Title: Into the Fire Author: BelleElle (BelleElle7@aol.com, Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com) Rating: PG-13 to mild R for somewhat-graphic violence and only one bad word you won't see on TV. Classification: TA Spoilers: One Breath, Christmas Carol/Emily but this has a lot of minor details that would be helpful if you knew about. Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST, sort of Romance at the end. Summary: Scully is subjected to the haunts and fears from her past. And Mulder must get past his own guilt in order to save her. Feedback: If I don't get any feedback, I will never write again! Please! E-mail me at Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com. PLEASE!!! For the sake of my shattered psyche! Feedback is the only reason I wrote this. Warnings: This is angsty. Well, I've read angstier, but this gets pretty hairy. But don't worry, it has a happy ending. Also, although most of the story is "Unresolved"ST, this is very shipper-orientated. So, if you love angst and you consider yourself a shipper, this is the story for you. Thank yous: I must thank two of the nicest FanFic-Shipper-MulderAngst-Crazy-Philes I have ever known. Jooky313 (a.k.a. Jessica) because she convinced me that I really could write. Hell, I might even be [[good]] at it! (I still don't believe it though...) I wouldn't have finished this sucker if it weren't for her. And Kel (the Evil twin), who understood exactly what I meant in every word and always had great suggestions. And to everyone else who read this thing from the start and actually wanted to know what was gonna happen as it popped out of my head. And if my sister, for some unlikely reason should chance upon this story, this is what I was writing while I was staying at your house. Now you know the sick truth. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and all the rest of the bunch, (a.k.a. Skinner, CSM, Langly, Byers and Frohike, etc.) are the best characters ever and I only wish I could have created them. But I didn't. CC did. And a bunch of people are getting rich of them. But not me. Fox is. Also, the title is shamefully ripped off from one of Sarah McLachlan's songs: Into the Fire, from her album, entitled Solace. I'm sorry Sarah! Forgive me! I love everything she does. So, think of it as homage to her glory. That reminds me. I don't know if this already exists, but I am a huge fanfic reader and a huge fan of Sarah McLachlan. That's why I put quotes from her songs in my story. XF Fanfic and her music just go together like Mulder and Scully. I really want to start a Fanfic/Sarah McLachlan Group of some kind. But I need some help! If anyone would like to help me out, please e-mail me! (BelleElle7@aol.com). I could make the website. Oh and just to toot my own horn: check out my websites: The X-Files Aficionado Center at http://members.aol.com/BelleElle7/index.html and The Mulder&Scully Art Gallery (Shippy Collages and stuff) at http://members.aol.com/BelleElle7/MSArtGallery.htm Okay. Let the Angst-fest begin! --------------------------------------------------- Part (1/4): Into the Fire, by BelleElle "Into the Fire, I'm reunited. Into the Fire, I am the spark. Into the Night, I yearn for comfort." --Sarah McLachlan, "Into the Fire" ----------------X---------------- Dana Scully's Apartment January 28, 2000 8:56 p.m. Slipping her key into her apartment door, Dana Scully walked into her living room and dropped her coat and keys on her coffee table. She sighed with exhaustion as she slumped unto her couch, marking yet another stressful day with Mulder. They had finally wrapped up their latest investigation, following up on leads that would lead to Gibson Praise, but they were barren and they were once again left empty handed. Except for the paper work they were going have to fill out explaining their use of federal money to fly half way across the country, again. Her eyes were closed as she lay her head back against the couch, reveling in the peace and quiet. As quickly as she had found that peace, it was lost. Footsteps outside her apartment kicked in her instincts and she froze, staring at the shadow under her door. Whoever it was, they stood there for a minute and left the way they came. Finally, she got up. No one was outside her door when she checked through her peephole, and the only thing she found was her newspaper that she had neglected that morning. Picking it up she was beginning to feel foolish for suspecting anything. But she wouldn't rest until she was sure. Opening the paper she found more than headlines. She found a picture of someone she sees in her dreams, in her nightmares, in visions. Emily. ----------------X---------------- The X-Files Office January 31, 2000 5:38 p.m. Scully sat at Mulder's desk, trying to concentrate on the paperwork before her, her nails mindlessly tapping away on the desktop. She didn't know what to do. She had contemplated all weekend on whether she should tell him about the picture. He had said he was going to be gone most of the day because he was a witness in a court hearing that would most likely run over and he had a meeting with Skinner after that. She would have to do the paperwork by herself, until he came back, which would be any time now. What was she going to tell him? If she told him everything, he would blow the whole thing out of proportion. But she needed to tell him something, she needed to tell someone. As much as she hated to admit it, this was frightening her. The picture she found was an exact replica of the picture she kept, which she found to be right where she left it. Now, she had two. She didn't want to deal with this. She didn't need this in her life right now. She didn't need another reason to run to Mulder for sympathy. But she knew that she should tell him everything. He was her partner and the only person she could trust, and maybe he was even more. But she was afraid to venture beyond partnership and friendship. As much as part of her did, there was always that part that nagged her, reminding her that the closer they got personally, the more she would lose her professional equality with him. If she told him that, he would deny it. He would try to convince her otherwise. God only knew how much she wanted to open herself up to him. But she was afraid, deathly afraid of the changes, of the sacrifices and of the complications that would come with her decision to do so. And she was afraid of losing herself. She couldn't bring herself to do anything more than stay with him and be there for him. She held her face in her hands, trying to bury out reality for a few seconds, to gain back her composure. "Scully, what's wrong?" She hadn't even heard him come in. She looked up at him and put on her best 'there's nothing wrong, I'm fine, Mulder' face. Picking up her pen, she went back to filling out the forms. "Nothing, Mulder, how did court go?" but she knew that nothing slipped by Mulder. 'Just drop it, Mulder, please.' she thought. "Fine, I managed to sound sane and didn't scare anyone too badly, I think." she had to smile at that, Mulder wasn't a judge's favorite witness. "Seriously, Scully, are you sure you're okay?" "Yeah, I think this paperwork is just giving me a headache." She went back to filling out the paperwork, hoping that he would drop it, and for a few seconds it seemed he had. The silence between them was awkward, unlike them. Mulder took off his coat and sat in the chair where she usually sat. He seemed in thought, as if contemplating if he should say what he was about to say. "Scully, there's something I have to tell you." she looked up at his tone, awaiting his next words. "I found something this morning, in my newspaper." he paused, reading her face, and then continued. "Someone gave me a picture of Emily." She was silent, afraid to speak for fear that what she would say wouldn't sound in control. She had no other response than to stare at her lap. "Scully, do you know anything about this?" "I...I found one, too, Mulder." she finally told him. "This morning?" "Friday night, actually, Mulder, it is probably nothing. It's just pictures, it's just someone taunting us ..." "Scully, these people don't 'taunt', they kill. This is a warning, Scully, of something big. I'm not sure of what, but you know as well as I what these people are capable of." he said, his tone serious, somewhat angry with her. "Scully, if you aren't going to be honest with me and tell me these things..." he trailed off, staring into her face which was intently focused on her hands. "Scully, they might come back, you shouldn't be alone." he finally said softly. She looked up at him, suddenly enraged. She had enough of his sympathy, and was sick of his over- protective nature. "Damnit, Mulder, just leave it." she snapped, "I don't need you to know everything about my life. I don't need you to baby-sit me, Mulder. I can take care of myself." Her response shocked him, his face weakened and vulnerable with the sting of her words. "I didn't say that. I just don't want anything to happen to you, but if you can't trust me ..." "Mulder, trust *me*. Trust that I can take care of myself, that I don't need you in my life every step of the way. Emily is part of my life, not yours. I don't want you to feel sympathy for me and waste your time looking for something that isn't there." "I can't, Scully. Emily is part of your life, yes, but you are part of mine. Hell, you are my life and I'm not going to let you go again because you don't realize that." "Mulder, I do realize that." she said softer, yet still angry, "But I need you to let me handle this my way. I can't go rushing into this right now. And I don't want you to either. I can't go chasing after shadows. She's gone, Mulder. I can't put myself through that again." He couldn't respond to that, he was now the one staring at his hands, trying to make sense of what she was asking him. She wanted to forget, he knew that, he understood that. But her need for justice was lost. Maybe she hadn't had as much as he did, but it had been there, but now it was gone. She wanted to pretend that she never found Emily, never had a child, never saw her waste away helplessly. Mulder felt the pain wash over himself at the thought, the sight of poor Emily, nothing but another lab rat of the government. This thought brought him more than pain but rage, the rage that she was lacking, she was missing. "Scully, I understand what you're going through," he started "but you can't just forget, you can't just pretend it never happened..." he suddenly stopped when she stood up. He looked at her face. It was full of rage, not the rage that he knew Scully to possess, but rage toward him and it scared him. "Mulder, I don't want your sympathy. I am not you." he stared at her, afraid to speak. "I don't want to lead my life into the shadows, running and hiding and searching for something that can't be found. They have done enough to me, to you. Why can't you just stop? We are running in endless circles, Mulder," she paused, her eyes still intensely staring into his, but her face was expressing the pain and weakness her eyes would not. "And I'm tired of it, Mulder. I don't know how much more I can take of this." He just stared, shocked. It hurt him for her to say this. It was as if Scully was gone, and all that was left was the pain. He didn't know what to say. She was, in his head, telling him that she didn't want to do this anymore, to do this with him anymore. After all these years, he had thought she was going to be by his side the whole length of the journey, forever. But now she was unofficially resigning from her place by his side. And once again, he was shaking inside, afraid to let her go, to slip away from him once again. He needed to reach out to her, grasp her in his arms before she slipped away, not knowing what she was doing to him. But he couldn't say the words and she walked out of the office, of his life before he could utter his reason for living, her name. ----------------X---------------- 7:13 p.m. Mulder had at one point moved from the chair where she usually sat to his own. He had sat there for nearly two hours now, awaiting her return, chewing on his lip, his thumb, sunflower seeds, anything. He was trying to figure what he was going to say, something that would convince her what she meant to him. He was going to end this right now; he was going to tell her that leaving him like this was going to kill him. He was going to tell her that they could work it out, everything would be all right. Together they could save themselves and put back together their world and the world around them. But she needed to know that she couldn't walk away. She couldn't leave him and the promises he would make to her. Mulder was desperate for her, if for no other reason than to be at his side mocking his theories. He knew that he needed her and that if she knew that, she might open up to him and let him help her. He also knew that she needed to be his equal, in life and in work. He needed to show her that she would always be his equal, hell, she was his superior in so many things. She needs to know that, but before that, she needs to come back to him, so that he could tell her he loved her. But she never came back. ----------------X---------------- 7:13 p.m. After she had left Mulder in the office she had walked around the building, not knowing where to go. She was lost, but always found herself back at the office. Just outside she would pace and stare at the door she had closed, had shut herself out of, wondering what to do. She would never stay long, afraid he would come out, probably to find her. She didn't know what to do. She felt frantic even. If she went back in, she knew what he was going to say, he was going to pour his heart out to her like he had done before, telling her not to leave, that he needed her with him. She wished he wouldn't because she would lose control again. And this time she didn't think she could gain it back. Sometimes she wished she could just fall into him and never come out of his arms again. But she couldn't, and wouldn't let herself. She needed to get away from him, to sort her thoughts, but she knew of no where to go that he couldn't find her. So she headed to her car, planning on driving somewhere, where she never went, somewhere he would never find her. As she got her keys out she suddenly felt foolish. She was an adult. She could handle this, she didn't need to run away from him, she could deal with this. As she walked back to the elevator in the parking garage, she was feeling slightly better. She could talk to him. Who else would listen to her, understand her? She could reason with him about this. She hadn't meant it: she wanted to continue this, but she needed for him to understand what was going on with her. She had denied him that for so long. She needed to tell him that she needed him by her side, just as she knew he needed her by his, but she needed to be his equal, not his female counterpart. She only hoped he would understand, that he would give her space, that he wouldn't take her problems upon himself and make everything more complicated. She just wanted him to understand. She pushed the button on the elevator that would bring her down to the lower level of the building, down to the basement. She stood silent, alone, staring at her reflection against her metallic prison. Her image was broken by the opening of the doors, letting a man she had never seen before enter and stand silently to the side of her. She shifted to make room for him and they stood silent as the metallic doors shut once again. Once they were closed he turned to look at her and the thoughts she found in his eyes scared her. She knew those eyes, that face, had seen it a thousand times in a thousand different people. It was the face of someone that was about to do something that they held no remorse for. But as quickly as she had recognized his intentions, his intentions to harm her, he recognized her awareness. He wasted no time in containing her within his strong arms and injecting her with something, she didn't know, something she only knew brought her unconsciousness, the convenient, black sleep. ----------------X---------------- 8:02 p.m. He had given up on her. She didn't want to talk to him again, at least not tonight. She probably went home, he thought. He knew he should respect her privacy, at least for a while. He knew he should let her be, but he was worried about her. He hadn't forgotten what had started their argument in the first place, Emily. That picture was there for a reason. Someone put it there as a message, a warning. He just couldn't figure out what it was. He wished she could help him on this. But that wasn't going to be possible just yet, he thought as he got into his car. It had taken all his will power not to call her cell phone yet. But as his thoughts came back to the picture, he was beginning to fear the worse. She could have gone home to her dark, lonely apartment and then...Or she could have driven home and gotten run off the road and... The Past was haunting him again. He couldn't help but feel the guilt devour him once again. It had been him who had let her slip between her fingers into the hands of Duane Barry and Donnie Pfaster. It had been her who had suffered because of his mistakes... That was it, he needed to call her. But before he could reach for the cell phone in his trench coat pocket, it rang. "Mulder," he answered. "Mulder, it's me..." he almost breathed a sigh of relief at hearing her the familiar words, but by her tone, he could tell she wasn't fine this time. "Scully, what is it?" his tone told her he knew immediately that something was wrong. "Mulder, I...I'm fine," she started to say, obviously struggling to get the words out, "I need to take some time off, Mulder. Will you cover for me for a while?" "Scully, what is it? What is going on?" his voice was beginning to sound frantic. "Mulder, it's personal. I need to get out of town for a while. Just please, just..." this was killing him, he knew something was wrong. Her voice was screaming at him in the silence between her words. There was something wrong that she couldn't tell him, or wouldn't tell him, he couldn't tell. "Scully, please, just tell me...you trust me, don't you?" he said, trying to get her to release whatever she was holding inside. "Mulder, I trust..." she started. It sounded to him as if she was going to start crying, and he was afraid, so afraid for her and what she wouldn't tell him. "I trust that you will feed my fish while I'm gone?" Scully didn't have any fish. Mulder was confused. Then he realized what she was saying to him, or what she couldn't say. She was in trouble. Again. "Of course I will, Scully." he asserted her softly. "Thank you, Mulder." she knew that he had understood. She paused, her breathing deep and trembling. "Mulder, I need you to know that it's not your fault...if my fish die." Her cryptic message almost made him cry out to her. But he realized that if he was right and she wasn't alone, and was in trouble, this call was being screened. She was telling that this, and anything that would happen to her was not his fault. But not even Scully could convince him otherwise. "I would never harm your fish, Scully," he paused, hoping she would understand, "I love your fish." "I know, Mulder, me too." "Good bye, Scully." "Good bye, Mulder." Turning off the phone, Fox Mulder did something that only pain afflicted to or from the woman he loves can provoke. He sobbed, sharp, silent sobs that he tried to control by leaning against his steering wheel. It only lasted a minute or so, but he was in agony. She was going to die. She was gone, this time he wasn't going to get her back. There was no use. He had nothing to go on. He had nothing. Nothing but her last words to him wishing him good bye. ----------------X---------------- 8:20 p.m. Scully pushed "end" on the phone and sighed at the sheer force of what had just happened. It had been one of the most profound conversations she had ever had with Mulder, and they had been talking about fish. She knew he would understand. But she was afraid that her captors would, too. She was blindfolded in the back seat of a car, her car, by the smell of it. She had awoken there after she had been taken from the elevator. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but from what they told her, she could tell it was still the same day. Whatever they had given her had been enough to get her out of the public eye and safely secured. Not very long at all. When she had waken up they shoved what felt like her cell phone into her hand and explained that she was to call everyone she knew that she was going to be out of town for a few days. Whatever she needed to do to make them believe. First she had called Skinner, explaining that she needed time off for personal matters. She never took time off for any other reason that didn't have to do with illness or work, so he granted it to her readily, but he didn't sound utterly convinced with her explanation. Her mother had been easy. She hated to lie to her, explaining that she was going out of town on a case for a while, probably longer than normal. But Mulder had been hard. She didn't know if she was going to get through it with out breaking down or giving too much away. She needed him to save her. She had too much to tell him, to explain. She regretted so much that had happened and she was determined not to die like this, with so much unsettled in her life. She had hoped she sounded believable, or else, she feared the worst, to herself and to Mulder. She was now silently waiting for them to finish binding her again, her hands and even her mouth were now being contained by the man sitting next to her. She couldn't tell if this man or the driver was the man from the elevator. But she was sure only two were there in the car, her car. They must have taken her car as proof that she was really going on a trip. Suddenly she felt her arm being grabbed by the man sitting next to her and once again she felt a syringe enter her arm and bring her upon sleep. ----------------X---------------- He had thought of going to Skinner or involving the FBI or the authorities, but he wasn't sure that was the best idea. Scully had told him to cover for her. Could it be that she really wanted him to lie for her? To cover up her disappearance because of threats by her captors? He had sat in his car forever, wasting time on trying to figure out what to do. He felt paralyzed, his mind was a mass of thoughts, unsorted and lost. He was so lost without her. Maybe she really was just going out of town. Maybe she really did have fish that he didn't know about. And maybe Elvis really is alive, he thought sarcastically. But he doesn't live in a world where things are what they appear to be. He lives in hell. He lives in hell where demons and the devil lurk around him, knowing his every move, knowing his every thought, waiting for the moment when they could take advantage of his weaknesses. And they were taking advantage of his greatest weakness: Scully. Six and a half years ago, Scully had come to live with him in his hell. She didn't deserve this, but she stayed by his side, battling the demons, cooling the fire, softening and molding her way into his heart. His cell phone rang, awakening him slightly from his trance. He blankly stared at the phone on the seat next to him before reaching over to pick it up. "Mulder," he answered weakly. "Agent Mulder, this is Skinner." "Yeah," he said, not caring how unprofessional he sounded. "Agent Mulder, have you heard from Agent Scully?" he said, waiting for a response from Mulder, but one never came, so he continued. "Scully called here about fifteen minutes ago, explaining how she was going out of town on some personal business for a while...do you know anything about this?" "Uh, yeah" he said, finding his voice, barely. "She called and said about the same thing." Yeah, just about, and that she was going to die, he thought helplessly. "Do you have any idea what she was talking about?" "No, she didn't explain." he said. He was now sure that if Skinner couldn't figure out that she was in trouble, he wasn't supposed to know. This was going to be a fight he would have to do alone. "If you hear from her, tell me immediately," he said. "Yes, sir, I will." "This isn't like her, Mulder, and I'm not sure I like it." "I know," was all he said, ending the conversation. He was alone on this, alone without Scully, without the help that was supposed to be available to him, he only had one place left to go. ----------------X---------------- The Office of the Lone Gunmen 9:38 p.m. The trio stared sadly at the man sitting before them. He had come, asking their help, explaining that she was gone, taken away from him, again. But they had nothing to offer him. They had never seen him like this before. He was desperate, weak, lost. It was as if all the pain in his life had led to this and he couldn't do anything about it. And all they could do was watch him helplessly as he stared blankly at the floor. "Mulder, do you still have the picture?" Byers said, trying to give him some hope. He nodded slightly, without looking up and took the picture in an evidence bag out of his coat pocket and handed it to him. Byers took the picture. "Maybe we will be able to find something in it," he paused, hoping he wasn't treading on Mulder's fragile sense of being, "and, if possible, could you give us her copy, or copies of the picture..." Mulder looked up, his eyes sad and full of pain. "Umm...yeah, I'll check for you." he said quietly, obviously pained at the thought, and once again stared blankly at the floor. "We'll do everything we can, Mulder." Byers said, always the one to handle the difficult situations while Langly and Frohike held back, afraid to say the wrong thing. "Thanks guys," he said softly before he walked out of the room. After he left, Frohike spoke up, "Sheesh, he's hit the bottom this time." Byers gave him a stern look before taking the picture over to their digital scanner. "Let's get to work." ------------------------------------------------------- End of Part One: Into the Fire, by Belle Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com Title: Into the Fire Author: BelleElle (BelleElle7@aol.com, Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com) Rating: PG-13 to mild R for somewhat-graphic violence and only one bad word you won't see on TV. Classification: TA Spoilers: One Breath, Christmas Carol/Emily but this has a lot of minor details that would be helpful if you knew about. Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST, sort of Romance at the end. Summary: Scully is subjected to the haunts and fears from her past. And Mulder must get past his own guilt in order to save her. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and all the rest of the bunch, (a.k.a. Skinner, CSM, Langly, Byers and Frohike, etc.) are the best characters ever and I only wish I could have created them. But I didn't. CC did. And a bunch of people are getting rich of them. But not me. Fox is. Also, the title is shamefully ripped off from one of Sarah McLachlan's songs: Into the Fire, from her album, entitled Solace. Also, I use quotes from her songs here and there throughout. I'm sorry Sarah! Forgive me! I love everything she does. So, think of it as homage to her glory. ----------------X---------------- Part (2/4) Into the Fire, by Belle "Pressed up against the glass I found myself wanting sympathy but to be consumed again oh I know would be the death of me and there is a love that's inherently given a kind of blindness offered to appease and in that light of forbidden joy oh I know I won't receive it When all we wanted was the dream to have and to hold that precious little thing" --Sarah McLachlan, "Wait" ----------------X---------------- Dana Scully's Apartment 10:13 p.m. Mulder felt like he was breaking into her apartment as he slipped his key into the lock. It felt wrong, like stealing from the dead. The Dead. Scully had said that it wasn't his fault if her fish died. If she died. He didn't know what he would do without her. But she would always be there, every day till the end of his life, reminding him of everything he should have done and didn't. Like love her. Like keep her from all the pain he had caused her. Like save her. Sometimes he wished he had never met her, that she would have been better off as a doctor or as an FBI agent partnered with someone else. She would have never been abducted, never had her ovum savagely stolen from her for the production of clones and of Emily, who's only purpose was to die. She would be married now, maybe have children, her own children. She would never have been barren, she would never have had cancer. He wished he had turned her away that day she came into his office, saying that he didn't want her there. But she would have stayed anyway. She has always had the choice to leave him, but she stayed. And he would never forgive himself for selfishly letting her. He walked through her dark, vacant apartment, checking drawers for the picture. Each time he pulled a drawer open, he felt a pang of guilt or pain for what he saw there. Old medications, pictures of her family, including her brother, who even in a picture reminded him of what he had done to her family, to her sister. He found a picture of Melissa and stared at it, remembering how she had helped him get through his self-absorbed guilt when she had come back to him after her abduction. She had told him that Scully needed him by her side, not fighting in the darkness. The light and the dark. The ultimate battle. He pocketed the picture. Despite the painful memories and guilt it gave him, it also gave him hope, hope that if Scully could come back to him before, she could come back to him this time. He continued his search, but was getting nowhere. He had avoided her bedroom but it was now becoming inevitable. He walked in, once again feeling as if he was an intruder who didn't belong there. He cautiously walked over to her nightstand and pulled out the top drawer. There he found the two pictures, laid out neatly, as if waiting for him to find. He took them out, eyeing them, trying to find a difference, but to the naked eye, there was none. There sat Emily, smiling brightly before her birthday cake, full of unknowing innocence. He pocketed those pictures as well before he could think too much about it. He now had a pocket full of his victims, his past crimes against Scully: her sister and her daughter, together in his dark pocket. Now, all he needed was a picture of Scully, he thought grimly. He needed to leave her apartment before he added himself to that list of the dead. ----------------X---------------- The Offices of the Lone Gunmen 10:57 p.m. Frohike unlocked the intricate set of locks to let Mulder in. He had only been gone an hour, and as of yet, they could find nothing unusual about the picture, but they really needed the other pictures to compare it to. Mulder just stood outside and took out the pictures from his pocket and handed them to Frohike. He wouldn't enter. "Find anything so far?" but he already knew the answer. Frohike shook his head. "Listen, Mulder..." he started, but couldn't say. Byers came up behind him. "Mulder, we have an extra bed if you want to stay here tonight," "Yeah," Langly chimed in, "we might find something and we know you'd want to know as soon as possible." Mulder just stared at them, realizing what they were doing. They were worried about him. It was so cute, he would have laughed if he could. "Uh...no thanks guys, I appreciate it, but I can't imagine Frohike's sleeping habits are very soothing." He tried to smile at him to let him know he was just kidding. They were just happy to see a hint of the old Mulder. "Yeah," Langly said, "we understand, Mulder, all too well. We'll call if we get anything. Keep your e-mail handy." "Thanks, guys." he said as he turned and walked away. ----------------X---------------- 11:47 p.m. Once again she awoke, but this time she felt like hell. Her body ached and her head hurt. If she weren't blindfolded, she would be dizzy. But she tried to remain still so that her captors would not know she had come out of her unconscious state. She didn't want another shot. She was beginning to become sickly afraid of the fact that someone was putting drugs into her. Drugs that could do more than just knock her out. Drugs that could kill her. "She's awake," the deep male voice to her right announced. "Should I give her another?" "No," the driver muttered, "we're here. They'll give her some more." She could hear the thick gravel churn under the tires as the car came to a stop. The man sitting next to her took her roughly by the arm. "Let's go," he hissed as he dragged her out from the back seat of her car. She practically tumbled out of the car as the man dragged her. He stood her up at his side and led the way. Her heels slipped noisily through the thick gravel as she walked. Silently, just ahead, a man watched as she struggled to walk with composure, despite the circumstances. She was always so strong, so self-reliant. But he could see through her. She was afraid, deathly afraid. Slowly, he smiled at the thought. Her fear will be the only thing left when we get through with her, he thought as he lit a fresh cigarette. He blew the smoke out and watched her as she was led unto the train car he stood near. He watched as the realization hit her, she knew what she was being led onto. She remembered the last time she had been on a train car. The fear was beginning to seep into her. The man smiled once again. Now, he thought, now the games begin. ----------------X---------------- Mulder's Apartment February 1, 2000 1:20 a.m. He couldn't sleep. Of course not, he was in hell. No one sleeps in hell. Why should he? She was obviously not peacefully in her own bed. Why did he deserve to be? Frustrated, he swung his legs over the side of his bed. His hands held his face, trying to ease the pain, the pain in his head, the pain in his heart, nothing could be eased. He didn't know how much longer he could do this. Just knowing she was gone, and that there was nothing he could do was killing him. He would do anything, trade everything for her. He would trade his life. He lifted his head from her hands and stared at his gun on the nightstand. He would trade his life for hers in an instant. He knew that, but it doesn't work that way. He had to hold on, and with each breath he was desperately trying to do just that. He lay back down on his bed and finally fell asleep knowing that he was her only hope. And that was what scared him the most. ----------------X---------------- 4:42 a.m. Mulder stood, silent, alone on the top of a mountain, in a clearing separate from any trees. It was dark, so dark. The sky was littered with stars when he looked up. But he wasn't looking for stars. He had been on this mountain so many times, in life and in his mind, always looking for her. But she was never to be found. He always remained alone. Alone in his search for her. Then she appeared. Not the one that he had been searching for on this mountain so many times before, but so much like her. Her hair was fiery red like her sister's, but longer. She was in a soft, white gown that flowed with the cold wind, a contrast to his dark, stiff suit and trench coat. He looked down at his shoes, not knowing what to do. She came to him and took his steel hand into hers. "Look at me, Fox." she softly commanded. He obeyed, pained at the sight. All he could see was her sister, in her eyes, in her mouth, in the way she looked at him. It hurt but he could not look away. "Dana needs you, Fox, she needs you to find her." "But I don't know where..." he said, nearly whining. "You need to have faith in yourself before you can know anything. You need to look for her first where she is closest to you." He was silent, trying to open himself to what she was saying. But he couldn't, it hurt too much. She just stared at him, reading his face. "Maybe you are more lost than she is." she stated, her voice expressing her disappointment. "Find her, Fox. Find my sister before I get to see her again." She let go of his hand and walked away, disappearing into the trees. 5:01 a.m. He awoke, not in a jolt as he does with some of his dreams, but with awareness. His eyes opened, welcoming back his world, his hell. He felt like hell and worse. He was once again in agony. He was frustrated, tired. He was so tired of the games and so tired of himself. Whether Melissa's appearance had been a product of his tormented mind or something more, her message was clear. He couldn't find her the way he was now. He needed to release the guilt and the self-pity. He needed to find her before it was too late. Too late, his mind wandered, too late to save her, what if it was already too late? His momentary clarity was once again lost. His hopelessness, like an old friend, invaded his tortured head. He needed to find her before it was too late, but he didn't know how, he didn't know where... "You need to look for her first where she is closest to you." she once again said, her voice whispering in his mind. He refused to think what his subconscious already knew. He needed to look for her in his heart. But he wouldn't let himself. He didn't see the point. He didn't see how that could save her. He didn't see how that could save him. ----------------X---------------- She awoke, cold and stiff, but she could see. They had taken off her blindfold; her wrists and mouth were once again free. She was in a train car, alone. She remembered how they had led her through what seemed to be a train yard and had forced her unto a train. She remembered how they had taken her through the cars until they finally sat her down in a chair, still bound. They had given her more of the drug and she had once again fallen under its spell. And now she was here. It didn't make any sense and it scared her. Slowly, she got out of the chair and looked around her. The train car was dark, except for a dim light that hung above her. The chair was the only thing in it. She turned around and found the only door. As an afterthought she checked for her belongings, not expecting anything to be left. Her ID and wallet were gone, her cell phone was gone. But what she was left with shocked her. Her gun. She checked it. It was loaded, just as she had left it. "What the hell is going on here?" she muttered in disbelief under her breath. She didn't like the situation one bit, but she was the fool if she didn't take advantage of it. She walked over to the door and found it unlocked. Cautiously, her weapon in her right hand, she opened the door and entered the train car. This train car wasn't any different from the previous one. There was no light in this one however and it was pitch black. She could barely see her own hands aiming her gun into the darkness. She took a few steps forward and noticed the back of a chair, not unlike the one she had woken up in, except someone else was sitting in this one. She could see the back of a man's head bent down in the dark. Her heart began to beat rapidly. Her mind was sharp with confusion, as her eyes studied every inch of the man in the chair. Slowly, her gun aimed at the figure, she walked around to face him. Instantly, her arms came down to her sides in shock. "Mulder?" she said, breathless. She was so confused she wanted to scream. But her voice could barely work. "Mulder, how did you..." He looked up at her for the first time and she nearly gasped. He looked morbidly awful. His eyes were red and blood shot. Black circles like bruises were under them. Tears were rolling down his unshaved face. He looked as if he hadn't bothered to take care of himself for weeks. She knelt besides him and looked into his frozen eyes. Her gun still in her right hand she took his with her left. She looked down at the scabs she felt on his wrist. There were signs of self-mutilation. She stared, shocked. He had tried to kill himself. She looked back at her face, trying to understand. "Mulder, what happened to you?" she asked softly, her voice breaking up, "What have you done to yourself?" He only stared at her, his face numb. Her being there made no difference, he was too far-gone to care. "It's not what I've done to myself," his voice weak as he spoke for the first time, "It's what I did to you." "Mulder, I don't understand, you haven't done anything to me." she assured him. Emotion suddenly returned to his cold face. His eyes flickered briefly with pain, but anger soon replaced it. "Get out of here!" he roared, throwing her hand away from him, knocking her down. "Mulder--" she said, frightened. "Shut up!" he yelled, covering his ears with his hands and shutting his eyes as if trying to block her out. "Stop doing this, stop haunting me." he yelled, his voice breaking in agony. "Mulder," she was near tears now, "I don't understand. Help me understand... " She was scared at his behavior, but desperate to know why he was so haunted, so full of pain. "Scully, please, just leave me." he wasn't yelling now. He was sobbing, painful, agonizing sobs that wrung in her ears. She had never seen him like this. She needed to know why, she needed to know how. How he got here, how he got like this. "Mulder, how did you find me, how did you get on this train--" He sobered a bit as he looked back up at her. "Scully, I never found you. They killed you. I killed you. You are dead, Scully, and it's my fault. I killed you, Scully. I killed you..." He was ranting now until he was sobbing uncontrollably once again. "Mulder," she said, no longer afraid of him, trying to prove her existence to him. "You didn't kill me, I'm right here." Cautiously, she went to him, hoping to calm him, to sooth him. She replaced her gun in its holster at her back and wrapped her arms around him. He didn't resist and after a while, his crying calmed, and he moved into her embrace. "Scully," he said into her shoulder, his voice calm but serious, "I may not have been able to save you. But now you have come to me, and you can save me one last time." She was confused but afraid to speak. His arms began to snake around her waist and they held her back gently to him. Slowly, his hands slid underneath her jacket and then her shirt and held onto the bare skin on her back. She remained still and silent despite the awkwardness she was feeling. "I'm so sorry, Scully," he said, his tone deadly serious. "I don't know how you are here, Scully. Perhaps this is just a dream, a very real one, or you are just a hallucination. But you are dead." His right hand lifted from the skin on her back, leaving it cold. She felt him take her gun from its holster at her back. "Mulder, what are you doing?" she spoke up, suddenly sickened with fear, but remained in his arms and him in hers. "I'm so sorry, Scully," he said again, his voice breaking up. "I'm so sorry I never got to tell you how much I loved you." He broke from her embrace and stared into her face. She was crying, her emotions pouring down her cheeks in rivers of love, pain, and fear. He lifted his left hand up to her face and cupped her cheek. His thumb stroked away the wet tears as he stared into her eyes. She stared into his then turned her gaze to his right hand, the one holding the gun. "Mulder," she spoke through her tears, looking back into his face, "Please, just give me back my gun." "I'm sorry, Scully." He lifted the gun up and pointed it at his head. Her crying quickly became hysterical sobbing. "Mulder, no, I love you, just please, don't do this, please-" The shot rang in her ears. A shot she would remember for the rest of her life. She screamed and cried to out to him, his name her last word to him. The gun fell to the ground and his body fell limp into the back of the chair. He was gone forever. "Mulder! Nooo...Oh, God, no. Oh, Mulder, please no, how could you leave me..." she was crying hysterically. Her legs giving out and she was forced to kneel at his side. "Mulder, why did you do this...how...Oh, God, why?!" She took his cold hand, the one that had held the gun, into hers and kissed the back of it. "I'm so sorry, Mulder." she said, crying softly into his hand as she spoke, "I'm so sorry for being such a fool, for being afraid of you, of us. I love you, Mulder. I'm so sorry I never told you that." She laid her head into his lap, crying softly until her body refused to function and she went into shock. --------------------------------------------- End of Part (2/4) Into the Fire by Belle Title: Into the Fire Author: BelleElle (BelleElle7@aol.com, Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com) Rating: PG-13 to mild R for somewhat-graphic violence and only one bad word you won't see on TV. Classification: TA Spoilers: One Breath, Christmas Carol/Emily but this has a lot of minor details that would be helpful if you knew about. Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST, sort of Romance at the end. Summary: Scully is subjected to the haunts and fears from her past. And Mulder must get past his own guilt in order to save her. Feedback: If I don't get any feedback, I will never write again! Please! E-mail me at Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com. PLEASE!!! For the sake of my shattered psyche! Feedback is the only reason I wrote this. Warnings: This is angsty. Well, I've read angstier, but this gets pretty hairy. But don't worry, it has a happy ending. Also, although most of the story is "Unresolved"ST, this is very shipper-orientated. So, if you love angst and you consider yourself a shipper, this is the story for you. Thank yous: I must thank two of the nicest FanFic-Shipper-MulderAngst-Crazy-Philes I have ever known. Jooky313 (a.k.a. Jessica) because she convinced me that I really could write. Hell, I might even be [[good]] at it! (I still don't believe it though...) I wouldn't have finished this sucker if it weren't for her. And Kel (the Evil twin), who understood exactly what I meant in every word and always had great suggestions. And to everyone else who read this thing from the start and actually wanted to know what was gonna happen as it popped out of my head. And if my sister, for some unlikely reason should chance upon this story, this is what I was writing while I was staying at your house. Now you know the sick truth. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and all the rest of the bunch, (a.k.a. Skinner, CSM, Langly, Byers and Frohike, etc.) are the best characters ever and I only wish I could have created them. But I didn't. CC did. And a bunch of people are getting rich of them. But not me. Fox is. Also, the title is shamefully ripped off from one of Sarah McLachlan's songs: Into the Fire, from her album, entitled Solace. Also, I use quotes from her songs here and there throughout. I'm sorry Sarah! Forgive me! I love everything she does. So, think of it as homage to her glory. -------------------------------------------------- Part Two/Three: Into the Fire, by BelleElle "By the shadows of the night I go I move away from the crowded room That sea of shallow faces masked in warm regret They don't know how to feel, they don't know what is lost Lost in the darkness of a land Where all the hope that's offered is Memories of being taken by the hand And we are led into the sun But I don't have a hold on what is real Though we can only try What is there to give or to believe I want it all to go away I want to be alone Sympathy's wasted on my hollow shell I feel there's nothing left to fight for No reason for a cause And I can't hear your voice and I can't feel you near Lost in the darkness of a land Where all the hope that's offered is Memories of being taken by the hand And we are led into the sun But I don't have a hold on what is real Though we can only try What is there to give or to believe I wanted a change knowing all I could do was try I was looking for someone...." --Sarah McLachlan, the entire lyrics to "Lost" (the theme song for this fanfiction!) ----------------X---------------- He stood silently behind the glass, his eyes observing her while he inhaled the deadly smoke from the cigarette between his fingertips. She lay on the gurney, equipment attached to her body in a hundred places. Her sleep was deep, uninterrupted. Everything was going as planned. He could hear what she was thinking, he felt what she was feeling. He knew that she was close. She was one step closer to the point of undeniable loss of control. And he was ready to push her. He smiled at her limp body, knowing that she was believing it all. There was no doubt in her mind that what she was seeing, what she was experiencing was real. The testing was showing results beyond their expectations. After so many years of knowing what she was thinking, what her fears were, what she desired most, they could finally use that information against her. They could move beyond mere hypnosis, they could give abductees a scenario that was undoubtedly real. They could make anyone believe anything. He was happy with the results, of course, but nothing could please him more than knowing that he was breaking her down to nothing, that he was virtually tearing apart her every reason to live, and giving her every reason to give up. ----------------X---------------- The X-Files Office February 4, 2000 6:52 p.m. It felt like years since she had first disappeared, even though, in actuality, it had been less than a week. Mulder was at loose ends now. He was grasping for anything that would lead him to her. The pictures turned up nothing. The Gunmen had found nothing unordinary about them except for the fact that they were identical replicas of the original. He forced his mind to focus on what he knew. Someone had given them both a picture of Emily, just like the one she already possessed. Why? he thought desperately. To warn them? To toy with them? To test them? Who? Another informant? Or someone who meant to do more harm than good? It could have been either. He ran the facts over and over in his head, trying to find something that could link it all together. She was gone. That was the only thing that he could know for sure. Mulder sat at his desk and stared at a scattered array of open files. Recent kidnapping reports, files on escalating serial killers, news on any escaped convicts that might have a grudge against Scully, but nothing fit. He knew that whoever had done this was not going to leave a paper trail for him to follow. He knew that They had done this to her. He had nothing to back his theory up, nothing but his old friend Paranoia. He had hoped to find something, anything in the files, but they were useless to him. They were more useful as props for anyone who would wander in. They might think he was actually working. But he couldn't work, he couldn't think. Each day without her was killing him. Walking through the halls he would occasionally run into colleagues who would ask about her. "She's out of town," he would mumble before leaving them cold. He couldn't deal with them. He couldn't deal with their smiling faces and polite inquiries. He was forced to leave before he knocked their smiles off their faces with his fist. Each night he would have another nightmare. Not like the one with Melissa, but others that recalled events in his life, in her life, that he would rather not remember. Scully's cancer. Scully's abduction. Scully at her murdered sister's bed side. Emily's funeral. In one dream he recalled his encounter with Modell, when he had almost shot Scully, under his power. In his dream he had aimed the gun at her, his insides tearing him up inside, his mind screaming at her to run away from him as he did before. But in this version, he shot her before she could save herself. He killed her. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes and temples with his hands. Needless to say, he had not been getting much sleep lately. A couple hours a night at most. His life had become nothing more than a numb hell. It was as if he was frozen in place, looking for a direction to go, but there was nothing but empty darkness surrounding him. He was so tired, physically and mentally. He wished he could sleep an eternity, and never wake up... The office phone woke him. He hadn't even realized that he had fallen asleep. Somehow, he managed to pick up the phone. "Mulder," he answered weakly. But no one was there. "Hello?" he said annoyed. He was just about to hang up the phone when he heard her. "Don't give up, Fox." the voice said, the voice from his dream. "Who is this?" he demanded. But he already knew. Scully's sister, Melissa. "Why are you calling me?" "She's still alive. She still needs you to find her." "What the hell am I supposed to?" he demanded, his patience lost. The silence left him with no answer to his anger and he wondered if he was making the whole conversation up. "Look for her where she is closest to you, Fox." she said, her voice the same tone as before. "I don't know where that is." he hissed, annoyed at the maze she was dragging him through. He waited for her to respond to him, but was left with nothing. He hung up the phone and stared at it, trying to comprehend what had just happened. I must be asleep, he thought. But the pain in his throbbing head told him otherwise. He was very much awake. With that thought he picked up the receiver once more and dialed in a familiar number. "Yeah, this is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. I need a trace on the last call into this number..." he waited patiently for their response. When it came he asked them to double-check it. They did. There was no mistake. "Do you need the location of this number, Agent Mulder?" the operator asked politely. "No, thanks." he hung up the phone. He knew the phone number, had dialed it hundreds of times. He knew the location, had been there in the middle of the night, had slept there. Had probably knocked down the door a couple of times. Scully's apartment. ----------------X---------------- Scully's Apartment 7:30 p.m. He stepped through the door to her apartment, his gun in hand, flipping on light switches as he went. Her apartment remained vacant; the fish still didn't exist. He didn't really expect the contrary, but he wanted nothing else in the world than to find out this past week had been nothing more than a dream. He wanted to wake up and walk into her apartment to find her inside, feeding her fish. She would turn and stare at him, and express her disappointment in him for not feeding the fish himself. He wanted that so bad. He swallowed hard, burying those thoughts deep inside him and stepped deeper into her apartment. Once again he felt like a grave robber, coming to her crypt in the dark, desperation his only guide. There had to be something here. The fact that the mysterious call had come from here had to have meant something. If someone was pulling a prank, he would find out why. If there really had been some kind of spiritual intervention by her sister, there was a reason it had come from here. He didn't really know what to believe of the phone call. He might just be going insane. But someone had called from here. Imaginary phone calls can't be traced. He continued to tour her apartment, looking for anything unusual. The only thing unusual was the stale, cold emptiness that surrounded him. Usually he could smell her, could sense her in every way when he was in her apartment. He would secretly revel in the feeling of being surrounded by everything that was her. But it was gone. Every smell, every sense, had turned stale with her absence. Finally, desperate to regain control of his thoughts, he fell into her couch. He replaced his gun back into the holster at his side and covered his face with his hands. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It was as if his hands were a temporary shelter from the storm, from the fire. The phone jolted him from his shelter, ringing with the strength he lacked. He stared at it, suddenly panicked, not knowing whether to pick it up or not. Finally, time won out and the answering machine answered for him. Her voice answered for him. "This is Dana Scully. I'm not home right now. Please leave a message after the tone." He winced involuntarily. Her voice so calm, so straightforward, like she always is. It was as if she never left. "Dana, this is Mom. I know you told me that you couldn't be contacted because of the case you're on, but I need to talk to you." she paused, hesitating, "Dana, I had a dream about Melissa, she told me that you were in trouble. I know you don't believe in that kind of thing, but I need to know you're okay. Please call me when you hear this." Mulder listened to Margaret Scully's message, he listened to the pain and worry in her voice. Without a second's hesitation he picked up the phone, hoping she hadn't hung up. "Mrs. Scully--" he started, not sure what he was going to say. "Fox?" she said, surprised at hearing him, "what are you doing at her apartment? I thought you were with---" He cut her off before she could say her name. "Mrs. Scully, what exactly did your daughter tell you?" "She...she told me that she was going on a case that would take longer than usual and that I couldn't contact her because of the kind of case it was," she said, her voice growing more worried with panic with every word. "Fox, what is this about, what is going on?" He began to regret picking up the phone. She didn't need to know. She didn't need more agony and more pain. She didn't deserve to grieve for yet another lost child. But it was too late. She already knew, already felt the truth. "Mrs. Scully, do you mind if I come over?" "No," she said, surprised, "not at all, Fox. But please tell me what's going on." "I will." he hung up and left, hoping he was doing the right thing. ----------------X---------------- Margaret Scully's Residence 8:10 p.m. Margaret Scully opened the door to the tall, dark, hollow man she knew as her daughter's partner. "Fox, please come on," she said, her voice struggling to stay calm. Mulder could tell that she was worried sick, and his responses to her questions over the phone were probably the reason why. But he couldn't tell her over the phone. He couldn't explain. "Mrs. Scully, I'm sorry that I couldn't explain over the phone." he walked through the doorway and she helped him out of his coat. She walked him over to her couch and they sat down. "Please tell me what is going, Fox." her voice was beginning to lose its steady politeness, "what kind of case are you on?" With each breath he had to fight off the nausea in his stomach. The house was a reminder of her. Her mother was. Everything was. He steadied himself before he could speak. "There is no case." he stated grimly. "What? I don't understand why she would call and tell me if..." "She called and told me that she was going out of town for a while, alone, on personal matters." he stated. "She lied to you, she lied to me." Margaret stared at him, shocked. "But why? Why would she do that?" "Because she had no choice, Mrs. Scully. She had no choice because someone had forced her, someone had taken her." he was losing it. He looked at the pain that echoed in her mother's face. He didn't mean to be so insensitive. But he couldn't control the flood of words. He couldn't control the hopelessness that took over him. "Someone needed her to make up an alibi for her own kidnapping." Margaret Scully should have been shocked, but she wasn't. Slowly she closed her eyes and lowered her head, fighting off the reality of what she already knew to be true. Dana was gone. Dana was taken from her. Again. Quietly, she spoke. "How do you know?" "When she called me ..." he started softly, "she let me know that she wasn't leaving on her own terms. She told me that she was in trouble, but not in those words. She let me know, but in a way that only I could understand." He looked back up at her mother, trying to see if she had any idea what he was trying to say. He couldn't see her face as she stared down at her hands. Margaret understood him perfectly. She had seen the connection he had with her daughter, the connection they shared surpassed words. She looked back up, into his face and nodded. "I trust you, Fox." she said, "I trust you with my daughter's life." She meant the words as comfort, but the look on his face when she said them reflected the opposite: pain, self-hatred, guilt. Reflexively, he looked down, avoiding her gaze. "I don't," he muttered quietly to himself. But she had heard him perfectly. "Fox, there's something you should know, something Dana once told me." she took his hand, gathering his attention once again. "She doesn't blame you, she never has, for anything that has happened to her since she met you." He looked away from her, down to her hand that gently held his. "I don't blame you, either," she said. She paused hoping that some of what she was saying was getting through to him. "Fox, my daughter is a strong woman. I think you know that. I think you can understand and respect that. She knows what she wants and she knows where to find it. Fox, do you understand? Dana found it in you. She is where she wants to be. If she had any doubts, she wouldn't have stayed with you this long." Mulder wanted to believe her, he wanted so badly to know she was telling him the truth. Mrs. Scully wasn't a liar. She just didn't know all that he knew. 'I'm tired of it, Mulder. I don't know how much more I can take of this... ' her voice whispered to him, reminding him of what Scully really wanted. She wanted to leave behind The X-Files and everything that had to do with him. She had more doubts in her life then her mother knew about. "I will find her, Mrs. Scully," was all he could say. "I know, Fox." she said quietly, "but promise me that you will look for her first where she is closest to you." He looked into her face at the familiar words. Like mother, like daughter, he thought. Her eyes told him that she needed him to promise her; that she needed to know that he was going to find her and save her and himself in more ways than one. She needed the comfort of his words. "I promise," he asserted her softly before he left. Walking out of her house and back into his car, he secretly hoped he had made her a promise he could keep. ----------------X---------------- 9:03 p.m. Mulder sat in his car, outside his apartment. He didn't want to go in to face the loneliness. He had always been alone in there, but at least there was a chance that she could call him or even on occasions drop by. With her, it didn't feel so lonely. It didn't feel so dark. He laid the side of his head gingerly against the steering wheel and blankly stared at the seat next to him. With the ease of blinking his eyes, he could imagine her there, looking out the window. She would be wearing a dark suit that looked amazing. Her hair would be softly contouring her face. She would turn to look at him, the look she gave him when she was bored on whatever stake out they were on, but she wouldn't admit it to him. He could almost smell her hair, hear her breathing. He closed his eyes, the image bittersweet in his mind. He wanted to smile from the pleasure of the simple memory. He wanted to die from the reality of the truth. She was gone, never to sit there again, never to look at him, never to share her rare smiles. He opened his eyes again and gazed at the seat next to him. It remained empty, yet, like him, desperately needing its usual occupant to return, to fill the gap her absence had caused. He had enough. Suddenly, he flung the door open and forced himself out of the car. But he couldn't go up to his apartment. There was no place he couldn't find her. Both Scully's mother and her sister had told him to look for her where she was closest to him. But she was everywhere and nowhere. Everywhere he was, she was. In the office, in his car, in his apartment. But everywhere he looked he found nothing to hold on to. She was gone... left only to haunt him. Nowhere to go, he began to walk. There was nowhere for him to hide, nowhere to ease the ache. The chill of the cold January night played against his cheeks until he began to feel the numbness spread through him. He walked past his apartment and through the dark streets that surrounded it. He passed by things that held no meaning to him. Silently, he walked through the darkness, the cold air continuing to numb him physically and mentally. Suddenly he stopped, his mind succumbing to a feeling he knew all too well. The feeling of paranoia, of awareness of something that wasn't right. He turned around, facing nothing but the street, dark and empty save for the struggling street light that couldn't decide whether it wanted to shine light on him or not. He didn't want the light, for all he cared all the lights in the city could go out and leave him in the calming dark. He returned to his mindless walking, ignoring his pathetic natural tendencies. But the second time, there was no mistaking it: footsteps. Without a second's thought, his gun was in his hands aiming at the source. A man, tall, obviously not out for a nightly stroll. The man stopped and looked at the gun in his hands, unimpressed. He stood smiling, staring at Mulder with a look on his face that scared him. Before he could even say anything, Mulder was aware that someone was behind him. He tried to react, but it was too late. The man had taken control. With a single, practiced motion, Mulder's arm was being injected. He could do nothing as his body lost everything. He could only watch helplessly as his gun fell hard to the sidewalk, slipping from his motionless hands. Slowly, his body lost all control and he tumbled hard to the ground. Through the haze of the drug, he could hear the unrecognizable voice of the man. "Your turn, Mulder." was all he said. Mulder could do nothing but wait for the bittersweet darkness to come. ------------------------------------------- End of Part Three/Four of Into the Fire, by Belle Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com ----------------X---------------- Her eyes opened to the darkness. Her body ached from the position she was in. She found herself lying on the floor of a train car: black walls, one door, one chair. She groaned as she forced herself to sit up, her head pounding with each simple movement. She felt so hazy, so confused. How did she end up on the floor...and then realization hit her with a wave of nausea. Mulder. Her gun. The shot. The blood. The pain. The guilt. Mulder. Dead. Mulder. Gone. Mulder. Suicide. Mulder, his hand dangling from his limp body as she cried into it. "Mulder," she choked his name out into the stale air of the train car as if it could bring him back. "Mulder, oh God, Mulder." She wrapped her arms tightly around her nauseous stomach, attempting to calm the storm of ache. "Why did you...why did you leave me alone..." With each spoken word, his face came into her mind, the feeling he gave her, the words he had said that meant so much, invading her. His memory came alive within her. "Mulder, I need you. I need you, Mulder. Oh God, why did I let this happen ..." Her rants turned to sobs that she struggled to control but soon gave into. There was no one there to see her, no one there to care. She didn't care anymore. The only person who had ever mattered to her outside her family was dead. He was gone. Her only hope, her only truth was dead. For the first time she turned her head to see him, or what remained of him. His body, angled and twisted upon the chair he had sat in, which was somehow still holding his form up. His hands, lifelessly dangling toward the floor. His blood, puddled on the floor, surrounding her gun. In a panicked mania, she dragged herself to the corner of the train car, as far as she could get from her view of death. She couldn't relive the experience. Her stomach couldn't take the smell or the sight of it. Her heart couldn't take the pain from looking at it. She curled up into a ball in the corner of the train car, trying to block all of the senses she was feeling, all of the confusion. She couldn't explain anything. She couldn't understand anything. Why was she here, how Mulder had gotten where ever she was, where were her captors. How was she going to survive. She didn't really care about her last thought. Her hope, her life had been shattered with a gunshot. Suddenly, she remembered the other train car. She could leave behind the smell and feel of death, if just for her sanity's sake. Slowly, she stood up. Tracing the edge of the train car, in an effort to stay as far away as possible from her gun and the memories, she made her way toward the door. To her shock, she realized that there was a light coming from the small window in the door. A light in the darkness. Opening the door, she entered slowly. The light flooded into the pitch darkness and clouded her vision. She brought her arm up to her eyes as an attempt to shield from the brightness. Eventually, her eyes adjusted from the pitch-blackness to her new atmosphere. The train car she stood in was not the same one she had first woken up in the day before. Had it been only a day? It frightened her that she had no idea how much time had past since she was first taken. She gathered in her surroundings: white walls, cold, sterile steel tables and gurneys, a shockingly bright steel lamp hanging from the ceiling, plastic curtains, things she couldn't identify. She was surrounded by a sense of deja vu. Images, sounds, and emotions of an experience she refused to believe in, refused to accept, were pulsing through her every limb. She wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, striving for control. In the center of the train car she noticed a table, a stiff white sheet covering the form of something underneath. Too small to be that of a person, but possibly a child. The thought struck her with another swell of nausea. Despite her weak bearing, she forced herself to move toward the figure on the table. She needed to know, she was desperate to prove herself wrong, even if it meant proving herself right. She was filled with a desperation that possessed her. Her hand trembling, she took the corner of the sheet and slowly, inch by inch, revealed the figure underneath. The sheet uncovered the body of a child, a girl. Blonde hair scattered across cold metal, skin, gray and lifeless, face, that of her own. She drew in her breath sharply and dropped the sheet at the sight of who lay underneath the sheet. Her daughter, Emily. Her daughter, that she had found only to watch waste away, able to do nothing but behold her inevitable death, was laying upon this table on a train car in the middle of nowhere. Instinctively, she shut her eyes, trying to deny the image. Opening them once again, she found that she had not been dreaming, that this nightmare was real. Emily remained. Slowly, she backed up toward the door she had come through, looking for an escape from the implausible reality she had been thrown into. She continued to stare at the figure, blonde hair spilling out from underneath the white sheet. "This is not real," she told herself, "This is impossible." She backed herself up into the door and swung around, her hands grasping for the handle. But it was locked. Desperate, she violently yanked at the unwilling door. How could it be locked? She had just passed through. She began to pound on the door, foolishly hoping that someone would be there to hear her. "No, this is not happening." she once again asserted her fragile soul. A small, cold hand touched her back and she jumped, turning toward the source. Behind her stood Emily, as cold to the touch as before. She looked up into her mother's eyes. Her own eyes were lost of their innocence and purity. What remained, and what stared sharply into the face of her mother were that of hate, contempt, disgust. Scully backed herself into the door, as far as she could get from the vision before her. She continued to chant to herself that the whole thing wasn't real, that it was impossible. She shut her eyes, replacing the image with darkness. But she could still feel Emily's eyes bore into her soul. She could feel them like fire, spreading uncontrollably over her mind and body. Her entire body was shaking uncontrollably and she was beginning to hyperventilate with fear. Emily was dead. Emily was gone. This is not real. This is not happening. Silence passed and she forced her eyes open. There was nothing. She remained in the same blinding train car, but stood alone. The table, swimming in white sheets remained, but was empty. Taking in deep breaths, she calmed herself, slowly gaining back some sense of control. 'It wasn't real. It was only a product of my mind.' she promised herself. But she didn't believe it. She could still feel the cold flesh on her back, even through her clothing. She could still feel the eyes burn into her. She shivered slightly at the haunting remembrance. Slowly, she walked over to the table, hoping to reassure herself that nothing had been there. In the stiff folds of white, she pulled them away, searching for anything that left a trace of life or death. What she found was death itself. Black, cold, heavy. Her gun, bleeding Mulder's blood into the pure, white sheet. She could only stare, disbelieving at what she couldn't believe to be true. Her gun, the one that she left behind the locked door. Her gun, the one that she had discovered she had been left with, the one that she had foolishly thought would protect her. Her gun, once a symbol of truth and security, now, only existed as a symbol of death and wasted hope. A death she had witnessed helplessly. But she hadn't been helpless. She could have stopped him, she could have saved him. He could be alive. Logic was lost in her thoughts. She could only remember the blood; only feel the pain. Slowly, her fear numbed to nonexistence, and she picked up the gun. It painted her hand with his blood, but she no longer cared. She stared at it, not with contempt, but with longing. For the first time in her life, she longed for death, for the end. She brought the gun up to her face and looked at, as a child would, as if seeing it for the first time. Death: so easy. Mulder had done it. Now he was gone. She had nothing to go back to, if she could go back at all. Nothing but a job that had lost all meaning without him. Nothing to go back to but a lonely existence. No friends. Only her family. And her mother. Oh, God, her mother. Suddenly, she dropped the gun back onto the table, breaking her trance. She felt ashamed, shocked at herself. This is not her. Even under the most trying circumstances she had never felt so utterly hopeless. She stared at her hands, covered in blood, his blood. Bunching the white sheet into her hands, she tried her best at purifying herself from the grim substance. She took slow, calming breaths until she felt more like herself. 'Think, Dana. You must think logically,' she mulled to herself. She had always relied on facts. Things she could see, things she could hold on to. But, everything she was seeing, everything she was feeling, was frighteningly real. And frighteningly wrong. Everything: Mulder, the train cars, Emily, everything she was experiencing was real. She could touch the metal and it would feel like metal: cold, hard, smooth. She could smell the blood: rich, nauseating, real. But nothing made sense. How could a dead child, her dead child, touch her, stare at her, and then vanish as if she had never been there? How could her gun, covered in blood, appear where it had not been before? Endless streams of questions piled up in her mind. She couldn't understand; she couldn't see the truth. She felt as if she were in a world where everything she refused to believe as possible, was. She couldn't handle it. She wanted the normalcy of paperwork. She needed the regularity of traffic on her way home from work. She was desperate for Mulder, if only to be there by her side, like clockwork, telling her one of his theories that made absolutely no sense, even though he was usually at least half right. She liked that, she missed that. She wanted her old life back. She needed everything back that she had taken for granted: her family, her life, Mulder. There were so many things, she now fully realized, she had taken for granted when it came to Mulder. The way he would make jokes that she would refuse to laugh at. The way he always respected her opinions, despite his obvious objections. The way he would stand closer than necessary to her. The way she felt when he was around. His mere presence meant more to her than she ever let herself believe. And now he was gone, his empty flesh left behind in an empty train car. There was nothing... She walked over to the darkest corner of the train car, seeking a shelter from the blazing light. There, she hid from the blood and the gun and the confusion. There, she held on to her only hope left, that this was only a nightmare, a nightmare that could end. ----------------X---------------- February 6, 2000 6:41 p.m. Slowly, his eyes opened. The light crept in through his eyelids and he grimaced with the pain he felt in his head. Reflexively, he shut his eyes from the light and groaned with the blazing pain he was feeling all over himself. He felt like he had a hundred hangovers. He wouldn't be surprised. With the way he felt this week, he probably could have put away a case of vodka and not even know it. Suddenly, he realized he had no idea what happened to him. He only knew of the intense pain in his head and the intense light that was making it worse. He could tell he was lying down, his wrists were restrained, which scared him. Where the hell was he? Slowly, he attempted to open his eyes once more, fighting the light that was killing him, but he was desperate to know where he was. He was surrounded by people. Three, no four, people stood or sat around him. In a chair sat a woman, her hair was red, fiery and blazing into his memory. She reminded him of someone he knew, someone ... "Scully?" he whispered desperately. The woman stood up, saying something to the others nearby and walked over to him, taking his hand. The others followed. Two oddly dressed males and another one, bearded with a suit. "Fox," said the woman, "It's Margaret." His eyes focused closer at the face. The red hair dissolved into a darker, deeper shade of brown. Her features aged before his eyes. The woman he had seen was replaced by someone else, someone he knew, but couldn't remember. "Fox, do you know where you are?" He looked around, his vision clearing. He recognized the familiar setting. Sterile metal, stiff, cold sheets, cheesy wallpaper. He was in a hospital. He tried to speak, but could only nod. "Mulder," said another voice, one from the three male figures in the room. He tried to focus on him. His relative memory was coming back to him and he recognized the man immediately: Byers. "What happened to me?" he forced out, each word a sacrifice to the pain in his head. "You don't remember?" Langly chimed in, "You were spotted by a patrol car about a block from your apartment. The officer said that two guys had attacked you. His car had scared them off. He attempted to chase them, but they got away. You were knocked out cold, Mulder. Do you remember any of this?" Mulder nodded slightly, his eyes once again shut, trying to remember the scene, but mostly to block out the light that was piercing into his head. "They," he took a deep breath, trying to force the words out, "they injected me..." "We know," Frohike said, looking at the chart at the end of his bed, "and we know why." Frohike gazed at Mrs. Scully and then at the other two. Mrs. Scully got the hint. "I'll be right back," she said as she left the room. Frohike walked closer to Mulder, preparing to spill everything he had. And by the way he was acting he had a lot to tell him. But Mulder wanted to know something else first. "Why am I restrained?" he asked, for the first time looking at his wrists, which were chaffed and nearly bleeding within the restraints. "That has to do with what you were injected with," Byers responded, "You were hurting yourself. Seizures, violent movements, screaming, even sleep walking Mulder. You had to be restrained for your own safety." "But why?" he questioned, even more confused. "You were given a highly hallucinogenic drug, Mulder," Byers continued, "one that we have seen before. One that your doctor has no idea what to think of." At Mulder's questioning glance, he quickly clarified. "Mulder you were given a drug that, according to one of our sources, is being developed by our favorite people: the government." "What for?" he asked impatiently. "The drug is being developed side by side with another government goody. V-MAT." "V-MAT?" "Virtual Reality, military style. It stands for Virtual Military Action Testing. It is being developed as an advanced source for training in the military. Our source claims that with the combination of this drug and V-MAT, the effect is so real, one can't distinguish it from real life. It can recreate anything, anyone, anyplace, any experience. But alone, the drug doesn't have the same effect. It only makes you feel and sense things on a strange level. It forces your body to shut down, creating the unconscious state you've been in." "Just how long have I been out?" Mulder demanded. "Nearly two days, Mulder." Frohike said. "Two days?!" he responded, shocked. But then the guilt returned. Scully had been gone for a week. Before that, she had lost three months. And he was selfishly complaining about two measly days that would have passed by without a meaning. He closed his eyes and laid his head down upon the pillow, her face in his mind. "Oh, Scully..." he whispered, forgetting he wasn't alone. Suddenly, Mulder was starting to get it. Virtual Reality. Testing. The men attacking him. Their last words to him. 'Your turn, Mulder.' They had done this to her. They were the ones who took Scully. His eyes shot open. "They were the ones..." "What, Mulder?" Byers asked him, not understanding. "They took her, they took Scully." He was getting excited. His hope was coming back in full force. This was the answer. This had to be the way to her. "How do you know, Mulder?" "They knew my name, they said it was my turn. This has to be what happened to Scully." They were silent, absorbing the idea. "Do you guys have any idea where they would test this? Or anything...base of operations, names, anything?" "We might be able to find out for you. But it will take some time." Byers responded, hearing the desperation in his voice. "I don't have time." Mulder hissed. He started to yank on the restraints at his wrists. "You guys have to get me out of here." They looked at him, seeing the desperation in him. But they did nothing. "Come on, Damnit!" he was beginning to scare them with his insistence. "Mulder, we don't think you should--" Byers said, "They gave you a pretty high dose, Mulder. You should wait out the effects. Besides, it'll take us time to find out more information." Mulder slumped back into his bed, giving up his efforts with a frustrated sigh. "Mulder, we'll find out where she is." The trio finally left him alone in his state to do whatever they did. After they left, Mrs. Scully came back in, followed by a nurse. The nurse checked everything that was around him, taking blood, marking charts. Mrs. Scully came to his side and once again took his restrained left hand. "Fox, I have to leave now. I just wanted to make sure you were alright." she smiled weakly at him. She was so kind to him, even when her own daughter was missing. He did his best to smile back, but couldn't. Instead he squeezed her hand, letting her know her presence was appreciated. "Is there anything you need? Anyone you need me to call?" He shook his head and she nodded slightly before she left him alone. The nurse soon left after that, mumbling something about getting him some food. But he barely heard her as his eyes slowly slipped closed and the bland colors of the room faded to black. End of Part Two ----------------------------------------------------- Part Three/Three: Into the Fire by BelleElle "Mercy- pure and simple Longing- cold and hollow With sweet breath you'd come to warm me But I held on too hard to only a memory You lie there on the swollen ground deserted in your heart Still longing for what yesterdays lost And for all that tomorrow might bring" --Sarah McLachlan, "Mercy" ----------------X---------------- The Office of the Lone Gunmen February 7, 2000 5:05 p.m. Mulder waited impatiently as one of the three behind the door slid open the intricate system of locks. "Come on, guys." he stated impatiently, until finally the door opened, revealing Frohike. "Mulder, they let you go so soon?" he asked. "Yeah, I guess I was a good boy," he retorted impatiently, "Now, what have you got for me?" "Well, you got here just in time," Byers announced from his seat at one of the computers. Mulder walked over to see what he was looking at. "We found out from our source that most of the testing is done on trains." "How much do you trust this source of yours?" Mulder questioned, seriously hoping he could trust their judgement. Byers looked at the other two before responding. "Let's just say, he's helped you more than you know, Mulder." "So anyway, his information is pretty vague to begin with." he continued, "So, we did a little digging, and we found out that there is a non-commercial train that stops in D.C. twice a week, specifically, it passed through on the day that you say Scully was taken. It has no official schedule, which got us to think that this could be it. So, borrowing some satellite technology, we were able to locate the train, geographically." "You know where it's at?" Mulder questioned excitedly. "The last transmission we were able to receive marked the train in Virginia, ten miles south of an unknown structure we noted. It's just big enough to make us think that's where it's headed." "How long ago was that?" "Twenty minutes, max." Byers said, printing out a copy of the satellite image, showing him exactly where to go. ----------------X---------------- Route 229, Virginia 5:50 p.m. Mulder wasted no time getting back to his apartment, for the essentials. He changed out of the clothes he had been admitted to the hospital in. He had gone straight to the Gunmen's once he was released and desperately wanted to change. Quickly, he put on a black turtleneck, black jeans and his black leather jacket: his favorite poaching garb. He grabbed his gun, tucked a spare one in his ankle, his cell phone, his badge and the minute binoculars Frohike let him borrow. Within minutes he was on the road, heading to Scully. He could only hope he was not too late. His mind raced with possibilities: that she wasn't even on this train, that he was wasting his time chasing it while she was somewhere else, being tortured by whatever demons they could create. In the hospital, he had a lot of time to think of what the government could do with the tool Byers had described to him. A virtual reality indistinguishable from reality, that can create anyone, anything, anyplace. They knew enough about Scully to use that against her. They could create a hell that she would believe in. And that thought scared him to death. He only hoped that Scully could see through it, that she wouldn't believe it. Mulder pushed the gas pedal further to the floor, urging his car to go faster along the empty, scenic road that winded through Virginia. Slowly, the speedometer crept past eighty-five and he forced himself to slow down. Dealing with the cops right now was not something he needed. The sun was beginning to set behind the clouded January sky, as he continued down the highway. From the satellite photo, he could tell it was going to take at least an hour, maybe two to even get to his destination. He only hoped he could hold on, each minute reminding him that he could be going the wrong direction; that she could be dead and his search for her was wasted. Each minute he could feel her presence haunting him. He needed to get to her. Forgetting his earlier logic, Mulder accelerated until he was going a steady ninety. 'Hold on, Scully,' he thought to himself, 'just please hold on.' ----------------X---------------- Scully had sat in the same corner of the train car for what felt like an eternity. She tried to sleep, so that she wouldn't have to look at her surroundings. But she couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes she saw only what she saw when she opened them, but in a different context. Every time her eyelids closed, flashes of an experience she refuses to remember surrounded her. She could only see herself, lying down. She could only hear the noises: loud drills. She could only see the light, bright and invading. Her eyelids would fling open, with each haunting memory, to a world not unlike what she saw in her mind. Slowly, she forced herself out of her cross-legged position on the floor. She walked over to the door, the only door, and tested it. Still locked. Since she seemed to be alone in this section of the train, she assumed that she had accidentally locked herself in. But she didn't really want to go back in there. She didn't really know which was worse: a train car full of memories of her supposed abduction, or a train car holding the body of Mulder, full of memories even stronger. Suddenly, she heard a noise behind her, like that of a drawer being shut. She swung around. "Who's there?" she asked. In the back of the train car, behind half-opened plastic curtains, she could see no one. Cautiously, she walked toward the curtains and pulled them back revealing more of the train car. She found on one side, large, metal drawers. Logically, she told herself that one might have been ajar and the movement of the train had closed it. But the thought didn't ease her rapidly beating heart. She walked over to the deep drawers to take a closer look. The one nearest to her was neatly labeled. Looking closer, she read the heading. "Mulder, Fox W." Her eyes widened as she stared at the name. His name. It was as if he was haunting her everywhere she went. His blood, his gun, and now his name. She realized what she was looking at. It was as if she were in a morgue, staring at a drawer where his cadaver would remain. Where someone had expected it to end up. She tried to open the drawer, but found it locked. Her eyes wandered to the next label to the right. Once again, she could do nothing but ache at the name she found there. "Sims, Emily C." She turned her eyes to the next drawer in line. "Scully, Melissa A." She brought her hand over her mouth to cover her gasp. She hadn't expected this. Her sister, haunting her in death. "What the hell is going on?" she muttered, breathlessly. She was once again lost in the confusion of madness. She felt she was losing her mind. Everything she once knew as stable, including herself, was lost in the midst of this hell. She feared the next drawer, but went on to read the label. "Scully, Margaret K." "Mom?" she sobbed into her hand. No, no, this isn't happening. Mulder, Emily, and Melissa are dead. But her mother was not. Desperate to know it was only a name, merely a slip of paper attached to a drawer, she took a hold on the handle and forced the door to open. It wasn't locked. Inside she found the body of her mother. She was dead, cold, as she had seen the body of her only daughter. Her face gone. She had been shot, point- blank in the face. Scully couldn't control the swell of unbelief. Tears began to make their way down her face. She could no longer voluntarily control the grief she felt for what she saw. Her mother. Her mother had been killed, because of her, because of what she had led her life into. Not only had she killed her sister because of the belief she felt that made her stay on the X-Files, but now she had killed her mother. Her crying had become sobs that violent took control over her body. She couldn't stand to see her mother and slammed the drawer shut with the strength of the grief she felt. Standing was no longer possible and her body, back against the drawers, slid downwards to the floor. There she wept, with each sob, losing her sense of life, until she lost her sense of self. Until she was gone. ------------------------------------------------ Uh... whoops... looks like there's gonna be a fifth part... I'm new to this posting stuff! :) End of Part Four of FIVE, Into the Fire, by Belle Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com Title: Into the Fire (5/5) Author: BelleElle (BelleElle7@aol.com, Feedback: Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com) Rating: PG-13 to mild R for somewhat-graphic violence and only one bad word you won't see on TV. Classification: TA Spoilers: One Breath, Christmas Carol/Emily but this has a lot of minor details that would be helpful if you knew about. Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST, sort of Romance at the end. Summary: Scully is subjected to the haunts and fears from her past. And Mulder must get past his own guilt in order to save her. Feedback: If I don't get any feedback, I will never write again! Please! E-mail me at Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com. PLEASE!!! For the sake of my shattered psyche! Feedback is the only reason I wrote this. Warnings: This is angsty. Well, I've read angstier, but this gets pretty hairy. But don't worry, it has a happy ending. Also, although most of the story is "Unresolved"ST, this is very shipper-orientated. So, if you love angst and you consider yourself a shipper, this is the story for you. Thank yous: I must thank two of the nicest FanFic-Shipper-MulderAngst-Crazy-Philes I have ever known. Jooky313 (a.k.a. Jessica) because she convinced me that I really could write. Hell, I might even be [[good]] at it! (I still don't believe it though...) I wouldn't have finished this sucker if it weren't for her. And Kel (the Evil twin), who understood exactly what I meant in every word and always had great suggestions. And to everyone else who read this thing from the start and actually wanted to know what was gonna happen as it popped out of my head. And if my sister, for some unlikely reason should chance upon this story, this is what I was writing while I was staying at your house. Now you know the sick truth. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and all the rest of the bunch, (a.k.a. Skinner, CSM, Langly, Byers and Frohike, etc.) are the best characters ever and I only wish I could have created them. But I didn't. CC did. And a bunch of people are getting rich of them. But not me. Fox is. Also, the title is shamefully ripped off from one of Sarah McLachlan's songs: Into the Fire, from her album, entitled Solace. Also, I use quotes from her songs here and there throughout. I'm sorry Sarah! Forgive me! I love everything she does. So, think of it as homage to her glory. Part (5/5) Into the Fire by Belle ----------------X---------------- 7:03 p.m. He was almost there. He could almost feel her. He could see her, his imagination running wild at what he saw in his mind's eye. She was alive. She was unconscious. She was tied up and tortured. She was dead. His mind played out every possibility it could concoct. He drove on, forgetting speed limits, and, as of yet, no one seemed to care. He had moved off the highway and was now driving along side roads that followed along side the train tracks. He was so close he was on the edge. But he needed to hang on. He needed to hold on to the hope that he would find her, that she would be alive. 'Please, God,' he silently prayed, 'please let it not be too late.' He had yet to see an actually train on the deserted tracks. Hell, he hadn't seen anything. A car, a town. Nothing. He was literally in the middle of nowhere. In the distance, he noticed something that resembled civilization. As he drove closer he realized that it was some kind of train station or train yard. Slowing down to take a closer look he noticed that there were some trains, off the main track, and some autos: trucks mostly, but a few dark sedans. Mulder stopped, fueled by a sudden instinctive intuition. He grabbed the flashlight from the passenger seat and got out. The light sprayed over the thick ground of gravel under his feet. He shot the light from automobile to the next, finding nothing. The trains were empty cargo train cars and a few refrigeration cars, but nothing unusual about them. Hidden between two of the train cars he found a car. Without a second's consideration, he knew the car's owner. Scully's. Immediately he began to run, sprinting toward the vehicle. It was hers. Frustrated at finding it locked he looked inside using the flashlight. In the back seat he found the answer he already knew to be true. A syringe, like the one that had been jammed into his forearm. He had been right: they had taken her. They had exposed her to the same drug. He didn't want to be right. Realizing that there was nothing else here, he had checked everything, he ran back to his car. Time was running out. Her time was slowly wasting away. Everything that meant anything was lost to him. His only purpose was getting to her, and saving her. After checking the satellite photo, he was able to judge his distance from his destination. He estimated about ten miles. He could make it. He could save her. Soon he was driving at full speed again, forgetting any logic that referred to his own safety. She was the only thing that mattered. Following the tracks as best he could along the winding road, he soon came upon a large structure, the one that Byers had pointed out. He was there. Hiding his car behind a group of trees a ways off from the building, he got out and started his way down the hill. Stopping behind another group of trees, he took out the small binoculars. He saw a large, warehouse like structure, surrounded by paved areas. A simple chain link fence encompassed the whole of the building. A few select outdoor lights provided a dim illumination of the area. The train tracks seemed to pass right next to it. Other than that, he saw nothing, there was no one. It was not a heavily guarded building, which didn't make sense. Top secret experimentation and no one to guard it. He didn't trust the situation one bit. But she was there, he knew it, and he needed to get to her no matter how paranoid he was of the situation. Putting the binoculars away, he proceeded down the hill, edging along the scattered trees. He wound his way around an obscure portion of the fence, trying to see if there was any sort of manned post or anything. Still, he could find nothing. His heart was racing with each minute. He needed to get to her. Finally, decreeing the area abandoned, he grabbed onto the fence and started to climb. He landed squarely on the other side. From the fence to the only door he saw there was nothing for him use as a barrier. But, as of yet, there was no one for him to hide from. So he ran for it. His gun positioned, he cautiously took the doorknob into his other hand. It was unlocked. This was becoming child's play. Everything was so easy. 'Well, let it be easy.' he thought. The easier it was for him to get to her, the better. He entered into an expanse of emptiness. The huge building was vacant, no one to see him. It appeared as if there was nothing here. Desperately hoping he had not wasted his time here, he explored the dimly lit concrete structure. He found doors that led nowhere. Just more empty rooms. Where the hell was he? He was losing hope that he was even close to where she was. He felt the feeling of failure creep upon him. It screamed at him, telling him that he had screwed up once again. He stood in the middle of the vast concrete warehouse, looking around him for anything that would keep his hope alive. And before him he saw what he had missed before. A door, one that he had not checked, with light streaming out from the edges. He jogged over to it, gun once again ready if need be. He opened the door, letting the intense light surround him in a blind existence. He aimed the gun into the brightness, securing him from the unknown until he could see again. He blinked away the unusual light until he could see again. And what he finally saw was what he had seen relentlessly in his mind's eye. Thousands of images of her, of Scully. His breath caught within him and died at the sight. He could only utter her name in question. Questioning whether what he was seeing was real. He rushed over to her side. She lay unconscious, alone on a gurney, a thousand different devices attached in a thousand different places. His hands hovered over her, not sure what to do. If it was true that she was experiencing a virtual reality of some sort, bringing her out of it abruptly could be dangerous. But he didn't have a choice. Now that he had found her, he knew that he wasn't alone, as much as he wanted to believe that he was. Someone was here. Someone knew he was here. He put his hands everywhere, feeling her forehead, her pulse, assuring himself that she was real, that she was alive. Her skin was cold and damp. Her pulse was weak. "Oh, God, Scully--" he willed to her. He had found her, after all this time and she was nearly dead, hanging on by a fraying thread. He couldn't lose her now. He wasn't going to give up. "Scully, you have to wake up..." he knew it was useless, but he needed to do something. He once again concentrated on the monitors and equipment that were attached to her. He wasn't sure which were there to help her and which were there to harm. He noticed the IV in her arm, feeding her a thin clear liquid, one that he recognized. Hesitantly, he removed it, hoping that he was making the right decision. "Forgive me, Scully..." he whispered to her. She showed no change. He needed to get her out of there; she needed to get to a hospital. Without caring anymore, he removed everything that connected itself to her. She remained the same, her pulse still weak, but present. She was wearing some kind of long hospital gown. It was cold outside, and she was already ill. Taking off his leather jacket, he gingerly wrapped her limp form within it. "Hang on, Scully," he urged her. Lifting her petite figure into his arms, he began his trek back to his car. He only hoped that no one would suddenly appear, ruining everything. He was defenseless with her in his arms. And they would both end up dead. He moved as quickly as he could, making his way out of the main building into the outer ring of concrete that encompassed the main building. Suddenly, he realized that he had jumped the fence to get in, and he had to find a different way out. He hadn't seen that far ahead through the thick haze of his desperation to save her. He began circling the endless chain link fence that didn't seem to end. No door, no gate, nothing. His breathing was rapid; his fear growing that he would never find an exit. He would have to leave her here, subject to probable death, to go in search for help that would come too late. He looked down at the figure in his arms. She remained motionless, her hair sticking to her damp forehead. He stopped and bent his head down to listen. She wasn't breathing. "Scully, no, oh, God." He set her down gently upon the cold, hard concrete. He felt for her pulse. But found nothing. "No, oh, God, no." He was frantic, his soul stricken with a fear he never felt before. He wouldn't accept it. She was not dead. In a frenzy, he tilted her head up and breathed for her, giving her CPR as he had done before. Please, God, please save her. Please, no. His thoughts were frantic, crying out to a god he didn't believe in. He continued to attempt to resuscitate her lifeless form, to no end. In his frenzy he couldn't smell the cigarettes of the man that stood behind him. He couldn't hear the cock of the gun pointed at his head. Without even knowing it, he was surrounded by everyone he had expected to be there from the beginning. Four men, stood behind him, armed. One of which had his gun aimed at the back of his head, waiting for the man smoking the cigarette to further instruct. The man watched the helpless efforts of his son, and nodded to the man beside him before walking away, flinging the burning stub as he went. Mulder was screaming her name, as if it could will her back to him. Nothing worked; nothing he did helped her. She was gone. Fury ran through him like blood in a vampire. Her name from his lips became a cry of anguish. Suddenly he realized that he was being taken away from her, his arms restricted by two large men, while another held a gun to his head. The anger built up in him could hold no longer. He couldn't leave her. "Scullllly!!!" he cried to the lifeless form lying upon the concrete that grew smaller and farther away as his captors dragged him unwillingly. He flailed in the arms of his captors. "You BASTARDS! You killed her!" He continued to struggle violently, desperate to return to her side. "SCULLY!!" he shouted again, his mind not registering the logic that she couldn't hear him. That she was dead. He continued to be dragged relentlessly toward his unknown destination. He wasn't looking where they were headed, his head turned only to where he had been. Her tiny form slowly disappearing around the corner. He continued to violently resist them. "Let me go, you SONS OF BITCHES!" he screamed at them. His captors were beginning to get sick of his persistent failure to cooperate. They forced him into the empty building, dragging him to the center of the dim concrete structure. They savagely pushed him down until he was kneeling on the concrete, his hands restrained by the man behind him. The man with the gun came around to stand in front of him. Mulder spit at the man, who wasn't fazed. He brought his gun up and aimed it inches from Mulder's face. Mulder struggled against the man who held him from behind, who was now tying up his wrists and feet. "You killed her! Go to HELL, you BASTARDS!" The man suddenly had a change of heart. He didn't feel like letting him go out the easy way. He brought the gun down lower, aiming at his stomach. This piece of shit is gonna suffer, he thought sadistically. He smiled mercilessly at the squirming figure before him. "Maybe I'll see you there, Mulder." The shooter waited long enough to revel in his reaction before pulling the trigger. The shot echoed throughout the warehouse, reverberating against the thick walls creating a lasting cry that wouldn't silence. Mulder lay helpless on the cold concrete floor, his ankles and wrists restrained behind him. The three men left him to bleed to death, shutting and locking the door behind them. There, Mulder lay, waiting out the last minutes of his life, drowning in a sea of his own blood. And then there was nothing... ----------------X---------------- Death. The final chapter that is unavoidable by all, even Mulder. Even Scully. To Mulder, death was the end of a struggle he was never meant to win. His own life meant nothing to him without hers, without Scully. His last thoughts before slipping into the darkness had been of her, needlessly lost in the meaning of his life. Into the Fire of rage, pain and guilt he had pulled her. He had dragged her into his hell. And now he was alone, facing his demons without her in the darkness of death. Dark screams of pain, faces of anguish, fear and confusion surrounding him, bleeding into him within the void. His heart bled with the accusations of each face, each pain, each guilt he had ever known. But mostly he saw her: in pain, in fear, and finally, in death. Over and over the images raced through him, like an evil he could only sense and feel, but never touch, never save. He could do nothing but wait in the eternal shadows of his damnation for the light that would never come... Light. But it did come. Not with peace and calming, but with the sharpness of pain; pain beyond death. It came in the form of fire. Heat seared into him. The touch, the smell, the existence of flames in their purist form swept around him. And the light came to him in the form of a voice. A voice beautiful and rich, haunting him even in death ... "Mulder!" Scully screamed, her voice bleeding into his hell. "Mulder! Please..." Her voice would not relent, haunting him consistently. "Mulder! Please, I can't leave you. Please, Mulder. There's no time..." Suddenly, he was in a fit of coughing. Dark smoke everywhere, blackness surrounded by intense flames. His eyes were open, staring into the panic stricken face of her. Of her. So this is hell. His greatest fears: Fire and the death of her, to plague him eternally. "Oh, God, Mulder, we have to get out." she was screaming at him, pulling at his arm to show her insistence. But he could only stare at her, his body racked by cough after cough. "Mulder, please, I need you to get up. Mulder, I can't let you die here..." Scully knelt and stared at Mulder. He was alive. She didn't know how, but he was alive. But now they were both going to die. She had woken up in a train car, just as she had before. But she hadn't been alone. Mulder was lying besides her. He was alive. But she soon realized that the train car was engulfed in flames. She could barely breathe, could barely move. She was too weak to save him herself. She needed him to wake up. She needed him to save himself. It didn't look as if he cared whether he lived or dead. The face she saw in him was like that of before: haunted, morbid, as if his soul had died long ago. Tears were silently slipping down her face at the sight of him, at the thought that she would see him die before her, again. She needed to save him. She couldn't let him slip away from her, like before. "Mulder, I thought you were dead. Please, don't die." she pleaded, "I know what life is without you. I need you, Mulder. And I know you need me. Please, don't give up. Please, I can't do this without you." He had closed his eyes, the thought of death not fazing him. He was already dead. She could see that he was slowly slipping away from her. She needed to grasp onto his soul before he gave up entirely, before the flames enclosed them completely. The smoke was beginning to devour her and she coughed violently, desperate for oxygen. Time was running out. As a last act of desperation, she moved her face over his and with only a second's hesitation, she brought her lips upon his and chastely kissed him. Instantly, his eyes opened, yielding to her hope. He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, as if he was realizing that she was alive for the first time. He looked around them, at last comprehending the situation, as he coughed mercilessly. Her own coughing struck her already weak body. She didn't know how much longer she could last. The smoke and flames were coming closer, their death appearing inevitable. Slowly, he got on his knees. He took her weak frame into his arms and half crawled, half walked toward the only door he found. By adrenaline alone, he surpassed flames and opened the door. Finally, they got out. Out of the fire, they emerged into the night. They fell hard onto the gravel that surrounded the tracks. Scully was only weakly aware of Mulder, coughing relentlessly as he carried her farther away from the heat of the flames. He laid her onto the cool grass where she felt him collapse against her. And into the night, they allowed themselves the simple comfort of each other, alive. ----------------X---------------- Scully's Apartment February 13, 2000, one week later 6:33 p.m. Dana Scully turned off the television in her living room. She had hoped for a distraction, but all that she got was the news, full of stories that could only remind her of the last three weeks. Stories of house fires, but the story that disturbed her the most was the one about the murder suicide. A man had killed his wife and then, in turn, killed himself. She didn't want to hear things like that. It conjured up too many images of an experience she didn't have. She was forced to shut her eyes tightly and calmed her breathing. She struggled to compose herself, but she was still raw from what she had experienced. Somehow, that night, she and Mulder had been able to find his car, hidden in a grove of trees. Somehow, Mulder, still weak as she was, had been able to drive them to the hospital. The entire way had been silent, but he had held her hand in his the entire way, never once letting go of it. They had been treated for smoke inhalation, and finally, Mulder was able to explain what had happened to her, and eventually to himself. Byers, Frohike and Langly had been able to confirm that they had given him the satellite photos and Mulder had left to go find her, marking the last thing he could identify as real. However, as was her usual stance, she found it hard to believe. How could she have been in a virtual realm, and not be able to distinguish it from real life? Despite her doubts, she had no other way to explain what she had seen: Mulder kill himself, Emily back from the dead, her mother, nothing but a forgotten corpse. Yet, her mother came to the hospital. She was real, she was alive. Her hug was warm. As was Mulder's. He had been strangely silent throughout the week since they had found each other in the train car, but he made up for it with the attention he gave her. He hovered around her bedside at the hospital, silently sitting and holding her hand, despite the fact that he should have been recovering himself. He never wanted to tell her exactly what had happened to him, what he had seen. He only vaguely told her that he had seen her die. But, she knew she hadn't been entirely honest with him either, telling him only that she had seen him die, as well. But it had been more than that. She had watched his soul die before her. He had taken her gun. He had shot himself, his last words to her telling her that he loved her. She couldn't tell him that. She couldn't tell him how she had cried hysterically because of his death. She couldn't explain to him what it did to her. What it still does to her. Her thoughts were racing with the events of the past weeks. She hadn't seen Mulder since after they were released from the hospital, when they had driven back to the site in Virginia. There was nothing left inside the building, no charred train car where they were supposed to have died. They did however, find her car where he had found it. Before they had parted in that train yard, she said that she needed some time to get her life back in order. And he had respected that. She hadn't seen him since. But with his absence came fear. What if she really had been in a virtual realm? What if she never left? How did she know this was real? With that fear came a need, a desperate need to put her faith in something that she could trust. She needed to believe something was real. Throughout the weekend she had thought of calling Mulder, but, for some excuse or another, could never pick up the phone, telling herself that she was being ridiculous. However, in a weak moment, she had called him. She didn't say much. She didn't need to. He understood that she needed to see him. She understood that he needed to see her. Now, she was waiting for him, afraid that she did the wrong thing in calling him. The tap on the door brought her out of her reverie. Her heart pounding with apprehension, she got up and looked out the peephole to find Mulder in a tee-shirt, jeans and his leather jacket. She opened the door to him and let him in. There they stood, the awkwardness of the situation flowing through them both. Finally, Scully moved over to her couch. "Come sit down, Mulder." he followed her, but remained silent. He sat down opposite of her and gazed into her face. "Scully... we need to talk." he finally said. She nodded, avoiding his eyes. She had known that if he came over, this moment would come. "Scully, I told you that I saw you die, but it was more than that..." his voice trailed off as she looked up at him. "They... they let me find you only to take you away. It was so easy, Scully. They let me think that I could save you. But I couldn't. You stopped breathing. You slipped away from me and there was nothing I could do." He paused to grasp onto her hand. "They made me think that I failed you, Scully, that I killed you." Her breath caught in her throat at his words. "Mulder, no matter what you think, you could never be responsible for what happens to me." she tried to assure him, "I meant what I said on the phone: this wasn't your fault. Nothing that has ever happened to me has been your fault." He was looking down at their hands, avoiding her gaze. She felt that it was her turn to be completely honest with him. "Mulder, I saw you die, too. But I saw something different." He looked back into her eyes, waiting for her to continue. She swallowed, her breathing shaky at the flash of the memory. His thumb was slowly stroking the back of her hand, trying to help her relax. "You, you were there, Mulder. You looked awful, your wrists were scarred from attempts to kill yourself. You looked like you hadn't bothered to take care of yourself for weeks. You were convinced that you had killed me. You were crying hysterically, you thought I was a ghost. So, I tried to comfort you, Mulder." Her voice was losing its calm, what she was telling him was extremely hard for her and he could tell. "Mulder...you killed yourself. You... you took my gun and shot yourself right in front of me." He took her into his arms, for his own comfort as much as for hers. "Scully, I'm here, and so are you. They can't harm us anymore." She clung to him, breathing in everything that surrounded him. He was real. He was alive. "Mulder, promise me..." she said into his shoulder. "What, Scully?" "Promise me that you will never blame yourself, promise me that you will never kill yourself." His silence scared her. He only held her, not responding. She needed him to promise her. "Mulder..." "Scully, I promise." he finally said, so low she could barely hear him. "But there's something I need you to promise me." He broke their embrace so that he could look at her. She was crying. "Promise me that you will not be afraid of me, that you won't run away from me after I tell you something..." "What is it, Mulder?" "Why do you think they showed us what they did, Scully? I think they know what we won't admit." He held her face in his hands, wiping away the tears that fell from her eyes. "Scully, when I saw you die, all I could do was regret what I never did, what I never told you, what I never could show you. I never showed you, because I was afraid. But we can't be afraid anymore. They used our fear against us. Scully, promise me you won't be afraid of me." "I promise..." she said softly, her voice too weak. "I don't want to let you go, Scully. I don't know how anymore. You're my weakness, Scully, but you are also my greatest strength. I need you by my side, Scully..." Mulder waited in silence as she stared at him, tears continued to flow down her face as he held it. She had promised not to be afraid of him. She was trying to be strong. He once again took her into her arms and she went willingly. "I was blind with fear, Mulder," she said into his shoulder, struggling through her tears, "But now I can see, I understand what you mean to me. You mean everything, and I can't deny it anymore. I won't fear you, Mulder, I won't fear love." Mulder clung to the woman in his arms, his heart soaring with a happiness he had never known. All he wanted to do was hold her, and never let her go for the rest of eternity. He laid them down on the couch until they were inseparable, their eyes closed, each reveling in the peace they had found in the other. They had finally found each other, the pain of the past and the fear of the future was lost to them. They only had the present; they only needed each other. ---T*H*E**E*N*D--- Feedback is imperative! If you liked this fanfic in any way (and I'm assuming it wasn't all that bad since you actually finished it...) then I'm begging you to tell me you liked it because if I don't get any feedback I will slump in my despair and never write another one again... E-mail me at Belle_Mulder42@yahoo.com For Fanfiction Feedback Only. And don't e-mail me just to tell me it stunk. If you must, then at least tell me why. By the way, did I mention this was my first fanfic? Well--I didn't mention it for a reason, you probably would be very biased and might not have read it. So, if you like it and you think I should write more: For the Sake of All Phile-Humanity, EMAIL ME! Belle