Genesis
Ally

Epilogue

Three weeks later.

On Scully's insistence, Mulder had agreed to spend the early part of his first week's release from the hospital safety ensconced in her apartment. He hadn't argued much when she had suggested it, seeing the sense in her words.

His recovery had been slow and he was still in the hospital by the time she had been pronounced fit and well and up on her feet.

She had left him briefly, attending the OPC review where she had been questioned at length regarding her actions in San Diego. The hearing had dragged on for three days while the medical evidence was discussed at length. She had coped admirably with most of it, but on the second day, when they had begun questioning her relationship with Mulder, she had lost her habitual cool and stormed out of the conference room.

Skinner had been sent to retrieve her and had been horrified to find her sobbing against a wall, hands covering her face, so appalled was she that they could even think that her actions had been in any way premeditated or independent from the drugs that had been fed into her system. In fact, she had been almost ready to go back in there and tell them to go to hell.

Not a very smart course of action and one which Skinner had managed to talk her out of.

And she had managed to make it through the remainder of the hearing with her professional facade firmly back in place.

When the verdict had finally come through that no disciplinary action would be forthcoming, he had immediately granted her a leave of absence to recover from the ordeal she had been through. He also recognised her unspoken need to take care of her partner through his recovery. To make amends maybe.

And make amends she had. Mulder had been faintly amused by the way she had hovered around him but had played along, knowing that she needed to do this to help heal them both.

On the third day, though, he had managed to persuade her to leave the apartment for a while. To go shopping, to go for a walk, to get her nails done. Anything really, to let her escape all this for a while. He was fine. Getting stronger every day and whilst any sudden movement reminded him to take it easy, the pain had all but disappeared and he had managed to get it through to her that he was fine to be left to his own devices for a while.

But she hadn't stayed away long. A couple of hours maybe before she was back, face slightly flushed from the sunshine that had caught her pale skin.

Immediately she had known something was wrong, had looked at the expression that clouded her partner's pale face and dropped the bags she held in her arms unceremoniously on to the kitchen table.

"What?"

Mulder had passed her the newspaper that had been delivered shortly after her departure and which he had folded in such a way as to make the article easily discernible from the rest on the crowded confines of page four.

*Body of FBI Agent found*

The accompanying article spoke of the grim discovery by a guy walking his dog of the 4X4 parked amongst the trees in a wooded area off the beaten track in the Oregon countryside. The decomposing body was still sitting at the wheel of the car. The hose that snaked from the exhaust and into the vehicle had made cause of death a forgone conclusion, although there was no suicide note to be found anywhere.

No other suspects were being sought in connection with his death.

Special Agent in Charge John Alan Wickham was to be buried with full honors after a small private ceremony confined to members of his immediate family.

There was a small accompanying blurb by the article's author on the stresses that law enforcement professionals were forced to deal with on a daily basis and the grim statistics of suicides within the various police agencies.

Scully stepped towards Mulder.

"Do you believe it?" she asked softly.

Mulder shook his head.

"Do *you*?"

But she didn't need to answer. They both knew that Wickham had failed the men he had pledged his allegiance to. And the cost of that failure had been to die at their hands. Another senseless death to add to the multitudes that these men were responsible for. Scully wondered whether they ever managed to successfully wash the blood from their hands. Did they return to their families at the end of the day and sit amongst them feeling smugly justified in their actions?

She didn't even want to contemplate that the answer might be yes.

The potential knowledge was just beyond her as a human being.

She grasped Mulder's hand, placing the newspaper gently atop the table. Later she would throw it in the trash.

But right now, she simply stepped in to his embrace as he wrapped his arms tightly around her.

So many deaths. So many lives cut short.

But so far they had both been lucky. They were together still. Alive and breathing, listening to the sounds of their heartbeats as they merged into one.

And that was enough.

It had to be.

END

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