Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Dean: People believe in Santa Claus - why aren't I getting hooked up every Christmas?
Sam: 'Cause you're a bad person. Vol 2 Week 12
Setting: Season Three Episode "Nisei"
AN: "Some borrowed dialogue"
Was it some sort of sign that Mulder's building supervisor smiled and greeted Scully by name as she passed him in the entryway of the building?
"Hey there, Agent Scully, Mr. Mulder out again?" The thin, wisp of a man was cheerful enough, wiping greasy hands on his coveralls. He had no way of knowing that at the moment Mulder was attempting to gain access to a secret lab attached to a train heading to Canada. Perhaps his easy-going smile might have faltered, even melted if she had mentioned the fact she was half frightened her partner was doing something terribly, terribly foolish.
"Yeah," she chose to intone instead, her answering smile tight as she fumbled for the keys she kept in her pocket. The rattled between her fingers as she punched the "up" button for the elevator. "I'm going to go check on his fish."
"Not a problem, ma'am," the little man nodded genially. "I'm just glad we have the likes of you and Agent Mulder around. Crazy things happen around this place, you know. Remember the poor, old lady last summer who shot her husband?"
She did remember…she had the been the one to call the investigative officer and have him check the woman's medical samples for the same, LSD like substance that she had found in Mulder's blood stream. "Yes, well I'm glad we can be of some small service." She wasn't sure what sort of service, given the propensity they both seemed to have for having their apartments broken into by outside parties. The bell of the elevator sounded, blessedly, as the doors opened, offering her escape.
"I'll just go upstairs then," Scully muttered awkwardly, rushing inside and punching the button for the fourth floor. It was weird enough being so familiar around this building even the super said hello….unless he suspected….she blushed at the idea that ran through her head. Honestly, did everyone just assume because two, reasonably attractive people were partnered together professionally and happened to get along well as friends it automatically meant they were sleeping with one another? Mulder had mentioned once it was on the rumor circuit. She had been horrified at the time, worried what people thought of her as an agent to even believe she would do something like that. Weren't other partners close though? Wasn't that the point of all those team-building seminars the Bureau loved to throw, building trust between agents? Seriously, how much trust was there between herself and Mulder, he had her feeding his fish?
She wasn't terribly sure, however, Mulder would return the favor with Queequeg.
Unsurprisingly, Mulder's hallway was still and silent as she entered. Did anyone bother to come out of their apartments at all here she mused as she fumbled through her keys, searching for the one with Mulder's name tagged on it. She should have noticed the sound of steps, so foreign in this setting usually, but had focused on the little brass key and singling it out from the other pieces of metal on her chain.
"Agent Scully," the voice was deep and dark, startling in the silence of Mulder's apartment. She whirled at the sound, a tall, dark man standing just outside of the shadows by the bend in the hallway, one that led to another set of apartments Scully had never seen. Mulder's informant…had he been waiting there for her? Or had he simply just stood their, betting that Mulder would come home eventually?
"What are you doing here?" The man advanced on her despite her angry accusation. Their last meeting in this place had not been a friendly one. His indifference towards Mulder's life had become clear that night, as she had desperately tried to find where her partner had gone to in the hopes of saving his life. And this stranger had been less than forthcoming. Yet he always seemed to be right on the spot should he have a need of Mulder for whatever plans he had going on in whatever shadowy realm he chose to abide in. She was hardly surprised as his dark-skinned, impassive face glared in agitated consternation, his eyes flipping down towards the keys in her hand.
"Have you spoken to Agent Mulder?" His tone was urgent, and something in his cold gaze caused the now familiar fear to sputter into life again…she knew it….she just knew it.
"No, why?" It was something of a lie. She hadn't spoken to Mulder in at least an hour.
"He's in danger." He stopped just inches away from her, a large shadow hanging over her. She tried not to shrink away from him as he loomed, hands stuffed into his dark, black trench coat.
"How do you know?" Was he watching Mulder, following his every move, just to see what he would do next, to see how to thwart it? She didn't trust this stranger and his motives? He had made it perfectly clear that Mulder and his welfare was solely dependent on whatever plans this man had. And she had no doubt that his concern for Mulder's welfare now meant precisely that Mulder had hit on something painfully close to whatever this man was involved in.
"He's tracking a train. You can't let him get on it." There was a silent threat somewhere in those words, Scully could feel it, still she chose to ignore them as she defiantly met his insistent glare and slid the key to Mulder's apartment firmly into the lock of his door.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she breathed, the words tripping off easily as she opened Mulder's door and stepped inside, intending to slam the thin door in the man's face. Before she could even get the door shut, however, one dark, leather clad hand slammed it back open, the tall man's broad shoulder's filling the doorway menacingly.
"You've got to get word to him," the man insisted, oblivious to the flash of anger that shot up through Scully, as she fairly bristled at the man's overtly high-handed demands. What in the hell made him think he could come into Mulder's home and demand she believe him and call Mulder off of whatever crazed scheme he had at the moment? As much as she would rather Mulder wasn't out there trying to do something she had no doubt would get him killed, she also knew that the only reason this man would be here now trying to bully her into doing something was because Mulder was onto something here…something that may, potentially, have something to do with what happened to her.
"Why should I trust you? You've lied to us before?" She wasn't about to back down, not to him or anyone else. She had been down this road before with another of Mulder's informants, and Mulder had nearly died because of it.
"You're wasting time," the man seethed between straight, white teeth, his black eyes flashing. "Do you understand?"
Time…what did time have to do with anything? He meant something by it, but was unwilling to come out and say it straight, to admit to something she could catch him on. He was a cautious man. He had to be she surmised, dealing in the shadows he seemed to lurk in. Time, the train was on a schedule. Would there be a certain point where it would stop somewhere and drop off the car that it had picked up elsewhere? Perhaps so that a repeat performance of the video tape's massacre could be staged? Maybe….but something told her that wasn't the likely case. The man had said time was running out…running…
"There's a bomb on that car, isn't there?" Panic rose as she almost blindly reached for her phone.
"It's not set to go off now," the man grabbed her arm even as the phone was mostly out of her pocket. "It's set to release at a certain location in Montana. The car will be detached from the train, which will continue on to Vancouver, leaving the passengers none the wiser. IN the wilderness the train will be detonated, and the evidence on board the boxcar that Mulder is looking for will be destroyed."
"What evidence is on there," she demanded hotly, yanking her arm out of the man's tight, iron grasp. Unsurprisingly his mouth clamped shut as he straightened. He was depending on her fear for her partner to override her desire to know just what it was that was being hidden on the boxcar…the very same type of boxcar that was used for the tests performed on her.
"What is on that car," she repeated again as the man's dark eyes narrowed dangerously. They were at an impasse….he wanted Mulder to avoid that boxcar, as did she. But she couldn't be sure that the man's reasons for trying to prevent Mulder's access didn't have to do with his desire to hide whatever it was on that car at the moment.
"Are you willing to gamble your partner's life on that, Agent Scully," the man asked, his voice cool and nonchalant. "You once chastised me for putting his life in danger heedlessly….are the answers really so important you would do the same thing?"
The comparison would have been laughable if the situation wasn't so deadly serious. "I have no guarantee that Mulder will do as I ask." Hell knows he usually didn't when it meant bodily harm and or bodily death.
"You're the only person he'll listen to about this," the man replied. And damn it all, she knew that too.
"Fine." Without taking her eyes off of him, she raised her phone and punched the number one on her speed dial, the one that connected straight to Mulder. She waited as it rang, praying it would go through.
"Mulder," his voice was tight and breathless on the other end. Had he gotten on the train already?
"Mulder, don't get on the train," she stuttered as quickly as possible, hoping he hadn't managed to board it yet.
There was a surprise pause on the other end, before Mulder returned, sounding querulous. "Why not?"
"Because they know where you are," she returned, her eyes meeting the man's as she spoke. "And they know what you're doing."
"Who told you that," he demanded, his suspicions immediately raised. Damn Mulder and his perception, she swore irritably to herself as she turned from the man at the door.
"Look, Mulder, it's just too dangerous."
"Who told you, Scully?" She couldn't evade this, not with him. She glanced back at the man, wondering what to even say. The man stared back at her. She knew without him saying it she couldn't tell Mulder it was him.
"It's coming, Scully." In the distance she could hear the train whistle, as the wind picked up over the static, cellular phone signal.
"Let it go," she barked, dread gripping her, knowing that it was useless. She was hardly surprised when he replied shortly, "I can't."
"Mulder…don't get on that train," she was fairly shouting now, but it was nose use. He didn't respond as she heard the train approach over the phone. "Mulder….Mulder."
There was no response. Just what in the hell was he doing?
"Mul…." Static cut in, and then her cell signal went dead. For the briefest of moments she flashed backed to the horrible moment on the road in New Mexico, when Mulder's phone cut out on her as she drove back to Washington. He had been inside one of those damnedable boxcars then too, and it had nearly killed him. She turned to the man in the doorway, eyes wide as she held the now dead phone in her hand.
"I want to know what's on that train?" She slipped the phone into her pocket, eyes flashing, not caring for the man's lethal glower.
"It doesn't matter now," he shrugged indifferently, as if he hadn't just been begging her to keep her partner from off that car not thirty seconds before.
"Our government is operating a secret railroad. They put something on that train in West Virginia, something living."
All too briefly there was a flicker of appreciation in the man's eyes; surprised she had pieced out this much. "What more is there to know," he asked maddeningly, clearly unwilling to divulge anything she hadn't already figured out.
"What the Japanese have to do with it. How a man named Ishimaru is involved." The man she remembered from her newly resurfacing memories.
"That I don't know."
Don't know Scully fumed astounded at the man's gall. He swooped in out of the shadows, filled with dire threats and horrible warnings, demanding she call her partner, telling her that it was imperative, and yet gave her nothing to help her save him. What did he know, and why was it he knew that Mulder could potentially die there…who knew Mulder was at that train car?
The man turned, making to leave, and without thinking Sully reached for her weapon, pulling it out easily enough and training it on the man. "Don't' tell me you don't know, you smug son of a bit…"
Too fast for her to even see him, the man grabbed the gun from her, easily disarming her without even leaving a bruise upon her pale skin. Stunned, she stared at her now empty hands, then up at the man, who looked torn between amusement and empathy.
"There are limits to my knowledge," he growled, his large hands nearly palming her weapon.
"I don't have time for your convenient ignorance," she snapped, tired of this stupid game they all played, this silly dance over information. Real lives were at stake…. Mulder's life was at stake.
"What were you going to do," the man taunted lightly. "Shoot me? Just like the men that shot your sister?"
The air fled her lungs as she realized what he said, the mocking glint in his eye leaving her nearly speechless. When she did speak again, her tone was accusing. "You know them too?"
"You want to know what's on that train? Who killed your sister?" His dark eyes glittered in the dim light of Mulder's apartment. "You find out what they put in your neck."
He knew about that as well…why was she not surprised. "The implant?"
"It holds more than I could ever tell you. Maybe everything you need to know."
Everything she needed to know? Her mind spun at the possibility of what he was saying. The chip perhaps did more than suppress her memory. Pendrell had said it was a microprocessor; it carried a great deal of information. Perhaps the secrets…all of the secrets to what had happed to her could be found in that one, tiny piece of silicon. But how to extract it, how did she find those secrets?
Wordlessly the man in front of her handed back her gun, handle first. Without a word she took it back as he left, moving towards the way he came, back towards the shadows he emerged out of. She watched, silent and thoughtful, thinking of the chip that she had given to Pendrell that morning. She reached into her pocket again, pulling out her phone.
She made it through the formalities of the FBI switchboard to the Sci-Crime lab, praying that she might still catch Pendrell there. She doubted it; most normal, sane people went home for the evening to enjoy what semblance of a life they had. Scully was pleasantly surprised though when Pendrell picked up at his extension.
"Agent Pendrell, it's Agent Scully," she breathed, stepping out of Mulder's apartment and closing the door behind her. "Do you have time this evening to study that chip again quickly with me?"