They're looking for a man who'd been accused of tormenting Georgetown locals for the past several months. The means by which the victims were tormented varied, as did the credibility of their claims, but his latest victim had been the mayor's daughter and now the F.B.I. was facing a lot of pressure to get this case solved. Skinner in particular had a fire lit under his ass and he was calling in anyone who could help, including the X-Files unit. Mulder's profile helped break the case, and now they were closing in on a warehouse he might be hiding at.
Scully just couldn't remember how she got separated from everyone else, nor where Mulder went. One minute they were arranging a plan, and the next she was by herself, an overwhelming sense of dread growing with each step she took. Her anxiety was beginning to make her feel claustrophobic to the extent that even her skin felt uncomfortable.
The area she was in looked like several abandoned storage units, connected by a long, grimy hallway. The only light source was a few dim, flickering fluorescent tubes hanging precariously from the ceiling with rusted wires. Despite the voice in her head telling her that she was being irrational, her gun kept trembling in her clammy grip, and she felt like her legs might give out with every unsteady step.
"P-please."
Her blood ran cold when she heard what sounded like Mulder pleading. "Mulder?" she whispered, trying to keep her nerves at bay so she could find him.
"Not her," he begged with a choked sob, slightly louder than the last time. The desperate tone of his voice sent a chill down her spine. In tense situations, she was accustomed to his ill-timed humor or his frustrated anger, but she'd never heard him sound so utterly hopeless.
Her brows furrowed in concern, and she willed her legs to walk faster down the hallway. When she was nearing the final room of the hallway, a loud pop caused her to flinch. Her desperation to get to Mulder outweighed her fear, and she rounded the corner with her gun cocked and at the ready, scanning the room for any threats.
It was empty, except for Mulder. His body was strewn across the ground as a puddle of red bloomed out from underneath him, the liquid running in thick rivulets down the gentle slope of the floor towards a sewage drain.
"No!" Subconsciously, she knew she was screaming, but it sounded so raw and animalistic, that she wouldn't have believed it was her if it wasn't for the pain in her throat. Her knees ached as she threw herself onto the cement ground at his side, slipping on his blood as she crawled towards him.
A bullet wound to the temple.
The finality of that assessment was too much to bear, and her mind went into overdrive with the desperate need to help him — to alter the permanence of what laid before her eyes. Stop the blood flow. Dress the head. Suture the entrance and exit wounds. Every tangible thing her medical training could think of was useless. She'd seen enough head trauma to know that people didn't come back from something so severe. But this was Mulder.
The mind she fell in love with was currently splayed on the floor, spilling out of the mangled flesh of a face she'd spent hours dreaming of. Her hands trembled as they roamed his body wildly, and she had to resist the urge to scoop the brain matter off the floor with her hands and press her palm against the exit wound, as if he might be okay if she could just put him back together.
"It was him or you," the voice from the shadows explained. "He didn't hesitate."
She looked up just in time to see the suspect they'd been chasing fleeing the room. His words struck her like the lick of a whip as she gripped the body of her partner. They drove here together. He'd been fine a couple of minutes ago. She couldn't rationalize how so much could change in a moment. The senselessness was disorienting and she had to resist the urge to vomit from the brutality of it all.
Scully's face burned from the heat of her tears as a knot in her throat threatened to choke her. "M-Mulder?" she whimpered. With trembling hands, she pushed against him once, irrationally hoping the jolt would cause him to open his eyes. Of course, it didn't, and the overwhelming, all-consuming sense of loss began suffocating her. "No, no, no, no, no, no-," she begged over and over again, as if death might hear she was willing to make a deal and take her instead.
She would have gladly offered herself.
Images flashed into her mind at a rapid pace. Snapshots of a fantasy world she usually only allowed herself to enjoy in the comfort of her own bed: kissing him, making love, promising the rest of their lives to each other — each adding a stab of pain to her already bleeding heart. She knew when Mulder was feeling self-deprecating or guilty, he'd insist that she should be living an alternate path he imagined where she was working somewhere else, with a husband and a family, living blissfully without his influence in her life. Little did he know, when she imagined her idyllic life, he was always at the center.
They say when someone dies, their life flashes before their eyes. The barrage of moments that kept coming to her: the feel of his cheek against her hair, the warmth of his breath tickling her nose when he kissed her cheek, the way his laughter warmed her — seven years manifested themselves into each tear that rolled down her face. Her life and the one she wanted with him were flashing before her eyes because, without Mulder, she might as well be dead.
Suddenly all the mundane parts of life they shared together became profound upon the realization they'd never happen again, and all she wanted was to be curled up next to him while they watched a movie and enjoyed each other's company.
"Please," she begged. Her voice was raw and broken while she pushed her hands against his sternum in a feeble attempt to jumpstart his heart while hers was breaking.
Please open your eyes. Please look at me. Please stop bleeding. Please tell me another joke. Please let me tell you how much I love you.
The realization brutally ripped all the air from her lungs. He'll never know. She thought of the three words he confessed in his hospital bed a year ago, and now her response, meant as a self-defense mechanism, seemed cruel.
"You can't leave me, not like this," she keened, pushing his hair back with a shaky hand. His skin was cool to the touch and was a disturbing contrast to the warmth that always emanated from him.
A screeching, metallic sound made her jump and instinctually lurch forward in an attempt to cover Mulder's body and protect it with her own.
Only her palms hit cold concrete. Her nails practically snapped from the force of her fingers skimming the unforgiving floor. The frantic movement of her hands was warped from the tears occluding her vision as she tried to make sense of what just happened.
"I found her!"
The sound of the voice she never thought she'd hear again resonated from behind her, and she twisted from her position on her knees to look at the source.
In the doorway of the room was Mulder — healthy and alive.
"Mulder?" she whimpered, her voice sounding pathetic to even her own ears.
His expression of relief quickly morphed into concern as he stepped toward her. "Scully, what's wrong?"
She looked at her hands, surprised when they weren't covered in his blood, before glancing around the room to see if maybe it was someone else's body she'd been hovering over. There was nothing. It was just an average, empty storage space.
The mixture of adrenaline, confusion, and paranoia caused her to shy away from him, falling gracelessly onto her ass. "Y-you-" she stammered.
"It's me. I'm here," he assured, crouching in front of her.
She couldn't make sense of what she'd just seen, and the overwhelming fear that someone was trying to trick her started growing. "Prove it," she requested, protectively drawing her arms against her chest when he tried to reach out to her.
Mulder looked hurt, but obliged, knowing all the precedents that led to her doubt. He looked reflective for a moment, wanting to think of something effective. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening, he leaned even closer and whispered, "Last week I confessed to you that one time I got so drunk during one of the Gunmen's poker nights that I woke up cuddling Byers while Langly cuddled me."
Scully's trepidation dissolved and suddenly all she could do was sob as she launched herself forward, throwing her arms around his neck. Her throat felt raw from the force of trying to stifle the sounds she was involuntarily emitting. As soon as she started towards him, Mulder's arms were wrapped around her. He didn't hesitate to anchor her to him, sitting on the ground with her in between his bent knees so he could rock her gently.
"Mulder, is she okay?" Skinner called from behind them.
Even though it was Skinner, she felt Mulder's arms tighten protectively around her. "I-I don't know," he replied. As he spoke, his chest vibrated against her cheek. Lifting a hand, she pressed her palm against his breast bone, focusing on the steady heartbeat thumping in his chest.
Suddenly his lips were against her ear. "Scully?" he murmured, his warm breath filling the conch of her ear. "Are you hurt?"
"What happened?" she asked, looking around frantically in search of an answer.
His head cocked to the side as he scanned her face. "You don't remember anything?"
Scully took in the agents surveying the room and the outside hallway, and bits and pieces started coming back to her. "We came here to look for Gino Palazzolo."
"Did you run into him?" he asked. He used his index finger to brush some of her hair away from her face before wiping away the tears that she couldn't keep from falling. His hand lingered so that he was cupping her chin, caressing her jawbone with his thumb in an attempt to center her.
Scully didn't know how to answer. She'd seen the perp, but she saw him at the same time she saw Mulder's dead body. Apparently, that hadn't been real, so she didn't know what was. While trying to parse out her thoughts, she caught a rookie agent staring at her with an expression of pity, and she felt her face burn with embarrassment. "I don't know," she murmured, pulling her arms away from his neck so she could stand up. Despite wanting to maintain her pride and exert her independence in front of several fellow agents, she physically couldn't put any distance between herself and Mulder, resulting in her leaving his embrace only to stand directly in his personal space.
"What were you doing in here?" Skinner asked softly, grabbing the crook of her arm to help steady her.
"I don't know," she whispered, brushing her hair back. "I think I heard something in here, but I-I don't know."
"Agent Scully, I'm going to have Officer Pineda take you to the hospital to get checked out, okay?" Skinner explained, his stern, authorial voice faltering from his concern.
She felt panic coarse through her veins like ice. "Mulder," she croaked.
It must've sounded like a question because Mulder started explaining something to her. "I'm going with Skinner to try and find Palazzolo-"
What if it was a premonition?
"No," she barked, grabbing onto his wrist forcefully.
Mulder's brows furrowed and he placed a finger under her chin to tilt her face up towards his. "Scully?"
She didn't know what to say. If she said what she'd just seen, she'd sound crazy, but Scully felt an overwhelming need to have Mulder with her. She couldn't shake the lingering anxiety surrounding what she'd just seen and her fear that if they separated, it might become a reality. She needed to have him in her sight in order to know he was safe.
"Did Palazzolo make a threat against Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked from behind her.
If she said yes, she knew Skinner would assign a protection detail, and she didn't want to risk taking two agents away from the case because of her paranoia. At the same time, she wanted to get Mulder as far away from here as possible, and she didn't know what to do. "I think she's in shock," Mulder concluded after a moment of silence.
She still hadn't loosened the vice grip she had on his wrist, and he wasn't making any moves to shuck her off, seemingly finding comfort from being close to her as she was with him. Skinner glanced down at their hands before taking a step towards them, murmuring, "I think it'd be for the best if you took her to the hospital yourself, Agent Mulder."
Then, turning to face her and softening his tone, he asked, "Is there anything you can tell us about what you experienced, Agent Scully?"
Scully glanced up towards Mulder and she was met with an expression of tender concern. Rubbing her thumb across the pulse point of his wrist, feeling for the steady beat that fluttered beneath her thumb, she turned to Skinner and shook her head.