From: "jesse bee" Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 22:24:04 -0800 Subject: xfc: NEW: Eyewall 1 of 1 Source: xfc From: "jesse bee" Title: EYEWALL Date: 103199 Author: jesse (jesse.bee@mailcity.com) Rating: R Category: V, A, Spoilers: Biogenesis Summary: Biogenesis missing scene. Sorry, just couldn't resist. Archive: Gossamer--yes. Ephemeral--yes. Exemplary--yes. ATXC--yes. Planet X--yes. DS--hell, yes. Anybody else--please ask. Feedback: PLEASE. Good, bad, whatever. Flame me if you'd like: I'm spoiling for a good fight and my ego is iron-cast, anyway... Disclaimer: 20th Century Fox, Chris Carter, and 1013 Productions own the rights to THE X-FILES. It'd be a hell of a lot more interesting if DD and GA owned them, as "The Unnatural" proved. EYEWALL jesse103199 ::The eyewall is the edge of the center of a hurricane, the boundary dividing the calm from the storm:: He had backed up against the wall, into the far corner. Now as the door finally opened and she slipped in, he slid down to an disheveled heap on the floor, as if to reassure the watchers that to her, to *her* he was no threat. "Scully..." It was no more than a breath of sound. "*Mulder.*" Three steps and she was there, sinking to her knees beside him, her hands reaching out, palms coming to rest on either side of his face over his temples. As if a switch had been thrown Mulder suddenly relaxed, his jaw unclenching and mouth dropping open in what looked for all the world to Scully like a vast sigh of relief. His hands came up to cover hers, holding them gently in place. "Mulder?" "God." His voice was raw. "Oh, God, Scully, don't move. Don't move." "What--?" "The noise, the--static, it's like you threw a blanket, you're blocking it, muting it somehow. Christ..." Hazel eyes opened for a moment, and the thousand glazed layers of pain in them widened the jagged tear that had been ripped somewhere around her heart. Then they closed again as Mulder dropped his head forward to rest above her breast. His long exhalation warmed and tingled Scully's skin, but it was the tiny hitch at the end that undid her. With a sob not quite completely contained Scully wound her arms around his shoulders and nestled one hand at the back of his head, holding him as she pressed her lips to his scalp, his sweat-stiff hair prickling her skin. Mulder's arms came around her waist and the unheard-of tremor in them told her just how much pain he was in, how exhausted he was. Mulder would no more admit to being in pain than she would. He murmured something to her, his voice muffled in her shirt. There were mikes in this room, she remembered. "Mulder," she whispered urgently into his hair. "What happened? Who put you here?" "Diana." Scully's arms tightened as if she could shield him from the very sound of the name of the woman who'd caused them both so much heartache. "How?" Mulder sighed. "I went back to American U.--yeah, I know," he whispered at her small motion, "shouldn't have." She squeezed his ear, and he made a sound that she knew would have been a chuckle if he'd been up to it. "Went through Barnes' office, ducked into the lab when he came back. Thought I was clear but then--*something*--hit me like a semi. Heavy metal concert times twelve. Made it into a stairwell before I went down. Don't think I was there very long before *he* came by." "Who?" "Krycek." Mulder made that little almost-chuckle again at Scully's soundless but forceful epithet. "He must've called her because the next thing I knew she was there, got me home. Couldn't see straight by then, but getting away from the campus seemed to help, away from all those people. Was feeling a little better by the time you called." "You didn't tell me any of this then," she murmured, hopefully low enough that the mikes wouldn't catch it, wouldn't catch any of this, her heart aching, surely he'd had a reason... "Couldn't. She was right there, didn't want her to know that I knew, had to give you room to move, reason to look. Figured as long as she, they, were occupied with me they might not come after you, give you some time..." He had. Her eyes squeezed shut. If it were possible to love the man anymore-- "And?" "And--then she decided she should--comfort me--the way she used to when we were together, and all she was thinking about was what she could find to tell *him*." 'All she was thinking'--don't go there. 'Comfort him.' Don't go there either. Oh, God. "Krycek?" "Spender." A fine tremor ran through him and she hugged him. Mulder's trust was rarely given, but once bestowed, took repeated applications of heavy-duty explosives to dislodge. A long, painful process. For everyone. "And?" "I couldn't stand it anymore. Told her I knew, get the hell out." Mulder sighed again, heavily. "And she hit me with some kind of stun gun. I woke up *here*, with all the voices screaming at me..." The shudder that shook him this time was deep and wracking, and Scully's arms tightened convulsively as though to shelter him within herself by main force. For a few long moments there was silence. When this is over, I swear, I will hug him repeatedly for no reason other than because I want to... "Scully." "Yeah?" "You've got to go." Her arms tightened again. "I'll--" "No, you've got to go to the source, Scully, find out--" "AFTER I get you out of here." She startled herself with her ferocity this time. "We'll go together." His chin brushed the top of her breast as he shook his head a little. "No time. You've got to find out what this thing is, how to deal with it, before it drives me--" // --before it drives me the rest of the way out of my mind. // She heard the words in her head as clearly as if he'd spoken them there. But to leave him here? Like this? At *her* mercy? "Mulder--" "Scully." Something in his voice stopped her, stilled her. She waited. "Please." Goddammit, she *hated* it when he did that. Africa. Lord God Almighty, he wanted her to go to Africa. To truly cure an infection, one needed to find the source. Sometimes she really, really hated it when he was right, too. Which he was an annoyingly large portion of the time... Scully pulled a long breath and let it out slowly through her nose, ruffling his hair. "They told me when I joined the FBI that I'd meet interesting people, travel to interesting places..." Mulder's shoulders relaxed further under her arm and he sighed yet again, turned his cheek against her. "Thank you." His arms tightened for a moment, then eased. "Not that I *want* you to leave, mind you, you're--fun to hug, I could get used to this--" How the hell did he manage to get mischief into his voice, in the shape he was in? Scully closed her mouth firmly on the snort of laughter that shook her--he couldn't be that bad off if he could still manage to lob innuendo at her--and felt his answering hug and realized that that was exactly why he'd done it. "I'll be fine, Scully." "Don't steal my lines, Mulder. There must be something I--" "Actually, " Mulder interrupted her, sounding a bit surprised, "I--think--you already have." His speech was slurred. "Mulder?" In the next moment she was nearly pulled over as he slumped bonelessly into her, his head lolling back. He was dead weight in her arms. "*Mulder!*" Stunned, panicked, she laid him down, his hair making a blotch of chocolate and walnut against the stark industrial tile floor. She grabbed his wrist, peeled back an eyelid. He was out cold, as if-- And the doctor's words came back to her. "...he should be in a barbiturate coma..." Stunned now almost to the point of numb, she placed his hand gently on the floor as she heard the staff getting the door open. She had bullied a look at his chart, she knew what they'd given him. The evidence was quite clear and unfathomable. Something she had done, her physical touch, had made it possible for the drugs they'd pumped into him to finally hit. // ...the--static, it's like you threw a blanket, you're blocking it... // I will find the cause for this, Mulder, I swear to you I will. And when you're completely recovered I will so very much enjoy telling you all about the decidedly terrestrial reason for all this... // And since when have you ever proved me completely wrong? // Christ, he was utterly unconscious and *still* he was arguing with her. As the orderlies lifted him onto the stretcher Scully saw that Mulder's mouth was turned up a little at the corners, almost as though he were smiling. fini ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hey, TALK to me! jesse.bee@mailcity.com