Husband, Pennsylvania, 9:43 p.m.
by Emma Brightman
CATEGORY: VA, UST
RATING: PG
TIMELINE: Season 4, mid-Leonard Betts
As always, many thanks go out to JET for fabulous beta and even more fabulous friendship.
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She was beginning to hate Pennsylvania. She and Mulder had spent more time in the state in the past few months than they had in all the previous years of their partnership combined, each excursion taking more out of them than the one before. When they'd crossed back over the state line two hours before she'd shivered, though with the arid warmth rushing at her face and feet from the car's heater she wasn't cold.
"Someone just walked over your grave," Mulder had said, chuckling, but she couldn't bring herself to smile. Talk of graves, however flippant, held no amusement for her after the horrors of their recent cases. In her nightmares babies' cries rose out of the ground, from tiny mouths full of sodden earth. Shoes tacky with blood and brains glued her to Sheriff Taylor's polished wood floor as she screamed, unable to escape the Peacocks' animal fury.
Some mornings she woke stiff and exhausted, having dreamt all night of Mulder lying slumped against her in a Philadelphia alley, drugged and helpless, his dead weight pinning her to the ground while she struggled unsuccessfully to reach her holstered gun.
And all her hours, waking and sleeping, were haunted by the grief she'd seen cloud Mulder's eyes in Norristown, as they watched Frank Sparks clutch the dirty nightgown that had been his daughter's shroud.
The Quaker State definitely wasn't living up to its promise of brotherly love. Or at least, as Mulder had joked on the way back to D.C. after the Peacocks' escape, not the kind of brotherly love William Penn had envisioned.
Scully stood beside the rental car, powdery snow fluttering into her hair and sliding down into her collar. She tugged the passenger door handle again, as if her will alone would make it open this time. In her mind she could already hear Mulder spinning his explanation of her psychokinetic powers, could see his chicken scratch notes in the X-file:
At 9:43 p.m. on Thursday, December 12, 1996, at a gas station in Husband, Pennsylvania, Special Agent Dana Scully channeled anger at her partner into the ability to pick locks with her mind.
It wasn't anger she felt as she peered through the car window at the keys hanging in the ignition, however, simply fatigue. They'd spent four hours driving from Pittsburgh to the University of Maryland, all so Chuck Burks could entrance Mulder with some hokum about coronal discharge and the life force in salamander tails, and now they were on their way back none the wiser, at least as far as she was concerned.
The polymerized cross-section of Leonard Betts' head they'd rushed to College Park that morning was in an evidence bag in the back seat, beneath her soft cashmere gloves and a bag of Mulder's sunflower seeds. Sometimes she couldn't believe how strange her life had become.
She and Mulder were waiting for roadside assistance to arrive and unlock the doors. Scully huffed into her hands and walked toward the convenience store. Inside Mulder was buying them coffee. Standing on the curb in front of empty handicapped parking spaces, she stomped her feet and pulled her coat more tightly around her. At least she was out of the snow beneath the store's metal awning.
Mulder pushed through the door, his coat blowing open in the breeze. "I got you decaf, Scully, I hope that's okay," he said, handing her a cup.
She took it from him, wrapping her hands around the hot, thin paper. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Just as long as it's warm."
The coffee smelled wonderful, the nutty aroma making her empty stomach growl. Maybe she should have had Mulder buy her some food as well. She inhaled the steam, letting it warm her face.
"I figured you wouldn't want caffeine at this time of night," he said, sipping his drink. "Listen, I've been thinking about Betts' mother."
Scully swallowed, coffee burning pleasantly in her throat. "You mean Albert Tanner's mother," she said.
Mulder nodded, impatient. "Whoever's mother. The headless-guy-wandering-around-Pittsburgh's mother. Whatever mutation, whatever it is that has allowed him to not only live with a brain riddled with cancer, but to actually thrive to such an extent that he could regenerate his head, it had to have come from somewhere, right? Could it be genetic? Maybe his mother's the same way."
"Hmm," Scully murmured noncommittally. She was still hung up on the notion that Mulder truly thought a human being could regenerate whole body parts, including a head. The how of it was beyond her ability to conjecture without dinner in her stomach.
Beside her Mulder bounced up and down on his toes, his exhaled fog of breath as ephemeral and impossible to capture as the proof of all his farfetched theories. As tired as he had to be, he was still a bundle of barely contained energy, weaving his science fiction fantasies and attempting to engage her in their usual intellectual badinage. Personally, she wanted nothing more than to collapse in bed and sleep for eight or nine hours.
"Well, whatever either one of them is, we have to find them and talk to them first," she said. "Which obviously isn't going to happen tonight."
She looked at her watch. How long until someone got here to open the door? Maybe they should have called the police instead of the rental agency's helpline. Surely that would've been faster, but Mulder had argued that being the butt of local law's jokes about how many G-men it took to unlock a car door was more than he could handle at this hour.
"We'll talk to Mrs. Tanner first thing in the morning," Mulder said. He cocked his head and looked at her appraisingly. "Don't you find this at all exciting, Scully? As a scientist, to be on the verge of discovering someone so beyond the realm of what's known to be possible?"
"I do, Mulder," she replied. "Believe it or not I want to find out exactly what's happening here as much as you do. I just can't get too excited about something so patently implausible until I have more proof. Not to mention a bath and a good night's sleep."
Mulder nodded. "Sorry again about the keys. I heard the car dinging at me, but the door was already slamming shut and it was too late."
She glanced up at his profile, noticing how red the cold made his nose. There were dark circles under his eyes and his jaw was rough with end-of-the-day stubble. She was reminded of him stumbling into the hospital in Providence, half sick and reeking of gasoline, of him crying in her arms as his mother lay gravely ill, and felt a wave of affection for him she couldn't tamp down.
"Anyone can lock their keys in the car," she said. "It's not a big deal."
"Yeah, but twice in one month?" He shook his head, embarrassed. "That's pathetic, Scully, I don't know where my head's been. At least you weren't with me the first time I did it."
She hid a smile in her coffee cup. "No, I just had to bail out of Sunday brunch to bring you my copy of your car key that time."
He ducked his head sheepishly. "I did thank you for that, didn't I?" he asked.
"You did," she replied. She looked at him, debating whether or not to disclose what she'd purposely neglected to tell him at the time.
"What?" he said, seeing her hesitation.
"Well...it's just that to be honest I probably should have thanked you," she confessed. "My mom had invited a couple of old friends who were in town visiting from California, along with their unmarried son. It was getting...uncomfortable."
Mulder smirked. "Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match?"
"Something like that," she said. "You gave me an out."
Scully sighed at the memory of the earnest, soft-featured man who had introduced himself with a clammy handshake and a Silence of the Lambs joke before launching into the details of his fascinating job in San Jose. He was a perfectly nice guy: smart, well-spoken, polite. He was also utterly boring. Mulder's call had been more of a relief than she wanted to admit, and she'd volunteered to rescue him with only the pretence of annoyance at his interrupting her day off.
The long drive from her mother's house to Mulder's gym on a Sunday afternoon, simply to hand him his key and stand in the parking lot discussing the scientific feasibility of teleportation for twenty minutes, made her happier than spending a day with family and friends of family. She tried not to dwell for long on what that meant about her life, not to mention her personality.
Mulder's voice interrupted her thoughts. "So what are this dreamboat's vital statistics, Scully? Age, occupation, children?"
Scully groaned inwardly. She knew she shouldn't have said anything. A curious Mulder could be exasperating, and though they didn't often discuss their personal lives, when he wanted to know about something he was relentless. She'd once spent hours during a long, boring stakeout answering his questions about her peripatetic childhood - the places she'd lived, favorite subjects in school, the books she'd read, what it had felt like to always be the new kid on the block.
She was not going to talk about the current topic for hours, however. "Forty-two, computer programmer, no children," she replied succinctly.
"What else?" Mulder asked, continuing his interrogation. "Is he divorced like the other guy was?" He took a gulp of his now cool coffee and watched the parking lot as intently as if he expected a UFO to land there any second.
"The other guy?" Her brow furrowed as she searched her memory. She was genuinely puzzled; as far as she could recall there had been no one since she'd been assigned to the X-files and her work had become her life.
"That guy you dated a few years ago," Mulder replied. He continued studiously avoiding her gaze. "The one with the kid."
Finally it dawned on her - Rob. Or was it Rod? Ellen's friend, that was all she really remembered about him. Even Ellen was a fading memory, someone she'd barely spoken to in years, as her daily existence became far removed from anyone except Mulder.
"I hardly 'dated' him," she said. "Not that it's really your business. We went out once, three or four years ago. I can barely even remember that myself. How did you?"
He finally looked at her, shrugging. "I don't know," he said. "Eidetic memory, Oxford grad, all-around bright young man?"
Scully chuckled and he smiled. "Right," she said. "I'd forgotten about all that."
"So, divorced...?" Mulder pressed.
"Never married."
"Ohhh!" Mulder groaned, clutching his chest and looking pained. "A never-married forty-two-year-old computer programmer who goes on vacation with his parents. The puzzle pieces are coming together."
She felt herself pursing her lips in what Melissa had always called her spinster schoolmarm look, suddenly feeling the intense and illogical need to defend a man she hadn't been able to get away from fast enough a couple of weeks before. It felt as if Mulder were making fun of her as well, and it rankled.
"Like you have room to talk, Mulder," she said, feeling petty and mean even as the words came out of her mouth. "In case you've forgotten, you're not getting any younger yourself and you've never been married."
Scully cringed. God knew she hated anyone bringing up her own age and marital status, as always seemed to happen when she was with her mother or her mother's friends. She glanced at Mulder, expecting him to be hurt or at least annoyed at her words. Instead he watched her with an odd expression, as if sizing her up and trying to decide what to say.
"To tell you the truth, Scully, I…" he said, his voice fading. He smiled almost sadly and nodded his head. "Yeah, I guess you've got me there."
Scully looked anxiously at her watch again. If only time was as malleable as Mulder always claimed, she would turn back the clock to before this stupid conversation had started and before he'd locked the keys in the car. To before they'd come back to this godforsaken state in the first place.
"Well, I can't say I'm sorry your mother has such bad taste in fix-ups," Mulder said lightly. "After all, who'd argue with me about past lives and El Chupacabra and make me dig through vats of medical waste if you ran off and got hitched on me?"
"Yeah, God forbid I should have a life," she muttered, sounding more irritable than she'd intended to but unable to stop herself. She knew he had meant to compliment her or thank her, something to smooth things over and lighten the mood, but in truth the comment bothered her for reasons she preferred not to examine too closely. Mulder's shoulders slumped and he eyed her warily, no doubt thinking, as she was, that this was why they didn't usually talk about anything personal.
They stood in awkward silence, both searching the street in front of them for signs of the roadside assistance they needed now more than ever. Her head began to ache. She needed food and sleep, and for them to solve this case as quickly as possible so they could go back home.
"Listen, Mulder," she began, trying to think of a way to apologize without being too obvious about it. They didn't have straightforward conversations about their feelings or their lives, and somehow that worked for them. When they stepped too far outside their professional boundaries things got messy and uncomfortable, as they just had. "I...I'm really tired. It's been a long day."
Mulder nodded. "I'm tired, too, Scully," he said quietly. He tossed his coffee cup into a nearby trash can, then took her empty cup and did the same with it. He looked at her, his face carefully blank. "You should go inside. It's freezing and we don't know how much longer this guy will take getting here. I'll keep an eye out."
Scully hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded and walked past him. She needed to shake off this bad mood that had somehow taken hold of her and get back on an even keel with Mulder. They still had a long drive ahead of them. Maybe she'd grab them a couple of the terrible convenience store hot dogs he liked as a peace offering.
"Scully, wait," he called, catching her sleeve before she reached the door.
She turned back to him. "What is it, Mulder?" she asked wearily.
"Come here," he said. He gently pulled her toward him beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights and tipped her chin up with his fingertips so he could better see her face. Her breath caught as he leaned down, his face growing blurry as it drew closer to hers.
Suddenly she felt sick and lightheaded, her heart racing. She couldn't let him kiss her just because she'd snapped at him and complained about having no life. After everything they'd been through together as partners it was foolish, insane. She felt herself beginning to sweat, in spite of the icy wind tossing her hair.
"Mulder," she breathed, her eyes focused on his lips, slightly chapped by the wind, so close that she could feel his warm breath on her skin. He smelled like coffee and his familiar, musky cologne. She forced herself not to close her eyes. Say something, she told herself, tell him to stop.
Before she could open her mouth to speak, though, she felt him thrust his handkerchief into her hand.
"Scully, your nose is bleeding," he said, releasing her chin and wiping beneath his own nose to show her where. "Just a little, but you might want to check it out in the restroom."
Something warm and wet slid down to her upper lip, and she pressed the handkerchief to her face. When she pulled it away there were three bright crimson smears staining the pristine white cotton.
"Oh," she said, surprised. She hadn't had a nosebleed since she was twelve years old and Charles' badly aimed baseball hit her in the face. She held the cloth to her nose again. "It's probably from sitting in front of the heater for too long." She sniffed, the coppery taste of blood running down her throat, making her cough. "Too much dry air. It's nothing."
Mulder nodded, then looked out at the parking lot as a truck pulled up and honked.
"That's him," he said, striding out to meet the man getting out of the truck with a box of tools in his hand. "I'll get the car warm while you wash up, okay?"
Scully nodded and pulled open the door, encountering a warm wall of air. Her throat ached, and the store's light was so strong and white after the semi-darkness outside that she found her eyes watering. She swiped at them, careless of her makeup, and ignored the cashier's gawking as she wove blindly between shelves of candy bars and potato chips to the back of the store.
The dingy restroom was humidity cloaked, bathed in a faint aroma of urine and lemon-scented ammonia that made her stomach lurch. All but one bulb in the light fixture above the mirror had burned out and the room was painted with shadows. A desiccated moth lay next to the sink, as if it hadn't quite made it to the light that had lured it in.
Her hands finally thawed as she ran them under warm water in the sink while wetting a paper towel. It was ridiculous, she thought, imagining Mulder was going to kiss her. She sighed with relief knowing she had been mistaken, her headache starting to recede and her stomach starting to unknot.
After all, she had worked hard to keep their relationship professional all these years. In her heart she knew how easily she could be drawn in by his wounded soul, by the vulnerability in his eyes. She'd already been captured by the brilliance of his mind and his passion for their work, and that was enough for her. Some days, in some moods, it was more than enough.
Thank God it had been nothing. A winter nosebleed was trivial compared to the inevitable implosion of their partnership that would take place if one of them ever crossed the line.
In the mirror her face was spectral, mascara smudged bruise-like beneath her eyes. She made sure the bleeding had stopped, then wiped her skin with the damp paper towel. Her hair was tangled and windblown, and she smoothed it down before stepping out of the restroom and back into the store.
Clipping past the cashier without a glance she pushed her way outside, back into the cold and dark. Another hour and a half's drive to their hotel in Pittsburgh, and who knew how many more days of interviews, stakeouts, and autopsies before this case was over. She felt weary, chilled down to the bone.
Approaching the sedan she heard the engine vibrating unhappily, the heater sapping its strength. The interior light was on and through the windshield she could see Mulder, his head down as he flipped through the case file. The small muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched as he read. He ran a hand over his face.
Scully's impractical, too-thin shoes pinched as she made her way carefully toward the car, trying to avoid patches of ice. Still, she skidded and nearly fell, wobbling ungracefully with arms outstretched before catching herself and standing upright.
Mulder tossed the file in the back seat and turned off the overhead light as she drew near, but didn't glance her way as she opened the door and got in her seat. She didn't really expect him to.
end
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Author's Notes:
* There really is a Husband, Pennsylvania. Apparently it's off the I-70, and you pass it on the way from the University of Maryland, College Park to Pittsburgh. (Thank you, Yahoo! Maps.) There my knowledge of the place ends, so please chalk up anything incorrect to artistic license.
* It is entirely possible for an otherwise intelligent person to lock his or her keys inside the car twice in one month, or even one week. Don't ask me how I know this. ::cough::
* You do remember where the next episode, Never Again, takes place, don't you?
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