Title: The Darkest Hour Author: prufrock's love Category: Story, Angst, MSR, Rape, Mulder POV Rating: NC-17 - Not for the kiddies. Really. Maybe not for anyone under thirty. Dark. Seriously Dark. Scares me that I could create it. Not joking. Be warned. Summary: The Consortium intends to destroy Mulder by traumatizing Scully, but instead, Mulder learns two lessons: his capacity to love, and her ability live. Disclaimer: Not mine; don't sue. Distribution: link to: www.geocities.com/prufrocks_love/darkesthour.html Author's notes: Not this time. Wrote them, sounded preachy, deleted. Dedication: To S.- the best revenge is surviving. The Darkest Hour by prufrock's love My Scully is away, and there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. I must actually be going crazy if I'm bastardizing Shakespeare. I know they all think I am. Skinner, Mrs. Scully, the Gunmen - they're just waiting for the men in white to come take me away, but I'm actually still reasonably sane. I can't find her if I surrender to the dark fire. To the beautiful swirling dark fire. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone. The wind whispers it to me. The brown leaves on the sidewalk crunch out those words in restless staccato rhythm. I hear it in the rustling blanket the few hours I sleep and static of the television when I wake. She's gone. Just gone. Just didn't show up for work one morning. When I went to check on her, the apartment was empty. Neat as a pin. Suitcase under the bed, clothes in the closet, makeup on the bathroom counter. No call, no note, no e-mail. There's a jacket she forgot still at my apartment. I sleep with it. For three weeks. Just gone. Car in the parking lot. Bills ready to be mailed on her desk. Fresh fruit in the refrigerator. Cell phone charging. Dry cleaning hanging on the coat rack, still in the plastic. Laundry sorted in baskets by the door, waiting for the washer. I paid her Visa and telephone bills so they won't be overdue when she comes back. For nineteen days. Just gone. No activity on her bank accounts or credit cards. No contact with anyone at work or with her friends or family. Not checking her e-mail or her voice-mail remotely. Not one of the Jane Does in any hospital or morgue - I've looked at every nameless female corpse with red hair in a four state area. Her umbrella is still behind the door at the office, waiting for her to come back. Dentist called yesterday to say she'd missed her appointment. I rescheduled it for next month. For four hundred and fifty-six hours. Just gone. I threatened Skinner's life until I was sure this wasn't some sort of undercover operation she'd been assigned to. She damn sure didn't take off with Cancerman again. Maybe she found herself another boy-toy to get a tattoo with. Fine, she can fuck every man in the greater DC area and get a skull tattooed on her ass if she'll just come back to me. I've had the FBI's best comb her apartment twice for evidence, and there's no sign of an intruder or a struggle. Neighbors saw her come home after work on Wednesday, juggling groceries and dry cleaning. By Thursday mid-morning, she was just gone. For twenty- seven thousand, three hundred-sixty minutes. I've heard my heart crying out for her with every beat of every second, my will to live slowly ebbing away from my chest. At this point, the morgues call me twice a day to report that she hasn't been brought in, rather than being interrupted when I call them. Frohike is developing relationships with female hospital admissions clerks across the nation. Skinner has frantically called in every favor he's ever earned in his life to search for her and there's no sign. There's concern for a missing agent, sir, and then there's behavior that makes me think unkind thoughts about your motives. Not that my motives are any less selfish than his. His loss is blue on black compared to my emptiness. The universe is suddenly such a vast waste of space. He's not the one that gives her chaste goodnight kisses on the forehead, hesitant to push inside her walls too far, too fast. Skinner isn't the one that holds her little hand when she falls asleep on long drives into the middle of nowhere, chasing after one of my hunches. Skinner doesn't keep the kind of yogurt she likes in his refrigerator or remind her to get the oil changed in her car. I bought more of that low-fat, high-calcium, way-to-good-for-you yogurt yesterday since what I had was out of date. I wanted to make sure it was there the next time Scully comes over. Okay, maybe I am going a little crazy. "No one vanishes without a trace, Agent Mulder." Those words play on a repeat loop in my head as I stand in her empty apartment, listening to the silence. I pray she's where I think she is. Whatever THEY are doing to her, she came back to me last time. That's not the visions that intrude into my dreams, though. I dream of women's bodies I've seen lying on the autopsy table after some sadistic killer or rapist has finished with them. I see the monsters Scully and I didn't catch. I see flayed skin, gouged eyes, branding irons, and straight razors. Nipples cut out with scalpels, fingernails ripped off with pliers, blood drying on the petal-soft skin of inner thighs. All those bodies have Titian hair and cry out to me to save them, reaching for me with icy-dead hands and ragged fingernails. They can't be Scully because she always takes good care of her nails. I feel how easily I carried her out of Antarctica. How small and helpless she felt naked against me. How every mark, every bruise had shown on her cold, perfect skin. How her hair had flowed like blood over her delicate white face. I'm holding her in my arms again, standing on a frigid spaceship under tons of snow, my eyes closed tight against the cold. I repeat my mantra: Please let her come back to me. I never got to wake up with her in my arms. Make love to her on a lazy Sunday morning. Argue with her about whose fault the bounced check was on our joint account. Apologize because I forgot to pick up milk on my way home from work again. Please - whatever being is in charge up there - please just let me have one minute with her. When I open my eyes, let my Scully be sitting on that couch, telling me she's fine. It doesn't work this time, either. God, I'm tired. Heavy tired. Home. I need to go home. Home to my empty apartment and my empty life. I don't bother to turn on the lights. Keys jangle on the coffee table, pull off my shoes, turn on the stereo, feed the fish, and collapse on the couch, still wearing my suit. I bury my face in her forgotten jacket, but her scent is almost gone. Three in the morning. It doesn't really matter - without Scully it's always the darkest hour. 'Please allow me to introduce myself - I'm a man of wealth and taste...I've been around for many a long, long year - I've stolen many a man's soul and faith' The music rolls over me, sweeping me into the night and, for a few hours, I sleep. ******** Something is wrong. I open my eyes, squinting into the blackness. What's wrong? Oh - my partner, best friend, and the love of my life is missing. My every cell is alone, wandering this desolate planet. Yea - that's what's wrong. Glance at watch - four-thirty. That was considered sleeping through the night these days. Twenty days now. Just gone. Shower. Wash away a few sins. That would take more hot water than I have. Maybe if I had a lake-full, some lye soap, and a scrubbing brush. There's someone in my bed. Get the gun, lights on. Damn it, where is the fucking light switch? Please let it be her. Please let her come back to me. Oh my God, it's her. I can see the hair in the light from the streetlight outside. I am suddenly so much lighter. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. "Scully?" She doesn't move. I kneel on my bed, trying not to start crying. I can hear her breathing - she's alive. All things are right wittth the world. Wherever she's been, whatever she's done, I am whole now. I'm going to see to it she never leaves me again if I have to drag her to the courthouse tomorrow. No more stalling. No more excuses about friendship, partnership, or professionalism. No more fears. I love her and she loves me. And she's back now. I find the switch on the lamp and roll it on, my lips already parted to kiss her. As the light washes over her, I freeze. Hurt. Needs a doctor. Get Scully, this woman needs a doctor. Help her, Scully. Blood. Bad. Black eye, split lip. Cuts and scrapes on her pretty face. Scully's face. It's Scully, but it can't be. Maybe a car wreck? Fugue state? What? How is this my Scully? I call 911 and speak out of habit before she can stop breathing on me again. As much as I like being mouth-to-mouth with Scully, I prefer she be conscious. I ignore the dispatcher when she tells me to stay on the line. Screw it, the driver knew the way by now. Stay with her. Hurt. Help is coming, Scully - just stay with me. What happened, Scully? Where have you been? Scully moans and raises her hand from underneath the covers. She isn't wearing a shirt. How did my partner suddenly show up naked, dirty, and semi-conscious in my bed? This isn't the way I always imagined that moment would be. There's a rope burn on her wrist. God, she is nasty. I pick up her cold-on-ice hand and she starts to struggle. "Scully, it's me. What happened?" At the sound of my voice, her weak flailing increases. She is whispering "no," begging me to stop. Oh please, don't let this be what I think it is. Someone is pouring cement in my gut - I can feel it hardening. There's a human bite mark on her shoulder. No, there are two. No, three. Rope burn on her wrists. Choke marks on her neck. That's a ring cut on her cheekbone. Close my eyes; maybe it's a dream. Please - no no no no no. Asking for forgiveness for my trespasses and pealing back the comforter, my first thought is that Dana Scully –does not- have a nipple ring. Especially an infected one. Her pubic hair has been shaved and she's got the worst case of razor burn I've ever seen. It wasn't that way before - I remember those dark red curls I wasn't supposed to be noticing while I was saving her life. There are burn marks, lash marks, bite marks - oh God. Oh God. Oh please, no. Don't touch her - evidence. Don't touch her. They'll have to gather evidence. They'll never catch whoever did this and then left her in my bed. That's a pretty clear message. I hear sobs and realize that they are coming from me. No, this isn't real. This is another one of my nightmares. Touch her and she'll vanish and you'll wake up, sweaty-cold and panting on the couch. I pick her up in my arms and she panics. I try to tell her is just me, just Mulder, but she doesn't understand. She starts to cry, begging me. My God, Scully, what did they do to you because of me? I let her slide out of my arms and back on the mattress. There's wet blood on my forearm. Blood is real. Blood is not a dream. A nightmare, but not a dream. Fresh blood and semen. I roll her on over and she starts to cry again. What happened to her tattoo? There's semen on my sheets under her. Someone has raped her in my bed. Was I here? Was it while I slept? Did she cry and beg while I was in the next room, passed out to The Rolling Stones? The whole world is blood red. Someone is screaming - over and over. Is Scully screaming? A whisper on the scream inside my head? God- SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! Phone. It's my phone. Answer it - it might be the ambulance. "You like what you see, Mulder?" Kyrcek. I tell him through my tears that he is already a dead man and he laughs the way I've always imagined demons would make mock. I ask him why. Why hurt Scully like this? Why not hurt me? "I always did want her more. Wanted to let little Miss FBI know she was capable of dirtying her hands with a piece of shit like me instead of puppy- dogging after Mulder the Magnificent. I'm sure you've thought about it, Mulder - what it would be like to make her do whatever you wanted. What do you want? Blow job while you hold fist-fulls of that beautiful hair, forcing her to suck your dick while she gags? How boring. On her hands and knees like an animal, shaking with fear while she waits to find out what you'll do to her? Not bad. Tied up helpless while you sodomize her? Good, but not the best. She's a great fuck. So tight - I couldn't get enough of her. Over and over, Mulder. She's a little hell-cat. Begs and screams and cries for you. You should try it sometime, Mulder. It's great. Just say the word; I'll hold her down for you and then we can take turns." "Stop searching for your answers, pretty boy, or it happens again. Next time she won't come back so pretty." He hangs up. Air. I can't get any air. I can't breathe. How can I throw up if I can't breathe? God, what was that noise? Pound. Pound. Pound. Knocking at the gates of Hell? Sorry, no one hear but the FBI's most unwanted. Pound. Pound. Pound. Door. Answer the door. Ambulance. Help Scully. The paramedics come in, asking too many questions for my brain and trying to touch Scully. She cries and I slug one of them. The next thing I know, it's four hours later and I'm on the phone with Skinner telling him to call the chief and get me out of jail. FBI badge or no, the police find you with a freshly raped woman in your bed, a gun, and a paramedic pressing assault charges and you end up in handcuffs. I deserve to go to jail, but not for rape. For all the rest of my sins. But I won't. I always walk away Scott-free while others pay. While Scully pays. ******** She looks too tiny in the hospital bed. Scully is not tiny. Pissed off, she's at least seven feet tall. And she is going to be very, very pissed off. The doctor gives me her vitals. He's assuming I'm her husband, since my name is on her medical power of attorney. He's not far from wrong. Doc starts to give me the injury rundown and I shake my head. Not yet. I can't hear it without putting a gun in my mouth and Scully still needs me. Krycek still has to die. Doc is persistent with his cold recitation. She is out of surgery now and should be awake soon. Yes, she should be fine. Maybe some plastic surgery on the knife and burn marks. Yes, her wrist was broken. Should they remove the piercings, or were they there before? I tell the doctor to take them out without asking where the others are. Her tattoo would need to be redone. Had we planned on having children of our own? Good, because that probably wouldn't be possible anymore. His disinterested eyes widen when I ask him when I can take her home – he can't conceive that I would still want her. I turn and walk away before I jab my still-sore fist into his clinical, judgmental face. Tattooed, pierced, feminist bitch that didn't want children and didn't take her husband's name – probably deserved what she got. Probably was some bar slut that picked the wrong man to cheat with. What a gentleman I was to wait a few weeks before I left her. How dare he judge her! How dare he! I hang up the pay phone receiver, resting my burning forehead against the cool of the hospital's beige tile wall. I deserve to have to tell Mrs. Scully, because it's my fault. My quest. I'm wallowing and I know it. Snap the hell out of it, Mulder. You're just crying tears on a river. This doesn't help anyone. No, but wallowing keeps me from having to face the devil's symphony of surrealness going on outside me. I see Scully awake through the doorway as the nurse checks her. As soon as I step in the room, she starts to cry. The nurse ushers me out, explaining that this happens sometimes. Yes, sweetheart, I know it happens. I've seen it happen to hundreds of women. But this is Scully. It doesn't happen to Scully. I ask the nurse to tell Scully her mother is coming and to open the blinds to her room so I can see her. Make sure she's okay. A little late, Mulder. I find a pen and add the letters "M.D." as large as possible after her name beside her door for the Doc's benefit. Then I wait. Skinner sweeps into the hall the same way he leads a task team - larger than life. The Gunmen are at his heels. My tired brain wonders if they car-pooled. I intercept them before they could frighten Scully. I say one word to Skinner. Krycek. It's a promise. Byers reads over her chart, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. Skinner asks him what happened and I disappear down the hall like one of my phantom informants - there one second and gone the next. I sit in the empty stairwell and rock, telling myself I'll never walk away from Scully, but it's okay to run from those words. I can't hear them and stay strong. Not yet. The nurses got her cleaned up before her mother got here, washing away the sweat and the blood, but not the fear. I just sit in the empty hallway, guarding her door. Belatedly keeping away any man who might upset my partner. Her mother is in there with her now, praying. I can see her through the blinds. I'm sorry, Mrs. Scully - I don't think any God hears us. I don't think they've heard us for a long, long time. Skinner brings me coffee and I look at it. I'm used to looking into murky darkness and seeing my reflection. Christ, Mulder, tears on a river. Tears on a river. Stay strong for Scully. Silent minutes tick by before I look at him and he looks at me, fear in our eyes. Rape frightens men. No only because we feel powerless to help, but because we recognize the animal. We understand the power. The first time you realize you can run faster, lift more, jump higher than a girl, you feel the power. When your mother asks you to get a stuck jar lid open because she can't, you feel the power. That deep voice buried inside your head that whispers "take what you want." We don't want to listen to that voice, but we hear it anyway, and it scares the hell out of us. "I did it, once. In 'Nam." Skinner speaks hoarsely beside me, eyes on his perfectly polished shoes. "We swept a village, shooting everyone in sight. I was stoned as hell and there was this girl hiding in a pit under a hut..." He paused, swallowing. "I was eighteen - thirty years ago - but I still remember her eyes, the way her skin of her shoulders felt. I didn't want to shoot her, even though she had a knife - she was such a tiny thing, I figured III could take it away from her easy. I grabbed her to disarm her and she struggled and... I don't know her name, or even what village it was. Can't believe it was really me. I'd never forced a woman before and I haven't had any desire to do it since, but knowing that I'm capable of it still haunts me. My CO said she was VC - that she deserved whatever she got. That didn't stop me from vomiting my guts out afterwards." Krycek's right. I've had the fantasy. Never of really hurting Scully or of forcing her, but of being - forceful. Of grabbing her out of the blue and kissing her hard, bruising almost. Of shoving her skirt up around her waist, ripping the prim buttons off that blouse and pushing her back down on my desk, her head making a soft thumping noise against the wood. My big hands suddenly on her breasts, my dick buried between her legs, invading, claiming. Of knocking her off that pedestal once and for all and making her, in the most primitive sense, mine. Except in my hate-fuck fantasy, Scully revels in the roughness, wants my touch. She pseudo-hurts me as much as I do her. We trade pleasure and pain the way only two people who love each other can. We always have. It's not my favorite fantasy, but it's the one that, unbidden, creeps into my brain - usually when Scully is earning her Queen of Cold nickname late at night in our office. I always try to replace it with the candlelight, canopy bed, and white silk nightgown fantasy as quickly as possible to reassure myself I'm not one of the deviants I profile. "What happened to her, sir? The girl?" I ask. Why confess this to me? To reassure me that even the men I trust are monsters? To let me know I'm not alone? "She kept screaming and I panicked and shot her in the head. I can still hear those screams at night." Skinner stands and walks away, taking the stairs instead of the elevator in his hurry to get away. His shoes echo through the hall, wealthy and tasteful against the waxed floor. Sorry, sir - no matter how fast you walk, guilt always travels faster. Then I have one of those intuitive leaps that always earn me a cocked eyebrow from Scully - is it possible Skinner managed to rape the only redheaded Vietnamese woman ever born? The window at the end of the hall is painted black, then light, then black again, the darkness rising and falling as though life is continuing as normal. Mrs. Scully brings me a sandwich and stands over me with her arms folded to make sure I eat it. It's like trying to swallow glue. Keep chewing or she'll force feed me, holding my mouth and nose shut until I swallow my medicine like my mother used to. No, I don't think Mrs. Scully would do that. She's more a no-cake-if-you-don't-eat-your-supper than a sit- there-until-you-eat-it mother. Scully's awake now, but I don't think she's seeing anything. Her eyes look hollow. She stares into the hallway at nothing, looking past me. It's normal, I know. Her mind needs time to recover, just like her body, but it makes me ache that she doesn't see me. Doesn't know how much I wanted to help her. She only knows I wasn't there when she needed me. Tears on a river, Mulder. Let it go. Just let it go. I'll get right on that. Immediately after I put into practice all the ways to torture a man I've seen in ten years with the FBI. Bundy, Dahmer, Berkowitz, Wayne Williams, Richard Ramirez, Ed Kemper, John Wayne Gacy. Think of all the ways I know to cause pain, to exchange an eye for an eye. Slow, Krycek. So slow - begging for the release of death. Then I plan to personally ensure Dana Scully's safety and happiness for the rest of her life. Maybe I'll let it go along with my last breath. Langly's here for the day shift. Like I'm leaving. Shit, he brought Byers and Frohike as reinforcements - they're going to drag me out if I don'''t go willingly. Christ, they won't even let me go to my own apartment. I've been installed on the seventies- era burnt-orange couch in the corner of their HQ so they can watch me while I sleep. Like I'm going to sleep. Shit, how long was I asleep? My neck aches and my back aches and I haven't even moved yet. What are Byers and Frohike whispering about? Well, sounds like the police are dropping rape charges against me. Maybe I can get my gun back now. Four types - what does Byers mean, the lab found four different semen samples? When is this nightmare going to end? At this point, that doesn't even mean there were only four men - it just means four different blood types. That doesn't preclude three men being O positive or six from being A negative. And it precludes none of them from being HIV positive. Krycek and at least three of his scummy friends. I'm going to find him and I'm going to kill him. Slowly. End of discussion. The boys are already searching. I recognize the same look in their eyes that I saw in Skinner's. Fear and hatred. Maybe if he'd just raped her - just raped, what a concept - but Krycek tortured her. Burned her. Stuck needles in her body. Let his friends hurt her while he watched. He is going to die. I have new mantra: She will get better and he is going to die. That's all I want to believe now. ******** She sees me. Scully can see me. I put my hand on the glass window and she looks right at me. What do I say? What should I do? On the other side of the glass, she puts her hand up to mine, meeting my eyes. "I love you," I tell her. Her face softens, almost into a smile and there is a dim light in her eyes for an instant. I spend the next forty-eight hours right there, with my hand still on the window, afraid that if I move, someone will steal my faith. Skinner eventually drags me away for a shower and a few hours of sleep. I'm betting Mrs. Scully called him. When I get back, Scully is out in the hall with her mother, walking. I stop at the nurses' station, watching, not wanting to scare her. There isn't an inch of her skinny arms or legs that isn't bruised or cut or bandaged. Scully - my independent, self- assured, poised, Scully holds her mother's hand, following her like a sleepy child being led to bed. When she gets back to her room, I go to the window again. I need to be close to her, to reassure myself she is there. My touchstone. My one in five billion. My angel in a hospital gown, plaster, and gauze. She says my name. Lying in the hospital bed, she says my name and reaches her hand out to me. Not to the window, but to the open door. I stop at the doorway, waiting for a signal from Scully. She keeps looking at me and I take another step, then another. I stand beside her bed, my breaths coming fast and shallow. When our fingertips touch, I am at peace. I realize how undeniably tiny, how insignificant we are, even together. And how rare and truly precious we are. It's not enough for Scully. She wants me to hold her. My arms encircle her, trying impotently to shield her from all the evil in the world. I feel her start to shake and I pull away, thinking I've frightened her. "Stay," she asks, as she cries. I'll stay, Scully. I'll stay forever. She doesn't cry alone. We both belong to something greater than ourselves, and we grieve any invasion. She's physically much better now. Mentally, she's still numb. She answers yes or no questions, asks for me and her mother. Tells everyone else to go away. Skinner hasn't missed a day in two weeks, although Scully doesn't want him near her. He brings Kimberly with him and she ferries things in. He's brought flowers, left her magazines. In a stroke of genius, he brought her laptop from work and she's been playing on the Internet. Well, she's been mostly staring at the Internet. I'm planning on having a follow-up discussion with Skinner about using my partner to assuage his own guilty conscience, but not right now. I can't alienate anyone who might help Scully right now. I wait, my soul pacing like a panther behind the bars of his cage. I tell this to the hospital shrink because Relentless Doc dictates in his notes for me to talk to the staff psychologist. He doesn't tell me to my face - our conversations tended to be a little tense since I think he's a total jackass. So I go and talk - trying to tell the truth as much as I can, while Shrink scratches away on his notepad. Then Freud has a blinding flash of insight he wants to share with me: As long as my anger is focused on her attacker (Krycek, I remind him), I can't be angry at my director, Tanner (Skinner). As long as I'm angry at SKINNER, I can't be angry at myself. And as long as I'm angry at myself, I can't be angry at Sally for failing me. SCULLY! Her name is SCULLY. Krycek fucked Scully, Skinner fucked some village girl, Skinner killed the girl, I'm going to kill Krycek, and I've never fucked Scully. I'm not planning on fucking Skinner or Krycek or on killing Scully. But I tell Freud he can fuck off as I stalk out, slamming the door behind me. No one else except the gunmen has come to visit. No one. Not any one of the agents that leer at her, hit on her, make lewd comments when they think I can't hear them. If there's no chance of them getting laid, they aren't interested in what happens to Scully. Assholes. They stop me in the halls at work and tell me how they mean to come by, but something always comes up. Yea, like I know what to say to her. Just be there. If she wants to go home with me, she's welcome, but what am I supposed to do with her? She's be better off staying with her mother or in her own apartment, but Scully wants to go with me. She says it's safe with me. She obviously doesn't know about the little voice that whispers to me every time I used to see her bend over. I leave her long enough to clean up my apartment and lay in a store of groceries. Her mother has her dressed and is telling her goodbye when I get back. Mrs. Scully has as much misplaced faith in me as her daughter does. As we drive away from the hospital, my stomach knots. I am not a good enough person to take care of Dana Scully. But if she wants me, I'm willing to try. Getting home proves no problem. She ate what I put in front of her, ignored me while I helped her bathe. It was when I tried to get her to go to bed that there was a problem. She wanted to watch TV. She wanted a drink of water. She wanted me to talk to her. I hadn't spent much time around children, but I recognized this pattern. The but-I-don't-want-to-go- to-bed-yet-mom syndrome. I'm still not sure what Scully understands, so I try to be as simple as possible. Does she want to sleep in the bed or on the couch? Couch. So I'm going to go sleep in the bed. No, she wants me to sleep on the couch. Now I'm confused. Two people truly can sleep on one couch if they really like each other. And it helps if one of them is teeny. Actually, I sleep on the couch and Scully sleeps on me. Lying with her head pillowed on my chest and her legs between mine, she finds sleep. I don't know why she finds sanctuary in my arms - I obviously couldn't keep her safe - but she does. I find my solstice in her forgiveness. Until the first dream comes. I wake up to a struggling, jabbering woman that bears no resemblance to my Scully. One that is terrified by my efforts to comfort her while she hysterically begs me not to let Krycek do things to her again. Awful things. I'm wrong in thinking I can dream up worse tortures than Krycek. He must have taken her daydreams about us together and defiled them. Beat Scully until she confessed some fantasy, then recreated his own perverse rendition of it with her. Again and again. Fists instead of caresses, razors instead of tongues, needles instead of lips, pain instead of pleasure. Whether those were really her secrets or not, she confessed them to get him to stop hurting her, knowing he would reenact them later. When Krycek decided she was no more fun, her turned her over to his friends for their amusement. I vomit until I'm dizzy while she cries alone on the couch. Two hours later the cycle repeats, but this time I can only vomit stomach acid and saliva. This time she is screaming about me kissing her with a lit cigarette. When morning finally comes, she doesn't seem to remember. In a selfish way, I am glad. Let the demons only stir in the darkness. Shrink said the first week would be the hardest. Scully moves numbly, doing exactly what I tell her. I have to remind her to eat and go to the bathroom or she forgets. I bathe her because her arm is in a cast and she doesn't seem to notice that she's nude. Pubic hair is growing back nicely. I turn on the TV to give her something to look at while I change bandages and dress her. She is oblivious. The nightmares and daymares are almost constant anytime she's not staring numbly out the window. Her mother calls for her and Scully hangs up the phone in mid- conversation, forgetting what she was doing. I lie when Mrs. Scully calls back and tell her Scully fell asleep. Five days and maybe three hours of sleep later, I'm getting ready to call her mother to come get her. I can't do this. I can't watch Scully live in Purgatory, afraid to return to the world. With me, but not with me. I'm not that strong. I'm dialing when Scully asks me for a razor. "Mulder, may I have a razor, please?" It's the longest sentence I've heard from her so far, and it takes a good deal of her energy. Even in her daze, any mother would have been proud of her manners. I hang up and get her mine - putting in a new blade as she watches, fascinated. I stay in the bathroom frozen as she fills the bathtub with warm water and undresses, my brain screaming for her to stop. Please don't, Scully. Please don't leave me - I'm not sure I can stop you if you really want to go. She lies back in the tub, her hair floating out around her battered face, her broken arm carefully kept above the water. Breasts bob in the waves, the left nipple still reddened from Krycek's needle. The water sloshes as she sits up and reaches for the razor, looking at it. One quick cut longways, Scully. You're a doctor - you know how to do it. Lie back in the water and you'll never feel anything. They'll find my body beside yours with a bullet in my brain. I know to aim up so there's no hope of living - you told me that one time. I won't dooo it until you're dead, though. Until there's no chance. One leg emerges from the water, her small foot resting beside the tap. She leans forward and there's a harsh scraping sound as the razor scratches slowly, purposely against unlubricated skin. I snap out of my Romeo and Juliet fantasy and get my can of shaving cream. Thirty minutes later, my Scully has smooth legs and underarms, lotion anywhere she wanted it, and two band-aids on razor nicks I feel very bad about. Sorry, Scully, I've never shaved a woman's legs before. I've done the pubic hair thing, though, in case you're ever interested. You shave a woman down, Krycek, not up, you moron. She's on the couch bundled in my sweats and drinking the tea I made her. And I think we've both decided to live. After another week, we take a walk around the block. Then two laps. We practice having other men around with Byers - he was the most benign man I could come up with. We work up to Langly and Frohike, although Scully won't let me leave the room. Yea, I don't like to be alone with Frohike either. Skinner is still a problem. She says he is too big, to fast. She finally lets him in the door if I hold her hand, but no further. I move a chair into the foyer that we refer to as 'the Skinner chair.' I don't know who is running the FBI, but Skinner always seems to be either in his chair or on the phone with her. Kim brings paperwork and take-out meals for everyone. I suddenly notice the way he looks at her - at his redheaded, slightly built secretary. I'm certain he wasn't fucking her before Scully disappeared. And I thought I had issues. Our tax dollars at work. Crowds are a problem. French fries are a problem - they make Scully vomit. Darkness is a problem, so we sleep with all the lights on. The smell of fabric softener is a problem. Short sleeves are a problem. She wants to be covered from ankle to wrist. She wants me covered - no shorts, no tank tops. We both sleep in my sweats - Scully says she likes the way they smell. I wear them one night and she wears them the next, then wash and repeat. Ratty sweats don't stop me from waking up with the customary morning hard-on, so I try to get up before Scully does so I don't upset her. I know she is doing better when I ask her how she is while she checks her e-mail and she says "I'm fine, Mulder." That's nowhere near true, but it at least sounds like something my partner would say. I post a schedule of doctors' appointments so I could keep them straight. I spend three hours a week sitting in a psychologist's waiting room, feeling highly ineffective. I AM a psychologist - why doesn't she want to talk to me? Answer: because I don't want to hear. Another hour a week sitting in the car outside a rape-survivors' support group meeting while she stares at me through the window. We see the neurologist for her concussion, the bone woman for her broken wrist, the GP to remove her stitches, and on and on. There seems to be no end to the number of people necessary to 'fix' my Scully. I don't think she is broken. My Scully bends very well. Through it all, she wants me right with her. Everyday errands like getting groceries are impossible, so we eat whatever the gunmen bring, which are a lot of things produced by the Keebler Elves. She refuses to wear her old clothes, so I send Byers out with my credit card. No, I don't know what 4P or 6P means, but that's what's the chart in the catalogue says when I measured her. Maybe P for "pretty damn tiny." Just buy her some jeans and long-sleeve shirts – she can't wear my rolled-up sweat pants everywhere. Our first big venture, four weeks after she was raped in my bed, is to buy a new one. New bed, new mattress, new pillows, new sheets and comforter. Together. This was our bed. When they deliver everything the next afternoon, we put the sheets on it and lay there, holding each other - keeping the other safe in the storm. We sleep the rest of the day and through the night in a land without dreams. The OBGYN check-up is hilarious. Well, it is hilarious and eye-opening for me, and terrifying for Scully. I couldn't leave her, of course. I am atoning for all the daydreams I ever had about seeing her naked. I've seen more of her poor body in the last weeks that I'd ever dreamed. As the doctor touches her, she closes her eyes and goes to 'The Mulder Place.' I know it's a common distancing technique victims use to deal with sexual assault - pretending to be somewhere else. Scully's somewhere else, from what I can gather, is safe in bed with me. Those are my hands touching her and they don't harm. Me inside her, loving her. Pain is really pleasure, force is really seduction, perversion is really passion. I'm not happy about Scully confusing me with her attackers, but it helps her cope. Maybe some day, it really will be me. I'm not sure what I meant by that. Anyway, I hold Scully's hand and talk to her softly while the doctor does whatever it is that she is doing down there. The ratcheting sounds are discomforting. I consider sneaking a glance to improve my technical skills, but I'm busy keeping Scully calm. I'd always wondered what a pelvic exam involved - in college I'd considered getting an table with stirrups for home use. I still don't really know, but I've heard the audio version and I know Scully didn't like it. The female doctor finishes and tells us everything is fine and we can resume sexual activity, but to take it slow. Slow - no problem, Doc. Almost a decade slow enough? We get the use-condoms-until-we're- sure-about-HIV speech while I stare at the floor, trying not to let Scully see that I'm laughing. It isn't funny. I catch her eye and she giggles. Weird, I didn't know Scully could giggle. The OBGYN lady probably thinks we're nuts. She assures us not to worry - we'll know when we're ready for sex again. I finally choke out that we haven't been ready for sexual activity in the last seven years, but we appreciate her endorsement. She just closes the chart and walks out of the room as fast as possible. Great, now I have to find Scully a new OBGYN. How do I interview for something like that? The plastic surgeon is awful. She lets Scully sit there half-naked while she discusses her "disfigurements" with me. She's completely ignoring Scully. They're not fucking "disfigurements" - they're scars. Cigarette burns, cuts on her face from a man's ring, a knife mark on her neck and her right breast. They're scars that prove she survived something awful and that she is healing. Plastic Doc assures me that if they bother ME, she can fix her so I would never notice the difference. I'M not the one that's bothered and SHE isn't a defective Pinto that needs to be fixed. I growl at her to get out so I can get Scully dressed. Plastic Doc doesn't move so I yell. Can't go around slugging women, even stupid, judgmental ones. Scully starts to cry and cower and things go downhill from there. I ignore the people staring in the waiting room as I carry her out, wrapped in a sheet. After ten weeks, she doesn't need my full attention every hour of the day and night and I ask Skinner to send some consultation cases my way. Something to fill the space in my brain. As long as Scully can see me, she's functional. She isn't chatty, but then, she never was. She even smiles occasionally. My Scully may not be back, but she's not as far away as she was. One day, it happens. She is doing the paperwork for me - it was an old division of labor and she wants to do it again. I push the car out of the mud when we get stuck and she does the expense reports. She still has some problems concentrating, but there is no hurry. Besides, Skinner is occupying his chair at the door - he doesn't look like he's in a rush to get my three- month-old expense report. I'm folding clothes in the bedroom - no fabric softener to smell, but it still made her antsy. I still don't know why. Skinner is telling Scully about a new restaurant he'd been to that had the best pasta. I envisioned my dour boss with spaghetti sauce all over his face, slurping noodles covertly with his secretary. He's just talking so she gets used to his voice. He told her anything - cases, war stories (not the one about the village girl), Bureau gossip, how many reps he was doing at the gym. Anything. I hear Scully get up from the couch and I go to check – she still has flashbacks and Skinner knew not to yell for me; that made it worse. I see Scully pad across to Skinner in her sock feet and hand him papers and a pen. He signs them without comment and gives them back to her. I don't think either he or I breathe until Scully puts the expense reports on my desk and sits on the couch, picking up the remote. She has no idea what a huge step she's just taken. We try dinner out after that. We've been out, but not out, out. Not to a sit down restaurant with jackets and dresses. She picks out a dress from a catalogue and we go out in the middle of the afternoon to celebrate her getting the cast off her wrist. We've been to the restaurant before - before, before – and I call ahead and talk to the manager. The female waitress meets us at the door, sitting us in a back corner, and leaving us alone as much as possible. I can't say it is a pleasant, relaxing meal - it's more like taking my graduate final exams again, but I get a bona fide Scully-smile on the way out to the car, her hand in mine. I wait for her to go home, but she doesn't. We haven't made any formal decisions about the two of us. We are having an ongoing slumber party, but nothing else between us has changed. I don't even kiss her. I still haven't, not since New Years. We hold hands, we sleep in the same bed, and she insists I leave the door cracked whenever I'm in the bathroom. I would have predicted I would feel smothered, but I don't. I love it. I love her. I always have. If this is as close as Scully is willing to get, I'm content with it for the rest of my life. It's more than I deserve. ******** Scully wants to go back to work. I haven't told her yet that there are no more X-files. There haven't been for two months. Scully and I are agents assigned to VCS now; I'd signed the request for her transfer myself. We're still partners. I'll profile and she'll slice and dice. THEY win this round. Skinner is very creative. Or he's very guilty and he goes around killing people so we can investigate. Either way, he actually finds cases to send us on. Within driving distance - no planes with lots of strangers on them, autopsy the bodies in the morgue or run tests in an empty lab and then stay in the hotel room with me while I profile. It's perfect. I worry about Scully the first time she autopsies a rape/murder victim, but it's fine. She switches into Dr. Scully mode without a hitch. The police probably wonder about my beautiful, silent partner, sitting in the passenger seat of the Bureau car, watching me at a crime scene, but no one asks any questions. No one asks any questions about us turning receipts for one hotel room, either. One day, Scully takes the trash out without me. Later, she goes alone to get something from the car. She manages to make it back to the apartment when she volunteers to get the laundry from the dryer, but she has nightmares that night. They're small steps, but I am so proud of her. She is still sorting things out in her silent world, penetrated only by too-real dreams. I can see my Scully coming back to me. No, to herself. I make the quickest trip to the grocery store in history, but I bring back real fruits and vegetables as proof. Scully's still sitting on the couch, right where I left her, doing the deep breaths her therapist taught her. The next week she walks across the street from the motel to the burger joint to get us a late dinner one night and actually brings back French fries. I get to eat both orders, and God, they are heavenly. Skinner meets me in the dim parking lot behind my apartment forty minutes after I call him. Scully is upstairs, engrossed in the JAMA, waiting for me to bring her back the video I promised. I just rented the first thing I saw with Julia Roberts - I figure I should do penance for bending the truth. Of course, there's the truth, the lies, and the in-between. I've lived most of my life in the in-between. "The boys found Krycek. His credit card was used to rent a motel room in Delaware earlier this evening." I hand Skinner the address Frohike had written down for me. "I can't leave her, sir. Not long enough to do it, or I would." "There are laws to be followed, Agent Mulder; you need to trust our courts to serve justice." Skinner isn't very convincing. "No court in the country is going to convict him - you know that. There's no judge THEY can't buy. I AM trusting someone to serve justice, sir. If you don't want that person to be you, I'm sure I can relocate Krycek myself at a later time." One has to pick and chose one's words when one plots murder with the Assistant Director of the FBI. Think of a slight young woman with hair cut off at her chin, sir. Was she wearing a red scarf around her head, or maybe a prostitute with her hair dyed mahogany - the color Scully's sometimes is? Think about all those nightmares you've had for thirty-some years. Think about having to explain to the FBI why you suddenly needed to start sleeping with your secretary, why you needed another redhead to atone to since Scully won't let you come near her. Maybe Scully knows, sir. Maybe all women know what you're capable of. Maybe what we're all capable of. Skinner takes the slip of paper, looking for answers on it. "We all find our own way atone for our sins, sir. To silence the screams." I leave him in the parking lot, leaning against his car and staring at the address of the motel. The Gunmen were never able to find any sign of Alex Krycek after that night. His mother reported him as missing a year later when she finally noticed. His body and those of the three men with him when he had arrive at the motel are never found. The case remains open. Due to the odd nature of the events surrounding his disappearance, it would have been assigned to the X-files division, had that division not been closed and the agents reassigned. So the case file sits unopened in a locked file drawer. Each finds justice in his own way. ******** It's been six months. Scully and I have been back at work for three. I haven't seen her naked in a while, but the scars on her face have faded. She's functional, but haunted. The nightmares still come, but not every night. It's only a dead man's touch now, Scully - maybe that makes a difference. I don't tell her that, though. She goes where she wants to, although she calls me often to check in and avoids crowds. Scully still flinches at loud noises. We still don't talk about it. She is going home. She is leaving me. I'd just assumed she would stay forever. I'd even glanced at the ads in the Sunday paper for a bigger apartment. Once she was back to her old self, we would trip over each other in mine. Scully IS getting back to her old self and her old self wants to go home. Home is not my apartment. I am being selfish. I am being selfish. I am being selfish. I am being selfish. I spend the first night sleeping with her in her bed and the second on her couch. Now I lie alone on my own couch, reluctant to sleep in our bed alone. No, not our bed. My bed. Alone. Skinner brought me the file months ago, rubber-banded closed so it wouldn't accidentally fall open. I get it tonight, recovering it from the top of the closet where Scully could never reach it. "Scully, Dana K." I slide the gummy rubber band off like a bride's garter. It was time I faced my own fears. I try to read it with clinical detachment, the same way I profile, but I can't. I know that body now. I know the tears that formed in her blue eyes as he hit her with his fist. I know the mole on her shoulder with an angry cigarette burn beside it. I know the feel of her soft, skilled hands as he held her down. I know the smell of her pale throat in the morning as he held a knife to it. I know the pink-brown of her nipple that he pushed a needle through, getting hard as she screamed. I know the weight of her slight body against mine when she's too tired to fight any longer and she just surrenders to agony. I can hear Scully as I look at the photos, crying out for me to help her. I can hear her detached voice as she makes the police report, some snot-nosed cop dutifully writing down every word, annoyed that he got assigned to this jerk-off case. I hear her begging as Krycek taunts her. I hear sobs and I know that they are mine again. I cry for both of us and, this time, I cry alone. With morning, the sun burns away the demons of my darkness. The file makes only a small fire, but I watch it, memorized by the colors. Blue and yellow like a bruise, red like a burn. The cold photos and reports are consumed by the lapping warmth, just as I hope Scully will be one day. That she will be able to feel overcome by beautiful fire, closing her eyes and surrendering herself to its heat. Sometimes I really am Spooky. Especially when I've been up all night crying. Langly calls with news that the Moth Man has been sighted and they are going to check it out. I want to go! I want to go! I want to go! No, I want to run. I'm actually on the phone with the airline when Scully walks in, looking tired. I see the scar on her cheekbone from Krycek's ring and I hang up the phone, the travel agent still jabbering. Nothing scares me more than I love my Scully. Well, loving my Scully scares me more. It's kind of a cycle. "Kiss me, Mulder." I cup her face in my hands and hesitate. Why? Scully reads my thoughts. "I want to see if I can still feel." I understand. I wonder if I can still feel? My mouth finds hers and I breathe in her soul. Soft, velvet, wet silk of lips gliding past each other into intimacy. Careful. Don't scare her. Slow. Slow. Slow. Slow. Easy. Ecstasy. Effortless ecstasy. Stubble scratches rough against delicate skin. Coffee with cream, no sugar. Wax of lip balm, sharpness of little teeth. Sand of tongue. Stop. Stop. Stop. Pull away. Taste her on my lips. Open eyes. Breathe. I feel, Scully. Do you? Come with me, Scully. Come to our bed and sleep. No dreams this morning. Just peace. ******** I thought once that I was a rich man. Not with money alone, but rich with life. My passions made me wealthy - I had my truths, my mysteries, and my dreams of a future with my partner. Then the wheel revolves and wealth dissolves like ice in the summer sun. My wealth wasn't real. It was all dreams, innuendo, legends, and mists. Once pretty things were stripped away, I am left with the real riches of life. Ones I can count or mark on a calendar. A day without tears or a night without nightmares has become a treasure. Rare smiles and walks hand-in-hand. Wealth stops being a quest or an adventure. Wealth is loving and being loved. Wealth is the faith to let go. I have healed Scully all I can. I've fed her, dressed her, met her every physical need. Now I can only wait as she finds her own way out of the darkness. Her dawn is slow in coming. I often wake up to find Scully crawling into my bed in the middle of the night, having driven across town in her pajamas, but the nightmares are fading along with the scars. She spends less and less time in front of the mirror in the morning covering up the one on her cheek. One day, I see elbows. They look delicious. Sleepwear evolves from my sweats to my t-shirts and panties. Her panties. Yummm. I try to give her all the time she needs, but it's difficult. She looks like my Scully, she moves like my Scully, feels like her and smells like her. She sleeps in my arms, watches TV laying right on top of me, like that's something all FBI partners do. Holding hands and forehead kisses aren't going to get it for me much longer unless we put some distance between us. She's not a patient anymore - she's my Scully again, my love, working beside me every day and often sharing my bed at night, her bare legs tangling with mine. Beautiful, strong, brilliant, and completely untouchable. I am intimidated by the enigmatic Agent Scully and I must run. Been there before. We're laying on the couch at my apartment watching TV in Scully's preferred position - pillowed against my chest. TLC is doing a crop circle marathon and I'm regaling Scully with my theories to avoid thoughts of her breasts against me. She half-buys my ideology on some things, but aliens landing in wheat fields is not one of them, so this is a good distraction. She scoots up so she's face-to-face with me and says one of my favorite phrases, "Mulder, you're crazy." Maybe it was the intensity in her eyes. Maybe it was her weight on top me. Maybe it was finally getting the invitation I'd wanted for so long. Time has stopped. There is only Scully's mouth against mine, my hands in her tangled hair. Breathe - don't forget to breathe. Is this right? Breasts against me. Round hips. Breathe. Warm hands on my skin. Legs sliding apart over my hips. Is this right? Open mouth. Hair in my face. Breathe. Stop. Open eyes. "I want this, Mulder. Please." My God, what an invitation. Her eyes don't want this, though. Her eyes are frightened, desperate. Sex isn't what she wants. She wants assurance. "I want this too, Scully. I want you so much." Don't expect eloquence from a man with a hard-on for the last month, but I just wanted to get that point across. Yes, I still love you, Scully. Yes, you are still beautiful. Yes, I still want you. "I love you, Scully. You don't ever need to question that. I never doubted it." She looks deep into me, searching. I hope she finds whatever it is she is looking for. Her head relaxes into my neck and I cover it with one hand. "Small moves, Scully. Neither of us have anything to prove to anyone." She sits up, rocking back on my hips with her knees on either side of me. "Come to bed with me, Mulder." There are many things within my willpower to resist. And then there is Dana Scully with swollen lips and messed up hair sitting on my lap asking me to go to bed. If this is my vice, it's definitely a good one. Slow. Slow. Slow, Mulder. Don't frighten her. This isn't right yet. Scully thinks my hesitance is distaste. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I feel her pulling inside herself beside me in our bed. I see a tear, a single drop of fear escaping from my stoic Scully. "Please, Mulder. Please show me you love me. I need this." I always imagined those words would come out of my mouth one night in a motel in the middle of nowhere. That this moment would come because of my desperation and my fears and I fought so long against that. Against letting demons drive us closer in flesh and farther apart in life. Kiss lips. Pull shirt over her head. Careful - be careful. Slow. Caress breasts. What should I do? Slow. Slow. Kiss velvet neck. Unhook bra. Beautiful. So perfect. Say that. Lips find nipple; hands find perfect ass. Perfect. This is not right. Take off my shirt. Slow. Don't frighten her. Skin against skin. Hold her. Stall. Stall. This is not right. You cannot do this yet. Kiss delicate neck again. Breasts press against me. Oh, God. Scully is passive. She wants me to make love to her; to prove I love her. I mentally scan my knowledge of entirely too many faceless women, trying to figure out what to do. I can make this good for her. I can prove to her that I want her. I can make love to Scully. And then what? Lay her back on the bed. On our bed. Careful. Don't make her feel trapped. God - perfect. She's so perfect. Kiss. Suckle. Lick. Tease. Unfasten pants. This is not right. Kiss the transparent line of hair down, down. My cold nose against her hot flesh. Slide pants over her hips. I can smell her. She wants me. God. My Scully. Slow. Slow. Slow. This is not right. Slide down cotton panties. Find her with my fingers. Push, gentle. Small, wet. Ready. This is not right. Run my hands over her beautiful body. Pale skin. This is not right. Kiss her lips, then trace a slow path down. Slow, slow. Down, down. Drunk. I am drunk with her. Tell her I love her. Find her center with my tongue. Wet. Sweet. Ready. This is not right. Push one finger, then two inside of her. Feel her go rigid with fright. This is not right. Kiss her. Let her taste how much I want her and how much she wants me. No, Scully - keep your hands to yourself. Lay back, close your eyes. Breathe. Kiss down again. Drape a smooth leg over my shoulder. On my knees in worship of her. Lick. Suck. Nibble. Rub. Tease fingers at her entrance. Two fingers glide gently in and out as she comes. Muscles quiver around my fingers, promises of things to come. Ha ha. Kiss her lips. Hold her close against me. This is right. There will be other nights. And other days. A lifetime of them. Sleep. ******** I've never actually been in a tattoo shop. This is a nice one, recommended by Scully's plastic surgeon. Her new plastic surgeon. Scully shows the man the picture of the tattoo from her second X-file. I have masturbated to that picture, but this doesn't seem like the appropriate time to mention that. There's no need for me to be here. Scully handles her own appointment's these days - she usually doesn't even mention them unless there's something important. Last week, she reported her HIV test had come back negative again. Given some of Krycek's practices, I am relieved. We celebrated with an unhurried, pizza-flavored kiss as she went home for the night. Small moves. Scully teases me for quoting Carl Sagan. I tell her I'm quoting Jodie Foster. Maybe it's because she doesn't know this man, or because she had such a bad experience getting the tattoo the first time that she asked me to come with her. I watch the tattoo artist work, filling in the scars from Krycek's razor so the snake is even again. The endless cycle of being consumed, but never devoured. Desperate to be satiated even as we fight for survival. He pushes the needle into the small of her back, the same place I touch her, and Scully's eyes find mine in an orgasmic mix of pain and pleasure. I knew you could feel it, Scully. I knew you could feel what I feel. To blend your purity and goodness with my darkness and emptiness and find a middle ground - each of us saving the other. That's why she asked me. She wanted me to see. As he finishes, Scully gets dressed again, listening to the proper care and feeding for her tattoo. Oh, no - no more nude sunbathing for you, young lady. Not if you want those colors to stay bright. Damn, I can't lick it either. I had such plans for tonight. The man is walking away when I realize what I want. I tell him to wait and say a silent thank you that my mother will never see this. Almost forty or not, she would ground me for the rest of the summer. Unbuttoning my shirt and laying back, Scully holds my hand as the needle bites. Oh, Christ. No, sir, that erection isn't because of you, but thank you for asking. Just put the tattoo on my chest around the scar from the gunshot wound. Yes, -exactly- like the snake you just put on Ms. Scully. Could you shut up so I can enjoy this? How was I shot? Well, my partner in the FBI shot me to save my ass. Yep, my partner -is- a damn good shot. Why over the scar? That's where my partner's head lays when we sleep together. No, sir, the FBI -doesn't- frown on our relationship at all - even my Assistant Director has a thing for my partner. Probably because my partner looks so cute in panties. That shut him up. I am so proud of Scully for keeping a straight face. We make it back to the car before we collapse into fits of laughter. Scully tells me that we can never, ever go back there again. What are the odds of us ever needing a second tattoo? Speaking of which, want to live dangerously, Agent Scully? See if my tattoo tastes as good as yours does? Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. No, Scully, I don't know if you're the spider or the fly in this scenario. It's okay, my partner - the one who looks so good in panties - is also doctor. If it gets infected, she can treat me. She always treats me so good. Yea, that was corny. Why yes, Doctor, I am still having difficulty with high blood pressure in my groin area. Could you suggest treatment options? We still don't actually have sex - not with penetration, anyway. She's still hesitant about that. Not to say that I'm not a very, very, happy FBI agent the next morning. They must teach doctors something special in medical school. I fulfill three fantasies that night. First, red hair ticking me while I give and receive oral sex. Scully touching me and me touching her of our own free will, with no other thoughts and no other purpose except for pleasure. And the sound of Dana Scully's crystal laughter in my bed, in my arms. That last fantasy is a new one, but it is, by far, the most important one to me. ******** Eleven months. It's been eleven months now since she was attacked. Since she survived. We're hurrying to get dressed in the hotel room - Scully is presenting in twenty minutes. We got up on time this morning and then we got, um, distracted. Again. We made love for the first time last night. Not out of need for flesh or fear of losing each other, but because it was right for her. Because it was finally time. I've learned her body and soul over the past few months and it was time. She looks beautiful. Poised and professional in her dark suit. She looks untouchable, but I know better. Quick kiss outside the doors. Tell her she'll be wonderful. Watch her hips sway as she walks up to the podium. As usual, her audience is male. Five hundred agents, their eyes fixed on my Scully. I see what they see - the vivid hair, the pale skin, the perfect body. Despite her conservative suit, she commands attention as much because of her appearance as because of her expertise. She knows this. What else do the other men see? Do they see the strength? The courage? Do they know how much effort it takes for her to face them? Five hundred strange men - alone. They see the scar. She doesn't cover it up with makeup anymore. It stands out an angry red on her cheekbone, like a medal of honor. A badge of courage. Let them wonder; it makes her all the more enigmatic. My Scully isn't broken. She bends very well. Much of her darkness had passed. The scars and the nightmares are fading. She spends more and more time living in the light. Skinner, to my knowledge, has stopped screwing his secretary, his own screams silenced. He and Scully had lunch last week and she says they talked about PTSD, variations on making rice krispy treats, the merits of daylight savings time, and the Knick's chances this season. I don't think she could make something like that up. My darkness is different. My Scully is better and Krycek is dead, I suppose. In many ways, I am a man without a quest for the first time in my adult life, and that frightens me. I don't have scars that prove I survived; not ones that show, anyway. No badges of honor. Just a few tears in the river of time. Like Skinner, I've committed my sins. I've earned my darkness. But this isn't my darkest hour. That passed months ago, alone in my apartment, burning the police photos of Scully. After the darkest hour, hopefully, comes the light. I'm still waiting, alone in the crowd, but I know what a rare treasure that light is - well worth facing my fears. I've confronted my worst nightmare, but there's still quite a list. I used to be afraid I would steal Scully's grace if I let her know my secrets – but I'm not that powerful. And it's not about taking from her; it's about finding a candle in the distance that merits walking through my darkness - a beacon that reminds me of what makes the journey worthwhile and guides me back when I start to veer off course. Something I love more than I fear my demons, because I still have a long way to travel. I can see the light coming now. She probably wants coffee and a late breakfast. ******** End: The Darkest Hour