Date: 4 Feb 1999 18:30:19 -0800
Subject: Blue on Black 1/2 -- by Jesse (R)
---------------------------------------------
Title:  BLUE ON BLACK
Author:  jesse  (jesse.bee@mailcity.com)
Rating:  R
Category:  A, MS UST(?)
Spoilers:  FTF, Duane Berry, Ascention, One Breath, Anazasi, Blessing
Way, Paper Clip
Summary:  Mulder vanishes with no trace; Scully discovers the pain of 
"not-knowing" and having too much time to think.  Major Scully angst.
Disclaimer:  20th Century Fox, Chris Carter, and 1013 Productions own
the rights to THE X-FILES.  No copyright infringement is intended.
Archive:  If you like the thing that much--sure!  Go for it.  Just
let me know when and where.
Feedback:  Please, please, please, please.  And if ya wanna flame me, 
make it a good one.
**This little number was born out of the serious urge of a relative 
newcomer to make some sense out of the actions of late 4th and 5th 
season Scully.  And after watching Mulder angst out over kidnapped 
Scully and cancer Scully, I figured it was her turn...  Mucho thanks 
always to Michele for slicin', dicin', and putting up with me.**
______________________________________________

BLUE ON BLACK  (1/2)
jesse011499

blue on black, tears on a river
push on shove--it don't mean much.
joker on jack, match on a fire,
cold on ice, a dead man's touch.
whisper on a scream, doesn't change a thing--
doesn't bring you back...
blue on black.
(K. W.  Shepherd)
-------------------------------------------------------


I am in hell. 

It must be hell because I simply can't believe that there could be 
anything else that hurts this bad.

This constant tearing agony that roils through my chest and scrapes 
my ribs raw with every breath.  This wound that won't close, won't be 
comforted with any bandage or painkiller known to science.  This 
phantom ache, like an amputated limb, of the half of me that's been 
torn away.

This...not-knowing.

I *must* believe that he's alive--if he'd left this life I would have 
felt him go, I'm sure of it.  Besides, the stubborn sonafabitch would 
have found some way to come back and tell me about it.   I've always 
thought that New Mexico was the worst, my charred heart entombed with 
him in that smoldering hell of a boxcar.

Wrong.

New Mexico was three years ago.  I'd known then that I loved him, but 
I was sure he was dead.  It was--final.  Definite, concrete.

But this--now--this is anything but concrete.  There is little 
evidence--no clues, no trace of lead to follow.   There's nothing I 
can do but think too much, try to conjure a picture, a trail, a hunch 
from thin air.  

Pulling the answer together from wispy bits is his end of the deal.

These three years later I love him, but love is too small a word.  He 
is essential to life; he is half of my soul.  On the days when I very 
seriously want to strangle him I still cannot conceive of a world 
without him.  If I don't see him, speak with him for a day or two, 
it's all right.  He is there with me anyway.  I can hear his voice.  
Feel him breathe.

Except now.  Because I don't know.  This is the most gut-wrenching 
torture ever devised.

Mulder, are you breathing?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sitting in Mulder's apartment, in the dark, curled into the 
leather of his couch and wishing desperately that it be the leather 
of his jacket instead.  With him wearing it.  It has been six weeks 
since Mulder pulled me from that Antarctic hellhole, offering his 
life for mine with never a backward glance.

One month ago, someone decided to take him up on it.

Plunging me down an abyss far bleaker and colder than the physical 
one ever was.

My hand was fisted around Mulder's wristwatch, which I'd liberated 
that afternoon from FBI Evidence.  There was nothing more to be 
learned from it, nothing to be learned in the first place.  Nothing 
useful to the case to be found on it, no traces of Mulder's 
abductors.  Only traces of its owner.

I've seen this watch on his arm for years.  One of those things that 
a person notes but pays little attention to.  Mulder's not a jewelry 
guy;  I've never known him to wear anything but a watch.  And 
according to Mom and Missy, my cross....no.  Don't go there.

But when I fished it out from under his couch that day, it suddenly 
took on significance and life all its own.  Mulder had been wearing 
this when he was taken, I was sure;  it had been torn from him during 
the struggle.  It was the most immediate link to him that I had.  I 
had to believe that since there *had* been a struggle, his captors 
had wanted him alive.  That his value to them was such that he must 
*still* be alive these four weeks later.

His value to me is beyond price.

I'd stopped by a jewelers on the way and had them fix the snapped pin 
so that I could buckle it on his wrist when he returned.  When I 
found him.  When, not if.  When...

My face in my arms, I bit my lip and battled tears again.  I was not 
going to dissolve into a salty heap, dammit!  Mulder needed me.  
Needed me to be strong.  Needed me to find him.

I'd come to Mulder's apartment tonight for...what?  To find what I 
hadn't found any of the other nights I'd been here?  All I was 
certain of was that the familiar space and sense of his presence were 
the only things I'd found that in any way eased the pain.  With eyes 
closed I could almost feel him, smell him...wait.  Smell?

I sniffed, then raised my head and realized what it was.  The watch.  
I brought it close to my nose and inhaled.  *Oh--GOD...*  It smelled 
like him.  The band smelt of his cologne, his sweat.  Gave off that 
warm male musk that was distinctly Mulder, as familiar to me as my 
own perfume.  I knew I could find Mulder by his smell alone in 
absolute night a hundred feet underground.  That scent had soothed me 
on countless plane trips and deadly dull stakeouts, filled my nose 
every time I'd fallen asleep against his strong shoulder clothed in 
that long black overcoat...

Yes.  Climbing to my feet, I walked over and pulled his greatcoat off 
the rack, took it back to the couch.  Heeled off my shoes and swung 
my feet up, spread the coat out over me.  Oh, yes.   I was surrounded 
with Mulder, his essence flushing out of the fabric as it warmed with 
my body heat.  Something in me relaxed just the tiniest bit, but that 
was all it took.  I curled into a ball of misery and the dam burst.

I cried for him.  For me.  For us.  For all the missed moments, the 
wasted time.  For all the times I couldn't but should have touched 
him, reached out to him.  For all the demons of his doubts and his 
past that he'd never been able to silence enough to reach out to me.

Until that night in his hallway.  When I'd seen it in his eyes; known 
we were going to take that step we were both so afraid of.  I cried 
for the cosmic injustice of the interruption of that moment.  And 
that never-fulfilled night one month ago, for Mulder had been coming 
over to my apartment the day he disappeared.  Pizza and beer and the 
Knicks game, in my living room.   And a resolution one way or another 
of what that damn bee had interrupted.  Mulder had been leaving me a 
message confirming our "date" when...

"Scully, it's me.  I know you're out with your mom today, so I didn't 
call your cell 'cause it's not urgent.  Say hi to her for me."  
Mulder is really fond of my mother.  He doesn't even flinch when she 
calls him Fox .  Mom told me in strictest confidence that someone has 
been sending her flowers on *my* birthday.

"Hey, I--just wanted to check and make sure we're still on for..."  
The sudden hum in the background, growing rapidly stronger.  "What 
the...?!"   Mulder gasping, breathless.  "No."  Louder now.  "NO! 
God, Scully, it's...!"  Something shattering with great force.  
Static.  Silence.  

Not the same and yet so horrifyingly close to the frantic call I'd 
left him, all those years ago.

His apartment when I'd reached it had been swarming with the cops I'd 
called and covered in fragments of glass, the remains of the blown-in 
window over his desk.  Blown IN.  No marks of forced entry through 
the door, but there were signs of struggle.  Blood on the rug, the 
wetness shocking through me when I touched it.  Blood on the desk as 
though someone had been dragged across it OUT THE WINDOW, a red trail 
that seemed to whisper and accuse--*You weren't there.  He needed you 
and you weren't there...*

Had "they" taken him?  That same faceless "they" responsible for my 
abduction?  Perhaps Samantha's?  Responsible for my cancer?  Mulder's 
father?  My sister?  Responsible for putting my brilliant, engagingly 
insane partner through twenty-odd years of anguish the likes of which 
no one should ever have to face?

I managed to swallow back the scream in my throat but my heart would 
not be silenced, and I pounded Mulder's couch until my hands would no 
longer clench and raged soundlessly at heaven.

'MULLDERRR!!'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was dreaming of stars.

Lots and lots of stars.  

The moonless night sky in all its infinite glory, for the sight of 
which one now has to remove one's self very, very far from what is 
today considered civilization.

It seemed I was standing among them, surrounded by majesty.  I turned 
my face into the light wind, sharp with a strangely familiar scent.

Three years ago.  When a very much alive Mulder had spoken to me from 
this place, telling me he was on his way back to me..."I have stood 
on the bridge that spans two worlds..."  The scientist-voice in the 
back of my brain informed me tartly that THAT had been a dream and 
this was too.

The mildly sardonic Mulder-voice was louder, though-- 'Go with it, 
Scully.'

'Muullderrr...'  The dreamworld took my call and echoed it out, low 
and gentle.

'Scully.'

I turned and he was there.  Close and yet not close; clothed in black 
against the stars, his face in sharp relief.  I couldn't help but 
reach out, and the sense of the warmth of his fingers and the 
calluses on his palm was so real...

'I need you, Scully.'  His voice was soaked in pain.

'Oh, Mulder--where are you?'

His head shook slowly, the astral breeze seeming to ruffle his hair.  
'Don't know.  Can't see.  Light is too bright...  Sometimes I can 
escape--here--to look for you...'

'Mulder...!'

'They're taking something, Scully.  They're pulling the life out of 
me.  Slowly.  They leave me for a while and they do it again and it's 
cold, Scully, so cold and colder every time...'

I gripped his hand, drew him closer with perhaps just the sheer force 
of my longing.  'Hold on--you've got to hold on.  I won't give up.  
I'll find you, Mulder--you'll come back to me.'

He smiled a slow full rare smile and his hazel-green eyes were as 
beautiful as they were in life, and they warmed and sparkled with the 
energy I  swore I felt leaving me and pouring into him.  'My turn to 
have the strength of your belief.'  His face shifted and his longing 
stung me like a physical pain, a twin for my own.  'The bridge of 
souls, Scully, meet me here...'  Dream-Mulder lifted my hand and I 
felt the brush of his mouth and...

...there was daylight pouring through the blinds and stinging my 
eyes.  I was freezing cold, still huddled on Mulder's couch under his 
greatcoat.

The phone was ringing.

" H'llo?"

"Dana?"

"Hi, Mom."

"You didn't answer at home, so I thought you might be there.  Are you 
all right?"

I sighed, trying to keep the shake out of my voice and my teeth from 
chattering.  "I'm fine, Mom."

In Mulder's shower, the water as hot as I can take it.  

It was real.  Was it real?  Can I believe it?  For the sake of my 
sanity.  To keep up my hope...hell, think of Mulder and borrow some 
of his.  He's hoped for Samantha for twenty years...   Don't look at 
it too closely right now.  "Credero quod consolarit"--I believe 
because it comforts.  Works for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two months.  The bridge of souls eludes me.  I haven't slept much at 
all, as that one wonderful dream has been replaced by the nightmares 
and sleep is something I've decided I might just do without.  I've 
joined you in the Insomniac's Club, Mulder.

The reactions of some of our colleagues at the Hoover would have been 
comical if they weren't so sad.  Some thought that Mulder must be 
faking it, must be hiding and sneaking around for some weird 'spooky' 
purpose and of course I was covering for him, I was in on it--hell, 
he'd * died* before, hadn't he?  Or he'd finally just gone completely 
nuts and run off a cliff somewhere and I was in denial and hey this 
will save the taxpayers one salary anyway...

There were those people who were genuinely concerned, who liked or at 
least respected Mulder and hated to see a good agent go down.

From the charming new head of the X-Files division there was no word 
at all, and I wondered rather viciously just what Mulder would make 
of that.

Skinner is a rock of strength; clean sympathy and genuine regret.  He 
likes and respects Mulder much more than my stubborn partner would 
ever believe.  Somehow, despite the fact that officially he's not 
supposed to have anything to do with the two of us, I think I see 
more of him now than I did when he'd been our boss.  But I can see 
that even he is starting to resign himself to the idea that Mulder is 
gone, really gone.  And not coming back.

For the first time, I understand in my gut and my bones Mulder's 
torment of "not-knowing," and wonder for the nth time how he stands 
this.  How he goes on.  If perhaps the real reason why he and I have 
never talked much about the time I was missing isn't so much because 
of my reticence, but because Mulder can't bear it.  My mother told me 
once that Mulder "bled his heart from his eyes" every time she met 
with him.  I can't help but wonder if she and Missy were the only 
ones to see it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three months.  The circles under my eyes have long since passed the
black crater stage.  I'm splitting my time between grasping at straws 
and working feverishly on new assignments. "Something to put my back 
up against," I told Mulder once.  To apply that statement now to 
*him* is killing me by inches.  

I suppose they will be trying to give me a new partner any day now.  
I'm surprised that it's not been brought up yet.  

Then again, perhaps I've been well-enough tarred with "Spooky's" 
brush that no one else wants to work with me.

Good.

I sat alone in the unofficial Dead End Corner of the Hoover that 
Mulder and I had been exiled to, at the industrially bland bullpen 
desk which was now my official home at the FBI.  I could barely stand 
to be here during "normal business hours," when things were too noisy 
and too crowded.  Far too well-lit.  Too--normal.

No privacy at all.  No quiet.

No Mulder just a little ways up and over with whom to swap sarcastic 
email...

So instead I was here far too late at night, when it didn't matter 
what my face looked like and I could hear myself think.  Although 
having space to think was a bit of a double-edged sword.

Had this happened a few months earlier, or even just before Dallas, 
would I still feel this way?  Probably.  It just would have taken 
longer, that's all.  Or maybe not.  God.  Analyzing my own emotions 
is not something I'm good at.

But this last year has been such an annus horribilus, as the queen 
says.  I had to withdraw in order to deal with the damn cancer; or I 
keep telling myself that, anyway.  But when I see what I did to him 
in the process...and those last horrible days with Kritchsgau...

God.

If only there had been some better way to tell him.  Finally an 
answer!  An answer within the bounds of reasonable terrestrial 
science!  Just barely inside, true, but still inside.  It fit all the 
facts that I let myself see, all the facts I felt I could deal with 
right then.  I thought I could help--that I would be able to give him 
the answers he'd so desperately sought all those long years.  I knew 
it would be painful at first, yes, but he'd want it like that-
wouldn't he?  All in a lump, like a plunge into cold water.  The 
shock is tremendous but you get used to it faster.  

It would be the best and perhaps final gift I could give him.  The 
truth.  I didn't think past that, which said a lot about my state of 
mind.  I didn't believe I'd be around to see much more than that.

Why didn't I understand I was killing part of his soul?

As I found out much, much later--I very nearly killed HIM.

But he lived.  And I lived because of him.  Because of the insane 
risks he was willing to run for me, the passion of his belief tiding 
him over just long enough.

And as I recovered, Mulder started to fall ill.  The malaise fell 
from me and seeped into him instead.  It took me so long to begin to 
understand what I'd done.  I had sickened that which I didn't like to 
admit I depended on so much, that element that is such an enormous 
piece of who he is.

His passion.  His faith.  His certainty.

I was regaining my life and reasons for living and my best friend was 
losing his.  And I was the instrument of destruction.  As I tried 
then, hesitantly, to reach out for him, he drew away.  Danced around 
and out, closer to the perimeters of our relationship, away from me.  
Me, who'd been once his best and dearest friend and comfort, was also 
the embodiment of the wrecking ball which was tearing him apart.

Can't live without you, can't live with you.  What do you do when 
your only companion has, in a sense, become your worst emotional 
enemy?  Talk about mixed signals.

But of course all this insight I now have was nowhere to be found at 
the time.

I didn't, couldn't, or maybe wouldn't understand, didn't want to 
understand the crisis of self that was devouring him.  How he was 
losing his faith as I was regaining mine.  But perhaps that's the 
reason why I was finding my belief again.  Because his passion was 
dying and I needed it, needed his passion and his faith.  Needed his 
sense of the miraculous.  Needed the very thing I'd killed.

Did he understand what we were doing, what was happening?  I don't 
think so.  

Then again, maybe.  We didn't talk about much of anything that 
mattered that year, and he's pretty self-absorbed at the best of 
times.  He's a *shrink*, for God's sake.

We were both increasingly sharp and irritable, Mulder resorting to 
silence and arrogant biting humor, me resorting to silence and my 
best deconstructive criticism.  Perhaps I was arguing with him so 
much just to get a rise out of him, to try and fan the fire.  But 
like a kid who acts out to get attention of any sort, good or bad, I 
think I only made things worse.

I found myself starting to look forward to the really odd cases, the 
weirder the better, if only because for a little while his interest 
would flare and I'd see that spark in his eyes.  Vampires in Texas, 
mutants in Iowa.  Why didn't I let him come up to Maine?  He would 
have loved it.

I reached a new low after the events in Pennsylvania, during that 
surreal meeting in Skinner's office after he'd listened to my 
regression tape.  Hearing Mulder tromp upon those words of Skinner's 
that once he'd have given his eye-teeth for I was tossed completely 
adrift.  The world had gone finally, irrevocably crazy all around me.  

But when I came to his apartment that night to find him sitting in 
the dark, I sensed that something had happened.  Something had 
grabbed him and tossed him like I'd been tossed.  Something had 
managed to edge some tinder into the fire.

He's never told me the whole story of that note, the one that sent us 
off to Wiekamp AFB, but I think I will ask him again.  And make him 
tell me.  When I see him.  When...not if.

The absolute nadir, when things crystallized, was the return of 
"Diana Fowley."

I even think of her in quotes, like a momentous occasion.

Because that's when the fire flared up again for real, after being 
stoked by the aftermath of Ruskin Bridge, but *it wasn't at me.*  No.  
It was directed at her, at Diana.  I discovered that they had worked 
together, that she was of a like mind, that they had--shared--more 
than he and I ever had.   He directed her to run those tests by 
simply saying "You know what to do,"  and the passion leapt out of 
him again and *it was because of her.*  No longer could I deny to 
myself what I'd done.  And I began to think that perhaps the only way 
I could help him repair the damage and regain himself was to leave 
him.  Leave him to someone who wouldn't argue, wouldn't fight, 
wouldn't debunk, wouldn't--wouldn't shut him out.

But in the end, when I tried, Mulder wouldn't let me go.

He chased me down and we stood in that hall and he was so much braver 
than I at that moment.  He fought his way past that reticence that's 
so much a part of both of us and found the words.   With tears in his 
eyes he reached out as best he could, with words I would understand, 
could accept.  He told me what I meant to him despite the hell I'd 
put him through.  With his soul and surrender on his face he told me 
just how wrong I'd been, how essential I was, how much he needed me.  
How much he wanted me.  Even, God help us both, how much he loved me.  
In Mulder-ese, of course, which fortunately I'm pretty good at 
translating.

And then he went to Antarctica after me, for God's sake, just to 
really drive home the point.

After it was all over I had to make him understand that I wasn't 
leaving.   In words *he* would understand, could accept.  Because 
he'd come to the conclusion that the best thing he could possibly do 
for me was to get me away from him, out of his life.  He would give 
everything he had left if it would see me safe.

If you love something, set it free.  Oh no, my friend.  No.  Not now.

I have seen your soul, and the Four Horsemen will not separate us 
now.

At that moment the virus was a convenient excuse, Diana or no Diana.   
From the ashes of that office the phoenix had arisen and we were each 
one wing, and we would fly together or not at all.  

The firm, even footsteps trickled finally into my ruminations, and I 
looked up to see Skinner by my desk.  He cut his eyes pointedly over 
at the wall clock and then back down to me.  His low voice was much 
too gentle for a Marine.  "Go home, Scully."

"Sir..."

The phone rang.

End part 1 of 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.

Reply-To: jesse.bee@mailcity.com
BLUE ON BLACK  (2/2)
jesse011499
 

I barrelled through the hospital doors at the head of an army of one-
Skinner was right behind me.  A single refrain was screaming through 
my brain:  *Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegodplease...*

Instructions had been left from the beginning at every hospital 
and...morgue...in the area, to be on lookout for a man of Mulder's 
description.  I had pulled rank without shame or remorse to impress 
upon everyone the ABSOLUTE URGENCY of this request.  There had been 
three previous calls, two from area hospitals and one from the 
morgue.  After every one I had been perfectly composed all the way 
into the ladies room, where I'd proceeded to be physically ill.

I was pointed to the correct unit and with my best poker face I tried 
not to run through the door.

This time, it really was him.

The presence of Skinner's bulk just behind me was comforting; a big 
military man like my father and brothers.  I supposed that's the 
reason why I'd always felt strangely at ease with him.  Right then I 
needed all the comfort I could get as I gulped air, my eyes glued to 
the shallow but steady rise and fall of my partner's chest.

I gripped the edge of the bed and tried not to lose the lock on my 
knees.  Icy cold worthy of the Antarctic drenched me.  Relief and 
jubilation rapidly gave way to near panic as my gut flipped at the 
condition of the lean body on the sheets.

Mulder looked like absolute hell.  The clear green plastic of the 
oxygen tubing snaking over his face only emphasized the chalky-white 
of his skin, as did the ugly bruised color around his eyes and the 
angry signs of restraining straps around his arms and ankles.  Next
to the current IVs in his wrists I could see the marks of previous 
ones, there and in the backs of his hands.  Needle tracks in his 
elbows. 

Experiments.  Procedures.  The room started to blur a little around 
the edges then came back sharp and clear as cold shock was replaced 
by white-hot fury.

Mulder had been used as I had been used.

As a "lab rat."

With a shaking hand I reached for him, stroked the oily mess of his 
hair back from his forehead.  His skin was like ice and his face 
looked so odd with that growth of beard.  Somewhere behind me I heard 
the doctor questioning and Skinner answering that yes indeed, this 
was the missing FBI agent.  I felt Skinner's hand briefly on my 
shoulder, distantly heard him say that he would take care of the 
necessary paperwork, etc., but all my attention was focused on the 
figure before me, motionless save for one thing.

Breathe, Mulder.  Breathe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's something hideous a.m.  Skinner has gone and my mother has come, 
bringing food and a change of clothes and insisting I avail myself of 
both.  The ICU is relatively quiet.  Just the familiar comforting 
sounds of monitoring equipment, the muted rustle of the nursing 
staff.  The soft sounds of my mother shifting in the chair where 
she's spending the night, ignoring me completely when I tell her it 
isn't necessary.  My occasional softer hiccup as I slouch in the 
chair I've pulled as close to the bed as possible so that I can keep 
hold of his hand.  And softest of all, the phenomenally beautiful 
sound of Mulder breathing.  The gentle shush of air moving steadily 
in and out of his bruised and unreasonably sexy chest.  

I was very tired and very wired.  My brain continued to tick 
methodically over all available data on the current condition of one 
Fox William Mulder.  It wasn't until I'd read his chart that I 
realized how close a call it had been.  Mulder's pressure had been 
practically non-existent when he'd been picked up off the ER floor by 
a very startled staff.  Pint after pint of blood had been pumped into 
him and his heart had stopped twice.  I sat hard on my completely 
unreasonable anger that I hadn't been there to help him.  It had been 
several hours before he was anything at all like stable.  

As it was now, he lay in the grip of coma.  He lived; there was brain 
activity, but no real way of telling if Mulder himself was home.  My 
fears and torments of the last three months had been stuffed back 
into my anxiety closet in exchange for a different and just as 
painful set.

What would I do if he didn't wake up?  What would I do if he did wake 
up and it...wasn't him?

No.  NO.  We aren't going to even consider the possibility of Mulder 
without his empathy and occasional odd cruelty, his insatiable 
curiosity, his razor-sharp triple entendre wit, his rekindled 
passion, his sensitivity.  Mulder bereft of his brilliant, quirky 
intellect would simply not be Mulder.  I want my *partner* back, 
psychoses and all.

I'd shaved the growth of beard off of him and gotten his hair 
reasonably clean with the waterless hospital stuff that passes for 
shampoo, then looked around for any other excuse I could use to touch 
him.  In fact, I realized, I really didn't want to be in this chair.  
Where I wanted to be was up on that bed.  I wanted to stretch out 
next to him and feel him breathe, inhale the warm living scent of 
him.

Hmmm, a bit shocked at just how bad you wanna do that, are you, Dana?  
Good thing hospital beds are narrow.  Two adults won't fit, 
especially when one of them is Mulder's size.  Guess it'll have to be 
the chair after all...

...until I can get the other bed moved over, anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two nights later.  I'm going to have a nameplate made and affixed to 
this chair.  For the umpteenth time I turn over the odd test results 
in my mind, fidgiting with the papers.  Someone is fond enough of 
Mulder's blood to have tried to relieve him of nearly all of it.  
Which explains the lack of pressure when he first appeared.  But why 
in the hell would anyone want to bleed him dry, slowly, over three 
months?  

Exsanguination.

Bet you never expected to be the *subject* of one of those 
investigations, did you, Mulder?  Your very own--damn.  
My heart contracts as I realize yet again that I can't just open an 
X-File anymore.  Dammit--that's got to change.  Somehow we'll beat 
this.  We got them back before--we'll do it again.

Blood.  What was so special about his?  His lab work had shown up an 
interesting variety of antibodies, including one that looked 
decidedly--strange.  Dare I say--alien.  How in the hell had *that* 
gotten into his system?  It bore a marked resemblance to an antibody 
in my own blood, the one that might be the remains of the vaccine 
that Mulder had saved me with in Antarctica.  But how and when and 
where would Mulder have been injected with it?

That's it.  That's IT.  It dropped on me like a brick.

They wanted his blood for the antibody.

He'd been used as a vaccine farm.  Christ.  But why so much blood 
taken from him--that shouldn't be necessary if all they wanted was 
the vaccine?  The words my dream-Mulder had spoken flooded back.  
'They're taking something...they're pulling the life out of 
me...it's cold, Scully, so cold...'

Will they be after me again now too?

Can I bear to think about all the possible implications of this right 
now?  Can I confront this many extreme possibilities all at once?

Do I really have a choice?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four nights later.  Private room, same chair, different day.  Some 
horrible hour of the night.  I haven't been to work at all.  Skinner 
has somehow obtained permission, hell, orders really, for me to stay 
right where I am on the pretext of guarding a valuable FBI employee.  
I suspect that he suspects that I wouldn't be much use around the 
Hoover anyway.  In my normal frame of mind I would be quite offended.  
But I'm not in my normal frame of mind.

The hospital was feeding me, of course; nothing but the best for a 
fellow professional and the friend thereof.  Mom had plied me with 
books and more clothes and stayed with Mulder while I showered.  
Considering what he had evidently been through, I didn't want him 
waking in a sterile hospital room without a familiar face.  But I 
managed to convince her that she really didn't need to stay the 
night, promising to call her just the second Mulder awoke.  Neither 
of us allowing the possibility that he might not...

So now this space held just one comatose person and one should-have-
been-comatose person, considering how little sleep I'd had since this 
all had begun.

Mulder had improved quickly, as he usually did, and he lay now with 
only an IV and one monitor keeping watch.  And me.  But so far, no 
flutter of consciousness.  I'd been reading, unable to sleep, but 
decided I'd rest my eyes on Mulder for a bit.  He was much better to 
look at.  The bruising had receded from under his eyes, and much of 
his normal color returned.  The strap marks were healing along with 
the various other signs of medical poking and prodding.  For the 
millionth time I thanked Whomever for the amazing constitution Mulder 
had been blessed with.

His left hand lay limp and open on the mattress, the slender fingers 
curled in unconscious supplication.  I reached over and took it in 
mine, running my thumb gently over his knuckles.  Elegant inquisitive 
hands, like his mind rarely still; their quietness now underlined the 
situation.  But his skin was warm as it should be.  He was improving 
so nicely.  Now if only he would wake up...I chuckled a little to 
myself.  How many times had I been here before?  Watching at some 
hospital bedside, waiting for my leap-before-you-look partner to come 
around from the aftermath of his latest tango with danger.  Except 
that he hadn't gone looking for this particular dance partner.  It 
had found him just the same.

I sighed.  "Ah, Mulder," I said softly, "here we are again.  Wake up, 
partner."  I spoke to him and held his hand as I had done more or 
less steadily for the last three days.  I recalled so well how sound 
and touch had been the first things to come through as I drifted up 
out of my own coma over four years earlier.  How one particular voice 
and one particular touch had begged me to come back and how I had 
needed to answer that call...  "I need you to wake up for me now.  
Come on, you know the drill.  Open your eyes and make some silly 
remark for me so I know it's you."  I squeezed his fingers gently.

They twitched, then squeezed back.  The monitor beeped softly.

I was out of the chair like a shot and leaning over him.  "Mulder?"

A throaty little grumbling noise answered me.

I clamped down on sudden euphoria as best I could and sat on the edge 
of the bed.  "Hey.  Rise and shine."  Reaching over, I brushed the 
fingers of my free hand through the hair at his temple.  "Come on, 
Mulder.  Time to wake up.  You gonna sleep all day?"

Silence.  Then...

"Can't.  Y're too noisy."

His rusty whisper was without doubt the most beautiful sound I'd ever 
heard.  Slowly, with a false start or two, his eyes came open.  
Golden-brown-gray, the green almost gone, their color warmed as he 
focused in on my face.  His mouth didn't precisely smile, but the 
rest of his face did.

"Scully."

Hoarse as it was, I could hear immense relief and satisfaction in his 
voice.  His lashes dropped and his head moved a little, turning into 
my hand.   I let it lay still along the side of his face.

His expression as he rubbed his cheek just very slightly against my 
palm was compiled of things I'd longed desperately for in my dreams 
and been terrified to consider in the light of day.  Added to my own 
rampaging emotions, it deconstructed me completely.  His form blurred 
a touch as my eyes stung and I blinked rapidly.  *No no no no, you 
can go do that later--*  I told myself sternly, *--somewhere else.*  
I wasn't listening.  A few hot tears trickled down, one of them 
escaping completely to splash onto Mulder's throat.  

His eyes blinked open again.  I tried to smile at him but I knew it 
didn't work too well.  Suddenly my partner's gaze went as soft as I'd 
ever seen, and he looked for all the world like a man who'd been 
given the most rare and precious gift imaginable.  His free hand rose 
to my face, brushing at the tears with what looked like great effort.  
"Hey...miss me?"

*God DAMN IT.*

Three solid months of anguish and longing roared through me and 
screamed for release.  I squeezed my eyes shut and ducked my head, 
bit my lip desperately, but it was of no use whatsoever.  As the 
first sob broke free I felt Mulder's hand slide up around the back of 
my neck.  That little pressure was enough.  I bowed, almost 
collapsed, forward and buried my face in his pillow and the top of 
his shoulder.

Warm fingers stroked slightly along my neck and he laid his cheek 
against me.  Twelve long, hideous weeks of fear and anxiety and 
desperation soaked into the pillow as Mulder draped his arm over my 
shoulders and held me, sort of; murmured soothing non-words into my 
hair.  I did my level best to blubber silently so as not to bring the 
nursing staff in at a run.

Eventually I quieted a bit.  But when I tried to rise his arm 
tightened.

"Scully..."

"Yeah..."  Now my voice sounded almost as bad as his.

"I was gone...how long?"  

Damn the man anyway!  I shut my teeth on a mildly hysterical giggle.  
He hadn't been awake ten minutes and that steel-trap mind was ticking 
over just fine, thank you.  I wanted to interpret that as him asking 
how long he'd been unconscious in the hospital, except that I knew 
damn good and well what he was really asking and he knew that I knew.

Dana Scully just doesn't react this way to the average run-of-the-
mill Fox Mulder deathbed experience.  

Mulder and I don't lie to each other.  Deflect, protect, prevaricate, 
stonewall sometimes, but not lie.

I swallowed hard and gulped air, turned my mouth next to his ear.

"Three months."

He went quite still, and I vow I could *hear* his mind sorting the 
implications.  Then his chest moved under me as he inhaled.  "Jesus," 
he breathed.  "Where am I?"

"Georgetown.  Four days ago, "  because I knew "when" would be his 
next question.  I felt him nod and knew what he was thinking.  Same 
hospital where I had suddenly appeared...so I answered his last 
question before he asked it.  "The X-rays look clean."

"Thank you."  Mulder squeezed my hand.  A delightful rumbling 
vibration tickled my skin, and his whisper drifted out.  "You're 
goood..."

The laughter bubbled up in my throat again.  "I know," I said, in as 
smug a tone as I could manage, and his rumble turned into an actually 
audible chuckle.

We were both quiet for a few minutes after that.  Eyes closed, I let 
myself put my nose into the joint of his neck and shoulder and just 
breathe him in.  *Real, real, real...,* a little voice exalted.  I 
decided that as nice as his watch and greatcoat were, perfume-wise, 
they had nothing at all on the genuine article.  I also decided that 
right at that moment I didn't give a fat damn about appearances if 
someone should walk in.

However, gradually I became aware that there were parts of me 
informing *other* parts of me that it felt really REALLY good to be 
draped over his body like this...

With a deep breath I reached around for the shreds of my usual 
composure.  I knit them back together and settled them around me.  
This time when I moved, Mulder let me, his arm slipping off my 
shoulders and down my back, coming to rest across his stomach.  His 
eyes were closed again.

"Mulder?"

"Tired..."

I was still holding his hand.

"Can you hang on for a few minutes?  We need to let the doctors know 
you're awake."  He nodded marginally and I hit the call button.

As the staff flooded in I reluctantly started to disentangle my 
fingers from his and felt a thrill as I realized he didn't want to 
let go either.  "Scully..."

"I'll be right here, Mulder.  Promise."  His arm trailed after me as 
I moved away.  Wiped as he obviously was, hazel-green eyes opened as 
though he really *needed* to see me...

I got out of the way of the impatient nurse and scrabbled in my coat 
for my phone, sank into a chair over by the window.

"Mom?"  I'm sure my voice gave me away, and I touched the familiar 
shape of the wristwatch in my front jeans pocket.  "Good news...!"


finis