===============================================================
ARCHIVE NOTE: Lesdean A. Warner's email address has changed.
(08MAY96) Please use the new address: xangst@marina-pt.com
===============================================================

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995
NF> No Escape

Here's another bit for the Solitary chain--I know, I know, and I promise I'll
leave off soon, but it's just such Angst fodder! <cheek>

Anyway, suicide, pain, anger, fear--all the good stuff is in here. It's sort
of PG-ish.

As always, M&S, and Skinner belong to CC, 1013, Fox, and the respective
actors. All agents mentioned belong to me, as do Sal and Conche.

************
No Escape
by Lisdean Warner

He was back in the box, a place he knew too well now.
The ceiling came off, and hard voices he couldn't understand were hurting
him.
"God! This one would have be Mulder."
"We've got Prevan over here."
"Agent Mulder? Come on, Hal, help me get him out of here. Agent Mulder,
I'm Lieutenant Palmer... Agent Mulder?"
Mulder shot out of his sleep, disoriented again, hearing the unfamiliar
voices in his head. He wiped sweat and tears from his face. They were
merciless. Dream after dream after dream--all laden with terror.
He had to hear a voice he knew--someone he recognised.

He stared at the phone for a moment after he hung up, his gaze drifting
slowly with his thoughts. Sleep. No nightmares, he thought, gaze coming to
rest on the bottle of pills. Just sleep. A long, long night of dreamless
silence...

A thousand things ran through Dana Scully's mind as she drove. A thousand
careless phrases, spouted over the last few weeks.
<If I see one more piece of paperwork, I'll kill myself.>
<Better dead than at a desk, right?>
<This down-time is killing me.>
How many times? How many times had he said it since she got back to the
office? Hundreds? Thousands?
Why hadn't she seen it?
The depression was understandable. After what he'd been through, if he
wasn't at least a *little* depressed, she would have worried. She worried
anyway. He had never lost it, never a flashback, never a fit of anger at what
had been done to him. She had wondered how he just accepted it and moved on.
Carl and Jerry had been in therapy since their return, trying to get a grip
on it all, trying to survive it...
She guessed she had always wondered how Johnny got through it, too--right
up until Perry had called her last week to say that his partner had committed
suicide.
The car jumped into higher gear as she pulled more speed out of it. The
Partners, as they were all called by the Bullpen these days--her, and Brian,
and Perry, and Deric--had had a bond forged for them during the seven weeks
that their counterparts had been missing. They met still, talking over how
their partners were adjusting to things, worrying over how much the ordeal
had taken out of them.
She remembered that the last time she had seen Perry before John's
suicide, he had felt his partner was finally getting better. The parallels
were frightening.
She had thought the same about her partner, though if she really thought
about, Mulder had been so quiet since the funeral--he had been quiet before,
but never so closed off. It was like he was retreating back into that dark
little box he'd been thrown in. Just to shut away all the pain.
She replayed the phone call in her mind, as she finally pulled up to his
building and headed for the door.

<ring>
She had looked at the clock: 12:17 am. <This man has *no* concept of
time.> Her voice had been hopelessly sleepy. "Scully."
"Hey, Scully." He had sounded tired, desperate. "You know, there's a
double play of Vincent Price on cable."
"I have better things to do at twelve thirty in the morning than watch
movies, Mulder," she had said tiredly. "And so do you. Go to sleep. If you
don't start looking healthier, they'll never let you back on active duty."
"Better get some sleep then," he had said, a strange mixture of sadness
and childish annoyance in his voice that suddenly woke her.
"Mulder," she asked quietly, sitting up in bed and switching on the light.
"Are you okay?"
She could hear him shrug, see the sad smile break over his features. "I'm
getting really sick of that question, Scully."
"Did you have another nightmare?"
He had shrugged again. "Par for the course."
She didn't like the fatalism she heard. "You should see someone, Mulder,"
she suggested warily. "Just to talk to."
"Well, I can talk to you, can't I?"
She had held in her sigh. "Someone who'll understand what you're going
through," she tried again.
There was a long pause. Then, in his best sardonic tone, "If anyone would
know what I was going through, Scully, it'd be you."
"Mulder..." She tried to think of a way to say it. She couldn't let him
think that she was saying it because she thought he was a burden. She would
do anything for him, but she just didn't think she *could* do this--he was
the psychologist, not her. "You need someone who can help you face what's
going on--and what's happened. I can't."
He was silent for so long that she feared he'd misinterpreted. When he
finally spoke, the resignation in his voice had frightened her. "I don't
think I need to face this anymore, Scully." He sighed. "Not tonight. I just
don't want to think about it anymore."
"Mulder..."
"Not anymore tonight," he had said, trying his best not to sound
depressed. If this was his best, he was in serious trouble. "Look, I'll see
you at work tomorrow." He had smiled half-heartedly over the phone. "More of
that deadly paperwork... Maybe I should just call in sick. Not like it'd be
any great surprise, right?"
And then he had hung up. It had taken her a moment to figure out his
tones--to realise that he was not just slightly depressed, but dangerously
so. Images of Johnny Carter had come to mind, and she had tried to call him
back, worried when the answering machine caught the call.
"Mulder, it's me... Please pick up. Mulder, come on, I want to talk to
you..."

So here she was, sweating as the elevator rose, medical bag bouncing against
her agitated thigh.
Why had she missed this? Was she really so wrapped up in her own recovery
that she couldn't see it coming? Was she *that* selfish?
She knocked a little too loudly, given the time of night, frightened again
when she heard no answer. Digging her keys out with shaking hands, she prayed
that he had just fallen back to sleep. It would be like him, she thought,
mind desperately searching for a safe answer, to scare her half to death with
a midnight phone call, only to fall asleep directly after.
The apartment was neater than usual--he seemed to have a thing for
neatness, lately--but there he lay on the couch. In the dark.
She watched him for a moment, as he breathed long shallow breaths, curled
so tightly around himself that it hurt her still tender back to watch. She
laughed at herself a little. He'd never despair enough to...
After a minute, it slowly sank in that he was breathing a little *too*
shallowly. She shook him, only then noticing the neatly closed prescription
bottle on his coffee table.
Sleeping pills. They had prescribed them when the nurses discovered that
he wasn't sleeping. Scully had tried to explain his insomnia, but she had to
admit that it had scared her as well. Usually he managed at least a few hours
of sleep a night--tormented as it was. But for the first five days he had
been conscious--the first five days after he had woken, and known her, had
taken a glass of water from her and said her name--he had lain awake. Not
talking, really, though he would keep up his side of a conversation if she
pushed. Just laying there, staring at the ceiling--staring so hard at her
sometimes, that her eyes would water in response.
Then, suddenly, the moment talk of therapy reared its ugly head, he had
begun to sleep. All the time. He had taken the pills willingly--even taking
them when she wasn't looking. She swore he did it only to avoid talking about
what had been done to him.
She checked the bottle--empty. She had no idea how many he had taken--the
prescription was a month old, for God's sake. There could have been one left
that night.
But on the phone... He had sounded so...
She shook him harder, felt his tired pulse--his metabolism had never
really returned to normal, and his heart seemed to beat but a few times a
minute. She was about to dig for her cellphone, when he woke with a start,
his eyes moving groggily, though the rest of him stayed curled in its tight,
painful knot. "Scully, what..."
"Are you okay?" she asked, flipping on the dim desk lamp and peering
carefully into his bleary eyes.
"Sure." Actually, he was a little angry. Sleep wasn't any easier to come
by these days. "I just took a pill."
She shook her head, examining his wandering eyes and tired breathing. He
hadn't taken *a* pill. "How many?"
He looked at her, uncomprehending. "How many *what*?"
"How many pills?"
"Three, why?" She was looking far too worried.
"Mulder," she said, her voice a little high. "You're supposed to take
*one.* Those things are dangerous."
He extracted himself from his knot, putting his head in his hands and
massaging his aching temples. "Scully, I have been on some of the strongest
sleep aids known to man. It'd take a lot more than three of those little
things to kill me."
She stood abruptly. "Don't say that."
A light dawned finally in Mulder's muzzy brain, a clue to why she had
come. "You thought I was going to kill myself," he said, astonished.
She ran an embarassed hand through her hair.
"Scully," he asked quietly. "How could you think that? Just how fucked up
do you think I am?"
"Mulder, you were so depressed on the phone," she began defensively. "And
after Johnny--"
"Scully," he said firmly, fighting the grog of the pills. "Come on. I need
to know... Enough that I can't do my job?"
She nodded.
"Enough that I can't be left alone?"
It took her a minute, but she nodded again.
He pulled himself up to unsteady feet. "Great," he said angrily, turning
away from her. "Well, you'll be glad to know, Agent Scully, that I have yet
to commit the rare stupidity of killing *myself.* I have enough other people
out there trying to do that for me."
"Mulder..." she said, starting to reach out to him, pulling back her hand
when he turned on her.
"You guys should probably have saved yourselves the trouble and committed
me when you found me." He ran an angry hand through his hair, his voice
suddenly dead. "Would have saved me the trouble, too."
She watched him as he leaned against the desk, wrapping those ever-groping
hands around his middle. "Mulder," she said finally. "You have to see someone
about this. It's tearing you apart."
He shook his head in angry denial, turning back to the window. "You're
blowing this out of proportion."
"Mulder..."
"After all I've done in my life, a little more suffering isn't enough to
push me over the edge."
She walked up behind him quietly, sighing sadly at the tension she could
feel coming off of him. Trust her partner to see this all as some sort of
divine retribution. "Mulder, I don't know all of what happened to you during
those seven weeks, but the man threw you in a box, beat you to a pulp on a
daily basis, and tried to poison you--all for two hours work and fifteen
minutes of testimony. What the hell could you have done to deserve that?"
He was silent a long time, his voice husky when he finally spoke. "The
beating didn't start immediately," he said quietly.
She held her breath, letting him continue as he would.
"That first week... He just left me there, threw in a little food, the
occassional cup of water... I even had my watch." He turned then, startled to
find her so close, backing away from the contact. She pulled back, giving him
space, willing him to let her know what was going on in his mind.
He smiled wryly. "I guess he didn't like me knowing what time it was..."
"How much do you remember?" she asked gently.
He shrugged. "Everything, I guess."
For how long? How long had he been keeping all of this inside him? How
long how he been reliving that horror. He had convinced her in the beginning
that he had no recollection of it all. Had he known even then?
"For a few... For a long time, there was this wind... It rattled the box.
I sat there in that shaking box, in the dark..." He snaked a hand out,
slamming it hard into the desk. "I was so *fucking* helpless!"
She wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault, wanted to say that it was
over now, that Conche was dead and there was nothing to be afraid of. It was
all inadequate, though. He'd never believe her.
"What else do you remember?"
"I remember--once--hearing Jerry scream." He ran a cold hand through his
hair, returned the wayward thing to its rightful place, clutching at his
stomach. "I remember wishing Conche would just leave him alone. Jerry's a
good guy. He didn't deserve it." He shrugged, resigned. "Conche only hit him
occassionally, anyway."
She sifted through his words. "*Jerry* didn't deserve it?"
Mulder nodded. "What has he ever done in his life that was so wrong?"
"What have you?" she asked pointedly.
He stared at her for a long moment and ignored the question.
"I remember pouring out the water, again and again--I must have done it
for days. I don't know how I figured it out--that it was drugged." He moved
to the couch as if sleep-walking, brought his knees up to his chest, wrapping
still-skeletal arms around them.
"I was so thirsty. Every time that cup was thrust into the box, I had to
fight so hard not to drink from it." His voice muffled as he dropped his
head. He was as small now as he could make himself. "God, Scully, it was so
*dark.*"
She sat next to him on the couch, careful not to startle him. If she had
to listen all night, he'd have her here. She'd never leave him alone again.
"He... he planned it all so carefully, Scully," he said quietly, turning
his face to her, still resting it on his knees. "He knew exactly how to break
us."
"You didn't break, Mulder," she told him gently. "You're alive. You're
sane..."
He closed his eyes, heart breaking at the admission. "I almost tried it,"
he said, barely breathing. "Had my gun loaded and everything. It would have
been so easy."
She felt her heart skip a beat, tried to keep her voice steady. "What
happened?"
He shrugged tiredly, gave her a groggy, lopsided grin. "You were in the
hospital. I had to wait until you got out."
A soothing hand laid itself on his back. "What then?"
"Then, I found a poem I'd written in college." He rested his chin on his
knees. "A friend--my best friend--killed himself. I was at Oxford, so I wrote
poetry."
His sad smile tore at her. "What was the poem?"
His voice took on a calm quality as he recited.
"There's no escape.
"I cannot run with you--
"To hide the truth,
"The pain,
"The lies I tell myself.
"In death the truths are known,
"The lies are stilled.
"And yet I cannot run with you
"The truths you've found must wait,
"For there is no escape for me--
"Escape from pain."
He smiled that self deprecating grin, turning to shine his self-hate on
her. "Pretty stupid poem, huh?"
Scully watched him silently, hearing every bit of his self-doubt, every
bit of self-loathing in that poem. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat
her to it.
"I remember," he said, fighting to stay awake as the sleeping pills he'd
taken pulled at him again. "I remember toward the end, being so glad I was
finally going to die." His voice turned bleak as he buried his head in his
arms. She almost didn't hear the next words. "I was finally going to get what
I deserved."
She ran her hand over his back, feeling it bounce off of too-prominent
bones. "Oh, Mulder. How could anyone deserve that?"
But he was asleep, the pills finally taking over again.
With a sigh, she gently fought his tense muscles, pulling him out into a
flat position, and settling into the chair opposite him. She was hardly
surprised when, after dozing lightly for half an hour, she found him curled
tightly back into his own invisible box.

She stretched, looking at the lightening sky outside. Her back hurt, and in
her haste, she had left her pain pills at home. Oh, well. Mulder had
aspirin--he practically lived on it--and it would do for now.
She reached the bathroom and leaned tiredly on the sink, staring at her
exhausted face in the mirror. She was so sick of it all--so sick of watching
a good man, with enough of his own guilt, having his every moment tortured by
others. Conche, the government--his own family. Why couldn't they all just
leave him alone?
She pulled out his aspirin, popping a few in her mouth and cupping water
in her hands. If his life was ordained by Fate, then Fate was a bigger bitch
than Scully had ever imagined she could be.
She walked back to the couch, knelt next to him, and watched him sleep.
"No escape," he had said. She sighed. There was no escape for either of them
now.
He twitched angrily in his sleep, grabbing with bony hands for something
that wasn't there. All his life, she thought. Grabbing for something that
wasn't there.
For some reason, his little speech after Puerto Rico popped into her head:
"I still have my work... And I still have you... I still have myself..."
His work. It was sad that such a lively man should think of his
over-burdened job as a Godsend. Still... He loved it. It wasn't just his
obsession with his sister. Scully had seen for herself the way his eyes lit
up when they neared a case's solution. He lived--at least in part--for the
chase.
His searching hand found hers, lying quietingly on his leg. She shifted
slightly, leaning her aching back against the couch. He'd never be alone
again. Not while she breathed...

Mulder woke feeling almost human. These days, that didn't happen. He couldn't
feel human until at least ten or eleven. He smelled eggs. "Scully?"
"In the kitchen," she called. Her voice was still such a marvel to him. He
remembered waking in the hospital, remembered wanting to hear her voice more
than anything in the world. He rubbed a tired hand over his features and
walked to the doorway.
"Hi, sleepyhead," she said, smiling quietly. "You're just in time for
breakfast."
"What time is it?"
"Seven-fifteen." She placed a plate of eggs and a glass of juice on the
table, gesturing for him to eat as she got her own breakfast. "We've got to
hurry."
"Why?" he asked, looking at her, slightly suspicious.
"Because," she replied, sitting opposite him, "You have a meeting with Sal
at 8:30 at Quantico, and I have one with Skinner at 10."
He looked over his eggs at her. "Why do I have a meeting with Sal?"
"Because I'm you're partner." She smiled at his confused look. She'd been
thinking a lot over the past couple of hours. He was thinking too much,
giving himself time to wallow. What he needed was a new case. It wouldn't
cure him, nothing but therapy could do that, and he's never go, but for now,
it would have to do. The hunt could at least give him a little peace. "I
can't give you medical clearance to go back on active duty. She can."
She watched, delighted, as that old spark tried to fight its way into his
eyes. "Why are you meeting with Skinner?"
"Because it's going to take one hell of a fight to get him to let you back
out in the field." She looked him up and down. "I don't want you to be there.
The way you look, it's evidence he could use against me."
He looked at her with eager eyes, and she thanked God that at least there
was one person he felt he could trust in the world. "Now eat! Sal has a class
to lecture at nine, and she won't want to be late."
"Yes, ma'am," he said with a grin.
At least there was one person in this world he could trust.
***********
END