Something was wrong.

He knew it as surely as if he were standing on the other side of that door, thinking whatever thoughts Scully was thinking. Something was howling at his instincts to pay attention, to look out.

He put his hand on the knob. All was still within, deadly quiet. He turned it until the latch was freed, then opened it a crack and moved back and to one side quickly, with the instinct of long training. He'd packed his gun in the glove compartment; this was the first time in years he wished he hadn't lost the habit of always wearing it.

"Scully?" he ventured softly. "Are you okay in there?"

As he already knew, she was not in the bathroom. He stepped inside quickly. The mirror was fogged and his glasses steamed almost at once. He took them off and put them in his breast pocket. Her folded jeans and the plaid shirt drooped like wilted flowers over the closed toilet lid, topped by a few scraps of underwear. Plain cotton white, he noted. Slowly, with infinite caution, he moved like a jungle cat around the corner of the open doorway, into the other room.

There on the bed, curled under his parka, Scully lay sleeping. It looked like she had tried to pull the bedspread back and just didn't have the energy to finish the job. Instead, she'd tried to pull it up from the bottom, and because it was thin and she was naked, she had drawn the big parka over her like a blanket.

Skinner went to the bed, drew the rickety chair up beside it, and sat down. She slept deeply, motionless, the parka barely moving as she breathed. Her freckled face was relaxed, the long lashes trembling against her pale cheeks. The bruises were darkening; she'd look bad for a couple of days. Well, as bad as she could look, being Scully.

He fretted briefly, wanting to get up and push the strands of damp auburn hair back from her face, to tuck the jacket around her so she'd be warmer, but one bare shoulder and the towel that lay pooled on the floor at his feet told her she WAS naked, and he was afraid to touch her, except to pull the blanket from his side of the bed and lay it gently across her sleeping form.

It was late, late, late. Yawning, Skinner went back out to his car and got his bag, brought it in. He took a long shower, scrubbing the mud and the blood off, soaking in the hot spray until the water turned luke warm. Then he changed into blue jeans and a blue workman's shirt, pulled on a thick sweater. He fully intended to sleep in his clothes and get out at first light, get the hell away from this town and this damn unnatural cold, get back to the blazingly hot streets of Virginia. Beyond that, he had no idea what he was going to do.

When he went to check on Scully again, she'd barely changed position. He longed to stretch out beside her on the bed, but of course he would never do such a thing. Logically, he should go back and sleep in the other bed, but there was something about that room that repulsed him.

So he sat in the falling-apart chair, his head nodding, and watched Scully sleep. It felt vaguely like stealing; she was defenseless under his gaze, but he so rarely had a chance to look at her all he wanted, he just stared at her like a man would stare at a treasured painting.

Where'd you get the money, Scully? Why did you lie about having a coat? Why go to all the trouble of going to the bar, or running away, in nothing but that thin shirt. What were you trying to convince me of? None of it made sense, unless...unless, of course, she DIDN'T have a coat. But she did. He'd seen it. Socks, too. Nice, thick, warm socks.

He got up and turned the heat a notch higher, came back to sit with her again.

Scully, Scully. Who's been with you? Who slept with you in that other bed? Whose filthy hands did you let touch your body? What made you do all these things and run away from everyone you know, everyone who cares about you?

The disturbing image of Mulder with his fist in the air was never far from his mind. Yet he remembered and would have sworn to something Scully had said a long time ago, when doctors warned her that Mulder might be dangerous. "Not to me," she'd snapped, with perfect confidence in her partner. That same absolute certainty, the trust Skinner wished she would place in him. Because if she did, if she ever placed that kind of faith in him...

He remembered, with some shame, how she had felt twisting under him, her lithe body athletic and surprisingly strong as she fought him so desperately. With this sort of reaction, how deserving was he of any woman's trust? He crossed his legs and willed his erection away; she was a lovely, naked woman asleep on a bed, and it was a natural response. Any man would wonder what it would be like if that parka happened to slip a couple more inches there, for instance, a bit to the right...

He got up quickly and readjusted the blanket over her bare shoulder. Scully never stirred. Maybe he should take her pulse. His hand moved of its own volition and brushed the now dry and soft hair back from her face, over the sweet curve of her cheekbone, behind her small, perfectly configured ear.

Rapt, he stroked his thumb down the edge of her face, gently, gently, to where her chin rested against the pillow. Bare of makeup, the freckles unusually visible because she was so pale, she had that clear, open, honest look he loved so much. There was the bone structure of her face that gave her the girl scout demeanor, proud and strong, but also a fullness there, a softness to the lips, something in the shape of her eyes, that made her sensual, not cute, but beautiful. The bruise on her cheek stood out like an oil smudge; he had a flashback of her lying with her face turned towards him, pressed in the mud while he held her down with a knee in her back. The mixture of shame and desire made him move away from her, but instead of going back to the chair, he knelt by the bed, still staring, still wondering.

After awhile, his head leaned forward further and further until it touched the blanket, and his glasses slid down and fell onto the sleeve of the parka.

He was dozing when something happened that seemed like a magician's trick; Scully's voice, high and furious, brought his nodding head upright with a jerk.

"You stupid sack of shit!" she cried. "Why can't you just leave me the fuck ALONE?"

Shocked awake, he looked down at her in confusion. She stirred under the parka, rolling over onto her back, eyelids twitching. Talking in her sleep? When she opened them and saw him above her, his face so near, her eyes widened, first in surprise and then in pure, unadulterated horror.

"Oh my God!" she rasped, her voice still thick with sleep. Then she shouted, "SKINNER!"

Too late, he realized she wasn't looking at him, but beyond him, and he tried to push himself up off the floor and the bed at the same time and turn, but he'd lost the second he needed to turn fully and confront whatever it was she was looking at.

Something hit him hard, on the side of the head, and he fell back against the wall, hearing Scully shouting, shouting, and he rolled over beside the bed as his own parka came down on top of him, effective as a net in that small space between the bed and the wall.

He made it to his hands and knees when an unseen foot kicked him with ruthless force, just between the legs. Something hit him again through the parka, on the back of his shoulders, but he only cupped his hands over his crotch and pitched forward with a grunt of sheer agony.

Then the gates of night opened and darkness flooded in.

******************

When Skinner began to shift around towards consciousness, Scully was hovering over him like a medivac, and the moment he woke she said, "Skinner? Sir? Can you hear me?"

He blinked up at her, and she handed him his glasses, held his hand steady while he put them on.

He mumbled something and fought to sit up on the bed. She put an arm under his back and helped him; jeez, it was like trying to lift a horse. Getting him up on the bed had taken her a full fifteen minutes. Well, twenty, because she'd had to run into the other room and pull on some clothes when she realized she was still undressed from last night's shower.

But despite the situation, lack of sleep, and a growing, gnawing hunger, Scully was feeling better by the minute. Bruised, sore, aching muscles, and some injury under her rib, a lat muscle probably, that might be torn, but other than that, her mind was clearer than it had been in ages. She could THINK again, and it was a wonderful relief, like having bandages removed from her eyes after days of blindness.

Felt better, almost for sure, than the big ox she was trying to help shove upright in bed. He looked AWFUL.

She examined him, making him lean forward so she could look at the top of his head, even though she'd tended to that wound during the night, checking for fresh bleeding. There was none. Good. When he fidgeted, she spoke to him as she would to Mulder, like an impatient mother; "Sit still."

"Shit," he growled, but he let her touch him, probe for tenderness, swelling, her fingers fluttering around his neck and under his ears with infinite gentleness.

He had been lying curled up on the floor with his hands over his groin, and Scully drew back, peering into his eyes to make sure the size of the pupils matched and were dilated properly for the lighting conditions, and asked casually, "Are you, uh, hurt anywhere else?"

He gave her a slightly alarmed look and said "No" so quickly, so dismissively, that she thought it best to drop the subject. Fine. No ice pack for YOU where it might do the most good. Let him limp. After the manhandling he'd given her last night, he deserved it.

But Scully was Scully, and when she saw the flash of pain in his eyes as he leaned back against the headboard, she was instantly sorry. She said, "I'll see if there's any aspirin in the medicine cabinet," and started up, but Skinner caught her hand and stopped her, pulling her back gently to the bed.

"Scully," he said, "If there was aspirin in there, you'd know it, wouldn't you? Wouldn't it ha ve to be you who put it there?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

Reluctantly, he let her fingers slip from his, his face drawn in that familiar, "I don't like this" scowl she knew so well.

There were indeed aspirin in the bathroom, and Demerol, and Darvocet, and Valium, and a whole slew of powerful drugs Scully recognized with a sick feeling; the prescription bottles all had her name on them. She selected a bottle of hydrocodone and slipped a bottle of Darvocet into the pocket of her jeans; it might make him feel better, and it might slow him down a little at the same time. God he was fast. And strong. She looked at herself in the mirror, touched the bruise on her cheek gingerly. Damn him.

She started to close the door to the cabinet, then paused when her eye caught the label on one of the larger bottles. Dilantin. A script specific for seizures. She turned the bottle upside down and looked at the pills thoughtfully. Except for the Dilantin, and a bottle of clear gel caps that was unlabeled, she'd taken all of these pills at one time or another during her frequent hospitalizations. Most of them produced some mild nausea, other side effects...she was fairly certain that none of them had been used on her. What, then?

There was an empty plastic coke bottle on the sink base, and she rinsed it out, then filled it with water from the tap. Her mouth was acrid and sore, especially where she'd bitten her lip through, and she drank from the bottle herself before refilling it and returning to her sullen patient.

In the other room, Skinner had both feet on the floor and his fists on the blanket on either side of him. He was glaring out the window at the greying clouds. "It's five in the morning," he complained. "Was I out all night? Scully? Who did this? When are you going to tell me what happened?"

"Take one of these," she offered, holding out the coke bottle and the bottle of hydrocodone. "It'll make you feel better."

Skinner took the bottle but didn't open it. His eyes were bloodshot and he had the stubble of a beard shadowing his jawline. "Stop stalling and talk to me," he said.

Because there was only the one chair, which now drooped at an alarming angle, Scully sat on the foot of the bed. "Sir, I know you're going to have a hard time believing this, but I think I know what's going on. At least...I think I know how I got here."

He watched her face, his eyes moody, mouth set in a tight line. But Scully was beginning to find her way around Skinner. She didn't remember much of the previous night, not in detail. But she did remember when they were wrestling on the ground, how he had used only enough force to restrain her, how he had dropped down on her in the classic police hold, his knee on her back, but had kept his weight off her even though it had been a balancing act. She remembered, too, that when he had taken the handcuffs off, he had somehow known the way her wrists were burning, and had rubbed them, massaging the circulation back into her fingers. No, he'd had every opportunity to really hurt her, and had stayed his hand each time.

She took a deep fortifying breath. "Last night I woke up and saw someone behind you. A woman. She had to reach really far back to hit you with that chair, and I realized she was no taller than I am. She was wearing one of those ski masks, but I saw her eyes. I know who she is."

Skinner was all attention. "Someone you know, Agent Scully?"

"No, sir. Me. I mean, someone who looked just like me. A clone. A twin. A morph." She shrugged. "I don't know. Someone who's gone to a lot of trouble to make people think she was me. Look, I know it's hard to accept, but I know for a fact that the technology exists. I've seen it myself, and so has Mulder."

"A clone. A twin. A morph." His tone was disbelieving, sarcastic, but not hostile. Something had changed about Skinner, though she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

"Exactly. Someone who, for whatever reason, framed me by shooting Mulder, and then brought me here. Someone who has kept me drugged for days now. But it was me who called you, Skinner. She must not have known about that. She must not have expected you to come. You scared her off."

The corners of Skinner's lips curved up in a rueful smile. "Yes, I seem to have terrified her."

"No, seriously." She allowed some of the gratitude she felt to show on her face. "She hit you twice and I think she kicked you, too. And you got up again. Then she..."

Skinner looked at her sharply. "Then she what?"

"She...she had a gun, sir. She pointed it at me, at my head. And she said some things, mostly just obscenities, and I..."

"You...?"

He followed her gaze to the nightstand by the bed, which seemed curiously denuded. There was a round spot where the base of the lamp had been, and Skinner looked across the room and saw parts of the lamp sticking out of a wastepaper basket.

"I threw the lamp at her," Scully said.

Skinner shook his head in amazement. "I got up a third time?" he asked. "I don't even remember that."

"I don't think you were even conscious."

He opened the bottle and shook a pill into his hand, drank deeply from the water in the coke bottle, and then the tablet, making a face as he swallowed as if it hurt his throat. He took a few more swallows of water, then said, "I'll take your word for it."

"While you were out, I looked through that room," Scully nodded towards the open bathroom door, indicating the adjoining suite. "I found the money, and the clothes, and the passports."

"Passports?"

"Four of them, all with my picture and different names. They were under the mattress. Forgeries. Anyone searching this place would think I was planning to shoot Mulder, steal some money, and then skip the country. Don't you agree?"

He only watched her, not speaking.

"And you still don't believe me," she said angrily. "You still think I'm making all this up."

He gave her an honest answer, though it wasn't the one she wanted to hear. "I don't know what to think."

"Dammit, Skinner! I could've been halfway across the country by now if I'd wanted to get away."

"Why didn't you call the police after we were attacked?" he asked. "Why didn't you call an ambulance?"

Scully got off the bed. "Because I know I look guilty as hell. Those are probably my fingerprints on the chair legs, too. God, Skinner. You're as pig headed as Mulder;"

His voice was full of authority. "Agent Scully, don't forget who you're talking to."

"Who?" she demanded. "My supervisor? Not anymore, though, right? Now you're just my jailer, and I'm your prisoner. Isn't that how this is all shaping up?"

"Scully, will you quit changing the goddamn subject every two minutes and tell me what you remember of the past few days? You're telling me you were drugged all this time, since before Mulder was shot?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you. This is the first time I've been able to manage a coherent thought since...since..." She frowned. "Well, I don't even remember when it happened. I just remember talking to Byers, and he told me to get out of my apartment and go somewhere safe for awhile."

"So you came here."

"No! When I woke up...I remember I woke up and I went across the street to that bar. It was morning then. I asked them what town I was in and they all looked at me like I was crazy. They thought I was just some drunk who'd fallen asleep in the place. So I came back here and called you. I mean...I called Byers and got him to get me a clean line to you so I couldn't be traced. But after that..." She rubbed her eyes with one hand, as if trying to press her eyelids back into her head and force them to give her some vision of what had happened. "I don't know."

"You think someone who wanted to pass themselves off as you, shot Mulder, then made a break for it, then –" Skinner let the sentence die, getting to his feet. He swayed a moment, with his head down, holding a hand over his forehead above his glasses. "Shit," he muttered.

"You okay?"

"Scully, all I'm sure of is that we've got to get out of here. I don't know what the story is and I'm not even going to try to put it together right now. I just know that we're both in imminent danger if we stay here and I need to get you back across the border before someone calls the goddamn Mounties."

"This is one thing we won't need to argue about," she agreed.

"Look, it's freezing out there–go and get something warm on. Take the money, the passports, whatever else you can from in there; it's all evidence."

She hesitated and he said, "What's the matter?"

"I know you're right but...I feel like I'm stealing something."

Unexpectedly, Skinner smiled. "Too much goddamn girl scout in you, Scully, and not enough larceny." He made an abrupt, demanding gesture. "Get a move on. Let's go."

"Okay." She started towards the other room, saying, "Let me drive, though. Are there chains on the tires?"

"I'll drive. Why do you..." he gave her a startled look. "What the hell was in that pill you gave me?" he demanded.

"It's only a pain killer, but the roads are going to be dangerous. It won't make you drowsy, just mellow, but I'd rather..." She stood for a second looking at him, his stubbly face, the raw look of weariness in his eyes, the grim set of his mouth. He was possibly the least mellow person she'd ever seen.

"Okay, you drive," she said. Turning away, she muttered, "I should have given you two of the damn things."

*******************

Chapter Five: Cliffhanger