Though War Rise: Part Two
By: Leese (ljkwriting4life)
Notes: Follow-on from Though War Rise: Part One. Post-colonisation and finally reunited, Scully, Mulder, Skinner and Gibson face new challenges in their search for safety, and the risk is very real that they may become separated once again. This is the second part of my first AU post-col story, written in 2008, with MSR, DRR, Skinner/Other, Gibson/Other.
One
The coast of Mexico - 2006
Fox Mulder did not know what the day or time was when he sat down in the sand. It was early afternoon. The hot sun above him was masked by thick clouds, and for the first time in a very long time, he could see the ocean. Mulder knew it was sometime in the new year, the first New Year after 'they' had come. He and his friends had been walking for more than two months just to get to their latest rest spot. It was probably meant to be early spring, he figured, but he was still sweating as though it was mid-summer. The desert had a funny way of not really feeling the seasons except in the night.
But they were nearing the coast now, he reassured himself with a happy smile.
The woman he sat beside leaned her head onto his bicep and he glanced down at her, doing his best not to be concerned by her recently subdued attitude. Her orange hair had grown down to her shoulders and Mulder noticed that it had more of a wave in it brought on by the increased humidity. Her blue eyes were open and the colour in them mirrored the blue he could see in the distance. She sighed, relaxing against him as he wrapped one of his arms low around her hips.
"What's the matter?" he asked gently. It was not an attack on her quietness but he was curious. She had been seeking more and more time away from the group, and this time had wandered a couple of hundred metres away to take in the view. He was not concerned about her mental health, but he did wish that she would talk to him.
"I was just looking at the sea," she mumbled, shutting her eyes and shifting slightly closer in the sand until their hips and thighs were touching. "Thinking about dad, and the times I got to go on his big Navy ships. Fishing. Sailing. All those things I haven't done since I was a kid."
"You might be able to do them again soon," he assured her. She scoffed. "You never know. Just because where we've come from everything's been taken, check out the view. There are trees out there, I'm sure of it. There has to be."
"At least there's water," she agreed. "Though I'm not sure it would be safe. Who knows what chemical alterations have occurred to change the environment we left behind, let alone the one we're walking into. It may look familiar and pretty, but we may find ourselves longing to be back in the desert yet."
"You're afraid," he whispered, suddenly hearing the tremor in her voice. He almost couldn't believe it, though he knew he should not act so surprised. They were all nervous about what they would find, but Mulder had finally picked the difference between Scully and the rest of them. Their hope outweighed their nerves most of the time. Though Scully was a natural optimist, she was also too pragmatic to let something like hope mask the potential realities of what they were walking into.
"Yes," she hissed softly beside him. It was an admission she would only ever make to him.
"We have no choice," he told her. "We're going to run out of food and water."
"I know," she promised. "I won't fight it. I've just been feeling nostalgic with the change in the atmosphere; the clouds and the moisture and water." Mulder nodded, rubbing his cheek, scruffy with a short brown beard. He could have shaved every day with John, Skinner and Gibson but most of the time he couldn't be bothered and Scully didn't mind. Plus, every time he went a while without shaving and then did, he always got a long kiss from her. So really she was giving him incentive to keep up with the lazy-assed routine he had developed.
He chuckled at his reasoning and she pulled away from his body to look up at him curiously. He grinned and her and shrugged in response to her silent question.
"Nothing," he added when she narrowed her eyes and playfully glared. "I was just thinking about skinny dipping," he lied. Close enough, really, considering where his mind had gone after thinking about that kiss.
"Ahuh," Scully drawled sceptically. "How much further, do you think?" she asked, changing the topic of conversation before both their minds drifted into the proverbial gutter.
"Gibson isn't sure," Mulder answered. "For a little dude who can read minds he's not very good."
"I HEARD THAT!" Gibson shouted from a hundred metres away, his voice carrying across the sparse landscape. Mulder chuckled and Scully smirked. They enjoyed their teasing, and she enjoyed watching them and hearing them. It made everything seem normal when it wasn't. It made her feel young.
"Anyway," Mulder continued. "He thinks just down there, but he was telling us just before that there's something in the way blocking him. Like an energy field perhaps. He can't get his mind past it, or more correctly the minds inside can't get out to him."
"That concerns me," Scully mumbled thoughtfully. Mulder nodded. Him too. It was concerning everyone, but inland was not an option. They had tried that already, and the terrain was too rough to journey with a small baby and a large amount of rations still remaining. Shannon, their accompanying supersoldier, had always been reluctant to use the coastal route but without being able to tell them expressly why she had been out-voted.
Now Mulder was thinking they might have been better off abseiling down that cliff after all.
"Shannon was always reluctant to come here," Scully sighed. "She brought us because she felt we needed to be here, but she told me once she wasn't sure what they would make her do here. I think there might be supersoldiers here, Mulder."
"Probably," he agreed. "They all would have survived, however many there are now. Shannon thinks we can reach it by tomorrow night."
"So we'll be camping one last time," she whispered. Mulder nodded, watching her frown and bite her bottom lip. She reached out with one hand and wrapped her arm around his bent-up knee at her side. Mulder shivered as she stroked under his kneecap through his loose slacks. "Maybe we can find some quiet time tonight then," she added. He nodded, his physical reaction to her enough of an answer.
'Quiet time' was a pretty useless code considering they had spent the better part of a year with a mind reader in his early twenties who, thanks to his talents, was more than aware of every aspect of humanity. But it was not just Gibson they needed to be discreet around. Mulder knew the rest of his friends knew exactly what happened when he and Scully disappeared into the dark some nights. They were the only two who did. But hell, they always came back and had the decency to pretend nothing had happened. And it wasn't 'every' night, although sometimes it thankfully felt like it. They always slept a lot better.
He giggled again and Scully elbowed him firmly, laughing at his childish, mischievous laugh.
xxx
"Sounds like he cheered her up," Sarah announced from her position in the sand between Gibson and her uncle, Walter Skinner. Sarah, who had been blinded during the invasion, was not a witness to the expression on Gibson's face. Skinner knew that expression. It was mortified control with a healthy dose of sheer embarrassment. He had a feeling Mulder and Scully were not thinking about the weather.
Skinner had an enormous amount of respect for the way Gibson simply cleared his throat and smiled kindly at the young woman beside him, just a few years his senior.
"Dana's just nervous," he assured Sarah. "It will probably be our last night here tonight."
"Seems like it's taken forever," she replied with wide, wise, brown but unseeing eyes. They were directed towards him but not focussed on his face. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her wavy, blonde hair. They did not make any practical difference but Scully made them all wear hats, sunglasses and sunscreen whenever possible. She was obsessed with their health as their doctor and their friend, and just because Sarah could not tell the difference between wearing them and not wearing them, it didn't mean the sun wasn't still causing other sorts of damage.
Gibson sighed when he realised he had sounded just like Scully in that thought. His friends had set up camp inside his head, and with no other voices to crowd them out had made themselves quite at home. He knew them so well he could almost anticipate what they would think, and he could remember their thoughts and words for a lot longer. After a while he had noticed that he could also switch off a lot more easily. Their thoughts were so familiar to him they just drifted around in his head and were much less of an intrusion than they might have been had he been surrounded by a thousand others.
"You know I've enjoyed it out here," he announced, smiling at Skinner. "We've had a really good run considering."
"I'm just glad nobody's gotten violently ill," Skinner agreed, glancing over his shoulder to where Monica was sitting against the raft breastfeeding Nicky. John and Shannon were a few extra metres away, chatting. "I'll be back," Skinner promised, getting up to go and join the rest of his friends. Gibson smiled as, instead of going to John and Shannon, who were talking about their days in the army together, he chose to sit beside Monica and keep her company while Nicky had his lunch.
They were all supremely attached to that baby, Gibson knew. Thankfully Monica was healthy and so was he, but Gibson knew how close an eye Scully kept on them both. Just in case.
"Are you nervous that you can't hear past a certain point anymore?" Sarah asked, distracting him.
Gibson hummed thoughtfully. He and Sarah had become pretty good friends, which was strange for Gibson because he had never really had friends; certainly not female friends in his own age bracket. He did not have the height or the attractive features that other men did, and even though Mulder insisted when he was in his early twenties he looked like a gangly dork, somehow Gibson knew Mulder still would have been a fair degree more handsome than himself. Still, Sarah didn't really know what he looked like, and though he knew sometimes she thought about him, he also knew that if she could see, he was the last person she ever would have approached. Besides, they were buddies so it didn't really matter.
Although, if Gibson was completely honest with himself, she was very pretty, and he liked when she held onto his elbow as they walked. He liked that she thought about him.
"I don't know," he answered. "I think supersoldiers police these settlements. That's what I was told would happen. But I don't know what it's like on the inside because of whatever's around the area."
"Will they let you in?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know," he answered. "I won't know until I'm closer."
"So you don't think they'll kill us on the spot then?" she asked. He shook his head and covered her nearby hand with his.
"I don't think so," he promised as best he could. "At the very least, you are not the target in this group. Shannon and I are the ones who would be in trouble, if at all."
"Because Shannon betrayed them, right?" Sarah asked. "She went AWOL to help us?"
"Pretty much," he agreed. "We are both threats because we have the power to stand up to them, but what I hope they realise is that we really do not have much power on our own. I didn't think the settlements would be this well guarded, to be honest."
"Maybe it's not just a settlement," she whispered. Gibson shrugged.
"I think you'll be safe," he repeated. "But I can't make any promises."
"I know," she sighed. "So are we going to stay here until dark now?"
"I don't think anybody wants to move yet," he mumbled, cautious. They were all nervous. "We have to leave the raft behind here," he told her. "This afternoon we should reorganise all our stuff and repack so we're ready for the hike tomorrow." Sarah nodded. She was still only carrying a small daypack and her cane. Nobody sought to burden her wavering balance with a heavy pack, but thanks to the large backpacks the rest of them had at their disposal forcing her to have to carry more weight had never been an issue. "Would you like something to eat?" he asked politely, hearing her stomach grumble. She chuckled, nodding.
xxx
Gibson lay awake in his sleeping bag that night, trying to focus on the stars. He loved Mulder and Scully, he really did, and he understood how deeply they felt for each other, but it was incredibly hard to sleep when they were a few hundred metres away in the dark having sex and giving each other back rubs that eased away the tension and bruises from carrying their large bags. Scully's bag was as big as Mulder's, and she was half his size, but she had never complained and Gibson knew why. Apparently Mulder gave very good back rubs.
He just really wished he had a TV he could sit in front of and focus on. He missed watching mindless cartoons as a kid. He sat up in his sleeping bag and shook his head as though that would shake their thoughts away. It didn't work, but on nights like these he had to try.
"Gibson, are you all right?" Monica hissed. He looked up, surprised. He had been so focussed on Mulder and Scully he had not even realised she had been awake and sitting up just a few metres from him, watching Nicky sleep on his father's chest. She got out of her sleeping bag fully clothed and jogged to him, plonking down in the sand and grinning. "Bad dream?" she asked. He rolled his eyes.
"No," he whispered. "Have you noticed we're missing the happy campers?"
"Yeah," she chuckled. "Where are they?" He pointed vaguely behind him and sighed again.
"I don't understand it," he admitted. "You and John weren't always running off when we were going from Texas to Virginia to look for Scully, even though I know sometimes you wanted to."
"Then you know why we didn't," she pointed out gently. "I was sick, Mulder was upset, and John's never been a big fan of doing it in the outdoors." Gibson chuckled at her joke. "We didn't want to make you uncomfortable."
"Well thanks, but they're doing a pretty good job of making up for that consideration. I was okay with it when they got back together at the house, but...I guess I never expected it to keep going. I guess I just never thought Scully was this unconventional either."
"It's not really so unconventional though," Monica reasoned. "Plus, I think Mulder's pretty persuasive." Gibson scoffed. That was an understatement.
"What's all the chatter?" Skinner asked as he propped himself up in his bag. Monica pointed to the expanse of sand beside him, the missing sleeping bags. He groaned and collapsed back down. "Jesus Christ," he groaned. "Gibson, have you thought about maybe saying something to them?"
"What, and make them all uncomfortable?" he asked. "And who says they're not uncomfortable already anyway? Wouldn't you be? I've got to at least pretend to afford them some privacy. I'm used to it. I just can't sleep, but there's no reason for you all to sit up."
"I think we're all having trouble sleeping," John mumbled from further away, his voice low and soft so as not to wake his son, cradled to his chest in a white jumpsuit. Gibson groaned.
"Now see," he declared. "I didn't even know you all were awake. Go back to sleep."
"You want me to go find them?" Shannon asked. She had never been asleep, but had been lying down between Skinner and Sarah.
"No!" Gibson exclaimed, fiercely protective thanks to the emotional connection he had to the couple not far away. Shannon and Skinner chuckled as Monica coughed to hide her laugh.
"Okay," Skinner announced in a hiss. "Let's all 'pretend' to go back to sleep. Gibson, if 'you' need to take a walk, off you go." Gibson growled at him and lay back down in his sleeping bag as Monica returned to hers. She whispered something Gibson preferred not to hear in John's ear and kissed him goodnight. Gibson was already way into sensory overload.
So much so that ten minutes later he did not hear them coming until he saw them.
Party of seven, he made himself believe. We are a party of seven. Seven, seven, seven.
xxx
"Everybody up!" the man ordered. He was one of five, and as Gibson reluctantly stood and reached for Sarah to help her he noticed how muscular and tall they all were. They were supersoldiers, but they were different to Shannon. Gibson had heard about them. They were the later 'design'. They felt nothing. Compared to them, Shannon was just another human.
Gibson knew the camp carried no magnetite because of Shannon's presence and the fact it would kill her. They had nothing with which to defend themselves against the small army that had found them in the sand.
Gibson and Shannon silently positioned themselves in front of the people behind them. Skinner took Sarah from Gibson and pulled her back, and John had handed Nicholas to Monica. Nicky had woken up thanks to the sudden light and was fussing, but he had not yet started to scream. The whole ambush had happened fast and without warning.
Without warning, John realised. Gibson had not said a word. Hadn't he known?
"How many are you?" one of the men asked. Gibson took a small step forward to signal that he was the group's leader.
"Seven, including the baby," he answered firmly. He hoped nobody behind him looked too surprised. "We're no threat," he continued. "We were told there was a place of safety here."
"Oh, really," the same man taunted, taking a swaggering step towards Gibson. Gibson held his ground and stared up into the man's unfeeling brown eyes. They were not clones of one another, but they looked similar enough to perhaps be related. Gibson was unsurprised.
"Yes," he replied.
"And who told you that?"
"I did," Shannon announced, stepping up to stand once more directly beside Gibson. "Shannon McMahon."
"Am I meant to know that name?"
"Maybe," she replied, dryly coy. The man closest to her pulled out his gun and flashed it across her face. She did not cry out. She was forced to turn her head upon impact but righted herself quickly. It was a blow that would have knocked a woman like Scully onto her hands and knees, but Shannon had not even shifted her feet. She offered the man a kind smile as she turned back to stare at him. "I've been hurt worse," she stated proudly.
"You're one of us?" the man asked. She nodded, raising her eyebrows in a silent challenge. "But you're a woman."
"Oh," she scoffed playfully. "Haven't you boys been told where you came from? I was one of the first. They stopped using women, didn't they? What, were we too...unpredictable?"
The man looked at her cautiously, as though she was about to fight him, but Shannon knew that was pointless. Neither of them could ever be hurt and there would never be a winner. She could also not use battle to distract the men and allow her friends to run. They had a baby and a blind girl; they couldn't run.
"What are you doing with these...things?" one of the other men asked. They even sounded the same, Gibson realised.
"They have survived the virus and wish to live in the human colony south of here," Shannon explained. "I promised to take them there. How far is it?"
"The colony is a restricted area," the man explained. "This is a research facility and you are trespassing here. The colony is further south. You cannot get there without going through us first. You need to be processed."
"Fine," Shannon agreed before consulting with the others. "They are all human, if that is your concern."
"They are not," the man directly in front of her whispered. "There is one amongst you who is not. He must be remedied." He turned to stare at Gibson. "You, boy, step forward."
"Gibson, no!" Sarah called from behind him, but Skinner hushed her.
Gibson did as he was told and stood still and unmoving as the man wrapped a strong hand around his throat. Strong, but not tight or life-threatening, and Gibson waited. He knew what the man was looking for. He could read a supersoldier's mind as well as any human or alien. He also knew he was completely human. He had the same DNA as everyone he was with; parts of it just worked when theirs didn't. There was nothing in him that changed his biology.
Gibson rolled his eyes when the supersoldier kept the hand around his neck for longer than what was needed. Finally he let go and growled, as though he believed Gibson had deceived him somehow. Gibson wanted to say something smart, but did not want to give away the fact he could read the men's minds. He had to force himself to play dumb. Maybe after examining everyone they would think they were wrong. Hopefully they would go back to where they came from and let Gibson reassess. The research facility obviously held its secrets well, for if he had known he never would have led his friends there. He still did not know what lay beyond the desert, but knowing what the men were searching for amongst them he knew it was not what he had been expecting.
"Search them all," the man before Gibson declared.
"Just stand still and be calm," Shannon added gently as a hand wrapped around her neck. It only remained there for a second. She did not understand what was going on. They obviously had some sort of power she did not, to sense something within people she could not, but she had no reason to suspect any of her friends of deceit. She had spent enough time with them to know they were all human. "What do you mean by stating one of them is not human?" she asked the man in front of herself and Gibson, who seemed to be supervising. "I can assure you they are."
"There's a signal coming from here," he replied seriously. "We must eradicate it."
"We have nothing which emits any electronic signal," she promised.
"Search the box," he ordered, ignoring her.
xxx
Scully pulled her thin, pale green jumper back over her head as she knelt on the edge of her sleeping bag. Mulder was sitting still inside his own sleeping bag, struggling to make sure all his buttons were aligned correctly in the dark. He chuckled when she reached over impatiently and ran her fingers along the collar and down the centre, touching the buttons and testing the length of his shirt.
"You're hopeless you know," she whispered, doing up the final few by his hips and sitting back on her heels. "They're fine."
"Thanks," he replied with a wide smile, watching her pull her loose hair from the collar of her jumper. "Cold?" he asked.
"Yeah," she sighed. "A part of me can't wait until it gets hot again. I hate lugging around the extra clothes." Mulder nodded, smiling as she climbed suddenly back into his lap and rested her hands on his shoulders. "So," she whispered hesitantly, touching his rough chin and staring into his eyes. "Who knows what will happen tomorrow."
"That's right," he agreed seriously. "But we'll stick together, just like we have so far. It can't be that tough. We're safest in the group." Scully sighed, nodding as she rested her forehead to his cheek and breathed deeply. "Are you ready to go back?" he asked.
"Yes," she sighed. "You can sleep with me in my bag tonight."
"Thank you," Mulder grinned. They generally alternated use of their sleeping bags. Monica and John kept theirs zipped together, but as Mulder was one of the strongest his pack was heavy, and as Scully's was so large for her they preferred to carry theirs as separate singles. Mulder knew from experience they were pretty big singles. They could fit the length of his tall frame and were wide, but the one he was currently sitting in was hot and damp because of them, and he welcomed the invitation to share with Scully for the remainder of the night.
Scully smiled at him as she lifted her head, and she opened her mouth to say something when a bright light hit her in the face and she turned instinctively away. Mulder saw her face illuminated and pushed her quickly off his lap as they scrambled to stand.
"What the fuck?" he exclaimed, hands on his hips, ready to really get up Shannon or Gibson or whoever had decided to come and interrupt them. They had gone far enough away so that everyone besides Gibson would not have heard them, and there was nothing they could do about Gibson. So what was the big deal?
"Stop right there," a voice called, and Mulder felt his heart skip a beat as he reached behind him for Scully. She too had begun to surge forward in surprise, but he found her wrist and instead forced her behind him. She had frozen at the sound of the unfamiliar, male voice.
The torch was in their faces again, and they could do nothing except cover their eyes and wait. Busted, Mulder thought to himself, but he was without any of the humour he might have felt as an adolescent caught doing something he shouldn't have been. At least they were dressed, he reasoned, but if the nerves in his gut were to go by perhaps being dressed wouldn't matter, in the end. What was that sort of dignity worth in death? He had seen Scully perform enough autopsies to know the answer was 'not much'.
"Dana," he whispered.
"I'm here," she promised, squeezing his fingers hard, her head tucked towards his arm. The light was so bright directly in their eyes that Mulder had an instant headache and if Scully's grip on his hand was anything to go by she was either in the same pain or terrified. They had guns in their backpacks with the group, but potentially they would be useless.
Mulder could not see how many people were approaching until they were right in front of him. There were just two, but Mulder could not see their faces between the light still in their eyes. He felt a strong arm around his shoulder holding him in place, and he heard Scully scream as she was violently wrenched away from him. She hadn't wanted to let go. Mulder was torn between wanting her to fight and begging her not to, so he remained silent.
"Don't move," the man holding onto him said. "Or I'll break your neck." A hand went around Mulder's throat and he gagged but remained still. His legs were shaking. Perhaps in another time he would have fought, but Scully's scream had shaken him and he could not hear her anymore. Mulder expected to be asphyxiated but the pressure never increased, and almost as quickly as it had come it went away. Mulder recoiled as the brunt of the torchlight hit him once again directly in the face. "Well?" the man barked.
"I've got it," the other replied. "Jarvis has the concealer."
Mulder felt the gun at his neck then. He had not had a weapon pointed on him in such a way for many years, but he would never forget the way the cold, circular barrel felt against his skin. It was probably a human gun, he determined. But perhaps it was more. He couldn't know.
"Move," the man drawled in a deeply sinister tone, shoving Mulder in the back and pushing him forward. As they began walking, Mulder heard Scully behind him and felt relief at the realisation she was alive. She was being pushed forward as well. Maybe she had been pushed to the ground or gagged and that was why he hadn't heard her. Maybe she had been stunned into silence. He knew how that felt.
xxx
"They found them," Gibson stated, but not until he saw the torch returning, not until it was obvious to everyone else. It took only a few minutes for Mulder and Scully to be returned to the group, and they were both forced to their knees in the sand. The man with the gun remained behind them. Mulder was finally able to turn his head to look at Scully, and he saw that she was gagged; a thick twist of material had been tied around her mouth so tightly she was making soft choking noises as her tongue struggled with the material and the odd displacement of her jaw.
"It's okay," he whispered when her eyes turned to his. They were wide, and looked dark in the dim light that illuminated them; the torch pointing back to the rest of the group. Mulder knew the look in her eyes. He had seen it so many times before. Tooms, Pfaster, Padgett. His body shook at the desperate, primal fear for her life which he saw in her expression.
Scully was completely aware of the reality of their situation and it frightened her. Nobody else but her was gagged. None of the others were on their knees. She could not speak and her hands were clasped behind her back even though she was not bound there. A tear slipped out of one of her eyes as she stared at Mulder. Around them, it had gone completely silent.
"It's going to be okay," he whispered again, his voice cracking as she released another tear.
Mulder knew he should be paying more attention to what was happening around them, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. If they were going to be killed he did not need to know. He just needed to know the rest would be okay. That somehow in his death and Scully's death they would at least be ensuring their friends safe passage. Were they a sacrifice, was that it? But since when did men who appeared to be supersoldiers make sacrifices? Who was their God?
"Is it ready?" one of them asked. Out of the corner of his eye in the light Mulder saw Skinner and Shannon standing in front of the others. Shannon was expressionless but Skinner was certainly afraid. Is 'what' ready, Mulder wondered? The men had guns. They shouldn't need to get anything ready for that.
"Hold him."
A strong arm wrapped around Mulder's chest from behind and pulled him to his feet. Scully attempted to scream then, for them to let him go, but a swift kick out of nowhere to her shoulder kept her down as others approached her. Mulder struggled as he was dragged, not into the desert to be killed as he had assumed, but towards his other friends.
He suddenly realised what was going on and began to fight the man who held him more insistently. His voice was lost in fear; he could not call out to her. She was the only one they gagged, he realised. She was the only one they expected to scream. She was highlighted by the torch. They wanted the rest of them to see.
Mulder watched as one man pulled Scully to her feet. She looked up as though to try to see him but he knew she couldn't with the light in her face. The second man with her raised what looked like a hypodermic syringe and without any warning thrust it deep into the back of her neck. Scully screamed as though she was plunging ten thousand feet without a parachute, and Mulder felt the strength give out in his legs. He had never heard her scream that way before. It went on forever and then it trailed off weakly. She gurgled in completion and then she dropped. Her eyes were still open. They let her go.
No, Mulder thought hurriedly. No, no, no.