Original story by CSM'sWife, adapted by ToonedInUK
Disclaimer: Neither myself or CSM'sWife own "The X-Files" or any of the characters (Fox Mulder, A.D.
Skinner, Dana Scully A.D. Skinner's secretary, Samantha Mulder, Duane Barry
etc.) - they are the property of CC and 1013 Productions. I do not own
"Profiler" or any of the characters (Bailey Malone, Samantha Waters, John
Grant, Grace, George Fraele etc.), they are the property of the NBC network and the creators.
Any other characters are the property of either myself or Michelle.
No real life people have been written into this story, any likeness to a
person (by name or otherwise) or event is completely unintended.
Samantha Waters' personal area
VCTF Headquarters
Atlanta
08:00 a.m.
Sam Waters was sitting at her desk when she heard a knock at the door. Before she could call out for the person to enter, Grant came in anyway.
"If the trend continues, he'll hit again today." He told her with a sigh.
"Who? The "Carver"? If my thoughts are correct, then yes, he will. Unfortunately, we can't do anything until we get some more information." Waters said, annoyance clear in the tone of her voice.
"Where's Mulder?" Grant asked, perplexed.
"He was asleep when I got up, and you know how little sleep he actually has - especially at times like this. So I left him alone."
"How is he gonna get here for our meeting at nine o'clock?"
"Oh, I'm going to pick him up in a few minutes."
"How is he, by the way?" he asked, concerned.
"Well, he's not been too affected by the burglary yesterday, but you know Mulder - he's almost certainly got it all bottled up inside."
"But he'll still be good for the investigation, right?"
"Yeah, I think so" Waters crossed over to the clothes pegs on the back of the door and grabbed her coat and left the building.
Samantha Waters' Residence
Atlanta
Georgia
07:45
Mulder once again awoke with a start, dripping in cold sweat. The nightmare still came, but now with a stronger force. He sat still for a few moments before standing up from the bed and going to take a shower.
08:15
"Mulder? Are you awake yet?" Waters called out, making sure that he could hear her. She got no answer, so she carried on up the stairs until she heard the sound of the shower being turned off. "Mulder? You in the shower?"
"Was - I'm coming out in a moment." Came a muffled reply from within the bathroom.
08:45
Both Mulder and Waters were in the car, and on their way to the VCTF Headquarters, when a man stepped into the road right in front of them. Waters slammed on the breaks and swerved in an attempt to avoid a collision. No such luck. The dull thud accompanied the sickening sight of the man's twisted face, in so much pain that it hurt too much to scream. They stopped a few feet from the point of impact, and Waters got out of the car to see who it was that they had hit whilst Mulder telephoned 911 for an ambulance. The man was wearing khakis, a green T-shirt and had his hair pulled back into a ponytail. She felt for a pulse, hoping desperately to find one. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the man's blood pumping beneath her fingers. He was still breathing, so he didn't need any CPR or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She watched the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and was soon lulled in a sleepy, as if she had been hypnotised. She was 'awoken' by an urgent pat on the shoulder from Mulder, who was crouching behind her.
"Hmm?" was the only answer she could muster.
Mulder leaned closer, and whispered in her ear "I know this man." She was shocked completely out of her state.
"What?" she asked, incredulously.
"I know this man. I met him back in D.C. when I was playing some b-ball." He told her. He was still whispering about how they had met when the sounds of a siren could be heard in the background. They got up from the floor and flagged the rapidly approaching ambulance over to them. The paramedics stepped calmly out of the vehicle and lifted the incapacitated man onto the stretcher.
St. Catherine's Hospital
Atlanta
09:30
"He should wake up before tomorrow." She told him, even though it was obvious that he wasn't listening.
He carried on gazing at the cracks in the wall. They spanned out from a single point, as if a heavy object had been thrown against it. "Resembles my life." He said to no one in particular.
"Huh?"
"The cracks in the wall." He replied. "All spanning out from that point there. Imagine that the paint is my life. When I was 12, Sam was taken, that's the force that cracked the paint and my life in the beginning." He started to explain. "Each crack represents a mistake that I've made or an inadequacy or flaw within me."
"Dana's disappearance was about as much your fault as your sister's abduction." As soon as she had said that, she realised what a mistake she had made. She saw him turn inwards into himself, and instantly regretted saying it. It was meant as an 'it's not your fault' statement, but knew that her friend still blamed himself for Samantha Mulder's disappearance - bad move. Dana Scully would never have made that mistake. She watched as he stood up to leave the room, but before he was completely out of the door, she called out to him. "It's not your fault, Mulder. You've twisted it around in your mind so that you see it that way. Don't beat yourself up about this, she'll come back." He said nothing in reply; he didn't even turn to face her, just stopped to listen and then carried on going.
11:40 a.m.
Joseph Maly had just received word from the local hospital moments ago that someone close to him had been brought in. He was hit by a car they said, but not just any car. Oh no, he was hit by a federal agent's car. He was directed towards his brother's room, but before he could reach the room, he saw a familiar face. Fox was standing by the coffee vending machine, waiting for it to finish pouring. Maly reasoned that since his brother wouldn't be going anywhere for a while, it would be OK to follow the man who was standing before him. Fox moved away from Maly, and took such big strides that he almost had to run to keep Fox in sight.
Maly hadn't noticed any of the directions he was taking whilst following Fox, but he finally came to a stop outside a room where Fox had just entered. Maly thought that he would look at the patient as he walked casually past the door. He stopped dead in his tracks. On the bed was his brother! Maly checked the room number and looked again at his comatose brother on the bed, just to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. He then came to another realisation - Fox Mulder must have been in the car that hit Andrew!
Maly entered the room somewhat cautiously. The first person he saw was not Fox, but a woman - the same blond-haired woman that he had seen Fox with since the incident in the hotel room. She had the most strange eyes - there was nothing special about them, yet he was somehow captivated by them. It took all of his willpower to look away and realised that she had been in the car that had almost killed his brother. His gaze turned to pure hatred in a split second, and she found herself unable to speak. Fox still hadn't looked up from his gaze at the wall, but that didn't matter - Maly didn't blame him. It couldn't have been Fox who was driving the car. Not from what Maly had read from the diary entries - Fox was too sharp not to avoid the poor man. It was just as well that the woman didn't say anything - he might just have lost his rag.
Maly carried on walking towards his brother's bedside, taking in every visible cut, bruise and broken body part. The most prominent was the nose. He was hooked up to numerous machines, and Maly just wanted to pull all of the sensors and needles from his twin's body. He sat down on the second chair next to the bed and picked his twin's limp hand and looked on in pain, as Andrew's eyes stayed firmly shut. Seeing him like that, Maly didn't care about what had happened in the past, the only thing left was the 'here and now'.
Mulder had finally noticed that there was someone else present in the room, and turned around to find out who the foreign body was. Maly didn't look up, so Mulder stood and started to push Waters out of the door gently to give the man some privacy. Maly wasn't having any of it - he wanted a confession from the woman.
"Who was driving the car?" he asked in monotone.
"I was." Mulder cut in before the woman with him could say anything. "I'm really sorry, I would've swerved if I could. I'm sorry." He was almost pleading.
To say that Maly was surprised at this outcome was an understatement. He allowed the pair to leave the room with no further questions, stunned into silence. His fogged mind cleared as he repeated Fox's words over and over. "I was. I'm really sorry, I would've swerved if I could. I'm sorry." What kind of an apology is that?! He thought. His shocked state of mind soon turned to one of disgust for the man that he had gotten so so wrong. What is the point of helping that sorry son-of-a-bitch if he couldn't be honest about himself even to his diary? What's up with that?! Maly wanted revenge - he was going to kill this man, it would be no mercy killing. No way. This time it would be outright murder, no amount of apologies could keep Fox from his fate.
When Waters and Mulder reached the car park, Waters exploded.
"What the hell was that, Mulder?"
"What was what?"
"Making that poor guy blame you for something I did!"
"Sam, did you have your eyes open at all in there? Did you not notice the way he was looking at you? He looked like if you said a thing he would rip your heart out and watch you die."
"Yeah, but still…"
"At least I live in DC, so he probably won't follow me anyway - I doubt he'd go that far. At he won't follow you, and it'd be easier to kill you than me - he's probably local."
"The Carver goes that far." She said, ducking her head to get in the car.
VCTF Headquarters
Atlanta
Georgia
12:44pm
The meeting had been postponed due to the lack of profilers until three hours later. At the end of the meeting almost all aspects of the case had been explored and dealt with. All were leaving to go home. Well, all except Mulder. He was looking at the map printed on A3 paper, focusing on towns and cities where the murders occurred.
"Hey John?"
"Yeah, Mulder?"
"I know you've already established that he's well off, but I'm thinking maybe he works for an internet company or something. He can't be a salesman or anything like that - the murders are too spread out over too long a period of time."
"Could be, need to talk to Sam and Bailey though, see what they think." Grant turned to face his co-worker. "Sam!"
"Yeah?"
"Mulder's got something."
"Could work for an Internet company or something similar. Some companies don't require you to be at home all the time."
"Maybe. We could check local hotels' guest listings for rooms with phone lines specifically requested."
"See if the same name keeps coming up."
"I'll go see if Bailey thinks it's a good idea. He might put George on it."
Room 13
Last Stop Hotel
Atlanta
12:50pm
Upon returning to his hotel room, Maly walked straight to the computer, jerked it open and clicked roughly on the icon to take him into Fox's diary. He still hadn't finished reading a lot of the later entries. They yielded no more interesting information, other than now Maly knew where that odd sense of déjà vu was coning from - basketball in DC.
He found it frustrating that Fox had made him rush his plans. He had wanted to take this one slow because he knew the FBI would be all over the scene like ants, more so than the other scenes, so he would have to be extra careful. Then Fox found the rings, so Maly needed a diversion. Finally, he nearly killed his brother and made him loathe the idea of being on the same planet as Fox any longer.
He decided the next night would be the night. When reading Fox's diary, Maly had noticed a pattern in Fox's sleeping. He found that Fox would sleep properly every five days, and the night of the 28th would be the next big sleep.