Setting: Season Five, just after the dramatic events in "The Red and the Black," but before the ending of the same episode. Go back and watch the epi if you don't remember, because it's too complicated to explain.
Type of story: MSR, Angst, AU, because Diana Fowley was not around yet, and some of the other details have been altered. Nothing major, though.
Author's notes: Okay, I've been feeling tortured lately, so I had to take it out on Scully. If it's not obvious, the second part of this chapter happens before the first part (in the hospital room before Mulder shows up). Again, a review of the epi would be helpful. The story is named after the song by the same name, by Demi Lovato.
Skyscraper
Chapter One
Part 1.
The flashbacks began the night after the hypnosis session. Scores of hands reaching to the sky, specks of ashes caught in her hair. Cassandra being lifted by a beam of light into a waiting…ship? Maybe she was wrong—maybe it was really an aircraft. It made no sense, any of it.
The one constant was Mulder, although he had begun to question his own version of the story. Lately he thought it was all a government plot. How can you believe your own eyes when the scenery changes so much?
Mulder no longer believed any of it was real. But she knew what she experienced was real. She could feel the weight of it-the terror from men with no eyes and human beings bursting into flames—in her chest. The incident was gone, along with the memories, but the sensations of it still raged within her.
At least Mulder had not given up on her, though. He was the first person she saw when she woke up in shock, and the lines on his face weighed heavy and deep. He helped build her back up with his gentle concern.
Skinner had just finished admonishing them in his office, telling them they needed to come up with some explanation for Scully's hypnosis session. She didn't want to think of the most obvious scenario that Skinner had proposed, and she knew Mulder rejected it outright. He changed the subject on the way to their office. "How are you doing, Scully?"
She rolled her eyes away from him and towards the wall. "I'm fine, Mulder."
He stopped, grabbed her arm, and turned her to face him. "No, really, how are you?" Her chest tightened, but she said nothing, and refused to look him in the eyes for fear that her solid exterior might crumble. "No matter what happened to you, Scully, one thing is for sure. You went through something pretty traumatic."
She pursed her lips and dropped her head. "Like I said, I'm fine. Like I told Skinner, I don't remember any of it." Except for the body memories, she failed to say.
He dropped it then. But she felt a boost to her psyche from his attention to her well-being, as if the image she had of herself was being rebuilt from the ground up, and Mulder was the foreman. Having one person in the world who respected her and believed in her really boosted her confidence.
Part 2.
The wrinkled face looked down on the red-haired woman still unconscious in the hospital bed. He stifled a cough as he dialed the phone. He knew Mulder would be here any minute, so he would have to make this quick.
"Yeah, I have her right here."
He paced with a cigarette in the other hand while listening to the voice on the other line. "They left her, just like we asked. She's in good shape."
He peeked his head out the doorway to see if anyone was coming, then dropped the cigarette under his foot and squashed it. "Yes, I believe we can proceed to the next step. If this goes well, and the rebels are stopped, we will have something to offer them to get in their good graces. A new weapon, so to speak."
He hung up and stared at Scully's burnt face for a moment, wishing that he could just have her for one night. But he knew there would probably be nothing left of her, psychologically anyway, when they were done with her.
Part 3.
Scully almost felt like herself again. She strode down the hallway towards Mulder's office, wondering how they were going to resolve the mystery of what she was doing at the site of the largest "mass suicide" in recent history. And then she tried to come up with a rational explanation for how a group of people could incinerate themselves within a few minutes, some of them charred beyond recognition. And how she ended up with only a few minor burns to her hands and face.
As she turned the corner, she caught a glimpse of something completely unexpected—Mulder's lips locked on those of a leggy brunette who she didn't recognize. Disappearing back into the hallway before the couple noticed her, Scully's chest heaved as she pressed her body against the wall. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.
Mulder was kissing somebody. Scully felt as if an explosion of breaking glass was clanging in her head.
