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, without whom I would probably still be sitting in a corner feeling sorry for myself and refusing to post, and to Erica who who makes me much more presentable to the world. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Oh dear gods it's been FOREVER since I posted and I am SO SORRY. It's been a rugged few months with multiple family emergencies, hospital visits, etc.. Everything but survival just got put on hold for a while. But things are finally calming down a bit (knock on wood!) so I'm back to work! I swear, the next chapter will NOT take this long! Thank you all for sticking with me and being so wonderfully patient! I really want to finish telling this story. Love to you all. Come listen to me whine about the writing process-- I mean, join me for updates on the writing process on Twitter - @Rowan_D Copyright (c) 2018 Chapter 10 They stopped at a small and slightly grungy Mexican cantina off the main road heading toward the sheriff's station. The building was freestanding adobe, the narrow windows covered in flags and fliers until barely any sunlight bled through. Once they had gotten their food, Scully suggested they sit at one of the two mildly dusty tables that stood in front of the building. Mulder was happy to comply, even if the wind meant napkin wrangling would be a bitch. The restaurant interior was more than a little claustrophobic, and the heat from the kitchen was winning over the meager air conditioning. Fresh air and space were welcome. He was growing accustomed to the desert expanse. Scully had forgone some of the spicier choices and chosen a simple taco salad from which she was now methodically removing all the black olives. Mulder started retrieving the olives from her napkin and throwing them onto the heap of jalapeno triple spice something over rice he had ordered off the intriguing picture over the counter. "So, if neither our car nor Joseph Garcia's car shows signs of tampering, where does that leave us? Pure coincidence?" Scully asked. Mulder tried to mumble something useful in reply, but he had just taken a large mouthful of triple something and could only squint and chew. Scully kept talking in his place, dipping a piece of taco into a blob of sour cream as she processed out loud. "Radiation of the levels we were detecting wouldn't have any effect on the mechanical functioning of a car. The electrical system didn't fail. Our phones didn't stop, my smart watch was still functioning." Mulder shrugged and was finally able to swallow. His throat burned from the spices, and he took a quick swig of lemonade before speaking. "Aside from notoriously inexplicable behavior of vehicles near UFO activity, I have no enlightening theories to offer." "But even if, for a moment, we accept those theories as valid, I just covered that. Aren't those stories generally based in the idea of EMF interference? And none of our other devices were affected." Mulder nodded. "Often, yes, but not always. A substantial number of reports detail inconsistent losses of functionality. For example, the watches of two members of a group of three or four passengers might stop at the same point while the rest continue. A car engine might randomly die and then start again. Radios might or might not lose signal when the engine goes dead. Certainly the loss of all electronic equipment is the most relayed version of the story, but it's not the only version ever reported." Scully popped a bite of taco in her mouth and kept talking as she crunched. "Yeah, but that's still *during* UFO activity. In close proximity to some sort of strange craft or machinery. There was no UFO activity when we crashed our car." "Do you accept that there is ever UFO activity?" Mulder questioned with a hint of a grin. He took another bite of rice and red stuff. "Aren't you the one always reminding me, Mulder? Unidentified Flying Object. There's no specification of alien origin in that description. Unidentified does not mean extraterrestrial. It only means the observer doesn't know what he's looking at. And this close to a military testing ground? I don't think an unidentified sighting needs to be an X-File at all. And what if it's something subterranean? Something we were driving over? The police or military should be looking for that as a possible source of the radiation as well." "All very valid points," Mulder said as he reached again for his lemonade. Maybe a double spicy something would have been enough. "So, I ask again -- Where does that leave us?" Mulder shook his head and gazed across the dusty plain beyond Scully's shoulder as though the answers to the universe might lie somewhere between him and the horizon. "I think it leaves us still wondering why our scruffy little informant at the high school thought we should talk to Ed Monroe." Scully quirked an eyebrow and met his gaze. "And why talking with us seemed to be the last thing Ed Monroe wanted to do." Mulder nodded and took another bite of lunch, then another sip of his lemonade. His sinuses were starting to burn. He blinked and took another bite. "So we talk to Sheriff Aster," Scully said around a mouthful of salad. "We find out what he's learned about the radiation, then find out all we can about the recent domestic calls to the Monroes' house." Mulder tried to answer, coughed, nodded, then managed, "Sounds like what we've got at the moment." *Dear God, there were more triple spices in the center of the heap than on the edges.* Scully stared at Mulder with a mildly disgusted expression, then said, "Mulder, you have got to stop ordering things when you don't know what they are." Mulder loosened his tie, took another slug of his drink, and managed to rasp out, "You might have a point." ***** The sheriff's station was quieter than they had seen thus far. An eerie stillness seemed to have settled over the whole of Verdad, as though the morning's funeral proceedings had affected the very movement of the air. The woman at the front desk sported a nametag reading 'Washington', but Mulder recognized her as 'Janet' from their first visit. Janet was listening to someone on the phone when they stepped through the doors, and she nodded to them and held up a finger. Mulder and Scully slowed to a halt in the middle of the lobby. After a moment of looking idly around, Scully reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out something small she wordlessly placed into Mulder's hand. He looked down at the small item now resting in his palm. A travel-sized packet of his favored antacids. He looked over at Scully, who gave him a brief glance in response. "I didn't think you liked this kind," he said. "I don't," she said simply. Mulder gave a small smile and lowered his gaze to the tiny treasure, feeling undeniably warm in the quiet lobby. He unwrapped the tablets and tossed two into his mouth. He wondered how long Scully had been carrying these. Janet held the phone away from her ear and covered the mouthpiece. "You're here to see the Sheriff?" she asked. "Yes," Scully said. "Is he here?" Janet nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's expecting you. We're just a little short staffed today. Go ahead and give a knock on his door." "Thank you," Mulder replied, taking a step toward the inner office. Scully moved ahead of him and knocked. The Sheriff responded promptly to Scully's sharp rap. "Come on in." Mulder pushed at the door and cautiously leaned his head inside. "Sheriff Aster?" Aster looked up from his desk and waved them inside. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, come on in. Sorry, we're running a bit of a juggling act today." "No problem." Mulder held the door for Scully, and they each took a seat in front of Aster's desk. Aster kept his gaze on his computer screen for another moment, then clicked something with his mouse and turned to face them with a deliberate inhale as though to shift internal gears. "You wanted an update on the radiation," he stated, confirming they were on the same page. The small- town preamble of friendly chit-chat had vanished this afternoon and Aster was all business. Mulder matched his demeanor to Aster's. "That would be helpful. Anything interesting come up?" Aster shook his head. "We haven't found much more than you did at this point. We're keeping the area closed to the public, and scans of the surrounding areas have come up clean so far. I met with the military liaison about an hour ago, and at this point it looks like the military may step in and take over the investigation. They're claiming it's possible we're detecting residue from missile fragments, and they want to be certain they take proper responsibility. Nobody's told me much. It's the military and...honestly, around here...they own a lot of land. And even the surrounding areas that aren't officially under their jurisdiction they tend to feel they have a certain degree of...privilege." The long-standing current of resentment beneath the sheriff's diplomatic words rang through loud and clear, and if there was anything Mulder could relate to, it was the endless frustration of running up against government authorities who played God and cut off one's best sources of information. Mulder gave a weighty nod. "Understood," he said simply. "Have your guys looked into any underground sources yet?" "No, not yet. We've mainly been doing surface scans and demarcating the contaminated areas. It took us a while to come up with all the proper protection equipment to proceed with the investigation without endangering any of our officers. We did test the water running through the underground pipes in that area, and it still meets safety standards. I can show you the report I printed up for the military liaison..." He reached across his desk and picked up a thin manila folder. Mulder nodded. "You still have authority and control over the area right now?" "Yes, sir, I don't expect that would change before tomorrow morning at the earliest." "Then with your permission, this evening Agent Scully and I would like to--" Mulder broke off his sentence when Aster's door swung open and Janet stepped into the room with a clearly concerned expression on her face. "Sheriff. Sorry to bother you, but we've got a situation." "What's going on?" Janet shifted her weight, one hand still on the doorknob, the other fidgeting restlessly with the butt of her holstered weapon. "It's Ed Monroe. He's got a gun on Vera and the kids. The little girl called it in, she's hiding outside the house." "Shit." Aster shoved to his feet, dropping the radiation report and skidding his chair. "Cars on route?" he asked as he rounded his desk. "Levi and Dawson, but they're coming from Cruces. We got half our people in training, people out at Miller's Clearing, and at Garcia's funeral -- bottom line, you're closest right now." "I'm on it." Aster turned toward Mulder and Scully with a look of tense apology, drawing a breath as though to explain, but Mulder was already pushing to his feet, feeling Scully rise behind him. He said simply, "We'll follow you." Aster hesitated, then nodded acceptance. Whatever objections he might have had to sharing his territory, this situation clearly needed expertise and manpower, and there was little choice but to accept the armed and trained help that was being offered. Mulder drove their rental car. Aster took off with full sirens and flashers, but Mulder and Scully's rental was equipped with no such advantage. Mulder did his best to ride Aster's wake as they wove through the traffic, and he found himself unusually grateful for the added maneuverability of their upgraded vehicle. Midday traffic in Verdad wasn't a particular barrier to progress, so he was able to keep pace without too much stunt work. Nearer their destination, Aster killed the sirens and drove only on flashers. Scully quietly held hard to the arm rest. She had actually been pretty quiet for a while now, which was something Mulder made a mental note to look into as soon as no one was being shot at. But Scully was all business and confidence when they rolled to a halt on the street outside the Monroes' home. The house was in a disorganized and sprawling neighborhood with a fairly wide berth between lots. As Mulder got out of the car, he scanned the surroundings for points of vulnerability, places people might be hiding, angles that would benefit snipers. Out of the corner of his eye he registered Scully doing the same. This hadn't been a planned raid; no one had taken the time to don Kevlar. The open visibility of the natural terrain worked to their advantage. The primary threats were the house itself, a minivan in the driveway, and two aging pickup trucks parked on the ragged grass at the side of the lot. A quick flash of movement near the front bumper of the closer truck had both Mulder and Scully snapping their guns to the ready. Aster's voice rang out from over their shoulders. "Kayla!" Kayla. The Monroes' daughter. Mulder angled his gun away from the girl but kept it raised. Kayla was crouched close to the ground, her dress dusty, long hair windblown and disheveled. Scully stepped up to cover Aster's back as the Sheriff jogged over to the girl and attempted to herd her toward the squad car. Kayla clutched something in her hand, and Mulder realized as she moved closer the object was a cell phone. It must have been the phone the 911 call had come from. "Come on, now, Kayla. How about you just climb in here for now," Aster was saying as he opened the door to the squad car. But Kayla balked. She shook her head hard. "No. I need to see them." "I know, Kayla, and you will, but right now you need to stay safe here and let us--" "No!" Kayla shouted, and Mulder and Scully both glanced reflexively toward the house, worried about the reaction from Monroe if he should hear and perceive them as a threat to his child. With a quick moment of eye contact with Mulder, Scully lowered her weapon and moved in close to Kayla. "Go," she said to Aster. "I'll help her." Aster looked between Scully and the frightened girl for a moment, then nodded and turned to coordinate with Mulder. Mulder let his gaze linger for a second, and he saw Scully drop to a crouch in front of Kayla. He could hear Scully speaking softly as he turned his attention back to the house, and he and Aster determined via gestures to each take one entrance. "Kayla. My name is Dana. I'm here to help." "He has a gun. My dad has a gun. I don't know what's wrong." "You did the right thing to call for help, that was very smart and very brave. Now the best thing you can do is keep yourself safe and let us help your mom and dad." "And my brother. My brother's in there, too!" "We'll look for your brother, too, sweetie, I promise. Do you know I have two brothers? So I know how you feel. Come on. The best thing you can do for your family right now is to get into Sheriff Aster's car. You'll be safe..." And then Mulder was too far out of earshot, circling to the back porch door leading into the kitchen of the home. He could hear shouting inside. The words were unclear, but the male voice was strong, and the woman's sounded distraught. Something was shoved and hit the floor hard not far from the other side of the wall Mulder was backed up against. He edged his way along the rear of the home and up the two steps onto the chipped concrete outside the rear door. The inner door stood open, only the screen remained closed, and even that hung just shy of the latch. This alone was a red flag in this part of the country. The wild winds could rip a loose and lightweight door right off its hinges. Mulder listened for a moment longer, placing by sound that Monroe would be to the right of the door as Mulder entered, and Mrs. Monroe would be farther into the house and off to his left. He couldn't determine the location of the brother. A thump and click from further back into the house signaled Aster was making his move, and Mulder took the plunge and entered at the same time. "Police! Nobody move!" Aster called out as he moved into the open stretch of kitchen and living room from the front hallway. "FBI!" Mulder shouted as he stepped in from the rear, sweeping his gun over the room, confirming the lay of the land. To his left, Mrs. Monroe and their son Nate stood wide-eyed and frozen. To Mulder's right Ed Monroe stood with a startled and furious expression, a sawed-off shotgun aimed toward his family. *Jesus fuck.* Monroe looked like a different man than the one Mulder and Scully had met at his garage only a day before. His hair was stringy and disheveled, his tanned skin beaded with sweat. Mulder wished like hell he and Scully had had the chance to ask Aster for a little more background on Monroe's case before they were thrown into this stand-off. Vera Monroe was dressed in a wrinkled flowered dress, her hair tied up in a disorganized twist. Nate still appeared to be dressed in his school uniform. "Get the hell out of my house!" Monroe shouted at the intruders. "This is none of your concern, Aster!" "I'm afraid this is all my concern, Ed. Now how about you tell me what's going on here? What seems to be the problem?" "She's the problem!" Ed jabbed the barrel of his rifle in the direction of his wife. "She talked to one of those demons, almost let it into our home! Now look at us! Look at where we are!" Aster took a small step farther into the room, raising the hand not on the trigger in a placating and open-palmed gesture. "All right. Just slow down, Ed. Let's take this one step at a time and figure this out. Nobody has to get hurt, today." "It's too late for that," Monroe shot back. "You can't undo it once it's done. We're cursed. They'll never stop coming. And it's her. She's the problem. Just like the Garcia girl." Mulder caught a brief flash of orange hair in the desert sun through the window behind Monroe's shoulder. Scully was making her way around the house by the same path Mulder had taken. He kept his gaze firmly on Monroe and on his weapon, giving no outward sign of what he had seen. "All right, Ed, I hear you," Aster placated. "And we can get you away from your wife if that's what you want. But you don't want anyone hurt in the process. So you got to let us help you." "You can't help me. You know that. You've never been able to help yourself." He threw a pointed look toward Aster. Mulder took a step closer to Monroe, peripherally aware of a slight shifting movement of Vera and Nate behind him. "What exactly do you want to happen here, Mr. Monroe? You need to tell us what you need if we're going to help you make it happen." "I want you and the sheriff to stop pretending you can do a damn thing to protect us and get the hell out of my house. This is about me and my wife. I'm handling this myself this time." Mulder shook his head. "No can do, Mr. Monroe. We're going to need to come up with a better compromise than that. What do you mean by 'this time'? What's happened to you before?" He was stalling, drawing Monroe out and hoping if he talked long enough he would get distracted and his wife would be successful in edging her son toward the rear door. Scully would probably be there to catch her. But Monroe was hesitant to respond to this latest line of questions. Mulder could read the anguish on the man's face, the confusion. Whatever was at the heart of this was something Monroe didn't want to or couldn't confront. Something he didn't understand and felt he could not control. And he was lashing out and falling back on the only kind of control he had ever known. Physical threat. "Vera, don't you move," Monroe ordered, addressing his family directly for the first time since Mulder's arrival. "You let the cops take you and they'll take the kids with you, and you'll get them cursed and killed. I just got Nate away from that girl. You want your kids to die like the others? Like the Garcias?" "Ed, please...," Vera Monroe whispered, voice tremulous through tears. "This isn't right. You know it." And that was when Scully took her opportunity. She did exactly what she should have done; exactly what Mulder himself would have done. She had cataloged everyone's positions in the home. She had seen Mrs. Monroe trying to place herself between her husband and her son, seen her trying to give her son a clear shot toward the back door. Scully had understood, just as Mulder had, that Nate wasn't going to leave his mother behind and run. And Scully had seen that she could step in and place herself and her weapon between Monroe and his family. She saw the opportunity and she took it, moving quietly but swiftly through the door and into the line of fire. Three guns to one and the family out of direct line of fire. This should have been the scenario they were all hoping for. The one that, if Monroe had any semblance of rationality remaining, would have led him to surrender. Instead, when Monroe saw Scully, something in him snapped. "Get her out of here! Get her away from my house!" he shouted, voice raspy and bordering on hysterical. There was panic in his eyes. "Monroe, just calm down!" Aster called out. "Agent Scully is a federal officer. We all want the same thing here. We don't want anyone to get hurt--" "Shut up! You're fucking one of them, too! But it's the women they come for. Like my wife." He gestured toward Scully with his shotgun. "She's one of them. I saw her scar! They've taken her and she's gonna draw them back to my house. Get her out of here!" "Monroe, if you put down the gun, we can all get out of here, and everybody gets what they want. You just need to--" The order of events had to be sorted later in Mulder's mind. He knew he was thinking God bless Scully and her uncanny ability to read body language. Because somehow, Monroe must have telegraphed the shot before he fully pulled the trigger. Which gave Scully just enough time to dive out of the line of fire and let the blast blow a hole in the kitchen wall, but not enough time to regain her stance and the aim on her weapon, before Monroe hurled himself toward her and grabbed her with his arm around her throat. Monroe's movement was wild and clumsy. Because somewhere in the second between the shot at Scully and the end point of Monroe's dive, Mulder had fired his weapon and caught Monroe in the thigh. As the gun smoke settled, Monroe was on the floor with his back against the side of the couch. Scully's back was plastered to his side with his death grip around her throat. Monroe's gun was gone and so was Scully's, but the chokehold was real. Monroe was bleeding across the floor, and Mulder and Aster were still standing several feet away with guns trained on the two on the floor. Mulder didn't know where the knife had come from or when it had started pressing into Scully's throat. "Get my wife out of here!" Monroe shouted. "Keep her away from my son! Just give me my boy and my daughter and let us leave! We have the right to leave!" Aster shook his head slowly and said, "Ed, you just fired at a federal agent and now you've got a knife to her throat. I'm afraid you just gave up your right to anything but a fair trial for a little while, now." Monroe cinched his hold on Scully's throat, and Mulder felt sick at the soft whimper of pain this forced from Scully's lips. "What if I take her with me? Hunh?? You gonna risk her life stopping me?" "Mr. Monroe, you're not going anywhere with that bullet in your leg. You need medical attention and fast. You're losing a lot of blood." Mulder gestured toward the wound with his weapon, speaking as calmly as he could. His aim was still on Monroe's chest, but Scully was so close, could so easily be shifted into the path of the bullet. "Screw that!" Monroe snarled. There was a raggedness bleeding into his words that spoke of pain and fatigue. "I can fix that myself." "And isn't that your driving leg?" Mulder prompted. "My son can drive." "Your boy's not going anywhere with you, Ed," Aster said firmly. "Then maybe I'll make this little lady of yours drive for me. I'm sure she can handle that." Mulder needed to keep Monroe talking, keep him distracted. He could see what Scully was doing. She was still dressed in a skirt and heels from the funeral services this morning. And Monroe wasn't holding her hands, only her throat. She was slowly sliding her leg up underneath her and reaching down to take her shoe in her hand. Everything about this plan was a risk. The knife was digging into her skin, drawing a pinpoint drop of blood. Any sudden movement and an involuntary muscle contraction could gouge the blade into her carotid artery. "But didn't you say Scully would draw them to you?" Mulder said. "Isn't that what you're trying to get away from? That's not what you want, is it, Mr. Monroe. For your son or your daughter? A life on the run? Wasn't the point to protect your children, give them a more normal life?" "This is HER fault!" he blurted with renewed venom, shooting his anger toward his wife. "She listened to them! That's what they wanted. They wanted to use her. Use all of us!" Mulder nodded. "I know. I understand. They took my sister when I was young. I never saw her again." Mulder was aware of a brief sideways glance from Aster, and he subconsciously noted the need for a conversation later if they ever got themselves out of this mess. Nate's voice suddenly called out from where he and his mother had moved behind Mulder, startling them all with its sudden introduction to the mix. "Dad, just stop! I'll go with you, okay? You can take me prisoner, get out that way. Mariela won't follow me, now. Just don't hurt anyone else." Monroe's eyes locked onto his son's, a mix of whirlwind emotion playing out across the man's face, but no one ever got to hear what his reply might have been. In what felt like a single heartbeat, Scully grasped her shoe and slammed the point of her heel into Monroe's gunshot wound. When Monroe flinched and screamed in pain and frustration, his grip on Scully tightened for just a moment, and Mulder heard her gasp of pain, but then his hold faltered, and Scully turned and used all her power to slam the heel of her hand up under Monroe's jaw. In the first moment Monroe was stunned, Scully scrambled back across the floor and snatched up her weapon from where it had slid up against an end table. That was all it took for Aster and Mulder to be all over Monroe. Scully was on her knees, gun trained hard on Monroe as they worked. When Aster had kicked all Monroe's weapons away and secured the handcuffs, Mulder took a hard look at Scully. A line of blood trickled down the side of her neck, but it was only a trickle. The blade hadn't hit anything vital. She was breathing heavily and shaking, but he knew she could still fire and hit her target better than he. "Scully, you all right?" She nodded tersely, eyes and weapon still tight on Monroe. "I'm fine." Their breathing seemed thunderous in the descending silence. ***** Scully could see Mulder scanning the crowd for her a moment before his gaze found hers. She imagined she had pulled his eyes to hers with partner power. The house that had seemed so threatening an hour before now seemed like an innocent bungalow dwarfed by the sheer number of vehicles and uniformed officers littered across its grounds. Mulder made his way to the sheltered corner Scully had adopted for herself, a little away from the crowd, sitting back on the hood of their rental car. "Hey," he said, stepping into her space. His tone was careful, deliberately casual, but she could feel the suppressed urgency. His gaze slipped momentarily to the bandage on the side of her throat. She offered him a brief melancholic smile and closed her eyes against the midday sun above his shoulder, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. She was suddenly overwhelmingly tired in the aftermath. "You sure you're all right?" Mulder asked, resting his hands on his hips. She could actually see the restlessness in his limbs. "You don't want the paramedics to take you in, let you get checked out?" Scully drew a breath and summoned her voice. "I'm fine, Mulder. Nothing an ice pack and some Advil won't take care of. I am starting to think a desk job doesn't sound as bad as it used to, though." She winced as she brought a hand to the back of her neck. She hadn't yet recovered from the car crash before this happened to compound the soreness. Mulder offered a kind smile, but Scully could see the worry still in his eyes, the way his fingers toyed with his belt loop as he tried not to touch her in the middle of a crime scene. She couldn't deny the concern made her feel better. She wasn't seriously hurt, she really didn't need medical attention, but she had to admit she had lost some of her endurance when it came to the emotional aspects of these types of close calls; the feelings of violation that came with the physical assaults. She was still confident in her ability to handle herself, still willing to do her job, but her more youthful sense of invincibility that had carried her into perilous situations and back out on a regular basis was waning a bit in her fifties. Maybe she had lost too much momentum in her years as a doctor. Or maybe she simply had been slammed around enough for one career. That was a dangerous train of thought. Scully locked it away with her practiced mental discipline, dredged up her steel reserves, and pushed to her feet. "We should head to the station," she said, "file our reports." She walked just a little closer to Mulder than necessary, brushing the length of her side heavily against his as she passed. He felt the deliberate moment, and ever so subtly brushed the backs of his fingers against her hip as she passed. She pretended the brief exchange didn't tighten her throat for a breath. Aster gave a quick nod of acknowledgment to Scully as he crossed her path on his way to approach Mulder. The two men probably thought she was too far out of earshot when she heard Aster say, "She's quite a fighter, that partner of yours." Scully closed her eyes as Mulder replied, "You have no idea." ***** (End Chapter 10)