"Saving Her" by Musgrove (1/1)
__

SUMMARY: A kidnap; a rescue attempt. But who will pay the price?

CLASSIFICATION: SA (though with some action-adventure stuff in the 
first half)

RATING: PG
__

DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully and co. belong to Chris Carter, 1013 
and Fox. I am using them without permission, but with no mercenary 
intent.

******

Agent Stanton
___

"I don't want to hurt her," he keeps saying, over and over, the 
inflexion of his voice never changing. It is always as constant, 
as unchanging, as a tape recording. "I don't want to hurt her."

It is the voice of an actor who has rehearsed a lie to perfection.

I have seen the same thought in the eyes of everyone here. I 
wonder if anyone has dared speak the thought aloud to Mulder.

"I don't want to hurt her. I don't want to hurt her...." I found 
him one night, eyes closed, fists tightly clenched until they were 
white and shaking. He was echoing the kidnapper's words like a 
litany, with every nuance of *that* voice perfectly replicated, as 
if the man had entered his very soul, as if he had become him.

I turned to go, but my shoes made a soft whisper against the 
floor, and he turned his dark bleak eyes on me. I knew in that 
moment that none of us knew him.

"Do you think he means it, Stanton?" he murmured.

I have never been able to lie well, and wouldn't patronise him by 
trying. "I don't know."

He massaged his brow, fingers digging deeply. "It makes it worse. 
Why does it make it worse?"

I swallowed. "I don't know."

He gave a harsh bark of laughter, like nails raking in his throat. 
"I have grown accustomed to living with an impossible hope. It has 
been my life. I can see hope in.... in *that*. Why not in this? 
Because he gives me too much? Because there's further to fall?"

He heart was beating fast. I was seeing more of this man than 
anyone here had ever seen. All of us were a little afraid of him - 
of his intensity, his reputation, and, most of all, his deep 
personal investment in the case. Normally on a case we would laugh 
- we had to. We couldn't laugh in his hearing. He made us awkward, 
and we avoided him.

 I realised, suddenly.

"Why is it worse?" he asked again, and I'd known that the words 
were not directed at me.

Now, days later, looking through the camera that has become his 
eyes, hearing his every breath through the monitor, I see the 
answer in a flash of insight so sudden that I almost gasp aloud.

It is worse.... God, it is worse, because, if anything goes wrong 
- if she is harmed in any way - Mulder will blame himself. "See 
what you made me do," the kidnapper's eyes will accuse him. "I 
said I didn't want to hurt her. You made me hurt her. It's your 
fault."

"I don't want to hurt her," I mouth, through lips dry with dread. 

Those six words could be Mulder's gallows.

I dig my nails into my palms, and pray. 

***

The image on the screen sways with the rhythm of Mulder walking. 
Nothing has changed. There had been no fiery miracle from the sky, 
coming with wings and a sword and saving a woman and a man from 
death.

Nothing is changed.

"No sign." I start at Mulder's voice, hoarsely whispering through 
the headset. "No movement behind the windows." I hear him 
swallowing. "No sign," he says, his voice higher.

I feel the tension here, thick on my palms like water. What it 
must be like for him, with his life, his sanity, invested in the 
outcome. His partner's life could rest on a single word, a single 
breath.

Yet he volunteered, willingly, unhesitatingly. 

"I don't want to hurt her," the kidnapper said, again, under an 
hour ago. This time, it sounded different. There was a note of 
fear in his voice. For days before, he was calling us in safety, 
knowing we had yet to track him. This time, we were in position, 
surrounding the house, guns in hand.

"Then why are you holding her?" Mulder asked, quietly, even 
calmly. He was pulsing with tension, but he kept it from his 
voice. I don't think I could have done that.

"She's my security," the man said, simply. "I didn't kill those 
women. The police have judged me and found me guilty. They'll 
claim that I resisted arrest, and kill me. They won't give me a 
chance to talk."

"I'll give you a chance to talk." Mulder's voice was soft honey, 
but his eyes were steel. He had been ordered to give the kidnapper 
nothing, to make no concessions. Somewhere, behind us, was an 
angry cry and quick firm footsteps.

"Come in, now, alone. Any tricks, and I'll have to hurt her. I 
don't want to hurt her. It's up to you."

The muscles round Mulder's jaw tensed, though I know now he was in 
agony. "I'll come alone. I'll listen. Can I come wired?" He 
swallowed. His hair was damp. "You can make your defence, and it 
will be recorded. They won't be able to silence you. They won't be 
able to lie about you."

No-one breathed at that moment - no-one.

"That's good. Come wired. Come alone. Can I trust you?" All one 
rush, just like that.

"I'm her partner. I will do nothing - *nothing* - against your 
will. I will do *nothing* to make you hurt her. I..." And then he 
stopped abruptly, not saying it.

Afterwards, as he was being wired up, he caught hold of my sleeve, 
and said it, eyes dark with something that looked like shame. 
"I'll suggest that he lets her go. He won't need two hostages." 

God, the man is so utterly unaware of his own heroism, his 
unselfishness. I wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror. 
I feel that he sees a monster.

Then, I could say nothing of this. Instead, I pressed a gun into 
his hand. "He didn't say you couldn't take it."

He closed his eyes, as if desperately searching for strength. "It 
could get her killed."

"It could save her."

He was silent for a very long time. I heard his tight shallow 
breathing. "Look away," he said, at last. "It's not your choice; 
it's mine. I take responsibility. I won't share that."

A turned my back. There was a scrape of metal, silence, then 
another. I think he had chosen once, then twice - had pushed it 
away, then reclaimed it.

He took it.

And now he is alone. I watch through his eyes, hear through his 
ears, but he is alone. His words, in the next few minutes, will 
change everything. 

Responsibility is an awesome, terrible, thing.  

****

I'm living him, now. I *am* him.

He is close. 

I see his hand -  - naked and pale. It flickers into 
view, reaching for the door handle, turning it. 

I hear his breathing, and it is mine. In and out, in and out.... 
We even share the same hitch, the same almost-gasp of tension when 
the door drifts open onto an empty hallway, dark with the darkness 
of a late afternoon in winter.

No-one. He doesn't speak. I feel - *we* feel - that someone is 
watching us from the shadows. 

The camera moves forward - one step.... two.

There is a noise.

Behind me, in a silent ring, the others agents watch, held in the 
grip of this terrible reality. They are scarcely real to me. 
"Mulder," I mouth. "He's there."

"I've come." The camera angle rises. I can imagine Mulder raising 
his head, like a proud defiant sacrifice, refusing to show fear. I 
see those naked hands, spread and empty. 

He is speaking to a form of darkness in the furthest corner. There 
are things that glitter, there. Watchful eyes, and something else.

"I'm here." Mulder swallows audibly. "No tricks. Are you ready to 
talk?" 

Footsteps like desiccated leaves. The dark form steps forward and 
becomes a man. The eyes still gleam, but not as much as the metal 
barrel in his hands.

"They will take your story more seriously if you didn't have that 
gun," Mulder says, quietly. There is not a man in this room who 
could speak that calmly now.

The answer is a flash and a roar. The screen jolts.

"God!" I press my fist to my mouth. The shock is tangible. 
"Mulder?" My voice rises. Dread is like bile in my throat. 
"Mulder?"

Then I am silent; we are all silent. Time is suspended. We are 
listening for something, and we hear it. Mulder is breathing. I 
hear great shaking gasps of fear realised.

The screen shakes again, then settles on the man's face. It has an 
expression of vague surprise. A tongue passes over his lips, then 
he looks down at the gun again with mild, fascinated interest. 

"Again," I gasp, involuntarily. "He's going to shoot again."

"Federal Agent." Mulder's voice sounds strained. The camera is 
swaying, as if drunk. For a moment, the barrel of Mulder's own gun 
flashes in view, then it is gone. "Put your hands up. I *will* 
shoot."

The man's gun levels.

I think Mulder nearly falls this time. I hear his breathing in the 
empty echo that follows the report of the gun. The man slumps to 
the floor, and the camera shakes with the force of the recoil.

I hear the shuffle of Mulder's feet, and his tight breathing. The 
camera lurches forward. It is like being on a ship, with reality 
somehow unreal. I see blurring of movement, then it settles on an 
image for just a second, barely long enough to register, then it 
is away again. It is the fast camera work of a psychedelic pop 
video, but the reason is chillingly, terribly different.

We settle on the twisted face of the kidnapper, on his closed 
eyes. Then on the gun, and Mulder's foot as he kicks it away. 
There is something thick and dark around his feet, like some 
terrible lake of shadow. The screen shows only black and white, 
but I know that this shadow is red.

Behind me, orders are shouted, obeyed. We are going in. I, though, 
am bound to Mulder. He needs someone. He needs someone to be there 
with him, breath by breath, thought by thought.

"We're coming, Mulder," I urge. "Stay. Stop. Rest."

"Scully." It is fractured. "Got to find her."

"They'll find her."

He makes a sound that is almost a sob. "She'll have.... hoped.... 
for me. Days... 'Mulder will come for me...' Has to be me."

There is nothing I can say.

I am bound to the screen. It sways. It is angled down, now, 
showing little more than floor. My mind races. I see his head 
slumping, or his arm wrapped around his middle, bending him 
double. I daren't ask him which is the truth.

The camera limps through doorways, scanning empty rooms. There is 
a desperation in the way it scans a room, then backs off. When it 
comes to the stairs, I gasp, and he does, too.

Yet he climbs.

I hear his tortured breaths.

I am in anguish. "Mulder..."

"Scully."

He sees her before I do - or maybe he senses her. He sounds like a 
parched man offered water - a dying man glimpsing hope. 

"Scully."

She is centred in the camera, now, and I know, now, that she is 
forever centred in his life. She is in near darkness, her back to 
him, tied to a chair. Even from here, I can see that she breathes.

"Scully."

The camera jolts, like progressive jerky steps on a zoom lens. She 
is closer, closer, closer.... It stops behind her. A stained hand 
hovers over her hair, then withdraws. Instead, he lowers, and 
there is nothing in the screen except her bound hands.

"Scully. Did he hurt you, Scully?" His voice is so hungry, so 
needy. Her words could hurt him more than any bullet. He feels her 
hurts. This, I know.

His hands are all shadow, now. He works clumsily, desperately, at 
the knots. They are slow to yield. All the time, he keeps up a 
soft litany of her name.

"Did you kill him?" Sudden and cold.

I gasp, then bite my lip. I suddenly wish I was far away.

"You shot him, Mulder? God!" Her fingers flex angrily, making it 
harder for him. "Twice. I heard the shots. Two shots. You didn't 
shout. He wasn't armed, Mulder. He had no intention of hurting me. 
He just wanted someone to listen. He wouldn't have hurt me. He 
*didn't* hurt me."

Words hurt. Words draw blood.

The knot is giving. He makes no attempt to defend himself. I 
wonder if he has the strength for anything but the single, 
overwhelming need to see her free. It is what he came here for. It 
is the only thing sustaining him now, I can tell.

"Is he dead?" She pulls harshly at the knot he has loosened, and 
frees herself. Then she leans forward, making short work of the 
knots around her feet. She is all ice as she stands up. 

The camera is still. It is focused on her retreating back, as on a 
candle in the darkness.

And then she is gone, and still it is unmoving, held by the open 
doorway, as if devoutly wishing her return.

The doorway is empty.

A hand flickers into view, beseeching. He exhales her name. Then 
gently, so gently, the camera slips downwards, and is still.

I see the wooden floorboards, and a white, stained hand.

****

Margaret Scully
__

I want to hold her tight and smooth her hair love her and never 
let her go. I want to take her by the shoulders and shake her, and 
slap her face lovingly, and bring my daughter back.

"He killed him." It is not my daughter's voice I hear. "Like some 
macho fantasy. Coming in, guns blazing, rescuing the female. He 
had to be my rescuer. He did it his way. He was wrong."

Oh, Dana. Why this anger, Dana? Why?

I murmur into her hair. "I saw him, Dana. This last week..." I 
blink, and the tears are held back, for now. "It was destroying 
him. Yet he was gentle, considerate. He called me all the time, 
keeping me informed, listening when I cried."

"He killed him." 

I have sometimes wondered if she loves him. With her voice, now, 
she hates him.

I would never have thought that I would defend a killing. Did Bill 
foresee this when he urged her to stick with medicine - to work to 
save life, not in a career where killing can be right? All this 
has come from her choice - all this. I have come close to losing 
two daughters.

Yet I whisper, I gentle her. "He had the best of intentions. He 
did it for you, sweetheart."

Her fist lashes out, pushing me away. Her face is twisted, 
furious. "That's the worst of it, Mom. How dare he? How dare he 
kill and put it on me? It was *not* done for me."

"It saved you." She is so dear to me, but, if it wasn't for the 
waking dread of this last week, when I thought she was gone 
forever, I would shout at her, would make her see. 

"No. I *was* saved."

She speaks with a thrill - a simple declaration of faith. She is a 
zealot, so sure. I think of brainwashing and hypnosis - things 
that would be alien to me if it wasn't for this world of shadows 
in which my daughter has chosen to live her life. 

"No." She shakes her head, eyes bright with unshed tears. She 
reads me still. "I haven't learnt to love the abuser. He was 
wrong. He took me. He didn't hurt me, but he held me against my 
will. He deserved punishment, but Mulder was wrong."

And on this she is certain, too.

"He died beneath my hands, Mom." There is a quiver in her voice. 
"I touched his neck, and one second there was a pulse, and the 
next second there was none. His hands were empty. There was no 
gun." She pressed her fist against her mouth, her words muffled. 
"The team came in, shouting. They pulled me away. They handled him 
roughly. He was dead, and they handled him roughly. I saw his 
eyes, unseeing. I saw blood in his mouth. I *saw* this."

"But he held you, Dana. He held you for a whole week." I almost 
break down. I have suffered this so much. He didn't hurt her, but 
he hurt me, he hurt Mulder. It scares me to realise that I might 
have killed him, too.

"We are trained not to take life unless it is absolutely 
necessary." She is dead. Her voice is reciting, robot-like. She 
has cut herself off from all emotions but anger.

We are plunging into the darkness, going round and round on some 
terrible spiral. I can not get through to her.

"Talk to him," I plead, suddenly. "Please, Dana."

I know that they are both bleeding without each other. He will 
need redemption, and to see her pale unblemished skin. She will 
need to blunt the steel of her anger, and begin to heal.

"No." Sharp as a knife. "None of them. I left, Mom. I just turned 
and walked away. They wanted me to have a medical check; they 
wanted me to give a statement. I - just - walked - away."

****

She freezes at the sound of the phone. Her mug is half way to her 
lips, and shakes. A drop of coffee falls onto her lap. She doesn't 
flinch.

"I don't want to talk, Mom," she mouths. 

I think she is wrong, but she is my daughter, and she is an adult. 
I feel her eyes on me as I answer it.

"Hello?" 

"Mrs Scully?" Not Fox. "This is Assistant Director Skinner. Is 
S.... Is your daughter there?"

In my mind, she is fourteen again, eyes childish but with the body 
of a woman. Hiding in the kitchen, mouthing, "tell him I'm not 
here" as I hold the phone and hear the barely-broken voice of her 
latest admirer.

I sigh, shake my head, but admit, "yes." I bristle protectively at 
this threat, after all. "She has been through a terrible ordeal. 
Is it too much to give her one night alone?"

I hang up harshly, and my daughter and I share a sudden, 
conspiratorial smile. I am filled with love for her.

*****

Dana Scully
___

I feel eyes on me, crawling on my skin. I feel them, and for a 
sudden, shameful, moment, I almost long for the seclusion of that 
small dark room, and a single chair. 

I raise my chin, and walk.

"Agent Scully."

I have to fight not to gasp. I am all nerves, and jumpy, and I 
*hate* it. It is a Dana Scully that the world must not see.

I blink, and struggle a smile. I see the blonde hair and lipstick 
of Agent Barr, whose desk Mulder and I have to pass to get to our 
office. She has always looked at Mulder with parted lips and a 
predatory gleam in her eye. The tips of her canine teeth have 
always looked like fangs to me. I have always hated her.

"I heard what happened, Agent Scully." Her eyes are puffy, as if 
she has been weeping. Without her posed facade of allure, she is 
almost pretty - human. "I'm so sorry."

She disarms me. I feel treacherous tears rise in my eyes. I blink 
fiercely, and my fingers dig into my palm, forcing control. "It's 
okay." I say anything. I am scarcely aware. "*I'm* okay."

Her eyes are a knife. There is naked hatred there.

 I turn blindly, walk blindly. 

I feel Mulder ahead of me. He is waiting for me in the office, 
thinking of himself as my saviour. He will pull out a chair for 
me, ease me down, gently stroke the red chafed marks of ropes on 
my wrists, and.... and *smother* me.

He is hero, and I am woman. He came in with his guns, like a 
mythic gunslinger of the west. He blew away the bad guy, and 
untied me, and I would fall into his arms and weep as the sweeping 
music of the closing credits surrounded us. 

He saved me, and I hate him for it.

I didn't ask for it; I didn't need it. I was talking to the man, 
understanding him. I was almost there.

I could have saved myself, and he stole that from me.

*****

I am standing in the hallway, hand pressed against my mouth. I 
don't know how long I have been here, but one thing is clear.

It is the truth, and it horrifies me.

I hate what Mulder did, but not because of morality. It is not 
because he killed a man who didn't deserve it. It is not because 
of grief for a man I couldn't like, but who I came close to 
understanding. It is because he disempowered me.

I turn round and walk away, head held high. I will not run to Mom, 
not this time. 

I will reclaim my own life.

****

Agent Stanton
___

When you have seen through a man's eyes, you are bound to him 
forever. I feel clumsy here, and unwelcome, but I have to come - I 
have to.

"Mulder," I murmur.

He makes no answer. My stomach is a tight knot. I have seen death 
before, but I have never before seen life hang on a thread, or a 
body so close to death, yet still living.

"She's alive," I say, desperately.

His eyelids are closed, and seem almost transparent. His pale 
hands are motionless and tied down, though what's the point? To 
pull out tubes a patient needs to be conscious.

"She's okay."

He woke once, earlier. This I heard from the strange gnomish man 
who haunts the hospital like a ghost, anxious and hurt. He woke, 
and called for her, his eyes flickering around in panic. He 
murmured; he lashed. 

"Scully," he called. "Scully. He.... he said he wouldn't hurt her. 
He did? Oh God, he did..."

His breathing grew faster and faster, tears welling in his eyes, 
and then his breathing stopped altogether.

He is on a respirator now. 

"He doesn't want to live," the small man said, twisting his hat in 
his hands. "He thinks she's dead. I joked about it, but I loved 
her. I love him, too. How can she do this to him?"

I am haunted by the sound of her cold voice, accusing him, and by 
the image of a blood-stained imploring hand and a retreating back. 

"I don't know," I murmured, and I murmur still.

****

Dana Scully
___

My own home is strange to me. For a week, I forced myself to 
distance myself from it, and from everything that I might not see 
again. I forced myself not to long for it.... and for *him.*

I fumble for the key, eyes blurred.

A cough.

 Panic rises in my throat like bile. A man in the shadows, 
reaching for me.... 

"Agent Scully." A cold, cold voice.

My gun is in my hand before I recognise him. I let out a 
shuddering breath. "Frohike."

"Why are you killing him?" he asks. "Why?"

****

I am motionless. I watch his chest rise and fall with breaths that 
are not his own. I watch the line of the heart monitor. I see his 
hand, as white as the sheet it rests on.

I move one finger. I softly caress the skin on the back of his 
hand, over and over, over and over, over and over...

In my mind, I hear a cold accusing voice telling me about a tape, 
telling me what it is like to see through *his* eyes.

One day, I will watch it, and let his eyes accuse me.

One day.

****

END

****

NOTES: I've had this story in my head for literally months. I've 
lingered over it; I've loved it; I've envisaged it over and over 
in my head, endlessly changing little details. At the same time, 
it's been my secret guilty pleasure - my forbidden fondness for 
shameless melodrama. It's like.... um.... really fattening 
chocolate cake with cream - naughty, but (to me) irresistible. 
Made me cry, too...

Feedback? Need you ask... Please send feedback to
Musgrove@carbonek.demon.co.uk)

******

"And some men whistled, and some men sang
And some these words did say:
'Methinks I hear Lord Barnard's horn
Away, Musgrove, away.'"
   - Little Musgrove and Lady Barnard


 

    Source: geocities.com/area51/zone/2095