Fic: The Quiet Limit of the World (2/4)
Title: The Quiet Limit of the World (2/4)
Summary, disclaimer, etc. same as in Part 1
Part 2
~
She is walking down a long, dimly-lit hallway. She has no idea where she is, but that isn't particularly important. What is important is that she can't find Mulder. He has to be here somewhere, she thinks, trying not to panic as she stops at each room along the hall and finds each one empty.
She turns a corner. The lighting is even worse here, she notes, and the walls and carpet look dirty and ancient. Something about these surroundings is alarmingly familiar, but Scully pushes the thought away. Mulder. She has to find him.
Finally coming to the end of the hallway, Scully sees one partially-open door spilling somewhat brighter light into the gloomy passage. She sighs in relief: Mulder has to be in there.
“Mulder?” She pushes open the door. The smile on her face dies away into a gasp of horror at what she sees.
Mulder is there, all right. He is in a bed near the curtained window, eyes closed, each breath rasping in his throat. His thinning hair is stark white, his skin wrinkled and the fragile texture of paper. He cannot be younger than ninety.
Heart pounding, Scully looks down at herself, at her hands. Her skin is as smooth and flawless as it ever has been. She crosses the room quickly for the mirror next to Mulder's bed and picks it up. There she is, unchanged from the last time she looked into a mirror - unchanged except for the emotionless, dull quality of her eyes. An expression that she recognizes and remembers...
No. Scully steps back and drops the mirror, hearing it hit the floor and shatter.
Beside her, Mulder startles awake. His eyes are clouded and watery, but his searching gaze finds Scully without difficulty. “Scully,” he says weakly, smiling.
He reaches for her, but Scully is frozen in dismay. How can he still want to see her in this state?
“Scully?” Mulder looks distressed now, at her lack of response. “What's wrong?”
What's wrong?! Scully wants to say. You can't see it? She takes another step back, her hand over her mouth.
Mulder opens his mouth to say something, but only manages half a syllable before he is silenced abruptly. The monitors next to his bed begin their rapid alarms. He gasps, his hand dropping back onto the bed and his eyes fluttering closed. The beeping increases until it becomes one steady piercing tone.
He is dying right in front of her, she realizes with a cold deluge of shock. The realization galvanizes her to action, and she rushes forward to his side, but his bed seems much farther away than it was just a few seconds ago... and there is someone holding her wrists, keeping her from him. She struggles and cries out, trying desperately to dislodge the hands restraining her, but it is no use. The wailing of the heart monitor continues, and in the distance there are people surrounding Mulder's bed. She knows they are taking him away, and where he's going, she can't follow. She will be alone now, forever.
With a gasp, Scully jerks awake, finding herself tangled in her sheets and drenched in sweat. She endeavors to take several deep breaths, but her heart is still pounding too hard for her to be able to calm down. She manages to disentangle herself. Throwing off her sheets, she staggers out to the kitchen for a glass of water.
It takes a few minutes, but she does finally calm herself - physically, at least. Although she has already forgotten some of her dream, much of its imagery has remained. She resists the urge to run into the bathroom to check her reflection for any signs of the dull, haunted look in her eyes that had reminded her so vividly of Fellig. It was just a dream, she tells herself. A nightmare. Not some kind of portent of her future.
Shivering, Scully sets down the glass and walks out to the couch. Despite the promise she'd made to Mulder weeks ago that she would live her life as normally as possible with the full expectation that it would come to a natural end, her fear is obviously lingering. She will find something to read or to watch on TV, and hope it distracts her enough to fall back asleep.
At least, she reflects gloomily, tomorrow is Saturday. She will not have to go to work and face Mulder's concern about the obvious hallmarks of sleep deprivation on her face.
~
As it happens, her exhaustion must have been enough to let her sleep through the rest of the night - and late into the next morning, as well. She only wakes when her phone stops ringing and Mulder's voice comes over the answering machine.
Scully sits up with a yawn, catching the end of his message.
“-- you must still be sleeping,” he is saying. “That's fine, that's good. Uh, anyway. Don't feel like you need to come out here with me. There's probably nothing else to see. Talk to you later.”
This brings her to alertness. Where is he running off to now? She stands up quickly and moves to replay the entire message. Her burgeoning frustration and worry is almost extinguished by what she hears: thankfully he is just going back out to the allegedly haunted house just outside of town. They had gone there together to investigate yesterday and the night before, and had turned up nothing. But Mulder is nothing if not thorough when looking into an X-File, she thinks with a smile.
She looks at the clock - it is close to ten. Taking a deep breath, Scully walks to the window and pulls back the curtains. The day is bright, and the sight chases away the vestiges of her dark dream. She shakes her head and decides she will spend some time outside today. Her mother has invited her to go shopping, and she knows her acceptance of the invitation will make her mother happy.
When she returns home several hours later, Scully is surprised to find that her answering machine has not recorded another message from Mulder. Surely he can't still be out investigating?
Frowning, Scully sets her shopping bags down on the couch and dials his home number. There is no answer. What would be keeping him at that creaky decrepit old house for this long? She calls his cell phone. Not only does he not answer, but the call is cut off after only two and a half rings. Her phone then informs her that the number is no longer available.
Scully's heart sinks. This is a very bad sign. Hastily, she grabs her gun and her keys, glad that this time at least she has a good idea of where to start looking.
Arriving at the old wooden house, her mouth sets in a grim line at the sight of Mulder's car parked at the end of the gravel driveway, and a second vehicle parked further back from the house. Someone else has to be here. The question is what they are doing to Mulder - or what they have already done.
The front door of the house is closed but unlocked, although it is so ancient that Scully doubts she would have had any trouble opening it regardless. She goes inside as quietly as possible, wincing at the creak of the old floorboards under her heels. Scully stops moving for an instant, listening.
From upstairs, she thinks she hears an answering movement and decides to risk it. “Mulder?”
There is no response, and Scully moves toward the staircase. She does her best to stay quiet, hoping that any potential assailant will at least not be able to tell where she is yet, and pauses every time her feet encounter more loose boards.
She reaches the second floor and is about to try the nearest bedroom when a muffled thump sounds from the end of the hall. The stairs to the attic are at that end, Scully recalls from her last trip out here with Mulder. She waits again, but the sound is not repeated.
Readying her weapon, Scully creeps up the last few stairs to the attic door, stopping just behind it. The attic is not all that large, she knows. She puts her ear to the thick wooden door, but hears nothing. Well, she thinks, here goes.
She kicks in the door, her gun drawn, and takes in the situation at a glance. Mulder sits, bound and gagged in a chair across the room, a young man standing behind the chair holding Mulder's gun. Mulder stares at her, eyes wide, as the man presses the weapon to her partner's neck.
“FBI!” Scully yells, resolutely fixing her gaze on the suspect. “Drop the gun!”
The man appears indecisive but no less dangerous for that fact, as he alternates between aiming the gun at Scully and at his captive. “Don't come any closer,” he calls out, “or I'll shoot!”
Scully takes a few steps forward, ignoring the unstable floorboards under her feet. “Drop the gun, right now!”
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mulder widening his eyes and shaking his head urgently. She glances at him for a second - but the suspect has apparently made a decision about who he should aim at. The gun is now pointing directly at Mulder's already-bruised temple. Scully cocks her gun and takes one step forward.
Over the increasingly loud cracks of the floor beneath her, Scully hears the distinctive sound of the other gun being cocked. Mulder's eyes are still panicked as he tries to speak through the gag, but Scully has to keep her attention on the young man who is clearly losing control.
“I'll do it!” he warns again. “Stay back!”
Suddenly, the entire attic shudders, and Scully and the armed man fight to maintain their balance. As the suspect steadies himself, he casts a desperate look around him, aims the gun at Mulder again, and tightens his grip on the trigger.
Scully doesn't hesitate, firing off one round directly into the man's chest. An instant later, the attic floor gives way entirely. Mulder! She has no time to think of anything beyond that before something strikes her and the world goes black.
~
A hand touching hers, and then moving to the pulse point on her wrist, brings Scully slowly to consciousness. She hears Mulder speaking, anxiety plain in his voice. It takes a few more seconds before she can begin to distinguish individual words.
“Come on, Scully, we've gotta get out of here. Scully, can you hear me?”
She groans, suddenly aware of the pain in her right hand, her ribs, and in her head. Still, she forces her eyes open and reaches for Mulder who is kneeling next to her. There is a thin trickle of blood on the side of his face, but he is focused on her. “Scully.” He looks relieved that she is awake.
“Mmm.” She blinks a few times. “What happened?”
Mulder smiles. “The floor collapsed after you busted in to save me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Mulder,” she says in a dangerous tone, “are you insinuating that I need to lose weight?”
“Never,” Mulder answers, with a laugh that becomes a painful-sounding cough.
Scully quickly turns serious. “Are you all right, Mulder?”
“Not really,” he answers her, returning her concerned gaze. “But neither are you. Your hand's bleeding, and you probably hit your head pretty hard in the fall.”
Frowning, Scully takes his offered hand in her uninjured one and slowly pulls herself into a sitting position. As she waits for the rush of dizziness to pass, she takes stock of their situation for a moment.
Mulder's arm has a large gash on it; blood has soaked through his shirtsleeve. His face looks pale in the fading light from outside. They are completely surrounded by fallen debris, and small pieces of wood from the ceiling continue to fall at odd intervals.
Taking a deep breath, Scully gently touches her partner's arm. “That doesn't look good.”
“Like I said, both of us are a little worse for wear,” he acknowledges. “But I don't know how long this floor is going to hold, so if you're ready, we need to get out of here.”
“Okay.” She grips his hand again, and they both stand up. They are both quite unsteady, but they somehow manage to stay upright through leaning on each other. Mulder smiles self-deprecatingly at this. She returns the smile.
A second later, Scully looks over Mulder's shoulder. She barely has time to register the danger and cry, “Mulder, look out!” before the heavy piece of wood falls directly towards him - and her.
He sees it, but not in time to dodge. They are still holding one another in support, and so both fall to the ground when it strikes him in the back.
Scully has the wind knocked out of her, and takes several moments to compose herself again. Turning to Mulder beside her she sees with dismay that he seems to be unconscious. She quickly bends down to his face. “Mulder?”
To her relief, his eyes open immediately. “That... hurt,” he gasps.
“I could tell,” Scully tells him softly. “And it looks like you already had a head injury, so in other circumstances, I'd say you shouldn't move - but like you said, this house is clearly falling down around us.”
“So I should move,” Mulder finishes. He sighs, and takes her uninjured hand to stand up. This time, he comes even closer to falling over than he had last time, but she manages to keep him upright.
“Did you happen to see a good path to the stairs, Mulder?” she asks.
“No,” Mulder says, sounding gloomy. “It all seems pretty blocked off by debris.”
She glances around the large room they have fallen into. It is shadowed and cluttered, but it is easy to tell that the way to the hall and then to the stairs will be hard to find. “You're right.” At that point, she catches sight of the man lying in a pool of his own blood. “My God. Is he still alive?”
“I don't know,” Mulder answers, after a pause. He looks embarrassed and guilty. “I - I didn't even check. I just...” He trails off.
Scully gives him a brief look, squeezing his hand gently. “Come on, let's find out.”
With Mulder still leaning on her heavily, they make their way over to the fallen man. Mulder supports himself against a heap of broken wood and boxes as Scully bends down to feel for a pulse. There isn't one. “He's gone,” Scully reports. “Probably has been for a while - he's cool to the touch.” Her hand throbs, and her headache continues unabated.
Mulder nods. “That was you who fired your gun right before the floor fell in, then?”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “He was about to shoot.”
“You or me?”
“You, actually.” She clearly remembers the look of rage on the man's face as she had come into the room. She shudders, getting to her feet. “Mulder, what did he want with you?”
“Let's walk and talk,” he replies, putting his arm around her for support and comfort. They start slowly towards the door, picking their way around piles of debris. “Apparently, the guy liked to come here every day in the early afternoon to look for one particular ghost - a woman.” Mulder pauses, shaking his head and wincing as a result. “I interrupted his ghost-watching, which he didn't take kindly to. He managed to knock me out and tie me up, like you saw. When I woke up, he was ranting about how he needed to see 'her'. He left me there for some time, then came back and waited for his ghost lover to show up.”
He pauses as they maneuver past a shattered portrait lying on top of some wooden shards. “Scully, I know I was dehydrated and not exactly at my most lucid, but just before you got here, I saw a woman's ghost in the middle of the attic. Ryan - that was his name - saw her, too. He called her Anna. She was who he'd been waiting for.”
Scully looks at him, unsure of what to say. She is loath to bring up the last time he experienced the same delusions as a clearly unstable hostage-taker. At least this time it isn't likely that she will end up truly fearing for his sanity as a result. His self-diagnosed dehydration and stress is a much more acceptable explanation to her. On the other hand, there was that whole weird thing at Christmas, that she still can't explain fully...
“Well, in case you were worried, Mulder,” she says wryly, “I'm pretty sure there aren't any more ghosts around, scheming to have us to shoot each other.”
He chuckles at that. “I wasn't worried, but thanks for the reassurance.”
“Anyway, the ghost - or whatever it was - disappeared when you came into the room. I don't know if Ryan would have just released me if he'd had enough time with her before you chased her away-” he looks at her to make sure she knows he's not serious - “but I do know that despite his obvious instability, he seemed to regret injuring me. At least, he did before things started to go downhill for him.”
She sighs again. “It sure didn't look like that regret would have stopped him from shooting you, Mulder.”
Mulder turns to allow her to squeeze past him out of the room. By the faint light of the doorway, Scully notices with dismay how pale his skin is. He is also shaky on his feet as soon as he stops leaning on her. “Well, then I'm glad you stopped him.”
She begins to reply when her vision swims. Her headache increases sharply in intensity, and she closes her eyes, stumbling into the door frame.
“Scully?” Instantly, she feels his stabilizing hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
Opening her eyes, she puts one hand to her aching head. “I guess I must have a concussion, too.”
“I'm sorry, Scully.” Mulder's voice is quiet as he drops his hand back to his side. “I shouldn't have come out here in the first place.”
“It's not your fault that the floor collapsed, Mulder,” Scully reminds him. “I'm amazed neither of us noticed how unstable this place was when we first came out here.”
“Some investigators we turned out to be, huh?”
She smiles ruefully. “Yeah.”
At that moment, there is a loud cracking noise, and a new piece of the ceiling breaks away, crashing to the ground inside the room they have just exited. They both jump.
“We should keep moving,” Mulder mutters.
Their progress is still slow, as both are definitely the worse for wear. Scully has a strong feeling that if they stop moving for too long, they will simply collapse. Her headache is making it difficult to concentrate on anything, and Mulder's arm continues to bleed.
Scully still has enough problem-solving ability to suddenly remember her cell phone. She is still wearing her jacket, so as they take a short breather on the landing, she reaches into her pocket - and pulls out the phone, its battery, and the broken front panel.
Seeing the remnants, Mulder sighs. “Guess we'll both need to get new phones after this little adventure. Ryan destroyed mine when you called.”
She puts the pieces back in her pocket. “I think I even have a cell phone-shaped bruise from landing on mine,” she remarks. Mulder winces in sympathy.
At last, they arrive at the door of the house. Scully reaches out to tug on the doorknob. It refuses to budge. “Oh, great. It's stuck!”
“You tried that one on me before, Scully,” Mulder says with a quiet laugh. “I'm not falling for it again.”
Scully can't keep a small grin off her face at the memory, but she sobers quickly. “It's no joke this time, Mulder. The floor collapsing must have damaged this outer wall enough that the door frame is bent.”
“Let me try.” Before she can do more than utter a syllable of protest, he moves her aside and yanks on the door knob, briefly closing his eyes at the resulting pain. The door opens, with reluctance. “After you.”
She hurries out of the house into the evening, and Mulder practically staggers out behind her. “I think the house is about to collapse completely,” he says between deep breaths.
Scully turns to look at him. His face is ashen, and he is swaying on his feet. “Speaking of collapsing, Mulder, sit down before you fall down,” she says sharply. “I'll try to put my phone back together, since I don't think either of us should be driving.”
With a low groan, Mulder sits down on the ground. He closes his eyes and takes a few more deep breaths, resting his head in his hands. This is likely why he doesn't notice immediately when Scully looks down at the pieces of her cell phone in her hand... and freezes.
She must have stood staring at her hand for several seconds - long enough for Mulder to stand up carefully and touch her shoulder. “Scully, what's wrong?”
Scully inhales slowly and looks up at him. “Look, Mulder,” she whispers. “My hand.”
Her right hand is completely free of any injury. There is only a tiny remnant of dried blood right where her cut had been - the cut that both she and Mulder saw clearly.
“My head doesn't hurt anymore, either,” Scully says dully. It's true, although now there is a ringing in her ears that has nothing to do with any concussion. She realizes as if through a haze that her hand has begun to tremble. No, no, please, this can't be happening...
“Scully. Scully!”
She refocuses on Mulder's face. He is watching her in alarm. She wonders how many times he called her name before she came back to herself.
“Scully,” he says again. She stares at him, still shaking, and he swallows. “Scully, we're going to figure out a way to deal with this.” He reaches out to take her hand, and Scully is transfixed by the sight of the bloodstain on his sleeve. He is probably still bleeding; he's still in pain.
“I need to try to call for an ambulance,” she starts to say, but then closes her mouth abruptly after the first two words. They do not need an ambulance. She is uninjured - she can drive her partner to the hospital herself.
“What?” Mulder asks quietly. “What do you need, Scully?” The worry in his eyes perversely makes her want to slap him. He shouldn't be worried about her right now. He should worry about himself. He's the one who is still vulnerable.
She turns away. “Come on, Mulder,” she says. “I'll drive you to the hospital.”
He doesn't protest, although she can practically feel the worry radiating off him as she helps him to her car. Behind them, the old house gives an audible groan as it settles and shifts. Mulder is probably right, she thinks, seizing on this topic readily as a distraction: the structure will collapse before too much longer.
On the way to the hospital, Scully forestalls any attempts on Mulder's part to speak by telling him they can talk after he is treated for his injuries. He agrees to this reluctantly. During the familiar duties of admittance and filling out paperwork, it is easy for her to lie and say that she managed to avoid the part of the attic floor that collapsed. Mulder hears her tell the admitting nurse this, and only looks at her without speaking. She knows he will work with this story - in public.
Mulder's concussion is not too severe, thankfully. His ribs are bruised, the cut on his arm requires six stitches, and he is in fact slightly dehydrated, but his doctors inform Scully that he will in all likelihood be released tomorrow morning. Scully thanks them, and then stands outside his room. She takes a deep breath before entering, hoping selfishly that he is either already asleep or too tired to want to talk at the moment.
As it turns out, Mulder is not quite asleep. At his drowsy smile upon her entering, Scully realizes guiltily that he was waiting for her. She sits down beside his bed and takes his hand. “Go to sleep, Mulder.”
“'Kay.” He closes his eyes, squeezing her hand once. Then he opens his eyes briefly, suddenly serious. “Try not to worry about it, Scully. We'll talk later.”
Scully nods. She watches his eyes slip shut, and tries hard not to liken this scene to the one from her nightmare. Mulder is not dying.
~
Despite not wanting to discuss the events of the previous day with Mulder, Scully does not find it a hard choice between going to Mass and taking Mulder home from the hospital. Her thoughts about God and her faith have once again been thrown into chaos by this development.
Mulder is irritable on the way home from his forced lack of sleep. Although he has been concussed often enough to know the routine, he complains, it doesn't make it any less annoying to be woken up every few hours and asked the same set of questions. Scully can't help but smile a little at his grumpiness. She suspects it is mostly put on to distract her, but she appreciates it nonetheless.
When they arrive at his apartment, she helps him make it to the fourth floor. He is much better than he was yesterday, but he still sighs in relief upon reaching his couch. Scully waits for him to get settled and then asks, “Do you need anything else, Mulder?”
“No, thanks,” he says, looking at her steadily. “But if you're up for it, I'd like it if you stayed for a while, Scully.”
She exhales heavily, and moves to sit down next to him.
Silence falls for a moment. Then Mulder reaches across the short distance between them to take her hand again. Scully tries to hold back an answering wave of emotion that she does not wish to interpret. She takes a shuddering breath. “Mulder, I-- I'm glad I didn't die in that darkroom, but I didn't ask for this. I don't want it.” She grips his hand tightly, once again unable to look at him. It is frightening enough to be speaking about this out loud. “I never told you, and I'd almost forgotten about it until recently... but Clyde Bruckman predicted this. He told me I wasn't going to die.”
“He did, huh?” Mulder sounds thoughtful. “So he was right about that, too.”
She wants a way to block out the truth of this last statement. But she has nothing. Biting her lip, she brings her other hand up to her face. She thinks back to the conversation she had with Fellig, about living forever. She had told him there was too much to learn and experience to ever have too much life, but she is now positive he was right: eventually, with no one to share it with, any amount of knowledge or experiences would become meaningless.
“I told you that we'll figure out a way to deal with this, Scully,” Mulder says, “and I meant it.”
“But how?” Scully interjects with bitterness. “I don't know of any cure we've discovered for immortality. And I refuse to end up like Fellig, alone, stalking the dying in the vain hope that I can someday catch Death's eye.”
He is quiet for so long following her outburst that Scully eventually does raise her eyes to look at him. He returns her gaze, though his eyes retain the familiar faraway look that tells her he is deep in thought.
“I still don't think your situation is the same as Fellig's, Scully,” he says at last, focusing back on her. “I think it was some kind of accident that he gave you this, uh, gift-” Mulder pauses to emphasize the irony in his tone - “and that like we said earlier, it has to mean something that you weren't trying to avoid Death when it happened.”
She sighs. “You may be right, Mulder, but I can't see what difference that's going to make.”
Mulder gently disentangles his hand from hers, only to put his arm around her and pull her close. “It will make a difference. And I know you want to fix this right away, but it might take a while to find out how to do that.”
“I'll try to be patient,” she tells him. She attempts a smile. “After all, I suppose I'm not short on time.”
He laughs once. They sit silently for so long then, each lost in their own thoughts, that Scully begins to relax into sleep. She thinks perhaps she should rouse herself - Mulder needs his rest, after all, to recover from his injuries - but Mulder's steady breathing beside her convinces her that getting up would wake him unnecessarily. She shifts a little, resting her head more comfortably against his shoulder. When Mulder stretches and opens his eyes later in the night, Scully is sleeping so deeply that she barely stirs when he stretches himself painfully out along the length of his couch and pulls her down next to him.
Summary, disclaimer, etc. same as in Part 1
Part 2
~
She is walking down a long, dimly-lit hallway. She has no idea where she is, but that isn't particularly important. What is important is that she can't find Mulder. He has to be here somewhere, she thinks, trying not to panic as she stops at each room along the hall and finds each one empty.
She turns a corner. The lighting is even worse here, she notes, and the walls and carpet look dirty and ancient. Something about these surroundings is alarmingly familiar, but Scully pushes the thought away. Mulder. She has to find him.
Finally coming to the end of the hallway, Scully sees one partially-open door spilling somewhat brighter light into the gloomy passage. She sighs in relief: Mulder has to be in there.
“Mulder?” She pushes open the door. The smile on her face dies away into a gasp of horror at what she sees.
Mulder is there, all right. He is in a bed near the curtained window, eyes closed, each breath rasping in his throat. His thinning hair is stark white, his skin wrinkled and the fragile texture of paper. He cannot be younger than ninety.
Heart pounding, Scully looks down at herself, at her hands. Her skin is as smooth and flawless as it ever has been. She crosses the room quickly for the mirror next to Mulder's bed and picks it up. There she is, unchanged from the last time she looked into a mirror - unchanged except for the emotionless, dull quality of her eyes. An expression that she recognizes and remembers...
No. Scully steps back and drops the mirror, hearing it hit the floor and shatter.
Beside her, Mulder startles awake. His eyes are clouded and watery, but his searching gaze finds Scully without difficulty. “Scully,” he says weakly, smiling.
He reaches for her, but Scully is frozen in dismay. How can he still want to see her in this state?
“Scully?” Mulder looks distressed now, at her lack of response. “What's wrong?”
What's wrong?! Scully wants to say. You can't see it? She takes another step back, her hand over her mouth.
Mulder opens his mouth to say something, but only manages half a syllable before he is silenced abruptly. The monitors next to his bed begin their rapid alarms. He gasps, his hand dropping back onto the bed and his eyes fluttering closed. The beeping increases until it becomes one steady piercing tone.
He is dying right in front of her, she realizes with a cold deluge of shock. The realization galvanizes her to action, and she rushes forward to his side, but his bed seems much farther away than it was just a few seconds ago... and there is someone holding her wrists, keeping her from him. She struggles and cries out, trying desperately to dislodge the hands restraining her, but it is no use. The wailing of the heart monitor continues, and in the distance there are people surrounding Mulder's bed. She knows they are taking him away, and where he's going, she can't follow. She will be alone now, forever.
With a gasp, Scully jerks awake, finding herself tangled in her sheets and drenched in sweat. She endeavors to take several deep breaths, but her heart is still pounding too hard for her to be able to calm down. She manages to disentangle herself. Throwing off her sheets, she staggers out to the kitchen for a glass of water.
It takes a few minutes, but she does finally calm herself - physically, at least. Although she has already forgotten some of her dream, much of its imagery has remained. She resists the urge to run into the bathroom to check her reflection for any signs of the dull, haunted look in her eyes that had reminded her so vividly of Fellig. It was just a dream, she tells herself. A nightmare. Not some kind of portent of her future.
Shivering, Scully sets down the glass and walks out to the couch. Despite the promise she'd made to Mulder weeks ago that she would live her life as normally as possible with the full expectation that it would come to a natural end, her fear is obviously lingering. She will find something to read or to watch on TV, and hope it distracts her enough to fall back asleep.
At least, she reflects gloomily, tomorrow is Saturday. She will not have to go to work and face Mulder's concern about the obvious hallmarks of sleep deprivation on her face.
~
As it happens, her exhaustion must have been enough to let her sleep through the rest of the night - and late into the next morning, as well. She only wakes when her phone stops ringing and Mulder's voice comes over the answering machine.
Scully sits up with a yawn, catching the end of his message.
“-- you must still be sleeping,” he is saying. “That's fine, that's good. Uh, anyway. Don't feel like you need to come out here with me. There's probably nothing else to see. Talk to you later.”
This brings her to alertness. Where is he running off to now? She stands up quickly and moves to replay the entire message. Her burgeoning frustration and worry is almost extinguished by what she hears: thankfully he is just going back out to the allegedly haunted house just outside of town. They had gone there together to investigate yesterday and the night before, and had turned up nothing. But Mulder is nothing if not thorough when looking into an X-File, she thinks with a smile.
She looks at the clock - it is close to ten. Taking a deep breath, Scully walks to the window and pulls back the curtains. The day is bright, and the sight chases away the vestiges of her dark dream. She shakes her head and decides she will spend some time outside today. Her mother has invited her to go shopping, and she knows her acceptance of the invitation will make her mother happy.
When she returns home several hours later, Scully is surprised to find that her answering machine has not recorded another message from Mulder. Surely he can't still be out investigating?
Frowning, Scully sets her shopping bags down on the couch and dials his home number. There is no answer. What would be keeping him at that creaky decrepit old house for this long? She calls his cell phone. Not only does he not answer, but the call is cut off after only two and a half rings. Her phone then informs her that the number is no longer available.
Scully's heart sinks. This is a very bad sign. Hastily, she grabs her gun and her keys, glad that this time at least she has a good idea of where to start looking.
Arriving at the old wooden house, her mouth sets in a grim line at the sight of Mulder's car parked at the end of the gravel driveway, and a second vehicle parked further back from the house. Someone else has to be here. The question is what they are doing to Mulder - or what they have already done.
The front door of the house is closed but unlocked, although it is so ancient that Scully doubts she would have had any trouble opening it regardless. She goes inside as quietly as possible, wincing at the creak of the old floorboards under her heels. Scully stops moving for an instant, listening.
From upstairs, she thinks she hears an answering movement and decides to risk it. “Mulder?”
There is no response, and Scully moves toward the staircase. She does her best to stay quiet, hoping that any potential assailant will at least not be able to tell where she is yet, and pauses every time her feet encounter more loose boards.
She reaches the second floor and is about to try the nearest bedroom when a muffled thump sounds from the end of the hall. The stairs to the attic are at that end, Scully recalls from her last trip out here with Mulder. She waits again, but the sound is not repeated.
Readying her weapon, Scully creeps up the last few stairs to the attic door, stopping just behind it. The attic is not all that large, she knows. She puts her ear to the thick wooden door, but hears nothing. Well, she thinks, here goes.
She kicks in the door, her gun drawn, and takes in the situation at a glance. Mulder sits, bound and gagged in a chair across the room, a young man standing behind the chair holding Mulder's gun. Mulder stares at her, eyes wide, as the man presses the weapon to her partner's neck.
“FBI!” Scully yells, resolutely fixing her gaze on the suspect. “Drop the gun!”
The man appears indecisive but no less dangerous for that fact, as he alternates between aiming the gun at Scully and at his captive. “Don't come any closer,” he calls out, “or I'll shoot!”
Scully takes a few steps forward, ignoring the unstable floorboards under her feet. “Drop the gun, right now!”
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mulder widening his eyes and shaking his head urgently. She glances at him for a second - but the suspect has apparently made a decision about who he should aim at. The gun is now pointing directly at Mulder's already-bruised temple. Scully cocks her gun and takes one step forward.
Over the increasingly loud cracks of the floor beneath her, Scully hears the distinctive sound of the other gun being cocked. Mulder's eyes are still panicked as he tries to speak through the gag, but Scully has to keep her attention on the young man who is clearly losing control.
“I'll do it!” he warns again. “Stay back!”
Suddenly, the entire attic shudders, and Scully and the armed man fight to maintain their balance. As the suspect steadies himself, he casts a desperate look around him, aims the gun at Mulder again, and tightens his grip on the trigger.
Scully doesn't hesitate, firing off one round directly into the man's chest. An instant later, the attic floor gives way entirely. Mulder! She has no time to think of anything beyond that before something strikes her and the world goes black.
~
A hand touching hers, and then moving to the pulse point on her wrist, brings Scully slowly to consciousness. She hears Mulder speaking, anxiety plain in his voice. It takes a few more seconds before she can begin to distinguish individual words.
“Come on, Scully, we've gotta get out of here. Scully, can you hear me?”
She groans, suddenly aware of the pain in her right hand, her ribs, and in her head. Still, she forces her eyes open and reaches for Mulder who is kneeling next to her. There is a thin trickle of blood on the side of his face, but he is focused on her. “Scully.” He looks relieved that she is awake.
“Mmm.” She blinks a few times. “What happened?”
Mulder smiles. “The floor collapsed after you busted in to save me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Mulder,” she says in a dangerous tone, “are you insinuating that I need to lose weight?”
“Never,” Mulder answers, with a laugh that becomes a painful-sounding cough.
Scully quickly turns serious. “Are you all right, Mulder?”
“Not really,” he answers her, returning her concerned gaze. “But neither are you. Your hand's bleeding, and you probably hit your head pretty hard in the fall.”
Frowning, Scully takes his offered hand in her uninjured one and slowly pulls herself into a sitting position. As she waits for the rush of dizziness to pass, she takes stock of their situation for a moment.
Mulder's arm has a large gash on it; blood has soaked through his shirtsleeve. His face looks pale in the fading light from outside. They are completely surrounded by fallen debris, and small pieces of wood from the ceiling continue to fall at odd intervals.
Taking a deep breath, Scully gently touches her partner's arm. “That doesn't look good.”
“Like I said, both of us are a little worse for wear,” he acknowledges. “But I don't know how long this floor is going to hold, so if you're ready, we need to get out of here.”
“Okay.” She grips his hand again, and they both stand up. They are both quite unsteady, but they somehow manage to stay upright through leaning on each other. Mulder smiles self-deprecatingly at this. She returns the smile.
A second later, Scully looks over Mulder's shoulder. She barely has time to register the danger and cry, “Mulder, look out!” before the heavy piece of wood falls directly towards him - and her.
He sees it, but not in time to dodge. They are still holding one another in support, and so both fall to the ground when it strikes him in the back.
Scully has the wind knocked out of her, and takes several moments to compose herself again. Turning to Mulder beside her she sees with dismay that he seems to be unconscious. She quickly bends down to his face. “Mulder?”
To her relief, his eyes open immediately. “That... hurt,” he gasps.
“I could tell,” Scully tells him softly. “And it looks like you already had a head injury, so in other circumstances, I'd say you shouldn't move - but like you said, this house is clearly falling down around us.”
“So I should move,” Mulder finishes. He sighs, and takes her uninjured hand to stand up. This time, he comes even closer to falling over than he had last time, but she manages to keep him upright.
“Did you happen to see a good path to the stairs, Mulder?” she asks.
“No,” Mulder says, sounding gloomy. “It all seems pretty blocked off by debris.”
She glances around the large room they have fallen into. It is shadowed and cluttered, but it is easy to tell that the way to the hall and then to the stairs will be hard to find. “You're right.” At that point, she catches sight of the man lying in a pool of his own blood. “My God. Is he still alive?”
“I don't know,” Mulder answers, after a pause. He looks embarrassed and guilty. “I - I didn't even check. I just...” He trails off.
Scully gives him a brief look, squeezing his hand gently. “Come on, let's find out.”
With Mulder still leaning on her heavily, they make their way over to the fallen man. Mulder supports himself against a heap of broken wood and boxes as Scully bends down to feel for a pulse. There isn't one. “He's gone,” Scully reports. “Probably has been for a while - he's cool to the touch.” Her hand throbs, and her headache continues unabated.
Mulder nods. “That was you who fired your gun right before the floor fell in, then?”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “He was about to shoot.”
“You or me?”
“You, actually.” She clearly remembers the look of rage on the man's face as she had come into the room. She shudders, getting to her feet. “Mulder, what did he want with you?”
“Let's walk and talk,” he replies, putting his arm around her for support and comfort. They start slowly towards the door, picking their way around piles of debris. “Apparently, the guy liked to come here every day in the early afternoon to look for one particular ghost - a woman.” Mulder pauses, shaking his head and wincing as a result. “I interrupted his ghost-watching, which he didn't take kindly to. He managed to knock me out and tie me up, like you saw. When I woke up, he was ranting about how he needed to see 'her'. He left me there for some time, then came back and waited for his ghost lover to show up.”
He pauses as they maneuver past a shattered portrait lying on top of some wooden shards. “Scully, I know I was dehydrated and not exactly at my most lucid, but just before you got here, I saw a woman's ghost in the middle of the attic. Ryan - that was his name - saw her, too. He called her Anna. She was who he'd been waiting for.”
Scully looks at him, unsure of what to say. She is loath to bring up the last time he experienced the same delusions as a clearly unstable hostage-taker. At least this time it isn't likely that she will end up truly fearing for his sanity as a result. His self-diagnosed dehydration and stress is a much more acceptable explanation to her. On the other hand, there was that whole weird thing at Christmas, that she still can't explain fully...
“Well, in case you were worried, Mulder,” she says wryly, “I'm pretty sure there aren't any more ghosts around, scheming to have us to shoot each other.”
He chuckles at that. “I wasn't worried, but thanks for the reassurance.”
“Anyway, the ghost - or whatever it was - disappeared when you came into the room. I don't know if Ryan would have just released me if he'd had enough time with her before you chased her away-” he looks at her to make sure she knows he's not serious - “but I do know that despite his obvious instability, he seemed to regret injuring me. At least, he did before things started to go downhill for him.”
She sighs again. “It sure didn't look like that regret would have stopped him from shooting you, Mulder.”
Mulder turns to allow her to squeeze past him out of the room. By the faint light of the doorway, Scully notices with dismay how pale his skin is. He is also shaky on his feet as soon as he stops leaning on her. “Well, then I'm glad you stopped him.”
She begins to reply when her vision swims. Her headache increases sharply in intensity, and she closes her eyes, stumbling into the door frame.
“Scully?” Instantly, she feels his stabilizing hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
Opening her eyes, she puts one hand to her aching head. “I guess I must have a concussion, too.”
“I'm sorry, Scully.” Mulder's voice is quiet as he drops his hand back to his side. “I shouldn't have come out here in the first place.”
“It's not your fault that the floor collapsed, Mulder,” Scully reminds him. “I'm amazed neither of us noticed how unstable this place was when we first came out here.”
“Some investigators we turned out to be, huh?”
She smiles ruefully. “Yeah.”
At that moment, there is a loud cracking noise, and a new piece of the ceiling breaks away, crashing to the ground inside the room they have just exited. They both jump.
“We should keep moving,” Mulder mutters.
Their progress is still slow, as both are definitely the worse for wear. Scully has a strong feeling that if they stop moving for too long, they will simply collapse. Her headache is making it difficult to concentrate on anything, and Mulder's arm continues to bleed.
Scully still has enough problem-solving ability to suddenly remember her cell phone. She is still wearing her jacket, so as they take a short breather on the landing, she reaches into her pocket - and pulls out the phone, its battery, and the broken front panel.
Seeing the remnants, Mulder sighs. “Guess we'll both need to get new phones after this little adventure. Ryan destroyed mine when you called.”
She puts the pieces back in her pocket. “I think I even have a cell phone-shaped bruise from landing on mine,” she remarks. Mulder winces in sympathy.
At last, they arrive at the door of the house. Scully reaches out to tug on the doorknob. It refuses to budge. “Oh, great. It's stuck!”
“You tried that one on me before, Scully,” Mulder says with a quiet laugh. “I'm not falling for it again.”
Scully can't keep a small grin off her face at the memory, but she sobers quickly. “It's no joke this time, Mulder. The floor collapsing must have damaged this outer wall enough that the door frame is bent.”
“Let me try.” Before she can do more than utter a syllable of protest, he moves her aside and yanks on the door knob, briefly closing his eyes at the resulting pain. The door opens, with reluctance. “After you.”
She hurries out of the house into the evening, and Mulder practically staggers out behind her. “I think the house is about to collapse completely,” he says between deep breaths.
Scully turns to look at him. His face is ashen, and he is swaying on his feet. “Speaking of collapsing, Mulder, sit down before you fall down,” she says sharply. “I'll try to put my phone back together, since I don't think either of us should be driving.”
With a low groan, Mulder sits down on the ground. He closes his eyes and takes a few more deep breaths, resting his head in his hands. This is likely why he doesn't notice immediately when Scully looks down at the pieces of her cell phone in her hand... and freezes.
She must have stood staring at her hand for several seconds - long enough for Mulder to stand up carefully and touch her shoulder. “Scully, what's wrong?”
Scully inhales slowly and looks up at him. “Look, Mulder,” she whispers. “My hand.”
Her right hand is completely free of any injury. There is only a tiny remnant of dried blood right where her cut had been - the cut that both she and Mulder saw clearly.
“My head doesn't hurt anymore, either,” Scully says dully. It's true, although now there is a ringing in her ears that has nothing to do with any concussion. She realizes as if through a haze that her hand has begun to tremble. No, no, please, this can't be happening...
“Scully. Scully!”
She refocuses on Mulder's face. He is watching her in alarm. She wonders how many times he called her name before she came back to herself.
“Scully,” he says again. She stares at him, still shaking, and he swallows. “Scully, we're going to figure out a way to deal with this.” He reaches out to take her hand, and Scully is transfixed by the sight of the bloodstain on his sleeve. He is probably still bleeding; he's still in pain.
“I need to try to call for an ambulance,” she starts to say, but then closes her mouth abruptly after the first two words. They do not need an ambulance. She is uninjured - she can drive her partner to the hospital herself.
“What?” Mulder asks quietly. “What do you need, Scully?” The worry in his eyes perversely makes her want to slap him. He shouldn't be worried about her right now. He should worry about himself. He's the one who is still vulnerable.
She turns away. “Come on, Mulder,” she says. “I'll drive you to the hospital.”
He doesn't protest, although she can practically feel the worry radiating off him as she helps him to her car. Behind them, the old house gives an audible groan as it settles and shifts. Mulder is probably right, she thinks, seizing on this topic readily as a distraction: the structure will collapse before too much longer.
On the way to the hospital, Scully forestalls any attempts on Mulder's part to speak by telling him they can talk after he is treated for his injuries. He agrees to this reluctantly. During the familiar duties of admittance and filling out paperwork, it is easy for her to lie and say that she managed to avoid the part of the attic floor that collapsed. Mulder hears her tell the admitting nurse this, and only looks at her without speaking. She knows he will work with this story - in public.
Mulder's concussion is not too severe, thankfully. His ribs are bruised, the cut on his arm requires six stitches, and he is in fact slightly dehydrated, but his doctors inform Scully that he will in all likelihood be released tomorrow morning. Scully thanks them, and then stands outside his room. She takes a deep breath before entering, hoping selfishly that he is either already asleep or too tired to want to talk at the moment.
As it turns out, Mulder is not quite asleep. At his drowsy smile upon her entering, Scully realizes guiltily that he was waiting for her. She sits down beside his bed and takes his hand. “Go to sleep, Mulder.”
“'Kay.” He closes his eyes, squeezing her hand once. Then he opens his eyes briefly, suddenly serious. “Try not to worry about it, Scully. We'll talk later.”
Scully nods. She watches his eyes slip shut, and tries hard not to liken this scene to the one from her nightmare. Mulder is not dying.
~
Despite not wanting to discuss the events of the previous day with Mulder, Scully does not find it a hard choice between going to Mass and taking Mulder home from the hospital. Her thoughts about God and her faith have once again been thrown into chaos by this development.
Mulder is irritable on the way home from his forced lack of sleep. Although he has been concussed often enough to know the routine, he complains, it doesn't make it any less annoying to be woken up every few hours and asked the same set of questions. Scully can't help but smile a little at his grumpiness. She suspects it is mostly put on to distract her, but she appreciates it nonetheless.
When they arrive at his apartment, she helps him make it to the fourth floor. He is much better than he was yesterday, but he still sighs in relief upon reaching his couch. Scully waits for him to get settled and then asks, “Do you need anything else, Mulder?”
“No, thanks,” he says, looking at her steadily. “But if you're up for it, I'd like it if you stayed for a while, Scully.”
She exhales heavily, and moves to sit down next to him.
Silence falls for a moment. Then Mulder reaches across the short distance between them to take her hand again. Scully tries to hold back an answering wave of emotion that she does not wish to interpret. She takes a shuddering breath. “Mulder, I-- I'm glad I didn't die in that darkroom, but I didn't ask for this. I don't want it.” She grips his hand tightly, once again unable to look at him. It is frightening enough to be speaking about this out loud. “I never told you, and I'd almost forgotten about it until recently... but Clyde Bruckman predicted this. He told me I wasn't going to die.”
“He did, huh?” Mulder sounds thoughtful. “So he was right about that, too.”
She wants a way to block out the truth of this last statement. But she has nothing. Biting her lip, she brings her other hand up to her face. She thinks back to the conversation she had with Fellig, about living forever. She had told him there was too much to learn and experience to ever have too much life, but she is now positive he was right: eventually, with no one to share it with, any amount of knowledge or experiences would become meaningless.
“I told you that we'll figure out a way to deal with this, Scully,” Mulder says, “and I meant it.”
“But how?” Scully interjects with bitterness. “I don't know of any cure we've discovered for immortality. And I refuse to end up like Fellig, alone, stalking the dying in the vain hope that I can someday catch Death's eye.”
He is quiet for so long following her outburst that Scully eventually does raise her eyes to look at him. He returns her gaze, though his eyes retain the familiar faraway look that tells her he is deep in thought.
“I still don't think your situation is the same as Fellig's, Scully,” he says at last, focusing back on her. “I think it was some kind of accident that he gave you this, uh, gift-” Mulder pauses to emphasize the irony in his tone - “and that like we said earlier, it has to mean something that you weren't trying to avoid Death when it happened.”
She sighs. “You may be right, Mulder, but I can't see what difference that's going to make.”
Mulder gently disentangles his hand from hers, only to put his arm around her and pull her close. “It will make a difference. And I know you want to fix this right away, but it might take a while to find out how to do that.”
“I'll try to be patient,” she tells him. She attempts a smile. “After all, I suppose I'm not short on time.”
He laughs once. They sit silently for so long then, each lost in their own thoughts, that Scully begins to relax into sleep. She thinks perhaps she should rouse herself - Mulder needs his rest, after all, to recover from his injuries - but Mulder's steady breathing beside her convinces her that getting up would wake him unnecessarily. She shifts a little, resting her head more comfortably against his shoulder. When Mulder stretches and opens his eyes later in the night, Scully is sleeping so deeply that she barely stirs when he stretches himself painfully out along the length of his couch and pulls her down next to him.