REPOST: "Seeing Red (1/2)" by Angst
Sasha0012
By Angst
Summary: Aw, I don't wanna spoil it.
Rating: NC-17 for sexual content
Category: S, MSR
Key Words: Mulder/Scully romance
Spoiler warning: Biogenesis (slightly), Wetwired (Again, only slight)
Disclaimer: As always. Don't own `em. Chris Carter, Fox and 10:13
do. Ain't getting any profit from this. So please don't sue me, `cause I
ain't got anything but this here computer.
Author's note: This story was written shortly after, and takes place post
Biogenesis. As CC hadn't yet written our beloved heroes out of the
"Scully on the Ivory Coast/Mulder in a mental hospital" predicament,
that much is left entirely uncovered here, but written in such a way that
the information is not needed. Suffice to say, important things happen
post Biogenesis, but that is not what this story is about.
Feedback: If you'd like. <scu...@hyperchat.com>
"Seeing Red" Part One
By Angst
They had been on another renegade adventure, following some
anonymous tip from yet another informant in the shadows, wandering
though the ancient redwood forest in Northern California when they
vanished, like two blips on a radar screen that were there one second
and gone the next. This time, though, no one was monitoring the radar
screen. It wasn't for five days until their absence was noticed. Worse
still, as they had left no word of their destination, it wasn't until one
week after they were noticed missing that those concerned even knew
where they should have looked.
A crew of forrestry engineers were out in the woods collecting data
for a forest health assessment report when one young man, a college
senior working on his directed field study requirement, tripped over
something soft. The roll of orange marking tape, clipboard and pen
flew from his hands and he tumbled unceremoniously forward, landing
with his face in a pile of pine needle covered twigs. He pushed himself
up with one hand, and rubbed his slightly scrapped up face with the
other.
"Ow," he muttered, feeling rather annoyed with himself, then
feeling his annoyance turn to whatever it was that tripped him in the
first place.
Still sprawled on the ground, he twisted his head to look behind
him and what he saw made him scramble to his feet and take a few
hurried steps back. Which is when he tripped yet again over a root. He
let out a surprised yelp before he landed on his ass, resulting in a
chorus of responses from his field team-mates.
"Who was that?"
"Who got hurt?"
"Pete, was that you?"
Pete scrambled to his feet again, staring wide eyed at the something
that had caused him to trip the first time.
"Pete?"
Pete stood numb for another moment before shaking himself out
of it enough to call back. "Yeah! I found something! Hurry!"
The rest of the crew came from all directions to see what the matter
was. The man who had called Pete by name earlier found him first.
"Jeez, Pete, I thought you hurt yourself. Why did you- "
The man stopped short as he looked to where Pete was pointing and
his jaw dropped.
"Holy shit. . . . ."
Without any of Pete's hesitation, the older man moved in quickly,
kneeling down by the body, carefully brushing away the forest floor
debris. He heard the others gasp and mutter hushed words of shock and
concern as the reached the site.
"It's a woman," he announced. He took her wrist in his hand. It was
warm and it faintly beat with the unmistakable pulse of life. "She's
alive!" he told them loudly as he exhaled a sigh of relief. "Call down to
base. We need a medi-vac."
"Yes sir," someone quickly replied.
"Here's my emergency blanket, John," a woman said, holding up an
package. "Wait, let me. . ." She opened the plastic with her teeth and
pulled out the space-aged silver foil and shook it open. "Here."
"Thanks, Sheila."
Crew foreman John Steiger wrapped the blanket around the woman.
He then sat back on his heels and stared at her, wondering who she
was. She certainly was pretty. He reached out and brushed some of the
excess dirt and leaves from her hair. Red, he thought. He always had a
soft spot for red heads. The woman moaned a little. Yeah, John
though. She's going to be fine.
"You're going to be fine," he repeated aloud.
* * * * * * *
* *
Assistant Director Skinner sat at his paper laden desk not reading a
single document spread before him. He was staring at the words, but
he wasn't seeing them. He stared unfocused at the black markings and
listened to the thunderous silence that permeated the room. It pounded
in his ears like the ticking of a time bomb waiting to explode. With a
sudden awareness, he snapped himself out of his self induced trance,
realizing that monotonous whooshing sound he heard rising and falling
in his ears was none other than the pulsing of blood through his veins.
Realizing that, he remembered the uninvited guests that his vascular
system played host to.
With a snort of disgust, he tossed the pen that he had forgotten he
was holding at the cabinet on the right. The cabinet that held the video
camera which, presently, sat idle. Skinner pulled his desk's file drawer
open and fingered through the folders until he came to the one he
wanted. He reached inside and withdrew a picture of her. He held it
delicately in front of him and stared at it, feeling the twisting pain in
his heart, but this time he knew the pain was not being caused by the
abhorrent nanites.
He had the picture memorized down to the last detail. It was taken
at a crime scene while she wasn't looking. It was Mulder who had
noticed the photographer's wandering eye and scared the poor man into
relinquishing that particular negative. Skinner had found the print in
Mulder's office the several days earlier while trying to find some clue
as to where his agents had gone.
He ran his finger over her image, a small smile coming to his face
in spite of himself. She hated him, he remembered. He had lied to her.
Lied right to her face in order to save his own pathetic life. But he had
wanted to kill himself that day in the psch-ward lobby, when Scully
looked at him with her pained, beautiful eyes, the tears about to fall.
"Your both liars," was the last thing she had said to him before
shaking her arm from his grasp and rushing away.
He wanted desperately to go after her. To tell her everything. Fuck
the nanites and fuck Krychek with his stupid threats constantly hanging
over his head. Fuck the Powers that Be. He didn't want to live if it
meant hurting her, if it meant having to suffer her looking at him that
way one more time. That was just what he was going to tell Krychek
too, but things just shot forward like a whirlwind. After Scully
returned from the Ivory Coast, events of mind-blowing proportion took
Krychek's focus off Skinner while everybody tried to get their
bearings. Before anyone had really come to terms with the situation,
Mulder was back with Scully and the two were just gone. Skinner
wasn't even sure how it all got to this point.
The piercing ring of his phone startled him out of his reverie. He
quickly answered with a gruff, "Yes?"
"Sir, I have a Mr. Steiger of the California Department of Forestry
on line one."
"Who? Never mind. Just put him through."
There was a pause and then his receptionist said, "Go ahead, sir."
"AD Skinner speaking."
"Hello, Mr. Skinner. I'm John Steiger of Cal Forestry. It seems I
may have found something you lost."
* * * *
*
Scully felt like she was underwater. She might have even thought
that was the case except that she could breath. She tried to wake
herself, but found that her consciousness was buried under layers of
mental cobwebs that were fogging her mind. Slowly, one by one, she
began to peel off the layers, and slowly, her sense of being returned to
her. Eventually she was able to open her eyes.
It took a few longs moments more for her eyes to come into focus
and the muffled noises reaching her ears to gain some sense of clarity.
Her mouth hadn't yet caught up, and when she tried to ask, "Where am
I?" it came out more like, "Worm eye," but the doctor understood just
the same.
"Your in Redwood Memorial Hospital, and you are one lucky lady,
I might add."
"Where's Mulder?" Scully attempted, managing only, "Wermuller."
This is where the doctor faltered. "Uhmmm. . . ."
"He's not here," another voice announced, sparing the doctor. Scully
managed to turn her head enough to see the body that went with the
voice. When her eyes met AD Skinner's, she rolled her head back away
and stared at the wall.
Skinner sighed and stared at the floor.
"Get out," Scully said. There was no mistaking her words this time.
They rang out clear as a bell.
Skinner's jaw locked in his infamous outward jut, which it often did
when he was angry or upset. Without another word, he strode out of
the room, only glancing back once before he closed the door behind
him. Scully didn't turn her gaze from the wall.
Word was later passed on to Scully that a team of rescue workers
were scouring the area where she was found in hopes of recovering
Mulder, but so far, nothing had turned up. Four hours later, Scully was
feeling miraculously well and insisted that she was ready to be
released. She dressed in the slightly dirty, yet amazingly clean clothes
under the circumstances of what she had been through. Then with her
doctor playing her shadow, telling her all the while that he did not
advise that she leave the hospital so soon, she signed herself out
against the doctor's advise.
Several hours after that, she was back on the mountain, searching
with the rescue team for her missing half.
* * * *
*
Two weeks passed since Scully returned to the mountain to search
along side the others, which, she had noted, seemed fewer and fewer
with each passing day, yet no sign of Mulder was found. Nothing. Not
even a fragment of clothing or some hair stuck in a low hanging
branch. Not even a footprint left in the drying mud. Even the dogs
could not come up with a continued sent.
Everyone in the official rescue team had already come to a
determination as to the man's fate, but not one of them voiced that
opinion. That is, no one voiced it when his determined partner was
within earshot. It was time to head back down to base that day. Soon it
would be too dark to see. All but two team members gathered up their
gear and headed down. Team leader Chris Johnston and his FLIR
operator, Marc Walsh waited for Agent Scully as she charted spots on
her terrain map of where they had been and where she thought they
should go tomorrow. She would start at a point five miles east of
where she was standing and have the team fan out from there. Sure,
they had covered that spot, but they hadn't realized that they may have
missed some caves, as was evidenced by the fact that they had
discovered a cave today in a spot they thought had been searched
thoroughly.
"What do you think?" Marc asked Chris while Scully was well
beyond earshot, looking intently through a telescope at the valley
spread out below her.
"I don't know," Chris replied. "What do you think?"
"I think he's dead."
"Yeah well, what am I supposed to do about it? What am I
supposed to tell her?"
"He either got eaten up weeks ago or drowned in the river."
"Well I'm not going to order we troll the river right now. I can't,
what with the Coho breading season right now, and all. The EPA nuts
would have my neck."
"And the fishermen."
"I'm not gonna receive a world of shit for trolling through a salmon
bed for a guy we know is dead. Finding him ain't gonna change
nothing," Chris stated sadly.
"Yeah, and anyways, more than two weeks rotting in the river, I'll
bet he ain't even all here anyway and what's left of him got washed
away."
"Yeah, you're probably- " Chris stopped suddenly when he noticed
the agent standing there staring at them both with a look of pure fire
equal to the red of her hair. "Uh, ma'am, " he started.
Scully interrupted him, spitting out each word with equal emphasis.
"He - is - not - dead!"
Chris swallowed hard. He looked at her small frame, now even
smaller since two weeks ago. He knew she barley ate. "Ma'am, it's
been three weeks at least, counting the one you were both unaccounted
for."
"I don't care," Scully countered. "I'm not giving up." She added
softly, "God knows he never gave up on me."
"Look, Agent Scully, I want to find him for you, really I do, but
there's nothing more we can do tonight. We have to head down now
while we still have some light."
Not that Chris was worried about hiking in the dark. He knew the
way better than anybody, but he didn't think he could keep her from
slipping away from them in the dark, and at this point, he was certain
that's what she'd do.
"And besides," he told her, hoping to strike some sense in her by
logical reasoning, "Marc here needs to get home to his wife who was
running a bit of a fever this morning. Isn't that right, Marc?"
"Yeah. She maybe has a touch of the flu. I ought to get home and
fix her some soup or tea or something."
Scully regarded them sourly for a moment, before uttering, "Fine.
You go. I'll look for him myself."
Before Marc realized it, Scully had relieved him of the FLIR and
was trudging off with it pointing it out in front of her and staring at the
screen in hopes of seeing a large infrared spot indicating a human
sized, warm body.
Marc started to vocalize a protest and go regain possession of the
equipment when Chris held him back. "Forget it. Let her go. You head
down. I'll stay with her for a while. Just do me a favor when you get
down there and make a phone call for me."
Scully swept the FLIR slowly from side to side, but saw nothing
hopeful. When Chris caught up with her, she subconsciously tightened
her grip on the device. He didn't try and take it from her though. He
merely walked by her side for about fifteen minutes until he finally had
had enough. He had to stop this. As he came to that decision, he
simultaneously wondered what it was like to have a woman, especially
such a pretty woman, love him as much as he knew Dana Scully loved
this poor Mulder fellow. He wondered if this Mulder ever knew how
lucky he had been to have had someone like that while he was alive.
"Agent Scully," Chris began.
"No."
"Agent Scully," he repeated. When she didn't stop, he took a firm
hold of her arm. "Agent Scully it's time to go back down. Now," he
finished, gently, but firmly.
"You go if you want to," she said bitterly and tried to disengage
herself from his grip, but at the same time didn't want to drop the
FLIR.
Chris took hold of her other arm at the elbow as well and tightened
both grips. "No. I'm not leaving you up here. I'm not going to loose you
up here too. Now you're coming back down with me now, even if I
have to bind and gag you and carry you slung over my shoulder if
necessary."
They tried to stare each other down for the next few moments.
"Don't think I won't do it," Chris finally said.
They stared at each other for a few minutes more.
With a sigh of a patience lost, Chris let one of her elbows go and
wrenched the FLIR pieces from each hand. Then he looked into her
eyes again, giving her another moment to choose returning down the
trail willingly.
Scully was beat and she knew it. She was exhausted to the brink of
becoming seriously ill, or maybe even delusional, and she didn't have
any fight left in her. She dropped her head in defeat and heaved a
painful sigh. "Fine." She looked up at him with wet eyes. "Fine, let's
go."
In the distance, she thought she heard something. A helicopter, she
unconsciously registered, but her conscious mind didn't process it.
Until they reached the base below and she saw a helicopter parked in
the field. When Skinner emerged from the base office, she stopped
short.
He looked ridiculously out of place, she thought, in his smartly
pressed suit and London Fog trench coat. As he approached her, Scully
shot Chris an accusatory look. He wouldn't return her gaze, but moved
away as Skinner came to stand before her.
"Agent Scully, I'm here to take you home."
"I'm not leaving."
"Agent Scu- "
"I'm not leaving until I find him." With that she tried to walk away,
but he grabbed her arm. She had to learn how to keep that from always
happening, she thought with disgust.
"Not this time, Dana. You're not walking away."
A small spark ignited her core, and she very slowly began to feel
the burn. "I beg to differ, sir. And you have no jurisdiction over me
right now. This- "
"The hell I don't!"
She shouted over him, "This is a personal matter!"
"Have you taken a look at yourself lately? When was the last time
you ate, or slept even? You think you're invincible? Jesus Christ,
Scully, you're wasting away. How are you doing Mulder any good if
you make yourself sick?"
"I'm fine," she stated in no uncertain terms.
"That's a load of crap. Now you're going to get on that helicopter
and you are going home."
"Now that, sir," she began, spitting out the "sir" as if it were
something distasteful, "is a load of crap." She yanked her arm hard and
managed to free herself from him. She took a step back.
"Well, you have a choice, Agent. You can get on that chopper
willingly, or I can place you on it forcibly. Up to you."
The slight burning inside of her rose to the surface, pushing aside
the veil of exhaustion and defeat she felt earlier. This was the second
time in one day that she was threatened with the forcible confiscation
of her personal control and it made her furious. Dana Scully did not
relinquish control without a fight. She took another step back.
"You just try it," she spit at him.
Skinner caught her subtle arm movement and while she was quick,
he was quicker, and had her wrist in his hand just as the tips of her
fingers barely grazed the handle of her holstered gun. He pulled her
gun from its resting spot and tossed it to Chris, who handed it off to
one of the helicopter crewmen. Then with one fluid series of motions,
he had her turned around, her back against him, one strong arm
wrapped around her waist, one large, strong hand holding her small
wrists so that her arms were pinned against her chest.
Her struggle was admirable, but wholly ineffective. He held her
such that her feet were dangling off the ground and her kicks could not
gain enough force to actually hurt him enough to make him let go. So
she tried the "toddler" tactic, trying to raise her arms and throw her
weight down so that she would slide though his embrace but she forgot
one important fact. She wasn't a toddler. She was a grown woman.
And grown women had breasts. Breasts made sliding through a tight
hold impossible and a little painful in the attempt.
Skinner bent his knees to readjust his hold around her waist and
hauled her towards the helicopter, which had begun to come to life as
the pilot began the start-up procedure.
"No!" Scully screamed. "Let me go! Damn you, Skinner! Let me
go, you bastard!"
With a hand from Chris, Skinner managed to get himself and Scully
into the body of the air ship without having to let her go. Once inside,
he sat down, pulling Scully into his lap. He knew she would jump if
she could. Even as the air ship lifted off the ground, he feared she
might jump.
Scully still struggled against his hold, legs kicking, back arching,
until finally Skinner felt her collapse against him, her head falling back
onto his shoulder. Skinner loosened his hold on her as her shoulders
heaved up and down and he realized that she was sobbing
uncontrollably, the sound of her crying barely audible over the sound
of the chopper blades. Skinner felt a stinging sensation come to his
own eyes in response to her pain. He wanted to comfort her. To let her
know that she wasn't alone. There was so much he wanted to tell her.
All he could do for her at that moment though, was hold her. He buried
his face in the wild mess of her hair as her head lay back on his
supportive shoulder and hoped that she could feel the love he felt for
her through the hatred he knew she felt for him.
* * * *
No one had made any official declarations yet. No one dared. Still,
no one thought that this would turn out with a happy ending. After all,
it had been two weeks since Scully had returned from California and a
little over a month and a half from the day it was estimated that Mulder
had disappeared. Scully hadn't returned to work yet. She couldn't bear
it, in fact, she wanted to tell the entire FBI and the whole lousy
government to piss off. She made up her mind to do just that one
evening and finally slipped into a fitful sleep. She soon found herself
wandering through a dreamscape devoid of anything except the sound
of her beating heart and a soft, ever-blowing wind.
She wandered through the blackness searching. She dared not call
out, for fear that at that precise moment, he would call out too and she
would miss it. Her wandering was aimless at first. . .then more
purposeful, as if the soft tendrils of mist were guiding here, gently
wrapping moist arms about her wrists, leading her. She let herself be
pulled ever so gently, for she had no direction of her own in mind and
the urge to follow overwhelmed her.
When she heard a sound, low and very distant, she froze in mid-
step. She craned her neck to the side, listening intently, not moving,
not breathing. . .and there it was again. She took a few quick steps
towards the direction from which she thought it came and then stopped
to listen again. The mist was beginning to swirl more wildly about her
and the increased volume of the wind made what she was listening for
harder to hear.
Then again, a sound not borne of the wind. Louder this time, more
distinct. She took a few more running steps, stopped and listened
again.
It sounded like, "Uhhhhhhhh eeeeee. . ."
Yes, it was definitely getting louder and she ran towards it.
"Uhhhhhhhlllleeeeee. . . ."
She ran full speed, her arms taking wide strokes in front of her as
she fruitlessly tried to push the ever enclosing mist away so that she
might see better where she was going. The closer she felt she was
getting, the louder another sound grew. A ringing sound began to crack
violently threw the air, thundering inside her head, bouncing off her
cranium.
"Ssss. . .Scuulllleee. . . ."
"Mulder!"
"Scully. . ."
"Mulder, I'm here!"
The ringing caused her ears to throb with the pain off overload.
"Mulder, where are you!? MULDER!!"
Scully doubled over in pain, her hands covering her ears. The
ringing! Now there was a pounding as well! It had to stop, had to stop
had to--
Scully woke up fighting the blankets on Mulder's bed that had
wrapped themselves around her, binding her firmly. When she finally
managed to kick herself free she realized that someone was pounding
on the door. The sudden ring of her cell phone, which, for some reason
was lying on the floor on the opposite side of the room, caused her to
jump. Without making a conscious decision, she went for the door
first, grabbing her gun from inside the night stand as she went.
When she peered through the keyhole, she lowered her weapon
immediately. She undid the series of locks with haste and let the door
swing wide, revealing an anxious looking Skinner, hand poised in mid
knock, cell phone to his ear. He quickly pulled the phone away and
pressed END and Scully's own cell phone stopped ringing.
"Thirty more seconds, " Skinner told her, "And I would have
broken the door down."
She didn't ask him how he knew that she was at Mulder's apartment
and not her own. Scully just stared at him expectantly, then they both
said, at the same time, though Scully in question and Skinner in
affirmation, "They found him."
* *
Djinn
- Djinn [who kind of missed that all important 1 of 2 thingie and got to the
end of this saying "oh no, where's part 2?!?!?]
--
I think I speak for us all when I say "huh?" - BtVS
Visit Music Reviews for the Common Man http://www.erols.com/gleen/
**Remove the name of the Vampire Slayer to send e-mail to me**
DarkAngel
regains his full eyesight, but this has a perk --- it's totally and
completely plausible! Bravo! :)
wat...@idirect.com
--
"Shh! You're waking the dead!"
~"Better Day", by See Spot Run