#the office tried to kill him ever since antarctica

[annamariedarkholmes]

the way that adult men working both in the x-men office and “influencer” fan-adjacent spaces always behave so performatively extra about gambit will never stop being weird to me. it’s such a nasty underhanded way to gatekeep his (mostly female lbr) fans under the guise of (repeatedly asserting) mere personal preference

[dimensionwriter]

Unrequited Love

M! Minotaur x GN! Reader

Warning: Angsty, insults, depressive thoughts, enemies to lover (slightly)

Word Count: 5,173

Description: Working an office job should mean living a boring life. However, the albino Minotaur down the hall has a different plan for you. Heartbreaks and pain arises, but will he be able to heal them?

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Remember to LIKE and COMMENT, please💛

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It was so cold. The air conditioner was on full blast and didn’t seem like it was going to be turning off anytime soon. Your tiny office space has turned into the tundra of Antarctica. Guess that was one of the disadvantages of working with so many people that had fur. They had bodies that could regulate the cold air, so they didn’t feel it that much. And due to that, most tended to forget about the poor humans without any.

“Awww, look at the little human shivering.” You didn’t even have to turn around to see who that condescending voice was. Only one creature would find enjoyment in your suffering.

His name was Oliver Ito. He was an albino minotaur with the prettiest pink eyes you have ever seen. Muscles covered every inch of his body making all of his clothing stretch with every movement. His recently dyed midnight black hair was always smooth back, making his pale fur stand out even more. His horns curved forward making it appear like an arrow head.

Overall, a complete 10/10. The only thing that killed the view was when he opened his mouth.

“Oliver, shouldn’t you be working. And no, pestering someone working does not count,” you grumbled. You didn’t look at him. It was easier for you to handle him without looking at his face.

“It’s hard to focus when I can hear your tiny teeth chattering all the way in my office. Seriously, are you about to die of hypothermia?” You couldn’t help shivering more. He wasn’t helping you. You usually bring a jacket with you, but you forgot to grab it this morning. Who knew that clicking the wrong alarm could end up making this much of a mess of your day?

“Like come on,” he insisted.You could sense him walking farther into your office and sitting down in one of the chairs across from you. Your eyes flickered up and you instantly regretted it.

Oliver was wearing a brown button down with a pair of black slacks. The shirt was actually loose on him for once, but the front of his shirt was unbuttoned almost all the way to the bottom. Perfectly silky white fur slipped through the opening of the shirt, but even with fur, you could see how well defined his muscles were.

“I can’t help getting cold. I don’t have fur like you.” You tore your eyes from the holy sight in front of you and tried to get back to work. But you couldn’t fully focus when you felt his pink eyes staring you down.

“Stupid humans,” he said, with a small smile on his face. He got out of the chair and walked towards the exit. “Said you were at the top of the food chain and was the perfect evolved creature, but everything kills you with the smallest of efforts. It’s extremely pitiful.”

With his back turned, it was easy for you to allow yourself to roll your eyes. He loved to always put humans down. Like, not all of you guys thought you were at the top of the food chain, but he seemed so persisted in putting that identity on you.

“I mean where would you guys be without us.” You thought he left the room. Did he seriously come back just to heckle you some more? He is literally getting paid for standing here at the moment. Some type of manager he is.

Something heavy draped across your arms and around your body. Your hands drifted away from the computer as you looked down at what was placed on you. It was this type of thick dark brown furred coat that was too big for you. However, the thing felt like sitting next to a fireplace after walking through a snowstorm.

“There, is that better?” Oliver whispered in your ear. His giant hand grabbed the end of the jacket and wrapped it more around you. He reached again towards the fabric and pulled out a sleeve. With little resistance from you, he placed your arms into their respective sleeve.

Once the jacket was placed on your correctly, he released the fabric, but still stayed close. You took the daring opportunity to glanced up into his face.

Those pretty pink eyes. They looked so soft as the edges crinkled with his smile. “You just look so small in it. So… fragile.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that statement. You were at the stereotypical office job with the usual work clothes, except for the jacket, but he thought you looked fragile. You might not be the strongest, but you sure can handle a lot.

“I’m not some flower that's going to wither away from some AC. I can handle a lot more than you think I can.” That smile on Oliver’s face became a lot sharper as he leaned down. You shrunk a little at seeing his massive size come down towards you. He grabbed the back of his chair and the front of the desk to cage you in.

“I wonder how much you can handle then, petals,” he mumbled leaning even closer to you. All the coldness from earlier escaped from you as you could his pink eyes glowing. A light rose color seeped through the skin on his cheeks.

“Oi, Oliver. Boss wanna see ya.” Your body instantly shifted back forward and hunched over the computer. You didn’t want whoever was at the door to see your flustered face. You know you probably looked like some dumb lovestruck fools.

“You could have waited at my office, Berns,” Oliver growled out. He walked out of your office with his fist balled up. You leaned around the computer a little to see the door. There was a pure black bull outside with a huge smirk on his face.

Oliver greeted him with a half-hearted punch to the face. All Berns did was laugh at the attack. He easily wrapped an arm around Oliver and started a conversation about the boss wanting some type of layout for a project.

As the two were leaving, Oliver took one glance back at you. Those pink eyes seem to be still glowing brightly . “Hey, human. Make sure you give my jacket back by the end of the day.” Then he left.

This was his jacket? You don’t know why you were shocked by that realization. All clues pointed to it: being absolutely giant, small white furs scattered around on the sleeves, etc. Guess your brain couldn’t process that information when he was being so gentle to you.

Butterflies were running rampant in your body as you recalled his big hands being lightly pulling the fabric around you. The smell of cinnamon wafting from his clothes with his usual cologne mixed in. The way the ceiling light was pierced by his horns making it seem like he was glowing.

You dropped your head on the desk as you let out a silent scream. You told yourself not to fall and here you are, going a thousands miles per hour towards the ground. You only have yourself to blame when he ends up breaking your heart. Because you’re sure he will.

The entire day, you stayed wrapped up in Oliver’s jacket. You know you should have taken it off when you warmed back up, but you couldn’t help it. It smelled so much like him and even had a similar texture to his fur. It was literally stupid of you to think like this. But it felt like being wrapped in Oliver’s loving embrace.

You grabbed your bag and turned the lights off in your office. The jacket was still wrapped around you. Most of the fabric had to be held in your arm to stop it from dragging. This is a reminder of how big Oliver is. He’s usually bending down to criticize you for something, so you got used to seeing him at eye level. Not that you could complain about the height.

“Human! There you are.” Oliver pushed himself off the wall and walked over towards you. His black hair was slicked back earlier was now messily laying against his forehead. Guess someone had a bad day.

“Why did you make me wait so long? Weren’t you supposed to get off like half an hour ago?” he complained. He slid up next to you and started walking next to you towards the elevator.

“It’s called overtime. Sometimes you can’t finish work in a certain amount of time and have to work a little after.” Sarcasm was dripping in each sentence. Oliver let out a small snicker at your tone.

“Yeah, well, you could’ve warned me about it. My office is down the hall from you. I know you're dying to get a glimpse at this beautiful face,” he teased. You ignored the last comment and pressed the down button on the elevator.

“You are acting oddly friendly. It’s scaring me, to be honest,” you admitted, keeping your face towards the elevator doors. He has said over five sentences to you and by now, he would have thrown in some insults.

His grip on his briefcase tightened as he stood up straighter. In the reflectiveness of the doors, you could see the frown coming onto his face. The small blush was returning to his face as his pink eyes stared at the side of your head.

A ping alerted you of the elevator arriving. The two doors slid open and you walked forward into them. Oliver trailed behind you and took the left side of the elevator. You pressed the garage button, causing the doors to close.

“Human. I allowed you to wear my quite expensive jacket all day. Therefore, you are indebted to me,” he spoke slowly. Excuse him? So that’s the only reason he gave you this jacket was to get something in return. Why did you expect him to do something for you out of the kindness of his heart?

“My friends are going out tomorrow night for ice skating and we need to bring a date,” his pink eyes stared into yours as he hinted at something, “And since you’re nothing more than a human, I know you got nothing to do. Plus I’m way out of your league, so they won’t think I’m into some low life human. I would ask some other human, but you’re the only one who knows that I would never be into you in no shape or form. It’s less drama to deal with.”

You felt like you were going to puke. Your stomach had dropped so much that you had broken out in cold sweat. You knew you most likely didn’t have a chance with Oliver. You told yourself that having a crush on him would only lead in heartbreak. And so far, it led you here.

“K,” you whispered. You put your bag down and shimmed out of the coat. You didn’t want it on you anymore. It felt like it was burning your skin the longer you had it on.

You couldn’t look into Oliver’s eyes as you handed him back the jacket. His large white hand wrapped around the fur gently. He seems to be hesitant in his movement. Well, it’s not like it’s something you should be concerned about with your ‘low life’ status. No, that’ something people in his league should worry about.

“O-oh. Are you done with it?” You just simply nodded at him. You didn’t trust yourself to open your mouth. It was hard to hold back your tears. Just a few more levels and you’ll be in the safety of your car.

“Is your number the same from that project we worked on a few months back.” A simple nod.

A light tapping sound filled the elevator. You glanced to the right to see Oliver’s black claws tapping at the handle of the briefcase. He shifted from his left leg to the right one. You could feel his stare at the side of your head.

“Yeah, that was a… um… wild project. I really didn’t like the client. What about you?” You hated the client too, but you just gave a simple shrug. It’s not like he even cares about what you would think.

Another light ping and the doors open up. The garage was quite dark, except for the few dim lights scattered around. Even the scary darkness seemed more welcoming than being in this elevator with a man who doesn’t even like you.

“Hey, human?” You reached down and grabbed your back. You avoided Oliver as you exited the elevator. “Um? Human!”

You sped walked away from the elevator towards your car. Tears were already starting to fall down your face and you really didn’t have the energy to deal with Oliver making fun of you for it. For getting your stupid hopes up.

“Make sure to text me your address so I can pick you up!” A half-hearted thumbs up was all you could manage as you disappeared behind some cars. You used the coverage to your advantage and started running towards your car.

You barely slid into the seat before tears began rushing down your face. You’re so stupid. Of course he thought that way of you. He was a albino minotaur. He’s at the top. Then there’s you. Some boring normal human. Why did you think you had a chance with him?

Work the next day was horrible. Your face was completely puffy from crying yourself to sleep and your eyes didn’t want to be un-red. For a split second, you considered wearing glasses inside and pulling off a cool office worker look, but you barely had enough energy to pull yourself out of bed.

Soon as you entered the office, you ducked your head and quickly made your way to your office. Apparently, you weren’t fast enough to avoid Oliver. He was leaning next to your office with a smug smile on his face.

His black hair was slick back with two strands coming down in his face. His fur seemed a little poofier today, telling you that he most likely blow dried it. A pink button up with some black slacks was his outfit for today. A twinkle in his ear made your eyes peek up to see a silver ring had been put through his ear.

“Morning, human,” he chirped, pushing himself off the wall. You hesitantly walked over and stopped a few steps away from him. Did you have to reach far to unlock the door? Yes. It was much better than standing right next to him to do it.

“The AC is blasting again this morning. I can bring you my jacket if you need it.” You open the door and hurriedly scurried in. You put your bag next to your desk and placed the jacket you were sure to bring this morning on the desk. All you did for a response to him was pat it.

“O-oh. Brought your own. Glad your tiny human brain could remember.” The fight in you was gone and to be honest, you really wanted him to leave. It was usual for you two to quip at each other and to throw insults. Just not today.

Maybe that’s why you’re so heartbroken. Even though he would insult you and belittle you, you thought you weren’t being affected by it since you got a chance to see his gorgeous face every time. Guess all the comments towards you were sticking to your brain while remaining hidden. And when he finally came out and said he would never be interested in someone like you, a ‘lowlife human’, all the damage hit you at once.

“Hey human?” You blinked and realized you were staring at your jacket. You could feel the tears sitting at the edge of your waterline, ready to fall down. “Did-did I say anything… Did I go too far?”

You looked him in the face for the first time that morning. His ears were drooped down and folded into themselves. His pink eyes looked so sad as they stared down at you. Their usual glow was completely gone.

But you weren’t going to fall for it. If you tell him that you’re sad because your feelings aren't reciprocated and you hated that you were viewed as nothing more than a ‘low life human’ in the eyes of a man that you almost fell in love with. That was the perfect setup for him to laugh at you and your petty human emotions.

“No. Anyway, I have to go to the media room to get something sorted,” You quickly stated, avoiding looking in his direction. You grabbed your jacket off the table and quickly made your way towards the exit.

A firm wall of pink fabric and white fur blocked your way. His arms were splayed out making it impossible for you to exit. “Wait, wait. I- I was wondering… are you still coming tonight? You didn’t text me your address last night. You- you made me wait again.”

Were you strong enough to go to that get together, just to be made even more fun of by Oliver? NO.

“Sure, text you later. Do you mind moving?” He took a step to the left and tentatively dropped his hands. The tips of his claws started tapping against each other as a small bounce began in his right leg.

“Yeah, tonight should be fun. Show you how minotaurs have fun,” he joked, throwing some finger guns. You gave a tight lip smile as you slipped through the door. You didn’t look back as you made you far away from Oliver.

The rest of the day consisted of you hiding in your office with the door locked. For lunch, you just turned off the lights and laid your head down. Tears weren’t even coming to you anymore.

Just this numb hollow feeling.

“Hey, human,” a voice from outside brought you back to the present. It was around 10 minutes until you should get off. Work really does fly by in a breeze when you are being drowned in negative thoughts. At least one plus side to it. “I get off in about 15 minutes and wanted to know if you- well if you’re up for it- to ride the elevator down together.”

There’s that nauseating feeling again. Getting on an elevator with him again is a hard no. That gives him a minute to tell you how much he is out of your league at the waiting area. 45 seconds for him to remind you that minotaurs rarely see humans as attractive due to their weird hairless body. Then a 15 second window to rub even more salt in the wound by telling you that he’s talking to some beautiful minotaur model.

“I’ll see. Overtime and stuff,” you lied. From the looks on your computer, you won’t need to stay late today. He doesn’t need to know that.

“Okay, I’ll wa-wait. Bye, human,” he whispered into the door. His hooves against the wooden floor alerted you where he was going. After a few seconds, the sound stopped echoing through the halls, showing that he had made it back to his office.

The world really just wanted to see you in pain, didn’t it. If only there was a way you could just avoid him. A way to just not go on the elevator with him and to not go to this stupid get together. Maybe stay home and watch some movies. Just wrap yourself in a thick weighted blanket and watch some tv shows. Get your favorite take out to not even worry about cooking. That would be so much better.

Your hands froze on the realization dawned on you. What’s stopping you? If you’re thinking about it, there are no serious consequences to just leaving early and staying home. Maybe get someone else to go in your place for the get together, since Oliver doesn’t exactly care about you being there. As long as it’s someone he deems underneath him and won’t think it’s him flirting with them. He won’t get upset by you not showing up and you can go home to go through the 5 stages of grief in peace.

For the first time all day, you felt a sense of happiness of looking forward to something. The document you were working on was quickly saved, followed by the computer being shut down. You silently moved around your office to put away things and put your bags together. You snatched your bag off the floor and made your way out.

The hallways were completely silent except for the hum from the fluorescent light. The beige walls did little to add life to the space. The hardwood floors were too shiny in your opinion at the moment. This seems like the beginning to a movie, hopefully one you won’t be a part of.

Life was trying to make you the star in this failed romance story. Your crush rips you apart and tries to add salt in the wound by constantly being around you. But you weren’t about to allow that to happen. This was your chance to try to fix your wounds.

The elevator quickly came up with no one inside of it. You happily slid in and pressed the garage button. While the elevator descended, you pulled your phone out to clock out of it. It was nice that you didn’t have to go to a room to clock out anymore. This app just uses your location to check where you are and uses the time to document all of it. It would have been too much of a risk going to a room where Oliver could have been or saw you in, when you’re supposedly doing overtime.

Swiping out of the app, you pressed your contact list. One glance over it was all it took for you to find the perfect person to look for. “Hey, Grace. Are you busy tonight?”

Soft orange lights flickered around the room as scents of warm lavender spread. Soft voices came out of the tv that had been lowered as soon as you arrived home. The white weighted blanket was wrapped around you, making you feel like you were in a loved one’s embrace. The environment created was exactly what you need right now.

Soon as you texted Oliver that you would just meet him at the arena and gave Grace the address, you turned your phone and silent and left it in the room. Your brain has been overwhelmed and filled with dark thoughts all day. You needed this alone time.

Thump Thump Thump

Who in the world was at your door? It couldn’t be a delivery or anything; everything that you had ordered arrived long ago. Maybe it was someone at the wrong house?

The floor was cool to your bare feet and sent a chill up your spin. Being under the blanket for so long near all the candles made you forget how cold it was in your home. Just gotta take quick steps to the door, tell them they got the wrong place, quick steps back to the couch, and then I can get back to relaxing.

Twisting the silver knob, you pulled the door back to reveal the person on the other side. Well, what should have been a person. It was a wall of white fur surrounded by a black button up. The creature’s face couldn’t be seen due to its height. From what you could see, it was a thick creature that had really familiar white fur. A familiar white hand clutching a pair of white roses and another holding a white teddy bear.

Oh, please no.

You reached for the knob again where you tempted to shut the door, but the right hand holding the teddy bear blocked it. Even if you pushed with all your strength, the door was not moving an inch. This was not happening.

“Human,” he growled out. You backed away at that angry tone. The creature at the door ducked down allowing you to see their pink eyes burning with fury. They looked like some sort of beast ready to attack you.

“Oliver, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the ice skating rink with Grace?” You attempted to deflect the anger. However, it seems to have the opposite effect. His fluffy white ears pressed down flat against his ruffled black hair. The corners of his pink nose scrunched up causing his lips to pierce back into a snarl that revealed a pair of fangs.

“I don’t recall asking Grace out. Do you?” he growled, stomping his way towards you. You scurried back in a futile attempt to get away from him. Your escape was stopped by the armrest of the couch. Oliver was quick to come forward and cage you into it. “Because if memory serves me right, I was supposed to walk you to your car. But guess my surprise face when I see your lights turned off and you’re gone. Then I get a text from you saying you’ll meet me at the arena. Surprise, Surprise. It’s not you, it’s Grace from accounting!”

Your hands found purchase on the arm rest as you tried to use it as some sort of leverage. You assumed this wasn’t supposed to have any consequence. Why did it backfire worse than your mind could think of?

“Well, it’s not like you even cared if I was the one there. I’m just nothing more than a low life human,” you grumbled. You stared at your bare feet as you tried to control your emotions. Why was he the one who was acting angry? You’re the one who got asked out by your crush then in the same breath rejected.

“What? No, no!” he yelled, taking a step back. His right hand reached up into his hair and pulled at the black strands. “I didn’t mean it. You pointed out that I was acting weird and- and I panicked.”

All the anger within him seemed to dissipate. His legs folded underneath him and he sat down on the ground. His pale pink lips turned down with dejection as he stared blankly at the teddy bear and flowers.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to come to your house to pick you up, looking all fancy and crap. Give you these gifts and tease you about loving them because they remind you of me. Maybe have a little banter like always and drive you there. But somewhere along the way, the banter becomes more light hearted and we actually get close. We arrive and I introduce you to my friends and we get out shoes. And because you’re your that cute little dumb human, I would have to help you put your shoes on. And it was like that cute movie moment before we headed out of the ice. You slip and I catch you. Then I whisper something teasing in your ear before holding your hand to make sure you don’t hurt that fragile human body. It was supposed to be so cheesily romantic that you would have no choice but to fall in love with me. Afterwards, when I drive you home, and I ask to do it again because you’ve probably never had fun like that and then you say yes. You’ll lean over and- and give me a ki-ki-kiss and go back to your home. That’s how we start dating. That was how tonight was supposed to go.”

Your brain felt like, to put it in the best way, mash potatoes. What was all of that? He just came out of left field with that and you didn’t know how to respond. Was it a confession? Was it him telling you how he expected you to stroke his ego? A slow burn fic?

“I didn’t mean to say all those things in the elevator. I just thought you saw through my mask and realized I liked you, so I said that stupid crap to make it seem like I haven’t been crushing on for 3 years. And it just- it just all fell apart there. I promise you, I didn’t mean.” He slowly lifted his eyes. Those soft pink eyes held nothing but sincerity.

You reached behind you and grabbed a pillow. With all the strength you could muster, you threw it that dumb stupid gorgeous face.

“Oof,” he squeaked out. The pillow landed square in his face before dropping in his lap. Confusion was written all over his face from your actions.

“You are the stupidest, dumbest, and most arrogant bull I have ever meant. You liked me for so long, but you made me think my feelings were unrequited!” you yelled glaring at him. More confusion settled onto his face before realization hitted him.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re so cute that my brain short circuited,” he playful yelled back, before throwing the pillow back. You weren't expecting the force behind it. Your body was pushed backwards onto the arm chair, causing you to lose your balance and fall backwards.

“Human!” The sounds of his hooves hitting the ground got closer to you before his giant form was hovering over you. His eyes glanced over you for any signs that you were hurt. “Are you okay?”

“Can you just kiss me already you big dumb tsundere?” Heat flooded your skin at how blunt you were, but you’ve waited long enough for this Oliver to do something. Seeing how your relationship was about to go with him in control, maybe it’s time you took control.

“Wait- are you- do you mean?” he stuttered over himself as that pink blush was obvious under that ghostly white skin. It disappeared into the thick white fur on his face. His hands were fidgeting in the air as he struggled on what to do. You lifted yourself up a little and grabbed the front of his black button up. You dropped back down and brought Oliver down with you.

“Where’s that arrogance at Oliver? You going to let your little human do everything?” You teased into his ear. They flickered at the feeling of your warm breath hitting them. But what you said seems to do the trick.

“My little human, hmm. I think I can get use to the sound of that?” he grumbled with that signature smirk. Finally, he leaned down enough to connect your lips. The soft skin of his lips gently pressed against yours as if testing the water. You were quick to reciprocate by pulling him even closer.

“Well, someone can’t seem to get enough of me,” he teases. Small light pecks were placed along your face causing you to giggle. A low hum escaped out of Oliver as he placed his arms around you to pull you even closer into him. “But don’t worry. I can’t seem to get enough of you.”

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I’m so sorry that this isn’t a Shark part 2. I promise I’m working on it. I just need to get something out for this week and this story was more developed in my head. I’ll try to get it out soon. 

Anyway, if you guys wouldn’t mind commenting. I love reading them and it helps motivate me. Thank you so much for reading this story and I hope you’ll have a fantastic rest of your day. 

[all-hailtheking]

Ok so I just had a crazy dream. Imagine Megatron mistakenly (it wasn't, he was just very angry about something) stepping on his "human" charge, just to discover that they are an slime alien in an earthling disguise. -Oh boy, you literally squished me. Also I love your writings :D

(Thank you so much; that means a lot! I really like this dream XD It’s gonna be so much fun to write)

On a bright and sunny Nevada afternoon, (Y/N) can be found walking around the Decepticon warship as causal as ever. They walk around as if they own the place, though it is not too far from the truth. Being the charge of the Decepticon leader has its perks, as well as its downfalls. But hey, at least (Y/N) has the protection of almost every high-ranking officer on the nemesis. Of course, they have to keep their eyes and ears ready for Starscream. 

There have been several incidents where he has tried to kill (Y/N), or at the very least get rid of them. Luckily, they are quite close to Soundwave, who can easily locate them via their cell phone. There was even a time when Starscream tried to abandon (Y/N) in the Antarctic, though he quickly realized his mistake when he was trapped alongside them. He was frozen stiff by the time Soundwave located the two of them, but to everyone’s surprise (Y/N) were barely affected.

For a couple of days, the cons would ask (Y/N) how they weren’t affected, but they always brushed it off with a quick, “I don’t get cold easily”. Shockwave was the most persistent in this questioning, always trying to get them to explain their biology to him since it seemed to differ greatly from his human research. Of course, they always dodged his questions with answers that sound more like excuses.

After the Antarctic incident and a few weeks passing, everything went back to normal. Everyone went about their day as if (Y/N) had never been to Antarctica and Starscream never nearly froze to death. It was on one of these normal days that Megatron was walking them around the base, on his shoulder because they did not want to walk. That and Megatron oddly enjoys their presence close to him, instead of at his pedes.

When he got to the communications center, he set them down on the floor for (Y/N) to explore. He knew they enjoyed peeking into every nook and cranny they could find. While he was busy talking to Soundwave, they were busy exploring. It first started out with the large desks, but soon (Y/N) found themself hidden away in a crawlspace that had never seen the light of day. Of course, this only excited them as they went further in, completely ignoring the warlord and his TIC’s conversation.

As the conversation ended, Megatron noticed the absence of his human companion. It didn’t worry him as much as it surprised him that he could not locate them. This leads to the Decepticon leader searching around the Nemesis, even having Soundwave pitch in with monitoring the camera system.

As Megatron was about to turn down the hall, all he could hear, and feel was the squishing of something beneath his pede. At first, he was confused, but then he noticed the t-shirt the was sticking out from beneath him. This shocked him to his core and a sense of dread covered his body. “(Y/N)? Did I just-?” His processor ran a million miles a second trying to understand what had just happened, but then he swears he hears a giggle come from below him.

Looking back down to where he saw the remnants of his charge, he finds an (F/C) blob squeeze its way out from underneath his pede, only to change its shape when it is freed. In front of him is an (F/C), a slime-like creature who looks like another version (Y/N). “You squished me!” The creature quipped, crossing their arms like a pouting 4-year-old. “But in all seriousness, I am sorry for the scare, Lord Megatron. You surprised me. I didn’t think you were gonna turn down this direction.”

“Are you telling me that you are the same (Y/N) I normally have accompany me?” Megatron asks, completely bewildered. “Yup! In the, well I can’t say flesh because I don’t actually have any, but it is 100% me!” They say, smiling to themself and Megatron. “Then I am going to assume that you were never human to begin with. Why act as if you were?”

“Well, I don’t think humans would take too nicely to a slime-like creature walking around, just like them questioning the reason a ginormous sentient robot would come to Earth. Plus I don’t wanna be anyone’s science project, so I decided to lay low and play as a human.” They respond, rubbing the back of their (F/C) neck. Megatron nods, somewhat understanding their reasoning. “No more secrets, understood?” “Yessir!”

[fandom-necromancer]

I’ll watch over you 2

This was prompted by the wonderful @rufina72! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warning: Graphic description of violence)

[Part1]

Being in the army wasn’t like the movies, Gavin had quickly learned. At the same time, it wasn’t as bad as it was depicted by some either. It was just another job for him, just another way to earn his money. He had had no idea what to do after school and simply wanted to move away from his family, so it was the next-best option.

It stopped being that as they prepared for war. So far, there were only rumours about new oil findings in Antarctica, but if it would end up being true, he had no doubts they would fail to come to an agreement the civilised way. That and the fact that he failed to get along with anyone made him decide to step down. Thankfully he quickly got a job with the police after a few years of additional training. He had liked the freedom of his new job far more than his last and was able to make it to Detective in no time. Additionally, he could help out the SWAT team occasionally as he had all the necessary qualifications.

He was immensely relieved to have left the army when the revolution started. He saw androids be killed on the streets and while he didn’t like the things by any means, that was a bit drastic even to him. Sure, they were just malfunctioning machines, but they didn’t hurt anyone in their protests. It took him a while afterwards to accept he had been wrong and that these malfunctions were a real personality blossoming.

He might have needed the help of one incredible clingy bot for that. RK900, upgraded model of Connor, the most annoying android on earth, had been assigned as his partner on his own volition and while Gavin had tried the hardest to make him reconsider his decision, he had been defeated in the end. The android was competent, a true help and they complemented each other perfectly. Nines was just the right amount of patient to keep Gavin grounded and sit through his tantrums, but strict enough to know when to step in and tell him the truth no matter how bluntly. They had each other’s back and soon didn’t want to go another day without the other.

Gavin knew Nines didn’t like it when he agreed to dangerous missions without second thought. Helping the SWAT team, working in surveillance and going undercover was just the little kick of adrenaline Gavin needed to keep it interesting. He liked the danger, even though he knew Nines would worry. He was addicted to it and couldn’t say no, as Fowler offered him another one: A red ice den that kidnapped androids from the streets for their thirium. Lately they had changed tactics turning to kidnapping an android’s human and pressing the android for more and more until they could get them back. It was never meant for the gang to kidnap him though. Gavin had successfully infiltrated the den as a fist for hire and delivered his information via a heavily encrypted channel to Nines’ terminal directly. Anything he didn’t want to send; he could tell him once he was back home. They were careful to never arrive or leave at the same time, but apparently whoever kept his eyes on Gavin did so for far longer than any of them had expected. One morning, when Gavin had driven to the abandoned college building, they used as a hideout, he was met by the whole gang waiting for him. From there on he only remembered being hit unconscious and dragged underground into a dingy lit room.

He never learned whether or not they had actually contacted anyone, but by the way they grinned at him as he laid there strapped to a hard chair and called him a dirty pig, he knew they knew everything. His cover had been blown. Well, no need to play the idiot henchman any longer then. If only he had Nines by his side telling him how that was a bad idea and holding him back from cursing at them and spitting in their faces. Maybe he wouldn’t have been beaten to a pulp then. At least the gang seemed comfortable using him as a punching back in the basement only. Gavin tried to stay positive. As long as he stayed alive, he just had to wait. Nines would find him. He would know the moment he didn’t come home that something was amiss.

The door opened and Gavin looked up, hoping to see the familiar figure of his most handsome android. But who grinned back at him was only one of the other punchers. To think he had once shared a beer with this asshole… ‘What? Missed me already?’, the idiot laughed, and Gavin let his head fall back down with a sigh. ‘Just so you wait, I won’t be stuck in here for long. You on the other hand…’ It should have been intimidating, but apparently it had the opposite effect: ‘Oh, should I be scared now? Who do you think will save you?’ He looked down at his hand. ‘Detective poodle? Officer TC? Or the “Tin-Can” with a little heart next to it?’ All colour vanished from Gavin’s face. That was his phone. That were the names he had saved for his colleagues. Shit. The man in front of him laughed and held it out for him to read. He had apparently continued to send information to the DPD and also texted Nines and Tina frequently with explanations why he couldn’t come home or to their bar evening. It even sounded like him. Oh, he was phcked… ‘No one is coming for you’, the asshole laughed, pocketing Gavin’s phone again and instead pulling up his sleeves. ‘Now, let’s have some fun, shall we?’

-

Gavin felt like shit. Shittier than ever in his life. He was hurting all over from being used as a punching bag and being cut open with knifes. On top of all of that he was hungry. These assholes really needed a hobby. As the door swung open, he didn’t even look up. ‘Hello Gavin.’ ‘Go phck yourself!’ ‘Nah, that wasn’t friendly at all. Let’s try again.’ ‘I hope you rot in hell’, he spat, not even looking at the man in front of him. ‘I don’t believe in all this heaven and hell stuff. I believe we need to use the time we got in this world. So Gavin, maybe you should use yours and give us what we need, hm?’ ‘What the hell could you possibly need from me?’, Gavin tried to laugh, but his chest flared up as he tried and cut it short. ‘Well, you see, the password on your connection was changed. Would be a shame if we wouldn’t be able to keep you as our plaything, wouldn’t it? The police can’t know what we are doing here and your phone allows us to feed them false information. Just give us the password, Gavin and we might not kill you off.’ ‘I don’t know the password.’ ‘Oh, Gavin, are you sure that’s your answer?’ ‘I don’t know the phcking password, alright?’ ‘Too bad. I didn’t want to do this, Gavin but you leave me no other choice.’

-

Gavin had spent most of his time after the beating spitting blood and feeling for one of his teeth that had loosened a bit. Was dental covered by the police? Why did he think about something like that now at all times? He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing through the pain the slight motion caused. Oh, they had beaten him up real good, he couldn’t move a muscle without something hurting. His face had to look terrible. Maybe he should be thankful Nines couldn’t see him like that.

The break he was granted wasn’t long enough to recover. The door opened and the same asshole came in, asking the same question: ‘What’s the password?’ ‘I don’t phcking know.’ He hated how tired he sounded. ‘Didn’t you learn a thing last time?’ ‘Listen, the whole idea behind this password is that I have to get it from them. For cases like this. God, I knew you were dumb, but I thought at least that had reached your-‘ He wasn’t allowed to end his sentence as the fist collided with his face. The loosened teeth fell out completely and instinctively, Gavin threw his head to the side to spit it out together with the blood. ‘Listen asshole, I-‘ Another fist collided with his jaw and let him see stars for a brief moment. ‘Give me the password!’ ‘I don’t phcking have it!’

-

They started using knifes next. Maybe they thought stepping up their game would convince Gavin. It did change something in the Detective: He began to be truly afraid. Until now, it had been temporary damage if you forgot the tooth. But using a knife would leave scars and the wounds could get infected. Blood loss was also something he had to account for. All of that had him fearing the next time the door would open and at the same time holding onto the hope Nines would come and save him. How long had it been since the last update from him? He had dropped in and out of consciousness a few times, but it felt like a day could have passed already. How long would it take for Nines to lose his patience?

The door opened and immediately Gavin started pleading: ‘Please. Don’t. I don’t know anything. I don’t know the password. I… Please, let me go.’ ‘I’ll let you go if you tell us what we want to know.’ ‘I don’t know that. Phck, I would have given you the password by now if I knew it!’ ‘I don’t believe you.’ ‘Than that’s your problem.’ Gavin just wanted it to end and it hadn’t even begun yet. ‘Err… No, no, it’s yours actually. Well then, let’s get on with it.’

-

There was commotion outside. Gavin didn’t care anymore. He just wanted to go home. Be held by Nines, those cool plastic hands soothing his bruised skin and patching him up again. Massaging his healing body that would ache all over without a doubt. God, he wanted to hear his voice again so badly. Gunshots made him flinch, but he failed to connect the dots. It was all just noise to him, shifting in and out of the next and making no sense.

Until the sounds died down and all was calm again. Gavin allowed himself to relax in his restraints and drifted off to a state of semi-sleep after the insurmountable efforts of tensing his muscles in anticipation of the worst. It didn’t help that the door was ripped open exactly then and there were hands all over him. They ripped at clothes and pressed something to his wounds that stung. He screamed and thrashed against them, managed to land a kick on someone, but otherwise was utterly helpless.

He could only scream and call out for help, plead it to end: ‘Go away! No, no, no, no! Not again, never again! Let me go!’ It didn’t help at all, as the hands stayed on him, wrapping him further in what felt like more restraints. No!

It was then that something entered his vision. In the dark room a red circle was weirdly in focus for him. He blinked a few times through swollen eyes and tears. He thought he heard someone. Someone important. They seemed to order someone around. Oh, Nines could order him around so good. Maybe if he believed it hard enough, he could manipulate himself into thinking Nines was there. Was keeping him company through this. He fixed the red ring and tried to imagine his face. ‘Nines?’, he asked, his own voice incredibly silent. ‘I’m here, Gavin. Everything is alright now.’ It didn’t speak well for his brain that it had worked, Gavin thought, but didn’t question it any further.

‘There… There were people…  Just a while ago!’ Gavin looked up at him letting all his feelings show. He needed help. He wanted someone else to take over so dearly. There were fingers in his hair, rubbing at his scalp like heaven on earth. That… he couldn’t imagine that, right? ‘They are here to help, Gavin. It is over.’ Hmm yes, Nines, it’s all over. We can go home, right? ‘They will patch you up so you can go home again.’ ‘It hurts’, Gavin admitted, now that it didn’t matter anymore. Nines needed to know whether he was real or not. ‘I’m scared.’ ‘I know’, Nines mumbled and then there were these heavenly hands on his head, lifting it up and cooling the burning flesh. ‘I’m here now. I’ll make sure they only help you get better. I would never let someone hurt you, Gavin. You know that, right?’ ‘Yes…’ Gavin was ready to believe everything as long as this voice didn’t stop talking to him. ‘It will hurt again, but they are just cleaning your wounds and stop the bleeding so you will be fine. I’ll be here. I won’t leave you. Is that okay?’ Gavin nodded, feeling like he was about to fall asleep. He could sleep now, right? Nines was right there next to him, holding him. Everything would be fine.

‘You will be fine, Gavin.’ Gavin’s full attention was on the face hovering over him, clearer now. He dared to believe this was real. ‘You will heal in no time. You did so before. You are strong and you always come back for me.’ There was the softness of careful lips on his hand and forehead. ‘You will be home soon. And then we will spend the whole day on the couch cuddling and watching movies with the cats, how’s that sound, hmm?’ Gavin smiled thinking about that. He wanted nothing more.

He only realised he was lifted up as his back connected with softer material. He immediately clawed for Nines. Where was that hand, where were these lips? Nines was here, right? Nines would stay with him! Where was he? ‘Gavin, please.’ Oh. There he was. ‘…go to the hospital… lost a lot of blood… look over… can’t go home just yet.’ No. No, Nines. Home. Please. ‘Will- Will you stay?’ ‘Of course… won’t leave your side… safe and sound.’

Gavin allowed himself to relax. Of course. Nines would stay with him. Always. There was more movement. He vaguely noticed the sound of an engine. More hands on him. The most important one a cool one on his hand, gradually getting warmer from his own body warmth. Then the hand was gone, and Nines’ voice accompanied him to sleep: ‘It’s all over now. You will be fine. I’ll be waiting for you when you come back out.’

-

Gavin didn’t wake up until light hit his eyes and he wanted to turn to his side in his sleep. Pain flaring up all over made him rise with a troubled groan. ‘Nines?’, he mumbled even before his eyes were opened. Where was this hand? This voice? He finally managed to look around. There was an empty chair next to his bed. Flowers on a table. Purple ones. He liked the colour. A lot of cards stood around them, but his eyes caught on a stuffed toy sitting on his bedside table. A small, orange cat. He smiled and reached for it, bracing the pain. It was incredible fluffy, and Gavin focussed just on that sensation for a while. He flinched as the door opened, being reminded of something else entirely. ‘Ah, shit, I missed it.’ Nines. Nines was there. Gavin looked up into that beautiful face and smiled, relaxing. ‘Thought you wanted coffee when you woke up. Doctors told me it would be a few hours. But as always, you are an impatient one.’ Nines sat down and handed Gavin the cup, who greedily took it.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there earlier’, the android said as Gavin put it down. ‘I should have known I had been tricked.’ ‘That’s the thing with being tricked, unfortunately’, Gavin commented. ‘You tend to fall for it.’ ‘Gavin, I should know you better.’ ‘Nines, don’t blame yourself. I should lock my work phone better.’ ‘Yeah, you should.’

‘When can I go back home?’, Gavin dared to ask finally. ‘In a few days. I took vacation time, so don’t worry. You won’t be alone.’ Gavin nodded. ‘Thank you, Nines.’ The android leaned forwards and pressed a gentle kiss to Gavin’s mouth. He pulled back before the man could deepen it and laughed at the pouting face. ‘Let your split lip heal first, then we’ll see, okay?’ ‘Okay…’ ‘It’s good to see you are better now. I was seriously worried, Gavin.’ The Detective nodded again. ‘Me too, Nines. Trust me. Never in my life have I experienced something like this, and I hope I’ll never again.’ The RK900 perked up suddenly. ‘Are you saying you’ll finally listen to me?’ Gavin smiled, cursing as it pulled at the small but painful wound.

‘Yes. No more undercover missions unless strictly necessary.’

[snowdice]

Illusions of Grandeur... Or Perhaps Just Illusions (Part 1) [A part of the Illusory Records Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Remus & Janus

Characters: Remus, Janus

Summary: Remus is training to be an undercover super-agent, but training is boring. So, being Remus he... finds some “fun” (read trouble) with the city’s resident vigilante.

This story is set in the Labeled Universe and takes place about 4 years after Sometimes Labels Fail, but runs pretty adjacent to Virgil, Logan, and Patton’s story.

Notes: Superhero AU, mind manipulation

Remus didn’t like the superhero suit they’d put him in. It felt all weird and wrong (not to mention it was ugly), and he hoped eventually he’d get to design his own costumes. Mama had taught him and Ro how to sew when they’d been five and despite the fact that he usually just used that skill to make butt shaped pillows, he was still sure he could have stitched together something better than this orange monstrosity. He could feel the seams of it on his skin and it was driving him bananas. Maybe he could have ignored it if he really tried, but he didn’t want to really try. It also didn’t help that he was bored.

Training had been nothing but boring. Honestly, if they were trying to test him, they were doing a very bad job at it. Unless it was about seeing if he’d snap under the pressure of having nothing to do. Then they were doing swimmingly.

He knew he was only one month into the first phase of his training and that it would definitely get harder… but seriously? He’d thought being a superhero for a year would be about going out and taking down villains left and right not…

“Want another donut?” Officer Brigs asked.

Remus resisted rolling his eyes only because the man was nice if a bit boring. “No thanks.”

“Suit yourself kid,” he said with a shrug. Remus wondered if the man knew who he was or if The Coalition had kept that a secret from the man he was partnered with for this first year. Brigs was a cop that had missed working with Remus’s grandfather by three months. In other words, he was as old as dirt, but he’d seen a lot and worked with a lot of superheroes. They probably picked him because of his involvement with The Onslaught since that event was the entire reason The Coalition existed. The goal was probably for him to impart the necessity of the job Remus was training for. They wanted him to get a firsthand account of how horrible that event was so he could understand why his job was needed. Of course. Remus was already very well aware of that.

“Are we ever going to do anything?” Remus finally asked.

“When there is something to do, we’ll do it.”

“…Can’t we make something to do?”

“No.”

“Just a little bit of something to do,” Remus begged.

“I think I have my grandson’s steering wheel toy in the backseat. I can drive around the block and you can pretend you’re driving.”

“You know for such a boring bastard you’re quite the dick.”

“Thanks.”

Remus slumped against the passenger seat with a groan. The next second his world got a whole lot more interesting when there was a knock on Brigs’ window from someone in a beat cop uniform.

Brigs took one look at him and sighed. He rolled down the window. “I have a message from Antarctica,” the guy said looking dazed. “The penguins have taken over the Mars Rover.”

“I told you not to go after him David.”

The man blinked at him slowly. “Hi.”

Brigs shook his head while opening his door and ‘David’ stumbled back a step to let him out. Remus scrambled to get out of the car and round it because he absolutely needed to know what this was.

He quickly noticed that Brigs was looking at a man leaning against the building next to where they were parked. He wore a long cape and had a bowler hat on his head. Remus recognized him, of course, having grown up in this city. He was a vigilante that been in the city since mom was just a kid who went by the pseudonym Deceit.

“I think that,” he pointed at David, “belongs to you.”

Brigs sighed. “Unfortunately, he does. Get in the car David.” David looked at him and then slowly moved to do as he asked. “Penguins?” Brigs asked Deceit once David closed the backseat door.

“Oh, his mind chose that,” Deceit said, sounding just a touch amused. “I had to rip him away from a small tree he thought was one to get him here. I think he shed a few tears when he had to say goodbye.”

“Sounds like fun,” Remus interjected.

Deceit glanced briefly at him before dismissing him. “Well,” he said peeling himself away from the wall, “have a nice evening officer and,” he looked up and down Remus, “traffic cone.” Then he seemed to disappear, but Remus felt just the softest fluttering sensation in his head that told him Deceit likely hadn’t disappeared but gave them a gentle nudge into not seeing him. Ooo. He was fun.

“I didn’t choose the costume!” he informed thin air before turning back to Brigs. “Isn’t he a vigilante?” Remus asked Brigs. “Aren’t you supposed to at least try to arrest him.”

“Unlike David, I’m not an idiot,” Brigs said. “His powers are strong enough that he could easily down almost anyone in the city if he wanted to. We’re just lucky he doesn’t want to. The old folks already know not to mess with him, but some of the rookies get ideas of grander in their head. Let David be a warning to you.”

Remus hummed and got back into the car. Yet, despite the warning about Deceit’s powers, when he glanced back at David, he didn’t seem very worse for wear. He was a little confused and sometimes reached for objects that weren’t there, seemingly surprised when his hands closed around air, but he did not seem to be in any particular distress.

Remus, of course, already knew Deceit could be dangerous. He’d heard about the three different fights in the city during The Onslaught as they’d happened and had studied them during his college courses a decade later. One of the three battles had been waged at the Lial bridge, the major bridge that crossed the river that cut through the city. The perpetrator had been a compulsionist and had taken control of the citizens that had been driving on the bridge as well as a large chunk of the police force, included Officer Brigs as it so happened. The threat was that he’d make them all jump off the bridge if his demands were not met.

Yet, Deceit had stepped in. He’d somehow managed to rip away the villain’s control over the people on the bridge without killing them all and then, by all accounts, just absolutely ripped the compulsionist to mental pieces before shooting him in the head.

So, yes, Remus knew Deceit was definitely very powerful and could hurt someone if he wanted. Yet, his influence on David seemed quite gentle. He’d twisted him up in knots for sure, but ultimately, he seemed fine.

The effects of Deceit’s powers on David’s mind had faded completely by the time they made it back to the station leaving him with nothing but what he described as a “really weird hangover.” Brigs told him to go home and sleep it off, seeming to not even be worried enough to suggest he see a doctor. It sounded like this sort of thing had happened before.

When Brigs took him back out on the town after that, Remus had a lot of time to think. So he did. He thought and thought and thought. He thought so much that he was absolutely sure what he had in mind was a bad idea.

But, oh, it was going to be fun.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 2

[padfootagain]

Balaenoptera Bonaerensis (I)

Chapter 1: Security Measures

 This is the first chapter for my fic with a Bodyguard AU for our dear Cap! Thank you so much to @marvelcapsicle, who is hosting the writing challenge this fic is made for.

I hope you like this fanfic, please, read the author's note on the masterlist for this series concerning any link with real events!

I did, however, spent more than 8 hours researching different elements for that story so far, and have no doubt it's just the beginning… being a writer is hard…

Word Count: 3400

"Have I ever told any of you how much I hate our job?"

"Just… twenty times today. And hundreds more if you count all the times we had to wake up early to get on a plane."

"Taking a flight at 4 am doesn't make you 'get up early', it makes you not sleep at all!"

"I'm sorry you couldn't get your baby sleep, Bucky. But there were no better flights available on such a short notice."

"Did we really have to take that job?"

By Natasha's side, on the two seats before Steve and Bucky, Sam snorted, waving the newspaper he was reading to make his point.

"In these days, you should consider yourself lucky to have a job at all," Sam replied, shaking his head. "Seven months since that mess happened in Wall Street, and it's not getting any better."

By the window, Steve took a look at the clouds they flew across, cotton-like forms drifting slowly against the blue sky. He didn't react at all as the plane shook with turbulences, too used to flying by now to even truly notice. And if his blue eyes rested on the white puffs of water outside, his mind was set on work already. The file where he had gathered the information he had found - in the little time he had had to prepare their new job - was set open on his laps. He had stopped listening to his colleagues somewhere above the Pacific Ocean. Now that they were en route towards Townsville, having changed their flight in Darwin, he had stopped to act like he was listening altogether. Maybe others would have taken it badly, but his three partners were too used to his working routine to think anything of his behaviour. And as they flew across a cloud, the world turning solely into shades of white and light grey, Steve wondered who could have sent the threats that had pushed the editor of the Townsville Bulletin to hire Steve and his team to protect one of his journalist and three scientists they worked with. Apparently, it had something to do with the scientists' study of whales, although Steve couldn’t possibly imagine why someone would want to kill anyone about a study of the population of whales in Antarctica. That was beyond him.

But the threats were real, and at the thought, his eyes travelled back to the printed letters that were sent in an attempt to stop the research, and he had no doubt that it was a threat to take seriously. The message was, after all, quite explicit. Besides, they were paying for his services, so even if the threat wasn't real, it didn't exactly matter. He wouldn't complain about an easy job for once.

However, he wasn't sure to find who could have sent the threat. In the week he had been given to prepare his departure, he couldn't really find any lead. He reckoned that talking with the people involved would help clarify the situation, or at least, he hoped so.

He went through the file again, memorizing the names and faces of the people he would have to protect for the coming months.

Sofia Longbrook – PhD student

Dr. Rosa Alvarez Santiago – Postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Y/N Y/L/N – Researcher

Luke Savoy – Journalist

Lucy McGreed – Lawyer

Joshua Alexander – Lawyer

If the threats had been pointed towards only the journalist and the research team, chances were that the two lawyers involved in this whale study might get threatened as well soon.

At least three locations for their professions were to be secured, even without taking into account the lawyers for now. Plus each of their homes. And having some of them working on a major campus that held thousands of students would be a challenge to say the least. Adding to that limited resources, So much work to be done…

The voice of the flight attendant cut Steve's thoughts, forcing him back to reality. They would soon be landing. While he folded his papers and fastened his seatbelt, the plane slowly descending under the clouds, he checked the address of the hotel he had booked one more time. After dropping by the hotel, they would meet with the people who had hired them to discuss how the security could be handled, and more importantly, what kind of threats they were truly facing.

In the seats before ad next to him, Sam and Bucky were bickering, as usual, and he chose to ignore them for now.

All he hoped for was a smooth, calm mission for a change.

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

 "This whole ordeal is absolutely ridiculous, Mark."

"Look, for the last time, Y/N: you've received threats. I will not sit down and wait to see if they were serious or not. You don't want to stop your research, and for some unknown reason, my reporter also refuses to drop the story, so all we are left with as alternative is to hire professionals who will keep you safe."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms before your chest.

"Look, we're talking about a trade. About something that involves money," Mark continued to argue. "And just like everything else that involves money, it is not so surprising to find people ready to go to extreme ways to deal with whatever goes in the way of their profit."

"I know, but…"

"No 'but'. By the way, Richard, I could use some help."

The director of your lab turned to you, but could only shrug.

"Honestly, I don't know what to say."

"You don't agree that it was the right decision to hire professional security?" the editor of Townsville newspaper asked with a frown.

"No, no, I think you were right to propose that," Richard replied, shaking his large moustache as he spoke. "All I'm saying is that Y/N is so stubborn, I really don't know what you want me to say."

You rolled your eyes again, but the ghost of a smile appeared on your lips this time.

"I just think that we're overreacting. Opinion with which you disagree, so I have to follow your and Richard's lead anyway."

"Exactly! Thank you!"

"I have to admit that I'll feel safer with a bodyguard around," Sofia, your PhD student, added. "Plus, if the one in charge of us at the lab could be a very sexy American wearing a tuxedo and dark sunglasses, that would be even better."

"They've hired bodyguards, Sofia," you replied. "Not Agent J."

"Aren't bodyguards supposed to dress up like that all the time? Kevin Costner was all dressed up too in that movie with the singer!"

"I don't know, honestly. I have to admit that I have never asked myself that question."

"I feel like the conversation has drifted…" Mark tried to bring your attention to the matter at hand, but he had already lost you and your colleagues.

"You have to admit that it's a rather good question!" Richard jumped in.

"Maybe they'll even have this kind of earpiece, you know, with the wire and everything," Sofia went on, a dreamy expression on her face as she tried to picture in her mind how her bodyguard would look like.

"They've hired only four of them," you replied. "I don't think they'll need any earpiece."

"Which, by the way, doesn't sound like much security," Joshua added. "I mean, shouldn't we all have one personal bodyguard?"

"There were no threats against you and Lucy, so…" Mark replied with a shrug.

"Of course, let the lawyers defenceless, as usual."

"What do you mean 'as usual'?"

"Ha… nevermind. I guess it's just my fate to die like this. You know, according to my astral theme I'm supposed to die a violent death."

"If you mention astrology again today, I can guarantee that you will die a violent death," you replied, pinching the sides of your nose.

"Sorry, but I'm nervous. And I always ask the stars when I'm nervous."

"Are they more talkative than Jesus? Or is the line busy for them as well?" Richard mocked, earning a kick from under the table.

Mark let himself fall down on a chair, heaving a dramatically tired sigh.

"You know, working with you guys, who are supposed to have brilliant minds and all that, kind of brought down my expectations on life."

None of you bothered to reply to his comment, too busy discussing the bodyguards who would soon arrive.

Indeed, you waited now for their arrival, all of you gathered in a meeting room in your lab. The Marine and Aquaculture labs at the James Cook University formed a large ensemble of buildings, from the tanks used for experiments and research to the offices where you were now. The buildings were often referred as MARFU for Marine and Aquaculture Research Facilities Units. They were not the most impressive buildings of the campus, and yet their research was among the most advanced in the world in terms of understanding marine life. The studied topics were vast, and your own little team was but a fraction of the people devoting their lives to understand and protect sea life.

On the north-east coast of Australia, Townsville held one of the four campuses of the James Cook University, one of the main institutions in the country. Hidden behind the large medical centre, on the south tip of the town, the university stretched to the edge of the wilder areas of Mount Stuart, the town stuck between its slope and the ocean. The white buildings for Marine Sciences research were all gathered on the eastern part of the campus, in an ensemble of about 20 separate buildings.

You were for now waiting in one of the meeting rooms on the first floor of the main building for Marine and Aquaculture, looking around you at the blank white walls and wooden tables and chairs. A poster for the defence of sharks was hung on one wall, the light of the sun falling partially on its dark blue shades, causing the colours to wane after years of exposure to the too bright rays of the Australian sun. In the corner of the room, up to the ceiling, a spider had threaded its web, but it was only a little one, and none of you could be bothered chasing the arachnid away.

While your colleagues kept on bickering, your own mind wandered off, drifting back towards the element that had caused all this to happen.

You remembered getting the letter at your office, opening it without worry, thinking it was merely linked to your research. You were expecting some documents for a field trip with your students after all.

Instead, you found a letter reading that if you didn't stop your surveys on whales, you would pay for the consequences of your actions. If the word 'killing' was not explicit, the meaning hiding behind their phrasing was evident, and whoever had sent you this letter was ready to use violent ends to shush your voice.

Clearly, whoever they were, they had never met you in person, or they would have known that threats would be far from enough to make you back down.

Nevertheless, Mark and Richard had decided that it was best to call professionals. Apparently, Richard had a friend in the security business, who had recommended the team he and Mark had hired. Why did they have to go to all the trouble to hire Americans, that was another mystery in this crazy story, but you simply accepted whoever they chose, as your complaints were dismissed.

You doubted heavily that anything would actually happen. You were a researcher, and none of your work was secret. If it had turned into a political stance over the past few years, it was still not a secret. All your colleagues in the lab knew about your research. You had asked for help from the press and a law firm when you realized that your research might have more impact that you had thought of on an international scale; yet, here again, you were not trying to keep any secret. What were they going to do? Destroy the entire university? If whaling held a lot of potential money, it was still no reason to make so much damage, at least, not in your mind.

When you started to investigate the migrations of whales in Antarctica, nothing could have made you think that you would come to discover that a Japanese research program was misused. If your accusation that it was merely a cover story for killing whales and selling their meat had always been denied by the Japanese authority, over the course of the past years, it had become your crusade to shut down the whole program. One could not, after all, excuse the killing of hundreds of animals and call it 'science', not in our day and age, at least.

You knew you had made enemies by taking a stand. You had never tried to hide your purpose. It didn't seem to you that it was a game people would play with death and threats. Maybe you were wrong, though.

And now you were up to get a bodyguard follow you everywhere. That was probably the most ridiculous position you had ever found yourself into.

Who would be your guardian angel though? Your mind started to play a game, trying to picture features and hair and clothes, and you found it funny to imagine a rather large sixty-year-old bald man wearing a cowboy hat and a heavy Texan accent as your protector for the coming weeks.

Just as you settled on an image, Richard was called by the reception as the four bodyguards had arrived. And when the four of them stepped into the room minutes later, Sofia gave you a look that meant I told you so.

And indeed, they were all wearing suits, which you imagined was not that comfortable considering it was a warm 27°C outside and quite humid after the strong rains of the day before.

And well, they were all pretty… attractive people, you guessed. As you introduced yourself to each of them, you kept on thinking about how much your two female colleagues would make your life annoying for the whole duration of this nonsense, gushing about their bodyguards.

Everyone took place around the circle of tables at the centre of the room. A little bit of small talk went on for a moment while they were all served coffee, about their flight, and their accommodation here in Townsville, but the man in charge, Steve, soon became more serious.

"We've started to research suspects, but for now I have to admit that we couldn't pinpoint any individual as being a threat in your direct acquaintances."

"To be completely honest, we highly doubt that it's coming from anyone we are close to," Richard answered.

"Not any colleagues, or a rival from another paper?"

"No, no one comes to mind. The only suspects for us would be someone linked to the whaling industry, as Dr. Y/L/N's research could have negative impact on their business, if we manage to give it a proper exposure."

"No one else is working on this project, you're all here?" Natasha asked, and you nodded.

"On the research side we are three active scientists on the project, plus our boss Richard. Luke here is our link with the press, and Mark his editor. Lucy and Joshua are advising us on legal issues."

"Why? Does your research break the law?" Bucky asked, lifting his eyes from the notebook where he had been taking notes.

"No, of course not. On the contrary, we think someone else is breaking the law."

"Our final goal is to bring the situation to an international court," Lucy added. "That's why we're helping them."

"And the two of you didn't receive any threat?"

"No, none."

"What about the police?" Sam inquired.

"They have no lead. They asked for the University to strengthen their security," Mark answered. "The investigation is still on-going, but for now they have nothing. And a simple letter is not enough for them to dispatch officers, which is why we called you."

"As we have discussed before, we have made arrangements to stay here for three months. We'll assess the situation again in a few weeks, to see if you would like to extend your contract or not."

Mark and Richard nodded in silent agreement.

"We're going to need to make an inspection of the facilities to determine which areas are the most dangerous. Same for your personal homes. We'll spend a couple of days adjusting to the situation. Do you all work in different buildings at the University?"

"No, all three of us share the same lab, and Sofia and Rosa have the same office, mine is next door to theirs," you answered. "But I teach, and the classes take place on the other side of the campus for the most part."

"Alright," Steve nodded, and he seemed to be thinking hard. "We're going to take a look around, and one of us will be assigned to each of you who has received direct threats. If you want, we can take a look at your workplace tomorrow as well, and give you a few advices on how to lower the risks," he added to the two lawyers, before focusing on the rest of the group again. "Ms. Romanov will be in charge of Mr. Savoy, Mr. Barnes and Wilson will protect Ms. Longbrook and Dr. Alvarez Santiago, and I'll be protecting you, Dr. Y/L/N. We're going to take a look at all the areas where you go here, in these facilities, and tonight we'll check your homes. We'll continue our investigation as well to find who has threatened you. Depending on how large the areas we have to cover are, we might have to use cameras as well."

"We'll show you around, if you want," Richard offered, and you were all soon leaving the meeting room.

Steve had already studied the map of the building, but he did find some interesting details that were worth writing down. Some areas difficult to see from afar, and other hidden corners. He would have thought that the lab would be a challenge, but it was tidy and ended up not being a problem at all. You showed him your office while Natasha was leaving for the newspaper headquarters, and Bucky and Sam were taking a look at your colleagues' office. Steve walked around, checked the windows and what was outside, looking for an angle from which a shooter could fire.

"It would be safer to move your desk a little closer to the door," he advised. "That way, there's no chance anyone outside can see you by the window."

"Okay," you nodded, hiding your annoyance, and helping him move your stuff around the room.

Luckily, none of the piles of files on your desk fell, and in a matter of minutes, Steve seemed satisfied.

You checked the time. It was quite late already, but you still had a couple of things to finish tonight, you hoped to keep on working at the office for a little longer.

Steve exited the room to talk with his colleagues for a moment, and when he came back, he asked you if you could stay at the office for a while, which matched your plans perfectly.

"I need to talk to the security on site, and take a look at the building where you give your classes. Please, don't go home without me, ma'am."

You gave him a smile.

"I was going to ask you if I could have more time before going home, I have still some work to do. And, please, call me Y/N. Anyway, you would have to call me doctor, not madam," you joked. "Let's keep it simple though."

Steve gave you a little, pinched smile, but shook his head.

"It wouldn't be very professional of me, doctor. I'll be back soon. Mr. Barnes will stay in the corridor, if you need anything."

"Alright, thank you then, sir."

He gave you a nod and exited the room, closing the door halfway behind him, probably so that his colleagues could keep an eye on you from the corridor.

You heaved a sigh and unlocked your laptop.

Of course, you had to fall on Mr. Serious out of all people, huh?

These were long, long three months awaiting you…

**********************************************************

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the whole truth

Diana makes a decision. Mulder's final confrontation with Diana (if only in his mind). Scully returns from Africa to make an unspoken declaration of her own.

This is chapter 15, to go back to the beginning click here.

Chapter 15: The Transfer

GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

JULY 1999

He was trapped in a padded cell, all alone.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been dismissed as crazy, although as death seemed to be closing in on him, it could very well be the last. And as he glanced desperately around this prison like a trapped animal in a cage, when he tried to call for help only one sound would come out.

“Scully!”

It was the only word he could summon.

His brain pounded and ached, and it was an unusual situation to be in; completely coherent but unable to make his own body respond. The cacophony of voices were dimly carrying on in the background of his mind, presumably from outside his cell; an almost soothing, reliable presence. It troubled him that he could not hear her anywhere.

Mulder was used to being alone; he was alone most of the time, had felt alone most of his life. The only time he didn’t feel alone was when Scully was near. And her absence now was more palpable than it had ever been before.

He screamed for her; pleaded, begged.

Scully will come, she has to come.

But she didn’t come. Maybe she couldn’t.

After a while he stopped screaming. What was the point? He sat still, back straight against the wall of the cell, staring at the door, waiting for her.

He sat this way for thirty-six hours.

***

Mulder heard the door unlock and hoped beyond hope it was Scully but, instead, Skinner came in.

When he’d heard voices in Skinner’s office, it had been just a jumble of confusing words and phrases, not enough to know what was really going on. But now as his boss entered the cell, he could hear the truth: Skinner had been compromised by Krycek, and his life was in jeopardy.

Mulder wasn’t sure how much he could trust Skinner. But in the quiet calm of the cell what he heard above everything else in the other man’s mind was genuine concern for his well-being.

He was here, after all, and he wanted to help.

Grateful it hadn’t been Diana coming in, at least, Mulder assessed his situation. The message he’d written had been intended for Scully but she wasn’t here.

Help me.

He didn’t know where she was, how long she would be, and he could be running out of time. Skinner might be the only person who could help him right now.

He put on a show to get the message into Skinner’s pocket, to get the ball rolling, to get the truth to the surface; the truth of what he’d become, of what was inside him.

He hoped he’d live to see Scully again. This time she would have to believe.

***

Diana stood at Fox’s bedside, watching him. He was fully unconscious, finally, and she was uncertain what kinds of drugs were coursing through his veins to allow him to rest, but he looked peaceful. She was grateful for it.

“I know what you’re thinking, Diana,” came a voice followed closely by cigarette smoke.

C.G.B. Spender stood on the other side of the bed. She narrowed her eyes, unsure what to reveal. There was no way out for her anymore, no way back.

“You love my son,” he said. “Don’t you?”

She reached out to touch Fox’s cheek with her hand, and while she didn’t really feel like divulging her innermost desires to a man who surely had no reason to care, it felt like it mattered so little at this point.

“I do.”

“I can sense your conflict,” he nodded. “That although you know what must be done, although you know this is the right course, you can’t help but wish it could be different. That it could be someone else.”

She did wish it were someone else lying here, not Fox. And she wanted him to live, even if that meant he didn’t choose her in the end.

If Fox remained in this state, he would become the very thing he’d sought his entire adult life: alien. But this wasn’t like Gibson Praise, or even Cassandra Spender. This was different. What Fox had inside him was essentially killing him: it would turn him into someone, some thing she no longer recognized. And more quickly than anyone was prepared for.

She hadn’t expected this. She wanted to do everything she could to prevent that, but… the work.

“What we need is more time,” she said. “Time we don’t have because we’re losing him.”

Spender looked at her. “But if we were to remove what's killing him… perhaps Agent Mulder could survive.”

“You want to… take away parts of his brain?” The thought hadn’t occurred to her: that maybe it was possible to isolate those portions and remove them from Fox. Maybe that would save him. “The parts… that are alien?”

Spender looked at her meaningfully. “And perhaps… if someone else were willing to carry the burden… take on his suffering. Someone who knows what this gift could mean…?”

Was he suggesting…?

“Do you mean…?” she trailed off, not wanting to say it, not even wanting to put the ludicrous idea out into the open. It seemed Spender was volunteering.

Spender eyed her carefully. “You could have him back,” he said. “Maybe this will be my final purpose. To carry this immunity so that everyone can survive.” He reached out and touched her hand, that cold contact she wasn’t used to. “So my son will survive.”

He pinned her with his standard intense gaze, a signature curl of smoke rising from the smoldering white stick between his forefingers. She honestly couldn’t tell if he’d just thought of this to spare his son for her sake or if he’d been planning to do this all along; become the ‘savior’ regardless of who he had to carve up. But if he was offering, and if it could truly save Fox’s life… did it matter?

She looked down at Fox, lying asleep in his hospital bed. He looked so helpless. Maybe this was a viable alternative?

“What you’re suggesting could kill him anyway,” she pointed out, the reasonable part of her brain taking over. “Damage his memory, his motor functions. This is his brain we’re talking about. The slightest mistake…”

She knew as much as anyone how dangerous this could be. But what choice did they have? Shooting him full of drugs could only last for so long.

She thought of Fox all those months ago, how he’d travelled halfway around the globe to Antarctica to rescue his partner.

She thought of Agent Scully, whom Skinner had told her was in Africa searching for a cure to save him.

And she thought of herself, standing here doing virtually nothing to help him.

This, she could do.

She nodded her acquiescence. “What do you need from me?

***

“Fox…Fox…”

He’d never hated the sound of his own name more.

Upon hearing her voice again, he only felt anger and betrayal. Foolishness. Part of him wanted to let her explain; and if she could not, to let her mind explain for her.

The other part of him never wanted to see her again.

Diana entered his room and approached his bedside. There was pain etched into her face. He hoped she at least had the good grace to know it was over between them.

“I know what’s happened to you. I know what you’re suffering from. I’ve been sitting back and watching.”

He couldn’t understand the look in her eyes, how unfamiliar she suddenly was. This was a stranger, this wasn’t Diana. Not the Diana he thought he knew.

“A decade, I’ve been lying to you for a decade. I’ve been lying since we met.”

“I know you know,” she continued, her spoken words interweaving with those flying around her brain. He tried desperately to comprehend it all. “I know you know about me… that my loyalties aren’t just to you but to a man you’ve grown to despise.”

“Your father. This entire time… how did we end up here?”

His father? What was she talking about?

“You have your reasons, but as you look inside me now you know that I have mine.”

“The work. The greater good. The truth. That’s what it’s always been about for me, and he gave me that opportunity.”

Mulder was still unsure what to make of everything. She was trying to tell him the truth, but the thoughts he could now hear whirring through her mind betrayed further truths: she didn’t believe it was over. After everything, all of this, what she’d done, she still held onto hope that they could be together.

“There’s still a chance for us, Fox.”

“Fox… Fox, I love you,” she said. “I’ve loved you for so long,” And her thoughts mirrored this sentiment. “You know that, too.”

She believed it utterly, that she loved him… but he didn’t understand. Why would she betray him this way if she loved him? How could she allow this?

Did she even know what love was?

Did he?

Diana’s declaration felt hollow and empty, meaningless; he couldn’t help but think instantly of Scully and how it was she from whom he wanted to hear these words, how it was she from whom he wanted a declaration. Right words… wrong person.

Scully would never, ever have let this happen to him.

“...I won’t let you die to prove what you are, to prove what’s inside you,” Diana was saying.

“Fox… you have to understand… what you have can save so many lives…”

“There’s no need to prove it. It’s been known for so long.”

“I’ve known it for so long. Knowing the things I know has come at a great cost… but now I won’t hide anything from you ever again.”

He couldn’t help but notice she had no choice in that particular matter, not anymore.

“Now we can be together,” she said.

He marveled at her delusion in this moment, that she could possibly think there was a future for the two of them after what she’d done. But he found himself thinking of Samantha, of his belief in aliens, even his feelings for Scully, and quickly realized there was indeed a fine line between hope and delusion. Love apparently made all the difference.

“I’m going to help you, Fox… I’m going to save your life… maybe then you’ll forgive me...”

It had certainly taken him long enough, but he finally knew the truth. He didn’t want her help.

She leaned down and kissed his forehead and her lips were cold, distant. He only wanted Scully. Even in the bitter cold of Antarctica, her nearly-comatose lips had been somehow warmer, more welcoming; entirely devoid of what he now saw were Diana’s ever-present agendas.

His eyes welled up as he lay motionless and wondered where Scully was, why she hadn’t come to see him. And he felt incredible guilt over the fact that he’d doubted her, even for a second. Why had he fought so hard for Diana all this time? Why, when all he needed was to see Scully?

He’d told her he always wanted her around to prove him wrong and when she’d tried to do just that where Diana was concerned he’d rejected that proof, even though she had been completely justified in her distrust. Now he was suffering the consequences.

How would Scully react when she learned of Diana’s treachery? He knew this was vindication she’d earned but an outcome she’d never desired.

Would he die here without ever seeing her again? His heart ached at the notion.

He heard relief in Diana’s thoughts as she turned to leave, knowing she’d said her piece, but he felt none of his own. He only felt the harsh sting of betrayal.

IVORY COAST

WEST AFRICA

JULY 1999

The air hung heavily in the tent, sticky and oppressive. Waves crashed onto the shore outside and Scully hoped beyond hope they were simply waves of saltwater this time, and not blood.

She lay awake on her cot, wanting to sleep, but unable to. Her mind was alive with thoughts of the craft, and she didn’t miss the irony of what was going on in Mulder’s own beautiful mind thousands of miles away from her.

She missed him terribly; the tightness in her gut paired with the ache in her heart was longing she could barely contain anymore.

Her fear for his condition was unfortunately familiar, but worse than ever. They hadn’t spoken since she’d heard that familiar smirk on his face before he hung up the phone.

Then go ahead and prove me wrong, Scully.

But she couldn’t; she wouldn’t prove him wrong, not this time. Not when proving him wrong meant accepting he was actually dying.

She was in Africa to prove him right, for once.

Mulder wasn’t technically dying, though; she knew that now. He was more alive than he’d ever been because of what was inside him. And what was inside him was extraterrestrial after all. But she knew soon enough his body would no longer be able to withstand it. She wasn’t used to accepting such a thing so freely and willingly but here and now, in this place, with time working against her, she had to believe to find the cure. Skepticism was a luxury she couldn’t afford in this particular fight.

She’d spent the last several days and nights toiling over the symbols on the surface of the craft, looking for connections she knew only Mulder could make.

In Antarctica, he had arrived for her just in time, armed with a cure, armed with the means to save her life.

She’d arrived here with nothing.

It isn’t nothing, she told herself. It can’t be. It just wasn’t anything she could understand. She wanted to believe but what she needed was Mulder to help her make sense of it.

Although his death felt impossibly imminent and she knew everything else was secondary, she couldn’t help but wonder, again, what might have been if they’d only finished that kiss. If they’d only been rewarded for their momentary bravery rather than continually punished for it.

If perhaps Diana Fowley’s perpetual, insufferable, nauseating presence in their lives could have been entirely avoided.

Or maybe it all would have been for nothing.

No, she told herself. It isn’t nothing.

It can’t be.  

GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

Pain.

First and foremost, he only registered the pain. He heard Scully’s voice, sensed her worry. He used every single bit of his very limited strength and agency to try and tilt his head towards her, to no avail.

He had no idea where she’d been. He had no idea how long she’d been gone.

But she was here. She was here, now.

“Mulder, it's me.”

The three words that could bring him back to life had finally arrived.

“Scully… I knew you’d come,” he said, but she could not hear his words.

“I know that you can hear me. If you can just give me some sign…”

He tried. He wanted to, badly. But he was so tired. His body couldn’t react.

“I’m here, Scully. I can hear you,” he said. But again, she couldn’t hear him.

“I want you to know where I've been-- what I found.” She looked down at him, and it was difficult to see her from his angle, frozen in place. But he saw when her lips were moving; when they weren’t. “Africa, the Ivory Coast,” her thoughts came. “I’ve been halfway around the world, Mulder.” She spoke again. “I think that if you know... that you could find a way to hold on. I need you to hold on,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. Scully’s voice never broke.

He listened, the only thing he was able to do, and heard her desperate fear for him wrapped up within a multitude of medical jargon he couldn’t quite understand. Her presence in the room soothed him; and in this moment he could think of a million things he wanted to say to her that he couldn’t.

“Don’t give up,” her mind revealed. “Please stay with me, Mulder. Fight. I can’t do this without you. Please hold on.”

“I found a key- the key- to every question that has ever been asked,” she continued. “It's a puzzle. But the pieces are there for us to put together and I know that they can save you if you can just hold on…”

“I can’t do this alone.”

“Mulder…” at that moment, her voice broke again. He felt her hand take his, squeeze it, the first contact they’d had in days. Her hand was warm and full of life, and he felt grounded for the first time in what must have been days.

But then he heard something he didn’t expect.

“I saw it, Mulder… I saw… The truth you’ve searched for is out there, it’s within our grasp. But I need you to help me understand it.”

“Please… hold on,” she said.

“Help me…” she thought.

He wanted to tell her she didn’t need his help; that she’d always been able to see. She only needed to want it badly enough. Maybe now she could.

Maybe now she could help him.

She stayed by his bedside for a long time, her hope and determination giving him the strength to hold on like she wanted him to. He heard her turning the intricacies of the puzzle over and over in her own mind, desperate to find the answer, to find the cure to save him. She took every possibility into account; every alien influence was considered, as if she had taken over his role in their dynamic, if only for the time being.

And in the blink of an eye he knew that to do this, to find the answer, to put the puzzle together, it had to be the two of them. Him and her, together. He needed her, and she needed him. One could not exist without the other.

“I have to go now,” she whispered, her lip trembling. “I don’t want to, but I have to.” She stood and looked down at him, into his frozen eyes, and smoothed his sweaty hair away from his brow.

And then he heard it, clear as a bell, as if she’d spoken the words with her lips.

“I love you, Mulder.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead. Warm, giving, selfless; so unlike Diana’s kiss.

He suddenly remembered the Padgett case a few weeks back; how he had wondered, hoped, believed that Padgett had been talking about him.

Agent Scully is already in love.

For just a moment, thoughts of his impending death were insignificant, because Scully loved him.

I love you, Mulder.

Now he knew for sure, and his heart soared.

“Don’t give up,” she said firmly and audibly, then turned to leave. He watched her walk away, trusting her completely to do whatever she could to save him. He knew she wouldn’t give up on him.

He would not give up on her, either.

***

Michael Kritschgau was the last person Diana had expected to see helping AD Skinner. She’d been certain he had been silenced properly years ago. She didn’t know him, not really, but she knew of him; had recognized him from her work at Roush. And she was pretty sure from the look on his face he’d recognized her as well.

Now, it seemed even he was aware of how valuable Fox was, and was willing to go to extreme lengths to obtain such proof.

Diana had been clinging desperately to the hope that this could all still turn out okay: that Spender could save Fox, and the work could be completed. Optimism had never been her strongest personality trait but, with nothing left to lose, she clung to it now like a seahorse gripping a frond of seaweed in a riptide.

When she saw Spender and Fox’s mother talking across the room, however, things began to unravel. She couldn’t help but envision a young Fox Mulder: where he’d come from, the events that had transpired to make him into such a broken man.

Diana had been numb to her guilt for so long that lying to Fox and everyone else around her had become second nature. But over time the numbness was wearing thin, as if the longer the truth of her betrayal was known to him the more the guilt could seep through.

Perhaps Mrs. Mulder truly believed Spender planned to help her son. Or more likely, she simply knew questioning the man was pointless in any case. Spender did what he wanted, and the mother of his son surely knew as much.

After Spender had administered Fox with one more injection that Diana truly hoped would be his last for a good while, Fox’s eyes had closed, and he’d drifted into a state of unconsciousness that she knew would last for some time.

She watched Mrs. Mulder sign Fox out of the hospital against medical advice, and she watched the older woman gently dab a handkerchief to her eyes as her son was wheeled away by a stranger.

Diana practically sleep walked through the transfer from the hospital that could do nothing to the underground Department of Defense facility where they would certainly do something. She wasn’t entirely sure if that "something" was the right thing, anymore. What she did know was that the control she thought she’d had over this situation was rapidly dissolving with every passing minute.

Everything was moving so fast, like a dream, and soon she was staring at Fox, laid out across an operating table with his arms splayed to either side, like Christ on the cross. Her own personal Jesus.

How did we get here?

An apparatus was placed on his head. It was a device she knew well- she herself had helped develop it. It would scan his brain, helping locate and retain the irretrievable information inside so that the operation could go as smoothly as possible without altering his memories too much. It wasn’t perfect, however: it read dreams and fantasies, but also had the capability to plant them as well, be it purposefully or inadvertently.

There was also no guarantee this procedure wouldn’t damage his brain permanently if he did survive.

After the prep was finished and the surgical team had been notified to begin, Diana and Spender were alone with Fox.

“A father has high hopes for his son, but he never dreams his boy is going to change the world,” Spender said from behind her as she watched Fox lying there. “I’m so proud of this man… the depth of his capacity for suffering.”

Diana turned to him, placating. “Like father, like son.” Regardless of what was going on in her mind, her emotional turmoil and confusion, she couldn’t let Spender reconsider.

“They think what he has is killing him, but in actuality he’s never been more alive,” Spender said.

He looked at Fox like prey, and Diana found it interesting that Spender seemed to be rewriting history even as they stood here. Lies upon lies, upon more lies. Now that Spender was poised to receive what was inside his son, what had previously been a death sentence seemed now to be a blessing.

He wanted whatever it was that Fox had inside him; he wanted it badly. And it seemed at this point he’d say just about anything to get it.

She tried to decipher his riddles but she felt herself weakening with every moment that passed. He couldn’t know she was onto him, not yet. Not until she figured out what to do.

“Do you think he dreams?” she asked. The apparatus attached to Fox’s head was far from perfect; there was really no way to know what state he was in.  

“Oh, I’m sure he dreams,” Spender assured her.

“About what, I wonder?”

“Dreams all men who are owned by the world have, a simple life full of simple pleasures,” Spender pontificated. “Extraordinary men are always tempted by the most ordinary things.”

She wondered about this; about whether or not it was true for Fox. Whether or not it was true for Spender. She thought of her own life and whether it was even true for her: ordinary things had never been what she sought. She’d always wanted to be extraordinary.

What was she now?

She looked down at the sleeping fox, completely helpless, at the mercy of whatever his mind and the apparatus concocted. His eyes twitched ever so slightly and she wondered if he could hear them. Whatever he dreamed of, she hoped it brought him comfort.

“Dreams are all he has now,” Spender said, and for a moment she thought perhaps he’d slipped up; revealed something he hadn’t intended.

“What did you say?” she asked, turning around to face him.

Spender appeared slightly chagrined; at least, as chagrined as he allowed himself to appear.

“-For the time being, of course,” he clarified. “We all have such places— borne of memory and desire,” he continued. “Dreaming of the things we once had, or perhaps the things we’ve forsaken. Hundreds of little joys…” he looked reflective, “to open a door and have a woman beckon you in… to have her make a fire and lay the table for you… and when it’s late, to feel her take you into her arms.”

His gaze had turned towards her, and she felt incredibly uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to distract her from his misstep, or if he’d actually once had those things, or if it was even some poor attempt at seduction. Whatever it was, she was tired of listening to him.

“Wherever he is, I’m certain he’s at peace,” he concluded, or at least she hoped.

She didn’t believe him anymore, any of it. He expected Fox to die, and soon. But she wasn’t surprised. She’d known from the start this endeavor would be a long shot.

Was there anything she could do to stop this? Everything was already in motion. If she attempted to get Fox out of here, she would certainly be apprehended… and for what? What would it matter? Without removing the brain matter that was killing him, he’d die anyway.

She looked around as the surgeons began to file in, a dozen of them at least, flanking Fox like greedy, starving vultures. She thought of poor Gibson Praise lying on a slab, his brain exposed, and how she’d allowed it. She’d just… allowed that.

What had she become, truly?

She thought of the book she had back at her apartment, nestled into the top drawer of her nightstand; how it was the only thing she’d had over the past several months, the only thing that had kept her going. The only thing that she could use to possibly justify any of this, if only to herself. If she did seek assistance to get Fox out of here, how would she explain why she’d gone along with any of it? Would anyone help her? Would anyone believe her?

Would anyone care?

She went over her ever-dwindling options in her mind: AD Skinner. Michael Kritschgau. Even Alex, for fuck’s sake. And she knew none of them could help Fox.

None of them would help him.

But in an instant, she knew who would. She knew the only person who could. And it was the last person she wanted to involve.

It occurred to her she’d driven a fox-shaped wedge between herself and her only option over the past several months that there was no hope of dislodging now. The irony struck her; that the only person in a position to help her was the only person who would never, ever trust her.

She had to find a way of getting Agent Scully to understand what was going on, and what needed to be done, without directly asking her.

The answer came to her in an instant. The book. It could help. She had to try.

Diana turned to face Spender, her attention back on the task at hand: making him believe nothing had changed. “What would your place be like?” she asked him.

“Pardon?” He looked confused, as if the mere notion that anyone would ask him about his personal life was absurd.

“The place you’d go to in your mind,” she said. “What would be there?”

He looked pensive, and for the first and only occasion in the entire time she’d known him, she thought she saw a faint glimmer of regret.

“Ordinary things,” he said simply.

He gave her a weak smile, but she saw a glint in his eyes as he left to prepare himself for surgery.

[ghostbustermelanieking]

reconsideration

s6 vignette: the beginning, triangle, dreamland, the rain king, tithonus, one son, arcadia, milagro, the unnatural, field trip. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files

summary: Times Mulder and Scully reconsidered the status of their relationship.

note: I realize this is, like, the thinnest premise ever, but season 6 UST is some of the best UST. This story most directly links up to Flights and Renegade (and leads into Auld Acquaintance), but it does contain part of the Tithonus scene from The Fountain. (It is not necessary to read any of these works to understand this story, as they can all technically stand alone.)

i.

She’s been wondering about the kiss.

In the days between their mad escape from Antarctica and their flight back to DC from Australia, she’d been considering the encounter in the hallway. The things she said, the things he said. How close they came to kissing. Some culmination five years deep. The sudden pain in her neck, the way she’d dodged it even though she hadn’t meant to. And then everything that had happened after, blurring together into a horrifying montage. The paramedics, the gunshot. The pain and the cold, the freezing cold. Mulder’s mouth on hers, breathing life into her. He came to Antarctica for her. Antarctica. To the ends of the fucking earth.

Scully is having some trouble wrapping her head around it all, but that doesn’t change what happened. That he saved her, that he said she saved him, made him a whole person. That he tried to kiss her—even if it was only to make her stay, he still wanted to kiss her. Wants to kiss her. And she wanted to kiss him, she has realized. She wants to kiss him back.

She hugs him in the hospital when he gives her the cross back and she leans against his shoulder in the airport like it’s effortless. She faces down the Office of Professional Review back in DC for him, for their X-Files. She meets him at the reflecting pool, tries to reassure him that they can bring down the people who did this, and he tries to push her away in return. He tells her that she was right to want to leave, that he is not going to watch her die. Almost the opposite of what he said in the hallway. He tried to make her stay because he cares about her, and now he is pushing her away because he cares about her. Because he is scared.

She doesn’t know how she would’ve reacted if he’d said these things when she wanted to quit, but she knows how she will react now. He pushes and she pushes back. He was right before, about wanting to quit with a clear conscience, but she can’t do that, there’s too much left to fight for. She takes his hand and repeats his earlier words back to him: “If I quit now, they win.” It’s some sort of reassurance—reassuring him that she isn’t leaving, or maybe reassuring herself that she wouldn’t have left in the first place. She squeezes his hand. She thinks that maybe something can happen between them now. She thinks maybe it’s time.

And then everything goes to hell.

She can’t find what Mulder wants her to find, what he wanted to show OPR. Or rather, what she finds is not what he wanted to hear. They really should have discussed everything before the meeting itself. Mulder is clearly upset with her, and things only escalate when they don’t get the X-Files back. Instead, Jeffrey Spender and Diana Fowley are assigned to it. Scully doesn’t even have time to process it, to maybe have a bit of contempt for the woman who is apparently Mulder’s ex swooping in and taking their jobs from them, because Mulder is too busy feeling betrayed himself. Skinner has led him to a file, some attack in Arizona, and by some paradox, he manages to convince her to go. She doesn’t know what she’s thinking—maybe that they can find more proof, more reason to go back on the X-Files. But Mulder’s theories at the crime scene don’t make sense, even if the evidence doesn’t fit with the crime report.

He is upset with her, at the scene, angry that she is doing exactly what he said has kept him honest, has saved him, and she doesn’t understand it. She tries to understand, takes his hand and repeats his earlier words back to him. “You told me that my science kept you honest. That it made you question your assumptions. That by it, I’d made you a whole person,” she says, trying to remind him. What he’d said was why she’d stayed. “If I change now… it wouldn’t be right, or honest.”

He doesn’t listen. He waxes some poetic bullshit about extraterrestrial life, says, “I’m sorry, Scully, but this time your science is wrong,” before he walks away from her, leaving her blinking in astonishment. Maybe a little hurt. She stayed because he said he needed her. But this is one of the times that she thinks he would like it better if she just wasn’t here to debunk his theories. In this brief moment of chest-stinging hurt, everything Mulder said in that hallway feels like a taunt.

It gets worse. It actually gets worse. They find Gibson half-dead in their car. She convinces Mulder that they need to protect him, but the next thing she knows, Diana Fowley is popping up and dragging Mulder off to chase some lead, leaving her behind to protect the boy. Which she can’t do, apparently; Gibson disappears from the hospital she takes him to. Supposedly, he shows up at wherever Mulder and Fowley went off to, locked in a room with what Mulder claims killed those people in Arizona. He doesn’t reappear.

After it’s all over, Mulder is still unwilling to forgive and forget. He says some biting things that cut her to the core, credits Fowley over her, makes some allusions to Diana not refusing to believe things because of science.

Scully clenches her jaw and plunges on, although she’s not entirely sure why. She reminds him that she doesn’t doubt him, that it comes down to a matter of trust. She asks him to trust her. He has said before that she is the only one he trusts. Maybe she wants that faith back. Maybe she wants him to acknowledge how much he claims to need her. One in five billion, making him a whole person. What else is she supposed to think?

If he is willing to forget what happened in that hallway, then she can forget it, too.

ii.

He is in love with Dana Scully, and he wants to tell her how he feels.

He might be an official time traveler who’s high off his ass on painkillers, but goddamnit, he is in love with her. He has been in love with her for months, years. He wanted to tell her over the summer but he was scared; he thought that if he pushed her away, she would leave and be safe from the X-Files forever. And then he’d been an asshole to her, really fucked it up. But it’s been good since then. Good. They do background checks and manure checks, drive the country like they always have and Mulder books them haunted hotels, passes her glossy brochures over the center console of the car that announce urban legends he can sometimes convince her to chase off hours. They eat together in diners, eat lunch in the break room or go out sometimes in a cliquish way that makes the other bullpen agents whisper. They see each other on the weekend, sometimes, when Mulder isn’t chasing ghosts or ghouls. They spent Halloween looking for demons in a cornfield, and Scully had nearly bent in half laughing at him when it turned out to be kids in crudely-made masks. God, he loves her. He loves her and he wants to tell her.

He can find her anywhere, he proved that today. He found her in 1939. She was beautiful in that wine-colored dress, her hair all curled and her eyes icy the way they get when she is absolutely done with his nonsense. It wasn’t really her, but she was brave and confident and faced down Nazis like it was nothing. She saved the world and he kissed her because he thought he’d never see her again. He deserved that punch. But he is in love with his partner—his partner who is right here beside him. He loves her and he wants to tell her.

“Hey, Scully?” he says as she starts to walk away, rising up on one elbow.

She comes back, standing close so that they are almost nose to nose. “Yes?” she says, very serious.

He looks deeply into her eyes, trying to tell her everything he wants to tell her without even having to speak. When she’s this close, he could kiss her again. Or for the first time. “I love you,” he says, very sincere. He wants her to know.

She rolls her eyes, mutters, “Oh, brother,” and stalks off. And that is the end of that.

Still, he isn’t sorry that he told her. The side of his face stings when he puts it down on the pillow, from where 1939 Scully socked him, and he smiles dopily to himself. She knows, and he will tell her as many times as it takes to make her understand how he feels. How much he cares about her.

He grins at the ceiling. He is in love with his partner. He is in love.

iii.

They fly to Nevada against orders, to investigate some lead an informant gave Mulder. The airport is a couple hours out from their destination, so they rent a car and drive together into the desert. In Area 51, the only thing that is waiting for them is a slew of Men in Black or whatever, who stop them in the middle of the road. There is a confrontation. A light passes over them, and Scully is left blinking, her mind foggy. How much time has passed? She is holding Mulder’s hand.

“Come on, Mulder,” she says, unnerved. “Let’s go.”

—

They don’t talk a lot as they drive away, stirring up red dust behind them. Scully rests her head on the window pane, his fingers tapping the dashboard​. Mulder is quiet, his jaw working back and forth as he stares out at the road ahead. “What happened out there, Scully?” he asks finally.

It was a brief, meaningless​ encounter, completely unmemorable, but it feels like something more and she can’t explain it. She shrugs. “We got stopped. Found nothing,” she says. “What else is new?”

Mulder nods, chewing his lower lip. They pass a diner, the lights startlingly blue. “You hungry?” he offers.

The diner is packed to the brim, something Scully isn’t entirely used to; they usually frequent half-empty shitty places in the middle of the night. There is a family sitting across from them, three kids jammed in one booth, shoving at each other. Scully remembers that she said something about raising families, having something approaching a normal life, on the drive up. It seems like something she said days ago for some reason; she blinks in sleepy confusion. Mulder smudges fingerprints on the glossy menu, waving it at her. He orders her drink for her, exactly the way she likes it. She thinks that sometimes they may be able to read each other’s minds.

“Sorry I dragged you out here for nothing, Scully,” Mulder says after the waiter takes their meal orders and leaves.

Scully pokes at the sugar holder. A baby squeals somewhere across the diner, a couple argues at the counter. The Nevada sky has so much more stars than back in DC. “That’s okay,” she says, more agreeable than she would’ve expected of herself. “Better than background checks.”

Mulder smiles, his teeth too white under the fluorescent lights. She has some faint memory of saying goodbye to him, of sunflower seeds slipping into her palm and through her fingers, clammy from Mulder’s hand, but she has no idea where it came from, because she knows that never happen. Maybe it’s because Mulder has been eating them since the airport. She wonders if his fingers would taste like salt, and then blushes on instinct.

“It’s too bad that lead never panned out, though,” says Mulder, a little regretful, maybe a little bitter, leaving starburst fingerprints in the condensation on the side of his glass. “This was a waste of time.” He snorts out a bitter laugh. “An entire day’s waste of time.”

Scully shrugs, her coat loose around her shoulders. She is unusually jovial, happy to be with him. “It’s like you said, Mulder. This is a normal life.”

Mulder smiles again, almost involuntary. She smiles, too. She steals fries off of his plate when their food comes and he makes a gremlin face at her and she giggles. She has an odd feeling of longing that she can’t explain, and she doesn’t bother to try. They’re in a diner in Nevada, off the clock. Who the hell cares?

Mulder takes a shift driving after they eat, and Scully curls into a ball in her seat and falls asleep. She has some strange dream of standing opposite Mulder in the desert. There are seeds, like the one in that strange non-memory in the diner, and she tells him, I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly. Well, she notes when she wakes up, the sentiment isn’t entirely off. But still. What the hell is that about?

iv.

They’ve slept in the same bed before, but never quite like this.

Scully can tick off every time they’ve shared a bed. The awkward time in the first year of their partnership where she’d set a token pillow between them and slept on the edge of the mattress (but Mulder sprawls in his sleep, so he’d ended up drooling on her shoulder in the morning, the pillow stuck under his belly). The case in ‘96 where her feet had snuck over on his side every single night. The times she’d fallen asleep in Mulder’s hotel room or he’d fallen asleep in hers. But every time had been different then this somehow, she thinks.

She’d woken up this morning with Mulder’s face half-buried in her neck, an arm thrown over her ribcage, his fingers hot against her side where her shirt had ridden up. His stubble rubbing her neck as he muttered things in his sleep. She had counted to ten in her head. Twenty. And rolled away. His hand had slid over her stomach in a long trail; he snorted and buried his face in the pillow. Scully had shivered, curling into herself on the edge of the bed. And now they are in bed again. He is asleep and she is not and he’s jammed up against her in bed, nose against her upper arm and knees pressing into her leg. Their fingers tangled together on the mattress. Scully stares at the ceiling, ignoring the tickling sensation of Mulder’s breath against her skin. Or trying to.

Sheila was surprised that she isn’t with Mulder. Which apparently the entire town of Kroner can join her in. The missus. Boyfriend. Holman had bid Mulder farewell by saying, “You should try it sometime,” looking at the two of them like he expected something out of them. She supposes her big “relationships-spurning-from-friendship” speech to Sheila didn’t help their Kroner reputation. She doesn’t know why she cares.

Mulder is too warm, jammed up against her with his raspy breathing and the blankets tangled around them. She should move away. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t move away. She told herself that she wasn’t going to do this last summer, after everything with Diana Fowley, after he tried to kiss her and never brought it up. For a little while last fall, in Nevada, she thought she might, but she’d relegated herself, insisted that they are friends and friends only. And despite whatever lover’s pacts some ghosts tried to force them into, despite her falling asleep on his couch at six a.m. on Christmas morning, she has been able to push back the thoughts in her mind of taking their relationship a step further. But now…

Mulder mumbles something in his sleep—something that sounds like the lyrics to Islands in the Stream, which played on repeat at the reunion when one of the speakers glitched—and presses his nose harder against her shoulder. Scully shivers. We are just friends, she tells herself sternly. He’s my best friend. That’s it. That’s all. But Mulder tugs at her hand in his sleep, rolling over so that he lands almost on top of her, and she almost loses her resolve, shivers. She didn’t know it was so cold in Kansas. Or that her partner is a furnace. She shifts in her sleep, cold feet brushing against his feet and trying to wiggle out from under him a bit. Mulder stirs, lifting his head from her shoulder and blinking groggily. “Scully?” he mutters, tugging at her hand before he realizes that he’s holding it and lets it drop. “Oh, jeez, I’m on top of you,” he says, scooting backwards so he’s on the other side of the mattress. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. She hasn’t moved.

Mulder flops over on his stomach, still half-asleep. “We’ll be home tomorrow,” he mumbles into his pillow.

“Yeah,” says Scully. His hair is sticking up on one side; she resists the urge to pet it down. She turns on her side and closes her eyes, determined to get some sleep tonight. But her words to Sheila are still bouncing around in her head. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before, she’d said. And the person who was just a friend is… suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.

She wakes up in the morning with her face pressed up against Mulder’s shoulder. She tells herself sternly that it means nothing. She knows she is lying.

v.

When she wakes up in the hospital, Mulder is there. He’s leaning over her hospital bed with his hands in his head. He looks tired, haggard, as if he’s been there for days. Scully has a groggy, overwhelming affection for him, and though she cannot speak, she reaches for him. He looks up, sees her hand moving, and his entire face lights up. “Scully,” he says, engulfing her hand in both of his. “You’re awake.”

She looks up at him, tiredly tries to tell him everything that she is thinking with only her eyes.

Mulder laughs a little, squeezing her fingers. He is practically grinning with relief. “I-I’ll go get your doctor,” he says, standing from his spot next to the bed. Before he puts her hand down, he leans over and kisses her knuckles, and she feels it from head to toe. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says before he leaves. Scully smiles a little to herself. She can’t believe he’s here.

Mulder is there when she wakes up and Mulder continues to be there, through every awkward moment with her mother and brother (both of whom Scully is incredibly relieved to see), through every talk with the doctor, through nearly every moment Scully is conscious for the next two days. She is immensely grateful. She’d missed him. She loves him, she thinks rebelliously to herself one day. She loves him and is so incredibly happy to still be here to tell him so. All those doubts flickering in her mind, leftover from last summer, are gone now. She is ready.

There is a brief moment where she is uncertain, wondering whether or not Fellig was right about immortality, right about love not lasting forever, but she talks herself out of it. She is being ridiculous. People don’t live forever. Life is too short, actually, and she has plenty of proof of that right before her.

Mulder thumb-wrestles her over the blankets tucked around her body, kisses her cheek in farewell every time he leaves. He flies back down to DC with her when she is finally discharged, cracking peanuts between his teeth like makeshift sunflower seeds and trying to distract her with in-flight movies. He visits her frequently in the evenings while she is on medical leave, calls in the middle of the day to complain about Kersh and background checks and the embarrassment of being stuck in the bullpen. He is her best friend and she is in love with him; there was more truth to the things she told Sheila than she thought. She keeps looking for moments to tell him, but keeps coming up short. She doesn’t know how to say it. (They’re both awful at expressing their feelings; is she just supposed to sit him down and say, “Mulder, almost dying has made me realize I’m in love with you?” What about, “So, about that one time you almost kissed me and we never talked about it…?” All utterly ridiculous.) But the time will come. She is confident that the time will come. These things have a way of happening with them.

Later, after the entire ordeal at El Rico Air Force Base, she will attribute the entire thing to what Fellig told her in his apartment. Fear of eternity staring her in the face, loneliness. Vulnerability after almost dying. But she cannot really be in love with him, she tells herself. She cannot.

vi.

He can’t explain why trusting Diana is so important to him.

He is not in love with her. Not anymore. And when he was, it was never as house-on-fire fierce as the way he cares for Scully. But something in him cannot let go of their relationship. Their years together. She remains the only woman he has ever proposed to. The longest relationship he’s ever had. She was there when he discovered the files. He cannot let that go, for some reason. He just can’t.

He doesn’t know why he is so stingingly hurt when Scully is sharp to her in quarantine, because he is done with her romantically and has been for years. She broke his heart. But something in his stomach curdles in annoyance when Scully keeps snapping at her, acts like she’s the enemy. He chides her a little when she gets petty towards Diana, because a part of him is protesting, She isn’t working against me, Scully. She knows how important this is. She left me because the work is important. And he doesn’t know that Scully would go that far for him, for the work. It’s a horrible comparison to make, but it’s true.

The Gunmen turn against her, too. Scully calls him to their apartment, just so she can present all the reasons why Diana is untrustworthy, and Mulder’s annoyance continues to grow. You wouldn’t be saying this if you knew everything she’s done for me, he wants to say to her. What she meant to me, once.

He tells her she is reaching. He tells her she has given him no reason not to trust Diana. He tells her that she is making things personal, and he senses he has gone too far. It’s been personal since Day One, with them. He’d like to take it back almost as soon as he says it, but Scully storms out and Mulder is too annoyed with her to follow her. But Frohike’s glare and the way Byers and Langly avoid his eyes speak volumes.

Embarrassed and maybe a little guilty, he slinks off to find out the truth about Diana, just to prove that he is right. He finds the smoker at her apartment, who offers him a way out. A way to save himself from what’s coming. Himself, he thinks, and Scully, and maybe even Diana. If they can really avoid death on Earth, he and Scully, then it would be wrong to leave behind the woman who is partially the reason he has gotten this far.

Diana comes home and reaffirms her loyalty to him. He tells her how they need to survive and she kisses him. It is a brief kiss, and his mind is buzzing too much to process it all, but he wraps his arms around her on instinct.

—

After it’s all over, he’s overwhelmed with guilt.

He doesn’t go to the air force base because he is chasing a lead with Scully, and he is relieved that they don’t because the entire thing goes up in flames. Diana doesn’t reappear in the immediate days after. Jeffrey Spender gets them back on the X-Files, and then his blood is found staining their office. Scully won’t return his calls.

The guilt is thick in his stomach over the possibility of Diana’s death, the encounter in her apartment. What he perceived as a betrayal of Scully. They may not be together, but he is in love with her. He told her he loves her and he meant it with everything in him. And now, and now. He has hurt her to the point of nearly no communication between them. He has kissed another woman he is not in love with. He has ruined it all.

Diana calls a few days after the entire ordeal, reassuring him that she is alive, and he is relieved. Truly relieved. Maybe some feelings do linger for her, but not in the sense of wanting to actually be with her. It’s mostly nostalgia from his old relationship, mostly loyalty. He’s happy she’s alive. But he’s in love with Scully and he’s pushed her too far away.

He wishes he knew how to make this right.

vii.

She almost resigns after it’s all over.

She gets drunk one night, furious and raving against Mulder, and types up a resignation letter, prints it out and even signs it. She leaves it on the dinner table, determined to give it to Skinner in the morning. She is done with the FBI, the way they’ve scorned her and thrown her out. She is done with the X-Files, tired of the way they beat her up and leave her frustrated and embarrassed when she is proven wrong. She is done with Mulder.

In the morning, she chickens out. It seems ridiculous in the daylight, with the sun shining unevenly across her pillow and her pounding hangover headache. She did hang on this long to resign. Personal interest is all she has, and she can’t give up for her sister or her daughter or herself. And even Mulder. She still cares for Mulder by instinct, knee-jerk reaction.

But there is not going to be a relationship between them now. Not a chance.

In the process of rebuilding their office, reorganizing everything, Scully works quietly, talks as little as possible. The resignation letter stays on her table, like a glaring spotlight. Reminding her of the way she felt when she thought she was leaving. She goes back and forth on it a few times in the weeks following El Rico. She almost changes her mind the day after Diana drops by the office to congratulate Mulder on getting the X-Files back. Mulder almost dies twice. The second time, she is haunted by nightmares of him dying in her arms, gunshot wound to the chest. It breaks her. She can’t resign, she can’t leave him anymore than she could last summer. She has tried, and it doesn’t work. She has not hung on this long, through dead family members and abductions and cancer, to quit because Mulder hurt her feelings. She cares about him, and it is more than a knee-jerk reaction. She isn’t going to resign. She throws the letter out.

But her stance on a relationship between them stays the same. He is her partner, her friend, but nothing more.

xiii.

The Petries has a nice ring to it. Mulder picked the name because of all the Dick Van Dyke Show reruns they’d watched together while Scully was recovering from her gunshot wound. Scully rolled her eyes and smiled a little at the floor when he told her, but sobered up quick. Told him that they had to pronounce it like the dish.

There has been a definite distance between them lately. A distance that only comes down after one of them almost dies. He wishes he knew how to fix this.

Being able to call Scully his wife, though. Being able to put his arm around her and ham it up in front of all the citizens of Arcadia Falls. He kind of likes it—which is unexpected, because he never associated Scully and marriage in his mind until now. He hasn’t been very keen on marriage ever since Diana mailed his ring back, broke off their engagement that had crumbled to nothing at that point. But he could get used to this, coexisting with Scully in a house, their house, sharing a bedroom and eating dinner together. (Maybe without the dorky planned community, though.)

They end up cooking dinner together because neither of them can agree on who should be the one to cook. They’re both terrible at it. Scully rolls up the sleeves of her cute little soccer mom sweater and huffs angrily when she burns the chicken. Mulder abandons the potatoes and pulls out one of the salad kits that Scully had insisted the Bureau buy them. (They’d made a grocery list together, for God’s sake; he loves this case.)

“You liking married life, Scully?” he asks her at the dinner table, after they manage to construct a decent salad.

She snorts a little, stabbing lettuce with her fork. The windows are open, to air out the kitchen from where the chicken was burned, and they are speaking quietly in an attempt not to blow their cover. “Truly blissful, Mulder,” she says dryly. “The honeymoon never ends.”

Mulder chuckles, a little awkwardly, looking down at his plate. “Did you ever daydream about your wedding as a kid, Scully?” he asks.

“Oh, sure, when I was younger.” She drums her finger against the table. “But the daydreams kind of faded in high school, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” says Mulder knowingly.

Scully is still staring at her plate. “I thought I’d get married in my twenties, actually,” she says in a stilted rush, almost like she had to talk herself into saying it.

Mulder’s fork drops from his hand; he was not expecting that. “Really?” he asks in a neutral tone. “What happened?”

Scully shrugs. “I joined the FBI. Broke it off when I saw the full implications of the relationship. I was young, and I thought I was in love. But it would have been a mistake.”

He’d never known that about her. He nods. Scully scrapes her fork through the salad dressing, lifts her chin to meet his eyes. “What about you, Mulder?” she says, and her voice is very serious, like she understands what the answer will be. “Any previous run-ins with marriage?”

He swallows uncertainly. “Diana and I were engaged,” he says carefully. “She broke it off.”

Scully nods, her face neutral. She says just as carefully, “She must have meant a lot to you.”

“She did,” Mulder says. “At one point, she did.”

She holds his gaze for a moment before looking away. Mulder lifts a glass of water to his mouth and gulps a mouthful. It’s too cool sliding down his throat.

He wants to fix this more than anything. He wants Scully to understand why he did what he did, what she means to him. He just wishes he knew how.

ix.

Agent Scully is already in love, Padgett had said, looking straight at him as if he was supposed to have any idea at all what he was talking about. Who Scully could be in love with. If Padgett is even right at all, if he even knows her. Mulder knows that he doesn’t, that he couldn’t possibly know anything about her.

It is stupid to be jealous of him, this creepy little man who has been stalking her for years now. He is not jealous as much as he is furious, wants to shout at him, tear him apart for what he has done to Scully. Padgett does not know her, not the way he does. He is presumptuous, a little voyeuristic shit who thinks he knows and loves a woman because he’s followed her around for a while. He doesn’t know Scully and he is likely a murderer and Mulder wants him gone, wants to make sure he never gets near Scully again.

Agent Scully is already in love. It can’t be true, because Padgett does not know her. Not like he does, not at all. And Mulder doesn’t know who it is that she could possibly be in love with. How he could have missed it. Or if it’s the yearning possibility, the off chance that she might be in love with him…

No. Padgett does not know her. He is lying, playing some new angle. Mulder throws himself into the case, into trying to catch Padgett. It isn’t true, he tells himself. Scully isn’t in love with him. Believing that weasel is the most egotistical thing he could do.

It isn’t until Scully is clinging to him as she sobs hysterically, blood smeared up and down her front, fingers digging desperately into his shoulders, that he considers that it might be true.

x.

His breath on the back of her neck, his nose in her hair, and his arms wrapped all the way around her as they move together, the bat whooshing through the air. Scully giggles helplessly, more delighted than she’s been in months. She feels like she’s in high school again, her heart racing to the point where she’s sure Mulder can hear how nervous she is. How excited.

It’s spring, not very cold at all, but Mulder’s arms are warm around her, the length of her spine pressed to his chest and stomach. Her shoes that are not at all suited for baseball scuff the red dirt. Her feet almost slip out from under her with one swing of the bat, and Mulder’s arms tighten around her, lifting her almost off of her feet as he tries to keep her from falling. Scully belly-laughs, leaning her head back as the bat wavers in her hands. Mulder stumbles backwards under her weight, lowering her to the ground. “I got you,” he huffs, exhausted from holding her up.

Scully lets the bat droop, tapping the dirty ground with its edge. “Yeah,” she says, breathless. She thinks of the latest, unhappy time he had his arms around her like this, while she fell apart on his floor. She thinks of the first moment of arriving at the park, realizing what he meant when he’d said, “Get over here, Scully.” The shivery feeling she’d gotten when he pressed up against her. His lips brush the back of her neck—whether it is on accident or on purpose, she can’t tell, but it makes her think his mouth against hers. The possibilities.

She smiles, leaning back into his chest. “Yeah, you got me.”

xi.

Things are better between them, he thinks. They have been, they are. Less steely silences, less tense conversations. Scully smiles at him now, even bursts into laughter on occasion the way she did on that one golden Saturday. “We should work on the weekend more often,” he’d said the Monday after, a little suggestively, and Scully had smirked back at him just as suggestively. Surprised him so much it almost bowled him over. He loves it.

Things are better between them, their partnership starting to get back to normal, and Mulder is starting to consider the possibility of their friendship finally starting to shift into new territory. (Hey, it only took them a year.) He doesn’t know when or if it will ever happen (although the suggestiveness between them both would suggest that it will), but either way, he’s just grateful to have Scully back. Her friendship, her partnership.

They fuck it up, of course. There is a case in North Carolina, and he presents his theory of UFOs, and she dismisses it, maybe even jokes a little bit about it. And it annoys him, for some reason. “Sounds like crap when you say it,” he says, working his jaw back and forth, wondering why she can never believe him, just once. “I’m just wondering if there’s a connection, Scully,” he adds, defending the theory. “I mean, the conditions of these bodies are reminiscent of certain southwestern cattle mutilations. Those are cases where there’s no physical evidence and they’ve long been associated with UFO activity.”

She replies like she doesn’t know him at all, “Mulder, can’t you just for once, just… for the novelty of it come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one, instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or…?”

Irritated, he stands and says, “Scully, in six years, how… how often have I been wrong?” She scoffs. He says, “No, seriously.  I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me I’m not being scientifically rigorous and that I’m off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.9% of the time?” She looks a little hurt now. She says nothing. “I just think I’ve… earned the benefit of the doubt here,” he says, and walks away before either of them can say anything else, because he doesn’t know why this is bothering him this much. He doesn’t know what else he expected.

— As difficult and as frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over, he’d said in that hallway. Maybe it’s stupid to keep referencing back to something he said a year ago, something he said to manipulate her into staying. But the sincerely behind it had felt real. Everything that has happened between them lately has felt sincere. And once again, Scully doesn’t know what to think

xii.

He knows it isn’t real as soon as she admits that she is wrong. She knows it isn’t real when everyone tells her she is right, again and again. She never really believed she’d lost him anyway.

Their minds meld together through the mushroom hallucinatory haze. They come together, just like always. That is what they do.

Skinner pulls them out of the ground and puts them in the ambulance together. They reach for each other at the same time, Scully searching blindly. She opens her eyes to look at him when he takes her hand. She doesn’t take her eyes off him. They keep looking at each other until they’re unloaded at the hospital.  

She misses him at the hospital, through the haze of drugs and pain. She sleeps on and off for a few days, bandages scratchy against her skin, dreams strange and vivid. She’s cold. She is tired of doubting this—their partnership, how well they work together, whether or not they can never be in a relationship. The only reason they survived was because they’d realized what was happening. That something was wrong. The way that they balance each other out, it’s unmistakable. She misses him.

A few nights after the whole ordeal is over with, she slips out of bed and pads down the hall to his room. He’s awake, staring out the window absently when she steps inside. He turns towards her, startled, and his eyes soften at the sight of her. “You okay?” he rasps.

She nods, stepping closer to the bed. “Couldn’t sleep,” she rasps.

He scoots closer to the inside of the bed, shoulder pressed to the wall. She climbs in beside him, their arms pressed together. He tucks the blankets around them both, brushes some hair off of her face before settling back against the pillow. She takes his hand.

“I’m sorry, Scully,” he rasps.

She shakes her head, intending to tell him to save his voice, but he keeps going. “I shouldn’t have… acted like you were being unreasonable. You… I need you. I need your science, and I need you.”

He squeezes her fingers. She closes her eyes, snuggling into the blankets, reminds herself that he is not dead. She is tired of doubting, of lying to herself. They’re both high off their asses on painkillers, but this time, she believes him. “I need you, too,” she whispers, letting her head fall on his shoulder. “I do. I do.”

He kisses the top of her head. She hums raspily, letting her eyes slip closed.She does need him, she knows now. They need each other.

[davidcarner]

Casey & Walker Ch 3, The Vow

A/N: First, to make sure we're all on the same page, Chuck's undercover name is O. Ryan. No known first name just the letter. He even goes by that in the police station, the reason, he can't be connected to his mom.

For all of you I wrecked with, "she looked around for what she had lost, but she couldn't figure out what it was" I'm sorry…no I'm not, who are we kidding, I live for those moments. While I realize Chuck sneaking into her room was a hair creepy, he did it with the best intentions…that really doesn't make it better does it? I don't think too many of you were worried about Sarah…correction, I don't think anyone was. This one, we get intense. Ch 3, The Vow.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck, but I know a guy who will sale it and the Brooklyn Bridge…

Casey was driving like a bat out of hell. He really should have meet Walker at her door this morning. He knew she was acting squirrelly last night. Damn it, she was too good at this. Between her ability to make computers roll over and play dead (he knew they didn't work that way, but he swore Walker could do it) and her brilliant mind, she was good, too good, get you dead kind of good if you didn't understand this world. The kid had gone to Volkoff. Volkoff wasn't scared of knocking off a cop. Hell, it was an extra thrill for him to knock one off. Casey didn't know what he was going to say to her mom and dad if he was too late. He skid his car to a halt in the parking garage. There were a couple of black and whites already there, and a prisoner transport vehicle. That was good, no meat wagon. He walked up, as calmly as he could.

"Casey," he heard her voice, and turned toward it. She was there, she looked scared, and a bit upset. He started toward her, and he stopped, seeing him. This wasn't good, and the look on his face told him his instinct was right.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Ryan."

"Casey," Chuck said, a grim look on his face. "Looks like we're back to being partners."

}o{

20 minutes earlier.

Sarah was panicking. This was it, her dad was right, and that pissed her off. She was going to die and he was right, and she wasn't sure which made her madder. She knew one thing, she wasn't giving this guy the satisfaction of going out begging. She was going out with her head held high…until he shot her in the head and she slumped over. Well, there was a depressing thought…She steadied herself for the end, when the miracle she had silently prayed for arrived.

"Yuri, wait!" Chuck yelled, walking toward him as quick as he could. Yuri looked at him, and Sarah was caught with multiple emotions. This was the guy she had seen over the past two days, but was he here to help her, or to kill her? Was he a savior, or an executioner? Why did his hair make those funny shapes? She gave herself a mental headshake. Get it together, Walker, she thought to herself.

"O, what are you doing here?" Yuri asked, perplexed.

"Trying to save you, that's what," Chuck said, trying to appear as calm as possible. Emotions were firing through him. He was mad at Casey. He was mad because Casey wasn't here for her, he was mad that he hadn't agreed to let Casey read her in, because he was going to lose her. He couldn't let her die, but to save her was going to mean he could never see her again, not that that mattered, she would never be with someone like him, and that was fine. He was committed to doing to the job, of ending this criminal ring that had seduced his mother into a life of crime destroying his family. He had worked more than ten years to bring it down. There were some in the department that thought he was so burnt out that if pressed, in this minute, they thought he would let her die. The greater good. One life now to save thousands of future ones is what he would say. If pressed, two days ago, he would have agreed with them. That's one reason he found himself so shocked to be here, putting his cover on the line, to save her. And make no mistake, he would save her, cover be damned, but if he could salvage it, he would. "Let me do this and get away for a bit, you've got too much heat on you."

"Kid, you don't have to," Yuri said.

"Look, I'll take her away and do her where no one will find her," Chuck said. Sarah was staring at him. Apparently, the good-looking guy with the chocolate eyes, and the hair she wanted to run her hands through wanted to kill her. That was going to make getting a second date tough...wait, when was the first? Why wasn't she worried, because she wasn't. She really didn't think he had it in him, but Yuri did, and that worried her.

"No, dice, Kid," Yuri said. "You can do it, but I gotta see it, I have my orders."

"Yuri," Chuck began.

"O, it's happening here," he said. Chuck reached out, and Yuri handed Chuck the gun. Chuck looked down at Sarah, here it was, the choice, solidify his cover as O. Ryan, the orphaned kid with no first name, just a letter. If he put a bullet in her, he was in. At the end of the day, no one would know. He'd say Yuri did it and they'd believe him. He'd be in, and could take down Volkoff in a matter of weeks. They thought he was a burnout, and he probably was. In the life since he was sixteen. He had done minor things here and there but never killed anyone, never taken drugs. He told Yuri he thought his parents died that way, that they were drug addicts that sold him for drug money. He got into the police academy and fed Yuri info, but it was never enough to get him over the hump. This, this would get him over the hump. He pointed the gun at Sarah and looked into her eyes. Those stormy eyes that flashed at him, that saw into his soul. She already knew what he was going to do. She gave a slight head nod. He huffed a sigh.

"I'm really sorry," he said. Sarah gave him a soft smile. Chuck aimed the gun at Yuri.

"Yuri, you're under arrest for the murder of Emmett Millbarge and the attempted murder of Detective Walker, anything you say can be used against you," Chuck began.

"You're a cop, O?" Yuri asked. "But, you got drummed out of the department." Chuck shrugged, as Sarah pulled her gun on Yuri. She offered him the cuffs, and he nodded. He put his piece away, took the cuffs, and began to cuff Yuri, who took this moment to taunt him. "You turned on us? You'll pay, O, you'll pay."

"I've paid for ten years, Yuri," Chuck said, cuffing him, while Sarah pointed the gun at Yuri.

"You've been undercover for ten years, and this one blows it for you," Yuri said laughing. "How funny is that." Chuck tightened the cuffs a little more than was necessary. Sarah saw his face and realized he wasn't joking. She realized she had just blown ten years of undercover work.

"Hilarious, Yuri," he said. He turned to Sarah. "Why don't you call it in?"

"I'm sorry," she said, tears in her eyes. "You gave up everything to save me." Thoughts flooded through Chuck's mind, but he couldn't voice them.

"I'm just glad you're okay," Chuck said, his voice thick. She gave him a smile, tears in her eyes and walked away to call it in. Chuck watched her go, thinking this would be one of the last times he would ever see her. It would be fine, he was sure of it. If he was so sure, why did he keep seeing those eyes looking back at him?

}o{

"WALKER!" Casey screamed. Chuck walked up to him and put his hands on Casey's shoulders.

"She knows, Big Guy, she knows," he said. Casey shook his head. "Come on, Man, take it easy on her, you know her life is probably over now."

"What do you mean by that?" Sarah asked. Chuck turned to her, she could see the sadness in his eyes. She had come up behind him and was sure he never meant for her to hear what he had said. He and Casey exchanged a look. Casey nodded. Chuck sighed.

"You're probably going to go into protective custody, you're career in law enforcement just ended," Chuck said, feeling sorry for the new detective. He was surprised to see the look in her eye….a look of determination that he found he liked…a lot.

"Well, see," she said, and walked off, making a phone call.

}o{

"What do you mean she's not going into WitSec!" Chuck yelled at Beckman.

"O, may I remind you I am the Captain around here," Beckman said sternly. Casey stared at Chuck.

"Captain, may I remind you, no one in this department knows more about Volkoff's operations than I do," Chuck said. He leapt from his chair, opened the door, scanned the floor, and found who he wanted. "Miller, Rizzo, would you two come in here for a minute?" Chuck waited for them to walk into Beckman's office. He glanced over at Sarah, and as if she could feel him watching, she looked over at him, a look of defiance on her face. He met her eyes and they stared at each other. Chuck couldn't help but let a small smile slide onto his face. She winked at him, knowing it would knock him off his perch a little. He shook his head. The two walked in, giving Sarah a look and then Chuck. Chuck shut the door behind them, keeping Sarah in his gaze the entire time. He turned to the two ladies. "Would you two remind the class what happened the last time a female crossed Volkoff…allegedly?"

Carina and Zondra paled. They had worked sex crimes for many years, and were two of the best. Their empathy and passion were what made them the person you would want on your side if you ever found yourself in that terrible situation. Mentioning the case that Chuck did…they both shivered involuntarily.

"She had been raped repeatedly," Carina answered. "All available orifices…multiple times...it was the sickest thing I have seen in my life."

"Where is the victim, Detective Miller?" Chuck asked. Beckman knew, but Chuck was making a point, and it was a good one.

"Mental health hospital," Zondra answered, giving Carina a break. "She's tried to commit suicide several times."

"So, if we had a female detective who had just crossed Volkoff, what, in your professional opinion, would be the wisest course of action?" Chuck asked.

"Move to Antarctica," Carina said. "I'm not even kidding."

"So remaining here, working in LA…." Chuck trailed off as both women shook their head. He turned to Beckman. "Still think I'm wrong?"

"I never said you were wrong, Ryan, what I'm saying is she won't go, and I can't make her," Beckman said. Casey had been quiet.

"I could make some calls," Casey began.

"She told WitSec that she refused," Beckman said, looking at Casey. It dawned on him what she was saying. She didn't use her father, he and Beckman shared a proud look. "Bring her in here, Ryan. And, Ryan, try to remember that we're a team, since you are now back in this precinct."

"That was cold," Chuck mumbled. He walked to the door and opened it. Sarah was blatantly ignoring him. He waved his hand, and she typed on, ignoring him. He rolled his eyes, and headed over to her desk. He walked up and she continued to type, a smirk on her face. He looked to see what she was working on, and saw there was a list of pros and cons. On the con side in caps was, HE'S A BUTTHEAD on the pro side was, he saved my life. "You forgot classically handsome," he said. She moved the mouse over to the con side and typed, arrogant. "Maybe I should have just shot you," he grumbled. She looked up at him, and he winced.

"You really haven't had any real conversations with people in the past ten years have you?" she asked.

"Casey," Chuck answered.

"Like I said." She looked at him for a second and then grinned. "Sarah Walker, you're new partner," she said, offering her hand. Chuck grinned, and shook it.

"O Ryan," he said. "The guy that saved your life." She smirked at him.

"Gonna ride that for all it's worth, huh?" she asked. Chuck shrugged, grinning.

"You only get that card so many times, so use it while you've got it," he replied, shrugging. Sarah shook her head. "The captain would like to have a conversation with you."

"More like all of you want me to go into WitSec and I'm not. I'm a detective and I belong here," she said, getting up and walking toward Beckman's office. "What's your first name?" she asked, as Chuck followed behind.

"O," Chuck replied. "I was an orphan with only the words, O Ryan pinned to my baby basket. No one is for sure if it's O'Ryan or O. Ryan, so my first name is O." Sarah stopped and stared at him.

"Your actual name," she said. Chuck shook his head.

"Can't tell you, it will blow my cover," he replied. "If they found out who I really was, it would mess up other cases as well." Sarah just gave him a look, and headed toward Beckman's office. Chuck found himself following again.

"You know, you could learn a thing about dress from Casey," she said, snarkily.

"Why, so you can drool each time you see me in a coat and tie?" he asked, opening the door for her.

"I don't drool," she said, looking at him as she walked through the opened door.

"You haven't seen me in a coat and tie yet," Chuck replied. Carina and Zondra exchanged a look and shook their heads.

"Children, if you're through," Beckman said. Chuck and Sarah looked a little ashamed, but not much. "Sarah, we feel it's best if you went into WitSec." Sarah looked around the room and saw everyone nodding.

"Would you go into WitSec?" she asked Beckman. Beckman had a slight smile on her face and shook her head. Sarah turned to Carina and Zondra. "Would you?" They also shook their heads. She turned to Chuck who threw his hands up.

"Fine, let one of the ladies move in with you," Chuck said.

"No," Sarah replied. Chuck ran his hand through his hair, frustrated. Sarah found herself monetarily conflicted. Part of her wanted him to offer to move in, which she would say no to, of course…she thought. The other part found herself jealous of his hand going through his hair, she wanted to do that.

"The apartment next door is for rent," Casey said to Chuck. He looked at Casey.

"Casey," Chuck began.

"You can't stay where you are, given your cover being blown," Casey said. Chuck closed his eyes.

"So, would I be protecting him as well?" Sarah asked smirking. Chuck groaned. Casey was fighting a smile, and Carina and Zondra…they were bursting in laughter.

"Ryan, we'll set the apartment up for you under the department so you can't be found," Beckman said. "I'll send some people to clear out your old apartment and move you in."

"Then this is how it's going to be?" Chuck asked. Beckman nodded. He turned to Sarah. "Will you do me one favor, please?"

"If I can," Sarah acquiesced, realizing this meant a lot to him.

"Stay with Carina and Zondra until I get back," he asked…almost pleaded. "It shouldn't be more than a couple of hours." She nodded.

"Come on, Rook," Carina said. "You can fill us in on how the great Ryan saved your life. He only said he arrested Yuri, we all know it was more than that." Sarah smiled.

"Ryan, where do you think you're going?" Casey asked. Beckman had a concerned look on her face. Chuck just looked at him. "Not without me you're not!" Chuck just looked at him. "Possible gun play and you think I'm missing that?"

"Ryan," Beckman began.

"I'm doing this, Beckman," Chuck replied. She nodded.

"If I don't hear from you in one hour…"

"I'm dead," he said, getting up out of his chair, with Casey following. Sarah was confused.

"What is going on?" she asked.

"He's going to talk to Volkoff," Beckman said. "I just hope they both come back."

"But, why?" Sarah asked, confused.

"Kid, he likes you," Carina said. "He gave up a ten year undercover operation and he's doing everything to keep you safe."

"But, I don't even know him!"

"Sarah, listen," Carina said, squatting down beside her. "He's been so far under for so long many of us thought he'd never come back. He does have a heart, and I'm glad someone found something in him besides anger, because all he's known is pain and heartbreak, and none of us know why. So yeah, he's protecting you, and I'm not saying he's in love or anything, but he's already shown more concern about you than he has his partner, John Casey."

"That reminds me, Sarah" Beckman said. "It appears that you, John, Ryan will be partners, are you okay with that?" Sarah nodded. "Good, because you three just became my team to tear down the Ring."

"Wait," Carina said, turning to Beckman. "I thought you didn't believe Ryan about the Ring?" Beckman grinned.

"Let's don't tell him, keeps him on his toes," Beckman replied sassily.

}o{

"Chuck, we need to read her all the way in," Casey said. Chuck just looked at his partner then back at the road. "Chuck."

"Casey, how about we survive this, get my fancy new apartment setup, and we talk about it," Chuck offered.

"She's got secrets too, you know," Casey replied.

"Ooooo," Chuck said, unimpressed. "Did she work undercover since she was sixteen because her mom convinced her it would help her dad? Did she put her dad in jail?"

"He's getting out, and I've got him setup like you asked," Casey said softly. Chuck nodded.

"Thanks, Casey," Chuck said. Casey nodded and the rest of the ride was silent. They pulled up in front of Volkoff Industries. Chuck turned to his partner. "You realize we might not walk out there alive." Casey shrugged.

"Going down in a hail of bullets sounds righteous to me," he replied, grinning.

"Seriously, asked her to take you back, Man," Chuck said shaking his head and starting to get out of the car.

"Really, Ryan," Casey replied. "You blow it all for a skirt and you want to give me grief over a woman?" Chuck turned to look at him. "Your partner's attractive," he said with finger quotes. Chuck grinned.

"She's a'ight," he said, shrugging. Casey nodded.

"You gonna ask her for a key to her apartment to watch over her, or just pick the lock?" Casey said, sneering. Chuck gave his partner a look

"You made that sound dirty," Chuck replied and walked inside.

"You didn't answer the question," Casey said.

Chuck walked into the front lobby and headed to the elevator, never stopping to speak to the secretary.

"Sir, you can't just go up there," she said, standing. He waved his hand at her and stared at the guards as he pressed the elevator call button.

"Tell him, O Ryan is on his way to see him, he'll take the meeting," Chuck said as he entered the elevator with Casey right behind him. He hit the button for the top floor. Both men pulled their weapons out, glanced at each other and nodded. "If this goes bad, it was a pleasure my friend." Casey grunted.

"Same here," he replied. The door opened and they exited weapons drawn. The guards that were on their way to meet them raised their hands.

"We're going in there, the question is are you alive or dead?" Chuck asked. The guard opened the door. Volkoff saw what was going on and stood, smiling. Casey grimaced seeing Mary sitting in his office.

"O," Volkoff said. "I can't believe you'd turn on me."

"Alexi, I've been feeding the police information since I joined Yuri's crew," Chuck replied. Volkoff gave a mock sad face.

"What a pity," he said, and raised a gun toward Mary. "Now put down the gun before I kill her!"

"You're going to kill someone in front of two police officers?" Chuck asked. Volkoff looked at him, amused. "You're going to kill that piece of trash? Go ahead, one less crook I have to arrest later, anyway." Mary's eyes were wide. Volkoff nodded and lowered weapon.

"Are you trying to tell me you're dangerous now, O?" Volkoff asked.

"I'm telling you, my ten year mission got destroyed because you got scared," Chuck said, grinning. "I'm also telling you this, if Detective Walker has an accident, is hurt, killed, or anything happens to her, I will find you and kill you, do you understand me?"

"You're threating me Mr. Ryan, I don't like threats," Volkoff said. Chuck walked up the gun pointed in Volkoff's face, Chuck's face hard.

"Listen to me you son of a bitch," Chuck said softly. "I am not threating anything, I am making a promise to blow your damn brains out if you do anything to her. This…this is between me and you. Leave her out of it. Yuri's in jail for what happened, it's closed and over." Volkoff nodded. Chuck nodded and stepped back. "Well, that was a lovely chat."

"You're going to pay, Mr. Ryan," Volkoff said.

"Yuri said the same thing," Chuck replied as the two backed out of the room. "I'll tell you the same thing I told him. I've paid for the last ten years. Time for me to collect. Have a nice day Alexi." And with that, the two got on the elevator and headed down. They didn't say a word until they were both in the car and driving away.

"Christ, Bartowski!" Casey said.

"Sorry, John," Chuck replied.

"Sorry, for what," Casey said, grinning. "That was the most fun I had in years!" Both men laughed as they returned to the precinct.

}o{

Chuck sat on the window ledge, holding a beer bottle in his hand, slowly sipping it, looking out the window over the city. Ten years gone. He only had a couple of friends, if you counted Casey, so it was no surprise he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do. There was a light knock on the door.

"It's open," he yelled. The door opened, and there stood a smirking Sarah Walker. Her hair was up in a ponytail, she was wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt with a Nintendo controller on it that said classically trained. She was gorgeous, but what was even better, was the look in her eyes. The concern he saw in them. The worry. He could get lost in there forever. It took a minute for him to realize she had spoken. "Sorry, zoned out," he said.

"I said, the door lock won't protect you if it's unlocked," Sarah said. Chuck shrugged.

"I figure if he wants me bad enough he'll just pop me through this window," Chuck said. Sarah did have a key to his apartment and Chuck to hers, at Beckman's orders. There was no way he was going to come barging in there though without a good reason…and he was sure his loneliness was not a good reason.

"Come on," Sarah said. "We're going somewhere for you to contemplate."

"I'm doing a fine job here," Chuck countered.

"Yeah, but you're getting lost in your head," Sarah replied. "I know just the place to go to get rid of a lot of those bad thoughts." Chuck shrugged, realized his beer bottle was empty. He got up, checked the fridge, and saw that was his last one. "We'll stop and get some more on the way home," she offered. Chuck grinned, and that's how he found himself staring at the ocean sometime later.

"Peaceful," he muttered.

"Yeah," she said. She snuggled against him. He took a look at her. "Sorry, should I not?"

"N-no, it's fine," he stammered. "I've not been around people a lot in a social situation where I wasn't playing a role." Sarah nodded. "He's not going to hurt you, I promise."  She nodded again.

"You know, if you talk about it, it could help," she offered. He looked at her a moment.

"You shouldn't be so nice to me," Chuck said.

"Why not?" she asked. He took a deep breath and decided she needed to tell him the truth.

"I thought about it you know," he said, looking at the ocean. "I thought for just a second about killing you to stay undercover."

"I know," Sarah said. "But, did you know your finger was never on the trigger?" He turned and looked at her to rebut what she said, but he thought back. He didn't know if he had an Eidetic memory or not, but he could recall things that most couldn't. That moment was stitched into his memory. Those eyes staring at him, and there it was, his finger not on the trigger. Even if he had "wanted to," his body wouldn't have responded. Was it because he couldn't kill, or couldn't hurt her? "You didn't even realize it, did you?" Chuck sighed.

"For a split second, it crossed my mind, but if I did, who was I?" Chuck said, looking out at the ocean. "I was no better than them, and if I was no better than them, I was burnout." Sarah studied him for a second, and had an idea. A small grin appeared on her face that Chuck didn't notice, still staring at the ocean

"You really can't tell me what the O stands for?" Sarah asked. Chuck shrugged.

"We never came up with anything," Chuck admitted. "Orphaned kid found with only a letter as his first name?" Chuck said, gesturing. "It's like the greatest cover story EVAH!" Sarah small grin grew.

"Okay, then since you don't have a 'first name' and I'm forced to have you intrude in my life," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Admit it, you love it," Chuck cut in.

"You wish," Sarah said, chiding him, but knowing deep inside she did. "I'm going to make it whatever I want at that particular time." Her chin was held high, there was a challenging smirk on her face, and Chuck loved it. He grinned back. "So, today you are Olaf, and you are going to let it go, Ryan. You are going to realize you did the right thing, even if for a second you considered not doing it." Chuck rolled his eyes. "Let it go, let it go" she sang. Chuck shook his head, hopped up, and took off. "Wait, you're supposed to protect me," she yelled at him, mocking.

"Then quit singing, or else half the state is going to want to shoot you," he yelled back, grinning. Her jaw dropped.

"Ryan, that's just mean!"

"No, you singing that is," Chuck replied. Sarah shoved him good naturedly. He turned back to her. "I'm sorry that I have to be so in your life, but until we bring him down…" he trailed off and shook his head. She took his hands. They began to sweat, she grinned at him.

"It's okay, but I have to be honest, I'm not sorry I blew your cover," she said. He looked at her, shocked. She took a deep breath as if to steel herself. "You've been under too long, and you needed to be back with friends. No one was built for that life. You've worked in the dark for so long, but we need you. It's time for you to work in the light and help us win this." Chuck studied her.

"You're quite eloquent," he said, seriously. Sarah decided things were getting to heavy, so she smirked and decided to play with him a little.

"Also, I'm gonna figure out your real name," she said, matter-of-factly. "I have it on good authority I'm a great detective."

"No way," Chuck said, grinning.

"Bet me," she said.

"Fine, what's the stakes?" he asked. She grinned.

"Winner's choice, within reason," she said, smirking. Chuck shook his head at her.

"I've been undercover a long time, you sure that's what you want?" he asked. She looked at him salaciously. He winked at her, and walked off. "I may have you teach me the newest dances."

"You're so gonna get it when I win, Ryan," she said, chasing after him. She took his hand, she didn't know why, okay, she did, but she wasn't going to think about it, and he sure wasn't going to complain, and they walked back toward the car. Chuck looked over at her, and decided it was a good thing to work in the light.

A/N: Well, that was fun. Next time, a case…Take care…til next time.

DC

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/covid-19-news-live-updates-the-new-york-times-10/

Covid-19 News: Live Updates - The New York Times

Trump supporters gather indoors as journalists ask why he played down the virus.

President Trump on Sunday held a campaign rally indoors for the first time since late June, when he appeared at an event in Tulsa, Okla., that was later blamed for a surge in coronavirus cases in the area.

The rally on Sunday night, held at a manufacturing plant outside Las Vegas in defiance of a state directive limiting indoor gatherings to 50 people, was attended by thousands of supporters, the vast majority of whom did not wear masks.

Steve Sisolak, the Democratic governor of Nevada, said on Twitter that Mr. Trump was “taking reckless and selfish actions” that endangered the lives of people in the state. “This is an insult to every Nevadan who has followed the directives, made sacrifices and put their neighbors before themselves,” he said. “It’s also a direct threat to all of the recent progress we’ve made, and could potentially set us back.”

The Trump campaign had vetted several outdoor venues, but they were all blocked by the governor, according to an administration official familiar with the planning. Tim Murtaugh, a campaign spokesman, defended the indoor setting, saying in a statement, “If you can join tens of thousands of people protesting in the streets, gamble in a casino, or burn down small businesses in riots, you can gather peacefully under the First Amendment to hear from the president of the United States.”

Earlier in the day, White House and Republican officials struggled to respond to sharp questioning by Sunday morning news hosts about why Mr. Trump knowingly played down the coronavirus in the crucial early months of the pandemic, as revealed by the journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, “Rage.”

The White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, claimed on the CNN program “State of the Union” that “nobody knew” how dangerous the virus was at the time the president spoke to Mr. Woodward in February and March. In fact, Mr. Navarro himself wrote a memo in late January warning Trump administration officials that the virus could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, provided a different defense of the president, saying that Mr. Trump had understood the serious threat the virus posed by early February but was “calm and steady and methodical” because he did not want to cause a panic.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under Mr. Trump, suggested on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that the president might have chosen to underplay the seriousness of the virus in part because he was getting bad information early on from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies.

In an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday night, Mr. Woodward discussed interviews he recorded with the president. He said Mr. Trump was warned about the danger at a Jan. 28 meeting by a deputy national security adviser, Matthew Pottinger.

“Pottinger said his contacts in China told him, ‘This is going to be like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in this country,’” Mr. Woodward said.

Amazon said on Monday that it would hire 100,000 new workers in the United States and Canada for its warehouses and logistics network, another sign that the pandemic has resulted in a huge growth in demand for the e-commerce giant.

Amazon has been one of the biggest winners of the crisis as people turn to online shopping rather than visit traditional brick-and-mortar retailers; those businesses have been decimated. As the broader economy suffered from the economic fallout of Covid-19, Amazon reported record sales and profit last quarter.

Dave Clark, senior vice president of worldwide operations for Amazon, said in a news release that the company was opening 100 buildings this month for sorting products, delivery and other purposes. The new jobs will pay a starting wage of $15 per hour and will include a $1,000 starting bonus in some cities.

The hiring announcement is on top of the 33,000 salaried job openings that Amazon said last week it had available in areas such as cloud computing and warehouse management. In 2020, Amazon said, it has opened 75 new fulfillment and sorting centers, regional air hubs and delivery stations in the United States and Canada.

Amazon previously said that it hired 175,000 additional people to meet the huge surge in demand related to Covid-19.

Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, left the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan on Monday morning. It had been nearly two weeks since he was admitted with pneumonia after contracting the coronavirus.

“It was a difficult ordeal,” Mr. Berlusconi said, “perhaps the most dangerous of my life.” He warned Italians not to underestimate the gravity of the virus and to act responsibly.

Mr. Berlusconi left the hospital shortly before noon to a smattering of applause and a gaggle of reporters. In a short, prepared speech, the 83-year old media mogul turned politician described the first three days of his stay as especially difficult. Doctors later told him, he said, that his viral count was the highest ever registered at the Milanese hospital.

Coronavirus cases have been growing in Italy in recent weeks, and Mr. Berlusconi most likely contracted the virus while vacationing on the island of Sardinia, which became a viral hot spot in August.

Mr. Berlusconi said Monday that his thoughts were with those who had “this very dangerous” virus and their families, as well as with doctors and health workers who had been working to assist them. “Many have lost their lives, and they have all been exposed to the virus in doing their duty,” he said.

Italian students returned to school on Monday, and Mr. Berlusconi urged them to “not underestimate” the virus and to be rigorous in respecting social-distancing rules.

It was Europe’s largest refugee camp. Its squalid conditions made it one of the most notorious. Then the coronavirus found its way in.

If the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos was a tinderbox, the virus was the spark.

When the authorities tried to quarantine the residents, a small group of asylum seekers, angry that their living situations were somehow about to get even worse, began setting blazes, officials and aid workers say.

Now, with the camp destroyed, some 8,000 adults and 4,000 children, among them hundreds of infants, are stranded without shelter or sanitation.

“We escaped from fire, but everything is black,” said Mujtaba Saber, sitting on a thin blanket spread on a street, next to his napping 3-year-old son. His 20-day-old baby slept nearby in her mother’s arms.

The Times’s Matina Stevis-Gridneff, who is on Lesbos, reports that the Greek army has been setting up a new camp. The authorities said they hoped to relocate the migrants, nearly two-thirds of whom are Afghans, into 2,000 tents.

For now, they’ve been sleeping on tombstones and the side of the road, in parking lots and dried weeds on the hillsides. Some have pitched makeshift tents with bamboo poles and blankets. They’ve used the few clothes they have to make mattresses so their babies don’t sleep on tarmac.

“I think sleeping on the street is bad, but Moria is bad-bad,” said Mahbube Ahzani, 15, who had been in the camp with her family for 10 months. But what will be worse, she said, is the “new Moria.”

In other developments around the world:

New Zealand is likely to end coronavirus restrictions on Sept. 21, with the exception of its largest city, Auckland, where an outbreak occurred last month. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that current alert levels would be maintained for another week and then be lowered if case numbers stayed the same. She also said physical distancing rules on planes and other public transportation would be dropped, allowing more passengers to travel at the same time, though they still must wear masks. New Zealand reported one new case on Monday linked to the Auckland cluster, bringing the country’s total to 1,798.

India reported 92,071 new cases on Monday, the fifth consecutive day that new cases exceeded 90,000 in the country, according to a New York Times database. India has the world’s second-highest number of cases after the United States. On Monday, members of Parliament were gathering for a session with social-distancing precautions.

Starting Monday, Britain has lowered the limit on the number of people allowed to meet to six from 30. The country recorded 3,330 new infections on Sunday, the third consecutive day of new case counts surpassing 3,000, a level not seen in Britain since May.

Also in Britain, London’s West End will reopen its first musical since March. “Six,” the hit about the wives of King Henry VIII, will start an 11-week run at the Lyric Theater on Nov. 14. It was supposed to debut on Broadway the day New York’s theaters closed.

Antarctica, the only continent free of the coronavirus, is preparing for an influx of researchers in the coming months as a change of season makes studies on the icy South Pole more feasible. The first researchers, from the United States, arrived on Monday after quarantining in New Zealand.

Israel will be returning to a nationwide lockdown for at least three weeks, starting on Friday, the eve of the Jewish New Year.

A health official in Australia said on Monday that she was under police protection because of death threats amid rising opposition to her pandemic policies. Dr. Jeannette Young, the chief health officer of Queensland, had been criticized over a requirement that travelers from other parts of Australia quarantine for two weeks, especially after a woman in quarantine was not allowed to attend her father’s funeral.

Ethiopia, which has some of the highest virus cases and deaths in Africa, formed a partnership with a Chinese company to increase testing capacity. On Sunday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed presided over the opening of a commercial test-kit production facility in the capital that he said would produce kits for both the local market and export, with a focus on African nations.

The outcry was galvanized by the news that AstraZeneca’s chief executive disclosed why it had recently halted its vaccine trial — because a person given the vaccine had experienced serious neurological symptoms — at a closed meeting organized by J.P. Morgan, the investment bank.

AstraZeneca said on Saturday that an outside panel had cleared its trial in Britain to begin again, but the company has not given any details about the patient’s condition, nor has it released a transcript of the executive’s remarks to investors, which were reported by the news outlet STAT and later confirmed by an analyst for J.P. Morgan.

Another front-runner in the vaccine race, Pfizer, made a similarly terse announcement on Saturday: The company is proposing to expand its clinical trial to include thousands more participants, but it gave few other details.

Critics say American taxpayers are entitled to know more since the federal government has committed billions of dollars to vaccine research and to buying the vaccines. And greater transparency could also help bolster faltering public confidence in vaccines.

“Trust is in short supply,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist and health care researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., who has spent years prodding companies and academic researchers to share more trial data with outside scientists. “And the more that they can share, the better off we are.”

The National Football League’s season got into full swing on Sunday, and Kurt Streeter, a sports columnist for The Times, was watching. He writes:

The return of professional football to a nation living on a raw and perilous edge, still struggling to confront a lethal virus and trying to heal its deep racial wounds, offered fans a tense and unlikely paradox. I loved watching the games, but I loathed it, too.

After so many endless, pent-up weeks, maybe you couldn’t wait to see the impossible tackles and stunning touchdowns. But at the same time, maybe you worried about what the return of professional football might mean for sports, for the nation and for all of us.

Hold tight. We could be one big outbreak of Covid-19 away from a calamity and deep regret.

Reporting was contributed by Livia Albeck-Ripka, Abdi Latif Dahir, Jennifer Jett, Annie Karni, Isabel Kershner, Alex Marshall, Jennifer Medina, Elisabetta Povoledo, Adam Satariano, Anna Schaverien, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Kurt Streeter, and Katie Thomas.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story Part 49

(it’s turning out that i am suddenly being given little bits of time to do some writing, so i have been more productive than i thought i was going to be)

The doctor's appointment came, and I was taken in to see the doctor that had given me prescription meds for my chemical imbalance back when I was in 5th grade. The problem was, I was pushing myself close to starving, and getting up each morning at dawn to exercise and I wasn't really letting myself stop too much until I hit the point of exhaustion. When I did eat, it was always counted, and it was usually fruit, fish or a healthy shake. My father, who's metabolism should have been lower than mine, was working out half as much as I had, and had already lost 20 lbs. Given that I was only 15 (going on 16) at the time, there was a strong indication that something was wrong. That, and I kept skipping periods. I would sometimes not have one for six months to a year.

So, I went on the day of my appointment, and I could tell that the doctor has some kind of strong moral judgment about me. He checked my eyes and heart and lungs and all of those things, and then rather than ask me about any of the symptoms that I had written down on the paper, he started asking me if I did drugs. He then asked me if I had ever tried to kill myself. Given that I had come in in an okay mood, I didn't understand what prompted this question, and I just told him no – because even though I had been very depressed off and on in my life, I had never tried to kill myself and that wasn't what I came in for. He started asking me about my grades, and how many friends I had, and if I participated in sports. He kept implying that I was eating sugary foods when my father wasn't looking. He then asked me if I did drugs again, only in a slightly different way. It was obvious to even me that he wasn't actually interested in getting to the bottom of my health issues by asking me health related questions. He was profiling me.

He told my father that I had serious mental illness issues and that I needed to take a drug that he prescribed. I sat in the doctor's office while I listened out through the door into the hallway as the doctor explained these things to my father. My father was kind of taken aback by the diagnosis, and like a fool, he was embarrassed to be talking about my personal healthy with anyone – something that he really didn't concern himself with obviously. I kind of already knew that he wasn't actually going to buy meds for me or anything like that, but I was mostly frustrated because I felt like my voice in the whole matter was being drowned out by what the doctor wanted and what my father wanted. Nobody actually seemed interested in what was really wrong with me. I really had this knowing that my period wasn't stopping simply because of stress, and my inability to lose weight wasn't because I was secretly running into the closet to eat cake.

I think my father was feeling personally embarrassed by the way the doctor had spoken to him, though I am not certain what got his goat actually. There was some elements of their conversation I didn't get a good listening to. He was furious at me as soon as we left the building, slamming the doors and not talking to me. I kind of tried to explain to him that I felt like the doctor was judging me because I had died my hair bright red, and my father snapped at me and started saying that I deserved to be judged for my hair and for my eyebrow ring, and that I was an embarrassment to him and that he didn't want to be seen with me. That I didn't deserve to be treated like a normal person if I wasn't going to start looking like one. I made the mistake of trying to argue my case, that there are certain services that nobody should discriminate against another person for, and this caused my father to start screaming at me to shut up. For nearly a half hour, I was stuck in the car with him as he shouted at me and called me names. It was the first time I think, that I tried very hard not to falter to his cruel and egotistically loud voice. He was basically saying my hair was sign that I was some kind of disgusting person inside and I didn't deserve to be treated well. He started screaming at me about my grades – though it was summer vacation and technically I didn't have grades. The thing about that was, is that I had a 2.0 by the time I left Kendrick High School. I know that doesn't seem very impressive, but for almost the entire time I had been in junior or senior high, I had never had a grade that was higher than a 40% with the exception of study skills and art. Many of my F's were the low 20% or less kind. I had somehow kind of picked myself out of that and managed to get an average 70%.

So, I told him that my grades had been very good, and I could tell this made him even angrier. It was at this point that I sort of realized that he didn't actually want me to do well. This isn't to say that he was personally responsible for every one of my failures, but he to a degree had designed my life away from me truly having that much of a chance, and there was an intention to keep me down in that design. The automatic look of malice on his face when he realized that I was passing school for the first time since anyone could remember actually made me realize that he liked the idea that I was failing. It made him feel good about himself and justified in treating me badly. He then started attacking my personal appearance, calling me ugly, and making this insane deal about the red hair. I sarcastically shot back that a person has to be pretty fucking weak to where seeing the color red would devastate their personal life in any real way, and for the millionth time, I was accused of trying to rebel against society. I shot back that I dyed my hair red simply because my favorite color was red and if he didn't want me to dye my hair, he shouldn't have bought me so many My Little Ponies to play with as a child, since they probably had a lot to do with what I wanted to do with my own hair. Because if I was going to be true to who I was, I honestly just loved color. I had a lot of rebellious silly ideas when I was that age, but dyeing my hair had never been any strongly rebellious thing for me. I was just being myself. If other people saw being yourself as some kind of militant rebellious act, than I didn't know what to do for them.

The whole thing ended up dissolving before I got home, he upscaled his attack till he was just yelling at me continuously so loud I couldn't talk, calling me names, telling me to shut up, calling me worthless like my mother, and all that nonsense I have come to be accustomed to. So I eventually just started crying in frustration and resentment. Besides, we had been driving down the road when all this was going down, and I was afraid if it escalated any further we would get into a wreck. I always felt there was some underlying sexism about this entire affair. Maybe there wasn't. But I just felt like a lot of my power was taken away by a bunch of men. My father had had long hair when he was a teenager at a time and place when it was highly unpopular to do so. And he still was very proud of that fact. But when a girl did something different with their hair, it was suddenly a disgusting abomination that told the world I was some kind of freak or a 'slut'. The doctor had essentially made some kind of cold assessment of what he wanted to do. I really think he was paid by the drug company to peddle the drug he wanted me to take. He was never interested in my health issues, because they were 'women's health issues' to him.

When we got home, I was very afraid of my father, and I just ran in my room to be alone. I was not happy to even be home, and I wanted to go back to my mom's. I don't know what happened or what made him cool off, but about an hour later, my father came up to my room and told me that we were going to go to the movies. I felt drained and confused, and I did want to get back to my mom's as soon as possible to watch Johnny Depp movies and all that stuff, so I didn't object, though the entire act of going out to have any kind of fun at all seemed shady and unprecedented given all that had just occurred.

The hour drive all the way back into Lewiston I said next to nothing. There is a point where I can be horribly frustrated and mad at someone, but at some point in an argument, I simply become emotionally exhausted and melancholy, and I feel like I am more up against a bigger battle against time and nothingness that nobody can win. It's mostly disheartening to see my personal efforts made to connect with someone or communicate at all dashed to pieces and my sense of self worth, already quite shaky, knocked back down after months of attempting to repair it. In any case, all this feeling goes inward. I should still in these times perhaps, rally against my oppressor or realign myself into a position of strength, but most of the time my mind is no longer working all that well to do that. It's not that I have given up exactly, but the battle has been lost. Besides, I was dizzy from not eating, and there weren't enough carbohydrates in my system to even contemplate those kinds of things.

The movie we ended up seeing was March of the Penguins, narrated by Morgan Freeman. It was about penguins, as the name suggests, and their yearly life cycle, and the hardships they endure down in Antarctica. It wasn't the greatest documentary that had ever been made, but it was okay. It was kind of strange as I watched the film, because it seemed so far removed from what I was doing in my own life, and yet it was equally as real and probably at least one hundred thousand times more important. It took me out of my own life for a little while, and though I hadn't forgotten the fight I was just in, or how I had been treated once again, like so many other times, I genuinely felt that there was some sort of terrific truth in always remembering that the world is a very big and fantastic place, even with you not in the center of it all. Of course after the movie, my father made this lame attempt of saying sorry, though not really a sorry at all. He just said 'Lets not fight Renee..' as though I had been the one that had initiated the fight, or we were both equally as responsible, when it really had been him that had lost it. I am just going to say, for the most part, it really always had been him.

It was around this same time that I learned that The White Stripes would be playing in the Gorge, which is this scenic outdoor area that is set up in the southern central part of Washington State. This is about four hours away from where I lived and there was never a band that came that close to me that I wanted to see more. I had loved The White Stripes ever since I had bought Elephant for Christmas two years before. So I asked my father if we could maybe go. I was willing to pay for everything, the gas, the tickets. I felt like both my mother and father kind of owed me. I had been their babysitter for years up to that point, and had they paid someone to fill in for what I had done, they would have been out by tens of thousands by this point. They weren't home very often. Of course, it was wishful naive thinking to think that I was going to be reimbursed for that time I had spent. My father, of course said no. He couldn't, and wouldn't take the time off to go to a concert on my behalf. Which I kind of understood, since the factory was sort of cold and strict about these sorts of things.

I asked my mom, and I really was hoping she would say yes, but she didn't. She actually could have taken one of the days off, and the second day she had off anyway, but she wasn't about to spend that time away from Danny. I pleaded with her. I had never really done this before, pleaded or begged for something desperately. I wasn't the type who typically would keep asking once I got a definitive answer. She told me she would think about it, and then she still said no later on. I was shaken and upset and I started crying. The White Stripes being something I could see live was one of the top things I had ever wanted. This escalated into her mocking me, and calling me pathetic like my father. It seemed like wherever I went, with my mom I was always too much like my dad and with my dad I was always too much like my mom. Nobody even wanted to claim my looks, or any of my personality characteristics. It was strange to be unclaimed like that, when typically parents want to point out what features their children have that they got from them. With me, it was always the opposite. In what way was I not like them?

This didn't happen very often, but I got angry and started pointing out her failures towards me, and explaining that doing something like this would be a way to correct those things and I would overlook all the years I babysat while she ran around doing meth. It did no good. She still wouldn't budge, and I think by this point, she sort of enjoyed her position in being able to tell me no and watch me flail vulnerably, convulsing with desperation for her to change her mind. My mother was a bit of an introverted bully at heart. I was shouting and crying and I could barely breath. She started laughing at me.

Later that same day, I was looking out the window as I cooked something on the stove, and I watched David and Allison playing out in the dusty dirt in the front of the house. David was visibly mad about something, and in turn he knocked over his own castle of popsicle sticks and began screaming and running to the house. As soon as he got into the house, he started crying that Allison had broke his castle. He had started to do this a lot with Allison, breaking his own things or lying to get her in trouble, when he had in fact been given more to begin with, or had been the one at fault. It was making me frustrated, because my parents didn't say anything. Often they would just scold Allison because it was easier than getting to the bottom of it. I really was very disapproving of this sort of thing, and I often would address these issues I had seen just as soon as my parents had been off to work. For this reason, I became the real parent in a sense. I didn't provide food or shelter or those kinds of basics, but at this point I was trying to set a standard for Allison and David to live by, and I was the one who listened intently to their school days, when my parents were largely negligent in those areas. My father would often believe David over Allison, because it was his firm and loud opinion that women were deviant by nature and sneaky. Men were prone to be more violent, but in my father's sick little world view, women provoked men. Men were not capable of being sneaky or using psychological mind games. So Allison often time got the blame for these small childhood skirmishes and it made me rather mad.

I immediately called David out, saying that I had seen him break his own castle, and that Allison hadn't done anything. I told my mother, and he just denied it. Allison was sent to the corner, and I was suddenly in a rage. My mother was folding clothes on her bed, and David ran up to her and was cuddling on her, with a malign look towards me that annoyed me even more. Allison just seemed to accept the punishment, and it made me even angrier. I started yelling at my mother about how she spoiled David and I looked straight at David and told him that he knew the truth about what he had done and that he was pathetic. I was really mad at the two of them, and some part of me wanted to hit them both in the face. I didn't though. Instead I grabbed the pile of clothes my mother was folding and I threw them on the ground. David, who was sort of laying on his back against my mother, had this perfect opening to power kick me in the jaw, and he did just that. I remember crying and holding my face completely jarred. My mother was laughing at me and saying I deserved it. David was laughing at me. I knew that if I reacted any further it would be violence towards the both of them, and that realization scared me a little. It seemed like I had been pushed to this point where I was capable of going a little farther than I had thought myself capable of. I didn't want to be that kind of person, so I took the defeat.

In shock, my head pounding, tears pouring and with a jaw that I discovered was now difficult to move, I stumbled out of the house and down the road. I was sobbing so much I was barely conscious of where I was going or why. It was one hundred degrees outside, and I just kind of stumbled into a ravine on the side of the road sobbing. I don't even know what I was feeling at that point. It just kind of seemed like a lot of everything and nothing all at the same time. Eventually some people stopped, and cautiously called out to me 'Miss, are you okay?', which caused me to become more composed against everything I felt and tell them I was fine. They offered to give me a ride somewhere, but of course there was nowhere for me to go. I told them I was fine and I just sat there some more until I saw my mom drive off to work.

Strangely in all of this, Allison seemed to kind of look down on me for this too, though it had been her best interest I had felt I was defending. I think Allison, seeing the distressing situation and the outcome of it, felt that she would rather feel she had actually done what she was accused of rather than see what had happened, So she resented me too, albeit with a more tender heart than the others. I don't think she wanted to be like me, whimsically ecstatic about life one day, and then putting myself out there to be knocked down again and again by the family. She grew up seeing what happened when you put up for the truth, or you stuck to your guns on something, or you opposed the group. It never really did pan out for me, but I never stopped having that attitude. I think seeing the pain I caused myself – at least as she came to see it, and seeing the violence in general done in her name, she just would rather conform.

And then, shortly after this, I was cooking chicken on the stove at my mother's, and I burned my fingers, badly. It all happened very suddenly. It was one of those ones that has a flat surface. I didn't realize it was still hot. It just melted the tips of three of my fingers. I was in miserable pain. The fingers swelled up with yellow puss and the skin was raw. I was howling in misery for hours. There was no pain medicine for it. I held my hand in ice water, but it wasn't doing enough. I was basically in a state of hysteric pain until I just somehow passed out all at once, at least that is what Allison and David witnessed of me. They were fearful and trying their best to be helpful, but of course there was nothing that either one of them could do.

So, all of this stuff happened in the same two-three week period that I wasn't talking to Sarah. I had managed to fight with and alienate myself from just about everyone I knew by trying my best to be upfront about whatever it was that was bothering me. It was a rather unfortunate run of luck, and I was kind of floored by it. My head hurt from crying, and I just wanted to get away. I liked to envision myself thin and beautiful, in a position of power over my own life, and in a state of constant transcendence and creative chaotic inspiration. If I could just have those things, if I could just have something to look forward to that would get me out of the mess of myself and everyone I knew – to elevate my own existence in some way, to maybe go back to how I felt when Zack had sang creep to me, then everything would be better. Telling myself that I would overcome everyone, that I would step on anyone's head to get out of the place I was in at that moment was like a lullaby to me that made me feel better.

I eventually started talking to Sarah again because we needed to get the school thing going. It was awkward, and I don't think Sarah ever fully understood why I had decided to stop talking to her in the first place, so I think to a degree she felt annoyed with me, not because I had made an impact, but because she felt I had done something incredibly rude towards her. This whole matter of our fighting I think caused more distress for me than it did her, so a lot of the fact that I was just trying to clear my head from all the anger and such hadn't quite occurred to her.

We discovered that we couldn't go to school at the Lewiston High school forty miles away, which is initially where I was set on going. I didn't want to have to see Ava up in the halls of the Moscow High School forty miles the other way, but given that Lewiston had said no to us going, we tried the Moscow High School, who also turned us down. Neither Sarah or I had good enough grades or enough credits. It was well known that the kids in the smaller towns like Kendrick and Orofino were scholastically behind the kids in the bigger schools, so it was a pain in the school's neck to take us in, and they would refuse students on that basis alone, not to mention that we were living pretty far away.

So both of the regular high schools were out of the equation. We decided to try maybe going to an alternative school. I had heard of these schools before, but I knew to many people it seemed like it was just a school where you went and everyone knew you were a failure. I imagined that nobody would be in any of the classes other than some version of Beavis and Butthead. We ended up deciding to try the Paradise Creek Regional Alternative School up in Moscow. We called in and met up with the councilor there one morning. The school was kind of strange. It was near the outskirts of town, though still located in the town itself – quite near the university. There was an A&W gas station across the street. The building had once been a 7 Eleven, and you could kind of see that from the look of the building. It was rather small and enclosed by a hill behind it.

We went in and met the councilor. She seemed very different from what I was used to when it came to teachers or councilors. She didn't want to be called Mrs. anything. She was very small, had long wavy blonde hair, and was very warm and calculated in how she spoke to us. She didn't waste her time telling us that we were both bad students. I wouldn't go so far to say that she didn't have an ere of egotism too her, but she genuinely seemed to want to help us and wasn't as interested in making either one of us feel small or powerless in the discussion we had. She met with us, and upon seeing that I had only 15% of the credits needed to graduate, she let me enroll. It was explained that the school ran much differently. For one, we didn't have to be there until noon. This seemed unreal to me, and too good to be true. I naturally stayed up late, and as such, I had been going on four hours of sleep for several years. Secondly, she told us there would be no homework. I couldn't believe that either. I wondered how that could even be. She also said we could eat in the class, as long as we didn't do it disruptively – the same went for using the bathroom, and students could even bring their newborns in while they were in class. There was something sort of sane about this school that I didn't know how to feel about that. It seemed like it didn't match the schema of school to me for the faculty and the regulations to make sense. We also wouldn't be learning out of, or needing to buy any school books. All of the lessons were taught from our teacher, and her husband, Mike's personal knowledge and the source material he would bring to us in segments.

Sarah and I drove home in a daze. It was finally done. We were no longer ever going to Kendrick Junior/Senior High School ever again. Gone were the smelly hallways and the detention slips and watching Kyle and the other jocks jump all over one another screaming at the glory of the Kendrick Tigers. I wouldn't even had to wake up early anymore, it was really that simple.

I received one last and final prank phone call from the Kendrick boys. I had just come back from a walk around town, and I was kind of winding down when the phone rang, and my father picked it up. Their was a male's voice on the other end wanting to talk to me. I nervously answered, and quickly realized that it was a prank phone call, the same kind of calls that I had received pretty frequently in 8th grade. A small part of me wanted to entertain these blockheads on the other line, but I had more dignity than that and I told them to stop calling me and hung up. My dad had watched the entire conversation. I think he felt it might have been some secret admirer I had had initially, so some of my degree of annoyance was put on for the fact that I didn't want to make him suspicious of me more than he already seemed to be half the time. He asked me to check the caller ID with *69, and I did and named allowed the phone number that had tried to dial. Just at that moment, Khris Blegen (Kyle from the days of old's little brother – who was my brother and sister's friend), was over at our house to hang out with Allison and David, and upon hearing his number, instantly told us all that the number was his home phone number – meaning the call had come from the Blegens.

Upon hearing this, my father got this vengeful and gleeful look in his eye, marched right up to our neighbor, the Blegen's door, and demanded to know who had called the house. About ten of the snobbiest jocks filed out of the house, and my father asked each one of them who had done the calling. Most of them backed off fearfully. In all the years that people had thrown this kind of stuff at me, however benign I ultimately felt it was, no one had ever had to contend with my father like this. Samantha's older brother Jake was in the crowd of boys, and he started saying he was going to beat my father up. It was kind of ridiculous really. My father at the time was bench pressing a lot and knew how to fight at least to some extent. Given his work out routine and his need to get fit for the Hot Men of the Lewis-Clark Valley 2006 Calendar, he was looking pretty fit. Jake was nothing but a bobblehead in comparison. So Jake and this smaller and smaller group of boys – most of them apologizing and getting away verses my father ensued out in the Blegen's yard. Jake ended up calling his dad, claiming that his dad would come and beat up my father. Steve, Jake and Sam's dad, was a fool, and he called my father challenging him to a fight. He promised to be there in one hour to put the fear of god in my father, but then he never actually did show up.

The whole thing seemed very distant from me in every way. I hadn't really cared if someone wanted to call me to ask if my refrigerator was running or not. It didn't hurt my feelings. It just seemed like a waste of time. These people weren't real to me anymore. But I think because my father knew he had wronged me on some level of his psyche, felt this need to blame these particular boys for abusing me and combat them in order to deal with what he was not emotionally cut out to do. And honestly, these boys probably did deserve some kind of retaliation from someone. Not for my sake, but for the general sense of entitlement they felt in acting out against unpopular kids in general. I couldn't help but think of that Karen girl in the class below who took every slight very personally, constantly getting notes in her locker and kick me signs put on her back, and how she eventually had to leave school because of it. So overall, I felt justice was fair. Everyone who came outside of the Blegen's house looked scared, and Ronnie Blegen herself said Kyle had it coming.

I was helping my father do some yardwork in later summer, trimming these bushes around the front of the house. Given that the home I live in was antique and built in Edwardian style back in the late 1800's, the intricate style had a lot of crevices where wasps would set up shop. It wouldn't be uncommon for there to be twenty nests set up just in the front of the house alone, and possibly up to fifty or sixty around the whole house and the rock garden in general. And I was always very frightened of wasps. I wouldn't scream and lose my mind by any means, but it was impossible for me to think or ignore a wasp anywhere near me. I saw wasps going in and out of this bush in front of the house that my father was aggressively ordering me to make myself useful by trimming. I told him that I knew there were several nests in that bush, and I felt like it wouldn't be safe for me to get in there and trim that part. This made him angry. He was shirtless and the hot sun was making him sweaty and angry. He ordered me to stop BEING A BABY! Like some kind of drill sergeant. 

He pissed me off. I knew he was trying to make me cry at this point. He looked weak to me, getting in my face about something very practical. I decided to prove him wrong. While he was standing there, I put my hand right into the wasps' nests and sure enough they started flying out and all over the place. He personally ran off, but I just stood there and kept trimming, letting myself get stung about twenty times, it hurt but I was so annoyed I didn't care. He looked at me foolishly, and eventually called desperately at me and ordered me to get away from the bush. Sometimes you just have to prove a point.

PART 48 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcn5uuu

PART 47 - http://tinyurl.com/y8xyogl9

PART 46 - http://tinyurl.com/ybqoxned

PART 45 - http://tinyurl.com/y94784tz

PART 44 - http://tinyurl.com/ydfpbzxt

PART 43 - http://tinyurl.com/yckvswd7

PART 42 - http://tinyurl.com/ycnng83q

PART 41 - http://tinyurl.com/y84kmttv

PART 40 - http://tinyurl.com/y8aj6kmq

PART 39 - http://tinyurl.com/y97vprft

PART 38 - http://tinyurl.com/ycr7la8q

PART 37 - http://tinyurl.com/y8trssqd

PART 36 - http://tinyurl.com/y9ygq9q8

PART 35 - http://tinyurl.com/ya5xhe2f

PART 34 - http://tinyurl.com/yc6y4p69

PART 33 - http://tinyurl.com/y87449dz

PART 32 - http://tinyurl.com/ycetanep

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PART 28 - http://tinyurl.com/yagdlo47

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PART 25 -  http://tinyurl.com/y6v6pgoj

PART 24 - http://tinyurl.com/ycak5d8r

PART 23 - http://tinyurl.com/yac6sk3g

PART 22 -  http://tinyurl.com/yat6cfnw

PART 21 -  http://tinyurl.com/y783egno

PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt

PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8

PART 18 - http://tinyurl.com/ycrznrwk

PART 17 - http://tinyurl.com/y77unlng

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PART 15 - http://tinyurl.com/yb3lt6k5

PART 14 - http://tinyurl.com/yb4cfedq

PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s

PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw  

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

[swipestream]

Science Fiction New Release Roundup: 23 December 2017

This week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction features a jailbreak by the battle-hardened legionnaires of Victory Company, an uneasy alliance between galactic bounty hunters, alien relics under Earth’s ice-caps, and a vicious insurgency against the immortal rulers of a wound-down universe.

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Assisgnment Darklanding – Craig Martelle and Scott Moon

A frontier world. One Sheriff. And all the action one Spaceport can’t hold. Darklanding is the wild, wild west of known space.

Sheriff Thaddeus Fry will never completely leave the battlefields of Centauri Prime. His new assignment, the Sheriff’s office of Darklanding, could be a do-nothing job, or it could get him killed.

The first thing he learns is that his predecessor’s headquarters were bombed, creating the vacancy that led to his appointment. The Company Man, is not who he expected, to say the least. His new accommodations are right in the center of Darklanding’s misfits. He finds one native of Ungwilook willing to talk to him and tries to make him a deputy. What really matters on Darklanding, are the mines.

Faced with a dangerous collapse that could kill hundreds of workers, he leaps into action and gets the story of Darklanding started. Fans of Firefly, Bonanza, and Tombstone will love this new series. Join us today and every 18 days, you’ll get a new episode of Darklanding.

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Galaxy’s Edge: Prisoners of Darkness (Galaxy’s Edge #6) – Jason Anspach and Nick Cole

The Battle of Tarrago was just the beginning. Following Goth Sullus’s ruthless onslaughts against the Republic, a desperate House of Reason searches for scapegoats—and finds one, deserving or not, in Commander Ellek Owens. His sentence is cruel, unjust—and final.

Unless Victory Squad has anything to say about it.

When Chhun undertakes a daring raid on the prison planet Herbeer to rescue his commander, Wraith’s loyalties are put to the test, as he’s forced to choose between his responsibilities to the Legion… and his responsibilities to his captured crew.

Meanwhile, in the Umnar system, the soulless menace known as the Cybar seeks to break Prisma Maydoon—and set the stage for the total annihilation of not only the Republic, but all life in the galaxy.

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Invaders: The Antaran (Invaders #3) – Vaughn Heppner

The Galactics quarantined Earth. But the last Guard agent died. Logan found his stealth ship, and now it’s his job to enforce Galactic law against alien predators.

Lord Beran the Antaran regards humans as little better than insects to stomp if they get in his way. He’s searching for the lost Polarions, last seen on this backward planet thousands of years ago.

There are alien relics hidden under the ice-sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Lord Beran wants those, even if uncovering them will unleash a stellar holocaust.

Unless Logan can stop the Antaran, whose super-science seems like magic to us mere humans, the universe is about to find out why the Galactic Guard first quarantined Earth.

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Joined in Battle (Wolfpack #4) – Toby Neighbors

Every Hero Has Enemies…

Captain Dean Blaze has seen the enemy. His platoon has fought the Kroll, but his biggest threat isn’t among the stars, it’s found in the ranks of the Extra Solar Defense Force. After saving a diplomatic mission from complete annihilation, Dean and his platoon return home, only to find trouble brewing among the people he is fighting to save. With a predatory empire moving closer to human held space, an Admiral with an axe to grind, and internal politics threatening his career, Dean quickly realizes his problems are much larger than he ever expected.

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Odysseus Awakening (Odyssey One #6) – Evan Currie

Defy the inevitable. Such is the stance of Confederation captain Eric Weston and the crew of the starship Odysseus, patrolling the outer limits of Priminae space, anticipating the Empire’s next attacks. Connected with the Terran FTL tech—the transition drive—humanity might stand a chance against the overwhelming forces. Until the entire planetary system goes dark.

Outnumbered and outgunned, the Odysseus arrives to find the Empire securing critical intelligence from Priminae ships—data that could prove disastrous in the wrong hands.

As the Odysseus enters the fray, the ship’s systems exhibit increasingly chaotic glitches, while haunting apparitions stalk the crew. As they struggle to control their own ship—and their sanity—against the tide of battle, how can they hope to grasp victory when the Odysseus itself appears to be coming to life?

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The Ophian Rising (Soul Cycle #4) – Brian Niemeier

The Zadokim healed the cosmos from the ravages of the Cataclysm, and the survivors made them kings. Now the Ophians, a ruthless insurgent movement, wage a vicious uprising against their immortal rulers’ two hundred year reign.

Xander and Astlin have transformed the desert world of Tharis into the hub of a flourishing trade empire. Their Nesshin subjects spread a new faith promising true freedom in another universe. But when Astlin seeks forbidden knowledge to resurrect her long-dead family, sinister forces exact a terrible price from those she loves.

With the Ophian threat engulfing the spheres and a primeval terror rising from its prison, Astlin must turn to a shiftless gambler, the outlaw squire of a fallen knight, and a mismatched pair of smugglers to escape the ghosts of her past and save all souls from eternal death. But can mortals succeed where even gods have failed?

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Overture (Earth Song Cycle #1) – Mark Wandrey

In Central Park, a homeless man bears witness to the arrival of a strange device, but is it a gift from the Angels of God, or a way for them to invade Earth at its most vulnerable moment?

Disgraced astronomer Mindy Patoy learns of an asteroid bearing down on Earth, and she finds herself drawn inexplicably to New York City, where she finds friends and enemies alike as she struggles to unravel the mystery of the portal.

As word spreads of alien devices appearing around the globe, scientists race to find out whether they are the end of human civilization or its salvation. Through the portal, a small band of soldiers struggle against monstrous reptiles to carve out a place for the refugees who hope to follow. They cannot hold out for long without resupply, and the portal is one-way only…there is no retreat.

As the asteroid bears down, time is running out, and New York City has become a war zone. Civilization is shaking itself to pieces as factions around the globe battle over the portals, and the asteroid draws ever closer. Is the Song of Earth about to end, or is it just beginning?

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The Starhawk Chronicles – Joseph J. Madden

The year is 2283.

Though more than a quarter-century has passed since the end of the last war, the Galactic Confederation is still busy picking up the pieces. Whole sectors of the galaxy remain lawless, rife with corruption and greed. The criminal element has a well-established foothold on these sectors.

It is a good time to be a bounty hunter.

Jesse Forster and the crew of the STARHAWK are some of the best bounty hunters in the business. Kayla Karson is a young independent hunter out to make a name for herself. Their paths collide as both take up pursuit of the leaders of the Nexus Gang, the most brutal crime syndicate in the galaxy. An uneasy alliance is formed as the two undertake the most difficult hunt of their careers. Great rewards are to be claimed, if they don’t kill each other in the process.

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Titan’s Wrath – Rhett C. Bruno

After inciting rebellion against Earth throughout Titan’s off-world colonies, Kale Trass learns that leadership isn’t only about fighting. Keeping control of his people–even his own family–requires a different set of skills. Following a pivotal battle over Saturn, Kale travels deep into enemy territory under the guise of seeking peace, though peace is the last thing on his mind.

Malcolm Graves used to be an infamous Collector for a powerful Earther corporation–and then he nearly lost his life on Titan. Now he’s retired. But when Kale’s wake of destruction follows Malcolm to Mars and claims the life of a friend, it’s time for the ex-Collector to dust off his pulse-pistol and leap back into a fight he thought he’d left behind.

With the solar system divided, heroes are few and short-lived … but someone has to put the self-proclaimed King Trass of Titan in his place.

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Wasp Hand (Silent Order #6) – Jonathan Moeller

The galaxy is at war, and an ancient enemy has returned from the darkness of interstellar space.

When Jack March is attacked by an unknown alien vessel, he soon realizes that the alien warship is just the vanguard of a far more powerful invading force.

All that stands between the alien fleet and the Kingdom of Calaskar is the daring plan of a mercurial Lord Admiral.

And unless March can carry out that plan, all of human civilization might be devoured by the alien force…

Science Fiction New Release Roundup: 23 December 2017 published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[jashasedai]

Tame AU: Unpredictable

Unpredictable Alternate Universe- Tame Racing Drivers http://jashasedai.tumblr.com/post/151392469153/summary-au-tame-racing-drivers Part 1- MID Fandom- Top Gear In an AU where a secret species is used as Racing Drivers, Top Gear makes a lot of decisions in their struggle to make life better for all Racing Drivers. Saving the life of a Racing Driver named Midnight was one of the best. Tags: Top Gear, The Grand Tour, The Black Stig, Jeremy Clarkson, Andy Wilman, AU Tame Racing Drivers, Alternate Universe, Slavery

Unpredictable

Antarctica- 2016

Jeremy stood outside the production tent in Antarctica and watched the Grand Tour Broadcast go live.

He watched James and Richard and the two Stigs celebrate.

The two remaining Stigs.

"Forza Midnight," He said, in the way of people all over the car world, mourning for lost Racing Drivers.

The one thing he really regretted.

Dunsfold Aerodrome: The Top Gear Test Track- 2002

He'd paid the money and signed the contract without ever seeing what he was buying.  He'd never bought a Racing Driver before.  He didn't know what it entailed.  What it should have entailed.

Andy had gone to get him.  Andy, who Jeremy had known since childhood and trusted with his life, and more importantly, trusted with his career.  He had told Andy immediately about matching with Blue.  Tiff had made him swear up and down to secrecy, made him sign mountains of paperwork.  Old Top Gear had bought Racing Drivers to serve as doubles for all of it's full time hosts.

They all already knew about Racing Drivers.  It was need to know to be a motoring journalist.  You'd never be allowed on the pit lane at Race time without clearance, or special dispensation, or some situation where all the Racing Drivers were out of the way.

"His name is 80."  Andy stood cross armed over the crate.  "That's it.  The records are wiped, except his match's name.  He never existed, according to the FIA database.  They were going to euthanize him earlier than usual.  Too hard to control."

Jeremy rolled up his shirt sleeves and picked up the crowbar.  Geeze, they'd transported Blue in a ventilated, insulated, plastic carrier.  This was literally a wooden crate with a few holes drilled in.  It was nailed shut.

"You can't be here when he takes his helmet off,"  Jeremy said, starting to pry at the lid.

"I know.  You, be careful.  They say he's unpredictable."  Andy walked out of the room on the side of the hanger.

Jeremy pulled the lid the rest of the way off and shivered.

There was a Racing Driver lying in the crate.  Wearing black overalls that were pretty much grey with age.  His helmet was scratched, in a few places, quite deeply.  He had his arms crossed over his chest like he was giving a stern look.  He was breathing very shallowly.

Images came back, before he could stop them, of a Blue suited Racing Driver in a more comfortable, plastic crate.

He gulped.

As he watched, the Racing Driver's breathing deepened.

The slight tension told Jeremy he was fully awake behind the tinted visor, watching the human leaning over him.

Blue had always sat up, eager to get out of the crate and on to whatever adventure they would be experiencing that day.

That was the first difference between the Racing Driver he'd known so well and this one.

The black suited Racing Driver just let his helmet fall against the side of the crate with a sigh.

[Hello,] Jeremy said in the Racing Driver sign language.

The Racing Driver shifted a little.  That was all.

[Do you feel alright?  Was your trip safe?]  Jeremy asked, smiling.

[Yes.  Thank you.]  He barely moved his hands.  He sat up, then, though.  He was tall, and skinny.  That reminded Jeremy of Blue, again, back when they'd been young together.

[Come on, this way, then.  You can take your helmet off if you like.]  Jeremy stood up and gestured towards the door across from the one Andy had gone out via.

[Yes.  Thank you,]  He reached up and pulled his helmet up and off.  His face was thin and pale.  He had a few inches of thin, stringy hair that had been washed and then put back in the same helmet as it had gone unwashed in.  He had been shaven, poorly, it was obvious he was already suffering ingrown hairs from the botched job of it.  He had blue eyes that didn't dart around, taking in every little detail, like Blue's had, they looked down at the floor.

Jeremy walked over to the door and heard a desperate little whimper.

He turned around.  The Racing Driver was standing there, wide eyed, gaze locked on the door.  He swallowed and looked at Jeremy and back at the door.  [Stallion told me when you came to get me I should be brave.]  He closed his eyes for a moment and pressed his lips together.

When he opened his eyes again, they were full of tears.

He nodded to himself.  [I am brave like my Stallion wants,]  He straightened up, and looked Jeremy in the eyes, his hands moving in light, sweeping gestures. [But please don't make it hurt me?]

Feeling out of his depth, Jeremy gestured, [I'm not going to hurt you.]  He tried to keep his gestures calm.

The Racing Driver nodded and stepped forward to Jeremy's side.  [Thank you.]

He didn't move to open the door, just looked at the Racing Driver's determined expression and thought.  [What are you expecting?]  He asked eventually.

[Needles?]  The Racing Driver made a curious face at Jeremy.  [It will be needles?  Stallion said sometimes they use pills, but usually only if they put you down at a track if you crash.]

Jeremy swallowed, hard.  [No.  I'm not going to put you down.  We bought you so the companies wouldn't put you down.]

The response to this was precisely not what Jeremy would ever have anticipated.

The Racing Driver made an incredulous face, [What?  Ever?]

[No, not ever.]

He thought about this with a great deal of evident disbelief.  [Then where are we going?]

[To your new room.  Then we could talk about a match.]

[There isn't a match waiting for me,]  The Racing Driver told him, matter of factly.

[That's what we need to talk about.]  Jeremy told him.  From the calm acceptance of the lack of match, he had a feeling the Racing Driver wasn't going to just accept the news Jeremy had for him.  [After that, I want to show you where you'll be working.  It's nothing too impressive, but we brought you here to learn our track.]

The Racing Driver's head went back.  [A track?!  I'm here to learn a track?]

He shimmied and threw a fist into the air.  [Yaaaaa-eeeesssss!]

He reached out and pulled Jeremy into a big, back thumping hug.

Unpredictable.  Jeremy thought.  Definitely unpredictable.

British Coast, HMS Invincible- 2003

Perry McCarthy wasn't impressed with Midnight.

Jeremy watched the Black Racing Driver track the human's movements, only ever turning his helmet.  Perry was over talking to some female naval officer.  The three of them were on a shoot.  They were coming towards the end of the shooting schedule for the series.  That would be a relief.  There had been so much tension between the Racing Driver and his intended match.

[He's going to watch me, this time, isn't he?] Midnight asked Jeremy.  He wrung his hands.  The hope in his body language was innocent to the point of naivete.

[He should,] Was all he said.  Should meant ought to, it didn't mean likely to.

Perry came back over.  He ignored Midnight.  "Alright, that's it.  The last shoot is totally set up.  After this I'm out of here.  You can take that career killer and make it be Dawe's duckling.  Or whatever.  I don't care."  He turned to Midnight. [You go with Dawe.]  He sneered in the black visor, muttering,  "Maybe you can kill his career for awhile." Then he walked away.

Midnight looked up at Jeremy.  Shock was evident in every line of his body.  [He'll change his mind, right?  He will want to be friends with me.  I've been so good all season so he would love me.  I've done everything he told me to.  I learned the track as well as I can.  He's going to remember to love me, right?]  His hands were flinging out, barely making any sense as they went on.  Getting hysterical.

Jeremy watched the man walk away.  [I don't think he is.]  He regretted saying it the instant he moved his hands.

The hope visibly drained out of Midnight.  He sagged like a tire without air in it.

He got in the Jaguar.

Jeremy watched him grip the wheel and look down the aircraft carrier.

He watched him gun the engine.

He watched him pass the brake point without ever touching the pedal.

Perry didn't even know what had happened until the female naval officer pushed him out of the way and started ordering soldiers, organizing a rescue effort.  She ran past him to do her best to save the Racing Driver that had gone off the end of the aircraft carrier.  Perry looked at Jeremy, aghast.

Jeremy just watched the unbroken ocean horizon beyond the empty deck, frozen in place.

British Coast- 2003

The Top Gear crew was returned to the mainland by helicopter.  Perry, still stunned, had been herded away by one of the producers.  Jeremy got in his review car of the week and headed back to the hotel.  He had the radio off.  He drove in silence.  His mobile rang.  He answered it and listened.

"I'll let the BBC know that we won't need to put the Stig down, after all, shall I?  They'll be thrilled that we've saved them the FIA fee for revealing a Racing Driver's identity."  Andy said, casually.

"I can't believe Perry told.  As angry as he was that it was Midnight and not him that teams were expecting when they hired him, it seems out of character for him to pose as Midnight.  On purpose.  He wasn't even watching when..."  Jeremy's voice caught.  All he'd been able to think about since it happened was a Porsche crushed around a tree.

"Well, now that we have footage of the Stig dying, we are out from under that little problem."

"We'll need a replacement Stig."  Jeremy said.

"I've got a lead on a fast White.  We'll have to change some promo materials, but I think he'll be a good fit."

"Does his match drive?  I'd rather not have a repeat of this mess."

"His match drives.  He isn't going to be willing to match.  I actually had a suggestion about that, but I'll have to run it by you in person."

"Do I know the match?"

"His name is Ben Collins, F3 and LeMans."

Jeremy didn't know him off the top of his head.  He navigated a roundabout.

Andy waited for him.

"Did the divers fish our package out of the sea?"

"Yes.  He's on his way to South Africa, now."

"Will he be alright, Andy?  Did we do the right thing?"

Andy sighed.  "He laughed when I told him Perry cried over him 'dying.'  Then he said, "I told you when I came, there isn't a match waiting for me.""

His deep, gruff, spoken impression of Midnight's 'voice' was so different than Jeremy imagined Midnight's speech in his own head.  Then again, it had always been hard to stop comparing him to Blue.  Soft spoken, razor witted Blue.  Andy probably had a better grasp on Midnight, anyway.  After all, he was the one who spent the most time around him.

Antarctica- 2016

Jeremy went back into the production tent, out of the cold.  Andy smiled up at him from one of the tables.

"You've got a call from Australia."

A sharp, thin, blue eyed face was looking up from the monitor.  [Hello, Jeremy.  We watched the Broadcast.  It was very amazing!]  Midnight gestured.  There was lag and his image stopped a few times.

[How are the matches' families?  Are they all settling in?]  Jeremy asked.

[They are good.  It is very sunny, here.]  Another sharp, thin, blue eyed face nudged the other out of the way.  [Did self tell you we liked the video?]  The second Racing Driver looked identical to Midnight.

[Dark Sky, rude interrupting!] Midnight teased his twin.  [Of course I did.]

[Hello, Dark Sky.]  Jeremy gestured.

[Hello, Jeremy!]  Dark Sky gestured back.  He nuzzled against his brother.  They were the perfect matched set.  Matched to each other nearly a year before the handlers had brought Perry to Midnight.  The men had been so confused when the Racing Driver, safely already matched, had blinked, open faced at the human boy and no bond had formed.  When they tried again with Dark Sky, still no bond had formed.

So Midnight, Dark Sky and Perry had lost out on any career as a bond pair.  The Racing Drivers had been sent to separate holding facilities, lost to each other.

Until Jeremy, not sure what he was looking at, saw that their newly acquired Stig was not the only one listed as being a match to Perry McCarthy.

So they bought another Racing Driver.

Then they sent Midnight off an aircraft carrier under VERY controlled circumstances, wearing a rebreather, awaited by a team of navy divers.  They reported him dead, so FIA would never look for him, and sent him to safety in South Africa, where his twin brother was waiting for him.

They were two of the most precious members of the Top Gear, and then the Grand Tour Crews.  One of their most precious sources of information.  Precious lives.  Precious friends.

[Midnight found a human friend.]  Dark Sky gestured, suddenly.  [Her name is Gina.  She's funny.  She knows how to gesture.]

Jeremy and Andy looked at each other.  [Like a mate...friend?]  Jeremy asked.

[No, just a friend,] Midnight said, exasperated.

[Is she matched, how does she know how to gesture?]

[She says her father was matched.  His Racing Driver lives with her family, now.]

"Jeremy..."  Andy started.

"I know."  Jeremy put up a hand to stop the rest of Andy's remark.

[Her father's Racing Driver, is he named Shoe?]  He gestured the familiar name sign slowly, so there could be no confusion, even with lag.

[Yes.  He is.  How did you know?]  Midnight asked, delighted.

Jeremy and Andy made eye contact.  The Black Stig had made friends with Gina Schumacher.  [Some things are easy to predict.]

Andy Wilman and Jeremy Clarkson

Midnight

Perry McCarthy

Twin brothers: Dark Sky (orange) and Midnight (black)

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2rAqFFp

Although today there are very few places on Earth above sea level that aren’t explored (it has been said that we know more about the moon than we do the bottom of the ocean), there are still a few places like Papua New Guinea that have been notoriously impossible to map and settle. Of course, you’ll probably notice that the history of exploration is more or less the history of western civilization. It’s not that people don’t live in Papua New Guinea or know anything about its geography and terrain, it’s just that those people aren’t really connected to the rest of the world. So, whether you call it colonialism or discovery, here are the stories behind 25 epic expeditions and the explorers that made them.

#1 Discovery of Greenland (Erik the Red) Born Erik Thorvaldsson, he was credited for establishing the first Norse settlement in Greenland after he was exiled on charges of manslaughter in Norway around the year 982. Called ‘Erik the Red’ for his flaming red hair, he ventured into an expedition with 25 ships, where 14 made the journey while the rest turned back or were lost at sea. The settlement grew with 5000 inhabitants, especially along Eriksfjord and neighboring fjords as immigrants came in from over-populated Iceland.

#2 Discovery of Newfoundland, Canada (Leif Erikson) The son of Erik the Red, a Viking explorer, he also became a famous explorer just like his father when he embarked on his own expeditions towards North America. Considered the “first European to venture into North America,” he arrived at the place which he called Vinland in the 11th century. Archaeological remains substantiated this claim as they found some remains of Vikings in what is known as Newfoundland, Canada.

#3 First Solo Circumnavigation of the World (Joshua Slocum) The first man who single-handedly traveled around the world, Joshua Slocum was a Nova Scotian-born naturalized American seaman and adventurer who wrote the book “Sailing Alone Around the World,” chronicling his journey. He started on April 24, 1895 on his self-built gaff-rigged oyster boat named ‘Spray’ from Fairhaven, Massachusetts and returned to Newport, Rhode Island three years later on June 27, 1898, circumnavigating the world at a distance of more than 48,000 miles.

#4 The First Men to Conquer Mt. Everest (Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay) Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay,a Nepali Sherpa from Darjeeling, India, were part of the ninth British expedition to conquer Mt. Everest led by John Hunt. They reached the summit on May 29, 1953, 11:30 AM local time via the South Col Route. Though they both acknowledged it as a team effort, Tenzing later revealed that it was Hillary who had put his foot first on the summit where they took photographs and buried a few sweets and a small cross before descending. Hunt and Hillary were knighted by Queen Elizabeth in the Order of the British Empire while Tenzing was given the George Medal by UK. They were both nationally recognized inNepal and are honored annually with ceremonies in schools and offices to celebrate their feat.

#5 First Expedition to South Pole (Roald Amundsen) Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a famous Norwegian explorer who was recognized as the first man to reach the South Pole in December 1911 and the first expedition leader to reach the North Pole in 1928. One of the key leaders in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Expeditions, he initially decided to go for Antarctica due to some funding problems and news that other explorers had already conquered the North Pole. Using the ship “Fram,” he and his men left Oslo, Norway on June 3, 1910 for the south. 16 years later, however, Amundsen and 15 of his crew made the first crossing of the Arctic using an airship and landing in Alaska two days later. Since the three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole were all disputed, Amundsen would be the first man to cross the North Pole by air.

#6 The Search for the Nile’s Source in Africa (David Livingstone) David Livingstone, a Scottish medical missionary, had become famous for his exploits and has gained mythical status mainly due to his geographical exploration of Africa, his disappearance, and death. One of the first Westerners to make a transcontinental journey across Africa from 1854 to 1856, he returned to Zanzibar in January 1866 to seek out the source of the Nile. Though he was wrong about the Nile, he discovered numerous geographical features including the Victoria Falls, Lake Ngawi, lake Bangwelu, and Lake Malawi.

#7 Discovery of China (Marco Polo) An Italian merchant traveler, he was widely recognized as the first European to visit China and other far eastern territories from 1275 to 1295. From a family of mercantile traders, he apparently met Kublai Khan between the years 1271 and 1275 and spent 17 years in his palace. His pioneering journey inspired other explorers like Christopher Columbus to embark on the same and he had also influenced European cartography leading to the creation of numerous maps.

#8 The 8,000 Mile Exploration of the West (Meriwether Lewis and William Clark Sacagawea) The “Corps of Discovery Expedition” from May 1804 to September 1806 was considered the 2nd transcontinental expedition undertaken by the Europeans in the Pacific Coast after Alexander Mackenzie’s crossing in 1803. Lewis and Clark relied on their navigation skills during the westward exploration where they learned to cook edible plants and make leather clothes out of moccasins. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, they embarked on the expedition with a select group of US Army volunteers to primarily explore and map the newly-acquired territories, find alternate routes across the Western half of the continent, and secure it from Britain and other powers who might tried to seize it.

#9 1831 HMS Beagle Explorations (Charles Darwin) The famed naturalist was also an explorer as he spent a significant amount of time charting the coastlines of South America. During the voyages he would investigate geology and natural history and send specimens and copies of his journal to his family every now and then. These entries became the basis for his “evolutionary theory”.

#10 The First Circumnavigation of the Earth (Ferdinand Magellan) A Portuguese-born explorer, who served King Charles I of Spain after Portugal refused to fund his expeditions, he led the first voyage around the world from August 10, 1519 to 1522 in a westward route in search of the famed “Spice Islands.” He sailed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, which he called as “peaceful sea,” with 5 ships and a crew of 270 men from several nations. Though he himself did not complete the entire voyage as he was killed by Lapu-Lapu in the Battle of Mactan in Cebu, Philippines on April 17, 1521, he was still credited for the expedition. Out of the 5 ships and 270 crew members, only one surviving ship, ‘Victoria,’ returned to Spain with 18 people on board.

#11 The First Landing on the Moon (Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Aldrin) Broadcast on live TV to be watched by the world, Apollo 11 with its 3 crew members was the first space flight that landed humans on the moon on July 20, 1969. Armstrong’s first step to the lunar space became a celebrated event with his now famous phrase, “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

#12 Discovery of the Northeast Coast of America (John Cabot) An Italian-born explorer, John Cabot was commissioned by Henry VI of England from 1480 to 1497 to find alternative western route to Asia. While on the course of his expeditions, he was able to discover some parts of the northeast coast of America. Because of his feat, he was later given funds by the British to go on another expedition, this time to explore the Atlantic.

#13 First Man to Travel into Space (Yuri Gagarin) During the first part of the Space Race, Russia could have was probably slightly ahead of the United States. Eight years before Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, had already been able to circumnavigate the earth making him the “first man to travel into space.” His flight, however, lasted less than 2 hours.

#14 Discovery of the Caribbean (Christopher Columbus) Owing to the popularity of the exploits of Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, a Genoese colonizer and navigator also embarked on expeditions for 13 years funded by the Spanish monarchy in exchange for new territories, spices, and conversion of people to Christianity. This led him to discover North, South and Central America including the islands in the West Indies with his ships the Pinta, Santa Maria and Niata using the direct route to the east and west. Due to miscalculations, however, their ships landed in the Bahamas and Cuba in 1492. His discoveries established the links between the Native Americans and the Europeans, which paved the way for its colonization. Columbus will always be honored for discovering the “New World” and for debunking the myth that the world is flat.

#15 First Woman to Fly a Plane (Louise Arner Boyd) While the Wright Brothers were immortalized for building the first airplane, Louise Arner Boyd became the ‘first woman to ever fly a plane over the North Pole’ in 1955. Known for her moniker, the “Ice Woman,” Boyd was lauded for her research and adventures in Greenland, where her studies of the fjords and glaciers led to the discovery of a chain of sea mounts in the Arctic Ocean.

#16 Discovery of India (Vasco da Gama) The expeditions of this Portuguese explorer from 1460 to 1524 led to the discovery of a trade route to India as he and his crew traversed the Cape of Good Hope and ended up on the East Coast of Africa. This route laid the foundations for future exploration, making Vasco da Gama one of the greatest heroes of the European age of discovery.

#17 Discovery of the North Pacific (Abel Tasman) From 1603 to 1659, Abel Tasman embarked on explorations of the North Pacific with the primary aim of mapping beaches and coastlines in the region. Along the way he was able to explore New Zealand, Australia and the Van Diemans Land or present-day Tasmania.

#18 Discovery of the Hudson Bay (Henry Hudson) During one of his numerous expeditions from 1550 to 1611, Hudson, an English navigator, discovered Hudson Bay as he and his crews were looking for the Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage would become the main route to the east by traversing the Arctic Circle.

#19 Explorations of Australia, New Zealand and North America (James Cook) There were no other explorers before him who had sailed further south which led James Cook to discover and map out Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and North America during the mid 1700s. It also led to the creation of the North-West trade route which served as a guide to other future explorers. He was killed on his third expedition in 1779 to the islands of Hawaii.

#20 Discovery of East Africa (Sir Richard Burton) If not for Sir Richard Burton, the world may not have known the classics “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” or “Alibaba and his Forty Thieves.” The son of a British army officer, he served as the captain in the Indian army for seven years before embarking on expeditions to the Americas, Asia and Africa from 1821 to 1890, which led him to Saudi Arabia and the Lake Tanganyika in Africa. He was also credited for translating the famous Arabian folktales “One Thousand and One Nights” and for publishing the “Kama Sutra” in English.

#21 Discovery of America (Amerigo Vespucci) Though Christopher Columbus was credited for discovering the New World, the honor of its name is given to Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator whose expeditions were funded by the Portuguese crown. He first landed on what is known today as Brazil and met the natives of South America in 1502. Believing at first that the unknown territory was India, he called the natives “Indians,” a name that stuck to this day.

#22 Discovery of Panama (Vasco Núñez de Balboa) A Spanish conquistador, governor and explorer, he became famous for being the first European in 1513 to cross the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean, which was known at that time as the South Sea. During his travels to the New World in 1500, he came across the island of Hispaniola and built the settlement of Santa Maria la Antigua del Darién, or present-day Panama in 1510, which became the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of America.

#23 First Man to Dive into the Sea (William Beebe) Due to his fascination with the natural world, Beebe, an American naturalist and explorer conducted numerous expeditions for the New York Zoological Society. He became famous for his deep dives using the bathysphere off the coast of Bermuda. The apparatus was connected to the surface with rubber tube cables and supported him as he dove below 3,028 meters while setting successive world records for the deepest dives made by a human.

#24 Modern Discovery of Machu Picchu (Hiram Bingham) An American academic, explorer, treasure hunter, and later a senator in the United States, he was credited for making the Quechua citadel of Machu Picchu publicly known in 1911. With the aid of local farmers, he became excited about the prospect of unexplored Inca cities and returned to the Andes in an expedition along with the Yale Peruvian Expedition on July 24, 1911,which made Machu Picchu one of the major tourist attractions in South America.

#25 Discovery of the Manila Galleon Trade (Andrés de Urdaneta) One of the few survivors of the Loaisa Expedition to reach the Spice Islands in 1526, he achieved the “second” circumnavigation of the globe after Ferdinand Magellan and his crew. A Spanish explorer and Augustinian friar, de Urdaneta plotted the route across the Pacific via the Philippines to Acapulco in what was popularly known as the Manila Galleon.

Source: List25