"Things Which Are Not" (1/3) by Karen Rasch krasch@earthlink.net This is something I started on vacation. On a legal pad. While bundled in a sweater, socks, and sweatpants in the middle of July, watching the rain batter the lake outside my window. Never trust Wisconsin weather. It's a return to angst. (I blame the 40 degree temperatures. It was hard maintaining a cheerful front while huddling over my coffee for warmth.) You know, lots of folks found fault with "Gethsemane." I can understand their annoyance. After all, the whole "Agent Mulder is dead" thing is pretty lame-o. But, on the upside, I've thought about the events in that ep repeatedly since it aired. Can't say that about "Talitha Cumi." This is for the enigmatic one herself, Leyla Harrison. For bravery above and beyond the call of duty. Next time you're in Chicago, sweetie, dinner is on me. (Thanks for making me look good in the "Round Table Discussion" piece, by the way. Boy, that Partous is a bitch, though. Ain't she?! ) ********************************************************* Archivists: This is an MSRXA of the platonic variety. PG-13 for language. Spoilers for "Tunguska," "Terma," the entire cancer arc, and "Gethsemane." Plot Summary: Given the events depicted in "Gethsemane," I don't think Scully is in on Mulder's apparent suicide. The woman has never been able to lie worth beans in the past. So either she took a crash course in Method Acting, or she believes what she told Blevins and the rest. She was just too sincere for me to buy any subterfuge on her part. With that in mind, *this is one possible explanation for what occurred. It also offers a way for matters to resolve themselves.* (Archivists, to simplify matters, why don't you just use the stuff between the asterisks as the summary.) Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine. CC, 1013, and Fox own these guys and gals, and are making a mint off of them. I'm doing the kid with her nose pressed against the Candy Shoppe window routine, stealing characters and plot lines, and bending them to my will. Distribute, archive, mail, discuss--do what you will. I'm tough. I can take it. (Although I am faintly worried about the reaction of a certain French- Canadian . . .) ********************************************************** For I am every dead thing, In whom love wrought new alchemy. For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not. John Donne, "A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day" * * * * * * * * * "She's dying, you know." Those were the words which had greeted Fox Mulder that fateful night. When he had opened his door not long after returning home from a certain blood-soaked warehouse to find a tall, red-haired figure framed in his hallway. A man he couldn't help but think of as Kurt Crawford. Even though he knew the name was a lie. Like so many other things in Mulder's life. "Yeah. I think someone may have mentioned that," he had mumbled in reply and had stepped wearily aside so as to allow his late night visitor entry, wondering as he did so whether he had run across this particular Kurt before. Or if, despite the man's familiar visage, this was actually a first-time meeting, an introduction of sorts. A guy just never knew with a clone. Mulder's thinly veiled sarcasm hadn't seemed to phase the person in the doorway. He had taken his time, seemingly weighing whether he should indeed chance coming inside. He had stood there unmoving, clad in jeans and a navy blue cotton sweater, his arms at his sides, his feet set shoulders' width apart. His features had been arranged into a similarly neutral posture, his brown eyes calm and unblinking. Yet before he had inclined his head and crossed past Mulder into the apartment's vestibule, the agent had thought perhaps he had spied a certain sympathy in the other man's gaze, a humanity that had struck him as ironic given Crawford's less than human genealogy. "Then she's told you about the tumor metastasizing." Mulder had gone utterly still while locking the door behind them both, ice water all at once replacing the blood within his veins. Of all the things he had expected Crawford to say, that hadn't even been on the list. And yet, he should have guessed. Should have suspected. After all, he had known the threat had existed, had discussed it even with Skinner. But, he hadn't been given any confirmation. And while the danger had remained nebulous--a possibility, nothing more--he had stubbornly clung to hope. To the belief that Scully and he could somehow outmaneuver their foes, could emerge from this whole heinous ordeal victorious. Some dreams die hard. "What?" he had croaked distractedly, his hand clenched so tightly around the doorknob that he could feel its seam digging into his palm. "I thought . . .," Crawford had begun haltingly from somewhere over Mulder's shoulder. "You said you knew. So, I had assumed--" "How bad?" Mulder had demanded, his eyes shut, his words pushed from between his lips with noticeable effort. "It's reached her bloodstream." Mulder had swayed with the words, lightheaded. Giddy with fear. With anger. With guilt. "And the tumor itself has . . . it's enlarged." Mulder had nodded numbly and had turned to meet Crawford's gaze, the doorknob now pressing insistently against the small of his back. Like the muzzle of a gun. Then, he had licked his lips and had asked the last question in the world he had ever wanted to ask. "How much time?" Crawford had scarcely hesitated at all. "Weeks. Perhaps a month or two at best." Mulder had nodded once more, an insane desire to laugh welling up inside him. Well, this day had certainly gone from bad to worse in one hell of a hurry, now hadn't it? he had mused a tad unsteadily. And yet, it hadn't started out that way. Only a few short hours ago, he had been on top of the world. True, he had just left a scene of death and devastation. But the prize Arlinsky, Babcock, and he had secreted away had seemed to his admittedly biased way of thinking worth it. They had recovered what had looked to be the long frozen corpse of extraterrestrial biological entity. A genuine E.B.E. He had possessed his proof at last. Then as he had stood there, witnessing firsthand the autopsy of the pitiful creature, he had been called away by his partner. His dying partner. Who had told him that while he had been hiking across the frozen tundra, she had been thrown down a flight of stairs while running his errands. Thankfully, she had later captured her assailant. But, rather than jailing him, she had instead heeded his pleas for understanding. Had allowed him to relate to her a story. One Scully had found compelling enough to share with the man who was its focus. So, because she had asked him to, Mulder had listened to what Michael Kritschgau had had to say. And had not been convinced. Despite the fact that what the Defense Department lackey had warned against had come to pass. The body of the supposed alien had mysteriously vanished. Arlinsky and Babcock had been executed. And yet, even though Mulder himself had believed with the intensity of a pilgrim at Lourdes, he hadn't been able to convince Scully that these events had been anything other than a kind of smoke screen. A means to perpetuate the hoax to which she had claimed he had apparently fallen victim. Her refusal to consider that the corpse may have indeed been what it had appeared to be had inflamed him. He couldn't understand why his usually skeptical partner would choose to side with a total stranger rather than with the man beside whom she had worked for the past four years. He had angrily called her on it. Had demanded, "What the hell did that guy say to you? To make you believe his story." Only to have heard her softly and sadly answer, "The men behind this hoax, behind these lies, gave me this disease to make you believe." She blamed him. Placed the fault for her impending death squarely upon his head. It wasn't important that her words had made perversely little sense, that the notion that her death would make him any more or less a believer had as its very foundation faulty logic. He had understood the accusation to be true enough in its own way. Had recognized with a purity of vision so keen as to be blinding that Dana Scully would never have been placed in harm's way were it not for him and his quest. But to hear her say it, to listen as she had uttered the words with a dispirited sort of resignation . . . . He hadn't been able to handle it. Had rather needed to flee the scene of what had felt at that moment like one of his own terrible crimes. And so he had abandoned her there. To do whatever she had felt it necessary to do. Call the police. Call the Bureau. It hadn't mattered to him. What was the difference? No matter who Scully ended up looking to for assistance, they wouldn't be able to make it right. No evidence would be found. No murderer tracked down and brought to justice. Hell, Scully had said it once herself. There is no justice. The fact that her life was a flip of a calendar page away from being sacrificed had more than driven home for Mulder that particular truism. "Why are you here?" he had finally asked the Kurt-clone, not really caring but hoping to hurry matters along so that he could wallow privately in his grief, his guilt. "You may be able to help her," the other man had told him calmly. And for just a moment, all of existence ceased. All of it. Everything. The world had paused in its rotation. The air had hesitated in its flow. An odd sort of exhilaration setting his lanky frame to trembling, Mulder had mused that he could even sense the stoppage of his own body's functions. His heart, his breath, his brain--all had stutter-stepped while Crawford's words had slowly sunk into his consciousness. "How?" he had queried in a whisper, his throat raw, his lips barely parted. Crawford's countenance had remained expressionless, almost as if someone had applied Novocain to his facial muscles. But his eyes had locked on Mulder's, the purpose shining in them too fervent for the agent to miss. "You've never told anyone about what happened at Tunguska. Have you, Agent Mulder?" Crawford had ventured with deceptive mildness. Mulder had started in surprise. Not only had he never told anyone what had happened when he and Krychek had been captured by the Russians, he had done his damnedest to erase it from his own mind. The idea that Crawford could have somehow learned about his imprisonment, about the tests that had been performed on him . . . . "What do you know?" he had growled, advancing on his visitor. Crawford hadn't been impressed by his newfound belligerence. "I know that you were arrested by the Russian military," Crawford had said, his tone conversational. "That while you were being held you were used as a sort of human guinea pig to test a vaccine. One they had hoped might be used to combat the black cancer." Mulder had fought to suppress a shudder at the memories Crawford's bland recitation had suddenly inspired. Of cold stone walls. The prick of a needle. A cage of wire. And things. Hideous alien things slithering into his body's orifices like mutant slugs. "What did they do to me?" he had queried hoarsely as he had faced Crawford, swallowing hard against the threatening nausea. "Do you know what was in that syringe? What sort of compound they injected me with?" "Not exactly." "Then why did you bring up what happened at Tunguska?" he had asked, anger once more strengthening his voice. "What has what happened to me in Russia got to do with saving Scully's life?" "You lived, Agent Mulder." Mulder had shook his head in frustration. "So, I lived. So what?" Although his expression hadn't outwardly changed, Crawford had somehow seemed amused by Mulder's impatience. "The tests were successful. Using you and your fellow prisoners, the Russians found the cure they had been looking for." Slowly, with the speed of fog burning off a field, it had all begun to make sense. "Are you saying--?" "I'm saying that the secret to saving Agent Scully's life may well lie within you," Crawford had gently explained. Mulder had just stood there, his mouth opening and closing like one of his pet fish at feeding time. "If what we have learned is correct, your blood contains an anti-body of sorts that neutralizes the black cancer. And if this anti-body is lethal to one form of the disease, who is to say that it might not be deadly to others?" * * * * * * * * * Continued in Part II "Things Which Are Not" (2/3) by Karen Rasch krasch@earthlink.net A really long-winded intro may be found prior to part 1. I know that kind of thing makes some of you =nuts=. So, I ain't doin' it no more! :) ********************************************************* "So what do I have to do?" Mulder had questioned, his voice strained with excitement, roughened by hope. "When can we get started?" "Right now, you needn't do anything," Crawford had replied. "Just wait here. And I will return for you. We have arranged for a laboratory to be at our disposal for just this purpose. A few last minute details must be attended to first; things with which we did not dare move forward until we were certain we had your cooperation. I will put these matters in motion, and then take you to our facility. And we will begin." Mulder had nodded his agreement. "Okay. Fine. I'll wait for you to come back. That'll work out for the best anyway. It'll give me a chance to call Scully. Let her know what's going on." "You mustn't contact your partner, Agent Mulder. It's too dangerous. For both of you." Mulder had stared at Crawford in horrified disbelief, his head turning slowly from side to side. "But, I =have= to. She . . . she has to know. This could be--" Crawford had regarded him gravely, the sympathy Mulder had earlier thought he had spied shining in the man's gaze in evidence once more. "Agent Mulder, we have no guarantee that our theories are correct. True, we believe that with your assistance we might be able to come up with a vaccine to treat Agent Scully's tumor. But we cannot know how long it might take to manufacture such a thing, or even if the treatment will ultimately prove successful." Mulder had stood watching him, his brow furrowed, trying yet failing to come up with the words to counter Crawford's. "It would be unkind to raise her hopes," the auburn-haired man had continued softly. "And unsafe. You may not realize it, but your silence regarding the events at Tunguska has undoubtedly saved your life. Your enemies do not know what was done to you. Had they found out, I'm sure you can imagine they would not have left you alone." "How did =you= find out?" Mulder had queried with narrowed eyes. "And why didn't you come to me with this before?" Crawford had shrugged. "We have our sources just as you have yours. Unfortunately, they only now uncovered this information." Mulder had nodded slowly, mulling over who these mysterious sources might in fact be. "So you want me to leave with you tonight without telling anyone where I'm going or how long I might be away?" "That is correct." Mulder had grimaced ruefully as he had run his hand through his already tousled hair. "You know, I may not have all that many friends. But sooner or later, *someone* is going to notice I'm not around." Crawford had paused before responding. "No, they won't." "And why is that?" Mulder had inquired dryly, his arms folded now against his chest. "They will believe you dead." "What--?" "It's the only way, Agent Mulder," Crawford had insisted. "You know as well as we--Agent Scully is not meant to survive. If your enemies should learn what we are attempting to do, they will kill her outright, and use whatever is in your blood for their own purposes." Mulder had listened to Crawford's ever so reasonable argument and had found he could come up with no equally reasonable rebuttal. Oh, he could whine and wail. Could complain that this plan of Crawford's was madness itself. That no way would he be a party to a hoax involving his own death. That he would find another way to save Scully. One that didn't involve clones and secret laboratories. And lying to his best friend. Who needed him now. Even if she was loath to admit it. But that's what he had been trying to do all along, wasn't it? Find a cure. To somehow, some way spare his innocent partner's life. To do so, he had been willing to sell his soul. What a small price then really to only have to pretend to barter his life. "How do I die?" he had at long last asked Crawford, aware that once he had asked a similar question of a man he had met in the course of his duties. And had received an answer he had later come to regret. Crawford's mouth had thinned with a degree of distaste before murmuring shortly, "Suicide." Mulder had chuckled mirthlessly. Suicide. What a wise and ultimately fitting choice. All those at the Bureau who had always considered him as one won-ton short of a Pu-Pu Platter would view the revelation as no great surprise. Instead, Mulder knew they would undoubtedly mill about the water cooler, sagely nodding their heads and boasting, "I saw it coming, you know." And they would be right. He had been flirting with disaster for as long as he had been an employee of Uncle Sam. First endangering his psyche when as a profiler he had routinely crawled inside the heads of madmen. Then later, repeatedly putting his life and Scully's on the line while pursuing that chimera known as Truth. No. No one would find it odd that the spooky fellow in the basement had finally decided the time had come to end it all. Not after they had found out about the state of Scully's health. And not after she had related to the appropriately interested parties the events of the past few days. Suicide. Christ. He understood the urge. Had fought from time to time against its allure. And yet he feared that should Crawford's plan fail, he might at last succumb to the temptation. Because never would he be able to survive with the knowledge that the final words that he and Dana Scully had shared had been those spoken with Arlinsky and Babcock as deaf witnesses. "Go do what you have to do," Mulder had instructed Crawford quietly as he had crossed back to the door and slid open the dead bolt. "I'll be here waiting for you." With a small nod, Crawford had stepped past him and into the open doorway. "Don't answer the phone. Don't open the door to anyone but me." Mulder had dipped his head in acknowledgment of the potential danger, thinking as he did so that Crawford sounded like nothing so much as a G-man in training. "Don't worry, I won't. I'll be a good boy and maybe watch some TV." "Good. We won't be long." And with that, Crawford had turned and walked away. Saying nothing more, Mulder had closed and locked the portal behind his visitor. Overcome suddenly by a wave of melancholy and fatigue, he had once more closed his eyes and rested his weary head against the door's smooth wooden surface. Forgive me, he had wordlessly entreated, his lips softly shaping the words. Please forgive me, Scully. Forgive me for what I am about to do. ***************************** It hadn't appeared that his companions had been deliberately trying to conceal their destination from him. Yet nevertheless, Mulder had soon realized that he would never be able to again find the facility on his own. The night had been too dark. The hour too late. The view from the back of the paneled van in which they had traveled far too limited. After having sat for an hour or more in relative silence, he had finally given in to curiosity and had flat out asked one of the two Kurts who had come to escort him, "Where exactly is this place?" Only to have been told, "Virginia. We are not certain what city would be considered the appropriate mailing address." And despite the circumspect nature of that answer, Mulder had believed them. He couldn't explain why he placed such confidence in this small army of red-headed clones. Perhaps it was merely that in them he felt as if he had allies. Comrades united with him against a common enemy. But more likely, he had mused, it was something he had once seen on the face of one the Kurts that had turned the trick. The look of regret he had noted there when the two men had stepped inside a room that reminded Mulder of nothing so much as a simple bank vault. The timbre of the hybrid's voice when he had softly said by way of explanation for the actions of him and his brethren, "They're our mothers." With that statement, trust had been born. Its foundation sturdy enough to withstand the shock Mulder had earlier received upon what was supposedly his last night on earth. "Who the hell is that?" he had demanded with a kind of amazement when he had first laid eyes on the figure accompanying Crawford. "That, Agent Mulder," the Kurt had replied, "is you." And sweet God in heaven, that had indeed been exactly whom it had appeared to be. Standing there just inside Mulder's apartment, his expression without any discernible emotion, had been the agent's identical twin. "I don't understand," Mulder had mumbled. "He was lab created," Crawford had explained. "Bred by a process similar to that which created us, specifically for this purpose." Mulder had warily circled his double, a sick sort of fascination welling up inside of him. "How though? How were you able--?" "You must realize, Agent Mulder, that the parties who monitor you have had any of a number of opportunities to harvest the raw materials necessary for such an endeavor." Mulder had nodded ever so slightly and taken a step closer to his doppelganger. "We have studied your medical records and duplicated to the best of our ability all the necessary scars and physical abnormalities collected with age and injury," Crawford had assured him. "His will be the body the authorities will find." Mulder had wet his lips and reached out his hand as if to touch this strange yet familiar creature. But the being in question had turned a pair of placid hazel eyes in the direction of what some might call his father. And the original had speedily withdrawn his hand, like a horny teenager caught trying to cop a feel. "Why is this . . . man . . willing to do this?" Mulder had queried softly. "To be truthful, Agent Mulder. He doesn't realize what is to come." Mulder's gaze had swung in horror to Crawford's. "What do you mean?" The Kurt had taken a moment to consider how best to soothe Mulder and his doubts. "This clone was created with certain higher neurological functions left . . . undeveloped." "Undeveloped, how?" "He does not feel pain," Crawford had explained. "He does not think, as you do. Does not reason or experience emotion. In some ways you might consider him a shell. A copy of your outside with nothing that makes you what and who you are within." Mulder had supposed these words should have comforted him. But the notion that this living entity would die in his stead had continued to prey upon his conscience. "And these . . . deficiencies . . . will they go undetected?" Crawford had shrugged. "As the method of suicide we have planned will be a bullet to the head, the resulting damage should mask what he lacks." Mulder had nodded slightly, his lips twisted, his reservations still etched into the lines of his face. "This is necessary, Agent Mulder," Crawford had told him firmly. "No one must wonder where you are or what you're doing. Your life and the life of your partner depend upon that." The mention of Scully had worked to strengthen Mulder's resolve. Just as he had imagined his supposed ally had intended it would. Crawford was right, Mulder had told himself. They had to do this. He had to do this. For Scully. And with those words whispering in his ear like a lover's endearment, Fox Mulder had put his service revolver to the head of a man who looked exactly like him. And had pulled the trigger. But before he had been able to leave his apartment in the company of one Kurt Crawford and climb inside the van driven by another, he had first needed to take a moment for himself. To cross away from the body weeping blood onto his living room rug, and step into his small tiled bathroom. Where he had vomited the contents of his stomach up and into the toilet in one painful, burning rush. ***************************** At first, time had seemed to drag endlessly. After all, other than posing as a rather pampered lab rat, Mulder had enjoyed little to fill his days. Certainly it had felt to the agent as if the majority of his waking hours were spent being poked, prodded, and pricked. But between the endless tests and blood lettings, few pleasurable pursuits had been available to him. He had had no one for company save for a herd of Kurt Crawfords. No television to watch. No computer to which he had been able to lay claim for any length of time. He had tried running just to keep fit and alert. But his hosts had stressed the danger to be found in venturing out into the woods which surrounded their Spartan facility. And the halls had provided neither the distance nor the traction he desired. So, he had contented himself with calisthenics, with sit-ups and push-ups and jogging in place. And had found the substitute activity wholly unsatisfying. The Kurts had sensed his disquiet and done what they could to fulfill his needs; to alleviate his boredom, his concern. Whenever one of them had ventured into civilization, he had always brought back with him a newspaper or two. Paperback books had mysteriously begun popping up in Mulder's sleeping quarters from time to time, the selection having unwittingly brought the agent more amusement than the books themselves. Apparently, the hybrids had judged him to be a fan of pulp thrillers and science fiction classics. Still, when he wasn't haunting the labs or pestering one of the Crawfords for updates on the project, Mulder had devoured those bits of mind candy like a child gobbles chocolate. Anything to make the time pass more quickly. Anything to take his mind off of Scully. From the time he had arrived, he had badgered the Kurts for news on her and the life he had left behind. Had their ruse worked? What had happened? How was Scully holding up? The clones had told him what they could. Even though it hadn't been unexpected, the news that the X-Files had once again been shut down had been difficult to bear. So much time, so much effort. So much lost. All to have his life's blood stashed under yards of drop cloth, and forgotten. Have you forgotten me, Scully? Mulder had wondered as he had laid on his cot, staring up at the cracked plaster above. Do you miss me? Blame me? Do you dream about me? As I do you? Mulder's only answer had been the alarm clock beside his bed, its face glowing green in the room's blackness, the soft tick- tock of time counting off night's passage. Counting down Dana Scully's life. No, no, no, Mulder had silently railed. It's too soon. Weeks had passed, true. But only weeks. Just weeks. Not months. Crawford had said they had a month . . . or two. . . . At best. And all at once, Mulder had longed for each and every second he had wished away. Because more than anything, what Dana Scully had needed at that moment was time. Enough time for a miracle. * * * * * * * * * Continued in Part III "Things Which Are Not" (3/3) by Karen Rasch krasch@earthlink.net See part one for non-story stuff. * * * * * * * * * But all too soon, time ran out. "Agent Scully was admitted last night to Holy Cross Memorial Hospital," a Kurt told Mulder nearly a month to the day after the agent had joined the clones in their quest for a cure. "Just after midnight, she called for an ambulance from her home after experiencing what she described as a kind of seizure. From what we've been able to gather, preliminary tests indicate that the tumor has finally penetrated her cerebrum." Upon hearing the news, panic blazed through Mulder like wildfire, searing his nerve endings and sending what little calm he had stubbornly clung to up in smoke. God damn it. They still weren't ready. Not yet. Sure, the first rounds of tests had been promising. A solution composed in part of the foreign matter discovered in his bloodstream had been shown to shrink certain forms of cancer. But this treatment was still in its infancy. The drug had to be fine-tuned. Further tests run. More variables taken into consideration. Unfortunately, that thing eating its way through Scully's body wasn't going to wait for them. Or anything else. They were going to have to move with whatever they had been able to achieve. And hope that it would ultimately prove to be enough. "So what do we do?" Mulder asked a laboratory full of Kurts. "How do we smuggle in the treatment to her?" One of the red-haired men stepped forward. "We don't plan on bringing the treatment to your partner, Agent Mulder." Suspicion lanced through Mulder like a spear. "What you mean, you don't plan on bringing it to her? If you aren't going to help Scully, then what has all this been about?" The corner of the Kurt's mouth lifted just a fraction. "Please. You misunderstand. I only said that we weren't going to administer the drug at Holy Cross. Not that we were going to refrain from helping Agent Scully altogether." Confusion wrinkled Mulder's brow. "So what =are= you planning to do?" "We're going to arrange to have her brought to us." Mulder's heart began beating a syncopated rhythm. "You're bringing Scully here?" "No, Agent Mulder. You are." ***************************** Mulder walked swiftly yet silently down the hushed hospital corridor, his soft soled shoes padding mutely against the tile. The hallway was empty, the oncology ward apparently as devoid of traffic at this late hour as it was of sound. He didn't know why he should be surprised by this. After all, everything was just as the Kurts had told him it would be. "You will enter third floor Oncology at precisely 2:40 a.m. We will arrange for the nurse on duty to be away from her station at this time. You will proceed to your partner's room. You will then have until exactly 3:00 to prepare Agent Scully for transport. This is when the floor nurse is scheduled to begin rounds. She will start at the opposite end of the hall. Wait until she enters the first room, then leave via the stairwell directly across the corridor from you. We will be waiting outside." The whole thing had sounded fairly straight-forward. In and out quickly, with no one the wiser. Still, just to maximize his chances, his co-conspirators had dug up for him hospital greens for a costume and a stethoscope for a prop. That way, they had reasoned, if anyone questioned him he could always try bluffing his way out of trouble. But just in case that didn't work, Mulder had opted to complete his "ER" inspired ensemble with his ankle holster and spare firearm. He had thought they might come in handy. Because no way in hell was he leaving that hospital without Scully. Scully. God. Even though he was walking in solo to a large, metropolitan hospital with the expressed plan of kidnapping one of the institution's most gravely ill patients, Mulder didn't fear discovery or capture. He feared his partner. Or, more to the point, her reaction to him. With each step bringing him closer and closer to her doorway, nearer and nearer to the reunion he had been yearning for like the damned seek salvation, an awful sort of dread tempered his joy. What could he say to her? Hey, Scully. Miss me? Too casual. She'd be more likely to pull out her gun and shoot you rather than answer you. How are you feeling, Scully? She's in the hospital, asshole. The oncology ward. She was brought there in an ambulance. Take three guesses as to how she's feeling. Scully, I've come to get you out of here. I'm going to take you to some people who can help you. Really help you. I know it sounds crazy, but we may actually have a chance at beating this thing. All you have to do is trust me. Mulder wiped his suddenly sweaty palms against his pants legs. Trust. The one thing he and Scully had always been able to count on from each other. The thing he had betrayed when he had disappeared, leaving her alone and vulnerable in her hour of need. It didn't matter what his reasons had been; how noble his cause, how righteous his motive. He had deserted her at a time when she had most needed his support. Leaving her to fend off the jackals, to parry their questions and suffer their pitying glances. Without him. Room 325. Her room. The gurney just outside the doorway. Exactly as he had been assured it would be. Shit. Taking a deep, shaky breath, he squared his shoulders. And stepped inside. The chamber was dark, shadows scaling the walls, creeping across the floor. A hooded lamp glowed at the head of the bed, the single bulb holding the inky void ever so tenuously at bay. And spotlighted in its small circle of incandescence, a face burned as if lit from within. A countenance that had danced along the edges of Mulder's awareness for the past several weeks, haunting him like a woefully earthbound spirit. Scully. Her features now ravaged by care and disease. Pale. Lined. Sharp angles and sunken hollows. All covered by skin that looked to him as delicate as tissue paper. And yet, despite his sorrow over the frailty her appearance suggested, Mulder found he didn't actually care what this woman looked like. The only thing that really mattered was that he could at last look upon her once more. Cautiously, he approached her bedside. Moved towards the light. They were alone, as the Kurts had promised Mulder they would be. Still, with all the machinery hooked up to the small figure before him, it occurred to the agent that it was almost as if another presence did indeed share the room with them. One monstrosity recorded her brain waves, another her heartbeat. Bags of clear fluid flowed into her veins, their contents unknown, but their purpose evident enough. "Oh, Scully," he whispered as he stood beside her, his hands aching to stretch out and touch her. Just for a moment. Just to prove she was real. And breathing. God. How could so much have changed in just a month's time? She had been ill when last he had seen her, true. And yet, she had still looked as she always had. A bit more wan perhaps, a tad more slender. But nothing he hadn't been able to overlook, to blithely ignore. Most days. No more. The time for pretending--about her health and his death--was at an end. Lips thinned, Mulder crossed to the machines supervising his partner's vital signs. Reaching his hand into his pants pocket, he withdrew an unobtrusive silver-colored box. Positioning the gadget's magnetic backing against one of the monitor's metallic shell, he pressed the apparatus into place. Depressing a small red button, he then activated it. Working quickly, he repeated the process with the room's remaining equipment. "These better damn well do what they're supposed to do," he mumbled under his breath, eyeing the devices with a distinct air of mistrust. Because if they didn't, this little operation was going to be over before it began, Mulder darkly mused. These harmless looking contraptions were what were supposed to allow him to free Scully from the machines looming over her. The Kurts had promised him that the instruments would trick the monitors. First, they would record the readings Scully's body was generating. Then, when she was unhooked from her mechanical sentries, they would play the data back in a endless loop, thus keeping the medical personnel on duty from learning that one of their patients had gone AWOL. It was planning such as this that cheered Mulder into thinking that the good guys might just pull this thing off after all. The devices safely in place, he hesitated again. Standing even with Scully's waist, he contemplated the fragile looking woman before him, affection and worry shining in his eyes. As specific as the Kurts had been in their instructions, they hadn't given him any suggestions as to whether he should wake his partner or let her sleep through her abduction. Given their timetable, it would probably be easier to just let her slumber. But, he had no guarantees that she would remain unconscious until they exited the hospital. All he would need was for Scully to wake up mid-transport, disoriented and amazed by the identity of the man responsible for her late night journey. No. He couldn't put this off any longer. He had to let her know he was alive. And had come for her. "Scully?" he whispered, his fingertips at last tracing the shape of her face. "Scully, it's me." Her brow creased. Her lips twitched. But, she did not awaken. Mulder checked his watch. 2:44. Let's go, Scully, he silently urged. We've got a schedule to keep. Lightly, he slid his palm over her softly tangled hair, his voice pitched higher in volume, lower in tone. "Rise and shine, Scully. We've got someplace we've gotta be." Her eyelashes fluttered, almost as if she truly did long to rise, but hadn't the strength necessary to accomplish such a thing. Watching her struggle, Mulder rued his earlier decision. Christ, if he had known it was going to be this difficult for her to rouse, he would simply have let her sleep. But then, hindsight is always twenty-twenty. "That's right, Scully," he murmured in encouragement. "Come on and open your eyes for me." Easing himself down on the bed beside her, he took her hand in his and leaned over her so that his lips hovered inches above her ear. "Just give me a minute. Okay? Then, you can go back to sleep. I promise. I just need to talk to you first." Mulder would never know if it had been the promise of uninterrupted slumber that had succeeded in coaxing Scully to wakefulness. But regardless of what had tempted her back to the land of the living, her lids finally lifted, and she blinked up at him with sleep-blurred eyes. Drinking in the sight of this woman awake and alive and beside him after so very long, Mulder's hand tightened unthinkingly on hers. Slowly, a smile shattered his mouth's grim line, reshaping his lips into a soft, vulnerable curve. "Hi," he whispered after a beat, the word gruff yet gentle. She licked her lips and crinkled her brow, her gaze failing to focus on his features. "What . . . . who are you?" For just an instant, Mulder's eyes darkened in concern. How exactly had the tumor's penetration affected her brain? he wondered, a different kind of terror now tying his stomach in knots. What would he do if it turned out that he and his cronies were in time to save Scully's body, but unable to do anything to repair her mind? Then, he glanced over at the bags whose contents even now dripped steadily into her veins. Painkillers. Sleeping aids. Hell, even the disease itself. All of it was probably working to muddy her senses. That's all. Nothing to worry about. Hold it together, Mulder, he grimly coached himself. Because while you're sitting there freaking out, the minutes are ticking away. "Scully, it's me," he said quietly, his thumb rubbing in soothing little circles over the back of her hand. "It's Mulder." Upon hearing his name, Scully stiffened, and pulling her hand free from his, shrank into the mattress. "Who =are= you?" she repeated, the words gritted out, low and harsh. Mulder grimaced. He should have realized that she might react this way. After all, he and his hybrid compatriots had staged his death with the kind of authenticity Spielberg sought to achieve with his dinosaurs. And in the end, their hard work had paid off. They had managed to convince everyone. Even Scully. The Bureau's best known skeptic. So, why should he assume that she would now suddenly believe otherwise? Simply because he had decided to pop back into her life. "Scully, I know that this comes as a shock to you," he began hesitantly. "That you probably aren't sure what to think right now--" "You're not Mulder," she muttered as she shifted even further away from him beneath the bedclothes. "I don't know who you are, but you're not him." Mulder watched with a breaking heart as Scully attempted to put distance between them. First, she scooted as far away from him as possible upon the narrow hospital bed. Then, knuckles white with strain, her slender arms shuddering with the effort, she braced her palms against the mattress, stubbornly determined to lever herself into a sitting position. He recognized what she was trying to do, sympathized with her dilemma. Flat on her back, she was in a defensive posture. If she could just manage to accomplish her goal, they would in some crazy way be on more equal footing. Yet what should have been a fairly simple endeavor proved in actuality an undertaking painful to behold. Her arms couldn't sustain her weight, and kept collapsing beneath her. Mulder could see Scully's frustration mounting, sense the panic and the rage that simmered beneath her ruthlessly controlled facade. Unable to merely sit there and serve as audience for her floundering, he reached out his hands to assist her. But the moment his fingers circled her upper arms, she erupted in a flurry of expletives and limbs. "Let go of me, you son of a bitch!" she cried, her voice cracking with an emotion Mulder couldn't identify. Oh God, he prayed as he strove to muffle any more outbursts by pressing his palm over her mouth. Please let that floor nurse take an extra long coffee break. Scully might not have been able to muster half the volume she usually could, but given the hospital's relative silence, any unexpected sound was bound to seem amplified. He would be lucky if he didn't soon have to contend with a battalion of security guards. Yet despite his worries and Scully's strangled call of outrage, it appeared that someone somewhere actually heeded his plea. No one came running to investigate the suspicious noises coming from Room Not the way they should have. Geez, it's so hard to find good help these days, Mulder mused to himself with a kind of giddy humor. That oddly timed bemusement lingering still, he had just started to breathe a bit easier when, with a speed and strength he hadn't realized she still possessed, Scully broke free from his grasp and lunged madly for the call button. An instant before her fingers could close over it, he yanked it from its perch atop the headboard and pulled it towards him, so that it dangled out of her reach. Thwarted, Scully struck out with a desperate sort of fury, her arms flailing in his direction, but the blows only occasionally hitting home. "Take your fucking hands off of me!" she sobbed as he grabbed hold of her once more, the sound more angry than sorrowful. However, rather than do what she asked of him, Mulder once again clamped his hand over her mouth, and drew her even closer to him. The red-headed tornado twisting and turning in his arms was far too weak to inflict any real damage upon his person. And yet he didn't trust that she wouldn't try something as potentially dangerous as tumbling off the bed and making a break for the door. He, of all people, knew that Scully was nothing if not a formidable and tenacious opponent. Holding on while she expended her meager supply of energy, he checked his watch. 2:50. Tick-tick, Scully. "Calm down," he murmured to the woman who finally leaned limply against him, shivering with exhaustion. "Calm down before you hurt yourself." He held her as tenderly as he could, frightened that her condition might somehow have worsened as a result of their struggle. Her continued trembling certainly seemed to suggest such a thing. Her chest was heaving with exertion, rising and falling like a bellows beneath his arm; sweat slicked her brow, matted her hair. Glancing down, he noted that in the midst of their wrestling, she had all but ripped free from the machines that had been entrusted with her care. And yet, although her IV dribbled drugs onto the floor in a way that reminded Mulder of blood being spilled, it didn't appear as if any real harm had been done. Beyond what had already been inflicted. "Just hang on a minute and listen to me, okay?" he implored in a hushed voice, his palm still squarely in place atop her mouth, his cheek brushing against hers. "We don't have much time. I know you have trouble believing that what I'm telling you is true. Hell, =I= barely believe it sometimes myself. But I swear to you, Scully--I swear on Samantha's life--I am who I say I am." At the mention of his sister, Scully went very, very still, almost as if she had been stunned into insensibility by his invoking the missing girl's name. For just a moment, he let his partner consider whether anyone other than the real Fox Mulder would dare adopt Samantha's fate as an oath. Then, he forged ahead once more. "What happened and how I got here is a long and rather convoluted story," he murmured at her ear. "And I will tell it all to you; every last excruciating detail. But first we've got to get out of here." He could feel her lips moving beneath his hand, knew that she wanted to speak. And although the threat still existed for her to sound the alarm, he gently removed his palm from her lips. After all, he was demanding from her absolute trust. It was only fair that he show a little of it himself. She swallowed a couple of times, moistening her throat in the same way she would prime a pump. Finally, she said softly, "Fox Mulder is dead. I identified his body myself." "You shouldn't let that hard evidence stuff throw you, Scully," he said, trying to inject a teasing tone into his voice. "After all, you better than anyone should know how hard I am to kill." "But his fingerprints, . . . moles, scars. They all--" "Clone. It was a clone. The appropriate changes made to make the substitution believable," he explained as he adjusted her before him so that his arms circled around her, clasping her to him. And while she no longer leaned against him, she also did not resist. "I don't believe you," she whispered, although the slight quaver in her voice belied the words. Sighing, he shifted slightly so that she sat sideways to him, her face upturned towards his. "Scully, I don't blame you for doubting this. For doubting me. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you for what I did. But please, you have to believe that at the time I did what I thought was best, what I thought was right." Scully rested in the circle of his arms, listening closely to his words, her eyes trained somewhere between his jaw and shoulder. "And you have to come with me now," he implored, his voice ragged and soft. "You have to trust me just one last time." For a second or two, neither spoke. 2:54. He needed her answer soon. "Why?" she at last asked quietly, still refraining from meeting his gaze. Mulder swallowed hard. Well, that was the question now, wasn't it? Scully didn't need to qualify the inquiry or burden it with specifics. That single word captured all the mysteries that were wedged between them like a burr. "To save your life," he said simply, answering one query. "By killing Mulder?" she countered, asking another. "By pretending to kill myself." It's me, Scully, he longed to wail. God damn it. It's =me=. Turning away, she shook her head, apparently still not convinced. Nearly groaning with impatience and frustration, Mulder cupped her jaw with his hand and tilted up her face to meet his. "Scully, look at me," he said, his thumb caressing the curve of cheek. "Look me in the eye and tell me you know for certain I'm not him." Her gaze flickered in the direction of his, but didn't latch on to it. "Tell me that my face doesn't look like the one belonging to the man you used to work with. That my voice isn't the same. My mannerisms. My smell." Mulder thought he spied tears welling in Scully's eyes. But, she remained silent. So, he continued on. "Tell me you don't remember saying to me once that you wouldn't put yourself on the line for anyone but me." Those phantom tears shimmered to life, and ran unchecked down her pale cheeks. Her teeth snagged on her lower lip, Scully reached out her hand, and with a kind of wonder stroked her fingers along his jaw line. Mulder felt his own eyes burn at her touch. "Well now I'm asking you, Scully--I'm begging you--to take one last chance for me. I need you to put yourself on the line not for me, but for yourself. Come with me. Let me take you to some people who can help you. Who can help us both." Trembling, tears dripping off her chin and landing wetly on his forearm, Scully whispered, "Well . . . . Maybe it is you after all, Mulder." Thank God. Thank you, God. A relieved grin splitting his face, Mulder teased, "What gave me away?" She hesitated for a single breath. "Your mentioning that conversation we had staking out Tooms cinched it for me. But I'd suspected earlier that you might be the real thing." "Why? What'd I do?" "It's what you said, actually. And the way you said it." He gazed at her, puzzled. She bowed her head, her eyes seemingly studying his chest. "You see, the thing is . . . . if you were one of them . . . you'd know better than to tell me to look at you." Dread washed over him like acid rain. "What . . . ? What are you talking about?" Keeping her face averted, she wearily reached up and scrubbed her cheeks free of tears. "The tumor has shifted . . . grown. It's now placing pressure on my optic nerves. Mulder, I . . um . . . I can't see." It was all Mulder could do to keep from doubling over, keening with grief. "Oh, Scully . . ." The corners of her lips spasmed, as if she were attempting a smile. "It's okay," she assured him quietly, lifting her eyes to his at last. "I knew this might happen." Fine tremors trickling down his arms and into his fingertips, he framed her face in his hands, and brushed his lips against her eyelids. "I'm sorry, Scully. I'm so sorry." Tears trickling free once more, she moved closer to him and twined her arms around his neck. Mulder rocked her gently in his embrace, his cheek pressed to hers, wet now as well, although he didn't know whose tears were the culprit. "Scully, we have to go," he whispered in her hair. "Go where?" "I told you. To some people who can help you." "This is helping me," she mumbled from the crook of his neck. He squeezed her as tightly as he dared. "We'll make sure this kind of thing remains part of your treatment," he murmured, the slightest measure of amusement rumbling beneath the surface of his voice. "But I think maybe you'd be better off if we supplemented this with something a bit more . . substantial." She drew away and looked up at him, swaying slightly now with fatigue. "What?" He slicked his lips and took a deep breath. "Some friends of ours may have come up with a vaccine to treat your cancer." "*Treat* my cancer?" "Cure it." She slowly and sadly shook her head, a wistful smile curving her lips. "There is no cure for cancer, Mulder." His smile matched hers. "Then what have you got to lose?" Her sightless eyes searched his face. Mulder looked at his watch. 2:58. "Come with me," he said softly, his fingers trailing gently through her hair. Scully only made him wait an instant. "All right." Sighing with relief, he rose from the bed and started to cross away. Scully's hand snaked out. And with surprising accuracy, nabbed hold of his shirt tail. "Where are you going?" "There's a gurney . . ." "No." "No?" "Don't go." Hands outstretched out in a conciliatory gesture, Mulder took a step towards her. "Scully, I'm only going--" "I know," she said quietly, her fingertips dancing up his arm to his chest. "I know I'm being silly." He captured her hand in his, and pressed a kiss to its back. And even though he knew she couldn't see him, Mulder shook his head in disagreement. "But, you know, Mulder," she continued in a small voice, "it seems like every time you take a step away I end up wondering if you've disappeared for good." "Scully . . ." "Don't leave me. Okay?" Don't leave me, Mulder repeated silently to himself as he gazed down at the frail looking woman sitting before him half-cloaked in shadow. God. How well he understood that plea. "I won't," he promised hoarsely, wishing he could demand the same vow from her. And keeping her hand in his, he reached out towards the end of the bed and grabbed the robe draped over the foot board. "Let's put this on," he murmured as he helped Scully cover her pale blue hospital gown with fluffy white terry cloth. As soon as the belt was cinched around her waist, he bent down and retrieved something from beneath his pants leg. "Hold this for me, will you?" A quizzical smile quirked the corners of Scully's lips when she realized what he had placed in her lap. "You're handing a blind woman a gun?" A reluctant smile tugged on his mouth as well. "Well, seeing as my hands are going to be occupied," he said as he lifted her easily into his arms. "This seems like the best compromise." He glanced down one last time at his watch. 3:00 Showtime. "Besides," he whispered in her ear as the two of them moved towards the door, "I always said you were a better shot than me, Scully. Even with your eyes closed." Saying nothing, Scully smoothly disengaged the safety. Then, as Mulder peered carefully out into the corridor, she tilted up her head and pressed a small, almost furtive kiss to the corner of his jaw. Starting in pleasurable surprise, he felt a shiver pass through him that had nothing whatsoever to do with the white clad figure he spied entering the room at the far end of the hall. "Hold on," he said, brushing his lips to her forehead. And, together, they were off. * * * * * * * * * THE END