DISCLAIMER JAZZ: "The X-Files" and its characters are the creations and property of the fabled Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. I am, of course, using them without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. All other concepts or ideas herein are mine. RATING: NC-17 SPOILERS: Through US season 7 ARCHIVE: ONLY ON THE AUTHOR'S OWN WEBSITE (http://rowan_d.tripod.com/elizabethr.html) UNTIL STORY IS COMPLETED. This way I can mess with the early parts as later parts develop... TIMELINE: Though this takes place sometime after "all things", in this universe "Requiem" did NOT happen... AUTHOR'S NOTE: My betas are the greatest there is. Hands down.:) "Water's Edge" by Elizabeth Rowandale Copyright (c) 2003 Book III: Chapter 16a 17 months later: **I remember the precise moment when I realized you were beautiful. Sure, I knew you were attractive the moment you walked into that cluttered basement office. I knew you were cute, pretty, even. Knew you would have been considered a good catch. But, believe it or not, it took me nearly a year to realize you were so much more than that. That's how closed off I had become. The extent to which I had learned to live inside my own little corner of the world. You stood beside me for months and I never looked. Then one day, we were walking around a sunny Nebraska field, scanning the ground for fragments of forensic evidence. I looked up to stretch my neck at the exact moment you did the same. And you stood there with your eyes closed against the brilliant sun, your red hair blazing and freckles shining-- and you took my breath away. I can still see the sculptured line of your cheekbone, the soft shimmer of your slightly parted lips, the curve of your breasts, your hips, the generous waves of your hair. I couldn't even remember why we were standing in that field, why on earth I had been staring at the ground instead of at the incredible vision beside me. You're beautiful, Scully. And once I saw it, I haven't been able to see anything else for the rest of my life. Scully? Are you okay?** "You do realize we're set to go to press in six hours?" Frohike quipped, struggling to open his miniature bag of corn chips. "You said this was an emergency mission." "A six week advance copy of Death Blazer 4? What would *you* call that?" Langly countered, lovingly eyeing the CD-Rom cradled in his hand. "Catnip for an idiot. Everyone knows Death Blazer is nothing but a poor man's rip-off of Meteor Warrior 3. Now, show me an advance copy of Meteor Warrior 4: Attack of the Death Maidens, and I'll show you an emergency mission." "I can't believe you two dragged me into this," Byers said. He held open the front door of their building as Frohike passed. Langly tapped Byers chest with the disc as he entered the building. "Come on, man. Don't tell me you let frog boy, here-- " "Hey!" "--brainwash you. I know you have the good taste to appreciate the originality and social value of a prize-winning game like Death Blazer." Frohike couldn't help but smile at the expression on Byers' face. It was always an education to watch his two friends interact. In a million years, no one would have chosen the two of them to get along. And on the surface, they rarely did. But underneath, they were all three as devoted to one another as the most loyal of brothers. "I wouldn't know," Byers said, calmly. "I, unlike some people, have been working on the latest issue of the Lone Gunman. Remember The Lone Gunman? Our life's work?" "Oh, come off it, Byers. I've seen you playing Death Blazer 3 until 4 o'clock in the morning. Just a few weeks ago I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up--" "That is not the point," Byers said evenly, composure intact as always. The door swung closed behind them as the threesome started toward the stairs. Frohike continued to worry his corn chip bag, until finally it exploded, blowing half the corn chips into the air. A clattering of junk food rained onto the steps and the first landing. "Dammit. There goes half my lunch." "They're still edible," Langly offered, leaning down. "Just don't take a step. They cleaned the hallway this morning, I heard the janitor when I was dozing on the couch before breakfast. Just don't slide them when you pick them up." "Thanks, really, I think I'll pass," Frohike said, leaning down to gather the mess, but with more of an eye toward carrying them directly to the garbage. Langly looked over one rescued chip, brushed it off and popped it into his mouth. "Six hours. Now--" Byers looked at his watch, "Five hours and fifty-five minutes." "I hear ya man," Frohike said, pushing against his bad knee as he rose to standing. "Wasn't my idea to take this little side trip. I was working on the page layout all morning. Would have had it done by now." "We'll get it out on time," Langly said, munching another of the retrieved chips, and Frohike almost laughed aloud at the expression on Byers' face. Being the only one without chips in his hands, Byers turned his back and began working the multitude of locks. Key card, keypad, dead bolt, second dead bolt. He pushed open the door, and the three men filed into the darkened room. Frohike immediately crossed to the large garbage bin and dropped his handful of compromised corn chips. Then he brushed off his fingers and pulled a clean chip from the measly cluster remaining in the bag. "What about our lead story?" he asked as he crunched. "Are we still going with the Nashville sightings? Even without getting that phone interview with the pig farmer?" Byers shook his head. "No, I still say the Yeti encounter is by far the stronger piece. Proof almost undeniable of the government's involvement in the suppression of--" "Where is she?" All three men whirled at the sound of the fourth voice. Deep in the shadows of the far corner of the studio, a tall figure sat on the lone bar stool. The figure pushed off of the stool and strode forward into the fine spill of light from the hallway. *Great Gods Almighty.* Frohike dropped the last of his corn chips. "Oh, my God." "Holy, Jesus." "Are you kidd--" "How on God's earth did you--" "Strike me dead and call me Mary," Frohike said numbly, and he made a bee line for the man in the leather coat. He wrapped his arms tight around his old friend's waist. But his friend gave only a vague acknowledging touch, then spoke again to the group as a whole. "Where is she?" His tone had an insistent edge. Frohike pulled back and squinted upward, eyes narrowing with concern. "Mulder, you all right? Calm down, my friend, we'll fill you in on--" "I'm fine. Am I being unclear? Where. Is. She.?" He looked from face to face as the three men stared at him, utterly unprepared. Frohike spoke. "She's fine, Mulder, she's--" "I went to her apartment. Someone else lives there. I did a surface check of the Bureau employee records, and she's not listed. Where is she?" Byers found his voice and took a step forward. "We know that, Mulder," he began, in his best mediating tone. "And we can explain all of it, if you'll just--" "Is she alive?" "She's fine, man, really," Frohike repeated. "Give me an address." Langly moved forward. "We'll tell you everything, Mulder. Just slow down, take a seat. Tell us how the hell you--" "*An Address*." The Gunmen exchanged glances. An electric silence hovered for several beats, then Byers numbly recited Scully's current place of residence. "Thank you," Mulder said with a clipped nod, teeth gnawing the inner edge of his lower lip. He stepped between Byers and Frohike toward the exit. "Hey, Mulder, wait--" "Mulder, there's a few things you really need to know before--" He turned at the threshold. "Is she alive?" All three men nodded, and Frohike spoke. "She's fine, like I told you, but you ought to--" "That's all I need to know." He was around the door and on the landing. "Go with Nashville!" His voice echoed back from the stairwell. And with the distant swipe of the street door, he was gone. For a long moment no one spoke. Then Frohike said simply, "Well. This should be interesting." ***** It was almost surreal. Decidedly sensual. For two years, he had been looking for her in crowds, imagining a flash of red hair just outside his range of vision, catching vanishing glimpses in office windows. And now, when he knew with his rational mind that this had to be her, his gut reaction told him it couldn't be real. This couldn't be Scully. *His* Scully. 100 feet away from him on the far side of a tree-lined drive. He didn't recognize the car. Seemed a little out of her price range, to be honest. And her hair...twisted into a clip, loose tendrils blowing around her neck and face. He had never seen her so soft. So...feminine. Like the heroine of a nineteenth century novel. Her blouse fell inches from her skin as she reached into the back seat for her things, and he was graced with a flash of a view he had once been granted with a fair amount of regularity. He had never taken that privilege for granted, and never let her know he looked. She rose from the car with a briefcase strap over her shoulder and a stack of file folders in her arms. She tossed the loose strands of hair behind her shoulders. Long. Longer than he had seen her hair in years. Her beige-gold suit draped over her slender form like silk, and even from this distance, he could see the quick spark of light at her throat as the late afternoon sun reflected off her cross. *Scully.* She closed the car door, turned, and looked across the street. He saw the moment she saw him. He saw the suspension of time and rational thought in her clear blue eyes. His back muscles tensed against the iron bars of the garden gate. He saw the moment the shock turned to fight. "You!" Her voice rang across the quiet afternoon. The file folders were on the car trunk in a flash, top papers sliding to the ground, and her gun was up and she was moving across the street. "Don't move! Get your hands in the air!" "Scully--" "Hands where I can see them! NOW!" He raised his hands. No question--this was Scully. "Scully, just slow down. I know this is a shock, I know, but it's me, Scully, just--" "Shut up!" She was ten feet away from him, still in the edge of the street, a rain gutter and a narrow stretch of sidewalk between them. Her gun was trained hard on his chest, and for the first time he was starting to think this might not have been his best approach. "Who are you?" "Scully...it's me. Mulder." "Mulder's dead." "No, I'm not." His hands were still up, his pulse racing. But hers was higher, he could see it. Her chest rose and fell as her rapid breaths kept time with the pounding of her heart. She was in high crisis mode. Terrified and deadly all at once. He fixated on the tendon shaking in her neck. "Mulder died nearly two years ago. Now who are you and what do you want?" "Scully. All right, I'm going to try to prove to you that it's me." "You're not Mulder. You're a clone. Or one of *them*. But you're not Mulder." "All right, I just need you to listen. Okay? Just...just don't fire. I'm not going to move. Just don't fire. And listen." She didn't speak. She stood, breath heavy, gaze livid. He would have given anything to touch her. But moving would have been his death sentence. "Okay, Scully, your middle name is Katherine, and you like it now, but you hated it when you were a kid, and I think that had something to do with Catherine the Great, but right now I can't remember what." She narrowed her eyes, but didn't speak. The gun held steady. "Uhhhh...you loved 'Little Women', but you don't tell people that. The book, not the movie. You didn't like either of the old versions, but then we were out on this case when the Winona Ryder version came out, and it was the last film on earth I wanted to see, but we were in this horribly small town and it was the only thing playing that late, and we saw it and you liked it. But it made you cry when Beth died because you'd so recently lost *your* sister, but you didn't think I knew that, because you slipped out to the ladies room and we never talked about it, because we never talked about anything that we should have." She was listening. But she was a million miles from convinced. Because she was Scully, and she could rationalize anything in the world. He should have planned ahead, should have come up with something she couldn't deny... He was blanking, couldn't think of a damn thing with that gun pointed so steadily at his chest and the memory of her last shot his direction so vivid. "You have fifteen seconds to come up with something good. Then you either vanish or I shoot you. Your choice." "Jesus, Scully..." His hands sagged just a bit, and she cocked her weapon. "Hands UP!" He complied. "They're up, they're up. Scully, I'm not going to- -" but arguing from that angle was pointless. "What do you want to know? Scully, *you* ask me something. Ask me something only I would know. The real me." Scully didn't blink, didn't move. He didn't have a clue what was running through her mind, and that was even more unnerving. "Scully, I know everything was in place to make you believe I was dead. I know that, because I planned it. And I really don't want to tell you this while I'm still staring at the wrong end of your weapon, but if you'll just--" "What did you say to me in Akron?" She caught him completely off guard. "What did I--in Akron? Ohio?" "What did you say to me? We were on a case in Akron, four years ago. You said something to me, that you knew I would remember. What did you say?" *All right, Mulder. This is the time for your fabulous memory to kick in. This is the time for you to brilliantly recall some random night in the Midwest when you might have said something, anything, that would have--Oh. Okay.* "I said...'I *am* home'." Scully's breath stopped. "What did you mean?" she asked, no feeling. "My Mom had just died. I had a nightmare. I woke you up banging around on the veranda outside our rooms. And somehow we ended up on a bench and I was lying with my head in your lap. And you said I should get some sleep, so we could get up early and finish off our case and get me home. And I said, 'I *am* home'." Her breath wavered, broke rhythm. He could see the shift in her eyes from distanced anger to the first glimmer of real feeling. The moment when she started to accept the truth. And with that glimpse, he almost wished he could make her angry again. Because the pain was beyond comprehension. Her gun arm started to sag. His lungs released just a bit. Scully's brow drew in in confusion, hesitation. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Mulder?" Mulder's gut physically hurt at the vulnerability in her single word. "It's me, Scully. I'm here." Two more breaths, and the open vulnerability he had witness in that flash, drowned in a new wave of blazing anger, now doubly fueled by the raw pain behind it. The gun was up hard and she moved a step closer. "Tell me you were kidnapped!" "Excuse me?" "Tell me you were kidnapped. Tell me you were held against your will. Tell me!" "I just...I'll tell you everything, Scully, I just think you should--" Then he saw her left hand. She had shifted position when she moved forward. And he saw the rings. One diamond. One gold band. He couldn't breathe. For the briefest moment he made eye contact. And he saw her flinch. It was almost imperceptible. But she knew that he'd seen the rings. "Tell me you were kidnapped," she repeated icily. "Scully, I really don't want to answer this while you've still got that pointed at me, so--" She dropped the weapon, hard and fast, exasperation and anger waving off of her like heat. "Thank you. Now, Scully, there's so much I need to tell you, and I know you may not want to hear it, you may not even want to see me right now, but we have to start--" He should have seen it coming. And maybe, in retrospect, he did, he just harbored enough guilt to feel he didn't have the right to deny her the satisfaction. She closed the distance between them in a few easy steps and without a breath of hesitation her fist hit his jaw for all she was worth. Jesus Christ, she was still in good shape. "Aaaahhhh...Oh, Jesus, Scully." He staggered a few steps away, hands to his jaw, wondering if any bones had actually been cracked. His vision swam blue at the rush of pain. He caught a blurry glimpse of Scully weathering the pain in her hand. Must have hurt like hell on her side, too, that level of impact. His stomach lurched and for a moment he was afraid he was going to be sick. But the nausea subsided. He propped his hand on his thigh, still hunched over. *A wedding band.* Scully hadn't moved. She was cradling her injured hand against her stomach. Her gun was still drawn, but aimed only at the ground. He slowly pushed up to a nearly straight stance. They stood in the street for several shaky breaths. Not making eye contact. A car rushed past. A bird fluttered in the trees overhead. He could hear the sound of water from a fountain in the private garden at his back. "Can I talk now?" Mulder asked, not wanting the anger he heard in his own voice, but the pain was speaking right now. "And say what?" He pulled up straight, lowered his hand from his jaw for a moment and looked her solidly in the eye. "I don't know, Scully, how about--it's good to see you?" She glared at him for a long moment, then looked away. "Look, I don't have time for this right now. My son's waiting for me upstairs." *Two for two with the dead-on punches Scully. What the hell did you just say...* "Your son." She slipped her tongue over the corner of her mouth. Her gaze shifted ever so slightly to settle on his injured jaw. He caught a glimpse of Scully in that moment. Of the Scully he had come all this way to see. His Scully. "You should get some ice on that," she said softly. It wasn't tender, but it wasn't quite cold. "You can follow me upstairs, if you want." "Depends," he said, giving a pointed look toward her hand, "is your husband up there?" Scully's look hardened. Her lids dropped to half shadow her eyes as she finally holstered her weapon. She was breathing hard. She didn't meet his gaze. "My husband's dead," she said at last. And she turned and walked away. ***** End Chapter 16a. (Continued in 16b...) Feedback. Oh, the joy. - bstrbabs@earthlink.net