The day the world stopped spinning

Summary: Mulder and Scully become refugees as Washington DC is destroyed.

Mulder walked into the FBI building, feeling refreshed and ready to dive into his work. He and Scully had been a romantic couple for a month now, ever since New Years. When Scully walked into his office seven years ago, Mulder had thought that she had been sent to spy on him. But he quickly learned to trust her. As FBI agents, they had been through their share of life-threatening situations, and like any law enforcement partnership, they had become very close as a result of these run-ins with danger. Mulder trusted Scully with his life, and she trusted him with hers.

But there was always more than that. Mulder had come to depend on Scully for his very soul. She was his rock, the only person he could ever trust. Through the years, his endless obsession with his work in the paranormal had cost them both dearly. There was no way he could ever repay Scully for standing by him through thick and thin. Her constant skepticism and denial of the things they'd both seen could be frustrating at times, but Mulder relied on her to keep him from falling too deep and letting the darkness consume him entirely.

This morning, he had woken up next to her, as he had all week. It was a Sunday, and she complained about having to go to work, but they were working on a critical case involving possible alien sightings in California. They planned to leave for the golden state tomorrow, and Mulder had insisted that they had needed to evaluate some evidence he had waiting for them in his basement office in the FBI building. Scully mentioned that she had a meeting at the US capitol this morning but would join him in his office later. So, they had parted ways, and he had driven the distance to the FBI headquarters building and headed to his office in the basement. The building was empty, as it was Sunday, and he was the only one planning to work. So he thought. When he got into the building, he found Skinner standing in front of the main entrance, waiting for him.

"I thought we were the only ones with no life today," Mulder said as he and Skinner stood in front of the window, enjoying the morning sun beaming through the window.

"We?" Skinner asked, glancing around. Walter Skinner was the only other person besides Scully that Mulder felt close too. He was Mulder and Scully's boss, and he had saved their lives on countless occasions and had become somewhat of a father figure to both of them.

"Scully will be here in a few minutes; she had to run down to the capitol building to look something up. Is there something I can help you with, Sir?"

"There is, Agent. I thought we-" Skinner was cut off when a bright flash cut in through the upper window above Mulder's desk. Mulder and Skinner both threw themselves to the ground. The flash lasted only a few seconds, and Mulder stood up to gaze with horror as a huge mushroom cloud rose over the buildings. A nuclear explosion.

"Oh shit! Get down!" Skinner demanded. They had mere seconds to dive under some desks as a loud boom roared around him. Mulder felt his ears pop painfully as the glass around them shattered, and strong winds rushed through the building blowing everything in sight…

Moments later, it was quiet. Mulder rose from his shelter and looked around. The structure around them had partially collapsed, and it was no longer possible to see outside. Skinner walked over to him. "It looked like it came from somewhere behind the capitol building," he said.

"Oh, no!" Mulder exclaimed, and a wave of horror caused him to surge to his feet, "Scully!"

"Mulder don't try to go out there," Skinner warned. "There is radiation, thermal heat, and flying debris."

"I know what a nuclear weapon does," Mulder snapped. But he didn't care about his own safety right now. He had only one concern. "I have to find her," Mulder insisted as he was already heading for a gap in the rubble. The thought of a giant mushroom cloud and the hell that could be going on above him did not affect him. His mind was wholly occupied with the need to find Scully.

"If she was at the capitol, there is no way she could have survived!" Skinner shouted as Mulder hurried up the stairs. Mulder stopped for a second and tried to calm himself. He was terrified of that possibility. "I won't accept that," he said. "You should get into the basement. If the building collapses, the flooring should hold, and the basement is resistant against fallout. I'll be back with her, or I won't be back at all."

Mulder ran out into the street and was horror-struck by what he saw. It was as if he had just walked into hell. The sky was black. All around him were piles of rubble where buildings had stood. Mulder could see the enormous mushroom-shaped cloud rising about a mile away at the capitol building. The air was hot, and particles and debris rained down on him like snow. Mulder used the bottom of his trench coat as shielding from the radioactive particles raining down on him. The world around him had been transformed into something straight out of a nightmare.

Mulder broke into a run through the streets. He called out her name over and over, and as he did, he began to see people all around him, moving past him on their way toward safety. Many ran in panic, and it became hard to steer through the crowds. On the ground, there were many bodies, and Mulder glanced at each one of them, afraid to discover her among them. He pressed onwards, and suddenly his skin was on fire. He looked to see blisters forming on hands, and the pain and heat became intense. He felt the intense pressure around him.

As Mulder moved through the crowds, he could see the stream of people becoming scarce and their injuries more intense. When he first stepped out of the FBI building, he saw many with cuts and terrible wounds inflicted upon them by flying debris. There was a man with a shard of glass in his eye and a woman lying dead on the floor, having been impaled by a flag pole. But now, the injuries were much more horrendous. People with third-degree thermal radiation burns all over their bodies lumbered passed him, many barely alive and more like zombies. There was a man whose entire body was blackened and a woman whose intestines were hanging out of her body.

It was 20 minutes later, and Mulder continued to call out for Scully, and his desperation was the only thing that fueled him forward, as the hot fiery hell around him was agonizing. Then, he was confronted with a sickening sight. The US capitol building was gone. All that stood in its place was blackened Earth. The mushroom cloud loomed menacingly from where the capital once stood. The structures of downtown Washington DC would have blocked his view of it… if they were still there. From where he now stood, not one building stood between him and the center of the blast, more than a mile away.

Then, another sight made his heart jump into his throat. It was Scully's car, barely recognizable in a twisted metal heap in front of a pile of debris. It was blackened, and as he neared it, he found her trench coat, the one she had been wearing this morning when she left, flapping about in the wind, pinned by the car. Mulder hurried over and retrieved the coat and immediately felt the tears well up in his eyes. He was just about to give in and let the heat and radiation take him when he heard her voice.

"Mulder!" he turned and almost doubled over at the sight of her as she emerged from the lumbering crowds and billowing dust clouds. She lumbered toward him, and he could see horrible third-degree burns on her face and hands. Her black business suit was covered in dust and debris and was torn. Mulder rushed toward her, and just as he reached her, her knees buckled up under her, and she collapsed into his arms.

"It's so hot…so hot," she said weakly as Mulder lay her onto the road and used her trench coat to cover her head and hands, shielding her from further injuries. "It's okay, I have you," he said as he lifted her into his arms and started back towards the FBI building…

It must have been at least three days later when Mulder, Skinner, and a large group of Washington refugees found themselves wandering along the highway, passing homes and small towns along the way. No one talked about what had happened; no one could wrap their minds around it just yet.

Their pace had been plodding. Mulder felt nauseous as he pushed the small farmer's wagon he'd found along the way. Scully lay inside, covered in blankets and bandages. He knew they both could have gotten a hefty dose of radiation, and many people who had started with them had already died along the way.

The stream of refugees along just about every high way was almost constant. They clogged the streets as they made their way towards the many stations set up out of the nuclear fallout zone. Mulder hadn't heard much about the condition of DC once he'd left it, or the shape of the US government, for now, he figured everyone was still trying to get a clear idea of where to go from here. All he did know is that most of congress and the presidential cabinet had been wiped out in one fell swoop. As he walked, he had passed many military vehicles as they patrolled the highways, monitoring the refugees. He suspected that the military had been quick to step in and impose martial law on the region, but he could only imagine what was happening in the rest of the country as news of the calamity had reached all corners of the globe by now.

"We should be in Winchester, Virginia, by sunset," Skinner mumbled as he walked alongside them. "There's a medical center set up to help the refugees, and it's far enough away from any possible fallout, we can stay there for a while."

Mulder pursed his lips in contemplation. If Scully were well, she would have been at that medical center, ready and eager to help. But now, she was among the ones who needed help.

"Who do you think, did it?" Mulder had been contemplating that question for days. Who did this? How did it happen? Who was to blame? Mulder's mind had immediately gone to the Smoking man and the syndicate as having some involvement, but it was too soon to tell for sure. And although they had all been behind some pretty big conspiracies, this seemed a little extreme even for them.

"I don't know," Skinner responded. "I think it's too early for those kinds of rumors. And before you say it, what possible reason would any of those bastards have to destroy their own country?"

"I don't know," Mulder admitted. "But they're my number one suspects. And I swear if they're behind it, they are going to pay." he'd managed to expose the deepest conspiracies behind the syndicate and their cover-up of alien activity on Earth, and they had been more or less defeated, or so he had thought.

"Let's just get these people to safety," Skinner suggested. "We can worry about what comes next after that." Mulder was forced to concur with that suggestion.