Title: Bare Bones (7/?) Category: MSR, Angst, Case-file (sort of) Rating: PG for adult situations and general nastiness, some bad language too kiddies. Archive: Anywhere, just let me know so I can visit Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were I'd be wearing better shoes. Spoilers: Its been ended for years - hasn't everyone seen them all? *Thanks to Teresa - PM extraordinaire. Also to Lisa for late night chats and Jenna for getting me on the road to web-design and for keeping me there hehe. And all the crazies at the Refuge. Loving it. http://Kimogen.tripod.com His head ached in the darkness. He sat with his eyes open, seeing imaginary stars swirling red in the blackness, unsure of whether it was a result of his head injury or from staring without seeing for so long. He had tried to sleep and dozed for what felt like hours but may have only been minutes. The floor was solid and unyielding and his shoulder hurt from being pressed against it. He had paced for the longest time, until he felt dizzy from walking in circles in the confined space. His skin felt clammy and he wasn't sure whether it was from the damp room or his own panic-sweat. Mulder backed himself across the packed mud floor, feeling the loose soil of the top layer skin free and follow him. He squeezed into the corner of the room, feeling the press of two walls against his shoulder-blades. Arms wrapped around drawn-up knees brought some warmth, but didn't stop the shivering. He was far from comfortable, but at least he could be relatively sure that the walls weren't closing in on him if he could feel two at a time. In the darkness, the room could shrink in and he wouldn't know until they crushed the air out of his chest. Mulder suddenly knew how claustrophobia felt. xxx She had woken when the seat beside her dipped under a new weight. Scully hoped she hadn't been snoring. Or drooling. She self-consciously wiped the corners of her mouth and cleared her throat. Dr. Stevens smiled and handed her yet another coffee. She was starting to feel irritated. Why aren't you in the lab He looked clean and freshly shaven. Stevens had evidently been home for a few hours - at least long enough to shower and change. He had probably slept a few hours too. Scully felt greasy and filthy and beyond exhausted. She had dropped off to sleep sitting upright, a sheaf of papers clutched in her hand. Her body ached as though she had rolled down a flight of stairs and the muscles in her neck were rigid. A glance at her watch told her she had only been napping for forty minutes. No wonder she felt so awful. 7am. She had been dreaming about being trapped in a closet; then drowning in a bathtub. She remembered a room lined with shelves of staring porcelain dolls, all gazing down on her and mocking her in her captivity with glassy eyes and stiff smiles. Scully shivered. Stevens was smiling beneath his moustache. "You were really out." Scully winced, the comment reminding her of Mulder, always teasing her for falling asleep. She missed him with a pang that made her stomach hurt. "Thanks for the coffee. I might just go and use the restroom." Scully stood and smoothed her wrinkled suit. She wished for a change of clothes, but the motel had become a crime-scene and she couldn't face running into that smug bastard Davies. She groaned at the thought of their last telephone conversation. She felt desperation crawl over her with a heat that had her rushing through the swing doors along the corridor and into the ladies room. Scully stood before the row of sinks, her arms barely holding her up as she leant forward to peer into the mirror. She looked exhausted; her skin translucent and grey in the harsh fluorescent light and her eyes ringed with black circles. The tears that burned along her sinuses sent the last traces of her mascara running down her cheeks and she decided to cut her losses and wash the lot off. Hair scraped back and her face scrubbed, she looked as bad as she felt. Gone was the professional, impeccably groomed FBI agent, and all that remained was a tired thirty-something woman in a wrinkled pant-suit. She didn't care. Mulder was missing, and she had no clue how to find him. Scully took deep breaths, staring at herself in the glass. Pull yourself together. Her shoulders sagged and she sighed. Updates. Time to find out what we have. xxx He must have been asleep. He couldn't tell how for how long, but the tears on his cheeks had dried into salty tracks. Mulder swallowed and his throat was parched. His mouth tasted awful and his lips were dry against his teeth. Time had no meaning in his dark cell and he had no idea how long he had been without water. The dampness of the room mocked him; he was so desperately thirsty; surrounded by moist air, pungent with the aroma of fungus and decaying vegetable matter. Even his skin was damp and clammy. He could hear water running, trickling and spattering like rain on foliage. Mulder forced himself to move, despite the protestations of his aching limbs. His shoulders were tense as he leaned away from the support of the wall and his vertebrae ground as he straightened. Mulder moaned and extended his back, hoping that motion would work out the tension in his skeleton. He crawled across the floor in the direction of the watery sound. It was coming from above. The ground was wet against the opposite wall. Not just damp, but wet and the mud clung to his fingers as they explored further up the wall. The wall was running with water. Mulder was thankful he hadn't picked this wall to sleep against. He took a moment to think before pressing his mouth to the wall and licking the brick. He winced at the graze of the brick against his dry tongue, but the moisture that trickled between the cement channels of the wall was too blissful for him to stop. He lapped, feeling the gritty scrape and not caring because his throat wasn't nearly so dry as it had been a moment ago. Mulder flattened his lips in a kiss and sucked the slimy, brackish wetness, thanking a god he had never believed in. His nose was sore by the time he pulled away. The act was exhausting and barely rewarding, but at least he wasn't so painfully thirsty and his throat wasn't so arid. The spattering of rain from above had ceased and Mulder was left with a muddy puddle that stuck to his trainers and slopped up against his shins when he moved. He sighed and stepped back from the wall, still thirsty and realising for the first time that his stomach was hollow with hunger. Mulder sighed and slumped back into his corner. xxx She had set up her own crime-centre in the conference room. Scully had commandeered a free- standing display board and fastened a map in the centre. Her notes on the victims were fastened around, along with photographs of various bones; the filed ribs, a femur with a healed compound fracture, dental imprints and a list of identified victims. The evidence was connected in a spider-web of red string and drawing-pins and Scully stood before it, tapping her lip with a biro. Skinner slipped into the room and stood just inside. The door snicked closed behind him and he watched her, not wanting to startle his agent, seemingly lost in thought. "We weren't even supposed to be here. This isn't an X-File." Scully spoke without turning around. Skinner frowned, surprised, before realising that she had seen his reflection in the tinted window beyond her display board. Beyond the glass, the sun was setting in vivid orange. Rain had poured briefly over the town cooling the oppressive heat - if only for a brief hour. "You shouldn't be doing this alone, Agent." "The police were hostile when I spoke to them earlier. The Field Office wants nothing to do with me, and Agent Davies has already ridiculed me once in the past twenty-four hours." Scully kept her back to her superior, but he saw the flush rise along her throat, exposed with her hair pulled back. He fingered the expensive wool of her jacket where it hung on the back of a chair. "It didn't look good, Agent." "He was unprofessional." She turned and faced him at last, her mouth set. Skinner nodded in agreement. He didn't tell her that he had squared up to Davies and growled down a threat of disciplinary action. Davies had shrunk away from Skinner's looming figure and stuttered an apology, suddenly uncertain of the Assistant Director. He had scurried away like a sweaty little rat. "I don't think he'll be a problem for you any more, Agent Scully." Scully found herself wishing that Skinner would drop the decorum, she was growing tired of him calling her Agent. She supposed it was habit. "I just want to find him." "So do I. That's all any of us want." Skinner reached out a hand and it hovered indecisively in the air for a second before settling on her shoulder. His elbow was stiff as he squeezed. Scully looked from the hand on her shoulder to Skinner's face. She smiled and nodded, her chin wrinkling slightly as her mouth pressed upwards. She breathed deeply and turned away, the tears coming upon her too suddenly to be stopped. Skinner felt his eyes go wide and his heart sped up. He hesitated, his hand still on her shoulder as Scully tried to turn away. She put her own hand up to cover her eyes, muttering an apology as Skinner slipped his grip down to hold her arm. "Oh, Agent..." "I'm sorry, Sir, I'm just so tired..." Skinner drew her to him in a sudden spontaneous motion that set his pulse racing and she leaned heavily into his chest. He was certain she would hear the thudding of his heart beneath her ear, but if she did, she gave no sign. Scully sniffled and struggled to control her gasping breaths. She let out a sigh and pulled back, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry, Sir..." "Don't be. You haven't slept have you." "I caught a few minutes early this morning." "Dr. Stevens told me." "My motel is apparently a crime-scene." "I'll have your things removed to a new room." "I need to be here." "You are no good to the investigation, nor to Mulder, if you are too exhausted to think straight..." "Sir, I'm fine..." "I can't have you in the field - you're a danger to yourself and others, your reactions will be slow..." Scully sighed, knowing how she must look. She had been grey and rumpled at seven a.m. She must look like death. Skinner confirmed her suspicions. "You look like hell, Agent." She smiled and nodded. "I'll sort it out. You finish up here. Are you ok driving?" "I'm fine." Skinner nodded but his expression was still registered as concerned. "Sir, I'll be fine." xxx He had to pee. It was more urgent now than it had been when he first woke. Mulder stood, hoping that the urge would wear off if his bladder had more room to expand. That worked for around an hour - he had taken to counting the seconds in order to distract himself. After the first hour he was so desperate that he kept losing his count and couldn't think about anything other than urinary tract infections. That was all he needed. He had hoped the dehydration would stave off the need to pee, but apparently not. Mulder picked a corner and adjusted his shorts. His teeth were chattering as it was, and he wasn't happy at having to reveal yet more of his anatomy to the dank air. But he didn't have a choice. He felt like a dog, pissing in the corner. He quickly relieved himself, not quite sure why he was embarrassed in the darkness, but rushing back to his own corner as fast as he could. The room stank of something new then. Mulder was disgusted. Rotting away in a filthy hole surrounded by the stench of his own urine. It was overpowering, and he wretched, choking back acid. His stomach was hollow and empty and it growled. Scully would call it tubular. That was what she said in her autopsies when she came across an empty stomach. Hunger seemed to come and go for him. One moment he could think of nothing but donuts and lemonade, a cool beer and potato chips and the next the thought of food filled him with dread. With the stench of urine heavy in the air, all Mulder wanted was to walk in crisp fresh air - preferably on a beach. Preferably with his partner. He couldn't stop thinking about her. About what he'd done. About what she'd let him do. Christ. Sitting in the dark, imagining her soft white skin, one hand clamped over his nose and mouth, Mulder found himself with a raging erection. xxx Her new room was actually much nicer than the first. Scully lingered in the shower and slipped naked between cool sheets. Her whole body ached and she felt so weak that she didn't have the energy to pull the quilt up and over herself. She shivered beneath the sheet. Her tears slid silently to the pillow and sank into the chilled fabric. Her eyes closed of their own accord and she was asleep in seconds. Her dreams were of watchful dolls and bathtubs and Eddie Pfaster. Scully woke to darkness with Mulder's name on her lips. xxx It rained again. Mulder pressed himself to the wall with an intimacy he resented. At least the water running down onto the mud dulled the smell of urine. Or maybe he was getting used to it. It was strange, he thought, that he could hear the rain on the foliage far above - yet there was no glimpse of light. The roof of his cell was far too high to reach to explore. Mulder tried to scale the wall, finding the brick slippery with lichen higher up. Someone had scrubbed the lower half of the walls. But Mulder was over six foot tall, much taller than any of the victims. Perhaps they hadn't realised that the walls were wet when it rained. Perhaps it had never rained. But suddenly, Mulder was certain that there was a way out. All he had to do was get up there. Mulder suddenly knew with certainty that he was not going to die. He was going to see his partner again and make things alright. He had to. To Be Continued... FEEDBACK: PLEASE!!! Kimogen5@hotmail.com.