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Samsara by AliciaK
From: “Alicia K.” <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 07:19:27 -0800 Subject: Samsara (1/6) by Alicia K. Source: xff
Samsara by Alicia K. ([email protected])
Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and the rest of the gang belong to 1013 Productions.
Classification: Crossover of sorts, MSR of sorts. I don’t want to say anything more, so we’ll just let it go at that.
Archive: Please ask before archiving; I like to watch … I mean visit.
Rating: R, for sax and violins.
Spoilers: Nothing after “The Unnatural”
Summary: Eternity and rebirth.
Author’s note: I’ve been wanting to drop Mulder and Scully into the plot of one of my favorite movies for a long time, and here it is. More notes, thanks and blatherings at the end.
PROLOGUE
October 1999
Skinner shifted from one foot to the other in an anxious dance as he watched the younger man enter the room, the guard close behind. Skinner noted the cuffs on his former agent’s wrists and ankles and winced as Mulder shuffled across the quiet, drab room, eyes to the floor.
“Ten minutes,” the guard said. He made no effort to conceal his yawn as he slouched in the chair by the door.
“What made you finally agree to see me?” Skinner asked, wondering what made this time different from the last five visits.
Mulder sat at the table across from Skinner and raised cold eyes to his. “Does it matter?” he replied, his voice a hollow reminder of the man he used to be.
There was an awkward silence, and Skinner realized he was waiting for Mulder to make one of his lame jokes, anything to lessen the tension. But the mischievous spark that had once been a constant in the younger man’s expression was buried deep in some unreachable place.
Skinner shuddered and passed a hand over his face. “How are you?”
“How do you think I am?”
The AD drummed his fingertips on the hard gray surface of the table, trying to find something to say. He had nothing to offer, nothing that would help or comfort Mulder. There was nothing more to be done. His conviction was waiting appeal, but it was out of Skinner’s hands. Not that it had ever been in his control to begin with.
When the older man lifted his gaze again, Mulder was staring at him. The hazel eyes that had once been so keen and alive were now dull and hard, filled with something that Skinner couldn’t even begin to name.
“Do you have something to say to me, or should I just have him take me back to my cell? I’m missing out on the weekly quilting bee.”
“I just wanted to see you, see how you were doing.”
Mulder stood up, and behind him, the guard rose as well. “Here.” He thrust his cuffed hands toward him. “This is how I am.” His voice trembled slightly. “Look at my goddamned face. This is how I’m doing!”
Skinner held his gaze, mouth dry as he spoke the words he dreaded to ask. “Did you kill her, Mulder?”
Mulder blinked, once. “I was found holding the murder weapon, wasn’t I? They proved what they wanted to prove, and they convicted me. You should know. You were there. You helped put me away.” His eyes closed slowly, as if in exhaustion. When he opened them again, they were colder than Skinner had ever seen. “I’m done here,” Mulder snapped to the guard.
As the guard neared, Skinner got to his feet and grabbed Mulder’s arm. “But did you do it? Answer me, so I can know, so I can hate myself for not doing more,” his nostrils flared as he exhaled, “or so I can just hate you.”
Mulder smiled, and it was ugly. “Let’s just say I blame you as much as I blame myself.” Skinner let go of the younger man’s arm, and the guard moved to lead him away. “I loved her,” Mulder said softly, looking for a brief moment like his former self.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t know.” The guard led him away. At the door, Mulder stopped and turned. “This isn’t over.”
Skinner frowned, wondering what he’d meant by that. Before the heavy door clanged shut behind them, Mulder’s next words reached his ears: “This can’t be the end.”
Fox Mulder was found dead in his cell the next morning.
CHAPTER ONE
May 2035
What a shitty week.
Jake Morgan pulled his battered black Honda into a parking spot in front of the police station and killed the engine, wondering what had possessed him to buy a vintage car in the first place. With a loud sigh, he leaned his head back and pressed his fingertips over his closed eyes, trying to blot out the crap floating through his head.
The mechanic on Monday, telling him how much it would cost to repair his car. His landlord on Tuesday, yelling at him about the disturbance in the hallway Sunday night (Jake had explained to him that he had merely been finishing up a job, but the red-faced man had only kept complaining about guns and criminals in his building.). Cara, his date on Thursday, turning out to be nothing but a bimbo of the highest order, and a rude one at that – she’d actually made a joke at the expense of his too-big nose. She’d had the decency to feel bad, but it had all been downhill from there.
And now, finally, it was Friday, 5 pm – the official start of a new weekend. “But not for me,” Jake grumbled, listening to the familiar creak of the car’s door as he opened it. One more thing to do, one more favor being cashed in.
“Hey, Morgan!” Lucas Evans shouted as Jake walked through the door and into the air-conditioned building. It was much too warm for the end of May, even for D.C., and air conditioners were being turned on all over town. Global warming? Plain unusual weather? Jake didn’t care; all he knew was that he preferred fresh air and a little heat, rather than processed, stale air. He rubbed his hands over his bare arms to ward off the goose flesh.
Jake gave his friend an exaggerated grimace as he approached the front desk. “So what the hell is so important that you’re calling in your favor at 5:00 on a Friday?”
Lucas sighed and lifted his chipped coffee mug off a stack of papers. “I grew a heart.”
“What? Esteemed Lieutenant Evans, say it ain’t so!” Jake grinned when Lucas grunted. “What’ve you got – a cute little street urchin who needs a good meal? A lost puppy?”
Lucas scratched his head through his thinning straw-colored hair. “A little of both, maybe. I don’t know.” He came around to the front of the desk and gestured down the hall with a jerk of his head. “Come on.”
“Gee, Lieutenant, you didn’t throw me a surprise party, did you?”
The other man snorted and stopped before a closed door, peering in through the small window. “Look, I’m not really sure what to do here. Maybe you can help.”
Jake looked over Lucas’s shoulder and saw a woman sitting alone at a table, her back to them. Her shoulders were slumped and her arms were wrapped protectively around her midsection. Her hair was a tangle of dark red that just brushed her shoulders. Jake watched to see if she would turn around, but she didn’t, and so he faced his friend again.
“We picked her up at the Bureau today. She’d wandered away from a tour group and seemed to be trying to get downstairs to the basement.” Lucas shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “She won’t … or can’t … tell us her name, where she lives, or anything. When we asked her if she even knew, she just shook her head. She had no ID on her. I think she might be suffering from some kind of amnesia or something.”
“Or something,” Jake commented, looking back at the woman, who turned her head to the side and gave him a glimpse of her face in profile. He could see the pale, smooth skin of her cheek and a hint of a full mouth before a veil of red hair obscured the rest. “You can’t run a test?”
“They took some DNA, but the system’s got some glitch that they’re trying to fix. The other stations yakked at me about priorities and real criminals, so we have to wait.” He chuffed a laugh. “How long have computers been around for now? Damn things still don’t work right. Anyway.” Lucas shook his head and shifted his weight onto his other foot. “They wanted to charge her with criminal trespass, but I pulled in a few favors and stopped that. When they brought her in, she just looked scared and confused, like she really wasn’t sure why she had even been at the Hoover.”
Jake chewed on his plump lower lip. “I could take her down to Dominion.” At Lucas’s look of dismay, Jake added, “It’s the closest hospital with a psych ward.”
“Psych ward is a nice way of putting it. Zoo would be more appropriate,” the older man said, with not a little disgust. “Come on, Morgan. You’re a private investigator – don’t you need some sort of basic skills for that career?”
“Give me a break here! You’re calling in a favor for this?” He stepped away from the window and the red-haired woman and crossed his arms over his chest.
Lucas looked down at the floor for a moment before responding in a deceptively quiet voice, “Yeah. I am.”
Jake sighed and looked off down the hallway. This was a side he’d never seen of his friend; something must have struck a nerve with him. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll take her to see Ben, he can take her picture and run an ad in the paper tomorrow. But then,” he pointed one long finger at Lucas, “I’m taking her down to Dominion.” Lucas smiled with barely contained relief. “And next year we’re betting on the Super Bowl with money, not favors.”
“You got it, man.” He turned to open the door and paused. “Just … go easy on her, okay? I don’t know what it is, but.” His gruff voice trailed away, and he opened the door.
Jake stepped into the room behind Lucas; the older man walked over to crouch before the woman, who was still sitting in the chair. “Hi,” he said, his voice gentle. “A friend of mine is going to help you, all right?” She must have expressed fear that Jake couldn’t see, because Lucas next laid a hand over hers to try and calm her. “It’s all right. No one’s going to jail or anything. We’re just going to try and find where you belong, okay?” Seemingly satisfied, he rose and extended his hand to her. “Why don’t you let me introduce you to my friend.”
She took his hand and stood, and when she turned around to face him, Jake was met with a pair of the most vivid blue eyes he’d ever seen. A flash of recognition shot through him, and he cocked his head with a small smile. The déjà vu hit him like a slap, and his brow furrowed as he looked at her face. She was certainly beautiful, but damned if he could figure out where he had seen her before.
When she tossed a nervous glance over her shoulder at Lucas, Jake realized he was staring, and he gave his head a shake to snap out of it. “Hi,” he said, smiling down at her. He towered over her petite frame and took a small step back. “I’m Jake Morgan.” She looked at the hand he had offered, and took it just when he thought she wouldn’t. “Don’t suppose you’d like to tell me your name, would you?” But she just looked at him with those bright, wide eyes. He cleared his throat and dropped her hand. “Did she have anything with her? A purse or anything?”
Lucas shook his head. “No purse or ID, but there was a glove in the pocket of her jacket.” He handed the woman’s dress glove to Jake. “And she’s got an interesting ring.”
She obligingly held out her right hand, and Jake stepped forward to take a look at the piece of silver jewelry. “It’s a claddagh, an Irish wedding band, crown down,” he murmured. “I would guess you’re not married, then.”
Lucas snorted. “You think it’s because she’s not wearing a wedding ring, Sherlock?”
“No, because this ring is traditionally worn crown down when the wearer is … unattached.” He smiled down at the woman. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” He winked at her, and was rewarded with a slight twitch of her lips.
The trio walked back to the lobby, where Lucas took her hand in both of his. “Everything will be all right. I promise.” He released her hand and turned to Jake. “Take good care of her, all right?”
Slightly taken aback at this blatant show of concern from his hardened friend, Jake answered, “You bet.”
As Jake and the woman walked outside to his car, he put his hand lightly on the small of her back, partly out of a sense of protectiveness, partly out of a sudden urge to touch her. The sense of familiarity this time was like a spark, like he had rubbed his feet along the carpet before touching her. He yanked his hand away, startled, and she turned to look at him, squinting in the bright, late afternoon sun, one eyebrow slightly cocked.
He swallowed. “Sorry,” he murmured, stepping ahead to open the door for her. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but he felt like he should. As she slid into the old car’s leather interior, her sharp gaze met his, and his mouth went dry.
Like anyone else, Jake would occasionally find himself somewhere new that he’d felt certain he’d been before, even though logic would tell him otherwise. déjà vu was an itch on the brain, a twitch of synapses. But never before had it stopped him in his tracks.
And she was looking at him like she knew exactly how he felt.
Jake shook off the feeling and walked around to the driver’s side, jiggling the keys in his hand. She was probably just one of the hundreds of nameless people he passed each and every day, as he went about his life.
That had to be it, he thought. Nothing more strange than that.
Ben Hickman gave a low whistle as he entered his small, cluttered office. “Oh, Jake, I can see right through you. You just want to find out if she’s married or something so you can snag her for yourself.”
“No. But nice try.” Jake leaned against a dusty shelf and barely caught a Magic Eight Ball toy before it fell to the floor. “You can get this into tomorrow’s paper, right? You ran it past your editor?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Ben waved a meaty hand at him. “Now move out of my way, gumshoe, and let me work.”
Jake moved aside obediently, chewing on his lip as he thought. During the car ride over, Jake had tried to engage the woman in a one-sided conversation, but she refused to answer his questions with even a nod or a smile. She’d just sat there, the breeze from the open window toying with her copper hair.
“Do you even know where you are?” he’d finally asked with a short laugh, exasperated. She’d turned to look at him then and he’d shut up, the sense of recognition unnerving him.
“You think she’s got amnesia?” he asked Ben now.
Ben snorted, plugging the digital camera into the computer, his big hands fumbling with the device. “Do I look like a doctor?”
“Not one that I’d take any advice from.”
“You’re disrupting the creation of a masterpiece, pretty boy. Go out and entertain your mystery lady.”
Jake returned to where she was sitting at an unoccupied desk, staring at the clutter in confusion, as if this were her desk and she wasn’t sure how it had gotten so messy.
“He’s putting everything together,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. That earned him a small nod and a hint of a smile, but his brief moment of pleased surprise quickly lapsed into an awkward silence.
Pulling up a chair, he sat across the desk from her and folded his hands in his lap, watching her but trying to be inconspicuous about it. When she raised her head from the messy desk, she caught him and cocked a slender eyebrow.
Giving her an embarrassed grin, he ducked his head and toyed with a vase of dried flowers on the edge of the desk. They were papery thin and crumbled upon touch, and he rubbed the remnants of the petals between his fingers.
When he looked up again, she was still looking at him, but now her expression was thoughtful. As her gaze dropped to his hand and the flower petals he held, her lips parted, as if she finally had something to say.
Jake leaned forward, feeling the now-familiar tingle of déjà vu. “What is it?” he whispered. But she sat back, shaking her head and furrowing her brow in frustration. Whatever it had been, the moment was gone.
Feeling a bit frustrated himself, he dropped the petals onto the desk. “Can you speak at all?” Her gaze dropped to her lap, and she shook her head again. He didn’t feel like carrying on a one-sided conversation just then, and they returned to their uncomfortable vigil.
Ben finally emerged with handheld digital reader, showing what would appear in the morning edition under the heading: Do you know this woman?
“Red hair, blue eyes, 5′2″, wearing jeans and a green sweater. She was found at the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Friday afternoon, with no ID. Call Jake Morgan at 555-6792 with any information.”
Jake read over the final version and laughed. “You realize that every single man in the greater D.C. area is going to treat this like a personals ad.”
Ben gave him a condescending look and turned to the woman with a gentle smile. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll find out where you belong.”
Jake set the electronic device down and rubbed his eyes. He was beginning to wonder how much help he was being in taking her down to Dominion, but he wasn’t sure what else to do.
Dominion Hospital was a bad-with-a-capital-B idea. They’d taken down the information and snapped a plastic ID bracelet on her. “Jane Doe #14,” it read, and the words around her slender wrist had made him ache with a brief sadness. “Take her up to nine,” the admitting nurse had instructed, barely lifting his eyes from his clipboard.
They rode up in the elevator with three other people: a woman in handcuffs, flanked by two cops. She’d eyed the redhead with a leer, obviously enjoying her once-over of the shy woman. Then she licked her lips and grinned, giving them a glimpse of her bloodstained mouth.
Jake’s charge had taken a step back and looked up at him with horror. “We’re talking one night here, tops,” he’d reassured her, although he hadn’t felt very reassured himself.
The unbearably slow elevator finally arrived on the ninth floor, where the doors opened to reveal a chaotic scene. At the center of the noise and commotion was a woman in a thin blue hospital gown, screaming obscenities at the two male attendants trying to hold her down.
The other occupants of the elevator had stepped into the melee, where the bloody-mouthed woman was immediately attacked by another patient. The cops had roughly pushed her away. “Dumb cunt,” one of them hissed as the gowned woman fell to the floor with a thud.
Jake and the redhead had shared a glance of silent agreement, and the elevator doors closed on them again.
It hadn’t taken Jake long to decide to bring her back to his place; he didn’t know what else to do with her, and he had promised Lucas. He couldn’t very well just drop her off at some hotel, and he’d rather eat glass than risk Lucas’ wrath by taking the woman back to the station.
Besides, how much of a threat could she be? She certainly hadn’t shown any signs of being dangerous. Plus, he was nearly a foot taller than she was, and it hadn’t been that long since he’d quit the Bureau. His skills might be a little rusty, but the training had stuck.
“Come on in,” he said, unlocking the door and standing aside to let her in. She took tentative steps, as if she were considering the wisdom of this decision. She must have come to the same conclusion that he had, for once she was inside and had glanced around, she turned to look back at him with the barest hint of a smile.
Relieved to let go of his apprehension, he smiled back, locking the door behind him. “Home sweet home. Such as it is.” Oh Jesus, was the place really this messy? He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Uh, sorry about the mess.” He moved to grab a shirt from the black leather sofa, then picked up a bag of potato chips from the floor. “Remind me to fire my maid.”
He threw the shirt into the laundry basket by the bathroom door, tossed the chips into the kitchen, and came back to find her mid-yawn. “Do you want something to eat? Are you hungry?” Her answer was to yawn again, raising a hand to swipe at her heavy-lidded eyes. “Here, why don’t we get that crappy plastic bracelet off your wrist.”
Surely she didn’t want to be reminded of what they’d seen at the hospital, or the fact that he’d planned on leaving her there. He knew he didn’t want that reminder. He shuddered and went to find a pair of scissors. After rooting around in two junk drawers, he came up empty-handed, so he grabbed a steak knife instead.
“Couldn’t find my scissors,” he explained, reaching for her with his free hand. As he brought the blade of the knife toward her arm, she hissed and jerked her arm away, her eyes wide and frightened. “Hey, it’s all right,” he soothed, puzzled. “Just let me get this off you.” She hesitantly lowered her arm again, and he used extra care in slicing through the thin band. “There. Okay, um, let me show you to the … uh, the spare room.”
Why was he so nervous, for Christ’s sake? Maybe it was because this was the first woman he’d had spend the night who wasn’t going to be joining him in his bed. Maybe it was because whenever she looked at him with those clear blue eyes, he felt a distinct tug somewhere in the area of his heart.
“Bathroom’s right here, fresh towels are in the closet here,” he told her as he led the way down the hall. “And here’s the spare room.” He flipped on the light and was relieved to see that it looked clean and fairly uncluttered. “The bed’s kind of small, but …” He stopped to clear his throat, not sure why he was saying that. “Uh, there’s some sweats and tee shirts in the dresser there, if you want to change your clothes, and if you want to read or something, there’s a whole box of books in the closet, um…”
Her gaze wandered around the room, at the various movie posters hung on the wall with thumbtacks. “You like those? I haven’t gotten around to framing them yet.” He pointed to a poster promoting ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space.’ “That one’s really rare; I looked all over for it. Got it for a steal, too.”
She was standing in the middle of the room, looking at him with a curious expression, and he realized he was babbling. Feeling a blush start to creep up his neck, he cleared his throat. “I’ll be just down the hall if you need anything.” She stepped forward to close the door between them gently, and he found himself looking at a slab of wood instead of her face. “Okay, then. Uh, goodnight … whatever your name is,” he finished lamely.
He went back into the living room and flopped onto the sofa with a groan. “Jesus,” he moaned, covering his face with his hands. “What a dork!”
<He is on her before she can reach for her gun, before she can even cry out in surprise. He has a knife, and the overhead fluorescent lights glint off the metal. “I have something for you,” he hisses, his voice as hard as his familiar eyes.
The knife arcs toward her with deadly speed, and she draws in a breath to scream.>
Jake jerked upright in his bed, awakened by a terrifying sound. It took mere seconds before he realized what it was and where the screams were coming from, and he leapt out of bed, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor as he ran down the hall.
Her screams continued, but the doorknob wouldn’t even turn beneath his hand. God, he thought in a flash of panic, it sounded like she was being attacked! “Hey!” he yelled, shoving his bare shoulder against the door as he struggled to open it. At last, with a mighty shove, the door opened, and he stumbled over a chair as he rushed into the room; she must have used it as a barrier.
She wasn’t being attacked, thank God. She was only in the throes of a nightmare, sitting up in the bed, her arms stretched out in front of her as if she were trying to ward off an attacker.
Without giving it a second thought, Jake went to her, wrapping his arms around her small frame. “Hey,” he said gently, even though his heart was pounding furiously in his chest. “Hey, it’s all right, it’s all right,” he soothed. She struggled in his arms, but her screams had lessened into sobs. “It’s just a dream. It’s all right.”
He raised a hand to stroke her hair, finding it thick and soft beneath his palm. His hand rested at the nape of her neck, fingers weaving through the red strands to press against her hot skin. She relaxed then, her arms dropping to her sides as she sagged against him.
“Ssh,” he continued to soothe as her cries subsided into snuffles. He tried not to think about the way she felt in his arms, about how good she smelled, even after a long day of police stations and mental hospitals.
Her sleep became peaceful once more, and Jake allowed himself a moment to enjoy the feel of her warm breath on his bare chest and the way her hair felt sliding through his fingers.
Reluctantly, he pulled away and settled her back down to the bed, where she automatically turned away from him, curling up onto her side with her hand underneath her cheek.
He stood with a wince, hearing his knees crack. Barely thirty-three and already feeling old. Well, he thought, scratching his belly as he headed toward the door, at least he knew she did have a voice.
He left her door open, just in case.
CHAPTER TWO
If she remembered the nightmare the next morning, it didn’t show. It was nearly ten when she joined him in the living room, dressed in her jeans and a borrowed Quantico tee shirt from his dresser. She looked fresh and well-rested.
When she stood before him with her bare feet and shower-damp hair and gave him a shy smile, she looked like she belonged there. Jake felt that pull in his chest again and quickly tamped it down. He was not, however, fast enough to hide the smile that spread across his face.
“Morning. Did you sleep well?” he asked, nearly choking on his coffee when she nodded. Finally, a response! “Do you remember anything yet? Can you talk?” Her brow furrowed and her smile faded, and she shook her head.
As she munched on a bagel and drank a glass of orange juice, Jake fielded the calls that were starting to come in.
“She was wearing a ring. Describe it,” he instructed when the man on the other end told him the intent of his call. “Two dolphins swimming? Nope. Thanks for calling.”
Forty-five minutes and fourteen entertaining calls later (“A skull and crossbones? To match the tattoo? Better luck next time, Larry.” “A diamond solitaire? Oh, you wish, buddy.”), there was a knock on the door. Jake frowned; he wasn’t expecting anybody. Peering through the peephole, he saw a silver-haired man of about sixty-five wearing a long leather jacket over his clothes, despite the unusual heat.
Jake opened the door. “Yes?”
The visitor had a smile already on his face, but it faltered when he saw Jake. “I’m sorry,” he said after a brief stammer. “Jake Morgan?”
“Yes.”
The man’s expression fell somewhere between disbelief and shock. But then he let out a small laugh and shook his head, as if shaking it off. “Karl Alexander.” Jake nodded, but didn’t step aside to let him in. “I saw your ad on the reader this morning and looked up your address online.” He tilted his head to one side in apology. “I’m sorry to come by unannounced, but I might be able to help her.”
Jake folded his hands over his chest. “Yeah? How?”
“If you let me in, I’ll show you,” he prodded gently.
Jake gave him a once-over long enough to let the older man know he was being watched; Karl Alexander’s piercing green eyes met his own hazel ones with a steady gaze. Jake let him in.
“Thank you,” Karl said, extending his hand. Jake took it, noting that the skin of the man’s palm was unusually cool and smooth.
The first thing the stranger did was take off his coat and hand it to a mildly annoyed Jake, who dropped the coat over the back of a dining room chair and watched as the other man walked into the living room.
Jake noticed he had a similar reaction upon seeing the woman: he stopped and stared for a moment before swiveling his head around to look back at Jake. He recovered quickly, finding his smile and saying, “You must be the lady of the hour.” She eyed the newcomer warily, but didn’t get up when he joined her on the couch.
“I think,” Karl continued, “that I could help you. With a little bit of work, we can find out where you belong. Could I have a glass of ice water please?” he asked Jake. “It’s damn hot out there.”
Jake found himself wanting to roll his eyes, but he went into the kitchen and hunted for a clean glass. He could hear the stranger talking to her in soothing tones, but he couldn’t make out what the words over the running water and clinking of ice.
When Jake returned with the water, Karl was holding her hand as well as her gaze, and stroking the back of her hand with her fingertips. And she was letting him. “Hey, what are you doing?” Jake protested, feeling a twinge of something that felt a little like jealousy.
“Ssh,” came the reply, and Jake bit back a curse as he set the water on the coffee table and stood too close to the couple on the couch. “I’ve seen this before. A person experiences something traumatic, and they want to erase it from their memory. Problem is, they sometimes erase everything else, too. You’re feeling so relaxed,” Karl continued in his smooth baritone, “and so at ease, that if I let go of your hand, it just might float up into the air on its own.”
And sure enough, when he released her hand, it rose gracefully in the air as if pulled up by a string. Her gaze continued its lazy hold with the old man’s, and she seemed not to notice anything but him.
“Whoa, whoa,” Jake said, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m not going to let every Tom, Dick and Houdini come in here and perform parlor tricks on her for their own amusement.”
Karl sighed the sigh of one who had heard this sort of thing before. “Mr. Morgan,” he began, turning toward him. “I’m not a sideshow act. Yes, hypnosis has been a hobby of mine for some years now, but I promise you, I don’t do it to watch people make fools of themselves. I just think it could help her get past whatever’s happened and find out who she is.”
Jake rolled his eyes and frowned, but said no more.
“Now,” the old man continued, stroking her hand again. Jake noted that the limb holding her hand was unnaturally stiff. “I want you to relax, and tell yourself you’re going deeper and deeper into a state of hypnosis.” Her eyes drifted close, and her chin dipped. “Now. What do you see? Is there…”
“Somebody help me!” she cried in a tortured voice, followed by a hoarse gasp.
Jake banged his shin on the table leg as he started in surprise. “What … are you okay? What happened?” She looked all right, if a bit startled, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard such a pained cry. “Is she still under?”
“No,” Karl murmured, taking her hand again. She raised her other hand to her chest, blinking rapidly and opening her mouth, apparently trying to speak. When she still couldn’t, she gave a frustrated shake of her head. Karl chuckled softly. “Well, now we know that you can speak.”
“What just happened?” Jake asked, his heart still pounding from the shock of her outburst.
“I think we’ve just seen that her story is somewhere in there, hanging around and waiting to come back again.” He turned and looked up at Jake with keen eyes. “I’d like to see her again. If you could come over this afternoon, we could get started right away. For free, of course,” he hastened to add, and then smiled. “I just want to help.”
Karl finally noticed the requested glass of water waiting on the table and picked it up. He took a long swallow and thanked Jake, then briefly touched the woman’s lone glove, which also sat on the table.
“Mr. Alexander,” Jake began, intending to turn the offer down. There was something about the man that made Jake not want to trust him. But he looked at the woman, who was smiling again, loose-limbed and relaxed. Jake sighed. “All right. Give me the address.”
She seemed more at ease after her jaunt into hypnosis, and Jake found himself smiling and chatting with her as they drove to the Georgetown address that afternoon.
“I used to live here,” he told her as they drove down the streets lined with stately brick homes, “until they tore down the apartment building to make way for more hoity-toity government retirees.”
A middle-aged blonde woman with a thin, humorless smile let them into the old man’s home and led them upstairs to a book-filled room. “Mr. Alexander will be right with you,” she said, and closed the door firmly behind her.
“Friendly,” Jake commented. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looked around. In front of the large windows was a spotless desk, and the round table and matching chairs in the middle of the room matched the desk perfectly. Dozens of candles were scattered around the room, on end tables, the windowsills and even on the bookshelves that lined every wall, tall and filled to overflowing with books; the fireplace on the opposite wall looked as if it were rarely used.
The afternoon sun came through the windows, and flecks of dust danced in the beams. He turned to make a joke but stopped when he saw the way the sunlight played over her copper hair. Her back was turned to him as she browsed through a book, and he took the opportunity to look.
He had dreamt of her last night, had seen her flitting in and out through his scattered dreams like a recurring theme. Throughout the dream she looked at him with those clear eyes and that arched eyebrow, and although her lips moved, he couldn’t hear what she said.
Now he stepped up behind her, peering over her shoulder. The book appeared to be about UFO encounters, and he snorted. Startled, she closed the book and set it back in its proper place before turning to grin at him. She gave a little shrug, as if embarrassed at having been caught reading something so ridiculous.
With a small grin, he turned to check out the rest of the opulent room. Between the towering bookshelves hung small, framed pictures and prints, everything from a Kandinsky to what looked like regular photographs.
One in particular caught his eye: a painting of what appeared to be a darkly colored snake eating its own tail. Jake cocked his head at the image, wondering why he felt the need to raise his hand and touch the two-dimensional snake. His lips moved soundlessly, as if trying to place a memory. The snake and its endless circle scratched at his brain, telling him … telling him … what?
The woman appeared at his side, jolting him out of his puzzlement. She, too, seemed drawn to it, although her expression was more admiring than baffled.
“It’s an ourobourous,” a male voice announced. Jake and the woman turned abruptly to see Karl Alexander behind them, watching them with a sharp eye. The older man stepped forward to join them at the picture.
“Eternity and rebirth,” Jake murmured before blinking in surprise; how had he known that? He hadn’t even known what it was called. He looked down to see the woman staring up at him, her clear blue eyes shining.
This was another one of those moments, he realized, just like yesterday. The feeling was strong and sudden, and Jake wanted to touch her, as if he needed to reassure himself of something.
“Let’s get started,” Karl said then, startling Jake out of his reverie. Karl made his preparations, closing the heavy curtains and lighting the many candles scattered throughout the room.
As the old man finally lit the tapered candle in the middle of the table, Jake pondered the wisdom of having so many open flames in a room filled with flammable material. He kept the thought to himself.
Karl poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on a small table in the corner, balancing the pitcher with his stiff left arm. “I think today we’ll just do a little exploring, root around a bit and see what’s in that pretty head of yours.” He smiled, obviously charming the redhead, who smiled back easily and settled into one of the chairs.
The smooth Mr. Alexander, on the other hand, did not charm Jake. He shook his head at the offer of a seat, instead opting to lean against a bookshelf and fold his arms over his chest.
“Are you comfortable?” the white-haired man asked the woman as he took a seat. She bit her lip and nodded. “Good. I want you to watch the candle flame. Stare at it. Picture yourself walking down a flight of stairs.” His voice was soft and smooth, soothing and pleasant. “With each step, you’ll relax even further. As you go down, I want you to tell yourself you’re going deeper and deeper into a state of hypnosis.” Her eyes slipped closed. From his post at the bookshelf, Jake watched as her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and felt his mouth go a little dry.
“Yesterday, you got a little too excited,” Karl continued, “so today I want you to distance yourself from the events you’re watching. You’ll just be an observer, not a participant. At the bottom of the stairs, there is a door. On the other side of this door lies the time and place from your life you wish to visit.
“The door is open. You can talk; you have a voice again. Now. What was the happiest day…”
She smiled, eyes still closed. “The day we first became lovers.”
“Distance yourself,” Karl reminded gently.
She tilted her head slightly, her red hair obscuring half of her smile. “The day Mulder and Scully first became lovers.”
Karl coughed a bit and took a sip of his water. “How far back are you – two years? Three? What year is it?”
“1999.”
“Okay, that’s about enough of this,” Jake laughed in astonishment.
Karl turned to the younger man and raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Morgan, are we going to do this, or are you just going to interrupt?”
Jake gestured at the woman, who was still smiling, as if lost in the memory. “But she just said it was 1999!”
“Sometimes hypnosis can take someone back into a past life.”
“I don’t believe in that crap,” Jake said with a snort, using the hard spine of a book behind him to scratch his back.
Karl turned back to the woman, eyeing her with great interest. “Well, up until now, she wasn’t speaking at all.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear in a graceful, practiced motion. “They had been working together for so long, but it was finally time.”
“Don’t go running ahead, now. Wait for me.” Karl opened a small tablet of paper and jotted a few notes.
Her voice was a husky alto, very pleasing to Jake’s ears. He sat down in one of the other chairs, never taking his eyes off her. What she was saying might be a load of shit, but he wasn’t going to deny the opportunity to listen to that voice.
“They’d been partners for six years, and they had wanted each other for almost as long. The trust had been there for even longer. And they were finally ready for the next step.”
April 1999
She watches her partner smacking balls into the dark outfield, enjoying the way his lean body moves with the bat. His “Roswell Grays” jersey doesn’t escape her notice, and she gives an appreciative chuckle, hooking her fingers through the fence behind him.
He taps the bat against the dirt. “Right here, Poor Boy. Right to me,” he tells the kid on the mound, and she can hear the smile in his voice. The chain link fence clinks as she pulls on it, alerting him to her presence.
“So I get this message marked “urgent” on my answering service from one Fox Mantle telling me to come down to the park for a very special very early or very late birthday present. And Mulder, I don’t see any nicely wrapped presents lying around, so what gives?”
She’s in the perfect mood, he thinks, recognizing it in the tone of her voice, the dry wit of her words and her casual posture. “You’ve never hit a baseball, have you Scully?”
“No, I guess I have, uh … found more necessary things to do with my time than,” she looks up cautiously as a foul ball makes the fence ring, “slap a piece of horsehide with a stick.”
Mulder turns and really looks at her now, his eyes flicking over her in blatant appreciation. “Get over here, Scully.”
She takes the bat from him, mildly surprised but mostly interested when he stands behind her and engulfs her in his arms under the pretense of showing her how to hold the bat. He is warm and solid behind her, and she gives an experimental shift, brushing her ass against his denim- covered thighs. “This is my birthday present, Mulder? You shouldn’t have.”
“This ain’t cheap. I’m paying that kid ten bucks an hour to shag balls.” The kid, who looks like he wandered out of a Norman Rockwell painting, grins at her.
Throughout his low-voiced banter, the grappling of their hands on the bat and the warm feel of his hand on her hip, she smiles more than she has in a long while. Giggles escape her lips, and his delighted smile warms her more than his body pressed against hers.
“Shut up, Mulder,” she says, stopping his babble. “I’m playing baseball.” She has, of course, played baseball before — Scully the tomboy has been taught well by her brothers. But it has never been this much fun.
Mulder finally sends the kid off with an extra twenty bucks, and she twirls the bat in her hands, wondering what happens next. He remains on the pitcher’s mound, watching her with a nervous smile.
“Is this the seventh-inning stretch?” she asks, nudging him out of his hesitation. Tossing the bat aside, she joins him on the mound and takes his hand, peeling his long fingers one by one from around the ball he holds.
“Something like that.” His voice is low, but devoid of the bantering tone he had used only minutes before.
“And can I keep this ball?” She smiles up at him, enjoying the way his Adam’s apple bobs with his heavy swallow. If she were to stand on tiptoe, she could press a kiss to that warm spot, and feel his pulse flutter beneath the skin.
His eyes are dark, and he licks his lips. He wants to tell her, “Everything I have is yours,” but instead he just says, “Sure.”
They’ve been here before, but never like this: no threats hanging over them, no immediate danger. And this is what tells her that this is the right time.
She puts a hand on his shoulder and raises herself up onto her toes; he meets her halfway in a tender kiss. Their second kiss is longer but still leisurely. Her hand moves into the soft hairs at the back of his neck, and he presses his forehead against hers, letting her warm breath mingle with his.
“Scully,” he murmurs, and when they pull back to look at one another, they are both smiling. There is no uncertainty hidden behind false smiles, no hesitations or stumbling words like, “Maybe we should talk about this,” no feelings of regret or disappointment.
“Come on,” she says, dropping her hand from his neck and squeezing his fingers; they are strong and warm under hers. “I’ll let you buy me some ice cream.”
“Only if it’s real ice cream,” he amends, and she laughs her approval.
She has mint chocolate-chip ice cream on her chin, and she smiles when he swipes it off with the tip of his finger. The picnic table is hard beneath them, but neither cares.
“So what did you learn from Arthur Dales today?” she asks, picking at the chipped green paint of the table. “Any new pearls of wisdom?”
He chuffs a soft laugh and leans back on his hands, letting his knees flop apart. For a brief second, she can see him as a gangly teen, all arms and skinny legs. She wonders if he was a late-bloomer, awkward and shy until he passed twenty, when the handsome man he is today began to emerge.
“I learned that love can change a man,” he replies softly, and his words, while simple and straightforward, are enough to make her pulse race. “That passion can change your very nature.”
A drop of ice cream drips onto the back of her hand, and she licks it off. “Mulder, are you coming on to me?”
He turns to her and stares at her with enough intensity that she wonders if she has more ice cream on her face. “Always, Scully.” And then he smiles and leans down to kiss her. His mouth is cold and tastes like strawberries, and her own cone falls out of her hand as she raises her arms to encircle his neck.
He shivers under her touch; her fingers are cold on his skin. Their tips are sticky from the treat, and the thought of cleaning them with his tongue makes him pull her closer, wondering if she can feel his erection pressing against her thigh.
“You dropped your ice cream.” He brushes his lips against the shell of her ear.
“That’s okay. I have more at home.”
“You do?”
She grins broadly, giddy at the thought of taking him home and into her bed. “No.”
Mulder kisses the inside of her elbow as he unwraps her arms from around his neck. “Okay,” he whispers, touching his tongue to the tip of her index finger.
They rise from the bench, sticky fingers entwined as they walk to the car.
The contact remains during the ride home: his fingers clasped around hers, her thumb moving lightly over the back of his hand. His other hand is sticky as well; in the passing streetlights, she can see smudges of sugar on the steering wheel. She looks down at their joined hands and wonders what his hands will feel like on her body.
The thought feels natural, which surprises her. She’s wondered if they would ever come to this point in their relationship, and whether she would be nervous or afraid to give herself to him in this way. Instead, she feels calm and content. She licks her lips and tastes him on her tongue.
Her apartment is cool and dark, and she turns on a lamp before going into the kitchen to wash her hands. Mulder comes up behind her, and their hands join again under the cascade of warm water. His skin glides easily over hers in a seductive dance, and she sighs softly into his ear as he dips his head to hers.
“I once told you that you make me a whole person,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I meant it.” His mouth moves lower and she tilts her head, offering the pale line of her neck. “I still do.”
She closes her eyes as he kisses the throb of her pulse, then turns in his arms to face him. Her hands press against his chest, water soaking through his shirt. “I love you, you know.” She worries a little when he grins, hoping he won’t bring up the embarrassing way she reacted to his own profession not so long ago.
“I know,” he replies, bending to kiss her. Her mouth opens under his lips, her tongue languidly sliding against his. She feels wonderful: soft, warm, and achingly familiar. She feels like home.
Her smile is beautiful when they part. She dips her head, copper hair falling over her eyes as her hands rise to the buttons on her jacket.
He watches with interest as she steps away and shrugs out of the garment. Stepping over it, she backs into the living room and pulls her snug black top from her jeans. Mulder watches her slow striptease for a minute before pulling his jersey over his head and letting it fall to the floor. He steps over her trail of clothing, kicking off his shoes. When he reaches her bedroom, she is waiting on the bed, naked but for a warm glow from the muted light of a corner lamp.
In two steps he is beside her, raising her chin and kissing her with the fervor he’d held in check until now. He sheds his jeans and presses her back to the bed, groaning at the feel of her skin against his bare chest.
She wants to say something profound, something that will convey all that she is feeling, but when he joins with her, she finds there is nothing she can say. He says it for her, in a gasp of her name, moving within her and fitting her to him.
<“3 … 2 … 1.” >
CHAPTER THREE
2035
She opened her eyes and took in a deep breath.
Jake exhaled, tugging at the collar of his gray t- shirt. “Getting a little hot in here.”
Karl turned to Jake. “In Russia, the man who trained me told me about a similar situation…”
“M … may I have a glass of water?” she asked, then covered her mouth with one hand, as if surprised to hear herself speak.
The two men stared at her in surprise for only a second before leaping into action; Karl poured her a glass of water and Jake leaned over the table, anxious in his questions.
“Do you know your name now? What do you remember? What about those people you mentioned – are they still alive?”
Karl handed her the glass, which she wrapped her hands around and raised to her lips with a cringe, as if she could hide from the barrage of questions from behind it.
“I want you to see something, if I can find it.” Karl said solemnly, moving to root around in a drawer of the mahogany desk. “Here we go.” He produced a copy of Newsweek from the year 2000 and removed it from its protective covering.
“I knew this rang a bell. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,” he began, flipping through the pages until he came to the desired article, “were FBI agents. Some thought they were lovers, others thought they were just kooks, chasing UFOs and aliens, crazy things like that.”
Jake looked over his shoulder, and the woman came to look as well, peering over Karl’s arm. On one page was a picture of Special Agent Fox Mulder, wearing an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit and standing between two prison guards. He looked haggard and hard, as if he had been alternating between bouts of rage and desperation when the picture was taken.
The man also looked like he could be a not-too- distant cousin of Jake’s. Jake did a slight double take, then chuffed a laugh at the coincidental resemblance. They had the same mouth and nose, and perhaps even the same eyes, but Jake had a stronger jaw.
“So what happened?” he asked, eyes skimming the article for information.
Karl flipped to the next page. “Agent Mulder stabbed Agent Scully to death.” He shrugged. “He claimed innocence, like they all do, but he was convicted. He committed suicide in his cell not long after the trial.”
“How sad,” she murmured, studying the picture of Dana Scully.
“Could she have dreamed this? Maybe she read about these people somewhere.” Jake asked, as the woman wandered away with the magazine.
Karl shook his head. “No. She has details that suggest more than just a passing knowledge.” Jake watched the older man’s eyes follow the woman as he spoke. The man’s gaze seemed more than just a casual appraisal; it was as if he was sizing her up, guessing her weaknesses and cataloguing them for later, if needed.
It was a ridiculous thought, he knew; why would the old man be doing that? Jake ran a hand through his dark hair in frustration, shaking off the thoughts. “But that’s ridiculous! I don’t believe in past lives or…”
“I don’t really care what you believe,” Karl snapped, his green eyes flashing cold. Jake shut his mouth in surprise, but the chill in the old man’s eyes faded as quickly as it had appeared, making Jake think he hadn’t seen it at all. “For whatever reasons, these events are consuming her. The sooner we work through them, the sooner we can get her memory back.” He turned to pick up an electronic date book from the desk behind him. “I’d like to see you again tomorrow. How does 4:00 sound?”
She looked up from the magazine and smiled. “That would be fine, thank you.” Jake nodded his reluctant agreement and turned to follow her out of the back room.
“Oh, Mr. Morgan?” Jake turned. “Make sure I get that magazine back.” Karl smiled, and Jake again saw a flash of coldness in the man’s face. “Sentimental value.”
Jake and the woman stepped out into the late afternoon sun and turned to each other, each with an awkward, shy smile. “So,” he said.
She put her hands in her pockets and looked down at her sneakers. “So.”
Jake wracked his brain for something witty to say, something clever and fitting, but came up short, so he cleared his throat instead.
She raised her head again, looking at him with those clear bright eyes. “Why are you helping me, Mr. Morgan?”
Relieved that she had spoken first, he smiled. “Call me Jake. And I don’t know,” he shrugged, “you’re pretty.” She laughed at that, a slight blush coloring her pale cheeks. “I owed Lucas a favor.” He paused, watching her tuck a strand of hair behind the curve of her ear. “And I’m glad I did,” he murmured.
She took that in silently before asking, “So now what?”
“We go get a second opinion.” As they walked to his car, his attention was drawn to an old, thin man on the corner, watching them, a cigarette in his hand. Although he was frail and bent, his eyes were sharp. His sallow skin seemed to sag from his bones like a shroud. Jake shuddered in vague distaste, but didn’t spare him another thought.
“So you’re asking me what you should do?” Mike Grenaldi turned up the corner of his mouth and handed the bag of videos to the customer across the counter. “Thanks for shopping at Pulp Nostalgia,” he added as an afterthought; the customer was already gone.
“I’m asking you what you think,” Jake corrected, leaning against a shelf of videos. “There’s a difference.”
Mike sighed and smoothed a hand down his thin black ponytail. “I tell you, lady. One of these days, he’ll be coming in here asking for advice, not just opinions. Mark my words.”
Mike Grenaldi had once been the kind of petty criminal who always stayed one step ahead of jail time. Befriending Jake and giving him information had helped continue to keep him out of prison.
The nostalgia shop clerk had dipped his toe into credit card fraud, mail fraud, even insurance fraud. He had also dabbled in academia – he was mere credits short on a psychology degree from GWU. That dream had been abandoned twelve years ago after an unfortunate run-in with bookies had left him flat broke and on the streets. Now he worked the day shift at a store that sold CDs and worn-thin VHS tapes to college kids and nostalgia lovers.
“Well, you’re the one who dabbled in all that parapsychology crap and weird shit that made your professors think you were goofy in the head,” Jake pointed out. “I thought you could lend a little insight.”
Mike grabbed a stack of videos from the counter and moved out into the store. “You should give it a little more credit,” he said, returning a copy of “Altered States” to its place. “I would stick with the book man.” Jake and the woman followed Mike through the aisles as he went. “Sometimes a trauma in the present life can lead you back to a trauma in a past life. You solve that past life trauma, I think you’ve got a real good chance of finding out who you are.”
The clerk moved into the adult section; the woman and Jake waited for him back in the horror aisle. “Take what you learn from this life, and you can use it in the next,” Mike continued, his voice floating over the saloon-type doors that blocked the section. “That’s karma.”
“You mean like my karma ran over your dogma?” Jake said.
Mike reappeared. “Fate rules that you burn someone in this life, they burn you in the next,” he told her, ignoring Jake. “It’s a cool little concept.” He shrugged. “And hey – two people can keep meeting from life to life, over and over again.”
“I believe it,” the woman said softly.
He smiled and tapped her arm with a gentle fist. “You stick with the hypnotist. I think he’s the key.” He winked and went to grab another stack of videos. “So what’s the deal with these Mulder and Scully characters?”
Jake thought of the brief coldness he’d seen in the old man. He wasn’t sure if Karl could be trusted, but so far he was their best lead. Jake scratched his ear. “I called Ben on the way over, asked him to see what he could dig up on them. Sounds like it was a high-profile case; we should be able to get the whole story.”
His friend snorted mildly. “Aren’t you a private detective? Isn’t that something you could do yourself?” A sharp grin crossed his face then. “Or is it that you have big plans for you and the lady tonight?”
Jake blushed and sputtered a denial, not missing her amused grin.
“Well good luck,” Mike told the woman, giving her another smile. “Let me know how it turns out.”
In the kitchen, Jake stirred the spaghetti sauce and listened to her dribble his basketball against the scuffed hardwood of the living room floor.
“Do you play a lot?” she asked.
“Only in my apartment.”
“Oh, your neighbors must love you,” was her response, and he could hear the grin in her voice.
“Let’s just say I’ve seen the unwelcome wagon more often than most people.”
Carrying the ball under her arm, she came into the kitchen and poked through the array of food spread out on the counters. “Gee, I hope there’s nothing here I’m allergic to.”
Oh, shit, he thought in mute panic. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. But she rescued him with a grin, reaching into a bag of shelled sunflower seeds. “Hey,” he protested as she skimmed past him, popping them into her still-grinning mouth. “Those are for the salad!”
He didn’t want to think about how good this bit of domesticity felt, how natural her rich voice sounded to him, or how good she looked in jeans and one of his blue dress shirts.
They had been talking easily since she had found her voice in the back room of the bookshop, and he found that he genuinely liked her; she was smart and had a dry sense of humor, and her voice plucked at him like the mellow tones of a fine cello. It only served to remind him of the strong note of déjà vu he had been feeling ever since he’d first met her the day before.
“I wonder if I like green olives or black olives?” she said, her voice softer. Jake lowered the heat on the sauce and walked out of the kitchen. “Red wine or white?”
“Well I hope you like beer, because that’s all I’ve got.”
“Guess we’ll find out.” She looked up at him, a playful smile on her lips.
“Guess so.” Their gazes held, and she tilted her head to the side, as if asking him a silent question. Jake swallowed and wondered if kissing her would be the right answer.
He didn’t get to test that theory, for there was a knock on the door. She blinked, startled and perhaps a bit perturbed. Jake exhaled heavily. Guess they would have to find out later, if he was lucky.
It was Ben at the door, bearing gifts. “I sent you an e-mail with links to information about them,” he said by way of greeting. “And this stuff is from the paper’s storage, before everything went digital.” He slapped a thick manila folder on the kitchen counter and sat down on a barstool. “This Mulder guy sounds like a real nut job.”
Jake opened the folder and scanned his way through the top sheets. “FBI Agent Charged With Murder,” read the first.
“According to prison records, a Walter Skinner, Mulder’s boss, visited him several times in prison.”
“Do you think this Skinner guy is still alive?” Jake asked. Ben shrugged. “Find out, will you?”
“What am I, your girl Friday? Aren’t you the private dick here?”
Jake crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his friend. “Gee, Ben, I’m a little busy right now, what with trying to help this woman and all.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right. Check it out,” Ben added helpfully, pawing through the stack. “Mulder drilled holes in his head once. Thought it would help him uncover his lost memories.”
“Jeez, I don’t have to do that, do I?” a new voice piped up.
Ben and Jake looked up to see her standing in the kitchen entryway, smiling. “Hey!” Ben exclaimed. “You’re talking!”
“Ta-da!” she pronounced, spreading her hands in fanfare and laughing.
“Your voice suits you,” Ben said, grinning widely. “I like hearing it.”
“Thank you. I like using it.”
Ben turned his head toward the stove, sniffing. “Hey, what smells so good? Jake, are you cooking? What, are you trying to charm her or something?”
Jake grabbed Ben’s arm and shepherded him to the front door. “Well, thanks for bringing that stuff by, Ben. I don’t want to keep you.”
“From what?” Ben asked, not catching the hint as he stepped into the hall.
“From whatever.” Jake closed the door.
The night air felt delicious on his bare arms as they walked at a leisurely pace. They’d been in and out of air-conditioned buildings all day long, and the fresh air was a welcome change, even though the humidity was on the high side.
“I can smell the rain,” she commented. “I love that smell.”
“Ah-ha, so you do remember something.”
She smiled and dipped her head, hair falling over her cheek in a cascade of auburn. He briefly recalled the way it had felt sliding through his fingers the night before, when he had comforted her during her nightmare. “Maybe the real me hates the smell of rain. Maybe I’m a whole new person now.”
“Living life to its fullest,” he added, and she chuckled appreciatively.
Jake saw a small outdoor cafe ahead and motioned toward it with his chin. “Would you like to stop and get a drink? Have a wine taste test and see which kind you prefer?”
“You trying to get me drunk, Jake?”
He wasn’t, but the mere idea was enough to make him stammer a denial.
She laughed and hooked her arm through his. “I’d love a drink.”
He ordered two glasses of red wine and brought them out to where she sat at a table, ignoring the pointed looks of the wait staff, who were hurrying to clean up the outside tables before the rain came.
“Thank you,” she said.
He raised his glass to hers. “To hypnosis.”
“To hypnosis,” she agreed, a sparkle in her eyes. “Mm,” she added after she’d taken a sip. “Well, I do like red wine. There’s something.”
Jake leaned back in the wrought-iron chair. “Not a bad start. So is that your theory? That this is the real you, while the other you is just a fraud?”
She grinned, taking another drink. “I wouldn’t say the other me is a fraud. Maybe she just lives a totally boring and humdrum existence, and this is her way of getting out and experiencing life a bit.”
“Not a bad idea. You’ve already seen the Hoover Building and the inside of a police station.” He was delighted when she laughed. “But I don’t think boring and humdrum is necessarily a bad thing.”
“You don’t? But it’s so … plain.”
“Maybe, but it’s level and unthreatening. Not a lot of waves.”
“Do you have a lot of waves in your life, Jake?” she asked, looking at him over the rim of her wine glass.
He leaned forward again, tapping his fingers along the stem of his own glass. “Not waves. Just not a lot of … not a lot of rest,” he decided, realizing it was true. “Sometimes I just want to rest.”
“Oh, do you travel a lot?”
“No, not anymore. My family moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I feel the need to plant my roots somewhere.” He felt a little odd, telling this to someone whose name he didn’t even know. He’d barely been able to admit it to himself. “I’ve had jobs; I tried to have a career at the FBI but ended up leaving – I saw how the people I trained with were prepared to scratch and claw their way to the top, and I didn’t like it.” He paused to fumble for the right words. “Nothing ever felt right,” he concluded with a small shake of his head.
“Sounds like you’re a restless soul,” she commented in a sympathetic voice.
He stopped for a moment, still puzzled at why he was telling her all of this – and why it felt natural to do so. “It’s like I’ve been in a car for years, going from place to place, from thing to thing, while everyone else around me is raising families and buying houses and dogs and SUVs, and sometimes…”
“You think you’d just like to get out of the damn car,” she finished for him, and he raised his gaze to hers in pleasant surprise.
“Yeah,” he finally said, smiling. That sounded right. It sounded good. And it sounded even better coming from her. His lips moved soundlessly for a moment, as if searching for his line. It was on the tip of his tongue, like they’d had this conversation before.
“All right,” she said, sitting back and crossing her jean-clad legs. “I filled in the blanks for you, and now it’s your turn.” His confusion must have shown because she clarified. “Tell me about me.”
He took a drink of wine for fortification. “Hm. A daunting task. Let me think about this for a minute.” He made a show of leaning back and studying her with one eyebrow raised. “You’re a school teacher from Hoboken.”
“Hoboken?” she repeated. “That’s already bad enough. I don’t want to hear anymore.”
Jake watched the soft breeze rustle the dark red waves around her face. “You’re married,” he continued, forcing his voice to remain light as he spoke the words he desperately hoped were not true, “to an insurance salesman named Ed. But he’s not a very good insurance salesman, so you scrimp and pinch to make ends meet. You eat beanie-weenies for dinner three times a week and sleep on a futon.”
“Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not the life of glamour I was hoping for.”
“While chaperoning a class field trip to our nation’s capital, you hit your head while bungee jumping off the top of the Washington Monument, which explains your amnesia.”
She giggled, the sound muffled by the rim of the wine glass. “Bungee jumping? So I don’t really set a good example for my students.”
“Well, no, you did. They certainly aren’t going to be bungee jumping any time soon,” he laughed, sitting forward again. “Here, give me your hand.” She did as instructed without hesitation. “I’m going to read your palm.” He turned her hand over and traced a fingertip over the creases. “Hm.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good prognosis.”
“Well, you appear to have two life lines. One is much shorter than the other.”
“Really? Can you tell me what it means?”
He grinned at her. “Of course I can. It’s why they put the “I” in P.I.” She gave a snort of laughter. “It means you have a past life, one that you’re just beginning to unravel.” He continued to trace the lines in her palm, his pulse quickening when she shivered beneath his touch.
“I thought you didn’t believe that sort of thing.” Her voice was softer now, devoid of laughter but no less attractive.
“I don’t. But you do, don’t you?” A low rumble of thunder sounded, not far away.
Her eyelashes brushed against her pale cheeks as she lowered her gaze briefly before raising her eyes again. “I want to believe.”
Jake knew then and there that he wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted anything before.
She was the first to look away, glancing up at the sky and sliding her hand from his. “It’s going to rain,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” His voice was husky and unfamiliar, and he cleared his throat.
“You told me my story, but you didn’t tell me my name,” she said, and raised the glass to her lips to finish the rest of her wine.
He cocked his head at her and smiled, making a show of studying her face. “Grace,” he announced. “You look like a Grace.”
“Grace,” she repeated softly, smiling her approval. “That’ll work.” She toyed with her empty glass. “I wonder how my unsuccessful husband would feel about us having a glass of wine together.”
“Oh, he’s a very understanding man,” Jake assured her. Another crack of thunder sounded, louder than the first, and he stood. “Ready to go?”
Grace smiled up at him and accepted his proffered hand. “Yes.”
The rain began to fall as soon as they left, but they didn’t feel the need to run until it turned into a downpour two blocks from Jake’s apartment. He grabbed her hand and they ran the rest of the way, laughing and trying to duck under awnings and overhangs when possible.
They were both soaked to the bone when they reached his building, but when he bent to kiss her, neither seemed to remember that it was raining at all.
Once inside, they stripped off their dripping clothes and dropped them to the floor, a wet trail of breadcrumbs leading from the front door to his bedroom. Her pale skin rose in gooseflesh in the air-conditioned apartment, and he warmed her with his hands and mouth, trying to force himself not to rush.
But she wasn’t having any of it, barely giving him time to reach into the bedside table drawer for a condom before straddling his thighs and taking him inside her. Jake gritted his teeth, closed his eyes and tried not to come as soon as they started to move. It was too much, too fast; he wanted her too badly, he needed to find some control…
“Open your eyes,” she whispered, and the wave of emotion that washed through him when he met her open gaze was enough to send him over the edge, shouting her name with a hoarse cry.
She felt like home.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was just past two, and he’d been lying awake for three hours. Grace slept deeply beside him, the white sheet draped haphazardly over her nude body. She slept the sleep of the sexually satisfied; Jake could still taste her on his lips.
Jake should have been sleeping as deeply, since it had been longer than he cared to remember since he’d been so spent. But his mind kept him up, thinking about Grace, about the story she had spun that afternoon while under hypnosis, about the things she made him feel.
He’d had his share of casual dates and failed relationships in his thirty- three years. But never had he experienced anything like what he felt with Grace, even after knowing her for only a day.
It was the feeling of recognition he got when he looked at her. It was the feeling that he could finish her sentences. And it was the feeling that when they’d fallen into bed earlier that night, they’d been waiting for much longer than a day to be together.
It would have been spooky, had he believed in fate or karma, or anything like that. Maybe it was just as simple as love at first sight.
Beside him, Grace murmured in her sleep and rolled over onto her stomach. Jake bent to place a gentle kiss on the perfect pale skin between her shoulder blades before climbing out of bed, careful not to wake her.
He pulled on a pair of jeans and left the room, closing the door softly behind him. Grabbing the manila folder and his wire-rimmed glasses, he sat down at the dining room table and pulled out the stack of information Ben had brought him. The online information would have to wait until morning, as his computer was in the bedroom.
An hour later, he pulled off the glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. It was all there before him, laid out like plot points on a storyboard: conspiracy, jealousy and murder. Fox Mulder had followed his quest until it had reached a tragic and unforeseen conclusion.
The articles and court transcripts spelled everything out for him, from admissions of Mulder and Scully’s relationship, paranoia and subsequent arguments, to Mulder’s conviction. The reporter painted a picture of a man destroyed by grief and guilt. The agent had professed his innocence, but could not back it up.
Throughout the trial, a parade of witnesses told of Mulder’s ideas of conspiracy and corruption. Assistant Directors Alvin Kersh and Walter Skinner, and former colleagues all spoke of Mulder’s tumultuous time spent as a profiler in VCU, of his seemingly obvious mental instability. By the trial’s end, Mulder was a shell of himself – cold and still, refusing to say anything more to defend himself.
Jake pulled the Newsweek from the messy stack of papers and put his glasses back on to look at the picture of Dana Scully. The resemblance was there, he couldn’t argue that; Grace’s hair was longer and more unruly and her nose less straight, but they could have passed for sisters.
On the opposite page was the picture of Fox Mulder. Jake touched the two-dimensional face, stroking the curve of Mulder’s cheekbone with his finger, brushing over the hazel eyes. So like his own.
He closed the magazine and sighed. He’d show the pictures to Mike and get his two cents.
“Didn’t we wear each other out enough, or are you a terrible insomniac?”
He turned to see Grace standing behind him. She had left the sheet on the bed. “Maybe,” he turned further and found her breasts to be perfectly level with his mouth, “we need to work on the wearing out thing some more.” She gasped as his mouth covered a nipple. “Wait right here,” he whispered, and hurried to get another condom.
When he returned, she had shoved the papers to the floor and was lying on the table, her hair fanned out against the dark wood, one leg bent, the other dangling over the edge. “Jesus,” he whispered, taking a moment to stare. She turned her head to look at him and smiled a slow smile.
Jake didn’t need any more encouragement.
The previous night’s storm had taken some of the heat with it, and the next day was clear and pleasant. Jake and Grace didn’t emerge from his apartment until the early afternoon. After a morning of sleep and furniture christening, they headed out in search of food before their afternoon appointment with Karl Alexander.
“I really need to wash these jeans,” she said with a grimace as they started off down the sidewalk. She had donned them once again, along with another borrowed shirt.
“We can do laundry tonight,” he grinned, slinging an arm over her shoulders and pulling her to his side playfully. “I’m sure we can keep ourselves entertained while we wait.”
“Sarah!” They didn’t turn until the man’s voice was closer and more curious. “Sarah? Is that you?” They turned to face a tall man with sandy blond hair and blue eyes full of concern. As soon as she turned, a smile of huge relief spread across his handsome face. “Oh my God, I’ve been so worried!”
He stretched out a hand to her, but Grace shrunk back, confusion in her eyes. “Can I help you?” Jake snapped, trying to bury the dread that crept through his body.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Paul Deegan.”
“Yeah, so?” Jake tightened his arm around Grace’s shoulders.
Paul gave Jake a look of mild annoyance. “Sarah is my fiancee.”
Grace gasped, and Jake didn’t know whether to punch the guy in his pretty face or vomit on his shoes.
She took a tentative step toward Paul, who touched her face with a smile. Jake could only watch as Grace did her best not to flinch away. “Why don’t I remember you?” she asked, a tremor in her voice as she studied Paul’s face.
“It must be the medication,” he murmured, brushing her hair from her cheek. “You’ve been taking it for stress, and you must have taken too much. This has happened before, but I was there those times.”
“Yeah, well where were you this time?” Jake asked, desperation coloring his voice as he watched the other man touch her. Jesus, he really was going to be sick.
Paul turned to him, sounding peeved at having to explain himself. “I was in Vermont, closing the deal on our new house.”
He had to think of something, something fast … “What kind of ring does she wear?” he blurted.
Without even sneaking a glance at Grace’s hands, Paul replied, “It’s an Irish wedding band. I gave it to her in college.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glove that matched the one she’d had with her. “Oh, and I found this in the driveway. You must have dropped it.” Grace took it from him, examining it as if she’d never seen a glove before.
The matching glove burned in Jake’s pocket. He’d grabbed it from the table as an afterthought, thinking it might help her remember something new. His eyes closed, and he turned away. Grace’s voice drew him back. “I … please, let us give you something for your trouble,” she said to Jake, her voice thick and strained. Paul nodded in agreement.
“Forget it,” Jake muttered, looking at the ground. “Just … ” He forced himself to meet her gaze once more. “Just take good care of her.”
Grace stepped towards him, her hand extended. “Thank you for … everything,” she whispered, her eyes bright with unshed tears, her beautiful mouth twisted into something grotesque.
Jake clasped it in his own, not even attempting to fake a smile. “Have a nice life.”
He turned and headed back to his apartment before he had to watch her walk away from him. Idiot, he berated himself, you should have waited to see if she was single before falling for her. Should have waited more than one fucking day before taking her to bed. Should have …
“Oh,” he realized, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s your other…”
Wait. It only took a second glance at the glove in his hand to know that all was not as it seemed. Anger flooded through him as he turned to glare at Paul, who looked back at him with a mixture of curiosity and what might have been panic. “Oh man, you were this close. The glove was a nice touch and all…”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Paul interrupted, his brow furrowed. He took a step away from Grace.
Jake held up the glove. “It’s for the wrong hand,” he hissed.
Paul laughed shortly, as if in denial, but two seconds later he was off and running down the sidewalk.
Son of a bitch, Jake chanted in time with his footsteps as he took off after him, paying no heed to the cars they barely avoided as the chase wove into the street. If he hadn’t taken the extra two seconds to pocket the glove, she would be gone. He’d been two seconds away from letting her walk out of his life and into the arms of a liar. Or worse.
Jake didn’t hear the horns blaring as they ducked through traffic, he didn’t hear Grace shouting his name, he just heard the cadence in his head: get him, get him, get him, get him!
He caught up with the bastard when Paul jumped over a bush in the park and stumbled. Jake got three good punches in before being surprised with two swift kicks: one to the stomach, and one to the chin while he was clutching his midsection.
And then Paul was gone, sprinting away through the stunned onlookers. Jake rolled over onto his back with a groan, and then Grace came into his vision. “Oh my God, are you all right? Are you all right?” she asked frantically, her hands on his face and arms.
He touched his chin and winced. “He didn’t look like he knew karate, did he?” he groaned. She helped him up. “I’m fine, no I’m fine,” he insisted to the few people who came to investigate.
“Who the hell was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Jesus, you’ve got people chasing you in every life.”
As they started back to his apartment, Jake spared a glance at a familiar man watching them with great interest. As the gray-haired old man raised a cigarette to his lips, he gave Jake a slight nod.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one being chased.
Karl Alexander lit the candle in the center of the table while Grace tried to relax. Jake stood off to the side, holding a towel-covered ice pack to his chin. “People chasing you,” he murmured thoughtfully, dropping the spent match onto the table. “Maybe we’d better step things up today.”
The old man used his soothing voice to talk her down into the now familiar state of relaxation. “Go down the staircase slowly, and relax into the hypnosis. Today, I want you to go back to the time when things started to turn sour for Mulder and Scully.”
Mere minutes later, she stepped through the imaginary door and began to speak.
July 1999
Her heart is pounding so loudly, it wakes her up. She was dreaming of running through a forest, chasing Mulder, tripping over branches and the uneven ground. She’s been dreaming this dream for weeks, since they first slept together.
She places her hand over her heart as she hears a faint “Scully” and realizes that it’s not her heart; someone is banging on her door.
Mulder brushes past her when she opens the door, and before she can chastise him for waking her at three in the morning, the Gunmen follow him in. She frowns and closes the door behind them, then turns to see them standing in the middle of the living room, shifting nervously in an anxious dance.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her concern over not wearing a robe forgotten. “What is it?”
Mulder raises an overstuffed file folder. “We have it, Scully.” She looks as rumpled as he, he notes, but her intelligent eyes are instantly alert.
“Have what?” Her eyes flick from him to the rest of the group, seeing excitement thinly veiled behind the mask of sleeplessness.
“Proof.” His voice is full of breathless excitement. “There’s a ship. In Africa.”
They’ve heard this before, of course, all of them. But it’s been a long time since any of them have been so seemingly eager to believe. This is what makes the decision for her, and she gives them a nod. “Put on some coffee, Mulder, and let me get dressed.”
They sit at her table, untouched mugs of coffee sitting beside them, leaning over the contents of the folder.
The rain is coming down in sheets over her windshield as she drives home from the office the next day, and visibility is low enough to make her pull over to the side of the road to answer her ringing cell phone. “Scully,” she says over the rapid swish of the wipers.
“They’re dead.” Mulder’s voice is flat over the line. Flat and stunned.
“Who’s dead?” she asks, but she already knows, her heart pounding with a thick feeling of dread. “Mulder?”
“The Gunmen.” And he clicks off the line. She dials his number, desperate to hear his voice, to hear him say that it’s not true, that he was mistaken, or that she misheard. But it’s a recording that answers, not his familiar voice; he’s turned off his phone.
Scully waits for the downpour to subside and clutches the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip as she weeps.
He finds the first bug that night. In a fit of blind rage and grief, he smashes his desk lamp into the wall, taking great satisfaction in the shattering noise that fills the room. When the adrenaline fades, he realizes he needs light there in order to keep working with the files. He moves the lamp from the foyer onto the desk, and when he bends over to plug it in, he sees that the outlet cover is askew.
They’ve swept for bugs many times before, but this one is unlike any he’s ever seen. Mulder stares at it, as if it could explain how they missed it, as if it could tell him how many more there were. As if it could tell him how they could have been so careless.
Scully finds him there on the floor, a screwdriver in one hand, tiny device in the other. Fury replaces her sorrow, and she clutches Mulder in a fierce embrace.
Three hours later, neither has spoken a word, but through silent tears and shared looks of disbelief, they have unearthed three more bugs in his apartment and four in her own. The devices remain where they are, so as not to arouse more suspicion.
She holds him in her arms that sleepless night, in a small motel in Virginia. It’s still pouring outside, and the room smells dank and old as she tells him it’s not his fault and lets him drift into a restless sleep with his head in her lap.
She is afraid.
Neither is surprised to find bugs in the lamps in the office the next morning.
In Skinner’s office, the AD offers murmured condolences. A minute of awkward silence passes before he asks, “What were they involved in?”
Mulder glances at Scully, but she doesn’t seem to hear the odd tone in their superior’s voice. “Sir?” Mulder prompts, wanting to know if he was just imagining things.
Skinner shuffles some papers on his desk and adjusts his glasses. “Their place was reduced to a pile of ashes, Agent Mulder. This wasn’t accidental, or the work of some local pyro.” A pause, and he blinks twice. “What did they find?”
There is something there, in the older man’s voice. Mulder feels his palms grow damp, and he clenches them into fists in his lap. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice as level as he can manage.
“Do you remember when Skinner was sick?” he asks her that evening, as they get ready for their second night in another drab motel room. He leans forward in the chair, still dressed in his suit and tie. Fingers steepled over his nose, he goes on before she can answer, “He stopped our investigation as soon as he was out of the hospital. We had to drop it, end of discussion.”
“I remember.” Scully peels off her pantyhose and lies back on the bed, staring up at the cracked ceiling.
“What did you think when he did that?”
She rolls onto her side to look at him, and he meets her exhausted gaze with his own. She knows he didn’t get any more than an hour or so of sleep the night before; she knows because she slept just as poorly. “What are you getting at, Mulder?”
He slumps in the chair and his hands drop to his side, long fingers almost brushing the matted beige carpet. “I think he knows something.”
“Mulder…” Her tone tells him that she doesn’t agree.
“Our homes are bugged. Our office is bugged.” He shakes his head abruptly and sighs, frustrated. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”
Scully sits up. “Come here,” she says gently, and he takes the two steps to join her on the bed. Again she holds him, and after it’s grown dark, his hands move over her, his mouth reaching for hers.
He tastes like fear and exhaustion; these are familiar things to her. The aggressiveness with which he touches her, however, is not. “Two halves of the same person,” he murmurs, and his eyes are wild. Scully is unnerved by his fervor, but she kisses him and guides him between her thighs.
There will most likely be bruises on her breasts and hips in the morning, a physical reminder of him, his desperation. She welcomes it.
Some things never change, and barely healed wounds are easily opened. They’ve been here before, but she was the one fighting to make him see that Diana couldn’t be trusted.
“We need help on this, Mulder. We’re in over our heads.” It’s seven- thirty the next morning; she’s already dressed for work in one of her ubiquitous black suits, and dressed for an argument, arms crossed and brow furrowed.
His fingers clench in the sheet bunched around his waist. “No,” he says simply. “Not Skinner.”
“Then who? The smoking man? Krycek? Who else is left?”
Neither of them slept much the night before; even sex as a sedative didn’t help. His eyes are red and tired, yet gleaming with a fire that makes her take a step back as he approaches.
“Me. You trust me.” There is an odd tone in his voice that makes it difficult for her to hold his gaze. “We do this alone.”
While she isn’t afraid of him, the stress of the past few days causes her stomach to flutter nervously. “Mulder…”
He grabs her arm with a force that surprises her. “Don’t.”
Anger flares up in her at the warning tone she hears in his voice. “Let go. You’re hurting me.”
After a long moment of studying her, he lets go. She resists the urge to rub her arm, and wonders if there will be a mark there – if he has marked her like he had last night.
She wants to tell him she’ll see him later, she’ll call him later, tell him anything, but she can’t. Not when he’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, never trusted her.
There’s nothing she can say to him, so she leaves him there and tries to convince herself she wasn’t afraid of what she saw in his eyes.
She’s not in the office when he arrives two hours later. She doesn’t answer her cell, either. There’s no note for him on his desk, no sign that she’d even been there yet. Running a hand through his still-rumpled hair, he tries to think of where she might be.
When the inkling hits him, he doesn’t want to consider it. Scully wouldn’t do that, he thinks. Even though they argued, she wouldn’t sell him out.
Come on, it’s Scully, he insists, even as he finds himself walking back toward the elevator. She wouldn’t do that, he repeats as he pushes open the door to Skinner’s outer office.
Kimberly isn’t at her desk, and the door to the office is closed. He can hear the murmur of voices from behind the door, and he steps closer without any hesitation.
Skinner’s voice is low, and Mulder can’t make out all of what he’s saying. “… looking into … dangerous…”
There’s a pause, and then he hears an all-too-familiar voice, speaking in a tense murmur. He presses his palm against the wood of the door, as if he can stop her. If he isn’t too late already.
“Mulder…” Last night, and many nights before, the sound of his name from her lips aroused him; now it slices through him in a sharp jolt of pain. “… what to do.”
Skinner again: “… help you … protected…”
Mulder barely stops himself before slamming his fist into the door. No, he wants to cry. Scully, no. Don’t do this. There’s a long silence, and then finally he hears her say, “I’m worried about him.”
“Agent Mulder?” He whirls around to see Kimberly standing behind him, looking at him with a knowing expression, as if she is smug at catching him eavesdropping. “Do you need to see AD Skinner?”
He stares at her, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. There’s nothing he can say to her, nothing he can say to anybody right now that could do justice to the pain coursing through him. As he storms past her, he brushes roughly against her, and he doesn’t miss the flash of fear in her eyes.
Good, he thinks, pushing past other agents on the way to the elevator. Let her tell them he was there. Let her tell them he knows.
Skinner follows her down to the basement later, after she’s left his office without telling him anything.
He corners her outside the elevator and cuts to the chase. “Whatever you and Mulder have found, I need to know.” She looks up at him, lips pursed, hesitation in her eyes. He presses. “It’s big enough to kill for.” The reminder makes her flinch, and he rests a large palm on her shoulder, wondering how she can be so tense without shattering upon the impact of his touch. “I’m sorry about your friends.”
Her lip trembles, once, her eyes full of anger and sorrow. “So am I.”
“Let me help you,” he whispers, his hand squeezing her shoulder. Her eyes slip closed and for a brief moment, she leans toward him, as if looking for comfort. “Scully.”
“Sir.”
“You and Mulder need my help,” he stresses. “Mulder’s falling apart, or very close to it.”
She returns to her own space, walls rebuilt. “I can’t.” The frustration in Skinner’s answering sigh is obvious, along with something that feels to her like desperation. “Mulder and I need to pursue this alone,” she says, hoping she sounds like she believes it.
Skinner looks at her for a hard moment before turning to go. When the elevator doors close, she stares at them and taps the toe of her shoe on the scuffed floor. If she could only convince Mulder, she could take up Skinner’s offer of help. Mulder knows the danger of what they’ve been given. And she wants to trust Skinner.
“What did you tell him?” His voice, low and flat, makes her jump. She hadn’t seen him standing there in the shadows.
“Jesus, Mulder, you scared the hell out of me.”
He takes two steps toward her, coming into the light. “What did you tell him?”
“Mulder, I didn’t.”
Two more steps, and she can see him shaking. Whether it’s from exhaustion or something else, she doesn’t know.
“You went behind my back!” His sudden rage echoes off the basement walls, but doesn’t move her. “You’re the only one I trust, and you sold me out!” He throws the file at her feet, and for achingly long seconds, the only sounds are his breathing and the rustle of papers as they skitter along the floor.
He searches her eyes, looking for signs of guilt, of satisfaction, anything else. All he sees is himself reflected back in her gaze.
When she speaks, her voice betrays only the slightest tremor. “You haven’t slept in days, Mulder. Go home.” She can’t look at him again as she walks up the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator while her heart rips in two.
“Mulder’s falling apart.” Skinner’s words replay in her head, juxtaposed with Mulder’s accusation of betrayal. She holds herself in check until she’s inside her car. Clutching the steering wheel, she crumbles, shaking with the force of her tears.
“Agent Scully, you look terrible,” someone says to her as they pass in the hall the next day. Scully, who didn’t sleep the night before, can’t bring even a forced smile to her taut lips.
For the second night in a row, she sought retreat at her mother’s, lying sleepless in the unfamiliar bed of the spare room. Just as it did the long night before, Mulder’s voice sound in her head. Is she betraying him by going to Skinner? Or is she protecting them both? And if it’s the latter, will he be able to understand?
“Agent Scully,” another male voice says, and it takes her a moment before she realizes someone is speaking to her. It’s Skinner, towering over her with a look of concern. “Are you all right?”
Although her eyes are heavy, she forces them open wider and finally finds a false smile for him. “Sir. Yes, I’m fine.”
If fine means I’m so exhausted I can’t focus on my job; if fine means worry for my partner overshadows every waking moment; if fine means I’m afraid for my life and I’m not sure if I should trust you, then yes. I’m fine.
By the time her thoughts have filtered through her foggy mind, she realizes Skinner is talking, bending down to her, speaking in a hushed voice. “… working late. Can you come up around six-thirty?”
She starts to agree, but stops when she realizes she has no idea what she’s agreeing to. “I … I’m sorry. Sir? What was that?”
His lips form a thin line in his not unkind face. “I said we need to meet. Come up to my office at about six-thirty.”
I can’t make this decision right now, she thinks, licking her lips to stall for time. I can’t.
But he goes on, saying, “Scully, we need to talk about this … this ship you say you’ve found.”
This ship.
She hasn’t mentioned anything about the ship. She knows this with blinding certainty. Blinking with sudden realization, she stares up at him.
“Are you all right?” he asks, and she realizes she’s been staring at him for what must have been a full minute.
“Yeah,” she hears herself saying as she backs away. “Um, I haven’t been sleeping well.” Her voice sounds calm, much calmer than she feels.
“Will I see you at six-thirty then, Agent?”
“Yes,” she agrees absently, her mind already whirring ahead of her as she turns and hurries to the elevator.
Mulder isn’t at his apartment, nor is he at hers. His cell phone is still off, and she has no way of reaching him. “Shit,” she whispers, throwing her cell onto the passenger seat and covering her face with her hands.
The car is probably bugged anyway. The paranoia that has been eating at her the past few days doesn’t even register now; all that remains is sinking acceptance.
“Mulder,” she whispers. “You were right.” After a minute of trying to compose herself, she opens the car door again. Her spine straight, she heads back to the office. It’s time to stop this.
“I have something for you,” a familiar voice says, stepping forward into the light of the office and raising the knife. She sees Jake’s face and gasps…
CHAPTER FIVE
2035
Grace’s eyes snapped open, a ragged gasp tearing from her throat.
“What is it?” Jake asked, seeing the terror in her wide eyes.
Slowly, her eyes moved to his, as if she were afraid to look at him. “You were in the office,” she whispered.
“What office?”
“Mulder and Scully’s.”
Karl leaned forward, eyes glistening with interest. “You saw Mr. Morgan … Jake … in the past?”
“He had a knife. He was going to kill me.”
“This must mean that things are coming back into the present.” Karl mused, his gaze moving between Jake and Grace.
Jake couldn’t believe this. It was ridiculous! “It means I’m on her mind, that’s all! Grace,” he pleaded, reaching for her. She pulled her arm away from him.
“We could regress you, Jake.”
“I’m not Mulder!” He looked to Grace, who looked at him with a combination of fear and confusion.
“You were there. It was real.”
The phone was ringing as Jake unlocked the door to the apartment. It was a welcome sound after the tense silence on the ride home. He would look over to see her watching him with fear in her eyes, as if she were still seeing him standing over her with the knife.
“Hello,” he barked into the phone. It was Ben; he had located Walter Skinner in a veterans’ retirement home in the city. “Can you get a message to him? Tell him Agent Scully wants to know if he still wants that meeting.” He slammed down the phone without saying goodbye.
Grace stood in the entryway, watching him. “I’m afraid of you, Jake.”
He looked at the floor, hands on his hips. “You’re afraid of a dead man.”
“Two people can keep meeting over and over again, that’s what Mike said.”
“If that’s true, then why would I want to hurt you?” he asked.
“Why would Mulder want to hurt Scully?”
“I’m not Mulder!” he yelled. In a flash of anger, he stalked into the kitchen and grabbed a bread knife from where it lay in the drying rack by the sink. “Here.” He walked back and held it out to her. “Take it,” he said when she just stared at it.
“I … I don’t want that.”
“Well I want you to have it,” he insisted. When she still hesitated, he yelled, “Take the fucking knife, Grace!” With a shaking hand, she took the knife from him, and he grabbed her wrist. “We can’t have you being afraid of me, can we?”
He pulled her behind him into the kitchen, where he yanked open a drawer and pulled out a carving knife. “Take this one, too. We can’t have any knives lying around.”
She took it, stammering her protestations, a hitch in her voice as he dragged her down the hall and into the bathroom. “Take this one too,” he said, handing her a rusted nail file. “I might scratch your eyes out!”
Grace was crying now, and dropped the knives as he pulled her into the bedroom. “Jake, stop, please!” She crawled onto the bed and into the corner against the wall, cowering away from him.
He opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out his gun. “You might as well have this, too!” He advanced towards her, waving the gun in the air for emphasis. “I come near you in the middle of the night — BAM! You blow my fucking head off!” He got onto the bed and pressed the gun into her hand, closing her fingers around the handle.
And then Jake sat back on his heels, the anger draining from him in one breath. “Jesus,” he whispered, hearing her sobbing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He reached for her, wanting to touch her, wanting to feel that peaceful recognition he loved. “I would never hurt you, Scully.”
In the blink of an eye, he was looking down the barrel of his own gun.
“You’re walking down the stairs, and with each step, you’re going into a deeper state of hypnosis. At the end of the stairs is a door, and on the other side of the door you’ll find a memory, any memory. And you are not an observer,” Karl said firmly. “Open the door, Jake, and tell me what you see.”
<a doorway, a hardwood floor, a shoe>
“I see the floor … my leg … a chair, a desk …”
<the cluttered desk, a chair on either side, poster on the wall, I want to believe>
“A … a poster on the wall, a chair … a chair.” His voice tightened with frustration. “I see my leg, my shoes.”
<a leg encased in hose, a foot in a black pump, the chair, the desk>
“What else do you see?” urged Karl.
<cluttered desk, cluttered walls, file cabinets, a glass display case>
“I see … the desk, stuff on the walls! File cabinets … a … shelves with glass doors.”
“Go to the shelves. Can you see your reflection?”
<smooth legs in hose, a dark skirt>
“Do you know your name?”
<tailored blazer, white shirt, golden cross on a chain>
“Yes,” Jake whispered, his hands rising to his strained face.
“What is your name?”
<red hair, Scully>
“…have to stop this.”
<Scully, Dana Katherine Scully, have to stop this, have to stop this.>
1999
“I have to stop this,” Scully mutters, smoothing down her hair before going to the phone. Composure is necessary, even when remaining unseen. She punches in the four-digit extension. “Kimberly, let me speak to AD Skinner, please.”
She waits, maintaining her ramrod straight posture as she clenches her fist at her side, mentally rehearsing again what she had to say. “Sir, it’s Scully. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel our meeting. I realize that, sir. Agent Mulder and I need to go our own route on this. Yes, sir.”
As she hangs up, a noise at the door startles her, and she jumps with a gasp. Mulder is at the door, watching. Listening.
2035
Jake’s eyes opened with a gasp.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Karl announced.
“No, you haven’t.” Jake shook his head slowly. “I’m not Mulder,” he said firmly, then turned to Grace. “And you’re …”
“Hello, Lily McCormack!” All heads swiveled to see Ben standing in the doorway, a purse in his hand, and Karl’s housekeeper close behind him.
“What?” Grace breathed.
“That’s your name – Lily McCormack.” He handed the small black purse to her. “You live in Alexandria. Your neighbor was out of town for a few days, but she finally saw your picture in the paper. When she couldn’t get in touch with Jake, she called the paper.” Grace opened the bag and rifled through it. “You were apparently mugged the evening before you turned up at the Hoover Building. You seemed a little jumpy when your neighbor saw you, but otherwise okay. Then the next day … ” He shook his head, beaming.
Jake reached for her. “Grace,” he began.
“No!” she shouted, yanking the wallet and her hand away. Her eyes glistened with naked fear.
Jake stared at her. He wanted to shake her, he wanted to tell her what he’d just learned, he wanted to tell her what she meant to him, he … “I gotta get out of here,” he muttered, knocking the chair to the floor as he stood and swept past Ben.
“So let me get this straight,” Mike said, holding the Newsweek magazine. He pointed at the picture of Scully. “You were this woman,” he pointed to the picture of Mulder, “and she was your partner. Your lover.”
“Yes,” Jake said, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It was bizarre, it was ridiculous . and yet it somehow fit perfectly. It explained the almost constant sense of déjà vu, the feeling of comfort and strong attraction he felt with her, the way their lovemaking had felt like coming home after such a long time. He shook his head.
“Makes sense,” Mike agreed. “Gender switching happens all the time. You can be Bob in one life and Betty in the next.” He tossed the magazine onto the counter.
“Two halves of the same person,” Jake murmured. “But she was telling Scully’s story. If she was Mulder, how does that work?”
Mike scratched the back of his neck and stared down at the magazine. “Well, you said the old guy told her to distance herself. That could be it. Or maybe something screwy happened in the,” he waved a hand vaguely, “time and space continuum. Maybe your souls got the whole story somewhere along the line before this life.”
“Oh, that’s fucking ridiculous,” Jake snapped.
“And the rest of this isn’t?” Mike laughed.
Jake bowed his head and sighed. “So what the hell do I do now?”
“You kill her.” Mike’s voice was matter-of-fact and brooked no argument.
“What?” Jake hissed, looking at his friend.
“It’s karma, man. Thirty years ago she killed you, and now she’s back to do it again. Kill her before she can kill you.” He shrugged. “Karmically speaking, self defense is pretty cool.”
“Maybe Mulder didn’t kill her.”
“They convicted the guy, didn’t they?”
Jake shook his head. “I didn’t see him kill her.” He leaned his hands on the counter and bowed his head. “I can’t kill her, Mike. I’m in love with her.”
Mike shook his head. “You gotta break the circle, Jake my friend. Do it now before history repeats itself, over and over again.”
“But … why would she want to kill me now?”
“I don’t know. But can you afford to take the time to find out?”
Jake trudged back out to his car and sat in the dark, his head against the steering wheel. He wasn’t going to kill Grace. There was no way in heaven or hell he could do that.
Maybe she had called him. He used his cell phone to check his voicemail; while there wasn’t a call from Grace, he had gotten a call from a Walter Skinner, who wanted to meet with him.
Jake tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and sped off down the street.
Jake sat in a chair by Walter Skinner’s bed and waited impatiently while the bald man raised his hospital bed to a sitting position. When the old man turned to look at him, a gasp left his thin lips; there was no question he saw the resemblance between Jake and Mulder.
“You say somebody is claiming to be Dana Scully,” Skinner said after a moment, his voice surprisingly strong and clear. While his body was weak and thin now, Jake could easily see him as impressive and intimidating thirty-five years ago.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Mulder said it wasn’t over.” His sigh trailed off into a hacking cough. “That was the last thing he said to me, that it couldn’t be the end. I assumed that meant he would fight the conviction, that there was more than meets the eye, but the next day he was dead.” Filmy tears covered his cloudy eyes, but he blinked them away. “It wasn’t suicide.”
“But you couldn’t prove it.”
Skinner turned his head to bark at Jake, “Of course I couldn’t prove it! Don’t you think I would have gone public with that information, if I’d had it? Don’t you think I would have saved him if I could? I know he didn’t kill Scully, but I couldn’t prove it!” he yelled, his fist pounding into his hip, punctuating the last few words.
The shouting made the old man cough and hack, and Jake looked around nervously. “You all right? Should I get a nurse or something?”
Skinner waved him away as the coughs subsided. “Mulder didn’t kill Scully,” he said, calmer now. “He couldn’t have.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.” There was sorrow and regret in the old man’s voice. “I’ve always had my suspicions, but I wasn’t able to prove anything. I was being used in the game, just like they were. Difference was, I ended up on the wrong side. That’s not where I wanted to be,” he added in a voice barely more than a whisper. “They used me to find out the location of the ship. Threatened me with what was in my own blood.”
“Tell me what happened,” Jake said. He didn’t think it would help him find any answers, but he realized this might be his only chance to find out how Scully – how he – had died.
Skinner exhaled loudly, whether from annoyance or in preparation for reliving a dark time, Jake couldn’t tell. “As soon as I found out, I went down to their office to talk to her. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I was going to try and get her to change her mind, or tell her the truth — that I was being used against them. I just knew I had to talk to her.”
1999
He hears the sounds as soon as the elevator doors open, and Skinner is momentarily confused. Low and primal, the sounds are incomprehensible, and are coming from Mulder’s office. For a brief, absurd moment, he thinks Mulder and Scully have finally succumbed to temptation. But then the feral moan turns into a wail, and the voice begins to scream for help.
Skinner runs the final distance to the office, and when he sees them inside, it’s all he can do to brace himself against the doorframe to hold himself up.
There is so much blood that he doesn’t know if they’ve both been hurt. But Scully isn’t moving, save for the rocking motion of Mulder’s body surrounding hers.
His body is slowly going numb, and at first he doesn’t know what to do. He finally thinks to call an ambulance, and hopes that his moment of blinding ignorance hasn’t made the difference between life and death. The small, blood-soaked, motionless form before him tells him it hasn’t, and he chokes down the bile rising in his throat.
Skinner, feeling like his hands are weighted down with lead, slowly lifts the receiver to his ear and dials. After he relays the information and hangs up, his words continue to ring through his head.
Agent down.
He knows better than to approach Mulder, and he has no idea what to say, where to even begin. The sounds coming from the younger agent are frightening him; they are not sounds a human should ever have to make.
It’s then that he sees the knife in Mulder’s hand, clutched tightly in his fist. Skinner takes a step back as the visual information registers in his brain.
“I’m worried about him.” Scully’s voice echoes in his mind, and Skinner’s hands start to shake.
By the time the ambulance arrives, the knife has fallen onto the floor and Mulder is sobbing into her hair, his hands clenching at her back. Skinner has to look away.
The paramedics are respectful as they persuade Mulder to let go, to let them help her. Somehow, they are successful, but they cannot hide their grim expressions that confirm what Skinner could only guess.
As they move her onto the gurney, he sees the knife on the floor and grabs two evidence bags from a shelf. Using one in lieu of a rubber glove, he deposits the weapon into the other and prays to a god he’s not sure he believes in anymore that there are other fingerprints besides Mulder’s.
Outside in the growing dusk, a small crowd has gathered, comprised of passers-by and a few late-working agents. There are murmurs as the paramedics carry Scully to the waiting ambulance, a blood-covered Mulder at her side and a stunned Skinner not far behind.
The ambulance screams away, but the onlookers remain, watching as the lanky man stumbles after it into the street. Skinner can’t stand back anymore, and approaches his agent.
“Mulder,” he says, reaching out to touch the younger man’s shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say, but he has to say something.
Mulder turns at the touch, finally acknowledging Skinner’s presence. He raises his arm, knocking his boss’ hand from his shoulder. Skinner steps back and, seeing the fury and hatred in Mulder’s eyes, is afraid. But Mulder’s shoulders slump, and he turns away again.
“I’m sorry,” Skinner offers after a pause, and is unprepared for what his words have unleashed in the younger man.
It takes three men to pull Mulder off of him; Skinner knows without a doubt that if they had been alone, Mulder would surely have killed him. Someone tries to help Skinner up, but he pushes them away, climbing to his feet on his own.
Mulder’s voice is hoarse and inhuman, but there’s no mistaking the accusations and threats he screams.
As they drag him away, Skinner looks down to see that now he, too, is covered in Scully’s blood. It seems very appropriate, and he doesn’t bother to hide his tears.
2035
Jake scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to erase the image of Mulder and Scully in their grim embrace and sighed, getting up to leave. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Skinner.”
“I always thought it might have been the smoking man,” Skinner continued. Jake turned at the door, ears pricking up at the phrase he had heard Grace tell of while under hypnosis.
“Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know. I hope the bastard died a long, painful death of lung cancer. I looked for years, but I was never able to find either him or Alex Krycek.”
“Alex Krycek,” Jake repeated in a murmur.
“The smoking man’s lackey. Real evil son of a bitch.” Skinner gave something that resembled a bitter laugh. “Sometimes I can still feel those things in my blood, rusting away.”
Jake had no idea what he was talking about, and snapped out an impatient, “What?” But Skinner continued as if he hadn’t heard him.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he was still lurking around, hiding in plain sight. That rat bastard,” he spat as he lowered his bed back down to a horizontal position. “He’s the kind of shit bag that survives anything, even with only one arm.”
One arm.
Alex Krycek.
Karl Alexander.
Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER SIX
The grand house in Georgetown was dark. Jake stared up at the shaded windows and thought about breaking in.
“If you’re looking for Alex Krycek, he’s not here.” Jake spun around to see a man standing behind him, hidden in the darkness. Aside from the thin shadow of his form, all that stood out was the orange glow of his cigarette. “And neither is Karl Alexander.” His voice was a soft wheeze, and Jake had to strain to hear him.
The stranger moved forward, catching the dim light of the streetlamp, and Jake recognized him as the man he had seen outside this house and in the park earlier that day. “I’ve seen you. Who the hell are you?”
“It’s not important. It never was.” He smiled a thin, humorless smile and came toward Jake, his steps slow but sure.
Jake took a step back, even though the man appeared to be unarmed. Even if he did have a weapon on him, Jake doubted the old man had the strength to use it. “How do you know about Alex Krycek?” He shook his head. “How do you know me?”
The old man with the unimportant name leaned against the railing for support. “I know you’ve been to see Walter Skinner. I know about the woman without a voice who showed up at the Bureau. And I know all about these hypnosis sessions with the upstanding Mr. Alexander.”
“But … how?” Jake asked, feeling his head start to spin.
The man smiled again, dropping the cigarette to the ground and flattening it with his shoe. “I come and go as I please, Mr. Morgan. I always have.” He appraised Jake with a wondering gaze. “You do look very much like Fox Mulder.” He shook his head.
“So could you cut the chit chat and tell me who the hell you are?”
“Of course.” He took another step forward, and in the yellowish glow of the porch light, Jake got a look at his watery, pale eyes and shuddered. “I’m the man who ordered the death of Dana Scully.”
This was the smoking man, Jake realized. It had to be. Jesus, this was the man who had killed Mulder and Scully. Who killed me. A combination of disgust and rage bubbled up inside him, and he took two steps toward the old man, wanting to wrap his hands around that wrinkled neck and squeeze.
But the old man just looked at him, seemingly emotionless and unafraid. He stared coldly at Jake, and Jake stopped mere inches from him. “Why?” he growled, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“I had spared their lives so many times before, but I couldn’t anymore.” He shook his head. “Not with the information they had. Not with the vulnerability of our work at that time.”
“Aliens and colonization,” Jake scoffed. “Great story, but I’m holding out for the movie.”
“You laugh, Mr. Morgan, but you have no idea how close the human race came to extinction. None.” He sighed, and when he continued, his voice was almost wistful. “Had I known the outcome, I would have been able to spare their lives once again. But instead, I had to make sure Dana Scully was dead, and that Mulder was framed for her murder. It wasn’t all that difficult, knowing Mulder’s reputation in the Bureau. And then Mulder was killed in prison. Just in case,” he added, as if making a little joke. “I never underestimated Fox Mulder.” He flicked his eyes back to Jake. “Then or now.”
“So why are you here now?”
“I’ve kept tabs on Alex Krycek over the years, partly for amusement, but mostly because I didn’t want to turn my back on him. He’s probably suspected that I’ve been lurking around, three steps behind him, but he’s still the arrogant fool that he always was. Some years ago, he took up an interest in hypnosis and regression, partially inspired by Fox Mulder’s work. He latched on to the idea of reincarnation, and from then on was convinced that Scully would come back to exact her revenge.”
Jake wiped a hand over his face and stared at the old man. “I’m guessing there’s more.”
“You’re as astute in this life as you were in the last,” the man said, and Jake thought he might be sick. A burst of absurd laughter came from his throat instead.
“Krycek, or Alexander, or whatever you want to call him, hired that actor to play her fiancee. What he would have done once the job was complete, I don’t know. Maybe someone would have been hired to kill her.”
Jake shuddered. “Why are you telling me all of this now?”
“I used to be a very powerful man, Mr. Morgan. The things I was involved in would horrify you.” He gave Jake a pointed look. “I would advise you not to dig any deeper into your memories of Dana Scully.” Jake made a mental note of agreement. “I’m dying, and I’d like to think this is my final encore, my last act of power here.” He paused, looking up at the stately brick house. “I have no qualms about using it against Alex Krycek.”
The two men stood in silence for a long minute before it even occurred to Jake that he had to leave, had to get to Grace as quickly as he could. “I’m leaving now,” he said, his voice a lot steadier than it should have been. “But if I ever see you – around me or Grace – I will kill you.”
The smoking man nodded respectfully. “You won’t have to worry about me, Jake. I didn’t want to kill them in the last life, and I don’t want to kill either of you now.” Jake moved to leave, but turned back at the man’s, “Oh. I almost forgot.”
He reached into the pocket of his jacket. “Krycek brought this to me after he killed Scully.” His thin lips twisted into a grimace. “He knew how it pained me to give the order, and he brought this to mock me.” The man dropped the object into Jake’s upturned palm. “It’s time it was returned.”
Jake looked down to see a thin gold chain with a small cross. Scully’s necklace. His necklace. He pocketed it and left without looking back.
1999
“Sir, it’s Scully. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel our meeting. I realize that, sir. Agent Mulder and I need to go our own route on this. Yes, sir.”
As she hangs up, a noise at the door startles her, and she jumps with a gasp. Mulder is at the door, watching. Listening.
“Mulder!” she gasps.
“I’m so sorry, Scully.” He pulls her into her arms before she’s over her confusion and surprise, but it’s only a moment before she sags against him, her arms wrapping around his waist. “I’m sorry.”
“God, Mulder …” she begins, suddenly feeling as though she can no longer hold herself up.
“No,” he whispers. We can’t talk here. Tilting her chin up with his fingers, he gestures toward the door with his head. Almost immediately, she stiffens and pulls away from him. With a nod, she leads the way outside.
Once they’re outside, they walk briskly down the sidewalk, away from the Hoover building. “Scully, I …”
“Skinner knows,” she interrupts. “He said we needed to talk about the ship.” Her gaze is sharp for the first time in days. “And I didn’t tell him a damn thing.” She sighs. “You were right, Mulder.”
He squeezes her hand. “It doesn’t matter.” Coming to a halt, he tugs at her hand, guiding her into an alley. “I ran into Skinner earlier. He pressed me for answers, told me that you had been less than forthcoming.” He shakes his head, lips pursed into a frown. “He looked desperate, Scully. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“They’re holding something over him, I’m sure.”
“It doesn’t matter now. We have a meeting tonight, with someone who can help us. It’ll be out of our hands.” At her look of surprise, he gently adds, “We were both right.”
“What happens then?” she prompts, although she fears she already knows.
He raises a hand to cup her cheek; she leans into his touch. “We’ll have to disappear for a while,” he finishes softly.
“I thought you were supposed to be indispensable.” She closes her eyes, moving closer to him and wishing she could just step into his arms and sleep right there.
“I think the rules changed after El Rico,” he says with a ragged chuckle. She feels tears rising in her throat, and she tries to hide them by turning away. “Hey. It’s going to be all right, Scully.” A rueful smile is her response, and he presses a tender kiss to her furrowed brow. “As long as we stick together, we’ll be all right.”
She finally allows herself to lean against his warm, solid body. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I complete you. I make you a whole person and all that.”
“Two halves of the same person,” he agrees with a smile, and he’s never meant anything more.
Then she straightens and wipes her eyes. Her fatigue has made her emotional, and even in the circle of Mulder’s arms, she’s embarrassed by it. “Let me go back and get my things.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, we don’t want to raise suspicion. Just tell me where and when, and I’ll be there.”
Mulder frowns, not sure that he wants to leave her side. “Meet me at the motel we stayed at in Richmond at five.” She nods her agreement. “Be careful,” he adds.
“Always.”
“I love you,” he whispers as he watches her walk back to the office.
2035
“Ben, I need her address.” Jake sped his Honda towards Alexandria, leaving a reckless trail of honks, curses and run red lights in its wake.
“I don’t know if that’s the best idea, Jake.” Ben’s voice crackled over the cell phone. “I went over there with her and that old man. He warned her about you, told her that you would be coming for her, to exact your revenge or some bullshit like that. What the hell is going on, man? He gave her a gun and told her to protect herself! She didn’t want to believe him, but …”
“Fuck.” Jake’s hand slammed down on the steering wheel, gritting his teeth. “I’m going to put a stop to this. Now give me her address.”
“Jake.”
“Goddamn it, give me her fucking address!” he exploded, laying on the horn as he tore through yet another red light.
There was a slight pause before Ben responded. “42 Hegal Place. Jake…”
Jake severed the connection and tossed the phone onto the seat, pushing the gas pedal a little closer to the floor.
<Before she leaves, Scully wants to take something with her. She looks at Mulder’s poster for a long minute, whispering its mantra and feeling a combination of anger and bitter excitement. She wanted to believe too, but at what cost? Now they would be on the run, hiding from that same truth and the people who fought so brutally to protect it.
With a tenderness that’s just two breaths away from reverence, she reaches up to pull the pushpins from the corners of the poster. As she stretches, she almost misses the noise at the door.
“Mulder?” But no, it’s not Mulder, and it’s too late.>
“Grace!” Jake pounded on her door with his fist. “Grace, it’s Jake. Let me in.”
“Go away!”
“Shit,” he swore, using the heel of his hand to pound harder. “I need to talk to you, Grace!” No answer this time. Hoping she didn’t have a chain lock on her door, he braced himself and rammed his shoulder into the wood, grunting with the effort.
After three tries, the door gave way, and he stumbled into her apartment. “Stay away from me!” she yelled, pointing a small handgun at him.
Her face was twisted into a mask of panic, but beneath that, he could see a struggle, as if she wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do. “Jesus! Grace, it’s me!” he insisted, but put his hands up to show he was unarmed. They circled around each other, Jake watching her wild eyes closely. “Just calm down, Grace. I need to tell you some things.”
“Shut up!”
She held the gun expertly, he noticed. Perfect stance for someone who’d never held a gun before. Of course, he thought. Of course she had.
“Just listen to me!” he yelled, shaking off the moment and daring to take a step forward. “Karl Alexander is not who you think he is. He’s been playing us both like fools.” She looked like she might start listening and he grew overconfident, reaching into his pocket. “I have something for you.”
He heard the sharp report of the gun and even smelled the gunpowder before he realized he’d been shot. Pain blossomed in his shoulder and spread, and when he opened his eyes and saw the white ceiling, he finally realized he’d been hit.
“Jake!” She appeared blurry in his vision, as if he was looking at her through a veil of tears. “Oh my God, Jake!” She touched him with shaking hands, and through the haze of pain he saw tears on her cheeks.
I’m fine, he tried to say, but his lips barely moved. He could feel her touching his fingers and when she gasped, he knew she had found the necklace. See? He tried to ask. He hoped her next move would be to call an ambulance.
But she disappeared from his line of sight, and he heard voices, sounding cavernous in his head.
“I shot him,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Good. One less thing for me to worry about.” Krycek.
There was the sound of a hard slap, followed by a cry from Grace and a hard thud. Jake tried to force his eyes open, tried to make a sound, to move to help her, but he could barely keep his head above water.
When he came to, he found he was able to open his eyes enough to see that Grace was lying next to him, unconscious, and something was in his own hand — a knife.
Jake watched in horror as Krycek’s fingers encircled his wrist, bringing the blade of the knife up to Grace’s throat.
<Krycek is on top of Scully before she can reach for her gun, catching her off-balance in her awkward position. “I have something for you,” he sneers. She cries out as the first jab cuts into her shoulder, falling backwards and landing half on Mulder’s desk. “Son of a bitch!” she yells through clenched teeth; Krycek’s grin is cold.>
With a shout of exertion, Jake forced all of his strength into his arm, turning his hand and plunging the blade into Krycek’s thigh. The old man screamed in pain and pulled the knife from his leg, staggering backwards and falling over the coffee table.
<Scully pulls the gun from her holster before the knife comes down again, but it’s too late; before she can aim, the blade’s smooth arc has found its target. She drops to the floor. As he bends over her body, her lips part, and she breathes, “This isn’t over.” Krycek’s lips are set in a grim line as he rips the necklace from her neck. Her wide eyes stare up at him. The light he sees there fades as he drops the knife at her side and wipes her blood from his gloves.>
Jake leapt at Krycek, who sliced the knife toward his face. The weapon, slippery with Krycek’s blood, slipped from his grasp, and Jake watched in horror as it flew across the floor towards Grace. At the last moment, her eyes opened, and her palm shot out, slamming onto the handle of the knife before it could slice into her throat.
<When she doesn’t show up at the motel, and doesn’t answer her cell phone, Mulder rushes back to the office. And when he sees her body, the blood, he gives a soul-wrenching scream and collapses over her still form, gathering her to him and grabbing the knife in desperation. “Somebody help me!”>
Taking advantage of Jake’s distraction, Krycek tackled him, and Jake’s vision blurred with pain as his head made contact with the hard edge of the table.
Grace gave an animal cry and loomed over them, the knife in her hand, ready to strike. Hatred in his green eyes, Krycek lunged at her, and Jake spotted the gun on the floor.
He crawled to it, trying not to think about the blood he was trailing behind him and the fire in his shoulder. His fingers closed around it, and he rolled over to take aim at the old man – the man who had killed him once before, and who would gladly kill him again.
Jake felt no remorse when he squeezed the trigger and killed Alex Krycek. But as the pain flowed through his body, as Grace gathered him into her trembling arms and wept, as the sirens screamed down the street, he felt a deep sense of closure.
“The door just closed,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.
EPILOGUE
<“So I get this message marked “urgent” on my answering service from one Fox Mantle telling me to come down to the park for a very special very early or very late birthday present. And Mulder, I don’t see any nicely wrapped presents lying around, so what gives?”>
He curled his body around hers, and she made a sound of contentment, pulling his arms tighter around her.
<“Get over here, Scully,” he says, and she does.>
He nuzzled the nape of her neck, plucking at the thin gold chain of her necklace with his lips.
<There is a brief, playful struggle as two sets of hands vie for position on the bat. “I’m in the middle,” she says, and gives a rare giggle.>
Rolling over in his arms, she drew his mouth down to hers. As he deepened the kiss, he moved on top of her.
<“We’re going to wait on the pitch. We’re going to keep our eye on the ball. Then, we’re just going to make contact. We’re not going to think. We’re just going to let it fly, Scully, okay?”>
“So what happens now?” she asked as he stroked his hands over her warm, soft body. He’s tracing words on her back, on her thighs, on her belly: two halves.
His lips were tender on her shoulder. “We’re just letting it fly.”
END
Notes and Thanks: I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the movie “Dead Again,” starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. I followed the storyline for this very closely, even going so far as to borrow lines from it. The film was written by Scott Frank and directed by Kenneth Branagh. I hope they don’t mind that I totally stole … er, borrowed their story.
The idea for the crossover bounced around my goofy little head since last spring, growing and growing until I finally started getting it down in September. After a rip-roaring start, it stalled in the middle of the road with only about 10% left to go.
What’s a fic writer to do? She relies on the friendship and pointy sticks of her friends. Between shouts of “WRITE. WRITE NOW.” and “Where’s my story, you bastard?” many giggles were shared. A thousand kisses upon you, ladies.
Top shelf beta by syntax six, Diana Battis, marasmus, and Narida Law. Thanks to Punk for valuable assistance, Alanna for early help, and to Diana for the title. Samsara means eternity and rebirth.
Thank you thank you thank you! And thank YOU, dear reader, for reading. 😉
Feedback lovingly embraced at [email protected].
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