THREE

Scully had taken all of one step into the warehouse and she already knew she'd been too late. She could blame the red lights she'd been stopped at on the way over here, but she knew it was her own fault for not believing him sooner.

His screams for Linda Bowman filled her ears, and she felt her blood run cold.

No, no, no, no, no. The mantra in her head repeated with every footfall as she ran in the direction of his voice. Then, Mulder joined in with one drawn out, anguished scream "No!"

She rounded the corner just in time to see him run to Linda Bowman's feet, collapsing to the ground in front of her as he moved his arms in an unnatural way, as if he was holding onto-

Oh my god.

Scully caught Linda Bowman's gaze and the woman had the audacity to smile at her. She slowed her pace, not wanting to alarm Mulder into anything rash, but he heard her approaching nonetheless. While she'd expected him to be obviously under Bowman's control, she was still taken aback by the pure, unadulterated hatred in his eyes.

"I'm going to kill you," he stated with so much conviction she was surprised he hadn't done it already.

Her suspicions were confirmed from that alone, to him she looked like Bowman, and he'd just thought something awful had happened to her. She wasn't sure what, but she knew that's what had made Mulder so angry.

"Don't listen to her, Mulder," Scully said firmly. She'd never contemplated before if she had any inflections in her voice that were distinct to her, anything that might convey it was her behind the mirage.

"What?" he seethed, his eyes wild like an animal backed into a corner.

"It's me, you were right about her," she replied calmly. "Linda Bowman is pushing you."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he all but spat.

She swallowed thickly, not wanting to make any mistakes. She'd been on the receiving end of Mulder's anger before, but never his hatred. It made her sick. Was this the way he felt when she held a gun to his head at her mother's house? When she'd hurled insecurities and vitriol at him under the false guise of deception?

Behind him she could hear Bowman slowly repeating. "Linda Bowman is in front of you. She killed Scully. You'll never see her again."

Killed . While she knew harm had been caused in some capacity, knowing Mulder thought she was dead and this was his reaction made her want to cry. Scully had seen Mulder mad on many occasions, but this was different. He was a man with nothing left to lose, and she felt her heart ache at the realization that losing her was all it took. In his world, he'd just barely gotten her back from the cancer scare only for her to die on the dingy floor of a warehouse.

"She's lying to you," Bowman stated confidently.

Scully wanted to tell her to shut the hell up, but she knew better than to take her eyes off Mulder in this moment. He'd likely kill her if she did, and she knew in her soul that once he realized what he'd done, he'd be quick to join her - Modell's game of Russian Roulette reaching a sick completion two years later.

"I'm Scully," she lamented, her voice wavering despite her best efforts. "Linda's right behind you. She's telling you I'm her."

She saw a flash of something in Mulder's eyes, but then he glanced back down at Linda's feet, his breath hitching in his chest before turning back to her. "You killed her!" he seethed with wet eyes.

"Mulder, I'm Scully. I'm not dead. She wants you to shoot me. She knows you'll never forgive yourself," Scully implored. She couldn't let that happen.

"Shut up!" he screamed, using a desperate tone she'd never heard from him before.

She flinched as tears started welling in her eyes. "Listen to me!" she screamed back. Scull was visibly trembling and she wondered if it looked like Linda Bowman was shaking and crying in front of him. "Your mother is Teena! Your sister is Samantha!"

"Shut up!" he screamed again. Scully could tell in his mind he was trying not to listen to her to avoid being influenced by Bowman, completely unaware that he already was.

"I warned you," she pleaded, hoping using something from a private conversation would help establish trust. "Don't play her game."

Mulder was breathing heavily as he digested her words, but before he could say anything else, Linda Bowman moved from behind Mulder and Scully took her shot. He jumped, but put his gun up in stunned surprise, looking at the floor rather than anything else. She saw his head pivot to the same spot he'd been checking back to as he stared down in shellshock.

"Mulder?" she called out, her voice sounding weak and scared - exactly how she felt.

He turned to her and she saw dazed recognition. There was still plenty of disbelief, but she felt confident enough to walk towards him, placing a comforting hand on his arm when she was next to him.

Scully wanted to comfort him immediately, but she needed to make sure Linda was incapable of putting on any other smoke and mirrors. She bent down to check a pulse and stared in disgust as Linda rasped, "You think you can hold me?" Looking at Mulder, Scully stood up and watched as his mouth moved and made no sound - he just stared blankly at the ground.

"Yes, we'd like an ambulance to 214 Chanel Avenue," she stated into the phone, watching out of her periphery as Mulder stumbled slightly away from the scene. She walked behind him, knowing Linda wasn't going anywhere and wanting to make sure he didn't fall. "We have a suspect down with a gunshot wound and an agent going into shock," she replied as she watched Mulder start to tremble.

As soon as she knew they were on the way, she put her phone in her pocket and gently whispered, "Mulder?"

Mulder turned around and locked eyes on her with an intensity that gave her chills. In an uncharacteristic move, he stepped forward and grabbed her with a desperation that tore a gasp from her lips. Within an instant his hands were in Scully's hair, threading his fingers through the strands to feel for a non-existent bullet wound. She hadn't brushed her hair since that morning and that was before putting hairspray in it, so his fingers would catch every now and then on a snare and he'd pause to avoid hurting her.

"You're okay, you're okay," he kept whispering over and over. It wasn't a question or a statement - it was a prayer. His fingers were trembling against her scalp and she was even more certain he was in shock.

"Mulder-" she started, only to be interrupted by him wrapping his arms around her and clutching her body to his, as if maybe she would dissolve into him and he could keep her safe forever. He kept trying to kiss her temples, her forehead, anything he could reach really, but his puckered mouth kept giving way to open mouthed sobs pressed against her skin. She felt her brow furrow as she wrapped her arms around his middle, letting him coddle her in an attempt to comfort himself. It was working for both of them.

"I-I'm so sor-ry, Scully," he panted. His inability to catch his breath made her worry he was having a panic attack and was going to make him hyperventilate.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Mulder," she stated firmly, rubbing her hands up and down his back.

He pulled away slightly so he could cup her cheeks with his palms. "I scared you," he rasped, holding her face in his hands like she would fall apart without him. How true the reverse seemed to be. "Y-you were scared."

"I-no, no, Mulder I knew you'd never hurt me," she replied shakily, trying to get her own adrenaline under control as she put her hands on his forearms.

His face contorted into a mask of pain again as he shook his head. "I wanted to. Bowman didn't even need to tell me to, I wanted to kill-" he gasped, too overwhelmed to speak. "I wanted to kill you," he whispered in anguish as tear tracks cut his cheeks.

"You wanted to kill her, not me," she corrected, moving her arms to hold his forearms lightly.

"I saw you shoot yourself," he sobbed. "You begged me to make her stop and I-I couldn't."

Scully's heart broke for him. Seeing the fake crime scene at his apartment where it was made to look like he'd shot himself was painful enough, she couldn't imagine seeing it played out in front of her. "Oh, Mulder," she whispered, a tear falling off of her eyelashes and onto his hand.

"I'll never get that image out of my head."

She wasn't sure what to do, so she took one of his hands and guided it to her chest, trying to ignore how the warmth of his palm felt against the tops of her breasts. "Do you feel that? I'm alive. I'm okay."

Scully felt his fingers flex slightly, pressing into her skin. "Your heart's racing," he said. A huff of exasperation almost escapes her lips that he managed to find another way to worry about her, but his voice sounds clearer than it just had. He was starting to move into the present with her instead of replaying the last five minutes, and that was exactly where she needed him to be.

She placed her hand over his shirt and felt a similar thrumming within his own chest. "So is yours," she replied, not taking her other hand off of his so he'd keep it there on her chest. "We're okay, Mulder."

Another tear slid down his cheek as his eyes just roamed her face. It was as if he thought looking away for a second would break the illusion, and he'd turn to find her laying lifeless on the floor again. The hand that wasn't over her heart moved and wiped away her tears, spending a moment to caress the skin of her cheek before moving somewhere else - the nape of her neck, her hair, her hip, anywhere he could.

Mulder was touching her so intimately it made her blush, made her worry what the officers coming would think when they saw the way he was clinging onto her, but shucking him off was the last thing she'd consider doing.

They needed this.