From trevizo@utep.edu Fri Oct 11 09:56:21 1996 I DID NOT WRITE THIS - I am the administrator for the x-files-fanfic mailing list and am posting this story for a subscriber. For information on the mailing list, go to http://mail.utep.edu/~trevizo/x-files. Please do not send comments for the author to me -- send them to (csc0119@is4.nyu.edu). You may direct requests for missing parts to me though, but please try to find them at the archives first: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/members/xfilesfanficarchive.d/contents.htm http://www.bns.com.au/alee/fiction.html http://www2.iwn.fi/x-files/ http://gossamer.simplenet.com/ http://www.nd.edu/~kenglish/XFilesArchive.html __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]------------------------------------------------- I started this way back in January, and posted the first part then. The second part has been collecting dust in a lost file since shortly after then. Sorry. In case _anyone_ is keeping track, I am working on the sequel to Body Space. The Borderline series, however, is on hold for the time being. Life keeps getting in the way. Fortunately, life this month provides me with plenty of X-File inspiration. So, enjoy. It's vaguely MSR, but not really. By all means, Archive and post this to ATXC to your heart's content. Summary: On the run in a foreign airport, Mulder and Scully grit their teeth and do what they have to do in order to survive. ******************************************************** Terminal (1/2) by Cat C. ******************************************************** Dana's heavy denim tote bag bit into her shoulder as she hurried across the terminal. One of her canvas sneakers was in the process of eating her sock. Her sock was soaked with sweat and already bunching up below her heel. Her ridiculous outfit was grabbing where it should be loose and slipping where it should grip, her wig was falling in her eyes and, "Damn it," she whispered, "You're walking too fast, Mulder." He turned and took her arm, dragging her up along side of him as they broke into a jog. "You know we have to make the plane, and make it in character," he glanced down at his jeans and ratty t-shirt, "or we aren't going to get out of this god forsaken country." Twisting her arm, she pulled it out of his hand. "I know, but Christ, what possessed you to get this costume for me?" She was panting, but keeping up as they passed a dingy little bar, a Mc Donalds and approached a newsstand. A hint of a smile played across his lips. "Sizes are different here, what can a sa--shit." He grabbed her waist and pulled her after him, into a newsstand and behind a rack of comic books. "What was that?" she said as she stepped back from him and bent down, hands on her thighs, to catch her breath. Brightly colored magazines surrounded them, magazines covered with pictures of naked women. Sometimes she seriously thought that Mulder did these things just to piss her off. Over the past two days, they'd eluded authorities, and tried desparately to get in contact with the American Embassy after _she_ had broken him out of jail. After forty-eight hours of no sleep, bathrooms that would frighten even microbiologists and a diet of Coke and peanut M&Ms (the only safe food they could find and afford) she was more than edgy. She was ready to kill him. Not to mention the hell she would give him once they were safe about letting her think he was dead for a week and a half. "That was a policeman. This is a break. We can spare thirty seconds." "Thanks," she sneered, "Now when exactly did we put you in charge?" "Twenty seconds." She lowered their "Luggage" from her shoulder and rubbed her skin. She could feel the mottled bruise beginning to form on her sunburned skin. Rolling her head and cracking her neck she stared into her partner's eyes. Stubble dusted his sunken cheeks, and his clothing hung oddly on him. He must have lost at least twenty pounds during his captivity. She knew that purple and black bruises were splatted across his rib cage and back. She had seen them in the hotel room they had snuck into to dress his and her wounds. That night, after the escape/gunfight they payed off a maid to let them use one of the unused rooms for two hours. Once inside both had stripped to their underwear in less than a minute. Without a word they examined each other thoroughly and professionally. Expecting to hear a quip or two from him concerning their comprimising position, she braced herself. But the joke never came. Instead, after they were sure neither was mortally wounded, he put a feverishly warm hand on the small of her back, right above her panty line and pulled her to him. I missed you so much, he whispered fiercely into her hair. After seeing his wounds she was reluctant to wrap her arms around his almost naked body, sticky with blood. For a moment, she just stood there, letting him squeeze her so tightly she lost her breath. Then, she gingerly put her arms around his waist and squeezed him back. Finally, he released her and, a little weak in the knees, he leaned back against the sink. She had escaped relatively unscathed, but the wrapping of his cuts and abrasions had required two little bottles of tequilla from the mini-fridge, half a bedsheet ripped into six-inch wide strips and a good deal of foul language on his part. After he was bandaged she convinced him to sleep for an hour. God, she was glad he was alive. The embassy had supplied them with passports and tickets back to the states, but the hour they spent waiting for the plane was their own to kill. Their first forty-five minutes had gone smoothly enough, between the hiding in the cesspool/bathroom and slouching in a corner of the bar. Then the police and the men who wanted them to think they were police showed up. They left before being spotted and had spent the last five minutes trying to look very busy and not at all suspicious. Dana pushed a strand of long black straight hair away from her face. "I look like a hooker in this thing." "At least you don't have hair that shouts, 'I'm not from around here', anymore. Five seconds." "I'm going," she groaned. Her shoulder felt lighter all of a sudden as he took the tote bag. "You don't have to do that." She reached to take the weight from the less damaged of his shoulders. "I know, but I'm not that injured. Besides, it'll help you walk faster." They could see their gate and tried to remain calm and collected as the walked calmly toward it. Scully allowed herself a sigh of relief. The home stretch. She could almost smell her apartment and see the leaves at home beginning to change color. But her stride was broken suddenly as Mulder grabbed her again and started to drag her off the main thoroughfare. This time was different from the last, though. He didn't pull her to a store, there were none for a hundred yards. Instead he leaned her against a wall, gave her an odd apologetic look and lowered his mouth to hers. end part 1 From trevizo@utep.edu Fri Oct 11 09:56:26 1996 I DID NOT WRITE THIS - I am the administrator for the x-files-fanfic mailing list and am posting this story for a subscriber. For information on the mailing list, go to http://mail.utep.edu/~trevizo/x-files. Please do not send comments for the author to me -- send them to (csc0119@is4.nyu.edu). You may direct requests for missing parts to me though, but please try to find them at the archives first: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/members/xfilesfanficarchive.d/contents.htm http://www.bns.com.au/alee/fiction.html http://www2.iwn.fi/x-files/ http://gossamer.simplenet.com/ http://www.nd.edu/~kenglish/XFilesArchive.html __________ / __ __ \ ( (__) (__) ) --------[[[---------]]]------------------------------------------------- See part 1 for disclaimer etc. ******************************************* Terminal (2/2) by Cat C. (csc0119@is4.nyu.edu) ******************************************* The kiss was brief and chaste. His grip on her wasn't. His lips were warm and wet on hers as he spoke very softly. "Don't move." Her hands rested where they had landed when he surprised her--gripping the front of his t-shirt for balance. Experimentally she pushed against his chest. He wouldn't move. "I can't." Recently washed male aroma wafted to her nostrils and he began to make her feel claustrophobic. "I think he's gone," he said. When he spoke, she could taste his breath rushing into her mouth. "Who? I'm assuming there's a good reason for all of this," she said as she poked him in the the ribs. She felt him wince. "The things I put up with for the sake of truth." "The short bald man in the red sweatshirt. He's from the local government. Not a fan of my search for the truth. Or of me. Take a look for me." His short cropped hair bristled against her cheek, chin, then the side of her neck as he ran his closed mouth down the side of her face to her collar bone. Over his shoulder she saw the man in red. Mulder stayed there, at her throat, not moving. She didn't even feel him breathing. All of his actions from the past minute had felt strange and respectful. They weren't making out, she thought, they were doing a slow, formal dance. This dance didn't make her feel uncomfortable as it probably should have. He was her partner, after all. Sexuality wasn't a factor in their relationship as far as she was concerned. This was for survival. She looked over his shoulder again. "Still there. Wait, uh-oh, he's looking at us. Do something, quick." Pulling up on his t-shirt, she directed his face back to hers. "Work with me here." She couldn't stop a hint of mischief from sneaking into her voice. Still hesitant, he held back. Why did he look so nervous? They were doing this for survival's sake. Was the prospect of kissing her that off-putting for him? They didn't have much time so she tried pushing another of his buttons. "Or are you all talk, boy wonder," she said, referencing a rather flirt heavy bit of banter they had exchanged a few hours ago. That worked. Hands on her rear, he tugged her close. She felt him grin against her as she snaked one arm around his waist. With her other, she played with the hairs at the back of his neck. Once their lips touched, he pulled her against him again, harder and began to open her mouth. They kept their tongues to themselves, out of some unspoken pact to keep things on the near side of professional. In a way, the kiss echoed their professional relationship. She had never battled with just her lips before. That sort of word didn't describe the sort of kisses she usually liked. But this was as much an arguement as any of their verbal debates. She kept up fine, not wanting (for some competitive reason) to shift from the kissing catagory to the being kissed catagory. He moved his hands up to the wall, trapping her between his arms. Periodically they stopped for breathing, but aside from the movement of her hands on his back, their contact remained constant. After what felt like hours, she felt a tap on the back of her left hand. A second after she froze, he went rigid as well. She stopped him before he turned around. He leaned forward and rested his forhead on the wall behind her. Poking her head under Mulder's arm, she saw the man in the red shirt frowning at her, and said, "Yes?" In heavily accented english he said, "Get a room." Then he rolled his eyes and walked away. Her muscles stopped screaming and she slouched back into the space between her partner's arms. The inside of her body still felt soft and warm, like honey. But she refused to let herself feel turned on. Or rather, to let herself admit that she was feeling turned on. "We're home free," she said. Mulder bent down and pressed his forehead against hers. While he looked relieved, embarassment started to take over his face. "Stop that," she whispered. "Don't look at me like that." "We're going to make it. I didn't think we were going to make it." The lonelyness and pain that blew across his eyes like clouds stabbed her. Her heart felt bruised and scraped when she thought about all he must have gone through in the last ten days. "It's alright." He pressed his palm to her cheek. "I thought I was going to die back there. And no one would ever know what happened to me. You wouldn't know." Swallowing hard, he stroked her face with his thumb. His behavior was more than she wanted to deal with right then. He'd gone through alot. What they needed to concentrate on now was getting home. "Come on Mulder. Let's get going. We don't want to miss the plane. As much as you love those little golf carts that zip around here, if I hear one more beep by, I'm going to have to kill someone." She realized she was babbling. Smiling, he cleared his throat and stepped back. "All right." The moment was gone. After gathering up their bags, he slipped his arm around her waist once more, gave her a squeeze, and walked off towards the gate. American embassy officials could only get them seats in separate parts of the plane, and they had already agreed not to board together and arouse suspicion. Their last few minutes in that country were anti-climactic. She watched him give her a brief smile as he entered the jetway, then she followed. The ticket takers told one Miss Anne Banks from Chicago to have a nice flight and she settled into seat G4 without problems. * * * * After captain notified her in three languages that she could now remove her seatbelt because they had reached cruising altitude. She did. After days of running for her life and her partner's, she tried to exhale all of her tension. It wasn't leaving her body. She took a deep breath, sucking in enough air to stretch her lungs. Deep enough to hurt. Maybe the hurt would center her. It wasn't working. She blew out. Her hands were beginning to shake. Pressing against the tray table in front of her didn't stop them, so she locked it back in place, pulled her knees up and began to hug them. Everything's fine, she said to her self. You're going home. Twenty four hours from now you'll be pulling up your fluffy dark blue comforter and resting your head on a pillow that smells right. It's over. Her knees started to feel wet and taste salty. It's all over. Why couldn't she stop shaking? Then, she felt a familiar presence behind her. As he knelt down beside her in the aisle and touched her shoulder she flinched. She didn't mean to. Then she realized something. He was shaking too. His hand shook for a moment until it slid down her back and pulled her towards him. He said, simply, we're going to be home soon. And even though the armrest was digging into her side, she started to feel better. End