St. Jude's Hospital

Emergency Room

Louden County, Virginia

7.25 PM

Grateful that she still remembered the entry code on the ER doors, Scully slipped through the entrance normally used by the medics and EMT's. The hell with protocol, I'll deal with bruised ego's later. she thought.

Glancing quickly around, she headed toward the area with the most activity, only to be stopped by a tall nurse. He resisted her best 'Scullyglare' and asked where she was headed.

"A man was brought in here just a few minutes ago. He was involved in a bank robbery...I want to see him...now!" To back up her demand, she flipped open her ID, showing it to the nurse.

Taking her by the elbow, the big nurse pulled Scully to his computer terminal.

"Name..." the nurse asked.

"Mulder, Fox William." Scully supplied, frustrated at the delay, but understanding the man was doing his job.

Shaking his head, he told her, "Sorry, I don't see the name. Are you sure he was brought in here?"

"Yes dammit!" She started to turn away from the nurse, "Look, I'm a doctor, I'm just going to look in..." She was suddenly surprised to find that she couldn't move. The nurse had a solid grip on her shoulder.

"Look, ma'am, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you can't do that. It's hospital policy that law enforcement officers have to wait until treatment has ceased before talking to a suspect..."

Scully turned back toward the towering hulk, leaning her small frame across the counter. Unconcealed anger clouded her deep blue eyes as she set about correcting the mistaken nurse, "He's not a suspect, he's my partner." The nurse nodded apologetically, "I'm sorry... but I still can't..."

"Never mind. Can you at least give me an update?" Scully asked, trying not to scream in frustration.

"You'll have to wait until I can get a doctor to speak with you."

"Look..." Scully's patience finally snapped, "I've spent the longest half hour in history not knowing whether my partner is alive or dead and you're telling me I can't see him?"

"It's hospital poli..." The nurse reiterated.

"I don't give a shit about policy... All I'm asking is..."

"Agent Scully?" A voice interrupted her tirade and she spun about, zeroing in on her new target.

The tall physician introduced himself, "I'm Doctor Porter. I was told to expect you."

Scully now focused her entire attention on the young doctor and his penetrating sad eyes. What she saw there filled her with a sense of dread.

Oh God No!" she thought to herself, "He's going to tell me Mulder's dead. She'd seen that look before, she'd even worn it a few times herself during her rotation in the emergency room. It was the closed and sorrowful countenance of a person filled with deep regret.

She swallowed down her encroaching fear and took a steadying breath, waiting for the words that she dreaded more than anything else in the world.

"If you'll follow me..." Scully needed no further urging, she was on the doctor's heels as he led the way to an exam room. "We tried..." The doctor began, but the sound of a curtain being pulled aside broke his train of thought, his eyes shifted to the cubicle behind Scully just as a distraught young woman emerged from it.

Scully looked over her shoulder when she heard the anguished sounding sobs. She noticed that the young woman was wearing the pressed blue uniform of the local police department. Commendation medals adorned the front of her tunic, but it was the utter desolation in her eyes that drew Scully's attention away from her own thoughts of despair. She watched quietly as the woman was lead away by other members of her department.

"She just lost her partner." Dr. Porter said as a way of explanation, "He tried to assist a pregnant woman who was being harassed by a bunch of street kids. One of the bastards pulled out a handgun and emptied the clip into him." He nodded toward the retreating woman, "Apparently they'd been partners for a little over five years...he was godfather to one of her children."

Steeling herself, she held up a hand to stop the doctor before he continued his explanation, "Please," she said, her throat tight, her blue eyes filling with tears she was afraid to let fall. "Please, I need to see my partner. Now."

I need time alone with him, before they come and take him away.

Nodding in understanding, and grateful that this time, at least he could give some good news, he continued. "You're partner's in x-ray at the moment, he should be back any minute now. He'd lost quite a bit of blood..." His voice faded out as Scully's brain locked on the doctor's first words.

He's in x-ray, x-ray, x-ray... Dead men didn't go to x-ray, live men did!

Grabbing the doctor's arm she shouted, "X-RAY?!"

"Well yes, x-ray. As I was saying..." Cut off by Scully's abrupt, sparkling smile, he grabbed her arm to steady her as she wobbled a bit before him.

Spinning out of his grasp, Scully scanned the hallway frantically, looking at the telltale signs at each corner. Spotting the one she wanted, she sprinted down the hall, leaving the stunned doctor in her wake.

Pounding down the hall, she silently read off the names of the rooms as she passed them, Lab... Records... Fileroom... Ultrasound... Pathology... X-ray!

"Bingo!" Scully muttered to herself as she slid to a stop outside the room. The red light above the door was on, indicating that they weren't quite finished inside. Pacing impatiently up and down the hallway, she jammed her still-

shaking hands into her pockets, her left hand finding the note the gunman had been reading when all hell had broken loose.

Her fingers unsteady, she pulled the crumpled, bloodstained letter out. A quiet groan stopped her from reading it. Glancing up, she watched as an orderly maneuvered Mulder's gurney out of the small x-ray room.

God, she thought she'd lost him. Thought that she'd never see him alive on this earth again. Suppressed emotions waged a battle inside her, tears began to well up in her eyes as she took in the sight of him before her. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and took a hesitant step toward him, letting him see the watery relief in her eyes.

Mulder's eyes met hers, and his pain-filled gaze softened at the fear still evident in hers. His stoic Scully, her emotions normally so carefully hidden behind a well-

maintained wall, was standing before him with tears threatening to fall down her cheeks.

Hers was the last face he'd seen, conjured up in his mind and held there as a talisman while that madman had opened fire in the chaos of the 'rescue.' Her face, serene and beautiful, so capable of conveying the subtlest emotion with just the twitch of an eyebrow, was even more stunning to him now, with everything he'd ever wanted to see written there not just for him, but the world to read.

Mulder cleared his throat, "Hey G-woman," he said softly, "what I'd tell you... I takes a licking, but I keeps on ticking."

He watched in silence as his light-hearted comment released that last, tenuous hold she had on her emotions and the tears she'd been holding onto so tightly began to cascade down her face.

Mulder could only look on as she took a few stumbling steps toward him, her bottom lip quivering uncontrollably as her hand found his, grasping it so tightly that it almost hurt. She laced her small fingers through his, re-connecting them, grounding them in the reality of this moment. A moment she'd been certain she'd never have again.

Scully's eyes never left Mulder's as she kept pace with the gurney the orderly was pushing back into the ER. Locked between their joined hands was the blood-stained letter, forgotten for the moment, but not for long.