Chapter Text
He’d woken up in the trunk of his car, his hands and feet bound with rope and his mouth gagged, an indeterminate amount of time after the carjacking. He was in pain but couldn’t really pinpoint where from through the fogginess in his head and the general discomfort of being trussed up like a turkey at Thanksgiving. He took it as a bad sign that he’d been unconscious long enough to be tied up and thrown into the trunk, though.
He didn’t know how long they drove for, as the trunk grew hotter and he felt like that same turkey set to roast in an oven. The car bounced over potholes and bends in the road; he had no control over his body, taking every hit with no chance of bracing himself. He fought to get loose of his binding, but to no end, the rope just got tighter the more he tried, cutting deeper into his wrists.
Eventually, the car stopped, breaking hard, throwing him backwards. He couldn’t hear anything, no ambient sounds of traffic or voices, or even the weather. He strained against the ropes again, kicking at the inside of the trunk with his bound feet, yelling as loud as he could around the gag, though it felt like it was choking him.
Nothing.
Hours passed, maybe. Or days, he couldn’t tell. Consciousness came and went, along with intense waves of nausea, but he managed to stop himself from being sick, knowing how much worse that would make things. He could feel dried blood on his face and his hands were numb from being bound, and he was so hot, sweating, suffocating. He was going to die like this, hidden in this trunk, no one knowing where he was. He was going to die in his car, just like his father had; left, forgotten by the side of the road. Bill had been forty eight when he died – Mulder hadn’t even hit thirty three yet, no kids, no wife, no job. No life at all to speak of. Who’d mourn a loser like him? Only Sam. Maybe his mother, for a while. Scully? She’d ditched him or something had happened to her—either way, he wouldn’t be in the forefront of her mind. If he’d done things differently, he wouldn’t here, if he’d worked harder, if his life had turned in another direction, if he’d taken a different fork in the road… This would be happening to someone else and not to him.
The panic gripping him sucked up what little oxygen he had, leaving him light-headed and finally, maybe blessed, knocked him out again.
Later, the sound of fumbling roused him and suddenly the hatch was thrown open and Barry was gripping him by his shoulders, dragging him upright. He made quick work of the gag and shoved a bottle of water between Mulder’s lips, forcing him to drink. Mulder’s throat was desert-dry and paralysed from disuse and he couldn’t drink fast enough, choking on the water until some of it came back up his nose. Eventually Barry pulled away and threw the bottle aside; Mulder saw his chance and took it, shouting out as much as he could while his throat was still in spasm.
Barry didn’t react, just took half a step back and Mulder’s vision coalesced on the world around him – a large, empty barn, where his voice bounced off the walls and echoed back at him in mocking tones. Doubtless the area around the barn was abandoned. A place where no one could hear him scream. He let his voice grow silent again, as Barry turned away, getting a second bottle of water, this time for himself.
Mulder took a moment to take stock: he could try to get away, but his feet were still bound and he was weak and drenched in sweat, with a head wound to boot, so he wouldn’t get far at all and he’d just make things worse. He could barely think straight, but the only thing to do was to try to reason with the unreasonable.
“Duane,” he said quietly, his voice rusty. “You want to be free, don’t you?”
Barry looked up at him. “Everyone wants to be free.”
“Yeah,” Mulder said, trying to keep the irony of his voice. “You can be free. You can just go, take the car and drive away.”
“I’ll never be free, not until they have someone else.”
“The… the aliens,” Mulder asked, finding it hard to think. “What do they want?”
“They want to test Duane Barry. They want to drill holes and implants things, they want to turn your blood to acid and back again. They want to see what a man can survive.”
“I believe you,” Mulder said, his words slurring together. The edges of his vision started to grow fuzzy and oh, fuck, he thought. The water. He fought to stay awake, but whatever Barry had dosed the water with ran right through him, like a pillow over his face, suffocating him.
“You don’t,” Barry said, as Mulder fell sideways, back into the bed of the trunk.
“But you will soon.”
-
It took an hour for the three men to comb through all the CCTV footage of Mulder’s journey, but eventually they were satisfied that they’d traced the car as far as they could, on a road in Virginia, not far from Shenandoah National Park. That was twelve hours ago, and there’d been no sign of the car since. That could mean all sorts of things – that Barry had switched cars, that he – or they – had continued on foot, that he was lying low somewhere, or that something terrible had happened that stopped their journey.
“There are barely any cameras out that way,” Langley said, so it could have simply meant that they’d kept going but no camera was there to see, like a tree falling in the forest.
Dana called it in, and got a call in return from Skinner, telling her to come in, that the taskforce was working round the clock on this now. He sounded suspicious and a little dubious about how she was getting this information. She said she’d be there, and she knew not going could spell the end of her career, but she couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in a meeting room while God only knows what was happening to Mulder. She could get Shenandoah in an hour and a half, less if she put on the siren she kept in her glovebox.
“Mark it on a map,” she said, and checked that her gun was still holstered on her belt, an unconscious move that helped calm her nerves. “I’m going out there to investigate.”
John printed off a map with a red X marking the last road the car was seen on and handed it to her.
“I’m coming with you,” Samantha said, following her out the door.
Dana shook her head, looking back at her as the door closed behind them. “It’s too dangerous, Duane Barry is a very unwell man.”
Samantha’s eyes were hard like diamonds as she stared back. “I wasn’t asking.”
After a moment, Dana nodded. There wasn’t time to argue. “Then let’s go.”
They drove in near silence for the first forty five minutes. Skinner had called her again and yelled at her for taking off on her own, demanding that she keep him apprised. Samantha was a very different passenger to Mulder – she didn’t fidget or bounce her leg, crack sunflower seeds between her teeth or fill the silence with chatter. She didn’t even ask for the radio, just sat and stared out of the window, her hands clenched in her lap. Dana could feel her anger and fear, but she kept it locked up tight, at least here in the car, and though Dana hadn’t yet had the opportunity to experience all of Mulder’s moods – and perhaps never would, a horrible little voice inside herself whispered – she was sure that he’d have ranted and raved and blown himself out by now.
“Are—” She cleared her throat, and Samantha glanced sidelong at her. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” she repeated icily. “Let me ask you a question: if Duane Barry is so dangerous, then why weren’t the public informed when he’d escaped? Why weren’t we warned to be on the look out for him? If we had, maybe Fox--” She cut herself off and looked back out the window.
Those were all good questions, and Dana found herself embarrassed to think that she hadn’t really given it any thought before. Duane Barry was indeed extremely dangerous, the bullet to his frontal lobe had brought his inhibitions to vanishingly low levels and had effectively destroyed the moral centre of his brain. She also suspected that his response to physical stimuli like pain had been compromised. He would do anything, to anyone, without hesitation or compunction, making him near impossible to profile. And yet she hadn’t truly considered that this situation was always going to play out, that he’d made his intentions clear with Dr Hackie: he was seeking a ‘replacement’ to give to these aliens of his, and that by not publicising it, they’d put the public, and Mulder, in terrible danger. She’d always believed herself to be a conscientious employee of the federal government, but she by no means followed rules, or rulers, blindly.
And yet, today, she found that she’d been blind all along.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Fox is all I have,” Samantha said, her voice thin with emotion. “He-- when we lost our father, I thought… I thought I might lose him too. It was so hard. We were so young. And now...” She pressed her fist to her mouth and turned away again.
Dana gripped the steering wheel tighter, the tears collecting in her eyes blurring her vision before she blinked them away. “You’re not going to lose him.”
Samantha didn’t respond.
It was dark by the time they reached the road, just after ten pm. She drove up and down it slowly, scanning the ground with a flashlight in hand. It was farm land out here, just fields and barns, and little farmhouses in the distance. No people. She parked up on the side of the road and got out, though not before making Samantha promise to stay in the car.
She swept the road again on foot, then set off into the field, grateful that she’d worn her sneakers. She combed through the brush, in search of anything, blood, an article of clothing, a handy map pointing to exactly where Mulder and Barry were. If only. She could feel it in her bones, that if she didn’t find him tonight, she wouldn’t find him at all.
The long grass leading up to one of the barns had been flattened, she noticed. With the ground so dry, it was hard to tell when it had happened, and certainly farmers drove cars and tractors onto their fields all the time, but it was the only lead she had. She checked her watch, ten thirty five, and approached the barn. The heavy doors were closed, and stiff to drag open, but she managed it and slipped inside. It appeared disused, no cattle or hay or even equipment left behind. There were two bottles of water discarded on the ground, a wet patch beneath one of them from where the small amount of water left had dribbled out. Someone had been here recently, but for what reason?
She crouched down, reaching out to pick up the bottle, when there was a sudden flash of light, followed by her name being yelled. She jumped up and backtracked to the door, and saw Samantha, silhouetted by the light from the car, jumping and waving her arms. Dana’s name echoed across the field as Samantha continued to shout for her.
She ran through the long grass, and stumbled to a stop by the car, reaching out to support herself against it.
“John called,” Samantha said, “Fox’s car has been spotted heading west on route 229. We’re not far, maybe ten minutes away.”
Dana threw herself into the car and Samantha followed, hardly getting the door closed before Dana stepped on the gas. “Spread out the road map, let me look at it.”
Samantha took a few seconds getting it unfolded, and Dana took the moment to glance at the car’s clock. Ten forty four. She checked her wristwatch. Ten forty four. That couldn’t be right.
“Here,” Samantha said, resting the map on the dashboard. She ran her finger across the paper. “This is the 229, and they’re heading in this direction.”
Dana studied the map between glances at the road. Barry could be going in any direction from here and ten minutes was enough time to disappear, especially at night. She needed something more solid than that. There had to be clue somewhere; Barry was insane but he had a plan and as a former agent, he had some faculty by which to carry it out. He wasn’t a rabid dog, as much as she imagined him to be one. She searched her memory for every scrap of information she’d pored over, the medical reports, the service records, the incarceration files.
Davis Correctional.
“I think Duane knows Mulder,” she said, “I think Mulder was working at the treatment centre when he was incarcerated there.”
But there was something else, there was something more. She blocked out whatever Samantha said next, and stared at the map. She’d listened to the recording of Barry at the travel agency, several times. It had sounded like what it was, the ramblings of a madman, but there was always sense in nonsense.
“Ascend to the stars,” she said suddenly, his words coming back to her. “Up and up a mountain, ascending to the stars. Skyland Mountain.”
She jerked the wheel to the left, taking the turn off towards the mountain.
“What?” Samantha said.
“He’s taking Mulder to Skyland Mountain, that’s where he thinks the aliens are.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, with a conviction she didn’t altogether feel.
“I saw a… I saw something, right after John rang,” Samantha said. “A flash of light.”
Dana nodded. “I saw it too.”
They raced towards the mountain, tracing a path that seemed seldom used. In the distance steadily growing closer, the aerial tram loomed. She made another sharp turn towards it. They could get up the mountain faster on that than by car. They abandoned the car and Dana broke the window to the operator booth with the butt of her gun and unlatched it from the inside. She had no idea how to operate the thing, but hit every button and switch until everything whirred to life, then climbed into the tram car with Samantha on her heels. It was no use trying to convince her to stay behind now, so she didn’t even try.
She pushed the tram controls as fast as they could go, as it creaked and groaned and screeched its way up the mountain.
“What if they’re not there?” Samantha said.
“They are,” Dana said, feeling more confident the closer they got.
The tram shuddered to a stop at the top and they scrambled out while it was still swaying. In the distance she could hear the faint sound of a weather report from a tinny car radio. She pulled her gun and followed the path to where Mulder’s car sat abandoned, headlights on, the driver’s door and trunk open. There was blood staining the bottom of the trunk and a discarded length of rope on the ground. There was a clearing ahead of them and she could hear movement and a babbling voice. She turned to Samantha.
“Stay here, stay down, and stay quiet. I mean it, I can’t watch out for both of you.”
Samantha nodded, dropping down behind the car. “I get it.”
Dana ran quickly and quietly towards the clearing, low to the ground with her gun drawn. She could hear Barry’s voice more strongly now, shouting, ‘they’re not going to get me, they’re not going to get me’ like a chant. As she cleared the brush, she saw them, lit by the ambient glow of the car’s headlights: Barry dragging Mulder by his bound arms, Mulder’s mouth gagged. He looked barely conscious, like it was a struggle to stay on his feet. He had several inches on Barry and was clearing in much better shape, so Dana dreaded to think about what Barry had done to subdue him.
She stepped out of the trees and levelled her gun at him. “Duane Barry, you’re under arrest!” she yelled. “Step away from the hostage!”
“Duane Barry is free!” he shouted, jerking Mulder around, a gun pressed to his back. “They won’t take me this time!” His movements were jerky and erratic. He wasn’t particularly trying to keep Mulder in front of him, nor hold onto him that tightly, and when he swayed away, the gun drooping in his grip, Dana saw her window and took it, swinging her gun up and shooting him in the chest. The impact threw him backwards, letting go of Mulder, who fell forwards onto his knees. She ran to him, holstering her gun, and fished her keys from her pocket to saw through the thin rope tying his hands behind his back. The rope had become like razor wire, cutting into his wrists, leaving them bloodied and raw. Most of the blood was dry and brown, which meant he’d been tied up like this was a long time, maybe even since Friday. Any longer and it might have cut into a vein. When she released his hands, he tipped forward without trying to catch himself and she pulled him up by the back of his tee, then undid the knot holding the gag in place and swung around to face him.
“Scully?” he slurred, his head lolling to the side. He had dry blood down the side of his face from a gash on his forehead and though it was dark, she could tell that his eyes were dilated far beyond what they should be, even in low light. Barry had given him something, a heavy sedative of some kind, if she had to guess. She ran her hands carefully over his hair to check for other injuries. “Really here?” he mumbled.
“I’m really here,” she said, and let her hand drop to his neck to feel his pulse, which was slow but steady. “We’ll get you out of here.”
“Scully,” he said, with a faint note of alarm in his voice.
“Wha—” She didn’t get the rest of her words out, as she was grasped by the hair and dragged backwards. Barry. Fuck, she’d forgotten basic safety procedures and hadn’t checked that he was really down. She fought to get away, but he wrapped his other arm around her neck and lifted her off her feet. She grabbed for her gun, but Barry got there first, plucking it from her holster and throwing it into the darkness.
“You’ll do,” he said, pressing down harder on her windpipe. She had only seconds, she knew, before she lost consciousness, as her limbs started to grow heavy and her vision began to fade. Her attempts to fight were lethargic, her fingers scrabbling at the arm across her throat pitifully weak already.
She heard an incoherent yell as her vision shrank down to a pinprick, and then suddenly something impacted with them, sending both her and Barry tumbling to the ground. In his shock, he let go of her and she crawled on her hands and knees to get away from him, her body wracked by coughing so violent she thought she’d be sick. She turned her head in time to see Barry and Mulder wrestling on the ground – or rather Barry looming over Mulder, raining down blows across his face and chest. Mulder must have used every ounce of energy he had to throw himself at them and had nothing left with which to fight off Barry’s renewed fury. She forced herself up onto her knees, still coughing and gasping for breath, as Barry reared back, raising his interlocked clenched fists over his head.
A shot rang out and time seemed to slow for a moment, as the bullet hit Barry in the shoulder, then sped back up as he fell backwards. Dana whipped her head around and saw Samantha standing in the gap between the trees, a gun – surely Dana’s gun that Barry had cast aside – gripped in her shaking hands.
She crawled over to Mulder and wrapped her arms around his back, slinging his limp arm over her shoulders, and forced herself to her feet, though she was stooping considerably under the weight of Mulder and her own weakened body. She hadn’t brought handcuffs or anything else to tie Barry with, an embarrassing and dangerous oversight on her part, so the only thing to do was get to the car and leave before another possible shock resurrection from Barry.
He was still alive, she could see him twitching and hear his low moan. Ordinarily she’d expect a man with two fresh gunshot wounds and not long out of hospital for another to be out of action and pose no further threat, but he seemed almost Michael Myers-esque, impossible to kill. And although rationally she knew that no one was immortal, his unrelenting assault sowed a seed of fear deep inside her. Certainly her hypothesis that he didn’t feel pain to the degree a normal man would seemed to have been borne out.
Samantha, until now standing stock still with the gun held loosely in her hand, lurched forward, moving to meet them. They’d only taken a few steps towards each other when the brightest, whitest light bathed the clearing. The stimuli roused Mulder, who looked up at the sky, his mouth hanging open. She did too, and the intensity of the light made her eyes water. It couldn’t be safe to look at, whatever it was. She pulled them to the ground and put her hand on the back of his neck, pulling his slack face down to hers.
“Don’t look!” she yelled over the sudden oppressive white noise filling the air, though it was hard to force the words out against the tightness in her throat. She slid her other arm from his back and curled it around his head. “Don’t look up. Close your eyes.”
In the distance she could hear screaming, a scream of blood-curdling fear and desperation. “Please not again, no, no, not again! I was free! I was free!”
She kept her eyes tightly shut and held onto Mulder, though she felt him move against her. And then, as quickly as it had started, it was over, and the mountain was plunged into darkness and silence again.
The silence only lasted a moment, as she heard the wail of sirens growing closer. She pulled away and looked at Mulder. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice rough.
“I saw…” he murmured, but left the thought hanging and lifted his eyes back to the clear, starry sky.
“Fox!” Samantha said, dropping down next to them. “Fox, oh my God.”
He turned his head slowly and looked at her, a frown growing on his face. “Sam?”
She threw her arms around him, the three of them practically in a heap on top of each other as the siblings embraced – or Sam embraced Mulder and he leant into it – and Dana sat mere inches away, her hand on his leg now.
“I thought I was gonna lose you,” she whispered, just loud enough for Dana to hear.
Mulder mumbled something, of which she only heard, ‘Dad’. After a few long moments, Sam sat back and looked at her. “I shot that man.”
“So did I,” she said. She looked behind herself, at where Barry had been lying not a two minutes before, but the ground was clear. They were the only people in the clearing.
The sirens were getting stronger and then there were lights in the sky again – a thread of fear gripped her, but it was only a helicopter, the steady thwip-thwip-thwip of the blades flattening the grass as it touched down.
Alex jumped out of the helicopter and jogged over. “Dana!” he said, “Jesus, you could’ve waited for back up.”
“No, I couldn’t,” she said.
Alex shrugged and cocked his head. “Well, no harm done. You rescued the hostage and we got Barry.”
“You got Barry?” she repeated. Mulder had his head bowed again, but Samantha raised her eyebrows at the statement.
“Yeah, he got spooked by the searchlights and took off down the mountain; state troopers were there and tried to take him peacefully but he put up a fight and they had to draw their weapons. Single shot to the head. He’s gone, can’t hurt anybody else.”
Not once in her life had Dana ever seen helicopter searchlights that bright, or indeed any type of light so bright.
“It was aliens,” Mulder said, his voice low but insistent. “He was tellin’ the truth.”
Alex pulled a face. “You’ve been through a lot in the past few days, Mr Mulder. The ambulance is here, you’ll feel more like yourself soon.” With that, he turned away, whatever concern for them he was pretending to feel extinguished in a second.
With the EMTs help, they got Mulder to his feet and into the back of the ambulance. Under the harsh artificial light, she could see what bad shape Mulder was in, his skin wan and near paper-white, his lips dry and cracked from dehydration, new bruises already forming on his face from Barry’s final assault. When the EMT, whose name tag identified her as ‘M. Wilkes’, asked him to lift his arms, he couldn’t, and he couldn’t make a fist either. She swiftly inserted a line in his forearm and hooked up an IV, then offered him a bottle of water.
“He put something in the water,” he said, staring at it suspiciously.
Dana took it from Wilkes and sat down on the bed beside him, while Samantha sat across from them, looking like she might be sick. “Barry drugged you,” she said, “but this water is okay.” She took a sip to prove it and it made her tender throat burn. Perhaps she wasn’t the best example.
He nodded anyway and let her feed him a few sips. They sat for a few minutes, while Wilkes took more vitals, treated his wounds, and radioed ahead to the hospital. Dana could see that the drip was doing its job, as some of the colour started to return to his face and his gaze became less hazy and more focused.
“We’ll be on the move in a minute,” Wilkes said.
Dana stood up from her spot beside him on the bed. She needed to know more about what happened to Barry, about this supposed run in down the mountain with state troopers mere moments after she heard him screaming in terror. About how they’d even known to look here. She couldn’t leave Alex to handle this himself. His concept of ‘handling’ left a lot to be desired.
“Scully,” Mulder said, his voice soft. He leant forward and brushed his fingers against her palm. “Don’t go.”
“I need to--” she started, turning back to him. He looked up at her, a hint of panic in his wide eyes. “I need to find out what really happened.”
“He hurt you too, Dana,” Samantha said from her seat across from them. “He was choking you.”
Wilkes glanced up at that. “If that’s the case, I’ll need to check you over as well.”
Under the pressure of the three of them, but mainly Mulder’s sad puppy-dog eyes, she caved and sat back down.
The drive to Georgetown Memorial took forty five minutes – they could have admitted him to one of the smaller nearby hospitals, but Georgetown was far superior and at least they’d be close to home. Dana was glad she didn’t have to argue the point with them. She contemplated Mulder’s injuries while the ambulance screamed down quiet Virginia roads. She didn’t yet quite know what had truly happened to him, but she could take a guess that he’d been in the trunk of his own car for a majority of the past two days, with his hands and feet tied. He had bruising to his ankles where rope had been, but nothing like the damage done to his wrists. Being immobilised for so long with his arms behind his back suggested shoulder subluxation and even the risk of brachial plexus neuropathy, but since he was able to move his arms a bit, she thought it was more likely extreme repetitive strain and exhaustion, which would pass over time. His hands were a bigger concern; having his wrists tied so tightly for so long increased the risk of nerve damage, which might or might not get better on its own over time.
It was too early to know anything for sure, though, and she wasn’t the one examining him, so she tried to put it out of her mind.
Skinner was at the hospital when they arrived. He saved his lecture until after she’d been checked over by a doctor, who said she hadn’t sustained any serious injuries, but would need to rest her voice as much as possible over the next week and apply icepacks to her neck to help with the bruising.
Skinner’s feelings on the situation were unsurprising – she’d disobeyed a direct order to come in, had gone off half-cocked with a civilian, and had used questionable information gathering sources, though he didn’t ask anything further about who they were.
“But good work,” he finished. “Who knows what Barry would have done to Mr Mulder if you hadn’t got there in time.”
“Alex said he was shot dead by state troopers,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Why wouldn’t it be true?”
She held his gaze and he looked back steadily. “I don’t know, sir.”
“I’ll look into what happened here thoroughly, you can trust me on that,” he said. “You should go home, get some sleep.”
She shook head. “Not yet.”
The doctor wanted to keep Mulder in for observation, which Dana agreed was the best, and only medically sound course of action, but Mulder was anxious to leave from the moment he regained his senses. If you could really call it that. Dana left to debrief with the taskforce, then went home to shower and change her clothes and made it back to the hospital by mid-morning. It was as she’d suspected, Mulder had sustained contusions to his ulnar and median nerves in both hands and the prognosis so early on was unclear, though the doctor was hopeful that simple rest would be enough to heal them in the coming months. It did, however, mean that he’d struggle to do things for himself at least until the initial swelling went down, and along with his head injury, he’d need to be closely monitored.
“I’m going home,” he told the ER doctor who was on his rounds. His wrists had been bandaged and the wound on his forehead had been closed with butterfly stitches, his face spattered with bruises.
Samantha sighed as Mulder argued with the doctor. She’d stayed at the hospital the entire time and looked exhausted, in no state to take care of him if he was discharged.
“You can discharge him into my care,” Dana said suddenly, and everyone in the room turned to look at her. She cleared her throat. “I’m a medical doctor and we’re neighbours, so it’s ideal.”
Mulder nodded enthusiastically and the doctor eventually acquiesced with a firm warning that this was against medical advice. Samantha had to buy Mulder pyjamas from the hospital gift shop because his heavily soiled clothes had been taken as evidence, along with his car and everything inside it, which included his keys to his apartment. A nurse helped him get dressed and then Sam signed the discharge papers for him and he was free.
-
The drive home was swift, a ten minute drive door to door. Mulder sat in the back with Sam as Scully drove, and he pondered the next time he’d be allowed behind a wheel again – and if he’d really want it, as the sensation of being in a car at all was beginning to make him nauseous.
“Did you tell Mom?” he asked Sam.
She shook her head.
“Good,” he said, “don’t.”
They pulled up outside the building a few minutes later and Sam helped him out of the car, which proved more difficult than he expected – propelling your body without the use of your arms took core strength that he didn’t normally access. He was regaining strength in his arms, and he could lift them up if he really, really wanted to, but his hands were another story. The doctors had given him painkillers and muscle relaxants to help, which made him feel slow and sluggish, and was probably the only thing staving off the post-traumatic fallout yet to come.
Scully let the three of them into her apartment, and lay her hand on his back. “I think,” she said, “you could use a bath.”
“Definitely,” Sam said with force.
“Are you gonna give me a bed bath, Dr Scully?” he said, raising his eyebrows at her. She rolled her eyes and Sam groaned in disgust.
“Come on, lover boy,” Scully said and led him into the bathroom.
She had a much nicer bathroom than he did, soft and feminine and a lot cleaner too. He sat down on the closed toilet seat and waited for the bath to fill up, while Scully critiqued the doctors’ work on his head wound and gently checked his hair for other cuts. It felt really nice and he shut his eyes and let it wash over him. He must have drifted for a while, because the next thing he knew, she was tapping him gently on his cheek to rouse him.
“Hey,” he said, opening his eyes.
She smiled down at him and gestured to the bath. “It’s ready, I’ll help you get undressed.”
Getting his top off was easy enough, she bunched it up under his armpits and he ducked his head so that she could carefully stretch the collar up and over, then slid it down his arms and tossed it into the corner. His pants were going to be another thing. He wasn’t wearing any boxers under them, not that it would matter much, since he’d still need to be naked to get in the bath. Scully jostled him to stand up and dropped her hands to the waistband.
“Uh…” he murmured, scrunching his toes against the cold tiles. God, if only he could get his fucking hands to work.
She looked up at him, amusement evident on her face. “You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”
“Wound a guy’s ego, why don’t you,” he said.
“I can call your sister in here instead, if you like?”
He jolted and she laughed at him. “No! No, just-- just keep in mind… shrinkage.”
She clicked her tongue and pulled his pants down – what a dream in better circumstances – then directed him to get in the bath without so much as a naughty comment. She arranged his wrists on either side of the tub to keep the bandages dry, and got a cup to carefully wet his hair. Embarrassment aside, it felt amazing to be in a bath, his skin was covered in a layer of sweat, grease, and grime, and he hadn’t realised how much he needed this until right now. She lathered shampoo in his hair, her short fingernails scratching gently across his scalp, then sliding down his neck to wash his shoulders. He couldn’t suppress the shiver that went down his back, despite the warm water.
“You okay?” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he replied, “it feels nice.”
“Ah,” she murmured, and ran her hands along his shoulders. “Your back must be sore.”
He nodded. “The doctor said that when the drugs wear off, I’m probably going to be in a lot of pain. Something to look forward to.”
“Massage will help to ease the tension.”
He turned his head to the side. “Are you offering?”
She slid her fingers back into his hair, her palm flat against the crown of his head, and turned him to face forward again. “Maybe. If you play your cards right.”
“Oh, I’m a great poker player.”
They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, as she rinsed off his hair and washed his arms and chest with soap. He looked at his hands and tried to move his index fingers. Both twitched, the left more so than the right, but that was all he could do.
“Are my hands going to be okay?” he asked.
Scully sat back on her haunches and looked up at him. “Your doctor spoke to you about this. Nerve damage takes time to heal.”
But sometimes it doesn’t heal at all, he thought. “I want to know what you think.”
“I think you’ve been through something incredibly traumatic, physically and mentally, and healing takes time.”
That wasn’t really an answer. “If I can’t write or type or even hold things, what am I going to do?”
She reached up and touched his stubbly chin – just another thing he wouldn’t be able to do on his own: shave. “There’s no reason to believe that you sustained any permanent injuries.”
“Even if I haven’t, I’ve still got months of helplessness ahead of me.”
“Not necessarily. It’ll be an adjustment, but once you’re properly rested and you get the strength back in your arms, you should be able to do simple tasks, and light exercise will help. And you’ll have me and Samantha here every step of the way.”
He bit the inside of his cheek against the wave of emotion – he knew he had that big crash waiting in his near future, but not now. “Okay,” he said quietly.
They wrapped up the bath, and she towelled him off and helped him get back into the pyjamas before leading him back out to living room.
“I’ll turn down the bed,” she said, gesturing for him to sit on the couch next to Sam, who was clutching her phone between her hands. “Are you hungry?”
He shook his head. He’d eaten a bit at the hospital and had been put on a nutrition drip – the very thought of being hand fed again was excruciating. Scully left for the bedroom.
“I like her,” Sam said after a moment.
He smiled. “I like her too.”
Sam was turning her cellphone over and over in her hands. With some effort, he lifted his arm and laid his limp hand over hers, stilling her movements.
“I thought I was never going to see you again,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. I--” He’d been sure he was going to die, sure he’d been abandoned and forsaken. To think that Sam and Scully raced across two states to rescue him… it eased some of the hopelessness that permanently live in his chest. “I looked up, when Scully told me not to.”
She nodded. “So did I.”
“Did you see--?” He cut himself off. He’d seen something, he’d felt so sure of it – strange, elongated bodies in that white light – but he’d been out of his mind, so could he really trust his own perception?
“I saw something,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Figures. I think I saw him, Duane Barry, floating? I don’t know.”
It wasn’t just him, then. Scully came back a moment later to tell him the bed was ready, and he suddenly felt so bone-tired, it was the only thing he could think about. Sam took some convincing to go home, but Scully promised to call her with regular updates. They said their goodbyes and Sam held him tight before leaving. Then it was just the two of them.
“Come on,” Scully said, wrapping her hand around his elbow to lead him to bed.
The bedroom was another tastefully decorated room, with warm wooden furniture and a computer in the corner. The drapes were drawn and she’d turned one of the night stand lamps on. The sheets and floral comforter were pulled back, the most inviting sight he’d ever seen.
“This is your bed,” he said, as she gently pushed him down onto it.
She shrugged. “I only have one bedroom, I didn’t think you’d mind.”
He swung his legs into the bed and scooted down until his head hit the pillow. “I don’t.”
She pulled the sheet over him and stepped back. “Good.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have a report to write up.” She glanced back at her computer. “I’ll write it up by hand and type it out later.”
“Wait,” he said, as she started to retreat. “I’m not the only one who’s tired, you must be exhausted. You need to sleep too.”
“I can nap on the couch later.”
He struggled to sit back up, pushing his elbows into the mattress to give himself some leverage. “You can have a nap on this bed, now.”
“You’re just trying to get me into bed with you,” she said, a smile playing on her lips.
“Is it that obvious?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down for a moment, before rolling her eyes. “Fine. Lie back down and I’ll go get changed.”
He did as he was told and she rifled through her drawers for a minute before leaving the room. He didn’t want to fall asleep before she got back, so he forced his eyes to stay open and looked around; everything in her home screamed Scully – and maybe he didn’t know her well enough to make that connection, but it felt true. Beauty and utility together, like a warm embrace.
When she returned, she was in those cute shorts pyjamas, fresh-faced and her hairline slightly damp. “You’re still awake,” she said, with not a little judgement.
“Couldn’t sleep without you.”
“Oh, brother,” she said, and switched off the lamp before getting in the other side of the bed. When she lay down, he rolled over to face her. “Mulder, you should sleep on your back.”
“It’s fine,” he said, and after a moment, she rolled over too. He smiled. “Hey.”
“Hello.”
“You have a really nice bed.”
“Thanks,” she said, and reached out, running her thumb along his bruised cheekbone. He only remembered snippets of the fight with Duane, blows raining down all over his face and chest as Duane beat on him like a kid having a tantrum.
“Thanks for saving me,” he replied. He would have died out there – or worse. There was no doubt about it. She flattened her hand against his cheek, her eyes growing red-rimmed. “I-I think I saw something, when Duane was screaming.”
“Mulder,” she murmured.
“I know you told me not to look, but I did, and I saw… figures, and Sam saw things too and--”
“Mulder,” she repeated, softly but firmly. She slid her palm down to his neck and pressed her thumb in the place between his ear and his jawbone. It was a pleasant pressure. “We’ll get to the bottom of what happened, I promise, but we’re both tired, like you said. You’re safe and I’m with you. So shut your eyes and rest, okay?”
“Okay,” he echoed, and closed his eyes. “Okay.”