SquidgeWorld Archive

Mulder started to wake up when the second wave
of nausea deposited the rest of last night's
dinner - week-old Chinese takeout - into his
toilet. The smell was enough to keep him
going, but finally, finally, he calmed himself
with long, deep breaths and his retches
stopped. He leaned his clammy forehead against
the cool porcelain and tried to piece together
what was happening.

He hadn't been drinking, he knew that. He
distinctly remembered coming home from the gym
exhausted, watching television, falling into
bed - so why did he feel like he'd spent the
night on a sailboat in the middle of a
thunderstorm?

... Oh. Mulder groaned. Apparently waterbeds
*did* make him seasick, after all.

With another long groan, he pulled himself off
the floor and flushed the toilet. He rinsed
his mouth out and splashed water on his face,
rubbing his eyes tiredly. Fox Mulder the
insomniac, married to his work - all he wanted
to do was crawl back into bed - back into his
*couch* - and never have to see the inside of
the Hoover building ever again. What were they
*thinking*, assigning him to background checks?
That was fresh-out-of-the-academy, office-temp
work. If they wanted to make him quit, they
were doing a damn good job of it.

Mulder scowled at himself in the mirror. He
seriously considered calling Scully for
Dramamine and a doctor's note - but thought
better of it when he remembered she was pissed
at him. She was *always* pissed at him, for
some reason, since they'd lost the X-Files, and

he'd given up trying to figure out why, but it
was damn annoying, not to mention it hurt.

He scowled some more and reached for the
shaving cream. As he went to lather it on his
face the hair trigger on the god-damn poorly
designed bottle went off, catching him square
in the eye. *Fuck!* He frantically poured
cold water over his face, blinking rapidly,
taking shallow, gasping breaths to combat the
pain. He looked at himself in the mirror - his
right eyelid was starting to swell. Fuck!
Fine. No shaving, then. Government-employed
telemarketers don't have a reason to look good,
anyway.

Blearily, he ran a hand through his sleep-
mussed hair, and decided it was good enough
when a comb and water failed to make his
forelock lay flat, as usual. He stumbled out
of the bathroom and, carefully avoiding the
bed, pulled on a fresh shirt with the same
jacket, pants, and tie he'd worn yesterday.
He'd be early to work, but there wasn't really
any point in knocking around his apartment for
the next three hours, feeling sorry for
himself; he could do that just as easily at
work, and get paid for it, too.

He opened his apartment door, and sighed.

The 2 had fallen off again.

FMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFM

Of course, Mulder thought with exasperation.
The one day he was voluntarily reporting early
for background checking duty, the subway
*would* be late. And this after half an hour
of struggling with his junk heap of a car,
finally giving up on it when the engine started
smoking.

The crowd on the platform was pressing in on
him from all sides. The Braddock Road metro
station was usually pretty empty - Alexandria
catered mostly to well-paid government
employees, who drove their expensive cars into
the city every day, or took the metro at a more
reasonable hour. But today it seemed like half
the population of northern Virginia was dead-
set on using that particular station. Of
course, it didn't help that the train was over
an hour late.

Mulder gritted his teeth and stood his ground
against the sea of jostling bodies, telling
himself that today would *not* be the day he'd
be shoved onto the subway rails and
electrocuted. Someday, maybe, it might be fun
to try that, especially if he had to ask too
many more kindly old ladies if their sweet
neighbor boy had ever smoked pot; but not
today.

At virtually the same instant, the lights at
the edge of the platform began to blink,
indicating the train was almost to the station;
the crowd cheered; and two shots rang out from
the upper platform near the turnstiles. It
sounded a lot louder than a normal gunshot in
the reverberating underground acoustics.

There was a moment of utter silence, a man's
voice yelling something, and then complete
pandemonium.

Mulder fought his way to the escalator and rode
it impatiently to the upper level, wedged
between a large woman in a bright flowered
dress who was weeping hysterically and fanning
herself, and a dark-skinned man in a sweatsuit
who seemed to be all elbows. Once at the top,
he breathed a sigh of relief and moved out of
the way quickly to avoid being shoved.

The platform was empty in a wide circle around
the gunman and the crumpled female body at the
base of one of the turnstiles. Passengers
walked carefully around the edges, warily
eyeing the scene as they made their way quickly
back to the surface, in marked contrast to the
chaos that still reigned downstairs. The man
was breathing heavily, pointing his weapon at
the two security guards who stood with their
hands above their heads just outside the
entrance to the information booth.

The police hadn't arrived yet, and no one was
watching Mulder. He charged forward and
tackled the gunman to the floor, forcing him to
release his weapon, which went skittering
across the tiles. The man fought back like a
demon, kicking, punching, spitting, and
shouting that he "hadn't done anything!" But
Mulder's attack gave the security guards the
chance they needed, and by the time the cops
showed up, they had the gunman in handcuffs,
the victim in as much first aid as they could
manage without a hospital, and a large bag of
ice pressed into Mulder's left cheek, which
would probably be free advertisement for Nike
for the next month.

Even with a detour to the precinct to give a
statement, Mulder was only an hour late for
work; but at least he got a free ride in a cop
car.

DSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDS

Mulder made it to the bullpen - finally - and
sat down hard in the chair behind the desk that
would never, no matter what, feel like it
belonged to him.

The chair broke, and he banged his head on
Scully's desk on the way down.

"Ow! Dammit!" Mulder disentangled himself and
stood up, rubbing his head. He aimed a kick at
the remains of the chair, stubbing his toe but
inflicting no discernable damage to the
furniture. "Shit," he muttered, gingerly
rubbing at his still-swollen eyelid and cheek.
He felt like crap, and it was only ten AM. And
it didn't help that Agents Jones and Bronson
were looking at him and snickering. He glared
at them. I don't remember requesting a
transfer back to fifth grade, he thought
bitterly.

And where the hell was Scully? She wasn't at
her desk.

Mulder deposited the remainders of his chair
unceremoniously into the hallway, maneuvered
Scully's fancy ergonomic executive wheeled desk
chair around to his own space (she never used a
chair this nice downstairs, he groused), and
called her home phone. No answer.

"Hey, Scully, it's me." He pondered what else
to say. "Um, I'm just wondering where you are.
Call me when you get a chance."

He tried her cell. Out of service.

Fine. He didn't care what Scully was doing
anyway. She didn't have to keep him apprised
of her every motion. She could damn well do
whatever she pleased. It wasn't as though they
were -

It wasn't as though they were - anything.
Anymore. Ever.

He rubbed at his eyes, and hissed when he
remembered he wasn't supposed to do that. So
why did it hurt so much when he couldn't reach
her?

He sighed heavily and pulled the list of the
day's background checks out of his inbox.

He really hated the fact that he had an inbox.

He fished his reading glasses out of his pocket
and slipped them on.

No change.

One of the lenses was missing. Dammit! It
must have popped out during the fight at the
subway. Fuck! Now he'd have to go back to the
optometrist. He hated people poking at his
eyes.

He hated people poking at any of him, really,
but Scully wasn't qualified to do the eye
doctor part. Not that she would want to,
anyway.

Fuck. He threw the useless glasses across the
room, and they landed next to the trash can by
the doorway.

Oh, right. He should keep the frames.

Mulder planted his elbows on the desk and
rubbed at his temples. His entire head ached.
Coffee. He needed coffee.

He pushed himself up and wandered to the
counter at the back of the room, avoiding the
curious glances of the other agents and
scooping up his glasses on the way. He picked
a blue ceramic mug with 'FBI' in bright yellow
letters from the shelf, filled it with fresh
black coffee, and walked back to his desk. The
cuff of his suit jacket caught on the clip
attached to the side of his monitor as he swung
around to sit down. His arm jerked and he
dropped the mug, which splintered all over the
floor, splashing scalding hot coffee all over
his hand. "Aah -" he cried out, and bit his
tongue, shaking his hand wildly in a vain
effort to cool it.

Suddenly he was standing at the sink, head
bowed, with cold water running over his hand.
He didn't remember how he'd gotten there, but
*damn* it hurt. Fucking -

Mulder was desperately in need of a stronger
set of swear words, and it wasn't even 10:30
yet.

"Hey, Agent Mulder, you ok?" It was - hell, he
didn't remember his name. New young agent, he
sat at the next desk up. In any case, he
looked more concerned than amused when Mulder
turned to see him filling his own cup at the
coffeepot, which was refreshing.

Mulder turned the water off and carefully dried
his hand with a folded paper towel. "Yeah."
He grimaced. "It's just a first-degree. I've
had worse."

"You don't look so good. Maybe you should have
someone check that out?" He was talking about
the burn, but Mulder was sure the other agent
was looking at the shoe imprint on his cheek.
Or, hell, his puffy eye. Any of the large
inventory of injuries he was rapidly
accumulating today.

"Already taken care of, thanks." Mulder
ventured a wry smile at the young agent as he
pulled a swath of paper towels out of the
dispenser. "Welcome to my life." And it
wasn't so bad. After all, time spent mopping
up spilled coffee was time not spent on
background checks.

When Mulder got back to his desk he realized
there was a bigger mess than he'd noticed, in
his rush to get his hand under water. The
entire surface of the desk was soaked in
coffee, and several of the items he'd had
sitting on his desk were sharing the floor with
the shards of the coffee mug. His chattering
teeth wind-up toy, a bag of sunflower seeds,
his (thankfully mostly empty) pencil holder,
and -

Oh no.

He hunkered down into a crouch and turned the
picture frame over with his good hand. Sure
enough, the glass was cracked, and the photo of
Samantha inside was badly stained with coffee.
The colors were starting to run. She still
smiled encouragingly up at him from the jungle
gym, but she wouldn't for much longer.

He sat back onto the floor, not caring about
the now-cold coffee that soaked through the
seat of his pants, and stared into Samantha's
runny eyes. Somehow this was just the last
straw. He couldn't work with her in that
state. He just couldn't. Especially when
Scully was God-knew-where.

He picked up as much of the broken pottery as
he could manage, and swabbed most of the coffee
off the floor with his handful of paper towels.
He'd have to find another photo, that was all
there was to it. And there was only one place
to find that inside the Hoover building.

Samantha's file in his office downstairs.
Fine, he thought bitterly. /The X-Files/
office downstairs. He'd just go down there,
and ask Spender very *sweetly* for the file.
It was personal business, he couldn't refuse.
Mulder would just borrow the file, make a color
photocopy, and return it. No harm done.

Sure. It'd be easy. And if he didn't go he
wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it.

He laid Samantha's photo face down on the desk
and headed for the door. As he turned the
knob, he said to anyone who happened to be
listening, "If anybody asks - I'm looking for a
mop."

XFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXF

He knocked again. Still no answer.

It galled him no *end* to see another man's
name on that door. With Diana's, no less.

Why hadn't he ever added Scully's name?


Mulder tried the knob. It turned. He poked
his head inside. "Spender? You here? Diana?"

He left the door open - so they wouldn't be
able to claim he was sneaking around, he told
himself - and walked to the file cabinets. One
of the few pieces of furniture that had escaped
Agent Spender's manic redecoration, they still
stood in the corner under the tiny window.
Skylight, actually, was how Mulder preferred to
think of it.

It was so - antiseptic in there now. It felt
like a lawyer's office.

Wanting to get this over with as quickly as
possible, Mulder opened a drawer and pulled out
a file from memory, without even looking at the
label. He reached inside to pull out
Samantha's photo -

This wasn't Samantha's file. In fact, he
wasn't even in the M's. This was his file on
the Jersey Devil case.

God damnit, did Spender have to fuck up
everything he laid eyes on? Mulder cursed
aloud and began rummaging through the files
haphazardly. There had to be some kind of
order, but it didn't seem alphabetical anymore,
and he couldn't find her.

He felt tears stinging his eyes. He couldn't
find *her*, and now he couldn't even find her
*file*!

He opened every door in turn, pulling files out
randomly, discarding them onto the floor when
they weren't what he was looking for. He could
barely see through his tears and his breath was
coming in sobs as he rooted through the
drawers, frantically searching. They'd taken
her file. It wasn't there. First they'd taken
her and now they'd taken her file. They were
trying to make her disappear, as if she'd never
been. He wouldn't let that happen. He
couldn't. She *had* to be here somewhere.

She wasn't.

"Fuck!" he slammed the last drawer closed -
right on his burnt pinky finger. "Oww!!
*Damnit*!"

"Mulder, what are you doing here?"

He whipped around. Shit. Spender was at the
doorway.

"What did you *do* with her, you son of a
*bitch*?" he panted, shaking his finger out and
trying to get control of himself.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Agent
Mulder, but I think you'd better leave. Right
now." Agent Spender was *not* pleased with the
mess Mulder had made of his office.

"You bastard," Mulder breathed, eyes narrowed.
"You're in it with them. You've known all
along."

"Agent Mulder, you need to - "

Mulder decked him before he had a chance to
finish the sentence. He was on top of him in
seconds, one fist clenched in the front of
Spender's shirt, the other pressing against his
throat. "You tell me where she is! Tell me
where she is *right* *now*, Spender, or so help
me I'll - "

"Agent Mulder!"

This time it was Skinner at the doorway.

/Fuck./

"My office. Now."

FMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFM

One week unpaid disciplinary leave. For
entering the X-Files office uninvited for the
second time in a week - yeah. He'd forgotten
about that. And for assaulting Spender, even
if the man did have it coming.

He left his badge and gun on Skinner's desk and
stalked out.

It could have been worse; it could have been
another week of background checks, or dung
patrol.

He passed Diana coming in as he left the
building. Maybe she'd understand? Maybe, just
maybe, after all these years, she wasn't
against him, and could dredge up some honest,
heartfelt sympathy?

He tried to smile as she walked up to him.
"Diana, I - "

She just smiled in her lopsided, superior way,
said "Fox, hi! Did you know you have a stain
on your tie?", winked at him, and walked away.

Guess not.

Right. That's why he hadn't hung this tie on
the rack last night. Ketchup stains from
yesterday's burger.

Shit!

DSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDS

He went to the Lincoln Memorial to think, and
sat on a bench beside the long, bright
reflecting pool. He kept a steady stream of
sunflower seeds into his mouth: crack, spit,
chew, swallow, repeat. The routine was natural
and comforting.

The winter sun bounced off the water and into
his eyes, dazzling him and giving him a
headache. He'd come there at night with
Scully, a few times, early in their
partnership, under the pretense of meeting
clandestinely. He wondered what it would be
like to meet there now, under a starry sky,
with the moon reflecting off the pool beside
the lights from the Washington Monument,
filtering through her hair like a golden halo
.. Mulder lost himself in daydreams.

Suddenly Mulder realized he wasn't alone. He
was in the middle of a crowd, in fact, for the
second time that day. A large, angry crowd, in
fact. They carried signs, so they must be
protesting *something*, he reasoned. What, he
didn't know, because they definitely weren't
shouting in any language he recognized.

He stood up, too quickly, and grabbed the back
of the bench to keep from falling over. He
felt terrible.

"You move, mister! We need." A heavily
accented, impatient voice broke into his
reverie, and a wizened old woman with seven
children in tow settled herself on the bench.
He shook his head and massaged his temples, and
she glared at him some more. "Sure," he
muttered, and moved off, hugging himself.

He headed toward the Lincoln Memorial, and the
road, with the vague idea of hailing a taxi and
going home. Or Scully's. Or anywhere but
there, really.

The crowd started to move. Really *fast*.
Towards the Washington Monument - opposite
Mulder's motion. It made him even dizzier, and
he stumbled a few steps backward to get out of
the way. Suddenly there was no more solid
ground under his feet, he heard his ankle
*crack* as he landed on it wrong, and landed on
his ass in the reflecting pool.

Luckily, the pool was less than a foot deep.
He decided to just stay put and enjoy it until
the crowd passed by.

Which took a lot longer than he expected it to.

And that water was *cold.*

Finally, an hour or so later, shivering, wet,
bedraggled, and in pain, Mulder struggled out
of the reflecting pool and limped on his good
ankle up the stairs to the road. The first
thing he tried was his cell phone: when water
cascaded out of it in waves, he gave up on that
idea. He could barely manage to hail a cab, he
was shivering so hard; but for once, luck was
on his side, and the first taxi to pass by
pulled over for him. He collapsed into the
back seat, dripping buckets all over the
upholstery. "Alexandria," he muttered, and
closed his eyes, giving in to the darkness and
the pain.

XFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXF

The driver grunted. Mulder dragged himself
awake, ready to go home and sleep for a couple
of weeks. On his sofa. After a long, hot
shower.

His ankle twinged.

Ok, maybe a bath.

He opened the door. "Hey, wait a minute, this
isn't - "

Two thugs reached into the car and pulled him
out by the tails of his trench coat. The
driver shut down the engine and came around.
Mulder had time to notice that they were in an
alley of some sort before someone knocked him
on the head with the butt of a gun, and then he
didn't notice much besides the stars in front
of his eyes, and the kicks and punches that he
was on the wrong end of yet again as they
shouted expletives and accused him of "puttin'
they brutha' in the can."

Somehow, he registered that these must be
friends of the gunman he'd tackled at the metro
this morning, a lifetime ago; and he fervently
wished he'd never even thought of punching
Spender out.

He did notice, however, when one of them found
his ID, and said "Fuck, man, he's FBI," and
they all left in the taxicab.

It took awhile, but eventually Mulder worked up
the nerve to sit up. He winced every time he
moved, and his chest ached deep inside. After
all these years, Mulder knew a broken rib when
he met one. Aside from that, several new,
painful bruises, and the little dwarf smelting
iron inside his head, he seemed to be in the
same condition he was before his ill-fated taxi
ride. Which wasn't great; but it was
something.

Slowly, using the wall for a crutch, he eased
himself to his feet, wincing and hissing with
each inch he gained, finally almost fainting
again when he chanced to put weight on the
ankle he'd twisted at the pool. He gritted his
teeth and staggered as quickly as he dared to
the end of the alley, and wonder of wonders, a
pay phone stood right at the entrance. With
his luck, it would be out of order.

It wasn't.

He called Scully first. Still not home. He
managed to talk to Frohike before he hit the
ground.

FMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFMFM

He woke up to Scully's hand in his, and her
voice in his ear. The second thing he noticed
was the warmth.

"Hey," she said softly, smiling.

"Hey," he answered back.

"Having a bad day, Mulder?" she asked. One
eyebrow was up, but she was still smiling, and
Mulder felt better than he had in ages. She
didn't look mad.

"Not anymore," he answered honestly, looking
deep into her eyes. Oh, wait, shit, he wasn't
supposed to - "I mean, yes! Very bad - very bad
day ... " he trailed off as she started to
chuckle.

"Mulder, you really are a piece of work."
Scully shook her head. "I talked to Skinner,
he's turned your disciplinary suspension into a
medical leave. And they found the men who
attacked you. It wasn't hard; they'd pulled
the cab into a McDonald's two blocks down the
road, and were having milkshakes." She sighed
and smoothed back his hair. "Honestly, Mulder,
I go out of town for one day - /one day!/ - and
look at you!"

"I - I'm sorry, Scully." He turned his head
away, but couldn't bring himself pull his hand
from hers. He sighed heavily. "Scully, why
does this universe always have to shit on me?"

"Mulder, look at me." She reached across his
body to grab his other hand, through its layers
of aloe and gauze. "So you had a bad day.
Everyone does. Tomorrow'll be a good one."

He chuckled, but looked back to her. "Scully,

I have more bad days than lions have stripes."

There were tears in her eyes, but she was
smiling as she leaned forward to ruffle his
hair. "Mulder, lions don't have stripes. You
mean tigers. Or zebras."

"See what I mean?" He grinned, but she shook
her head in bemusement as she stroked his
cheek.

"Mulder, didn't anything good happen to you
today at all?"

He leaned into her hand, belatedly remembering
that not only hadn't he shaved that morning,
but he still had a couple of nasty bruises. He
didn't care, though; she felt too good. "Until
I woke up and saw you here? No." Her forehead
crinkled, and he backed up before she could
parse the come-on he hadn't meant to voice. "I
can tell you something bad you didn't know
about, though."

She snorted. "The shaving cream in your eye?
Mulder, you should have called the doctor
immediately. It says so right on the package.
Luckily you landed in the hospital *anyway* - "
she peered at him - "and I have some eyedrops
that should fix you up within a week or so."

"Nope!" He grinned like he was about to tell
her he'd won first place at the national
spelling bee. "I puked this morning!"

"Mulder .. !" she shook her head in
exasperation. "Why? Did you have food
poisoning?"

"No, I was, um .. " Oh, right. She didn't know
about the waterbed. " .... seasick."

"Seasick?!?" *That* earned him the eyebrow.
"Mulder, how on Earth did you manage to be
seasick in Alexandria?"

"Um .. " He avoided her eyes, but he knew he
was trapped. " ... waterbed?" he mumbled.

"A *waterbed*?" She couldn't stop incredulous
laughter. "I know I shouldn't be surprised,
but Mulder, why do you have a waterbed if you
know it makes you seasick?"

"I, um, I don't know, hey, Scully, where were
you today, anyway? I was worried." Nice
change of subject, he congratulated himself.

She looked at him askance - and raised that
eyebrow again - but let him off the hook. On
that count, anyway, for now. "I told you last
week, Mulder. Bill's ship docked in Baltimore
this morning; Mom and I spent the day at the
Inner Harbor with him."

"Oh. ... You're right. I remember now. I'm
sorry I pulled you away from that." He let his
head fall back against the pillow and closed
his eyes. "Scully, how do you always manage to
be in the right place at the right time?"

"I don't, Mulder. Only where you're
concerned." She leaned forward and kissed him
lightly on the forehead. He closed his eyes
and willed the moment to last forever. "Ready
to go?"

"Go?" Boy, that eternity was over quick. He
jerked back and bunched the covers around his
chest. "Do I have to?"

She burst out laughing. "What is this, *my*
Mulder doesn't want to leave the hospital?"

He grinned back. "I just think I'll be safer
and happier if I don't leave this bed for the
rest of my life." He tested the restraints.
"*Not* a waterbed, rails to keep me from
falling, automatic headrest, bland food, free
cable .. this is the life, Scully."

"I don't think they get the Playboy channel,
Mulder."

"Oh. In that case, when do we leave?" He sat
up and slung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Whoa, Mulder, not so fast!" She grabbed his
shoulders to steady him and he wrapped a hand
around her arm. "You still have a sprained
ankle, a broken rib and a mild concussion.
They're only letting you go because I'm a
doctor, and," she glanced wryly at the room,
"they need the bed space."

Mulder couldn't look away; her eyes were so
close. "Did you really mean it, Scully?" he
whispered.

"Mean what?" she asked, perplexed.

"That I'm your Mulder." He held his breath.

She laughed again. "Of course you are, Mulder.
What would you do without me?" She heaved him
to his feet and supported him from one side
while handing him the crutches. He clutched
her tight against himself. She molded
perfectly into him, and put her free hand on
his chest. His spirit was soaring.

"Come on, Mulder, let's go home."

"Wait, Scully. What time is it?"

"It's about 8 PM, why?"

Perfect! "Can we go to the Lincoln Memorial
first? I have a few bad memories I'd like to
overwrite."



Fin.