"'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome,

And I don't feel right when you're gone away.

You've gone away,

You don't feel me here anymore…"

Seether feat. Amy Lee, Broken from Disclaimer

Chapter 23: Meredith is a Criminal, Scully's Plan and "Rotting Queen"

Doggett had not been to the Lone Gunmen's apartment in a long time. Meredith always enjoyed it because she signed onto MSN for the whole time and talked to her friends (while searching through files on their hard drive). William would sit next to her, watching her take over the conversations and take about silly nonsense with her girlfriends and laugh at them. He never was extroverted, even over the Internet. But Meredith had a vibrancy that didn't go out, whether she was on the phone or on the Internet.

He was growing tired and sick, and he felt physically ill when he noticed his wife's arm in a sling, her body broken and mangled from the day's events. He tried to apologize but she shushed him, leaning against him with Meredith in her arm, her head on his shoulder as she calmly accepted the moment and allowed it to exist within her life. She could feel her eyes burn at the scent of him again. She had imagined that she may never have seen him again for one reason or another, most likely for death.

Death seemed to like them that day, or death seemed to like Darcy that day. She wanted it to fuck off and leave them alone. What had they done to deserve such misery? Nothing. They seemed to want the best enough. They wanted what everyone wanted: A nice family, a big house, and a new car whenever possible. But death was enjoying them, and Monica prayed it would leave within the next few minutes or take her before shehad to endure any more of the day from hell.

Skinner was driving. He was growing too old for the job of reeling the Agents in, and now with Brad dead, he was likely to finally just retire. He had been a friend of the conspiracy for far too long to truly enjoy his life anymore. He was just wearing thin, and eventually he would be gone too.

Monica closed her eyes, wishing that day would never come. She prayed for a world without death. She prayed for a world where she could always wake up with John next to her, to see her daughter on a stage with an unrecognizable voice or sitting in the kitchen with a large mug of coffee in her hand. She wanted to always be there, in that moment, lost forever in the feeling of her husband's fingers on her back, traveling up the length of her spine as they fell asleep together. She didn't care if they ever reached a destination. They could simply be stuck together and she could be content for the rest of her days.

They came to a stop near the curb. Monica was shaken awake by her husband gently but she didn't want to move. She pulled her arm around his neck tighter to keep him there. Doggett smiled lightly.

"Come on Monica. The day's almost over." He said.

"This day will never be over." She moaned back to him. Doggett grinned a little, the door opened by Skinner. He told them to go on ahead and that they'd be up in a little bit. Scully and the old AD walked inside silently, leaving the family behind in the car. Meredith looked up from the seat.

"Can we go home?" She asked him. Doggett looked from the building to the car.

"We don't have any keys."

Meredith got up from the back seat and climbed over to the driver's seat, dropping down in front of the steering wheel. With her tiny hands she ripped the wires out from under the steering column and crawled between the floor and the dash. John shifted a little to see what she was doing. All he saw was her tiny hand reach up and touch the bare wires to the steering column and the car started to rev up. She removed them after a moment, crawling into the front seat.

"Let's go home daddy." She said. John stared in disbelief.

"Where did you learn how to do that?"

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Meredith answered quickly. "Let's go home."

He wished Meredith could drive them home. He moved out from under his wife but couldn't, her body a dead weight on his shoulder.

"Monica." He said. No response. "Monica." She was completely asleep. He rolled his eyes and gently lay her down across the seat. He got into the driver's seat and looked over at his daughter.

"Who were you watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with?"

"Mulder." She said. "But he told me not to tell anyone so don't tell him I told you."

John was silent. He picked up the cell phone and called to Skinner to apologize about his car being hot wired. Skinner groaned and gave a flippant comment about John's delinquent daughter.

Skinner hung up the cell phone.

"What is it?" Scully asked him as the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened.

"Your god daughter is becoming a criminal too quickly." He commented. Scully watched him leave the elevator and cocked a brow, unsure of what he meant by that, but knowing Meredith it couldn't be incredibly good. She had once taught William how to make a 'small' shaving cream bomb that she learned how to make from her father's old designs as a child. This 'harmless' and 'small' invention was set up in Fox's car and when he opened the door he received a large wad of shaving cream to his face, the rest exploding throughout the car. John paid for it to be cleaned, although he sounded as if he was laughing when Scully called him on the phone.

They walked to the first apartment on the left and entered without knocking, Scully such a frequent visitor that she didn't need to knock or shout before coming inside. Skinner was a little less frequent, but he found himself there when Doggett and Reyes were working on a case of some kind.

The apartment hadn't changed at all. Stacks of magazines that Scully no longer allowed Mulder to keep in his apartment were piled around wherever there was free space. Free space was simply another term for an area that was not filled with old computer parts and junk the guys did not want to see ever again. Their philosophy was that if one simply puts something in a deep enough pile of other things the thing will disappear, and no amount of reasoning from even a scientist like Scully could convince them otherwise. They were three hopeless computer nerds who, as Mulder had put days before, "Had not been laid since they were teenagers," and, he added, "Probably were not even truly laid then."

She had slapped him playfully for that comment, and he didn't 'get any' as she had put it later that night.

The guys were all scattered somewhere. She could hear Frohike in the kitchen calling out the various names of alcohol in their refrigerator. Langly was in front of the computer, his fingers flying over the keys as Byers hovered over his shoulder and pointed at names, an action which caused Langly to shake his head. Jason sat alienated, looking over the list once again while writing D's and K's together next to the names her didn't know. He picked up Darcy's cell phone and flipped it open.

4 new messages. He narrowed his eyes. He was about to check the voice mail when he noticed Scully and Skinner.

"Where is she?" He asked them. Scully seemed at her wit's end.

"She's inside your division and I need your help to get her back." She said quickly. Skinner had no time to speak. Jason's mouth went dry.

"She's inside division?" He asked, not getting anything but a nod. "Where?"

"We don't know."

He tried not to show his anger or frustration. As far as anyone knew, he and Darcy were not supposed to be in love or even linked to one another. Of course, that was as far as anyone knew, and people could know certain things without revealing them. He was worried that maybe Ridder had found out, and that maybe he was next on Ridder's hit list. It would be ironic if Darcy was sent for him next.

"Well I can't get you in there."

"Why not?" Skinner asked him.

"Because there's a security measures placed all over that building." He said. "I mean you don't simply waltz into division and are immediately granted access to the building. Hell, I've worked there for years and I haven't been granted access anywhere but the above-ground building."

"What do you mean by above-ground?" Scully asked him.

"There are about four levels that are subterranean laboratories that are only accessible from a private elevator in Ridder's office." He said. Scully looked at Skinner who was grabbing his cell phone from his pocket. "What?"

"Agent Doggett escaped using that elevator."

"Oh sure, but he probably got on from a floor inside the labs. To get in from the outside you have to go through the parking garage and the codes change daily to random number patterns."

"You mean like 827424?" Langly asked.

"Yeah, why?" Jason asked.

"Because I just hacked the system." He replied. "And I've got ten minutes to find out anything you need to know before they can trace through the encryption boxes."

Here I am.

She felt the irony of the situation start to sink in as Ridder tried to open the door. The tech and he were talking in voices that she couldn't hear from her position on the floor, curled up close to the surgical table with her thin legs pulled to her chest. She couldn't move otherwise, her body frozen as the poison caused the blood vessels in her eyes to burst and make the whites of her eyes completely red surrounding green irises. Ridder slammed his fist against the unbreakable windows, ordering something the tech obviously couldn't do.

A rotten Queen on my throne of rotting corpses.

She straightened out her arms and stretched her back, the muscles feeling strangely relaxed for one who was dying slowly.

Looking at my life as if I'm watching a movie.

Ridder shot the tech dead, looking through the window."

"Do you think you're smart, Darcy? You're going to die in there."

I've taken all and given nothing. I'm the creator of my own lies.

"Do you hear me?" He shouted. Darcy's eyes barely moved.

It's ironic. It's pathetic. It's weak and it's a lie.

She closed her eyes.

Don't you see Ridder? You can't kill me. I've already died.

It's short, but I'll write more in a bit!