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Burning the Maps/A Candle for Katherine

by Marasmus

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BURNING THE MAPS

CLASSIFICATION: V, A, A flicker of

MSR

RATING: R for mild sexual scenes and language

SPOILER WARNING: A few, up to S5.

AUTHOR: marasmus@my-deja-com/[email protected]

SUMMARY: An ending, of sorts

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. You know the drill, suing is like a broken pencil*

(*pointless <g>)

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BURNING THE MAPS

Just four hours to go. Already the coming dawn was painting the night sky a mistier blue. There was the rumble of the odd passing car, its tires hissing through puddles, the tick of the clock on the mantle, the gentle drum roll of rain on the windows.

“Well?” she asked, sounding too shrill for her own comfort.

His eyes flared wide and he sat up with a peculiar half-laugh, scrutinising every inch of her until she couldn’t decide whether to snap at him or flee back into the bathroom. “You… uh, you don’t look like you,” he said awkwardly.

She was rattled by his reaction and moved across to the mirror. Some other woman stared back at her; a woman with puffy brown eyes and a lined forehead, wavy dark hair making her skin seem a sickly milk white. She closed her eyes, not wanting to acknowledge it.

She sensed rather than heard him moving from the sofa and when she looked up again, his face was hovering over her shoulder, looking intently at both their reflections. Unexpectedly he gave her a smile and said: “In fact, we don’t look like us.”

“At least I don’t look as if I’ve been taking fashion tips from Byers.” His laugh was about as small as the joke had been as he touched the short bristles of the beard he had been cultivating. She bowed her head and he picked up a strand of hair that had fallen across her face and twisted it behind her ear.

Then he stopped and stared into the mirror again, one hand moving to her shoulder, tracing the line of her neck. “I can’t get over this. You don’t look like you.” He looked distracted, as if it were a thought he scarcely knew he had spoken aloud.

She smashed the companionable silence, stalking toward the kitchen. “It’s only hair dye, I suggest you do get over it,” she threw over her shoulder.

Who would have guessed she would be upset about losing the Scully mark of Cain? As a child she had asked God every night if she could wake up with dark hair like her mom instead of the pale carroty mop that made her an easy target in games of ‘torment the new kid’. But as she’d got older, she had become used to and finally grown to like standing out in a crowd.

Now she was back to dullness; a bird in drab winter plumage.

She squeezed the brown contact lenses from her eyes with angry imprecision, blinked away a few tears of pain, snapped the case shut, and thrust it into the pocket of her grey sweatpants. Then she banged the cupboard doors and flung teaspoons into the sink until her temper cooled as suddenly as it had flared.

Mulder looked contrite as she emerged with two mugs of coffee. “I’m sorry, Scully, I didn’t mean to offend…”

“It’s okay,” she interrupted. “I’m just a little tense.” She noted his almost imperceptible nod, took a deep breath and added: “and a little scared, I guess.”

He stood up and in one fluid motion, plucked the mugs from her hand, set them on the table and pulled her close in a hug that didn’t quite disguise the tremors in his own arms.

He gave a lopsided smile and muttered into her ear: “Now I know it’s not you. Whatever happened to ‘I’m fine’?”

She pulled away first, as always, and smiled back. “I’m trying out a new catchphrase, didn’t I tell you?”

“It’s too late now, Scully. Your timing sucks,” he teased as they sat shoulder to shoulder on the sofa, staring at the heavily marked maps.

She had come up with the basics of the plan. She had always been a better strategy player, she was more careful, more patient, it was why she beat him at chess so often. But the wrinkles, the devious little details, the cunningly planted “fuck yous” to the people who were driving them to this… they were all his own.

Everything was memorised because paper was risky. He knew she had drilled herself until she too could recite every name, remember every email address and password and recall every account number.

She had wanted them to travel together at first — he suspected she didn’t want to let him out of her sight — but he quickly persuaded her that they were too conspicuous as a couple.

Instead they had worked out a complex set of bluffs and double bluffs. It was like the old days; they had worked so well together it had almost been… no, it had been fun.

He remembered their arguments over routes and tactics over the past three weeks, and smiled as he watched the first fingers of light creep across the sky through the crack in the drapes.

As if to break the silence, she asked: “Do we still have company?”

He nodded, nudging the heavy cloth aside to look out on the road. “Still only two of them though, I’m guessing front and back exits, one man per car, 12 hour shifts. They haven’t broken the pattern in three days.”

“You don’t think they’ll make an early move?”

“Skinner says not.”

He deliberately did not think about what bargains Skinner must have made to get access to the information. His former boss had told him they had been targeted, along with a couple of hundred other “trouble makers” and “significant subjects” who would be spirited away to the box cars. All would be snatched within 24 hours to prevent one set of disappearances alerting other targets.

This time no one would be returned: All part of the project’s acceleration under its new masters.

What had saved them from a black ops bullet on a dark night was that they were needed: More tests. He would never forget the look on Scully’s face when he told her what he had found out.

He had expected cold anger, that was pretty much her preferred emotion these days. He had even suspected that she might try to convince him this was a Skinner double-cross. Instead, just for a second, he had seen such fear in her that it had almost unmanned him. She had been in those train cars before and if it terrified even someone like her beyond enduring…

They had only one advantage — they knew when.

“So tomorrow’s the day. They’re working to a timetable. Jesus.” She put one hand over her eyes wearily.

“Well that’s the good thing about fascists, Scully,” he said. “The train cars have to run on time.”

She smiled, something he had seen more in these last few days inside these four walls than in all of the last six months.

Three hours to go. An unlovely wintry dawn broke. The sky faded through shades of drizzly grey, each one more bleached out than the last. It wasn’t the finest way to remember Washington.

She had managed to get him to understand she needed to be on her own for a while to sort out her thoughts or she would start stalking him with kitchen implements.

He had insisted they should stay in one apartment for the last few days before they ran, just in case someone did try to make the snatch early. For once, the tediously persistent rumours they were sleeping together actually worked in their favour. It clearly had not struck anyone as odd that he was staying there. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.

She had preferred staying in the apartment with him anyway. Any time she went out or talked to someone else she had to follow the script and that was so hard.

She stood in her bedroom, methodically packing and unpacking the small rucksack, always trying to fit in one more thing without making it look too bulky, but not paying much attention to what she was doing. Her eyes flicked towards the line-up of photographs she kept on the top shelf of the bookcase.

Her mom had looked oddly pleased at the closeness of the hug in the middle of that crowded restaurant on Tuesday. Perhaps she had thought her daughter was finally loosening up a little.

Alarm bells had only started ringing when she asked her mom to give her love to Bill and Charlie.

“They’re looking forward to seeing you next week, Dana,” her mom had said, dark suspicion blooming in her face. “You will be there for dinner? A case hasn’t come up, has it? It’s a long time since we’ve all been together.”

She felt a surge of irritation at her mom for playing the guilt card so quickly but she stamped on it; no time for that. “No, nothing coming up at all Mom. I’ll be there.”

She had wanted to be honest but two tables down, someone was listening.

Someone always was.

Just two hours left. The apartment was oppressively warm with the drapes closed and was only going to get warmer.

“This is going to wreck the paint work,” she said, climbing down from the chair, half of the smoke detector trailing wires from her hand.

“The next owner can make it a feature. We’ll get the real estate lady to point it out specially.” His voice swooped up into a falsetto. “‘And these scorch marks are where the two fugitive FBI agents burned all the paperwork relating to their daring escape’.”

She snorted with laughter and he was surprised to see her pour the lighter fluid into the small metal trash can from shoulder height, as if it were some kind of religious ritual. Something was going on behind those steely blue eyes.

They watched the lighter fluid drip and ooze across the sturdy road maps. “They are never going to fall for this, Mulder,” she muttered.

“Come on, Scully, these people have no imagination,” he said a little too brightly. “They are going to bring in all kinds of experts to reconstruct the words and lines on that paper. They’ll be so impressed with how smart they are, they’ll never think it’s a trick, and in the meantime, we’ve sent them every direction but the right one.

“Plus I marked a few clinics and installations they think we don’t know about. They’re gonna shit bricks when they see that, wondering who else we’ve told.”

They grinned at each other; he could see that she enjoyed that picture.

He stepped back and she struck the match, dropped it in and folded her arms in satisfaction as it blazed brightly and grey-black smoke curled up to the ceiling.

“Perhaps we should toast marshmallows, Scully,” he said, staring into the flames.

“And how would their scientists explain the residue? That the fugitive feds paused in their daring escape to take a snack break?”

The fierce heat and the height of the blaze began to alarm him. Turning to her he began: “Scully shouldn’t we dampen this down a…” She wasn’t there.

Seconds later she emerged from the bedroom, a crumpled piece of card in her hand. She dropped it onto the pyre and as it unfolded in the heat, he saw it clearly for the first time. Pale gingery hair. A wide smile. A three-year-old’s party picture, distorting as the plastic coating the paper began to melt.

“What are you doing?” he asked carefully, trying to make his voice as even as possible.

Her chin jutted out and her eyes hardened. “It’s the only picture I have. I can’t take it with me and they can’t have it.”

He nodded and put a hand on her arm, longing to comfort her but uncertain whether his touch was even welcome. Her ramrod-straight shoulders hitched slightly under his grasp and he supposed that meant she wanted him to let go. He let his hand drop to his side feeling useless and angry. He was glad it had burned — he detested that fucking picture and everything it symbolised.

Flecks of blackened paper swirled slowly downwards on the air like snowflakes in negative.

The seconds were ticking by too quickly; she wanted to reach out a hand and still the clock on her mantle and believe that by her action, she could make time stop too.

His eyes followed her around the room as she trailed a finger along the bookshelves and the mantlepiece.

It’s not like I spent much time here, she thought wistfully. He had abandoned his apartment without regret. There was nothing there that he couldn’t stand to lose, she knew. He had pared his life down to the essentials: himself and his files. She knew the files were as much locked in that peculiar memory of his as they were in the cabinets and computers of the Hoover Building.

She had always prided herself that her itinerant life as a child had left her able to pack everything she would ever need into a couple of suitcases — that she wasn’t attached to mere places. The burning of their basement office should have taught her that that wasn’t quite true any more.

This had been the first place that was truly hers, not base housing or a dorm or rented room. She prowled the apartment, not sure whether she was trying to commit it to memory, say goodbye or convince herself that she didn’t care after all.

She could see she was making him tense; he was sitting on the sofa, twisting a cushion between his hands, wishing away this little amount of time they had left.

The third time she stalked into the kitchen, he rasped: “Scully. Please, just sit down. You’re wearing tracks into the carpet.”

It’s my damned carpet, she thought sourly but sat next to him. She wanted to break the silence and yet she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“What will you do? When you get there?” he asked suddenly. She was nonplussed when she realised she had been so focused on the journey that the destination had almost slipped her mind.

“I… assumed we would consider our options, Mulder.”

He threw his head back on the cushions and smiled. “‘Consider our options’. That’s a very Scully answer.”

“Which means?” she snapped.

“Precisely nothing. What if we don’t get there, Scully?”

You’re supposed to be the insane optimist in this relationship, Mulder, she thought, recalling a barked line from one of her Quantico instructors a decade ago (Jesus! A decade): Failure is not an option. You cling onto that dismal cliche, she told herself.

“Then Mulder, I shall have to come back and save your sorry ass yet again, which will piss me off,” she said, trying to make a joke of it.

“No Scully. You keep on going,” he replied. “Anyway, you’re assuming that it would be me that screwed up.”

She found herself growing angry. “If it was the other way round and I didn’t show up, would you keep going?” she snapped. She thought it was a rhetorical question.

But he looked into her eyes and very deliberately, very evenly, his voice almost cold, he said: “I would. We both know what goes on in those train cars. No fucking heroics, Scully, not this time.”

His eyes were dark and they glittered in the half light of dawn, unreadable and remote. She was sure she’d remember how to breathe any minute now. “Okay,” she said in a flat tone. “No heroics.”

An hour left and every tick of the clock couldn’t come soon enough now. He was trying to peek past the drapes again, just to make sure they hadn’t decided to change their plans and come for them this day of all days.

Scully was sitting on the sofa, her arms curled around her stomach, shivery and trying to force down the feeling of nausea. She didn’t have time for her usual attempts to scry what Mulder had meant by that last remark. Perhaps, for once, she was supposed to take him literally.

He had put an arm on her shoulder again after his little outburst of honesty — whether to comfort her or himself she wasn’t certain — but she had shaken him off because it was easier to stay mad than start to think about it.

Would she go back for him if this went wrong?

An hour ago, she would have said yes without question. But he had forced her to consider what going back would mean: no access, no inside information, no protection. The sharks would be waiting to snatch her when she surfaced and there would be no Mulder to help her ward off the dim and fragmentary memories of the abduction that sometimes made her mind stutter until she was incapable of action.

Now he turned and stared at her, his hands jammed in the pocket of his sweatpants and his jaw working to and fro.

She knew she appeared all the things she most wished she was not: old and tired and small and scared.

“Scully, I have to tell you something,” he said hesitantly, his voice like honey and razorblades. His tone was the one he had always used to bring her running.

She knew he understood exactly what he was doing to her. Maybe he always had, but now they didn’t have time for their usual insane games of push-me-pull-you.

She might as well be honest for once.

No heroics.

“I’m sorry I shut you out, Mulder. You do it to me too, but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry I clung on to the status quo for so long when you were willing to let it go.” Damn, she was babbling. “I’ve been afraid and angry…”

He breathed out loudly and looked at the ceiling. “I haven’t made it easy for you.”

She winced a little at the unspoken confirmation that he thought she had been a coward. “You never did. I liked the challenge. But you do know…”

“No I don’t. I hoped. But it’s tough being pushed away all the time.”

She opened her mouth to object but his voice was hard. “Oh I know I did it too. But you could have trusted me. I wouldn’t have let us screw it up.”

She ran a hand through her hair and looked away. “No. I believe you wouldn’t.” She let out a mirthless laugh. “I am a different matter, however.”

“You’d’ve been okay. I have faith in you.”

“We’re not exactly made for each other are we?”

He looked at her, his eyes seeking her explanation.

“We disagree about everything at the most basic level,” she said. “I spend a third of my life running after you trying to stop you from killing yourself, a third second-guessing everything you say and a third locked away in here, trying to tell myself how sensible I’m being by keeping our relationship just professional… when just professional is the last thing we are.”

“Could’ve been worse.” It was her turn to request an explanation. He smiled at her serious expression. “Could’ve been boring.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s never been that.”

“Not even on stakeouts?” he said teasingly.

“No. Except for those sports shows you listen to. I may have passed out on your shoulder a couple of times through the sheer tedium of it.”

“Well, I wore the drool with pride.”

She picked up a cushion and lazily threw it at him. “Asshole.”

He flopped down on the couch next to her with a grin. She had never met anyone as impossibly mercurial as him, never met someone who could so easily lift or sour the atmosphere in a room. Or perhaps he only had that effect on her.

She looked across at him at the instant he turned his face to her and both of them reached out a hand automatically. The tips of her fingers jabbed painfully against his for a moment and they both pulled back before, finally, their hands wandered into a firm, comforting clasp.

He moved towards her, so slowly that it felt as if the interval could be measured in geological time. Then finally he pressed that perfect bowed mouth of his to hers. Neither would concede ground by closing their eyes so, as the kiss deepened and their lips slowly parted, each disappeared into the widening well of blackness in the other’s pupils.

An eon or two passed before they surfaced for air.

“Now whose timing sucks?” she whispered.

“Mine always did,” he replied softly, letting his hands wander now she had tacitly given him the right to roam. His fingertips traced the curve of her body from breast to thigh, his hands stroked her hair…

…. and she pulled away slightly, just enough for him to be perturbed by it. “What?” he asked softly.

“Nothing.”

No, he thought. There could be no ‘nothing’ any more. She would not catch his eye, which was always a giveaway. “Well?”

Then, slowly, and as if she was planning to make him pay for forcing her to admit something so petty, she said: “Well, I was thinking that dark-haired women are more your type.” She stared at the sofa cushions and the ceiling and anywhere but at him. “Phoebe. Diana…”

For a second his eyebrows headed for his hairline. Then he laughed. “Once maybe. But now I have this thing for skeptical redheads that I just can’t shake off.”

“I’m not a redhead any more.”

He tapped the side of his skull. “You are up here, Scully. Anyway, I’m sure normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.”

“Better believe it,” she grumbled happily before he stopped her mouth with another kiss and ran his hands up from her hips in an arc to cup her breasts, each thumb tracing a lazy circle around her nipples. He was rewarded with a small bite on his swollen lower lip and released a brief jet of laughter.

Her hands burrowed under his T-shirt to the hot skin of his back and her short nails pressed the flesh before moving upwards to consider the ridges of the scar on his shoulder. Then she slid her hands slowly toward herself to follow the lines of his rib cage and rake down through the fine hair on his chest.

At last, he could freely touch her and have her caress him. He squeezed his eyes shut as the thought sent a fresh pulse of desire through him, and he brought his mouth down on hers. His hands swept down her body again, the left stroking the serpent he knew was curled across her spine, the right slipping under the thin cotton layers at her navel.

In turn, her right hand whispered up from its short stay on his thigh and trailed over the soft cotton covering his erection and followed its length upwards. His entire body involuntarily jumped towards hers, and he felt her lips smile into the kiss.

His fingers slid down past the silky skin of her stomach, through soft hair, and eased into her hot, slick centre, delighting in the way that every small touch made her press closer to him. He wanted to continue cataloguing every part of her, saving every sensory impression he could to study and relive later, but he wasn’t sure he could safely open his eyes yet.

He sniffed that warm mixture of lemon soap and faint perfume traces on her neck, tasted the soft, salt warmth of her skin, then moved to the hollow of her throat that was guarded by the cross she wore. He had fantasised about worshipping in that spot. He slid the cloth of her T-shirt out of the way and kissed her there, almost reverently.

He had hoped to lose himself in her so far that he didn’t have to think, but his mind was refusing to abandon the real world. Perhaps if he didn’t open his eyes and look at the clock, no time would pass.

He felt his throat tightening and had to suck in several juddery breaths as a mixture of want and longing and paralysing fear swept over him.

“Scully, what will I do without you…” he whispered.

Then his train of thought was derailed by her authoritative voice. “No,” she said.

“We have time…” he murmured in a desire-slurred voice and moved both his hands back to her waist to pull her closer.

She pushed him back and away. “No. Stop. I can’t… I won’t do this.”

His eyes snapped open and he exhaled sharply; a billow of anger and frustration. “Damn it why can’t you just let go of…”

“No, I mean I’m not doing this.”

“Scully,” he said, his voice a little ragged. “Please.”

“No. I won’t join in with this… this whole farewell fuck scenario.”

“Is that what you think this is?” He had shifted his hands to the neutral territory of her forearms and looked, in turn, puzzled, offended and furious.

“No. Not entirely,” she admitted awkwardly, shuffling out of his grasp to the opposite end of the sofa. “But I won’t give you permission to…”

“Permission?” he interrupted, his voice rising as he leaned towards her.

“Permission to say goodbye,” she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye. “This is not goodbye. I will see you in two weeks as agreed, and we will take care of unfinished business then. Is that clear?”

“Unfinished business? Jesus, Scully, very military. Are you taking lessons off Bill?”

“I mean it,” she snapped back, sounding more brittle than she had before. “Because I want this very much. But I don’t want it to be because I’m afraid or because you want to scratch one more experience off your list…”

“Is that really what you think… ” he began in a low dangerous tone, but she rushed on, heedless, her words tumbling out in broken sentences.

“It’s because I sense you’re giving up somehow. I hate that because it scares me. Because I want to give both of us a motive to be careful. Because I love you.”

He sat back and stared at her mutinously, not wanting to hear her words. He watched her expression change, like the slowly mutating colours of oil on water, moving from anger, to fear, finally to uncertainty…

He was so mad at her that he drank it in for a long moment. See how it feels, Scully? See how it feels to be pushed away by silence?

Then what she had actually said sank in, and he felt childish and ashamed. This wasn’t a mind game he was playing with some date. This was his best friend. The one person he trusted. One of the finest, strongest people he knew. And by God, she knew him, knew exactly what he was thinking, and had called him on it.

“C’mere,” he said, his voice cracking slightly as he pulled her into a kiss which was returned with a ferocious intensity.

Then abruptly, the heat between them dissipated. He closed his eyes and was surprised to find that the action displaced two fat tears which slid down his cheek. He felt her take his face in her hands, brush them aside with her thumbs.

“I do love you, very much,” she said. It was the same tone she had used the first time they met. (‘Actually I’m looking forward to working with you’)

A challenge. A dare. A declaration of intent.

He looked up at her again. “And you knew that didn’t you, you bastard?” she added with a faint smile, shaking her head as if despairing over a naughty but amusing toddler.

“Always been a believer.” He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, then rested his chin there. “So… until we next meet, Scully,” he said softly.

“I will hold you to that promise,” she replied, her cheek to his chest, one hand sliding along his bristly jaw line.

The next time he glanced at the clock showed their countdown was over. He looked into her eyes and they nodded at each other. Then she pulled the hood up over her hair, picked up the rucksack, and they left her apartment to go jogging together, as they had every day for the past three weeks.

Mrs. Horvath always shopped for milk and bread this early on Saturdays; she had grown up in a small village and crowds drove her crazy. Besides, she had bought fresh bread for George’s breakfast every Saturday for 37 years, and even now he had passed on it was a hard habit to break.

She would usually be finished by 8:30am and on her way home with some small treat for herself perhaps a couple of candy bars or a muffin or two and a tin of something tasty for her cat Mookie.

She was trying to decide on Mookie’s present when she saw the couple out front.

She shook her head at their foolishness. It was lucky they were wearing hooded shirts or their hair would be soaked. Even though she had been a US citizen for the past 40 years she still caught herself shaking her head and muttering “Americans!” every time she saw some young person do something silly.

Like these two for example. What sort of idiots went out jogging in this weather? They’d catch their deaths.

“Honey, we need milk,” the man said. Why was he talking so loud?

They pushed open the door and as they walked in, his hand moved to the small of her back. The gesture made them exchange tender looks.

Mrs. Horvath smiled and turned her attention back to the crucial question of the day: can of tuna or gourmet rabbit-flavoured kitty chunks?

She saw them nod at the nice young clerk who looked so much like George had back when he was in his first year at the university in Szeged. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a yo-yo as he acknowledged them with a little bow of his head. Now Mrs. Horvath’s curiosity was piqued; she knew the clerk was a friendly sort and that was most definitely not his usual greeting.

Instead of going to the dairy section, the man guided her towards the back, where the packets of pasta and bags of rice jostled for shelf space. The woman looked surprised and a little annoyed as he led her to the out of the way corner that was the one blind spot in the in-store security system.

It was also very close to the pet food section, Mrs. Horvath noted with satisfaction.

The couple were bedraggled and the woman in particular was very pale and tired-looking. “What, Mulder?” she said, sounding worried.

“You keep going. Promise?” he said urgently.

“Mulder…” she began, as though this were a long-running argument. Mrs. Horvath peered between the cans of dog food and wished she could see more of their faces.

“You promise,” he insisted. “No heroics.” The tall man was gripping her wrists so tightly that whiteness was welling in the skin around each of his fingertips.

“Okay I promise. I promise,” she whispered quickly. “Now let go or we’ll mess this up.”

The man looked into her eyes for so long that Mrs. Horvath thought he had not heard the woman’s words. “Okay then, Scully, ” he said finally, bowing his head as though acceding to a higher power.

With a final look around her to check that no one was watching, the pale woman took his face in both hands and kissed him fiercely. “Two weeks,” she hissed. “I’ll see you in two weeks.Don’t stand me up.”

She hugged him tightly and then moved to leave but neither seemed to want to loose their hold on the other. Finally he let his hands drop.

“Don’t wait for me to follow right after you,” he said. “You get going. I’ll hang around for a couple of minutes. Less suspicious.”

She nodded and, without a second glance, slipped through the door the clerk held open that led to the storeroom and the alley out back.

The man’s face remained impassive but Mrs Horvath saw that his hands had curled tightly into fists.

A moment later a second woman, wearing identical clothing to the pale woman, entered the shop through the back door. She was followed by a bearded fellow, who was wearing the same jogging outfit as the tall man. At first glance, the two could have been brothers, though on closer inspection they were only a similar height and build.

“Change of plan,” the tall man said and pointed at the woman who had just stepped in. “I only need you.”

She shrugged. She was almost the same height as the woman who had vanished through the door moments before, though she was younger and less pretty. Once she pulled up the hood though, the resemblance was close.

Then he turned to the bearded man accompanying her. “Go. Tell the guys thank you, and not to worry.” The lookalike appeared surprised but smiled and disappeared through the back door again.

“Ready?” he asked the woman. She nodded. “Then let’s go.”

The moment they were out of the door, they were running at a blistering pace.

The storeroom door flapped open and for a second Mrs Horvath caught a glimpse of the pale woman, wearing a black jacket now, out in the alley behind the shop. She was climbing into a battered grey car. Then it swung shut again and she was left staring into the face of the clerk. He looked terrified, his eyes flickering to her face, then down to the counter and then to the door.

Mrs Horvath had lived under the fascists and the communists. She and George had fled from Vojvodina after the wartime massacres and found a home in Budapest where, for a few precious years, they had thought they were safe. When it all fell apart in 1956, and the Russian tanks were reducing to rubble any building from which a shot had been fired, she and George had given up on home and set their sights on the border.

No one would think it to look at her now, but she had once known what it was like to sneak over fields and run through ditches, the hem of her coat hanging heavy with sewn-in gold, just one suitcase and a carpetbag carrying their entire life.

She had lived in terror of the flicker of a car headlight or the rasp of a rifle bolt being drawn back. Of never knowing whether the next person you saw would run to call the authorities or let you pass safely. You never forgot the expressions on the faces of your fellow fugitives.

She knew she had worn the same look of fear for George that she had seen in the pale woman’s face for her lover.

Mrs Horvath was well-acquainted with the idea that some things were not meant to be seen. She gave a crooked grin to the clerk and patted his hand as she paid for her groceries.

Just a helpless old lady, buying treats for her cat.

The woman left by the front door, her long, dark brown hair trailing over her shoulders, wearing one of Scully’s most expensive suits, another tucked in her bag. Scully would have been mad but he figured waste not, want not.

He had thanked the woman before she left and she looked at him, appraising him until he felt uncomfortable. “No problem,” she drawled, shooting a suggestive glance in his direction. “Any time. It was fun.”

He never asked her name. Safest not to, really.

Now he was alone with the ticking of the clock; the humming of the refrigerator and the drumming of the rain on the windows.

Less than 24 hours to go.

He wanted to go shave but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

At 7am on Sunday morning, right on schedule, the bell rang. He heard footsteps clanging on the fire escape outside the window. After a minute, a five-strong tactical team bust open the door locks to find Mulder lying on the sofa in a crumpled suit. “It’s open,” he called sarcastically.

His heart pounded like a techno beat as two men dragged him to his feet. True to the cliche, all five intruders wore black suits. They strode arrogantly through the apartment, kicking open the doors.

The face of the tall, balding man who appeared to be in command hardened as each member of his team returned to the living room and shook his head.

“Where is she?”

“Sorry, she popped out for breakfast. Didn’t she let you know?” The slap blindsided him.

The commander appeared to consider and pulled a portable radio from his pocket. There were a few brief expletive-laden exchanges; Mulder assumed they were with the men outside the front and basement entrances.

“You came to us, Mr Mulder,” he said finally, trying to load his voice with menace. “You were told what the deal was and what the penalties would be for both of you if you tried to go back on it. Now I think it’s time for you to tell us where she is.”

“You think I’d trust you to let her go afterwards?” Mulder sneered, putting a hand to his aching jaw. “You only get me. She’s gone, you fucker.”

“Gone where?”

“Ask Tweedledum and Tweedledee out there.” Mulder jerked his head towards the street. “They were supposed to be making sure we didn’t run.”

Another smack, so hard it knocked him back onto a chair, which then toppled backwards. As the back of his skull hit the floor, Mulder’s vision fizzed the grey-white of a static-filled TV screen.

“Careful, Raker, we need his head intact,” the balding man said, then left a dramatic pause. “The rest is fair game.”

Mulder snorted at this piece of machismo and blinked as the ceiling swam into focus. “No need to get violent,” he muttered.

The tactical team fanned out in the small apartment, sweeping her vases and lamps onto the floor and tipping out the contents of her drawers and cupboards. One man was going through all the papers in the drawers of Scully’s desk, shovelling them into brown boxes. There was the cymbal crash of smashing glass from the kitchen. It was supposed to intimidate, he supposed, but it actually cheered him up to think that they were frustrated enough to indulge this sort of pointless display.

Then, there was a murmur of excitement from the kitchen. “We found this, sir,” said one of the tactical team, a younger man who sounded keen and green. The commander looked and nodded his approval as the scorched metal trash can was pulled from its hiding place and carted downstairs.

Two men pulled him upright again, one of them, Raker, sneaking in a punch to the kidneys. Then they cuffed his hands behind his back and began to pull him out of the door of his second home.

He stole once last glance at the clock on Scully’s mantlepiece and finally, he permitted the picture to appear in his brain.

Scully in her airline seat now, looking porridge-pasty and sweat-sheened as she always did when they faced a long flight, her knuckles white against the armrests as the 747 lumbered into the air in a chemical haze. Acting cranky with perky stewardesses. Grumbling about the food. Wishing he was there so they could swap sarcastic little comments.

Gone. Safe.

It might only be a temporary reprieve, until They came, but he loved the thought that Scully was still out there…

Somewhere, a part of him gave way and he realised he didn’t give too much of a fuck about any of it any more. There was just one thing left that he had to do.

He had always promised it to himself, and it would piss them off beautifully.

He gave the balding man an almost delirious smile.

“Take me to your leader,” he said.

» ???? «

[ends]

Obligatory bit at the bottom:

I know Scully has a fireplace in WotC but I just like freestyle arson better. Thanks to those without whom… Tuatha for being so kind and perceptive, Meggo for her incisive comments and for catching my “that” addiction.

I’m still new at this so all comments, including (especially?) criticisms, welcomed at marasmus@my-deja-com or [email protected] Should you wish to archive, just contact me. (Appropriate soundtrack list available on request <g>)

---

A CANDLE FOR KATHERINE

by Marasmus

CLASSIFICATION: V, A, MSR.

RATING: PG-13 for language

SPOILERS: None

AUTHOR: [email protected]

ARCHIVE: Help yourself

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, never will be, wish they were.

This is just a little harmless wish fulfilment.

» ???? «

A CANDLE FOR KATHERINE

With the best will in the world, I aint the sharpest knife in the drawer — but even I can tell there’s something wrong when I turn the corner into Villiers Terrace at 11pm and see yellow light boiling out my front door, a police car sitting in front of the house and hear Mama’s sobs echoing down the street.

That nosy old cow Mrs Carmody is on her front step, trying to peer over the snow-laden privet hedge to see what’s going on. “Joe, where you been?” she wails, delighted to do her bit for the great street drama. “Your mother’s been crying for you for an hour.”

I ignore her and barrel into the house, fear eating at me like acid. I hear scuffling and crashes from upstairs but I follow the sound of Mama’s voice into the front parlour. She is sitting on the best sofa, looking tiny and broken like she did after Papa died. My niece’s arm is draped across her heaving shoulders.

“Joseph, what have you done?” Natalie asks, looking furious with me.

But that’s just it, see? I’ve been in trouble with the law before. I’ve got a bit of a temper, I’m a big man and I used to drink a lot. I went a bit wild when I had to leave the navy and I got into a fight with some geezer who hurt a girl I knew. Well, long story short ’ I didn’t know my own strength and I hurt him right back. Got banged up for a three-stretch for GBH, but I swear to God he was asking for it.

Only since I got out I been straight as a die, not even a parking ticket. For the first time in years, I’ve done nothing wrong. Even so, I have a horrible feeling I know who this is about.

I touch Mama’s cheek and tell her not to worry, I’ll sort this out, just as a hefty man walks into the room. He is fat but smartly dressed, and looks as if he’d be pretty handy in a fight. Before he even opens his mouth I know he’s Old Bill. Sure enough, two little uniformed piggies come trotting in after him. He shoots them a look and the youngest one squeals: “All searched but no result, sir.”

“I’m Detective Sergeant John Chisholm,” the tub of lard says to me. “Are you Joseph Lipinski?”

“No I’m Daffy fucking Duck. Of course I am, this is my house aint it?” The swearing sets off fresh sobs from Mama and I curse myself for getting mouthy. “What do you want?”

“What can you tell me about Dana Scully, Mr Lipinski?” Chisholm asks.

“Nothing, since I don’t know who that is.”

“Your niece has already told us that you do.” I give Natalie the death stare. She’s almost 18 now, she should know not to admit anything to polizei.

“You do know that aiding an escaped felon is a serious matter for someone with your record?” He’s bluffing but Mama stifles a wail and my anger boils over.

“You’re upsetting my mother,” I shout, not caring if Mrs Carmody gets an earful to gossip about. “I’ve told you, I know fuck all, I never helped no one.”

“Perhaps this will help.”

He holds up a photograph of her and suddenly it all makes sense. I don’t know her by that name and she looks younger and happier in the picture but it’s definitely her. I try to keep my face straight but my brain never was quicker than my muscles.

Fat boy’s on a roll now. “Ah, I see it does, Mr Lipinski. Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you know…”

Perhaps I’d like to tell him what I know, he says. Jesus Christ on a bike.

Tell him how I met her? Tell him what it feels like to fall for someone you hardly know? Someone you can’t have? Someone you know you’re never going to see again… unless you tell some gutbucket of a copper what she told you?

The day I first noticed her was January 25, just another dull day like the thousand others before it.

“For the fiftieth time, Natalie, switch that shit off,” I roared as she turned the radio to Kiss 100 again. I hate dance music, especially that drum ’n’ bass she listens to; sounds like two drunks pissing on a dustbin lid. She scowled at me — we have this battle all the time — and I switched over to the shipping forecast, like I do every night.

“Malin… Hebrides… Bailey… Viking… North Utsire… South Utsire…”

Sea areas and gale warnings… they are my litany and my prayer and my poetry. Times like this I miss the navy so much I can almost taste sea salt and engine oil on the air. Only that’s not my life any more so I go back to clumsily chopping tomatoes in time for the dinner rush.

Rush. That’s a laugh. I promised I’d keep the cafe running when Papa had his first heart attack four years ago — it was the least I could do after all the trouble I’d caused — but the only place it’s running is downhill.

The rent is killing us and as the area slowly shifts upmarket, fewer and fewer people seem interested in good, cheap food. Once our entire family worked here. Now my brother has a real job, Mama won’t set foot in the place since Papa died, and I am waiter, cook and bottlewasher 12 hours a day, six days a week.

So… Joe Lipinski, 37, living at the arsehole end of the twentieth century, no wife, no kids, lives with his mother and runs a caff near Victoria that’s going down the pan.

What a catch.

The bell on the door rang. “Oh God, she’s back,” Natalie said with that bored to the bones weariness only teenagers can pull off. “Endless coffee and a bowl of Napolitano, I bet you, and she never tips.”

Well a customer like that wasn’t going to make our fortunes but I peered out through the serving hatch anyway. No one else was in but Kipper, who always eats here when he finishes his shift down the station.

It was dark outside and the wind-driven sleet was beating the windows as she walked in, small and soaked in a battered dark brown leather jacket that was about three sizes too big for her.

Her short, dark hair was plastered to her head and she looked so tired and cold that I wanted to sit her by the radiator and pour hot sweet tea down her neck. Instead she sat shivering under the buzzing pink neon sign that reads Joe’s Place and polished a hole in the condensation with her fist so she could see out towards the station.

Something about her got to me. Can’t explain it. I went out to the back, pulled out a freshly laundered kitchen towel from the cupboard, and took it through. Kipper and Natalie, who were trading their usual insults in the corner, gave me a “get him” look.

“Here,” I said gruffly, embarrassed I suppose. “You look wet.”

Well done Joe. State the bleeding obvious, why don’t you?

But she looked up at me with surprised, wide eyes and murmured her thanks; rubbing her hair with the thin towelling. I felt my ears go their usual shade of scarlet, gave her a quick smile and then retreated to the kitchen.

Natalie wasn’t that far behind me. She slapped the order book down on the counter and poured out a mug of coffee, all the while giving me that cat-that-ate-the-frigging-canary grin. “Got much of a crush, Joe?’ If she weren’t family I’d sack her, swear to God.

“Just trying to be nice,” I replied. She smirked again and pinned up the order. Sure enough it was for a bowl of Napolitano and a coffee.

I usually leave it to Natalie to take the money; whatever her faults, she’s better at maths than me. Only this time, when the woman comes to pay, it’s almost 10pm, and it’s me sitting by the till. We were empty again — no change there — and she brought her bowl back to the serving hatch and laid the folded towel next to it. “Thanks,” she said.

Half the pasta was congealing in the bottom of the bowl. I felt oddly disappointed. “You didn’t like it?”

She shook her head. “No, it was good. I just wasn’t hungry today.” Nice low voice and an odd accent. American, maybe, but clipped like she was trying to hide it. She was one of those women who don’t look particularly spectacular when you first see them. You know you think, yeah, nice figure, pretty fit, wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crisps, then your mind moves on.

“I’ll have to try and impress you more tomorrow then,” I said with as much of a smile as I dared.

Then suddenly she smiled back and I felt the breath whoosh out of me. She had gorgeous eyes, blue-green like coastal waters on a sunny day, and when she smiled… I don’t know, it sort of altered the way I saw her…

…anyway, stop dribbling Joe, you’re a bleeding embarrassment.

So I told her the damage — and she counted out the cash slowly from a pile of coins she had drawn out of the pocket of her jeans. Then it struck me. She had ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. And I looked at her, taking in her scuffed boots, the battered jacket, the shrapnel in her palm and most of all, how very thin and tired she looked and I realised that she’d not got much money.

She softly bade me goodnight and I sat for a good minute staring stupidly at the pile of coppers and silver in my hand.

She came in every day the next week and a half, always at the same time, always sat at the same table under the sign, staring out at the station plaza as the rush hour traffic poured past in a smear of double-decker red and taxi black. Ate the Napolitano and then wandered out again. We even talked four or five times, about the weather, the traffic, nothing that mattered.

I found myself watching her whenever she was in, wondering what she was thinking and why she kept looking out towards the toytown clocktower by the station plaza. Little Ben was a gift from the French government and it’s been a meeting place for decades. Who was she waiting to meet?

And why did she look more and more beaten down every day that went by?

I told Natalie to keep her coffee mug filled up — and not to bloody argue about it — if the woman was going to stay in here for three hours she might as well have something to drink. Gave her some bread and butter with the meals too, told her it was a special offer that month.

We get fresh bread every morning and we always throw undrunk filter coffee out at the end of the evening anyway.

Sundays we’re shut. It used to be because Papa insisted we rest on God’s day, now it’s just because I need the rest.

I still head into the city every now and then to go to mass at Westminster Cathedral. I know my mind isn’t supposed to be on worldly things, and a house of God is a house of God whether it’s made of mortar or marble, but being under that great vaulted ceiling helps me feel as though there is a larger power at work somewhere.

It was a foul night again — our weather has gone mad this year, it’s so snowy and cold. The bookies lost a fortune because we had a white Christmas. The Thames even froze over for the first time in decades.

I tumbled blinking out of the tube station entrance into a fierce northerly that was making the shop signs sway and whipping a mixture of snowflakes and litter through the bus station. No one ever tells you that when you go bald on top, you feel the cold more, so I stopped for a second to pull my jacket hood up, and that’s when I saw her.

She was sitting on one of the benches looking as if she was about to pass out. Nearby, even old Harry was shivering on his usual bench as he swigged from his cider bottle — and his blood is nearly 100% proof. Hardly thinking about what I was doing I walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Mistake.

In a millisecond, her left hand was around my fingers, twisting them backwards until it felt like she was wrenching them off. A moment later something very bony and hard — her elbow at a guess — slammed back into my stomach and I doubled over, falling to my knees in the snow, which pulled my arm into an even more contorted position. I looked up and she was standing on the bench seat, one foot on the upright like she was about to spring, her right hand poised at shoulder height, ready to smack me into the middle of next week.

“It’s me,” I hissed — stupid, since she didn’t know me from Adam, not really. I tried to get to my feet but collapsed again. I couldn’t catch my breath.

Instantly she dropped my tortured right arm and her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh God I’m sorry. Are you okay? No, of course you’re not. Shit.” She reached out a hand to help me up.

I sucked in a painful lungful of air and waved my uninjured arm, in an attempt to signal that it was okay.

And of course, on the next bench Harry was pissing himself with laughter at seeing a 6ft 4in ex-Royal Navy hard case getting lamped by woman who looked like a stiff breeze might blow her away. “Met your match there, Joe,” he yelled, showing off his three remaining teeth.

I gave him the single-fingered salute and hauled myself to my feet. “Aint you got a homeless shelter to get to, Harry?” I wheezed, bending at the waist to get my breath back. “I’d shut your bloody face, if you want me to feed you tomorrow.” He carried on cackling.

“I”m so sorry I overreacted,” she repeated, “you startled me.”

“Never. And there was me thinking that was your usual greeting,” I said but I wasn’t angry, not really. I should know better than to sneak up on a woman like that. I sat heavily on the bench, massaging my mangled hand and she moved next to me.

“Do you want me to look at it? I’m a… I have some medical training,” she finished, her voice trailing away.

I looked up at her, surprised, and nodded. She brought the hand close to her face so she could look at it. Then, expertly, her fingers ran along the bones in the back of my hand, and she flexed my fingers so gently.

‘Some medical training’ my arse; she knew what she was doing. And that little manoeuvre on the bench — I learned something similar in basic training years ago. Questions hopped round in my head, breeding like bunnies.

“No bones broken,” she said finally, adding carefully: “Do you want me to look at your stomach?”

“We aint even been introduced,” I said in mock horror and she smiled a little. “Nah, I had worse beatings when I was…” I halted. Introducing prison into the conversation is not the best way to impress a girl. “It’s fine. Where did you learn to fight?”

She didn’t reply.

“Look, this is brass monkey weather,” I said. “Why don’t I open up the caff, get us both a brew? I’m Joe, by the way. Joe Lipinski. Don’t be offended if I don’t shake your hand, I know how strong your grip is.”

“My name is… Katherine,” she said after a pause. “Katherine.”

The heating warmed the place up in less than 10 minutes, which was just as well since she was shivering uncontrollably.

“How long you been out there?” I asked.

“Three, four hours.”

“What are you doing it for? I see you every evening; in here, out by the station. Are you begging?”

She looked offended and actually pushed her chair back as if to walk out but I held a hand up in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry, but you don’t look like a pro or a pusher and no one hangs around out there for fun.”.

She shook her head, her teeth still chattering as I awkwardly poured out the coffee with my left hand. “No,” she said. “No they don’t.”

“So you’re waiting for someone. Let me guess, it’s a bloke.” She looked up at me, her face blank, her eyes warning me not to push my luck. “Well if he’s stood you up, he’s a bloody fool.”

She let out a little snort of laughter, which I took as an acknowledgment that I’d guessed right. “Thank you,” she said.

“Not at all. I’m going to make myself a bacon butty; want one?”

“A what?”

I waggled my eyebrows, which is weird because I never flirt, and said in a bad French accent: “Finest breakfast meat placed between two slices of bread avec…” I waved a ketchup bottle under her nose, “le sauce rouge.”

“I can’t pay.”

“Did I mention money?”

“Then thank you,” she replied and the corners of her mouth twitched. “Garcon.”

I switched on the cooker and started frying, then turned on the radio in time for the shipping forecast. The BBC announcer’s sober tones made it sound even more like a poem than usual:

“Finisterre: north or north-east, four or five; thundery showers, moderate or good… Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey: south-westerly, six to gale eight, decreasing four or five, moderate with fog patches…” I closed my eyes and imagined slate grey waves on a choppy sea.

Her voice broke into my daydream. “What’s that?” she asked gesturing at the radio.

“It’s the weather forecast for shipping around the coast. Storm warnings and all that. I was in the navy for ten of the best years of my life and it reminds me.”

For the first time she smiled. “My father and both my brothers were in the navy.”

“US navy I imagine.”

Her eyes glinted. “Very good, Sherlock.”

“Your secrets are safe with me. It’s a code of honour. Cafe owners, barmen and priests. We all have to keep schtum.”

“I’ve never heard of that one before.”

“What, you’ve never heard about priests? That’s a shocking lack of education, that is.”

At last I got a laugh as I piled the bacon between the bread, and clamped one big hand on top to squeeze out the juices. “Scuse fingers,” I said, handing it over. She wolfed it down like she hadn’t eaten anything all day. She probably hadn’t.

Later I stood at the kitchen door, watching her as an impulse hardened into a plan in my brain. We had talked for a while and then I had gone out back to clean up.

When I finished she was sitting in the chair by the neon sign, her arms folded across the checked table cloth, her right cheek laid against her forearm. She faced the hole she’d polished in the condensation on the window; out towards the empty station plaza.

Only she was fast asleep.

I walked up the back stairs to the floor above the cafe. The main bedroom was converted into a storeroom years ago but back when I was drinking a lot, I used to use the box room to crash out after a night in the pub. That way Mama wouldn’t get all upset over the state I was in and I wouldn’t be late for work.

I moved the cartons of serviettes and drinking straws onto the small chest of drawers and rolled back the sheets on the narrow single bed. They were clean on, but a good three or four months ago now. There was still a faint smell of washing powder though.

I wandered back downstairs. Sleep had smoothed out the lines of worry on her face. Charcoal circles still surrounded her eyes but she was younger than I had thought.

I sat opposite and looked at her, noticing this and that.

She had good skin, a dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose. I noticed that her eyebrows and eyelashes were auburn and that made me look at the crown of her head. Sure enough the roots were a dark auburn, the rest of the hair a dull brown. Why would anyone with hair that colour dye it?

I noticed that she was very beautiful in sleep.

She had a small white scar just on the nape of her neck and before I realised what I was doing I was reaching down to touch it. Her eyes sprang open, wickedly blue and angry until she recognised me.

I stepped back. “I’m sorry, you were well out of it.”

She shook her head wearily and yawned. “I should be going.”

“Then I’ll walk you home.”

“Thank you but you don’t have to, I can look after myself.”

“Bollocks. Least I can do after you nearly broke my arm,” I said with a grin.

“It’s really not necessary.”

And that was my cue. “Because you’re sleeping in that station, aint you?”

She looked very pissed off. “Thank you and goodbye,” she said curtly, walking towards the door.

“Let me guess,” I called after her. “You got your stuff in a left luggage locker and you crash out on one of the benches near the chemists. How much longer do you think you can pretend you’re waiting for the last Eurostar to Paris before the station staff start recognising you and chucking you out with the rest of the dossers?”

Her hand clenched and unclenched around the door handle but she stayed silent and so I went on: “Look I know you aint got much money and this is a terrible city to be broke in. You’re knackered and if you go out in this you’ll freeze to death. We got a small room upstairs…”

“No. Absolutely not.” Her eyes were flint hard and I could see her muscles tense.

“Let me finish. We got a box room upstairs, no one sleeps there any more. Why don’t you take it tonight just until this storm is over. You’ve proved you need the sleep.”

“What about you?” The unspoken question was clear and I was almost offended. As if I’d take advantage like that…

“What about me? I’m going home to my nice warm bed in Dulwich. And I’ll never sleep if I think you’re stuck out in this weather. You wouldn’t want to do that to me would you?”

I saw her eyelids droop as her brain contemplated the possibility of a bed. The pause seemed endless.

“Okay,” she whispered, but like it was a surrender. “Just one night. Thank you.”

She stayed three weeks.

Often I made up excuses to stay late at the cafe, told Mama I was doing the books. I’d send Natalie home early, spread the accounts ledgers across the checked tablecloths, leave the pot of coffee steaming on the hot plate, and hope I might hear her footfalls on the stairs.

I just loved talking to her. Couldn’t say why. I’m not the world’s greatest conversationalist — don’t really get the practice.

Mostly we talked about ships and the sea. She’d talk about her father, who had been one of those strict officer types — a captain, no less — and I’d tell her the less obscene anecdotes about my time in the navy.

I also told her all the silly stories Papa told me about his time as cook on a cargo ship sailing from Gdansk via London to New York; and about how he used to bring me back baseball caps and the Hershey Bars that made me a playground millionaire.

Once I even told her about the war, I don’t know why. I was only a teenager when I went to the Falklands, but I remember when the missile hit the HMS Sheffield as if it was a minute ago. I told her about jumping for the life rafts as we were being strafed by the Argie planes. About the heat melting our clothes and the foul smell that we knew was burning flesh. Terrible things that I’ve never told anyone. But I was more alive then, when I was serving with those lads, than I ever have been since.

She listened in silence and she seemed to understand it all. And I mean really understood, which made me wonder… Katherine, just who the bloody hell are you?

I never found out too much more about her than I had learned that Sunday night in the cafe. She was too cagey for that. She’d admitted she was waiting for a guy to turn up.

All the time we talked, no matter what we were speaking about, his name would slip in — Mulder — usually accompanied by a little smile and the beginning of an account of some wild tale, then she’d stop herself.

“You don’t have to stop saying his name to me,” I said.

She gave me a look that suggested I had gone too far. I didn’t give a toss.

“If you want to talk about him, do. I aint going to say anything to anyone and I aint going to ask you questions if it makes you uncomfortable.”

She wrapped her fingers tightly around the coffee mug and nodded.

“Well except one. Surely Mulder’s not his first name. Why do you call him that?”

“Always have,” she said and her smile was as dazzling as it was brief.

“Sometimes, he’s like a maddening boy,” she told me once. “He gets these ridiculous ideas and you can’t hold him back. You might as well tell the tide to stop coming in.”

“I take it you’re Canute in this scenario,” I said, sliding the huge lasagne dish into the oven.

She laughed and her tea sloshed up the side of the cup. “Exactly. Only a lot of the time he turns out to be right.”

“That must be bleeding annoying.”

“You have no idea,” she replied darkly, then went on: “I never told him this, but most of the time I… I love it when he goes off on one of his tangents. He’s nuts but he can really spin a tale.”

She bit her lip and looked up into the kitchen’s roof light, a smile curving her mouth as she remembered.

“How long have you been a couple?”

She looked across at me, surprised at the directness of the question, I suppose. “Not long. We were just friends for a long time. Well, not just friends…” She paused. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“How long were you “not just friends” then?”

“Seven years. Give or take a few months.”

I nodded. “Long time. And when was he supposed to meet you?”

“January 23 or 24. 7-8pm. At the clock.” Her tone was flat again.

“You don’t think he might have…?” I stopped. Might have what? Stood her up? Decided against whatever thing they had going and stayed at home? Spun her the biggest tale of all?

“No, he promised,” she said with force. “Something’s gone wrong but he’ll be here. It just might take him a while.”

Then she tipped the dregs of her tea down the sink, gave me a tight little smile and left. The door slammed behind her like a slap.

Once or twice, I thought I heard her crying. I tiptoed to the top of the stairs and rapped on the door, thinking maybe I could comfort her.

Perhaps I hoped she’d open the door and it might lead to something else. I don’t know. I aint exactly proud of it.

“You all right, love?” I asked softly. “Anything I can do?”

She always said she was okay. I never felt I had the right to contradict her.

I couldn’t imagine what it was like, sitting there day after day, waiting for him to arrive at that silly clock at 7pm and dying a little with every hour that he didn’t appear.

And she never said a thing, never broke down; nothing.

I hoped that when this Mulder did finally did turn up, he had a good excuse ready or I was going to kick his bloody arse for him.

The day before it all ended, we were chatting about some crap or other as I stirred the pot of pasta, when she suddenly asked: “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you helping me?” I thought about it for a second but I couldn’t say why myself. Natalie thought I was mad but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

“Why not?” She raised an eyebrow and I smiled. “I’m a Catholic, it’s good for my immortal soul — karma and all that.”

“I think that may be more Buddhism than catechism,” she replied dryly.

“Whatever works; I aint particular.”

A beat of silence.

“I usually find it difficult to trust people,” she said quietly. “There are so few whose kindness comes without debt. I always look for ulterior motives. So just in case I haven’t said it already, thank you.”

“A pleasure. Least I could do,” I said, meaning it. The blush crept across my cheeks again at the thought of ulterior motives.

I should have known it wouldn’t go on forever.

That night she was sitting by the pink neon ‘Joe’s Place’ sign, looking at the accounts. I’d admitted the night before that I had trouble with them and she’d said she was all right with numbers and she’d have a look. Said it was the least she could do in a tone that let me know she was mocking my favourite phrase. It was good to see her smile.

I left her with a plate of pasta primavera and the ledgers as I listened to the 6.30 comedy show on Radio 4.

We weren’t busy — what a surprise — only Kipper was in the cafe. It was Natalie’s night off; she had her mock A-levels in a week and her father was threatening to ground her unless she managed to pass this time. I prepared the vegetables for the next day’s dinner time, feeling content.

Then I heard a stifled gasp and a bang. I ran out to the front to see a chair knocked over on the floor; a pool of coffee swilling round the edge of the ledgers. Katherine was already at the door.

I knew it was him, as soon as I followed her line of sight across the busy road to the station plaza.

Well he weren’t much to look at. He was slouching, his back against the clock, looking down at his trainers scuffing up the hardened snow on the pavement like it was something he had to concentrate on. He was dead thin and he had this bloody awful buzzcut that made him look worse — he nearly had less hair than me. He was only wearing a light coat and jeans so he must have been freezing.

Then as if she’d shouted to him, he suddenly looked up and straight at her. He stared for the longest time — past the rushing river of cars and the streams of commuters heading home — as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. Then suddenly he was pushing his way through the crowds, weaving through the speeding cars to the blaring of horns, right into the path of an oncoming taxi.

The taxi skidded to a halt in a hail of icy water but he just carried on walking, oblivious, a smile on his face. “Use the crossing, you fucking moron,” the taxi driver shouted before roaring off.

Katherine had a hand over her mouth, then she laughed, like the pealing of bells. “Welcome to London, Mulder.” She took his hand and drew him inside the cafe. I tried to look busy, clearing away plates and wiping tables.

So this was him.

They slipped into seats opposite each other. He cast a glance at me, but she waved away his worried look. “It’s safe. Where were you…”

“I’m sorry. The traffic was terrible, Scully.”

“Be serious Are you all right?” She was so calm now he was here that it was eerie.

“I’m fine. Fine.”

She gave him this quirky little smile and then frowned at him. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it yet…” She was looking him up and down, her hands sliding down his face, her eyes on the way he was moving. He stopped talking as she ran a hand tenderly across his head. He didn’t so much have a haircut as an all-over five o’clock shadow.

“How did you get away?” she asked finally.

He gave a peculiar laugh and said some weird name. Began with a K. Sounded Czech or Russian or something. “He’s on our side.”

She shook her head. “He’s on no one’s side but his own.”

“Which, for now, is ours.”

“Well that’s something. I’m sorry. I would have come to find you, you know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You made me promise. Well that and the fact that they’ve found the London bank account.”

His hand slapped down on the table. “Fuck,” he said softly. “What about the others?”

“Decided not to touch them until you got here. Didn’t want to blow all the accounts. Some may still be secure “

“What if I hadn’t got here?”

“I’d have managed,” she said sounding slightly annoyed.

“I’m not disputing it,” he said gently. “But what did you do for money?”

“You know I took some with me.”

“But not enough for six fucking weeks.”

“Sold my watch, some other stuff,” she said. He reached forward and pulled down the cloth of her T-shirt at the neck, then let go and sat back on his seat.

“Oh Scully, tell me you didn’t sell it.”

“It was gold Mulder,” she said flatly.

“Even so, it wouldn’t have brought much. What have you been doing?” he asked, sounding agitated.

“Relying on the kindness of strangers,” she stood up, took her eyes off him for the first time since he had appeared by the clock and turned to me. “Joe, this is Mulder.” Then she turned back to him. “Mulder this is Joe Lipinski, he’s been letting me stay upstairs here.”

He cast a glance at her and I got the feeling that the most was being said in the times when they said nothing at all. I held out a hand to him and he took it and shook it firmly. My hand dwarfed his. I felt clumsy and awkward.

He met my eyes coolly. “Thank you.”

“S’all right,” I replied. I sounded gruff.

There was a long pause, tense and uncomfortable.

“Thought you was never going to turn up,” I said finally.

A second later there was a strange sound from behind him and he whirled round.

Her hands were clamped across her mouth tightly and you could hear the air whistling in through her nose as her lungs spasmed and struggled to draw in breath. Her eyes were panicky, so very blue and absolutely dry.

He was useless, just fluttering around her, his fingers spindly with shock, eyes wide; he obviously wasn’t used to this kind of reaction.

Bloody hell, I wasn’t either .

“God, what is it? Tell me what it is…” he asked.

Give her a hug you stupid sod, I muttered to myself angrily.

Maybe he heard me or maybe he just understood. He stopped hovering in front of her, and touched her under the line of her jaw until she looked at him. He smiled gently. “It’s okay, it’s me,” he said. “I’m here. We’re here.”

Then he pulled her towards him and put his arms around her. Her hands flew from her mouth and wrapped around his back. She buried her face in his chest and suddenly I could hear these terrible, tearing sobs.

“Please don’t cry, I can’t stand it when you cry,” he was whispering over and over again into her ear.

She stepped away a little and their eyes locked. He moved in and kissed her, slow, long and gentle. Then he pulled her to him in a hug and she started crying again.

I’ve read about couples where they say you can see the sparks flying between the man and the woman but I always thought that was a load of old crap… until I saw them. I suppose the writers mean it’s a love that’s worth any amount of pain. Something you find once in a lifetime and then only if you’re lucky.

It’s not for the likes of me.

I turned away and knew there was one thing I could do.

“Come on Kipper old son, time to leave,” I said briskly.

Kipper’s ratty face screwed up; the nosy little chuffer was enjoying the show. “But I aint finished my tea,” he whined. “And what’s up with Katherine?”

“She’s won the fucking National Lottery,” I snapped. “Everything’s on the house but only if you piss off right now. Your choice, Kipper.”

“Well, if you put it like that,” he said and legged it before I could change my mind.

I twisted the lock, turned the sign on the door to closed and put two cups of coffee on the table next to them but I don’t think they even noticed.

Then I went out to the back and turned up the shipping forecast, trying not to hear her sobbing like that.

After ten minutes or so, I wandered back through. Their hands were still clasped together across the red and white tablecloth and they were just… looking at each other with such intensity and focus that it was almost uncomfortable to be in the same room; you’d start to doubt your own existence.

“Look why don’t you two…” I waved my hand, trying to think of a way of phrasing it, “catch up here. I’ve got some errands to run and it will take me a couple of hours.”

“Joe, you don’t have to…” Katherine began as she looked up.

“I know,” I said, staring into her eyes to make it clear that I knew where I stood and that it was okay. “I know. Will you be here when I get back?”

He shook his head. She looked at him and you could see the conversation flashing in their eyes: her wanting to stay a little longer, him telling her that they had to leave.

She walked over to me and took my hand in hers, the one she nearly broke just three weeks ago. “I can never thank you enough, you know,” she said softly.

I brushed away the comment. “It was fine. It was the least I could…”

“No, Joe,” she interrupted. “You did the most you could do.” She took my face in her hands and planted a small, sweet kiss on my lips. “Thank you.” I felt stirrings in areas that had no right to stir and the blush pooled hotly in my cheeks and ears.

There’s no fool like an old fool.

As I pulled away I caught the man’s eyes as I looked over her shoulder; his expression was peculiar. There was gratitude but threaded through it I thought I saw jealousy too. Oh, if only you knew, you lucky bastard…

“Get your family away from the city, Joe,” she said, unaware of our wordless exchange. “Trust me. Bad things are going to happen. You need to get your family as far away from the cities as you can.”

And I don’t know why, but I believed her.

I gave them both a nod and locked the cafe door behind me. She waved and then turned to him.

I watched through the glowing neon frame of my name as she led him by the hand through the door to the back stairs, and tried not to imagine what it would have been like if she had looked at me in that way.

It only took me two minutes to walk through the grubby, scuffed snow to the cathedral. I arrived just as the monks were filing in for mass; vespers I think. The chants and the shuffling feet and coughs of visitors echoed round and round the chapels until they blended into one seamless hum. It was dark outside and they had turned down the electric lights so that the candles shone that bit more brightly.

I felt calm again. Happy almost. Maybe I’d done something right, for once.

I decided to give them two hours before I walked back to the cafe, glad that it was Natalie’s night off so I could do as I pleased.

But before I left the cathedral to get a pint in the Duke of Cumberland, I lit some candles: one for Papa and Mama, as always, and one for Katherine.

As an afterthought I lit one for him too, but my only prayer was that he would keep her safe.

I suppose it was my way of saying goodbye.

So… do I tell Detective Sergeant Chisholm how I met Katherine — or whatever the hell she’s called?

Tell him what she told me? Tell him what it feels like to fall for someone you hardly know? Someone you can’t have? Someone you know you’re never going to see again…?

I don’t think so.

No.

» ???? «

[ends]

These places exist and are geographically correct: Little Ben is near Victoria Station in central London as is the magnificent Roman Catholic cathedral. (a five-minute walk from Buckingham Palace, 10 minutes from Westminster Abbey and better looking than both IMHO)

GBH is “grievous bodily harm” — in other words, a serious assault charge

With thanks to one Carrie from another for judicious wielding of said pointy stick (and a million cred points if she can spot the Bunnymen ref <g>) and also Lisa for being very nice about this

I have been [email protected]. Thank you and goodnight

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, property of 1013, thank you v. much for inventing them Mr Carter. Endless gratitude etc. etc.

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