Under her Possession

Summary: She started the war and he's prepared to win it. At any cost

Rating: M- for adult content and some language.

Disclaimer: Only the idea is mine.

A/N: I've got to thank Brittany for witnessing my writing again. This is my first attempt at an M story, and I am sure there will be some flaws, but you've got to give a girl some credit, I'm delving into the world that few MI writers have gone before. Do not shoot me or this story will never be finished.

So it has begun.

-Sydney-

She Searches

She was staring at him again, her dark blue eyes fixed on his face. Stephen knew that she was aware that it drove him completely insane. A piece of his mind broke off and fell into oblivion every time she looked at him that way, she wanted something, and was afraid what the request would be. Swallowing deeply, he reached out and grabbed the coffee pot, realizing as soon as he did that he shouldn't have. Reaching across her to grab the handle was a mistake. Natalie eyes moved from his face to his arm, it was only several inches away from her chest. A thoughtful smirk played across her face.

He could get the coffee, pore some in his mug and politely put it back. Or he could snatch his arm back and drop it to its rightful position next to his side. The fact that he was battling sexual desires so early in the morning was not something he wanted to put up with. Natalie wasn't helping any, making it impossible to poor his coffee without the slightest shake of his hands as he did it.

Natalie took the coffee pot from him and poured herself a cup, her hands steady as she did it. She moved gracefully away from the counter and sat at the table, grabbing the newspaper Frank had left. Stephen wondered how she could be so awake when all he wanted to do was quit his job and sleep the day away. Something, he was sure, that with practice would become easier.

Talking was not an option this early in the morning, instead, he sat across from her and took a drink of his black coffee, aware that Natalie was not reading the newspaper like she was leading on, but staring at him… again. It was the forth time this morning, it was like she had this secret she was keeping from him, but just needed him to ask about. Well, he wouldn't, he refused to.

"We're in the news, once again," Natalie declared, setting down the newspaper.

Stephen looked at her, still refusing to talk, he wasn't sure if he could move his lips to form words. Natalie took a drink of her coffee and spoke again, as if knowing that this conversation was going to be solely one-sided. "Well, you are in the newspaper. The rest of us are just footnotes, and I don't get it," She said almost in a tone of argument, "because we do half of the work and you get all of the credit."

He shrugged and grabbed the paper. There was a pure hate when it came to the press, lately he had only wished to strangle any human who attempted to make a living off of writing about the death of epidemic victims. Since Central America he had made it his sole duty to make sure that Eva kept even the most moral of reporters out of his way.

In fact, reading the newspaper made him mad enough to speak, "They spelled my name wrong."

They had, spelling Stephen with a 'v' instead of the 'ph.' He despised the mistake, it made him cringe. Taking another drink of his coffee he handed the newspaper back to Natalie, making sure that no part of him touched her, the knowledge that fighting sexual desires in the morning was still not on the top of his favorites list.

Natalie took the paper and ignored his statement. It was all he was going to say for the next couple of hours. She wouldn't be able to get anything out of him and wouldn't try.

"I'll have Eva file a complaint with the local papers and maybe they will get that problem fixed," Natalie stood up and walked past him, patting him on the shoulder. She was out of the room before he realized that he had just been touched.

Natalie, she was the second most reason why he hated being divorced. How was he suppose to know if her stares and the constant pats on the shoulder weren't a subliminal message she was sending out to him. It was too early, and Stephen was fully aware that he was delving to deeply into this. But her staring had become more frequent in the recent months, and the complete moment of hope seconds after he felt her gaze was something that he had come to terms with.

And knowing that something like this would happen every morning in the NIH break room for the rest of his career, made him figure that he needed to find somebody, and find somebody fast or he just might lose his mind.

Taking another drink of his coffee, Stephen let himself think that in just an our or two that he would be a full functioning adult, and that he wouldn't be plagued by the thoughts that haunted him when he was his weakest:

The morning.

"They spelled his name wrong?" Eva declared, setting down the newspaper Natalie had handed her, "How did he take it?"

Natalie shrugged and sat down. She had become use to Stephen's odd behavior in the morning. It was something that she could look foreword to. If a case wasn't involved in an early morning wake-up call, Stephen was completely useless. He would sit and made the perfect dummy to argue against. The fact that he had even noticed that his name was spelled wrong was a miracle.

"The man's not human," Eva continued.

If they were going to discuss Stephen's humanity, Natalie would need a couple of minutes to come up with valuable information. It had been a long time since she had found evidence against him. She swore that a female could stand completely naked in front of the man and he would even budge. In fact, she was sure that he would squeeze his eyes shut and wait until the woman left. Not many men did that, not many humans did that.

"Am I going to have to go on another expedition?" She asked, looking at Eva. The last time she had searched through Stephen's office she had uncovered nothing but a medical dictionary and random patient charts lying everywhere.

"Of course you are," Eva said leaning back in her chair. Her desk was extremely cluttered that day, making Natalie fight down the urge to order her to clean it. "We all know that your detective skills are better even than Frank's. He's just good for swabbing, and the last time we had him swab Stephen's office we found out that the environment was too sterile for even simple bacteria to grow."

Natalie had to admit that another search of Stephen's office would not be harmful, she had always managed to get out of trouble when being caught. He liked to hear her say that she was just tiding up, it gave him a macho boast.

"If I do this, what will my reward be?"

Eva thought for a second, Natalie had gone through Stephen's office so many time and had been paid off with money, PTO days, and food tickets, there was nothing new to repay her with, "The knowledge that you got away with it again. Maybe this time you will find something interesting to blackmail him with. We all know how much you have been hoping to do that these last few months."
Blackmailing Stephen would be fun, she could make him do things that he would never do without that certain motivation. "Alright, I'll do it, but you've got to have Frank and Miles keep him busy for the next thirty minutes. If he catches me, I'll make sure you don't have a day off for the next year, do you hear me?"

"It's still the morning, Natalie, we don't need a distraction until he really wakes up. If you hurry you can get in and out of there without a problem."

The truth rang in her statement. Rolling her eyes, Natalie stood up and walked out of Eva's office, not even bothering to tell her friend that she would see her later. The trip to Stephen's office was faster than she thought it would be, two steps.

She tried to door, and realized that it was locked. Shaking her head, she reached into her front pocket and pulled out a bobby pin that she kept just in case. With the well practiced stick, jab, and turn, she managed to unlock the door. Natalie knew that if he ever changed his lock then she would be screwed, there was a certain way she had to fit the bobby pin in for it to unlock, a new lock would mean a new routine, one that would take her hours to learn.

Stephen office was cleaner than usual. She knew by just looking around that she wouldn't find anything in the drawers of his desk or even on his bookshelf. Anything that she hoped to find would be in the trash, in the pockets of his leather jacket, or on his computer.

The trash was clean, amazingly, his pockets were clear, and she soon found herself sitting behind the computer. Throwing glances at the office door just in case he decided to walk through in any moment. All she would have to do is claim that her computer had crashed again and he wouldn't argue, but she didn't particularly like lying to him when he was vulnerable.

This was the side of her that no one usually saw; the evil, conniving Natalie, who sought out pleasure in finding things to make Stephen squirm. It was a new hobby, actually, one she had picked up a couple months after his divorce was finalized. She couldn't picture the consequences of what might have happened if she started doing this before that.

Natalie was the queen of observation, she had watched Stephen sign onto his computer a million of times. She knew that he had never worried about her memorizing his password, or his email account, or how to mess with his computer until it spat useful information out at her. It only did it for her, she had come to learn; the computer would lock up on Miles, die completely on Frank, and never really let Eva onto Stephen's name.

What could she say, she had a way with electronics.

Using her mediocre typing skills, Natalie pecked her way through the laborious typing to get herself onto Stephen's name and email. She had learned over the last half of year, that he never saved anything to his documents folder. It was almost as if he knew that she would regularly check, but he always seemed to have interesting things in his email inbox.

She checked the older emails, his recent social life was nothing to be interested in. Her eyes searched the long list, disregarding the spam and emails that she, Frank, Miles, and Eva had sent him. It became boring, her eyes began to hurt, and Natalie started to ask herself just how long it would be until Stephen walked into his office finally feeling awake.

Just when she was thinking of giving up, Natalie's eyes past over something interesting. Granted, it was a two year old email and probably obsolete since it was from Lisa. She clicked on it and began reading, her eyes bulging and jaw dropping after each word. It didn't take very long for her to come to the conclusion that once upon a time, not so very long ago, Stephen was a very erotic man.

Almost absent mindedly, Natalie moved the mouse to press on the print button.

Three emails later and she had enough ammunition to start a war with her drowsy boss. If this didn't wake him up then nothing in the world could. She wasn't sure if she could ever look at him in the same way ever again.

In her haste to leave his office, Natalie left his computer on.

To Be continued