Date sent: Wed, 30 Jul 1997

TITLE: "Trying to Catch the Fox" (1/2)
BY: Ten
E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au

I would love feedback on my work! Apologies to people who
get more than one copy of this story, because I send my
work to several mailing lists.

CATEGORY: V, mild MSR (friendshippers can see this as
deep friendship by explaining it away on his drugging and
her worry), angst
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Missing scenes from "Anasazi", where Scully and
the Lone Gunmen try to find and help the drugged Mulder.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: "Anasazi", "The Blessing Way",
minor "Jersey Devil"

DISCLAIMER: The X-Files and the characters of Mulder and
Scully belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions
and Fox Broadcasting, and are used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be
gained.

THANKS: To Doctor Crockett for the medical advice. (See
Author's Note at end.) And Debbie for the editing.

By Ten, July 1997
X-FILES: "Trying to Catch the Fox" (1/2)

Friday 14th April, 1995
Daytime

Scully entered her apartment with cautious haste. He
didn't have his weapon, and he didn't know where she kept
her spare gun, but he was still stronger than her even
though he was sick.

She went to the bedroom and saw the messed bed - his
clothes were gone. There was still faint warmth when she
put her hand under the top sheet. A quick search of the
other rooms confirmed that Mulder had left.

Damn him! After his off-the-deep-end phonecall, she had
hurried back to try to reason with him. At least she had
the lab results that proved his gun had not killed his
father.

But now her partner was out there somewhere, alone, sick,
and psychotic.

First she would try his apartment. She had to get the
bullet out of the wall anyway.

Traffic was bad; when she entered number 42 she saw he'd
already had time to come and go - last night she had been
sitting for hours at his dining table, waiting for him,
and now she could see that the glass of ice water he'd
left there had been drained.

She was thankful that Mulder could not have grabbed
another gun while here; the one she had taken while he
slept had been the spare - he hadn't got around to
requisitioning another after losing his recently on a
case.

Scully tried his cellular. No response. Even if he did
answer, she could imagine the reception she'd get.

She was angling a chair to reach the bullet hole when she
noticed his answering machine. She had reset it for him
last night, just before leaving to await his arrival at
her home. But now the light was off.

Scully checked. Mulder had gone through his messages,
leaving the tape unwound. She got it back to the start
and listened. One message from the Lone Gunmen. Just
asking for him to contact them.

He could be there. She tried their office number, but it
was busy. Groaning in frustration, she decided to tackle
one thing at a time, and got up on the chair to prise the
bullet out.

"Hey, buddy." Frohike's cheery greeting died on his lips
as Mulder pushed past him into the "Lone Gunmen" office.

"The Thinker - can you get in contact with him?" Mulder's
question was more of a demand.

Byers and Langly came forward from their computer
screens.

"What happened?" Langly asked. "Didn't he give it to
you?"

Mulder restlessly paced between them and Frohike. "Oh, he
gave it to me, all right. Now get in contact with him!"

The Gunmen exchanged glances, then turned to look at
their friend again. It was a work day, yet Mulder was in
rumpled casuals. He was flushed and sweaty, and appeared
to be one straw away from exploding with anger.

"Ah..." Byers said, "He hasn't contacted us since that
meeting message for you. It looks like they've got him.
That's what we wanted to tell you."

Mulder snarled and kicked at a desk leg. Byers decided it
was not time to bring up their other reason for wanting
to see him: an exclusive for the mag on the tape's
contents.

"Hey buddy, calm down. Are you okay?" Langly asked.

"Don't tell me to calm down! You must have some way of
reaching him."

"Well, we can't try him at home, of course," Byers said.
"But there is another e-mail addy I could try."

"Do it."

"Hey, Mulder. Where's that little partner of yours?"

Mulder whirled round so fast and furious that Frohike
took a step back. "Don't mention her! Do you understand?"

"Sure... No problem."

"Ah, come over to this computer and I'll try," Byers
said. He gave the others a "what's up with him?" look
behind the agent's back as they settled in front of the
screen.

Langly and Frohike remained standing halfway across the
room.

Langly said, "That tape must really have blown his mind.
Scully mustn't have believed what was on it and he's sore
at her."

Frohike shrugged. "Or he finally tried hitting on her and
she told him where to go."

"Oh yeah. Because of her overwhelming devotion to you.
Riiiiight..."

"Well, if he did hit on her, you owe me two hundred
bucks." Frohike was glad he might be able to salvage some
good from the scenario.

"No way! I've got this month, not you. You drew June."

"Uh uh. I distinctly remember April."

"Let's check the chart." They headed for their file of
bets.

Byers finished clicking away with the mouse. "See,
nothing in our e-mail from him."

"Then we'll wait and see if he replies to your message,"
Mulder said resolutely, sitting back in the chair. His
head flopped wearily before he caught it and rubbed at
the pain in his forehead.

"You sure you're all right?"

"Headache. That's all. Can I have some water, please?"

"Sure."

Mulder couldn't keep still, fidgeting in the chair, then
jumping up to pace, checking his watch impatiently. He
felt so full of anger. He had just been to see Senator
Matheson - or rather, attempted to. His "ally" had fled.

And Scully had turned against him. For a while there he
had thought she had cared for him...and last night the
gentle words, the cool, reassuring touches against his
face, the assurance that she was there...but no. She was
just a brilliant actress. The little spy.

She'd taken his gun. How could he hunt down his father's
killers? He'd hide here for a while, give himself time to
sort out a plan.

Byers came back with the water and some aspirin. After a
strained ten minutes he ran a check of their e-mail again
and found a few new entries. They began going through
them to see if one was the Thinker in disguise.

The phone rang. Frohike answered, starting up the tape
recorder.

"Hello, it's Scully," came the barely-controlled voice.

"Scully, hi!" Frohike glanced across to the far side of
the room, where Mulder was still engrossed in the screen
with Byers.

"Is Mulder there?"

"Yeah, what's up with h-"

"Oh thank God! Frohike, he's sick. Does he know it's me
on the line?"

"No." Frohike dropped his voice down, "He's busy. He
didn't hear. Why? What's wrong?"

"His apartment water has been deliberately drugged. Its
made him feverish and psychotic. He thinks I'm against
him. A traitor."

"Uh oh..."

"Frohike, you have to keep him there. Someone has killed
his father and set it up to look like Mulder's guilty.
I'm on my way. We have to calm him down or he's going to
hurt himself and us. I took his gun, but still be
careful."

His jaw dropped. "Okay, D-... er, you can trust us."

Frohike hung up and stood staring at Mulder's back. He
could see that their friend was getting very impatient
with Byers, his voice rising as the Gunman failed to
track down the Thinker. Frohike went to another computer
console, one with a screen that faced away from Mulder,
and began typing.

A few minutes later, he casually called Langly over to
read it. He watched Langly's eyes bulge behind his
glasses. They seemed to linger on the last sentence. Then
he looked at his watch, nodded and went over to the
others. He said, "Hey, Mulder. I might have a way we can
contact him. Let me try," and motioned for Byers to get
out of the chair. Byers did so.

Frohike casually called Byers over to the console. "I've
got a glitch here, can you help me?"

Scully pulled up in the Gunmen's sheltered, off-the-
street garage. Mulder's car was still there, thank God.
She had already made sure there was a capped syringe of
sedative primed and easy to access in her pocket. She
hoped that it didn't come to that of course, but he'd
just swallowed more of the drugs while at home. His
behaviour had been violent enough earlier today over the
phone when he had discovered his gun was gone - she could
only expect degeneration now.

At least she knew what was wrong with him. His actions
and the horrible things he said were at last explained.
The hurt Scully had felt when Mulder said he would not
give her his trust...

She reached the top of the stairs and approached the door
with the inevitable camera over it. Before she could
knock, Byers was opening up. Noises could be heard from
the next room.

"He's pretty fired. He asked us if we had a gun he could
borrow. We said we didn't and he's tearing the place
apart, saying we're lying and he needs it."

Byers locked the front door behind them. Scully took a
deep breath. "I'll try to talk to him, calm him down. But
if all else fails, are you three good at tackling and
restraining?" She pulled the syringe part-way out of her
pocket to show him. "Last resort."

She didn't realise the syringe didn't go all the way back
in when she pushed it down - it got caught on her
glasses, leaving the plunger still visible above the
pocket.

"Great," Byers sighed. "We're here to expose conspiracies
and now he's going to think we're part of it."

They entered the main office. Mulder was rifling through
shelves, uncaringly tossing down books and binoculars in
his search. The sound of the door closing brought his
head round and instantly he was in a defensive posture,
figure taunt. His hand went for his empty holster.

END PART ONE OF TWO.

TITLE: "Trying to Catch the Fox" (2/2)
BY: Ten
E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au
Disclaimer in Part One

"What's *she* doing here?" The loathing was unmistakable.
He looked at them all, apparently seeing guilt. "You sons
of... She's a spy!"

"Mulder, please, listen to me -"

"Stay away from me!" Mulder fumbled on the shelf. He
pulled out a pipe and brandished it, back set to the
shelving. "Did she seduce you, Frohike? What did she do?"

"You've been drugged!" Scully realised with dread that he
seemed beyond reason now, existing fully in his nightmare
conspiracy. Her words probably weren't reaching him,
"Your apartment water - it has made you very ill. You
have to believe me. You have to -"

"Believe? You *never* believe me! Why the hell should I
believe you?"

"Buddy, it's true," Frohike tried. "You have to let her
help you."

"You're all in this together... You killed him!"

"Mulder, please, you have to calm down."

"We're your friends," Byers insisted.

Scully knew all Mulder was seeing were the four people
who were his best friends closing in on him, inch by
inch. But his greatest hurt was focused on her. "I
*trusted* you! I *loved* you!"

She stared. /Oh Mulder, I'm doing this *because* I love
you.../

Even focused on her partner, she was aware of where the
others were. Langly had remained near the door, across a
sea of desks from the action. She could sense Byers and
Frohike were trying to decide when to make a mutual
tackle from their left and right approaches. Scully was
beside Byers, holding her hand out to pacify the semi-
delirious man, but ready to go for her pocket the second
he was restrained.

Mulder's sharp eyes caught the top of the syringe poking
out. That was the final straw. With a yell he swung the
pipe in a wide arc, forcing the three back, then leapt
onto the desk in front of him. Crashing over equipment,
he scrambled over onto the next desk, heading toward the
door.

Scully managed to grab him by the leg, but Mulder kicked
free and caught his balance, smashing his foot into a
keyboard in the process.

She saw Langly's eyes go wide with fear as Mulder bore
towards him over the desks. It was like watching a truck
speeding for a VW Beetle. But in a valiant attempt, the
Beetle attempted to block the truck's path. Scully winced
as Mulder leapt onto him, both almost hitting the wall as
they crashed to the floor. She heard the sound of a
punch.

"Mulder, stop! Please -" Her plea was ignored as her
partner sprang up and went for the door.

By the time Scully and the others got around the desks
and fallen equipment, Mulder had unlocked the door in the
next room and was running down the stairs. Scully tried
to follow, but he didn't get into his car, and when she
reached the street she had lost him.

Scully knew she had missed the meeting with Skinner, but
finding Mulder was her priority. Day had just slipped
into night. She remembered last night - what an ordeal it
had been for the both of them as he had tossed around
deliriously. She had gotten his temperature down, but it
wasn't until past dawn that he had gone into a proper
sleep. She shouldn't have left him in his state...but she
had wanted evidence for Skinner, and so looked down at
his prone body and decided he would still be sleeping
when she got back.

She was not going to make that mistake again.

She was walking through the ground floor of his apartment
building to the elevator when she heard the angry
screaming...

The Gunmen sat in their office that night. Byers had
tried to tidy up some of the equipment, but they were all
feeling worried and guilty and hadn't said much since
Scully had left. Langly was holding an icepack to his jaw
and reading a Penthouse to keep his mind off the pain. It
wasn't working.

"We should have stopped him..."

"We tried. But we're not exactly big in the buff he-man
department, are we? He didn't have his gun, but he's
still a strong FBI agent with now-homicidal tendencies."
Frohike was trying to be logical, but he was feeling like
they'd let Mulder down too. And he was a bit jealous that
Langly had gotten his cheek "caressed" by Scully.

Byers caught movement on the video screen monitoring the
front door. He leapt out of his seat and actually swore.
The others clustered around the monitor as he raced into
the front room.

"Oh hell..." Frohike muttered.

Scully was half-carrying, half-dragging an injured Mulder
towards them.

Byers pulled open the door. "Why didn't you call us?" he
asked, incredulous, as he hurried to relieve Scully of
her burden.

"I didn't want my call to be traced...and if I'd come up
here to bring you down - he might have wandered off." To
prove her point, Mulder moaned and tried to pull away,
staring foggily around. A piece of blanket was roughly
tied around his left shoulder. Blood was beginning to
show front and back.

"Who shot him?" Langly asked.

"I did," Scully said quietly.

There was only time for astonished looks. Mulder was
becoming more and more aware of the situation. At least
*his* version of the situation. Scully had not had time
to sedate him before - she had needed him conscious
enough to stumble to her car after putting the bullet in
him, and then she immediately got behind the wheel to get
them away from his apartment and the approaching police
car. She had stopped for long enough to apply the
makeshift bandage and he had been so out to it then she
hadn't bothered with the syringe, heading back to the
Lone Gunmen. And then in the garage where he was becoming
problematic and she could have sedated him and gone up
for help, the huge fear struck her that she did not want
to leave him alone. Not after all this. Not even for a
minute.

The same feeling would haunt her a few days later as she
stared down into a smouldering boxcar...

They picked up the semi-conscious man as gently as they
could and carried him into another room. Scully took it
in in one sweeping look, pointing to a fold-up bed. "Pull
that out from the wall. Lay him on it on his side." She
unslung the medical bag from her shoulder and grimaced at
her aching back. "It's okay, Mulder," she soothed as he
moaned and thrashed. "Hold him - I need hot water. I'll
put him out."

Scully sat by the bed applying a cloth to Mulder's still-
hot forehead. Langly had brought her coffee. Frohike was
listening to the police scanner to get an idea of the
trouble that had been stirred up. At least the garage was
private, their cars out of sight. "We'll rest here. We
can't stay though."

"Why not?" Byers asked. "We're cheaper than a hotel.
Better security. Better-looking staff." He blushed in
self-realisation at making such a Frohike-like joke.

She smiled at the attempt to ease the strain. But she had
to get Mulder away from DC. It wasn't fair to involve the
Lone Gunmen any further (even though they had set the
ball rolling). The assassins would never think of New
Mexico. She had the address of a code-talker. Under the
circumstances, it would be best if they arrived there
sooner than later; the contents of the tape were
obviously too hot.

The bullet had gone through with Mulder-luck -
miraculously nothing vital had been struck and the exit
wound was small. Exit wounds were usually four times
bigger than the entry one. He'd still probably blame her
for the scars preventing him from branching into
modeling, but she'd argue that he'd better sue the Beast
Woman first for her claw work.

"What are you going to do?" Byers asked quietly.

"Stay here a few more hours - give him time for that
temperature to go down. Get some sleep myself. Then, if
you can load him in the car for me I know where we can
go. But I can't tell you - for your own safety."

Langly nodded. "Scully, when he wakes up, if he feels
guilty about trashing the place and hitting me...can you
tell him we know it wasn't his fault?"

"He may not remember. And I think he'll be preoccupied
with the fact that I shot him. But if he does, I'll tell
him."

She rechecked Mulder's temperature before curling up to
get some sleep for herself. With the drive she was
planning to undertake, she needed rest. Byers promised to
keep checking Mulder and to wake her at the requested
time. There would still be enough darkness left to help
them leave. She would keep her partner out for the trip.
It would be more comfortable for the both of them and she
hoped it would give him time to detox. Getting him into
hotel rooms would be interesting - and she thought her
back was sore now... Perhaps she could tell the managers
he was her drunk boyfriend.

The look on his face when she had injected the sedative
haunted her. She forced herself to remember her actions
were necessary to get the real Mulder back. The one who
did trust her. The one who lov-

She quickly went back to the trust.

What had the last few days been like for Mulder? He had
come to trust so few people, gradually over such a long
time. To be put in a situation where it seemed they all
turned on him...the things *that* would do to any mind,
let alone his...

She half-sat up and whispered tenderly to his motionless
form, "You may not have Samantha, Fox. Or your father.
But you have dear friends who really care about you. And
we will get the men who tried to destroy you by making
you forget that. I promise."

/And although you can't say it when you're lucid, and I
can't say it aloud...I love you too./

THE END.

Author's Note: (You don't have to read this if you don't
want to, that's why I put them at the end.)
I'd read about the blooper of Mulder's exit wound not
being as big as it was supposed to, and decided to send
this puzzle to my medical contact, Dr C. I was sure we
could come up with a plausible reason as to why this was
so. In my naivety I thought perhaps the bullet had not
gone through "nice & clean", but Scully had lied and it
had been protruding out, enabling her to remove it
without making a big hole.

I put together pictures of the wounds garnered from
trading cards and roughly traced off the screen; as well
as a timeline of the trilogy (I wasn't sure if M's
drugging would affect the way Scully would treat him) and
to tie in where the pictures came from (because they were
days after the shooting itself.); and anything else I
thought was relevant.

Dr C has never watched XF, but he kindly waded through
what I sent and concluded: That it was a lucky shot.

A very lucky shot. He joked: "Good thing he was
`breathing out' at the time, because the bullet should
have got him in the lung or an artery." There are safer
places to shoot someone. And with 9mm rounds at a
relatively short distance, the bullet would have gone
right through, leaving at least a 2cm exit wound.

Well, I had been hoping to solve that blooper...however
it was not to be. Mulder-luck! And a bit of Scully-luck
too. Or a good old X-File.