THE ABDUCTEE (18/21) by S. Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) 6/25/95 This story is based on the characters created by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without permission and no infringement is intended. Thanks guys, for creating this marvelous stuff. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Copyright 1995 by S. Esty Chapter 18 Sunday 9am Washington Hospital Center Dana set her laptop up on the table beside Mulder's bed and tried to work on an update to Angela's case file. She had thought that with his condition upgraded from critical to guarded, she would be able to concentrate, but after an hour she had typed only two pages. Knowing what happened in that house with Angela would have helped, but Mulder had still not been able to tell her. Dana absently pushed back the wave of auburn hair that fell across her eyes and looked over at the bed, content just to look at him. She had been doing that regularly since they had moved him into his semi-private room. From the time of Dana's first visit to the ICU, he had been sedated regularly every eight hours. But the night before the doctors had decided to drop the medication regime down to nights only and let him wake up now that his blood work looked good and all other indicators were improving. The ventilator had been removed after two days, and at least for the morning, Dana had persuaded them to take out the nasogastric tube. The nursing staff always told family members that patients were not bothered by it, but having had one once, Dana knew that was a lie. When writer's block had taken over for the sixth time, Dana pulled off her glasses to rub her eyes. Too little sleep for too long. When she glanced over at the bed she was greeted by two sleepy, hazel eyes which were calmly watching her. The sight of those eyes, so dark in the pale face lying against the white pillow, squeezed at her heart, reminding her of how close she had come to never seeing them again. "Nice to see you again." She moved her chair closer to the bed. "How long have you been awake?" she asked, softly. He licked dry lips and made a noise in his throat, a look of discomfort passing over his face. She brought a cup of water and a straw down close. Awkwardly, he dropped his head to get his cracked lips around the straw, but paused without drinking any. Instead, he hesitated and lifted his eyes to her face. Dana did not understand. He must be thirsty. "What's wrong, Mulder? It's only water." That seemed to settle some question in his mind. After a few moments, she pulled the cup away, "Hey, that's enough." Mulder dropped his head back against the pillow and rolled his eyes. "Heard ... *that* before," he whispered in a raspy voice. "Excuse me?" Dana asked, baffled. She wondered if he was delirious or still too groggy to make sense. "Not...important," he dismissed lightly. Somehow, he managed a weak smile. "Watched... the sun on your hair." She looked over her shoulder and saw that, from where he lay, she would have been silhouetted against the bright morning light as she worked. He did not say that he had awakened to the sight of her hair glowing about her head like a cloud, reminding him of the hair of the enticing mermaid he had shyly watched swimming above the coral reef. In the moment before he had become fully conscious, a thought had passed through him, body and soul both, that he had died and received his fondest wish. Dana smiled. His words had warmed her. "How are you feeling?" He tried to raise his arms. Even the one not connected to the IV did not rise very far off the bed. He let them fall back wearily. "Won't be chasing... little grey men today," he breathed. His voice was clearer now but still very weak. He looked up over his right shoulder and focused on the blood slowly dripping into his IV line from yet another transfusion. "How low?" he asked glumly. Mulder hated needles. Dana was surprised that he remembered that much of what had happened to him and was sorry that he did. "Almost two quarts and your radiator was bone dry," she told him. "Mulder, you were running on fumes." She tucked the thin hospital blanket closer around his shoulders, if for no other reason than it gave her an excuse to touch him. As his circulation had improved, he had finally begun to feel warm again. "I've asked them to top you off. You take such rotten care of yourself, I suspect you're probably anemic most of the time. Having the proper number of red cells in your veins for once should be a unique experience." "And ruin my... graveyard complexion?" he asked in that weak and raspy voice. "True. I've had corpses that looked better than you." As pale and thin and bruised as his face had been when she found him, Dana had to admit, she had. "By the way, when did you eat last? Your blood sugar was non-existent." He focused inward and, though foggy on details, the memories of those last meals and their aftermath were all too painful. "What day?" he asked, slowly. "Today? Hm, Sunday, I think." In this place Dana had lost track of time, too. He frowned. That long? "Last Sunday... but didn't... stick around..." He pushed away the unpleasant memories, closed his eyes and looked as if he was going to fade out again. "Scully...?" he asked without opening his eyes. "Yeah, Mulder?" she answered, leaning close. "Thanks." "No problem, Mulder," she whispered, but he was already asleep. *** Monday 5pm Washington Hospital Center The next afternoon, Agent Scully had to make a court appearance that had been scheduled months before. When she returned she found him lying back against the raised head of his bed, eyes closed. Someone had brought in a supper tray and left it on his bed side table where he could reach it, but it had not been touched. "Hey, you awake?" she whispered in greeting. He opened his eyes to show that, at most, he had just been dozing. "I missed you," he told her, without raising his head. What he wanted to say was that something had tightened in the pit of his stomach when he woke after lunch and found that she was not there as she had always been before. But then he had found her note. It was under his pillow still. The moment of panic he experienced brought home how very much he did not want to be alone. Even now, he followed her with his eyes as she came to the side of his bed. "One of the members of this partnership has got to work." She lifted the lid on his supper plate. "Hmmm, yummm! The traditional liquid diet: tea, gelatin, apple juice, broth, and, yes, the ever popular, Cream of Wheat." "I don't think I can stomach Cream of Wheat today," he groaned. "Maybe not for the rest of my life." She looked over at him and was glad to see that he was definitely more awake and his movements did not seem so weak, but he still had a long way to go. "You should eat. Let me rephrase that. It is imperative that you eat. And drink. They won't let you out of here until everything works." Automatically, he looked down towards his groin. Dana expected him to say "Everything?" and slyly ask for her help checking out that certain bodily functions did, indeed, work. Instead a shadow flickered across his face and he let the opportunity pass, which raised a red flag in Dana's mind. He turned his attention back to the tray, stating simply, "I don't think my stomach's up to this." "Would you rather they use the tube?" He touched a sore spot by his right nostril and his throat did feel like someone had gotten to it with Number Three grade sandpaper. "Love your bedside manner, Scully. Very well, hand me the tea." "I warn you, it's cold." "That's all right. So is most of the coffee I drink. I'm going to try to pretend it's coffee." His hands wrapped carefully around the cup, shaking only slightly. "I hope you have a good imagination." There..., Dana thought. She had given him the perfect straight line. Mentally, she stood back, watching to see if he would take advantage of it. He took a sip and grimaced. "Arg, even my imagination is not that good." Still, he continued to drink the tea, wincing a little as it went down. Dana worried, but warned herself not to make more out of it than she should. The silence stretched between them. They had not talked yet about what had happened. Because of some of the pain killers he was taking, he had not been completely coherent before. "Scully," he asked now, hesitantly, "how's Angela?" Dana searched his face, trying to determine what Angela had meant to him. "Angela's dead," she told him simply. He did not seem surprised. "She tried slitting her wrists, but didn't do a very good job. In the end, she cut her throat. That's hard to do. She must have been insane." "Or desperate," he commented, sadly. Dana gave him a look of concern and continued. "The case has been classified as a suicide and an *attempted* homicide." "No," he protested. With a groan he tried sitting up more on his own. "It wasn't like that. Not the way you think." Dana pushed him down firmly. This was why she had agreed to their keeping him sedated so long. "Mulder, behave and be still or they'll make me leave." Only while her hand remained against his chest would he lay back against the bed. His eyes had that gleam in them. "Scully, Angela ever intended to kill me, or to harm herself either. She was terrified, terrified of the 'others'." The way he said 'others' spoke volumes to Dana and frightened her. 'Others' in this usage obviously did not refer to gang members or secret government agency men. His eyes took on a distant, stricken, out of focus look. "Scully, she screamed for me to help her and I ... couldn't. I couldn't... move." Dana shut her eyes. She toook his jaw in her hand and turned his face and his attention to her. "Hey, no guilt trips this time, Mulder. She nearly killed you, and they found the razor near her right hand. It had her finger prints on it. Only hers." "They came for her, Scully," he told her intently, confident she would know what he meant. "'They', Mulder?" she asked in her normal, suspicious tone. "You know who I mean. And I saw them, at the end, I think, but they must have been the evil twins of those who took Max Fennig... and Sam." Fox rubbed his arms distractedly, awkwardly because of the IV in his left hand, remembering the cold and the creeping, insidious torture of the vibrations. "This was different...awful." His breath was coming in short pants. His expression turned inward as he tried to remember, but then realized that he did not want to remember. His face suddenly lost its brightness. "She tried to tell me," he said unhappily, "and I wouldn't believe her. She was so afraid. She thought her blood ritual would protect her. She was just trying to escape..." He laid his head back against the bed. "And I guess she did... the only way left to her." He was quiet for a long moment and then the old light rekindled a little behind his eyes. "Scully, the house... You found me there... you must have seen it - " "Mulder..." "- we'll need to get a team out there -" "Mulder..." Dana put a hand on each of his shoulders and forced him to look into her eyes. He was getting too agitated. He did not have the strength for this. "What, Scully?" he asked abstractly, his mind racing elsewhere. "Mulder, the house is gone." That got his attention and he looked at that moment like a little boy who has been told that his dog has died, not knowing immediately what that meant, but knowing it was something he was not going to like. "Gone?" he asked, in a rough, plaintive tone. "Scully, why didn't you stop them. The harmonic residue, the electromagnetic aberrations, we would have found -" "Why didn't I what?" she asked incredulously. "Because you fool, I was here!" His eyes lowered a little guiltily at that. "Anyway, the house was barely standing when I arrived. I'm told it came down within minutes after we left, during the thunderstorm. In addition to the items and pictures the patrolman took while I was there, Skinner sent in an evidence retrieval team, but they didn't look for the sort of evidence we would look for. Before anyone could object, the county housing inspectors had the site condemned and leveled. I didn't even know they'd been contacted. The District certainly wouldn't have been able to complete an evaluation and make arrangements so quickly, but, I guess things happen more quickly in a small county like that. I'm sorry, Mulder, but it's gone." The slump in his shoulders mirrored how devastated he felt. He looked up hopefully into her eyes. "But you saw -" Dana shut her eyes. She had prepared for this, but that did not mean she had to like it. "I saw an old house, Mulder. In terrible condition. It must have been damaged in a storm, a tornado for all I know." Mulder gave a painful, harsh laugh almost like a bark. "Yeah, a tornado." She looked at him quizzically, and found he had closed her out. He sat with arms tightly crossed across his chest, the left hand, the one with the IV, carefully supported. She let him sulk for a minute and then gently pushed the bedside table with its ignored dinner tray towards him. She lifted up a spoonful of jello. "Mulder... you have to eat." His hand flew out, violently batting the spoon so that it and green gel went flying. Both heard the utensil clattering against the opposite wall a second later. Dana was shocked. He glared at her and there was a lot of hurt in his eyes. "I get so tired, sometimes... of your doubts." He might have gone further, but dared not risk it. Maybe he felt the tears too close. Except during his worst nightmares, Mulder seldom cried, at least, not in front of her. On the bad cases he used humor, bad humor, pretty sad, sick jokes, but humor. On the god-awfullest cases that got too close, he would be as cold as stone, badly covering his feelings, when he needed to, with arrogance and anger. Like now. Scully blamed his loss of control on what he had been through. His emotions were too much on the surface, but the feelings themselves, she knew, were not true and not new. It must hurt him to be doubted constantly, especially by her. Dana lapsed into a silence of her own. She knew the initial condition of the house had not been caused by any typical storm. The damage had been too recent and she had checked with the weather bureau; no storms severe enough to cause such damage had been reported in that area for the previous week. The storm front that had come through on Wednesday morning only completed the job, like knocking down a house of cards. She ought to tell him so. She ought to try and not be so much the Doubting Thomas. Sometimes, she admitted that she had to stretch. At those times her explanation *against* some suggestively paranormal incident could be as wild and implausible as Mulder's argument *for* it. But to agree with him now would only bring back the pain of his being paralyzed in the face of *them* again, of his being unable to help. Time to change the subject, Dana decided. She went to her brief case and returned to the chair beside the bed, trying to meet his eyes. "Mulder, these were found in the house." She extended her hand towards him. "I guess you dropped them. I thought you'd want them back." She held out two letters, their surfaces even more bedraggled and soiled than when Angela had first shown them to him. Mulder's reaction was the exact opposite of what Dana had expected. His body and expression went still, tense, except for a very few lines of distaste that deepened the worry lines in his face. A storm was raging somewhere deep inside that rigid posture, but he made no attempt to take the letters from her. "Mulder, there's something wrong," Dana said watching him. "No sexy, sick jokes. A tantrum? And what are the significance of these?" she asked, holding up the envelopes. Dana had not seen Mulder carry anything that looked like a memento before, except for Samantha's picture. "Mulder, what's wrong. What happened with Angela?" He shifted uncomfortably in the bed. "You don't want to know." From experience with Mulder, Dana knew they should discuss this, but she also knew that she could not make him talk. The envelopes where still in her hand. "Until you're ready to talk about it, I'll keep them for you." She looked at them casually, trying to draw him out and diffuse their effect on him. "One's addressed to your mother and the other -" the address side of the second had become stuck to the back of the first, probably with a spot of dried blood. Now, without thinking, she pulled and both heard a distinct 'snap' as they came apart. "No!" he cried, and his hand leapt out and snatched them out of her hand. He swore in pain then for, as he reached, he cruelly pulled the IV line in his left hand. And he still had not been quick enough to prevent her from seeing the second address. Dana's stomach dropped as a wave of jealousy struck her so unexpectedly that she thought she was going to be sick. Phoebe Greene... Dana saw again the tall, dark, sexy woman... laughing so haughtily behind her back... kissing Mulder... him kissing her... their dancing. But Dana also looked again at the letters now in his hand. They were obviously years old. She tried, but she could not hide her bewilderment and hurt from his watchful eyes. Angrily, he tore the letters in two. He would have given his soul for Dana not to have seen that one from Phoebe, not to see that expression of desolation on her face. At least it was obvious that she had not read it, but then Mulder never seriously thought she would. "Angela had these since the original investigation." The outrage he felt was clear enough from his strained voice and the way he held the envelopes up for her to see. With a curt movement, he slid the pieces under his tray. "I thought she had mailed them for me, but she never did." The eyes he raised to hers reflected no light and he breathed too deeply and too quickly, as if starving for air. "Scully, you have no idea what she did." "Phoebe?" That was who Dana assumed he meant. Her name was suddenly hard to pronounce. "Mulder, I know," Dana said, with as much sympathy as she could. Dark fire raged behind his eyes. "How?" But, before she could answer, continued, "She had no right!" Scully could feel her own soul quaking. If *she* felt invaded just looking at him, if her private world felt sullied, how must he feel? "I don't know the details, but I agree, Mulder, she had no right. It was a confidence which she shouldn't have shared." He had closed himself off from her, hurt showing in every line of his huddled body. "Would it help if I got rid of them for you?" she asked gently. Do you want me to burn them? I will if you want." When he made no response she took that as a 'yes' and moved to reach for the pieces, but he threw her a venomous glance. "All right." She backed away, at a loss to know where to go from here. "Mulder, I'm trying to help you. If I can't help you, who can?" Still the stony silence. "You were drugged and kidnapped. You nearly died from what Angela did. You need to talk." Still silence and a huddled figure with his good arm tightly hugging his chest. The one with the IV lay more stiffly in his lap, as if it hurt him. There was a spot of blood on the tape that held the needle in place. "Don't give me the silent treatment. I won't let you bury yourself. Mulder, I'm not other women. I'm Scully, who would never, ever hurt you. Don't you trust me even enough to let me burn a letter for you?" Phoebe had told, Phoebe had betrayed him, and what she had revealed, Angela had used against him. Dana had no doubt of that now. That was what was eating at him, not the letter, but what it represented. He had turned on his side. Now he faced into his pillow, his face awash in bitterness. "Please, leave me alone. Just go. Maybe have dinner with that beach boy." Dana's eyes blazed. "That's unfair, Mulder and when you have a chance to think about it, I hope you'll agree with me, because I expect an apology." She stomped over to his bedside, grabbed his protesting left hand and began ripping off the tape that held down the IV. He groaned and she realized in her own anger she was being more rough than she had intended. She needed to see what damage he had done to himself when he grabbed the letters. He hissed and flinched as she touched the angry red spot. "Now you've gone and done it. We'll have to start another." She turned off the IV and he gasped as she pulled the needle out. One look at it and he turned more pale yet. She started a new one in the vein above his left wrist. Dana was surprised Angela had left that patch of skin intact. The day before, Dr. Scully had presented her credentials and had a talk with the ward nurse in charge, and they had supplied Mulder's room with enough of the essentials so that Dana could see to these little chores herself. During the last thirty-six hours, even half out of his head on pain killers, Agent Mulder had not endeared himself to the nursing staff. As she taped down the new IV, Dana said in a low, warning voice. "Mulder we need to talk. I'll wait, but please, don't pull the silent treatment on me. Don't try to distract me again. Remember, I've seen all your tricks." Damn him. He was as dear to her as any person living and he was closing in, pushing her away. Frustrated, Dana hurled the tape and scissors into the supply box. Then she threw her purse strap over her shoulder, her coat over her arm and picked up her brief case. At the doorway to his room, Dana turned back. Seeing the despairing figure was like ice water on her anger. Her heart started beating again. She wanted so much to reach out to him, to take him in her arms, but she could also see that at the moment, he did not want to be touched. But who else did he have but her? Carefully, she pulled a slim, red book from her brief case and laid it beside his tray. "Here's something else you forgot," she said quietly, adding in her old, softly chiding voice, "and remember, try to eat." She left the room without looking back again. Mulder lay with his eyes shut and would not watch Scully leave. a part of him screamed. But he knew her too well, as she knew him. She would not let him be and he needed for her to let it go, to let him go, at least for now. He pressed his good hand against his pounding head. She knew him well, but not everything. It would scare her if she knew about the pictures in this head. Oh, she knew about his marvelous memory, his marvelous curse. She did not know there were times he could not stop the pictures. Those damn letters.... Phoebe. Now she was back in his head again. Why did she keep coming back to ruin his life? Why couldn't she just stay away? He had almost rid himself of her, buried her so deeply he thought she could no longer taunt him again with promises of happiness, which were always withheld. But then she came back in the flesh.... When was that? Just a few months ago, slick and playful, toying and coy and beguiling, just as she knew he was never able to resist her. And then under Angela's spell she had come to him again as the perfect, erotically exciting creature he had always dreamed she would be if she had ever really loved him. So now she was not just in his head but in his body, too. And it was agonizing, because it was all a lie. He closed his eyes and saw her face within inches of his own as they danced just before he kissed her, long and romantically, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind who saw them, where that kiss was leading. He shuddered, cringing at the vision he could not dispel, the memory of the warmth in his groin he had begun to feel. And all the while, he had known Scully was coming and he had kissed Phoebe, who had the morals of an alley cat, in front of Scully, who was loyal, whose smile sent a warm shiver down his back. He had let himself be tortured by the thought he might lose Phoebe, and all the while he hardly noticed that Scully was even in the room. Scully, who was always there for him, concerned, professional, always accepting. And when he had caught Phoebe wrapped in an embrace with the husband of the family she was honor bound to protect, how his world had come crashing down. All in a moment he had realized that he was, again, just a diversion for her pleasure, a challenge for her driving intellect, a tasty dessert, a toy to toss aside, broken and bleeding, when she was tired of it. He turned over onto his back in the bed and pressed the fingers of his right hand against his aching eyeballs. Ironic, that after what he had done with Angela, a client he too was sworn to protect, that he should throw stones at Phoebe. Phoebe had somewhere learned deceit and hunted him fully aware of what she was doing. He had gone to Angela, completely unknowing, completely innocent, drugged to the gills. he admitted, grieving, not entirely innocent. He had thought he had lost Scully to Evan and in his loneliness he had responded to Angela's flirting. He had wanted someone, anyone, if only to remove for a little while the loneliness. And all the while Dana had probably been walking through hell to get him back and, for that, he could not forgive himself. At least Dana did not know what he had done with Angela. He couldn't bear it if she knew. He opened his eyes. He should eat. Dana wanted him to. He did little enough for her. Then he saw for the first time the red book she had placed next to his tray. *** When Dana returned an hour later, it was to find him asleep. She smiled gently, seeing that he had eaten all of his supper but the hated Cream of Wheat. He had managed with just his fork, and then had fallen asleep, with the copy of Blake's poetry open on his chest. He had hurt her, but she had not gone far and not for long, for she knew his hurt ran deeper than hers. He was confused. From his childhood he had a long history of abuse. Dana had figured that out in the first four months of their working together. And like so many of its victims, he probably thought that somehow he deserved to be hurt. It was a classic syndrome, but that did not make it easier to see him suffer, trapped within its web of circular logic and lonely dead ends. She brushed her fingers across his forehead. He did not even stir. Only then did she notice the tracks of dried tears which, being unable to get out of bed unaided, he had not been able to wash off. She sighed and resigned herself to learning to deal with his temper and his moods, because she intended to live with them for a long time. End of Chapter 18