Title - Kismet
Author - Jaimee Kidder
Email - invisibleshining@ivillage.com
Rating - PG-13 (for violence)
Classification - XRA
Spoilers - Herrenvolk/Talitha Cumi, Fight the Future,
Triangle, Two Fathers/One Son, Three of a Kind
Keywords - Mulder/Scully romance
Summary - Mulder and Scully investigate a seemingly
meaningless murder in a small farming town in Alabama and suddenly find
themselves caught in the middle of events that could lead to the end.
::whirrrrr:: "I made this!"
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this
story. I wish I was Scully and owned
Mulder, but such is not the case. If I
did, this would be an episode -- or two, or five -- of the show, not some story
that Chris Carter will prob'ly never read. :) The secondary characters are mine (so there!). But Mulder, Scully, and the rest are all CC's (hail to the man!),
1013's, and Fox's. Too bad for me. ;-)
Oh yeah...and I borrowed Celine
Dion's "Because You Loved Me"...so thank you, Celine, for singing
such a lovely (and shippery) song!
.kismet.
.because.you.loved.me.
Mulder had almost finished
changing his clothes when the door flew open and Scully was standing in the
doorway. He glanced up, surprised and
mildly amused. Scully didn't appear to
notice, and as Mulder met her gaze, he saw that look in her eyes that he'd seen
only once before -- the day last summer that she had told him she was resigning
from the Bureau. He felt his blood run
cold as he looked into her eyes. She
was barely holding back tears. Something serious had happened.
"Scully?"
She walked into the room and
tossed a newspaper down on the bed nearest Mulder. He quickly pulled his pants on and sat down on the bed, picking
up the paper. It had been opened to the
"News in our Neighborhood" section. Mulder glanced up at Scully, the question in his eyes. Wordlessly, she pointed down to the bottom
of the page.
The headline read, "Nature's
Best to Open Local Office".
He looked up sharply. She nodded and whispered, "Read
it." Mulder looked down at the
paper again and read the brief article to himself.
'There's new hope for the
unemployed this fall. Nature's Best, an
agricultural company, is opening a huge facility right here in Richmond. They are planning to hire over 500 new
Richmond employees. "The company
is expanding at such a rapid rate," said Phillip Kahn, the soon-to-be
manager of the new Nature's Best office. "We are expecting to more than triple our current facility area and
land space." Because of this rapid
rate of expansion, Nature's Best will soon be opening hundreds of newly-built
offices all over the U.S. and even more than that overseas. The official grand opening is slated for
Labor Day.'
Stunned, Mulder had to reread the
article several times to convince himself of what he had just read. Then he closed his eyes and let the truth
hit him like a freight train, the newspaper dropping from his hands and falling
to the floor unheeded.
They were expanding, the article
said. Worldwide expansion. If a Nature's Best facility included any of
the things they had seen in that field in north Texas, then Mulder's darkest
nightmare probably hadn't come close to what they could be facing.
The case in Payson, South
Carolina came to Mulder's reeling mind. All those children. All those
bees.
That was only a test.
Labor Day was seventeen days
away.
A small sob caught his
attention. He looked up to see Scully
standing in front of him, shoulders slumped in despondency and tears running
down her cheeks. He stood up and took
her face in his hands, and she leaned against him, her body shaking with quiet
sobs. After a minute, she looked up
into his eyes, her own filled with tears.
"Mulder...it's been so easy
for me not to believe. To rationalize,
to push the things I don't understand to the back of my head, to stick to the
rules of science. And now...I don't
know what to believe any more...."
He pulled her closer and gently
kissed her forehead, wrapping his strong arms around the woman he adored. "Oh, Scully..." he murmured,
trying to impart to her courage he didn't really feel. He closed his eyes, a part of his mind
wishing he had never found the X-files, wishing he had never known there were
forces beyond this world that held such unfathomable power over humankind,
wishing he had met Scully at a little cafe in D.C. somewhere. But he knew that they were doing what they
were meant to be doing. Whether or not
he had believed in fate before the Cradock and Marine bank incident, he
couldn't deny that it had made him think. Maybe he and Scully were meant to be here, or maybe they were only here
through a series of choices they had made somewhere in life, but they were
here, together, in this hotel room, and this was the only place he could
imagine himself. Despite everything
that had happened, he knew with deep certainty that neither he nor Scully would
have changed anything about their lives together -- professional or otherwise.
"Mulder," she
whispered, bringing him back to the present. He looked down at her. She was
looking at him with such an expression of strength and beauty that it nearly
broke his heart. He couldn't bring
himself to speak. "Mulder...this
is really it, isn't it?" Her
words, so frank, brought Mulder's worst fears into the blinding light of
certainty. He nodded slowly. "I think so, Scully." In spite of himself, a tear slipped down his
cheek, more for Scully than the rest of the world.
She saw the tear and caressed it
away softly with her hand. He was
touched and comforted by the gesture and shut his eyes, blocking out everything
except the feel of her hand on his cheek.
The bald man's concentration was
focused on a sound no others could hear. After a moment, he breathed a nearly inaudible assent, and stood,
folding the paper and placing it on the chair behind him. He walked briskly to the elevator, paying no
attention to the men who stood and began walking in the same direction as he
went by.
By the time he reached the elevator, he was followed
by a group of ten or fifteen men, all inconspicuously dressed and each appearing
to keep to himself. Once inside, a
large, sinister-looking man placed his finger on the button for floor eleven
and glanced at the bald man, who flicked his stare in his direction and nodded
his head a fraction of an inch.
In the silence, Mulder's
attention was drawn to the radio between the beds, playing a song softly. Something about it caught his interest, and
he was aware of Scully also listening as he let the peace of the music wash
over him.
"For all those times you
stood by me
For all the truth that you made
me see
For all the joy you brought to my
life
For all the wrong that you made
right
For every dream you made come
true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful, baby
You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through
Through it all."
Mulder looked down at
Scully. Her arms were wrapped loosely
around his shoulders, her eyes closed. He simply watched her for a moment until her eyes opened to look into
his. Both were unable to look away,
their unspeaking gaze conveying more than words ever could as the words of the
song spoke for them.
"You were my strength when I
was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't
speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't
see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't
reach
You gave me faith 'cause you
believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me."
Scully looked into Mulder's eyes
and was lost in their depths. They held
such quiet passion that she couldn't move even if she had wanted to. They were bright with the glimmer of unshed
tears. She wanted desperately to
forget. Forget that in two and a half
weeks, the world would change harshly and they might lose each other
forever. As she gazed into his eyes,
she knew he was feeling the same heart-wrenching feelings. But he gave her strength, just by his
presence, and more than he could ever know. And he was there for her, with unwavering love and support. They would get through this. Together.
"You gave me wings and made
me fly
You touched my hand; I could
touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back
to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love, I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you
gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved
by you."
She was so beautiful. And as Mulder watched her, he knew the song
was affecting her as much as it was him. His hand strayed to her hair and he stroked it gently, unable to put
into words the feelings he felt. He
pulled her closer and rested his head gently on hers, closing his eyes. Impulsively, he began to rock her slowly,
savoring the strength her presence was building in him. Time had stopped for them, for the
moment.
"You were my strength when I
was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't
speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't
see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't
reach
You gave me faith 'cause you
believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me."
Mulder bent his head and crooked
a finger under Scully's chin to softly raise it. Her eyes slowly opened, long lashes lifted to reveal a stunning
blue-green. Intending to speak, his
lips parted, but words would not come. She glanced at his mouth, so close to hers, and then looked into his
eyes again, her breath and pulse quickening.
"You were always there for
me
The tender wind that carried me
A light in the dark shining your
love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies you were the
truth
My world is a better place
because of you."
Their lips met and time stopped
there -- frozen in a rainbow of hope and beauty.
"You were my strength when I
was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't
speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't
see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't
reach
You gave me faith 'cause you
believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me."
The song ended, and after another
moment so did the kiss. Scully leaned
against Mulder's chest and closed her eyes again. His hand came up to stroke her hair softly. After a minute, she spoke, her voice a
barely audible whisper.
"What are we going to
do? What can we do? We can't just stand by and wait for...it,
whatever it is, to happen."
"I know," Mulder
returned in a low tone. "I don't
know what...what we can do, but we have to do something. We have to stop this. Somehow, Scully. We'll find a way," he murmured, his words muffled, his lips
pressed to her hair. She gave a small
nod, and reluctantly moved from his arms. He let her go, watching her walk away to the other side of the room.
The man coolly watched the small
round numbers over the elevator door light up and darken in succession.
8...
9...
10...
11.
The doors slid open.