#and mulder is like 'who took her' and barry is like 'THEM!!! they know where she is! turn around! they're right outside!'

[silo1013]

what's the first thing that comes to mind when i ask "favorite krycek scene?"

in terms of "scenes with krycek in them that are not actually about him" it will always be the part at the end of apocrypha where he's expelling the black oil onto the ship and it's coming out of his eyes and everything. something about it is so disturbing, so entrancingly gross. it's almost hard to watch but that's why i like it. i used to wonder a lot how they actually pulled off that effect and so i looked it up and apparently there was like this weird mask with tubes running through it that took like an hour to put on. pretty cool

in terms of "scenes with krycek in them that actually sort of are about him" i really really like the bit in ascension of him in the operating room with the tram driver at skyland mountain. there's already a tenseness to the scene (is mulder going to make it to the top in time? is the tram going to fuck up because he's going too fast? etc) that is really well escalated by the way everything is shot. there are a lot of face close-ups--krycek, the tram driver, barry in the car, scully in the trunk--and a lot of big wide shots showing just exactly how high in the air mulder is on the tram, it makes it feel like an action movie. i love the camera work for the whole sequence; the shots of the tram operator sitting at the desk always include krycek in the background, but never his face, and at the end of the sequence, when the tram driver explains that mulder looks like he's going to make it to the top of the mountain safely, it shows krycek reaching for the gun at his waistband without changing the angle of the camera, so you maybe almost don't notice it. the little micro-movements and expressions are really good here too; krycek pistol-whips the tram operator, fixes his hair (lol), closes his eyes and sighs before reaching out to shut off the tram. the sleeve of his suit is too long, and it covers part of his hand when he turns the key. he makes his phone call in a vaguely resigned manner, maybe not overjoyed at what he's doing but definitely committed to it. mulder is calling his name over the radio--what's going on down there? do you read me? does anybody read me?--and when mulder actually does make it to the top of the mountain unharmed, even after almost falling off the tram, krycek closes his eyes and sighs again in the sort of way where you can't quite tell if he's annoyed or relieved. one of my favorite scenes of the episode, period; it's incredibly rewindable. i get excited for it whenever i rewatch -_-

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite scully moments from s2

after the x-files are shut down, she gets moved to teach at the academy, and in episode 1 she does a little monologue on how a person’s body is a physical manifestation of a lifetime, which one of the students describes as “spooky”

when mulder sneaks off to puerto rico in the same episode, she goes into his place to try and figure where tf he went, and prevents his sneaking about being caught by the investigators who broke into his home with the power of feeding his fish

lecturing about the dangers of eating raw steak in episode 2, then getting lost down a rabbit hole of worm science

when no one was answering the door in episode 3, she just walks in. this made me laugh hysterically, i cannot explain. both of these guys WILL enter your home.

every single time she is a bit of a medical nerd, like when she learns about the surgery that allowed people to survive without sleep in episode 4, which she describes as “incredible”

(and the freckles + flower earrings combo were also a fave)

when she scans the piece of metal that came from duane barry in a grocery store in episode 6, and the cash register goes crazy. and she denies involvement and just walks away LMAOOO <- honestly i'd do the same!!

she wakes up from her coma in episode 8 and wants to write a thank you note to the nurse that took such good care of her, only to learn no such nurse ever existed. scully got to witness the paranormal for once!!!!

in episode 9, someone brings up a volcano scientist in conversation, and she says she had heard he was brilliant, which means that somehow she is keeping up with volcano news. she is a woman of many layers.

being deeply worried about this scared looking grad student she just met, and once again not waiting for an answer to enter her room and figure out if she is okay

(and when said grad student is being consumed by a fungus, scully thinks quickly enough to get herself locked behind a door, keeping herself safe, despite being handcuffed and otherwise looking death by fungus in the face)

in episode 11, mulder walks into his office, only to learn she has been there and has been going through his stuff since 6 in the morning. queen of getting results!

in the same episode, an old man overdoses on mushroom pills, and she shifts into Doctor Mode, yelling about “ventricular fibrillation” and “milligrams of lidocaine” and it was, like every other time she goes Doctor Mode, so deeply satisfying to watch

when she meets the two cops in episode 12, and can immediately tell they are having an affair and that the detective is pregnant, and despite the detective pleading with her not to tell a soul, the absolute MILLISECOND she is reunited with mulder, she spills the tea. and he is SHOCKED! <- arguably my favorite moment in the entire series so far

(and, to make the woman feel more comfortable, she confesses to also having had feelings for coworkers before which. elaborate on that, please)

but she really does care; when the detective ends up in the hospital, scully brings her a change of clothing <3

when she is so shaken by what she sees in episode 13 that she goes to the FBI’s onsite therapist; she’s too scared to tell mulder how she feels because “i don’t want him to feel like he has to protect me”

(as if there was ever going to be a choice; he is the protector and he Will protect, it's just his nature)

((and then later sobbing into his arms, realizing she doesn’t have to always put on a front))

toads start falling from the sky in episode 14, so she rationalizes that they likely came from a nearby tornado. this is a scully-approved theory.

they’re investigating a murder in the same episode, and a teenager starts pouring her absolutely horrific trauma out to both of them, scully holds her while she sobs into her jacket

honestly any time either of them know weird information, i love it. she says that it would take hours for a snake to eat a man and then weeks for it to digest in episode 14, and mulder makes some funny remark but it’s sooo endearing to me. she knows her snake facts.

then in episode 15, she notes poison in someone’s blood, but specifically that the poison comes from pufferfish eaten in Japan… girl i’m crying, she just knows stuff!

during that same case, they get rooms near each other like always, and she knocks on a door thinking it’s mulder’s. he doesn’t answer. she walks in and hears water running, so she just talks to him through the door to the bathroom. and i love this so much. i love that they are close enough to just walk into each other’s rooms and talk from behind the door while the other showers. it’s such married behavior.

working on the case in episode 16, we see her at home wearing a flannel, checking her computer, still serving looks but now giving casual

(and seeing the art she keeps on her walls- little postcards of beach scenes <3)

in the same episode, she knows mulder left to go get himself in trouble, so she bursts into skinner’s office to ask for help. but she feels bad for barging in on skinner, so she apologizes to him. which was very sweet.

when mulder is gone, she goes to his apartment to look for clues, and falls asleep on his couch

(and when X knocks on the door, she knows he is hiding something, and screams at him to tell her where he is)

this whole monologue from episode 17, which i loved more than life itself:

“several aspects of this case remain unexplained, suggesting the possibility of paranormal phenomena. but i am convinced that to accept such conclusions is to abandon all hope of understanding the scientific events behind them. many of the things i have seen have challenged my faith and my belief in an ordered universe, but this uncertainty has only strengthened my need to know, to understand, and to apply reason, to those things which seem to defy it”

(and that is just Her, isn't it? the need to understand, to rationalize. the worldview shaped on science- if she doesn't understand something, it's because a key piece is missing, and she'll find it. because the world Has to work that way, has to be bound by a greater logic, even if it is yet to be understood. to imagine otherwise would be impossible, to imagine otherwise would be to abandon hope in everything, and she cannot abandon hope)

((and maybe the idea that the world being something she cannot perfectly comprehend is a failing of her own understanding makes me a little emotional. but still))

she says that the whole loaves and fishes deal was a parable in episode 21; she is not a biblical literalist

(she then makes some sassy remark about things generating spontaneously, and mulder laughs in the corner. good to know he thinks she is funny)

every single time she answers the phone, she says “mulder, it’s me”, and idk i just think it’s so endearing

she thinks she might have been infected with a killer disease in episode 22, but mulder calls, so she tells him she’s okay and to take care of himself out there.... those are the last words she chooses, just in case they never talk again </3

and every time she says unsettling things, like “could be the residue of burnt human flesh” or “darkness covers a multitude of sins”, both in episode 23, i eat that up

reassuring her student who has just become a detective that she is doing just fine!!!

and then going to said student's funeral when things do not turn out fine... she loves her students that she taught for like 3 months so much :(

getting pulled aside by skinner and her bosses after mulder just acted wild in episode 25, and denying that she had seen any top secret files even though they say they will fire her if she lies lmaooo <- she is a ride or die!!!

but also going to his place, demanding assurance that she is doing the right thing by assisting him, and i love that. i love a character who will break all of the rules as long as they believe they are doing the thing that is morally Right, and that definition is so deeply her own, but she is committed to it, and she'll do anything to stick by it. and he just says something about getting the code that he wants broken, and despite how awful he's being, she goes through with it anyway because it's the Right thing to do.

later, her being the one to realize that mulder should not leave the house after his father was killed because he will be the prime suspect (he does not listen to this sound advice)

he stumbles into her place with a million degree fever, and she carefully lays him down in her own bed, despite the fact that he is soaked in his dead father's blood. and she takes care of him.

this one honestly deserves its own post because it is so incredible, but: shooting mulder with enough precision to get him to knock off his wild behavior that was going to make him look like he killed his dad, but not actually HURT him, then finding out krychek was putting LSD in his water, knocking him out, and driving 2 days to New Mexico to get him where he needed to be. AFTER he had been acting wild because he was inadvertently drugged, and had accused her of spying on him and being a traitor. that level of love is deep. very very deep. she is a Lover.

[slippinmickeys]

Old Chem, pt 5

TW: school lockdown

Lockdown. A shooter on campus. Things he never used to have to think about. 

He was in class and the kids were quiet, everyone with their nose glued to their phones. The doors were barred. They all looked scared.

“Can anyone tell me what part of the brain takes over in fight or flight?” he asked quietly. 

Most of them look up from their phones, confused. Classes were canceled, was this guy really trying to teach? This was a smaller, 200-level class, though, these kids knew this stuff.

One, in the front row, half raised her hand. Mulder nodded at her.

“The amygdala?” 

“That’s right,” he said. He was sitting on top of one of the desks in the front of the room, trying to appear as casual and calm as he could so that his students might feed off of his vibe. 

“When the alert came through our phones, the amygdala took over. Anyone remember the first step?”

“Perceiving the threat,” said a kid in the back. 

“Yep,” Mulder said, holding up two fingers. “Step two: flight or flight, triggered by adrenaline and cortisol. These happen quickly. We can stay in step two for a bit. Prolonged stress response. Who feels like they’re in it now?”

Most of the hands in the class went up.

“The goal is to get the prefrontal cortex back in control,” he said. 

“How do we do that?” said a sophomore from the front. He seemed a little angry, was nervously chewing his gum, fidgeting. 

“Deep breathing can help,” Mulder said, and noticed a few students take deep breaths.

“Exercise too, believe it or not,” Mulder went on. 

“We’re shit out of luck there,” said the sophomore. “We’re locked in this room.” 

There were sirens blaring distantly from the other end of campus.

“True,” said Mulder. “But there are other ways.”

“Like?” said a quiet girl from the front. He thought her name might be Courtney. 

“Talking to other people,” Mulder said. “Getting creative. And,” he went on, “Cognitive activities. Putting your brain to work. I want everyone to write or type out–right now–the title of the paper you turned in last week for this class. On paper, on your laptop, on your phone, doesn’t matter.”

He gave them all a minute. “Okay,” he said. “Now write down roughly what your thesis statement was.”

Another moment. “Okay. Now who’s still in Fight or Flight?”

Less hands went up and Mulder smiled. “See? It's already working.” 

A few students smiled back, looking more calm. 

Then, one of the girls that was on the ski trip with them raised her hand, her face pale. 

“Professor Mulder?” she said. 

Mulder nodded at her. 

She swallowed. “They’re saying hostages were taken. In the Miller Lab.”

All the kids swung their phones back up and Mulder felt a sharp dart of primal fear pierce through his chest. The Miller Lab was the one Scully ran. And she was there right now. 

***

What he was doing was idiotic and breaking pages worth of school protocol and policy, but he didn’t think about any of those things as he ran over the footbridge and toward the lab where Scully spent a majority of her time on campus. 

The whole of the building was cordoned off with yellow police tape and there was a ring of police cruisers parked at haphazard angles surrounding it. Clumps of students stood in the trees beyond the emergency vehicles, some hugging each other, some nervously watching. About twenty yards away, Mulder spotted Rudy, one of Scully’s graduate lab assistants nervously chewing his black painted nails. 

“Rudy!” Mulder called and ran over to him. “Where is she?” he asked without preamble.

“I don’t know,” Rudy said urgently. “I was in a different part of the building. There was shouting and then kind of chaos and then a gunshot. Someone pulled the fire alarm and we all tore ass out. I haven’t seen her.” 

Next to Rudy stood another lab assistant. She was teary, wide-eyed.

“He said his name was Duane Barry,” she hiccuped. “He said…he said some crazy shit.”

Just then a large armored-like vehicle pulled onto the scene and parked. A moment later the back door opened and a large man in a blue slicker jacket hopped down. He was bald, with glasses, and when he turned to talk to one of the cops on the scene, Mulder saw the big yellow letters across the back of the man’s jacket: “FBI.”

“Fuuuuck,” swore Rudy softly. 

Mulder was in a blind panic, but trying not to show it. Stairs were being attached to the big vehicle, and several other agents emerged from it, walkie-talkies in their hands, all of them looking serious, all of them wearing guns. He was on the verge of marching over and offering help or demanding answers–he wasn’t sure which–when he heard someone shout his name from behind him. 

He whirled around and there was Scully coming at him at a full run, her white lab coat flapping in the air behind her. He tore away from Rudy and flew to meet her, sweeping her up into his arms and into a grip so fierce she grunted. Her arms swung around his neck and she pressed her mouth to his collar. 

“I’m okay,” she whispered several inches below his ear. “I’m okay.” 

***

Charlie and his wife Sandra sat across from them holding hands, Sandra’s dress the same pale pink as the linen tablecloth on Margaret Scully’s dining room table. The leaves of the table had been pulled out and put on and it was set up in festive Easter decor; elegant candlesticks, a light brown water pitcher shaped like a rabbit, round enamel eggs in pastels dotted amongst the platters heaped with honey-baked ham, salad, sweet rolls. 

“God, that must have been terrifying,” Sandra said, looking at Scully with a sympathetic look. 

“It was,” Scully said simply. She pulled her napkin out of its ring and draped it over her lap.

“I’m just glad they got the guy,” said Melissa, who lowered herself down to sit on Scully’s other side. Across from her, and next to Sandra, sat Bill and Tara, whose belly was softly rounded with pregnancy. 

“What motivated him, did they say?” Charlie asked. 

From the head of the table, Scully’s mother sat silent and uncomfortable, watching her children talk with her hand resting along the top of her wine glass. 

“He claimed to have been abducted by aliens and experimented on,” Mulder said. “He thought the labs at the university were somehow involved in whatever he thinks happened to him.”

“Delusional,” Bill spit.

“Likely, yes,” Mulder said, the only person at the table qualified to make that diagnosis. He felt sorry for the man.

“Did you talk to him?” Bill asked, looking at his youngest sister. 

Scully shook her head. “I saw him in the hallway with the gun. Threw the lock on my lab, pulled the fire alarm and jumped out my window.”

Mulder reached over and squeezed her hand. Her quick thinking had probably saved numerous lives. 

The incident had shaken him profoundly. Made him rethink all of his priorities.

“I hope the man gets the help he needs,” Mrs. Scully finally spoke.

Mulder remembered watching the guy get perp-walked into the back of an unmarked sedan by the tall, bald FBI agent. He remembered the wild, desperate look in Barry’s eyes. Mulder hoped he’d get the help he needed, too. 

“Let’s move on to happier discussions,” Mrs. Scully went on, giving her head a little shake and reaching her hands out on either side of her to grip hands with Charlie, with Mulder. “Who’d like to say grace?” 

Mulder held her hand warmly, reached out to take Scully’s as well. Before he ducked his head, he looked briefly at Margaret Scully’s hand, at her thin, paper-like skin, her knobbly arthritic knuckles, the wedding ring on her hand sitting in its own worn groove, nicked and shining, a perfect circle of aurum. 

Bless this food to our use

He’d like to put a ring on Scully’s finger, he thought suddenly. He’d like to bind her to him forever.

and us to thy service

[gaycrouton]

post-one breath

scully angst | 2.5k | ao3

scully is having a hard time feeling normal after returning from the hospital after her abduction.

(these were written for my five times exchange story, prompted by the always wonderful @mmeadowlarkk, but I wanted to post them here too!)

It was usually one of two things that woke her up: the sound of a drill or feeling like someone was shining a light into her eyes. Neither was actually happening of course, but she'd start up in bed, sweat covering her body and a scream caught in her throat.

It had been like that since she returned home. Granted, that was only five days ago, but even in the hospital her sleep was always restless. In total, she'd been out of her coma for two weeks, but it was hard to tell with how trapped she felt in her own body.

"Are you okay?"

I'm fine.

"How are you?"

Fine.

"How's recovery?"

Going fine.

Fine was all she could manage during the barrage of questioning she received every day from seemingly everyone in her life. It seemed to placate her mother, her sister would smile in response, but Mulder's eyes would bore into hers while he searched for the real answer within their depth.

It was when he looked at her that she realized just how absolutely not fine she was. While her family and the doctors saw a shocking story of recovery, Mulder could see she was struggling. The title of survivor had been bestowed on her before she could even process the extent of her victimhood. She didn't even have a full understanding of what she was a victim of.

With a shaky hand, Scully drew back the dampened covers and sharply inhaled as her bare feet touched the cold, wooden floor. She padded over to the bathroom, flicking on the light before discarding her sweaty clothes. When she turned, she caught sight of something she'd been avoiding for a while now: her reflection.

However, in the soft lighting of her bathroom and the full length mirror precariously tucked in the corner, she couldn't look away when she caught sight of the woman on the other side, for surely that couldn't be her.

Walking over on unsteady legs, she stood on uneven ground with one foot on the linoleum and one foot on the plush bath mat as she took in the sight. Her skin was ghostly pale barring the ruddy flush of her cheeks. She could see the blue spider web of veins spreading like a grid underneath her skin, cobwebs in an empty shell.

Her face looked different than it had for the past few months, as if her slight, lingering baby fat had been taken from her but her face had yet to compensate for its loss. She was thinner when she came back, she knew that when she looked at her chart. Within three months she'd lost enough weight that the doctors had to monitor her intake so she didn't overdo it and make herself sick with the sudden adjustment.

Even though she'd lost the weight, her stomach looked slightly different to her, slightly swollen and tender to the touch. There had been a sharp pain in her lower belly that over time had become just a dull ache.

It felt like a menstrual cramp, like her uterus was screaming at her.

Like every other aspect of her life, she wasn't certain if her menstrual cycle was still regular since she had yet to get her period. Scully hadn't gone back on birth control since her return, partially because the dull pain was concerning to her and she didn't want any dependent variables taking away from her ability to monitor her body's recovery.

She knew from the test run by her doctors upon her admittance that she wasn't pregnant. It was a relief, but it was only one concern addressed with a hundred others still unanswered.

After admitting her discomfort to the doctor at the hospital, they'd both reached the conclusion that, while odd, nothing appeared to be wrong. He offered to do a more in-depth pelvic exam since they'd been too worried about keeping her alive when she first arrived to try and gather evidence of anything, but she refused. She didn't want anyone else touching her.

And she knew she had been - much like her hair had been maintained to stay the same length over all these months, her pubic hair had also been trimmed, a detail she'd kept to herself.

Scully felt a wetness on her sternum and she looked up to see she was crying with a shell-shocked expression on her face. She raised a shaky hand and smeared the tear into her skin and rubbed her eyes.

She was alive. Scully knew she should be grateful for that miracle, but she'd lost a lot more than three months when she was abducted.

A sob escaped her throat as she flicked the lightswitch off and walked over to her boudoir, grabbing an old grey sweater with "FBI Academy" embroidered on the space above her left breast. It was slightly scratchy from being mass produced for all the Quantico trainees, but it would have to do. Her favorite University of Maryland sweater was retired to an evidence bag covered in Duane Barry's blood - another loss.

She slid the matching oversized sweatpants up her legs, satisfied when her body was shrouded and hidden from her own view. An irrational part hoped the polycotton blend could act as a metaphorical cocoon, and when she shed it off later maybe she'd come out a different person. But she knew from past nights' experience that it wouldn't happen.

Knowing she was too worked up to go back to bed, she made her way to the living room. While she knew it hadn't been a drill or blinding light that woke her up, she couldn't help but hear the similarities between her nightmare and the storm currently brewing outside. The wind sounded sharp against the side of the building, and every two Mississippi's the cracking of nature's whip would follow a bright lightning strike.

It hadn't stormed this hard since-

"Mulder! I need your help! Mulder!"

The sound of glass shattering ricoheted through her mind, and she took a sharp breath as she told herself that no one was breaking in. It was just in her head. Looking over, she could see the spot it had happened, the weather outside macabrely setting the scene.

Scully felt her heart hammering in her chest as what once was her sanctuary quickly became her mental prison. She wanted to be better. She was tired of this affecting her in this way, but she couldn't help it. For what felt like the thousandth time since she'd been back, she felt the overwhelming, albeit irrational, panic that someone was going to come and take her again. She didn't feel safe.

She hadn't even processed she'd moved. One minute she was breathing heavily in the middle of her living room, and the next she was pressing her back into the crevice where two walls met while she held her phone in trembling hands. She was rubbing the number two with the pad of her thumb, and in her state of hypersensitivity, she felt like she could feel the grooves of her thumbprint catching against the silicone of the button. The printed numerical "2" felt like braille against her thumb, but it also felt like a life preserver and she was drowning. If she pressed that and the accompanying nine other digits she knew by heart, she knew she'd be safe.

Mulder would answer.

She looked down and pressed the buttons, the key tones sounding deafening in the silence as the pitch went up and down with the different numbers.

202-

The sound of something tapping against her window made her jump and she looked up and saw a shrub outside was being knocked against the glass in the storm. Mulder had gotten the windows replaced while she was gone, and it would be nearly impossible for someone to shatter them as easily as Barry had. He'd invested in her safety because he knew it would come in handy for when she returned. Because for Fox Mulder, it had always been a matter of 'when' and not 'if'.

Her eyes were drawn to a blinking red light on the opposite side of the room, and she realized it was past three in the morning. Her confidence in her plan faltered as the landline started beeping from the rest of the number not having been entered.

She was too late.

During one of the first times Mulder visited her at the hospital, she'd been chatting with her mom while Mulder and Melissa sat in seats against the wall. Apparently she'd gotten too wrapped up in the conversation because by the time she looked back to Mulder, he was out cold, slouched in his seat next to Melissa who was trying not to laugh at the way his mouth gaped open with his head resting on her shoulder.

"Mul-" she'd started, intending to wake him up only to be hushed by her mother.

"Let him sleep, Dana. I'm quite certain that man didn't sleep once while you were in your coma," she chided.

"I don't think he slept since you disappeared," Melissa corrected, her eyes widening comedically as Mulder snored loudly.

When she asked him how he'd been doing a few days later, her insomniatic partner even himself said, "I've been sleeping better this past week than I have my whole life."

Because she was safe.

Scully couldn't bring herself to call him and shatter that illusion. She couldn't think of him laying sound asleep on the other side of town, only to be woken up to her sobbing, causing him to rush across town to be with her. Because that's exactly what he would do and she knew it. Mulder was concerned about her now, but she played it off as him worrying too much. If she confirmed his fear and admitted that an hour hadn't gone by that she hadn't been scared, he wouldn't be able to rest until she felt better. She didn't know if she could promise she ever would.

Part of her considered calling her mom or Melissa, but the same concern was still there. They wouldn't be as relentless with the information as Mulder would be, but she knew if she called them now at this low point, she'd have to field questions down the line. She'd have to be fine even more than she already was.

Heat started burning uncomfortably on her face as she thought of someone she wanted to call who wouldn't have made her feel fragile. Who would have told her Scullys can get through anything, and she was one of the toughest of the bunch.

She wanted her dad to hold her and make everything better.

A hot tear slid down her cheek as she felt more alone than she had in her entire life. Every sniffle and whimper she made echoed against the walls of her large apartment and it made her feel small. She'd come back to the people she loved and she was too stubborn to let them in.

Her chin trembled as she made her way to her couch, tripping slightly when plastic caught her foot. Scully regained her balance and looked down to see she'd gotten caught on the brown plastic sack Mulder had given her. Bending down, she took out the VHS tape that lay inside. Superstars of the Super Bowl.

A small smile erupted on her face, her cheeks protesting as the tear tracks that had dried against her skin shifted uncomfortably. She stood up with the bag and VHS in her hand, popping the latter into her VCR. Scully listened to the clicks and whirs of the machine starting as she turned on the television, basking her couch in an indigo blue haze.

Scully pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her, sitting cross-legged on the middle cushion while the roar of an audience filled the empty space, making her feel a little less alone. Her hands found their way back into the plastic bag as she sifted through the miscellaneous other presents Mulder had brought to her over the stint at the hospital.

She chuckled as her hand came in contact with what she was looking for, and she pulled a bright pink Hostess Snoball out of the bag. These were her favorite treat to indulge in, and during one particularly long road trip with Mulder, fueled by period cravings, she'd picked up three at a gas station and eaten them all within an hour. Mulder had been so tickled by it that any time he picked her up for a road trip, he grabbed her a pink fluffy cake to go alongside her rootbeer. When she lamented that she only could indulge once in a blue moon, he'd scoff and tell her she deserved to have one every day if it made her happy.

The memory lightened the thick miasma that had brewed around her, and she wiped the remaining wetness from her cheeks. The coconut ball had been dented by the corner of the VHS tape, but it was delicious all the same. Scully watched as men wearing various colors of spandex ran around the field. She didn't even know what team Mulder rooted for, she thought he was more of a baseball or basketball guy if anything, but watching this silly tape he probably pickled up at a bodega made her feel close to him. She reached back into the bag to pull out another snack, but as her fingers grazed the bottom, she felt something had spilled. She scooped it up in one hand, pulling it out and looking at her palm. Sunflower seeds, little tokens of Mulder left in his stead.

Scully picked one up between two fingers and brought it to her lips, the salt burning the part of her lip that was raw from her worrying it between her teeth. She moved the seed around her mouth tentatively, not having the same dexterity Mulder did. After a few seconds, she cracked the shell and the meat of the seed fell onto her tongue.

She continued that with the next few seeds and she started to find a groove with it. Her worry and anxiety started dissipating as she got lost in the comfort of the game on television, she felt like she was just a member of the crowd like the people on screen. It made her feel less alone than she had backed against the corner of her living room, despite nothing really having changed. Mulder was just somehow able to make her feel better, even without physically being here.

For an hour, she continued imbibing in Mulder's brown plastic bag of gifts, and she felt connected to him in a way she hadn't anticipated, and it made her feel strong and unafraid. After all, he had been brave for three months, she could be brave for tonight.

[scullydubois]

Only the Light: Ch. 8

8/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, some fluff | currently: s2, ep 12, Aubrey | T (for now?) | 2.3k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic

Scully deals with the trauma of her nightmare when she and Mulder meet BJ in the park; a migraine leads Scully to breakdown to her sister.

[this is an especially angsty part...TW for mild implication of rape]

------------------

The rest of their breakfast passes without fanfare. After their conversation about love languages, neither feels like diving into particularly deep topics. Mulder spends their meal providing commentary on the songs other customers picked off the jukebox, turning Scully into a captive audience who occasionally nods, chuckles, or otherwise utters a phrase of approval. It’s not that they’re bored of each other, but that they feel they should preserve their energy for the taxing conversations sure to come along with the case. The electricity between them lingers in the air, waiting for a match to spark it. When the waitress asks if they want to split the bill, Mulder gallantly insists that he will take care of it, then pulls out the Bureau credit card with a wink his partner’s way. To Scully, his wink feels like a lighter flaring into flame. A brief moment of blaze, there and then gone again. One day, she swears to herself, one day she will let him ignite her heart. 

Back in the car, they buckle up and reacclimate themselves with 1994. The local country music station hums in the background, too low to make out any lyrics. It’s just a few stoplights to the park, not even long enough to get through an entire song.

They find BJ at a picnic table nestled among Aubrey’s fall colors. She notices them first, waves them over. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Mulder says as he and Scully take a seat across from the detective.

Scully is struck by reality’s intrusion on the version of BJ she met in her nightmare. BJ is not heavily pregnant; she does not even show. She’s not covered in blood either, but looking polished in a pantsuit. Yet the sight of her conjures up vivid images from the dream, ones that Scully hoped would stay hidden in her psyche forever. The resolute darkness of Duane Barry’s eyes, like his soul had been sucked out of him. The way droplets of blood splattered when he pulled BJ by the collar. And the image of her own body, how it had been desecrated and she hadn’t felt a thing. She felt nothing.

“How are you, BJ?” she asks, her voice stiffer than intended.

BJ rests her hands on the wooden table. “I’m okay.” Then-- “I’ve made some decisions.”

Scully nods, not wanting to pry. The three of them sit with the silence. Sometimes this is all you can do. Her courage gathered, BJ looks to Mulder. 

“I don’t know if Agent Scully told you, but I’m pregnant. It’s Tilman’s. It’s made things...complicated.”

“I’m sure,” Mulder replies, not particularly moved by this announcement. 

“I don’t think it will impact the case in any way, but I wanted to be open with you. Staying quiet about it was only making the situation tougher.”

“Well, thanks for sharing.”

Scully shoots Mulder a look, as if to chastise his blase attitude toward BJ’s courage. He doesn’t see it, which makes her feel oddly guilty, like she had talked about him behind his back. 

Across the park, a little girl plays with her dog. They run through a pile of leaves together, and she takes a tumble. 

“Ow!” the girl exclaims loud enough to be heard throughout the park. BJ stands up, her gaze snapping toward the sound. Scully turns, fighting the urge to join BJ. The girl’s mother bends to check the girl for injury and seeing that she’s okay, sets her on her feet. BJ exhales, joins the agents back at the table.

“The mothering instinct,” BJ monologues. “I've been feeling it a lot lately. I used to hate it when my mother hovered over me. I swore I'd never be like her.”

Scully’s throat tightens. She felt the gravitational pull too. I mean, she’s always liked kids, but she’s not sure she would be a good mother and so she’s tried not to think much about it. Certainly her situation is unfavorable for motherhood. What kind of life would it be for a kid to have their mother gone all the time? She knows what it’s like to tuck herself into bed without a goodnight kiss and a bedtime story...to feel like an afterthought in a parent’s life. It made her push herself harder, trying to shed the inadequacy her father must have seen in her. And still she fell short. Is it all in her head, this fledgling maternal instinct? Or is it a sign of changing brain chemistry?

“I think we all feel that way at some point or another,” Mulder says. For a moment, Scully thinks he’s read her mind. She’s about to ask him whether there’s such thing as a paternal instinct when BJ continues on--

“My father was a cop. A good cop. That's all I ever wanted to be. He'd say what we're doing here is nonsense. That you can't solve a crime from a dream.”

Scully is somewhat relieved to know that she’s not alone in failing to measure up to a father’s expectations. This is not the point of the conversation, but this is what her mind latches on to. Her own father felt that the X-Files was a waste of time,, and she could never put into words why the work was so fulfilling to her. It’s not medicine; the results aren’t as obvious. Yet she can’t help but feel like she and Mulder are tuning into a rarely heard frequency, listening to its message, and passing it on. Little by little that will change the world, won’t it?

“Well, I've often felt that dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask,” Mulder offers, rising to meet the gravity of the moment. Scully wonders what question her nightmare was answering. She shudders at the thought.

---------

Her skull feels like it’s being cut in half with a chainsaw, there is no other way to put it. She’s lying stretched out on her motel bed, a washcloth over her eyes, praying the pain away. Migraines aren’t a common occurrence for her, but she recalls all the times her mother would turn off the television, pull the curtains, and lay flush in her recliner in an attempt to ward off the pain. As little as she was, Scully would pull a step stool over to grab a glass from the cabinet, then fill it with water and bring it to her mother like a dog itching for a treat. She’d get a ‘thank you’ from her mom’s quiet, steady voice and sometimes a pat on the head, but nothing she could subsist on. She always wished for a little more to fill the deficit in herself. Now she understood. Pain chips away at your capacity for love.

What had started as a dull roar now felt more like the scream of a banshee. It came on suddenly around 4 while she and Mulder were reviewing the evidence of the 1942 murders. Their day had been pretty slow, one of paperwork and manila folders and bureaucracy. Not a lot of progress on the case. It’s as if her brain weren’t working hard enough, and so decided to punish her by making work impossible. She let on nothing of her plight until the way back to the motel when she leaned her head against the window and Mulder asked if she was okay. She responded nonchalantly, saying it was just a headache, and he in his savior complex offered to stop for Aspirin, but she insisted she had some in her suitcase. She did--a bottle with only two left--and she took them both. So far they’ve done nothing to combat the pain. 

It occurs to her that her ardent desire to avoid coming off as a damsel in distress doesn’t exactly mesh with Mulder’s tendency to be the hero. What is she to make of that? Nothing, not in her current state of mind.

She lies there, wonders if it’s reached a late enough hour to change into her pajamas. She can’t deal with the monotony of the shower tonight, not even if Mulder’s on the other side. She turns, glances at the digital alarm clock. 8:09pm. Certainly that’s appropriate pajama time, right? She can never be sure that Mulder won’t come knocking on her door with a new interpretation of the evidence for her to shoot down or a theory somehow more outlandish than his original. She likes that they keep each other on their toes, but tonight that’s not where she wants to be.

Her head berates her for sitting up. She figures that if that’s wishful thinking, changing clothes will be too, so she lays right back down. She has gotten very used to ending up back where she started.

Seeing as modern medicine is failing her, she decides to try meditation. Missy swears by it, but Scully doesn’t see the benefit of willingly turning off your brain. She can hear her sister now: “It’s not about turning off your brain, it’s about transcending your thoughts and being present with the world.” Since when am I not present with the world, she always wants to reply. She can’t afford not to be present with the world.

But the older sister always has some semblance of sway over the younger one, so Scully closes her eyes and listens to the nothingness of the room around her. Well, it’s not exactly nothing, but nearly so. The mini-fridge, which she doesn’t dare touch even if the bill isn’t her responsibility, hums like it has something to prove. The remaining leaves on the trees in the parking lot rustle with the wind. In the adjacent room, Mulder’s TV is on. She can hear the droning chitter-chatter of sports commentators. Baseball, probably. That’s played in the fall, right?

She slips out of active listening and into mindless musing on her lack of sports expertise. Her father was never a sports junkie himself, but her brothers were. She was often made the referee of their wrestling matches or t-ball games, having been deemed more impartial than Melissa. And yet her understanding of plays and pitches and batting averages never progressed from there. She could name all 206 bones in the body in alphabetical order, but she couldn’t tell you what 3rd down meant. Usually she doesn’t care, but at the moment, this is making her indescribably sad.

Overcome by her isolation, she grabs the phone off hook, dials her own number. Melissa picks up right before it stops ringing.

“Hello?”

“Missy…” she doesn’t know it’s going to happen until she opens her mouth and tears fling themselves down her face.

“Dana, what’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you safe?” Missy’s voice is concerned but controlled, like a 911 operator. 

“I-I’m okay,” Scully manages, in probably the least convincing delivery ever.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the motel. Mulder and I are safe, we’re okay,” she stammers. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Melissa says with utter calm. 

“My head is pounding, Missy, and I know mom used to get migraines, but I’ve never felt anything like this before--” Her voice catches, a sob slips out. “And I’m scared, Missy. Something’s wrong with me.”

“It sounds like you need medical attention, honey.” Melissa always knows when to slip in a term of endearment. “Can Mulder take you to the hospital?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.” She squeezes her eyes shut, sees stars. She hopes Mulder can’t hear her crying. The embarrassment of hurting is almost worse than the hurt itself. She pulls the bed sheet over her head like some over-dramatic teenager. She wouldn’t be able to look Mulder in the eye if he heard this next part. 

She sniffles. “I’m six days late, and I’m never late, and I can’t be pregnant unless…” She wonders what would happen if she just stopped the sentence there and never spoke of it again. Could she do that? Would Melissa mind? 

She lets the bottom drop out from under her. “...unless they did something to me.” The words are barely audible, she hates to have them on her tongue. Worse still, she’s not even the subject in her own sentence. She’s the object, of course. 

She hears Missy take what she’s deemed “a cleansing breath.” Then--”Can you come home? Tonight, tomorrow morning?”

“I...What would I tell Mulder?” Her tears have stopped flowing, but her brokenness still lives in her voice. 

“Anything. That I locked myself out of the apartment, that it’s mom’s birthday, maybe the truth. That man will listen to whatever you say. He’s not gonna stop you.”

“Well, I have to tell the FBI something.” 

“Say you have a family emergency. Or that you’re experiencing trauma from work-related events. You don’t owe them anything, Dana.”

Scully knows this, but could never operate as if she actually believed it. The FBI is her job, her duty, her choice. How can she be up in arms about something she wished upon herself? 

She takes as deep a breath as the pain in her head will allow. “I’ll fly out tomorrow morning.”

“Call me with the deets before you take off. I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay.” Scully feels a rush of safety, of being held & supported. “Thank you,” she breathes. Missy has saved her from herself.

“You’re welcome. And Dana…?”

“Yes?”

“We’re gonna figure this out. Whatever it is, we’re gonna figure it out.”

Scully flutters her eyelids shut, feels the temptation of tears at the back of them. “I know...Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Missy echoes. “Get some rest, and try not to worry. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

Scully wonders what gene her sister has that gives her such a distinct ability to say the right thing every time. She wishes she hadn't missed that boat. How much easier would life be? 

She notices that Missy has refused to hang up first. “Goodnight, Missy,” she says into the phone.

“Goodnight, Dana. Sleep well.” Her words are a balm to the soul. 

Scully puts the phone back on the hook, feeling like Missy just put hope back in her vocabulary. Hope or belief? Which is stronger?

[scullysexual]

The Ghosts Come Tonight

based on this. I decided to change it to a fic. Not for fictober and it’s not on ao3. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll continue with it because I was for the idea when I started then I few hours later I didn’t like it. If people like it I’ll maybe think of adding to it.

@today-in-fic @mypanicface @impulsive-astrophile

- - - 

“I know what I saw…I know what I saw…”

The heavy cell door opens, a floor of light shines in. The speaking man blocks the light with his hand, wincing as the brightness still continues to invade. A room alone, in the dark. This is the first time he’s seen people in a while.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The sound of a pen scratches against paper.

“My name is Duane Barry,” says the speaker. He is different to how he was first presented. Calm, collected, distant as he introduces himself.

“I was born 13th October 1828 and incarcerated on…” the man pauses as if trying to remember the exact date. He gives up.

“Incarcerated 1958 for…for…”

His breath shakes, the calm, cool nature falling away as his face contorts into anguish.

“for…” But the words will not come.

The pen stops scribbling, the scriber looking up to wait patiently. Mulder shifts as the man whines. He knows he won’t get anything out of him.

“What did you see, Duane?” Mulder asks, recalling the words Duane spoke in the cell.

The question makes something snap within Duane. The whining stops, his head shoots up, eyes wide and steely.

“I didn’t kill him.”

Beside Mulder, Skinner shifts and sighs, hearing this proclamation before.

“Okay,” says Mulder. “You didn’t kill him. So what happened?”

Duane eyes Mulder and Skinner cautiously. Hesitant to tell the truth. Something Mulder knows.

With practiced expertise Mulder says, “I want to help you.”

Duane’s eyes move quickly to Skinner. Without missing a beat asks, “What about him?”

“He wants to help you, too.”

With his stare back on Mulder, Duane looks him up and down. A small smile appearing across his lips.

“He’s a cop. You’re not.” He’s proud of himself for that one.

Mulder nods.

“That’s true,” he says. “I’m a psychologist.”

Duane does not know what that is, his look of confusion.

Self-conscious. The colloquial term for his profession is not one Mulder likes to use much. It makes him, and not the mention the patients, feel strange, different, otherworldly.

“An alienist.”

But it’s a word that is most known by most. So Duane nods, now understanding, and leans towards.

“I’ll talk,” he says, his gaze stuck on Mulder. “But only to you.”

Mulder turns to Skinner, his eyes telling him the man is free to go. Being afraid is beyond Mulder, he’s dealt with worse, more violent than the likes of Duane Barry.

And Skinner knows this and so the other man nods, standing up from his chair to leave. Duane’s eyes move over to the scribe. A woman who’s fear shows in her eyes even if she tries to hide it.

“She has to stay,” says Mulder.

Duane sits back, saying nothing.

“What happened, Duane?” he asks.

The scribe get herself set to begin writing again. Shallows, focuses upon her task and not the stare Duane continues to give her.

Duane rubs a hand over his face, his iron shackles clanging together.

“They took us,” he begins and the pen resumes scratching against the paper once more. “We were in the garden and they took us.” His eyes harden once more as he looks at Mulder. “I didn’t kill him!” he almost shouts.

There’s the sound of muttering from outside the room. Mulder turns to the window to where the man in charge of the asylum converses with Skinner. Mulder knows what this means: he’s running out of time.

“Who took you, Duane?” he begins to press but Duane’s demenour has changed once more, he’s reverted back to how Mulder met him, weak and pathetic, muttering over and over that he didn’t kill him.

“Duane!” Mulder shouts, getting agitated as the man in the charge quits talking to Skinner and heads towards the door. “Who took you?”

But Duane shakes his head. The window is closing. Mulder will get nothing more today.

He sits back as two guards enter the take Duane away. As Mulder watches them leave, he meets eyes with Skinner and the other man shakes his head. It’s over for today.

Mulder stands and stalks past Skinner, frustrated and angry once more at the lack of progress and storms down the corridor.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The chatter and commotion outside quiets as Skinner closes his office door. A cigarette is stumped out in a silver ashtray, smoke still emanating from it, the smoker not long gone. Skinner disposes it in the trashcan beneath his desk. He’s only just sat down when Mulder barges into the room, unwelcome and unannounced.

“I want access to the body.”

Skinner’s used to it. The demanding for things Mulder is in no position to be demanding. The impromptu entrance. It’s the collateral damage that is expected when he asks for Mulder’s help.

“What for?” Skinner asks. It was a futile task. Truths that are meant to say buried, never to be unearthed. Duane Barry killed that man, that is the truth. Nobody came for them.

“Barry said he didn’t murder him,” says Mulder. “I want to see if he’s telling the truth.”

A futile task.

“What does it matter?”

One that Mulder is beyond seeing.

“You asked me on this case sir,” Mulder says, the hint of surprise in his voice.

Perhaps it’s Mulder inability to be deterred that will help them.

The file sits on his desk, Skinner looks at that rather than Mulder.

“Go to the morgue,” Skinner says slowly. “When you get there, ask for a Dr Scully.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Three tables. Two either side empty. The middle one lies a body. A man.

Morgues were never Mulder’s favourite places; he prefers live patients to dead ones. Morgues gave him an unsettling feeling.

The body draws him in. A Y incision starting from his collarbones, disappearing beneath a sheet. This man has already been autopsied.

“Can I help you?”

A woman’s voice.

Mulder jumps and spins, bumping into a tray table and knocking the contents off onto the floor. The woman, red-haired and small, looks disdainfully at the floor then at Mulder.

“I’m sorry,” says Mulder, insincerely. “I’m, er…I’m looking for Dr Scully.”

A smile.

“That’s me.”

Shocked. Another smile. She walks over to the instruments on the floor.

“Well,” he extends his hand towards the floor. “I’m Mulder, I’m—”

She looks at him. A knowing look.

“I know who you are. You’re a psychologist.”

Blinks.

“…yes.”

She takes the tools to the sink.

“Why are you here?”

“There’s a body I want to see.”

“You’re seeing one right now.”

Mulder looks at the body on the table.

“N-no, not that body. I was…” He frowns. “Are you busy?”

Scully kicks the wheels, releasing the brakes. “Not right. I just wanted to talk to him.”

“Right, uh…”

Mulder doesn’t like morgues.

It’s a game. She smiles again.

“So you want to see a body?” she asks, rolling the table towards the back doors.

“Yes.” He follows behind her. “I was told to come to you. The body I want to see is Derek Barney.”

Scully disappears through the doors. Mulder hangs back. He saw the bodies and that is not a place he wants to visit.

She re-enters.

“I hope you’re better with graveyards than you are morgues.”

.:.:.:.:.:.

An unmarked grave.

“Disturbing the dead, Mr Mulder. His spirit could haunt you.”

Mulder smiles. He likes her.

“Well, it will have to join the list.”

Two men bring out the coffin.

“You have many spirits that haunt you, then?” Scully asks.

A look to the distance. Long and hard.

“…Yes.”

“Where are we taking it?” one of the men asks. Directed at Mulder.

Um…

“The morgue,” says Scully. It’s the first time the men notice she’s standing there.

“Sir?” the man asks Mulder.

“The morgue.”

The man nods, gesturing to his colleague.

“Maybe I’m the ghost,” says Scully.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Scoop marks. Did she know?

“Did you document these?” he asks.

Scully sits at a desk, allowing Mulder to do what he needs to do.

“Yes.”

“And?”

Bewildered.

“They’re marks. Caused by Duane Barry.”

Right.

“And the marks on his cheeks?”

Calm and cool.

“Caused by Duane Barry.”

A smirk across Mulder’s face.

“So all the things about talking to the dead, spirits haunting you when you disturb them…”

Scully places the pen down.

“I think you take the alien in your profession too seriously.”

Mulder knows he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s not a secret after all.

“I told you I knew who you were.”

Mulder nods.

“So you think Duane Barry did this?”

A body rotting away.

She stands up from her chair and walks to the table.

“You believe it was something else.”

“I know it was something else.”

A pause. They stare at each other.

“I just need proof…” Mulder says looking back at the body. He picks up the file, the file Scully wrote herself.

“It’s just hard to do that when everyone else hell-bent on hiding it.”

“But I’m not hiding anything.”

And maybe she isn’t.

Mulder moves closer to her and she reflexively takes a step back.

“Could a man have made those marks, Dr Scully?”

She looks at the marks, rotting away on his stomach.

“Not a man,” she says. “A tool.”

“What kind of tool?”

She looks long and hard at the stomach. Smiles.

“When Barney’s ghosts come to you tonight, why don’t you ask him.”

In the window is a figure. A hand against the glass. Searching. FO—

He looks back at Scully.

“Maybe I will.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Tiny cells. A little girl. His voice. I know what I saw. I know what I saw. A body. A little girl. A body rotting. What does it matter? A girl in the graveyard. A girl behind frosted windows. Searching. A scream, shattering the window. Painful screams.

Mulder wakes. The girl is there.

“Hello, Fox.”

[atths--twice]

From the Kiss prompt list, the first one I chose was number two- Shy Kiss. I hope you enjoy. ❤️

Breath Exhaled

November 1994

“You sure you’re okay?” Mulder asked as she breathed heavily at her front door.

“Yes, I’m sure, Mulder,” she answered softly, sighing and then lifting her eyes to his, almost embarrassed, before looking down. “I… I don’t have my keys.” She whispered, the words and the pain in her voice hurting his heart.

“Not a problem. I happen to carry sets of keys for such emergencies,” he joked, trying to keep it light. He shifted the pink plastic drawstring bag to his other hand and fished in his pockets.

Pulling them out, he slid her key in the lock and opened the door. She hesitated for a second, before stepping across the threshold, and walking inside. He watched her look around and he knew she was reliving her abduction.

“Mulder! I need your help!”

He pushed those thoughts down, not wanting her to see he was thinking of the words that would forever haunt him. She did not need to know how many times he listened to her voice on his answering machine. How her words ripped out his heart and replaced it with something foreign, until she was with him again.

She had been through enough. Adding his own pain would be an unnecessary hurt; something he would never willingly place upon her.

“The window has been replaced, the place has been cleaned and all the locks were changed,” he said softly, watching her as she stood silently in the middle of the room. “So, even if you had them, your keys wouldn’t have worked.” He gave a nervous chuckle, and set her things down at the dining room table.

She said nothing as she stepped closer to the couch and ran her fingers across the back of it, looking at the floor where he knew Duane Barry had attacked her, the blood and broken fragments of her phone evidence it had happened.

“I… I found a phone as similar to yours as possible. I… I wanted everything to be as close to the same when you came home.”

“If I did,” she whispered, her back to him.

“No. Scully, when. It was never an if but a when,” he said quietly and she sighed, her shoulders slumped.

“How could you possibly have known that, Mulder?”

He heard the tears in her voice and he knew he needed to tread lightly. He fiddled with his keys, took a silent breath, and stepped closer to her.

“Because I know you, Scully. I know…”

“What, Mulder? What do you know?” She whipped around and the sadness on her face made him ache. “I didn’t save myself. I didn’t escape from some facility or… or a spaceship. I was found. Delivered to the hospital like some… package. Months I was gone and you say I would be back because you knew? No, Mulder.”

Her eyes filled with tears and although he knew she may not want it, he had to hold her. To touch her and be sure she was really standing there, despite seeing her and knowing it was fact. Hesitantly, he reached out and she did not move, staring at him with tears spilling from her eyes.

Slowly pulling her close, he took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. She smelled of the antiseptic scent of the hospital and not like Scully as she usually did. Like his Scully. She felt frail and weak as he held her, and he knew she would hate to be thought of that way.

Her arms wrapped around his waist and she cried softly into his chest, as though afraid to let him hear her tears, despite the fact that he could feel her body shaking. They stood silently, each drawing the strength they craved from the other.

God, he had missed her. His life had been upside down without her; the person who had been sent to spy on him, becoming the most important person in his life. He pulled her closer to him and took a deep breath, weighing the words he chose carefully.

“I knew, Scully. I knew because... any other outcome… it would have been unacceptable,” he whispered into her hair and she took a deep shaky breath. Her arms tightened around him and he felt their breathing fall in sync.

When he felt her hold on him relax, he did the same, still letting her take the time she needed. When she was ready, she took a small step back, keeping her head down. He held her chin and lifted her face to look at him, his other hand still on her upper arm. When her eyes met his, he smiled faintly and she sighed with a shake of her head.

“Unacceptable, Scully,” he whispered.

Feeling a sudden bout of courage, he leaned in and kissed her temple, something he had never done before. He moved his hand, gently caressing and holding her cheek.

His lips remained pressed against her skin, his bravery shocking him. The warmth of her flesh was the best gift he could ever receive and he wanted to feel it as long as she would allow.

She gripped the sides of his shirt and drew in a deep breath as she remained unmoving, allowing him to comfort and also be comforted.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled back and looked at him, releasing his shirt and dropping her arms by her sides. He moved his hand from her face and squeezed her arm lightly. She smiled slightly and he nodded as he stepped back.

“Do you want some tea? A bath? Anything I can help you with?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“I… I think I’d like to take a nap,” she said quietly and he nodded, knowing her well enough to know she would need time on her own.

“You sure? Anything you like, Scully, I can get it for you.”

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “I just need to sleep, but thank you, Mulder.” He nodded and walked to the door before stopping and taking his keys out of his pocket.

“Here,” he said, taking her key off his key ring. She took it from him and sighed. “I don’t want you locked out of your own home.”

“Thank you. I’ll make you another copy.”

“It’s okay, I have an extra one at home. Just in case.”

She stared at him and then stepped close, wrapping her arms around his neck. He closed his eyes and held her tight as they both once again took a breath in unison.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his neck. “For not giving up on me.”

“Never, Scully,” he whispered back and he felt her nod.

As she pulled back, she smiled. A real smile; one he had not seen in a while. She stared at him, before raising up on tiptoes to softly kiss his cheek, keeping her head down and avoiding his eyes when she stepped back.

“You get some sleep,” he said softly, touching her arm with a small smile. She nodded, her head still down.

He opened the door and stepped out, waiting to hear the lock turn before he walked away. As he rounded the corner, he stopped walking and dropped his head back, breathing a deep sigh of relief.

She was home. She was safe.

She was alive.

[mldrgrl]

Last First Kiss

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG-13 Summary: This is for all the Ed Jerse Anons sitting in my inbox who all want a variation on the theme of Scully not being satisfied that Ed would be the last man she was with.

The appointments were on the calendar for the third Thursday on the month for six months, not a secret, but they were simply marked “Scully - doctor,” like they were run of the mill check-ups and not aggressive chemotherapy.  Every third Friday was marked “Scully - out of office.”

Mulder did his best not to be too solicitous, wished her well when she packed up her things before lunch, made lame jokes about how much he’d get done without her ripping apart his theories for a day.  He didn’t know how she spent her weekends after those appointments, she could be intensely private about certain aspects of herself, her health being one of them, but it was obvious from the paleness of her cheeks, the shadows under her eyes, and the constant tremor her body seemed to have come Monday, that she suffered.

He wished she wouldn’t push herself so hard, but then again, she was a fighter.  He had to admit he was a bit in awe of her determination not to let such a grim diagnosis stop her from doing anything.  It had certainly stopped him.  Though she didn’t know it, his free time was mostly devoted to finding answers.  He didn’t care who he had to go through to find the men who gave her this disease.  If they knew how to give it to her, they knew how to take it back.

As the months went by though, the nosebleeds only got worse and at a certain point, she’d even stopped demanding that he not look at her when she did her best to clean herself up or given him dirty, ungrateful glares when he brought out the packet of tissues he’d started carrying around in his breast pocket and slipped them into her hand.  She’d stopped locking the connecting doors of their motel rooms or trying to disguise the sound of her retching in the middle of the night by running the sink at full blast.  The last two times, she’d even let him kneel beside her and dab her cheeks and the back of her neck with a cool washcloth as she limply clung to the side of the toilet.  

If he wasn’t scared before, he was now.  He could persevere as long as she was, but the moment she looked up at him with a tired, resigned gaze that told him he was finally allowed to see her like this because it didn’t matter anymore, he knew she had given up.  And now, he was desperate for those answers.

Appointment number five loomed like a thundercloud.  Mulder was tense all week and Scully was quiet.  Time moved like molasses Thursday morning.  He tried to focus on the expense report for their last case, but his mind kept wandering to ways he might offer his services to help her through the weekend.  Even with the minutes dragging by, suddenly she was shutting her computer down and he hadn’t come up with anything better than, “if you need anything, you know you can call me.”

Scully left with a murmured “see you Monday,” and he chickened out on saying anything more than a soft goodbye.  He bit his lip and as soon as he heard the elevator ding and the doors close, he choked on a quiet sob he’d been reigning in.  As quickly as he let his emotions overtake him, he pulled himself back together and pounded a fist against the top of his desk.  Scully was out there bravely fighting a losing battle alone and he wasn’t helping her by crying at his desk.  It was time for his check-in with the Gunmen, who were following up on leads in his stead.

But, the boys had nothing for him.  Nothing new, anyway.  Mulder cursed.  He was pretty sure his best bet was the black-lunged sonofabitch that seemed to pull all the strings from every direction and he’d been trying to lure the old man out of hiding for weeks to no avail.  There had to be something he could do.

He stayed at the office well into the evening, poring over his files for some connection he might have missed.  There was so much there and yet nothing at all.  He was just digging deeper rabbit holes with every file.  He finally went home when he felt like his vision was becoming too blurry to ready anything further, but he was back at it again before the sun even came up.  Strewn across his desk and the floor was Scully’s abduction file, the files on Max Fenig, Duane Barry, the women in Allentown, the personnel file he’d poached on Alex Krycek, and others bearing the slightest hint of alien activity.

Halfway through the day, it dawned on him that maybe he should change his tactic.  He wasn’t a religious man, but Scully was a religious woman, and there were examples of miraculous recoveries all over the world.  He gathered up the mess he’d made and made another printing out reams of research on holy sites and unexplained recoveries from illnesses.  Amongst them all, he found one that appealed.  In fact, it excited him so much that he found himself grabbing he jacket and driving to Scully’s apartment with a hopeful flutter in his chest.

He doesn’t know what he was thinking though, knocking on her door that Friday evening.  He hadn’t even gotten a good look at her before he was asking her if she’d ever heard about the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.  She answered his knock in a pair of snow-white flannel pajamas that were rolled up at the sleeves and ankles.  Her face was almost as white as her sleepwear, aside from the hollow grey smudges under her eyes.  Her eyes themselves were so thoroughly bloodshot it looked like it might be painful just to keep them open.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, taking her in.  “I didn’t mean to...to…”

She blinked slowly at him, like a sleepwalker still in a dream.  “Our Lady of Lourdes,” she repeated in a quiet slur.  “In France.”

“Yeah.  Yes, France.”

“What about it?”

“Um…”  

“Sorry, I need to sit down.”

“Don’t apologize,” he answered, following her to the couch.  

He glanced around.  There was a blanket waterfalling off the couch, crumbled tissues scattered across the coffee table, and a basin strategically placed on the floor beside the couch, just below the spot where the impression of her head still lingered on a pillow.  Scully pushed the blanket out of the way and folded herself up like a sheet of origami into the empty corner of the couch.

“I should go,” he said.

“Are you going to tell me the story of Saint Bernadette?” she mumbled.

“You know it?”

“Of course I know it, Mulder.”

“Oh.”

“You can tell it to me anyway.  I like your stories.”

“You do?”

“Sit down.”

Tentatively, Mulder took a seat on the opposite end of the couch.  He surreptitiously slid the basin away from his feet and picked up a closed photo album that was wedged beneath the back cushion.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Photo album.”

“Well, yeah.  Are they of you?”

She nodded.

“May I?”

She nodded again.  He opened the book and on the first page was a black and white mugshot of a swaddled newborn with a pinched face.  Next to it was the classic, naked baby on a bearskin rug photo that every parent seemed to think was necessary.  He had one of his own somewhere.  He chuckled to himself.

The next pages were a hodgepodge of Scully family photos.  There was a pensive looking toddler Scully on the lap of her smiling sister, both with loose red curls and matching baby blue dresses.  There was all four Scully children, the boys in sailor suits, the girls in navy blue pinafore dresses standing in front of a docked ship.  There was Scully blowing out eight candles on a birthday cake.  There was a professional photo of Scully from the waist up in a white lace dress and a white veil, looking upwards with gloved hands clasped in prayer.  

He turned to a page of school photos, all eerily similar, the progression of time marked only by the changes in Scully’s face and the length of hair, but the constant being the dark blazer and plaid skirt of a Catholic schoolgirl.  She only smiled in one, which he guessed to be about third grade, the rest a study in concentrated seriousness.

And then there was a photo that made him stop and bring the album closer to his face.  “Scully,” he said, squinting.  “Was your mom a triplet?”

“No,” she said, with a quiet laugh.  “She was the middle of three girls.  All a year apart.”

“I mean, they look...identical.”  And they really did.  He saw three Margaret’s in a line with their arms around each other, same dark curls, same shape of the jaw and brow, same red lipstick, even.

“The one on the right is Aunt Kate, the one on the left is Mary Pat.”

“Kate.  Katherine?  Is that where your middle name cames from?”

“Nope.  Mary Kate, Mary Margaret, Mary Pat.  Only Aunt Mary Pat uses the Mary.”

“Wait, so your mom and her sisters are all named Mary?”

“Technically, sort of.”

“What was your grandmother’s name?  Mary Magdalene?”

“Angela.”

“Oh.”

“Mary Angela.”

Mulder chuckled.

There were a few more pages of family photos and then they changed into pictures of places and people who he assumed were friends from high school or college.  There was a photo of Scully with long wavy hair holding a sleeping baby as a priest touched its little bald head.

“Your godson?” he asked.

“Mmhm.”

He flipped a few more pages.  There was photos of a cabin in the snow, of Scully in cold weather gear holding a string of fish, of a silver Volkswagen Rabbit, and a slew of photos of a beach and a lighthouse.

“Where’s this?” he asked.

“Point Loma.  It was one of my favorite places as a kid.”

“And who is this?”  He turned the photo on the next page towards Scully, of her pressed cheek to cheek with a fair-haired man with freckles across his nose and forehead.

“His name is Ethan.”  She sat up a little reached out to touch the photo with her fingertips for a few moments and then she curled back into the corner and made a small noise in the back of her throat.

“What?”

“Ethan was the last relationship I was in.”

“Oh.”

“It didn’t last long.  Three months, I think.  I don’t know, it just occurred to me that...I guess I always thought I’d have more time to…”

“To what?”

“I don’t know.”  She shook her head.  “Nothing.  Ethan will have been the last man to love me, even for a short time.”

A protest formed on Mulder’s tongue, but he held it back and looked at the picture of Scully and her ex-boyfriend again.  Maybe if things had worked out with this Ethan character, they never would’ve even met.  Or with that other guy, that Jack Willis guy from that case a few years ago.  Maybe if it had worked out between them, she wouldn’t be here now, though he can’t imagine Scully and Jack as having ever been very good together.  He really didn’t want to think about it, either.

“And Ed Jerse,” she said.

Mulder snapped to attention at the mention of that name and looked over at her.  “What about Ed Jerse?”

“Ed will be my last first kiss.”  She snorted softly and closed her eyes, brows knitting together slightly.  He took a glance at her mouth, at the dry, cracked lips that bastard had been lucky enough to touch.  It made him sad and angry.

“You do have time, Scully,” he said, emphatically.

“No, I don’t, Mulder.”

“Yes, you-”

“I don’t.”  She opened her eyes and leveled her gaze at him.  “Mulder, I’m dying.  You know it as well as I do, you just don’t want to face the truth.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.  I’m not getting better, I’m getting worse.  The tumor hasn’t changed and the chemo has just made me sick.  There isn’t anything left to do.  I know this is hard for you, but it’s just a matter of time.  And I won’t be making a pilgrimage to France to pray to the Virgin Mary and drink from healing waters, if that was your bright idea.”

“Why not?  Why not try everything we can?”

“I would rather spend the time that I have left doing the things I love.  I love my job and that’s what I want to do for as long as I’m able.”

“I can’t accept that this is the end, Scully.”

“You’re going to have to.”  Her eyes welled with tears, but didn’t spill over.

Mulder looked away and closed the photo album.  Scully slumped against the couch and shivered.  She hugged her arms across her chest and curled up even tighter.  If she got any smaller, she’d disappear.

“I’m sorry,” Mulder whispered, slipping off the couch to his knees.  He shuffled over to Scully’s side of the couch and put a hand on her arm, leaning close.  “It’s not over until it’s over.  Ethan isn’t the last man to love you, I am.  Maybe you don’t think it’s the same, but I do.”

“Mulder…”  She unraveled enough to put a hand on his cheek.  “You don’t have to.”

“I love you.”

“I know.  I...I know.”

He leaned into the palm of her hand for a moment and then reached up to cup her face with both hands.  “You’re not dying,” he whispered, just before bringing his lips to hers.  “There’s time,” he said, pulling back before moving in again.  “Don’t give up.”

The three kisses he pressed to her mouth were soft and chaste, but they’re the most heartfelt and tender kisses he’s ever shared with anyone.  He felt her tears running down between the webbing of his fingers and he brushed them away with his thumbs.  She held his wrists as he placed whispersoft kisses against her closed eyes and wet cheeks.

“I’m going to do everything I can for you,” he said.  “Everything.”

“I know.”

“Fight.”

She nodded.  He stroked the back of her head once and kissed her temple before rising.  As much as he wanted to stay, he had work to do and he needed to get to it as quickly as possible.  Maybe he could get her to hold on a little longer, but in his heart he knew he was running out of time.

The End

[ghostbustermelanieking]

First time he held her ❤❤

Mulder comes for her. It shouldn’t surprise her so much, but it does, the wonderful relief that washes over her when she hears him shouting for Pfaster to put his hands in the air. It’s not that she didn’t expect him to come, it’s just that… she thought he’d get there in time with Duane Barry. And she doesn’t blame Mulder for her abduction, for either of them, she knows how close he was on Skyland Mountain. But all she could think of in that closet was that he hadn’t gotten there on time before. And she’s never relied solely on Mulder for rescue, she’s always fought, but she knew both times that if anyone had a chance of finding her, it’s him. And this time, he came, he made it. She’s so grateful, she could cry.

He kneels beside her on the floor and works at the knots around her wrists, he shouts for paramedics, and she’s so overwhelmed, still so afraid, that all she can ask is how he found her. She still can’t quite believe it. Her eyes are on Pfaster, like he might break free, like she might have to fight him off again.

Mulder’s hands are warm on her wrists as he unknots the cord, gentle, and he speaks so softly it makes her want to sob or scream. “Sure you don’t want to sit down, Scully, and let somebody take a look at you?” he murmurs. 

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she insists immediately, willing herself to believe. She is fine, she’s alive, she survived, and she cannot fall apart here. She’s willing herself to be strong, telling herself that she’s being silly, but she aches all over, bruises from toppling down the stairs and from the car crash, scrapes on her face, her wrists and ankles and the corners of her mouth. She feels small, vulnerable, she feels tears welling up in her throat, and when Mulder reaches out and tips her chin up, probably to examine the scrape there, she can’t hold it back anymore. She swallows back a sob, leans forward on some base instinct to hide her face against his shirt so no one else sees her cry, and it’s too relieving to be embarrassed. Mulder is here and Mulder is her friend, and he came for her, and she leans bonelessly into him because she doesn’t know what else to do, crying into the folds of his shirt.

He reaches up, gingerly, to touch the back of her head, his other hand against her shoulder. She wraps her arms hard around his waist, just to feel something solid, and he holds her tighter, lips brushing her hair. He rocks her back and forth a little, whispers, “It’s all right,” and she can feel a stunning desperation in his hold. He was worried about her. 

She doesn’t quite feel safe yet—the fear is still welled up inside her, bubbling at the back of her throat, dizzying and overwhelming, she can tell she won’t sleep tonight—but Mulder’s arms, tight around her, helps. In the moment, she can’t do anything but cry. She grips handfuls of his jacket in her numb fists, she leans hard into his chest, and he just holds her. Just rocks her back and forth, waves off anyone who approaches them, and mutters soothing things to the top of her head.

—

She’s tried not to rely on Mulder for comfort. She really has. She’s offered comfort before, but she’s always felt a personal need to preserve an outward strength. (It didn’t even start with this job, this partnership; ever since she was a child, she was reluctant to look for comfort from anyone. She hates vulnerability.) Even after Mulder has been there for some of her most vulnerable moments—the aftermath of her father’s death, the ordeal with those bugs that spooked her so much, the aftermath of her abduction and the month-long quarantine—she is still reluctant to show him that side of herself. Still embarrassed. 

And as close as she and Mulder have become over the nearly two years they’ve known each other, they don’t touch a lot. When they do, it’s nearly always burned into her brain afterwards: the ordeal in the storage closet in Alaska, nearly every time Mulder almost gets himself killed. But they haven’t hugged that often. She can count the number of times they have easily: that night on their first case. The time that Mulder tried to after Jack Willis kidnapped her, and she shrugged him off. The time that Mulder did hug her after John Barnett shot her. When the X-Files got shut down, and they’d had to pack up their office, and she’d given him a sympathetic hug before they left. A handful of times when they were meeting up sporadically; always purely friendly. A few times after her abduction: always initiated by Mulder, always brief and filled with relief. 

But none of the hugs… none of them have been like this. This long. This intimate. And as much as she hates to make herself this vulnerable in front of her partner, she needs this. Needs the support of his arms, the feeling that she is protected. And she feels that Mulder needs it, too. He’s holding her close, holding her like he doesn’t want to let go, and she remembers stories she’s been told of how he was during her abduction, and knows he was terrified.

---

Her sobs slowly cease over the course of what feels like hours, but she doesn’t move and he doesn’t ask her to. His fingers are still tangled in her hair, his mouth still pressed to the top of her head, and he doesn’t seem like he’s planning to move for a while. When Scully hears the police officers coming over to ask for their statement, Mulder’s hand presses harder over her head protectively. “Back off,” he snaps, his voice darker than she would’ve expected. “Give her some space.”

“Mulder, it’s okay,” she says, sniffling a little. She pulls back reluctantly, swiping at her eyes with the tips of her fingers. He’s looking at her a little worriedly, but he’s already let go, and she steps away from him, tucking her hair back with trembling fingers. “I... I can...” she tries, but the words can’t quite come out. She doesn’t want to talk about this, she wants to scrub it from her mind. She’s suddenly grateful that They took her memories when They brought her back. 

“We’ll be over there,” says a female police officer, her voice kind. Scully looks at her, and she smiles gently. “Take all the time you need.”

Scully nods gratefully, and the officers back off. She focuses on her breathing, taking deep breaths to calm herself. 

Mulder reaches out with a gentle, tentative hand and unknots the makeshift gag from the back of her head. She’d forgotten it was there, but the sight of it makes her want to throw up. He tosses it aside in disgust and is turned back to her in a second, rubbing his thumb along the line of her jaw. She takes another shuddering breath, uncurling and curling her fists beside her. It is that horrible sinking feeling where she doesn’t want to be alone, doesn’t want to go to sleep, but she’s so exhausted she could fall asleep right now. She’s quivering underneath her jacket, and Mulder is suddenly peeling his off and draping it over hers. It’s an awkward, bulky fit, but she doesn’t care at all. “Thank you,” she says quietly. Her voice cracks, and she’s leaning into him again, she’s gripping him with the same relieved ferocity. “Thank you for coming for me,” she whispers, and feels the tears well up again. 

“Always, Scully,” he says, his voice so full of affection and promise and protectiveness that it makes her weak. Her partner, her best friend, and he wore her cross when she was gone, and he never stopped looking, he almost resigned because he thought she was going to die. He’s rocking her again. “I’m always going to come for you,” he says. “Always.”

She bites back a choked sob. “Ditto,” she tells him in a shattered voice, because she needs him to know that she would. She would.

He makes a strained sound that might be a laugh or a sob, and strokes her hair again. “I’m so sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head. Presses her face into his shirt and shakes her head. “I’m so—” he starts again, and he really sounds like he might be crying, and she says, “No,” firmly. She doesn’t have the strength to comfort him, and besides that, she doesn’t want his apologies. She just wants this. Just wants him to hold her.

He holds her. In the morning, she will be embarrassed, and they’ll never talk about this again (although the hugging somewhat becomes a habit through all the times they almost die). But right now, he just holds her, and it’s enough.

[mulderbabe77]

Partners

Mostly just shameless fluff with a little angst mixed in. Set during season 6’s Arcadia.

Warning: this is a period fic! Periods/tampons are mentioned. If that scares you, then turn back now!

Tagging @today-in-fic

—————————-

She’s running, as fast as she can. Or rather she’s being chased. It’s dark and damp; she thinks she’s in the woods somewhere. She looks to her left and then her right for Mulder, but he’s not there. He’s not anywhere. She can feel whoever is behind her gaining speed, can hear the sound of their ragged breathing. A tree root springs up suddenly from the ground in front of her and she stumbles and falls, hard. Her hands and knees scrape against the rough ground. The chase is over, she has lost. She turns to see who is behind her, heart thumping loudly in her chest, so hard she can feel it -thump-thump-thump- in her ears. She sees Duane Barry’s face coming towards her. Then it morphs into Donnie Pfaster. Then the Smoking Man. He’s come to take her away for more tests.

She awakes with a start, sitting straight up in bed, short of breath and soaked in sweat. She puts a hand on her chest, willing her racing heart to slow. It was a dream, just a dream. She takes in a few shaky, deep breaths.

For a few moments she’s disoriented, can’t place where she is. This isn’t her bedroom, or her house and her heart starts to speed up again. Her brain feels foggy, still half asleep. And then she remembers, Rob and Laura Petrie. They’re undercover in The Falls. In the Klein’s house.

She tries to calm herself again, deep breaths in and out. Her rapid heartbeat begins to slow to a more normal pace. Besides the dream, or nightmare she should call it, something else is wrong. A familiar cramping deep in her abdomen. Menstrual cramps. Her period was coming, or maybe had already arrived, she couldn’t tell yet. She couldn’t think of a worse time for her period to unexpectedly arrive. It wasn’t due now, at least she didn’t think it was, but she should have known better. Her periods are rarely regular since the abduction, coming and going as they choose. And then even more irregular after her cancer treatments, even more than a year or so later they’re sporadic at best.

She heads to the bathroom. Yep, tampon definitely needed. She’s relieved to find an emergency one in her suitcase, but that’s it. She’ll have to hit the drugstore in the morning, which is still a few hours away. It’s only 3am. She balls up her pajamas into a bag of her other dirty clothes. She’ll need to wash them in cold water in the morning.

She re-dresses in fresh pajamas, lays down and tries to go back to sleep. She’s drifting off and straight back to the nightmare she left. This time she sees Eugene Tooms hovering over her. She wakes up panting again 10 minutes later, body broken out in a cold sweat. Her head is pounding, the migraine already taking up residence in her skull, pulsing relentlessly behind her left eye. She’s cramping hard and she feels awful. Ibuprofen. Need ibuprofen, is all she can get her brain to register. She slips out of bed.

The click of the bedroom door wakes him immediately and his eyes flick open to see Scully quietly tiptoeing down the hall trying carefully not to make any noise.

He hears her in the kitchen, shuffling through a box as quietly as one can. He hears the pop of a pill bottle and her shaking some pills out.

He’s on his feet and shuffling into the kitchen. She jumps about 10 feet when she looks up to see him standing in the doorway.

“God, you scared me!”

“Sorry,” he says quietly.

“No, I’m sorry, I was trying not to wake you,” she says shakily. She tosses the pills into her mouth and takes a big gulp from the water bottle in her hand.

“It’s ok, not your fault really. I haven’t been able to get into a deep sleep yet. I keep thinking I’m hearing things. You ok?” He asks, nodding towards the pills. He looks her over carefully, something seems off. She’s pale, and the little tendrils of hair right at her temples are curling and damp with sweat.

“I, uh, I had a nightmare. And I’m not feeling that well,” she stammers, avoiding his eyes.

“Do you have a fever?” He moves to take a step towards her but she shakes her head no and steps back further out of his reach.

“No, it’s not that, Mulder. Go back to bed, I’ll be fine,” she insists and starts to make her way around him.

He doesn’t quite believe her, but it’s 4am, so he’s not going to push it.

“Ok,” he nods, retreating back to the couch.

She heads back to the bedroom, wanting desperately just to curl into a ball and sleep, but sleep won’t come. She lays there in agony for an hour, maybe more. The minutes tick by slowly. She feels sick to her stomach, her body is rejecting the pills she stupidly took on an empty stomach. She wishes she had nibbled on a cracker or something. A little while later she’s heaving into the toilet.

“Scully?” She hears him knock gently, just outside the bathroom door.

“Go away, Mulder,” she pleads.

“I’m not going anywhere if you’re sick.”

He peeks his head in through the door. She’s sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, leaning heavily against the wall. She reaches up to flush the toilet before he comes any closer and then crumples down onto the floor again holding her stomach.

“Is it something you ate?” He thinks back to everything they’ve consumed in the last 24 hours. He feels fine.

“No, Mulder,” she sighs. “It’s my period, ok? I feel like shit.”

“Oh.” He’s not sure what to say. I mean logically he knows she has periods (he thinks, based on past observations), and because she’s obviously a woman. He’s somewhat aware of female reproductive health, though he’s never given it much thought and they’ve never talked about it in the six years they’ve been partners.

“Is it always this bad?” He can’t imagine her being this sick every month and him never noticing in six years, but then again, he knows that he can be a bit of a self-absorbed prick at times, though he hopes not to that extent.

“No,” she shakes her head carefully, trying to keep the thumping in her skull at bay. “Only sometimes.” She sighs again. She doesn’t want to be having this conversation.

“I need to go to the drugstore. I didn’t bring anything with me. This was....unexpected.” She doesn’t feel like moving a muscle.

“I’ll go,” he offers.

“No, Mulder. You don’t need to do that. I’m a big girl- I can buy my own tampons. I’ve been doing it the past 20 or so years.”

“Scully, don’t take this the wrong way but you don’t look like you’re in any shape to go anywhere right now. Please just go lay down and I’ll be back in 15 minutes. There’s a CVS just up the main road.”

She hesitates. “Please?” He wants to do something for her, anything to make her feel better.

“Fine,” she concedes. She doesn’t have it in her to argue, just climbs to her feet, walks slowly back to the bed and collapses into a ball under the covers.

He strokes her hair softly, “I’ll be right back.”

Somehow Mulder has survived his entire life without ever having to visit the feminine hygiene aisle of a drugstore, or any store for that matter. He mulls over the vast number of choices and ends up seeing a familiar looking box. He’s fairly certain he’s seen this blue and yellow Tampax box in Scully’s suitcase and bathroom before. He grabs the box off the shelf and hurries towards the register hoping not to run into anyone, but today is not his lucky day.

“Rob! What’re you doing out this early on a Saturday?”

Mulder turns and plasters on his best fake smile.

“Win! Hey... buddy.”

“Cami sent me up here to pick up some treats for Scruffy. I like to get an early start to my days. What are you- ahhhh,” he eyes the box Mulder is carrying. “I see the Mrs sent you on an errand as well,” he gives Mulder a reassuring smile.

“Umm... yep. You know how it is,” he smiles awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“You bet I do. Ten years later and I’m still not used to the mood swings, and all that other stuff that goes along with it. Well, you know - it’s like a roller coaster. One minute they’re happy, next thing you know they’re bawling their eyes out, or screaming at you. Then there’s the cramps, backaches, headaches, bloating, fatigue.” Wow, he sure does know a lot about this, Mulder thinks to himself. Win continues on, “But anyway, I’m sure you know all about it yourself.”

“Sure, sure,” was all he could say. Sure he knew Scully could be a bit moody from time to time but he had never attributed it to her menstrual cycle before. He usually attributed it to him being an ass, or to him ditching her.

“Well I better get going, Win. Got to get back to the Mrs,” he says, hoping for a quick escape as he turns on his heel to head toward the register.

“Good luck!” Win calls after him.

Mulder nods and waves goodbye.

He slips quietly back into the house. Scully is still right where he left her, curled up in bed, but not asleep. He sets the bag on the nightstand and perches on the side of the bed next to her, taking her hand in his.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shakes her head no, eyes closed. “Didn’t bring my heating pad, wish I had,” she mumbles quietly.

“Would that help?”

She nods.

“Hold on, I have an idea,” he gets up and heads towards the kitchen.

A few minutes later her returns with a giant stuffed warm sock. One of his dress socks. He puts it in her hands and she moans at the warmth coming off of it, immediately pushing it down onto her aching abdomen.

“What is this?” She sighs, already feeling some relief.

“A little something my mom showed me years ago for muscle aches when you don’t have a heating pad. Just throw some rice into a big sock and microwave for about a minute and a half and voila- instant heating pad. We just happened to have some rice in our pantry of staged food.”

“This is amazing. Thank you.” She gives him a small smile and squeezes his hand.

“Get some sleep ok?” He squeezes her hand back. She nods, already feeling her eyelids drooping. The warmth on her stomach lulling her to sleep.

He tiptoes out of the room, decides to go shower in the guest bath, start breakfast and look over the case some more.

——————-

She appeared downstairs late morning, showered and dressed and seemingly ready for whatever the day would bring. But he could tell by the way she moved that she wasn’t quite feeling like herself yet. Each thing she did he could tell was precisely planned to use as little energy as possible and every ten minutes or so she would stop to rub her temples or massage her lower back with her hands.

He knew she wasn’t exaggerating when she had so willingly admitted to feeling like shit earlier that morning. It was rare for her to actually admit to feeling poorly. He could count the times on one hand, three of them being during her cancer treatments which had made her feel so sick and weak that she had called in and taken a sick day. There was one other time when she had an awful case of the flu that lasted a week, and then today. So he knew it was serious. She was not one of those people who milked any illness under the sun for sympathy- she was the exact opposite, never admitting or giving in.

Their conversation was limited - she didn’t seem in the mood for small talk or their usual chit chat or playful banter. He was careful to give her space and not hover.

By evening and a few more doses of ibuprofen she seemed to be feeling a bit more like herself. They ordered in takeout for dinner- soup and sandwiches. She had asked for something light.

They were cleaning up when Mulder started a conversion, against his better judgement.

She was standing at the sink washing the silverware from dinner.

“How come you never told me it gets this bad sometimes?” he asked.

“Because, Mulder. It’s just not not something I talk about.”

“You don’t talk about anything with me. Especially anymore,” he says the last part quietly, almost to himself. It sounds like an accusation to her. But it’s true, she’s been very closed off from him lately. She’s put a wall up. He’s noticed and he hates it.

She glares at him across the counter, and he continues on.

“Why is it so hard for you to open up to me?” he pushes.

“You really have to ask that, Mulder?”

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t mean for this to turn into an argument, and she doesn’t want it to be, but that seems to be where it’s headed.

“Sometimes, Mulder, I feel like I just don’t matter to you at all.”

Ouch. That one felt like a dagger through his heart.

She continues on, he’s gotten her fired up.

“You chose her over me, Mulder. Even after all the proof I gathered. Actual data that the Gunmen and I dug up to show you just how sneaky and secretive Diana Fowley has been since you knew her all those years ago. How do you think that makes me feel? How do you expect me to open up to you about anything when you turn around and take her side over mine and just dismiss everything I have to say?”

And she’s crying. She doesn’t want to be, but she is. Too many emotions combined with hormones swirling around everywhere. She can’t help it. Big fat tears are falling down her cheeks and her shoulders are starting to shake.

She’s been holding this in for weeks. Trying not to act hurt.

“Scully...” he takes a few steps towards her and she falls into his chest. Wanting to seek comfort there but furious at herself for doing so. “It’s not like that at all. You have to know I would never choose her over you. Never,” he whispers into her hair.

“Then why does it feel like you did?”

“Scully, listen to me when I say this. Diana is my past and that’s all she’ll ever be to me. If I gave you any idea otherwise, I’m sorry. I reacted poorly when you came at me with all that information. You are the one who has stood by my side all these years. I’ll always choose you over her. Always. Please, don’t ever shut me out. We’re partners,” and she knows he means more than just work partners, though it’s unspoken.

“I know, it just- it hurt Mulder.”

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs into her hair, placing gentle kisses along her forehead and temple.

She’s able to slow her tears after a few minutes and feels a bit foolish when she pulls away from his chest.

“God, Mulder, I’m sorry,” she wipes at her eyes. “I’m just... kind of on an emotional roller coaster today. This is so unlike me.”

“Well I hear that happens during that time of the month. Or at least that’s what Win tells me.”

“What?” She’s really confused now.

“Yeah, I ran into Win at the drug store this morning and he saw what I was buying.”

“Oh God,” she blushes a little bit and winces. “Sorry, Mulder.”

“It��s fine, Scully. That’s what being partners is all about,” he squeezes her hand reassuringly.

“God, I can’t believe we’ve been partners six years and this is the first conversation we’ve ever had about periods,” she remarks and they both laugh out loud.

He secretly hopes it isn’t the last intimate conversation they share. Maybe her walls are coming down.

End

[poolsidescientist]

Banana peel prompt anon here: I didn't have a specific pairing in mind, but for me it kind of screams Mulder. But whatever you want to do I'm gonna love!

Hey anon, finally finished :) hope you’re alright with angst. This is set during Scully’s abduction in season two.

The mess in the basement office could only be described as resembling a warzone. As someone who had once fought in an actual warzone, FBI assistant director Walter Skinner was deeply distressed by this fact. The office had been messy as long as agent Mulder had occupied it. Agent Scully had attempted to make it habitable, and was somewhat successful. Even after the X-Files had been shut down, both agents still occasionally made their way down there from time to time. What Mulder and Scully did down there was the subject of much watercooler gossip. A.D. Skinner was not one for gossip.

A.D. Skinner was one to care about his subordinates however, and though he was hesitant to admit it, he did have a soft spot for the troublemakers downstairs. They investigated cases that nobody else would. They were his favourite team. Or so they used to be until Duane Barry abducted agent Scully off to God knows where. Agent Mulder was heartbroken, agent Krycek was nowhere to be found, and Skinner’s office stank of cigarette smoke. Other than a case out in California, Mulder had holed himself up in the basement office. He read old files obsessively, looking for clues that he may have missed. Mulder blamed himself for everything.

It was 1:00am when Skinner made his way down to the basement. He had been arguing with his wife as of late, and took to burying himself in his work. The way he always did when he was stressed. After overhearing the janitors complain about the state of the basement, Skinner figured Mulder needed someone to check in on him and that he needed to stretch his legs.

Skinner smelled Mulder’s office before he saw it. Something had rotted somewhere, though Skinner did not have any desire to know what or where. The place stank. Files were everywhere, and papers littered all visible surfaces. The trash bin was filled and so were mounds around them, covered in black dots that Skinner quickly realised were a swarm of flies. There were pencils in the ceiling and films stacked haphazardly against the wall. Somewhere in this mess was Mulder. He took a step forward, not realizing what he was stepping in and fell backwards straight into one of the piles of garbage. Flies swarmed around his head which had crashed into a pile of decomposing mush that Skinner didn’t dare ask the content of.

“Dammit!” he yelled. At this Mulder in his rumpled suit with bags under his crazed eyes emerged from behind a stack of files.

“Assistant director, what are you doing here? It’s one in the morning?” His shirt was spotted with grease and coffee stains.

“I could ask you the very same question agent Mulder.”

“Wait, did you seriously just slip on a banana peel?” Skinner looked down at his foot, sure enough a brown and slimy banana peel was stuck to his shoe. He kicked it away, though most of the flies surrounding it continued to hop around his leg.

“With all due respect agent Mulder, what the fuck? The janitors don’t even want to come down here. This office is a health hazard. Agent Scully would be ashamed of you.” Skinner brushed empty sunflower seed shells and candy wrappers off of his head and crawled out of the trash pile he had fallen into.

“Don’t you DARE question my loyalty to agent Scully. I would do anything for her and you damn well know that.” Mulder’s posture stiffened, yet at the same time he was on the verge of tears. The man was an absolute wreck. Not that Skinner was doing much better himself.

“And agent Scully would do anything for you. Working yourself to death won’t save her, you think she would want to see you like this?” Skinner stood up, looking down on Mulder. In the man’s eyes he saw a frightened child, “Mulder, when was the last time you ate something that wasn’t out of a vending machine?”

“Seeds.” He pointed to the bag on his desk, sunflower seeds scattered across the files and on the floor.

“Other than seeds.” Skinner wiped the remaining shells off of his suit.

“Probably that banana you just stepped in.” How Mulder had lived as long as he had was a mystery to Skinner.

“Agent Mulder-”

“I should probably go eat something. There’s a 24 hour diner three blocks away that has sweet potato pie. That counts as a vegetable.” Mulder said sheepishly. At that moment, Skinner’s own stomach started to growl and he realised that he had eaten nothing since lunch.

“I should probably eat something too. It’ll be my treat.” Mulder looked up with both curiosity and suspicion.

“As my boss?”

“As your friend.”

[thecartoonmuseum]

Modesty Blaise

By MAWalker

In 1963 one of the most enduring characters of British cartoon strips came to life by the hand of writer Peter O’Donnell and artist Jim Holdaway. The name, Modesty Blaise. The profession, fearless and incredibly smart adventurer.

The road to publication was not an easy one for this suave and cynical character. In 1962, Bill Aitken, the editor of the strip cartoon for the Daily Express contacted O’Donnell to commission a strip for his newspaper. In response to the question, “what kind?” O’Donnell received the dreamed answer, “The kind of strip you want to write.” O’Donnell requested artist Jim Holdaway to join the project and Aitken agreed. Everything was set, but the creative juices had to be stirred before the central character came to life.

O’Donnell then remember one of those decisive moments in real life that left an indelible mark. It happened in 1945 during his wartime service in the Middle East. His unit had a chance meeting with a very young refugee girl whom they encountered in the Persian desert, miles away from anywhere. Little did he know at that moment that this meeting would become the seed of inspiration for his new character: a young woman without a name or a past who wandered the post-WWII Mediterranean basin learning to fend for herself and who eventually became the leader of a criminal organization called the Network. Soon enough Modesty was joined by his sidekick, or right-hand man, Willie Garvin, and he became her most trusted friend--yes, they were only friends! Theirs was a very platonic relationship, kind of like Mulder and Scully if you get the reference. In time both of them became so rich that they left the Network and settled in London, where new adventures awaited them some of them even done in the service of Queen and country! 

The characters and the stage were set after a year of hard work on the project. O’Donnell and Holdaway were ready to finish the preliminary story to introduce the characters when the unexpected happened. O’Donnell learned that the chairman of the the Daily Express, Max Aitken, considered the criminal past of Modesty Blaise a liability for the family-oriented newspaper and refused to publish it. Thankfully, Bill Aitken did not give up on the project and asked if he could submit the comic strip to the Evening Standard. Charles Wintour, the editor of that newspaper, saw its potential and snatched it. The first strip of Modesty Blaise was published on  the 13th of May,1963, and it ran almost uninterruptedly until strip number 10,183 on Wednesday the 11th of April, 2001. Each story ran for between 18 and 20 weeks.

Jim Holdaway produced seventeen complete stories, plus the introductory one from 1963 to 1970. His sudden death at the age of 43 was a tragedy for the industry. His artistic style and vision gave life not only to Modesty and Willie, but also to Sir Gerald Tarrant, Fraser, Weng and their archnemesis Gabriel. His original comic strips were widely admired, and even now they are still avidly sought by collectors.

Filling the shoes of Jim Holdaway was not going to be easy. O’Donnell turned then to Enric Badia Romero, a Spanish artist based in Barcelona whose English was almost non-existent. Luckily, his style was one that O’Donnell approved of, and in a very short time they developed a very active and mutually beneficial working relationship, even though Romero needed to have the scripts translated into Spanish before he could draw them. From 1970 to 1978, Romero drew Modesty through twenty two different stories demonstrating along the way his fine artistry and strong empathy to the characters. Sadly, other work related commitments made Romero drop Modesty in 1978. This meant that a new artist had to take the reins of the adventures of Modesty and Willie.

Barry Coker, Romero’s agent, suggested that John M. Burns be brought on board, and that’s how the widely experienced Burns became the third artist to take on Modesty Blaise. From November 1978 to September 1979, Burns created two full stories and he was in the middle of a third one when he was suddenly dismissed. What prompted the editor of the Evening Standard, Charles Wintour, to fire him is still a mystery even today. Gerald Lip, the Cartoon Editor for the Newspaper and the lettering artist of Modesty Blaise, was the one that had to give Burns the sad news. Furthermore, it was up to him to find a replacement in record time. Lip turned to the agent Barry Coker once more, who suggested Pat Wright. Wright took the mantle then until May 1980. After drawing 198 strips he was also dismissed. His artistic style did not sit well with the character and his did not seem to be a very inspiring tenure.

The next artist to work on Modesty Blaise was the New Zealander Neville Colvin, who was not too sure about drawing a woman. Regardless of his misgivings, he was in charge of the visual storytelling from May 1980 until 1986. After drawing over one thousand one hundred strips of our intrepid heroine’s story, he decided to retire.

And who did Gerald Lip turned to then? He went back to Enric Badia Romero. Romero’s previous commitments had ended and he was then quite free to take on Modesty Blaise once more. The successful partnership between Romero and O’Donnell resumed, and he stayed on board until Modesty Blaise retired from the Evening Standard on the 11th of April, 2001. It was the 81st birthday of O’Donnell.

Modesty Blaise was syndicated after it appeared in the Evening Standard. Soon after the last panel in the last strip was published, many newspapers began to run her story from the beginning.

Interesting enough, starting in 1965 and until 1996 Modesty Blaise jumped into the pages of eleven novels, two short-story collections, and three movies (1966, 1983, and 2003)--all of them quite horrible, by the way.  

Peter O'Donnell passed away on the 3rd of May, 2010, a couple of weeks after celebrating his 90th birthday. His creation, Modesty Blaise, will continue to live on and through her his thrilling stories.

The Daily Funnies: An Exhibition of Strip Cartoons is currently showing two of the original strips by Jim Holdaway and John Burns. The exhibition will run  until the 5th of November, 2017, at the Cartoon Museum.

Further Reading

Blackmore, Lawrence. 2014. The Art of Modesty Blaise. London: A Book Palace Book.

Harvey, R.C. 2015. “Modesty Blaise and Peter O’Donnell and the Last Great Adventure Strip.” The Comics Journal.  Accessed 10/8/2017.

Moss, Simon. N/D. “Interview with Peter O’Donnell.” Accessed 5/8/2017.

O’Donnell, Peter. 2013. “Modesty Blaise”. Accessed 12/8/2017.

________. 2002. “Girl Walking-The Real Modesty Blaise”. Accessed 5/8/2017.

Pattison, Jim. 1998. “The Complete Modesty Blaise Dossier.” Accessed 9/8/2017.

Wikipedia. “Modesty Blaise”. Accessed 12/8/2017.  

[melforbes]

sunday, 3am

“Gently,” she stressed.

Sitting on the sink-counter, she looked washed-out in the harsh fluorescent light of their bathroom, a little spatter of blood staining the shoulder of her light blue scrubs, her skin a wintery kind of pale and her freckles fading as though they’d been one of God’s afterthoughts. Her braid rested tattered and ripped down her spine, long red strands falling in front of the bruises on her cheek, and as he carded her hair back behind her ear, she flinched involuntarily, her shaky hands stilling on her lap, her breath hitching.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, the bag of ice in his hand hovering before her, his brain buzzing in the overtired way he used to feel accustomed to. If his circadian rhythms were reliable, then he and his body estimated that three in the morning, maybe half past, had come and gone. A long time ago, she’d told him that keeping lights on from the nighttime hours of ten-to-ten harmed the brain’s ability to produce melatonin, but he figured that light would be the least of their worries tonight.

Softly, she met his gaze, then looked back down at her lap.

“Sorry,” she said, wincing at the word. “I’m just...I’m still a little shaken up.”

He nodded, then gingerly brought the ice to her cheek, and though she recoiled at first, luckily she eased against his touch, let out a deep, exhausted breath.

“Is there any bleeding?” she asked, her voice muffled by the ice.

“None at all,” he said.

She swallowed, said, “The nurse there seemed like she was doing a great job of cleaning it.”

“And you’re absolutely sure you’re not concussed?” he asked as he leaned against the sink, the house around them so still and silent that it made the winter beyond them feel heavier and thicker than it already was. 

Looking up at him, she delicately pressed her lips together, said, “Had the nurse check. No headache or dizziness. I’m fine, Mulder.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding to himself. 

Though she avoided late shifts and preferred not to work on Saturdays, she’d been on a Saturday evening to Sunday morning emergency room shift, eight pm to eight pm, but a one am call let him know that a drunk patient, a punch to the face, and some police involvement meant that she would be coming home early. The last time he, in her words, went caveman left them both embarrassed and uncomfortable, but now, he wished he could’ve been there, could’ve watched over her and had her back so that some drunkard would’ve never decked her behind a modesty curtain, wouldn’t have had a chance to let her head thud against a sterile linoleum floor before punching her again. Though he wanted to think of this protectiveness as more than an ancient biological imperative, though he wished he didn’t find himself at fault for something so clearly irrelevant to his existence, he still brought Duane Barry and Phillip Padgett and all of the other men who had wronged her to mind, wondered once more if he could’ve done more. While at the Bureau, he could’ve argued that he was her partner, that it was of the utmost importance for them to watch each other’s backs, but now, he could hardly merit the wish.

And had he been there, he probably would’ve been decked too, only he would’ve cried about it instead of stoically driving home afterward like she did. Sometimes, he figured, the universe chose to punch the ones who could take it, not the ones who couldn’t.

“You’re never working a night shift again,” he said, hoping to elicit a laugh or at least a pained smile; thankfully, she reached toward him, wrapped her fingers in his open hand, kept her eyes down but let him know that she was present and receptive anyway. 

“I sure hope not,” she said, “but if they ever want me to, I’m sure that citing this incident will make them change their minds.”

Softly, he laughed, and though he figured it would hurt her to smile, the purplish and red smears of bruises on her cheeks keeping her from moving her face too much, she still quirked her lip, the movement minute but visible. 

“Did you have any Advil before you got home?” he asked.

“I had one before I left the hospital.” 

“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”

She sucked her lips in again, met his gaze, so he nodded in understanding. He figured neither or them would be getting much sleep tonight.

“Well,” he said, his voice turning theatrical, “I can offer some warm milk-”

“No hot liquids,” she said quickly. “Have to keep the swelling down.”

“Okay,” he said, off-put. There went his ideas for chamomile tea and maybe a warm bath in order to calm her down. “Then, cold water.”

“Thrilling.”

He squeezed her hand.

“What are you looking for, then?” he asked. “My mind goes numb after midnight.”

Taking a deep breath, she said, “A movie, something mindless. Just until we feel we could fall asleep.”

So she shed her blood-smeared scrubs and opted for pajamas and thick socks; while she migrated to the couch, held the ice against her more bluish cheek, he rifled through their bookshelf, found Sleepless in Seattle and liked the irony it provided, so he popped the tape in, the lights off in their living room, the fish tank fluorescent and bubbling in the background, the winter winds shifting the shutters on their fixer-upper farmhouse. He sat on her less-bruised side, and as she spread a shared blanket over their laps, he fast-forwarded coming attractions of many years ago, her two hands wrapping around his free one. While the movie began, he tuned Meg Ryan out and kept his eyes on her instead, tried to survey her body for telltale signs of stress. 

She’d told him long ago that she felt anxiety not in her mind but in her limbs, in her joints; while her thoughts told her to push forward, her body cringed and faded, her demise coming not from her will but from her physical breakdown, so he’d tried to be a constant for her, had kept track of her hours and made sure that, even when she seemed so determined to finish just one more stack of paperwork, she would go home for a good night’s rest instead. From those many times, he knew what to look for: raised shoulders, shaky hands, huffed breaths, glasses pushed up far more often than one would expect. However, tonight shifted that response because her breakdown had come from a patient, not from herself, so while she took shallow breaths during the movie, he traced his thumb against the back of her hand, let her lean into him with her face angled so that his shoulder and her bruises never quite made contact. As four am ticked past, he realized that he’d never watched this movie in full, but because he’d distracted himself during the first half of the film, he hadn’t a clue where the plot went.

“Scully?” he whispered, almost wincing at how his voice interrupted the special, rural silence around them. 

When she didn’t shift, he craned his neck, and though he should’ve been able to tell through her long, languid breaths against his chest, he only noticed that she’d fallen asleep when he looked down and saw her closed eyes. Reaching for the remote, he turned the television off, and with deft, gentle motions, he managed to lift her up without waking her - after all, she could sleep anywhere, from passenger’s seats of cheap rental cars to bleach-ridden motel beds to his old leather couch back before he’d been able to offer her a bed instead - and carried her upstairs though his aging joints protested with each step. 

Thankful that he’d left the bed unmade after she’d called, he managed to slip her beneath the overturned sheets on his side of the bed, tucked her in before he climbed in on the other still-made side. Out here, the nights were dark save for the endless lines of unobstructed stars in the sky, so he kept their bedroom’s blinds up, soft light falling over her bruising face, the rise and fall of her chest shifting the duvet while she slept. Her pillow smelled like that lavender shampoo she liked, and though the stuffing was too thick for him, he found that he could still relax into it, their respective alarm clocks off for now, her bedside book-stack dwindling as his seemed only to grow larger, her reading glasses askew and the closet door left open in a way that would’ve scared him as a child. 

And he presented himself with two lonely options: either he could work out hundreds of different scenarios that left her unscathed and him some kind of half-assed hero, or he could watch her soft breaths until their cadence lulled him to sleep. For once, he picked the second option and drifted off before morning began to creep through the windows.

[slippinmickeys]

The Earl (12/13)

If you’d like to read on AO3, you may do so here. 

CHAPTER TWELVE

Scully looked about the cottage around her with a critical eye. With what she had on hand, there had to be something she could do or use to escape this place.

The windows were a non-starter; they were too small to fit through. It would have to be the door. It was locked from the outside -- the door itself, ancient and made of oak; she could pound at it for days and never get through. She briefly considered using leverage to perhaps lift it off its hinges, but it was set tightly and even if she could put together some kind of lever and fulcrum, it had nowhere to go. The lock itself was also old, made of iron. Even with the strength of a blacksmith she wouldn’t be able to smash it, either.

A blacksmith, she thought. A smith doesn’t make things with strength only -- he heats the metal to make it malleable enough to work with. Perhaps if she could heat the iron of the lock -- it was an old, simple one, with few pins -- just enough to soften it, a swift, strong kick could break the mechanism…

She had firewood enough for a blaze, but no coal, the fuel of the smith. Wood would not burn hot enough, nor steady or strong enough to do what she needed it to do. On top of that, she had no way of directing the heat.

She wandered into the scullery of the kitchen, assessing its contents.

The lye could be helpful, she thought. Concentrated lye mixed with water would make a fairly corrosive solution, but even if she applied it to the door or lock, it would take far more time than she had to damage or weaken either enough to break through them. The kerosene was a thought, but would burn out quickly and she had no desire to breathe either smoke or fumes -- particularly since she couldn’t open the windows for fresh air.

She paced the cottage, thinking, eventually grabbing an apple from the table and shining it on the grungy front of her frock. She took a bite, chewing contemplatively.

She had the items in the kitchen. She had a few books, the clothes she wore. The bed, two chairs from the main sitting room and a small, sturdy side table that sat between them, upon which she’d deposited the many hair pins that had fallen out of her coiffure when Spender hacked it off. She fingered one in her hand.

Aluminum, she thought. Something was pinging in the back of her mind. Aluminum would react with lye if water were added -- the reaction of which would rapidly create an evolution of hydrogen gas. It would be highly exothermic and the hydrogen itself would ignite and burn at an extremely high temperature. It probably wouldn’t burn long, but if she were able to build up enough pressure and direct the reaction exactly where she wanted it…

She rushed into the scullery and pulled up the large glass vinegar bottle, setting it on the ancient kitchen table. The bottle was sturdy and large, with a long narrow neck and thick cork that fit tightly enough in the opening that she struggled to get it off. It could work, she thought.

Scully dragged the heavy end table from the living space over to the door. It was about one foot too low. She brought over several of the books and stacked them so that they leaned against the door. She brought over the bottle and set it on the table, then leaned it against the books, facing the narrow bottle opening at the lock. It was a bit too high. She took another bite of apple. Only one thing to be done.

She opened the top book and, apologizing -- out loud, to a book -- she tore about ten pages out. Then another ten. She tried lining up the bottle again. A few more centimeters should do it. She ripped out another thirty pages of the book, the thought alone making her sick to her stomach, and again lined up the bottle. Perfect. The neck and mouth of the bottle were positioned directly at the lock’s keyhole. Now she needed to secure it there.

Looking down at the bottom of the dirty, too-long hem of her borrowed frock -- which was filthy and torn in two places, she leaned down and grabbed onto it. And pulled. Once she got a finger through one of the tears, the rest was easy -- she yanked and ripped and was able to tear off the whole of the hem in one long, grimy strip. She put the strip of fabric over the top of the bottle and down under the table. If she pulled and knotted it well, it should secure the bottle in place. If it even worked, the pressure that built up inside the bottle would force its way out of the neck and mouth -- eventually blowing out the cork and acting as a kind of concentrated torch. If it burned for even ten to twenty seconds, it would do so at an incredible heat. The iron of the pins in the lock would soften, at least a little, and -- if she were lucky -- one or two swift and immediate kicks and the lock would fail.

If her knowledge of science was correct.

She remembered a dialogue she’d had with Mulder only a few weeks before when he lamented the lack of common sense and intelligence in their society at large:

“Yes, but you’ve had all the education English society offers it’s young gentlemen ,” she had said.

“Yes, where I was taught to suss out the inflections of our dear language,” he replied, looking at her levelly. “You were denied an education.”

“All young ladies are denied an education,” she crossed her arms over her chest.

“A practice I don’t intend to continue should we be blessed with daughters,” he had mumbled, moving to her and nuzzling her neck to distract her from her anger.  

She’d had to educate herself, and she had done so. Now she needed to see if she was as smart as she hoped.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The house was in utter chaos. Through the night and into the next day, it had been searched high and low for the missing footman to no avail. He was the last person to have seen Duane Barry -- who had been about to tell them where Scully was being held -- alive, and he’d up and disappeared like a sneeze in the wind. No one had seen him coming or going, and the bed where the man had slept was perfectly made, the corners pulled tight. He had left no possessions to speak of -- nothing to direct anyone to where he might have gone.  

Mulder felt flayed. His chest laid bare and cracked open, his heart torn out, and all that was left was an aching chasm of gristle and bone and sinew.

Byers was in his study going over maps of the estate and surrounding areas with the land steward when Mulder wandered in. The two men were leaning over an older drawn map discussing the property lines and ownership of nearby estates -- they were all certain that Scully was being kept somewhere nearby. Mulder flopped onto a divan in the corner of the room doing his best not to give in completely to despair.  

Headly appeared in the study doorway.

“Lord Wexford,” he said, bowing deferentially. “Someone to see you, my lord.” He nodded his head toward the house’s main door.

Mulder excused himself from Byers and the steward and made his way toward the door, the dull sound of talking increasing in volume and urgency as he approached.

“I know this isn’t my house, but I say we don’t let the brigand in until he states his business!” Mr. Frohike all but shouted.

“Sir, all you need know of my business is that it is not yours,” a voice gruffed from the doorway. Mulder recognized the grumble and felt the faintest flame of hope reignite in his chest.

“Did I hear there’s a brigand at the door?” Mulder said loudly, causing the amassed people therein (Mr. Frohike, Mr. Langly, two footmen, and the two figures standing outside) to quiet instantly and turn toward his voice. “Walter,” he said, and the gathered retinue parted for him as the Red Sea did for Moses.

The taller figure in the doorway gave a half smile and reached forward to shake Mulder’s hand. “My lord.” He nodded at Mulder and looked to the other man who stood in the doorway, a long leather greatcoat hanging from wiry, muscular shoulders, his hair cropped close to his head. “My associate and I need to speak with you. Urgently.”

Mulder’s smile faded and, with an apologetic look to Frohike, gestured for the newcomers to follow him through the house and into Byers’ study, where the baronet was standing, looking fairly startled by the appearance of the newcomers. He quickly dismissed his steward.

When Frohike and Langly came into the study after them and stood on either side of their titled business associate with crossed arms and suspicious looks, Captain Walter Skinner, whose acquaintance with Mulder went back some way, looked at him warily.

“Lord Wexford, the information we came to share with you is on a manner of some… delicacy.”

“In reference to the matter I wrote to you of?” Mulder asked, referring to his inquiry of CBG Spender. Captain Skinner nodded. “They know all,” Mulder finished, nodding at Langly to close the door.

Skinner squared his jaw, digesting this, and then nodded toward his companion. “This is John Doggett, he is an associate of mine at Bow Street.”

“My lord,” Doggett said shortly.

“Rumor is sweeping through Town that the Countess of Wexford has been kidnapped for ransom,” Skinner said, looking at Mulder through small wire glasses.

“How I wish the rumors weren’t true,” Mulder said.

Skinner nodded, as though he had suspected as much. “When we heard, we knew we could not delay. We have information on this man, this CGB Spender.”

Heads raised and all eyes in the room sharpened.

“As I explained in my letter, ‘Spender’ is merely an alias.”

“Carl Gerhardt Bush, Jack Colquitt, Raul Bloodworth,” piped up Doggett, “the list is long. But the name we came across most recently drew our attention.”

Doggett looked to Skinner, who took over explanation:

“Does the name Alec Fitzsimmons mean anything to you?”

Mulder shook his head.

“Fitzsimmons runs an import business out of Lewisham. On the books, it’s nothing very interesting as far as what the man trades in-“  

“Off the books, however-“ Doggett cut in. Mulder looked to the former Captain.

“Munitions,” Skinner said, “we have reason to suspect he is running powder and munitions to Bonaparte.” Mulder saw Frohike raise his brows. “But that’s another matter,” he went on, “the import business itself was established some thirty years ago, but has recently taken on a silent partner. A partner by the name of CGB Spender,” Skinner went on. “And when we paid a visit to the offices of the Fitzsimmons Trading Company, a likeness of its founders was hanging on the wall.”

Skinner nodded to Doggett, who pulled a rolled up piece of canvas from inside his coat. He unfurled it and spread it out on Byers’ large desk, which was still covered in the maps and pages from Byers’ conversation with the Ashford Park land steward.

The painting showed several gentlemen, all but one in the picture standing. The seated gentleman was-

“Spender,” Mulder said, pointing his finger at the man’s face.

“Also goes by the name of Alec Fitzsimmons,” Skinner said. “The man is as crooked as they come. Likely trying to hide money from the Crown, using multiple aliases in multiple businesses. But you must again look at the portrait, sir.” He gestured to one of the standing gentlemen on the edge of the canvas. Mulder inhaled in surprise.

“My father,” he said. Though the man was younger than Mulder had ever seen him, it was unmistakably the Eighth Earl of Wexford.

“Did you know they had a connection, my lord?” Doggett asked.

“I do now,” Mulder said, and handed over the old envelope marked with an X.

Skinner and Doggett both read it and exchanged a look.

“So what of this man?” Mulder asked, impatience catching up with him.

“Alec Fitzsimmons owns a house on Wimpole Street,” Skinner said, “a large one, with an equally impressive entourage of household staff.”

“Did you recently hire anyone on at Wexford House in Town?” Doggett asked.

“That would be a question better put to my butler,” Mulder said.

“I did ask it of your butler, sir,” Doggett said, “And he told me one of your footmen fell ill very recently and he was forced to hire on someone new. A servant by the name of Alexander Krycek, who had come with excellent references and who traveled with you here to Ashford Park.”

Dread began to purl through Mulder’s chest.

“Before he was hired on at your London House,” Skinner began, “he had worked for the previous three years as head footman in the household of Alec Fitzsimmons.”

Mulder’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles popped.

“Is he currently below stairs?” Doggett asked, resting his hand upon the wooden handle of a pistol that hung from his belt.

“He is not,” Mulder answered, his voice like iced steel.

“We believe he poisoned your footman Samuel in order to secure the position and assist this Spender in abducting your wife.”

Mulder grabbed onto the edge of Byers’ mahogany desk and actually lifted one side of the leviathan, so fueled by rage that he had the strength of ten men. He slammed it back down.

“That is, ah-” Skinner started, looking at Mulder with trepidation, “not the only coincidence we found when we looked into your staff and the staff of Alec Fitzsimmons.”

Mulder felt his knees go weak under him.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully had filled the bottom of the glass bottle with lye and put in every hair pin she could find -- a considerable amount, given the length and thickness of her former tresses. All that needed to be done now was to pour in the water and quickly secure the cork. Once that was done, she would need to hurry behind the stone wall of the bedroom and hope that not only did her plan work, but that it didn’t backfire and blow her to smithereens in the process.  

In theory, the reaction should start as soon as water hit the two substances at the bottom of the bottle. Hydrogen would form quickly and the pressure would build even more so -- and if she resecured the cork tightly in order to trap that pressure, in almost no time at all, a fire of the hottest flame would be forcibly directed at the door’s lock.

She rolled some of the pages she’d torn out of the book into a kind of funnel and placed it in the top of the bottle which was secured tightly to the table below it. She picked up the pail of water with shaking hands. She poured.

She immediately heard the bubbling of the reaction. As soon as the bucket was empty, she dropped it and slammed the cork home, giving it one solid hit with her fist. Then she ran as fast as her legs would carry her into the bedroom and ducked down.

It happened even more swiftly than she thought it would. She heard the pop of the cork and then a low ominous hissing. She peeked around the wall. There were no flames that she could see (invisible flame! she thought, extraordinary! ), but there was a black shadow of charring creeping up the side of the oaken door and already the metal of the lock had an orangish glow.

Her stomach leapt into her throat. It had worked! As soon as the hissing sound ended, she ran at the door and slammed it  for all she was worth. The latch gave a little and she kicked it again. It flew open with a dull, muffled thud, and Scully stepped out into the blazing sunlight.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“I beg your pardon?” Mulder said, lowering himself into the nearest chair.

Skinner and his man Doggett shared a look.

“There is yet another member of your staff that once worked for Fitzsimmons.”

“Who is he?”

“Not he, sir,” Doggett said, “but she. The Countess’s lady’s maid, Prudence.”

“But… but Prudence has worked in our household for several years,” Mulder said, “before I even ascended to the Earldom.”

Skinner exchanged another look with Doggett and raised the envelope with the large, black X -- the accusation against Mulder’s father of an illegitimate child. “And now I believe we may know why,” he said.

Mulder felt the blood drain from his face, and he gestured weakly for Skinner to go on.

“When we spoke with your Housekeeper, we learned that Prudence was hired by the Eighth Earl himself. According to her, the girl had been raised at the country estate of Alec Fitzsimmons, an orphan that the Fitzsimmons estate took on as a charity case. She worked in the household as a child, and when she came of age, it was said she was promised a position at Henwick Priory -- one, should she perform her duties well, she would keep until she reached the age of five and forty, at which point there was set aside a small pension. An odd arrangement, which we could not figure out -- until we saw this.” Mulder looked to the envelope in his hand.

“I know my finances back to front,” Mulder said, “and I know nothing of this arrangement.”

“Mrs. Paxton said that the girl’s wages are paid, as any other maid’s would be, from the household account. The pension, however, is held in a private trust set up by your father.”

“Prudence is my sister,” he said breathlessly.

“I now believe so, yes,” said Skinner, his face set in a grim line. “And we should talk to her. This very minute.”

XxX

Prudence was summoned into Byers’ office and entered, eyes swinging around at the men assembled around her. She swallowed nervously and curtsied, looking to Mulder with apprehension.

“Is there word of the Countess, my lord?” she said hopefully.

“No,” Mulder answered, but did not -- could not -- go on. He was busy looking at her. He’d never noticed that her eyes were the same hazel-green as his own, that her hair was the exact shade. He found himself unable to speak.

“Prudence,” said Skinner from the other side of the room. She looked to him. “My name is Walter Skinner. I’m an investigator on Bow Street and I’ve been hired by Lord Wexford.”

“To find the Countess? I’ll help in any way I can,” she said earnestly.

Skinner merely nodded, not correcting her. “Thank you,” he said. “You have been working for Lord Wexford for several years, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, “I was hired as a maid at Henwick Priory when I turned seventeen.”

“Have you been happy working there?”

“Oh, very,” she said, for the first time giving a hesitant smile. “Lord Wexford is a kind and generous employer. I feel I have distinguished myself, such as a woman of my standing can. I was thrilled to be selected by Mrs. Paxton -- that’s Lord Wexford’s housekeeper -- to be the new Countess’s lady’s maid. Several of the other girls were hatefully envious, I can tell you. But I very much enjoy my job.”

“And where were you before you were hired at Henwick Priory?” Doggett asked.

“At an estate not far from here, in fact,” Prudence said, “I was an orphan, you see, and I was taken on as a charity case. When I came of age, I was told that the charity that had arranged my employment as a child had another opportunity lined up at the Priory. With guaranteed employment and a pension! I could not pass it up.”

“Did you know the footman Alexander before he was hired at Wexford House?” Skinner inquired.

A look of distaste crossed her features. “I did not,” she said shortly. “It’s… it’s not my place to say,” she darted eyes quickly to Mulder, “but something about the man has never sat right with me.”

From the corner of his eye, Mulder saw Frohike shift on his feet.

“Is Prudence your given name?” Skinner said.

“It is my middle name,” she explained, “there was an older scullery maid by the name of Samantha already working on the Fitzsimmons estate when I arrived.” Byers inhaled sharply. “I went by Prudence for the sake of simplicity.”

“What-” Mulder finally spoke, “what is the name of the estate where you were raised?”

“It is a small estate called Harwood Hall,” she said.

“And what of the gentleman who employed you there?” Skinner asked her.

“Mr. Fitzsimmons?” she asked. “I do not know him well. We were told to keep out of the way, and he lived mostly in Town.”

“This Harwood Hall,” Mulder said, rising from his seat, “you say it is nearby?”

“Not ten miles from here,” Prudence said, “by the sea.”

[zombierunfiction]

Season 1 Mission 20: Listen In

The following morning Charlotte still felt rather shakey after Chris's death and burial.  Now she was once again strapped with a pack and her headset with the New Canton tech on it.  

"Raise the gates!"  Sam said as the alarm blared with the raising of the gates.  "Runner Five, ready?"  Sam asked.

"Ready Sam."  Charlotte said with less enthusiasum than normal.

"Gate are open, covering fire, and... Go!"  Sam said as Charlotte took off down the path.  "Runner Five, obviously things are..."  He chuckles dryly.  "Things are pretty scary right now.  I mean, well, the Major says 'fear is the greatest enemy', but I'm sort of thinking that New Canton is kicking fear's ass on that front.  So, we need you to go out again.  Find out what you can using their head set.  Go as near as you need to pick up their signal, but not so close that they'll spot you!"  He laughs softly as Charlotte was quiet for a bit.  "Your still upset about Chris aren't you?"

"This whole time I've never had to kill a person... just zombies."  Charlotte said softly.

Sam sighs softly.  "I know... If it helps he was already dead when you shot him.  And he asked you to do it."

"It doesn't."  Charlotte said.

Sam sighs heavily.  "Well this should be Easy and I'm sending a friend with you.  For protection.  You might need it."

"Hey there, Five!"  A voice shouted from the west making Charlotte turn and smile softly.

"Hey Sara."  Charlotte said as Sara ran along side her.

"You doing okay?"  Sara asked sa Charlotte shook her head.  Sara gently rested her hand on the back of Charlotte's neck.  "I know lots of folk round the base are getting nervous, but we're going to be just fine.  You and me, gorgeous day like today, a little run.  It'll be fun!"  Sara said happily as Charlotte looked at her with a slight smile.

"Yeah!  You guys are a real Charlie's Angels combo... or wait, is that sexit, Runner Eight?  You could be, um, Mulder and Scully.  I'm not saying who's who!  Ir like, uh, the A Team!  You pick."  Sam said with a laugh.

"We're just a couple of runners, Sam."  Sara said.

"Gotcha, a couple of runners.  You can be The Flash, and uh, The Other Flash."  Sam said snorting.

"You mean Quicksilver?"  Charlotte supplied as Sam was silent for a moment.

"Yeah!  Him.  How did you-"

"I looked at the comic books that Abel has collected since you said you liked them."  Charlotte said offhandedly.

Sam was again silent before he responded.  "That's very sweet of you Char... Uh... Be safe out there today, guys.  We don't know what they're planning and plus, you know zombies!"  

"Can't forget about those!"  Sara said with a laugh as they continued to run.  "You will be fine Charlotte. It will take some time but it's a nessacary evil."

Charlotte sighed softly as she looked at Sara.  "I will find Veronica.  She needs to know what her mother left her and know how strong her father was."  

Sara nodded as she started coughing again.  "Hey, Sam!"

"Hey?"

"Little tickly throat right here.  Going to turn off my mic for a few minutes, okay." Sara said.

"Uh... yeah, sure.  Just um, well, you know. Make sure not to turn off your receiver.  Since Barry Outpost fell to the east, there have been some gnarly zoms turning up.  A few of those guys were wearing helmets.  Makes for a pretty tough kill when they've turned."  Sam said.

Sara coughed again.  "No problem, Sam.  Just want to save you listening to me coughing away.  You'll give us heads up when we're in mortal danger?"  

"Sure will."  Sam replied happily.

Sara turns off her mic then turns off Charlotte's for her.    "Okay, char, we haven't got much time to talk, and runs are the only safe time for me to brief you.  Never can tell who's listening on the base.  so listen up:  Project Greenshoot, here it comes.  What I know, anyway, which I'm sure isn't the half of it."  Sara sighed heavily.  "Do you know what's going on in the outside world?"

"Not much."

"No, most of us don't.  You know what everyone knows.  How to find food, how to stay alive, seven different ways to take a zom's head off.  I like a meat cleaver on a broom handle, myself, but you've got to keep it sharp!"  Sara said as Charlott chuckles softly.  "Anyway, none of us have had time to think about the bigger picture.  But let me tell you something - someone's been thinking about it."  

"Do you have any idea who they are?"  Charlotte asked as she pulled out a bottle of water sipping it before handing it to Sara.

"There are atleast five separate organizations running private armies in this part of the world, did you know that?"  Sara asked as Charlotte shook her head.  "There's the official military, sure.  Provisional government, state of emergency, dropped food and med packs where they can, not doing a bad job.  I'm on their side - the side of law and order, freedom, and one day, democracy again.  all that good stuff."

"As long as we learn not to elect leaders who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground?"  Charlotte said as Sara laughs.  

"Yep.  But they're overstretched as it is, and they can't hold the whole country."  Sara looks over Charlotte's shoulder.  "Zoms heading in fromt the left.  Just speed up, hon!"  Charlotte looked over running faster with her.  After a while they had lost the small group and they slowed to a jog.  "Alright... where was I?  Oh yes... Then there are the other guys.  We only know about some of them.  There's some outfit in bright yellow uniforms running around in the southwest.  They look like a splinter military group, but we can't be sure.  Then there's a bunch of survivalist nut jobs claling themselves The Power."

Charlotte snorts.  "The Power?  Sounds like something a 16 year old would think of."

Sara laughs as well.  "Well they hooked up with a couple of arms manufacturers in the far west.  They're holed up in the mountains with enough firepower to take out anyone who tries to interfere.  Now, the Scottish islands have been declared zom-free by Comansys, that big tech company with fingers in everything?  Those guys made a hell of a lot of money before the Big Gray Bang, but no one unaffiliated can get in."

"I think I reconize the name Comansys but I can't think of where I heard it before..."  Charlotte says softly.

"I know it's a lot to take in.  You don't need to remember all of it.  Just this: there's more than one side to this war, and it's not just humans versus the dead.  It's also humans versus humans.  And Project Greenshoot?  All I can tell you for now is that the military think there's something really important in Abel Township.  They wanted you in there, gaining peoples' trust.  Except now, well, it looks liek more than one group is interested in whatever's there."  Sara continued as Charlotte took a slow breath.

"But if I was so important to this Project Greenshoot, why didn't they brief me on it before sending me in the helo?"  Charlotte questioned.

"I don't know but they were very hush hush about it."  Sara said softly as zombies began to fall in behind them.

"That pack's getting closer... best pick up the pace!"  Charlotte said looking back at them.  The two girls sped up heading into a dense wooded area.

Once they were free of the pack Sara breathed deeply.  "Okay, I think we lost them for now.  Thing is, Five, how do we even find out what's happening in the world?  Rofflenet, right?"

"Yeah or by new people coming into the township."  Charlotte replied.

"Well Rofflenet was set up by some genius McMillan in some place far away.  No one knows where that guy is.  But not everyone's on there, not by a long shot.  Did you know Finland's a total Rofflenet black zone?"  Sara asked.

"No i didn't.  Why do you think that is?"

"Either all those guys are dead, or they're using something much more sophisticated.  We're operating on rumors, here-"

"Runner Eight?  Runner Eight, switch your transmitter back on.  We've got incoming.  They're heading in fast!"  Sam came on fast as Charlotte turned hers on before Sara turns hers back on as well.

The girls looked around seeing the pack they had lost earlier seemed to be now running instead of shambling.  "Those fast moviers?  The ones we saw before?"  Sara asks.

"Yeah, the same.  The pack that infested the hospital."  Sam said as Charlotte groaned.

"Thought we saw the last of those things..."  Charlotte said softly.

"Gotcha, Sam!  We're speeding up.  You've met these zoms before... Your very first run?"

"Yeah they're fast.  And that wasn't a run that was a death march!  Come on!"  Charlotte said speeding up.

"We don't know why they run.  Most zoms can't do much more than stumble.  But then sometimes, one pack will start to run, like this.  Only ever in a pack, not individually-"  Sara said before Sam jumpped in.

"They're close behind, coming round from the right."  

"Are they..."  I know this sounds crazy, Sam, but-" Sara was interrupted again.

"-a fast pack coming in from the left, come on!  Faster than that!"  Sam shouts.

"-are they in formation?"  Sara tried to talk over Sam but a gunshot suddenly rang out making Charlotte pull Sara away from a tree she was about to hit.

"Someone's shooting... someone's shooting!"  Charlotte said.  

"Run!"  Sam shouted as the girls continued to run.  Soon they both had managed to out run the zombies and were taking a small rest behind a large bolder.  "Okay, okay, they're fast, but they're still dumb.  You're screened from them by trees now, so they can't see where you were heading.  And whoever's shooting has stopped.  Could it be New Canton?  Hm... you're heading into their territory, so you might be able to tune into their frequency and-"  

Static suddenly appeared on Charlotte's headset before the voice of the New Canton radio opperator, which she remembered was Nadia, came back on the line.  "Runner Forty-six, who's shooting?  Can you see who's shooting?  We can't get a fix on the location... That swarm of fast zombies has taken down our cameras in Sector G...  I told you, I can't see!  If you can help, help. If not, get out of my comms station!"  Nadia shouts angerily.  "Runner Forty-six, say again.  did you say you've seen runners from Abel Township?..."  Sara and Charlote looked at each other before they took off running again.  "Yes it's Abel Township.  We think they're shooting... Not, not at the zoms, at us!"  

"This is ridiculous!"  Charlotte said.

"Did you get all that Sam?  New Canton thinks we're shooting at them, we think they're shooting at us.  Who's out there, Sam?!"  Sara asked as they continued to run.

"I can't...!"  Sam sighs heavily.  "That swarm's taken out a camera in that sector, we can't see anything!"

"Can you contact New Canton to tell them it's not us?  We need to work together and figure this out!"  Charlotte asked as she looked back seeing the swarm had increased.

Nadia came back onto the headset a second later.  "Yes, sounds like the perfect time for it.  Runner forty-six, Runner Fifty-One, Runner Twenty-two - back to base.  We're prepareing for the raid now.  We'll be heading out in the next forty eight."

Charlotte felt her blood run cold.

After tomorrow New Canton would be attacking Abel.  

A few minutes later Sara and Charlotte were able to shake the swarm and were rounding back towards Abel.  "So... yeah.  Runner five, Runner Eight, head on back to base.  With what we've found out, I've kicked it upstairs, and I... well, there's nothing left for us to do now, huh?  They're attacking in two days and we need to make sure stations are ready.  Not like there's much a runner can do if we're under attack." Sam said as NAdia suddenly came back.

"Wait, I've got something!  We're picking up a signal from a runner's headset!  Is that... Oh my God!  Are you seeing what I'm seeing?  It's Runner Thirty-Eight, it's Lem!  No, look at him, he's not stumbling, he's not moving after the pack!  It's Lem!  It's Lem... he's alive!"  Nadia cried happily as Charlotte and Sara looked at each other before nodding.  She hated to use Nadia's sorrow over losing Lem against her but they were going to destroy Abel.  

Charlotte couldn't let that happen.

"Sam... since New Canton is attacking in two days... maybe tomorrow we do that mission that Maxine suggested."  Sara said as they continued to run.

"You mean her need to go out to that corner shop that wasn't a corner shop?"  Sam questioned.  "You know Janine won't go for Maxine going out at all."

"I'll go with.  Two runner's are better than one."  Charlotte volunteered.

Sam sighed heavily.  "Alright then... I'll see if Janine will Okay it.  If so it will be bright an early tomorrow."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

<      24      >

Season 1 Beginning

[superkaralovesfanfiction]

ESP, Extranormal Soulmate Partnerships, by Cat Grant

ESP, EXTRANORMAL SOULMATE PARTNERSHIPS, A SOULMATE FINDING AGENCY, BY CATHERINE JANE GRANT.

This spiralled out of control very quickly, and honestly, I love the outcome. I hope you do too. Let’s just say, Cat has… well, no. I don’t wanna spoil it, enjoy.

Rating: T+, I know, I didn’t start this expecting that…

——-

Kara had seen this a few times now. Odd little notes or envelopes, always with Cat’s eloquent handwriting of a name or sometimes more than one, always with her own signature in the corner. Cat had made it a point to not get involved unless Cat so asked of her, to deliver one or retrieve another, and didn’t mess in whatever ESP was. It was Cat’s, clearly an important project. And while Kara certainly was curious, and knew for a fact that it didn’t have anything to do with Catco Magazine, this had been going on for months, she didn’t but in. But now, seeing the name Supergirl beautifully written on the envelope… well. It gave Kara pause, just as anything regarding Supergirl did.

Kara looked it over, somehow it had landed on her desk in it’s way, no doubt, to Cat’s office. Kara wanted to look inside. Really, she did. But she knew how suspicious that would look. So she put it in her stack of mail for Cat, among folders and files and emails and similar info, and went back to her job proofreading an interview piece with a celebrity Cat had been to two days ago. That envelope was none of her business. Well, no. Technically, it was. It was Supergirl’s business. But Kara had to maintain her secret, and therefore, ignored the fat Manila envelope. That was harder said than done, but Kara didn’t touch it again.

Kara was half way through said interview proofread when Cat came out of her fishbowl office and asked if anyone had seen her ESP envelope. Kara found it odd that Cat would ask about it so casually, but lifted it from her stack and handed it over immediately, barely looking up as she did so. “Here you are Ms. Grant. It landed on my desk and I was just going to finish this interview reading before I brought your files in so you’d have them all at once.”

“Well, thank you, Keira, you may continue.” Cat said curtly and took the envelope, sashaying back into her office. Kara wanted to ignore it, really, it was none of her business to be peeking into Cat’s private projects. But then again… Supergirl was written on it… so… technically… Kara looked over, pretending to look at a notebook she had open on her desk, and peeked up from under her lashes, using her X-ray vision on the envelope quickly, just to peek at it, too see the inside contents as Cat carefully flickered through them with deft fingertips.

Pictures.

Kara spun back to her laptop quickly, gasping just a bit, and adjusted her glasses out of habit, focusing back on her reading. Cat had a stack of pictures, of her as Supergirl, smiling, fighting, posing. Holy fuck.

“What’s going on?” Winn asked gently, more than aware of her when she acted like this. “I thought you weren’t going to do that X-ray peeking through Cat’s desk anymore…”

“I never did that!” Kara defended with a shake of her head, her cheeks flaming, which told Winn she had done exactly that in the past and she knew it. Winn also knew why, but wouldn’t elaborate. It was Kara’s business if she occasionally xray visioned Cat when she came in wearing a prime suit that was buttoned with no shirt beneath and no bra. Kara’s thing.

“I… she has pictures. Of me.”

“Naked?” Winn asked, and Kara glared at him. He smiled and focused back on his computer screen, messing with her.

“Winn! No, as Supergirl. Fighting. Flying. Posing. What the hell do those mail packets mean?” Kara whispered.“how did she get Supergirl pictures?”

“How many have you seen now?”

“5. She… I’ve seen names. Big names. Alien superhero names. I didn’t think, it’s Cat’s thing. Her private project. I have no point messing in it. But now it’s me. I just need to know what ESP means.”

“Erotic superhero portraits?” Winn muttered… and then shrugged it off, laughing.

“What did you drink last night?”

“Nothing you need to know of. But whatever Cat is doing, it’s not linked to Catco, though, so I can’t assist. Can’t hack it outside the company, that’s Cat’s private work at home. I could get arrested for that.”

“I… I need to come back after Cat leaves. Find it. Figure it out.”

—-

Kara did come back. She came back after midnight to an empty office, telling the doorman that she had forgotten a file and showing her keycard, and headed up quickly, to Cat’s office. It wasn’t that unusual, considering how closely Kara worked with Cat, and she often did return for files in the evening. He just smiled and let her up. Easy as pie. And besides, she brought Angus coffee so he knew her well. He was the sweetest doorman in the universe.

Kara slipped into Cat’s office and placed her bag on Cat’s cream sofa, slipping in behind her desk on weightless feet, and slipped open the bottom left drawer of her desk, where Cat kept all her most important things, her lexapro, her spare fountain pens, expensive jewellery, and a picture of Carter, delicately framed. But no envelope. Hmm. Maybe she’d taken it home?

Kara spent the next five minutes searching the office for it, even xray visioning the desk to no avail, and was about to leave in defeat when she noticed the bottom drawer of Cat’s white bar counter just sticking out a bit. Barely, unnoticeable to human vision. Thankfully Kara wasn’t human. Though Kara had this nagging feeling that if Supergirl were human, she wouldn’t be written on that envelope.

Kara crouched down and pulled the drawer out, gasping when she found the envelope on top of 4 others, all the same, all perfectly written, all perfectly aligned. Kara sat down cross legged on the floor and pulled out the one with her name, and carefully opened the edge, sliding photos and notes into her palm, wondering what all this was for.

Kara looked over the photos, reading the notes, some Kryptonian symbols littered here and there. Hmm. It had to be connected.

All this was still okay though. So Cat had a curiosity in Supergirl. Who didn’t? That was all fine. What frightened Kara was the incredibly detailed astral star charts neatly folded with it, the detail, and accuracy of pinpointing Krypton, and it’s neighbouring worlds, and the insanely detailed DNA threads of what Kara could only assume was her own DNA and some others beside it, though all except hers were crossed over with a red pen.

Kara folded everything back as it was, slipping it back into its place, and pulled out another, thinner one, finding much the same. After an hour of careful perusal, checking hers multiple times, Kara finally left and decided this required Alex’s help.

—-

“She has the what now?” Alex asked curiously, her brows furrowing with the news.

“Star charts. They look DEO quality, Alex. And DNA. How could she get fragments of my DNA?”

“Okay, relax.” Alex said, pasting a panicked Supergirl on the shoulder as she stood from her own seat. “DNA is everywhere, in a nailbed, in a strand of hair, in an errant skin cell. I don’t know how she could have gotten it, but she did. It doesn’t make this any more of a panic though. Even if she has your DNA, there’s nothing there that can lead her to you, and she has no reason to suspect you anyhow, does she? I mean, I realize your panic, but she can’t do anything to out you with the info she has. I just wish I knew why she’s collecting the info. Just 4 envelopes?”

“So far, just the 4, and this afternoon, mine came along. There’s Superman, me, Barry Allen, which is weird in and of it’s own self, and then a Bruce Wayne, somebody. There’s a bunch of names on each, and multiple DNA strands that she’s crossed out, and others with question marks, and the Bruce Wayne one has one with a check mark on a strand in that folder. I need to know what they are, and why she’s cancelling out so many. She’s looking for something…”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, Kar. She’s obviously got a hobby of some sort here. It’s not on the mark anywhere, there’s nothing linked to her name that’s curious, in this way. It’s a private thing, so it seems. Go home. If we find anything, we’ll let you know.”

Kara stared in silence as Alex walked away, not looking back, and then turned to look at Hank, who just shook his head and turned to follow Alex, saying nothing. What?

———

“She knows.”

The text came late, but it had Cat smiling still. Alex Danvers, agent mulder as well, both confirming that Kara suspected something about that envelope, and that she had in fact snuck in to check them in detail. Cat sat and thought about it for a moment, a long time really, and sighed when she tapped out her return message. Yes. It was time to reveal this. She suspected certain things about what would happen, but then again, Kara’s Birthday, or, her Kryptonian birthday, was in two days. And her Earth Birthday was in 3. This would be a perfect gift. Cat just hoped that her vision of what Kara really wanted was accurate. Her Stars claimed it was, despite being from different worlds, and Cat hoped that all these calculations were true.

The tests she’d done on everyone else, as proof, and with permission, said yes, these numbers were telling the truth. Superman had a mark with Lois Lane, much to their relief and happiness, and so did all the others she’d done these proof tests on, 3 in total. Then she’d tried Supergirl, with an errant hair strand she’d managed to rummage off Kara’s desk one evening, and had found her star cycle and everything else, and been set.

Then she’d done as suspected, she felt things pointing towards this, and tested herself. And surely enough, her stars and Kara’s were a match. Which meant, in any universe, that Kara was her soulmate.

“Deal with the others. This agency is a good thing, even if I started it mostly to find out Kara’s star alignment. There are soulmates who deserve to be found, and all that. It’s good for you guys too, as an alien assistance tech. I’ll deal with Kara. It’s time she ran into the Cat Grant folder, and I’ll see if she’s brave enough to ask about it. If not, I’ll drop by the party tomorrow. I’ll give her the ultimate gift.”

“Everything is in placement for you. We’ll keep her in the dark for now, she seems calm about it, if edgy. How are you dealing, realizing that she really is your one?”

“I’m pleased. It’s gonna be odd. But I feel her constant presence to me. I guess I always suspected, it’s nice to have it confirmed. Let’s go forth as we are. Just keep her calm, and if I don’t text you tomorrow, by 7, then set up the party as planned, in secret, for her.”

“Will do.”

———–

And nothing happens. Kara seems curious, but she hands over the fat Manila envelope and walks away like it’s nothing new, and truthfully it isn’t. But Cat catches the glance. Towards the drawer.

Cat waits patiently for Kara to ask, Cat can sense she wants to, but the day runs it’s course and nothing.

Naive girl, she’s way too soft and sweet, and naturally Cat should be disgusted with that, such a sweetheart demeanour. Cat suspects on anyone else she would be. But on Kara, because Kara is her soulmate, Cat loves it. Because Cat has loved Kara for a long time, forever, perhaps, and Kara might be exactly the softness she needs against the hard sharp outer shell Cat has built for herself. Maybe Kara is the balm for this, and that makes Cat one happy person, indeed.

When Cat drops by the next day, happy to find Kara in her suit for this whole party, clearly she just came back from some crime fighting, she has smudges of dirt on her forehead and cheeks, but she looks… beautiful. It’s Kara’s stare at Cat in her doorway that has Cat nearly laughing.

Her pure shock, the look in her eyes, the way she’s staring blatantly, unsure what to say because she’s just been caught and has no escape, and Cat has to step forward and gently bring her hands to Kara’s, pulling Kara’s messy dirty fingers into hers and holding on tightly as she speaks softly. “It’s okay, I know it all.”

——–

“What?” Kara asked in shock, still scared, shaking, looking at everyone around her as if they knew something. And of course, they all did. Even Winn, James, even Maggie, they all had planned this.

Cat smiled and released Kara’s hand, and pulled something out of her bag, a thin pale blue Catco envelope, and handed it to Kara, who took it with shaking fingers.

“Happy Earth Birthday, Kara. This gift you’ve deserved for years, I think it’s time.”

“What?” Kara asked again, her voice incredulous as she looked around again, then back to the envelope. “How do you…?”

“You’re sister helped me out with something a few weeks ago, and we started planning this. She told me everything, young Kryptonian girl. Open it already.”

Kara stared for a moment, her eyes flitting suspiciously to Alex, mouthing her name, and then focused back on the envelope before finally slipping the edge open and slipping her fingers beneath, pulling out a barely there two sheets of paper. “Is this my…? Cat?”

Kara pulled out her resume, her Catco resume, and stares blatantly at the bright red written over it in Cat’s handwriting. Reporter. Kara stares for a long minute, staring blatantly, and Cat would swear she was trying to X-ray the paper.

“You deserve this, Kara. I knew you would be a reporter from the second you walked in, and so I hired you on the spot, gave you the position you wanted. I saw something familiar inside you even then, something I recognized.”

“What?” Kara asked, meeting Cat’s eyes with her own, happy tears threatening to fall.

“Me.”

For a minute Cat wondered if Kara would faint, hoping not, because there was another envelope to be opened. I smaller, fatter one. Cat hoped she wouldn’t faint when Kara opened it.

“And there’s something more. Now I hope you’re okay with this, but I kinda looked through your horoscope and Stars. I hope that’s alright, I didn’t mean to pry, but I was too curious to see my suspicions come true.”

“Suspicions?” Kara asked, taking the envelope softly when Cat handed it over, and slipped the edge open after a long moment, recognizing the fat envelope immediately, watching as Cat pulled out the one with her own name, and opened it as well.

Cat pulled out her black chart, thanks to Winn, and her DNA strand print out, and watched as Kara pulled hers out, staring curiously, and gave hers over to Kara as well, smiling.

Kara stared at them both for a while, unsure of what she was seeing, and then the star graphs, and the double streaks crossed through them with Cat’s signature red fountain pen, and the fact that they were the same.

“Kara. Our DNA is a match, it’s the same, except for your Kryptonian parts, and we’re a complete identical match. Our stars are the same, the same stars were rising and falling when both of us were born, regardless of what world it was on. Kara, we’re soulmates.”

“Cat… how?” Kara asked, staring at the papers, and Cat smiled, pulling Kara into a tight hug, one Kara eased into immediately, smiling brightly, still unable to believe it fully. But then again, she’d always felt something, she’d just ignored it.

“I sensed it. It’s what ESP is. It’s a dating agency, Kara. For soulmates. I’ve helped dozens of aliens in this city. Forgive my curiousity, but I had to see your results, and then I couldn’t resist testing myself. Kara, if you don’t like it…”

“I love it.” Kara said after a shake of her head, leaning in to hug Cat again, smiling and crying at the same time. “I love it, Cat. I always suspected, I could feel it, but I never dared to hope for it.”

For a long few minutes, everything was silent, and the party went on, Cat finally kissed Kara, just softly, though she wanted it to be nothing but soft, and the party started up again, the cupcakes brought out, the cake, the drinks, and Cat smiled as soon as Kara took one and bit into it. God, what had she gotten herself into.

For a moment, Cat just watched, Kara settled into the crook of her arm with her treat, and Cat swiped at the icing too, much to Kara’s laughter, and smiled until Maggie decided to come up and speak.

“Can you do something for me, Cat?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you test me and Alex? Because I think I feel that thing too.”

Cat looked over at Alex, who stared at Maggie with a gasp, then walked over and hugged her closely, so much so that Maggie seemed to have trouble breathing through it. Cat laughed, so did Kara, and everything was good, and then Winn stood up with Lyra and raised his hand in invitation and Magan did the same, and Hank brought a hand to his forehead in laughter.

This would be epic.