"Above Rubies" by Rachel Howard. 
Edited by Jen Arthur, Scott Carr and Dasha K.

CLASSIFICATION: XRA

RATING/CONTENT WARNING: NC-17 for sex, violence, other 
disturbing stuff. Please don't read if you're underage.

SUMMARY: Biological weapons, ghosts, sex, guns, bad guys 
galore, 
Mulder, Scully, Skinner, and a partridge in a pear tree.

KEYWORDS: MSR, mythology

SPOILER WARNING: US Season 5.

DISTRIBUTION: Gossamer, Ephemeral, others go ahead but let 
me know.

FEEDBACK/EMAIL: Any/all at greatfuldane@yahoo.com
More stories at 
http://members.aol.com/xfileluv/RachelMain.htm

THE DISCLAIMER: Come on, don't sue me.  Yes, I borrowed 
them without permission, but it's a great way to publicize 
your brand and besides, I'm not making any money off of 
this. 


(1/19)

 "I saw a public execution once while I was there."  His 
eyes glitter, and he shifts in his seat. The metal legs of 
the chair scrape against the chipped linoleum floor of the 
interview room in a way that sets my teeth on edge. 

" 'There' meaning Afghanistan?"

Pierce ducks his head coyly, like a beauty pageant runner-
up trying to hide a snarl with alligator tears. "When they 
see Westerners at the edge of the crowd, they move out of 
the way so that you can get a better view.  Kind of like 
parting the Red Sea."  He laughs, a harsh bark that 
communicates no humor whatsoever, and I try to choke back 
the bile collecting around my esophagus. "See, they =want= 
us -- you know, Western infidels -- to see how they 
administer justice.  Swift and bloody. Do it in public for 
the deterrent effect."

"Is that where you and Garjon acquired the VX gas?  Is that 
where he went?  Back to Afghanistan?" Scully's face is so 
calm she could be asking about her dry cleaning.

"It was adultery that they had her on trial for.  The men 
get decapitated; the women get stoned to death."  He laughs 
again and this time the rank smell of his breath reaches me 
and I stop breathing through my nose so that I won't gag 
again.

I hate this bullshit.  Let the fucking NYPD interrogate the 
bastard.  Let Anti-Terrorism do it. We were looking for a 
retrovirus -- is it our fault that we found out these 
freaks were stockpiling VX gas instead?

Wells knocks and motions us into the hallway -- Garjon's 
been seen heading into his basement apartment in Manhattan.

Scully and I duck back into the room, and as she leans over 
to scoop up her leftover coffee Pierce reaches across the 
table with both cuffed hands and grabs her wrist.  I 
flinch; Scully doesn't.

"Can you name the price of a good woman, Agent Scully?" 
Pierce's voice has taken on an evangelical fervor and I 
don't like it at all, in fact I start to lean across the 
table even before I see his fingers tighten on Scully's 
wrist, digging into her flesh.

My fist connects with his jaw about the same time that 
Scully says, "There is no deterrent to adultery, Mr. 
Pierce."

He rocks back from the force of the blow, but I think it 
was Scully who put the dazed look on his face.  I can see 
white marks on her skin where he touched her, but she just 
picks up her coffee cup and leaves.

In the car on the way, my sense memory finally ID's what I 
smelled on Pierce's breath and I snicker.

"Mulder?"

I catch the tail end of Scully's quizzical look and 
explain, "Gyros.  He had a gyro for lunch." I chuckle some 
more while Scully's quizzical look turns into Scully's not-
amused and slightly annoyed look. "I thought all the 
militia freaks lived in Idaho or something but I guess the 
new generation of right-wing weirdos missed eating ethnic 
food.  These guys set up camp in Manhattan."

Scully thinks about it.  "I don't think these two are that 
kind of right-wing weirdo.  Or maybe they thought New York 
was ripe for an Aryan revival."

That takes away my giggles.  "Could be."

She's frowning. "Think he made up all that stuff about 
public executions?"

"No," I reply, honestly.

"I didn't think so, either." 

The Seventh Avenue traffic swirls around us, heat waves 
rippling off the asphalt.

***************

"Where'd he GO, Mulder?" I'm screaming down the echoing 
length of the alley.  It is hot, hot, and it smells bad, 
like ripe garbage and dirty bodies.

"I don't --"

And suddenly Garjon is there, and in the one place I can't 
stand to see him -- right behind Mulder.  

Pointing a Smith and Wesson directly at his head.

I freeze solid a half-second before Garjon tells me to.

"Motherfucker.  Right into my fucking apartment."  He's 
ranting, his gun hand wobbling as he curses at me, at 
Mulder. The detached part of my brain makes note of his 
underbite, wonders how many rounds he has left and if the 
shot I heard a few seconds ago hit another agent.

He has a loud, angry voice with a thick Hell's Kitchen 
accent, which is a good thing because it covers the sound 
of Darren Ledeller leaning over the railing of a fire 
escape overlooking the alley.  He definitely gets the Smart 
Move of the Day award for climbing the fire escape in the 
first place. But Ledeller is only about six months out of 
the Academy and scared out of his mind; two seconds later 
he forgets just how little pressure it takes on the trigger 
of his Bureau-issued weapon -- 

-- and the next sound, stunningly loud in the concrete and 
brick canyon, is the report of his gun, and the wet splat 
and rattle of bits of brain and bone hitting the opposite 
wall of the alley.

Garjon's brains.  Garjon's skull.

Not Mulder's.

But my ganglia are still twitching, hearing the shot. My 
brain has somehow failed to transmit the information that 
Mulder is alive and well and standing, panting and sweaty, 
not fifty feet away, and as a result, although my head is 
clear, my nerves are shot to hell and I'm gasping like I 
just ran a mile in high heels.......

...which I =did=, actually -- 

...and then my head stops being clear because my ears are 
buzzing, and then for the first time in my life since I was 
sixteen and trying to diet my way into a size four while 
studying for a chemistry final and suffering the worst 
cramps I've ever had - I faint.

******************************

 "Scully?"

Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

"Dana?"

I took some diet pills because I have a date next week with 
Joe Neely, and I wanted to fit into this dress I bought 
yesterday.  It's black and short and it's the kind of thing 
Mom would think was "totally inappropriate," but when I 
bought it I could see myself in it, ten pounds would do it, 
and I had such bad cramps I barely got through my chem lab 
today.......

"Earth to Scully."

It's not the matte black screen of the confessional, small 
holes in a lattice pattern, that's swimming into focus in 
front of my eyes, it's Mulder's face, close to mine, his 
hair hanging damply into his eyes.

He smiles with relief and adds, "=There= you are.  You 
scared me for a second there."

He's lying through his teeth -- he's still scared.

I manage to prop myself up on one arm.  Everything swims 
for another second, and then I feel okay.

"I'm fine.  Sorry I scared you."

He sits back on his heels.  "You fainted," he says, 
accusingly.

I sniff.  "You smell bad."

He stands and turns around to show me the back of his suit 
jacket and pants.  It looks like...

"Ledeller puked.  Off the fire escape."  

"He should work on his aim.  A little to the left and he'd 
have gotten the rest of you."

Mulder gives me a shaky grin before he starts taking off 
his jacket, but I'm not fooled.  I really did scare him.

Well, he scared me, too.

I must still be a little woozy because I am clearly 
channeling my sixteen-year-old self when I say to Mulder, 
"I can't take this anymore."

He whips back around, looks like he might say something, 
but doesn't.  That's how we are when the rest of the team 
shows up, out of breath, talking about what happened in 
gulps and bursts, not hearing our silence.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that I've 
scared him.

*************************************

"Are you asking me to pull you off the case?" Skinner asks 
in his best no-nonsense drill sergeant voice.

"No, sir, I'm just asking you to let Anti-Terrorism clean 
up the rest of this one.  At this point there's no 
indication that the two suspects -- one dead, one in 
custody -- were working with anyone else. Anyone else in 
=America=, anyhow. And we found the gas.  Thereís clearly 
no X-file here and I just don't think our continuing 
presence is required in this matter." There, that sounded 
pretty good. I keep rifling through my files. It may be the 
single thinnest thread I've ever grasped at, but I need an 
X-file somewhere nice.  Scully needs a vacation and I'm 
fully aware of the fact that if I dared suggest such a 
thing to her she would decorate my ears with my nuts. 
"Sir?"

"I'm re-reading your report, Mulder.  Give me a minute 
here."

The other option is that she was serious about what she 
said last night, and I don't want to consider that option.

"If you'll refer to the section that addresses the 
correspondence we found in the Queens location --"

"I've already done so, Agent Mulder." I hear the suggestion 
of a snarl this time, so I shut up.

I've never seen her faint before, not ever. Not even when 
she had cancer.  

The first thing I did when she collapsed in that alley was 
brush the hair out of her face so that I could see her 
upper lip. 

No blood.

We never talk about the fact that she's in remission, that 
the cancer might return.  Never.  But it was the first 
thing I thought of.

We flew out on the redeye and I came straight to the office 
so that I can drop off the report I wrote on the plane.  
After that I began pawing through the files on my desk -- 
I'm all the way down to the "too ludicrous even for Mulder" 
file but I think this one is what I'm after.

I hear Skinner sigh on the other end of the line.  "All 
right.  But I want you to review Pierce's statement when 
the NYPD gets it down here."

I'm prepared when Scully limps into the office at eight-
fifteen -- literally, since it turns out she has huge 
blisters on both feet from chasing that fucker Garjon in 
two-inch heels.  No idea how she does that, and I really 
don't want to know if all our foot chases leave her with 
sore feet because that would mean that her insensitive, 
selfish bastard of a partner has been ignoring her......but 
I digress.

"Scully, we gotta repack.  Big case, bet you can't wait."

She gives me the Look and I wait patiently.

"And the case is......?"

"Urgent, so we'll talk about it on the plane.  Seriously, 
our flight leaves in two and a half hours.  I'll pick you 
up at your place in an hour and fifteen."  I snap the file 
shut like I mean business, and pick up my coat.

She must really be tired -- she doesn't even argue, just 
asks, "Where are we going?"

I reply, casually, "Hilton Head, South Carolina," 
studiously not looking her way.

A minute later we're both out the door and I say a silent 
prayer that Scully doesn't look at the file until after we 
get on the plane. Actually, Scully's perfectly capable of 
walking off a plane if she thinks I'm bullshitting her -- 
which I am. I change my little prayer. Please God, don't 
let Scully see the file until after our plane is off the 
ground.

"Mulder?"

I'm racing for the parking garage, and I forgot about her  
blisters again.  What an asshole.  "Sorry, I'll slow down."

"No, that's......" She sighs.  "I just wanted to tell you 
not to worry about what happened the other day.  When we 
were chasing Garjon?"  She tilts her head, questioning, and 
I get it -- we're not going to say the word 'faint'.  

"I wasn't feeling well and I hadn't had any 
breakfast......I saw the oncologist last week and, well, it 
wasn't -- that."

Suddenly, I feel like cheering.

Her head is down and she's walking as though her feet are 
just fine, no blisters, no sir. 

I catch her wrist and tug her in close to me.  We don't 
stop walking, but she inclines her head slightly and I bend 
down to her ear, burying my nose in her silky hair.  
"Thanks," I say, so quiet it's almost a whisper.

"You're welcome," she murmurs back.

End (1/19)

*************************

Above Rubies, (2/19)


The captain has just turned off the fasten seatbelt sign 
when Scully turns to me.  "That's it?"

I meet her incredulous gaze with a "who, me?  I didn't do 
it" look.  "Whadaya mean, 'that's it?'"

She snaps the file shut, exasperated.  I see her debating 
whether or not to call me on it, but she's already tired 
and cranky and it doesn't take long. "Oh, come on, Mulder.  
This is too ridiculous even for you."

See?  Talk about a great filing system - I =did= pull it 
out of the 'too ludicrous even for Mulder' stack.  "Scully, 
three different people have reported seeing the exact same 
apparition on that golf course."

"But Mulder, these witnesses are, are..." She's actually at 
a loss for words, and I struggle to think one step ahead of 
her so that I can keep rationalizing this absurdity.  

"Mulder." She's opting for calm and rational, and I shudder 
internally - this is far more dangerous than dealing with 
her when she's pissed off.  I actually enjoy those 
discussions - they're few and far between and Scully's 
awfully sexy when she gets worked up over something.

"I just don't see what made you think this warranted our 
attention.  The witnesses' accounts are garbled; they're 
not exactly credible - especially since all of them appear 
to have been intoxicated at the time of the alleged 
sightings.  Please explain to me exactly what made you 
think there was a decent reason for us to investigate this 
case."

I take a deep breath.  "Scully, sometimes you just gotta go 
with your gut. I had a gut feeling about this one and I 
just ran with it."  True, I rationalize silently.  All of 
that was true. 

She regards me coolly for a minute, and then shakes her 
head.  Looking back down at the manila folder, she murmurs, 
"All right, Mulder." She hands it back to me; I can see the 
livid marks on her wrist where Pierce grabbed her.

That's =it=?

Scully really does need a vacation.

********************

The hotel is actually pleasant.  There's a chilled bottle 
of water waiting for me next to a plate of fruit, two kiwis 
and an apple, compliments of the management, who are 
clearly hoping to get more business from the Feds.  After 
eating both kiwis, I begin to forgive Mulder somewhat for 
bringing me on this moronic excuse of an investigation.  
I'll bet the forgiving impulse will fade tomorrow, when 
we're out trying to conduct our investigation.  Hilton Head 
is in the middle of a brutal heat wave, hundred-degree plus 
weather and eighty- percent humidity.  

And golf courses aren't air-conditioned.

Lovely.

I didn't pack a bathing suit, of course, but Mulder must 
have tossed one into my suitcase before I zipped it up - he 
does that sometimes, and it's kind of charming except when 
he does things like throwing a hairbrush on top of an 
easily creased silk shirt.  Lately, when he says he'll pick 
me up on the way to the airport, he shows up before I'm 
done packing and wanders aimlessly around my bedroom, 
getting in my way while I pack.  That's kind of charming, 
too, in an annoying way.

This must have been on top of the pile in my third drawer - 
if he'd done some digging he would have found my lone 
bikini, a purchase I regretted almost immediately and 
something I never wear. And after all, I =don't= want 
Mulder digging in my drawers. This is a respectable blue 
one-piece, and I look okay in it, so my irritation with 
Mulder mellows a little more. 

I sit on the edge of the hotel bed and finger the silky 
material.  Actually, Mulder's been lingering at my 
apartment on other occasions lately, too.  

The week before we stumbled onto the Garjon case, we spent 
a Tuesday evening sprawled side by side on my sofa, 
watching a rental and eating too much Thai food.  Mulder 
ordered four entrees without thinking about it.  When I 
asked him why he looked at me like I was a little slow and 
explained patiently that I could freeze the other two if I 
wanted and reheat them whenever I didn't feel like picking 
up the phone to order in.

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.  Of course, 
this is how Mulder lives - I should have known.  And we 
ended up eating three-quarters of everything, anyway, and 
drinking an awful bottle of wine, and enjoying every minute 
of it.

I woke up to find Mulder covering me with an afghan.  The 
plates and paper cartons were gone and the television 
screen was dark.  The warm hum from the kitchen told me 
he'd started the dishwasher.  When he saw he'd woken me, he 
stopped.  "Sorry.  You looked like you were going to be 
cold later."

That was when I scared him.  I was still half-asleep.  "Not 
with you here."

"What?"

I heard the doubt in his voice, and it stopped me cold.  
"Thanks for getting the blanket, but I'll just go to bed 
now that I'm awake."

He left, and I lay in bed thinking about all the other 
things I could have said.  

Mulder, stay here with me tonight.  

Mulder, you don't have to eat alone any more.

In the end, I went back to sleep, but it took a long time.

The inside of the window is chilled from the air 
conditioning, but it's like a steam bath outside.  I want 
to go for a swim but I don't want to go outside again.

In the end, I just get in bed.

At quarter past eleven Mulder calls with a question about a 
case we solved four years ago.  The so-called poltergeists 
in that case had been random electrical surges that did 
plenty of damage to solid objects without being even 
remotely supernatural. 

"Could you get hit by lightning and not know it?"

I think about it, rolling onto my side underneath the 
covers.  In a serious heat wave, I like to crank up the 
A/C, huddle under blankets and pretend it's winter. Not 
environmentally correct, but enjoyable.  "I don't see how.  
It's a fairly dramatic event.  I could look into it, 
though, see if there are any documented cases......Why?"

"You know, you're always reading about people getting hit 
by lightning on golf courses - they're out there exposed, 
metal clubs in their hands and metal spikes on their shoes, 
that kind of thing. So I thought..." He sighs 
melodramatically, a generic Muldersign indicating that he 
hasn't formulated an exact theory but he's expecting me to 
meander along with him anyhow.  In the background, I can 
hear tinny gunshots and shouting.  

"What are you watching?"

"Uh, I think it's 'Patton.'  Wait......yeah.   It's the 
part where he invades Italy.  Channel six."

I adjust the pillow under my neck, tucking it into a little 
roll.  "No Spice Channel?"

He chuffs softly.  "I do watch other things, you know."

"I know you have 'Patton' on tape."

I can hear him smiling.  "My VCR broke about the middle of 
March, Scully."

"So fix it." How has he been watching his dirty movies?

"Mmm, I always forget. Besides, yours works."

"So that's why you've been hanging around," I tease.

Over the line, I hear him take a short breath - "No. You 
don't think that, do you?"

At this hour of the night, he sounds younger, less sure of 
himself. "No. I was kidding." I really want to know about 
his adult movies, but I can't think of a way to ask - and I 
shouldn't want to know, anyhow. Or did he say that so that 
I would know that he =hasn't= been watching...No, I brought 
up the VCR.  Patton.  

In the comfortable silence I can hear staged cheers from 
the television.  For a long minute or two I listen to 
Mulder's breathing on the other end of the line and the 
creak of his bedsprings.  He doesn't rely on air 
conditioning the way I do - his is probably set only to a 
low setting, so that he can sleep under just a sheet.

"Scully?"

"Mmm?"

"Sleep?"

"Mmm-hmm.  We said eight-o-clock?"

"Downstairs."

I should hang up now, but cradle the phone between my ear 
and the top of my shoulder and roll the edge of the hotel 
sheet between my fingers for another minute, listening to 
his breathing.  Finally, I hang up and wriggle farther 
under the blankets, secure in the comfort of my artificial 
winter.

*****************************

Awareness of Scully is one of my senses, like an animal 
instinct about the weather.  Right now she's bored. Among 
Scully's wonderful qualities is her ability, no matter how 
bored she is, to assimilate information for quick retrieval 
later.  So I never worry that she's missing something.

At the moment she looks like she's entirely absorbed by 
what Luella McCarty is telling us about the Golfin' Ghost - 
note to self: do NOT use that appellation in the report - 
but if I know Scully, her mind is somewhere else 
completely.

Which is fine, because mine is, too.

"......and the last time I played the back nine.  It just 
doesn't feel right.  You know what I mean?"

I look around.  Grandfather clock in the hallway, no-color 
carpeting.  The sofa we're parked on is a perfect fit in 
this suburban nightmare of a house; weird beige flowers on 
slick cloth with woven stripes of some shiny stuff.  Scully 
looks relatively at home, perched gracefully on the edge of 
one slippery cushion, holding her coffee cup carefully.  I 
already had one near spill so now I don't dare move except 
to sip carefully at the too-small cup.  

Scully nods, coolly professional as always.  "Thank you, 
Mrs. McCarty.  You've been a big help."

She cranks the a/c in the car and folds her suit jacket 
neatly over her knees.  I loosen my tie; the short walk 
down the McCarty's drive has left trails of sweat trickling 
down my neck.  Scully's temples are damp, the fine hairs 
just above her ears dark with sweat.

"What do you say we call it a day?"

She looks at me out of the corner of her eye.  "And miss 
out on talking to the groundskeeper?"

I struggle to keep a straight face.  The groundskeeper is 
responsible for maintaining the resort's fleet of 'haunted' 
golf carts, which have been suffering from mysterious 
electrical problems, in which our victim, one Albert 
MacDougal, suffered a fatal heart attack allegedly caused 
by ghosts.  That's the nature of the crime we are supposed 
to be investigating. It would be a bit more believable had 
the victim not been an octogenarian with a history of heart 
trouble.

I'm proud of how steady my tone is when I answer her.  
"We're due to interview Mr. Valentin tomorrow at ten.  
That's what the call I got was about."

"Too bad.  You missed out on hearing about Mrs. McCarty's 
eagle last week on the seventh hole. Also, it seems Mr. 
MacDougal once pinched her rear at the club's annual 
Christmas party." 

She tucks a damp strand of hair behind her ear, and adds, 
"Yeah, let's head back.  I was thinking about going for a 
swim."

My room is on the third floor, overlooking the pool. 
Scully's has a parking lot view, but it was the only room 
they had available above the third floor, and the incidence 
of forcible entry into hotel rooms occupied by women is 
much lower above the third floor. This is the main reason 
why I always make our travel arrangements.  In motels I try 
to get adjoining rooms so I'll be able to hear, at least, 
if someone breaks into hers.

Naturally, I don't discuss these issues with Scully - she 
gets testy if she suspects I'm being overprotective. Which 
I am, but it helps me sleep at night, so fuck it.

Normally hotel pools are so small you might as well try to 
do laps in your bathtub, but this one looked okay.  I pull 
on some trunks and look out the window to see if it's 
crowded.

I spot Scully right away.  She's stretched out on a chaise 
by the pool, wearing the one-piece I stuck in her suitcase 
- the bikini was a serious temptation but I'll bet she 
never wears it - and she's on her stomach, reading 
something.

In all the time I've worked with Scully, I think this may 
be the first time I've gotten a bird's-eye view of her 
perfect ass. Thank you, Jesus.  This makes the whole damn 
trip down here worthwhile.

The bathing suit outlines the curves of her hips and her 
waist - oh, and when she moves her arm to flip the page I 
can see that her breasts are spilling slightly over the 
edges of the suit. This is too good. Her hair is clinging 
to her head, copper-dark, wet.

Seems like I'm not the only one who notices - a dark-haired 
guy is busy parking himself into the chaise next to hers.

I watch, half-amused, half-pissed. There must be fifteen 
open lounge chairs by the pool, but he's settling in right 
next to Scully.  Gee, subtle. There he goes - he just said 
something to her.

The guy looks like he's maybe early thirties, slight 
difference in skin coloration from mid to upper arms and 
again at mid-thigh.  So he spends some time outside. Bad 
haircut - not that I'm one to talk - carrying a newspaper 
which he hasn't opened yet.  Probably here on business - 
he's alone. Definitely on the make.

I lean my chin on my hands, resting on the railing, 
watching.  Scully's answering him, tucking her hair behind 
her ear.  She's got little round sunglasses on. Then he 
says something else and she nods.  She hasn't put away 
whatever it is that she's reading - is that the case file?  
Probably researching lightening strikes. By the pool - 
wicked, Scully.  

My spine stiffens a little and I stand up.  He just said 
something to Scully that made her laugh.  I can see her 
shoulders moving a little, and she's covering her mouth 
with one hand.  Did she always do that? No - not before she 
met me. I saw her laugh out loud, once, in the rain in 
Oregon.  Before the X-Files took over her life and killed 
her sister and nearly killed her, too.

Suddenly I really need that swim.

****************************************

Doug is starting to bother me.  We've now officially said 
everything two total strangers in bathing suits can say to 
one another without having an actual conversation and I am 
getting bored with being polite.  I'm also starting to 
think that he may be hitting on me.

Over Doug's shoulder I spot Mulder coming out of the lobby.  
He's wearing weird-looking black trunks, sunglasses and a 
ratty t-shirt but he's heading fairly purposefully toward 
the pool.  If I'm lucky he came down to do laps and I'll 
get to see him wet.

"Ah, Dana?"

I try to refocus my eyes quickly but it doesn't work and I 
end up squinting at Doug in the evening sunlight.  "Sorry?"

"I was just asking what you do for a living."

His whiny tone indicates that I made him ask twice.  God, I 
really don't need this - especially not when Mulder's 
stripping off his shirt not more than fifteen feet away.  I 
love Mulder's back - long and tightly muscled, smooth skin.

Usually I would say 'FBI agent' but something makes me lean 
toward Doug and say, clearly, "I'm a pathologist.  You know 
- a doctor who works on dead people."

He flinches but recovers fast, smiling toothily.  Shit - I 
=knew= he was hitting on me.  "No kidding. Well, I work on 
dead people too - I sell software to accounting 
departments." He laughs heartily at his own joke.  Mulder 
tosses his shirt carelessly at a lounge chair and hops into 
the shallow end, grimacing as he hits the water.  
Immediately, he bends his knees and sinks in, the water 
closing over his head for a second before he comes up, 
slicking his hair back with one hand.  He dives into a slow 
crawl stroke and I watch his shoulders rotate as he pulls 
smoothly through the water.

Mulder swims as though he were born to it - which he was, I 
remind myself, growing up on the Vineyard.  I wonder who 
taught him to swim.  His father, maybe?  And would Mulder 
have taught Samantha?  Somehow, I think so.  Could she do 
the crawl by the time she was taken from him or was she 
still dog-paddling?

Doug has lapsed into silence - I hazard a glance at him and 
from his sullen expression, I'll bet he noticed me ogling 
Mulder.  Well, good.

Mulder does neat flip turns each time he reaches the end of 
the pool.  Now that I'm dry, I'm hot again - I briefly 
consider getting back in myself, but watching him is 
better.

It feels ridiculous, being with Mulder at this hotel in a 
slick resort town.  It feels like a vacation compared to 
our last couple of cases in the field, and I have a feeling 
that may be the reason we're here.

There's no way Mulder would have fallen for this case.  
Maybe four years ago, but not today.  Drunken golfers 
reporting a murder committed by a ghost?  No way.  He 
probably thought we needed a break.

There's also no way he'd ever admit it.

And maybe we did need a break.

Do I want to go on a vacation with Mulder?

After twenty minutes, he gets out, breathing hard.  He 
shakes his head like a dog and drops of water fly 
everywhere. A few wayward drops reach us, spattering my 
toes and making Doug look annoyed.

Good.

I scoop up the file and my towel and stroll over to Mulder, 
who's drying his chest and arms.  "Dinner, eight-o'clock."

His head pops up.  "Okay," he says, consideringly. "Sure. 
Downstairs at the - whatever it is - the Dolphin Lounge?"

"No, I want to go out."

He gives me a sweet, toothy smile. "Whatever you say, 
Scully."

I get into the shower and soap away the chlorine, wondering 
if Mulder heard the question the way I meant it. I allow 
myself to hope that he did.

It looks like the FBI has other plans for us, though. When 
I call my voicemail, Skinner's recorded voice is ordering 
us back to New York.  Late this afternoon, Pierce was found 
dead in his cell.

End 2/19

Chapter 3/19, "Above Rubies"

I hate New York.  I really do.  Not for all the usual 
reasons that most people hate it - I kind of like the noise 
and the dirt and the no-bullshit attitude that New Yorkers 
have - but the place makes me tense and mean.  Mom took 
Samantha and I down here once when she was six and I was 
ten, supposedly to shop for school clothes and see a 
Broadway show, but I suspect Dad's drinking was starting to 
get to Mom and she needed a break.  It was August, which is 
a shitty time to go to New York, all the smart New Yorkers 
are in the Hamptons or the Cape or - surprise - the 
Vineyard, because the city stinks of garbage and it's hot 
and sticky day and night. But we were there, stuck in a 
not-so-elegant hotel in the theatre district.  

Sam got lost in Macy's.  

I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her while my mother 
paid for a winter coat for me, but it was the Boy's 
Department so Sam was bored and she must have wandered off.  

Mom bends down close and I know I'm in trouble.  

Her voice is shrill. "Where's your sister?"

There are scary-looking streaks of makeup along the outside 
edges of her nostrils, like her face is melting off.

"I think she went to look at toys," I lie.

Was she paranoid back then because she knew what Dad was up 
to, working for the "State Department" - or because she 
=didn't= know?

Mom is dragging me along by the wrist, hauling all our 
shopping bags in the other.  The other kids whose mothers 
dragged them here to buy clothes are staring at me.  

When we get out of the boy's department Mom keeps going, 
dragging me toward the escalators.  "You were supposed to 
be keeping an eye on her, Fox.  Where are the toys?"

The toys are on five.  Sam isn't there, and by now my legs 
are hurting from running after my mother.  Two store 
security men are helping us look.  My mother is white-
lipped and she has lost one of the bags she was carrying.

I want to go look for her myself but I know Mom won't let 
me.  Instead, I watch while the security guards make 
announcements on their walkie talkies and try to calm my 
mother down.  

We look for almost two hours before I spot Sam, sacked out 
under a rack of coats.

I wake her up; she's grumbling, still sleepy, when we get 
back to Mom. Mom looks almost as crazy as the street lady 
we saw this morning, hair in her eyes, her jacket knocked 
off her shoulder.  When she sees Sam, she runs to her and 
hugs her.  The security men look relieved.

But when we get outside the store, she grabs my wrist like 
I was the one who got lost.  "You were supposed to be 
watching her, Fox."

I know that.  But I can't say anything.  Sam is watching 
me, and she looks worried, too, because she knows she got 
me into trouble. 

And she looks a little scared, because Mom still looks like 
the crazy street lady.

So I just look at Sam like Mom's crazy, but funny-crazy 
instead of scary. I roll my eyes, and Sam giggles.  Mom 
gets even madder but Sam doesn't look so scared.

I think I went without dinner - was that all?

Some things don't need to be remembered.

"Mulder?" Scully looks concerned.  "You okay?"

"Yeah," I lie.  "Just not thrilled to be back here."

Skinner reamed me on my voicemail.  Clearly the case had 
=not= been closed, if we had stayed to help with the 
investigation and the search of the Queens location it 
would have been apparent that Pierce and Garjon had an 
accomplice, I had been derelict in my duties as an agent of 
the FBI, yadda, yadda, yadda. Get your ass back to New 
York, Mulder. 

Well, we were back in New York. Bet he was a hell of a lot 
nicer to Scully.

"Did Skinner sound pissed when you listened to his message 
last night?"

"He sounded a little tense."

"That's normal," I mutter.

"=Was= he pissed?  Because we left so quickly before?"

"Yeah," I admit.  "My fault."

"Should I get off here?"

"No, one more exit."

We're on the Van Wyck, headed for Queens.  We rented a car, 
which would normally be a stupid move in New York until you 
think about how big a pain in the ass it would be to get a 
cabin the heart of Queens after re-searching the apartment.

The apartment complex is a dump and it stinks like ripe 
garbage. We climb two flights of stairs to get to apartment 
214 - there's a door open down the hall and some soap 
actors are wailing at each other about illegitimate 
children and about how Stone's wife is a tramp. 

The first time I hear of a soap character named "Fox", 
I'm going right to the courthouse and changing my fucking 
name. Fred, maybe.

Scully and I open the door to 214, cracking the fresh 
police tape, and go in. 

"Aren't these guys supposed to be proselytizing some 
philosophy? How do they sign up new converts?" Scully 
wonders out loud. I grin; she's got a point.  The place is 
filthy, poorly lit and there's hardly any furniture.  
Stacks of literature have fallen over and paper coats parts 
of the floor, which is a good thing because the floor is 
disgusting.  There's a stuffed animal tucked into a corner 
of the dumpy sofa, which intrigues me enough that I go and 
poke at it carefully with a gloved finger. 

It's not a stuffed animal - it's a dead dog.

"Jesus," I say, recoiling.  "Can't say much for their taste 
in pets."

Scully has picked up one of the leaflets between thumb and 
forefinger.  "'How to Survive an Urban Strike.'" She 
sniffs.  "Turpentine?"

"The report said they had a lab set up somewhere in here."

Scully's picked up another pamphlet. "'Mothers of the 
Revolution.'" She pages through it briefly, then pauses. 
"'Women nurture life; they do not take it.'" She shrugs and 
lifts an eloquent eyebrow in my direction.  I find myself 
grinning at her across the piles of crap.  She lets the bit 
of printed material drop. "Seriously, Mulder, why here? I 
thought at first that maybe it was a temporary stop, 
something to do with acquiring the gas.  But they were 
obviously here for a while - long enough to make this mess, 
anyway." She frowns.  "Did you hear Garjon's accent?"

"New Yawk all the way," I remember.  "I know - I keep 
trying to put these guys in Idaho or Mississippi or 
something but I think we're just going to have to go on the 
assumption that they're on their home turf here.  And I 
still don't think Garjon's visit to Afghanistan was a 
vacation.  So how the fuck did a couple of small-time 
right-wing freaks get hooked up with exotic shit like VX 
gas?" Scully shakes her head.

Two hours later, we've found nothing that the New York 
agents and cops haven't listed on the report.  There are at 
least three or four different things in the lab that could 
blow up a city block, not to mention various accellerants, 
ignition devices, and assorted artillery.  Again, though - 
nothing exotic.

And that's what's eating at me.  Fertilizer for bombs, 
sure.  But =VX= gas?

I hear Scully come up behind me.  She puts a hand on my 
elbow and holds out two photographs.  

"Look at these."

In the foreground, the late Messrs. Pierce and Garjon.  
Slightly behind them and off to the side, another men, a 
black guy in a turban handing a cigarette to someone beyond 
the lens. The second picture shows the same three men doing 
what looks like a Hitler salute while hovering over some 
piece of mechanical equipment 

"Friend of yours, Scully?" 

"They're the only pictures I've found so far. They were in 
that pile of bills over there. Maybe we should try to find 
this third man."

"We can ask some neighbors, I guess."  Hanging out in this 
building much longer sounds like a really unpleasant option 
but what the hell, we've spent time in less attractive 
places before.

We split up, one photo for each of us, and canvass the 
building.  I talk to three other residents of this dismal 
place and have two doors slammed in my face.  Everyone 
looks sad, hungry or scared.  No one knows anything, no one 
saw anything.  I go back to apartment 214 and the stench 
hits me all over again.

This sucks.  I wanted to be in Hilton Head with Scully.

I want to kick the leg of the table but there are 
explosives on top of it so I settle for throwing the 
crumpled leaflet I picked up on the way in.  "The Evil of 
Zion" flutters unsatisfyingly to the floor, drifting 
downward in a zigzag.

Scully walks back in at that moment but tactfully ignores 
my obvious frustration.  "Mr. Samuel Hightower lives right 
above these guys in 314 and he remembers the guy in the 
photo." She waves it at me triumphantly.  "Says he used to 
park illegally in his - Mr. Hightower's - space and they 
had a few words over it.  He doesn't know his name but he 
gave a license plate number - the guy's car is a 1977 Ford 
Crown Victoria, brown."

"I knew I should have taken that picture.  I got nothing, 
Scully." I sigh out loud.  "Okay, let's go run the plate. 
Fuck. All I wanted was a nice solid ghost hunting case."

Scully actually grins at me.  "Well, it's not like we were 
going to get that in Hilton Head."

I peer at her in the fetid semidarkness. "You don't think?"

She's still smiling at me, and I feel a prickle of heat in 
my groin.  Yeah, Hilton Head.  Where I think we were about 
to go on our first date, Scully and I, before Skinner 
called with his merry tidings.

She plucks the second photo out of my hand and pockets 
both.  "Let's get out of here and see if we can figure out 
who this guy in the turban is."




The NYPD comes up with a name for the guy in the turban off 
the plate number - Mohammed al Ajiib, convicted in 1994 on 
a concealed weapons charge in Queens, did some community 
service.  Native of Sudan, found dead one week ago.  Cause 
of death appeared to be blood loss, courtesy of the four 
bullet wounds in his chest and stomach.

I put down the report and reach for the little pancakes.

"Autopsy the body," Mulder says, through a mouthful of moo 
shoo.

"Why?"

"Just a hunch."

"I was hoping for something a little more constructive, 
especially since the cause of death seems to be fairly easy 
to identify."

He stretches, his jacket riding up to his ears, and reaches 
for his coffee cup again.  "I don't know." He drinks his 
coffee, his hair slipping over his eyes.  He needs a 
haircut.  Since it's Mulder, naturally, the shaggy look is 
charming, especially combined with a $1500 suit and a smear 
of duck sauce on his chin. He stands up to reach across the 
table for Pierce's file and I enjoy the way his trousers 
pull tight across his ass.

It took two years before I realized that part of the reason 
everyone assumed I was Mulder's secretary had to do with 
clothing.  My practical outfits were no match for Mulder's 
Armani; of course, my budget is also no match for Mulder's 
and still isn't.  I was seriously pissed about that until I 
realized that it wasn't due to a big pay discrepancy. 
Mulder is sitting on a nice portfolio which is hopefully 
being managed by professionals since I know he rarely even 
opens his bank statements, let alone balances his 
checkbook.

"Scully? You still in there?"

I refocus.  "Did you come up with a reasonable reason why I 
should autopsy Ajiid?"

"Would you have heard it if I had?"

"Yes," I lie, balancing another bite of the sesame chicken 
on my chopsticks.  Yes, Mulder, I was sitting right here 
listening to you, not admiring your ass at all. 

He looks skeptical.  "How the hell are we going to find out 
where these guys got the gas?"

"Shouldn't you be working up a profile on someone?"

"It's no fun profiling dead guys. If they're already dead, 
I don't get the chance to prove that my profile was 
strikingly accurate." 

I grin at him and he grins back.  Mulder has a geeky smile, 
but I love it because I hardly ever see it. Something has 
changed between us in the last few days - it's not that we 
aren't taking this case seriously, it's only that there's 
something else going on here, too. 

Something between us.

I can't stand it any longer; I reach over with a napkin and 
wipe the duck sauce off his chin.  If I had kept looking at 
it any longer I'd have ended up licking it off.

He smirks. "Scully, I didn't know you cared."

"I don't, I just can't have a messy partner compromising my 
credibility."

"Been doing that for years, G-woman." Mulder's voice still 
has the teasing note, but a certain seriousness is there, 
too. I look up, distracted from rolling another little 
pancake.  But he's already moving on.  "Tell you what - if 
you do an autopsy, I'll do some checking on Mr. Ajiib. 
Deal?"

"Do you want to go to Finnegan's at six?"

He makes a face.  Our colleagues in the New York field 
office were trying to be nice by inviting us out for 
drinks, but Mulder's not good at making nice.  Usually 
things go badly when we try to be friendly with the locals.  

"Can't we just work late instead?"

"I was hoping you'd say that.  I'll see if I can get 
Ajiib's body on a table this afternoon."

I look at my watch while I chew - three o'clock already.  

By nine PM I am slightly hungry again and wondering if I 
ought to be concerned about Mulder yet.  He called around 
seven and told me he was off to interview Ajiib's former 
roommate.

"You think I'm paranoid, Scully, you ought to see this guy.  
Didn't want to meet during the day, didn't want to meet at 
all in fact, but I kind of implied that Ajiib might have 
left him something in his will -"

"Mulder."

"-relax, no promises, nothing that could get me in trouble, 
but I really needed to see this guy, Ajiib's ex-wife 
wouldn't talk at all.  Sounds like he owed a few people 
money.  Anyhow, I'll call you when I'm done with the 
interview."

"Where are you meeting him?"

"Place in Chelsea called the Little Lion. With my luck it's 
a gay bar."

"With my luck it isn't."  I pause; it's a second before 
Mulder gets it. He lets out a startled bark of laughter and 
I smile into the phone, knowing that he can't see me.

"Good one, Scully. Find anything yet?"

"Nothing interesting. I'll tell you later."

He hangs up and I pick up my swab again.  Ajiib wore a 
heavy ring on his right hand, and there's a little blood 
dried on it, which might be his, and then again, it might 
not.

The cool of the morgue, the routine and precision of the 
work take over again.  I love doing autopsies.  Pathology 
strips medicine down to its simplest form - no worries 
about bedside manner or speed or all of the other things 
you have to take into account with a live patient.  It's 
all technique, precision and deduction here. Every one of 
my patients has a story to tell, even if they can't speak 
to me in words.  I reach for my scalpel and begin the Y 
incision, wanting to get to Mohammed al Ajiib's last 
message.

Two hours later I'm done.  This man drank heavily, which 
more or less rules out a strong personal connection to 
Islam. But not all terrorists are motivated by religious 
conviction. I think of Alex Krycek. He ought to have "Gun 
for Hire" business cards made up.  And there are other 
crazy causes out there that have nothing to do with 
religion.

There's no evidence of exposure to VX gas, but of course 
there =shouldn't= be since it wasn't the cause of death.  
VX gas is one of the most horrible chemical agents ever 
invented. Generally, if you're exposed to the stuff, you 
die immediately, end of story.  

It only takes a milligram to cause death - and that's with 
simple skin contact. The pathologist who taught the FBI 
courses on toxics loved to expound on the stuff, on the 
fasciculations rising on the skin of victims. When thereís 
direct contact between skin and significant amounts of 
liquid or aerosolised V-series nerve agents, the affected 
skin, and subcutaneous musculature, will actually start to 
squirm and ripple as the agent starts destroying the local 
nervous system. No, if Ajiib was around long enough to get 
shot, the gas itself didn't have anything to do with his 
death - at least not directly.

Where the hell is Mulder? 

I call, but he isn't answering his cell.

By ten o'clock, I'm really worried.

By eleven, I'm frantic.


END 3/19  "Above Rubies"




"Above Rubies", (4/19)

See chapter 1 for disclaimers and other information. 


I get the call from the hospital just after 11. Mulder was 
unconscious when the paramedics got to him. He appears to 
have a concussion, and right now they're getting ready to 
do a CAT scan to rule out a skull fracture, et cetera, et 
cetera. I'm out of the lobby of the hotel hailing a cab by 
the end of the conversation. 

On the way down Lexington Avenue, I briefly consider why 
they took his watch and his wallet. Maybe to make it look 
like a mugging? I charge through the ER, waving my badge, 
which doesn't work as quickly as it usually does because I 
arrive in a wave of broken bodies, EMT's wheeling bloody 
patients by me as I try to get the nurses behind the desk 
to tell me where to find Mulder. I smell blood and baby 
formula in equal parts and I do not turn around when I hear 
someone yell for a pediatric kit for room three, stat. 

It takes equal parts badge and bluster before I finally get 
the attention of an intern who seems to know where Mulder 
is. "Your partner appears to have been mugged, Ms. Scully," 
the intern tells me in a tone of voice that lets me know 
she thinks it's kind of funny that an FBI agent got mugged. 

"=Dr.= Scully," I correct her, not amused. "Where is he?" 
"Down the hall, go left, third door on the left. He's still 
getting his CAT scan." 

Mulder is still and bloody in the long tube, and I have to 
take a long breath before flipping open my badge and 
tapping the technician on the shoulder. "Special Agent Dana 
Scully, FBI. Agent Mulder is my partner, and I need some 
information on his condition." 

"I'm a doctor," I add. The technician gives me a bored 
look, but a doctor walks in and I repeat my request to him 
with slightly better results. "Your partner was 
brought in presenting traumatic head injury. Bleeding from 
one ear, disorientation, dizziness, short-term memory loss. 
I examined him myself -- I think this is a concussion, not 
a skull fracture, but the CAT scan is done. You 
can see for yourself." They slide Mulder out of the tube. 

He sits up very slowly, looking mildly embarrassed to see 
me. "Hey, Scully." 

I feel an instant, unreasonable rush of anger. "What 
happened?" 

"My head hurts like hell and they won't give me any 
painkillers." 

"You know you can't have any with a concussion. 
How did you =get= the concussion?" 

He winces and immediately I realize that he's 
in worse shape that I thought. "Uh...I think I went to 
interview someone tonight." 

I lean over, put a hand under his chin, tilt his head up 
gently and check his pupils. Different sizes. "Oh, Mulder. 
Lie back down. You really don't remember?" 

His expression is a mixture of embarrassment and chagrin, 
as though he's committed a weird social faux pas and 
doesn't know what to do about it. "I remember being in a 
bar. I remember eating lunch with you at the 57th. After we 
checked out the apartment." He straightens his back as if 
Miss Manners is correcting his posture at the dinner table. 

"What did you have to eat?" 

"The doc already played the `remember these three things' 
game with me, Scully." 

"What did you have for lunch, Mulder?" 

"Moo shoo?" 

"Are you remembering or just guessing based on what you 
usually order?" 

He rubs his hand over his face. "No, I remember. I went to 
a bar later, but I don't remember why you didn't go with 
me." Wincing, he reaches down and pats his hip. "Where's my 
weapon? Scully, we really need to get out of here." 

"We will," I reassure him. It rattles me to see 
Mulder this out of it. I put a hand on his shoulder, ready 
to ease him back down, but he brushes my hand away. "Do you 
remember calling me this evening?" He frowns, thinks about 
it for a second, and looks relieved. "You were doing the 
autopsy." 

"That's right," I tell him, somewhat reassured. Mulder 
looks up at the doctor with sudden concern. The doctor is 
watching us with bloodshot eyes. I turn to him. "Did you do 
any blood work?" 

He gives Mulder a long look, then turns back to me. "Why 
would we do that? Your partner is suffering from a --" 

"I think he may have been drugged." I stare at him; his 
lips compress. "How long has he been here?" I ask. 

"I first saw him about forty-five minutes ago, I 
think." The muscles in his jaw flex; I can see him debating 
whether or not to begin asking me questions, and I cut him 
off. 

"I need you to check for evidence of hallucinogens or 
narcotics in his bloodstream." 

In half a second, the doctor's face closes up. "If you're 
concerned that he may have a substance abuse problem --" 

"No. Not that. Someone may have deliberately drugged him 
and I need ou to draw some blood =now= and send it to the 
FBI lab." The technician comes back with the images. No 
skull fracture. 

He was gone for hours. Not as long as they had him at 
Ellens Air Force Base, but... I lean in close and examine 
the area at the base of Mulder's neck, and not until I feel 
my breath catch in my throat do I realize that I was 
looking for a chip. No implant is visible on the image. 

Mulder has been rummaging through his pockets, emptying 
them onto the table, showing absolutely no interest in the 
pictures of his cranium. Before I can stop him, he lurches 
to his feet, wincing, and hands me a piece of paper -- no, 
a bar napkin -- with something scribbled on it. "Does this 
look familiar to you?" 

114 East 11th Street. 

He shakes out his jacket pockets. The bar napkin, his 
cellphone and his badge are the only things on him. In the 
hallway a woman is crying, and I can smell blood, thick and 
acrid, all the way in here. What were they after? Why take 
his wallet and his gun but not the badge or his cellphone? 

"Scully, let's get the fuck out of here," Mulder says, 
suddenly. He's wearing the look he got right before he told 
me we were going to Hilton Head. Big case, Scully, gotta 
go. I need to talk to him about what happened in the bar. 
He stands steadily before me, looking confused but annoyed. 
There's not a hell of a lot they can do for a concussion, 
anyway. The doctor is still watching me. 
"Can you release him?" 

"It would be an AMA release, Dr. Scully. I realize that 
you're capable, but he should be under observation. He 
should be awakened hourly to check for signs that --" 

"I am a medical doctor," I repeat, slowly. "I know what 
to look for. I'll bring him back if he shows signs of 
deteriorating. Draw some blood." I finally read his name 
tag while he's calling for a nurse to do a stat draw and 
screen. Dr. George Salinas. "Thank you, Dr. Salinas," I 
add. He nods at me and steps back to let the nurse get at 
Mulder with the syringe. It's a good thing they overwork 
their doctors here; I have a strong feeling that if this 
guy weren't obviously exhausted, I would have been ducking 
questions like crazy. 

In the taxi, Mulder rests his head against the window and 
closes his eyes. "We should check out that address." 

"Tomorrow," I say, mentally adding -- if you're feeling up 
to it. He hears me anyway and says, "I'm going with you, 
Scully." 

"=Tomorrow=, Mulder." 

His eyes are still shut and he murmurs, "Not so close next 
time." 

"What?" 

He turns his head towards me carefully. "Did you say 
something, Scully?" His eyes are still unfocused. 

"Never mind, Mulder." Concussion, I remind myself. No skull 
fracture, just a concussion. We're lucky the amnesia was 
localized. =Is= it simple amnesia? Or did they wipe his 
memory again? I'm not even sure that the blood screen will 
tell me anything more. These people have discovered drugs 
that don't leave any traces. I don't know how much of this 
Mulder has thought of yet, and I'm not going to get into it 
with him now. Tomorrow morning, at the earliest. 

The cab slips past all-night groceries, strip joints. The 
neon lights play over his face, his closed eyes, 
illuminating nothing but the planes and curves, no lines. I 
watch him in silence until we reach our hotel. I make him 
give me his room key so that I can come back and check on 
him during the night. Concussions have a way of going bad 
suddenly -- Dr. Salinas was perfectly right about waking up 
the patient at intervals. 

Mulder's too tired for the obvious jokes about the key, but 
he smiles vaguely before the door clicks shut behind him. 

The first time my bedside alarm goes off, it's two in the 
morning. We're a couple of floors apart, but I'm not awake 
enough to face getting fully dressed for the short elevator 
ride. I put a robe over my nightshirt and go down to his 
room. 

Mulder has left his bedside light on, which keeps me from 
falling over his open suitcase. I don't think he ever 
unpacks completely when we're in the field. He's sprawled 
facedown on the far bed, stretched across the bedspread 
with a towel around his waist, breathing deeply. He doesn't 
stir when I sit on the edge of the mattress. His arms are 
stretched out above his head, one hand dangling off the 
edge of the bed next to me. His hair is mussed and still 
damp. 

"Mulder?" 

He begins waking up after I put my hand on his shoulder. 
Fascinated, I watch his eyes slip open and slowly focus on 
me. His pupils are the same size; good. 

"Your eyes are focusing, that's good. I have to make sure 
your amnesia isn't getting worse. Okay, I want you to 
remember these three things: a pencil, a lemon and a 1957 
Chevy. What did we have for lunch?" 

He smiles sleepily and I try to ignore the pleasant tingle 
of awareness as he shifts under my palm. "Moo shoo." 

I take my hand away and he follows it with his eyes. "What 
was I doing this afternoon? When you called me?" 

"Autopsy." He rolls onto his side, scootches towards me 
slightly and props himself up on one elbow, looking amused. 
I try not to look at the towel, which may have moved a 
little bit. 

"Where did we eat lunch?" 

"You already asked about lunch," he points out, 
smugly. "At the 57th." 

"Who's the president of the United States?" 

"William Jefferson Clinton." 

"What three things did I ask you to remember?" 

He frowns for a second. "A pencil, a lemon and a '57 Chevy. 
Did I pass?" 

"Okay. I'll be back in an hour and a half." 

I begin to get up, but he catches my wrist. "Stay." 

"What?" 

"Come on, just stay. You don't need to be running around 
the hotel in the middle of the night." He licks his lower 
lip and his gaze drifts to my robe. "Especially not dressed 
like that." 

I feel myself blushing to the roots of my hair. It's not a 
sexy robe, damn it -- just cream-colored silk, long. 
Terrycloth is too bulky to take on the road. "Mulder?" 

"Stay," he repeats softly, insistently. "I really don't 
think they go to the trouble of bugging our hotel 
rooms." He pulls gently until I'm sitting again. 

Head injury, I remind myself. Dana, he has a =concussion=. 
He only wants me to sleep in the room with him, right? On 
the other bed? "You won't sleep well if I stay," I protest. 
Weak, but I can't seem to think of a better argument. 

"I'm counting on it," he murmurs, and I feel my face get 
hot again. What the fuck am I =doing= here? Mulder has 
slipped his free arm around my waist and is slowly pulling 
me down to lie next to him. No, he meant =this= bed. My 
head is buzzing. I can't think clearly through the white 
noise in my mind and the dull heat circling under my skin 
where Mulder is touching me. He smells good, like soap and 
warm skin. "Relax," he admonishes, before leaning in to 
brush his lips across mine.
 

End chapter 4/16




"Above Rubies", (5/19)


Mulder's lips nudge mine apart and his tongue slides 
insistently into my mouth. I barely suppress a moan; 
it feels incredible. One of his hands has settled at 
the small of my back, not holding me to him tightly, 
only stroking gently, rubbing the silky fabric of 
the robe against the inch of skin between my t-shirt 
and panties. I want more.  I want him to keep going 
until we finally answer this last question between 
us.

But even through the dense heat of the kiss, a 
querulous voice in my head can't stop reminding me 
that he has a head injury and we shouldn't be doing 
this.

We really shouldn't be doing this.

I put a hand against his chest and pull away gently. 
His eyes are shut; they open slowly.

"Dana?" He looks confused.

"Mulder, I can't stay here tonight.  You're not in 
any shape to be doing.........this."

He rubs a hand over his face and licks his lips, 
bringing another rush of heat to my center.

"Scully."  The vagueness leaves his voice, and when 
he meets my eyes, he looks embarrassed.  "I'm 
sorry."

He's sorry?  Sorry for what?  For kissing me?

And as suddenly as it came, the heat flushing my 
skin is gone.  

I sit up. "You should get some rest. I'm going to 
have to check on you again." It takes a conscious 
effort to keep my voice steady. 

I don't know what happened between us here, but I 
know something went wrong.

Mulder is still looking at me, but the languid 
arousal is gone.  He has the same expression on his 
face that he got when I showed up at the hospital.

I go back to my room and try to sleep, but all I 
manage is a shallow doze that is interrupted by the 
four o'clock alarm.  This time I pull on a pair of 
jeans and a t-shirt before going to Mulder's room.

He wakes up easily this time and his eyes 
immediately flick up and down, taking in my clothes. 
Yes, Mulder, I decided against the robe this time. 
He answers my questions stiffly and I leave as 
quickly as I can.

The six-o'clock check goes the same way, except that 
Mulder says, "I'm fine, Scully.  Really.  We need to 
go check out that address." 

"You're not fit for duty."

He growls with irritation.  "I have a headache, but 
I'm not dizzy or nauseated.  I'm not having any 
trouble remembering the pencil, the lemon or the 
goddamn '57 Chevy, and by the way, you could come up 
with a different list once in a while for variety.  
And we =need= to check out the address on that 
napkin.  It was in my handwriting."

"I noticed." I think about it for a minute.  He's 
totally lucid, and I'm not going to get any peace 
from him until we go look at this place.

Knowing Mulder, it could easily be the address of a 
strip bar recommended by the bartender, but maybe it 
isn't.

"Could it wait until nine or so?"

He nods reluctantly and winces, the movement 
obviously hurting him.

"And I want backup from the field office when we 
go."

His head snaps up, and I watch him grimace and 
swallow as the sharp movement takes its toll. "Why?" 
he asks finally, when he's regained his equilibrium.

"Do =you= think you're up to anything serious?"

He thinks about it for a second.  "Okay, but call 
Hicks."

I nod. Greg Hicks seemed okay. "Deal. I'm going to 
try to get a little more sleep, and I want you to 
do the same.  Any signs of trouble, we're taking 
you right to the hospital."

I go back to my room, and this time I dream that 
Mulder and I are kissing in a park, lying on the 
grass together. His hands are under my clothes, and 
even the simple touch of his palm against the small 
of my back has brought me close to orgasm. I try to 
tell him that I want him to keep going, but when our 
lips part he melts away into smoke, wisps of his 
image dissipating with the first breeze.





When I get my eight-thirty wake-up call, the pain in 
my head has receded to a dull ache, something I can 
manage with Excedrin.

I fucked up big time last night, and I have no idea 
what to do about it.

I woke up to Scully leaning over me, touching me, 
and I lost track of time.  I forgot that she was 
there to make sure I wasn't hemorraging or dying.  
Part of me has been thinking of her as my lover for 
years. The fact that we haven't had sex yet makes no 
difference to me. 

And I'm tired of waiting. I think that's what the 
Golfin' Ghost case in Hilton Head was about -- not 
just a vacation for Scully, but a beginning for us.

Maybe it was the concussion.  Quite possibly it was 
something they did to me =after= I got hit on the 
head.  Scully hasn't said it yet, but we're both 
wondering if this is just a head injury or not.  I 
know damn well that's why she asked for the blood 
screen.

Or maybe I just wanted her and now I'm looking for 
excuses.  

Explain it any way you want to -- I still fucked up.  
Scully deserves more than a sloppy late-night pass 
and she was right to stop me.

Now I just have to figure out how to fix it.

She knocks on my door at ten before nine, although I 
know she still has the duplicate key.  I grit my 
teeth and don't say anything about it.  

"Hicks and his partner are picking us up in ten 
minutes downstairs."

"What partner?"

"Santanda," she says, straightening her cuffs.

"Male or female?"

"Does it matter?"

I roll my eyes at her.  "Gimme a break. Did we meet 
him or her?"

She relents. "I don't think so."

I finish tying my tie.  "Great. Think he called in 
the rest of the cavalry?"

"Given the fact that I had no reasonable description 
of what we were looking for at this address you 
wrote down on a bar napkin, no. And it would be the 
infantry."

I sneak a peek at her, but she's got her poker face 
on, as usual.

"How do you feel, Mulder?"

"Aren't you going to ask me about the pencil and the 
lemon and the Chevy?"

"You can have some Tylenol."

"I already took some." I'm still searching for a way 
to bring up last night, but Scully's way ahead of 
me, disappearing through the door in a rustle of 
linen suit and clicking heels.




Santanda is a man.  The four of us pack into their 
car and I explain as much as I know on the drive 
down to 11th street.

Hicks rolls down the window and spits.  "Did you get 
a warrant?"

After a short, uncomfortable silence, Scully says, 
"We may not need to go inside."  I hear the unspoken 
explanation: this could easily turn out to be a huge 
waste of time. No one says anything after that.

The block is a row of storefronts with apartments 
stacked on the upper stories, brick and brownstone.  
There's a fire hydrant gushing into the street, and 
a couple of kids are taking turns sticking their 
hands and feet under the stream. We double-park. By 
the time the water reaches the storm drains it's 
swept a small avalanche of debris in its path -- 
candy wrappers, bits of plastic, a handle broken off 
of something small.

114 East 11th Street is a small market, the kind that 
carries a few things you'd find in the supermarket, 
only twice as expensive, plus fruit and vegetables.

It's quarter of ten in the morning, and the sign in 
the window says "All Day All Nite." But the market 
is closed.

Also, the fruit stacked against the inside of the 
front window is rotting.  The tomatoes are leaning 
drunkenly against the glass, brown sunken spots 
edged with fluffy white mold tracing a delicate 
pattern against the window. The flowers, wrapped in 
paper and resting in a white plastic bucket, are dry 
husks.

The four of us stand outside the store in silence 
for a minute.  Hicks says, "Now do you think we need 
a warrant?"

Something is wrong here, and every one of us knows 
it. 

Scully says, carefully, "If that produce is old 
enough, it could constitute a public health threat."

She looks embarrassed. God, how I love her. 

Santanda snorts loudly and says, "Good enough for 
me."  

Hicks picks the lock efficiently, and pushes the 
door open.  The smell that pushes back is a mixture 
of rotten fruit and dead flowers and something 
worse. 

Hicks clears his throat, we all draw our weapons and 
we go in. The dull ache in my head is pressing out 
from inside, and the smell is pushing its way in.  
Scully is pale and watchful next to me; the stench 
gets worse as we get closer to the back of the 
store.  There's spoiled milk and meat around here 
somewhere. The lights are out and I pull out a 
flashlight.

A fly is buzzing angrily somewhere close to the 
ceiling, and that sound gets caught in my head, too.  
At the back of the store, a long piece of plastic 
cut into vertical strips hangs over a doorway marked 
EMPLOYEES ONLY, and the smell is worse.

I push through the strips gun and flashlight first. 
The back room is as still as the rest of the store 
but the stench makes my eyes water.  The room is 
dark, but the beam of my flashlight picks out a 
still form sprawled across a table.

There's a small click and suddenly the fluorescent 
lights are winking on overhead, blue and cold. They 
wash the body on the table in flat light.  My 
flashlight is still on, spotlighting the hole in the 
corpse's chest.  It used to be a woman.  Now it's a 
blackening thing with its lips peeled back in an 
obscene parody of a smile.  There's a shriveled lump 
perched on the edge of the gaping crater in its -- 
her -- chest that looks like some internal organ.

Scully brushes by me, and her lips are pressed into 
a tight line. She gets close enough to the corpse to 
look down into the hole. "The heart has been 
removed."

She was a blonde. No one shut her eyes after she 
died and they have sunk back into the sockets, 
leaving her lashes poking straight up, a honey-
blonde fringe decorating nothing. Her arms and feet 
are splayed off the edges of the table and I have to 
resist the urge to straighten them on the tabletop 
until I see that she was tied to the legs of the 
table.  There are dark welts on her wrists and 
ankles, crusted with dried blood, indicating that 
she wasn't crazy about getting tied up in the first 
place.

I make myself move in and take a closer look.  A 
crust of dried blood decorates what's left of her 
blouse.  She bled a lot before her heart stopped 
beating.

Scully has her cellphone out and she's dialing, but 
it isn't loud enough to cover the sound of someone 
vomiting onto the linoleum in the front room.  I look 
up; Santanda hasn't come any farther than the doorway, 
but he's there, so that's Hicks losing his 
breakfast. Santanda draws his hand across his mouth, 
and I know he wants to leave, but he's going to stay 
there until the rest of the infantry arrives.

Which they do, in short order.

We stay until the evidence team is done and the 
coroner's truck arrives.  Scully stares down the 
jerk who's in charge of the dead woman's body until 
he backs down and agrees to let her do the autopsy.

Hicks comes over to stand next to me in the midday 
sun.  Even the heat is better than the smell inside 
the store. "And you don't remember who told you to 
look at this place?" His breath is sour with the 
smell of puke.

"No.  It might have been the guy I was supposed to 
interview in the bar." I feel like a fucking idiot 
trying to explain this.  

Hicks spits into the water running in the gutter. 
"Who was he?"

I'm liking Hicks less and less.  "A former roommate 
of Ajiib's." It's not like we actually needed these 
guys today.  If they latch onto our case, I'm going 
to end up shooting somebody.

"The dead guy?"

"The dead guy," I confirm.

Hicks nods thoughtfully. "Nothing but a concealed 
weapons conviction on him, right?"

"Yeah, that's been bothering me," I admit.

Scully rejoins us.  The heat is making her blouse 
stick to her chest and her cheeks are flushed. I 
have a sudden jolt of sense memory; her lips under 
mine, the feel of hot skin under her robe.  "I'm 
going to do the autopsy. Meet you back at the 
hotel?" She gives me a pointed stare which 
ordinarily would piss me off, but the dull ache in 
my head has spread into a pounding wave and I'm not 
in the mood for an argument.

I let Hicks and Santanda drive me back to the hotel.  
The cool darkness of my room is like a salve on a 
burn.  I lie down and try not to remember the puffy 
dark meat of the dead woman's tongue poking out of 
her mouth.



When the phone rings, I wake up and try to measure 
the headache.  Between the third and fourth rings I 
decide it's definitely better.

"Mulder, it's me.  The dead woman is Ajiib's wife.  
Her maiden name was Sarah Pitts.  She identified his 
body when he was brought in last week. Her parents 
are on their way here right now. Does that seem like 
a strange coincidence to you, or is it just me?"

"Wow." I sit up, headache forgotten.  "So she's been 
dead less than a week?"

"It's consistent with the autopsy findings. She died 
of shock caused by blood loss."  Scully pauses, and 
I take a slow breath before she adds, "The chest 
wound was not post-mortem."

I release the breath slowly.  "The only thing that comes
to mind right away is Satanism."

"I don't think so.  No trophies were taken from the 
body -- that turned out to be her heart that was 
sitting on her sternum."

"How poetic. Find any prints?"

"That's the most interesting detail.  I found quite 
a few, all from the same man."

"Who?"

"Mohammed al Ajiib."


End (5/19) of Above Rubies.




"Above Rubies", (6/19)

"So you're certain that Agent Mulder wasn't drugged?"

"As certain as I can be, sir." Skinner is using that tone 
of voice that he only gets when Mulder's investigative 
tactics have recently cost him a decent night's sleep.

"Would LSD have shown up?"

He's thinking about the time that they drugged Mulder's 
entire apartment complex by putting LSD in the water.  I 
tuck the phone tighter against my ear to block out the 
sounds of people passing by on the chipped linoleum floor 
in the hallway. "Yes. But there could be drugs out there 
that I'm not aware of that =wouldn't= show up, even after 
only a few hours." 

When Mulder's memory got wiped after his impromptu visit to 
Ellens Air Force Base, I made him submit to a whole battery 
of tests.  Nothing turned up. Even LSD takes a few days to 
clear out of the system.  Whatever these people have, it's 
not available commercially.

"Sir, it's possible that Mulder was actually mugged and 
that this is simply amnesia resulting from his concussion."  
Thank God Mulder isn't here to listen to my end of this 
conversation; he'd have a fit.  

Skinner grunts.  "Mulder isn't there, is he?"

It takes an effort not to laugh.  "No, sir."

He sighs.  "Scully, there's some real concern about his 
involvement with this case.  Hicks' ASAC has read too many 
news stories with Mulder's name in them."

I don't say anything.

"They still want =you= on the case, though."  He pauses, 
then adds "=I= want you on the case. Just let me know if 
you have any reason to suspect Agent Mulder's symptoms are 
the result of something other than a concussion.  I'm 
concerned about his judgement."

And if you'd seen him lock lips with me last night, you'd 
be a hell of a lot more concerned.  "I will, sir."

"I doubt that."  

Shit. "Sir?"

"Scully, my intention here is not just to keep Agent Mulder 
from getting involved in another situation like.....like 
the Roche case.  I'd like to keep him out of the hospital."

I hear his unspoken thought: or the morgue.  I half-believe 
him.  Skinner is thoroughly used to having the two of us 
embarrass him by now, and his hide is pretty thick.

He sighs.  "Just watch him, Scully. Anti-terrorism is not a 
good place to have Mulder freelancing."

"I know, sir.  We'll be careful."

I hang up. Shit, shit, shit. This is not a good time for 
Skinner to get cold feet, no matter what his reasons may 
be. As much as I need Mulder's instincts here, I think he 
needs me to need him even more.

By the time I softly turn the knob of the interview room 
door,  Margaret Pitts' sobs have faded into sniffles. John 
Pitts is one of those men who doesn't cry, no matter what, 
not even when his once-beautiful daughter is now a decaying 
mass of evidence of a brutal murder.

My father wouldn't have cried either. Ahab would have sat 
straight and stiff in his chair, like John Pitts is doing 
right now, answering questions with a measured cadence and 
angry precision.  But my father would not have held a copy 
of the Book of Mormon between his hands like it was a 
beacon to light his path through the last circle of hell.

"At Brigham Young University," he is saying when I shut the 
door quietly behind me.  "They have programs for graduates 
who want to go overseas to spread the Gospel - the EMTC."  

Mulder nods, leaning slightly across the table.  "So, she 
met him in Afghanistan? She was a missionary?"

"We wouldn't have let her go if things were the way they 
are now," Margaret Pitts interjects.  "Sarah graduated 
before the Taliban took over." She lapses into silence, 
staring at the floor with red eyes.

"And what year was that?" Mulder prompts gently.

"1994.  She finished her post-graduate work over the summer 
in Provo and left in the fall with the rest of her group."

"And they were married when?"

"September 23, 1997."  John Pitts' voice falters slightly 
for the first time.  After a second he reaches into his 
back pocket and pulls a photograph of his wallet. "They 
became friends while she was still doing her mission work, 
but she went back again after she was finished, then he 
came over here as a tourist."

Sarah Pitts, standing next to Mohammed al Ajiib in her 
wedding gown.

"Did anything about Mr. Ajiib's conversion to your faith 
strike you as unusual?"

Mulder asks the question very carefully, but there's a 
guarded note in John Pitts' voice when he replies. "The 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is open to all 
who seek the word of the Lord, Agent Mulder.  His previous 
religious affiliation was not a barrier to acceptance in 
our community."

Personally, I really doubt that; there are about seven 
people of color in the entire state of Utah as far as I can 
remember. We did a case in Utah once and I got a look at 
the Salt Lake field office.  Nice enough people but I felt 
like I had the word `gentile' painted on my back the entire 
time I was there. I wonder if Sarah told them about his 
conviction on weapons charges, or about his previous 
marriage.  But John Pitts seems completely sincere.

"Were you aware of any ties he might have maintained to old 
friends or business contacts in Afghanistan?"

It goes on like this for half an hour; Mulder picking his 
way through the conversation, avoiding the twin land mines 
of loss and faith as skillfully as he ever has.  Mulder can 
piss off a county sheriff faster than you can say breach of 
conduct, but in an interview with parents who have lost a 
child, he's all grace and gentleness.

John and Margaret Pitts don't tell us anything we couldn't 
have guessed for ourselves.  It seems that Mohammed al 
Ajiib met a nice young American woman who tried to make him 
a Mormon.  He married her, got his green card and some 
American money to spend on guns and chemical weapons.  Then 
somehow he got her to go the police station and identify 
someone else's body as his.

And then he killed her.

Was she naive enough to believe in his "conversion"?  Or 
did he convert her instead, to whatever cause he's sold his 
soul to?

Or did she think it was true love, enough to look past his 
blatantly criminal behavior, enough to lie for him about a 
body in a morgue?

Or was it fear?  Did he threaten her, threaten her family?

Before John Pitts leaves us, he says, stiffly, "Do you know 
where he is?"

Mulder shakes his head.

"Find him," Pitts says, dully.  "Please find him."

I offered to provide them with a copy of the autopsy 
report, but they declined, which gave me a rush of pure 
relief.  Along with the other facts I recorded, I included 
the information that Sarah Pitts was approximately two 
months pregnant at the time of her death. 

I walk them down the hall, and watch them go out the front 
door, blinking in the harsh wash of sunlight.

Mulder stays in the interview room for a long time after 
the Pitts' leave.  Finally, I go in and find him staring 
blankly down into his cold cup of coffee.

"Mulder?"

"Do you think he killed her to stop her from telling anyone 
that he wasn't really dead?"

"Do you?"

He grimaces.  "I'm not sure it's any better that way."

I understand him immediately.  Would it make it any better 
if Sarah had lost her faith in Ajiib, was maybe thinking 
about turning him in?

Not really.  She's still dead.

"I knew there wasn't much of a case in Hilton Head," he 
says, suddenly.

I sit down in the hard plastic chair next to him.

He turns his head enough to look at me, and whatever he 
reads in my face makes him push his chair away from the 
table and start stuffing pages back into his file.

I put my hand on his arm gently.  "Mulder?"

"I'm fine, Scully.  I don't even have a headache today.  My 
memory's fine. See?  Pencil, lemon, 1957 Chevy."

This is hard, so much harder than I thought it would be. I 
take a deep breath. "I was thinking that maybe we could go 
out somewhere to dinner tonight.  You know...not Chinese 
food or pizza.  A restaurant."

There.

He stops rustling papers and looks at me warily. Finally, 
he says casually, "You should have told me if you were 
getting sick of our usual."

Okay, that's it. I tried.  I stand up and turn around, take 
two steps toward the door before Mulder's hand on my arm 
stops me.  "Scully, wait."

I stop and shut my eyes, but I don't turn around.  I feel 
him take the two steps to close the distance between us, 
and then he's standing behind me, close enough that I can 
feel the warmth of his body. He says, quietly, "Someplace 
really nice. I'll make us a reservation, okay?"

I nod, not trusting my voice. 

We are so bad at this. I skate out onto thin ice, and 
Mulder bumps into me.  He loses his balance, I knock him 
over while I'm trying to stay upright.

Santanda comes in without knocking and luckily doesn't look 
up at us, because he's talking to Hicks over his shoulder.  
It gives me the time I need to move away from Mulder and 
compose myself.

"The stiff was his roommate.  Ajiib's.  Name was Mejha, 
taxi driver.  We found dental records.  Ajiib must have 
planted his own driver's license in the guy's wallet, and 
with the positive ID from the wife......." He shrugs.  "No 
one checked."

Hicks asks Mulder, "It was his roommate that you were going 
to interview when you got," he pauses, "knocked out, 
right?"

"Doesn't look that way, does it?  He'd been dead at least a 
week at that point."  We all stand there for a few seconds, 
absorbing the details. 

Hicks breaks into the silence. "Did you get anything from 
her parents?  They knew the guy, right?"

"Not really." Mulder doesn't elaborate, and Hicks looks at 
him balefully.

I tell Hicks and Santanda what I found out after finishing 
the autopsy.  The way he killed her had nothing to do with 
Islam or shari'a.  I mortally offended two different 
university professors and a bureaucrat at the Afghani 
embassy making sure, but apparently that was Ajiib's own 
lovely idea.  However, I did find out that a rougher kind 
of justice gets meted out in the rural parts of the 
country, where stoning and beheading aren't grisly enough 
to meet the local taste for blood.  The cheerful TA I got 
on the line at NYU told me that stoning is the usual 
treatment for women convicted of adultery.

Pierce wasn't making up the horrible things he told us 
before he died in his cell.

Sue Kimball at NYU was the only person I didn't offend.  
The field office and the NYPD managed to keep the exact 
cause of Sarah Ajiib's death out of the press. When I told 
Kimball I was doing research to help clear up an active 
case, she got less cheerful.

"Is this about the murder on East 11th Street that I read 
about in the Post?  Jesus Christ."

I only repeated that it was an active case.

"Cutting out the victim's heart has nothing to do with 
Islam or the Koran or any extremist version of the religion 
that I've heard of." After a moment, she added, "But it 
could easily be a local specialty in whatever part of the 
country Ajiib came from.  Or it could be something he came 
up with himself."

"He spent some time in the Sudan.  Could it have been 
something he learned there?"

I hear her sigh.  "Again, could be some local tradition 
there.  But trust me -- Islam does not prescribe anything 
like what you've described to me, regardless of what you've 
seen in the movies."

I hung up and thought about Ajiib, and his Mormon wife.  We 
keep assuming that we're dealing with religious extremism 
in some form, and maybe we are.  But we could be 
overlooking the possibility that Ajiib is simply insane. He 
could be running guns and chemical weapons for profit.

"What I really want to know," Hicks says edgily, "is who 
the fuck gave you that address."

I tense, waiting for Mulder to rise to the bait, and he 
doesn't disappoint me.

"Take a number, Hicks.  I'm going back to the bar with 
Scully to try and find out.  Instead of adding me to your 
goddamn suspect list, why don't you do something useful 
like put an APB out on Ajiib?"

"If she's been dead over a week, why would he still be 
here?" Santanda asks, mildly enough.  But Mulder's already 
halfway out the door, and I end up following him with an 
idiotic look on my face, a combination of apology for his 
attitude and irritation at getting stuck trailing in his 
wake like a tugboat.

I catch up with him outside the building.  "The Lion's 
Lair?"

"The Little Lion."

I give him the car keys and he gets us headed downtown, 
toward Chelsea. I let him cool off for a little while 
before I suggest that Ajiib might be nothing more than a 
small-time arms dealer.

"And he killed his wife by cutting her heart out because he 
read about it in Soldier of Fortune?"

"Why do you think he did it that way?"

Mulder shoots an exasperated look in my direction.  "This 
far-right wing bullshit."

"I don't know, Mulder.  First of all, the ritualized nature 
of the murder had nothing to do with any religious 
tradition.  We still don't know that he had bought into 
whatever it was that Pierce and Garjon were selling.  He 
could have been a business contact. Someone they bought 
guns and gas from, not a disciple."

He thinks about it while swerving slightly to avoid hitting 
a yellow cab that just stopped sharply to pick up a fare.  
"I wish you'd been with me when I was in the VCU, Scully.  
You would have made a hell of a good profiler."

I feel myself flush.  Mulder doesn't hand out compliments 
often.  

"But maybe it wouldn't have worked.  I went through a lot 
of partners back then." He pauses. "Does it ever occur to 
you that you treat these religion cases a little 
differently than you treat other cases?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you have an affinity with people who are deeply 
faithful and you give them credit for it."

"Are you saying I'm sympathetic to Ajiib because he's 
religious?"

"No.  I was thinking more about Pitts and his wife.  Look, 
forget it.  It was just an observation." He shrugs.

"No, Mulder, I'd like to hear what you meant by that."

He shakes his head and says, "I didn't mean it as 
criticism, Scully."

The air conditioning in our economy rental car is no match 
for a New York heat wave, which doesn't improve my mood.  
I'm just not inclined to let Mulder get away with this.  
"Are you suggesting that my judgement is suspect in cases 
where religion is an issue because I follow a religious 
tradition myself?"

"Dammit, Scully, don't interrogate me!" Mulder's hands have 
tightened on the steering wheel.  "No.  I think your faith 
=affects= your perspective on cases where religion is an 
issue, but I don't think your judgement is necessarily 
=suspect.= Are you following me?"

"What about you? You're so critical of faith! Don't you 
think that affects =your= perspective?"

It does Mulder credit that even when he's angry, he listens 
to me.  After a long pause, he replies, "Okay, you may have 
a point there.  But it's frustrating sometimes -- you may 
not see it yourself, but you give credence to believers in 
religion that you would never give to.......to the MUFON 
women, for example.  There are all kinds of faith, Scully."

"I have more faith in the MUFON women than you'll ever 
fully understand, Mulder."

"You're mixing apples and oranges on me."

"Okay, so we both have blind spots."

"Not blind."  He runs his hand over his forehead.  "We have 
complementary perspectives."

"Remind me to tell that to Skinner."

He looks over at me, suddenly alert.  "Yeah. Was that him 
on the phone?"

"He just wanted an update," I reply, uneasily. Mulder 
narrows his eyes at my tone of voice, but he's parallel 
parking, so he lets it go.

The Little Lion is a trendy-looking bar, completely at home 
in the middle of Chelsea's collection of ultra-hip 
restaurants and coffeehouses.  The man wiping down the 
marble countertop looks incuriously in our direction when 
we walk in.

We're in luck; the shift calendar behind the bar shows that 
Jeff was tending bar the night Mulder came in, and he's 
here today, too.  I watch carefully as he comes out from 
the back.  Mulder looks frustrated; clearly, he doesn't 
recognize the guy.  Jeff looks Mulder over carefully, and I 
think with a touch of interest, before he tells us that he 
definitely remembers seeing Mulder before.

"You had a draft beer," he tells Mulder.  "Just one.  And 
you were sitting with another guy.  Sort of medium height, 
you know?  Black leather jacket.  Really short hair.  One 
black glove."  He shakes his head in exaggerated disgust.  
"=So= eighties.  Other than that, he looked really good.  I 
remember because it looked like things were a little tense, 
you know?"  Jeff gives me a sidelong glance.  "You guys 
weren't here that long but you left together."

"A black glove?" 

"You said his name a couple of times. I think it was 
something like "Kojak."

It takes me a second, but Mulder and I make the connection
at the same time. Krycek.

Jeff shakes his head. "You don't remember, huh?  I'll 
tell you, sweetie, I don't think it was roofies `cause you 
looked just fine when you walked out of here."

I drag Mulder out of there before he has a chance to punch 
Jeff in his nicely capped teeth.  He's no homophobe but 
frankly, this is Krycek we're talking about here and he's 
always brought out the worst in Mulder.

Making an obvious effort to stay under control, Mulder 
grinds out, "Well, does that answer your question about 
whether it was a simple concussion or not?"

"Are you sure it wasn't Krycek who you spoke to on the 
phone?"

"Yes. Totally. Completely."

"I guess he could have had someone else make the call."

"No.  Remember?  I called Ajiib's old number in New York, 
that was how I got in touch with the guy who said he was 
his roommate."

"So either Krycek followed you to the bar."

"...and got rid of whoever I was actually supposed to meet 
with."

"...or he was there or found out shortly after you talked 
to the roommate." 

Mulder sighs, and I know how he feels.  This is just 
turning into a bigger and bigger mess.

"You don't think it was maybe someone else?" He sounds 
hopeful.

"A character from a bad sixties drama, maybe?"

"Scully, what in the hell made me stupid enough to sit down 
and have a drink with that fucker?"  Mulder rubs his hand 
over his face, drawing a thumb across his frenum.  It comes 
away sweaty.  "Let's get out of here.  It's too hot to talk 
about this shit in the street."

"According to Jeff it was just =one= drink." 

He looks at me sourly. "I'll call Skinner and brief him."

The car is an oven. Mulder switches the a/c on full blast. 
While he backs out I surreptitiously loosen my silk blouse, 
which is sticking to my chest, and let the blast of the air 
conditioner chill the sweat on my skin.  

Mulder has found Skinner, and judging by the tone of his 
voice, he's getting annoyed but trying not to show it.  I 
watch him tug at his tie off one-handed. The hollow at the 
base of his neck is glistening in a really inviting way.

I flap my blouse again, and this time Mulder catches me 
doing it.  He looks away quickly, and I can hear him 
stammer a response to something Skinner asked him.

Finally he hands me the phone without comment.

"Sir?"

"Is he all right?"

I keep my voice even.  "As far as I can tell, yes."

"If you take Krycek into custody, call me immediately."  
His voice has a steely edge to it, and I remember that 
Krycek brings out the worst in Skinner, too.  

"Sir, we don't know where he is at this point, but if we do 
find him -- you'll be the first to know."

Skinner grunts something noncommittal and hangs up.

Mulder's dress shirt is sticking to him, too.  "Somewhere 
around here I have the phone number and address of the last 
place Ajiib lived in New York.  Where I talked to the 
roommate."

"He lived in New York before he was married to Sarah?"

"Looks that way." He rummages through the file one-handed, 
paying dangerously little attention to the traffic around 
us.  Finally, he finds what he's looking for.  "Shit."

"What?"

"I'm just getting so sick of Queens."

Although it's getting late in the day, the heat isn't going 
away.  If anything, it's getting worse, the funky sewer 
smell of the city stronger than it was in the morning.  We 
drive through the Midtown Tunnel with the windows up and 
the a/c struggling to keep the heat at bay.

Ajiib's former roommate lived in a small, tidy frame house 
only six or seven blocks off the Van Wyck, not far from 
JFK.  No one answers the door, and Mulder doesn't even look 
at me for permission or comment before trying the knob.  
It's not locked.

In the living room, we find a man sprawled face down in the 
Berber carpet, a cordless phone only a few inches from his 
limp, outstretched hand.  There are several bullet holes in 
his back, and a vast brown stain decorating the carpet. 
Natural fibers absorb blood very well.

Mulder pulls on a latex glove and picks a wallet out of the 
dead man's back pocket.  "Unless this ID-switching thing is 
catching on, this is Chidi Nwuke."  He looks up at me.  "Do 
you want to do an autopsy?"

"For what?" The dead man has no answer to that. "He died 
because someone shot him in the back.  I'd be somewhat 
interested to hear what ballistics has to say, since we 
know Krycek prefers a Glock, but that's about it."

He smiles up at me, a predatory gleam in his eyes.  "Mmm.  
I was hoping you'd say that.  I got us a table at Balthazar 
at eight, and you tend to get a little wrapped up when you 
start slicing and dicing."

I can't think of an adequate response.  Mulder calls for 
the infantry.

Thankfully, Santanda comes without Hicks this time.  I try 
not to read anything into that; Mulder doesn't even seem to 
notice.  Santanda goes out onto the porch and stares 
thoughtfully up at the exterior of the pleasant little 
house. Mulder and I go out to join him.

"Something interesting up on the roof?"

Santanda says, "Wife and I are looking for a bigger place.  
The schools here are pretty good, you know?  I wonder if 
the DOA owned this house." He lifts his hat, smooths his 
hair, replaces the hat.

Mulder's grin shows most of his teeth.

I go back to the hotel with Mulder and begin rummaging 
through my suitcase.  Maybe I packed something that I could 
wear to dinner.  Maybe Mulder did that thing again where he 
tosses something into my suitcase.  

No such luck.

I grab my cellphone and run out of the hotel and hail a 
cab.


End "Above Rubies," (6/19)



"Above Rubies,"  (7/19)  by Rachel Howard

Warning: Some plot ahead, but not much.  You ARE all 
seventeen or older, correct? I promise this is the last 
time I'm gonna ask...


The fall collection has taken over the racks at Macy's, but 
I manage to find a saleswoman who's not completely thrown 
by the idea of finding me something appropriate for ninety-
degree weather, ninety-percent humidity.  I start yanking 
things off the Petites rack and she frowns at me, then 
reaches in and pulls out a tailored sheath dress.  Black, 
fairly short, but not too short.

Perfect.  It even fits, although if I had a couple of days, 
I'd take it in at the waist a tiny bit. The pearl earrings 
I'm wearing will work fine with it, too. The fluorescent 
lights in the dressing room aren't flattering, but I think 
this outfit might even pass for slightly sexy.

The shoe department is less helpful.  I find a pair of 
strappy black sandals with heels which would kill me if I 
wore them to work, but I'm not wearing them to work.

I'm wearing them for Mulder.

That stops me cold.  I sit on the uncomfortable synthetic 
fabric-covered bench in the shoe department, one of the 
sandals dangling from my hand, and think about it.

If I get horizontal with my partner, am I going to turn 
into an idiot on a regular basis?  I mean, it's not like I 
generally go on last-minute shopping extravaganzas before 
having dinner with him. 

Before going on a date.

When was the last time I went on a date?

How do I =know= this is a date?

I know Mulder.  I know all the different variations of the 
way he can say my name, and what each of them means. He 
took me out to dinner at a hip Hungarian restaurant, two or 
three birthdays ago, and we drank a lot of brandy and had a 
fun argument about crop circles, but it wasn't a date.

This is a date.

I look more carefully at the sandals, at the severe slope 
of the instep and the narrowness of the straps. Mulder has 
taken over so much of my life.  I didn't notice until it 
was too late; then I got angry and resented the fact that 
it had already happened. Finally, I think I came to terms 
with the fact that I had gone =willingly= into his world, 
his search for his sister and everything the X-Files meant. 
Mulder opened the door to a palace of riddles, but the 
decision to move in, set up housekeeping -- that was mine. 

I gave up dating a long time ago; other men fade into 
shades of gray next to Mulder. Is it only because we've 
been together so long?  

I think that must be part of it. I don't have the words to 
explain what it's like being trapped in the Arctic with 
several innocent people and one psychotic killer, or how it 
feels to shoot someone for their own good, someone you 
love. Mulder doesn't need the words; he already knows. 

That's part of it -- but I don't care any more. Whatever 
the reasons, Mulder is the only one who I could love this 
way.

I shake myself out of my funk and pay for the shoes and the 
dress.

My cellphone rings on the way back to the hotel.

"It's me.  Where are you?"

"Had to run an errand.  What's up?"

"The evidence team found drag marks on the basement floor.  
Somebody was storing things down there that are gone now."

"Let me guess, boxes of old books?"

He chuffs softly.  "How about canisters?"

"More gas?"

"Hard to tell. But it could be, yeah.  And they found some 
hair and fibers that I'm guessing will tell us more about 
who was there. We still don't know for sure that it was 
Krycek in the bar." He sounds like a chronic drunk who 
can't remember if he slept with the girl but hopes that he 
used a condom if he did. I remain tactfully silent. After a 
pause, he asks, "Still up for dinner?"

Translation: do you want me to let you off the hook?

I still don't know what he was apologizing for last night, 
but I feel a lot better now.  This is more what I expected 
from Mulder -- a tentative pass, a way out if I wanted one.

"Yes.  How long will it take to get there?"

"We can take a cab.  I'll meet you in the lobby at seven-
thirty."

I hang up and close my eyes for a minute, remembering the 
faint sheen of sweat at the base of his throat.  God, 
please let this go well.  Please.



Balthazar is nice, trendy but not too flashy, and I make a 
mental note to tip the concierge who suggested it. The dim 
light turns Scully's hair into dark gold and brings a 
luminous sheen to the fair skin of her bare arms. She did 
something different with her hair - it curls a little and 
brushes the edge of her face.

She's wearing a dress that isn't fancy or skintight but 
makes her look beautiful just the same.  Her arms are bare 
and I keep looking at the curve of her shoulder and biceps; 
she must have been working out lately. I'm not a foot man 
but the shoes she's wearing - they're like something out of 
an old movie, real knock-me-down-and-fuck-me-shoes.  I look 
across the table at her and can't help smiling again.  She 
looks relaxed and happy, sipping Irish coffee, and if this 
is all it takes to smooth the lines from around her eyes, 
I'm taking her out to dinner every night.

Neither one of us has said a word about the case tonight.  
We drank a bottle of wine and I'm feeling a warm buzz in my 
extremities that might be alcohol, might be lust.

This is what life would be like if we had met one day at 
the water cooler and started dating like normal people. 
Five years of terror and weirdness gone, nothing but me and 
Scully and the way she's looking at me now over the rim of 
her cup. Her lips are curling slightly at the corners, legs 
shifting once in a while under the table which I can hear 
over the noise of the restaurant because all my senses are 
focused on her. Her precious ova intact, Melissa and her 
mother coming over for dinner, holidays together, sleeping 
in on Sundays.  Normal.

Or maybe not.  Maybe without the scars we carry, Scully and 
I would be different people. The threads that bind us to 
each other are priceless; we earned them with our blood.

"I said, do you want to head back?"

She's still smiling, fully aware that I didn't catch a 
single word of whatever she was saying.  

I haven't touched her all night.  Instead of answering, I 
reach for her hand and pull it against my cheek, her palm 
against my skin, letting her fingertips trail against my 
eyelids.

When I look at her, her eyes are glimmering suspiciously.

In the cab, she leans against me, and I put an arm around 
her. She murmurs something and I bend my head to hers. 
"What?"

Instead of answering, she lifts her lips to mine.  

This kiss is nothing like last night's; it feels like a 
promise.  Scully's mouth is soft and she tastes faintly of 
coffee and whiskey. And this time she doesn't push me away.  
Her lips part and our tongues brush carefully together, 
then not so carefully.

By the time I let her come up for air, she's flushed, 
licking her lips, her hair is mussed, and we're only a few 
blocks from the hotel.

Over time I have catalogued every known Scully-smile, from 
cynical to relieved to amused-but-trying-not-to-show-it to 
bitter, but this is a new one for my collection.

I pay for the taxi and follow her into the hotel, watching 
the way her hips sway as walks in those shoes.  I kiss her 
again in the elevator, and again along the back of her neck 
while she tries to get my keycard into the electronic slot 
in the door. That one gets me a soft whimper, and I open my 
mouth to taste the warm skin and fine down just below where 
her hair curls away.

Scully tugs me inside with both hands wrapped in mine.  We 
stumble toward the bed in the near-darkness, but I take the 
time to click the bedside lamp on.

One eyebrow asks, and I answer, "I want to see you."

Why was it so hard, all that time?  Why haven't I ever seen 
this look on her face before now?

"Mulder?"

She must have seen the regret passing over me, and I hasten 
to explain, "I was thinking about all the time we've lost."

She shakes her head. "Don't think that." She pulls on the 
hand that she still holds and I sit next to her on the edge 
of the bed.

Scully smiles at me again, and reaches for my tie.  She 
loosens the knot slowly and carefully, and when it's off, 
she folds it twice and lays it on the bedside table. Then 
she looks at me expectantly.

I examine her carefully before I tilt her head gently to 
the side.  Her pearl earrings fasten with a weird little 
hook that takes me a while to figure out, but she waits 
patiently until I get them both off.

Then she reaches for my belt.  I feel my penis twitch when 
her fingers brush against the cloth of my trousers, but I 
let her unbuckle it, pull it through the loops.

I leave her shoes untouched and unzip her dress.  The black 
cloth peels away from her body, leaving ivory curves and 
planes.  Underneath she's wearing a plain black bra and 
panties, which on Scully are the sexiest things I've ever 
seen. Her answering smile looks a little nervous, so I toss 
the dress toward the bed and draw her close to me for a 
long kiss.  She rubs her hands up and down my back and I 
decide that the slow approach may not last much longer.

"Scully?"

"Mmm?" Her eyes are half-lidded, and she's begun to work on 
the buttons of my shirt, cuffs first.

"I have to ask.  Am I supposed to open the buckles on those 
shoes or just pull them off?  'Cause I don't think I can 
get them undone without breaking them."

Her mouth is twitching the way it does when she's trying 
really hard not to smile.  "You could just slip them off.  
Or I could do it for you. Or," she pauses to give me a 
significant look, "we could just leave them on."

Oh, man.  That did it. I make a sound that I don't 
recognize and cover her mouth with mine, kissing her hard.  
She sucks my lower lip into her mouth and gives up on the 
buttons, tugging my shirttails out of my pants.  My cock 
grates against her pelvis and we groan simultaneously. I 
barely have enough motor function left to get her bra off, 
but I manage, hands behind her back, clawing at the little 
hooks.

Scully's breasts are exquisite, pink-tipped treasures and I 
can't wait any longer to taste them. I close my lips around 
a nipple and suck hard, feel it contract immediately under 
my tongue. Somehow, she got my pants undone and now she's 
got her hands buried in my hair, tugging my mouth closer to 
her breast while I have to get my shoes and socks off in 
spite of the pants tangling around my ankles.

I kick a couple of times, but I only make things worse -- 
now my pants are wrapped around my shoes. 

Goddamn it.

Finally, I stop what I'm doing.  Scully looks aroused as 
hell and indignant as hell, in that order. "What?"

I point at my feet, trying to look sarcastic and probably 
looking pathetic instead.  She smirks openly and shoves the 
center of my chest so that I fall backwards onto the bed.

Okay, this could work out after all.

Scully dispatches of my shoes, socks, pants and boxers in 
about two seconds, flicking bits of clothing heedlessly 
around the room, nothing like an autopsy. Her breasts 
wobble, her cheeks are pink and she's absolutely gorgeous.  
When she's done with my clothing she plants both knees on 
either side of me on the bedspread and carefully rests her 
weight on my legs.

Then she licks her lips and runs both hands down my body 
from shoulder to hips.  I feel like she's a lioness and I'm 
prime rib.  I don't do a thing, I just lie there and watch 
her.

She leans over and wraps her lips around the head of my 
cock, sliding one hand under my balls and the other under 
my ass.  I squeeze my eyes shut and everything goes away, 
everything but the feeling of her beautiful full lips 
circling me, beginning to slide down my shaft as she rolls 
my balls in her hand.  God damn, where did she learn how to 
do this?  I try to push the thought away.  She sucks me 
into her mouth until I feel the back of her throat press 
against the head of my cock, and I see stars.  This is too 
much, too fast.  I was planning on making Scully come at 
least once before we got to this and I'm not usually a 
planner.

I reach down, grab her hand and squeeze it before I tug her 
up towards my head.  She comes reluctantly, and I kiss her 
for a while, loving the taste of my skin on her mouth.  

It doesn't happen like this.  You aren't supposed to meet 
someone and love her and know her like this, so well and so 
long that there's nothing left unsaid when you finally come 
together. It doesn't really happen like this, especially 
not to Spooky Fox Mulder, the laughingstock of the Bureau, 
the one whose sister disappeared one night and never came 
back until he was grown and lost. Scully, you shouldn't let 
me have something so good; I'll break it, lose it, take it 
apart and not know how to put it together again.

I don't realize that I'm crying until she kisses my tears 
away and murmurs something to me. This is how it is with 
Scully and me, sweet and bitter, quick and slow, and the 
real miracle is that we're here at all.

She holds me for a long time, until I feel goosebumps rise 
on her skin and I pull the stiff hotel comforter over us.  
She settles into my arms again and I feel the heat from our 
twined bodies begin to creep over us.  

I'm not going anywhere.

That was what she said to me; sweeter than promises of 
love.



I don't know how I fell asleep, but I am awake now, 
Mulder's incredible mouth trailing cool kisses down my 
belly, under the comforter.  His tongue flicks into my 
navel and I hear myself whimper in response; that sliding 
pressure against my skin is him smiling.

He moves lower and I throw the covers back, braced for the 
chill of the air in the room, because I want to see him so 
badly right now.

His hair is mussed and I can see the five-o-clock shadow 
darkening his jaw.  He scrapes his chin against my pubic 
bone, where the thick curls begin, and deliberately 
exhales, warm air washing over me.

oh god mulder's going down on me and his mouth is the most 
perfect thing I know

As delicately as if he were flipping a sunflower seed open 
in his mouth, he uses his tongue to part my folds and zeros 
in on my clitoris. I feel a warm wave of sensation, 
deceptively mild at first, then a backlash of pleasure that 
makes me cry out sharply for the first time, the loudest 
sound we've heard since the door shut behind us.

Oh, God.  This is the opposite of sin; Mulder's mouth is 
telling me more about his love for me now than a thousand 
words could say.

His hand smooths up over my belly, and his eyes are 
blissfully shut, lips and tongue working me together.  He 
shifts his weight and the hand on my belly moves down, 
spreads my legs wider so that he can slide one finger 
smoothly into me.  Wet, I am so =wet=

Yes

God

Not just an orgasm, more like a nuclear meltdown. I feel 
him staying with me, holding on tightly although I am 
bucking crazily, out of control, and when I subside, 
shuddering, he releases me gently.

I feel the urgency of his erection pressing into my side 
when he slides back up my body to wrap his arms around me, 
but that's all he does. Finally, I reach up and pull his 
face down to mine so that I can kiss him again, savoring my 
taste on his lips, in his mouth. 

He doesn't resist when I roll him over onto his back, 
struggling a little with his weight.  Mulder looks up at 
me, those incredible eyes wide open and full of love, and 
he reaches up to steady my shoulders as I position myself 
over his body.

Slide and tumble and he catches me, we are burning together 
sharp and hot.

His eyes squeeze shut again and I am afraid of his tears 
but he smiles when they open, and he says my name.

"Scully."

"Mulder."

It's been years and it hurts a little but I want this too 
Much to slow down, want him hard and hot inside of me.  I 
lean forward and brace myself against the mattress with my 
hands, rising and falling faster, closer to his face.  He 
reaches up and pulls me down for a savage kiss, balancing 
me effortlessly on his palms so that I don't have to stop 
moving.

yes god this is so good

did I say that out loud 

"So good Scully"

=he= said it

"God, yes, Scully"

I grind down hard against him one last time and hear his 
shout as he erupts, hot semen rushing up inside of me. His 
hips jerk reflexively once, twice, three times, and I 
settle down over him, finally taste that sweat-sheen at the 
base of his throat.

This time when sleep comes for us, it's for good.  I sleep 
and sleep and don't remember any dreams.


End (7/19)