CHAPTER 7: TIME MAKES YOU BOLDER, CHILDREN GET OLDER, I'M GETTING OLDER, TOO

He opened his eyes slowly, hoping yet again that there would be nothing there. Yet there was, as everyday before, a thick fog of desperation covering his eyelids. He rose from the couch, slowly clutching his head and not even noticing the mess that had befallen his apartment. He peered over at his fish tank, picking up the fish food. He eyed a particularly beautiful fish, a red beta, that Scully had gotten for him as a gift just before the accident. He had so aptly named her Scully. At Fox Mulder's apartment, the cuckoo had sprung out long ago, and was trying to go back into its home, but to no avail. He remembered that he had told Skinner he would come into work today, to slowly "ease" back in. He scratched his stubble, and headed towards the bathroom.

Looking in the mirror, Mulder noticed that his face was looking more gaunt than he had ever seen himself, and his hair had been partially streaked gray. He shrugged at himself, for he was not surprised at his findings. He turned on the shower perhaps to wake up, perhaps to drown and removed his shirt and boxer shorts.

The water streamed down Mulder's body, taking special care to drip like wine from his fingertips. He closed his eyes, letting the water drench his hair. For a moment, he thought he had to hurry because he half-expected to hear Scully knocking on his door to inform him that he was late for work. Then he remembered, there was no Scully to knock on his door. There had not been a Scully to knock on his door in several months, and there would never be a Scully to knock on his door for the rest of his life, unless the beta grew legs and a tight fist. The shampoo ran diligently through his hair and into his eyes.

"Ow!" Mulder said aloud wiping at his eyes, and then he saw her. For only a moment, but there she was standing outside of his shower with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. "Scully?" She was gone. Mulder stood there staring as the stream pounded his bare back leaving welts he was sure of. Mulder gasped, noticing that the water had become freezing, he was covered in goosebumps. He quickly turned off the shower and looked at the clock. How could he have been in the shower for an hour? It had only felt like ten, fifteen minutes at the most.

Seeing Scully in the shower had not shocked Mulder all that much, for he had had delusions of seeing her ever since before he even knew she was "officially" dead. The only thing different about this time was the clarity that saw her with. Normally, when he saw Scully, she would be kind of fuzzy and more like a mirage than a delusion, but today it was as if she was actually there, directly in front of him, and then just disappeared. He ran back into the bathroom sniffing the air. He could smell her perfume. That had NEVER happened before. Either Fox Mulder had completely lost his mind, which was entirely probable, or something was not right. He quickly dressed and headed out the door.

Mulder ran three red lights on his way to the J. Edgar Hoover building, stripping gears as he mashed down the clutch on his '67 Mustang. Screeching to a halt, he felt a pressure in his head, pounding away at his skull like a jackhammer. He clutched his head wincing in pain as he swayed uncontrollably falling to his knees. He looked up as his head pounded as if it were going to explode, and all of a sudden the pain disintegrated as he again saw a delusion, or what he thought was a delusion, of Scully walking briskly past him. She paused for a moment to look at him, and kept going. He tried to get up and run after her, but it was if his knees were glued to the ground.

"Scully!" Scully!!!!!" He kept watching her as a bus passed in front of his view and she was gone. He got up looking around and ran into the building.

CHAPTER 8 WILL BE COMING SOON. SORRY THAT THIS IS TAKING ME SO LONG GUYS, I WENT TO CALIFORNIA FOR A WEEK AND HAVE BEEN QUITE BUSY, SO I WILL TRY TO GET THINGS UP A LITTLE FASTER!