FADING LIGHT – PART III

BY

AllyinthekeyofX

SUMMARY - For everything given, much has been taken.

ARCHIVE - Anywhere, but please let me know.

DISCLAIMER - All characters contained within are the property of FOX and Ten thirteen productions.

FEEDBACK - Yes please. Everyone loves a review. It costs nothing but a couple of minutes of your time. The writing process takes MUCH longer and reviews make it worth it.

AUTHOR'S NOTES - Ok folks, here's the next exciting instalment. I am having so much fun with this and I am very sorry for keeping you hanging. All will become clear as we go along. Please keep reviewing. It makes me giddy. And when I'm giddy I tend to write more easily ;) I want to take this opportunity to thank the amazingly talented Vered Gilad Friedman for designing my much sought after and adored cover! Covers make it real!

Ally x

CHAPTER ONE

Georgetown Memorial Hospital 4:16pm

It's been an exhausting day for us both I think and as I surreptitiously glance across the small room to where Scully is sat atop the bed, my emotions threaten once again to almost overwhelm me. Because she's alive. She is well. And she is here.

But the costs it seems have been enormous for her; for us.

Because she cannot remember; she cannot remember any of it.

The call from Skinner had dragged me from a fitful sleep and the sound of the phone trilling in my ear from where I had left it, not six inches away from me lest news of her should come, had caused me to bolt awake with the same feeling of hope and dread that had become all too familiar since she had gone missing five days before.

Five short days.

Five days that had seemed to me like a lifetime.

Five days were I couldn't eat without throwing up, couldn't sleep without nightmares of her laying somewhere cold and dark, the back of her head missing and the gun clutched in her hand came to plague me. Five days where I thought I had lost her and, not surprisingly, had lost myself right along with her.

Skinner had refused to let me anywhere near the investigation and subsequent desperate search for her after, with my usual aplomb, I had managed to blot my copybook before the first day had even gone by. After hearing one of the hastily appointed task force agents, a slimy little brown-nosed bastard named Rigg, lean in to his equally smarmy sidekick and proclaim the absolute futility and waste of man-power to afford so much time and resource on searching for a dead woman.

It had taken three agents to drag me off the oily piece of shit and I think if Skinner hadn't intervened, his voice being the only one that managed to cut through the red mist that had descended upon me so completely, I would have killed him right there and then in the conference room.

As it was he got away lightly with nothing more than a heavy case of busted pride and I earned myself a seven day suspension while OPR considered my eventual punishment. But the suspension itself hadn't bothered me unduly because no punishment they might meet out to me could even come close to making me feel any worse than I already had.

Skinner had driven me home himself. I think he thought he owed it to me after effectively blocking my access from the investigation and while I sat and seethed with unrequited revenge, deep down I knew he had done the right thing. That I was way too close to have even a shred of objectivity any more. And before he had left, he had dropped a hand on my shoulder; a wholly uncharacteristic gesture from this most tightly controlled of men, his expression such a mix of compassion and steely determination that I was unable to speak.

We will find her Mulder.

And I had nodded numbly, even then not really believing that she had any intention of being found.

Which was ironic as it turned out, because in fact, Scully was the one who had found him; had found us.

I can only imagine his complete and utter shock that morning when he had turned and seen her standing in his office; a Scully, who while a little thinner than she had been six months ago when the cancer had started to take hold, to all intents and purposes looked and acted completely normally. From the tips of her customary three inched heeled 'come fuck me' shoes to the top of her impeccably styled hair she stood in Skinners office looking every inch the consummate professional.

Oh yeah, Scully had always known how to make an entrance.

I had literally thrown myself out of her apartment and in to my car, and had negotiated the rush hour traffic that clogged the DC streets like a man possessed. In fact I can't believe I didn't kill myself or even worse, some other poor bastard, because I arrived at the parking garage of the Hoover building with absolutely no conscious recollection of how I'd got there.

Because the mantra that had begun repeating itself in my head before I had even ended Skinner's call had simply increased in volume and urgency inside me until it effectively blotted everything out.

She's alive. She's alive.

Skinner had not really furnished me with too many details during the call. I think mainly because he was smart enough to realise that I would be incapable of moving past the fact that she was still with us. That I needed in some small way to process the unbelievable before I could even hope to allow anything else to crowd it out of my conscious thought.

It wasn't until I reached skinner's office that he even attempted to explain and despite my need to push past him to see for myself that she was really there, something in his expression gave me enough pause to hear his words.

She doesn't remember, Mulder.

But as I walked carefully in to his office, almost afraid of what I might find, his words just didn't seem to matter. Because the sight of her standing there drove every single thought from my mind as the mantra started up once again.

She's alive. Oh Christ she's alive.

And not only was she alive, she looked completely normal in every way. Better than normal in fact. She looked exquisitely beautiful, impeccable, controlled. Until she locked eyes with me and I saw the fear and confusion that radiated from within them.

The tremor in her voice that she tried unsuccessfully to hide from me.

"Mulder?..."

And I had been quite unable to prevent myself from crossing the few feet that separated us, and wrapping my arms around her, breathing in the scent of her, the essence that was Scully as the tears filmed my eyes, born of a relief so intense I think I would have collapsed if she hadn't been there to hold me up.

And right then, I didn't care as to what might come later, the difficulties that would surely arrive to cloud this day for us both. Because she was alive, she was here, and I was pretty sure she was once again whole.

But alongside that was knowledge that she was balanced precariously on the edge. That whatever happened from here on in, her life had changed forever; because a part of it had been stolen from her even as the rest had been given back.

He giveth and he taketh away. Because he had the power, right?

And it wasn't lost on me that this time, he had taken from both of us.

I had gently led Scully to the small, utilitarian sofa that sat against the wall in Skinners office. Pushing her down on to it and hunkering down in front of her, taking her shaking hands in mine as I sought answers that might allow us both to understand.

"Do you know what day it is Scully"

"It's Monday"

There was absolutely no hesitation in her voice.

Friday. It was Friday.

And even despite the information Skinner had briefly furnished me with as to her current recollection of recent history, it still shocked me to hear her tremulously proclaim that it was September when in actuality, it hadn't been September for almost seven months. Seven months since she discovered the cancer was back, discovered she was dying. Seven months. Gone. Taken from her just like that.

And it became clear that while she could 'remember' being at her apartment this morning preparing herself for the day ahead, that the memory was wholly false. Because I think I would have noticed if Scully had been wandering around following her morning rituals and I was damn sure that the only occupants of her home this morning had consisted of me and my myriad of dark thoughts.

She could remember in minute detail the events of yesterday – or at least her perception of yesterday – and as she recounted them to me, her recollections seemed vaguely familiar; the case we had been working on, the thick turkey salad sandwiches she had fetched us from the deli across the street when we decided to eat lunch in the office. The fact they had put pickle on mine even though she had asked them not to.

The memories were completely new and fresh in her mind, just as though their events had happened only yesterday. Which to Scully of course, they had.

And In as much as it was worrying and perplexing and unexplainable, I knew that there were far more pressing matters that required our attention. Especially since, on gently swiping away her hair from where it lay, vibrant and glossy against her neck, I wasn't even remotely surprised to find evidence of the fresh, still healing cut that marred her porcelain skin; absolute and irrefutable evidence that whatever had happened that night in her apartment just five short days ago, had had nothing at all to do with Scully's free will.

She had been summoned.

Directed.

Just as we had been directed for so many years.

Explaining to her the events of the last few painful months fell to me of course and as I sat in Skinners office trying to make her understand just how enormous the stakes had been, one thing became obvious. That she couldn't be told about the relationship we had shared.

That to know what else had been taken from her might very well break her. Bad enough that the life she knew had disappeared, even worse to find a life she had no knowledge of had also been taken away.

And as I observe her now, sat miserably on the hard hospital bed, knees drawn up against her chest, arms wrapped around them I know that she has thrown her walls back up. An act of protection to keep her from falling. Desperately hanging on to herself amidst such internal chaos as she tries to make sense of everything she has learned.

And not telling her will surely break me.

But I keep reminding myself over and over that she is alive.

And that has to be enough.

Continued chapter two

Notes – This chapter forced me from out of my bed at 5:30 this morning because it wouldn't shut up. I dreamed it on and off all night. And your reviews made me want to give it to you for breakfast. Reward me with reviews lol

Ally x