Finally, he tore open the nondescript FedEx package from Regional Headquarters and revealed his replacement badge, along with a handwritten, sour-toned fax from Skinner about the lost badge, two bodies and a minor forest fire. Despite the tone of the fax, Mulder knew Skinner cared more about Scully than about anything else. He'd already called the hospital twice, spoken to Mrs. Scully, even to the doctor... to everyone but Mulder. Mulder shook his head, dropped the crumpled package in the hospital trash in a deliberate disregard for protocol, and shoved the badge into his back pocket.

Feeling vaguely human again, he swept through the door and into Scully's room. Mrs. Scully was as he'd left her, sitting in a chair on the far side of Dana's bed. Eyebrows raised, he dropped gingerly into his own chair.

"The same," Mrs. Scully responded, answering the unspoken question.

Mulder nodded and regarded Scully quietly. Her face was still so pale. The respirator had been replaced with an oxygen tube. The bed was tilted upward, inclined to take the pressure off her injured lung, and the pillows behind her seemed to dwarf her small body.

He watched her breathe. The continual, regular beeps of her heart monitor lulled him into an exhausted daze...

The first sensation Scully remembered was the feeling, a kind of feeling she couldn't explain, that Mulder was there. It was simply the feeling of his presence, an awareness that resonated through her like a hum. It cut through the darkness; it pulled her up, lifting her toward him, toward the bright cacophony of light and sound that was calling her.

He was what she saw when she opened her eyes.

"Mulder?" she whispered.

The sound of her voice almost stopped his heart. His eyes snapped up and he saw her looking at him with bewilderment. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. His expression blossomed into a wide grin.

"Scully," he replied gently. "Scully, it's ok." Unconsciously, he reached out to touch her, his fingers brushing lightly against her cheek. Mulder watched, captivated, as memory and realization poured into her, as the life and the vibrance, the essence of her, returned to her crystal blue eyes in a great rush. That, and something else; something meant only for him.

Mrs. Scully shifted, breaking the spell. Mulder pulled his hand away suddenly, sheepishly. He could tell Margaret felt it between them, too.

She patted her daughter on the hand. "Dana, honey?" she said.

Scully wrenched her gaze away from Mulder. "Mom," she murmured, looking equally embarrassed.

Bemused, Mrs. Scully seemed to sense she'd abruptly become an intrusion. "I'll let you two have some time," she said simply, and then she quietly slipped out.

Scully watched her go until the door fell shut behind her, then her eyes came to rest again on Mulder's face as he pulled himself closer to her. She took him in as if seeing him for the first time -- the fading black eye and the bare stitches along his temple, the lines beneath his eyes, the growth of stubble dusting his jawline.

"Hi," he murmured, suddenly tentative.

"Hi," she answered, cutting her eyes up at him through dark lashes in a gesture he could've sworn was almost shy. Her voice was hoarse and weak, but it was steady.

For an instant, they both groped for words. So much had happened, but through the cloud of pain and morphine that shrouded her thoughts, all she could manage was a husky inside-joke. "I guess I'm not dead."

Mulder chuckled. "Or we both are."

Scully chuckled too, faintly, carefully. "No," she said, her eyes twinkling unexpectedly at him. "The accommodations would be better."

Mulder felt an abrupt pang of joy at the look in her eyes. "Or worse," he retorted.

Scully let out the tiniest of amused grunts and said, "Speak for yourself."

He grinned, feeling another sudden surge of happiness at the normalcy, the ease of things between them.

Scully chose that instant to shatter that sense of normalcy with the touch of her fingers. He took in a sharp breath as she reached out delicately, tracing the line of his jaw with her thumb, feeling the roughness of the days of stubble that dusted his unshaven skin. She stopped short just below the stitches in his temple.

"You should cover those," she whispered.

Unexpectedly spellbound, he only nodded, once, feeling the palm of her hand move gently against his cheek as he did.

Then the air felt abruptly oppressive, too thick with unspoken words. The glass vial in his pocket clinked as he shifted. Sensing the change, her eyes clouded.

He cleared his throat. "Scully," he murmured. "Scully, I -- "

She interrupted him with two fingers against his lips. "Shh," she breathed. Already, she felt herself tiring. "Not now."

Mulder, understanding, nodded in earnest. Scully studied his face again, the small details she knew so well she could see them when she closed her eyes. They had almost lost one another, and they had said things, and they could never go back. And she knew how that frightened him, but she was so tired, and all she wanted this very instant was to fall asleep to the sound of his heart beating. The barrier had been pierced, breached, shattered, and there was no need to run from him any longer, no reason to push him away.

So why did it scare her too as she said, "Mulder, please just..." She looked away, shyly. "I just...I really need you next to me."

Without a word, he rose from the chair and moved to sit beside her on the bed. There was an awkward moment as he swung his still-bare feet up beside her and she shifted gingerly to give him more room, then he reached around her as she leaned in against his chest. He shifted too, careful of his still-sore ribs and his shoulder.

Finally, she was comfortable. She relaxed into him as he held her, really held her, for the first time.

She heard the rhythm of his heart, strong and steady, and felt the muscular strength of his arms as he encircled her. It was like coming home.

Mulder sank back against the pillows, the tension draining from him in a torrent as he felt the blissfully simple warmth of her body beside him.

"God, I love you," he blurted sleepily, startling himself with the sound of words he hadn't intended to speak again, so soon. But he felt a smile tug at him when her only response was to mumble inaudibly and burrow more tightly against him.

Maybe, for just right now, he could forget about the uncertainty and the danger and simply let this quiet joy overtake him. And maybe, for just right now, he too could sleep.

A half hour later, when Mrs. Scully's soft knock went unanswered, she cracked the door to find Mulder snoring softly and curled jealously around a soundly sleeping Scully, shielding her as if she belonged only to him.

His eyes registered movement. The faintest, surreal whisper of a shadow stole away, dissolving with an oddly soundless grace into the pale glow spilling from the open doorway.

Someone had been in there. Someone who didn't belong.

Instinct yanked him to his feet and launched him into the narrowing swath of white light. He caught the door just before it fell closed completely and pulled it back hard, then found himself squinting painfully in the harsh hospital glare. He scanned in both directions, searching for the intruder's retreating form, but the hallway was empty, a blank expanse of white and gray tile. Directly facing him at the nurse's station, the RN, an older woman with dark-rimmed glasses and dark hair dusted with grey, looked up from her charts and eyed him with vague interest.

"Who was just here?" he asked.

The nurse's brow furrowed. "Excuse me?"

In the back of his mind, a quiet siren began to sound. "Someone was in the room."

The nurse shook her head. "I didn't see anyone."

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice rising in pitch. "What about her mother?"

The woman nodded firmly. "I'm sure," she said, sounding faintly bemused. "I've been here for over an hour. I haven't seen Miss Scully's mother, or anyone else."

The alarm surged forward, louder. Wordlessly, he turned back into the darkness of Scully's room.

The door fell closed. Dazed, Mulder leaned back against it and scanned the shadows. Something was different. Wrong. What? He could barely make out what he assumed was Scully's form, unmoving, in the far bed. And the nearer bed was empty, as it had been before...but there was the rumpled blanket and the pillow, and the indentation where his head had been.

The realization slammed hard into his sternum, knocking his breath away. Oh, God, he'd been moved.

He stabbed at the wall switch, instantly flooding the room with flourescent light.

Scully was still.

Mulder was across the room in three huge steps.

Her oxygen tube was gone, and she was a chalky white -- so white. Mulder's palms began to sweat. In the span of a heartbeat, his eyes swept over her body, and he saw it -- the tiny, ruby-red smudge across the back of her hand.

Blood. Her blood.

Oh, Christ, no. His legs went abruptly weak. "Scully!" he whispered sharply, the words a gravelly, visceral hiss.

She remained silent, silent and so very still.

Some dark intuition moved him. He reached out, snapping back the hospital blanket in one swift tug, and then he froze.

She was simply bathing in blood.

At that very instant, her eyes drifted briefly open, searching, groping desperately for him like a drowning swimmer going under for the last time. Crimson poured suddenly from one nostril and ran into the corner of her mouth.

"Mulder?" she whispered, barely audible. There was confusion and terror in her voice. Paralyzed, speech betraying him, he was silent. "Mulder..."

The coursing green of her heart monitor peaked a few times, erratically, then fell across the screen in a steady, glowing, horizontal line.

For one dazed second, Mulder stood, frozen in disbelief, and then the code-blue alarm screamed through the room, and something inside him broke free, jerking him toward her with incredible force.

"Scully!" The heel of his palm found her ribs, fumbled upward, and shoved down hard. The heart monitor, responding to the pressure, gave a weak blip and then was still.

"Goddamit!"

He bent over, covered her mouth with his own, pushed air into her lungs. She was limp beneath him. He covered her heart again with his hands and began the rhythm of CPR, hearing the frail bleats from the monitor as he did, and silently begged her to breathe.

Then chaos erupted around him. Two nurses, a doctor he didn't recognize, a crash cart. They had to pry him away, and he dimly realized he shouldn't be fighting them, but he just couldn't stop. He couldn't get his breath. Their lives, his and Scully's, were one as he felt the motion of her heart beneath his hands, beating for her, pushing death away.

He did not stop until the burly arms of a huge orderly -- where had he come from? -- reached through and whipped him around, pinning him into the corner. Spent, the connection broken, he sagged helplessly against the wall. The man blocked him, and he couldn't see Scully, but he could hear. Someone shouted for whole blood, four units -- God -- then he heard clear and winced at the unmistakable thump of electricity jolting her body. The heart monitor blipped twice then fell again into a steady line. Murmured numbers, clear again, and again the telltale thump that made him flinch even before he heard it. Again the steady, unwavering line. He felt numbness creeping up his legs, sinking into his chest. Clear a third time, a third thump.

The heart monitor squealed. Mulder held his breath. He felt the numbness moving, growing, sapping the strength from him. Please.

Erratic disorder settled into steady rhythm. Someone shouted that they had a pulse.

Mulder's legs gave way and he sat down hard on the floor.

Someone yelled for a gurney as someone else shouted something about surgery, stat. He clearly heard the word 'hemorrhage' surface from the cloud of noise around him; then there was only rustling and scrambling, a mass of frenzied sound.

The sound faded away hurriedly, down the hallway. The orderly uncertainly backed away, the door fell shut with a sound-sapping whump, and the room was abruptly silent. It was a dark silence, thick, and it enveloped Mulder, still in the corner, his face buried in his hands.

Above it, he could hear the orderly breathing.

"Sir?" The orderly tentatively placed a hand on Mulder's shoulder. Mulder didn't move. "Sir? Are you okay?"

The surge of anger he should've felt at the asinine question numbly missing, Mulder dug balled fists into his eyes. No, he was not okay. If he lost her now, he would damn well never again be okay. "Where are they taking her?" he mumbled, sounding lost even to his own ears.

"I don't know, sir," the orderly replied. Mulder looked up and blinked. His eyes burned. "You should ask the nurse. She -- "

The orderly jumped as the door banged open. Unaffected by the sudden noise, Mulder slowly and deliberately swivelled his eyes upward into the stricken face of Simms, the young police officer from the MRI room. The man seemed only dimly aware of what had just transpired. "Agent Mulder, sir, I'm sorry, but I've been sent down here to get you. There's been some trouble."

Mulder grunted and somehow dragged himself to his feet. There was a dead spot, cold and lifeless, in the center of his chest. It radiated outward, dulling everything, even the sense of alarm he should've felt at the desolate chill. How 'bout that? he mused morosely. There's "trouble." Right here in River City. Ain't that a kick in the pants.

Still, he heard, "Trouble?" and realized the word had come from his own lips. He hovered and watched from a great distance, faintly amazed that his voice seemed to be working on its own, without him. "What kind of trouble?"

"Dr. Hessman, sir. He was brought into the ER about a half an hour ago." Simms paused, looking seriously uncomfortable in his role as the bearer of bad tidings. "He's been shot, sir. He's dead."

GO TO PART FOUR