Instantly, there was yelling and scrambling, and the efficient chaos of the emergency room flooded over him in a bright, unintelligible wave. His ears roared. Someone plucked her from him deftly, as if it were a step in a relay race. He moved to follow them.

"Someone have a look at him, too," a voice near him shouted. "Looks like a head injury." He felt dizzy. A hand fell, grasping his shoulder and making him wince in pain. He shrugged it off, panicking when he lost sight of Scully. He took a step, intent on finding her...

And the floor, a blinding polar white, introduced itself with a sound and utterly unexpected smack.

For what felt like one long moment, the world was a blanket of mist, muffled and still. Brief snatches of awareness hovered around him, graceful spectres that couldn't quite make themselves heard. He didn't feel but still knew that he was being hoisted up; then he understood that he was being rolled away, away from Scully, and he was powerless to stop it.

Then everything faded to black.

A thousand jumbled memories abruptly flooded him. The realization that he'd lost his cell-phone in the fire... Confused and frustrated, the knowledge that his head injury was worse than he'd first realized, and then swerving off the road to vomit in the snow... How had they gotten to the hospital?... I love you too...for a long time... Scully slumped, unmoving, against the passenger window, her breathing, loud and rattling, overpowering even the whine of the engine... Scully...

Scully.

His eyes flew open at the sound of his voice whispering her name, and all he could see was the expanse of a concave silver sky suspended above him.

"Sir," a voice crackled in his ear. "Sir, you need to remain quiet, please."

What the hell?

"Hey," he said, the word a disoriented mutter. There was no response. He reached up and whacked the curved metal above him with the heel of his hand. He felt a sharp pain, noticed absently that the hand was bandaged. "Hey!" he said again, louder.

The voice was back again, coolly professional. "Sir, please, try to remain still for the remainder of the scan."

Scan?

He suddenly realized he was inside the giant metal hollow of an MRI machine, his head immobilized by a single strap.

"Let me out," he demanded, ignoring the technician's directives. "I want to know where my partner is."

No answer.

He felt abruptly like he was alone inside a bubble; chillingly alone. He needed her with a sudden, confused, childlike urgency. "Hey!" he repeated, reaching up to give the metal ceiling above him another solid thump. "Dana Scully. Where is she?" Still, there was no response.

His voice fell ominously in pitch, becoming a dazed growl. "Answer me! Where's my partner?"

Finally, the technician responded. "I don't have that information, sir," she said crisply, a hint of irritation tinging her voice. "Please remain still. The test will be completed in just a few more minutes."

A swift, dazed terror rushed up at him from somewhere very, very dark. He couldn't clear the strange film that seemed to encircle his thoughts, and all he could see was her blood on the snow, bright red on pristine white, and why wouldn't they tell him where she was? "I don't need any fucking tests!" he shouted suddenly. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized he was disoriented and irrational, and he regarded himself with a cool, powerless amazement. She was dead, that was it. After all they'd survived together, she was dead. He slammed his hand powerfully against the smooth metal, punctuating each word. "I -- need -- to -- know -- where -- she -- IS!" he roared.

As if finally succumbing to his frustrated blows, the machine sighed to a stop. Taken aback, Mulder lay abruptly still and listened to the sound of his breathing, heavy and fast and unexpectedly loud. Panic was fast giving way to controlled rage. She had to be dead. He felt sick.

Suddenly, he was sliding out, away from the metal cylinder. He blinked as fluorescent light bled downward into his eyes.

A shape in a white lab coat loomed over him.

"I'm Dr. Hessman," the shape said, as it lay a hand on his forehead. Not the lab tech...good. A penlight shone in his left eye. He squinted and pushed it away.

"I see you took quite a blow there," the doctor continued, soothingly, as the penlight snuck up on him and blinded his right eye for an instant. Mulder recognized -- and resented, despite himself -- the even and careful bedside manner so often reserved for the traumatized and the unstable. "You really need to have this test performed," he continued, just as gently.

Mulder clenched his teeth for an instant. He wanted to scream. In lieu of that, a tightly contained "Get me out of this thing" was all he could manage. He reached up and began, on his own, to fumble with the strap.

The doctor shooed his hands away and regarded him uncertainly. Head injury patients were always some of the worst. "Only if you promise not to go pounding on any more expensive machinery," he said, trying to dispel the tension. Trying to earn Mulder's attention.

"Yeah," Mulder grunted, unaffected.

The doctor reached up and carefully unbuckled the strap, then helped Mulder slowly to a sitting position.

Pain fired through his body -- his head, his taped shoulder, his bruised ribs, his arms and legs, his hands. The room swam as his eyes swept the scene. Dr. Hessman was an average-looking man in his early fifties, with wire-rimmed glasses and thinning greyish hair. The room would've been an average room, if it hadn't been for the other shapes -- two orderlies. Two large orderlies. And behind them, lurking in the doorway, a uniformed police officer. Great, he thought sourly. We're famous.

Dr. Hessman looked him in the eyes. "Now. What can I do for you?"

Mulder, suddenly calmer, hesitated uncertainly. Much more softly than he'd intended, he asked, "Where is she?" He steeled himself. He feared the answer.

Dr. Hessman glanced at the chart in his hand. "I'm assuming you're referring to the woman you brought in earlier?"

Mulder nodded slowly, then closed his eyes as the suddenness of the movement made him sway.

"Now, there's no need to be alarmed," the doctor said carefully. "She's in surgery."

Surgery, he repeated silently. Not the morgue. A powerful wave of relief rippled through him, making the tips of his fingers tingle. For an instant, his entire body slumped, and he deflated like a spent balloon. The doctor caught him as he started to pitch forward.

"Whoa there," Dr. Hessman chided, steadying him on the bench.

"Thank you," Mulder whispered, his eyes closed. The words hadn't been aimed at the doctor.

Dr. Hessman cleared his throat, then continued, "She was taken to surgery several hours ago."

That got Mulder's attention. Hours? he thought, shocked. How long had he been unconscious? "She'll be transferred to intensive care after she leaves the OR."

Mulder's too-vivid imagination pictured Scully on an operating table, and panic stabbed at him again. The panic brought on more dizziness, and he wobbled again, then it ebbed and the sharp edge of sudden fear was replaced by the dull, sick feeling of anxiety settling in for the long haul. "Is she..." he began, but trailed off. He knew better than to ask the naive question that had been poised there like a line from a bad soap opera. For now, at least, she was alive. He swallowed hard, feeling a sudden spike of nausea. "When will I be able see her?"

The doctor glanced briefly toward the doorway, and Mulder noticed the police officer edge closer to them. "Well," he replied, "I'm not sure just yet." He looked down at Mulder and tried his best to appear sympathetic and concerned. "Are you her husband?"

Mulder's eyes snapped sharply upward, and he gave the doctor a sudden, startling glare. It wasn't a new question, but this time it jarred him. "I'm her partner," he grunted. "Her name is Dana Scully. I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI."

He was gratified to note the abrupt glimmer of respect and empathy that suddenly graced the expression of the local policeman as he took the names quickly down. Still, when the officer spoke there was a note of skepticism in his voice. "You two both came in without ID," he reminded Mulder.

Mulder sighed heavily, feeling his anger return, feeling his impatience rising. "I know. We were investigating a possible kidnaping along the national trail when Scully was assaulted. We lost everything we were carrying."

"What exactly -- " the policeman began, pen in hand.

"Look," Mulder interrupted him, waving his fingers tersely in the man's general direction. "Officer -- " he squinted at the man's badge.

"Simms," the officer supplied.

"Officer Simms," Mulder continued. He took a deep breath, fighting to keep his head clear, fighting to keep from ripping the man's face off in a totally unwarranted fit of irrational rage. "I understand your need for the details of this incident, and I -- " and my partner, he silently added, the closest he would ever get to a prayer " -- will be glad to supply you with it later."

He steadied himself again. Scully's face intruded into his thoughts, followed by the feeling of an oppressive, gaping vacuum in the center of his chest. It almost took his breath away.

Concentrate, he urged himself. Do your job. "Call Assistant Director Walter Skinner at the Hoover Building in D.C.," he heard himself saying. He paused, watching as the officer scribbled hastily onto his notepad. "He'll certainly be able to fax you any verification you need."

Mulder suddenly felt detached, pulled away from himself. He hovered numbly in the background as his mind worked, focusing on the details, dragging forth the absolute minimum that had to be said. The burned building. The bodies.

He chose to ignore the raised eyebrows and the strange look on the policeman's face as he slipped out. Winded, amazed at how much that little monologue had taken out of him, he turned toward the doctor. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Suddenly very woozy, he collected the pieces of his psyche and said simply, "When can I see my partner?"

The doctor still looked unsure, but he consulted the indecipherable scribblings on Scully's chart and replied, "I'll have someone inform you when she comes out of recovery."

He juggled the charts in his grasp, wrote quickly in Mulder's. "You, we're going to want to keep here overnight. You've had a substantial con -- "

Mulder cut him off. "No," he snapped, standing.

He peered into the small room. There were tubes everywhere, but he saw Scully's face clearly, her eyes closed, her chest moving rhythmically in time with the respirator's gentle hiss, the bright russet of her hair making her face seem that much paler. Her skin was almost indistinguishable from the white of the sheets covering her body, save the freckles splashed across her cheeks that stood out like droplets of paint against her wan features. His heart contracted painfully, and for an instant he couldn't move. She was in there, alive, and he felt...what?

A nurse's voice startled him. "Looks like you two got banged up pretty good."

Mulder, unable to wrench his eyes from Scully, didn't answer.

The voice softened, sympathetic. "Are you her husband?"

That question again; Mulder cringed, but exhaustion denied him his earlier venom. "I'm her partner," he breathed softly.

He heard a soft chuckle and felt a pat on his unbandaged shoulder; the unsolicited familiarity made him vaguely uncomfortable. "Whatever they're calling it these days, hon."

He didn't correct her.

"She's pretty heavily sedated, sweetie," the nurse continued, "but I'll bet she wants to hear your voice." For an instant, Mulder hesitated. The nurse sensed it. "It's okay," she said, nudging him gently. "You can go on in."

Can I? he thought ruefully. But he found himself moving and took the few painful, limping steps to her bedside. Careful of his battered body, he slowly lowered himself into the chair next to her. He glanced up and saw that the nurse had disappeared, and then there was silence, punctuated only by the rhythm of the respirator and the steady beeping of Scully's heart monitor.

The cold, crisp air of the ICU flowed against his bare back, and he shivered. Memory washed over him, waves of flashbulb images of the last time she'd come so close to death; that, and even more vividly, the feeling. The feeling of losing her; the one that was so overwhelming... He suddenly felt the drowning pull of an impending emotional shutdown. How could he face the prospect of doing this again? How could he do this at all, now, any of it?

Christ, he thought suddenly. What have I done? Panicked, he reached out blindly for her hand, covered it possessively with his own.

His eyes ranged over her -- she was as bruised as he was, the dark results of Modell's rage standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin. Without thinking, he released her hand and moved to smooth the hair back from her face, then his fingers, just brushing the respirator's intrusive plastic tubing, hovered and came finally to rest against her cheek. She was still so hot.

Why did everything he touched and everyone he loved somehow wind up suffering for it?

She had been such an unexpected left turn in his life, an unbelievable gift greater than anything he ever thought himself capable of protecting, or capable of keeping... Was that why he had fought it so?

How was it possible that she also loved him?

His heart splintered a little further, and her image reflected back at him along the surface of every tiny shard. The only thing more frightening than being with her was being without her. And the promise that she would never lose him -- the one he wasn't sure he could keep -- had nonetheless been made long before it had finally, yesterday, been uttered.

He finally found his voice. "Scully," he murmured softly. "Scully, I'm here."

GO TO PART TWO