From: Laura Bontrager Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 22:34:43 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Drawing Lines -- Chapter One Title: Drawing Lines Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the whole freaking myth-arc belongs to CC, 1013, and Fox. Definite infringement is always intended, but not really meant with any real threat. We all know that. Like I could make it as good as good and suspenseful as CC. . .never. SPOILERS:::::Two Fathers, the Full Disclosure, the entire myth-arc is all packed into this emotionally charged roller coaster. CONTENT:::: This is UST, and Mulder/Fowley hints, even though I hate her. And it's. . .long been repressed. ~~~~ Drawing Lines ~~~~ "There has to be somewhere to draw the line." --dana scully, colony ~~~~ Chapter One ~~~~ "Oh, I changed it to trust everyone, Scully. Didn't I tell you?" --fox mulder, colony ~~~~ Fox Mulder breathed in slowly through his nose, then chewed on his bottom lip, feeling a strange kind of excitement well in him with her words. "I wouldn't bet against him." Kersh merely glared, Skinner's own glare in his back, the resounding words of Spender ringing in the air like bells on a wedding day. Or bells tolling a death. Mulder shivered and looked to Scully, wondering still, unsure of where they were on this whole thing. She hated him now, he knew that, hated his wild mood swings of trust and paranoia, the way she always got caught in the fallout. "You have the X-Files. Temporary basis only." Kersh turned his back on them and sat down, his dark face glowering, Skinner's exultant in contrast. His stern military profile came back quickly, a kind of wash over that was almost humerous, but Mulder was too anxious to sit still. He jumped up, hearing Scully rise slowly from her chair, the scrape as she followed him. At the doorway, he turned and saw Skinner, then Kersh, and Scully a few steps back, looking almost reluctant. When he spoke, it was to everyone in the room. "You won't regret this." ~~~~ Mulder dashed for the elevator, then waited impatiently as Scully trudged up behind him. The doors closed and he felt as if the world was closing down on him too. "Now that you have the Bureau, are you still in this, Scully?" He glanced at her, saw her tongue dart out across her lips. "I guess I have to be." He squeezed her elbow as the doors opened to the dim hallway stretching before them. "No. This has to be your choice. Your decision." Scully jerked her elbow from his grip and stared him right in the eyes, fire flashing so bright and deep within her that he stepped back. She turned purposefully and strode through the hallway to their office. ~~~~ He plowed into her as she stood there, fixated in the doorway. "Having second thoughts, Scully?" She glanced back to him, shock written into her face, and then stepped slowly aside. The color drained from Mulder's face as he saw the blood. "Spender." Scully started forward, her medical instincts kicking in slowly, her body crouching over his still form. Mulder beat her to the prognosis. "He's dead." Scully looked up, fear lacing her eyes. "We could be dead next," she whispered. ~~~~ The old man gave a slight sigh of relief when he was out of the building, making it to the Pentagon via the underground tunnel. There were others left alive, those who had decided for some reason not to be taken up into space with the original ones, he knew where they were hiding out. They could rebuild, regain time, stop this from happening. Bill Mulder's ideas had been foolish in the beginning; they were foolish now. Hopefully, Fox Mulder knew that. The man took the cigarette from his lips and snubbed it with his shoe. He lit another and inhaled it gratefully. God, please let Fox Mulder understand his foolishness. Otherwise, he was next to go. ~~~~ Scully sat in the dark, shaking her head at his excitement. Mulder paced his living room, running his hands through his hair, then slamming the basketball into the wooden floor with quiet desparation. "I need to tell you some things, Scully." She was already staring intently at him when he brought his head up to see her. He sat down in an armchair, pushing the ball away and letting it roll across his uneven floor. "I think Diana's dead," he said. There was no flicker in her eyes, no twitch to her mouth, nothing. "I know you're thrilled," he said softly, and Scully felt immediately awful for being thrilled. She could see the pain in his eyes. "I'm not thrilled, Mulder." He shook his head. "I sent her on ahead. To the Base." Scully glanced up at him, frowning. "That base was a trap, Mulder. You sent her on ahead . . .? What, where you going to come later?" He looked up at her, straight into her eyes. "And you. . .I wanted to take you with me." She glared at him. "To be tested on?" "No, to be saved." She shook her head. "I wouldn't have come with you, Mulder. Never." He stood and grabbed his basketball, slamming it back into the floor with a raw anger she hadn't seen in him before. He stopped just as suddenly as he had started and moved over to where she stood. "I would have made you," he whispered tightly. She slapped him. Hard. And it felt good. He stared at her a moment, then pulled away, watching her. "It was supposed to be a ticket away from the destruction, away from the madness they planned to unleash." She sat down. "You're going to have to tell me everything, Mulder. Everything. I may be able to talk in your riddles, but I sure as hell can't explain them." He glanced to her, then settled back into the chair, balancing the ball on his stomach. "Cigarette-Smoking Man came into Diana's room while I was snooping." "Snooping for what?" "Proof of your accusations. I didn't find any. But I did find him." Mulder closed his eyes, then proceeded to tell her everything, his jaw already aching. ~~~~ The first emotion she remembered feeling was hatred. Hatred because he had chosen Fowley, chosen her to go along with him. And then her, then Scully. "I. . .I don't understand this. Why'd it all get messed up? The Rebels burned them all, but somehow, Spender gets murdered?" She pushed the ice pack onto his cheek, frowning at the bruise already appearing. Mulder shook his head. "Sorry," she said softly, watching him wince. "I don't know. The whole thing is all convoluted, twisted in on itself until no one is completely innocent, no one completely guilty." Scully licked her top lip from habit, then shook her head. "Wait. We need to figure this out before we go further Mulder. Because, from what you said, it sounds to me like we've been on the wrong side this entire time." He stared at her, his mouth slack. "They tested on you, Scully. You keep reminding me of that, remind yourself!" She glared at him. "I know what they did, Mulder. But the way you tell it, we've been fighting against our own salvation. A salvation you, yourself, were going to force me to." He shook his head. "What are you saying? I can't believe you're-" "Mulder! Listen to yourself. Accusing me, when *you* were going to quit, *you* were going to give up and sell out. Why should I trust you? Or anyone?" He stared, numb and dumbfounded. "You don't trust me?" "No, Mulder. You don't trust me. I tell you about Agent Fowley, and you deny it, you ignore what I'm saying because you think I'm jealous or making it personal." "She's not in on this!" "That man was coming to her apartment!" "He was looking for Spender!" "In *her* apartment, Mulder?" Scully swore at him and stormed for the door, more furious at him than she had ever been. They'd had arguments before, but this one wasn't resolving itself. He caught up with her, spun her around to face him. "Convince me. Prove it to me," he hissed. She glared. He pulled her back into his living room, to the couch. "I want to believe, Scully." ~~~~ end chapter ~~~~ Chapter Two ~~~~ "Mulder, I think I'm in danger." --dana scully, colony ~~~~ "Fine. Proof, you want proof. Just don't interrupt me." He nodded and sat back down, letting her have the floor. "First, starting at the beginning. She left you." Mulder winced, gave her a glare of barely repressed anger. "She did. For another assignment, supposedly. Yet, she meets up with every chapter of MUFON and gathers information. The minute she arrives in Europe, she already knows about MUFON, about its importance, Mulder." Scully stood there for a moment, look for the light to dawn in his eyes. He remained resolute. "She leaves you on the X-Files, with the cover story of being anti-terrorist, sends you nothing about what she's really doing, and she already knows about a group of people that you yourself never discovered until later." "How-" She held up her hand, shaking her head. "Frohike told me how far along on the X-Files you were when Fowley left, Mulder. You hadn't anything substantial, nothing at all. Just some strange occurences. How could she have known of MUFON unless she was working with the enemy? You told me long ago, in a powerless motel room, with a storm raging outside, that they had controlled every aspect of your life, ever since your sister's abduction. How can you not think they controlled this too?" "Am I to assume you want me to answer this?" he said forcefully. She glared at him and turned her back, stalking to the door. He jumped up and grabbed her, pushing her back to his couch. "Wait, Scully. Wait. I'll shut up. I swear. I'm listening. You're right. She shouldn't have known about MUFON. But she found out." Scully's eyebrow rose and she spun back around. "She abandoned the X-Files, Mulder. She let go of them like a plague. So why is she suddenly finding UFO's fascinating?" "Because she believes in them." Scully shook her head. "You're being blindsided by her, Mulder. Here's my next point." She sat down, forcing him to find his chair again and settle into it. The room was dark and musty from the lack of sunlight, and she searched out his face to establish some kind of contact with his eyes. "When I was looking into CancerMan, I came across some other things. Things I didn't tell you about because I didn't think you'd be so blind to her, Mulder." He looked at her, jaw clenching in an effort to be prepared to debate her claims. "Mulder, she officially requested that you and I be taken off the X-Files. In writing, on paper, signed by AD Kersh, and a psuedonym that I connected back to CancerMan. She cited that you were becoming, and had always been, personally involved, and that I was only fueling your unhealthy desire to discover a truth that simply did not exist." At her words, his head jerked up a bit, looking straight at her, like a deer caught in her headlights. "She wrote that precisely as you said? The part about fueling an unhealthy desire?" he whispered, finding a connection she didn't understand. Scully nodded. He winced. "Those were her exact words when she left me. . .the X-Files. That she was fueling and unhealthy desire." Scully hemmed, then decided to keep making her points. "In her report about Gibson, she denied everything. She pulled her gun on you to save herself, and she made you look like ranting lunatic. I know. I read her report. You sounded even more assinine than you usually do." Mulder rolled his eyes at her but stayed silent, refusing to rise to her bait. "She's been going over some of our other cases, I saw too. The files you reconstructed, Mulder . . .she has them, or copies of them. She's been debunking it, in a way that even *I* can't do. I was witness to each of the events she's so calmly labelling and referencing, Mulder. She wasn't there. And yet she presumes to-" "I gave the files to her," he whispered. Scully glared at him, aghast, furious. Stung. It was as if he had given over the most secret part of her over to her enemy. He had laid her own personal thoughts bare to a woman who only wanted to destory them both. "Why?" "She was helping me. . .helping me. That's all she wanted to do, Scully. She had to play it safe so they wouldn't know." "She had to play with your mind so *you* wouldn't know, Mulder." He shook his head, then slumped back into his chair. "You don't understand, Scully. . ." he whispered. She sighed and steepled her fingers above her forehead, closing her eyes. "CancerMan was coming to meet her, Mulder. Her. Not looking for Spender. Spender wasn't there, wouldn't be there, wasn't *going* to be there. Accept that, Mulder." Mulder shivered. "You don't understand. . ." "I understand all too well." "I married her." The room pitched into blackness as the sun disappeared into the earth, swallowed whole by trees and dirt and loam. Scully stared at him, feeling her face grow hot, her body uncomfortable. "Do you hate me?" he said softly. She didn't know what to say, didn't know how to change things. "Yes," she said. She heard a kind of choked scream come from him, but she stayed absolutely still, bowing her head. "No. Mulder, no, I don't hate you." "You do." His tone accused her, but his eyes were closed, and she wondered if he would ever look at her again. "For a second. That you could let that happen. But it's not your fault. . .do you believe me?" "Not all the way," he said. "But I want to." "No, I mean, do you believe that Agent Fowley is working for them?" His eyes opened in the darkness, a shot of brightness in the gloom, as if he were being born again, right there in his eyes, right before her eyes. "I don't know. But I believe you more than anyone." Scully shifted on the couch. That would have to do. Otherwise, she was in trouble. The whole world was in trouble. ~~~~ end chapter ~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter Three ~~~~ "We bury our memories so deep after all that has been destroyed." --william mulder, colony ~~~~ "What about Emily?" she said softly, looking at him as the street lights flickered over his face. Their car was silent and smooth, an instrument of precision under her body, energy being cycled through the engine with top performance, the interior lush and springy, leather that wrapped around her frame, clung to every cell, yet did not stick or peel from her skin when she moved. It was exquisite, there in his car with him, listening to the thrum of wheels on the interstate as they moved. He glanced briefly to her, and his movement was in slow motion, a turn of his face to see her eyes, his fingers gripping the wheel with anxiety. "What about Emily?" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "How does she fit in? Why did they have to create her?" Mulder felt his muscles tighten as he thought on her question, more afraid that he understood the answers, than afraid that he *had* the answers. "Emily. . .she was never meant to be, Scully. They took you, gave you the cancer, all of that, to keep me down. . ." "Mulder. . .you're so arrogant." she hissed and turned her face. He felt shame rise to his cheeks and she snatched her hand, steering easily with one finger on the wheel. "Scully. . .I'd take it all back in seconds. In an instant. If we were to expose them, all would be lost. Everything they'd tried to accomplish, everything they had killed for. They had thousands of deaths on their hands; they could not be in vain." "They took innocent lives, Mulder. You're not thinking about joining them are you?" Mulder shook his head. "If only for what they did to my sister, I never could." "You were going to go with them, at the Base." He licked his lips. "I thought it was the end. Final colonization. I wanted you safe." "You wanted Diana safe." She felt the car swerve as he put both hands back on the wheel. "There's a difference, Mulder, between safe and free. I would choose free." "Even dead?" "Even dead." He rolled his head around on his neck, shrugging his shoulders and pushing his own betraying thoughts from his mind. "You were going to go with them," she said again. "As if everything that has happened didn't matter anymore." Mulder swallowed thickly, knowing that the issue was going to come up. "You went to her apartment and discovered some kind of answer, and you simply accepted it as truth. Truth." "He really believed it to be the end." "Shows how much he knows," she snorted. Mulder quieted, realizing her anger was deep, his betrayal a kind of raw pain that could fester in her before he could heal it. "The rebels burned them all, burned them all," she whispered, seemingly fascinated. "Maybe all. I don't know how many people were in this group. Obviously they brought their families." "Well as soon as we get there, and I do the autopsies, we'll have some kind of an idea on who was there that night, in that hangar." Mulder glanced to her, then sighed deeply. "They were trying to obtain perfection, Scully. The perfect solution to their problem. That was what Emily was a product of. This group's efforts to mix alien and human DNA and create a life that would still be standing after everything was destroyed." She looked over to him, then let out a long low shudder, shaking her head. "After everything's destroyed, who would want to remain standing?" ~~~~ The Air Force Base was frighteningly empty, the bunkers long deserted, the tarmac grown over with grass and weeds. One lone yellow flower twisted along the pavement, the fight for life evident in its crawl. Burn patterns were still on the concrete, black smudges of soot and ash and grease, from where the body fat had burned bright. They'd been circled, they'd been rounded up like cattle and set aflame. The rebels had exterminated everyone, everything, wiped it all out. Mulder knew that this had bought some time, that with Cassandra Spender's death, with all their deaths, the timetable for colonization had been stopped, slowed, something. "If I had just shot her then," he whispered, closing his eyes to the death. Late at night, the new day and new life about to approach, these men and women, these families, had met their death, been burned alive because of the sins of their fathers. Mulder knew that he should have been one of them, that he had been one of the faithless. He looked to Scully, who was kneeling down and taking samples of the ash, looking at the burns, the afterimages of a gruesome death. "They're slowly destroying the project, Mulder," she said softly, looking up at him. "There's something we're missing, Scully. Something about this that made it all stop." Scully closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath, trying not to choke on the smell of burnt flesh filtering in between the dust motes and sunlight. He squatted next to her. "You saved me, Scully. If you hadn't made me go with you, I would have been here, burning." She looked up at him. "I should have been dead on that bridge Mulder. Before all this happened, I should have been dead. Someone. . .something, saved me." "What? What keeps us safe?" Scully shut her eyes. "We take what we're given, Mulder. We take this opportunity to discover the truth, the real answers, to keep this from happening again. This is our job, now, Mulder." He looked at her. "Scully. . .I don't even know what side we're supposed to be on." "Not theirs." "Not the rebels either. They have as little regard for life as these men who were burned." "CancerMan isn't dead, Mulder. He killed his son. . .there's someone to fight against." "Should be we fighting, Scully? Should we *even be fighting*?" She stood, her body tight and tense, her hands the yellowish-white of surgical gloves but smeared with ash, her entire frame speaking authority, conviction. "Yes. If only for what they did to your sister, Mulder. If that was the only reason. . .but there are so so many more. So many more." She turned on her heel and strode across the hangar, back into the darkness of its shadows, leaving him troubled. ~~~~ When she came in, it was one in the morning; she looked exhausted. He stood quickly, ignoring the surprise and slight annoyance on her face, coming over to her and grabbing her coat and briefcase. She was still in scrubs, and her coat tugged on the green shirt, exposing her collar bone before adjusting again. He remembered sights of her collar bone in the decontamination shower, in the ice in Antarctica, other places that were nearly as awful, almost as unforgiving. Mulder pushed her to the bed, ignoring the looks she was giving him, making her settle into its embrace with a sigh. He pulled her tennis shoes off, dumping them on the floor, then quickly yanked her sweaty socks from her feet, making a joke about the smell that illicited not even a noise from her. "Thanks, Scully," he said, and put his hands to her shoulders, digging his fingers and thumb into her tightly tensed muscles. She groaned at his first touch, wincing. "Easy Mulder. . ." she said, squirming under his hands. He leaned back, putting his weight into his legs, and not on her back, watching her facial expressions. "What did you find?" he said after a moment. "We've been busy on tracking down dental records, DNA samples, all that. We've identified some of the children, by association to parents, making guesses, and then confirming those guesses with the labwork. We're not done by far. I just need a few hours of sleep before I go back in." Mulder shook his head. "More than a few, Scully. I'm gonna need you." She sighed. "For what?" "I want to dig through some files on some of the names that you faxed me earlier." "You haven't been doing that on you're own?" she said, raising up a bit on the bed to see him. He shook his head. "Oh, I have. But I'm not getting anywhere. You're better at it than I am." She groaned as his fingers became ferocious again. "Jeez, Mulder. Softer." He nodded and pushed her back down on the bed. The bed sank under her, and she relaxed into his touch, feeling the night's hands reach out to her, smoothing away her fear and distraction, and putting her into a kind of dream phase. She felt soft like Silly Putty, like clay to be molded into whatever shape Mulder's fingers led him. The bed was jiggling a little as he dug into her muscles, and she felt crushed for a moment as he tried to loosen her shoulders. She must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew, he was sitting gingerly on her legs, saying something. "What?" she murmured, trying to pull herself awake. "I'm just trying to get levarage, Scully. Unless, you wanted me to. . .?" The leer could be felt through her head. She swatted at him, then closed her eyes. "Mulder, I'm so tired, I didn't even realize until you said something." He grinned and ran his fingers up her back, through her shirt, his fingers hot on her cool skin. She shivered and suddenly became very aware of his hands, the way they trailed down her back, rubbing into her muscles, making her skin sensitive and aware. She felt loose, free, like her body was falling away to someplace far from her. All she knew were his hot fingers, the whisper of his breath along her hair when he bent over her, the quiet shuffle of his legs along the bespread as he inched upward, finally settling on her bottom. It made her alive, everywhere, every sense, every cell, attuned to the touch and feel of him. She drifted in the haze of sensory overload, felt the water of his touch lapping over her brain, her muscles, causing her to fade away. Mulder felt her slump, felt her zone out and slip into sleep, so he settled beside her, taking care not to wake her. Her face was turned to him, eyes closed, lips parted, her arms above her head, her hair tousled. She looked for the world like a woman who'd had love, over and over, then fallen into an exhausted, content sleep. He wanted to touch her. ~~~~ end chapter ~~~~~~~~~~ "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." --Matthew 5:16 ~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/5007/ Come check out my web page ~~~~~~~~~~