From: Stef Davies Date: 17 Jun 1999 18:18:44 GMT Subject: MSR: Metal Fatigue Metal Fatigue. Stefaniexf@aol.com Usual disclaimers. No copyright infringement intended. I was already beginning to worry about Scully when the telephone rang. We'd spoken last night - Sunday - I felt slightly guilty remembering her sleepy voice. "Hey Mulder.." "How'd you know it was me, Scully?" I had awoken sweating after another nightmare. They happened all too often when Scully wasn't next to me. But we had decided long ago that sleeping over at eachother's apartments wasn't a good idea, especially when we had to work the next day. Didn't always work that way, of course, but last night I had given her a lingering goodbye at her door (she had been wearing her red kimono - the one which shouldn't have suited her at all, but in fact made her glow like a living flame - and my hands had slid down the cool satiny fabric, feeling her softness as she leaned in to me. "Go..." She had eventually pushed me away, and I had seen my own desire and regret mirrored in her eyes. ) "Who else calls at two o'clock in the morning?" But her voice was warm, loving. "How you doin' G-man?" I had exhaled deeply. "Doin' okay. Now." The silence stretched out between us. I could hear her breathing slow, and I closed my eyes, imagining her eyes fluttering closed and peace settle over those fine features. "Love you..." I had whispered. "Back atcha...." Gently, I had replaced the phone in the cradle and settled back into my bed. Before Scully I had rarely slept there, preferring the couch, but one wild night she had insisted on validating its existence in the most imaginative way...... I shifted in my chair and answered the phone. "May I speak to Agent Scully, please?" Skinner. Shit. "Ah....she's not here at the moment, sir. Can I help?" "I need to see Agent Scully as soon as she arrives. And as her section head, Agent Mulder, I should tell you that she will be working out of the Boston office for the next few days." I was startled. "But sir..." Skinner had rung off. What the hell was going on... and where _was_ Scully? I tried her home, and only got the answerphone. No response from her cell-phone either. Leaning back in my chair I ran my hands through my hair and forced myself to breathe deeply. I made myself list the thousand and one reasons why she might be late for work and have her cellphone switched off. Five minutes later, whilst I was in the middle of dialing her mom's number Scully arrived. "Where the hell have you been! Skinner wants you as of half an hour ago....." Relief made me sharper than I had intended to be, and as I heard the words issuing from my mouth I flinched, waiting for her retort. But then I looked at her, and I was out of my chair and at her side. If I hadn't personally woken her up at two am I would have sworn she's had no sleep the night before. Her eyes were bruised with exhaustion, she carried herself wearily and she looked pale and very shaken. I came and stood behind her as she placed her case on her desk, resting my hands on her shoulders. I could feel the tension there as I gently rubbed my thumbs up and down the back of her neck and into the pressure points at her nape. "What's up?" She sighed deeply as I continued my ministrations, now working her shoulders too, until she began to relax back against me. "Mom called just after you did, and I had to go over. I only got back an hour ago.." My hands stilled for a second. "Is she okay?" "She was upset.....about something that happened a long time ago. She's just received a visit from Boston's finest and she wanted to talk......." Scully's voice faded away, but I knew what she was thinking. Who else could Margaret call on in the middle of the night? Husband dead these past three years, two sons - well, God knows where they were. I found it hard to keep track of them. I'd never met either of them: they were both career Navy boys, moving from base to base with their families and half the time anyway away at sea. I'd always found it rather odd, in fact, that Scully seemed so distant with them. Her family was very important to her; she had such a warm and close relationship with her mother, and her love for her father shone through her eyes whenever she mentioned him. Through the sadness that he was gone. But those boys....they hadn't come back for Melissa's funeral. Hadn't even come back when Scully herself lay dying in the Georgetown hospital. And for that I doubted if I would ever forgive them. Maybe I was being too harsh - Scully always made excuses for them. I only knew that if my sister lay sick in some hospital, or God forbid, was being laid to rest, _nothing_ would keep me away, not the US Navy, not Saddam Hussein - nothing. "Let me get you some coffee - you look as if you could use it. And you can tell me about it." "I thought Skinner wanted to see us?" "Let him wait." I brought the mug over to her, strong, with plenty of cream. "And not `us' - just you. He wants you to go to Boston for a couple of days....." Her eyelids fluttered closed for a second as I said this, then she took a deep breath and a long pull at her coffee. "Muld-er.... you've put sugar in this." She made a face at me, putting the mug down on the desk, careful as always to find the coaster. "That's how you like it best," I replied calmly. Whatever Skinner had in store, I figured she'd need the sugar-rush in the next hour. "I won't like it if I get fat and you don't love me any more." I smiled and crouched down next to her chair so that I could whisper in her ear. "No chance, Scully. There'll just be more of you to love." A small smile. I was glad to see it. I rocked back onto my heels. "Now stop changing the subject, Dana Katherine. Tell me what's going on. Skinner's sending you off to Boston, and your mom had a visit last night from the Boston PD. You come in today looking exhausted and obviously upset. I need to know what we're dealing with when we go to see the boss." "We? " "Yeah, well, you know me, easy-goin' kind of guy. But this obviously isn't an ordinary consult, and I want to know what Skinner's sending you off into. I'm technically your section head..." I stole a glance at Scully's face. Usually that kind of comment would earn me a pinch, or at the very least a dirty look, but this morning she was too distracted. "If he doesn't want me there he'll have to throw me out." I paused as a thought struck. "Unless, of course, you don't _want_ me to come with you?" She shook her head slightly. "I'd like you to come. " The phone on Scully's desk rang. "Yes, sir.......yes he did tell me ......" Scully made another face at me. "No sir, I've only just got here......right away, sir." She put the receiver down gently. and gave me a wry look. "Are you sure you're up for this, Mulder. He sounds in a foul mood." I stood up, stretching. "Greater love hath no man..." I shrugged my jacket on, and straightened my tie..."...than that he should give up a nice peaceful morning in the basement and go with his partner to beard the lion in his den." I held the door open. "Now, Scully, it's a good job you've only got little legs!" I grinned at her as she looked at me open-mouthed. "Because it'll take so long to get to the fourth floor that you'll have plenty of time to tell me what this is about." Good - she smiled back, her beautiful slow smile, the one that turned my insides into ice-cream. Sometimes I wondered if she knew exactly how bewitching she was, but from comments she'd let slip from time to time I had gathered that she'd never felt particularly lucky or at ease with the dating game. No-one had died, no-one was sick. How bad could it be? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Th