29th Dec
Mulder walked out to the main foyer and retrieved Scully's paper out of the basket. It was routine now. A routine he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with. For the past few days he would wake up on her couch, tidy away the blankets and pillows and start cooking breakfast. The smell of the food and rich coffee would wake her and she seemed to time her entrance into the kitchen just as it was ready. Then after eating he would collect the paper while she cleaned the dishes away.
Something nagged in his mind.
"Granted," he mused to himself. "After the amount of alcohol you drank yesterday lets just be happy you still have a mind!"
He sat on the couch and pulled the plastic wrapper off the paper. He opened it out to the property section and scanned the page for rental apartments. The hangover he was nursing reared up at the thought of having to concentrate but Mulder forced himself to focus.
Seeing a few options, he circled them and continued to read before reaching for the phone to make his enquiries. By lunchtime he had showered and changed and even managed to knock his hangover into the back of his mind.
Scully was standing in the living room, the list of viewing appointments in her hand when he walked over to her. He'd noticed she was a lot quieter than usual this morning but he hadn't been in the mood for chatting either.
"You want me to go see them with you?" she asked. "Or should I just relinquish the car keys?"
"You should come. Make sure I ask all the right questions." She nodded.
The first apartment was small and dark on the sixth floor of a very old building. There was no lift and no central heating. The water pressure was too low to do any good and it came without furniture.
Swapping glances they silently agreed it was no good for him and made their excuses to leave. The second one was closer to Scully's place. Too close, Mulder mused. But as they looked around he realized he wouldn't need to make up a reason for not living here. The walls were damp and rotten, and looked like it hadn't been decorated since Nixon was in power.
Five apartments later, he finally stepped into one that didn't repulse him at first glance. The price was a little higher than he had hoped but after the morning he'd spent, he decided to raise the bar a little.
It was on the third floor of a fairly new building. The kitchen was fully equipped but small and he argued to himself that he wouldn't be using it much anyway. The living room was spacious, airy and had a large bay window that opened out onto a small wooden deck, which overlooked views of Truxton Park.
Furniture was sparse but Mulder figured he could buy what little else he would need. He listened intently as Scully asked the important questions about property management, heating, and water pressure and then onto parking.
The Landlord told them about the underground garage for all residents, and how an outside firm cleaned the public areas weekly. Scully's expression seemed agreeable as he walked around once more before stopping beside her.
"This place is just what I'm looking for."
"Oh that's nice." The landlord was delighted and smiled at them both clasping his hands enthusiastically. He was smaller then Scully and slightly overweight but his smile was wide and sincere. "It's ready for renting immediately. When do you expect to move in?"
"Well I'm ready to rent immediately too so tomorrow if that's okay?"
Scully seemed a little shocked at Mulder's urgency but she said nothing, just plenty with her expression. She ambled out to the car as Mulder wrote out his deposit check and took a set of the keys.
When he joined her he was managing a small smile but it didn't reach his eyes. It seemed to be mostly for her benefit but she didn't want his complacency. She wanted his honesty.
"Signed and sealed," he said as she started the engine and pulled into traffic. "You'll finally have your place back to normal."
"Mmm hmm," she replied non-commitally.
"You okay Scully?"
Scully concentrated on the traffic for a moment, holding her answer inside. But the traffic was annoyingly light and didn't require 100% of her concentration.
"Scully?" he prodded again.
"It's nothing Mulder. Lovely apartment isn't it?" she tried to change the subject but he wasn't going to allow it.
"I thought I was going to be the one with the vague answers and evasive questions."
Somehow Scully kept her eyes on the road and off Mulder for the rest of the journey. They walked slowly into her apartment. Once inside, as she crossed the living room towards her bedroom he'd had enough. He grabbed her arm, turning her roughly to face him.
"What is it?"
"Mulder," Scully began her voice low and husky as she struggled to control her emotions. "I can't force you to open up to me. I can't make you tell me how you are feeling, what you are feeling or what is causing you so much pain."
Confused and sensing he was being backed into a corner he couldn't escape from; Mulder dropped her arm and took a step back.
"But I do need you to be honest with me."
"I am being honest."
"When I saw you in Seattle it was…it was…like nothing I had felt before. Suddenly after missing you for so long, never expecting to see you again and finally accepting that fact, then there you were."
"I missed you too Scully," he managed with a crooked smile.
"No Mulder!" she bit back angrily, scaring him with the sudden change in her demeanor. "You don't get it! What happened in Seattle…between us…was a result of all those emotions building up to a point where I couldn't control them anymore."
"I don't understand."
"We can't let our emotions build up like that again." She took a step forward and pulled his left arm up. Before he realized what she was doing she had pulled back the sleeve of his sweater and held his arm out between them. "We can't let them hurt us like this again."
Mulder stared down at the scratching that covered his scar. Bleary eyed and suddenly weary he felt his shoulders slumping and his breath rattling shakily in his lungs. His lips parted as his breathing became ragged and suddenly felt his chest constricting, his ribs closing in and tightening making it hard for him to breathe. He tried to focus on his arm but his eyes were swimming with unshed tears.
"Mulder?" She said resting a hand on his shoulder but he shrugged her off. Turning abruptly away from her he headed out the door and slammed it behind him.
3Rd Street Youth Hostel
Thursday
30th Dec 7.20AM
The smell was beginning to creep downstairs. Although the halls were small and cramped and the rooms even smaller, James Boland had never known such a bad stench coming from his rooms before.
Fifteen years he had been running this youth hostel and he tried his best to give the kids what they needed; hot meals and a friendly ear to listen, a measure of confidence. He never ventured into their rooms while they were occupied and imposed very few house rules to abide by, preferring instead to give the responsibility to the kids to keep this place running.
And for the most part, he decided smugly, it worked.
For three days now the smell had been lurking in one of the rooms on the first floor. But this was Christmas, his busiest time. Kids from all over the state were coming into the city to purge on the good will of shoppers and they usually ended up at his place. But this was too much. Some of the kids were complaining about the smell and when he knew for a fact that most of his patrons hadn't touched a bar of soap in over a year, for them to be complaining he knew enough was enough.
As he stepped up the wide staircase to the first floor he found the smell stronger and nauseating. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth to hold the smell back but it did little to affect the stench.
He checked the roster in his hand and saw only three of the rooms were occupied. All the other kids had signed out for the early morning rush into the city. When he knocked on the first door a small kid of about fifteen, opened it swiftly- he also held his shirt over his nose and mouth,
"You know what that smell is Miguel?" James asked.
"No sir!" he said with a cough. "But whatever it is you need to find it now, it's making me ill!"
"Open the window in there!" James called as he moved further up the hall.
A girl who had a scarf tied around her face opened the second door just as quickly this time.
"You gonna fix the smell Jimmy?" she called out as he turned to leave.
"Trying. Open the window in there, it might help."
"You kiddin? It's minus thirty out there!" she said looking out at the snow-covered window.
"Die of the cold or die of the smell?"
"Great choice!" she called after him as he ventured further on.
The final occupied room was at the end of the hall but James had to stop as he came closer. The reek was overpowering, making his eyes water and forcing bile up to his throat threatening an exodus from his body.
"Oh Christ…" he muttered, pulling his tee shirt up tighter and trying to hold his breath. He checked the roster and knocked on the door with his elbow. "Jonathan Blake?" he called out with a strained voice but there was no reply. He knocked again, this time louder and fumbled for the set of keys in his pocket.
"Jonathan Blake? If you don't answer I'm coming in," he shouted, shaking the right key loose, to let him know it wasn't an empty threat.
After another moment of silence James slid the key into the lock and twisted it to the left. As he heard the bolt slide out, he listened to the room for another minute to see if he could hear anybody. There was nothing.
He pushed the door opened slowly and stepped into the room. With his feet glued to the spot and mouth open, he stared down at the remains of the room's occupant naked on the wood floor. Jonathan's body was twisted and contorted as if he had fallen from a great height. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling but they were gray and clouded. Slash marks on his wrists gaped open, exposing veins ripped so completely that the blood had poured out and pooled in strange concentric circles beneath each hand.
"Oh my god!" James cried, covering his mouth from the stench as his eyes watered painfully.