles) Please do not send me feedback, I am only 14 and my parents don't like anonymous people E-mailing me. Sorry.