11.
He sits with her on the floor until her heart stops pounding and her breathing evens out. He tries to meet her gaze and she tucks her head beneath his chin, curling into him, pressing her face into his chest, inhaling deeply. She’s shaking, and he wraps his arms around her.
His thumb rubs the bony point of her shoulder through her jacket. They’re both covered in her blood.
“I think-” He hesitates. “I think Padgett’s dead. I think he had to die to stop it.”
She doesn’t respond.
“I’m going to have to call the police, Scully,” he says into her hair, his voice soft and low.
“I know.” She sounds blank, whispering into his sweater. “Can you, um.”
She sits up a bit, slanting across his lap with her lower half on one side and her arm holding herself up on the other. She lifts her head and meets his eyes briefly before looking down.
“Can you just give me a minute? Before you call. Maybe you could go check on,” he hears her stop herself from saying Padgett’s name, “on the basement.” She’s still staring at his lap.
“Are you sure, Scully?” He crooks a finger under her chin, drawing her gaze up.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t quite believe her, but he knows it’s what she wants as he settles her in his bedroom. As he closes the door on his way out, he turns to look at her. She looks disgusted with herself.
He heads back to the basement, shifting from foot to foot in the elevator, a ball of energy. Now that he’s away from Scully and her immediate needs, his anger is returning.
He pounds down the first couple of steps in the incinerator room, slowing as he sees Padgett on the floor, his heart in his hand. He gapes. That could have been Scully, he thinks, lying on his floor with her heart torn out. Whirling around, he charges back up to the fourth floor, taking the stairs the whole way.
At apartment number 44, he tries the handle, grits his teeth, steps inside the nearly bare space. He wants to pound the shit out of something.
Instead, he heads for the bedroom. They haven’t uncovered all of Padgett’s secrets; he’s sure of that.
When he looks in the drawer of the nightstand, he is disgusted to find that he’s right.
He holds the stack of black and white photos in his hand. Padgett was watching her for weeks, he realizes. Maybe months. He feels sick and furious and flips through the pile.
Scully, shot from the window of the apartment next to his, approaching the building.
Scully getting out of her car in the morning, pushing her hair behind her ear and smoothing her skirt.
Scully running through a park, focused on the path in front of her.
Scully heading up the stairs of her apartment building with Mulder beside her, his hand on her back. They’re looking at each other. She’s raised an eyebrow at him and he’s in the middle of a sentence.
Scully eating lunch in a deli. He remembers that day-he was there with her, and they split a dessert. He let her have most of it while she pretended she was full. Padgett must have been on the street somewhere. How did they not notice?
And finally, at the back, there’s a series of photos shot through her living room window. The son of a bitch must have felt really lucky that day, Mulder thinks, to catch her with the light just right and the blinds still open. These would be Padgett’s favourites, he knows. The other photos are smudged with fingerprints around the edges, but these are pristine. They’re special occasion photos, to reward or inspire him.
In the first, Scully is taking off her blazer in her living room, looking down at something on her desk. Her arms are caught behind her, tangled in her sleeves, pushing her chest out.
It’s such an invasion of her privacy that Mulder hesitates. He doesn’t want to see her like this. He wants to go back down to the basement to shoot Padgett in the head, in the face, in his fucking face that drew Scully in with its intense gaze as its lips spilled pretty words and flattering ideas.
He has to know, he thinks. He has to know how much Padgett saw. The next photos show her adjusting her sweater, taking off her shoes, pulling down the side zipper of her skirt. The last photo in the stack shows her retreating into her bedroom, pulling her shirt up with her back turned to the window.
He exhales heavily, tossing the photos on the bed. It's not as bad as he feared, but he's shaking with anger. He runs his hands over his face, trying to think clearly.
He doesn’t want the police to see the photos, to have her exposed more than she already is. Padgett’s dead and the killer never existed; once the body is removed, the case is all but over. There’s no need for anyone else to see them, he thinks. He can get away with it.
He slips back into his apartment. Scully’s still in his bedroom. He stands by the door, listening for sobs, and hears nothing.
What now, he thinks. Where can he put them that she won’t look? He knows she doesn’t snoop, but he trusts her with his life, with everything, and with that trust comes the knowledge that at some point, she’ll be rooting through his stuff in an effort to save his life or cover his ass. His desk is no good, and she knows he keeps his spare gun under the sink. He considers the colony of dust bunnies under the couch, but dismisses the idea because he doesn’t want to sit there knowing they’re right underneath him. In the end, he knows what he has to do.
Back down the hall, into the elevator, down the stairs, his heart pounds and his limbs feel shaky. He steps over Padgett’s body and steels himself to face the flames. He throws the photos in the fire and retreats upstairs to call the police.