(Headers and Disclaimers in Chapter One) Chapter 5 of 20 Mulder always liked the federal court building in Washington. He'd had to come there so often it was almost a second home at one point in his FBI career. When he first began coming to the court he thought the pure white marble exterior that carried into the outer chambers very appropriate. In those early days as a profiler and investigator he thought of justice as not only blind, but pure. Today he quickly picked up on the dark streaks through the rock. Waiting to be called as a witness enabled him to exercise his restless nature by exploring the building at his leisure. He soon knew all the out of the way restrooms, small conference areas used so little they made excellent reading rooms, the cubbyholes where he could close his eyes for a time and rest without being spotted. The building was old, with massive heating and cooling ducts that opened into hallways, conference rooms, and offices. The architects had cleverly disguised the vents with coverings of ornate and, to Mulder's mind at least, extremely compelling metal designs of Dame Justice, her scales, the American eagle and the like. Mulder felt comfortable in the federal court building. Under the cover of tying his shoe or helping balance a load of papers in his arms, Mulder had often leaned his back against the rock. As a result, few people came to court who appreciated the truth of the expression 'cool marble' like Fox Mulder. Until now, coming to this building had been a pleasure. Today on Scully's first court date since signing the plea bargain, he hated it. He never realized how foreboding, impersonal, and cold it could be. On this morning, the first of what Waters said would be many brief hearings and motions on the plea bargain, Mulder saw the building for what it was: a facade. ******************** Scully told her mother not to bother coming. She could hear Margaret's shortness of breath in her responses. She tried to persuade Mulder not to bother either. As Waters told her, she would have to submit to psychological testing, pre-sentencing interviews before incarceration became a possibility. It's not like television, Waters reminded her. Waters seemed to think she watched a great deal of courtroom drama. Even though she knew most of the things he was telling her, his quiet recitation of the procedures proved oddly comforting. Scully felt much better, stronger. Each day that passed she regained more control, clarity and memories --popcorn kernels recollections and ideas exploded into her head at the strangest times. Besides, as she told Mulder and her mother, what could happen to her in a federal courtroom surrounded by armed marshals and court officers? She probably wouldn't be there five minutes herself. It was, as her lawyer said, pro forma. Mulder insisted. He had barely left her alone long enough to shower since the night she stumbled into his apartment, into his bed. She was glad he came the moment they walked into the main courtroom. She knew the man in the expensive suit who lounged a few rows behind the prosecution table. "Assistant Attorney General Henry J. Donaldson." Scully pointed him out to Mulder. "Some war buddy of Skinner's. What's he doing here? Why should an assistant attorney general of the United States care about this case?" Mulder couldn't recall the face. And he couldn't recall the name either. "How do you know he's a friend of Skinner's?" Scully blinked. "I must have heard it." "Do you know him?" "Yeah," she said, nodding her head slowly. "I do. I know him-well." "From a case?" She lifted her shoulders and shook her head. "From this case?" Scully felt a prick of worry, the start of a headache. "Maybe." "Well, why don't I ask him?" Mulder rose to do just that. He was too late. The bailiff called the case, the judge entered and those in the courtroom stood. When they sat down again and the case called by the bailiff, Donaldson engaged in serious discussion with the prosecutor. Giving him pointers, no doubt, about sealing the her fate, Scully supposed. Scully recognized the judge at once. Amos McDonald. She knew the name, now she had a face to go with it. She had been in his courtroom several years ago giving evidence. He was an older man - seemed old to her back then if she remembered correctly. He had thinning white hair around an oval face splotched with red and the impatient, arrogant air of authority that many judges wore like their robes. She may have testified in this very courtroom, now that she thought about it. Her eyes ranged over the high ceiling, the polished wood railings, bench, desks. She glanced behind her, at Mulder and realized the courtroom was full. She frowned. Why would the main courtroom in the federal building be full of spectators and, unless she was mistaken, members of the press, for a mid-week, insignificant hearing. Unless it wasn't so insignificant. Her mouth went dry. "Mr. Waters-" Scully leaned over, but the Judge McDonald's gavel cut her off. "This hearing was set to accept the plea bargain agreement in this case, then find another date for pre-sentencing and another date for sentencing." The judge sighed and took off his reading glasses. "I have read this document proposed by the prosecution and agreed to by the defense. I can understand why the defense is pleased, but I'm not certain why the prosecution is so-magnanimous." The prosecutor made some noise as if to rise and the judge waved him back down. The judge stared at Scully for a moment, pursed his lips and rubbed them. "While it's within my purview to reject this document I'm inclined to accept it. Does everyone understand? Miss Scully, do you understand you are pleading no contest to these charges in exchange for a five year sentence in a federal prison?" Scully didn't move or breathe. She had to keep reminding herself she had done nothing wrong, this was part of a plan. Beside her Waters jumped to his feet, "Yes, your honor. We understand." "I know you do, Mr. Waters. I'm asking if she does," said Judge McDonald. His eyes were slits. "Miss Scully, have you been in my court before?" Scully found her feet. "Yes, Your Honor. I was a witness in a trial several years ago in this court." "I remember. A conspiracy case. You were an excellent witness." The judge leaned against the tall back of his black chair and rubbed his bottom lip again. "Strange, sad turn of events that brings you back. Do you understand what is before us?" "Yes sir." "Your attorney has explained it to you?" "Yes sir." "And you accept it?" "Yes sir." Scully found herself drawn to the McDonald's face. His expression struck her as familiar, the depths of his stare somehow penetrating, and she realized with a shock that he was disappointed in her. As though he were her father. With very little imagination Scully could see her dead father looking down intently upon her from the bench - his eyes revealing how ashamed he was of his youngest child. She flushed with guilt and shame. "Are you aware that you are telling this court that you do not dispute charges you stole money from the FBI and sought bribes? That's as good as saying you're a common thief." Waters protested and the judge noted his objection. "Miss Scully?" "Yes sir." Scully's fingertips on the table before her were so damp they left marks on the highly polished surface. The judge continued to stare at her and Scully knew what came next, what had always come next with her father. He had never spanked her, never struck her with his hand, but his punishment was always more severe than her mother's. More severe because it came from him, because she knew it meant she had defied and disappointed her father. No matter how rebellious she chose to act, she always felt that keenly. She glanced at Waters and started to turn back to Mulder. "Do you wish to make a statement?" Judge McDonald said. "No statement, Your Honor," said Waters. He shifted from one foot to the other. "No?" The judge looked to Scully. "No sir." She reminded herself again she was a pawn, not a thief, but the first role didn't please her any better than the second. Judge McDonald spoke in clipped, even tones. "This case gives me considerable pause. It speaks to a basic unfairness: that a thief - whether she admits it or not -- should be given a light sentence just because she is an FBI agent and the FBI doesn't want to be embarrassed by further publicity." Behind her Scully sensed Mulder's resentment on her behalf and it buoyed her. She determined to let her mind wander from the legal proceedings and set her eyes on a place just above the judge's head, on the great seal of the United States carved in wood and painted in brilliant colors on the dais. She focused on the blue. She had seen such seals in all the federal courtrooms she visited in this building. "I see no need to set further dates, postpone hearings and drag this out any more. If the prosecutor and the FBI want quick closure, then I am in a cooperative mood." A shock of understanding shot up Scully's back. She knew what was coming before McDonald spoke and so, by the look of him, did Waters. "The plea bargain is accepted. In accordance to the terms of that agreement Dana Katherine Scully is sentenced to five years in a federal correctional facility to be determined by the Bureau of Prisons. The sentence is to be imposed immediately. Bailiff-." Scully lost the rest of what was said after "immediately". She knew Waters objected. Judge McDonald said something else. There was a flurry in the back of the courtroom. Two marshals came up beside her. Waters told her not to worry. It all happened at once. She moved as though she were caught in mud. When she turned to Mulder his mouth parted slightly and he may have said her name. She took a half step toward him and his arm came up to reach for her. A marshal's hand curled around her shoulder at the same time and he said, "This way." A wave of outrage washed around her. Scully shook off the hand. "Mulder..." He leaned over, took her by the shoulders and pulled her to him until the rail separating the defense table and the spectators was the only thing between them. She put the flat of her hand against his chest. Through his suit, through his shirt, she could feel his heart racing, a mirror to her own. "Apparently we're on a tight schedule." She managed to pronounce 'schedule' as the English would - a vain attempt at levity. "And I wager you've mucked it up. I rather suspect this was supposed to be over before I finished training." "So we proceed as planned, only a little sooner than we planned." "And we'll know where and who to look for when you get where you're going," he said. His hand on her felt like the only solid thing in the world. "My mother-" "Got it." Mulder tried to capture and hold her attention. Her wide eyes bounced around the room like nervous dots. She just needed to connect with him one time to settle them both down. "Now I have to think like two of us." He grinned. "Don't worry, Scully. I can do it." "It does not fill me with confidence to see our witness disappearing," she said and her gaze slid past him to Donaldson. The assistant AG shook hands with the prosecutor, who seemed dazzled. "You be okay?" She tried to slow her rapid breathing. "I'll be surrounded by armed guards. What could happen," she said with a confidence she did not feel. She thought it strange that no matter how innocent she was of any wrongdoing she'd ever been accused of, she always suffered as though she were guilty. "This isn't just about prison, Scully," Mulder leaned close to her ear. "They're trying to break you." His warning came not a moment too soon. The marshal's hand on her upper arm slid toward her hand. She knew what came next. One handcuff closed around her wrist. She had done it a hundred times herself to suspects. Mulder made a move in the marshal's direction. "Mulder -- it's procedure," Scully said, blocking him with her upper body. She nodded toward the hall. "Donaldson-" A second cuff closed around her other wrist. She didn't want Mulder to see this. She forced a small smile. "What do you suppose I would do here, Agent Mulder?" His lips tried to return her smile, but his eyes filled with something akin to panic. "This way," said the marshal and pulled on her arm. Scully turned and walked away between the two marshals with purpose in her step as though it was her idea to go to prison and they were merely tagging along. Mulder checked on the progress of Donaldson as he headed for the courtroom entrance and trailed after him. Mulder paused at the courtroom door to see the marshals and Scully, head high, exit a side door. ************** The sound of his name caused Henry Donaldson to halt - he knew who was calling. The man was dangerous -- and attractive. He reacted to both. "I don't have a lot of time, Agent Mulder," said Donaldson, checking his watch. "You know me?" "I know that you are Dana Scully's former partner," he said setting a brisk pace down the corridor. "Why are you so interested in seeing her sent to prison?" "I'm interested in all federal prosecutions under my jurisdiction. You should count yourself lucky this didn't fall on you too." Donaldson waved at a colleague across the hall. "I think I'm safe. You can't send me to a women's prison." Now Donaldson stopped. "Look. What do you want from me?" "The truth." Donald stood with both hands on his hips. "The truth? The truth is, Agent Mulder, you need a new partner." "What do you know about the robbery of First Bank of Virginia and the women who took over the bank guards?" "Insanity defense. Nothing else." "Are there others?" "I wouldn't know." "More than two?" A shocked look that flashed across Donaldson's face rewarded Mulder's burst of insight. Mulder made a mental note to run a more thorough computer check of similar crimes. Perhaps the Lone Gunmen would have better luck with their sources. "I have many cases and many responsibilities, Agent Mulder I should attend to some of them now," he said in measured tones. "Out of curiosity, what prison is she being assigned to?" "Does it matter?" Donaldson said impatiently. Mulder looked like he had grown roots, so Donaldson added, "I suspect she'll be sent to the private facility in Virginia - AtoZ Penal Institute. That's where all female federal prisoners are being sent lately." "We'll be talking again I'm sure," Mulder said. "I will not take this lightly, Mr. Donaldson. Whatever happens to Scully you'll pay double for it." "Are you threatening me?" Mulder grinned. "I've seen too many Dirty Harry movies." Donaldson waved goodbye over his shoulder and continued out of the building. Walter Skinner needed to curb his dog or this would get nasty. Donaldson had hoped Dana Scully would not be so strong at this point. Hell, he'd hoped she'd already be locked up. Her strong will put everything 10 days behind schedule. He didn't like being behind. Everything had to be speeded up. He smiled with some satisfaction to remember the helpless fear that flickered across Scully's face when she realized she was going to be handcuffed and imprisoned. It was so strong in her that he had felt it in his groin. He had one hope: if what happened in court today shook her spirit, then prison would kill it off. Which was what he thought would happen to her all long. He needed her weak and vulnerable. Everything would move along faster then. His career depended on her. Hell, everything he valued depended on her. He checked his watch; he was late. Every damn thing about this was late. He had some arrangements to make concerning Dana Scully. He couldn't afford to let her stay strong. Soon the threat would be over. He expected to feel better. Instead, his head began to hurt and soon Henry Donaldson felt as though he might split in half. Christ, he had to cut out enough time in his day to do his mental exercises before he started to pee sitting down. ************************* It was still summer, only July, Scully reminded herself. A dry July too -- that's why everything along the road was turning brown. She wasn't imagining that even the plants around her shriveled. The trees, bushes and grass were all dying prematurely of thirst and turning brown around the edges. No rain in sight, a crystal blue sky. It wasn't fall yet, she thought. Not yet. The prison van and its escort traveled down the interstate, then turned onto a state highway and finally onto a country lane in northern Virginia. As she watched the ageless hills pass by en route to the AtoZ Penal Securities facility, Scully's manacled hands made her acutely aware of her own mortality. She pictured them in five years -- wrinkling, the skin no longer as elastic. She turned them over to study the palms. Unless she could discover why this was happening, her hands would be less agile when she was free again to use them as she wished. She hugged the side of the seat, scooting as far away from her neighbor as possible. She turned away to look out the window. She wanted to cross her left leg, but the guards had shackled one leg of the prisoners to a bar along the side of the seats. Naturally it was her left one. The risk she'd taken frightened her. Scully felt her life slipping past as fast as the miles, memories blurring like the telephone poles along the road. She lost so much time- not carelessly, she hadn't thrown the minutes away. What had not been stolen from her she deliberately set aside. All those things she wanted to get around to - children, research, writing that forensic textbook - she shelved until none of it was possible anymore. Maybe her priorities were wrong all along. She sighed and continued to look out the window. Her regret was what she hadn't done rather than what she had done. The hollowness in her stomach leeched into her chest. From a distance the prison presented a formidable sight. Accessible from only one bridge across a large creek bed that was low from the drought, the prison sat in the center of several open acres. It looked like one of those multi-layered urban high schools with slits for windows. Surrounded by pristine razor wire and wire fencing set in double rows, the complex consisted of three main buildings and a series of smaller guard or storage sheds. What struck Scully was the blandness: cement blocks and gray, chain link fence silver, black doors on land burned brown. The facility was a modern configuration that repelled any sense of humanity: it was bulletproof, fireproof Plexiglas, steel, cement, and plastic. Scully toured such a facility once. Even the cells featured a reinforced plastic or plastic derivative and everything in each cell, recreation area or workstation was completely visible - one way private companies reduced manpower costs. Open facilities offered little privacy for inmates, but didn't require as many guards. In like fashion rigid rules and schedules helped cut personnel by limiting choices and opportunities for escape or behavior outside the norm. Like other private prisons, AtoZ relied on technology rather than personnel for security and spared little for rehabilitation, nothing for ambiance. No shrubs, flowers or decorative evergreens marked the grounds or the land around the complex. From the tallest point in the prison Scully imagined the closest trees and flowers would be mere dots on the landscape. She measured the distance in her mind's eye. Escape in the open -- even in the dark -- would be almost impossible, she thought, surprised to find herself thinking in those terms. The van stopped at a gate in front of the bridge. Someone in the back whimpered and several of the women sniffled. Scully's hands and feet grew colder and colder. She set her lips in a firm line and lifted her chin. "Oh Jesus, Jesus, my babies," the woman sitting next to Scully moaned. Flushed, she began keen softly. So did another woman close to the rear. Scully had no words for her seatmate just then. The wounded sense of injustice she nurtured after the plea bargain and sentencing, the righteous indignation she harbored over her false arrest, and her sense of self held her strong until now. With the gates of hell yawning open, Scully reached for the cross around her neck and remembered they took it from her yesterday after that awful day in court. Court. That day when she had nearly panicked, when she couldn't bear the hands on her, binding her, pulling her away. When the only thing she felt was Mulder. She'd given him her life again yesterday. Scully closed her eyes, saw his face, felt his hand on her shoulder, her palm flat on his chest, and held onto his promise. Was that only yesterday? For the minute and a half it took the guards to open the bridge and close barricade behind the van, Scully stifled a gasp at the suffocating horror she felt when the clang and clack of the gates locked her off from the world. Several of the women cried out as though they'd been physically struck by the noise. The van drove up to the main complex, a large garage door rolled up to reveal a group of waiting guards milling around the cement floor. The door descended behind them and before the driver could turn off the van engine a guard tapped on the passenger door with a nightstick. Scully closed her eyes and hoped for deliverance. Instead, she was dragged into purgatory - that place where the nuns told her souls are taken for purification from sins or to complete punishment begun in the other world. Not hell. But close enough. Inside it was all by rote, Scully realized, just as her arrest had been. The process made extraordinary by the slightest variation. The personal made remarkable by the impersonal; an insignificant act of kindness made significant by the absolute absence of compassion. In the prison garage as the dozen prisoners unloaded, Scully's seatmate stumbled off the bus and fell at the feet of an armed guard. He stood, impassive and impatient. Scully got off and, hampered by the manacles still on her hands and feet, helped the woman up. Her seatmate was so hot to the touch Scully wondered she hadn't noticed it earlier, on the trip from the Washington jail. Scully felt her forehead and looked into her eyes. "This woman has a fever," Scully told the guard. His nameplate read Sgt. Anderson. "She needs to go to the clinic." "Follow the line," he said. "She's sick," Scully said. "Follow the blue line." "This woman is ill," Scully said. "You a doctor," Sgt. Anderson scoffed. "Yes, and I'm telling you she has a fever, her eyes are bloodshot, she seems disoriented. It could be pneumonia, bronchitis, strep, any number of infectious diseases-" "You're not a doctor. You are nothing here," Sgt. Anderson said. Even the chains around the prisoners in the garage stilled. "Did you hear me give you a lawful order to move down the blue line?" The man tapped his hand against the nightstick against his side as a warning. Scully hesitated, and then saw nothing could be gained by pushing. A haze of rage against her impotence clouded her vision for a moment. She reasoned the medical exams would surely pick up the woman's illness. Scully shuffled in her chains on down the line, standing just ahead of her seatmate as they entered a series of locks that lead into large gymnasium in the main building. Each time the metal clanging shut locked the women deeper inside the prison Scully flinched. She could hear the woman wheezing and berated herself for not noticing it earlier. No one but the inmates expressed any emotion at all during the degrading intake process: strip and cavity searches, delousing, inventory of possessions, physical examinations, and basic psychological tests. The guards peering over portable dividers set up in the make shift receiving area only underscored the humiliation and intimidation. Scully suffered in silence through all of it, refusing to allow the faintest sign of emotion to cross her face. She drew the line when the superficial physical check-up by a team of bored medical personnel that she knew obtained their licenses from a cereal box passed on her seatmate. The woman's fever was noted, Scully's objection was noted, but she went on.