Black Chaos
By: Olivia


"Howl, howl, howl, howl! O you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever."-William Shakespeare-
"King Lear"

"For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again."-William Shakespeare-"Venus & Adonais"



Scully was still screaming "no" when Skinner, Reyes, and Doggett heard rather than found her. The intensity of her pain knocked the breath out of Skinner and Doggett as if a Mac truck going eighty had hit them. There was no way for them to ease her sorrow.

Reyes just watched her compassionately, but even she felt on edge with the waves of utter hopelessness and pain hitting her. She had known Agent Scully only a short time compared to the other two, but she sensed that this display of emotion was completely out of character for this levelheaded, under control FBI agent. Scully had been under huge amounts of emotional duress. And now all her hopes of finding her friend were dashed to a million pieces, never to be restored again.

They stood there not knowing what to do-afraid to touch her, afraid to intrude on her grief for her lost partner.

Scully finally stopped screaming and let her body go limp on the wooden floor. There was complete silence and yet the remnant of her scream hung in the air. She sat there disbelieving that this was truly happening. After years of cheating Death it had finally caught up to Mulder. There was nothing she could do to bring him back to life. All hope was lost. And she was forced to live in this world without Mulder, without the other half of her soul.

Every memory of Mulder flashed though her head. It was like watching her life on fast forward. It was as if her life had never truly begun until she met him.

And she wondered why her life was beset by tragedy. She wondered why God could allow this wonderful, genuine human being to be tortured and killed. And she wondered why God had allowed her to fail to save Mulder.

It was then that she realized that people were in the room standing around her. How long they had been there, she couldn't tell. The only reasons she even cared were that she knew that they were concerned about her and that they had done all they could to save Mulder.

Skinner kneeled next to her. "I'm so sorry, Dana." He was mentally kicking himself for not having let Scully prepare for Mulder's death. But at the time, he though he has said what was best. Even he himself had not believed it would ever end like this.

Scully nodded her head very slightly and let him help her to her feet. There was no more fight left in her at that moment.

"Where's Mulder?" Scully asked quietly.

No one spoke at first. They were fearful that Scully had somehow snapped and wouldn't accept that Mulder was dead.

Finally, Doggett answered realizing that she just wanted to know where Mulder's body was. "I had them bring his body with us. He's right outside."

"There's work to be done," Scully said.

The three were horrified.

Skinner sternly whispered to her, "There is no way I am allowing you to do his autopsy."

"No," Scully said quietly. "There's not going to be an autopsy. He has suffered enough. What I meant is that we need to make arrangements for Mulder's funeral. Seeing as he had that gravestone made, I think he would probably want to be buried in North Carolina with his mother."

Skinner shook his head. "We can talk about this later, Dana."

"No," said Scully rather too loudly. She adjusted her voice to room level when she next spoke. "We need to make sure he's safe first."

Realizing that she meant Mulder's body, Doggett lightly touched her arm. "Please let A.D. Skinner take you back to the hotel and I will take care of Mulder. You can trust me."

"I know I can," said Scully. Her voice started to tremble. "But I just have to make sure he's taken care of."

"Okay. We'll take the body over to the hospital. We'll make certain everything's taken care of for tonight and then you are going back to the motel with us, okay? Everything else we can arrange in the morning."

Scully simply nodded. She realized this was probably all the latitude that they would give her. If she couldn't protect Mulder in life, she would protect him in death. It was all that was left for her to do.