Scully went down to the X-Files basement office, Doggett was standing near Mulder's desk, it was still Mulder's after all this time. She had never had a desk in the office. After 8 years she was still an outsider to the X files, still the scientist that was sent to debunk this office.
"Hi." Scully felt like she had just caught Doggett with his hand in the cookie jar. "Hi." He said somewhat guiltily. Since it seemed like he wasn't going to move on to the real subject of the day so… "You said that you had received something urgent." She waited impatiently in the doorway. "That's right, I did. And I think it's really important that you got right down here, Agent Scully. Thanks." He was being a little too formal for her comfort.
"You going to tell me what it is?" the look he gave her really made her nervous. "I…passed it on to Skinner. I'd rather he told you." Scully's heart almost stopped. This had to be something about Mulder, nothing else would rattle Doggett like this. A very uncomfortable elevator ride up to Skinner's office they found him conferring with his secretary. "What? What is it?" Scully was loosing her cool, and she thought she might scream if someone didn't tell her what was going on right now. "Let's go into my office." Skinner gestured towards the door and Scully walked through first. "Alright. What's going on here?" Scully was about at the end of her rope. After a moment that seemed like an eternity Skinner finally spoke. "A report came in last night from Montana. About a UFO encounter." She was suspicious of the minimalist style of his conversation.
Prompting. "What kind of encounter?" Skinner could see that she was warry of the game but couldn't come out and just tell her what was wrong, instead he opted for simply telling her the answer to her question. "A young man chased a bright object flying low across the sky. Tracked it all the way to a big field where the UFO disappeared … but where he claimed he saw an alien." Doggett was made uncomfortable by the mention of the beliefs he did not have. For all that he worked on the X files he was as big of a skeptic as Scully had been eight years ago.
"Assistant Director, I've got drawers full of reports that begin just like that. Are you going to tell me what's so important about this case?" Her heart was in her throat and she wished Skinner would just come out and say it.
"Young man's named Richie Szalay. UFO nut from Bellefleur, Oregon. You and Agent Mulder met him out there last spring." At the mention of Mulder's name she flinched. She looked at Doggett to see if he would give her the answer she was looking for. He met her eyes but didn't start to say anything so she looked back at Skinner. "Are you saying this has something to do with Mulder?" her voice cracked but she couldn't help it.
For the first time since they left the basement office Agent Doggett spoke up. "He's trying to tell you that it might." He looked uncomfortable with what he was saying but Scully didn't ponder that long, Skinner was talking again.
"Richie Szalay didn't find an alien last night. He found a woman. A woman whose name you will remember-- Teresa Hoese." Scully did remember the name. "Teresa Hoese was the young mother who was abducted the night before Agent Mulder was." Her heart was beating faster and faster with every word. If Teresa Hoese was found she might be able to tell them where Mulder was.
" And who was returned last night." Skinner didn't seem enthusiastic as Scully thought he might be. She dreaded to ask but she had to. "Returned?" Skinner and Doggett looked at each other before Skinner proceeded. "Hanging onto life by a thread." A sense of urgency came upon Scully. She had to talk to Teresa Hose now.
"I have to go." She got up and headed towards the door. Skinner beat her there. "We have tickets for the next flight out Agent." She looked into his eyes and found some sense of composure. AD Skinner wanted to find Mulder almost as much as she did.
Scully zoned out on the plane, she let Skinner guide her to the car and only regained awareness when they reached the hospital. A young doctor met them near the door. "Who, who is Mr. Skinner?" the man seemed a little intimidated by three FBI agents. "I'm Skinner." The AD replied. "You Dr. Desai?" The doctor nodded and continued to address only Skinner. "I was just told you were on your way. That you flew out here all the way here from Washington, DC."
"Yeah, we're here to see Teresa Hoese." Skinner was impatient to see her. "I know. I just wish someone would tell me these things because this woman is in no condition..." Scully broke into the conversation for the first time. "what is her condition?" The doctor looked sad as he answered. "She's circling the drain. 12 years, I have never seen anything near this level of mistreatment."
"Doctor, it's important we see the victim and talk to her if we can about what happened." This from Doggett. The doctor started to lead them towards a room in the ER. "Just promise me, whoever did this, you guys will do everything in your power to catch them." All three nodded.
When they arrived at the room it was unlikely anything the doctor doctor could have said would have prepared them for what they saw. She was lying unconscious with bruised wounds, three on each cheek. She looked like death. Scully went to the bed to examine her more closely. She was only somewhat aware of what Skinner and the doctor were talking about until she heard something about X rays.
" In the x-rays, did you see, um... anything else? Foreign objects." She asked the doctor but wouldn't meet his eyes. It was a question that should have come from Mulder, not her. The doctor seemed puzzled. "I'm not sure what you mean." Scully still looking and the patient prompted him. "Little pieces of metal. Implants." This did not seem to help with his confusion. "No, I didn't"
A cop came in and gave agent Doggett a police report. "You're welcome to stay here and discuss foreign objects but... looks like we got a suspect."
The suspect turned out to be Richie Szalay. Richie gave them a description of what was happening, what he saw but Doggett refused to believe it. When Scully took him to task about it Doggett said something that almost broke Scully's heart. And left her cold. He said she didn't want to find Mulder, that she was afraid to.
That night she couldn't sleep in her hotel room. She sat on the bed for the longest time. Finally she laid down to sleep and like a tide it washed over her.
"No. no Scully." It was Mulder but he was encased in a cloud. There was something wrong with him. She had to go to him. Every step she took towards him he shrunk back, as if he didn't want her to see him. "Scully. Please don't do this. Please don't do this to yourself. I cant control it anymore. Please go away. Dana. I'm begging you." His eyes were pleading and there were tears rolling down his face.
She had never left him, through thick and thin, and wasn't about to start now. "Mulder, I don't care what you say, I'm coming to get you." She started to run, and slowly he appeared out of the mist. Mulder was in a chair like contraption. On each side of his face there were wires going into his cheek. His hands and feet had been pierced. He was covered in scars. Just like Teresa Hoese. Scully stopped n shock. And then she woke up
She was shaken, she didn't know what to do or who to turn to. What if they were real? What if what she had just seen was what Mulder had been living through? She got out of bed and through on some clothes. It was a short walk down to AD Skinner's door. She knocked and a few seconds later he appeared. "What if he's dead?" she asked softly, nearly on the verge of tears. When he doesn't answer right away she feels the need to explain herself. "I'm sorry, I just had a bad dream."
"Let me get some clothes on." He says and shuts the door. Scully wandered out to the small loveseat swing in front of the motel. A few moments later he joined her and stood close next to her. "I once had a conversation with Mulder about starlight. How it's billions of years old" she said, not bothering with a preamble. They both looked up at the heavens and Scully fervently wished Mulder wasn't there already, looking down on them. " Stars that are now long dead whose light is still traveling through time. It won't die, that light" She was aware that AD Skinner was looking at her now, instead of the stars, but she kept her attention up. "Maybe that's the only thing that never does. He said that's where souls reside. I hope he's right." Just let his come back to me now.
Skinner reached and put his arm around her, a strange thing for him to do, he had always tried to keep some semblance of distance between himself and the agents, but Mulder and Scully of all the agents under his authority had become like friends, like family to him. He cared about what happened to them. "If you're trying to prepare yourself I want you to stop. Nothing says that we're going to stumble over him in some field. Nothing says he won't be fine."
At first it seemed like what he said had worked. But then after a moment she couldn't hold it in anymore and she started to cry. He pulled her into his chest and let her sob her heart out in the protection of his arms. When she couldn't cry anymore Skinner took her back to her room and watched her until she fell into a deep sleep, then he picked himself up and took himself back to his room. He didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
Knock Knock
"Who is it?" she shook herself awake. "It's me!" that familiar voice. "come in" she got up off the bed and ran to him as he opened the door. She wrapped him up in her arms and buried her face in his chest. "Well. If this is what happens when I go away, I'll have to do it more often." He said with a grin.
"Mulder, don't even joke about that. You're okay." The bad feelings of the night were melting away. "In a sense. Most people think I'm kind of spooky." She smiled at his pun. "Look, I cant stay long, I just came to tell you that you are on the right track. Keep looking." Then he seemed to evaporate right out of her arms.
Ring Ring
It was Doggett on the other line. Telling her that in the night Teresa Hoese had been moved, and they couldn't find out where. Skinner and Scully drove to meet Doggett at the field where she had been found and they didn't find Doggett alone. He was with an old partner. One Monica Reyes. Scully and Reyes were like enemy wolves, circling each other, neither sure of when they would cross the line.
Reyes did when she suggested Mulder had joined a cult group. Another brief encounter with her later that day did nothing to prove to Scully that she liked this woman.
When they found the body of Gary Edward she knew in the pit of her stomach that they would not find Mulder alive. Later that night they did a bust on the place thought to be the center of where all these abduction patents were being taken. They found Teresa Hoese completely healed and fine. Scully was alone in the hallway when she glanced into a room. There was Mulder. "Agent Scully." This came not from Mulder but from Reyes. When she glanced back Mulder was gone. She ran to the window to find nothing but air. "What? What is it?" Reyes asking was pushed to the back of Scully's priorities. "I saw him" she said quietly, then turned to face Reyes, and brought her barrier back up "I saw something."
Scully was interrogating the only person that may be left and able to take her to her partner when Skinner popped into the room, his face grave. "You'd better come with us" She instantly forgot her anger and found it hard to breathe "What is it?" she asked, dreading the answer. "It's Mulder" They took her to a field, there was a mass of people around a body, one of those people was Doggett. He refused to let her see Mulder. When she broke away she fell next to the body of Mulder. She became hysterical. "No…No…This isn't happening!" she screamed and cried. But Mulder would never return to her. She looked up at the stars, the resting place of souls and screamed at them too. They took Mulder. She cried and screamed at everyone around her, at god, at the stars.