AUTHOR: JessicaAsc E-MAIL: Jooky313@aol.com DISCLAIMER: If I owned them, wouldn't it make sense for me to worry about what happens to them onscreen rather than off? SUMMARY: Thanks to Mulder and Scully's permanant target branded on their foreheads, they are taken hostage - again. But this time, Mulder's memories are not only his, but also the person who has taken them. CATEGORY: First and foremost, Character Death. Angst for all, but mostly for our dear Scully. Annnnddd, MSR because what's the point of writing anything that *isn't* MSR? ;) FEEDBACK: I should tell you that if you don't tell me that I should try having this archived in an XF BadFic site, I might write again. Be warned. :) ARCHIVE: Gossamer and if anyone else would like to lay claim to this, first I pity you, and second I would very much like to know. But before you come and ask me if you may archive this on your newly formed XF Fan Fiction site, you might want to read it. It'll definitely change your mind. DEDICATION: Grace, I was too chicken to let you read this beforehand after my first failed (IMO) attempt at writing. :D If you find this before I get a chance to send you the horror that this is, I'm sorry, I'm not too sure if I'd like to subject you to *that* again. ;) XxXxXxXxX Oy, vey... "Memorie del Morire" (1/1) "Gun. Me. You. Him. Alarm. Floor. Table." With a hurry these words slipped out of his mouth deftly. "You, you saved me. I had a gun in my hand, pointed in your face, and you saved me. I didn't think we'd ever get out of there, Scully. I thought I'd be the one to do us both in. You were smart enough to pull that fire alarm and save us both." The man saying these words stalked over to where Scully had curled herself into a protective vessel. Her face was littered with bruises. She winced as he crept nearer and nearer to her. She turned her head to keep the distance from them further by another inch or so. Every inch counts, she repeated to herself. This time, he hadn't come to add to the number of bruises that already decorated her visage. "You saved me," he reprised as he scooted closer and closer, penetrating the space she had claimed as a divider from where she would allow others to touch her. He extended his hand to her forehead and rubbed the fibers of her ruby hair down to her chin. He gingerly turned her colorless face to look deeply into his bloodshot excuse for eyes. "You saved me." He tried to imprint this into her mind. As soon as it was out, anger replaced the thankfulness he had tried to make her see he had. "BUT YOU SHOT ME!" he screamed as loud as his voice would allow him to be. He was up again, mumbling something incoherent. Scully followed his walking with her eyes. Back and forth. Back and forth. She evenly informed him that this was untrue. "I didn't shoot you. I don't even know you. I've never saved you." What was true was that she had shot and saved someone in that very room. The man lying prostrate on the floor, stained with crimson. She decided that her only option was stepping out of the boundaries, taking a risk. A risk that might save them both or if worse came to worse, him. She lightly placed a toe in the Pool of Chance. "But I can save you. I can save you if you let them have Mulder. If you give them Mulder and they can help him, you won't be charged with murder." He rushed at her and made sure his face was nose to nose with her own. "SHUT UP! You aren't running this. *I* am. I am the one telling you what you can and cannot do. I can shoot you just as easily as I shot him." With this he emitted a a cocky laugh. "Or if you like, he can take another bullet." He plucked at a few hairs on Mulder's head matted with a bit of his own blood. "Better yet, in the head. You won't mind if a little of his brains spew all over you, will you?" Scully resigned herself to again look on as he carried himself from one side of the room to another. Three pools of light were the only outstandingly bright objects in the interior. They lit the wound on Mulder's forearm and illuminated the blood that was seeping from it. She in one corner. He on the opposite wall. The person behind the reason they were being held - babbling from one wall to the opposite. After quite a run with his pacing, he seated himself Indian style on the uncarpeted ground. "Will you sing to me," he finally questioned after keeping his eyes trained on Scully for the duration of a few minutes. "You know, that song? Do you remember when we were in the forest in Florida? When I was injured and you held me.." Scully interjected, "I've never sung to you. I've never held you. I've never shot you. And I've never saved you. You shot the man that I've done all of those things for and to." He laughed at nothing in particular, "No, no, no, no, no you've sung to me. You have. I see it. I can see it in my head. Jeremiah was a bullfrog.. I see it." Scully treated him to an icy stare, "You're mistaken." Her mind didn't even process the fact that here was someone who was recalling details of her and Mulder's partnership that only Mulder would have been able to produce. She instead could only concentrate on their need to get as far away from this man as they could or else neither of them would survive. The man before Scully momentarily gave up on coaxing her into singing for him. He felt the weight of the gun in his palm. "This very gun was pointed at me. Your gun. I can feel how it felt just as I can see it. I thought you were someone else. I thought that you had been killed. By the sister of the man who almost made me shoot you. You were lying on the ground, bleeding. All I could think was that I had to kill her. I had to make her bleed the same blood that was coming out of you. She couldn't be allowed to live when you weren't allowed the same." She had to try. She decided that it had been more than enough time since she had last attempted to save whatever life lay ahead of Mulder. She not only needed, but had to play it carefully. Mulder had done the same. He tried to convince their captor that there wasn't a need to keep her here. That he would only need Mulder. He didn't even blink when he pulled the lever that would jeopardize Mulder's survival. If they were both lying on the floor with a bullet wound, then she couldn't dwell on hope because there would be none. The captor had no set plan, she could see that in the way they had been forced into his car. The idea that he might be caught didn't crowd his thoughts. He had chosen broad daylight to make his attack. In front of Mulder's apartment building of all places. Ironically, there had been no connection with this man. No case that they had worked on together to put this man where he had belonged. No preexisting case that they had been bouncing their theories at eachother to determine who would have been the murderer. Nothing. Nothing, non-existing like a reason they had been chosen. Did they both have permanent targets imprinted on their backs only visual to those who were planning to capture a pair of people innocently living their lives? She didn't even know his name. All she knew was that he was obviously disturbed, unpredictable. Only the most dangerous of predators. And this was who she would have to persuade to give Mulder a chance at living. "Look, can't I even go over to him? See how he's doing? See if he -," she was cut off with a stentorian scream of, "No!" She regrouped herself and came to the conclusion that there was only one way to bend him to her favor, "Look, I'll sing to you. I'll sing to you like I did when we were in Florida. Just let me go to him and I'll sing to you as long as you like." Her eyes closed and she willed him to agree to this deal. His eyes flashed with glee, "You'll sing to me? Go. Go over to him, but as you soon as you do, you'll sing to me!" She eyed the gun cradled in his hand. She crawled on hands and knees over to Mulder's body. It was cold to the touch. Her hands shook as she scooped his head into her lap. She whispered to him that she would do everything in her power to get them free from this madman. She brushed his wet and matted hair from his forehead and tried to transfer some of her own body heat to him. The sitting man over at the other end of the wall implored her to begin with what she promised. She readjusted Mulder's head and cradled his chin in her hands much like the gun in the captor's own hands. She took in a deep breath to steady her voice and began. "Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine," she mentally filled in Mulder's "Chorus." The man across the room opened his mouth to plea for her to go on, but she did anyhow. "Joy to the world, all the boys and girls, joy to fishes in the deep blue sea. And joy to you and me." She wasn't going to go on and so she continued to hold Mulder. "BACK OVER HERE," he bellowed. She wasn't going to push her luck. She had been amazed that she had been able to have him consent to her making sure Mulder was holding up. She unwrapped herself of her own jacket and draped it over Mulder's shivering body. And on her hands and knees again, she crept to her spot - across from the man holding the gun, but on her own separate wall. How she thanked God to have her own wall. To her, it was as if she had her own island. And the one fiddling with her service weapon was across a rough sea. "How much longer do you think he can hold on? When so, so much blood is covering the floor," he questioned her with a broad smile. "It's all your fault. You're too afraid to confront me. You're too selfish. All you can think about is coming out of this alive. Hasn't he risked his life for your own? Why can't you do the same? Can't you see the blood, all of the blood? You're supposed to be his one-in-five-billion, right? RIGHT? My one-in-five-billion, Scully. I guess you would now be my one-in-six-billion, huh? You're the only one who can fill those shoes, Scully. I meant it when I said it. No matter what happens, Scully, you'll always be the only one for me." She tried blocking him out. She envisioned herself in her apartment, candles everywhere, classical piano music in the background, an award-winning dinner adorning her table, and Mulder. Mulder with roses in his hands, putting them in a vase on the table. Pulling out a chair for her to sit in. Complimenting her on her culinary talents. Gazing into her eyes and pouring her wine. And then later - later allowing herself to be taken over by him. Allowing him to finally fill in the spaces of her heart. She was pulled back into reality. "You've always been my one-in-five-billion. I wouldn't let you in. I constructed the walls early on. I wouldn't allow you to call me by my name. Never Fox. Never. Only my last name, I wasn't going to let you wind me around your finger. It always ends the same when that happens. I'd be hurt by you. Or you'd leave me. And you almost did. But the blame could never have been placed on your shoulders. Either time. I begged, pleaded, and cried in hopes that you'd come back to me. And you did. But the reason couldn't be placed on my shoulders. Either time. You were the only one who could have saved your life and you did. Twice. Splatter, splatter, splatter. Tick, tick, tick. With every second, more blood that could save his life is being wasted on the ground. So how about it? How about another bullet to quicken the blood spewing from him? How about we make a deal that if you shoot him yourself, I won't put a bullet in your brain. You pull the trigger and both of you won't have to die. But if you don't, I'll do you in and he'll just have to lie there until he loses all of the blood in his body. You'd both die. My touchstone, Scully. You're my constant. Shoot him. Make him bleed more so you'll live. Oh, Scully, the bee, why did there have to be a bee in your collar? SHOOT HIM!" A single tear displayed itself on Scully's cheek. She didn't need to make a decision regarding what she would do. She wouldn't shoot him. She couldn't shoot him. And if she wouldn't, she'd take the bullet. She might even do it before he got the chance. Why should he be allowed to win? At least if she told him that she would do what he wanted, she would have a gun in her hand. If she was ready to die, she could attempt to give Mulder a chance. She rose. With her hand outstretched, she beckoned him to hand her the gun. She had to convince him that the last thing she wanted was to die. She made sure her voice was shaky, "I'm not ready to die. I can't die. I have too many things left to do. Do you remember when I told you that I had things to prove? I haven't finished with that, Mulder. That truth will still save me." She hoped that by appealing to the side of the man who thought that he was Fox Mulder would convince him evermore. But if she was to give up her life for her Fox Mulder, she had things left to say and she hoped that he could hear her. "You taught me so much, Mulder. Things I could have never learned if I had never met you. You blame yourself for so much, but you don't give yourself credit for all that you've done for me. I will never be the same and I don't care. I can't bring myself to think how my life would have been without you. You will always be my touchstone, Mulder, and I don't what that to ever change," she addressed her captor even though she had been speaking directly to him the whole time, "But I have things now that I have to finish. I have to end my life the way it is supposed to end. And something is telling me that this is not it. Give me the gun. I want to walk out of here. I want to see the sunshine again. I want to taste the rain again. Give it to me." Her imprisoner pulled Mulder's gun from his pant buckle where it had been resting. He trained it to her head and handed her own weapon. "If you try anything, the bullet meant for him will be lodged in your own brain. You got that? You're stronger than this, Scully, believe that. Give him what he deserves for ditching you. Give him what he deserves for leaving you barren. Think of your unborn children when you pull the trigger. Think of Emily. He did that, too. And gave you cancer and had you abducted and had your sister killed. Think of your father. He would have been proud of you if you destroyed that which destroyed your life. Beyond the sea... You are the only one I trust, Scully. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated MDs do it. You have the strength of your beliefs. Do you think I'm Spooky? Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine with all the - Put a bullet in his brain like they put an implant in your neck. Look at all of the blood, do you want him to die here? C'mon, it'll be a nice trip to the forest. You don't want to die, right? Then don't let me down. Blood, blood, everywhere. I know what you're afraid of Scully, I'm afraid of the same thing. Turn around and let him have it for your mother who has had to deal with all he's done to you and your family. I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing. TURN AROUND OR I'LL SHOOT YOU WHERE YOU STAND NOW!" Her mind was screaming at her that she had to stand firm. She had to draw on her strength that was in reserve. She wouldn't let Mulder down. She turned around to his body caked with blood. She raised her arms and steadied them. This was it. This is how she would die. Without the roses, without the compliments on dinner, without him pouring her wine, without everything that flashed in her mind. She raised the gun part way to her head and saw it. There it was. A red, gleaming dot dancing in the corner of the room. This dot meant their survival. She almost cried out in delight, but realized that she had to play along. She again aimed for his other arm. But he must have seen it, too. A deafening shot reverberated in the room. She whirled around in hopes of seeing him lying with a wound much like Mulder's. He was standing. She heard Mulder groan. His chest, he had been shot in his chest by the same man. Another sound of a gun emitting a bullet. This time, no groans from Mulder. The man responsible for both of Mulder's wounds lay on the ground. Fresh blood seeping from his own wound. She let the weight of the gun exit her hands and crash to the floor. She stood firm. She couldn't go to him. She couldn't move. Paramedics, FBI, and Skinner streamed into the room that had recently held only the three of them. Skinner eased her from where she was standing. She verbally protested, "No! Get off of me, I have to see him. I need to see him. Get off!" He wouldn't oblige. "Scully, let them do their jobs. You won't be helping Mulder if you get in their way. They need to work on him. He's been badly shot." She turned bright red, the rage evident on her face. "You think I don't know that? What am I, stupid? Of course he's been shot!" Skinner reaffirmed his stance. "You've been through a lot, Scully. You need to sit down. I'll check on Mulder. Sit." She didn't have the strength nor willpower to resist. She sat, steadying her eye on the man responsible for what had happened. He began mumbling some incoherent jumble of words. She glanced over to where Mulder was. "Charge to 200," were the words being shouted by the EMTs. She wrapped her arms about her knees and cried only to herself. Then, the jumble of words started forming into actual sense. "I love you, Scully. I love you, Scully. I love you, Scully," over and over he was repeating this. She looked at his moving mouth and uttered, "Mulder?" "I love you, Scully. I love you, Scully," was again the response she received. Over and over. Again and again. Until his mouth closed, never repeating these words further as the EMT called out, "Time of death, 21:13." XxXxXxXxX Now.. I would suggest wiping that from memory. :)