Date sent: Thu, 07 Aug 1997 16:15:41 -0500 From: Megan Subject: Secret Life of Dana Scully - all - 310 K + Disclaimer: The X Files, its characters and situations belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox, not me. + Summary: This is a love triangle with an X File and conspiracy. Scully's met someone, but their relationship must remain a secret from Mulder - however, she finds it impossible to keep her working life and her love life from entertwining. + This story is set after Pusher but before Tunguska. It feels more late season three than early season four to me, and there are no fourth season spoilers of any kind. There are direct spoilers for Apocrypha, and references to most of the season 2 and 3 conspiracy episodes. + Author's notes: This story is for Jessica, because she brainwashed me and made me write this! Her excellent story "Lost" is now completed...go and read it! But read this first. :) I also owe lots and lots of thanks to XP, who read and commented and kept me going...you guys know who you are. __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly eponine@prodigy.net June 1, 1997 __________________________ She could feel someone was watching her, but every time she turned around to look, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The small club was dim, almost dark, and a haze of smoke hung in a thick cloud over the tables. She could feel those eyes burning intensely into her back, but the eyes seemed to belong to no one. She hated turning around to look. Whoever it was lurking just out of sight in the shadows saw the nervous dart to her eyes, she was sure, and felt the power of his antagonism. It was quiet in the club, mostly, and that wasn't so good. The amateur comedian continued to joke nervously into the microphone, her voice stretching out into a reedy, irritating grate. The woman, clad all in black, was nervous. Her body betrayed her as she swayed from one foot to the other, unable to keep still under the audience's gaze. The unamused audience. Dana felt sorry for her. If she hadn't been so distracted, maybe she would have found the comedian's rant on modern life funny. No one else did. Soon the woman took a quick bow, allowing her short, dark hair to fall across her face, and the next comedian took the podium. It was a man, and his first joke referred to his sexual prowess. Scully found him offensive instantly and dropped a couple of dollars on the table to cover her drink. Taking her purse in hand, she threaded her way between the close tables and around to a side door. All the while, she continued to feel someone's eyes on her, hot and heavy. It made the hair on the back of her neck feel prickly, but she ignored the feeling. "I suck!" her friend Jane, the amateur comedian, cried the moment she spotted Scully in the backstage area. "It's a bad crowd tonight, that's all," Scully tried to soothe her friend, but without much enthusiasm. Jane came up with good routines, sometimes, but she had the feeling tonight's wasn't one of them. If she had been listening. Guilt twinged through her. "...moved amateur night to fuckin' Monday..." Jane muttered, complaining, as she began to wipe the thick lines of black eyeliner off her face. She met Dana's eyes in the mirror. "You wanna go out? Maybe get wasted?" "That's not going to help," Dana answered mildly. "Ya never know," Jane tried. "Not tonight. I've got work in the morning..." "And your partner would keel over dead if ever there was a day you weren't in the office by seven on the dot, right?" Jane accused. Dana looked away, the truth a little close for her to acknowledge. "Someday I'm gonna do a whole routine about the screwed up relationship between the two of you." Jane's threat was hollow; she said the same thing every time Dana complained about Mulder. "I doubt anyone would believe it." She smiled wryly. "Oh, I don't know," Jane commented engagingly, "Did you hear the one about the guy who ate human livers..." Dana just raised an eyebrow. "Never mind. I'm sorry. Maybe this dork Mulder isn't just using you. Maybe I'm wrong." Dana shrugged. I wish you were, she thought, but she would never say the words aloud. The truth was, Mulder probably wouldn't have any idea what time she got to the office the next morning, or if she showed up at all. He'd run off somewhere again, with not one word of where he'd gone. She was going to work tomorrow, the same as ever, and hoped that he would somehow be there, but she didn't allow her hopes to get too high. Mulder was Mulder and he'd always done this to her. He'd come back when he felt like it. If you love something, set it free. The phrase appeared in Dana's mind and she suddenly got a flash of herself curled up in her cold, lonely bed for yet another night. "I gotta go, Jane. I'm sorry about tonight. Next week will be great, I'm sure of it." "Wish I was as positive as you," Jane muttered. "Don't let the asshole slap you around." Dana nodded an 'I won't' and slipped out through the stage door. Mulder had never laid a hand on her, but sometimes the way he treated her left her feeling worse than if he had beaten her. She shook her head. She wasn't going to think of him any more tonight. She turned down the alley and began to walk through the night towards home. Almost immediately she began to feel those eyes on her again. Watching. It was surely not a coincidence now that she wasn't in a public place. She didn't have her gun with her, either, damn it. If he tried anything, she'd have to let him get close enough for her to knock him down or out. She walked faster, determined not to look behind. Her goal was to reach a well-lighted street as quickly as possible. "Hey, I'm sorry." The man's voice was soft, from behind her. Not threatening. She kept walking. "I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't even mean to follow you. I just...wanted to talk to you. Please?" The note in his last word made her turn. She saw the tall male figure lounging in the shadows a few feet from where she was standing. His shoulders were broad and he had a healthy, lean look to him. Tense. Sexy. Immediately she felt a pull toward him, even though she couldn't see his face. Ridiculous, she told herself. He was well dressed in jeans, a sport jacket and expensive shoes. "I've seen you before." There was a raw, confessionary tone in his voice. Dana began to think back through all of the men she'd seen in the club over the past few months, since Jane had begun performing and Dana had supported her. "There's a strength to you like no one I've ever seen. But there's a softness underneath. One you try not to let anyone see, not even yourself. I love the way you laugh. The way the lights capture the fire in your hair. The way your eyes sparkle when you're interested, and the way they shutter when you're not." The words would have been cheesy enough to make her laugh if it hadn't been for the utterly sincere, plain way he spoke them. He sounded like he was half in love with her. Maybe more than half. She was being serenaded in a dark alley by Cyrano de Bergerac, a man who'd noticed more things about her in a few by-sight encounters than Mulder had noticed in four years of partnership. How could she not allow herself to be open to that? "I'm sorry. I've spoken out of turn. I never should have...I should have kept it to myself. I'll just...go." He turned then to leave, to walk right back out of her life. "No," Dana said without even thinking about it. The charm lay in the mesmerizing honesty of his words. There was no doubt in her mind that he was telling the absolute truth. It never occurred to her that he could possibly be a ruthless, charming killer. He froze at her word, his body tense. "What do you mean?" he asked darkly. "Don't say things you don't mean. You're afraid of me. I can see that. Even if I promise I'm not here to hurt you, I just wanted to tell you how I felt, you won't be able to believe me." But I do believe you, she thought. "You won't be able to separate yourself from the fear you carry inside you. A fear of loss. Of betrayal." Her mouth opened and her eyes widened. How could he know? "I know you, Dana. And this can never be because I'm the one who's caused you to carry that fear with you." "What are you talking about?" He stepped forward, out of the shadows, and the man who'd already won a piece of her heart with his gentle words turned out to be a man she recognized. A man she despised on site, although she actually knew little or nothing about him. Except that he was a dirty rotten traitor liar spy killer punk. She wanted to punch him in the nose, but she couldn't. She wanted to kiss him in the same urge, but she certainly couldn't do that. His green eyes bore into hers. The man who'd just professed such bittersweet feelings for her was Alex Krycek. She should turn and run, or better, arrest him and take him into custody. He was, after all, wanted in connection with several murders, thefts, and traitorous acts. He was a member of the conspiracy that made her and Mulder's lives hell. And she wanted to believe him. She didn't want to believe that this was a set up or a lie. She'd heard the words he'd said, and she wanted them in her heart to be true. "Let's go somewhere so we can talk. Please," Krycek half-begged. The desperate look on his face reminded her of Mulder. "Somewhere private? Where gunshots won't be overheard?" Scully demanded. "There's an all night diner two streets up. We can grab a booth in the back and drink coffee till dawn. Bright lights and waitresses to keep you safe, Scully. And to keep me honest. Besides, you have your gun, don't you?" His eyes searched hers. "Of course," she replied, stiff and automatic. Even if it was a lie. "Then what are you afraid of?" It was a dark whisper and she could feel it vibrating along her spine. Her chin went up a notch. "Nothing," she replied. "That's what I thought," he grinned. She realized he looked like a different person when he smiled. A different person than what? she asked herself as she allowed him to link his arm through hers to escort her properly over to this diner of his. The fabric of his jacket was scratchy against the bare skin of her arm below the line of her short sleeved dress, and she could feel how warm his body was even through the material. She hadn't realized how cold she was until that very moment. A different person than the man who betrayed Mulder? Who killed Mulder's father and made off with the digital tape that almost cost them their lives? What other crimes had the man beside her committed that she had no notion of? They settled themselves into a harshly well lit booth in the very back of a dingy diner. She saw how many times the orange seat had been patched with Nu-vinyl as she slid across it. The linoleum floor was cracked throughout, as though an elephant had taken a stroll through the restaurant on a day long ago. But the ambiance of the place made Scully smile. It reminded her of Saturday dinner outings of her childhood. A Naval officer with four hungry children hadn't been able to afford fancy restaurants. But they'd loved each other. That was what mattered. She realized, suddenly, that she was older than her mother had been when she'd had the last of her children. Her mother had seemed so old to her back then. And now she was older. Where had the years gone? There was no husband, no children, in Dana's life. Only a career. Something her mother had never had. A waitress dropped by with two battered brown mugs and a big glass pot of coffee. She left the pot with them and walked away. "Thanks," Scully mumbled to the woman, who didn't seem to hear. She poured the strong brew into her cup and realized they were the only two in the restaurant. She reached over to pour some coffee into Krycek's cup and wondered again what she was doing there with him, of all people. He reached for the coffeepot at the very same moment, trying to take it from her. Their grips wrestled a moment before she realized he wanted it and he realized she wasn't going to let go. "Sorry," they both said at once. Dana pushed the pot at him, uncomfortable suddenly with him touching her. Coffee with a killer was one thing. Touching him was something else entirely. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him. "You saved my life once. I don't know if you remember," he began softly. She realized he hadn't once raised his voice above that bare whisper after his first speech to her. Something about his quiet voice was powerful. She could feel something in her stomach, some instinctive force drawing her to him like a magnet. She had never seen him be this way before. And she couldn't deny the emotions she saw when she looked in his eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at her that way. A very long time. She missed it. She wasn't sure it would matter who the man was, if it was that look. "I thought for sure he was going to kill me. That you were going to let him kill me," Krycek continued, hesitant to bring up Mulder's actual name between them. He wanted her. He wanted her to fall in love with him, here and now, tonight. Invoking Mulder, her codependent non sexual partner, would not help at all. He wondered why he'd even brought the damn story up but it was as though he was suddenly granted an audience with his idol. He wanted to tell her everything in case he never again had the opportunity. "And then you shot him. Not me. I couldn't run out of there fast enough, but I almost fell over my own feet when I glanced at you. The strong look on your face as you stood over a man you felt you had to protect...I think I knew then." She didn't ask, "Knew what?" They both knew already. And she didn't want the words out in the open. This was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her, she thought. She was no stranger to boys having crushes on her, and having to suffer through the embarrassment to both of them as he confessed it. But this was different. This was adult. She believed he meant what he said and what he felt. Worse, she thought she might be able to return the feeling. And she didn't want that. Not for him. Not after what he'd done. "I've changed, Dana." He was taking a chance using her given name, he knew that. He'd never heard anyone call her by it before. For all he knew, she could detest it as much as old Mulder detested the moniker "Fox." But he didn't think so. He thought she'd become so used to being one of the boys that she'd grown used to what they boys called her. Scully. But he wanted all of her. Not just the side she showed to her chauvinistic coworkers. He wanted the little girl she'd been and the old woman she would become. "I've had too much done to me. I ran because I had to. I helped him because I had to." Him being the evil cigarette smoking man. "I had no other choice then. I have choices now." "Where do I fit into all this?" she asked with patent skepticism, kept sharp by years of practice on Mulder. "I never would have told you if I hadn't seen you tonight. If you hadn't stopped." "Why did you say all of those things?" "Because they're true." He watched her avert her eyes in an attempt to deny it. "Dana. They are." With fingers as gentle as a lover's touch, he caught her cheek and turned her back to make her look at him. "I can't let this happen." "Because of Mulder." He understood? Scully looked sharply at him. "I understand about Mulder," Krycek told her. "What are you ever going to have with him? He's run off again to some godawful place, hasn't he, not telling you where or why." "How did you know?" "I can see the sadness. I know he tends to do things that way. He likes to be alone, Dana, and he's not a man you can change. And, every time I've seen you at the club it's been because he was gone. Pursuing his quest without you." Was that how it worked? she asked herself. She hadn't seen the pattern. "I like to be alone too. And I suspect so do you." "We all make our choices in life. Mulder's choice is to walk alone. I don't want mine to be. I can't believe your destiny is in being alone. You're such a warm and caring person." Scully laughed at that. She knew that over the past couple of years, Mrs. Spooky had acquired a frigid reputation. A reputation born of frustration and anger. Even Mulder thought she was cold. She could see his contempt for her in his eyes sometimes when he thought she should understand. "You grew up in a large and loving family. Something he didn't have. Something I didn't have." "You know an awful lot about me," Scully said and he couldn't deny it. She was glad he didn't try. She imagined he'd studied her, and Mulder, way back when he'd been doing nefarious deeds. "I don't know anything about you." "My name is Alex Krycek -" He hesitated a moment, as though looking for the words he could say. "There's not much to tell about me, really. I have no brothers and sisters. No family." He met her eyes again. "It's a dark story, Dana. I don't mind telling you. But only if you want to hear." "I do," she said softly. Not at all wanting to learn something about the enemy that could be used in his eventual defeat. She was thinking about the man who had already in so many ways begun to win her over. "My parents were Russian immigrants. Very poor, in New York City. They had a lot of problems, I don't remember. All I remember is the feel of the apartment I was born in, and the murmurs of Russian that filled my childhood. I learned English on the streets. I learned everything on the streets. My father ended up dead and my mother couldn't handle it. She tried to get rid of me. Locked me out and I'd come home and sit against the door crying. Till one day she played hide and seek with me. But she never came to find me. I hid in a garbage bin and stayed there freezing for hours, waiting for her to come. She never did." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I was put into foster care, but it didn't do any good. In some ways it was worse. I was on the street still but I had no real home to go to. I was abused by the men in more than one of the homes. I learned to endure. And I ran." "That's horrible." "It's not your upbringing, that's for sure." He swallowed some of the coffee and looked at her. "I'm telling you this because I want you to know. Because I thought you would understand. And understand that while it was always a part of me, it's not something I'm still fighting against." Not like Mulder, he left unsaid. But they both heard it. Krycek had been man enough to face his demons. Mulder was still chasing monsters, hoping one of them would someday be his and he wouldn't be too scared to face it the way he had been the time before. "I've done some bad things, Dana. I can't pretend I haven't. I did what I had to in order to survive. You've killed in order to survive, too. I know that you have. You know what I had to do." "I did what I did for the right reasons." Her voice was low and tight. He admired her nobility. The faces of all the men she'd shot, all the men she'd killed in the name of law and self defense, passed through her mind, haunting her. "What are the right reasons in this day and age, Dana?" Krycek asked evenly. "Who owns the truth? The United States Government? The director of the FBI, a small group of powerful men, Mulder? The people should own the truth, Dana. No matter what their names are." "You sold those secrets to the highest bidder." "At least I didn't discriminate because of their politics. Can you honestly say I should have?" She opened her mouth and she knew she should have been able to argue with him. But no words came out. Nothing. She'd fallen under his spell, a spell helped along by loneliness, the late hour, the sugary coffee she'd been drinking. This was insane and almost surreal. She expected to wake and find she'd been dreaming in Technicolor Cinemascope. Her silence left her in agreement with what he had done. Everything. Up to and including professing feelings for her, feelings he shouldn't have. Feelings she sure as hell shouldn't have back. "I'd better be getting home," she murmured, gathering her purse and getting to her feet. "I'll walk you." Krycek rose as well. She wanted to deny him. To yell "NO!" and run home and call Mulder and make him protect her. Except she didn't need any protection, especially his. Again she let silence acquiesce and she and Krycek began to walk through the cool, dark night back to her apartment. End of part one ++"Invite someone dangerous to tea." How To Be An Artist - Sark++ __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly eponine@prodigy.net __________________________ -2- They didn't speak as they walked. Scully couldn't stop herself from looking over at her companion, even though he'd caught her staring more than once. She wondered what he was thinking. She wondered what he was doing there with her; for that matter, what she was doing with him. She had to be crazy. She had to absolutely losing her mind. But she knew, even as she sneaked another glance at him, that this was exactly where she wanted to be. Even if it didn't make sense. He knew where she lived. It dawned on her slowly as he matched her quick strides with his own. He wasn't following her. He knew every turn before she made it, as well as she did. The thought made her walk faster unconsciously, as though her mind was telling her to outrun him and leave this night behind her. She didn't want to leave the night behind. He was a handsome, sexy man. The look in his eyes when they met hers was enough to make her breath catch and her heart begin to beat a little more strongly. She was lonely, and there was something lonely in him that she recognized. He hadn't once tried to hurt or threaten her, something he surely would have done if he hadn't really changed, if he was lying when he said that. Her fingers found the keys to her apartment building in her purse easily as she started up the walk. The light above the door was burning, as it did all night every night. Never before had it reminded her of the porch light her father left on for her when she was going on teenage dates. Working the keys in her hand, she came up with the one to the door of the building and approached the lock with it. Krycek's hand closed over hers, keeping her from fitting the key into the lock. She looked up at him in surprise and found his eyes had turned dark and intense. "I don't want this night to end," he told her softly. "Not yet." "What do you suggest we do, then?" she asked lightly, the words barely voiced. She felt like an unsuspecting insect trapped in the web of a spider; she couldn't look away from him. She couldn't move away. She couldn't even manage to pull in a decent breath. "Invite me inside," he whispered back. His breathing was almost as rapid as hers was. "Okay." He didn't remove his hand from hers as she opened the front door. He held it open with his other hand and she just looked at him, trying to find some semblance of coherent thought among the warm, bright jumble in her mind. She couldn't drop the keys back into her purse if he didn't release her hand. But she didn't really want him to. She slipped through the door and he followed her, still holding her hand. He remained close to her, practically stepping on her heels as she walked down the hallway to her apartment. She could almost feel his body against hers, even though their hands were all that touched. He leaned casually on the wall beside her door and stared at her as she opened her front door then reached for the light just inside the door out of habit. "Don't," he whispered, stopping her hand before she could reach the switch. "I like the darkness. Don't you?" His mouth was close to her ear; she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. Her stomach turned with something she recognized as desire. Her body was beginning to ache with wanting him, but she didn't want him. Did she? She didn't know any more. She looked at her living room illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the gaps in the curtains as Krycek quietly closed the door. He took the keys from her numbed fingers and placed them on the table in front of them, the one she had pushed up against the back of the couch. It was where she always dropped her keys when she came inside, usually on the way to the bedroom to get into more comfortable clothing. She routinely walked out of her shoes just inside the bedroom door and took off her belt and her hose as she reached for her leggings or her nightgown, depending on what time it was. But she stood absolutely still. Waiting for something to happen. She didn't know what to do. It felt as though she had never had a man in this apartment before. In some ways, that statement was very true. Never before had she walked in with someone, feeling the way she did, knowing where the evening was inevitably going to end. Mulder had been to her apartment - injured and sick. Others had come and gone, unwanted visitors tied to one case or another. People who'd threatened her and tried to hurt her. But no one like this. She wished she knew what to do. Krycek touched her hair and it startled her. A strangled sound came out of her throat and it made him chuckle softly. His fingers moved through her hair gently, caressing her scalp, holding her prisoner. "Relax," he advised, sliding his hand down to cup her cheek, to tilt her jaw up so her eyes met his. "I don't know why I'm so nervous," she lied, and her voice sounded funny to her own ears. Too high, too thin, too fast. Terrified. Like a stupid schoolgirl on her first grown-up date. "I know," he told her. "We shouldn't be doing this." He turned away, his shoulders slumped slightly, though tension filled entire being. He looked like a man on the verge of warring with himself. "What?" she asked. He turned back with a crooked smile on his face. "This." She couldn't say that he kissed her, or that she kissed him. They met halfway, both of them wanting desperately to touch. She closed her eyes and let him own her. She could feel the pure steel strength of his arms. But his thumbs pressing up just underneath her jaw were heartbreakingly gentle. She leaned against him, off balance as she stood on her toes, trying to reach him more easily. "Hey," he said with a light laugh as he took a step backward, releasing her, off balance himself. She'd surprised him and it made her smile. "Guess I'm just too damned short," she said, not apologetic in the least. "I think you're perfect," he informed her with a grin. He knew that now was the time to ask, when they weren't touching, when it was still possible to turn away and stop this if she wanted to. If she wasn't ready...if she didn't want this. He would defer to her wishes. But he wanted her. Badly. And he thought that she wanted him too, but the choice was ultimately hers. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her gravely. He watched her take a deep breath. As though she were steeling herself for something terrible. Was he so horrible to her? Was he really making her do something she didn't want to do? He knew it had to be the truth, and he felt his emotions contract in his chest. It was just as well. He'd never believed this would ever happen. She was his unreachable goal. He wasn't good enough for her, and he knew it. He'd always known it, and it had been pointed out to him many times, by himself and by others. "It's all right," he said before she had the chance to say anything. "I'll just go. And you can pretend none of this ever happened." He took a couple of steps away, toward the door, still looking at her because he knew it would be the last time he saw her. He wouldn't even be able to risk going back to the club to see her from afar. If she ever dared to go back, she would take Mulder with her. And Mulder would kill him in a heartbeat. She had always loved Mulder. He knew he couldn't compete with that. No matter what he liked to believe, dreaming in the middle of the night. "I don't want to pretend it hasn't happened." Her words stopped him. Her voice was even and determined. She was certain. "What are you saying?" he asked her. "I think you know what I'm saying." God, he loved that practical tone of voice she always used! Even now. He smiled, unable to help himself. "I don't believe it," he said lightly. "Dana Scully, *shy*?" "I am not," she snapped, but the look on her face was slightly embarrassed. "Tell me what you want," he said, still in that seductive, teasing tone of voice. "You," she said. This time unashamed. "I shouldn't, but I do." "Do you feel guilty for wanting me, Dana?" he asked her, moving in closer again, touching her with one finger. He slid it down the line of her throat and across her delicate collarbone, letting his fingertip linger in the hollow of her throat. She closed her eyes, but she didn't answer. "Look at me, Dana." The blue eyes instantly seized on his. "I know that as of a couple of hours ago, if anyone had asked you, you would have said you hated my guts and probably would kill me if you ever had the chance. I don't want you to regret anything in the morning." "I'm an adult. I make my own decisions," she told him. "And I know what I want. I can live with that." "You're not just carried away by the moment?" "It's hard not to be," she admitted. "Why are you trying to talk me out of this?" "I'm not." He swept her up into his arms and she let out a small shriek of surprise at finding herself airborne as he carried her into her bedroom. He lay her gently in the middle of her fluffy white down comforter and moved to join her, not touching her at first except the lightest skimming of his fingertips against her skin and his lips touching hers. It was, without a doubt, the most romantic thing Scully had ever experienced. No man had ever carried her off to bed before. She'd been in love before and she'd had long and satisfying relationships, but they had never been anything she could honestly consider romantic. Mostly she'd been with older men, men who thought and did things the same way she did, and those relationships had progressed at an even pace. A pace she had set, with their permission. She had never been one to rush into things. She'd never been one to let passion rule her. This was so completely different for her. Krycek was young, younger than her maybe when she thought of it, and he was sexy and demanding and full of passion. She thought she could feel anger in his kiss. Anger and lust and love, in equally scary parts. She'd never heard a confession as beautiful as his had been. She'd never been the object of such desire. She was not a woman that men dreamed about at night. She was not a woman who men pined for. She was not very tall, and redheaded, and had sort of plain, sharp features that made her look angry most of the time, she thought. But Krycek treated her as though she was the most beautiful woman who had ever lived. That was compelling. Compelling enough to awaken a passion in her that matched his, a passion the likes of which she had never felt before. He was an incredible kisser. An incredible lover. She felt as though she was living in the middle of a fantasy, or that at any moment she would awaken from the most stunningly real erotic dream of her life. But he was real. And that was enough to make her forget everything she'd known of him before, and believe in him and what he was doing in this moment. He loved her, that was all that mattered. All the rest could be dealt with later....much later. + + + She woke in the big bed alone. The sun streaming in the windows roused her from a deep sleep. She squinted into the bright light and yawned, feeling more relaxed and content than she could remember ever feeling in the morning. She became aware of her body and the way her skin and her muscles felt and remembered what had gone before. Well-loved. It was a delicious feeling, one she wanted to lie there and savor. She reached for him, wanting his warmth and his arms around her, wanting to cuddle and awaken together and relish the morning after. But she was alone. It wrenched her out of the pleasantness of the morning. She sat up quickly and looked around. There was no trace of him. No sound of the shower running, none of his clothes on the floor, no note. Just the covers pulled up around her and smoothed as though nothing had happened. She tried to take a deep breath, suddenly feeling shaky and sick throughout. It wasn't so pleasant any more. She felt sore and she felt used and she had the hysterical yearning to burst into tears. Why had he left her? She didn't understand. After a moment, her eyes focused on the clock on her nightstand. It was after nine a.m. She had to get to work, even though she knew Mulder wouldn't be there. Just as well, she told herself as she slid out of bed. She didn't think she could face him this morning. Not after everything that had happened. Feeling chilled, she headed for the warmth and safety of the shower. + + + The door to their office was ajar when she arrived and the lights were on inside. Scully frowned because she remembered specifically closing the door when she left the night before. As she placed her palm against the door to push it open, she heard the sound of a keyboard being worked over, the keys being hit forcefully and rapidly. There was only one man she knew who typed so fiercely. "Mulder," she said, just standing there in the doorway with a sinking feeling in her heart. How could she look him in the eyes and know what she had done? How could she do this? He nodded to her but didn't look away from the letters appearing on the screen. She bit her lip and put her head down, walking into the room and closing the door. She threw her bag down in her chair, overwhelmed with anger towards him for reasons she couldn't fathom. She leaned against the desk, crossing her arms over her chest in an effort to reign in her fury. "I didn't think you were going to be in today, Mulder," she said, aware of the harshness of her tone. Mulder frowned and glanced at her as he hit control-s to save the document he was working on. "What's wrong, Scully?" he asked. His eyes were wide and clear and guileless. Innocent as a boy's. Like a knife in her heart because she knew she had betrayed him. "Where did you take off to yesterday morning, Mulder?" she asked, trying to maintain a calm facade. "I had a lead. It didn't really pan out, but I thought I'd write up a report on it anyhow. In case it recurred, then we'd have some kind of proof, something to go on..." Mulder trailed off, aware that Scully was still staring daggers at him. "Something is wrong," he said, alarmed. "Why didn't you say something to me?" "Like what?" He really didn't get it. He has to be the most moronic man on the planet, Scully thought, irrationally angry. She felt it well up inside her. "Like where you were going? What you were checking out? The words, 'Hey, you want to come?' ring any bells with you, Mulder?" He just stared at her, stunned by her outburst. "No, I guess they wouldn't." "Scully, I...I had no idea," Mulder said truthfully as though realization was setting in. "Whatever," she snapped, grabbing her bag from where she'd thrown it. "It doesn't really matter." She headed for the door, feeling lightheaded with fury. Mulder was out of his seat in a second and touching her. "No, it does matter," he said in that sensitive tone he had. She jerked her arm away from his hand, feeling uncomfortable knowing his worst enemy had touched her only a few hours earlier. "This is obviously something we need to talk about." "I don't know what there is to say, Mulder," she told him, exasperated. She felt ashamed of her outburst, but she wasn't going to apologize for it or back down. This was an issue that had been bothering her for a long, long time. If it came up now, then this was when they would get it all out on the table. "This is not the first time you've ditched me and run off and I'm sure it won't be the last." "You're not my keeper, Scully." Now he was starting to get defensive too. Good, she thought maliciously. "Damn straight I'm not." His tone softened and she realized she'd fallen into his trap. "Then I think what we need to talk about is why you're so upset about this." He looked at her, waiting for her response patiently. As though he was interested and couldn't wait to hear what it was. She had Mulder ready and willing to listen to her concerns and she couldn't think of one single thing to say. Why was she so upset when he ran away and ditched her? A multitude of emotions went through her every time, but it wasn't something she could deconstruct and explain to him. Most of it wasn't anything she wanted to admit to him, or to herself. And he just waited. "It makes me feel as though you disrespect me personally and professionally," she began lamely. It was only the tip of the iceberg and it sounded so petty when she put it that way. "It makes me feel like you can't trust me with the secrets you know." This was only getting worse. She sounded like she'd just failed the initiation and now she was gonna get kicked out of the treehouse. "You know I trust you, Scully. Professionally and personally." He was telling the truth. She knew it, she had always known it. But if she knew it, why was she so upset? It frustrated not to know why she felt the way she did. Not to have an explanation on the day she was finally asked. "Then why don't you tell me where you're going?" "Because I never thought you cared," Mulder told her. "You think my theories and my beliefs are a crock. We both lead our own lives. We've been out in the field enough times for me to know what you're not going to be interested in coming along on. If I asked you to join me on a midnight ten mile hike through the woods to see if there really were spirits dancing in the moonlight, you'd have declined. Right?" What was she supposed to say? He should have asked her anyway? He shouldn't have just assumed? Maybe her feelings about ten mile night hikes through the woods had changed? "I never thought you gave it any consideration," she murmured. Ashamed. He nodded and she could tell she'd hurt him. That had been her goal, she realized, but she hadn't really wanted to accomplish it. She'd been striking out in childish fury and not thinking of anyone but herself. "I'm sorry," she said. "Don't worry about it," he said, too casually. He was covering for the wounds she'd just ripped in him with her selfishness. She hated herself at the moment, even more than she had when she walked into the office. "Next time, I'll, uh, I'll give you a ring first. Maybe I shouldn't assume I know so much about you." It hurt to hear her best friend say that. Especially given the enormity of the secret she was now keeping from him. But she couldn't exactly say, "Hey, guess who I ran into last night? Krycek! Do you know he's really good in bed?" She couldn't do that to him. She couldn't hurt him that way. She had to pray he never found out. "I, um, I think I'm going to go and do some work upstairs," she said, trying to make a graceful exit and failing miserably. "If something comes up, give me a call up there." Mulder just stared at her. The last time she'd gone upstairs to use her actual assigned cubicle desk had been sometime in 1992, if memory served correctly. "What's really bothering you, Scully?" he asked her. "You look sort of...tired." She shook her head. "It's not really anything I can discuss. Thanks for the concern though." Mulder nodded in response to her words. "I'll see you later, then," he said. "Later." She didn't want to go with such a heavy feeling of unfinished business between them, but there was no way she could stay, either. She would feel too guilty sitting in the same room with Mulder, listening to his every movement and sigh and noticing every fidget like the Tell- Tale Heart. She didn't like secrets, but this was one she was going to have to keep. And she needed some time on her own to figure out what had really happened last night. End of part two. __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly June 1, 1997 __________________________ -3- She sat at the desk staring off into space for most of the day. Every so often she glanced down at the papers she'd brought with her to work on, but she was not able to concentrate. She felt guilty over the things she'd said to Mulder. She knew that she shouldn't feel guilty because she was right, but at the same time, she didn't like knowing that she'd hurt his feelings. There was so much passed between her and Mulder. So much hurt and weird, complicated emotions that she couldn't begin to sort out or explain. She wished there was someone she could talk to about it, someone who might understand. He was the only partner she had ever had, and she knew that strong feelings often passed between partners just as a matter of course. Maybe that was all this was. But she didn't think so. When she tired of thinking of that, she had Krycek to think about. She didn't even know where to begin to try to sort it out. She'd told him she would have no regrets in the morning. There had been no way for her to know he was going to sneak off before she woke. That little act of his made her feel used and dirty. Now she had to wonder what he had wanted from her at all. Maybe his seduction had been a little too perfect. Rehearsed. She would be better off if she never saw him again. Since she probably never would see him, the matter was solved. It wasn't worth thinking about, she decided, getting up from the desk. Her muscles were stiff and it made her realize how long she had been sitting there without moving. She stretched and headed home. The apartment looked different to her somehow, as though it had been negatively affected by his brief presence. She stood in the doorway for a long moment as her eyes roamed over the furniture, its pale color reflecting the sunlight coming in through the window. Nothing was out of place, but the apartment seemed foreign to her. She drew a deep breath, feeling weary and faintly upset. She swore she could smell him. She hadn't even been conscious of noticing his scent, the mixture of soap and aftershave and him, but she recognized it now. Putting her head down, straining the tight muscles in her neck, she closed the front door and locked it. She left her shoes by the front door and walked directly over to the couch, dropping down onto it. She curled her feet underneath her and pulled one of the cushions against her chest, closing her eyes as she pressed her face into it. But she didn't cry. He doesn't mean anything to me, she told herself fiercely. He can't hurt me because I don't care. A one night stand was all I wanted. She had trouble making herself believe it. After a moment, she rose from the couch and walked into the bedroom. The covers were still lying half on the floor from where she'd flung them when she got out of bed that morning and hadn't bothered to make them up before she left for work. She didn't clean it up now, either, she simply stepped around the bedding on the floor. She withdrew a black skirt and top from the closet and changed her clothes. She double checked the clip to her gun before she slipped it into her small purse and stepped back into her shoes at the doorframe. Scully left the apartment without ever noticing that the red light on her answering machine was blinking, indicating that someone had called and wanted to speak with her. + + + The only time she'd ever been to the club was on amateur comedy night. It was a very different place on other nights, she found as the waiter led her to a tiny table near the back wall. She felt overly aware of the fact that she didn't have a date. The waiter acted as though she was an odd specimen of humanity, coming in alone. She wondered if he had looked at her the same way all those nights she'd come alone to watch the comedians and she simply hadn't noticed it. There was a small band up on the stage, playing covers of alternative rock ballads. Everywhere she looked, she saw couples. They were dancing up near the stage, hanging around the bar and the telephone, sitting at the tables getting to know each other or falling out of love. And she was all alone. Scully was used to being alone, to doing things for herself and on her own. But she wasn't used to feeling lonely. She suddenly wished she hadn't come, strongly enough that she thought of getting up and leaving before the waiter even returned to take her drink order. It had been a foolish idea, seeking him out here. Seeking him out at all. He had made his feelings perfectly clear when he left her, she reminded herself. He knew where to find her if he wanted her. But she couldn't help herself. She had to look for him, and this was the only place she knew. Even though she was certain he would never venture back to this small club after last night. He was probably halfway around the world by now, selling secrets to some tall, sexy bimbo spy in the manner of James Bond. She had to give it one more try before she put the memory away for good. Because even though he was a horrible person and he was probably using her and it was making her hate herself and mess up her relationship with Mulder, she had felt something last night. Something she hadn't felt in a long, long time. If ever. She let her eyes sweep the room once more in preparation to go. Her breath caught and her heart began to pound vigorously when she recognized him. He was standing by the bar. Possibly the only other person in the club who was there alone. Her first thought was of escape. He was turned away from her, she could run and slip out the door before he ever saw her sitting there. She didn't move. If he was here, it was because he knew she would look for him, right? She watched as a man bumped against him, making him turn. His head came up and his eyes met hers as though he had known she was there all along. Their eyes locked. She didn't smile. She merely raised her eyebrow, challenging him. For a moment he didn't move. Then he began to slowly walk over to her table. He reached her and didn't say anything. He sat down and still neither of them spoke. His hands came out, across the table, seeking to envelop hers, but she moved her hands away. She didn't want him to touch her. She didn't know what to say. "Nice seeing you again," she said. It didn't come out nearly so casually as she had hoped. There was a harsh edge to her words that almost sounded accusing. She hated letting her anger show. "I'm sorry about this morning, Dana," he said instantly. His voice was sincere and his eyes were full of regret. "I woke up and I think I just got scared," he admitted. She didn't say anything; just continued to stare at him with one eyebrow raised skeptically. "I thought you might have changed your mind. That if you had to look at me in the light of the morning, you'd hate me for what we'd done. You'd hate yourself. And I didn't want to see that." "So you ran." You always knew he was a coward, a small voice nagged at her. "I'm glad to see you here tonight," he told her. "What happened last night isn't going to happen tonight," she informed him. "It's not?" he asked with a soft half-smile. She shook her head, pushing her jaw out as she tried to be determined. "Then why are you here?" "I shouldn't have come." She got up from her chair, nearly knocking it backwards in her haste. She fumbled for her purse. "Stop lying to yourself, Dana." Krycek's fingers closed loosely around her wrist. She could break free from him if she wanted to. If. "You came here because you wanted to see me again. I'm glad. And I'm surprised. I know, believe me, that you had hundreds of good reasons not to want to ever see me again. But you came back." "I don't know why," she said dryly, aware of the fact that he had begun to gently caress the veins in her wrist with his thumb and it was a very exciting sensation. "I do," he said softly, like he was sharing a secret with her. "Why?" she challenged him to tell her what she was feeling when she didn't even know. "Because you're intrigued by me, Dana. I'm dangerous to you, but you still like me and that's not something that's ever happened to you before. You're excited by it." She tried to keep her face like stone to deny that his words were having any effect on her. "Because I'm in love with you and you want to try to figure out why and how such a thing could happen. And because you can't walk away from someone who feels so strongly about you. No matter who it is." "Don't say that," she said and hated the weakness, the agreement she heard in her voice. "Don't say what?" he asked her silkily. "That you don't want to be alone? Or that I'm in love with you?" She groaned when he said it this time. She had meant it to be an irritated sort of noise, but it mutated somewhere along the way. It sounded as though she liked being told he loved her. Like she would never hear the words enough times. "Why don't you dance with me?" he asked, still holding her wrist. They stood on opposite sides of the table, facing each other, waiting for something to happen. "I don't want to," she told him. "Do it anyway," he suggested. It was almost a dare. He was accusing her of being afraid of him, or that maybe she felt something she wasn't admitting to. To prove him wrong, she'd have to give in to him. "Okay," she said. He held her eyes a moment longer and then with his fingers still encircling her wrist, he led her out onto the small area of floor up near the stage where other couples were moving together in time to the music. He pulled her into his arms smoothly, holding her close but not too close. She had the option of stepping away from him at any time. But she didn't. They drifted into the rhythm of the song together. "This doesn't have to be anything you don't want it to be," he murmured against her hair. She nodded slightly, resting her cheek against his chest and closing her eyes. He was warm and she could feel his heart beating through his skin and the thin fabric of his T-shirt. Somehow it felt right. They danced for a long time that way, moving easily with the music. Not speaking or moving otherwise. Feeling each other close. She felt like she was being taught to trust him. He didn't try to touch her in ways she didn't want and he didn't try to kiss her. He seemed safe and as content as she to sway to the music until the end of time. He shifted back away from her suddenly and she was forced to raise her head and open her eyes. She looked at him questioningly, feeling flushed and lightheaded. It was too warm in the small space to be so close to a man's body, transferring his heat to her. She wasn't even aware of the small disturbed sound she made when he moved away from her. "Let's get some fresh air," he suggested. She nodded her agreement. His strong hand wrapped around hers and he led her out the door. It was cold outside and a light drizzle was beginning to fall. She listened to the splash of the tires of the cars passing on the nearby street and she absorbed the cool mist onto her skin. It was the perfect complement to the coziness of his arms, the cold that braced her. She snuck a look at him. He was leaning against the wall of the building, holding his face up to the rain. Already the water was beginning to saturate his short hair and run in rivulets down his skin. She was sure she was getting drenched as well, but she didn't care. "Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked her, catching her looking at him. She couldn't help smiling. "Yeah," she admitted. "What do you want to do now?" "I don't know," she said, checking her watch and learning to her shock that it was past eleven. No wonder she felt so dreamy. Where had the hours gone? "It's late, I should probably get home." "All work and no play," he teased her. "I'm afraid that's the way it is." She bristled at the reminder of Mulder. Where was he tonight? Alone as he always was, certainly. She wondered if he ever thought of her. She wondered if he was brooding because she'd hurt his feelings. It reminded her she shouldn't be here with this man. "Why don't I walk you home," Krycek suggested, telling her that he accepted her priorities. "I'm not sure that's a good idea." "Nothing's going to happen if you don't want it to, Dana," he promised her. "I'm happy just to be with you. I never dreamed..." He stopped himself and for a second she wanted to know what the rest of that sentence had been. "I can wait for you to be ready," he promised. "I can walk myself home," she told him. He was silent for a long moment. "All right," he said finally. He looked sad, as though she'd hurt him by her rejection. But she wouldn't take the words back. "All right," she echoed, suddenly reluctant to walk away from him. He watched her, waiting for her to go, but she didn't. "So when can I see you?" he asked awkwardly. She had no answer to give, so she shrugged. Was he asking her out on a date? Somehow it seemed so strange. They'd already slept together and now he wanted to date her. She hadn't been asked out on a date for a very long time, so she had no idea what to say. "Why don't I drop by your place tomorrow with some pizza?" he suggested. "We can talk." "We do need to talk," she agreed faintly. "Pizza, then," he said, to confirm it. "A Veggie Supreme, about seven thirty?" "That's my favorite kind," she said with a smile that came from discovering they had something in common. But instead of lying and offering the convenient, appropriate, "Isn't that funny, it's mine, too," Krycek said, "I know a lot about you." "What do you know?" she asked, half flirting with him. He smiled again. "We'll talk about it tomorrow." "Okay, well....see you then," she told him, beginning to walk away. About a block down the rain slicked sidewalk, she turned and looked back at him. He was still watching her. She raised her hand in a wave and he repeated the gesture back to her. Something about him seemed solitary and sad, she thought. More than that. Vulnerable. She could hurt him, she realized. As she stood there and watched, he put his hands into his pockets and turned to begin his own walk home. His head bowed to keep the rain out of his eyes. He didn't look back as she stood there getting rained on, watching him. He was a complete mystery to her. And he was right, she liked that. Finally she turned, aware that the rain was dripping into her eyes and that her clothes were drenched with water. She was beginning to feel cold, and she still had something of a long walk ahead of her. She started to walk more briskly, thinking about Krycek. How right it had felt being in his arms. How sweet and romantic he was. She hadn't met anyone romantic in a long time. She reached home and tossed her sodden clothes in a heap on the floor in the bathroom, suddenly too exhausted to care to do anything about them. A glimpse of the clock told her it was past midnight, but she started the shower running anyway. She was freezing from her walk in the rain, and all she could think about was a hot shower and then curling up in her warm bed and sleeping. She was half asleep already, and her eyes kept closing in the shower. After a few moments, she gave up trying to wash herself and just stood under its hot spray, letting it infuse her body with warmth. Leaning her head against the wall, she turned the nozzle to cold for just a second before she turned the water off to try to revive herself. She thought she heard the telephone ringing and immediately shut off the flow. She stopped, listening carefully, but she didn't hear anything. It was an illusion, she told herself, one of those things that happens to everyone. Something in the sound of running water reminded people of a ringing phone, fooling them. She towel dried her hair and pulled on her pajamas, then fell contentedly into bed, thinking of Krycek's smile and that he was coming to see her the next evening. She still hadn't noticed that the answering machine light was blinking, even more urgently than it had earlier because more messages had been left while she was out. The last of the messages only a few minutes before while she was in the shower. She slipped into sleep completely unaware. + + + Mulder looked like hell the next morning at work. The skin underneath his eyes looked thin and it was discolored a sickly purple. His eyelids drooped as though he were about to fall asleep at any moment and his clothes were wrinkled. Scully took a long, hard look at him and wondered what was going on. "Did you sleep here last night?" she asked him. He started, as though he'd begun to doze with his eyes open, and then he saw her standing across the desk from him. He rubbed his face and eyes with both hands, which only turned his eyes more bloodshot. "No," he said with a tired sigh. "I just didn't sleep." She looked at him carefully, feeling concerned. "Did you go home at all last night, Mulder?" she demanded, ready to send him there now. To remove him bodily to his apartment if that was what it was going to take. "Yeah," he admitted. "For a little while." He bent down, so his head disappeared behind the desk and she was alarmed for a moment before she heard him rummaging through papers that were undoubtedly piled up on the floor near his feet. She was right because a moment later, he faced her again and plopped a thick file down on the desk between them. "We've got a new case." Her heart sank, and she didn't like the implication of that unbidden emotion. "Where?" Mulder looked at her. "I say we have a new case and the thing you're most interested in is its location?" She smiled grimly, admitting to him that it was an odd thing to ask. "All right then, what's it about?" she asked, flipping the file open and paging through it with one hand. She stopped when she reached the first of the photographs and just looked at her partner as though he had to be kidding. "Mulder." "Before you say anything, Scully, you have to hear the evidence. Wait, let me find the testimony of the person who -" Mulder became more animated, which was a good sign, as he got up from his chair and began furiously searching the file for this proof of his. "Mulder, they're crop circles," she interrupted. He looked at her innocently. "I know they're crop circles." It was a challenge, disguised under layers of Mulder's personal brand of subterfuge. Lucky for her, she'd been working with him for four years and was able to recognize all his tricks by now. "We don't do crop circles, Mulder," she reminded him. "These are different," he pleaded. "No, I don't think so," she replied. "I seem to remember your confessing to me that you believed crop circles were all hoaxes because they were cries for attention coming from members of the local populace. That's why the circles only occur outside of small towns -" "Small towns are the only places where there are crops," he reminded her. "Give me a break, Mulder. You told me that you helped form a crop circle yourself, when you were studying in England, and that it was a lot of fun even though it was a lot of trouble and you and your mates all had hangovers for days." "These are different, Scully," he told her, begging her with his eyes to believe him. It was a look she had never been able to resist. She rolled her eyes at him and sighed, but she acquiesced. "Okay," she said, and the grin that lit up Mulder's tired face could have powered most of the city for days. That grin tugged at her heartstrings and she patted him on the arm when he rose to put his wrinkled jacket on. "Is this what kept you up all night?" She had to tilt her head back to look at him and it made her realize it had been a long time since she had been this close to Mulder. Could she have actually forgotten just how tall he was? "Yeah. Kind of," he said roughly, closing himself off from her. He turned his back on her as he reached across the desk to gather a few maps and papers. Scully knew how to read the gesture. He didn't want to talk to her. That was fine; they both had their secrets. "I'll meet you at the car," she said and wandered off into the hallway toward the ladies' room. It was something she'd learned the hard way about road trips with Mulder: he always drove, which meant it took longer than it should to get there, and he hated having to stop. She wondered again where they were going and how long they would be gone. Work comes first, she reminded herself. And somehow that thought led her to wonder if she had turned on her answering machine that morning. She wanted to be reachable. Straining to remember and coming up with nothing, she picked up the telephone on the wall of the storage room next to the bathroom and dialed her home number. The machine picked up after the requisite four rings. It was on. She listened to her voice telling her to leave a message and instead of hanging up, she entered the code to retrieve any messages that might be on the tape. What if Krycek had called? she wondered. The modern equivalent of waiting breathlessly by the phone, she thought. There were messages. She looked up quickly, feeling her face flush and she suddenly worried that Mulder would somehow catch her. Even if he walked over to her, there was no way he would hear the messages. He would never rip the phone out of her hands to listen. He had no reason to suspect anything. Her stomach turned over and she found it hard to breathe, thinking of this relationship she was beginning in the terms of how she was betraying Mulder. His voice filled her ear and she jumped. Then she realized it was coming through the phone. He had left her a message? Why hadn't he said anything? She must have been too tired to have remembered to check the previous evening. "Hey, Scully. Got something I think you'd be interested in seeing. Give me a call. Bye." "Tuesday. Six-oh-one p.m." said the electronic timestamp. There was beep and then the next message played. "I'm sorry, Scully, I forgot to mention on that last message who it was who was calling. I guess I assumed you might recognize the voice." He sounded slightly bitter. She frowned. "This is Mulder. I'd appreciate it if you would give me a call back, please. Bye." "Tuesday. Nine-fifteen, p.m." There was another beep and Scully bit her lip. It couldn't possibly be Mulder again. But it was and her stomach knotted. "Scully, it's me. You don't know what you're missing. It's a beautiful rainy night out, the perfect weather for UFO watching." He was trying to sound playful now and failing miserably. "I've got something kind of important here. I'll be waiting for your call." "Tuesday. Ten-fifty-six, p.m." She couldn't believe it when she heard another beep followed by Mulder's voice again. "Scully? Are you okay?" He sounded really worried. "It's not like you to be out this late, is it? Right, well, I guess I don't really know about that one. If you're there, pick up?.......Are you mad at me about something? Because I promise I ----- I guess you're not home. So, could you give me a call when you get home, because I'm feeling kind of worried about you now and I really do need to speak with you......Okay. Well. I guess I'd better go now, but please remember to give me a call when you get in? I don't care what time it is; it's important." There was a long pause on the tape before he'd actually hung up. "Wednesday. Twelve-oh-two, a.m." There were no other messages. Scully felt slightly chilled by what she had heard. These crop circles were really so important to Mulder that he'd called her four times? She'd better have another look at the file. She never should have ridiculed him the way she'd done in the office, either. No wonder he looked like hell...he must have stayed awake half the night waiting for her call, which never came. Suddenly it occurred to her what he must think of her - he must believe she'd gotten the messages and not cared enough to return any of them. She felt terrible and it wasn't even something she could have helped. There was nothing to be done about it now. She wanted to explain that she hadn't heard the messages until this morning, but she feared that then she'd have to tell him what she was doing all night, and with whom. It would also be an acknowledgment of the desperation she heard on the tape, and how much it had affected her. She didn't want to bring either of those things up. Because she knew it wasn't just about crop circles. It was about them. End of part three. __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly eponine@prodigy.net __________________________ -4- The drive was quiet. Too quiet - the silence was strained between them. Mulder drove, as he always did, and he looked tense at the wheel. That tension was being displayed in his driving, as well, as he careened around corners too quickly, took wrong turns and muttered to himself. Scully spent a lot of the drive looking at him, trying to figure out what was going on in her partner's mind. The rest of the time, she avoided looking at him because she didn't want to catch his eye. Then she would have to speak and she didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry?" Why should she be sorry over something that couldn't be helped? It's futile, she thought, staring out at the grass and tree covered hills they were passing. Mulder pulled to a stop and she looked at him, surprised. "This is it," he informed her. At least it was a short drive, she thought, glancing at her watch. It had only been about an hour and a half. While that was a long time to sit in tense silence and know she had another hour and a half to look forward to on the drive back, it meant they wouldn't need to find a motel and stay over. It was a long commute, but it was do-able for as long as the case lasted. Which, if Scully had any say about it, wouldn't be long at all. They walked through tall, yellowish grass to the edge of the circle, where the individual stalks of grass were lying down. As with most crop circles, the plants weren't damaged in any way. The grass hadn't been broken off or bent as it would be if a large heavy object had come and compressed it. They were merely lying against the ground. Coaxed there no doubt by human hands. She'd seen the reports and TV specials proving such phenomena was fake by showing in great detail how to get the grass to lie down without destroying the plants. It was a fairly large circle, stretching yards across the field. A gentle breeze was blowing, setting the rest of the grass swaying and blowing her hair into her face. Mulder had been watching her the entire time, as she walked over to the first of the rings and bent down to examine it more closely. Now she stood and faced him. "What else do you have on this, Mulder? What makes it so different from all the others?" He looked annoyed by her question. "If you'd read the file on the drive up here -" he began. He was annoyed. - Instead of staring at him, then she might know what was going on here. She thought she heard the rest of the sentence in his voice. "Many people suffer motion sickness when they read in a moving vehicle, Mulder," she stated. He just looked at her intensely, as though he was trying to see through her. "Do you need a minute?" he asked. Restraining the urge to roll her eyes at him yet again, she obediently started back to the car to retrieve the file and look at it. But she didn't walk as though she was happily doing what she'd been told to do. She strode with purpose and a little bit of anger, her jaw set. She didn't want to be here. She got in the car and sat down, locking the door behind her and opening the file on her lap. Mulder could just wait. Maybe she'd stay in the car until he agreed to take her home. It took her all of about five seconds to realize she was acting childishly. And again she didn't know why. Mulder seemed to bring it out in her these days. Maybe she needed a vacation; maybe they needed a break from each other. She seemed to be getting on his nerves just as much as he was getting on hers. She took a deep breath and reevaluated. It was a gorgeous day - shouldn't she be glad of spending it out in the sunshine and fresh air of the country rather than in a dimly lit office, suffocating on canned air? None of this was Mulder's fault, either. This was her job, she reminded herself, and she'd better start doing it. The file was interesting, but she didn't see what was so special about this particular case. Some odd minerals had been found in the soil of this particular soil a few months ago, and now there was the circle and reports of strange lights. She hoped this wasn't another swamp gas or ball lighting UFO. She really hated those. Mulder did too, so he didn't usually waste her time with them. She found the eyewitness accounts less than compelling - they were the usual narratives of teenagers making out in cars and local men out drinking that peppered UFO lore. All in all, she had learned little from the file that she hadn't already known. There was no evidence of anything strange here. They were wasting their time. She looked up and saw Mulder watching her through the windshield. He hadn't moved since she'd stormed off and gotten in the car. As soon as she raised her head, he turned away, walking a few steps and staring out over the field. He had an odd look on his face. She put the file down and got out of the car. She walked over to within a few feet of where he stood. "What do you know about this that you're not telling me?" she asked. He looked at her, surprised, and she continued. "There has to be more to this than just what's in the file. The file's pretty generic, but something here is important to you. What is it?" Mulder nodded, breathing deeply as he looked away and across the field again as though he were searching for something with his eyes. "You read about the minerals in the soil." "Yes." "Any idea of how they might have come to be here?" "No," she admitted. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation, though." "Of course," he said a little insultingly. "Like what?" "Like a farmer trying an experimental fertilizer in hopes of farming better?" "No one owns this field. No one plants here; it's just grass. Why go to the trouble?" "Someone has to own the land," she pointed out. "Oh! You know, you're right. The *government* owns this field. What a coincidence." "Mulder, I'm finding your attitude a little hard to accept," she informed him quietly. He didn't respond, but she swore she could see his muscles become even more tense than they had been a few minutes ago. If he clenched his teeth any harder, he was going to break something. "What do you think the government's testing out here in secret that deposited minerals in the soil and left us with a big circle in the grass?" "Weapons." "So the flashes of light reported by the residents are the detonation of a new form of weapons? It sounds like you've already got this one wrapped up, Mulder, and there's nothing we can do about it." "There may not be something we can do about it," he admitted with a sigh. "But I don't know what it is. Not yet." "You're thinking it's something extraterrestrial?" He didn't respond. Scully wasn't surprised. She didn't know what else to say. He thought it was aliens and she thought it was people. What a new and different turn of events. "I have no idea what you want me to do on this case, Mulder. We can take a soil sample and have it analyzed by the lab, but beyond that..." He was looking angry again and that wasn't her intent. "There's no victim here, no crime. The grass doesn't even belong to a farmer who can cry for damages. It is odd, yes, I'll grant you that but..." "But?" he questioned her darkly when she trailed off, as though daring her to say something like, "But it's just not important." "But I don't see what we can do about it. We could get a team out here to look for trace evidence, but without a victim I don't think the Bureau's going to want to foot the bill." She looked up at him, hoping he was seeing what she was saying. He nodded. He didn't look happy, but he nodded. "Thanks, Scully." "For what?" He'd taken her off guard. "For being so nice about it when you tell me I'm crazy." With that, he turned and started for the car. She frowned and started after him, hurrying but unable to catch up with his long strides. He got in and slammed the door. She jogged up to the passenger side and got in. He'd been waiting for her, but he threw the car into gear before she could even reach for her seatbelt. "I wasn't trying to say that you're crazy," she told him honestly. He gave every sign of ignoring her until he said, "I know. But you were sugarcoating the truth." "Is that bad?" she asked. "Is diplomacy such a bad thing, Mulder? We have to be able to get along if we're going to get any work done." "We're not going to get any work done if you insist there's no work to be done." "I-" She had nothing to say to that. He was right in his own way. "What should we be doing then?" she challenged and he didn't respond. "Besides taking that soil sample I mentioned that we didn't get to because you were too busy running away." He hung a swift U-turn and returned them to the site. He remained in the car and watched as she donned a pair of rubber gloves and quite unscientifically scooped a handful of dirt into a plastic bag. She got back into the car and set the bag down on the dashboard, then stripped her hands of the gloves, which she stuck into the ashtray for disposal. "We should be able to get preliminary results on the tests before the lab closes tonight," she told Mulder, but he still didn't answer. She'd tried, damn it! She couldn't do all of this herself. "If there's another instance of strange lights in the sky, then we can come back up here and see if we can figure out what's going on." Mulder just drove on down the road. + + + They got lost on the way back to the city. It made Scully a little nervous, knowing that Mulder was paying absolutely no attention to where he was driving. She fished out the maps and tried to direct them back onto the correct road, but she might as well have been talking to a light pole for all the good it did. Finally they came across a sign for the main highway that would return them to DC, which meant they were back on their way to civilization. Their return came at a slow crawl, however, as they had blundered into the midst of rush-hour traffic. By the time they reached the FBI Building, it was past seven and the labs were all closed for the evening. Scully watched as Mulder tried to bribe a technician into running the tests anyway, but it didn't work. "So..." said Mulder as they got into the elevator to the parking structure together. "Big plans for tonight?" She hated the feeling of being caught. "No, not especially. Why do you ask?" He shrugged and shook his head. "Just asking." He looked at the floor. She looked at the changing numbers in the display panel. "Do you have big plans for the evening?" she asked. He shook his head some more silently, making faces at the floor. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Scully veered off the left to where she had left her car that morning, and Mulder turned right, heading for the space he'd parked in a few minutes before. She pulled her keys out and was reaching down to open the door when she heard Mulder call to her. "Hey, Scully, you want to do something with me this evening?" It took everything she had not to react. Her heart started racing triple time. What was she supposed to do? She'd just told him that she didn't have plans. She couldn't turn around and say that she did now that he was finally trying to straighten things out. So she did the only thing she could do. She pretended that he was too far away and that she hadn't heard the invitation. Giving no indication that she knew he'd spoken, she got into the car, closed the door, and drove out of the structure. She found that she was shaking when she got to the first traffic light. The thought of Mulder finding out terrified her. Up until this moment, she had not considered that he would find out. They were partners, and their personal lives were their own. That's what she'd been thinking. But their personal lives were not really their own. They didn't have personal lives, that was what had given her that impression. She didn't know what Mulder did during his downtime, and he didn't know what she did, but if either of them were doing something, eventually it would come up. In this case, it would be disastrous. Eventually they would go away on a case. The phone would inevitably ring and it would be him and then Mulder would know. She didn't want to think about what he would do if he knew. She didn't want to imagine his reaction. It would be horrible. More horrible than arguing with him, or the tension that had filled the car during the long drive that afternoon. It would break him. He would hate her. Doesn't that mean you're making a terrible choice in this relationship, Dana? that small voice of reason whispered to her inside her mind. If she couldn't introduce her boyfriend to her partner, how could she take him home to her mother? How could a relationship like that possibly last? She stopped those thoughts. She didn't have a relationship with him. She'd had sex with him. She thought he was sensitive and sexy and a lot of other things, but none of those made a relationship. He was in love with her, but that didn't make a relationship either. Just because it would be so easy to fall in love with him didn't mean she should allow herself to. She didn't realize that ruling her heart with her head didn't usually work. She'd never been in a situation so overwhelming before. She opened the door to her apartment and jumped. The lights were on and there was a man sitting on the couch. It wasn't a sight she was used to coming home to. Her senses returned a moment later when she recognized that it was Krycek. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "I said I'd come over with a pizza so we could talk," he reminded her innocently. "Damn it, don't surprise me like that! I could have shot you." Irritated now, she closed the door and stepped out of her shoes. "You didn't even reach for your gun, Dana. I could have shot you first." His voice was so cold when he said it that her stomach turned and all she could do was stare at him. "That's really nice," she informed him nastily, not knowing what else to say. She went into the bedroom and closed the door, stripping off her work clothes and hanging them back up while she slipped into a pair of black pants and her comfortable gray sweater. She ran her fingers through her hair and walked back out to the living room. She sat down in the chair and looked at Krycek. He nudged the pizza box on the coffee table over in her direction. "Have some pizza," he encouraged. "I don't want any," she informed him. "It's still warm." "What are you doing in my apartment?" she demanded. "I wanted to surprise you." His voice was smooth, designed to soothe her. "I wanted to have dinner waiting when you got home from your long day at the office. You look tired." "Thanks a lot," she retorted. She could smell the pizza now and it was reminding her that she hadn't had lunch. Pizza had the most seductive smell in the entire world, she thought. "You should see the look on your face," Krycek told her. She looked at him, instantly embarrassed and wondering what he was talking about. "You looked like you were having sinful thoughts, Dana." "I was," she admitted. "About the pizza." She gave in to temptation and flipped the lid of the box back, helping herself to a slice. She noticed that he hadn't had any for himself yet. "Eat," she encouraged. He took a piece and they chewed in silence for a moment. "We need to talk," she said as soon as her stomach had ceased its lust for food. "I know." Silence. She was going to have to say all of the things that had to be said. "I can't have a relationship with you." "Why not?" "I can't believe you even have to ask me that, Krycek!" she cried. "I'm an FBI agent and you're a....spy? A traitor? An information dealer? What are you?" "All of those things," he said quietly, as though he was ashamed of them. His voice took on a high, raw tone as he defended himself. "I didn't do those things because I wanted to. I did them because I had to in order to stay alive. You know what that's like." "Yeah," she agreed. But she couldn't get past it. "You're a killer." "We've been over this, Dana. You've killed too." "In the line of duty!" "I killed to save my own life." His eyes met hers and held them. "What did Bill Mulder do that threatened you so much you had to kill him?" she asked simply, unable to cover much of the hurt or rage in her voice. "So this is about Mulder," Krycek said bitterly. "No, this is about me." "No. This is about Mulder. Even if you won't admit it. I will fight for you, Dana. Because I love you in a way that he never could." His voice was filled with passion and his eyes flashed with it. "Oh, yeah?" she asked huskily, more a statement than a question. She had no idea why she said it except that it was what came out when she opened her mouth. "Yeah," Krycek whispered, already on his knees on the floor in front of her chair. Suddenly she couldn't breathe because of the look in his eyes. It scared her, but it excited her too. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned in toward her, stopping with his lips just inches from hers. His eyes refused to let her look away. Not that she wanted to. "You tell me you don't feel anything when I do this," he challenged and brushed her mouth with his lips. She closed her eyes, but she wasn't sure if it was because she was trying to resist him or if she wanted to kiss him for the rest of the night. "Tell me you don't feel it. Tell me that you don't care." He waited, as though he was really waiting for her to tell him. And she tried. She tried to tell him to go away and leave her alone because she honestly didn't need this in her life. Except, in so many ways, she did. "I can't," she whispered, feeling weak, trying to resist and failing. He kissed her then and she put her arms around him, kissing him back enthusiastically. Until there was a knock at the door. Their kissing continued as Scully tried to ignore it. It wasn't his door, so Krycek didn't even notice. But the knocking grew into pounding that was more and more difficult to shut out every moment because it sounded important. She put her hands against Krycek's shoulders to hold him away from her so that maybe she could think. Then she heard the voice on the other side of the door. His voice. "Scully, open the door, I need to talk to you." She froze. Then she shoved Krycek away from her, hard enough that he almost fell backward on the floor. He looked at her, puzzled and dazed. "Go in the bedroom," she hissed urgently at him. He continued to look at her. "Go!" she ordered. Finally Krycek picked himself up from the floor and ambled across the apartment to her bedroom. He gave her a longing, inviting look before pulling the door closed behind him. Scully jumped up from the chair as the pounding resumed on the door, smoothing her hair down with both hands. She glanced down at her sweater to make sure Krycek hadn't coaxed the buttons open without her realizing it, and she pulled the door open. She didn't have to look through the peephole first. She already knew who it was. "Mulder, what are you doing here?" she asked, aware that her voice didn't sound anything like it normally did. He walked into her apartment, looking distracted, and sat down on her couch uninvited. Scully just stared at him, wondering when her life had turned into a French farce and just what the hell she was supposed to do about it. Other women might be able to handle having one man in the bedroom and another in the parlor, but it was not her style at all. She closed the door and repeated her question. Mulder looked at her, as though seeing her for the first time that evening. Apparently his eyes had gone straight through her when she answered the door. The look on his face hardened with realization and Scully's face tinged with a guilty blush because she knew how she must look. There's nothing anyone can do to look like they haven't been making out, when they were. His gaze shot across the small space to her bedroom door, which was hanging open by only about half an inch. The light was on and shone through the crack. Mulder's eyes settled back on her and she wished that there was something she could say, some explanation she could offer. "I'm interrupting something," he said. There was no way she could deny it, even if she wanted to. "Yes." He got up from the couch. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have called first, it was just I didn't know if you would answer your phone. I guess you wouldn't have." "Mulder, wait," she said, stopping him by the front door. "You don't have to go." "It's probably better if I do, Scully," he told her, looking at her as though she was being ridiculous. "Obviously you came over here for a reason. It must have been something important." She prayed that Krycek had enough sense to stay put in the bedroom and that he wouldn't come waltzing out here to try and prove something to Mulder. "My contact says the strange phenomena surrounding the crop circle has returned tonight. I was hoping you'd want to go down there with me and check it out." He looked as though all of his hopes had been dashed. Scully felt herself being pulled in two directions for a moment, but she knew which one she had to go. "I'll go with you," she said. He just stared at her as though he thought he was hearing things. "Just give me a few minutes to - settle things - here, okay? I'll meet you in the car in five minutes?" She looked to him, hoping he would agree. This was a big step, she realized, because most of the time he would have just gone off and ditched her without a second thought. Of course, he was trying to prove something to her with this, but if she didn't think about that... "Five minutes," Mulder said dryly. "He must be quick." He'd slipped out the door before she fully understood what he was saying. The bedroom door opened and Scully pushed the front door closed, just to make sure. Krycek strolled out. "So that's the way it is," he said. "I have a duty to do my job," she said simply. "To jump every time Mulder tells you to. Every time there's something he thinks is a little strange to be investigated," Krycek said angrily. "You have every right to be upset, and I'm sorry, but I have to go. I don't have a choice." "Everyone has a choice in this life, darling," he murmured to her in that dark voice again. His arms went around her waist and he pulled her tightly against his body so he could kiss her again. She didn't want to let him go when the kiss ended. She wished she could stay here and spend a lusty night in bed with him. She wished she had ten more hours to stay here and talk to him. But she had to go and they both knew it. "I just wonder what that choice will be when you make it," Krycek whispered and slipped out through the door. End of part four. __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly eponine@prodigy.net __________________________ -5- "Tell me what you're not telling me," Scully suggested when they were in the car, on their way back out to the crop circle. "Only if you tell me first," said Mulder. "I meant about the case." He sighed, but he told her. "This file dropped into my lap late yesterday afternoon. I went up there to check it out. It's incredible, Scully. There's nothing I can think of to explain it. Nothing." "What happened up there?" she asked, looking at him. "I think you'd better wait and see for yourself." With that, they lapsed back into silence. "I didn't get your messages until this morning," Scully began, trying to explain. She knew she was setting herself up to fail to smooth things over between them and that it could even open the door on another argument, but she had to try. She didn't like feeling like they couldn't talk to each other. Mulder glanced at her, but he didn't say anything so she didn't know if he believed her or not. So she talked on. "I was really tired when I got in last night, so I must not have noticed that the light was blinking on the machine. I didn't purposely not return your calls, Mulder. I wouldn't do that." He nodded, as though he already knew this was true. "I guess it doesn't matter." "Of course it matters," she said. "I meant, since you're going to get to see it tonight," he clarified brusquely. So that's how it's going to be, she thought. She crossed her arms and looked out the window. It was going to be another long drive, and an even longer night. "Tell me about him," Mulder said at length. "Who?" His question surprised her and she looked at him. "*Him*," Mulder said. "This man who's stolen your heart." "No one's stolen my heart," she informed him, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. She wondered if she would feel as uncomfortable discussing any man with Mulder. He was her best friend and she wished they could talk about anything, but the truth was that they couldn't. They wouldn't even be friends if they didn't work together sixty hours a week. "This new man, then. What's he got that..." Mulder paused for a second and she wondered what he'd been about to say. "That makes him so special?" She shrugged. "I guess it's just one of those things." "How did you meet him?" She bit the inside of her lip, feeling anger rising within her at the turn this conversation had taken towards interrogation. What exactly was Mulder hoping to hear, she wondered? He wasn't merely curious, of that she was certain. "He noticed me at a club." "You go to clubs, Scully?" He looked at her like he was having trouble believing it. She wanted to make a sarcastic retort about taking ecstasy and partying in a leather miniskirt, but the way Mulder was behaving, she knew she would never see the end of that. "A friend of mine's trying to break into comedy. When she's performing and I'm in town, I go watch her." "Is she a good friend of yours, Scully?" he asked, and he actually sounded interested. She nodded. "Fairly good. Not a bad comedian, either." "What's her name?" Scully just stared at him. There was no reason why he should ask her that. She wasn't going to answer it. "I just realized I don't know any of your friends. I don't know anything about any of your friends." "I don't know your friends, either, Mulder." "Sure you do." "The Lone Gunmen?" "They're good guys." Mulder told her stubbornly. Scully nodded, thinking about them for a moment. They really were good guys. And they seemed like they'd be a perfect fit with Mulder. "Maybe sometime when your friend is performing, I could go along with you," Mulder suggested. Scully murmured noncommittally. This was weird. First he'd asked her to do something this afternoon, and now he was wanting to go laugh at comedians with her. This was not like Mulder at all. "So...is it serious?" Mulder picked up the conversation again after a long pause. "I'm sorry, but I don't see how that concerns you," she informed him. "It doesn't," he admitted evenly. "I was just curious, Scully." "Why?" "Because you're my partner. You're my friend. If I had a girlfriend, you'd want to know the same things. Wouldn't you?" His last question sounded oddly hopeful, as though he wasn't sure if she cared enough about him to even ask that much. "Yeah," she admitted softly, reminded of the times Mulder had become involved in flirtations in the past and she'd been curious. Jealous. She was adult enough to admit it to herself, she had been jealous of those women. She remembered the feeling, and now she tried to remember why she had hated them so much. Because she'd felt they were a threat to her partnership with Mulder? It had seemed like such an irrational emotion at the time that she'd locked it away deep and now she didn't know why. Was that what was wrong with Mulder? She had a man in her life and he was jealous? It didn't seem to be Mulder's style. And yet, here they were. "It's not...I don't know if it's serious. I don't think it can be," she told him. "Why not?" "There are...complications." "He's not married, is he Scully?" She laughed at that. "No," she assured him. "I don't go for married men." "What sort of men do you go for?" Mulder asked. Again she bristled. "Why?" "Curious. I mean, now that I know you're interested in dating..." "Wait a minute. Isn't everyone interested in dating?" Scully asked him. "No." "No?" "I just assumed...for as long as I've known you, you've never...I just thought you weren't interested in that sort of thing." "Mulder, everyone's interested in finding someone." "I'm not." "What? Of course you are." He shook his head. "I'm not interested in dating. I don't have the time for it." She frowned. "Then what do you do?" "I don't do anything." That's interesting, she thought. "You don't want to get married someday?" "I never really considered it. I don't think so." No, I guess not, Scully thought about Mulder's words. He wouldn't want to marry, given his family. "You looking to get married, Scully?" "Someday. I'm not getting any younger." She cringed inwardly, unable to believe she'd really just said that. Mulder looked away from the road to cast a long glance at her. "Don't...um...don't do anything desperate because you think you're getting too old," he counseled her. "You've got time to wait for the right man." "Thanks," she told him. This was one heck of a weird conversation. "So what's he do? What's his name?" Mulder continued. "I don't want to talk about him." "Are you in love with him, even though there are complications?" "I barely just met him, Mulder." "So you're not in love with him." There was an odd depth to his statement. "Not yet." "You expect to be in love with him." "He says he's in love with me," she agonized to him, as though he were one of her college girlfriends. "And that means you're obligated to love him back?" "Of course not," she said. "But it's a lot of pressure." "He's pressuring you?" "No! I only do what I want to do." "And what do you want to do?" She opened her mouth to respond, then quickly closed it. "That's enough, Mulder," she informed him, her tone a warning. "You haven't slept with him yet." He said the words as though he was certain of them. "That's what I was interrupting." "No, I -" she began to protest. "Then you have slept with him." "That isn't any of your business!" she cried, angry again. "Why, did you want details? Because I can give you details, if you want them. He was great. His mouth and his hands and his -" "All right, Scully!" Mulder roared, silencing her. She was angry now. He was playing some kind of a weird, possibly voyeuristic game and she didn't understand it. And he'd almost driven her to giving herself away. How horrible would that be? She didn't want to scream the words at him in a fit of petty anger; she didn't want him to find out at all. She looked at him and it was a sobering thought, the way he would react if he found out. When he found out? She was going to have to end it. That was her only option. "You asked," she pointed out. "I'm sorry I did." He braked the car. "We're here." She peered out and up through the car window. There were odd lights hovering in the sky, lights she couldn't immediately identify or class. "I see that." "You can't see much from in here. Let's head outside." Mulder got out of the car and she followed. The lights were brighter once they were out in the cool night air, and there were more of them, hovering not very far overhead. It was absolutely breathtaking. The two of them stood next to each other in silence, just looking up at the sky. After a second, Mulder took her hand. Scully was still so spellbound by the lights that she didn't really notice it. "You have to come into the circle," he told her, almost a whisper by her ear. Her face was still turned up to the sky and she allowed herself to be led by him into the center of the field. It was clearly the spot where the light show was intended to be viewed from. Everything sprang into tight focus. The lights made a mesmerizing pattern against the stark black background of the cloudless night sky. Their actions repeated, over and over again, with a rhythmic regularity. It seemed to hold her in a spell. She began to feel dizzy, either from the position she was standing in or the whirling lights or both. It became hard for her to keep her balance and she realized she was relying on Mulder's hand holding hers to keep her upright. "Sit down," he urged. She didn't comply until there was a tug on her arm and then she plopped down onto the dry grass. Another moment and she would have fallen. Her eyes were still fixed on the sky. And the she heard it. At first it sounded like whispering. Or perhaps the chatter of a strange sort of cricket. But the sounds grew louder, whooshing around her ears like the wind with sickening and distracting speed, until the sounds formed individual words. "He'll kill you. He loves you. He'll find out." The words repeated, frighteningly sincere and growing louder. Scully's heart started to pound in reaction to the violent physical stimulus. She didn't even think to worry that Mulder would hear, that she would know. The words drove at her, like birds pecking at her brain, digging with sharp beaks over and over again. She put her hands over her ears, but it didn't help because the voices weren't coming from outside. She wasn't hearing with her ears, she was hearing with her mind. She was vaguely aware of screaming, but the loud sound coming out of her mouth didn't even interrupt the voices that tormented her. The lights overhead didn't seem so soothing any more, they seemed relentless and threatening. She had to close her eyes against them, and to try to shut out the terrible voices. She couldn't move, she couldn't fight, she couldn't escape... She felt hands touch her and she struggled, but not very hard. She didn't know where her strength had gone to. She was up off the ground, limp, but still the voices came. But they were growing quieter. She opened her eyes and the first thing she noticed was the profound silence. There were no damnable voices. But there was nothing. She couldn't hear the wind or the sound of her own breathing and instantly she panicked, fearing she'd been stricken with deafness because of...as a result of...causing?...the sounds she'd heard. She sat up quickly and groaned because it made her feel nauseous. But she heard the groan and that meant she could hear. She was just losing her mind. She sank back and closed her eyes, her body still tense. "It's all right, Scully. I'm here and I've got you." She turned her head toward the voice and opened her eyes a crack. "Mulder. What happened?" "I was hoping you could tell me." "The voices, you - you heard them too?" She dared to prop herself up on one elbow. The sickness seemed to be receding now. He nodded and she grew worried. How would he interpret it, she thought. "What did yours say?" he asked. It took her almost a full minute to understand. "What do you mean?" she asked cautiously, not wanting to give anything away. "The voices were in your mind, Scully. That's why covering your ears didn't help, didn't close them out. I think this...thing...preys on a person's worst fears that way," Mulder explained. His eyes looked deeply into hers with concern. "Are you all right?" "Yeah. Now. It was so horrible..." She didn't have words for it. She didn't know where to begin to question him about it. "You see why I wanted you to come out here." That she did. "Why was there no mention of this in the file?" "The people in the town didn't want to mention it. This terrifies them, Scully." "I can see how it would," she remarked. "I have a contact in town. A man who wants to see this solved. He tells me that many people experienced the same thing. The voices told them of the destruction of the earth by man. Apparently images of this were also planted in their minds." "The destruction of the earth is their worst fear?" she asked skeptically. "Is that what you experienced?" he asked. She shook her head. "You?" "No. But it does fit into a psychological pattern with abductions. Many abductees return claiming the aliens gave them knowledge of how man is destroying the earth and how life as we know it will cease unless things are done now to combat and stop the damage." "Think galatically, act locally?" suggested Scully. Mulder shot her a quick smile in answer. "I don't understand why you weren't overwhelmed by it and you were able to pull me out of there." "I don't know why that is, Scully. Maybe because I've already experienced it once. I couldn't say." "What happened last night when you heard the sounds?" she asked, watching his face carefully. "I passed out. When I came to, it was dark and still. The lights had gone." She shivered, thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to him there, alone, without her to back him up. He'd been there for her in her mindless terror but he'd had to suffer it alone. "You think the lights are causing the sounds." "Isn't it obvious?" Scully wasn't convinced. "I think there's probably something in the soil that makes people open to wild and vivid hallucination." "That was not a hallucination," Mulder insisted. "Well, it wasn't voices of little green men, either," she retorted. "Why would they bother?" "Maybe they're concerned about us." "Why? Why fool around with man's fears, then? Why not just send the same message to everyone? Why not take over the radio and TV? Why not abduct and replace the men who will be responsible for this destruction?" "You're sounding like a science fiction movie, now, Scully, and a bad one." "Do you have a better explanation? Can you honestly tell me that's not what you were about to suggest?" she challenged, and he couldn't deny it. "I think we should go home and get some rest. The lab will analyze the sample we took first thing in the morning and by noon we should be able to figure out what's going on up here. Where's your contact?" "Why?" "I'd like to get a blood sample, if I can." "I don't know who he is," Mulder admitted. She just looked at him. "He called me on my cell phone. Never gave me a name." "Great," Scully muttered. But they had both suffered the phenomena; she could look at their blood. "I'll just have to use you, then." "Is that a come-on?" "I don't know, how much do you like having your blood drawn?" she asked. "It's late, Mulder, and there's nothing else to be discovered here. Let's go home." "I guess you want to get back to your lover," he said with sharp directness. "I doubt he will have waited for me all this time." "He doesn't think you're worth waiting for?" It was an accusation directed at a man he'd never met. Or he didn't know he'd met. "I'm sure he has better things to do." "You shouldn't let men mistreat you like that, Scully. You're better than that." "Gee, thanks." She stood by the passenger door, waiting for him to open it for her. He walked around and got in, then leaned over the seat to unlock the door. She remembered a time when he would have unlocked her door first and opened it for her. One small step for equality, she thought, one more step on chivalry. "No, I'm serious, Scully," Mulder told her as he backed up and turned the car around on the narrow road. "If it was me, I would definitely..." he trailed off as though realizing what he was saying. She would swear she saw him blushing. It was just about the cutest thing she'd ever seen, her suave partner with pink-tinged embarrassment on his cheeks. "If it was you, you'd definitely what?" she asked in a teasing whisper. "I'd wait for you." His tone was reverent. He was absolutely serious. It sounded as though he'd given the matter some thought. He'd wait for her. It touched her somehow, even though she had no idea how he had meant it. Maybe that was why it was touching. It gave her something to think about on the long drive back home. End of part five. __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly eponine@prodigy.net __________________________ -6- She was exhausted when Mulder finally pulled up in front of her apartment building. Her strange experience in the field had been as draining as running a marathon. She leaned against the back of the seat, her eyes only half open, her mind only half-working. She didn't want to move. "This is your house, Scully," said Mulder lightly. Almost as though he were afraid she was asleep and he didn't want to bother her. She wondered what he would do if she really was asleep. Maybe it was worth faking it to find out. She wanted to be asleep, with her whole body. But she didn't want to have to move in order to get into her apartment and her bed to go to sleep. She remembered that Mulder had carried her out of the middle of the circle and sighed. Then she turned slightly and looked at him. His eyes were bright on hers. "I don't want to move," she said. He smiled mysteriously but didn't say anything. "Is this a result of what happened in the field?" she asked him. "Are you as tired as I am?" He shook his head. "It's almost two a.m," he told her. "God, it's late," she cried, sitting up straighter on her own power. "I think you're just worn out." She barely stifled a huge yawn, proving his words correct as she nodded. "Guess I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning, then." She reached for the handle on the inside of the door. "Are you all right, Scully?" Mulder's voice stopped her. She turned back to look at him, wondering why he was asking. "I'm fine. Why?" He shook his head, reluctant to say what was on his mind. "I think the voices that come from the lights serve as some sort of warning. Maybe it's not about a person's worst fears. Maybe it's a warning of what's about to happen." "So the destruction of the earth is right around the corner? We should clear our calendars Wednesday 'cause it's gonna be a hell of a day - the crop circle said so?" Scully suggested, joking. "I don't know." Mulder was being gravely serious about this. Obviously it had been weighing on his mind through the entire long drive home. "All I know is, I heard the same thing both times. 'You will lose her. You've already lost her.' I don't know what that means, but it makes me afraid for you." "I can take care of myself," she informed him. His face changed as a subtle stab of pain winced through his face and took hold in his eyes. Damn it, could she never say the right thing any more? "I'm sorry, Mulder, I didn't mean to try to close you out. But nothing's going to happen to me." She closed her hand over his and gave it a small, reassuring squeeze. "Maybe it's referring to something that's already in the past." "Maybe." He didn't look satisfied. His eyes lingered on her face. He looked...involved. She couldn't think of another word for the way he was looking at her. Like he cared about her. A lot. "I don't know why you would immediately assume it was in reference to me," she suggested, trying to make the words gentle. The look in his eyes changed again. "Because you're the only woman -" She interrupted. "Your sister, Mulder," she said. "I realize it's probably easier for you to contemplate losing me than having lost Samantha forever, but I don't think there's going to turn out to be anything to this. I think you're worrying over nothing." "That hadn't even occurred to me," Mulder told her. She nodded and patted his hand again. "Good night, Mulder." She moved again to get out of the car. "Scully, I -" he stopped her just after she opened the door and was about to step out. She looked at him, waiting for the rest of what he'd been about to say. He looked away quickly and then looked back. "Good night. Sleep well." She smiled and closed the door of the car, thinking it odd that he would call her back just to tell her goodnight. Yawning again, she went into her apartment, ready to fall into bed and sleep for a week. Unfortunately, she had to get up again in about five hours, but it would help a little bit. She reset her alarm to give herself an extra few minutes in the morning and began to undress for bed. The knock at the door surprised her. She frowned for a moment, wondering who it could be. Mulder again? He was usually a lot better about ending conversations that this, she thought. Maybe she'd forgotten something in his car? The knock came again. "Just a minute!" she called. She dropped her blouse on the bed and pulled her nightgown over her head as she walked through the apartment to the front door. She took a deep breath and opened the door. "Mulder, why are you -" She stopped, because it wasn't Mulder. "What are you doing here?" she asked, unable to hide the fact that she hadn't expected to see him on the other side of the door. "You really should use the peephole. Might save you a lot of embarrassment. Keep out the undesirables, too," Krycek suggested angrily as he walked into her apartment. Scully was aware that she hadn't invited him inside. "It's late. What are you doing here?" "We were going to talk, remember?" he said. "I was about to go to bed." "Well, we could do that instead." He was obviously kidding, but his tone didn't portray the joke. She didn't think it was funny. She crossed her arms over the front of her nightgown and stared at him. "Can we do this tomorrow?" "How do I know tomorrow he won't have something better for you to do?" "Okay," Scully said, sitting down in the armchair and pulling her feet up underneath her. Krycek sat on the edge of the couch, as though he was ready to spring up and flee at any moment. He watched her like a caged animal watches the person on the outside holding his food dish. Now that she had him here and she had his attention, she had no idea what to say. "I don't know what we're both doing here. This is crazy." "Why is it so crazy?" he asked in a low voice. "Because you're you and I'm me." Now there's a rational argument for 2 am, she thought. "It's because you're you that I'm here," Krycek told her. She shook her head. "Why won't you believe that I love you?" "Because it doesn't make any sense for you to." "When did love ever make sense, Dana?" She sighed. His voice did things to her. It made her want to believe his words. It made her want him to touch her and forget everything else. "There's no future -" "Who cares about the future. Who cares. Throw that away. What about now?" He was vehement about this. "Either of us could die tomorrow, we both know that. What about now? What do you want to be doing right now?" "Not arguing with you!" she cried. "Do you want me to go?" he shouted back. "No," she admitted, feeling weak and that made her feel scared. "I don't know what I want." She couldn't look at him any more. He made her feel so confused and she hated it. "Sure you do." "I do?" "Don't ask me to tell you what you want, Dana. This is what he does to you. You have a voice, you can say what you need." "I need to get some sleep," she told him. Maybe if she wasn't so tired, things would begin to make sense. Maybe then she'd know how to deal with this. Her head would stop aching and she would get her control back. "Wouldn't that be better if my arms were around you?" he asked her. "No, I just -" "You wouldn't like that?" His voice was seductive. Of course she would like that. The warmth and safety of someone there in the bed next to her, holding her.... He got up from the couch and walked around to the back of her chair, leaning down and sliding his arms around her shoulders. "Just tell me to go away," he whispered in her ear. "Tell me what you want." She couldn't. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered. "I want to be close to you." "Why?" she asked. "I'll explain it all to you when you're not so tired," he promised. "Isn't it time for you to get some sleep?" "Where are you going to be?" "Wherever you want me to be." "Do you want to -" "Tell me what you want," he told her. "If you want to -" "Tell me." She took a deep breath. "Put your arms around me and hold me while I go to sleep," she said. She could already feel the pain in her heart that would undoubtedly come from trusting this man. He wouldn't be there when she woke again, she thought, but even knowing that, she wanted him there now. He sounded so sincere when he told her he cared about her. She could see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch. And he put her first. He asked her what she wanted. Mulder never did that. Krycek pulled back the covers on the bed and waited for her to get underneath them. She felt embarrassed with him watching her. She wasn't used to going to bed with men, let alone just to sleep. It was different when the bed was where you ended up after sex. There wasn't such a calculation of getting there. She climbed in and curled up in her usual spot, but she was too tense and breathing too fast to be able to sleep. She was waiting. The light went off. She felt his weight on the bed. Then, incredibly gently, as though he were afraid to touch her, he put his arms around her, sighing as he stretched out on the bed. "Relax," he whispered. He didn't kiss her. He didn't try to touch her anywhere seductively. He didn't try to coax her into making love with him. He just held her, cozy and innocent in his arms. She wondered when she'd forgotten how to trust. And eventually she slept. + + + She woke with the blood pounding in her ears. The voices were back. She could hear them again....but when she sat up and opened her eyes and found herself in her dark bedroom, she realized that it was silent. She couldn't hear anything but the soft breathing of the man sleeping next to her. She'd had a nightmare. About the voices in the field. Maybe it was a warning. That Mulder would find out. That he'd kill her when he found out? Would he react that strongly? Scully couldn't imagine it. She couldn't imagine him finding out. She couldn't fathom that any of this was really going on. In so many ways, her life seemed to be spiralling insanely out of her control, so far away already that she couldn't reach it to pull it back in hand. But in other ways, it was as though things were right for the first time in a long time. Maybe this nightmare, the voices, were just her mind expressing what she feared. Was Mulder what she feared? The thought disturbed her and suddenly she couldn't get it out of her mind. It spawned a set of new questions - why would she fear Mulder? - and she couldn't silence them. Finally she closed her eyes and snuggled in closer to Krycek, feeling safe with him there next to her. He turned off the alarm when it went off. Its buzzer stopped before she even managed to sit up and open her eyes. She groaned to see that the sun was up and it was morning again. She didn't feel as though she'd slept at all. She desperately wanted to go back to sleep. But she turned to put her feet on the floor, head for the bathroom and begin her day. "Where are you going?" His arm caught her around the waist and pulled her back into the bed. "I have to go to work," she told him. "So soon? You just woke up." "What else is there to do?" "You have to ask?" He grinned at her. She couldn't help laughing at it, and allowed him to kiss her. When she moved to pull away, he kissed her again, threading his fingers through her tangled hair. "I have to go to work!" she told him, pushing him away and jumping out of the bed. "Don't use excuses," he told her, looking hurt. "What are you talking about?" she snapped. "Say what you really feel. Either you want to make love with me or you don't. If you don't, then don't use going to work as an excuse not to." "I wish you would stop with the mind games," she told him frankly. "I'm just trying to get to your feelings," he told her. "I'm sorry that they're buried so deep that you think that's playing games with you." His words hurt her, a lot. She could just stand there and look at him, stunned that he would say such a thing to her. "What do you mean?" she asked, feeling horribly vulnerable and she hated it. He shook his head. "I don't want to get into this with you right now. I don't want to argue with you." He got out of bed on the other side and started to put on his shoes. He'd slept in the rest of his clothes. "Go on and go to work. Try not to let Mulder fuck up your head any more while you're there." With those bitter words and a slam of the door, he was gone. Scully stayed where she was, feeling trembly and on the verge of inexplicable tears. She wasn't a cold person and she didn't want him to think that she was. Even though she'd given him every reason. And Mulder didn't fuck up her head. He didn't tell her what she wanted instead of listening to her...did he? Why didn't she know any more, and why did it hurt so much? She already knew. It was because she cared. Somehow she'd begun to feel something for Krycek. And that meant she was in a lot of trouble. On shaky legs, she headed for the shower to try to clear her head and to rinse away the salty tears she couldn't hold back any longer. + + + Mulder was waiting quietly for her when she got to the lab at FBI Headquarters. She was late, but he didn't say anything or even look angry. He didn't look tired, either, and she envied him his peaceful night's sleep. Well, the sleep had been peaceful, she thought, it was everything else that stressed me out. Mulder fell into step beside her, pausing to open the door for her. She looked at him in surprise. "Thanks," she said. He raised his eyebrows and nodded a 'you're welcome' to her. The lab technician was already waiting for them, sitting on a stool with a typewritten report lying on the counter in front of him. Apparently a lot of work went on before eight-thirty in the morning. You had to get up pretty early to fool the FBI, Scully thought. "What did you find?" she asked. "Nothing but common elements," the tech told her. "See for yourself." She opened the file and Mulder peered over her shoulder. The tech was right; everything was fairly commonplace. It matched the list of minerals that had been in the file. None of them offered an explanation for what had happened the previous night. None of them were known to cause flashing lights, noises, or hallucinations. "We're no closer than we were before," said Mulder. "We're no closer to having evidence of anything, either," she told him. "Scully, you were there. You heard it the same as I did. How do you explain what went on out there?" His tone was impassioned and his eyes implored her to change her mind and agree with him. "What we suffered must have been some sort of mass hysteria. You're the psychologist, you tell me." "What about the people in the town?" "We only have your unnamed contact's word that anyone in town experienced anything out of the ordinary," Scully pointed out. "Why would he lie?" "Why wouldn't he is more the question here, Mulder. It's just someone feeding you a line, one that you felt obliged to tug on. And the power of suggestion got to you. It got to us both." "That's your official scientific explanation - the power of suggestion?" Mulder was incredulous. Scully nodded. "Some local kids have a night out making a crop circle; the local airport changes its holding pattern and suddenly people begin to experience strange voices and visions that you said yourself were commonly associated with the lore of alien abductions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where they got the idea, or how it got suggested to them." "What about us?" he asked. "We're not vulnerable to the power of suggestion? It was late and we were tired. We could have seen the Easter bunny out there and you'd claim he'd just been dropped off by ET." "I'm tired of having this conversation with you, Scully," Mulder told her coldly and walked away. The lab tech, who had been doing his best to sink into the tile floor and disappear, avoided eye contact with her. She sighed. She'd gone too far and hurt his feelings. Again. Why was everyone angry with her? But she knew it was her fault. The door to their office was locked when she reached it. She knocked, but nothing happened. "Come on, Mulder, let me in," she called to him. "I'm sorry about what I said. I was out of line and I apologize." She rattled the knob. "I said I'm sorry." She couldn't believe she was standing out in the hallway begging him to forgive her for a hasty remark. Krycek would say Mulder had her where he wanted her. And he might be right about that, she thought. But apparently Mulder wasn't going to answer the door. Giving up, she turned and walked away, hating herself. She'd screwed everything up. She'd argued with Krycek; more importantly, she'd hurt Mulder's feelings for the second time in as many days. She wondered when her partner had become so sensitive. She heard the lock work as soon as she stepped away from the door. Mulder didn't want to face her. She walked back and went into the office. "Mulder, I'm sorry," she said honestly. He had his chair turned sideways and was staring intently at the wall, so she could only see his profile. He didn't say anything. Scully wished she knew what to do. She had the feeling words weren't going to cure this. Maybe she should throw her arms around him the way Krycek had done to her last night when she was upset. Maybe she should just walk away. It would be so easy if Mulder was angry with her. Then it wouldn't matter what he thought or if he found out. She would be free to fall in love with Krycek, something she knew she'd already begun to do in spite of herself. Mulder could hold the argument against her for a very long time. They could go back to being strangers. He could have his work back all to himself, without her offering suggestions he'd never wanted anyway. And she could get her career back on track. Have a life. It would all be so easy. Decision time, Dana, she told herself. Which is it going to be? She didn't do anything for a long moment in which she actually considered it. But when it came down to a choice, she couldn't walk away from Mulder. "What's really troubling you here, Mulder?" she asked him. "What if it's always been mass hysteria?" he asked her frankly. "My mind reacting to the power of suggestion. I read a book when I was a kid about this little girl who hated her family because her parents were always fighting and one day this nice alien came down from Mars and took her away to live with his family in his nice neighborhood on Mars where no one ever fought, or lied or hurt each other. I don't remember the name of the book. But what if somehow it put it into my mind that was what had happened and I decided it was true? The power of suggestion." "That's different, Mulder." "How is it different?" He turned to look at her and she saw agony on his face. She'd really caused him to doubt himself? "How is that different than going out to a field where weird things had been reported and experiencing them? If we can't believe our senses aren't just reporting something our mind tells them to, how can we believe anything at all? How can we ever be sure?" "This is an isolated situation, Mulder, with a lot of factors in its favor..." "I don't think so," he told her bluntly. "You were right, Scully, the power of suggestion is a powerful thing. You told me last night that your boyfriend loves you so you feel obligated to love him. I bet that by today you're starting to feel it already. Or you had sex with him and now you think you should love him so your mind has begun to convince you that you are in love with him. Isn't that how it works? The mind is a powerful thing. It can make you believe anything that isn't true and without much evidence." "Mulder, don't do this to yourself." He didn't listen. "It can make you believe someone cares about you when all they're doing is being kind." She looked at him. This was different than what he'd been saying before. This wasn't just about his sister's abduction, or last night in the field. She wasn't sure what this was about any more. It was a hard question to ask because something in her told her she didn't want to know the answer, but she made herself ask him. "Who are you talking about, Mulder?" He met her eyes and for a moment she couldn't breathe or think. "You." End of part six. __________________________ The Secret Life of Dana Scully by Megan Reilly eponine@prodigy.net __________________________ -7- She felt as though he'd punched her in the stomach - that same shock of an unexpected assault. She opened her mouth but her mind was absolutely blank on what she could say to him. She blinked and he was still looking at her. Her first reaction was to be angry with him for putting her in this position and sitting back to see what she would do. But when her eyes fixed on his, he looked away. Ashamed. "I don't know what to say," she told him honestly. He didn't look up. "I really do care about you, for what it's worth. I know we haven't been getting along very well in the last couple of days, but...you're my friend. All the arguments in the world wouldn't change that." She found herself holding her breath, waiting to see what his response would be. Waiting to see if he'd blow her off and tell her to get lost, for good. That would hurt, she realized. Was that hurt the way he felt right now? Had she done that to him? "I figured you'd had enough. That you were acting this way because you were tired of it. I know I've put you through more than any job has any right to expect," Mulder admitted. Trying to sound diplomatic and strong, but she could hear all his insecurities. Because she knew him. "This isn't just a job," she told him. "This is my life." He looked at her then, accidentally, and then he had a hard time looking away again. "I'm sorry if I've been short- tempered. I've had some weird emotional stuff going on, and I've been letting it get to me." "The boyfriend," Mulder said sourly. Scully nodded, hating the tone he used to say that, but she didn't want to call him on it. She didn't want to open that conversation. "Why now, Scully?" he asked her. "Why not?" she tried as an answer. "Why him?" Her eyes widened. He said it like he knew. Like he was asking why Krycek, a question she wished she knew the answer to. "Because he asked." "Is that all it takes to get you?" Mulder was frowning now. "You make it sound like I'm easy." He shook his head and turned those intense eyes on her. "You're not easy," he said. His eyes were painful and she wished she could do something about it. But what was there to do? She didn't say anything. "He can't be the only one who's asked, in all this time." She nodded plainly. He really was. "He is," she said, and realized it made her feel sad inside. A sadness she hadn't expected to feel. "Maybe other people are asking and you just haven't heard them," Mulder said quietly. She looked at him and considered his words. "Maybe," she agreed. She thought she knew what he was trying to say, but she also knew it was one of those things that would always remain unspoken between them. Because, quite honestly, neither of them could handle it. He would never get the words out. The moment died quietly between them. She walked over and sat down at her desk and opened a file, but she didn't see the documents. It was going to be a long day working in the unfilled silence between them. The events of the last day kept turning over and over again in her mind. Every time she went through them again, she felt worse. She'd been terrible to Krycek. He'd needed assurances from her and all she'd done was call up his jealousy of Mulder. And Mulder had needed many of the same assurances from her and she'd blown that too, by not believing in him. By not agreeing with his examination of the case. She closed her eyes for a long moment with her chin resting against her hand. What else could she do wrong? Were there any more feelings she could hurt? Finally, she closed the file, giving up. She caught Mulder giving her a surprised look. "I'm going to go home," she told him. The clock on the wall said it was four; that wasn't really so early. "I'm going to try and get so