The Face of Madness This started out as a short vignette that follows the end of 'Grotesque'. Well, it sort of grew. But it was fun, anyway and I tried to stay more within the actual framework of the series. Therefore, Mulder is usually stable, he is not sleeping with Scully and they still hadn't quite 'shook hands and made up.' Standard Disclaimer: Let me see now, how do these things go? Oh, right, I have no intentions of infringing on any copyrights, of Chris Carter, FOX, or Ten Thirteen Productions or any of the major castles and churches in Europe (where you are most likely to find REAL gargoyles). Don't sue me, I invested all my money in diaper stock and they are sitting in the baby's room right now :) WARNING: THIRD SEASON SPOILER. Seeing the episode 'Grotesque' is a must before reading or a lot of this won't make sense. No romance, some strong language, no violence. Rated PG I love mail, and my e-mail is working fine after all the hours of cursing I did at it, so please send comments to me at vmoseley@fgi.net. The Face of Madness by Vickie Moseley vmoseley@fgi.net She found him asleep at his desk, the computer cursor blinking at the middle of a sentence in his report of the case. The blue screen cast an ghostly light on his head and bounced off his glasses, rendering them opaque. It did nothing to allay the fear for him that she had been trying to deal with for the last three days and nights. She walked across the small, cramped office hesitantly, as if the floor was covered in eggshells. Cautiously, she reached out to touch his shoulder. "Mulder," she called softly. In some respects, she hoped just her touch would wake him up. Her voice was trembling and she didn't really want him to hear it. When he still didn't wake up, she took another step closer and shook his shoulder a little harder. "Mulder." This time it was more forceful. It had an effect, but not necessarily the desired one. He jerked straight up in the chair with a start. "I'm sorry," she stammered as she took in his wild eyed expression. "You were asleep and you were endangering evidence," she added, pointing to the charcoal sketch he had been laying on. During his sleep, his mouth had opened and a small pool of saliva was already marring the surface of the drawing. He looked down at the paper and bit his lip, but said nothing. "Why don't you go home and get some sleep. You look awful," she said casually or at least she hoped it sounded that way to him. He turned a deadly gaze at her and then turned back to the computer screen. "Can't. It's not finished," he growled. he thought to himself. "Scully, since when has Mulder ever listened to ME?" he asked half- joking as he pulled on his jacket and motioned to the door. Mulder stared at the screen and then hit the 'save'. A second later, he hit the print icon and listened to the laser printer whir to life at his elbow. He closed his eyes just to see what would happen. Within seconds, the horrible pictures started flashing through his mind, in rapid succession, each one more appalling than the last. Then, mixed with the charcoal sketches of the devilish winged creatures, came the stills his own mind provided, the faces of the victims, incased in clay, distorted and mutilated. His eyes sprang open and he drew in a deep breath. He hadn't realized he was holding it. he shuddered silently. He sat up straighter and looked around the room, as if just remembering where he was. He noticed the door, closed and locked. he wondered. Then he saw Scully's purse, on the desk she appropriated long ago, so she didn't have to drag files up and down to her office. He looked up and down the street and saw nothing familiar. A street sign on the corner revealed that he was almost two miles from his building. He sat down on the bench at the bus stop to get his bearings. His feet hurt from running in shoes not meant for that purpose. He shivered, he was in his shirt sleeves, he hadn't bothered to put on either his suit jacket or his raincoat. After a moment, he fumbled in his pants pocket and found enough money to take the bus back to his place. It wasn't until he was at his door that he realized he didn't have his keys. He had left them in the apartment in his raincoat pocket. He was about to go to the building super and ask to be let in when he remembered seeing Scully's car in front. He knocked timidly on the door and waited for her to answer. Dana had the phone to her ear as she answered the door, fully expecting to see the Assistant Director. When it was her wayward partner, she nearly fell over in an effort to drag him inside and secure him on the couch. "Mulder, goddammit, where in the hell have you been? I've been looking for you for the last hour! Where did you go? You know you're supposed to be resting! I refuse to sit here and let you play 'hide and seek' just because you're offended at the prospect of being 'babysat'. Now, you better. . ." He cut off her tirade with a feeble wave and kicked off his shoes. His socks were worn through on the heel and toe and she could see were a couple of blisters had formed and popped. He winced as he examined them. "Damn it," he muttered and laid back on the couch, only to stare at the ceiling. Scully stared at him for a full minute before walking over to perch on the coffee table. She lifted one of his feet and then the other, checking out the damage. Without a word, she left to get the first aid kit she had bought him and went about putting antibiotic ointment and bandages on the worst of the blisters. Then she went to the kitchen, measured out the dosage of each of the three bottles of medicine and brought them to him with a glass of water. He had found the blankets and was huddled under two of them, looking completely miserable. "Would you like to tell me where you were?" she asked calmly. "Gotta watch those mood swings, Scully. You're scaring me," he joked, or tried to, as he tossed back the handful of pills and gulped half the water. When she continued to stare at him, he decided it must be his turn to talk. "I woke up about two miles from here. I took a bus back. I had to transfer, that's why it took me so long." He regarded her serious expression and sighed. "I don't remember running. I don't remember going out. Scully, I don't remember us getting to the apartment." He closed his eyes and hoped the sedative was fast acting so he wouldn't have to answer the questions he knew she was about to throw at him. She started to say something but a knock on the door interrupted her. Skinner was looking not the least bit happy at being dragged away from the office to intervene in what he could only assume was the second squabble these two agents had gotten in during the last 6 hours. "So you found him," he said gruffly, and glowered down at Mulder. "Where was he?" "He went out running," Scully replied evenly. "In a suit?" Skinner asked, a note of surprise replacing the angry tone of before. "And good leather wingtips, apparently," Scully said. "Is he asleep?" "No, but I don't think he feels much like talking at moment." She got up and motioned for the door. Skinner took a long look at the 'fugitive' and followed. "So what is it this time, Scully?" Skinner asked once they were in the building hallway. Dana sighed. It _did_ feel like she was running to the principal to report a fight on the playground. "Sir, I'm sorry I called you about this. When I got back to the apartment, he was gone. He got back a few minutes ago. He claims to have no knowledge of leaving the apartment. He says he 'woke up' about 2 miles from here and took the bus back." She couldn't help but notice the concern registering on the Assistant Director's face. "I know, sir. You asked me the other day if I was worried about Mulder. At the time, I hoped it was just the stress of the case. Now, I'm not so sure. Now, I really am worried about him." The admission was more than she had intended to say, but somehow, she felt better getting it out in the open. "Is this a psychological matter, Scully? Maybe we should be calling in EAP, rather than taking him to Georgetown," Skinner said pointedly. He had never considered Mulder crazy, although most of the rest of the Bureau hierarchy did. But in light of what had happened to Patterson, even Walter Skinner was beginning to see how thin the tightrope of sanity could be for someone as dedicated to justice and truth as Mulder. And how easy it would be to slip and fall from the tightrope. Scully's heart dropped to her stomach. This is not where she wanted to go and she definitely didn't want the Assistant Director going there, either. "No, sir. I hope it's a simple case of exhaustion. Things really haven't settled down since. . ." She hesitated to bring up the incident in Iowa. Mulder, running off to jump a train, stranded on a sidetrack, narrowly escaping a fatal explosion--that just didn't seem like much of a sanity defense at the moment. She was still wondering if she shouldn't have his water tested again because of it. But the Assistant Director was still staring down at her. "Sir, let me handle this, at least for the next day or two. I think Mulder needs rest and real food. If he disappears again, well, then maybe we should reevaluate the situation. But until then, I think we'd be overreacting if we called in EAP." In the final analysis, she just couldn't do that to him. It would be exactly what *they* wanted--to nail the coffin shut. And with that realization, she knew she would have to deal with Mulder alone, by herself. He could see Bill Patterson's face, the horror of his deeds reflected in his eyes. And the looks in the eyes of the other agents as Patterson was escorted to the waiting police car. The looks that said 'that could never be me, I'd never let that happen', the looks that showed just how easy it was to lie to yourself so that you could get up in the morning, go to work and do the same thing all over again. He saw Patterson being led to his cell, saw him cowering on the bed as the door was slammed and locked behind him. Patterson had his face covered with his hands, the hands that still had a covering of clay from the gargoyle model that encased his latest victim-- his partner. And then Patterson removed the hands from his face, let them fall to his lap and as he looked up, Mulder realized it was not Bill Patterson sitting in that cell--it was himself. And he screamed, just as surely as Patterson had done before him. A hand came down on his shoulder and Mulder jumped. He tried to catch his breath, to calm down, to get the sweat out of his eyes. He blinked, and saw Scully, kneeling next to where he was laying on the couch in his apartment. She was talking, but he couldn't understand what she was saying, like the mute button had been accidentally hit on. All that he could hear was the faint echoes of his own screams, and Patterson's. "Mulder. Mulder, it was just a dream. Just a dream. You're all right. You're in your apartment." She was running out of soothing things to say and he still didn't look like he knew where he was or even that she was speaking to him. she reminded herself. "You know, when I was back in Investigative Support Unit, working under Bill, I would have *killed* for a weekend. Two whole days, 48 hours, would have seemed like I'd died and gone to heaven! Oh, there were a couple of times. But more likely than not, if I did get a Saturday, on Sunday afternoon I'd get called in on another case. Or the case would last through the weekend. See, I was always the 'profiler of last resort', which meant that _every_ single time somebody got stuck, I got called." He put his feet up on the coffee table and regarded them as if they could tell him the mysteries of the earth. "At first, Bill was real good at playing to my ego. 'You're needed, Mulder.' 'You're the best, Mulder, we can't do it without you.' But that was at the beginning and it sure didn't last long. Then, somewhere he decided that praise took too much time and so he just started throwing the case files on my desk and more or less daring me to solve them. That worked the best. Because basically I thought old Bill was an asshole and the praise had never really felt real. The dares, those felt real. So I 'rose to the challenge', so to speak." He got up slowly and went into the kitchen, coming back with a bottle of Gatorade she had bought that afternoon. "Before I knew it, I was on this 'treadmill' of cases. All the really shitty stuff, that came to my desk. And not just my desk. I got the flu one time and was home throwing up my guts and when I could make it to the phone, it was Bill. He faxed the damn file over the modem and I wrote the profile right there, " he pointed to his desk. "And I threw up right in that," he pointed to his wastebasket. "Or rather, the one I threw out afterward. So you see, I didn't even get time off for good behavior." He chuckled bitterly. He just kept talking, almost as if she wasn't even in the room, not looking at her anymore, looking off into space. "It went like that for a long, long time. I don't even know how long. Sometimes I would get hauled out to do field work, on the spot kind of stuff, but not really that often, not like now. That was the worst, the field stuff. I was the 'magic man', I was just supposed to come in, wave my wand and tell them to pick up this bastard or that bastard and then disappear in a puff of smoke. But to talk to somebody, have a beer, huh, that was forbidden. It was some sort of Frigging taboo or something." "Then, this one time, I was sent out to California. San Diego, to be exact. And the agent who picked me up at the airport, well, he was a real hotshot at the wheel. The AIC had said to get me to the crime scene PRONTO, and he was going to do just that." He looked at her for the first time in a long time. "You know Scully, it really does rain in Southern California. I know that's a dumb song, but I have first hand, personal knowledge. Only it rains so hard, you can't see three feet in front of you. And the highway is slicker than the BW Parkway after a January snowstorm. We spun out, got smacked by a florist delivery van. Passenger side collision. I was wearing my seatbelt, but it screwed up my back royally. Two weeks of traction at the base hospital. And you thought Alaska was fun," he added with a sneer. "Let me tell you, Eisenhower Field was Macy's at Christmas compared to the base hospital in San Diego with the bar fights and the drug addicts. . .ah well, that's not part of the story, or maybe it is." Now that he had started, he couldn't seem to stop. "Well, the first week, I was on morphine or something like it and I was out of it, in another galaxy, really. So that wasn't so bad. Then, they didn't want me on stuff that strong for long enough to get hooked so they started to 'wean' me off it, you know the routine. And that's when it started. The black outs. I wouldn't remember these big chunks of time, sometimes two or three hours. But the nurses seemed to remember. I was a real pain in the ass during those times. Mean, let me tell you. I guess you saw some of it this morning. But I don't know, it was all second hand information to me. I guess they were telling the truth. So, in come the neurologists. I have to give them credit, at least they *looked* for a physiological reason first. Lots of x-rays, cat scans and MRIs later, I'm given a bill of health, brainwise, but the black outs are still happening. And I was still an asshole. Or maybe people were just starting to notice," he said, shooting her a wicked grin. She gave him her own 'Scully Look' and he went back to his story. "So enter the psych guys. Starting with a MSW, just to test the waters. I blew her away. Next, they brought in a Ph.D. in Psychology. No contest. Finally, the resident Psychiatrist was about to put me on some really mean shit when the black outs stopped. Just like that. No more problems. I'm cured," he had the biggest grin on his face, his arms thrown out in a gesture of victory. "I went back to DC and Reggie sort of 'scooted' me out from under Bill. And about that time, since I *knew* I wasn't Frigging cured, I started going to see Max, the hypnotherapist. In the short span of six months, I remembered Sam's abduction and found the X files. A couple of months later, I help nail Monty Props and the rest, as they say, is history." He finished off the Gatorade with one gulp. "So, you're thinking that these black outs are caused by, what, profiling?" Scully asked, when she could find her voice. "No, Scully, not the profiling, per se," he moaned. "A combination of the profiling, and working with Patterson and just getting too deep. I should have seen it coming. But to tell you the truth, Patterson played me like a cheap violin. He threw that case in front of me and 'dared' me to solve it. Just like the good old days. And the bastard didn't even realize he was doing it," he said, lips pursed, staring off into the darkened window. "So, you figure it will just go away," she asked tersely. She smiled tenderly. "Because *I* am not going to let that happen." ******************************* Fox Mulder regarded his partner for a long time. "Funny, that's not the impression I got as we left Comity," he said sarcastically. The minute the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. He also knew he was not about to take them back. Dana Scully's first reaction was to stiffen. Her second thought was that her fist would make almost perfect contact with his jaw from her current postion and he wouldn't be a problem for the rest of the night. Her third thought, the one she acted on was to finally have it out. This 'thing' had been brewing for far too long and now was just as good a time as any to get it over and done with. But in the back of her mind, she was more determined than ever to make him get the help he needed. The help he deserved. "OK, Mulder. You want to get sidetracked," she said evenly. "Fine. I'm willing, *for tonight*, to get sidetracked. But we are laying down some ground rules. One, you can only say what you really mean, so don't say it in the heat of battle. We are going to be rational about this. Two, we don't leave this room until it is all out in the open, discussed, and over. Oh, and three, we hold hands." She almost laughed at the shocked look on his face. "Are you willing to abide by those rules?" "Not exactly Marquis of Queensbury, but they'll do," he said, recovering quickly and matching her tone. He reached out and clasped her hands in his. "Ladies first." She took a deep breath. She thought for a moment. "You still blame me for giving back the tape." "That's a moot point," he countered. "The tape was stolen before we could give it back." But his eyes betrayed the fact that she had hit the mark. "So what if it was stolen. You left the decision up to me and I made it and you didn't like it. And usually that would be the end of story. But the fact that it was 'that' tape and that you almost died to keep it away from them. . ." She clenched her eyes shut tight and took several breaths. "Mulder, I have had nightmares for months about that damn tape. And I wish. . .I wish that I had never told Skinner to give it back." He could tell that it was everything she could do to keep control of her emotions, but she was doing a darn find job of it, in his opinion. But he also noticed a decided increase in her pressure on his hands. "It didn't save Missy. It didn't get me there in time to see her. . .to see her before she died. We gave it up for nothing. And I'm sorry." The tears burned in her eyes. she grinned to herself. "Feeling better," she asked. "Don't look so smug," he warned her. "I would have crashed last night anyway. You really didn't need to drag other health care professionals into it," he said, stealing her last bite of bagel and picking up the plates to put into the sink. "Oh, no you wouldn't, Mulder!" she shot back. "And you would have been in the office this morning at the crack of dawn. And once you keeled over from the amount of toxin in your bloodstream, we would have be treated to a nice ride in an ambulance," she said with mock cheeriness. "Face it, you don't take very good care of *you*." "That's why I have you, Scully. That's your punishment for tormenting me so much," he said, and this time, she could tell he was joking. Still, it was the opening she was looking for. "OK, then Mulder, let me torment you a little more. I want you to see someone." She watched as his face took on it's stubborn set and he started shaking his head. "Hear me out, Mulder. We decided last night that what you've been going through is different than anything you've experienced in the past. I think you need to talk about it with someone who can help you work through it." She watched him as he continued to shake his head and when he started to talk, she cut him off. "Mulder, look, I know that last night we got a lot of stuff out in the open. And this morning, we both feel pretty darned good. But it's just like the antibiotic. If we both assumed that you were cured simply because your fever broke, and you tossed all the rest of the orals down the toilet, you'd be sick as a dog in a month. That's the way these things work. Outward appearances can be deceiving. And I don't know about you, but I'm tired of deceiving myself." The gleam that formed in his eye was almost blinding. He had been wanting to bring this up for months, ever since New Mexico and he had always been afraid of her reaction.