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
 vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com 

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 
 vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com 

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

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

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