Author: Daydreamer
Posted: 18 July 2004

Nothing

He put her in the trunk and everything began to go crazy. He bound her hands and feet, gagged her, took away her control. She'd already been upset, fragile. Rape. Violation. Desecration. Everything about this case had touched something inside her that was buried, and now it was rearing its ugly head. She'd even gone to talk to the counselor, to try to get a handle on her reactions.

She bumped along, this trip in a trunk merging into the trip with Duane Barry. She was losing it -- completely. She was confused, unsure of time or place.

Pfaster dragged her into the house then threw her into the closet. She was dazed. He left her for a while and faces spiraled before her. Memories, visions, hallucinations. A parade of faces appeared, terrifying in their intensity.

She heard the water running. Knew what he liked to do. When he opened the door, she cringed backward toward the corner. Anything to get away. But he just pulled her hands out, allowing her no control, and inspected her fingernails. He used a knife and cut the rope that bound her feet, clearly not concerned at the little bit of freedom that gave her.

Why should he be afraid of her? She was nothing.

She tried to fight, tried to protest, but it seemed useless. His face changed as she watched him, transforming, becoming different men, and finally, something that wasn't a man at all.

He told her not to be afraid. If she hadn't been so terrified, she would have laughed. It was laughable -- don't be afraid. Bound, gagged, he pulled her from the closet, dragged her to the bathroom.

She fought and managed to shove him into the tub before he did the same to her. She ran. He chased her, calling "There's no way out, girly girl." But she found a way, she fought him, and ran from him and she got away. He caught her again at the stairs and they tumbled down together. She could feel the bruises forming, knew that she'd ache in the morning.

He dropped his gun and she went for it, desperation reducing her to crawling, then Pfaster was there again. He leapt on her. His weight covered her, holding her down, holding her still, making her helpless. Making her nothing. The faces from her dreams appeared again, flashing across his face.

But then Mulder had been there. A voice in the darkness, pulling her back from nothingness. He pulled Pfaster off her and she struggled to get to her feet, to get away from him. She wanted to be sick.

Mulder was there, kneeling beside her, touching her, and her emotions seesawed back and forth. She didn't want to be touched, didn't want anyone touching her. And she wanted to be held forever. Wanted him to make it all go away.

He called for paramedics and she told him she was okay. He tried to keep her still, but she pushed herself to her feet, reluctantly letting him help her.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she chanted, the litany as much for herself as for him. All she wanted was to get the ropes off her hands. She was trying to talk, to sound like she was as fine as she was saying, but she couldn't meet Mulder's eyes. He freed her wrists and she rubbed them, staring helplessly at Pfaster as they cuffed him on the floor.

Mulder's voice intruded. "Why don't you sit down until someone can take a look at you?"

"Mulder, I'm fine," she repeated.

He looked at her, tipping her chin upwards, forcing her to meet his gaze. It was another element of her control taken from her, and she couldn't hold it any longer, couldn't be strong for another second. Her eyes filled and she began to cry.

She cried and he held her, held her close and tight and for a moment, just a moment, she felt the terror recede, but then it rose up again, ambushing her as Pfaster moved, as Mulder turned, as she felt herself losing control all over again. She lifted her gaze, staring into his eyes. Seconds ago she couldn't look at him, now she couldn't look anywhere else. Her head reverberated with silent screams: pain, panic, perversion. Her joints were stiff, like unused hinges, as she tried to move. Somebody said her name, twice, but she was pulling away, away, away, and walking out of the house, blind, heading toward the porch, the yard, the stairs. Dizzy, she gripped the rail until her knuckles went white, then leaned over and emptied the contents of her stomach into an azalea bush. She heaved until there was nothing more to heave, then dry-heaved again.

"Scully, dammit." Mulder caught up to her, grabbed her arm.

"No. Don't touch me." The words were weak, shaky, and she couldn't find the strength to pull away. "Get away from me."

"Listen to me, Scully. It's okay. You're okay." He spoke quickly, afraid she'd break and run.

She shook him off. "Don't touch me again," she warned in a voice that shook so badly he stepped back.

"I've got to ... Let me go with you." He spoke quietly now, furious that his own hands weren't steady. "I'm not leaving you alone."

She closed her eyes, fought to hold on. "Not now." She held up one hand in the universal sign for stop. "Don't talk to me."

She began to walk. Her legs were like rubber, but she managed to put one foot in front of the other. She couldn't breathe, desperately needed more air, better air, cleaner air. As if the air could wash away the stink of Pfaster's touch. She reached the car, only vaguely aware that Mulder had been gently steering her without touching. Dizzy again, she braced a hand on the hood. The car seemed to swim in front of her eyes, shimmering as a mirage in the desert.

Her emotions were roiling. Mulder stood beside her waiting. Someone else was talking. Bocks? She couldn't understand. Mulder was angry, saying something about it never should have happened and things taking too long. She suppressed a laugh. Too long? Maybe -- maybe not. At least he didn't, didn't get to... She couldn't finish the thought. She laid a hand on her partner's shoulder, not so much to stop him from dressing down Bocks, but for support. She didn't know how much longer she had until she folded.

Mulder's fingers touched her hand, questioning, then closed gently, trapping her trembling digits in his own. "Scully?"

"I have to go."

"Agent Scully ..." Bocks began, but she cut him off.

"I have to go," she repeated. She looked at Mulder with eyes dazed with shock. "I can't stay here."

"I'll take you, Scully," he pleaded. "Let me take you."

She looked at him, shook her head and bolted toward a cab where the driver stood, lazily watching the action in the night.

The cabbie asked where she wanted to go and she just shook her head, ordering, "Drive." She leaned back, resting her head against the seat back, and closed her eyes. Faces danced before her, and she squeezed her eyes shut tighter, willing the faces to go away.

She let the driver drive, not telling him where to go, not asking him where they were. She fought the images, fought the memories, fought the demons that Donnie Pfaster had summoned from her mind. She'd always been honest when Mulder asked about her abduction, asked about her missing time. It had always been missing before. She didn't remember, didn't want to remember, but tonight, Pfaster's case, his look, his touch, had brought back fragments, brought back things that were too frightening for her to drag into the light of day and face. She wanted only to shove them back down, somewhere out of sight, out of mind, and never have to think of them again.

Instead, she rode in the back of an ancient cab, traveling listlessly through a city she'd never seen before, and still, after this night, would have no recollection of seeing.

She'd been raped, violated. She could feel hands on her body, something large and pulsing, throbbing deep between her legs. Pain everywhere. She'd been tied down, on a table, monitors beside her. She shook her head, the motion agony. No -- she hadn't been raped. He hadn't gotten her. There was no table -- Pfaster had tried to put her in a tub. She'd fought and she'd gotten away, and then Mulder had been there. She clenched her fists and bit down hard on her bottom lip -- it hadn't happened!

She took a deep breath, then tapped the glass between the front and back seats.

"Yeah?" the driver asked without turning to look at her.

She gave him the name of the motel, he nodded, and she closed her eyes again.

It hadn't happened.

It hadn't.

Mulder stood in the cold, helpless, and waited for Scully to arrive. He should have never let her leave, but she hadn't given him any choice. And now, he had no choice but to stand here and wait. When the cab pulled up and she got out, he felt a hot bolt of fury lance through him again. Bruises he hadn't noticed earlier were stark against her fair skin now. Her torn clothes, the missing buttons on her blouse, all the details that he'd missed jumped at him, reminding him again of how close he'd come to losing her. She looked lost, afraid, and so unsure of herself. He wanted to race across the lot, rip open the door, bundle her out and up and carry her away somewhere, somewhere she wouldn't hurt as he could only imagine she hurt now.

But it wasn't his anger she needed now.

He crossed the lot slowly as she got out of the cab, managed to pay the driver and send him away as she stood pale as death in the harsh illumination of a street lamp, her eyes heavy, glazed, and impossibly young. The strength, the composure, the poise that she wore as naturally as she breathed, was gone.

She wasn't sure she could speak, that she could force the words from her throat, it was so tight. And the rest of her was numb. Dead. Nothing.

"I -- he -- it happened." Suddenly it was real, the reality a brutal fist punching her in the gut. Grief rose up, hot and bitter, to spill from her eyes. "Mulder."

"I'm sorry." He was there, his arms hard around her, holding tight as she began to shake. "I'm sorry, Scully. I'm so sorry."

"What am I going to do? What will I do?" She clung, weeping, not even aware that he picked her up, carried her inside, into the warmth and the light. "I'm falling apart, I'm nothing. I was there, in the nothing again. He took me back. Oh God, God, God, he took me back to nothing."

"It'll be all right. We'll figure it out." She was shaking so violently, it seemed her bones would shatter. He sat in the chair by the door, cradling her in his lap, tightening his grip. "Just hold on to me."

"Don't go away."

"No, no. I'll stay right here."

She wept until he feared she'd be sick; then the sobs faded away, and she was limp in his arms. Like a broken doll, he thought. He undressed her as he would an exhausted child, and tucked her in the bed, sitting quietly beside her, stroking her hair.

"He made me nothing. He made me nothing again."

He looked down into her face, into eyes hollow and heavy. "No, Scully. Never."

"Nothing." She turned her head away, closed her eyes, and escaped.

She'd been nothing. A vessel, a victim. It wasn't clear, she wasn't sure, but the memories continued to haunt her. She'd tried to sleep then, too, in the narrow bed that smelled of antiseptic and approaching death. Moans, weeping, the monotonous beep, beep, beep of machines, and the quiet slap of rubber soles on the metal flooring.

Pain, riding just under the surface of the drugs they dripped into her bloodstream. Like a rain cloud that threatened from a distance but never quite spilled over.

She was nothing, nobody, of no importance, or so they'd told her. And she was broken. It all ran together in her mind now. She would wake from the twilight sleep and hear his voice. "Girly girl. Girly girl. Girly girl." She was in the trunk, in the closet, in the white place.

They hurt her, often. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes through simple hurry and carelessness. She was, after all, nothing. But she didn't complain. They hurt you more, she knew, if you complained.

There were snakes in her dreams. Men with snakes' eyes. Hard and cold and cruel. And other things too. Things that weren't men. That weren't anything.

She had cried for her mother. For her mother and Mulder, but neither came. Where was her mother? Where was Mulder? At times, there was no memory, nothing but that sly whisper in her ear that had fear jittering through her. "Girly girl. Girly girl. It's a girl, girly girl. It's a girl." She blocked it out. She had to block it.

She whimpered in her sleep. He touched her cheek, took her hand, and she settled again.

He had a degree in Psychology and was really just as entitled to call himself Doctor as she was. And he'd used that degree for most of his working career. Profiling murderers, child molesters, rapists. He'd profiled victims, and victim's families, and even other profilers, and now, he was going to work on his partner. He needed to figure out what she needed and the best way to approach her.

He looked at her face, still so lost, and somehow she was so alone, despite his constant presence. He spoke to himself, his voice soft and terrifyingly gentle. "I could kill him. For putting that look on her face, for that alone, I could kill him."

Others would be outraged or sympathetic or have any number of reactions to what happened this day, but he knew he was the only one who would begin to be able to understand what this had done to her. He was the only one who had seen the terror in her eyes, the fear in her body when he asked about her missing time. He was the only one who knew that that time had made her feel like nothing. The only one who knew how hard she had worked to come back and at least appear that she was one hundred percent.

And now, this pervert, this cowardly piece of slime and shit, had taken her, and the very act of taking her had somehow reduced her to nothing again. She'd been destroyed. He'd seen her face death, her own and others'. He'd seen in her face the misery and fears of her past and the shadows that covered pieces of it. But she always prevailed. She always held her ground, maintained her control, stood up to whatever came her way.

But this? This had destroyed her.

She would gather herself again, and she would stand up to this. She would face it. And he'd be damned if she'd face it alone.

He rose carefully, then stalked to the window and stood, staring out over the city like a cold and vengeful angel ready to leap into the fires of hell.

She'd saved him. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she'd saved him. He'd forgotten he was lost, and still she had saved him. And now, he would do whatever needed to be done to save her from this place of nothingness that threatened to drag her down and never release her.

She needed to grieve now, to mourn what she thought she had lost this night. Her control, her self-confidence, her strength. She may have thought it lost, but Mulder knew better. Nothing could remove the strength from Dana Scully -- it was such an integral part of who she was. It might have been a little misplaced this evening, but it certainly wasn't lost.

He gazed back at her for a moment, trying to clinically detach and see her as a patient. An attempted rape victim. That part was easy. She'd want to hide, at least initially. In sleep, in silence, in solitude. She would try to lock him out. He knew her -- knew her ways. His mouth tightened and he spoke again. "Try it, Scully. Just try to keep me out." He gave a half-smile into the darkened room. "You won't have much luck with that."

She'd had something taken from her once before, during her abduction. She'd recovered, rebuilt herself, renewed and replenished her strength and all the other qualities that were so uniquely Dana Scully. But somehow, somewhere in this case, it had been taken from her again. He knew that she needed time, but he also knew that the longer she closed herself off, the harder it would be to reach her. He cocked his head, studying her. That was okay. She could be stubborn, but so could he. And he had to trust that he would know when enough had been enough. Had to trust that he would know what the next step should be. He sighed, pulled the chair beside the bed, sat, and began his vigil.

Dreams chased her, memory bumping into memory in a chaotic race. Her first arrest and the solid satisfaction of doing the job she'd been trained to do. The boy who'd kissed her sloppily when she'd been fifteen, and her own surprised reaction -- she'd not only been intrigued, she'd liked it. Even at fifteen, she'd wondered if she would be too busy analyzing to actually enjoy kissing, and she'd enjoyed being proven wrong.

A drunken night with the girls in college at some no-name bar where there'd been so much laughter it hurt her ribs. The mutilated body of a child laid cold and still across her autopsy table.

The weeping of those left behind and the screams of those who called to her from the bright white nothing place.

Back, always back, to the bright, white nothing place. Straps on her arms, her belly swollen and tight, pain so agonizing it oozed from her pores and rattled her brain. So intense, shrieking so wild, so loud, she could hear nothing else. Wondering -- is that me? Can I actually be making those animal sounds? And knowing, yes, it was her, and yes, she could make those sounds. She was alone, nothing. It could be nothing else.

When she woke, it was dark, and she was empty.

Her head throbbed with a dull, constant ache that was the dregs of her weeping and grief. Her body felt hollow, as if the bones had slipped away while she'd slept.

She wanted to sleep again, to just go away.

He moved through the dark, quiet as a shadow. The bed shifted slightly as he sat beside her, found her hand. "Do you want the light?"

"No." Her voice felt rusty, but she didn't bother to clear it. "No. I don't want anything. You didn't have to stay here, in the dark."

"Did you think I'd let you wake alone?" He brought her hand to his lips. "You're not alone."

She wanted to weep again, could feel the tears beating at the backs of her eyes. Hot. Helpless. Useless. Nothing.

He could see her silhouette, the way she turned from him and stared into the dark. Gently, he cupped her face, turned it toward him. "You are not alone."

She sighed. "We have to go back."

He shook his head. "Only if you want. I contacted Skinner. We can stay here a few days. Or we can go back and you can take a few days off -- go stay with your Mom."

She shook her head. "I just want to sleep. To forget what he did."

His hand shook. His voice shook. "He didn't -- Scully. He didn't...?"

"What he did was enough. It happened," she said flatly. "And nothing can change it. You can't change it. I just want to sleep." She shifted away, shut her eyes. "I'm tired. Please -- leave me be."

He ran a hand over her hair, soothing her with wordless sounds. He'd give her the night to grieve, to escape. He sat beside her a moment longer then moved back to the other bed.

When he left her alone, she opened her eyes, stared into the nothing. And didn't sleep.

Getting out of bed in the morning seemed like wasted effort. She shifted, looked through the window to see a sky the dull gray color of depression. She tried to think of some reason to get up, get dressed, but could think of nothing, could feel nothing but a low, dragging fatigue.

She turned her head, and there was Mulder, sitting at the table, his laptop open before him, sipping coffee and watching her.

"You've slept long enough, Scully. You can't go on hiding in here."

"It seems like a good idea right now."

"The longer it does, the more you'll lose. Get up."

She sat up, but drew her knees into her chest and rested her head on them. "You said Skinner said we could stay. I don't have anything to do, nowhere to go."

"I've been browsing," he said, indicating the laptop. "We can go anywhere. Somewhere warm, somewhere calm, peaceful. Somewhere you can get your bearings and get your feet under you again."

"You didn't have to do that." Anger struggled to surface but turned pale and listless and faded. "I don't want to go anywhere."

"Then we'll stay here. But you're not going to lie in bed all day with the covers over your head."

A trickle of resentment worked its way free. "I didn't have the covers over my head," she muttered. How dare he? How dare he pretend to know how she felt, to tell her what she could and could not do? But she had enough pride left to make her get up and drag on a robe.

He poured her a cup of coffee from the carafe, pushed her gently into the chair across from his own. "Now," he said, pleased with his small victory, "what do you want to eat?"

She shrugged, sipped the coffee more to placate him than from any desire of her own. "I'm not hungry."

"You don't have to be hungry," he replied, "but you do need to eat."

"Mulder..."

"Scully -- you take care of me, every time I need it. You're always there for me. Don't make me feel like you don't need me."

Nothing else could have worked more completely. Though she sent one longing look toward the bed, to the oblivion she might find there, Scully sighed. "What is there to eat in this town?"

Scully drifted through the day, like someone wandering in and out of banks of fog. She avoided the television, avoided the phone, avoided Mulder, as much as possible in a motel room. At midday, she avoided eating by using a headache as an excuse to crawl away for a few hours. Skinner called, and Agent Bocks, and her mother, and even Karen Kosseff, but she refused to speak to any of them. She wouldn't talk to Mulder, wouldn't even look at him and managed to escape the day at 8:00, pleading exhaustion and stiff muscles.

Mulder watched television quietly, and watched her until nearly midnight, then sighed and climbed into the other bed.

The following morning was much a repeat of the first one. Coffee. Breakfast from room service. More phone calls, more avoidance. Another nap, longer this time, and all the time, Mulder's patient and worried eyes watching, watching, watching her. Finally, she locked herself in the bathroom on the pretense of having a long, hot soak. It seemed to have escaped Mulder's mind that the last thing she would want to do any time soon would be soak in a tub. Instead, she filled the tub, then sat on the floor and stared into nothing.

"Scully?" he called through the door.

"Yeah?" She forced her head up long enough to reply.

"You all right?"

"Yeah."

She could hear his hesitation, hear the slight susurration of his shoes against the carpet as he rocked back and forth on his feet. "Are you sure you want me to go for take out? We could order in."

She forced a little bite into her tone. "I'm fine. Leave me alone and let me soak." A note of pleading crept into her voice. "Just let me be a little while." She felt guilty for using her pain to make him leave her alone. She felt guilty because she knew it would make him feel guilty.

She heard him sigh, heard his steps across the room, the jangle of keys as he bounced them in his hand, still undecided. At last, the door opened and closed, and he was gone.

She shifted on the bathroom floor, sliding lower and lower until she was lying flat on the cool tile squares. The knobby nap of the terry cloth rug broke the coolness of the floor, its rough texture a welcome relief from the slickness of the tiles. She closed her eyes and curled on her side, escaping into sleep.

She dreamed of snake men, and blood, and wires, and machines that beeped, and voices that chanted over and over, "It's a girl, girly girl. It's a girl." Blood flowed, slick and wet, slick and wet like the tiles beneath her and someone called for help.

She was caught up in the dream, trapped in a landscape of blinding white snow, wind that stung her eyes and carried her voice away. She ran through it, her shoes slipping, her breath visible as diaphanous white waves that beckoned her ever forward, but there was nothing but that wall of cold white.

"Girly girl." A hiss in her ear.

"Where are you going, girly girl?" Terror in her heart.

"Who are you? You are nothing. Who are you? You are nothing. Who are you? You are nothing. Who are you?"

It was a question still unanswered.

Then she saw them, her dead, doomed and damned, frozen in the snow, their bodies twisted, their faces caught in that shocked insult of death. Their eyes staring at her, asking the question still unanswered.

"Who are you?"

Behind her, behind the white wall, ice broke with a crack and shatter. Something else broke free with sneaky, whispering sounds that were like quiet laughter. Something that came after her, calling, "Girly girl. Girly girl."

The walls of white became the walls of a hospital corridor, stretched out like a tunnel with no end in sight, the curves slick as ice. She ran, but he came after her, his footsteps slow with the wet sound of water dripping on the tile. With her blood roaring in her head, she turned to face him, to fight him, reaching for her weapon. Her hand came up empty.

"You are nothing. Who are you?"

The sob was torn from her throat; fear swallowed her whole. She ran again, staggering down the tunnel, her breath whistling out in panic. She could smell his breath behind her. Peppermint and spice.

The tunnel split. Left or right? Decision time. The footsteps behind her grew closer. She could hear the wet slap of his pants legs as they rubbed together as he walked. She stopped, too confused by fear to know which way to go. The shambling steps behind her froze, terror boiled up into a scream pouring its way out of her throat. She chose left, leaped forward, and plunged into silence. The footsteps faded. New sweat popped out on her forehead, rolled ice-like down her face. Up ahead, the shadow of a shape hovered, still and quiet beneath a single dim bulb.

She ran for it. Someone to help. God, someone help me.

But when she reached the end, there was a table, and on the table, her own body. The skin white, the eyes closed. And where her belly had been swollen, heavy before, now it was flat. There was nothing left.

She woke shuddering. On watery legs, she got up, lurched toward the door. She braced herself against the jamb, then, desperate for air, threw the door open and hurried outside where the cold bit blood back into her face. The gray clouds of morning had spread a thin layer of weak snow across the ground and her feet were soon wet and freezing. She pulled the thin robe around her and huddled before pacing out into the parking lot.

She had no idea how long she stayed out. Five minutes? Ten? An hour? She walked and walked, trying to shake the horror of the dream, the details of which had already faded leaving only the lingering sickness and despair. A part of her seemed to stand back, staring in righteous disgust.

"Pull yourself together, Dana. You're pathetic. Where's your backbone?"

"Just leave me alone," she told it miserably. "Leave me the hell alone." She was allowed to have feelings, wasn't she? Weaknesses? And if she wanted to be left alone with them, it was nobody's business.

Because nobody knew, no one could understand, no one could feel what she felt.

"I'm tired," she muttered and stopped to stand in the snow that was turning to slush. It was all fading, fading, drifting away from her. Duane Barry. The bright, white place. The other women. The pain, the fear, the torment. Donnie Pfaster. It was all mixed up, but it was all fading and she could feel herself coming back.

Hunching her shoulders, she started back for the motel. She wanted Mulder, she realized. He was the only one who could come close to understanding. She wanted him to hold her, be with her, help her make it go away. She wanted him to beat the demons back for her.

Tears were surging back, and she struggled against them. They made her tired. All she wanted now was Mulder and to crawl into some warm place with him and have him tell her it was going to be all right.

He was waiting by the door, frantic, panicked, furious, terrified. Every emotion flitted across his mobile face. Her feet were frozen, blue with cold, and she stumbled as she paced out the last few steps across the parking lot. Her robe was wet nearly to her waist, her hair plastered to her face. He watched her for a moment, his lips tight, his eyes dark with worry. Then he stiffened his spine and made his decision. He was worried, yes. He had felt panicky when he came back and the room was empty. And the minute he saw her, wet, white, trembling from the cold, fury sprang up to join the concern. It was time, he decided, to lead with the fury.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

She stumbled past him and the sudden warmth had her swaying in mild shock. "I just went out for a walk." She sat, but couldn't quite get her frozen fingers to work well enough to untie the sash on her robe. "I needed some air."

"So you go out with no clothes. No shoes. No coat. Freezing to death is your master plan for dealing with this?"

Her mouth fell open. She'd wanted him, wanted him to comfort and soothe, as he had at Pfaster's house, as he had that first night. But now, he was snapping at her, yanking off the sash, peeling back her robe as if she were a naughty child about to be spanked.

"I just needed to get out."

"Well, you certainly did that." Her hands were like ice. He refused to give in to the urge to warm them himself and stood back from her. "Take a shower and get yourself warm."

Hurt swam into her eyes, but she said nothing. It only infuriated him more when she rose and walked obediently into the bathroom.

He closed his eyes when he heard the water running. Let her grieve, he had decided. Give her time. Well, he'd let her grieve long enough and he'd given her enough time. Any more time and she was likely to retreat so far, that not even he could reach her.

She came out, his robe wrapped around her this time, tucked up at the middle under the sash to keep her from tripping on the hem.

"I expected more from you," he said coolly as she sat on the bed and put on the thick socks he'd laid out for her.

"More? More from me?"

He nodded and handed her a cup of coffee. "A great deal more. What have you done the last forty-eight hours, Scully, but cry and hide and feel sorry for yourself? Where do you expect that to get you?"

"I expected you to understand." Her voice broke and it nearly undid him. "To give me some support."

"To understand you crawling away, to support your self-pity?" He sipped coffee again. "No, I don't think so. It gets tiring, watching you wallow like this."

It stole her breath away, the vague disgust in his voice, the disinterest in his eyes. "Just leave me the hell alone then!" She shouted it, threw the coffee cup across the room so it shattered against the wall and the brown liquid dripped downward to soak into the carpet. "You don't know how I feel."

"No." Finally, he thought, finally here was anger. Finally, she was going to talk to him. She might also, quite possibly, beat the shit out of him, but he was willing to risk it. "Why don't you tell me?"

"They took me -- Duane Barry -- took me. He tied me up, put me in the trunk of a car and took me away. I was gone, and I was nothing. Do you understand? Nothing! And I lost time, Mulder. Not days, not weeks. Months! Months of my life that haunt me in flashes and fragments, but nothing I can hold onto. There's this huge hole in my life, and nothing -- nothing -- can fill it! But I came back and I busted my ass because I knew that was the answer. It was the only way I knew to make myself better, to make myself me again. To not be nothing. I did it," she said furiously. "I brought me back, so that nothing, nothing that happened before had to matter."

She whirled away. There were tears again, but these were hot and potent and full of life. "What I didn't remember, where I'd been, what had happened, none of it could change where I was going, what I was going to do. I was going to be in control. I'm a fucking FBI agent -- I use the system. It doesn't use me. I make a difference. When I see the bodies stacked up in my mind, the blood I've waded through, I can still know that I make a difference. I see them, Mulder, in my sleep. Every face I've ever had on my table. I can see them all. But it doesn't stop me, it never will stop me because what I do -- what we do -- matters too much. Because I can look at them and know what I have to do. And I can live with everything that happened to me, even the things I don't remember. I worked and I worked hard and I could believe again. I was in control. I could make it work. I was not -- am not -- nothing.

Her frantic pacing stopped and she stood still, suddenly looking small in his oversized robe with her sock-covered feet peaking from below the hem. "He took that from me, Mulder. Pfaster. He took it all away again." Her voice was quiet now, soft, but no longer fragile. "He tied me up, put me in the trunk of a car, and took me away. I was gone, and I was nothing again. Do you understand?" She looked at him, pleading with her eyes. "He made it all happen all over again. I was just -- nothing."

He took a step forward, then stopped when she wrapped her arms around herself.

"I didn't know," he murmured. "Didn't think how much this was like that time. I -- I'm sorry. I just didn't know."

"It was clearer then. I remembered it then." She shrugged, turned away helplessly. "Now I can just remember that I remembered it." She lifted her hands, let them fall. "It's gone."

"Scully?"

She lifted her head, met his eyes.

"You're not nothing."

She stepped to him, into him, wrapped her arms tight around him. "Thanks."

"For?"

"For knowing me well enough to understand what I needed." She closed her eyes, pressed her face to his neck. "I think I understand you well enough to know -- it wasn't easy for you to do that cold and uncaring bit."

His arms came hard around her. "I can't stand to see you hurt like this."

"I'm going to get through it. I'm not going to be less than you expect of me. Or less than I expect of myself." She let out a breath, eased back.

He studied her face for a long moment, then nodded.

"I'm ready," she said.

"To?"

"Go back. Go to work." She sighed softly and looked up at him again, her arms still holding him loosely.

"To go home."

The conquest of fear lies in the moment of its acceptance. And understanding what scares us most is that which is most familiar, most common place. That boy next door, Donnie Pfaster, the unremarkable younger brother of four older sisters, extraordinary only in his ordinariness, could grow up to be the devil in a buttoned-down shirt. It's been said that the fear of the unknown is an irrational response to the excesses of the imagination. But our fear is of the everyday, of the lurking stranger, and the sound of footfalls on the stairs. The fear of violent death and the primitive impulse to survive are as frightening as any X-file, as real as the acceptance that it could happen to you.