By Danielle Culverson
smythja@aston.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 20:52:35 -0500 (EST)
This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris
Carter. No infringement of copyrights held by 10/13 Productions,
Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended. All
unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me. Names,
characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are used
fictitiously. No connection to any person, living or dead, is
intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental. Feel
free to
distribute, but please keep me as the author.
Rating - PG-13 (for sexual content)
Classification - S, R (T). MSR
Summary - Mulder goes to work one morning to find that Scully's
attitude to him has completely changed. From that point onwards
his life is regularly thrown into disarray as he "hops" from one
dimension to another.
Reference to "Paper Clip" plotline.
"Ripleys", and the characters associated with
it, is taken from
the X-files novel "Goblins", by Charles Grant.
I have both the
Grant novels, and they're both brilliant.
No offence is intended
in my use of "Ripleys" in this story.
Danielle Culverson.
Rapport. Part 1/6.
A dark-haired man sat at a desk in the basement
office of the J.
Edgar Hoover building. His head was
bent over the paper he was
studying, and the room around him was totally
silent. The
building itself hummed and murmured with distant
life. The whir
of the elevator was almost constant, and could
be heard even
through the closed door of the basement office.
The room was warm and stuffy. The air
conditioning system which
worked all too well in the rest of the building,
leaving the
other agents shivering at their desks, didn't
work at all in the
basement. The dust on the shelves and
surfaces, and the pile of
screwed-up papers around the bin gave the
impression that the
cleaners had forgotten about the office some
time ago. Dust
motes danced in the air, their paths lit by
the desk lamp shining
on the work the man was reading.
The room was cluttered with furniture.
Small to begin with, -
it's original purpose had been to house the
photocopier machine,
- it was filled with various items of essential
office equipment.
Two desks stood side by side. A smaller
desk with a computer on
it stood just in front of the one the man
was working at. Four
filing cabinets stood along one wall.
The label on every drawer
said "X-files". A coat-stand stood in
the corner, holding a
black overcoat, and a black baseball cap with
the letters
"N.I.C.A.P." on it. There was a toy
basketball hoop above the
waste paper basket which stood next to the
door.
Shelves and small cupboards lined the walls,
which were covered
with "America's Most Wanted" posters, ariel
photographs of crime
scenes, and fuzzy shots of UFOs. A large
poster behind the desk
the man sat at depicted a flying saucer hovering
above a forest,
a beam of light shining down from it.
The caption beneath the
picture read "I want to believe."
Although there was a fluorescent tube overhead
to light the room,
it was at present lit only by the desk lamp
shining on the man's
work. Huge shadows were thrown onto
the walls by the small
light.
The desk the man sat at was far scruffier than
the unoccupied one
which stood beside it. Papers were scattered
haphazardly over
it. Barely a square inch of the desk's
surface could be seen
without pushing some of the mess aside.
The "In" and "Out" trays
were overflowing. A polystyrene coffee
cup lay on it's side near
the edge of the desk. Near to it was
an open bag of sunflower
seeds. A few seeds were scattered across
the desk, and a growing
pile of shells lay on the floor near the man's
feet. There was a
photograph near the front of the desk.
It showed a girl of about
eight playing on a climbing frame. She
wore her long dark hair
in pigtails, and she was smiling at whoever
was taking the
photograph.
Looking at the man sitting at the desk, some
people would notice
a faint resemblance between his features,
and those of the girl
in the photo. His dark hair was parted
on the left, and brushed
across. His age could have been estimated
at anywhere between
late twenties and late thirties, but anyone
looking into his eyes
closely would be more likely to guess him
to be older. His hazel
eyes were deep with painful memories.
They looked like they had
seen far more than they should, and indeed
the had been witness
to many things which some people would rather
he had not seen.
But then that was the nature of the work he
did.
Special Agent Fox Mulder worked on the X-files
with his partner,
Dana Scully. The X-files was a small
department, whose cases
were all the investigations which the Bureau
wanted handling
quickly and quietly. Cases which sometimes
seemed to have no
explanation beyond the paranormal. Cases
which were never to be
brought to the attention of the public.
There were strong feelings among some people
in high places that
Mulder should not be involved with the X-files.
Some people felt
that he found out to many of the things they
would have liked to
keep secret. He found the truth, but
it was not the truth they
wanted him to find. And they way he
went about looking for it
didn't endear him to anyone either.
The Bureau's rules of
protocol and investigation were only followed
by Agent Mulder
when he felt he needed them. For this
reason he had been
partnered with Dana Scully, nearly three years
earlier. - And
that had been the worst mistake *They* had
ever made.
Scully didn't agree with Mulder's paranormal
theories, her
logical and scientific mind being unable to
accept his irrational
ideas, but her trust and respect of his beliefs
had kept them
together, and the things she had seen during
their partnership
had forced her to accept that there were things
that she couldn't
explain scientifically, and there were things
that were kept
hidden from them by the "shadow government".
Mulder's shirt was unbuttoned at the collar,
and his slightly
flamboyant tie was pulled loose around his
neck. His suit jacket
hung across the back of a wooden chair just
behind him. He pored
over the document in front of him carefully.
The door to the office opened, and an auburn-haired
woman wearing
brown trousers, a cream blouse, and a brown
overcoat came in. She
was carrying a handbag over her shoulder,
and a briefcase in her
left hand. She put the briefcase down
for a moment while she
took off her coat, and hung it on the coat-stand
next to her
partner's. Mulder looked up at her,
and smiled.
"Morning Scully." he said. His
eyes traveled quickly over her,
taking in her appearance, and committing it
to his photographic
memory.
"Good morning, Mulder." Dana Scully replied, "How are you?"
"Fine." he replied, and waved a hand
at the papers in front of
him "Busy. - Everyone wants a piece
of "Spooky" Mulder this
morning."
Scully smiled, and moved to her desk.
"Spooky" was the nickname
which had been pinned on Mulder during his
academy days. It was
still used now by some of the agents who worked
at the Washington
Bureau. Many of them disliked Mulder's
seeming ability to leap
beyond logic on some of his cases. His
brilliant, intuitive
leaps gave him a high case completion level,
and his ability at
profiling suspects brought him lots of other
cases which he
wasn't officially working on. These
cases, and the X-files
themselves, formed the majority of the work
he did.
Mulder glanced over at his partner, who had
sat down at her desk,
and was lifting a report out of her "In" tray,
and then returned
to his work.
* * *
Mulder became aware that he was lying down.
This was
unsurprising, as the last thing he remembered
doing the previous
night was going to bed. - But something felt
wrong. - The room
was very bright outside his eyelids, and his
head throbbed
painfully at the back. He opened his
eyes slowly, squinting at
the light, and raised his left hand gingerly
to investigate the
swelling on his head. He winced, and
lowered his hand again.
Looking around him, Mulder saw the usual scene
which greeted him
on every morning when he had actually managed
to fall asleep in
bed instead of on the couch in front of the
t.v. His apartment
bedroom looked perfectly normal, but still
something about it
felt wrong.
The bedroom door opened, and Mulder raised
his heavy head
slightly to see his partner come into the
room. He raised his
eyebrows in surprise.
"Scully? What are you doing here?" he asked. She smiled.
"You must have hit your head harder than I
thought." she said.
Mulder frowned slightly. With the practiced
efficiency of a
doctor, Scully rolled him onto his side, and
examined the injury
on his head. "I think you'll be okay."
she said, "Just be more
careful next time you're getting out of the
shower. - You're no
featherweight for me to drag in here when
you're unconsciouss,
Fox Mulder."
Mulder swallowed, trying to work out what was
going on. What was
Scully doing at his apartment this early in
the morning? And why
didn't he remember falling over getting out
of the shower? He
looked up at her, her concerned face still
hovering just above
his. Her blue-green eyes searched his
hazel ones, and she smiled
again, and then quickly touched her lips to
his.
Mulder blinked as Scully's lips brushed over
his, and stared
after her in confusion as she turned and headed
for the door with
the words.
"I'll have to be getting to the office.
You stay here until you
feel well enough to come in."
Then she was gone, and Mulder heard the distant
click of the
apartment door closing. A frown touched
at his handsome features
again, and he wondered where he had missed
some part of his life.
* * *
Mulder opened the door to the X-files office
cautiously, and put
his head around it. Scully was seated
at her desk a few feet
inside the office. She looked up when
she heard the door
opening, and smiled.
"How's the head?" she asked sympathetically.
"Erm,... it's okay." Mulder replied,
raising his right hand
unconsciously to feel the swelling.
He moved into the office,
and closed the door carefully. Looking
around him, everything
seemed fairly normal, if a little tidier than
usual. He crossed
the room to his desk, and sat down in the
fake leather swivel
chair. From force of habit, he lifted
his hands to his shirt
collar to undo the collar button, before realising
that it wasn't
hot and stuffy in the basement room like it
usually was. He
raised his eyebrows, and turned to his partner.
"They finally fixed the air conditioning?"
he asked with a
smile. Scully gave a start, and looked
over at him.
"Mulder, they fixed the air conditioning three
months ago after I
spent weeks nagging Assistant Director Skinner
over it."
Mulder frowned, and turned towards his desk,
looking for some
point of reference he could use to focus on
while he worked out
why everything seemed so out of place this
morning. Looking at
the work he had out, he frowned again.
None of the documents he
had been working on were on the desk, and
a whole new set of
cases were spread across it's wooden surface.
Cases which Mulder
had never seen before, although the half completed
reports were
in his handwriting. He turned back to
his partner.
"Scully, what day is it?"
"Wednesday." she replied.
"But what date?"
"The twenty-third of August." she answered,
a look of confusion
on her face at his strange behaviour.
"1995?" Mulder enquired. She nodded.
He frowned. It was the
day he was expecting to be waking up to when
he had gone to bed
the previous night, but somehow everything
had changed. Scully
saw his uncertain expression.
"Mulder? Are you okay?"
"I... I'm not sure. - Scully, what were you
doing at my apartment
this morning?"
"Mulder, you know what I was doing..."
Scully said carefully, a
warning note in her voice. But Mulder
didn't know what she was
warning him of. He continued, cautiously.
"Scully, before you left, you..."
"Mulder!" Scully said sharply,
"Not here. - We said we'd never
discuss it here."
Mulder shrugged helplessly, "Discuss
what? - Scully, I don't
know what's going on here, but everything
feels wrong. You being
at my apartment, my hitting my head, the work
here..." he
indicated his desk with a hopeless wave of
his arm. Scully
watched him in concern, and then got to her
feet.
"Come on, Mulder. Let's go for a walk.
Then we can talk
properly."
Mulder got to his feet slowly, and followed
his partner to the
door. She picked up her thin black overcoat
from the coat-stand,
and then they went out of the office together.
* * *
Mulder and Scully walked along side by side
along the path that
led to the Jefferson Memorial. The area
was quite busy with
tourists, and the two agents watched the laughing
children
running between the stone pillars, and the
groups of adults
taking photographs of anything and everything
distractedly as
they walked in silence.
Reaching the Memorial, Scully led her partner
over to the
railings which ran around the edge of the
path, and they looked
over the Tidal Basin towards the Potomac River.
Turning to look
at her partner, Scully broke the silence between
them.
"Mulder, what's wrong?" she asked quietly.
He sighed gently,
and lowered his head.
"I don't know... Everything,... and maybe nothing.
It just all
feels wrong. - When I woke up in bed this
morning, the last thing
I remembered doing was going to bed the night
before. I don't
remember letting you in in the morning, or
taking a shower, or
hitting my head, or anything."
"Well, you wouldn't remember letting me in..."
Scully murmured,
"I'd been there all night."
"You were in my apartment all night?" Mulder exclaimed.
"Sshh, - we don't want all of D.C. to know."
Scully hushed him,
"Don't you remember?"
Mulder frowned, and turned fully to face his
partner, "Scully, I
don't know what you're trying to say, but
when I went to bed last
night, there was no-one in my apartment but
me."
Scully just stared at him for several moments,
an unreadable
expression on her face. Mulder continued.
"I thought maybe the bump on my head had caused
me to forget a
day or something, but this is the day I was
expecting it to be.
All the work on my desk is work I'm apparently
in the middle of
doing, but I've never seen any of it before,
and the cases I was
working on yesterday are all gone..."
Mulder trailed off, and
shook his head slowly. "Scully, what's
going on? Why don't I
remember?"
Scully shook her head, "Mulder, I feel
foolish asking this, but,
- what do you remember our relationship to
be?"
"Huh? I don't understand."
"Several times you've said things which just
don't seem to fit,
and I'd swear I saw surprise on your face
when I left your
apartment this morning. What do you
remember our relationship to
be?"
"Um... well, we're partners. We work
on the X-files, and get on
very well, despite the fact that you don't
believe in a lot of
the things we're investigating..."
"What about our personal relationship?" Scully pressed.
"Personal relationship?" Mulder's expression
of confusion grew,
"I don't know what you mean. We're thoroughly
professional.
There's never been any personal relationship
between us."
"There has for me." Scully replied quietly.
Mulder's eyes
widened.
"What *is* our relationship, then?" he
asked. Scully took a
deep breath.
"We've been intimate for about,... six months
now. We keep it
secret from everyone else, because you're
always afraid of what
would happen if *They* found out, and the
Bureau would close us
down if they found out. That's why we've
got the rule of no
talking about it at work. And every
week we have to check over
both out apartments for bugs. - Mulder, don't
you remember any of
this?"
Mulder shook his head, "I think... perhaps
I've crossed into a
different dimension or something. I
don't think it was the
banging my head which did this. I can
remember everything that's
happened perfectly, and what you've just described
isn't it."
Scully stared at her partner in disbelief.
She didn't know what
had happened either, but now he pointed it
out, she realised that
Mulder hadn't been acting himself ever since
he came around after
hitting his head.
Turning back to look over the water again, she said quietly,
"We'll work it out. Somehow, we'll work
it out."
Part 2/6.
* * *
Mulder slumped down onto Scully's couch, and
let out a deep sigh
of contentment. They had just enjoyed
a nice meal of spaghetti
bolognese, and he felt stuffed. He lowered
his head back to rest
against the back of the couch, and then raised
it again when
Scully came to sit next to him.
"How's things?" she asked. He shrugged.
"Everything here seems pretty much the same
as I know, except I'm
working on a different set of cases. - And
of course, our
relationship is different."
Scully nodded, "That's something I was
wondering. - What exactly
was your relationship to me before?"
"I told you this morning..."
"No, I mean your feelings. You've told
me what physically was
between us, - nothing but the X-files, - but
I want to know how
you felt about me. What would there
have been between us if I
had shared whatever emotions you'd had, and
the Bureau hadn't
been there to get in our way?"
Mulder reddened slightly, and looked down.
Swallowing hard, he
forced himself to raise his head and meet
her eyes again. "I
don't find this easy to say, - I just can't
get it through my
head that our relationship is different now."
Scully smiled understandingly, and took his
hands in hers.
Mulder looked down at her hands, and then
back at her face, "I...
I liked you, - a lot. - I think... well, I
guess I was in love
with you, I just didn't dare admit it, because
it wouldn't have
worked."
"Why not? Didn't I love you?" Scully asked. Mulder shrugged.
"I don't know. I don't think so.
Like I said, we never
discussed it."
"But you did love me?"
"I... I've always found you attractive, and
intelligent, ever
since I first met you. I've always admired
your determination
and drive, and the fact that you respect my
beliefs, even though
you don't share them. I... I don't know
when it happened, but we
got so close in our working relationship,
that when you were
taken from me I realised that you were much
more to me than a
partner."
Scully smiled gently, and raised one hand to
touch the side of
his face, "I'm glad." she whispered,
"If we'd had to break up
our personal relationship because you didn't
feel the same way
for me that the Mulder I knew did, I don't
know how I would have
felt."
"Scully..." Mulder began slowly, "I don't know that I can..."
"It's okay." she replied quietly, cutting
him off, and putting
the first finger of her right hand to his
lips to silence him, "I
understand. It'll be okay."
Scully put her arms around Mulder, and drew
him closer to her. He
came, somewhat stiffly, uncertain of how to
react. She eased his
head onto her shoulder.
"Relax, Mulder, it's alright." she reassured
him, "Let your
feelings out. - You've no reason to hide anything
from me." They
sat like that for several minutes, and then
Scully straightened
slightly, and Mulder did likewise. He
met her gaze, and she took
his left hand in her right, and placed her
left hand flat against
his chest. As he looked into her eyes,
something inside him
began to weaken, and then crumble. - He had
always wanted her so
much...
Scully saw the change in Mulder's expression,
and lovingly ran
her right hand up the side of his face, and
through his hair,
twisting the strands between her fingers.
With one hand now
behind his head, she gently pulled his face
down towards hers,
and touched her lips briefly to his.
Pulling away slightly, she
looked up into his eyes, trying to see what
he was feeling.
Mulder was feeling confused. For so long
now he had been wishing
something like this could happen between him
and his partner, and
he had always been certain that it never could.
Now they were in
her apartment, and everything seemed to have
changed. When she
touched her lips to his, he felt his body
respond to her careful
kindness, and when she drew away again, a
part of him that had
been dormant until then awoke and ached to
kiss her lips again.
He looked down at her beautiful face, and
gave in to the desire
within him. He lowered his lips to hers.
When their lips met, the kiss was stronger
than the first time.
Their arms twined around each other as though
with a will of
their own. The kiss intensified as they
pulled each other
closer, and their lips parted to allow a more
intimate experience
to begin.
Mulder cupped Scully's head in his hands and
kissed her forehead,
nose, lips, and chin. Then, after a
moment's hesitation, he
reached to undo the top buttons of her blouse.
As he kissed her
neck, and moved on down the now bare skin
between her breasts
towards her flat stomach, Scully lay back
along the couch, until
they were both sprawled along it. Her
hands tousled Mulder's
hair, and she pulled his head to hers again
to satisfy her
growing need. The kiss was passionate,
almost desperate. They
clung to each other as though their lives
depended on it,
kissing, caressing, and exploring each other's
bodies with their
hands. Scully had undone Mulder's shirt
by now, and he pulled it
off and dropped it to the floor. Caressing
her hair and face
with his hands as her hands roamed across
his back, he whispered
her name,
"Dana..."
Running his hands down her neck and down her
chest to the clasp
at the front of her bra, he unclipped it,
and pushed it aside.
Then he lowered his lips to her erect nipples,
and kissed each in
turn. She arched her back beneath him,
and murmured,
"Fox..."
For once he didn't mind the use of his first
name, and was
actually pleased to hear her say it.
Running his hands across
her skin, and then kissing her lips again,
he pressed his body
close to hers, just enjoying being so close
to her, holding her
in his arms. The small part of his consciouss
mind which hadn't
been affected by his hormones, and his long-hidden
desire for
Dana Scully, was silently surprised at just
how fast they had
come together. One minute they had just
been talking about the
new situation between them, and the next...
Sitting up, Mulder looked down at the half
undressed body of his
partner, and then got to his feet. Lifting
her in his arms, he
kissed her on the lips again. She wrapped
her arms around his
neck, and returned the kiss. He carried
her through to the
bedroom. Lying her down on the bed,
he continued to undress her,
his lips kissing every piece of skin he uncovered.
He wanted to
touch and kiss every part of her, make all
of her his.
Once she was completely naked, Mulder kissed
Scully's lips again.
She rolled him over, and straddled his chest.
Working her way
slowly downwards, she leaned over him, her
breasts bobbing
enticingly towards his skin, planting kisses
in a line down his
chest and stomach, and carefully removed his
trousers and pants.
Pressing skin to skin, both completely naked,
they each drew
pleasure from the mere proximity of the other.
Touching and
caressing, whispering each other's names as
their passion grew,
until they finally came together in an explosion
of warmth,
tenderness, and love.
As time passed, Mulder lost count of the number
of times they
came together, and each time they joined they
seemed to rise
higher than the last. It was as though
they were both trying to
wipe away the fact that Mulder was almost
usurping his own place
in Scully's affections, and both trying to
make up for what they
felt was lost time.
Finally, lying in the haze after their love-making,
they were
both silent and still. Holding each
other close, and drawing
comfort from each other's presence, they listened
to the silence.
Scully lay on top of Mulder, her face resting
on his chest as he
lay on his back. She drifted into sleep,
a smile on her face,
while he stared up at the ceiling, unable
to fully accept what
had just happened, in spite of the evidence
of his senses.
* * *
Scully wandered into the kitchenette of Mulder's
apartment,
wearing only a blue satin robe to cover her
nakedness. She
raised a hand to her eyes groggily, and wiped
the sleep from
them. Mulder was at the stove, preparing
breakfast. There were
eggs frying in the frying pan, sausages and
bacon sizzling under
the grill, and two mugs of hot strong coffee
standing on the
sideboard next to the kettle.
Scully smiled at Mulder, who had turned to
look at her when she
came in. He wore a checked shirt, and
jeans, and had a fish
slice in his hand for turning the bacon.
His hair was freshly
washed, while hers was still tousled from
sleep. He smiled, and
put down the fish slice. Stepping up
close to her, he wrapped
his arms around her, and lowered his face
to hers to kiss her.
She responded to his embrace, her hands rising
to tousle his dark
hair, before she turned towards the stove
to investigate what he
was cooking.
"Breakfast is almost ready." Mulder announced
proudly, and
lifted two plates down from where they had
been warming. With
the ease of much time having been spent in
the kitchen, Mulder
served the bacon, sausages and eggs onto the
two plates, and
carried them into the main room, putting them
down on the dining
table with a flourish. Scully smiled,
and sat down. Mulder went
back to the kitchenette to get the coffee,
and a few moments
later returned to take his seat opposite Scully.
She smiled at
him, and complimented the meal.
"This all looks beautiful, but you didn't need
to cook for me,
Mulder."
"I enjoy cooking for you." Mulder replied,
"Anything to please
the woman I love."
"So speaks the man who only admitted his feelings
for me four
weeks ago." Scully smiled. Mulder
grinned.
"Maybe, but I have been in love with you for
a *lot* longer than
four weeks."
"In love with me, or just someone like me?"
Scully countered
with a smile. Mulder shrugged, and turned
serious.
"I don't know. I don't think there's
any differences in our
characters between your world, and the one
I remember, so I guess
you are the same person. All that's
different here is our
situation. - But if you believe it's only
experiences and
memories that make a person who they are..."
he trailed off.
Scully shook her head.
"That's a lot of it, but our characters prove
that there's more
to it than that."
Mulder reached across the table and took Scully's
hand in his.
She met his eyes, and they sat in silence
for several moments,
just looking at each other. This was
something that Mulder loved
doing. Since the beginning of his partnership
he had always had
to be careful how he looked at his attractive
partner. So many
times she had caught him with his eyes lingering.
He remembered
how she had responded then. Usually
without even needing to look
at him, she would realise he was watching
her. She would speak
to him without looking up, her voice having
a playful but warning
tone.
"Mulder..."
He would invariably look away in embarrassment,
his face
reddening. Then she would look towards
him, to catch his
reaction. Mulder wondered vaguely just
what she had felt then.
What did she feel when she caught glimpses
of his hidden feelings
like that? He didn't know, and supposed
that it no longer
mattered. The distant look in his eyes
had caught Scully's
attention.
"Mulder? What is it?"
"I was just wondering why I woke up one day
and found myself in
this new situation. I can't see any
reason for it, and I've no
idea what happened, or how."
Scully squeezed his fingers, "Maybe fate
just decided we should
be together, and changed reality so that we
were." she
suggested, and then released his hand.
"Eat your breakfast. -
You spent all that time and now it's going
cold."
Mulder smiled, and returned most of his attention
to his food.
but some of it still remained with Scully,
and he thought it
always would.
* * *
Scully sat at her dressing table in her apartment
bedroom, and
applied the finishing touches to her make-up.
Glancing at her
watch, she picked up a bottle of her favourite
perfume, and
sprayed her neck and wrists.
Rising to her feet, Scully contemplated her
image in the full
length mirror at the side of her wardrobe.
The dark green velvet
cocktail dress she wore reached down to just
past her knees, and
was low enough at the neck to be enticing,
without seeming
common. She wore an emerald and diamond
necklace which lay
softly around her neck, and small matching
earrings. A silver
ring on her right hand, and a silver bracelet
added just the
right amount of sparkle to compliment the
dress. She wore black
suede high-heeled shoes on her feet.
Her hair was pinned back on
one side with a silver barrette. She
wore a touch more make-up
than she did during the day, - light green
eyeshadow, and a touch
of lipstick.
Scully smiled at her image. She didn't
often get to dress up and
go "out".
There was a knock at the front door, and she
went to open it.
Mulder was standing there, looking incredibly
handsome in his
light grey suit. His hair was neatly
combed to one side, the
parting on the left side of his head.
His eyes swept over her
when she opened the door, and a smile came
to his face.
"You look beautiful." he murmured, almost
stunned into silence
by the sight of his partner when she had gone
all out to look
good for him. He had seen her dressed
up on occasion in the
past, but it had never had as much effect
on him as it did now
when he knew her time had been spent for him.
He held out his
arm for her to take. "Are you ready
to go to the restaurant?" he
asked.
Scully smiled, and picked up the black handbag
and jacket she had
left just inside the door. Slipping
the jacket on, she took
Mulder's arm, and closed the door behind her
as he led her to his
car.
Mulder drove them to his apartment. They
were both looking
forward to the special evening they had planned
to have together.
They didn't dare to go out for a proper meal
as they might be
seen, so they were going to have their meal
at Mulder's
apartment. They would treat everything
as though they were
really eating at a posh restaurant.
They had both switched off
their mobile phones, and the answering machine
at Mulder's
apartment had been left on. Nothing
was going to disturb them
tonight.
Mulder drew up in a street near to his apartment
building, and
parked his car. Hopping out of the car
quickly, he hurried
around to Scully's side, and helped her out.
She smiled
gratefully, and they walked back to his apartment.
Once inside, Mulder took Scully's jacket, and
sat her down in
front of the fake log fire which stood at
the side of his main
room. The lights were turned down to
create a romantic
atmosphere, and as he moved through to the
kitchenette to check
on the joint he had left roasting in the oven,
he turned on a
classical CD which he knew Scully liked.
The music drifted
quietly through the apartment, and Scully
laid her head back
against the back of the couch as she listened
to it.
After a few moments in the kitchenette, Mulder
returned to the
main room. He held two crystal glasses
full of a clear,
sparkling liquid.
"Champagne, Dana?" he offered, and passed
her one of the two. He
sat down carefully next to her, and their
eyes met. Scully
smiled. They were both holding their
glasses in their right
hands, so she linked her arm around Mulder's,
and they drank with
their arms interlocked.
They talked in low voices until the meal was
ready, and then
Mulder led Scully over to the dining table,
- which was already
set, with a lace table-cloth, and two white
candlesticks in
silver holders. - After seating Scully, Mulder
went into the
kitchenette to serve the food. He brought
back the chilled
champagne bottle with the two plates to refill
Scully's glass.
The first course was melon, which had been
chopped and arranged
in glass bowls, and was garnished with mandarin
oranges. The
main meal was roast lamb, served with roast
and boiled potatoes,
broccoli, haricot verts, and a homemade mint
sauce.
There was a silence as the two ate. Only
the gently clink and
clatter of the silver-ware on the china crockery
broke the
quietness. Their eyes were constantly
lifting from their plates,
and searching each other out, but neither
of them broke the hush
that had fallen between them, until they had
finished the main
course.
Scully sighed, and sat back on her chair.
She closed her eyes
momentarily, and a faint smile rose to her
lips.
"That was... exquisite." she said quietly.
Mulder smiled, said
nothing, and got to his feet to clear the
table and fetch desert.
He returned with a home-baked apple pie, and
a jug of fresh
cream. Scully's eyes widened as he served
a large slice into her
bowl. "Mulder, how do you expect me
to keep my figure if I eat
that?!"
But she fell silent quickly enough when he
sat down to eat again,
and there was little of the pie left when
they finished the meal.
Having finished, they resolved to ignore the
washing up, and
moved to the couch to sit down. The
music was still playing
quietly in the background, and Scully laid
her head on Mulder's
shoulder and gave a contented sigh as she
relaxed against him. He
put his arm around her shoulders, and let
his mind drift,
enjoying having her close to him, and the
aftermath of a good
meal.
When the CD playing came to it's end, Mulder
got to his feet and
changed it for a different one. Returning
to the couch, he took
Scully's hands in his. She met his eyes,
and they sat for
several moments just staring at each other.
Then Mulder broke
the silence to say the words that had been
in his mind all
evening.
"Dana, I love you."
"I love you too, Fox." she responded
quietly. His arm slipped
around her waist, and he lowered his head
to kiss her lips, first
gently, and then more firmly. Her arms
wrapped around him,
pulling him closer to her, and they intensified
the kiss.
Mulder's hands traced the contours of Scully's
body through the
soft material of her velvet dress. Her
hands took hold of the
lapels of his jacket, and slid it slowly off
his shoulders, and
down his arms.
The room around them was dim, the lights turned
down. The two
candles on the table were still lit, and made
the shadows flicker
on the walls. The flickering lights
of the fake log fire added
to this effect. Pan pipe music played
quietly through the two
speakers. The scene had been set for
lovers.
Mulder raised his hand to Scully's hair, and
he released the
silver barrette, and combed her hair with
his fingers. Scully
took his left hand in both of hers, and pressed
it against her
face, running it slowly down the skin her
dress revealed, and
then over the swell of her right breast, until
his fingers softly
cupped it. Moving her mouth to his again,
Scully kissed him, and
the gentle pressure of his fingers on her
breast increased her
desire for him. She deepened the kiss,
and let her hands slide
gently down his back, and along the sides
of his thighs.
Mulder moved the hand combing through Scully's
hair to the zip at
the back of her dress. Tugging it carefully
down, he slid the
top of the dress off her shoulders, and lowered
his head to kiss
her creamy skin in a circle around her neck.
She let her head
fall back as he did so, murmuring his name.
"Fox..."
The dress continued to slide, and Mulder suddenly
found himself
cupping Scully's bare breast. She wasn't
wearing a bra beneath
her dress as it's straps would have shown.
His fingers traced
lightly over and under the soft mound of flesh,
before settling
gently around it again.
Scully reached to undo Mulder's tie.
Dropping it to the floor,
she stood up and urged him to his feet.
Her dress dropped to the
floor as she stood, and she stepped carefully
out of it and
tugged Mulder over towards the fake log fire.
Sinking to her
knees there, Scully pulled Mulder down next
to her, and their
lips met in a kiss again.
"Make love to me, Fox." she whispered.
He needed no further
urging. Scully undid the buttons of
his shirt as he unfastened
his trousers. His shirt off, he pulled
her close to him again,
savouring the touch of her skin against his.
She wrapped her
arms around him, and they sank to the floor
together, already
drowning in the tide of their overflowing
emotions.
Part 3/6.
* * *
Mulder opened his eyes with a start, and sat
up. He blinked
rapidly, looking around him, his mind desperately
trying to come
to terms with what it seemed had just happened.
He was lying in his bed, alone in his apartment.
Checking
himself over he realised he was wearing only
his boxer shorts. He
turned his head to look at the glowing face
of the alarm clock at
his bedside, and saw that the time was 6.23am.
He frowned,
closed his eyes for a moment in contemplation,
and then opened
them again, and swung his feet off the bed.
It seemed only a moment ago, and at the moment
he had "woken up",
he had been certain it had been. Mulder
pressed his right hand
against his forehead as he tried to ascertain
exactly what had
happened. It seemed only a minute since
he and Scully had made
love in front of his fake log fire.
Indeed, it was as though he
had been snatched away from that situation
just after they had
completed the act.
Snatched away, and left alone in his apartment bedroom again.
With a heavy heart, Mulder realised that he
had "skipped"
dimensions again, or whatever it was he had
done nearly four
months earlier. What new surprises lay
in store for him here?
Getting to his feet, Mulder crossed the room,
and headed for the
shower. Pausing at the door to the bathroom,
he looked around,
and called out,
"Scully?"
His tone was almost lifeless. He didn't
know what his
relationship to Scully would be in this new
life, but he had just
lost something which he hadn't realised was
quite so important to
him as he now knew it was. Although
he had known for a long time
just how important Scully was to him, he hadn't
realised what a
major part of his life their intimate relationship
had become in
such a short time.
Stepping into the shower, Mulder consoled himself
with the
thought that Scully might be in involved with
him in an intimate
relationship in this life too. But he
couldn't help feeling that
somehow it was morally wrong to be in love
with more than one
woman. True, the Scully he had most
recently known seemed in
every way to be the same as the one he had
known originally, but
as they had lead different lives, how could
they be the same
person, and if they were different people,
could he justify
entering a relationship with more than one
of them?
Mulder didn't know, and he turned up the heat
of the shower to
wash away his troubled thoughts.
* * *
Mulder moved quickly across the ground floor
of the J. Edgar
Hoover building, looking like a man with a
purpose, although
actually at that time his only purpose was
to get to his office
as quickly as possible, and find out just
how different his new
situation might be.
He moved through the room without seeming to
see where he was
walking. He avoided obstacles unconsciously,
his attention fixed
on the distant double doors of the elevator
which would take him
down to the basement. Around him, conversations
stopped and
started. He barely noticed the curious,
and sometimes
disapproving glances of his colleagues, and
didn't pay any heed
to the eyes that followed him across the room.
Similarly, he
paid no attention to the murmurs around him,
or the whistled
rendition of "The Outer Limits" theme tune
which wafted over from
somewhere in the region of Agent Greeber and
Agent Walbrooks'
desks.
Reaching the elevator, the doors opened as
soon as he pressed the
call button, and the elevator gladly swallowed
him up. It
dropped quickly down to the basement level,
where he got out and
headed for the basement office.
Mulder paused outside the office, and then
knocked cautiously,
before opening the door, and stepping inside.
He was not
prepared for the sight which met him.
The office was empty. Scully wasn't there,
and looking around,
Mulder couldn't see any sign that she ever
had been. Two desks
stood in the room, as well as the smaller
one which supported the
computer. Both desks were littered with
the sort of mess which
usually covered Mulder's desk, and on closer
inspection he saw
that all the work was his, although he didn't
recognise any of
it. There were only two filing cabinets
at the side of the room,
unlike the three he was used to. The
office smelled of old
coffee, take-out food, and musty paper.
Mulder moved to the desk which he was more
accustomed to working
at, and stood staring at it for several moments.
Then he moved
quickly around it, and sat down at the computer.
Calling up the
FBI records, he did an enquiry on "Dana Scully".
After a moment,
the information came through. Mulder's
eyebrows rose as he read
it.
Scully was working in Forensics. She
had never been assigned to
the X-files, and it appeared that he still
worked alone in his
small department. Scully didn't have
a partner, but worked as
part of a team, who visited crime scenes to
collect evidence, and
then did tests on the samples they collected
to gain evidence to
add to the cases. Mulder saw with relief
that her marital status
was listed as "Single". He wondered
vaguely just what his
relationship to Scully now was, and without
even realising it,
got to his feet and headed for the door.
* * *
Mulder pushed open the door of the forensics
department, and went
inside. His eyes searched the room for
the familiar figure of
Dana Scully, and found her with her back to
him, talking to a
woman and two men over a microscope at which
she had apparently
been working.
A couple of heads had turned when he opened
the door, and they
followed him as he made his way across the
room towards where
Scully was standing. One of the men
with her turned his head as
Mulder approached, and murmured to his colleagues
in a voice just
loud enough for Mulder to hear.
"Well, look who it is, - "Spooky" Mulder."
Scully turned around to look just as Mulder
reached the group.
Her face was almost completely impassive,
the only emotion being
the flicker of a friendly smile playing on
her lips as she looked
at him. Mulder suddenly had the horrible
feeling that she didn't
even know him. The other three agents
watched him, almost with
distaste.
"Scully." Mulder said in a low voice. She raised an eyebrow.
"Agent Mulder?"
Her tone told him immediately that she barely
knew him. She
probably knew him from reputation, and that
was all. - And
although his reputation in the FBI had never
really bothered him,
he knew that the talk about him amongst his
colleagues was seldom
friendly. He thought quickly for what
to say, and his
photographic memory threw up an image of one
of the documents he
had seen lying on his desk.
"I... wanted to come and congratulate you on
finding that piece
of evidence for the Dionkowitz case."
he said carefully, aware
of the scrutinising gazes of the other three
agents, "Linking
retinoic acid to the suspect was the vital
piece of evidence
which closed the case."
Scully's smile widened ever so slightly, "Thank you." she said.
"No, thank *you*." Mulder corrected.
For a moment, their eyes
met, and he felt that there was only the two
of them left on the
Earth, just staring at each other forever.
Then the impression
was gone, and he was left with the uncomfortable
feeling of being
stared at by Scully's colleagues. Nodding
to them, he turned on
his heel, and headed for the door again, feeling
their gazes
boring into him as he moved away, and hearing
the conversations
starting up behind him. He didn't feel
comfortable until after
the door had closed behind him, and even then
he felt gloomy
inside.
* * *
A tall, dark-haired man made his way along
one of the many paths
which led towards the Jefferson Memorial.
He had passed the
Washington Monument, not even pausing to look
at the obelisk
which attracted so much of the tourist attention,
having another
destination in mind.
For some reason he couldn't fathom, it was
very quiet around the
normally popular tourist areas, and he saw
only the occasional
small group. His charcoal grey suit
set him apart from the
brightly-dressed tourists. His dark
hair blew in the light
breeze coming off the Tidal Basin.
Reaching the front of the Memorial, Fox Mulder
stood for a few
moments at the railings overlooking the water,
just as he had
nearly four months earlier with Scully.
Then he turned to look
at the Memorial, and walked slowly up the
steps to go inside.
The air inside the Memorial building was cool,
and still. Mulder
looked up at the bronze statue of the third
president, and his
lips silently formed the words which ran around
the walls of the
memorial.
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal
hostility against
every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
Every form of tyranny. Mulder didn't
think the third president
had had anything like his situation in mind
when he had said
those words, and yet this was a tyranny of
a sort. Something had
wrenched him away from the life he had known,
and thrown him into
a new, - although not unpleasant, - situation.
Having reconciled
himself to that new life, he was again ripped
away from it, and
thrown into a new one.
What was he going to do? His intimate
relationship with Scully
had brought a need within him to the surface.
He had realised
just how much joy being with her gave him.
Now she barely knew
him, and he had little contact with her.
Should he leave things
as they were? - But how could he face knowing
that she was
working in the same building as him, and him
never seeing her?
Should he try to "get to know her"? - And
if so, how could he go
about it? Mulder felt confused, and
disorientated.
Moving to the edge of the room, he ran his
right hand along the
tracery of fine cracks in the walls.
Coming here had always
helped him to think in the past, and he had
hopes that it would
help him again. Stopping directly behind
the president's statue,
Mulder leaned against the pedestal, and allowed
himself another
thought of regret for what he had lost.
The memory of what he
and Scully had done, only twelve hours earlier
chronologically,
and less than that to him, caused an ache
in his chest. He
wondered vaguely if it would have been better
never to have known
Scully intimately, than to have to live with
the memory of the
perfection of their relationship, knowing
that it would never be
possible again.
Mulder sank to the ground behind the pedestal,
until he was
sitting at the base of it, his forehead resting
on his hands. For
once his visiting with Jefferson didn't seem
to be helping his
thought processes, and he was getting nowhere.
* * *
Mulder parked his car at the side of the road
just outside the
police line surrounding the house. Switching
the engine off, and
releasing his seat-belt, he got out of the
car, and locked the
door. One hand unconsciously checking
his gun, he approached the
officer keeping the line. Mulder held
up his ID with his left
hand, and then flipped it closed and returned
it to his pocket as
the officer nodded his approval, and lifted
the line for him to
pass through.
Mulder approached the house quickly, and went
in through the open
front door. It was a large house, and
full of police officers,
FBI agents, and forensics people. Mulder
was directed towards
the study, where the incident being investigated
had taken place.
Mulder had been called into Assistant Director
Skinner's office
that morning, and asked to take a look around
at the scene of a
peculiar murder. It wasn't an X-file,
the Assistant Director
believed, but it was a case that could do
with Mulder's "touch".
The murder was that of a well-to-do Alexandria
businessman. His
dealings appeared to be straight on the surface,
but there was a
suspicion of illegal deals being made behind
the legal facade. It
was quite possible that he had angered someone
enough to be
killed for it.
The cause of death was obvious enough.
The man had been shot in
the side of the head with his own revolver.
His fingerprints
were on the gun, but strong doubts had been
placed on the
plausibility of firing a shot at quite the
angle that it appeared
to have been fired from. There was also
the problem of the
bruising to the body, as though he had been
beaten before death.
But the main problem was the lack of entry
to the room. The
death had occurred in the man's study.
The study door had been
locked from the inside, and the single window
had also been
locked, and had not been tampered with.
Mulder arrived at the study, and after showing
his ID again to
the officer at the door, he went inside.
Scanning the room, he
noticed Scully and the woman who had been
with her when he had
seen her a week earlier, looking at the body.
Scully was taking
a sample of the blood which had pooled on
the floor, and the
other woman was taking photographs of the
scene. Neither of the
two women looked up. Mulder noticed
agents Greeber, Walbrook,
and Tamworth standing off to one side, watching
the goings on
with disinterest. Agent Tamworth was
the first to notice Mulder
standing in the doorway.
"Agent Mulder!" Tamworth exclaimed, and
at this, Greeber,
Walbrook, Scully, and the other forensics
woman, looked up
towards him, "Who asked for "Spooky"
to come in on this?"
Greeber and Walbrook shook their heads in denial of the charge.
"Assistant Director Skinner asked me to come
down." Mulder
clarified quietly. Tamworth raised an
eyebrow.
"Well, we can handle this." Greeber put
in. Mulder nodded
vaguely, and then looked around the room without
paying any
attention to Greeber's meaning. Tamworth
saw the concentration
on Mulder's face, and cocked his head on one
side.
"What is it, Agent Mulder? You got a lead for us to follow?"
Mulder raised his right hand as he looked about
him, quieting the
agent. He crossed to the fireplace,
and examined it carefully,
apparently looking for fingerprints.
Then he walked slowly
around the room, taking it in from every angle,
and then
approached the body, which was slumped over
the study desk. He
bent slightly and looked around again, and
then moved over to the
side of the desk.
"The killer must have been standing about here..."
he murmured,
and then looked down at the floor. Squatting
down on his heels,
he looked closely at the floor. There
was a round patch of
greyish ash, about one and a half feet across.
Mulder put his
hand down, and picked up a pinch of the powder.
He examined it
carefully.
"What've you got?" Walbrook asked.
Mulder didn't answer. He
looked up at Scully, who was crouching just
opposite him.
"Did you take a sample of this?" he asked. She nodded.
"That's nothing." the other woman said, "It's just ash."
"From what?" Mulder asked, looking up
at her, "there's nothing
here to burn."
The woman said nothing. Mulder stood
up, and stretched slightly
to straighten a crink in his back. He
moved away from the body.
"So, Mulder, what've you got for us?"
Walbrook asked. Mulder
shrugged.
"It's probably nothing." he said, "And you won't like it."
"Won't like what?" Greeber asked testily,
"This isn't one of
your X-file cases, Mulder."
"Harry Bartlett was killed by the manifestation
of some sort of
spirit." Mulder said carefully,
"That's about all I can
determine right now."
The two forensics women had just finished up
their work, and
approached the four men. Scully smiled
slightly when she heard
Mulder's explanation. The woman with
her gave no response.
"Harry Bartlett was killed by a shot from his
own 45." Scully
countered, "Not any type of paranormal
occurrence."
"So who fired the gun, Scully?" Mulder
asked, turning towards
her, "And how did they get in and out
of the room?"
Greeber, Walbrook and Tamworth moved towards
the door, leaving
Mulder, Scully, and the other forensics woman
in the room alone.
"Just because I can't explain how they got
in, doesn't mean there
was anything supernatural about the crime."
Scully said. Mulder
smiled, - it felt just like old times.
"What evidence do you
have for the... manifestation of a spirit
anyway?"
Mulder glanced at his watch, and then looked
up at her again,
"It's lunch time. Why don't you join
me for lunch at a diner
somewhere near here, and I'll explain it to
you?"
Scully glanced at the woman she was with, who
shrugged, "Go
ahead, if you want to go and eat with "Spooky"
Mulder, don't let
me stop you." She turned and left the
room, just as a group of
paramedics came in to remove the body.
"Okay," Scully agreed, "lunch it
is."
Part 4/6.
* * *
Mulder held open the green-padded door for
Scully to enter the
neighbourhood bar known as "Ripleys".
Mulder had spent a lot of
time in the Alexandria bar, and knew the owner,
Stuff Felstead,
quite well. He entered the room behind
Scully, and looked around
for a place for them to sit down as the door
swung closed behind
him.
Leading Scully across the room, past the bar
to the row of
wooden-backed booths which ran along one wall
in the quieter
section of the diner, Mulder nodded to Stuff,
who was at the bar,
and winked at Trudy, one of the three waitresses
who worked
there. Scully slid into one of the empty
booths, and Mulder sat
down opposite her. The diner was fairly
quiet, - just a few
locals sitting along the bar, and at the small
tables littered
throughout the room. Mulder smiled slightly
as he recognised the
sound-track for "The Twilight Zone" playing
over the speakers.
Stuff still enjoyed having a joke.
Trudy approached the table, and smiled at Mulder.
She had a
notepad in her hands.
"What'll it be, Agent Mulder?" she asked.
"Umm... fries and a cheeseburger for me."
Mulder replied. He
glanced towards Scully, "And lettuce
and tomato sandwiches for
Agent Scully. - And two coffees."
"Sure thing." Trudy moved away again.
Scully looked at Mulder
in surprise, one eyebrow raised.
"How did you know?" she asked in disbelief,
"That's just what I
would have ordered."
"I'm just spooky." he replied with a
grin. She smiled back.
Then he turned a little more serious,
"I know you better than
you think."
Scully said nothing, and glanced around at
the bar, and the other
people in it. Then she turned back to
Mulder. "Spooky. - How
did that come about?"
"Can't you guess?" he asked, "I
got that when I was in the
academy. - I guess some people just don't
like the idea that
someone like me can solve cases faster than
they can."
"I've heard you're the best investigative officer
in the FBI."
Scully said quietly. Mulder shrugged.
"It's just what I do. I've got a photographic
memory, which
helps, and I seem to have a natural ability
to spot links in
cases which other people haven't seen.
Sometimes I can make
connections based on hunches, and they usually
turn out to be
right. Some people don't like that.
- It's too much like magic,
and they associate magic with con-artists."
Mulder paused when Trudy approached with their
food, and smiled
at her. She returned the smile, and
moved away again. Scully
watched her go.
"I get the feeling you come in here quite often." she commented.
"It's my favourite bar." Mulder admitted.
Scully nodded slowly,
and started on her sandwiches.
"So what was going on back at the house?"
she asked, "What do
you really think happened there?"
"Oh, I really do think there's a paranormal
aspect to this case."
Mulder replied, "There was no way for
a normal human being to
get in or out of that room when the windows
and door were locked
from the inside."
"But that doesn't mean that a... spirit carried
out the murder!"
Scully exclaimed, "What evidence do
you have for that?"
"You remember the ash I found on the floor of the office?"
"Yes?"
"It's called Vibuti, or holy ash. It
appears after the
manifestation of a spirit being."
"Appears?" Scully enquired, one eyebrow raised.
"It materialises out of thin air." Mulder explained.
"Agent Mulder, nothing can materialise out of thin air!"
"So what caused that ash then? There
was nothing there to burn,
and no smell of smoke. When you test
the ash you'll find that
all your instruments will deny it even exists.
It's not composed
of any element we can detect."
"That's not possible." Scully said firmly.
"You wait and see. - You'll see I'm right."
Mulder said
confidently, and took a large bite of his
cheeseburger. Scully
raised a sceptical eyebrow, but said nothing
as she finished off
her sandwiches.
Completing their meal, Mulder helped Scully
to her feet. She
smiled as he offered her his arm.
"That was nice." he said quietly, looking
into her eyes, "Do
you think we could do it again sometime?"
"Perhaps." Scully replied with a smile,
and a twinkle in her
eyes. She walked towards the door, and
Mulder went with her, a
painful hope in his heart.
* * *
Mulder bent over a case-file he had been asked
to look at by one
of his friends in the Violent Crimes Unit.
The spotlight on his
desk was on, and it shone on the back of his
head as his eyes
flicked across the document.
The office around the agent was dark.
The light on the desk
threw the shadows back against the walls,
where they stretched
out in unreal shapes. Mulder's jacket
hung over the back of the
chair slightly behind his, - he couldn't bear
to use "Scully's"
desk chair. - His shirt was open at the collar,
and his rather
brightly coloured tie hung loose around his
neck. His desk
looked like a nuclear fall-out zone, as usual,
although
"Scully's" desk was now completely clear of
all work. A shrine
to a colleague who had never worked there.
At the side of the door, the coat-stand supported
Mulder's long
black overcoat. To the side of that,
the two filing cabinets
stood closed against the wall. Mulder
had had a look through
them to see what his past cases were.
It seemed he hadn't done
nearly as much work in his life without Scully
as a partner.
The computer was on in it's corner of the room,
although the
screen was turned almost all the way down.
It gave off a very
faint blue glow, which was barely noticeable
against the yellow
of the spotlight.
There was a knock at the door. It was
a fairly confident knock,
although polite. Mulder didn't notice
it, being absorbed in his
work. The knocker signaled again.
Mulder raised his head.
"Come in?" he called, wondering who might
visit him, the FBI's
most unwanted, kept out of sight in the Bureau
basement where he
couldn't cause too much embarrassment.
The door opened, and
Mulder squinted slightly to see the figure
silhouetted in the
bright light from the corridor outside.
As the door closed again
slightly, he recognised the form, even before
being able to
define the features.
"Scully?" Mulder murmured. Agent
Scully stepped forward into
the office. She was wearing a brown
trouser-suit, and carried a
folder in her right hand. Mulder raised
an enquiring eyebrow.
"Agent Mulder?" the voice sounded a little
uncertain. Mulder
groaned inside, - they've been telling her
too many stories about
"Spooky".
"Yes?"
"I wondered if you might take a look at this."
Now the voice was
more confident, and Mulder found himself wondering
if the
hesitancy had ever been there. The woman
talking to him now was
the Scully he knew, even if she didn't know
him. He held out one
hand for the folder.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's a case I'm working on with a few of the
people in
Forensics. We'd come to a sort of dead
end, and someone
suggested that perhaps you could help us out.
They said you're
good at things like that."
"I bet they said a few other things as well."
Mulder murmured.
Scully raised an enquiring eyebrow, asking
a silent question
which Mulder recognised, but didn't bother
to answer. He opened
the folder, and began reading through it.
His eyes widened
slightly as his interest was caught, and he
began to read faster.
A sparkle of excitement appeared in his face,
and he looked up at
Scully again with shining eyes. "You're
not going to like this."
he said.
"Why not?"
"Because it's not scientific, and you don't
believe in psychic
abilities." Mulder replied. He
pushed the folder towards her
slightly, and gestured with his left hand
for her to sit down in
the chair at the second desk. She drew
it closer to his, and sat
down.
"What psychic abilities?" she asked.
"This crime was committed by an electrokinetic."
Mulder
explained, "Someone who can control
and conduct electricity. I
have at least half a dozen X-files documenting
such cases."
Scully raised an eyebrow. "What makes
you think that an
electrokinetic carried out the crimes?"
she asked carefully.
"It's got all the usual signs. - The victim's
cause of death was
electrocution, but he wasn't close enough
to any power source to
have had an "accident". The body wasn't
moved after death, and
there was no sign of any struggle. Someone
had apparently been
in the house, but there was no direct evidence
of who..." Mulder
got to his feet and went over to the filing
cabinets by the wall.
He opened the second, and pulled out a couple
of folders.
Dropping them on the desk in front of Scully,
he flipped open the
two documents, and indicated the scene photographs
for each with
a wave of his hand as he leaned over the desk,
one hand
supporting his weight as it rested on the
edge.
Scully looked at the photos, "Well, I
can see the similarities,
but I don't see any connection between any
of these and a...
electrokinetic killer."
"Well, this case," Mulder indicated the
one on the left with a
loosely pointing finger, "involved an
electrokinetic named
Sandra Atkins. She was never charged,
specifically because
during the chase which almost resulted in
her capture, she found
an metal bar, and used it to kill herself.
Myself and a police
officer saw her electrocute herself."
"And the other one?" Scully asked.
"Pete Jenkins." Mulder replied,
"He was nearly caught in New
Jersey two months ago, but he gave a pursuing
police officer such
a bad electric shock that the man was in bed
for a week, and got
away. He's still not been found, and
your case matches his MO."
"Pete Jenkins." Scully murmured, and
shook her head, "I can't
believe I'm hearing this."
Mulder smiled, "It gets worse."
he said quietly, and moved back
to his chair, "Why don't we go down
to the scene and take a look
around?"
"Sure." Scully agreed, and opened the
door as Mulder got to his
feet. He grabbed his overcoat from the
coat-stand, and followed
her out of the door.
* * *
Scully pulled the car up behind a police patrol
car outside a
house surrounded by police line tape.
She shifted it into park,
and switched the engine off. Mulder
undid his seat-belt and got
out, his eyes searching the area to gain a
better knowledge of
the scene than crime photos could give him.
Scully approached
the police officer at the front door of the
house, and held up
her ID.
"Special Agents Scully and Mulder, FBI."
she said. The officer
nodded, and moved aside to let them pass.
Mulder swallowed back
a painful memory, evoked by Scully's words.
So often he had
heard her say that when they were partners.
Even now, it sounded
so right that he wondered she didn't notice
it.
They moved inside the house, and went into
the front room where
the electrocution had taken place. Mulder
paused in the doorway,
taking in this new scene, and storing every
detail in his
photographic memory. Moving slowly into
the room, he lifted his
head slightly, and sniffed the air.
"There's a smell of singed hair in here still."
Scully noted
when she saw his action, "Even though
the front door's been open
ever since the police arrived."
"No..." Mulder said slowly, "It's
not that. There's something
else." He sniffed again, and moved forward
slightly, as though
to confirm the scent. Then he nodded.
"I thought so. - Ozone."
"You only get a smell of ozone after an electric
discharge."
Scully said. Mulder nodded. Seeing
the expression on his face
she added, "The body *was* electrocuted."
"Electrocution doesn't usually create more
than a smell of burned
flesh." Mulder countered, "There
isn't usually a discharge,
just a transfer. - Unless it's involving a
very high voltage
power source. - And here there isn't even
a trace of what caused
the electrocution."
"And I suppose electrokinetics do discharge
electricity through
the air?" Scully said sceptically.
Mulder nodded.
"The stronger ones can. Weaker electrokinetics
need physical
contact."
"And Pete Jenkins?" Scully asked.
"All the indications point to his ability being
very strong
indeed." Mulder replied. Scully
shook her head slowly, and
looked down at the markings on the floor which
noted the position
of the body.
"I don't know Mulder, this is just too fantastic."
she murmured.
Mulder smiled slightly. He glanced at
his watch.
"It's getting late. What do you say I
treat you to dinner?" he
suggested. Scully looked up at him from
her contemplation of the
body's position, and raised an eyebrow.
"Okay." she said carefully. Mulder
grinned happily, and then
looked at his watch again.
"Say, why don't I take you back to your place,
and then pick you
up again an hour later when we've both had
a chance to smarten
up. - We'll go somewhere really good."
Scully's other eyebrow raised, but she found
herself nodding in
agreement. What had a moment ago appeared
like a harmless
after-work meal had suddenly turned into a
date, but she
discovered she didn't mind. She followed
Mulder out of the
house, back to the car, and they drove away
from the crime-scene.
* * *
Mulder jogged up the path to Scully's front
door and rang the
bell. He felt clean and fresh after
a shower, and was wearing a
clean suit. His heart felt light and
nervous as though he were a
teenager on his first date. He waited
impatiently for Scully to
open the door, but when she did, he had to
admit to himself that
it had been worth the wait.
Scully was wearing a beautiful dark blue dress
that was cut in a
sexily low neckline, came in at the waist,
and then billowed out
in a skirt which reached just past her knees.
She wore matching
shoes with heels a little higher than she
usually wore, and
carried a matching bag over her shoulder.
A silver necklace with
a sapphire pendant hung around her neck, and
matching earrings
and bracelet complimented the sparkling jewellery
which to Mulder
only served to accentuate her sparkling eyes.
Her thick auburn
hair was brushed under as it reached her shoulders,
and was
pinned back on one side with a silver barrette.
Stunned into silence for a moment by the mere
sight of her,
Mulder recovered his composure, and offered
the corsage of white
flowers he had brought with him. Scully
smiled as he helped her
pin it on, and when her eyes met his he was
taken aback again by
their sheer intensity. Finally he found
his voice.
"You look absolutely radiant." he said
quietly, his eyes
drinking her in. She smiled, and he
offered her his arm to walk
her to the car. She took it graciously,
and they walked down the
path away from the house.
Fifteen minutes later Mulder pulled up outside
an expensive
restaurant he had visited in the past on infrequent
occasions. He
led Scully inside, and approached the Maitre'D.
"We have a table for two reserved for eight
o'clock in the name
of Mulder." he said. The Maitre'D
nodded, checked his
reservations list, and then beckoned a waiter.
"Table twenty-one." he told the younger
man in an undertone, who
nodded, and led Mulder and Scully into the
dining area. They
took their seats, and accepted copies of the
menu from the waiter
before pausing to take in their surroundings.
The dining room was quite large, but partitions
here and there
made it seem smaller, and more comfortable.
Thick red velvet
curtains hung at the many windows, and a beige
carpet covered the
floor. The tables were all covered with
long maroon cloths which
reached to the floor, and were topped with
smaller white lace
cloths. The silver cutlery was highly
polished, and precisely
placed.
The room was less than half full. Couples
talked in low voices
over their meals, and waiters and waitresses
moved about silently
on the thick carpet. The furnishings
absorbed all the noise in
the room, so that even the crackling of the
log fire near the
entrance seemed dim and far away.
Mulder glanced over the menu once, made his
decision, and then
put the leather-bound book down to gaze at
Scully sitting
opposite him. She took longer in reaching
her decision, having
never visited this particular restaurant before.
Finally she put
the menu down, and looked up to meet Mulder's
eyes. A look of
surprise flickered over her face at the intensity
of the emotion
she saw in them, although the expressions
were quickly hidden on
both sides. A moment later the water
reappeared at the table,
and took their orders.
The meal was fit for royalty. Mulder
acted the perfect
gentleman, even getting to his feet to reseat
Scully after she
left the table at the end of the main course.
The waiter moved
silently around them, never noticeable most
of the time, but
always there when they wanted him. They
both came away from the
restaurant feeling thoroughly satisfied, but
not glutted.
Mulder drove the car back to Scully's house
after the meal. He
parked at the front of the house, and got
out to walk her to the
front door. It was now nearly ten thirty,
and dark except for
the occasional street-lamp. They paused
at the door.
"Thank you, Fox." Scully said carefully.
Mulder smiled
slightly, - he hadn't asked her not to use
his first name, and
yet it still felt strange to hear her say
it. "That was a really
nice meal. I had a wonderful evening."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it." Mulder replied
quietly. He stepped
up closer to her, and she lifted her head
to look into his eyes.
Suddenly their faces were very close together,
and Mulder felt an
irresistible urge welling up inside him.
Giving in to his
desires, he gently lowered his lips to hers,
and softly kissed
her. "Goodnight, Dana." he murmured.
"Goodnight, Fox." she returned, seemingly
unperturbed by his
action. Smiling, she unlocked the door,
opened it, and went
inside. Mulder turned away from the
house, and headed back to
the car, his eyes glowing with happiness.
Part 5/6.
* * *
A man in a light grey suit sat on the step
outside a house in a
quiet suburban street in Annapolis.
His dark hair was neatly
combed to the left, and his suit was freshly
pressed. In his
hands he held a paper cone. His eyes
watched the street in front
of him for any signs of life.
A car appeared at the end of the road, moved
slowly down to the
front of the house, and pulled up. An
auburn-haired woman got
out of the car, picking up her handbag from
the back seat as she
did so, and then locked the door. She
moved around the vehicle
and approached the house.
"Mulder?" Dana Scully's face took on
an expression of surprise
when she saw who was sitting outside her house.
Mulder got to
his feet with a smile, and offered the paper
cone he was holding.
Scully accepted it and looked inside.
It contained a dozen red
roses.
"Happy birthday, Scully." Mulder smiled.
She smiled in
appreciation.
"Thank you." she replied, and looked
up at him with an
expression of confusion on her face,
"But how did you know it
was my birthday?"
"Spooky, Scully, I'm just damn spooky."
he replied with a grin.
She shook her head in defeat, and moved to
unlock the front door.
"Do you want to come in for a bit, Mulder?"
she asked. He
smiled, nodded, and followed her into the
house.
It was the first time Mulder had been inside
Scully's house since
he had last "skipped". However, the
house didn't seem to be any
different to the other two he had seen.
He followed Scully into
the main room, and sat down on the sofa when
she invited him to.
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked.
"Tea would be nice." Mulder replied,
looking over his shoulder
as Scully headed into the kitchen. Once
she was out of sight, he
looked around properly at his surroundings.
The smoked glass
coffee table stood in the middle of the room.
Scully's t.v. was
in the corner, next to the sideboard which
supported photographs
of her family. Mulder got to his feet
again, and went over to
look at one of the photos which caught his
attention. It showed
Scully and her sister, Melissa, and the date
underneath was
*after* the date when Melissa had been murdered
in his memory.
Of course, in this life Scully had never worked
with him, so
no-one had tried to kill her. So was
Melissa alive somewhere?
Mulder turned at the sound of Scully coming
into the room with
the two cups of tea. He indicated the
photo, and feigned
innocence.
"Your sister?" he asked.
"Yes, that's Melissa." Scully replied,
and the shadow that
passed over her eyes suggested to Mulder immediately
that
something was wrong.
"What is it?" he asked, "What's the matter?"
"Melissa... was killed in a car accident three
months ago."
Scully replied. Mulder's eyes widened.
- So it seemed that
people were slated to die early, somehow.
"I'm sorry." he said quietly, recognising
the pain in Scully's
voice. She tried to smile.
"It's okay. - It was instant for her. She didn't suffer."
Scully sat down on the sofa, and Mulder joined
her. He accepted
his cup of tea, and drank from it slowly,
his eyes fixed on
Scully.
"What about your brothers?" he asked,
forgetting that he wasn't
supposed to know about them. Scully
looked up in surprise.
"They're fine. Bill Junior is in the
army, and Charles has got a
job as an accountant. - How did you know I
had two brothers?"
"Umm..." Mulder looked around desperately
in search of an
explanation. His gaze fell on another
photograph in a glass
cabinet. "Isn't that a shot of your
whole family?" he asked,
pointing to the picture of Scully, Melissa,
Bill Junior, Charles,
and their parents Margaret and Bill, taken
two years earlier.
Scully followed his gaze to the picture and
nodded.
"Yes. That was taken just before my father
died. It's the last
picture we've got of all of us together, taken
just before
Christmas." She paused, "My mom's
coming over later, - we're
going out for a meal to celebrate my birthday."
Mulder was silent as he finished his tea.
Scully turned towards
him.
"What is it you do in the X-files department,
anyway?" she
asked, "I've heard a lot of stories,
but I'm not much of a one
for gossip."
"The X-files are all the cases the Bureau investigates
which
don't fall into mainstream." Mulder
replied, "I get paranormal
phenomena, government conspiracies, unexplainable
cases. It's a
varying area to work in."
Scully nodded, "And alien abductions?"
she asked, "Most of the
talk I hear about you says you spend your
time chasing after
little green men." There was a twinkle
in her eyes as she spoke.
Mulder grinned, "That too." he
agreed, "Although they're
usually grey, not green. In fact, the
popular term for them is
"Greys"."
"Popular?" Scully asked, "You mean
you're not the only one
who's into this stuff?"
"Oh no!" Mulder answered with a laugh,
"There are whole
organisations out there dedicated to finding
the truth about
things like that. - N.I.C.A.P., the National
Investigative
Committee of Ariel Phenomena, and M.U.F.O.N.,
the Mutual UFO
Network, to name just two of the better known."
Scully raised an eyebrow, and shook her head,
"And an
intelligent man like you really believes in
this stuff?" she
said, "Why?"
"I've seen too much evidence not to believe."
Mulder looked
down, "And I've had it brought home
to me in a way which shaped
my entire life."
Scully frowned in concern at the sad tone of
his voice. "How?"
she asked quietly.
"My sister disappeared when she was eight."
Mulder answered
quietly, his head lowered, "I believe
she was abducted. I
underwent regression hypnosis, and remembered
hearing a voice in
the room when she was taken, telling me that
one day she would be
returned. I've dedicated my whole life
to finding her, and
finding out what happened to her."
Scully took Mulder's hand in hers, and squeezed
it gently. He
looked up at her, and the pain she saw in
his eyes wrenched at
her heart. She put her left arm around
his waist, drawing him
closer to her, and pulling his head down onto
her shoulder. After
a moment's uncertainty, he allowed her to
comfort him, and took
her right hand in his. When he raised
his head again, he met her
eyes, which were full of understanding.
After a moment's
silence, their lips met.
Scully's hand rose to caress Mulder's hair
with her fingers, and
his hands roamed over her body. The
kiss intensified, and their
lips parted to allow a more intimate experience
to begin. When
they separated, Mulder held Scully's gaze
with his eyes. They
sat in silence for several moments, and then
he broke the
silence.
"Can I meet you tomorrow? We'll go for lunch somewhere."
"Sure." Scully smiled, "That would be nice."
Mulder grinned, and got to his feet.
"Enjoy the rest of your
birthday, Scully."
He headed for the door, feeling light-headed,
and looked forward
to the next day.
* * *
Fox Mulder sat at his desk in the basement
of the J. Edgar Hoover
building, working on one of the many cases
which came his way
when the agents working on them came to a
dead end. The
fluorescent tube overhead was on, pushing
back the shadows in the
cramped room, and a fan on one of the filing
cabinets did it's
best to move the still air, - the air conditioning
had long since
broken down.
The office was in it's usual state. The
second desk however was
still clear of the debris, a monument to a
partnership which had
never existed. A pile of paper balls
were strewn around the bin,
and an open bag of sunflower seeds was spilled
across the desk
Mulder worked at. By his feet, a pile
of the empty shells was
slowly growing.
Mulder ringed a passage in the document he
was working on, and
then tossed it onto his "Out" pile.
As he reached for another
sunflower seed his eyes fell on the photographs
standing on his
desk. The first had been there ever
since he first started the
X-files. It was a picture of his sister,
Samantha, taken just
before she disappeared. The other photo
was new. It showed him
and Scully laughing together at the Jefferson
Memorial. The
photograph had been taken by one of the tourist
photographers who
hung around the monuments surrounding Constitution
Gardens.
Mulder smiled at the picture.
He and Scully had been spending a lot of time
together over the
past few weeks. They met every lunch
time, going either to
Constitution Gardens, or driving out to Ripleys.
They had gone
to several restaurants, enjoying expensive
meals out, and had
spent quiet evenings at their apartments,
enjoying each others
company. They had both come to accept
their status as a
"couple", although no official decision had
been made between
them.
The phone rang, startling Mulder out of his
reverie. He knew
even before he picked it up that it would
be Scully.
"Mulder." He smiled when he heard the
familiar voice at the
other end of the line, "Yes, that would
be nice." he replied,
"What time?... Okay, I'll see you at your
place at seven thirty.
- Bye Scully."
Mulder put the phone down, and smiled.
She wanted him to go over
to her house that evening. He still
found it hard to believe
that this was happening between them.
With renewed energy Mulder reached for the
next case-file in his
"In" tray, and went back to work.
* * *
Mulder smiled as Scully opened the door and
invited him inside.
She was still dressed in the maroon skirt
and jacket she had worn
to work that day, but he still thought she
looked beautiful. He
stepped inside, and closed the door behind
him.
"Take a seat in the main room." Scully
said, "Dinner's nearly
ready." She hurried back to the kitchen,
and Mulder obediently
went to sit in the main room. It seemed
only moments later when
Scully returned to tell him she was about
to serve. He moved to
the table, and sat down. She entered
the room with two plates
held in oven-gloved hands. Mulder's
eyes widened in appreciation
at the roast chicken dinner she set before
him. Scully stripped
off the oven gloves, and took her seat opposite
Mulder. She
carefully laid the serviette across her knees,
as he tucked his
into his shirt, and they began the meal.
They ate in silence, both watching the other
almost constantly.
Time after time their eyes met, and they drew
pleasure just from
watching each other. The food disappeared
without them even
noticing, and before they realised they had
even started, the
meal was over.
Mulder helped Scully t