From: Su Nact Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 11:27:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: submitted story TITLE: Thicker Than Water (1/1) AUTHOR: Nact E-MAIL ADDRESS: SuNact@yahoo.com RATING: R for violence, sex, and language. CATEGORY: T -- Adventure Story; Romance, Angst. SPOILERS: Through "S.R. 819". KEYWORDS: Mythology; Character dies; Alternate Universe?; Rape (sort of); sexual interaction in unlikely combinations; Weirdness. ARCHIVE: Ephemeral. All others, please ask me first. SUMMARY: The aftermath of Scully's abduction brings to light sides of each character you never dreamed existed. DISCLAIMER: The X-Files characters, quotes, and background contained herein are copyright of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Broadcasting. I am posting this without the copyright holders' knowledge or permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has been made from this work. I apologize profusely to anyone I may have inadvertently offended or upon whose rights I may have accidentally infringed. "Rocky Top, Tennessee," was written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant; Hoyt Axton wrote, "Joy to the World," a.k.a. "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog." The final line of Scully's journal entry is from "Daddy," by Sylvia Plath. The poem in Scully's dream is from "Paracelsius," by Robert Browning. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This piece is fiction, for entertainment only. Please don't take it seriously! In the story, I mention water contamination in small-town Tennessee. This is purely a literary device and is not an implication of fact. DEDICATION: Many thanks to all creative writers whose insights have helped inspire this work. ******************************************************* Mulder awoke to the sound of Scully retching. She had suffered a panic attack the night before, and he had stayed to make sure she was safe. He heard her brushing her teeth and gagging, and then she opened the door, shaky and pale. The whites of her eyes matched her hair and made her irises blaze even more starkly. In her eyes he saw the Blue Hole. "There goes breakfast," he joked. "What breakfast?" she answered in a dead voice. He got up to put his arm around her, but she flinched away. He wandered to her refrigerator. It was beginning to look like his: a few slices of hairy-looking cheese, some old bologna, a bottle of orange juice. "Been doing much shopping lately?" She glared at him and swigged the rest of the O.J. "I've got to get a job." Mulder gawped as a child who has not yet realized that he has been hit. He protested softly, "But you've got a job." "A real one-- I mean, a safe one." "Scully, there isn't much safer than running background checks on postal service applicants." Scully glared at him, and then explained, as if to a small child, "No, Mulder. It's that they wouldn't let me carry a gun." Mulder hesitated. He couldn't say what they both knew. "So what are we going to do?" Scully put her hand to her belly. "We," she murmured. Mulder noticed that, although her face was drawn, her midsection seemed slightly swollen. Scully could swear the carpet was moving. He lunged to guide her to the sofa before she fell. How had this become their lives? He mashed his knuckles to his eyelids to dam the flood of flashbacks that tried to drown him: _______________________________________________________ The agents rushed headlong upon the clearing, which milled with lost-looking Tennesseeans. The tip had come in a fax they traced to the Sewanee college library. It was a clipping from an obscure health journal relating a rash of paranoia and depression around the Cumberland Plateau. A background check had shown those diagnosed to be female, aged 25 to 35. Six of them had claimed to be abductees. Four had asked to be hospitalized, complaining of night terrors, fearing they would be "called" again. Agent Scully wondered how many of them had implants in their necks. A scribbled note on the fax read, "Raven's Point." The agents were on probation, forbidden to investigate X-files. Scully wouldn't ordinarily have chased this particular wild goose, but a tingle in the back of her neck gave her the feeling she had to be there. Luckily, it was a weekend, and flights from Baltimore to Nashville were cheap. If their new A.D. found out where they'd gone, he would be more likely to offer them letters of dismissal than reimbursement. It was a long drive through the lush countryside to South Cumberland State Park. Cows wallowed in mud puddles; barefoot children walked to school. "Small-town life," Agent Mulder murmured. "Someday I'd like to settle down in a place like this." "Your life is too exciting," snorted Scully. "The nearest hospital's in Chattanooga. You couldn't keep up your habit of contracting alien viruses and having government conspirators drug your water." "What do I need a hospital for? I've got Doctor Scully!" "You think I'm always gonna be around to save your ass?" Just then, they passed a road-sign: "Tracy City Limit," and another: "Water declared safe by the Tennessee Valley Authority." Mulder glanced quizzically at his partner. "The watershed and aquifers were probably contaminated by the strip-mines. Sulfur dioxide, agricultural runoff, herbicides from the logging companies--" Scully explained, then mused, "I wonder what the cancer rate is." "So where's the city?" "You're lookin' at it, city slicker." "One traffic light and a drugstore?" "Don't forget the seven churches. These people know what's important. When the mines and the textile plants were active, Tracy was the biggest industrial city in Tennessee. Now it's just a wide spot in the road." They parked their rental car at the head of the Fiery Gizzard trail as the last of the twilight slipped away. Mulder inventoried his pockets: gun, handcuffs, binoculars, flashlight. Ice pick. Just in case. Scully brought her medical kit. She had programmed the number of the local high-angle search-and-rescue into her cell phone. Just in case. She sighed. It would be so much easier if they could work in the daylight, bring backup, get the local authorities to help. She liked the way her MD and her badge made people listen when she talked. This sneaking around behind her boss' back had never ceased to irk her. Skinner used to stand in their way, but he had done it because he cared about her. A.D. Kersch was only trying to break her spirit. "I want to believe in the FBI," she grumbled. They picked their way down the rock steps, under the hanging cliffs. Something about those caves struck an old chord in her, but she hastily shoved the memory away. They heard the waterfall before they could see it. Shining her flashlight on it, she was taken with its beauty. The water was so deep it was turquoise. "The Blue Hole," Mulder breathed, remembering his tourist guide. She stood watching the water that had been pounding against that rock since before the mountains were formed, the same river that had cut Savage Gulf out of pure shale. She was reluctant to move forward. She felt a twinge in her neck and a feeling of intense homesickness, but did not know for what. "We don't have much time," she grunted. Mulder's forehead furrowed. "How do you know?" They crossed the river and made their way up the 4 miles of trail to Raven's Point, a campsite at the peak. "Should'a hit the Wheaties, this morning," Mulder mocked, his hand out to steady his short-legged partner as she tried to follow his mountain-goat hops across a boulder field. "Somehow Slim Fast doesn't pack the same punch," she panted. But then she doubled and redoubled her pace, as if something were pulling her. "Hey, I thought I was the runner," called Mulder as he jogged to catch up. "At least when you're AWOL you can wear sneakers." Scully tossed back. It had grown pitch dark. Mulder had to tug her coat to slow her down so they could pool their flashlight beams together. "Hurry up," she snapped. The burning sensation had left her muscles; they had turned clammy with sweat. Just as she felt her legs turn to lead, they stumbled into the clearing. Fifteen women stood there. Something in her recognized them. A bright light approached over the treetops. "Move away from here!" Mulder cried, but nobody seemed to hear. Scully half-smiled at him. He turned and saw her eyes, round as saucers and focused on something infinitely far, as those of a headlight-hypnotized hare. She seemed beyond desire for self-preservation. He grabbed her shoulder and hissed into her ear, "Let's get out of here. Now." She mumbled in an almost disembodied voice, "Perhaps this time they've come for you." She stepped further into the clearing, as if magnetized. He grabbed her wrist and tried to drag her away. She stared at some spot only she could see. She seemed rooted in the earth. The distant humming grew louder and the sudden wind whipped her coat around her. She drew his fingers to her face, cradled her cheek on the back of his hand. His watch brushed her lips. She glanced at it. As if reciting a nursery rhyme: "10:13. Good-bye, Mulder." She made as if to kiss his fingers, still clenched around her wrist. She bit them hard. "Shit!" He let go in pain and she darted into the center of the cluster of women. There was a flash. _______________________________________________________ Mulder found himself shivering and naked at the trail-head. He felt something soft between his toes and realized it was soot. He lurched to the car and looked at the clock: 2:43. A change of clothes later, Mulder was back on the trail, incoherent with fear and rage, leading a pack of Red Cross climbers. His shell-shocked eyes testified of some disaster, but when they reached Raven's Point, there was nothing and no one but ash. Dammit! Mulder cursed inwardly, Why do we always end up with trouble when we're trying to keep it quiet? We. "Scully!" he bellowed. "Scully! Scully!" The team fanned out, looking for the women he had seen. "Now, let me get this straight," the leader asked again. "Just what were you and your lady friend doing here at 2 in the morning?" "Special Agent Scully and I were on an official investigation for the FBI," Mulder retorted stiffly. "We saw fifteen women on this overlook. At 10:13 p.m. there was a bright light and the next thing I remember, I was at the trail-head." "And that's when you radioed?" "Correct." "And you found you had no clothes on?" "None." "What had you been drinking?" "Nothing!" Mulder flashed, growing pale with anger. But tears of frustration seeped around the edges of his fury. The exhaustion he had been putting off had been insinuating itself under his consciousness, turning his joints to jelly. He sat down, head between his knees, before the world spun away. The team searched until dawn, but the only body they carried down the mountain belonged to Agent Mulder. _______________________________________________________ He faxed Scully's picture to every police station he could think of, but the FBI refused to pursue her. Mulder grew hot, remembering the dry look -- was it bored or malevolent? -- that A.D. Kersch had fixed him with: "I see no evidence of kidnapping here. There was no sign of struggle, no ransom note -- you yourself can give no coherent account of the night's events. Even if I believed your explanation, UFO activity is not a Bureau matter." "Sixteen women were abducted, and you're telling me that the FBI has no authority to look for them?" "If I'm not mistaken, Agent Mulder, you two have disappeared before. You've even come back from the dead. A woman wandered away in the middle of the night. The local authorities will handle this matter. Your tales of flying saucers are causing talk among the agents. I'm forced to dismiss you until I'm convinced your judgment is sound; you've caused the Bureau enough embarrassment already. If you continue to interfere in the police's investigation of Agent Scully, don't bother coming back. Am I clear?" A silent stare. In a voice almost inaudible, "Crystal." An afterthought: "Sir." He barely resisted the urge to slam Kersch's door, but was unable to sidestep the pinch on the ass Kersch's secretary slipped him. For some reason, she'd been a wildcat ever since he and Scully had come back from Nevada, that fall. He didn't bother telling her off. _______________________________________________________ "Skinner." "Skinner, it's me, I've got to talk with you." "Jesus Christ, Mulder, it's one in the morning." "You can sleep when Scully's in danger?" "Listen, Mulder, I have put my ass on the line for you over and over again, and plenty's the time I got it flayed raw. I'm ordered to report you if you contact me." "I trusted you. Don't make me sorry." "I can't help you." Click. What the hell? Skinner had been acting like some kind of drone ever since his blood poisoning. In the early days of his investigations, Mulder had thought that Skinner was just another tool for the obstruction of justice. Time had proven Mulder wrong, but these days his old motto, "Trust No One," was settling like a blanket worn soft around Mulder's senses. Mulder was stone-tired. It was getting harder and harder to believe, in anyone. _______________________________________________________ Holding a man at gunpoint always cheered him up. Mulder felt Skinner must be as accustomed to these back-alley cornerings as to desk-top politics. The revolver was just a formality, as usual. Skinner easily disarmed him, but at least the scuffle got him listening. "I will be fired if I help you, and without my position I have nothing," Skinner spat. "They've got every reason in the world to want me dead, but as long as I play it safe I can keep protecting your work." "Protecting us, how the hell is that? Scully's gone!" "I can't protect you from your own stupidity. So long as I'm A.D. I'm a credible witness. If I testify against them as a civilian, I'm just another blathering UFO-nut." "Like me?" "Exactly. I don't know where she is." "But you know those who do." A silence like reinforced steel. Then, "I doubt even they could help you now." _______________________________________________________ Mulder crouched by the phone, remembering Skinner's rasp like cracking icicles, the sound of Skinner's skull smacking concrete, the ecstatic simplicity of conversation reduced to sweat and skin and heavy breathing, muscles hitting bricks. Feeling the barrel of his gun against a man's neck always got him high. He wished he could talk to Skinner, just once, without blood thickening the air between them. He sighed and dialed again. "Skinner." "Skinner, don't hang up--" Click. Mulder stared dumbly at the dead end, until the canned voice came: "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. . . ." Mulder replaced the receiver in its cradle. For some reason the act reminded him of Dana, closing her daughter's coffin. Mulder chuckled at his maudlin memories and curled up on his couch, the sole place of comfort in his empty apartment. _______________________________________________________ Morning streamed blue through the curtains. It reminded him of the signal he had used so long ago: blue light through the glass. His sources were long dead. 'You're choosing a dangerous time to go it alone, Agent Mulder.' No shit, X. He dialed the number from memory. "Lone Gunmen." "Turn off the tape." "It's off." "Dammit, turn it off I said." A pause, then, "Okay. It's off. What's up?" "I need your help." "So what else is new?" "Scully's been abducted." "Again? Doesn't it get boring?" Frohike picked up the extension. "The lovely Agent Scully in distress? Did I hear a call for Truth, Justice, and the American Way?" "Leave the extinct creatures to the archaeologists. I'll settle for Larry, Moe and Curly." "Don't you mean Langley, Fro and -- uh, well, I guess the Narc's pretty curly . . ." Byers picked up. "What can we do?" "Tell me about recent UFO activity around Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau." Langley couldn't contain an Osborne Brothers twang, "Clones won't grow at all on Rocky Top, dirt's too rocky by far. . ." "I never knew you for a Country fan, _Ringo_." "Don't get personal, Mulder. What else?" "There were fifteen others. Search on the names Elmira Kroenigsburg, Emma Tanner, . . . uh . . . Jean Cowper . . . oh, hell. I'll just come over." Mulder looked at the dead phone. He had a photographic memory. Why couldn't he remember those women's names? _______________________________________________________ "What do you see, Fox?" "Nothing. Trees. It's dark. Scully-- Move away from here! A light. Nothing." "Relax, Fox, go back to the place we talked about, the night place. Are you there?" "I'm there." "What happened next?" ". . . A light. I'm in a bright white place. They're taking-- oh my god, they're taking my-- it doesn't even hurt. It never happened, it never happened. Glass-- Scully, no! Not like this--" Mulder snapped out. "Did you see something?" Dr. Werber coolly inquired. "I see nothing. A baby. What? Nothing." Mulder jumped up. "Mr. Mulder," Dr. Werber called. "Keep the change," Mulder shot over his shoulder, slapping a hundred on the secretary's desk before he broke into a run. _______________________________________________________ Mulder tucked his head down and ran himself ragged. 'At least when you're AWOL you can wear sneakers.' His feet guided him to the track, to the place where the world spins red and then sweat and burning swallow it all up, where breath is all that matters and you don't have to remember your name or your pride. 'They're here, aren't they?' he had asked Deep Throat at this spot, many years ago. 'Mr, Mulder, they've been here for a long, long time.' Faster, faster. 'A war between heaven and earth. . . . Das vedanya, tovarish.' Get out of my sight, rat bastard. 'Forgive me!' Dad, why didn't you tell me? 'That was the truth your father could not live with.' No, he couldn't live because you had him killed. 'Who's my real father?' 'I am your mother and I will not put up with these questions!' They're coming for me. Faster. 'I'm telling you this as a friend. Watch your back.' Easy for you to say. You don't have a chip in your neck. 'Come on, we don't have much time.' Oh, Scully. He jogged to a stop, gasping. Oh, Scully. Why couldn't I hold you? Samantha-- Doubled over, his hands on his knees, he didn't hear the man behind him. "I've got a message for you." Mulder reflexively reached for his gun before he remembered it was gone. "Byers, you startled me." "This was in our mailbox." Mulder recognized the bold scrawl instantly. He read aloud, "'She's alive. 4 wks. Emily.' It's gotta be from Skinner, but why's it so cryptic?" "It's postmarked Washington, not Crystal City. I'd bet it's from a public drop-off. Perhaps he didn't want it traced to him." "What's he got to lose?" Mulder asked bitterly. Byers hesitated. Finally, he put his hand on Mulder's shoulder. "Skinner died this morning. It looks like a heart attack." A stunned silence. 'His blood has thickened,' Mulder remembered Scully's commanding doctor-voice after his own time in the ice: 'The cold is the only thing that's keeping him alive.' Finally, he muttered, "Yeah. I'll bet it looks like a heart attack." _______________________________________________________ Four weeks alone. Mulder was going nuts, pacing the apartment, fleeing figments of his fantasy. He was hacking into everything he could, piling up bills and trouble, digging himself deeper into his well of desperation. His chances of reinstatement looked slimmer and slimmer. The locals were hatching conspiracy theories that the women had run away, driven mad by radioactive iodine in the water. They had started holding protests around the nuclear power plant upstream. Mulder smirked. Everything sinister was the fault of the Man. The rangers had stopped searching for bodies. He had called Missing Persons so many times that they had developed the habit of hanging up when he said hello. Maggie Scully's eyes had gone dead when he told her. "She's been gone before, but she's always come back," Maggie had sighed. "Melissa always told me to keep believing." "I know how hard this must be for you, Mrs. Scully." "One by one, they all slip away." "Don't say that. We'll find her, I promise." "Dana left a long time ago. When she started to love her work more than life, family, friends . . . I knew that we had lost her. It would only be a matter of time before the world knew it, too." "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Scully." "Yes, Fox, so am I." _______________________________________________________ A flash. A naked woman staggered through the kudzu along I-75. She couldn't feel the soft breeze tickle her skin. Her mind was tied up in a tiny ball, like one of those infinitely dense points, those black holes she'd studied, 'an age ago.' There was ash on her feet. The ordinariness of her surroundings seemed absurd. Her shrill laughter became screams and then she couldn't stop. She stumbled and rolled into a ditch. The dry grass cut her skin. She pulled her knees to her chest as her throat constricted and her breath came in gasps. The shaking started in her shoulders. Her body thrashed itself limp before the trucker found her. _______________________________________________________ "What? . . . Where is she? . . . I'll be right there." The call, like death and childbirth, came at night. A hasty message to Maggie, a last-minute flight; thank God for American Express. "I'll have to start working weekends," he wisecracked to himself. He glared at his watch every five minutes, muttering curses under his breath. The passenger next to him requested a seat change. Amtrak, a taxi. No time for a rental car. Speeding. His smallest bill was a 50. "Keep it." He thrust it at the cabbie, dashed out of the car. "Where is she?" exploding into the sheriff's office. "You responsible for the young lady?" "I am." "In there," the sheriff drawled, pointing to an observation window. "Don't bust in like that. You're like to scare her." Mulder saw his partner, huddled in a chair, clutching a blanket. It was her only covering. She was rocking forward and back, staring at some imagined horizon. "How long has she been like that?" "Seven hours, since the trucker brought 'er in. I figured her for a working girl 'til I remembered that picture you sent us. She wouldn't let anyone get near her, and I don't like to rough up a lady. Fights like a wildcat, that one." Mulder smiled ruefully. "Yes, she does." The sheriff's kettle whined. "May I?" The sheriff nodded and Mulder made a cup of hot, sweet tea. "If you can get her to drink it," the sheriff said, rummaging in his desk for a little orange cylinder labeled, 'Diazepam'. "Might calm her down." Valium. Mulder considered, watching Scully rock back and forth. 'I had to drug you until the effects of the psychosis wore off.' Mulder nodded, and the sheriff dissolved a capsule into the brew. Mulder opened the door and heard his partner crooning to herself. It wasn't the tone-deaf contralto that had once croaked 'Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog,' to lull him to sleep. Her voice was a jerking whimper. She sounded like the damn kettle. "Scully?" He knelt at her side. "Scully, it's me." She seemed not to notice. "Dana, listen. It's me, Mulder. Your partner." She whispered something he couldn't catch. "What is it, Scully?" "I never wanted it," she whispered again. "You're in shock. You need to get to a hospital." "No!" she screamed, jumping out of her chair. Her voice took on a childlike solemnity: "'Mommy said no more tests.'" She backed away. Mulder tried to avert his eyes as the blanket fell open. "Shhh. It's okay, Scully. It's okay," he soothed, "You're gonna be fine." "Dammit, leave me alone!" she shrieked at some personal demon. She backed into a wall. He had seen those wild eyes once, before, in a deer he and his father had cornered and shot. "I need you to see a doctor, Scully." "I'll blow your head off, I swear to God." "Dana-- Dana, listen to yourself--" "'You have my files, and you have my gun. Don't ask me for my trust.'" "What? Scully, I don't have any files. I don't have anything." She was gripping a corner of the blanket, bunching it up in her hands. She held it out as if aiming a gun. Mulder was beginning to feel nothing short of a tranq dart would get through to her. She started to shiver violently. Fearing she would hurt herself, Mulder rushed forward to restrain her. She kicked him. "God damn it, Scully, snap out of it!" She stopped. Her features melted into a dead or deadly lucidity. He remembered her nickname: 'Ice Queen.' Her voice was like cement. "Emily." Murder's eyes glazed, a vision flashing before him of a man injecting a girl with necrotizing fluid in the name of medicine. "Ice." Mulder winced, remembering the ambulance he had called for his bee-stung partner -- 'What hospital are you taking her to?' -- a bullet shot through glass -- Scully hooked up to a respirator full of green ooze. "I can't give myself away to them any more. No more doctors." This sudden calm frightened Mulder. Where had all her madness gone? "No more doctors," he conceded at last. "Come on, let's go home." She nodded, her resistance drained away. He gathered her up in his arms, and she let him. He held the potion to her cracked lips and she drank greedily. She passed out on his shoulder and he poured her into a taxi, carried her the first step of the long way home. _______________________________________________________ Somehow, he cajoled her back to D.C. But when, if ever, they'd return to work was a question he didn't want to ponder. Mulder wouldn't be able to ignore his credit-card bills much longer, and Frohike's cheerful solution wasn't Mulder's style. Mulder chuckled. If only Kersch were more like Skinner. Skinner had an expense record on them three inches thick. He wondered what had happened to it. He hoped Skinner'd burned it. Skinner-- Mulder would wait 'til Scully was better to tell her that the man she had loved was dead. _______________________________________________________ Mulder clutched her palm as they climbed the stairs to her apartment. He could feel her fear mount as she gripped his fingers. Afraid of the dark? Of being left alone? Perhaps she was afraid to see the life that had brought her so much hurt. Mulder had been wise enough not to ask her what had happened. She'd tell him when she could. Mulder was almost glad his own memories were gone. The little he had seen scared him shitless. He leaned against her door frame. "You gonna be all right?" She held him, almost drank him, with her eyes. After a silence like thin ice cracking, her dry voice broke through to the frigid depths that swirled beneath. "Stay with me." She wandered around her apartment, patting familiar objects that she passed, as if to convince herself that they were real, or that she was. Mulder thought of a blind woman he had known. "You want a pizza? I'll order a pizza." Mulder grasped at the shred of normalcy. She nodded gratefully and sank into the sofa, eyes unfocused. They ate in silence, he watching her with concern, she watching nothing. Her phone rang, three times, before she looked up, then absent-mindedly answered. "Hello? . . . Mom . . . No, mom, don't come over . . . I'm fine. . . . I really can't talk. . . . I don't know. . . . Mom, don't ask me that because I can't tell you. . . . Please . . . I'll call you when I can." She hung up. Mulder raised his eyebrows. She only answered with that disaffected gaze like thin ice that she couldn't afford to break. She wandered to another room and mechanically brushed her teeth. He used an extra toothbrush he found in her medicine cabinet, next to a small, orange vial with a typed label: Depakote. What the hell? "I'll just sleep on the couch," he offered lamely. She lay over the covers of her bed and gazed at space. He flipped to the Spice channel and pretended to himself that he was interested until even he, the confirmed insomniac, was snoring. He awoke to her voice around three. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and blundered to her door. "Not him. Not like this. Emily!" Her shoulders jerked. Dammit. He rushed to her bedside and reached for the phone before remembering her injunction: no more doctors. Her body convulsed. He gaped helplessly at her rolled-back eyes, her slack face. In desperation he slapped her. She stopped shaking with a gasp. "Scully, what happened?" "Mulder?" Recognition dawned dimly, "What are you doing here?" "You had a seizure, Scully. Grand mal, epileptic. It looked like what happened in the sheriff's office. Had you ever had those before?" "Before? No, I . . . well, I don't think . . . I don't know." She stared up at him with the same frightened confusion he had seen on a fighter pilot at Ellen's Air Force base. 'Men like him don't buckle under pressure. They thrive on stress.' "I don't know," she echoed. He bent down to kiss her forehead. "Scully, you're gonna be fine. We're going to figure out what's wrong and we'll get help for you," he murmured, stroking her hair before he realized that they were lying side by side. She turned to him. "Hold me." It was as simple as that. _______________________________________________________ Morning light screamed across her body. Her hair was mussed, her mouth hung open, dark rings hung under her eyes. She had never looked more beautiful. Mulder thought the past night, of sweating swollen strangled tangled tears and bodies. Every time her eyelids had started to quiver with REM sleep, her muscles would clench and he had been afraid she would spasm. She would turn and jerk in his embrace, so violently that he had been forced to let her go. All night, she had moaned in somnolence, "Not again, not now, not like this--" Her breathing ran jagged, her protests increasing until she would awaken with a cry. At times she didn't know him. At times she tried to fight him. He was glad she had no gun. Just as he had, she'd lost her weapons on the mountaintop. But after each nightmare, she had managed to find sleep again in his arms. "Mmph--" she twisted awake, her face buried in a pillow. She glanced at him groggily. "I wanted to die," she informed him in her usual matter-of-fact tone. "What?" She seemed to wake up a little, and shook her head as if to clear it. "I mean I never wanted to die." "I don't understand." She recognized him then, grew aware that she was in bed with her partner, sat up abruptly. "What? Nothing, never mind. . . . Did we-- ?" "No." Mulder grinned. "Okay." She sighed, relieved. "So what do we do now?" ". . . I don't know. I don't really want to do anything." "You need help, Scully." She hung her head in her hands, deflating as the shreds of her belief in her control were swept away. Quietly, "I know." "Could you talk to -- who was that social worker -- Karen Kostelhoff?" Mulder sidled up to the subject. "I don't want to talk about it." "You have to talk with somebody." "Not yet. I don't even remember most of it." "Most of it?" "I can't remember anything." Mulder nodded, thinking of his own nightmares, his own dismantled memories. He remembered the strap-- "I hated it." "I know you did, Scully. I hated it, too." Where had that come from? "You were there. They took you. They took your--" "I know." He cut her off. What he knew was more feeling than fact. In his head he heard his own voice, shouting so long ago: 'You can't bury the truth.' He wanted the whole thing to 'vanish without a trace,' like so many X-files, so they could have their old lives back. Even wiretap transcription would be more fun than this. "You have to call your mother," he broke the silence. "I can't talk to her. She wants to know where I've been." "Just tell you're all right." She cracked a bitter smile. "Am I?" "I filed a Missing Persons report. You'll need to talk to the police." "Not the FBI?" Mulder studied his feet, before admitting in a gravel voice, "The matter was handled by local officials." "The local officials," she echoed hollowly. "I tried, Scully. I tried everything I could." "How long have I been gone?" she asked, bewildered. She looked like a child who was realizing, not only that the powers-that-be had ceased to care for her, but that security had always been a lie. Mulder cursed his habit of psychoanalyzing every human interaction, then realized this was the first time he had turned that habit toward his partner. He told himself it couldn't be betrayal in her eyes. Surely Scully had lost her illusion of place and belonging in the world long ago. Just as he had. 'Roll with it,' his father had told him, to stop Fox's crying at the bruises and the blood. Fox had been rolling with the punches ever since. Scully was invincible. Nothing could keep her down. Mulder was sure of it. _______________________________________________________ Hard to fill out paperwork when one has no recollection of the past month. Hard to try to explain to friends and family members. Thankfully, of those she didn't have many. Harder still to explain to a skeptical boss whose eyes bored through her skin as those of a disapproving Ahab. How could she pass the medical and mental health workups mandatory for reinstatement? Scully wished for her pills. But that would have shown in her blood and been tricky to explain. Mulder took her to the examination room, gave her a fierce squeeze and a whispered, "You'll be fine," before opening the door. One look at those white coats, the examination table, and she ran. An alley, a bathroom, anywhere she could pass out in peace. Mulder, damn him, ran faster. "What the hell was that?" Fuck you, Mulder, she wanted to say. Get those rapists away from me and you leave me the hell alone, too. Instead, she excused herself, "I got a headache. I thought I was gonna pass out." Mulder glared in frustration tinged with worry. "Well, you're sure as hell not gonna pass screening that way." Is that all you can think about? Am I just a pair of hands, to you? Of course she couldn't say that. After a stare-down, Scully mumbled, "You heard what your next assignments are. Eight-hour stakeouts of a feed lot waiting for potential bombers to buy fertilizer. Wiretapping potato farmers. If you tell me you need my clinical expertise, I'm gonna make them examine _your_ head." She tried for a chuckle. It failed. "That's not what we investigate." Mulder's secret mission: the X-files go underground. An assignment so sensitive even their employers didn't know about it. Him and his damn obsession. Scully realized with a jolt that she was starting to sound like him. She corrected herself: Our obsession. Mulder eyed his silent partner. Was she going to leave him again? Might be just as well. Damn his quest, always getting her hurt. Why couldn't he be abducted, for once? Mulder remembered with a start what she had reminded him so many times. Not his quest. Theirs. Finally, he admitted, "Maybe you should take some time." She peered up at him through a fog of defeat. "Maybe." _______________________________________________________ At least his paychecks were coming in. He didn't even have his own cubicle. He had found two bugs in his pens, had pocketed them without comment. They were watching him for a single slip-up. For once, Mulder was obeying Skinner's advice: 'Use your head. It'll save your ass.' Skinner. Scully had had to find out sometime. Mulder would have understood it if she'd cried. But she just took the news like she took everything else those days: numbly, sitting on the bed, her eyes frosted over. She hadn't even brought herself to take sufficient medical examination to qualify for disability pay. Mulder knew that if they pressed the matter, she'd be hospitalized. He remembered restraints on his wrists, a giant aphid coming through the window and no one believing the truth he saw -- and knew he couldn't let them do that to her. If a man had acted as she had, the authorities would have dismissed it with, 'He's been through a lot. Let him take his time.' A shell-shocked woman was different, monstrous somehow. The powers-that-be were all too happy to provide indefinite unpaid leave. "Depakote: Anticonvulsant, mood stablizer. Effective in manic-depressive patients. Contraindications: alchohol, other sedatives. Do not use during pregnancy. May cause sterility, birth defects." Mulder stared at the computer-screen description but didn't get it. Why would she have a drug like that? Mulder was almost relieved when he noticed, a few weeks later, that it had disappeared from her medicine cabinet. Mulder was spending a lot of time at her apartment, watching her drain her savings in idleness, helping out where he could. For once, they almost had what approached a normal relationship. He would tell her funny stories he'd heard over the wiretap, bitch about how the agent in the desk across from him kept chortling: 'Spooky gone snoopy.' Or when Mulder went out to investigate some big piles of fertilizer: 'Snoopy gone Poopy'. "If he'd just think of some creative insults, it might be worth it," Mulder griped, evincing a rare grin from her. Mostly he just bided his time. Mulder avoided his old contacts -- MUFON, the Gunmen. Death might seek him out, but he was damned if he was going to tempt it. Mulder felt as though he were skating over crackling ice on wobbly ankles. As Mulder was going brain-dead from boredom, he worried about Scully more and more. _______________________________________________________ One night a bubbling laughter hovered in her chest. Scully's head felt loose, like a balloon tied to her spine by a rapidly-fraying string. The hot air pressed inside her and lifted her from her mattress. She found herself scribbling nonsense out of control. A silenced voice bled through the page: "It never happened, and I'd kill myself to keep it from happening again. I sit in my corner, quietly burning calories. Bitch, slut, baby-doll, I hated it and hated it. I love you, baby doll. Goddamn it baby doll, how did it happen? Jesus Christ, what happened? It was something I saw on TV. It wasn't me, it wasn't me. I hated it and hated it. Old men. Ahab, oh God, Dad--" Her pencil seemed to freeze here. Her narrative jumped to school days: "Why is my biology professor staring at me? His eyes are full of love. During my internship, I performed an abortion. Just a ball of cells and nothing more. What's inside me now? 'The Truth is a virus.' I'm dying and I'm afraid. Stop it, stop it. Please, Lord, please, Bitch, please please please. 'Rest up. Medical boards are tomorrow.' Fourteen cups of black coffee. SYSCO's 'Institutional Blend.' 8 sleeping pills as a chaser. Just enough to make me stop breathing for a while." Her breath stopped for a few moments, before her chest expanded in spite of her. She continued: "Where did love go? My heart swells up with love and aches to let it out. He didn't do it, not to me. Some other life. 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' My hands so bloody. 'You have always been the strong one. But you are my only daughter now.' 'God damn it, Scully, snap out of it!' I'm safe, now, I'm safe now. . . . 'Daddy, you bastard, I'm through.'" _______________________________________________________ Scully made it to Mass one Wednesday night. Stepping into the church felt like going home. She bit back tears of relief. She couldn't bring herself to be placed face-to-face with the cobwebbed corners of her soul, across the confessional window's face-obscuring grid. But she sat in the back pew and let her mind drift on the tide of music and color, the rhythm of rising and genuflection, the hum of litanies. She felt like a droplet, riding on waves that rose and crested and crashed according to the same song the church had chanted for centuries. A song of faith in an ordered world. Ecclesiastes rang in her ears: "There is nothing new under the sun." Yet the sea of comfort and community held in its heart a whirlpool that swirled with mystery. Some questions have no answers. And in the awed acceptance of that incomprehension lay tranquility. Scully ached for the eye of the whirlpool, sensing that center might quench the quest that had burned her for the six years. She wanted so badly to trust. Ritual was a warm bath, soothing away the abrasions on her soul. She wanted to rest in that place of peace forever. _______________________________________________________ Soon afterward, Scully dreamt that Mulder asked about her Senior thesis, that they stayed up all night talking. She dreamt of ideas flying from their heads like sparks, weaving a warm web of shared sensation, creating a willing suspension of disbelief. She told him of her old love affair with quantum mechanics, with subatomic particles that defied common sense. He asked her about time travel and warping of space. She began to see his crazy theories of pan-dimensional beings as not beyond the pale of possibility. She told him how, at first, Physics had not been far from her religious faith. She had approached them both as canon, not as conduits through which to develop an intimate relationship with the universe. She told him how she had found Science restful, had thought that nothing could not be explained away. She told him that she was coming to love the systemic uncertainty inherent in observation, the aesthetic creativity at the base of all scientific inquiry. She talked of paradox. And then he was telling her of dreams and poetry, the music of the spheres. She told him of the mathematical simplicity that underlay the universe. He told her of the emotional truths that govern human interaction. She was beginning to see the sundered realms of thought as one language. Her rigid grounding had come unhinged, rending the veils of her perception and letting Mulder's world of metaphor and intuition flood hers. Madness had torn a door. Logic and magic danced on the threshold. She recalled a poem he had told her once: "Instinct with better light let in by death/ That life was blotted out not so completely/ But scattered wrecks, enough to remain dim memories/ As now, when seems once more/ The goal in sight again." Scully awoke, her hand between her legs, sobbing with a homesickness she could not place. A dictum hung in her emerging consciousness: "The pain in the heart is the Self calling." Hwl Poonjaji, one of those spiritual teachers Mulder used to drag her to see had told her that. At the time, she had dismissed it as a fortune-cookie platitude. She wrapped her arms around her pillow and wished for her father. _______________________________________________________ Scully walked home from the subway station. Mechanical tasks like shopping for groceries wore her out. It was all so complicated. And her empty apartment gave her the creeps. She would have to move, soon. Her old place wasn't home, and the junta knew where she lived. All that paperwork, insurance, haggling -- she got a headache just considering it. She was getting migraines every day. She passed out, too, some mornings. "I hated it," she mumbled. Perhaps her mother would arrange the move for her. Maggie had been taking on many of the tasks that were proving too much for Dana. At the station, a ragged-looking Black woman had strode down the platform, wagging her finger and admonishing the air, "Stop following me. Go." Scully had been entranced, until the subway had begun to roll and she had remembered where she was. Scully had developed a habit of glancing over her shoulder. She often found herself shaking her head and muttering, "Don't let it happen. Emily--". It embarrassed her to hear herself talking aloud in public. Normal people didn't do that. So she didn't go out much. At least she could hide it. Sometimes Mulder caught her. She had started to avoid him, but his hesitant tone when he talked to her told her it was too late. He was nervous with her. She hated the pity in his eyes. He made her feel weak. She mystified even herself. Once Mulder walked in on her, alone in her apartment. She was gesticulating into the air. Her face was contorted into a silent howl: "Not this time, mother fucker!" After an awkward pause, Mulder looked at his feet, mumbled, "Sorry," and left. _______________________________________________________ She started taking Valium. It quieted her hormone surges. It was funny; one look at a sterile doctor's office, and she was back in the bright white place. But synthetic sanity was friendlier somehow. She could trust the pills. "I hated it," she muttered, and downed her daily dose. It suppressed the voices, but nothing shut her head up for good. She wondered whether she would ever use her medical license again, except to drug herself. Her brother Bill had come to visit. Charles had made some excuse or other; Dana figured he was afraid of her. Bill had seen the shambles of her normally-neat apartment, and had sat gingerly on the edge of her couch. He had told her about his job, his son. Scully couldn't think of much to say. After an embarrassed silence, Bill had left. It wasn't bad, though. Her new place was smaller. Mulder had run a token scope for bugs, and found three. Surveillance had been a part of her for so long, Scully hardly minded anymore. Her life was quiet. Her savings were dwindling, and Maggie was getting tired of taking care of her. Scully knew she'd have to start working again. When I'm strong enough, she told herself, and vomited her breakfast. _______________________________________________________ It had been twelve weeks since her return, and she hadn't menstruated. At first she explained it with stress. Then she thought that the chemotherapy and the ova harvesting were catching up with her, inducing early menopause. But the nausea continued, and she knew she'd have to get help. Whom could she trust? One day she passed out while driving. She rolled into a ditch. Luckily nobody had seen. Scully rubbed the bruise where her ribs had hit the steering wheel. She laid her head down and cried. "Hell," she told herself at last, "Anything they wanted to do to me, they've already done. Anything they still want to do, they're going to do anyway. What have I got to lose?" _______________________________________________________ Warm urine pooled over her fingernails, bitten to the nubs. Salt drops blurred her vision, but the red "+" sign on the white plastic rod was unmistakable. Truth, a future, all for only $18.99 in the comfort of your own bathroom. She wanted to puke. Her doctor voice told her that the results could be wrong. Her special-agent voice told her that a fake pregnancy test kit could have been planted in the store. But Dana knew the truth. She curled up in her ratty old armchair with a bottle of sherry and set her stereo to play the Brandenburg Concertos on endless repeat. _______________________________________________________ Evening came, then morning. One by one, her capsules of calm disappeared. She'd have to write another prescription. When she filled it, she'd buy another bottle of wine. 'Vermouth is out there,' she giggled. She felt as she had when Jack had taught her to ice-fish: skating along the edge of the abyss. Somehow, Mulder stood over her. She didn't remember his having come in. Somehow, the nagging started again. When was she going to get up and change her clothes. How long had she been drinking. How many pills had she taken. Why wouldn't she talk to him. How could he help her if she froze up every time he got close. "Just leave, okay? Shut up and leave me alone," somehow, she had started screaming at him. Somehow, he had begun to shout back. Somehow, he was shoving her. And everything became simple. The petty politics of their unspoken conversations, the subtle power-plays they'd been maneuvering for years -- who held the door, who drove the car -- every complexity was reduced to the satisfying smack of skin on skin, flesh pressing flesh, tendons and muscles straining against each other. She wanted to hammer him into the ground. She wanted to pistol-whip that mother fucker, show him what his petite partner was made of. "You miss her, don't you. You miss your cerebral scientist who never complains or shows surprise. Texas, last year, when that vampire sheriff drugged me and had me in the back of his car, you knew you could count on me to shrug it off with, 'I'm fine.' Well, suck it up, 'cause your Ice Queen's dead and she's never coming back." She was shrieking now. "Shut up. Just shut up," he roared back. "No, bastard. I've been shut up in your basement too long. You thought you'd play Rochester to my Jane and let the madwoman fester forever, didn't you? I'll tell you why you loved me. It was because I was your last tie to normal life. I kept your feet on the ground. Now that cool, clear mind is gone and there's nothing left to love, is there?" He slammed her against the wall. His fists around her wrists, for a moment he was back in the Hong Kong airport, his body grinding against Krycek's as he beat cooperation out of the man. She spat in his face and he remembered where he was. Her words were like knives: "Don't touch me again. You hurt my baby." Mulder was flabbergasted. "What the hell?" "You know damn well what the hell. My baby. Ours." "You're lying." "You want to believe that, don't you." "You have no proof." "What do you want me to do, stick a needle in my gut and show you the DNA?" "You're sterile." "Get it straight. I have no ova, but somebody out there's got plenty. Mine. Incubate it 'til it's convenient to rape me, add semen and stir. Presto, instant zygotes. Good old-fashioned in-vitro fertilization. Dump the cumbag, he's useless now. Shoot the bitch up with estrogen and progesterone. Slap some implants on her arm to control her hormones. Norplant for eugenicists. Once her uterine lining's thick, pop the baby in. Bake at 350 degrees for nine months, and out pops the little uber-Scully. A baby. I'm going to have a baby." She was taunting him, glorying in the hot blood that was filling his face. "Even if you are pregnant, why me?" "A match made in outer space? Plausible deniability? Wreck our credibility? Obliterate what's left of our professional partnership? You tell me, Mulder. You're the expert on shadowy conspiracies. Tell me, is it aliens or genetic mutants, this time? You know what I think it is? I think that the most dangerous enemy is the woman with nothing to lose. So they gave me something to live for, some reason not to run at a gun. And just maybe they thought you'd care too." "I'd remember if it had happened." "Oh, but you do," she gloated. "That first case we were on, remember? We lost nine minutes and you were ecstatic. You practically begged Duane Barry to make them take you. Well, they took you. Your two biggest dreams came true in one night: you got laid and you got abducted. Makes you feel like a big man, right? The thought of your jack growing inside your untouchable Doctor Scully. They inserted the embryo with this tube. It looked like a turkey baster. Same way we do to cattle. You've been wanting that fuck for six years, and when it finally comes, a turkey baster gets more fun than you do." Mulder's horror was turning to outrage. "You're bearing my child, and you're poisoning your body with drugs?" "Look, dick, it's my body. Don't you ever forget that again. What I do with it is my own damn business." "I'll show you what you can do with your own damn business!" He snatched her bottle from the floor and smashed it against the wall. Shards of shattered glass flew everywhere. Sherry dribbled to the floor. Scully sank to rest beside the sticky puddle. She blinked back the hot salt that was making her head beat. Her voice caught when it came. "Everything is changed, Mulder." His heart strained toward her. "Why didn't you tell me?" "What would you have done if you'd known? Got down on one knee and proposed? You've already changed my first name to Scully. We'd be Scully Mulder, Mulder Mulder, and their little green baby, E.T. Mulder. You'd rather this child weren't even born. 'She's a miracle that was never meant to be,' right?" Her laughter was getting shrill. Mulder grabbed her shoulders to keep her from flying off. "Is that what you want to get from this? Fine. Marry me, Scully. Marry me and be my wife." "Get serious, Mulder." "Spend the rest of your life with me, Scully. We'll raise this child together. Say yes, Scully. . . . Please say yes." He didn't know whether he was begging for her life or his. Her silence boomed. At last she answered, "I can't. I saw how beating Krycek got you off. I know the thrill you get when you kill. I could never be sure of you." "I would never hurt you--" "I'd be your lost little sister, not the woman you trust and respect. There was only one time you were truly interested in me. You asked me about my family, about what I was like as a little girl, and you really listened. Turned out you were Eddie Van Blundht. No, Mulder. I need you as a friend, not a guardian. . . . Don't ask me again. . . . I'm sorry." She cradled her head between her splayed knees in the classic pose of the deeply insane. As if to herself, to her child, "I'm so sorry." "What they did to you--" "They raped me, Mulder. You don't understand. They raped me." "I won't leave you alone on this. You have to trust me." "I'm tired, Mulder. My soul is tired" "You know I'd never hurt or frighten you." "Go. Stay. Do what you want. I can't fight with you any more." _______________________________________________________ So he went for a run. He really had no idea where to go. He wanted to die. His quest -- it was his life. His blinding light. And yet -- a baby. His own child. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it be human? At least human enough to love? _______________________________________________________ Mulder rolled over and blearily reached into Scully's night table. He'd left his glasses there, before falling asleep. He heard a dish clank in the kitchen. Scully must be having breakfast. She'd been managing to sleep through the night, these days. She hadn't even protested when he'd poured her liquor bottles down the drain. Mulder felt foolishly proud of her, but then reminded himself that she was not his child. He felt some extra weight as he pulled out the drawer, so he dug through her papers. He told himself he wasn't really snooping-- and found a Sig Sauer. Two rounds had been fired. Mulder exhaled deeply and pocketed the revolver. He found her at the kitchen table, chugging orange juice and a Hershey bar. "You, ah, you missing some bullets?" She appeared fascinated with her orange juice. "'Cause I, ah, I couldn't help but notice you were two short." When she still made no reply, he pressed on. "Who'd you shoot 'em at?" "Mouse," she sighed. "What?" "There was a mouse in my house so I blew him away," she sing-songed. Mulder had started to guffaw when she reached into the cabinet beneath her telephone and withdrew a gift-wrapped box. Mulder tore the paper open and found a crumpled mess of black crepe paper and bits of fur and brains and guts. She skipped over to him and draped her arms around his shoulders. "Isn't it fun to love a crazy girl? I always said you'd make me lose my mind someday, and now it's gone. All gone." "Didn't the police investigate?" "Yup." "But what did you tell them?" Coolly, "The truth. That it scuffled and it startled me. That my gun went off before I knew it. The police have better things to worry about than a crazy lady shooting mice. But tell me what employer would let in a woman who did that. Would you?" Mulder didn't know what to do with her. Some days, she was bubbly, full of plans for the future. She would tell him about all the cases they would investigate together. Sometimes she just babbled. He didn't know her any more. So he hung around, tried to keep her from hurting herself, and waited for their lives to change. _______________________________________________________ "Mulder, do you remember when you were in Russia, and they took you--" "Of course I remember, Scully, what do you mean?" "I mean when they held you down and put that thing insideyou--" "The oil." "That. Do the memories ever just come at you? Like indreams?" ". . . Sometimes." "Or sometimes, even when you're awake, do you ever just feellike you're back there, like it's about to happen again, even thoughrationally you know where you are?" ". . . Why do you ask?" "No reason. I was just wondering." "Scares the shit outta me. . . . You?" In a crushed voice, "Yeah." _______________________________________________________ Scully's place was a cyclone of scrubbing and labeling and junking old junk. She tittered at the coffee stains on the counter, the pizza boxes under the sink. All she needed was an "X" on her window and she'd swear Mulder lived there. He had been hanging around a lot, recently. She tittered again. Their baby was due in six months, and they still used each other's last names. It felt like the easy formality her father had used with old war buddies. Back 'beyond the sea. . .' 'Smooth sailing, Ahab.' 'Steady as she goes, Starbuck.' 'Your mother and I were so proud when you got your degree in Physics. We knew you'd make a real good doctor, that you'd always keep your feet right on the ground. But now I don't know what to think. Half of the criminals you chase seem to come out of bad sci-fi novels. And that crazy partner of yours--' What would the baby do to their partnership? They didn't even have a name for it. For him. Or her, Scully corrected herself. This child was not going to be an "it". Imagining motherhood, she couldn't conceive of running back into those crazy chases that had brought her to where she was. She remembered Agent Pendrell. She thought of lab work. Safe, quiet. Less absorbing than her usual fox-hunting goose-chasing cloak-and-dagger jobs. She'd take a pay cut, and some late-nighters brushing up, but she thought she could handle simple forensics. 'Hell, I did my residency in it, didn't I?' she chided herself. Somehow the thought of probing mangled bodies wasn't as exciting as it had used to be. She patted her belly and swept the stale breath of violent death under a mental rug. Filing cabinets. All this shit on my desk should be filed. Tax forms, credit card bills, pharmacy bills . . . Two photographs fell out of a folder: Emily and Melissa, each at four years old. Scully stared at those photos until her eyes felt dry. She finally rose and marched to her bathroom, where she clipped her toenails so that they matched her raw finger tips. That felt good, but it wasn't enough. She felt a pressure like hot air building inside her skull. She had to let it out, but the old nuns in her head reminded her a bullet hole wouldn't be big enough. She filled a bathtub with hot suds, and started at her ankles. She didn't have much stubble, but the Bic felt good as it scraped her soapy skin. Peach fuzz wiped off her naked legs in the wake of her wash cloth. The razor climbed to her crotch, to her thick red bush. Inch by inch, that disappeared as well. 'A lot of people decide to check themselves out around the holidays.' The razor, the red, the tub, floating hair. Not this time, Lord. This child deserves better. She thanked Saint Dymphna she was not a hairy woman. The razor made a cursory pass across her arms. She plucked the two stray hairs around her nipples, leaving red dimples. She felt like a baby or an android, smooth and white. Now the tricky part. Scissors, more soap. She began to shave the fire away from her head. By the time her sperm-donor banged at the door, Dana Scully was bald as an egg. _______________________________________________________ "Scully, what happened to your hair?" "I cut it" "Why?" "Surgical sterility. I'll take Pendrell's old job." "Sterili-- Scully, that's not funny. Kersch would have a fit." "I'll wear a turban. I'll be Skull-y, gypsy queen." Mulder shook his head. "You don't make any sense." "That's a laugh, coming from you." She was standing in the doorway, not inviting him inside. Over her shoulder he took in the overturned tables, the paper strewn on the floor. "Got a bug problem?" She smiled and rubbed the back of her neck. "They've got that covered." Mulder stood awkwardly in the hallway. "Should I come back later?" "Why don't you. This is kind of a bad time." There was a dry, brittle tone in her silence he had heard before but couldn't place. Scully wanted solitude. She wondered if she'd ever feel at peace with her partner again. "I'll see you later, then. You sure you're okay?" "Fine," she breathed, shutting the door softly behind him. She imagined him going home to watch his videos. She imagined herself as one of those women before the camera. She threw an egg after him. It splatted against the door and oozed to the floor. _______________________________________________________ The eyebrows were next to go. The eyelashes -- she had to pluck those out. Blood trickled into her eyes. She wasn't finished with the razor. Her fingers slipped twice, disengaging the blade from the shaver. One, two, three incisions. She was glad of her surgical training; her fingers remembered the technique. She closed her eyes as her fingers scrabbled in the blood. Careful -- she felt the lumps lodged on her brachial artery. She didn't want to slice that, just yet. One, two, three little capsules came out. Brown and mottled on the edge of the sink. She chuckled. They did look just like Norplant. She felt along her body for buckshot, other foreign bodies. There was the fetus, but that wasn't exactly alien. One last cut. A hand mirror and her bathroom mirror reflected her nape into infinity. It was tricky to manipulate the blade behind her neck. Blood ran down her right tricep and pooled in her armpit. She felt it trickle down her rib cage, hot and slippery, like sex. Don't slip. That's the spinal cord. Don't cut any wires. Good. Dip in, clip out-- and the computer chip dropped sticky red to the tiles below. She was sleepy. She tumbled into the tub, sudsy swirls mixing red with red. The razor slipped from her grip, floated above her body. Fuck it. She was going to get clean. _______________________________________________________ Mulder found her bloated, floating in a watery mess of blood and shit and vomit. The tox screen showed near-lethal diazepam levels and a hefty dose of ethanol. Dammit. Why wasn't I there? Why did I let her go? He thought of a photograph in a file: Roberta Sim awash in blood and tranquilizers. "Don't," she groaned. They had pumped her stomach and raised her feet. She'd been out for hours, bleeding steadily from between the legs. Mulder wished they were the same blood type. He'd checked, feeling silly, to make sure there was nothing green in the transfusions. Mulder stroked her scalp. After all her fear of hospitals-- "I lost the baby." She turned to him groggily. "Shhh. It's okay." "I lost the baby." "You're gonna be fine, Scully. I know you--" "I lost the baby," she repeated, and turned her face to the wall. Where was Frohike with the flowers when you needed him? _______________________________________________________ Stupid, stupid, Mulder cursed himself. How could I have been so stupid? He had dragged her to the hospital without noticing the brown crumbs on her tile. The implants were gone by the time he returned. Easy as stealing candy from a baby. No evidence, no child. Just medical waste from a routine miscarriage, flushed away in a bureaucratic "error". Never any proof, never any truth. Perhaps she'd be happier playing with test tubes and lab specimens, as Pendrell had. Perhaps Mulder would be happier manure-hunting in Idaho. Maybe it wasn't worth fighting. At least not fighting paid. _______________________________________________________ The law committed her. They had to be sure she wouldn't try again. She kept repeating, "Don't. Please. Oh, you lousy little bitch. It never happened. I wanted it. I hated it. I love you, baby doll." She would hold impassioned conversations with the ghosts of her father, her sister, her daughter. Sometimes she just keened. Once Mulder could have sworn he heard her lullabying, "Oh, give me a clone, Where Reticulans roam, Where the drones and the aliens play, Where gunshots were heard, Where the ship's engine whirred, And the night sky was lit up like day. Clone, clone of my own . . ." The question Mulder tried to shout out of his skull was, would the cancer come back? _______________________________________________________ The hospital was getting dull. They shot her up, but she missed her 'Mother's little helper'. Her Valium. She had used to take enough of it that the world would spin away and nothing at all could matter. She didn't know what was in the latest I.V., but it made her feel as though she were breathing through a wet sheet. She knew they had tried her on Thorazine once. It had felt like wet cement in her veins. They made her go to a support group, but nobody there believed her story. She felt like a mutinous crewman on the Santa Maria -- sailing up to the end of the world. She couldn't talk to anyone. She wanted to talk to Frohike. _______________________________________________________ A furtive phone call. "Frohike . . . Melvin . . . are you alone? Melvin, it's me. Turn off the tape. . . . Please, if you care about me at all, turn it off now. . . . Listen. I need you to do me a favor. . . . Don't tell Mulder, or the others. . . . Yeah, our little secret. . . . I can't talk about it here, but if you can get me where I need to be, without anyone knowing . . . Melvin, I could be very appreciative. Do you understand? . . . That's right. Thanks." She closed her eyes and thought of nothing. _______________________________________________________ Frohike's fingers were trembling through his fingerless gloves. The February chill bit through his grimy leather. Smuggling her free had been a cute trick, but nothing was too tough for a man of his talents and connections. A knowledge of crawl spaces had helped. If he hadn't left the Faith years ago, he would be praying their tracks were clean. That was a problem for later. The lovely Agent Scully stood before him, quivering in her hospital gown. He wondered what kind of underwear she was wearing. Even hairless, she was so hot it was obscene. She was so happy to get out, she'd hugged him close. His head only reached about as high as her chest, but that was just fine. He buried his face in her bosom. His ear grazed her nipple, already erect -- with cold? Mulder had said he missed her logic but a little insanity had never bothered Frohike. They were pressed against a concrete wall, hiding behind a back-alley dumpster. Frohike had scared off the scattered kids and drug addicts who had invaded their space, so he could invade hers. "Let's go somewhere we won't be disturbed," she hissed. He leered, inching closer. "I don't mean for that," she rolled her eyes. "I need some clothes." "I prefer you without them," he sniggered, but she snatched his bag and pulled out the black jeans and sweater he'd brought. He caught a flash of buttock as her gown fell open in back. He hadn't gotten this turned on since that terrified quickie in the 'Nam trenches. The sight of her skin as she slipped on the wool got him so hard, he thought he'd pop a zipper. He draped his jacket over her shoulders and lingeringly zipped up the front. He jammed his stocking cap on her head, and they were off. _______________________________________________________ "The boys are out tonight," Frohike assured her, securing the six bolts and chains behind them. "I sent them on a lead." 'Mulder?' her eyes inquired, guiltily. "Him too," Frohike muttered, almost guiltily. "Melvin-- may I call you Mel?" "Sure . . . Dana." "Mel, what you're doing--" "They may kill me for it. I know." "I have to go. You know that." "I'm here for you . . . Dana." Saying her first name at last, he felt like a sweaty fourteen-year-old sneaking into a peep show for the first time. He rested a black-gloved hand on her shoulder. "These will help." He dumped the remaining contents of his leather bag into her lap. A black wig, black contact lenses, "Tanning pills?" "If it worked for John Finley Horton it can work for you. So tell me what you need." "A German passport." "German?" "It's the only foreign language I know. . . . I've always wanted to see Germany." Her newly-blackened eyes looked far away. "What makes you think you'll be safe there?" "New name, new body. Everything will be different. I know of a place where they take care of their own." "Not a--" "You know I can't tell you." Frohike rubbed his knuckles in the sagging folds of his eyelids. Suddenly, he felt very old. "I'm not much of a forger, Dana." "You can hook me up. You know things. I know you." She crossed to the three-legged stool where he sat hunched over his mainframe. She languorously laid her hands on his shoulders and squeezed. That was enough. He started typing. Flight schedules, citizenship papers; no code could not be broken. Good thing he had a few "borrowed" credit card numbers on hand. She'd pay him back, he knew. "Hope your ass can take some bumps. I got you on a mail freighter." "Good. They won't look for me there." Frohike wondered just which 'they' she was referring to. Had she gone back to believing in aliens? But if this were something she had to hide from Mulder -- why did she trust him? Another gentle squeeze shoved all questions from his mind. Scully fell asleep behind a pile of surveillance equipment. She had to get those sedatives out of her system. _______________________________________________________ A few more keystrokes, and she could vanish. Frohike's neck creaked as he stood up and stretched. "It's taken care of." Scully almost scurried to the printer, but he reached out and intercepted her. "Not so fast." His grumble had dropped to that gravel rasp Mulder used when sounding deadly serious or sexy. Frohike advanced on her slowly, looking like a brown toad. Scully wondered foolishly if a kiss would turn him into a prince, then felt leather-padded palms on her hips. Frohike slid his fingers up the curve of her little waist, drawing her to him, pressing her lower thigh against the bulge in his jeans. She made a soft moan -- could it be of pleasure? His crusty thumbs explored her skin, caressed her rib cage, circled the snake tattoo on the small of her back. He nuzzled his nose into the musky odor of his sweater on her. He reached up and nipped her stark white collar bone. He led her down to his musty basement. A flea-bitten mattress with no sheets. A ratty wool army blanket. There was a pile of old pizza boxes in the corner, with black flies circling above them. A jungle-gym of cardboard boxes, hardware jimmies, multicolored wires, Styrofoam packing-peanuts. Ants crawled out of the crack that spanned the farthest of the bare concrete walls. Exposed pipes leaked rusty-colored water. Rank-smelling denim and leather lay twisted on the floor like lacy underthings tossed off the nuptial bed. This was his space. She looked ravishing. "Shrapnel," he breathed, when she fingered the room's sole ornament: a purple heart hanging from a nail. He lifted his sweat-shirt and showed her the scar from the knife in his side. He thought he would splatter his jeans before he took her. She shivered at his horny hands on her body, lowering her to the bed. He dug in his back pocket for some spearmint breath spray before mashing his chapped lips to hers. He lowered his head and his stubble scraped her breast. She closed her eyes and thought of death. _______________________________________________________ He rolled off her at last, disengaging with difficulty. His eyes were closed, beatified, a soporific smile covering his rough face. He looked like a starving man who'd just eaten a four-course meal. He could die happy, right there in her arms. "Froggy," she choked, breaking his semiconsciousness, "Frohike, you can't fall asleep now. I have to get out of here." He sighed and opened his eyes. He froze when he saw her ashen face. She looked as though she'd just eaten a rotten tomato. He gently kissed her forehead. He wished he could smooth out those worry-creases forever. He wished it didn't have to be like this. He rubbed his eyes and shuffled upstairs. The blinking numbers on the screen informed him that they had been in bed for fourteen minutes. 11:21 p.m. He would remember that time forever. Click. Click, click, click. He rubbed his aching wrists. Click, click. Click. And it was done. Bald, Black, unstable, she was fleeing medical treatment. He tried to give her money, phone numbers, but she refused, protesting that they could be used to trace her. "Thank you, Melvin. You've given me my life." "No, Dana. Thank you. I--" Her tongue in his mouth smothered the last of his sentence for a few hasty seconds, and then she was gone. "I love you," he whispered after her. He wished he were dead. _______________________________________________________ Frohike rose wearily from dozing, his mattress still messy with their lovemaking. The thudding at the door grew louder. Frohike heard Mulder shoot the locks off. Shots like six sharp raps on the door of death. Mulder bust in, tripping, manic with rage. "I know she called here!" Damn. Frohike was almost glad he'd left guns behind with the Army. He never had been good at killing. He tugged his pants and jacket on and staggered up the stairs. He inched into view with his hands up. "Tell me where she is or I'll kill you," Mulder growled, his gun trained. "Albert Hosteen's ranch," Frohike croaked. "She said she needed some time out, to get away from it all for a while. She went to New Mexico." "If you're shitting me, I'll hunt you down, so help me--" "I swear to God, Mulder, I never hurt her. Put the gun down before you make a bad mistake. You know she'd hate you if you shot me. You and I, we're like blood brothers. You don't have to kill--" "Why didn't you tell me when she called?" "She made me promise. She said she was going crazy in there, that they were hurting her with their drugs. We knew you wouldn't let her go. She just needed some time, Mulder, please--" Mulder lunged for him, jammed him against the wall. Frohike saw stars. Mulder reached for his handcuffs and brought his knee up to Frohike's groin. Frohike's body reacted automatically. Those throws he'd picked up in the Laotian village had never fully left his reflexes. His foot snaked behind Mulder's ankle in a half-assed sweep. His freed hand snapped out and grabbed Mulder's upraised knee. Mulder backed, off balance, and tripped over Frohike's foot. A slight tip, and Mulder landed flat on his back. Frohike kicked the gun out of Mulder's hand and bolted out the door. The leather seat of his battered Harley felt like going home. His engine grumbled to life, and Frohike was gone. _______________________________________________________ Abbey life was boring, but Dana felt happy there. The routine was restful, and she appreciated the simplicity of stone and soil, free from beepers and cellular phones. Her life settled into a constant hum of rosaries, and she waited for the nosebleed to come. ******************************************************* AUTHOR'S NOTE: Why do we writers torture our characters? Is it because a helpless victim is easier to love? Often, in Angst stories, the trauma experiencer's transformation and recovery, the unique gifts of perception and purpose she gains, are overlooked. The trouble with writing this story is that I like Scully. I want her to have a happy ending. It's hard to end happily when you're fighting omnipotent powers whose defeat would transfigure of the world's social landscape. Once the public gets the Truth that aliens and government conspirators have controlled our every move for sixty years, the series' plausibility drops into oblivion. Besides, if They stop being in charge, who'll take Their place? She's gotta find another way to win. Too often, stories portray mental distress as some Point Of No Return, beyond which Life Is Not Worth Living. It's not like that. And religion isn't some "opiate of the masses," an attempt of the weak-minded to flee reality (we leave that job to MUD's). Often madness and faith allow us to shift our perspectives just enough to spy the hidden solution to an impossible problem. All the references to death in this piece may lead you to think that it advocates suicide. But death is not some Peace to blindly chase, nor is it an abyss to flee at all costs. It's a constant companion that each person must, at some point, grab by the shoulders and get to know. Ursula K. LeGuin wrote once, that whether you walk toward a city or away from it, you're still travelling the road defined by the city. The trick is to fly.