Dana needed Meyers to help her lift and roll Mulder about on the table. She needed his Kabar to cut the thick rubber of his P3 suit away, and his muscle to lift the unconscious agent enough to strip him of his suit. Despite the difficulty, Scully worked around his shoulder holster. He'd probably feel better with it in place.
Dr. Scully had also left her gloves on when she removed Fox's environmental suit. Dana trusted Mulder implicitly, but she still would never handle a patient without gloves. Almost never.
His suit had kept most of the blood from staining Mulder, and though his clothes smelled from his prolonged encasement, he looked fairly normal. White bandages and splints encased his slightly swollen right hand, and he still seemed wan, but he no longer hovered at death's door. Scully did not know whether to smile at him or hit him.
It would be a while until he came around, so she could postpone her decision until then. Morphine was a serious narcotic.
She'd been running constantly all day, and couldn't think about what to do next. Her body chose that moment to prompt her, and she brushed quickly past Meyers to the head. She found that though the water no longer ran, the toilet itself was thankfully chemical.
Her business done, Dana looked around the tiny bathroom. She slumped against the wall, fighting tears. Dana felt an overwhelming urge to stay in there, locked away where everything seemed normal. No more blood, no pain, no monsters. She wasn't part of the Files, and could once again grab hold of her normal life. Someplace where she wasn't firing a machine gun, for God's sake.
Someplace without Fox Mulder. Sighing with fatigue, she let the door rattle on the wall as she left.
She was almost out on her feet when she followed Meyers into the Doctor's office. There she used a small metal basin to wash up briefly, ignoring the SEALs standing around her. Once her hands were clean, she drew a length of gauze from a pocket, and tied her hair back. She was too tired to care about the way she looked or smelled or felt just then. After all, no one within one hundred miles was any better off.
Once done, she finally mustered the energy to look around her. The office was a small, messy cubbyhole with several bookcases occupying most of the valuable floorspace. The one light still working shone down onto the desk, and reflected light underlit everyone there.
Meyers was leaning up against the bookcase, and Quiddis sat in the doctor's rolling chair. Soun had pushed himself into the back, and pulled the only other chair up in front of him. Surgery had her tired enough not to argue, and she gratefully sank into the padded seat.
Only the Lieutenant's heavy voice kept her eyes open. "I checked in with Whitman. Everybody's still breathing up there."
"Thank God." Meyers let it slip out, and caught Dana looking at him with understanding.
"That's the good news. Bad news is a storm's coming. A new chopper is flying out to the _Elliot_ now. It'll get there in nine hours."
"Nine hours? What's taking nine hours?" This brought Dana forward in her seat, alert.
"Buffalo Tag." Quiddis shared a look of amusement with Soun over Dana's head.
"Excuse me?" She couldn't believe she'd heard the Lieutenant correctly.
"It's a joint exercise across Oklahoma. They've pulled a division and all available air support out of duty posts along this region. We've got no military lifters available to us."
Dana frowned. For a brief moment, she considered hiring a civilian helicopter, but quickly dismissed the idea. There was no way she could justify dragging anyone else into this.
"Okay, so we wait nine hours. I think that's feasible"
"Try sixteen." Soun already knew, but Meyers hung his head at this. Scully just paled.
"Sixteen." She pictured Peirson, Pryce, and Mulder all awaiting treatment until it was too late.
"The chopper comes on station after nightfall, in a rainstorm, on the open ocean. They can't land on the _Elliot's_ deck in that. And they need her as a midpoint to get out here." Quiddis settled back, a sardonic grin on his face. "The cruiser may be a Spruance hull, but she'll be rocking too hard for the fly-babies."
"Let's call the _Elliot_ in here now. We'll just swim over." Meyers was a SEAL, first and foremost. His first interjection said a lot about him, no matter how high his voice was.
"Yeah, good idea. And when those things sink our ride home, just like the Prometheus, we can swim all the way to Texas." Soun shook his head, wondering how this kid got into a SEAL team this fast.
Dana rubbed her eyes. "It doesn't matter. We couldn't move the wounded like that anyway." She turned a drawn face toward the Lieutenant. "I take it you have a good idea already."
"No. Nobody could come up with a good idea about this cluster-fuck. But I think I can save our hides for another day."
He looked from face to face momentarily, gathering steam for a moment. "We don't know how many of those things are still crawling all over us now. We don't even know if there are any more. But we have to presume we'll be under attack."
Everyone nodded in agreement. Dana ignored the dull pain between her shoulder blades in order to lean forward and listen closely.
"This hospital was designed to be sealed off from the rest of the rig. Only two ways in, and we have solid steel fire doors and bulkheads on all sides. Besides, we need the facilities badly." He closed his eyes. "So we wall ourselves up in here until help arrives."
Dana nodded, but Meyers looked shocked. "What about basic tactics. 'Never let a mobile enemy pin you down.' They can hit us at leisure." There was a note of panic in his voice.
"Yeah. But you've seen them in motion. You think we can go hunting? Or fight a moving battle? Sure. Mulder and I were lucky they let us run." There was disgust in his voice. Quiddis still hadn't buttoned up his uniform, and he looked more like a fighter, and less like a soldier.
Dana was a step ahead of Meyers, blinking tired eyes as she tried to think. "What about the wounded in the hanger?"
"Soun and I go up, and cover them while my two men up there help Whitman bring them down. You and Meyers watch Mulder, and keep the place safe for us."
"Oh no. Hold on." Dana shook her head emphatically. "Peirson is in no condition to be moved, let alone up and down stairs. You'll kill him."
"He'll die if we don't move him."
"You don't know that. They might be nocturnal, or-"
"You willing to bet five men's lives on that? Are you?" Scully watched him in impotent silence. "Me neither."
Quiddis pulled himself straight, shaking out his opened shirt. "How's Mulder?"
This brought Dr. Scully to a position she knew well. "Better. You overlooked the exit wound along his palm, and he managed to damage a vein. It was just a matter of time before he bled out. He's going to be weak and cold, and very likely will come down with opportunistic infections, but he'll make it. You want to tell me what happened to him?"
Quiddis looked at the floor as he recalled the night's events in a monotone. "I was about to be killed by one of those things. Mulder stuck his pistol in its face, and blew it off me."
Everyone in the room looked shocked at this. Soun whistled softly. "Spooky damn FBI agent."
"Enough talk." Startled for a second time, all turned toward Dana. "If you're going, do it now. Before anything else happens, or Peirson weakens. I'll get you med supplies to take with you."
She rubbed her aching fingers on the bloodstained jeans covering her legs, and stood up. She rubbed the back of her neck as she headed out to find her gear. Her voice floated in from the other room. "And I'll need you to move Mulder now, before you leave. Can't keep him out there by the door."
Soun and Quiddis traded a look.
"Soun, she like that all the time?" The lieutenant looked worried.
"Yeah. Real hard-core jarhead, with an MD and tits." Soun smiled openly. "She'd be a good SEAL."
Soun stared into Dana's eyes from inches away. "You ready?"
She nodded, and tensed her shoulders. "On three." Before she could count, Quiddis laughed softly from the other side of Soun's bulk.
Dana stepped back from her position near the door. Bringing her rifle up and away, she looked at the lieutenant sharply. He'd finally had to remove his shirt, using it as a sling to carry the medical supplies with. They were wrapped in a blanket, and tied about his neck with his own shirt. All in all, he did look fairly comical.
Quiddis returned Scully's look, seeing a very tired woman in bloodstained jeans, with spots of deep red up her white shirt and onto her face. "Sorry. I didn't know you Feds did stuff like that. 'On three!' It just sounded like a movie with Mel Gibson , or something."
He pantomimed hefting his rifle, his jaw thrust forward darkly. Dana was too tired to laugh, but she gave in to a lazy smile.
"Okay. So what do you do?" She brushed her gaze across all three soldiers, and noticed that hers weren't the only pair of old eyes, ringed with bruises.
Soun answered for his Lieutenant. "We just say 'Go.' We're always ready, Ma'am."
Scully closed her eyes, her lips pressed in a thin line. She halfway expected as much. Drawing a deep breath, she brought her rifle up until it pointed at the door. Incidentally, it was very close to the soldiers. She opened her eyes.
"Still ready?" There was enough humor in her voice for the two older men to smile. Meyers stepped back slightly.
Quiddis nodded to her.
"Go!" Dana flipped the safety off on the rifle as Meyers swung the door open.
Seeing that the door was clear, Soun and Quiddis bolted out into the hallway, shoulder to shoulder. Each swept their eyes and barrel along the hallway at their side. Seeing nothing, Soun snapped around, and covered his lieutenant.
Dana stepped into the doorway, and covered the two men with her rifle, until they rounded a darkened corner. Then she pulled back into the hospital, and let Meyers close and bolt the door. She almost forgot to snap the safety back on before setting her rifle down.
Meyers watched as she reset her weapon, and rested it near the door. Scully scrubbed at her eyes with the relatively clean back of her hand.
"Go to sleep." Dana's gaze flashed up as Meyer's squeaky voice cut into her.
"What? I've got-"
"To sleep. You're about to fall over." Meyer picked up the rifle she had discarded, and slung it over his shoulder. She could see he'd tried to smooth out his sweat-stiffened hair, and left it as badly of as Fox's.
"And you're much better?" Even this tired, she managed to put some spark into her voice, and into her eyes. She had to. She was a doctor.
"No. But it only takes one to guard the door." He patted the slick metal.
"So-" Dana's head tilted. This was familiar ground at least.
"So they'll need you when they get everyone back here. Awake." Meyers tried to look at her from under his brow. With his youthful face, and gawky manner, it failed miserably.
But Dr. Scully still remembered her residency. All the precious minutes when she could catch her sleep on the thin sofa in the Doctor's Lounge. Sixteen hour shifts were the norm, and coffee turned itself into her best friend. She sighed, shaking her head.
"All right, but you wake me when they get back."
"No arguments there, ma'am." He smiled, his tension barely expressed in the pull of his eyes.
"Meyers. Cut out the ma'am. I feel like I'm your teacher or something." She padded across the floor toward the recovery room. "Call me Scully. Or Dana. Or something." She barely remembered to take her pistol with her as she left.
"Dana." Meyers worked his narrow shoulders as he watched the door. "You can call me Kevin."
Only six thin wool blankets had been folded into a scratchy stack when the SEALs entered the hospital. Three were now layered thinly upon Mulder's sleeping form. Fully half the flickering overhead lights were turned off to save power, and keep Mulder comfortable. Hard to do in a chilly, chalky room whose main attractions were linoleum and acoustical tiles.
Scully shivered as she picked up one of the dull Army surplus blankets, choosing the bed next to Mulder to sack out in. Suddenly deciding to check on her partner first, she tossed the blanket aside. It didn't make a comfortable noise when it hit the thin mattress of the next bed over.
Dana wrapped her flannel shirt tighter about her as she felt Mulder's forehead. Cold. Running her hands along his form under the blankets, his chest and hands were also still chilled.
Damn, she thought, lost too much blood to warm up well. If his core temperature isn't up there, he'll be too sick to stand. And that little generator isn't putting out enough power to warm this place up any time soon.
Dr. Scully found herself rubbing her eyes with the ball of her thumb, thinking about the flood of soldiers seemingly rising about them. She thought about all the ways that her idea might look to them, and whomever they reported to.
Screw 'em, was the best she could manage. She still felt a thick buzzing in her ears, and her arms were getting heavier as she watched Mulder's eyes flicker beneath his lids.
Dana grabbed the extra blanket from the bed she'd left it on, and drew the plastic curtain halfway shut. Separating Fox's bed from half the room also cut off what little light there was.
She walked around his bed, moving toward his uninjured left side, and pushed aside the covers. There was no way she was going to slide Mulder around in the bed like the orderlies back at Bethesda, so she resigned herself to having a lumpy federal agent as a mattress.
The state of Mulder's clothes brought a smile to Dr. Scully's face. Somehow, she'd forgotten to tell Meyers to remove his shoulder holster, and it was still strapped about him. It didn't look very comfortable. She decided not to bother Meyers, but instead pulled the holster off of the rig under Mulder's arm. She wondered what happened to her partner's gun.
Oh yeah, she remembered dimly. Monster got it. She giggled wearily as she dragged herself onto the bed, and halfway on top of her partner.
She reached down to pull the covers about them, and realized she'd left the gun in her right hand. She blinked, and realized just how tired she was. Sighing, she tucked it into Mulder's empty holster, and then clipped it to her belt. Then she tried again, and managed to drag the ugly hospital covers over herself and her partner.
Shifting softly about, she at last rested her head on his shoulder, one hip grazing the bed. She still needed her far arm and leg thrown across him to stay in place, but she rationalized that he'd be warmer that way.
The blunt mass of the lieutenant's pistol pressed into Scully's stomach, and she presumed into Mulder's as well. Just like Lancelot and Guinivere, she thought. Only I got the gun. Then she faded into sleep.
Once, Dana heard far away voices. But she grabbed a handful of cloth, and heard only deep heartbeats.
"Dr. Scully." A low voice called. "Hey, Agent Scully."
Still partially asleep, Dana came fully awake when a hand closed upon her shoulder. She rolled to her left, and spun off the narrow hospital bed in a mass of covers.
Soun hopped back, finding Scully holding a gun on him from her undignified position on the dirty linoleum. For a moment, he saw fear and anger in her blue eyes, and he froze completely. Then her gaze was washed with recognition, and she relaxed her two-handed hold on the pistol.
Rubbing her back with one hand, Dana let the flood of adrenaline push her awake. "You're back. Let me get myself together and I'll be out to the wounded in-"
"Uh-uh, Doc." In the half-light at Mulder's bedside, Soun's face was blank, save for the darkness of his eyes.
"What?" She looked around, and saw the chair the blankets had been stacked upon. It was empty. Dana pulled in a long breath. "How long have you been here?"
"We got back about two hours ago. Meyers and Whitman are sacked out right now too. El-tee can't sleep, and I thought you might want to take your turn at watch now, before everybody wakes up." Soun's mask broke for a moment, and he stared at the floor as he slowly turned away.
"Wait!" Dana quickly lowered her voice as she struggled to free herself from the blankets. "If Whitman's asleep, who's watching the wounded? Damnit Soun, talk to me!" She grabbed his arm, turning the broad-shouldered man about.
He took one of her small hands, but refused to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry ma'am. He didn't make it." Then Soun let her hand go, and left the room quietly.
Dr. Scully blinked, and pushed the remains of her ponytail out of her face. She pinched the sleep from her eyes, drawing a sweating hand over her face. The pistol was heavy in her other palm, but for the moment she did not know what to do with it. Looking up and down the row of small beds, only one had its curtain fully closed. Scully approached it with a sense of foreboding.
She stopped at the plastic sheet, one hand idly touching the hanging drapes. She didn't know why she was doing this, because she knew what was back there. Just the same, she licked her lips, and entered the chamber made by the translucent plastic.
Inside, the body on the bed was covered in a simple sheet, the blankets stripped and used by the living. Blood had soaked through the fabric in several places, and had subsequently dried into stiff russet circles. Next to the bed lay an airtank, mask, and strips of stained gauze. The drip racks and chart holder were empty, and the bed railings were down.
Scully stood at the foot of the bed, and tried to puzzle out her feelings. She'd seen countless bodies, and autopsied many of them. Why now was she chewing her lip? She took a step forward, and stopped, her arms still at her sides. Did she want to pull back the sheet?
She tried to remember which of the faces she'd seen in the _Elliot's_ hold was Peirson's. She couldn't remember a single one. She'd only really seen him as a large, friendly shape in plastic. Dana only remembered his voice in her ear, his hand on her back.
Dana Katherine Scully, don't do this to yourself.
But why not, she argued against herself. Why shouldn't I do this to myself? This is all my life is now, isn't it? Might as well enjoy what I have. And I've got a lot don't I? Don't I? A damn fool partner who disappears on me. Family I can't talk to about my work. An empty, cold apartment that reminds me of killers I've seen. A three month hole in my memory, and nightmares I can't shake.
I even have the occasional lover I don't want to spend much time with, and petty conversation that's not as much fun. Yeah, then I get a great drive back to downtown DC, where my beloved partner gets to poke holes in my life. Like he's supposed to be all I need, or something. Yeah, it's a wonderful life.
Then I meet a nice man, a sweet one. Didn't blow his top, or get scared off by my job. He was even a Navy man. But I don't even know his face. Not once.
Dana blinked impending tears from her eyes, and moved to the head of the bed. She swallowed sharply, for she could smell him. That mix she'd first known in med school, that concoction of sweat and blood, and finally death. It occurred to her that her jaw hurt, that she'd been clenching it for a while now.
Dr. Scully reached out for the sheet, drawing a shuddering breath.
"Don't."
Dana pulled back quickly and spun to face Lt. Quiddis. Blinking rapidly, she tried to gather her composure.
"You startled me." It bought her time to pace her breathing, and smooth her rumpled flannel overshirt.
"Don't, Agent Scully. It doesn't get any better that way. Just walk out, and get it together later." Quiddis tried to catch her eyes, but she found herself staring at the tiny black bars on the collar of his shirt. He'd put it back on, but it still wasn't buttoned.
"I just had to know. He was my patient." The muscles moving under the Lieutenant's flat stomach were much easier for her to focus on than his compassionate eyes. Was that the way her eyes seemed to Mulder?
"And he was my man. And he was somebody's boyfriend, and somebody's son. But we all just get used to it."
He was starting to upset Scully. Not just because he was right, but because she doled this speech out to the agents at the Academy. She hated losing people. That was what had driven her into forensic medicine. Never having to watch her patients die.
"Right. Let me check on everybody." Dana brushed past Quiddis, who wisely left her alone. For a moment, he too stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the body under the sheet. Then he slowly drew the curtain, and walked away. He left the room, noting that the Doctor was simply standing at Fox's bedside.
She waited at Mulder's bedside, looking down at him. God, she'd become so familiar with this sight of him. Sadly, only when wounded did she see that peaceful look upon him with any regularity. And judging by his life, she knew why. Every waking moment, and all his sleep, never to forget. Until he was hurt beyond belief, and drugged beyond the reach of his dreams.
That thought drained some of Scully's anger from her. She wanted to blame the thin, boyish face in front of her. But she couldn't, not without remembering why he had to be here. And she'd volunteered, following Fox every step of the way.
She set the gun down by his head, and started tossing the blankets back over his lanky body. She was amazed at how easily the nurses always seemed to make that look. One flick of the wrist, and they settled on a bed, all sides straight and tight. She managed to tug them into place across Mulder with some effort.
But didn't most things take a little effort with Mulder?
She wet her lips, and decided to avoid that subject. Even within the confines of her own head, she didn't want to air some subjects now. So she felt quickly at his head, convincing herself he was warm enough. Then she picked up her pistol, and started to make her rounds of the ward. Very like her residency, if she ignored the weight of the pistol, or how the rifle had beaten the muscles in her arms and back.
She looked in on Pryce first. The sutures sealing his scalp wound looked second-rate, but he probably wouldn't complain anytime soon. The Major was curled up about a rifle, the lines of his face carved more deeply by the dim light. The collar of his uniform was stiff and stained with his own blood, and his heavy boots protruded from the bottom of his covers. Dr. Scully found it much easier not to think now, immersed in the routine of her profession.
Whitman lay in the next bed over, his arm hanging off the edge and into space. A pistol lay on the ground beside him, and some sheet was haphazardly tangled across his legs. Scully smiled when she realized no one had wanted to hand the kid a rifle.
One of the other soldiers, a heavily muscled man with an ugly brown mustache was sitting upright and asleep in the corner. Scully had never learned his name before she left him with Whitman in the hanger. Even in his sleep he cradled his rifle in his arms like a lover, and Dana decided not to get close enough to read the name off his uniform.
There was no sign of the other soldier she'd left above. Just thinking about that dawning light made her cringe. It seemed too much a part of the scene there.
She'd reached the doorway into the main part of the tiny hospital when the gun in her hand started bothering her palm. She stopped, and shifted it to her left hand, still looking about her. She brought her right hand up to scratch it against her jeans when she stopped and looked at it. It was covered in dark black particles, each as small as a snowflake.
Her eyebrows crept close to one another as she looked at the pistol in her left hand. It was a military standard issue weapon, the metal darkened at the factory to a dull black finish. It smelled still of phosphorus and sulfur, for it hadn't been cleaned since it had been fired. But the grips on the gun were lighter colored, and in the grooves something dark had dried. Blood.
Dana turned, and saw the drapes that hid her partner from view. His gun was gone, and his hand had been injured severely. And Quiddis' weapon had blood on it. The obvious conclusion was that Mulder had been carrying the Lieutenant's weapon while the two men tried to escape the bottom of the rig.
But they'd only had the two pistols. Why then would Quiddis have been unarmed down there? She closed her eyes, picturing every possible scenario. And Fox wasn't conscious to confirm or deny any of them.
Dana heard voices in the Office, and quickly thrust the pistol into Mulder's holster about her waist. She didn't want to be seen staring at it in the middle of the doorway. She pulled her flannel shirt about her, letting the hem cover the gun ever so subtly. Then she headed into the office.
On the way in, she passed Meyers. He was sacked out on a couch, curled up in a ball underneath a heat register. She shook her head and sighed. Dana hadn't been able to rest near a heating duct in over a year.
In the office, Scully found Soun wrapped in a blanket in the doctor's chair, his massive Steyer on the desk close at hand. Quiddis had been talking to him, but turned at the noise. Soun shot her a sympathetic look the moment his officer's back turned, and nodded slightly.
"Agent Scully, you're up." Quiddis ran a hand along his dark hair and smiled, the white of his teeth a marked contrast to thebags under his eyes.
"I'm taking the watch now. Soun's resting." She tried to gauge what went on in the Lieutenant's head, tried to look behind his dark eyes.
Quiddis grinned, and looked back toward Soun. "I win. And you owe me."
"Take it offa your tab." Soun turned an easy grin toward a scowling Federal Agent. "El-Tee bet me that you'd wake up and go straight to work. At this rate, he's going to work off those cases he owes me." Soun winked at her.
"Huh?" Quiddis turned on Soun, missing the confusion on Dana's face. "You owe me. Or are you forgetting Malta?"
"I won at Malta." Soun closed his eyes and leaned back, mimicking sleep.
"What? Pendahocosa! I beat you every time."
Realization dawned in Dana's eyes as she watched the two men banter sharply. At first, she'd been confused. Soun had asked her specifically to wake up and take the watch, and she hadn't been able to understand why he'd bet against himself.
Then she realized. He wanted his lieutenant to win. After all the setbacks he'd faced, he needed something positive to believe in. It wasn't much, but it had him smiling.
And he'd managed to get Scully up and about. He'd broken the news, and got her going too. And he'd done it so she'd have some time to herself before the others got up. She decided to interrupt the two from their play.
"'Night, Soun." Softly, and with a smile in her eyes she watched him.
"'Night, Doc." He didn't look up, but she heard him.
Dana light-footed out of the office, and back into the main room. Her rifle was leaning to one side, away from where she'd set it in her hurry. Picking it up, Scully noted the fresh gun oil, and signs of cleaning. Somebody had been bored, or thorough, or both.
Dana leaned up against the table she'd used to save Fox, and stared at the bolted door. It was a few seconds before she realized that Soun had done something else.
He'd distracted her from wondering why Fox was carrying the Lieutenant's gun. Or why Quiddis was carrying Fox out onto the catwalk with Glad in the first place.
Dana had a lot to think about as she watched the wall.
There are few constants in the universe. Few things that can be counted on to occur in all places and at all times. Modern physics would like the public to believe that these constants are within their realm. But in all honesty, few people are ever in a position to observe these invariants. For all intents and purposes, they are easily ignored by most of us.
In Mulder's life, one of the few constants was the off-white blandness of a drop ceiling. The speckled, dusty panels and their slightly gray partitions. The one piece that has cracked, revealing the gray pressboard beneath the paint. And their inevitable concentric circles of brown water stains.
He stared at them for a few moments, trying desperately to recall how he'd arrived here. He could recognize the hospital bed and drapes; he'd seen enough for them to be more familiar than his own bedroom. But he was covered in layers of blankets, and the air about him was cold. What was more, there was the faint bite of smoke in the air, and under it the smell of decay.
He had not gotten off the rig, he guessed.
And from the low pounding in his head, he was in poor shape as well. Not entirely surprising, he admitted. The surprise had been Glad, really. The last thing he recalled was Glad and Quiddis carrying him through the halls to safety. Apparently, they had succeeded. But Fox was surprised Glad had let them live.
He smiled slowly. At least the helicopter would have pulled the rest of the team off of this nightmare derrick. And no matter how hot her temper, the SEALs would have dragged Dana with them.
Now Mulder just had to figure a way off the rig for himself. He guessed that his benefactors probably had more on their minds than checking in on him. He probably would have to go call on them. And that meant standing up.
This was always the part of hospital stays he'd hated. The nurses with pinched faces telling him to stand up, and walk back and forth across a cold, medicinal room. That sick, leaden feeling that accompanied illness, and the lightheaded nausea of surgery. And the inevitable pain of dragging yourself into a sitting position.
Fox tried to pull the covers back, and couldn't. After a curious look, he realized that his right hand was bandaged and splinted ferociously. He also couldn't feel his arm below his elbow. This bothered him, and he tried to dismiss it.
Instead, he used his left hand to toss back the covers. The chill air hit his sweating body, and he felt frozen. The headache felt a little worse. He noticed that he was out of that horrible P3 suit, but still in his clothes. Thankfully, Quiddis had not decided to do the whole hospital number on him. Mulder hated those damn backless gowns nurses shoved patients into. And it was a rare nurse who was worth all the trouble, too.
Mulder took a deep breath and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. When his head came up, his vision faded out momentarily. He blinked rapidly, and soon saw his own shoes. He was folded in half at the edge of his bed, with every limb prickling with thousands of needles.
Blood loss. I nearly died of blood loss, Mulder thought. I remember feeling like this after I was shot in the leg. It was like my legs had been asleep, and I was dizzy and blanked out like that.
He looked down at his gauze wrapped hand. As his eyes fired up and began working again, he noticed smears from blood stained fingers on the cloth. He poked at his hand, and was rewarded by a deep, numb ache. Mulder grimaced, knowing how it would feel once the painkillers wore off.
Cautiously, he slid off the bed. If he was about to lose feeling in his legs, he didn't want to make too much noise as he fell. But he surprised himself when he managed to remain on his unsteady feet, even after he released the bedsheets.
Wobbling slightly, Mulder used his awkward left hand to draw a rough blanket about his shoulder. It took some time to pin it about one shoulder, and then work it over the other. At last he was done, and could hold the fabric in place with his bandaged hand. Grinning palely at his own small accomplishment, he managed to leave the small enclosure.
Despite the dim light, Mulder saw that several other beds were also in use, their curtains drawn. He poked his head through one, and saw Whitworth, still asleep. He was stunned; Whitworth should have been on the helicopter out of here already. The last curtained divider hid another sleeping soldier, one Mulder wasn't familiar with. Through his confusion, it occurred to Fox that perhaps the helicopter never arrived. Or perhaps it never left.
Still dizzy, he slammed into the edge of the door on the way out. He pushed off, fighting for the balance he needed to make it through the small hospital facility. He stumbled and fell against someone, felt arms grab him about the waist.
"Mulder, you shouldn't be up." Dana had dropped her rifle and leapt to her feet when she'd seen her partner stumble blindly into the darkened main room.
"Scully? You okay?" He was out of breath as she pushed him back against a desk, forcing him to sit down atop it.
"A lot better than you're doing."
Mulder bent over, holding himself up with his left hand on his knees. He spoke to the floor. "I thought you were getting out on the helicopter."
"So did I." She pressed her fingers against his carotid artery, and checked his forehead before examining his bandages. "You've got a fever. I-"
"They never showed?" He wearily brought his head up, and took in her wild hair, bloodstained clothes, and smell of smoke.
"They showed. But those things destroyed the helicopter and killed the pilots. Mulder, what are they?" He managed to hold her eye, and was shocked by the stiff, hard look there.
"You know my usual list of suspects." She steadied him with a hand, but didn't smile at his joke. "You notice those things had green blood, same as that bounty hunter."
"Only it's a corrosive acid."
Mulder leaned further back, resting his head against the wall behind him. He decided to keep his eyes closed. "Right. So what did I miss?"
Once he propped himself against the wall, Dana took her hand away. Now she didn't know what to say to him. What had he missed? There was too much to say, and too few words for her to use. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face.
"That good, huh?" Dana still said nothing, and Fox couldn't bring himself to open his eyes to her. He could hear her rattling about with some pills for him to take, and it upset him that she wouldn't talk to him. He wanted her to say something to him, now. He wanted a chance to apologize to her.
Maybe they could just talk. "You and that soldier still getting along?" He kept his eyes closed, his head pounding.
Scully's jaw dropped and her eyes narrowed. After all that had happened here, he had the audacity to play mind games. He still wanted to hurt her, pry where he wasn't wanted. She fought an urge to slap him. Instead she drew a shaky breath, and tried to conjure something suitably scathing to say. She couldn't think of a thing. Not one word came to her, not a witticism or a single remark.
"Scully?" She closed her eyes, rather than see Mulder's now open eyes trying to read her expression. She'd have turned away, but she didn't think she could.
"Scully? What's wrong?" Mulder took her elbow clumsily in his left hand, and pulled on her slightly as he tried to sit upright.
"Nothing." Scully mumbled something further to him as she shook free of his hand and turned away. She couldn't continue talking like this. She wanted to get back to her seat, and keep watch, alone.
"Wait, Scu-," He tried to push off from the desk to follow her, but collapsed to the floor when his legs gave out on him. "Ah-Ohgodohgodohgodogod. . ." He rolled away from the side he'd landed upon, cradling his hand.
"Damnit Mulder, can't you do anything right?" When he looked up again through the pain, Scully was kneeling down beside him, bent over his bloody bandages. Her hair hung down, obscuring her face as she started unwinding the gauze about his hand.
"You pull out more damn stitches than I put in, you know that?" She fumbled with the bandages, her voice thick.
"Yeah, I do it just to spite you." His face was pinched as she pulled back the bandages. He didn't want to look.
"I figured. Well, congratulations; the stitches held. You just hit some of the broken bones in your hand." She started rewrapping his wounds, her hair still hanging across her face.
"Broken bones?" Mulder watched his partner, unsure what he'd triggered accidentally.
"When that fragment hit your hand, it shattered a couple of bones in your hand before coming out your wrist." She tied the bandages viciously enough to elicit a grunt from Fox. "You're real lucky to be alive."
Dana threw Mulder's arm across her shoulder, and unceremoniously drew him to his feet. She didn't want to face him, her mouth dry from the mix of anger and guilt she suddenly felt. Instead, she wrapped her arm about him, keeping her head down. Suddenly his height would be to her advantage, for he wouldn't be able to see her face.
"Let's get you back to bed." Now her voice was softer, less distinct. But she managed to get him moving toward the door.
Despite Scully's arm about his ribs, Mulder reeled. He used his bandaged hand to tilt her chin toward him, and she didn't resist. Instead, they both stopped just at the door to the sick room. Fox stood still, watching the dim light play across his partner's face and hands. He could swear it looked like she was crying silently.
"Scully, I-" She twisted her face away, and pressed him into motion again.
"It's not you, Mulder. So just shut up and walk." There was too much forced humor in her voice, but she managed to hustle him into the hall along the beds.
"Who then? Peirson? That guy from this weekend? What?" His head hurt, and she was just helping it reach new levels. Mulder took his hand from about her shoulder, and squeezed the bridge of his nose.
Scully pushed away from Mulder, digging into her shirt pocket as she looked away. "I forgot. Here, take two of these. . ."
She pulled his hand from his face, and pressed several small capsules into his hand. Fox stared through the darkness at the pills before he tossed them aside. They scattered loudly across the metal decking.
"I don't want any damn pills, Scully!" His intense whisper came out as a hiss, and his eyes were blacker than the darkness around them. "I want answers. You've been dodging me or lying to me since you came back from this weekend, and I want to know why."
Dana stared at Fox a moment before answering. "No, Mulder. This is dodging you." She turned and walked back toward the door, leaving Mulder standing a few feet from his bed.
"Scully . . ." Fox knew he'd said the wrong thing, but he couldn't believe that his snipes at her earlier were still cutting this deeply.
"No more, Mulder. No more." She took up her chair, hefting the big rifle across her lap. Dana cast a glance down the hallway, where he still leaned against the metal bulkhead.
Agent Mulder knew from her tone that his words weren't going to change her mind in the least. If anything, he was likely to worsen the situation, and that he did not want. The ward echoed more quietly than ever as he walked past the remaining beds toward his own. As he reached the foot of his bed, he realized he'd left his blanket back on the desk behind him. He only paused momentarily, not wishing to confront Dana just then. It took little thought for him to abandon it.
His head was pounding as Mulder limped to the side of his own bed. It was hospital standard uncomfortable, but he ached enough to look forward to it. But just as he walked alongside the mussed bed, his brow wrinkled. A passing thought had wandered through his mind when he awoke, forgotten until now.
He picked at the flat pillow, searching in the darkness with his fingers. He couldn't find any hair without light to see, and he cursed himself for dropping the flashlight. Instead he smelled the pillow, and the rumpled covers alongside the bed. Despite the chill air, and the rank smell of the room, Fox could still smell it. Dana's hair was one thing he'd recognize anywhere.
Mulder found himself leaning on the cold bed, fighting his headache to think. He knew that something wasn't adding up, and now the one person he could trust didn't want him in the room with her. He'd said and done exactly the wrong things, and at exactly the wrong times, as he always did.
Sometimes, when he woke in a sweat on his sofa, he wondered just how much of his life's troubles were of his own making. A father who hated him, a mother he never talked to cropped up first. A love life that lasted until Monday at best, and an empty home flashed by. And Dana, he thought. And Dana.
Rubbing at burning eyes, Fox forced his thoughts away from his self absorbed ramblings. He was supposed to be the FBI's best profiler, able to think just like his target. He could understand people's motives, and know their moves before they did. Even in a game of chess with no rules, he was ten jumps ahead.
Why couldn't he understand Dana then? Her smiles and frowns were still pleasant surprises to him, and he still tightened at the prospect of her reaction to his constant teasing. Certainly he knew her every professional response, and saw the orderly working of her intellect. Mulder trusted her as a partner because they moved side by side without misstep, like dancers in their movements. Until now. He realized that for all their time together, and for all the facets of her person he'd seen, she was still something of a mystery to him. And this was a mystery he might lose.
He wanted to lie down and go to sleep, give in to the cold lassitude that weighted his arms. He wanted to let his thoughts continue to blur in and out of focus, his memories giving way to dreams. Once there everything would again be clear and painless.
No, he reminded himself. Concentrate on the situation. First he played all the relevant facts through his head. Then he thought about anything small, any detail he would never have counted important. The obvious conclusion was that he'd been an ass. A royal, four flushed wanker was the name that sprang to him from his days in Oxford. He wondered if this was this sort of thing that he'd done to earn his treatment at Phoebe Greene's hands.
He shook away the memory, as the chill air slowly sapped his remaining vigor. His actions would explain her anger, but not all that had just transpired. So he reversed all the names in his mind, tried pretending that Dana had treated him the way he'd treated her. What had she experienced that he hadn't? And he saw a pattern.
Her family was large, and she was used to them, comfortable and happy as Fox had never known. Now her brothers are away, and she moves out and into the FBI. Her father dies shortly thereafter, and her mother would be busy dealing with that. She's never really made many friends in Washington, and her half-mad partner is lost in a world of his own. To top it off, her job alienates just about everyone in her profession. She was lonely.
She disappears for a weekend fling, much as Fox was accustomed to doing. Only she returns to a partner who throws a tantrum, intrudes in her private life, and does everything but say he's jealous. It had to remind her of the distance they kept, just the opposite of what he'd tried to say. The irony involved was one of the things that made Fox lay his head on the cold bedcovers.
He'd have yelled at Dana long before now. But not her, not Doctor Scully. Fox knew that it was his emotions that kept him going, that anger and guilt pushed him past the rough spots. But she was ruled more by her ambition, honesty, and intelligence. Something more was needed to make his partner, his friend snap at him now, and under these circumstances.
His head throbbed, and he wished he hadn't thrown away those pills she'd proffered. Whatever was in them had to be preferable to the steady pain that echoed his heartbeat.
He fought it to recall the words he'd said each time, the ones that triggered her responses. Think like the professional you're supposed to be, he pressed. 'What have I missed.' Then 'Peirson.' Then I accused her of lying to me. Oh shit. No, not that, not now.
The dank smell sharing the hold with him suddenly intruded on Mulder. He spun upright, ignoring the blackness spinning just past the edge of his vision. It moved in time with his headache, and made him desperately want to fall over. Instead, he walked to the drapes. Toward the one bed farther from the door than his.
Pushing it open, he remembered suddenly why it was he had been afraid of the dark. Under the plain white cover was a blood stained body. Mulder couldn't bring himself to look at the face, and he knew it wouldn't help him much anyway.
Instead he pulled at the right boot one-handed, struggling with it as quietly as he could. It pulled away with a sucking noise, and revealed an army boot inside. Mulder gingerly set the P3 boot down, then set about removing the next boot. He couldn't manage to get his numb fingers to pull apart the nylon lacings of the boot, though. And his goal, a shiny piece of metal, could be seen peeking through the many laces.
Instead, he forced himself to pull back the sheet, revealing the head and chest of the body. Most of the dark rubber suit had been eaten away, but the name 'Peirson', was just legible. Fox knew how she had to be feeling, sitting alone in the dark. He pulled the sheet up, barely over the head of the body, before turning about. He wanted to be there with his partner.
Mulder managed to stagger out to her, using the wall to push against as he walked. He was pretty sure it wasn't medically sound for him to be legging it out like this, but there was no chance he'd leave her alone just then. As he passed the desk, he gathered his forgotten Army surplus blanket into his arms.
It scratched his one bare forearm as he walked alongside Dana. She didn't look up at him, instead focusing on the sealed hatch before her. Fox grabbed the back of her chair for support momentarily before dropping the blanket over her shoulders.
Mulder easily remembered how he'd felt when his partner had died, and how she'd taken the loss of her father. He didn't move to touch her, and only spoke briefly, under his breath.
"I'm sorry. . . Dana"
Scully looked up, her face an unreadable tangle of emotions. "Mulder, it's you. . ."
Mulder's sleepy eyes hid a frown. Despite the Exxon sized headache working its way across his temples, he wondered who she'd expected.
"You've got to stay in bed, you're about ready to fall over." Dr. Scully pushed herself to her feet, letting the blanket slide to the floor and leaving her rifle on the chair. No matter how she felt, she couldn't very well leave her partner swaying in the middle of a room.
Dana once again took hold of her partner, and helped him back to his bed. This time, however, he held his tongue until she'd helped him sit on the bed.
"Scully, I'm sorry." He almost mumbled it, like a tired child.
"You've said that before. And it's all right." She lifted his legs up and onto the bed before looking over her shoulder. The drapes leading to Peirson's body were pulled back, and the shroud disturbed. Dana pursed her lips, and pulled the drapes closed with a soft sound.
When Scully turned back, her charge was out cold, the blankets still pinned beneath his legs. As she reached for the blankets, Dana was thinking about the ways in which her partner needed help. Then her hand brushed against his leg, and she was struck still by how cold it was.
Running her hands along his arms and neck, she found his skin sallow and cold. But his forehead and cheek still burned with a mild fever. After all the blood loss, Mulder's body couldn't keep its temperature up. In this environment, that invited illness and worse, hypothermia. It was then she found the pulse along the inside of his thigh, rapid and shallow.
"Whitman." Scully called out in the dark to the USAMRIID doctor.
"Yes, here." The thin man moved quickly from his cubicle, rotating his shoulders to work the kinks out.
"Start heating up some plasma; Mulder needs another transfusion immediately. I'll get the antibiotics while you set up the IV stand." She pushed her flannel sleeves up to her elbows as she barreled down the darkened corridor.
"Got it." Whitman was at her heels, buttoning the sleeves on his uniform shirt. "He sounded groggy. Um, we'll need to keep him warm, while checking him for signs of fever."
Scully yanked several small ampules from a miniature refrigerator, hoping they had been kept cold enough. "Too late. He's already showing. Now we need to control it, and break it."
Whitman disappeared into the walk in refrigerator large samples were stored in, and came out with several bags of yellowish blood plasma under his arms. He rubbed one frantically, trying to bring its temperature up. Then he noticed Agent Scully staring at him.
"You were listening, weren't you?" Her eyes were tightened imperceptibly, the lines at her mouth a trifle deeper.
Whitman blinked rapidly before speaking, a weak grin on his face. "Sounded like doctor-client confidentiality to me, sir."
With that he fled down the corridor toward Mulder's bedside. Dana searched the drawers for chemical heat packs before joining him.
White was about as unhappy as he could be. The plentiful oil and grease he'd found in the mining pump provided fuel to keep him warm, but it was a poor solution at best. The toolcase he was using as a firepit kept the burning oil contained, and even shielded him from the boiling grease the fire kicked upward. But it let out the most horrific black smoke, thick enough to choke and noxious enough to hold him far from the warmth.
He wanted to use a crowbar with grease on the end as a torch, but he knew full well that the oil would simply liquefy, and run down onto his hands. And he was himself smeared with diesel, oil, and grease; he couldn't afford even a single mistake handling the fire.
His bleeding arm severely limited his movements. Stallone movies notwithstanding, there was no way White was going to use fire to cauterize a bullet wound. Strips torn from the hem of his undershirt were going to have to do it.
He exercised as best he could with his wounded arm, counting on his body heat to keep him healthy, and dry his clothes. When the fire warmed and dried White as much as he could hope, he set out.
Now the hard part began. Unarmed, wounded, and in the dark, he had to find a way off the rig with what remained of the samples he'd been sent to collect. The tool box was one way to carry the fire with him, but it made the handle hot enough that he needed to hunt for an insulated wrench to hold the handle.
There was no avoiding the paralyzing fear he felt for those monsters roaming the derrick. But he'd dealt with fear often enough. Anyone who doesn't feel it is a lunatic, and anyone who doesn't handle it is a coward. It was a motto that had followed him from his earliest days training insurgents. Now was just a very practical test.
Over to his right, a shuttered opening to an electrical conduit was partially concealed behind hanging chains. The flickering firelight cast indistinct shadows along dancing walls, and in every corner White could almost see the gleaming carapaces of his enemy. Shaking his grizzled head, he ducked around the chains, and moved to the shutters. With his combat jumpsuit crammed with tools from the rig, he had little trouble removing the bolts that held it in place. He had far more trouble lowering the shutters to the floor in silence.
Once the heavy covering was gone, the firelight revealed an empty conduit, whose curved walls and ceiling were lined with bundles of wires, each as thick as his wrist. It was big enough for him to stand up in, but just barely. And he wasn't a tall man.
And the shallow pools of stagnant water that reflected the bare metal above them only added to the tight feeling of the passageway. It didn't help that this was Col. White's best chance to leave Rig Forty-Three.
His footfalls echoed heavily in his ears as he moved down the conduit.
Whitman cautiously set up the IV in Agent Mulder's left arm. According to Scully, the man tended to slip IVs right out of the vein in his left arm three times out of five. Ordinarily, she'd use his right, but the injury there prevented it. Whitman swallowed, trying to picture a job where somebody would be on IVs that often.
His reverie was broken by Dr. Scully's tense voice again. "What's his bee-pee?" He slipped the blood pressure cuff over Fox's limp left hand, and started inflating it even before it was in position.
"Eighty over seventy." He felt under Fox's jaw and counted off heartbeats on his watch. Doing some quick multiplication, he continued. "Heart rate's an even one-forty."
Scully pulled the syringe out of the dangling IV tube, finished with the Amoxicilin injection. Dull blue eyes flashed a worried look at him over Mulder's chest. "He's going to go arrhythmic like that. Find some Verapimil, and start a slow drip."
Whitman started around the bed, following Dana into the main area of the hospital. "What about Dobutamine?" He turned away from her to the medical chest.
"Uh-uh. We'll need him up and around when the weather clears. You start that, I'll get more thermal packs and a glucose drip." She ignored the hair falling in her eyes as she methodically overturned every drawer of every cabinet set into the wall. All the neatly stacked items bounced around her feet as she tossed them down, searching for equipment.
Finding what she was looking for, she lifted the hem of her shirt and dumped several items into it. Then she rushed down the hall, back to Fox's bedside.
"What's his heart rate now?" She kept her eyes on Agent Mulder's face as she snapped the chemical heat packs, and thrust them under the blanket.
"Down to ninety and slowing. Seems okay for now." Dr. Whitman reached across to grab the glucose drip bag, and hang it alongside the plasma container.
Scully picked up the electric thermometer she'd grabbed, and stuck it in Mulder's ear. The small LCD display read '96.5,' and she frowned at it.
"Well, his temperature is still too low, and his face is flushed. You stay with him, while I get the main room in order."
Whitman barely managed to beat her to the foot of the bed. "Nope, no can do."
Dana pushed aside the arm he'd extended toward her. "And why not?"
"I'm not the one prescribing drugs for him, Doctor." He pulled himself upright, adding an inch to his height advantage. "I'm just helping out. He's all yours." With a brief smile, he quickly moved away.
Scully was flatfooted. She knew he'd heard Mulder arguing with her. It wasn't much of a leap to see that he wanted to 'help her out,' by giving her some time with her unconscious partner.
Well, she didn't want time. She didn't want any more nosy damn men in her life. She didn't want all this care and concern. Damnit, she was a forensic pathologist, and a trained Federal Special Agent. It galled her to have an absolute stranger doing the same things that irked her in her partner. And Mulder could raise her blood pressure better than anyone.
Still thinking of him, she sat awkwardly on the high bed, almost atop Mulder's thigh. Under the layers of blankets, she could feel one of the chemical hotpacks burn brightly into her thigh. There was no place for her to sit here, and she'd rather burn than go out and pick up a chair to bring back here. There was no way she wanted to face Whitman just then. God only knew what she'd say to him.
Sitting as she did provided no support. Dana found herself shifting fitfully, almost disturbing her partner's rest. Then a thought occurred to her; Whitman awoke to the noise of her conversation with Fox, and he was just a doctor like her. For all the soldiers resting on edge, they must have been very loud indeed.
She couldn't help running over in her head what these men had seen. First I crawled into bed with my partner, my _partner_ for God's sake! Then I get into what could easily be misconstrued as a lover's quarrel, right in front of the whole of the US military. And when he gets sick, I hurl objects left and right like some love sick-
Dana stopped when she realized her nails were biting into her thighs through the denim. She took a deep breath and released it. Then she turned to see her partner's ashen profile in the half light. She smiled, and pushed the stiffened hair back from his forehead. It took a moment or two, but her temper cooled as it always did. I am scared of those animals out there, and worried about my partner, she thought. It is not Whitman's fault, and it's not Mulder's.
Dana rubbed her eyes and laughed soundlessly. The stress was starting to get to her. And she was halfway to punching a coworker who was helping save Mulder's life. This was one side to soldiering she hadn't thought of, something she suddenly hated. The waiting that could burn nerves short, and set tempers off.
She thought about the men resting all about her, still holding their guns in their sleep. Doubtless each and every one knew what she was going through. Certainly they faced the loss of a partner as well. They'd understand. Soun would, she was sure. And if they didn't . . . fuck it. She knew what rumors ran around the labyrinthine corridors of the Bureau. She'd laughed at a few of them. Because she knew she couldn't let that rule her life, any more than she could let her temper get the better of her.
She hopped off the bed, knowing she didn't want to spend another minute lost in thought. Dana straightened her shirt, and swept her hair back behind her ears. Then she walked out and into the main room, passing Whitman as he knelt to clean up the mess she'd made in her haste. Without a word, she retrieved her rifle before tapping Whitman on the shoulder. He nodded at the mix of emotions on her face, and she mouthed the words 'thank you' to him. Then she padded softly to Fox's bedside.
Back in the relative safety of Mulder's area, she used the rifle's strap to hang it from the bedpost. Pulling aside the covers, Scully crawled in next to her partner. He needed the warmth, and she needed the rest. With her eyes closed, she was almost comfortable. She laughed, picturing the SEAL faces. After she awoke, one of them would have to curl up with Mulder to keep him warm. And within a few minutes, she was asleep.
Scully had her rifle in her hands before her eyes were open. The sound of her feet hitting the linoleum was lost under the heavy, repeating booms that echoed through the very walls. She used the rifle barrel to push aside the curtains, trying to rub sleep out of her eyes as she moved.
"Scully..." Dana never heard him as she raced down the hallway toward the source of the noise.
"Soun! What's going on!" She was yelling for him over the slamming noises. Very obviously, the main hatchway into the hospital was vibrating loudly as it was struck with violent force from the other side. Around her, Whitman and Meyer were hauling medical supplies back toward the rear of the medical area, while Quiddis and Pryce wired curved pieces of plastic to the doorway.
"Scully, they're coming!" Soun grabbed her, and spun her around. He danced back as she flicked the safety off and swung the barrel at his face before pointing it away.
"Sorry." The pounding was out of time with the blood in her ears, and she still couldn't shake the vague dreams of Duane Barry.
"We're falling back, back to the next set of rooms. Past the office, there's a lounge, and an exit into hallway Two-Four A, get it?" Soun turned, his eye on the dents forming in the metal of the bulkhead. "We fall back, and seal the room, then fight room by room on the way out. You get Mulder up and running, we handle the big guns."
Scully saw that the door hinges were tearing, and the paint was flaking from the plated steel as the metal itself warped from the impact. She ran at full speed down to Mulder's bedside. There she found him sitting up, trying to pull the IV needles from his arm with his teeth.
"No time. Just drag the rack around." Scull was terse as she checked his color. The lights were low, but she thought he looked damn pale. The pounding increased in tempo, and she wondered who wouldn't.
He grabbed her shoulder as she approached, and pulled himself up. Then he slid halfway down her body before catching ahold of her gun arm with his left hand. "Oh, God. I can't walk."
"Just the medicine. Don't worry." She held him tightly, until he could pull his legs underneath and wobble to his feet.
"That was fun." Dana grimaced at the joke, wondering that he could laugh at a time like this.
Suddenly, the main door snapped inward with a scream of tortured steel. There was a flash of motion, and then a series of scorching explosions. Gouts of flame tore from the small charges placed about the door, and through the dark mass of bodies.
The Claymore charges were directional, and their payload of ball bearings gutted the packed hallway. Then Soun and Quiddis opened fire relentlessly, the inhuman shrieks of their targets burning their ears. The blasts of gunfire in the enclosed area quickly deafened all.
The lights suddenly died, leaving only the flickering yellow light of the muzzle blasts to illuminate the dark forms pouring through the smoking and rent doorway. Men screamed back and forth, but their rising voices made no sense to Dana. She only heard the basso roars of Soun's weapon, and the sense of barely contained panic.
Quiddis made it through the next doorway as Dana managed to drag Mulder forward. He kicked a grenade from the launcher under his rifle, and the blast nearly batted him to the floor with a flash of light.
Meyer leaped up, and managed to slam the doorway closed. In a heartbeat Pryce and Whitman were alongside him, fastening the many catches around the door. They leaped back as this door too began to ring with repeated blows.
Now, though, the screams from the other side of the door could be heard over the impacts. The man Scully couldn't name stepped forward, and wedged a grenade into the door handle, wrapping wire about its pin. Somebody took Mulder's other arm, and started moving him along, through another door. She nearly tripped in the small space of the doctor's office, but then they were on the other side of the next door, and the pounding again grew impatient.
The SEALs raced along behind them, setting up at each doorway. They'd set up a staggered defense, and the creatures seemed determined to slog through each and every level of it.
The next door was torn free from its moorings, and the grenade detonated under the clawed feet of a dark shape. Scully heard screaming, both human and alien. Again the flashes of white gunfire reached out into the smoke, and the hissing grew.
Beneath it was a subtle groaning noise. A nearly subsonic vibration, deeper than the blasts echoing about them. A lone black shape dropped suddenly over a crouching SEAL, and Scully fired her rifle at it.
She didn't aim, or use her second hand. She let the vicious recoil walk the gun up her target, kicking back in a spray of green blood. The glossy black skeletal figure fell, as the soldier jumped to his feet screaming.
Then the deep vibration rose to a thundering pitch, and all standing were knocked from their feet.
White was almost to the end of the tunnel. He could hear a horrific gunbattle echo through the dripping conduit, and he stopped splashing along long enough to listen to the unearthly cries of the aliens. Several explosions thundered through the air, and shook the tunnel through which he ran.
He was running out of time, but he hoped the SEALs managed to kill off some aliens before dying.
It was that hesitation that saved his life. With a boiling hiss, a sea of acid burned through the conduit before Col. White. He fell backward in shock, as an entire section of the oil rig seemed to dissolve before his very eyes. With a roar of destruction, he saw a half-molten section of floor drop through the space in front of him, before he covered his head.
There was a blast of cold air, and a wave of noxious smoke. Then water hit his face. Water rinsing the sour tang of the acid burn from his nose. It the distance, he heard a further roaring, and then the rig began to sway wildly. At last, it stopped, and White released his breath.
Col. White blinked his eyes open. Shocked, he rose on unsteady feet to stare about himself. His injured hand curled in toward his stomach, and his fire burned forgotten on the floor behind him.
Where once the rest of the pylon had stood, with six meters of tunnel, now there was empty air. Several floors of the rig had disappeared into the ocean, victim of the fight raging above. And past the smoking and twisted edges of metal, White saw the foaming sea and the burnished gray masses of the impending storm.