Disclaimer: The characters we all know and love from the X-Files are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended. Honest Chris, I'll make sure everyone is in A-1 condition when I return them. Well, maybe not *everyone*. hehehe. Rating: PG-13 Category: S, A Summary: Scully is looking forward to seeing Mulder for the first time since her transfer six weeks ago, but events conspire against her. Warning: character dies Author's Note: This chapter covers the same event as chapter 2, but from Scully's POV, and continues a little further. Comments and constructive criticisms are welcome at tthwaite@banff.net. Or make them on the fictalk list. Flames will be used to heat my hot chocolate, unless they're witty enough for me to save for ego-bashing purposes. Mairi Dennehy Ch 3: The Left Hand Of Fate by tj thwaites (email tthwaite@banff.net) Pathology Department- FBI building, LA Dana Scully's office- Friday,noonish Dana Scully read the lyrics to a song she'd copied, a tiny grin playing at the corners of her mouth. She still wasn't entirely sure why she'd written them out, but she didn't really care about that as she lifted her eyes from the page in her hand to the picture on her desk. She started at the knock on her office door and flipped over the page in her hands and placed it on top of a small stack of blank pages by her "In" box. She looked at the tall brunette who'd just walked into her office and the sparkle in hers eyes dared the newcomer to comment on the blush creeping into her face. "Ready for lunch, Dana?" Special Agent Amanda Bridges asked, declining the challenge in her friend's eyes. "Just let me grab my purse," Scully replied, reaching for the large handbag tucked under her desk. As the two women traversed the halls toward the cafeteria, chatting amiably about inconsequentials, Amanda considered the change in her friend since she'd arrived six weeks ago. Much of the tension was gone. When Scully had first arrived, she'd been unusually short tempered and self conscious. Not surprising considering the nature of her transfer. But Amanda had seen something else in Scully's tension that went beyond the totally natural fear of the possible reaction to the circumstances of her transfer. Being caught having a sexual relationship with her partner might have been bad enough, but the fact that the partner in question was "Spooky" Mulder just made the stories on the grapevine that much worse. And, in many ways, the FBI was still something of a "good old boys" club. Amanda was sympathetic to Scully's understandable ire at the unfairness of being transferred to a position 3000 miles away rather than back to her old teaching position at the Academy, but some of the other aspects of Scully's behaviour were still a little baffling. Amanda remembered the utter shock she'd felt a couple of days after Scully's arrival when she'd returned to her apartment and discovered her temporary roommate sitting cross-legged on the floor, using a penlight to peer into the dark recesses around the partially dismantled telephone jack. Scully's absentminded explanation that she had thought she'd heard a something unusual in the phone and was checking for bugs, as if that sort of activity was nothing unusual, had momentarily stunned Amanda. And Scully still constantly carried the best commercially available bug detector in her purse and regularly swept her own apartment for listening devices. The unconscious paranoia exhibited by those behaviours was a new, and unsettling, addition to the personality of her Academy friend. But, Amanda had reasoned, if even a quarter of the stories circulating about "Spooky" Mulder had a grain of truth to them, then four years working with the man might have had a similar effect on her. And Dana seemed to be settling in well now, overcoming most of the reluctance some coworkers had at associating with anything even remotely connected with the "FBI's most unwanted", as Scully had affectionately referred to Mulder. As they stood in line in the cafeteria, Amanda finally asked the question she'd been wanting to for the past two days. "So, Dana. What's up with you lately?" When Scully only raised an eyebrow, Amanda rephrased the question. "Ever since I dragged you away from whatever daydream you were having Tuesday, you have the air about you of someone who's about to burst. So, tell me. What's going on?" "Mulder's on his way," Scully replied, "He's flying out today and we're spending the weekend together. We've got some things to talk over and well..." Amanda stared at her friend as Scully's voice trailed off. ****************************************************************** Cigarette smoke hovered over the man seated to the side of the entrance to the cafeteria. He watched Dana Scully chat with another agent while standing in the line at the commissary for a few seconds before extinguishing his cigarette and rising to leave. He missed seeing her glance around the cafeteria and the shocked recognition on her face when she caught sight of him just before he exited. As the man walked out of the building, he reflected that his original misjudgment of Scully's usefulness in bringing Mulder to heel should in no way affect his current opinion; that there was definitely something important happening with her at the present time. Mulder's paranoia meant that his associates' attempts to keep a close surveillance on him were continually hampered by Mulder's sweeps of his office and apartment for listening devices. And some of that paranoia had evidently rubbed off on his former partner. She still regularly did the same sweeps of her apartment here in LA, but apparently had not taken the same precautions with her office and they had managed to bug her phone there. The man lit another cigarette after settling into his car and wondered at the significance of the rendezvous the two had planned for this weekend. The voice analysis to which they had subjected the taped conversation between Mulder and Scully a few days ago had suggested that Scully was under a great deal of stress. But, the man thought, her appearance just now didn't convey the same impression. Just the opposite, in fact. She seemed quite happy, almost...radiant. The man frowned slightly when his mind provided that particular adjective. And he wished for the umpteenth time that it was easier to plant bugs on those two. While they hadn't been able to cause any interference since they'd been separated six weeks ago, the man doubted that would continue to be the case. ****************************************************************** Amanda turned to look over her shoulder, wondering what had caused Dana to trail off. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she turned back to her friend. Dana's eyes had lost focus and she appeared as if her mind was miles away. "Earth to Dana!" Amanda quipped, reaching out and poking Scully's shoulder, "Line's moving." "Hunh? Oh, sorry," Scully replied, distracted. she thought as she forced herself to turn to the food counter and try to maintain her composure in front of Amanda. Scully had never confided any details about her and Mulder's run-ins with that odious man and she didn't want to start now. Much better if Amanda remained ignorant of that part of Scully's work on the X-Files. She didn't need the burden. ****************************************************************** Dana Scully sat at the desk in her office, her eyes staring sightlessly at the photo of Fox Mulder she kept on the corner, as she tried to corral her thoughts. She couldn't believe she'd just seen the cigarette smoking man in the cafeteria downstairs. The happiness and hope for the future she'd been feeling since Tuesday when the plans for this weekend get together with Mulder had been finalized just disappeared in a instant of shocked recognition. What possible reason could he have for being in LA? Unless.... a tiny voice of paranoia spoke up in the back of her mind. she thought, trying to rid herself of the paranoia, the paranoia countered, The thought sent an icy chill down her spine. *They* couldn't have found out about her pregnancy, could they? She had been so careful to ensure that *no one* knew about it. She'd taken precautions she was sure would satisfy even the Lone Gunmen's sense of "safe measures". Leaving her car in the parking lot of one of LA's ubiquitous malls, she'd spent nearly an hour making sure she didn't have a tail before taking the bus all the way out to Santa Monica, still constantly checking to see if she was followed. She had even gone so far as to use her Mairi Dennehy identity for her appointment at the clinic which had confirmed her pregnancy. And the later visit that indicated she was progressing well and healthy so far. No, Scully was positive that there was no way the Mairi alias could have been compromised and the Consortium made aware of her pregnancy. But she couldn't hide it much longer, the changes to her body would unfortunately soon be all too obvious. Unless no one could see them because she had dropped out of sight, an extended vacation? She certainly still had a lot of unused vacation time accumulated during her tenure on the X-Files. But now that she suddenly had been forcefully reminded of the Consortium's existence, she thought that she just might have to disappear permanently. For safety's sake. she thought, hanging her head in her hands, She knew Mulder would, most definitely, *not* want to let her and their child just disappear. And Scully had to admit to herself that she didn't like the idea much, either. But she also reluctantly had to face the fact that the Consortium would undoubtably consider any child of hers and, especially, Mulder's an extremely valuable pawn in its endless, ruthless games. She figured she would probably be facing an uphill battle, but she had to convince Mulder that her disappearing was probably the safest course of action for all of them. And she resigned herself to a tough job of beating that past Mulder's inevitable overprotectiveness. Mentally rehearsing her arguments, Scully's hand absently toyed with the locket-like pendant she'd constantly worn for the past five weeks. Inside the pendant were a couple of tightly folded hundred dollar bills as emergency cash and the key to a storage space she'd rented the very afternoon the doctor at the clinic had confirmed her pregnancy. In a rare fit of extreme paranoia, Melissa might have suggested prescience, she'd stayed in Santa Monica overnight and, using her Mairi Dennehy alias, had visited a bank and withdrawn a large amount of cash from her covert off-shore account. Cash she'd then used to buy a used Jeep and a couple of suitcases worth of casual clothing which were now stored in the rental space. She'd been back only once since, to add Mairi Dennehy's registration, insurance, and all the other documents she'd accumulated over the past two years for her; birth certificate, driver's license, passport, and phony (but hopefully good enough phonies to pass any checking) medical credentials that gave Mairi a convincing background in forensic pathology. The Jeep, clothes, IDs and wad of cash were sitting in that storage garage, just waiting for Scully if....no, *when* it became necessary for her to vanish into the scenery. Scully was preparing to leave, early since she had several errands to run in preparation for Mulder's arrival, when the tiny voice of paranoia spoke up again; hoping that she'd get the chance to go through another emotional wringer (as the difficult and heated argument over her disappearance would surely prove to be) with Mulder. And that Cancerman's presence in LA wasn't an indication that the Consortium felt that the six weeks since her transfer allowed for enough time to have passed that a fatal "accident" wouldn't raise too many eyebrows. Or maybe they thought they could spirit her away again for more of their "experiments". The icy chill was back and the trembling in her hands proved that the rest of her mind suddenly found those possibilities alarmingly plausible. Grabbing a pen and the nearest sheet of paper, Scully hastily composed a letter to Mulder, just in case the paranoid voice was right. As she sealed the letter in an envelope, she paused. If the Consortium *was* planning something nasty, either killing her outright or abducting her again, they just might have her (or possibly Mulder, or both of them) under surveillance. Could they possibly intercept the letter? She dug a large manila envelope from one of her desk drawers. She wrote a quick note to the Lone Gunmen, instructing them to keep Mulder's envelope for a week before giving it to him, unless he specifically asked for it sooner. After sealing the note and Mulder's letter in the manila envelope, she addressed it to the Lone Gunmen's post office box, hoping that the Consortium didn't have the Three Paranoid Musketeers under surveillance as well. She had to believe they were a safe cutout, she couldn't go through her mother with this. If the worst happened, it would be hard enough on her as it was without having to deal with Mulder too. Scully kept checking for shadowy pursuers when she left the LA field office. Deciding she didn't have a tail, she stopped at the first mailbox and dropped the manila envelope in. Satisfied that Mulder would know everything, one way or another, she turned her mind back to the errands she had to run to prepare for his arrival later this afternoon. ****************************************************************** Scully's apartment Still a little keyed up from her earlier descent into unbridled paranoia, Scully awkwardly turned the key in the lock on her apartment door, trying not to drop the two bags of groceries in her arms. The familiar routine of grocery shopping had calmed her apprehensions somewhat and she now castigated herself for succumbing earlier. Her constant checks hadn't revealed anyone following her and she felt a little silly over her reactions. She was probably overreacting to Cancerman's presence here in LA. Her logic kept insisting that the most likely cause was Mulder's visit. *They* were probably only exercising their paranoid curiosity over what she and Mulder, the most irritating thorns they'd had in their sides for a long time, had to say to each other now that the X-Files had been shut down, its agents disgraced, split up and stuck 3000 miles apart. Scully kicked the door closed and was reaching for the light switch when her eyes had a horrified split-second to report to her brain that the curtains she'd left open this morning were now closed and there was a shadowy figure standing in the middle of her apartment, pointing what was most likely a weapon at her. Alex Krycek stepped over the spilled groceries and looked down at the unconscious woman on the floor with a grudging respect. he thought, Even taken completely by surprise in a darkened apartment, she'd still nearly managed to drop the groceries and dive out of the way before the two electrodes of his taser had caught her in the chest and shocked her to unconsciousness. As he knelt to tie her hands, his knee came down on something hard. A quick glance increased his grudging respect even more and he thought that he'd been more accurate than anyone had realized when he'd told the cigarette smoking man that she was the more dangerous part of the X-Files partnership. he thought, pocketing the gun she'd somehow managed to free from its holster, Silently cursing the world in general, and the Russians who'd amputated his left arm in particular, Krycek managed to bind Scully's wrists and ankles one-handed. Using her bound wrists, he jerked her upright enough to get her up on his shoulder. As he made his way down the hall to the stairway leading to the garage, Krycek kept a watchful eye out for any potential witnesses. Carrying a body around in broad daylight was a risky affair, but he wanted to be well away from this place before Mulder's plane arrived at LAX. Finally, with a sigh of relief that he hadn't been spotted, Krycek turned Scully's car into the traffic. Sparing a brief glance at his unconscious prisoner, he flipped idly through the radio stations as he made his way through city streets toward the highway heading west out of Los Angeles. He had a safe house set up in Malibu. A place from which to negotiate a sale to the highest bidder. He was positive that Scully would be a valuable prize for at least *one* of the factions among his former employers. Or maybe he could ransom her back to Mulder? Krycek was getting a little tired of the mercenary life he'd been leading ever since that fiasco over the MJ files and the double cross that had nearly seen him killed in a car bomb. Ransoming Scully to whichever faction would pay him the most would be his final score. Then he'd retire to some quiet, out of the way place far from the plots and intrigues he'd come to despise. Somewhere in the South Pacific maybe. Sunshine, beaches, and nothing exciting happening aside from the occasional tropical storm. A small, barely audible groan from his prisoner tore his thoughts back to the present and a note of unease crept into them. Scully was recovering much faster than he'd anticipated and his one-handed work might have left some slack in her bonds. The searing pain in her chest, combined with the dull throbbing in her wrists and ankles, dragged Scully's consciousness away from the numbing darkness. With a groan, she opened her eyes and panic flared. The first sight to greet her eyes was the rope around her wrists and the chafed skin explained the throbbing. A quick flick of her eyes to the left and her body reacted before her groggy mind could catch up. Lashing out blindly with her bound arms that her captor had foolishly not tied behind her back, her small fists connected bruisingly with a muscular shoulder. She was rewarded by a return fist in the face that split her lip and bloodied her nose. She brought her wrists to her bloody mouth and sank her teeth into the knot with an animal snarl of rage. The fist once again bashed into her face, followed a split-second later by a violent shove that smacked her head against the window hard enough to leave a spider web tracing of cracks in the window and a warm trickle of blood running down the side of her head from the split skin at her temple. Slouched against the door, her body momentarily stunned by the blow to her head, her strobing panic receded enough for a few details to register in her mind. She was bound hand and foot in the passenger seat of her *own car*, being driven along a winding two-lane coastal highway by none other than Alex Krycek. A small corner of her mind snorted in disgust at the minimal bonds and the fact that he hadn't even bothered to put her seat belt on her, obviously overconfident of his abilities to control her. She'd already brought her knees up, grateful for once that her small stature provided a marked advantage in the confines of the car, and was twisting in her seat to kick at him with her feet when a tiny caution suggested that a narrow, twisting road bordered on one side by rocks and on the other by a cliff descending to the ocean might not be the smartest place to attack the man driving, even if there wasn't any other traffic to run into at the moment. But the caution went unheeded. Her feet lashed out, slamming into Krycek's right hand and wrist breaking three of his fingers against the steering wheel. Krycek screamed in pain and rage and desperately tried to force his broken hand to function as the car began to swerve. Scully's bound hands scrabbled at the door handle as the car, now totally out of control, skidded across the centerline straight toward the cliff side guard rail. The impact sheared off the support post and tore away twenty feet of railing. Inside, the air bags deployed, pinning Krycek in the driver's seat as the car left the pavement and plunged through the gap it had created toward the base of the cliff and the incoming tide. Scully, on the other hand, had just managed to unlatch the door when the car broke through the guard rail. The opening door and the inflating passenger side air bag cooperated in pushing her from the vehicle. While the car lost some momentum in the impact, Scully's unrestrained body didn't. *Her* momentum pitched her forward, folding the door back over its hinges. The painful wrench at her shoulder was overpowered by the burning ache in her wrists and hands as the rope she'd managed to loosen slightly caught on part of the bent doorframe and was pulled over her hands, taking a goodly portion of her skin with it. Tumbling through the air, Scully heard the sickening crunch of metal as her car landed nose down in the rocks at the base of the cliff and hoped that she wouldn't feel the pain of her own impact for very long. But the Fates were looking after Dana Scully tonight. She landed in water as the incoming surge of the tide swelled over the rocks at the base of the cliff. She still hit the rocks bruisingly after a few feet, but the impact was greatly lessened from what she would have experienced landing on bare rock after tumbling down thirty feet of cliff face. Alex Krycek wasn't so lucky. The air bag pinning him in his seat failed with the second impact and the steering wheel crushed his ribcage. His own blood filled his lungs, drowning him. Scully clung grimly to the rocks with her right hand as the next swell crashed over her threatening to sweep her from her precarious position and out to sea. The numb unresponsiveness of her left hand and arm telling her that her painfully throbbing shoulder was probably dislocated. The next several swells were smaller, allowing her to undo the rope binding her ankles together. Soaked to the skin, Scully began forcing her bruised and battered body to obey her commands, clambering over the rocks along the shore, looking for a place she could climb back up to the highway. The logical thought that she should find someplace safe near the wreck to wait for someone to spot the break in the guard rail and summon emergency services was but a faint whisper compared to the panicky paranoia that was screaming: "The Consortium *is* after me!! Run! Hide! Get away! Get away!" Nearly a mile down the coast, Scully finally found a place with a gentle enough slope to allow her to climb back up to the road. She emerged over the edge of the rise to find herself at one of the many "scenic lookouts" that dotted the highway. She felt a brief stab of alarm to discover that there was a car stopped at the lookout. But she reasoned that it was doubtful that its occupant had any connection to her abduction at Krycek's hands, they had passed this point just before her attack had caused him to lose control of the car. If this person had been part of it, Krycek would have stopped here. Limping over to the car, Scully rapped on the passenger window. The man inside started violently. He'd been so wrapped up watching the sunset that he hadn't noticed her climb over the edge of the rise and approach. He turned fearful eyes to the soaking, bloody woman who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "I need a lift to Santa Monica," Scully said through the window, "Can you help me?" The man swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded hesitantly. Scully opened the door but paused before climbing in. "A moment please," she said. She used her right hand to wrap the seat belt around her left wrist and stepped back, putting tension on her arm. Twisting her torso, a hoarse grunt of pain force its way past her clenched teeth as her arm socketed back into her shoulder with an audible "Pop". She removed the seat belt from her wrist and sat in the passenger seat. "Thanks for the lift," she said, closing the door. "Uh...you're welcome," the man mumbled as he pulled out on to the highway, wondering why he hadn't just driven the Hell away when he'd first seen the ghastly apparition now sitting in his car. Scully had the man drop her off on a residential street several blocks from the storage facility where the Jeep waited to carry Mairi Dennehy away. She didn't want even a total stranger to know her destination. But she needn't have worried, the man returned to his apartment in a daze and proceeded to drink himself into a stupor to wash away to events of the evening. He woke the next morning with an excruciating hangover and absolutely no memory of why he'd gotten that drunk. ****************************************************************** As the lights of Los Angeles dwindled in the rear view mirror, Scully thanked whatever prescient impulse had prompted her to include a large, well-stocked first aid kit in the head-for-the-hills supplies stored with the Jeep. She'd cleaned her cuts and scrapes and bandaged her raw wrists silently in the twilit storage space before changing into dry clothes and climbing into the Jeep. Mulder was much in her thoughts as the miles of her southbound journey added up. She'd have to contact him soon; he was probably tearing himself apart with worry since she'd failed to pick him up at the airport. She knew she wasn't being fair to him running off like this, but she couldn't make herself turn around and go back to LA. She'd have to try and contact him once she got to....wherever. Scully pulled into a rest area on the outskirts of San Diego, appalled at herself for driving over a hundred miles in her condition. She was exhausted, shocky, probably suffering from a concussion and the aches and pains of numerous bruises scrapes and her shoulder had blossomed from dull, inconvenient throbbings to blazing, demanding voices the had to be dealt with before she could continue. After washing down a pair of heavy duty pain killers from her first aid supplies while re-examining her injuries in the rest area's washroom, she crawled into the back seat upon returning to her Jeep. She needed to take a short nap to clear the fatigue from her mind and allow the pain killers time to percolate through her system. Her last thought before falling into a fitful, uneasy slumber was a wish that she'd never encountered the cigarette smoking man or experienced any of the horrors she'd been exposed to while working on the X-Files. ****************************************************************** Consciousness slowly returned and her first coherent thought was: "I'm in a hospital." Opening her eyes, she discovered that the thought had been correct and she wondered what had made her so certain. Finally deciding that it had been the combination of subtle sounds and smells hovering at the edge of detection, she turned her mind to the feeling that the situation she found herself in was a familiar, yet somehow distant concern.That led her to consider just *where* she was and how she'd gotten here. But she ran into a blank wall in her mind; the memories just weren't there. Erin McCarthy, RN, entered room 407 on her morning rounds to find the petite, auburn-haired patient awake. And seemingly puzzled by the plastic hospital ID bracelet on her bandaged wrist that she was staring at in horrified fascination. "Good morning," McCarthy said cheerily, "And how are we feeling today?" The naked confusion on the redheaded woman's face shocked Erin. But the woman's words caused Erin's jaw to drop to the floor. "Please," the woman asked hesitantly, almost fearfully, "Where am I? How did I get here? And....and....is this my name?" ****************************************************************** Patient Notes of Dr. Richard Abernathy "I'm convinced Dr. Dennehy's amnesia has a psychological origin, possibly related to the trauma which led to her admittance to this institution, but not directly caused by it. "I find it most interesting that the amnesia appears to be selective, only information of a personal nature seems to be affected. She cannot recall details concerning her personal life, family, friends, previous employment and even expressed surprise when informed she is two months pregnant. "Her other memories, and specifically her medical knowledge, appear to be intact and available to her. I see no reason to offer a negative recommendation to her intention to apply for a position in the pathology department here at St. Luke's Hospital once she completes her certification for a California medical license and do not foresee any difficulties to that end. "The admitting physician, Dr. Morrison, concurs with the police investigators' theory that she is probably a victim trying to escape an abusive domestic situation. Her injuries upon admission do lend credence to this hypothesis. I believe such a situation may be the psychological foundation for her amnesia, that she is repressing the memory of personal details of her life in order to shield herself from memories of abuse. "The policeman who discovered her unconscious in the back of a Jeep parked in a rest area has expressed concern that the investigation into the cause of Dr. Dennehy's injuries may not be fruitful if she herself cannot provide any information. I have suggested to her that hypnotherapy may be useful in helping her recover her memories or her personal past, but so far she has been extremely reluctant to consider this avenue of treatment. I will continue to monitor her condition with biweekly sessions in the hope that she will reconsider hypnotherapy or that her memories will return to her in time." THE END Aren't I an evil person for ending this part here? I am working on the next part, but feedback is always encouraging. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ferret's in his cage,thinking. Noel:"Disappointment doesn't kill." Abby:"Right. Rejection kills. Disappointment only maims." -- "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" Top ten reasons dogs are better than men: 10) Dogs don't have problems expressing affection in public 9) Dogs miss you when you're gone 8) Dogs don't play games with you- except fetch (and they never laugh at how you throw) 7) No dog ever voted to confirm Clarence Thomas 6) The worst social disease you can get from a dog is fleas (OK, the absolute worst disease you can get from them is rabies- but there's a vaccine for that, and you get to kill the one that gives it to you) 5) Dogs understand what "NO" means 4) You *can* force a dog to take a bath 3) Middle age dogs don't feel the need to abandon you for a younger owner 2) Dogs don't care whether you shave your legs 1) Dogs are happy with whatever video you choose to rent because they know the most important thing is that you're together ---------------------------------------------------------------------------