Title:  Knives

Author: GenieVB

Summary: Sequel to Knock Over, Undone
& UnBroken.

Rating: PG

Legal Disclaimer: I own nothing related to
the X-Files. I will make no money from any-
thing related to the X-Files. FOX is up to
their ears in moolah. I have five cats.

Category: MSR/UST

Spoilers: None.


**

"Mulder-"

The question from over his left shoulder startled him
and his hand slipped.

"Ah-" The small pocket knife he'd been using to whittle
nicked his thumb.

Looking back, "Scully? What are you doing here?"

"What am _I_ doing here?" She took his hand and
checked the cut.

"It's not bad. Sorry I startled you, but what are _you_
doing here, Mulder? I thought you were jogging?"

"How would you know that?"

She cleared her throat, gave herself a mental kick and
covered her tracks, "Well, isn't it obvious? You're
here in the middle of the night, dressed in worn sweats
and a Knicks sweatshirt at Two Am sitting on the steps to
your partner's apartment building..." It was ridiculous
and Mulderishly ironic.

Teasing, "I mean, this is normal Fox Mulder behavior. What
else would you be doing?"

Scully noticed the biceps. Mulder ‘d been working out.
He looked good. Better than ever.

"Guess I overdid it."

"I'll say." She didn't dispute him, knowing it was
a lie. He had something on his mind. Well, so did she.

"Come?" He asked, nodding his head in the direction
of the waterfront parkway. It was only a few blocks
away.

"Sure." What the hell? "I have to get dressed."

"Catch up with me by the pond and we can have breakfast
at Jenny's."

She was wide awake anyway. "See you there. Hey, Mulder!"
She called, before he got out of earshot.

"Yeah?"

"Jog slowly, all right. I don't have spider legs. And
follow the path, so I can find you easily."

"See you there." He answered, then muttering to himself,
"And I don't have spider legs."


Mulder set off at an easy lope. His long legs
took him over the dewed lawn and occasional
gopher hole with little effort. Not a decade
before running had become the healthy
alternative to a pack a day and sleeping in.

No matter what kind of week he was having at
work, this was his relaxation. Away from the
job, it was the time he did his best thinking.

Sometimes, though, it was the time he could
let everything go. Work, responsibilities,
worries, stresses all became pounding feet
on earth, lungs orgasm-ing on crispy air,
body and everything in it feeling alive,
tingling, and afterward, the shower and the
head to foot vibrating muscles and nerves.

Lately, though, he thought of Scully. Work,
life, late reports, were all there too, but
Scully was taking up a bigger and bigger slice
of his mental pie.

He'd stop by the pond, do a few stretches.
Scully should be there by the time he'd be done.
They'd jog to Jenny's-

-Mulder only glimpsed a shadow, an undefined form.
There was no time beyond that to react or yell.

He was down and something was happening. Shock,
however, prevented him from feeling anything but
the sensation of invasion. Quick, solid thrusts
sinking into his flesh.

Intellectually, he knew what was causing it, he
knew he was being stabbed and the warm liquid
flowing over his skin was his own blood, but
that's all.

He'd been shot before, he knew this is often how it
occurred. One didn't always feel the pain right away,
especially when an assault happened quickly before
the brain had time to register and recognize what
it was supposed to be feeling.

One, two, three times, he felt the knife sink in.

Then he felt grass on his back and strange hands
rifling through his clothes, turning pockets inside-
out. But he'd carried no wallet with him at all. His
attacker would take away perhaps ten dollars
in loose bills and coin for his trouble.

All this for that.

Mulder heard a man curse and then feet running
away.

A calmness, like floating on a cloud, overcame him.
He heard his breath, ragged, his chest wheezing
and wondered if one of the strikes had penetrated
a lung.

But it all seemed far away and meaningless. He,
lying on the ground and dying (he knew in fact,
that was what was probably happening), suddenly
knew exactly who he was and where he should
have been going with his life.

Life did flash before your eyes. Regrets too though.
Things left undone, unsaid, un-acted.

Only there was mere minutes of life left, and
how would he repair any of those oversights?

It was all too late.

Sunlight painted the clouds overhead with streaks
of pink and orange, starlings twittered, the
slightest wind stirred his sweat soaked hair...

...blood flowed and cooled.

Yet it was all so simple. Clear.

He wished he could have bought Scully breakfast,
and imagined her chewing on the biscuit (or bagel
was that what she liked? He couldn't remember),
and the strawberry jam stuck to the corner of her
red rosy lips, its juice running down her chin,
flowing over to run between her breasts in a
red river, drying to brownish globs...


He felt pain.

*


"See you there." He'd called over his back.


Scully, dressed in tights and a loose oversized sweater
over cotton jersey, jogged easily in the grey streaks
of dawn. It was only a few blocks to the waterfront
parkway and the pond. Visions of Mulder danced in her
head. Pictures of them eating together, talking,
laughing.

Laughing together. Yes, that's one she wanted more
of.

She'd bring the subject, the "us" subject, up during
breakfast. Maybe.

Oer maybe over coffee afterward. People usually
discussed these things over coffee.

That's how she and Jack had somtimes talked about
things.

No, wait, that's how she and Jack had yelled about
things.

But she and Mulder only yelled at each other over
a case. When it was vacation time-

-She remembered that they had never, ever in seven
years spent any vacation time together.

Over the weekend-

-No weekend time together either.

Well, when they were thrown together outside of a
case, things between them were usually, well, nice.

Scully had no idea what it was like to spend free time
with Mulder, though she had a few speculations about
how he spent his free time.

That was the goal, though, wasn't it? To be with him
off hours. To get to know the free time Mulder, to
find out if there really was any possibility...

During Saturday mornings, the park would be filled
with joggers, people with little fluffed be-ribboned
pooches and women with baby strollers.

But on a weekday morning, Scully saw that it was
all but deserted.

As she rounded a bush on the red graveled pathway,
she met someone at a dead run.

"Hey!" She said as he rudely rushed passed, bumping
her arm hard.

Muttering, "Jerk." She rubbed her shoulder and continued
on. A few hundred yards to the pool, a short run to Jenny's
and fresh baked biscuits with home-made preserves.

A hundred yards off from the pond, Scully checked
around for Mulder.

Not finding him, she checked down by the waterside
but it was empty. Just an old man walking his very
fat poodle.

"Don't tell me..." She wondered if she'd misunderstood.
"Was I supposed to meet him here or AT Jenny's..."

*

Continued in 2/2