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, to Erica who makes me much more 
presentable to the world, and a warm welcome to dear 
Miriam, my Water's Edge beta from way back in the day, now 
back to kick my ass in line once more!


Copyright (c) 2019

Chapter 16

 
//////////

They have been working 16-hour marathons for too many days 
in a row. But they have finally caught the fucker. What 
looked like a case of a shape-shifting blood-sucker has 
turned out to be nothing but a sick human being with a 
taste for the blood of young boys. But they have him in 
custody, and the amount of evidence piling up against him 
shows good promise of an eventual conviction. They are back 
in Washington and have been tying up loose ends most of the 
day. When Mulder finally finds his way to their basement 
office, he finds Scully is already there.

She is seated in the chair that faces his desk, legs 
crossed, hand shading her eyes. She looks elegant and 
polished, but also more than a little exhausted. He is 
already in the doorway, and she doesn't seem to have heard 
his approach.

"You look like I feel," he says amicably.

She lifts her head with a sharp intake of air through her 
nose. Her only reply is a soft hum in the back of her 
throat. Her eyes are a little red, and he puts it down to 
lack of sleep.

Mulder shrugs out of his suit jacket and hangs it over the 
back of his desk hair. He takes a moment to look at his 
partner, really look at her as she stares, unseeing, at 
some meaningless point on his desk. There is a weariness in 
the soft skin beneath her eyes that worries him. It's not 
just the lack of sleep. He has learned her in their six 
years together, knows her well enough to know the subtle 
differences in how her body reacts to varied sources of 
stress. He imagines she knows him just as well.

"It looks like Mahoney is going to agree to testify, in 
exchange for federal protection," he says. "That's a huge 
break for us."

"Oh, that is good news," she says. "A jury will really 
respond to his experience." The words are what they should 
be, but her tone is lacking attachment to the meaning.

Mulder rounds the desk and sinks to a crouch in front of 
his partner, close enough to feel her there, not close 
enough to intrude or push. "Hey," he says softly, and she 
meets his gaze at the note of intimacy. "We've done enough 
here. You should go home. Get some sleep in your own bed."

Scully swallows a little stiffly, but she nods. "I will."

Mulder rests a hand on her knee, only her thin nylons 
separating their skin. He decides to be brave for them 
both. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm just tired." The answer is like a reflex, 
like an autoreply out-of-office email.

Mulder holds her gaze, moves him thumb softly along the 
bumps and curves of her knee. There's a scar there. From a 
gravel cut on a case long ago. He draws a long breath, lets 
it go. "Scully." He softens his tone, wills the tender 
inflection to worm its way beneath her armor. "I know 
you've been having a hard time. For a while, now."

She bristles, the tension ripples through her leg, but she 
is outwardly calm, controlled. "I'm not having a hard 
time," she says. "I just haven't..." He sees the moment 
when it gets to her. The closeness, the intensity of his 
gaze, his lack of armor, the intimacy of his hand on her 
knee. And for once, she can't quite pull off the lie. Nor 
can she speak the truth. She exhales heavily and lets the 
unspoken words ring between them.

Mulder goes on as if she had not contradicted him. "What I 
don't know is exactly why."

Scully's gaze settles on her own lap, and she breathes 
slowly, like she is pulling her way through a swamp.

"You know you can talk to me," he whispers.

"I know. I'm okay. I just..."

His thumb continues its gentle circles on her knee. "Tell 
me."

She takes her time, releases her breath in a defeated sigh, 
and he ignores the familiar sting when the act of opening 
up to him seems to equate in her head with failure. "I 
guess...I'm having a little trouble with...the violence. 
The cruelty we've had to watch. There have been several 
cases in a row that just... I'm a little overloaded. It's 
happened before, I--I can do the work, I'll get it back. I 
just need..." She fades out, swallows again.

"A break? Sunlight? A bath?" he offers, smiling sadly, 
letting her know he has been in the place she is currently 
caught.

This wins him a sad chuckle and a moment of genuine eye 
contact. "Something like that, yeah."

"Scully, I get it. We all burn out in this job if we don't 
look out for ourselves."

"Right. And you do that how exactly?"

He nods, purses his lips. "I think this is a 'do as I say, 
not as I do' kind of situation. But seriously, Scully. If 
you need it, take some time off."

She shakes her head. "No, I'm...I'm fine. I'll work it out. 
We have too much going on right now."

"We always have too much going on. The world won't fall 
down, I promise. I'll hold it together for you. Maybe you 
should take a vacation. Go sit on the beach for a while."

She lowers her gaze, tries to smile, loses it, and says 
softly, "Maybe."

He catches something there, but this time he can't quite 
read between the lines.

Before he can try to draw her out, she continues. "No, 
I'm..." She reaches up restlessly, rubs and scratches at 
the back of her neck, soothing the tense muscles there. "Do 
you want to just get some dinner? Somewhere nicer than we 
usually end up?"

There is a split second where he almost defaults to sending 
her home and staying to work -- she is not the only one of 
them to hide behind routine -- but he catches the slight 
extra layer of pleading in her eyes, and he says, "I can do 
that. Let's get some dinner."

They gaze at one another in silence, soaking in the simple 
fact of their nearness, of the quiet, of the familiarity of 
their basement nest. Then Mulder pushes to his feet as he 
says, "Just let me check my email, then we'll take off, 
okay?" She nods, and before he can stop the impulse, Mulder 
cups his hand to the back of her neck, leans in, and places 
a tender kiss on her forehead.

She blinks and turns away. She stands and busies herself in 
the corner with file folders and her briefcase, and he 
thinks for only a passing moment that he catches a 
reflection of tears in her eyes.

//////////


The lights were moving as he moved, dancing in the night 
sky like fireflies chasing the moon.

Mulder had seen the first glimpses of the lights from his 
post inside the car, uncertain if what he had been seeing 
had really been the lights the locals had talked about or 
perhaps just military aircraft over White Sands Missile 
Range. Couldn't have been commercial aircraft, this whole 
area was off limits. His first gentle attempt to rouse 
Scully had proved unsuccessful, so he had settled her on 
his suit jacket and gotten out of the car to investigate.

Now he was following the path of the lights as they seemed 
to lead him farther and farther from the car. The brightest 
spots in the sky moved in a tight group of three, turning 
and darting in synchrony, but stretching and losing their 
shape just enough to distinguish them as three separate 
objects, not lights on three corners of one ship.

Mulder's focus was so intently upward, giving only cursory 
glances to his terrestrial surroundings, it took him longer 
than it should have to recognize that the shadowed shapes 
of cars in the distance were not teenagers trying to sneak 
a peek at the phenomenon or simply stealing some time away 
from watchful parental eyes.

They were a barricade of black sedans. And in front of them 
stood a veritable wall of armed men in suits and uniforms.

Mulder skidded to a halt in the shadow of the encroaching 
mountains, still a few hundred yards from the intimidating 
roadblock. The lights overhead flickered and increased 
their speed as they moved farther away. His attention 
focused on the men in front of him.

"Agent Mulder. We're going to have to ask you to leave." 
The words came from the tallest man in the center of the 
group. He took several steps forward, away from the others. 
A dark-haired hulk of a man in an expensive suit, wearing 
sunglasses even in this darkest of night. Faint lights from 
the cars illuminated the scene.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Mulder called, giving a quick 
futile glance toward the sky where the lights were darting 
off into oblivion, one at a time.

The men surrounding the spokesman shifted and moved 
gradually forward, like a lolling wave at a sandy 
shoreline. The figures were a mixture of similar black 
suits and dark glasses and men in what looked at first 
glance like military uniform. But upon closer inspection in 
the glimmers of light, the uniforms seemed to be lacking 
the insignias of any recognizable branch of US military.

"We work for the United States government, and you are 
treading on a quarantined area, Mr. Mulder," the spokesman 
said. "Please retreat to your vehicle at once and depart 
the area."

"I work for the United States government as well, I'm an 
agent with the FBI. But I'm guessing you already knew 
that."

The men in the black suits did not react, but one of the 
men in camouflage took a step closer and tightened his 
grasp on his unnecessarily over-the-top firepower.

"What were those lights in the sky?" Mulder asked. "Is that 
what you're protecting? Are they the source of the 
radiation in this area? The cause of the accidents?"

The spokesman responded easily, unaffected by Mulder's 
accusations. "No civilians have been harmed by the work 
being done here. I believe you heard about the radiation 
seepage. That is being taken care of as quickly and 
efficiently as possible. But we can only keep the people of 
Verdad safe if you remove yourself from this restricted 
area as we have asked you to do. This is a military 
operation now, Mr. Mulder."

"You said you worked for the government. Are you military? 
All of you? What branch?"

"We're going to ask you one more time, Mr. Muld--"

"*Agent* Mulder."

"--to go back to your vehicle, take your partner, and clear 
this area. This area is under military jurisdiction now. 
You do not have clearance. This is no longer your concern."

Everything within Mulder was telling him this was all 
wrong. This man was not military, he wasn't telling the 
truth, none of them were. None of these vehicles had come 
from White Sands. But he was becoming viscerally aware of 
just how far out in the middle of nowhere he was and with 
no immediate backup. Of how many more of them there were 
than of him and how easy it would be to make him disappear 
into the night. Or Scully. Who was asleep, temporarily 
defenseless. And clearly they knew where she was. Returning 
to their car as fast as possible suddenly seemed like the 
only right choice.

When two more of the armed "soldiers" took a step closer, 
weapons catching the light from the cars, Mulder 
reflexively took a step back and raised his hands. "All 
right. Okay, my mistake. I was just following up on some 
information. But I can see you gentleman have everything 
under control."

"That we do, *Agent* Mulder," the spokesman droned with an 
air of superiority and power that made Mulder's skin crawl.

He swallowed the disgust, focused on Scully, and started 
moving backwards the way he had come. "I'm going," he 
called out.

"I suggest you do just that. We will give you a chance to 
leave by the most direct path possible. Do not confuse this 
with a request. Fail to do so, and we will be required to 
use force. For the safety of the people."

Something in the flat tone of the words made Mulder's 
stomach grow cold, and he was suddenly certain he was in 
more danger than he had been in a long time.

He continued to move in reverse until he was fairly 
confident no one was going to immediately pursue or shoot 
him in the back if he turned, then he darted behind a small 
outcropping of trees and broke into a run.


*****

"Can we come inside? It's so cold."

Scully's trembling breath was too loud in the otherwise 
silent car.

The taller, closer child's long fingers pressed to the 
glass, the moonlight falling on her hooded figure from an 
angle, reflecting on the bottomless pit of her black eyes. 
"You found her again, didn't you? We learned from you," the 
child said.

Scully felt herself moving, caught in a dream-like state of 
disconnect between her conscious intents and her actions. 
She wondered if she was still dreaming, if she had never 
awakened at all, if she was still sleeping soundly on 
Mulder's shoulder.

Her fingers came to the window, meeting the child's hand on 
the glass, so close, all but touching. "Do you remember?" 
the girl asked.

"Who are you?" Scully whispered.

For a split second the car and the clearing and the New 
Mexico moonlight were gone, images and sounds cutting 
across Scully's reality like stuttered flashes from an 
intruding broadcast frequency.


//////////

Silver walls. Hard benches that hurt her hips. The tall 
sentry that hovered every time Scully was allowed in this 
room. It felt like a female, the one who tended to her, but 
she could not tell male from female among these creatures.
Light that make the world look like an old pale film.

//////////


The soft seat of the sporty rental.

The desert sky.


//////////

A loud buzz from some kind of electronics close by her ear.
The tiny bundle of warmth being passed into her arms. The 
soft sigh and pale skin in the unnatural light.

//////////


"Scully!"

She jerked upright in the car at the sound of Mulder's 
voice. Her fingers fell away from the glass as she whipped 
her head in the direction of the call. Mulder's familiar 
figure broke out of the shadows at a run, and when Scully 
turned back, the children outside the car had gone. No 
trace or whisper of movement across the open expanse that 
was much too far for them to have run.

The desperation physically hurt.

Mulder hit the car door with a smack and jerked it open. 
"We gotta get out of here, Scully," he said, jamming the 
key into the ignition.

Scully had been half across the driver's seat, and she slid 
back into her corner of the car as he shoved his way into 
action. Her movements were a little sluggish; she had 
probably still been sleeping. "Mulder, what's going on?"

He looked over his shoulder, scanned the clearing as he 
shifted into reverse. "The military's here. Or something 
like the military. And they're pissed." Was that movement 
in the distance? A glow of lights?

He revved the engine and proceeded to execute a sloppy but 
effective three-point-turn. Beside him, Scully scanned the 
clearing, the distant outcropping of trees, but somewhere 
in his periphery he registered that she seemed to be 
looking for something else, something other than what he 
had just warned her about.

"Something *like* the military?" Scully asked. "What are 
you talking about?"

"I'll explain later, but they're armed and they're 
determined, so I suggest we leave now, theorize later."

Scully didn't protest. But they hadn't driven more than a 
hundred yards when she whipped her head as if to keep sight 
of something that had blurred past. "Mulder, stop the car!"

Her words refused to make sense to him. Every cell in his 
body was driving forward to move them away, get them to 
safety.

He glanced between Scully and the road. "What?!"

"Mulder, stop the car!" She was straining to see over her 
shoulder, knuckles white on the handle of the door, body 
coiled for flight.

"Scully, we need to get out of here, we need to get as far 
as--"

"Mulder--"

"Guns, Scully, really big--"

She whirled on him, all flowing hair and fiery eyes and 
force. "JUST STOP THE CAR!"

He reacted on instinct. Partner trust overrode all else. He 
slowed the car as quickly as he could without plunging them 
both through the windshield.

Scully was out the door before the vehicle had come to a 
complete halt, and then she was running back up the path 
from which they had come. Mulder saw her pull her gun from 
the small of her back as he himself rounded the car to 
follow.

He took off at a full run. She was far ahead and fast. The 
woman could show impressive speed for the comparative 
length of her legs. He wanted to call out to her, but 
clearly they were not alone in this desert clearing. One 
group was chasing them, and perhaps Scully was chasing 
another, and he didn't know friend from foe on this prickly 
ground. He searched the horizon for the glow of lights.

The darkness was deep and wide. He pushed his pace before 
he could lose sight of Scully altogether in the blackness.

He slid up beside her when she slowed to a halt in a patch 
of scraggly trees just off the makeshift road. Scully was 
squinting into the dimness, scanning the borders of 
visibility, weapon still drawn but resting at her shoulder. 
He noted that she wasn't flashing a light around. She had 
at least registered the reality of the threat from which he 
had been running.

"Scully...what are we doing?" he asked, a little 
breathless, still expecting the men in uniform to break 
into view any moment.

"Did you see them?" She still hadn't made eye contact, she 
was vibrating with driven energy, pacing a tight pattern, 
scanning the edges of their visible bubble in the darkness.

"See *who?* Scully--"

"You didn't see them?"

He shook his head. "Who? The men following us? The pseudo-
military? Did you see them?"

But she pushed this off, "No."

"Scully, we need to get out of here."

The wild run when she had been asleep perhaps only minutes 
ago seemed to catch up with her. She sagged with an exhale 
that rang too much of defeat and desperation, and for a 
second she propped her hands on her knees to catch her 
breath.

Mulder touched a compelling hand to her shoulder blade. 
"Scully, we've gotta go. These guys gave us a time limit, 
and I really don't think they're fucking around."

She nodded, took another look around them as she 
straightened her stance, but he was infinitely grateful 
when she joined him in a focused jog back toward their car.

Once they reached the highway, the ride to the motel was 
mercifully uneventful. Mulder kept a watchful eye on the 
review mirror, changed lanes in erratic patterns that did 
more to make him feel better than to offer any kind of 
genuine protection. But they did not seem to have been 
followed.

"Who do you think you saw?" Scully asked.

Mulder shook his head, eyes on the highway. "I don't know. 
But they weren't any military that I've ever seen. 
Certainly not from White Sands. And the guys in suits were 
wearing sunglasses. I wouldn't be able to see my hand in 
front of my face out there in sunglasses."

"But you said they knew your name?"

"And yours. They knew who we were, and they knew we were 
out here. Maybe all night, or even last night as well. 
Seems they were willing to let it go as long as we didn't 
come any closer. But apparently I crossed their invisible 
trigger line."

"Do you think this had anything to do with the lights you 
saw? That they were hiding whatever was happening tonight?"

Mulder shrugged. "I don't know. But they sure as hell 
weren't out there just because of a radiation leak."

As they approached their exit, Mulder tried again to ask 
Scully what she had been running after, but he couldn't get 
anything more out of her than, "I thought I saw someone. 
They were by the car before." Which told him nothing, but 
he focused on the road and getting them back to their rooms 
in one piece.

Pulling into the parking lot, they found a family with 
young kids unloading their car into an open room a few 
doors down. Mulder hoped for this family's sake he and 
Scully hadn't brought any danger back with them tonight.

Scully got out of the car the moment they were parked, but 
she lingered a few steps away, waiting for him to walk in 
with her.

Mulder gathered his things, closed the car, and moved up 
beside her. The kids were yelling to one another, something 
about the air conditioner and who got which side of the 
bed. The mixture of annoyance and camaraderie in their 
voices reminded Mulder of himself and Samantha on childhood 
road trips. He wondered just what the four Scully children 
had been like in their younger days. Mulder touched his 
fingers to the small of Scully's back, and her muscles 
twitched, but she didn't move away. "You want to tell me 
now what happened back there?" he tried once more.

Her focus settled onto his hand holding his crumpled suit 
jacket. She shook her head. "I told you I saw someone."

"You did. Mind telling me who? Could it have been one of 
the men I saw?"

She drew an uneven breath, exhaled in concession and 
something in him untangled. He continued to be viscerally 
grateful every time she let him in for a moment. Every time 
the years of intimate trust between them proved to mean 
something. "It was the kids," she said. "The Black-Eyed 
Kids, I guess... Not the kids who were arrested. They were 
at the car window. And they told me something. 
Maybe...projected something to me."

"Projected something to you? What does that mean?"

"I don't know. A memory. I saw fragments of it in my head. 
But I think we got interrupted, and I...I didn't 
understand."

"You remembered something?"

She shifted, moved a half step away. A flash of light from 
the security lamps reflected as her hair moved, and he 
realized she was still wearing the glass earrings. "Not 
really. Not enough. I just...I really don't want to talk 
right now. I don't feel well."

That got his attention. "You don't feel well? What's wrong? 
Did they do something--"

"No, it's not that, I...my stomach hurts."

Mulder let that settle in, weighed the layers, then he said 
carefully, "Okay. Are you okay? Are you coming down with 
something?"

She shook her head dismissively. "I'm fine. I just want to 
get a shower and some sleep."

"Scully--"

"We'll talk in the morning." She finally lifted her gaze to 
meet his, raised an eyebrow for emphasis. "I promise."

"Scully, just tell me..."

"I'm okay." She offered a reassuring if unconvincing smile 
and rested her open hand on his chest. He felt it when a 
deliberate pressure in her touch and a lingering of her 
gaze reached out to him, to acknowledge the intimacy and 
significance of what had passed between them earlier today. 
She was telling him without words that she was still there, 
that this had nothing to do with that.

He sighed into the night air, pleading with his eyes, but 
she gave a soft pat to his chest and turned and walked 
away.

****

The moment Scully closed the door to her room, she started 
to shake. Everything that had happened since she woke in 
the car seemed surreal. She couldn't process the sequence 
of events that had carried her from there to here. She was 
cataloging case information like a computer, going through 
the motions, could have recited the order of events with 
clinical accuracy, but her reality felt suspended somewhere 
between dark eyes in the desert night and a visceral memory 
of a lifetime ago.

She slipped out of her suit jacket, dropped her briefcase 
unceremoniously to the floor, and sank to sit on the edge 
of her bed. She slipped out of her heeled shoes, then 
lifted them to pry the goat's heads from the thin soles. 
She examined the bottom of her foot where one had poked 
through and broken the skin during her run. She would clean 
it up and bandage the punctured flesh after she had had a 
shower.

She wanted to stand under the warm water for as long as 
possible, feel the blood in her veins, assure herself of 
her own grounding to reality. She wanted to wash off the 
dust and dryness and isolation of this place.

Scully slipped out of her work clothes and fished her 
lounge wear from her bag, hanging the change of clothes on 
the towel rack as she let the shower water run and warm the 
room.

She was rinsing her lemon-scented shampoo from her hair 
when the tumbling and sticking stones of thoughts in her 
head broke loose and the chipped shower tiles around her 
shimmered and vanished, replaced by pulsing metal and a 
light that made her sick to her stomach.


//////////

The lights are too bright. Scully instinctively shades the 
infant's pale eyes, and after a moment the lights in the 
room lower to a gentler yellow glow. She thinks the others 
understood.

The child is fussy, but as Scully slows her own breath, 
begins to tune in to the bundle of warmth in her arms, 
identify her as a specific child in need of attention, 
looking for connection, the baby begins to still. Wide eyes 
focus on Scully's face and a tiny hand breaks free of the 
blankets to reach upward.

Scully catches the unfathomably tiny fingers in her own, 
meets the curious eyes, strokes a cloud-soft cheek. Newborn 
skin, smooth as silk. And she 
knows...she understands...this child is hers. She cannot 
explain, but this bundle of warmth in her arms is hers, her 
flesh and blood; every cell in her body is telegraphing the 
connection. Scully lifts her gaze to the silent figure in 
the corner of the room, the sentry who passed the child 
into her arms. The creature stares at her then appears to 
give the slightest affirming nod.

Scully hears the slowed and precise words in her head. The 
child is hers.

She trembles.

She does not know how long they allow her to remain there 
on that uncomfortable bench. She loses focus on everything 
but the brilliant life cradled in her arms. She whispers to 
the girl, traces the tip of her finger along the lines and 
curves of the perfect face, caresses the thin ruffle of 
hair. No whisper of red. Dana's was strawberry blonde when 
she was born.

As she and the girl sit together, two warm bodies in the 
bubble of cold and metal, Scully's breasts begin to ache, 
and she realizes her body is telling her the child needs 
food. The little girl is burrowing against her, nuzzling a 
soft mouth against the flesh where the gown in which they 
have clothed her has pulled out of place. Scully nestles 
the child closer, cradles the back of her tender head. It 
is too cold in this room. They need more blankets.

Before she can see the movement from the sentry, the 
creature has abandoned the corner and closed the space 
between them. She is right there, and the child is being 
taken from Scully's arms.

Scully reaches out. "No! No...no, where are you taking her? 
Let me hold her. She's mine!"

Foreign, clammy hands on her upper arm, soft and insistent.

"She's cold, she needs me. Let me...she's hungry. Don't 
take her!"

The door to another chamber opens, and for a moment Scully 
sees someone else's little one on the floor, playing with 
yellow and red blocks, turning to look up at her with 
fathomless dark eyes. Black from corner to corner.

An ominous clang. The child is gone. Scully is alone with 
the nauseating fingers holding her back. The lights in the 
room are too bright again. Her eyes sting and she realizes 
she's been crying, pleading, and she didn't even know. Time 
skips. Yellow light. A thin and formless voice echoing all 
around her. "Send her home." A concrete stairwell. A 
misshapen stain. "Give her back to me! You can't take her!" 
Blackness.

//////////


There were still drops of water on her skin when she 
reached Mulder's door.

*****

(end Chapter 16)