Title and parts: The Taking VI: A Bend in the Road (1/1)
Author: Jenn Chiprich
Email feedback: ipomea@msn.com
Overall content: 3
Distribution: Anywhere
Category: SRA
Rated: R
Summary:  Sometimes, even when the road seems stretched out in front of you,
and you think you know where you're headed; a bend appears, changing the way
that you think and feel. Thanks to everyone that has kept reading and there
will be more parts if y'all want them.

Timespan/Spoilers:  The story itself occurs in the future.  There may be
mention of episodes from all four seasons.

Disclaimer:  Well, all these fun folks from The X-files (Mulder and Scully)
definitely do not belong to me(No matter how much I wish it).  They belong
to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting and are used
without permission.  No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is
being made from their use

Jerry leaned against the door jam, watching as Dana collapsed Mulder on the
couch in the basement.  To her, the extent of blood loss was bad, but
manageable if she dealt with it quickly.

"Did you get it?" Jerry asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yes." Dana bent over Fox removing his shirt.  Mulder struggled to a
half-sitting position to help her and she pushed him back down.  "Down,
G-man.  I know how to undress you.  You sitting up  will only increase the
blood loss." she ripped the shirt away to gaze upon his wound.  "Jerry, do
you have a couple of extra towels? Shirts?  I need a needle if you have one,
lighter, smallest thread you have."  From the moment that she had watched
Mulder go down with the bullet until she had managed to get his
semi-concious body up the steps and into Jerry's house, she hadn't been
quite certain that he would make it.  The amount of blood that she could see
eminating from his body in the inky blackness had had he worried.  But here,
in the relative safety of Jerry's house,  there was a chance.

Jerry turned from her to run into his partner, Katie.  The smallish woman
contemplated him and then the two agents with a look of disdain.  He
struggled to maintain a calm voice when he answered her look, but she cut
him off before he could utter a single sound.

"The Guardians are banging on doors up and down the street...they're looking
for them aren't they?" her voice was small.  Her brown eyes were filled with
tears and she crossed her arms protectively around her womb as if to protect
it.  "Jerry...."

"They need our help, Kate." he whispered.  "They don't have anyone else to
run to right now and I told them to come here if there was a problem.
Mulder is hurt, badly by the look of it."

Kate moved past him to walk over to Dana who was bundling up Fox's discarded
shirt as a means of stanching the flow of blood.  She bent down and looked
at Fox's blanched face and grimace of pain and at the look of pleading on
Dana's.  Katie knew that to have these two reneges found in her dwelling
would get her and Jerry killed as well as them, and in her blossoming
mother's mind, she thought of her unborn child.  She liked these aliens no
more than did Jerry, but it was a matter of individual survival that she
thought about.  As she watched, Mulder moaned and Scully maintained pressure
on his wound with one hand and cupped his cheek with her other.  The look in
the elder woman's eyes touched Katie's heart; it was a gaze that was deep
with pain and anguish.  It was this look that sealed her decision for her.
These two people were risking everything in order to help the population as
a whole, to betray them would only seal her fate in the long run.  It was
the matter at hand, however, about keeping their presence there a secret.

"You can't stay here...." she began, only to see Dana's look of horror and
heard her gasp.  "No...no, I didn't mean you have to leave.  I mean that we
have to find somewhere where you and Mulder can hide until they pass.  If
they search the house, they'll see you here, no doubt about that.  There is
a small storage room off the side over there.  You might have a better
chance of hiding out..."

Jerry moved quickly to help Dana right Mulder and move him to the room.  He
was happy that Katie had chosen the path that she had; although he cared for
her deeply, he knew that decisions of this nature were personal and he had
no power to influence her.  Her decision to help was purely her own.   Once
they had the two agents inside the room, Katie left to find the sewing kit
she had as well as a couple of extra shirts.  Jerry went upstairs to fend
off the coming danger.
-------

Within an hour, Dana had Mulder sewn up and resting.  The suture was a good
one and would serve its purpose well.  She had collapsed next to him on the
floor and was resting up against the wall.  Her hair hung limply at her
shoulders and her shirt was stuck to her back with sweat....but Mulder was
going to make it.  It had been a bad wound, but thankfully the bullet had
passed through the fleshy part of his side, just glancing off one of his
ribs.  The pain that had crossed Fox's face as she cleaned and sewed his
wound without drugs had torn her heart in two.  The bleeding had been
extensive, and he was very weak, but alive.  She sighed.

The Guardians had indeed searched the house.  They didn't know who they were
persuing, or exactly why, but they had examined every nook and cranny of the
house.  The little storage room, though, had slipped their notice.
Thankfully.  Jerry and Katie had fielded the aliens, explaining that they
had been woken up by the noise on the street.  After about fifteen minutes,
they had left.

Dana didn't know why Katie had helped them, but she was glad.  Fox moaned
and Scully laid her hand on his head to steady it as she checked his pupils.
Good response.  "Fox?"

"Mmmm." it came out as a grunt.

"How do you feel?"

"Like I got run over by half the NFL." He managed a weak smile.  "Are you
through torturing me yet?"

She gave a half smile that quickly disappeared as surprise tears ran down
her cheek.  Mulder squinted his eyes into the soft light of the dawn, and
tried to get a good look at her.  "Scully?  What's wrong?"

She bit her lip and stopped the traitor tears.  "Nothing, Mulder. Nothing.
Let's get you together...when daylight gets here, we have to get you back
home."
-------

But I know what is wrong, she thought as she saw Mulder's lanky form tucked
into bed.  I almost lost him.  With that flow of blood, she shivered.  His
eyes were closed and his hair was sticking to his forehead due to the heat,
and she laid her palm against his cheek.  It had never been this way in the
past, she had always managed to keep herself from allowing feelings to
intrude on business matters.  Only a couple of times had she let the wall
slip a little...that Pusher case and with that paper hearts case.  But.....

For the first time, Dana regretted what was happening, the course of action
that she and Mulder had chosen.  For the first time, she thought that maybe
it might have been better to have ended it all before this whole mess had
begun.  She was caught in it now.  And she knew that her sense of duty and
drive would keep her going; would try to complete this task to the best of
her ability.  But at what cost. What cost indeed, she thought.  The stakes
had risen higher in the last few months.   Individual sacrifice was one
thing, but what would she do if her choice sacrificed him?  She couldn't
knowing do that; she probably hadn't been able to do that from day one of
the partnership.  Dana understood individual choice; she had seen the
interaction between Katie and Jerry the night before and knew that when the
decision had come that it was all Katie's doing.  She respected that and
would have respected having been removed from the premises if that had been
Katie's decision.  Dana had long ago made the decision to involve herself
and fight.  Mulder had made his decision concerning himself.  But watching
the person you love  knowingly, deliberately stepping in dangerand knowing
without a doubt that they are doing it for you more than anything else.  She
hung her head and cried.  Cried because the danger they lived in now was not
a job as it had been in DC all that time ago, but because this was their
life, for their life.  She cried for the years past and for the peace that
she had had.  And she cried for her love in Fox and knew that it would
either cause great joy or great pain, but was almost unwilling to deal with
either emotion.  And she cried for her yet to be concieved child, and the
pain and suffering that it would undoubtably live with.

Life went on.  She would too.  And the curtain next to the bed billowed out
and in, personifying life and the relentless passing of time.


End(1/1)