Chapter 26
When I arrive at my apartment building, Mulder and Scully jump out of her car, nearly giving me a heart attack and making me drop my keys.
"Laila, what happened?" Scully asks, rushing forward. I realize my face tells it all. I open my mouth, trying to explain, but the words are hard to come by.
"We were attacked," I manage to say before my throat closes up with emotion. "I'm so sorry," I choke out, unlocking the building door. If I had to guess, the two of them exchanged a glance and are now following me to the elevator.
"The tape?" Mulder asks. His voice is harsh but not as intensely as I feared it would be. I was hoping Skinner would do this part. I nod, and then have to brace myself against the wall to keep steady.
"What happened to you?" Scully asks, wrapping an arm around my waist and letting me lean on her. I sigh.
"I got very acquainted with a stairwell wall. And then also with the floor," I say sardonically. As we rise to my floor, Scully pushes up my eyelids to examine me.
"And with all that acquainting, it seems you got a concussion," she says. I wave her off.
"Yeah, the doctors said already. Mine's worse than Skinner's, but he took the brunt of the punches." I'm at my door now, fumbling with my keyring.
"Did this happen at the hospital?" Mulder asks. I nod.
"Yeah. We tried to follow the suspicious man and got ambushed. I should have done better…" I hear myself mumbling.
"Were you able to get a look at any of their faces?" Mulder asks, interrupting my pity party. I manage to get the door open and let us in. Scully helps me to the couch while Mulder takes the armchair.
"I saw the first one for a few seconds, but the next two I only saw for maybe half a second each. Oh," I say with a snap of my fingers, "Skinner must have seen them better because he knew one of them, said his name even." Another partner glance, no doubt.
"Krychek?" Mulder says.
"That's the one." I hope I didn't say anything wrong, but the tension in the room seems to have skyrocketed.
"The next time I get the chance to kill the son-of-a-bitch I'm not going to waste it," Mulder curses. Scully just sighs.
"Without the tape," she begins. I hang my head. "What do we do now?"
"Skinner said he would figure something out – and he very well might. He's very smart. Smart enough to know I can't be trusted with any actual duties." There's a tense silence that only confirms my fears. Scully changes the subject.
"Is it okay if Mulder and I crash here for a few hours? We need to lay low."
"Yes, of course you can. Always welcome to. Eat anything you can find – I haven't gone grocery shopping in two weeks." Mulder has made it to the fridge.
"Living off of takeout, I see." That gets a small smile out of me.
"Nothing wrong with that, is there?" I manage to joke.
"Let me get you some water, and you can lie down. With concussions you need to rest."
"Alright." My apartment is small enough that the direction of my bedroom is evident. "Excuse the mess." I forgot how messy I had left the place – clothes strewn about, pizza boxes, mail.
"Struggling to balance work-personal life?" Scully says while picking a path through the debris.
"What gave you that idea?" I grumble. I lie down, and Scully gets me a glass of water.
"Let's get you out of these clothes," she says and helps me peel off my bloodied pantsuit and step into some sweats and a t-shirt she finds on the floor. I wince as I reach my arm back to unclasp my bra.
"Thank you. You and Mulder are welcome to spend the night here. You can join me in bed and Mulder can take the couch, or you and he can have the bed if you prefer, and I-"
"It's not like that," she says with a gentle smile. I just shrug and climb under the covers. I'm exhausted.
"Scully, I am so sorry that I lost the tape. I should have known-"
"Hey, YOU didn't lose it. Skinner was the one dumb enough to keep it on his person during a chase." I just shake my head.
"I wish I was as good an agent as you are. Maybe then we would still have the tape. Maybe then Mulder and Skinner would trust me with actual investigative work." I feel the mattress sag slightly as she sits down.
"Simonson, since you apparently haven't realized yet, Skinner and Mulder are doing their best to shelter you. Not that I agree with that approach, but they're not doing it because they don't trust you or don't think you're capable. It seems they've decided to be protective of you." I scoff.
"But that's ridiculous." I puff air through my nose. "I don't need protecting." She smiles sympathetically.
"You could try telling them that, but I don't know how much it will help. You're young and beautiful, and men, no matter how progressive they may be, tend to infantilize such women."
"But you're beautiful, and you can't be more than 35, and they don't..." I trail off as I realize how protective Mulder can be of Scully. At least Skinner seems to treat her as an equal.
"As you get more cases under your belt and prove you can take care of yourself, they'll ease up a bit. But this x-files stuff – you've seen how deadly it can be. Involve yourself if you want, but by no means feel like you have to."
"I need to know the truth, and I don't mind putting myself in danger to find it." She nods.
"You'd best make that clear to them – they'll stop being cavemen eventually," she assures me. I chuckle at that. "Now you rest." I nod and am asleep almost as soon as I close my eyes.
I wake only a few times the rest of the evening – once to whispered conversation in the living room, once when Scully brings me food, and once when she wakes me up just to check on me.
In the morning, I wake up to sun streaming into the window. I rub my eyes and stretch. That's odd – I'm usually eating breakfast before the sun makes it over the horizon. A glance at the clock on my nightstand tells me I overslept.