"First, do no harm."
The doctor stood over the woman, staring at her. In her catatonic state, she was unresponsive, not caring how long he stood there and stared at her. Not caring how long he thought. And he thought about his actions for a long time. The syringe was full and ready with a double dose - 400 ccs- of the analytic histamine she had been taking throughout her treatment. He knew it was too much. He knew what it could do. He knew that it could kill her.
"First, do no harm."
He remembered someone had given him a copy of the Hippocratic oath, framed beautifully to hang in his office next to his degree; a degree he worked odd jobs and late nights to get. His family was proud of him. They knew he would do great things and stop great suffering in the world. He pledged his life and skill to do so, and his family taught him that his word was his bond.
Yet here he stood, needle in hand, ready to do harm to someone helpless to stop him.
"First, do no harm."
He knew better. When had it come to this? When had become such a coward? And why did this man, this evil man without regard for human life, have the power to make him forget the oath he took as a doctor? He knew the answer. Because he gave it to him; he handed that power over to him willingly and without a fight. He had kowtowed to a bully. He had even scared him to the point that he carried a gun; a man of medicine carried a weapon that ended lives. His medical bag open, he could see the gun he carried as protection against this evil man, just in case.
"First, do no harm."
He knew what he had to do; it was what was right, and not what had been ordered to do by a bully. He put down the syringe, and pulled the gun out of the bag. He held it for a moment, then sat it down on the table. Satisfied with his decision, he left the room to gather his thoughts.
****************************************************************
"Meena, it's time."
The young girl took Meena gently by the arm. Meena looked around at everybody, and smiled. She knew them all now, she knew their faces. There was Uncle Bill and Uncle Frokee; Uncles Langly and Byers. Grandma Maggie - her mother's mother. The beautiful baby boy she loved so much, and the face she held so dear. Dana Katherine Scully Mulder, her mother. She remembered them all, she remembered who she was. It was all becoming clear.
There was one face, however, she couldn't see, and it upset her.
The young girl knew Meena was upset, and took her by the hand. "It's alright," she said gently. "When it's time, you will know. But you must go now. You are in danger. And they need you. You have to help them. You have to go back."
"Yes," Meena replied. "It's time."
The doctor had left the room when his patient's eyes registered the first flickers of recognition. He had traveled far down the corridor in thought, and did realize he had strayed so far.
By the time he made it back to his patient's room, she and his gun had disappeared.
***********************************************************************
"Drew! Drew, stay with us!"
The blood that rushed to Scully's head now pounded unmercifully in her ears, just as it did in the ears of the two who shared her fate. She made every effort to relieve that pressure by curling up at the waist, trying to get her head at a level that would reverse the blood flow, but the strain on her lower back was too much and she would have to hang back down, upside down, over the water. Krycek tried the same thing as well, and with each violent jerk of his body the chain that held him suspended over the rising water snapped and popped in syncopation. Both Scully and Krycek fought wildly for their lives. Drew, however, seemed to have given up, and Scully knew that if he lost consciousness, if he gave up, the heavy rush of blood to the brain would kill him.
"Come on, Drew! Fight!" Scully screamed. Krycek picked up where Scully left off in her efforts. "Damnit, Drew! Do what I say!" Krycek's order in that tone of voice was just
enough to bring Drew back from the brink. "Or what, DAD?!" he shot back. "Or what? Just what the hell do you plan to do now that you couldn't do, that you didn't do, twenty-four years ago?"
"That's it," Krycek encouraged him. "Get mad, get angry, get pissed off...."
"No, Krycek!" Scully screamed. "His blood pressure is dangerously high..."
"Stay out of this, Scully!" Krycek demanded. "Will you please think about your son's welfare?!" Scully retorted. Drew's comment stopped the conversation between the two enemies.
"Oh yes, DAD; please do!" He continued, seizing the chance to say all those things he'd wanted to say to the man who deserted him his whole life. "Seeing as you never gave a damn about my welfare before, I would be highly interested in seeing if you even know what that is. But how could you," he sputtered angrily, "when you don't have any IDEA what my life has been like. Do you have any idea what its like for a five year old to have the only love he's ever known, the only parents he's ever known snatched away from him? What its like to be bounced around, living in foster homes with people who hated my very presence, never belonging anywhere? What I would have given to know that somebody actually cared about my welfare - something you could have given me - but you didn't even bother to crawl out from under whatever rock you called home to look for me. It never mattered to you whether I existed or not."
"That's not true," Krycek replied.
"Piss off!" Drew shouted back. Krycek was undeterred. "I DID care. I wanted to know who you were the minute, the very second I knew you existed. And whether you choose to believe it or not, I did try to find you. I spent the first five years of your life looking for you, searching for you, and when I found you, he made sure I couldn't get to you at all. You want someone to blame, blame the man who was just in here; blame the man who's responsible for the situation we're in now. But you can't blame me for not trying."
"No," Drew replied when Krycek finished. "I blame you for not trying hard enough."
*******************************************************************
Although it was not easy, Phoebe's swim though the murky depths of the moat was not as difficult as Mulder's had been. She had the luxury of constant oxygen, supplied by the air tank she carried on her back, and unlike Mulder, she was not swimming injured. The currents were rough, but she fought against them.
Phoebe soon saw light pierce the dark depths of the moat, and she swam towards it. Her head broke the surface, and she discovered she was in some sort of a cave or alcove. A naked bulb cast a dim circle of light on the floor, hardly enough for one to judge the content or circumstances of their surroundings. Phoebe soon remedied the situation by pulling the waterproof flashlight from her utility belt, and turning it on.
The brilliant light of the flashlight bounced off the walls and the ceilings, and Phoebe realized that she was in the bowels of the castle. She put the flashlight in her mouth, swam over to the ledge, and pulled herself out. Her bare feet squished on the layer of mold and algae that had grown on the floor, the dampness of the cave providing the perfect breeding ground for such organisms. Repulsed, she shuddered for a second, then pulled her wits about her. "Get ahold of yourself, old girl," she thought as she removed her oxygen tank. It was when she sat it on the ground that she noticed them.
Footprints.
She followed the set of footprints to the wall, where she found another clue.
It was a pair of shoes; shoes she immediately recognized from earlier that day.
They were Mulder's.
She lifted the flashlight so that it shone against the wall. The same algae-mold organism had grown on the walls of the cave, and it was smeared as though someone had slid across it, hugging the wall very tight with their body. But Phoebe couldn't understand why at first; as the light bounced about, she could see that there was plenty of room to move about as one wished. The investigator in her quickly came up with an answer. Without a flashlight or any additional light, Mulder didn't know what lay beyond the small ring of light cast by the single naked bulb in the cave. That's why he hugged the wall; he didn't know how much room he had.
Phoebe walked down the corridor, shining the light ahead of her on the floor as she went. After a few minutes, she saw a door at the end of the corridor, and what looked to be light shining through the bottom of it. The door was the only entrance and exit she saw.
She didn't have the benefit of Mulder's earlier discovery, the secret door hidden in the castle's stone wall.
Phoebe stood there for a second, trying to figure out what she would do next. As she made her plan of attack, she stopped a moment to listen. Whatever she heard was coming from the other side of the door. She cautiously put her ear against the door to listen.
It sounded every bit like running water coming from the other side of the door.
************************************************************
Scully continued to try to escape during the heated father and son exchange. She was getting dizzy, very dizzy, and it was getting harder to remain conscious with each passing minute. She strained at the binds of the straight jacket, vaguely remembering that this was the key to escaping the confines of this particular garment. Her uncle, the magician, told her this when she was a very young girl, just as he told her the secret of making a coin appear magically from someone's ear. She had plenty of opportunities to use the coin trick in mixed company, but somehow her day-to-day activities had never called upon her to break free from a straight jacket until now.
Scully continued to push out with her forearms, wriggling and twisting every way she could to loose the binds that held her. Was it working? She couldn't tell. Her mind was beginning to cloud over. She had to try and buy herself more time, one last time. She curled upwards from her waist, bringing her head up just enough to again relieve some of the pressure on her head. As she came up, her hair fell down to the side of her face. It was then that she noticed it.
The ends of her hair were wet. Soaking wet. Which meant only one thing.
The water level was rapidly rising.
The panic rose in Scully's throat, and she struggled furiously to try and break free of the straightjacket. Her body jerked and writhed and convulsed; she strained against the bindings again and again and again. Finally, something gave way.
A weak link in the chain that held her leather-bound ankles broke, and she fell, headfirst, into three feet of water.
***************************************************************************
He waited until the body fell to the floor before he lit his cigarette. Satisfied the bullet had found its mark, he put the gun back in his holster. It was amazing - all it took was one tiny little projectile hurled with great velocity at someone's head to stop them from breathing forever.
The man with the curly, black, salt-and-pepper hair took a long drag off his cigarette, and sighed. It was really rather becoming a nuisance. To say that he was annoyed when he came back to find the woman in the bed had not been given the injection was an understatement; to say that he was angry when the late doctor had no explanation as to where his patient was did not capture the essence of his feelings. Jeffrey Spender was pissed, and a bullet to the head of this incompetent medical professional seemed like the perfect solution.
"Why do I pay people to do things if I have to do everything myself?" he mused.
Spender wondered just how much money he had spent; not that money was an issue. He had more than enough. But he wondered, for example, just how many bullets he had fired in his life. What was the cost of that? He, of course, didn't count the toll on human life - he didn't have time to try and calculate what to him was of little consequence. Lives were not a measurable standard, but bullets....? He supposed it was much like buying cigarettes; a necessary evil. A part of doing business. He wasn't about to quit smoking, and he figured this wouldn't be the last person he would kill. He put the discussion on the subject out of his mind; right now, he had other questions.
Spender looked at the empty bed, at the indentation left by its by its previous occupant. Where had she gone? Or rather, where had the doctor hidden her? It was highly unlikely to him that a woman who had been catatonic a while ago would simply rise from her bed and walk. She wasn't Lazarus. But he still didn't have an explanation.
"Well," the man with the curly salt-and-pepper hair thought to himself. "I guess I'll just have to look for her till I find her."
He looked down at the ground just in time to see the widening circle of blood before it touched his shoe. He quickly drew his foot back to avoid it getting soiled.
"Shoes are expensive," he thought to himself.
Spender took one last drag off his cigarette, dropped it on the stone floor, and crushed it under his toe. He took the full syringe with him, and set off in search of his prey.
**********************************************************************
The sharp jolt to Scully's head almost caused her to loose consciousness, but she fought against it. She somehow managed to inhale before she hit the water, and had a small reserve of air left. The water level was rising rapidly, and she knew she had precious little time to try and get herself upright.
Scully tried to wriggle along the floor in an effort to find something she could push against, to try and find a way to pull herself up. She finally found that something after a few minutes; it felt like the leg of a table. Scully's plan was to turn herself in the water so that her back was against this leg; from there, she might be able to scoot herself up the leg to an upright position.
As she began to turn herself into position, she realized fate had other plans in store.
Her straight jacket was caught on something, and she couldn't move.
****************************************************************************
As Phoebe stood in the darkened corridor, she heard what sounded like rushing water on the other side of the door. "But that's impossible..." she thought to herself. "Is it some kind of pumping station? Well, old girl," Phoebe decided, "Only one way to find out."
Phoebe reached for the lock kit on her utility belt, and pulled out the pick she needed for the door. Steadying the flashlight in her mouth, she began to pick the lock; the door opened after a few seconds. Before she went inside, she put the kit back on her utility belt, and removed a large knife from the holster on her belt.
She had no idea what awaited her inside, but she wasn't at all prepared for what she saw.
Phoebe stood at the top of the stairs, and looked into what had been an old dungeon. She didn't know how many stairs there were into the room because the bottom steps were submerged by five feet or more of water. She couldn't see the source of the water, she didn't know where it came from. But she wasn't concerned so much with that as she was by what
she saw suspended upside down from the ceiling....
...Kyrcek and a young man who looked like a younger version of him hanging by his side.
And they were not moving.
"Good God!" Phoebe thought to herself. She raced down the stairs, certain she had to try and save them, uncertain if she had gotten to them in time. As soon as she hit the water, the sound of splashing water snapped Krycek back into consciousness.
"Krycek!" Phoebe exclaimed as she waded over to him.
"Help my son; please help my son..."
Phoebe looked around for something, anything that would allow her to help the two men. As she scanned the room, she saw the third chain that hung from the ceiling, a broken link dangling from the end.
"Krycek, where's Scully?" she screamed over the rushing water.
"She should be next to us..."
Suddenly, Phoebe realized what had happened, and submerged herself under the water.
**********************************************************************
Scully made her peace with her fate.
She struggled as hard as she could to free herself from whatever held her submerged in the murky water, but it was no use. She was tired; she didn't have the strength. The little air she held in her lungs wasn't enough.
"Drowning is easy; all you have to do is to stop struggling, and breathe in. Deep."
The scenes in her life flashed passed her eyes, one by one. Her mother; her sister; her father. Family, friends. The first time she saw Mulder. The time she held her daughter in her arms.
Her wedding.
"Drowning is easy; all you have to do is to stop struggling, and breathe in. Deep."
Where had she heard that? Oh, yes. That cocktail party she dragged Mulder to in Annapolis, was it? It wasn't important now...
"Drowning is easy; all you have to do is to stop struggling, and breathe in. Deep."
What had Mulder said? Oh yes. Drowning was only easy if you had lost the will to live; if you had nothing or no one to live for. And she did. She wanted so much to live for him, for her daughter. But she knew her time was running out.
"I'm so sorry, Mulder," Scully thought to herself. "I'm so sorry..."
********************************************************************
Phoebe saw Scully a few feet away from her, and quickly made her way over to her. She was in a straight jacket, and her feet were bound at the ankles with a heavy leather strap. The flashlight danced about the water, it caught Scully's eyes, pleading for her help. Phoebe nodded her assurance that she would get her out alive.
The straight jacket was caught on a hook that had been screwed into the floor, making it impossible for Scully to move. Phoebe went behind Scully, inserting the blade of the knife between Scully's back and the main strap of the straight jacket. Although she worked quickly, Phoebe felt as though time was standing still. Her lungs were about to burst, but she didn't dare raise her head to take a breath.
When Scully and the others were free, they would all take a breath together.
The strap finally broke loose, and Phoebe quickly went to work on the strap around Scully's ankles. The ankle strap proved easier to cut, and Phoebe was able to help Scully out of the straight jacket. Phoebe dragged Scully up to the surface, and both women took huge gulps of air as soon as they broke the surface.
"The room.... Booby-trapped.....Must get out soon..."
"I'll take care of things here.....Mulder..... Meena need you," Phoebe replied.
"But I should stay and help," Scully insisted. Phoebe cut her off. "Your place is with Mulder and your daughter, Scully; we'll be alright here. They are somewhere in the castle, and won't get out without your help. You must listen to me Scully - that's an order. We'll catch up."
Phoebe handed the flashlight to Scully, and pointed to the door she came through. "I'd start up there, Scully."
Scully looked at the woman who had saved her life. "Thank you, Phoebe."
"You're a very lucky woman, Scully."
The water was up to Scully's neck as she half-waded, half-swam her way to the stone steps. She ran up the stairs and disappeared behind the door.
"Now," Phoebe said. "Let's work on getting out of here."
Unbeknownst to Phoebe and the others, there was a small lever hidden in the wall that had slowly been moving up, inch, by inch, as the water level rose in the room. She never saw it; she never knew where it was....
"Save my son!" Krycek screamed at the top of his lungs. "I will, Krycek," replied Phoebe.
"Just give me a moment."
The small lever hidden in the wall moved up another few inches. She never saw it; she never knew where it was.
"What's your son's name?" Phoebe asked. "Drew," Krycek replied. Phoebe waded over to Krycek's son, calling his name as she went.
"Drew?! I need you to stay with us, Drew. I'm here to help."
The small lever hidden in the wall moved up another few inches, and clicked into place. She never saw it, she never heard it, she never knew where it was.
Phoebe stood up to try and climb onto something to reach Drew, and that's when it happened.
The circular blade flew out from its hiding place, decapitating Phoebe instantly. Another blade flew from the opposite side of the room and sliced through the torsos of the two men hanging from the ceiling. When the water reached the electrical element, it didn't matter that thousands of bolts jumped through the water.
All three people were already dead.