Headers and disclaimer on Chapter One)

Prison of Innocents Chapter 3 of 20

Scully left the door open.  Her shoes, blouse and bra were gone.  In 
the light from the hallway Mulder saw them strewn just inside his 
door.  Scully herself was in the process of ripping off the rest of 
her clothes on the way to the bedroom when she staggered into a nearby
chair and knocked it over.  He caught her up in his arms as she fell.

"Sick-" That's all she managed to say before she was.  He helped her 
into the bathroom, sat her on the toilet seat and dampened one end of a
towel to clean her up.  He had to hold her - the bear had more stuffing.
She shivered, goose bumps covering her bare flesh.  Finding nothing else
convenient to put on her, he peeled off his own t-shirt and pulled it 
over her head.

"What happened," he said, angry with himself for letting her go alone.

She tried to put her hands on his shoulders but failed. "Sleep-" she 
murmured and fell against him.  He picked her up and carried her to the
bed.  She nestled down and sighed into his pillow as though snuggling 
there was the most natural thing in the world.  Before he could decide 
what to do next, she was asleep.

Mulder grabbed up the pillow beside her, intending to go to the living 
room, then tossed it back on the bed.  It seemed absurd to sleep on his
couch after a month in the woods and toss and turn there while he 
worried about what was happening with Scully in here.  He went into the
living room to clean up the mess.  When he returned, he stopped in the 
bedroom doorway with his heart in his throat.

Her bare legs and arms glistened in the light from the outside windows.  
He could see one perfectly smooth cheek peeking out from under his tee 
shirt.   Hair lay across her face, the pillow and her arm.  She curled up 
across her side and most of his.  He groaned.

Her breathing was shallow and labored, the way he would expect from 
someone ill and asleep.  The muscles on her legs rippled and she moved 
them slightly.  Her arm clawed at the pillow and her breathing remained 
rapid and difficult as though she had to drag in air from a great 
distance.

She inched over to cover more ground on the free side of the bed.
How could such a little body take up so much room, he wondered.
He slipped into his side of the bed, nudged her over gently, and
threw the covers atop both of them.

Only then did it strike him that his woodland fantasies
had come true - he was in a comfortable bed with a nearly naked
Scully.  Not quite how he pictured it, however.  Mulder propped up
his pillow lengthwise and rested against the headboard.  His hand
caressed her forehead, her hair, and her shoulders.  His fingers
traced her hairline, pushed the hair off her face, trailed down
to the softness of her shoulders.  He slid his hand under the
neck of the big shirt and sprayed his fingers across her back.

She was beautiful and her hot skin slid beneath his touch.  He
wondered if she had a fever.  He teased the hair on the back of
her neck.  This was not a good idea, he thought, not a good idea
at all.  He was all dressed up and nowhere to go for the second
time since he got home.  He sincerely hoped this was not a
harbinger of days to come.

He should never have let her go out alone.  He should have
noted her behavior was erratic, her judgment impaired.  She had
surprised him by announcing she had an errand and leaving in the
space of one minute.  Now she was ill, hurting, and he could have
stopped it.  He leaned down, pulled the neck of the shirt aside
and kissed her bare shoulder.  Sorry, Scully.  Again.  Still.

The depth of his feelings for her surprised him - and
would probably shock her.  He wouldn't have many chances like
this, Mulder thought, to be tender with her without the fear of
ridicule or rejection, to enjoy the feel of her on his hands, to
comfort her without trespassing on her strength, to love her
without jeopardizing what she held dear.

He shouldn't be doing this, Mulder thought with a stab of guilt.
She would think him some kind of pervert if she caught him.
Probably not, since she already thought him a pervert.
He groped for the bear in the bed and tucked it under her free
arm.  She took it in next to her left breast with a murmur.

He wondered why she couldn't take him in as easily.

He could be - wanted to be -- a gentle, considerate lover
for her.  She might be surprised to find he aspired to be those
things for her.  He surprised himself.  He could do it,
since that's what Scully needed, deserved.  Maybe a month in the
woods had been good for him after all.  Put things in
perspective.  Allowed him some space to examine what had been a
pretty sad life until she came along.

Mulder traced the length of one bare arm. Maybe she had tired of
waiting for him to take the first step.  Or maybe he didn't measure up 
to her expectations.  Maybe today was an aberration, a stress-related
passion.  Definitely he should slide out of bed and sleep on the
couch before he went too far.  She moaned and he pulled his hand
away from the nape of her neck.

He adjusted his pillow and caught her scent on his pillowcase again.  He 
realized she'd slept on it before. Wondering how that played into the 
larger problem, he thought about what he did know, what he had read.

Scully wasn't drunk, though she acted like it in many ways.  She'd 
thrown up enough to get most drugs or alcohol out of her system-unless 
they were injected instead of ingested as she thought this afternoon.

Mulder switched on the bedside light and began examining her arms and 
legs with a professional eye.  He saw what might be a faint bruise on 
the inside of her right arm, but no needle mark anywhere.  He pulled 
aside her hair and checked behind her ears, down her neck.  Her 
breathing eased somewhat, becoming not quite so desperate.  Her color 
had gone from winter white to slightly pink - that was a good sign.

Satisfied that she was all right, Mulder switched off the
light, pounded his pillow into submission and prepared for a
long night clutching the side of the bed.  Still better than the
forest - or his floor.  There was always the couch... 

Mulder had almost drifted off when Scully found him.  He
flipped from his side to his back, nudged her over, and realized
that was only a temporary solution to the problem.  Presently she
began a slow ascent up his body until she nestled in the crook
of his shoulder.  She sighed and her breath fanned across his
bare chest.  He gave in.  This was the way she wanted it; she had
him.  He tucked her up between his chest and shoulder, brushed
his lips against hers, then closed his eyes, decided to enjoy
what he'd been given, and damn the rest.
********************
Scully woke slowly.  She didn't want to wake up at all, she
was so comfortable and warm.  Wiggling a little she found her
body tingled with a sense of pleasant ease.  Safety.  She drew in 
a deep breath, let it go slowly and realized she had to go to the
bathroom.  This was such a nice dream she didn't want to wake up.
She was sleeping across Mulder.  Okay.  Very.  Still groggy she
allowed herself to rest awhile in the first peaceful sleep she'd
had in many nights, to revel in what it must feel like with
Mulder under and around her.

In this dream Mulder slept with his mouth  open, his perfect mouth.  
He stirred and a slow, sleepy smile started.  She could now feel the 
heat of him along her full length, the warmth of his arm across her back, 
his possessive hand on her bare..

A shock went through her.  God, god, god..what happened here?
What happened that she couldn't remember?

"Morning." His voice was thick.  His hand tightened on her
ass, the reflex of a sleeper awakening.  With a small, strangled
cry she scurried back off the bed, dragging the covers with her.
"Scully?" 

Her eyes darted around the room then settled on him.  She was 
righteously indignant, panicked, no --- more stricken.  All those 
things.  Her body shook and her words sounded like the crackle of ice 
on windows. "What happened?"

"What?" 

"Mulder..."

"I like a naked woman in my bed as well as the next man,
but even I have standards.  She has to be conscious -minimum."

Her eyes flashed.  "That doesn't tell me what happened."

He shoved the remaining covers off, sending her into a more defensive 
posture.  He yawned, stretched and made a great show of nonchalance.  
"You staggered in last night after midnight, shedding clothes as you 
came and leaving your dinner on my living room floor.  I put you to bed-
even gave you the shirt off my back."

Scully plucked at the baggy shirt and saw it for the first time. The 
fire in her heart and eyes went out, replaced by confusion.  She sat 
down heavily on the bed.  Her shaking hands rubbed her cheeks. 

"Can you remember --?"

"Nothing."

Scully cursed under her breath and wished that were the whole truth.  
She remembered waking up content for the first time in so long she 
could barely identify the feeling.  She remembered feeling happy - now she
was bereft and frightened of how powerfully Mulder affected her.  No, 
she told herself.  Not now when she wasn't sure of anything.  Shit! Her 
disloyal body let her down, her heart followed meekly, and her mind 
abandoned her when she least expected it.  He might be the enemy.  No, 
that wasn't right.  This was Mulder.  Then the problem was..Scully moaned.

The problem was she slept with him and couldn't remember.  Like a drunken college kid.

Drugs. She was drugged.  This happened before.  She wanted to tell him,
turned to do just that, but he stood there with such a hurt expression that she
couldn't.
*****************
She'd lie - or at least it was a perversion of the truth -- he
saw that much.  Scully never lied to him outright, but over the
years with him she became skilled at misdirection.   

Mulder became more annoyed than angry. Her obvious relief that nothing 
happened between them last night pierced him to the heart.  Waking up 
in his arms was clearly not as nice as for her as it had been for him.  
It inflamed him to find her so willing to make something ugly out of what
had been a sweet experience for him.
  
"I felt sick," she said.  She mumbled something else into her chest.  
He couldn't hear what she said, but it sounded melancholy.

"Don't you think it's time you told me-"

She picked up a nearby pillow and flung it at him with a ferocity that 
stunned him.  "That's how it works, isn't it? I tell you everything and 
you say nothing!" Her lips, pulled back, revealed her bared teeth.  She 
looked like a wild animal backed into the corner of his bedroom.

Slacked jawed, Mulder walked around the bed and she threw up the palm of
her hand-- a warning.  For a moment she skewered him with an expression 
that promised more pillows or whatever else came to hand.  He rocked 
back on his heels, relaxed and waited.  At last she drew her knees to 
her chin and stretched his t-shirt over them to her ankles, clasped her 
hands around her knees and stared at the wall.  She sat stone
still in silent mourning until he couldn't bear it anymore and 
disappeared into the bathroom to do some grieving of his own.

Mulder showered quickly and opened the door to find his
bedroom empty.  Pulling out a little used bathrobe he followed
the smell of coffee into the kitchen.  She had dressed in her
filthy clothes of the previous evening.  Her lips, pressed into a
thin line, matched the tension in her face, the stiffness of her
entire body.  He had never seen Scully so defensive.  The air in
the stuffy apartment crackled.

"What's is this?"

"What?" His heart dropped along with his mouth.

"Why weren't you here?  You're never here !  You go on some training 
mission where no one can reach you on the same day I'm accused of corruption," 
she said in chipped  tones.  "Now you're back on the deadline for signing a 
plea bargain- no call from the base, no call from the airport-no need for 
a ride since Skinner picked you up.  Why is that?" 

"I'm a victim -- "

"--a victim, Mulder, is someone led from her mother's house in 
handcuffs.  A victim is someone locked in jail by colleagues."

His eyes rolled away from the heat in hers.  He was so off-balance.  
He felt as though he walked into a movie that was half over.

"I mean, surely is this-this isn't some scheme concocted to prove a 
point about ghosts or goblins or-" she said.

"Scully.."

"However much the end result might be positive for the X-Files-" She 
stopped, the last visage of color leeching from her face.  Her hand 
covered her mouth as though she were going to be sick again.

"Skinner tied me up from the moment we left the woods
until I got out of the car," Mulder said.  His was not the role
of rational partner and he felt uncomfortable opposite someone
who spouted unbelievable ideas then became irate when he tried
to refute them.  "They're trying to keep us apart."

After a moment she said, "They've done a good job." Her eyes pierced him.
"But why? What did you do in the woods besides hunt bears?"

"Nothing.  It was useless - to me anyway." His shoulders sagged.

"I never know what you're doing.  You never tell me any --"

"Not this." For a long, interminable minute she searched
his face.  "You know that.  Not this."

Her eyes darted back and forth across him as though reading him page 
by page.  She walked across the room -- carefully keeping tables and 
chairs between them.  She did not seem to be afraid, merely gauging his
worth, searching inside herself for some shred of evidence that what was
solid had become vapor.  His gaze followed her, pleading.

At last she stopped and grabbed onto the back of a chair. Her shoulders 
slumped.  "It doesn't matter." Scully dropped her head and rubbed her eyes.
"If you know any part of this, I'm betrayed at my very core."

"You're playing into their hands," he said.

That stopped her in mid-flight.  He held her in the room by sheer force of 
will.  The silence between them deepened and he allowed her the space.  

Finally she said, "I had to think - to be -- like both of us.  It's 
been-difficult."

He wanted to bring her fully back to him, but he didn't know how.

"Scully, is-is it like the television thing - you thought I'd betrayed 
you then.  You had elevated levels of serotonin."

Her head snapped around and he could see her thinking it
over.  "I checked that."

"It doesn't seem the same?"

"That was fantasy.  What is happening now is-" She shook her head.  
"This is real.  You have no idea how real.  There are signed documents, 
statements--" She stood as unyielding as the wooden chair she
clung to and said, "I made coffee.  I'm going home to clean up. Where 
do you want to work?  Here or my apartment?"

"You have better food," he said.  "I read over the files.  I
think we should stop looking at the specific charges against you
and focus on where this all comes from."

"I've got some thoughts on that." She checked her watch. "I have a 
10:30 meeting with Waters." She realized he didn't know that name.  "My 
attorney.  Byron Waters.  One of Byer's friends."

"I'll go with you."

"No need."

"You shouldn't go out alone," he said.

She thought about it.  "I'll wait until you have some coffee then.  You 
look like you could use it."

"Did you want tea?" he said after a silence.  "Or am I out?"

"I bought more."

He poured a cup of coffee and sipped, waiting.  She
fidgeted with the kettle, a cup of tea and a spoon, then reached
in the refrigerator and came out with some strawberries.  They
looked fresh.  He wondered when she put them there.  She looked at
the berries, then at Mulder.

"I've been sleeping here.  I hope you don't mind.  I woke
up here two weeks ago."  Her brows knitted.  She spoke slowly,
speaking as if some memories had returned.  "I was deathly sick,
headache, vertigo.  But not as severe as last night.  That morning
I chased Skinner --" She blinked and turned to Mulder with an
"oh" of understanding on her face.  She put the strawberries
down.  "The drugs.  It's happened twice now, followed by mild
paranoid or psychotic episodes.  The first time the psychosis
wasn't as bad, but the physical symptoms..."

Mulder saw she had figured something out.  She knew, as he
did now, that there must be a pattern to what was happening to
her.  She had come up with that on her own.  He knew that would be
as important to her as the knowledge she'd acquired.  He watched
the tension in her shoulders ease further.  With it, some of the
electricity in the room also drained away.

They were back, Mulder thought.  Something was lost, but
something had been gained.  She reclaimed some confidence.  And he
had lost any illusions about his place in her life.

"What happens after those nights you can't remember?
Temporary insanity aside, what do you do?" he said.

"Residual effects?"  She shook her head.  "None beyond the
physical, the paranoia and confusion I noted earlier."

"No, I mean, do you act-" Mulder groped for words
"-contrary to your own interests."

"What are you suggesting?"

"That the drugs - if it is drugs -- are designed to make
you say or do things until you can't help yourself in this
investigation, to keep you from seeing the truth."

"What else could it be besides drugs?"

"Mind control-"

"What mind control!" Her burning cheeks told him how the
idea enraged her.  "You can't just take over someone's mind
without weeks and months of psychological work - work predicated
on trust, I might add.  To do it by force you have to have
optimal conditions to keep the subject in stress,
disorientation, or use some fairly serious drug therapy - it
just isn't possible in this case."

"Unless that person was willing."

"That's insulting."

"Unless they offered you something you wanted very badly."

"I don't want anything badly enough to make this kind of sacrifice,"
she said.

"What if you started out a willing participant, but
changed your mind? That might explain why you are physically ill
and tense after they-do whatever it is they do.  You're fighting
now, but you weren't in the beginning."

She hesitated.  It seemed to make a certain amount of sense to her.

"You said yourself you can't remember- it could be a combination of 
things such as drugs, psycho-hypnosis," Mulder said.  "Just as you 
said: powerful stuff."

"Most of the time I'm fine." She massaged her temple.

"Perhaps the selective memory loss is a screen - a way to
mask the identities of the people behind this," he said.

"I know who's behind it.  Skinner." The way she massaged her forehead her
head must be pounding. Her pallor showed  her nausea had returned with renewed 
virility, and her squinting told him the lights must be  unbearably bright to
her.  "I-I have to get some aspirin."

He barred her escape.

"Tell me about your tenth birthday," he said.

"What? Now?" She put her hand on the kitchen counter to
steady herself.  She stiffened and swayed.


"Humor me.  Did you have a party?"

Scully regarded him as she would a madman.  She had to
think a minute, to come up with a vision of that day.  "Yes.  My
father was home on leave and he took me fishing afterwards.  Just
me.  Melissa didn't care, but my brothers were so jealous."

"Did you catch anything?"

"A big one.  My father had to help me reel him in." She
illustrated.  "We threw him back."

"Because you felt sorry for the fish." 

Scully smiled.

He clucked and shook his head.  "Such a girl."

She stuck out her chin. "I bait my own hooks." 

"I bet you do."

She folded her arms in front of her, but she seemed more
relaxed.  "Why are you so curious about all that?"

"Just wondered.  Ever talk to Skinner about this case?"

She nodded.  "I tried.  I went to his apartment."

"When?"

"Shortly after the arraignment." She suddenly seemed deathly sick.

Mulder watched as all the color left her face.  She tried to moisten 
her lips with the tip of her tongue.  "Was there anyone else there 
when you went to visit?"

"He was anxious to get rid of me, then suddenly he pulled
me out of the hall and into his apartment." Her eyes widened in apparent
surprise at what she remembered so easily.

"I'd call that a clue."

"He called me Agent Scully."

"He pulled you in his apartment and didn't even call you Dana?" He 
watched her carefully. 

"He called me 'agent.' He treated me as an active agent," she said.
Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed slightly as if she weren't
feeling well.   

"Who else was there?"

"I-I--." Her will snapped.  She fled to the bathroom; he could hear her 
retching.

Mulder learned something from his experiment.  Every time
she tried to think of a conspiracy her physical symptoms
escalated.  He worried that pressing her memory too much might
trigger a more virulent response and decided he didn't want to
find out.  At least he thought he had an idea that might help her
control it.

When she came out of the bathroom looking more dead than
alive, Mulder explained his theory.

"Direct my thoughts elsewhere to something non-threatening when these 
symptoms appear?" She didn't sound like she believed it.

"The closer you come to remembering, the worse the physical symptoms 
see to be," he said.

"That can't be any drug I know," she said. "Mulder, your idea makes no 
sense."

"It worked."

"For a time."

"Better than nothing," he said.

"Infinitely."

"How does it happen? How do they administer the drugs?" he asked.

"And who exactly is they?" Scully said.

"I thought you knew."

"I have an idea - no proof.  Skinner is involved, Mulder.
I'm sorry to shoot down your logic, but he is.  I can't think why."

Mulder shelved that for the time being.  Scully's forehead
furrowed, marking the return of pain and nausea as the physical
symptoms of the drugs took over again. She must be right: Skinner was
involved.

"How's your mother, Scully?" Mulder grasped at the first thing inane topic
that came to mind.  "Still trying to get you to taste rhubarb pie?"

"Actually she hasn't tried once this summer."

"Have you seen her lately?"

"I visit quite a bit.  This has been hard for her.  She's
ill.  I've tried to get her to see a cardiologist." Mulder
watched the pain in her eyes recede slowly.

"Heart!"

"I'm concerned.  I can't get her to take it seriously and this-."

Her cheeks reddened and her posture became unyielding. "They came to 
her house.  Two agents. They threw me against my mother's dining room 
wall, searched me, handcuffed me--at the dinner table. With a dozen
news cameras on her front lawn."

Mulder felt all Scully's humiliation, rage, her impotent fury rise up in
him too.  "The circumstances of your arrest-isn't that a bit extreme for 
a simple non-violent felony?"

"It's by the book - you should check that out."

"Why didn't they just call your attorney and have you surrender? Why all
the fuss? All the media?"

"The bureau is making a point."

He scoffed.  "The bureau wants something like this to go away quietly."

"Perhaps.  The strings go all the way up to the Attorney
General's office.  Langly was able to pull up a seal.."  She 
couldn't finish.

Mulder watched the nausea slam into her again.  Her hand few to her
forehead as though she'd been struck.  She barely seemed to hear his
words anymore.  The heels of her hands ground into her eyes.

"The Attorney General's office?  That explains some things. When was the 
last time you saw a felon go down in less than four months? This is four 
weeks," Mulder said.  "Why is the AG in such a hurry?"

"It might be best-for my mother," she said.  He watched her knuckles clutching the 
counter turn white.

"To have a convicted felon in the family? Every mother's dream."

"To have this over and done with," Scully said. "To have some peace from
the stress, the reporters on her sidewalk, the tension of the process."

Mulder scoffed.  "You don't believe that."

"Sometimes I think I do." Scully took a couple of shallow,
even breaths to beat back the nausea.  For a moment there was
silence in the kitchen.

Mulder sipped his coffee, brought her tea over to the
table and motioned her to follow.  "What kind of tea is that?"

"Herbal," she said, taking the seat opposite him.  "Peppermint, I think."

"Peppermint?" He made a face.  "Not Earl Grey? Go away for
a month and the whole world changes."

She swallowed a little tea and made a feeling better sigh.  "Whoever is
doing this, I know there's some urgency.  The speed of this-case.
There must be a reason."

Mulder was glad to hear she felt better, but her pallor worried him.  Her 
face still had no color at all, making her hair seem even redder.  "Are you 
okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

"You look fine to me," he said.

She grunted her disbelief.

His eyes flitted around the apartment searching for a new
topic - a safe one.  "You left one of your medical books here.
It's on the floor over there."

She must have recognized it, realized why she'd brought it over 
and felt sick again.  He watched the flee/fight response take over.
She pushed back her chair, picked up the book, tucked it under her arm 
and started out the door.  "Are you coming?"

"Shouldn't I put on pants?"