Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 1/8
by Parrotfish
"Whatever you do, don't look at the painting."
"The painting." Hugh Lester looked at his partner with mingled
disbelief and disdain.
"That's right. The painting over the mantle in the dining room.
It's a portrait of his grandfather. Don't look at it."
"Is it that bad? Maybe we should call the NEA for backup."
"I'm not kidding, Hugh!"
"All right! All right! Let's just get this over with."
"Okay. You take the back door. If I haven't let you in within two
minutes, break it down. Let's go."
Fox Mulder got out of the car and approached the front of the
large, Victorian house as his partner circled around back. He
waited a minute to give Lester time to get into position, then
rapped sharply on the door.
"Open up! Federal agents!"
He was met with dead silence.
Mulder tried the doorknob. It turned easily, and the large wood-
and-glass door swung open. He entered and found himself in a
spacious, wood-paneled foyer.
"Sheffield? Sheffield! I know you're here!"
Silence.
Mulder headed toward the back of the house to let his partner in.
He didn't make it.
A large man with a startling mass of white hair and a jagged scar
across his forehead stood in Mulder's way. He'd been standing
there all along, Mulder guessed, waiting.
"I know it's you, Sheffield. I know how your cousins wound up
dead."
A loud crash came from the direction of the kitchen.
"We're here to arrest you and take you out of this house,"
Mulder said.
For a moment, he saw fear in the big man's eyes. Just for a
moment. He watched as the fear turned into gleeful hatred.
"Lester! Get out of there!" Mulder yelled.
Too late. He tried to close his eyes, but he had lost control over
them. And then the blue bolts seared them. Like twin lasers, the
fiery beams leaped from Sheffield's eyes into his, and an
agonizing pain overwhelmed him. Another couple of seconds,
and his brain would simply shut down under the assault.
"NO!" He could no longer see, but from somewhere behind the
burning pain, Mulder heard a voice scream the single syllable.
And then the pain stopped.
He sank to his knees, dazed, blinking back the tears that poured
out in the aftermath of the attack. His vision was still blurred
when he looked up, and at first he thought he was hallucinating.
As his eyes cleared, a surge of relief washed over him.
Sheffield lay face down on the floor. Scully had her knee in his
back, and she was snapping on the cuffs.
"What are you doing here?" Mulder croaked with whatever
voice he could find.
"When you told me you thought Sheffield's mother was coming
here and that she was in danger, I knew you'd try something like
this," she said. "I thought you could use some help."
"Lester -- go check on him. I'll keep an eye on Sheffield."
Mulder got to his feet.
"Where is he?"
"Dining room. He must have looked at the painting."
Scully dashed out. It only took her a minute to find him.
"Mulder! Call an ambulance!"
____________________________
It was just like old times -- sitting side by side in Assistant
Director Skinner's office, prepared for the worst.
"Agent Lester is in intensive care," Skinner was saying. "He's in
a coma, and the doctors can't find any cause. No trauma. No
pathology. Nothing. I suspect you have a theory...?" This last
was addressed directly to Mulder.
"I know what happened to him. Not that it's going to make any
difference."
Scully gripped the arms of her chair tighter. Mulder was
throwing all the bad attitude he had in Skinner's face, flipping
him a mental bird. He'd always been prone to disrespectful
behavior, but ever since he'd lost her as a partner, he'd been so
flippant that Scully feared for his job.
"Agent Mulder," Skinner spat through clenched teeth, "I have a
severely injured agent who may not survive the night. I'm in no
mood for your snide comments. Tell me what happened. NOW!"
"What happened? Hugh Lester refused to believe me. If he had,
he'd be here talking to you now."
"What do you mean?"
Mulder sighed, knowing he was about to sound crazy. Again.
"Sheffield has the ability to channel one person's psychic energy
and use it against another person. But he can only do it by means
of an intermediate device -- a painting in his house. I told Lester
not to look at the painting. He ignored my warning. Scully found
him collapsed in front of the painting."
"You mean to tell me that Agent Lester is in a coma because
Sheffield sapped his psychic energy in order to attach you?"
Mulder merely nodded sullenly.
"Agent Scully, what were you doing at Sheffield's house last
night?"
"I thought Mulder could use some help," she replied cryptically.
"Agent Scully has the ability to balance the outrageousness of
my ideas with the empirical evidence of their validity," Mulder
said.
"In other words, she believes you?"
"Not always. But she trusts me, just as I trust her." Scully
glanced at her former partner, thinking he had gone too far. He
was flaunting the special nature of their relationship, and that
was a dangerous card to play. Their superiors didn't understand
that, together, she and Mulder made a whole that was so much
greater than its parts. She didn't think there was any point trying
to explain it to them.
"I know this will come as a shock, Mulder," Skinner said, "but
I'm convinced that this episode provides compelling evidence
that you cannot be effective on your cases with any partner other
than Agent Scully."
Well, what do you know. Skinner was quite a surprising man.
Then again, Scully knew he would never have broken them up if
it hadn't been for the scandal. Hell, Skinner would happily have
turned a blind eye if it would have helped. But when that boob,
D'Amico, had walked in on her and Mulder in bed and had filed
an official report, there hadn't been much Skinner could do about
it.
Until now.
"I'm temporarily assigning you a new partner, Mulder." The six-
foot-two FBI agent slumped down on his chair and hunched his
shoulders like a defiant teen-ager told he'd have to spend time in
detention.
"You'll work with Agent Scully until a permanent arrangement
can be made."
Mulder sat up in surprise.
"But sir, the Internal Affairs Committee said..."
"You leave the IAC to me. Last I heard, they preferred our
agents alive -- almost as much as I do."
"Sir," Scully began hesitantly, "is there any chance these events
might be presented in such a manner as to alter the committee's
decision and make the arrangement permanent?"
Skinner took a long moment before answering.
"I don't know," he said.
_______________________________
The snick of a door latch woke Mulder from a deep, dreamless
sleep. He bolted upright, startled, but a look around calmed his
instinctive reaction. Scully must be home.
He'd gone straight to her place after work. She hadn't arrived yet,
and, having slept little the previous night in the wake of events at
the Sheffield house, he'd thrown himself, exhausted, onto
Scully's bed.
He stretched languidly and got up. The room was dark. It must
be late. Scully's last-minute autopsy must have been a
complicated affair.
He padded barefoot into the hallway and was about to turn to the
living room when he heard the water go on in the bathroom.
Turning that way instead, he saw Scully kicking off her heels as
she reached for the bubble bath.
"S..." The barest whisper of her name escaped when he clamped
down on it. She was reaching back for the zipper of her skirt.
Mulder stood in the dim hallway and watched through the open
bathroom door as Scully unzipped herself and slid the skirt off,
folding it neatly and laying it on top of the hamper. Then she
pulled her panty hose down and off, bending over to remove
them, her richly rounded, silk-encased bottom turned toward
him.
Oh, God.
He and Scully had been intimate long enough now so that he
could generally watch her undress without completely losing it.
But standing there in the dark, unbeknownst to her, watching
her prepare for a bath, was too much.
One small part of his mind told him to step forward, to say
something, to announce his presence. The other ninety percent
was taking instructions from somewhere south of his belt.
She sat on the closed toilet, her blouse hanging loosely to her
thighs, and bent one leg to take her foot in her hands, massaging
the sole with her thumbs. He took note of the way she began at
the heel and worked up toward the ball, digging hard at the high
point of the arch along the way. He filed it away for future
reference. He would do it for her just that way sometime.
He leaned against the wall as she started on the other foot, her
head bent forward so that a sweep of auburn hair veiled her face.
With a final wiggle of her toes, she released her foot and sat up,
her hair falling back to reveal her striking profile: the tiny nose,
the high cheeks, the lush lips. She looks so delicate, he thought.
Yeah. Delicate enough to take down a 250 pound man and cuff
him before he knew what hit him, he mused, smiling.
Scully stood, turned toward the mirror and began unbuttoning
her blouse. She seemed to be eyeing herself critically, crinkling
her forehead and baring her teeth. Mulder wondered if she was
considering some imagined flaw that no one but she would
notice.
She slid the blouse off and stood before him in white silk bra and
panties. He became aware of the pressure growing in his groin.
She reached back and unhooked the bra, throwing it on top of
the hamper with the rest of her clothes. Still watching herself in
the mirror, she raised her hands to her breasts and cupped them,
pushing them up so that the valley between them became an
invitingly tight crease.
I should say something now, Mulder thought guiltily. This is too
good.
He said nothing.
He watched, riveted, as she lowered her hands and smoothed
them across the tight skin of her belly, hooked her fingers at the
waist of her panties and bent to lower them.
Mulder was rock hard inside his suit pants at the sight of her,
nude and unaware of him.
Lazily, she raised her arms high and stretched, then turned to the
bathtub and leaned over to shut the water off, offering another
beautiful view of her now naked ass.
She turned and sat on the edge of the tub, facing him. He was
sure the game was up. She would see him standing there. He
should say something now.
But instead of calling to him, she closed her eyes, moved her legs
apart and began stroking lazy circles against a silky thigh. Oh,
sweet Jesus. The hand was creeping higher, heading into the red
flesh nestled inside the curls between her legs.
Slowly, enticingly, her middle finger disappeared.
Mulder was quite sure he had never been so rigid without first
experiencing any actual physical contact. Not since he was
sixteen, anyway.
Scully drew the finger out slowly and then pushed it back in,
bringing the other hand to her breast to pinch the nipple. When
her finger withdrew completely and she touched her clitoris, he
reached for his own zipper, slowly pulling it down, careful to
make no noise as she began her steady stroking, her head falling
back to bare her long, ivory throat.
Mulder stripped silently, never removing his eyes from the
spectacle of her self-indulgence. Her head rolled from side to
side as she increased the pace, dipping a finger inside herself
from time to time to capture the moisture she needed.
He held back, watching as droplets of sweat beaded her brow in
the steamy bathroom.
She took a nipple firmly between thumb and forefinger, rolling
and pulling at it hard enough to make her bite her lip in exquisite
pain.
Still, he held back.
Her hand reached a rapid machine gun-fire pace across the
swollen flesh of her clitoris, and a low moan escaped her. A
sheen of sweat covered her chest, and every muscle grew taut
with anticipation.
He dug his fingernails hard into the palms of his hands and held
back.
The low moan became a guttural yell as her hips bucked, and
she plunged two fingers deep inside.
He surged forward, reaching her in three long strides. He
grabbed her hand in an iron grip and pulled it away. As he
dropped to his knees between her legs, her eyes sprang open in
shock.
Before she could speak, he had rammed himself in to the root,
his hands holding her hips firmly in place so that she wouldn't
slide back away from him. Her already-orgasmic cunt clenched
hard around him, the sensation wrenching a scream from her.
He gasped at the feeling of pulling out while her strong muscles
worked to suck him in, then rammed himself home again. Her
climax, which had begun before he'd even entered her, continued
to build. She was twitching and writhing in his arms so that he
could barely hold her still as he slammed into her again and
again in a ball-tightening frenzy of hot, hard flesh inside hot, wet
flesh.
His blood seemed to rush straight from his heart to his cock to
his head, pounding in his ears to the rhythm of his hips and the
melody of her keening orgasm, and then his insides surged
through and out, streaming into her fiery depths, pumping a
white-hot stream of desire and need and infinite pleasure.
She ground her pelvis against him in a circular motion, milking
the last drop from him as his head fell onto her shoulder.
God. Could he possibly want anything more from life?
This was perfect.
She nuzzled his ear.
"Hi, partner," he whispered.
___________________________
END 1/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 2/8
by Parrotfish
"No, Mulder!"
"What do you mean, 'No?'"
"It's a pretty simple concept. Which part were you having trouble
with?"
"The part where you refuse an assignment."
"Assignment? Now you're handing out assignments?"
Scully was furious. In the past ten days, Mulder had dragged her
on two of the wildest goose chases of her career. First, they'd
spent three miserable, mosquito-bitten days in the Louisiana
bayous, tracking down rumors of zombies. Zombies! And then
there had been the four straight days slogging through freezing
New Hampshire rain, investigating allegations of human
sacrifices conducted at one of the nation's most bizarre tourist
traps, known to the locals as "America's Stonehenge."
Needless to say, both cases had been dead-ends.
And now Mulder wanted to re-open a thirty-five-year-old file on
a haunted house.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Scully?"
"There is nothing wrong with me, Mulder, other than the fact
that you're taking advantage of me."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't expect me to swallow every crackpot theory of yours just
because I'm not Hugh Lester!"
"Crackpot?"
Scully was on a tear, and she wasn't about to let him get a word
in edgewise.
"I'm going home, Mulder. Alone. I don't want to see you or hear
from you tonight. I need one night of sanity before I can cope
with your skewed world view again. We'll talk about this
tomorrow."
With that, she stormed out.
"Shit!" Mulder cursed aloud to the empty room.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. They'd fought hard for the right
to work together again, but now that they were doing it, it was a
disaster.
Okay, maybe he was trying to cram a lot of the more
unconventional cases into a short period of time. But their
partnership was only temporary. Who knew what kind of
starched shirt with a pole up the ass he'd be paired with next
time?
Why couldn't Scully understand that?
The worst part was that it hadn't just been their professional
relationship that had suffered. They hadn't made love since the
night Skinner had teamed them up. Sure, they'd been on the road
a lot, and they'd stuck by their hands-off-while-on-a-case rule.
And, on the couple of nights they'd had off, they'd both been
bone-tired. But Mulder was afraid there was more to it than that.
Shit.
He didn't want to admit it, but he was really scared.
They'd always said they could pull it off -- balancing their
professional and personal relationships. Had they been wrong?
He couldn't afford to think about that. Because that would mean
he'd have to lose Dana Scully, either as a partner or as a lover. If
things got bad enough, maybe even as both.
Any way he looked at it, the operative word was, "lose." That
was not a prospect he cared to consider.
_________________________
When Scully came in the next morning, she wasn't surprised to
find Mulder looking haggard and exhausted. She knew he
wouldn't sleep well after she'd walked out on him. But what
choice did she have? If they'd seen each other after work, they
would only have argued, and the result would have been the
same -- separate beds.
Still, the sight of his tired and anxious face tugged at her
heartstrings. She took her coat off.
"Mulder ... I'm sorry. It's just that ..."
"No, Scully, it's all right. I know you ..."
The phone rang, cutting them both off mid-sentence.
"Mulder ... Okay. We'll be right up." He hung up. "Skinner
wants us."
Scully tensed. So soon? They hadn't even had time to settle into
a rhythm. She was sure they could, given just a little more time.
They just needed time.
That was the problem, really. Knowing it was temporary.
Feeling rushed. That's why Mulder had chosen the screwiest
cases. He knew he wouldn't be able to pursue them once he got a
new partner who, like Lester, would think he was one fry short
of a Happy Meal.
And that was why she had no patience with him. It was hard to
have patience when you were always hearing a clock ticking in
the background.
Her eyes softened as she looked at him. "Okay, let's get it over
with."
He followed her out of the basement office with his hand resting
lightly on the small of her back. They entered Skinner's office
the same way. He waved them into seats and picked up the
phone.
"Hold my calls, Kimberly," he barked.
The two agents exchanged glances.
"This isn't about reassignment, is it?" Mulder asked.
"No." Skinner eyed them before continuing, looking as though
he were running some complicated calculations through his
mind. "It's about a case," he said, seeming to have arrived at an
answer. "A very important case."
He paused to collect his thoughts, then continued.
"Before I give you the details, I must warn you that when you
walk out of this office, several things will have changed. First,
you will be undercover, with false identities. Second, you will
have information that you will not be permitted to discuss with
anyone but each other and myself, ever. And third, the fate of a
vital piece of American foreign policy that could affect not just
national, but global security will be in your hands."
"Our hands?" Mulder repeated incredulously.
Skinner ignored him and went on.
"As you know, the Chinese Foreign Minister was killed in an
explosion six months ago during a visit to the U.S. The public
story was a gas leak."
"A lot of people didn't buy that," Mulder said, remembering a
conversation he'd had at the time with the Lone Gunmen.
"A lot of people were right. It was a bomb. The CIA had reason
to believe that the attack was carried out by a right-wing, white-
supremacist militia group called the White Hand, based in
Pennsylvania. But they needed evidence. To get it, they sent a
man undercover to infiltrate the organization. He succeeded in
making contact with a disgruntled member of the group who
agreed with the White Hand's political aims, but not with its
violent tactics. This man agreed to turn state's evidence."
"So where do we come in?" Scully asked.
"There's been a ... development. The informant's position has
been compromised. His contact with the CIA was discovered by
members of his group."
"Did they kill him?"
"No, surprisingly. It would seem that the group's leader, a man
by the name of George Flood, has a rather twisted sense of
justice. Instead of silencing the informant the old-fashioned way,
he's chosen a more sadistic but equally effective method.
Skinner's voice tightened. "Flood has kidnapped the informant's
six-year-old son. He's holding the boy as insurance."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Scully said. "Once the boy is
either released or killed, the informant would have no reason to
remain silent. Flood would be implicated."
"They're not going to release him or kill him, are they?" Mulder
said quietly.
"No."
"I don't understand," Scully said.
"They're going to hold him indefinitely. The boy is a hostage for
life," Mulder explained.
"Oh my God."
"We've managed to extricate the informant from his situation.
He's safely hidden away. But we can't pursue conventional
avenues to retrieve the boy. Nothing must compromise the
investigation of the bombing. Any premature information leak
that could affect Sino-American relations must be avoided at all
costs. For that reason, we cannot involve local law enforcement.
You two are going to have to find that boy entirely on your
own."
"You want us to find the kid," Mulder said.
"Yes. And you must retrieve the boy at a moment when all our
suspects' locations are known so that they can be immediately
apprehended. If any of them were to slip through our fingers, and
they knew their insurance was gone, they would disappear and
probably flee the country. We cannot allow that."
"You're kidding."
"No, Agent Mulder. I'm not."
"And they say I'm crazy. This is an impossible assignment."
"Not entirely," Skinner said. "You have one major advantage."
"Which is?"
"The perfect cover. Last week, a black minister, his wife and two
children were murdered, their bodies mutilated with swastikas
carved on the faces. We managed to nab the killers -- a man and
a woman, Robert Gorman and Mary Deene -- with absolutely no
publicity. They're on deep ice. They -- you -- are exactly George
Flood's kind of people. Gain his confidence. Discover where
they're holding the boy."
"Yeah, and while we're at it, we'll just use our Spidey powers to
make everyone give themselves up and confess."
"That would be acceptable," Skinner deadpanned.
There was a long silence.
"You said this was a matter of global security," Scully said at
last.
"The Chinese know damn well that was no gas explosion that
killed their man. They believe it was a CIA hit. What very few
people know is that before the incident, the U.S. and China were
very close to announcing an agreement on nuclear disarmament.
The Chinese halted those talks immediately after Xia Feng was
killed. The only way to get them back to the table is to nail the
real killers. And that won't happen unless you retrieve the
kidnapped boy. You'll have one contact -- a phone number. You
will not use it unless absolutely necessary."
"But why us?" Scully asked.
"Let me put it this way," Skinner said, his eyes locking on hers.
"If you pull this off, the most powerful people at the White
House, the CIA, the NSA, the State Department and the FBI will
owe you an enormous debt. They will give you anything you
request to repay it."
His meaning was clear.
"Here are your instructions," Skinner said. They took the folders
and left.
__________________
Back in the safety of the basement, the two agents sat staring at
the walls for quite some time.
"Have you ever gone undercover?" Scully asked at last.
"Once. You?"
"Never."
"It was terrible. I was terrified I'd slip up and blow my cover.
And this ..."
"This is insane."
Mulder turned to look at her. Her face, her posture, everything
about her was tense, drawn tight as a violin string.
She was right. This was insane.
It was incredibly dangerous. Incredibly difficult. Incredibly
unlikely to succeed.
It was one step short of suicide.
"We don't have to do this, Scully."
"We don't?"
"No."
"It's an assignment. Last I checked, following orders wasn't
voluntary."
"Come on, Scully. You know why Skinner gave this to us. It
would take something of this magnitude to get the Bureau to
reinstate our partnership. But..."
"But what?"
"But the way things have been going these last couple of weeks,
maybe it's just as well if they don't. Partner us, I mean. We could
probably tell Skinner it's not worth it to us, and he'd let us off the
hook."
Scully was thunderstruck. What was he saying? Not worth it?
She looked at him in shock. Her mind whirled around the words,
"Not worth it."
Not worth it?
And then she understood. It was a question. He wasn't telling
her. He was asking her.
She rose, crossed the room and knelt before him.
"Oh, Mulder. Of course it's worth it."
He searched her eyes.
"Do you think we can pull this off, Scully?"
"We have to, Mulder. Even if there were no disarmament treaty,
no CIA operation, no chance to collect a debt of gratitude." She
paused, placing a hand on his arm. "There's a six-year-old boy
facing life in hell."
_________________________
For once, Mulder was happy to let Scully drive. It wasn't that he
was tired, or that he needed to review the case. He didn't have a
headache, and there was no need to read the map.
It was the miniskirt.
Last night, they'd carefully studied their profiles, memorizing the
details and using their imaginations to fill in the rest. Included in
their necessary preparations was the choice of a wardrobe in
which to play the parts. For Mulder, it had been easy -- jeans and
T-shirts. What else would a high school dropout auto mechanic
wear? But when Scully had started to pack, she dug out articles
of clothing he'd never dreamed she owned.
Halter tops. Hot pants. Skin-tight jeans. Motorcycle boots.
And the tiny scrap of denim she'd told him was a skirt, which she
now barely wore as she drove. It covered her crotch and no
more.
Mulder was quite satisfied with his role as passenger-observer.
"We're almost there," Scully said, interrupting a particularly
spicy fantasy that would have worked much better in a car with
a stick shift. "Mulder? Did you hear me?"
"What? Yeah." Neither spoke again until they passed the sign
that welcomed them to Lemington, Pennsylvania.
"We're going to some very seedy dives. Are you sure you want
to be wearing that?"
"This is exactly what Mary Deene would wear."
"That's not exactly terribly reassuring."
"Look, Mulder. Things are going to get a lot uglier than a few
drunken passes in a sleazy bar before we get through this. And
the only way we'll get through this at all is by being as
absolutely credible in these roles as we can be."
"I know that," he replied peevishly and lapsed back into silence.
A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of a place called
Willy's Bar. Scully turned to Mulder.
"This is it. From here on in, you're Bobby and I'm Mary. You
ready?"
"I'm ready."
"You sure?"
He grinned broadly. "As sure as a homicidal grease monkey can
be."
She smacked his leg and got out of the car.
As they entered the bar, Mulder surprised her by draping an arm
across her shoulders, his hand hanging carelessly over her breast.
The transformation had begun.
_____________________________
The Five Spot was their third bar. Scully was amazed at how
many such places there were in a town the size of Lemington.
One ought to have been more than enough.
She and Mulder wove their way to the bar and ordered bourbons,
just as they had at the previous two places. She was just slightly
tipsy, having finished only half of each drink. The trick was to
walk into each place looking like you'd had three at the last one.
At Willy's Bar and The Station House, all she and Mulder had
accomplished were a couple of loud, suggestive conversations
that no one seemed to notice. In the car, they'd agreed they'd
have to do better.
Fate handed them their chance.
A middle-aged black man wearing jeans and a work shirt
perched himself on the stool next to Scully's. She waited several
minutes before starting.
"Get your filthy hands off of me!"
The man looked at her, startled.
"I said, get your filthy hands off of me!" Louder this time.
"I didn't touch you," the man replied, surprised.
Mulder took up the game. He stood and moved to invade the
man's space.
"If you touch her again, I'll kill you, nigger."
Scully swallowed a surge of nausea.
The man stood and squared off with Mulder. "I suggest you
watch your tongue," he said threateningly.
"I don't think so -- nigger." This time, Mulder emphasized the
foul word, throwing it out as a purposeful challenge.
"If you don't apologize," the man said with barely restrained
fury, "you will regret it."
"Apologize?" Mulder barked out a harsh laugh. "I don't
apologize to niggers. Me and Mary, we know how to teach
niggers like you a lesson. If you won't go back where you
belong, we'll just have to get rid of you. Like we done before."
Mulder was braced and ready when the first blow came, but the
man had at least fifty pounds on him. He managed to come back
with a few solid punches to the stomach before the enraged
stranger brought him down and kicked him five or six times for
good measure, then stormed out.
Scully could do nothing but watch.
"Come on, Bobby," she said, helping him to his feet when it was
all over. "Let's get out of here. This place makes me sick."
_________________________
She washed the blood off his split lip and checked to make sure
nothing was broken. He'd been lucky.
He was lying shirtless on the queen-sized bed in a seedy motel
room she'd found for them while he'd lain groaning in the back
seat of the car. Sitting beside him now, she realized this rat hole
was going to be home for a while.
"Jesus, I feel filthy," she said quietly.
"Me too."
"Do you think it worked?"
"Who knows? Depends who happened to be there. We'll have to
go back tomorrow and see if anyone takes the bait."
"That poor guy," Scully sighed.
"Him? What about me?"
"You started it."
"Actually, as I recall, you started it. Buy I have to admit, it was
a stroke of genius."
"Yeah, just like Hitler was a genius. Maybe tomorrow we can
invade Poland and launch the Final Solution."
"Come on, Scully. It wasn't really you."
"That man doesn't know that."
"We can't help that. Come here." He reached for her and drew
her down on top of him, instantly regretting it when his bruised
ribs complained. She rolled off him and lay on her side, propping
her head on one hand and resting the other gently on his chest.
"Thank God you're here," she said. "I don't think I could do this
alone."
He grinned, then winced from the pain.
"Actually, I quite enjoyed watching you do it alone the other
day."
She returned his wicked smile. "Yeah, but it was even better
when you got in on the act."
He rolled over and hooked one long leg over hers, pulling her
hips firmly against his.
"This time, you don't have to start without me," he said.
"You sure you're up to it?"
"What do you think?" He thrust his hips forward so she could
feel the hard bulge in his jeans.
"Your spirit is willing, but your flesh..."
"...is begging you to go for the zipper."
"Begging, huh? I like that."
Despite his bravado, Scully could tell from his stiff, awkward
movements that he was still in pain. She determined to take his
mind off it.
"Lie back," she whispered, pushing gently on his shoulder.
With careful fingers, she stroked his bruised torso, running up
his side, across the slight double slope of his chest, down his
stomach and around again.
A low vibration that sounded like a cat's purr began deep in his
chest. She leaned in and pressed her lips firmly into the soft flesh
where his neck met his collarbone, then tickled the spot with the
tip of her tongue.
The sound grew louder.
She licked her way up his neck, savoring his unique blend of salt
and musk, stopping at the corner where his beautiful lower lip
was just starting to swell with its injury, planting a light kiss
there.
The quality of the sound changed. At first, she thought she'd hurt
him.
The she realized it was a snore. He was sound asleep.
She smiled and whispered in his ear, "Sweet dreams, grease
monkey."
_________________________
END 2/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 3/8
by Parrotfish
On the streets of Lemington, working stiffs were wandering out
to lunch counters, McDonalds, Roy Rogers, ATMs, the post
office, wherever they needed to go during their midday break.
Two men sat together on a bench in a small park near the
construction site where they'd worked all morning.
"I tell you, it was them," the younger man said.
"How can you be so sure?" the other man asked suspiciously. He
was older, in his 50s, balding.
"What they said. How they acted. You get a feeling about these
things, y'know? And besides, the man said they'd done it before."
"Done what? Did he say?"
"Not exactly. But the way he was telling off that nigger, it don't
take no Einstein to figure it out."
The other man glared at his companion with hard, calculating
eyes. "No, it don't take no Einstein. Which is lucky in your
case."
"You leave it to me," the younger man said, untouched by the
point of the barb. "I'll get to the bottom of it." The two men
packed up their trash and headed back to work.
_________________________________
A lanky man in a nearby motel room whose handsome, sensual
features were distorted by ugly bruises and a swollen lip stirred
for the first time that day. He raised his arms over his head to
stretch, and the motion wrenched a surprised moan from him.
He opened his eyes cautiously, as though fearful that even such a
small movement might hurt. It didn't, but his next action -- the
smile he attempted as twin dots of blue and a splash of rich red
resolved themselves into Scully -- did.
She held a glass of water in one hand and reached out to him
with the other. "Ibuprofen," she said.
"Thanks," he managed, struggling to sit up.
"How bad?" she asked as he downed the pills and took the water
from her.
He moved his arms and legs and rotated his torso, first one way
and then the other, testing.
"I've had worse."
"That's not saying much," she replied, grinning.
"You've got a point." He set the glass on the night table beside
him, reached for her hand and pulled her onto the bed next to
him. "I fell asleep on you last night, didn't I?"
"Well, next to me."
"Sorry." He leaned forward and nuzzled her elegant nose with
his much larger and, he thought, uglier one.
"You're forgiven," she whispered just before his teeth nipped at
her lower lip, then worked past her chin and down her neck to
her shoulder. "Shouldn't we hit the streets?" she asked, trying to
back away.
"Uh-uh." Mulder pulled her back. "Bobby and Mary drank a lot
last night. They'd stay in bed all day."
"Lucky Bobby and Mary," Scully murmured.
Mulder reached for the belt of her robe and pulled. The robe fell
open, revealing that she wore nothing underneath. He leaned
forward and wrapped his lips around a hardened, red nipple.
Scully pulled back again, this time pushing forcefully against his
shoulders and standing up.
"Wait...stop," she said, panting lightly.
"What?"
"It's just ... well, I woke up thinking, and I thought maybe we
shouldn't. Not while we're here. I mean, we're on a case, and we
have that rule..."
"That rule doesn't apply, Scully. We're alone in this. Besides, last
night..."
"Last night I wasn't thinking."
"This morning you're thinking too much."
"Mulder..."
"No! Don't you dare, Scully. I won't let you."
"What? Let me what?"
He reached out to her where she stood by the bed next to him
and wrapped his arms around her, resting his face on her bare
stomach.
"I'm not going to let you punish yourself for someone else's sins.
You're not Mary Steene. I know how pretending to be her makes
you feel. But you're not her."
Scully stroked his hair, marveling at his ability to leap wildly to
a conclusion. A perfectly correct conclusion.
"God, Mulder, this is so hard," she sighed.
"I know. And it's going to get worse. But remember, Scully, that
I always know exactly who and what you are, no matter what
you say or do."
"Do you?" she asked.
He felt rigid tension in the muscles pressed against his face. How
could she doubt it? He forced the thought away, forced himself
to assume a lighter tone. "Now, where was I?" he murmured.
"Oh, yeah. Right here."
He turned his head and took her breast in his mouth again. This
time, she arched her back as he pulled at her with his lips and bit
down lightly.
"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, remembering his split lip.
"Yes," he mumbled into her flesh.
She put a hand on either side of his head and gently pulled him
off her nipple.
"Then don't do it."
"I don't mind."
A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "Let's see if we can
find something else you don't mind."
She pushed him down onto the bed, then slid the robe off her
shoulders. Nude, she kneeled on the bed beside him. He reached
for her, but she stopped his hand, bringing it to her face and
kissing the tender flesh at the inside of his wrist, then the palm,
then the tip of his middle finger. The kiss became a suck as she
slid her lips down to the knuckle, then back up to the tip. She
repeated the motion, her eyes locked on his. He didn't realize her
hand had been moving until he felt her warm palm brush the tip
of his erection as she pushed his boxers down.
"I thought you didn't want to," he said, already losing himself in
the sensation of her touch.
"I didn't say that," she replied, removing her mouth from his
finger. "I said maybe we shouldn't. Well, maybe we shouldn't.
But I will anyway."
With that, she drew his finger back into her mouth and took
another trip down it, wrapping her hand firmly around his cock
and stroking at the same time. She did it again, hand mimicking
lips, down and then up. And again.
Mulder gasped at the twin sensation, the movements of her hands
and lips eroticizing his finger as much as his stiff penis. He
stared into her foggy blue eyes in rapt fascination, giving himself
over to her, telling her with his eyes and his body that he was
hers to do with what she would.
That was one of the things he loved about sex with Scully -- the
giving over. Until the day she had first touched him in the heat of
passion, he had never experienced the fullness of his own
sexuality. Oh, he'd had sex. Lots of it. And he was pretty sure no
one had ever left his bed complaining. But he had never totally
given himself over to the experience. Surrendered to it. Because
that would have meant giving himself over to someone. And
until Scully came into his life, that had clearly been impossible.
But now ... now, his body, his heart and his mind were hers to do
with as she pleased. And her pleasure was most definitely
pleasing to him.
His thoughts floated as she shifted position, releasing his finger
from her mouth. She stripped his underwear off with a vicious
tug and straddled his thighs, lacing her fingers through his,
pinning his hands at his sides. Leaning over until the heavy
softness of her breasts rested on his legs, she kissed, then licked
the head of his cock.
He closed his eyes and felt her. Knew her.
He understood that euphemism now. To know someone.
Because that's what this was. The woman he knew opened her
mouth and slipped her wet heat around him.
The keen intelligence of her brilliant mind slid along the length
of him.
The iron band of her courage wrapped itself firmly around his
sensitive, engorged flesh.
The gentle tremors of her fear vibrated against his sweat-
dampened skin.
The blazing heat of her passion sucked at him.
The cool grace of her inner and outer beauty blanketed his
overwhelmed senses.
And the magnificent, blinding light of her love carried him over
the edge, swallowing the hot stream of his very essence as
readily as he urgently offered it to her.
He knew her. He would always know her. Even when she didn't
know herself.
___________________________
Standing at the door of The Five Spot, Scully took a deep breath
and let another woman's personality settle over her like a wet,
mildewed blanket, close and heavy.
She had convinced Mulder to let her work the place alone for an
hour or so before he showed up. He'd fought like hell at first, but
in the end, he'd known she was right. A lone woman was much
more approachable. If someone wanted to establish contact, he'd
be far less cautious about it if Mulder were absent. And besides,
after yesterday the bartender might not even let Mulder in.
The place was pretty empty -- it was barely 5:00 -- and she had
her choice of seats. Deciding a booth would most inviting of
strangers' confidences, she headed across the room, letting the
part she played flow through her and control the sway of her
hips, the way her eyes roved, the sultry set of her mouth.
Wearing this alternate identity, she felt acutely aware of her
body -- the way her thighs tensed with every high-heeled step;
the exact line of skin just a couple of inches below her crotch
where the hem of her skirt lay; the light tickle where the tip of
her pony tail brushed against the back of her neck; the weight of
her breasts resting inside the lacy black bra she knew was quite
visible beneath the sheer fabric of her blouse. It was as though
her mind were trapped inside someone else's body, causing it to
take a constant, detailed inventory of its unfamiliar host.
She slid into a corner booth and ordered a bourbon from the
waitress. For half an hour, she found herself nursing the drink in
an odd, state of combined boredom and hyperawareness.
She startled when a voice suddenly addressed her from behind.
"Hello there, gorgeous."
She forced her mouth into a coy smile before turning her head.
"Hello yourself."
She sized up the man who had spoken, all the while carefully
preserving a vacuous expression on her face. He was thirty or so,
white, squarely built and obviously well-muscled, his body hard
with the effects of years of manual labor.
She let her eyes wander over him, knowing what motives he'd
ascribe to her, willing to let him. Her pulse quickened when her
gaze fell on a large tattoo that was partially hidden by the sleeve
of his T-shirt.
"Mind if I sit down?" he asked.
"No. Go right ahead."
He surprised her by sliding in beside her instead of taking a seat
across the table.
"Buy you a drink?"
"Sure."
He signaled the waitress, who returned quickly with another
bourbon and a Southern Comfort.
A regular, Scully thought. She knows what he takes.
"I just love tattoos," she purred after downing her drink in two
gulps. "Can I see?"
The man reached his right hand across to lift his left sleeve to the
shoulder, flexing his biceps just inches from her face. She took a
good look at the green image of a fierce eagle. It had a small
swastika on its breast.
Paydirt.
"Weren't you in here yesterday?" he asked. She brought her eyes
up to his face as he pulled his sleeve down.
"Yeah."
"I noticed you didn't much like that guy pawing you. Was it just
him, or are you like that with all the men?"
Not very bright, she thought He was testing the waters, and none
too subtly.
"No. Only with guys like him."
"Like him?"
"Yeah. You know. I prefer white meat."
The man grinned broadly. "Me too," he said. "So where's your
boyfriend?"
Here goes, Scully thought. I'll have to play it out.
"I don't know. What, am I supposed to keep him on a leash?"
"The real question is, does he keep you on a leash?"
"Hell, no!"
"Well now, that's what I call a healthy relationship. Umm, what's
you name?"
"Mary."
"Mary." He raised his tattooed arm and brought it down along
the back of the seat behind her. "I'm Frank."
"Well, Frank, you gonna buy me another drink?"
"Anything you want." He signaled the waitress again. The drinks
showed up as fast as they had the first time.
"So, Mary, you new in town? I would've noticed you if you was
around."
"Yeah. Just got here yesterday."
"You don't say?"
"Seems like a sleepy little dump."
"Oh, there's plenty of action, if you know where to look." Frank
put his big, rough hand on her thigh under the table. Scully
willed herself not to flinch.
"Oh yeah? That's good to hear. I was afraid nothing around here
would get me very excited."
A predatory gleam lit Frank's eyes, and he leaned in closer to
whisper in her ear, his hand sliding up her leg so high that his
fingertips brushed the elastic of her underwear. Scully bit the
inside of her cheek to control her reaction, fighting the reflex to
jerk away and slap the bastard.
It was at that moment that Mulder appeared from nowhere,
standing next to the table at a vantage point from which he could
see it all. She offered up a silent prayer that their usual ability to
communicate with their eyes was up to the task at hand.
His message, at any rate, was clear.
<I'll kill him.>
Jesus, she thought, timing doesn't get any worse than this.
<You'll ruin everything.>
<But...>
<I'm fine, Mulder.>
Realizing Frank had finished whispering some crude sexual
remark in her ear, Scully forced herself to giggle.
"Well, look who's here," she said aloud. Mulder took her cue and
sat down across from them.
Frank looked momentarily alarmed, like a boy caught with his
hand in the cookie jar.
"This is one pretty lady," he said with feeble bravado.
Scully held her breath, afraid that their entire mission could end
right then and there.
<Play the game.>
He glanced at her, then back at the beefy man beside her. A
wide, toothy grin split his face. "Hell, she's the best damn piece
of tail in the state!" he bellowed.
Scully felt Frank relax beside her. Crisis averted.
"You don't look so good .... What's your name, anyway?"
"Bobby. And you're...?"
"Frank. You took a hell of a lickin' yesterday." Mulder just
shrugged. "I saw it all. I saw that nigger kick you when you was
down. Ain't it just like 'em to fight dirty?"
"Yeah. Sure is."
Within minutes, more drinks were ordered, and Scully was
relieved that Frank seemed to have decided to keep his hands to
himself in Bobby's presence. The conversation rambled on,
mostly between the two men, mostly about nothing in particular:
sports, cars, dirty jokes. It was going nowhere. At last, Scully
piped up.
"Bobby, honey, I gotta eat something. Wanna get outta here?"
"Sure, baby. Let's go."
Mulder stood up and slid out of the booth, adding as though it
were an afterthought, "I'm glad you know who was right
yesterday, Frank."
"Of course, man! White is always right." Frank stood to let
Scully out. "And listen, baby, any time you need some
excitement, you know where to find some pure white meat. I'll
be happy to cook."
Scully's breath caught as she glanced over to see Mulder's
reaction.
"Mary's got such a big appetite," he said, catching her eye.
"Sometimes one cook just ain't enough for her."
Frank leered at her as she turned and walked away, staring
blatantly at her tight, round ass.
Mulder lingered until she was out of earshot. Then, in a voice as
vicious as it had been jovial moments earlier, he said, "Touch
her and you'll wind up as dead as a nigger preacher. You hear
me?"
And he sauntered after her.
__________________________
"It's them! I'm sure."
"You're sure."
"Yeah. Gotta be. Can you believe the luck?"
Frank squirmed under the older man's piercing gaze. "That's
quite a piece of luck," his companion said at last.
"I always said I was lucky," Frank boasted, missing the other
man's implication.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Only that Bobby just about told me in so many words."
"He told you? What did he say? 'Hi, I killed a family of
niggers?'"
"No!" Frank was at last catching on to the other man's
skepticism. "In fact, he wasn't gonna say nothing. I kind of
pushed him into it."
The older man took a bite of his sandwich, chewed and
swallowed before resuming the conversation. "And just how did
you 'push him into it?'"
Frank suddenly became reluctant, remembering that his motives
the previous evening had not been all business. "I got him mad."
"How clever of you. And how the hell did you do that?"
"You don't have to get sore, George. I'm telling you. I just kind
of admired his lady friend. That's all. He took offense and told
me I'd better look out or I'd end up dead as a nigger preacher.
That's exactly what he said."
George Flood said nothing, chewing on this bit of information
along with his lunch. "Where are they staying?" he said at last.
"Uh...I don't know."
"You didn't ask?"
"I was..."
"You were thinking with your dick again! Jesus, Frank, how can
you be so fucking stupid?"
"Fuck you, George! I found 'em for you!"
"That's exactly what has me worried."
The younger man's face clouded over with anger and a bright
blue vein bulged in his forehead as he worked his jaw in
frustration. "I don't have to take this shit!" he stormed, rising
from the bench. "You better apologize or..."
"Or what?" Flood rose slowly and squared off with Frank. His
voice was quietly menacing, like a snake's warning hiss. "Or
you'll do what?"
"I'll...I'll... do something.," Frank finished lamely, his body
folding in on itself in a clear signal of defeat.
"I'll tell you what you'll do," Flood replied in the same calmly
dangerous tone. "You'll do exactly what I tell you to do. You'll
find them tonight, and you'll bring them to me. And you won't
talk to anyone about this. You got it?"
"I got it," Frank sulked.
Flood turned on his heel and walked away without another word.
_____________________
Mulder woke with a start and reached reflexively to his right.
The bed next to him was empty. He turned his head and saw her
standing at the window, staring at a gray drizzle. Swinging his
feet to the floor, he rubbed his stubbled face and rose to join her.
He came up behind her and put his hands on her hips, pulling her
back against him, pushing his morning erection into her back.
She squirmed out of his grasp and sidestepped away.
"Scully? What's wrong?" His voice was thick with sleepy
sandpaper.
"Nothing."
He reached for her again. She evaded him.
"Come on -- what is it?" he asked, more awake now.
"Nothing. I just... I don't want to."
"Don't want to what?"
She heard the amusement in his voice, and it irritated her. "Just
don't, okay?" she snapped.
"Did you sleep?" More gently now. He could tell she was really
upset.
"Not much."
"What were you thinking about?"
"Nothing. Mary."
Her barely articulate reply actually clarified things for him. She
was, after all, the straightest of arrows. Scully might not be
especially good at confronting her own fears head-on, but she
was singularly true to her own beliefs. She had a code of ethics
that was built on a rock-solid foundation, and she was
unwaveringly true to it. It got her through everything. It was
what let her sleep at night, even when her life was being torn
apart by threats of violence, betrayal and chaos.
This assignment was the most difficult thing anyone could ever
ask of her. It forced her to abandon herself. Item by item, her
most closely held values had to be swapped out for their exact
opposites. For justice, bias. For fairness, hatred. For truth,
subterfuge. And knowing her, she was punishing herself for it.
All right, then. He would be patient. He would wait until she
was ready. But, God, he hoped she'd allow herself time off for
good behavior.
"Let's get some breakfast," he said.
She smiled gratefully. "Yeah. I'm famished."
__________________
END 3/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 4/8
by Parrotfish
"Maybe you should hit me."
"What?"
"Or grab me."
"Excuse me?"
They had been sitting in Malone's for an hour and a half, trying
once again to drink slowly without being obvious about it.
They'd agreed not to go back to The Five Spot. Another visit
there would look like they were on a fishing expedition.
Mulder had been trying to keep himself amused watching the
ebb and flow of humanity that came through the place. He would
pick someone out and observe him or her carefully, mentally
building a psychological profile as though every passerby were
a potential serial killer. It was a morbid habit he had.
But as the alcohol had slowly soaked through his brain, his
alertness, and then his interest, had waned. They couldn't afford
to get seriously drunk, but they were forced to get bleary just
keep up appearances.
So for the last half hour, he'd been morosely watching ice melt,
seeing too much of himself in the fate of the shrinking cubes.
And then Scully piped up out of the blue.
"Bobby doesn't usually treat Mary so well," she said under her
breath.
"Oh, gimme a break, S..." She shot him a warning glance.
"Gimme a break," he repeated.
"We're too quiet. Too well-behaved," she muttered.
"Too bored is more like it," he replied.
She laughed, but it was loud and grating.
"Stop it," he hissed.
"Fuck you!" She was getting louder.
"Shut up," he whispered urgently.
"Make me!" She was yelling now.
"No."
"You're such a coward, Bobby."
"Stop it!"
"Fuck you!"
<Do it.>
<I can't.>
<You have to.>
"I'm warning you, Mary. Stop talking like that."
"And I suppose you're gonna make me?"
<Do it.>
<I can't.>
<You can.>
Mulder sprang to his feet. The sound of glasses clattering as his
legs hit the table was loud, but it was nothing compared to the
ear-splitting smack of his palm on the soft skin of her cheek.
Scully raised a hand to touch the place he'd struck. "You
bastard!"
<Are you okay?>
<I'm fine, Mulder.>
God, she said it even when she didn't. Conversations around
them resumed as Mulder sat back down.
"Hey, I'd be glad to take her off your hands."
Mulder turned to see Frank standing behind him. "Try it and I'll
kill you." The words came out with all the anger he felt at
himself for what he'd just done, for the situation that had made
him do it. For the fact that, for some disturbing reason, it had
actually made him feel better. Judging from Frank's reaction, he
was behaving quite convincingly. Damn Scully for being right.
Frank certainly looked like he believed Bobby to be a very
dangerous man.
"Sit down," Mulder said.
"Actually, I was gonna spring you from this lousy dive."
"Who says we need springing?"
"No one. But I got a friend wants to meet you."
"What are you, the social director on this cruise?"
"C'mon. I think you'll really like him."
"I don't wanna meet your fucking friend!"
Mulder caught a flash of fear in the beefy man's eyes. So. He
was under orders to produce them.
"Look, we can have a little party on the way. I got some great
blow."
Frank's ploy was so feeble, his tone so pleading, that Mulder
doubted Bobby would go for it.
Fortunately, he didn't have to.
"Oh, c'mon, baby. I haven't had any coke in ages," Scully put in.
"I said no!"
"Please?"
"Oh, okay."
The three of them headed for the door and emerged from the bar
into the soggy night.
"C'mon. This way." Frank led them into the sheltered doorway
of a nearby building. Huddled together in the dim yellow light
that spilled from a naked bulb just inside the door, Frank
produced a small glass tube from his shirt pocket. A tiny gold
spoon was attached to the cap by a short chain.
"Give it here," Scully said impatiently.
"No way. Last time I handed my stash to someone in the rain, he
dropped it and I watched $300 worth of Panama Blue melt into
the sidewalk." Frank unscrewed the cap himself and dipped the
spoon into the vial, then held it out to her.
Damn, Mulder thought. She could have faked it if he'd handed it
over. She didn't have much choice now. He wondered if she'd
ever snorted cocaine before.
She leaned over Frank's hand, closed her left nostril with her
finger and inhaled the little pile of white powder from the end of
the spoon.
Well I'll be damned, Mulder thought.
Frank dipped again and held the spoon out to him.
"No thanks," Mulder said.
Frank shrugged and offered it to Scully. She glanced sideways at
Mulder as she efficiently snorted the second dose.
Frank helped himself to two nostrils-full, and the tube
disappeared back into his shirt pocket.
"My car's this way," Frank said, starting off.
"We'll follow you." Mulder hoped that didn't sound too
suspicious, but he didn't relish getting stuck God knew where
with no means of transportation.
Frank just shrugged again. Obviously, all he cared about was
fulfilling his mission of bringing them to his "friend." He walked
off in the direction he'd indicated as Mulder and Scully headed
the other way.
"Where did you learn to do that?" Mulder asked when they were
out of earshot.
"I haven't always been an FBI agent, you know," she replied.
"You all right?"
"Fine. But I don't think I'll sleep for the next eight hours or so."
Twenty minutes later, they were pulling up in front of a
nondescript little house on an even more nondescript little street.
Frank was already out of his car and waiting for them.
"Oh, this looks really exciting," Mulder said with hostile
sarcasm. He was finding he had no trouble at all projecting a
really mean attitude tonight. He suspected that was exactly why
Scully had done what she'd done in making him hit her. It had
put him in one incredibly foul temper.
"Trust me, Bobby. You're gonna thank me for this. George
Flood is someone you wanna know."
They followed Frank to the front door and waited as he knocked.
A woman opened it, stepped aside wordlessly and admitted
them. She was middle-aged, tired-looking, worn at the edges,
with an air of studied detachment.
They entered the living room where a balding man of medium
height awaited them. At first glance, there was nothing in the
least remarkable about him. The man said nothing by way of
greeting.
Mulder took advantage of the momentary stand-off to observe
his surroundings. The place was as drab and shabby as the
people in it. The furniture was neither old nor new. It had that
ageless, Sears-Roebuck-tacky look. The room was lined with
bookcases that were filled floor to ceiling with volumes of every
description. Nowhere did Mulder's roving eye encounter a
television set.
Without introduction or preamble, the man walked up to Mulder
and stopped just inches from him.
"Did you do it?"
"Did I do what?"
"Did you kill those people?"
Mulder was caught off guard. He hadn't been expecting Flood to
come to the point so quickly.
Think. What would Bobby do?
"What the fuck kind of question is that?"
"One with a yes or no answer." This guy was good. Really good.
"Fuck you!" Mulder turned on his heel and headed toward the
door. "Come on, Mary. We're leaving."
"Stop!"
The one-word command yanked Mulder to a halt. There was an
almost irresistible authority in that voice, one that demanded
obedience. It was all he could do to keep from turning around.
"I'll take that as a yes," Flood said.
"Nobody asked you to take nothing," Mulder said, his back still
to the man.
"Why'd you do it?"
"Fuck you!"
"Oh, come on, Bobby. You can trust me." Flood's voice dripped
charm now, projecting a warm invitation to intimacy. Mulder
turned slowly.
"Why should I trust you?"
"Tell me why you did it. Don't worry. Nothing said here tonight
will ever leave these four walls."
Mulder shot a nervous glance in Frank's direction. Flood
understood, and Mulder thought he saw a glimmer of respect
flare in the man's eyes.
"You've done your job, Frank," Flood said. "You can go."
"But..."
"Now!"
Frank looked from Flood to Mulder, who just glared at him.
Defeated, he made his exit.
"You too, Alice." The woman disappeared upstairs.
"Now tell me," Flood said.
Scully had been standing off to the side, taking careful note of
everything. She was surprised when, in answer to the man's
question, Mulder moved behind her, his body pressing up against
her.
"I did it for her," Mulder said quietly.
"You mean to tell me a minister made a pass at your girl?"
"Not exactly." Mulder reached around her and cupped her face
in both hands, tilting her head up so the ceiling light shone full
on her. "What do you see?"
"She's quite lovely."
"Exactly. Look at the red of her lips. The deep blue of her eyes.
The perfect, white skin. This is a woman that makes a man want
to sire children on her, to see beautiful babies suck life from her
breast."
Scully's heart beat furiously. Mulder's voice had taken on a
hypnotic, singsong quality that frightened her.
"So you see," he went on, still holding her face tightly, "I had to
do it. That man ... that nigger ... I heard him on the radio. He
was talking about tolerating the mixing of the races. About
cross-breeding the colors. Now you look at my Mary. What
would the thought of a dark animal mounting her clean, white
body do to you?"
Flood approached the two of them and looked first in her eyes,
then in his.
"You have the calling," he whispered.
"I know what I know," Mulder replied. He suddenly realized
how hard he had been gripping Scully's face. Forcing himself to
relax, he slid his hands down to her shoulders. Only then did he
feel that she was trembling beneath his touch.
"It is a calling," Flood was saying. "And if you have it, I can
show you how to use it."
"We been getting along fine without you."
"But you're not making a difference. Do you think stopping one
nigger's mouth will change anything?"
"Well, it sure shut him up."
"Let's get out of here, Bobby," Scully interrupted in a voice as
smooth as glass despite the nervousness Mulder sensed in her.
"All this fancy talk is making me thirsty."
"Okay, baby." They headed for the door.
"Bobby," Flood said with the same authoritative tone he'd used
earlier. "You're not alone. There are others who feel as you do.
You and Mary could join in something that is much greater than
the sum of its parts."
"I don't know," Mulder said, suddenly eager to get out into the
bracing rain.
"Where are you staying?"
Mulder was strangely silent. Scully looked at him.
<Tell him.>
"Sunset Motel," Scully said as Mulder opened the door. He was
halfway down the path before she caught up with him.
__________________________
Scully stared at her reflection in the night-blackened car
window, the rain seeming to run down her somber face. She took
a deep, shaky breath. It's just an act, she told herself. An
elaborate game of make-believe.
But he had been so damn believable.
It hadn't really been a surprise. She'd seen this ability of his
before, this uncanny talent for tuning his mind to the wavelength
of madmen and psychopaths. She'd witnessed it a number of
times. And each time, it had scared the shit out of her.
Before she'd come along, before he'd begun work on the X files,
it had had been his life's work. His talent had been sharpened
like a straight razor to a brutal edge so that he could profile
serial killers with frightening -- and useful -- accuracy. From
time to time since then, he'd been called upon to do it again as an
expert consulted in especially difficult cases.
But never had she seen him become the madman so completely.
And never had the intensity of the madness been turned full on
her. The heat of the hatred he'd projected so convincingly had
burned her soul.
But the most disconcerting part was that it had been a stroke of
pure genius. The creativity of his little display, its shockingly
unconventional daring, had been utterly compelling. It had been
exactly what was needed to get past George Flood's suspicions.
She turned to look at him as he drove. He was wrapped up
entirely in himself, shielding himself from his own actions. Like
the survivor of some great disaster, he had entered a state of
shock -- not physical but moral.
She closed her eyes, trying to erase the memory of his iron grasp
and his foul words. She shook her head. No. They would be with
her forever.
She knew it was just as well. Because their success in this insane
endeavor depended entirely on their ability to act like -- no, to be
-- Bobby Gorman and Mary Deene.
All right, then. She would watch and learn. She knew what it
took out of him to do this. It wasn't like this was a walk in the
park for him, becoming a monster to snare a monster. He never
entered that moral gray area without maiming some part of his
soul. She marveled at his ability to overcome his terror and
plunge head first into a nightmare. She vowed not to let him go
there alone.
But she would never tell him he had become her guide in this. It
was a skill he'd never meant to teach her.
_______________________
Mulder listened to the sound of the shower, hearing the volume
and pitch change as Scully moved in and out of the water's flow.
If only she could wash away the stain of the words he'd poured
over her tonight. But that was impossible.
Long ago, he'd learned a secret, a key that could unlock the door
to any mind. Human motivation could be so well understood that
it could be used to anticipate action. Simply put, by knowing
what made someone tick, you could know what he'd do before
he did it. It was necessary to understand not only how that
person saw the world, but also how that person saw himself.
He had, it turned out, a genius for it. Still, it wasn't all talent. It
took practice. And Mulder had gotten lots of that by crawling
into the minds of psychopathic serial killers, necrophiliacs,
sadists, pedophiles and the like. The experience had taught him
the most frightening thing he would ever learn. Something more
shocking than the existence of extraterrestrials and malevolent
government conspiracies. He'd learned that no one, not even a
man who rapes, kills and mutilates small children, sees himself
as evil.
And to do the job, Mulder couldn't afford to see him that way,
either.
He'd tapped into that knowledge tonight in order to convince
Flood that Bobby Gorman and Mary Deene were his kind of
people. He'd allowed the passion of utterly righteous conviction
to take hold of him, and he'd use it to espouse a deeply rooted,
murderous hatred.
But what the hell had made him turn it all on Scully?
God. He'd spent most of his adult life avoiding intimacy for fear
that someone would notice that he had some really fucked up
personal boundary issues. He could sympathize with anyone,
even people who kept a few severed body parts in the freezer.
Then came Scully. He'd thought that side of him would
somehow disappear, or maybe she just wouldn't notice. Who the
fuck had he been trying to kid?
Shit. And he was going to help her through this nightmare? That
was like Jack the Ripper offering spiritual guidance to Joan of
Arc.
The shower stopped. She would be drying off in that efficient,
brisk manner of hers. She'd be out in under a minute, wrapped in
a terrycloth robe, a towel around her head. She'd open the
bathroom door, maybe say something to him. He'd have to
answer. He'd have to decide whether to go to her or not; whether
to talk about it or not; whether to lie down in bed with her or...
Not.
As Scully opened the bathroom door, the room door closed
behind him.
_____________________
The ringing of the phone roused Scully from a not-very-restful
slumber. She had the vague sense that her dreams had not been
pleasant ones, though she could remember nothing about them.
She opened her eyes and felt a rush of anxiety as she realized
where she was, and that Mulder was not beside her. The phone
was still ringing. Maybe it was him.
"Hello?"
"Mary, this is George Flood."
She bolted upright, panicky. This was unexpected. She took a
moment to tell her heart to slow down, to force her mind to
focus.
"Mary? Are you there?"
Say something. "Umm ... yeah. I was sleeping."
"Oh. I'm sorry for waking you. Shall I call back?"
"No. I mean, I'm up now."
"Well, I felt that we didn't really finish our conversation last
night. And I was finding it very interesting. But I realize that you
and Bobby weren't expecting to be cross-examined. How about a
more relaxed meeting tonight?"
The door opened, distracting her. Mulder entered. When he saw
her on the phone, he threw her a quizzical look.
"Tonight?"
"Yes. You could come over for dinner."
"Umm ... yeah. I guess that would be okay. What time?"
"How about 7:30?"
"Okay. See you then." She hung up.
"That was Flood. We're invited for dinner." She caught the
guilty look that crossed his face. "You been out all night?"
"Yeah."
She got up and headed for the bathroom without another word.
________________________
END 4/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 5/8
by Parrotfish
Silently, they retraced their route of the previous night, having
said little to each other all day. Scully had spent a couple of
hours in the afternoon running errands, ostensibly to give Mary
something of a public life. She'd even had her nails done,
something the real Scully had avoided for at least a decade.
Mulder suspected it was all more for the sake of getting out of
their oppressive motel room, where the morning had been spent
in such stimulating pursuits as reading, pacing, fidgeting and
avoiding conversation.
Ready to crawl out of his skin with the discomfort of it, Mulder
spoke. "Will you be okay tonight?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Just ... y'know ... can you handle it?"
"What makes you think I can't?" Her voice was strained, cold.
Damn. He wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
"Of course you can. It's just that last night I was ..." His voice
trailed away, and he just shrugged.
"You did your job. So did I. And we'll do it again tonight."
The job.
Other people had jobs. They went to an office and typed on
keyboards, or they went to a factory and put things together.
They taught, they talked, they drove, they dug, whatever. And
then they went home.
What he had wasn't a job. More like a curse.
They pulled up in front of the house and got out. Scully started
up the walk.
"Wait!"
She stopped, and he caught up.
"What?"
"Look ... whatever happens ... I ..."
"Not here," she said firmly, quietly.
"But I want you to know ..."
"Not here!" Her eyes darted toward the house. He looked up and
saw Flood's face watching them from a window.
As he closed the distance to the front door, he had a sneaking
hunch that he was about to learn the market value of his soul.
__________________________
It was getting late. The evening had been grueling, not because
the conversation had been strained, but because it hadn't. Flood
had actually been rather amusing, talking knowledgeably about
auto racing, Lemington gossip and his various hobbies:
gardening, cooking, woodworking. He'd avoided asking them
much about themselves. Mulder found it hard to stay in
character when the conversation lulled him into complacency.
That was probably the point, he reminded himself.
Scully, he noted, had performed her part flawlessly. She'd
laughed at Flood's jokes, complimented his dinner (his wife,
who'd spent most of the evening on her feet serving, had
apparently prepared none of it), and chattered on about food,
cars and the boredom she found in towns like Lemington. All the
while, she'd maintained a coarseness, an inarticulateness that
were so utterly unlike her normal manner that he could almost
forget who was sitting across from him.
Flood's wife served coffee and disappeared into the kitchen, from
where sounds of dishes being washed emanated. Mulder was
beginning to think Flood had planned this evening merely to
observe them when the older man wrenched the conversation
around sharply.
"So have you thought about what I said last night?" It came out
of the blue, forcing Mulder to shift gears suddenly.
"Not really," he said.
Flood snickered. "Well, at least you're honest."
There was a long pause. Wait it out, Mulder told himself. Let
him lead. Don't appear eager.
"We need people like you," Flood said at last.
"Who's 'we'?"
The conversation had become convoluted, like one of those
video-game mazes, Mulder thought. If a player picks up the right
items along the way, takes the correct route, has enough energy
stored, the secret door will open.
"A group I belong to. The White Hand."
"So what is it?" Mulder asked, stepping through the suddenly
revealed opening and into the game's next level.
Flood began to speak, abandoning the cautious, cat-and-mouse
cadence of clipped queries for long, mellifluous, almost poetic
phrasing. Mulder let the tide of words carry him out, his mind
skimming along phrases like "reclaiming the nation," "restoring
the natural order," "defending racial honor."
It wasn't all that difficult, really. Flood was indeed good at this,
reminding Mulder of the first time he'd witnessed another classic
-- Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the Nazi propaganda
film so compelling it had the power to stir the heart of the most
virulent anti-fascist. Like that film, Flood's words created
compelling images of power, belonging, order, community.
Mulder blanked his thoughts, dropped his guard, let the
monologue soak through his porous mind.
It took him a moment to realize Flood had stopped speaking.
______________________________
Scully was of two minds at the dinner table.
One mind she kept firmly anchored, using it to gauge the
meaning and intent of George Flood's words and to send
instructions to her body to respond accordingly.
"...wrest control of our lives from cowardly forces who murdered
our allies at Waco..."
Nod, head.
"...when we will summon the masses to defend their birthright..."
Lungs, take shallow breaths.
"...united effort to restore the rightful place of white
womanhood..."
Shine brightly, eyes.
Her other mind floated free, observing, measuring, calculating,
interpreting, determining how much rehearsal such a monologue
must have required, what effect it aimed for, the level of its
author's intellectual powers. With this other mind, she also
watched her partner resonate responsively, as though he were an
emotional tuning fork humming to life with sympathetic
vibration.
When Flood stopped speaking, nothing remained in the room but
a gentle hum in Mulder's mental key. He looked for all the world
like a man whose soul had just been stirred -- probably because
it had. He could open himself up to any experience. Ever since
she'd figured that out about him, it had frightened her. But never
more so than tonight.
She glanced at Flood and saw that he, too, was keenly aware of
Mulder's response. You've got him, boy.
One mind was relieved. The other was horrified.
"Join us," Flood was saying. "We are already soldiers in the
same cause."
"I wish I could put it like you do," Mulder said. "You just said
everything I been thinking."
"Then join us. Work with us. We could use you. Both of you."
His eyes darted to include her as an afterthought. She realized he
assumed she would follow wherever her man led.
Love those old-fashioned family values, she thought.
"If I say yes, what exactly would I be saying yes to?"
Scully realized she was grinding her teeth in frustration. Christ,
he was drawing this out. She wanted to get it over with, make
the deal, learn the secret club handshake and get the hell out of
there.
"The same kind of work you've been doing -- like the service
you did with that preacher. Only there'd be a purpose ... an
organization. You'd be a soldier in a powerful army. An army
that needs you."
"I'd like that. I'd like to be part of an army that I could believe in.
I want to believe."
She couldn't help it. She sucked in her next breath so hard she
coughed.
"You all right, Mary?" Flood asked.
"Yeah," she croaked, taking a sip of water. "It's just ... this is all
so exciting."
"Yeah," Mulder said, glaring at her. "It sure is." He turned his
attention back to Flood. "So when do we start? What do we do?"
"Something to symbolize the bright blaze of your new
commitment. A fire..."
Scully felt her stomach turn over.
_________________________
"What the hell were you thinking, Scully?" Mulder raised his
voice as he paced the length of their motel room agitatedly.
"Just doing my job." She hadn't meant to throw it in his teeth, but
it came out that way.
"We can't fake this. He'd catch on in a minute. He's not stupid."
"I know that. We're not going to fake it. At least, not entirely."
"We're not."
"No."
"We're going to torch an orphanage."
"Yes."
Mulder stared at her, and for the first time in a very long time,
she couldn't read what was behind his eyes. Fear? Certainly a
possibility. Mulder was terrified of fire. Anger? No doubt,
although she wasn't sure why, exactly. Disgust?
She forced her train of thought to derail.
"It won't be enough to destroy the building, y'know. If no one
gets hurt, he'll be suspicious."
"So we make sure it doesn't look suspicious."
"How?"
"We make sure someone dies in the fire."
"You want to plant a body."
"Yes." She suspected he'd known what she had in mind all along.
"And where do you plan to get it?"
"Mulder, we're working with the CIA here. These guys have
pulled off some of the biggest deceptions in history -- or so you
would have me believe. You don't think they can provide the
body of an African-American child and make sure the autopsy
shows smoke inhalation as the cause of death?"
He made no reply, just stood staring at her, his arms crossed,
shoulders held high and tight, face drawn into a slight frown. His
body language telegraphed a level of anxiety she had not
expected. Why was he so shocked?
Her own words came back to her. The body of a child. Of
course. Mulder, who had lost an eight-year-old sister to an
unknown fate, recoiled at the notion of intentionally desecrating
the body of a child.
It was ironic, she thought. She, with her Catholic-school
upbringing, had less trouble with it than he. How could it bother
her? She cut up dead people for a living, and all because she
believed that science and pragmatism took precedence over
personal belief or religious conviction. She'd long ago concluded
that the attachment of any significance whatsoever to an empty,
lifeless shell was mere superstition.
But not Mulder, who lived every day of his life in terror that a
small body would turn up somewhere and be identified as
Samantha. In a way, the loss that lay at the heart of his character
took the form of a child's body that was neither alive nor dead.
Just gone.
"It has to be done, Mulder," she said quietly. "You've hooked
him. Now we have to reel him in."
She saw him struggle to swallow, imagined the dry, choking
sensation in his throat. She thought for a moment he might gag.
"Fine," he said at last, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "Call
the contact."
____________________
Scully lay on the motel room bed, one arm bent across her eyes
to block out the glare of the bright ceiling light. She was tired,
her body limp and slightly sweat-dampened.
"Again," Mulder said from his place next to her.
"I don't think I can," she said. "I haven't recovered from the last
time."
"You wanted to do this, Scully. It was your idea. We'll do it as
many times as it takes to get it right."
They'd been reviewing the plan step by step through most of the
night, until the words had ceased to mean anything to her. They
had no choice. Flood had given them very little time to prepare --
just 24 hours. That had been clever of him. He obviously wanted
to make it difficult for them to do exactly what they were doing -
- organize a deception. She could only hope he underestimated
the resources at their disposal.
But even if they pulled this off, there was still so much left to
chance. Would Flood confide in them the boy's whereabouts? If
he did, then what? They'd have to...
"Scully? I asked you a question."
"Hmm? Oh, sorry. What?"
Mulder glared at her evenly with the same cold eyes he'd turned
on her ever since they'd started planning this little bonfire party.
"We pull the alarm. What's our next move?"
So it had been going throughout the night, drilling the details
over and over. So it continued into the early-morning hours, both
of them reciting their lessons mechanically, taking care to put
into the exercise only as much thought as was required to get the
job done and no more. More could be dangerous, and they had
no time for that kind of danger right now.
Except she was so tired, and her mind had started to wander.
"I ... I ... For God's sake, Mulder, I need to get some sleep. I'm
not going to be any good to anyone if I can't see straight."
"Not until it's perfect." His voice was cold and sharp as a razor's
edge.
"But..."
"Do it!"
"All right!" she said, her voice raised nearly to a yell. "All right."
She forced herself to speak more calmly. "After we pull the
alarm, we go upstairs...."
She doubted the invasion of Normandy was planned any more
carefully than the attack on the First Baptist Home for Children.
But she had to admit it -- Mulder was right. He had said with
certainty that Flood wasn't likely to rely on media reports and
word of mouth. He would be at the scene somewhere, hidden,
watching. Any deception would have to be meticulously planned
and flawlessly executed in order to succeed under his very nose.
She took a deep breath and dug down deep, searching for some
hidden reserve of energy.
"I go upstairs to the main hallway..."
The first sliver of red-gold sun peeked over the horizon at that
moment, but neither agent noticed.
________________________
They walked the quarter-mile from the diner in silence, each
carrying a small backpack. They could have parked closer, but a
strange car on a semi-suburban street stood a much greater
chance of being noticed than one in the parking lot of an all-
night eatery.
They arrived at their destination at 3:02 AM exactly, by
Mulder's watch. The large, old house was dark, except for dim
hall lights that glowed faintly through a few small, centrally
placed windows. Just enough illumination to guide little feet
safely to the bathroom and back to bed, Mulder thought.
He glanced up and down the street. No sign of the observer he
felt sure must be there. Still, he could almost feel Flood's eyes on
him.
The back door lock made easy picking. All was still and silent
inside. Nothing suspicious. For a moment, Mulder felt a surge of
panic. They had left instructions on the supposedly secure voice
mailbox at the contact number. They had no way of knowing
whether those instructions had been received, let alone followed.
They moved toward the kitchen, twin, narrow flashlight beams
showing the way. They had studied the blueprints carefully and
could have found the basement door in the dark, had it been
necessary.
Scully reached it first and tried the knob. It turned easily. Mulder
released a tiny sigh of relief. Under normal circumstances, the
door would have been locked to prevent small children from
wandering through and tumbling downstairs.
They walked noiselessly down. Mulder could see nothing of
Scully ahead other than the beam from the light she held, her
black clothes blending in totally with the pitch darkness around
her. She didn't hesitate at the bottom of the stairs but walked
directly to a far corner of the basement. He followed.
She stopped, shining her light left and right. It should be right
here. Where...
There. Her light fell on a lumpy tarp covering something on the
ground. Leaning down, he pulled it back to reveal the form of a
small, lifeless child. A boy, he noted. Maybe five years old.
Somebody's son.
"Go," came a whisper in the dark. He realized he'd been standing
and staring.
She was right. He lifted the little body gently. It weighed
nothing. Less than nothing.
"Go," came the whisper again. He headed for the stairs. As he
reached them, he heard a zipper being opened behind him, then
the sound of a liquid gurgling from a can. The plan called for
Scully to do the basement first. There had to be some smoke
before the alarm went off to make it look convincing. And there
was no point in him doing it. When they'd worked the whole
thing out, Scully had stated it matter-of-factly: "I'll start the
basement while you plant the body upstairs." He'd known what
she was thinking. No point putting him anywhere near open
flames any more than was absolutely necessary.
And he hadn't argued the point. She was right.
He reached the second floor and nearly dropped his small load
when a nearby shadow seemed to move. He ordered his
pounding heart to slow down as he recognized the shape to be a
large, matronly black woman. She'd obviously been waiting for
him. She nodded to him as their eyes made contact in the
dimness.
Good job, central casting, Mulder thought. He knew that what
passed for large and matronly in a housecoat and slippers was in
fact a strong, capable rescue specialist, in position and ready to
move at a moment's notice.
The dim hallway was lined with doors, all closed. He went
straight to the third one on the left, shifted the slight weight he
carried and turned the knob. This door, too, opened easily.
This time, he didn't jump at the silent figure waiting inside -- a
young man, also black. This home was, after all, sponsored by
the black Baptist churches in the area. It was a place where kids
with no families to care for them could find safe haven.
Safe haven...
He gave himself a mental shake. Stop it. No thinking. Stick to
the plan.
He noted with satisfaction that one of the two beds in the room
was empty but rumpled. Later, it would be assumed that the little
boy in his arms had occupied it. He could barely make out a
small form breathing steadily in the other bed.
He crossed the room and quietly opened the closet door, knelt
down and gently laid the body in the corner. The closet had been
Scully's idea. As a forensic pathologist, she knew that people
tended to panic in fires and try to hide themselves in tight,
enclosed spaces. Nice touch, he thought wryly.
He stood, closed the closet door, nodded to the watching stranger
and left.
Downstairs, he ran into Scully coming up from the basement,
their timing perfect. Together, they moved to the front room,
which was used as the main play area. They had chosen this
room as the only one they would ignite on the ground floor
because it was farthest from both the front and back exits.
Mulder took off his backpack and removed the can of lighter
fluid. Scully still had hers out. They squirted the furniture
carefully so as not to wet the floors or walls. The upholstered
items would create a lot of smoke, but it would take a while for
the room itself to catch, giving the house's occupants extra time
to escape.
When they were done, Mulder reached into his pocket for the
matches. He pulled one from the book and stood holding it. Only
when Scully came up and took it from him did he realize he
hadn't yet struck it. His heart was pounding furiously. His
darkness-adjusted eyes saw her head nod toward the hallway. He
went and stationed himself by the alarm box.
The sudden flare of light that jumped through the playroom door
startled him with its brightness, and for a moment he felt a
profound terror that Scully wouldn't be coming out. Her
appearance in the doorway did little to still the rushing blood in
his ears.
He collected as much of his wits as he could muster and pulled
the lever. A shrill whoop split the air, and bright emergency
lights shattered the night. He imagined the fright on the faces of
the suddenly awakened children upstairs.
The last step had to be accomplished in the space of a minute.
He and Scully ran for the stairs.
The young man Mulder had seen earlier stood in the now
brightly illuminated hallway, holding a small, crying boy tightly
in his arms -- no doubt the one Mulder had seen earlier sleeping
peacefully. Up and down the hallway, doors were beginning to
open. An adult stood in each. Mulder heard snippets of clear,
firmly spoken words. "Put your shoes on now ... Put your
sweaters on ... Wait for instructions ..."
The two agents dashed into the third room on the left and
emptied their cans. Quick as a flash, Scully struck a match. The
bed went up in a lick of flame. Mulder was frozen to the spot.
The next thing he knew, he was being shoved hard, and then he
was through the door and out of the room.
As he ran for the stairs, he saw the adults standing in the
doorways, watching. Behind each of them, he knew, stood some
terrified children eager to flee. They were being held back in
order to allow the two arsonists to make their escape first.
He and Scully were down the stairs and out the door in five
seconds flat.
Fifteen seconds later, they were crouched in the bushes.
And ten seconds after that, people began pouring out of the
house.
"Oh my God! Fire! Help! Fire!"
The men and women who had stood so calmly in the presence of
the flames moments ago now sent up hysterical cries as they
herded the children outside. Mulder noticed the contrast between
the organized way they evacuated the children and the sharp
panic in their voices.
Damn, they were good. They might just pull this off after all.
________________________
END 5/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 6/8
by Parrotfish
The pavement pounded his body with every step. He focused on
the pinpoint of pain behind his right kneecap, willed it to grow
and envelop his body and his mind, to blot out all memory and
thought. His legs pumped like jackhammers, as though they
would break the cement surface if it didn't break him first. Sweat
streamed down his face and neck, the rivulets tickling his chest
hairs beneath the soaked T-shirt. It had been dark when he'd
started, but now a thin, watery light crept from the eastern sky,
not so much an assertion of day as a recession of night.
He had no idea how many miles it had been or what he had
passed along the way. But now the glaring motel sign was
coming up fast, and he knew it was over. He couldn't run
forever.
As he slowed to a walk and approached their room, he hoped she
was asleep. He couldn't stand to see her as she had been when he
left, looking at him with hurt betrayal as she realized he was
going to run, to leave her alone again. He was supposed to be
there for her, to be strong for her. To know her even when she
did not know herself. You fucking hypocrite, he thought. You
don't even know yourself.
He opened the door and saw her sitting cross-legged on the bed,
wet from the shower, wearing only panties and T-shirt.
Looking at him.
Stop looking at me.
The television was on, and he gradually became aware of the
images on the screen. Fire. People running. Flashing lights. He
heard the urgent authority of the reporter's narration. Orphanage.
Arson suspected. One victim.
He crossed the room and turned it off.
"I wanted to see it."
"I didn't," he snapped.
"Mulder, we should know what they're saying. Bobby and Mary
would watch it."
"Fuck Bobby and Mary."
"Mulder..."
"Stop it, Scully! Stop it!" He was yelling at her, advancing on
her, edging closer to the bed, looming over her with his rage and
his disgust and his shame and his panic. He'd thought he could
do it. Whatever it took. But when the time came, where was his
strength? Where was his confidence?
Why wouldn't she stop looking at him like that?
"What do you see, Scully? What are you looking at?"
"What? Nothing."
"Nothing? That's right. Nothing." There was a rage building in
him, both blind and blinding. He felt it start with a twist in his
gut and blossom out, knotting muscles as it went, making him
rigid and hard. He stood glaring down at her and realized the
hardness had crept into every part of him.
His right hand shot out and grabbed her arm, gripping it hard.
"Nothing!"
His left hand followed, gripping her other arm, and he pulled her
up onto her knees facing him.
"Nothing." He was not shouting now.
"Nothing matters," he hissed. "We didn't do a damn thing
tonight. Nothing."
And then he moved a hand to her hair and gripped it just as
tightly as he'd held her arm, pulled hard, yanking her head back,
and then he was kissing her, but it wasn't so much kissing as
demanding, devouring.
He felt her tense, try to struggle away from him. To his horror,
he found his hands gripping tighter, pushing her backward onto
the bed, following her down. He groped for her wrists and
yanked them up over her head, gathered them into one strong
hand and held them with all his might, pinning her. His body
pressed down on hers, an immovable wall against which she
squirmed. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of his fogged brain,
he was mortified to find her movements aroused him even more.
He brought his mouth back to hers and plunged his tongue
inside, half expecting her to bite him. If his thoughts had been
clear he might not have taken that chance, but he was beyond
caring, beyond worrying.
Nothing.
He raised his hips slightly, opening a small space between them,
slid his hand in and pushed her panties aside. Without pausing to
think, he shoved three fingers inside her. The hot, soft walls of
her cunt wrapped around half his hand and made him grunt
urgently into her mouth.
He rotated his wrist so his fingers moved inside her, pressing
against the sides of her tight passage. He moved his head down
to her breast, wrapped his lips around the tip through the thin
cotton fabric, and bit.
Her hips bucked against his hand, and a gush of creamy heat slid
into his palm.
It was more than he could stand.
He pulled his hand from her and grappled with the string of his
running shorts. His clumsy, wet fingers finally managed to undo
the knot and yank the elastic waist down his hips. His erection
sprang free.
Don't do this don't do this don't do this don't do this his brain
screamed, even as he yanked her panties aside again and pushed
himself into her with all his force.
Stop this now, he thought. This wasn't one of their little control
games.
But it was too late. Mind and cock both hardened by pure rage,
he pumped himself into her. After the first, wildly uncontrolled
few thrusts, he slowed somewhat, set up a deliberate, forceful
rhythm.
And he watched her. She lay beneath him like a taut rubber
band, arms pulled up, legs splayed wide. Eyes wide open.
Come on, he thought. Show me.
Pump.
Show me what you really think.
Pump.
Let me see it in your eyes.
Pump.
Give it to me.
Pump.
Hate me. Fear me. Pity me.
Pump.
Show me, damn it, show me, I dare you, show it to me. Throw it
back at me the way I'm pumping it into you the way I'm pushing
it into you the way I'm fucking it into you the way I'm doing it to
you show me show me show me DAMN IT!
He came inside her and still he watched her watching him.
And then his balls were empty and his cock was done twitching
inside her, and he realized one hand ached with the iron grip he'd
kept on her wrists, and the fingers of the other hand were curled
into the soft flesh of her thigh, holding her open, and his jaw hurt
from clenching his teeth, and she was still looking at him, just
looking, and...
Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh God. Oh God. What have I done?
He backed off of her and stumbled to his feet.
"Scully ... oh my God ..."
Reeling, he lurched toward the bathroom, barely making it
before heaving the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet.
It felt like he might regurgitate his own heart. He wished he
could.
__________________________
>From nowhere, a warm, strong hand touched Mulder's forehead,
lifting it up and away from the toilet seat. He jerked away,
rolling on his side into a corner of the bathroom.
"Don't touch me," he rasped through a throat raw with the
burning of his own stomach acid.
"Mulder..."
"Get out now. Go call the police."
"Jesus, Mulder, you're such a piece of work. We can't call the
police, remember?"
"Then do it after. When we're done." He wasn't making much
sense, and he knew it. But why wouldn't she leave?
Scully sank to the bathroom floor, her back to the wall, legs
crossed. He could see the wetness of what he'd done to her
soaking through the crotch of her panties.
"Get out, Scully," he mumbled.
"No! I'm not going anywhere. Stop this, Mulder. Stop it now."
"Stop what? It's too late. God, what have I done?"
"What did you just do, Mulder? Go on, say it."
"I ... Oh, God, Scully, what don't you just go?"
"Say it!"
"I ... raped you."
"You raped me?"
There was absolute silence as the words bounced off the tiled
walls. He didn't answer.
"Define it," she said at last.
"What?"
"Define rape, Agent Mulder. Come on. Can't your superman
memory come up with something as simple as that?"
"Rape..." He began to speak mechanically "...the crime of
forcing another person to submit involuntarily to sexual
intercourse..."
"Involuntarily!" She threw it back at him angrily. "Mulder, did I
just resist you?"
"You ... at first..."
"If someone raped me, Mulder, do you think there would be any
doubt about the involuntary nature of my participation? Do you
honestly think I would just lie there? You know me better than
that." Her voice had softened. She crawled across the floor to
him, gently lifted his head and lay it on her lap. "The real
question is, why is that what you thought it was?"
His eyes slid shut as he soaked in her presence with guilty relief.
"God, Scully, don't you see? It would have been. I couldn't have
stopped myself."
"Bullshit." She said it angrily, but even in his addled state, he
heard a weary resignation behind it, as though she didn't really
expect to convince him. "You don't know that, Mulder. The fact
is, I wasn't resisting. Okay? I was willing. I consented. It wasn't
rape."
He sat up slowly, painfully, his gut still twisted with nausea, and
faced her.
"But why didn't you, Scully?"
She wondered for a moment whether it was confusion or regret
she heard. Did he really hate himself so much that he wished she
had resisted him, just so he could punish himself with even more
self-loathing? Just so she would abandon him, leave him alone to
suffer?
"Because I didn't want to resist. Because you needed something,
and I gave it to you. Although I think maybe what I really did
was take something from you. Something you would have used
to hurt yourself."
He sat staring at her, just staring, for a long time, until she
thought his gaze would bore a hole through her head.
_____________________________
They had barely fallen into an exhausted slumber when the call
had come. At the time, they had had only the vaguest notion of
what to expect.
But the moment Scully entered George Flood's living room that
evening, she knew.
The banner on the wall. The circle of seats. The gathering of
men. The table and chair at the center. The compressor.
Mulder was whisked away by two men as soon as they arrived.
She stood in the doorway, unsure what to do, when Flood
approached her.
"Welcome. You did very well last night."
"Thank you."
"I hope you won't be offended that Bobby will be the center of
attention her tonight. It's not that we don't appreciate your good
work, but we have no intention of turning our women into
footsoldiers. You understand."
"Sure."
Oh God, she thought. Not this. Don't do this to him. Anything
but this.
"Won't you have a seat?" He waved toward a chair on the rim of
the circle, and she sat. The others followed her lead. She was
barely aware that Frank sat beside her.
"This is a big night," he said.
A dark night, she thought. But his words served to shake her out
of her daze. She reminded herself there was still a job to do.
She looked around the room. About fifteen men sat around the
circle. She was the only woman. She forced her eyes to pause on
each face, trying to commit it to memory. She wished she could
do it as easily as Mulder did.
The men were silent and wore serious expressions. Most were
young, in their 20's, and looked like they belonged to a blue-
collar world.
Her observation was interrupted by Flood's entrance into the
center of the circle. He carried a plain, wooden staff, which he
tapped three times on the floor.
"Let's begin," he said.
Two men appeared in the doorway and led Mulder into the
circle. He was stripped to the waist, wearing only his jeans. The
men left him there and went to stand against the wall. Scully
wondered what the group would make of the gunshot scar in his
shoulder -- the one she had inflicted on him when he'd been
ready to shoot that rat bastard Krycek. They'd probably see it as
an enhancement to his image as a formidably dangerous man.
"Sit down," Flood said, indicating the chair by the table in the
center of the circle. When Mulder was seated, Flood moved to
stand before him and held the staff out.
"Place your left hand on the rod of authority," he instructed.
Mulder complied, grasping the stick just below where Flood held
it. His face was blank.
Rod of authority, Scully found herself thinking. Boys with toys.
"Do you pledge yourself to your country?" Flood began.
"Yes."
"Do you pledge yourself to your race?"
"Yes."
"Do you pledge yourself to victory?"
"Yes."
"Do you pledge yourself to the White Hand?"
"Yes."
Four times Mulder said "yes," the word falling from him
lifelessly, his tone and manner betraying nothing.
"You have shown your loyalty in deed and pledged it in word.
Now you will bear it on your body as a mark of honor."
Another man entered the circle carrying a chair, which he set
down to Mulder's left. He was a surprisingly mild-looking
fellow, middle-aged, with crinkly eyes and thick glasses. He
looked like someone's favorite teacher or the nice storekeeper
who handed out free penny candies. He reached over to the tray,
picked up a tool and set to work on the arm Mulder still
stretched before him, grasping the staff.
For nearly an hour, the room was dead silent except for the whir
of the machine. For nearly an hour, Mulder stared straight ahead
without moving a muscle. For nearly an hour, Flood stood
before him, his hand resting on top of the staff.
For nearly an hour, Scully watched in carefully veiled horror as
the shape of an eagle formed on Mulder's skin, and on its breast,
a swastika.
When it was over, the other men surrounded him, offering hearty
words of welcome and slaps on the back as though he'd just
made it through a fraternity hazing and was now one of the boys.
He said very little, just nodded and shook hands and drank what
he was offered.
Later, as they drove back to their motel, she tried to think of
something to say.
You can have it removed. The laser procedure is totally
effective, especially when the tattoo is fresh. At least the needle
was clean. I saw him rip the seal on the package. Thank God
that's over with. It's just a tattoo, Mulder. It isn't you.
In the end, she said nothing. Neither did he.
___________________________
Boozing alone -- again. Whatever would your mother say, Dana
Katherine?
A couple of days earlier, she might have smiled at the thought.
Now it was just unnerving. She was tired and anxious and sick
to death of the whole damn thing.
And worried. Really worried.
Mulder had stayed out most of the night after his "initiation." He
wouldn't tell her where he'd been when she asked -- just replied
with a vague, "Around." She suspected that was true. He'd
probably spent the night driving, listening to his inner demons as
they fed noisily on the rotted remains of his self-respect.
And then, with the daylight, four men had arrived who'd said
they were taking him for "training."
God knew what that meant. But it couldn't be good.
So she'd come out alone tonight, if for no other reason than
because that's what Mary would do.
God, Dana Scully was getting to hate Mary Deene with every
ounce of her being. Which was especially ironic considering that,
at the moment, Dana Scully was Mary Deene.
No. I'm not.
Aren't you? She thought about that. Here she was, sitting where
Mary would sit, drinking what Mary would drink, wearing what
Mary would wear. If someone were to speak to her, he would
address her as Mary, and she would reply as Mary.
And, of course, given half a chance, she would espouse the white
supremacist ideology that Mary held dear.
So what difference did it make if she wasn't really Mary Deene?
No one else knew that.
Jesus, Dana, she thought, slugging back some more of Mary's
bourbon. You're not making any sense.
She hadn't really realized how hard this was going to be on her.
How much of herself she'd lose in it. And if it was this difficult
for her, how hard must it be for Mulder?
Mulder, whose uncanny ability to internalize the thought
processes of others made him a crack criminal profiler.
Mulder, who had been forced to do things that terrified him in
order to prove that he was in fact the homicidal racist he made
himself out to be.
Mulder, who was now branded with the mark of that person.
Mulder, who was losing himself right before her eyes.
God. The poor son of a bitch had actually promised to be her
anchor through all this. And she fully believed that's exactly
what he had intended to be. The only problem was that, as
anchors went, he was a lightweight. In fact, once you factored in
his self-doubt, low self-esteem and massive guilt complex, you
were left with an acorn tied to a string.
Not that she had expected anything different, she mused,
polishing off the last of the bourbon in her glass. She knew all
this about him, weighed it against his selflessness, his loyalty, his
passion and his humor, and found in the mix a man she could
accept and love despite himself. The trouble was that he couldn't.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Scully nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice intruded on
her very private musings, almost as if she were afraid she'd
spoken them out loud.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Mind if I sit down?"
Before she could answer, Frank slid into the booth. She was
thankful he chose the bench across from her this time.
"You worried about Bobby?"
"Umm ... yeah," she stumbled, disconcerted.
"Well, don't be. He'll be fine. We've all been through the
training. It's just to make you feel a part of the whole thing,
y'know?"
"Yeah. I guess so," she said, recovering somewhat. "He's a big
boy. He can take care of himself."
"Yeah. Try not to worry. Bobby's not an ordinary guy." Scully's
eyes snapped to his. There was something about the way he said
it -- an odd sincerity -- that alarmed her. Had he meant anything
beyond the obvious? Did he suspect something?
Before she had a chance to think it through, he was speaking
again, distracting her with idle chatter about some party that was
planned for the weekend. She forced herself to make the
appropriate responses.
"Y'know, you and Bobby should come. A lot of people are
gonna be there."
"Oh yeah? Like who?"
"Oh, y'know. A lot of the guys who were there last night. And
some others."
This was getting interesting. A party might be just the place to
pick up some stray information. People drank, their tongues
were loosened.
"I suppose I could stand a little celebration," she said, trying to
sound enthusiastic at the prospect.
She figured she must have succeeded when Frank smiled
broadly. "Great! Y'know, all the guys have been wanting to meet
you. It's not like there are too many girls who can do what you
did the other night. Especially not ones who look as hot as you."
"Yeah, well, that's why I don't hang around with girls too much.
They're wimps."
"Yeah. I know what you mean. Like, I was just talkin' to this one
guy, Joey Francis, and he was asking me about you. Wanted to
know if a girl with balls is still a girl."
Scully laughed. "What did you tell him?"
Frank crooked a finger at her, inviting her closer. She leaned
across the table, and he brought his lips to her ear. "I told him
you was all woman," he whispered. "One hundred percent."
She laughed again and leaned back. "Damn straight," she said.
Frank suddenly turned serious again and looked her straight in
the eye. "You'd like Joey," he said. "George likes Joey. Trusts
him. Tells him stuff he don't tell the rest of us. Joey could really
go for a girl like you."
And then Frank was off on other topics, and the strange light was
gone from his eyes. Scully wondered if she'd really seen anything
there at all.
_________________________
White is right.
He'd repeated those three words at least a hundred times in a
day. He'd shouted them on the top of his lungs, replied to a dozen
questions with them, chanted them in time with the rest of the
"trainees."
Three stupid little words that now refused to leave his head.
White is right through the obstacle course, pushing you up and
over the wall, through the mud, across the rope.
White is right in hand-to-hand combat, the reason you get up off
the mat after slamming it really hard.
And on the shooting range...
BANG!
White is right.
BANG!
White is right.
BANG!
Enough already.
As a psychologist, Mulder had little difficulty recognizing basic
brainwashing techniques. A message repeated over and over
again while the mind and body are hammered to the point of
exhaustion is wedged under the protective layers of
consciousness and conscience.
Mulder didn't believe the words now any more than he did in the
morning, but he couldn't stop thinking them. The technique must
be really effective with men who more or less already believed
them, he thought.
The ceaseless repetition of that infernal phrase hadn't even been
the worst of it. Every step of the way, through each and every
event of the day, Mulder had been battling the reflexes
developed through years of FBI training lest he give himself
away. After hundreds of hours of extensive weapons training, he
was forced to handle automatic and semi-automatic guns as
though he'd never used one. Despite endless practice in unarmed
self-defense, he'd had to fight as though he'd learned everything
he knew on the street.
The constant self-monitoring had given him a nasty headache.
All told, his day at the farm -- which was what the White Hand's
"training ground" actually was, as evidenced by all the cowpies
he'd managed to step in -- had been a waking nightmare. There
had been moments when physical exhaustion and the barrage of
hate-mongering had threatened to strip him completely of the
thin layer of control he was working so hard to maintain. At
those moments, an indefinable rage tried to surface, to take
control of him and make him do something stupid. Something
completely wild. Like what he had done to Scully two nights
ago.
Oh, God. The images were so vivid. The way he'd taken her, the
way his possession of her body had become a blinding, urgent
necessity, as though he were pouring all the turbulent emotion he
couldn't control into her with every thrust.
And she had let him. But what if she hadn't?
Not now, he told himself, sitting on the ground with the other
men, his lungs heaving with the exertion of a five-mile run. You
can't think about this now. It's too dangerous.
Someone was talking. Focus.
"...proud of you, men. Today you've learned to defend
yourselves, your race and your nation. Go home and think about
what you've learned here today."
Thank God. It was over -- for now. As he got up slowly, careful
of his aching muscles, he wondered if and when there would be
more of this hideous "training."
"C'mon, Bobby, we'll take you back." One of the men who'd
picked him up in the morning was approaching him. He forced
his face to assume the neutral mask he'd worn all day.
"No," came a voice from behind him. "I'll see to it he gets home."
Mulder turned to face Flood. He hadn't seen the group's leader
all day. What had made him turn up now?
"I'd like to ask you to do something for me, Bobby," Flood said,
as if in answer to Mulder's unspoken question. "We can talk on
the way back."
Mulder moved to follow the older man, praying his reserve of
control would last just a little bit longer.
_______________________
END 6/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 7/8
by Parrotfish
He paced the motel room in her absence, knowing full well his
anxiety was grossly unfair. He had left her alone two nights in a
row. And when he'd returned to her, he'd...
No. He shoved the memory down yet again.
A squeal of tires broke his train of thought. He pushed the tacky,
flowered window curtain aside in time to see their Taurus
coming around the corner and into the parking lot way too fast.
It lurched to a crooked stop in front of their room. He watched
Scully get out, drop her keys and fall over trying to retrieve
them. He let go of the curtain, feeling the anger building again.
"You shouldn't be driving," he said as she came through the
door.
"I know. It couldn't be helped."
"Where were you?"
She glared at him for a long moment, indignant at his hostility.
"Five Spot," she said at last.
He nodded. With a concerted effort, he managed to make the
next words come out calmer, colder. "Turn up anything?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Scully kicked off her shoes, stumbled
to the bed and fell onto it. "The damn room is spinning," she
groaned.
"What happened at the Five Spot?"
"I met Frank," she said, keeping an arm bent over her eyes to
block the light. "He told me about a party this weekend. And he
told me about somebody who's going to be there -- Joey Francis.
He says Flood confides in him. I figure he may know the
whereabouts of the boy."
"You think it's a solid lead?"
"I don't know." She heard the urgency in his voice. "Why?"
"Because we're running out of time. Something's going to
happen, and soon."
She lowered her arm and rolled on her side to look at him.
"What?"
"I'm not sure. But Flood says he wants me to come on a 'mission'
sometime early next week. He wouldn't tell me what exactly.
But he said it's in Washington. And he asked if I could drive a
truck."
"A truck?" This was not good. She knew exactly what Mulder
was thinking, and she agreed. The White Hand was preparing to
strike again.
"Do you think you can get anything out of this guy?"
"Maybe. Frank says Joey's dying to meet me." The implications
of her statement were clear, clouding the air between them.
"You'll have to go to that party alone. Bring him back here. Try
to get him to talk."
Scully didn't know whether to be hurt or relieved that Mulder
saw the necessity of it. "All right." She paused. "But I don't want
to..."
"We'll arrange a signal. I'll barge in and play the jealous lover.
That should get rid of him."
"What if I don't get the information before he tries to get what he
came for?"
Mulder turned away, his shoulders slumping as though a sudden
wave of exhaustion had overwhelmed him. "You'll have to," he
said.
In some reservoir behind the wall of stress and bitterness around
her, she found the sympathy to ask gently, "How was the
training?"
"Horrible."
"You should get some rest, Mulder. Don't go out tonight."
He sighed heavily. "All right." Flopping onto the bed without
further conversation, he was asleep in minutes.
Scully stayed up and watched him for a while, wondering if they
could ever rebuild what this nightmarish case seemed bound to
destroy.
___________________________
All eyes followed her as she walked through the crowded, smoky
room.
Her first reaction -- a natural one for her -- was to blame the
dress. It plunged low, front and back, hugging her body
provocatively. The skirt was loose and very short, it's filmy
fabric swinging side to side with the sway of her hips.
But when she looked around, she realized there were at least a
dozen other women in the place dressed equally suggestively.
Some of them even looked pretty good in it.
The eyes were still on her as she approached the table where
bottles of booze stood open for the taking. She poured whiskey
into a paper cup. Country music blared from speakers set on
milk crates on either side of the room.
She spotted Frank crossing toward her. Here goes. This is going
to be the performance of your life, she told herself.
"Well, hello there, Spitfire."
"Spitfire?"
"That's what the guys have been calling you."
"Oh, really?"
"Sure. They're all pretty taken with you. Don't tell me you
haven't noticed them looking at you."
"Oh, I noticed. A girl always notices these things."
"You must be right. Looks like the other girls here have been
noticing you getting noticed."
"Mm-hm." She took a long sip of whiskey and looked around.
"Some of the boys seem kinda worth noticing."
"I hope you're including me."
Scully smiled coyly. "Do you even have to ask?" She swayed
toward him, her body mimicking the seductive sound of her
voice.
He slid an arm around her bare shoulders, pulled her close and
said, "You are a little spitfire, aren't you?"
She laughed lightly. "Are you going to keep me all to yourself?"
Frank licked his lips before responding. "It's tempting... but the
boys would never forgive me. C'mon, I'll introduce you."
With that, he took her by the arm and marched her to the nearest
crowd.
It wasn't long before the names and faces became a blur. She
wandered from group to group, from suggestive comment to
wicked leer. Every once in a while, someone would appear from
nowhere and maneuver her onto the makeshift dance floor. Until
tonight, she'd never have believed she'd be grateful to the college
boyfriend who'd dragged her to country-western bars, where
she'd learned to move to the twanging, my-baby-left-me-so-I'm-
cryin'-in-my-beer beat.
But she had learned, and learned well. She let the music animate
her like the touch of a lover, matching the rhythm of the music
as she would match the steady strokes of a partner in bed, her
hips thrusting in time, her torso undulating in counterpoint.
With her seductive grace, she pulled each partner closer, so he
danced with his hands on her hips, holding her crotch firmly to
his. She had felt more erections in one night than in her entire
life previously.
And still she saw no sign of Joey Francis.
It got later, she got drunker, her voice got throatier with the
cigarettes offered, accepted and smoked. Her mind floated on a
cloud of liquor. She'd stopped observing, evaluating or
analyzing. She almost forgot why she'd come.
She'd learned her lesson well.
It must have been past 2 AM when a singularly unattractive,
pock-marked youth barely out of his teens cornered her with
pathetic pick-up lines about his fast car and her pretty dress. He
leaned into her, gesturing wildly in a weak attempt to get a hand
on her breast. She was just wondering whether throwing up on
the pip-squeak would be overkill when two men appeared,
causing the boy to stutter a lame excuse and leave.
"Hiya, Spitfire," Frank greeted her warmly.
Dimly, she realized she should probably be ashamed of herself
for being so glad to see him. Proves that everything is relative,
she thought.
"Hi yourself."
"Sorry 'bout him," Frank said, bobbing his head toward the
young man who was now sulking near the potato chips. "The
town virgin gets kinda horny when he sees a fine piece."
Scully laughed. "Thanks for scaring him off."
"Actually, I figured you'd wanna trade him in for a sportier
model," Frank said. "Mary Deene, this is Joey Francis."
Scully turned her attention to the man who had been standing
silently at Frank's side. He was indeed a "sportier model" -- tall,
muscular, sandy-haired, blue-eyed. She found it wasn't difficult
to sound sincere when she said, "I'm glad to meet you."
"Same here. Care to dance?"
"Sure."
He led her onto the floor just as a slow, syrupy ballad began.
There was no pretense of working up to it. He just pulled her to
him and started swaying. She noted with pleasure that he moved
well. Really well. He danced from the center out, not like most
men who merely moved their feet. His body flowed and pulsed
against hers, and she responded in kind, melting into him, letting
him start the ripple that she built into a wave.
When the music ended, he leaned over and whispered to her, "I
want you."
She felt her body respond to this total stranger with a rush of
heat and an unmistakable surge of wetness. The sensation left
her breathless and a little bit panicky.
She pulled back.
His eyes narrowed. "Something wrong?"
You have him, Dana. You had him the minute he saw you. Don't
blow it.
Let it happen.
Make it happen.
Make it real.
It is real.
"No," she breathed. "It's just that you read my mind."
He smiled. "My place is just a few miles out of town."
She smiled back, a warm, sensual smile. "Mine is just up the
street."
"Let's go."
She was glad they had separate cars. It gave her a chance to
recover from the high-octane kiss they'd shared on the dark
sidewalk.
She had been vaguely surprised that he tasted good, with a hint
of maple sugar behind the sharp bite of hard liquor. And even
more unexpectedly, Francis had seemed to enjoy the kiss, savor
it as a fine thing in and of itself and not just a means to an end.
The drive was over before she knew it, and they were walking
through the parking lot toward her motel room.
"What happened to Bobby?"
"Out of town. Taking care of some personal business." She
opened the door and turned on the light.
"You got anything to drink around here?"
"Of course." Good. He wasn't going to jump her straight away.
They would talk first.
"I heard what you and Bobby done the other night," he said as
she poured. "Weren't you scared?"
"Scared? Nah. Not much."
"Why'd you do it?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Me? Because I don't like it when niggers get feeling too
comfortable."
"There you go."
"Well, ain't you the spitfire? I never met a woman with the guts
to do something about it."
"Yeah? Well, maybe you never met a real woman."
She crossed the room to give him his drink. He took it with one
hand and snaked the other behind her back, pulling her in for a
long, smoky kiss. She could feel his hard-on pressed against her
belly and realized she was running out of time.
When the kiss broke, she backed away and sat on the bed.
"So tell me, you trust the guys you're in with?" she asked.
"You're in with 'em too now."
"That's why I'm asking."
"You shouldn't have to ask. It's all about trust."
"Still, you never know. This is some serious shit. A lot of people
would like to know what goes on here. How do you know no
one's gonna tell 'em?"
"George can handle it."
"He can?"
"You bet. George is a remarkable man."
"I can see that."
Damn. Maybe he doesn't know?
"Besides," Francis said, putting his drink down on the dresser
and edging toward her. "George has taken out some insurance."
He leaned over her and placed a hand on each bare thigh, just
below the hem of her dress.
"Oh, come on, Joey," she said, laughing. "It ain't like you can get
a piece of the rock for this. What's he do, pay a premium and
keep it in a safe-deposit box?"
"No, he does not," Francis replied, nuzzling her neck. "He keeps
it in a little cabin in the woods."
Scully turned her head to look him in the eye like a hunter sizing
up her prey. What would it take to bring him down?
She reached forward and put a hand on his stomach, feeling the
hard ridges of muscle there. God, he was like a rock. A warm,
flesh-and-blood rock. Her hand trailed its way down until the
firm tip of the erection in his pants was cupped in her palm. A
rock.
"A cabin's a funny place to keep insurance," she said, barely
recognizing the husky silk of her own voice.
"Not this kind," he said, pushing her back onto the bed and
easing himself on top of her. "This kind calls for lakefront
property." His hands were on her breasts, squeezing gently. She
moaned, letting the sensation of his surprisingly gentle touch
spill over her, thrusting her hips against him in response.
"Lake Suskatow is a pretty place," she whispered.
"It's perfect," he growled, slipping a hand between her legs,
pressing his fingers into the satiny fabric of her underwear.
Dimly, she wondered at the fact that it was drenched with her
response to the hard body that pressed her deep into the mattress.
His cock felt huge against her thigh, and she felt her cunt twitch
at the thought of taking it in and riding it. Lust and female pride
washed over her at the thought of what she could do to this very
male, virile body, the way she could make it moan and move and
sweat and ache with need. He was hers if she wanted him.
But...
She swallowed hard. "Joey. Wait a minute. I gotta get
something."
"Yeah," he murmured against the skin of her neck. "You're
gonna get something."
"No, I mean ... protection."
"Oh." He rolled off her. Shakily, she got to her feet and hurried
into the bathroom. She was back almost immediately, foil
packets in hand.
Francis was on his feet. "Turn around."
She did. With slow care, he unzipped her dress and slid it off her
shoulders. It fell around her feet, and he reached around her to
cup her breasts inside her bra. Her head fell back against his
shoulder.
"Oh, yeah," she murmured as he pinched the stiff tips between
his fingers. She heard his breath quicken and felt him push
himself against her buttocks, knowing that, in another moment,
he'd unzip himself and she would feel him and see him, the effect
she had on him, smell it on his skin. She would...
The door burst open and Mulder came flying into the room. Joey
Francis backed away.
"Bobby! I didn't know you..."
"Get the fuck out before I kill you." His voice was lethal.
"She's just so pretty...."
"Now!"
Mulder's success at building Bobby a reputation for homicidal
behavior became obvious as Francis grabbed his jacket and ran
for the door.
Scully was left standing there in bra and panties, her skin flushed
and sheened with sweat, her breasts rising and falling rapidly
with her breath.
Mulder closed the door. "Are you all right?"
"Fine." She turned and disappeared into the bathroom, returning
a moment later in a white terrycloth robe.
He took a step toward her. She backed away, clutching the robe
closed at her neck.
"Don't."
"What? Scully, you..."
"Don't!" He cringed as she slammed a mental door in his face.
"Did he talk?"
"A cabin out on Lake Suskataw. We have to go find it now.
Tonight."
"It's morning," Mulder said, waving toward the window where a
pale glow could be seen. "We'll have to wait for it to get dark
again."
She nodded. "You're right."
"Good work, Scully," he said as she got into bed, feeling the
evidence of her arousal crusting in her panties.
His words mocked her. Yeah, she thought. It's a living.
_________________________________
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Mulder closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of pine and
mulch and moss, the gentle words of Robert Frost drifting lazily
though his thoughts.
He heard a splash and opened his eyes. He could barely make
out Scully's black-clad form in a sleek, silver canoe. It made a
gentle crunch as she grounded it.
"Any trouble?"
"No. It was there for the taking."
"Get in front. I'll turn it." Standing in water to his knees, Mulder
held the canoe steady as she moved forward. Then he swung it
around and pushed off as he climbed in back.
They paddled in silence. Scully took regular compass readings,
speaking only to give him slight course corrections. The night
was cloudy, and they'd decided to risk a straight route across the
lake. Hugging the shoreline would have been safer but three
times the distance, and they didn't know how long it would take
to find the cabin and determine whether the boy was there.
As it turned out, finding it was no trouble. Not only had the
information gleaned from discreet inquiries at the local bait shop
turned out to be accurate, but there was a dock in front that was
visible even in the faintest of moonlight.
They ran ashore about a hundred feet away, and as quietly as
they could hauled the canoe into the sheltering underbrush.
Approaching the cabin cautiously, they began a first circle to
determine the layout. They were halfway around when Mulder
grabbed Scully's arm and stood stock still, listening.
Soon, she heard it too. The splash, creak, splash, creak of oars.
More than one set, judging from the irregular timing. They
retreated to the tree line, crouched down and waited.
Minutes later, two dark shapes could be seen approaching across
the lake. The rowboats bumped the dock, and a man jumped out
to secure them before the rest came ashore. There were eight
men in all. They carried flashlights, the beams swinging across
them as they moved.
"Flood," Mulder whispered.
"And Joey Francis," Scully whispered back.
Mulder took her arm and pulled her deeper into the woods.
"Frank is here, too," he said when they'd put some distance
between themselves and the cabin. "And several other men I
recognize from the training camp."
"What are you saying?"
"Scully, all his top lieutenants are here. We may never get
another opportunity like this. If we do it now, no one has the
chance to run."
"Do it? Do what?"
"Nab the boy. Round up the leaders of the White Hand."
"Are you crazy? There are eight of them -- probably more,
because somebody must be stationed here to watch the boy."
"We have the element of surprise. If we get the boy out, all we
have to do is pin them down until the cavalry arrives."
"Oh, is that all?"
"Scully, we have no choice. They're probably meeting here
tonight to plan an attack in Washington in a couple of days. The
chance of our getting a better opportunity is nil."
He watched her turn over the facts in that relentlessly methodical
brain of hers, knowing she would not try to avoid the inevitable
conclusion.
"First, we have to verify that the boy is here," she said at last. He
nodded. "If he is, I'll call for a SWAT team. We'll have to get the
boy out and keep those men in until they get here."
"If we can grab the kid without alerting his captors, that may be
no problem," Mulder said.
"Big if."
"One thing at a time. Let's look for the kid."
She nodded tightly and moved back toward the cabin. He nearly
tripped over her when she suddenly stopped short and crouched
down. Instinctively, he dropped beside her.
"What?" he whispered.
She pointed. A man with a rifle was standing outside the cabin's
only door. He must have taken up the position when the others
went inside.
There were three windows in the side of the cabin facing them.
Bright light streamed from two of them.
"Kid's in the dark room," Mulder whispered.
"You don't know that."
"Has to be."
"Not good enough. We have to be sure before we call for
backup."
Minutes went by as they watched and waited. The guard stood
leaning against the doorpost, staring out into the darkness.
"He's not going anywhere," Scully whispered at last.
"He needs a reason. I'm going to draw him around back. You
take a look inside."
"Mulder..." He was gone before she could stop him.
She didn't move, barely breathed as she waited for something to
happen. It seemed like hours until ...
Snap.
That was it. One twig snapping. Not enough to raise the alarm.
Just enough to make him take a look.
As the guard disappeared around the corner of the cabin, she
moved in, quickly but quietly. She was at the darkened window
in moments, then back at their sheltered position in the woods.
Minutes passed, and still Mulder hadn't returned. She was on the
verge of going to look for him when he crept up beside her --
carrying the rifle.
"What happened?"
"Let's just say I took care of our friend."
"You what? What if the kid wasn't here?"
"But he is, isn't he?"
Scully clenched her jaw in frustration. "Yes."
"Make the call."
She retreated deeper into the forest to use her cellular phone
while he kept watch. He'd seen no activity outside the cabin
when she returned.
"Thirty minutes," she said.
"Shit."
"We're in the middle of nowhere. What did you expect?"
"We have to move now," he said. "They could miss the guard at
any time."
She nodded. Without another word, they began their stealthy
approach. Scully was ready with a small hook, which she used to
slip through the crack between the two hinged windows and
release the latch that held them together. The tiny click it made
sounded like a gunshot to her sensitized ears, but there was no
reaction from inside.
Mulder handed her the rifle and climbed in. He could hear the
murmur of voices in the next room.
He regretted what he had to do next, but there was no
alternative. He crept to the bed and clamped a hand tightly over
the sleeping boy's mouth. Two shining eyes sprang open,
radiating fear. Before the child could get his bearings, Mulder
scooped him up and carried him to the window, handing him
through to Scully, who replaced his hand with hers to prevent the
child from screaming.
As soon as she had him, she moved out as quickly as possible.
Mulder climbed back out, grabbed the rifle off the ground where
she'd left it and took off after them. They didn't stop until they'd
put half a mile between themselves and the cabin.
Only then did Scully take her hand from the boy's mouth. He
was crying in terror, hiccuping and sobbing pitifully.
She sank to the ground, hugging him in her arms and rocking.
"Shhh... it's okay. We're here to help you. Shhhh."
Mulder watched, fascinated, as she quieted the boy, who
eventually responded to the strength and confidence of the
woman who held him.
"Give me your phone and go back," she told Mulder when the
boy's weeping had abated. "I'll be right behind you."
Her request baffled him, but there was no time to argue. He did
as she asked.
All was still at the cabin. Was it too much to hope it would
remain that way for the next 20 minutes? He suspected that, with
his luck, it was.
"Do you think the two of us can hold them?" He hadn't heard her
approach and was startled when she spoke.
"Depends how they're armed."
"I know. That's been worrying me. If they've got enough metal in
there, this could get ugly."
"Just what we need. Another Waco to feed the militia
movement," Mulder whispered. "How's the kid?"
"I left him talking to my mother."
"You're kidding."
"I didn't want him to get scared and wander off. I told her to keep
talking to him, telling him to stay put."
Mulder smiled. "You're a genius."
"I'll go around the other side," she said, ignoring the compliment.
"Remember, the objective is to keep them pinned down. Don't
shoot to kill unless absolutely necessary."
He nodded. "Here, take this," he said, handing her the rifle.
"You're better with it than I am."
He was right. She was. She'd learned when she was young, first
with BB guns and, later, real rifles, though she'd never hunted
animals with her brothers. Not since that first time, when she'd
killed a snake with a BB rifle and learned what it meant to die.
She took the gun and crept away into the darkness.
Mulder felt the forest close in on him as soon as she was gone.
He settled down to wait, sitting cross-legged on the damp
ground.
____________________________
END 7/8
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 8/8
by Parrotfish
Ten of the slowest minutes ever measured by a clock went by as
Scully crouched behind a tree, rifle at the ready, and waited. If
she could just make it through the next ten, a few dozen other
people would show up to relieve Mulder and her of the burden of
responsibility. That burden had become so heavy in recent days,
like a physical thing strapped to her back, making every waking
moment a torture.
Ten minutes isn't so long, she told herself. The time it took to
microwave a frozen dinner. Stay on hold for the next available
representative. Spend a dollar on Sprint.
Lose your virginity. Take your wedding vows. Die.
Come to think of it, a lot could happen in just ten minutes.
And suddenly, she knew it was about to. A voice was calling
from inside the cabin.
"Paul? Paul! Get in here!" Several minutes went by. Then a door
opened and closed on the other side. She tightened her grip on
the rifle and waited.
A shadowy figure carrying a rifle appeared around the corner of
the cabin. She kept him in her sights as he paused, obviously
looking around. She was surprised he didn't call Paul's name.
She was even more surprised when he started moving, heading
straight toward her as if he knew she was there. Her finger
tightened on the trigger as he approached, his rifle pointed at the
ground.
When he was no more than two dozen feet away, he stopped.
"Agent Scully." Barely above a whisper.
She froze, unsure what to do. But she recognized the voice.
"Agent Scully, I need to talk to you. Now."
"Put down the rifle." The man did so, then walked toward her.
"That's close enough. How do you know my name, Frank?"
"Art. Art Saunders. CIA."
"You're kidding."
"Look, we don't have time for this," he hissed. "Are you going to
shoot me or not?"
She relaxed her grip on the rifle. "Not immediately," she said. He
crouched beside her. "If the CIA had a man inside, what did they
need us for?"
"Once the kid is rescued, your cover is blown."
"So?"
"So I can't afford that."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm deep cover. Long term. You'll find I'm going to manage to
escape this mess and turn up in some other part of the country,
with some other militia group. And impeccable credentials from
the White Hand."
"Jesus. You mean you live like this?"
"Yeah."
"But if you knew about this cabin, why didn't you just tell me?
Why set me up with Joey Francis?"
"I didn't know. Not until tonight. Flood brought us here because
he was planning on moving the boy tomorrow anyway. He's
getting ready for the next mission."
"Which is?"
"Truck bomb at the Holocaust Museum."
"Jesus."
"Yeah. Your timing is excellent. Look, I'd love to stay here and
chat. But I have important information you need to know. I'm
holding the only other rifle in this group. Two guys have
handguns, but that's it. When Flood noticed the guard was
missing, he called in reinforcements. There are a dozen guys on
their way with automatic weapons and grenades. They're coming
from the east by trail. You've got to..."
A shot split the air. Almost instantly, Scully felt something warm
and wet spray her face. Art Saunders keeled over in front of her.
Another shot rang out, but she was already moving, rolling
across the damp forest floor before the round bit the dirt she had
just vacated. The rifle was braced against her shoulder before
she'd stopped, and she squeezed off two shots without even
identifying the target, aiming at the source of the gunfire that had
felled the CIA agent.
She saw a dark form drop as she stopped rolling. After waiting to
see if it would move, she crawled over and turned the body with
the rifle barrel.
Joey Francis. Clean shot through the throat. Dead.
She reached for her cell phone, hoping it wasn't too late to divert
a team to the eastern trail.
_________________________
Mulder heard a shot, then another, then two more in quick
succession. They'd come from Scully's position. His heart raced
as he resisted the urge to run toward the sounds, to see if she was
okay. Instead, he forced himself to turn his attention toward the
cabin. The light had gone on in the second room, and there were
faces in each window. He considered firing some warning shots
but decided to wait and see what would happen.
To his surprise, nothing did. The faces remained in the windows,
looking out into the darkness as if they were waiting for
something. No shots were fired, and no one emerged.
Five minutes slipped away in silence. Five minutes, during
which Fox Mulder prayed with all his might to a God in whom
he didn't believe that his partner was not lying on the ground
fifty yards away, watering the ground with her blood.
_________________________
"Congratulations."
"Thank you, sir."
There was no pride or satisfaction in the words, Skinner noted.
Scully had just responded by rote. It was so unlike her.
Then again, everything seemed wrong about the both of them.
The two agents he'd sent out on this impossible mission had been
angry, defiant, confident, united. The two before him now were...
It was hard to put a finger on the right word. Tentative? Listless?
Broken?
He wasn't sure. But he had known them for four years, had seen
them wade through every manner of hell on earth, and he had
never seen them like this. They were somehow all wrong.
They sat in their usual places, side by side across from him.
Unlike the dozens of times they'd sat there frustrated by defeat,
this time they were victorious. They'd accomplished the mission
and now could name their reward. It meant the salvation of their
partnership.
And yet they sat there looking like they couldn't get away from
each other fast enough.
"The boy is safe with his family," Skinner said. "They've all been
placed in the witness protection program."
"I see."
"The SWAT team leader tells me your handling of the situation
at the scene, combined with the information you provided on the
backup force, made it relatively simple to capture all the militia
members alive, except for the two who were dead before the
team arrived. I gather from your report that those deaths were
unavoidable. Fortunately, they were not key members of the
group."
"No sir."
Looks like Scully's doing all the talking today, Skinner mused.
"Needless to say, you may both resume working on the X-Files
immediately."
"Umm ... can we have 24 hours to inform you of our decision on
this matter, sir?"
Mulder's sudden request struck Skinner momentarily speechless.
He noticed Scully's eyes close. God, she looks tired, he thought.
"Of course. Go home and get some rest. You've earned it."
The two rose to leave. Scully paused at the door and turned
back. "Sir? I'd like to be informed of the funeral arrangements
for Agent Saunders."
"Certainly. I'll have Kimberly call you."
"Thank you."
The door closed behind them and AD Skinner sat down to re-
read the report on his desk, hoping to find between the lines a
clue that might explain the sorry spectacle he'd just witnessed.
_
____________________
"Go away." Mulder said it coldly, firmly, loudly, as soon as he
heard her key in the lock.
She came in. "You asked for 24 hours to make a decision,
Mulder. What were you planning to do? Make it alone?"
"Yes."
"You bastard."
"Ooo, that hurt. Navy Dad teach you such language?"
"Fuck you!"
"I'll take a number."
When her hand made contact with his face, it was loud and
painful and singularly ungratifying. The tears in her eyes did
nothing to disguise the pure fury in her voice.
"If you must punish yourself, Mulder, I'll thank you not to do it
at my expense." He made no reply, just turned his back. "How
can you do this to me? I crawl through hell to get back to you,
only to find you've just walked away."
"Is that what it looks like from where you're standing, Scully?
Funny, because from here it's altogether different." He spoke
without facing her. "It's like I've been standing outside a closed
door for an eternity. When the dark, cold, lonely hallway is
finally too much to bear, you open the door a crack and ask me
to wait a while longer."
"I thought we were past this." The tears were still there, but a
sorrowful tone tamed the anger in her voice.
"So did I."
"I guess we were naive to believe that becoming lovers would
change everything."
"I guess we were."
Silence strangled the flow of conversation as Mulder's words
struck them both with the threat of finality.
Scully screwed up her courage to ask the question that had to be
asked.
"Do you regret it?"
He turned to her, and the pain she saw in his face tore at her
heart. "I don't know."
She closed her eyes, squeezing two perfect little tears down her
cheeks. "God, Mulder. Where did we pick up the habit of
brutalizing ourselves and each other when it all gets to be too
much?"
He shrugged. "And now we have a new way to do it."
There was no denying it, she realized with horror. They had both
used sex to push each other away, just as surely as they'd ever
used it to draw close.
They'd done so much damage. The question was, could it be
undone? She didn't know. But, ever the realist, she recognized
one thing with certainty: The only thing worse than trying and
failing would be not trying at all.
She crossed the space between them and gently took his hand.
"I'm not sure I know how to change this," she began quietly.
"But I do know that I love you as much today as I did last week
and last year. I crave your touch, your smile, your mere
presence. I can't see anything getting better by giving up those
things."
His eyes fell to the floor, and she could barely hear him when he
spoke. "Maybe we should go back to the way it was."
"You mean, stop sleeping together?"
"Yes."
"That wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't make the emotional
demands of this relationship any simpler. Besides, now that those
lines have been erased, I don't even remember where they were."
She reached out and lifted his chin with one finger, a gesture
borrowed from his repertoire. "For whatever it's worth, Mulder,
the door is wide open, and I'm truly sorry it hasn't always been
that way. Do you want to come in?"
One minute his eyes were locked on hers, the intensity of his
love evident.
The next minute, he jerked away and crossed his arms over his
chest.
"It's too late," he said.
A painful, choking lump lodged itself in her throat. "Why? Why
is it too late?"
"After what I did..."
"What you did? We're back to that?" There was such a raw,
volatile mixture of emotions in her voice that it hurt him
physically to hear it, like invisible hands were squeezing his
lungs and heart. "Why must you see yourself as some kind of
psychopath? Why? You nurture this image of the tortured soul
always teetering on the edge of insanity, and you think it makes
you so damn special. But it's just cowardice, Mulder. You're
afraid that someday you'll wake up happy, and you won't have
some big fucking quest that makes you different than the rest of
the world. The trouble is that, in order to feed your mania, you
have to rob yourself of joy. And to do that, you have to rob me
of mine." Her voice cracked.
"I'm sorry," he said so quietly she barely heard it.
"If you couldn't do this, Mulder, why did you ever start it?"
"I didn't think."
"Don't lie to me!" The anger strengthened her, made it possible
to swallow the lump in her throat and speak freely. "You never
do anything without thinking. Before you came to me and told
me you wanted me, you'd thought about it a lot. So if you can't
tell me the truth, I'll tell you."
She paused to catch her breath, look at him, size him up. "You
started this because you had to. Your enforced emotional
isolation from the rest of humanity was threatening to destroy
you. Then one day it dawned on you -- you weren't alone, and
you hadn't been for quite some time. I was there with you. And
in a blessed, rare moment of emotional stability, you recognized
that as a good thing, and you embraced it. Now those self doubts
have resurfaced because of this damn case. Because you found it
was so easy for you to lose yourself and become Bobby Gorman.
And now you're going to try to protect me from the dark, evil
force at your core that made it possible. But I don't buy it."
Was he listening? Or had he just shut down? Damn it. She
couldn't tell. But she sure as hell wasn't going to stop now. She
reached out, took his hand and placed it on her chest, his palm
resting in the space between her breasts.
"What do you feel when you touch me? Is it dark and evil? Tell
me the truth this time. That's what matters, right? The truth?"
That was it. She'd called his bluff, played every card, risked it
all. She could do nothing but let him show his hand.
He shook his head slowly. "No, it's not," he said. For the first
time since she'd arrived, he brought his eyes to hers voluntarily
and let them stay there, let her see past the wall of fear and doubt
he'd been hiding behind. "It's good and true," he whispered.
She let out a long breath. "Then that's all that matters." She
placed her hand on his chest so they stood face to face, palm to
heart. "Make love to me."
"Are you sure?"
"Trust me."
"I do, Scully. I swear I do. But I don't trust me."
"Then let me do it for you."
Taking his hand from her chest, he drew her down onto the
couch so they were seated side by side. When his hands held her
face, it was with the gentlest of touches. When he leaned toward
her, his movement was measured and slow. And when his lips
touched hers, it was like a prayer of thanks offered at the end of
a long and dangerous journey.
"We do know each other," she whispered as their lips separated.
"You have to believe that."
It was his turn to smile. His hand drifted to the buttons of her
blouse and worked them free from their holes. When the garment
hung open, he leaned in again to place a kiss on the spot where
she'd placed his hand.
It was exactly the same gesture he'd made so many months
before on a night that had changed the course of their lives. "I
want you," he said.
"You can have me," she replied, using the same words she'd said
then.
He slid the blouse from her shoulders, opened the clasp of her
bra and removed the undergarment. He lowered his eyes to her
breasts and watched the nipples harden under his gaze. Turning
his head to one side, he bent over to rest his cheek on the soft
mounds.
"Mulder?" she said minutes later.
"Mmm?"
"You okay?"
"Mmmm-hmmm."
And suddenly, with a swift, smooth motion, he wrapped his arms
around her and jerked her hips forward so that she was flat on
her back across his couch. He made quick work of the zipper on
her slacks and yanked them down and off, then stretched himself
on top of her.
"Okay, Scully, if that's the way it is, I guess I'll have to make the
best of it." He was smirking at her now, and she couldn't help but
smile back.
"Your best is pretty good."
"Just pretty good? We'll have to work at improving my rating."
He kissed her again, but not gently this time.
"Take your clothes off," she managed to gasp into his mouth.
He raised himself off her and stood. In a self-conscious
striptease, he pushed each shirt button through its opening,
slipped off the shirt, parted the zipper around the thick ridge of
his erection, slid the pants and boxers down, each move effected
with such calculated care that she found herself shifting her hips
in anticipation.
"You're too beautiful," she said, her eyes roving his body and
coming to rest on the erotic spectacle of his full arousal.
"You do that to me," he told her. "You always have."
"I want it."
He fell forward and caught himself on his arms above her. "Not
yet," he said, his lips at her ear. "You seem to feel I torture
myself too much. You're right. I should be torturing you."
The commanding sexuality of his voice and words made her
heart beat faster and her exposed flesh quiver.
He kissed her neck and sucked at the soft skin until she was sure
he'd left a mark before moving his mouth to her breast. Instead
of taking her nipple in as she'd expected, he licked it, first in long
strokes with the flat of his tongue, then in tiny, quick touches,
the very end of his tongue buffeting the hard tip. Her breath was
coming in ragged gasps before he moved to the other breast, this
time engulfing it with the pull of his whole mouth, sucking at it
as though she could nurse him.
"I need you in me," she said, barely finding the breath to speak.
"No."
He slid back up her and brought his lips down on hers with
hungry force as he wrapped his hands around her breasts,
pushing them together beneath him and rubbing his chest against
her sensitized peaks. His tongue swept through her mouth again
and again, his hips taking up the rhythm so that his hard penis
slid along the soft skin of her belly, up and down in time with
hands and mouth.
"Oh God, Mulder. Please..."
"No," he rasped into her mouth as his thumbs flicked across her
nipples, taking up the rhythm. She felt herself approaching
impossibly close to the edge from the sensations in her mouth
and breasts and skin.
And then the rhythm changed. His hands slid from her breasts,
down her sides to her hips, and his mouth followed, moving
down her neck, her chest, her belly. Her hands clenched against
his back, fingernails digging and raking long, red ridges into his
skin, until she couldn't reach his back any more because his head
was too far away, between her legs, kissing the soft flesh of her
inner thighs as her hands clutched convulsively at his hair.
When he brought his mouth to her clitoris, there was no gentle
preparation, no soft, tickling licks. He sucked it into his mouth
and grazed his teeth along it, his hand coming up to push two
fingers inside her.
White light exploded behind her eyelids instantly. It was as
though he was sucking the orgasm out of her, his mouth and
hands touching not the organs of her sensation but the sensation
itself. Through the wrenching intensity of it, she felt his
insistence that, if she would know him, he would demand that
she make herself known to him, stripped of all pretense and lying
naked, defenseless and writhing beneath him. He was nothing if
not demanding, not content to accept her invitation, but probing
the length and breadth and width of it, of her willingness to
admit him.
And still he didn't stop. As the wave of her orgasm crested and
subsided, he withdrew his fingers but not his mouth. Now he was
licking her, pushing through soft folds to taste the cream of her
desire for him, to feel the twitching of her cunt around the tip of
his tongue in a way his cock was not sensitive enough to do. And
when those tiny convulsions stopped, his tongue moved up to lap
at her swollen clitoris, sweeping over it again and again like a
cat cleaning itself thoroughly, patiently.
"Mulder, please... now..."
"No."
With his hands, he pushed her legs farther apart to give him
better access. As he had done with her nipple, he did with her
clit, changing his stroke so that now only the curled end of his
tongue flicked back and forth against the tip of her, so that every
bit of her consciousness was focused on one tiny, intensely
sensitive point on her body.
He felt the muscles in her thighs grow taut and he knew another
wave was approaching. Instantly, his mouth was around her,
sucking and pulling, his finger inside her, pushing and probing,
and this time she groaned with the pleasure and intensity of it,
her fingers twined painfully in his hair, the soles of her feet
pressing down so that her hips and buttock rose clear of the
leather surface of the couch.
Again, he didn't stop, and this time he didn't change anything,
just stayed with her over the top, sucked at her as her hips sunk
back down, moved his hand back and forth so his finger
massaged the sensitive spot inside her. He felt her body
quivering with the extended orgasm he knew she was having,
and he reveled in the way he could feel her having it, the way he
could give it to her to have and have and have. He heard her say
his name, then say it again and again so that it became a steady
chant, and then the pitch of it and the volume of it changed and
rose, and finally, finally he felt her climb to a new peak,
convulse with a new wave of pleasure, her body writhing so hard
he could barely hold his mouth to her center.
And she screamed his name.
His mouth left the point of her sensation, and for a brief moment,
her body went slack. He slid up the length of her, brought his
cock to her twitching entrance and slid himself inside her.
"I'm here," he gasped into her ear. "I'm here. Can you feel me?"
"Yes..."
She bucked so hard as he entered her that he had to wrap both
arms tightly around her to hang on. Her flesh inside felt so alive
around him, moving against the organ of his pleasure, clenching
on it and heating it. He let himself stay a moment planted deep
within before pulling out and plunging forward again. Her legs
came up around his back and he did it again, uniting his living
flesh with hers so that they throbbed together in one seamless,
shared sensation.
"Can you feel that, Scully? Can you feel me inside you?" He
didn't know he'd spoken aloud until she answered.
"Yes...."
"I can feel you inside me, too," he grunted, pushing into her
again and yet again. "All the time. Christ, you feel so good. How
did you get there?"
She answered with an inarticulate cry, and he felt her close
completely around him, her cunt on his cock, her legs on his
waist, her arms on his back, her heart on his soul, and the heat of
her called to his own heat, drew it from him so forcefully that he
felt it surge through the length of his body before streaming out
of him and into her so that there was no mind and body, no him
and her, but just this perfect, single, boundless moment.
Ten minutes later -- not such a long time, but long enough to
change everything -- wrapped in each other beneath an old, wool
blanket, they slept.
____________________________
The piece of paper hadn't been there when he'd left the office the
previous evening. It lay perfectly centered on the black, leather
surface of his desk. Skinner strode across the room and picked it
up.
After a quick glance, he took off his jacket and hung it in the
closet before sitting down to read it again.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation Form 1598/B-1997.
Notification of permanent assignment. X-Files division."
At the bottom were two signatures.
Fox Mulder.
Dana Scully.
Skinner smiled. "It's about time."
___________________________
END 8/8
