Bridges
by Elizabeth Rowandale

Feedback:  Email: bstrbabs@gmail.com
Rating:  Mature
Relationship:  Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Additional Tags:  Angst, Romance, An X-File Case, Mytharc

Summary: A family in a small town in New Mexico appears to 
be suffering the ill effects of an encounter with Black 
Eyed Children. While in the desert to search out the truth, 
Mulder and Scully find themselves confronting more than 
they bargained for, both in the investigation and in their 
personal relationship. Early Season 11, turns AU after 
"This." Past and eventual present MSR.

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the search for the truth 
all belong to Chris Carter and Co. I'm just borrowing them. 
I promise to return them in no worse condition than Chris 
would.

Beta thanks to Annie for giving me the confidence 
to write what I had to write even when it was killing me to 
do it and to Erica for cleaning up the mess of a first draft
I handed her and making me look far more polished.:D

Author's Notes: I cannot believe it's been this long since I 
updated. So sorry!:( It was a combination of hitting a point 
in the fic that required I do a lot of charting and planning to 
make sure nothing gets lost and some all-consuming real life 
chaos. The good news is, Chapter 8 is already half finished and 
part of Chapter 9 is written, so the next updates should be much 
closer together! Hopefully, the length of this current chapter 
helps in some small way to make amends for my slowness. 
Thanks for hanging in there with me, and I hope you enjoy!


Copyright (c) 2018
 
Chapter 7

When Scully woke to her phone alarm the next morning, she 
had been sleeping on her stomach with her head turned to 
the side, and her neck damned near refused to straighten. 
The soreness from the crash had set in overnight. As had a 
shade of humiliation from her evening's confessions. Some 
gentle stretches and a hot shower, and she regained a 
reasonable range of mobility in her neck, though the 
muscles still ached. A few other things hurt, as well.

She drank a full bottle of water before leaving her room to 
make sure she was hydrated before starting her day. In the 
parking lot, she took the car keys off Mulder, not 
mentioning that her control freak side was exerting itself 
after the accident and she just needed to be behind the 
wheel. "You find the address and set the GPS for Ed 
Monroe's garage," she said as she sank into the driver's 
seat. Mulder seemed amenable enough to everything this 
morning. He must have slept well.

The day was a little cooler than the last two, at least at 
this early hour, and a handful of clouds scattered across 
the massive sky, showing hints of potential rain. Mulder 
surprised Scully when he noticed the slight stiffness in 
her movement as she scanned her surroundings before backing 
out of their parking space.

"Is your neck sore from the crash?" he asked.

"A little, yeah. It didn't want to move when I woke up. How 
about you, are you okay?"

He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, moving a little 
as if testing the muscles. "It's a little sore. And my 
shoulder, from the seatbelt."

"Are you okay? Do you need to get it checked out?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine. You?"

"You know, I realized something last night, Mulder."

"Hmm?" He was looking down at his phone, digging up the 
garage address. He pulled his glasses out of his suit coat 
pocket.

"Our first car had airbags, right? They didn't deploy."

Mulder looked up. "Damn. You're right. I was so busy trying 
to figure out what happened, I never even... Maybe the air 
bags were tampered with as well? Did Mr. Garcia's airbags 
deploy?"

Scully squinted out the windshield as she pulled the car 
away from the motel, mentally scanning the autopsy report 
she had read the first day in El Paso. "Actually, yes. He 
had injuries consistent with air bag impact."

"Hunh. So, maybe our car was just crap. We might not have 
impacted hard enough."

Her neck would protest this assessment, along with the dull 
headache that was starting to develop from the continual 
muscle tension, but Scully had definitely read about air 
bags that had been set with too high a response threshold. 
Later, she would look up the safety reports on their make 
and model of car.

Ed Monroe's auto shop was not far from their hotel. The 
building was the last structure on Verdad's Main Street 
before the desert reclaimed ownership of the land between 
Verdad and Las Cruces.

The "parking lot" was really just a rocky and dusty patch 
of ground beside the adobe building, scattered with a mix 
of aging sedans and pick-up trucks. The next building over 
stood abandoned and hollow. A sign in front of the garage 
with a few missing letters advertised state inspections and 
a twenty-dollar oil change.

Scully climbed out of the car, then took a clip from her 
suit coat pocket and quickly twisted her hair into a knot 
at the back of her head so she wouldn't be blinded by her 
own red locks in the strengthening morning winds. Vision 
trumped fashion. She had learned that lesson during an 
onslaught of wind and bees.

The doors of the auto repair bays were open as Mulder and 
Scully approached, and a harried-looking man in a business 
suit spoke rapidly with a boy of no more than sixteen 
dressed in a mechanic's jumpsuit. The boy appeared less 
than motivated by the man's obvious sense of urgency.

"I'll let my Dad know, Mr. Akins," the boy was saying as 
they moved within earshot of the exchange. He was wiping 
his hands on a shop cloth as he spoke. "But we've got a 
couple of cars ahead of yours right now. I'm pretty sure 
it's going to take the whole day. We don't have much help 
this morning, and I won't be back until after school."

The man shook his head as though this information sealed 
his foredrawn conclusion that this place was coming in far 
below his expectations. "Fine. Just...call me as soon as 
you know how long it will be."

"Will do, sir."

"You have my cell phone number, right?" the man prompted, 
hand resting on his belt, his agitation written in every 
line of his carriage.

"Yes, we do. We will let you know, Mr. Akins."

The man nodded tersely, hesitated as though he wanted to 
say more, but after a moment turned and walked briskly 
away. He pulled out his phone, probably calling for a ride.

Silence reigned following the man's brusque departure, and 
Mulder and Scully hung back for a moment, giving proper 
decorum to the separation of clients. After a beat, the boy 
in the jumpsuit turned to face them. He was nearly as tall 
as Mulder, his figure lanky but strong from physical work. 
Scully wondered fleetingly if William looked anything like 
this boy, now. Beneath his suit collar a polo shirt was 
just visible. He was probably dressed for school 
underneath. His nametag read 'Nate.'

"Can I help you?" Nate asked.

Mulder took a step closer, and Scully followed. He pulled 
out his badge. "Good morning. I'm Agent Mulder of the FBI, 
this is my partner Agent Scully. We were hoping we could 
speak with Ed Monroe. Is Mr. Monroe here this morning?"

The boy frowned, taking half a step back and drawing up 
into a wary posture. "Did something happen?" he asked. "Did 
he do something?"

Scully studied the boy's body language while she let Mulder 
do the talking.

"No, nothing like that," Mulder said, tempering his casual 
tone to ease the boy off his guard. "We just think Mr. 
Monroe might have some further information we could use on 
a case we're investigating."

The boy studied them in silence for a long moment, gaze 
shifting between Mulder and Scully. Then he nodded mutely, 
tossed his soiled shop rag into a nearby bin and walked off 
into the shadows of the auto bays.

Mulder and Scully exchanged a silent look of consultation 
then trailed a few steps along the boy's path. They were 
greeted in the first feet of shade by a sandy-haired man of 
perhaps fifty, average height, stocky, with the deep tan of 
a life spent outdoors and a seemingly perpetual frown. He 
wore jeans and a work shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

"You wanted to see me?" the man asked, posturing with wide-
planted feet and hands on his hips, clearly irritated by 
the interruption.

Scully took a half step forward, assuming the lead before 
Mulder could speak. She flipped out her badge. "Mr. 
Monroe?"

The man gave a curt nod, eyes narrowing as he sized up 
Scully. His gaze felt more like he was interested in her 
physique than her credentials. She tried to brush it off 
and stay focused on the case.

"I'm Agent Scully with the FBI, and this is Agent Mulder. 
We were told you might have some information that could be 
helpful to our case. Would you mind if we asked you a few 
questions?"

His expression said he clearly *did* mind, but in words he 
said simply, "What kind of questions?"

"Did you know Joseph Garcia?"

Monroe shrugged. "I'd seen him around. Think he brought in 
his car once or twice. Didn't really know him."

Mulder nodded. "Had you worked on Mr. Garcia's car any time 
recently?"

The heavier man turned to eye Mulder. He lifted his gaze to 
match the inch or two's height difference. "No, I hadn't 
worked on his car in a while," Monroe said, resentment 
clear in his tone. "You think I had something to do with 
the accident?"

"Why would we think that?" Mulder said with a light shake 
of his head.

"Well, I don't know, why are you here in the first place? I 
don't have anything to do with the Garcias."

"Are you aware of the unfortunate events their family has 
suffered of late?" Scully asked.

Ed looked a little uncomfortable at that. He glanced down 
at the pavement beneath his dusty running shoes and 
sniffed. "Bad luck runs in flocks around here," he said, 
almost under his breath.

"Why do you think that is?" Mulder's tone was a practiced 
neutral.

Monroe drew a long breath and exhaled slowly. He tilted his 
head and seemed to study both Mulder and Scully with a new 
eye, considering his next words carefully. "Did they tell 
you what they say happened?"

"We've heard a few theories. We'd like to hear what you 
think," Scully offered.

Monroe turned and stared at her for a moment. She waited 
him out with lifted brows. Just when she thought he might 
speak, the garage phone rang.

"Excuse me," Monroe said and took a few steps away to pick 
up a phone mounted on a metal support post of the work bay. 
"Monroe's garage."

Mulder took a step closer to Scully, and together they 
drifted in the opposite direction from Ed Monroe, taking a 
moment to let their eyes adjust to the dimness within and 
studying the environment in the garage. A table mounted to 
the side wall was heavily cluttered with a mishmash of 
tools and desk supplies. Invoices and pens and even an old- 
fashioned calculator mixed with greasy screw drivers and 
tire gauges. Above the table, a long corkboard lined the 
wall, nearly every inch filled with mounted papers and 
photographs. A strange collage of family snapshots, 
seemingly from the families of several of the garage's 
workers, intermingled with pictures of sports cars and a 
large calendar covered in photos of nearly naked women 
posed beside hot cars.

Scully tried not to judge. Mulder had had a calendar like 
that hanging in their basement office once upon a time. And 
he was hardly irredeemable.

The phone call going on behind them seemed innocuous 
enough, something about ordering a part for a pickup and 
bringing in the vehicle for an overnight stay the following 
week. Mulder gestured toward a picture in the middle of the 
corkboard, and Scully leaned closer to get a better look. 
The shot showed a family posed in front of a sign for a 
zoo. The father was Ed Monroe, and Nate, the boy they had 
met first, stood to Ed's right. Nate was maybe three years 
younger than he looked to be now. At the boy's other side 
stood a girl of around six years old, wrapped in the arms 
of an attractive woman with long dark hair. All four 
figures in the picture sported genuine smiles. But photos 
could be deceiving; Scully knew that well enough first 
hand.

Behind them, Ed Monroe cleared his throat pointedly. 
"Anything else I can help you with?"

Scully and Mulder turned and moved back toward the 
daylight. "You were about to tell us your theory on the 
bouts of bad luck around here?" Mulder prompted.

But Monroe's mildly receptive mood seemed to have passed. 
He gave a quick shrug, hands still defensively propped on 
his hips. "The desert gets in people's heads," he said 
dismissively. He tossed another appraising look toward 
Scully, his mind back off the topic and back onto her 
appearance. "Anything else?" he asked.

Scully saw Mulder consider his approach, the shift of his 
gaze, the slightly deeper breath. He took the plunge, "A 
little birdy told us you would be the man to ask about 'the 
lights'. Does that mean anything to you?"

Monroe's eyes narrowed as he returned his gaze to Mulder. 
"Who told you that?"

Mulder gave a light shrug and continued to wait expectantly 
for a reply.

"You're talking about the lights out in Miller's clearing," 
Monroe said. His words were more statement than question.

"Off the county road?" Mulder gestured vaguely in the right 
direction and the other man nodded. "Have you seen the 
lights yourself?" Mulder asked.
Monroe hesitated, then acquiesced once more. "Yeah. My boy 
and I have been out there to have a look. We've seen 'em. 
Same as ten years ago."

Scully cringed inwardly when Mulder took this information 
in stride, clearly already far better informed than she on 
the history of the sightings.

"I've heard the lights could be connected to what's been 
happening to people around here. Do you subscribe to that 
theory?"

Monroe tilted his head, looked out beyond the garage toward 
the highway. "They do appear together, it seems like."

"They?" Scully offered. "The lights and...?"

"You already know what I'm talking about here, right? The 
Garcias must have told you. About the way they come to the 
door and--"

"I don't suppose you have any cars available for rent?" The 
three of them turned to see Akins, the impatient customer, 
was back, standing just outside the repair bays, looking 
hot and angry at the world.

Monroe moved toward Akins, and Mulder and Scully trailed a 
few steps behind.

The angry man was still talking. "I've tried Uber and Lyft 
and nothing is coming up anywhere near here. Some of us 
have lives to get back to."

"Where do you need to get to?" Monroe asked, amicable 
enough in the face of the man's misdirected fury.

"I have a meeting this morning at the convention center in 
Las Cruces. And I now have less than twenty minutes to 
prepare my--" As he spoke, Akins lifted his arm to glance 
at his smart watch, and in juggling his briefcase and his 
suit jacket and a pile of paperwork, his phone flipped from 
his fingers and tumbled onto the gravel. Akins cursed under 
his breath.

Scully took a step forward, feeling the increasing power of 
the morning sun flush her skin as she crossed out of the 
shadow, and crouched down to retrieve Akins' phone. She had 
just caught the object in her grip and was pressing into 
her thighs to rise when Monroe spoke sharply from above 
her.

"You're FBI?" he nearly shouted, his tone both incredulous 
and suspicious; as though this claim were suddenly highly 
in question.

Scully glanced up, startled. She pushed smoothly to her 
feet and handed the dropped phone back to the impatient man 
beside her.

"Yes, sir," she said to Monroe. "We showed you our 
identification. Agent Mulder and I are FBI agents out here 
from Washington, D.C.. Is there a problem?"

Monroe's gaze was trained specifically and intensely upon 
Scully. But she no longer felt lust or lasciviousness, but 
suspicion and maybe even a kind of fear or at least 
wariness.

Scully could feel her partner watching every little 
inflection of the exchange, ready to come to her defense, 
physically or otherwise, if required. She appreciated, as 
always, when he let her handle it on her own for as long as 
possible.

Akins was fascinated enough by the encounter to finally 
fall silent.

Monroe gave a sharp shake of his head. "No problem." Then 
he turned to the silent man. "I'll have one of my guys run 
you into town. Just give me a minute." Then to Mulder 
Monroe said, "We're done here." He walked off toward the 
office at the back of the repair bays.

"Thank you for your time," Scully said under her breath, 
and Mulder gave a sardonic chuckle beside her.

Akins continued to watch the two agents with fascination, 
and Mulder and Scully exchanged glances and turned to walk 
back to their car.

"Well, that was...odd," Mulder said, voice low as they made 
their way across the gravel lot.

"I'll say. Any idea what changed his attitude?"

Mulder shook his head. "Got me. He looked down at you 
picking up that guy's phone, and... I don't know what he 
saw. Was there anything on the screen of the phone when you 
picked it up?"

"No, it was dark."

Mulder bit his lip and shook his head. Scully thought he 
was about to speak when yet another car pulled into the 
lot, sliding up close beside theirs. A woman emerged from 
the driver's side of the dusty sedan that had probably once 
been a bright blue. She appeared to be in her mid-forties, 
dark hair woven into a hurried braid, and a large tote bag 
slung over her shoulder. She left the driver's door open 
and gazed across the top of the car as though she did not 
mean to stay long. In a moment, the boy, Nate, came jogging 
out of the glass door beside the auto bays, now dressed in 
khaki slacks and a polo shirt, a backpack slung over one 
shoulder. He headed toward the woman and the car, and when 
his gaze darted over to Mulder and Scully, the woman's 
followed.

Mulder took a step toward the woman. "Excuse me, would you 
happen to be Mrs. Monroe?" he asked.

The woman turned toward them. She pushed her sunglasses 
onto the top of her head, and she was clearly recognizable 
from the photo. "I'm sorry, who are you?" she asked 
cautiously.

Mulder flipped out his badge. "Sorry, Ma'am, I'm Agent 
Mulder with the FBI, and this is my partner Agent Scully. 
Could we ask you a couple of quick questions?"

The woman's eyes darted warily toward the garage, scanning 
the building, presumably checking whether her husband was 
watching. "I have to get my son to school..." she said, 
tone less than convincing. Nate had reached the car and 
tossed his bag into the back seat. He watched the exchange 
across the top of the car in silence.

"Just quickly, Mrs. Monroe," Mulder said. "Do you know the 
Garcia family? Joseph and Donna?"

Mrs. Monroe exchanged a quick look with her son. "Only 
vaguely. I was on a school committee once with Donna. And I 
know of Mariela." There was something the woman wasn't 
saying, but they let it go for the time being.

Before Mulder or Scully could ask another question, Mrs. 
Monroe took a step closer and spoke in muted tones. "Are 
they...are the others okay? Mariela and her mother? Has 
anything else happened?"

"Nothing we know of," Scully volunteered, speaking softly 
and kindly in hopes of keeping the woman talking. Mrs. 
Monroe seemed genuinely worried, though whether for herself 
or the Garcias remained unclear. "What did you think might 
happen?" Scully ventured.

"Have they...have they told you? Do you know what they 
saw?" the woman asked with an intensely probing gaze.

From across the car, Nate said sharply. "Mom. Let's go, I'm 
gonna be late."

Mrs. Monroe ignored her son's words and said, "They let the 
children in. That's what happened. You can't let them in." 
Her chest rose and fell with increasing speed.

"Mom! We have to go. Now."

The woman met Scully's gaze for a moment with an unnerving 
directness. "Don't let them in," she whispered pleadingly. 
"They'll make you sick. They make people...worse...than 
what they are. The darkness."

Then before her son could admonish her again, the woman 
turned and climbed behind the wheel. Scully could see her 
hand move quickly, forming the sign of the cross over her 
body.

Mulder's attempted, "Wait, Mrs. Monroe, if we could just--" 
was rendered useless by the firm closing of the car door. 
Nate followed suit after a quick glare at the two agents.

Mulder and Scully took a step back to be clear of the car 
as it backed out of the gravel lot and zoomed toward the 
road.

"Is this town making any sense to you?" Mulder asked as 
they watched the cloud of dust behind the car waft into the 
air.

"Nope."

*****

As soon as they arrived at the sheriff's station, Mulder 
and Scully hovered by mutual consent at the hood of their 
car, comparing notes on all that had just happened. Scully 
sat back against the fender, legs crossed at the ankles. 
The wind toyed with the loose strands of hair around her 
neck, and Mulder's fingers longed to play with those errant 
strands. He knew their feel like his own skin.

"Mulder...what are we really investigating here? I feel 
like we have too many plates in the air. Like we're being 
led in ten different directions. Does it all tie together? 
Are we investigating multiple cases? I just feel like we're 
not seeing the bigger picture right now."

Mulder nodded as he propped a hand cautiously on the sun-
heated car roof. He leaned a bit closer to Scully as he 
spoke and caught a heady wave of her scent. He felt more 
like himself when she was close. "I agree. We're still 
taking in information, trying to make sense of it all."

Scully narrowed her gaze for a long moment, then she 
sighed. "I feel like I need a chart."

"I can probably rustle up a whiteboard around here 
somewhere. We could hit the local Walmart, prop something 
up on the motel room wall and start drawing pictures."

She smiled briefly, exhaled heavily. He could see the cogs 
turning. "What do you think the Black-Eyed Kids are, 
Mulder? The way people react to the stories around here, 
they seem to be seen more as demonic than alien."

Mulder shrugged. "There are multiple theories circulating 
in the lore. Anything from aliens to visitors from the 
future, demons taking human form, or children born of 
matings with the devil when he comes to young women's beds 
in the night. The evil offspring of such a union are said 
to be rejected by the purely evil creatures of hell, yet 
feared and reviled by humans, forced to live in shadows on 
the outskirts of the human world and regarded as creatures 
of darkness and evil energy."

Scully stared up at him for a long moment, blue eyes 
ridiculously pale and unfathomable in the sun, and drew a 
slow breath through her nose. "I'm gonna go ahead and shoot 
down that last theory right now."

The corner of Mulder's mouth twitched toward a smile. "I 
thought you believed in the devil, Scully."

"I don't believe he wears a hoodie."

"Lucifer, Jr.? In his rebellious phase?"

Scully sighed. "You think the devil has been impregnating 
women of southern New Mexico?"

Mulder shook his head, shifted his position to rest one 
hand on his hip and lean more heavily against the car. 
Scully folded her arms across her chest, and he told 
himself this was to keep his wild theories at a distance 
and not him. "Is that so different from the alien abduction 
theories? Impregnation with alien/human hybrid babies?"

"Mulder, you don't honestly believe these are devil 
babies."

"No, I don't. But neither do I believe that we should 
discount what may be a folkloric explanation for a real 
phenomenon yet to be understood."

Scully closed her eyes and tilted her head in acquiescence. 
"I don't know," she said, "I just wish we had something a 
little more factual and a little less theoretical to work 
off of, right now."

"I'm with you there."

As if on cue, Scully's phone rang. She fished the phone out 
of her pocket, then said with a glance up at him, "It's the 
M.E." She swiped the screen and accepted the call. 

"Hello?...Yes, this is she....Dr. Johanson." She flicked 
her gaze up to Mulder's as she spoke the man's name. "You 
did....yeah, I'd say. Can you think of any other reason for 
those numbers?...Okay....Yes, we're about to speak with 
Sheriff Aster right now. I appreciate you following up on 
this. ...Thank you."

Scully hung up the call, kept the phone cradled in her hand 
and looked up at Mulder.

He lifted his eyebrows in question.

"The coroner checked Mr. Garcia's body for radiation."

"And?"

"And it wasn't off the charts, but the numbers definitely 
showed a degree of exposure that can't be explained in 
normal circumstances. Not for a school teacher."

"Johanson has no idea what could have caused that?"

She shook her head. "The burn on Mr. Garcia's arm gave off 
the highest readings. But there were traces across the 
body. Johanson asked us to ask Sheriff Aster to check the 
clothes Mr. Garcia was wearing during the crash. They're 
still being held in evidence."

"All right."

"Mulder, where are the clothes you were wearing yesterday?"

Mulder shifted his weight and bit the inside of his cheek. 
"Most of them are on me now."

Scully's mouth twitched in a response he couldn't quite 
pinpoint between amusement and disapproval. "I'm thinking 
we should scan our own clothes for radiation, just in case 
there's something out at the accident site. Maybe the same 
energy source is interfering with the functioning of the 
cars."

Mulder nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

*****

Filing the report at the sheriff's office proved less 
tedious than Scully had feared. They were able to get the 
name of the auto shop that had investigated Joseph Garcia's 
car, the same place that was currently analyzing their 
first rental. Turns out it was done in a place in El Paso 
that routinely worked with the police. So Ed Monroe had 
been telling the truth about having no recent dealings with 
Mr. Garcia and his car.

Aster dug up a spare Geiger counter, and Scully ran a quick 
scan over Mulder. The readings weren't high, but he wasn't 
clean either. This lead to a detour back to their hotel for 
Mulder to change clothes and bag the first ensemble as 
evidence. Scully took the opportunity to gather her own 
previous outfit and found her clothes giving off faint 
readings as well. They dropped both outfits back at the 
station to be held for the time being, and Aster promised 
to dig Joseph Garcia's clothes out of evidence for a scan. 
They were finally free to check out the site of the 
reported lights.

As Mulder guided the car back onto the highway, Scully took 
the opportunity to re-hydrate. The clouds were increasing 
and occasionally blocked the sun, but the temperature was 
still steadily rising. As Scully reached for her water 
bottle, Mulder, eyes still on the road, tapped the back of 
her hand with something cold. She glanced over to see 
another bottle of her favorite lemonade balanced in his 
long fingers.

She took the bottle and he returned his hand to the wheel, 
eyes still on the road. Scully gazed at his profile with an 
incredulous grin. "Mulder, where did you get it this time?"

He shrugged. "Vending machine at the station. Grabbed it 
when I went to pee."

The gesture was a small thing, a stupid thing to fixate on, 
really. They had always done such things as partners, made 
sure the other had enough to eat or drink on their crazy 
marathon cases, learned each other's patterns and developed 
their own little survival rituals. But something about the 
lemonade on this trip felt less about survival and more 
about doing something to make her smile. And Scully 
couldn't deny the delicious warmth that trickled through 
her body whenever he made his offering. "Thank you," she 
said softly.

Mulder gave a brief nod, but Scully could see the traces of 
a satisfied grin on his lips.

She popped open the bottle and took a long drink of the 
sweet liquid. She was going to have to work out at some 
point to make up for these calories.

Mulder glanced between the map he had printed out from God 
knew where online (he claimed all the new satellite maps 
contained too much disinformation to be useful) and the lay 
of the road ahead of them. He poked a finger at the map. 
"Scully, if this is the clearing coming up here on the 
right, doesn't that mean the county road running the other 
side of the field is where our car accident happened?"

Scully picked up the map and studied it for a moment, 
comparing the not-entirely-scale sketch to her 
surroundings. "Yeah, I think you're right. You don't...I 
mean, you're not saying..."

Mulder glanced at her and waggled his eyebrows. 
"Electronics malfunctioning or shutting down all together 
during UFO encounters? Cars mysteriously stalling before an 
alien sighting or abduction and miraculously restarting 
when the ship has passed? Missing time? Malfunctioning 
camera batteries in the presence of strange lights? Radio 
interference? Traces of radiation in crop circles, often 
posited to be UFO landing sites?" He shook his head and 
turned back toward the road. "I would never." The slightest 
trace of a grin graced his otherwise straight expression.

Scully watched his profile with a rush of amusement and 
affection and some weird kind of nostalgia that was the 
landscape of their lives. This was her Mulder. Driving 
through the desert, or maybe a northwestern rainstorm with 
a can of orange spray paint and the uncrushable enthusiasm 
of a 12-year-old with a new comic book. And for that moment 
Scully felt like everything that had confused and tangled 
and darkened the space between them in all the blurry and 
treacherous intervening years had simply vanished on the 
desert winds and they were Mulder and Scully driving the 
country, searching for aliens and vampires and government 
cover-ups of psychic experiments. Mulder was lighting up 
like a kid on Christmas morning at the suggestion of the 
unexplained and Scully was good-naturedly poking holes in 
his theories and they were eating fast food and drinking 
lemonade and hiking through muddy woods and she felt like 
she had found her place in the world where she could be 
most herself.

This was how she liked her Mulder.

"What?" Mulder queried, catching her expression as he took 
the map back from her slack fingers, double-checking his 
location against the car's (apparently unreliable) GPS.

Scully couldn't quite suppress her affectionate smile. 
"Nothing," she said sweetly. "I just like seeing you like 
this."

Mulder's brow furrowed a little, torn between confusion and 
the contagiousness of her smile, and for that moment in the 
sun he was simply the sparkling and infuriating and 
boyishly intoxicating Fox Mulder she had fallen in love 
with somewhere among trashy motel rooms and infinite rental 
cars and a voice through the haze in her hospital room so 
very many years ago. Long before she had admitted the 
emotion to herself.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go check out your hot spot."

Mulder gladly followed her lead.

Which made the next moment so much more painful.

The flashback hit her like a drug straight to the vein. One 
moment she was as comfortable as she had been in ages, 
riding beside Mulder beneath an endless desert sky, and the 
next her subconscious answered her passive contentment with 
a cruel and ground-shaking replay of how she had come to 
this place in their lives.


//////////

Scully pulls the car to the side of the dusty road and 
turns off the engine. She sits in the quiet for a long 
time, just listening to the soft shush of the wind in the 
surrounding trees. The light has nearly bled from the day. 
Scully almost returned to her small apartment in the city 
she keeps for the 36-hour shifts. But she told Mulder she 
would be home tonight. And she is exhausted and she should 
want to go home. But the truth is the thought of the place 
turns her stomach. She prays every time she steps through 
the door that he will greet her with a smile, with 
enthusiasm for some new project. Every once in a while he 
does, and she lets it rekindle her hope that this is a 
turning point; a sign of change that will lead them back 
into the light. But it never lasts. She has been working 
for so many hours this time she can't remember when her 
shift officially started or ended, and she just doesn't 
have the energy to walk into that house and try to drag 
Mulder out of his office, out of his spirals, out of his 
darkness. 

She breathes for a long time in the quiet. Then she starts 
the car and keeps driving. 

She doesn't try calling out "hello" when she enters. She 
takes off her coat and makes her way to the shuttered room 
he calls his office. He glances briefly over his shoulder. 
Says only, "Hey. I'll be out in a little while." 

She nods. Doesn't reply. He continues pouring over the 
papers sprawled on the desk in front of him. She goes to 
the kitchen and tries to come up with something for dinner. 
She can't remember the last time she ate an actual meal at 
a table with utensils. There is little food to work with 
here. He hasn't shopped while she was away despite the list 
she left on the table. 

She patches something together and calls him to dinner, but 
he doesn't come. 

She doesn't even know what set him off this time, what path 
dead-ended, what small frustration broke the camel's back. 
But she tries again to rouse him, and before she can stop 
it, they are having the same fruitless argument again, 
spinning in the same desperate circles. He is fighting the 
endless battle of his lifetime, but he's doing it now with 
his hands tied behind his back. He's drowning and he can't 
see he's swimming down. He won't let it go. 

"Mulder, you need to get out of this room. Get into the 
sunlight. Do something else. There's more to life, more to 
you, than this quest!" 

"What? What more is there, Scully? What am I supposed to 
do? Everything I have done has failed. I couldn't protect 
my sister, I couldn't protect my mother." His skin shimmers 
with sweat, his brow furrowing and ridged and worn. "I 
couldn't protect you, your sister, your health. Your 
daughter, OUR SON. I gave everything to finding the truth, 
and look where I am." 

"You've helped people. We've saved people. The work we did 
had merit. Just because you didn't change the whole world, 
doesn't mean you didn't make a difference. That you can't 
still make a difference." 

Her words are bouncing off deaf ears. Mulder grasps at the 
back of his head, claws his hair. She can feel the electric 
energy gathering in the room like static. He shoves up from 
his desk with a violence that startles her, paces the floor 
like a caged animal. 

"It's all worthless! I'm worthless." A stack of books 
collapses at his feet as he kicks and turns, fists flexed. 
"I'm a fucking piece of shit, Scully! None of it matters, 
let them take it all!" 

Scully tries to move closer, but she's not on his radar. 
He's lost in his own pain. He shouts, screams, shoves at 
the files and stacks on his desk. A storm of paper whirls 
across the room. Mulder grasps at anything he can -- a 
paperweight, his pen holder, his coffee mug she gave him 
for Christmas. He hurls the objects toward the wall and the 
window. Ceramics shatter and skid on the cold floor. 

Scully dares two steps closer. "Mulder, STOP!" 

"It's all fucking worthless!" 

A picture frame hits the floor, and Mulder reaches for a 
box of old film reels. 

"Don't do that. Just stop!" Scully grabs at his arms, his 
wrists, but he won't let her hold him. He's stronger than 
she when he needs to be, when he wants to be. It hurts more 
than her fingers when he pulls away and the reels crash to 
the floor. 

Mulder shoves at his desk, nearly topples the whole piece 
of furniture against the fireplace. "What the fuck am I 
doing this for? What does any of it matter?" The ragged, 
desperate tone rips at her guts. She is aching and angry 
and terrified, but she won't release the grip she still has 
on his shirt. 

Scully steps up onto Mulder's chair, uses the height and 
wraps her arms around his shoulders from behind. "Mulder 
stop...stop, please, stop, stop, stop..."

He is tensed and coiled beneath her touch like a predator 
ready for the attack; the power she feels is daunting. 
Emotion and muscle and adrenaline hum like a living 
consciousness. She holds on hard. "Mulder, just stop," she 
pleads, her mantra to him, mouth close to his ear, not so 
close she will get hurt if he jerks again in her arms. 

But he doesn't fight. This time the electric vibration of 
emotion turns in on him, and she feels the trembling as the 
first sobs wrack his body. 

Mulder turns in her arms and grasps hard around her waist, 
burying his face in her chest. She stumbles under the pull 
of his weight, but she makes her way onto her knees on his 
desktop, paperclips and scraps and broken fragments digging 
through into her skin. She holds on with all her strength 
as grief shakes his body and hers. She's so exhausted she's 
sick and running on empty, but she doesn't want to fail 
him, she can't fail him. They are all they have ever had. 

"You're not worthless. You're not worthless," she repeats, 
her voice as breathless and ragged as his, her fingers 
gripping at his hair as she cradles him to her breast. 

He grasps at her, at her back, her clothes, her flesh, 
pulls, holds onto her like a drowning man clinging to a 
lifeline. The force of the need steals her breath. She 
feels small and insufficient and unqualified to stand 
against the tide. But she will not move. She will not let 
go. "I'm here," she whispers. "I'm here. We'll figure it 
out. I promise. We'll figure it out. You have so much left 
to give." 

Her heart is pounding so she feels the vibrations across 
her chest, hears the whooshing in her ears. His sobs are 
broken; she cannot feel the shard of his Christmas mug 
digging deep into her knee. The cut will leave a scar. 

Over the next hours, she offers him domesticity and comfort 
to quiet the storm in his brain. She gets him to shower. 
She coaxes him to eat some soup. She lets him rest his head 
in her lap to watch some stupid string of sitcoms on TV 
that she can't recognize or understand. 

She settles him in their bed and lets him hold onto her 
until he sleeps. 

When she is certain he will not soon wake, she slips 
quietly away. In the dimly lit kitchen, she gathers the 
supplies to make herself a cup of tea. 

While the water heats, she starts to shake. Scully slides 
down the cabinets and huddles on the floor in her pajamas, 
robe shimmering into silky puddles at her sides. She 
dissolves into silent tears on the waves of the 
aftershocks. Quietly and stealthily, she falls apart on the 
kitchen floor while her tea kettle boils dry. 

//////////


Mulder pulled the car cautiously to the side of the road 
and reached once more for the map. He was saying something 
about a thorny patch of desert and the easiest place to 
park to make it on foot to the location of the most 
prominent sightings.

Scully was shaking and nauseous. She didn't know how close 
they were to the site, she didn't care, she just had to 
move, get out of this car, into the air....

"Scully? Hey... are you okay?" His fingers brushed her 
thigh.

She fumbled with the door handle. "I'm fine," she said, 
voice threadbare and unsteady, her words anything but 
convincing. "I just need some air."

She heard him say something else behind her as she finally 
made the handle work and pushed out of the car and walked 
away. She couldn't process the words and she didn't care, 
she just had to move. She had to breathe.

*****

(end Chapter 7)