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.
.divide.and.conquer.
Scully sat at the table and
flipped open the slim grey laptop, kicking off her shoes and taking a sip of
tea. Mulder walked over and leaned over
her shoulder. "What are you
thinking, Scully?"
She glanced up. "If the company is going public now,
there may be some new information on the Internet from the other cities where
an office is opening. At the very least
we may be able to determine the scale of this." She dropped her gaze back to the computer, taking a deep
breath. After another moment, she spoke
again, her words softly cutting to the heart and the truth of all they were
facing. "I know it won't do much,
Mulder, but it's the only thing I can think to do right now." He nodded, knowing too well the feeling he
had seen in her eyes -- the quiet desperation, the futility, the need to do
something, anything really, and the overwhelming feeling that nothing could
ever make a difference.
After a moment he stood and
walked to the door. Scully turned
around. "Mulder? Where are you going?"
He looked at her and waved an
empty package of sunflower seeds, smiling sheepishly. She rolled her eyes. "Come on, Mulder. Can't you
live without those things?"
"You wouldn't deny Popeye
his spinach, would you, Scully?"
She groaned and rolled her eyes
again. "And what if someone sees
you?"
"Snack machine's just around
the corner, Scully," he said, opening the door. He shot her the 'hey-it's-me' look. "Be back in a flash."
She smiled in spite of herself
and turned back around to the computer.
The men walked silently,
navigating without a word down the maze of mulberry-carpeted corridors. Finally, the bald man stopped and held up
his hand. He glanced around at the others. One man stepped forward, withdrew a small
white plastic card from his pocket, and inserted it into the door. It clicked open without a sound, and the men
advanced quietly into the room.
Scully heard a noise behind her
and turned with a small welcoming smile to greet Mulder.
The smile disappeared instantly
when she saw the men.
She shot up, automatically
preparing to defend herself, her service weapon in hand. At that moment, the last man entered the
room, dragging a man in a choke hold with a gun to his head.
"Mulder!"
She watched, helpless, as Mulder
struggled in the man's grip. She
glanced up sharply as a suit-clad man stepped forward, keeping something with a
silencer trained on her as he did so. "Put down your gun."
Unwilling to surrender, she
glanced around at the men, her mind searching furiously for some way of
escape. Her silence was mistaken for
indifference, and the man holding Mulder slid back the hammer on the gun with a
vicious yank at his neck. Her breath
caught softly, and she looked desperately at Mulder. He returned her gaze, mouthing raggedly, "Scully,
don't..."
Scully felt a deep sense of
failure and sadness as she raised her hands in surrender and set her gun on the
floor. The man nodded and smiled
grimly, then signaled with a crook of his finger. Two men detached themselves from the group and strode over to
Scully, pinning her arms roughly behind her back. The man on the right shoved a small white cloth over her
mouth. As she recognized the sickening
sweet smell of chloroform, her gaze returned to Mulder's face. As their eyes met, his face twisted in a
grin, and the man holding Mulder released his grip. Suddenly, a man was standing before Scully, a man that she had
seen only several times before. A man
who had looked like her partner only a moment before and now was someone
impossibly different. Her eyes widened
as she realized what had happened, but by then the chloroform had begun to take
effect. Her vision greyed as she
collapsed in the men's arms.
Mulder grit his teeth in
frustration as the vending machine spit his dollar bill back on the floor
again. Fishing in his pocket, he found
some change, fed the coins to the machine, and punched the buttons for sunflower
seeds. Nothing happened. He hit the buttons again, with no
result. His mind flashing back to a
similar time, he walked around to look behind the machine, hoping with a wry
smile that this time it was plugged in.
As he bent down to check the
plug, he heard approaching footsteps. Some old instinct born out of paranoia made him stay behind the machine
out of sight until they left. He
glanced at the first man's face and his blood ran cold.
The man from the lobby, his face
hard and grim.
He had to get back, to warn
Scully somehow.
But...then
why are they walking away from our room?
His mind couldn't consider this
at the moment and he instantly forgot the thought as more men appeared,
stalking down the hall. He pressed
himself flat against the wall, his heart racing. If they saw him, there'd be no way he could escape. And then they'd go after Scully...and he'd
have to watch as they took her.
He shut his eyes momentarily,
shoving away from his mind's eye images of her being taken. When he opened them, he realized that the
men's footsteps were farther down the hall by now, and he dared to shoot a
glance down the hallway. When he did,
the last of the men was turning the corner. He stepped into the hall, looking around for anyone else, then he broke
into a run in the direction of their room, hoping against hope that they hadn't
been able to find the room.
U.S. 60 East
9:07 a.m.
The black sedan, flanked by
several jeeps, cruised down the road away from the hotel. Inside, a woman lay, apparently unconscious,
between two neatly dressed men. Two
small handguns lay on the seats next to the two men, and each man had a hand
casually resting on the weapon closest to him, eyes never straying from their
gaze straight ahead.
A tinny ringing sound could be
heard suddenly -- though the men in the back seat never showed the slightest
flicker of interest, and the woman never moved -- and the man in the passenger
seat of the car smoothly opened a cell phone and raised it to his ear.
"Yes?"
The voice on the other end spoke,
the sound hollow and metallic over the cell phone. "Have you met with success?"
The man in the car allowed his
gaze to touch briefly on the unconscious woman, and answered, "Partial
success, sir."
"Only partial?"
He frowned. "Yes...he was not there when we
entered, but his partner was, and she is in our custody now. We left a man behind in case he comes
back."
There was a pause, and the man
spoke again, after a moment, to fill the silence rather than endure it. "Sir, we can be ready in an hour if
this is inade--"
"No," came the voice,
smirking and smug in its self-assured brilliancy. "Let him be."
Waiting momentarily for an
explanation, and receiving none, the man inquired, in a tone of slight
confusion, "Sir?"
"Divide and conquer,"
the voice proclaimed. "If these
two are separated, their primary focus will be on finding each other again, not
on this...obsessive quest for the truth, as they see it." His tone was drenched in disdain. "No, leave Mulder alone. His concern and even love for his partner
will fill his head; he won't be able to think about anything else. He'll blames himself, his concentration will
be gone...without her, he's really nothing more than a paranoid lunatic. Besides, it may even leave him open to
certain...possibilities?" The
harsh smile in the man's voice was impossible to miss.
The first man nodded, though he
knew the caller wouldn't be able to see, and murmured "All right,"
into the phone, then hung up, taking another glance at Agent Scully before
signaling the driver to take the next exit for the I-295.
[JLK1]Delete later