Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

 When Scully was in her forensic pathology residency program, one requirement was that she had to do ride alongs with crime scene techs.  The director of the program felt that the young doctors under her tutelage would understand the crime behind the dead body they were responsible for if they saw it not neatly laid out on a metal tray in a morgue, but the way it was found, naked in the violence that had consumed them.  Scully didn’t really understand at the time what an important lesson this was.  Her experience with the dead was to have a body prepped and ready for her, blood from their injuries rinsed off so she could start her examination.  Seeing a murder victim in the milieu in which thy died, in homes destroyed by a crush of violence, covered in blood from wounds they sustained while they were still alive to bleed, meeting family members shellshocked by what had just happened to their loved one…these experiences gave Scully a  much deeper understanding of what being a forensic pathologist was all about, and how knowing every aspect of a person’s death helped her paint a comprehensive story of what truly happened.  Car crashes, stabbings, shootings, suicides, household accidents…Scully had been at all these types of crime scenes in her training, and she believed this made her a better pathologist.  She believed it made her a stronger person.

But nothing prepared her for what she saw that day in a Minneapolis cemetery.

The first thing Scully noticed as she approached the grave was the dead woman’s headstone.  Doing some quick math, Scully calculated that the deceased was only 21 years old.  As she was wont to do, she immediately started running down the possible causes of death for such a young person.  Suicide.  Car accident.  Homicide.  Less likely, cancer or another illness.  She didn’t ask Agent Boggs the cause of death; it wasn’t relevant, and he was tied up in his UFO rant to Mulder.  Scully looked over the edge of the grave to the dug up corpse and immediately felt bile rise up the back of her throat.  The young woman’s body, which looked like it had been decaying in the earth for about a week, was face down on top of the coffin.  Her dress was torn open, and her hair was messily chopped off.  As she looked closer, she noticed that fingernails had been forcibly removed from both her hands.  She swallowed thickly and looked away.  Death was supposed to be a state of peace.  Once a body was interred there was no more violence or autopsies; the person is truly at rest.  But to be dug up and violated—it as almost too much for Scully to process.  Who could possibly do something so horrendous?

“Are you okay?” Mulder asked her softly, as he rested his hand on her lower back and guided her back to the car.

“You surprise me, Mulder.  You didn’t react to what we saw back there.”

He shook his head.  “I prepared myself for this before we left DC.  And I worked on a similar case back when I was in Violent Crimes.  It’s a lot to take in.”

Scully nodded.  “It really is, Mulder.  I’ve seen a lot of death in my day, but this…this is beyond the pale.  Who could do something so awful?”

“A sick fuck,” Mulder said, sliding behind the wheel.  Scully climbed into the passenger’s side.  They slid into silence on the ride to the police station, both of them lost in their own thoughts.

Mulder missed his football game, his real reason for coming to Minnesota in the first place.  Scully didn’t really care one way or another; she wasn’t a big football fan to begin with.  It was the reason why they missed the game that had her upset.

They were summoned to the police station because more bodies had been dug up.  After glancing through it with little emotion on his face, Mulder handed Scully the folder with the crime scene photos.  Scully swallowed thickly and forced herself to look at the pictures.  It was similar to what she saw in the cemetery, but even more brutal.  Hair was cruelly hacked from the heads, and the fingers were left bloody stumps where the nails had been ripped out.  Scully fought a wave of nausea as she closed the folder.  The room suddenly grew dim and it seemed like Mulder was speaking from a long ways away.  She had to tense all the muscles in her body so her knees wouldn’t buckle.  Before she knew what she was doing, she handed the folder back to Mulder and left the room.  She wanted to be as far away from those pictures as she could possibly get.  She sat down on a bench in the hallway and tried to slow her stuttered breaths in hopes that the strength in her legs would come back.  She practiced the breathing exercise Beth had taught her to manage her anger; Scully figured it might be helpful in dealing with her physical reactions.  Calm.  Clear.  Over and over again until she fought back the rising tide of nausea and felt herself grow present in her body again.  Tears prick her eyes but she pushed them back with sheer will.  She would not cry in the middle of a police station, surrounded by men.

Mulder came out of the room and to Scully’s relief, he didn’t ask her if she were okay.  He just launched into details of the case.  He informed her he was going to cancel their return flights because this case was heating up.  There was clearly so much more at stake than a simple football game.

Mulder gave Scully worried looks throughout the day but he never asked her how she was doing.  She appreciated the space, and she fought for a return of her trademark aloof calm.  She didn’t want Mulder to be worried about her.  She thought she had escaped his sharp gaze until he knocked on her door a few minutes after they had said goodnight.  She had just changed into her pajamas and was brushing her teeth when she heard, “Scully it’s me.  Let me in.”  She frowned and put down her toothbrush and walked to the connecting door.  Mulder was also dressed for bed in a pair of sweatpants and an Oxford tee shirt.  He gave her his patent boyish grin when she answered the door.  Before she could say anything, Mulder said, “sorry to bother you, Scully, but I wanted to talk.  Can I come in?”

Scully moved aside without speaking and Mulder walked into her room.  He took a seat on the chair across from the bed.  He gestured for her to sit down facing him.

He ran his fingers through his hair.  “Listen Scully, you and I have worked on our communication over the past few months, ever since I came to therapy with you.  And I guess I wanted to exercise some of those newfound communication skills right now.  Something is bothering you, and I think it’s more than the gruesome nature of this case.  And I was really hoping you’d tell me.”  He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

“Mulder, I’m fine,” she said automatically.

“I thought we threw out bullshit lines like that a couple of months ago, Scully.  Come on, I know you.  I can tell when something is weighing heavily on you.  Remember how hard you have been working to be honest with me and your family?  I think that this is one of those times.  You’ve been so good lately, opening up to me.  Please don’t stop now.”

Scully knew when she was bested.  She sighed and looked down at her hands.  “It’s difficult, Mulder.  I don’t know how to put it into words.”

“Please try.”

She was quiet for a long time, gathering up her thoughts.  Finally, she said, “it’s more than just the horror of it all, Mulder.  Although that’s a big part of it.  Desecrating the dead…not much else comes close to being so heinous.”

“Okay.  Of course it’s hard to take.  But it’s more than that?”

She nodded her head.  She was quiet again for a spell, trying to gather the words in her head that would makes sense to Mulder.  Would make sense to herself.

Finally she spoke again.  “Something was done to these women.  Something profoundly disrespectful of their humanity.  Something degrading.  They were used and discarded.  Like trash.  It’s sickening.”  She took a few slow deep breaths.  “Something was done to me too, Mulder.  I was experimented on.  I was medically raped.  Then I was carelessly thrown away, close to death.  I can’t help—” her throat caught and she covered her face with her hands.  “I can’t help but look at these women and see myself,” she said, her voice muffled.

She felt Mulder’s hand on her shoulder.  “Oh Scully,” he said sadly.  “That’s awful.  Maybe it’s a little too soon for you to be working on a case like this.  I’m so sorry I dragged you up here.  I just didn’t think…”

Scully interrupted and looked at him sharply.  “I’m glad you didn’t think, Mulder.  I’m glad you didn’t have concerns about how this case would affect me.  I don’t want you screening cases based on how I might react to them.  As we talked about, I want you to treat me like you always have when I came back to work, not like I needed to be wrapped in cotton.  Honestly I’m grateful that you took this case without worrying about me, how it would make me feel.  That’s progress.”

“Is it really progress when you are this affected?”

She nodded her head.  “It is.  And it will be fine.  Look, we’ve already had a case with brutality against women as a key feature, and I got through it.  And there’s no reason why I won’t get though this case too.  I can’t identify with every female victim, Mulder.  I’ll drive myself crazy if I do that.”

“This is kind of an extreme case, Scully.  Seasoned agents with many years experience fall apart on cases like this.”

“I’m not falling apart, Mulder,” she said sharply.

“I didn’t say you were.  But you having a hard time.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just nodded.

“Just don’t shut me out, Scully.  You know I can’t stand that.  Keep talking to me about how this case is making you feel.  I’m not judging you, I promise.  And I won’t treat you like you are breakable.  But I think with a case like this, where the crime is so horrendous it’s almost outside the human experience, we need to learn to talk to each other.  To lean on each other.  I’m not finding this all that easy to deal with myself.”

“You seem to be dealing with it fine.”

Mulder gave a lopsided grin.  “I have an excellent poker face, Scully.  Don’t you know that by now?”

“I know you can be a cocky son of a bitch, and I think that cockiness helps you cope with cases like this.”

Mulder put his hand over his heart.  “’Cocky son of a bitch?’  Scully you wound me.”

Scully stood up.  “The truth hurts, Mulder.  But I need to get some sleep.”

Mulder stood up too and faced her.  “Thanks for being honest with me.  Let’s keep talking during this case, Scully.  I don’t think us internalizing this horror is going to do either of us any good.”  He raised his hand to her cheek and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.  He turned and headed toward their connecting door.

“Hey Mulder?” Scully said. 

He turned around and looked at her.  “Hey what?”

She gave him a weak smile.  “Thanks for checking in on me.”

He nodded.  “And thanks for checking in on me.”  He walked through the door to his own room, leaving Scully standing in silence.

Scully felt like she had just closed her eyes when she heard her name called.  A hand begun to gently shake her.  She gasped and sat up quickly, her heart beating out of her chest.

“Easy, Scully,” Mulder said.  “It’s just me.”

She took a deep breath and tried to control her rapid heartbeat.  “What the hell is going on, Mulder?  It’s the middle of the night and you scared me to death.  Don’t you know not to grab someone with PTSD?”

“I know, I was just trying to wake you.  I’m sorry I touched you, but you weren’t responding to me calling your name.  Agent Boggs called me.  They found a dead body.  By the way she’s been mutilated he thinks this is the work of our death fetishist.”

Scully sighed.  “Well you were right, Mulder.  He is escalating to live victims.”

“Believe me, I wish I was wrong about this one.  Agent Boggs is waiting for us at the crime scene.  Can you be ready to go in ten minutes?”

“Of course,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.  “Let me just get changed.”

Mulder nodded and went through the connecting door to his own room.

Once she was dressed, Scully went into the bathroom to apply a little makeup.  She knew that it was vain of her; no one expected her to be perfectly coiffed in the middle of the night.  But when she looked in the mirror all she saw was a pale face and dark circles under her eyes.  She had to fix this somehow.  She used a liberal amount of blush and foundation so she looked like a woman who was fair skinned rather than a woman who was struggling.  After applying eye makeup, she thought her reflection more closely resembled her professional self.  She put on a little lipstick and went outside to find Mulder waiting for her in the car.

If he noticed that she had fixed herself up, he didn’t comment on it.  The ride to the bad side of downtown where the body was dumped took ten minutes, and Scully used every second of that time to prepare herself for what she was about to see.  Desecrated corpses were nightmarish enough, but a woman murdered to feed the need of a death fetishist, well, that could be a whole other layer of awful.  When they got to the crime scene, Mulder jumped out of the car and walked over to Agent Boggs.  Scully reluctantly followed.  Another woman was there, and judging by the way she was dressed, Scully assumed she was a prostitute.  She was led over to the body and a bloody sheet was pulled back so the woman could get a good look.  Even from a distance, Scully could tell the woman was on the edge of collapsing.  “Oh god,” she moaned, as the cop at her side grabbed her arm for support and led her away from the crime scene.

Agent Boggs came up to Mulder and Scully.  “The victim is Carrie Ann Gibbs, age 29.  She was a working girl.  It looks like our death fetishist chose someone who he thought wouldn’t be missed.”

Mulder nodded.  “I want to see the body.”  He turned and followed Agent Boggs and walked several feet before noticing Scully wasn’t following him.  “Scully, you coming?” he asked, looking at her.

“Yea,” she forced out.  “I just need a minute.”

She felt a tingling at the edge of her consciousness, and she took deep breaths to calm herself.  Get a grip, Dana, she told herself.  You are an FBI agent.  Deal with this.  With her head held high, she forced her leaden legs to take her to the body.  Agent Boggs pulled back the sheet and for a split second, Scully truly thought she was going to pass out.  Mulder must have sensed it too, because he took Scully by the arm.  “You don’t have to,” he whispered.

“Yes I do,” she whispered back.  She forced herself to look at the young woman’s face, covered with blood.  Her hair was chopped close to her head and her wide eyes told the tale of fear she died in.

“This time he took a few fingers too,” said Agent Boggs, lifting Carrie Ann’s hand and showing it to Mulder and Scully.  Indeed, three of her fingers were missing on her right hand and the bloody stumps had an uneven appearance, telling Scully the killer used a dull blade to get the job done.  She just hoped the fingers were removed post mortem.

Agent Boggs turned to her.  “I know you are a forensic pathologist, so I asked Dr. Lewis if you could perform the autopsy instead of him.  He was fine with that.  We can have the body at the morgue for you in an hour.”

Mulder opened his mouth, and Scully was pretty sure she knew what he was going to say.  She grabbed his arm and gave him a look.  “That’s fine, Agent Boggs.  Perhaps one of your men can give me a lift to the morgue.”

“Scully, you don’t…” Mulder started.

“Shut up,” she hissed, her lips near his ears so no one else would hear.  “Not now.  I need to do my job.  Others are watching.”

Mulder nodded his head and looked at her with concern in his eyes.  “Alright,” he said softly.  “Let me know if you need me.”

Morgues always ran cold, but it seemed there was no spot as chilly as a morgue in the middle of the night.  Scully shivered as she took off her clothes and changed into scrubs and a lab coat.  Normally she used the time to ready herself before an autopsy to slip into her detached, clinical pathologist mode and put any feelings she might have about the case away on a shelf within herself to be accessed at another time.  It was the only way she knew to deal with the tragedy of innocent people being murdered, or dying young, or any of many reasons a person might end up on a slab in a morgue.  But today, she was finding it difficult to get into her clinical, objective mindset.  She couldn’t get the image of Carrie Ann Gibbs’ mutilated hands, and the look of sheer panic on her face, out of her mind.  Scully closed her eyes and shook her head.  No, this will not do.  She would not fall apart. She took a deep breath and exited the dressing room.

The morgue was full of people, which Scully wasn’t expecting.  Several of the officers who had found the body were there, curious as to what she might find.  Scully frowned; she wasn’t in the mood for an audience.  She was barely hanging on as it was.  Calm, clear, she repeated in her head as she took slow breaths.  She could get through this.  Scully reached deep down inside her and pulled out some of the strength she had on reserve.  She straightened her spine until she was rigid and walked up to the body.  She looked the law enforcement officials in the room in their eyes as if to challenge them to doubt her.  “Let’s get started,” she said, as she pulled the sheet back, hoping that the men present didn’t detect the slight wobble in her voice.

She was back in the morgue, dressed in scrubs as if ready to do another autopsy.  The morgue was dark; there was just enough light for Scully to see the figure on the table draped in a sheet.  Her heart beat rapidly, but she wasn’t sure what she was afraid of.  She had none hundreds of autopsies in her day, why would this one be so different?  With shaking hands she pulled the sheet back on the victim.  To her shock, it wasn’t a stranger’s face she revealed.  It was her own.  Fear snaked a cold path down her stomach and she wanted to scream but she couldn’t.  Looking up, she got a fleeting glimpse of what could only be the devil.

Scully was woken up from her nightmare by a discordant sound.  The phone was ringing.  She swallowed hard and answered, hoping whomever was on the other end of the line wouldn’t detect her anxiety.  Luckily it was Mulder.  He had called to tell her that they arrested someone who might be the perp, and they needed to get down to the police station ASAP.  Scully grunted in response, unable to trust her voice.  She hung up the phone and as she had done earlier in the night, she got out of bed and threw on some clothes.  She didn’t bother with makeup this time.

The police station was remarkably busy for 4AM.  Amidst the swirl of cops and their charges being led down the hallway, they found Agent Boggs.  He said the guy had been brought in after a prostitute reported him to the police.  Apparently he tried to get physical with her, and she rewarded his efforts by cutting up his face.

The man was close to tears when they entered his cell.  “I’m in so much trouble,” he moaned, looking pleadingly at Boggs, Mulder, and Scully.  “I have no idea how to explain this to my wife and kids.”

“It’s almost as if hiring a prostitute and then getting rough with her is a bad idea,” Mulder said flatly.

“We have a few things to go over with you, Mr. LaRoche.  We want to know if you were going to kill that woman for her fingers and hair.  Like you did the other one.”  Agent Boggs crossed his arms and glared at the man.

Mr. LaRoche shook his head violently and begun to tell his life story.  An hour later, it became clear that he was just a sexually frustrated man from the suburbs who occasionally hired prostitutes and pushed them around a little bit.  He was clearly a despicable human being, but he wasn’t their death fetishist.

Scully followed Mulder and Boggs out of the room.  “I thought we had him,” Boggs moaned.  Scully nodded at him and asked to speak to Mulder alone.   “I think I might better try this investigation if I focus on the evidence, Mulder.”

“What are you suggesting?” 

“That I take the body back to Washington.  I could run it through the fingerprint lab there.  You know these guys they can pull…”  Mulder interrupted her.

“If you’re still having trouble with this case, I want you to tell me.” 

“I was having trouble, Mulder, but I’m better now.  I promise.”

“I understand.  It’s not exactly easy to stomach,” Mulder said.

“I’m fine.  Really I just think we’re a long way from catching this guy.  If we get a print we’d have something to focus on but right now we’re at a standstill.” 

“I think it’s a good idea.  I just don’t want you to think you have to hide anything from me.”

She hated to lie to Mulder, especially since she had vowed to be honest with him, but she knew he would be distracted from the investigation if was worried about her.  “I’m fine.   I can handle it,” she lied.

Mulder looked at her, brow furrowed, before turning and walking down the hall after Agent Boggs.  Scully took a deep breath, relieved she was getting out of Minneapolis.  The city was about to smother her.

She pulled out her cell phone to call the airlines, and as she turned around, she caught a glimpse of the man in the cell directly opposite of Mr. LaRoche.  He had dark hair and was in his late 20’s, and he was staring intently at her.  Scully never appreciated being ogled my men, but this was something else.  His gaze was cold, frigid even, and it made Scully feel naked.  She looked into his eyes and saw a terrifying combination of want and violence.  She quickly walked down the hall to find a more private place to make her phone call.

Scully went directly from DCA to the Hoover building and Employee Assistance.  She was already five minutes late.  She took the stairs instead of the elevator so she arrived to the office sweaty and out of breath.  Beth was waiting for her.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Beth.  My flight was delayed,” Scully said.

Beth smiled.  “Take a deep breath, Dana, you aren’t that late.  Come with me.”  She led Scully back to their usual room.  “Take a seat.” Scully sat down in her usual spot on the love seat. 

“It’s good to see you, Dana.  Let’s talk about why you asked for a session when I just saw you a few days ago.  When you called and talked to my secretary, you said you needed to see me because you were having problems with a case.  Is that correct?”

Scully nodded.  “You said that there was a chance that a case would prove to be more difficult because of everything that I’ve gone through.  So far, I’ve been really good.  But the case I’m on now…”

Beth leaned forward.  “Tell me, Dana, what you have been working on.”

Scully sighed.  “Okay, but be prepared.  It’s not pretty.”

Ten minutes later, Beth’s face was pale and she wore a look of shock.  “No wonder this is arousing feelings in you, Dana.  What a horrific thing to have to be exposed to.”

“But it shouldn’t bother me.  I’m a forensic pathologist.  I work with death all the time.  I don’t understand why this case is really getting to me.  I’ve seen plenty of horrible things before.”

“That was before you went through your own trauma,” Beth said softly.    

Scully sighed. “You think that you find a way to deal with these things.  In med school you develop a clinical detachment to death.  In your FBI training you are confronted with cases, the most violent and terrible cases, you think you can look into the face of pure evil.  And then you find yourself paralyzed by it.” 

“Are you aware you’ve been talking about yourself in the second person?”  asked Beth.

“No, was I?” 

“Do you know why?” 

“Um, probably as another way to detach myself from it,” Scully said.

 “Is it Mulder?  Are you able to open up to him about what you’re feeling?”

 Scully squirmed in her seat and she avoided Beth’s eyes.  “Yes and no.  He asked me what was wrong early on and I told him I was identifying with the victim.  That was hard for me to say, but I wanted to be honest.  But when I told him I wanted to come back to DC with the body, I denied having any more discomfort.  Mulder worries about me so much.  I don’t want him to know how much this is still bothering me.  I don’t want him to feel like he has to protect me.” 

Beth nodded.  “Dana, a case such as this would shake up anyone, even the most experienced agent.  You must know that.  And you know that your abduction and illness have left you extremely vulnerable.  You have done an amazing job so far dealing with very difficult cases since you’ve been back.  We’ve done a lot of good work around you regaining your confidence in the field.  But it’s not surprising that you came across something that triggered your PTSD.”

“I was once close to death,” Scully whispered, her eyes filling with tears.  “I could have been a body in a coffin.  And the idea of being violated any further than what I had experienced in life…” she shuttered and let the tears flow down her cheeks.

“You told Mulder you were seeing yourself in the victims,” Beth said.

Scully nodded.  “I did.  But now I have to move past that to do my job, and do it well.  I can’t be crying at work.”

Beth looked at her with all the sympathy in the world.  “Let’s spend some time talking about what these women went through and how that is triggering to you, Dana.  I think we will find some of your answers there, and together we can work on a way for you to acknowledge your feelings yet still be effective in the field.”

Scully nodded vigorously.  “That’s what I want, Beth.  That’s what I really want.”

An hour later, dried tears on her cheeks, Scully got back into her fleet sedan and drove to Quantico.  The body should have arrived at the fingerprint lab by now, and hopefully someone had a chance to look at it.  After fighting her way through rush hour traffic, she made it to her destination and went directly to the lab, where Agent Dyson was waiting for her.

“I found a print on her thumbnail,” he said, eschewing any pleasantries.  “He must have struggled with her before he put his gloves on.”

Scully felt a wave of relief move through her.  Finally, some hard evidence that could lead them to the perp. 

“Are you staying or are you headed back to Minnesota?” Agent Dyson asked.

Scully thought about it for just a split second.  She could make a case to stay in DC, as Mulder and the Minneapolis police could handle apprehending the suspect.  But feeling buoyed by her conversation with Beth, she made a decision.  “No, I’m going back tonight,” she said.  “Let me call my partner and let him know.”

She stepped out of the room and into the hallway for a little privacy.  Mulder answered on the first ring.  She was thrilled to be able to tell him she got a print, and the relief in his voice was palpable.  “Good work Scully.  I’ll let you know how things go down.”

“No Mulder, I’m coming back tonight.”

“You don’t have to, Scully.”

“Yes I do.  You need my help.”  And she hung up before he could argue.

Agent Dyson looked up at her when she went back into the fingerprint lab.  “Oh there you are.  I didn’t know where you had gone.  Some agent from Minneapolis just called looking for you.  I told him you were headed back tonight.”

Scully nodded.  “Did you tell him about the print?”

Dyson shook his head.  “No, I left that up to you, Agent Scully.”

“Thanks.  Now give me the printout of the finger print so I can send it over to Mulder.  See if the guy has a record in Minnesota.”

Scully had faced her fears, and she was coming out the other side.  This case was going to be solved, in no small part because of her.  In her mind she went from being a hindrance to the case to being the one who made the big break.  And she really wanted to see this guy arrested with her own eyes.  “I’m heading back to the airport now, Agent Dyson.  Thank you so much for dropping your other work and helping me out.  This fingerprint is what is going to solve this case.”

Agent Dyson nodded.  “Happy to help.  And I’m sure you are going to thoroughly enjoy slapping the cuffs on this monster.”

You have no idea, Scully thought to herself, as she begun to gather her things.  

Scully’s plane landed in Minneapolis at 9PM.  She quickly found the rental car agency and picked up her Ford Tauris.  Between the fleet sedans at the Bureau and rental cars, she felt like she spent her entire life in Taurises.  She was glad that at least her own private car was a Honda.

The airport was 30 minutes outside the city, so Scully headed down the dark two lane road that would take her into downtown Minneapolis and to the police station.  She turned on the radio and fished around until she found a station playing classical music.  She could use a little something to soothe her right about now.

Ten minutes into her trip and she noticed a car coming up quickly behind her.  “Go around me, asshole,” she muttered to herself, irritated.  She sped up a little but the other car was still on her tail.

At first she didn’t know what happened.  There was a loud crash and her car almost veered off the road.  While she was trying to get her bearings, there was a second crash, harder this time, and her neck snapped back and hit the headrest.

The car behind her was ramming into her.

“What the hell?” she mumbled, a plume of adrenaline erupting in her chest.  She pushed the accelerator all the way down in hopes to outrun the car behind her, but the Tauris was never known for its pickup.  The car behind her rammed into her a third time.  This time he must have really damaged her rear bumper and tires, because all of a sudden the car became hard to steer, and it was losing speed.  Scully tasted fear in the back of her throat.

For a split second, it seemed like the car was going to pass her.  He pulled out from behind her suddenly into the oncoming lane, but he didn’t speed up.  Instead, he swerved his car into her passenger’s side once, twice, three times, and Scully lost control.  Her car skidded over the side of the road into a copse of trees, where her car slammed into a large oak.  Scully’s head thumped down on the steering wheel and everything went black.

The first thing she grew aware of as she rose to consciousness was pain.  She hurt everywhere.  Her head was throbbing, and she felt thick wetness that could only be blood oozing down the side of her face.  The second thing she realized was that she was being dragged by her arms over her head.  Her blazer had ridden up and her bare skin was being abraded by dirt and rocks.  She moaned and tried to pull her arms down, but the hands around her wrists only held on tighter.

“Listen up, girlie girl.  You’re coming home with me whether you want to or not.  I’m dying to give you a bath.”

Give you a bath.  Scully’s battered brain brought up Carrie Ann Gibbs, whose autopsy showed she had been submerged in cold water for some time before her body was dumped.  Could she have been in a bathtub?  That made the most sense.  Did that mean…Scully scrunched up her eyes and tried to stop the thoughts pouring through her brain.  Give you a bath.  That must mean the man who ran her off the road was the death fetishist they were all looking for.

A scream erupted from the depths of Scully’s soul and tore through her body.  This couldn’t be happening.

“Shut up, girlie girl.  I don’t like loud women, and you’re only going to make things worse for yourself in the end.”

“Go to hell,” she snarled

He continued to drag her through the grass, her arms screaming from being held over her head and used as leverage.  She forced herself to open her eyes and tilt her head back and look at her attacker.  He was upside down, but she knew that face.  She knew those cruel eyes.  This was the man who she had seen at the police station, the one who had stared at her.  Scully tried to push past the brain fog to piece everything together.  This man must have had noticed her when they interviewed the potential suspect and he targeted her as his next victim.  He had to have been the one who called Quantico looking for her, and was told by an unwitting Agent Dyson that she was flying back to Minnesota this evening.  He lay in wait until he saw her pick up the rental car.  And now he was going to use her to harvest hair and fingernails.

Scully’s heart nearly beat out of her chest in fear.  “Get your fucking hands off of me, you monster.  Whatever you have planned isn’t going to happen.  I’m a federal agent.  Let go of me right now or the consequences will be dire.”

The man didn’t answer her.  Instead, he slowed to a stop and let go of one of her arms.  She heard the distinct sound of a trunk being opened.

No.  No no no.  He wasn’t going to shove her in his trunk.  She wasn’t going to go through that again.  She bent her neck back as far as it would go so she could see what was going on.  The man was standing next to the trunk of his car, pulling out a long rope.  He was silhouetted by the bright moon and his face had grown dark.  Suddenly he was no longer the man from the police station.  He morphed into a demon, a devil like Scully had seen in her dream.  She blinked to try and clear her vision and the man turned into Charles Manson.  She closed her eyes and when she forced them open again, she saw Hitler.  Hitler’s face melted and reformed into the features of Duane Barry.

Duane Barry was going to shove her in a trunk.  Again.  It was her worst nightmare coming to life.  A rush of anger pulsed through her body and down into her fingertips and toes and pushed aside the terror.  Duane Barry was not going to abduct her again.  No.  She rather die by the side of this deserted road than get into that trunk.

He grabbed at her free hand and tried to wrap the rope around it, but Scully moved faster.  Fear propelled her to break through the sluggishness in her brain, and she moved without thought, only intent.  She yanked her hand away from his attempt to tie her wrist and reached for his crotch.  She squeezed with all the strength she had in her body, and he dropped her other hand as he howled in pain.  Both of his hands were now wrapped around himself as he bent at the knees and staggered away from her.  The second she was free, she rolled onto her stomach and moved her hand to her lower back.  To her shock, her weapon was still in the waistband of her pants despite being dragged.  She pulled it out and took off the safety, and before he could react, she shot him four times in the chest.

He didn’t drop at first.  He looked at her as if surprised.  “Stupid bitch, you’ll pay for that,” he spat, a dribble of blood and spittle dripping down his chin.  He dropped the rope and held his hands to his chest as if to try and stem the flow of blood.  He took a few unsteady steps toward her, groaning in pain, before collapsing on his back.  Scully ignored her dizziness and slowly stood up.  She held the gun in front of her in a death grip, waiting for him to get up and lunge at her.  He didn’t.  He writhed on the ground for several minutes, cursing her, as blood spread out from underneath him and soaked into the dirt.  After what felt like forever, he took a deep breath and exhaled, and then he breathed no more.

He was dead.  Duane Barry was dead.  Scully had killed him.

She forced herself to look at the body at her feet.  It wasn’t Duane Barry any more.  It was the man from the police station.  Her eyes had played tricks on her once again.  She stood, numb, and held the gun over the man.  Her injured brain couldn’t think of anything else to do.  Finally one thought broke free: Mulder.  She needed Mulder.

With great reluctance she turned her back to the dead man and slowly walked serpentine to her own car.  The door was open and the alarm was chiming.  She leaned down and grabbed her to go bag,  unzippering the side pocket with shaking hands and pulling out her phone.  On unsteady legs she made her way back to the dead man; she didn’t want to let him out of her sight lest he came back to life.  Even in her compromised state she realized what a illogical fear that was, but nothing was certain at the moment.  The man was Hitler, and then he wasn’t.  He was Duane Barry, until he wasn’t.  She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew she had to watch over the body until help arrived.

It took several minutes for her trembling hands to dial Mulder’s number.  It rang three times before he answered.  When she heard his voice she was overwhelmed with a wave of relief.  Mulder would come help her.  He always did.

“Mulder,” she started, but her throat closed up.  With fear, with gratitude, she wasn’t sure. 

“Scully, what’s wrong?  Are you in Minneapolis now?  You on your way?  We found the guy, Scully.  His name is Donnie Pfaster.  Would you believe he was in jail at the same time as the guy we interviewed.  We had him and he got away.  We were just getting ready to go to his apartment to pick him up.”

“Mulder,” Scully finally forced out.  “I need your help.”

“What is it, Scully?  What’s going on?”

“He’s here, Mulder.  Donnie Pfaster.  I shot him.  Please come and find me.”  She felt tears crawl up the back of her throat.

“You shot him?  Scully are you alright?  Where are you?  What happened?”

Scully didn’t feel like a long conversation.  Each word she spoke was torture to get out of her mouth.  “He ran me off the road.  I’m heading east on the 405.  I’m about ten minutes away from the airport.  Please come and bring help.”  She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.  She hung up the phone and sagged against the car, her eyes never leaving Donnie Pfaster’s body.

The night was still and the full moon hid behind the trees.  Scully was aware of every breath of wind, every leaf blowing across the grass.  Her body was thankfully numb, but she was on heightened alert.  The wait for help seemed endless as she stood there holding a gun on a corpse while she was barely able to stand upright.

At last, she heard the distant sound of police sirens.  She hadn’t realized she had been praying until the moment when her prayers were answered.  Within moments, three police cars pulled up beside her.  Before the third car could come to a full stop, Mulder jumped out of the back seat.

“Scully!” he yelled as he ran over to her.  “Scully are you okay?”  He put his hand on her arm and she jerked from the contact.  “Your head, it’s bleeding.  We have EMS on their way.”  He followed the direction of her gun and saw the body on the ground.  “Jesus, Scully,” he breathed.  He leaned down and put a finger on the body’s pulse.  “Nothing.  He’s dead, Scully.  You can lower your gun now.”

She shook her head.

Mulder wrapped a warm hand around hers holding on to the gun.  “Give this to me, Scully.  Donnie Pfaster is dead.  You’re safe.  There are cops everywhere.”  When she didn’t move, he started to pull the gun from her grasp.  “Let go Dana, I’ve got you,” he said gently.  Scully finally released her death grip on the gun, and Mulder was able to remove it from her hands.  An ambulance pulled up with its lights flashing.  “Over here!” Mulder yelled.  Two EMT’s came rushing over and stopped when they came to the dead body.  “No!” he hissed.  “He’s dead.  Look after my partner.  She’s got blood all over her face.”  One EMT stayed with the body while the other walked over to Scully.  “Come with me,” she said softly.  “I’ll get you checked out in the bus.”

Mulder nodded at her.  “Come on Scully, I’ll walk with you.”  He slung his arm over her shoulders and pulled her toward the ambulance.  Scully allowed him to guide her.

The female EMT, who introduced herself as Marnie, spent the next half an hour cleaning Scully’s head and using steri-strips to close the wound.  She asked Scully questions like what her name was and who was president, and Scully answered her with little inflection in her voice.  She knew what shock was, and she was self-aware enough to realize she was suffering from it.  The EMT wrapped Scully in a blanket and tried to get her lie down because her blood pressure was low, but Scully wouldn’t have it.  It didn’t feel safe to let her guard down, not one bit.

“Scully,” Mulder said, coming up to the ambulance, “you need to do what the EMT’s tell you to, okay?”

She shook her head.  “I’m fine Mulder.”  Her voice broke and she felt tears welling in her eyes.  She was not going to cry, not here, not now.  Her unfocused gaze peered out into the darkness, where she knew that monster lay on the ground.

“Scully,” Mulder said again.  “You aren’t fine.  Don’t tell me you are.  Look at me, please.”

Scully refused.  If she looked at Mulder she was going to lose what little control she had.  The shock was making her numb, and she liked that.  Numb was good.  Being emotional was not. 

Mulder gently raised a hand to her face and tipped her chin up so she was forced to look at him.  His eyes were wells of compassion and sorrow.  Scully couldn’t help the spasm of grief that racked her body, and her eyes filled with tears.  Staring at Mulder, she lost the battle for control.  A deep sob tore through her chest.

“Oh Scully,” Mulder said, as he wrapped her in his arms.  Scully clung to him with what strength she had left, no longer in control of her emotions.  Tears poured out of her eyes and onto Mulder’s shoulder as she sobbed.  Mulder whispered nonsense in her ear and gently rocked her.  The whole world dropped away.  The only thing that was left was the sanctity of Mulder’s arms and her bone-deep angst.

It was a slow night in the ER so Scully was seen right away.  Or perhaps it was because Mulder came with her and immediately started demanding that she receive attention.  After the CT scan showed a slight concussion, she was admitted to the hospital for monitoring overnight.  After getting settled in her room, Detective Boggs and a few of his associates turned up to take Scully’s statement.  Mulder tried to send them packing, insisting she was too injured to talk, but Scully waved him off.  “It’s okay, Mulder.  Let’s get this over with.”  In a flat voice she recounted everything that had happened to her since she had left Minneapolis the day before.  Boggs asked a lot of questions but Mulder staring daggers at him made the other agent wrap up his interrogation quicker than Scully expected.  “Drop by the station tomorrow on your way out of town and we’ll finish up,” he finally said, glancing at Mulder.  She was relieved when the men were finally gone.

“It’s three in the morning, Scully,” Mulder said, standing up.  “The night nurse keeps giving me dirty looks.  Why don’t I take off and give you a chance to get some sleep.”

Scully nodded.  “Don’t know how much sleep I’m going to get.  They have to wake me up every two hours.”

“At least you’ll get a nap or two.”  He looked at her, a serious expression on his face.  “You okay, Scully?”

“No,” she answered.  “But I will be.”

She expected to dream.  She was sure the nightmare of Duane Barry’s return, along with glimpses of Satan, Hitler, and Charles Manson, would worm its way into her nightscape, along with a new evil, Donny Pfaster.  But her dreams were dark and heavy, with little activity.  Possibly this was because whenever she started to fall into a deep sleep, the nurse woke her up for her concussion check.  She arose around 9AM tired but relieved she didn’t suffer in her dreams.

Mulder soon came in to her room carrying a cup of coffee and a bag.  He put his gifts down on her tray table and took a seat next to her bed.  “I brought you something.  Boggs said the bakery near my hotel was one of the best around, so I picked you up a couple of treats.  I thought you deserved a little something.”

Scully opened the bag to find a giant iced cinnamon roll and a bearclaw.  “Mulder, you shouldn’t have.  Please help me eat these.”  With skilled hands, she pulled each pastry apart, putting halves on napkins she found in the bag.  After taking a deep drink of her coffee, she took a bite of cinnamon roll.  Delicious.

Mulder helped himself to half a bearclaw, and for a few minutes they enjoyed their treats in silence.  Finally, Mulder cleared his throat.

“You know how we talked about our newfound honesty, Scully?  I’d like to invoke that doctrine here.  And I’d like to get an honest answer to my question when I ask you how you’re doing.”

Scully drank the rest of her coffee and sat down her cup.  She sighed.  “That’s a difficult question to answer.  There are so many components.”

“Try.”

She ran a hand through her hair.  “Well, on the surface I’m angry.  Angry that I was targeted by another madman.  I’m relieved that I was able to kill him before he really hurt me.  A small part of me feels heavy because I murdered another human being.”

“What else?” he prompted.

She sat in silence for awhile, gathering her thoughts.  “I feel proud,” she finally said.

“Proud?  You should feel proud.  You bested a killer, Scully.”

She nodded.  “I know.  And that’s what I’m proud of.  Duane Barry almost ruined my life.  What he did to me will leave scars that will last a lifetime.  He’s dead but he lives on in my head.  But this time, this man, Donny Pfaster, he didn’t get to harm me.  I stopped him.  I didn’t run, I stood my ground and I killed him.  And there is something enormously satisfying about that.  I didn’t become a victim again, Mulder.  I won this time.”

Mulder picked up her hand.  “You did.  You’re the strongest person I know, Scully.  And you should be proud.  You should hear how Agent Boggs and the officers were talking about you, about what a badass you are.  I felt pretty proud myself that you are my partner.” 

“You have to understand, I’ve felt like a victim ever since I woke up in that hospital bed last fall.  I’ve tried and I’ve tried to change that mindset, worked on it in therapy like crazy.  But deep down inside, I feel like I was permanently changed by Duane Barry, that because of him I wore an invisible letter ‘V’ on my chest.  Maybe Pfaster saw something in me and that’s why I was chosen, because he sensed he could victimize me without any resistance.”

“I think Pfaster could turn any woman into a victim, Scully.  He was evil.”

“I know, but maybe he saw the invisible scars and decided to choose me to murder next.  We will never know.  But I proved him wrong.  I proved everyone wrong.  I wasn’t a victim last night, Mulder.  I was the winner.  And there’s something about that, having stopped the continuation of my own victimhood, that makes me feel like I have finally pulled myself out of the clutches of Duane Barry.  I’m not here for men to hurt, not anymore.”  She felt tears fill her eyes as she looked up at Mulder.  “And I can’t tell you how amazing that feels.”

Mulder picked up Scully’s hand and kissed it.  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Scully.  You’re the strongest person I know.”

“For the first time in so long, Mulder, I feel strong.  Like there’s nothing I can’t do.  That nothing can’t stop me.  Donnie Pfaster certainly couldn’t.”

Mulder cracked a big smile.  “Dana Scully is finally back.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head.  “I’m back.  And I’m not going anywhere.”