5:56 PM, Georgetown Memorial Hospital

A single tear ran down Special Agent Fox Mulder's face as he held onto the fast moving gurney down the long hospital corridor. Hospital orderlys bustled by, On their way home, on their way to a patient. A few trainies stopped and watched, but for the most part the hospital staff passed by, barely glancing at the body. They were used to death in it's most hidious form. He had to remember that. They weren't being intentianaly heartless. This was their job. To look smack in the face of death, and not bat an eye.

He couldn't stop thinking how...and why? Only 3 (Author's note: 4? 5? haven't decided yet!) hours earlier she was perfectly fine, talking, arguing, being her old (not hardly) Bantering, insufferable self.

He had to wonder again.....Why? Why go to all the trouble to kill her, when he was the one stirring up trouble?

Why Indeed?

The Hospital was brightly lit, and it's walls were a sickly limeish green. He felt his stomach churn in agony. He couldn't help but recall when he went to Antarctica to rescue her - clinging onto the hope that he could could somehow make it though all the ice and snow and wind to find her, trapped in a small, slimy pod, naked and cold to the touch on board a spaceship she would never admit to being on. Always the sceptic.....- But he did. But they had made it through that. And he wished the situation was the same, now. But this was different. this was closure.

This was final.

He felt the gurney slow, and realized he had had his eyes shut. He opened them to a sympathetic looking orderly.

"Sir?" She asked. "I'm going to take her from here. I'm afraid you can't pass beyond this point. Personnel only, I'm afraid."

"But....I am....I was her partner."

"Sir, I'm sorry sir, but this is the morgue. I can't let you come with her past this point."

"Can I have a minute with her?"

The orderly sighed and continued to look sypathetic. It was part of the job description. This man, this FBI agent, was one of the most broken up persons she had ever encountered. And he was broken up ever-so-quietly. He refused to leave the body of his partner, even after she was wheeled away. She wished he would make a scene, throw things, be normal. But he was just a presence, a terrible, empty morning presence. She didn't have to, but she took pity on him.

"Yes sir."

************

Mulder sat in a small dimly lit room off the morgue, a place reserved for autopsys, and those who felt the need to say one last goodbye to their loved ones. He had barely got a chance to say goodbye when her heart stopped. He had pushed them and pushed them to keep trying to start it, but he didn't know what he was doing. He wasn't the doctor, she had been.

They had wheeled her away so quickly. He guessed they didn't like dead people crowding up the main part of the hospital, especially in the Emergency ward, what with new sick and dying people being brought in every minute.

God, he was angry. Angry at himself. Angry at the Powers-that-be, who had most likely arranged Scully's death. He didn't even know exactly how she had died... He wouldn't until the autopsy.

A Morgue attendant wheeled the sheet-covered body into the small room.

"I'll give you some privacy", she said.

He stood up, and walking over to the gurney pulled back the sheets.

"Ma'am? Excuse me, but...this isn't her."

The Attendant paused at the door. She scrunched up her brow and peered down on her charts.

"Scully, Dana Kathrine?"

"Yeah? Is there a problem?"

"Sir, that's her."

"No, Dammit, it's not! I was here when she was brought in, this isn't her!"

"Sir, please calm down, I'll see if there was a mixup."

She left the room in a hurry. She left him with this woman who was most definitely not Scully. He looked down at the woman's face...she was beautiful, about 5'2, with medium red hair...That was Scully....and yet...this person he looked down on wasn't Scully. He was tired. Maybe he was even hallucinating?

He blinked back tears. Maybe all this was just a big mistake. Maybe...maybe Scully wasn't really dead, maybe...He sighed. He was so tired. He just wanted everything to be normal, everything to go away. He wished he was 10 again, able to go to his mom, throw himself upon her lap, cry, and have his mother take it all away, hide his head like an ostrich, hum a tune, ignore it all.

He heaved a steady breath. Stay together now, Fox. Can't collapse now. Still gotta catch the bastard who did this. Be an FBI agent, catch the bad guy, bring 'em to justice. That always makes a person feel better.

Rubbing a hand across his face, he glanced one more time at the woman who was not Scully, then he somehow managed to make it to the door, and out

into the main part of the morgue. He went out into the main corridor of the basement, and onto an elevator. He finally leaned against the *up* button, and had a moment of peace.

He exited the elevator and ran smack into the attendant who had gone off to see about seeing a mixup.

"Oh!" She said, startled. "I checked with the front desk, and the ER staff, Mr. Mulder, And I can assure you that that is Miss Scully, brought in here at 2 PM-"

"I don't give a crap", he said, avoiding her by walking around her.

"I-" She began.

He waved a hand behind him, to acknowledge he had heard her. He was a man on a mission.

He knew where he was going next, and he didn't like it.

********************

Mulder stumbled awkwardly into his apartment, reeking of every type of alcohol known to man. He threw off his clothes in a heap beside his couch and flopped inelegantly onto it.

Try as he might, he couldn't sleep. He couldn't even rest; unanswered questions flitted through his sedated mind- Did he even have a decent picture of Scully? he wondered. He knew he definitely didn't have an indecent one. When would the funeral be? What would he say? He knew he'd be expected to speak, he was-had been her partner. He could do that, but he didn't know if he could do that and keep it together.

In his stupefied brain the whole day was a complete blur; he couldn't even recall if he'd eaten or drank anything other than alcohol and the club crackers they serve at bars. God, he was going to have the mother of all hangovers........

*********************