From: Mrsblome Date: 02 Dec 1999 23:48:41 GMT Subject: NEW: A Little Reminder, by Sarah Segretti, PG, A, MSR, 1/1 Title: A Little Reminder Author: Sarah Segretti Address: mrsblome@aol.com Website: http://members.aol.com/mrsblome Summary: Brains. Why did it have to be brains? Rating: PG for a few bad words Spoilers: AF, Hungry, a really oblique one for Millennium Category: Angst, implied MSR Archive: Gossamer okay, Spookys okay, anywhere else okay, just ask. Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing. Author's note: Obviously, Hungry didn't happen right after AF; just look at Scully's hair. So I moved it to a point in the timeline where it made more sense -- like later. Lots later. Where there is no continuity, one must create one's own. Beta by haphazard method. A Little Reminder By Sarah Segretti December 1999 He is back on that table again, spreadeagled, shackled and naked. The same as always. But this time, instead of Diana or that smoking son of a bitch or some faceless DOD butcher leaning over him, it's a creature he sees only indistinctly. What he can see is a mouth, and a million teeth, and a tongue shooting out and touching -- God, no, not my head, not like the others, not my brain no -- Mulder wakes up in a fetal position, arms curled protectively around his head. Even five months later he can still feel the slightly raised horseshoe of the scar on his scalp. He'd thought the nightmares were gone; he hadn't had a really bad one since before Christmas. Most days he just tells himself that it all happened a millennium ago, even though that particular joke is starting to wear thin. It's this case. This stupid case. They'd come to California on the vague report of a dead man with an intact head but an empty skull, and spent the day creeping through Orange County traffic in search of the one Lucky Boy employee missing his Free Fer Fridays badge. A simple case, by their standards, but nothing was ever simple with them. "Ad hoc brain surgery"? Had that phrase actually come out of his mouth? And had he actually said it without flinching? Yup, sure did. And payback was a bitch. Nothing like seeing victims with holes in their heads and their brains sucked out to spark a few flashbacks. The nightmare is fading, though. Mulder begins to relax a little, trying to stretch out in the uncomfortable motel bed. At least this time I didn't wake up screaming, he thinks. He carefully rolls onto his right side, and is relieved by what he sees. /At least I didn't wake up Scully./ She lies facing away from him, one satin-covered shoulder visible outside the blankets, her hair -- finally back to the longer length he prefers -- reflecting the artificial light that leaks in from the overbright parking lot. After she'd rescued him from the Consortium, after he'd recovered, she'd taken to staying in his room at night when they were on the road, as if she was afraid to leave him alone. After New Year's Eve, she'd taken to staying in his bed. When we get home, he thinks, I'll take her to see the cherry blossoms. I'll break a federal law and pick a flower for her hair. He brushes a hand over the back of her head, careful not to wake her, feeling how smooth her hair is even rumpled from sleep. Feeling the shape of the skull that holds *her* beautiful mind. New X-Files rule, he decides. No more cases that have to do with disappearing brains. * * * They are standing over the body of Sylvia Jassy, enveloped by the stench from the garbage truck they found her in. Like Donald Pankow before her, she had a half-dollar-sized hole in her forehead, a stunned look on her face, and a skull empty of brains. At least the perp got a full meal this time, Mulder thinks. He glances around at the scene. Traffic buzzes by, uncomfortably close on the overburdened four-lane road that slices through this rundown industrial area. Anonymous brick buildings line the road, home to furniture stores and machine tool shops and mysterious firms with names like AmCom 2000 or SynTech. For all he knows, the Consortium has its West Coast operations hidden here. The garbageman who operates the claw waves his arms, covered in the stained sleeves of a colorless jumpsuit, as he tells his tale to the local PD. Nearby is the blanket that hides Sylvia's body. A few stray pieces of garbage -- a Styrofoam meat tray, a banana peel, some sodden paper -- lay scattered near the corpse. Mulder considers this for a second, then closes his eyes against the sight. This could have been me, he thinks. This almost was me. They just left me in a nicer place. Nobody deserves this. Mulder finds himself feeling even sorrier for the woman than he usually does for a murder victim. If his suspicions are correct, she was also betrayed by someone she trusted ... Scully kneels next to the body, probing the wound with a latex-covered finger. She frowns, and pulls something tiny out of the hole. "Mulder," she says, "look. Just like the one I found in Donald Pankow's skull." Oh. Evidence. Right. He shakes off the mood. She's right. The little arrowhead puts him in mind of the shark teeth the gift shops on the Vineyard like to sell. Mulder hums the "Jaws" theme to himself, and Scully gives him a patient look. "I could go for a salad right about now," he tells her. * * * "On three," Scully says outside Rob Roberts' closed door. They lift their guns to ear level in unison, and he nods. "One, two --" Mulder slams the sole of his shoe into the door, exploding it into the apartment. Rob stands with his back to the door, a blonde woman in a suit just beyond him, in the line of fire. Civilian. Damn it. Rob turns, and Scully gasps. Rob is missing his ears and his hair. His mouth gapes to show a million teeth, and his eyes are flat, oily black. "Step away, Rob, step away!" Mulder orders, years of experience overriding the instinctive horror, at least until the crisis is over. Scully, a few steps ahead, edges closer to Rob. "Dr. Rinehart, step away from him." "Don't hurt him," the woman pleads. Mulder watches the creature that is Rob watch them. Unexpectedly, his skin begins to prickle. A warning from his subconscious. "Rob, we tracked down Sylvia on the way to the landfill. You just can't stop yourself, can you?" The pale, dark-eyed thing twitches as if he's going to move, and Mulder's voice rises. He hopes no one hears the terror he suddenly feels. "Get on the floor, Rob, get on the floor!" Something's going wrong, he thinks. This bust is going bad. This is going to end badly. "Rob," the woman -- Dr. Rinehart -- begs. "Be that good person I know you mean to be." Rob takes a step, and another -- and then he's rushing them despite the repeated warnings, despite his friend's plea. His mouth opens wide, his tongue flickers, his gaze bores in on Mulder's forehead. In that split second, as Mulder cocks his weapon in self-defense, he hears two voices in his mind -- both, this time, his own: The FBI agent says, oh shit, suicide by cop, don't do it, man, don't make me shoot ... The terrorized experimental subject howls, no, not my brain, leave my brain alone, you son of a bitch ... And he fires. * * * The dashboard of their rented red Oldsmobile is the most fascinating dashboard he's ever seen. The tachometer beats in time with the revving engine, replaying images of victims with empty skulls, of Rob's dying face, of the blood pouring from his mouth and staining his tidy apartment floor. Mulder squeezes his eyes shut and sighs heavily. The car door opens and he hears Scully slide in. He knows it's her without looking. "He was attacking us," she says softly. "You're in the clear." "Except for the paperwork and the counseling." He sighs again. "It's been ages since I killed anyone, Scully." She reaches over the parking brake and takes his hand. "I know. But you had no choice. If you hadn't fired, I would have." Mulder leans against the headrest and stares out through the sunroof. His head feels as heavy as it did after the illicit surgery five months ago. "He was hungry, Scully. He was looking at my head." Scully is silent for a moment, still holding his hand. He hopes she understands what he's getting at. It's too hard to be specific right now. "You followed protocol, Mulder," she says gently. "You weren't acting out of fear." I was afraid, Scully, he thinks, but doesn't say it. As flashbacks go, this one was mild. By the time they get home, it'll be past. He'll put a cherry blossom in her hair, and she'll smile at him, and he'll be over it. "Brains, Scully," he says in his best Indiana Jones voice. "Why did it have to be brains?" "New X-Files policy," she says. "No more cases involving brains." Mulder stares at her, delighted that they're on the same wavelength. And then she surprises him, leaning over to kiss his scar through his brushy hair. "Yours has been through enough," she says. -30-