From: "Jori" Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 03:11:54 -0400 Subject: xfc: NEW: Calendar Girl II: 'Seeing You' by Jori 1 of 2 (NC-17/MSR) Source: xfc Title: Calendar Girl II: Seeing You 1/2 Author: Jori E-mail: damienma@bellsouth.net Rating: NC-17 Category: SRA Keywords: MSR Spoilers: Requiem, X-Cops Archive: Yes. Spooky Awards link: http://netroenterprises.com/stories/hpseeingyou.html Disclaimer: Not mine. They belong to FOX, 1013 and CC. I'm only playing. Summary: As Father's Day approaches, the search for Mulder continues. Author's Notes: Thank you, MoJo and Liz, for being such great friends who are always willing to read no matter when or what. Please forgive me if I botched up Wichita, Kansas and Marymount University in this story or the present weather in DC. I suppose this whole series can be considered post episode for Requiem, so if you don't want to be spoiled, wait to read it. This is the second story in the Calendar Girl II series. You can find this entire series on my website at: http://netroenterprises.com/stories/ as well as the Calendar Girl I series. ************** I'll find you in the morning sun; And when the night is new; I'll be looking at the moon; But I'll be seeing you. -- I'll Be Seeing You (Kahal - Fain) ************** FBI Headquarters Washington, DC June 15, 2000 1:57 p.m. "If he went through the trouble of giving someone the number and they went through the trouble of playing cloak and dagger with us and dragging us out to that cemetery . . . . I'm confused. Help me out here. . . if he is that close, why wouldn't he just call himself? Or why wouldn't the man call you directly and not try to go through the entire Naval Academy?" Nicole continues, going on and on about this. We are both seated across from Skinner and I know he agrees with her. It was a lot to get a message to me. Don't they understand it's all I've got to go on right now? "I don't know," I answer. It's the truth. Several weeks later and I know just as little as I did when Midshipmen Tim Lawton told me his story standing on his father's burial site at Arlington National Cemetery. "You haven't been able to discover anything further about this call?" Skinner asks me and sadly I shake my head. No one seems to recollect the supposed scramble to find Ted Lawton or how Tim ended up with the call. Actually, there's no record of this call at all. Then again, dead men rarely make phone calls, so why should there be a record? "Where is this Tim Lawton now?" "He disembarked on his summer cruise on May 30th. He's aboard the USS John Stennis right now, sir," I say, slumping a little lower in my chair briefly. Skinner looks at me and something in his eyes makes me sit back up again. He wants to help. He isn't going to let me give up even on the days I'm certainly ready to. "I know they have e-mail on those ships now, Agent Scully. Why don't you see if you can get back in touch with him. See if the Navy has said anything more about his father . . . if his mother is collecting on his death benefits. I don't know. At some time, someone has to make a mistake and we have to catch them on it," Skinner says. He leans forward in his chair and toward me, not breaking eye contact. Nicole shifts uncomfortably in the chair next to mine as she watches the two of us. She's not stupid. Sooner or later she'll realize that she hasn't been told everything. Why else would this man be so concerned about finding one of his agents when all the signs scream out that he's surely dead by now? Nicole has already figured out that the department Fox Mulder created is despised by the bureau and they have done nothing but try to shut us down in the last few weeks. I have no idea what kind of strings Skinner is pulling to keep us running, but they must be huge. "Agent Larson, do you have anything to add?" Skinner asks as our stare dissolves into me looking at my lap and him looking through the papers in front of him. "I plan to do a little more 'standard' investigation this week. Look into the history around the Bellefleur area. See if any escaped convicts . . ." She continues to rattle on, answered only by Skinner's quiet 'uh-hmms.' I close my eyes briefly and try to listen, but I can't. She just doesn't get it. She never will. Mulder wasn't hauled off into the woods by some serial killer. He didn't run away without a trace. He was taken. Disappeared. Gone. Agent Nicole Larson also doesn't understand just how badly I need him back. I've even started seeing him places I know he's not. I can't help it. Every man with that build and hair color suddenly dissolves into Mulder as they walk by and I find myself trying to catch my breath, waiting for him to come up to me and explain everything. Waiting for my chance to tell him the good news. Wishing so hard for it to be true that it sometimes takes minutes for me to see that these men aren't him. Then my heart breaks all over again. "Agent Scully, are you okay?" Skinner asks, shaking me out of my thoughts. I know tears are teetering on the edge of my eyelids and I fight them with everything I've got. I'm not going to cry in this man's office again. I broke down sometime last week and he was incredibly supportive, but I will not demand that of him constantly. That isn't his job. "I'm fine," I say, blinking my eyes to drive away any remaining tears. Skinner just nods his head at my lie. ************* She's just going over things I've already covered, marking time and going through all the paces. I watch Nicole as she makes several phone calls to various agencies in Oregon. None can offer her any additional information than they could offer me. Or Skinner. Or even Frohike. The boys have even been back out in the woods twice in the last few weeks, setting up equipment to record various data and electrical phenomena. So far, they've come up with nothing. No more than I have. No more than Agent Larson is going to find there, either. Until Nicole accepts what is the truth and believes in it, she will keep banging her head against a brick wall. I can't believe I'm thinking these things, but I've already traveled down the road she's taking now. I'm not sure why we can't work together on . . . damn. I don't even know what path to take right now. None of it makes sense and no one has the answers. Nicole hangs up the phone and smiles brightly at me. "That was a source from the Automated Applied Aerodynamics company. They make some of the components that go into the plane that Captain Andrew Lawton was flying when he . . . crashed . . . as well as manufacture parts that go in most military aircraft. He says he has something for us." I just look at her. For some reason, I believe that if there was anyone out there like that, someone would have found them already. Then again, maybe she got lucky. I have to keep my mind open and give her the benefit of the doubt. "When are we meeting him?" I ask, looking at her over the desk. I'm surprised she hasn't asked for her own yet. Maybe she did and I just didn't hear her or recognize the request. "Tomorrow afternoon. I'll book us two flights to Wichita, Kansas. Until then, it appears that the bureau would like us to do a little more than look for a missing agent," Nicole says as she picks up the phone, dialing it with the eraser end of a pencil. *Missing agent.* Of course that's all he is to them. I absentmindedly run my hands over my belly, waiting for that day I can feel that gentle flutter that will signal once and for all I'm truly not alone in this. I look up to find Nicole watching me as she waits on hold. Her eyes come up from my midsection until they meet mine but there is no startling moment of recognition in them. Maybe she doesn't know. Maybe she just really doesn't even want to know. She stops looking at me and rifles around Mulder's desk, looking for some sort of form. She holds the phone in the crook of her neck as she pulls out something from one of the drawers and starts filling in the lines. Nicole in all her usual manic energy doesn't even get that completed before she hands me a file. With an exasperated sigh, she puts the phone on speaker and returns the receiver to the cradle, still waiting for the other end to get back to her. "That's what they want us to investigate. I think Skinner took it as a favor to someone on the local PD. Said you might have seen something like it a few months ago. It appears that some kid who plays lacrosse for Marymount thinks he saw something last night while he and some of the guys were out . . . doing whatever it is Lacrosse players do together. Something about some sort of primitive man. In Arlington nonetheless. Who would have ever guessed," Nicole says sarcastically and before I can respond, the person she's waiting for picks up on the other end of the phone. "Hold on a sec. I figured we'd run over there quick and put this whole thing to rest. Hey, it's Agent Nicole Larson . . ." I stop listening to her as I start to read over the contents of the file. First, someone filming graduation last month said a strange 'apparition' showed up on the tape, seemingly stalking one of the students. Now it seems the stray cats in the area of Marymount University have been disappearing and more than one student has seen something unusual around campus after dark. Apparently, as Nicole noted, mostly on Friday and Saturday nights during or near a full moon. The University officials had hoped for the sightings to stop during the summer semester when everything quiets down a little, but so far, cats are still missing and students are still seeing this thing . . . And I don't really want to do this. Nicole is off the phone now, watching me, waiting for my reaction to the case. "We have a copy of the graduation film, if you would care to review it. Plus, Skinner sent this along for me to look at," Nicole says, holding up a tape that is labeled simply 'Agents Mulder and Scully, Los Angeles -- Feb. 2000.' Nicole is up and out of her chair, moving around the desk to the TV and VCR with the ease of someone incredibly comfortable with their body. The same ease I had a few months ago. Now nothing is the same and I never know when I'm going to get dizzy again. Soon, my center of gravity will be thrown off and I know I won't be able to do everything I can now. "Do you mind if I watch this?" She hits play before I can even answer. I had forgotten all about this, having chosen not to watch it. I know Mulder did, under the guise of seeing if we could have done things differently. He said he wanted to analyze his train of 'logic;' to figure out if we could have solved it earlier. Or else he simply enjoyed watching himself. Nicole stands in front of the TV, not paying attention to me, as his voice fills the room. Mulder's words boom around this void, louder than the really are, reaching my ears and another void. A bigger, more painful one located in my heart. He's trying to explain to the LAPD some off the wall theory and they aren't buying it. Neither is Nicole. A smile crosses her face as she hits the fast forward button, as if some memory of her own has escaped from some hidden place. And then the smile is gone and she looks back at me. She stopped at a scene where Mulder is talking to me, pulling me aside from all the disbelievers. A smile lights up his face briefly . . . "Excuse me . . ." I say as I stand up and move quickly to the door. I have to leave. This upheaval of emotions can't happen here. It can't happen in front of Nicole. ************** I rest my head against the side of the bathroom stall, exhausted from the ten minutes of crying I just did. Damn hormones. I keep thinking I'd be able to work through all of this if my head was just clear. Mulder might be easier to find if I weren't pregnant . . . if I weren't crying every few minutes or felling dizzy or whatever it is I'm feeling today. I don't mean that. I want to be pregnant. I want this baby. I want this baby more than anything on earth and sometimes that thought hurts me because, as if a chill has gone through my entire being, I realize that if I had to choose between the baby and Mulder, the baby would win out. Even Mulder would want it that way. I'm sure of it. He's been willing to give up his life for people he doesn't even know. I know he'd do it in less than a heartbeat for his own child. But I want him back. I want us all to be together. My eyes slip shut. I'm so tired . . . I'm so tired and I want Mulder back so badly. . . "Hey, Scully," you said, reaching out and pulling me into your arms. "Remember my promise to make up for Valentine's Day on your birthday?" You had just finished with the last of your reports for the LAPD concerning whatever it was that had killed those people and you had just returned to the hotel, bypassing your own room and coming directly to mine. I was only wearing one of your T-shirts, wanting to catch at least an hour of sleep before this day went on. We had to sign the release forms sometime today for us to appear in what will be a future episode of COPS and then we could go home to DC. I just wanted to get home and forget that this whole incident was captured on film. What in the hell was Bill going to say if he caught it on TV? "It isn't my birthday yet," I said, wriggling free of your hold and sitting on the edge of the bed, turning off the TV set. Even the local news got wind of the activity going on in Willow Park overnight and highlights, if they could be called that, were run on the morning news. "How about we stay out here for a few more days. I don't know. Go celebrate somewhere nice," you said, joining me on the bed. You crawled in behind me, kneeling there and rubbing my shoulders. I couldn't help but watch you in the mirror reflection directly before me as you stared at me like I was the most beautiful object on earth. You always made me believe I was. "I just want to go home," I said, following those words with a heavy sigh of exhaustion. You managed to sit down, with me between your thighs, as you proceeded to work on my knotted and tense muscles. I continued watching you in the mirror, thinking about how small I looked right now with your body wrapped around mine, cocooning me in your warmth. How come with you I never felt small? I never really felt as if you would ever do anything to make me feel less than what I am. Except when you tossed me the keys and told me to 'gas her up.' That wasn't one of your more intelligent moves. "Then I'll take you home," you whispered into my ear. "We can celebrate your birthday at home, too. My plans for you are very . . . flexible." "I'm sure they are," I said with a laugh. You fell back on the bed, pulling me with you. I turned over so I was straddling your hips and looking down at you. You still had that expression on your face. The one that made me feel more loved than any other person on earth. Everything began to move so fast after that. Just like the events of the night we had just survived, we seemed to be swept up in the moment and I was rocking against you through your pants, feeling your hardness grow more with every movement I made. I tugged at the bottom of your shirt and you pulled it over your head, discarding it off to the side of the bed. I moved back just far enough for you to unzip your pants and tug them half way down your thighs, taking your boxers along with them. "You don't have panties on," you said, your voice squeaking as I settled back down on your penis, rubbing myself over its length. "I was getting ready for bed," I said, leaning forward and planting one hand firmly on each side of your head. "Are you sure you weren't just waiting for me?" you asked, so self assured as always. "Maybe I was," I said as you held on to yourself and I let you slip inside with one smooth motion. I sank down as low as I could go and your eyes fluttered shut from the sensations. I wasn't that wet yet since we skipped any sort of foreplay and I moaned from the pleasure/pain my tissues were experiencing. Before I even moved, you let go of your penis and your fingers went to my clitoris, stroking and circling until my arousal was enough to move. You began to thrust up into me as I met each stroke with one of my own. I couldn't make this last very long . . . we were both too exhausted after chasing . . .whatever through the streets all night. No, this was going to go fast and that was okay with me because then I could fall down next to you and sleep in your arms. "You sure you don't want to stay here longer?" you asked, your one hand slipping up under my shirt, fingers brushing across my already hardened nipples. "You might be able to talk me into it," I said, my one hand going from the bed to your cheek, feeling the morning stubble, rough against my flesh. The sheets scratched and strained under us as we bucked against the cheap, white cotton, my knees pushing and pulling them with every move. They were going to come untucked at any moment now. "How about this? Will this convince you?" you asked as you stopped moving, focusing only on me for just a few minutes. I closed my eyes, wanting to come under your skilled hands. I did, letting out a sharp cry of pure pleasure as the waves was over me. The corners of the sheets finally let loose, closing in around your head. I put my hands back down, trying to hold them back. "Maybe," I finally answered, grinding once again up and down on you as my muscles still contracted and quivered. You wrapped your hands around my hips, guiding me. Setting the pace. Then you reached release, everything exploding inside of me with an aching flood of warmth. I watched as your face contorted through a hundred different expressions before you finally decided on one of perfect peace. I fell forward a little, wanting to hold you inside of me for as long as I could. "I think I've been convinced," I said as you slipped from my body. I leaned further forward, finally kissing you . . . "Agent Scully? Dana?" I hear Nicole call out through the women's room. I lift my head up off the toilet paper dispenser I've been using as a pillow and try to pull myself together. Damn it. I wanted to look at myself in the mirror first before facing her again, to make sure my face wasn't too red and puffy from crying. "Yeah . . . I'm here," I respond, though I don't get up off my seat on the toilet lid. "I just wanted you to know I've got us two tickets to Wichita for 9 a.m. tomorrow out of Dulles. And if it would be easier if I went to Marymount and talked to this kid myself, I will," Nicole says. I can see from under the stall that she's leaning up against one of the porcelain sinks, waiting for me to say something. "No, just give me a minute, okay? I . . .uh, just wasn't ready for that tape," I say, being as honest as I can be. She deserves some honesty in this partnership. She moves toward the door. "I'll be waiting in the office," Nicole says as she leaves, without even an apology for putting that tape in. She's not the type who would apologize for that, anyway. Then again, in the end it isn't her fault that I'm so very emotional right now. All I want to do is go home. I want to take that tape to the privacy of my own home where I can view it without it being connected to some damn case. No, what I really want is Mulder back. Not some image on a tape. I need him back. ************* Marymount University Arlington, Virginia June 15, 2000 4:43 p.m. The campus is quiet on this hazy, late spring afternoon with only a few students milling around, stuck here for the summer semester instead of working at odd jobs or living off mom and dad. I can smell the impending rain hanging heavy in the air and Nicole pulls her sticky shirt away from her body, fluffing it to dry out the sweat. I feel warmer than I ever have during a spring in DC, as if I'm baking from the inside out. Oven is right. We walk near a woman who looks far too young to be a professor, yet several students pass her and acknowledge her as such. What catches my attention is she's several months pregnant, just beginning to show, and walking beside a man who's obviously head over heels in love with her. She's telling him that he's going to their second Lamaze class whether he likes it or not and I bet from the way he's looking at her with nothing but adoration, he's going. He reaches out quickly and rubs her lower back affectionately and I fight the tears that well up in my eyes. I want that. I don't want to do this alone. If I had only known earlier, if only I would have let him call the doctor, I would have never let him go. But would he have gone anyway? "He said Rowley Hall is over this way," Nicole says, shaking me from my thoughts. She's pointing toward a group of buildings that look like they could belong in no other place than a college campus. The pregnant couple walk off together, with him still fighting the idea of ever going to another Lamaze class. I want to catch up to the them, shake him and tell him to straighten out and enjoy every last minute of this. But I don't. I try to keep up with Nicole, but unbelievably, her stride is even longer than Mulder's. Or else he just waited up for me all these years. I wish I knew the answer. I wish I would have thought of all these questions before. We get directions from the someone in the administrative offices downstairs and make our way up to the residences on the upper floor, finding the room of one Kip McGee with ease. This particular floor has that permanent smell of young men about it, a combination of sweat and unwashed socks mixed with too much testosterone. It's all nearly masked by the smell of floor wax, but nothing can cover it completely. Nicole knocks on his door and the stereo playing inside is turned down before we hear footsteps approaching. A young man, probably still in his late teens, opens the door, his eyes narrowing at us in confusion. That expression only lasts a few seconds before he starts eyeballing Agent Larson up and down. Seems to be a pretty common occurrence. "Can I help you?" he asks, sounding as smooth as a 19 year old trying to pick up someone in their thirties can. He looks like something straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad, all sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. He's dressed in a pink Polo dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and khaki pants and there's no doubt his parents are funding his wardrobe. "Are you Kip McGee?" she asks and he nods his head 'yes.' "I'm Special Agent Larson and this is Special Agent Scully. We're with the FBI. I talked to you earlier about what you might have seen . . ." "Oh, that. You know, I don't really know if I saw anything," Kip says in a near whisper, looking up and down the hall to see if anyone else is listening. There's no one out here but us and he slinks back to standing under the door frame. "Come on, Kip. Something must have happened if you and five of your dearest lacrosse playing friends freaked out enough to report it," Nicole says, leaning against doorframe and closer to our witness. "You're all big college men. You wouldn't jump at a shadow, would you?" "No," he says, drawing the tip of his tongue across his lips nervously. He looks to me briefly, as if I'm going to help him out of this, but I just want this to be over with so we can get back to the real work of finding Mulder. His eyes go back to Nicole's long, lean body. "Tell us what you saw, Kip," I say, my tone softer than Nicole's. His eyes still don't leave her frame as he starts to tell his story. "The season is over, but a couple of us guys staying here for the summer like to meet a few times a week and practice at night, when it's not so hot. Last night we were out just fooling around and this . . . thing went running between the buildings, howling. It scared the shit out of us . . . pardon me for saying so, but it did," Kip says, his blue eyes growing wide as he tells his tale. "Kip, what I find most interesting about this is when you called campus security and you all gave a description of this . . . thing . . . well, at first, all five of you gave a wildly different version, but after discussing it for a while, you all settled on one description. That would seem to be yours," Nicole says, edging even closer to him. "I don't know what I saw, okay? It was just something that ran between the buildings. It could have been anything," he says animatedly, his eyes looking up and down the hallway again. "Did someone tell you not to speak to us?" I ask, leaning toward him also. If it works for Nicole, it might work for me. Indeed, his nervous eyes flutter to my now fuller breasts before making eye contact with me. They remain locked on mine but drift away as he answers. "Nah, I just don't want to get stuck here over this mess. I was just heading out to go home to Connecticut for a long weekend. It's Father's Day and all, you know," he says, his eyes meeting mine again. I had forgotten all about it. My eyelids snap close as I feel a burn in my stomach that goes all the way to my heart and wraps around it, smothering it with its intensity. Father's Day. He should be here. He should know that he's going to be a father. Damn it. Why is this all happening? "You okay, Miss?" the kid asks, and Nicole grabs my arm as I feel a wave of dizziness wash over me. "Yeah. I'm sorry. It just got very warm in here. If you excuse me . . ." I say, stopping as I wipe my brow. Nicole takes her hand from under my elbow where she was supporting me as I move away from her. "I'm going to step outside. Kip, I'd suggest you reconsider telling the honest version of your story to Agent Larson before you leave town." With that, I turn from them and hope to make my way out of the building before I end up passed out on the floor. *********** It happens again, when I least expect it to. When I'm not even thinking about him but about something else entirely. I see someone and I am certain it is Mulder. The slight and hardly noticeably lopsidedness in his gait. A hand raking through short, brown hair. Sleeves rolled up midway, trying to stay cool in this heat. It is him. My heart wants it to be him so badly. I blink my eyes and the figure dissolves into a tall man that hardly resembles Mulder at all walking quickly away from where I'm sitting. My mind is simply playing tricks on me. I want to run after him, to grab him by the shoulder and find out that it is Mulder and I was mistaken about my mind. But I know better. Now not only can I remember every word spoken to me with vivid clarity, I can see him everywhere, too. Even places he would never be. "So, did fear take a holiday from La-La Land and plant itself in beautiful Arlington, Virginia?" Nicole asks from behind me, startling me enough to make me jump up from my spot. "Please don't do that," I request, waiting for my heart rate to return to normal. "I'm sorry," she says, sitting down on the bench I was just on. She stretches out her long legs and crosses them at the ankles while she pulls at the front of her blouse, trying to cool down again. "What did Kip have to say?" I ask, only slightly interested in the stories of a 19 year old kid who doesn't have the sense to talk to the only people who might believe him. I don't believe he saw anything more than someone moving through the shadows but there's no sense in making up stories to cover what *he* thought he saw. "Not much. He asked me out on a date and I had to break his heart, but besides that, he changed his story three times. He seemed awfully ballsy in order for fear to be haunting him. Of course, he was wearing pink . . ." Nicole says, as she rambles on about this case which isn't really a case at all. I'm beginning to believe it is just something Skinner threw at us to get us working together. We've been together for half a month now and most of that has been reviewing everything there is about Mulder, but as for real case work outside the realm of finding him, we haven't even scratched the surface. "But in the end, those kids weren't mortally afraid of fear or anything for that matter," I say, attempting to explain the unexplainable. "Fear can only take hold and finish you off if you let it. These kids, in all likelihood, are probably too young or too naive to have that happen to them. The only real fear they know in life right now is not waking up for class because of a hangover and daddy cutting off their credit cards. Most have never seen death like we have beyond what they see on the movie theater screen. Most don't know what's really out there to be afraid of." "Are you feeling better?" Nicole asks, looking up at me with sympathy in her eyes. "It's not the flu, is it? If it is, I can go to Wichita tomorrow and you can rest . . ." I put my hand up to stop her. She's not going to run this one on her own. "No, it's not the flu. I just. . . haven't been, um, sleeping well lately," I say, covering for myself poorly. "You do know that you can have his apartment back at anytime. Just say the word and I'll get my lazy ass out of there and find something else," she says and I find myself just blinking at her. "You can even have it this weekend if you would like. Now that I've been reminded that Father's Day is Sunday, I think once we get back from Kansas, I might take a little trip up to Pennsylvania to see the old guy. It's been a few years. Maybe he's gotten over the fact that his daughter is the gay divorcee." She starts fidgeting around more and I can tell she's desperate for a smoke. I told her right after we started working together that I couldn't be around cigarette smoke due to . . . hell, I don't even remember. I even left the file out about the Morley's test subjects for her to peruse. I think she laughed and went outside for a cigarette break. "You were married?" I ask, surprised. She seems so confident in who and what she is it seems hard to believe she would ever have had doubts. "Yeah. For a while. I thought if all appeared normal on the home front, I'd make it further in my career. Then I met Janie and I realized it wasn't the life for me. Besides, men suck in bed," she says with a laugh and with blatant honesty. That is one thing about Nicole, she's always honest. "It depends on whether you found the right one or not," I joke back, a blush rising to my cheeks though I'm not sure why. I'm still adjusting to discussing sex with anyone besides the person I'm in a relationship with. "If you say so," she says, looking away from me and shaking her head. A smile crosses her face as she looks back up at me. "You ready to get out of here before our fears get us?" "Let's go." **************** Continued in part two Title: Calendar Girl II: Seeing You 2/2 ***************** Winchell's U-Store-It Wichita, Kansas June 16, 2000 4:06 p.m. She pulls the car up to the front of a storage facility in some old warehouse district. Nicole checks the address again and shrugs her shoulders. Obviously, the refurbishment of the nearby downtown area didn't make it this far yet. "Here?" I ask, looking at our surroundings. The buildings around the garage-like structures are all old and run down. Something was obviously demolished to put this business here. "Is this Grove Street?" she asks, looking at a map sitting between us and then looking back up at the front office. She's actually quite accomplished at map reading and mastered the entire DC and surrounding area in a matter of days, even though she claims she didn't visit it much during her time at Quantico. For some reason, I doubt the truth behind that. Actually, what she did at the Academy is one thing she doesn't discuss much. Perhaps because Mulder is included in half those stories and she's afraid I'll have some sort of emotional break down. Maybe she's right. "This is Grove Street," I say, still looking around and getting a feel for the area. "He gave me this code to get through the gate and then he said to meet him at unit 12-C," she says, taking the car out of park and pulling up to a security box. She fumbles around with some papers sitting on the seat until she finds something she scratched onto a post-it note. Her long fingers tap the code into the keypad and we drive through as the gate slides open. She parks in front of the correct unit and we both get out of the car, cautiously, looking for any sign of someone. "It's a little after four o'clock. Isn't that what time you agreed to meet him?" I ask, taking a quick glance at my watch. There's nobody in the vicinity. The only noise comes from the busy city streets surrounding this place, and as far as I can ascertain, no one else is here but the two of us. "Damn it," she says, looking down at the ground by the garage door of 12-C. A slow, sticky trail of what could only be blood is making its way from under the door. We both look at each other and a look of anger passes over her face. Unlike all the doors on the other units, this one's lock had been cut and is now lying in the flow of viscous fluid, becoming surrounded by it. "God damn it." I pull a pair of latex gloves out of my pocket and motion for her to back me up. We both pull out our weapons and I slide the door up. A body of a man falls out face down in front of us, the blood from the gunshot wound to his head matting his short brown hair to the back of his head. For a second, even this body turns into Mulder and I look away. "Clear," she says, staring into the empty storage unit. It takes her a second to catch on to what must have crossed my mind. "Dana, it isn't him." I regain my composure and check the body, but since it is so warm in the unit, I can't tell much about the time of death without a rectal temperature. Judging by lividity and lack of rigor mortis, he's not been dead for long. "I'll call the Wichita PD," Nicole says softly as she walks away from the mess we've stumbled into. Damn. I have a feeling we'll be spending a night in Kansas. *************** Sedgewick County Medical Examiner Wichita, Kansas June 16, 2000 10:57 p.m. "Automated Applied Aerodynamics have no such person on record as ever having been employed there," Nicole says as she pushes her way through the doors of the morgue. "Actually, to be honest, AAA has been out of business for six months, bought out by . . ." She catches sight of what I'm doing to the body before me and only flinches momentarily before continuing on. ". . . Bought out by Hampton Designs Incorporated in Chaney, Texas. They are still producing parts under the AAA name and selling them to the DOD but soon plan on making a complete rollover to HDI." "And I assume our John Doe didn't tell you any of this?" I ask, as I finish up on the man we found in the storage unit. Finger prints and dental casts have already been done in our search for his identity. I'm certain the cause of his death is pretty apparent to all of us and the local coroner even offered to do this, but I didn't want to miss anything. "The only thing we had discussed over the phone was a part used in the stabilization of these high speed stealth planes. Something that's attracting a lot of attention. That's all he said," she says, coming closer to me. She takes a look at the victim and shakes her head. "But the thing is, I doubt this is that man at all." "What do you mean?" I ask, as I get him ready for the locker. "His ID came back already. He had a criminal record . . . grand theft auto so his fingerprints came up quickly. Dana, this is Thomas Doritz from Bellefleur, Oregon. Do you recognize his name? He disappeared three days before Fox did. I got his medical records for you . . ." I rip off my gloves, unable to get my hands on the records fast enough. Everything is spinning around me and I'm trying damn hard to keep my wits about me at this point. I've seen these records already. Held them in my hands once before. Different file wrapped around them but all the same words. I just never saw the person to go with them. My examination of his body showed none of the scars present on most of the abductees from that area, but then again, Mulder didn't have them either nor had he ever been abducted before. But here it is in the records. The one thing that connected them all: electro-encephalitic trauma. I look over to the body. Are they here somewhere? Or are they being dumped back here to this horrible fate? What in the hell is the purpose of bringing him back and leading us to him if he's dead? There's got to be a point. "Dana, there's no proof that he was ever with Fox or they were . . . abducted together or to the same place. We have no proof of anything yet," Nicole says, looking over my shoulder at the records. "But they were abducted in the same area . . . near the same time. There's got to be a connection and if this man is here, that means the others might also be close," I say. I hand her the records and pull on another pair of gloves, moving Mr. Doritz' body back to the examination area. "What are you doing? You already finished with him," Nicole says with a puzzled expression on her face. "He might not be able to tell me his story verbally, but maybe there's something on or in his body that can. Now that I know, I can look for other things I didn't think of looking for. Before, I was doing an autopsy for a gunshot wound . . . a homicide. Not an autopsy on a person who was abducted," I say, getting his body ready to go in again. "What do we tell the people of Bellefleur? What do we tell his family and the families of the others?" she asks, and I look up at her through my safety goggles. "I don't know. They barely have a law enforcement agency there now so I don't know how to disseminate this information. We'll have to contact this man's family, but talk to Skinner first. See how he wants to handle it," I say and she pulls out her cell phone and starts moving toward the door. "Dana, I'm going to fly straight to Pittsburgh from here tomorrow morning to go see my dad. I'll be back in DC by Sunday evening unless something big comes up and then I'll come home earlier. You know how to reach me. Can you feed the fish at my . . . Fox's place when you get back to DC?" she asks before she dials the phone. "Fish?" I ask. "They were all dead. I was there for the burial." "Yeah. That Frohike person replenished the stock in the pond. Said it would be nice when Mulder comes home. He didn't want him to find out that the people he trusts the most baked his fish. Or something to that effect. That's one strange little man," Nicole says, as she finally hits the dial button on her phone and slips out the door. I have to wonder if Frohike tried to match the fish exactly like a parent who accidentally kills a child's pet or if he just picked random fish? Knowing Frohike, I bet those fish all look like the last ones that inhabited that tank. ***************** Mulder's Apartment Alexandria, Virginia June 18, 2000 12:21 a.m. Nicole took down the blue lights. I stand in front of the windows, my heart aching for their twinkle, but they're gone. I suppose she thought nothing of it. It is the middle of June and Christmas is long since past. She doesn't know the significance of that strand of cheap lights bought in a rush just to make me happy. I just hope she didn't throw them away. I turn to take care of the fish and sprinkle in some food, watching the flakes fall like sad autumn leaves onto a glassy pond. I hope we find Mulder before autumn. Before summer fades and everything starts to die around me. I'm not sure I can take it. I watch the fish eat greedily, poking through the top of the water as they devour their food. I need to eat, too. I haven't eaten all day and I know better. I spent the day trying to arrange for the Doritz family to get their loved one's body back without too much commotion surrounding the event. Skinner convinced them to be discreet for now considering we aren't sure if he was abducted at all. The family didn't need much convincing considering Thomas Doritz was well known for his scams and for skipping town. There was nothing on his body that was too unusual. His muscles had endured some unexplained stress recently, but the labs are still doing work on any of the samples I sent them. Maybe our answers will lie there. I sit down on the couch and put my swollen feet up on the coffee table. The only light glowing in the place is coming from the fish tank and it is peaceful. And lonely. So very lonely. The near silent bubbling of the water is the only sound and I wish he would just come through the door. I should have brought the LA tape with. I could be watching it now. I'm ready to watch it. Instead, I cover myself with his scratchy blanket and rest my head back against the couch . . . "See, we didn't need LA to have fun on my birthday," I said sarcastically as we walked through the door to your apartment. You tossed your keys at your table and they slid off but you didn't seem to care. It was the day from hell. The rest of the FBI upper echelon wasn't as happy as Skinner was with the 'we have nothing to hide' theory we worked under in Willow Park and we just spent three hours hearing about it. "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. I promise," you said from the couch. You were comfortably sunk into the leather, your feet up on the table in front of you, one arm folded up and over your eyes. I walked over to the window and looked out at the brick wall on the other side. All these years you kept this view. Did it remind you of your life? Our life now? Crawling halfway under the table, I plugged in the little blue lights that you never took the time to take down. I only plugged them in on special occasions or when everything was going to hell. Now is a combination of the two. "What are those for?" you asked, peeking from out of under your forearm. "It's my birthday. I don't expect wine and roses, but some cheap lights on in the window sure makes a girl feel good," I joked, eliciting a smile out of you. "Besides, they always remind me . . ." "Christmas of 1998. The best damn holiday of my life," you said, patting the spot on the couch next to you. I sat down next to you and snuggled against your chest. You pulled your tie loose and sent it flying somewhere. "That was a grade-A, categorically undeniable shitty day," you said with a heavy sigh. I moved my hand up and across your chest and the tension there seemed to melt away under my touch. "Maybe if we are lucky, whatever was attacking the crack hos of Willow Park will move its way across the country and take a stab at some FBI administrators." "They would just make us investigate it," I said, slowly releasing each button of your white dress shirt. I loved the feel of the material under my fingers. I loved the feel of you moving toward my hand even more as your body arched up and off the couch. "Scully, it's your birthday," you whispered, holding on to my hand and preventing any further undressing. "And I'm unwrapping my present right now," I said and you just smiled. "Unless you got me something else. That bracelet from last year was nice. And I could always use a key chain." "I didn't have time yet," you said ruefully. You gave me some sad, forgive me and take me in look and how could I resist? "Then this night together will be my present. No answering the phone. No TV. We'll call for take out later, but right now this is enough. I just want to be with you," I said, moving my hand free from under yours. I took that hand of yours in mine now, and turned it so I could unbutton your cuff. I followed it with the other one and then slid your shirt off. My hand stroked up the front of your pants, feeling your hardness swell under my touch. My fingers pulled down the zipper and our eyes never broke contact. I loved staring in your eyes. Loved having your complete attention. You kicked off your shoes and socks and lifted your hips up as I slid your pants down, leaving you naked while I was fully dressed. Not that this would ever bother you. It certainly didn't bother me. "Come here," you mumbled, pulling me up before you. I stood with your admiration focused 100 percent on me as your fingers now had their turn with my buttons and zippers. Soon, I was as bare as you were. Your fingers slid between my thighs and I parted them a little to give you better access. I watched as you grew even harder from just touching me and I was once again amazed at what I did to you. And amazed at what you did to me. I ached for you as a slow, sweet burn moved through my body until it dominated my center and begged for more. I needed to be wrapped around you, to feel what we are together and I needed it now. You pulled me toward you and I took you in with one easy movement. I felt only a minimal amount of release in the tension working through my body as I stretched around you. I needed your fingers on me again. I needed you to move. I leaned back, my hands clenched on your shoulders for support and we both started moving against the other. It could go just as fast as it did the other morning. This time we had all night and I planned to take advantage of it being my birthday. "I love you under the lights," you whispered and I watched as they twinkled across both of our bodies. It was late and the winter sun has set a long time ago, leaving us bathed in the glow of just the fish tank and the year-old Christmas lights. The glow of the fish tank always made me feel so warm inside for it always reminded me of our time on this couch together. "I love you everywhere," I said, closing my eyes so I could just concentrate on the feel of you inside my body. Like those lights across my body, your fingers danced across my clitoris again and I could feel everything winding tight inside of me, searching desperately for release. That release came in just a few more minutes and I opened my eyes to watch you become a flood of bright white and blue light. A few more pumps of your hips and you were right there with me, both of us tumbling together. "Happy Birthday, Scully . . ." you whispered, pulling me down to you . . . The loud shrill of the telephone nearly sends me off the couch and I fumble around in the near darkness for it. It is probably Nicole checking in on the status of everything. "Hello?" I answer. No one says anything back. "Hello?" "You need to work faster," a male voice says. He pants into the phone and his few words sound desperate. "Who is this?" I ask, thankful the boys kept their equipment hooked up after Nicole moved in here. "Andy Lawton. Listen, they are running out of time and Doritz is just the start of it," he says, his words broken by gasping breaths. "How do I know you are who you say you are?" I ask, always on guard. Always suspicious. How did he know about Thomas Doritz' fate? "Do you have a choice? Find who makes that piece in the experimental plane. Doritz was to throw you off. Find them and figure it out." I don't know what to say. I don't know who to trust. "Is Mulder there?" I'm answered only with silence. "Of course he is. You've seen him -- how else would you know to call here. Is he okay?" Damn it. He's not answering. I can hear him still on the line, but he's not answering me. "Why are you calling here this time and not your son?" I ask, trying to find out if this is indeed the same man who called his son a few weeks ago. "He's not in port. I only did that so you would believe me. You wouldn't know my voice . . ." "Why can't Mulder call?" I ask, trying to keep the panic from rising in my voice. I'm not sure I want the answer. "I'm part of the program . . . to a degree. I'm allowed certain things the others aren't. But don't ask me where we are. I don't know," he says, his voice cracking. He sounds sincere, but I don't know. Damn it. He's got to help me more than this. And I have to make Mulder want to get out of there, but I'm afraid to say too much. I know the one thing that would do it, but I'm not ready for everybody to know yet. Especially not any of 'them' if they are still around. And not Krycek. I'll never trust him. "They're coming. I've gotta go . . ." "Wait!" I shout into the phone, hoping he's still there. "What?" he mumbles. He's trying to hide his voice and he's barely speaking in a whisper. "Can you get a message to Mulder?" I ask. He doesn't answer. He just breathes heavily into the phone. I'll just have to chance it. "Tell him . . . tell him Happy Father's Day." The connection is broken. I sit back down on the couch in the darkness and wait for the boys to call. Please, dear God, let Mulder figure it out. *************** The end for now . . . Feedback is always a nice thing for a mom to receive on Father's Day -- damienma@bellsouth.net And to all the Dads or soon to be Dads out there, have a nice one!!