Love Against Evil (1/1) By Cerulean Blue and Pinkus ceruleanxf@hotmail.com and pinkus1013@hotmail.com Rating: PG Classification: XRA, MSR Archive: Yes, please! And please let us know that you want to archive it, we would be honored! Feedback: This is our first story! We really hope that you like it. . . and please tell us anything at all that you think about it -even if you hated it and thought it was so bad you wanted to delete it from your mailbox :-) Disclaimer: They're not ours, but we wish they were! We really like them, and would treat them so much better than all these people at 1013 who we still love! Sorry, we only took them for a short while and are returning them in an (almost) pristine condition. Summary: We all know that Mulder and Scully are perfect for each other, but what happens when their relationship is threatened by an evil force? Authors' Notes: We want to thank the Redheaded Chick, and the Big Apple, and the Cuckoo Lady - we love you all and we wrote this story especially for you! As we all say, the mist thickens, but there are always holes peeking out from the clouds. Also, thanks to David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson for being such wonderful actors, bringing Mulder and Scully to life, and for giving us inspiration to create art! Love will always win. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Mulder stood on the threshold of the new day. Who knew what wonderful adventures it would bring him. He smiled, while thinking to himself. He was walking to work right now, wearing his clothes, thinking of his earth angel, and how she was waiting for him. Each day was a discovery of a new, secret joy: the joy of watching Dana's eyes alight with laughter, her mouth pursing as she breathed. And each of her breaths was a delight to his ears: she was alive, wonderfully alive, and she spent all of her time with him. Of course, thinking of Scully, made him think of "Mom." Maggie Scully, with her kind blue eyes, and her lips always shaped into a smile just for him, was everything that his own mom wasn't - she was like angel cake to his soul, lasagna to his loins. She fed him, she hugged him, and she smiled a smile of love each time she saw him. He found that he had lost track of time, and was now at the stairs leading to the FBI Headquarters of Washington, D.C. which was in the United States. Taking them two at a time, he flew up to what he knew would be another day in paradise. But, what he didn't know was that one of those really bad, messy people left a banana peel on one of the steps. His size nine shoe went wiggledy piggledy on the stairs, he fell, issuing an "Ouch" to the surprised air. The world spun several times as he rolled down, counting the steps. At first, no one paid attention to the unfortunate man who desperately needed some attention, but then some kind soul decided to stop and give him help. He was a bald man - with nerves of steel, but with a heart of gold, and with the name of Walter Sergei Skinner - a.k.a. Fox William Mulder's boss. And what a boss he was! A lot of times, Mulder wanted to call him father - such a wonderful influence and help the man was most of the time. And, right now, no one was a more welcome sight to Mulder's foggy vision. "Please help me, Walt," Mulder sniffled. "Agent Mulder," Skinner touched him, concerned. "Do you need help?" Fox thought of his earth angel, and what she used to always, always say when she was in trouble. "Oh, I'm fine." Skinner straightened up. Fox sounded a little off, but if he was sure. . . "Well, do you need a hand to get up?" Mulder thought about it. "Where is. . .where is my angel?" His eyes searched the street, then drooped closed. Because Skinner loved Mulder like a son (even though he was too afraid to admit it), Skinner turned around in a circle, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Scully! It's Walter Skinner! Come here!" Then, he turned back to Mulder, cradling his injured body in his burly hands, and soothing the dark hair on the younger man's head. "Don't worry, Fox. We will get you help." Meanwhile, in the X-Files basement Scully, with her red hair and fire blue eyes, tap tapped on her computer keyboard, wondering where Fox was. So many days now, they spent in happy contemplation of each other. Cases went by unnoticed by both of them, and doing paperwork became a near impossibility when the hazel eyes of her partner stopped and pinned her down with the gaze full of what she thought was tenderness - or maybe, just maybe? Could she pronounce the word? But she didn't dare - not just yet. She sniffed the air - she could swear that she could smell his manly, woody scent. And if she squinted her eyes just so, she could see the way his nose highlighted his bony face. Those aristocratic high cheekbones should not have coincided so well with the large, disproportional nostrils, but the result was absolutely, deliciously irresistible. And now, she could almost swear that she heard someone cry out in pain and horror. . . a terrible suspicion came into Scully's mind. She felt a nibbling in her brain, something telling her that her Fox was in trouble. Perhaps it was their psychotic connection - but she knew that he was in trouble, and he needed her tender administrations. Perhaps it was angels whispering in her ear - after all, she was one of their spawn. Forgetting the case she was writing a report for, she fled up the stairs and down the hall of the Hoover building, to what she knew was a place where she was needed urgently. She felt her skirt flapping across her legs, and stopped suddenly when she saw Skinner carrying Mulder down the hallway and doing CPR at the same time. Her eagle-sharp eyes immediately noted the grayness of the face that she loved so - and the way his weak arms flapped in the air. "Oh my God, Mulder," she cried, desperate. "What have you done to yourself now?" Skinner laid Mulder on the cold, hard floor, worried. He turned to the nearest agent. "Call 911!" he shouted. Little did he know, that the agent that he was talking to was Agent Colton. In the hospital "Oh, mom," Scully wept into the cellphone, holding it close to her ear as if it were the only lifeline she held at the moment. "I know I shouldn't call you - you will be worried, as usual, but I need your support. . . and Mulder needs your love." "Oh dear!" Mrs. Scully exclaimed, trying to push her concern and love for her daughter and the man she was worried about through the telephone. "I'll make some chicken soup right away and bring it to the hospital." "Oh, mom," Scully smiled through her tears. "He probably won't be able to eat it for a while. . . but still, I'm sure he would appreciate the gesture." "Oh dear! Starbuck, you have to tell me - what happened exactly? What is wrong with Fox?" "Oh mom! He fell down the stairs of the Hoover building, and broke his leg. And mom. . .there was so much blood! He slipped on the banana peel, and I am so afraid because god knows what germs could have come into his system? He's already so weak. . . they're operating on him right now. I only hope they can sa. . .sa. . .save his leg." "Oh dear!" Maggie grabbed her keys from the kitchen table, and put one of Ahab's old sweaters on for warmth - she liked to think that his essence was still around her, like good smelling perfume. "I'll be right there." "Oh mom," Scully wiped her nose. "Thank you." She hit the disconnect button and turned to watch the doors of the operating room. Skinner went to get her some coffee, and as she saw his tall, authoritarian silhouette walking towards her, she tried to wipe her tears away. She didn't want to appear weak in front of him, even though she knew that he would probably forgive her. She adopted a mask that shouted: ICE QUEEN, and looked at her boss without emotion. But then, the damn exploded, and water dripped from her eyes like an inflatable swimming pool with holes. The ship is going down, Ahab, she thought of her father with tenderness and despair. I'm sorry I'm letting you down. "Agent Scully," Skinner's firm hand fell on her shoulder comfortingly. "Pull yourself together. Mulder will need you when he wakes up. If you want him to make it through. . ." Behind them, someone approached. It was a doctor, Scully quickly realized. When she saw the blood on his uniform, she knew that he was the man who operated on Mulder. "I'm a doctor. What is his condition? Don't hold anything back." The doctor evaluated the obviously distraught, but somehow still holding her own, small redheaded woman. Well, perhaps he could tell her the bad news. "The patient's leg was repaired, but it is totally infected and pussy and we're afraid that the gangrene might be setting in. Something that he fell on could have been really dangerous in these terms, and his blood is now like a poison to him. He has a fever, and we discovered that he has a concussion, as well - so we can only hope that he pulls through this one." Skinner looked at Scully with confusion. "I don't understand what he's saying Scully. You're the doctor, explain it to me in layman's language." "Sir, he is. . . oh god," she whispered, closing her eyes and trying to draw the strength from her sister and her father that she knew were in heaven and still looking after her. They would pull through this, as they always did before. "Can we see him, please?" "Sure." The doctor looked at his clipboard. "Since this paper says that you're his partner, his best friend, his Power of Attorney, Next of Kin, and All Around Good Egg - I guess a thirty second visit won't hurt." Scully fled through the hall leading to the room of her partner. The day darkened around her when she looked at him through the window, covered in tubes, electronic equipment all around him, monitoring his life functions. The flashbacks to Deadhorse, Alaska, nearly killed her, and her knees almost went out. Somehow, she gathered enough energy to turn the handle of the door and go inside. Her finger curled around his long, tall fingers, and she was careful to avoid the tube that was going into his vein and delivering special nutrients. "Oh Mulder," she said in a rapid torrent of words. "I have so little time. But I need you to know, that I love you. I always have, and I always will. I want you to be my husband, I want you to touch me in places I've never been touched, and I want to have your offspring." Would these bluish lips ever smile for her again? Would these fast legs ever run again? Would these lifeless arms ever hold her again? What was it that Mulder slipped on today? Oh no. A cold shudder went through Scully's spine. She only hoped that the banana peel on which Mulder slipped was still in place. Wait a minute. Scully whispered the word over and over in her tiny, feminine head. "Banana. . . banana. . . banana.. ." There was a reason why that word was sticking to her brain like glue. "That's it!" she cried. Her hand flew to her mouth in unspeakable horror. Tom Colton had had a banana fetish in the Academy when she knew him at the beginning. She ran to Skinner. "Sir, we need to find the banana peel and send it for analysis! It's extremely important." Skinner didn't understand what she meant, but since he trusted her implicitly and he'd never known Scully to lose her pretty head, he obeyed her instructions. The doors leading to the ICU opened just then, and in came Maggie Scully, an expression of worry in her clear-blue eyes. Skinner noticed that she smelled like chicken soup and potpourri, and for the first time since Sharon, he felt cupid's arrow strike him in the heart. "Walter," Maggie addressed him, noticing an attractive blush covering this big man's bald head. "What happened? Where is Dana? How is Fox?" He reached out and took her small hand. "He's holding his own, Maggie. And she couldn't be braver." Maggie saw his drooping shoulders, and reached out tenderly to cup his cheek. "It will be all right, Walter. It has to be." "I know," he whispered, wondering who he was trying to convince. "But these two have been through so much, and even though I can't show it, I get so worried." He gave Maggie a hug, feeling a spark ripple through his body. "Excuse me, but I have a banana to examine." Maggie didn't understand what he meant, but then she knew that he had an important job and who knew what he had to do during those long, exhausting hours that he spent in the office. "I will go find Fox. He needs to hear human speech right now." Meanwhile, back in the FBI headquarters Scully looked at the banana in front of her, wondering what powerful secrets it held. "Agent Scully," the lab worker said. "I have your results." He handed her a pile of papers. "The banana was contaminated with chicken pox virus and gangrene virus." "Not chicken pox!" Scully felt as if a knife slashed through her pancreas. "But if he gets chicken pox now. . . he is too old! What if he wasn't vaccinated?" The lab worker nodded gravely. "You'd better hope he was vaccinated against the gangrene." "He wasn't," Scully replied equally gravely. "He might lose his leg." "Well, there's always those fake, plastic legs," the tech responded, trying to make her feel better. "Did you find any fingerprints, like I asked?" "Yes, but they don't check out against our database," the lab worker shrugged. "We won't find who did this black deed." "Run it against the government database," Scully said. The man's eyes became round like flying saucers. "You think it might be one of ours?" "Spooky Mulder has many enemies," she whispered. "You never know." The lab worker used his special laser to examine the banana, and after a few minutes a single name glowed on the computer screen: Tom Colton. Scully felt her blood boil, and her head steam. "I got you now, you scum bag. You can't spit in the face of the best partnership in the FBI and get away with it!" Back in the hospital Maggie and Skinner sat on both sides around Mulder's bed, holding his hands and whispering sweet nothings in his ears. They knew that even though he was unconscious, barely in this world, he could still hear them, could still be brought back to them. And they had to try and do their best, until Dana came back and joined their efforts. Suddenly, Mulder's good leg was thrashing underneath the cotton, hospital sheets. Suddenly, his eyes opened really, really wide, and then suddenly, he looked at Skinner with a piercing stare. Suddenly, a word escaped his dry mouth. "Father." He closed his eyes, once again, pronouncing the words with what seemed to be his last reservoirs of energy. "I'm sorry." Skinner's jaw clenched and his fingers curled up into a ball -he so wanted to hurt the bastard who hurt this sweet, innocent boy. Underneath his closed eyelids, Mulder grimaced, sure that he had never felt pain this bad before. Sure, the gunshot wound from the Boggs case was hurtful, but his leg felt like it was being eaten by layers and layers of maggots. Suddenly, a delicious aroma filled his over sized nostrils, and he recognized the smell immediately - it was Mom's famous chicken soup! With an effort, he turned around and saw Maggie, his adoptive mother, sitting next to his bed. Realizing that he made an embarrassing mistake before, he turned to the other side, only to see Walter Skinner, his boss, smiling down at him kindly. Mulder thought that the two of them went so well together! They were made for each other - and already, he thought of them as the parents he wasn't lucky enough to have. When he found his long-lost sister, they could adopt her too. "Where is my angel?" he asked Maggie with a smile. "She went to analyze the banana you slipped on." Suddenly, Scully's helpless voice echoed through his head. It said: "Help me, Fox!" She was in trouble! He couldn't let Scully become the sequel of Samantha! The pain would stop today. Meanwhile back at FBI Headquarters Scully, her eyes filled with the righteous anger, her ears hearing nothing but the ringing of black noise, went to find the man who caused her so much tragedy. If Fox was permanently injured because of him. . . if he died. . . she shut the thought down, knowing that she couldn't allow herself to think the worst. She just wanted revenge. And she was going to get it. She stormed into Colton's office, drawing her gun, kicking the door down with her pointy heels. "Tom Colton!" she roared. "You are a dead man!" Tom Colton, the object of her wrath, looked up from his desk with dark, satan-like eyes. "I've been expecting you," he said with a lot of meanness. "You like bananas!" Scully accused him. "I know it was you who ate that banana. Where did you get the viruses that you infected the peel with? Do you have any acquaintances that I should know about? Are there more people," here she grabbed his collar and pulled him dangerously close to her steaming face, "that I have to kill?" Colton started to cry. "Yes, I like bananas. . . but you have to believe me. . . They made me do it!" He ripped open his shirt, and the buttons flew everywhere. There was a black scum all over his chest with red polka dots in the middle. "See," he whispered. "I have it too." "Oh no," Scully gasped in horror. "It's the gangrene and chicken pox!" "Yes," he whimpered pitifully. "I'm going to die." She took a step back. "Mulder will not die. I will find a cure for him!" "No, you won't," Colton said in a low, dangerous voice. "Because you will die even before him." He started walking towards her, trying to touch her with his infected skin. Scully yelped, trying to avoid his thrusting chest. He moved so that she became trapped in the corner of his office. She tried to curl into herself, knowing that she was going to die, and that the last sight she would ever see would be Colton's infected, black, flaky nipples. Suddenly, several shots rippled through the tense air of the office. Scully opened her eyes, incredulous, not trusting her own luck. Could it be that someone saved her - and Mulder -from what would be a sure death, an impending doom of blackness forever and ever? Even though she would meet her father and sister on the other side, she still knew that she would really miss Mulder and her mom, and Skinner, until they all joined her in a better place. She opened her eyes slowly, gasping in udder surprise when she saw Mulder's sick, sweaty figure holding a gun. He fell like a rag doll to the floor, his breath sounding like a horse that had been run too long. He made it here on sheer adrenaline and love, knowing that if not he, then who else? His girl had to be protected at all costs. Even his own life. What was one leg, really? What was the impending gangrene and the red splotches of the chicken pox? "Nothing," he whispered dully, slipping into unconsciousness. "Nothing, my angel." 24 hours later He awoke to friendly voices, the smell of chicken soup, and a feminine hand curled into his. He turned his head, seeing his red-headed angel, his gray-haired angel, and his bald-headed angel sitting close to him. He sighed with happiness, wondering if this was what heaven was truly like. And if he really was in heaven, then he was happy to have left his earthbound life. "See, it was so wonderful that I suggested he stay at my house," Maggie said with satisfaction. "You're right, dear," Walter replied, bowing to the wisdom of this woman. "He seems really comfortable here." Just then, Mulder felt the remaining pain in his leg, and realized that it must have been life, after all. He reached out to Scully, longing to envelop her in his arms. "Thank you for surviving the encounter with Colton long enough for me to come and save you," he said. Scully started to bawl her eyes out. "Oh god, Mulder. How did you know?" Mulder smiled, inhaling the Scully scent that he was totally addicted to. "It's our psychotic connection, Scully. Don't you believe?" Scully looked around at all the people that she loved so: her Mom, standing close to Skinner, his arm on the small shoulders, and Mulder, on the way to recuperation. "Oh, Mulder," she began to cry from joy. "I want to believe." The End So, did you like it? Now it's time to tell us! ceruleanxf@hotmail.com and pinkus1013@hotmail.com