Mulder watched as Scully came closer to him staring deeply into his eyes. Looking for a sign. Anything to show that he was there. Her glacial blue eyes swam with tears. He could see that she was begging him to react. She was studying him hungrily for a glint, a glimmer just a small spark of life.

"Please Mulder. Please don't be gone. Please still be in there." She begged him quietly as the tears broke free and ran down her face dripping onto his chest. He could feel her breathing on him. Her sweet breath was playing on his bottom lip. He could smell her shampoo and her perfume. She was still dressed for her date. He wondered if she had cut her date short for him. His heart lurched with hope. He so badly wanted to grab her to kiss her.

Scully. Scully I am here. Please hear me. He was fighting every muscle, willing his body to react even if it was just a small flinch to let her know he could hear her. And how desperate he was to hold her again.

He had been experiencing multiple levels of telepathy like background noise he could hear people thinking about mundane things, men visiting their families thinking how hot the nurse behind the desk is, people thinking about groceries, things they have to do when they get home, how they can't wait for a hot bath, whether they paid their credit card bill. It was like an badly tuned radio it came and went.

He could now hear her thoughts chasing each other playing tag through what he figured would normally be a very organised mind.

I shouldn't have let him leave my apartment. I knew he wasn't right. I went against my gut instinct. What is wrong with him? What can I do?

Come on Scully you have to think. She stood up straight, angrily wiped her eyes and picked up his chart again. As she flicked through his chart he could hear her panic set in. She couldn't see anything. Her mind was furiously flying through the information but she couldn't figure out what to do.

What if he had picked up something in Africa? A bug or parasite that was causing an infection. Something he's been exposed to. She dismissed the idea. They had done all the relevant blood tests and the toxicology didn't indicate that there was an infection. He watched as her mind worked furiously through her very limited options.

She let out a frustrated sigh. Her mind played back over their conversation earlier that evening. The key was the relic that he had been exposed to for the last week. He obviously believed that it was extra terrestrial. She frowned and bit her lip as her mind flicked through the photos he had shown her earlier. He had told her that it somehow mapped out the human genome.

What if it was extra terrestrial? What if the relic was something that humans weren't supposed to touch or get near? If it is so advanced maybe our brain chemistry isn't equipped to deal with the complexity of it and it somehow causes it to malfunction. Her memory quickly touched on the multiple theories about humans not using their full brain capacity. Theories that suggested the potential for pyschokenesis and telepathy. She suddenly smiled and looked over at Mulder. Mulder would be proud of her for making such a leap.

Mulder was surprised by her theory and peeved that he couldn't express it. Typical! The first time she has an outlandish theory and we finally agree on something, I can't move a muscle!

The thoughts had chased one after the other without any pause but then it occurred to her that there was one major flaw in her new theory. Why was he the only one affected? He couldn't have been the only person that had exposed themselves to it. She reluctantly dismissed the idea.

"Back to the drawing board then." She muttered. She put his medical charts into its cradle at the edge of his bed and continued to watch him. She took his limp fingers and stroked them softly.

"I promise Mulder that I am going to find a way to get you back." She smiled roguishly, " and then I am going to kick your arse for putting me through this again."

Mulder listened as she mused about the times that she had stood next to a hospital bed watching over his sleeping form. He could feel the soft pads on the ends of her fingers stroking his hand, her nails grazing lightly against his palm. He wished more than anything at that second that he could hold her and kiss her.

It was no use screaming. He couldn't move he couldn't talk he couldn't communicate. He was relying on the good faith of a friend he had manage to hurt and alienate in the last couple of months to save him.

He tuned back into her thoughts and realised that she was thinking about their last row at her apartment door. She was thinking about the fact that he had kissed her to try to get her to stay. She was thinking about how she would have to really try to curb her feelings and make them less prominent. Less of a weakness.

He suddenly realised why she had looked so hurt and why she had whispered that he had broken her heart. She thought that he didn't love her the way that she did and he had used it as a last attempt to try to keep her with him. To string her along. He groaned inwardly, it explained her violent response. She didn't understand, she didn't have the first inkling of how much he loved her and how long he had been trying to hide it for fear that she would reject him.

I promise Scully, when I get out of this I will prove to you without a shadow of a doubt how badly I am in love with you.

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Mulder could hear his thoughts even before he had entered the room. His mind was like a snake pit. Each dark thought undulated with and around the next. It was cold and dark in his mind. Mulder tried to shut it out without much success. He watched as he entered the room with two men. Mulder had a bad feeling that he was going to die at this moment. He couldn't fight. He couldn't even blink properly. It would only take a pillow over his face for it all to end.

However, it didn't make sense that he would bring henchmen. It didn't take two burly, trained assassins to kill him. CSM smiled down at him as one of the men injected something into his I.V and the other was busy disabling the monitor alarms.

The last thing he saw was CSM's smile pulling into a Cheshire cat smile. Don't worry Mulder. I need you alive for now. You are going to save the world.

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Diana stood over Mulder looking at him with pity and remorse on her face. He was strapped down on an operating theatre table as the doctors and nurses bustled about prepping for surgery. CSM was undoing his shirt as he sat on the opposite side of Mulder getting himself ready to take part in the experiment.

Fox. I know you can hear me. Mulder's head had been overwhelmed when they had first arrived at the facility with the amount of voices he could hear but he now tuned into her. He could drown them out as background noise to focus on her voice only.

I wanted to tell you that I am sorry for my part in this. I never meant to hurt you. It was never my intention for you to be hurt. She looked at CSM surreptitiously to check he wasn't watching what she was doing. She then purposefully opened her mind and thought of the experiments, the women abductees that she had been charged to watch over. The clinics. She knew that he could see all the images flying through her mind. She also knew that even if by some miracle that he got out of this alive that all these places and people would disappear. They would be gone before he even had a chance to investigate them. It would be a fruitless pursuit. They were always 2 steps ahead.

Please believe me, I was trying to save the project. I need you to understand that I had the best intentions. Even if I did it the wrong way. She let out a heavy sigh as one of the anaesthetists approached her. She moved out of the way at his request. The anaesthetist gave her a quizzical look and then started to work on Mulder.

She walked away with her head down thinking hard. She had to speak to Scully. She had to do something.