Submission: Angles and Planes
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998

Title: Angles and Planes
Summary: Hey, it's the Bermuda Triangle. If I say anymore, it will
consist of spoilers.
Spoiler Warning: This is a fill in the blank for 'Triangle' in the sixth
season. If you didn't see it yet, don't read this :)
Category: V, UST, A, Muldertorture, LGM
Rating: PG-13, with one R word used only once
Disclaimer: Well, if this one doesn't get you an Emmy, they are
just holding out on you, Chris. You done good. This is my humble
attempt to flatter. Imitation is the highest form, you know. But I
only imitate, not infringe.
Archive: Yes
Notes: I got up and had three requests in my mail box. Hope this
meets expectations. There may be another, or I may hope someone
else picks up the end. I'd love to know what you think.

Angles and Planes
by Vickie Moseley
vmoseley@fgi.net

Dana Scully stared around the grand ballroom with a feeling of the
surreal. It was almost as if she could hear the echoes of a couple
hundred ghosts, dancing to music her grandmother had listened to,
chatting, laughing, . . . living. She shuddered and brought herself
back to the present.

The tables were still set. The stage still showed a torn and rotting
curtain and a big cardboard cutout of a moon in waning stage. All
that was missing was the band and the torch singer. Oh, and
everyone else, of course.

But here again, as on all the other decks, there was no sign of her
partner.

"Mulder, when I get you, you're ass is mine, and not in a good
way," she muttered to herself. An abrupt cough, right behind her,
caused her to spin around. It was Byers, looking rather
embarrassed at his intrusion into her thoughts.

"Sorry, Agent Scully. Frohike checked the bridge, Langly has
combed the quarterdecks, we can't even find footprints, aside from
our own. I don't think he's on board."

Scully nodded mutely and left the ballroom for the upper deck and
their way off the ship.

As she started to cross the threshold, something caught her eye. A
crumpled object, ancient and forgotten. A cigarette butt. She
stooped and picked it up, slipping it in her pocket. "Let's go. He's
still out there," she said over her shoulder, and didn't wait to see if
Byers was following. She knew he would.

They met up on the lowest outside promenade and took the metal
stairs down to their own little chartered boat. The water was calm,
more calm than Scully had ever seen it. Frohike, Byers and Langly
were all silent, going about their business. Scully had been
somewhat surprised to discover that at least Frohike was an
excellent sailor and the other two seemed to know their way around
a sailing vessel as well. Just as well, she thought. She wasn't in the
mood to sail. She was too busy listening for Mulder.

After they pulled a distance from the Queen Anne, Byers touched
her shoulder. "Where, Agent Scully?"

She bit her lip and stared at the open sea. "Back home, guys. It's
almost dark. We'll try again . . ."

"I got something!" Langly shouted. "On radar, just a few leagues
to the starboard. Looks like a lot of junk. Could be Mulder's
vessel."

"Gimme the coordinates," Frohike shouted back and in minutes
they were turned around and headed to the other side of . . .
nothing. The Queen Anne had completely disappeared. Now, in
the darkening gloom of a dying sun, Scully could make out bits and
pieces of wreckage.

"Get us over there. NOW!" Scully screamed loud enough to wake
the dead. In her heart, so hoped that wouldn't be necessary.

As the little boat moved swiftly across the glassy water, chunks of
ruined boat floated past, buoyed by the wake. A piece of hull, part
of the deck, what looked like a cushion to a sunning chair. Nothing
that would give any indication that there were survivors to the
catastrophe that had befallen the lonely boat.

"What's that, just up ahead?" Byers was using a spyglass, scanning
the water in the last rays of sunlight.

Scully joined him on the bow, covering her eyes with her upraised
hand to get rid of the glare from the sun on the water. "I see
something. It looks . . . It _is_ a body! Slow down, Frohike, or
you'll run over it! Pull up along side, we'll pull him aboard."

The next several minutes were later a blur. Scully only had a vague
recollection of seeing the body floating in the water, face down. A
tiny part of her mind recognized immediately Mulder's windbreaker
and his boots. His watch, and she remembered handing him the box
at Christmas three years past and telling him it was waterproof up
to twenty feet below the surface. She meant the watch, not her
partner.

Then, it was all action. Easing the boat up next to the body,
shutting down the propellers so it wouldn't be sucked into the
blades. Byers, climbing down the ladder and reaching out to grab
and hoist the sodden body up to the deck.

It was indeed Mulder. But he wasn't breathing.

Scully pushed her way to the front now, kneeling beside her partner
and shouting orders. "Blankets. Lots of 'em. Help me get him on
his side, I have to clear an airway. That's it, now let's ease him on
his back. I've got a pulse. It's thready at the carotid, but it's there.
I'm starting CPR, Byers, take compressions."

She didn't even look up to see if Byers knew how to _do_
compressions, but later, she was grateful that somewhere in his
studies, the former employee of the FCC had managed to learn
CPR.

Water poured out of Mulder's mouth and nose when they turned
him over, but he didn't begin to breath on his own. Scully and
Byers had him on his back and Scully blew into his mouth. This
isn't how I pictured it, Mulder, she chided him silently. What did
you do, run into seafaring bees?

Blowing air into his mouth was a lot harder than it should have
been. His chest rose, but only a little. He's full of water, Scully's
clinical sense told her. Full of salt water, and each passing moment
it was acting as a corrosive agent on the delicate lining of his lungs.
She remembered her father telling her that sailors of old refused to
learn how to swim. It was far better to die of drowning, which was
relatively quick, than to suffer the unbearable torture of having your
lungs burned from the inside out.

The compressions were taken over by Langly, who silently took
them up when Byers fell back on his backside. Frohike was ready
to take over for Scully, but an icy glare in his direction and he
backed off. Instead the little man worked at getting Mulder's boots
and jeans off him and wrapping him in cotton blankets and then in a
thermal one.

She wasn't going to give up. Mulder had never given up on her
and damn him, she wasn't a quitter, either. Tears were streaming
down her eyes and she was thinking up every evil thing she could
muster when he started to gag. Rolling him over immediately, she
struck hard at his back as he retched up what looked like gallons of
water, coughing and sputtering.

"Get it out, Mulder. C'mon, get it all out," she crooned, rubbing
his shoulders and holding him as he continued to rid himself of
more of the sea than anyone thought one man could hold. He fell
back against her, breathing shallowly, but on his own.

She wiped the water from his forehead where it had dripped down
from his hair. "It's all right, now. It's all right." She looked up at
her three companions. "We need to get him below. I need to
assess the damage."

Carefully, the three men carried their friend down to the cabin
below deck. They laid him on the bunk there and stood aside,
awaiting further orders.

Scully made short work of the windbreaker and the tee shirt
underneath. When she uncovered his bare skin, she let out a low
whistle. His side and back were covered in bruises, many of them
deep and mottled. Quickly, she checked for rigidity in his abdomen
and sighed in relief when she encountered toned muscle and soft
flesh. No internal bleeding, at least not severe. But that didn't
mean he hadn't bruised himself up inside during the wreck. She
also noted that one rib on his right side was definitely broken,
another was probably either cracked or bruised. Neither seemed to
be causing the difficulty he was having with respiration. All that
salt water had to do something and Scully still had no idea how
long he'd been in the water.

"Somebody get topside and get us a chopper. He needs immediate
medical . . ."

She stopped abruptly as the lights in the cabin blinked out and the
boat went still in the water.

"Shit." Everyone was silent after Langly's startled expletive. Each
held their breath, waiting for the lights to come back on. Finally,
Byers broke out of his shock.

"I'm going to check on the radio. Frohike, help me. Langly, go
check the engine. And somebody get Agent Scully a candle or
something!"

They all remained frozen only a second more and then everyone
started to move. In minutes, Scully was watching over her partner
by the light of a kerosene lamp on the wall. Byers and Frohike
could be heard trying desperately to get anyone on the radio. And
from the steady stream of curses that would have impressed any
longshoreman, Langly was not having any luck with the engine.

Byers came down the hatch first about twenty minutes later. "Uh,
Agent Scully. . ."

"We're dead in the water," Scully sighed tiredly.

"Well, um, yes. I guess you could call it that."

"No radio?" she asked, though she knew the answer before she
asked. Suddenly, she started to pat down her pockets, finally
coming up with her own cell phone. She flipped it open
triumphantly and dialed the number for the Bureau with only
slightly numb fingers. Nothing happened, not even a 'resend to
redial' signal.

"The phone's dead, too," she told him glumly.

"Well, we _are_ in the Bermuda Triangle," Byers took the
opportunity to point out.

"Somebody start singing real loud, maybe Elvis will find us," Scully
said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Her expression changed to
one of worry when her partner started to choke.

Scully rolled him onto his left side, facing away from her. She held
him carefully, ever mindful of the broken ribs and the potential for a
punctured lung. He was coughing up great volumes of saltwater
again, but this time, she knew it was coming from his lungs and not
his stomach. She held him for what seemed an eternity before he
finally slowed and stopped. His breathing was still ragged and she
could hear the catches and wheezes in his chest, but he was taking
in deeper breaths of air than before. Scully allowed herself to start
breathing again.

She wiped at the sweat on her own forehead with the back of her
hand. "I need clean linens, blankets. We can't let him stay wet."
Quickly, four pairs of hands cleaned the soaked bed clothes away
and replaced them with dry articles.

"Hope he doesn't do that too many more times. We're running low
on blankets," Frohike bemoaned. Scully nodded and then looked
hard at all three men.

"What are our options?"

Startled and perplexed looks were exchanged as the three thought
hard to answer the question. Finally, all three shrugged in silent
agreement and Byers spoke for them all.

"Short of rowing, we don't have any options. I tried the torch on
the front of the boat. I thought it might be powered by a dry cell,
but it's dead, too. We could light kerosene lamps up in the bridge
area, but that's pretty dim from any distance and wouldn't stand up
for a mile or more. We're sixty miles from nowhere, Agent Scully.
Nobody is gonna be out here looking for us."

Scully closed her eyes and leaned back against the bulkhead.
"Fuck," she said in defeat.

They all found places to sit. Scully curled her legs up and sat at the
foot of the bunk where Mulder was lying. Frohike took a small
chair that went to the 'dinnette' table and turned it backward to
face his companions. Byers sat on the floor, back to the bulkhead
while Langly took the second to the bottom step on the hatch. No
one said a word for a long time.

"I never figured I'd go out like this," Langly said, finally.

"Well, it's hard to die in a particularly rough round of Dungeons
and Dragons," Frohike scoffed. Langly started to rise off the step
but Scully held up her hand.

"Look, we're not dead, yet. Let's not go buying trouble."

"Why buy trouble? Mulder brings it to us for free," Langly snorted
bitterly.

"Remember Esther?" Frohike pipped in.

"Esther Narin," all three men said in besotted unison, punctuated
with a sigh.

"Come on, guys! That was the most fun you'd had in months!
Admit it," Scully teased.

"Yeah, tons of fun. It took me two weeks to defrag our hard drive
after Esther's little time bombs," Frohike groused.

"But it was great having her there. Remember when she offered to
compute with her _tongue_!" Langly sighed again. "Too bad
Mulder had to spoil it all with that damned handcuff key."

"If he hadn't, I would have," Scully interjected.

"And remember that cable gizmo he brought us? The one that
could brainwash a person into thinking their worst delusions were
real?" Byers brow furrowed as his two male companions made
slashing motions across their throats. "What?"

"Ix-nay on the Able-cay," Frohike hissed and directed his friend's
gaze over to Scully. Fortunately, she was checking Mulder's temp
using an old glass thermometer under his arm and didn't seem to be
listening. Byers bit his lip, embarrassed by his slip and fell silent
again.

"I remember when he came to the office and told us he'd been
teamed with a new partner. Remember, we kept asking for a
description and all he would say was we'd find out over his dead
body," Langly said with a chuckle, then realized what he'd said and
chewed his lip as well.

"I remember Mulder telling me all you did in Allentown. How you
helped him find out about the treatments and the cancer deaths. I
never got around to thanking you all for that," Scully said, not
looking at the other men, but focusing on tucking the blankets
around her partner's shoulders. "His temp is starting to rise."

"That's a good thing, isn't it? I mean, the water was pretty cold.
He was hypothermic when we got him on deck," Byers responded.

"Yes, but just a touch. His temp was 95.3 when we got him
topside. But now it's 101.3. That's up, but too far. And I'm
afraid it's rising."

"What's the problem?" Frohike asked, trying to hide his concern
with a casual tone.

"Could be just the broken bones, sometimes that can spike a fever.
But more likely, it's aspiration pneumonia. He took a lot of salt
water into his lungs, lots of bacteria that would have been filtered
out before it got down there. His body is weak right now, the temp
is a sign that he's fighting the infection. But he needs fluids . . ."

"Fluids? Shit, he was just drowning a couple of hours ago! How
can he need fluids?" Langly demanded, and then blushed brightly at
his own outburst. "I mean, that doesn't make much sense."

Scully smiled indulgently. "You're right, he was in the water. The
wrong kind of water. Ever wonder how they can have a water
shortage in Florida?"

"Problems with desalination. Too much salt in the water."

"Exactly. The body needs salt, that's a fact, but not as much as
there is in salt water. Even though saline solution is a common
hydrating agent in hospitals, it's still not as salty as salt water.
Anyway, Mulder need to be on an IV, he needs antibiotics and O2,
soon he's going to need aerosolized medication to get into his
lungs. We need to get him to a hospital as soon as humanly
possible." Scully closed her eyes and prayed with all she had in her.

Frohike noted it first. "What's that noise?"

Everyone held their breaths, listening hard for the sound.

"An engine?" Scully whispered.

Langly was on his feet and up the hatch before anyone could speak.
"It's a boat! Looks like . . . where the hell is that spyglass . . . ah,
here you are. Yes, shit yes! It's a Coast Guard cutter! Quick,
guys, bring up lanterns! We have to signal them!"

Scully stayed below deck, holding Mulder's hand in hers. She
heard the commotion and then a very familiar voice drifted down to
her ears. In seconds, she looked up and saw the familiar bald head
that accompanied that voice make it's way down the steps of the
hatch.

"Agent Scully. I see you put that information to good use," AD
Skinner said in his usual abrupt manner.

Scully was all smiles, but fought to tamp her relief down. "Yes sir,
I did." Her own manner turned serious. "We need to chopper him
out, sir. Medical evac is more than warranted."

"I assumed as much, Scully. The Coast Guard radioed these
coordinates back to the mainland before we boarded. The chopper
should be here within the next half hour. It's fully equipped for
medical emergencies." He towered over her, head bent against the
low ceiling and regarded his former subordinate. "How is he,
Scully," he asked tenderly.

"Banged up. Broken rib, bruises all over. He took in a lot of
water. Nothing we can't fix, sir," she said with a determined smile.

Skinner patted her on the shoulder and headed up to direct the rest
of the rescue.

Scully looked down at her partner, giving in to the emotions of the
moment. As a single tear of relief ran down her cheek, she ran a
finger along his jaw line. "I was gonna tell you that I intend to kick
your ass to kingdom come, Mulder. But unless I miss my guess,
I'm gonna be outranked, and I'll have to stand in line. A long, long
line."

the end.
Vickie

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hey, ma, can we go Catholic so
we can get communion wafers and
booze?

Bart Simpson, 'The Simpsons'
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^