Genesis
Ally

Chapter 18

In her dream state, Scully was running. From whom or what she wasn't yet certain, but a strange sense of urgency forced her to carry on even as her throat began to burn from the effort of her exertion. She could hear the heavy tread of footsteps behind her but didn't dare turn around for fear of losing her balance and falling, knowing that to do so would mean the end for her.

In the distance she could hear the sound of a child crying, a pitiful keening cry that pierced her very soul, and she focused on the sound, allowing it to guide her during her headlong flight.

The crying grew ever nearer as she continued to run, and within a few seconds she had rounded a corner to find herself face to face with the object of her search.

Emily stood before her, arms outstretched, the tears falling freely from the wide blue eyes and streaking her pretty face as she implored Scully to please make the bad men go away.

Without hesitation, Scully scooped the child up in her arms and held her close, breathing in the sweet scent of her child, rewarded as she felt Emily's grip tightening around her. The sweetness of the moment was short-lived though as she felt the child become rigid in her arms, hardly breathing as she focused on some unseen horror, and then Scully knew. The footsteps behind her had ceased. He had found her.

She spun around to confront him, still holding Emily tightly to her, and found herself gazing in to the green eyes of the one she trusted most in all the world. For a second she relaxed, sure that he was there to save them both, but then her chest tightened as she realised he was pointing his gun directly at her.

"Give her to me."

His voice was hard, uncompromising but Scully simply clutched Emily closer to her and took a stumbling step backwards even as Mulder advanced. Her eyes darted wildly around, seeking an escape route but finding none. Her only hope was to get past him, but he seemed to sense her strategy and easily out maneuvered her, grasping her arm so tightly that she cried out in response to the pain. His face was only inches from hers, and to her horror, his features had become twisted in to a kind of ugly caricature of the friend she had trusted and relied upon through everything. That man had gone, only to be replaced with this new version of Fox Mulder who seemed intent on getting what he wanted.

"Mulder, please. . ."

The grip on her arm tightened in response to her beseeching tone.

"I said give her to me, Scully. Don't make me take her from you."

She struggled to make sense of his words, eyes widening as she realised he had pressed the gun he held in to the space under her rib cage. It was then she knew that he meant to kill her, regardless of whether she surrendered Emily to him or not but her own survival meant little to her compared with that of her child. To keep hold of her put her life in jeopardy, and by the look in Mulder's eyes she didn't doubt that he wouldn't think twice about shooting through Emily if she chose to attempt escape again. Locking her own blue eyes with that of her partner, Scully slowly lowered the still sobbing child to the floor, unable to look down at her for fear of breaking down completely, not wanting the haunted face of her daughter to become the last memory she held, and instead sought to gain understanding for her partner's betrayal.

"Mulder, why are you doing this?"

To her surprise, instead of answering, he drew her close to him, running a finger softly down her cheek as she implored him with her eyes to respond.

"Because I can."

His answer chilled her and she knew a split second before the world exploded in a barrage of pain and sound that he had never really been her partner, that in reality he had been one of them, using her as she had been used all along. And then she fell, crumpling to the floor as the gunshot ripped through her, reducing her vision to a hazy red as the life force bled from the gaping wound in her side, hearing her daughter screaming the word she had longed to hear for so long, a tortured sound which reverberated around her head long after she lost consciousness.

"Mommmmeeeee . . ."

The word fading in to the distance as he took her away . . .

Scully's eyes snapped open abruptly as the full horror of the dream forced her in to full wakefulness, and for a few seconds relief washed over her as she realised that it had been no more than a simple nightmare, no doubt brought on by the rigours of the case.

Her relief however was short lived as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings.

Something was very wrong. For one thing, the room she found herself in was way too bright, the bed beneath her hard and unyielding and the second more pointed, was the pain she was experiencing in her left side, a stabbing sensation that seemed to synchronise perfectly with every beat of her heart. She attempted to sit up and the stabbing became a chain saw cutting her in half, escalating to a point where she couldn't help but cry out in pain.

Immediately she did so she felt a hand drop on her arm, stroking softly as the voice reassured her.

"Sshhhh. It's OK, Dana. You're safe here. Don't try to move...."

Her vision was slightly blurred and she blinked a couple of times in an effort to clear it, focusing finally on the face that hovered above her, identifying it immediately as belonging to John Wickham.

The senior agent's statement was creased with concern, and from the growth of stubble that adorned his cheeks, it was patently obvious that he had been there for some considerable length of time.

Scully ran her tongue over lips that felt dry as sandpaper, and then attempted to speak.

"Where am I?"

Her voice was little more than a strangled whisper, but Wickham picked up immediately on her fear. The fact that she was frightened was good. It would make his task all the easier.

"You're in the hospital, Dana." He answered softly, aware that she would expect more than that, but in playing the game to the letter he had to wait for her to ask rather than furnishing her with the information unprompted. He didn't have to wait long.

"For what?"

Again the question was voiced in little more than a whisper, and for the merest instant Wickham had the crazy urge to pick her up from the bed and take her as far away as he could from the men who had put her here. He was also aware though that his every move was under scrutiny from the C.C.T.s that were positioned in every corner of the room, hidden from view behind the false walls that had been hastily erected for just that purpose. He wouldn't manage more than a few feet before they realised what he was doing and the consequences would be disastrous.

Instead he swallowed his thoughts and gently smoothed the hair from its disheveled position around her face.

"Don't you remember?"

He watched as she frowned up at him, the confusion all too evident in her eyes, struggling to make sense of her circumstance.

"I . . . no, I don't remember . . ."

Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

"You were shot. The bullet perforated your left kidney and for a while it was touch and go. You've been unconscious for over a week. We didn't think you were going to make it." he smiled suddenly. "I guess you're a lot tougher than you look."

Scully didn't hear him. Her mind was reeling from his information, and she squeezed her eyes shut as the image of her partner rushed unbidden in to her mind. The look in his eyes and the sound of the gunshot as he pulled the trigger. She forced down the panic that overwhelmed her. It was a dream. A nightmare. Nothing more than that. It hadn't really happened.

"It's OK, Dana. Take it easy."

Scully cut off his words as she grasped his sleeve unsteadily.

"Who shot me, John?" she asked hoarsely, already knowing what his answer would be and at the same time praying that she was wrong, that the trauma of the injury had mixed up her perceptions of what had happened, that any second now her partner would walk in to the room and everything would be back to the way it had been before.

<Please God let me be wrong>

Wickham's next words sent all those hopes crashing to the floor.

"Oh, Jesus. You really don't remember, do you?"

She heard the strain in his voice at being the one to deliver the news. The news she now didn't want to hear. She closed her eyes before he dropped the bombshell, needing to retreat in to herself lest she break down, but the words had to be uttered. They needed to be.

"Dana, I'm sorry. It was Mulder. It as witnessed by a half dozen people including myself. We're still out there looking for him."

He trailed off as Scully turned her face away from him, his chest constricting as he saw the stricken statement of horror that now covered her features, watching as the tears rushed to her eyes and began their slow descent down her waxen cheeks.

The guilt overwhelmed him as he observed what his news had done to her, and clumsily he reached out to her, withdrawing his hand as Scully shook her head.

"No. Leave me alone."

Wickham nodded as he rested his hand lightly on her shoulder.

"I understand, Dana. It's OK. I'm gonna go now, but I need to send the Doc to see you. Check that you're all right, and then later we'll need to talk. See what you remember. But you've been through a lot and the best thing you could do right now is rest, OK?"

Scully refused to look at him, but the barest nod of her head at least indicated that she had heard his words and satisfied, he rose to his feet.

The first segment of the plan had been executed without a hitch, but as he headed for the door Wickham felt only one emotion. It should have been pride -- elation even at what he had achieved -- but instead he felt a deep sense of shame, knowing that he had destroyed everything within her that she counted upon, and that in doing so he had also destroyed her.

Next