TITLE: Perspectives AUTHOR:Deanna Dilbeck EMAIL ADDRESS:dldilbeck@earthlink.net FEEDBACK: craved :) WEBSITE: www.geocities.com/perspectivesonx DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT (ARCHIVE STATEMENT): anywhere is fine, just let me know RATING:PG13 CLASSIFICATION:X-File, A, MSR KEYWORDS (CONTENT WARNING): Lots of Angst - Mulder-sort SPOILER WARNING: none that I could think of SUMMARY: A case in a small southern town involving the murder of several homeless people leads Mulder to help out an old friend and leads he and Scully into depths of danger that they hadn't expected. Chapter one It was a hundred and ten in the shade. The humidity hung thick in the air, shrouding your face like a mask, making it difficult to breathe. Scully was hot, sweaty, tired and frustrated. She and Mulder had been here for three days,per the request of an old friend from the VCU, Charlene Miller. She had requested Mulder's help writing a profile for their suspect. By the end of the first day, Mulder's profile had given them the lead they needed to start a manhunt. By the second day the suspect had been confirmed and a trap had been laid. Now, day three carried them to the brink of arresting their suspect, at least that's what Scully hoped would happen. She had seen Mulder all of ten minutes in the last three days. Ms Miller seemed to keep him occupied with one project or another. Scully doubted he would even miss her if she left. Sighing, she adjusted the heavy, suffocating Kevlar vest and waited for the signal to move in. She was really worried that once again, Mulder was being used as bait in a sting destined to go wrong. Something just didn't set right with her. Ms Miller had his back - at least she had better have or there would be a high price to pay if anything happened to him. She double-checked her gun's safety, to make sure it was off and shifted to get the cramp out of her leg from squatting so long. She could feel ribbons of sweat tracing down her back and helping her thin polyester shirt to cling to her skin. Static on the headset she wore alerted her to some update of information, hopefully this was it. "Red one, we have target. Do you copy?" "Red one, copy. Target is in site.' "Red two, move in from the southwest to cover the alleyway" "Red two, copy. Moving in." "Red three, Take up position on north entrance and maintain position." Scully gave out the instructions to her team in silent hand signals and all six moved into position. "Red three copy. Moving into position and maintaining." she quietly whispered into the mouthpiece. It was coming down. A sudden wave of fear washed over her. Something was wrong. Or more precisely, something was wrong with Mulder. The impression was so strong she had to physically force herself to maintain her position. Gut instinct to run screaming into the blind alley, regardless of the consequences on the case, overwhelmed her to point she had to breath in deeply through her nose to maintain any sense of calm. One minute, then two. Then a gunshot. Static on the headset. Miller's voice shouting instructions to all the team members to move in. Another gunshot, then two more. Frantic voices overlapping each other as she and her team ran into the alleyway and faced the gunman head-on. Her breath caught as she rounded the corner. Smoke from an older style gun filled the air. Someone had thrown in a teargas grenade -she didn't remember hearing that order. Mulder would be unable to breathe or see in all this smoke. She had to get to him. Another shot off to her right had her ducking for cover and rolling to the side of a convenient dumpster. Her breathe caught in her throat and eyes, that already watered and stung with the fog of teargas around her, barely registered that the thing she landed on was a person until she felt a hand grasp her arm in a weak, yet vice-like grip. Blinking down, she laid her hand over the one grasping her and realized in that instance that it was Mulder. Twisting frantically, she moved off of his legs and turned him toward her. Blood, blood everywhere. Covering his neck and chest, running in rivulets down to the ground covering her slacks in it's flood. "Officer down, officer down!" Her frantic plea across the headset was answered immediately by running feet and shouts. 'Oh, God please hurry, please.' Her pleas to God grew as he grew limp in her arms. end of chapter 1 Chapter 2 Perspectives "Miss, miss would you like to clean up?" Scully blinked slowly, trying to focus on what the nurse was saying. `Cleanup? Why do I need to...' She looked down at her hands laying limply across her lap. They were covered in dried blood. Her pants were stiff with the blood as well. Mulder's blood. She looked up at the nurse still hovering beside her. Grace, the nurse's nameplate said. Shaking her head slowly yes, she stood and followed Grace down the hall. Her legs were weak and trembling, her knees threatening to buckle as she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. "I'm Grace. You're Agent Mulder's partner aren't you?" Scully stepped behind Grace as she opened the wash room door for her. She wondered how she knew, when her next sentence answered that question. "I was on call when they brought him in. You care for him very much." It was a statement, not a question. Scully only looked sadly at her. "Here's some clean scrubs, your clothes are probably ruined. You can clean up and change in here." Grace moved aside to let Scully walk past. As she slipped past her, Grace laid her hand on Scully's arm. "He's gonna pull through." "How can you be so sure?" Scully looked at Grace tiredly. She had seen the blood loss. She knew that Mulder's chances were slim to none. It was a miracle he had made it to the hospital. "Just a feelin'. I don't understand it myself. I just know. She offered a reassuring smile. Scully wished she could `know'. Right now she just felt empty. She shut the bathroom door and leaned against it. She was so tired. She had been waiting for ten hours for Mulder to come out of surgery. The gunshot wound had been only one of several internal injuries. The doctor said it looked as if he'd been beaten from the inside out. Bruises to his heart and lungs. a ruptured spleen, fractured ribs - that had breaks from the inside outward. They had taken him into surgery three times now to try and stop the internal bleeding. They hadn't let her see him. That was what was torturing her the most. She needed to see him. No matter how bad, if she could just tell him to hang on...to fight. Her legs finally crumbled under her and she sank bonelessly to the tiled floor. She wrapped her arms tight around her stomach and for the first time in the last ten hours she wept. End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 Perspectives "Agent Scully?" Scully looked up from the case notes she'd been going over to see Detective Zahn, she thought his name was, coming down the hall. "Yes?" He settled on the arm of the couch beside her and handed her a file folder. He looked nervous. His hands twisted his wedding ring incessantly and he kept looking back down the hallway, as if expecting the boogyman to make an appearance at any moment. "What are these files for Detective?" "I though you might find these notes of interest. Uh..we were..we were not supposed to include them..." "On whose orders?" "Uh..Ms. Miller's, Chief Miller's. She said they were nonsense and not to put them with the rest of the reports, but I thought, what with you being on the X-Files and all, you might could make some sense out of `em." Scully pulled out the hand-written notes. They were from this morning's sting. A documentary by Red Team 2's leader from the beginning of the stake out, up until Mulder was shot. She skimmed over them briefly, then again slowly. Her eyes seeing what her brain couldn't quite wrap around. As she read more carefully, she looked back up at Detective Zahn, who was now nervously snapping the clasp of his watch band. She laid a trembling hand over his to still the movement. "You did the right thing Detective. No one will ever know. I promise you that." He visibly relaxed a bit, but continued to snatch random glances down the ICU hallway. "Do you thin Captain Shreves could have seen the things it says on those notes? I mean...it's...it's like a bad science fiction movie." He looked incredulously down at her. Scully chewed on her bottom lip and thought about what she could say to this man. He was obviously terrified of something, whether his boss or these notes she wasn't certain. "Detective, I've seen things in the past six years that defy human logic. I've also encountered what others thought to be the unbelievable, turn out to be nothing more than a vivid imagination. If what this man saw did happen, it would answer a lot of questions as to the nature of the attack on Agent Mulder. But, it also would bring some very serious allegations against Chief Miller and her knowledge of this case. People don't just discredit information of a ranking officer on a whim. I found that that usually means they had a prior knowledge of what might or might not be the reality of such phenonemn. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Detective Zahn's eyes widened as the implications of what Scully had said grouped in his brain and made connections. He nodded slowly. "So for now Detective, it's best that we keep this as quiet as possible. let me do some checking around. Can you relay that message back to Captain Shreves?" "I can't do that Agent Scully." "Why not?" "Captain Shreves has gone missin'. He headed back to headquarters after the stake out, but never arrived. We haven't been able to locate him since. His cell phone has been turned off and his wife says that he never came home today." end of chapter 3 Chapter 4 Perspectives Scully had read over Captain Shreves notes four times now, but she still couldn't fathom that what he had seen had really occurred. His words became jumbled as if he had problems understanding what he was writing down at times. Three different places the handwriting actually changed to a completely different style of penmanship from the first few paragraphs he had written. Apparently his team, Red team 2, were the initial approach team. He had a clear view of Mulder the entire time according to his notes. The first few paragraphs were facts statements, Date, time, stakeout location, suspect determination, sting operation directives, this sort of information. Then about ten minutes before all the shooting had started things had gotten...well, odd, to say the least. A man, the suspected murderer, had casually walked into the alleyway. Apparently, he didn't seem concerned that he may be walking into a trap or for that matter concerned that someone might think he was up to anything. He was wearing a long dirty trench coat and a beatup Mets baseball cap. He had looked around the alley as if expecting to see someone there he was supposed to meet. When he spotted Mulder laying under the cardboard box, he had causally walked up and kicked his foot, for what intended purpose Captain Shreves hadn't noted. Mulder had raised up like he had been asleep or passed out and waved off the man - leave it to Mulder to play the part to the hilt. The order must have come through then to move in and cut off his escapeways, because Captain Shreves had taken back up his notes after the whole ordeal was over. This was where his handwriting had gotten shaky and changed styles several times. The next notes were almost written incoherently. They spoke of a light, bright orange and blinding coming from the man. Then he stated that he saw Agent Mulder lifted off the ground, but no one was touching him, and his being throw against a wall. Mulder had tried, at that time, to reach the suspect and that's when the first gunshot sounded. Then, according to Shreves, Mulder and the suspect got into a hand-to-hand struggle over his weapon. Shreves notes went on to very sketchily speak of seeing Mulder and the suspect `merge' into one another for a brief instance then Mulder pushed the man back and away from him. The suspect had some at him again and no one could get a clean shot to take him down. Mulder had seemed to completely blend into the suspect -- like they were one person, his notes said - then once again Mulder had pushed the suspect back only this time his gun had gone off and the bullet had struck him in the neck. Mulder had struggled back away from the suspect, giving everyone a clear shot and fell into the side of a dumpster, which was where Scully had found him. The next round of gunshots had taken the man down. Shreves had ended his report by stating that he was certain that the suspect had been dead on the first shot he fired into him, but upon going to check his pulse the man had grabbed his arm and for a moment he thought that he too was going to become a part of that man's soul. He stated that `it felt as if the hands of death had grabbed my soul and didn't want to let it go'. Scully closed the folder and leaned back against the couch's cushions, trying to piece together what Captain Shreves, a twenty year veteran, could possibly have seen that could have frighten him so bad that he now had disappeared off the face of the earth... "Ms. Scully?" She looked up into the very tired young face of Dr. Goins and sat up expectantly. "You can come back and see him now, we have him stabilized for the moment." Scully hurried stuffed the papers into her briefcase and followed the doctor into ICU. End of chapter 4 Perspectives Chapter 5 The walk to Mulder's room seemed to take a lifetime. Dr Goins was tired and it showed in the cadence of his step. Scully shifted the weight of her case from one shoulder to another to relive the discomfort from her earlier fall. There was certain to be a bruise there. The lights were on 'night glow, which at first surprised Scully, until she glanced at her watch and realized that it was nearly 2am. She stopped and waited as Dr Goins grabbed Mulder's chart from the main desk. She longed to snatch it from him and see for herself exactly how much damage Mulder had actually sustained. She had informed the good doctor that she too was trained in the medical profession and could handle anything that he could throw at her. He had acknowledged the fact, but hadn't been forthcoming with information she longed to hear. The slow steady rhythm of the heart machine in his room steadied her frayed nerves. He was alive, breathing on his own. That was more than she had hoped for, less than she prayed for. Dr. Goins stopped in the door frame and gently caught her shoulders between his hands. "Dana, he's still not out of the woods yet. He's lost a significant amount of blood, almost four pints. He has a strong rhythm and his blood pressure has finally stabilized. An MRI showed no signs of swelling in the brain, for that we can be thankful. The gunshot wound is pretty nasty. We'll have to do some skin grafts to cover the hole it made in his neck and shoulder area. Right now we have a chest tube in him to keep the fluids on his lungs drained off. We'll let him try to breathe on his own for the moment, but should his saturation levels drop too low we'll have to put him oxygen, maybe even a respirator, just to let his lungs heal." Scully had watched his face, his eyes, the whole time he spoke, searching out the truth of what he was saying to her. For now, she was satisfied that he had been honest with her. "You can spend a few minutes with him, but he needs the rest, so only a few. I'll be back for you later." He released her shoulders with a slight squeeze and headed down the hall. Scully laid her case down on a chair and inched up to the bed. He looked so peaceful lying there. His hair had fallen across his forehead and she gently brushed it back, letting her fingertips softly caress his brow. His skin was cool to her touch. "Oh, Mulder I should have been there. I should have been watching out for you. Ms Miller be damned. If you..." She couldn't finish her sentence. She swallowed the lump in her throat and bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. Reaching behind her she pulled up the closet chair and slipped into. She was so tired. Flipping the rail down on the bed beside her, she slid her hand inside of Mulder's. He surprised her by gently curling his long fingers around hers. She looked up to his face expectantly, but his eyes only moved in deep REM sleep. It must have been a reflex. She sighed in disappointment, but allowed her thumb to gently rub along his fingers in silent communication. He tightened his grip perceptively within her hand and shifted on the sheets. "Mulder? Mulder, can you hear me?" he shifted a little more, his grip becoming tighter as he fought to pull into consciousness against the drugs flowing through his bloodstream. "Come on, you can do it. Open those beautiful eyes of yours. Look at me Mulder." "Did you say I had beautiful eyes?" His soft whisper was barely perceptible above the hum and beep of machinery. Scully smiled a thousand watt smile at him. "You had to be dreamin'." The smile in her voice couldn't be hidden. "I would never admit such unpartnerly-like things, now would I?" His soft chuckle ended in a cough. Scully got up and got him an ice chip to suck on. Fishing out a small piece, she placed it against his lips. Gracefully, he opened his mouth and let it slip inside. Scully gently rubbed her thumb over his bottom lip removing the traces of water left there. "Are you comin' on to me Agent Scully?" "Now I know you are dreaming." Her smile lit up the room. Just as suddenly though it left. "Mulder, do you remember what happened?" The grin immediately left his face as well and his eyes grew dark with thought. A soft cough drew Scully's attention to the doorway. Dr. Goins was beckoning softly for her. She looked back at Mulder. He was already zoning out, the medicine pulling him unwillingly back under its spell. "Rest Mulder, I'll be back as soon as I can." She had someone she needed to talk to, whether they wanted to talk to her or not. Emd of chapter 5 Perspectives Chapter 6 Scully's eyes ached and she rubbed them wearily to try to regain her focus. She had been awake for almost twenty four hours solid, but she had to find the answers she knew lay within these reports. She had gone straight back to the Trion Police Headquarters looking for Chief Miller, but to no avail. So she did the next best thing and pulled all the autopsy reports on the homeless deaths. Her list of new questions was now longer than the initial questions she had had. The autopsy reports were stocked full of abnormalities, even notes highlighted by the county corner stating that some of the damage he had found was unprecedented and that other resources needed to be called in. Everything had moved so quickly when they first arrived, that Scully hadn't even had a chance to look at these reports. As a matter of fact they were the first thing she had requested, but they had apparently been 'misplaced'. Now she was beginning to doubt that they were misplaced at all. It had taken Chief Miller's assistant only two minutes to locate them on her desk when Sculy had asked for them. More questions to direct at Chief Miller. Pulling the files and her notes closer, she reviewed the initial findings again. There had been fracture and organ anomalies that she knew must somehow link to Mulder's. The similarities were too coinsdental to bypass. If she had seen these before...well, she couldn't undo the damage, only try to stop it from occurring again. Ms. Miller had a lot of questions that needed answered. She picked up the phone and called her office again. Still no answer. Disconnecting from that call, she hit her speed dial six and pulled her notepad closer. She needed some more information and going through bureau channels would only alert the wrong people. After three rings, a grumbly voice answered. "Lonegunmen, this had better be good." "Frohicke, its Scully." "Ah, sorry about that. What can I do my sexy little SA?" "Cut the crap Hickey, I need your help. Mulder needs your help." She heard shuffling in the background, then a 'hang on"; a click and she was on speaker phone. "What's Mulder gotten himself into this time?" Langley's nasally drone rolled over the line. "Another alien bounty hunter conspiracy gone bad?" "Well, at least he's not still trying to prove Elvis was at the Grand Ole Opry as a bellboy, like someone I know." "Hey, that was a legimate lead. Why I..." Byers firm baritone hushed both Langley and Frohikey into silence. "Scully wouldn't call us unless it were important, now be quiet and let her speak." Both men still muttered under their breath, but quieted down to listen none the less. "What can we do for you Agent Scully?" Taking a deep breath Scully focused on the paper filled with her flowing notes. "I need you to run, very discreetly, a background check on a Pearl M Miller, current residence, Trion, GA. I need anything you can find out about her background, career, home life..." "We can tell you what she had for breakfast and when her last menstral cycle started, but isn't that the babe that Mulder dated back at VCU? Ow, man why'd ya hit me? I didn't..." "Scully, we'll be glad to see what we can find for you. I take it you need it as quickly as possible." "Yesterday would be good, and guys..." "Yes?" A chorus of three voices replied. "I need one more thing." "Anything." "You name it" "Your wish is my command." "Can you check the police records nationwide for crimes that resulted in abnormal or unexplained deaths due to internal organ damage. I know it's odd, but Mulder's life may well depend on how quickly you can get me that information. I'm depending on you." "We won't let you down. Give us an hour, we'll have your answers. Right guys?" "Absolutely." "Without a doubt" "Thanks. You can reach me on Mulder's cell..." "Is he okay? I mean...well, you have his cell. That only happens when he's in the hospital." "He was shot on a stake out. He's in critical condition. We...I...he's not out of the woods yet. Please, just hurry." Scully clicked off without saying good-bye. Her mind was already back in that hospital room with Mulder. She needed to see him again, just to reassure herself. If what she was beginning to suspect, was anywhere close to right, Mulder's life could still be in danger. Stuffing her files back in her briefcase, she headed back to the hospital. End of Chapter 6 Perspective Chapter 7 Scully had just turned in the hospital parking lot when the cell phone chirped. "Scully." "Agent Scully we found something we thought you should know about ASAP." "What is it Byers? What did you find?" Somehow the sinking in her stomach dropped lower, if that where possible. "Your Ms Miller, she has a very interesting background. Something about her name rang a bell with us when you mentioned it, so we decided to check some old Pentagon hack files we had stored away. The rest we pieced together from current data files." "What made you think to look in Pentagon records?" "Call it my 'Mulder in trouble' instinct, but that was the first thing that popped into my head after our phone conversation. Turns out that Ms Miller is the daughter of one Richard A Miller, who served ten years under deep cover with the NSA. Five of those years, there are records of his involvement with a very familiar name. Our own William Mulder, Mulder's dad." Byers let that information sink in before he continued. "So you're saying that Chief Miller is the daughter of one of the men who has been trying to discredit Mulder's work for the last six years?" "Unfortunately, yes. Seems that Mulder's dad and Mr. Miller had some sort of falling-out and Mulder's dad had to eighty-six him." "Fire him? Thought the only way you were out of that organization was by death." "Apparently this was before the group realized the seriousness of the game that they were playing. Miller lost his pension, benefits, everything. He disappeared for about ten years, somewhere between fifty-two and sixty-two. Gone. Not a trace of him anywhere. When he resurfaced, it was reputed to have him linked to a group that we are just now beginning to understand led the way to genetic engineering experiments after Hitler's fall from power. The same group that Mulder believes are using alien DNA to alter the human body, reclaiming the human brain for alien use in colonization. Miller was legally teaching at Berkeley University, married and the father of one Pearl Marie Miller. And this is the interesting part. Whereas ten years ago Mr. Miller was a flunky for the consortium, he now had a Ph.D. in genetic engineering and was using Berkeley grant moneys to continue research." "What kind of research would Berkeley allow him to use their money on. Surely not alien/human cloning, that would be too out there, even for Berkeley." "No, he was funded for a project called 'Gray Matter' research. It was supposed to study the electrical impulses put out by the brain connected with physic ability. There was even a sixty minute special done on his research there in the late seventies." "So where is Mr. Miller now? Is he still at Berkeley?" "No, I wondered the same thing, so I did a little digging. In the summer of nineteen ninety he was killed in a hit-in-run accident two miles from his home. His daughter was in the car and was severely injured as well. When she recuperated, she signed up for FBI training and was admitted without so much as a single objection, which was odd considering she has a disability that would keep anyone else out of the academy." "What's that?" "She was left blind in her right eye as a result of the accident. She couldn't have passed the physical." Scully was silent as the information sank in and filtered through her mind. Someone on the inside, someone who could have reason to set Mulder up. But how and why was still beyond her grasp. "Byers can you see what information you can find on the research Mr. Miller was doing?" "Already on it. We should have something in the next couple of hours." "Hurry guys, I've got a feeling that Mulder is in real danger, I'm going to have a guard posted until we can figure out what's really going on around here." Scully hung up the phone and headed to the elevators to ICU. End chapter 7 Perspectives© Chapter 8 by Deanna Dilbeck The ICU waiting area was empty and silent. The lone station nurse looked up and smiled as Scully walked in the swinging double doors. "Mr Mulder has been asking for you. He woke up about an hour ago." "How's he doing?" "Dr Goins is impressed at his re cooperative abilities. Says if he keeps this up we can move him to a regular room tomorrow evening. That's really wonderful." She smiled again and returned to her paperwork. Scully couldn't have heard better news, even if the weatherman had predicted highs in the sixties and a steady rainfall for the next week. Mulder was going to be okay. She didn't realize how much she depended on his presence, his strength, until it was taken away. Too many times lately that had been the case and this time, this time she came closer than ever to losing him. It made her stomach turn to even think about it. She proceeded down the hall to Mulder's room. It was dark, the shades drawn against the hot afternoon sun, no lights on. A sound captured her attention. Then a whisper stopped her in her tracks. "Hurry, the nurse will be around any time now. Just take the sample." "I'm trying. Do you want him to wake up and start calling for help?" The last question was given in a wheezy whisper with a slight cough attached. Scully drew her weapon and cautiously slipped over to one side of the wall. She had a better vantage point and could see in the sink's mirrored wall. Standing beside Mulder's bed were two people, a woman and a man. The woman seemed vaguely familiar, but it was too dark to really see her. The man was short and stocky. His hair stuck up in fuzzy spikes all over his head and he was bent over Mulder holding a syringe in one hand trying to tap into Mulder's IV line. Pushing the door open silently, Scully aimed her gun directly at the woman's head and said in a very steady voice. "Make another move and I blow her brains out all over your nice clean suit." Both froze in their tracks. The man's hand shook like a virgin on prom night. "Lay the needle down on the table and back away slowly." The man did exactly as Scully instructed, his sweat-covered face paling as he saw the gun still pointed at his, as yet, unidentified partner. "Now move over to that chair and sit down with your hands tucked under your thighs." He certainly didn't look like a criminal, but then Scully had seen some of the worst criminals appear to be harmless. "You, walk over to the window and open the shades." The woman moved to obey, walking slowly. "You don't understand what you're doing, Agent SCully." The voice was familiar. The use of her name a giveaway that, even if SCully couldn't place her, she knew Scully. As she opened the blinds, Scully's eyes adjusted to the light and her brows furrowed in anger at the sight before her. "You, I should have know. You got him in this mess in the first place. You knew..." "Yes, Agent SCully, I knew. But I didn't have a choice." Scully's voice shook with fury as she stared down the gunbarrell at Chief of Police Pearl M Miller. "You better start talking and don't hand me any of the crap you've been feeding Mulder. I already know about your Father. I know your agenda." "You know nothing Agent SCully. Nothing at all. We have discovered the key to immortality and he's laying in that bed." She looked over at Mulder with something a keen to awe in her face. "He's the key to it all" End of Chapter 8 Perspectives Chapter 9 "What do you mean? What are you talking about? Mulder is no one's answer to immortality. I'm sick of his being the pawn for everyone's power trips." Scully shoved the chief back into the other chair in the room and loomed all five feet two of her anger over her. She didn't even flinch. Looking straight into Scully's eyes she said: "You have no clue what we have discovered. No Clue of the value of Mulder's participation in this experiment." "Experiment! Experiment, my ass. You sat him up. You knew he was walking into a trap. You knew!" She pushed the gun into Chief Miller's chest roughly and was rewarded with a grimace, whether of fear or pain, she didn't care. Mulder had been used again and someone was going to pay a heavy price. The sniffling little man setting to her right shifted a bit and cleared his throat. "Agent Scully, she is telling you the truth. Our means to the end may not have been the most ethical of choices, but we didn't have any other options, no one else that it would have worked on." "Shut up Helmer, just shut up." "I will not. It's your fault that this had to happen. It's you who will answer. You forget, I don't exist. I am no one." Scully looked at the stout little man sweating profusely and shook her head. "Well Mr No One, how about filling me in on your little scam." It wasn't a question. "Keep your mouth shut Helmer, or you won't live to regret it." Helmer opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. He looked like a fish trying to breath. She looked between her two captives. They were waging a war of wills and it looked like the chief was winning. A sound behind her caused her to spin, gun drawn, toward the door. It was the nurse. "Ms Scully, what's...what's goin' on? Isn't that our police chief?" Scully reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. Pushing the six again she motioned for the nurse to come in the room with the barrel of her gun. Langley picked up on the second ring. "Agent SCully, where have you been? We've trying to call you for the past ten minutes." "Sorry, I had a bit of a situation I had to take care of. What have you found out?" "Well, amazing as it sounds, nothing. Not a darn thing. We have dug in every hole we could find, but everywhere we dig it's an empty hole. It's like someone completely moved all the files, not hid them, completely erased them, no shadows even left. I'm so sorry, but we'll keep trying." "Thanks, let me know what you find. I'll leave the phone on." A soft whisper from the bed drew everyone's attention. Mulder was awake and trying to talk. Scully moved in quickly, never taking her eyes off the two 'prisoners'. "Mulder, Mulder, can you hear me?" His hazel eyes struggled to open, fitting the sedatives he had been given. His lips moved, but no intelligible sound came out. Scully moved closer, circling the bed to keep her guard on the chief and Mr Helmer constant. She leaned down close to his face, her free hand touching his cheek, trying to help him focus on waking up. "Come on, you can do it. Open your eyes, Mulder, open them. I need you to wake up." He struggled a bit more and Scully pushed the head up button on the bed to shift him a bit more. "I...I...had fight...off, fight off him. He was strong...couldn't, couldn't keep him..." "What Mulder, what are you trying to say? Please Mulder I need to know what happened. What these people tried to do to you." "We didn't try, Agent Scully. We succeeded. He is our success story, unlike those other poor souls. He did what no one on earth could do." "What are saying?! What did you do to him?" Scully moved to go around the bed when a firm hand took hold of her arm. She looked down into Mulder's hazel eyes. "Her father, he did it. Didn't he?" The question was directed at Chief Miller. "Yes." Her answer was quiet, not one of someone gloating in a success worth bragging about. her entire demeanor had changed. Gone was the overconfident Chief of Police, in it's place was a young woman, in over her head and just now realizing the potential of what has been discovered. "He made his mark on the world, Fox and no one will ever know about it. It will be looked at as a mad scientist who played with fire and got burnt." "Pearly, he did play with fire. He used alien technology, technology that he sold his soul to have and now his creation will have to be destroyed to be stopped." "Mulder, what are you talking about? What happened?" Scully was confused, uncertain of where to go with all this now. If Mulder knew, why hadn't he told her. His next words proved just how easily her could read her. "Scully, I didn't know what to expect when we got here. i started to suspect when she so readily agreed to my being the bait on the stakeout. She had been asking me a lot of questions about my father and hers. Asking if I knew about their work. I didn't really tell her much, I wasn't so sure what she knew about the project or its implication. The night of the stakeout she dropped a glass and I picked it up, I cut my hand on the shards. I realized later that she had taken a sample of blood that night and until now I didn't know why." Mulder turned back toward Chief Miller. "You needed a before and after sample, didn't you Pearl?" Her guard came backup immediately when she realized that Mulder wasn't playing into her side of things. "You were the only one, Fox. The only one who could stop him now. I didn't have a choice." "You only thought you didn't have a choice. You had a lot of choices,. one of which could have prevented all this from occurring" Scully was beginning to see the whole picture now. The pieces were clicking together and the puzzle it concocted was not pretty. Chief Miller had moved to the edge of her seat and SCully walked over and roughly pushed her back in the chair. "I didn't say you could move. You had better start explaining a few things. Like why you picked Mulder and exactly what it was that attacked him out there. My patience is gone with your little schemes Ms Miller. Now talk" end of chapter 9 Chapter 10 Scully was mad, not an 'I'll get over it in a minute mad', but an 'I'll shoot you first and then I don't care if I get to ask questions' mad. The woman had pushed her and Mulder around for the first and last time. Motioning with her gun to the little man on the chair to get over here now, he complied without so much as a sniffle. At least someone was understanding just how close to the edge she really was. Reaching in the cart closest to Mulder bed, she pulled out a container of wide bandage tape and handed it to Helms. "Tape her in that chair and make sure she's not going anywhere or you can join her." He moved to tape the chief, when a piercing alarm sounded causing everyone in the room to duck, expecting a repercussion of some kind for all the noise. "Fire alarm" The nurse looked to Scully for direction. "The patients..." "Go". Scully tucked her gun under the waist of her slacks and motioned with her hand, while grabbing Chief Miller with the other. In one swift movement, she had pulled out the chief's handcuffs and effectively chained Helms and her together. Penning her with a look that dared her to try anything, she quickly moved over to Mulder and unhooked the monitors from his forehead and chest and slid the IV bad onto the headboard's hook for just such emergencies. She unlocked the wheels and pushed the bed into the hallway. "Let's go." She didn't have a good feeling about this and from the looks on her captives faces they didn't either. Something was up and right now she needed to make certain that Mulder was safe. Disobeying all fire evacuation training she had, she pushed the down button on the elevator and quickly moved everyone inside. "Hit the button for the basement. We'll go out through the garage." Helms obeyed and in seconds the elevator was opening to a tomb like stillness in the lower levels of the parking garage. Motioning for the chief and Helms to move forward, she headed toward her car. A startled gasp a few seconds later caused her to look up to see Chief Miller frozen to the spot, something just outside of Scully's line of sight had her locked like a statue, swaying slightly where she stood. Scully stopped her forward motion and laid a hand on Mulder's to still his attempts at moving. Laying a finger over his lips, she pointed at Chief Miller. She still stood in the same position as before only now another figure was directly in front of her. Captain Shreves, the AWOL policeman from the stakeout was standing in her path. His face was pale and a small trickle of blood ran down his forehead and across his eye, yet he didn't seem to notice it. His lips moved, yet no sound emanated from his mouth. Chief Miller backed up one step, then one more, before he reached out and grabbed her arm stopping her escape. Scully needed her gun, but was afraid that any show of movement on her part might draw attention to Mulder and there was no way she was going to let anything more happen to him. Slide stepping as slowly as she could, she moved to stand directly by Mulder's sheet covered hand. Using her hands she signaled for him to reach under her jacket and remove her weapon. She felt his fingers crawl ever so slowly across her hip and to the waistband of her slacks. Even in the this dire situation, his touch send goose bumps rising along her back and arms. She resisted the urge to close her eyes as his fingers absently caressed the bare flesh on her back where her shirt had ridden up when she tucked the weapon there moments before. His finger shook against her skin as he slowly slid the gun from her waistband and moved it to easy reach of her fingertips. Captn' Shreves nor Miller had moved another inch, each locked in a deadly trance with one another's eyes seeming to communicate messages between them. Slowly Miller began to shake her head no, then the low gruntrel sounds of pain issued from her lips, as if bands of steel were being tighten around her body forcing the life from her. A light, dull and almost imperceptible began to fill the room. "No,no...Daddy please, no!" Her anguished cry rose in volume, her body twisting and trying to pull away from Shreves. "Nooo...." The light grew brighter, Miller's screams louder. Scully was acting on pure instinct as she reached for the gun. In slow motion time delay she pointed at Shreves head, the only part she could get a clear shot at and pulled the trigger. Shock filled his eyes and for one moment SCully could have sworn that she saw two faces looking at her from within Shreves countenance. Both filled with horror as realization dawned and death claimed the spoils. End of chapter 10 Perspectives Epilogue It didn't seem possible that two weeks had pasted since the stand-off between Chief Miller and Captain Shreves in the hospital's basement. Mulder was due to be released today and Scully had rented a nice huge Suburban to drive them home in, versus flying and the uncomfortable seats and long waits. She wanted Mulder to be as comfortable as possible. She needed to talk to him. He remembered next to nothing about the Miller case and she had refused to answer any of his ten million questions, even when he gave her the puppy-dog eyes. She had made him a deal: that if he would not complain about all the therapy he was going to have to endure, she would answer every question he had on the way home. His body had sustained more damage than the doctor's had realized. Torn muscles and tendons in his arms and legs, had brought on complications that neither had foreseen. The damage there was was as extensive as that to his lungs and heart muscles had been. Six hours a day for the past week and a promise to follow up when they returned to DC, with a therapist there, had gained him an early dismissal. They left a little after ten in the morning and were in Knoxville, Tennessee by three pm. One look at Mulder's drawn features was enough to convince her that five hours was all he could endure of travelling, so they stopped just outside of Powell and rented a room for the night. He had fallen asleep two minutes after Scully had him settled in the bed and gotten his pain medicine down him. He hadn't quizzed her all the way here and she was curious, but glad in a way. There was so much to tell him. Some of it she probably would never know, but she had the basic facts now. She slipped onto the other bed and pulled out her notes from the case. She had filed a report with Skinner the next day and hadn't looked back at them since. Now, in the quiet of the afternoon, with Mulder sleeping soundly in the next bed, she read back through them and was amazed again at their content. Captain Miller had been so shell-shocked by it all she hadn't eaten or spoken since the incident. Edgar Helms, her associate, had filled in Scully and the police with what details he had. Said it didn't matter anymore, everyone was gone. The tests were a failure. Scully clicked the pencil she held against her teeth as she read Helm's testimony. Testimony that should have him in a psych ward, versus a research hospital where he had gone back to work. Nothing was provable, nothing would stand up in court. A lot of innocent people had died and there was to be no justice for any of them. All of it thanks to a Professor who thought he could claim eternity and never die. A man so bent on his own quest for fame, that it didn't matter that he destroyed, not only others, but himself and his own family in the process. His experiments, according to Helms were in electromagnetic transference. He had found a way to harness the brain waves of a human being and using an alien technology transfer those waves into another person. The only hitch came when the person he transferred those patterns to cease to exist. He couldn't use a cadaver, because he needed living breathing tissue and brain matter to sustain the transferred waves. He had taken homeless people from all over the country. One here. Another there. Never enough to attract attention by any local authorities. Then one day the tests became his very existence. His own heart gave out. Wheezing and gasping, he managed to transfer his own wave pattern into the computer and the next day, when his body was found, Helms knew what to do. He took one more body, one more innocent, and used the latest formulation, the one they hadn't tested. The blend that Miller knew would be his only salvation to remain in this world. He had alienated his family, his colleagues everyone who had mattered to him. This final test would be his way of showing them all he was not crazy, that it could be done. But something wasn't quite right. The transfer worked like they had thought, but the bodies couldn't tolerate the serum. They had maybe forty eight hours, at the most, before the tissue and organs began to break down and the transfer would have to be done again, and again, and again. The only thing that Scully didn't understand was how Mulder was pulled into all this. He had never know the man and except for a desire to vindicate a past grievance with Mulder's father, he had no reason to try to kill Mulder. Scully had begun to wonder if anyone knew why all this had happened, when Helms had showed up at her hotel door late last night. 'Ms Scully, he had said. There is one thing I didn't put in the report. Something that you need to ask Agent Mulder about. Ask him about Tunsgka. Has he ever told you what happened over there?' At her negative shake of her head, he patted her arm. 'Ask him. Then you'll understand why he was so important to us, to our project.' Scully looked over at the sleeping man, who moved in his sleep and moaned at the effort. She knew him so well, yet not at all. He trusted her, yet kept things from her. Not to be mean, or even because he doubted her ability to understand it all, but because he cared for her and didn't want her to worry. But that didn't stop the worry. He was her life line in the midst of the storm and he depended on her and she on him for strength. Sleep was difficult and the medicine only tempered the pain, not eleviated it. He was restless. She laid down the files and moved to the other bed, laying down gently beside him and propping her head up on her hand to watch him. He must have sensed her presence, as his face twitched and twisted as he tried to pull out from under the lure of sleep. He slowly opened his eyes and blinked as he focused on her face, so very close to his. "Hi." "Hi, Scully." He smiled, his sparkling at her. It was so good to be here in this moment, she couldn't have stopped the tears had she wanted too. The trailed down across her nose and dripped onto the pillow. She slid her head down on her arm, so that she was face to face with him. His smile turned to worry as he noted her tears and even though it shot arrows of pain through his back and arms, he reached out and pulled her body against his tightly, burrowing his nose in her hair. She didn't fight him, only closed her arm around him and buried her face in his chest. Sobs racked her slender form and his chest ached, not from the trauma, but because he didn't know why she was crying. She never cried and when she did there was always very good reasons. He placed a soft kiss on the top of her head and rubbed her back in small circles to quiet her tears. She shifted in his arms, leaning back to look up at him, her face so close she could feel the small puffs of air he breathed out against her lips. His breathing hitched as she shifted her weight away from him causing her body to press, for an instance snuggly against his. She felt it too and ducked her head rather than meet his eyes. His finger under her chin, forcing her head up, pushed the words out of her mouth "Mulder what happened to you in Tunguska?" His movement stilled and fingers left her chin as he turned away from her and sat up slowly. She didn't say another word, just waited for him. "Things that I don't want to remember Scully. Terrible things." She laid her hand against his back and felt it tremble. "I need to know what happened. It's important. It's the reason you were hurt." At that, he stiffened and turned back to her. His face reflected anger and something she had, unfortunately, come to recognize over the years - betrayal. She sat up quickly before he could say another word and took his face in her hands. Looking into his eyes, she emphasized each word carefully. "I only found out last night and didn't have any idea why or how before we came. When are you going to finally understand that I am your friend - always, Mulder? Forever, you will always be the most important person in my life." His face quivered under her palms and she slide her fingers up into his hair and pulled his face down to hers. She rested her forehead against his for a second, breathing the essence that was Mulder. His hands came up to rest on her neck anchoring himself to her. "They did tests on me Scully. With the black oil. I never knew what they were trying to do, only that a lot of men had died and that no one had any hope of every leaving there alive." Scully breathed in deeply before she gently extracted herself and moved off the bed. She needed to walk, to think, to link the puzzle together in her head before she opened her mouth. But Mulder had already traveled the road and found the pot, only it wasn't filled with gold. "Pearl's father, Scully. He was there. I remember it now. He was in the room overlooking all those men while they performed the tests. He was part of whatever they were trying to do." His face reflected anger as the links fell in place. "Pearl knew that I was there. She knew that I was part of his little test. She used me Scully. She used me." His head bowed and his fist clenched as he put it all together. Scully moved over to stand beside him, her hands aching to touch him, to comfort him, yet knowing that he had to work it through first. She was seeing the light as well and it was a anything but light to her. "She must have know that her Father couldn't destroy you. They were working on an antidote, weren't they Mulder. One that could prevent the take-over of another's body by the alien technology. They were trying to create a race of people who were immune to the technology." She realized she was speaking of things that Mulder had no clue of, when his fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist, causing her to stop and look down at him. She walked over to the files and picked them up. Pulling out Helms testimony she handed to him. He looked over the words, shaking his head. Understanding dawning. "How did you know to ask me about Tuskgana? It's not mentioned here." "Helms came to me last night and asked me if you had ever told me about it. When I told him no, he said to ask you; that you were the key. That was why you were so important to the 'project', as he called it." "I saw Dr. Miller again SCully. After Tuskguna. I saw him that morning, on the stake out. He was there Scully, in that other man's body. He wanted me. He though I could help him. That I could fix all his mistakes. I pushed him away. I literally threw him out of my body." He looked up at Scully and she slipped back down beside him on the bed. "The oil Mulder, it must be the key. It must act as a deterrent for the serum that Dr Miller created." "But apparently not a good enough one from the feel of my body." He laid the reports down and slipped back against the headboard persumptuously pulling SCully back with him. She let him without comment. Resting her head against his shoulder, her hand over his heart. "It was all a matter of perspective Mulder. Dr Miller's perspective of life was one that determined he must live forever to prove his worth, even if it meant sacrificing everything for that belief. Sad, really. His quest destroyed everyone and everything it touched and still he's dead. Remembered now, only as a murderer." Scully slipped her arms around him and gently, tenderly, squeezed him to her chest. "Well, speaking of perspectives of life, I think that I have found a new one Mulder." She looked up at him with a mischievous grin tugging at the corners of her lips. "Oh, Ms Scully and would that new perspective have anything to do with a certain, slightly convalescing Special Agent with an odd first name?" "I believe that it just might." She grinned full out and slide up to plant a kiss along side his mouth. Mulder turned into her at the last second and her lips landed squarely on his. Soft against softer. The sensation had them both breathless and wanting more. Mulder gently rubbed his lips against her and cupped her face in one hand. Pulling back slightly he looked at her flushed face, eyes closed, lips wet and inviting. "Yes, he definitely had his perspectives messed up." And with that he dipped his head and drowned in the discovery of his partner, his friend, his love. The END!!!!