Title: Bare Bones (7/?) Category: MSR, Angst, Case-file (sort of) Rating: PG for adult situations and general nastiness, some bad language too kiddies. Archive: Ephemeral Gossamer ATXC, actually anywhere, just let me know so I can visit Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were I'd be wearing better shoes. Spoilers: Its been ended for years - hasn't everyone seen them all? Thanks to Teresa *mwah* you are (as ever) fantabulous! I made this (hehe): www.geocities.com/kimogen_5 By the time the phone rang, she was dressed and was packing away her hair irons. Polished and finished, Scully felt better prepared to face the day. She continued to throw items into her briefcase as she answered the phone. "Scully." "Hope I didn't wake you Agent Scully." Skinner, sounding nervous. Her heart leapt. "No sir. Is there news?" "We have a man in custody." "Oh God!" Her resolve slipped and tears came immediately. Pulse racing, she barely dared to hope for good news. "I think you should come down here." "Of course. I'll be right there." xxx Less than thirty minutes later, Scully found herself seated at a metal table in Interrogation Room B, her back to the mirrored one-way observation window. She had no recollection of the journey over from the motel, nor meeting Skinner at the front desk. She wondered whether the suspect could hear the thudding of her heart as loudly as it reverberated in her skull. Her skin throbbed with her roaring pulse, surely enough to be visible through her crawling skin. Scully had a bad feeling about the unlikely man who perched on his chair before her and she had no idea of how to crack him. Percy Clarkson had no idea of her inner turmoil. Clarkson shifted under her steady gaze. She had said very little since entering the room over an hour ago - simply seating herself at the table and resting her elbows on the metal surface. He leered at her, pondering how things had changed since he was last arrest by a burly local cop. "Let's have a little talk Percy." Her calm alto drew a sneer that revealed small sharp teeth beneath thin red lips. His grey skin was slick with a film of sweat that glistened wetly under the harsh lights. "Where is Agent Mulder. That's all I want to know." Scully's eyebrow went up as Clarkson chuckled to himself but said nothing. She nodded and raised her chin to rest on her knuckles. She fixed him with a steady gaze. "When you're ready, Percy." Long minutes of her cool stare had Clarkson squirming in his chair. He was sweating profusely and he wasn't sure why. "What happened to the guy that was in here before?" He finally spoke, his voice breaking over the words like an adolescent. Scully raised her eyebrow scornfully and Clarkson found himself blushing. "Collecting the warrant." "Warrant?" "To search your property Mr Clarkson. We know you have Agent Mulder. It's just a matter of time now." Her hands were still curled beneath her chin and her facial expression didn't alter. Watching from the outside, Clarkson had no idea of the churning in her stomach, violent enough to make her want to vomit. Right onto the table. Clarkson's smile widened then, something between smug and relieved. "That's just it. I don't know anything about this Agent Mulder guy. Never heard of him." He grinned then. Scully felt her stomach lurch again and she straightened her spine slightly, hoping that the acid would subside and let her keep her coffee down. "So you can search all you like." Scully stood up, a wave of dizziness forcing her to rest her fingertips on the table for balance. With a certainty that she no longer felt, Scully leaned forward, right into the face of the ratty little man. He stank of stale cigarettes and sweat. "We'll see about that Percy." xxx Mulder was woken by the sound of scrabbling above. A dog. It sounded like a dog. He yelled, his throat feeling torn by the harsh sound that rose. Metallic blood tanged in the back of his mouth as his dry lips cracked and his bones ached. Mulder sprang to his feet. His trainers slapped in the muddy puddle by the end wall. He screamed, pleading for discovery, hearing the scrabbling above intensify and a bark rang out. "HELP! SOMEBODY PLEASE!" A voice shouted and footsteps thudded closer. Leaves rustled and more voices joined the first. Mulder felt his pulse race, his stomach lurching and he yelled some more. "Shut up dog!" A man's voice, southern accent. Mulder found that his own voice had died away to a barely audible croak. He stood, panting. Plastic rustled and wood splintered. Dust and plant-matter drifted down, followed by larger clumps of brick and cement. Mulder gasped, stepping back, bombarded by tumbling debris. Hehad brick dust in his eyes. With a creaking noise, followed by the snapping of wooden boards, green light descended part-way down the walls. xxx "Nothing?" "Beyond a tin of hash...nope, we got nothing we can even hold him on." Davies looked down onto her copper crown as Scully dropped her head. He watched her shoulders sag and felt ashamed. He had ridiculed her in front of his men and now he felt bad. And now he was on the wrong side of AD Skinner. Davies wished that he had never got himself involved. "Remind me of how he even came to be a suspect." Scully's eyes were narrowed dangerously. She stood back and gazed at the ASAC, levelling him with a stare that made him shift from foot to foot, wondering how he had lost the upper hand in the situation. "Have you forgotten so soon, Agent? Perhaps you should go back to the motel. You haven't been sleeping lately, have you?" Davies watched her blue eyes harden to a slate grey. He blushed. "Though your concern is appreciated, Sir, I was simply wondering how it was that Clarkson became prime suspect in this inquiry. As I see it, there was no real evidence at all to connect this man to Agent Mulder's case, other than the fact that the man was fighting with a prostitute." "We were following the details of Agent Mulder's profile..." "Agent Mulder's *unfinished* profile." "I don't need to explain myself to you, Agent Scully." "And I wouldn't expect you to, Sir. All I want is for Agent Mulder to be found. A whole night was wasted questioning this man, and three hours were lost searching his property." "I don't need you to tell me these things, Agent. This conversation is over." Davies turned and marched away, letting the double doors swing closed with a bang. Scully felt the air rush out of her lungs. She had spent too much time with Mulder; alienating the ASAC was getting her nowhere. She turned on her heel, then paused in the corridor and wondered what she was going to do next. She wanted to be out in the field, but there was nothing to be done. She felt utterly deflated and completely helpless. Skinner would know what to do. xxx She found Skinner in the squad-room of the police station. Scully marched confidently through the rows of desks, seeing her superior by the coffee machine. He turned as she reached him and handed her a cup of black coffee. "Creamer?" "I've taken to drinking it black recently." Skinner nodded and gave a wry smile. "I hear you had an *encounter* with Davies." Scully raised an eyebrow. Skinner nodded again. Scully wondered whether the AD had learned the silent language she and Mulder shared. He had been unnervingly attuned to her thoughts since Mulder's disappearance. The idea made her shiver and she pined for her missing partner with an intensity that made her gasp and frown. Skinner rested a hand on her arm squeezing slightly. Scully shrugged out of his grasp and dropped into the chair beside the coffee machine. Skinner stood, uncertain for a moment. He cleared his throat and looked away, wanting to say something comforting, but finding himself at an utter loss for words. His mouth twitched and opened, then closed. Scully looked up as he cleared his throat, but he said nothing. Three days. The days had passed agonisingly slowly, blending into one another so that Scully had to think before she knew how long Mulder had been gone. It seemed like weeks since she had felt his weight pressing her back against the sideboard in her motel room. The tang of the desert heat on his skin filled her senses for a dizzying moment, making her glad to be sitting down. She was light-headed and the racket of the squad-room filtered down to a tinny buzz in her ears. *Deep breaths* She felt eyes on her. Scully stood, surprising Skinner and sending him back a step. He stumbled and caught himself on the edge of the vending machine. Scully's hand was tight on his wrist. "What is it, Agent Scully?" She barely heard the bass of his voice, more felt it as a vibration. The room was startlingly, inexplicably bright and she looked around, stunned. "Scully?" The tang of Skinner's aftershave was sharp in her nostrils and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. She was becoming accustomed to the acid-reflux of panic in her stomach, and she ignored it as she glanced around the bright room. A man stared at her from behind the reception desk. He was tall, muscular and his tanned skin shone with sweat. As he was lead around the desk, he pulled the handcuffs that bound his wrists, making them chink tight as though he intended to break them apart. His black jeans were smeared with mud and his boots were thick with sods of clay. He trailed footprints along the floor as he walked behind a deputy. Scully watched him, her blood sluggish in her veins, the breath going out of her. Grey eyes were fixed on her as the man drew closer and he continued to watch her as the Deputy pushed him down into a chair. Skinner's voice in her ear was a low rumble. Skinner shook her and she looked up at him, startled. "Agent? Are you alright?" "I'm fine." Scully gave herself a mental shake, her vision suddenly clear. "I think I may be getting a migraine." Skinner frowned and she pulled a bottle of pills from the inside of her jacket. "I'll be fine." She searched for the man and when she found him, he was seated further away than she had thought. He had turned his attention to the Deputy and was smirking cockily at the young cop, toying with his cuffs and making the clank loudly. She frowned, wondering what had come over her. She was imagining things. Heightened senses? Perhaps it really was a migraine. Then the man looked up, directly at her. A gasp caught in her throat. "Can we find out what that man is here for? The one covered in mud." Skinner looked at her strangely. He paused, then nodded, his large body cutting a swath between the rabble. xxx The wall was brittle against his back and Mulder shivered in the darkness. He was soaked to the skin, head to toe. A droplet of water ran from his hairline, along the bridge of his nose and plopped onto his curled knees. A face had appeared high above, grinning down. The sky behind him had been white, the sudden brilliance of light forcing him to shut his eyes and back away into the shadows. He had yelled up, begged for help, screaming and hollering and weeping with relief. He remembered stumbling forward until his bare arms connected with the moist wall and his brain registered that his rescuer was yelling back at him. Mulder was still shouting, trying to keep his eyes open against the light when the water cascaded down over him. "I said 'shut the fuck up' buddy!" It was the southern accent he had heard before. The barking dog appeared at the ragged hole above, a tiny jack-russel, and Mulder saw it briefly as he gasped and floundered and blinked, his heart stopped by the torrent of frigid water. A bucket clattered against the wall, swinging on its handle with a hollow plastic sound. "I was just checkin' you were still in there, buddy-boy, seein' if you'd died already." It had taken him time to work out what the man was saying. The dog was barking still and the light was too much for him. Mulder lost his balance and fell backwards onto his ass with a winded thud. He stuttered, teeth already chattering. "The others made much more noise than you. Thought maybe you died already." Mulder's brain had finally solved the puzzle. He wasn't being rescued. And apparently it didn't matter if he yelled. It hadn't saved the others. "Please, just let me go." Laughter. Then the light was filtered into pinpoints as the cover was replaced over the jagged hole. He could still hear the dog yipping, further away, as a hammer fixed the wood back in place. Then the rustle of plastic being taped into place. Mulder had screamed and begged, long after the footsteps and the dog receded. Now he was quiet. Quiet and cold. "Come on Scully. Please."