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: Let's say NC-17 just to be safe...individual parts will 
be marked NC-17 if and when they arise...
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...

WATER'S EDGE
by
Elizabeth Boyd-Tran
Copyright (c) 2000
 

CHAPTER 3

 
**On Saturday morning, Marcus from the forensics lab brought his 
truck and helped me move your fish tank to my living room. The 
aquarium doesn't really fit in my bookcase and the filter buzzes 
too loudly at night. What is the silver one's name? Mulder?**


Every now and then it occurred to Frohike that not everyone 
showed up at work each Saturday without realizing it was any 
different from Thursday. And in those moments, he would look upon 
his life from the outside and wonder at the infinite number of 
sequential events that had to have occurred to bring him and 
Langly and Byers to this life so very outside of the mainstream.

These were not moments of regret, but moments of unusual clarity, 
and of an acute awareness of all that was good in his life. 
Friends who would die for him. A purpose to work toward. A cause 
to champion.

This Saturday began the same as most any other. Crisp, chilly 
Washington weather. A slight bite from the wind off the water. He 
unlocked the door to their workspace (4 keys, two keycards, and a 
touch pad code...they were hoping for the fingerprint scanner 
before the year was out...), turned on the lights, woke up the 
computers, switched on the coffee pot.

Behind him Langly was making indistinct animal noises from the 
couch he had requisitioned when Scully had vacated it. Byers was 
pulling croissants out of a white paper bag and wrapping them in 
napkins.

"Reveille, soldier," Frohike said in Langly's direction. "Work to 
be done, man. Oh, and do us all a favor...go get a shower first."

"Ha, ha. Very funny," came the mumble from the couch. Byers 
handed them each a donut. Langly had to part his hair to find his 
mouth.

Byers opened the blinds and Langly moaned and covered his eyes. 
"Jesus, man, have a heart."

Frohike licked the powdered sugar from his fingers and typed in 
his password. Taking a seat on his wooden stool, he glanced 
toward Byers. "Did Scully find any names on the airline rosters 
she wanted us to check out?"

Byers met his gaze for a moment too long, then said simply, "One 
or two. Nothing she really believed in." Frohike's gaze wavered, 
and the sunshine seemed too bright.  **Sitting in the dimness, 
watching Scully sleeping in the corner, Byers suit jacket spread 
across her, her glasses clutched loosely in her hand. Her smooth 
skin had shone like silk in the shadows. So incongruous with the 
landscape in which she slept.**

"What the hell was Mulder thinking?" Frohike said softly, 
forgetting he was no longer in the moment. But Byers had been 
there with him and now just closed his eyes and turned away.

Frohike nodded and turned back to his computer. He took another 
bite of his donut and clicked up his Email.

Updates for his software, a note on the upcoming D&D tournament, 
another goad from Jerry about getting into Warhammer with an 
attachment of a pornographic Pokémon JPEG. And then his mail 
server died and he had to start over again.

Only two messages left to download. Langly was coming to life 
behind him, pouring a cup of coffee and complaining it smelled 
like a dead cow. Byers was sorting through the snail mail.

Message one.

"Viagra Online!" from getitup@comingon.com. Delete.

Message two.

"X" from nobody@anywhere.com.

Oh....God...

His hand was shaking as he hit the enter button, showering the 
keyboard with powdered sugar as the message rose before him.

The sunshine was still in the room, but he couldn't feel it 
anymore. All he could see was the growing light of the monitor as 
it warmed for the day.

"Fuck," passed across his lips.

His voice caught the attention of his comrades, and he felt them 
gathering in his shadow, silently taking in the letter on his 
screen.

"No..." Byers.

"Jesus..." Langly.

Frohike stood up and kicked his stool to the ground.



*****



She had awakened at 3am to the scent of stale popcorn and the 
sound of Frohike snoring. Slipping out in silence, she had driven 
back to her apartment. A hot shower. Clothes in the laundry after 
that alarming couch. Her own bed. Restless sleep.

By seven, she was awake and watching the thin rays of morning sun 
filtering through the blinds at her bedroom window. She was 
reluctant to relinquish the warm cocoon of her down comforter. 
She had bought this comforter only a couple of months ago, on a 
shopping excursion into Baltimore with her mother. Her old one 
had been thrown out with the trash after the evidence team had 
finished with it. Blood stains, tears in the cloth, glass shards 
in the fibers.

She had told her mother the old comforter wasn't warm enough for 
winter.

A faint buzzing filtered through plaster wallboard, told her her 
neighbor's alarm was ringing. It had rung for days one time when 
her neighbor had gone on vacation and forgotten to deactivate the 
alarm. Luckily, in this apartment, the alarm was one of the only 
sounds that ever made it through from the neighboring bedroom. 
The neighbors probably couldn't say the same of her apartment. 
Screams and gunshots carried.

Focusing so strongly in the silence on the distant sound of the 
alarm made her jump all the harder when her own phone rang. She 
lifted her stiff neck and squinted again at the clock, as if 
perhaps she had misread it before. Scully stretched her arm 
across and snatched up the receiver. A lingering-sleep flashback 
of black patent shoes on linoleum, climbing on the old wooden 
card table chair to reach the phone before Missy, hoping against 
hope it would be her father. Or maybe just a friend asking her 
over to play. She wondered exactly when in her life answering the 
phone had ceased to be a joy.

"Hello?"

Silence. Open line. "Hello??"

And suddenly she was certain it was Mulder. But not sure enough, 
not trusting enough of her instincts to let his name pass across 
her lips. Because if it wasn't Mulder, if she gave something away 
that placed him in danger...

Her heart was racing. He was here. He was here with her. She 
could feel him in the air.

"Hello..."

Was she hearing breathing? Was she hearing his breathing?

Then the line clicked. And it truly was dead.

"Hello?" The futility was in her voice. Dead air bouncing back 
against her ear.

She snatched at the Caller I.D., knowing before her eyes even 
focused it would offer her nothing but "unavailable". She was 
dialing the Bureau resource department before she even sat up.



*****



The effects of her disjointed night's sleep wouldn't catch up 
with Scully until later. She was an expert on every quirk of her 
body's reaction to inconsistent sleeping hours. She knew what 
lines she could cross and what lines she couldn't. What symptoms 
demanded immediate attention, and which ones could be ignored and 
dealt with when the crisis had passed. Her instincts had been 
honed to perfection during the cancer. Suddenly pushing too hard 
had carried so much more weight than a few days' sick leave...

And even now the shadow lingered in the back of her 
consciousness, making her more cautious, more protective of her 
own skin. Mulder had felt it. But of course, he would never say. 
It had just become harder to brush off his concern when her own 
was in the air.

Today she was strong. A good night's sleep tonight or the next 
night would put her back on track. A shorter run tonight would 
compensate, no reason to overtax her muscles.

The bright fall air felt good on her cheeks as she cradled her 
mug of hot coffee and balanced the computer printouts in her 
opposite hand. The sun was so vivid this morning, she had to 
squint to make out the pale words on the shiny paper strung 
across her glove. Lucky break that the Bureau's phone records 
contact had such an obvious crush on her. Occasionally, Scully 
felt a pang of guilt, making such blatant use of his attentions 
to her advantage. But it wasn't as if she had ever openly flirted 
with him or promised anything she hadn't intended to give. And 
the kick Mulder had always gotten out of the whole situation had 
been worth the risk.

This morning, Justin had come through with the phone number from 
which her anonymous call had come. She had dialed the number at 
once, but gotten no answer. Just endless rings. Where Justin had 
failed her had been in retrieving an address. According to his 
records the number was currently unassigned. But this was just 
the sort of area where the Gunmen excelled.

She could breathe better when she had a lead. It was as if a 
window had opened somewhere and afforded her a single sweet 
breath of fresh air. Pumping up her spirits to make the next leg 
of the journey. Loss of control was her greatest fear, and any 
solid handhold she could find kept her on line.

The quiet voice in the back of her head was whispering to her 
insistently, despite her attempts to drown it out with hard 
facts.  **That was Mulder this morning. He doesn't want you to 
worry. He wants you to know he's okay, but he couldn't take the 
risk of speaking...**

Address. She needed an address.

Shuffling the papers, her briefcase, and her coffee cup into one 
hand, Scully tapped on the Gunmen's door with the backs of her 
knuckles. "It's me, open up."

There was always a delay while they checked the video cameras and 
worked the locks. But the delay seemed a bit longer than normal. 
Or maybe she was just more wired. "Frohike?"

Rattling on the inside. Locks sliding.

When the door opened, the bright sun placed Frohike's familiar 
figure in dark silhouette for her, hiding his face. She stepped 
forward, pushing her way past, dispensing with the pleasantries.

"I might have something," she said firmly, dropping her things on 
the nearest table. The one she had noticed of late was always 
clear for her.

"I got a call this morning that--" But her words left her when 
she turned around, her back to the window now, three faces 
watching her intently. Langly was wearing the same clothes from 
last night. Byers and Frohike were freshened for the day. She 
cleared her throat, let her weight fall back onto her heel. She 
lifted an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

Furtive glances among the three, like boys caught in their 
father's gun collection. But the air was heavier than that. 
Darker.

Scully narrowed her odds, zeroed in on one. Interrogation 101. 
"Frohike. Look at me."

She should have been too warm in her heavy coat inside these 
walls. But she brandished it like armor.

Heavy lidded eyes rose reluctantly to hers. "Scully. We need to 
talk."

The knot in her stomach was familiar now. An odd kind of 
security. "Okay. About what?"

Frohike held her gaze, lips slightly parted, but he didn't seem 
about to speak. It was Byers voice that came to her ears. "Dana. 
There are some things we haven't been entirely honest with you 
about. And now...we need to be."

Honest. As usual, the truth had apparently slipped through her 
fingers.



*****



They lost her the moment Byers delivered the unavoidable sentence 
"We knew where Mulder was going".

Scully had refused to sit and talk, preferring to stand and use 
what there was of her height to maintain a position of power.  
She had been on the defensive from a moment after walking through 
the door.  And once it had been confirmed--out loud--that the 
trust alive between them over the past weeks had been founded on 
bold faced lies, Scully's eyes had gone cold, and the woman 
behind them had slipped far from reach.

Frohike felt Byers looking at him, pinning him to his seat on the 
arm of the couch, conveying a kind of desperation as to how they 
might proceed.  Byers had lost the cool that had carried his 
words moments ago.  Before he had time to think about the 
repercussions, Frohike drew a breath and opened his mouth to take 
over.

"Scully?"  He was hoping she would look at him.  Her head turned 
ever so slightly his way, but her eyes held to the coffee table.

"Scully...you know we consider you our friend as much as we do 
Mulder."

From her expression he might as well have tossed her a dead rat.  
Regroup.  Take two.

"Scully, like Byers said, Mulder explained the situation to us, 
where he was going undercover and why, and he explained why any 
knowledge of his intentions would place you in potential danger.  
He had good reasons, Dana, you're just going to have to believe 
that."

He wished she would just blink, unlock her jaw for a softer 
breath.  Anything.  Jesus, how did Mulder take it when she did 
this to him?  Could he read anything more in her stoicism?  Was 
Mulder brave enough to barnstorm his way through her defenses 
like he did through government security?

"Scully, we never wanted to lie to you.  And if we hadn't 
believed that it was the best thing for your safety, we--"

"So, why now?"

Edgy silence.

"Why are you telling me this now?  Where is he?"  Scully turned 
to face him head on.  And he wished she hadn't.

Her eyebrows lifted, pressing him as though he had been backed 
against a wall.

Frohike glanced at the others, saw their gazes skittering across 
the floor, landing anywhere but where they belonged.  To his 
surprise, it was Langly who jumped into the silence.  "That's why 
we're telling you now.  We've had..."

"We've had a few feelers out of our own," Frohike said, catching 
the ball that had been lifted for him.  He was leaning forward, 
hands resting on his knees for support.  "Scully, we got an Email 
this morning, from a very reliable source."

"Who?"  Her word was sharp.  Blade-like.

"A friend.  No one you know."  He paused.  For his benefit more 
than hers.  He was starting to feel sick at the reality of the 
knowledge.  "Scully, we had people watching Mulder.  Without his 
knowing, of course.  To keep an eye out for him, make sure he 
didn't need our help..." 

"And?"  She was still looking at him, still maintaining her 
distance, but there was a glimmer of something behind the cool 
blue.  "Does he?"

He swallowed.  He felt closed in, caught.  For the first time he 
could remember, he wished there weren't so many locks on his 
door.  "Scully...Mulder was supposed to be back by now."

"Really.  Is he in trouble?"  She glanced about the room, reading 
everyone's expressions, adding up the clues.

"No, Scully," Frohike said.  "Not now.  We were 
too...Scully...Mulder's dead."  He heard the words, but couldn't 
fathom how they had come from his mouth.  The voice was foreign, 
the syllables strange and absent of meaning.

The sound from Scully was the most incongruous of all.

She laughed.

Three men stared from their dark semi-circle below her as her 
eerily sweet laugh echoed in the boxy room.  A dimple flashed on 
her left cheek.  Byers covered his face with his hands.

Scully turned on her heel and paced in a small<tight> circle.  
"Right," she said, still smiling.  "Mulder's dead.  Okay.  So, 
that's today's story.  Yesterday, he was missing without a trace 
and you were searching to the ends of the earth, this morning he 
was deeply undercover in some mysterious place I couldn't 
possible know about and you were really just babysitting *me*, 
and now he's dead.  And you expect me to believe any little part 
of this, because....?"  She lifted her eyebrow, eyed them 
pointedly, head tilted, black pump digging into the tile.

Fuck.

More exchanged glances.

"*What?*"  There was an edge to her voice that hadn't been there 
before.

Byers got to his feet.  Walking steadily, he crossed to a black 
file cabinet, took a key from his pocket and turned it in the 
lock.  From the back of the drawer, behind the last of the manila 
folders, he pulled a slightly crumpled white business envelope.  
The drawer closing was too loud in the thick quiet.

"You shouldn't believe us.  But you should believe Mulder.  He 
left this for you."

Byers held out the envelope.  Scully's eyes narrowed, but her 
arms were still folded across her chest; she showed no signs of 
movement.  From her perspective she had to have seen the front of 
the envelope, the familiar hurried scratch that was so clearly 
Mulder's writing.  *Dana Scully*.

She let go a sharp breath through her nose.  Frohike was fixated 
on the way the tendons of her throat pulsed softly when she 
swallowed.  She cleared her throat and said carefully,  "Just 
because four of you planned it, instead of three, doesn't enhance 
your chances that I'll believe you."

The silence stretched.

Byers stepped forward, and with a degree of bravery that deeply 
impressed Frohike, he reached up to Scully's chest, past the 
barrier of her folded arms, and slipped the envelope into the 
inside breast pocket of her suit coat.  Perhaps of even greater 
surprise (and alarm) was the fact the Scully let him.

"Scully," Frohike began, "you have to know that we would never 
lie to you about something like this.  Of all things...Jesus, 
Scully, we--"

"Mulder called me this morning."

"What?"

"He called me.  I'm certain it was him.  I need you to trace the 
number.  Let's get to work."



*****



There was no more talking to her.  A wall had gone up, and the 
only chance they had of felling it was time and persistence and 
following any path that would keep them in her wake.

Minutes turned to hours, lunch came and went, and in the grey 
surreality of unexpected routine, Frohike began to wonder what he 
truly believed.  After only the briefest pause, they had all 
taken a cue from Scully and gone on, business as usual, as though 
their search for Mulder might still be productive.  But then, 
their part in the search had been a lie for some time now, so in 
many ways this wasn't any different.

He had spent the past hour waiting on a response from a telephone 
company contact.  He *was* interested in checking out the source 
of the phone call to Scully.  Though it was doubtful it was 
anything but a wrong number, the lack of information was 
suspicious, and it never hurt to keep an eye out on who might be 
keeping tabs on her.

Langly and Byers had reached an unproductive hum and had ducked 
out to hit the vending machines on the upper floor.

And Scully...well, Scully was still somewhere nearby.  Her glares 
had long since stopped him from keeping a close eye on her.

In fact, if he hadn't spilled a few drops of his coffee, he would 
not have glanced over his shoulder for a napkin.  And if he 
hadn't looked for a napkin, he would not have seen her open the 
letter.  Seated on a stool in the farthest shadowy corner of 
their den, Dana Scully had opened the rumpled white envelope.  
The letter lay half-unfolded across her knee, her suit jacket 
still open from the retrieval.  From her posture he guessed she 
was reading, but her eyes were hidden by the gentle fall of her 
hair.

Feigning nonchalance, quietly praying Byers and Langly wouldn't 
blast back in and intrude, Frohike took a tissue from his pocket 
and dabbed at the rumpled dots on his printout.

He stared at the screen for several minutes, not seeing the 
words, paging up and down without regard for content.



*****



Scully stretched and straightened her suit jacket as she drifted 
out of the shadows in the corner.

Frohike could only see her in his peripheral vision.  For a while 
he really had been working again.  Now he was only focusing 
blindly in the direction of the monitor.  And wondering if the 
vending machine upstairs was being stubborn again.

Scully stepped up beside him.  The letter was gone.  As if it had 
never been open.  She was reading the screen over his shoulder.

"What are you working on?"

He glanced her way.  Her lips were soft in the indirect light.

He shrugged.  "Long shot.  Nothing really."

A nod.  Silence for a moment.

Then....she was halfway through a sentence when it hit her.  "Any 
reply yet from your--"

And he literally saw it happen.  Saw the switch flip.  Saw the 
dead stop like an icicle in her gut.

Scully caught a quiver of air.  Her tongue slid across her wet 
lips.  She clenched her jaw and the room fell silent.  But she 
was still standing.  Still composed.  Still had plenty chance to 
pull it together.  And for a moment he thought maybe he had 
imagined the change.  Perhaps she was just thinking, just tired, 
just anything...  But then he reached a hand toward her elbow, 
saying, "Scully, what did--", and she jerked away like he'd 
burned her.

"Don't touch me," she said hoarsely, eyebrow raised, lips 
slightly parted.  And he knew he'd been right, and the sheer 
horror of being in this moment with her made his knees grow weak.

"Scully, what's wrong?"  He hated the tremor in his own voice.  
Hated the part of him that would even ask that question on the 
hope of hearing an answer other than the obvious, the part of him 
that didn't want to handle this alone.

Scully pushed her hair back, forced a swallow.  "I have to get 
out of here," she whispered, eyes far from his.

She turned on the heel of her black pump, and started toward the 
door with only the slightest stumble.  Frohike pushed off of his 
stool and half ran to catch up with her.  "Scully, wait..."

But she wouldn't look at him, much less accept the hand he 
reached toward her.

"Leave me alone," she said coldly.  She was whisking away the 
locks with unnerving efficiency and purpose.  She pulled open the 
door.

He was a step behind her.  "Scully, please stay here.  Scully, 
you need to be--"

"Stop it!"

She had crossed the landing, dropped her foot onto the first 
step.

He couldn't let her go.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd 
been so scared. "Scully, come here..."  He closed his fingers 
around her narrow wrist, and Scully whirled on him with a violent 
snap to free her arm.

"Fuck off!" she shouted, her words echoing through the deserted 
stairwell.

But this time her eyes had met his.  And it had taken no more 
than a second for the sympathy and hurt and caring in his to 
clash like water against the fire of anger and hatred sheltering 
hers.

And she faltered.

Swallowed.  Caught a breath.  Confusion in her eyes.  A lost 
child.


*****


The air was misty here.  White and fluorescent mixed with golden 
autumn sun.  There was blood on her hands.  Carrying, half-
dragging Mulder through the hospital double-doors.  *Keep 
breathing, keep breathing...keep me breathing...*  Gun shots 
echoing in the air.  Cradling his head against her chest, willing 
the life force within him to thrive, feeling it slipping through 
her fingers as she counted the heartbeats.  The countless times 
he had terrified her, hospital bed after hospital bed.  A 
thousand rainy nights and whispered and shouted prayers and a 
desperate hold on life.

Standing on Frohike's stairway.  He was slipping down through her 
arms.  Blood on her hands.  Everything melting away...*Mulder*...


*****


"He called me..."

"Scully--"

"This morning, he *called* me..."

He was shaking his head.  She was just shaking.  

"No," he said simply.

She didn't move.  If he waited a moment longer she might regroup.  
So he had to accept the reality of life--he had to hit her while 
she was down.  "And if he did, Scully, it was to say goodbye." 
Frohike had never seen Scully so pale.  Her eyes were miles away.  

"No."

He took a tentative step toward her.  She took a smaller step 
back, wavered a bit on the edge of the stair.  Her hand trembled 
at her side.

"No.  No, no, no, no...."  Talking to herself.

Frohike quickened his pace--knowing he might get kicked in the 
jaw, or slammed into the emergency exit--and wrapped his arms 
around Scully before she saw it coming.

Her struggle was admirable.

"Scully."

But brief.

"Scully..."

He felt every muscle in her body suck inward, felt her breath 
catch and her nails dig into his coat and the defiance turn to 
fear.  But it was the soft whimper of pain, like a wounded 
animal, that nearly made his own heart stop.

"*He called me...*"

"Oh, Jesus, Scully...."

She began to wilt in his arms, only a moment after the sobs broke 
free.  He caught his balance and took her weight as he lowered 
them together to the dusty stairsteps.  Scully's crisp beige 
slacks dragging through the street dirt.  So very wrong.  So very 
wrong.

"No...He's not..."  But her words were just breaths between sobs, 
and she wasn't really asking an answer anymore.

He could smell her shampoo, his mouth was in her hair, and dust 
was dancing in thin steaks of sunlight, and he felt like the 
world had shattered.  He should not have been the one for this 
job.  But here he was, and he hoped to God he was enough.

Through the haze of tunnel vision, over the sound of Scully's 
gasping breath, he recognized the voices of Langly and Byers 
returning from the vending machines, rattling snack bags.

He turned to look over his shoulder, he caught his friends' eyes 
and threw a deadly glance, silencing and sobering them in a 
moment.  They were a perceptive pair.  In a heartbeat they took 
in and digested the scene.  Their snacks dropped onto the dirty 
landing and bodies surrounded Frohike.

And Scully.  Without a word, Langly and Byers joined Scully on 
the stairsteps, wrapping their arms around her, Byers resting his 
head against her back.  Langly gripped her hand until his 
knuckles paled and she clung to him in return.  There they lay, 
four friends clinging to the life and blood in their own veins 
and mourning the lose of a fifth; keeping what was left of the 
ship afloat.  The sunlight danced across them, clouds dappled 
them with shadow.

Until Scully was quiet.

Until the silence was breathless.

Until the air held still.

Until it was time to go home.


End Chapter 3

(continued in Chapter 4...)
Feed Me.
elizabeth@tranfamily.net

NOTE TO READERS: Just to be clear...this story was conceived and 
outlined before "Requiem" aired in the U.S. (Yes, I'm that slow a 
writer...)  I realize that the coming chapters share themes here 
and there with the currently unfolding US Season 8.  This is NOT 
meant to be an AU exploration of those dynamics.  This is an 
entirely separate story.  The character of Agent Gannon Michaels 
(soon to be appearing in coming chapters) is NOT Doggett...never 
was, never will be (not that I don't like Doggett, mind you:)).  
It was all just very unfortunate timing...