Soun struggled to his feet. Something wrapped itself about his arm, and he staggered sideways into a tilted metal panel. Never letting go of his rifle, the SEAL wiped smoke from his eyes, and found a flimsy metal pushcart entangled about him. He shook it off, and cast about the darkened room.
In short order, Soun realized that the tilted metal panel he leaned against was the wall. The floor itself was canted at an obscene angle, and the entire team was fetched up against the downward wall. From the torn metal, it looked as though the flooring had torn free along the northern face, and dropped down into the rooms below along that side.
The battered door leading toward the alien menace hung askew, and through it rain poured in buckets. Soun clambered over the upended furniture of the lounge, and looked through the doorway. Empty air for sixty feet greeted him, and the sea below was now calm. There was no sign of the missing section of the rig.
A low groan attracted his attention, and Soun returned to his companions. Lt. Quiddis stirred, bleeding from a small cut over his eye. He waved off help, using a torn divan to right himself. Tossing aside a broken mini-fridge, Soun pulled himself toward the two Federal Agents. Mulder was pulled across Dana's lap, her rifle discarded near one hand.
"Hey, you okay? C'mon, nap over, time to come to." Soun shook her shoulder until Scully moaned and opened her eyes. "Scully. You hurt?"
She dropped her head back against the broken chair under her. "Everywhere. Where are those. . . things.?"
"The ocean, it looks like." Scully's brow knitted, and Soun explained as he started checking Mulder for injuries. "I guess all the acid tore through the rig. Dumped a couple of rooms into the Gulf, aliens and all. How's that for handy?" He grinned.
Dr. Scully didn't answer as she felt Mulder's throat and arms. He seemed fine, although he sported a number of small cuts, as did his partner. After convincing herself nothing new was broken, Dana answered Soun. "Lovely. Once I'm out of traction, we can throw a party."
By the time she could focus her eyes on the rest of the room, Scully saw piles of debris shifting enough to reveal the rest of the team. The haze of smoke shrouded the room, but the water sluicing through the demolished ceiling was beginning to wash that away. No longer was the haze enough to conceal the paucity of moving shapes.
"Soun, do a walk around." From the strain in his voice, Quiddis was thinking along similar lines as the Special Agent. "Okay people, call out, now!"
One by one, Whitman, Scully, Meyer, Soun, and Quiddis coughed out a reasonable facsimile of their names. Mulder waved his bandaged hand weakly, but didn't stir from his position in Dana's lap. Soun quickly found one person, the man with the mustache whose name Scully hadn't learned. Only Pryce was unaccounted for.
Whitman scrambled over broken chairs and end tables toward the wounded man. While he poked and prodded, Soun started tossing furniture aside, looking for the few precious boxes of medicine they'd managed to toss into the back rooms.
Quiddis slid down an upended sofa near Scully, his wet hair plastered to his forehead. He propped his smoking rifle against one soaked knee, and leaned over toward her. "Hey there Doc. How's Mulder?"
Mulder looked up at the young Lieutenant. "Good enough to be addressed directly, thank you very much."
"Hey, it speaks too!" Quiddis grinned, and tagged him playfully on his wet shoulder. He sobered suddenly, and looked downcast. "About your hand, I-"
"Didn't know any better than I did." Scully held her tongue while the two talked around her. They needed to hash this out themselves, she felt. "Lieutenant, I've nearly bled to death before. If anyone should have noticed, it would be me. I was just. . . distracted."
At that, the two men shared a grin, and a certain tired look. "I guess we were both a little distracted."
"Are you two done with the male bonding, or should I wait a moment?" Despite shivering in her wet clothes, Dana managed to raise her eyebrow archly.
"Yes, mom." Mulder smiled wearily, then sneezed abruptly.
"Quiddis, we're all soaked here, but with Mulder . . ."
"I get it. Well, we're in the worker's part of the rig, so we'll raid their closets while we're here. Then just wait until the chopper gets on station."
Mulder wrapped his arms about himself, not noticing as his hand pressed tightly over Scully's. "We need a place to bunker down from those things."
Scully looked down at him, pushing the damp hair back from his eyes. "Why, Mulder? They all dropped into the ocean. Case closed."
"Maybe, maybe not." Mulder sneezed again, as Quiddis and Scully shared a brief glance. "I'm freezing."
Quiddis stood up, wiping water out of his hair as he hefted the CAR-15. "Whitman, is Paddy mobile?"
Whitman looked up from the arm he was working on. "Sure, with some help, sir. Everything's pretty much cauterized, so he should be okay."
"Love your bedside manner. Intern in a VA hospital?" Paddy flinched as he looked up at the young doctor.
Quiddis overlooked the snipe, and spoke aloud to everyone. "Alright people. Good fallback action there. Way to stick it to them. But we'll proceed on the assumption there're more of those animals out there. We head for the worker's quarters on this level, down to the left."
Soun started in immediately after Quiddis finished. It looked as though the two had planned their words. "Whitman, you help Paddy. Meyer, you and Scully get Mulder. The boss covers the rear, and I'm gonna get there first. Any questions?"
Meyer chirped up. "Yeah, you want me to take point instead?"
"Uh-uh. I get dibbs on the new clothes." Meyer and Whitman managed a short laugh at that. Soun didn't wait to listen; he clambered through the disrupted room to his lieutenant quickly.
"Problem?" Quiddis knew there had to be one.
"Not really. We're just about out of ammo, though. And I'm starving."
"I noticed that. Collect magazines from Whitman and Paddy, and give them to Meyers and me. That'll stretch them a ways. So let's get to it."
White was running back down the length of the tunnel, trying to retrace a way across the missing section of the rig. As was, he was again sopping wet, and feeling more than a little like he was trapped in _The Poseidon Adventure_. He'd laughed when the movie came out, but now all he needed was to climb up a Christmas Tree to complete the mental image.
No one would believe him at the debriefing. They never did, he thought. They just nodded whenever he described the coincidences he regularly ran across in his work. White presumed they'd stopped listening after he described being hit by lightning and left for dead in Ontario. Actually, they'd started listening then.
Shaking all these extraneous thoughts out of his head, White picked up his pace through the oily puddles. He knew he was tired, and the fatigue was sapping his attention. Just then, he'd have killed for two Tylenol and dry feet.
He was shivering so badly in the dark, damp cold of the rig interior, that White knew he'd have to hole up, and dry off again. He was really starting to dislike that SEAL team. They were positively ruining his whole day.
"Out. Out right now."
"Sure, you're gonna do a fistful of buttons by yourself. With your left hand."
"Yes, now leave."
"I'm impressed. I want to see how this is done. Hell, the El-tee would want to see this."
"Now wait-"
"Hey, Quiddis! Scully! Mulder can do all those buttons one handed! Come take a look!" Soun looked back at Agent Mulder, half naked on the bed, and still shivering. Soun remembered his Basic Training, and remembered quite well how many ways there were to make somebody do what they didn't want.
"There are countries where they shoot people for this, you know." Mulder tried pushing his arms through the sleeves of a raspy denim shirt, and succeeded only in tangling and hurting his right hand. "Ow. Damnit."
"Very classy Mulder. Was it Doctor Blockhead that showed you this trick, or did you learn it all on your own?" Mulder stopped flailing with his shirt looking up to the source of the voice floating through the door.
"No, I learned how to get tied up by a friend a long time ago. And I love the wardrobe choice, Scully."
Dana was wearing a pair of dirty gray overalls, cinched up as high as they would go, with the cuffs rolled up to shorten the length. Under that was a tee shirt and a forest green wool shirt whose arms hung about her. Her hair was now pulled back, and tucked into a SF Giant's cap, and no longer hid her flush as she thought of the mess her partner was.
"Well, I've always considered it very chic to be tangled up in your own clothing. Soun, I'll get him dressed." She shooed the SEAL out, and closed the wooden door.
Dana untangled the denim shirt, and pulled it off him gently. She wanted him wearing layered clothing, and so helped him struggle into a tee shirt. Only then did she pull the work shirt about him. She could see from the set to his jaw that he was truly unhappy doing this, but he said nothing.
With more than a little bit of assistance, Mulder managed to get the long sleeved shirt buttoned about him. She insisted on buttoning it all the way up over the tee shirt she'd already managed to tug in place. They managed to strip off his wet denim pants, and Dr. Scully pointedly avoided making any jokes about the ridiculous boxers he insisted on wearing. The problem came when he reached for his dry pants, and she pulled them back out of his reach.
"Scully, I feel silly sitting here. Would you give me my pants?"
"There's no way you're putting them on over wet boxers; you'll catch a cold." She settled her hands on her hips, a comical posture since her clothes made her look like a little girl.
"I've already got a cold."
"You'll make it worse."
Long pause. "All right, but you leave the room first."
"And leave you to play with a men's button fly using your left hand? Sure." She forestalled whatever he was going to say with a raised hand. "Your choice is me or Soun. Whitman's working on Paddy, Quiddis is getting set up, and Meyers is pulling guard duty."
Mulder had to choose, and was damn glad Dana hadn't said anything along the lines of 'It's nothing I haven't seen before.' That was all he would need to burst his fragile good humor. It would be another chance to rekindle their personal little war.
Apparently he was taking too much time thinking. "Mulder. . . it's nothing I haven't-"
"Don't even." He tried glaring at her, and she tried staring him down. They both tried. Instead he sat on the bed wearing wet boxers, and she stood wearing enormously outsized clothes, and they both collapsed laughing.
"Oh hell, would you help me out of these things before I get diaper rash or something." Mulder punctuated his feigned annoyance with a sneeze.
She helped him, out of his shorts, and into the pants. But the buttons were substantially more intimate than either wanted to be with one another. Both cast about for safe topics as rain began pelting the porthole on the far wall.
"Um, why does Quiddis keep calling that soldier Paddy? He doesn't look Irish." Mulder kept his eyes locked on the one remaining light in the room.
"I asked the same question." Dana missed the second button for the third time, inexperienced at doing this from the wrong direction. "He, um, he got the name in SEAL training. Apparently, he kept diving into a rice paddy just before they got hit by mock ambushes. Now everyone on the team calls him that."
Fox heard the exasperation in her voice. "What's wrong?"
"Damn. Are you sure these pants are your size?"
Whatever he was thinking, he knew he absolutely could not meet her gaze. He looked at her in the twilight of the room, her face flushed, slightly breathless. Fox looked away, finding the sight of the approaching storm utterly fascinating.
"They're my size. Listen, why don't you go get Soun to do this. The buttons are all backward to you."
"No, you don't need everyone parading through your shorts." Just me, she thought, and winced. "Listen, how about if I get it from behind you?"
"What?"
"I stand behind you. That way, the buttons are facing the right direction."
"Okay, sounds like a plan and a half." Both were thinking the same thing; and I won't have to see your face.
Mulder quickly found that having his partner pressed against him from behind scarcely helped at all. Much to his relief, she had something to talk about.
"Do you remember any of what happened with Glad?" Her low voice was guarded, for many reasons.
"You mean after I got hit?" He felt her nod against his back as she did up another button. "Yes. Quiddis bought that jerk's story hook line and sinker. I was too weak to do anything, and if I had tried to warn the lieutenant, Glad might have spotted me."
Dana finished her work, and backed off rapidly, the room too hot for her. "What about the catwalk?" Fox turned, and looked at her askance. "The catwalk, where we caught up to you?" Mulder shook his head, and sat down on the low bed. "The three of you were coming across a catwalk toward us when Glad opened fire. Obviously he was trying to kill us, but do you think-"
"Quiddis? No way. He's on our side" Mulder rubbed at his nose fitfully.
"Are you sure of that?"
"As sure as you are of your uncle." He leaned back against the low headboard, obviously tired. With his rumpled shirt and worn jeans, he almost looked normal again.
"How did you end up with his gun?" Finally she had a chance to ask a question that had been bothering her for a while.
Mulder's slited eyes opened briefly, two wedges of hematite in the dark. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. "He freaked. We found . . . bodies, Scully. All of them, I think. Anyway, we were walking through blood, and gunk, and he just locked up for a moment."
There was a long silence as Dana tried to think of a suitable reply. She'd seen her partner freeze under pressure before, and understood why it was a normal response. But how could she express her worry about Quiddis without implicitly suggesting Mulder was 'less than stable?'
Fox knew his partner too well to overlook her hesitation. "He's fine. He was just startled by something he wasn't prepared for. It happens to everyone, even us."
Dana sat on the bed by Mulder's feet and pursed her lips before diving into a difficult topic. "I know. And I'm sorry if the . . . idea, of my social life startled you." Scully felt that it did much more than startle him, but couldn't very well say that to him. "I know we don't talk much about our private lives.''
Mulder pulled himself upright at this. "Scully." He sounded dreadfully tired as he sighed. "I shouldn't have sniped at you the way I did. It was childish and stupid. But it had nothing to do with your weekend."
Scully's eyes asked her question without words. It was hard to read expressions in the near dark of the small room, but he was so familiar with her face that no light was needed. Suddenly Fox wondered whether or not he'd told the truth when he'd said that her weekend out had not bothered him. He kept his eyes blank in the darkness, and tried to answer her silent question as though he hadn't doubted himself.
"It wasn't that you went out on the town. But you left your phone behind, didn't say a word about it-"
"Like you do?" Dana felt she had to at least say something, the way her cheeks were burning.
"And you lied to me about everything. If you didn't want to talk about it, tell me to shut up and go away. But I'm not Wilson, or Skinner, or one of the newbie agents for you to brush off at the water cooler." His chest was tight, and Fox tried to pretend it was only the cold that he felt. "Don't you trust me enough not to lie?"
For a moment, the two watched one another in the dark, each trying desperately to read the mind of the other. Mulder broke first. "I trust you. You know I do." The harsh planes of his face clashed incongruously with his wavering voice. It was the voice of a scared child, a sound that reminded Dana of the anger she'd read in Bill Mulder's face. God, she wondered, what had broken his trust so badly, scarred him so deeply?
She closed her eyes against her tears and Fox's eyes. If he saw a trace of pity now, he'd bite back. He was hurt and tired, and this was a pain as old as she was. His caustic words were his only defense, as they'd always been. And that pain, accidentally displayed as it was, should still be private. Until the time he wanted for her to see it.
She couldn't touch him. She didn't know what she'd do if she did, nor did she want to know how Fox would respond. "I have always trusted you. You know that." Dana found herself fingering her crucifix, and stilled her hands in her lap.
Fox watched the bit of gold flicker at her throat, and willed himself not to cringe. When she'd vanished, that was all he had left of her. Even now, it reminded Mulder that he had failed her, that he always did. And how could he sit here and accuse her, hurt her? She tolerated him, all the problems he caused. These were his files, his job that ruined her private life, nearly killed her.
He sucked in a ragged breath. "I seem to be stuck apologizing today, huh Scully?" He tried desperately to conceal his feelings behind a light tone, and hoped she would let him.
"I understand." I guess I understand a lot, she thought. More than you want, less than I should. Wouldn't it be nice to one day say all these things to one another? In the dark, in the midst of long stakeouts next to Agent Mulder, she smiled sometimes when she thought about him. For her partner, the only truths he really wanted to examine were out there, safely away from his private self. Sometimes that thought didn't make her smile.
A long time passed in silence, as Scully worked through thoughts she rarely permitted herself. Mulder merely watched the shifting lines of his partner's face, and mentally flagellated himself for having ever said a word to her.
Dana stood up, and moved to the door. "You rest for now, okay? I'm taking a watch, and Soun's coming in to sack out."
Mulder knew there was nothing for him to say. He would betray himself, or hurt her, or do something wrong. After a lifetime of errors, he'd learned much about the unwitting damage he seemed to wreak about himself. So he grinned blankly and nodded, an expression he had faked for as long as he could remember. He'd had to learn young.
With a melancholy smile on her lips, Dana left the room. And Mulder lay in the dark, and tried not to sleep.
The steadily increasing din of the falling rain became a counterpoint to the mounting pain in his hand. Lying still didn't stop the ache. He'd tried performing multiplication tables in his head, composing choice imprecations to hurl at Defense Department officials, even reciting English poetry. None of them had helped. Mulder's wounded hand seemed to throb, and burn, and it certainly broke what little of his concentration remained. But it kept Fox awake, and thinking, so he didn't complain. Besides, it seemed fitting to him that he suffer a little bit in the dark.
Fox was still lying awake when the door to his room opened and a man slid in. He was short and square and, silhouetted by the light from the hallway, his black crew-cut shone with red highlights. Soun, it had to be.
"Yo, Mulder, you awake?" Soun whispered in the darkness.
So, Mulder thought, they don't need me right now. If they did, Soun wouldn't take his time. Fox decided to simply ignore the big SEAL.
Not hearing a reply, Soun shuffled up to the bed and slid in. He tucked the covers around Fox and himself, not bothering to remove his boots. Dr. Scully had been explicit in her instructions; try to get him to take his pain medication if he's still awake. And no matter what, keep him warm. And so Agent Mulder now found a large Asian marine with a crew cut draped heavily across his chest.
The room was quiet for several seconds.
"Corporal Soun, nice to meet you. I don't think we've been formally introduced." Fox held out his bandaged right hand before Soun's face.
Soun pushed himself upright and smacked Mulder on his chest, laughing. "Sorry I woke you. Now go back to sleep."
"I don't sleep much. And I don't usually take Navy men to bed with me, so I don't think I'll be napping just now."
"Yeah, well Feds aren't my first pick either, man." Soun chuckled, but Mulder wondered if that were true. After all, Scully had been surprised that it was Mulder who had showed up last night. He shook aside his thoughts as Soun continued.
"Anyway, your partner wants to drug you up. For your hand." Soun dug into the pocket of his new, dry shirt and produced two small white tablets.
"She has the drugs, I have the problem." Fox made no move to take the medication. "But that still doesn't explain why you're in my bed." His enunciation was clear and distinct as he spoke.
"Well, the rig is freezing, and apparently you're Number One on the hypothermia hit parade. Someone's got to sleep in here to keep you warm, and I'm the man."
"Lucky me." Fox rubbed a sore spot on his ribs, trying to figure out if this instant punishment meant that there had to be a god to mete it out.
"Yup. So, you want your pills?" Soun shook them in his hand like he was rolling craps.
Mulder paused a moment before answering sardonically. "You seem to be having fun with them, you keep 'em. I'll just stay here and rest up, alone."
Soun's good humor was being depleted rapidly. "Sorry my friend, but if I go back without having given you your meds, Scully'll work me over. It's you or me," Soun took Mulder's limp left hand and pressed the tablets into his palm. "and I choose you."
"You're all heart." Fox lifted his hand to his mouth, and dropped both pills down his sleeve. The darkness covered his deceit, and Mulder compounded it by feigning to swallow. "Okay, you can face Scully safely now."
"Nu-uh Mulder. Now we catch some sleep." Soun lay back on the hard and narrow mattress, hoping Mulder would be too tired and drugged to fight this out.
"We can." Mulder wasn't subtle in emphasizing the 'we' as he spoke. "Separately."
"You need the warmth." And Soun needed the sleep.
"I need a blanket." Fox considered the Chief to be a baby-sitter, a situation he found intolerable.
"You need a warm body, 'cause you don't have one of your own." Ain't that the truth! "Now if I'm not good enough, I can pull Scully offa guard duty, and she can sleep with you. Would that be better?"
Mulder blanched. Soun would most certainly make good on his threat, and in doing so sink any chance Fox had of remaining in Dana's good graces. Saying anything to Soun now would only dig Fox in deeper. Wisely, he kept his peace.
The dark room returned to its silence, and to the stillness of two men trying not to move.
Soun found himself listening to the older man's breathing, trying to gauge his sleeping patterns. Mulder hadn't seemed all that surprised to find someone in bed with him. Nor did he behave like a man just waking up. It was a genuine possibility he was indeed not sleeping when Soun entered the room, just playing possum. Now Fox's breathing was long and deep, as rhythmic as a pendulum. And it was very likely it was just as false as before.
Soun wanted to understand; after suffering blood loss and shock, what could keep agent Mulder awake? Well, he'd nodded off last night so he probably wasn't running on hundred milligram Happy Pills. Soun would understand if Mulder stopped sleeping once they got back to the mainland; he'd seen things here that should scare men to death. But in training they said that out here, troops still slept. They were wired too high not to flake out at night.
Could it be the pain, he wondered. Too much to sleep, not enough to knock him out. But if that were the case, how could he lie there so calmly, pretending to be asleep? And why would he fight against taking pain medication? Soun had broken several ribs in a dive accident, and knew how bad cracked bone could feel. Nothing could have kept him away from the Tylenol and codeine he'd been taking. After all, machismo only went so far before masochism took over.
Why was he awake all night? Could it be this guy's 'spooky' mind that kept him awake? Quiddis had hinted that this man often knew what you were thinking before you did yourself. Maybe he stayed up all night ruminating, thinking about what happened around him.
If so, what was he thinking about right now?
Agent Scully was Soun's best bet. He'd heard the fighting, and he'd heard the silence too. It was almost funny; they were fighting for their lives in the middle of an ocean but they'd still make time to bicker. He tried to picture himself with his girlfriend, both toting rifles into combat. He couldn't believe for a moment that his mind would be on the objective. Oh no, he'd be focused entirely on her safety. And she was a half-Tongan nurse, no wilting daisy. Maybe that was how Mulder made it; Dana was a lot of things, but wilting wasn't one of them. Maybe he wasn't distracted because she was so damn competent. Of course, Mulder did get himself shot, so maybe he got distracted after all.
And what would it be like, sex with a firebrand like that? He'd heard stories about redheads. . .
Soun wanted to know if Mulder was still faking sleep despite the drugs and the injury. And he wanted to get his mind off other things, too. "Hey feddie . . ."
"Yes, I'm awake. No, I don't know what my partner's like in the sack. And yes, this is what I do when I can't sleep." Actually, he usually liked to listen to inane television shows that kept his mind from running like this. But in the absence of anything to relieve his insomnia, toying with the locals would have to suffice. Who knew, maybe it would get the young soldier to shut up and leave him alone.
Soun turned to stare at Mulder's clean, hard profile. Even after the gunbattles and explosions, he still looked as though he arose hale and hearty from a fashion magazine. "You don't have too many friends, do you?"
Mulder blinked. "You always ask questions like that in bed?" He easily managed his cool and aloof tone, despite the fact that the unanticipated question hit him from left field.
"About as often as you answer questions I haven't asked." Mulder parted his generous lips for a retort, but Soun cut him off. "And you're dodging the question. Do you have many friends? Apart from Dana."
"So it's 'Dana' now? You two seem to have hit it off quick." Mulder tried to keep his eyes closed, his breathing light, and his words neutral. But he almost reflexively sneered the words, surprised at the vehemence fatigue drew from him.
"Yes. Is that a problem for you?" Bingo, Soun thought. He's got a green monster on his back. I wonder what's really up between him and his partner?
"No. It's none of my business." Neither man believed this, but both let the matter rest. "Now do you mind if we get some sleep?"
Whoa, hell of a turn around, the Corporal thought. He must really not want to talk about his partner. "Yeah, we'll need our rest while we can get it." Soun had no illusions; he was sure Mulder would lie awake for hours more, listening to the pain in his hand. But Soun couldn't permit him to indulge in self-flagellation. If Fox didn't rest, he'd slow the team down on the way to the extraction point a few floors above them. And time was a luxury they wouldn't have.
Both men jostled briefly in the bed, conscious of the cold, their animosity, and Fox's bullet wound. Soun lay still, and tried to think of something to say that would put Mulder's mind at ease. It seemed insurmountable, trying to reach a man who worked so hard to push everyone away.
As Soun planned a strategy, Mulder's breathing lapsed back into the steady rhythm that was very much a lie. Soun waited and watched, despairing of his chances to find some verbal trick that would coax Mulder out of this shell and into much needed rest.
Several minutes passed, and Soun was fighting off his own lethargy. There was no doubt in his mind that Fox was shamming, however. He just couldn't think of how the man could do so after he'd taken all those drugs.
Or had he?
The Federal Agent hadn't wanted to take the medications in the first place; he'd only done so to quiet Soun. It was conceivable he had pocketed the pills. It made too much sense to Soun.
The longer Soun thought about Mulder's demonstrable tendencies toward self-destruction, the more he convinced himself that Fox had not taken those pills. It would perfectly match the foolhardy bravado Fox displayed when he ran off alone through the rig. And it disturbed Soun on many levels. Courage was one thing, but this was something completely different. Both Mulder and he were needed, and all this was merely subtracting from their total downtime.
After several minutes, the Corporal leaned in close toward his bunkmate. "Mulder," Soun whispered. "Yo, Mulder. I know you're faking again, and I want you asleep."
He received no answer. Not a twitch in the darkened room.
"The team needs you up and running when we evac. So take those damn pills and go to sleep." Soun's hissed words drew no response. "Damnit, Fox, she needs you up and running!"
Mulder's given name spun him around like a slap. "Don't call me Fox." Soun opened his mouth to laugh off the outburst when Mulder cut him off. "Ever."
Soun licked his lips before replying to that rough growl, so unlike the silky smooth voice he'd become accustomed to hearing. "Okay. You wanna-"
"No. I don't want to talk about resting. I don't want to talk about me taking a handful of fucking pills. I don't want to talk about my private life, and," his voice dropped to a whisper as he pushed himself nose to nose with the square-jawed SEAL, "I will never talk to you about Dana or my sister. Understand?"
Soun had trained for and fenced with every conceivable battlefield weapon used by man. It occurred to him that somewhere along the line, he'd tripped a landmine. And it was a Bouncing Betty; the sort of nastiness that leapt up to look you in the eye before it detonated. He didn't like the hole he'd dug for himself, and he didn't understand why Quiddis felt that this guy was worth the trouble. But he knew it was his duty to get one shit-crazy Feddie back up to flank speed, and fast.
While Soun's thoughts whirred about fitfully, Mulder's anger deflated with a sigh, and he rubbed his eyes with his good hand. "I'm sorry. I never really liked my name, I guess. And what with everything here-" Soun felt the bed bounce abruptly as the older man coughed. There was something hidden in the way Fox's fatigue had brought up his sister, and Soun wondered at it more than the signs of impending illness. The SEAL recognized the explanation offered for Mulder's outburst for the lie it was. But he also recognized that whatever pain was buried there should remain untouched.
"S'okay Mulder. I'm just pushing you 'cause the team needs you. Not everyone works that way, I guess."
"No." Mulder dropped heavily back onto the bed, shifting away from Soun. "I've never been much of a team player."
"I wasn't either, at first. But you kind of get pressed into it, when your team needs help badly."
"I don't get pressed much. Impressed or repressed." Mulder stared at the ceiling of clouds through the darkened porthole and sniffled.
"No, just depressed." Soun regretted the words as soon as they were uttered. Much to his surprise and relief, Mulder laughed softly.
"I guess that's what it looks like to everyone else. That's why I'm not much of a team player."
Soun thought momentarily before replying. "Not quite. You impressed the hell out of the El-tee. And your partner really does need you."
Mulder glanced sideways briefly. "Soun, you know where all my training came from?"
"Quantico. Feds share a base with the Marines."
"But before that, I did my work in psychology. This gung ho crap is wearing thin." He ruffled his hair absently. "Seriously, just drop it. Okay?"
Soun paused again, this time only briefly. "What's wrong with working together a little bit?"
"Jesus! You're like some mindless drone. Don't you ever give it a rest?" Mulder was seriously considering taking the covers and retreating across the room at this point, but another cough stopped him.
Soun smiled. "We don't rest. We just get reinforcements." Fox didn't reply, and instead stared blankly at the far wall. "Hel-lo? Mulder? I say something wrong?"
"No." Fox's voice was soft and thoughtful. "Oh, no. Absolutely not. You're a genius."
With that enigmatic reply still hanging in the cold air, Mulder tossed off the covers and pushed himself to his feet. The room was almost freezing, and the rush of blood in Fox's head was dizzying enough to slow him, but he made his way to the door. Soun was a pace behind him.
"Yo, Mulder! What's going on?" He caught up with the reedy Federal Agent in the midst of the common area. Puzzled, Quiddis looked back and forth between the two men. Scully merely wrinkled her brows at Fox.
"We're in trouble." Paddy rolled his eyes, Meyers laughed, and behind Mulder, Soun coughed. Mulder paid no attention to the results his comment received.
Scully raised her eyebrows. As much as she wanted to join in the general humor at such a statement, she knew Mulder was on to something. "What is it?"
Mulder dropped into a chair across from Quiddis and Scully. "Why are these things trying to kill us?"
Scully blinked, and narrowed her eyes. What had the creature's behavior told Mulder that it hadn't told her? "Food? Territoriality?"
"Um, how 'bout 'who cares'?" Paddy tossed his thoughts in from across the room, but was ignored.
Fox coughed into his bandage before speaking. "No, Scully. Think about our arrival. If they wanted us out of their territory, why hold off until we walked into the center of the rig."
She continued his thought. "Until we walked into a trap."
"Exactly. They wanted us in here." Dana nodded in time with Mulder's words.
Quiddis interrupted. "That's nice for them, but so what? So they don't want to scare us, just eat us. I'm thrilled."
Agent Mulder turned his intense gaze on the lieutenant. In the flickering half-light of the ruined lounge, his pale face and black eyes became nearly spectral. "Remember all the bodies we found? Pinned to the roof of the bay?"
Quiddis managed to nod in reply. He had no doubts that he would remember that sight until the day he died. Fortunately, Mulder didn't wait for him to say a word.
"If they were food, why weren't they eaten? The bodies were rotten, not consumed. All the meat was intact, nothing pulled off. And there were so many bodies, there couldn't have been many missing. And the cause of death appeared to be those holes in their chests."
Scully sat back, pale. "Wasps," she whispered to herself.
Mulder's elation at figuring the situation out dimmed at the revulsion in his partner's face. Tight lipped, he could only nod at her.
"WASPs?" Quiddis shook his head. "I'm no Protestant, and Soun ain't white. Does that mean we can go?"
That elicited something akin to a laugh from Scully. "Not WASP. Wasps. As in the little bugs that sting you." Dana shivered, and continued. "Some wasps use their venom to paralyze their prey. They leave it catatonic, and lay eggs in it. That way their young have a living incubator. Until they hatch."
The dingy room was that much more cold and silent when she finished. No one knew what to say, leaving all present to remember the lashing black monstrosities they fought. Someone coughed into his hand, not wanting to make a noise.
It was Soun who spoke first into the chill silence. "So, do you have a reason for telling us all this? Aside from keeping us from falling asleep." Meyers and Whitman laughed nervously at this.
Mulder stood up shakily. "If they were attacking us for most any reason, we'd have taught them a lesson by now. Like any animal. They attack, we kill some. They attack again, we kill more. Eventually they'd stay away."
Scully gazed at the assembled soldiers as she picked up. "But if they rely on us for. . . reproduction, every loss we inflict increases their need to catch us. It starts with the reproductive drive. After we beat them off, they needed to replace their numbers. By now, the need for more . . . members . . . must be critical"
Quiddis closed his eyes against the looks of shock his soldiers were exchanging. He needed a moment to think coldly, rationally. He needed to anticipate his adversaries, and act to counter their moves. Just like before all this happened.
"Okay, people! We've got work to do." All eyes turned to face the lieutenant. He'd cleaned himself off, and now wore a dull workman's shirt and bomber jacket over a muscle shirt and his combat web gear. "This suite of rooms is one pressure compartment. Half inch steel and reinforced welding. That and the locked pressure doors will slow them down. But we need to cut off all the ways in while leaving routes to escape. Options?"
Scully chimed in first. "Air ducts. I saw one come up through the air ducts." She shot a knowing look and hidden smile at her partner. This almost seemed familiar.
Paddy winced as he shifted and began thinking out loud. "Air ducts?" That means plumbing, electrical, and ventilation are compromised. They're wired through the floor and ceiling . . ."
Suddenly the team was a flurry of activity, watching the very floor beneath their feet or the ceiling above them. Under Quiddis' direction, they ripped the drop ceiling apart, and began tracing all the tubes back to their sources in the watertight steel walls. The internal walls were metal frames and sheetrock, nothing sturdy enough to bother with.
The number and variety of 'special equipment' the soldiers were carrying was shocking, and all of it was put to use. Pipes were cut using diamond-studded wire loops as saws. Venting ducts were torn down, and crumpled up to bar access through the open holes in the walls. Shattered porcelain from the remains of the dismantled bathroom was scattered down each of the electrical and air ducts. A dumbwaiter Mulder found hidden in one corner underneath a Grateful Dead poster was the hardest to seal. Instead, it was trapped with the last of the grenades, each duct-taped to the inside walls on the level above and below this one. The nest of tripwires was well nigh impassable.
"Okay." Soun leaned against a debris-strewn divan. "That won't stop 'em, but we'll know which direction they're coming from."
Mulder eyed the one porthole in this room nervously. It only opened from the inside, and the exterior was a sheer wall that dropped one hundred and fifty feet to the ocean below. Failing all else, it was the last route left out of the makeshift bunker. The chances of swimming through the freezing water in the middle of a storm on the open sea weren't good. But they were still preferable to capture.
Scully drifted over and touched Mulder on the shoulder gently. He acknowledged her presence without removing his gaze from the wall upon which it was fixed.
"Don't you think it's time you got some rest?" Scully's eyes slid over his handsome features and the cold set of his hazel eyes as she spoke. She couldn't think of how she could convince him to recuperate, but she had to try.
"Scully, rest won't help us much if I can't anticipate their next attack." His good hand absently picked at the seam of his jeans. They were a little loose in the hips, and didn't feel right.
Dana walked around him, coming to stand between him and the wall. She caught his troubled eyes, matching his intensity with her own determined, piercing gaze. "You are too tired to walk straight, let alone psychoanalyze those . . . things."
This brought a worn grin to his face, and he at last focused upon his disheveled partner's alabaster features. "What? You're still not convinced those 'things' are of extraterrestrial origin?"
His small grin was infectious, and spread rapidly. "We need more evidence. For all I know, they're deep sea crabs with an attitude."
Still smiling, Fox started to lean forward, his eyes drifting closed. "Okay, Mulder. Time to go to bed. Soun and Meyer can take watch. I'm off too."
She was thankful Mulder didn't put up too much resistance as she led him back to the bunks, and tucked him in like a child. She nestled in next to him, above the covers, and lay her rifle down across them. Some hours later, he covered her hand with his own.
Every footfall slammed out another booming percussion as Glad ran. When the SEAL team demolished a full wing of the rig, they had also inadvertently cut him off from his route of escape. Now he was fleeing through an empty oil processing tank, using the inspection doors along the bottom for access. The tar-like muck that lined the bottom of these towering shells impeded his progress, but that was to be expected. Besides, he hadn't encountered a single alien as he ran, and he was thanking providence with each panting breath.
As he ran through the second tank, he considered the burning pain in his shoulder and his ill fortune at Mulder's hands. When he had encountered Mulder and Quiddis back at the elevator, he was mere yards away from freedom. Now he was running for his life and almost defenseless.
He was ten or twelve feet from the next doorway when he realized he was not alone at the bottom of the tank.
Fox crept stealthily toward the chair in the corner of the room. Sliding out of bed and away from Scully had been no particular problem. She was dead to the world, and the bed had so little bounce that he couldn't possibly have roused her as he rolled away. And now he moved to occupy a dingy gray recliner off in one corner of the room.
Behind him was the yawning maw of the dumbwaiter, and across the room was the solitary porthole for escape. Somewhere, midway between, his partner lay dozing, giving him leave to think in peace. And the oil-stained indoor-outdoor carpeting muffled his footsteps well as he retreated past the wreckage of a ping-pong table toward a comfortable chair. There was no chance he'd disturb her sleep.
The SEALs had nodded to him briefly when he'd awoken, but let him be. Mulder guessed this was Quiddis' doing. At least the soldiers were now giving him some breathing room, even if they hadn't handed him a rifle. He understood why; with his hand torn and bandaged, there was little chance he could handle the recoil of an assault rifle. The team was low on weapons and ammo anyway, and couldn't spare one. Besides, Mulder had never handled a rifle before, even in the Violent Crimes Division; he doubted he could load and chamber a round in the brutish matte black weapons they were using.
Fox wrapped his arms around himself for warmth, and thought about his partner. He knew full well he'd been thinking about the team's weapons purely as a means of avoiding all consideration of Dana. Much easier to focus on a problem he had some vague chance of successfully solving, Mulder thought.
He remembered waking up next to Dana, smelling her hair, her sweat. It was uncomfortable enough to drive him out of the warm bed and into the room proper. His thoughts were interrupted by his muffled sneeze.
Damn cold, he thought. No way am I ending up in a hospital after this. This is all outpatient stuff. I'm just taking over my couch with one of Scully's afghans, and sleeping for a week.
Mulder chewed his lip, and thought of her and Soun both piling into bed to keep him warm. Doubtless, they'd been doing the same thing while he'd been unconscious. It would explain the sore ribs; Dana rolled in her sleep. He wasn't actively upset with Soun and Dana anymore. Everyone here just had different ways of doing things. And Dana just worked better with Soun than with him. There was no way either of those two could know that he couldn't sleep with someone else next to him.
It was just the idea of lying there unconscious next to someone that bothered him. He couldn't relax, sometimes couldn't close his eyes. It was a peculiarity that had doomed more than one relationship, some on their first night. Waking up to find your lover sleeping out on the couch didn't promote intimacy too well. Neither did waking to find him dressing and heading out the door at two in the morning.
It was so sadly classic that it almost made Fox smile. As a psychologist, he knew exactly where this aversion came from. Another manifestation of-
Mulder's thoughts were cut off as he felt the short cropped hairs across the back of his neck rise in unison. He'd heard a soft thump from Scully. And with the sole exception of her nightly tossing, she never made soft thumping noises. And Fox didn't see her move.
Thump-thump.
Fox squinted hard, and realized the noise was coming from the floor next to the bed. There, three large brass bolts were rolling about on the mildewed floor. As his eyes widened in the dark, a fourth bolt unscrewed itself from the fitting surrounding the porthole, and fell next to its companions.
Fox jumped to his feet as the porthole was pulled out, and twelve long, insecticidal fingers wrapped about the rim of the open hole. His yell died in his throat as the creature pulled itself inside soundlessly, and perched upon the wall above Dana's sleeping form.
Glad clawed at the tattered shreds of his jacket as he sprinted across the soiled floor of the oil processing tank. The raw pain from his wounded arm screamed in his ears almost as loudly as the nightmare beast that dropped to the floor behind him.
Glad kept his tearing eyes firmly affixed to the half open door in front of him, never tossing a futile glance over his shoulder. And so he missed the sight of the three grotesques that paused to crouch a moment amidst the sticky residue upon the floor. The leader parted its thin lips and bared crystalline teeth in an unholy smile as saliva dropped to the floor, smoking faintly. Its long, wickedly sharp tail flickered momentarily about its shoulders before it leapt into motion.
All four of its ghoulish limbs kicked into action, four sets of claws digging through the goo to find purchase on the floor below. Each bound brought it a yard closer to its frantic, panting target. One of the others leapt ten feet to the curving wall above, climbing with inhuman agility toward Glad's head.
Glad was two steps from the door when his hand caught upon its target. As he struggled to free the simple red cylinder from his pocket, doubled sets of claws reached about his face and dragged him to an immediate stop.
And in a panic born of utter desperation, Glad snapped the marker flare alight and cast it into the oil behind him.
The magnesium fire set torch to the thick industrial sludge as easily as if it were kerosene. Claws tore into the side of Glad's face as the beast tumbled backwards in a whirlwind of flailing limbs. The hissing was incredible, as was the sudden rush of heat that enveloped Glad.
Blinded by a sudden rush of fumes and blood, Glad sprinted forward once more. The air was cooler suddenly, but he could feel the fire on the outside of his fatigues. From the torturous pain he felt, some distant part of his mind guessed that the Nomex wouldn't help for very much longer. Without warning, he ran headfirst into a cool metal wall, fear blinding him to the pain of the sudden impact. Frantic with his fear, Glad stumbled left, then right before hitting an obstruction just below waist level. His yelp of pain cut short, Glad tumbled forward and down.
Agent Mulder eyed the alien in absolute stillness. For its part, the creature moved so silently that Fox couldn't even hear it. Mulder was hard pressed to keep himself from gasping for air as the monster lowered itself onto the floor next to his partner. He tried to swallow around a dry throat as his mind whirred.
There was only one of those...things in the room, and no others were visible through the open porthole. And this one merely swung its eyeless muzzle about, as if scanning the room. Half panicked and half amazed, Mulder had to wonder why the creature hadn't killed him or Dana yet.
Still locked in her dream world, Dana mumbled under her breath. Quickly the thing's head snapped about, its raspy breath dribbling viscous saliva on the already stained carpet. It opened its nightmare mouth and hissed as it stepped toward the bedside.
Mulder gasped, and the creature's head snapped about, the tendons taut over its glossy shell. With epiphanic speed Mulder realized that this thing must hunt by sound or motion. Neither he nor Scully had been harmed because both were quiet and still. How long that safety lasted was entirely up for debate.
The options as Fox saw them were grim indeed. He would have to get past that thing to reach Dana's rifle, a damningly poor prospect even were he in the best of condition. There would be no time for Scully to do anything herself; indeed if she so much as moved again, the creature hovering about her hissing was likely to kill her. The SEALs might be able to rush in and save them both. Perhaps. But Mulder knew full well that he was standing in the line of fire, and Dana was well within the area likely to be bathed in the thing's blood.
One of the SEALs in the other room laughed out loud, and the faint noise of the alien's breathing disappeared entirely. With precise slowness, it placed one hand on the bed. Then, moments later, the next. With bloodcurdling deliberateness it started to stalk towards the door, moving soundlessly over Scully herself.
Mulder was washed with cold as he saw the ribs and tendons stretch and flex with every motion the monstrosity made. He paled as he watched it place one septadactyl hand along Dana's fair face. Then he saw the shadow of an approaching SEAL in the doorway.
"No!" Fox stepped away from the wall, waving his hands in front of him. He couldn't raise his voice for fear of rousing his partner. "Here! Here."
With a fluid motion, the creature fled the bed, instead dangling from the bare pipes over head. Hanging down, its spiked back cleared Dana by less than two feet. It hissed loudly, and turned toward Mulder.
Quiddis cleared the doorway, and in Fox's stark terror it seemed as though he moved in slow motion. Over the shoulder of the gruesome apparition, Mulder saw pure amazement sketched on the lieutenant's suddenly pale features. The SEAL struggled to loose his rifle from its strap around one shoulder as the alien came to life in a bundle of uncontained kinetic energy.
It dropped to the ground, spinning onto its feet like a panther. No sooner was it down than its powerful legs uncoiled to drive it toward Fox, its salivating jaws parted to reveal its inner mouth. There was no mistaking its banshee cry as it rushed the wounded agent.
Fox had only one option left, one he was forced to take without thinking. Trusting that the strength of his swimmer's legs hadn't drained away with his blood, Fox threw himself backwards into the small opening for the dumbwaiter. Behind him, the beast slammed one claw into the floor where he had stood, gouging out a great section of carpeting. Dana awoke just in time to see Mulder's feet disappear down the shaft.
She screamed as the enraged fiend leapt down the shaft after him.
