Title: Scars
Author: M. Edison
Archive: Please ask first.
Category: post XF Marita snip. Crossover.
Disclaimer: The X-Files universe is the property of Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox; The District is owned by...gah,
um...I dunno, it's on CBS anyway. I didn't bother to ask before I used the characters ;-) I wouldn't know who to contact
anyway.
Rating: R
Summary: post-The Truth, they shouldn't be here but they are...
Author's note: For anyone who's wondering the character of Captain Vincent Hunter is played by Richard Burgi (formerly of
the Sentinel. *happy sigh*) and is a reoccuring character on the District who I would *love* to see more of. He's got
such a fascinating backstory but we only get snips of it. Gah.

Thank you to Vanzetti for beta reading this a while back. You gave me wonderful suggestions and I thank you for them! I
did try and incorporate more of Hunter into the fic and I think even though it's only a line or two, it works better!

"Scars"
by M.
--------
She shouldn't be here, she knows that, she knows they shouldn't be doing this, he knows that too, but she is
and they are.

Marita sighs, feeling Hunter's lips migrating down the side of her throat, and she lets herself lean against
him. In return, she feels his hands slide down her arms and about her body. Her breasts press against his chest
as he guides her backward onto the bed.

Her hair spreads out around her head, a parody of a halo, and she places her hands on either side of his face with
slow deliberateness, bringing his mouth to hers.

This isn't about romance, she tells herself resolutely, for either of them. It is something else altogether.

More than sex, less than love.

She remembers the first time she saw Captain Vincent Hunter. Tall, handsome, strong features with eyes that echoed
her own. Glittering like ice chips, hard, shuttered and hinting at a true understanding of life. The knowledge that
life is rarely, if ever fair, and will not hesitate to kick you as hard as possible at every chance.

Perhaps that is why they are here. Why they do this. He saw the same in her and, as they say, misery loves company.

He is ignorant of the truth, he is the one thing in her life untouched by it, and she likes that. He doesn't know the
things she's done, the compromises and sacrifices she's been forced to make, the things she's been forced to do to
others. He doesn't know her life is not her own and never has been.

He knows there is more than she is telling him, that she has connections he cannot begin to understand, but he ignores
it. He senses, perhaps, that such knowledge comes with a price even he is not willing to pay. There is one small part
of his soul left unscarred, one part he still clings to.

In that they are different, though he does not know it. There is no part of her soul unscathed, untouched. The loss of
Alex finished it. That tiny part of her soul she had given to him, the only part that mattered of her, all that truly
was Marita has become as scarred as the rest of her. The physical signs of what was done to her have long since been
erased...but their emotional, their spiritual, evidence remains.

As his does. His scars were never physical, she knows. She knows his was a betrayal of the most human kind. He'd come
home, unexpectedly early, to find his wife and his partner in bed, making love. It was a sight forever burned into his
mind. The two people in the world he trusted most, one with his heart, the other his life...

She understood. She understood that betrayal and she understood the scars...

Just as she understands how his work, internal affairs, has furthered his change. Little sacrifices, little slips, all
of them taking him further away from the man he was, the natural distrust of his fellow officers adding to the
isolation...

She knows what it is to be the outsider, to be the one never quite deemed to be trustworthy...

That's why they are here, that's why they do this, they understand the scars...

And they don't mind them.

Finis