| Out of Patience Part One By Amanda Finch [email protected] CATEGORY:
SAR To my selfless and, again, slightly masochistic Beta Readers, L.A., my Uber-Scullyist conscience and Rachel, my Mulderist Beta. What would I do without you two? Hey, get those wistful smiles off your faces! ;) Any typos you see are mine. For those of you who wanted a sequel to "Out of
Sorrow": here it is. For those of you who didn't/
couldn't care less: ...Sorry. So, out of the safe realm of humor and into the cruel wargrounds of angst go I... ********************** (1/4) Washington, D.C. in January, gotta love it. Like it had been carved out of the side of a glacier. There was something wrong with the weather stripping on my car, because even with the heat jacked all the way up, that chill crept in and got through our clothes. Just a dense and suffocating cold, and we'd been out in it all day. Scully huddled into her jacket and crossed her arms over her chest. "We're taking my car next time, Mulder. This is insane. Your air conditioning didn't work this summer, and now it's your heat." "I thought I fixed it." She rolled her eyes and laughed. "What?" "I know how you *fix* things." I had to smile. I knew how I fixed things, too. The tradition of Mulder family mechanics had been handed down over many generations. The first step was typically to stare at the malfunctioning object pensively, and then try again. Second was to strike it with the fist or some other handy blunt object, and then try again. If neither of those worked, a screwdriver was found in a drawer, screws unscrewed, and the insides of the malfunctioning object were then pensively stared at once more. The last resort was, of course, to take it somewhere for repairs. Though my last resort usually consisted of just buying a new version of whatever wasn't working. Sort of out of the question for a car. Besides, I was spending all my money on snipers. Think snipers are cheap? Hell no. Especially *two* of them. Of course, why would you want a cheap sniper? In some cases, the discount version was not wise. Like now. I could've gone discount with Spender's sniper, but ours had to be top-notch. They were both top-notch. Nothing but the best for Senator Matheson. I just had to suppress the double-take and re-file the specifications on my pension plan, assuming I had one for much longer. "11:30 and we've already solved a case, Mulder." She half-grinned, burrowing into the seat. "Oh, postal theft. That was a tough one. Stone-cold whodunit," I said dryly. "But done before lunch. Think they'll make us investigative team of the month?" "Right before they make me Assistant Director." "It'd be you before me." I drummed my hands on the steering wheel, waiting for the car in front of us to go. Hell, I might not be able to see the color green, but I knew the third light, when lit, meant accelerate. "Speaking of lunch..." "Mulder, you just had breakfast." "I did not. I had mouthwash and coffee for breakfast." "I just saw you eat two Pop-Tarts not 30 minutes ago." I shook my head sadly. "When are you going to learn? Pop-Tarts are like modern-day c-rations. And that's all. They should in no way be construed as a meal." She arched that one eyebrow at me. "You called them `nature's perfect food.'" "I called them the perfect food, but I've never implied that Pop-Tarts and nature had anything to do with one another." I took my eyes off the road and smiled at her. "You're a scientist. You should know that." The smile worked. She caved in. "Okay, which kitschy diner today? Which greasy hole in the wall with the vodka-based soup?" "That only happened once," I pointed out. "We only *ate* there once." Damn, it was good to have her back. My phone chose that moment to start ringing. "Your choice, Scully. Saved by the cell." I grabbed it out of the inside of my jacket and flipped it open. "Mulder." "He's with the guy," the voice on the other end told me. Ray McGrath, Spender's guardian angel. Well, Spender's guardian *something*. "The guy in the picture I showed you?" I lifted my chin at Scully's inquisitive glance and looked away. "What I can see through the smoke, yeah. Bigger than shit and twice as ugly," McGrath replied. "They're not in your old office, otherwise I'd have some audio for you. They're in some kind of conference room on the...fifth floor. Far as I can tell, no one's in there with them. I can't see Spender from this vantage point, but I saw them both walk in." "Thanks," I said, meaning Dammit. "No prob. Can I shoot the motherfucker now?" "It's not an interactive show," I said, smiling. "Just watch the drama unfold." "Alright." He sounded almost disappointed. "You want me to follow him to lunch again?" "If you can stand sushi for the third day in a row, you go right ahead." I signalled left as Scully absently gestured at a restaurant. "Make eye contact with him. Stare a little. Make sure he knows you're there." "Will do. Looks like they're about to leave." "Keep me posted." I hung up, and Scully broke her stare as soon as I looked to meet it, pretending to be fascinated with the buildings we passed. I knew they didn't register with her anymore than the road did with me. I wordlessly turned into the bar and grill she'd selected and parked the car. Without the hum of the engine, her silence was unbearable. I sniffed a couple of times, trying to get her to look at me. When she didn't, I put my hand on her leg, tensing my fingers into the soft skin of her inner thigh through her slacks. It was a possessive move, a flirtacious one, a powerplay. And it worked. "I'm not going to kill him," I told her, leaning in close. "It's just a scare tactic. Nothing more." "I didn't say anything, Mulder." Nothing audible, I thought, moving my hand. "It's not Spender I'm concerned with." She eyed the now-familiar dark blue Ford Taurus edge into the parking spot behind us. "It's him. Why, Mulder? We're in a public place!" I glanced over at the car, then back at her face. "If that's what you want, then I'll tell him to go away." She exhaled and unlocked her door, smoothing her hair behind her ears with her palms. "Please." "I'll have to call him from inside. Let's go." I opened my door, back in the cold again, and slammed it behind me. She fell into step next to me and my hand went automatically to her back, the same place it always went. Face lowered, she brought herself in close. A little too close, for government time, out in public. But I squared my shoulders and pulled her closer. Screw them. I couldn't make myself care about what they thought, not when it felt this good. As we walked inside, a rush of warm air thawed our faces and softened our joints. The place was relatively empty for near-noon in the capital, and Scully led the way towards a group of empty booths, within sight of the Ford Taurus. I reached for the phone again and dialed his number. "Yeah?" came the whiskey rasp. I turned my back to her and lowered my voice. "Take a break, Jonson." Outside, through the restaurant's wall of windows, Mike Jonson stooped half-in, half-out of his car. "You sure?" He peered at me through the glass. "It's a clear day out." Yeah. Clear, cold, nary a cloud and I didn't need the weather report. "I'm sure. Meet us back here in an hour. If we leave before that, I'll ring you." "Alright," Jonson muttered, but the look he gave me said that he hoped I knew what the hell I was doing. That made two of us. When I turned around, the cold truly hit me for the first time that day. Scully just stood there at the end of the booth, arms still at her sides, facing the windows. There was a lift to her head, a stiffness to her spine. She was waiting for a face full of glass, and a blinding flash of pain that would propel her backwards. In a second, it was gone. I realized that I was standing in the same proximity to her now that I was weeks before, just close enough to be too far away. We were caught in some nightmare loop where she was forever falling and I was forever rushing forward. I wasn't meant to witness the moment. I knew because I'd seen it on three other occasions, always in front of a window, always with that same expression of numbed and empty panic. That was what jolted me the most: she had looked frightened, but not particularly surprised. She was sitting down now, still staring out. Before, when I'd walked in on those moments, feeling as if I'd been caught reading her e-mail, she had composed herself quickly, believing I hadn't noticed. I let her, knowing she would deny it, gloss it over, change the subject. Or worse, she wouldn't. I didn't know if I was ready. Sliding into the seat across from her, I watched her watching, wincing as she inspected the windows of the corporate office across the parking lot, searching the rooftop of the strip mall next door. Then I followed her gaze, and our eyes came to rest in the same place: a parking spot now missing a dark blue Ford Taurus. In my peripheral vision, she sought me out, face spilling admissions that her mouth never would. Words like Help and, Call him back. I had the cell phone out before she could tell me she was "fine". Three rings and, "What?" "Could you come back?" I asked, as meek as I could muster. "Shit, Mulder!" Jonson yelled, a fist in my ear. "I knew it was you." "Thanks." There, over and done with, phone hidden away like my worry and her fear. I wanted to reach for her hands, but they were in her lap, the booth was wide, and while I wasn't above looking desperate, I was at the moment. I knew she would only talk about it if I didn't. So, of course, those words she dreaded waited in my throat for the right second to spring. It was only a rare bout of self-restraint that kept them there. She opened her mouth to talk, and I was tired of biding time. I grabbed her by the arm, I fed into her phobia, and I didn't care. "Mulder -- " What were we fucking thinking? What led her to those windows besides Jonson's instructions to stay where he could see us? In less than a minute, we were down four steps, sandwiched somewhere at a table between the smoky bar at the restaurant's center and a fern-draped partition. The phone rang. Jonson, back in the parking lot now, said angrily, "Mulder, I can't -- " "Live with it." Phone out, phone in. I was now a faster draw with the damn phone than I was with my gun, which was, honestly, not very fast. I met her eyes, and we simultaneously breathed sighs that were more resignation than relief. "You're going to piss off Jonson," she said. "He can afford to be pissed." The words hung there while the waitress came, murmuring polite things we didn't hear, depositing silverware and tumblers of icewater and menus we didn't touch. She was gone and we were still nodding at her nothing words. Who was next? Who spoke now? Thank god she went first. She stared down into her icewater. "I start to feel safe, and then I see that car, or Jonson, and I realize I have no reason to feel safe at all." When she raised her eyes, she looked at me sharply. I had seen the same face before, looking over her shoulder into the bathroom mirror as she had sternly studied her reflection. She hadn't seen herself, and she hadn't seen me. Half a prescription bottle of painkillers was floating in the toilet next to her. She had been there, leaning on the sink, making herself get better, willing it like she was now willing me to understand. A tall order. Her pale eyes implored me to say something, even if it was wrong. "Is this how it's going to be, Mulder?" I went to reach for her hand, and knocked the salt shaker over instead. As usual, a suave ball of grace. I retreated to my side of the table again. How was *what* going to be? Life? Her freezing in front of random windows, waiting for the boom? Me *almost* at her side, wired and waiting for the next catastrophe? Waiting. Would we always be waiting? Was that what she wanted to know? "I don't remember much about it," she said flatly. "I was standing there, and saw the man, sitting there. By the time I realized what he was holding, all I could think was, 'Hold on, I'm not done.'" I leaned back in my chair, spilled salt stuck to my hand, thinking that this moment should've happened behind closed doors in lower light, in familiar surroundings, with more ceremony. But it was only her frank voice ringing in my ears, her heart exposed, anger that had dulled in the past week coursing through me with new energy. ("Hold on, I'm not done.") (Talk, asshole. Say something to her.) Swallowing, I stared down at the table, all or nothing. "I promised myself, when they took you through those doors, telling me how bad it was, that I would do whatever it took to insure you'd never end up there again." I looked up, almost hoping she wasn't listening. "I thought it would bring you some peace of mind. And from the way you reacted back there, I think I did the right thing." "I think you hired them more for your peace of mind than mine." Okay, now *that* hurt. In other words, I didn't care if *she* felt safe. In other words, I had only taken care of myself once again, assuming that any calm was mutual. Because until now, she hadn't confided otherwise. "Mulder, I'm not saying that's wrong." I backed further into myself. The waitress came over again, and in a blind haze, I nodded some more. Sure. Yes. What she's having. Thank you. And then neither of us was talking. That was progress for you. We could talk for hours as long as we didn't bring up anything important, rendering ourselves inarticulate and defensive. Two sodium pentathol martinis, I called silently to the bar. Truth-telling time, gut-spilling time. She had always come out of any trauma looking stronger than me, more right. Instead of blackly forfeiting my side of the conversation with a patentedly evasive aside (it was a talent), I rolled my eyes downward so that the room swam. "What can I do that would make you feel safe?" "You can't do anything," she replied firmly. "Only I can do that. Whatever you want to do in the meantime to put yourself at ease is fine." She smiled. "Except for the Kevlar leotard idea. Forget it." She'd defused the bomb, bless her. I returned her smile inspite of myself. "But I've heard they're really comfortable. They breathe, just like polyester." "Then you wear it." Once again, things were safe and comfortable. So the rule of thumb, of course, was that the phone would ring and fuck up the moment. Like it did that *very* second. I sighed and answered. "Yeah, Mulder?" It was McGrath. "Your boy Spender isn't taking my presence well." I laughed mirthlessly. "So, is it more of a hissyfit, or a full-blown psychotic episode?" "It's a sniper," he said bluntly. "What?" "A sniper. The squat little sonovabitch hired a sniper. Somebody did. I'm across from his apartment building and there's this guy -- he's right there! -- with a set on me! Thought I was seeing my own reflection for a minute." I was waiting for the dial tone, or for McGrath to say "gotcha". "You there, Mulder?" I cleared my throat. "Yeah." "There's something else, too. Unless this Fowley chick quit breathing standing up, this guy Spender...he's kissing her." * Scully had gotten a head start back up to the office while I hunted for a parking spot in the huge, albeit full, garage. I breezed through the door and shut it behind me like I was slamming it on whatever wild animals might've been in pursuit. The corridors were like that for me, with the mocking smirks and derision. They were worse if Scully wasn't there next to me. Their disrespect didn't bother me, but I was tired of staring straight ahead and pretending it never happened. Each day, the urge to sucker-punch someone into the wall intensified. In high school, in college, it was me walking against them as they quickly moved out of my path. And they still moved aside to let me pass, but now it wasn't me they were dodging; it was whatever communicable obsession I might've been carrying. Scully swivelled around in the chair behind the desk, phone to her ear, relieved to see me there as she stood up, ducked deftly under the phone cord and handed the offending call to me. "Who?" I mouthed, but she was already across the room, shaking her head. Exasperated, I put it to my ear. " -- a running bet me and the guys had," chortled the voice. "So now that you're a couple, does this mean there's no hope for you and I being together?" "Afraid so, Frohike," I answered in mock-sadness. "What you and I had was special, but I'm with Scully now." He had me on speaker phone, which served him right since Langly was clearly laughing his ass off in the background. "You bastard," Frohike jeered. "You just wait. The two of you have a fight, and I'll be there to sweep Agent Scully off her feet." I balanced the chair on its two back wheels and hooked my knees under the desk. "I thought they had the phone where you couldn't reach it." Langly lapsed into fresh hilarity and Frohike gave his best Bogart-on-crack snarl. "You lanky motherfu -- " "Did you call me for a reason, Frohike?" "I wasn't calling *you*." "Then I'm hanging up now." And I did. I'd been hanging up on more people as of late. Now I knew why everyone enjoyed doing it to me so often. I let the chair hit the floor and coyly arched my eyebrows at Scully. "So, does Frohike have a chance?" She didn't look up from her paperwork, but smiled. "Not if he was one of the last two men on earth and the other one was on fire, Mulder." Fire. I hummed under my breath. I hated our new office, if only for the reason that it wasn't our old office. Occasionally, Scully tacked a cartoon or a joke to the corkboard, but they never stayed very long. She'd found some postcards of alleged UFO photographs (clever fakes), but it was too hard for me to look at them. They were in a desk drawer, with the rest of my life somewhere. All that stayed pegged there now were a few Bureau-circulated "most-wanted" dossiers, some memos, the mandatory "bang head here" sign. All that separated it from every other corkboard in every other office was the photograph wedged into the corner, snapped by Frohike before we could object, so we weren't posed or anything. Scully sat in the middle of my couch, talking animatedly, face tilted in the direction of whoever had been speaking (Byers, I think), but at an angle to the lens. Her blue eyes flashed with obstinance, hair bright auburn in the lamplight, pulling that flip behind one ear that she hated and I liked. I sat on the end, my legs flung out, arms loosely crossed, only enough space between us for her hand to rest. I was turned away from the camera, smiling at her, almost laughing, the kind of goony grin on my face that showed too much teeth in a way that I hated and she liked. That was months ago. We weren't "together" then, not that anyone would've been able to tell. If they had *ever* been able to tell. I told myself that the picture stayed because Kersh, on his rare drop-ins, had never noticed it. Truthfully, it stayed because the two people in that photograph weren't enough like us anymore to make me feel uncomfortable. I frowned at the photo. Whatever Frohike had captured was just that: captured. "I don't know why it surprises you." For a second, I don't know if I've heard her in my head or if she'd spoken. But it doesn't surprise me at all, I wanted to tell her, with the flash of that long-gone photograph blinding me. I realized sadly that she hadn't been privy to those thoughts. "What?" "Spender hiring his own sniper." I shrugged. "I wasn't even thinking about that." She closed the folder, grimacing. "Sorry. I was." And anyway, I hadn't been surprised. Just annoyed. I was in the game now, right? Lunch, of course, had been ruined by McGrath's phone call. I don't know which was more unappetizing: the thought of McGrath in the crosshairs or Spender and Diana...okay, so the latter won by a landslide. Whatever it was Diana saw in Spender, I could only hope it wasn't similar or equivalent to what she'd seen in me. That would be a little to much for my ego, such as it was, to withstand. "You'd do the same," Scully continued, off on her own wavelength a world away. "If you'd noticed a sniper -- " She caught herself, but not soon enough, and paled in a way that made me want to touch her and not touch her all at once. I didn't even try to stop the words. "Say it: If I had noticed a sniper, you wouldn't have -- " and I left off there when my eyes moved to the desk calendar. One month ago, today. I didn't finish the sentence. It was bad enough as it was. "That's *not* what I was..." She looked down at her fingers, stunned, but it was the truth. I had spent too much time in my own head, taking each minute at face value, for granted. When I was watching out, alert, there wasn't a damn thing that could get past me. It was true for her, too. On December 4th though, the truth I'd spent so long searching for wouldn't have made it into my apartment if it had announced itself politely at the door. I hadn't been paying attention. I was thinking of her, of us, of a dozen different stupidly sentimental things that seemed, a month later, banal and impossible to attain. "What about McGrath?" Scully asked, changing the subject to my relief and chagrin. "Does he -- ?" Her words were interrupted by the agent who, with absolutely no fanfare or fair warning, had just opened the door to our office and mutely stood there. Obviously, they could teach us to interrogate a suspect, profile a killer and fire a weapon, but Quantico couldn't teach us how to knock. "Rambert, Internal," she said stiffly and subsequently acknowledged each of us with the wrong name. "Try it the other way," I suggested and calculated the strikes against her. African-American, female, academy-fresh and attached to Internal Affairs. And I thought *our* current assignment sucked. Rambert could assume one of three personas: bitch, apologist or total indifference. Her embarrassed nod said that she'd chosen the second option. I would've gone with indifference, but then, I usually did. "Sorry." She had a manila envelope in her hands with our names clearly marked, but made no motion to hand it to us. "I was sent on behalf of an Agent Jeffrey Spender...to inquire about any remaining records pertaining to the X-Files Unit that you might still have in your possession." I ignored my own anger, saving it for when she left, knowing it would explode if I met Scully's eyes. "You rehearsed that, didn't you?" A cracked smile from her now. "How'd I do?" "Fine." I cleared my throat. "Agent Spender should've received an extensive document that gave each file a designation of either damaged, severely damaged or...ashes." She was clutching that envelope for dear life. "Agent Spender strongly believes that some files remain unaccounted for." All professionalism fell away from her then. "He was on our asses all last week about this." "Certain case files meaning what?" Scully asked tersely. Rambert noticed she was still holding the envelope and grinned sheepishly, putting it on the edge of my desk. I stared at the big block letters, at the misspelling of Scully. SCULLEY. She hated when they did that. I slipped my thumb under the flap, loosening the adhesive. "Why does Spender want to double-check for remaining files?" I said, mostly thinking out loud. "You don't know?" She shifted her weight from one high heel to the other. "Wednesday, Agent Spender is handing over any remaining files to OPR for an official inquiry. He, uh, requested they look into the methods used to investigate." I had the envelope half-open, playing those words back in my head. "Let me get this straight: Spender's having all of the remaining X-Files re-opened?" "Well, no," Rambert murmured. "He's having some of them closed." Scully's grim smile, which had echoed mine, froze. "He's closing open files? He can't do that." Rambert was getting increasingly anxious as she stood there, hand on the doorknob. "Not closed, per se....Declassified. It's primarily the same thing." Closing a case meant it stayed on file for three years, was put on a long list of documents that needed to be converted to microfiche and, once crossed off, was incinerated. Declassifying a case meant the number was retired, like a jersey number in baseball or basketball, and assigned to some other case, while the file itself was put in the back of some dark cabinet that only served as a garbage can with drawers. I looked from Rambert to Scully, and back again. "Which files does he think I'm holding?" "It's in the request memorandum." She waved dismissively at the envelope in my hand, relieved to be done. She was halfway out the door when she added, "And if Agent Spender hasn't received an adequate explanation for the files in question, he's going to issue federal search warrants for your apartments." She smiled bleakly into our faces now, apologist showing signs of bitch. "I rehearsed that part, too." I've been speechless very few times in my life. Locking eyes with Scully, I silently told her to mark this day down. "Who's signing off on these tactics, Mulder?" I ripped the envelope all the way open, and Scully got up to read over my shoulder. I immediately sought out the numbers. "X-40253. Subject: Samantha Ann Mulder. X-73317. Subject: Agent Dana Katherine Scully. Request return of files for immediate declassification and closure of said cases upon verification of illegitimacy." After a moment, the paper began to shake in my hand. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ PART ONE === PART TWO === PART THREE === PART FOUR ----------------------------------------------- |