92 : Double Blind
Title: Double Blind
Spoilers: "Audrey Pauley"
Words: 6278
Rating: PG
Summary: With the life of a colleague on the line, Stark finds herself trusting in something she can't see and learning things about herself she'd never known.
"Don't get too down," Stark assured her brother, giving him a look. "How many times have we said it? It only takes one moment to win the game."
Kevin Patrick nodded slightly. "Maybe I'm just feeling cynical today, I don't know," he said with a shrug as he leaned back in his seat. "Or maybe it's our anemic team batting average."
They were sitting in their usual season ticket seats at Camden Yards, just off home plate down the third base line, watching the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. These had been the same seats they'd had since the late eighties and despite the fact that he could be up in a team box somewhere, he enjoyed just watching the game with his sister, just like old times. If only because they hardly saw each other.
"You and your numbers," she replied with a chuckle as she took a drink of her soda. "All the statistics in the world can't quantify heart and effort."
She was about to say something else, but her cell phone vibrated at her hip and as he watched her answer it, Kevin sighed. The FBI was always calling. He knew she'd turned down having drinks with her partner and her colleague to meet him already. And if it wasn't her phone, it'd be his, sending him to scout somebody for a possible trade. They never got enough time together.
"Yeah, John," she said, and he somewhat smiled. He liked her partner; the guy was a good man and he wouldn't call without a good reason. Then Stark's face fell almost instantly and Kevin felt every muscle in her body tense. "What happened? Oh, God. I'll be right there. Hang on, okay? I'm on my way."
She snapped the phone shut and glanced at her brother. "Agent Reyes was in a car accident. She's critical. I've got to go."
"Hold on." He was already out of his chair with her. "Where are they taking her?"
"Virginia General, it's in McLean," she supplied quickly, not even looking as she grabbed her jacket. "It's about an hour out without traffic."
Kevin put his hand on her arm. "You're gonna hit traffic," he said as they stepped out onto the main concourse. Glancing up over his shoulder, he bit his lip. "Stay here. I'm gonna see if I can get you the plane."
****
The Orioles' corporate jet touched down at Reagan National half an hour later, and Kevin had arranged a police escort to pick her up and drive her the remaining distance to McLean. Stark knew she owed him a major thank-you for whatever he'd done to convince Andy MacPhail to loan him the private plane and call the cops, but she didn't have time to give it to him beyond a hug goodbye as she ran to meet the waiting squad car.
By the time she reached Virginia General, it was just under an hour after that fateful phone call, and she was out of breath and fearful. The way she looked, however, was nothing compared to the way she found her partner. Like anyone who had become friends with a colleague, he looked devastated.
"John," she said, his name spilling from her lips at the shock of seeing him that way. Especially after everything he'd just been through with his coma, it all had to be so much for him.
He glanced up at her and she saw grief and gratitude in his eyes. Before she could close the distance between the two of them, he stood and pulled her into a fierce hug that threatened to crush her ribs, no doubt glad that she hadn't been there after all. "I'm okay, I'm fine," she said needlessly. "What happened? Do you know...?"
Doggett pulled back to look at her. "We went out for a drink after work. She dropped me off at my place. Got hit by a drunk driver." His voice was strained. "They don't think she'll make it."
"Jesus." Stark swallowed hard, unable to keep from being reminded of her older sister, who had also been killed by a drunk driver four years earlier. But she swallowed that; it wasn't time to wallow in that, unless her grief could help her partner. Carefully, she went to sit down with him. "What can I do to help?"
He laughed humorlessly. "I've been asking myself that since I got here," he admitted. After a moment he looked at her. "It's bad enough. Then I think that if you'd been here tonight you would've been in the same damn car and I could have lost both of you..."
She put a finger to his lips. "Hey. Don't." Then she took his hand, lacing her fingers through his and holding on tight. "Agent Reyes is a tough woman. She'll pull through this. Maybe the prognosis will improve with time." No matter the fact that she and Monica tended to disagree, she knew that the other woman was a friend and she'd leaned on Reyes for help before. Now it was her turn to repay the favor.
They sat there in silence for a long moment, interrupted only by the sound of someone else approaching. Stark glanced up to see Dana Scully, and she had to admit the mere presence of the doctor and veteran agent was comforting.
"Hell of a thing to wake up to, huh?" Doggett said absently, looking at her as she sat down on his other side. "We stopped after work. She had a beer."
"Well, the man who hit her had fifteen," Scully pointed out. "Don't do this to yourself, John."
Stark's jaw hung open slightly at how someone could even be conscious after that many drinks, but she shut it and just held on to her partner. That was all she could do, was stay with him and support him. They stayed that way for a long few minutes before they went to see their colleague. Scully flipped through the charts, Doggett keeping his eyes on her while Stark noted grimly that every line on the monitor was flat.
"It's true, John," Scully said after a moment. "She's gone."
"I don't accept that," he retorted, shaking his head. "Look at her breathing. Her heart's still beating. There's got to be hope."
"There's no measurable electrical activity in her brain. Brain death is indeed death, John." Scully watched him looking down at the prone form of his colleague and friend. "I'm sorry."
Stark glanced at her partner, putting a hand on his back. She could feel the tension in his muscles. There was no denying what was in front of them, but at the same time she believed in what Scully was saying. The monitors couldn't lie. After a moment, he glanced up at her and she saw the grief in his eyes.
"What do you believe?" he asked her. "You think she's still in there, don't you?"
She swallowed hard. In her gut, she wasn't so sure. Yet she couldn't bring herself to break his heart any further. "If you believe it," she said slowly, "I can believe you."
****
It was impossible for her not to think about Lisa.
After all the circumstances were almost exactly the same: T-boned by a drunk driver, on the verge of death. Stark's older sister had pulled through the surgery but hadn't managed to last the night. She had passed on before Kevin could get to the hospital to say goodbye, something which had haunted him ever since.
It had also been a turning point in her relationship with her partner. They had only been working together just a little over a year when the accident had happened. She liked him and trusted him but they hadn't yet found that one event over which to bond. Not until he'd turned up at the gate at BWI and told her he was getting on the plane with her. It was a display of caring she'd never seen before and something she'd be grateful for all of her life. The rest after that just came naturally.
She knew she would have gone to pieces without him there. She had almost lost it as it was. It was easily one of the darkest days of her life and now they were facing the same thing with a friend. Now it was her turn to be there for her partner.
She was eyeing the photo of her sister that was still tucked in the back of her wallet when the hospital room door opened and he stepped out looking upset. "What's happening?" she asked.
"They want to pull the plug," he said bitterly. "She was an organ donor. They want to start cutting her up." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not just going to assume her life is over in a matter of minutes or hours. Not that easily."
Stark watched her partner carefully as he slumped into the seat next to her. "Nobody's saying they want to give up on her, or that you're giving up on her," she replied. "They're just going with the evidence that they have." A swallow. "Like we would do in a case."
That seemed to strike a chord with him and he eyed her warily. "And you? What are you believing?"
She was quiet for a long moment. Nobody was happy with her for what they saw as encouraging a lost cause, and truth be told she was having trouble making that leap too. But she knew what she'd accepted as the truth and she was keeping it. She was quiet for so long that he was looking at her and she tipped her head and exhaled.
"I believe in you," she said. "And if you believe we can still save her then damned if I'm not going to help you. I don't know how I can, but I trust you and that's enough for me."
He nodded slightly. "Just being here's enough for me."
****
Nobody left that hospital room. Stark perched herself against the wall, trying to reach her mother, who was Chief of Medical Research at a Baltimore hospital. As much as she hated her mother, that was about how much she cared for her partner.
Meanwhile, he was talking to Scully, looking for anything that they hadn't yet seen. "Is there anything?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
"I did note some minor swelling in the left anterior which is consistent with subdural haematoma."
"Minor swelling?" It didn't look like there was anything minor about it.
"I don't know if that means anything," she admitted. "It's not like there's an exact formula for how much damage equals death."
Still on hold with someone at Baltimore County, Stark watched her partner worriedly as he moved to the table in the room and rifled through the papers that were there. Desperation wasn't something he experienced often but she'd seen enough of it over the last two years that she knew it well and he was getting there. "What about this?" he said, handing the brain monitor readout to Scully. "This was monitoring her brain activity, right? Electrical impulses."
"Yeah. She had EEG monitoring after the point that she coded."
"Suddenly they just stop here. Right here." He had that tone in his voice now, a conviction. "And if we can learn what this is maybe we can reverse it."
He turned and blew out of the room, Scully calling after him. Stark didn't bother. She knew that her partner would do anything to save his friend's life; he had displayed that same tenacity when her own life had been on the line. And Scully's. When it mattered most, he stepped up and took control, and there was no stopping him. She would never even dare to try.
****
But their determination was yielding no answers. Nothing except him wanting to punch her attending physician. Even Stark's mother seemed at a loss. Still, if her partner didn't give up, she wasn't going to give up.
After much prodding from Scully, the two of them had finally been convinced to leave for a time. They'd gotten dinner and now she held his hand gently as they walked through a park near the hospital, both of them to a certain degree lost in their own thoughts. Trying to comfort each other with their own ruminations.
"You know, we don't agree on much," Stark said. "She and I. We come from two totally different worlds and schools of thought. Half the time I don't understand what she's talking about."
He chuckled. "That's okay. I have a few of those moments myself." The barest hint of a smile played on his lips. "She likes you, though."
"Really?"
"Yeah. She told me so." He paused, biting his tongue a moment as if considering something before he continued, "Says we're a good match for each other."
That made Stark smile. "Something I always aspire to," she replied. "You know me, John. I'll always be here for you no matter what, whatever you need, that'll never change."
"Even with everything we're going through?" he asked.
She saw the vaguely skeptical look on his face and blinked. "What makes you say that?"
"Monica told me what you said to her. When I was in that coma," he explained. "You being worried that one or both of us is gonna get killed and it's all gonna be for nothing. How pissed you are that we keep getting hurt." He watched her sputter for a second in surprise, and just put a finger to her lips. "I know we've been through hell. And trust me I'm scared of some of this stuff too."
Like at that moment. They were both scared of losing a colleague. Stark exhaled, quiet for a moment. "Looks like she sees us better than we see ourselves."
He thought on that. On other things Monica had told him and continued to tell him that he'd just ignored. "Maybe she does."
She paused then, pulling him into her arms and giving him a gentle, sympathetic hug. She felt him shift against her, leaning down to press his lips to her cheek. He seemed to linger for a moment, resting his head on her shoulder. He knew he couldn't go through this or anything else without her.
****
When they arrived back at the hospital it was late and everything had fallen silent. They walked quietly together back to Monica's hospital room.
"I'm gonna run to the bathroom," she said. "I'll catch up with you."
"Yeah, okay." He nodded a little before approaching the door to the room and noticing Monica wasn't alone. As he walked in the woman at her bedside seemed to startle. As it turned out she was a patient aide named Audrey Pauley.
"Are you her husband?" Audrey asked and he just shook his head.
"Just a friend." He chuckled.
Audrey seemed to be studying him for a moment, putting the pieces together. "The woman. The one in the hallway."
"That's my partner."
"You love her, though."
He didn't say anything, wondering to himself if everyone was seeing something he and Stark really didn't. He was used to everyone making these insinuations and just brushed it off but it unsettled him anyway. She must have seen the expression on his face, because she stood and turned to go, hesitating only in the doorway.
"She's not gone. Not her soul."
He nodded slowly, the words exactly what he wanted to hear. "I wish I could talk to her," he said. "I wish I could tell her she was right. Guess I wish a lot of things."
But Audrey was gone, and a moment later Stark walked back into the room, oblivious to anything her partner had just said. She studied his face, arching an eyebrow at the expression. "You okay, partner?" she asked softly. "I miss something?"
"No." He shook his head slightly. "You didn't miss anything."
****
They stayed there through the night. Even though there was nothing they could do, they didn't particularly want to be anywhere else. As morning dawned, Kevin called her to check on them, and Stark stepped away to take the phone call, leaving her partner sitting there, watching her go. He knew he was lucky to have her if only to keep him from going off the deep end.
Stark had told him many times that she always believed she'd survive anything because she had him. Now he understood what she meant. She was keeping him hanging on. She was the only person who believed in him, well, her and that woman he'd met last night.
That whole thing had unnerved him. How did she know what she knew? How could she make parallels when she'd never even met Stark? Monica had been telling him for months now that he was in love with his partner, but Monica had also known the two of them for some time. He thought about that, about the three or four times now she'd told him to tell her and he'd ignored her. She'd done it after Lukesh. She'd done it after his coma. And she'd been doing it in the truck just before she'd been hit.
"I don't see you ever disappointing anyone, John," she's said. "You've certainly never disappointed Stark."
He'd smiled. "You can't use her as an example. She's a special case."
"Because she's your partner, or because of something else?" Monica had replied. "Like how you smiled there when I mentioned her?"
Why would she keep pressing if there was nothing there, like they had told everyone else over the past few years?
But now was not the time to worry about anything like that. Not with Monica's life in the balance. She could continue to needle him about Stark when they got her back. He was mulling that over when he heard one of the nurses screaming for help, and he bolted from the chair to see what had happened.
When Stark came looking for him, she found him standing in the doorway, staring at the body of the ER nurse.
"This isn't a coincidence," he said. She nodded. "No, it isn't."
****
Neither of them were doctors, however, which was why they needed Scully. And needed Scully to believe them. It seemed strange, having to convince the believer of something bizarre happening, when they hardly believed in it themselves. But her partner believed it and Stark's gut was telling her something wasn't right.
"What exactly are you thinking?" Scully asked, eyeing them both as they stood over the nurse's body.
"She helped work on Monica," Doggett explained. "I started asking questions about what happened in the trauma bay and she very inconveniently drops dead."
"You're thinking that somebody murdered her to cover something up."
"The timing seems suspicious if nothing else," Stark admitted.
Her partner eyed Scully. "Well, if it were you, how would you go about it make it look like natural causes?"
"Well, I'd use a fast-acting barbiturate like pentobarbital. I'd use a small-bore needle to make it next to impossible to find an injection mark."
"Next to impossible..." He trailed off. His brain was starting to pull things together now. "That's why you're perfect for the job. Should probably test her blood, too, while you're at it, right?"
"Agent Doggett..." Scully looked hesitant, glancing between them. The look on her face said she was still skeptical. "I'm happy to do this for you two. Just don't kid yourself that this is going to somehow bring her back."
His moment of hope deflated in that second with that stinging reminder that they were, in fact, alone in their belief that Agent Reyes was still alive. He turned and walked out without another word and Stark followed close behind.
"She doesn't believe us," he muttered. "You'd think she of all people would believe us."
"If it weren't Agent Reyes in there right now? I don't know if we'd believe us," Stark admitted. She looked in her partner's eyes. Both had changed since coming to the X-Files, whether they wanted to admit it or not. She swallowed. "We just need to find more evidence to make her believe us."
They exchanged a look. Easier said than done.
****
The two of them were sitting beside each other in Monica's hospital room, trying to talk out everything swimming in their minds. It wasn't working and they'd ended up just telling stories instead.
"You remember when we were stuck in those tunnels? With that giant lizard thing?" she asked.
"Don't remind me." He looked less than thrilled. "You mean when I almost shot Agent Mulder?"
"Yeah. Fun times." She snickered but then she grew serious. "I didn't want to tell anybody what had happened to me down there. Scully and Mulder had their own stuff to deal with, and I didn't want to lay anything else on you. But somehow I knew Agent Reyes would believe me."
"And did she?"
"Yeah. But..." Stark waved a hand, not wanting to get into that now. "That's a story for another time. The fact of the matter is she always believed. And while it can be kind of annoying sometimes? Must be nice to have that kind of faith." She swallowed. "I lost my father, I wasn't home," she said. "I lost my sister, I wasn't even in the same state. Every time someone I know passes it's like I don't even have a chance to try and help. But this time I have a chance and this time I want to help. I want to say this time I'm not going to let it happen."
"We're not going to let it happen," he corrected, eyeing her. "I was thinking about you and Lisa. About her accident." A pause. "Monica's here because of me. She got involved with the X-Files because I called her. It was her decision to stay but I still feel responsible. Like she shouldn't have been here."
"You just said it," she replied. "It was her decision to stay. It was my decision to come down that stairwell too. You didn't ask me to come. But I don't see you telling me to leave."
The two of them were interrupted by the opening of the door and both surprised to see Audrey standing there. She looked at them both. "She said to get a message to her friends," she said softly. She looked past Stark at Doggett. "Your name is John, right? She has a message for you. She says you're a dog person."
"What the..." Stark started.
"Something Monica said to me before she left." He jumped from the chair and went to chase the woman down, his partner just steps behind him as he caught up to her. "Wait. Where did you get that? Who said that to you?"
"I told you," Audrey replied. "She's not gone."
****
Following her was a natural decision. She obviously knew something they didn't, and she was the only other person who seemed to agree with them. That was how they ended up in a room in the hospital basement. Audrey seemed to know they were following her, just closed the door behind them, leaving them staring at what appeared to be a full scale model of the very building they were standing in.
"You live down here?" Doggett asked her, slightly thrown.
"The...the nuns let me stay. I...I wanted to be a nurse, only I can't do much, but they let me help out."
He moved closer to the model, closer to where Stark was resting back on her heels, kneeling at its level and peering at its intricacies. "This is the hospital," he said needlessly. "You made this?" Off her nod he asked the obvious question. "Why?"
"I like to visit it. I sort of go...inside my head."
The two partners exchanged a look. Now neither of them were following. "You go...into the model?" he said slowly.
"I like it there. It's quiet. I used to have it all to myself but then some people showed up. Hospital patients. Your friend."
Stark was staring at the model. That was impossible. Unless there were bizarre miniature people and a shrink ray, but that seemed way too 1970's to be true or even plausible. Still, she knew that there was something more going on here, and the glance at her partner confirmed that he had that gut feeling too.
Not that he had any better comprehension.
"This is where you say you talked to her? Right inside here?"
"Well...not so much like tiny people in a...in a model, but...inside my head? Up here, I guess." She looked between them, saw their confusion clear as day. "You don't believe me."
"No." Stark spoke up, getting to her feet. "It's not that we don't believe you. We believe there's something happening here. But we need to understand."
"Audrey," her partner continued, "you said that you saw some other people besides my friend. Other patients? Can you tell me who they are?"
Once they'd gotten the names they knew better than to press her further. She was timid enough as it was, they couldn't risk scaring her off. They left her be, and didn't discuss the creepy miniature hospital that they couldn't figure out. What they did understand were the two names that Audrey had given them.
"Time to do a little homework," he said and she nodded. "You got it, partner."
****
"You have any idea what time it is right now?"
"No." Though, reminded, he took an absent look at his watch out of the corner of his eye.
Sitting on the table beside him she chuckled. "Do you even care?"
"Not really." He had one file and she had the other, and he was watching her chew on the end of her pen while the two of them were skimming pages upon pages of things that they didn't understand. Things they probably weren't even supposed to be looking at. The irony that they had always been by-the-book and were now unfazed by breaking into hospital records didn't escape him; maybe her speech weeks earlier about no longer being a company woman was truer than he'd once thought. "You got anything there?"
"You'd think for the daughter of a doctor I would learn to understand this better than I do," she muttered. "Same attending physician."
"There's something not right with that guy."
"Tell me about it. Unfortunately freaking me out is not an arrestable offense." She glanced over at him. "What's your COD?" A pause, realizing he didn't speak doctor either. "Cause of death."
He flipped pages. "Barreiro was declared braindead."
"So was this guy."
"You're telling me we've got two patients with the exact same cause of death and the exact same attending within this short a time frame? What are the odds of that?" he asked, snapping the file shut and looking at her. "And now a third? Like hell that's a coincidence either." He got that look in his eyes as his brain continued to churn. "I bet you he poisoned them just like he did to that nurse."
Stark rested her elbows on her knees. "That depends on if we can prove he poisoned that nurse at all."
"There's somebody who can tell us."
****
Scully was on the phone at the nurse's station when the two of them stepped off the elevator. After two years she knew that look in their eyes and hung up as they approached her. "Monica's parents are on their way from Mexico City," she explained. "They're coming to say good-bye."
"Well, they can say hello instead," he told her confidently. "Nobody's shutting off her life support system. Not with what we got." He handed her the pair of files, ignoring her confused look.
"What are these?"
"Patient files," he continued. "Both men were declared brain dead, same as her. All three have something else in common, too. Check out the attending physician."
Scully read. "Dr. Jack Preijers."
He nodded. "The guy is some kind of Dr. Death. He gets off on pulling the plug on his own patients. He did it last night to this guy Barreiro."
"Well, at the request of the family," Scully conceded.
"What if that request gets made because they don't know any better?" Stark interjected. Her partner added, "What if he poisoned Barreiro in the first place? Same as this guy Stephen Murdoch, same as Monica. Tox screen will prove it."
Stark exhaled. "That's why we need you. To do them and to see if they match to that nurse who died."
Now the pieces were starting to fall together in Scully's head, too. She glanced between the two of them. "How did you come up with these two men's names?" she asked. "Did you go back over every patient..."
"If I tell you that, you'll think I'm crazy," Doggett admitted. "But Monica's alive. Same as this guy Murdoch. And we got to help them both get back."
Scully exhaled. "Then the first thing we need to do is find Steven Murdoch."
But by the time they located his room, it was already too late. They could hear the sounds from down the hall, and bolted only to see his body being covered up. None other than Dr. Preijers turned to see them all standing there, and the look on his face almost seemed like he was gloating.
"He knows," Stark said. "He knows that we know."
As her colleagues looked at her she swallowed hard because with that knowledge came the realization that their enemy would now do everything he could to stop them.
"We've got to find her," her partner said, and Stark knew exactly who he meant. The time for being gentle had passed.
****
"We still need your help."
Audrey just stared at them. "I already told you their names. Mr. Barreiro and Mr. Murdoch."
"No, they're both dead now," Doggett told her. "Monica's the only one left. And inside an hour the hospital plans to cut off her life support. Now, I'm not going to let that happen. No matter what it takes. But I'm losing here. Nobody else believes she's alive. Nobody -- just the three of us."
Stark nodded. "And you're the only person who can help us prove that. We can't find the evidence, but maybe you can."
That made the woman recoil. "I can't do anything. I only deliver the flowers is all I do. I can't help," she insisted.
"You can talk to her, right?" he pointed out. "You can." Taking both her hands in his, he pulled her toward the model of the hospital, until the three of them were sitting on the floor staring at it. As if willing that somewhere in there, there might be a flicker of life, of Monica trying to get out. It seemed ironic now that for people whose whole lives were based on evidence, they were now taking something on faith, and desperate to prove that faith was enough.
He looked at Audrey seriously, trying to make her understand. His tone was slow, deliberate. "Audrey, I need you to talk to her. I need you to tell her what's going on. I need you to tell her that they're going to pull the plug. I need her...I need you to tell her to fight. I need you to tell her to show us some sign...that she's in there." He swallowed, finding himself overcome by emotion. Fear for Monica's life, remembering how distraught Stark had been over the death of her sister. He'd been down that road with her and he didn't want to go there again. "I need her to understand," he said, swallowing. "I don't know what else to do."
Stark put her hand on her partner's back. It was because she had been down that road with losing Lisa that she knew what he was going through. He had been charging through this, carrying it all himself. And now he'd simply had enough. She took his hand and quietly, silently walked with him out of the room. As the door closed behind him she pulled him into her arms. It was all becoming clear now. For her, anyway.
"You're still trying to save my sister, aren't you?" she said softly. "To you it's happening all over again."
He swallowed and looked at her. "I saw what it did to you, Stark. I don't want to go through that. Especially not when some sonofabitch is doing it for a cheap thrill." He blinked to clear his eyes. "You know if it was me or you in there she'd be fighting to get us back."
For all her misgivings about Monica, she knew this to be true. "I didn't say anything about giving up," she said quietly.
He wiped at his eyes and nodded, taking her hand and tugging her along as they headed back upstairs. Even if there was nothing they could do anymore they'd hang on until the very last second.
And that was where they stayed, sitting by their colleague's bedside, even as the monitors stayed flatlined and everyone else seemed to have written her off a long time ago. He still had her hand in hers, a little tight but she couldn't blame him for wanting to remember that she was there. She herself was unable to keep from relieving the last moments she'd had with her sister, being pulled back out of the room as the doctors did everything they could...
That was the thing. They knew they'd done everything they could.
"The transplant teams are in place," Scully said from behind them.
Her partner stood to confront her, inadvertently pulling her up with him. "They're not cutting her up," he said defiantly, turning to move past her. Always fighting, even until the end.
"John..." Scully sighed. "I'm still waiting for your argument. If you have something to convince me to convince the doctors that somehow she's alive."
He just looked at her. "You ever take anything on faith, Dana?"
But before she could answer the question, someone else spoke up. Someone they'd been waiting to hear from for a very long time.
"John," Monica said hoarsely, opening her eyes. "Audrey."
And then they knew that she knew, and they knew what she was telling them. As it began to dawn on them, Stark let go of her partner's hand so as not to wrench his arm from its socket as she took off at a dead run for the nearest stairwell. Anything to make it down to that basement.
She made it there first, but as they approached and she began to slow, she felt her partner put a firm hand on her chest. He wanted this, needed it even. He blew toward Audrey's door, just in time to slam Dr. Jack Preijers right up against the wall, hard. Hard enough for her to hear bone meeting wall with a sickening crack. Everything he'd suffered was in that one moment. "Where're you going, Doctor?"
Stark didn't need to be told what she needed to do. She opened the door to the basement room, holding her breath. Her eyes fell on the motionless body of Audrey Pauley.
"Oh, God. Oh, no," her partner said from behind her, but she didn't turn to look at him. Merely reached down to take a pulse, and nodded sadly. The woman was gone. She had gone out on a limb to help them, to save Agent Reyes, and she had paid for it with her life.
Maybe she would be at peace now. There would be no one else to disturb her quiet anymore.
****
"It was a lousy baseball game anyway," Stark found herself saying three days later, as her partner drove them all home from the neighborhood bar. "We were losing. And Kevin was complaining that we were losing."
Reyes laughed. "Isn't he supposed to support his own team?" she asked.
"Yeah, he does," Stark replied. "He also enjoys blaming everything on high school calculus. Batting averages and slugging percentages. He forgets that these are people out there and people do some pretty amazing things sometimes."
She'd inadvertantly hit the nail on the head, and the three of them looked at each other, knowing they'd just gone through something pretty amazing.
"Yeah, they do," her partner said after a moment.
"So do you two have plans later?" Monica said, and Stark noted, interestingly, that when she said it she was looking directly at John instead of between the two of them.
He shrugged slightly. "I was just going to let her go home and catch up on her beauty sleep."
Stark laughed. "Thank you for the backwards compliment, John," she said as he pulled the truck up to Monica's front door. She stayed in the back seat as he circled around to let her out, oblivious to their conversation. Let them have their moment.
"Night," he said, clearly glad to have her back.
"Night, John." She smiled at him. "You just called her beautiful," she pointed out. "You two should go do something."
His lips quirked. So they were going to go that way again. "Sometimes a friend's enough," he told her, and turned to go as Stark moved up into the passenger seat.
Monica just smiled and shook her head, turning to head up the stairs to her apartment. She was definitely back; some things would never change. There would always be moments where everything could happen or not happen; it was all what you made of it, and what you believed.
Spoilers: "Audrey Pauley"
Words: 6278
Rating: PG
Summary: With the life of a colleague on the line, Stark finds herself trusting in something she can't see and learning things about herself she'd never known.
"Don't get too down," Stark assured her brother, giving him a look. "How many times have we said it? It only takes one moment to win the game."
Kevin Patrick nodded slightly. "Maybe I'm just feeling cynical today, I don't know," he said with a shrug as he leaned back in his seat. "Or maybe it's our anemic team batting average."
They were sitting in their usual season ticket seats at Camden Yards, just off home plate down the third base line, watching the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. These had been the same seats they'd had since the late eighties and despite the fact that he could be up in a team box somewhere, he enjoyed just watching the game with his sister, just like old times. If only because they hardly saw each other.
"You and your numbers," she replied with a chuckle as she took a drink of her soda. "All the statistics in the world can't quantify heart and effort."
She was about to say something else, but her cell phone vibrated at her hip and as he watched her answer it, Kevin sighed. The FBI was always calling. He knew she'd turned down having drinks with her partner and her colleague to meet him already. And if it wasn't her phone, it'd be his, sending him to scout somebody for a possible trade. They never got enough time together.
"Yeah, John," she said, and he somewhat smiled. He liked her partner; the guy was a good man and he wouldn't call without a good reason. Then Stark's face fell almost instantly and Kevin felt every muscle in her body tense. "What happened? Oh, God. I'll be right there. Hang on, okay? I'm on my way."
She snapped the phone shut and glanced at her brother. "Agent Reyes was in a car accident. She's critical. I've got to go."
"Hold on." He was already out of his chair with her. "Where are they taking her?"
"Virginia General, it's in McLean," she supplied quickly, not even looking as she grabbed her jacket. "It's about an hour out without traffic."
Kevin put his hand on her arm. "You're gonna hit traffic," he said as they stepped out onto the main concourse. Glancing up over his shoulder, he bit his lip. "Stay here. I'm gonna see if I can get you the plane."
****
The Orioles' corporate jet touched down at Reagan National half an hour later, and Kevin had arranged a police escort to pick her up and drive her the remaining distance to McLean. Stark knew she owed him a major thank-you for whatever he'd done to convince Andy MacPhail to loan him the private plane and call the cops, but she didn't have time to give it to him beyond a hug goodbye as she ran to meet the waiting squad car.
By the time she reached Virginia General, it was just under an hour after that fateful phone call, and she was out of breath and fearful. The way she looked, however, was nothing compared to the way she found her partner. Like anyone who had become friends with a colleague, he looked devastated.
"John," she said, his name spilling from her lips at the shock of seeing him that way. Especially after everything he'd just been through with his coma, it all had to be so much for him.
He glanced up at her and she saw grief and gratitude in his eyes. Before she could close the distance between the two of them, he stood and pulled her into a fierce hug that threatened to crush her ribs, no doubt glad that she hadn't been there after all. "I'm okay, I'm fine," she said needlessly. "What happened? Do you know...?"
Doggett pulled back to look at her. "We went out for a drink after work. She dropped me off at my place. Got hit by a drunk driver." His voice was strained. "They don't think she'll make it."
"Jesus." Stark swallowed hard, unable to keep from being reminded of her older sister, who had also been killed by a drunk driver four years earlier. But she swallowed that; it wasn't time to wallow in that, unless her grief could help her partner. Carefully, she went to sit down with him. "What can I do to help?"
He laughed humorlessly. "I've been asking myself that since I got here," he admitted. After a moment he looked at her. "It's bad enough. Then I think that if you'd been here tonight you would've been in the same damn car and I could have lost both of you..."
She put a finger to his lips. "Hey. Don't." Then she took his hand, lacing her fingers through his and holding on tight. "Agent Reyes is a tough woman. She'll pull through this. Maybe the prognosis will improve with time." No matter the fact that she and Monica tended to disagree, she knew that the other woman was a friend and she'd leaned on Reyes for help before. Now it was her turn to repay the favor.
They sat there in silence for a long moment, interrupted only by the sound of someone else approaching. Stark glanced up to see Dana Scully, and she had to admit the mere presence of the doctor and veteran agent was comforting.
"Hell of a thing to wake up to, huh?" Doggett said absently, looking at her as she sat down on his other side. "We stopped after work. She had a beer."
"Well, the man who hit her had fifteen," Scully pointed out. "Don't do this to yourself, John."
Stark's jaw hung open slightly at how someone could even be conscious after that many drinks, but she shut it and just held on to her partner. That was all she could do, was stay with him and support him. They stayed that way for a long few minutes before they went to see their colleague. Scully flipped through the charts, Doggett keeping his eyes on her while Stark noted grimly that every line on the monitor was flat.
"It's true, John," Scully said after a moment. "She's gone."
"I don't accept that," he retorted, shaking his head. "Look at her breathing. Her heart's still beating. There's got to be hope."
"There's no measurable electrical activity in her brain. Brain death is indeed death, John." Scully watched him looking down at the prone form of his colleague and friend. "I'm sorry."
Stark glanced at her partner, putting a hand on his back. She could feel the tension in his muscles. There was no denying what was in front of them, but at the same time she believed in what Scully was saying. The monitors couldn't lie. After a moment, he glanced up at her and she saw the grief in his eyes.
"What do you believe?" he asked her. "You think she's still in there, don't you?"
She swallowed hard. In her gut, she wasn't so sure. Yet she couldn't bring herself to break his heart any further. "If you believe it," she said slowly, "I can believe you."
****
It was impossible for her not to think about Lisa.
After all the circumstances were almost exactly the same: T-boned by a drunk driver, on the verge of death. Stark's older sister had pulled through the surgery but hadn't managed to last the night. She had passed on before Kevin could get to the hospital to say goodbye, something which had haunted him ever since.
It had also been a turning point in her relationship with her partner. They had only been working together just a little over a year when the accident had happened. She liked him and trusted him but they hadn't yet found that one event over which to bond. Not until he'd turned up at the gate at BWI and told her he was getting on the plane with her. It was a display of caring she'd never seen before and something she'd be grateful for all of her life. The rest after that just came naturally.
She knew she would have gone to pieces without him there. She had almost lost it as it was. It was easily one of the darkest days of her life and now they were facing the same thing with a friend. Now it was her turn to be there for her partner.
She was eyeing the photo of her sister that was still tucked in the back of her wallet when the hospital room door opened and he stepped out looking upset. "What's happening?" she asked.
"They want to pull the plug," he said bitterly. "She was an organ donor. They want to start cutting her up." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not just going to assume her life is over in a matter of minutes or hours. Not that easily."
Stark watched her partner carefully as he slumped into the seat next to her. "Nobody's saying they want to give up on her, or that you're giving up on her," she replied. "They're just going with the evidence that they have." A swallow. "Like we would do in a case."
That seemed to strike a chord with him and he eyed her warily. "And you? What are you believing?"
She was quiet for a long moment. Nobody was happy with her for what they saw as encouraging a lost cause, and truth be told she was having trouble making that leap too. But she knew what she'd accepted as the truth and she was keeping it. She was quiet for so long that he was looking at her and she tipped her head and exhaled.
"I believe in you," she said. "And if you believe we can still save her then damned if I'm not going to help you. I don't know how I can, but I trust you and that's enough for me."
He nodded slightly. "Just being here's enough for me."
****
Nobody left that hospital room. Stark perched herself against the wall, trying to reach her mother, who was Chief of Medical Research at a Baltimore hospital. As much as she hated her mother, that was about how much she cared for her partner.
Meanwhile, he was talking to Scully, looking for anything that they hadn't yet seen. "Is there anything?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
"I did note some minor swelling in the left anterior which is consistent with subdural haematoma."
"Minor swelling?" It didn't look like there was anything minor about it.
"I don't know if that means anything," she admitted. "It's not like there's an exact formula for how much damage equals death."
Still on hold with someone at Baltimore County, Stark watched her partner worriedly as he moved to the table in the room and rifled through the papers that were there. Desperation wasn't something he experienced often but she'd seen enough of it over the last two years that she knew it well and he was getting there. "What about this?" he said, handing the brain monitor readout to Scully. "This was monitoring her brain activity, right? Electrical impulses."
"Yeah. She had EEG monitoring after the point that she coded."
"Suddenly they just stop here. Right here." He had that tone in his voice now, a conviction. "And if we can learn what this is maybe we can reverse it."
He turned and blew out of the room, Scully calling after him. Stark didn't bother. She knew that her partner would do anything to save his friend's life; he had displayed that same tenacity when her own life had been on the line. And Scully's. When it mattered most, he stepped up and took control, and there was no stopping him. She would never even dare to try.
****
But their determination was yielding no answers. Nothing except him wanting to punch her attending physician. Even Stark's mother seemed at a loss. Still, if her partner didn't give up, she wasn't going to give up.
After much prodding from Scully, the two of them had finally been convinced to leave for a time. They'd gotten dinner and now she held his hand gently as they walked through a park near the hospital, both of them to a certain degree lost in their own thoughts. Trying to comfort each other with their own ruminations.
"You know, we don't agree on much," Stark said. "She and I. We come from two totally different worlds and schools of thought. Half the time I don't understand what she's talking about."
He chuckled. "That's okay. I have a few of those moments myself." The barest hint of a smile played on his lips. "She likes you, though."
"Really?"
"Yeah. She told me so." He paused, biting his tongue a moment as if considering something before he continued, "Says we're a good match for each other."
That made Stark smile. "Something I always aspire to," she replied. "You know me, John. I'll always be here for you no matter what, whatever you need, that'll never change."
"Even with everything we're going through?" he asked.
She saw the vaguely skeptical look on his face and blinked. "What makes you say that?"
"Monica told me what you said to her. When I was in that coma," he explained. "You being worried that one or both of us is gonna get killed and it's all gonna be for nothing. How pissed you are that we keep getting hurt." He watched her sputter for a second in surprise, and just put a finger to her lips. "I know we've been through hell. And trust me I'm scared of some of this stuff too."
Like at that moment. They were both scared of losing a colleague. Stark exhaled, quiet for a moment. "Looks like she sees us better than we see ourselves."
He thought on that. On other things Monica had told him and continued to tell him that he'd just ignored. "Maybe she does."
She paused then, pulling him into her arms and giving him a gentle, sympathetic hug. She felt him shift against her, leaning down to press his lips to her cheek. He seemed to linger for a moment, resting his head on her shoulder. He knew he couldn't go through this or anything else without her.
****
When they arrived back at the hospital it was late and everything had fallen silent. They walked quietly together back to Monica's hospital room.
"I'm gonna run to the bathroom," she said. "I'll catch up with you."
"Yeah, okay." He nodded a little before approaching the door to the room and noticing Monica wasn't alone. As he walked in the woman at her bedside seemed to startle. As it turned out she was a patient aide named Audrey Pauley.
"Are you her husband?" Audrey asked and he just shook his head.
"Just a friend." He chuckled.
Audrey seemed to be studying him for a moment, putting the pieces together. "The woman. The one in the hallway."
"That's my partner."
"You love her, though."
He didn't say anything, wondering to himself if everyone was seeing something he and Stark really didn't. He was used to everyone making these insinuations and just brushed it off but it unsettled him anyway. She must have seen the expression on his face, because she stood and turned to go, hesitating only in the doorway.
"She's not gone. Not her soul."
He nodded slowly, the words exactly what he wanted to hear. "I wish I could talk to her," he said. "I wish I could tell her she was right. Guess I wish a lot of things."
But Audrey was gone, and a moment later Stark walked back into the room, oblivious to anything her partner had just said. She studied his face, arching an eyebrow at the expression. "You okay, partner?" she asked softly. "I miss something?"
"No." He shook his head slightly. "You didn't miss anything."
****
They stayed there through the night. Even though there was nothing they could do, they didn't particularly want to be anywhere else. As morning dawned, Kevin called her to check on them, and Stark stepped away to take the phone call, leaving her partner sitting there, watching her go. He knew he was lucky to have her if only to keep him from going off the deep end.
Stark had told him many times that she always believed she'd survive anything because she had him. Now he understood what she meant. She was keeping him hanging on. She was the only person who believed in him, well, her and that woman he'd met last night.
That whole thing had unnerved him. How did she know what she knew? How could she make parallels when she'd never even met Stark? Monica had been telling him for months now that he was in love with his partner, but Monica had also known the two of them for some time. He thought about that, about the three or four times now she'd told him to tell her and he'd ignored her. She'd done it after Lukesh. She'd done it after his coma. And she'd been doing it in the truck just before she'd been hit.
"I don't see you ever disappointing anyone, John," she's said. "You've certainly never disappointed Stark."
He'd smiled. "You can't use her as an example. She's a special case."
"Because she's your partner, or because of something else?" Monica had replied. "Like how you smiled there when I mentioned her?"
Why would she keep pressing if there was nothing there, like they had told everyone else over the past few years?
But now was not the time to worry about anything like that. Not with Monica's life in the balance. She could continue to needle him about Stark when they got her back. He was mulling that over when he heard one of the nurses screaming for help, and he bolted from the chair to see what had happened.
When Stark came looking for him, she found him standing in the doorway, staring at the body of the ER nurse.
"This isn't a coincidence," he said. She nodded. "No, it isn't."
****
Neither of them were doctors, however, which was why they needed Scully. And needed Scully to believe them. It seemed strange, having to convince the believer of something bizarre happening, when they hardly believed in it themselves. But her partner believed it and Stark's gut was telling her something wasn't right.
"What exactly are you thinking?" Scully asked, eyeing them both as they stood over the nurse's body.
"She helped work on Monica," Doggett explained. "I started asking questions about what happened in the trauma bay and she very inconveniently drops dead."
"You're thinking that somebody murdered her to cover something up."
"The timing seems suspicious if nothing else," Stark admitted.
Her partner eyed Scully. "Well, if it were you, how would you go about it make it look like natural causes?"
"Well, I'd use a fast-acting barbiturate like pentobarbital. I'd use a small-bore needle to make it next to impossible to find an injection mark."
"Next to impossible..." He trailed off. His brain was starting to pull things together now. "That's why you're perfect for the job. Should probably test her blood, too, while you're at it, right?"
"Agent Doggett..." Scully looked hesitant, glancing between them. The look on her face said she was still skeptical. "I'm happy to do this for you two. Just don't kid yourself that this is going to somehow bring her back."
His moment of hope deflated in that second with that stinging reminder that they were, in fact, alone in their belief that Agent Reyes was still alive. He turned and walked out without another word and Stark followed close behind.
"She doesn't believe us," he muttered. "You'd think she of all people would believe us."
"If it weren't Agent Reyes in there right now? I don't know if we'd believe us," Stark admitted. She looked in her partner's eyes. Both had changed since coming to the X-Files, whether they wanted to admit it or not. She swallowed. "We just need to find more evidence to make her believe us."
They exchanged a look. Easier said than done.
****
The two of them were sitting beside each other in Monica's hospital room, trying to talk out everything swimming in their minds. It wasn't working and they'd ended up just telling stories instead.
"You remember when we were stuck in those tunnels? With that giant lizard thing?" she asked.
"Don't remind me." He looked less than thrilled. "You mean when I almost shot Agent Mulder?"
"Yeah. Fun times." She snickered but then she grew serious. "I didn't want to tell anybody what had happened to me down there. Scully and Mulder had their own stuff to deal with, and I didn't want to lay anything else on you. But somehow I knew Agent Reyes would believe me."
"And did she?"
"Yeah. But..." Stark waved a hand, not wanting to get into that now. "That's a story for another time. The fact of the matter is she always believed. And while it can be kind of annoying sometimes? Must be nice to have that kind of faith." She swallowed. "I lost my father, I wasn't home," she said. "I lost my sister, I wasn't even in the same state. Every time someone I know passes it's like I don't even have a chance to try and help. But this time I have a chance and this time I want to help. I want to say this time I'm not going to let it happen."
"We're not going to let it happen," he corrected, eyeing her. "I was thinking about you and Lisa. About her accident." A pause. "Monica's here because of me. She got involved with the X-Files because I called her. It was her decision to stay but I still feel responsible. Like she shouldn't have been here."
"You just said it," she replied. "It was her decision to stay. It was my decision to come down that stairwell too. You didn't ask me to come. But I don't see you telling me to leave."
The two of them were interrupted by the opening of the door and both surprised to see Audrey standing there. She looked at them both. "She said to get a message to her friends," she said softly. She looked past Stark at Doggett. "Your name is John, right? She has a message for you. She says you're a dog person."
"What the..." Stark started.
"Something Monica said to me before she left." He jumped from the chair and went to chase the woman down, his partner just steps behind him as he caught up to her. "Wait. Where did you get that? Who said that to you?"
"I told you," Audrey replied. "She's not gone."
****
Following her was a natural decision. She obviously knew something they didn't, and she was the only other person who seemed to agree with them. That was how they ended up in a room in the hospital basement. Audrey seemed to know they were following her, just closed the door behind them, leaving them staring at what appeared to be a full scale model of the very building they were standing in.
"You live down here?" Doggett asked her, slightly thrown.
"The...the nuns let me stay. I...I wanted to be a nurse, only I can't do much, but they let me help out."
He moved closer to the model, closer to where Stark was resting back on her heels, kneeling at its level and peering at its intricacies. "This is the hospital," he said needlessly. "You made this?" Off her nod he asked the obvious question. "Why?"
"I like to visit it. I sort of go...inside my head."
The two partners exchanged a look. Now neither of them were following. "You go...into the model?" he said slowly.
"I like it there. It's quiet. I used to have it all to myself but then some people showed up. Hospital patients. Your friend."
Stark was staring at the model. That was impossible. Unless there were bizarre miniature people and a shrink ray, but that seemed way too 1970's to be true or even plausible. Still, she knew that there was something more going on here, and the glance at her partner confirmed that he had that gut feeling too.
Not that he had any better comprehension.
"This is where you say you talked to her? Right inside here?"
"Well...not so much like tiny people in a...in a model, but...inside my head? Up here, I guess." She looked between them, saw their confusion clear as day. "You don't believe me."
"No." Stark spoke up, getting to her feet. "It's not that we don't believe you. We believe there's something happening here. But we need to understand."
"Audrey," her partner continued, "you said that you saw some other people besides my friend. Other patients? Can you tell me who they are?"
Once they'd gotten the names they knew better than to press her further. She was timid enough as it was, they couldn't risk scaring her off. They left her be, and didn't discuss the creepy miniature hospital that they couldn't figure out. What they did understand were the two names that Audrey had given them.
"Time to do a little homework," he said and she nodded. "You got it, partner."
****
"You have any idea what time it is right now?"
"No." Though, reminded, he took an absent look at his watch out of the corner of his eye.
Sitting on the table beside him she chuckled. "Do you even care?"
"Not really." He had one file and she had the other, and he was watching her chew on the end of her pen while the two of them were skimming pages upon pages of things that they didn't understand. Things they probably weren't even supposed to be looking at. The irony that they had always been by-the-book and were now unfazed by breaking into hospital records didn't escape him; maybe her speech weeks earlier about no longer being a company woman was truer than he'd once thought. "You got anything there?"
"You'd think for the daughter of a doctor I would learn to understand this better than I do," she muttered. "Same attending physician."
"There's something not right with that guy."
"Tell me about it. Unfortunately freaking me out is not an arrestable offense." She glanced over at him. "What's your COD?" A pause, realizing he didn't speak doctor either. "Cause of death."
He flipped pages. "Barreiro was declared braindead."
"So was this guy."
"You're telling me we've got two patients with the exact same cause of death and the exact same attending within this short a time frame? What are the odds of that?" he asked, snapping the file shut and looking at her. "And now a third? Like hell that's a coincidence either." He got that look in his eyes as his brain continued to churn. "I bet you he poisoned them just like he did to that nurse."
Stark rested her elbows on her knees. "That depends on if we can prove he poisoned that nurse at all."
"There's somebody who can tell us."
****
Scully was on the phone at the nurse's station when the two of them stepped off the elevator. After two years she knew that look in their eyes and hung up as they approached her. "Monica's parents are on their way from Mexico City," she explained. "They're coming to say good-bye."
"Well, they can say hello instead," he told her confidently. "Nobody's shutting off her life support system. Not with what we got." He handed her the pair of files, ignoring her confused look.
"What are these?"
"Patient files," he continued. "Both men were declared brain dead, same as her. All three have something else in common, too. Check out the attending physician."
Scully read. "Dr. Jack Preijers."
He nodded. "The guy is some kind of Dr. Death. He gets off on pulling the plug on his own patients. He did it last night to this guy Barreiro."
"Well, at the request of the family," Scully conceded.
"What if that request gets made because they don't know any better?" Stark interjected. Her partner added, "What if he poisoned Barreiro in the first place? Same as this guy Stephen Murdoch, same as Monica. Tox screen will prove it."
Stark exhaled. "That's why we need you. To do them and to see if they match to that nurse who died."
Now the pieces were starting to fall together in Scully's head, too. She glanced between the two of them. "How did you come up with these two men's names?" she asked. "Did you go back over every patient..."
"If I tell you that, you'll think I'm crazy," Doggett admitted. "But Monica's alive. Same as this guy Murdoch. And we got to help them both get back."
Scully exhaled. "Then the first thing we need to do is find Steven Murdoch."
But by the time they located his room, it was already too late. They could hear the sounds from down the hall, and bolted only to see his body being covered up. None other than Dr. Preijers turned to see them all standing there, and the look on his face almost seemed like he was gloating.
"He knows," Stark said. "He knows that we know."
As her colleagues looked at her she swallowed hard because with that knowledge came the realization that their enemy would now do everything he could to stop them.
"We've got to find her," her partner said, and Stark knew exactly who he meant. The time for being gentle had passed.
****
"We still need your help."
Audrey just stared at them. "I already told you their names. Mr. Barreiro and Mr. Murdoch."
"No, they're both dead now," Doggett told her. "Monica's the only one left. And inside an hour the hospital plans to cut off her life support. Now, I'm not going to let that happen. No matter what it takes. But I'm losing here. Nobody else believes she's alive. Nobody -- just the three of us."
Stark nodded. "And you're the only person who can help us prove that. We can't find the evidence, but maybe you can."
That made the woman recoil. "I can't do anything. I only deliver the flowers is all I do. I can't help," she insisted.
"You can talk to her, right?" he pointed out. "You can." Taking both her hands in his, he pulled her toward the model of the hospital, until the three of them were sitting on the floor staring at it. As if willing that somewhere in there, there might be a flicker of life, of Monica trying to get out. It seemed ironic now that for people whose whole lives were based on evidence, they were now taking something on faith, and desperate to prove that faith was enough.
He looked at Audrey seriously, trying to make her understand. His tone was slow, deliberate. "Audrey, I need you to talk to her. I need you to tell her what's going on. I need you to tell her that they're going to pull the plug. I need her...I need you to tell her to fight. I need you to tell her to show us some sign...that she's in there." He swallowed, finding himself overcome by emotion. Fear for Monica's life, remembering how distraught Stark had been over the death of her sister. He'd been down that road with her and he didn't want to go there again. "I need her to understand," he said, swallowing. "I don't know what else to do."
Stark put her hand on her partner's back. It was because she had been down that road with losing Lisa that she knew what he was going through. He had been charging through this, carrying it all himself. And now he'd simply had enough. She took his hand and quietly, silently walked with him out of the room. As the door closed behind him she pulled him into her arms. It was all becoming clear now. For her, anyway.
"You're still trying to save my sister, aren't you?" she said softly. "To you it's happening all over again."
He swallowed and looked at her. "I saw what it did to you, Stark. I don't want to go through that. Especially not when some sonofabitch is doing it for a cheap thrill." He blinked to clear his eyes. "You know if it was me or you in there she'd be fighting to get us back."
For all her misgivings about Monica, she knew this to be true. "I didn't say anything about giving up," she said quietly.
He wiped at his eyes and nodded, taking her hand and tugging her along as they headed back upstairs. Even if there was nothing they could do anymore they'd hang on until the very last second.
And that was where they stayed, sitting by their colleague's bedside, even as the monitors stayed flatlined and everyone else seemed to have written her off a long time ago. He still had her hand in hers, a little tight but she couldn't blame him for wanting to remember that she was there. She herself was unable to keep from relieving the last moments she'd had with her sister, being pulled back out of the room as the doctors did everything they could...
That was the thing. They knew they'd done everything they could.
"The transplant teams are in place," Scully said from behind them.
Her partner stood to confront her, inadvertently pulling her up with him. "They're not cutting her up," he said defiantly, turning to move past her. Always fighting, even until the end.
"John..." Scully sighed. "I'm still waiting for your argument. If you have something to convince me to convince the doctors that somehow she's alive."
He just looked at her. "You ever take anything on faith, Dana?"
But before she could answer the question, someone else spoke up. Someone they'd been waiting to hear from for a very long time.
"John," Monica said hoarsely, opening her eyes. "Audrey."
And then they knew that she knew, and they knew what she was telling them. As it began to dawn on them, Stark let go of her partner's hand so as not to wrench his arm from its socket as she took off at a dead run for the nearest stairwell. Anything to make it down to that basement.
She made it there first, but as they approached and she began to slow, she felt her partner put a firm hand on her chest. He wanted this, needed it even. He blew toward Audrey's door, just in time to slam Dr. Jack Preijers right up against the wall, hard. Hard enough for her to hear bone meeting wall with a sickening crack. Everything he'd suffered was in that one moment. "Where're you going, Doctor?"
Stark didn't need to be told what she needed to do. She opened the door to the basement room, holding her breath. Her eyes fell on the motionless body of Audrey Pauley.
"Oh, God. Oh, no," her partner said from behind her, but she didn't turn to look at him. Merely reached down to take a pulse, and nodded sadly. The woman was gone. She had gone out on a limb to help them, to save Agent Reyes, and she had paid for it with her life.
Maybe she would be at peace now. There would be no one else to disturb her quiet anymore.
****
"It was a lousy baseball game anyway," Stark found herself saying three days later, as her partner drove them all home from the neighborhood bar. "We were losing. And Kevin was complaining that we were losing."
Reyes laughed. "Isn't he supposed to support his own team?" she asked.
"Yeah, he does," Stark replied. "He also enjoys blaming everything on high school calculus. Batting averages and slugging percentages. He forgets that these are people out there and people do some pretty amazing things sometimes."
She'd inadvertantly hit the nail on the head, and the three of them looked at each other, knowing they'd just gone through something pretty amazing.
"Yeah, they do," her partner said after a moment.
"So do you two have plans later?" Monica said, and Stark noted, interestingly, that when she said it she was looking directly at John instead of between the two of them.
He shrugged slightly. "I was just going to let her go home and catch up on her beauty sleep."
Stark laughed. "Thank you for the backwards compliment, John," she said as he pulled the truck up to Monica's front door. She stayed in the back seat as he circled around to let her out, oblivious to their conversation. Let them have their moment.
"Night," he said, clearly glad to have her back.
"Night, John." She smiled at him. "You just called her beautiful," she pointed out. "You two should go do something."
His lips quirked. So they were going to go that way again. "Sometimes a friend's enough," he told her, and turned to go as Stark moved up into the passenger seat.
Monica just smiled and shook her head, turning to head up the stairs to her apartment. She was definitely back; some things would never change. There would always be moments where everything could happen or not happen; it was all what you made of it, and what you believed.