Any Other Name Part 7 – Chapter 15 by Louise Marin mibosh@earthlink.net www.angelfire.com/la/xspot FIFTEEN: He awoke to the smell of sweat, of Dana's shampoo, and something else, a new odor that was both sweet and sour and that reminded him of his favorite restaurant, Wong's Shanghai Palace. This new scent, along with the warmth of Dana's silky breasts pressed to his chest, drove him to bury his mouth in her hair and to push himself against the thigh she had slipped between his legs. Heat and pleasure tingled back and forth between his groin and his belly. With his eyes still closed, he searched for and found her mouth. Dana's lips stirred beneath his kiss, but she did not wake. She simply burrowed closer to him, and he marveled and swelled at how she filled him, his heart, his body. His spirit. Love for her tiptoed up his chest and neck, pushing his lips into a sleepy smile. Then he opened his eyes. Gray soot, stark in the morning light, shaded the curves of Scully's beautiful face, and Ten's blood painted a crimson smear down one side of her neck. The explosion that had burned his brothers into death the night before ripped again through his mind, sparks and ashes and family flying up into the dark sky. His stomach turned, rolling in time with the rhythm of the spring rain that pattered on the roof. He felt as though the bed beneath him had disappeared, and he was falling and falling, and Dana was shrinking away to nothing within the circle of his arms. In his mind, one word roared repeatedly, louder and louder, until like his brothers it too was on fire -- MULDER. He bit his lip to keep from whimpering in Scully's ear. But somehow even in sleep she knew his heart; she tightened her grip on him and whispered, "Love you," against his neck. "I know," he whispered back. And he did know. She did love him, despite the confusion his identity stirred in her mind. He would have to learn to live without the Others; he wondered if he could ever live without her. His stomach rumbled and then twisted again at the thought. As gently as he could, he rolled Dana onto her back. He dropped a kiss onto the corner of her mouth and then left her to sleep, stepping quietly over Ishmael's snoring, furry bulk as he slipped from the bed. He was on his way to the kitchen to find some soda to settle his stomach when he stumbled upon the wreck that had been Mulder's computer. With a heavy heart, he gathered the metal and plastic computer pieces together and piled them on the table in front of the sofa. Then he sat down to see if anything might be salvageable. Scully, he knew, would be heartbroken over the loss of the journal and Mulder's other files, but to him the machine itself meant nothing. Every page the Original had written, every thought, every feeling, every image would remain printed on his perfect memory for the rest of his life. One passage in particular burned him this morning. "I will find a cure for Scully's cancer, Sam," Mulder had written in March of 1997, "but what I discovered tonight at the facility is going to break her heart. How can I tell her that they've stolen her future anyway? That this quest, my quest, has taken away the most precious thing she had? Those bastards reached up right inside her womb and ripped it out, and now there's nothing for her but me, this work, and the vial of her future that I let thaw and die in my jacket pocket." He hadn't known the meaning of these words until just last night, when Scully had told him they would make no babies together. He realized now that her infertility was just one more hurt, one more loss, for which Mulder was somehow responsible. "Never again," he whispered to himself. He squeezed a piece of electrical computer junk until his knuckles turned white and his skin threatened to tear. There would be no babies and no Others, no brothers. No family. Just himself, his hurt, and the beautiful woman who wanted more than anything to believe he was someone else. Biting his lip, he swiped at the tears in his eyes. He was surprised to find sweat coating his forehead and his cheek. Feeling sicker than ever, he hurtled into the guest bathroom, hung his head in the toilet, and threw up for the second time in his life. When he was finished, he couldn't seem to get warm. His muscles trembled and his skin prickled. Hardly thinking, he crawled into the shower, closed the door, and let the hot water and steam fill him. Scully didn't take long to find him. He was on his feet again, leaning against the shower's tiled wall, when she stepped into the bathroom. Through the distorted glass of the shower door she was but a blur of pale pink and copper. She looked soft, and when she moved, it was as though she floated, as he imagined a spirit would. Or an angel. Her presence stirred something in is groin, and he found himself wanting to sink into her again. Their mating the night before had both healed and tortured him. Instinctually, he lifted his arm and pressed his palm to the shower door, both reaching out to her, and pushing her back. Scully stopped moving altogether. "Mulder?" she called to him. "I heard you throwing up. Are you okay?" "Yes," he said. "You sure?" she persisted. "I'm fine," he insisted, and then she went away. After her own shower, Scully emerged from her bathroom to hear the rumble of male voices echoing down the hall. Distressed, she threw on her robe and went to investigate. By the time she reached the living room, the voices had stopped. Mulder, nude from the waist up and still damp from the shower, stood at the open front door. His back was to her as he shifted nervously from bare foot to bare foot, and Scully couldn't see past him to whoever was standing outside. "Mulder, who's there?" she called as she approached. Mulder glanced over his shoulder, but Skinner's gruff voice cut him off before he could answer. "Scully," the older man rumbled from the covered porch just outside the door. "What the hell is going on here?" Scully panicked for but a moment. When she reached the door, she took Mulder by the wrist and tugged until he stepped behind her right shoulder. Then she looked her boss in the eye. "Assistant Director Skinner, Sir, good morning," she said distinctly, trying make sure Mulder knew with whom they were dealing. "Scully…" Skinner growled impatiently. His eyes were dark and his smooth head still dripped with the rain that fell like a blanket beyond the protection of Scully's little front porch. His skin was ashen like the sky as his gaze flickered between her face and Mulder's. Scully took a deep breath and prepared herself to tell the biggest and best lie of her life. She was fearless, although she knew she had never been a very good liar. "I know this comes as quite a shock," she began. "But, as you can see for yourself, Sir, we haven't been able to find Mulder's body because Mulder never died. Skinner blinked up at Mulder, and seemed to grow even paler. "Where have you been all this time, Mulder?" "He's been with Alex Krycek," Scully interjected. She felt Mulder tense behind her as she spoke, but she forged ahead anyway. "Krycek abducted him from the hospital where he was being treated for his injuries after the accident." Skinner's brow furrowed. He took a long look up and down Scully's body, as though he hadn't seen her in a decade. Uncomfortable in her state of undress, Scully tugged her robe tightly around her neck, and Skinner's gaze shifted back up to Mulder. "Is he okay?" he asked. "He certainly hasn't been himself since he opened the door." "Physically, he's fine. He doesn't remember much of this past year, but we're working on that." Scully glanced over her shoulder. Mulder's face was red, and his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle quivered and ticked in his cheek. "We both had a very tough night last night," Scully added wearily. Skinner nodded. "Last night is actually the reason I came here this morning, Scully." "To reprimand me for calling in the cavalry on a false alarm?" "Precisely. But, in light of this…this," Skinner said, gesturing to Mulder, "I think the ass-chewing, and your explanation, can wait until later. I'll expect to see the two of you in my office in two hours. There are also some legal procedures we need to start on to get you officially back into the land of the living, Mulder. Again." "Of course, Sir," Scully said, relieved to see her boss smiling a rare, squinty smile up at her partner. "God, Mulder," Skinner said appreciatively, "if anyone could rise from the dead, I should have known it would be you. Welcome back." Scully smiled. Such unbridled joy leapt up in her chest over this giant step forward in Mulder's homecoming that she hardly noted his silence or the faint, nervous shuffling of his feet on the floor behind her. But when Skinner reached up to pat him on the shoulder, Mulder jerked away. Scully glanced over her shoulder again to find him shaking with anger. "No," he said, his voice quivering. "This isn't right." "Mulder," Scully warned. "Don't." She turned back to Skinner, but before she could send him on his way, Mulder clamped one hand down on her shoulder and covered her mouth with the other. "No," he said again. "Mr. Skinner, Dana's told you an untruth, I mean, a lie about me. I'm not who she says I am." Suddenly frowning, Skinner shook his head. "I don't understand. If you're not Mulder, then who the hell are you?" Scully struggled to speak through Mulder's hand, but her words emerged muffled and incoherent. She stepped on his foot, trying to startle him into letting her go. He simply gripped her tighter and whispered to Skinner, "I don't know." "Are you saying you're suffering from amnesia, Mulder?" Skinner asked. "No! No. I'm saying I'm not Mulder. I'm… I'm no one. Yet." Scully finally tore free of Mulder's grasp by biting down on his hand. He yelped, and she pushed him away and then turned him to look at her. "Mulder, that is not true, and you know it. You just don't want to…" "No, Dana. Listen. Listen to me," Mulder pleaded, taking Scully's hands. "I won't pretend to be him anymore. I can't. Bad things happen because of him. I was him last night and now the Others are gone. Because of me, because of him. Next time something might happen to you. Please don't make me do this anymore, Scully. I can't. I can't!" "Mulder, please!" Scully stammered. Then she looked cautiously over at Skinner, who had suddenly turned a little green. "I must have missed a meeting," the big man grumbled as he rubbed his forehead. "Get dressed and meet me at my office in three hours. Mulder, we'll sort your…identity out there. I have to… I need to go" Scully nodded and then took a second to catch her breath, grateful she would have time to try to talk some sense into Mulder. "Yes, Sir," she told Skinner. "Sir, are you all right?" Skinner had bowed his head and was rubbing his temples. He straightened up at the sound of Scully's concern, but his skin had turned pasty and his eyes were glossed over. "I'm fine, Agent," he said. "Just feel like I'm coming down with something all of a sudden. I… I'd better get going. See you this afternoon." Scully and Mulder watched Skinner turn, walk slowly to his car, and drive away without another word. "He's had a hell of a shock," Scully whispered as she turned back to Mulder. Mulder nodded. Then he pulled his hands from Scully's and trailed his fingers down each side of her face. She could see his soul in his eyes, tortured but full of love painted in beautiful green swimming in gray like the spring storm raging outside. "Dana…" he whispered. "Mulder, please don't do this," she begged him. "There's still time to take it back. We could tell Skinner you were having an episode, a flashback to the time you were gone. But you're okay now. God, Mulder, I love you so much. I just got you back. I just got you. Please." Mulder shook his head, pressed his palms to her cheeks. "No. Not Mulder. Me. You love me. I can't be him, Dana. I can't!" "Yes you can!" Scully roared, just inches from his face. "You've proven it! You've proven it." But Mulder simply continued to bare his sweet soul to her with those familiar eyes. Anger and love and beauty stole the very breath from her chest. After a moment, Mulder licked his lips and then without hesitation dipped them down to Scully's mouth. His tongue tickled her lips just enough to light a fire in her belly before she threw his hands from her face and ran out into the rain. Mud squished between her toes as she hit the wet grass that lined the sidewalk. She slipped a few times, but she kept on running. She had no destination to speak of. Just away. Scully was running away. Nothing new there. This time, however, she could hear the sound of bare feet pattering behind her, a man calling to her. She pushed herself harder, grinding her teeth, and then she was falling, sliding through the mud and grass. The man's came down on top of her, wrapped around her. She recognized the body, warm, and hard, and larger than life. But she did not know the man at all. Struggling with him proved to be a terrible waste of energy. The man took her head in his hands, held it tight. She strained against his grip but was unable to stop him as he dropped his head and began to rub his cheek against hers. The scrape of the man's hot, rough face nearly managed to pull the tears from Scully's eyes. "Stop," he whispered hotly in her ear. "Stop." Then he placed gentle kisses on her cheeks, her eyes, her lips until she settled. When she was breathing heavily but calmly against him, the man untangled himself from her and rose to his feet. Scully sat up cautiously but did not approach him. He towered over her, beautiful and wet and reckless, the sky dark gray and raging behind him. Thunder cracked as he bellowed down at her, "Mulder! You want so much to call me Mulder!" His voice came harder, more powerful, than Scully had ever heard it. "I know you loved each other. I know. But let's make a bet now, Dana. I bet my life that he would never have even followed you out here. He chased you and the men who took you and hurt you to the ends of the world, but if it was him you were running from, he would have let you go. Because he never loved you the way I do. He never loved you with honesty, and joy. With freedom. Never. Never!" With great effort, Scully tore her eyes from him. She looked down at the earth beneath her and prayed it would stop crumbling away. "Did he?" the man demanded as he took a step toward her. "Would he have followed you? Would he?!" "No. No, he wouldn't. He didn't," Scully admitted, her voice cracking. She could feel the tears building in her chest, could feel all her blood raging into her head, choking her, destroying her. The man before her fell lightly to his knees. She glanced up at his face, found him heartbroken but relieved, like a puppy she'd just stopped kicking. Then her vision obscured as her eyes turned to wells of grief. "No, he didn't," she said again. "And I didn't love him that way either." "Why?" the man asked in a whisper. Scully pressed her lips together, trying to hold back the tears. They slid down her cheeks anyway. "We just… It wasn't in us, wasn't for us. We just couldn't. I could never hope enough, find courage enough, to love him, to believe in him, to trust him with my heart." Scully shook her head. "We just couldn't." The man reached out a muddy hand and touched her cheek. "But we can." Scully whimpered in reply, feeling as though her chest had cracked open so her heart could melt out and seep into the earth. With his thumb, the man wiped the tears from her eyes. He was ever so gentle, so tender. When she could see again, Scully looked at him, and finally, finally she saw. He appeared so young, crying and smiling, full of hurt and hope. Reaching out, Scully traced the skin around his eyes. The lines of thirty-nine hard years should have been etched there, but they were nowhere to be seen. "We can," she said sadly. "Because you're not him." The man nodded and looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry," he murmured, but Scully hardly heard him. "Oh, God. He's gone," Scully squeaked, and then her body exploded in a sequence of world-shattering sobs. Instantly, the man gathered her in his arms. "He's gone," she said again, into his neck. "I killed him." The man inhaled sharply at her confession, but his grip on her tightened. "Tell me what happened." "You read it in his file," Scully sputtered as she began to sob harder. The man sat down on the wet grass and cuddled her in his lap. "Tell me," he murmured as he kissed her forehead. "Can't. Don't want to." "You need to." Scully continued to choke on her tears, her body quivering against the man. He sat quietly with her and rocked her and kissed her face until she could hardly feel the cold rain beating down on her anymore. Before she knew what was happening, she began to speak through her sobs. "I was driving," she whispered. "We were after a perp, Macey Hornblathe. He was a child molester. Brutal son of a bitch, took little girls and just destroyed them. And I was so angry at this man. I should have stepped away from the case, but I wanted him. I could think of nothing else. "I was already behind the wheel when Hornblathe came out of the bank and took off. He…Mulder dove into the passenger seat. Our cover had been blown, and Hornblathe was running. I peeled out after him, and Mulder, Mulder never even reached for his seatbelt. He was too busy telling me to watch where the hell I was going. The perp was driving an old Buick. Ugliest vehicle I've ever seen. Brown with peeling paint, and big. Must have been three times the weight of the little plastic bureau car we'd been given. The last little girl…she'd had soft, strawberry hair, a sweet smile, and pudgy little toddler hands. She looked like Emily. I got too close, and Hornblathe swung the back of his car into the front of ours. We rolled down an embankment. "I blacked out. When I opened my eyes, Mulder wasn't in the car. He had gone through the windshield. I found him near the edge of the forest. He was… He was calling for me. And he was dying. I could hear it in his voice. I wrapped my palms around his head. It was hot and soft with blood all down the side and around the back. His neck was broken, but I didn't want to admit it then. I told him to stay still, and I went to the car to find my phone. When I returned to him, he wasn't breathing." Scully finally lost her voice in her sobs. She could feel the man crying with her now, his body shuddering in her arms. She held him tight and kissed his neck. He cuddled her and murmured love in her ear until she found the strength to finish her story. She had never been so grateful for anyone in her life. "After that, there was the hospital," she continued. "Hours went by while they supposedly worked on him. In the morning, they told me he was gone, in more ways than one. Overnight, his body had been mistakenly shipped to a morgue in Pennsylvania. I drove there, oh God, so recklessly, but he wasn't there. No one knew a thing about him. I wanted to murder someone, but Hornblathe had wrecked his car trying to get rid of us, and the police already had him in custody. The world was carrying on around me, time was passing, and I wasn't a part of it. I went home, to my apartment, and I just stopped feeling." The man shook his head. "You stopped living." Scully pulled away from the man, looked at him. "I didn't cry at his funeral." The man swiped at her tears, which refused stop. Then he trailed his knuckles down to her heart, caressing the skin there where her robe had slipped open. "Yes, you did," he insisted. "No one saw, but you did." Scully sighed and shook her head. She climbed out of the man's lap and sat close to him on the grass, trying to catch her breath. She wondered why she felt so numb. "It was my fault," she mumbled. "I've always been passionate about our work, always, but I got emotionally involved that day. I got angry. And I killed him." "Dana, no. How many times have you told me that bad things just happen, especially around him and around you? How many times have you told me none of those things were his fault?" Scully shook her head. "How many times have you believed me?" The man closed his eyes. "I'm sorry we can't make a baby," he whispered. "What? Oh, Mulder…" Scully reached out to touch his cheek, but he pulled away, shaking his head. She sighed and looked down, reminding herself that this man was not Mulder, wondering if she would ever be able to look at his face and see anyone else. "I think you should spend some time away from me," she told him. The man nodded, but he looked so sad. Scully put her arms around his neck and hugged him to her. As her cheek, wet with rain and tears, pressed to his she realized he was on fire. Panicked, she pulled away and felt his forehead. "Mulder, you're burning up." (End Chapter 15 – End Part 7) Chapters 16 and 17 coming soon.