<![CDATA[
Beyond Fragile (0/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
Important Note to the Archivists: Please archive this separately as
"Beyond Fragile". Thank you.
Summary: Scully is assaulted by a stranger and Mulder struggles to help
her deal with the aftermath.
Rating: Section one rated NC-17 for depictions of an explicit rape; all
subsequent sections rated a strong R for subject matter and language.
Spoilers: Very minor spoliers for the first three seasons, and you can
assume that this story is sometime after Melissa's death. However, this
story exists in a universe where there is no cancer and no infertility.
Other than that, though, there shouldn't be anything in here that you
don't already know about.
Also: I have changed one important fact -- in my world, Scully lives in
Bethesda, Maryland, not Annapolis. It's inconcievable to me, anyhow,
that she would drive that far to work every day. Every other location
detail should be correct.
Disclaimer: If I owned Mulder and Scully, I would be rich by now.
Unfortunately, I'm poor, so you know what that means. Chris Carter
probably wouldn't like what I'm doing to his characters. Oh well. Any
characters you don't recognize are my creation and belong to me. Alas,
they won't make me rich like Mulder and Scully would.
Classification: SA, MSR to develop later on
Archive/Distribution: Anywhere, as long you ask me first and as long as
my name stays on it.
Author's Notes (and these are going to be slightly long, so bear with
me...):
This story was originally written back in October of 1995 at a point in
time where the subject matter was still rather new to fanfiction. As a
matter of fact, I don't recall seeing any rape stories on the archives
before this point. Now, however, there are an astounding number of
stories that tackle this particular subject, and there have been
numerous threads on the newsgroup regarding rape and domestic violence
stories that you had to be living under a rock to have missed.
I don't know how many of you reading this now were around when I posted
the original Fragile. I wrote that story, then its sequel, and finally
its prequel. Confused? So was I when I went browsing on my hard
drive. I decided to put this story right, once and for all. I wasn't
thrilled with a lot of what I wrote back then. My writing style has
changed a lot in the last two years; personal events have shaped and
changed me as a writer as well as personally. So I decided to edit it.
Then I decided that editing was not enough. So I decided to do a
re-write.
What you've got now is a story that has been completely overhauled. In
addition, there are new sections that weren't in the original story --
things that I wasn't able to add for a number of reasons. I'm more
educated on the topic of rape now, and so those scenes and situations
had to be added.
Oh, yeah, and I decided to do everyone a favor and edit as well. The
bad grammar and any typos are gone. At least I hope they are.
Why am I doing this, you may wonder? I think that unfortunately, we
live in an age where rape is used as a plot device and I don't
particularly like that. I also think that was my motivation in writing
Fragile in the first place. I wanted people to understand that having
Scully get raped shouldn't be used as a way for writers to get Mulder
and Scully together, and that (unfortunately) even the strongest woman
on earth might have to deal with this in her lifetime.
The original version of this story got a lot of feedback from people who
have been raped or know someone who has. I think that the more we face
these kinds of issues head on, the more we are able to decrease their
power. I know that writing this two years ago helped me face some
demons that I'm finally putting to rest with this re-write. I hope that
it can do the same for others.
There is an element of MSR in this story. I'm not using the topic of
rape as a plot device to bring Mulder and Scully together. I don't
agree with those kind of stories. When rape happens, a woman's life is
affected completely, and her relationships are included in that. That's
why I'm inclding the MSR in this story -- to show the effect rape has on
all relationships, including sexual ones. In my mind, and in the
fanfiction stories I've written, Mulder and Scully have always been
attracted to each other, and I'm exploring here what a rape would do to
their relationship, which currently has a high degree of sexual tension
in it. Mulder and Scully's union is not being written as a way for them
to seek comfort because of the rape.
Acknowledgements: There is no way in hell I could have done this alone.
Writing this story was like fearing giving birth to a big, ugly, hairy
monster. Amazingly enough, it's done and what came out was much better
than I expected. A lot of people provided emotional support and I thank
them for it. Thank you also to Mary Ann for technical information, to
Angie who provided a lot of feedback about some of the really
emotionally gut wrenching stuff, but most of all, one person read this
and edited it and dealt with me even though I was an incredible pain in
the ass. Thank you, Miki, for your expertise; for understanding; for
being so patient; and for sticking with me and with this story.
Somewhere out there a young woman exists who made it through some
horrific things and managed to come out strong. This one is for AF, who
decided to not be a victim anymore.
One last thing: Feedback. Send it.
That said, let's move along. I'm planning on posting about one part a
day. Please e-mail me for missing parts.
Beyond Fragile (1/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
Disclaimer and all related info is in part 0. This is just story.
**NOTE**: This section is rated a strong NC-17 for a graphic rape and
violence.
*******
DANA SCULLY'S APARTMENT
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
Dana Scully finished washing the last of the dishes from dinner and
headed into her bathroom, brushed her teeth and surveyed her appearance
in the mirror critically.
You need more than a good night's sleep, she thought wryly. You need a
vacation, Dana.
Her eyes were tired around the edges. Too much work. Too much chasing
after little green men. Gray men. People who could see dead people.
Mysterious occurrences that had no earthly explanation. Whatever.
There had been too much of it. She needed a break.
She methodically walked around the apartment and turned the lights off,
casting shadows across the living room. She paused in the darkness and
looked out the window. It was snowing. The street was quiet.
Nice night, she thought to herself. For a moment she wished that she
had someone to share it with. Someone to cozy up in front of the
fireplace with. She wished occasionally that she had a life -- a real
one. It was all work and no play. No relaxation.
All work and no play made Dana a very dull girl.
Not to mention a very lonely one.
The evening had been a success only because she had enjoyed its
simplicity. That basically meant that she had managed to sift through
her mail, pay some bills, eat dinner and watch a movie she had rented
without the interruption of a phone call from Mulder. The calls were
always the same: he was always asking her to go running off somewhere on
some half-cocked mission of his, trying to prove that there were signs
of intelligent life in the universe other than humans; trying to find
his sister, trying to generally be the FBI's number one loose cannon and
succeeding.
Mulder.
She shook her head and chuckled aloud. As much as he could get on her
nerves, she had to admit that she loved working with him. He challenged
her, which was unusual because most people bored her. Scully usually
got bored with other people within ten minutes of meeting them. Truth
be told, she would rather be with Mulder on one of his crazy UFO hunts
than with her family or with one of the few friends she had left.
She'd never let Mulder know *that*, though. His ego would swell to
enormous proportions, and it was large enough as it was.
She headed for the bedroom, where she changed into her oldest pair of
sweats. She left the light on by the nightstand and set her alarm for
the morning. It was only 9pm. Dinner and a movie and she still was in
bed early.
Pathetic.
Yet amazing.
I'll bet I can even sneak in a little reading before I fall asleep, she
mused happily, and picked up the book that was on her bedside table. It
had been sitting there for a month and she still hadn't had time to even
open it.
She was just getting comfortable in bed when the phone rang.
"You've *got* to be kidding me," she muttered, picking up the cordless
phone by her bed. "Hello?"
"Hey, Scully, it's me."
"Mulder." Of course it's Mulder. Might as well put the book back where
it was. Mentally Scully wondered where they were headed to this time.
What kind of clothes would she need to bring. Where the hell had she
tossed her carry-on suitcase the last time she came home? The back of
her closet in the bedroom? Under her bed?
"Who else?"
She could hear the lighthearted tone, but she knew him well enough to
hear exhaustion underneath it. "What's going on, Mulder?" she asked,
almost exasperated. She had wanted to get through just one night
without him. Just one night in her own bed. Was that so much to ask?
"Who said there has to be something wrong? I'm just calling to offer my
services to you tomorrow to drive you in to work."
"Since when do I need a chauffeur?"
"Since the Weather Channel predicted that there was going to be about
ten inches of snow tonight. And I know how you hate to drive in the
snow."
There was a short silence, during which Scully listened to the soft
sounds of the television on Mulder's end of the phone. Mulder had two
passions when it came to television -- his porn collection and the
Weather Channel. More proof that he was a very strange man indeed.
Scully sighed. He wasn't being condescending. He was right. She hated
driving in the snow. And the traffic. That was going to make her
miserable in the morning.
Scully hated it when Mulder was right.
He *was* being incredibly sincere - offering to pick her up, even though
it was out of his way.
Scully sighed again.
"Is that a yes?"
Scully sighed a third time, indicating that she was giving in. "I'll
see you around 7:30, Mulder," she answered. "You bring the car, I'll
supply the coffee."
Mulder chuckled softly into the phone, a low rumbling noise that
comforted her. "See you in the morning, Scully."
Scully hung up the phone and looked at the clock. 9:14. She realized
that her eyes were heavy.
Good God, Dana, she scolded herself. 9:14 and you're ready to pass
out. She set the book down on the nightstand. Maybe I'll try it again
tomorrow, provided that I'm not trapped at the Bureau building overnight
because of some blizzard. Or, of course, Mulder would find the one and
only flight that was flying out of Washington despite the snow and she
would be in some small town in the middle of nowhere and she would be
slicing and dicing the body of some person that she didn't know and
didn't want to know anything about.
She used to love her job. Now, for the hundredth time, Scully wondered
why her job was so depressing.
Telling herself that six o'clock would be there before she knew it,
Scully took off her glasses and turned off the light.
*****
Sometime in the middle of the night, Scully was awakened by the sound of
a thump.
A dream?
No. A thump, a muffled thump, but a thump nonetheless.
She rolled over in bed, refusing to open her tired eyes. She waited
with her eyes closed, listening. It sounded like it came from the
apartment across the hall, or maybe from the apartment above her, but
she couldn't be sure. She opened her eyes reluctantly and checked the
clock. 12:55am.
Scully was normally a very light sleeper, and could go back to sleep
without any trouble, but she closed her eyes and found that she was
still awake.
She got out of bed to get a glass of water from the bathroom and looked
out the bedroom window as she passed it. The snow was falling much more
heavily than it had been when she went to bed. At least six inches were
on the ground already. The cars parked along her street looked like
they had marshmallow fluff on top of them.
Ten bucks says Mulder will be late, she shook her head ruefully.
She crawled back in bed, and having heard no more noises, fell asleep
almost immediately.
*****
Although she wasn't sure what it was, it was definitely a different
noise that woke Scully the second time. She opened her eyes again,
glancing over at the nightstand to look at the clock.
2:19am.
Her eyes were so tired. Her body ached. Although she was a light
sleeper, her building was very quiet and she therefore didn't often wake
up in the night, so twice in one night was very unusual for her.
I really *do* need a vacation, she thought idly, then closed her eyes
again.
She was about to drift back off to sleep when she realized that when she
looked at the clock, her gun was not on the nightstand where she always
left it.
Her eyes flew open.
There was a man standing next to her bed.
Gasping, she struggled to sit up, but he was on the bed and on top of
her in an instant, pushing her back against the pillows, his hands
digging roughly into her shoulders.
"Don't move, bitch," he muttered, and Scully could feel the icy cold of
a knife blade against her throat. "Don't move or make a sound or I'll
cut your throat."
She nodded her head, just barely, to let him know that she understood.
His hand reached for the blankets, pulling them off her.
Oh God. She knew what was coming.
"I have money...jewelry..." she said quickly, her words tumbling out of
her mouth. <The amethyst ring that Missy had given her for her 25th
birthday. Her grandmother's wedding ring.> She knew it was pointless to
try to bribe him. As a trained agent, she knew that her best chance of
not getting hurt was to simply let him do what he was going to do.
"I said, shut up. I don't want your fucking money."
He was completely on top of her now, straddling her hips, pulling at her
sweatpants.
"Please," she stammered, afraid to move too much, for fear that the
knife he held at her throat would slip and cut her. "Please, don't do
this."
He removed the knife from her throat and jabbed it in her direction as
he talked. "Listen to me. I want you to stop looking at me and shut
the fuck up."
Scully stole a last glance at him before looking away. Stay calm, she
ordered herself. Remember his face. Memorize it.
It was dark in the room, but she had seen him. She had caught his
features from the streetlight that spilled in from the window,
imprinting them into her memory. In some corner of her mind, she
doubted that she would ever forget what he looked like.
The sound of his zipper was unbearably loud in the quiet room. He was
yanking at her sweatpants again, pulling them down past her knees,
leaving her legs open to the night air. She felt goosebumps rise on her
skin.
Scully could feel his erection against her thigh. Oh God, she prayed.
God, if you can hear me, please...
He yanked at her underwear, pulling them down brutally, the elastic
burning her sensitive inner thighs. She cried out. "Shut up!" he
hissed, slapping her.
"I'm sorry," she stuttered. She could feel his fingers probing her, and
she stared at him. He slapped her again, harder this time. Her cheek
stung. "Shut your fucking eyes, bitch."
<This is not happening. This is not happening. Oh, Mulder, where are
you?>
She felt his erection beginning to push into her. "You're not wet at
all, are you?" he said, his mouth at her ear. "That's OK. I can fuck
you just fine like this."
Scully winced at his words, at the pain and utter violation of him
entering her, hard and cold.
He moved his body against her, and she could feel his abdomen against
hers. It was upsetting and somehow intimate and her body rebelled. She
opened her eyes, gasped, and for a moment, fought him, trying to push
him off of her.
His fist came down on her face once, twice. He clawed at her, trying to
hold her still. "Stop that. Stop that." Finally he gripped her chin
with his hand and jerked the knife up so that the tip of it was touching
her throat again. "You're gonna shut up. You're gonna shut up or I'm
gonna push this into your throat and I'm gonna kill you."
The blows and his threats quieted her.
Scully watched the shadows from the window play across the ceiling. He
was pushing at her, moving in and out of her, and she bit down on her
lower lip to keep from crying out. She tasted blood, but wasn't sure if
it was from him hitting her or from her biting down so hard.
Don't think about it. Don't.
<Where the fuck is my gun? What if he has my gun?>
It's not happening. But she could feel it. Happening.
Fine, she thought angrily. Let him do it. Get it over with. Then find
the gun and...
He smacked her again, dragging her back into reality. "Come on, you
bitch!" he growled at her. She looked at his face. He was breathing
heavily and his eyes were wild, his hair falling over his forehead.
Terrified by what she saw in his eyes, she pulled her glance away and
back to the ceiling. Silent tears slipped down her face.
The only noise in the room was that of his body slapping against hers.
Then Scully heard it.
A siren.
She almost wept with relief.
He heard it too, and stopped for a moment. Scully tried to ignore the
sensation of him still inside her.
"Fuck." He pulled out of her harshly, and she let out a whimper.
He was off the bed in a second and out of the bedroom, leaving her there
alone. Scully didn't move. She waited. She listened. She heard him
in her living room.
She waited for what seemed like ages. She didn't hear anything. Was he
gone?
Could it be over that quickly?
Carefully, she sat up in bed. Her body ached everywhere. She managed
to stand up and went to the window, and saw a man in the street,
running, slipping in the snow. An ambulance, the cause of the siren
that had scared him off, turned the corner near Scully's house.
She managed to find her underwear, bunched up in the blankets, and put
them back on. She pulled her sweatpants back on and went into the
living room.
The window was open.
He was gone.
She closed the window.
Realizing her teeth were clattering, she made her way back into the
bathroom and found her robe and put it on, wrapping it around her
carefully. She looked in the mirror.
Her face was bloody and swollen.
She carefully got a washcloth and with trembling hands, moistened it and
brought it to her face. She cleaned up the blood as best she could.
Tears were still streaming down her face.
Her whole body was shaking.
Shock, she realized. She was going into shock.
She stumbled back into the bedroom, leaving the light on in the
bathroom, and looked around. Her gun was on the dresser, not on the
nightstand. She realized dimly that she had left it there when she had
gotten home from work. He hadn't even seen it when he came in.
She blindly went from room to room, turning on all the lights,
illuminating the entire apartment.
Then she came back into the bedroom and stared at the bed.
She couldn't sit down on it.
Not after he had raped her in that bed.
Scully ached to get right into the shower. To scrub that man's smell
off of her. To be able to wash herself off.
She knew she couldn't.
She had to call Mulder.
God. Mulder.
Scully sat down right there on the floor of the bedroom and began to
sob. Her body heaved from the force of the emotion, and she tried
uselessly to calm herself down.
Mulder, she thought. She had to call Mulder. He'd help her.
A moment of panic and shame swept over her. She didn't want him to see
her. Not like this. Not after...
Not after that bastard, that *fucking* bastard, raped me.
She never used language like that.
She didn't want Mulder to see her like this.
But she needed him, she realized desperately.
She made it to her feet again, shakily, and picked up the phone. With
trembling fingers she dialed the number she knew by heart.
It rang twice before Mulder's groggy voice answered. "Yeah, hello."
Just the sound of his voice brought the tears back. She struggled to
fight them as she heard him say hello again.
"Mulder?" she managed to get out, her voice thick.
"Yeah, Scully, what's wrong?" His voice was still sleepy. She hated
herself for having woken him up. It was so rare that he slept anyhow.
"Mulder, can you come over here?" She could barely get the words out.
"Scully, what's wrong?" He sounded like he was waking up.
She paused, swallowing hard. She couldn't say it over the phone.
"Please, Mulder." She closed her eyes tightly. She balanced the phone
between her chin and her shoulder and pressed her fingertips into the
corners of her eyes to keep the tears from leaking out. "Please." She
tried to force urgency into her voice, because what if he didn't feel
like coming over? Then what would she do?
"I'm on my way," he answered, his voice sharp, and before he could say
anything more, she hung up the phone.
She made her way into the living room. She didn't want to be in that
bedroom anymore. She crawled onto the couch and pulled a blanket over
her body. She was still shaking. Still cold. She felt the stickiness
between her legs. Her face throbbed with pain.
As a doctor, she knew she couldn't do anything. Not until she was
examined.
As a woman, she knew that she felt like she wanted to die.
She sat on the couch and waited for Mulder to get there.
He'll be here soon, she told herself. He's on his way.
Hang on. Mulder's coming over. It'll be fine.
CONTINUED IN PART 2
Beyond Fragile (2/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
***************
Mulder threw a sweater on over the t-shirt he was wearing and pulled on
jeans and boots.
Outside, the falling snow made the streets treacherous. He had intended
to drive cautiously but in the end, he allowed the car to skid a few
times in his urgency to get to Scully's apartment.
He was worried. He was more than worried -- he was terrified of what he
would find when he got there.
She sounded so...frightened.
In his haste to get to her, he thought about the fact that he had never
heard her sound like that before.
He pulled up in front of her building and parked the car. From outside
he could see that every light in her apartment was on.
Something was wrong. Very wrong. He sprinted into the building.
He knocked on her door softly. It was, after all, still very early in
the morning. There was no need to disturb anyone else in the building.
He could hear her approach the door, then pause, then she finally
unlocked it and opened it.
Mulder stared at her as if he had never seen her before. She was
wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe and her hair was unkempt. Her face
looked as though it had been through ten rounds. Her lip was bleeding,
and the skin under her eye was swollen and beginning to bruise. Her
other eye was puffy. There was a long, dark scratch down the side of her
left cheek, and she seemed to have been crying a great deal.
Even through his shock, Mulder saw that her shoulders were slumped in
defeat. "What the hell...?"
She gestured him inside, not touching him, shutting and locking the door
behind him. "Mulder--"
"Scully, what the hell happened to you?" he asked. "Who did this?" His
rage was building swiftly. He tamped down on it in order to not cause
her any further distress.
Scully stood before him, silent, unable to speak, it seemed. She closed
her eyes and shook her head slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Mulder knew her. He had known her long enough to know that it meant she
was trying to keep from crying. "Scully, what happened?" he repeated.
She finally opened her eyes and fixed him with a look.
A look that was darker than any of the horrors they had ever seen
together.
Mulder suddenly knew exactly what she was going to say. He held back a
gasp as the realization hit him.
<Christ, Scully. No.>
"Someone broke in. I was sleeping." Her words were coming out stiffly,
almost mechanically. "He raped me. I need you to take me to the
hospital."
Mulder felt his heart start beating again, faster, until his body was
practically trembling from its pounding. He instinctively reached for
her but she backed away.
He had seen this before. The investigator in him came to the surface
and pushed his emotions aside. "Did you shower?" he asked, and she
shook her head mutely. "OK, let's get you to the hospital. Do you want
to get dressed?"
"I'm already dressed," she told him. She untied the robe and for a
brief moment Mulder was terrified that she would have nothing on
underneath but bruises and cuts. He had seen enough photos of sexual
assault victims in his life. He didn't think he could stand to see
Scully that way.
But instead she revealed a pair of sweats and a t-shirt underneath.
"This is what I was wearing...I guess I should leave it on."
He nodded. At least he didn't have to see the bruises that he suspected
were under her clothes. He could feel nausea building in the pit of his
stomach like acid. He pushed those feelings aside. Right now he had to
think about Scully. Not what bruises and abrasions were beneath her
clothes.
Mulder didn't want to let himself imagine her sleeping. He didn't want
to imagine her like that. But despite his refusal to think about it, an
image of her was still seeping into his mind. Scully sleeping, looking
peaceful while someone crept in, held her down....
Mulder closed off his mind to that.
<No. Don't even let yourself think it.>
He helped her get her shoes and coat in silence, and followed her to the
front door. Scully seemed to be fading on him, both physically and
emotionally. She stopped speaking altogether; instead nodding and
shaking her head when he asked her the simplest questions. Her actions
were stiff and her eyes were beginning to glaze over. He was more
worried about her with every passing minute.
"You OK, Scully?" Mulder asked, immediately regretting the question. He
knew she wasn't OK.
But she nodded and let him lock the door behind them. He helped her
into the car and then shut the door for her. As he went around the car
to get in on his side, he felt his rage building again.
<I'm going to kill the son of a bitch. I'll kill him.>
Mulder took a moment before he got into the car to try to clear his
head. He and Scully had a way of communicating silently. It was one of
the things that made them such good partners. He didn't want Scully
picking up on his increasingly violent thoughts. She needed him to be
strong.
He got into the car. Scully eyes were fixed straight ahead, somewhere
beyond the windshield and she continued to stare into the blackness of
the night after he started the car and pulled away. They drove in
silence for a few minutes. Finally, Mulder cleared his throat
uncomfortably. "Scully, did he have a weapon?"
She didn't even turn her head towards him.
"A knife," she answered. Her tone was completely flat, and it shut him
up for the rest of the drive. He pulled up in front of the emergency
room and helped her out of the car. Her teeth began to chatter, and her
body was trembling. She swayed a bit as she stood, and he instinctively
put an arm around her.
"Is this OK?" he asked softly. He didn't want to touch her if she
didn't want him to, but she looked up at him, her eyes filling with
fresh tears, and nodded. Mulder felt his throat tighten and he
swallowed hard. He held her close to his body, praying that he was
warming her. "Come on, let's get you inside. It's cold out here."
Once inside, Mulder steered Scully toward the first person they saw, a
female resident whose name tag identified her as Dr. Angela Wilson.
Mulder pulled out his badge and spoke in low tones. He identified
himself and Scully and quickly gave the doctor a description of the
situation.
God bless her, Mulder thought. She got them through the registration
procedures in record time and then led them back to a private exam room
and called for a nurse to help Scully. "Agent Mulder?" Dr. Wilson
motioned for him to leave the room with her. "Let's step outside so
Dana can get changed."
Mulder looked at Scully for the OK. For the first time since he had
arrived at her apartment, he could see naked fear in her eyes.
It shook him to the core. Dana Scully was not afraid of much.
"I'll be right back," he promised, nodding at her. Her eyes held his
for a beat. Then she nodded back.
He followed the doctor back to the counter. "I've had our charge nurse
call the police. They'll have to come down and take her statement. I'm
assuming she wants to report this?"
"You'll have to ask her," Mulder responded. He glanced at his watch.
It had only been 40 minutes since Scully had called him. He felt like
hours, even days, had passed.
"Well, we'll examine her, and go through the rape kit. If she wants
someone from the Rape Crisis Center, we can have them come down to talk
to her. Then she can talk to the police, if that's what she wants."
Dr. Wilson looked at him pointedly. "She called you after the rape?"
For the first time, Mulder realized that her tone was a bit
condescending.
"We're partners," he said, realizing instantly what she was thinking.
"And friends," he added.
"You can stay with her?" she asked, and Mulder nodded.
He went back to the exam room and knocked. A voice from inside told him
to come in.
Scully was lying on the gurney, slightly propped up. The two pillows
under her head served only to emphasize her smallness. Her eyes were
closed but she opened them when Mulder came in, watching him silently.
Scully had changed into a hospital gown, and he could see the two bags
that were holding her clothes as evidence. The nurse took her blood
pressure, marked it down on a sheet, and checked the gash on her cheek.
"Dr. Wilson will be back in a few minutes to examine you," she said, and
left them alone.
Mulder stood close to the gurney where Scully was covered with a
blanket. Her eyes were still red and puffy. She must have been crying
again.
God.
He prayed that this would not break her. He had seen what the trauma of
rape had done to women. The thought of that happening to Scully was a
lead weight pressing on his chest. It ached painfully. He felt like he
wanted to cry.
"I'm OK, you know," Scully said to him, as if reading his mind.
But her voice trembled, betraying her words.
He knew she was lying, and he knew it. For God's sakes, she had been
violated. She was trying to be strong. For him. For herself. She
didn't want to be weak. In this case, though, he thought that it was
perfectly appropriate for her to acknowledge that she needed someone
else to take care of her.
He could see from her face that she wanted to say more to him, but
couldn't.
"Scully," he said to her, taking her hand gently in his, "you don't have
to put up such a brave front."
He was trying to give her the okay to talk to him, to open up. But he
didn't know what else to say. His own thoughts and feelings were
hopelessly jumbled and he didn't know what to do.
At his words, Scully's face twisted a bit and she started to cry. "Do
you know what he did?" she mumbled through her tears.
He was terrified to hear what she was going to say next. He was scared
of what those words would do to him. He knew that she needed to get
this out of her system, but he wasn't sure how he was going to stand
it. There was a part of him that didn't want to hear what she was
going to say. It would create a picture in his mind. And that picture
would haunt him forever.
Just like her face would from when she opened the door to him just under
an hour ago.
Scully started to cry harder. "Oh, Mulder," she sobbed, and he reached
across the gurney and held her. She clung to him like a lost child as
he stroked her hair and let her cry. He closed his eyes, feeling his
eyes getting moist.
I wasn't there. I wasn't there to protect her, he thought bitterly.
It was killing him.
CONTINUED IN PART 3
Beyond Fragile (3/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
************
WASHINGTON HOSPITAL CENTER
WASHINGTON, D.C.
MEDICAL EXAMINATION NOTES
Patient Name: Dana Katherine Scully
Patient is a 32 year old white female (occupation: FBI agent and
forensic pathologist) who presents to the Emergency Room with a chief
complaint of sexual assault.
Medical history: Patient claims to have had no significant prior medical
history. Patient is not currently taking any medications and denies any
drug allergies.
Gynecological history: Patient states that last PAP smear was performed
seven months ago and was normal. Patient is not currently sexually
active and is not using any contraceptives. Patient states that
menstrual periods are regular. Last menstrual period is reported to
have begun ten days ago.
Since the incident, patient has not changed clothing, bathed or washed
or urinated. Patient states that the assailant did not use lubricant or
a condom.
Physical Exam:
Patient was draped with a sterile sheet and entire body was examined for
abrasions, bruises, swelling and lacerations. Examination revealed
contusions on her lower lip, and bruising around both eyes. A long gash
consistent with a fingernail was evident on her left facial area.
Bruises were present along both shoulders and on both upper arms and
wrists. Three small bruises were noted on inner thighs appearing to be
consistent with fingermarks. Patient stated that there was no fellatio
and no rectal penetration.
Pelvic exam:
Gynecological examination was performed as per rape kit. No signifigant
bruising or tearing was noticed in the vagina. However, there was
evidence of what appears to be forceful penetration. Wood's Lamp was
placed over the body but no evidence of semen on the external parts of
the body were noted, with the exception of small amounts of what appear
to be semen were noted on the inner thighs and were bagged, labeled and
sent to the forensic laboratory.
Laboratory specimens were obtained according to standard procedure as
follows:
For forensic laboratory:
Hair specimens (pubic and head hair), pulled from the root
Saliva was obtained and sent for samples
Clothing was bagged and turned over to the Police Department
Two blood specimens (purple top tube)
Fingernail scrapings
For hospital laboratory:
GC culture (cervix, urethra, rectum) obtained and marked as appropriate
Chlamydia culture (cervix, urethra, rectum) obtained and marked as
appropriate
Urinalysis
HIV test
Patient received a high dose estrogen pill (morning after pill),
adminstered by this physician.
Patient was advised that although cultures were obtained for STDs, she
should have recultures taken four to six weeks from now. For prevention
of venereal disease, patient was given Ampicillin 3.5 gm orally, along
with Probenecid 1gm orally. Patient was give a prescription for
Doxycycline 100 mg and given instructions that it is to be taken orally
twice a day, for seven days.
Patient was also offered the opportunity to receive pregnancy testing at
her follow up exam.
Emotional condition: Patient was withdrawn, at times tearful. Volunteer
from Rape Crisis Center was called in to speak with patient and was with
patient during physical examination. Patient was accompanied to the
Emergency Room by her partner, FBI Agent Fox Mulder, who was not with
patient during examination at her request. Patient did speak at length
with Rape Crisis Volunteer. Officer Parkhurst from DC Metropolitan
Police and Officer Darrow from Montgomery County Police Department in
Maryland were also here to question patient and spoke with patient at
length.
Impression: Examination is consistent with patient's chief complaint of
sexual assault.
Patient was given follow up appointment with this physician for three
days from now. Patient discharged from ER in fair condition accompanied
by her partner.
********
DANA SCULLY'S APARTMENT
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
It had been two days since the rape, and Mulder hadn't left Scully alone
for a minute. Not even one second.
He stayed with her at her apartment. Took a personal leave of absence,
just as she did. Nothing mattered except that she needed him.
Mulder slept on her couch. He shopped for groceries. Scully had
insisted on leaving every light on in the apartment at all hours of the
day and night, and he didn't argue with her.
At night, she slept in her room with the door open, with almost every
light in the apartment blazing brightly. Neither one of them got a lot
of sleep. Scully spent most of the the nights awake, crying softly.
And since Mulder had held her in the emergency room, Scully hadn't let
him touch her.
She still hadn't told him the details of her assault. She had talked to
the police, the doctor, the nurse and the rape crisis volunteer. But
not to him. She had talked to everyone but him.
Part of him was upset, upset that she would feel comfortable talking to
everyone else. She should feel more comfortable with *me* than with
anyone else, he thought. But in a strange way he understood her
reticence to reveal details about the rape to him. They had always been
close. The actual retelling of the rape would not only require a huge
amount of trust on Scully's part, but an enormous amount of courage from
Mulder. He would have to sit quietly and listen to the things she would
have to say.
And there was a part of his mind that wasn't sure if he wanted to hear
those things. He didn't know if he could stand it. He knew it was
selfish, but he was scared.
He wasn't just scared. He was paralyzed with fear.
Then it happened on the third night after the rape.
Mulder had made himself comfortable in Scully's apartment during the
three days that he was there and was amazed at how at ease he felt there
with her despite the reason for his extended visit. He felt peaceful
around her things and in most parts of her house. Her house was warm
and comforting compared to his cold and sterile apartment.
Of course there was one room that didn't feel completely comforting. He
had a hard time going into her bedroom, knowing what had happened
there. He couldn't imagine how *she* was doing, considering that she
was actually sleeping -- or trying to -- in there.
Mulder was flipping channels on the TV with the volume down low in the
living room. It was late, very late, when he thought he heard
something.
Mulder muted the TV and listened. He could definitely hear something.
He could hear the sounds of Scully having another nightmare. They were
sounds he was getting used to.
Mulder got up from the couch and headed into the bedroom. He found her
thrashing about on the bed, her eyes closed, her face twisted in a
heartbreaking contortion of pain and terror. She was making the sounds
that Mulder had gotten accustomed to -- the wordless sobbing that made
his chest ache and his throat tighten.
Since he had started staying there, he usually would go right to her,
sitting beside her on the bed, not touching her at all. He would wait
for her to come out of it and wake up, her body drenched in sweat. He
hoped that his presence beside her would somehow calm her. He prayed
that just being by her side would slow her breathing, ease her terrified
gasps for air, and calm the blue eyes that darted around the room,
looking for the face of an attacker who wasn't there.
This time Mulder stood and watched her from the doorway of the bedroom.
Scully.
She was his partner. His friend. She was the one who had kept him sane
through all of the insanity, the one who had believed in him when no one
else did, the one who could look at him and somehow communicate silently
with him when verbal communication was impossible.
This wasn't just hurting him. It was ripping him apart inside.
For the last three days he sensed that she ached for comfort but was
terrified to have him touch her.
Finally he crossed the room to her bed and sat down, took her by both
shoulders, gently shaking her. He knew that she didn't want physical
contact, but he didn't want her to be trapped in the nightmare anymore.
Mulder knew all about nightmares. He was unlucky enough to dream
lucidly. He knew how it felt to be in one, to know that it was just a
dream, and yet be unable to wake himself up.
Mulder shook her a little more, careful not to be too forceful. She
struggled in his grasp, but didn't wake up. Mulder pulled her into a
sitting position.
"Scully," he spoke quietly, "come on, wake up. It's just a dream."
Her struggling turned to frantic flailing. Her hands flew up to protect
herself instinctively. Her wordless cries became sentences. "Don't
touch me!" she cried, and opened her eyes. Mulder could hear pure fear
in her voice. Even though she opened her eyes and looked right at him,
she didn't stop struggling. She started hitting him, throwing punches
at his face, his chest.
"Scully, it's me!" He tried to dodge the blows as best he could.
"Scully!"
She kept hitting him, crying, until finally she had no strength left.
Her arms fell weakly, and her gasps became large, wracking sobs. Mulder
pulled her to him without thinking. He could feel her heart pounding in
her chest, pressed against his. Her tears were dampening the material
of his shirt, and he realized that his own face was wet with tears as
well.
He had known that this would come. He knew that eventually she would
crack from the inner pain she was feeling. It was why he had stayed
with her. He'd wanted to make sure that he would be there when it
happened.
"Mulder," she cried, pulling away from him slightly so that she could
look at him. "I tried to stop him. I tried!" Her voice was that of a
terrified child's.
He nodded. He knew.
Scully was no weakling. He had seen her take down suspects twice her
size. She had always been able to defend herself. From the sketchy
explanation she gave him, he asssumed that she had been sleeping, then
awakened from a deep sleep to find a man leaning over her with a knife.
How could she possibly have defended herself? There was no way she
could have done anything to prevent what happened to her.
He knew that. But the guilt she felt -- as if she should have somehow
been able to stop him -- was natural for someone in her situation.
"I tried to make him stop, Mulder. But he had a knife, Mulder. He held
it right here." She put her hand to her throat to show him. Her tears
were still falling, but she let them go and kept talking. "He pulled my
sweats off."
<Wait a minute.>
It was going too fast. Suddenly she was telling him things he wasn't
sure he was prepared to hear.
Mulder wanted to stop her. He didn't think he could stand to hear it
without going ballistic. The counselor from the rape crisis center said
that eventually she would want to talk. Mulder should give her time.
Not pressure her. Be patient with her. Be willing to listen to
anything she wanted to say.
He had forgotten to ask how the hell he should try to deal with the fact
that as soon as Scully started talking, he knew he would want to go out
and find the bastard and smash his fucking skull in.
"Then what?" Mulder tried to keep his voice as even as possible. He
didn't want her to hear the tears in his voice. Not to mention the
anger. Or the fear. He definitely didn't want her to see the fear he
was trying to hide.
"He was hard. He had an erection." Her breathing was getting more
labored now, and her eyes were darting around the room again, almost as
if she expected him to be there.
"Scully, you're safe," he reminded her. His words sounded small and
useless to his ears.
"He just pushed into me. I was dry...it hurt." She sounded like a
little girl describing skinned knees after a fall on pavement. She
looked at Mulder and her eyes focused on his face. "Mulder, he was
inside me."
"I know, Scully."
Her tears had slowed and her voice was slipping into a flat monotone.
"He raped me," she said. "For about 15 minutes. He couldn't come. I
think he was angry at me for that. Like it was my fault."
No, Scully, none of it was your fault. None of it, Mulder thought.
Pain stabbed through him like a hot poker.
"He hit me. Punched me in the face." She was awash in tears again.
"Why, Mulder?"
He realized he was crying as well. "I don't know, Dana," he said, and
she collapsed against his chest again, sobbing. He held her. It was
almost a relief to know that she was finally letting him hold her,
letting him comfort her.
Dana, he thought, I called her Dana. Why?
He called her Dana because this was not the Scully he knew.
Mulder held her tighter. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you ever
again," he said against her hair, meaning it.
It was partially his fault anyhow. They had been going over some old
paperwork that night. Beneath her controlled exterior, he had sensed
that she was slightly anxious, somehow apprehensive about going home
alone. It was something that no one but Mulder would have noticed
because only Mulder knew her that well.
Ever since her sister had been killed she occasionally got that way.
Anxious. Tense. Just slightly off-kilter.
That night he was going to do something entirely non-Mulder-like and ask
her if she wanted to grab a bite of dinner with him, but changed his
mind.
He didn't feel comfortable asking her. Mulder knew how much Scully
valued her privacy -- her personal space. She wouldn't appreciate it if
he treated her any differently than he normally would have before her
sister's death. She wanted him to treat her as he always did. With
professionalism. God knew she had a hard enough time dealing with
everyone else at work.
Mulder knew that Scully had never had it easy in the Bureau. She was,
as she had told him once in a rare moment of sharing, a woman in the
boy's club. But she was just as good an agent as most of the men in the
Bureau were, if not better. And that often made the male agents angry.
Of course Mulder was a little biased, but he knew that there wasn't a
better partner -- or human being -- out there than Scully. She had been
graced with superior intelligence, incredible intuition, a brilliant
scientific analytical mind, and classic beauty.
As good as those qualities were, though, they did nothing but haunt her
at work. The male agents all wanted to get her into bed, and at the
same time resented her because she was just as smart as they were and
was able to go the distance in field work just as well as they could.
And she didn't fare well with the female agents, either. Male and
female agents alike gossiped about her almost more than they did about
Mulder. They all whispered behind her back. Mulder had overheard a few
of the things that had been said about her. Dana Scully, the bitch.
Frigid. Mrs. Spooky.
At the beginning, Mulder wondered if Scully knew that all of this went
on. He had long ago decided that she had a pretty good idea. He knew
how she dealt with it. She buried herself in the basement. She was
becoming more and more like Mulder all the time.
As far as defending herself went, Mulder knew damn well that Scully
could take care of herself. Which was why he never told her about his
occasional surveillance of her. She would kill him if she knew what he
was doing.
Sometimes Mulder would follow her home without telling her. He would
park his car across the street, watching her walk from her car to the
front door, taking small satisfaction from the fact that she didn't know
what he was doing. He would watch until she had got inside her
apartment and turned the lights on. He would watch her shadows through
the windows, making sure that there was only one shadow, making sure
that no one was in the apartment with her, and then he would head home.
But not that night, not the night of the rape. Mulder had gotten a
headache that afternoon, and that night was distracted by thoughts of
going home, taking some Tylenol and watching a premiere movie on the
Playboy channel if he was up for it. So he left her to go home alone.
He had called her to ask her if he could drive her to work in the
morning, and she had sounded fine. Just fine.
Everything was fine.
Mulder took his Tylenol, felt better, watched his movie, fell asleep,
and then Scully fell asleep, and then some asshole broke into her
apartment and raped her and beat her up. And if only he had done
something differently that night, damn it, if only he hadn't been so
stupid and selfish about the fucking movie, if he had taken her out for
dinner, if he had done something, anything differently, maybe, just
maybe, this wouldn't have happened to her.
Rationally, Mulder knew that there was no way that he could have
prevented what had happened to Scully. It was that realization that was
destroying him.
For a moment Mulder pondered his on-going attraction to Scully. There
were times when he had caught himself staring at her when he thought she
wasn't paying attention. There were times when he invaded her personal
space just so that he could be close to her. There were other times
when he fantasized about her, what kissing her lips would feel like,
what making love to her would feel like. There were times when he was
alone, when he would touch himself until his body convulsed, and at
those times, he saw only her face, gasped only her name.
Those thoughts were tormenting his conscience now. They made him feel
sick.
He had always known that one of the reasons he trusted Scully so much --
aside from the fact that she had put herself on the line for him more
times than he could count -- was that he loved her. It was something he
had always known. It was just beginning to dawn on him exactly how much
and what this meant.
He felt the slight stirrings of arousal now, just thinking of all the
times he had looked at her and wanted her. Wanted her heart. Wanted
her body as well, sometimes wanting nothing more than to be buried
inside her, whispering into her hair things he had never said to any of
the many faceless women he had slept with in his elusive search for
satisfaction that he knew began and ended only with Dana Scully. He
cursed himself for his shitty timing.
Scully's tears were slowing. "I'm so tired," she whispered.
"Come on, why don't you lie down?" Mulder suggested gently, pushing his
own thoughts away and helping her to curl back up into her blankets. He
stood up to go back to the couch.
"Mulder, wait," she called to him when he was at the doorway. "Mulder?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you...stay in here?" Her request was timid.
How many times have I fantasized about hearing her to ask me that? he
thought, and then winced. How could I have these thoughts, now, of all
times?
Mulder wondered if there was such a thing as a mental rapist and tried
not to shudder. He thanked God that she couldn't know what he was
thinking about.
"Sure, Scully. Let me go get the blankets." His voice was calm, his
face betraying nothing.
He went back into the living room and carried a blanket and a pillow
back into the bedroom, setting up a makeshift bed on the floor.
"Mulder?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think...could you sleep up here? With me?"
He took a deep breath. What should he say? No, Scully, I really don't
think that's a good idea because I'm feeling kind of horny right now?
He hated himself for even thinking it. "Whatever you want," he answered
instead, and moved his pillows up to the other side of her bed.
"I think....I think I'll turn the light off," she finally stammered
softly. "I feel safe, knowing you're here."
Christ.
You'd throw me out, Scully, if you knew what I was thinking, he thought,
and closed his eyes.
"Thanks, Mulder," her sleepy voice replied.
"You're welcome," he answered, and turned his face into the pillow.
******
As the morning sun shone brightly in through the window, Mulder opened
his eyes.
Scully was next to him, on her side, her body curled so that when she
opened her eyes he would be the first thing she would see. Her eyes
were closed now though, and her face was peaceful. Mulder breathed a
sigh of relief.
Finally, she had slept. Maybe having been able to talk to him, at least
a little, the previous night, had helped her.
Mulder carefully extracted himself from the blankets and moved into the
living room, trying not to make any noise. He gazed at her from the
doorway of her room for a few moments, then quietly shut the door. He
went into the living room and sat down on the couch, running his hand
through his hair. He was grateful for the sleep. It had helped him get
his own thoughts together.
There was the small problem of his suddenly reawakening feelings for
Scully.
Even though he was a law enforcement officer and knew about the effects
of rape, he never knew them as up close and personal as he was getting
to know them now. He wanted and needed to be there for Scully as her
partner. And, more importantly, as her friend. She had a lot of
healing to do, and he would do anything he could to help her.
But why was it that the rape had suddenly stirred his feelings of desire
for her? He wasn't sure. He was sure of one thing, though. Something
that had been an issue before, but now was going to be more critical.
Trust.
Mulder knew that Scully trusted him more than anyone else in her life.
He would never do anything to breach that trust. He trusted her above
anyone else as well. Before Scully had come along, Mulder had never
dreamed of trusting someone so much, putting so many of his feelings out
in the open.
Over the last few days Mulder had realized something. Trust was now
going to become more important than ever before. And, of course, there
was the small problem that somewhere along the line, Mulder had fallen
in love with Scully.
When he had arrived at her door to find her beaten, as he watched her in
the emergency room, and as he watched her as she struggled through her
nightmares, he was slowly realizing that the feelings that he had for
Scully had been romantic for some time. He just hadn't allowed himself
to dwell on them up until now.
Wonderful timing, he thought angrily. Wait until she gets raped to
figure all of this out.
He knew that there was no way that he could talk to her about all of
this.
<Not now. Have a little respect for her. For what she's going
through.>
He knew she loved him. He had known that for some time.
If he had any doubts that she loved him, they were erased after the
incident with Modell. After that, he knew that her feelings for him
were more than friendly. More than just partners. He had seen the love
in her eyes; heard it in her voice.
OK, Mulder, he told himself as he went into the kitchen to start the
coffee, pack it up. Now isn't the time for this shit. He spooned
coffee into the filter and poured water in.
Somehow he had managed to keep his love for Scully hidden, even from
himself. It had been easy enough to hide, he thought wryly, and now it
was just going to have to go back to its hiding place.
The coffee began to brew, and Mulder went back to the bedroom, opening
the door softly, walking over to the bed and sitting down where he had
been sleeping. Her auburn hair was fanned out across the pillow. The
bruising around her eye was entering its final stages and was
greenish-purple. The gash on her face had scabbed, and her lip was
still red where it had been cracked open.
She's still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, he thought,
absentmindedly brushing a strand of her hair off her forehead. He
wanted to tell her that he loved her, but the words felt strange even in
his mind.
He leaned down to kiss her forehead lightly. Her skin was warm.
As he lifted his head, Scully stirred. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Mulder?"
"Good morning," he replied.
"I smell coffee," she said, sitting up. Her hair was tousled from a
long, deep sleep.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better, if you can believe it," she said, and from the tone of her
voice, he did believe it. "Mulder, I was thinking..."
The jangling of the phone interrupted her. She picked up the cordless
on her bedside table. "Hello?" Mulder watched her face, listened as
her responses got colder and more unaffected. "Yes, I understand.
Yes, I will."
She hung up the phone and stared at him. The frozen look that had
temporarily disappeared when she woke up was back. "Scully, what is
it?"
"They caught him. They want me to come down to the station to identify
him."
There was no question of who she was talking about.
Mulder had a fleeting thought that if he managed to get his hands on
Scully's rapist, the police would have to identify the remains.
"Do you want me to come with you?" he asked. She nodded.
"I also have to go to the doctor today. Follow up," she said, and he
nodded at her. "We can stop at the police station on the way there."
Mulder nodded. "Whatever you want, Scully."
CONTINUED IN PART 4
Beyond Fragile (4/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
*****
MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
SEX CRIMES DIVISION
As they entered the police station, Mulder was struck by the fact that
for once they were there in an unofficial capacity. The lineup, which
they were so used to seeing, would almost be like a new experience for
them.
A detective named Darrow met them at the desk. Mulder vaguely
remembered him from the Emergency Room. He led them into the
identification room, explaining the procedure on the way. He was a big
burly Irishman and explained everything to Scully carefully. He seemed
to have taken a liking to Scully, a kind of fatherly protection for
which Mulder was grateful. "Now, Agent Scully, I want you to be very
sure when you look at these men," Darrow told her kindly. "Try and
remember exactly what he looked like. I know it was dark, and I know
you were scared, but try to remember."
Mulder looked at her face and knew from her expression that she
remembered perfectly. Scully took the chair that was offered to her and
Mulder sat next to her. She reached for his hand, and although
surprised, Mulder took it, squeezing it gently for support. Then the
men were led in on the other side of the two-way mirror.
Five men walked in and lined up, staring blankly at them.
Mulder looked them over, each of the five. Which one of them had broken
into Scully's apartment and violated her? Which one was he?
Scully's eyes went methodically from one to the next, carefully, one at
a time, not jumping ahead. On the fourth man, her eyes froze. She
tensed in her chair. Mulder squeezed her hand gently. "Number four.
That's him," she nodded at his form through the glass, her voice
breaking slightly. Detective Darrow came around to stand next to her.
"You're sure?"
Scully closed her eyes briefly, letting the memories in for only a
moment.
He was on top of her, staring her down, his face a mix of anger and
revulsion. She could feel him inside her, fucking her, shoving at her,
hitting her whenever she cried out. His eyes were dark and he was about
five eleven, she had guessed, and his dark brown hair was parted off to
the right. While it was happening she tried to distract herself by
applying her FBI training. Looking for details to memorize.
<Come on, bitch, come on.>
His voice echoed in her head. With her eyes closed she could almost
feel his body slapping against hers again.
Involuntarily, a shudder passed through her body. She opened her eyes.
Number four was six feet according to the height marks on the wall
behind him, and his hair was parted to the right, just as she
remembered.
His eyes were black as coal. Dark. Dangerous.
She looked at the man in the lineup, knowing he had no way of knowing it
was her behind the mirror. And yet he seemed to be looking right at
her. Staring right into her.
"That's him," she said again, her voice a little stronger now. She
looked at Mulder. "That's him."
Mulder stood up and walked to the mirror, looking at the man. He was so
absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't hear what Darrow was saying to
Scully. All he could think about was going into the room and smashing
his face in. Mulder wanted to beat him until he was bloodied and
battered, the way Scully was that night.
He wanted to kill the son of a bitch.
Scully's presence behind him startled him. "His name is Michael
Coleman. He's a computer analyst for a company in Annapolis. Married.
Has two kids. He was arrested once about ten years ago for assaulting a
woman in DC, but the charges were dropped."
Married? Kids? Mulder tried to fathom this man, Scully's rapist,
tucking his little children into bed at night, reading them bedtime
stories, going back to the master bedroom and making love to his wife,
kissing her as she fell asleep, then getting up in the morning to put on
a suit and tie and take his briefcase and his coffee into the car to
make the drive to work.
It didn't make sense. Why the hell would this man commit this kind of
violent crime?
"I'm ready to go now," Scully said, touching his arm lightly.
Mulder turned around and faced her. "Let's go," he said, his face calm,
revealing nothing about what he had been thinking.
Mulder and Scully walked out of the room. Her steps were slower than
his. She walked close to him, though, and eventually once they were
outside of the building he tentatively put his arm around her as they
walked. Without saying anything, Scully leaned her body into his
gratefully.
She was exhausted.
Doctor's office. Then home, Scully thought. She wanted nothing more
than to sleep. To forget.
Scully watched absentmindedly as the raindrops beaded on Mulder's
windshield as they headed for the doctor's office. Since leaving the
police station, she had fallen into a strange trance, in which she saw
very little and thought about even less. She was only dimly aware of
Mulder's presence in the car next to her.
Her mind was still stuck on the image of her rapist's face, glaring back
at her through the two-way mirror, leaning over her as he hit her, held
her down onto the bed, raped her.
Michael Coleman.
She wasn't remembering it as a participant anymore, but as a witness.
She could clearly see everything that was happening to her from a
different angle. And this angle was so different that it seemed
surreal, more frightening.
<Shut your fucking eyes, bitch.>
His name was Michael Coleman.
The name meant nothing to her. Yet his face haunted her.
An involuntary shiver passed through her.
"Are you cold?" Mulder asked her, shaking her from her thoughts. She
looked at him, realizing that she was in the car, that she was safe,
that Mulder was there.
Realizing, suddenly, that she wasn't alone.
"A little," she said, trying to sound as normal as possible.
She knew that was impossible. Nothing about her felt normal. Even her
voice sounded different to her ears.
Mulder turned the heat up and they drove the rest of the way in
silence. It struck Scully how much time they had spent in silence since
her rape. And as she looked over at Mulder, she wondered for the first
time what he thought about during those silences.
He thinks I'm screwed up, she thought. He thinks I'm fragile. He's
afraid to talk to me, to touch me. He's afraid I'll break, like glass.
Scully had never thought of herself like this before, but she suddenly
imagined herself, a little Scully-statue, made of glass, shattering into
a hundred pieces.
It was obvious what Mulder was feeling for her. She had rolled over the
night before and reached out for him in bed, and although it was not
something she was used to doing, she had felt at ease almost
immediately. But she wasn't stupid. She had felt him, his erection
hard against her leg. And she had felt him shift his body quickly so
she wouldn't feel it.
A part of her had been terrified and shocked by his arousal. How could
he be aroused, considering the situation? But at the same time there was
a part of her that was astounded in a wonderful way, amazed that he
could be aroused by her, damaged as she was.
It was strange, because she had known in her heart that she had been in
love with him for some time now. It was something she would never admit
to him. There was no room for a romance between them in their lives.
The X-Files took up too much space, too much time and too much energy
for them to have anything other than the comfortable relationship -- the
partnership -- that they already had. She wasn't sure if she could call
it a friendship. But it was something. Something very powerful.
But it didn't mean she hadn't thought about the relationship between
them becoming more than what it already was. She had -- many times.
She had thought about Mulder as more than a friend and partner so often
that she couldn't keep track of it anymore.
But she trusted Mulder so much that she couldn't deal with thinking of
him as anything else, especially not now, not after the rape. Although,
she thought idly, it would be so nice...
Especially now.
Scully knew that her response was partially because of the trauma she
was experiencing. She knew, had known for a long time, that she was in
love with him. And she was grateful -- grateful for his love, even if
he couldn't express how he really felt. The devotion he was showing her
was more than enough for her. It always had been before.
She watched at him as he drove. She had no idea what he was thinking.
His face was completely unreadable.
She had no way of knowing the thoughts of murderous revenge that were
flooding through his body. His thoughts were so powerful that his grip
on the steering wheel had become tighter, his jaw set and his eyes
locked on the road in order to keep his feelings tightly reined in.
******
DR. ANGELA WILSON'S OFFICE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Inside the examining room at the doctor's office, Scully was grateful
for the cotton gown instead of one of those flimsy paper things. She
changed quickly and sat on the table, looking around the small room.
Even before all this had happened, she had never liked going to the
doctor. The old saying was true -- doctors make the worst patients.
This, of course, was different. Scully was dreading getting back up in
the stirrups, her legs open, her body exposed, yet again.
Dr. Wilson came into the room. "Hi, Dana," she greeted her patient
warmly. Scully nodded. The doctor was carrying Scully's medical file
which was filled with papers.
Stuffed, no doubt, with police documents, medical exam forms, and other
evidence that could be used later in court, Scully thought.
Her mind went over all the things they told her in the emergency room a
few days before, and the fear and anxiety that she had been able to
temporarily put aside was back in an instant. Sexually transmitted
diseases. Pregnancy. HIV. Jesus, what if this man gave her HIV?
She felt goosebumps rise on her skin.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Wilson asked.
Scully swallowed hard.
<I can't breathe.>
It felt as if there were a vise around her throat, tightening slowly,
taking away the precious oxygen that she needed to breathe.
She had pushed these thoughts away days before. Dealing with the rape
itself and the nightmares and the panic attacks was terrifying enough
without the threat of the medical ramifications of what had been done to
her.
"I'm fine," Scully finally managed to say, trying to get rid of the lump
in her throat.
<Breathe. Breathe.>
The doctor did a quick examination of her bruises and lacerations. "You
seem to be healing up well physically. How are you doing emotionally?"
Scully almost burst into tears. Oh, God, I can't deal with this. I
can't. I just can't handle this.
"Does it get easier?" she asked in a small voice.
Dr. Wilson nodded and her face softened as she touched Scully's hand.
"It does. I promise you." Her face held a look of concern, and a look
of -- no it couldn't be, Scully thought. But it was. Understanding.
Scully let out the deep breath that she didn't realize she had been
holding.
"The police called me today and asked for your records to be sent over
because they arrested a suspect. It's standard for them to get medical
tests done on him as well. We're going to get semen samples and blood
typing for DNA to see if it matches the trace evidence that we found on
you. We're going to also test him for the same sexually transmitted
diseases we tested you for." The doctor flipped through Scully's chart.
"Are you going to take a pregnancy test now?" Scully asked.
"Yes, if you want me to." Dr. Wilson answered. Scully nodded mutely,
her fears starting to get the better of her.
Her mind was now racing.
Pregnant. With this man's baby. She couldn't imagine anything worse
than conceiving a child through rape. Oh, God, what would she do if she
was pregnant? Scully knew that although she wasn't a devout Catholic
anymore, and considered herself to be pro-choice, she still had a hard
time with the concept of herself having an abortion. Although she knew
under the horrific circumstances that it would be the only thing to do,
it wouldn't make it any easier.
And she could be carrying HIV, and God knew what else.
Her head was starting to swim, and she looked down at the floor, putting
her hands over her eyes.
******
Mulder looked up from his magazine to hear the nurse calling him. "Mr.
Mulder?" she asked. He nodded. "Miss Scully would like you to come
in. Could you please come with me?"
Mulder dropped the magazine quickly and followed her.
In the exam room, Scully was sitting on the table, wearing a thin white
cotton gown. Her upper arms were covered with bruises, faded to ugly
purple and green from where she must have been held down. He hadn't
seen those before. She had worn long sleeves ever since she had come
home. Now he knew why. She hadn't wanted him to see these marks.
<Jesus.>
Dr. Wilson was standing on one side of the exam room. Scully's head was
in her hands, and she was crying. Mulder hurried to her side and put an
arm around her protectively. "What's going on?" he asked in a low
voice. "Scully, what's wrong?" he asked her.
Scully looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Mulder, I
could be pregnant!"
"Dana, we can run a pregnancy test. You also took the morning after
pill in the ER, which decreases your chances of becoming pregnant," Dr.
Wilson tried to soothe her.
"I want to go," Scully sobbed softly, "I want to go home."
He helped her stand. "Dana, please, stay until we can draw some blood,"
Dr. Wilson practically pleaded with her. Scully sniffled and nodded.
"All right," she said, "but then I'm leaving."
Dr. Wilson called for a nurse, and she came in and wrapped a tourniquet
around her upper arm. Mulder saw Scully wince at the pain, and was
ashamed that he had to turn his head away when the needle went in.
"We'll run the pregnancy test, and we'll have the results in the
morning. The HIV testing won't be back until tomorrow as well, and
you'll have to be re-tested every three months for the first year," the
doctor explained. She scribbled something on a pad, then ripped off the
top two sheets and handed them to Scully. "This is for AZT. It's
simply a preventative measure. We also give it hospital employees when
they've been stuck by a needle. And this one," she said, indicating the
final sheet of paper, "is for a sedative."
Scully took the prescriptions silently.
"I know you think I don't care, Dana," the doctor said, "but I do. I
know that you're having a rough time. Try to go home and get some
rest."
The doctor and the nurse left the room, leaving Mulder and Scully
alone. She had stopped crying.
"I just want to go home," Scully said again, not looking up at him.
"I'll wait outside while you get dressed," he said, and reached out to
touch her shoulder gently.
Scully visibly shrank back from him.
Shit, he thought, are we back to this?
Mulder smiled at her weakly, in case she looked up, but she didn't. He
left the room and stood in the hall. Leaning his back up against the
wall, he closed his eyes.
Scully hadn't told her family what had happened. She had called her
mother, but told her that she was sick and wasn't up for company. She
had told Skinner that she had the flu and was dehydrated, although he
wasn't sure if she had taken any measures to make sure that her case
wasn't cross-filed to the FBI. Sooner or later, she would have to go
back to work. And she would have to face her family. Somehow, she had
to pull it together. And soon.
Why the hell did she want to keep this a secret? Why?
He knew her mother would be nothing but supportive. He knew that
Skinner wouldn't tell anyone.
He was starting to feel like he wasn't doing enough for her, and in a
way, he was starting to feel like he was in over his head and he wanted
someone to help him carry the burden of what had happened to her. It
didn't lessen how much he cared about her. He just felt like he needed
help knowing how to deal with this and how to actually be a help to
Scully at the same time.
Scully came out of the exam room a few minutes later and they silently
walked to the car. It was now raining heavily, but Mulder deliberately
measured his steps slowly so that Scully could keep up with him. They
stopped at a pharmacy and Mulder turned off the car. "Why don't you let
me run in and fill those for you."
"I can do it myself," she said, and got out of the car without saying
anything else. He watched her walk through the door and then punched
the steering wheel angrily.
<Fuck.>
As a psychologist, Mulder knew that Scully was going to move forward and
backward in her emotional progress before things started to get better,
but the fact that she put barriers up again made him frustrated all the
same.
A few minutes later she returned and got into the car. Mulder looked at
her but didn't start the car. "Did you get them filled?" he asked.
"Let's go, Mulder," she said, "I'm freezing."
"Scully, did you fill the prescriptions?"
She looked at him pointedly. "Why are you interrogating me?"
"I'm not," he protested.
Scully turned and stared out of the car window, silent.
"Scully," he began, but she cut him off.
"Someone in there was looking at me. They saw that I had been beaten
up," she said, still not looking at him.
"Who cares what anyone thinks?" Mulder snapped, his voice raised, and
Scully whipped around in her seat to look at him, her eyes blazing.
"I care, Mulder," she shouted at him. "I care!"
"Did you fill the prescription for the sedative?"
"No," she said sharply.
"Why the hell not?"
"I don't need a fucking sedative!" she practically yelled. "What I need
to is to forget that this ever happened! I need to stop worrying that
I'm going to get pregnant. That I'm going to get HIV or God knows what
else!"
Mulder didn't think he had ever seen her so enraged. He was partially
relieved to see Scully having such a strong reaction, even though it was
catching him off guard.
"The morning after pill assures that you won't get pregnant. They gave
you that in the ER."
"But I wasn't on *any* birth control. My chances of getting pregnant
are high. I can't face it, Mulder. I can't face being pregnant. Not
this way. What the hell would I do?" Scully sounded desperate.
He put his hand on her leg, then drew it away when she looked up at
him.
Even though he understood her reticence to being touched, it still
frustrated him.
There was only so much concern he could show with his eyes. He wanted
to be able to touch her, and he wanted to tell her why. "I'm sorry," he
said, "I was just trying to show you, you know, tell you...." He
paused, unsure of his words, "that I care about you. I was trying to
comfort you. That's all I've been trying to do."
"I know," she said, looking up at him, her eyes filling with tears. The
anger was gone. "I just don't know what I'm doing, Mulder. I don't
know anything right now."
His anger for her rapist came to the surface again when he saw her
tears. It was his fault, he thought. He pushed down the white hot
feeling in his throat and put one hand up to gently stroke her face.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, Dana."
Michael Coleman, Mulder thought, I hope you know what you're in for.
You sick bastard.
******
Back at Scully's apartment, Mulder went to the bathroom and shut the
door behind him. He looked at himself in the mirror. He felt like he
had aged a year in the last few days. There was so much to think about.
Scully's rapist was in jail. Mulder was in love with her. There could
be a few very disturbing medical repurcussions from what that bastard
did to her.
Wonderful.
Mulder needed to hold her, and he couldn't. He couldn't touch her. He
couldn't hold her close to his body without her being terrified.
Why now, he wondered? Why not a year ago? Why did these feelings have
to surface now?
Now that he had a little more time to think about it, he understood a
little more about Scully's fears about the medical consequences of the
rape. Her Catholic upbringing would likely make it hard for her
emotionally to have an abortion, even though Mulder thought that even
the most devout Catholic would probably forgive Scully for aborting a
baby that was created in such a violent way.
Trying to distract himself from his thoughts, he opened the medicine
cabinet without thinking and looked inside. He saw a case of birth
control pills. The date on the prescription was almost two years old.
He saw the standard medicine cabinet items--cotton balls, Tylenol, a
thermometer. He glanced, interested, at the apricot facial mask. He
wondered if that was the source of the sweet smell of her skin.
He closed the medicine cabinet and looked down at the counter. Scully's
toothbrush, and his own. Toothpaste. A bar of soap. A bottle of
perfume. He picked that up and smelled it. Closing his eyes, he could
smell her, wearing the perfume. The bottle was almost empty. He
quickly memorized the name of it, reminding himself to buy her another
bottle. He looked in the mirror again, rubbed his eyes.
He was so tired.
*****
In the bedroom, Scully had changed into sweats. She sat down on the
edge of her bed and pulled her feet up under her. She should feel safe
in this place, in her home.
But she didn't. Even with Mulder here, there was still a part of her
that was frightened.
There was so much for her to absorb, to deal with. She didn't know
where to start.
Pregnancy. Disease.
Reputation. She hadn't thought about that one. Eventually she would
have to go back to work, and then...
Oh, God, she thought, my reputation at the Bureau will be destroyed.
Everyone will know that I couldn't defend myself. What kind of FBI
agent am I if I can't even defend myself? Everyone will know that I
can't protect myself.
Somehow, she understood that she was having a natural emotional response
to what had happened to her. She had seen other rape victims and seen
what they had gone through. But she couldn't help but feel like a
woman, not just an FBI agent.
They'll think that I need Mulder to protect me. Mulder will think that
he has to protect me. He'll think I won't be able to do anything alone.
<Damn it, I never wanted him to feel like he had to protect me.>
She closed her eyes and laid down, trying to calm herself, trying to
relax on the softness of the bed.
The bed. The scene of the crime.
She thought that maybe she could recall the events of that night without
losing it. Go over it in her head. Make it less terrifying.
Yes, she could do that.
She could remember every detail vividly, from the moment she woke up to
the sense that someone was standing over her to when he heard a siren
outside -- which had turned out to be an ambulance and not a police
cruiser -- and got scared and left.
As soon as she had realized there was someone there, she had scrambled
to get her gun from the bedside table, which wasn't there anyway, but he
was faster than her and had climbed on top of her, straddling her body
with his legs, pinning her arms down. He hit her in the face, hard
enough to stun her but not hard enough to knock her unconscious. Held
the knife to her throat, whispering threats of using it if she didn't
stay quiet. She realized that no matter how much she prayed, that he
was going to rape her anyhow, and that there was nothing she could do
about it.
He pulled at her sweats, yanked viciously at the waistband of them. She
felt the elastic burning her skin, and she knew then that there was
going to be no stopping him. She could see it in his eyes. Feel it in
the hardness of his erection pressing into her groin.
<Slow down, Dana. You're not ready to go there.>
It wasn't working. She couldn't do it. Couldn't go through it again.
She sat up, lifting her head. The panic was back. Her breathing, came
in sharp gasps. Her heart raced. Her hands were prickling and clammy
and she felt like she was going to vomit. She tried to get up, but her
legs were trembling so badly that she knew she would fall if she tried.
"Mulder." Her voice was low.
<God, he can't hear me. He can't hear me!>
"Mulder!" Louder this time.
He came running into the room, having heard her terrified cry from the
bathroom, and came to her side immediately. "It's OK, Scully," he said
soothingly. "I'm right here. Nothing's going to happen to you. You're
safe."
The phone rang. Scully jumped, startled, and then whimpered. "Please,
Mulder, can you answer it?"
He nodded and reached for the cordless. "Hello? Yes, Detective
Darrow." Scully shook her head, indicating that she didn't want to talk
to him. "Can I take a message for her?" Scully watched his face,
trying to calm herself. "You've got to be kidding." Mulder's tone was
stunned, angry. "No, I'll call you back. Thanks."
He hung up the phone. "What is it?" Scully asked him, terrified of what
his answer would be.
"They let him go," Mulder told her, trying to remain calm himself for
Scully's sake.
"What?" Scully asked, her voice anguished.
"He was released on $100,000 bail. They don't think he'll run. They
told him not to leave the area."
"They told him not to leave the area?" Shock and terror pulsed through
her body. "Mulder, he could come over here and..."
"He's not going to get near you," Mulder said firmly. "He won't get
into this house."
"Oh, God, Mulder. He could come back here! He could -- " Her voice
was rising, panic infused through it.
"No, Scully, he won't," he assured her. I'm not letting you out of my
sight for one second, Mulder thought. He'll be dead before he touches
you again.
Scully closed her eyes. "This won't end, will it?" she asked. It came
out more a statement than a question.
Mulder helped her lie down on the bed and he sat down next to her,
stroking her hair and her forehead. He whispered to her softly,
soothingly.
Finally, after almost an hour, she fell asleep. He got up, went into
the living room to check the locks on the front door. He checked all
the windows. He checked his gun, making sure that the clip was fully
loaded. He went back into the bedroom and sat down on the other side of
the bed, next to Scully, and watched her.
Scully awoke a few times. She tossed and turned in her sleep,
whimpering softly.
The nightmares were back.
He wanted to hold her, but couldn't bring himself to take her in his
arms. He watched her, knowing that she was going through incredible
pain, and that he was not able to help her. As he watched her, the pain
within him surfaced, and he finally understood why he felt it.
Anything that hurt her, hurt him.
Mulder felt his throat getting tight, and his chest ached from unshed
tears. He cleared his throat softly, trying not to wake her, but didn't
succeed. Scully stirred, opening her eyes to look at him.
She saw him sitting there, on the bed beside her, his face filled with
sadness. She realized suddenly how lucky she was to have him in her
life.
<I'm incomplete without him.>
"Mulder," she whispered, "thank you for being here."
His eyes filled with tears, and he didn't try to stop them from
falling. Scully sat up and he hugged her tightly to him, crying
softly. "I'm sorry I wasn't here that night," he managed to get out,
but she quieted him.
"You can't watch over me every second," she answered. "I don't blame
*you* for what happened to me."
He pulled from their embrace to look her in the eye. "I feel like I let
you down," he confessed. She shook her head, her eyes filled with
disbelief.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I couldn't protect you. Because it happened, and I didn't
protect you."
"Mulder," she said, feeling her own tears coming back, "you couldn't.
It's not your fault, for God's sake."
"I know," he said, his tears slowing. "But it doesn't stop me from
thinking that I should have been here. If I had been here..."
She shook her head. "You couldn't be here, Mulder, and that's not your
fault. It happened. I have to deal with it."
"No, Scully," he answered her with conviction. "We're going to deal
with it. I'm here for you. Whatever you need."
She squeezed her eyes shut, keeping the tears at bay. When she opened
them again, she smiled at him weakly. "I love you so much," she blurted
out without thinking. She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth,
stunned that she had said what she said. "Oh, God," she cried out, her
words muffled by her hand. She couldn't look at him.
He took her hands, one at a time, gently, in his. "It's OK," he
murmured to her. "I know." He was silent for a long time.
She finally looked up at him. Minutes had passed. "We're going to get
through this," she said tentatively, and he nodded, seeing the potential
hope on her face that maybe she could in fact get through it. It gave
him faith.
"And you're going to be fine," he added. "You always are, Scully."
CONTINUED IN PART 5
Beyond Fragile (5/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Three days had passed since Scully had seen the doctor and Michael
Coleman had been questioned by the police. The DNA testing came back.
Michael Coleman's semen matched the traces that had been found on
Scully's body. The police had gone to arrest him, but he took off out
the back door and escaped on foot. He was on the run.
Despite all of this, Scully finally went back to work. Her bruises were
almost gone, and on the surface, at least, she was almost back to her
old self.
Underneath, her demons were hard at work. Mulder made sure the agents
only worked on paperwork, reports -- anything that would keep them in
the basement, where he could keep an eye on her. And where no one else
would see her, just in case she wasn't ready to be under the microscope
of public scrutiny.
Mulder watched her, trying to be surreptitious, but he wasn't sure that
it was working. Scully kept shooting glances back at him. He couldn't
tell if she was irritated or amused with him.
Mulder had stopped sleeping at her apartment the day before. His last
night there was the same day that the locksmith came by. The locksmith
installed two new locks on the front door and more on all the windows at
Scully's insistence. Mulder left that night with her promise that she
would call if she needed him, and that if she called, he would come
right over, no questions asked.
Mulder knew she was putting on a front at work. He could see the dark
circles under her eyes and knew that she hadn't been sleeping enough.
The phone in the office rang, startling them both. Mulder answered it.
"Yes, sir. We can be up there --" Mulder paused, then glanced at
Scully. "Oh. Yes, sir, I'll tell her."
He hung up the phone and Scully looked at him, one eyebrow arched.
"Skinner wants to talk to you. Alone."
Scully took a deep breath and looked down at her desk.
"Do you think he knows?" she asked quietly, not looking up.
"I don't know, Scully," Mulder answered her honestly.
There was a long moment of silence and then finally Scully pushed her
chair back and put her jacket on, her ID badge swinging slightly.
Scully Battle Mode, Mulder thought absently. "I'll be back as soon as I
can," she said, heading for the office door.
"Scully." Mulder said her name just as she was about to cross the
threshold.
Scully turned and looked at him. "Yes?"
"I'll be thinking about you. Hang in there." Mulder could have kicked
himself. What a stupid thing to say. I'll be thinking about you? <I
sound like a fucking Hallmark card.>
But Scully surprised him when the corners of her mouth actually lifted
into a half smile. "Thanks, Mulder."
*****
Scully stood outside Skinner's office for a moment before going in,
brushing back her hair nervously with her fingertips and taking a few
slow, deep breaths. Finally, she pushed open the door to his
secretary's office.
"Agent Scully," Skinner's secretary looked up from her computer.
"Assistant Director Skinner is expecting you. Go on in."
"Thank you."
Scully went into Skinner's office. He was at his desk going over some
files. He looked up when Scully walked in.
"Agent Scully." His tone was neutral, as always. "Please have a seat."
Scully couldn't help it. She was nervous. She crossed the carpet and
took the chair she always took, sitting down and trying to appear as
calm as possible.
"Is something wrong, sir?"
"I think I should be asking you the same question, Agent Scully."
There was a long moment of silence as they regarded each other.
Skinner lifted a file from his desk and held it in his hand. "This was
forwarded to me this morning. It's from the Bethesda PD."
Scully nodded, knowing what it was, and unsure of what to say.
"Last time I checked, Agent Scully, any assault on a officer of the law,
especially a Bureau officer, is a federal offense. Is there a reason
why you didn't report your assault through the proper channels?" He
wasn't interrograting her. Just asking.
"Sir, I...I don't know what to say," Scully faltered. "Since the
assault was somewhat...personal in nature, I thought it best to be kept
within the confines of the local authorities. They are pursuing the
case."
Skinner set the file down again and stood up, taking his glasses off.
He walked around his desk and paced nearby, rubbing the bridge of his
nose. Scully fought the urge to turn around to look at him. Having him
out of her range of sight was making her slightly uneasy.
"You and I both know, Agent Scully, that the case might be solved more
rapidly with the assistance of Federal resources."
"Sir, I don't know what to say," she said honestly. "I just
thought..." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't know what I
thought." Her voice had softened a great deal. She let out a deep
breath, not sure of what else to say.
Skinner was next to her and reached out to touch her shoulder. Scully's
eyes jerked open and she jumped in her seat.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, softly. His apology was genuine.
He came over and sat next to her, in the chair that Mulder usually sat
in.
"I didn't mean to frighten you, Agent Scully."
"I'm fine, sir."
Skinner was silent for a moment. "The fact is, Agent Scully, that you
lied to me when you told me that you had the flu. And then I get this
report on my desk...it takes me out of the loop, which is a feeling I
don't like."
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what to say." Scully was feeling
increasingly foolish. She should have told Skinner at the very least,
even if she hadn't wanted to report it as a Bureau matter. She knew
that it was a mistake, but at the time she hadn't been thinking
straight. She didn't want anyone to know what had happened to her.
Keeping it from Skinner, from the Bureau -- that just went along with
that. Now she was regretting her irrational behavior.
Skinner rested his arms on his knees, leaning slightly closer to her.
"Agent Scully. I'm very sorry that you were...that this happened to
you. I would like to pursue this as a Bureau matter only because I
would like to ensure that the person who is responsible for this crime
is caught quickly and punished to the fullest extent of the law." His
voice was low, and Scully could sense a protective tone in his voice.
She had never heard that from him before. "In no way do I want anyone
here at the Bureau to find out about this. This is a very private
matter and I understand that."
Scully nodded.
"Agent Scully, I would like it very much if you would trust me in this
matter."
He wasn't issuing his usual orders. He was asking.
She stared at him. Could this be the same Assistant Director Skinner
she thought she knew? No. This was Walter Skinner. Human being.
"Please," he said.
Scully felt her eyes filling with tears. <No. Not now, not in front of
him.>
She cleared her throat, and nodded her head. "All right," she managed
to get out.
Skinner nodded his head too, looking down and back up at her. "Is there
anything that you need?" he asked. "Time off?" He was still leaning in
towards her, very slightly, his face gentle, his expression comforting.
"No," Scully answered, trying to pull herself together. "I'm fine,
sir."
"If you need any time off because of this, just let me know. I'll take
care of it."
"Thank you, sir. Thank you."
Skinner stood up and went back to his desk, putting his glasses back
on. Then he looked over at Scully. "That will be all, Agent Scully."
His tone was back to business. Back to being AD Skinner.
Scully got up, smoothed out her skirt. "Thank you again, sir."
Skinner nodded at her, and she left his office.
*****
Scully looked exhausted when she got back to the office.
"It wasn't that bad," she told Mulder. She knew that what would be bad
was what she had to do over lunch that afternoon. She had to tell her
mother.
Scully was nervous. Her mother had been through so much. But she owed
her mother the truth, regardless of whatever her fears were. It was her
mother, after all. She was going to support her no matter what
happened.
The lunch went as well as could be expected, Scully reported back to
Mulder later in the day. She said that Margaret Scully had dissolved in
tears. There wasn't much more the woman could bear. To lose her
husband and her daughter, to have thought that Scully was dead, and now
this. But she said that her mother was supportive, as Scully had
expected her to be.
The phone rang again that afternoon. Scully was closer to it. She
answered it and spoke for a few moments. "Really?" she asked, her voice
sounding genuinely better than Mulder had heard it since the rape.
"Thank you so much." She hung up the phone and turned to face Mulder.
"I'm not pregnant." She was smiling broadly. "And the initial HIV test
was negative, as were the other cultures."
Mulder crossed the office and hugged her impulsively, and he was
thrilled that she didn't push him away. In fact, she hugged him back.
"Of course," she said as he released her, "I have to be re-tested, but
at least the first tests came back negative. That's a good thing."
"Damn right," Mulder agreed.
We should celebrate, he thought. He wanted to take Scully somewhere --
to dinner, anywhere. Just somewhere that didn't have anything to do
with work for a change. Somewhere nice, so that she knew how happy he
was for her.
But Scully didn't say anything about celebrating, and so Mulder stayed
quiet. It's too soon anyway, he told himself. Maybe in a week or so.
Mulder went upstairs to the vending machines about an hour later to get
a can of soda. "Want one?" he asked Scully before he left, but she
shook her head. "I'm in the middle of this expense report," she said,
pointing at it. "When you get back you'll have some explaining to do,
Mulder." Her voice was cheerful, almost light -- she was back to the
light banter that they did so well, and it thrilled Mulder. It seemed
like the old Scully was resurfacing.
"Then I'll make sure to hurry back," he said, throwing her a smile and
gathering some loose change from his pencil drawer.
*****
When Mulder returned, he found Scully with her head down on her desk.
He rushed to her side, kneeling down to get closer to her level. He
touched her arm hesitantly. She didn't draw back.
"Scully? What's wrong?"
She lifted her head and stared out into a dark corner of the office.
For a minute, she didn't answer him. Her eyes were distant and
unfocused. "He's dead," she finally said.
Mulder breathed deeply. Dead? Not caught?
"He raped a woman in Virginia," Scully answered, turning to look
directly at him. "Someone heard her screaming and called the police.
When the police got there, they chased him...they told him to drop his
weapon and it looked like he pulled a gun on them. One of the officers
fired at him and killed him. He didn't have a gun. Just a knife."
Scully's voice was flat as she recited all the facts and then she
repeated, dully, "He's dead."
"When did this happen?"
"Early this morning," Scully answered. "The woman was pregnant. Her
first child. She miscarried early this morning."
"Jesus," Mulder breathed.
Scully got up and headed for the coat rack, taking her coat and putting
it on.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I just need some air," she replied. Mulder got up and hurried over to
her before she got out the door. He took her arm.
"Scully--"
She turned around to look at him. "I'm OK. I really am. I mean, I
wanted him caught, you know? Punished. But I guess knowing that he's
dead..." she trailed off.
Mulder couldn't answer. He couldn't tell Scully that he was glad the
man was dead. His only regret was that he wasn't the one who'd pulled
the trigger.
"I'm just going to get out of here for a while. I'll be fine."
"You sure? Do you want me to go with you?"
She pondered this for a moment, and then shook her head. "No, really,
I'm fine. I just need to get some air."
Mulder hugged her. Scully relaxed into his arms easily, closing her
eyes. What a day this had been for her. He stroked her hair gently,
thinking about everything she had gone through since the rape. He was
continually amazed by her strength. It was one of the things he loved
about her. And maybe, someday, there would be a chance for them. He
knew that he could wait, though. He would wait for her for as long as
she needed.
He released her after kissing the top of her head softly. "Drive
carefully," he said to her and smiled. She smiled back.
"Thank you for everything," she said, her voice a little unsteady. "I
don't know if I thanked you before."
"You did."
"Well, thanks again. Thank you." Her voice was definitely wavering on
the brink of tears now. But she was controlling it well.
"Anytime, Scully."
She hugged him again impulsively, quickly. She was up on tiptoe,
whispering in his ear. "Thank you for not thinking I was fragile. I
love you."
And then she let him go, and she left the office without letting him say
another word.
******
FAIRFAX HOSPITAL
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
ROOM 316
Scully stood outside the door of the room for a good five minutes. She
didn't know if she had the right to be there, to even do what she was
thinking of doing. She hadn't intended to come to the hospital when she
left the FBI building, but after 20 minutes of driving around aimlessly,
she had ended up there, realizing it must have been where she wanted to
go in the first place.
Finally she knocked softly on the door and entered the room. The woman
lying on the bed was about Scully's age, with dark blond hair. Her name
was Allison Westfall. She had an IV with fluids and a blood trasfusion
piggybacked in through the same line. Scully had looked at her chart in
the hall and noted that her hemoglobin was very low, likely from all the
blood she had lost from the miscarriage. The woman's skin was chalky
white, except for the dark bruises on her face and arms. Her eyes were
open, and she stared at Scully.
"Who are you?" she asked. It was obvious she had been crying.
"My name is Dana Scully. I just wanted to talk to you," she began.
<God, what do I say next?>
"Are you a doctor?" Allison asked.
"Yes," Scully replied, "but that's not why I'm here. I'm here
because....the same man who raped you last night raped me as well."
Allison turned her head towards the window. Scully looked at the floor,
wishing for a moment that it would swallow her whole. "I'm sorry. I
shouldn't have bothered you," she apologized, and turned to leave.
"No, wait," Allison said, turning her head back to Scully. She was
crying, large tears falling down her cheeks, but no sounds came from her
lips. Her face was still. "Please, sit down."
Scully came to her bedside and sat down in a chair that was pulled close
to the bed. "I'm assuming you know about my baby?" she asked. Scully
nodded. "My husband...he was away on business. He's on his way back.
The police called him."
Scully couldn't understand what Allison was feeling. She was married,
having a normal domestic life. She had been pregnant, and now the baby
that had been growing in her was gone. She couldn't imagine the pain.
Then Scully stopped and reminded herself why she had come in the first
place. She *did* understand. "If I can help, in any way, please..."
she stammered. Scully realized that she was crying silently.
Scully reached her hand out and Allison looked at her for a moment.
Then she reached her hand over the edge of the hospital bed and took
Scully's hand and squeezed it gently. Scully squeezed back.
CONTINUED IN PART 6
Beyond Fragile (6/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, DC
ONE MONTH LATER
Scully entered the office to find Mulder mulling over a file. "Anything
interesting?" she asked him.
"Not a thing, unless you feel like going to Tampa to check out a
reported UFO sighting."
Scully hadn't gone anywhere that required an overnight stay since the
rape, choosing instead to work on cases in the Metro DC area. Mulder
didn't think that he could convince her to take on a case that was
outside the area, and so he pushed aside X-Files and shelved cases that
weren't within a hundred miles of DC.
He knew what her answer would be. He knew she would say no.
"When do we leave?" she asked, her voice light. Mulder could hear the
forced casualness in her tone, but he didn't care. She was making an
effort. She was trying to get her life back to the way it was before.
Mulder stood up and smiled broadly at her for the first time in ages.
"Tomorrow morning. There's a 7am flight. I can pick you up if you
want."
"Just like old times," Scully murmured softly, so softly that Mulder
almost didn't hear her.
Mulder nodded imperceptibly. Scully was not focused on him and was very
obviously thinking about something else -- about a time when having him
pick her up on the way to the airport was routine; about a time when
everything was routine.
He didn't want to disturb her thoughts. He would love to have that
routine back himself.
****
SLEEP-EASY MOTEL
TAMPA, FLORIDA
Mulder opened his eyes. For the first time in ages, he had been
sleeping peacefully. Scully had the adjoining room to him, just like it
used to be. The neon hotel sign was blinking slowly and steadily
through the thin curtains of his window.
What woke him?
A noise. He wasn't sure what it was. Noisy hotel guests from the floor
above him?
No.
It was Scully.
Mulder turned on his side, feeling the old exhaustion creep in. He
listened. She was crying. Was she awake?
He got up and padded across the room as quietly as possible to the door
that connected their rooms. He leaned his ear to the cool surface and
held his breath.
"No..." Her voice was filled with pain, both physical and emotional.
"No..." Another moan.
Mulder closed his eyes. He would do anything to take her pain away.
Anything. But it just wouldn't fucking go away.
Mulder reached for the doorknob to open the portal that would bring him
into Scully's world.
Please, Scully, he prayed, let it be unlocked. Please trust me enough
to have left it unlocked.
It was unlocked. The doorknob turned easily in his hand. The door
opened with a soft swish as the bottom edge dragged across the carpet.
Mulder left the door open and crept to Scully's bedside, where she
tossed and turned in her bed.
How many times had she come and watched him while he was moaning like
this?
Mulder had left his door unlocked time and time again over the years
they worked together. Mulder knew that Scully couldn't have slept
through all of his nightmares. She must have come into his hotel room
and lingered at his side just as he was doing now with her.
What did she do? Did she smooth her cool hand over his forehead? Did
she whisper soft comforting words to him? Mulder only remembered two
times that he had woken up to find Scully next to him, but he knew that
it had happened more often than that. He would sometimes smell faint
traces of her perfume lingering in his room the next morning.
He stood there now, helplessly, not knowing what to do to lessen her
distress. The rape was moving farther and farther into her past, yet it
continued to wreak havok in her mind while she was awake -- and even
more so while she was asleep.
Mulder knelt beside the bed, found her hand tangled in the sheets and
reached for it, lacing his fingers through hers, squeezing lightly.
"It's OK, Scully," he whispered awkwardly, hoping that it would soothe
her soft groaning.
Scully's eyes snapped open and Mulder froze, holding her hand still, his
eyes locked on her face.
"Hi," he said softly.
Scully's mouth stayed open, her lips forming an O, her breath caught in
her throat.
"What are you doing in here?"
"You were having a nightmare. Your door was unlocked -- " Mulder
struggled for an explanation.
Scully closed her mouth.
"You left your door unlocked."
Scully nodded.
"Bad dream?" Mulder asked.
Her head went up and down again.
Scully pushed herself up onto her elbows, but Mulder stopped her by
dropping her hand and gently pushing her back down on the bed, careful
not to be forceful in any way.
"Lie still," he said softly. "Let me help you get back to sleep."
He closed his eyes for a moment, cursing himself for how badly that had
come out and how it had sounded.
He opened his eyes again to find Scully looking at him with a strange
mixture of gratitude and sympathy.
"Thank you," she said. Her voice was steady, but Mulder could swear he
saw tears glistening in her eyes.
There was a long moment of silence. Mulder moved to release Scully's
hand but she tightened her grip around his fingers and so he held on,
too.
"Can you...come up here?" she asked.
Mulder hesitated.
Just like before. Just after the rape. She wanted him close by. So
she could feel safe.
"Just until I fall asleep," she amended.
Mulder wordlessly got up from where he knelt on the floor. Scully
scooted over in the double bed and Mulder crawled in beside her, careful
not to let his body touch hers. Her back was to him and he stared at
her shoulders, her neck, her hair.
In the moonlight her skin was pale white, her pajamas pale blue.
"Mulder?" she asked, then turned over to face him.
Their faces were inches apart. There was a moment of stillness, of
silence, where they said nothing and simply breathed in each other's
breath.
Then Scully reached for him, pulled him closer, and kissed him.
Her mouth touched his lightly at first, hesitantly. He sought her lips
gently, feeling the warmth of them against his own. He wrapped his arms
around her waist, carefully, slowly pulling her to him. She responded
by wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him with less hesitance,
with more passion. And he returned the kiss.
After all the years they had both spent dreaming, fantasizing about this
moment, it was now upon them. The hotel room, the case -- hell,
everything -- faded away as they kissed, as they explored each others
lips and mouths. Scully sighed against him, and he reached his arms up,
his hands catching her face, holding her face, moving down to her neck,
caressing her there, feeling the smooth skin of her neck--
Scully suddenly reacted violently, tearing her lips from his and shoving
him away as if he were on fire. "Don't touch me like that!" she cried,
and Mulder backed away, frightened.
"Scully!" Mulder was shocked by her reaction. "Scully--"
Her face was contorted with pain and rage, and fear. She was trembling
visibly, on the verge of tears.
"Scully--" Mulder tried again.
"No!" she cried, and pushed him even farther away, her breathing fast
and erratic.
Mulder got up and watched her warily. He was torn -- he wanted to
comfort her but was unable to get close to.the bed. He didn't want to
upset her any more than she already was. He knew exactly what was going
on.
Flashbacks.
The counselor from the rape crisis center had talked to him about them.
She had warned Mulder that they could take weeks, months, even years to
surface, but that when they did, they would be terrifying for both
Scully and whoever was around her.
She was right.
Scully had buried her face in the pillow for a long moment, sobbing
uncontrollably. She finally looked up at him. "Mulder," she managed to
get out between tears, "please, help me."
******
They were on the first plane back to DC in the morning. Mulder knew
that Scully didn't want to go back, but he wanted her somewhere safe,
somewhere she could talk to someone. Someone who knew how to help her
with what she was going through.
Mulder pulled up in front of Scully's apartment building and turned off
the engine. She got out of the car, shouldered her overnight bag from
the backseat and closed the door. She went over to the driver's side
and regarded Mulder through the open window. She had dark circles under
her eyes and she seemed to be glad to be home.
"Do you want me to walk you in?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I have an appointment with one of the crisis workers at noon," she told
him. "When I'm done, I'll meet you at the office."
"Scully, you don't have to come in today. Take the rest of the day off
--"
"I don't need to. I'll be in when I'm finished, Mulder. I'm fine."
<Bullshit.>
Mulder bit down on the word.
Scully turned and walked up towards her building without another word.
Mulder watched her until she was in the building, then put his head down
wearily on the steering wheel.
His eyes were tired.
His head ached.
What the hell were they doing?
What the hell was he doing?
God, he knew he shouldn't have kissed her. He should have stopped her.
There was no way that she was ready for something like that. He knew
that she was trying to be strong. He knew that she was trying to get
back to her old self, the Scully that was fine all the time, the Scully
that didn't need Mulder to walk her in, or to hold her hand.
But he knew that expecting her to do that -- to be that person -- was
damn near impossible for her now. She was still recovering from the
assault. It was a process that took time, that took emotional strength
and courage. It wasn't just something that she could just forget about
and move on. As much as she wanted to just push the feelings down below
the surface, she couldn't.
And neither could he.
******
"You kissed him?" Jeannine asked. She was the crisis worker who had
counseled Scully in the emergency room the night of her rape.
Scully nodded miserably.
"You mentioned that there had been an...attraction between you two long
before the rape."
"Yes," she said, bowing her head for a moment, then lifting it back up.
"I don't know why I did it. I don't know."
"You kissed him because you were attracted to him, Dana. There's
nothing wrong with that. You have every right to be attracted to
someone -- and someone has the right to be attracted to you back.
There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean that he's going to
force you to do anything."
"I know. It wasn't Mulder I thought was going to rape me. It was him.
It was like I saw his face. I felt his body pressed up against mine.
It was like it was happening all over again." Scully bit her lip.
"Maybe I'm not ready for this...with Mulder."
"Maybe you're not. You need to move at a pace that seems right for
you. You need to determine that for yourself. And it sounds like
Mulder is willing to move at whatever pace you want."
Scully bowed her head. "He's been wonderful."
"So give yourself time. Give yourself space, if that's what you need.
From what you've said, it sounds like Mulder will wait for you. For you
to be ready. In the meantime, there's something I think you should
think about."
*****
"Mulder."
Mulder balanced the phone on his shoulder, aimlessly doodling
meaningless designs on a piece of paper. It was past three and Scully
still hadn't come in. He'd started to worry about her.
"Mulder, it's me."
Mulder lifted his head. "Scully. How are you?"
A pause. "I'm fine, Mulder."
"OK," he said, not sure of what to say next.
Silence.
"I'm not going to come back in today."
"OK," Mulder said.
"I'm going to take a few days off."
Silence again. Mulder wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure which
words to use.
"I've already let Skinner know."
"Scully, are you all right?" The words tumbled from his lips before he
could stop them. He knew that she was closing her eyes, biting back
tears that formed as soon as she thought he thought she couldn't take
care of herself.
"I'm fine, Mulder," she said, her voice strong, surprising him. "I just
need some time, you know...time to think."
Mulder nodded his head stupidly -- stupidly because he knew she couldn't
see him. "If you need anything, Scully -- "
"I'll call you, Mulder. You'll be the first one. The only one."
She hung up the phone before he could reply to that. She wasn't angry.
She just needed some control back.
Mulder put the receiver down and tried to remember what it was like to
work without her.
CONTINUED IN PART 7
Beyond Fragile (7/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
TWO DAYS LATER
CONFERENCE ROOM 108
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
Scully quietly slipped into the room and sat down in one of the plastic
chairs that was arranged in a loose circle. Conversation in the room
stopped. Ten pairs pairs of eyes focused on her. Scully swallowed
nervously.
"Glad you made it, Dana."
Jeannine's face was the only one Scully recognized. Scully smiled at
her, grateful for the familiarity.
"This is Dana, everyone."
There were murmurs of hellos. Scully looked at everyone and nodded
hello back.
"Feel free to jump in anytime, Dana. In the meantime, Christina, why
don't you go on with what you were saying."
Scully suddenly noticed one more face she recognized. Allison
Westfall. The young woman who had lost her child, the other woman that
Michael Coleman had raped. Scully caught her eye. Allison's were wary,
but she tipped her head slightly to one side, acknowledging Scully, and
conversation picked up again.
****
It had been an interesting way to spend the afternoon. Scully had never
been to a support group before, and although she had felt somewhat
uncomfortable at first, she was considering going back.
She put the key in the top lock of her door and turned it, hearing the
deadbolt turn. She twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open.
A light was on the living room. She could see a light on in the kitchen
as well, and she heard water running. The hairs on the back of her neck
stood on end and she felt her heart rate quicken.
Oh, God, someone's in my apartment.
Panic rushed through her like roaring rapids. She let her purse strap
slide off her shoulder and it fell to the floor softly as she drew her
gun from the holster at the back of her waistband.
Scully slowly advanced into the apartment, toward the kitchen. She
could see Michael Coleman's face in front of her, as she had opened her
eyes that night to find him over her bed. This time, I'm going to
surprise whoever this fucker is, she thought, but her actions were not
as sure as her desires. The gun trembled in her hand.
The water stopped, and she could hear someone walking across the kitchen
tile floor.
Come on, she prodded herself. Just walk in there.
She tightened her grip on the gun and took a deep breath before going
around the corner. "Freeze!" she screamed, tightening her finger on the
trigger, ready to shoot.
In front of her, Mulder spun around and dropped the glass mixing bowl he
was holding. It shattered on the floor at his feet. "Scully, it's me!"
he yelled.
"Oh my God! Jesus Christ!" she swore, lowering her gun, trying to get
her breathing back to normal. Her heart was pounding so hard that she
could feel it pulsing painfully in every vein in her body. So close,
she thought, closing her eyes for a brief moment. I almost shot him.
She opened her eyes and looked Mulder over. "What the hell are you
doing here?"
"I was trying to make you dinner," Mulder murmured apologetically,
looking down at the glass shards at his feet. "Surprise."
Scully felt like kicking herself. With a quick glance around the
kitchen, she could see pasta beginning to boil on the stove and the
simmering pot of sauce on the other burner. In her fear, she hadn't
noticed the tempting aroma of the herbs and spices. The surprise meal,
the broken glass, and the knowledge that she had almost shot Mulder were
almost completely overwhelming. Scully could feel hot tears prick
behind her eyelids, but she pushed them back.
Mulder sensed her agitation, and came to her and hugged her. Once his
arms were around her, he gently slipped the gun from her hand. She had
only been back to work for a few weeks since they'd returned from
Florida.
"Why don't you get changed," he suggested, releasing her, "and I'll
finish making dinner." Scully looked helplessly at the broken glass on
the floor. "I'll get it, don't worry." Mulder gave her a gentle push
in the direction of the bedroom.
After her panic attack in the hotel room in Tampa, her visits to the
rape crisis counselor had seemed to make her more at ease.
Until, he thought as he watched her head for her bedroom, she had almost
shot him just a few minutes ago. He was worried about her -- about
them.
******
Scully emerged from her bedroom fifteen minutes later, feeling better.
She had changed into jeans and a loose cabled sweater and had cried
silently in the bathroom for a few minutes, then washed her face,
feeling the comfort of the cool water on her skin. She had pressed a
washcloth on her eyes, willing the puffiness to go away. She didn't
want Mulder to know that she had been crying, although she suspected he
would notice anyhow.
The powerful smell of the spaghetti sauce drew her toward the table.
Mulder had set the table, but there was no soft music, no candles.
Scully gratefully blessed whatever it was that had kept Mulder from
adding those touches to the evening. He had somehow known that it would
have made her more uneasy. As Scully looked up, Mulder appeared as if
by magic in the doorway. In one hand he held a bowl of spaghetti, and
the other held a pottery bowl. Scully could see the red sauce steaming
from it. He stopped when he saw her.
"Could you grab the wine from the kitchen?" he asked, trying to sound
casual.
Scully nodded and returned a moment later, pouring the wine into two
glasses as Mulder spooned the piping hot spaghetti onto two plates.
Being here with Mulder, in this kind of setting, felt almost
unbelieveable to her. When did this all happen? She and Mulder,
sharing dinner on their off-duty time. "Since when did you learn how to
cook?" she asked him suspiciously.
He smiled back at her. "I know how to cook one thing," he admitted.
"My mom taught me how to make her spaghetti sauce." He lifted his glass
of wine to toast hers.
"What are we toasting?" she asked.
Mulder paused. "Having you back at work," he answered finally, smiling,
and was relieved when she smiled back. They clinked glasses and Mulder
watched her sip thoughtfully.
"Dinner smells good," she informed him.
"It tastes as good as it smells," he said confidently.
Across the table, Scully was trying to be calm. Her hands were shaking
and she wasn't sure if Mulder had seen the glass shaking as they'd
toasted. She was nervous -- the dinner, the fact that she almost shot
Mulder -- it was all making her just a little jumpy. She hoped that the
food would relax her.
****
"Dinner was incredible," Scully said as she helped Mulder put the last
dishes away.
"Thank you," he smiled at her, turning off the water, "for not expecting
the worst."
She smiled back, putting the dish towel away. "Can I get you
something? Another glass of wine?" she asked. Scully didn't know what
to do, what to say to him. Part of her knew exactly where this was
leading, and although she knew that Mulder wouldn't have planned it that
way, she knew that he wasn't against it, either. And in her heart, she
knew she wasn't, either.
Mulder nodded, but she assumed that he didn't want the wine. He wanted
her. And she knew from the tone of her question she wasn't just asking
about wine.
He took a few casual steps toward her. It made her heart quicken, but
not from fear. From excitement. He touched her face with one hand.
Scully felt his warm hands smoothing the skin of her face. She let him
advance towards her more, her back up against the sink. He kissed her
this time, gently, carefully, letting his lips move over hers in a soft
rhythm. Scully felt her arms slip up around his neck.
<Please, Scully, please don't be scared. I won't hurt you.>
Mulder found his emotions conflicting wildly. He knew that when they
were in Tampa she'd had such terrible anxiety, and yet she was kissing
him now, very obviously wanting what he wanted. He was incredibly
aroused from the gentle touch of her hands moving down his back, and
terrified that she was going to have a flashback and panic. He
reluctantly broke their kiss and studied her face.
"Why did you stop?" she asked, a little breathless, her face slightly
flushed.
"Because I want to be sure that you want to do this."
Scully paused and thought about it. Then she smiled tenderly at him.
"Mulder, I've wanted to do this for longer than you can imagine."
"I don't know about that," he replied, smiling back.
"I want you to stay tonight," Scully told him.
"Are you sure?"
"Mulder, I want you to stay. I know *you* want to stay." Mulder
nodded, helpless to deny it. "Good. Then it's settled. You're
staying."
Scully took his hand and led him into the bedroom. Mulder looked around
the room, recalling the last time he'd been in it. He pushed those dark
memories aside. Tonight, they would create new ones. He kissed her
again, feeling her respond to him.
Scully was tugging at his shirt, trying to pull it from the waist of his
jeans, succeeding and then slipping her cool hands onto his skin. He
gasped at her touch. "Scully..."
Mulder looked at her sweater and Scully nodded her approval. Mulder
pulled the material up and over her head. She was wearing a plain white
bra underneath, and he breathed in deeply at the sight of her breasts,
held safely within the confines of its cups. He ran his fingers over
the straps, sliding them down, never once taking his eyes away from
hers.
He reached behind her and undid the clasp, pulling the bra away from her
body, and breathed in deeply at the sight of her breasts.
Her beautiful breasts.
Her helped her onto the bed, unbuttoning her jeans and tugging them down
off her hips, pulling her underwear with them. She helped him by
pushing them down, past her calves and ankles, kicking them off the rest
of the way.
She was now nude before him, and although her face looked up at him with
love, her body trembled terribly. Mulder quickly stripped off his shirt
and jeans and crawled back under the covers with her, pressing the
length of his body against hers, trying to soothe her with his presence.
"It's OK, Scully. It's OK. It's me. It's me." He repeated his words
over and over, softly, breathing them directly into her ear, until her
body calmed.
Mulder gently kissed the skin at the base of her neck, then kissed her
chin, her mouth, her eyelids. She sighed and moved against him.
He could feel her body gradually relax.
He silently thanked a God he was starting to believe in for helping
Scully to trust him with this, the most intimate thing in the world for
her.
And it was intimate. It was more intimate than any other sexual
experience he'd ever had. Making love to Scully was going to be
incredible -- he knew that. And he had waited for her for so long. He
would have waited a lifetime, if that was how long she needed to deal
with the trauma of her rape.
Mulder ran his hands over her body, taking the time to explore
everything. Slowly, slowly.
Her back. The small of her back curved in and he touched his fingertips
to that small space, feeling her hips and the cheecks of her ass flare
out. He ran his hands over each cheek, squeezing them gently, not
wanting to hurt her, not wanting to startle her or frighten her.
He moved his hands over her breasts, yes, finally, her breasts. Scully
gasped as the sensations pulsed through her body. Mulder was being
very, very gentle with her, and she silently thanked him for it. It was
making her arousal stronger, and her feelings of fear began to slip
away.
She could feel how incredibly sensitive she was to his touch. Mulder
brushed her nipples with the tips of his fingers, just barely. Scully
felt a new wave of arousal flow thorough her body, and a spark of fear.
She jerked her eyes open. It's Mulder. Mulder. He won't hurt me.
He bent his head to suck on one of her nipples, gently, carefully, his
tongue making small circles around them and then back and over the
sensitive tip, making her sigh and grasp his arms and his shoulder
tightly, sighing and moaning his name.
Mulder slipped one hand down between her legs, carefully, gradually
pushing them apart, moving his fingers through the soft tufts of curly
hair to touch her. He was thrilled to find her wet. Scully heard
herself cry out softly at the touch. "Mulder," she gasped into his ear.
Scully looked up and saw Mulder smiling at her, watching her body moving
under his touch. She could feel him touching her, felt him causing her
body to arch and move, felt him causing her to say his name over and
over again. She wanted him inside her. She couldn't wait.
The pleasure within her was building to a fever pitch and her breathing
grew more labored.
"Mulder--"
"Shhh, Scully, it's OK..."
Scully hitched and tried to catch her breath and found that she
couldn't. There was a jerk, a snap in what she was seeing and she
blinked rapidly, trying to clear her line of sight.
It was as if she had been yanked from her own body and placed at the
side of the bed, hovering over it slightly. She could see what was
going on below her. She was writhing under Mulder's touch. It was
incredibly erotic; he was taking special care to make it easy for her --
less frightening for her.
He lifted himself up just as she was beginning to come. Positioned
himself over her body. He was going to enter her.
Oh, God, she was naked and vulnerable.
His hair suddenly darkened, his build changed. His movements, before so
tender and gentle, were becoming rough. Scully blinked rapidly a few
times, and she was back on the bed, coming, moaning, and he was on top
of her, his fingers gone, and she felt him forcing himself into her.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment, trying to make her body
stop responding to him, but it was impossible. She couldn't stop the
orgasm as it built, pushing her over the edge, and she moaned and cried
out as it did.
Scully opened her eyes as she felt him push deep within her. Mulder was
gone. Michael Coleman's face was above hers. His mouth was twisted
into an evil smile, and he was laughing. "You're coming for me now,
aren't you, bitch?" he asked, and Scully screamed.
"God, no, please, stop!"
Mulder moved to Scully's side immediately. What the hell happened?
She had started to come and she had closed her eyes, and Mulder had
assumed that it was from pleasure. He had moved to cradle her, wanting
her to open her eyes after the orgasm was over, to see that he was
there, that she was safe. He had done all of that, knowing that once
she had calmed down, they would resume making love.
He hadn't even come close to entering her. Mulder quickly realized that
she was imagining that he had pushed into her, that he was raping her,
just like Michael Coleman did. Maybe she was even thinking that it
*was* Michael Coleman on the bed with her.
"Stop, Mulder, God, stop, please!" she cried, but her words were
beginning to disappear, her very *self* was starting to fade. Her hands
balled up over her eyes and she was sobbing in loud, terrified wails.
"Scully, it's me, I'm here," Mulder repeated over and over. His heart
was pounding in terror. He wrapped the sheet around his own body and
the blanket around hers, trying to make her feel safer, to feel as if
she could have some sense of protection from the rapist who was only in
her head, behind her closed eyelids. "I'm here. It's OK. You're
fine," he repeated, holding her carefully, lightly stroking her forehead
as she sobbed wordlessly.
*******
A few hours later, Scully opened her eyes. Through her hazy vision she
could see that she was still in her bed, with Mulder curled up next to
her, one arm protectively around her waist. As she blinked, Mulder
stirred next to her, kissing her forehead lightly. "Hi," he said
softly. "How are you doing?"
Scully wrapped her arms tighter around his waist.
She could feel immediately that he was wearing his jeans. Last thing
she remembered, he had been naked. She had been as well. She found she
was now wearing a long t-shirt that came down past her waist. "How did
I get this on?" she asked, bewildered and still fearful.
"I found it in one of your drawers. I figured...you wouldn't want to
wake up with no clothes on."
Scully nodded gratefully. She closed her eyes, pushing her face into
the pillow, trying to hide the tears. It was too late. Mulder had seen
them. And he had seen the embarrassment and shame she was trying to
keep from him as well. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice muffled.
Mulder lightly rubbed her back, keeping his arm around her
supportively. "There's nothing to be sorry about."
She drew her face up to look at him, her tearstained cheeks flushed.
"But, Mulder--"
"There's nothing to be sorry about," he repeated, firmly. "It's OK."
Scully put her face back into the pillow. There were no tears left for
her to cry. When Mulder tried to pull her up so that he could hold her
more fully, she let him.
*****
Ten months had passed.
Scully continued to go to talk to the counselor from the Rape Crisis
Center, and she continued to go to the support group, gradually opening
up more and more, talking about the rape, about what had happened to
her.
Mulder had willingly moved in with her when she asked him only a month
after the first time they had tried to make love. He attended the
support group for partners of victims of sexual assault that was
sponsored by the Crisis Center. Scully's nightmares had resumed with
alarming frequency soon after the first time they had tried to make
love, but were once more on the decline. Occasionally she would have a
particularly terrifying episode and would wake up screaming, but Mulder
would be there to hold her and calm her and help her fall back asleep.
For the first few months, Mulder had continued paying rent for his
apartment, although he had moved all of his things -- books and clothes
and his small array of furniture and knick knacks -- into Scully's
place. At first Mulder had been hesitant to bring over his strange
collection of personal belongings. After all, he felt as if they hardly
fit in to the decor at Scully's place. But she had insisted upon him
having his own things there so that he would have to keep running back
and forth between apartments.
Mulder and Scully finally made love for the first time almost seven
months after the first time they'd tried. Afterwards, Mulder held
Scully tightly in his arms, kissed the top of her head, and lazily
traced patterns on her back with one finger. "You OK?" he asked.
"Uh-huh," she mumbled.
"Scully, look at me."
Scully turned to look at him. He expected the tears, the trembling, the
vivid flashbacks that were so real to her and still so unfathomable to
him. He knew all about having flashbacks -- just not the kind she was
having.
Scully's face was lit by a smile.
A smile.
Her eyes were brimming with tears, but for once Mulder knew that they
were not from fear. "I pushed him out," Scully murmured. "Out of my
head."
"Good for you," Mulder said, prouder of her than he had ever been
before. He had known that this day would come. He knew that she would
still have the flashbacks when they made love, but he was hoping, as she
did, that with this breakthrough, the occurrences might be less.
"I don't know why you stay with me," Scully had said to him one night a
few hours after calming down from a flashback.
"Because I love you," Mulder answered simply.
"Thank you for being so good to me," she whispered as they were about to
drift off to sleep that night.
"You know, you're not fragile," he murmured back to her. "You make
yourself strong, Scully. You're the only one who can do it. And you're
doing it. Remember that."
Mulder kissed her now, kissing the tears of happiness that fell on her
cheeks.
CONTINUED IN PART 8
Beyond Fragile (8/8)
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
CONFERENCE ROOM 108
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
TWO YEARS LATER
Dana Scully opened the door to the conference room that was used for the
support groups she'd been attending off and on for nearly two years.
For some reason over the past few months, she had felt an increasing
need to attend them again more regularly, and had found the support and
understanding from the other women there to be somehow more helpful now
than it had been right after her rape.
Scully scanned the room quickly. There were a few faces that she knew,
and she nodded her head in hello to them. Then she saw Allison
Westfall, sitting alone in a corner.
Scully went to her side immediately.
"Allison, how are you?" she asked. She had last seen Allison in a
hospital in Virginia four months ago. She had been hospitalized for a
suicide attempt. After the first time that Scully had seen her at the
support group, Allison had stopped coming. She had spent the better
part of the time since her rape occurred denying her feelings about what
it was that had destroyed her marriage -- and a good part of her life
and sanity. Scully was more than a little surprised to see her here.
"Hi, Dana," Allison greeted her, glad to see a familiar face. "I'm
okay."
"I'm a little surprised to see you here," Scully confessed.
Allison nodded. "You know, I was thinking a lot about what you said the
last time I saw you. About how healing only happens when you're ready
to open yourself up to look at the things that have hurt you."
"I said that?" Scully asked. "God, I sound so preachy. It's terrible,"
she chuckled softly.
"No," Allison answered, "it's not. It got me thinking. For the last
three and a half years now I've been ignoring and pushing down all my
feelings about what happened, and it tore me apart. And you know what?
I'm tired of doing it. I'm tired of being a victim."
Scully nodded. She understood the feeling.
"I've been going to a few different support groups, trying to find one
that I feel comfortable with. I was here last week. It felt good...to
talk about things. To open up. Scary, but good."
Scully nodded again. "I wasn't here last week, but I'm glad you came
back. It's a good group. It's got to make it much easier to have
someone here that you already know, someone you know will already be
supportive, being here...it makes all the difference." Scully paused
and studied Allison thoughtfully. "The thing I hated the most is that I
expected most people to treat me differently when they found out that
I'd been raped. Like any little thing they said was going to hurt me,
or break me. I started realizing that not everyone acts that way. I
don't wear a sign that says that I was raped. Not everyone knows. And
I also realized that even if they do know, that they don't think I was
weak. They see that I've been strong to have gotten through it. It's
taken me a long time to realize it, but I *am* strong. And I've been
able to find certain people in my life who realize it too."
Allison nodded, her eyes filling with tears. "That's exactly it.
That's it." He voice held a certain trace of admiration and wonder,
amazed that she'd found someone who *understood* what she was going
through.
Scully reached out and took Allison's hand, squeezing it. She closed
her eyes for a moment as she silently thanked Mulder for his love and
support.
She could have done it alone. But as it turned out, she didn't have to.
Thanks to Mulder. For what he'd shown her. Shown her about what she
already knew.
She was strong, damn it.
But thanks to him, she wasn't alone.
END
Thank you to everyone who read this...comments would be greatly
appreciated. Just hit reply.
--
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/1377
***************************************************
"We all have a dark side; it's bullshit to say
that we don't. At some point we're going to have
to face that." --Sarah McLachlan
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