All I Could See From Where I Stood
Part I
The game was up.
Ironic that after all the near-death experiences, the close misses, all the strange and unusual dangers, it would be an ordinary bullet that would do him in.
"Walk," the man at his back ordered, and he walked. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run.
The sun beat down hot on his head. As he walked, he fixed his mind on the one anchor he had left.
Scully.
She would never forgive him. She would never forgive herself either, and that thought hurt more than his own impending death.
He wished he could say goodbye. Wished he could tell her this wasn't her fault, there was nothing she could have done, she couldn't have known his apartment had been bugged—
And oh, if he were a praying man he would pray that his blood would be enough, that they would be satisfied with killing him and wouldn't go after her.
She didn't deserve that.
His shoes slipped in the soft earth. The gun at his back brushed his shirt in warning, ever so softly, and goose flesh raced up the back of his neck.
Oh—
Oh he hoped she wouldn't have to do his autopsy.
He knew she very well might anyway, and the thought brought a perverse sort of comfort, that the violence of the next few minutes wouldn't be the end—that at some point her hands would touch his body gently, with care, would learn him and map him and lay him to rest.
But what it would do to her…the thought of her pain made him sick inside.
Every step he took was one less in the grand total of his life, rapidly narrowing to just the coming moments. He wondered briefly how far they would make him walk, if he would even know before they shot him. The day was going to be beautiful—it was a shame he would miss it.
More than anything, he just wished he could talk to her.
Actually, no. He wished he could kiss her too.
And why had he never tried kissing Scully?
Oh, right. Because they were partners and he couldn't bear to lose her and he knew she deserved far more than an obsessive recluse in a dead-end office.
But still, if she was here in this moment he would take the plunge and find out what it was like to kiss Scully just once before he died.
They approached some sort of abandoned greenhouse. Tattered plastic hung down in sheets, not substantial enough to provide concealment, pale shredded ghosts of shade left over from last year.
He knew he wouldn't leave it alive.
The urge to fight, to try to flee was almost overwhelming, but he set his teeth and stayed on course. Against two men with guns and with a broken hand to boot—he had no chance. All he had left was his dignity, and the thoughts of Scully.
Scully…
She would take care of his fish. She'd done it before. And if she was right, then maybe there would be something after this, and if there was, then maybe he could find Emily and look after her in turn until Scully could join them.
Oh who was he kidding? Emily was Scully's daughter through and through, little and brave and good. If there was an afterlife, and if by some miracle he was worthy enough to end up in the same part of it as her, Emily would probably be the one looking after him.
Like mother, like daughter.
But Scully—all he could leave her was a tank of fish and an apartment full of rubbish and another death to mourn.
If only he could talk to her…
A torn piece of plastic brushed his cheek. He hid the flinch successfully. The ground was damp beneath his feet.
It would be easy to dig a grave here.
There were X-files about moments like this, he remembered suddenly. Moments where at the instant of one person's death, another person heard or saw some last message, some projection of thought or spirit or energy. They had worked some of those files themselves, and even though Scully wasn't dying anymore and couldn't see ghosts—
Well, it was worth a shot.
(A shot—who knew his subconscious had such a grim sense of gallows humor?)
He let his body continue walking as he focused inward, formed the shape, the face, the heart of her in his mind. Her coppery hair, her steady eyes, her sweet mouth, the line of concentration between her brows.
Scully, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
He concentrated with all his might, trying to send his message straight into her brilliant, analytical mind. Then another thought occurred to him, and he switched tracks.
Scully, the money. It's the MONEY at the bank, they've contaminated it, don't touch the money…
Because if she touched that money she would join him in the morgue, and he felt that even without an afterlife some integral part of him would rise up in pain and grief and anger and haunt those men forever if this were to kill her.
"Stop there."
He stopped.
Scully…
They said your life flashed behind your eyes when you were about to die, but it wasn't his life he saw.
It was Scully's.
He saw her grief—grief he was totally unworthy of. She was so broken just now, still mourning her daughter, but she was also incredibly strong, she would survive his loss. He saw her determination, her fierce perseverance. She would live and be brilliant and someday find the truth they both sought.
"Down on your knees. Hands behind your back."
So this was it then.
For a long moment he nearly refused. Nearly kept his feet. His heart pounded resoundingly, laboring overtime as though to compensate for the coming stillness.
But which would be better—to refuse and have his knees shot out before he died groveling in the dirt, or to agree and die like a man and an FBI agent?
And something—something in him whispered that he needed to see this through, to play the part to the end.
I'm so sorry, Scully.
He knelt, back straight, lips firm. The ground was damp, a trace of moisture seeping through his trousers to cool his knees. His hands did not tremble as he clasped them behind his back. The oxygen flooding his lungs was precious, the sunlight was bright. He memorized these things even as he clung to the image of her face in his mind.
Scully?
The hammer clicked as the gun was cocked. Every nerve prickled unbearably down Mulder's back; the hair at the nape of his neck stood on end, waiting for the shot.
Scully, I lo—
The gunshot cracked.
Part II
Afterwards he barely remembered the mad dash to the car. His face stung where branches must have whipped it, but he didn't remember that either.
All he knew was that his heart was still beating, thunderous in his ears, and that his back still prickled in sick anticipation of a shot that had never come.
At the car he hesitated, but only briefly.
Sure, the car might be booby trapped with the same corrosive agent that had killed the others. Sure, he could walk to the next town instead.
But if there was any hope of getting to that bank before people touched the money—before Scully touched that money—
—and anyway, he was already prepared to die.
So he threw himself into the sun-heated car without allowing himself to think, twisted the key in the ignition, and slammed the pedal to the floor.
Pain flared through his broken hand and up his arm. He ignored it, gripping the wheel even tighter.
Scully, I'm coming. Don't touch the money.
The mad drive to the bank took far, far too long, an endless nightmare—and maybe he was dead after all and this was some sort of hellish purgatory...
It was an age before he could get his bearings, could find the connection to the highway. It was an entire eternity before he found the bank, tires shrieking as he jolted to a stop.
It didn't feel real.
None of it felt real.
Maybe in truth his body lay sprawled in the dirt at the abandoned greenhouse, his blood soaking silently into the earth. Maybe this whole wild flight was some astral projection, a final effort of his life force trying to complete his last wishes.
And yet there was air in his lungs, and the ground was firm beneath his feet, and the world was jittering around him like a tape on fast-forward—
"Mulder!"
And there she was, the steady center of his universe, and had his desperate attempt at near-death mind-to-mind communication succeeded after all? Because somehow she already knew about the money, she had already kept people from touching it.
No one was dead.
She wasn't dead.
The sheer relief was almost enough to erase the phantom of the gun at his head, of the shot still echoing in his ears…
And then she told him it had all been a setup, and his vision went red.
His body was vibrating.
He felt too big for his skin, an overwhelming, unbearable anger flooding his entire body.
He'd been used.
Again.
"Mulder?"
All he wanted to do was go after that CIA spook and grind his face into the contaminated cash, force him to experience what had been done to the innocent people he'd used as guinea pigs, but Scully's little hand was on his arm and Skinner was holding his shoulder and it was all too much, too much.
He broke away, turning and staggering blindly towards the light.
Outside wasn't much better. Police sirens whooped, people shouted, onlookers goggled. But his knees were giving in, and if he tried to make a break for it he knew he would faceplant into the cement.
Instead he leaned up against the wall of the bank, tipping his face up towards the sun. It shone red through his closed eyelids. The air was cool, laced with exhaust fumes and the smells of the city, but he couldn't quite manage to draw it into his suddenly tight lungs.
He was—alive.
And it seemed his body was finally catching up with the idea.
"Mulder?"
Scully's hand was on his arm again.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the one person he could trust. She stood close, her bright hair blowing into her face, that familiar line of concern and concentration between her eyebrows.
It was the face he'd held in his mind as he prepared to die.
"You're shaking," she was saying. "There's dirt on your knees. What did they do to you?"
He'd wanted to kiss her then. He wanted to kiss her now too, more than anything, but now wasn't the time. Not with photographers and police and agents swarming all over the place.
Instead he simply folded into her, cheek pressed to her hair, winding his long arms around her shoulders, her back as he tugged her close.
She didn't hesitate, putting her arms around him, supporting him, offering up her own strength to buttress his. One hand curled around the back of his neck, stroking up through his hair—and finally, finally he felt the nerves calm, the muscles slacken, the unbearable tension ease, no longer waiting for the bullet that had never come.
He was alive.
Only when the vibrations through his body eased, when his lungs loosened, when the world ceased to reel around him—only then did he let her go. Tenderly, carefully, he stroked the hair away from her forehead, looking into her face.
She surveyed him seriously, her hands lingering on his arms.
"Are you all right?"
He nodded honestly. His hand throbbed, sending hot pain up his arm, yet another reminder that he was still in the land of the living.
Sure would be a nuisance typing up the report for this case though.
Speaking of which...
"Hey, Scully?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"
"How did you know it was the money?"
She blinked. "It just occurred to me. And it made sense—the case in the park dealt with bearer bonds, so we already knew it would work on paper."
"Just occurred to you?" Mulder grinned, warmth growing inside him as they fell back into their familiar rhythm. "You sure we don't have a telepathic connection? Because I was trying…"
She rolled her eyes in the old familiar exasperation and pulled away. "Mulder, I am capable of having an original thought, you know."
The mud on his knees had dried. He bent to brush it off, and then jogged to catch up with her. "I know, I just think we should compare notes to find out when…"
The other agents and responding police parted to let them through as they moved, still bickering lightly, towards where Scully had left her car. His bandaged hand found the small of her back without thought, and the world tipped back into balance.
They would write up the report. And even if it never saw the light of day again, they would know and Skinner would know, and someday, somehow they would find justice for those innocent victims.
But for now, he thought, as he got into the passenger seat and listened to her say something about finding him some food and checking his hand and then making him get some sleep—for now it was enough that he was with her.
They'd figure the rest out together.
A/N: I don't think I've ever written and posted something quite this fast. I saw The Pine Bluff Variant episode on the 19th, wrote most of this on my phone on the 20th, and then finished it up today and figured I'd post it before the momentum and feels wore off. This is also my first (posted) foray into X-Files fanfiction. I have no idea what the fanbase for this show looks like, but I'm very pleased to meet you all.
Special credit goes to the lovely swinging-stars-from-satellites on Tumblr who got me into the show and then has been kind enough to listen to me rave about it.
Title taken from the first line of Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
