The S-Files: Without
Written by Dark Blood (Silvara34@aol.com)
Beta: Spooky (SteeleObsessed@yahoo.com) The flash backs are mine!!! Ha ha ha!!

Summary in First part

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Everything before season eight is fair game.

 

Without, Season 8, episode 2

 

::flashback to last episode::

Scully sat on her hospital bed as thought after thought bombarded her mind.  What am I going to do?  Am I going to be replaced by these two new agents?  What will happen to Mulder and I if I have to leave the X-files?  She yawned and her eyes drifted shut.

 

A few hours passed and she woke up to not only Mulder, but the Gunmen and Tyler McDonaldson staring at her with concern in their eyes.

"What happened?" She said as she reached to rub her throbbing head. 

"You passed out," Skinner said as he walked through the door, holding a medical chart and his cell phone.  "You need to be sure to eat more now that you’re not the only one to think about," he said as he handed her the charts for her to peruse and sink her doctorial teeth into.  Skinner turned to Tyler with dark eyes.  "They think they may have found Amanda, Tyler.  We need you to come and identify if it is her or not."

"Oh God, she’s dead isn’t she?" he said as he sank down on his knees and began to cry.  Skinner grabbed his arm and pulled him back up before he could begin to wail once again. 

"No time for that, Tyler.  She’s not dead, if it is her.  She’s alive, um, sort of at least."

"What do you mean ‘sort of’?" Mulder interjected.

Skinner shook his head.  "Just come with me and you’ll see.  Scully, you have to eat something and then have a blood test when the food has had time to digest.  After that, come to room 1939 in intensive care.  I want your medical opinion on what has happened to this person."

The agents left the room and headed to see the body. The Lone Gunmen bid farewell and went back to their cave.

 

Scully grabbed the hospital food tray in front of her as she watched the agents and Tyler walk out of the door.  She lifted the tray and her nose curled up when she saw what appeared to be regurgitated cow brains.  She looked at the label and read "chicken noodle soup."  "Lovely," she explained and began to eat with the least amount of enthusiasm. 

After forcing the awful hospital food down her throat, Scully had some time on her hands before she had to go for blood testing. Her thoughts wondered to the little life growing inside of her. Her mind wondered back to the day she was given back the chance to conceive.

 

<Scully unlocked her door and hung her cream colored coat up on the coat hook. She closed the door and went into the kitchen to grab a drink. She needed some courage if she ever planned to go over to Mulder's and find out what his answer was. As if they were physically drawn to each other, Scully heard a knock on her door. She crossed over and opened it, already knowing who was on the other side. "Hi." She said.

"Hi." Mulder replied, his eyes shyly avoiding hers.

"Come on in," she pulled the door open wider to allow him to enter.

"Thanks." He heard the door click shut behind him.

"Can I take your coat? " Scully asked with her hand outstretched towards him.

"No, I can't stay. I gotta get back to the office for a while." He told her, gazing at her lovingly.

"Obviously you've had some time to think about my request." She said, her voice shaking a little.

"I am absolutely flattered, Scully."

Scully ducked her head, too embarrassed to look Mulder in the face at that moment. Mulder gently lifted her head so he could see her eyes, "No, honestly."

"Okay, if... if you're trying to politely say "no," it's okay. I, I understand." Scully rambled nervously. She didn't think she could take the rejection. She turned to go but was stopped by Mulder's strong hand holding her next to him. She was still avoiding his eyes.

"Truthfully Scully, I have often dreamed about us making a family together. And it may sound trite but I just wouldn't want this to come between us." His voice  filled with emotion. "I have seen where couples try to conceive and they cant and it tears them apart."

"Yeah. I know... I, I understand. I do." Scully was a bit devastated. He was going to say no. She just knew it.

Mulder saw the look that past over her eyes and realized that she had misunderstood. He wanted to have a baby with her, but not at the cost of losing her. He reached out to touch her cheek and quickly reassured her, "the answer is yes, Scully."

A myriad of emotions crossed Scully's face all at once. They looked at each other and smiled. Mulder pulled her closer to him and they embraced. Scully pulled back and looked up at Mulder, the smile still on her face. "Um…Well, I'll call Dr. Parenti. I assume that he'll want to meet you and go through the, uh, the donor procedure."

Mulder gave one of his ' I got an innuendo for you and its coming out' look. "At that part I'm a pro. Although after not being celebrate for four weeks I may be a little rusty" He gave her a wink.

They smiled at each other again, Mulder leaned down and gave her a light peck on the lips before turning towards the door and leaving quietly.>

Scully had a smile on her face as she remembered that afternoon. Her hand went to her belly as she rubbed it slightly, envisioning the life growing within.

 

 

 

The nurse came to draw the blood and after having what seemed like a gallon of blood drawn, Scully met up with Skinner, Mulder, the new agents, and Tyler McDonaldson in room 1939.  Scully walked through the door to only be overwhelmed by a terrible stench emanating from near the bed.  She moved closer through the crowd to peer at the body of which they presumed was Amanda McDonaldson.  Scully cringed at the sight when she saw the mangled and bloated body on the bed.

The body was swollen badly and it appeared that almost ever vein and artery in the entire system had been ruptured which gave the body an eerie purple-reddish color.  The stench was terrible and vaguely reminded Scully of the swamps they had trekked through when searching for Big Blue.  A single thought of her poor dog QueQuag being gobbled up in that adventure made her focus her thoughts on the body in front of her.  Despite its grotesque appearance, it was obviously a female body.  Auburn hair sat raggedly on top of the head in mangled clumps resembling patches of grass sticking out of a purple lake.  Scully touched the hair which had a very slimy texture to it.

"What do you think happened to her, Scully?" Assistant director Skinner asked.

"I’m, I’m not quite sure.  Whatever happened to her created enough stress to rupture nearly every blood vessel in her body.  I’d hate to think what could do that," Scully mused as she glanced over to the heart monitor, which appeared to be flat-lined when suddenly a single heartbeat caused the machine to blip once.  "Fascinating," Scully said.

"What is?" Mulder questioned.

"This person has suffered so much trauma and yet their heart is still managing to beat, although I’m not sure what it’s pumping blood into."

"It could just be a blip in the machine.  There are no brainwaves.  Whoever it is, they’re brain-dead.  They won’t be able to survive much longer if they are actually surviving at all as of this point," agent Doggett interjected. 

Every person in the room scowled disapprovingly at the agent for saying that in front of Tyler McDonaldson.  Earlier while Scully had been eating and being poked and prodded for her blood, the dental records of the body had been identified as belonging to Amanda McDonaldson.  This was definitely her body, but God only knew what had happened to her.

Tyler’s lips quivered as a tear rolled down his cheek.  He knew the truth in Doggett’s statement, but he was not ready to say goodbye to his beloved wife.  Tyler sat down in the chair by the bed and looked at the bloated disfigured body of his wife.  "Hang on, love.  You were always a fighter.  No sense in giving up just yet."

Everyone in the room was moved by Tyler’s words.  They knew the situation was practically hopeless, but Tyler held on to that little faint heartbeat like it was the last link on a chain holding him above a jagged cliff face.

"Tyler, we’ll do everything we can to find out what happened to her, I promise.  You can stay here with her if you wish since you are the only family she has in this area besides me.  I have to get back to the office with my agents so we can gather some things to be able to start trying to figure out what has happened to your wife," Skinner said to Tyler.

"I know what happened to her," Tyler said in almost a daze.

"How could he know what happened to her?" Dogget burst out.  "No one on this planet could tell what happened to her!"

"Exactly," was all Tyler said.

The room went silent and everyone stared at Tyler in confusion. 

Mulder was the first to speak.  "Tyler, what happened to Amanda?  Was it due to her abduction?"

Tyler was about to speak when Doggett once again burst out with another comment.  "Oh come on now, Mulder.  You can’t be serious.  Little green men are going around and disfiguring people now?  Oh yeah, real believable, ouch" he snorted.

Reyes shifted uncomfortably and quickly hit Doggett in the side, ending his rampage of logic.  "They are gray," she whispered in his ear.

"Oh don’t tell me you believe this crock of crap.  I thought you had more sense than that!" he whispered sharply in her ear as everyone in the room watched them intently.  This was a rather comical sight for Mulder and Scully who could remember arguing much the same way when they first met.  Ah, logic versus the unknown.

They made good bedfellows after many years, each complimenting the other and creating a complex yet harmonious pair.

Tyler interrupted the rather tense moment.  "Yes, it’s due to her abduction, Agent Mulder.  Amanda has been abducted before.  The last time they did something to her brain.  When she finally recovered she had this strange ability to predict things.  It was very odd."

"Chance," Dogget snorted.

"Or not," Mulder said irritably.  "Please go on, Tyler."

"Well, when they found her the last time, she was in bad shape.  Not nearly as bad as she is now, but still near death.  I don’t know.  It was like they were testing her body to see if she could survive something.  It was very strange.  I wonder what they did to her this time.  She looks like she is in agony.  Why do they always have to choose her?"

"They used to choose others a few years back.  There was a case with Billy Miles…"

"Billy Miles?" Tyler interrupted Mulder.  "Amanda used to talk about a Billy Miles.  She said she saw him when she was abducted the first time.  She had asked what his name was and he told her Billy Miles was his name.  Could this all be related?"

"We don’t know that just yet, Tyler," Scully said as she rested her hand on the poor man’s shoulder.  "We’ll look into this and see if anything can be found.  You should get some rest.  You’ve had a very long day."

Tyler slumped down in the chair.  "I think I’ll stay with her for the night.  Thank you all for your help.  Hopefully she’ll be able to fight through the night.  She’s never given up before."

The agents all nodded and left the room.  Skinner soon followed them after saying something to Tyler.

Scully yawned.  It had been a while since she slept soundly.  She knew that tonight she would sleep very well.  She and Mulder were safe.  Nothing had happened to him and nothing had happened to her aside from her little fainting spell that night.  Scully mused about the future of her, Mulder, and their child when Mulder came up to her and put his arm over her shoulder.  "You ready for bed, shorty?" he said playfully.

"Shorty?"

"Just a joke."

Scully pushed him into the side of the wall and made Mulder stumble rather clumsily.  "Just a joke," she grinned and shrugged.  The two agents laughed on the way out into the car to ride back to the hotel.  They both desperately needed sleep it seemed.  As soon as they went to the room, they both fell asleep.  They were too tired to even make it to their own separate rooms.  They just fell asleep on the bed that Mulder had slept on that first fateful case they had ever worked on together.

 

 

Meanwhile, back in the hospital…..

Tyler yawned and stretched as he looked at his wife’s body.  He cried for what seemed to be the thousandth time that night.  He hated to see her looking so utterly miserable.  He couldn’t remember when he had fallen asleep, but when he woke up, he saw a different looking Amanda.  She looked like she did on their wedding day: peaceful, serene, and beautiful.  Tyler rubbed his eyes in disbelief.  When he opened them again, there lay the beautiful body of his wife.  There were no more ruptured veins, no more ragged hair.  Just pure beauty and the woman he had fallen in love with.

He checked the vitals monitor and saw that there was a very slow, very steady heartbeat and that she had brainwaves again.  It had to be a miracle!

Tyler leaned over her face, disbelief still in his eyes.  "Amanda?" he whispered to her as he leaned in closer.
Suddenly her eyes opened and her hand shot forward to Tyler’s neck as she squeezed on his jugular vein.  Tyler could not believe she was attacking him!  He squirmed, trying to get away.  When he looked in her eyes, he saw not the beautiful amber eyes he was used to but rather cold gray eyes staring back at him as if he was food.  He stared into those eyes as the world turned dark around him and he stopped breathing.

When his life had left him, Amanda threw him across the room, sending his body through the glass doors, shattering them and causing a very scared nurse to scream out in horror.  Amanda rose from her bed and ripped out the IV’s and monitoring equipment.  She threw the scared nurse against the wall and proceeded to make her way through the hospital to the front doors.  A security guard saw the trail of gore behind her and shot three rounds at her, hitting her square in the chest.  Three shots that should have killed her.  Three shots that did not even phase her.  She knocked the security guard through the doors of an ambulance and made her way down the quiet streets of Oregon.

The Next Day….

Mulder and Scully awoke to Doggett and Reyes crashing through their door to wake up whom they presumed would be Mulder, but found both agents curled up together in the bed.  This did not look good for the discreet image they were trying to keep up. 

"There’s been an attack at the hospital.  Tyler McDonaldson is dead as well as three nurses.  There was one survivor, a security guard who seems to go in and out of consciousness all last night.  They have him in stable condition now, so we might want to question him," Dogget said in a hurry.

"What about Amanda?" Scully questioned.

"That’s just the thing.  It was Amanda who killed all of them.  She left the hospital last night."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other quickly then jumped out of bed and raced for the car with Doggett and Reyes to make their way to the hospital once again.

When they arrived, they saw a bloody trail that led from Amanda’s room to the front doors.  Glass had been shattered everywhere and a broken ambulance was parked outside the doors.  The agents all flashed their badges at the timid clerk who led them toward the room where Amanda had been.
They looked and saw Tyler on the floor, huge bruises on his neck. 

"Choked to death," Scully murmured as she looked at the broken blood vessels on his neck.  "At least it looks to be a quick job.  He probably didn’t feel a whole lot after the initial hold.  Where’s Skinner?"

"He had to go notify the family to be on the lookout for Amanda and to break the bad news to them.  He has enough to worry about right now it seems," Reyes answered.

"Where is the security guard?  I want to talk to him and see what he saw," Mulder stated as he looked around.
"Room 157, right around the corner," a nurse replied to him.

Mulder and Dogget made their way to see the security guard as Scully and Reyes stayed behind to search the scene of the crime.  Mulder walked through the door of room 157 and saw the bloodied security guard sipping on some sort of mashed soup.

"The chicken noodle soup here is really good," he said cheerily.  "You must be the FBI agents, right?"

"Right," Mulder said as he sat down in the chair in front of the guard, leaving Doggett standing in the hallway.  "What happened last night?"

"I saw a girl walking through the hallway and attacking people, so I shot at her.  I swear to you, I hit her three times in the chest.  I’m a good shot.  Was voted best in my class at police academy.  I swear to you, she took three slugs in the chest and she kept walking then threw me hard against the ambulance outside and that’s all I remember."

"Do you keep security tape records in ICU?" Mulder asked.

"Yes.  If you want to look at the tapes, they already got them out for you to look at.  Just ask the nurse out front and she’ll give them to you."

"Thank you," Mulder said as he got up and headed out the door.  "Enjoy the soup."

Mulder and Doggett made their way to the front desk to get the tapes.  "You think he really hit Amanda?" Mulder asked Doggett.

"There’s no way.  How could anyone survive three shots to the chest?"

"What if part of them wasn’t human anymore?"

"What do you mean?" Doggett sputtered.  "Don’t tell me you think she’s now part little green man now!"

"Gray," Mulder mumbled.

"What?" Doggett asked.

"I think she’s part of an experiment now."

"What kind of experiment?  You’ve got to be kidding.  How the hell did you even get into the FBI?" Doggett raged.

Mulder shoved Doggett up against the wall.  "Don’t ever insult me like that, do you hear me?" he sputtered angrily.

"Got it," Doggett squeaked while pinned against the wall.
The agents picked up the tapes then headed back to the hotel room.  Mulder popped in the tape and he, Scully, Doggett, and Reyes watched as three consecutive shots went through Amanda and didn’t even phase her.

The agents all shook their heads.  It didn’t make sense.  Something strange was happening.  It was obviously an X-file now, no longer simply a missing person case.

"What do we do, Mulder?" Scully asked.

"We find Amanda McDonaldson before she finds Billy Miles."

"What does Billy Miles have to do with this?" Reyes asked.
"Tyler said she talked of Billy Miles.  If this is what I think it is, then Billy might be just like Amanda now."

"And just what is Amanda?" Dogget snorted.

"I think she might have been turned into a human bounty hunter so to speak.  She’s not totally alien like the others, but she’s got enough of the alien blood in her to make her almost indestructible."

"Then how do we stop her?" This came from Scully.

"I don’t know that yet.  All I know is that we have to find her before she kills anyone else."

That they all agreed.

Oregon Woods

Amanda McDonaldson walked through the woods in search of the others.  Part of her knew she did something absolutely horrible while the other part of her saw nothing wrong with killing humans.  She wondered what she had become.  All she knew was that she had to find Billy Miles.  She knew he would have the answer to that.  She somehow knew he would be out here.  She pressed on and found something shining on the ground.

She bent down and found a three stone anniversary ring in a small black box.  She picked up the box and ran her hands over the soft velvet and put the ring on.  It was a perfect fit.  A small memory of her husband buying this ring and then dropping it on the way to the summit of the hill came into her mind.  She could remember no more than that.  All her memories seemed to be gone now.

She moved quicker through the woods, but clutched onto that box and that one memory.  She reached the summit and saw Billy Miles standing there, looking at her.

"I knew you would be here," she said.

"I knew you would come," he said.

"What have I become?  What happened?"

"You are now far more superior to all humans," Billy said.

"Why did I kill Tyler?"

"Who is Tyler?"

"My husband.  He bought me this ring," she said as she showed it to Billy.

Billy knew this was not good.  She was not supposed to have memories.  If she had memories, she was too human.  She was not the one to use for the experiment.  It had failed.

"Turn around for me," Billy said softly as Amanda complied.
A small silver device found its way to his hand as he pressed it against Amanda’s neck.  "You were not supposed to remember," he said.

"I could never forget," she said as the silver blade can out of the device and killed her instantly.  Green acid bubbled out of her as her eyes closed and Billy felt all her weight on him. 

"They will not be pleased that she failed.  We need someone who wants to forget his past.  We need Mulder."

Billy placed the body of Amanda in the small river which would float her toward the town where someone was bound to find her.  With the leaking of the acid from her neck, all the alien blood poured out of her body.  There would be no trace of alien DNA in her system. 

She was just a human again.

Oregon Memorial Hospital

Mulder and Scully moved through the morgue to help identify the body of Amanda McDonaldson in the absence of Skinner.  The coroner removed the sheet of plastic from the body which revealed the serene face of Amanda McDonaldson. 

 

"It’s her," Scully said.

Mulder looked at the body.  Something was different, but he couldn’t place it.  He asked if an autopsy had been done and the coroner replied with an emphatic yes.  He said there was a small wound on the back of the neck, but other than that, everything else was fine.  The coroner suspected that she died of cold from being in the cool river.  He said there was water in the lungs, so she could have become lethargic in the river then drowned.

A small wound on the back of the neck.

Mulder and Scully both knew what that meant.
As the two agents left the hospital to head to the airport to go back to Washington, the light hit the diamond band on Amanda’s hand, causing a small sparkle to emanate through the room.  If one was looking close enough, they would have been able to see a smile placed on Amanda’s face even though her body was no longer living.

She smiled because she eternally had her memories.

Scully’s Apartment

 

Scully returned home that night to her own apartment. After having Doggett and Reyes crashing in on them, Scully had thought it best for them to go their separate ways. As she was coming into the door her mind flashed back to the devastating night she got the bad news.

 

<She walked into her dark apartment and was startled to find Mulder asleep on her couch.

 

“Scully? I must have dozed off. I was waiting for you to get back.” Mulder said, getting up from the couch and slowly approaching her. He knew things hadn’t gone good. There wasn’t a trace of a smile on her face and he could see the faint lines of tears staining her cheeks. “It didn't take, did it?”

 

She nodded her head and looked at her hands. “I guess it was too much to hope for.”

 

Mulder opened his arms and she walked into them. He held her tightly as she sobbed. “It was my last chance!” She cried.

 

Mulder gave her a squeeze and then leaned back to plant a kiss on her forehead. He rested his head where he had just put his lips and softly said, “Never give up on a miracle.”

 

Scully looked up and kissed his cheek, tracing a small path to his neck where he turned slightly and kissed her lips.>

 

Scully smiled at the memory of that night. Mulder was right. Never give up on a miracle. Her hand rested on her belly once again as she thought about how this wonder was conceived. Maybe true love really does heal all.

 

The end.