Chapter Text
The last thing Dana Scully wanted to hear at 2 a.m. after returning from a week long, grueling case out west was her phone ringing.
She was utterly, and completely, exhausted. It couldn't have been more than an hour or so since she’d finally dozed off, her dirty pantsuit crumpled on the floor, body aching from the tumble she unwillingly took down some stairs in pursuit of their suspect. If there ever was a time to ignore the shrill ringing, it was now.
But after five seconds of begrudging the trajectory of her career and lamenting her incredibly poor luck, Scully blindly slapped her hand on her bedside table until she found the offending object.
“Hello?” She mumbled into the receiver, scrubbing her other hand down her face.
Silence met her question.
For a reason she couldn’t quite place, Scully quickly sat up, turned on her light, and found herself fully awake. She pressed the phone closer to her ear and searched the quiet on the other end of the line.
It was faint, but she heard someone breathing, so quickly and so labored her heart rose in her throat. This was breathing she’d recognize anywhere.
“Mulder? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Her annoyance at a 2 a.m. wake up dissolved quickly into a puddle of worry.
The breathing hitched on the other end of the line.
“Mulder, I need to know if you’re hurt. Talk to me,” Scully tried again, getting to her feet to gather some discarded clothing from the floor one-handedly.
“Sc-Scu-Scully.”
Mulder’s stuttering of her name had a hundred unbidden and awful scenarios screaming through Scully’s mind.
“Yes, Mulder, it’s me. Are you…” Scully quickly pulled a gray sweatshirt over her head. “Tell me where you are, Mulder.” She sat on her bed and yanked socks on her feet and then her sneakers, handset cradled against her cheek and shoulder. “Are you injured?”
“It’s…Scully. She’s here, Scully.”
His voice was hoarse and too honest, sounding unlike himself with every syllable and gasping breath. Scully’s anxiety rose.
“Who’s there, Mulder?”
“I saw…saw her. Scully. I just have to wait. She’ll come…come back.”
“Mulder, are you in your apartment?” Scully fought to keep her anxiety from her words.
The line was silent for so long Scully thought Mulder had dropped the phone or passed out.
“Y-Yes.”
Scully raised her eyes to her ceiling and absently touched where her necklace sat under her sweatshirt.
“Don’t move, Mulder,” Scully commanded. “I’m coming. Just, stay right there.”
Gone was her exhaustion, the soreness in her muscles, every other selfish thought she’d harbored when her phone had rung and woken her up. She sprinted to her car and pushed the pedal to the floor.
Scully had never driven so fast to Mulder’s apartment.
She parked haphazardly on the curb and made for the lobby before pausing. After a second thought, she grabbed a medical bag from her backseat and slung it over her shoulder. Mulder’s voice had sounded…like he wasn’t fully there. Off in a way that had Scully wondering just what could have happened. What he’d taken…or been given.
She forewent the elevator and took the stairs two at a time. By the time she reached Mulder’s apartment, she had her weapon in her hand and the key he’d given her ready.
The door creaked open without the need for it, though. Scully’s heart thrummed loudly in her ears. She carefully dropped her bag in the entryway and turned and locked the door behind her. Then she listened.
Her grip felt slick around her weapon and she readjusted it. Eyes roaming the darkness, Scully searched for the danger she assumed had to be there. ‘She’s here’ echoed in her memory.
Mulder’s living room and kitchen were clear, as was his office. Scully swallowed, her throat dry, and considered the possibility that Mulder hadn’t listened to her. He could be anywhere, stumbling about in the dark, right outside or a hundred miles away…
She paused and let out a breath. Then she shut her eyes and listened.
There.
It was quiet, but it was definitely Mulder, Mulder’s breathing, which had turned into more of a terrified panting. Scully’s eyes snapped open and she tightened her hands around her gun. He was still breathing. He was here. In his room or bathroom if she guessed correctly.
Scully pushed the door to Mulder’s bedroom open with her toe, weapon rising. The full moon shining through the window was the only light to see by. It was enough for Scully to determine that the room was empty. Which left only the bathroom.
She carefully crossed the bedroom, trying to make as little noise as possible. She stopped behind the open bathroom door, hidden from whoever might be inside. Was it just Mulder? Was someone with him? Had he been attacked, drugged?
A pained whimper sounded from the bathroom, derailing all other practical considerations. Scully peeked around the door, her concern for Mulder outweighing even her personal safety. But she was wholly unprepared for the scene that lay in front of her.
In an instant her weapon was reholstered and she was dropping down next to Mulder, who was alone in the bathroom. He was on his knees, trembling, arms crossed over his head, wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants despite the chill in the apartment.
Her hands hovered over him, uncertain.
“Mulder?” Scully whispered, finally placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. He tensed underneath her and jumped away, backing himself into the corner of the room. The sliver of moonlight falling through the doorway revealed a crazed expression on Mulder’s face; his pupils blown wide, his breathing labored, hair sticking to his brow with sweat.
“It’s me,” Scully said, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “It’s me, Mulder.”
His dark eyes found hers and stared at her unblinkingly.
“Scully,” he exhaled. Just saying her name seemed to calm him, a prayer against the storm that held him in its sway. This quiet relief her name brought her partner caught Scully off-guard, and it clawed at something buried deep within her chest.
“That’s right.” She nodded encouragingly. “You called me, Mulder. Don’t you remember?” He didn’t seem to hear her, as he began to mutter under his breath and his eyes searched the shadows on the ceiling for something she couldn’t see.
Drugged, Scully’s mind supplied helpfully. But with what? She approached him slowly, warily, not wanting to startle him further.
“Did someone give you something?”
He furrowed his brow at her question and dropped his eyes to look at her. The naked emotion rolling in those hazel depths stole the air from Scully’s lungs.
“Give…me?”
Scully suppressed the frustrated sigh threatening to escape and crouched in front of her partner.
“Well, did you take something?”
He laughed at that, a bitter thing.
“Take. Take. Everyone always takes. Life takes. Takes and takes and takes…” Mulder’s eyes went a bit glassy and he stared over Scully’s shoulder. “I have nothing left to be taken from me. Except you.”
Scully tried not to react, but she couldn’t help her small, emotional sigh. It was more than they ever admitted to the other, at least in so many words. Danced around and found in stolen glances and hidden in the way they touched each other. But never, never said. Scully shut her eyes and tried to take a centering breath, seeking a semblance of peace, only to inhale deeply and be drenched in Mulder’s scent. How comforting she found it, despite herself. The faint lingering of his aftershave, the spiciness of his soap…
Mulder’s fingers on her cheek startled her. Scully’s eyes flew open.
“Beautiful.”
His whisper felt too intimate, truth too easily found hanging in his gaze. Scully cleared her throat.
“Can you stand?” She asked him, rising to her feet and severing the contact between them. Mulder’s hand lingered in the air as if he were still touching her.
“I need to examine you, Mulder,” she explained slowly. “You could be injured, for all I know, and I need to know what you took. This drug, or whatever it is, could have serious risks. I am of a mind to take you straight to a hospital-”
“No!” Mulder surged to his feet, hands grabbing the sides of Scully’s face. “We can’t leave, we can’t leave, she’ll be back! She said she’d be back, Scully, I have to see her, I have to see her…”
Scully was preparing to argue when she saw that he had tears clinging to his lashes.
“She’s coming back, Scully, she is,” he whispered brokenly, a lifetime of pain painting his words in shades of agonizing hope.
Mulder suddenly swayed on his feet and he groaned, grabbing at his head. Scully jumped forward to hold onto him, keeping him upright. But just barely. If she didn’t get him to his bed or the couch when he could still somewhat assist, she’d never get him off the floor. Scully rubbed her hand comfortingly up and down his arm.
What the hell did he take?
“I know she is,” she consoled, wincing at the heat coming off of his skin. “We aren’t leaving, we’ll just…we’ll just wait in your room, okay?”
The pair awkwardly stumbled towards the door, a much smaller Scully walking backwards and pulling a delirious, pained Mulder with her. She didn’t like how pliant he was underneath her touch, how out of it he seemed to be.
Scully carefully maneuvered him to the edge of his bed and pushed him down towards the mattress. “Sit, so I can look at you.”
His hands, pressed hard into his eye sockets, moved to grab at his hair.
“Hurts, it hurts, Scully.” Mulder’s face was screwed up in pain, chest heaving with silent sobs.
It took everything in her to maintain her composure and conduct a quick examination. Scully pressed the back of her hand to Mulder’s forehead, felt his pulse in his wrist, checked his eyes, and scanned him for any apparent injuries of which there were none. So a drug, most likely a hallucinogen, was the likeliest explanation.
“It hurtsssss,” Mulder groaned, listing heavily to one side. Scully quickly grabbed his shoulders to hold him in place.
“Did you hit your head on anything, Mulder?”
He pried his eyes open and stared at her. Even though he was seated and she stood, Scully was only a couple inches taller.
“You’re frustrated with me” was all he replied.
Scully scoffed.
“Well, maybe if you answered any of my questions I wouldn’t be so frustrated.”
“Blame the drugs, Scully, not me,” he said somberly, almost sounding like his usual self. A brief flash of lucidity crossed his face and he yanked one of her wrists free, encircling it in a loose grip. “I had to, I had to do it. I had to know.” And then the look was gone, like a candle snuffing out, and his eyes rolled back in his head.