** Pool Area **
Mulder was backed by many good agents and men, he had his trusted assistant director beside him and men who were as good with a gun as anyone. They kept back as Mulder traded his larger gun for a handheld pistol. He removed his bulletproof jacket at the disapproval of Skinner with the excuse that the jacket could cause him to get killed.
The men backed off and into their positions tucked away behind large objects as Mulder entered the locker room of the pool with a few men with radios that would call for backup if they heard gunshots. Mulder stopped in front of another set of double doors and waited for the radio men to position themselves. His heart pounded wildly within his chest as he saw the reflection of the pools water through the tiny slits filled with glass in the door.
He'd synchronized his watch with Scully's, or at least tried to to give him a rough estimate of when she'd be making herself shown. Mulder took one last deep breath and opened the door, expecting Krycek to be waiting right behind the door to ruin everything. But he wasn't. Instead Krycek was giving him a little bit of time to think that things were going all according to plan.
Suddenly, just as Mulder turned around, he saw Krycek walk out nonchalantly towards him. "Krycek," Mulder breathed.
"Mulder," he responded. "For a second you thought things would go as planned, didn't you?"
"No," he retorted. "You can never expect that when you've got rats around."
Krycek spit at Mulder's feet, but missed his shining black shoes by nearly 2 inches, leaving Mulder to shrug. Mulder's watch was ticking quickly, so during the time he wasted bantering with Krycek he was hoping that Scully'd take more time than he thought she would.
He was so close to getting him through the doors, he was right in front of them, all he needed to do was draw his gun and force him through by closing in on him. So he ripped his gun from the holster and pointed it at him, Krycek calmly backing through the doors as planned.
When Mulder entered fully, he realized that his plan was all going down with a whimper when he saw what was left of the Syndicate standing behind one man smoking a cigarette.
"Looks like you're going to lose, Mulder," Krycek said.
"I wouldn't say that," Mulder tried to say with courage. Deep inside he was praying that Scully wouldn't come through the door from the stairwell, her fate was much less desired if she did. Mulder knew that Scully would probably be running full force down the stairs afraid that he's in trouble, but not expecting what she'd find.
Mulder's watch beeped, giving him warning that Scully would be beginning to walk down the stairs.
"What's that, Mulder?" Krycek said mockingly. "Who's gonna come charging in here with that cue? Skinner? The entire FBI? Oh! Or is it the scrumptious Agent Scully..."
Mulder's hand raised with his gun readied when he made the comment on Scully. Mulder couldn't assume that Krycek wasn't capable of hurting Scully in anyway, or assume that he wouldn't have someone else do a job that would scar her for life.
"Krycek, why am I here?" Mulder asked frustratedly. "You're the one who started all this, aren't you?" Mulder was on a roll. "You were the one who left the letter in my office. You said that the men who were the cause of all my pain, of all of Agent Scully's suffering..."
As he spoke, Scully was nearing the doorway, congradulating Mulder silently on succeeding in getting Krycek in the room. She figured she'd wait for the right time to make her entrance and not spoil a moment that Mulder needed for himself.
"You promised me that they'd be here! Are these the men?! Are these the men that took Samantha?! Are these the same ones that took Scully? Are they the ones that caused her so much pain!?" his voiced was raised to an enormous level.
"Mulder, calm down," Krycek attempted to cool him down.
"Don't tell me to calm down! I want the person, or THING responsible for everything wrong in Agent Scully's life to come forward...NOW!!!"
Lead by Cancer Man, the Syndicate members followed him in a perfect triangle, and just as Mulder was about to receive his justice, a bright light flashed from a large garage like steel door. It raised spilling a pool of light into the basement and revealing a large ramp that lead to the ground level of the outside. A group of unorganized faceless men began slowly pilling in the damp basement.
Scully kept behind the door and down low, listening to high pitched screams as bodies were being scorched to death. Suddenly, the light faded and no more voices were heard, so she opened the door and walked into the basement among bodies flamed beyond recognition. Her eyebrows arched, praying desperatly that none of them were Mulder as she passed by tons of mutilated bodies. She reached the end of a row of them and was grabbed from behind.
Her voice was muffled, but enough to draw Mulder out from the shadows.
"Mulder!" Scully managed to yell through the mans hands.
Mulder spun around to find Krycek had appeared behind him with his gun raised. Mulder's gun barrel was directly in front of Krycek's, ready to fire. Mulder worked his way around another side, Krycek doing the same. It was almost like they were going in a circular motion and meeting up on another end.
"Put it down, Krycek!" Mulder yelled.
"You," Krycek said monotone-like.
"Not until you order that man to let her go," he told him.
"You lose, Mulder," Krycek began. "It's all over, and you've lost big time."
"You filthy liar!" Mulder hollered. "You bring me these faceless men, they flame half of the people you work with-" he looked at the remaining Syndicate standing behind Krycek, lead by none other than a smoking man. "-and then you take my partner hostage! What do you want Krycek!? What is it that we have that you want?"
"The truth," Krycek told him.
"Wha--" Mulder almost said something, but he realized that this fighting wasn't worth it-he DID have the truth, and people he would tell WOULD believe him and Cancer Man and his evil men would be exposed. Krycek would be exposed, it would all be over with. "I do. I have the truth, I know the truth. Spare Agent Scully and no one but us will know it," Mulder tried negotiating, partially serious.
Scully was shaking her head wildly. Her heart begged for revenge as much as Mulder's soul ached and yearned for it. "No, Mulder!"
She winced as the gun was shoved further into her side, but she didn't care, she wouldn't let Mulder give it up, "Don't do it, Mulder...please don't," she stopped when the gun smacked against her ribcage. "Jesus..." she moaned.
"Damn it, Krycek, let her go!" Mulder yelled, his voice filled with hate and sorrow as he heard Scully moan as her captor thrust the gun further into her side.
Krycek's safety flicked off, and feeling that he was about to be shot, Mulder squeezed the trigger back and fired, slapping Krycek in the chest, sending the bullet flying into his heart.
What was left of the Syndicate, only about 4 corrupt men, including Cancer Man, remained standing. Their guns were drawn, Mulder's eyes expressing violent rage. Scully's mind whirled with thoughts of Mulder...he'd suddenly turned so violent, something that was once contained inside him and controlled had spun wildly into oblivian. All of his containment disappeared, it was gone. There was a flaming fire in his eyes, a fire that was being fed and fueled by the men standing in front of it.
Seemingly insync with each other, they all raised their guns at the
He stood in awe as Krycek fell lifelessly to the ground. He was dead, and died at Mulder's hand...Mulder had done himself and Scully a great justice, giving him the sense of release he needed. Krycek had been the cause of so much pain in their lives that anyone would think it was the right thing for him to do.
His trance was broken when he heard the ring of a gunshot, afterwards he heard the human sounds of pain and anguish, the groaning then the thick thud on the damp and cold cement floor. He spun around to see Scully lying in a dark pool of her own sticky blood. Mulder fired at her assailant as he began to flee, hitting him in the upper right shoulder.
Mulder rushed to Scully lying limply on the floor gripping at her side. She rolled around on the ground slowly as if it would diminish the pain until Mulder took her in his arms. "Ssh, Scully, we're gonna get you to a hospital..." he whispered.
"Mulder..." she breathed.
"Don't talk...ssh..." his voice trailed off as he heard the heavy falling footsteps of someone behind him.
"But..." her voice was raspy, "Mulder..." she managed to lift a hand to point to the man behind him.
He flung around, Scully still wrapped in his arms, "Oh shi---" he whispered.
Suddenly, he turned to see swarms of FBI agents fleeting in with their large machine guns and firing at the man who held a gun on Mulder - the Alien Bounty Hunter. Bullet after bullet penetrated the alien's rubber-like exterior, causing him no pain.
"Nooo!!!" Mulder hollered at the top of his lungs, whipping around to face Scully again.
He covered his eyes and threw himself over Scully to protect her from the toxic fumes eminating from the aliens body. "Scully don't breathe in, ok? Try not to breathe in..." he got out before the gun shots stopped. He picked his head up, flinching from the last remaining fumes, but in time to see the sharp stiletto being yanked out of the back of the alien's neck by none other than Jerimiah Smith.
Smith said nothing to a stunned Mulder before spinning and walking the other direction. It seemed he knew his fate, for when the Alien Bounty Hunter jumped up with his last bit of strength before his final closing and stabbed him in the base of the neck, he seemed not in the least bit surprised or fearful of his death. Of millions of thoughts racing through Mulder's mind, one was of how Jerimiah must have come to a closing with his fear of death over the years they'd been parted.
Swarms of FBI agents dressed in their black fight attire came in on Mulder and Scully, carrying them out at the shoulders and feet.
"Hey, be careful," Mulder tried to say above the men. "She's been shot, can't you see that?"
They didn't seem to be listening to him, so when the EMS men came in with two stretchers and body bags, he was glad to see them. His heart went out to the families of all who died in this global war, feeling that he and his quest were all the cause of their deaths and so many others through the years.
Mulder and Scully were loaded together in one ambulence, parallel to each other. Mulder wanted to move over and take her in his arms through the ride to the hospital, he didn't feel injured or sick, so he had the compulsion to do it. He held back when he realized that Scully wouldn't say it, but it would hurt her to be held.
The next thing he knew, the ambulence doors flung open and Scully's stretcher was immediately wheeled out and off to surgery. Mulder's was taken out slower and taken into the hospital to be put in a cooling bath. The extent of his suffering wasn't much, but to put him in the cooling bath gave hope to a full recovery almost right away.
After a few hours of laying unconscious in a cooling bath, he found himself resting in a cozy hospital room next to an empty bed. He knew the bed that was next to him was reserved for Scully, but he found himself wondering if she'd ever live to occupy it.
A nurse walked in, and he asked, "Is the woman who's supposed to be in that bed coming back soon?"
"Oh, Agent Scully?" the woman asked nicely.
"Yeah, Agent Scully," he clarified.
"Well, last I heard she was in surgery," the young woman smiled.
"Still? She went in over 3 hours ago."
"Sometimes these things take time. You better be thankful it's taking this long, rather than taking 5 minutes and her wheeled out covered in a white sheet," with that she put his chart back and left the room.
The woman was right - he'd rather sit for hours on hours waiting for any news at all, rather than come out of his cooling bath to find that Scully died and he wasn't there for her. His eyelids were heavy, and they begged for sleep, but he wouldn't dare close them until he got some kind of news.
The doctor was the next to walk in his room, almost 30 minutes after the nurse, "What about Scully?"
"Scully?" the doctor echoed. "Oh, Agent Scully. She's in surgery."
Mulder was getting frustrated, "It's been almost 4 hours."
The doctor folded his arms, "Well, I can't tell you much..."
"What about her condition?" Mulder asked. "Can you tell me that?"
"Her condition? Yeah, right now it's critical," he told him. "But there's no need to worry about that. Our hospital places surgery patients in critical condition when they're in the process of the surgery. Right now there's just no way we can tell if she'll live through the surgery, or if the surgery did any good, or if she's going to live long after the surgery, or if anything happened in the process of the surgery that could change the way she lives her life. It all depends. You just have to wait it out."
"Do you know when she'll be done?" Mulder pleaded for an answer.
"Give me an hour, and if she's not out by then, I'll find out. I'll let you know then what her status is."
He walked out without easing Mulder's pain. He only left him with more questions than he'd started with. Mulder first hadn't thought about the long term effects of Scully's wound - would she be paralyzed? Would she ever walk again? Did it hit a vital organ that they can't replace? There were so many questions he wanted answers to, that he needed answers to, that he wasn't getting solved.
Mulder's eyes closed and drifted away to the thoughts of the past. How he and Scully spent the last 7 years together; how they debated repeatedly between science and theory; how they disagreed with so many things; how they never once said their true feelings whether they be platonic or more than that. Mulder thought about how funny it is to feel so much but not be able to say a single, solitary word.
With all these emotions mixed up, he felt that he was standing on the edge of something way too deep and he was about to fall in. He was so afraid to love her, but what it was that he was just way to afraid to lose her. He clung to his past that made him feel that he had to keep going, and that if he told her he loved her, if he expressed his feelings for her were slightly more than platonic, that he'd lose her forever.
With so many thoughts in his head, he fell into a dreamless sleep from which he was bruptly awakened from by the white haired doctor from eariler.
"Got any new news?" Mulder asked.
"Some," he said. "She's still in surgery..."
Mulder was becoming more angry. By the fact that Scully wasn't lying in the bed that was next to him gave him the notion that she was either dead or still being operated on. He wanted to know something he didn't already know.
"And?"
"But if all goes well she'll be out in 30 to 45 minutes. The bullet was lodged in a difficult place. You're lucky they took so long, they could have easily had it removed in under an hour if they thought there wasn't a way around leaving her paralyzed. But they figured out a way to get to it without damaging anything that couldn't be repaired."
The doctor was explaining everything to him, and he was grateful to listen to the man speak endlessly if it was getting him answers.
"It's in a difficult and paralyzing position due to the fact that it didn't go STRAIGHT through her side, it managed to curve through her insides and lodge itself near some discs in her back. Kind of like the "magic bullet" that killed JFK."
"But she's not paralyzed? She's going to be back to normal soon, right?" Mulder asked.
"After a while she should. Because of the way it swam through her intestines, multiple things had to be fixed up. It punctured a few organs, but nothing to severe. That's another reason it's taking so long. It's not just the removing of a bullet, it's the repair of everything that was damaged along its path to her back. The bullet's been removed...it's been removed for a while. They located it and devised their plan within 30 minutes and it was out an hour and a half later, but all the other things are what's taking so long. They have to double and triple check EVERYTHING after EVERY repair. It's a complex procedure."
"Obviously..." Mulder mumbled. "Thanks."
"You should really get some rest," the doctor advised. "I'll wake you up when they start to bring her out."
He nodded and tried to fall back asleep, and he managed to get a bit of "rest" but never any sleep. The doctor came in almost exactly 45 minutes later and told him that they were bringing her out in about 15 minutes after they give her some pain killers. "She's going to be asleep you know," the doctor reminded him.
He had forgotten. She wouldn't be awake when they brought her in, "When is she expected to wake up?"
The doctor pondered for a moment, taking the type and amount of drugs she would be given into consideration. "Well, assuming that nothing went wrong, or goes wrong, I would hope she doesn't wake up until tomorrow morning, otherwise she's going to be in a lot of pain."
He left again, but followed by orderly's dressed in white preparing Scully's bed and a pathway for the gurney she'd ride in on. He anxiously awaited her arrival, knowing she wouldn't be much to talk to but he needed to see her. When she was slowly wheeled in and put in her bed, he didn't realize she'd look so frail and so close to death.
"God, Scully...." he muttered under his breath.
Mulder winced and looked away for a moment.
Mulder saw the last orderly that was still adjusting her bed and asked, "What...what are those?"
The man looked up, "What are what, sir?"
Mulder pointed to her eyes and cheek, "That line...that one right there running down her face."
The black haired orderly looked up somewhat shocked at Mulder, "Those are tear marks, sir." and walked away.
Mulder slumped back in his bed and mumbled, "Jesus."
Through the whole night uniformed men passed in and out of his and Scully's room, paying no nevermind to him, but concentrating on Scully. But this was how he wanted it. He knew he would live, that he'd be fine, but he wasn't so sure about the deathly looking Scully. He feared that her appearance alone indicated her fate.
He was so overwhelmed that he made himself fall asleep. It wasn't a peaceful sleep, but it wasn't a restless one either. He awoke the next morning to find Scully still sleeping.
After being awake for nearly 30 minutes, he felt something rush through his body that compelled him to turn his head to face Scully's bed. With this he saw her eyelashes fluttering and he became more attentive. She looked to the one side of her that was only a window, then winced as she turned to see Mulder.
"Morning sunshine," he deadpanned.
She tried to make herself smile, but the tiny bits of pain got to her enough that she couldn't.
"I was worried you wouldn't wake up," he said casually.
She choked out, "But I did."
"Do you even know what happened to you?" he asked when she didn't seem too surprised to be alive.
"I got shot," she emphisized on 'shot'.
"But afterwards...you don't know, do you?"
"I saw our guys come in and shoot the bounty hunter..." she was struggling to talk just above a whisper. "And I saw Jerimiah Smith kill him...but that's it if that's what you mean."
"No, that's not what I mean," he told her. "I mean you went through nearly 5 hours of surgery. The bullet that you were shot with swam through your intestines--"
She cut him off, "Feels like it..."
"--and ruptured some of your organs and stopped by some discs in your back. You're lucky you're not paralyzed," Mulder said. "They could have gotten it out in under an hour, but they took the long way to avoid from leaving you paralyzed. You know I waited here for 3 hours before anyone would tell me anything."
The sound of pain in Mulder's voice made Scully want to cry or reassure him that she was fine, so she decided talking wouldn't hurt as much, "I'm sorry. But I'm OK now, I'll be fine in a couple weeks and things will be back to normal."
Mulder wasn't sure things would be back to normal, he wasn't sure they would at all. There were so many things that had changed. "No," he said. "No they won't."
"Why not?" she asked surprised.
"It's over. There's no reason for you to stay with me anymore. I'm not going to try to stop you from leaving the FBI now. I should have let you go when you wanted to, but I couldn't do it alone. Now it's purely personal...all I need now is to find my sister. All the men that needed to be put to justice are dead. There's just not a need for you to continue to put your life on the line for me or my cause."
"No, Mulder...don't say that," Scully begged. "I stayed because I wanted to...it's not because you held me back. It was always my choice. And I choose to stay now."
"Scully don't do this--"
"Mulder, stop," she said. "I do want to move on with my life, but I don't want to leave you. I can have what I want and still stay at work with you. It's not going to be so intense now, it's something I can handle."
"Jesus, Scully...why do you do this?"
"Mulder, I'm staying, and there really isn't a da** thing you can do about it," her voice was stern.
Mulder knew she was stubborn, but he thought that with him telling her that she didn't have to stay anymore would be something she wanted. Not something to argue over.
"You could use my help, anyway," she told him.
He sighed, "Always..." he thought for a second, then said, "But there is something I need to tell you that may change things...."
* * * * *
Because of 3 words exchanged on a sunny day in a typical hospital room, everything in almost everyone's life changed. When Mulder and Scully's eyes shut for the final time, the life almost wasted they can look back on was one well worth it. They can look back at the long road to recovery; a simple day at the office and sifting through dusty files; the cool feeling of a shining gold ring with a sparkling clear rock in the center being slipped on a slender finger and the smile spread across two happy faces; sitting in an officials office delivering news of an engagement and standing up to receive a handshake; a happy couple bouncing out of an elegant church with handfulls of silver glitter being tossed their way by members of a gleeful audience; a woman pulling into the driveway of her new house with a small black and white print out of something to come; Scully squeezing Mulder's hand as sweat poured down her face as she brought a new life into the world; a happy father playing with his daughter wearing a sundress out in the front yard, the mother walking up in a suit from a long day at work, but putting it down to join the fun; a curly haired woman named Samantha walking up the steps of the porch of a happy family's home, then leaving with a smile some time later; the tears of a young girl as she breaks her arm, but the soothing of her mother's gentle touch; the man everyone knows as Spender returning to the FBI as an outcast among regular agents; a forgiving Bill Scully, Jr. shaking the hand of Mulder symbolizing his release of his sister into good hands then saying two words, "thank you" in the waiting room of a hospital, then rushing Mulder off into the room where his wife was about to deliver their first child; Mrs. Scully playing with her gorgeous but young granddaughter; then finally - Mulder behind a photographer's camera about to take a picture of the entire Scully family, Scully's mother, brother's, nephews and neices, and their daughter, and just before he takes the picture, they all insist he set the camera so he can be in the picture. He presses a simple button and rushes to Scully's side, swings his arm around her and places the other on his daughters shoulder then bareing a smile. The flash goes off, leaving a picture of an entire smiling family gladly accepting newcomers they'd once rejected. Signifying the release of almost a decade long of anger....signifying the love that comes from hate; the forgivness that comes from what seemed like betrayal; the good that comes from the bad.
THE END