From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: New: The Abductee 11a/21 by Windsinger Date: 28 Jul 1995 01:23:30 -0400 THE ABDUCTEE (11/21) by S. Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) 7/27/95 This story is based on the characters created by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without permission and no infringement is intended. Thanks guys, for creating this marvelous stuff. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Copyright 1995 by S. Esty Chapter 11 Monday 11:15pm Somewhere Fox Mulder woke slowly and he was so comfortable that he thought dreamily about how easy it would be to just slide back into sleep. His ever faithful sixth sense, however, nudged his brain and then he remembered. Somewhere in the quiet dark house he could hear an old wind up clock. Other than that mechanical sound, unnaturally and relentlessly regular, the silence was complete. There were not even any noises coming from outside the house. It was too late in the year for crickets and the house was far from any regularly traveled roads. Following the loud ticking, he found the clock's luminous dial shining dimly on the dresser. By squinting, he guessed it was about 11:15. Almost the witching hour, he thought dryly. Then he realized there was another sound... the regular light sighing of a woman as she slept nearby. He turned his head ever so quietly. He had slept warmly under sheet, blanket and quilt. Angela lay on her side beside him, on top of that same quilt but fully dressed, as if she had meant to lay down only for a moment. Fox took a long breath, concentrating, taking stock of how he was doing physically. The natural, undrugged sleep had done him good. His head was relatively clear, though he was still light-headed from having been ill, and the room did not move around him, irritating defying the laws of gravity, as it had done. Best, he was no longer nauseous, though his stomach muscles still quivered, as if deeply bruised. But he was thirsty, that more then anything. With infinite care, taking minutes, he extracted himself from under the covers to crouch on fingers and toes on the floor beside the bed. He hunched there for a long time, silent and listening and waiting for the slight dizziness to leave him. Her breathing did not alter. He had seen before that she was tired. If she felt safe here, she should sleep soundly. For a few minutes he tried to find his gun on her side of the bed, but, finally, he abandoned the search as being too perilous. She could still have it in her hand, the hand that lay covered by the skirt of her dress. Still feeling too unsteady to stand, Fox kept low, half crawling toward the faint grey rectangle which had to be the door to the hallway. The small house could have only a few rooms, a living room, kitchen and maybe two bedrooms. He thought about closing the bedroom door, but feared a groaning hinge would wake *her*. He considered his options as he crept through the still house, trying to be silent, testing each board before putting his weight down on a hand or knee or bare foot. If he found the car keys, could he drive? Maybe, for a little way. Far enough. If not that, escaping on foot was better than staying here, but the night was cold and he was nearly naked, wearing only his shorts and a t-shirt, and he had no idea how far this house was from its nearest neighbor. A phone call to Scully, though, was his first thought. She was ever his lifeline. He could not even count the number of times that she had been there to see him safely home. Fox knew he should have called her the day before, regardless of what had happened and damn the WPP, but the world had looked so bleak then. Now it was just dangerous. Dangerous he was used to. In the shadowy living room he found an old rotary dial phone. He hissed between his teeth. Even if the phone worked, dialing would be slow and would make a harsh noise in the stillness. Then he remembered he had not the slightest idea where he was. The Bureau hot line or 911 could trace the call. From her apartment Scully could not, but he had gone his life without thinking always very logically and he would not start now. Scully's voice was what he wanted to hear. Only hers. As he lifted up the phone to bring it back behind the arm of the couch, he saw that a small book lay under it. In the dim, blue moonlight which streamed in from the window he read 'Spencerville and Rappahannock County' on the cover. It was a local phone book, not much of an address, but something. He knew only that Rappahannock was a small rural county in the Appalachian foothills of Virginia. He crouched down with the phone, keeping the arm of the couch between himself and the door to the bedrooms. Dialing was slow, as he had to ease the dial of the phone back after entering each number. The clicks from the dial, as the rotors moved forward and back, sounded loud to his wary ears. His fingers shook for he had gone days now, with the exception of Sunday, without being able to keep much food down. From the parched, vile feel of his mouth, he guessed he was also badly dehydrated. Only when he had dialed the last digit, and brought the receiver up to his ear, did Fox wonder if she would be there. She could be at Evan's. He shut his eyes against that thought and concentrated on the fact that at least he would get her answering machine. After three rings, with disappointment so physical his throat constricted with the pain, he heard the machine click and then the beginning syllables of the recorded message he could repeat by heart. Then she was a Evan's, he thought, and his stomach made a queasy turn which was due to more than his recent illness. *** Dana Scully walked wearily towards the door of her apartment. She had not wanted Evan to come up, so had asked him to leave her at the building's security door. She had talked to him very little on the way home from the abandoned safe house. Skinner knew and that was enough. Sleepily, she fumbled in her purse for her keys. She still had not found them when she heard the phone begin to ring. *** Mulder waited impatiently for the message to complete. With only a few words of the message to go he heard the recording stop, the line crackle and a voice, her living voice, anxious and slightly out of breath, came to him. "Hello?" His insides quivered. He hesitated, trying to calm his voice, his mouth suddenly too dry. The house was so silent and dark around him, so full of shadows, he felt inexplicably like a little boy doing something he was not supposed to do after his parents had gone to bed, knowing he would be punished if they found out. "Hello? Is anyone there?" she asked again with more worry than irritation in that voice he knew so well. "S-Scully," he was finally able to croak. There was hesitation on the line then, "Mulder!" The greeting leaped at him, the emotions that he hear in that voice made him shiver again with a pleasure he had not realized he had missed. He heard relief and concern, fear and happiness. For a moment, he could not swallow, and emotion made his chest so tight, that he was unable to speak. "Mulder, where are you?" "Scul-" Fox began, but at that moment a dark shape rose up, like a thunder cloud from the shadows beyond the end of the couch, the figure releasing a shriek of rage. Angela's kick caught him solidly under the chin, throwing him backwards, knocking over the lamp which went crashing. Mulder cried out in surprise and pain as he lost his hold on the phone which Angela, sweeping down, snatched up at the same time she savagely jerked the cord out of the wall. "How dare you!" She shrieked in panic mixed with fury, almost in tears. "Now they know where we are!" As he struggled to untangle his long limbs, she swung the phone with both hands and it impacted with the side of this skull. He felt a sickening blast of pain and blackness closed in. *** Dana stood in her dark empty apartment, panting from the adrenalin that had flooded her system as she had struggled with the unwilling key, the door, raced for the phone - and heard his voice. The receiver now lay silent in her hand. She stood with her eyes tightly closed, wanting to scream out her despair and anger, as she had heard the woman on the phone scream... for she had heard her name breathed in a hoarse whisper from his lips. Mulder was alive. He had reached out to her, touched her fleetingly, like fingertips brushing as they passed in the dark, and then he had been ripped from her. Alone, Dana sank down on the floor, clutching the dead phone. He needed her and she did not know where to find him. *** Tuesday 7am FBI Headquarters The twenty desks in the FBI's communications center were all manned. The place was euphemistically called the Bullpen, but in these early morning hours it hummed rather than bellowed. Phones rang, agents bustled, but voices were uncharacteristically low. So low... as if everyone spoke in whispers, walked on tip toe. It was an odd sound, unlike the excitement of a typical investigation on overdrive. For this was not a typical investigation. No faceless stranger was being searched for here, no violent, soulless criminal, who for society's sake should never have been born. No black humor here. They were searching for one of their own, and Dana Scully sat in the center of it, eyes dark and chill as ice. They had called her the Snow Queen at the academy - cold, emotionless - totally focused upon her career. That was before she had been teamed up with Fox Mulder, that was before she had discovered her soul. Now she pulled the old coldness back around her again, shut out the tears and anger and despair, found a center of dead calm from which she could still function. Fox Mulder's cry in the night finally got the matter the attention Scully, in her heart, had believed from the beginning that it deserved. She only prayed they would not be too late. Hours earlier, having cast aside the useless phone, Dana had knelt on the floor of her apartment and finally allowed the wrenching sobs she had held all week to take her and cleanse her for what she knew would be the long job ahead. Only when her tears were exhausted, when all that was left of her was her cold determination and a colder heart, did Dana retrieve the damning, silent receiver, call Skinner and arrange to meet him at the Bureau. In the early hours of the morning, they sat together in Skinner's office and made plans. The team Agent Scully assembled that night learned quite a lot which was new about Angela Larson, but made no progress in finding Mulder. Dana's lightning revelation in the courtroom turned out to be correct. About six weeks previously, records showed an Angela Larson had reported to the District police that she had been mugged. When the officers asked her to look at mug shots, she told them that the mugger had been laughing with his friends about being a member of a gang but she could not remember which one. The officer had suggested several, among them the 'Chain'. Yes, Angela had told the officer, that was the one. Dana's eyes flashed as she made her report to Skinner. "Angela was left *alone* for more than two hours with the mug book containing the pictures of this gang. Ironically, just three weeks later she reports she has witnessed a murder performed by a member of that same gang." Skinner put a hand over his face and silently groaned. "I also have a report from Reti's parole officer," Scully continued bitingly, "stating that two weeks before the murder a woman, who said she was with the FBI, came to his office and asked pointed questions about several members of the Chain. Where they lived, where they worked. Reti's name was among them." Dana threw up her hands. "The moronic secretary did not even ask to see this supposed agent's identification!" Skinner stared fixedly at his desk. His five o'clock shadow had gone way past where Scully had ever seen it. His jaw was tight as he grumbled with bitterness, "Since when did this system get so screwed up that one twenty-nine year-old, ninety-five pound psycho can be allowed to do what this woman has done?" When she passed his office from time to time during the next hour, Dana could hear him clearly, chewing out one representative or other of every branch of law enforcement in the city, and in a city like Washington there were quite a few. Scully allowed herself a grim gallows smile. As she and Mulder were well aware, laying down the law was something Walter Skinner was very, very good at. The working hypothesis in the Bullpen was that once she possessed a list of possible gang members, Angela had systematically determined which one would be the easiest to frame. Whether she performed the act herself or not was unknown. Reti's habit of sleeping in the back room of the store before his shift meant that he would have no alibi. Perfect. A team was still working on McDowell's death, but it seemed plausible that Angela had contracted for his murder. The senselessness of it was appalling, even to these hardened professionals. McDowell had probably been killed only to delay locating Angela's safe house. In the final analysis, all agreed that Angela had been smart, unexpectedly so. Except when reporting her mugging early on, she had never used her own name. A person with that much foresight would have prepared her own safe house in advance and had it ready and waiting. Records showed her parents had died while she was still being treated at Longmead and that she had inherited their good-sized nest egg - enough to contract for a murder or two, enough to buy a house. Dana had set twenty agents on phones, checking realty agencies, looking at all area house sales and rentals for which contracts had been written within the last six weeks. And, if they found nothing within a three state area, they would expand the search. Even with computerized databases this would take time, especially since she would not have used her own name, but everyone was optimistic that the plan would be successful. Eventually. Eventually, however, was not good enough for Dana. Not for the first time and not for the last, she moaned silently, "There's not enough time for this!" In turns they drifted by her desk, all the agents on the team. They spoke quietly, giving her assurances that her partner would be found, commending her on her work. For everyone recognized that Agent Scully's instincts had been right on this and instincts were something the best agents bet their lives on. Even Skinner had praised her, but she had taken no pleasure in his commendation. Being right at this point put them no closer to finding Mulder or to knowing what Angela's plans were. Having been up most of the two nights before, Skinner slept a few hours on the couch in his office sometime before daybreak. Dana slept only when her head become too heavy for her to hold and because the office staff began slipping her decaffeinated coffee. She was too tired and too obsessed to even notice the difference. At seven-thirty Skinner limped into the communications center, rubbing the too little sleep from his eyes. His shirt was wrinkled and he had abandoned his tie hours before. He came up to Dana who was drawing up assignments for three recruits who would be relieving agents who had been up all night. "Go to sleep, Agent Scully," he ordered and, when she opened her mouth to protest, added, "You can use the couch in my office. We'll call you if we find anything." Silently, she nodded and pushed herself to her feet, but she did not go to Skinner's office. She signaled to Evan, who was checking airlines to see if an Angela Larson had had round trip tickets between Washington and Boston mailed to her home. If the 'home' was not her apartment in Falls Church, they might have something, but this was a very long shot. "Evan, I need a favor," Dana said in a low voice once they were alone in the silent corridor. =========================================================================== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: New: The Abductee 11b/21 by Windsinger Date: 28 Jul 1995 01:23:47 -0400 The Abductee, chap 11 continued. *** Tuesday 8am Rappahannock County, Virginia Mulder thought, because, if it was not a dream, it meant he had been beaten up yet again. His head hurt with a hurt that obliterated thought. There was a throbbing agony, that centered on the left side, which radiated waves of shimmering pain down to his toes. His jaw ached, too, not enough to be broken, but he would not be eating steak for a while. And there was something wrong with his right arm, he realized dimly. Maybe he could just go back to sleep and leave the pain behind, but then he realized he was so foggy that he did not remember what had happened or where he was. What case had he been on? Something about Scully. An icy coldness touched his face, making him gasp and jerk away with a groan, as the air he had held in his lungs to brace against the pain, escaped in a rush. The cold retreated, returned. The shock was not nearly so sudden this time, at least it was a different sensation from the throb in his head and a welcome distraction. Without opening his eyes, he recognized that the cold came from a wash cloth, a fairly wet one. He could feel trickles of water running over his chin and down his neck. The thought of water reminded him of how parched his mouth and throat felt. He was so thirsty! Timing the methodical movements of the cloth, he caught it between his teeth as it passed over his dry lips and tried to suck a little of the moisture from it. Anything to relieve this craving that, now that he thought about it, threatened to overwhelm even his mammoth headache. But his action resulted in the cloth being wrenched forcefully out of his mouth, setting off an explosion of pain through his jaw and head. When he had first realized that his face was being washed, the thought had crept into his brain that he would only need to open his eyes to see Scully looking down on him, yet again, with ill-masked concern. But she would not have treated him so roughly. Not Scully. Not even on a bad day. He cracked opened his dry eyes and found himself staring at a daylit white ceiling. Someone then moved into his field of vision. Angela. He shut his eyes again. The memories flooded into him as if he had been doused again with cold water. Despair rose up so in him that he was afraid he would choke. He had been trying to call Scully. He had barely heard her anxious voice speak his name when Angela had kicked him hard and battered the side of his head with the phone in her rage. She had shown more strength than he had given her credit for. That was why his head hurt and his jaw. But he did not mind the pain so much now. He would risk it again to hear that voice, to know with certainty, just from those few words, that she had known that there was something wrong, that he needed rescuing again. Angela had gone for the moment. He slowly raised his left hand and felt gingerly at the center of the agony which was his head. He found a cut at the hair line above his left temple, but not too bad. It was the blood from this she had been cleaning up. The area the size of his palm was fire when he probed it. All in all, he knew he had been lucky. She must have caught him with the flat underside of the phone. She had been so angry that if she had hit him square on with an edge, she might have killed him. Concentrate, Mulder told himself. If he kept his head still, he was relatively coherent, despite having a brain that had been through what his had. How was he otherwise? Because of the head injury, he could not expect to move quickly in any coordinated way. His right arm ached and his hand was numb. Raised above his head, it felt like it had been in that position for some time, and he found he could not bring it down. He sighed audibly, feeling the thin cool pressure of the encircling metal on his wrist and hearing the metal on metal rasp of the opposite handcuff on the frame of the iron bed where he lay. He heard the rustling of movement near him and risked opening his eyes against the light. Angela stood over him, her face unreadable, neither angry nor mothering, but cold, emotionless. She held a paper cup in her hand, which reminded him again of how thirsty he was. She put an arm under his shoulders and helped him lift his head and then put the cup to his lips. He drank at it thirstily, heedless of the faint bitter taste of old pipes and sulphur, regretting the little stream that, in his haste, spilled out onto the 'V' of bare chest which the t-shirt did not cover. She took the cup away and moved from him quickly, as if he were somehow dangerous. "More," he rasped, asking almost plaintively and wishing immediately that he could have removed that pleading tone from his voice. He could still feel the track that small amount of coolness had traveled from lips and tongue, across the back of his throat, down his esophagus to lay like a cool pool in his empty stomach. "That's enough for now," she said curtly. "It's too risky to allow you to go to the bathroom and I don't want to have to clean up after you." She put the empty cup down beside the bed. Fox followed her with his eyes and had to turn his head to see her sit in a chair near a window, far enough away that, shackled as he was, he could not reach her. It was full day, but early morning by the angle of the sun. As she looked out the window, he noted she held his gun in her lap. He jerked the chain again if only to promote a little circulation in his arm. "Angela," he said hoarsely, experimenting with his voice. It grew stronger as he spoke. "Talk to me... Why are you doing this?" Slowly, she turned dead eyes to him. "You called them," she said accusingly, looking as if she were going to cry. "You were going to leave me...leave me all alone to face them." He tried to look her in the eye, which was hard, since she was slightly above his head and his eyes were not focusing dependably. "What happened ... the other night ... you must know that's not allowed. I have to remove myself from this assignment." That argument, he knew, sounded pretty ludicrous even to him. "We can still talk sometimes about what you are afraid of. I'll arrange it. And I won't let you be alone." "Not the same," she grumbled. "You would not be here when *they* come for me. You would not be there to protect me." Mulder realized he wasn't understanding something, a theme she kept referring to. Maybe it was because his head ached so. It was hard to concentrate and find the words, but words were all he had now. Tensing himself against the pain in his head, Fox forced himself to sit up with his back against the ironwork headboard. At least now he could see her face and he felt less vulnerable, though it made his head feel like his brain was way too big for his skull. He roughly jerked the handcuff, felt his head give off a small explosion and felt a quiver in the chain which should not have been there. He glanced down quickly, hoping Angela did not see where he was looking. The thin post of metal on the iron bed's headboard, to which the other end of the cuff was attached, was not too thick and had bent a little. A few good jerks, a little leverage, and maybe he could get out of this mess yet, if talking to her did not work. "Angela, who are you afraid of?" he asked. "Reti Frantilli's friends? Because by leaving the safe house and coming here," he looked around at the walls and ceiling of the room, "the police and my friends can't find us. And they would have helped me to protect you." She looked at him as if he were being particularly dense. "Not *them*. The ones who are coming to take me back. Back to that place. I won't go. Not ever." "I won't let them take you," he lied sincerely, not sure to which place she was referring. To Longmead, he assumed. "You already called them twice," she spat. "You called *him*, that McDowell, and you called *her*. And now they know where we are." Her eyes filled with tears. "And now they are coming for me tonight, and I am so tired of running." Maybe it was his bruised brain, but Fox still could not make sense of what she was talking about. He rattled the handcuff again, more strongly than he would have needed to just a make a point. "Well, I can't protect you very effectively this way. Why don't you let me go and give me my gun?" She looked at him oddly and made no move to comply with his request. "There is more than one kind of protection, Agent Mulder. We must follow the plan. The planning took years and years and it only needs tonight to be fulfilled." Plan? Fox remembered his convenient illness all too well. Poisoned. How much more was part of the plan? His being here at all was obviously part of this plan. Suddenly he swallowed hard, though there was little moisture to swallow, and found himself staring at her in utter stupification, able to comprehend for the first time all that she must have done to make certain that he was here now. Rapidly, he looked away so that she would not suspect that he knew. He needed her on his side, as much as that was possible. He did not need her to know that he suspected her of murder. He should keep silent he knew, or speak very guardedly, but on one point, at least, he could not keep silent. If she got angry so be it, but he had to know. He looked back to where she sat staring blankly out the window. "Angela, what you said about my sister, that wasn't true was it?" She tilted her head as if listening, but did not turn towards him. "Probably not, I don't remember very well." It was an odd answer, but he took that as a 'no', and felt a surprisingly deep disappointment in that knowledge. "Why the lie?" he asked gently. "So you would stay with me. All of this was so you would stay with me. I never thought you would want to leave. After -" She looked shyly at him then, though how she could after what they had done... "I know," he said, closing his eyes as if closing his mind to that particular memory. "How did you ever find out about Sam? I never told you." "You did. Years ago, during the investigation, when you were trying to explain to me about abductions. You thought I wasn't listening, but I was." She finally turned to face him and her eyes were large and dark and knowing. "About the ice cream and the night light, I never would have told you that." "No, that your mother did." At that his head came up, his mind leaping backwards and forwards in time, seeing the woman his mother had been and what she had become, the sorrow and helplessness he felt about her. "My mother!" His flaring, trigger temper sent a shocking pain through his head. He jerked the handcuff savagely, this time with all his anger. Squinting through the suddenly blinding headache he growled at her. "If you hurt her -" Angela gaze was focused. She was calm. "I did not harm a hair on her beautiful head. She was a very cordial hostess." "I don't see why she would tell you anything." Angela smiled knowingly. "'Oh, Mrs. Mulder,'" Angela said coyly, in a soft, southern accent. And, as she spoke, her shoulders lost their slump, her dowdy clothes straightened, her lined face smoothed and she reminded Mulder again of the woman who had prepared herself to go into Washington that fateful Saturday night when he had last seen Scully. "'The CIA is considering your son for a special assignment, a matter of national security. But with a job of this importance, we must be certain, you know, that there are no any lasting effects from any - childhood traumas." Fox had stared at her performance in astonishment. Now he watched the aura slip away as suddenly as it had appeared, and she was again the straggly- haired, world-weary, paranoid Angela that he knew... and had come to fear. "Now," Angela said in quite a different voice, a cold, scary voice, and raising the gun she held in her lap. "I don't feel like talking any more. Why don't you just go to sleep and let me alone?" As angry as he was, he wanted to respond to that, wanted to say he had spent far too much time unconscious lately and did not want to sleep now. But his mouth would not frame the words. He could feel his limbs going weak. His head... his head began to nod and, try as he might, his eyes closed. He forced them open, struggled to stay sitting by grasping the ornamental twists and turns of the head board, but his hands would not grip. "There, see?" Angela cooed. "You are getting too excited. I know what they gave me in the hospital when I got that way." Fear gripped him, even as he felt himself sliding down, bonelessly, awkwardly, onto the bed again. As if he were underwater, he heard her saying. "You'd be surprised to know how easy it is to buy that stuff on the street." He struggled, but felt himself being dragged down. He was unconscious before he could even finish his thought. Angela rose almost gracefully from the chair, and straightened his limbs, for he had passed out in a crumpled tangle. Then she sat on the side of the bed and smoothed his brow as she looked into his face with infinite sadness. "We'll talk again, Agent Mulder, before all this is through." =========================================================================== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: New: The Abductee 12/21 Date: 28 Jul 1995 21:10:34 -0400 THE ABDUCTEE (12/21) by S. Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) 7/27/95 This story is based on the characters created by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without permission and no infringement is intended. Thanks guys, for creating this marvelous stuff. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Copyright 1995 by S. Esty The Abductee: The Tiger and the Lamb (Chaps 12-15) Chapter 12 Tuesday 8am Falls Church, Virginia Dana Scully knocked hesitantly on the front door of the house where Angela had taken them to collect her things just a week before. The owner of the building, a stout woman in a frayed robe and old slippers was not pleased to be wakened by this very proper young professional woman this early in the morning. "You want to see what? Angela Larson's apartment? You're from where?" The FBI identification with its large letters, easily readable from a distance in dim light or by sleepy landladies at eight in the morning, admitted Dana into Angela's room without any problem. Dana was relieved when the owner made a hasty retreat. She wanted solitude. She had even asked Evan to wait in the car. Having been surrounded by a crowd all night, she just wanted to be alone, but it had been considerate of him to drive her. Dana knew her limits and her attention had definitely begun to waver. Dana had not expected to gain much information from the bare little room and she found what she expected. To her tired eyes the room looked untouched. There were a few items on the dresser which Dana would have packed but Angela had not; a brush, a sweater, a lipstick. Nothing significant, though. Nothing like a check book, address book, maps or clipped out newspaper ads. Nothing to point to a house she might have bought, even to an area of the country she liked. Then Dana spotted the framed picture hanging from its hook on the wall. Odd for a portrait like that to be hanging from a string on a wall when it was the right type of frame to sit on the night stand beside the bed. She had thought that peculiar the first time she had been there. Stranger still that Angela had not taken the picture of the boyfriend she had seemed so happy with. Carefully, Scully touched the frame and turned it on its string. A different boy's picture was taped to the back of the frame, a younger boy. Large red spots of what looked like lipstick, or perhaps blood, framed the young man's head almost like a halo. The picture of the boy, no more than sixteen, had been enlarged from a much smaller one and thus was grainy and indistinct. Dana easily recognized the face, however, the strong jaw, the high intelligent forehead, and the sad eyes, even though it had probably been photocopied from a high school yearbook two decades old. Dana sat down slowly on the edge of the sagging mattress and held the picture in her hands, gently touching the face in the picture. The lab would be able identify the dark stains, but did it matter? Dana had come to suspect that for Angela, love and hate were proving to be one and the same. Dana let her head hang loosely on her shoulders. She had worked like someone possessed all night, so had many others, and now she was too exhausted to think of anything else to do. Where else could she look where others were not already looking. Four months before in a forest far north of the city, a serial killer they had been stalking had set her up and she had been shot. For two days Mulder had had to deal with the madman, play his games. He had put himself in the most dangerous position, all to find her. How had he borne the not knowing, she wondered? How had he borne the thought that she might die? That she might already be dead? She only remembered the look in his eyes as he had carried her miles through the rain to bring her to safety. Then there was the different look that had come into his eyes in the hospital as, being told the danger was past, he had sought her face. Dana thought, Taking the picture with her, she left the apartment. Past time to get back to work. Wearily, she climbed into the car where Evan waited patiently for her to tell him where he should drive her next. Seeing her dead eyes, he said, "You should go home, Dana." But before she could reply, her cellular signaled, startling both of them. She snatched it from her pocket and hear Skinner's voice and by his tone she knew there had been no big breakthrough, but there was news. "You didn't go home, Agent Scully," the deep voice said. There was no apology in hers when she answered. "No, sir." He did not comment. He neither approved nor disapproved, he was that tired himself. "I thought you would want to know. The toxicological report just came in from the evidence found at the safe house." Dana tensed, then looked meaningfully over at Evan. Evan could take a hint. "I think, I'll stretch my legs," he told her, got out of the car and began walking slowly down the street. Dana looked after her new friend, reminding herself to thank him some day, then returned to the phone, closing her eyes. "Sir, I'm listening." "As you predicted, Agent Scully, they found that rat poison both in the oatmeal from the trash and in the emesis taken from the waste basket." Dana's eyes shut tighter. Skinner's voice had risen slightly at the end. There was more. "They found some tea leaves laced with a *Cannabis* derivative, one prescribed for selected patients on chemotherapy, not enough to be dangerous, but enough, I am told, to give a person a good night's sleep and a general feeling a well-being." That pause again. "Agent Scully?" Skinner's voice asked. "Sir, I'm still here." Her voice was very quiet. She knew there was more. "What else did they find?" He did not begin immediately, sensing she knew something of what was coming. "Also from the trash, although the sample was small, they found some remnants of applesauce, heavily flavored with cinnamon. The sample contains a drug called 'MDA', in considerable concentration." He heard her intake of breath. "I see you are familiar with it and its properties. The lab had to update me. None was detected in the emesis, but from its location in the trash the lab suggests it was probably presented at an earlier meal. Most likely Sunday evening. They think there might be something else in that sample as well. They are still working on it." Hearing no word from her, he went on uneasily. "I hate to say I am relieved, but for the sake of Agent Mulder's future at this institution, I admit I am. It still remains to be proven that Agent Mulder actually consumed the drug or, if consumed, he did not consume it consensually, but the case against him now seems less daunting." "He would not -" Scully defended. "He would never -". Skinner's voice was even, non-threatening. "From what I know of Agent Mulder's character, I agree with you, but there are others who would try to make a case of this... others, who from petty envy or a bias against those who are different, who don't play by the rules, would like to bring him down." His voice had gradually sharpened to reveal an anger he would not have let show if he were not so tired. "But we will deal with that in its own time, won't we, Agent Scully?" "We will, sir," she said, her voice steadier. His words even at this distance gave her some comfort. "I'm coming back now." Evan Byers walked the block six times. When he began to get the hairy eyeball from an old woman at the end of the street, he decided six was enough. He came up to her window, and, just as the last five times he had been by, noted she was not on the phone. This time she made a motion for him to get in. From the brief glance he got of her face as he came around to the driver's side, he could see the tracks of tears, but her face was still and hard when he settled behind the steering wheel. "Dana," he asked carefully, starting the engine, "did they find arsenic, like we discussed?" Her reply was terse. "Yes." Evan passed his hand over his face. "I'm really sorry, Dana." He turned down the street, heading back towards the main road. She let the silence continue. He could tell there was something still in the air. "Anything else?" There was a pause, as if she had to fight to get the words out clearly. "I don't want to talk about it. Just take me get back to the office." *** Dana tried to work, only to come up against more dead ends, more frustrations, more red tape and bureaucracy. At one point she had found herself screaming, literally screaming, at Agent Clark. The rookie had had the nerve to come up to her and report, oh, so apologetically, that he was the one who should have relieved Agent Mulder Saturday for his night off. Angela Larson, however, had answered the phone when he called to confirm the arrangement and asked him not to come. She had told him that Agent Mulder was not feeling well, and he had taken her word for it. So now he was treated to a few well selected words from Special Agent Dana Scully. Words, most of the agents in the bullpen at the time, did not realize she knew. Skinner had rescued the kid, but everyone knew his rescue would be temporary, as Skinner marched the slinking youngster into his office and soundly slammed the door. Hours later in the mid afternoon, one of the secretaries reported quietly to Assistant Director Skinner that something was wrong with Agent Scully. This led to Skinner invading the woman's restroom to find an exhausted Dana huddled in the corner of one of the stalls crying softly. He bundled her up in her coat and sent her home in a cab to get some sleep. *** Tuesday 5pm Washington, D.C. Dana threw her coat and her gun on a chair, thought about taking a shower, but stretched out on the bed instead. Wearily, she stretched out her arm to gently touch the figure of a tiger sitting on the nightstand. Then she let her head fall back upon the pillow. *** Tuesday 8pm Somewhere in Rappahannock County, Virginia Angela set out the articles on the small table which she knew she would need later; the razor, the bowl. The man still lay in a drugged sleep. She did not want to look at him. Now that she had come this far she was afraid if she looked at him, if she allowed herself to remember being touched by him, that she would not have the resolve to see the plan through. She took the coil of rope in her hands, but decided instead to have a cup of tea, perhaps two, before beginning the final phase. *** Tuesday 10pm Washington DC Dana woke to a dark apartment. Her eyes strayed to the clock first. She felt almost guilty to find she had slept for five hours. Immediately, she called the office, but there were no new developments. No need to come in, they said. Go back to sleep. As she drug herself out of bed, Dana found the tiger tangled in the quilt she had pulled over herself. The figure was six inches long and covered in a soft material that resembled fur, but its expression was not soft. Its mouth was open wide, displaying its sharp teeth, and its eyes were wild. She slowly smoothed the fur down. This had been Mulder's very first gift to her. She remembered why. He had given it to her a few days after Eugene Tooms had attacked her. They had not been working together very long. Too clearly, Dana remembered fighting for her life on the cold floor of her bathroom with Tooms holding her down. A few seconds longer and he would have had her ripped open, only Mulder had burst through the front door. When Tooms leaped up to escape, Dana found, to her surprise, a reserve of courage someplace deep inside herself which she had not known was there. Turning and fighting with the fleeing man, actually allowing his disgustingly slimy hands to touch her again, she had prevented his escape until Mulder could reach them. Together, they had subdued Tooms, working perfectly as a team. Mulder had not said anything at the time, but she had seen him looking at her with new eyes. He presented her with the tiger a week later without a word of explanation but had let her see for the first time one of his rare good smiles, the kind that now made her knees weak. "I picked this up for you." She had looked at the offering, uncomprehending. "What is this for?" "You did good, sweetheart." His imitation of Humphrey Bogart was terrible. "Better than you expected, or better than you hoped?" she responded and received in reply another of those smiles. He remembered when she had first said those words to him. Now she sat on her bed and stroked the beast. That had been a kind of turning point for them. She was no longer considered just some baggage assigned to question his theories, reluctantly follow his leads, report to her superiors on his activities, pull his ass out of jail and patch him up. She had become a professional in his eyes, someone who could be depended upon when things got tough. Real partner material; someone he could trust. And he was out there now, had risked Angela's anger and suffered for it, if the cry of pain she had heard just before the phone was disconnected was any indication. He had put his trust in her to find him, to do anything it would take. Dana started the shower, needing it to either revive her or relax her. Either would be preferable to how she currently felt. Roughly, she stripped off the suit she had worn now for too many days. As the hot water coursed down her skin, Dana felt her mind release just as her muscles relaxed. Something about the blast of warm water always was able to free her mind from its same old circles, opening it to new lines of thought, different possibilities. After a few minutes, she smiled. She allowed herself to remember Mulder bending down and whispering to her just before she walked into Skinner's office for her very first solo dressing down. "Go get'em, Tiger." "I'm trying, Mulder," she murmured into the water. The tiger. The intense, wild glare of the animal, was there in her mind, but shifted. She no longer thought of Mulder's glib encouragement. She had seen that wild, untamed look somewhere else recently. Dana stopped working the lather in her hands and clutched at the soap, feeling it slip and fall unheeded to the floor of the tub. She rested her head against the tile and let the white noise of the hissing water obscure every other distraction, as its soothing heat eased her tension. Think. There may yet be a way to Mulder. The longer she thought on it, the more she was certain that the information did exist, only no one had thought to ask the right people. By closing her eyes Dana saw a path in a dark place with only a candle to light the way, a candle which the slightest breeze would extinguish. Call Skinner? Going by the book would be like summoning the storm. The flame would not last a moment and the path would be obscure again. Go alone? Even asking the question could put her in as much danger as Mulder. To go alone was hard, but sometimes it was the only way. Mulder had taught her that. Rapidly she rinsed off the clinging soap and, wrapped in a towel, she stood dripping as she made one phone call, giving the woman who answered precise and urgent instructions. Then Dana dried her hair in quick, efficient movements. She had learned such skills working with Mulder, who, when he got the whiff of the trail, would not be delayed for such minor matters as dressing properly. Ticking off the implications of what she must do in her mind, she dressed quickly but carefully; not too severe, not too feminine. She packed her weapon, a powerful flash light, and her medical kit, almost praying she would have an opportunity to use it. Poised to flee her apartment, Dana reluctantly admitted she had one more task to perform; she must let at least one person know where she was going. For if she did not make it back, she did not want her mother or her sister, even Skinner, to go through what she was going through... not knowing... possibly never knowing. She had no choice if she was going to find Mulder, because not finding him was no choice at all. Evan Byers fumbled with the receiver as he struggled to answer his phone. It was eleven o'clock and he had been asleep only four hours after having been up for thirty. "Dana!" he said, his sleepy voice indicating both how surprised and pleased he was that she had called. "Evan, I need your help," Dana announced abruptly before he had a chance to say anything more. Her seriousness took all the pleasure from his voice. "Dana, you know you have only to ask. What can I do?" He hesitated and the next came out warily. "This is about Mulder, isn't it?" He felt his temper rising. "Dana, I heard something around the office today, that he and his client -" Dana would not let him go further. She did not need to hear it. "It's all over the Bureau already, is it?" Evan tried to give her some sympathy, but for Mulder, it was obvious, he had none. What had the man been thinking? There were some things which Evan could not forgive. "Has it gotten around? What did you expect? He's known to be a weird bird and people will talk. The question is, do *you* need to talk?" No... he didn't know why he even bothered to ask. From her tone of voice he could tell she did not; not that kind of talking. "Don't, Evan," she warned him, her voice almost dangerous. "Don't talk about him like that, not to me. You don't understand..." "Don't ask me to be understanding! He's hurt you. I can tell. How can you defend him -" "Evan, stop!" Her sharp command surprised him. He waited and after a moment she began in a different tone of voice. "Evan what do you know about MDA?" Evan changed the receiver to his other hand, not comprehending the sudden shift in topics. "I've read some articles. It's a very rare variation of amphetamine and hard to synthesize. Good thing, too. A few so-called psychologists - A.K.A. 'sex therapists' - have had their licenses revoked. It's the closest thing to an aphrodisiac man has developed so far. The up side is sweeter than heaven, they say. You'd have sex with your own mother. But the down side is sheer hell. They've even had two suicides associated -" Evan stopped. The other end of the phone was dismally silent. "Dana? Speak to me. The toxicological analysis did find something else, didn't they?" Her voice when she spoke again was strained. "A marijuana derivative - and MDA, lots of it." Evan swallowed. "Dana, what can I say -" "Evan, just don't say anything, except to tell your gossipy friends that they don't know what they are talking about." Her voice was still unnaturally tight. "And nothing goes further than here, do I make myself clear?" "Crystal clear, Dana." he thought. "Somehow I don't think you called about this, did you?" He heard her breathing, could also almost see her steady herself, control her anger, her unhappiness. Dana felt so alone, so tired. She needed *him*; not Evan, not Skinner or that whole crowd in the Bullpen. Only Mulder. The time for talking was past. "No, Evan. I called because I have a hunch and I need to follow it through but it could be... dangerous. I know Skinner would never allow it." Why could she not keep her voice from shaking? "I just wanted someone to know." The voice on the end of the line was as serious as hers now. "Dana," Evan said warningly, "what are you going to do?" "Visit Hector Prince." "No!" The voice lashed out, startled, angry, concerned. She could see Evan in her mind, standing over the phone, his wide shoulders shaking with alarm, needing to shelter her. Dana thought. Mulder did this, too, but less often since she had drummed it into him that sometimes she did not need or want him to protect her. He was learning. He had learned to respect how strong she could be. "Evan, I have to do this. I found out today that Angela probably killed Mitch Legget or had him killed. Obviously, Hector Prince knew Reti didn't do it and from the way his supporters were acting in the courtroom I'm sure they know more than they're saying. I have to ask." "Dana, those people are slime, criminals, murderers. Are you saying you are planning to go alone to question these people?" Scully was shocked by the intensity of his outburst. "Evan - it's... Mulder. I thought you understood." Evan's voice still expressed his outrage. "I guess I'm old fashioned. I guess I don't. If he loved you, Mulder wouldn't want you to put yourself in danger like this. You could be killed." "We all take our chances in this business." "But why do you have to go? Someone else could go." "He's my *partner*, Evan." "At the very least, let me go with you." Dana looked towards the door, at her things packed and ready. "Not an option, Evan. A woman alone might be able to get in there. If I brought a man, especially a man your size, I wouldn't stand a chance. They would never talk, and this may be our only chance." He was not convinced. "Okay, maybe they don't kill you, but is this worth setting yourself up to be raped?" At that moment Dana was furious with Evan, but then she remembered... Evan was not FBI... not even law enforcement. He was the product of the culture that thought that a woman who allowed herself to be alone in a dangerous place was asking for trouble. "I'm not going in as a victim, Evan, or as a sacrifice. I am a law enforcement officer, a professional and this is a negotiation." "A pretty unconventional one or you would have told Skinner," he added from the other end of the line. "That is why Skinner would not allow it. Skinner has to go by the book and he would be required to bring in too many people. It would be worse than if you came with me. Yes, there is risk but I accept that. It's part of my job... but I will do what I have to do, even if it means bargaining with the devil. " Dana knew she had been hard on him and actually did understand Evan's anger; Evan cared. She just didn't have time for that right now. Evan also did not understand about Mulder; about what they had. "There isn't any use talking any more, Evan. Just do this for me. As a friend?" "I can see I can't change your mind. At least, promise you'll call me as soon as you're safe." "I promise, if you agree not to tell Skinner until morning." "Dana..." "Promise," she ordered. In the end he promised. Within thirty seconds Dana had fled her apartment, just in case Evan decided to turn on her and call either the police or Skinner to stop her. As she was driving away from her apartment building, Dana neither saw nor heard any signs of pursuit. =========================================================================== From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: New: The Abductee 13/21 Date: 28 Jul 1995 21:10:36 -0400 THE ABDUCTEE (13/21) by S. Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) 7/27/95 This story is based on the characters created by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without permission and no infringement is intended. Thanks guys, for creating this marvelous stuff. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Credit to Kipler's story "Night" (one of my favorites) and all of Amperage's work, but especially, "The Woods" for inspiration for Mulder's dark and private place. Copyright 1995 by S. Esty Chapter 13 Wednesday 12:30 am Rappahannock County, Virginia Mulder was beginning to hate waking up. Whatever she had sedated him with this time, at least the lingering grogginess was more in his body than his mind. Waiting for the tingling numbness to go away, he wearily considered getting into some other line of work. He had been shot, drugged, and beaten more times than he could count. When would his body just say 'Enough already'. Add to that the hideous sights he had seen, and no wonder he had nightmares. As the numbness passed, he took stock and realized that his right arm was still shackled, but a cold shiver ran up his spine when he realized his legs were tied down, too, his ankles somehow attached to the bed frame. His left arm was immobilized, not above his head, but out to his side, so that his forearm hung over the edge of the mattress. His jaw hurt somewhat less, but his head still throbbed. By raising his head slightly and looking up and to his left, he could see the window where Angela had sat... how many hours or days before? Now it was completely dark. When he was last conscious, it had been early morning. Whatever she had given him had been strong. He heard a movement and saw the slight form of Angela move into his view. He saw all of her down to mid thigh. She was wearing only a bra and panties and a old ragged robe that hung open and loosely on her shoulders. He felt very, very uncomfortable in her presence. She noticed his eyes. "Awake?" she asked. "Good. I did not wish to go through this alone." She moved restlessly and her eyes were uneasy. He struggled against the bindings. His right arm and legs he could move some, but only enough for circulation, his left arm not at all. "Angela, if you expect me to perform, you're going to be sadly disappointed. I have a headache." Her head came up and she almost smiled. "You *are* amusing, Agent Mulder. I hadn't thought of that. I suppose this is considered by some to be a very seductive position. Do you think so?" The way she said that sent another unpleasant shiver through his body. As she passed out of his view for a moment, he reminded himself to be more careful in the future about giving her any more ideas. When she returned she put a knee on the bed and leaned towards him. She had a bottle in her hand that he thought looked familiar. She slowly raised his shirt and he felt the coolness as she poured some of the liquid onto his skin and began to smooth it with the tips of her fingers. He flinched away from her, as well as he could, as if she were poison itself and then the scent from the bottle reached him. *This* he finally remembered, and not only from that careless, mad night with Angela, but from years and years before. It had been *her* scent. Although apprehensive, afraid of the answer, he still asked, "How did you come to find out about that?" She continued to smooth on the oil. "The same way I knew where to find your mother." She reached into the pocket of her robe and drew out two envelopes, dirty and creased from age and wear. She held them so that he would see. His hazel eyes grew wide, so that all the green showed, and then closed painfully until only the brown did. He could recognize his own handwriting, even though it was eight years old. "How?" he asked, his voice breaking. "You don't remember? A rainy Sunday, during that first investigation. You wrote letters and in the morning, when we went to town, I offered to post them for you." She sat on the bed and stared down at them with a sigh. "I guess I had a crush on you. I wanted just to have something... to remember you by." She put them aside on the nightstand beside the bed. "I had to hide them in my parent's house, otherwise the hospital would have taken them away from me. I didn't see them for eight years." He knew he could not keep the furrow out of his brow. He knew she would see it. She did. She moved her hands enticingly across his chest and smiled. "Phoebe Greene was *very* cooperative," she told him. At her words his breath caught in his lungs and would not move. He closed his eyes as something broke deep within him which he thought could not be broken anymore, something hurt where he thought there was nothing left which could be hurt. To tell... a stranger what they had shared? He had never thought that she would do this to him. Even Phoebe. Phoebe, with the long limbs and the dark hair and her cold, selfish heart. All through those long, lonely years at Oxford, how he had loved her and how she had enjoyed ignoring him, humiliating him, being pleasured by him. A cool, erotic tremor traveled through him as soft lips licked the skin of one nipple while gentle fingers caressed the other. He wanted to run... knew he could not run. Not that way... but the other... his dark place was still waiting for him as it had been whenever life had been too hard to bear... Fox retreated into his mind where it did not matter that someone's hands still touched him, that someone's lips still kissed him, even Phoebe could not follow him into this... his own very private, very lonely place, a place he knew very well indeed. His consciousness barely felt the soft hands on him now, barely felt her massaging his skin, cutting away the shirt and shorts, the cold touch of the knife against his skin, the gentle kisses on his scars, so many of them, across his chest. When she kissed the scar high on his thigh he felt distantly, as though it was happening to another, the warm stirrings of arousal. But from his dark place that reality made no connection with his. Almost with relief he felt a woman's soft hand raise his head and put a cup to his lips and he did not resist. He was so thirsty, and if she put him to sleep as before, he did not care... At least he did not have to think for a time... but the liquid in his mouth *burned*! He leapt up, or tried to. He strained against his bonds, sputtering and choking. Through the tears that squeezed out of his eyes, he saw Angela above him and vengefully spat the burning liquor into her face. "No!" he shouted at her, his expression bitter and hateful. "Not again!" She sat beside him on the bed wiping her face. She was not angry. She looked sad. The remembered perfume, which had so effectively triggered those memories in his body the other night, was soft about them both. But there was nothing passionate in her. "It won't work this time, Angela," he said in a voice intended to be stern, but he was not as sure as he wished he could be. "Do you think you were drunk before?" she asked, incredulously. "I was 'entertained' by some of the staff at the hospital when they were drunk." Her gaze was intent. "You were *nothing* like them." She softly touched the moist, smooth skin of his chest, moving her hand in languid circles. "I just thought that alcohol would work faster. I only wanted to ease the... pain, but... if you prefer, I can use the other." As her finger touched him *there*, he flicked her hand away with a convulsive shudder of his hips, though at the touch a heady warmth flowed from his center. "We have to hurry, but I could give you that much time. I could play again for you the music which you seem to like so much. I could touch you like she touched you. I could give you such a pleasant dream and then you would not feel the pain." His eyes opened wide. So this was the answer to his behavior that night... 'the other'... some drug, and he felt panic closing down upon him like a black curtain when he remembered how it had made him feel, how it had made him act so entirely unlike himself. For with it he knew she could control him again, have him again, and he would not be able to stop her or himself. She could force it on him if she choose, and he could still feel the tracks of fire from her hands on his body. Wished to God he could not. "Please," he found himself whispering, pleading in a voice he could not even recognize as his. "Please, don't." She seemed to consider, then, sighing resignedly, flipped a sheet across his nakedness. He gasped silently, dropped his head back onto the pillow and closed his eyes. "You're a good lay, Agent Mulder," she said wistfully, "but not so good that I would take you unwilling. Not now." There was only sadness now. "I only wanted you to love me and stay with me." Without opening his eyes, Fox told her softly, "Sex isn't love, Angela." He, more than anyone, should know that. She looked at him with mournful, dark eyes from beneath the strands of her dark blond hair. "I never had a chance to find that out." He thought about her life and said nothing, but listening to the whisper of charity he still felt towards her, he found he had to agree. No, she never had. Angela rose then from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting and looked down solemnly on a small table sitting beside the bed that he had not noticed before. "But a pleasant interlude would have delayed this," she said. "I'm sorry you won't allow me, at least, to get you drunk. You may long for it. I did not want you to suffer." Fear sat up in him. That sounded ominous, like something done to an animal, and here he thought he had passed the test, he thought he had won. What had passed had been just a diversion for what was to come. *This* was why she had brought him here. "Angela, what *is* happening tonight?" He did not try to hide the anxiety creeping into his voice. Whatever it was, he did not want to know. But she was clearly reluctant, so, maybe if she was forced to put her intentions into words, she would lose heart. "How many times do I have to tell you?" She turned off the ceiling lights, and all but one bright lamp on the dresser. The new warm light, however, was not comforting. "They are coming to take me, but you are to be my protection against them." Yes, Mulder had heard - too many times - but still he did not understand. He had taken it as part of her ramblings, not as something real. "If you had wanted protection," he quipped lamely, "I would have bought you a German Shepherd." Companionably, she patted his left forearm and sat down slowly on a chair that she he had earlier moved beside the bed. She pulled to her the small table on which were several items, but he could not tell what they were from his angle. "I told you before there is more than one kind of protection," Angela said with solemnity. She took a large stainless steel bowl and placed it on the table under his left hand. "Throughout history," she told him, as though reciting something rehearsed, "there have been many objects of power." She picked a long barber's razor up from the table and held it to the light. Mulder felt her grab his wrist tightly and try as he might he could not pull it away. He could feel the horror rising in him with comprehension. "Angela, please, don't do this...," he found himself saying in the voice he had used before, but there was no dissuading her this time. She did not even seem to have heard him. She bent over his hand and with the razor nicked his wrist. It was a small cut, which he barely felt, but the implications were much more overwhelming. A fine red spray spurted over the front of her ragged robe, her bra, the skin of her chest. A few drops were on her face. Mulder bit his lip. If he still had anything in his stomach, he would have been sick. "Woman were thought to be very powerful during their moontime." She droned on, as she worked, in almost a chant. "Strong warriors feared them. Sacrifice, blood on the altar, are common themes from the Greeks to the Aztecs." She turned his wrist down so that the spray directed itself into the shining silver bowl. "Even the Hebrews protected their loved ones from the wrath of God by painting the blood of a goat upon the lintels of their doorways. Christ shed his blood for us, to protect us from death." She continued to hold the back of his wrist over the bowl with her left hand while soaking a cotton ball with a liquid from a bottle on the table. "Streptokinase," she explained clinically, unemotionally, while looking into his pale face, his frightened eyes. She swabbed the cut wrist. "It will keep the wound from clotting for a time. I need so much, but, then, you've been getting a little anticoagulant with your food for days now. You should bleed well." She massaged the muscles of his forearm thinking to encourage the blood flow down and out. "Did you know their blood can kill us?" she asked. He quickly looked away from staring at his left arm to gaze into her face. "You did?" she exclaimed. "This is like that. On the ship, they hated our blood, were appalled by it, but still fascinated. The color, the texture, but they stood in awe from a distance. So I thought, where do the old legends come from? *They* have been here as long as time. The legends will protect me. Will protect us." "Angela," he pleaded. "Stop." She looked into his face with insane eyes. "Oh, no, Agent Mulder. We have a long way to go and much to do tonight." *** Tuesday 11:55 PM Near Mount Vernon, Virginia. The address of the principle residence of Hector Prince, patriarch of the Chain and all of its criminal offshoots, was unexpectedly easy to acquire. An acquaintance of Dana's, whom she managed to reach on her cellular phone, gave her directions: five miles south of Mount Vernon, overlooking the Potomac on the Maryland side of the river. First, Dana Scully drove by slowly. The high stone walls and massive iron gates, flanked by what looked like watch towers, made the mansion look more like one of Washington's fortified embassies than the headquarters of a well diversified crime syndicate. Back lit by floods from the house, the bars of the gates cast long shadows on the driveway. While driving, Dana had made a hard decision. She parked along the side of the road and stowed her gun in the trunk. For this interview she had reluctantly decided that showing that sort of strength would gain her nothing. As she retraced her path back to the house and drove up to the gates, she was aware of how very vulnerable she was without her weapon. Seeing the body guard advancing towards her car with a semi-automatic under his arm, however, convinced her that she had made a wise decision. She would have been embarrassingly outgunned. "Heck of a time of night to be lost, lady," the guard said almost politely. He was large man and he carried his weapon with casual ease. Dana thought they must not get very many drop in visitors. "I'm not lost. I need to talk to Hector Prince. I'm Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI." Carefully, she showed her ID, making no sudden move. "There are critical developments concerning Reti Frantilli that he should know." At this the man's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He had thought this pretty woman simply lost, but maybe she had lost her mind, instead. "Mr. Prince, he don't see people without an appointment, *especially* your kind, and not at this time of night." Dana had rolled down the window. Now she opened the door, hands out and visible at all times. The man's gun stayed confidently lowered. He was cool. She looked small and defenseless. That had been her intention. Yet, her eyes were hard with determination, and, as Mulder had learned, an innate stubbornness. "I must meet with him now. Tell him I saw him in the courtroom yesterday. Tell him I know Reti Frantilli is innocent." This seemed to impress the guard, but before leaving her he flipped out a metal detection wand he carried fastened on his belt and used it to frisk her for weapons. All the latest technology, Dana thought, and here she had been prepared, at the very least, to be pawed while they did a strip search. The guard made a call from the guard house and before very many minutes she saw a small gate in the fence unlock electronically and swing open silently. "Leave your car and walk up," the guard said. "And no baggage of any kind," he added, taking her briefcase and purse. After checking her again he let her through the small gate. "And don't dawdle," he advised with a sly smile, "because they expect you at the house in two minutes. Otherwise, someone might become suspicious." Dana straightened her back, stepped through the gate, and walked up the curving path heading into the flood lit area in front of the house. She felt eyes on her from countless windows facing her from the old mansion. As she walked up the stone steps, the front door opened and a black man, as large as the guard at the gate, opened the door. This one wore a suit, but did not seem to be very comfortable in it. Silently he led her into what looked like a music room off the huge foyer. She heard the sliding of a bolt after he shut the door behind her. This room and, from what little she had seen, the whole house was decorated in a simple elegance. The music room was equipped with a grand piano in shiny black lacquer. In the corner was a concert harp. There were three straight chairs and an expensive brocaded couch but only three long slit-like windows. A very pretty prison. Sighing, Dana sat down to wait. *** Wednesday 3am Rappahannock County, Virginia How could eye lids be so heavy, Fox Mulder thought, as he fought to stay awake. He had driven thousands of miles fighting sleep; sat in parked cars during dozens of stake outs trying to stay awake because he knew it was critical to catch the slightest movement; sat through hundreds of hours of droning surveillance tapes, trying not to sleep from the shear boredom of it; but nothing, nothing compared to the urge he felt now to just give up and close his weary eyes. Nothing kept him from it now, but the overwhelming fear that, if he let himself sleep, he would never wake again. No, there something besides the fear. There was the waking dream, probably an hallucination, which for all its frightening aspects, was also comforting because Scully was there. He could hear her speaking urgently close by. "Don't go to sleep on me, Mulder. Stay with me, Mulder." She was practically sitting on his leg, trying to stop the blood spurting from the gunshot wound to his thigh. He was laying on a dock. He could hear the lap of the water against the pilings, the concerned voices of the other agents, the whimpering of the kidnapped girl they had just rescued, the sirens in the background coming for him. His leg hurt, yes, but his chest hurt worse, like an elephant was sitting on it. "We're talking acute traumatic hemorrhage here, Mulder. You have to stay awake until we can get you to the hospital." Her voice was not steady. She was afraid.. afraid for him... afraid for herself.. saying anything she could think of to help him stay awake. "Damn it, Mulder. I just lost my father. I refuse to lose you, too." He remembered how he began to shiver. He was so cold. Like now. No matter how many of the black jackets they laid over him, he continued to shiver. Those were the ridiculous jackets which they were forced to wear, the ones with the huge 'FBI' stenciled on them. Thank God, he was a special agent and did not have to wear them all the time. Might as well wear a bull's eye on your back. "You're going into shock, Mulder," came her sweet voice from far, far away. "I know you're cold. Your circulatory system is shutting down the blood to your extremities. Saving the good stuff for your brain and heart. That's why you're so cold." That was Scully again. No one else would talk about your circulatory system while you were bleeding to death. Better send a little more to my heart, he had thought, trying to breathe, and then he had blacked out, only to be jarred awake when they heaved his body roughly up onto the table in the emergency room. He was gasping by that time, even on oxygen. It had been close. Cardiopulmonary shutdown. Six units by the time they finished. Type-specific or O negative, whatever you have as long as it's quick, the doctors had ordered. STAT. No crossmatch. Then they had put him out. Now, here he was again. So cold. He shivered like on the dock, but help was nowhere to be found. Shivering, Scully had told him that other time, was the body's way of keeping you warm. He knew it was also an activity that had a high caloric requirement, a fuel Mulder had been singularly short of lately. When his blood sugar dipped too low, when the fuel was spent, the shivering would cease. At least the blood letting had been slow... maybe that would help his body adjust. Still, his chest hurt and he could hear his own panting breath sounding odd in his ears. For what must have been an hour Angela had worked his arm, and later his legs, coaxing the waning circulation to give up another trickle of his life's blood. And as the minutes passed he felt himself growing steadily weaker. His heart began to beat fast and light, like the injured bird's he had held in his hands as a child, making him feel light-headed. He had cuts in a dozen places now. She cut a vein and worked at it, massaging the muscles. Used more of the solution from the bottle to break up the clot when the wound tried to close. That worked for a little while. When a cut ceased to bleed, she moved on to another spot. When she realized he was too weak to resist her, she unlocked the handcuff and used his right arm, but by that time he did not bleed much, for he was so cold and his blood pressure was so low. His blood had retreated from his limbs, pooling in his brain and heart. That would keep him alive for a little while. At first he had tried talking to her, reasoning with her, pleading with her, lying to her. She had not heard him, or he did not think she had, until she yelled at him to shut up. She was irritated and becoming more frantic. The process was obviously taking longer than she had planned. She kept looking anxiously at the clock. Though his mouth was so dry he could scarcely whisper any more, he kept trying. Finally, she had exploded and in a fit of temper threatened to hold a pillow over his face and stop him permanently, if he did not leave her alone. She had even pulled the pillow roughly out from under his head at one point, bringing back the pain he had nearly forgotten. Then she had held the white death in her hands, stood with it poised over his face. He knew that she would have done it. He sighed, closed his eyes then with resignation and lapsed into silence. He did not have the strength to talk any more, anyway. It was life he clung to. Where there was life there was always - Scully, his hope. The only one he had. Maybe something about that look of defeat touched her or maybe she had become frightened, sensing how weak he had become, but she offered him something to drink. Though the agony of his thirst tormented him, he refused to drink. He would take nothing from her hand. So, she proceeded to do what she had threatened. She forced fluids into him and she knew how to do it, as she said, pouring a little into his mouth and then massaging his throat until the swallowing reflex caught. She forced on him a cool, weak tea, which he suspected was drugged with something, for he felt oddly light and pain-free afterwards. At first it made him sick to his stomach, but with time the discomfort disappeared. Some time later, Fox had no notion of time anymore, Angela finally stopped trying to coax the blood from him, certainly not from lack of trying. Thank God, she had never thought to cut deeper into the arteries. Maybe she really did not want to kill him. Now she took a brush and began her grisly work. It was odd for him to lay powerlessly and stare up through dilated, half opened eyes to see wide splashes of red now drying to brown around every door and window. She had made a ring around the perimeter of the room, too. His blood. Hell, but he could think of better uses for it. When she painted her body, he had to look away... Fox twitched. He had faded out. Something had touched his naked chest. Angela was crouched over him the red dripping brush in her hand. She was brushing the sticky stuff onto his skin, but not sloppily, not idly. There was a pattern to her work that he could see by looking at her own bizarre appearance. She was painting symbols; crosses of all types - Gothic, Russian Orthodox, traditional; the Star of David and words in Hebrew; the Christian fish; Nordic runes and Chinese characters; hieroglyphs from the Egyptians and the Aztecs; sacred designs from a dozen Native American tribes. She moved on from his chest to his arms, his legs. "Some for my little sacrificial lamb," she whispered. And then she cried. She became increasingly depressed as she worked. She should have felt better, but it was as if the horror of what she was doing had finally, in some way, worked itself into her confused mind. It was as if she finally realized the futility of it all, but could not be moved from the script she had written over so many years. If someone was coming for her, and Fox had given up trying to determine if she was sane or crazy on that point, he thought she had finally realized how little protection her circles of blood would give her. Fox was in a stupor now, only conscious when some noise or movement from her roused him. He dreamed of Max Fennig... saw again the gentle childlike soul of the UFO fanatic... remembered how terrified the man had been at the thought of being taken again. And, indeed, something not human had taken him in a wash of blue light while Mulder had stood in that warehouse, looking up, powerless to aid him... like now... like with Angela. If they really were coming, Fox knew he could do nothing to prevent it. As helpless now as he had been as a child when they had taken Samantha... Enough. He was so tired. He closed his eyes. No more about Angela and whether the men coming to get her would be wearing white coats - or whether they would be wearing no coats at all, just their thin, grey skins. Let his last thoughts be of Scully. He knew she was out there looking for him. He had seen her work too many times not to be able to see her in his mind... moving in her assured efficient manner, which would be tense and tightly controlled now that she knew he was in trouble. He could see her quick mind working, analyzing, feeling her way through the tangled webs to the problem's heart, a different path then his leaps of logic, but between them they had usually found the truth. It took time to arouse her to action, but once her temper and emotions were mobilized, she was as tenacious on a case as a terrier... his little tiger... as obsessed as she always accused him of being. He took comfort knowing she would not stop until she found him. If he had tears to shed, however, he would have cried thinking about her and how she would take it when she found she had arrived too late. God, he was going to die today. His last thought was that he was going to die and he had never kissed Dana Scully the way he had always wanted to kiss her - long and hard and passionately.