"A Gilded Cage" part 1 of 3 by Pellinor (Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk) ____ SUMMARY: After a kidnapping, Mulder and Scully need to fight to survive. CLASSIFICATION: SA (Extreme angst all round) RATING: PG ____ DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, and all their Friends and Relations belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox, and I use them without permission, but without profit. SPOILERS: Vague mentions of episodes up to season 5, including Redux II and Emily. THANKS: Thanks to Rebecca for a read-through and suggestions, and to Andrew for the loan of a computer that actually works. NOTES: If you've read my work, you should know by now. This is "ANGST", not just "angst". My typically long and rambling notes follow at the end. ****** For Dana Scully, the hours after the fight were red. The sheet was warm and damp, clutched between her fingers. She was bleak inside, close to shivering, and she lay on her back, unmoving. Her unseeing eyes stared towards the ceiling, veiled in darkness, and her mind was the velvet blackness of thought repressed, of memories not yet to be revisited. Beside her, and the only movement in the still room, were red digits in the dark. Minutes turned to hours, and one day became the next. Midnight. She moved her head listlessly, seeing but not seeing it. Midnight. A new day. "Damn you, Mulder," she whispered, and the only colour she saw was red. And then, because she had not yet cried over him, she shut her eyes, and slept. ****** For Fox Mulder, the hours after the fight were black. Night time cold scoured his fingers and seeped from the brick wall behind him, penetrating him to the core. He was bleak inside, and torn - so torn. A light would have made a difference, perhaps, but it was all darkness. Cars passed with lights, and voices from lighted windows, but there was only darkness where it mattered. The black rectangle of Scully's window was her angry footsteps, her departing back, a slamming door. "Scully," he whispered silently, then remembered what was calling him away - what had caused the fight. "Samantha." He looked at his watch, frowning to see in the dark. Midnight. Eight hours, perhaps nine, before he could see her, talk to her. Eight hours.... He bit his lip against the sob he had been fighting all night, and was silent. He was still silent when a blow to the back of his head drove him to his knees, and then to his stomach. Half-stunned, he flailed out, seeking to fight shadows, but a booted foot stamped on his right hand, grinding it, and a cloth on his face took all fight from him. He was given a second of awareness before the darkness, and it was only shame. So easy. It had been so easy..... ****** Arms tightly wrapped round her knees, her eyes dry, she let herself remember, as dawn turned grey behind the curtains. "We're partners, Mulder. I trust you. Why can't you trust me?" She'd kept her voice low, her eyes on her tightly clenched hands. She hadn't wanted him to know how deeply he hurt her, sometimes. "Of course I do, Scully." She had read impatience, even contempt, in his voice. "No." She'd looked up, lifted her chin defiantly. She could let him see her anger, if not her hurt. "I can not accept that." He'd opened his mouth....; said nothing. "What else can you expect me to think?" Softer now - a little. "I know you by now, Mulder. I can read you. It's happened before. I know you're investigating.... something. I know you might leave me without a word, tonight, tomorrow, on the flimsiest of leads. I know...." "You don't know me, Scully." His voice had been tight with anger. "Not if you expect.... Not if you can even _ask_...." "What?" She'd stood up, all fire. "If I ask for some trust? If I ask that we do things together, like the partners we're _supposed_ to be?" She'd invested the word with a bitter sarcasm. She'd hated the fact that she'd been suddenly, strangely, close to tears. "If we were truly partners, I wouldn't have to explain. You'd just.... know." He'd folded his arms, his voice taking on the hurt, surly tone that she hated, sometimes. She'd hated it then - perhaps even hated him. It had been easier. "Oh. So I know. I understand." She'd pushed the chair back with an angry hand. her mind had screamed. <_Need_ to.> "Scully." His hand had reached for her as she'd passed, his voice low, intense. "You'll be gone by morning," she had said, her voice flat, like the emotionless automaton she'd so desperately wished she was, then. "Don't expect me to wait. Make your choice. Now, please, let me go." "Scully." His fingers had tightened in her sleeve, his voice almost a sob. she realised, now, and, for the first time, began to soften towards him. But, "Let me go, Mulder." Icy, controlled. It had been the hardest fight, not to pull away from him, to shout, to cry. "If you want alone, you've got alone." She hadn't looked back. "No," she whispered, now. She sank her head in her hands and held it there, a second.... two. It was all the tears she would allow herself to shed over him. ****** Arms wrapped tightly round his knees, every muscle tense to the point of shaking, he let himself remember, in the harsh light of a fluorescent strip that could have been night or day. He would face the past first, then fear the future. "We're partners, Mulder. I trust you. Why can't you trust me?" Her voice had been low, but he'd stiffened, hearing the anger beneath it. "Of course I do, Scully." Abrupt, even desperate. But he'd held little hope that she would let it drop, not this time. It had been years in the coming - a spectre poisoning their intimacy. "No." The anger in her eyes had made him flounder like a drowning man. "I can not accept that." He'd opened his mouth.... but what could be say? He'd said nothing. "What else can you expect me to think?" Her quiet anger was always the most terrible, and this time he'd read the hurt beneath it. "I know...." She'd accused him of no more than the truth - words he could not bear to remember, not quite yet. "You don't know me, Scully." Strangely, he'd felt tears prick his eyes. He'd expected her ignorance to be a safety net, guarding his feelings, but it had hurt that she hadn't understood him. "Not if you expect.... Not if you can even _ask_...." "What?" She'd stood up, her words shaming him. He had understood her hurt completely. "If I ask for some trust? If I ask that we do things together, like the partners we're _supposed_ to be?" "If we were truly partners, I wouldn't have to explain. You'd just.... know." He'd flashed onto an image of a night-time confession, and her hand on his hair as he told her. That night? The next. Soon, before it broke them. Her voice had been speaking, words in the distance, but then.... "Scully." He'd grabbed for her with both hands, needing her. He'd swallowed, preparing to tell her everything there, without rehearsal. He would be naked before her, but better than this - anything better than this. "You'll be gone by morning," she had said, her voice flat.... "No," he whispered now. The memory stopped there, on the constant replaying sound of her dead voice. Again and again and again, burning and hurting, and hurting.... "You'll be gone by morning." "Scully." He mouthed her name silently, rocking in misery. "I didn't. I wouldn't. I didn't." Her face, bleak with betrayal.... "I won't." He was on his feet in an instant, his shout hollow in the small bleak cell with the terrible furnishings. "I didn't. You...." And then he saw how they would laugh, hearing him, or watching him on some screen somewhere. Beating on the door, face twisted in futile cliched threats: "if you hurt Scully, I'll...."; "I _hate_ you for what you've done. You'll never break me"; "show yourselves, so I can...." The laughter was scornful in his mind, and victorious. And so he clung onto the hatred, but was silent. Arms wrapped tightly round his knees, every muscle tense to the point of shaking, he cherished his hatred, and waited. He knew what was coming, but he would fight. God, how he would fight. ****** Returning to awareness, Dana Scully found that an hour had passed. The slantwise light of a winter afternoon sun cast long shadows on the floor, and the black leather was warm beneath her. She stood up abruptly. She'd always hated sitting on leather, she made herself realise suddenly. Even though there was no-one to watch her, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, her face a mask. A mote of dust drifted in a shaft of sunlight, and, for a moment, she saw the room weeks from now, still beneath a sheet of dust as if sleeping. she thought, and had to blink hard. The image of dust was making her eyes prickle, her throat ache. It had ached all morning, almost like unshed..... "No," she murmured, and rubbed a hand roughly across her eyes. There were doors in her mind and she closed them deliberately, one by one. The empty spaces of clothes missing from his closet.... The darker patch in the dust where a picture of Samantha had rested.... A recorded voice saying, "you have no messages"..... He had made his choice, and she refused to let him hurt her. She turned her back and, arms stiff as rods by her side, she walked away. Controlled and without a sound, she closed the door, biting her lip against the sudden knowledge that the other doors would not be as easy to keep locked. Scarcely able to focus, and with fingers red and sore, she wrenched the key loose, and pushed it beneath his door. She was done. ****** Scraping outside the door, whisper-quiet.... Pacing, pacing.... He paused, all senses alert, blood like ice in his veins. His wounded hand was cradled in his left, and his fingers could feel the pulse racing in his wrist. His right hand throbbed with the rhythm of his fear. Fear was a separate persona with its own voice - an enemy to be fought. It whimpered, and he swallowed hard against it. Images flashed in his head - images from memory and imagination, experience and the stark waking horror that was a crime scene photograph. Steel knives flashing daggers of cold light.... When the metal didn't shine, it meant they were covered with blood - his blood. Cruel laughter as boots slammed into his ribs, and the drowning terror of being unable to breathe.... The ripping pain of arms straining against their sockets.... Waking up, he had seen, and understood. The walls were white metal, and there was a drain in the floor. he had thought, almost detached. He had looked only once at the manacles on the ceiling. He had known then that he was going to be interrogated. he had thought just once, but had run in fear from even that single silent articulation. He breathed slowly, deliberately. "Torture," he said now, aloud, focusing his anger. He winced at the image of Scully finding his broken body and weeping over it. He sounded each word clearly in his mind, willing his fear to understand. He raised his head and stared at the door, waiting, defiant. His defences were still holding, and he was ready to smile, even to laugh. A joke about the room service, he thought. Scully had heard that one, but it didn't matter. Just as long as they didn't see the fear that was fluttering in his stomach. ****** Her hands were clenched in her lap. There was a deep ache in her neck, her shoulders, and she felt a deep muscular pain throughout her body. Back ramrod straight, she was as one looking onto a screen, viewing her surroundings as one warped unreality. But fingers dug into palms, and the pain was real. She took a deep breath. "I wish to request a transfer from the X- Files." Skinner blinked, and reality shifted again. She breathed in, and her chest shook. She had rehearsed this, cold in front of a mirror. The mirror- Scully's face had shown more hurt than she would allow herself to feel, now. She tried again, and her voice was dull. "I feel I can be of more use to the Bureau in other...." "Agent Scully." He took off his glasses, rubbing a hand across his face. He looked weary. She had expected anger - almost wanted anger. She wasn't sure if she could withstand sympathy. "Mulder chose," she all but snapped, then recollected herself. Clench tighter, and a new ache in her forearms. "I told him I would resign if he went," she recited, cutting herself off from the meaning of the script she was reading. "He went." "He's been before. Why is it different now?" Skinner looked lost - she realised, suddenly, then felt a stab of anger, of jealousy, that he could let it show. "He'll have his reasons." He picked up a pen, and watched it as he twisted it in his fingers. "You have to consider the possibility that he might not have gone willingly." She thrust her chin forward. "He went willingly, sir. I don't have to defend myself to you. This is what I want. It's my right." "And it's my right to refuse your request." A flash of his usual steel, but there was a shadow in it. "You're upset, Agent Scully. I do not make a habit of granting transfers on an individual agent's whim - because of one fight. If I break you up now...." He sighed. Outside was the dark of a winter evening, and he seemed so weary. "_I've_ suffered for what you and Agent Mulder have been fighting for, Agent Scully. If we let that go just because...." She wanted to scream - to press her hands against her ears and scream, But she stood up, slowly, firmly. "I won't change my mind, sir. Leave it a week, or a month, and I will still...." she had been about to say, but she could not. "It will still be what I need to do," she finished. She turned away before he could see her face. ****** His body hurt with an all-over ache. He sat on the edge of the bed and rocked. It was a gentle movement, to and fro, to and fro. Cramp stabbed across his shoulders and down his arms. "They're coming." His voice was cracked, parched. It rose at the end, almost a question. "I'll fight." It was plaintive and he coughed, trying to force strength into his voice. "I'll fight, when...." He swallowed hard. "When they come." The room was warm, the bed soft. The very comfort hurt him. "They're trying to break me," he whispered, quiet. It had been.... how long?.... without sound, and already he craved it. They would soften him with comfort, and break him with the knowledge that it could not last. Every minute of comfort would be doubly repaid with agony, later. They left the manacles to torture his brain with the images of the bodily torment to come. "I'll fight," he said, louder this time. The thought of secret listeners pleased him, and he wanted them to know this. "It won't work." His hand had bled on the white sheets, and he imagined it multiplied a hundred-fold. When they came..... Rocking to and fro, bed springs squeaking. When - they - came.... ****** She hid in the dark that night, moving about by the faint grey light from outside, and flinching when a car went past. She hid in the dark, and wouldn't look at the mirror. No-one would see tear- tracks on her face. The phone was silent. An hour of it, two, and she pushed herself to her feet, angry, and switched all the lights on, harsh and too bright. She switched the television on - a comedy - and laughed far more than it warranted. unplugged the phone. ****** "I won't." He shouted aloud, looking around desperately. They had to be watching - had to. A secret camera somewhere, and cruel laughter in some other room. "I won't do what you want. I won't do it." Silence. He rubbed at his eyes with his good hand. They were itchy, full of grit, as if a full day had passed and half the night. His watch had gone, and the constant fluorescent light robbed him of day and night. He had been dozing in a fitful shallow sleep, tormented by nightmares that were closer to truth than a dream, when the smell had woken him. Warm food, still steaming. He salivated, hating his body for betraying him like that. Warm food, and drink. Lovely drink. Oh, but he was thirsty. "I can't," he moaned to himself. His stomach was empty, like a grasping claw. Everything.... He pulled his knees up to his chest and curled around them. "I'll fight," he whispered, and raised his head defiantly. "I'll fight." It was becoming his mantra, his strength. But the bed was soft, and the food smelled delicious, and he had his clothes, and he was warm, and.... ****** She took a deep breath, and willed her hand to stop shaking. She reached for the phone slowly, deliberately. "X-Files office. Agent Scully." "Dana?" She let out her breath, long and slow. "Mom." She refused to acknowledge what she felt as disappointment. "I called last night." She could hear the worry beneath her mother's casual tone. "I...." She swallowed hard. The voice made her want to be a child again, when everything seemed better with a kiss. "I wasn't.... available last night." "You're okay?" Sharp. "Is Fox okay?" "Yes." She cleared her throat, fingering the cross at her throat. "I.... I'm not going to be working with Mulder for..... for a while. I've been assigned to another case just until he.... for a few days. I'm just packing some things." "Oh, Dana." She wanted to shout at the sympathy in her mother's voice. Her mother could make her feel so trapped. "Is there a problem between you and Fox? Do you want to talk about it?" "No," she said firmly. "Nothing's wrong." She put the phone down, then gently, almost guiltily, picked it up again and reached for the "off" switch. ****** There was a distant murmur of voices, like a gentle undulating hum. "Morning," he whispered. He pushed himself upright on the bed whose soft folds had seemed a torment all the light-filled night. The manacles seemed to beckon to him. "They'll come today, and I can fight." He had enough time to see the empty plate, to feel shame for his weakness, before the lights went out. He stared into the darkness, straight ahead. There was nothing but his breathing. ***** end of part 1 ***** "A Gilded Cage" part 2 of 3 ____ The rain of a winter afternoon. There was grass round her ankles. "Agent Scully?" A voice. She bit on her lip. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the wind. The mud glistened with blood, and she couldn't suppress a shudder. It was a murder born of purely human evil, with no wild fancies of aliens and ghosts to hide the horror. It was human killing human, and the nightmare knowledge of the world she lived in. It was..... "Normal," she said aloud, and smiled. It was a ghastly unnatural smile, she knew, but it was a smile. If she smiled enough, perhaps she would _feel_ it. "Dana?" The same voice, and a hesitant hand on her arm. "Are you okay?" She turned to him, still smiling. Wet hair stuck to her face. "I'm fine, Agent Sharpe. Fine." ****** Dark. He wrapped his left hand round his right, and squeezed. The pain was like a red flash in the darkness. He smiled, resisting the urge to laugh. Hysteria, he knew, and they would hear him. He raised his hand to his mouth and tasted blood on his lips. The darkness had stretched for an eternity beyond counting, beyond hope of sleep. The silence made him want to scream. The utter blackness made him want to scream. The warmth made him want to scream. The softness made him want to scream. The pain.... The pain was _real_. It was light and focus. It was.... It was something to fight against. He squeezed again. ****** She moved like an old woman stirring from her sick bed. Her body ached. Her head ached. She had been two days on the case, smiling, working, talking.... being normal. Two days and.... she admitted, fumbling with her key in the door. She wondered if she had slept, since. Her muscles were all-over agony, and she knew she had not relaxed, not once. Holding her head high, her shoulders back.... God, how it hurt. Only now, returning alone from a long, dead day in which no-one had understood her, or second-guessed her, or teased her, or make her think, or made her happy, or.... Suddenly, treacherously: "No," she said aloud, and reached for the light, wincing as it cut into her headache. Even her eyes ached, with tears she would not recognise. "I won't let him hurt me. I'm stronger than that." She reached behind her, hearing, not seeing, the click. Another door closing. ****** Light. He collected his strength around him like a tattered cloak. Light, and food. It had slid silently under the door, its sound obscured by.... what? The shifting bed springs as he'd moved? A sob he'd been unable to restrain? They had waited, and he saw them now. Imagination needed strong pictures to counter the harsh white walls and the nothingness. Ear to the door, plate poised, they had waited until he had moved, then had slipped the food through, knowing they had not been heard. So close. He thought of it almost longingly, imagining how it would go. He'd wait for it, listen intently for hours, and then.... "Speak to me." No begging. He would make his voice loud, snake his hand through the small flap and grab whatever wrist was behind it. "You know what? You're cowards, hiding like this. Come and face me. Speak to me...." "Speak to me...." he whispered now, and he knew how it would go - how his command would weaken to a pleading sob. "I need...." He picked up the spoon in a shaking left hand. He needed to fight, but they gave him nothing. Two mouthfuls of daylight, and he was in night again. ****** She was running at dawn, hair plastered to her face. She had dreamt of him last night, and had woken to a ghostly feel of his presence that she had been unable to shift. Her pillow had been wet. she had thought, fists clenched and thoughts oh so rational. Feet pounding in the rain. There was no room in her mind for anything but exhaustion - no room for..... she told herself firmly. ****** Dark. He was living a nightmare. He had dreamt of this before. Sheets clutched round his shaking body.... The silence would press down on him, its darkness more terrifying even than fire. he would realise, unable to speak. And then, just before he opened his mouth and screamed, he would hear the crunch, crunch of his father eating seeds. he would realise, with a great shuddering relief. And, although he would know that his father was awake at night only because he was missing Samantha and hurting, and hating him, he would weep with the relief of the sound. Pain was better than.... than.... "Nothing," he whispered now. He was scared beyond all movement, now, and paralysed. And, in that moment, he knew that, if they came from the long darkness to torture him, he would welcome them. He wept with shame. ****** She stared at the suspect through the two-way mirror, heard him being formally charged. The murdered woman's blood had still been behind his nails. "Agent Scully? Dana?" She swallowed hard, then forced a mask-like smile on her face, turning to meet him. "Agent Sharpe." He looked down at his hands. "You're going back to the X-Files? This was only for one case, wasn't it?" She nodded. She was in a turmoil inside, hating herself for it. Feelings betrayed her. She had yet to learn proper control. "I'll ask Assistant Director Skinner again," she said, at last. part of her pleaded. "It was great working with you.... Dana." He had the softest blue eyes. "If you don't go back...." She didn't trust herself to speak. ****** Light. Clean clothes. "I won't." It was the first meal all over again - the same tormented struggle against need and defiance. "I won't, but...." What did they want? "We've broken him," they would laugh, watching on their cameras. "Refusing food and comfort because he thinks it's somehow _defying_ us.... If we've made him needlessly hurt himself, then we've won...." "No," he moaned, and reached for them. He nearly wept at the smell of them. They were his own clothes, from his own home, and Scully.... "We've broken him," they said again, their harsh laughter making him drop them as if they were fire. "He's like a tame puppy, eagerly lapping up any scraps that fall from our table. He lives for a word from us. He eats our food, and changes his clothes when ordered. We've won...." "No...." He squatted on the floor, wrapped his hand around his knees, and rocked. ****** "Dana." She fought the urge to sag at the knees. When this was over, she felt she would have hard muscles where no muscles had been before. "Mom." She shut the door gently behind her. All her movements had been gentle since the second case had started. The slightest lack of control, the slightest reaction, and she feared she would lose it entirely. "We need to talk, Dana." There was steel in her mother's face. She had let herself in, installed herself on the couch, and would not go. It was a fight to the death, she knew. "I've told you what happened." The previous night, on the phone. Afterwards had been the closest she had come to admitting that she wanted to cry. "There's nothing to talk about." "Dana." Her mother's eyes were red, as if she too had cried in the dark, before. "Can't you see what you're doing to yourself? All this anger.... You've never been one to hate like this." She turned her back and poured water blindly into a mug of coffee. It was cold. "I don't hate him. He made his choice. I accepted it. I've got a new life to look forward to. I'm happy with it. Things change." "Dana...." Her mother's voice caught. "It's not weak to cry." "I won't _cry_ over him." She whirled round, angry. "I don't need to cry. I'm happy. I...." And then she shrugged, knowing she could not complete the lie, the charade. "Of course it's hard to adapt to change - it always is. There are.... things that I miss. But a clean break is better - allows me to get used to my new life." she added, and bit her lip. Her chest shook, then steadied. "And Fox?" Sly and insistent, saying what would most hurt. She wanted to hate her mother, too. "Is he happy? Do you care about that?" She clenched the mug tightly, her hands shaking. "He made his choice. I told him what the alternatives were. He chose. I.... I wish him well." Stilted words without feeling. Again and again, the hammering thought had woken her from a cold aching nightmare that morning, and the one before. She had run again, using the regular steps to hammer control over her weakness. She was Agent Scully, and she was strong. "You think you hate him," her mother said, sadly. "You were always the best at self-deception, although you thought you were so in control." It was too much. "I hate him," she shouted, and the mug fell to the floor. Blindly, she mopped at the spillage, seeing nothing. "I don't hate him. I _have_ to hate him. If I didn't hate him, I'd have to miss him." Then she pressed her hand against her mouth, hard. "Dana." Her mother's hand on her face. She was smiling through tears. "Hate him, miss him, but just accept that you _feel_. Be honest with yourself." She stood up, wrapping her arms around her body. "I am," she said, tightly. "What I said.... It was a mistake. I know what I feel. I...." She squeezed tighter, so tense. "Please go, Mom. Please." ****** Light. He had thought that light healed him, brought him sanity.... Blood pounded in his head and he lay on the bed, exhausted. For two meals he had endured, staring at the new clothes while the smell of his body sickened him. Sweat and food and blood and fear.... Taking his clothes off was a luxury. The first time he'd done it fast, almost afraid that he would change his mind half way through, leaving him naked and paralysed. The second time, he had savoured every button, counting slowly in his head and making it last _ten minutes._ The concept had seemed a miracle to him. Ten minutes of control. Ten minutes of knowing the time. Ten minutes acting, not passively smothered by the silence. Ten minutes.... The next few times he had smiled. After that, he had laughed. He had stopped counting at twenty, and, after that - long after that - he had collapsed, exhausted. For a moment, he saw himself, and understood. ****** "Dana?" "Agent Sharpe." She smiled. It was almost habit, now, and easy to do. Since her mother's visit she had felt different, needing only to prove that she could be happy. Her survival depended on it. She would not languish. "Tom," he said, and smiled shyly. "Dana, would you....?" "Yes." She touched his arm, leaning close to him. "Yes, I would." ****** Light. Still light. "I'm scared of the dark. I never realised," he'd whispered to himself, once, when the darkness had stretched beyond three meals. "Sleeping with the television on.... _That's_ why...." He'd curled tight, holding the shame deep within him. "I'm scared of the light," he realised now, pressed against the wall, sweat beading his brows. It was the bright white light that took his strength. It reached into everything, gave him no place to hide. It.... "It's not human," he murmured. The walls were all metal, the floor unadorned. He'd searched his clothes, his bed clothes, his body, and found nothing. No lenses, no cameras, no listening devices. No-one was watching. It was the only articulated thought that he hadn't spoken aloud for.... days? A camera he could at least hate, and fight. ****** Tom's arms on her shoulders, pushing away. <_His_ arms> she corrected herself, almost angrily. She needed a new "he" - a person so dear to her, and so important, that he could be thought of without a name. "Dana." He was shaking his head, his eyes wary. It was their third date in a week, and she had smiled and laughed constantly during each one. Part of her had known that her laughter had been brittle, her humour desperate, but she hadn't listened. This would be their first kiss. "Tom." She leant forward again, feeling suddenly as if she was floating on the ceiling, viewing herself as she would view a stranger. She didn't recognise herself, but this was her new life - her life after.... after _him_. "Dana. No." He pulled back almost sharply. "This isn't going to work." "Why? It has to work. I need it to." She hadn't meant to say the last part. She had drunk wine tonight. "So you can tell yourself you're over him?" There was a note of anger in his voice. "It's not fair to use me, Dana. If I thought you realised it, I'd.... It would be hard to forgive, Dana." "Over him?" Her knuckles were white on the stem of the glass. "Mulder? We were never.... involved." "You love him, though." He held up his hand, as if stopping her objection. "I'm not implying anything. You can love a friend, or a brother, or.... or a partner." "He left me." Again, it was more than she had wanted to say. She blinked against the stinging in her eyes. "I've got a new life now, and.... and all that goes with it." "Yes." He stroked her hand. His fingers were rougher than Mulder's. "You can't rush it. Eventually, maybe." He smiled wanly. "Perhaps I'll be waiting." She kissed him on the cheek, then pressed her face against his shoulder so he couldn't see. ****** Light, and a picture. It had been folded in the pocket of the third set of clean clothes. Despite the blood on it, he had reframed it, kept it beside the couch. The blood had been a reminder of the gift the man - his enemy - had given Scully. "I want to fight, Samantha. I want them to hurt me. I want them to care." There was no feeling in his fingers from holding her. "But they're not going to come, are they, Samantha? It's you and me, forever." Leaning against a tree and smiling.... He wrenched his eyes from her to look, for a while, at the manacles. Once, he had stood up on tiptoe and reached for them, seeing if his wrists could slot into their grasp. Or he could twist a sheet and snake it through - around his neck and through.... "I should have told Scully." He had accepted his future would never change, and the past returned to haunt him. "I should practice telling her. If she finds me.... I've got the time." It struck him as insanely funny, and he laughed, hysterically, exhaustingly. "Scully," he began, his voice high and unnatural. "I trust you, but I've got to 'ditch' you, as you call it. You're my partner, but you've suffered so much because of me. Melissa. Your abduction. Your cancer. Emily...." He looked up, suddenly anxious. "Is it too much, Samantha? Will she cry? Will I cry?" Samantha nodded sadly. "You'll both cry, Fox. You should have years ago, you know. Both of you, together." He needed to rub his aching eyes, but he didn't dare loosen his grip on her. he'd said, almost accusingly, when he'd first got her back. "I know you chose it, and you're strong. I _know_ that, Scully." Samantha nodded her approval. "But it hurts me, too. I can't change that." He swallowed hard, and Scully was almost as real as Samantha to him. "When I get a lead about my sister.... if I had to think about the risk to you all the time, then I wouldn't go - I couldn't go. And.... It would kill me, Scully. It would...." "Too melodramatic?" he asked, and Samantha shook her head, tears in her eyes. "It's the truth, Samantha. Looking for you was my life." "I know, Fox." She reached for his hair, her fingers so soft that he couldn't feel them. _She_ was the comforter now - the older one. "You've won, now. You've found me. You've won your victory." His vision blurred with tears. "Have I?" he asked. Her reply was swallowed up in the darkness. ****** "Agent Scully." Skinner didn't stop writing. She knew from experience that this meant he was listening - that he cared more than he wanted to show. "It's been three weeks, sir." She started without preamble. "I've been working.... away on a case by case basis. I still feel the same as I did then. I would like to be transferred." Skinner looked up, and she saw distaste in his eyes even as he nodded. She saw the same distaste every time she looked in the mirror. ****** Dark. He woke from a troubled sleep, and reached for her, but she was gone. He groped desperately in the darkness until he was beyond exhaustion, but she was gone. "Samantha?" he whispered. Nothing. He clenched his hands on either side of his face, and screamed. ***** end of part 2 ***** "A Gilded Cage" part 3 of 3 ____ She pulled at a fold in her jacket, ran a hand over her hair, and waited. Skinner cleared his throat. He'd taken his glasses off and she wondered suddenly if it was to show his sincerity, or to hide. "Sir?" she began. It was a week since she had seen him last, and felt the distaste in his eyes echoed within her. Things had changed since then, and new routines quickly become habit. He walked to the window, speaking with his back to her. "If you found out that Agent Mulder had been.... taken against his will, would it change anything?" The chair teetered behind her, pushed with such force. "What have you heard?" Her voice was high and tight. "Nothing." He turned round and rubbed his eyes. "Nothing at all. But there is.... pressure to close the X-Files. If I thought there was any situation that could occur that would make you change your mind about leaving, I would..... I would act in a certain way." "You'd keep them open?" She sank back down, a strange longing filling her throat and making it ache. "Open and unmanned for, perhaps, months.... You'd resist the sort of pressure they can put on?" she thought, in a moment of doubt instantly recovered from. she corrected herself sternly, but even that was more than she wanted to admit, even believe. "If it should emerge at some point in the future that Agent Mulder had been taken against his will, would you change your mind?" he asked again, his voice level. "I...." She dug her nails into her palms. Her mind was racing. "If he was..... If he was traumatised, it would be wrong to leave him," she said, at last, dully. "You'd stay." His voice rose with something that sounded almost like relief. "I'd have expected you to be the first to want to close them down, sir," she said, dryly. "The trouble he's caused you." "Then you don't know me very well either." She knew he was right, and said nothing, but she refused to think about the implications of his words, of the "either". "I'll keep them open, for a few weeks at least." He didn't look at her. Her feelings were a constant surprise to her. It was an aching pain of a life on hold. But she smiled, and said the right words. ****** Light and dark, and light and dark, and light and dark.... He was lost. In the light, he lived only for the darkness, where he could hide from reality in tempting dreams. he told himself. Pause, wait, then start again. In the darkness, it was worse. He lived for the darkness, but the fear was still strong, confusing him. He would rock himself forward and back. "I'm losing my mind," he had cried out, once - it could have been years ago. "I don't know where to fight. I don't know where to look." And then he remember that Samantha had spoken to him, before they had dragged her from him over night. He had spoken, and she had answered. It had been a real conversation - coherent. She had thought him sane. ****** She had come to hate the sight of his door. Skinner was the old life. Another summons, and another painful realisation that her facade was still a facade. She had not fully moved on. The old life could still hurt her. "He hurt me." She paused on the door, and mouthed the admission for the first time. "Mulder hurt me." Time brought honesty, and allowed her to admit truths that had never been spoken. "Ten weeks isn't that long." Her mother's words sounded in her memory. They were still wary about each other, old wounds not quite healed. "If he came back tomorrow, could you face him without..... without _feeling_? It might take years." "No." She had twisted her hair between her fingers. It was longer now, and the colour was darker. She was changing, growing. "I would find it hard, but I would cope. I don't want to go back to that life." And she'd shut her eyes for a moment. "I won't go back," she whispered now, and thrust her shoulders back. "It's over." ****** He counted until he forgot how to count. He had counted ten lots of ten seconds on his fingers, then had marked a scratch on the wall with his thumb nail. A scratch was a hundred seconds, and he had a.... a.... His face crumpled. "A whole lot of scratches." He looked at his thumb, frowning. It was almost a physical effort to think, now. "Thumb," he whispered, slow, like a child. "Nail. Sharp." His other nails had been bitten until they bled. Bleeding was good, he had remembered from some part of his mind. There had been a time when he had wanted it. It had.... had... "Showed me I'm still in control - that I'm still sane," he supplied, eagerly. But now.... He ran the nail experimentally along his throat, lightly first, then deeper. Nothing. He frowned, then raised his hand as high as it would go, nails curled like claws, and slashed it at his throat. The nail snapped. There was blood behind it - a little. He felt it moist on his throat. It didn't make him feel any better. He wondered why he had done it. He tried to count. ****** "It's over." Skinner looked so tired. "I can't fight them any longer. The X-Files are closed." She shut her eyes. She had expected to feel closure, but instead she wanted to cry. Her mother was not the only person she lied to. "I _may_ be able to reopen them, if it turns out that Mulder's been held...." "He went willingly." Her cry was almost wild. She took a deep controlling breath. "He all but told me he would." Skinner came round the desk and leant on it, his voice paternal. "Why do you need to believe that, Agent Scully?" "Because it's true," she snapped. "Will that be all?" Outside his office, she stood for a long time, her eyes closed. ****** And then he escaped..... She called for him, and he followed, and never looked back. ****** "Why do you need to believe it, Dana?" Her mother's voice, echoing Skinner's question. "Why won't you even consider that he didn't do this deliberately?" "Why should I want to imagine him hurt, and captured?" She resisted the image. Only words, without meaning. It was too terrible to envisage. "Why should I want to see that? What's so strange about wanting to think of him happy? He's somewhere with his sister, perhaps. He was told he could be with her if he walked out and didn't look back. He's happy somewhere." Her mother smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "It's not the reason, is it, Dana?" She stared intensely at her hands, and was silent. "I know my little girl." A soft hand on her cheek. "It's like when you went into the FBI.... You were so desperate to justify your decision that you wouldn't even listen to any doubts. You were _determined_ to prove yourself right." For a moment, she faltered. "You think I'm wrong?" "You made a decision. You left the X-Files, and tried to forget him. If it turns out that...." Margaret Scully shook her head sadly. "It's only natural that you will feel guilty. I know how much it scares you, to face the thought of that guilt. But really, Dana, you weren't to know. Whatever happens, you mustn't feel guilt." But there was a shadow in her voice that said otherwise. she had told her daughter once, weeks earlier. "It won't happen," she started to say, then stopped. Even that, and she could be accused of being in denial. "You're talking as if it's already happened," she said, instead. "It's something you should at least consider." Her mother looked her full in the face. "You were gone for _three_ months." She blinked, blinked again. "I have considered it, Mom. I have. It's....." Inside, she poured out everything. "Dana? Please. You've got to talk about it." "If it happens, I'll face it." Then she turned away. ****** Light, and it smelled of flowers. He could only dimly remember a time when he had wanted to scream with the very silence, with the loneliness. It was all gone, now - all past. She had rescued him, and smiled. She had rescued him, and Samantha had accepted him, and, somehow he knew, although he had never seen her, that his mother had forgiven him and loved him again. He and Scully and Samantha had such lovely talks together, all smiling. "It's all I ever dreamt of," he told them, once, and had shut his eyes to the shadow that welled around his feet, at the screaming darkness that tried to grasp him, pulling him back. He threw his arms up to the sky, although they hit something - a wall? "I'm happy." ****** Night-time, and she opened the door, robe clutched around her body. Still half-asleep, the part of her mind that was still in dreams half expected it would be _him_, smiling apologetically about some new lead. "Sir." She was professional enough to be awake in an instant. "Scully." He was lost for words, she could tell suddenly. His face was warring, torn between announcing it as good news or as bad. "It's Mulder," she said, her voice closer to a gasp. Even after thirteen weeks, who else could it be? She grasped for the support of the door frame, her breathing loud in her ears. "Yes." He cleared his throat. "I've received news from a.... reliable source." "Is he okay?" She had departed again, watching from the ceiling as if in a dream, or nightmare. "He was.... taken." She nearly fell at that, holding onto the door with shaking hands. Her life was collapsing. "He was, however, kept in good conditions. I was assured that his room was warm - that he was clothed, given a comfortable bed, food and water. He was not physically touched in any way, except for a minor injury to his hand when he was taken. He was even allowed photographs of the family." "Was he.... held for the whole time?" After his safety, it was the most important thing. Her guilt depended on it. "Did he leave voluntarily, and then get captured afterwards?" His face clouded with disapproval. "The whole time, Agent Scully. Does it matter? Really?" She lowered her eyes, and his accusation spoke to her, drawing blood. But, "you're sure of this?" was all she said. "Pretty sure." He seemed unsure of himself, of her reaction. "I'm sending a team to retrieve him. Do you want to come?" "Yes," she said, at once. She felt hope, and the beginning of relief. she whispered, and smiled. Her main joy was for his sake, but it was also for her, too. She could leave him with a clear conscience. He would be like a caged lion, angry, ready to fight. His anger would make him formidable, able to carry the fight alone. She hoped that, when she saw him, she could believe it. ****** "Mulder?" The others fell back, leaving her like the main player on a stage, heading into the floodlights. It angered her. "Mulder?" But she could not have stopped moving forward if they had threatened her with a gun. Just seeing him, and everything was unsure again. She was lost. Amidst everything, one of the feelings she could identify was hatred - that he could do this to her without even having to say a word. She wanted to be strong, responsible to no-one for her happiness. "Mulder?" He was asleep, curled under the covers on a bed that was soft and white. The warm air in the room caressed her cheeks. Apart from a toilet, there were no furnishings, but she had seen the pile of his possessions outside the door - clothes and photographs, and more. Throughout the building, there had been signs of a hasty departure, and packing half done. They had removed his things, she knew, preparing to move him, when Skinner's informant had surprised them. "Mulder?" He moaned, pulling the covers closer to his chin. He didn't wake up. His hair had grown, but there were no signs of grey emaciation on his face. "Mulder?" She almost touched him, then pulled back, not daring to. If she touched him, her resolve might crumble. He would be all right. She would make sure of that, and then she would walk away. A clean break was best - for him, as well as for her. So why did she want to howl with the dread of it, and hold him and comfort him and apologise for doubting him, and....? "Mulder?" She clenched her fists, fighting the doubts that dared not speak aloud to her. They were the voice of her mother, and Skinner's disapproving face. They were her lowered eyes as she looked into the mirror, and the hollow self- doubt of a nightmare. They were.... And then he moved. "Mulder?" Eager now, forgetting everything she _needed_ to remember. But she would not start this life again - could not. "Scully." His voice was a mumble. Dull. There was no joy in his eyes at all. "Mulder." She straightened. she thought suddenly, and hated how she cringed inside at the treacherous impossible thought. But it was what she had believed for thirteen weeks, and what she had accepted. She blinked hard, fighting. The last thirteen weeks crumbled, became meaningless. "Scully." He rolled over, and there was only his back to her. She cried as she stepped back. Thirteen weeks, and she had never cried until then. ****** She was smiling at him, and laughing with joy. The sun was shining, and they were hand in hand, all three of them. Scully was on his left, Samantha on his right. They were holding his hands, and laughing, and loving him, and..... "Mulder?" It was a cruel thing, like a hand shaking him harshly. he told it. "Mulder?" Louder this time. Her grip on his hand loosened, as if the voice was eroding her life force somehow. It had happened before, he thought vaguely. Perhaps the voice was her cancer, or a metallic box car. He hated it. "Mulder?" He opened his eyes. It was a new one, this time. Normally it was the smell of food, pulling him back - food, or clothes, or.... or.... something. This one was worse. This one was disguising itself as Scully herself. "Scully," he muttered, hoping that he could please it by calling it the name it wanted to go by - that he could acknowledge it, and then it would go away. "Scully." And then he rolled away, and back, and the birds were singing. ****** END ****** NOTES: (Strictly for people who like to know the story behind a story) When I was smiling with anticipation of the upcoming episode "Kill Switch", in which Mulder will be captured and suffer things as yet unknown, my husband happened to mention that nice decent girls don't torture fictional characters. "Okay," I replied. "That's a challenge. I'll write a story in which Mulder is captured, but absolutely nothing happens to him." And so this story was born. As it turned out, my husband was hardly nice and decent either, since he proved to be a mine of information about methods of psychological torture. He assures me that the strongest man will almost certainly go insane in such conditions as Mulder is placed in in this story. Soldiers are trained to fight, so put them in a stressful situation, but deprive them of that focus for their fight, and what can they do? "I just need something to put my back up against," said Scully after her abduction, and I've always liked this. I think Mulder has based his whole adult life around fighting "the enemy" - the forces that took Samantha - and simply having this focus for his enmity serves to give him the strength to defy, to carry on. And Scully, too. I tried to make her feelings almost parallel Mulder's. In a way, she _needs_ to blame Mulder - to use this feeling as the thing she can "put her back up against" while building her new life. I hope people will not judge Scully harshly in this story. She was hurt, desperately, by the fact that Mulder could just leave her like that, but I have never seen Scully as being very good at expressing her own hurt, or even admitting it to herself. She seems to need so desperately to be strong, even to the point of denial. I don't for one moment see her as _really_ hating Mulder, or of feeling any of the other things she tried to convince herself she felt. And as for what she will do after the end of the story? Well, I have very little doubt about that, either.... Well, enough of that. (I'm sorry. I _do_ ramble....) Feedback will be eagerly received, and replied to: Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk ***** Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk