PAINTING BY NUMBERS

BY

AllyinthekeyofX

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"What do you mean he's missing?"

Skinner's voice had taken on that special cadence he seemed to reserve only when talking about Mulder, a kind of quiet acceptance that once again, the younger man had lived up to his reputation as being the resident departmental fuck up and despite the singular respect Skinner held for the man as a fellow human being, as an Agent under his command he had probably caused him more headaches than the combined force of every other subordinate in the Bureau and sometimes, just sometimes, he wished fervently that he had never clapped eyes on the man.

He had been less than pleased also when Scully had appeared flushed and slightly dishevelled- looking at the desk of his assistant, demanding an immediate meeting and not being too quiet about it despite being informed that Skinner was currently in conference and couldn't be disturbed, behaving in a most un-Scullylike way as she disregarded the instruction to come back later, barging in to Skinner's office without even knocking, her eyes glittering with an intensity that he had seen only once before – when she was desperately trying to find a way to locate Mulder when he had taken off on his ridiculous quest to find God knows what in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and very nearly got himself killed in the process.

Skinner had put both his professional reputation and his career on the line for her that day, an act of faith that she would prevail, that she knew what she was doing; his belief in her rewarded when she once again plucked her wayward partner from the brink and delivered him back more or less whole. Few of the Agents under his command could elicit the same response from him, but there was just something about Dana Scully that had gotten under his skin a very long time ago. Not only was she one of the most capable Agents he had ever had the pleasure of working with, he had found over the years that she exuded a quiet strength, a powerful resoluteness coupled with a high moral code that made it difficult in the extreme to deny her when she needed support.

But her behaviour right then had been unacceptable and Skinner at least had to go through the motions of reprimanding her, silencing her attempts to speak with a single barked order as he grasped a hold of her arm and resolutely removed her from his office. She was dressed casually, a state extremely unlike her and one which he had only experienced a handful of times, the fact that she was divested of her usual heels took inches from her height, but right then as she stood before him, the light bouncing off the glassed panels that made up the outer office and reflecting back at him from out of those incredible eyes, she had never seemed more formidable.

Fire and ice in those eyes; eyes that drew him in and made him want to grasp at her like a drowning man seeking absolution.

He had been slightly shocked at the desperation that radiated from her as she stood rigidly before him, clenching and unclenching her small fists at her side, an action that matched perfectly with the way she clenched her jaw against the incredulous tone her superior agent had adopted.

"He's missing" She repeated. "I haven't seen him since yesterday morning. His cel is switched off and he hasn't been home."

Skinner couldn't help but raise a questioning eyebrow at her statement, wondering, not for the first time just how much time his two agents spent together when out of work. It was an action Scully immediately picked up on and beneath the pale skin, a slight flush began to spread across her face.

"I waited there for him in his apartment. All night as it turned out. He never showed, never called..." she swallowed heavily, softening her tone and turning away from Skinner's assistant who was now feigning disinterest and making a piss poor job of it. The last thing Scully needed was for Mulder to once again become the topic of speculation within the fucking typing pool.

"I'm worried about him Sir...this case...the last few days have been..." she groped for the right verb to ensure Skinner understood the potential gravity of the situation; "Difficult for him"

"How difficult?"

Scully closed her eyes briefly, the image of Mulders bloodied face as he clawed desperately at his skin when in the grip of such abject terror he had only barely been reachable, locked inside the darkness of his own nightmare, a nightmare she had managed to bring him out of before he did himself serious harm. But the 'what ifs?' loomed dark and dangerous inside of her, a gnawing fear of what might have happened to him had she not been there to pull him back, of just how much damage he might have wrought upon himself. And as the hours had passed with no word from him, the fear had grown and swelled inside of her until nothing else existed, blotting out any semblance of rationality and driving the breath from her body every time she thought about it. And suddenly, despite herself, despite the professional facade she built around herself like a fortress, she found her throat closing, unable to find the right words as her eyes began to burn with unshed tears she just barely managed to keep in check.

It was enough for Skinner and he nodded curtly.

"Stay here Scully. I'll make some calls."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Wake up!"

The voice cut in to Mulders consciousness like a scythe, a strident reminder of the pain that once more began to pulse incessantly inside his head and which matched the agony of cramped muscles kept in one position for too long. In fact, in a straight battle between pain centres he wasn't entirely sure which would win out because he just hurt. He hurt everywhere, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, it was difficult to know where one torturous misery ended and the next began. Add to that the fact that he was shivering hard enough to cause his teeth to clash together inside his aching jaw notched the apparent wretchedness of his current situation up another level or two. But despite the pain that radiated through him, white hot and constant, he found that this time he was slightly more aware of himself. He remembered leaving the Hoover building and heading for Callahans, a bar he and Scully occasionally visited after a hard day at work, choosing to unwind a little so as to leave the rigours of a challenging case behind for the night. They rarely drank much – the simple act of spending an hour or so talking nonsense usually had the desired effect – and today (or was it yesterday?) had been no exception. He remembered ordering a single scotch, throwing a note on to the bar before exiting the main lounge area to go take a piss. The drink had been waiting for him when he got back and he had downed it in three swift chugs, screwing his face up slightly against the alcohol as it burned a fiery trail within him and then...and then...everything had just dissolved in to blackness until he had found himself here. Battered and bruised due to God knows what, the damp of the concrete floor permeating his clothing and settling deep inside of him, adding to the shock that his body must surely be experiencing due to his injuries.

Drugged? Was I drugged?

It would certainly account for his earlier confusion, that rolling sense of disorientation that had left him nauseous and dizzy as he fought to regain any sense of equilibrium because now, even through the debilitating pain, his mind felt sharper than it had the last time he had woken.

Then the voice came again, louder this time.

"I said it's time to wake up!"

And Mulder gasped as a torrent of icy cold liquid hit him squarely in the face, his gasps turning to a round of wracking coughs that threatened to tear him apart, his eyes flying open even as he tried to push himself backwards away from the assault, feet scrabbling for purchase against the now slick concrete surface, arching his back against the painful spasm that sliced through him which, almost against his will, forced a strangled shriek from deep within.

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dim light within the concrete fortress he found himself in, hampered more than a little by the fact that it had immediately become apparent that one of his eyes was swollen almost shut and any attempt to open it caused fresh pain to settle behind it that was so sickening he felt the bile begin to rise at the back of his throat and it took every ounce of self control he had to not simply lean over and discharge the contents of his stomach on to the pitted grey surface that was now awash with water that was rapidly soaking in to his clothing.

"Here, drink this"

A hand appeared in front of his line of vision, holding a brightly coloured plastic cup with a spouted lid. A childs sippy cup.

The bastard is offering me a fucking sippy cup.

Mulder turned his head away, clamping his lips together as he did so, ignoring the sudden and violent thirst that had come alive at the prospect of taking liquid down his parched throat.

"It's just water Agent Mulder. Nothing more and nothing less."

That voice. Youngish. Male. Vaguely familer but only casually so, stored deep inside his eidetic memory but not really acknowledged at the time as being important enough to be able to match a name to it in the future.

"Who are you?" the words sounded far away, as though someone else had spoken them, weakened and wavering as he fought against the cold in order to force his lips to cooperate.

"You don't remember me?"

And then the hand was withdrawn, opening up Mulder's field of vision just enough to be able to scrutinize the face before him.

White. Early thirties, blonde hair, neatly trimmed. Clean shaven. Nothing remarkable to distinguish him from hundreds of thousands of other unremarkable American males; until he reached the eyes, eyes that glittered with a maniacal intensity that only equalled the hatred that burned within them. Those eyes...he had seen those eyes before...

We will catch him, I promise you that we will catch him...for everything he has taken from you I will find a way to give you the justice you deserve; the justice that she deserves and if it takes me days or weeks or months or years I will find him. Know that I will never give up on the notion of justice and neither should you. For Elice I will find him...For Elice I will never walk away...

"Oh my God."

"You remember me now don't you Agent Mulder? You promised...you promised her...but what did you do instead"

Mulder closed his eyes.

"I walked away" he whispered.

Continued chapter twelve