Title: Catalyst. Author:Sherry Davis. E-Mail:SherryDav@aol.com Category: MSR S ScullyAngst. MulderTorture. Rating: NC17 for violence and language. Spoilers: Up to US5 Archive: Anywhere as long as my name and addy remain attached. Summary: A violent encounter turns Mulder and Scully's world upsidedown. WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: This is a four-star warning folks. This story contains graphic depictions of violence. Anyone under age should bail out NOW! I mean it kiddies, I'm a mum and I know I wouldn't want my kids reading this. Anyone who finds violence disturbing should also bail. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Feedback: You Betcha. Disclaimer: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder and any other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and FOX studios. No copyright infringement is intended by this author. Author's Notes: I'm still new to this game and I'm not sure how you guys feel about reposts. However, after receiving a lot of requests for this story to be reposted I have succumbed. Mega thanks go to my editor Polly and Dawson Rambo. Without these two dear friends, I would never have written this. Their encouragement, suggestions and in Polly's case, endless patience, has enabled me to see this project through. Enjoy! -------- Catalyst. By Sherry Davis. FAIRFAX COUNTY TURNPIKE. FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA. 11.54 A.M. "Mulder, exactly how much further is this place?" Dana Scully looked out the window of their rental car and took in the vista of long rolling fields and not much else. They had been travelling on this deserted country road for hours and, although the scenery was nice and rustic to the eye, she couldn't help but feel that it was getting a little boring. "The turnoff is supposed to be around mile marker fifty-one." Mulder replied absently as he concentrated on the road ahead. "Is this lead of yours likely to turn out any better than the last one?" Scully inquired, hoping that she had managed to curb the irritation that she was feeling from being noticeable in her voice. "I hope so, Scully." Mulder replied with an exacerbated sigh, "I'm not exactly enjoying this wild goose chase." They had spent the last two days chasing down lead after lead on a case that, to her mind at least, was so flimsy that it could probably be classed as non-existent. She wouldn't have minded all the monotonous legwork and questioning if it had produced something, but they were no nearer solving the mystery that had brought them out here than they had been when they had first arrived. She shifted in her seat slightly and took a quick look at her partner. Mulder sat hunched over the steering wheel as though he were some kind of formula one racing driver. His posture was tense and guarded. His long slim fingers were gripped around the steering wheel so tightly that she thought they would break. He didn't like being played for a sucker and Scully knew that the longer this case went on, the more he would believe that he was indeed being played for one. Fact was she didn't like being played for a sucker either and this whole damn case was beginning to frustrate the hell out of her. She ran a hand through her hair and pushed a tendril of auburn fire behind one ear. She paused in thought for a moment, allowing her mind to wander over the details of the case, then resignedly she reached between the gap in the seats and retrieved her briefcase. "What are you doing, Scully?" Mulder asked as he caught her movement out of the corner of his eye. "We're miles from marker fifty-one, so I thought I'd give my notes another going over, maybe I can find something I missed." She opened the briefcase and took out a small wad of papers before safely stowing the briefcase back behind their seats. "You know, I'm beginning to think there's a reason behind all of this." Mulder said. "What do you mean?" Scully asked as she lifted her eyes away from the papers in her hand to gaze at her partner. "This whole thing, Scully." One hand left the steering wheel and fumbled for her notes and he held them up between them, "This whole needle in a haystack case was given to us for a reason." "And that would be for the purpose of?" Scully replied, arching one fine eyebrow. "To get us outta DC for some reason. I bet something big is coming down and *they* did this to keep us out of the loop." His eyes held hers for a brief moment before sliding back toward the road. "You know Mulder, has anyone ever told you that you're paranoid?" she asked him as a soft smile played across her full lips. "Actually someone very close to me makes a point of reminding me every now and again." He shot her a small affectionate smile of his own as a means of conveying to her that her teasing was a welcome way of breaking up his mood. Then quick as a flash he turned serious once more. "C'mon Scully, you have to admit we're getting nowhere fast on this one." "Hmmm." She hummed in reply as she reclaimed her notes from him and once more began studying them. She was hoping to find something... anything to make this whole shambles worth it. So far all they had were a few scant leads and a couple of motel room bills to show for all their hard work. They drove on in silence for a little longer, Mulder lost deeply in thought and Scully immersed in her notes. It soon became more and more apparent to Scully that all she was accomplishing with her obsessive reviewing was the beginnings of a headache. She sighed and threw the notes carelessly up onto the dashboard and turned her attention back to the passing scenery. More bland colored fields passed by her window. Farming country, she thought to herself tiredly, acres and acres of it as far as the eye could see. She stifled a yawn and settled back once more in her seat, noticing as she did so that up ahead of them was the first car she had seen in almost three hours. Something instinctual kicked in and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright, as though a static charge had passed over them. **Dana, you're getting as paranoid as he is.** She chastised herself, but she couldn't resist the impulse to look back over her shoulder and out the back window. Two hundred yards away sitting doggedly on their tail was another car almost identical to the one in front of them. "Mulder." Scully said. "I see `em, Scully. The one behind us came charging up out of nowhere like a bat outta hell." Mulder grimly replied and she noticed his hands grip the steering column more tightly. **This is ridiculous.** Scully thought, **We've been on the road way too long if we're starting to see the shadows in every little thing that comes along. Get a grip Dana, it's just a couple of cars. OK, so they look the same, but hey... what does that mean?** Apparently it meant a hell of a lot because at that moment the black sedan in front swerved to the left and blocked their path forward, and at the same time the identical black sedan behind them fishtailed to its right and effectively blocked off their escape. Mulder slammed on the brakes of the rental car and just about managed to bring it to a shuddering standstill before the front end rammed into the sedan's side door. "Shit!" He spat out the expletive and glanced over at his partner's worried blue eyes. "You OK?" he asked, and at her nod of reassurance a wave of relief swept through his body. God, that had been close. Scully expelled a long breath as she tried to get her rapidly beating heart back under some semblance of control. Her eyes broke away from Mulder's and shifted back to gaze at the lead car. Four men alighted the vehicle dressed in black and sporting dark sunglasses. She didn't need to look behind her to know that another group of men dressed the same were at that moment getting out of that car as well. A strong feeling of deja vu settled over her as her mind quickly took in the surroundings and the men before her. It was the Colonel Budahas case all over again. What the hell could they want this time? They had absolutely no evidence to suggest any kind of paranormal activity in the case they were investigating. Her stomach began to knot apprehensively. "I don't like the look of this," Mulder stated unnecessarily for Scully's benefit. "No shit, Sherlock," Scully whispered back as her eyes continued to monitor the progress of the strangers as they approached their car. This time there was no polite tap on the side window followed by a request to alight the car. Two of the big, burly, men in black strode up to the car and wrenched open the doors. Both FBI agents were dragged from their vehicle and unceremoniously slammed up against the roof of the car. "Hey!" Mulder protested, "We're FBI." "We know who you are, Agent Mulder." One of the men replied with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. They were frisked roughly by the men and their weapons and cellphones were confiscated. Scully noted idly that no effort was made to confiscate the notes that now lay up on the dashboard, or the rest of their meagre evidence that still lay inside her briefcase. The knot in Scully's stomach tightened further. They weren't after the evidence. They were after them. Her train of thought was brutally broken when the two heavies grabbed her arms and forced them up behind her back. She winced in pain and bit down heavily upon her bottom lip to stop a painful gasp from escaping. "What the hell do you want?" Mulder asked as the men on his side of the car duplicated the manoeuvre that had just been performed on Scully. The leader of the group, a blond man taller than Mulder and with a deeply tanned complexion, leaned down until his face was inches from the FBI agent's and spoke, "Oh, you're about to find out Agent Mulder... believe me... you're about to find out." He made a motion with his head and the men holding Mulder and Scully began moving off in the direction of the nearest field. **This is it,** Scully's mind informed her with a calmness that surprised her, **they're finally going to assassinate us.** They were frog-marched into a field of long grass, the movements of the group bending and snapping the delicate shoots as they passed through them. Scully was deliberately kept a couple of steps ahead of her partner and it disturbed her because she couldn't see him. **If I'm about to die, I want to be able to look at him one last time,** she thought. **Just one last time so that he can see... so that he knows before it's too late.** The group stopped when they were far enough into the tall grass that they were obscured from being seen by the road. The two men holding Scully tightened their grip upon her and the pain in her arms increased ten fold. She bit back the moan that threatened to escape as she felt the bones in her shoulder blades protest at their misuse. God it felt like they were about to wrench her arms clean out of their sockets. The men with her partner took a few more steps before they spun him around so that he was facing Scully. His eyes immediately sought out and locked on hers, a thousand different messages exchanged in the space of a heartbeat. **I'm sorry it's come to this.** **If you get the chance... PLEASE... try and make a break for it, Scully.** **See you in OUR next life. I KNOW we'll have one.** **There's SO much more I want to tell you, Scully, but there's such little time left. Know that I love you, ALWAYS.** **Forgive Me.** Scully had to blink back the prickly sensation of tears as she saw the full depth of emotions that skittered across her partners expressive face. Alongside the overwhelming love that shone forth from the hazel depths of his eyes, she could see the guilt and sorrow at the way in which their five year journey was about to end. Scully kept her own eyes locked steadfastly with his, she hoped that they would correctly convey the multitude of thoughts that were at that same moment flying frantically through her own mind. **Wait for me, Mulder. Please... don't go on to the other side without me.** **I'm counting on an afterlife, Mulder. As God is my witness I swear I'll be with you again, in heaven where there's no pain... no quest... just peace...** **If only I could have a little more time to say ALL the things I so desperately want to say. My love for you is stronger now than it has ever been, I pray it'll be enough to get us through these last few minutes on earth together.** Their link to each other was broken when the tall leader of the group stepped between them accompanied by two more of his cronies. Scully's practised eye quickly appraised the other two men. They were tall, thick-set, surly in countenance. The word "bruiser" came readily to her mind. They stood casually next to their boss, their hands crossed protectively over their midsection. Those hands suddenly caught her attention. They were gloved in leather, but the fingers and knuckles of the gloves had something silvery and hard looking stitched into them. Her brow furrowed in concern, but further thought was curtailed when the leader of the group began to speak. "It would appear Agents, that you both have a little problem with the word *obedience*. When asked to back off a case it seems that you do everything in your power to avoid doing so." The man turned sideways so that both agents could see his profile, "I've been sent to instill a little *obedience* in you... one way or the other." The infinitesimal nod of his head was so small that Scully hardly saw it, but she saw its effect. One of the two men standing beside him moved up to where Mulder was being held and rammed his fist into Mulder's solar plexus. The force of the blow knocked all the wind out of Mulder's lungs and he tried to double over, only to be forcibly held upright as another blow was delivered to the same spot. The other man standing next to the tall leader of the group joined his comrade and together they began to systematically rain blows upon the tightly held FBI agent. "NO!" Scully screamed and she tried to move forward, but the men holding her arms wrenched them further up her back, stopping her progress. Blow after sickening blow was delivered to Mulder's face and body. Blood began to pour out of his mouth and nose, running in long rivulets down his face and dripping off of his chin to stain his once pristine white dress shirt. There was no way he could muster any form of defence for himself, he was being held so securely that it was impossible for him to even try to curl himself into a protective ball. The blows continued unabated and Scully watched in horror as her partner's face slowly began to dissolve from its once handsome features into something that was akin to a punchbag. One savage blow in particular produced a loud cracking sound and Scully immediately knew that Mulder's jaw had been broken. His moans and cries began to fill the once quiet field as the men continued to beat upon him. His body began to sag at the knees as though all his energy had been suddenly leeched from him. He was nearing complete unconsciousness, but still the men continued their beating. "Jesus... NO!... stop... please... please stop hurting him!" Scully pleaded, but to no avail. She twisted at the waist and tried to pull herself free of the grasp of the two goons holding her, but her small body couldn't break their iron like grip. The tall leader smiled in grim satisfaction as he silently watched the reaction of the small female agent to the beating taking place. Everything was panning out as his masters had stated it would. Agent Scully was suffering every bit as much mentally as her partner was physically. It was how it had been planned. It was how THEY had wanted it carried out. Agent Scully seemed to detect that she was being scrutinised because she suddenly glanced across at him, her deep blue eyes asking him... pleading with him to stop the beating before it went too far. He let an evil grin split his lips as he mocked her and slowly turned his head back toward Mulder so that he could further observe the punishment being delivered. Mulder's body suddenly slumped completely and the two men holding him were forced to pull him further upright. The two thugs now switched their attention from Mulder's face to his torso and their fists began to land with a sickening dull thud into his stomach and ribs. "YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" Scully screamed loudly. Pulling and twisting against her captors, she tried desperately to break their hold. The need to get to her partner was nearly overwhelming, she wanted to protect him from the blows he was receiving and knew that she would gladly stand in his stead if she could only reach him. There was a sharp kick to the back of her legs and she felt herself pitching forward. She landed on her knees with a dull thud in the soft grass, the momentum of the fall so hard that a small scream was torn out of her mouth as her shoulders were pulled ever nearer to breaking point. She felt sick. Physically sick as she watched helplessly as the abuse of her partner continued. These bastards didn't care that he was now unconscious and thus thankfully unable to feel the pain that their blows were causing. **Oh Jesus Christ, don't let him die.** Scully silently pleaded as she slowly turned her head away from the scene before her. Thankfully she could no longer see what was going on, but her hearing was more than making up for her loss as her brain registered each and every dull thud of fist against soft flesh. **He can't take much more. They're beating him to death and there isn't a fucking thing I can do about it.** Tears welled up in her eyes. She was unable to stop them as they brimmed and cascaded down her cheeks. **Please God... I beg of you... don't let him die.** She felt a strong hand forcing her head back around and she tried desperately to fight it. The damn bastard was too strong and slowly he managed to turn her until once again she had no choice but to watch her partner's continued beating. **I can't do this. I can't watch him being hurt like this. Oh God please help me!** She screwed her eyes up tightly against the images before her and let out a strangled sob. Those fucking bastards knew them well enough to know that Mulder's pain would be her own torture. The helplessness that she now felt was becoming too much for her to bear. She wanted to break free and grab the nearest firearm and start blasting away at these sick sons-of-bitches. How could they make her watch her partner being beaten to death? What did they think she were made of? **Mulder... forgive me! Please forgive me for not being able to help you.** The tears were falling constantly now and she wasn't ashamed to let them. Her sobs mingled with the dull thuds of the blows still being delivered upon Mulder's poor broken body and the breathless panting from the men delivering them. The cool barrel of a handgun dug into the back of her neck and she stiffened as she knelt on the grass. **Maybe those fuckers are going to shoot me after all.** Relief tinged with guilt permeated her body. She would be spared watching more of this torture, spared the misery of watching her partners body finally give up its will to live. **They would be doing me a fucking favor.** "Open your eyes, Agent Scully. I want you to witnesses each and every detail of this." The gun barrel dug harder into her neck, but she refused to comply with the leaders wishes. "You see, this is what I'm talking about. No *obedience.*" He brought the gun barrel up against her ear and she heard the sound of the hammer being pulled back, "Open your fucking eyes bitch, or I'll put a bullet in your partner's brain." Scully's tear stained eyes snapped open and she was met with the dark sinister-looking leader of the group as he peered at her from behind his sunglasses. He was hunkered down opposite her kneeling form. "You'd do anything for him, wouldn't you?" His index finger trailed lazily down her face and came to rest against the opening of her blouse. "Anything... Agent Scully? Would you really do anything to save your partner's life?" His warm hand trailed down over her breast and squeezed it gently. Scully stifled the cold shudder of repulsiveness that tickled her spine, hoping that she was successfully conveying to the bastard the revulsion she felt at his touch. The tall man smiled evilly out of one corner of his mouth. "Oh well, maybe another time, Agent Scully." He rose to his feet and joined the men holding Mulder. He whispered something to the two panting thugs and they stepped aside. Scully almost let out a sigh of relief until she saw the baton appear in the tall man's left hand. **Oh Sweet Jesus, NO! That sick bastard was about to kneecap him. To cripple him for life.** "NOOOOOO!" Scully screamed and threw herself forward with as much force as she could. Her sudden move surprised the men holding her and she managed to break free. She fell forward, then staggered to her feet, trying to get at the man with the baton. "NO! YOU SON OF A BITCH! LEAVE HIM ALONE. CAN'T YOU SEE HE'S ALREADY HALF DEAD!!!" She managed to take a couple of steps toward the leader as fiery pain coursed through her body. Pain from her arms, and pain from the injustice of it all. If she could get that fucking baton out of his hands, she'd show him a thing or two about *obedience.* Just as she thought she might actually have a chance of making it, something hard smashed into her back and sent her sprawling to the ground. As she tried to get her hands under her to push herself up, a booted foot slammed into her abdomen and a slicing white hot pain engulfed her body and started her retching uncontrollably. Another vicious kick took what little air was left in her lungs and she gasped and choked for breath. "Leave her." The sound of the leader's voice cut through the air as she fought to get more air into her burning lungs. She felt two arms hoist her to her now shaky feet, holding her again in a vice-like grip. Her small arms were being twisted up against her back once more and the pain in them was becoming immeasurable. "Don't... hurt... him... anymore." She managed to wheeze through the pain in her stomach, "PLEASE..." Her eyes slid up the leaders body until she were looking again into his face, "You've made... your point..." She gasped breathlessly. "Maybe now you'll learn to back off." The tall leader leaned in toward her face, "If there's a next time, it'll be your turn, Agent Scully." A menacing grin crossed over his lips, "How do you think, Agent Mulder, will react to having to watch while you're beaten." He leaned in further still until she could smell the fetid odour of his breath," Or raped...?" The anger that had been slowly building to boiling point now simmered over. She did the only thing she could do with her arms pinned tightly up behind her back. She spat in the bastard's face. That defiant response to his thinly veiled threat earned her a blow to the jaw. The leaders fist connected with such aggressive force that she heard the tendons in her neck pop as her head snapped backward. Her mouth filled with warm, metallic tasting blood, but she forced herself to swallow it down without gagging in the process. There was no way in hell she wanted that bastard to know that he had succeeded in hurting her. She kept her eyes locked upon his face without even so much as flinching. The leader stared at her for a moment longer and then made a small motion with his hand. The men still gripping her arms suddenly let go, and she fell forward, dizzied by the sudden rush of blood returning to her abused limbs. Painful pins and needles raced through her arms as she caught herself before hitting the ground. **If you ever get on the working end of my SIG, you're a dead man, you bastard.** Scully thought as she watched the eight darkly clothed men vanish from the field. Then she was running as quickly as her protesting muscles would allow toward her stricken partner, who now lay in a quiet heap on the grassy ground. She sank to her knees in front of him and the tears that had dried up earlier began to fall again with a vengeance. He looked *dead*, he wasn't moving and his face and body was one huge mass of blood and bone. "Don't die. Don't die on me Mulder," She gingerly moved to check for a pulse and found only a very shallow one. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere, without a cellphone to call for help. She wanted desperately to hold him, to cradle him in her arms, but she knew that she had to think of a way to get help. If all else failed she would have to try and stabilise his condition enough to get him to the car and to the nearest hospital. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Oh God, I'm so sorry..." She whispered over and over again as her tears ran hotly down her cheeks to fall upon his bloody body. End Part One... FAIRFAX COUNTY TURNPIKE, FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA. 1.15P.M. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Oh God, I'm so sorry..." She whispered as hot tears dropped from her cheeks to mingle with the blood on Mulder's nearly unrecognisable face. Her eyes were blurring with the force of her tears and her shoulders hitched uncontrollably as her anguish continued its momentum. Her small hand trembled as she reached out tenderly to push away that stubborn lock of hair from his brow and her fingers came away sticky with his blood. "Oh God, Mulder, what have those bastards done to you." Her voice was hoarse with crying and her throat felt as if a boulder had lodged itself within. She felt so sluggish and tired, she couldn't seem to think. It was like trying to wade through quicksand. All she wanted to do was to pull him into her arms and cradle him so that when he slipped away it would be with the knowledge that she was with him at the end. **Dammit! Don't give up on him, Dana.** Her inner voice announced sternly. **Pull yourself together... Don't you recognise shock when you see it? For God's sake don't just sit there and wait for it to happen. Help him. That's what you're trained for, isn't it?** She blinked her eyes a couple of times and the blurring faded away. She could see his prone body lying before her, his breathing shallow and laboured, his face a sea of red. **For God's sake get up and DO something, Dana, or he's gonna die right here in this Godforsaken field.** This time her inner voice managed to break through her lethargy. Without realising she were doing it, her right hand slowly made its way back to the side of his neck and rechecked his pulse. It was slow and ragged which was cause for concern. Her eyes flickered down his chest to focus on his breathing. Still too shallow for her liking, but thankfully the airway didn't appear blocked. He was still holding on, fighting to stay with her, to stay alive. **C'mon Dana, meet him halfway. Don't let him do all the work. You're not helpless anymore. You can help him win this fight. Do what you've been trained to do. You're a doctor, dammit! Act like one!** The mental kick in the ass seemed to finally bring her to her senses. "Hold on Mulder," she whispered softly, "please... just keep holding on." The miasma of shock and fear that had temporarily taken over her body began to retreat as the physician within her rose to the surface, taking command of the situation. It was imperative that she get Mulder's body stabilised before she could safely contemplate moving him. She set about working to that end, trying to keep a clinical detachment when it came to looking at his horrendous injuries. Methodically she began to catalogue them, her mind presenting and discarding various treatments at a dizzying rate. His battered face had swollen to twice its size, his eyes and lips bloated. As Scully used the sleeve of her suitcoat to gently wipe away the blood, she could see the classic signs of a basal skull fracture appearing. His eyes were ringed with dark black bruises, making him look absurdly like a human variation of a racoon. Without needing to turn him over she knew that the back of his head would have a similar bruising behind the ears. It was definitely not a good sign. Any skull fracture needed immediate hospitalisation as there was always a possibility that the patient might lapse into an irreversible coma. The thought of that happening to her partner sent a cold tendril of fear down her spine. She brutally squashed all further thoughts in that unproductive direction and forced herself to continue her evaluation. His nose was a shattered mess, blood and mucus vying for poll position as they trailed from his nostrils. She retrieved some tissues from the pocket of her pants hoping to use them to staunch the rapid flow. She soon discounted that idea, preferring to let the blood flow freely rather than risk the possibility that he might choke should it back up and run down his throat. Her eyes finally settled upon his heavily bruised and bloody mouth. Her partner now had two impossibly large pouty lips, she fought the impulse to dab the blood away with the tissue in her hand. If his jaw was broken, as she suspected, moving it could prove dangerous. With her inventory of his face complete she started on his torso. Keeping him as still as possible, she began to gingerly remove the tie that he had been wearing around his neck. The bizarre pattern displayed upon it had been made worse by the addition of dry blood spatters. She tossed it aside angrily, hoping never to lay eyes on the thing again. Her hands may have shaken, but they moved over his prone body with practised ease as she let her medical training dictate her every movement upon his battered form. She couldn't detect any broken ribs from her cursory examination, so she decided that the best thing to do would be to assume that he may well have a couple of cracked ones and err on the side of caution. She was more worried about internal bleeding, his stomach felt distended and solid, it was another bad sign in a catalogue of bad signs and she knew that she couldn't wait any longer. Her hand was halfway inside her suit jacket before she remembered the men had taken the cellphones. *Damn.* Without a cellphone to call for help and with the deserted road offering no chance of a car to flag down, she reluctantly came to the conclusion that the only option open to her was to get Mulder to the rental car. She furrowed her brow in thought. Dragging his unconscious body to the car was not a viable option, it would be medical suicide. She would be undoing in seconds all her minutes of careful observation if she moved him. But the fact remained that he needed urgent medical attention, therefore she was going to have to bring the car to him. Rising to her feet she took a moment to gauge how far from the rental car they were. **Probably five hundred yards, not much further than that.** Her mind supplied. She hunkered back down beside her partner's still form, tenderly brushing back the stubborn lock of hair from his brow. "Mulder, I'm going for the car, okay?" she whispered softly, "Keep fighting, Mulder, don't give up." Her fingers traced his eyebrows, "You're not allowed to die, Mulder, do you hear me? It's not your time. I refuse to let you go." He moaned softly and she took it as a sign of his willingness to go on. "If Saint Peter wants you," she mumbled quietly, "he's gonna have to go through me first..." her hand reached for his and squeezed it gently. "Do you hear that, Mulder? Through *me* first." She didn't know if he could hear her, but her words were comforting to her own ears. At least now she could fight for him, which was something that had been denied her by those bastards earlier. And by God, was she gonna fight for him. She squeezed his hand once more before standing up. Slowly she turned in a circle, finding her bearings. The flattened shoots of grass made the perfect marker for her to follow. She couldn't put it off any longer, no matter how hard she was finding it to leave him, it had to be done. She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep, steadying breaths. **Lord, don't let him slip away while I'm gone. Watch over him... please.** Grimly she set off at a run, stumbling a bit through the tall grass. Fronds of foliage whipped at her face and hands as she tore through the field, but she ignored their stinging assault. Time seemed to slow down, seconds felt like minutes and each one gnawed at her sense of urgency. Fear tickled at the back of her mind as she realised that the men in black may have sabotaged their car. If that were true, it would take away her only realistic hope of saving him. She shook the thought from her mind, angry at herself for having even thought such a defeatist thing. Finally, she saw the welcome sight of the fields' boundary, and the dark asphalt of the road beyond. She bulldozed her way through the last of the grass and staggered onto the road. She was breathing harshly from her exertion, sweat was running down her forehead and falling into her eyes, making them sting uncomfortably. All thoughts of her own discomfort evaporated as she spotted the car. She almost wept with relief. Running quickly around it, she did a swift visual check and sent a prayer of thanks heavenward. It appeared to be intact, in as much as the tires hadn't been shot out. They had a chance. The odds had swung ever so slightly back in their favor. Yanking open the driver's door, she muttered a swift `thanks' to the powers that be for the stupidity of their attackers. The keys hung where Mulder had left them, dangling in the ignition. Feeling the urgent need to return to her partner quickly, she twisted the key and shouted as the engine roared into life. The vehicle bumped and shuddered over the hard ground, its shock absorbers unused to this kind of terrain. Scully slowed its momentum down, worried that she might overshoot her mark or, God forbid, run into Mulder before she had time to brake. She spotted his prone body up ahead and brought the car to a standstill a few feet away from him. With the engine still running, she leapt from the car, yanked open the back door and raced back to her partner. As she stooped down to slip her arms under him, she heard a sound that made her blood freeze in her veins. A strangled, gurgling sound was emanating from his mouth. She bent down to listen, her head turned to one side, her ear close to his lips and she realised with a start that she couldn't feel any breath against her cheek. **Shit! He's stopped breathing!** Her fingers dug into his neck to check on his pulse, only to find it thready and barely there. "Shit! Mulder! Don't do this to me!" She shouted irrationally at a man who couldn't hear her, much less answer. The gurgling noise increased in volume and his chest still refused to rise as he struggled for breath. "Goddammit!" She thumped to her knees next to him, two of her fingers sliding into his mouth to search for any kind of obstruction. She couldn't find one, but that didn't necessarily mean there wasn't one, something was stopping him breathing. She resisted the impulse to push his head back and open his jaw more fully, there was no telling what the bone fragments from his broken jaw would push into. "Okay buddy, this isn't exactly how I pictured this," she mumbled softly to herself as she lent down, pinching his shattered nose closed with her fingers and slanting her lips over his. The warmth and stickiness of his lifeblood coated her lips as she breathed firmly into his mouth, trying to force her oxygen into his lungs. She cocked her head to the side to see if his chest rose, but it didn't, she repeated the procedure again, but still there was no response and this time she was certain that she had noticed some difficulty when she had tried to push the air in. **Dammit!** She thought, **Something *is* blocking the airway.** Because he'd been breathing fine just a few seconds earlier, Scully was fairly certain the blockage was a result of the tremendous trauma inflicted upon his face and jaw, and not due to damage to his lungs. She would bet her life on it. She *was* betting Mulder's life on it. She needed to open his airway NOW. **Bloody nice time to have left your medical bag in DC, Dana.** She reproached herself as she frantically tried to think of something she could use as a scalpel. The answer came to her in a flash of inspiration and her hand found its way into the pocket of Mulder's suit pants. Her fingers found and curled around his Swiss Army knife, yanking it out. "I'll never tease you about carrying this damn thing again." She promised the unconscious man lying in the field. She stood quickly and moved back to the car. Blessing Mulder and his passion for iced tea, she grabbed the discarded drink container from the floor. She blew through the straw to clear it as she returned to his side. She slammed to her knees, oblivious to the sharp stems of grass digging painfully into her skin through her pants. Opening the knife, she prayed that the blade would be sharp enough to cut through the skin and cartilage. She took a couple of steadying breaths and felt with her fingers for the area just below the Adam's apple where the incisions would have to be made. She placed the blade against his skin, trying not to notice that he was turning slightly blue and made the first incision before she had any more time to think about it. Blood welled... Scully quickly pulled the wound wider, reached in and made the second, crucial incision into his windpipe. Holding both holes open and balancing the knife with one hand, she fumbled blindly for the straw she'd grabbed. She positioned one end into the incisions she had made, making sure that it slipped into the windpipe. Holding the straw steady, she covered the other end with her mouth and began breathing into it. She was rewarded with the sight of Mulder's chest rising softly and the relief she felt at having gotten him through this crisis was staggering. The soft hissing noise coming from the straw indicated that he was now successfully breathing on his own, she found that sound, as he sucked in air, strangely comforting. She taped the straw in place using some adhesive tape from her briefcase and then took a moment to run a bloodstained hand through her hair. **Thank you, God.** Then she was slipping her arms under his shoulders once more, dragging him toward the car. She gently positioned him across the backseat and slammed the door. Turning the car around, she took off out of the field, in search of the first available hospital. XXXXX INTENSIVE CARE UNIT, FAIRFAX COUNTY HOSPITAL, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA. 9.25 P.M. The heavy Intensive Care Unit doors tempted Dana Scully toward them as surely as the sirens of old had beckoned unwise fishermen upon their unsafe rocks. Beyond those doors lay a man beaten to within an inch of his life and no amount of begging, pleading and downright angry indignation on her part had gotten her the permission she needed to be admitted. It appeared that even her medical credentials held little sway in the busy domain of this hospital. She sighed to herself and forced her tightly strung body to pivot around and walk away from the door and back to the set of chairs opposite. She sank into one exhaustedly and immediately began to feel the shaking that had plagued her since their arrival at the hospital kick in again. She clenched her hands tightly together to try and ward off the tremors, but it did little good. Soon the tears began to well up once more and she began to fight a progressively losing battle with herself to stop them from falling. The first determined sob broke free from her tightly pursed lips and broke the silence in the corridor. She dug her nails into the fleshy palm of her hand in an effort to distract her mind with a physical form of pain rather than the mental one that it was now contemplating. The second sob was soon followed by a third and a forth and she slowly let go and gave in to the catharsis that her body was literally crying out for. Her tears ran hotly down her face and she raised a shaky hand to wipe them away, trying to stop them before they reached her chin and dripped onto the borrowed hospital scrubs that she wore. She had arrived at the hospital earlier that day looking as much a victim of the brutal assault as Mulder had. Her clothes had been covered in his blood, as had her hands and face. She could still see the horrified look on the faces of the hospital staff as she'd staggered into the ER demanding that a gurney be brought to the car haphazardly parked in their ambulance bay. After her dramatic entrance, there had been a flurry of activity on the part of the doctors and nurses. They had whisked Mulder away into the nearest trauma bay, of course she had tried to gain entry, but a burly intern had blocked her path. So while Mulder was being preped for the emergency surgery he was to undergo, Scully had been forced to sit outside and wait for news on his condition. It was only then, when there had been nothing else for her to do, that the adrenaline rush had left her body and the uncontrollable shaking had begun. There had been no further news of his condition for the next few hours. Scully remembered vaguely sitting in a daze waiting for the surgeon to come and talk to her, praying that Mulder would have the strength needed to make it through the long surgery. When the surgeon had arrived it was a relief, but at the same time it had been agonising waiting for him to tell her whether Mulder had made it through or not. Miraculously he had, but not without a scare or two and the surgeon informed her that he would be taken to ICU and monitored. He wasn't out of the woods, but he was out of imminent danger for the time being. Scully had waited for the surgeon to walk away before she had staggered into the ladies room to cry out her relief at Mulder's reprieve. The days' events had then caught up with her in a shockwave of nausea and she'd promptly thrown up in the toilet bowl. Now she sat and waited impatiently to be allowed to see him, to touch him, to reconnect with him. She had come so close to losing him and the thought that he may still succumb to the injuries caused by those bastards resonated through her tears. She took in a deep gulp of air and fought to control her wayward emotions, but God it felt so good to let herself go for once. There was nobody else in the corridor, there was no need for her to continue with the professional facade that she carried on for the sake of her pride. If she wanted to, she could quite safely cry a river of tears for the man behind those doors and nobody would be none the wiser. Her head fell into her hands as she let go of the last strand of composure that she had steadfastly clung to. Deep, heaving sobs shook her small body and the flow of tears cascading down her face increased until she could feel them pouring off her chin to spatter upon the scrubs. "Agent Scully." It was a voice that she knew well, but it was much softer in tone than she was accustomed to hearing. She looked up through blurry, tear filled eyes to see Walter Skinner staring down at her in concern. "Sir," her voice was raw from crying, and she took a moment to clear it before continuing, "I didn't... I don't remember..." she shook her head to clear her thoughts, "I don't remember calling you, sir." Skinner smiled sadly at his female agent, "You didn't, Agent Scully, the hospital did." He took a couple of steps toward her and folded his tall body into one of the vacant seats beside her. He took a moment to take in her shattered appearance as she sat quietly trying to get her battered emotions under control. "How is he?" Skinner asked, knowing that Scully would want to talk about something other than the state in which he had just found her. "Not good." She replied truthfully and he watched as she seemed to momentarily crumble again before resolutely pulling herself back together. "What happened, Scully?" Skinner asked. He saw her shoulders sag at his words and knew that it was much too soon for him to be pushing this, but he had to know what had happened to his agents. All he knew was that one was lying in a bed in intensive care and the other, the more rational and stronger one of the partnership, was on the brink of falling apart in front of him. Damn. It had seemed a simple enough assignment. From what little he had been able to ascertain it had all the makings of a no brainer. He had half expected his agents to be back in DC by the end of the week, sheepishly trying to justify an expense claim for a wild goose chase. So what had turned it around? "What happened out there, Scully?" He prompted again. The look in her eyes as she glanced back at him almost made him audibly gasp. God, she looked so haunted. So full of anguish and sorrow. And there was an emotion there that he didn't think he had seen upon Dana Scully's face in the five years he had known her. Fear. He saw fear in her red rimmed eyes and he knew that whatever had happened to them, would have to have been pretty bad for Scully to have reacted in that way. He noticed her bottom lip trembled slightly as she prepared to answer his question. "We were given a lesson in *obedience*." Her voice was soft and it shook a little as she said the words. She looked away from him and settled her eyes upon the highly polished hospital floor. Skinner leaned forward slightly, his large hands resting upon his knees, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to make sense out of his agent's words. "What?" He shook his head slowly, "Agent Scully, I don't understand." "That's what he called it." Scully gazed at the floor, lost in the memory of the men, their threats, and their abuse of her partner. Glancing up to meet Skinner's concerned gaze, she closed her eyes, biting her lip to distract herself from the memory. "A lesson in *obedience.*" "Scully.." Skinner began. "They've made sure it's one I'll never forget..." A grim smile broke across her pale face, "One... I won't be *allowed* to forget... *ever*." She saw Skinner's jaw tighten as he stared at her and she welcomed his strength, because she knew she had little of her own left. "Every time I close my eyes I see it all again. Sometimes, I don't even need to close them... it's just there... replaying like some macabre loop inside my head." Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Skinner thought, but didn't say anything. Scully's eyes held his brown ones more intently, "Do you think that's what Mulder goes through each and every day? Is this how his photographic memory works?" She shook her head sadly, "If it is, I don't know how he keeps his sanity." "Agent Scully, are you all right?" Skinner asked. She let out a weary sigh and clawed her hands through her tangled red hair, pulling herself into some semblance of order. "I'm fine, sir." she answered him after a moment. "I think it would be better if you started from the beginning." Skinner said and he settled back in his seat and waited for her to begin. For the next ten minutes Scully gave a precise and explicitly detailed report of the events that had lead up to this moment in the hospital corridor. Only once did she falter in her statement, as she related her feelings of helplessness at being made to watch as her partner was savagely beaten. Her account had been as crisp and professional as he had come to expect from her, but he couldn't help noting the underlying sense of anger that seemed to crackle all around her. Walter Skinner knew without a shadow of a doubt that should Scully ever come into contact with those SOB's again, she would have no compunction in blowing them away. "If he dies, I swear to God I'm going after them." It was almost as though she had read his thoughts. She sat up straighter in her chair and looked once more into her boss' deep brown eyes. "Even if I have to go vigilante to do it, I'll have those bastards." "Whatever happens to Mulder, you'll have every resource that the Bureau can offer at your disposal, Scully." Skinner promised. "That means jack shit, and you know it." She replied a little more angrily than she had intended. "With all due respect sir, sending out a thief to catch a thief is counter-productive." "You think they were Bureau?" Skinner asked her. "Maybe..." she sighed and closed her eyes momentarily, "they were definitely government and they knew who we were." She paused, frowning. "And more importantly where we would be." Skinner nodded sagely and they both fell silent again. Scully let out a long exasperated breath of air, "I've got to get in there." She stared long and hard at the door leading to the ICU, "I've got to get in there and see him for myself. They won't damn well let me in and I *need* to see him," she turned to her boss, "just to satisfy myself that he's going to be all right." Skinner gave her a small knowing look and silently rose from his chair. She watched as he steadily made his way to the duty nurse's station. She saw him produce his ID and begin to talk to the robust looking nurse, turning her slightly so that she could no longer see down the corridor. Scully smiled as she realised Skinner's intentions and cautiously looked up and down the corridor to check that no other nursing personnel were lurking in the vicinity. When she was convinced that it was safe to do so, she rose from her chair and walked nervously toward the big double doors. Pausing briefly to prepare herself for what might lay on the other side, she finally pushed the doors open and stepped inside. Walter Skinner looked back over his shoulder and shook his head slowly as he saw Dana Scully slip into the ICU unit. She and Mulder were more alike than either one of them realised. He thanked the duty nurse for her time and walked back down the corridor, reclaiming the seat he had just vacated. He quickly glanced down the hallway, searching for any nurses that he might have to waylay in order to give Scully the time she needed to be with her partner. She needed time to be alone with Mulder and to finally get around to telling him what was on her mind. He wasn't stupid and he hadn't come down with the last shower either. He had read in her eyes everything she intended to tell the man in that hospital room. He'd been in love before, he knew the signs when he saw it. He sat back in his chair and kept a wary eye out for nurses, while Dana Scully prepared to lay bare her soul to a man who was comatose and probably unable at that moment to appreciate it. End Part Two... FAIRFAX COUNTY HOSPITAL, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA. 10.13 P.M. The Intensive Care Unit was much darker than the corridor that Scully had been waiting in. She slipped silently through the heavy double doors and let them close softly behind her, forcing herself to wait as her eyes adjusted to the diffused lighting. While she paused, she took a moment to ponder what might be awaiting her. She had known that Mulder's injuries were both extensive and severe, but she had managed to successfully block any negative thoughts from her mind as she had fought to save his life. Now, however, she had no such safety net on which to rely, and those negative thoughts began to wash over her like a flood-tide of woe. The possibility of him taking a downward turn was still high. The doctor's had warned her that his body had been severely weakened by the extent of the beating, and that any complications that may still arise could overrun his beleaguered body and thus prove fatal. **Thus prove fatal.** Her mind echoed. She closed her eyes against that thought and took a long, deep breath to fortify herself. A calmness settled over her and she could feel the torn and tattered remnants of her precious composure start to weave itself back together again. With a soft sigh, she opened her eyes again and glanced around. The ICU was exactly like all the others that she and Mulder had frequented over the years. Its set-up, as well known to her as the nose on her face. The ward was laid out to resemble a square within a square. Three sides of the outer square was lined with patients, with each bed curtained off for privacy. The fourth side of the square made up the entryway that Scully had walked through. The nurses station formed the inner square and she could see the duty nurses ensconced behind their counter updating patient charts. If she was going to pull this off, she had to make sure she didn't draw the wrong kind of attention to herself. Deciding to bypass the nurses station, she walked forward and made her way toward the first of the curtained cubicles. She paused briefly outside, before slowly drawing the curtain back and taking a look at the patient within. The patient wasn't Mulder. Undeterred, she cautiously made her way further down the ward, peeking into each cubicle she came to, but always keeping a wary eye out for the nurses. She got lucky on her fourth try. Slipping quietly between the curtains, she took a moment to pause at the foot of his bed, eyes sweeping over his broken body professionally. What they registered made her heart clench tightly in her chest and she inhaled sharply. She moved forward, making sure that she manoeuvred carefully around the myriad of hospital equipment to stand at his side. Her eyes studied all the various machines that he was wired up to, mentally cataloguing the reasons that they were there. A heart monitor to check his heartrate and blood pressure, an intubation tube attached to a respirator to help him breathe while unconscious. She noted the thick gauze pad that had been placed over the spot where she had been forced, by necessity, to perform her own piece of impromptu surgery. The dressing had a few spots of dried blood upon it from where the sutures had now been placed. Scully sighed softly to herself and a sad smile flickered across her lips. **Another scar courtesy of yours truly, Mulder. Another moment where I've been forced to hurt you for your own good.** She shook her head sorrowfully, **It's becoming a habit with us.** Her eyes continued their sad inventory. His head was swathed in bandages with only his eyes and mouth showing through. Tiny bumps under the gauze covering his forehead indicated the positions where the electrodes had been placed to monitor his brain. Scully bit down upon her lower lip until she nearly drew blood. **Please God, don't let there be any brain damage.** Her eyes closed briefly in an effort to ward off the pain that those thoughts provoked. When she was able to open them again, it was to resume her in-depth study of his face. His eyelids were still badly swollen, puffy tissue protruding over the thin gauze that wound above and below them. The differing hues that made up the bruising would have been impressive if viewed upon an artist's canvas. Savage scarlet vied with purple and shades of green with black. Mulder's left cheekbone had been fractured, but the bandages around his face made that difficult for her to see. She had no such problem with his nose however. Swathed in layers of white, the bandages did little to disguise the fact that his nose was at least three times its normal size. **Poor Mulder,** a sudden frivolous thought caught her off guard, **he's so sensitive about his nose to begin with, this certainly isn't going to help matters.** She shook the thought away, irritated at even thinking it in the first place. **Vanity right now, is the least of his problems, Dana.** When her eyes settled upon his jaw she flinched involuntarily. The intricate weave of wires negotiating their way around the respirator were a part of the framework that held his jaw in place. **So it *was* broken.** she thought sadly. The memory of the audible crack she'd heard in that field made her shudder. She continued her visual journey over his body until her eyes came to rest upon the IV poles with the transparent bags attached to them. The fact that he had quite a few of them didn't worry her, it was a necessary measure to ensure that he was topped up with painkillers and kept hydrated. However, the catheter bag attached to the side of the bed did cause her to knit her brow in concern. It was tinged a deep crimson. That meant he was still peeing blood from the damage done to his kidneys and spleen. It was that internal bleeding that she'd discovered when she had examined him in the field. The surgeon was hopeful that his kidneys would regain their full functioning capability, but there was still grave concern over his spleen. Mention had been made that he might still lose it, if the swelling didn't subside sufficiently. She could only hope that wouldn't be the case. Looking around, she spied a small chair tucked in the corner. Snagging it with her foot, she quietly scooted it forward, glancing over her shoulder to listen for approaching nurses. She needed to touch him, to sit and be near him, to re-establish the unbreakable bond they shared. Reaching out tentatively, she covered his arm with both her hands and squeezed it gently. The gesture reminded her of another time when she had kept a desperate vigil by his side. Then he had been fighting the retro- virus, now he was fighting a much more earthly battle. Nonetheless, it was reassuring to know that, back then, her gesture had served to bring him back to her. She dearly hoped it would do so again. "Hey G-man," she whispered softly, "it's me." Her thumb began absently caressing the back of his arm as she spoke. "I need you to keep hanging in there, partner. You're not out of the woods yet and I know you probably feel like giving up right now, but you can't, Mulder." **I won't let you die on me. Not if I have anything to do with it.** She thought determinedly. "I'm counting on that stubborn, hard-assed nature of yours to make a fight of this, Mulder." Her small hands tightened their hold upon his arm, and she swallowed hard. "You've got to fight this... Don't give those bastards the satisfaction of knowing they won." She swallowed again as her throat tightened with emotion, "I can't do this on my own, Mulder. I need you to fight your way back." Her eyes closed momentarily as she took a deep, steadying breath. There was no escaping the fact that what had happened today would fundamentally change them. Their finely balanced dynamic was already undergoing a dramatic metamorphosis. Scully was becoming more than aware of the subtle shifts and counter-shifts within her own deeply guarded emotions. The incident was acting like a polarising filter, washing away those things that were unimportant and trivial and bringing into sharp focus those which were the most meaningful and true. One of those sharpened truths was that she had come way too close to losing *the* most important person in her life. An ever growing, rebellious part of her was no longer content to let things remain as they were. It was no longer satisfied to play the waiting game while her more logical and pragmatic side remained closed off to the man she loved. **The man I love?** she wondered, but she knew it was true, just as she knew it had been that way for more years than she cared to admit. **There's a lot that needs saying, Dana.** her mind coaxed softly, **You can't keep waiting for the right time or the right moment... you can't keep putting it off until tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow never comes. This might be the only chance you'll get. Maybe it isn't ideal...he isn't in much of a condition to reciprocate... but he'll know, Dana. He'll know what you're trying to tell him. Go on... open yourself up to him.** Her mental encouragement served to bolster her. "Mulder." Her voice was hesitant and she took a moment before continuing, "There's something I want you to know. Something that I realised rather belatedly that I *need* you to know." She shook her head as words suddenly ran dry in her mind. "God, this is difficult for me and maybe you being a captive audience is the only way I'm ever gonna get the courage to do this." Her mouth was bone dry, and her nervousness was about par with the type she experienced during a full blown chase. She wasn't going to back down... not this time... this time he deserved the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. *So help me God!* Scully thought. "Mulder, I *need* you to know who I am." A small smile turned up the corners of her mouth, "That sounds absurd, doesn't it? You probably think you know me better than anyone after being my partner for five years. But you're wrong, Mulder, you only see what I want you to see. There's so much more underneath the surface and it's that I want to share with you. And I want you to understand why I put on a different face for the outside world." "And why I can no longer put on that face with you..." Her fingers tightened upon his warm forearm as she paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. "I'm a woman much like any other, Mulder. I have the same feelings, desires and hopes. I cry at old romantic movies, I laugh at things I find funny and I can't help but smile when I see children playing in the park. The Dana Scully you see inside that expensive business suit is *nothing* like the Dana Scully I am after hours. We've never spent enough time together, outside of work, for you to get to know that part of me, Mulder, and that makes me truly sad." **I think if you gave her a chance, you could really get to like after hours Scully.** She thought wryly. "It's been a necessary part of my life to project a watered- down image of myself when in the company of others. It began a long time ago, when maybe I was too young to realise that the path I had chosen would increasingly become harder to deviate from." "It's wasn't easy being a Navy brat, Mulder. I found the lifestyle hard to understand and even harder to adhere to. I couldn't adapt to making friends with a view to it being only temporary. I couldn't give myself to a relationship knowing that one morning that person could be gone." She paused to run a hand through her hair. "I coped by shutting myself off and I guess you could say I've been shutting myself off ever since. I built up walls and then walls within walls to shut people out. It was comforting to know that should anyone dare penetrate that outer defence the inner one would make sure I remained untouchable." **I *had* to remain *untouchable*, Mulder. It was the only way I knew to survive.** "Believe it or not, the "Ice Queen" has been around a *lot* longer than most people think. It was born out of a necessity to become impervious to any emotion that could betray my vulnerability. I used it to great effect whenever my father went to sea. There were *never* any tears when Daddy sailed away and none when he returned." Scully was gradually becoming more and more comfortable talking to her partner in this way. Her hushed whispers mixed with the sighing of the respirator, the gentle beeping of the monitor and the purr of the blood pressure machine. Together with the diffused lighting and the closed curtains, the little enclosure was like some quasi-confessional. The metaphor was not lost on the small FBI agent, for she was, in her own indomitable way, striving to make a confession. "I've learned to keep my own counsel. As a consequence, my inner-most thoughts and feelings are kept safely locked away from the outside world. Less chance of being hurt. Even lesser chance of being humiliated. I chose to imprison myself within an Ivory Tower." Her fingers traced their way down his arm and rested over the top of his hand. "Then you came into my life, Mulder. With the impact of a hurricane and earthquake rolled into one." A small wistful smile crossed her lips as she remembered their first few cases together. "You were an unexpected curve-ball, Fox Mulder. You tried to undo overnight all that I had spent a lifetime constructing. You shook my very foundations and I had *absolutely* no idea how to handle you. To compensate, I doubled my efforts at being detached and aloof." She smiled knowingly. "But all the time you were steadfastly undermining my defences, gradually slipping inside during unguarded moments, until there came a time when I looked around and there you were. In residence... *deep* inside my heart." Her fingers curled around his and brought his hand up to her cheek. "And there you've stayed, Mulder, it's been so long now that I can't remember a time when you weren't there. You're my one true friend. Someone I know I can count on unconditionally if ever I'm in need of help. Someone who can invoke within me a whole gamut of emotions, more intense than any I have ever known." Her lips brushed tenderly across the back of his knuckles. "Missy once said that I didn't know how my life was gonna change or how I might change the life of others. She didn't know how right she was. We've changed each other's lives, Mulder, we've become each other's life, we're so entwined with one another that it's almost as if we breathe the same air." Her voice trailed off and her grip upon his warm, unresponsive hand tightened even further. "That was the lesson they wanted us to learn today. It wasn't about obedience, Mulder. It was about what we mean to each other and how impossible it would be for one of us to go on without the other." She shook her head against the unwanted memories and kissed the back of his hand softly. "Those bastards knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that the best way to hurt both of us was to make one of us watch helplessly while the other was tortured. Your physical pain became my mental anguish, Mulder. They preyed on my inability to help you, knowing how helpless, powerless and ineffectual I would feel in not being able to protect you from their blows." "God, you can never know just how much I wanted to shield you from them. How badly I wanted to help you... to stop the beating... at any cost. God, Mulder, I swear to you, if I could have... I would have gladly taken each and every one of those blows myself." A tear brimmed over auburn eyelashes and cascaded unchecked down one pale cheek. "I could feel the eyes of that son-of-a-bitch upon me the whole time, gauging my reaction. No doubt he's already reported the success of their mission to his masters. They bought a victory today, Mulder, because in almost killing you they nearly destroyed me." A sob tore free from her mouth and shattered the quiet of the cubicle. "How much more of this can we take? Just how many more times will this quest of ours result in one or other of us ending up in a hospital bed?" she whispered mournfully. "Sooner or later our luck is gonna run out, Mulder, and then... then how much longer will it be before one of us breaks... or God forbid... dies?" She blinked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her and settled her blurry eyes upon the unconscious man in the bed. His battered body looked so lost, crying out for comfort and security. Now more than ever she wanted to give him all those things. All the things they had denied themselves in their dual minded quest for the truth. **The truth isn't worth it, if you're not going to be at my side at the end of it, Mulder.** Time and time again he had brought her back from the edge of the abyss with just the strength of his beliefs. During her coma it had been the only thing that she had clung onto and in the end it had been enough for her to find her way back home. Now she wondered if he had the knowledge and the strength of hers? **How can he know what your beliefs are, Dana?** her mind queried, **You've never shared them with him. How can he know the depth to which your feelings go, if you've never uttered the words.** And she realised with crystal clarity that so much had gone unsaid between them. That she and Mulder had been equally guilty of expecting the other to decipher the cryptic messages that they had shared within a look or touch. That neither one of them had really been able to summon up the courage to voice the words... the words they both so desperately wanted to hear. Until now. "I can no longer hide from you, Mulder. That face that I show to others is redundant around you. I want you to see the real me. The real Dana Scully. I *need* you to see who I am. I *need* you see what I see when I look at you... when I touch you... I *need* you to know the truth." **Our truth.** "I *need* you to know that I love you, Mulder." Her declaration was so softly spoken that she barely heard the words herself. The anguish she had been holding in check for so long breached her meagre defences and broke free with a wordless sob. Her head bowed low and her shoulders hitched as the sobs tore through her small body. Her tears raced unabated down her face to bathe Mulder's forearm with salty rain. His hand inside hers tightened perceptively and she looked up startled. "Mulder, can you hear me?" Her voice was raw from her tears. His hand tightened slowly again before relaxing. A wide smile broke across Dana Scully's face as she wiped away her tears with the back of her free hand. It was a signalling system that they had developed during their frequent hospital visits. It had started out as a means to communicate when either one of them were on a ventilator. One squeeze `yes'. Two squeezes `no'. Trust Mulder to remember that now. "And here I was thinking that I was baring my soul to an unconscious man." Her voice was all mock reproof. Two sharp grips of her hand followed, and she chuckled lightly. *No* "Guess those over-sized eyelids fooled me, huh?" She couldn't keep the smile from her face, "You've heard every word I've said, haven't you?" One squeeze of her hand was Mulder's answer. *Yes* "Then I don't have to say it again, do I?" Her eyes locked on his hand waiting for his signal. His fingers curled into a small fist once and then unfurled. *Yes* "You know you have me at a complete disadvantage, Mulder. Here am I making a declaration of love and here you are conveniently playing dumb." She leaned in toward him, resting her cheek against the pillow by his ear. "I love you, G-man, just in case you didn't catch it the first time around." She whispered softly into his ear. A series of single hard squeezes of her hand followed and she couldn't help the delighted giggle that escaped her. *Yes* *Yes* *Yes* *Yes* *Yes* She re-took her seat, "Okay, Mulder, here's the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Do I take that *ecstatic* response just now to mean that you love me too?" She watched his hand intently, awaiting his answer. None came. She looked up, quickly checking his monitors, but all of them showed that he was still alive. "Mulder?" She couldn't keep the tremor of doubt from coming out in her voice. **Jesus, could I have been so wrong?** Suddenly, his hand gripped hers so tightly that she let out an audible gasp. One strong, *hard* grasp of her hand that left no doubt whatsoever as to his answer. Glancing across at him, she could see a steady stream of tears slipping from his closed eyelids. "Oh Mulder," she bit back her own sob, "It's okay... I understand, truly I do..." She wanted desperately to kiss him, to hold him against her and prove to him just how much she loved him. But his injuries made even the barest of touches painful, so those first caresses were gonna have to wait. "I know you're frustrated that you can't say the words... don't worry, Mulder, I'll say them for you, `kay?" One squeeze. *Yes* Scully took a deep breath and tried to imagine how he would say the words. "*I love you, Scully.*" She spoke them to herself with as much tenderness as she could muster. The way she knew he would have uttered them to her, if only he were able too. She couldn't kiss his lips, his eyes or even his nose so she brushed away the lock of stubborn hair from his brow and placed a soft, tender kiss upon his forehead. "You have so much to live for, G-man. Don't go having a re- lapse on me. I want to hear those words spoken from *your* mouth. I want to feel your lips on mine, you got that?" She smiled when he gave another series of *yes* answers. "I've got to get the doctor, Mulder. He'll want to know you're conscious." His hand clenched hers tightly and gave the signal for *No*. She knew he was frightened that she was going to leave him. "It's OK, I'll be back... I promise. I'm not leaving you, Mulder, not EVER." His hand seemed to relax at her reassuring words and she was able to break his iron-like grip. She hurried out of the cubicle and almost ran up the quiet ward toward the nurses station. He'd fought his way back to her. Again. She didn't need to hear him say the words. The very fact that he had refused to die... that he had refused to leave her was declaration enough. He did have a lot to live for. So did she. No matter how long it took, she would make him whole again. She would nurse him back to health and then they would take up where they had left off in that cubicle. A wide Cheshire-cat smile broke across Dana Scully's face. And then some... End of Story.