The downpour rained heavily on her face making her blink the drops away so she could see his face clearly. Looking down to the large red X he had painted on the road earlier that day she tore her eyes back up to his and she saw the cogs turning his thoughts making him believe what he saw, what he felt.
"No, wait a minute. You're saying that…that time disappeared. Time can't just disappear. It's…it's a universal invariant!" she called loudly to be heard over the rain. But before Mulder could reply the headlights from the car switched on followed by the dull roar of the engine. Mulder smiled broadly at her.
"Not in this zip code," he said before running back to the car.
With a quick glance back to the red X she ran after him standing by his side as he fumbled with the equipment case he had left in the boot. When he found what he was looking for he dashed back to the X and started to hold the small black object out into the air pointing it in all directions before pulling it closer to his face to scan it's readouts. She stood silently by his side and watched hi, her mouth slightly open and her hair stuck to her face as the rain pounded it to head.
"Okay Scully, Lets get out of this rain," he said as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and ushered her back to the car and into the passenger seat. She remained silent for the journey and said nothing as they parted ways to go to their separate rooms.
Mulder closed his door behind him leaning back on it to shut it firmly. With a low chuckle he stripped of his shirt and jumper, peeling them off his back where they clung tightly with rain. Undoing hid jeans he slowly pulled them down his legs and stepped out of them and his boxers leaving a trail of sodden clothes lead to the bathroom. After a quick shower he patted his body dry and lay onto the bed to tired, to ecstatic to dress but too cold not to.
He looked at his watch and smiled at the thought of nine minutes. Nine missing minutes. He knew she didn't believe him but he could still see his watch so clearly. As he dressed he could just imagine her sitting at her laptop disparaging all his thoughts and ideas and he couldn't understand her disbelief when she had been sitting next to him, sharing the moment, savouring the taste of the fear and excitement, feeling the heat of the white light and the loss of power in the car.
But suddenly as the room plunged into darkness his thought halted as Mulder bolted from the bed to grab his gun only to catch his feet in the clothes he'd dropped earlier and fall to the floor landing against the rough carpet on his face. Cursing he pulled his legs free and walked to the window where he saw the whole building was down and the rain was falling even heavier now than before. He smiled a little at his momentary panic and bent to gather the wet clothes. He draped them over the radiators and searched the room for some candles. In a small box at the bottom of the wardrobe he found two large thick candles and a hotel branded box of matches.
"How convenient," he muttered as he carried them back to the bed and lit one and placed it on the locker beside him. But as he was about to drop the other on the table by the window there was an urgent knock on the door. Expecting to see the Manager with a torch and an apology, he wasn't prepared for the sight of his new partner clad in only a cotton red robe, glancing at him worriedly with a visible tremble shaking her small body.
"Hi," he stammered through his shock.
"I want you to look at something," she said, both of her hands holding her robe like a lifeline.
"Come on in," he said standing back from the door to let her out of the harsh weather.
She took a few steps into the room and half turned away from him. He closed the door after her shutting them into a silent cocoon where her tension was amplified. With only a momentary hesitation she uttered a silent prayer and undid her robe. Showing him her bareback she tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked down her back to what she was here to show him. For a moment Mulder froze. The sight of so much her creamy skin shocked him and it was a few seconds before he took a tentative step towards her. Catching her scared glance he let his eyes wander down the expanse of her back and held the candle closer to get a better look. He followed his eyes and lowered his body to see the small red spots that had risen on the bottom of her back just above her underwear.
"What are they?" she asked unable to keep the quiver from her voice. "What are they?"
Although he could tell they were only mosquito bites he couldn't resist the urge he felt to touch her skin and let himself know if it was a soft as he was imagining. Slowly his lifted his hand and gently touched his fingertips to her lower back just below the three little bites. He could feel her little twitch as his fingers made contact and he held back the small smile. A wave of pleasure washed over him so he tore his hand away before they could probe further.
"Mosquito bites," he said as he stood up letting his eyes pour over her back while it stood in front o f him.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I got eaten up myself out there."
She gasped with relief and in one fluid motion she pulled her robe tightly around her and turned into his chest leaning heavily against him making him stumble back a step.
"You okay?" he asked as his hand carefully touched her, patting her softly in an awkward attempt at a hug. It had been a long time since he had been at the receiving end of an embrace and he and all but forgotten how to react.
"Yes." She pulled away from him and tightened her robe, embarrassed now at her actions, at her panic and fear.
"You're shaking," he said plainly shocked at her reactions, at her trust in him and her need for little comfort.
"I need to sit down."
"Take your time," he said as he took a seat opposite her and watched her carefully.
They sat in silence for a few minute as Scully let her breathing calm down and her embarrassment fade. She felt a new blush forcing its way across her body and face and looked down to her lap to hid it from him.
"I'm sorry," she said with a little smile as she tried to lighten the tension.
"Forget about it Scully, I'd have done the exact same thing," he admitted. "Although my robe would have been a bit more manly." She smiled at his joke and relaxed back into the chair with a sigh.
"So this is all in the day of Agent Mulder?"
"No I hardly ever get a beautiful woman pulling her clothes off in my motel room," he jibed before he could stop himself.
"I mean the case," she managed through her blush.
"Oh right. Well not really," he said shifting his weight on the chair and stretched his legs out in front of her. "I see the pattern of an X file but I rarely get to have the evidence we've collected."
"Evidence?" she said clearly confused.
"The X-Rays, the implant, the missing time..." he argued as if it were plainly obvious.
"Mulder I hardly think they could be classed as evidence."
"Why not? An implant in a nasal cavity in a body we found in the cemetery?"
"Not a human body."
"That's what I've been saying all along!" he said smiling.
"I mean it's mammalian-," she began but before she could continue a branch knocked against the window making her jump.
"You okay?" he said from her side, taking her hands and leading her over to the bed while he made sure the window wasn't about to be smashed in. Taking the candle from the table he put it on the carpet next to the bed and slid down along it's edge o sit on the floor and rest his head back onto the soft covers.
"I've never worked well with partners," he admitted frankly without looking at her.
"That's okay, most of the people I've worked with are already dead."
He let out a low chuckle that quickly escalated into a throaty laugh.
"So why did you join the FBI Dr. Scully?"
"My father is a captain in the Navy and both of my brothers are now officers. So I guess I had to distinguish myself too."
"Big catholic family," he said glancing at the cross around her neck.
"I have a sister too. But we're nothing alike."
"No?"
"She grew up the way little girls were supposed to, with dresses and dreams."
"You had no dreams Scully?"
"I guess I did but they were more along the lines of why cant I fight better or why cant I throw a curve ball." He offered a soft chuckle at her awkward admission and she smiled in return.
"My sister was like that. Always at me to teach her how to throw a curve ball or shoot hoops."
Scully didn't miss the down turn in his voice or the past tense he spoke in.
"Well I'm sure she turned fine like me," she said lightly trying to ease the mood.
"I don't know," he said looking down to his hands as the fumbled together on his outstretched legs.
"I was twelve when it happened. My sister was eight," his voice was low and Scully felt her chest constricting at the pain he clearly felt at the wound that was still so obviously raw. "She disappeared out of her bed…just gone. No note, no phone calls, no evidence of anything."
"You never found her," she said more of a statement then a question.
"Tore the family apart. No one would talk about it," he admitted and he suddenly noticed how his voice sounded so distant as if he were listening to it through a wall. He couldn't bring himself to look at her and part of his mind was screaming. Wanting to know why he was sharing this information with her, a stranger, worse he thought, a spy.
"There was no facts to confirm, nothing to offer any hope," he continued ignoring his own internal protests.
"What did you do?"
"Eventually I went off to school in England, I came back and got recruited by the bureau. Seems I had a natural aptitude for applying behaviour models to criminal cases," he said with a shrug. "My success allowed me a certain freedom to pursue my own interests. And that's when I came across the X Files."
As he finished speaking he turned to face her expecting to see a scoff or a smirk, but she sat staring at him intently, leaning up on her elbow with the blanket turned over the legs to offer what little comfort it could. And in her eyes he saw only interest and concern.
"By
accident?"
"At first it looked like a garbage dump for UFO sightings, alien abduction
reports, the kind of stuff that most people laugh at as ridiculous. But I was fascinated."
As he spoke she could see the ignition in his eyes as they lit up with a passion she could almost feel in the air around him. His face moved with his words and his greens eyes brightened in the dim room.
"I read all the cases I could get my hands on, hundreds of them. I read everything I could about paranormal phenomenon, about the occult and…"
His voice trailed off and his eyes left her loosing some of their light as the moved.
"What?" she urged him to continue.
"There's classified government information I've been trying to access, but someone has been blocking my attempts to get at it."
"Who?" she asked sitting up a bit more. "I don't understand."
"Someone at a higher level of power. The only reason I've been allowed to continue with my work is because I've made connections in congress."
"And they're afraid of what? That…that you'll leak that information?"
"You're part of that agenda, you know that." His voice was flat as he looked at her sideways trying to gauge her reaction.
"I'm not part of any agenda. You're got to trust me. I'm here just like you to solve this case."
He seemed to mull this over for a second before twisting his body and kneeling closer to her holding himself on to the bed with folded arms.
"I'm telling you this Scully because you need to know, because of what you've seen. In my research, I've worked closely with a man named Dr. Heitz Werber and he's taken me through deep regression hypnosis. I've been able to go into my won repressed memories to the night my sister disappeared." His voice was thick with tension and the words spilled out quicker than he could almost manage. "I can recall a bright light outside and a presence in the room. I was paralysed, unable to respond to my sister's calls for help."
He leaned closer still their faces close enough to feel the stifled breath that passed between them.
"Listen to me Scully," he urged his voice and eye pleading with her to believe him. "This thing exists."
"But how do you know…"
"The government knows about it, and I got to know what they're protecting. Nothing else matters to me and this is as close as I've ever gotten to it."
Their momentary silence was cut in half by the shrill ring of the phone. Mulder looked into her eyes for a second longer before reaching for the handset.
"Hello?…what? Who is this? Who is-," he said confusion in his voice as he hung up and frowned looking at her. "That was some woman…she just said Peggy O'Dell was dead."
"The girl in the wheel chair?"
"Yeah," he said standing already and searching for his jacket.
"I'll go and change," she said climbing off the bed and throwing the blanket back to the bed. With a small glance back to him she left the room with a little blush and went to dress.
"Don't change on my account," he muttered under his breath as the door closer over and her shadow passed by the window.
**I always wondered how they got from the table to the bed and what led the conversation Mulder's sister when it's obviously a topic he hides from most people…well now we can all sleep soundly at night…coz now we know! SIGH**
