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...

WATER'S EDGE
by
Elizabeth Rowandale (aka Elizabeth Boyd-Tran) <bstrbabs@earthlink.net>
Copyright (c) 2001


CHAPTER 9a


"Hurt that's not supposed to show and
Tears that fall when no one knows
When you're trying hard to be your best
Could you be a little less"
--Madonna, "What it Feels Like for a GGirl"


**You only did it once.  We were working a case for a woman 
from MUFON who claimed to have a chip implanted in her 
neck.  We were sitting on the floor of a basement records 
archive in some backwater town I've forgotten.  But I 
remember talking about what the chips might ultimately be 
for; homing devices, controlling agents, biological 
meters...  The subject of luring the victims to their 
deaths (like on a burning bridge) came up.  And we never 
mentioned the connection to me.  Not out loud.  But in the 
moment of silence before some hick cop burst in and 
interrupted us, you placed your hand on the back of my neck 
and let it rest there.  Just rest there.  Protective.  Your 
hand was so warm on my skin.  I still feel the ache.  And 
all this week, I just keep thinking, if you could place 
your hand there one more time, this mess of half clues and 
death and pain in front of me would fall into a pattern.  
And I would know what to do to make it stop.**


"It's here.  We're just not seeing it."

Dana Scully sat back against the edge of her desk, staring 
unblinking at the bulletin board in front of her.  
Snapshots of crime scenes overlaid autopsy reports and case 
notes and maps drowning in red marker.  A jigsaw puzzle 
with no interlocking pieces.  Scully hated those.  The 
variables were too wild and too many.  "Fully Interlocking 
Pieces, please", printed in careful red letters on her wish 
lists to Santa.  She liked a world with rules and order and 
predictability.

"Maybe it's not," Michaels said to her back.  "Maybe what 
we need to know just isn't here yet.  Maybe we really 
*have* learned everything we can from what we have."

"Depressing thought," she said off the cuff, not really 
hearing her own dry humour.

Michaels stood quietly behind her, staring over her 
shoulder at the morbid panorama that wallpapered their 
days.  He asked, "So what's on the docket for today?"  He 
blew across his coffee, then took a sip and grimaced.

"Why do you keep drinking it when you so clearly detest 
it?" Scully asked, back still turned.

"Makes the rest of my day seem better by comparison."

"We're off to Talia Carson's former place of work."

"Which was where again?"

Scully glanced down at the notepad on her desktop.  "Grand 
Street Music Shoppe."

"Grand Street?"  Michaels took another gulp of his coffee 
and picked up the notepad, twirling it round to read it.  
"That's a little out of the way from where she was living, 
isn't it?"

Scully nodded.  "I noticed that, too.  But it's close to 
where she went to school and she was already working there 
part-time before she graduated four years ago.  Her current 
address only goes back nineteen months."

Scully stood now, facing Michaels and gazing pointedly 
toward the file from which she had gleaned the information.

"All right then, we'll head out.  Have I got time to check 
my email first?"

Scully lifted her eyebrows, nodded stiffly.  "Traffic might 
be thick," was all she said before picking up her briefcase 
and heading upstairs to sign out a car.


*****


The air was icy and heavily damp.  Winter had yet to have 
its final say over the helpless residents of D.C..  The 
brief respite of warmth had only given a deeper bite to the 
returning chill.

Gooseflesh brushed down Scully's shoulders, along her spine 
to the small of her back, as the cruel wind funneled into 
the underground parking lot.  She glanced at the ID# on the 
key chain in her hand, checked the space numbers in the 
motor pool.

Amazing how the smell of the world could shift in less than 
twelve hours.  Scully had fallen asleep last night, nerves 
alive with crossing sensations--warmth, desire, tenderness, 
vulnerability, fear.  The buzz had kept her awake long 
after Daniel had left her at her door, after a hot shower 
and raspberry tea, after an hour of mindless television.

And now this morning, in the cold grey fog, under blue 
lights and images of young women long dead, Dana Scully was 
remembering why she had been alone for so long.

Last night had left her open and dangerously raw.  The 
contrast of warmth and kindness made the harsh realties of 
violent crimes disproportionately piercing.  If you kept 
all the doors closed, the painful rooms were sealed away.

But so were the safe ones.

There was work to be done.  Work she needed her full 
faculties to carry out.  The clock was ticking.  Another 
woman would probably die.  Until the killer made a mistake.  
Until Scully *caught* the mistake.  That was the trick.  If 
she missed a single window of opportunity, the blood spread 
to her own hands.  And Dana Scully had enough blood on her 
hands to last a lifetime.

*Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.  I killed a man in 
cold blood, shot him in the head, right in my own fucking 
living room.*

Scully turned the key in the door of the Bureau sedan, 
climbed inside and started the motor.  She switched the 
heat on full blast and willed the cool air to rush into 
warmth.

Tick-Tock.

Who was he watching now?  How long did he watch his victims 
before he found a window to steal them away?  What did he 
need to know before the process began?  How many hours 
until another one disappeared?

Too many questions, too few answers.  Real cases never went 
the way they did on television.  It was one of the first 
things they pounded into students at the Academy.  The 
killers rarely taunted the police.  There was rarely a 
trail.  There were no Dr. Lecters waiting in the wings with 
all the answers.  The majority of the work was done on 
paper, in laboratories, trudging meticulously through 
tedious details.

Waiting for a miracle.

Somewhere out in this grey spring morning, mixed in with 
the politicians and the lawyers and the teachers and the 
homeless, there lived a methodical killer in the prime of 
his career.  How many hours until his next defining event?

How many hours?

Or had she vanished already?

Tick-Tock.


*****


The motor of their FBI issue sedan was already running when 
Michaels reached the parking lot.  Agent Scully was seated 
behind the wheel, a case file open in her lap.

She didn't speak when he climbed into the car.  After a 
brief pause, Scully closed the case folder and slipped it 
into her briefcase.  She twisted around and tossed the 
briefcase onto the back seat, her silk blouse pulling 
distractingly across her chest as she turned.

Michaels settled into his seat, accepting her silence as 
par for the course as they pulled out into the D.C. fog.

He had long ago ceased to critique her driving.  From their 
first case, Scully had made it clear that her place lay 
behind the wheel and that she would accept no instruction 
from those riding shotgun.  He assumed Mulder had not been 
much for driving and she had grown accustomed to having her 
own way.  For what it was worth, she was a better driver 
than his wife, so he figured he would survive.

The heater was still running full blast.  Michaels checked 
the dash in hopes of separate driver/passenger climate 
controls, but he knew this was too much to ask on the 
government's tab.  Instead, he cracked the window an inch 
to lighten the oppressive heat.  A moment later, Agent 
Scully reached out without a word and lowered the fan.  
Distracted, yes--bitch, no.

Dana Scully was a constant puzzle.  It crossed Michaels' 
mind on more than one occasion, to wonder what Agent Mulder 
had seen from this perspective beside her.  Mulder's 
profiling skills had been legendary.  Had he ever turned 
those skills onto his partner?  Michaels had no idea what 
the relationship between Dana Scully and Fox Mulder had 
been.  He knew only that they had been devoted to one 
another, would lay it all on the line in a second for one 
another.  But in all his months of partnership with Dana, 
he had never learned the true nature of that devotion.  
Friends?  Lovers?  Siblings?  Pure partners?  In fact, 
Agent Fox Mulder had been a taboo subject from the first 
day Michaels had begun work on the X-Files.

**"Listen, Agent Scully, I just want you to know, I 
understand what it's like when you've been with one partner 
for a long time.  I'm quite sure I won't always be doing 
things the way Agent Mulder did--"  "We won't be discussing 
Agent Mulder.".  Damn.  If ice could hang off words...**

This morning Dana was a million miles away.  She hated 
murder cases.  That much he had picked up on.  She withdrew 
even further than usual during the investigations.  Sucked 
in every piece of information and processed it brilliantly-
-but she wouldn't give a glimpse of how it was affecting 
her.  Not healthy.

But there was something else today, the last few days.  
Somewhere else her mind was going that he would not be 
allowed to follow.

There was no point dwelling on it.  He had learned the 
futility of such pursuits months ago.  But it was helpful 
to note that it was there, to be aware of any potential 
degree of distraction in his partner and keep a low grade 
monitor on it.  In the foreground, he needed to turn his 
own profiling skills onto the case at hand--Why did Talia 
Carson die?

Which might have been an easier question to puzzle through 
if he could get a little help from Agent Scully.  He had 
done his job.  He had familiarized himself with the past X-
Files, focused most readily on the ones with thick folders 
and most especially on those in which the names Fox Mulder 
and Dana Scully appeared as more than just "investigating 
agents".

Dana Scully had a chip in her neck.  An unidentified 
computer chip, which she had had removed, and then 
inexplicably had put back.  Clearly she knew more about 
where to look for the next potential victim in this case 
than he did.  With her past experience, she had to be 
toying with theories on who might want these women dead, 
theories that were beyond what Michaels himself would ever 
surmise from the facts on the page.  Dana had hinted to him 
on far more than one occasion that she and Mulder had 
investigated the majority of their cases to a far deeper 
level than that which made it into the official reports.  
Michaels was acting without all the information, and he 
couldn't deny that made him a little bit angry.

Though it was hard to look at Dana Scully and stay angry.  
She was too clearly the walking wounded.  Even if she 
refused to deal with her lingering grief in the healthiest 
of fashions, he couldn't help but feel for her.  He knew 
what it was to lose someone central to your life, and he 
knew how it could throw your world off its axis.  During 
his third year of college, Michaels had been in love with a 
beautiful co-ed named Sara.  They had been together two 
years, they had talked about getting engaged.  Michaels had 
had no doubts he wanted to marry Sara, spend his life with 
her.  Then one day she had gotten in a car with a friend 
she thought was sober enough to drive.  The next morning, 
his world had exploded.  If he hadn't met Amanda the 
following year, he might never have gotten his life back on 
track.

But more young women were going to die.  And he and Agent 
Scully weren't working together.  Not really.  She was 
pulling further and further away and he was no longer able 
to track the paths her mind might follow.  In the weeks 
before this case had come across their desk, Dana had been 
opening up to him.  Talking.  Smiling, even.  She no longer 
flinched when he touched her, didn't back up when he 
entered her personal space.  He had been grateful the jump 
in progress had come just in time for their first major 
case together.  But as the investigation progressed they 
had been losing personal ground by leaps and bounds.  They 
were clicking on the rote investigative procedures, their 
interrogations were slick, synchronized.  But the 
guesswork, the deductions, the instinctive decisions on 
direction and focus--on these, their chemistry was failing.  
Dana's walls were growing too high to climb.

Something had to shift before they could see through the 
killer's eyes.  He was as certain of that as he was of the 
inevitable end of this unforgiving winter.

He hoped she knew it, too.


*****


The Grand Street Music Shoppe didn't open to the public 
until ten.  Apparently none of the shops along this quaint 
little section of Grand Street did, because Scully was able 
to ease the sedan into one of several open places just 
outside the music shop door.

The eclectic mix of shops, the white iron street lamps and 
tightly packed storefronts, reminded her of the University 
district she had frequented in her college days.  She and 
Daniel had had their first cup of coffee together in a 
smoky little café on the corner of a street very much like 
this one.  Talia Carson had walked this street every day, 
probably reliving her own college memories each time she 
stepped out the door.  Until two weeks ago, of course, when 
whatever beauty there had been in her life had been 
eclipsed by endless black.

Scully closed her eyes for a moment as she walked beside 
Michaels across the wide brick walkway, and focused on the 
cool wind on her cheeks and throat.  *Mulder...how did you 
do this?  Day in and day out in your years in VCU?  Did 
these kinds of thoughts run through your head on every 
case?  Did you know they ran through mine?*

Scully pulled off her glove and tapped the backs of her 
knuckles on the cold glass door.  After a few moments, a 
woman appeared behind the sea of peeling stickers on the 
door.

"We're closed!" the woman shouted.  "Come back at ten 
o'clock."

Scully slapped her badge up to the cluttered glass.  A 
moment later, the woman was fishing through a giant clump 
of keys and working to free the column of locks.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked as the door at last swung 
open.  She was a plump woman, probably in her early 
thirties, dressed in a long pleated skirt and generous cowl 
neck sweater.  Her brown hair was pulled back into a 
careless ponytail, and her light eyes stood out without the 
help of make-up.

"I'm Agent Scully and this is Agent Michaels.  We're 
investigating the death of Talia Carson.  Did you know Ms. 
Carson?"

With this, the woman's previously indifferent countenance 
grew pale and intense.  "Oh, my God.  Yeah.  Yeah, of 
course, I knew Tally.  She worked here forever.  She was 
here when I started.  Everybody knew her.  Please, come 
in."

Scully gave a polite nod and followed the woman further 
into the store.  As they walked, she took a cursory survey 
of her surroundings.  Rote cataloging shifted to interest 
as her eyes moved over rows of polished violins, an antique 
cello, a hand carved mahogany music stand, bins of music 
books, new and used.  She was almost disappointed when the 
woman ahead of them stopped at a counter along the far 
wall.  At the register a second young woman, mousy and 
petite, was sorting through credit card slips.  She looked 
up as they approached, something like fear in her eyes.

"Amy," the first woman said softly.  "They're from the FBI, 
they're here about Talia."  She turned back to Scully.  
"I'm Jessie Tugman and this is Amy Bester.  How can we 
help?  We talked to the police, back when..."

Scully nodded.  "I know you did, and we appreciate it.  
We've read the reports.  But now that the case is under our 
jurisdiction, it would be helpful if we could speak to you 
directly."

Jessie nodded.  "What do you need to know?"

"Did you suspect in any way that Talia might be in danger 
before she disappeared?  Did she say anything to you or did 
you see anything out of the ordinary during the previous 
weeks or months?"

Jessie and Amy exchanged glances.  The receipts slipped 
from Amy's slender fingers and she pushed them aside into a 
disorderly pile.  "There was the man," Jessie said.

"What man?" Michaels asked.

"We don't know who he was.  But he was following Talia.  
She told us about him and for a while we weren't sure if 
she was just being paranoid.  You know, you never think 
something real is happening to someone you know...until too 
late.  We thought it was an old boyfriend maybe, or someone 
with a crush...  But then he started showing up close to 
the shop.  I caught sight of him a couple of times, in the 
courtyard across the street."  Jessie pointed toward a 
patch of lawn on the far side of the street, sprinkled with 
park benches and white iron lunch tables.

"Could you describe him?"

Jessie shook her head, glanced at Amy who did the same.  "I 
only saw him from a distance.  Talia always pointed him 
out.  He usually dressed all in black.  Average height, I 
think.  White, with dark hair.  That's all I could really 
see.  He had sunglasses and sometimes a hat."

"Did you see him, too, Amy?"

The mousy girl nodded.  "Twice.  Once there in the 
courtyard when we all saw him.  And once on the street 
below Tally's apartment."

"You were at her apartment?" Scully asked.

"I was there for dinner.  And we rented a video.  Tally and 
I both liked Antonio Banderas movies, and we..." she faded 
out with a quick blush.  Scully offered a gentle smile, and 
Amy continued.  "Anyhow, I was getting ready to leave and 
it was kind of late, and so Talia walked me out to the exit 
of her building to make sure I got to my car okay.  And 
when we were talking in the doorway, we saw him down the 
street.  At least we think we did.  It was really just a 
figure just outside the light of the street lamp.  But it 
looked like he was looking our way.  And just standing 
there, not moving.  Tally was really nervous and she ended 
up asking me to stay the night.  I did stay, but the guy 
had vanished by the time we got back upstairs, and we 
didn't see him again."

Scully and Michaels exchanged glances again.  "Can you tell 
us anything else about this man?  Did Talia tell you 
anything about him?  Did she have any theories who he might 
have been or share any thoughts with either of you?"

Both women shook their heads.

"Talia was a very 'up' person," said Jessie.  "She didn't 
like to focus on anything negative, so she rarely discussed 
it."

Scully nodded quietly.  There were a dozen other questions 
spinning in her head, but there was no good way to ask 
them.  And she could feel Agent Michaels standing behind 
her, and she almost wished she could have a moment alone 
with these women, to ask a few questions she didn't want 
him to hear pass over her lips.  But protocol will-out.  
And she simply nodded again.  "Well, thank you for speaking 
with us.  I know it's difficult."  She turned, half looking 
over her shoulder.  "Agent Michaels?  Do you have anything 
else you would like to ask?"

Michaels drew a deep breath, and she had known him long 
enough to hear the implications in its resonance.  "No, I 
don't believe so.  Thank you again, Ms. Tugman, Ms. Bester.  
And please do call us if anything else comes to mind.  
Anything at all, no matter how trivial it may seem to you."  
Michaels held out two business cards between his fingers, 
and Jessie took them both, passing one to Amy.

"Thank you," Scully repeated softly, as she and Michaels 
turned to go.  Jessie saw them to the door, while Amy hung 
back at the counter.

The warm, heavy air within the shop made the crisp air 
outside a half-welcome change, though the chill had 
returned before Scully had fished out the keys to the car.  
A gust of wind pushed her hair forward across her cheeks, 
tunneling her vision onto the keys in her hands, and making 
her jump hard when a hand came down on her forearm.

"Oh, I'm sorry."  It was Amy Bester, looking as timid a 
before, even more so after Scully's startled whirl in her 
direction.

Scully cleared her throat.  "No, it's fine.  What is it, 
Amy?"

Michaels was moving around from his side of the car.  
"Something else you'd like to tell us?" he asked as he 
approached.

Amy glanced his way, seeming even more mouse-like beside 
Michaels imposing physical presence.  She hadn't stopped 
for a coat, she must have been freezing in her short plaid 
skirt and thin sweater.  Scully placed an impulsive hand on 
Amy's upper arm.  "What is it, Amy?" she asked again, her 
tone softer this time.

"It's nothing important really, I mean not to the case or 
anything, I just..."

Amy faltered, and Scully raised her eyebrows, gently 
reassuring.

Michaels, to his credit, seemed to sense Amy's greater 
degree of comfort in speaking to a petite woman, and merely 
stood by, innocuous and silent.

"Talia was my best friend," Amy continued.  "I've known her 
since we were Freshmen at the University.  She was always 
so confident, and so...she always stood up for me, you 
know?  Looked out for me.  Tally wasn't scared of much of 
anything.  She knew what she wanted in life and she 
wouldn't let anything stop her from going after it."  She 
paused a moment, her delicate features twisted as she 
wrestled to put her thoughts into words.  "Look, I know you 
can't disclose any information about the case, nothing that 
wasn't in the papers.  We've hardly had any information on 
how Tally died.  And I just...I just want to know, if there 
were knives involved.  See, Tally, she was terrified of 
knives.  That was her one real fear.  She had these 
nightmares...  She couldn't stand to watch anything tearing 
skin...  And I just need to know...did he use a knife on 
her?"

*Watch me.*

*Marks inflicted prior to time of death...*

Scully's stomach burned and the contrast to the outer cold 
made her skin crawl.  She clenched her jaw, molars sliding 
together, then apart.  The wind was pushing her hair clear 
of her face now and she found herself longing for the 
shelter.  Amy's clear, innocent eyes were staring up at her 
with aching need.  Scully broke eye contact, for a moment 
looking past Amy up the cold quiet street.  The break was 
all Amy needed.

"Oh, God..." she whispered.

"Amy...I'm sorry," Scully said quietly, her hand, still on 
Amy's upper arm, tightening its grip.

Amy was staring at the ground.  She nodded stiffly.  Then 
after a silent beat, she looked up, composure intact, and 
said clearly.  "Thank you for your honesty."

And Scully just half closed her eyes, because there was 
nothing to say, and after a moment Amy was gone and 
cocooned inside the music store once again.

Five seconds later, Michaels took his own private car keys 
out of his pocket and hurled them across the empty road.  
They skidded to a halt nearly a badly painted metal garbage 
can.

Scully spread her hands wide against the edge of the car 
roof and leaned forward, seeing only the toes of her black 
shoes when she could open her eyes at all.


*****

End Chapter 9a.  Continued in 9b...

Who knows...if you send feedback, the next chapter might 
come sooner...<eg>
bstrbabs@earthlink.net