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.
.closing.in.
Friday, August 20
6:54 a.m.
Mulder awoke to find himself in
the same position he had been in when he drifted off last night. Sitting -- lying, really -- at the foot of
the bed with Scully asleep on his shoulder, he lingered for a while, enjoying
the time of peace and restfulness that exists only in the morning.
Finally realized he wasn't going
to be able to go back to sleep, despite the enticingness of the idea, Mulder
reached behind him and pulled a large pillow from the bed, then gently shifted
Scully's sleeping form to the pillow. She stirred and opened her eyes unfocusedly, mumbling "What
happened?" in bleary, faint tones.
"Shhhhh...." Mulder whispered, softly
brushing her tangled hair back from her face. "Go back to sleep...I'm just going to get some coffee." She nodded as her head dropped back into the
pillow. He stood and walked into the
bathroom, emerging again in several minutes with his face swathed in white
gauze bandages and the small tortoiseshell glasses on. Feeling ridiculous and awkward with the
clumsy but necessary disguise, he stood in the bathroom doorway for a few
moments, watching Scully curled up on the floor and wondering if he should leave
her, asleep and alone and unprotected. Then he shook apprehensive thoughts aside and headed downstairs to the
hotel coffee shop.
Scully awoke again a few minutes
after Mulder left. She sat up, slightly
disoriented, then remembering where she was, she stood up and glanced around to
see if Mulder had gone yet. The
television was still playing quietly in the background. Scully got up, walked to the small wooden
dresser was beginning to get dressed when she heard something on the TV that
caught her attention.
Mulder strode into the little
coffee shop on the ground floor of the hotel and picked up a Styrofoam cup,
forcing himself to ignore the eight or ten people that were scattered around
the lobby area drinking coffee or watching the TV that was attached to the
corner of the ceiling. He placed the
cup under the spigot for coffee and glanced around the lobby, scanning the area
for anyone who looked out of place.
"Excuse me," a voice
spoke up from behind him. Mulder
whirled around to see a balding man standing next to him, obviously waiting for
his turn at the coffee machine. Mulder
half-smiled from sheer relief and moved out of the way, muttering, "Excuse
me," as he did so. The man nodded
and began filling a cup with decaf. "You live near here?"
Mulder's mind went on alert, but
he remained pleasant and shook his head. "I'm from Michigan," he told the man.
"Oh really? Whereabouts?"
"Lansing area," Mulder
ad-libbed, getting more suspicious by the minute.
The man nodded and looked at his
coffee, then picked up a package of Sweet 'n Lo. "What, uh...happened to your face?" he asked, looking
Mulder straight in the eye.
"Car accident," Mulder
said immediately, then wished he hadn't.
The man nodded again, sympathetically. "More and more of that these
days."
Mulder eyed him momentarily. He seemed like just a tourist who was
staying in the same hotel and liked to make friendly conversation, not a
Syndicate agent. Whether he was or not,
he just stood there, silent now, stirring his coffee. Mulder finally decided it was time to leave. "Well, I've got to be heading back to
my room now, so--"
"Wait a minute," the
man said, now looking at the television at the end of the room. He gestured to the screen. "You hear about this?"
Mulder glanced up to the TV.
Scully, dressed now, switched the
TV off and walked swiftly to the bedside table. Relieved now that she had thought to put Mulder's new number on
speed dial, she slid her cell phone off the table and into her palm.
His picture, taken for his F.B.I.
badge, was plastered across the screen of the television. Forcing himself to remain calm and stay put
until he could leave quickly without attracting attention or suspicion, Mulder
watched the Good Morning America news report with the rest of the people in the
room. Just then, to his relief, his
cell phone rang.
"Hello?" Mulder said in
what he hoped was a cheery, vacationing tourist voice, glad he had remembered
not to answer with "Mulder".
"Mulder, you have to come
back up to the room. Is the television
on down there?"
"Hi, honey," he said,
for the benefit of the few people around him. "Yeah, that's right."
"I'm guessing you're not
alone," Scully said, the barest edge of amusement creeping around the
edges of her brisk tone. "Can you
get back up here without much notice?"
"All right, I'm coming right
now, sweetheart," he smiled. "Do you want any coffee...maybe a bagel or some orange juice?"
"That's good, Mulder. Just come back up as soon as you can."
"Okay then. I love you, honey."
There was a pause. "I love you too, Mulder." Then the line went dead.
Mulder smiled, his first genuine
smile since he had come downstairs, and leaned closer to the man.
"I got to go now," he
said, winking at the man. "She
hates to be left alone, if you know what I mean."
The man chuckled and Mulder
smiled, thankful for that certain camaraderie between men about the affections
of a woman. He slowly backed towards the
door. "See you later," he
said, raising one hand in farewell. The
man nodded and chuckled again. Finally,
Mulder was out the door and in the elevator.
Scully glanced up as the door to
their room opened and then sighed in relief as Mulder walked tensely through
the door and slid the chain lock into place.
"Mulder." She stood in the middle of the room, with
her hands on her hips, unwilling to let her relief show.
"I know, I know. We have to be more careful." His voice tense with stress and frustration,
he removed the glasses with one hand and began unwrapping the gauze from his
face with the other.
"That's not what I was going
to say." He glanced up, eyes wide
with guarded curiosity. She
continued. "Mulder, I think you
need to stay here from now on." His mouth opened in protest, but Scully cut him off and went on. "You are, at least to the police, a
wanted criminal. Your picture was just
put on national television in front of millions of people across the
country. Do you know what could happen
if just one person recognized you?" He sighed, realizing the truth of her words. She looked him in the eye, and her tone lowered. "No one's expecting to see me, and I
probably wouldn't be recognized if I were out by myself. Besides, my picture's not the one they're
showing. I know this isn't anything we
planned on having to do, but neither of us thought this story would get so much
coverage. Mulder," she said
gently, putting her hand on his shoulder, "You know I'm right."
He nodded slowly and looked up to
meet her gaze. "We have to find an
apartment as soon as possible."
"I know."
Mulder closed his eyes. "Scully..." he began, shaking his
head in quiet frustration. "Our
backs are up against the wall with this. We have no access to any of the F.B.I. facilities, we can't go back to
Alabama...we can't respond to the Lone Gunmen's message without attracting
attention. I can't even leave our room
anymore. How are we going to find the
truth when we've trapped ourselves in our own lie?"
Scully took his hand and looked
up into his face. "We did what we
did because we had no choice." Seeing her words were having little effect, she continued insistently. "Mulder, if the date is really set,
these people will not let you or me get in the way of their plans. Several attempts were made on both of our
lives, and I believe they weren't going to stop until we stopped looking for
answers. We could be either willfully
ignorant or dead -- or sitting in this hotel room with a reasonable amount of
freedom to search for the truth. I've
made my choice, and so have you. It
won't be easy, but the truth never is."
He nodded, reassured by her
words. They were silent together for a
little while, and then Mulder stood up. "Now what?"
She thought for a minute. "All we have to go on is the message
from the Lone Gunmen."
Mulder's eyes lit up; he was glad
to have something new to think about. "Scully, I'll bet that if we went down to another Nature's Best
office, you'd see Phillip Kahn sitting behind the desk."
Scully's brow furrowed, and
finally she gave up. "What are you
saying?"
"I think they were trying to
tell us that all the managers are the same. They're clones, Scully, just like Jeremiah Smith."
"So -- wait. If that's true, would they have the
same...shape-shifting ability that Jeremiah Smith had?"
Mulder sobered. "I hope not, Scully." She looked down, considering the
possibilities. After a minute, she
stood. "I'm going to go down to
the lobby and get a cup of tea." He nodded and switched the computer on.
Scully walked out of the elevator
and into the now crowded lobby area, hoping that her confidence would
hold. There was a line of about six
people for the coffee and hot water machines and she got in it quickly, looking
around at the crowds of people out of habit and apprehension. She was dismayed at how paranoid she had
become, but realized that their fears were grounded in reality. Which made the fear worse. Quite a vicious circle you've gotten
yourself into, Dana.
Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she again
looked around at the lobby, seeing it, she hoped, through more rational eyes
than before. Tourists were milling
about in the foyer, buying maps and travel guides and whatever else would fit
in those little fanny packs. The coffee
line had narrowed down to four people. There were yellow newspaper dispensers lined up next to the table with
the coffee and hot water, and Scully leaned down to read the headline out of
curiosity and boredom. The article was
an unmemorable piece about some plans the mayor had to donate more park space
to the city, but what caught Scully's attention as she glanced at the table of
contents was enough to make her eyes widen in alarm.
A balding man stood alone in a
desolate corner of the lobby, observing the people -- particularly the woman
with the short brown hair by the coffee -- and speaking quickly and quietly to
an invisible listener.
"I've found them."
There was a slight pause.
"The Econo Lodge just east
of downtown Richmond."
A longer pause. The man listened intently. "All right." He stepped away from the wall and walked to the waiting area. Picking up a newspaper, he seated himself in a chair near the small crowd of people and pretended to read, waiting for further instructions from the voices that spoke in his ear.