My Alibi

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Disclaimer: All characters belong to Chris Carter and are being used for non-profit entertainment only. Lyrics to "My Alibi" belong to Duncan Sheik. All words in <> are lyrics.

<Let's quit this town just look around>

<There's nothing here to keep us alive>

<Let's quit this town just look around>

<There's nothing here to keep us alive>

My Alibi

by Arial Dagger

Part One:

His feet hit the ground in a steady rhythm and his blood was pounding through him, driving him on with adrenaline rush after adrenaline rush. It was exhilarating, it felt great, but it also scared the daylights out of him. So he kept running.

The footsteps behind him were growing louder, getting closer and closer with every inhuman step.

I'm corner in a dark alley, he though. There's no where to run but that doesn't mean there isn't somewhere to hide.

Quickly, he ducked into some shadows and stood there, holding himself quietly still. The thing, whatever it was, passed him and kept right on going, almost as if it had never been chasing him at all.

He sighed with relief and stepped out of the boarded up doorway he had been standing in. This time he had been lucky, this time he had gotten away from it. But he knew they would send it out after him again. He knew. He had to get away.

*****

His fist struck the door with a harsh rapping sound. He hoped it would wake her. Nervously, he glanced around the hall and then knocked again, more insistently this time. Under his breath he murmured, "Come on. Wake up. Wake up."

The lock in the door clicked back audibly and then the knob was turning. She stood in the open doorway, sleep mused red hair clinging to her pale face. Now her blue eyes were squinting, looking past sleep, attempting to make out the figure in front of her.

"Mulder," she whispered, a whisper as soft as the beat of butterfly wings, and then she stepped forward, enclosing him in a tight hug.

A smile spread over Mulder's face as he looked down at her head covered in fine red hair and hugged her back. He knew that she'd be here for him, she always was.

Finally, the small woman pulled away from him and looked at his face. She studied his eyes, two hazel orbs that shone and danced in the dim lights of the hall, and she examined his face, which was covered in many scratched and nicks. One of her pale hands came up to brush a strand of his dirty, dark brown hair behind his ear as she asked, "Is it really you?"

Mulder's eyes filled with tears at her words. How could she not know it was him? How could she doubt? How could...But then he saw her eyes. Blue as ever but they were weary now, they flitted about, watching the shadows and the play of the light. She had turned as paranoid as he during his leave.

So instead of saying something that would upset her, and by upsetting her, hurt him, he simply smiled and assured her. "Yes. Scully. Yes, it's me."

Slowly, as though wanting to be totally, completely sure, she nodded and then even let a smile light up her pale face. Then she grabbed his hand and pulled him inside her apartment. "Are you being chased?" she inquired as she locked the door behind him.

"Not at the moment, Scully, but I'm sure they'll be sending someone soon," Mulder muttered as he sank down onto her couch.

"Who's `they'?" she questioned, sitting down next to him.

For a long moment, Mulder didn't answer her, he just looked at her, watched her, like it was the first time he had ever seen her. In the months he had been gone she had gotten leaner, all extra weight melted off by worry and training. The paranoia had taken its toll on her as well. Her eyes were restless, never keeping still on one thing for very long, they were always searching, constantly looking, wanting to know, waiting to be able to see everything. Her skin had gotten pale, almost white, and, here and there, he could see a freckle, a tiny patch of color amidst her ivory skin. The red hair was longer now and, if it was possible, more brilliant and fiery, made that way by belief and heartache.

Scully tapped her foot on the floor expectantly and insisted, "Mulder, who's `they'?"

"I'm sorry, Scully," he breathed and started to rise from the couch.

"Where are you going?"

"Away," his voice had turned cold and flat, a monotone to drive her away, to keep her out so she wouldn't get hurt, so he wouldn't hurt her again.

But as he stepped away he felt her hand tighten around his and he heard her whisper in his ear, "Don't go, Mulder. Please. Don't leave me again."

I can't turn around, Mulder thought. I won't turn around.

Her fingers tightened around his, pleading and begging even as he tried to steel his heart enough to pull away. He ended up turning around and found himself lost in the swirling pools of emotion that had been her eyes.

"You won't leave me, will you?" Her voice barely managed to find its way to his ears. It was not cold in the room but Scully was shaking like a leaf with fear and sadness. He was standing right there, looking at her, his eyes growing hard and his fingers trying to get free. She wasn't going to let him go. Not again. Not again.

Mulder sighed and averted his eyes, tired of being sucked into the depths of her clearing blue eyes, sick of feeling so lost and homesick. The only thing he wanted, the only thing he could want right now, was a chance to rest, a little down time so he could be off like lightning when the bad guys were sent after him. Something in his heart, though, would not let him do that to Scully. Not again.

After a slight pause, he reached his free hand out to brush her cheek and promised, "No, Scully, I'm not going to leave you."

The small woman standing in front of him nodded once and let his hand fall from her fingers. With quick, purposeful steps, a habit she must have recently acquired, she strode into the kitchen and started the task of making coffee or sandwiches or something like that.

Mulder stopped watching her frenzied movements after a few minutes. Instead he focused on the soft couch and the rich, homely smell that was invading his nostrils. No matter how much Scully had changed in his absence, she was the same inside. She had soft pillows littering the house and case files strewn here and there about the living room.

She's still my Scully, Mulder though to himself as the sweet scent of roasted coffee filled his nose. Inside she's still the woman I've known for such a long time. The woman I trust. The woman I love.

He smiled one of his rare smiles at her as she bustled around in the kitchen making food he wasn't going to eat and coffee he wouldn't drink. Moreover, the last thing Mulder saw before se drifted into a much-deserved deep sleep was the old warm, teasing smiled he was used to seeing on his partner. The smile that was usually hidden behind scientific research and fear that when it was shown, it was the greatest smile on earth.

When Scully stepped out of her kitchen, she found Mulder peacefully asleep on her couch. After shaking her head a couple of times, she kissed his forehead and let a small prayer slip from her lips. "God, let him sleep well. Let there be no nightmares for him tonight."

Part Two:

The first rays of sunlight whipped their fiery tail across his face, trying with all their might to wake him. Mulder simply paid them no mind and rolled over, turning his face away from the hot illumination spilling through the blinds over Scully's clean windows. It had been so long since he'd had a decent night's sleep. Weeks and weeks of never taking the time to lay down and relax, day after day of resting behind abandoned buildings with his eyes half open was finally catching up to him, had caught up with him.

The cool shadow that rested upon his cheek made him stir. It had been so warm a moment before, so bright and hot, that the sudden chill drug his fears to the surface.

Cold. That monster, the thing that had been chasing him, the being made out of patches of swaddled nighttime and broken dreams of men, was cold. The monster was wrapped in coldness and it sought out the heat, it sucked all the heat away, until everything was cold. Cold.

Mulder started to shiver under the heavy blankets as his peaceful dreams were plunged into the nightmarish images of the monster, of the being. There was no sense, no belief or logic to be found in this ever-increasing swatch of shadow. He dimly became aware of soft, mumbled cries and pleas escaping his throat into the icy air. Yet, even in sleep, he could make out the words, "Help, Scully. Help."

Warm fingers traced over his jawbone, brushing tangled strands of hair away from his face. Then her words, soft and drifting in the warming honey-thick air found his ears, soothed him and laid the nightmares to rest. "Mulder. Mulder, shhh. I'm here. I'm here." Her wonderful, reassuring words.

"Scully," his voice was thick with sleep and the word was mumbled and slurred but discernible. "Stay, Scully. Stay," he pleaded through dry lips.

Mulder thought he heard her laugh slightly as she stepped away from the couch, the steps of her shoes audible on even the plushest carpet. And he was afraid, afraid because she laughed, scared because no words of reassurance drifted from her lips. Was it possible that she had changed so much in so little a time?

But at the whisper that finally filled his ears became clear, his fears were quieted and a smile actually darted across his face.

"Forever, Mulder. Forever and a day. Always." Then her voice faded away, leaving only his mind to replay the lovely, spider silk words.

*****

Hazel eyes shot open and Mulder quickly sat up on the couch, nearly falling over the edge as he did so. Something had woken him.

As usual, his first thoughts were for Scully. He wanted her to be okay, he needed her there, standing in the kitchen doorway, looking at him, and telling him that she had just dropped a pot and, "Go back to sleep, Mulder". Right now that was the thing he longed to hear, not I love you or marry me but "Go back to sleep, Mulder" in a gentle voice with a small smile.

However, Scully didn't walk out of the kitchen and she didn't say, "I dropped something. Go back to sleep, Mulder." She didn't come so Mulder was worried.

As he threw the covers, floral sheets and a yarn quilt, off, he looked for his gun. No there, not there. Not anywhere. He almost screamed in frustration.

"Scully," he called out, unable to keep himself silent any longer. Unwilling to keep his fears inside, to just walk through the apartment until he found her hurt, dead, whatever.

No answer.

"Scully!" he repeated, louder this time, the nervousness pushing itself into every syllable, the fear creeping up into his throat, threatening to strangle him.

"Be quiet, Mulder," the voice lingered through the darkened spaces. "Just be quiet."

He turned then, fear turning into anger as he recognized the voice. It was a smooth voice, unaffected by the world around it, untarnished by the foul air it breathed. A very soothing voice. One he had heard too many times in his life.

"You," Mulder growled as he turned to face the direction the voice was coming from.

The lean, lithe form of Cancer Man sat in one of Scully's finely upholstered chairs. A cigarette hung from his fingers and the smoke billowed into the air to form a cloud above him. He wore a three-piece suit that looked comfortable, almost as if the suit had become his causal attire and anything besides was constraining.

After taking a drag off the cigarette and blowing a smoke ring, he locked eyes with Mulder and repeated, "Be quiet, Mr. Mulder."

Hot anger burned through Mulder like wildfire, spreading on and on, burning everything it touched. It was all he could do not to walk over and beat the man within and inch of his misbegotten life.

"After everything you've done to us, everything you've put my partner and I though, you expect me to be quiet?" Mulder hissed through his teeth as he took a step closer to the old man.

Cancer Man held up one wrinkled hand and looked at the man before him. Fox Mulder had grown. He was no longer running for some elusive quest, for an answer to a truth that could only be pried from the lips of the dead. Now Mulder was searching this life for more. He searched for a life that he could enjoy with Scully, a life away from the monsters and the shadows. He even wanted a life away from the very thing that had made him a man; Mulder wanted out of the X-Files.

"We are no longer such enemies as you remember, Mr. Mulder," Cancer Man told him as he lowered his stark blue eyes and looked at the floor.

"What do you mean?"

"I speak the truth now, Mulder."

Mulder's hazel eyes grew wide with shock. The truth! Cancer Man was sitting there harking to him about the truth. "You don't know the truth."

"I know more than you do. Ask yourself this, Mr. Mulder, you have been gone for a long time, whoever said that things don't change?" After speaking he blew more smoke into the air and tapped the loose ashes into an ashtray on the coffee table.

Scully never used to have ashtrays in the house, Mulder thought but he said, "I don't believe that you have changed."

"His loyalties have changed, Mulder," Scully's voice found him as he heard the front door shut and the lock being slid into place.

"Scully?" he questioned as he turned to face his former partner.

"It's like he says, Mulder. You've been gone a long time and things have changed," she replied as she crossed the room to set down a few bags of groceries.

Turning his back on Cancer Man, trusting him only because Scully seemed to trust him, Mulder locked eyes with her. In her clear blue eyes, he saw a trickle of remorse and pity, remorse that she had lost him for so long and pity because he was now playing catch-up in a world he once ruled.

Finally, the words Mulder had been toying with slid from his lips. "I was only gone for eight months."

The smile that showed on Scully's face was one of pure and utter embarrassment, not for herself but for him. "Mulder," she spoke softly. "A lot of things can happen in eight months."

Instead of arguing any more, Mulder just shook his head and started to walk towards the door. As he walked his whisper danced in the air. "Well, maybe things have changed too much."

Just as his fingers were tightening around the doorknob, he felt Scully's hand on his shoulder and heard her anguished voice in his ear. "You said you wouldn't leave me again. Please don't leave, Mulder."

Steeling himself, ready for the all too knowing eyes of Dana Katherine Scully, Mulder faced her and sighed. He let his fingers trace her cheek and brush the errant red hair off her face before he spoke. "I'm not leaving you, Scully. I'm never leaving you again. But, there are things I have to do. You understand?"

Scully nodded and squeezed his hand before steeping away from him, giving him the room, and her silent consent, to leave. "I understand, Mulder. Just...just make sure you come back."

"Always." And with that he closed the door behind him and was gone.

Part Three:

"Is he gone?" Cancer Man's voice rolled through the small apartment, trapping Scully with his words.

Clutching her hands together to hide the shaking, she turned to face him. Paleness lingered over the edges of her face, making the red hair that clung to her cheek look so bright. Slowly, gathering her resolve into a tight ball that weighted down her stomach, she said, "Yes, sir. He has gone...for now."

Cancer Man shook his head and took a long drag on the Morley cigarette before speaking. "He won't be coming back. Ms. Scully. They won't let him come back to you. Not this time."

Scully's clear blue eyes widened and, instinctively, her fingers crept up to wrap around the delicate gold cross hanging around her neck. "What do you mean?" she questioned.

"Exactly what I say. Nothing more, nothing less."

Elusive, she thought. As elusive as ever. Riddles for answers and the weight, the balance of human lives for every question.

"What will happen to Mulder?" her voice shook just a tad and she tried to hide it, had to hide it. He could not know this. If Cancer Man knew this, he could destroy her; he could destroy everything that meant anything to her.

Silence descended upon the two as Cancer Man puffed on his cigarette and delighted in seeing how many different shapes he could make with the smoke. Then, finally, after letting Scully ponder the worst he answered. "He will die." It was a bland statement, devoid of life and emotion, almost as if he were talking about a television character or a man in a book not a real, live person, not Mulder.

There were no words left for her to speak and, even if there had been, Scully wouldn't have trusted herself to say them without breaking down and sobbing. Instead, she just stood there, leaning against the closed door and shaking her head back and forth very slowly.

Cancer Man saw her. "I'm sorry, Ms. Scully. I know how much he means to you. I don't want to see him die but...it is what will happen."

Her voice came back to her in a hurry and this time it didn't wobble, it didn't shake, it seethed. "Can't you do something," Scully demanded and started to pace the floor.

"I no longer have the resources, the connections, to help him, to save him. I have been cut off from that world, Ms. Scully. The moment I stepped forward, the instant I told you that Mulder was okay, that he was alive, I was cut from the circle. This is out of my hands," he answered her sounding somewhat sorry.

Now she stopped pacing and came to rest in her kitchen, arms propped up on the counter, eyes staring blankly ahead, thinking, planning. "Okay. Okay, that's fine. I can get through this without your help. I can save him. I've done it before."

The only answer she got from Cancer Man was a slow shake of the head as he put his cigarette out and walked to the door. His last words faded into the still air as he closed the door behind him. "I'm sorry, Ms. Scully, but there's nothing you can do to help him now."

*****

Mulder was well aware of the ground beneath his feet and he knew where he was, outside Scully's apartment, waiting. Things would be different this time. He trusted Scully, loved her, but he couldn't trust Caner Man because she did. He needed answers, he wanted answers.

The door to the apartment building opened and the Cancer Man walked out. His steps were still fluid velvet but his posture had taken a toll. He seemed to slump now, as if he though that being closer to the ground would hide him, would protect him.

Mulder wasn't buying the lost puppy dog act. Not now, not ever.

As Cancer Man walked past his hiding corner, Mulder reached out and grabbed his trenchcoat. An instant later he had thrown the older man against the wall and was glaring at him. "What evil plan do you have cooking now?" he growled.

The man laughed and looked at Mulder with hazy blue eyes. "None. I'm not in the business of evil plans anymore, Mr. Mulder."

As thoughts of murder raced through his head, Mulder's bright hazel eyes narrowed. "Like I'm really supposed to believe that."

"Ask your partner, Fox. For I am finally telling you the truth." There was something in the old man's eyes, something soft and lonely. As though he missed what he had once had, the life he had once lived.

As if sensing Mulder's thoughts, Cancer Man laughed and told him. "Keeping secrets away from everyone was my life, Fox. Now it is gone and I have nothing to do."

All sympathy that might have resided in Mulder's mind was blown into a thousand pieces by those words. After releasing Cancer Man, he stepped back and looked at him. What he saw was a defeated old man. An old man whose life had been dashed away, who had no dreams, no identity anymore. It sickened him. So the only thing he muttered before going into the apartment building was, "Stay away from Scully. I don't want her hurt again."

As the door swung closer behind him, Mulder thought he heard Cancer Man call to him and say, "If you don't want her hurt, then maybe, you should stay away from her."

*****

As he stood in the hallway, head resting against her door, he heard strains of music from inside and, every once in a while, a small sob. The first thought that flashed across his mind was to go and beat Cancer Man to a bloody pulp. Fortunately, sense won over instinct and he knocked lightly on the door.

Once he had owned a key to her apartment. That had been a long time ago and he was sure that the key was long gone and, even if it wasn't, the locks would surely be changed.

He barely heard her muffled, "Who's there?"

"Mulder," he called out, pressing his forehead even harder against the door.

He heard her footsteps, the soft, strong footsteps that were even audible on carpeted floor. Then the door opened.

Scully stood before him, wiping tears from her eyes. All the crying had made her beautiful blue eyes puffy and red. Mulder could not recall ever seeing her as upset as she seemed now.

"Scully. Scully, what's wrong?" he asked as he gathered her small form into his long arms.

"He said you weren't coming back. He said they were going to kill you," she sobbed into his shoulder.

Anger flashed through him again. Cancer Man had been trying to hurt her. That rotten, scum sucking...

Mulder hugged Scully tighter and whispered into her ear, "I may go away but I'm always going to come back to you. Always."

Something akin to a smile flickered across Scully's face as she and Mulder walked into her apartment and closed the door.

*****

In the hallway shadows, something, someone looked out, and began to quietly laugh.

To Be Continued...

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