_Lyin' in my bed I hear the clo-ock tick and I think of you,_ Mulder heard his own voice singing flatly inside his head. _Well, that much is true._ He was sprawled on his motel bed, having just heard his digital alarm click make a tiny 'click' to the next minute, and he *was* thinking of Scully. Specifically, he was thinking about how glad he was that the walls in this particular motel were paper-thin and how good it was to be able to hear every single movement that Scully was making in her adjoining room.
Well, good for part of him. Another part, the professional part of Mulder's mind, was screaming that he shouldn't be happy at all, because how was he going to resist the temptation to strip naked and have Scully find him that way in her bed if he didn't stop listening to her take a shower? Okay, so he wasn't *quite* prepared to do that, but all the same, he wanted to go--do *something* with Scully, he didn't know what.
Stilling all motion, he focused every filament of his being on the sounds from the other room. Every droplet not hitting the porcelain, he knew, was a droplet hitting Scully's--No! Don't think about which part of her body it was hitting...which part of her wet, naked...oh, damn.
Just as Mulder had begun to let these thoughts drift through his mind, a sharp cry cut over the sound of the shower. It wasn't a cry of pain, he knew, or he would have been by her side in an instant, acting awkward and concerned at the same time. No, this was a cry of...the shower turned off, and before the last drop had plinked onto the bathmat, Mulder was on his feet, heading for his own bathroom. That hadn't been a cry of...what he thought it might have been a cry of. He was so determined of this that he was going to prove it to himself by splashing cold water on his face.
***
A sharp cry escaped Scully's lips as the soap slipped between her fingers and hit the shower floor. Bending over, she picked it up again, placing it in the soapdish. As she rinsed off, she thought about what, exactly, had been going through her head when she made her little 'confession' to Mulder that afternoon on the beach.
It was the least calculated move she had ever made since starting with the FBI. She hadn't planned it out, figured out the right time to say it, as she normally would have done with a co-worker, and what was Mulder but a co-worker? There hadn't even been a *reason* behind it. She'd just been so entranced by the view, and then Mulder had been there, and she hadn't even hesitated. Just--told him. Nothing to it.
The new silence rang in the tiny room after Scully turned off the faucet and the last drop of water hit the bathtub. Scully stepped out onto the bath mat, wrapping the not-quite-white towel around herself as she went. She heard the sound of water splashing from the next room, and wondered why they always stayed in these cruddy little motels. _They're cheap,_ she answered herself. _Standard FBI procedure: save the country's money when it comes to comfort--but when it comes to blowing things up, well, that's another story._
A crazy thought ran through Scully's head: that of pressing her ear up to the wall between her room and Mulder's. She'd be able to hear every little move he made, be able to hear his stockinged feet on the disgusting shag carpeting. _The walls have ears,_ she thought smiling, and instead crossed to her overnight bag, dragging out her wrinkled silk pajamas.
***
There was rustling in the next room now, and despite the freezing water that seemed to be all that the tap could provide, Mulder found himself thinking of the now-dressing Scully.
Fip!
Now she'd closed the overnight duffel.
Whoomph!
Now she'd dropped the...the...towel...
Mulder needed to sit down.
Sinking down onto the bed once again, Mulder knew that he'd be unable to get his mind completely off Scully, but at least he could think of something *else* about her, something not quite so...overtly...
_Whatever,_ Mulder thought, _let's just get off the subject._ He needed something distracting, something that wouldn't make him so jumpy.
How about the tone of voice she used when he'd just told her a new theory that was, besides being 'ridiculous' also 'completely unsubstantiated'? Perfect. That oughta distract him from the rustling of bedclothes coming from next door, and the soft little satisfied sigh that could just be heard above the drip from his bathroom faucet. Absolutely. He was completely distracted from that, now. Completely.
Could he actually hear her *breathing*?
Oh, crap...
This was going to be a long night.
***
"This is going to be a looooooooooong night," Percy, Laura Gratling's favorite character on her favorite soap opera, 'Hours of our Time,' asserted.
Laura laughed, looking up from buffing her nails briefly. 'Hours of our Time' was such a complex show, she was thinking, that it really took you *years* to fully grasp the characters, not *hours.* The show's credits were now beginning to run, along with the badly-recorded theme music, so Laura picked up the remote and pressed the 'power' button daintily. She returned to buffing her nails, and began, like most humans tend to do after work, to dissect her day.
Well, she hadn't had much sleep when she went to work that morning, considering what had happened the night before. She'd been so afraid that some man would show up at her door with a gun that she'd turned all the lights on in her house, only to have her neighbors show up and complain about it. But when she'd arrived at work, it had been business as usual, reassuring--coffee for Miss Perkins, sexual favor for Mr. Luke, coffee and a little peck on the cheek for Mr. Dimmesdale--until the police had shown up again.
There was a whole big setup around the boss's office, and Laura leaned around the corner to see it all. Two official-looking people had shown up to look the thing over: a tall, cute guy (_Have to flirt with him later,_ Laura noted to herself), and a short redhead who looked kind of pissed off at the cute guy. _Wonder if I should go red,_ Laura thought, touching her hair, then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Laura. New assignments have come in," Earl smiled at her smugly, holding out the papers. She took them, squinting at the tiny type, then looked back up at him. "You're my new secretary." His grin expanded. "Guess that means we'll have to do what all bosses and secretaries do."
Considering her options carefully, Laura looked him up and down. He was a slimeball if she'd ever seen one (and she had, oh, trust her, she had). Pus on his face and a sadistic gleam in his eye, Earl Stanson was a jerk, through and through. Famous for being nasty, it was a common water-cooler topic around Sail Away Industries(TM) to how he had gotten so far in the company. *Who,* in their right minds, would give *this* man a promotion? And now he had *another* one--with a corner office, no less. Laura supposed she would have to play dumb (something else she was acquainted with): "Gosh, Mr. Stanson. What *is* it that bosses and secretaries do?"
"Come to my old office and I'll show ya. I was just packing up, so there's plenty of room on the desk, if you know what I mean."
"Sorry, Mr. Stanson, I've gotta pack up *my* stuff, too. And besides," Laura thought quickly, for Laura, "those people over there," she pointed, "will probably wanting to talk to me, since I was here last night, working late. That's funny," she put a long, red fingernail to her lips, looking confused, "I didn't see you here last night, Mr. Stanson."
Grunting angrily, Stanson turned and headed towards his office as quickly as he could. That was the last time Laura saw him at work that day.
_Yup, total scumbag,_ Laura thought, setting a complex nail-buffing instrument down on her coffee table. _I wonder if I could be somebody else's secretary. I'd rather be *anyone's* secretary than his. Maybe Mr. Luke...Hell, even Mr. Dimmesdale would be better, and he's a *real* weird one..._
So wrapped up was Laura Gratling in her inner monologue that she didn't hear the soft footsteps steadily approaching the couch. And by the time the loud gunshot had resounded through her living room and out into the street, it was too late for Laura Gratling to be noticing anything at all.
***
"Neighbors heard the gunshot and called the police--to complain, apparently," the smile crept into his voice. "They showed up, found the body, made the connection, and called us."
"What's the connection?" Scully struggled to make herself heard over the driving rain hitting their umbrellas.
"No sign of a break-in, single gunshot wound to the head, close range. They think it's a 9mm in this case, too."
"Not much of a connection," she grumbled. "I'm guessing that I have to do another autopsy today?"
For the first time that morning, Mulder looked down at her. "You had breakfast yet?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
She glared at him, and said accusingly, "You don't look like someone who slept through the night."
"Do I ever sleep through the night?" A siren had been approaching from behind them, and now it cut off with a 'bwip.' Detective Jenkins, to whom they had introduced themselves the previous day, came bounding toward them, holding a newspaper over his head to hold off the rain. He stopped a few feet away and stuck out a large, manila envelope.
"Here are those tests you wanted on the substance outside the boss's door. You care to explain that to me, Agent Mulder?"
"I will after I've looked at the results," he remarked, taking the folder and opening it quickly. He scanned the pages within. "Cotton, polyester..."
"This could just be the carpet, Mulder," Scully pointed out.
"No...no, *this* is the carper." Flipping the page, he gestured. "This is...something else..." They both peered at the results for a moment, oblivious to their surroundings until Jenkins coughed lightly, shifting his stance and the newspaper above his head, which was gradually growing more and more sodden.
"Any ideas about suspects yet?"
Mulder looked up, as if he were just remembering the detective was there. "Yeah. Earl Stanson."
Instantly annoyed, Scully turned on him. "Who?" _You didn't tell me about this. Here I was, thinking about you, and you're busy--_
"I interviewed him yesterday. He got a promotion by way of the first murder."
"Well, what's the connection with this one?"
"They did *work* together." _Oops, didn't mean for it to come out *quite* that way..._
"Excuse me," Jenkins broke in, just as his newspaper collapsed, dumping rainwater all over his head with a dull-sounding splash. "Perhaps you'd like to continue this conversation at the statioin. We have records on all the employees at Sail Away Industries, not to mention coffee and a roof to keep the rain out."
Mulder shook his head, trying to shake the sound of the rain out of his ears. "All right. We'll follow you there."
"After we see the crime scene," Scully added, hoping to figure something out about a suspect herself.
"Yeah."
A close inspection of the aforementioned crime scene revealed no new information, however, so Scully sought it elsewhere. "Enlighten me, Mulder," she said, pulling open the passenger door of Mulder's rental car. "Who is this Earl Stanson?"
"A world-class asshole," he flomped into his seat, waited the half-a-second for Scully to settle into hers, and started the car. "Now Co-Executive Director at Sail away Industries." Mulder rubbed his forehead, pulling the car out into the wet street. Tired, tired, tired.
"And what makes him a suspect?"
"I dunno."
"You don't know?"
"I don't know. Something weird about him."
"'Something weird about him,'" she quoted, quirking an eyebrow. "Mulder, you know that *I* trust your hunches, but somehow I don't think that's going to hold up in court."
"You trust my hunches?" A slight smile worked its way onto Mulder's face, and he turned briefly to take a look at Scully in the passenger's seat. Amusement was his tone of choice. "Scully, I'm flattered."
Fighting the urge to smile, she said, "You gonna tell me, or what?"
"I dunno, something about him just--hit me." Scully made a slight noise of disapproval. "Plus, you know, he has the motive. And no alibi."
"He wasn't at the office at the time of the murder?"
"No, and I'm betting he wasn't working late last night, either."
"Well, I'm sure there are *other*--"
"I know."
"Then why this one?"
Mulder pulled the car into the police station parking lot and cut the engine. Jenkins had already ducked into a side entrance, it seemed, and was nowhere to be seen. The clunking of car doors closing was muffled by the rain, as well as the double 'foomp's of umbrellas opening. _If I tell her it's a gut feeling, she'll scoff. Not that I *mind* hearing her scoff...kinda nice, really, but I don't like hearing her unhappy...aw, hell. I'll just tell her._ "He had a glass eye."
"So?" she asked pointedly.
_Well, that didn't make her mad at all,_ Mulder thought sarcastically. They passed under the overhang of the building, where the water smacking onto the ground outside rang hollowly, and headed toward the glass door labled 'New Orleans PD.' A saturated figure was shivering in a small outcove, and as they approached, it startled and launched itself toward them.
"You the FBI agents?" asked the diminished man. Mulder's hand automatically started heading towards his gun, but Scully looked up at him and hummed a warning. He dropped his hand.
"Yes, that's us," Scully answered. "Can we help you, sir?"
A crash of thunder drowned out the man's answer, tailing a flash of lightning closely.
"What was that? I didn't catch it." Unbidden, Mulder's hand started towards his gun again.
"I said, I--I know who the murderer is."
***
Author's Note: Fear not, for the next chapter shall be up ASAP. Just been *extremely* busy, doing all sorts of crap that I know you don't want to hear about. Anywho, I'm halfway through the next chapter, but just to torture you until I put it up, here's a little teaser (::evil laughter::):
Scully peered disdainfully at his plate, remarking, "Mulder, if you die of food poisoning, I am going to dance on your grave."
"If you do, will you promise to imitate the Mardi Gras dancers and take off your shirt?" A hopeful smile flew across the table, along with the tantalizing odor of gumbo.
She gave him a look. "How are you going to be able to appreciate it? You'll be *dead.*"
"Scully, you without a shirt would be enough to wake any man from the dead." Winking at her, he took a bite of his dish.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...
Well, good for part of him. Another part, the professional part of Mulder's mind, was screaming that he shouldn't be happy at all, because how was he going to resist the temptation to strip naked and have Scully find him that way in her bed if he didn't stop listening to her take a shower? Okay, so he wasn't *quite* prepared to do that, but all the same, he wanted to go--do *something* with Scully, he didn't know what.
Stilling all motion, he focused every filament of his being on the sounds from the other room. Every droplet not hitting the porcelain, he knew, was a droplet hitting Scully's--No! Don't think about which part of her body it was hitting...which part of her wet, naked...oh, damn.
Just as Mulder had begun to let these thoughts drift through his mind, a sharp cry cut over the sound of the shower. It wasn't a cry of pain, he knew, or he would have been by her side in an instant, acting awkward and concerned at the same time. No, this was a cry of...the shower turned off, and before the last drop had plinked onto the bathmat, Mulder was on his feet, heading for his own bathroom. That hadn't been a cry of...what he thought it might have been a cry of. He was so determined of this that he was going to prove it to himself by splashing cold water on his face.
***
A sharp cry escaped Scully's lips as the soap slipped between her fingers and hit the shower floor. Bending over, she picked it up again, placing it in the soapdish. As she rinsed off, she thought about what, exactly, had been going through her head when she made her little 'confession' to Mulder that afternoon on the beach.
It was the least calculated move she had ever made since starting with the FBI. She hadn't planned it out, figured out the right time to say it, as she normally would have done with a co-worker, and what was Mulder but a co-worker? There hadn't even been a *reason* behind it. She'd just been so entranced by the view, and then Mulder had been there, and she hadn't even hesitated. Just--told him. Nothing to it.
The new silence rang in the tiny room after Scully turned off the faucet and the last drop of water hit the bathtub. Scully stepped out onto the bath mat, wrapping the not-quite-white towel around herself as she went. She heard the sound of water splashing from the next room, and wondered why they always stayed in these cruddy little motels. _They're cheap,_ she answered herself. _Standard FBI procedure: save the country's money when it comes to comfort--but when it comes to blowing things up, well, that's another story._
A crazy thought ran through Scully's head: that of pressing her ear up to the wall between her room and Mulder's. She'd be able to hear every little move he made, be able to hear his stockinged feet on the disgusting shag carpeting. _The walls have ears,_ she thought smiling, and instead crossed to her overnight bag, dragging out her wrinkled silk pajamas.
***
There was rustling in the next room now, and despite the freezing water that seemed to be all that the tap could provide, Mulder found himself thinking of the now-dressing Scully.
Fip!
Now she'd closed the overnight duffel.
Whoomph!
Now she'd dropped the...the...towel...
Mulder needed to sit down.
Sinking down onto the bed once again, Mulder knew that he'd be unable to get his mind completely off Scully, but at least he could think of something *else* about her, something not quite so...overtly...
_Whatever,_ Mulder thought, _let's just get off the subject._ He needed something distracting, something that wouldn't make him so jumpy.
How about the tone of voice she used when he'd just told her a new theory that was, besides being 'ridiculous' also 'completely unsubstantiated'? Perfect. That oughta distract him from the rustling of bedclothes coming from next door, and the soft little satisfied sigh that could just be heard above the drip from his bathroom faucet. Absolutely. He was completely distracted from that, now. Completely.
Could he actually hear her *breathing*?
Oh, crap...
This was going to be a long night.
***
"This is going to be a looooooooooong night," Percy, Laura Gratling's favorite character on her favorite soap opera, 'Hours of our Time,' asserted.
Laura laughed, looking up from buffing her nails briefly. 'Hours of our Time' was such a complex show, she was thinking, that it really took you *years* to fully grasp the characters, not *hours.* The show's credits were now beginning to run, along with the badly-recorded theme music, so Laura picked up the remote and pressed the 'power' button daintily. She returned to buffing her nails, and began, like most humans tend to do after work, to dissect her day.
Well, she hadn't had much sleep when she went to work that morning, considering what had happened the night before. She'd been so afraid that some man would show up at her door with a gun that she'd turned all the lights on in her house, only to have her neighbors show up and complain about it. But when she'd arrived at work, it had been business as usual, reassuring--coffee for Miss Perkins, sexual favor for Mr. Luke, coffee and a little peck on the cheek for Mr. Dimmesdale--until the police had shown up again.
There was a whole big setup around the boss's office, and Laura leaned around the corner to see it all. Two official-looking people had shown up to look the thing over: a tall, cute guy (_Have to flirt with him later,_ Laura noted to herself), and a short redhead who looked kind of pissed off at the cute guy. _Wonder if I should go red,_ Laura thought, touching her hair, then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Laura. New assignments have come in," Earl smiled at her smugly, holding out the papers. She took them, squinting at the tiny type, then looked back up at him. "You're my new secretary." His grin expanded. "Guess that means we'll have to do what all bosses and secretaries do."
Considering her options carefully, Laura looked him up and down. He was a slimeball if she'd ever seen one (and she had, oh, trust her, she had). Pus on his face and a sadistic gleam in his eye, Earl Stanson was a jerk, through and through. Famous for being nasty, it was a common water-cooler topic around Sail Away Industries(TM) to how he had gotten so far in the company. *Who,* in their right minds, would give *this* man a promotion? And now he had *another* one--with a corner office, no less. Laura supposed she would have to play dumb (something else she was acquainted with): "Gosh, Mr. Stanson. What *is* it that bosses and secretaries do?"
"Come to my old office and I'll show ya. I was just packing up, so there's plenty of room on the desk, if you know what I mean."
"Sorry, Mr. Stanson, I've gotta pack up *my* stuff, too. And besides," Laura thought quickly, for Laura, "those people over there," she pointed, "will probably wanting to talk to me, since I was here last night, working late. That's funny," she put a long, red fingernail to her lips, looking confused, "I didn't see you here last night, Mr. Stanson."
Grunting angrily, Stanson turned and headed towards his office as quickly as he could. That was the last time Laura saw him at work that day.
_Yup, total scumbag,_ Laura thought, setting a complex nail-buffing instrument down on her coffee table. _I wonder if I could be somebody else's secretary. I'd rather be *anyone's* secretary than his. Maybe Mr. Luke...Hell, even Mr. Dimmesdale would be better, and he's a *real* weird one..._
So wrapped up was Laura Gratling in her inner monologue that she didn't hear the soft footsteps steadily approaching the couch. And by the time the loud gunshot had resounded through her living room and out into the street, it was too late for Laura Gratling to be noticing anything at all.
***
"Neighbors heard the gunshot and called the police--to complain, apparently," the smile crept into his voice. "They showed up, found the body, made the connection, and called us."
"What's the connection?" Scully struggled to make herself heard over the driving rain hitting their umbrellas.
"No sign of a break-in, single gunshot wound to the head, close range. They think it's a 9mm in this case, too."
"Not much of a connection," she grumbled. "I'm guessing that I have to do another autopsy today?"
For the first time that morning, Mulder looked down at her. "You had breakfast yet?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
She glared at him, and said accusingly, "You don't look like someone who slept through the night."
"Do I ever sleep through the night?" A siren had been approaching from behind them, and now it cut off with a 'bwip.' Detective Jenkins, to whom they had introduced themselves the previous day, came bounding toward them, holding a newspaper over his head to hold off the rain. He stopped a few feet away and stuck out a large, manila envelope.
"Here are those tests you wanted on the substance outside the boss's door. You care to explain that to me, Agent Mulder?"
"I will after I've looked at the results," he remarked, taking the folder and opening it quickly. He scanned the pages within. "Cotton, polyester..."
"This could just be the carpet, Mulder," Scully pointed out.
"No...no, *this* is the carper." Flipping the page, he gestured. "This is...something else..." They both peered at the results for a moment, oblivious to their surroundings until Jenkins coughed lightly, shifting his stance and the newspaper above his head, which was gradually growing more and more sodden.
"Any ideas about suspects yet?"
Mulder looked up, as if he were just remembering the detective was there. "Yeah. Earl Stanson."
Instantly annoyed, Scully turned on him. "Who?" _You didn't tell me about this. Here I was, thinking about you, and you're busy--_
"I interviewed him yesterday. He got a promotion by way of the first murder."
"Well, what's the connection with this one?"
"They did *work* together." _Oops, didn't mean for it to come out *quite* that way..._
"Excuse me," Jenkins broke in, just as his newspaper collapsed, dumping rainwater all over his head with a dull-sounding splash. "Perhaps you'd like to continue this conversation at the statioin. We have records on all the employees at Sail Away Industries, not to mention coffee and a roof to keep the rain out."
Mulder shook his head, trying to shake the sound of the rain out of his ears. "All right. We'll follow you there."
"After we see the crime scene," Scully added, hoping to figure something out about a suspect herself.
"Yeah."
A close inspection of the aforementioned crime scene revealed no new information, however, so Scully sought it elsewhere. "Enlighten me, Mulder," she said, pulling open the passenger door of Mulder's rental car. "Who is this Earl Stanson?"
"A world-class asshole," he flomped into his seat, waited the half-a-second for Scully to settle into hers, and started the car. "Now Co-Executive Director at Sail away Industries." Mulder rubbed his forehead, pulling the car out into the wet street. Tired, tired, tired.
"And what makes him a suspect?"
"I dunno."
"You don't know?"
"I don't know. Something weird about him."
"'Something weird about him,'" she quoted, quirking an eyebrow. "Mulder, you know that *I* trust your hunches, but somehow I don't think that's going to hold up in court."
"You trust my hunches?" A slight smile worked its way onto Mulder's face, and he turned briefly to take a look at Scully in the passenger's seat. Amusement was his tone of choice. "Scully, I'm flattered."
Fighting the urge to smile, she said, "You gonna tell me, or what?"
"I dunno, something about him just--hit me." Scully made a slight noise of disapproval. "Plus, you know, he has the motive. And no alibi."
"He wasn't at the office at the time of the murder?"
"No, and I'm betting he wasn't working late last night, either."
"Well, I'm sure there are *other*--"
"I know."
"Then why this one?"
Mulder pulled the car into the police station parking lot and cut the engine. Jenkins had already ducked into a side entrance, it seemed, and was nowhere to be seen. The clunking of car doors closing was muffled by the rain, as well as the double 'foomp's of umbrellas opening. _If I tell her it's a gut feeling, she'll scoff. Not that I *mind* hearing her scoff...kinda nice, really, but I don't like hearing her unhappy...aw, hell. I'll just tell her._ "He had a glass eye."
"So?" she asked pointedly.
_Well, that didn't make her mad at all,_ Mulder thought sarcastically. They passed under the overhang of the building, where the water smacking onto the ground outside rang hollowly, and headed toward the glass door labled 'New Orleans PD.' A saturated figure was shivering in a small outcove, and as they approached, it startled and launched itself toward them.
"You the FBI agents?" asked the diminished man. Mulder's hand automatically started heading towards his gun, but Scully looked up at him and hummed a warning. He dropped his hand.
"Yes, that's us," Scully answered. "Can we help you, sir?"
A crash of thunder drowned out the man's answer, tailing a flash of lightning closely.
"What was that? I didn't catch it." Unbidden, Mulder's hand started towards his gun again.
"I said, I--I know who the murderer is."
***
Author's Note: Fear not, for the next chapter shall be up ASAP. Just been *extremely* busy, doing all sorts of crap that I know you don't want to hear about. Anywho, I'm halfway through the next chapter, but just to torture you until I put it up, here's a little teaser (::evil laughter::):
Scully peered disdainfully at his plate, remarking, "Mulder, if you die of food poisoning, I am going to dance on your grave."
"If you do, will you promise to imitate the Mardi Gras dancers and take off your shirt?" A hopeful smile flew across the table, along with the tantalizing odor of gumbo.
She gave him a look. "How are you going to be able to appreciate it? You'll be *dead.*"
"Scully, you without a shirt would be enough to wake any man from the dead." Winking at her, he took a bite of his dish.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...
