Subject: NEW: Double bed (1/1) From: fdw Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 16:46:29 -0800 New story ... hope you like it! It's kinda like 'Track sounds' and 'through the smokescreen' which I posted earlier. If you like this one and missed out on those try and find them in the archive under my name (I think under 'd' could be 'W' Here we go! DOUBLE BED (1/1) Disclaimer: None of the characters depicted is mine. They are all property of Fox, Chris Carter and 1013. No gain is to be made by any use, reference, distribution or any other action involving this story. It is to be distributed with all remarks and disclaimers, and my name attached. Classification: S Rating: G Spoilers: none Summary: Snow and a case not worth looking into get more result than expected. Author's note: Though Chris Carter has said (more than once I think) that Scully and Mulder "will not get horizontal", this is a way they might ... even in the 'real' series. (That's what I think at least). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOUBLE BED (1/1) By Florens de Wit Putting his shoulder to the door, Mulder finally opened the only motel-room left in twenty miles. It was snowing.... hard. Real hard. Like two-inches-in-one-hour hard. "I guess we should have know that this would happen ..." Mulder stopped two steps into the room. "What?" Mulder pointed at the bed ... grinning. "A double bed Scully!" "Stop grinning Mulder ..." "I'll sleep on the floor if you really want me to." "We leave that for later Mulder ... let's get some heat in here!" The heating seemed to be turned off. Mulder walked over to the gas powered thing, and twisted the knob. Again... Harder... Until it came off. Mulder gave Scully the puppy dog look. "Yea, I really love these sturdy American products." "Great, now we really need to unpack and get more clothes on." The room was nothing more than a room to sleep in. Two chairs that looked like you better not sit on them, a table that looked worse, and the bed. Lights were OK ... it seemed. "We have to get over the case so we have some work done ... I rather do something useful than not sleep ...." "Well Scully, I wonder why you'd think you wouldn't sleep!" "Don't push it Mulder!" "Did you bring you laptop?" "Didn't you?" "Yea ... but the battery ran out when I did that trace ..." Scully made a snoring sound. "You mean playing that stupid game ..." "I swear I didn't play that! Not even ..." "All right Mulder ... It was a joke ... sorta ..." She sat down on the bed, propping up the pillow, throwing Mulder the other. She slipped her shoes off, and grabbed her bag. She was glad she already had some appropriate clothes on, instead of the standard female 'uniform' that was common at the office. Both of them had been sensible enough to wear sweaters. Opening her laptop she brought up the information they already had. "You think that the dad did it right?" Mulder's question came a little out of the blue. "Mmm? ... Oh! ... Yea. He was clearly frustrated, and really evasive. It looks like he took her and drugged her and got scared when he was going along. I think he decided to turn back and put her in the place where she was found. The fact that she was hurt by the cold seemed to shock him too." "I think we should look for some witnesses to any of the events." "Good point, I think they kinda forgot that ... They were really blown away by the information stream you gave 'em" "Yea ... when Spooky is in town, the crowds will gather from all aroun'" "You should practice on that southern accent. It might get you a date ..." "Yea sure ... Like any of the women we meet would *really* want to date me!" "Hey! If I didn't know you better *I* probably wouldn't mind to get you as a date!" Mulder looked up from his notes. "Well thank you Scully! I'm flattered!" "You should be ... They made me 'most wanted trainee' when I was at Quantico ..." "They did?! Well why haven't I heard about your secrets Scully?" "They just all wanted to date me Mulder! ... It's no big deal. In fact, I'd rather be named for something more intelligent than just being good looking." Mulder nodded. He knew that of course. But he also knew that she had a hard time being unable to go out, date people. She loved chil dren and was really good in putting their mind of bad things. She used to complain about him not having a 'life', but ended up having none of her own. "You *are* good looking though ..." "What?" Scully had been lost in her thoughts. She wondered what would have happened if she had not been assigned to Mulder as a partner. She had to smile at that. Scully knew by the not so frequent chat with other female agents that some even envied her, admired her strength. After all: she could have quit several times, having enough valid but diverse reasons to leave the spot she took now to be the most challenging in the FBI. It was hard on her too, in the lonely times, at weekends, at Christmas Eve. She could always go an visit her mom, but that was only a limited soothing patch for the soar spot in her soul that itched with the need for a more solid, formalised bond than that she had with Mulder. She struggled with the blanket she was lying on, like Mulder. Pulling it out from under the mattress, she hopped up and pulled it from under herself to cover her cold feet. Mulder did the same as she had finished, silently approving her actions by mirroring them, as he did always. Figuring out how they would handle the case was not a job to be taken lightly. They had already noticed that the local police was even more reluctant to help than they had been able to read from the fact that a deputy had called them in. He had forgotten to mention that here were two motels in the vicinity of the town, of which one was closed during winter, and the other, well the other was hardly endurable ... but they gave it a try and ended up having to stay at this dump. "I wonder if we get anything out of the grandparents ... All small villages are quite closed when it comes to strangers ..." "Yea ... just look at his motel ... It almost seems like a conspiracy ..." "You know ... I should take you out to see that movie ... the one with Mel Gibson and Julia Robberts ... The conspiracy theory!" "Quite a subtle title ... what's it about?" "About a guy who thinks that he is hunted down all the time, an thinks out the most outrageous theories .... Much like you actu ally..." Giving him a mischievous grin she relaxed even more and focused on her screen again. "Sounds like great inspiration .... You know where it is screened?" "Sure! ... Several theatres in Washington show it right now." "We should set a date then ... " "Yea ... Just don't make me get my appointment book now, I'm warming up just a little now." Both of them had slowly slipped deeper under the blanket and sheet. Their legs were covered now. The bed was narrow. Mulder was slipping notes on the bed like he did when he was quickly revising his knowledge of the case. The papers rested on Scully's right lower leg, and his own right thy. When he started sifting through the photo's that came with the file the while stack collapsed on Scully's side of the bed. Mulder leaned over as his leg touched Scully's. "You know ... It would - Scientificly - be more efficient if we would sit side by side ..." She gave him another look he didn't see that often, filled with some kind of mischief. He decided against any response to the deeper meaning it might hold, and moved to sit beside her. "Yea ... You might be right." "Can I see your notes on the testimony of the little girl?" He passed her a single sheet of paper, only written on at one side, not even covering that. "You don't have much ... Were not convinced?" "No ... It seemed to me she wasn't really telling what she thought she had seen ... It seemed biassed by something." "My thought exactly. Any further suggestions ?" "Not really ... Why don't we try and make a report together? We haven't done that in a long time ..." He was right. They used to do it some times, but not recently. They weird thing was that they would deliver almost identical reports with the quality of the cases declining. 'Quality' was a feature of the cases that was quite differently defined in their field of interest. If the cases got any better than this elaborate attempt to blame 'the aliens' for the abduction of a girl, they were pleased. It seemed like the cases either were like this, or were so intense that either Mulder ran off trying to find crucial evidence, sometimes with a total stranger, and get into trouble. Sometimes they would end up in trouble both, making it hard to get back together. She had been really pissed off, but at the same time worried sick, when Mulder had used the help of his source in the UN, to get to Siberia with Alex Kreycek. Especially the fact that she had to face a congressional committee had been hard on her. She'd always thought that the peoples representatives would see that she could not disclose all she knew for the sake of her partner. Mulder suddenly broke her reverie. "Scully? What'd you think ... Should we try and do this ourselves or get the locals to do this? ... I mean ... we don't really have a case here." Tapping in the last name on the witness list Scully saved it and looked up, a bit embarrassed that she had been daydreaming while Mulder had probably fixed up a report in his head. "I suppose we could contact Skinner and put it to him. I'm sure we are not going to be forced to spend federal money on something that has no meaning in any broader sense than a divorce gone wrong." "Now if you put that in a letter, we probably even convince the local Sheriff of the uselessness of our presence here ...." "And then we can try and dig a way out ..." "Yea ... You suppose that this increased snowfall is caused by El Nino?" "Nah! ... Well ... I'm not an expert but as far as I know El Nino doesn't cause increased snowfall." "Just a thought ... could be an x-file ... I can see the article in the Lone Gunmen: 'increased weather instabilities and the presence of federal agents interested in paranormal activities' " Scully giggled. "Sounds like the journal articles my professors wrote when I was at the university ... They made a contest out of writing the most incomprehensible title. As students we started to give them grades on that too! It was fun ... I was still going for the 'nor mal' medical direction then. I was seeing myself in scrubs as a heart surgeon or a traumatologist. Especially the latter attracted me ... Helping people when they need it most, on the verge of death." She looked up and gave him a shy smile, as if embarrassed with the disclosure of more deep thoughts about her life. "What made you change your mind? I mean ... you became interested in forensic pathology ... Why?" Scully was silent for a moment. As she spoke her voice was clearly emotional. "A friend of mine got killed. She was found off a road, about three miles from where she lived. They first thought it was some kind of attack on her, some guy who couldn't control his hor mones and raped her or something. Her family insisted on a solid investigation, and they questioned me too. I knew that she had been coming home either by bus or on foot. When they checked the surroundings they found that almost above the place where she was found, there was a bus stop on a bridge. The road they thought was used to put her there, just happened to be there. Everybody now thought that she committed suicide, but I knew better. The autopsy made sense out of it. She had been hit by a car. The pathologist ran into me and thought I was an assistant or some student working there. He rattled on about small fragments of paint embedded in her tissues, and ran off leaving me with the samples. I decided that I needed to do this for my friends sake ... So I went to the lab and asked for the right person. When I told them who I was they were stunned by my calm. ... I guess that earned me the name Ice Queen ... It must have gone along with me to the academy ... more of my year went there." Scully sighed deeply, clearly emotional. Her voice was soft when she continued. "The scraps of paint they found happened to be of a distinct type of car. They had the person within a week ... I never saw him and I'm glad I never went to court. I probably wouldn't have been able to hear them talk about my friend like she was some thing rather than a human being. But the fact that they found the man by just plain investigation of the body made me change my goal ... And the fact that she wanted to be what I became I guess." She had been staring at her keyboard for a long time, but now she looked up. Her eyes filled with tears. "You know Mulder? ... You are the first one I told this to ..." Scully started to cry, silently, closing her eyes while the tears ran down her cheeks. Mulder reached out and took her in his arms, rocking her slowly, rubbing her back. ********* Mulder woke and noticed something lying on his chest. Something heavy. He opened his eyes and saw Scully's head resting on it, still asleep. He smiled with some kind of delight about the situation. Mulder managed to get out of the bed without waking Scully, resting her head on the spot where he'd been lying. The room was cold, but not as cold as he'd expected. A whirring sound indicated that the heating was working again. He walked up to the window noticing that, though the snow had piled up in front of their door, the wind was mainly to blame there. Somehow most of the snow had been cleared by it, right up to the doors of the mostly un-occupied rooms. Scully made a noise, that indicated she was waking. Five minutes later she shot upright. Releasing her breath when she remembered what the situation was, she looked at Mulder. And gave a more cer tain smile now. "We look like shit don't we?" "Yea ... Certainly a new sight for me!" Mulder grinned, and continued to look at her as he walked to the small bathroom to see if the water was running, and if the shower had any hot water. Satisfied by the results of is investigation he returned to the living room/bedroom, and found Scully scrummaging through her bag. "I think I've forgotten to bring any stuff for in the shower ..." She stopped searching through the bag and looked at him. "It is working is it?" "Yea ... you go first ... I can handle it when it stops halfway. You can have my shower-gel if you want ... It hardly smells and has a 'unisex' smell ... whatever that means." "You really should get more distinct smells for yourself Mulder .. In this way you never going to have a date!" "Hey! ... Did you forget that we have a film to watch together?" "You're right! It's good you remind me now I can at least get my appointment calendar and fix a date!" ******** After calling Skinner and giving him their view of the case he didn't even hesitate in referring the case back to the local police. He knew that the amount of cases referred to the FBI wasn't as big as it should be normally, leaving cases unsolved that, with help from federal resources, could have been solved. But the area Mulder and Scully worked in was an exception in many ways, including this. There were a number of cases he received 'through official channels', that were not even worth looking into. He mostly took the chance of seeing if the office down in the basement was still in some kind of order and went there to discuss it with either Mulder, or Scully and give his opinion. Provided he had the time of course. It was quite amazing how stimulative a discussion about subjects so bizarre could be. Scully drove back, not breaking the silence they both enjoyed, prov ing their friendship a close one, without need for words. At a cross ing, no different from probably thousands of others, Scully looked at Mulder. "I want to go somewhere ... It'll only take an hour or so ..." He didn't even have to nod. She just knew he would feel the need, the necessity of her request. After buying a small bouquet of flowers, yellow roses, Scully drove through the unusually snow-covered Maryland, and stopped at a small graveyard. As she walked slowly, reading the stones, while the snow made crispy noises as she left her mark, Mulder followed her with appropriate distance. She stopped at a simple stone, between black and grey of colour, a simple text on it: Julie Dean 1960 - 1982 Scully carefully laid the roses on the larger, unmarked stone panel covering the actual grave. She just crouched for a few minutes, and then stretched her legs again, brushing the little snow off her coat. Looking at Mulder she knew it was not needed to tell him who the person was, laid to rest here. He knew. Like he'd always know things like this THE END Comments, suggestions, or anything else (except flames)? end them to: f.f.d.wit@stud.tue.nl