Title: "Credidi me Felem Vidisse"
Author: KimotoCat
Rating: PG-13
Summary, disclaimer and all that are in part 1.
Credidi me Felem Vidisse
Part 4
"I don't know why I am doing this," Scully muttered. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, examining the unconscious Kimoto Takita. "The right thing to do would be to inform the Bureau about this whole affair."
"The right thing to do does not always produce the right result," Mulder muttered. "How is she?"
"Medically speaking she is on a high dosage of a narcotic drug, most likely a sedative," Scully explained. "In so far as I can judge her from human standards, which I am no longer sure about, she has been overdosed, poisoned, but not in a lethal degree. She should, however, be under professional supervision in stead of this."
"Why Scully, I thought you were a professional," Mulder smiled, then he got serious again. "What more can we do?"
"Keep an eye on her. Make sure she gets some liquid. Water, naturally. She is sweating badly and has also lost bodily fluids in other ways," Scully explained. "You said she told you she needed water? I believe that to be true, judging from her symptoms. For now, all we can do is wait and see."
"So she is not in any serious danger?"
"To be honest, I can't tell exactly," Scully admitted with a sigh, getting up from Kim's bed. "What I can say, is that she has been drugged and that she's probably going to sleep for some time. What I can say, is that this is not the best solution."
"I don't think there's a better one right now," Mulder said, dumping himself into a chair by the window.
"No," Scully nodded, also going for a chair. "And that's just the problem. Neither do I."
The two agents went silent for a moment, as they tried to relax and await the next events in this increasingly strange adventure. The next logical step would be to question Kimoto Takita about this Vandenberg-character, but she could hardly speak at the moment.
"I can't just sit here," Scully suddenly exclaimed and got up from her chair. "Look, I'll go to a friend of mine and get hold of some medicine for Kim. Then we'll be able to anticipate the future with a little more ease, okay?"
"Sure," Mulder answered, adjusting himself in the chair. "I'll wait here."
Scully got her purse and secured her weapon, then she went out through the door and left the motel, wanting to do something other than just sit there.
o o o
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
Mulder was brutally jerked out of his chair by the loud cry of Kim's voice. He jumped up, snatching his gun before he really knew what was happening. Then he noticed, that the feline was twisting and turning in the bed and that her fear, whatever causing it, was not a fear visible to him.
He put the gun back into its holster and went to the bed, trying to calm her down, grasping onto her shoulders and shaking her gently.
"Kim?"
"LEMMEBE!" she cried, making a futile attempt at slapping his face with her fatigued hand.
"Kim? It's okay, it's me, Mulder," he tried, caressing her sweaty brow gently with his one hand. "You're safe here. Really."
Kim's eyes snapped open and she stared at Mulder with tiny dark slits in her glazed eyes, obviously not recognising him.
"Kim? Can you hear me?"
"Plee-hee-heeze," she sobbed, scratching her nose with an unsteady hand.
"Kim, just relax," Mulder begged, wishing that Scully was here. He did not have a clue how cats or other felines reacted on drugs, but there was a familiar glow in Kim's eyes. Whatever Vandenberg had shot her with, it was very potent. "Kim, you're safe here."
"Nooo, never safe," Kim growled. "Never! Tuan allar sera. Arrrrhhh…"
Mulder only just avoided getting vomit all over himself as Kim coiled up in violent convulsions and gave up every last bit of stomach content. All he could do was to support her weary head and try to prevent her from suffocating in it.
"There," he finally said, wiping something from her mouth with the snip of a towel. "Better now?"
"Mull…" Kim stuttered, obviously trying to focus on him.
"That's right," he smiled. "It's me, Fox Mulder. Your canine friend."
"Cannnrrhh…" She coughed.
"Just relax," Mulder continued, gently trying to push Kim back onto her pillow. "I'm here now. You're safe from Vandenberg and-"
"Vandenberg?" Kim exclaimed, her claws flying out from the tips of her fingers. "Mulder!"
"Relax, Kim," the agent insisted. "Don't try to talk now. You're safe here!"
"Vañata, eh sera lai," Kim exclaimed in a coarse voice. "Tur shieen kar, Vañata oldra sera. Vañavara, sera. Eh Vandenberg, sera!"
"I don't understand," Mulder tried, staring desperately at Kim.
"Vandenberg! He's here to take me home. I cannot…" Kim fell back onto the pillow, her eyes closing again. "Please, Mulder. I don't want to go with him."
"Take you home? I don't understand," Mulder said, studying the feline face with caution.
"Exactly what words do you not understand?" Kim snarled in a low voice, still not opening her eyes. "Vandenberg! Is! Here! To! Take! Me! Home!"
"But how…"
"He is partly from my world. From my time, see? He has the full potential of a well trained man from your future and he knows how to use it," Kim explained, wiping her brow with a tired gesture. "Guns, advanced equipment and an iron will to use it. Fake ID, tranquillisers and the worse are no problems to him. You understand now?"
"But how can he bring you back? I'm not sure I understand that. I thought you were stranded."
"I was. I am," Kim nodded. "But he came for me. I found out about it a few weeks back but managed to loose him. Now he's found me again and for some obscure reason, you and your pretty doctor-friend are following him like obedient pets. I really wish I knew what in Bill Clintons name is going on here."
"He claimed to be an FBI-agent. He loured everybody to put him in an operation where he, a guy named Simmons and Scully and I were to search for you."
"Simmons, huh? Tall, tanned and handsome?"
"That's him, yes."
"So he's here too. I guess they've found a way to travel here then. Really travel, not the rackety accidental way I did it."
"They can travel though time?" Mulder asked in a baffled voice. "But that's impossible."
"I did it, didn't I?"
"Yeah, I suppose you did, but…"
"I don't know how, but somehow they're here and obviously they know how to get back. Don't ask me how; I'm not a physicist or something."
"What you are telling me…"
"I know, but forget about logic for once. I actually had you figured as being good at that."
"Pardon?"
"Good at forgetting about logic," Kim smiled, finally opening her weary eyes and sending him a teasing glance. "You say he faked being an agent? I guess that means we cannot trust anybody from your bureau then. They may think Vandenberg is right and we're not."
"It could be like that," Mulder nodded. "I don't know how he did it, but Skinner, our AD, put him in charge of the operation."
"Trust no one," Kim smirked. "Where's Doctor Scully?"
"She went to get some medicine," Mulder explained. "She was not too sure about your condition. After all, even Scully had to admit that you're not human."
"You know," Kim said, adjusting herself against the pillow. "I would be calmer when agent Dana Scully was here again. You don't know what that man is capable of doing. If he got hold of her, she would tell him about this place within minutes. No matter what. Trust me."
"Whoa, this is getting too much," Mulder suddenly exclaimed as he got up and went to the minibar to look for some ice-tea. "A man from the future, no, two men from the future, coming here to chase a half-human who is also from the future." He found what he was looking for and eagerly opened it. "And the first two have travelled in time to get here. Are they going to take you back with them? Back to the future? And your world?"
"Guess so," Kim said, reaching for Mulder's ice-tea, which he reluctantly gave her before going to fetch another. "This means that either you are almost as safe as can be or you are in mortal danger. Either he knows something about time-paradoxes and doesn't care about you, or you and your partner are a liability to him. Unwanted witnesses, who should be swiftly and efficiently dealt with. Killed, you know. Terminated. Sleeping with the fishes."
"I get it," Mulder muttered, sipping his ice-tea. "No, actually I don't. I'm not sure."
"Relax," Kim smiled, getting further up in her bed. "If your Scully knows what she's doing, she'll be back soon. Then I can leave you both and you can forget about the whole thing. Come to think about it, I could leave you right now and you could forget the whole thing. I'm feeling much better now, thanks to this nice beverage and your considerate care."
"Nonsense, Kim," Mulder grunted. "You shouldn't go. Not now. I promised to help you, remember?"
"I have not forgotten that," Kim smiled. "Not at all. But I am a greater liability to you than anybody else around here is. If Vandenberg and his sidekick find me here, he may do something very unpleasant."
"More unpleasant than when you shot me with that gun of yours?"
"Got me there," Kim admitted. "Still upset about that? Well, sorry. I-erh…"
"Forget it," Mulder smiled. "It was an accident."
"Yeah, it was. But what ever Vandenberg does, it's rarely an accident."
"Kim, you sound like an advertisement for a cheap action-movie. Is he that bad?"
"Cynical could be the word. Practical. No nonsense."
"I see."
"And quite honestly, two nosy FBI agents left with either amnesia or worse, would hardly be among the worse of his merits, you know."
"Is he really called Vandenberg?"
"Huh?" The question seemed to take Kim by surprise. "Why shouldn't he be? Francis F Vandenberg. Never knew what the F was short off. Why?"
"Nah, just something about it. There's a 'Vandenberg Airfield' down south. Very important place. Very military and hush-hush. I figured it to be a stupid cover."
"As far as I know, it is his real name," Kim smiled. "Who knows, perhaps he has ancestors here. Whoa, I know how to stop him! We could track down his ancestors and kill'em!"
"We could do that?" Mulder hesitated.
"No, off course not. I wouldn't know if we could. Or how to. And I sure wouldn't want to kill anybody because their great-great-great-great grandchild is a menace."
"No, naturally not," Mulder smiled with relief. "Just a peculiar thought. Both this and the entire concept of time-travel. I would have sworn it couldn't be done, you know."
"Considering the things you would swear could be done," Kim smiled. "Considering that, I say you find time-travel pretty far fetched."
"I do. Well, I did," Mulder admitted. "Tell me more about it. That other world of yours. The one with the hard-core magic. Is that the reason, time-travel can be done?"
"Hey!" Kim cried out with a grin. "I just told you. I'm not a physicist or anything remotely like it. I can turn on the television but that doesn't know that I would know how to build it, okay?"
"Okay."
"But my guess is, that it is the magic," Kim sighed, suddenly holding onto her pillow with a fragile expression in her otherwise predatorial face. "The magic of that place is, how can I say it, very potent. Very strange, intangible and first of all very much in contradiction to all the laws of physics you may ever have learned about. If there's a reason for time-travel, this is it. Magic."
"What do you know about the magic?" Mulder asked, handing Kim another ice-tea.
"For real? Next to nothing," Kim sighed. "I can tell you what I've seen, but I cannot explain it."
"I'm listening." Mulder once again took a seat in one of the chairs, leaning forwards in anticipation of Kim's peculiar tales.
"Well, magic…" Kim's voice trailed off as she smiled in a peculiar and slightly inhuman way. Then she looked at Mulder again. "What can I say? Where do I start?"
"Please try," Mulder begged in a serious voice, having a sensation of adventure about this entire situation. He had encountered many things, but magic, simply pure magic, seemed much like something belonging in a fairytale. He had never really faced magic. Or at least, he had never really faced anything that substantially and evidently turned out to be real magic… "You've witnessed magic?"
"Yes. It's not easy to explain without proof, and I do wish I had some substantial evidence for you, but I don't. I have my humble self, a crossbreed from another world, but I cannot prove the existence of the magic or the magicians. You'll have to do without proof."
"I've been living most of my entire life without proof," Mulder grimaced with a sincere expression dawning in his face. "And I believe you."
"Silly thing," Kim grinned. "To believe me. Just because my future-story and my cross-breed-story could be true and because my genetic codes are not like yours, doesn't mean that the rest of me couldn't be delusional. Right?"
"Right!" Mulder laughed. "You caught me off guard there."
"Seems I'm good at that," Kim said with another predatorial laughter. "But at ease, speaking off guard. Listen."
"What?" Mulder shot out of the chair, unholstering his gun as he turned towards the door in anticipation of just about anything.
"They are here," Kim whispered.
"Vandenberg and Simmons?"
"Them!"
Hesitating, Mulder turned his attention towards Kim. Her face was a mask of calm waiting, the face of a predator. And he was not really sure, what she had talked about when she said 'Them'. He was also not too sure she knew herself.
o o o
To be continued…
