<![CDATA[
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (1/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:45:44 -0500
Okay, this is a first time post. I've been checking out a bunch of
the stories posted here, have enjoyed them, and been impressed
by the caliber of talent. So, I decided to try my hand. I hope you
like it. All comments are encouraged and appreciated. You can
e-mail me at krasch@delphi.com.
This is not a case file, but rather a relationship story (a rather popular
genre around here, judging from what I've read thus far). Is it a
romance? I guess that depends on your definition. No outright
sex (you gotta give yourself somewhere to go, after all). Instead, it
focuses on Mulder's feelings of responsibility, friendship, love, guilt,
etc. towards the enigmatic Dr. Scully.
Needless to say, these characters are the property of Chris Carter, Ten
Thirteen Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox Television, and are
used utterly without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
I'm just doing this 'cause it's fun.
Lastly, thanks to the various writers I've corresponded with since finding
this newsgroup--you are a good group of people, and I would like to
especially thank my editor-in-chief, Helen, for her insight and good humor.
Thanks,
Karen
Coming Back (1/4)
He should have known.
Should have realized, noticed. Should have seen. Where had his
mind been the past few weeks? Or had it been going on longer?
Maybe even months. Jesus. What had monopolized his thoughts
so completely that he had been blind to the situation?
That was his real crime. Self-absorption. Sure, he could reason away
his behavior in any of a dozen different ways to mitigate his guilt:
He was a dedicated professional. His work was everything to him.
His cause was just. He struggled every day against forces with
unimaginable power to uncover THE TRUTH.
His mouth twisted wryly at the that last thought. You gotta use
capital letters when you're talking about that one, don't you Mulder?
He shook his head sheepishly at his delusions of grandeur and
changed his two handed grip on the steering wheel for the umpteenth
time, cracking his knuckles with pleasure as he did so. Straining
forward ever so slightly, he fought the night and the sheeting rain
for a better glimpse at the highway.
Couch it in whatever lofty terms you like, he thought darkly, his
eyes narrowed in concentration. But when you get right down to it
Agent Mulder, you're obsessed, plain and simple. And that
obsession has kept you alone. Isolated. In your universe, there
isn't another planet in sight but your own.
Except for Scully.
He checked his watch again, holding it against the dashboard lights
to catch the time. 3:13. When had he left the Washington area?
Must have been close to midnight. God. It felt like he had been on
the road for days. He hated driving on nights like this. What had
started out as a mid-afternoon shower had rapidly developed into a
full blown deluge, growing ever stronger the further north he traveled.
On the positive side, except for the odd truck, traffic was non-existent.
Unfortunately, conditions were such that keeping his government
issued sedan at the speed limit was really the best he could hope for.
Alerted by the glowing paint marking the road's edge, he slowed to
take a curve. The tires held their line, but not by much. The negatives
regarding travel on a night such as this were relatively obvious, he
mused grimly. A raw white fork of lightning followed closely after by
the deep rumble of thunder punctuated his thought.
Only one person alive could have drawn him out of his snug little
apartment in weather like this: His partner, Dana Scully.
The other planet in my cosmos.
His lips tugged in an imitation of a smile. I better watch it. I'm getting
punchy and I've got at least another three hours of hard driving ahead,
he thought with weary amusement. Besides, for all of her solid, no-
nonsense advice and unwavering adherence to basic scientific
principles, he really couldn't think of Scully as anything so mundane
as a planet.
More like a star.
Oh god, Mulder, don't go waxing poetical, he told himself disparagingly,
more than a little startled that he would come up with such a sentimental
image for his pragmatic partner. Anyway, if you want to take the
astronomical metaphor to its most asinine conclusion, try casting
yourself as a meteor that smashed itself smack dab into the heart of
Scully's belief system. That's a hell of a lot more accurate.
He pulled up as closely as he dared to a lumbering semi and began the
treacherous trip around the much larger vehicle. Yeah. As destructive
as the imagery was, he knew 'Mulder as Meteor' was much closer to the
truth. He recognized that what they had encountered since partnering
together had destroyed or, at the very least, severely challenged many
of Scully's most deeply held tenets. When they had first paired up, she
had thought she understood the world and the people who run it. She
had believed that those above them would act with the same decency
and honor as she would herself. He had told her differently, had tested
her courage and resolve with tales of the unexplained, of conspiracies
and government cover-ups. Still, she had clung to the notions that
science could explain anything as long as you asked the proper
questions, and that the government really was an instrument of the people.
Yet slowly, bit by bit, like water wearing down a rock, his partner had
begun to realize that not every phenomenon had a logical, scientific
explanation. More importantly, she came to know that one person's
truth is another person's poison. That some secrets are buried so
deeply it takes the equivalent of an earthquake to bring them to light.
She hadn't learned these unpleasantries out of a book or from listening
to one of his slide show lectures. No. Scully had done it the hard way.
He cleared the truck and breathed a sigh of relief, guiding his dark
colored sedan once again into the right hand lane. Lightning speared
the sky overhead.
The hard way. His hands tightened fractionally on the wheel. Could
anything have been harder, more difficult or painful for either of them
than her abduction? Just thinking about it was enough to chill his skin
and send his stomach in the direction of his knees.
The funny thing was that sometimes he could very nearly convince
himself it hadn't happened. If he shoved the memories of that time far
enough back in the most remote corner of his mind, and piled enough
other stuff in front of them he could *almost* forget what had occurred.
After all, Scully was back now, wasn't she? She was whole. Her fine
mind and endlessly surprising personality were intact. She didn't
remember anything of the incident. Why couldn't they pretend those
three months never happened?
He chuckled mirthlessly at such naivet�. Try asking that question right
after you wake up from one of your nightmares, Mulder, he challenged
himself derisively. Go ahead and tell yourself that nothing ever
happened when you can't wipe out of your mind the image of her on
that hospital bed--her coppery hair the only real color left in the world,
tubes and wires poking grotesquely in to and out of seemingly every
square inch of her body, her chest rising and falling with the ventilator's
rhythm, her entire existence hinging on the readouts from the machines
that circled the bed. Tell yourself you don't remember that.
And then let's see just what kind of a seeker of truth you really are.
Banishing the disturbing images from his mind's eye, he released a
breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. If it was that way for
him, a by-stander in the drama, how much worse must it be for her, he
wondered not for the first time. She was the one who had lived it.
How could she have come out of it so unscathed? She said she
couldn't remember anything from the time Duane Barry took her. In
many ways, that was a blessing, Mulder allowed. Yet, even though
he thanked the capricious intricacies of the human mind for allowing
his partner to carry on her life unburdened by trauma brought on by
her time away, a nagging little voice warned him that such selective
memory might not prove permanent.
He shook his head ruefully at the twists and turns in logic his mind
was taking. How ironic that he, a man so consumed with discovering
the truth, would worry that it might pop up unheralded to torment
his best friend.
His best friend.
When had he started thinking of Scully that way? When had she
gone from that woman who had been sent to spy on him to the one
person in the world he could trust without limits? When had her
presence in his life metamorphosed from an nuisance into a necessity?
Mulder blinked in amazement. Where the hell had that thought
come from? He cared about Scully. Sure. They were partners, friends.
But needing her. . . . Uncomfortable with the intimacy such an
observation suggested, he tried looking at their relationship in an
objective light. Of course you feel close to her, he told himself
rationally. You spend more time with her than anyone else. You're
both workaholics. Your styles, strange as it may seem to some at first
glance, mesh extraordinarily well. You like the way she thinks--even
if she =never= agrees with you. She keeps you on your toes. She
keeps you honest. She makes you laugh; even at yourself. That's
what a best friend is supposed to do.
And besides--it's not like she has a lot of competition in the "best
friend" category. It's the obsession thing again, Mulder, he goaded
himself. It works like a spun cotton buffer. It cuts you off from the
real world. Your focus becomes so narrow, so pinpointed that you fail
to see the everyday stuff going on around you.
He shifted restlessly, and shrugged out of the cotton jacket he had
thrown over his sweatshirt to help keep out the mid-October chill.
After a slow start, the car's heater was working overtime. He turned
it down for good measure.
So, what =had= been going on with Scully the past several weeks?
They hadn't been out in the field. Their work had been largely confined
to their D.C. office, wrapping up the paperwork on their last case and
researching leads on a few promising others. It was an unusually slow
time X-File-wise, and therefore he hadn't been overly surprised when
the Friday before last Scully had announced her decision to take some
time off.
"I figure this is as good a time as any," she had said in that matter-of-fact
way she had. "I've already got so much time owed me that Skinner is
threatening to take it away if I don't do something with it."
"Big vacation plans?" he had asked more out of politeness than any
real need to know.
"No, not really. Some relatives have a cabin in upstate New York they're
not using. I thought I might hide up there for awhile."
"Sounds like a good idea."
He replayed that brief conversation in his mind a half dozen times.
Had her eyes seemed dimmer than their usual bright blue? Had her
tone of voice been more determinedly upbeat than necessary?
He shook his head wearily. Who was he kidding? He couldn't
remember. Hell, he hadn't even really been paying attention. The
afternoon she chose to tell him of her plans, he had been plowing
through an old case file he had found particularly fascinating. Such
reading was for him always addictive. In fact, he recalled being
vaguely annoyed at her interruption. Having his partner tell him
she was going on vacation hadn't seemed important enough to
take any special note.
In looking back over the conversation, however, one thing did stick
out in his mind: <"I thought I might hide up there for awhile.">
Those had been her exact words; he was sure of it. At the time, it
had merely seemed like a figure of speech. But in retrospect . . .
had her choice of words been deliberate? What did she feel the
need to escape from? Had she given him any clues at all?
A crash of thunder shook the car and Mulder's concentration. All
right, forget that afternoon, he instructed himself impatiently. But
before that--had Scully behaved at all unusually?
As was their norm, they had spent a lot of time together. In fact,
now that he thought about it, he could remember her spending a
hell of a lot more time than necessary, especially given their caseload,
at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He often stayed in his basement cell
long after regular business hours, using the bureau's resources to aid
in his continuing search for his sister. However, while Scully was no
slave to the time clock, she usually knew when to call it quits. But she
hadn't the past few weeks, had she? He could even recall teasing her
about it.
"I thought you wanted a life, Scully," he had said with a small smile
one evening as they sat across from each other at their desks.
"What can I tell you, Mulder," she had murmured in reply, taking a
moment to slide her glasses from her eyes and wearily pinch the
bridge of her nose. "You must be a bad influence."
Wearily.
She might have seemed a bit more tired than usual, he allowed. A
bit more drawn. Had she been eating? They had shared a table in
diners and greasy spoons across America. But for the life of him,
he couldn't remember recently sitting down to a meal with her. It
seemed like every time he'd ask if she wanted to break for lunch or
even dinner she had an errand to run or she was making headway
with some project or other, and was too busy to stop and eat. He
supposed it could be possible that her weight had gone down a few
pounds. But it was so hard to tell! She was always dressed in suits.
Suits had jackets. Jackets hid a woman's body. Although why
Scully would want to hide her figure was beyond him. He had seen
the woman in her underwear, so he knew she had nothing to be
ashamed of.
An embarrassed smile found its way onto Mulder's lips. As silly
as it seemed, he felt almost disloyal considering Scully's body in
such an objective fashion. After all, she was his partner. He valued
her for her friendship, her loyalty, her quick mind, and even quicker
wit. The shape of her body should be irrelevant.
Then why did he know he could recognize the exact curve of her
waist faster than the Broncos could lose a Super Bowl?
The realization that he was more aware of Scully's physicality than he
might have liked was enough to turn his chagrined smile into just a
plain old grin. "Sorry, Scully. I'm only human," he said softly,
apologizing to his absent friend. Oh yes, he had noticed more about
Dana Scully than he cared to consider. He knew she was an attractive
woman. And under different circumstances . . .
Sighing, he ran his hand through his closely cropped brown hair.
Circumstances were what they were. Period. No use wishing for
things to be different. Besides, he liked what they had. Scully
knew him inside out and still stuck with him. He could tell her
anything and know she would take it in, judgment withheld, and
keep his secrets to her grave. In return, she'd tell him the truth, no
holds barred, even when she knew what she had to say would be
unwelcome. Mulder had learned from painful experience that
friends like her were hard to come by. No way he'd jeopardize
their relationship. No way in hell.
And, he'd do anything to protect it. So, when Margaret Scully
had called him at such an unusually late hour, any thoughts of a
cozy evening in front of the TV had been immediately banished.
"Hello, Fox? I'm sorry to call so late . . ."
"Mrs. Scully? Is something wrong?"
"Well, that's the problem. I don't know. You see, . . . I had
that dream again."
The dream.
Mulder's heart had gone allegro at the very mention of it. Mrs.
Scully's sleep had been disturbed once before. When Dana
had been taken away.
"Start at the beginning Mrs. Scully. And tell me everything."
As it turned out, there really wasn't much to tell. Scully had
driven up to her uncle's cabin in the Adirondacks the previous
Saturday. "The cabin's nothing fancy," Mrs. Scully had explained.
"But it's quiet, peaceful. Not another neighbor for miles, especially
this time of year. We used to spend vacations up there when the
children were little. It's always been one of Dana's favorite places."
Scully planned on returning Sunday. "I don't know why I waited a
whole week . . . until the day before she was coming home," Mrs.
Scully had said in a hushed voice. "But for some reason, I just had
to speak with her tonight, so I tried calling the cabin. The phone was
dead."
"Well, you have to figure what with the storm, downed phone lines
aren't that unusual," Mulder had offered reasonably.
"I know. I know you're right," Mrs. Scully had hurried to agree,
although she didn't sound entirely convinced. "That's what I keep
telling myself. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was
wrong. Then . . . when I dreamed about her being taken again . . ."
Mulder had nodded into the phone. He didn't need for her to go
into detail.
"Fox, I need to know Dana is all right. I'd make the drive up there
myself. But, I've got my oldest boy's children staying with me. He
and his wife are on vacation. So, I just can't get in the car and take off--"
"Don't worry about it, Mrs. Scully," Mulder had said in his most calm,
reassuring voice. "I'll go check it out. I'm sure everything is fine."
He thought he heard her sigh in relief. "Thank you, Fox. I hope
you're right."
Quite frankly, he hoped he was too.
*******************************************************
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (2/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:46:25 -0500
The saga continues. For acknowledgments and copyright info please
check Part 1. For those who came in late--this is Part 2. Again: any
comments, constructive criticism, or observations about life in
general, please e-mail me at krasch@delphi.com. All are appreciated.
Thanks for sticking with me this long!
Coming Back (2/4)
He glanced at his watch, this time not needing the assistance of the
car's interior lights. 6:20. He had turned off the main highway about
a half hour earlier, and was now cruising one of the county blacktops,
looking for the turn-off Mrs. Scully had mentioned. The rain had let
up; a light mist continued to glaze his windshield. But thankfully, the
tumultuous downpours of the previous night had abated. He had
stopped for gas soon after exiting the interstate and had picked up a
cup of coffee and a danish at the "qwik pantry." He needed the
combination of sugar and caffeine. It had been a long night. He was
hungry, exhausted and in need of a shave.
He drove through the sleepy little vacation towns feeling like a ghost
slipping through the communities on the ether. Few people were out
and about this early on a Sunday morning in the off-season. What
had drawn Scully up here? The scenery was pretty, sure. But, the
peak of the autumn colors was long since over. More leaves spun
and whirled with the gentle fall wind like so much crumpled paper
than remained on the trees. However, if she had truly wanted to
"get away from it all" this was the place. The town of Two Rivers,
the cabin's official address, was remote, and as removed from the
bustling Beltway as could be imaginable.
Yet, the question that remained in Mulder's mind was why.
Another mile, and he spotted the sign Mrs. Scully had instructed
him to look for. The private road leading to the cabin was unpaved.
Mulder took it faster than he should have. Although, whether it
was his desire to finally get out of the automobile or his need to
see that Scully was all right which drove him, he couldn't say.
Exactly one point five miles later the road widen into a clearing.
A mammoth, lightning charred tree marked the property's entrance.
As Mrs. Scully had said, the cabin was no more, no less than that.
Perched on cinder blocks, the sturdy little structure's rough wood
exterior was complemented by a green shingle roof and matching
shutters. Scully's car was parked along side of it.
Mulder grabbed his gym bag off the seat beside him and climbed
stiffly out of the sedan. Stretching his long legs as he walked, he
climbed the stairs leading to the cabin, and knocked on the door.
No answer.
Well, it was early. He didn't imagine that Scully was often up
before 7:00 on her days off.
"Scully?" He called once, his voice raised just above its normal
speaking level. When that garnered no response, he tried again,
both his knock and his voice a touch louder. "Scully? Come on,
open the door. It's me."
Still nothing.
Now, he was becoming concerned. Not only wasn't she answering
the door, but he couldn't hear any sound at all emanating from the
cabin. He tried the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand. The
door swung silently open.
"For crying out loud, Scully," he mumbled in disgust. The woman
was an F.B.I. agent. She really should know better than to leave her
door unlocked in the middle of bloody nowhere. Just to be on the
safe side, he pulled his gun out of his bag and flipped off the safety.
Easing the door open cautiously, he stepped inside.
"Scully? Are you here?"
He had stepped into what he imagined would be called the great room.
A kitchen bordered on one side by a breakfast bar looked out on a
dining area and living room space that was dominated by a massive
stone fireplace. An alcove opposite the hearth contained three doors.
All were ajar. The one in the middle apparently served as the entrance
to a bathroom. The other two chambers appeared to be bedrooms.
Mulder tossed his bag on the floor and keeping his weapon with him,
crossed to the alcove.
"Scully?" He pushed open one bedroom door. Picture perfect. The
bed was made, a comforter was neatly folded at the foot of it, the
curtains were drawn. Only a light coating of dust marred the scene.
No one had spent time in that room in a long while. Growing more
concerned by the minute, Mulder turned around and checked out
the other bedroom.
This was more like it. Although this room's bed was also made, Scully's
glasses and that Patricia Cornwell mystery she had been trying to finish
sat on the bedside table. One of her sweaters was casually tossed over
the back of the ladder back chair that stood near the window. Her brush
and make-up bag sat on the dresser top. He walked over to the closet.
Clothes he recognized as hers hung neatly before him. Her small
suitcase was stowed just where it should be on the floor.
But no sign of Scully herself.
Where could she be, he silently asked, refusing to give into panic.
<You see, . . . I had that dream again.>
No. He would not believe that. Maybe she had slipped and fallen in
the shower. She could be laying in there, bleeding right now.
Wondering how he could somehow be hoping for such a calamity,
Mulder rushed to the bathroom, and flung open the door.
Her toiletries were lined up like soldiers on the toilet tank, her
toothbrush lay on the sink, her white terry cloth robe hung on
the back of the door. The bathtub was empty.
Scully was nowhere to be seen.
His apprehension escalating, Mulder strode back into the main room,
his eyes alert for clues. The fireplace was cool. Powdery gray ashes
were all that filled the hearth's wide mouth. Forcing himself to slow
his breathing and his racing mind, he took a moment to examine the
scene with all five of his senses.
Through his sweatshirt, he could feel that cabin itself was chilly. He
checked the large, antiquated electric heater that sat on the far side
of the room. Cold as could be. He walked over and tried flipping on
a floor lamp. Nothing. The power was out. But surely she would
have lit a fire sometime last night for warmth, he reasoned. And yet,
it didn't seem as if that were the case. The wood, which was piled
waist high in a perfect pyramid against one of the fireplace's stone
walls, looked untouched. Could she have been gone since before
the storm knocked out the power?
Who said she was gone, Mulder, he mentally chided himself. But
what proof did he have that she was still around?
He crossed into the kitchen. A small pastel colored carton caught
his eye. Herbal tea. A box of it stood on the counter, a mug and
spoon beside it. Mulder walked to the stove and lifted the kettle.
It hung heavy from his hand. Perhaps he had proof after all.
"Looks like you were thirsty, Scully, when the lights went out,"
he murmured, his brow furrowed in thought. Okay, so quite
possibly she had still been here when the power failed. Otherwise
why would she have stopped in the middle of brewing her tea?
Good. Except for the evidence attesting to an interrupted tea party,
the kitchen was clean. A plate, a bowl, a couple of glasses and
some silverware sat bone dry in the drainer. Everything else was
exactly where it should be.
Frustrated, Mulder looked around at a loss. There just weren't that
many places in the cabin to hide! <"I thought I might hide up there
for awhile."> Maybe Scully had reached the same conclusion he
had. If she didn't find what she was looking for inside, she might
have tried going out.
First stop: her car. Unlike the cabin, its doors were locked. He
peeked inside. The blue four door was as clean as when she had
driven it out of the bureau's garage.
He checked the ground in front of the cabin, looking for prints,
tire tracks, anything that might shed some light on his partner's
whereabouts. The soil was saturated from the previous night's
downpour. He could plainly see his tracks, but otherwise the dirt
had been washed smooth by the rain. Except . . .what was that near
that stubby patch of grass? A heel mark? He walked over to the
shallow indentation and squatted down for a closer look. Well, what
do you know? Looks like I might be on to something, he thought in
bemused satisfaction. Judging by the half-moon shape, the little
hollow could indeed be part of a person's footprint. Small. Tennis
shoes, maybe. Scully's? Quickly, he scanned the immediate vicinity
to see if he could pick up a trail. Over to his right he found another
blurred indentation. The location and direction of the prints
suggested that whoever had made them had been walking around
the side of the building. Could his partner have headed out back?
He shrugged and shook his head. Who else's would they be?
Feeling like an Indian scout in an old John Wayne western, he
followed her spotty trail to behind the cabin. Once around the rear of
the building, he immediately noticed that the ground cover was much
taller on this side. Approximately twenty yards of waist high grass
stood between the cabin and the surrounding woods.
And shooting right through the heart of the gently waving grass and
weeds ran a path. But it wasn't like the hunters' trails he had seen
weaving through the forest as he had neared the cabin. Those had
been clearly delineated. Their surfaces had been cleared of any
vegetation by years of use, both by man and animal, leaving behind
only the packed earth on which to tread. The way before him had
only recently been beaten through. It looked as if at any moment
the brush would rise up again and swallow the path whole.
"Scully!"
He waited. The steady dripping sound of rain from the trees filled the
silence. In the distance, he could hear the answering cries of birds as
they dove and rolled with the light autumn wind. The sky was pearl
gray, the early morning light diffused. A strange sense of unreality
fell over Mulder. In that moment it was almost possible to imagine
the woods around him as a sentient being. A keeper of secrets.
One to be feared.
Shaking himself out of his reverie, he started down the path, his gun
in his hand. Although the underbrush often blanketed the ground,
from time to time, he could distinguish what he believed to be Scully's
footprints. But only hers. He didn't see a second set.
If you needed to go into the forest for some reason, why blaze a trail,
Scully, he wondered in dismay. She didn't appear to have been
pursued. So, logically she must have been the aggressor. What did
she need out here? Did she see something? If she felt like going for
a nature walk, wouldn't she head out the front to one of the established
trails? None of this made any sense.
His hair was virtually matted to his skull from the light mist that
continued to fall, and he could feel the water seeping into his tennis
shoes. He should have taken his jacket from the car before he set out.
Although the weather was mild for this late in the season, it was still far
from warm. How long might Scully have been out here? He sure as hell
hoped she was dressed for it.
He finally passed through the billowing grass and weeds, and crossed
into the woods itself. Here her trail was much easier to follow. She
appeared to have been moving at a pretty good clip, without care for
stealth. As Mulder followed her footprints he noticed that along the
way branches were broken and vegetation trampled rather than
circumvented.
He saw something flutter in his vision's periphery. His jaw tightening
in reaction, he realized what had caught his eye was a scrap of white
cloth pinned on the end of a twig. With a mixture of fear and
reverence, he pulled the fabric from its resting place, worrying it
between his fingers. Although he had no real basis for the belief, he
knew that the bit of white cotton had been torn from her clothes.
What in god's name was she doing barreling through the forest!
He had a bad feeling about this. Shoving the piece of cloth into his
jeans pocket, Mulder continued.
The longer he followed Scully's trail, the easier it was to read the
subtle clues she had unwittingly left behind. He could tell by the
long and irregular furrows her shoes had made in the mud that she
had had trouble gaining purchase on the sodden ground. At one
point, her tracks went into disarray. She must have fallen, he thought.
A small hand print was pressed into the soft earth. Along side of it,
two skid marks and a hodgepodge of prints, all of them hers. But,
then the tracks went on.
He quickened his pace. "Scully!"
The forest mocked him with its silence. Only the rattle of dying
leaves kept the sound of his breath company.
His journey lengthened, deeper and deeper into the woods.
He came upon a large flat boulder speckled with moss, and slid
to a stop just as the person he was following had done before him.
A small dark spot jumped out at him as if lit by neon.
Oh please, god, don't let that be what I think it is.
His hand trembling ever so slightly, he reached out and ran his
fingertips through a reddish brown stain which pooled atop the
stone. He rolled the greasy substance between his fingers, sniffed
it, touched it with his tongue. Blood. With all the moisture in the
air, it hadn't dried, and the tree cover had kept it from being washed
away completely. He stared at his defiled fingertips, his mind
momentarily shutting down.
Don't go to pieces, he angrily warned himself. You don't know if
this is even hers. Hell, it's more likely you just gave yourself rabies.
But in his heart he knew the blood spilled had belonged to Scully.
Wiping his hand on his pants, he began to run. In spite of the
temperature, he was sweating now, rivulets of it trickling between
his shoulder blades and down his temples to sting his eyes. His
lungs started to burn from a combination of exertion and the brisk air.
Her trail twisted and wove through the trees, following no logical
trajectory. He had just about decided that he had undoubtedly
stumbled upon his very own private hell, that he was destined to
chase Dana Scully through this primordial forest until the end of time,
with no hope of ever laying eyes on her again.
Then he saw her.
At first, he didn't believe it. It didn't seem possible.
She didn't appear real.
This wasn't the woman he knew. She looked fey, not of this world.
She sat huddled, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her weight
rested against a fallen tree covered with lichen. She was drenched,
absolutely soaked to the skin. Her oversized white blouse had turned
transparent, and molded itself to her skin like a shroud. Her hair was
plastered to her head, moisture darkening its copper color to
mahogany. It had been slicked back, leaving her face completely
naked. Cold, or maybe fear, had leeched all color from her features.
An ugly cut adorned her left temple, oozing blood like a ribbon
down the side of her face. Her light blue eyes, huge and unfocused,
stared unseeing. Even from the distance that separated them, Mulder
could see she was shuddering.
For a second, he couldn't budge. "Scully?"
It was as if he didn't dare move too quickly or speak too loudly.
Irrationally, he feared if he did, she would vanish, disappearing as
abruptly as he had found her. But that thought only lasted an instant.
"Scully, what are you doing out here?" he inquired gently as he
approached her. But before he could take more than a couple of
steps, her right arm swung up from where it had been tucked
around her body.
In her hand was her Sig-Sauer. Her left hand rose at the same
time to help support it. Without hesitation, she lifted the gun,
aiming it directly at Mulder's head.
"Scully, it's me," Mulder whispered, freezing in his tracks.
He didn't think she'd heard. Although her arms trembled from the
strain, the Sig's muzzle never wavered from its target.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said softly, putting his own weapon
away in a show of trust. "I want to help you. We need to get you
back to the cabin. As it is, it'll be a miracle if you don't come down
with pneumonia."
He chanced a step, then another, his eyes never leaving hers. Her
pupils were huge, their blackness nearly erasing the blue irises.
He could hear her teeth chattering. Her petite frame was drawn as
tightly as a bow, every muscle rigid. Yet for all her show of ferocity,
he could tell she was on the verge of collapse. Still, she rejected
surrender. Leave it to Scully to refuse to go down without a fight,
Mulder thought with rueful admiration.
"Come on, Scully. You don't want to hurt me," Mulder said as calmly
as he could, hoping he was right. "Put down the gun. Let's go home."
He squatted down to her eye level and reached out his hand. The
change occurred so subtly he almost thought he imagined it. She
blinked, once, twice. Her brow furrowed as if she were trying to
place the face before her. He waited. Ever so gradually, he could
feel her resolve weakening.
"That's right, Scully. It's me, Mulder," he murmured, inching closer,
his hand outstretched, his head now little more than a foot away from
the weapon pointed at it. "You can trust me. I won't let anything
happen to you. I'll keep you safe."
They stayed there for what felt to Mulder like the better part of
eternity, locked in their silent battle of wills. All at once, Scully's
breath expelled in a rush, the gun tumbling from her fingers. He
scooped it from the ground before she could change her mind,
and securing the safety, tucked it in his jeans' back pocket. In a
heartbeat, he was at his partner's side.
*****************************************************
In the end, Mulder had to carry Scully back to the cabin. At first,
he had tried to urge her to her feet. Her eyes still blank, she had
obeyed him readily enough. However, the moment he had released
his hold on her arms, her knees had buckled. He had counted himself
fortunate that he was able to catch her before she crashed to the
forest floor, thus doing herself further damage. But whatever relief
he might have felt had evaporated when he had tipped back her head,
and saw that her eyes had closed. It's nothing, he had kept telling
himself rationally. She fainted, that's all. Just the same, he wasted no
time in lifting her into his arms and retracing their way out of the woods.
Thankfully, now that he had found Scully, the way out of the trees
didn't seem nearly as long as the way in. All the same, he wished he
had the strength to run. Her skin felt like ice, and the force with which
she trembled kept threatening to knock him off balance. She remained
unconscious, her head lolling heavily against his shoulder. Smudges
of her blood smeared the front of his grey sweatshirt like brush strokes.
In his mind churned a million questions, none of which were likely to
get any answers in the immediate future. Forcing himself to beat back
his impatience and his fear, Mulder made good time. Scully weighed
next to nothing in his arms. The only challenge came in getting the
cabin door open without unnecessarily jarring her. Once that was
accomplished, he shouldered his way into her bedroom and laid her
with exquisite care on the bed.
He had to get her out of those clothes. Dragging away his worried
gaze from the fragile looking woman who lay before him, Mulder rifled
through the dresser drawers. He pulled out the first cold-weather
clothes he found: sweatpants, a thick brushed-cotton pullover, and
heavy socks. Tucking the clothes under his arm, he hurriedly crossed
into the bathroom and retrieved a towel before returning to her bedside.
Scully was awake.
"Scully," he breathed, as he settled on the side of the mattress, and
traced the back of his hand tenderly over the curve of her cheek.
"How are you feeling? "
She lay unmoving. Her eyes open, but still unseeing.
"Scully?" Mulder took her chin in his hand and turned her face gently
towards his own. What he saw there sent a chill down his spine, like
a spider scrambling down his back.
Nothing. Nothing at all. A shell remained before him, but the woman
he knew was gone.
He had been frightened by her lack of response in the forest. But, he
had thought, he had =hoped= that her condition was temporary.
That once she realized she wasn't alone and there was nothing to fear,
she would return to her normal self.
That didn't appear to be the case. Don't panic, Mulder, he told
himself determinedly. You're a psychologist. You've seen this
kind of thing before. It's a defense mechanism. Scully's psyche
has obviously received some sort of trauma. She has just shut
herself down to cope. The plan remains the same. Get the woman
out of those wet clothes before she catches her death.
Wincing over his exceedingly poor turn of phrase, he slipped
his arm beneath Scully's shoulders and raised her to a sitting
position. Leaving his arm where it was, he maneuvered his partner
so that she sat on the side of the bed. Glancing over her shoulder,
he noted that the spot where she had just laid was already saturated
with water.
"Okay, Scully," he said softly, sitting beside her. "You're going to
have to help me now. I need you to sit up by yourself so that we
can get these wet things off of you. Do you think you can do that?"
No response.
And yet, when he removed his supporting arm, she remained upright.
The sight afforded Mulder little pleasure. She reminded him of a
bedraggled rag doll who could sit like a real person, just as long as
someone propped her up. Still, he kept talking, reasoning that she
would need such stimulus to keep in touch with the real world.
"Good. . . . All right . . . Now, I need to get you changed. . . ." He
hesitated, exasperated with himself, but unable to continue for an
instant just the same. He knew that at that moment his partner
needed dry warm clothes a lot more than she needed him worrying
about her tender sensibilities, but he couldn't escape the feeling
that he was taking advantage of her. It had been one thing when
she had been lying there unconscious. Then, she was, for want
of a better word, a patient. But now, she was awake, if not aware.
They were sitting side by side, on a bed, and he was getting ready
to take off her clothes. The whole thing seemed like some unholy
parody of a love scene. And he didn't appreciate being cast in the
leading role.
"Shit," he muttered, and resolutely began slipping the buttons free
from the front of her blouse. He worked quickly. Soon the voluminous
garment hung open from her slender shoulders. Taking a deep breath,
Mulder slid it down her arms, and tossed it to the floor. Her skin
gleamed like ivory. The cross she always wore hung like a benediction
around her throat. Willing his gaze not to linger, he picked up the towel
and dried off her torso as best he could, chafing her skin as he went to
try and infuse her with some much needed warmth. She was really such
a tiny little thing, he realized with some amazement, his hands sensitive
through the terry cloth to the fine construction of her bones, the supple
musculature of her shoulders and back. Why did she never seem that
=small= when they were on the job? Grimly, he recognized that under
normal circumstances her presence, her will, her spirit more than made
up for any lack of physical size.
However, all that was missing at the moment.
He grabbed the pullover, and started to slip it on over her head. But
first, his eyes strayed to her bra. The little wisp of lace was as soaked
through as the rest of her clothes, revealing far more of her than he knew
he ought to see. He had wanted to leave her some vestige of modesty,
but what good were dry clothes over wet? He made his decision, and
scrambled to kneel behind her. With a speed that would have done a
high school Lothario proud, he deftly unhooked the bra and shoved
down her arms. An instant later, the pullover was tugged over her head,
Mulder taking care to ease the collar away from the cut on her temple.
Taking heart from his success in getting her top half warmly clothed,
he swiftly took care of stripping her wet jeans and socks, and replacing
them with fresh garments. However, not with the best will in the world
could he attempt to rid her of her panties. Hands on his hips as he
moodily contemplated the problem, he had mumbled, "Christ, I feel
like Frohike," and arbitrarily decided that the nylon bikinis were not
damp enough to pose a health risk. Just the same, after slipping off
her jeans he had taken the time to briskly towel her legs, noting that
they were, in fact, very nice legs. Not as long as some of the women's
he had dated in the past, but strong, well-shaped, firm. . . . Flummoxed
that these thoughts were swirling around in his head when he should
be focused on much more important things, Mulder had with some
degree of desperation thrown away the towel, and guided Scully's legs
into the safety of her sweats.
"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he said with false heartiness,
momentarily glad that she wasn't aware of how her body had affected
him. "Now, let's see about that cut."
A few minutes later, armed with rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and a
box of assorted sized band-aids, Mulder settled himself next to Scully
on the bed. "You know, Scully, when a guy says he'd like to play
doctor, this isn't exactly what he has in mind," he murmured dryly,
his concentration centered on the pale oval of her face.
"I realize this alcohol is going to sting, but I couldn't find anything else
in the cabinet, and I don't want to take any chances with this cut.
After all, I don't know how you got it. And with your running around
in the woods, god only knows what might have gotten into it." He
kept his touch light, his voice gentle. He could feel her breath on
the inside of his wrist as he cleaned the blood from her cheek. The
warmth of it against his skin did funny things to his insides. On the
one hand, it was a reminder that despite her silence, she was still
there with him. On the other hand, it made him miss her all the more.
"There. That should do it," he said with satisfaction when the last
of the mess was been cleaned away, and he had covered the wound
with the largest band-aid he could find. "It isn't pretty, but I think I
got it clean. You'll have to check it yourself, Scully when you're
feeling better, and tell me how I did." Out of habit, he sought her
eyes. They gazed back at him without thought or emotion. Flat
blue. Still like water.
What if she didn't get better? What if this condition isn't something
she can control herself? Maybe Mrs. Scully was right. Maybe
THEY did come for her again, and when THEY were finished with
her, this is what was left.
Swallowing hard against a wave of panic, Mulder ducked his head
and tidied up his impromptu first-aid kit as if his life depended on it.
That kind of thinking isn't going to do either of you any good, he
silently reminded himself. For once in your partnership, Scully is
looking to you to be the responsible one, the one in control. She
needs you now. So don't go off chasing little green men.
When he had himself better under control, he looked at her again,
searching for any clues, any sign that somewhere inside that
impassive shell lie the woman he knew. Just then, a tiny drop of
water trickled free from her hairline. It rolled lazily down her
unbandaged temple and caught at the corner of her eye. Gravity
had the final say, however, and the drop slid over her cheekbone.
Like a tear.
Pressing his lips together against an unfamiliar and most unwelcome
emotion, Mulder caught the spill with his thumb, smoothing it away,
his touch lingering ever so slightly. "Sorry, Scully," he said softly,
his voice unexpectedly rough and difficult to use. "I forgot about
your hair."
Needing to step away from her for just a moment, and realizing the
towel on the floor was already too sodden to be of any real use, he
went into the bathroom, and pulled another off the rack. He
returned and knelt behind her on the bed. "It could be my
imagination, but I don't think you're shivering as badly as when I
found you," he noted approvingly, succeeding for the moment at
brushing aside the feelings that had threatened to swamp him.
He took the towel and started to dry her hair with the same vigor
he had used on her limbs. However, while she still managed to sit
unaided, Scully's neck was far from rigid. Her head bobbed and
swayed like a dandelion in the wind.
"Sorry," Mulder muttered, and started the task again. As he eased
the towel slowly over Scully's tousled head, a vague and nearly
forgotten memory shimmered to life. When Samantha and he were
children they had spent their summers on the beach at the Vineyard.
Those were golden days. A time when childhood seemed endless
and every morning meant a whole new world of possibilities.
Although he knew it couldn't be true, it seemed to him that his
sister had always had long hair reaching nearly to her waist. The
silky mass was her one true little girl vanity. After a day in the surf
and the sand, they would come up from the water to get changed
and showered, and poor Samantha would have a rat's nest where
her crowning glory had once been. A smile softened his lips as he
remembered sitting on the porch retelling the day's adventures to
his mother while she sat in back of Samantha, much the way he sat
behind Scully now. Gently, with infinite care, she'd pat the little girl's
hair dry, pressing the towel against her daughter's scalp, separating
the strands as she worked. Sometimes, Samantha would be sleepy
after an afternoon in the sun, and her eyelids would droop under
her mother's ministrations. And Fox would smile at his little sister
indulgently, feeling both the fondness and superiority only a big
brother can.
Still looking back at that happy time, Mulder's hands unwittingly began
to mimic his mother's technique. He inched closer to Scully so he could
support her pliant form against his chest. From time to time, damp
strands of her hair would flick at him like playful tongues. He could
smell the rainwater on her skin, and feel the faint heat of her body
emanating through her clothes. Gradually, he could see her hair
lightening as the water was absorbed into the towel. Bit by bit, the
rich coppery color emerged. He continued the chore much longer
than he really needed to, until the fine hair around her face was
completely dry. Without knowing why, he found comfort in the task,
and enjoyed the feel of this woman resting against him. Finally, he
reluctantly put the towel down, and shifted away from Scully in
preparation for standing. His movement caused her head to tilt
slightly, releasing a lock of hair across her wounded temple. Mulder
leaned down to push it back, his fingers combing through the cool
slick strands. He no sooner slid his hand through her hair than his
fingers found their way there again. Then again, until the action
became a caress.
His eyes, warm yet troubled, fixed themselves on her placid face.
Sighing, he put his hands on her arms and drew her up from the bed.
Unable to help himself, he pressed her to his chest and laid his cheek
upon her hair. But only for an instant.
"Come on, Scully. Let's go build a fire."
*****************************************************
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (3/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:47:02 -0500
One more time. Thanks for sticking with it. For acknowledgments and
copyright stuff check out Part I. For comments and criticism please
e-mail me at krasch@delphi.com. I want to hear your reactions, so
please don't be shy. Without further ado:
Coming Back (3/4)
By late afternoon, Mulder thought he would go stark raving mad.
If only he had a radio or television that worked. With too much to
think about, too little to do, and only the sound of his own voice for
company, he was beginning to fully appreciate the term "cabin fever."
When he had first brought Scully into the great room and bundled
her onto the couch in front of the fireplace, he had been full of
purpose. After tucking a heavy wool stadium blanket over his
partner's legs, he had managed to build a rather spectacular fire
which filled the cabin with much needed warmth. He had then
stripped her bed of the sodden sheets and covers, and remade it
with fresh linens he had discovered in a hall closet. That finished,
he had begun to straighten up the smaller things about the cabin:
he put Scully's ruined clothes and bed things in a large plastic
garbage bag for a future trip to the laundromat, had hung the
drenched towels over the shower curtain rod, had returned his
makeshift medical supplies to their proper places, had tidied up in
the kitchen, and finally, needlessly fussed over Scully. Those tasks
completed, he had even taken a moment to replace his soiled
sweatshirt with a clean one he had brought along to sleep in.
He would have *liked* to have hopped in the shower. He =needed=
a few hours sleep. Neither of those was an option. He had to be
available in case Scully came out of it. Instead, he had contented
himself by splashing some water on his face, quickly shaving, and
brushing his teeth.
He had also made the token effort to contact Mrs. Scully and let her
know that he had reached the cabin and her daughter. Although
he knew it was cowardly of him, Mulder couldn't help but say a
silent thank-you when he found that the cabin phone was still out
of order, and his cellular was either out of range or experiencing
difficulties due to the surrounding hills. He didn't know what the
hell he would have said to the woman if he had gotten through
<Hello, Mrs. Scully--I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that I found Dana. The bad news is that she has
about as much animation as your average Cabbage Patch Kid.>
Wearily, he rubbed his hands over his face and leaned his elbows on
the breakfast bar. He had gone into the kitchen to see if he could
find something to eat. A box of corn flakes looked promising, as did
the bananas on top of the refrigerator. He opened up the fridge, and
was gratified to discover that not only had Scully bought milk, but it
was still cool enough to drink. Putting together all the components
into a bowl, Mulder munched on his late lunch and mentally surveyed
their situation.
The rain had started up again soon after they had returned to the
cabin. It wasn't storming yet--no thunder or lightning, just a steady
even rainfall. But even so, he was entirely too exhausted to complete
another six or seven hour drive in the rain. With the phones being
out, he couldn't call for a medical evac. He could, he supposed, drive
into one of the surrounding towns and find a phone that worked or
an emergency dispatch unit. But that would mean either leaving
Scully alone (not an option), or taking her with him while he wandered
from town to town in search of help (a plan he liked no better than the
first). No. He wasn't crazy about either of those scenarios.
Unfortunately, he couldn't come up with an alternate plan of attack.
"Well, Scully, what do you think? Should we just rough it here
tonight?" he asked wryly as he piled his dishes in the sink. "I
could use your opinion, you know. You of all people know what
kind of trouble I can get into if I'm left to my own devices. How long
do you figure you're going to give me the silent treatment anyway?"
He had been talking to her on and off all afternoon. The topics had
ranged from work related news, to what he figured the Redskins'
chances were that season. It didn't really matter what he said. From
what he understood of cases like his partner's, he knew it was
important to keep up some sort of interaction with the patient.
Someone in a catatonic state mustn't be allowed to retreat into
themselves unchallenged. They had to be made to realize what they
were giving up by doing so. The same idea lay behind the practice
of talking to coma victims. Hearing a loved one's voice was
supposed to remind the person of what he or she was missing by
remaining unconscious. While the memory of another time he had
tried to coax Dana Scully into the land of the living continued to
haunt him like a particularly sadistic ghost, Mulder gamely kept
talking, switching subject matter faster than a couch potato with a
remote changed channels.
"Well, I've had my lunch . . . or was it dinner? Whatever. What do
you say we find something for you." He returned to the refrigerator
and dug out a carton of orange juice. He had discovered that while
he couldn't get Scully to eat solid foods, he could manage to get her
to swallow liquids. Water had been a success. Maybe she was ready
to progress to something with a few calories to it.
"Well, since you're refusing to give me any help with this. I've come
to my own conclusion," he continued conversationally as he poured
the juice. "I think our best bet is to stay here tonight, and then get
on the road back to D.C. first thing tomorrow. That all right with you?"
Glass in hand, he went over to the couch, and sat closely beside her,
hooking his arm around the back of the sofa for leverage. Carefully,
he held the glass to her lips, giving her a moment to become aware of
what it was. Then, ever so slowly, he tipped it. The juice trickled into
her mouth, and just like before, some unknown reflex cued her to swallow.
"All right. Good girl," Mulder murmured, his concentration fixed on
Scully's lips and the workings of her throat. Although the process
was painstaking, her willingness to take in liquids cheered him
immensely. She sure as hell needed some kind of nourishment.
He could see now that she had definitely lost some weight over the
past few weeks, pounds she could ill afford to lose. While he knew
she wouldn't be getting fat on o.j., it was a start. At least in some
small way he was doing something. His inability to help her
pained him like an open wound.
"Well done," he said with a smile when she drained the small glass.
The smile turned tender when he noticed a drop of the juice clung to
her bottom lip. He set the glass down on the lamp table at his end of
the couch and leaned forward to catch the tiny bit of juice with his
thumb. Her lips were warm. Before he could stop himself, the simple
touch of his finger against her mouth blossomed into an exploration
of the curves and texture of her lips. He watched in heavy-lidded
fascination as the shape of her mouth shifted and flowed beneath
the pressure of his thumb. He had to admit, he had always found
this particular feature of hers wonderfully erotic. Way too sexy for
a nice little Irish-Catholic girl. Her lips were full and just *this much*
too large for her face's delicate proportions. Manys the time he had
watched that mouth purse with exasperation or worry, usually in
response to something he had either said or done. Fewer, however,
were the times he had seen her smile. Really smile--a mouth-open,
teeth-showing kind of grin. Sure, he had shared with her hundreds,
maybe thousands of tight-lipped little smirks. After all, both their
senses of humor tended towards the understated. But moments of
pure joy, the sound of her laughter--those were rare, made precious
by their infrequency.
Was it different for you, Scully, before you started working on the
X-Files, he wondered wistfully, his hand dropping away from her face.
Were you ever the sort of person who laughed at life, who embraced it
without fear or misgivings? He knew the exact moment his innocence
had died. But what about for her? As well as they knew each other,
despite all the hours spent in each other's company, many things
about Dana Scully remained a mystery to him. He often wondered
what drove her so relentlessly, what it was she felt she had to prove.
Why did she remain on the "spooky patrol" when with her skills and
intelligence, she could be making a name for herself in Violent Crimes
or any of a half dozen other more high profile divisions? Why did she
stay in the F.B.I. at all? More importantly, why did she choose to
remain with him? Maudlin though it may be, Mulder couldn't help but
imagine how her life might be progressing at that moment if she had
never set foot in their basement office. Several things were certain.
She undoubtedly wouldn't have been abducted, she wouldn't have
had three months stolen from her life, she wouldn't have had her life
threatened by things that would have driven most people into a
padded cell, she wouldn't have to worry that every time she took on a
case there was someone from her own government just waiting to
steal away with the evidence, and even though he still didn't know
what it was that had brought her to this point, she absolutely
wouldn't be sitting before him, her eyes empty, her hands lying
lifelessly in her lap.
His guilt over his partner's present predicament rose up unexpectedly
and crashed over him like a wave. His expression bleak, Mulder sat
next to her on the couch, his elbows braced on his thighs, his head
in his hands. "I'm sorry, Scully," he whispered, unable to look at her.
"I'm so sorry about everything."
A distant rumble of thunder pierced the silence.
Mulder pressed to his feet, his thoughts heavy and without order, and
strode to the windows. Night had most definitely fallen, and with it
apparently, came a return of the previous evening's storms. The rain
continued to fall as steadily as ever, but the wind had picked up,
twirling dead leaves and bits of debris like dervishes.
"I'm glad we're not on the road tonight," Mulder murmured
thoughtfully, his eyes following the path of one particularly wind
tossed leaf. "At least we should have enough wood to last us the
evening. Are you warm enough?"
In truth, he was sweltering. And yet, he had no intention of letting
the fire die down. All he needed was for Scully to fall feverish when
they were miles away from any kind of medical assistance. He crossed
back to the couch and laid his palm on her forehead, then her cheek.
Maybe they had caught a break. It didn't feel as if she were running
a temperature. But what did he know anyway? She was the doctor,
not him. Perhaps such things took time to develop. She could be well
on her way to pneumonia, and he might not even recognize the signs.
After all, he had no idea how many hours she had wandered through
the woods. Surely, she had been out there long enough to affect her
health.
Don't go borrowing trouble, Mulder, he silently warned himself. You
know Scully is a lot stronger than she looks. Still, wanting to take no
chances, he walked over to their woodpile and added three more logs
to the blaze.
"That ought to hold us for awhile," he said with false cheeriness,
wiping the wood chips from his hands by rubbing them on his jeans.
A flash of light startled him. Then, a low rumble of thunder, like a big
cat's purr, identified the source.
"Lightning," he said shortly, his glance straying to the window.
"Looks like we're in for it again."
He pivoted towards Scully, intending to return to his place beside
her on the couch. A flicker of movement stopped him, however.
Her hands, which had been lying heavy and still upon the plaid blanket,
were now clutching it, clenching and unclenching like a kitten kneading
its mother's belly.
*****************************************************
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (4/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:47:31 -0500
The big finale! (Yeah, I wish.) Well, regardless, here is the final
installment. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed
writing it. Let me know by e-mailing me at krasch@delphi.com. For
all the other stuff (acknowledgments and copyright info), check out
Part 1.
Thanks for taking a chance on my story,
Karen
Coming Back (4/4)
Hope made Mulder's breath catch in his throat. His heart skipped a
beat; then made up for it by pounding twice as fast as before.
Cautiously, he dropped to the floor in front of the sofa, and laid his
hand gently on her forearm. "Scully?"
Her small hands continued their restless motion, her eyes staring off
towards the windows, locked on some distant inner vista.
Lightning flashed again. As if not willing to be outdone, thunder
cracked after it like a whip.
"Scully . . . Dana," Mulder began hesitantly, not really knowing what
he should say. "Can you hear me? You've been awfully quiet since
I found you. Do you feel like talking now? If you want to, I'm here.
I'm listening."
He searched her face. Her complexion was still colorless, her lips
slightly open, her breathing, light and shallow. Her eyes didn't
focus on him, and yet he thought he sensed an awareness in them
that hadn't been there before. Although he couldn't say why he
believed it to be so, it appeared that Scully was listening too. But
not to him. Her senses seemed trained on some event, some
something that only she could see.
"Hey, Scully," he tried again, his voice schooled into a casual
nonchalance he was far from feeling, his hand still on her arm.
"Why don't you come on back and keep me company. It's been
kind of lonely here without you. Nobody has contradicted me in
days."
Lightning blazed again, this time closer to the cabin. When its brilliant
incandescence threw Scully's face into harsh relief, Mulder thought he
saw her start in fear. Her breath now sounded vaguely labored, her
chest rising and falling in agitation. Her hands worked more feverishly,
twisting and bunching the wool as if punishing it. The wind outside
the cabin rattled the windows and whistled down the chimney flue,
stirring the flames with an invisible hand.
Mulder climbed onto the sofa, and gently grasped Scully's arms just
above the elbows. The storm was affecting her, no question. What
he wanted to know was why. They had been out in weather far worse
than this plenty of times, and he had never seen her flinch. But now,
she was reacting as if she believed the elements were about to break
down the cabin door and carry her off.
"Scully, it's just a storm--rain and wind and lightning. That's all.
Nothing to be afraid of," he said softly, calmly, his thumbs making
soothing little circles on her arms. "You're with me. You're safe.
Nothing is going to hurt you."
At that moment, a bolt of lightning sizzled to the ground directly
outside the cabin. For an instant, Mulder idly wondered if one of the
cars might have been hit. But, any speculation on the matter
vanished when a deafening cymbal crash of thunder reverberated
in his ears.
The sound was not so earsplitting, however, that it was able to
drown out the terrified whimpers of the woman beside him.
"Scully, hey . . . come on. It's nothing. I swear it," Mulder implored,
his hands running up and down her arms in an effort to comfort her.
Scully was having none of it. She was back to trembling now, fine
shivers coursed through her body like an invisible current. He tried
to pull her into his arms, but she resisted. Instead, she curled over,
wrapping her arms around her middle, as if to make herself a smaller
target.
"Scully . . . Scully . . . =Dana=, you have to listen to me." Mulder
abandoned the subtle approach, his hands clung steadfastly to her
upper arms with a force he feared would leave bruises. Whatever
had happened to her, wherever she had gone inside her head to escape,
she had left herself vulnerable to panic. For some reason she saw the
thunderstorm as something more than it was. He had to convince her
otherwise. He had to break through to her. "I've been as patient as I
know how, but I need you to come back to me now. Do you
understand? I don't know why you felt the need to hide. But it's
time to stop."
A particularly violent burst of wind buffeted the cabin, keening
mournfully as it squeezed through the cracks in the roof, throwing
cinder and ash from the hearth like confetti. The door shimmied in
its jamb, ricocheting to and fro against the wood with such force that
Mulder felt certain the frame would crack. Scully twisted away from him
to lay on her side facing the fire, her knees drawn up to her chest, her
limbs tangled in the blanket. It looked to him as if she were trying to
make herself smaller and smaller until she disappeared altogether.
The wind howled again with increased fury. The rain, now mixed with
hail, pounded against the windowpanes like a thousand tapping
fingertips. Lightning blazed across the sky in an eerie crooked arc.
Thunder boomed a moment after.
Mulder was just about to reach down and draw Scully upright again,
when he heard a click followed by the hollow bang of metal against
wood. A gust of wind had finally loosed the door from its catch,
throwing it against the wall. Rain poured in. Yet another fork of
lightning pulsed in the open doorway like a picture in a frame,
momentarily illuminating the darkened cabin with its brilliant white
light. A strangled cry tore lose from Scully's lips, half sob, half
scream. The sound pierced something in the vicinity of Mulder's
heart, frightening him more than any ship full of aliens ever could.
She was drawn up in a tight little ball on the couch, her face hidden
behind her forearms. He could see a fine patina of sweat slicking her
brow. She was shivering with the same intensity she had when he
first found her, though this time he knew it wasn't from the cold.
Although loath to leave Scully for even a second, Mulder hurried
to the door and secured it once more, this time throwing the bolt to
ensure its closure. Some small part of his brain that was still capable
of recognizing irony noted that even though he had mentally
chastised his partner for such behavior when he first arrived, he too
had failed to lock the door earlier.
Stopping just short of running, Mulder returned to the sofa. Wrestling
with Scully's rigid form, he brought her again to a sitting position,
caging her against the arm of the sofa with his body. Around them the
thunderstorm continued with all the verve and energy of fireworks set
to the 1812 Overture.
"Scully. Scully, you have got to listen to me," he demanded, his hands
firmly holding her face between them. "I know you went to wherever it
is you are because it seemed safe. It felt like someplace you could hide.
But, it's an illusion, Scully. Running away won't help you."
He thought she might hyperventilate. Her breath came in frantic little
puffs against his face. The pulse at the base of her neck fluttered like
a butterfly's wings. Her eyes no longer appeared blank. They were
haunted, and filled to overflowing with tears that ran unchecked
down her pale cheeks. And yet, she was still oblivious to the man
sitting before her, his heart in his eyes. Her hands found their way
to his sweatshirt where they gripped with a strength born of terror.
"Dana, I want to help you. I =will= help you. I promise. But first you
have to help me." Her head imprisoned in his hands, Mulder stared
into her frightened eyes as if sheer will might bring her back to him.
His voice dropped in volume, but not intensity. He brought his
face close to hers, their noses nearly touching. "Scully, I can't go
where you are. I would--you know I would--but I can't. You have
to be the one to come to me. Please--"
He was babbling now. He knew it. And yet he couldn't help himself.
Without knowing why or how, he could feel it. Every second the
storm raged around them, she was slipping further and further away.
It was like she was running from him down a corridor, locking
doors behind her as she fled. He didn't understand it. But that still
didn't stop it from happening. In desperation, he leaned his forehead
against hers, his fingers combed through her tousled hair, holding
her face against his. In that moment it seemed to him as if they were
the only two people alive. Marshaling everything he was,
everything he felt for the woman before him, he spoke. "Please Scully
. . . . Come back to me. Don't leave here me all by myself. I don't
think I could bear that. I need you, you know?"
Not daring to breathe, he waited for the words to reach her. But to
his ears, they seemed inadequate to the task, hollow and flimsy.
Without knowing what else to do, he dragged his lips to her
forehead and closing his eyes, pressed a kiss against her hairline.
For the span of several minutes, neither of them moved. Mulder
sat cupping her face, his cheek against her forehead, waiting. He
wasn't sure what for anymore. Then, with the slow steady speed
of sand trickling through an hourglass, Mulder could feel her hold
on his sweatshirt weaken. The tension that had pulled the fabric
tightly against his throat dissolved. Instead of clinging to her
partner like a lifeline, Scully's hands rested against his chest,
curled like a child's in sleep.
Afraid of what he might see, Mulder pulled back slightly and
looked down into the shadowed blue of her eyes. For the first
time that day, Scully looked back.
"Mulder?" Her voice came out low and rough, huskier even than
usual.
"Yeah," he answered, relief and pure unadulterated joy battling for
supremacy on his face. He swallowed hard against the lump in his
throat, his voice matching hers in timbre and pitch. "I'm here."
"What? . . . But where . . .What's going on?" She searched his gaze
for answers, sounding both lost and alone. Her hands crept up to
skim over his features, to touch his cheeks and mouth, to trace the
arch of his brow as if to reassure herself as to the identity of the man
cradling her face in his gentle hands.
Just then a flash of lightning spooked her, and she cringed before
she understood why. Without giving thought as to how appropriate
such an action might be, Mulder shifted to sit in the corner of the
couch and pulled her onto his lap, his arms locking around her to
shield her from the source of her fear. She buried her head in the
space between his jaw and shoulder, and willed the trembling to stop.
"Shh . . . it's all right," he murmured, rocking her softly. She
burrowed against him, drinking in his strength, taking comfort from
the soothing, sandpaper sound of his voice, the smell of his skin.
"It's just the storm. That's all. Nothing is going to hurt you. I promise."
They stayed that way for a long while, neither wanting to break the
sweet contact. Gradually, her muscles softened, and her breathing
returned to something resembling normal. The harsh white flashes
of lightning and their companion, thunder, still frightened her. But
now it seemed the fear was more manageable, less likely to swallow
her up. She used the silence to regain her bearings, he spent the
minutes mentally thanking whatever deity had taken the trouble to
answer his cry for help.
"Mulder?" Scully finally ventured, her head still on his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?"
"Your mom asked me to come check up on you." His one hand lay
buried in her hair, the other held firmly to her waist, his arms circled
around her to hold her nestled against him.
She pushed back against his chest with both hands so she could
look him in the eye.
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Not with your mom," he answered meaningfully. Her eyes slid
away from his, but he wouldn't let her run again. "Do you want
to talk about it?"
"No." She shook her head, loosing a cascade of hair across her face,
Mulder reached out his hand and tenderly smoothed it back for her.
She tried to smile her thanks, but his kindness and the concern she
saw reflected plainly in his eyes undid her. Suddenly it was far too
great an effort to smile. Tears came much more easily.
"Damn!" she murmured miserably, hiding her face once more
against his neck while she cried.
Lightly he stroked her hair. Her grief accentuated his own feelings
of helplessness. He could feel her tears wet against his skin, and
didn't have a clue how to make them stop. "Scully. . . . Shh, don't
cry. Come on. . . . Jesus, Scully. . . . I wish you'd let me help you.
Talk to me. Please. You know you can trust me."
She balled her small fist and pounded it without force against his
chest. "Of course, I can trust you Mulder. That's not the point--"
"Then why don't you tell me what the point is?" His hands clenched
in her hair, and he pulled back her head with his raging emotions
barely held in check. "Do you know what happened here? Do you
understand it? Because if you do, I wish you'd enlighten me.
'Cause I sure as hell don't!"
Her eyes were wary, but they didn't try to dodge his. "What do
you mean? What are you talking about?"
He sighed and forced his hands to loosen their grip, afraid that he
had been too rough with her. Still, she was talking to him now, not
hiding. All right. He had her attention. The only problem was he
didn't know where to begin. His hands slipped down to first squeeze
her upper arms in reassurance, then slide up and down the length of
them as if trying to warm her. "Scully, I came up here because your
mother was worried about you. When I got to the cabin, you were
nowhere to be found. I go traipsing through the woods, following
what I assume are your footprints, and I find you huddled against a log,
bleeding, in the middle of the forest. You're soaked to the bone. You
don't even know me. You try to take my head off with your Sig--"
Her pale complexion blanched even further. "I did what?"
Mulder shook his head dismissively, angry with himself for the slip.
"Nothing. You did nothing. The bottom line is that you've been in
some sort of waking coma ever since I found you. That was hours
ago. Now, you're back. And I want to know why. Scully, what's
going on? I've been half out of my mind with worry."
She linked her arms around his neck and hugged him with all her
might. Mulder answered her embrace by tightening his arms around
her slender back. She felt so good against him. Warm and soft,
curved in all the right places. He dimly wondered why he had never
held her like this before. Even though he knew the answer, knew
that this physical closeness was an aberration that would end
once the crisis was passed, he couldn't help but relish the
sensations. Her chest pressed to his, her hair against the cheek,
her breath hot against his ear. Then suddenly, all thoughts of the
physical pleasure to be had by having her in his arms vanished.
"Mulder, I don't know what's happening to me. I think I might
be losing my mind. I'm so scared."
He felt like someone had hit him in the gut with a two by four.
Insane--Scully? The earth must have reversed its rotation if she was
now the unbalanced one in their partnership, he thought in amazement.
She had always had more self-possession, more certainty in herself
and her beliefs than anyone he knew. How could that crumble? What
could shake her so badly that she doubted her own mind? She was
always the strong one, always the rock he could count on to be there
--to reel him in when his theories got too far-fetched, to cover his back
in a fire fight, to pull his butt out of whatever impossible situation he
blundered into, to be willing to face down anything and anyone to
insure his safety.
Weakness.
Need.
Fear.
These were things he never associated with Dana Scully. As far as
he knew, she didn't allow them in her life.
But now it appeared the choice had been taken away from her.
His partner needed him.
Mulder would like to meet the person who thought they could
keep him from her.
"There's nothing to be frightened of, Scully. Believe me. You're saner
than I'll ever be," he whispered, shifting again so that his head was
propped against the sofa arm and pillows, his long legs stretched out
on the cushions before him. He settled her against his side so that
she lay with her back against the couch and her head on his shoulder.
Grabbing the discarded plaid blanket, he tugged it up over their legs.
"Anyway, we've got all night. Why don't you tell me what's been
going on, and we'll see if we can figure it out together."
She nodded, her cheek brushing against his jaw. She fit against him
just right, Mulder noticed, her slight weight warming him more than
any blanket. After taking a moment to gather her thoughts, she began.
"I , um . . .I haven't been feeling *right* for awhile now, you know?
I've been having trouble sleeping . . . and, uh, . . .food . . .well . . . let's
just say the idea of eating has been less than appealing."
Mulder lightly ran his hand over her hair, combing through a few
strands at a time with his fingertips. So, she =had= been having
trouble. His jaw tightened in self-disgust. Didn't notice it, though--
did you, Mulder? Had your nose buried in one of your damn files
instead. "Any idea what caused it?"
"No," she answered automatically, her hand against his chest, her eyes
watching the flames in the hearth. "That is . . . not at first."
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated, whether due to reticence or the need to find the proper
words, he couldn't tell. "When it started, I thought it was just stress,
you know? We had just come back from Nevada, and I was tired, . . .
and I thought . . . well, of course. Sooner or later, things are bound
to catch up with you. I figured I just needed time."
Nevada. The last case that had taken them to Nevada had been
nearly six months ago. She had been suffering that long? Why
hadn't she said something?
"But it didn't go away," she continued, her voice hushed. "It got
worse. I felt jumpy all the time. Nervous. Some days it seemed
like my head was going to split open. And at night . . . At first,
I'd maybe . . . I'd only wake up once or twice a night. But lately . . .
lately, I've been afraid to go to sleep at all."
"Afraid?" Mulder wished he could see her eyes. "Afraid of what?"
Her voice sounded hollow, drained of all energy. Her hand had gone
restless, nervously tapping and picking at his sweatshirt. "Of
what I'd see. What I'd feel."
Mulder covered her hand with his, linking their fingers. "Can you
describe it for me?"
She drew in a watery breath, and he could tell without looking that
the tears had started again. "That's just it. It's all a jumble. Mulder
. . . it's more like a series of impressions . . . emotions . . . than any
sort of picture."
He smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand, tracing the fine
bones. He could feel her becoming more agitated the longer she
spoke of the situation, but he knew she had to get this out. It
had been eating her alive long enough. "Just tell me what you can."
She took a deep shuddering breath. "Okay . . . It starts with a light
. . . . bright light . . . very, very bright. So bright that I'm blinded."
Her voice had gotten so soft he had to strain to hear her even
though she was speaking from just below his ear. "I'm laying
down, on a bed . . . or a table . . . I can't tell. I . . . I can't move . . .
I want to . . . I want to get away. I don't know where I am, but
wherever it is, I need to leave, to get out before something horrible
happens. The light gets closer to me, and I get the sense that there
are . . . people . . .beings . . . =things= standing there, watching me.
I want to ask them to help me. To let me go. But I can't."
"You can't speak?"
"No! I can't talk and I can't move. It's . . . it's like I'm paralyzed.
And then . . . I feel . . ."
"What?" Mulder coaxed when she had fallen silent for longer than
a moment or two. "What do you feel?"
"Pain," she answered bleakly, her throat closing on a sob.
"Terrible, terrible pain."
She scooted up so that she could once again tuck her head
against the corner of his jaw. His arms closed around her protectively.
"I don't know how someone can dream about being in pain, Mulder.
But that's what it feels like," she whispered. "It's like I remember. . . .
It's awful . . . and it goes on and on. Throughout my entire body.
My back arches and my muscles tighten . . . and I fight it, but there's
no escaping it. No relief. Not until I wake up."
Once more, he could feel her tears anointing his neck. This time he
wanted to weep with her, to cry out his sorrow for the hell she had
been through. Alone. Because he hadn't cared enough, hadn't
looked closely enough to notice. But something she had said stuck
in his mind. "What do you mean 'It's like you remember'?"
For the longest time, she said nothing. Then, she spoke slowly and
carefully. "I don't know. But, sometimes . . . it doesn't feel like
a dream . . . . It feels real. Not like it's happening now. . . .
But like it did. It did happen."
Mulder's hand stopped its motion through her hair. "What are you
saying? That you're experiencing a memory?"
"I don't know. That's what I've been struggling with. I've wondered if
I might finally be remembering something about my disappearance.
But, I don't know for sure," she murmured, rolling so she could look at
him, leaning on his chest with her forearms. "That's what I came up
here to find out."
She stared at him solemnly, her eyes still awash with tears. He reached
out and cupped the side of her face with his hand, returning her regard,
his hazel gaze unwavering. "Why here?"
"To be alone."
Yeah. That would be how she'd want to handle it, he silently
acknowledged; how he would want to handle it himself. How could
two such intelligent people be so stupid sometimes?
"What did you discover?"
She eyes dipped for an instant. "I'm not certain. To be honest . . .
being up here on my own . . . it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever
done."
"How so?"
"Work was my only salvation . . . the only place I could get away from
it . . . the fear, the dream . . . at least for the last few months.
As long as I could focus on a case or work in the lab. . ." A
reluctant smile tugged at her lips, the first he had seen from her in
the longest time. "Or argue with you. . . . I could escape . . . I
could think about something else. But, I got to be too good at it
. . . the running away. The only place I couldn't hide was in my
dreams. Much as I would have liked to, I couldn't go without sleep.
So, I decided I needed to confront it. To quit hiding behind work,
and deal with it once and for all. But to do that, I had to get rid
of the distractions, the things that allowed me to pretend that
everything was fine in the first place."
"So you came up here."
"Yeah. Certainly not a lot of distractions up here. Not this time of
year." She laid her head down again so that it rested over his heart.
"But I underestimated it. . . . The dream . . . or the memory . . . or
whatever it is. Up here, it just seemed so powerful. It got away
from me. I couldn't control it."
Mulder gently rubbed her shoulders in comfort. "So what
happened last night? Do you know why you ended up in the woods?"
She shook her head. "Not exactly. But . . . I have an idea . "
She began tracing idle little patterns on his chest while she
schooled her thoughts. "The week had worn me down.
Yesterday, I had even toyed with going home early. But, then
the storm hit. It wasn't that bad until the power went out. But
after that . . . it was so =dark= in the cabin, it started to close in on me.
And the lightning . . . it just lit up the sky. So bright . . . just like the
light in my dream. The last thing I remember was a bolt of it hitting
that maple out front. Then, . . . I can't tell you what happened. It's
all a blank until . . . until I was here with you."
Mulder said nothing at first, instead he silently considered all she
had said. Scully was drained, her recitation taking the last of her
resources. She rested wearily against him, her hand still brushing
softly against his chest, her focus on the fire.
"Why didn't you see someone about this?" He finally asked, his
voice carefully neutral. "Why didn't you say something to me?"
"I couldn't," she said simply. "Any staff psychologist would have
taken me off-duty. I couldn't have that. Work was my safety net.
The one place I could get away from it."
Although he recognized her logic as flawed, he nodded, his expression
thoughtful. He strove to keep his mind on the questions at hand, and
not give in to the sensations her lightly caressing hand was
engendering. "What about telling me?"
She pushed up again to lean on her elbows. She stacked her hands and
rested her chin upon them as she looked down into hazel eyes that tried
to hide their hurt. "I couldn't tell you, Mulder, because I didn't want you
to feel you had to protect me." She had said those words before, the
last time she had felt this vulnerable. She had meant them then, and she
still did now. She had fought hard to be considered his equal. She
didn't want to lose that, to become something less than his partner. "In
our work, we only have each other. I want you to feel you can depend
on me, not that you have to look out for me."
"I look out for you already," he reminded her, wishing that in this case
he had done a better job.
Her eyes softened. "I know you do."
She laid her head back down. As she did so, she took her hand and laid
it softly against his cheek. Mulder's heart turned over. He couldn't get
over how easy she was being with him physically. Emotional intimacy
was nothing new to them, but this tender exchange of caresses, the
warm, sweet feel of her body lying the length of his was new and
threatened to become habit-forming. He realized her actions came as a
result of what she had been through. He knew that once she had
rested and regained her strength, the natural Scully reserve would
once again reassert itself. Much as he longed for her to recover, he
would sorely miss this closeness. Therefore, he hoarded their moments
together like precious metal, saving them for all the lonely nights ahead.
Entwined in each other's arms, they laid there and listened to the
crackling of the fire and the rumble of the slowly diminishing storm.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?" he asked when he could get his voice to function once
more.
"For taking care of me," she said, her arm now draped diagonally
across his body so that her hand hung over his shoulder. "For
driving all this way. For saving me from the storm."
He reached up and captured her hand with his. Saying nothing, he
squeezed it, and then laid it on his chest, covering it with his own.
"Mulder?"
"Hmm?"
"I wasn't wearing this before, was I?"
The comfortable drowsiness that had settled over him like fog, lifted
a fraction. "What?"
"These clothes," she persisted, lifting her head again to look down
at him in puzzlement. "I wasn't wearing these. I had on jeans, I think."
He was supremely thankful that the fire's glow more hid than revealed
his expression. "You'd been running around in the woods all night.
Your clothes were soaked. It was a medical emergency, Scully."
Her eyebrow lifted at that, a wry tilt of her lips accompanying the
gesture. With a slight incline of her head, she rested once more
against him. After a moment, she murmured, "I bet you use that
line on all the girls."
"I've tried," he replied dryly, his voice bedroom low. "But you're
the first one it's worked on."
He got a punch in the ribs for his comment.
They remained like that, the silence between them lulling. But
before he could allow himself to drift off to sleep, Mulder had to
broach one more uncomfortable topic.
"You'll have to go to someone when we get back," he said finally,
daring her to say otherwise. "You can't continue like this. It's
more than you can handle on your own."
A shadow crossed her face. "No, I can't. You're right."
"Scully, I know you don't buy into a lot of the stuff I do," Mulder said
haltingly. "But, if what you're experiencing is a memory of your time
away, you might be able to give us something to go on that would
bring the people responsible to justice. A description of the men who
took you, the place where you were held . . . something."
"I realize that," she said softly.
"Hypno-regression therapy might help."
A tiny smile flitted across her lips. She had been wondering when he
would get around to that. "I've considered it."
"And?"
"And I think I would like to try it."
"You would?" He couldn't keep the surprise from creeping into
his voice.
"If you were there with me."
"Always," he said softly, meaning it as a promise. "You can
count on it."
"Good." Scully yawned, unable to hold back slumber any longer.
Funny, she didn't think the dream would come tonight. The tense,
jittery feeling she had been living with for months was strangely
absent at the moment. And the terror she had been holding at bay
also seemed to have taken a holiday. Although she wasn't foolish
enough to believe that they were gone for good, she had the feeling
that she might enjoy a respite. If only for tonight. The reason, she
suspected, was the man who lay beside her. She could hear the
steady thud of his heart beneath her ear, feel the warmth of his body
against hers, and the strength of his arm as it held her to him. These
were powerful talismans against the dark. The professional in her
argued that she should do without his physical comfort. They
were partners. This blurring of the lines of their relationship would
only work against them in the end. She listened to the annoying little
inner voice, and then dismissed it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would
go back to being the FBI agent, the doctor, the person who needed
to be in control. For tonight, she was just a woman. A woman who
thanked god that the man who cradled her in his arms was there for
her. It had been so long since she had been held like this. Had felt
safe and cared for. It was only for one night out of so many. Surely,
giving in to her weakness for a few hours wouldn't hurt. No. She
would sleep tonight. She was certain of it.
Mulder continued his slow soothing caress of his partner's hair,
shoulders, and back. He had meant for the touch to be a comfort to
her. But, he was finding it worked both ways. He liked feeling the
textures and shapes change beneath his hand, from the silky softness
of her hair, to the gentle slope of her shoulder, to the sharper curve
of her waist and back again. Once he had started touching her, he found
impossible to stop.
"Scully?" he asked softly.
No answer.
She must be asleep. He smiled.
I have nightmares about aliens making off with my sister. She has
flashbacks to a possible alien abduction. She pulls her gun, then falls
catatonic. I wake up screaming.
He shifted slightly, pulling the petite redhead more firmly against his
body as if to protect her from such a fate. She murmured, then
adjusted accordingly, her leg drawn over his, her hand clinging to his
sweatshirt as if she feared he might vanish.
We were made for each other.
Now why did that sound less like a joke and more like a prophecy,
he wondered as he drifted off to sleep, the smell of her hair his
last memory of consciousness.
THE END
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (1/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:45:44 -0500
Okay, this is a first time post. I've been checking out a bunch of
the stories posted here, have enjoyed them, and been impressed
by the caliber of talent. So, I decided to try my hand. I hope you
like it. All comments are encouraged and appreciated. You can
e-mail me at krasch@delphi.com.
This is not a case file, but rather a relationship story (a rather popular
genre around here, judging from what I've read thus far). Is it a
romance? I guess that depends on your definition. No outright
sex (you gotta give yourself somewhere to go, after all). Instead, it
focuses on Mulder's feelings of responsibility, friendship, love, guilt,
etc. towards the enigmatic Dr. Scully.
Needless to say, these characters are the property of Chris Carter, Ten
Thirteen Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox Television, and are
used utterly without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
I'm just doing this 'cause it's fun.
Lastly, thanks to the various writers I've corresponded with since finding
this newsgroup--you are a good group of people, and I would like to
especially thank my editor-in-chief, Helen, for her insight and good humor.
Thanks,
Karen
Coming Back (1/4)
He should have known.
Should have realized, noticed. Should have seen. Where had his
mind been the past few weeks? Or had it been going on longer?
Maybe even months. Jesus. What had monopolized his thoughts
so completely that he had been blind to the situation?
That was his real crime. Self-absorption. Sure, he could reason away
his behavior in any of a dozen different ways to mitigate his guilt:
He was a dedicated professional. His work was everything to him.
His cause was just. He struggled every day against forces with
unimaginable power to uncover THE TRUTH.
His mouth twisted wryly at the that last thought. You gotta use
capital letters when you're talking about that one, don't you Mulder?
He shook his head sheepishly at his delusions of grandeur and
changed his two handed grip on the steering wheel for the umpteenth
time, cracking his knuckles with pleasure as he did so. Straining
forward ever so slightly, he fought the night and the sheeting rain
for a better glimpse at the highway.
Couch it in whatever lofty terms you like, he thought darkly, his
eyes narrowed in concentration. But when you get right down to it
Agent Mulder, you're obsessed, plain and simple. And that
obsession has kept you alone. Isolated. In your universe, there
isn't another planet in sight but your own.
Except for Scully.
He checked his watch again, holding it against the dashboard lights
to catch the time. 3:13. When had he left the Washington area?
Must have been close to midnight. God. It felt like he had been on
the road for days. He hated driving on nights like this. What had
started out as a mid-afternoon shower had rapidly developed into a
full blown deluge, growing ever stronger the further north he traveled.
On the positive side, except for the odd truck, traffic was non-existent.
Unfortunately, conditions were such that keeping his government
issued sedan at the speed limit was really the best he could hope for.
Alerted by the glowing paint marking the road's edge, he slowed to
take a curve. The tires held their line, but not by much. The negatives
regarding travel on a night such as this were relatively obvious, he
mused grimly. A raw white fork of lightning followed closely after by
the deep rumble of thunder punctuated his thought.
Only one person alive could have drawn him out of his snug little
apartment in weather like this: His partner, Dana Scully.
The other planet in my cosmos.
His lips tugged in an imitation of a smile. I better watch it. I'm getting
punchy and I've got at least another three hours of hard driving ahead,
he thought with weary amusement. Besides, for all of her solid, no-
nonsense advice and unwavering adherence to basic scientific
principles, he really couldn't think of Scully as anything so mundane
as a planet.
More like a star.
Oh god, Mulder, don't go waxing poetical, he told himself disparagingly,
more than a little startled that he would come up with such a sentimental
image for his pragmatic partner. Anyway, if you want to take the
astronomical metaphor to its most asinine conclusion, try casting
yourself as a meteor that smashed itself smack dab into the heart of
Scully's belief system. That's a hell of a lot more accurate.
He pulled up as closely as he dared to a lumbering semi and began the
treacherous trip around the much larger vehicle. Yeah. As destructive
as the imagery was, he knew 'Mulder as Meteor' was much closer to the
truth. He recognized that what they had encountered since partnering
together had destroyed or, at the very least, severely challenged many
of Scully's most deeply held tenets. When they had first paired up, she
had thought she understood the world and the people who run it. She
had believed that those above them would act with the same decency
and honor as she would herself. He had told her differently, had tested
her courage and resolve with tales of the unexplained, of conspiracies
and government cover-ups. Still, she had clung to the notions that
science could explain anything as long as you asked the proper
questions, and that the government really was an instrument of the people.
Yet slowly, bit by bit, like water wearing down a rock, his partner had
begun to realize that not every phenomenon had a logical, scientific
explanation. More importantly, she came to know that one person's
truth is another person's poison. That some secrets are buried so
deeply it takes the equivalent of an earthquake to bring them to light.
She hadn't learned these unpleasantries out of a book or from listening
to one of his slide show lectures. No. Scully had done it the hard way.
He cleared the truck and breathed a sigh of relief, guiding his dark
colored sedan once again into the right hand lane. Lightning speared
the sky overhead.
The hard way. His hands tightened fractionally on the wheel. Could
anything have been harder, more difficult or painful for either of them
than her abduction? Just thinking about it was enough to chill his skin
and send his stomach in the direction of his knees.
The funny thing was that sometimes he could very nearly convince
himself it hadn't happened. If he shoved the memories of that time far
enough back in the most remote corner of his mind, and piled enough
other stuff in front of them he could *almost* forget what had occurred.
After all, Scully was back now, wasn't she? She was whole. Her fine
mind and endlessly surprising personality were intact. She didn't
remember anything of the incident. Why couldn't they pretend those
three months never happened?
He chuckled mirthlessly at such naivet�. Try asking that question right
after you wake up from one of your nightmares, Mulder, he challenged
himself derisively. Go ahead and tell yourself that nothing ever
happened when you can't wipe out of your mind the image of her on
that hospital bed--her coppery hair the only real color left in the world,
tubes and wires poking grotesquely in to and out of seemingly every
square inch of her body, her chest rising and falling with the ventilator's
rhythm, her entire existence hinging on the readouts from the machines
that circled the bed. Tell yourself you don't remember that.
And then let's see just what kind of a seeker of truth you really are.
Banishing the disturbing images from his mind's eye, he released a
breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. If it was that way for
him, a by-stander in the drama, how much worse must it be for her, he
wondered not for the first time. She was the one who had lived it.
How could she have come out of it so unscathed? She said she
couldn't remember anything from the time Duane Barry took her. In
many ways, that was a blessing, Mulder allowed. Yet, even though
he thanked the capricious intricacies of the human mind for allowing
his partner to carry on her life unburdened by trauma brought on by
her time away, a nagging little voice warned him that such selective
memory might not prove permanent.
He shook his head ruefully at the twists and turns in logic his mind
was taking. How ironic that he, a man so consumed with discovering
the truth, would worry that it might pop up unheralded to torment
his best friend.
His best friend.
When had he started thinking of Scully that way? When had she
gone from that woman who had been sent to spy on him to the one
person in the world he could trust without limits? When had her
presence in his life metamorphosed from an nuisance into a necessity?
Mulder blinked in amazement. Where the hell had that thought
come from? He cared about Scully. Sure. They were partners, friends.
But needing her. . . . Uncomfortable with the intimacy such an
observation suggested, he tried looking at their relationship in an
objective light. Of course you feel close to her, he told himself
rationally. You spend more time with her than anyone else. You're
both workaholics. Your styles, strange as it may seem to some at first
glance, mesh extraordinarily well. You like the way she thinks--even
if she =never= agrees with you. She keeps you on your toes. She
keeps you honest. She makes you laugh; even at yourself. That's
what a best friend is supposed to do.
And besides--it's not like she has a lot of competition in the "best
friend" category. It's the obsession thing again, Mulder, he goaded
himself. It works like a spun cotton buffer. It cuts you off from the
real world. Your focus becomes so narrow, so pinpointed that you fail
to see the everyday stuff going on around you.
He shifted restlessly, and shrugged out of the cotton jacket he had
thrown over his sweatshirt to help keep out the mid-October chill.
After a slow start, the car's heater was working overtime. He turned
it down for good measure.
So, what =had= been going on with Scully the past several weeks?
They hadn't been out in the field. Their work had been largely confined
to their D.C. office, wrapping up the paperwork on their last case and
researching leads on a few promising others. It was an unusually slow
time X-File-wise, and therefore he hadn't been overly surprised when
the Friday before last Scully had announced her decision to take some
time off.
"I figure this is as good a time as any," she had said in that matter-of-fact
way she had. "I've already got so much time owed me that Skinner is
threatening to take it away if I don't do something with it."
"Big vacation plans?" he had asked more out of politeness than any
real need to know.
"No, not really. Some relatives have a cabin in upstate New York they're
not using. I thought I might hide up there for awhile."
"Sounds like a good idea."
He replayed that brief conversation in his mind a half dozen times.
Had her eyes seemed dimmer than their usual bright blue? Had her
tone of voice been more determinedly upbeat than necessary?
He shook his head wearily. Who was he kidding? He couldn't
remember. Hell, he hadn't even really been paying attention. The
afternoon she chose to tell him of her plans, he had been plowing
through an old case file he had found particularly fascinating. Such
reading was for him always addictive. In fact, he recalled being
vaguely annoyed at her interruption. Having his partner tell him
she was going on vacation hadn't seemed important enough to
take any special note.
In looking back over the conversation, however, one thing did stick
out in his mind: <"I thought I might hide up there for awhile.">
Those had been her exact words; he was sure of it. At the time, it
had merely seemed like a figure of speech. But in retrospect . . .
had her choice of words been deliberate? What did she feel the
need to escape from? Had she given him any clues at all?
A crash of thunder shook the car and Mulder's concentration. All
right, forget that afternoon, he instructed himself impatiently. But
before that--had Scully behaved at all unusually?
As was their norm, they had spent a lot of time together. In fact,
now that he thought about it, he could remember her spending a
hell of a lot more time than necessary, especially given their caseload,
at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He often stayed in his basement cell
long after regular business hours, using the bureau's resources to aid
in his continuing search for his sister. However, while Scully was no
slave to the time clock, she usually knew when to call it quits. But she
hadn't the past few weeks, had she? He could even recall teasing her
about it.
"I thought you wanted a life, Scully," he had said with a small smile
one evening as they sat across from each other at their desks.
"What can I tell you, Mulder," she had murmured in reply, taking a
moment to slide her glasses from her eyes and wearily pinch the
bridge of her nose. "You must be a bad influence."
Wearily.
She might have seemed a bit more tired than usual, he allowed. A
bit more drawn. Had she been eating? They had shared a table in
diners and greasy spoons across America. But for the life of him,
he couldn't remember recently sitting down to a meal with her. It
seemed like every time he'd ask if she wanted to break for lunch or
even dinner she had an errand to run or she was making headway
with some project or other, and was too busy to stop and eat. He
supposed it could be possible that her weight had gone down a few
pounds. But it was so hard to tell! She was always dressed in suits.
Suits had jackets. Jackets hid a woman's body. Although why
Scully would want to hide her figure was beyond him. He had seen
the woman in her underwear, so he knew she had nothing to be
ashamed of.
An embarrassed smile found its way onto Mulder's lips. As silly
as it seemed, he felt almost disloyal considering Scully's body in
such an objective fashion. After all, she was his partner. He valued
her for her friendship, her loyalty, her quick mind, and even quicker
wit. The shape of her body should be irrelevant.
Then why did he know he could recognize the exact curve of her
waist faster than the Broncos could lose a Super Bowl?
The realization that he was more aware of Scully's physicality than he
might have liked was enough to turn his chagrined smile into just a
plain old grin. "Sorry, Scully. I'm only human," he said softly,
apologizing to his absent friend. Oh yes, he had noticed more about
Dana Scully than he cared to consider. He knew she was an attractive
woman. And under different circumstances . . .
Sighing, he ran his hand through his closely cropped brown hair.
Circumstances were what they were. Period. No use wishing for
things to be different. Besides, he liked what they had. Scully
knew him inside out and still stuck with him. He could tell her
anything and know she would take it in, judgment withheld, and
keep his secrets to her grave. In return, she'd tell him the truth, no
holds barred, even when she knew what she had to say would be
unwelcome. Mulder had learned from painful experience that
friends like her were hard to come by. No way he'd jeopardize
their relationship. No way in hell.
And, he'd do anything to protect it. So, when Margaret Scully
had called him at such an unusually late hour, any thoughts of a
cozy evening in front of the TV had been immediately banished.
"Hello, Fox? I'm sorry to call so late . . ."
"Mrs. Scully? Is something wrong?"
"Well, that's the problem. I don't know. You see, . . . I had
that dream again."
The dream.
Mulder's heart had gone allegro at the very mention of it. Mrs.
Scully's sleep had been disturbed once before. When Dana
had been taken away.
"Start at the beginning Mrs. Scully. And tell me everything."
As it turned out, there really wasn't much to tell. Scully had
driven up to her uncle's cabin in the Adirondacks the previous
Saturday. "The cabin's nothing fancy," Mrs. Scully had explained.
"But it's quiet, peaceful. Not another neighbor for miles, especially
this time of year. We used to spend vacations up there when the
children were little. It's always been one of Dana's favorite places."
Scully planned on returning Sunday. "I don't know why I waited a
whole week . . . until the day before she was coming home," Mrs.
Scully had said in a hushed voice. "But for some reason, I just had
to speak with her tonight, so I tried calling the cabin. The phone was
dead."
"Well, you have to figure what with the storm, downed phone lines
aren't that unusual," Mulder had offered reasonably.
"I know. I know you're right," Mrs. Scully had hurried to agree,
although she didn't sound entirely convinced. "That's what I keep
telling myself. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was
wrong. Then . . . when I dreamed about her being taken again . . ."
Mulder had nodded into the phone. He didn't need for her to go
into detail.
"Fox, I need to know Dana is all right. I'd make the drive up there
myself. But, I've got my oldest boy's children staying with me. He
and his wife are on vacation. So, I just can't get in the car and take off--"
"Don't worry about it, Mrs. Scully," Mulder had said in his most calm,
reassuring voice. "I'll go check it out. I'm sure everything is fine."
He thought he heard her sigh in relief. "Thank you, Fox. I hope
you're right."
Quite frankly, he hoped he was too.
*******************************************************
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (2/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:46:25 -0500
The saga continues. For acknowledgments and copyright info please
check Part 1. For those who came in late--this is Part 2. Again: any
comments, constructive criticism, or observations about life in
general, please e-mail me at krasch@delphi.com. All are appreciated.
Thanks for sticking with me this long!
Coming Back (2/4)
He glanced at his watch, this time not needing the assistance of the
car's interior lights. 6:20. He had turned off the main highway about
a half hour earlier, and was now cruising one of the county blacktops,
looking for the turn-off Mrs. Scully had mentioned. The rain had let
up; a light mist continued to glaze his windshield. But thankfully, the
tumultuous downpours of the previous night had abated. He had
stopped for gas soon after exiting the interstate and had picked up a
cup of coffee and a danish at the "qwik pantry." He needed the
combination of sugar and caffeine. It had been a long night. He was
hungry, exhausted and in need of a shave.
He drove through the sleepy little vacation towns feeling like a ghost
slipping through the communities on the ether. Few people were out
and about this early on a Sunday morning in the off-season. What
had drawn Scully up here? The scenery was pretty, sure. But, the
peak of the autumn colors was long since over. More leaves spun
and whirled with the gentle fall wind like so much crumpled paper
than remained on the trees. However, if she had truly wanted to
"get away from it all" this was the place. The town of Two Rivers,
the cabin's official address, was remote, and as removed from the
bustling Beltway as could be imaginable.
Yet, the question that remained in Mulder's mind was why.
Another mile, and he spotted the sign Mrs. Scully had instructed
him to look for. The private road leading to the cabin was unpaved.
Mulder took it faster than he should have. Although, whether it
was his desire to finally get out of the automobile or his need to
see that Scully was all right which drove him, he couldn't say.
Exactly one point five miles later the road widen into a clearing.
A mammoth, lightning charred tree marked the property's entrance.
As Mrs. Scully had said, the cabin was no more, no less than that.
Perched on cinder blocks, the sturdy little structure's rough wood
exterior was complemented by a green shingle roof and matching
shutters. Scully's car was parked along side of it.
Mulder grabbed his gym bag off the seat beside him and climbed
stiffly out of the sedan. Stretching his long legs as he walked, he
climbed the stairs leading to the cabin, and knocked on the door.
No answer.
Well, it was early. He didn't imagine that Scully was often up
before 7:00 on her days off.
"Scully?" He called once, his voice raised just above its normal
speaking level. When that garnered no response, he tried again,
both his knock and his voice a touch louder. "Scully? Come on,
open the door. It's me."
Still nothing.
Now, he was becoming concerned. Not only wasn't she answering
the door, but he couldn't hear any sound at all emanating from the
cabin. He tried the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand. The
door swung silently open.
"For crying out loud, Scully," he mumbled in disgust. The woman
was an F.B.I. agent. She really should know better than to leave her
door unlocked in the middle of bloody nowhere. Just to be on the
safe side, he pulled his gun out of his bag and flipped off the safety.
Easing the door open cautiously, he stepped inside.
"Scully? Are you here?"
He had stepped into what he imagined would be called the great room.
A kitchen bordered on one side by a breakfast bar looked out on a
dining area and living room space that was dominated by a massive
stone fireplace. An alcove opposite the hearth contained three doors.
All were ajar. The one in the middle apparently served as the entrance
to a bathroom. The other two chambers appeared to be bedrooms.
Mulder tossed his bag on the floor and keeping his weapon with him,
crossed to the alcove.
"Scully?" He pushed open one bedroom door. Picture perfect. The
bed was made, a comforter was neatly folded at the foot of it, the
curtains were drawn. Only a light coating of dust marred the scene.
No one had spent time in that room in a long while. Growing more
concerned by the minute, Mulder turned around and checked out
the other bedroom.
This was more like it. Although this room's bed was also made, Scully's
glasses and that Patricia Cornwell mystery she had been trying to finish
sat on the bedside table. One of her sweaters was casually tossed over
the back of the ladder back chair that stood near the window. Her brush
and make-up bag sat on the dresser top. He walked over to the closet.
Clothes he recognized as hers hung neatly before him. Her small
suitcase was stowed just where it should be on the floor.
But no sign of Scully herself.
Where could she be, he silently asked, refusing to give into panic.
<You see, . . . I had that dream again.>
No. He would not believe that. Maybe she had slipped and fallen in
the shower. She could be laying in there, bleeding right now.
Wondering how he could somehow be hoping for such a calamity,
Mulder rushed to the bathroom, and flung open the door.
Her toiletries were lined up like soldiers on the toilet tank, her
toothbrush lay on the sink, her white terry cloth robe hung on
the back of the door. The bathtub was empty.
Scully was nowhere to be seen.
His apprehension escalating, Mulder strode back into the main room,
his eyes alert for clues. The fireplace was cool. Powdery gray ashes
were all that filled the hearth's wide mouth. Forcing himself to slow
his breathing and his racing mind, he took a moment to examine the
scene with all five of his senses.
Through his sweatshirt, he could feel that cabin itself was chilly. He
checked the large, antiquated electric heater that sat on the far side
of the room. Cold as could be. He walked over and tried flipping on
a floor lamp. Nothing. The power was out. But surely she would
have lit a fire sometime last night for warmth, he reasoned. And yet,
it didn't seem as if that were the case. The wood, which was piled
waist high in a perfect pyramid against one of the fireplace's stone
walls, looked untouched. Could she have been gone since before
the storm knocked out the power?
Who said she was gone, Mulder, he mentally chided himself. But
what proof did he have that she was still around?
He crossed into the kitchen. A small pastel colored carton caught
his eye. Herbal tea. A box of it stood on the counter, a mug and
spoon beside it. Mulder walked to the stove and lifted the kettle.
It hung heavy from his hand. Perhaps he had proof after all.
"Looks like you were thirsty, Scully, when the lights went out,"
he murmured, his brow furrowed in thought. Okay, so quite
possibly she had still been here when the power failed. Otherwise
why would she have stopped in the middle of brewing her tea?
Good. Except for the evidence attesting to an interrupted tea party,
the kitchen was clean. A plate, a bowl, a couple of glasses and
some silverware sat bone dry in the drainer. Everything else was
exactly where it should be.
Frustrated, Mulder looked around at a loss. There just weren't that
many places in the cabin to hide! <"I thought I might hide up there
for awhile."> Maybe Scully had reached the same conclusion he
had. If she didn't find what she was looking for inside, she might
have tried going out.
First stop: her car. Unlike the cabin, its doors were locked. He
peeked inside. The blue four door was as clean as when she had
driven it out of the bureau's garage.
He checked the ground in front of the cabin, looking for prints,
tire tracks, anything that might shed some light on his partner's
whereabouts. The soil was saturated from the previous night's
downpour. He could plainly see his tracks, but otherwise the dirt
had been washed smooth by the rain. Except . . .what was that near
that stubby patch of grass? A heel mark? He walked over to the
shallow indentation and squatted down for a closer look. Well, what
do you know? Looks like I might be on to something, he thought in
bemused satisfaction. Judging by the half-moon shape, the little
hollow could indeed be part of a person's footprint. Small. Tennis
shoes, maybe. Scully's? Quickly, he scanned the immediate vicinity
to see if he could pick up a trail. Over to his right he found another
blurred indentation. The location and direction of the prints
suggested that whoever had made them had been walking around
the side of the building. Could his partner have headed out back?
He shrugged and shook his head. Who else's would they be?
Feeling like an Indian scout in an old John Wayne western, he
followed her spotty trail to behind the cabin. Once around the rear of
the building, he immediately noticed that the ground cover was much
taller on this side. Approximately twenty yards of waist high grass
stood between the cabin and the surrounding woods.
And shooting right through the heart of the gently waving grass and
weeds ran a path. But it wasn't like the hunters' trails he had seen
weaving through the forest as he had neared the cabin. Those had
been clearly delineated. Their surfaces had been cleared of any
vegetation by years of use, both by man and animal, leaving behind
only the packed earth on which to tread. The way before him had
only recently been beaten through. It looked as if at any moment
the brush would rise up again and swallow the path whole.
"Scully!"
He waited. The steady dripping sound of rain from the trees filled the
silence. In the distance, he could hear the answering cries of birds as
they dove and rolled with the light autumn wind. The sky was pearl
gray, the early morning light diffused. A strange sense of unreality
fell over Mulder. In that moment it was almost possible to imagine
the woods around him as a sentient being. A keeper of secrets.
One to be feared.
Shaking himself out of his reverie, he started down the path, his gun
in his hand. Although the underbrush often blanketed the ground,
from time to time, he could distinguish what he believed to be Scully's
footprints. But only hers. He didn't see a second set.
If you needed to go into the forest for some reason, why blaze a trail,
Scully, he wondered in dismay. She didn't appear to have been
pursued. So, logically she must have been the aggressor. What did
she need out here? Did she see something? If she felt like going for
a nature walk, wouldn't she head out the front to one of the established
trails? None of this made any sense.
His hair was virtually matted to his skull from the light mist that
continued to fall, and he could feel the water seeping into his tennis
shoes. He should have taken his jacket from the car before he set out.
Although the weather was mild for this late in the season, it was still far
from warm. How long might Scully have been out here? He sure as hell
hoped she was dressed for it.
He finally passed through the billowing grass and weeds, and crossed
into the woods itself. Here her trail was much easier to follow. She
appeared to have been moving at a pretty good clip, without care for
stealth. As Mulder followed her footprints he noticed that along the
way branches were broken and vegetation trampled rather than
circumvented.
He saw something flutter in his vision's periphery. His jaw tightening
in reaction, he realized what had caught his eye was a scrap of white
cloth pinned on the end of a twig. With a mixture of fear and
reverence, he pulled the fabric from its resting place, worrying it
between his fingers. Although he had no real basis for the belief, he
knew that the bit of white cotton had been torn from her clothes.
What in god's name was she doing barreling through the forest!
He had a bad feeling about this. Shoving the piece of cloth into his
jeans pocket, Mulder continued.
The longer he followed Scully's trail, the easier it was to read the
subtle clues she had unwittingly left behind. He could tell by the
long and irregular furrows her shoes had made in the mud that she
had had trouble gaining purchase on the sodden ground. At one
point, her tracks went into disarray. She must have fallen, he thought.
A small hand print was pressed into the soft earth. Along side of it,
two skid marks and a hodgepodge of prints, all of them hers. But,
then the tracks went on.
He quickened his pace. "Scully!"
The forest mocked him with its silence. Only the rattle of dying
leaves kept the sound of his breath company.
His journey lengthened, deeper and deeper into the woods.
He came upon a large flat boulder speckled with moss, and slid
to a stop just as the person he was following had done before him.
A small dark spot jumped out at him as if lit by neon.
Oh please, god, don't let that be what I think it is.
His hand trembling ever so slightly, he reached out and ran his
fingertips through a reddish brown stain which pooled atop the
stone. He rolled the greasy substance between his fingers, sniffed
it, touched it with his tongue. Blood. With all the moisture in the
air, it hadn't dried, and the tree cover had kept it from being washed
away completely. He stared at his defiled fingertips, his mind
momentarily shutting down.
Don't go to pieces, he angrily warned himself. You don't know if
this is even hers. Hell, it's more likely you just gave yourself rabies.
But in his heart he knew the blood spilled had belonged to Scully.
Wiping his hand on his pants, he began to run. In spite of the
temperature, he was sweating now, rivulets of it trickling between
his shoulder blades and down his temples to sting his eyes. His
lungs started to burn from a combination of exertion and the brisk air.
Her trail twisted and wove through the trees, following no logical
trajectory. He had just about decided that he had undoubtedly
stumbled upon his very own private hell, that he was destined to
chase Dana Scully through this primordial forest until the end of time,
with no hope of ever laying eyes on her again.
Then he saw her.
At first, he didn't believe it. It didn't seem possible.
She didn't appear real.
This wasn't the woman he knew. She looked fey, not of this world.
She sat huddled, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her weight
rested against a fallen tree covered with lichen. She was drenched,
absolutely soaked to the skin. Her oversized white blouse had turned
transparent, and molded itself to her skin like a shroud. Her hair was
plastered to her head, moisture darkening its copper color to
mahogany. It had been slicked back, leaving her face completely
naked. Cold, or maybe fear, had leeched all color from her features.
An ugly cut adorned her left temple, oozing blood like a ribbon
down the side of her face. Her light blue eyes, huge and unfocused,
stared unseeing. Even from the distance that separated them, Mulder
could see she was shuddering.
For a second, he couldn't budge. "Scully?"
It was as if he didn't dare move too quickly or speak too loudly.
Irrationally, he feared if he did, she would vanish, disappearing as
abruptly as he had found her. But that thought only lasted an instant.
"Scully, what are you doing out here?" he inquired gently as he
approached her. But before he could take more than a couple of
steps, her right arm swung up from where it had been tucked
around her body.
In her hand was her Sig-Sauer. Her left hand rose at the same
time to help support it. Without hesitation, she lifted the gun,
aiming it directly at Mulder's head.
"Scully, it's me," Mulder whispered, freezing in his tracks.
He didn't think she'd heard. Although her arms trembled from the
strain, the Sig's muzzle never wavered from its target.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said softly, putting his own weapon
away in a show of trust. "I want to help you. We need to get you
back to the cabin. As it is, it'll be a miracle if you don't come down
with pneumonia."
He chanced a step, then another, his eyes never leaving hers. Her
pupils were huge, their blackness nearly erasing the blue irises.
He could hear her teeth chattering. Her petite frame was drawn as
tightly as a bow, every muscle rigid. Yet for all her show of ferocity,
he could tell she was on the verge of collapse. Still, she rejected
surrender. Leave it to Scully to refuse to go down without a fight,
Mulder thought with rueful admiration.
"Come on, Scully. You don't want to hurt me," Mulder said as calmly
as he could, hoping he was right. "Put down the gun. Let's go home."
He squatted down to her eye level and reached out his hand. The
change occurred so subtly he almost thought he imagined it. She
blinked, once, twice. Her brow furrowed as if she were trying to
place the face before her. He waited. Ever so gradually, he could
feel her resolve weakening.
"That's right, Scully. It's me, Mulder," he murmured, inching closer,
his hand outstretched, his head now little more than a foot away from
the weapon pointed at it. "You can trust me. I won't let anything
happen to you. I'll keep you safe."
They stayed there for what felt to Mulder like the better part of
eternity, locked in their silent battle of wills. All at once, Scully's
breath expelled in a rush, the gun tumbling from her fingers. He
scooped it from the ground before she could change her mind,
and securing the safety, tucked it in his jeans' back pocket. In a
heartbeat, he was at his partner's side.
*****************************************************
In the end, Mulder had to carry Scully back to the cabin. At first,
he had tried to urge her to her feet. Her eyes still blank, she had
obeyed him readily enough. However, the moment he had released
his hold on her arms, her knees had buckled. He had counted himself
fortunate that he was able to catch her before she crashed to the
forest floor, thus doing herself further damage. But whatever relief
he might have felt had evaporated when he had tipped back her head,
and saw that her eyes had closed. It's nothing, he had kept telling
himself rationally. She fainted, that's all. Just the same, he wasted no
time in lifting her into his arms and retracing their way out of the woods.
Thankfully, now that he had found Scully, the way out of the trees
didn't seem nearly as long as the way in. All the same, he wished he
had the strength to run. Her skin felt like ice, and the force with which
she trembled kept threatening to knock him off balance. She remained
unconscious, her head lolling heavily against his shoulder. Smudges
of her blood smeared the front of his grey sweatshirt like brush strokes.
In his mind churned a million questions, none of which were likely to
get any answers in the immediate future. Forcing himself to beat back
his impatience and his fear, Mulder made good time. Scully weighed
next to nothing in his arms. The only challenge came in getting the
cabin door open without unnecessarily jarring her. Once that was
accomplished, he shouldered his way into her bedroom and laid her
with exquisite care on the bed.
He had to get her out of those clothes. Dragging away his worried
gaze from the fragile looking woman who lay before him, Mulder rifled
through the dresser drawers. He pulled out the first cold-weather
clothes he found: sweatpants, a thick brushed-cotton pullover, and
heavy socks. Tucking the clothes under his arm, he hurriedly crossed
into the bathroom and retrieved a towel before returning to her bedside.
Scully was awake.
"Scully," he breathed, as he settled on the side of the mattress, and
traced the back of his hand tenderly over the curve of her cheek.
"How are you feeling? "
She lay unmoving. Her eyes open, but still unseeing.
"Scully?" Mulder took her chin in his hand and turned her face gently
towards his own. What he saw there sent a chill down his spine, like
a spider scrambling down his back.
Nothing. Nothing at all. A shell remained before him, but the woman
he knew was gone.
He had been frightened by her lack of response in the forest. But, he
had thought, he had =hoped= that her condition was temporary.
That once she realized she wasn't alone and there was nothing to fear,
she would return to her normal self.
That didn't appear to be the case. Don't panic, Mulder, he told
himself determinedly. You're a psychologist. You've seen this
kind of thing before. It's a defense mechanism. Scully's psyche
has obviously received some sort of trauma. She has just shut
herself down to cope. The plan remains the same. Get the woman
out of those wet clothes before she catches her death.
Wincing over his exceedingly poor turn of phrase, he slipped
his arm beneath Scully's shoulders and raised her to a sitting
position. Leaving his arm where it was, he maneuvered his partner
so that she sat on the side of the bed. Glancing over her shoulder,
he noted that the spot where she had just laid was already saturated
with water.
"Okay, Scully," he said softly, sitting beside her. "You're going to
have to help me now. I need you to sit up by yourself so that we
can get these wet things off of you. Do you think you can do that?"
No response.
And yet, when he removed his supporting arm, she remained upright.
The sight afforded Mulder little pleasure. She reminded him of a
bedraggled rag doll who could sit like a real person, just as long as
someone propped her up. Still, he kept talking, reasoning that she
would need such stimulus to keep in touch with the real world.
"Good. . . . All right . . . Now, I need to get you changed. . . ." He
hesitated, exasperated with himself, but unable to continue for an
instant just the same. He knew that at that moment his partner
needed dry warm clothes a lot more than she needed him worrying
about her tender sensibilities, but he couldn't escape the feeling
that he was taking advantage of her. It had been one thing when
she had been lying there unconscious. Then, she was, for want
of a better word, a patient. But now, she was awake, if not aware.
They were sitting side by side, on a bed, and he was getting ready
to take off her clothes. The whole thing seemed like some unholy
parody of a love scene. And he didn't appreciate being cast in the
leading role.
"Shit," he muttered, and resolutely began slipping the buttons free
from the front of her blouse. He worked quickly. Soon the voluminous
garment hung open from her slender shoulders. Taking a deep breath,
Mulder slid it down her arms, and tossed it to the floor. Her skin
gleamed like ivory. The cross she always wore hung like a benediction
around her throat. Willing his gaze not to linger, he picked up the towel
and dried off her torso as best he could, chafing her skin as he went to
try and infuse her with some much needed warmth. She was really such
a tiny little thing, he realized with some amazement, his hands sensitive
through the terry cloth to the fine construction of her bones, the supple
musculature of her shoulders and back. Why did she never seem that
=small= when they were on the job? Grimly, he recognized that under
normal circumstances her presence, her will, her spirit more than made
up for any lack of physical size.
However, all that was missing at the moment.
He grabbed the pullover, and started to slip it on over her head. But
first, his eyes strayed to her bra. The little wisp of lace was as soaked
through as the rest of her clothes, revealing far more of her than he knew
he ought to see. He had wanted to leave her some vestige of modesty,
but what good were dry clothes over wet? He made his decision, and
scrambled to kneel behind her. With a speed that would have done a
high school Lothario proud, he deftly unhooked the bra and shoved
down her arms. An instant later, the pullover was tugged over her head,
Mulder taking care to ease the collar away from the cut on her temple.
Taking heart from his success in getting her top half warmly clothed,
he swiftly took care of stripping her wet jeans and socks, and replacing
them with fresh garments. However, not with the best will in the world
could he attempt to rid her of her panties. Hands on his hips as he
moodily contemplated the problem, he had mumbled, "Christ, I feel
like Frohike," and arbitrarily decided that the nylon bikinis were not
damp enough to pose a health risk. Just the same, after slipping off
her jeans he had taken the time to briskly towel her legs, noting that
they were, in fact, very nice legs. Not as long as some of the women's
he had dated in the past, but strong, well-shaped, firm. . . . Flummoxed
that these thoughts were swirling around in his head when he should
be focused on much more important things, Mulder had with some
degree of desperation thrown away the towel, and guided Scully's legs
into the safety of her sweats.
"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he said with false heartiness,
momentarily glad that she wasn't aware of how her body had affected
him. "Now, let's see about that cut."
A few minutes later, armed with rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and a
box of assorted sized band-aids, Mulder settled himself next to Scully
on the bed. "You know, Scully, when a guy says he'd like to play
doctor, this isn't exactly what he has in mind," he murmured dryly,
his concentration centered on the pale oval of her face.
"I realize this alcohol is going to sting, but I couldn't find anything else
in the cabinet, and I don't want to take any chances with this cut.
After all, I don't know how you got it. And with your running around
in the woods, god only knows what might have gotten into it." He
kept his touch light, his voice gentle. He could feel her breath on
the inside of his wrist as he cleaned the blood from her cheek. The
warmth of it against his skin did funny things to his insides. On the
one hand, it was a reminder that despite her silence, she was still
there with him. On the other hand, it made him miss her all the more.
"There. That should do it," he said with satisfaction when the last
of the mess was been cleaned away, and he had covered the wound
with the largest band-aid he could find. "It isn't pretty, but I think I
got it clean. You'll have to check it yourself, Scully when you're
feeling better, and tell me how I did." Out of habit, he sought her
eyes. They gazed back at him without thought or emotion. Flat
blue. Still like water.
What if she didn't get better? What if this condition isn't something
she can control herself? Maybe Mrs. Scully was right. Maybe
THEY did come for her again, and when THEY were finished with
her, this is what was left.
Swallowing hard against a wave of panic, Mulder ducked his head
and tidied up his impromptu first-aid kit as if his life depended on it.
That kind of thinking isn't going to do either of you any good, he
silently reminded himself. For once in your partnership, Scully is
looking to you to be the responsible one, the one in control. She
needs you now. So don't go off chasing little green men.
When he had himself better under control, he looked at her again,
searching for any clues, any sign that somewhere inside that
impassive shell lie the woman he knew. Just then, a tiny drop of
water trickled free from her hairline. It rolled lazily down her
unbandaged temple and caught at the corner of her eye. Gravity
had the final say, however, and the drop slid over her cheekbone.
Like a tear.
Pressing his lips together against an unfamiliar and most unwelcome
emotion, Mulder caught the spill with his thumb, smoothing it away,
his touch lingering ever so slightly. "Sorry, Scully," he said softly,
his voice unexpectedly rough and difficult to use. "I forgot about
your hair."
Needing to step away from her for just a moment, and realizing the
towel on the floor was already too sodden to be of any real use, he
went into the bathroom, and pulled another off the rack. He
returned and knelt behind her on the bed. "It could be my
imagination, but I don't think you're shivering as badly as when I
found you," he noted approvingly, succeeding for the moment at
brushing aside the feelings that had threatened to swamp him.
He took the towel and started to dry her hair with the same vigor
he had used on her limbs. However, while she still managed to sit
unaided, Scully's neck was far from rigid. Her head bobbed and
swayed like a dandelion in the wind.
"Sorry," Mulder muttered, and started the task again. As he eased
the towel slowly over Scully's tousled head, a vague and nearly
forgotten memory shimmered to life. When Samantha and he were
children they had spent their summers on the beach at the Vineyard.
Those were golden days. A time when childhood seemed endless
and every morning meant a whole new world of possibilities.
Although he knew it couldn't be true, it seemed to him that his
sister had always had long hair reaching nearly to her waist. The
silky mass was her one true little girl vanity. After a day in the surf
and the sand, they would come up from the water to get changed
and showered, and poor Samantha would have a rat's nest where
her crowning glory had once been. A smile softened his lips as he
remembered sitting on the porch retelling the day's adventures to
his mother while she sat in back of Samantha, much the way he sat
behind Scully now. Gently, with infinite care, she'd pat the little girl's
hair dry, pressing the towel against her daughter's scalp, separating
the strands as she worked. Sometimes, Samantha would be sleepy
after an afternoon in the sun, and her eyelids would droop under
her mother's ministrations. And Fox would smile at his little sister
indulgently, feeling both the fondness and superiority only a big
brother can.
Still looking back at that happy time, Mulder's hands unwittingly began
to mimic his mother's technique. He inched closer to Scully so he could
support her pliant form against his chest. From time to time, damp
strands of her hair would flick at him like playful tongues. He could
smell the rainwater on her skin, and feel the faint heat of her body
emanating through her clothes. Gradually, he could see her hair
lightening as the water was absorbed into the towel. Bit by bit, the
rich coppery color emerged. He continued the chore much longer
than he really needed to, until the fine hair around her face was
completely dry. Without knowing why, he found comfort in the task,
and enjoyed the feel of this woman resting against him. Finally, he
reluctantly put the towel down, and shifted away from Scully in
preparation for standing. His movement caused her head to tilt
slightly, releasing a lock of hair across her wounded temple. Mulder
leaned down to push it back, his fingers combing through the cool
slick strands. He no sooner slid his hand through her hair than his
fingers found their way there again. Then again, until the action
became a caress.
His eyes, warm yet troubled, fixed themselves on her placid face.
Sighing, he put his hands on her arms and drew her up from the bed.
Unable to help himself, he pressed her to his chest and laid his cheek
upon her hair. But only for an instant.
"Come on, Scully. Let's go build a fire."
*****************************************************
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (3/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:47:02 -0500
One more time. Thanks for sticking with it. For acknowledgments and
copyright stuff check out Part I. For comments and criticism please
e-mail me at krasch@delphi.com. I want to hear your reactions, so
please don't be shy. Without further ado:
Coming Back (3/4)
By late afternoon, Mulder thought he would go stark raving mad.
If only he had a radio or television that worked. With too much to
think about, too little to do, and only the sound of his own voice for
company, he was beginning to fully appreciate the term "cabin fever."
When he had first brought Scully into the great room and bundled
her onto the couch in front of the fireplace, he had been full of
purpose. After tucking a heavy wool stadium blanket over his
partner's legs, he had managed to build a rather spectacular fire
which filled the cabin with much needed warmth. He had then
stripped her bed of the sodden sheets and covers, and remade it
with fresh linens he had discovered in a hall closet. That finished,
he had begun to straighten up the smaller things about the cabin:
he put Scully's ruined clothes and bed things in a large plastic
garbage bag for a future trip to the laundromat, had hung the
drenched towels over the shower curtain rod, had returned his
makeshift medical supplies to their proper places, had tidied up in
the kitchen, and finally, needlessly fussed over Scully. Those tasks
completed, he had even taken a moment to replace his soiled
sweatshirt with a clean one he had brought along to sleep in.
He would have *liked* to have hopped in the shower. He =needed=
a few hours sleep. Neither of those was an option. He had to be
available in case Scully came out of it. Instead, he had contented
himself by splashing some water on his face, quickly shaving, and
brushing his teeth.
He had also made the token effort to contact Mrs. Scully and let her
know that he had reached the cabin and her daughter. Although
he knew it was cowardly of him, Mulder couldn't help but say a
silent thank-you when he found that the cabin phone was still out
of order, and his cellular was either out of range or experiencing
difficulties due to the surrounding hills. He didn't know what the
hell he would have said to the woman if he had gotten through
<Hello, Mrs. Scully--I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that I found Dana. The bad news is that she has
about as much animation as your average Cabbage Patch Kid.>
Wearily, he rubbed his hands over his face and leaned his elbows on
the breakfast bar. He had gone into the kitchen to see if he could
find something to eat. A box of corn flakes looked promising, as did
the bananas on top of the refrigerator. He opened up the fridge, and
was gratified to discover that not only had Scully bought milk, but it
was still cool enough to drink. Putting together all the components
into a bowl, Mulder munched on his late lunch and mentally surveyed
their situation.
The rain had started up again soon after they had returned to the
cabin. It wasn't storming yet--no thunder or lightning, just a steady
even rainfall. But even so, he was entirely too exhausted to complete
another six or seven hour drive in the rain. With the phones being
out, he couldn't call for a medical evac. He could, he supposed, drive
into one of the surrounding towns and find a phone that worked or
an emergency dispatch unit. But that would mean either leaving
Scully alone (not an option), or taking her with him while he wandered
from town to town in search of help (a plan he liked no better than the
first). No. He wasn't crazy about either of those scenarios.
Unfortunately, he couldn't come up with an alternate plan of attack.
"Well, Scully, what do you think? Should we just rough it here
tonight?" he asked wryly as he piled his dishes in the sink. "I
could use your opinion, you know. You of all people know what
kind of trouble I can get into if I'm left to my own devices. How long
do you figure you're going to give me the silent treatment anyway?"
He had been talking to her on and off all afternoon. The topics had
ranged from work related news, to what he figured the Redskins'
chances were that season. It didn't really matter what he said. From
what he understood of cases like his partner's, he knew it was
important to keep up some sort of interaction with the patient.
Someone in a catatonic state mustn't be allowed to retreat into
themselves unchallenged. They had to be made to realize what they
were giving up by doing so. The same idea lay behind the practice
of talking to coma victims. Hearing a loved one's voice was
supposed to remind the person of what he or she was missing by
remaining unconscious. While the memory of another time he had
tried to coax Dana Scully into the land of the living continued to
haunt him like a particularly sadistic ghost, Mulder gamely kept
talking, switching subject matter faster than a couch potato with a
remote changed channels.
"Well, I've had my lunch . . . or was it dinner? Whatever. What do
you say we find something for you." He returned to the refrigerator
and dug out a carton of orange juice. He had discovered that while
he couldn't get Scully to eat solid foods, he could manage to get her
to swallow liquids. Water had been a success. Maybe she was ready
to progress to something with a few calories to it.
"Well, since you're refusing to give me any help with this. I've come
to my own conclusion," he continued conversationally as he poured
the juice. "I think our best bet is to stay here tonight, and then get
on the road back to D.C. first thing tomorrow. That all right with you?"
Glass in hand, he went over to the couch, and sat closely beside her,
hooking his arm around the back of the sofa for leverage. Carefully,
he held the glass to her lips, giving her a moment to become aware of
what it was. Then, ever so slowly, he tipped it. The juice trickled into
her mouth, and just like before, some unknown reflex cued her to swallow.
"All right. Good girl," Mulder murmured, his concentration fixed on
Scully's lips and the workings of her throat. Although the process
was painstaking, her willingness to take in liquids cheered him
immensely. She sure as hell needed some kind of nourishment.
He could see now that she had definitely lost some weight over the
past few weeks, pounds she could ill afford to lose. While he knew
she wouldn't be getting fat on o.j., it was a start. At least in some
small way he was doing something. His inability to help her
pained him like an open wound.
"Well done," he said with a smile when she drained the small glass.
The smile turned tender when he noticed a drop of the juice clung to
her bottom lip. He set the glass down on the lamp table at his end of
the couch and leaned forward to catch the tiny bit of juice with his
thumb. Her lips were warm. Before he could stop himself, the simple
touch of his finger against her mouth blossomed into an exploration
of the curves and texture of her lips. He watched in heavy-lidded
fascination as the shape of her mouth shifted and flowed beneath
the pressure of his thumb. He had to admit, he had always found
this particular feature of hers wonderfully erotic. Way too sexy for
a nice little Irish-Catholic girl. Her lips were full and just *this much*
too large for her face's delicate proportions. Manys the time he had
watched that mouth purse with exasperation or worry, usually in
response to something he had either said or done. Fewer, however,
were the times he had seen her smile. Really smile--a mouth-open,
teeth-showing kind of grin. Sure, he had shared with her hundreds,
maybe thousands of tight-lipped little smirks. After all, both their
senses of humor tended towards the understated. But moments of
pure joy, the sound of her laughter--those were rare, made precious
by their infrequency.
Was it different for you, Scully, before you started working on the
X-Files, he wondered wistfully, his hand dropping away from her face.
Were you ever the sort of person who laughed at life, who embraced it
without fear or misgivings? He knew the exact moment his innocence
had died. But what about for her? As well as they knew each other,
despite all the hours spent in each other's company, many things
about Dana Scully remained a mystery to him. He often wondered
what drove her so relentlessly, what it was she felt she had to prove.
Why did she remain on the "spooky patrol" when with her skills and
intelligence, she could be making a name for herself in Violent Crimes
or any of a half dozen other more high profile divisions? Why did she
stay in the F.B.I. at all? More importantly, why did she choose to
remain with him? Maudlin though it may be, Mulder couldn't help but
imagine how her life might be progressing at that moment if she had
never set foot in their basement office. Several things were certain.
She undoubtedly wouldn't have been abducted, she wouldn't have
had three months stolen from her life, she wouldn't have had her life
threatened by things that would have driven most people into a
padded cell, she wouldn't have to worry that every time she took on a
case there was someone from her own government just waiting to
steal away with the evidence, and even though he still didn't know
what it was that had brought her to this point, she absolutely
wouldn't be sitting before him, her eyes empty, her hands lying
lifelessly in her lap.
His guilt over his partner's present predicament rose up unexpectedly
and crashed over him like a wave. His expression bleak, Mulder sat
next to her on the couch, his elbows braced on his thighs, his head
in his hands. "I'm sorry, Scully," he whispered, unable to look at her.
"I'm so sorry about everything."
A distant rumble of thunder pierced the silence.
Mulder pressed to his feet, his thoughts heavy and without order, and
strode to the windows. Night had most definitely fallen, and with it
apparently, came a return of the previous evening's storms. The rain
continued to fall as steadily as ever, but the wind had picked up,
twirling dead leaves and bits of debris like dervishes.
"I'm glad we're not on the road tonight," Mulder murmured
thoughtfully, his eyes following the path of one particularly wind
tossed leaf. "At least we should have enough wood to last us the
evening. Are you warm enough?"
In truth, he was sweltering. And yet, he had no intention of letting
the fire die down. All he needed was for Scully to fall feverish when
they were miles away from any kind of medical assistance. He crossed
back to the couch and laid his palm on her forehead, then her cheek.
Maybe they had caught a break. It didn't feel as if she were running
a temperature. But what did he know anyway? She was the doctor,
not him. Perhaps such things took time to develop. She could be well
on her way to pneumonia, and he might not even recognize the signs.
After all, he had no idea how many hours she had wandered through
the woods. Surely, she had been out there long enough to affect her
health.
Don't go borrowing trouble, Mulder, he silently warned himself. You
know Scully is a lot stronger than she looks. Still, wanting to take no
chances, he walked over to their woodpile and added three more logs
to the blaze.
"That ought to hold us for awhile," he said with false cheeriness,
wiping the wood chips from his hands by rubbing them on his jeans.
A flash of light startled him. Then, a low rumble of thunder, like a big
cat's purr, identified the source.
"Lightning," he said shortly, his glance straying to the window.
"Looks like we're in for it again."
He pivoted towards Scully, intending to return to his place beside
her on the couch. A flicker of movement stopped him, however.
Her hands, which had been lying heavy and still upon the plaid blanket,
were now clutching it, clenching and unclenching like a kitten kneading
its mother's belly.
*****************************************************
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Coming Back (4/4)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 95 20:47:31 -0500
The big finale! (Yeah, I wish.) Well, regardless, here is the final
installment. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed
writing it. Let me know by e-mailing me at krasch@delphi.com. For
all the other stuff (acknowledgments and copyright info), check out
Part 1.
Thanks for taking a chance on my story,
Karen
Coming Back (4/4)
Hope made Mulder's breath catch in his throat. His heart skipped a
beat; then made up for it by pounding twice as fast as before.
Cautiously, he dropped to the floor in front of the sofa, and laid his
hand gently on her forearm. "Scully?"
Her small hands continued their restless motion, her eyes staring off
towards the windows, locked on some distant inner vista.
Lightning flashed again. As if not willing to be outdone, thunder
cracked after it like a whip.
"Scully . . . Dana," Mulder began hesitantly, not really knowing what
he should say. "Can you hear me? You've been awfully quiet since
I found you. Do you feel like talking now? If you want to, I'm here.
I'm listening."
He searched her face. Her complexion was still colorless, her lips
slightly open, her breathing, light and shallow. Her eyes didn't
focus on him, and yet he thought he sensed an awareness in them
that hadn't been there before. Although he couldn't say why he
believed it to be so, it appeared that Scully was listening too. But
not to him. Her senses seemed trained on some event, some
something that only she could see.
"Hey, Scully," he tried again, his voice schooled into a casual
nonchalance he was far from feeling, his hand still on her arm.
"Why don't you come on back and keep me company. It's been
kind of lonely here without you. Nobody has contradicted me in
days."
Lightning blazed again, this time closer to the cabin. When its brilliant
incandescence threw Scully's face into harsh relief, Mulder thought he
saw her start in fear. Her breath now sounded vaguely labored, her
chest rising and falling in agitation. Her hands worked more feverishly,
twisting and bunching the wool as if punishing it. The wind outside
the cabin rattled the windows and whistled down the chimney flue,
stirring the flames with an invisible hand.
Mulder climbed onto the sofa, and gently grasped Scully's arms just
above the elbows. The storm was affecting her, no question. What
he wanted to know was why. They had been out in weather far worse
than this plenty of times, and he had never seen her flinch. But now,
she was reacting as if she believed the elements were about to break
down the cabin door and carry her off.
"Scully, it's just a storm--rain and wind and lightning. That's all.
Nothing to be afraid of," he said softly, calmly, his thumbs making
soothing little circles on her arms. "You're with me. You're safe.
Nothing is going to hurt you."
At that moment, a bolt of lightning sizzled to the ground directly
outside the cabin. For an instant, Mulder idly wondered if one of the
cars might have been hit. But, any speculation on the matter
vanished when a deafening cymbal crash of thunder reverberated
in his ears.
The sound was not so earsplitting, however, that it was able to
drown out the terrified whimpers of the woman beside him.
"Scully, hey . . . come on. It's nothing. I swear it," Mulder implored,
his hands running up and down her arms in an effort to comfort her.
Scully was having none of it. She was back to trembling now, fine
shivers coursed through her body like an invisible current. He tried
to pull her into his arms, but she resisted. Instead, she curled over,
wrapping her arms around her middle, as if to make herself a smaller
target.
"Scully . . . Scully . . . =Dana=, you have to listen to me." Mulder
abandoned the subtle approach, his hands clung steadfastly to her
upper arms with a force he feared would leave bruises. Whatever
had happened to her, wherever she had gone inside her head to escape,
she had left herself vulnerable to panic. For some reason she saw the
thunderstorm as something more than it was. He had to convince her
otherwise. He had to break through to her. "I've been as patient as I
know how, but I need you to come back to me now. Do you
understand? I don't know why you felt the need to hide. But it's
time to stop."
A particularly violent burst of wind buffeted the cabin, keening
mournfully as it squeezed through the cracks in the roof, throwing
cinder and ash from the hearth like confetti. The door shimmied in
its jamb, ricocheting to and fro against the wood with such force that
Mulder felt certain the frame would crack. Scully twisted away from him
to lay on her side facing the fire, her knees drawn up to her chest, her
limbs tangled in the blanket. It looked to him as if she were trying to
make herself smaller and smaller until she disappeared altogether.
The wind howled again with increased fury. The rain, now mixed with
hail, pounded against the windowpanes like a thousand tapping
fingertips. Lightning blazed across the sky in an eerie crooked arc.
Thunder boomed a moment after.
Mulder was just about to reach down and draw Scully upright again,
when he heard a click followed by the hollow bang of metal against
wood. A gust of wind had finally loosed the door from its catch,
throwing it against the wall. Rain poured in. Yet another fork of
lightning pulsed in the open doorway like a picture in a frame,
momentarily illuminating the darkened cabin with its brilliant white
light. A strangled cry tore lose from Scully's lips, half sob, half
scream. The sound pierced something in the vicinity of Mulder's
heart, frightening him more than any ship full of aliens ever could.
She was drawn up in a tight little ball on the couch, her face hidden
behind her forearms. He could see a fine patina of sweat slicking her
brow. She was shivering with the same intensity she had when he
first found her, though this time he knew it wasn't from the cold.
Although loath to leave Scully for even a second, Mulder hurried
to the door and secured it once more, this time throwing the bolt to
ensure its closure. Some small part of his brain that was still capable
of recognizing irony noted that even though he had mentally
chastised his partner for such behavior when he first arrived, he too
had failed to lock the door earlier.
Stopping just short of running, Mulder returned to the sofa. Wrestling
with Scully's rigid form, he brought her again to a sitting position,
caging her against the arm of the sofa with his body. Around them the
thunderstorm continued with all the verve and energy of fireworks set
to the 1812 Overture.
"Scully. Scully, you have got to listen to me," he demanded, his hands
firmly holding her face between them. "I know you went to wherever it
is you are because it seemed safe. It felt like someplace you could hide.
But, it's an illusion, Scully. Running away won't help you."
He thought she might hyperventilate. Her breath came in frantic little
puffs against his face. The pulse at the base of her neck fluttered like
a butterfly's wings. Her eyes no longer appeared blank. They were
haunted, and filled to overflowing with tears that ran unchecked
down her pale cheeks. And yet, she was still oblivious to the man
sitting before her, his heart in his eyes. Her hands found their way
to his sweatshirt where they gripped with a strength born of terror.
"Dana, I want to help you. I =will= help you. I promise. But first you
have to help me." Her head imprisoned in his hands, Mulder stared
into her frightened eyes as if sheer will might bring her back to him.
His voice dropped in volume, but not intensity. He brought his
face close to hers, their noses nearly touching. "Scully, I can't go
where you are. I would--you know I would--but I can't. You have
to be the one to come to me. Please--"
He was babbling now. He knew it. And yet he couldn't help himself.
Without knowing why or how, he could feel it. Every second the
storm raged around them, she was slipping further and further away.
It was like she was running from him down a corridor, locking
doors behind her as she fled. He didn't understand it. But that still
didn't stop it from happening. In desperation, he leaned his forehead
against hers, his fingers combed through her tousled hair, holding
her face against his. In that moment it seemed to him as if they were
the only two people alive. Marshaling everything he was,
everything he felt for the woman before him, he spoke. "Please Scully
. . . . Come back to me. Don't leave here me all by myself. I don't
think I could bear that. I need you, you know?"
Not daring to breathe, he waited for the words to reach her. But to
his ears, they seemed inadequate to the task, hollow and flimsy.
Without knowing what else to do, he dragged his lips to her
forehead and closing his eyes, pressed a kiss against her hairline.
For the span of several minutes, neither of them moved. Mulder
sat cupping her face, his cheek against her forehead, waiting. He
wasn't sure what for anymore. Then, with the slow steady speed
of sand trickling through an hourglass, Mulder could feel her hold
on his sweatshirt weaken. The tension that had pulled the fabric
tightly against his throat dissolved. Instead of clinging to her
partner like a lifeline, Scully's hands rested against his chest,
curled like a child's in sleep.
Afraid of what he might see, Mulder pulled back slightly and
looked down into the shadowed blue of her eyes. For the first
time that day, Scully looked back.
"Mulder?" Her voice came out low and rough, huskier even than
usual.
"Yeah," he answered, relief and pure unadulterated joy battling for
supremacy on his face. He swallowed hard against the lump in his
throat, his voice matching hers in timbre and pitch. "I'm here."
"What? . . . But where . . .What's going on?" She searched his gaze
for answers, sounding both lost and alone. Her hands crept up to
skim over his features, to touch his cheeks and mouth, to trace the
arch of his brow as if to reassure herself as to the identity of the man
cradling her face in his gentle hands.
Just then a flash of lightning spooked her, and she cringed before
she understood why. Without giving thought as to how appropriate
such an action might be, Mulder shifted to sit in the corner of the
couch and pulled her onto his lap, his arms locking around her to
shield her from the source of her fear. She buried her head in the
space between his jaw and shoulder, and willed the trembling to stop.
"Shh . . . it's all right," he murmured, rocking her softly. She
burrowed against him, drinking in his strength, taking comfort from
the soothing, sandpaper sound of his voice, the smell of his skin.
"It's just the storm. That's all. Nothing is going to hurt you. I promise."
They stayed that way for a long while, neither wanting to break the
sweet contact. Gradually, her muscles softened, and her breathing
returned to something resembling normal. The harsh white flashes
of lightning and their companion, thunder, still frightened her. But
now it seemed the fear was more manageable, less likely to swallow
her up. She used the silence to regain her bearings, he spent the
minutes mentally thanking whatever deity had taken the trouble to
answer his cry for help.
"Mulder?" Scully finally ventured, her head still on his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?"
"Your mom asked me to come check up on you." His one hand lay
buried in her hair, the other held firmly to her waist, his arms circled
around her to hold her nestled against him.
She pushed back against his chest with both hands so she could
look him in the eye.
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Not with your mom," he answered meaningfully. Her eyes slid
away from his, but he wouldn't let her run again. "Do you want
to talk about it?"
"No." She shook her head, loosing a cascade of hair across her face,
Mulder reached out his hand and tenderly smoothed it back for her.
She tried to smile her thanks, but his kindness and the concern she
saw reflected plainly in his eyes undid her. Suddenly it was far too
great an effort to smile. Tears came much more easily.
"Damn!" she murmured miserably, hiding her face once more
against his neck while she cried.
Lightly he stroked her hair. Her grief accentuated his own feelings
of helplessness. He could feel her tears wet against his skin, and
didn't have a clue how to make them stop. "Scully. . . . Shh, don't
cry. Come on. . . . Jesus, Scully. . . . I wish you'd let me help you.
Talk to me. Please. You know you can trust me."
She balled her small fist and pounded it without force against his
chest. "Of course, I can trust you Mulder. That's not the point--"
"Then why don't you tell me what the point is?" His hands clenched
in her hair, and he pulled back her head with his raging emotions
barely held in check. "Do you know what happened here? Do you
understand it? Because if you do, I wish you'd enlighten me.
'Cause I sure as hell don't!"
Her eyes were wary, but they didn't try to dodge his. "What do
you mean? What are you talking about?"
He sighed and forced his hands to loosen their grip, afraid that he
had been too rough with her. Still, she was talking to him now, not
hiding. All right. He had her attention. The only problem was he
didn't know where to begin. His hands slipped down to first squeeze
her upper arms in reassurance, then slide up and down the length of
them as if trying to warm her. "Scully, I came up here because your
mother was worried about you. When I got to the cabin, you were
nowhere to be found. I go traipsing through the woods, following
what I assume are your footprints, and I find you huddled against a log,
bleeding, in the middle of the forest. You're soaked to the bone. You
don't even know me. You try to take my head off with your Sig--"
Her pale complexion blanched even further. "I did what?"
Mulder shook his head dismissively, angry with himself for the slip.
"Nothing. You did nothing. The bottom line is that you've been in
some sort of waking coma ever since I found you. That was hours
ago. Now, you're back. And I want to know why. Scully, what's
going on? I've been half out of my mind with worry."
She linked her arms around his neck and hugged him with all her
might. Mulder answered her embrace by tightening his arms around
her slender back. She felt so good against him. Warm and soft,
curved in all the right places. He dimly wondered why he had never
held her like this before. Even though he knew the answer, knew
that this physical closeness was an aberration that would end
once the crisis was passed, he couldn't help but relish the
sensations. Her chest pressed to his, her hair against the cheek,
her breath hot against his ear. Then suddenly, all thoughts of the
physical pleasure to be had by having her in his arms vanished.
"Mulder, I don't know what's happening to me. I think I might
be losing my mind. I'm so scared."
He felt like someone had hit him in the gut with a two by four.
Insane--Scully? The earth must have reversed its rotation if she was
now the unbalanced one in their partnership, he thought in amazement.
She had always had more self-possession, more certainty in herself
and her beliefs than anyone he knew. How could that crumble? What
could shake her so badly that she doubted her own mind? She was
always the strong one, always the rock he could count on to be there
--to reel him in when his theories got too far-fetched, to cover his back
in a fire fight, to pull his butt out of whatever impossible situation he
blundered into, to be willing to face down anything and anyone to
insure his safety.
Weakness.
Need.
Fear.
These were things he never associated with Dana Scully. As far as
he knew, she didn't allow them in her life.
But now it appeared the choice had been taken away from her.
His partner needed him.
Mulder would like to meet the person who thought they could
keep him from her.
"There's nothing to be frightened of, Scully. Believe me. You're saner
than I'll ever be," he whispered, shifting again so that his head was
propped against the sofa arm and pillows, his long legs stretched out
on the cushions before him. He settled her against his side so that
she lay with her back against the couch and her head on his shoulder.
Grabbing the discarded plaid blanket, he tugged it up over their legs.
"Anyway, we've got all night. Why don't you tell me what's been
going on, and we'll see if we can figure it out together."
She nodded, her cheek brushing against his jaw. She fit against him
just right, Mulder noticed, her slight weight warming him more than
any blanket. After taking a moment to gather her thoughts, she began.
"I , um . . .I haven't been feeling *right* for awhile now, you know?
I've been having trouble sleeping . . . and, uh, . . .food . . .well . . . let's
just say the idea of eating has been less than appealing."
Mulder lightly ran his hand over her hair, combing through a few
strands at a time with his fingertips. So, she =had= been having
trouble. His jaw tightened in self-disgust. Didn't notice it, though--
did you, Mulder? Had your nose buried in one of your damn files
instead. "Any idea what caused it?"
"No," she answered automatically, her hand against his chest, her eyes
watching the flames in the hearth. "That is . . . not at first."
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated, whether due to reticence or the need to find the proper
words, he couldn't tell. "When it started, I thought it was just stress,
you know? We had just come back from Nevada, and I was tired, . . .
and I thought . . . well, of course. Sooner or later, things are bound
to catch up with you. I figured I just needed time."
Nevada. The last case that had taken them to Nevada had been
nearly six months ago. She had been suffering that long? Why
hadn't she said something?
"But it didn't go away," she continued, her voice hushed. "It got
worse. I felt jumpy all the time. Nervous. Some days it seemed
like my head was going to split open. And at night . . . At first,
I'd maybe . . . I'd only wake up once or twice a night. But lately . . .
lately, I've been afraid to go to sleep at all."
"Afraid?" Mulder wished he could see her eyes. "Afraid of what?"
Her voice sounded hollow, drained of all energy. Her hand had gone
restless, nervously tapping and picking at his sweatshirt. "Of
what I'd see. What I'd feel."
Mulder covered her hand with his, linking their fingers. "Can you
describe it for me?"
She drew in a watery breath, and he could tell without looking that
the tears had started again. "That's just it. It's all a jumble. Mulder
. . . it's more like a series of impressions . . . emotions . . . than any
sort of picture."
He smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand, tracing the fine
bones. He could feel her becoming more agitated the longer she
spoke of the situation, but he knew she had to get this out. It
had been eating her alive long enough. "Just tell me what you can."
She took a deep shuddering breath. "Okay . . . It starts with a light
. . . . bright light . . . very, very bright. So bright that I'm blinded."
Her voice had gotten so soft he had to strain to hear her even
though she was speaking from just below his ear. "I'm laying
down, on a bed . . . or a table . . . I can't tell. I . . . I can't move . . .
I want to . . . I want to get away. I don't know where I am, but
wherever it is, I need to leave, to get out before something horrible
happens. The light gets closer to me, and I get the sense that there
are . . . people . . .beings . . . =things= standing there, watching me.
I want to ask them to help me. To let me go. But I can't."
"You can't speak?"
"No! I can't talk and I can't move. It's . . . it's like I'm paralyzed.
And then . . . I feel . . ."
"What?" Mulder coaxed when she had fallen silent for longer than
a moment or two. "What do you feel?"
"Pain," she answered bleakly, her throat closing on a sob.
"Terrible, terrible pain."
She scooted up so that she could once again tuck her head
against the corner of his jaw. His arms closed around her protectively.
"I don't know how someone can dream about being in pain, Mulder.
But that's what it feels like," she whispered. "It's like I remember. . . .
It's awful . . . and it goes on and on. Throughout my entire body.
My back arches and my muscles tighten . . . and I fight it, but there's
no escaping it. No relief. Not until I wake up."
Once more, he could feel her tears anointing his neck. This time he
wanted to weep with her, to cry out his sorrow for the hell she had
been through. Alone. Because he hadn't cared enough, hadn't
looked closely enough to notice. But something she had said stuck
in his mind. "What do you mean 'It's like you remember'?"
For the longest time, she said nothing. Then, she spoke slowly and
carefully. "I don't know. But, sometimes . . . it doesn't feel like
a dream . . . . It feels real. Not like it's happening now. . . .
But like it did. It did happen."
Mulder's hand stopped its motion through her hair. "What are you
saying? That you're experiencing a memory?"
"I don't know. That's what I've been struggling with. I've wondered if
I might finally be remembering something about my disappearance.
But, I don't know for sure," she murmured, rolling so she could look at
him, leaning on his chest with her forearms. "That's what I came up
here to find out."
She stared at him solemnly, her eyes still awash with tears. He reached
out and cupped the side of her face with his hand, returning her regard,
his hazel gaze unwavering. "Why here?"
"To be alone."
Yeah. That would be how she'd want to handle it, he silently
acknowledged; how he would want to handle it himself. How could
two such intelligent people be so stupid sometimes?
"What did you discover?"
She eyes dipped for an instant. "I'm not certain. To be honest . . .
being up here on my own . . . it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever
done."
"How so?"
"Work was my only salvation . . . the only place I could get away from
it . . . the fear, the dream . . . at least for the last few months.
As long as I could focus on a case or work in the lab. . ." A
reluctant smile tugged at her lips, the first he had seen from her in
the longest time. "Or argue with you. . . . I could escape . . . I
could think about something else. But, I got to be too good at it
. . . the running away. The only place I couldn't hide was in my
dreams. Much as I would have liked to, I couldn't go without sleep.
So, I decided I needed to confront it. To quit hiding behind work,
and deal with it once and for all. But to do that, I had to get rid
of the distractions, the things that allowed me to pretend that
everything was fine in the first place."
"So you came up here."
"Yeah. Certainly not a lot of distractions up here. Not this time of
year." She laid her head down again so that it rested over his heart.
"But I underestimated it. . . . The dream . . . or the memory . . . or
whatever it is. Up here, it just seemed so powerful. It got away
from me. I couldn't control it."
Mulder gently rubbed her shoulders in comfort. "So what
happened last night? Do you know why you ended up in the woods?"
She shook her head. "Not exactly. But . . . I have an idea . "
She began tracing idle little patterns on his chest while she
schooled her thoughts. "The week had worn me down.
Yesterday, I had even toyed with going home early. But, then
the storm hit. It wasn't that bad until the power went out. But
after that . . . it was so =dark= in the cabin, it started to close in on me.
And the lightning . . . it just lit up the sky. So bright . . . just like the
light in my dream. The last thing I remember was a bolt of it hitting
that maple out front. Then, . . . I can't tell you what happened. It's
all a blank until . . . until I was here with you."
Mulder said nothing at first, instead he silently considered all she
had said. Scully was drained, her recitation taking the last of her
resources. She rested wearily against him, her hand still brushing
softly against his chest, her focus on the fire.
"Why didn't you see someone about this?" He finally asked, his
voice carefully neutral. "Why didn't you say something to me?"
"I couldn't," she said simply. "Any staff psychologist would have
taken me off-duty. I couldn't have that. Work was my safety net.
The one place I could get away from it."
Although he recognized her logic as flawed, he nodded, his expression
thoughtful. He strove to keep his mind on the questions at hand, and
not give in to the sensations her lightly caressing hand was
engendering. "What about telling me?"
She pushed up again to lean on her elbows. She stacked her hands and
rested her chin upon them as she looked down into hazel eyes that tried
to hide their hurt. "I couldn't tell you, Mulder, because I didn't want you
to feel you had to protect me." She had said those words before, the
last time she had felt this vulnerable. She had meant them then, and she
still did now. She had fought hard to be considered his equal. She
didn't want to lose that, to become something less than his partner. "In
our work, we only have each other. I want you to feel you can depend
on me, not that you have to look out for me."
"I look out for you already," he reminded her, wishing that in this case
he had done a better job.
Her eyes softened. "I know you do."
She laid her head back down. As she did so, she took her hand and laid
it softly against his cheek. Mulder's heart turned over. He couldn't get
over how easy she was being with him physically. Emotional intimacy
was nothing new to them, but this tender exchange of caresses, the
warm, sweet feel of her body lying the length of his was new and
threatened to become habit-forming. He realized her actions came as a
result of what she had been through. He knew that once she had
rested and regained her strength, the natural Scully reserve would
once again reassert itself. Much as he longed for her to recover, he
would sorely miss this closeness. Therefore, he hoarded their moments
together like precious metal, saving them for all the lonely nights ahead.
Entwined in each other's arms, they laid there and listened to the
crackling of the fire and the rumble of the slowly diminishing storm.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?" he asked when he could get his voice to function once
more.
"For taking care of me," she said, her arm now draped diagonally
across his body so that her hand hung over his shoulder. "For
driving all this way. For saving me from the storm."
He reached up and captured her hand with his. Saying nothing, he
squeezed it, and then laid it on his chest, covering it with his own.
"Mulder?"
"Hmm?"
"I wasn't wearing this before, was I?"
The comfortable drowsiness that had settled over him like fog, lifted
a fraction. "What?"
"These clothes," she persisted, lifting her head again to look down
at him in puzzlement. "I wasn't wearing these. I had on jeans, I think."
He was supremely thankful that the fire's glow more hid than revealed
his expression. "You'd been running around in the woods all night.
Your clothes were soaked. It was a medical emergency, Scully."
Her eyebrow lifted at that, a wry tilt of her lips accompanying the
gesture. With a slight incline of her head, she rested once more
against him. After a moment, she murmured, "I bet you use that
line on all the girls."
"I've tried," he replied dryly, his voice bedroom low. "But you're
the first one it's worked on."
He got a punch in the ribs for his comment.
They remained like that, the silence between them lulling. But
before he could allow himself to drift off to sleep, Mulder had to
broach one more uncomfortable topic.
"You'll have to go to someone when we get back," he said finally,
daring her to say otherwise. "You can't continue like this. It's
more than you can handle on your own."
A shadow crossed her face. "No, I can't. You're right."
"Scully, I know you don't buy into a lot of the stuff I do," Mulder said
haltingly. "But, if what you're experiencing is a memory of your time
away, you might be able to give us something to go on that would
bring the people responsible to justice. A description of the men who
took you, the place where you were held . . . something."
"I realize that," she said softly.
"Hypno-regression therapy might help."
A tiny smile flitted across her lips. She had been wondering when he
would get around to that. "I've considered it."
"And?"
"And I think I would like to try it."
"You would?" He couldn't keep the surprise from creeping into
his voice.
"If you were there with me."
"Always," he said softly, meaning it as a promise. "You can
count on it."
"Good." Scully yawned, unable to hold back slumber any longer.
Funny, she didn't think the dream would come tonight. The tense,
jittery feeling she had been living with for months was strangely
absent at the moment. And the terror she had been holding at bay
also seemed to have taken a holiday. Although she wasn't foolish
enough to believe that they were gone for good, she had the feeling
that she might enjoy a respite. If only for tonight. The reason, she
suspected, was the man who lay beside her. She could hear the
steady thud of his heart beneath her ear, feel the warmth of his body
against hers, and the strength of his arm as it held her to him. These
were powerful talismans against the dark. The professional in her
argued that she should do without his physical comfort. They
were partners. This blurring of the lines of their relationship would
only work against them in the end. She listened to the annoying little
inner voice, and then dismissed it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would
go back to being the FBI agent, the doctor, the person who needed
to be in control. For tonight, she was just a woman. A woman who
thanked god that the man who cradled her in his arms was there for
her. It had been so long since she had been held like this. Had felt
safe and cared for. It was only for one night out of so many. Surely,
giving in to her weakness for a few hours wouldn't hurt. No. She
would sleep tonight. She was certain of it.
Mulder continued his slow soothing caress of his partner's hair,
shoulders, and back. He had meant for the touch to be a comfort to
her. But, he was finding it worked both ways. He liked feeling the
textures and shapes change beneath his hand, from the silky softness
of her hair, to the gentle slope of her shoulder, to the sharper curve
of her waist and back again. Once he had started touching her, he found
impossible to stop.
"Scully?" he asked softly.
No answer.
She must be asleep. He smiled.
I have nightmares about aliens making off with my sister. She has
flashbacks to a possible alien abduction. She pulls her gun, then falls
catatonic. I wake up screaming.
He shifted slightly, pulling the petite redhead more firmly against his
body as if to protect her from such a fate. She murmured, then
adjusted accordingly, her leg drawn over his, her hand clinging to his
sweatshirt as if she feared he might vanish.
We were made for each other.
Now why did that sound less like a joke and more like a prophecy,
he wondered as he drifted off to sleep, the smell of her hair his
last memory of consciousness.
THE END
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