Chaos
The window shatters as Scully crashes against it, sending shards into her face and hair, and littering the surrounding ground. The screaming subsides for a moment, the harsh rasping halting—and then beginning anew, in rage.
It is dark, there is no moon, no light, only stars and dull reflections, and the group has been spurred into action. They have no idea where the woman, Angela, is, but her screaming is growing in intensity, and it sounds like she is shouting words.
"Mulder! Mulder?" Scully shouts, gun extended, sweeping the hallways in the darkened conditions. She can't see anything, but the gun in her hand and his name escaping her lips is familiar and comforting. Someone could be directly in front of her, and she would not see them.
Blind faith is her ally now, just as it always has been. She's shouting his name, voice hoarse and defiant, listening to Angela babble in incoherent shrieks.
Don't you take him! Don't you take him!
There are pounding footsteps on the floor, and no one can determine who they belong to. The woman, or a friend, no one knows where anyone is anymore. Scully is depending on an act of God to illuminate Mulder or point her gun towards the right person.
"Scully?"
It sounds like Mulder, and she turns, runs into a wall. "MULDER! Where are you?"
"Scully, the woman's armed! Stay where you are! We need to regroup, she won't shoot him!"
No one hears Skinner clearly, everyone is still panicked and running in different directions. She thinks she must have hallucinated Mulder; there are sounds of scuffling and running, with the ever present babbling rage of Angela, the chattering teeth and the harsh breathing. Most cannot hear anything beyond the pounding of their own heart.
Running footsteps, they come closer, and then it sounds like they have faded away. But now there are noises above them, ground level or upstairs? Which floor? Where are you? Hello?
Gunfire, and everyone pauses for a moment before running in another direction. The moon comes out of a cloud for a moment, and Skinner sees the wall before he collides with it.
Scully passes Rex with a bloody nose, and neither of them realize the other was near. Save for Scully and Skinner, the group is no longer looking for Mulder. They're trying to find a corner where they can huddle up and die, or at least see the floor in front of them.
"Scully?" A small, hopeful voice mumbles. Mulder is drugged, but he sounds so alive. He thinks this is a game, a horrible game, and he doesn't want Angela or Scully hurt. He doesn't want anyone to die. Put the guns away, he wants to say, don't shoot Angela, don't shoot Angela. But the words only come out as, "Scully?" over and over again, and he sounds like a little child on a loop.
"Mulder?" She breathes, hopeful, because she can see half of his face illuminated, by a door frame. He is standing?
"I'm here Scully." Half of his face smiles, but he does not move. 'Oh God, Mulder, you're so drugged,' she thinks with despair, and begins to cross the room. Skinner shouts, the house goes silent, and she freezes. Then there is an explosion of noise and the moon escapes its captor, "DON'T TAKE HIM YOU WON' TAKE HIM GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY…!"
Scully can see her in another doorway, gun pointed into the darkness. From Angela's vantage point, everything is still in darkness; she can't see where the gun is pointed.
And a part of Scully screams at herself: this in not the F.B.I., this is not a normal hostage situation, this is not by the book, Mulder is drugged! But she cannot listen and her brain does not comply, and she shouts, voice booming over everything, "PUT THE GUN DOWN. WE ARE NOT GOING TO HURT YOU, I REPEAT, PUT THE GUN DOWN!"
Angela whimpers and does not turn to face the origin of Scully's voice. The moon moves, and Scully can't see Angela's gun anymore, just a triangle of illuminated faces.
Angela sounds heartbroken and afraid, and she half screams half whispers, "You turned off the lights, oh you turned off the lights. Oh no, oh no, go away, they're going to come, they're coming…oh God…"
Her voice trails off, and Scully's voice cuts through the dense silence:
"Put the gun down. No one's coming. They're not here. Put the gun down."
But Angela switches moods again, and again the explosion of sound, like a shot, and she is shrieking again that the lights are off, and it's their fault…everything is their fault.
Ba-bang. The shots are fired in slow motion, and Scully can see the way her gun moves in her closed eyes, because she has seen its power so many times in many situations. The gun moves, click, a shell drops, and the house is utterly silent save for the deafening noise of air displacement and inflicted death.
She hears herself screaming, she's screaming NO in prolonged terror as two thuds sound.
The house is silent, and the moon is back.
The world ends again.
And suddenly, consciousness returns to Mulder in a burst of color and sound and thought. He hears his name shouted in anguish and sees colors he has never seen before, echoed in the pale moonlight and in the light bouncing off or Scully's pretty red hair. There's a bald head bouncing somewhere back there, as knees hit the ground and hands hit his chest.
"Scully?"
"Mulder, oh Mulder, you're going to be fine, oh my God, Mulder you're going to be fine—" she sobs, does she know she's sobbing? She's comforting him, why, why, why.
Scully is sobbing and trying to tell Mulder he is fine, she's choking in tears and tries not to let her voice catch. But her voice is faltering and she's lost that F.B.I. tone she had, because she isn't an agent anymore and Scully hasn't been since she fell in love with him.
Mulder is trying to understand what is going on, when suddenly the pain hits him, and he gasps in strangled agony. He remembers where he is and he knows what has happened and he hates that Angela is dead when all she ever deserved was pity and they shot her out of anger and hate and fear. She should've died with pity Scully she should've died in light! Mulder wants to scream but his throat tastes like copper and red.
The light is gone and he is afraid and he's fine and he's afraid in unending symmetry that swirls through his head.
"You're going to be fine Mulder! You're going to be ok," she cries against his head; Scully is cradling him and trying to stop the blood flow at the same time.
"You're going to be fine, you're going to be fine."
It's no more that a whisper now, and there are sounds of others running. Then another explosion in his brain, and he desperately wants her to hear his thoughts because he can't bear to be alone with them anymore.
"You're going to be fine."
We're not fine Scully, we're more insane than we thought we were! We're all going crazy and we can't even see it. We've left the lights on much too long, we're not meant to go without darkness, we can't live this way Scully, we can't live this way. We're not fine, we've left the lights on too long and they control our every move with the fear of darkness, they told us to trust no one and we didn't and we need to—to fight them…we were meant for so much more Scully, so much more.
Everything's going to be OK Mulder. It's going to be fine.
She's sobbing through her tears, It's going to be OK.
It isn't Scully, oh, it isn't, he sobs in his head and in mumbled gasps of breath.
It's going to be fine.
Now everyone who's dying isn't their fault anymore, it's ours, it's all our fault…
It's going to be okay.
Her voice is so far away and blood too black in the darkness, it isn't fine, it will never be.
Her voice is far away, the light is gone, and he's glad, oh how he's glad.
Mulder…Mulder…Mulder…
The darkness closes in, and he's glad, because he isn't going to fear it—no, he won't. Her voice is distant now, and he loves her, but he can't hold on.
Mulder…it's going to be ok…Mulder…
Mulder?
It isn't.
A/N: Probably 2 more chapters from here. Hope you enjoyed, if you did/didn't, do drop me a review w/ some constructive criticism. Continued thanks to my two reviewers :) !
