Title: Say You Believe (Part 2)
Spoilers: "Without"
Words: 4300
Rating: PG
Summary: When one agent goes missing, two more begin a search that will eventually lead to their joining him on his quest for the truth.
Two thoughts went through Stark's head, standing on the edge of that cliff: this entire situation was insane, and John was losing his mind. She blamed the heat.
But at least for the protection of her partner, and the protection of Gibson Praise, Stark's finger never left the trigger of her Sig Sauer and the gun never left its intended target. She knew that look in Mulder's eyes. It was the same cold emptiness she had seen in people who had no soul to speak of. She had seen it in Marissa Haber, who had tried to kill her and then taken pleasure in disassembling her. She would not let anything of the sort happen to John Doggett, even if she had to shoot a fellow FBI agent...the thought of which made her more than a little nervous. She bit her lip gingerly, forcing herself to keep her aim steady.
"John, be careful!" she insisted worriedly, though she knew he always was.
Her partner had heard her but he didn't have time to pay her any mind. He was more concerned with keeping Gibson Praise out of harm's way. "Let him go, or I will be compelled to use my weapon," he told the stone-faced agent in front of him. "Now, I don't want to do that, Agent Mulder. I don't want to shoot."
And then, after everything, as if it never mattered at all, Stark watched as Mulder casually released Gibson from his grasp. The boy wisely turned and fled, and she paid no mind to stopping him because her brain was telling her something was wrong. If we're right, she thought, if Mulder came to this extreme because he believes Gibson Praise can help him or cure him or understand him, why does he now just so easily let him slip away without any sort of a fight? It didn't make sense, and as her hand wavered so did her brain.
"John, something's not right here!" she insisted.
But her partner wasn't listening. He was still talking to Mulder, still holding that gun steady as he always would. Unlike her, he never flinched. "Now, are you armed?" he asked. There was no response. "Come on, damn it. This is just stupid, Agent Mulder. Don't turn this into a movie. Just tell me if you've got a gun. It's too hot for this B.S." Still no response and he was wondering what the hell was going through Mulder's head. "All right, then, lie down. Lie down on the ground. Keep your hands out. Lay down on your belly there."
Mulder had no intention of complying. Instead, he began to walk backward toward the edge of the cliff, and both Stark and John had the same thought at the same time.
"For crying out loud, what are you doing? Agent Mulder, stay there!" he snapped, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. He holstered his weapon and closed the distance as quickly as he could, but Agent Mulder calmly and deliberately stepped off the edge into nothing. Grabbing her partner by the arm to ensure he didn't go over, Stark stood there with him as they both watched the man they had crossed the country to chase fall more than a hundred feet and land presumably dead below. For absolutely nothing.
They were still standing there staring when Gene Crane and the entire rest of the task force, who had finally pinpointed their location presumably thanks to Gibson Praise, finally turned up.
"He went over," Doggett told them. "Over the edge."
"Who?" Crane asked.
"Who do you think?" Stark retorted.
"Mulder," John supplied.
Crane, in disbelief, looked over beside them, as did half the rest of the agents, at what was Mulder's badly broken corpse. After a moment, they all took a step back. Once they were on solid footing, Stark let her partner's arm go, the two of them looking at each other, the whole task force wondering what this had all been for. Doggett knew they were expecting orders. He let out a long, slow breath.
"We'd better get down there and get the body."
****
Maybe John wasn't the one losing his mind.
Once they had all begun to move away from the face of the cliff, she and her partner lagged behind, taking their time to regroup with the task force while they gathered their thoughts about the last few days. They both needed time to process what they had just seen. Stark was distressed as she quietly walked beside him, looking down at her hands to find that they were still shaking.
She had never been comfortable - not that anyone should be comfortable, she rationalized - with drawing her weapon on a fellow agent. Even before the Haber case had made that a reality it had bothered her. She had heard the stories of the Luther Mahoney shooting, of what had happened to Lewis and Kellerman, and they had stuck with her. Then there had been what happened to Haber, and as much as she knew the woman was a stone cold sociopath, she had still been a cop. And by all accounts, she had been a fine one, at least until the day she'd watched her partner die. The scary part was that Stark, after the fact, could understand that woman. If Victor had been killed she would have been heartbroken. If John had been killed...the world as she knew it would end.
That was what it came down to. Holding that weapon on Mulder, trying to figure out a shot that wouldn't also take out her partner. Would she have the courage to shoot a fellow agent she hardly knew, who was just trying to save his own life? Would she do it if it meant saving the life of her best friend? She had absolutely no idea.
"I don't understand it," he was saying. Then he glanced at her. "You okay, Stark?"
"Yeah, I'm just thinking," she said quietly, dismissively. "It doesn't make any sense, John. Why come all the way here - why do six months worth of hiding and thieving and lying to the ones you love and then just give up because somebody points a gun in your face? He didn't fight to hang on to that boy. He didn't fight for his life. That look in his eyes wasn't even human. He was dead inside. Mulder's a man who believes, who has a cause. He doesn't just throw it all away like that."
"I don't claim to know his state of mind, Stark. And it's not like I can ask," he replied. "I just don't want to have to break the news to Agent Scully."
They made their way to one of the SUV's that had been left for them, and he slipped behind the wheel. She waited to speak again until they were well on their way, eyes fixed on some point in the distance. Maybe it would be easier to say this if she weren't looking at him. "I had a case when I was a cop, we had a guy we collared who threatened to jump off this bridge. Before we could talk him down, he went over. Decided it was better to die than go do another term in jail." She bit her lip. "I remember running over trying to see if he'd survived. I'd watched someone who honestly wanted to die."
He glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, seeing the obvious parallels. "It never gets easy when it ends this way," he said softly.
"No, it doesn't. But that guy was a wreck. He was in pieces. Mulder was going to off himself and he showed absolutely no emotion. No feeling for anyone or anything. What the hell happened to him to make him just not care anymore?"
The question hung unanswered in the air between them.
Yet when they all arrived at the base of the cliff some time later, there was no body. As if that wasn't confusing enough, a further examination of the area indicated footprints leaving the scene. Stark turned to her partner, hands on her hips, just shaking her head. "I have no explanation..."
"Yeah, you say that like you think I have one," he replied bitterly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe this isn't Mulder after all."
Stark just arched an eyebrow, not really sure what he meant by that as the other agents continued to search the surrounding area, and were subsequently dismissed by her partner to head back to the school. She was mulling all that over in her head and found herself surprisingly grateful when she saw A.D. Skinner and Agent Scully pull onto the scene. Maybe they could shed some light on the situation. She indicated with a nod of her head that she was going back to the SUV, but as she settled in the car she kept a close watch on what unfolded.
"Where is he?" Scully asked urgently. "Where's Mulder?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? I heard an agent say over the radio that you saw him."
"Oh, yeah, I saw him," John explained. "I saw him back right off that cliff there," and he pointed to the cliff above them, "and I saw him fall right over there. So did my partner."
Skinner's expression betrayed his confusion. "Then where is he?"
"He's gone."
"Come on," the Assistant Director said, eyeing the spot where Mulder had presumably landed as they approached the SUV. "He can't be gone."
"Yeah, he can't be," her partner replied, now practically beside her as he tried not to stare directly into the sun overhead, "but he is." He looked over at her. "You still doing okay?" he asked. She just nodded a little. He didn't need to be worrying about her now.
Skinner took another look at the cliff and a glance at Doggett. "That cliff there? He fell from there? It's impossible...a fall like that."
Doggett shut the open door of the SUV, beginning to walk away from it. "A cop sees things. A man drops five stories, dusts his head off and goes back to work. An old lady gets shot point blank in a Chinese restaurant, plucks the slug out of her egg foo yung. But even if Mulder survives this, what he does then is too much." He stopped some distance away, where they had found the footprints. She could see him explaining the whole thing to Skinner, or possibly trying to get it to make sense to himself.
Stark couldn't hear the rest of the conversation, not from where she was sitting in the truck. She could see the skepticism on everyone's faces. If they all agreed on one thing, it was that the man they had seen fall to his death was not Fox Mulder, which brought her back to the question they had been asking all along: was Mulder even still alive, or already dead? And who could impersonate him so well? As much as it seemed impossible, it answered her questions about his behavior, about his logic. But there was no way to explain that, not at all.
"What the hell is going on here?" she asked herself.
"I was just asking that same question," her partner replied, opening the door to the SUV and sliding in. The displeased look on his face was obvious as he tossed the keys at her.
Seeing as he normally drove everywhere, she just caught them with a confused look on her face. "What?" she asked, shoving them in the ignition. "You want to tell me what just happened out there to put you in a mood?"
"Scully wants to give me some B.S. about an 'alien bounty hunter' that can transform itself into people. Says it disguised itself as Mulder to grab the boy and take him back to the spaceship where Mulder is." He snorted. "I'll admit there are some inconsistencies, but I'm not gonna go off on some insane chase for little green men." A glance at her as she turned the vehicle around. "You come up with anything?"
"Not a damn thing, John. I wish I had something for you."
"It's not your fault." He let out a slow breath. "This whole case is starting to put me in a bad mood."
"Well, I can understand why. We've been at this what, less than a week?" she asked. "Six months behind the eight-ball, out in three-digit temperatures in the middle of nowhere." She could feel the sweat trickling down the back of her neck and ringing the collar of her blouse, and despite the fact that she'd unbuttoned it slightly to give herself some breathing room she still felt ridiculously uncomfortable. "This isn't exactly sitting around in an air-conditioned office crunching numbers on grand larceny."
"Damn straight it's not," he agreed. She watched him pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. "It's not as if Agent Mulder is an experienced undercover agent or something. He's just another guy." His voice was tight. "This is what we do, damn it. I spent eight years serving warrants on fugitives. You spent two chasin' them across the country, talking them out of things. A decade of experience between the two of us and we can't find him."
She winced a little. He was saying exactly what she had been feeling for the past hour. She wasn't about to say that she was a genius when it came to fugitives (and especially not when it came to crisis negotiation), but she had always felt fairly confident that she had learned a lot in her two years alongside Victor. Not to mention she'd had three years to learn from her partner and now that he needed something to go on, she was coming up empty. She sat there in silence for a moment, not sure what to say.
"Adverse circumstances," she said quietly after a moment. "Something will happen."
By the time they rolled up on the school, the agents from the task force had corralled everyone out front, having begun a thorough search of the premises. She parked the SUV and joined her partner as they met up with Agent Crane.
"Any sign of him?" Doggett asked.
Crane shook his head. "Not according to these people. We went through the school."
Together, they all glanced out at the staff and students. Stark doubted they were lying. They had no reason to. Standing at her partner's hip, she heard him mutter, "You're better than this." Realizing she was talking to himself, she merely reached between the two of them and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze before letting it go. He knew she supported him and she didn't want to give Crane any ideas.
As it turned out, Gene had heard him anyway. "Sir?" he asked, a little confused.
"He's got to be here somewhere," her partner decided. "Let's search the school again."
****
Hours went by and they searched the school twice. They had dispatched a rolling ground cordon to expand the search into the surrounding area, and had even called in not only search and rescue, but helicopter support. It was dark outside by the time Stark had another spare moment to confer with her partner, updating him on the status reports they were getting from those outside sources, who had as of yet turned up nothing.
She saw him looking at her and glanced at him, confused. "What? Did I miss something?" she asked.
"No, you didn't miss something. You look like hell, Stark." He gave her a glance over. He knew her well enough to see the fatigue in her body language, not to mention the sweat and dirt accrued from an entire day in the Arizona desert. "When was the last time you slept?"
"I don't know, probably last night before I came into work. Before we left D.C." She shook her head. "I'll go check on the search teams..."
He caught her by the forearm. "Hey. Go find one of the SUV's, get some rest. Half an hour. You're no good to me if you run yourself into the ground." The look on his face said this was not negotiable. He knew he had that kind of pull over her if he needed it, and he chose to exercise it then. Giving her arm a gentle squeeze, he insisted, "I'll call you if we find anything."
Stark nodded a little and went to do as she was told. Sleeping in the back of a Bureau SUV was not comfortable, especially when she hadn't showered or really eaten either, but she had done this sort of thing many times over the years on stakeouts and she got used to it. Eventually, she fell into a light, fitful sleep as the fatigue caught up with her.
She didn't know how much time had passed, but she was jolted awake by the keen wailing of sirens.
Immediately throwing herself from the car, she saw that it was an ambulance. Now scared and worried, she first made sure that she had eyes on her partner, and ran to join him. Only when she moved to his side did she see the other agents carrying out Agent Landau, who looked in pretty bad shape as they loaded him aboard. John was just staring blankly, pain and frustration on his face. She decided against asking him anything, just settled her hand on his back, at least grateful that it wasn't him being taken to the hospital.
They stood there in silence for a long time, as the ambulance peeled away, before he turned his head and looked at her. "I need you to do me a favor."
"Absolutely, John."
"Keep your eyes on Agent Scully and Assistant Director Skinner. I think they know where that boy is, and if they don't, they at least know more than they're letting on," he told her, before he guided her back toward the school.
****
It was following her partner's direction that led Stark to be behind the wheel of an SUV at almost one in the morning, which in her condition she was fairly sure was a hazard of some sort. But he had asked her to do the surveillance, and she had tracked Skinner from the desert and now en route to a local hospital. Phoning in her location to her partner, she was told that he was going to send additional units to back her up. No doubt, he didn't want a repeat of what had happened to Agent Landau, especially not to her or to Gibson Praise - their only lead in this whole case.
Much to her annoyance, said backup was led by Gene Crane, but they were too tired to get territorial with one another. They elected just to avoid each other instead. Agent Mosley, whom she'd genuinely come to like, was there too. They set up appropriate perimeters, telling hospital personnel to go about business as usual while they set up cover angles and had the nurse check every twenty minutes to confirm that Praise was unharmed. Stark spent her time right by the front door, hand on her gun just in case, which was how she laid eyes on her partner when he and Agent Scully arrived.
"Where's the boy?" Scully asked urgently.
Crane spoke up first. "Door at the end of the hall, with A.D. Skinner."
"Are you sure about that?"
Mosley nodded confidently. "Why don't you get yourself a visual in the exterior window. The night nurse has been checking the boy every twenty minutes -- he's fine."
Crane continued, a near-smugness dripping off his voice, "We have hospital personnel going about their business. We're just laying back, waiting for Mulder."
Stark wanted to smack that out of him as she moved a little closer to her partner. She was pretty sure if Scully was asking, then something was wrong, never mind how that might have happened. The how would be irrelevant compared to solving the damn problem.
"No one's getting past us, Agent Scully," Mosley insisted. "No one's gotten past us."
Scully wasn't nearly as cocky. "You believe that, Agent Doggett?"
At that point, Stark didn't just by following her gut instinct, so she was unsurprised when her partner didn't either. She watched as he and Scully moved decisively down the hall to the room where Gibson Praise had been sequestered, and was moving to catch up when Scully came almost immediately back out, announcing "There's no one in that room."
They'd been beaten again. She got there just in time to move past Mosley and Crane, to see her partner staring at the window, which refused to open. "The window doesn't even open," he said needlessly, frustration creeping into his voice. "How's a grown man and a boy get out of the room except by that door?"
"Only one way I can think of," Stark replied, jerking her head upward.
Her partner glanced at her, then up at the ceiling. Pulling his flashlight off his belt, he carefully leaned up and moved the dropped ceiling tiles. Very quickly, he immediately dropped back down.
"A.D. Skinner's up there, he's hurt," he snapped. Glancing at his agents, he said, "You two get a doctor in here. Stark, you come with me," he told her, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him. "Scully's walking right into a whole hell of a lot of trouble."
That didn't even begin to describe it. By the time they reached their colleague, she had crumpled to the floor amidst the remains of a shattered glass wall. Gibson Praise was standing there, but whoever - whatever - had been impersonating Skinner had been reduced to an ever-expanding green liquid on the floor. As her partner moved to Scully and picked her up off the floor, Stark didn't need to be told what to do next. She used her speed to its best advantage, going to find help.
Heaven knew they were all going to need it after this, and they still hadn't found Fox Mulder.
****
A day later, everything should have been back to normal. The task force had returned from its sojourn to Arizona, and with all leads exhausted, had packed it in and returned to their original assignments. Agent Scully, Agent Landau and Assistant Director Skinner were all in stable condition awaiting further treatment at Washington Memorial. Gibson Praise had been made a ward of the state with the appropriate special protections, which John had insisted upon. Her partner was currently upstairs delivering the task force's final report to Deputy Director Kersh.
Stark, meanwhile, had finally gotten that much deserved shower and a change of clothes. She was sitting at her desk working on a report of her own. Not that she needed to write one, considering that she wasn't the one in charge, but she wanted to. She always backed up her partner and she thought that maybe writing down some of what she had seen would make it make sense in her head. Now she understood why they had wanted Mulder found so badly. Obviously it wasn't just a joke anymore. He was definitely involved in some very confusing and very dangerous things. No doubt they could spend a lot more time going through those things, but they had lost enough, and without concrete proof of Mulder's existence it wasn't worth the risk.
She was still working when the office door opened and her partner walked in. Instead of looking relieved, however, he looked as if he'd been punched in the gut. "Don't submit that report," he advised her.
"What? Why?" she asked, stopping what she was doing. When she saw his face, she understood. "What did Kersh say to you?"
"That he doesn't believe half of what happened out there, not that I expected him to." He was looking at her, as if there was a rest of that sentence, and she just continued to stare at him. "What? Come on, John. What the hell is going on?"
Finally he spoke again. "I've been reassigned to the X-Files until I can get Kersh the answers he wants."
Stark just sat there and stared at him, her mouth hanging open. Now she knew why he had told her not to turn in her report. He had told the truth and it had gotten him demoted. If she did, it would likely do the same, if not worse. "So that's it?" she said, unable to keep the shock out of her voice. "You're just gone? For doing your job? And what happens to me?"
"He doesn't want you there. I'm on my own." Reading her mind, he said, "You try to follow me, it'll be your badge." He bit his lip and for the first time in a long time she saw him looking genuinely recalcitrant. This was three years of a partnership and a friendship coming to an end and there were no words for the heartache that they were both feeling dawn on them. "I'm so sorry, Stark," he told her.
"Don't apologize." She got up from the desk and before he could stop her, pulled him into a tight hug. "Don't you dare fucking apologize."
He didn't say anything, just held her close to him, resting his chin on her shoulder. Stark buried her face in her partner's neck, and squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry as she thought about him not being there the next day. It was useless, and she quietly began to cry in his arms.
Two thoughts went through her head: she would be lost without him. And that she had someone to blame for it.