*** "They were going to kill you? Because you had partial fragments of your memory left?" Dana was horrified at what he must have gone through. Here she had been, bemoaning her fate because she had been left in the real world with a daughter to look after- something she had wanted very badly anyway- and he was being tested on, poked, prodded, like some piece of old meat for a seventh grade science experiment. "Thank god for Lilly. Without her, I probably would have been killed after I woke from my coma." Mulder's eyes glazed over, lost in the memories of the place, lost in memories of Lilly. "She convinced the others that they could conduct more tests on me, to see what went wrong. To see how to fix it. They pumped me full of drugs, Scully. But I was alive. "At least, that's what I kept telling myself." *** He sat up in his bed, just barely alert, his head rolling around on his shoulders. He didn't know what they were pumping him full of, but he knew that was something he probably wouldn't know anyway. He did know, however, that it made him listless and tired all the time. And his brain was foggy, muddled, unclear. He faded in and out of lucidity all day, his existence reduced to the room he lay in and the bed he never got out of. Sometimes it wasn't too bad. Like when Lilly would come to check on him. She was the bright spot on an otherwise dark painting of his existence, the sunshine on an overcast day. And then there were times when the father would pay him a visit. They were rare, but not rare enough. The father- whom he suspected was not a real father but only one in title- would ask him a few uncomfortable questions about the past he couldn't remember, which he would then answer very unclearly or not at all. The father would then nod his head, saying "Hmm" with every nod, and then leave. A few minutes later, Lilly would come in and adjust his medications, sometimes injecting him with something new. The father had just finished with the thirteenth interrogation. Any moment now, he expected Lilly to walk through the door. "Five... four... three... two... one..." he counted down. Ten seconds after he uttered "one" Lilly strolled in, new syringe in hand. She tried to smile at him, but failed. He could see in her emerald eyes that something was wrong. "What is it, Lilly?" he asked as she went through her normal routine. "What's wrong?" "Nothing's wrong. What makes you say that?" She flashed him a quick smile as she changed the IV bags. "You're ten seconds later than you normally are. And you're different today. There's a slight shift in your attitude." "You're very perceptive man. But I can tell you there's nothing wrong." He could tell she was lying, but he didn't push it. Instead, he let his gaze wander about to the solitary window, where the curtain was always drawn. "Hey, Lilly?" "Hmm?" she asked as she prepared the syringe. "Why isn't the curtain back on the window? Can't we let some sunlight in?" "Don't you like fluorescent lights?" she replied. "I look terrible under them," he joked. "But seriously, it feels like I'm a prisoner in this room. If I could just see the sunshine..." Lilly stopped the needle mid-plunge. "You know you can't get out of bed, and if you saw the sunshine, you'd want to get out. And we can't have you do that, because you might hurt yourself if you push yourself too soon." "Oh." He didn't believe her. There had to be some other reason they wouldn't let him open the window. She smiled at him again and continued on with the plunging of the needle, quickly changing subjects. "You know, today is the six month anniversary of the day you woke from the coma." "Really?" His voice was flat- he didn't really care. It only meant that it had been six months wasted in this room, never once getting up out of the bed he lay on. Six months of irritating questions with only fruitless answers. Six months of his life he could never regain. Silently, he wondered if there had been something outside of these walls before six months ago, something that resembled, if even slightly, something more of a life. And that was when the mind-fog began to overtake him, and he had a sense of what had been. But only that- a sense. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it was making him very nostalgic. Suddenly he longed for the something that he had lost. For the someone. Lilly continued chattering, oblivious to his state of mind. When she finished, she smiled once again and left. He heard the door click shut and realized that it had locked behind her. Locking him in. Had it been locked the entire six months? His mind connected the door with the window for some reason, and suddenly he had to find out what was behind that yellow curtain. He had to know what she had been hiding. He rolled out of the bed and stood for the first time since he awoke, using the IV as a crutch. It was hard work; his muscles had atrophied. Bed rot suddenly came to mind. There were voices speaking outside the door, loud enough so that he could hear them through the thickness of the oak. He paid them no mind and managed to work his way over to the window. He was about to pull aside the curtain, when he heard Lilly. "He's beginning to get restless. Today he wanted to see the sunshine. That little box of room doesn't hold enough interest for his mind- not even with all the drugs we're pumping into him. He's been there six months and not once stepped out of bed or done or seen anything remotely intriguing. Under those conditions, don't you think you'd want to at least see the sunshine, too?" "Never assume that just because I'm standing here that I haven't endured the same, if not worse, conditions as that man there. Most of the time they were worse, and every time was caused by that man." A man's voice. A man's deep, hissing voice, but not the father's. Funny, but now that he thought about it, Lilly and he were the only two he had come into contact with since waking up. That being true, then how could this new man's raspy voice sound so familiar, so terrifying? "You know who he is? Why have you been hiding it? He could be with his family right now, instead of in that bed." "Miss Waters, I know who everybody is. Keep that in mind. Anyone could be in that bed right now, instead of with his or her family." "Is that a threat?" A pause as there was a slight intake of breath. "Consider it a warning to do your job and not interfere with annoying questions that don't concern you." There was a sound of heavy, slow footsteps walking away. "Bastard," Lilly muttered. "You could at least put out your cigarette." There was a snort of disgust, and then her heels clacked on the ground, in the opposite direction of the corridor outside. A man's voice. A smoking man's voice. Deep, raspy and low, claiming to know him. Know who he is. Know his family. So they weren't dead. Where did that leave him? With Lillly, the father, and that man. Who was he? Why did he seem so familiar? The phrase hovered in the forefront of his mind, irritating him. Was his name Luke? Or was it just a random phrase put together by his brain, desperate to have some identity, some sense of self? And what did it have to do with that man? His mind suddenly turned back to the window, where the curtain was still drawn. Trembling a little from both the physical and emotional exhaustion of the day, he pulled it aside. Bars. There were bars covering the window behind the chipper yellow curtain. Suddenly he didn't feel like a prisoner, because now he knew he was one.