Category: case file, MSR, RST, and some angst.
Rating: R +
Summary with part 1
 
 

I'd been looking out the window when Socorro had inserted the key in
the ignition of his Subaru.  Gabe had been reaching for the passenger
door.  I had watched as his body was thrown toward me, and for a
fraction of a second I saw Scully's face as I informed her that this
man, who had become an integral part of her new life, was dead.  Then
the FBI autopilot took over.  I said something to Scully which was
probably not reassuring.  I called the paramedics.  I kept Gabe alive
for seventeen minutes until, finally, I heard the sirens approaching.
I called Scully from the ambulance.

"Mulder, what happened?"  She picked up the phone before the first
ring.

I needed to give her the facts, although Gabe was lying before me with
half a face.  I tuned my eyes to the equipment surrounding him and drew
a breath.

"There was a bomb in Socorro's car.  Socorro was killed.  Gabe was
standing right there."  I could hear her crumbling.  "He's still alive
but he's badly burned.  It looks pretty awful, Scully, but he's OK
right now."

"God.  God.  Gabe."  Dom was making soothing noises in the background,
whether to Scully or Imogen I didn't know.  Of course, she composed
herself splendidly.  "Where are you?  I'll come down."  I should have
known that would come next.

"I don't think that's really wise.  I want to keep him under guard here
and I won't release his name.  It may be that the killer was aiming for
Socorro alone and your arrival might tip him off to Gabe's identity.
And if the killer already knows then I don't want you to show the
extent of your connection with Gabe and therefore the extent of
Imogen's connection with Gabe."

Scully's arguments died.  "Okay." She hated submitting like this, but
it was Imogen.

"I'll stay with Gabe for a while, then I'm coming back to you.  I need
your help, Scully."  I need you.

***

I hadn't noticed Dom's heavy hand on my shoulder until my line to
Mulder was disconnected.  I turned to him briefly.  "There was an
explosion.  Gabe's hurt.  Socorro's dead."

"Mulder's OK?"

"Yeah."  I looked over at Imogen who had pulled herself up on the couch
and was standing there, proudly gripping the olive green fabric in her
little hands.  Sad that she should be making this many advances when I
was so distracted I could scarcely smile.  I scooped her up and kissed
her.

"You're an amazing girl, poss.  I'm so proud of you."

I sat on the floor with her and she held my fingers and made little
wobbly stepping motions on her tiptoes.  All I could do was wish Gabe
were there.

***

I arrived at Scully's place after ten that night.  Gabe had stabilized
and was breathing for himself.  His burns were severe, but he was going
to survive.  At least he was going to survive this particular
incident.

Dom was lying on the couch in the living room.  The TV flickered
noiselessly as he eyed the door warily.

"Just me."  I spoke quietly.  "Where's Scully?"

"She went to bed.  She's exhausted."

"Right."  I looked at her closed door.

"She'd want you to at least look in."

I nodded, trying to conceal my need to see her, and headed for her room.

Scully lay crosswise on her bed.  She had undressed to her black bra
and slip before collapsing.  I shut the door silently.  I did want to
leave her to sleep but the naked expanse of her creamy back was calling
to me in a tone I could not ignore.  I stood still, caught in the kind
of lost time event that usually occurs on a highway in middle America.
Then I heard her breath catch in her throat.  My soul reached for her
before my body could.  And I was undone.  Again.

"Scully."

She made an indistinct noise and I approached her and crouched beside
her head.  I had thought her to be crying, but tears hadn't assuaged
the burning eyes she turned on me.  I found the hand closest to me with
mine.

"Gabe's going to be OK.  He'll be home in a day or two."

She blinked and then nodded slowly like a little girl.  I couldn't
stand it.  I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her into my arms.

She succumbed almost graciously.

Her body was disarmingly small and sweet.  For one pure moment I didn't
even realize that I was holding a largely unclad Special Agent Dr. Dana
Scully.  Then I noticed.

Her skin was soft beneath my wrists and hands.  I bent to breathe in
her hair and felt my lungs unravel.

Oh yeah.  I noticed alright.

***

I could hear him in my head.  - This is all I know, and all I need
know. -

It was like the scene in a movie when they speed all the background
action up … or slow it down, I've forgotten which, leaving the
protagonists in a bubble of their own breath.  I slowly breathed him
into my lungs.  My eyes slid over his scruffy hair, his jaw line, his
curved lips, his eyes.  Oh God, those eyes.  As the green in them
swirled and darkened I recalled why I was avoiding his eyes.

There was no other road diverging into the wood, just the one.

And it was in this wood that our bodies met.

All the while I was watching lust and treachery entwine in my veins.
Because I knew I was going to fuck him and I knew I was going to betray
him.  The knowledge made every movement tainted.  Every second that his
tongue was in my mouth felt like the last second.  And unfortunately
the desperation instilled by that made me wet with desire.

But I let it happen.  More than that, I initiated and inspired and
begged and fought my way through the night.  And every time I came I
nearly wept because it wasn't supposed to be this way.

And yet it was so good.

***
\\I want you.
It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.
It's the way your shoulders shake,
and what they're shaking for.\\

In the pale light of early morning Scully looked like a reflection of
herself, all silver and ethereal.  I watched as she pulled a skin-tight
tank over her head and bent to find her silk pajama pants.  As always,
with her, it was an effortless seduction.  She started out the door and
I tried to ask her to stay, reaching out a hand and making some
nonsensical noise.  One night with her and I couldn't form a sentence.

"I'm just going for Imogen."

Oh right.  Imogen.

It was almost twenty-five minutes before the tension got to me and I
had to see what they were up to.  I found them in the kitchen.  The
little one seemed quite happy to be imprisoned in a high chair with a
bottle of milk and bright plastic bricks.  Scully was harder to read.
She held a cup of coffee in two hands and the morning sun slid across
her face as she turned away from the window.

"Coffee?"

"Thanks."  I grabbed a steaming mug from the counter.  She had
obviously been expecting me.  It seemed unfair that she should be able
to predict my actions when I had no idea what she would do.  She met my
eyes and the air between us burned for a long moment.  Then she looked
down.

"Tell me what you and Gabe learned."  I was slightly irritated by her
dictatorial tone.  She faltered slightly.  "Please, Mulder."  I didn't
understand her disquiet but I allowed the warm glow in my body to
escape slowly and nodded.

Maybe she felt my warmth flow past her because she looked at me for a
brief moment with undiminished desire.  Then she noticed me watching
her and it was gone.

I sorted the story in my head.  "Socorro was something of a … he was
obsessive.  And early on he'd wanted to follow in his father's very
admirable footsteps and join Special Forces.  He was deeply upset when
they rejected him."

"Psych tests?"

"It's pretty hard to get rejected from Special Forces for a psych
test.  But I think it was a combination of that and lack of the
necessary physical prowess.  He lived with his parents until his father
died.  And on his deathbed his father revealed something about a
mission code named Uragiru.  Socorro closeted himself away in nowhere
land after that.  But he managed to gather information about his
father's career. I got to review some of it, but Socorro kept the rest
buried somewhere off-site. It's a lot of information.  The Gunmen were
green when I talked to them to get it verified."

I watched her watch me as I talked, and tried to behave as I always
had, like nothing had changed.  But things had changed.

"And Uragiru?  Was it important?"

"Yeah, it was.  You've heard of Inajiro Asanuma."  Scully frowned.
"Leader of the socialist party in Japan."

"Right.  He was assassinated in the 60s.  Something to do with U.S-
Japan relations."  I nodded.  The woman knew everything.

"1960 to be exact, by one of his own, a young socialist extremist.  The
official motive given for this boy's act was that he disagreed with his
leader's views on a treaty between Japan and the US."

"Which is relevant because?"

"Our friends in the Special Forces were there.  All of them.  And
according to Socorro's father, they were the ones who turned the boy
against Asanuma."

"And now the boy's back for revenge?"

I was overjoyed by the skepticism in her voice, so very normal.

"Actually… he died.  But not before he swore to repay every one of the
men involved in his treachery."

Scully almost smiled at that.  I felt her mind cycling through the
options she knew I was considering.  It was a heady feeling to have
Scully back in my brain; especially knowing what she could do to that
brain, and other parts of me, should she so desire.  I stepped nearer
to her, thirsting to run my lips over her face once more and drink her
in.  A thump and a yelp in the living room indicated that Dom was
awake, and that he was unfamiliar with the furniture.  He appeared
before Scully and I could completely move apart and glared at us with
dark eyes.  Scully looked a little defensive and gathered Imogen from
the high chair, settling her on her hip.

"I take it you slept well," Dom muttered.

Scully looked at me over the baby's head and smiled and for a time I
saw the light that I had always hoped to see in her after a night like
ours.  Dom glowered some more.  I guess he felt left out.

***

Dom took Imogen to the Hoover building.  I didn't like leaving her with
anyone, but she already adored Dom and he promised to sit in the day
care center with her all day.  He didn't like leaving Mulder and me
together, but he had few options.  We needed to speak with someone, and
it was a man I knew well.

General Peter Sewell attended my parent's wedding forty-one years ago.
At the time he was a second lieutenant, two years later he had been
made a captain and was on his way to the top.  He was also something of
a scientific genius.  He and my father had remained friends throughout
my father's life, and even now he visited my mother with regularity.
But the reason he interested us now was that three years ago he had
come knocking at Socorro Aguirre's front door.  And the fifth word out
of his mouth was 'Uragiru'.

We were certainly intending to speak with him.

The hour-long drive to Waldem Military Base had the painful sweetness
of Mass, or that of making perfect incisions in a human body.  Beside
me, Mulder sang in my nerves.  I cast my eyes toward him and was
embarrassed to catch his glance.  He saw me blush like a high-schooler
with a crush, and a Cheshire smile crept briefly across his features.
Then his long arm reached between us and his hand was high on my thigh,
indecently high on my thigh, or it would have been indecent had we not
shared my bed the night before.

I swallowed a moan.

Mulder and I are nothing if not physically in tune with one another, as
we had explored more fully the night before, and he could not have
missed the effect he was having on me.  But he didn't shift his hand in
any direction and, while I felt the connection between us flare, he
made no move to take more.  Clearly, Mulder is also emotionally in tune
with me, and he sensed the odd split personality I was developing in
his presence.

His fingers on my inner thigh did nothing to help me control the wildly
scattered thoughts that flitted disconcertingly through my skull.

We drew up at Waldem and I tried not to consider what I was planning to
do to him.

"Mulder, I think it would be better if I saw General Sewell alone."

"Really?"

I nodded convincingly.  "He might open up to me, as an old family
friend.  We have history."

My explanation was weak, and I was more than surprised when Mulder made
no objection.  I believe that, for once, he was viewing this as
primarily my operation.  And he had no reason not to trust me
implicitly.

So I entered General Peter Sewell's imposing office alone.

***

"Dana Scully!  I was so glad to hear you were planning on visiting
me."  Always a personable but somewhat distracted man, General Sewell's
voice fairly boomed with good cheer.

"On official business, unfortunately."  I spoke reflexively and then
recalled that I no longer had 'official business.'

"Of course, of course," he blustered, before I had corrected my
mistake.  "Please, sit down."  As I followed his instruction I glanced
about the room, which looked more like a library than an office.  I
smiled to myself.  Peter Sewell had never married, and physics was as
much a wife as a hobby.

"I'm here to investigate a Special Forces mission which I believe you
have had some involvement in."  The general looked at me with vague
interest.  "The code name for the mission was Uragiru."

"Ah yes.  Uragiru.  To turn traitor."

My eyes whipped to him.  "I'm sorry?"

"That's the translation.  To turn traitor."  The words sank into my
stomach and rolled in my head.  To turn traitor… Symmetry can be ugly.

"We were… I was hoping you could shed some light on a current
investigation into the deaths of thirteen people."

"Ah dear, that's very sad.  I certainly hope I can help."  He spoke
casually.

"What do you know about Uragiru?" I prompted.

"Not very much, I'm afraid.  About three and a half years ago someone
asked me about the mission.  I knew nothing at the time, but it did
ignite some interest.  The man who was asking was a well regarded
government physicist whose work I had followed for several years.  He
has made some extraordinary leaps into RF technology."

"Radio Frequency?"

"Yes, yes.  In any case, I wished to assist the young man.  His mind is
extraordinary and he may revolutionize physics.  You would be surp…"

I interrupted.  "What did you uncover about the mission?"  My natural
fascination with physics was superceded by my desire to know more about
the matter at hand.

"Really nothing at all.  I found out who had performed the mission.
They're all dead now, sadly.  And I spoke with a son of one of the
initial mission unit.  He was rather unfriendly."

"Socorro Aguirre."

"I suppose that sounds right."

General Sewell was not known for his sharp memory.  However, there was
one thing I was certain he would recall.  "Who was the man who asked
about it?"

"His name was Dr. Jeffrey White.  Jeff."  I searched the older man's
face for any sign that he knew this Jeff White was the son of Captain
Alexander Hayes of the Uragiru mission.  Then I saw tears prick his
eyes.  "I heard Jeff died almost a year ago now.  Such waste of a fine
mind.  We'll not see another like it for a while."

I turned my eyes to the floor.  Watching senior military officials cry
has a certain poignancy, and I didn't want Mulder to sense a new and
unexplained sadness in me.

We left the conversation at that and I was shown out.

Lithe fingers of new information were kneading my brain as I stepped
into the daylight.  Mulder was waiting for me in the car.  For a moment
I was free to watch him – and all brain kneading came to an abrupt
halt.  His sleeves were rolled to his elbows and one arm draped
languidly out the open window.  The sun grazed his cheekbones.  His
eyes were distantly focused.  I was instantly aware of how much I
wanted him.  How undeniably, desperately, wonderfully, ceaselessly I
wanted him.

I was, of course, terrified, until he turned his eyes toward me and
smiled.  And in that smile was the tenderness and amusement and sweet
secret knowledge that I had waited eight long years to see.

***

\\I imagine I have painted you
Walking at a distance
Grey upon grey, almost in flight.
And I think inside you,
Beyond flesh, it's translucent
Like soap, you sting my eyes.  \\

Sitting alone in the car outside the base, far from the madding crowd
that Scully was inducing in my head, I nursed my disappointed heart
with little grace.  I had expected that what we started in her room in
the dark would grow a life of its own and take off with us.  I thought
touching her would become habitual, that fucking Scully would fill a
perfectly proportioned hole in my core.

Instead she had transfixed me with her endless gaze, and then turned
away.

And I didn't know how to force her to look back at me.  It seems second
steps are much more difficult than the oft-maligned first ones.

From across the parking lot she distracted me from my thoughts and I
turned to watch her approach.  What could I do but smile to see her?
Just a glance and I'm smothered in love hearts and candy-coated
endearments I wouldn't dare share with her.  She circumnavigated the
car and slipped into the passenger seat.  For an instant she eyed me
and I frothed internally.  Then she leaned over and licked my lips
deliberately, before sliding her tongue between them.

Fortunately the FBI had trained me to respond quickly to wildly
changing circumstances.  I sucked her tongue deeper into me.

All my thoughts of second steps being tougher were whisked away.
Seconds are sweeter and smoother and wilder and older.  I swelled in
appreciation.

The trip back to her home was longer than the trip out.

***

It may have been the years of closely enforced abstinence, or the
coolness that emanated from her this morning, but together, even when
we weren't touching we were deliriously close to boiling.  I prefer to
believe that Scully and I would have met in a ball of flame whatever
the circumstances.

We went to her place.

With the front door closed we stood still for a timeless moment,
breathing in synchronicity.  Then I reached for her and we collapsed
against the door, our hands, our souls, our hips all working together
to tumble the walls that differentiated us.  She divested herself of
her panties and shimmied her short skirt up around her hips.  I placed
a hand between her thighs to feel her and she shuddered against me.  It
was breathtaking to watch her writhe against the door as I thrust my
fingers into the place my cock longed to fill.

"Mulder… p-please."

I kissed her and smiled predatorily into her lips, lifting her against
the door.  Then I was inside her.  She flexed her muscles tight around
me.  It was old and powerful and new and mindless all at once.  Her
breathless fervor stole my inner monologue so that when I came all I
could do was gasp in gratitude.  A fraction later I felt her swell and
ripple around me and her head fell back against the door with an
unearthly cry of pleasure.  And in the moment of stillness that
followed I felt the endless binding energy between us.

God… God.  This was what I would choose for all time.  She was all I
had ever known.  She was all I needed.

We crumpled weak-kneed into her bed.  The next time will be gentle and
tortuously slow, I promised myself.  I nodded off with one arm wrapped
around her.

The next moment (although the clock indicated it was more than an hour
later) a noise came from the front door.  Then a voice slithered into
my consciousness.

"Dana?"  The harsh whisper was accompanied by a knock on the door.  I
attempted to turn to her and reach for my gun simultaneously but only
succeeded in dropping the gun to the hardwood floor.  The clatter woke
Scully.

"Dana, it's Gabe.  Can I come in?"

Awake, Dana Scully has the sharpest mind in the known world, but she
was still half-asleep.  In the time it took her to process the
information, the door handle turned and Gabe was in her room.  Only one
of Gabe's eyes was uncovered, but the lack of depth perception that
accompanied this did not signify a lack of perceptiveness.  Not that he
needed much to determine what had been going on.

He froze for a moment and his eye steeled over.  When he spoke he
ignored me.

"Dana, where's Imogen?"

Scully's calm demeanor faltered under his glare.  "She's at childcare
in the Hoover Building.  Dom is looking after her."

Gabe didn't open his mouth, but as he turned and limped ferociously out
of the room his back spoke volumes.  - You send a baby off to childcare
while her life is directly threatened by the same person who murdered
her parents so you can have wild monkey sex in our house. -  Scully
sucked in a breath and pulled on a T-shirt and jeans.  I followed her
example with my crumpled clothing.

"Stay in here.  I need to talk to him."  Dictator Scully was back, but
I could hardly mind.  I nodded and watched her leave.

***

As I walked into the living room, where Gabe stood silently, I picked
up my cell phone and dialed.

"Agent Domenico."

"Dom, it's Dana.  How's Imogen doing?"

"She's fine.  I'm exhausted though."  He was going for light-hearted
but I was too flat to even play straight man.

"Good.  We're at my place."

"I'll bring her back there, shall I?"

"Thank you.  I really appreciate this, Dom."  My limbs trembled,
whether from my performance with Mulder earlier, or trepidation at what
Gabe would say, I couldn't tell.

Gabe looked at me as I set the phone down.  "You can't leave her like
that."

"I had to, we were going to question someone."

"And you just stopped by here for a quickie."  Gabe was never
sarcastic.  Bitterness had always dissolved before it left him.  And
with the bandaged and blistered face and arm for added impact, his
words hurt.  I probably looked as miserable as I felt.

"It wasn't really..."  I wanted to defend my actions - but what Gabe
said rang too close to the truth.  And the truth was abundantly
unattractive.  I'm horrible at speaking my apologies so I tried
telepathy, without success.  It's quite possible that I've consistently
overrated my ability to communicate.

"Imo will be back soon."  I held it out as a peace offering.

"I'll be in my office."  He limped slightly as he stalked out.  So much
for peace.

I walked back into my room, where Mulder surveyed me gloomily.

"How's Gabe?"

I answered obliquely.  "In his office."

"Right."  There was a long ill-managed pause.  I hated the silence.
"Scully... I…"  Hearing him stammer was worse than the silence.  "I
just don't want this guilt to be what us being together is about."  He
shut his mouth firmly, imprisoning any other words that were fighting
for space in his throat.

My voice sounded small to my own ears.  "Mulder, you need to go."  I
winced as I watched the fleeting pain in his eyes.

"Sure."

He reached out a hand and brushed at the tears that were dripping down
my cheeks.  And still I let him leave.

***

part 4 of 5 next