Empty, it was empty. The glass vial was gone. They had taken it, as easily as They had taken Scully from her hospital bed...from him. As easily as They had taken everything he'd ever had from him.

A sudden anger burst forth, shattering the aching void in the center of his chest with blinding force. Simms watched, stunned, as Mulder seemed somehow to explode, to break apart from the inside. He lurched forward, crashing past the police officer before he could react and yanking the door open with such power that it smashed against the wall and bounced.

With amazing speed, he burst into the hallway and, slamming against the counter, reached over the elbows of a startled young nurse toward the charts in her hands.

"Hey!" she squeaked, yanking the charts from his grasp just as his fingertips touched them.

"Dana Scully's chart," he growled. "I have to see her chart."

"I can't...I can't do that," she stammered. Her eyes were wide as Simms and the orderly appeared behind Mulder.

A hand fell on Mulder's shoulder, but he shrugged it off angrily and yanked the badge from his back pocket. "Look, my name is Fox Mulder, I'm a special agent with the FBI, and I need to see her chart!"

"Sir," the nurse began, her eyes vacillating nervously between Mulder's face and his badge, "if you're really an FBI agent, then you know I can't show you any chart without a warrant."

Oblivious, Mulder lunged forward again, only to be grabbed by Simms and the orderly. He struggled, but this time he couldn't shake their grip on him; the orderly was just too big. "You don't understand!" he shouted, frustration boiling over into panic as the two men pulled him backward, away from the nurse's station. "It's been tampered with!"

Simms glanced sidelong at the frightened nurse and, over Mulder's shrill, "Goddamit, check her records now!", murmured "Where have they taken Dana Scully?"

Unsure whom she should obey, the young woman glanced down at the charts in her hand, then up again timidly. "OR 4," she replied, avoiding Mulder's eyes.

Simms nodded his thanks.

"Where is the nurse who was here a few minutes ago?" Mulder continued to shout, unwilling to acknowledge the pressure against his shoulders that was forcing him to stumble backward down the hallway. "Who was on duty? Where is she?"

Simms, now more than a little alarmed, attempted to turn him around and tried to sound soothing. "Come on, Agent Mulder, you're upset. We'll take you to the waiting room and I'll get the Sheriff on the phone about what's happened with your partner."

The forlorn question hovered there; how could he explain himself to anyone but Scully?

Confused and uncomfortable, Simms hovered over him, waiting, Dr. Hessman's murder all but forgotten. Just as the officer opened his mouth to speak, a trembling voice from the doorway cut him off.

"Fox, my God." It was Mrs. Scully, and she swept into the room and immediately sank down beside Mulder. Discreetly, Simms backed away. "I was in the cafeteria and I was paged," she said, breathless. "What's going on? What happened?"

Mulder took in a ragged, shaking breath, let it out slowly. "I don't know," he mumbled finally, through his hands. "I don't know."

"They said you were with her," she pressed him.

Mulder looked up at her sharply, then his gaze slid downward to regard his trembling fingers. I was there. "I was... I was..." He shook his head miserably. He felt on the verge of completely unraveling. "I don't know."

Mrs. Scully's hand fell gently on Mulder's shoulder. "Fox," she continued softly, "you were there." She caught his gaze, looked him in the eyes. "You were both asleep, but you were there. I checked on the two of you several times. The last time couldn't have been more than half an hour ago. What happened?"

His head snapped up sharply. "Are you certain?" he asked, suddenly urgent. "Are you absolutely sure of that time?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she replied, confused by his abrupt animation.

The urgency grew, flaring behind his eyes like a match just struck. "The nurse on duty -- did you see her? Did she say anything?"

Mrs. Scully's puzzlement was plain. "Well, yes, I did see her. We smiled at each other, but no, I don't believe she spoke... Fox, what -- "

Mulder cut her off; the matchlight erupted into fierce flames. "What did she look like?" he demanded, his voice growing louder.

Mrs. Scully stammered, startled by Mulder's abrupt forcefulness. "I don't... I'm not sure."

Realizing he was alarming her, Mulder made a conscious effort to lower his voice, but he couldn't contain the bonfire blazing now inside him. He reached out, gripping her forearm firmly. "Mrs. Scully, this is important. How old was she? How old was the nurse you saw?"

Mrs. Scully hesitated, searching his face for an answer. "I... fifties, maybe. I'm not sure. She was older."

"Glasses?"

Swallowing hard, she nodded.

Mulder shot from his seat as if spring-loaded. He turned toward Simms and barked, "See that she isn't left alone."

"Agent Mulder," Simms sputtered, confused and taken aback at the swift, sudden energy with which Mulder was moving, "just what do you think is going on here?"

It was as if he hadn't spoken. Mulder bolted past him and hit the hallway at a dead run, still-bare feet slapping against the linoleum. Simms stared after him, dumbfounded, and briefly considered pursuit, but finally allowed himself to give in to the vague sense of relief he felt at being free of the strange, intense FBI agent.

With quick, silent determination, he moved toward his goal, the X-ray racks at the back of the large room. His pen-light shone, a tiny bright spot running the length of the alphabet, as he searched.

Scully, Dana K. Holding the light between his teeth, Mulder yanked the large brown envelope from its resting place and pulled the X-rays from it. The pen-light provided just enough illumination to make out the distinguishing features of the films.

Mulder felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. The films were clear, perfectly normal -- not Scully's. He was too late.

I should've known.

He felt suddenly, infinitely heavy, and his hands failed him. The penlight landed on the floor with a sharp clatter against the background flutter of falling X-rays. He pressed his forehead dismally against the cool metal of the X-ray rack and hovered over the feeble light seeping out against his toes.

I can't do this anymore.

He lifted his head slightly, just enough to give some force to the blow when he banged it forward against the metal rack. A bereft-sounding thunk echoed in his ears.

It was like a sick joke, all of it. He picked his head up, slammed it back down again, harder. The pain was sharp and unexpectedly vicious.

Somewhere, he thought, someone was laughing. He saw Scully's blood-soaked body and felt her heart against his hands.

He had been stretched too tightly for too long, and the thin fabric of his self-control simply burst, rupturing like an overinflated balloon.

He screamed.

It was an ear-splitting, nonverbal howl from somewhere primitive and violent. Desperate for deliverance from the fury he could no longer keep at bay, he hurled himself blindly at the nearest thing he could find.

The entire X-ray rack came crashing to the floor in a torrent of noise. The release was immense and immediate. Mulder wheeled around and caught the edge of a neighboring rack with his shoulder. It went down as well, smashing into the wall with an enormous crash.

He stumbled, catching his toes against the edge of the fallen flashlight, and rasped, "Fuck!" as he grabbed at it. Wielding it like a weapon, he raised it high and bashed it against the fallen rack with all his strength. One blow, then two, and the light went out. Still, he continued to pound it blindly into the dented metal, wallowing in the sound and the feel as it struck, needing it like a drug.

He was beyond thinking, beyond anything but the release of years of anguish and unfathomable rage. They had taken everything from him he'd ever cared about. They had done this to her, to the one person who didn't shy away from the maelstrom of conviction in his eyes. Scully stayed. For that simple crime of loyalty and love, she had been marked. And somehow, someday, They would pay. He closed his eyes against the darkness. They would pay.

Suddenly, the lights snapped on, blinding him like a revelation.

He froze, paralyzed, chest heaving, hair soaked with sweat, and blinked in the brilliant glare. Simms' voice boomed like the voice of God in his ears. "What in the hell are you doing?!?"

He looked down at the splintered remains of the flashlight in his grasp as if waking from a vivid nightmare. For an instant, there was free-falling clarity, poignant and condemning. He was in trouble. Oh, no.

He barely recognized his own hands as he buried his face in them and slumped mutely to the floor.

He shook his head with a desolate shudder; did it matter now? He had lost himself, and if she died and he wasn't with her because of his own singular insanity, he felt sure that the suffocating, pulling hole in his chest would simply swallow him, drag him in and crush him to death with the weight of his own grief. He wanted just to touch her face so badly his fingers ached.

A familiar staccato voice pulled him slowly out of his dismal musings. "Agent Mulder, where the hell are your shoes?"

Mulder could only muster the will to move his eyes, swivelling them upward to fix their listless gaze firmly on that of the black man standing before him, on the other side of the bars, trenchcoat swirling around his calves.

The mysterious Mr. X. It figured. "She could be dead," he replied tonelessly. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

"Strong words," X replied in clipped, even syllables. Then he produced a set of keys from the pocket of his coat. "I'm here to get you out."

Wordlessly, Mulder rose and followed. He retrieved his belongings and allowed himself to be quietly escorted from the precinct station and out into the night. When his bare feet hit the frozen pavement of late winter in Colorado, the absurdity of the situation was not lost on him -- he just couldn't muster the mettle to care. X placed him firmly into the passenger seat of a rented sedan and pushed the door shut.

X eased himself into the driver's seat, shut his own door, and turned the ignition switch with one easy, fluid movement.

Mulder stared stonily ahead as the car pulled away from the station and turned out onto the city street. A moment passed in total silence.

"I'm taking you back to the hospital," X announced finally.

Suddenly, a swift, irrational anger bubbled up, filling the hollow in his chest with an unexpected, acrid rancor that seized him by the throat. "Why not just shoot me and dump me in the parking lot, like you did the doctor?" he shot back petulantly.

X jabbed down on the brakes so hard their seat belts locked. He swerved abruptly into the empty, dark parking lot of an abandoned gas station, put the car in gear, and twisted violently in his seat.

"Do you have any idea what a risk I've taken, saving your ass tonight?" he demanded viciously. "I had to call in several very large favors for this one, Agent Mulder. This has not gained you any allies."

"I didn't call you!" Mulder shouted angrily. "I didn't ask you for anything! I don't owe you anything!"

"Agent Mulder -- " X began, his tone an unmistakable warning.

Mulder cut him off. "You've been here all along, haven't you? You're responsible for everything that's happened here!"

"Everyone has orders," X responded through clenched teeth. There was no remorse in his flat dark eyes. "But your partner is the one variable in this equation with which I am not involved."

Mulder felt his chest constrict at Scully's mention, and his eyes narrowed with sudden, venomous comprehension. He knows.

In one startling, swift movement, Mulder leaned over, grabbed X brutally by the lapel, and gave it a sharp jerk. "Who is it?" he demanded. "Who's doing this?"

X's body went rigid as he grabbed Mulder's hand pointedly and hard. One beat passed, two. Mulder finally released him with a disgusted push and hissed, "If she dies tonight, so help me I'll kill you myself, you bastard."

X opened his mouth to speak. But then, surprisingly, he hesitated. He took a deep breath and placed both hands, palms down and fingers extended, atop the steering wheel as if to steady himself. Stunned, Mulder eased back in his seat.

"Agent Mulder," X said, "whether or not you believe me, I can... appreciate your position in this matter. And your insistence." There was a pregnant pause. Mulder watched as X shifted in his seat and straightened the lapels of his jacket. He flexed his gloved hands in a gesture resembling frustration, but his voice was toneless and curt, his face unreadable. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder. I can't help you."

Mulder felt himself falling once again. X knew; he knew, but he would not help. "You mean you won't," he grunted bitterly.

In answer, X put the car back in gear and they started back out onto the street. For a moment, the only sound was the quiet hum of the engine.

Finally, X again broke the chilly silence between them. "Originally," he said, "they believed Agent Scully had been a mistake. She had been meant to distract you, to keep you on the defensive. And yet with her your work thrived. There was talk of removing her; the attempt was made."

X paused, choosing his next words carefully. "Your... attachment to Agent Scully is clear," he finally added. He glanced briefly toward Mulder, caught his gaze for an instant before returning his attention to the road ahead. "Clear, Mulder. Surely you must know that."

Mulder was rooted to his seat, startled into silence.

"Not everyone agrees, either on your value, or hers, or on how to proceed. You and your partner have become an intractable problem. There will be other attempts at a solution."

The sedan pulled into the hospital parking lot and rolled to a stop. X fixed Mulder with a piercing look.

"You are valuable to me for reasons you may not understand," he finished. "But everyone has orders. And mine have been fulfilled here."

For a long moment, Mulder held X's gaze, waiting; but finally, wordlessly, he just turned and stepped out of the car onto the black pavement. Without hesitation, the sedan sped off into the night.

GO TO PART FIVE