Treading Water

Treading Water

The computer screen flicked up another non-event and Fox Mulder dutifully ticked the appropriate box on the checklist. A process as automatic as it was hypnotic.

"Goodnight."

Scully's voice was unexpected. Out of place. Something alive in a sea of sensory deprivation. Suddenly he was alert and out of the trance and not wanting to say goodnight. "Maybe we could..." Maybe we could what? Do things that the other humans do? What did other humans do? He tried. "Do dinner?"

She looked surprised, He noted the tiny flicker of confusion in her eyes, she had clearly expected a home run, not a Mulder laid obstacle course. "Not tonight. I've got things arranged."

A single nod of his head and a half formed, quickly vanishing smile. "Goodnight then." There was probably something more to say, but if there was, then he couldn't recall the words.

A brisk walk to the elevator and Dana Scully was on her way. Things to do. Death and near death had a way of concentrating the mind. Being shot in the stomach had not been her first brush with mortality. It had been the circumstances that had made this one special.

So easy to die for no good reason. To die fighting was one thing, to die in a stupid accident was not acceptable. To live on your knees, as Skinner had apparently chosen, was even worse.

The only thing that spoiled her certainty that she was doing the right thing was Mulder. She hated keeping this from him. But she would hate it even more if she raised his hopes only to dash them again. Bad enough that she was raising her own hopes this way.

The lab was almost deserted. The deal she had done was working out fine. Trading autopsy and forensic inspiration for machine time had only been possible because an old Quantico classmate was running the lab. But if there was one thing Scully had learned working the X-Files, you took your opportunities as you found them.

Dana Scully was getting somewhere. Where the where in question was, she had no idea. But, for the first time in months she felt like she was making sense of the game. The lab was her territory, comfortable familiarity mixed, for the moment, with the space and freedom to experiment and learn.

Carrie Collins looked across the bench at the woman who was gatecrashing her lab. "You know, Agent Scully. That is our job."

Scully smiled non-committally and avoided explaining the unofficial status of her work. "What's the backlog like?" She shook her head. "Besides, I need to keep my hand in."

Carrie shrugged. "Then the least I can do is help you get set up to use the new software."

Scully swallowed and thought of the prized collection of floppy disks in her case, copyright 1996. "That would be..."

Carrie was already in full spate, mouse in hand. She offered a rather too fast guided tour and told Dana Scully her PC's password. Scully felt as if she should be purring or cheering or buying a bottle of champagne. But instead, she just watched and nodded her head and said thanks.

The last few months had drained her. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. Too many choices and none of them easy. Even tonight's little experiment contained no shortage of soul searching.

A dilemma. Moral and scientific. She was not in an area that could be deemed secure or a suitable site to handle a biohazard. And whatever this stuff she was investigating really was, it was a hazard. She had again forced her focus onto her own body. She was ready to roll.

Drawing blood samples from her arm had become frighteningly routine. She had almost considered leaving a valve in place, before dismissing the thought as something worse than unaesthetic. Bad enough that she was her own lab rat. She didn't want to look like one as well.

The most delicate stage of the process, she already knew that even with temperature control the sample degraded to useless within minutes of being taken. Carefully, she prepared it for testing.

God damn. How often had she told herself to switch off the cellphone before starting work. She jammed it into her neck and tried to talk. "Scully."

"It's me."

No surprise there, it had been bound to be Mulder. Who else called at all the wrong moments? "Look, I'm tied up. I'll get back to you."

Mulder returned the phone to the desk. Scully had things arranged. And he guessed that on a Friday night, so should he. But habits formed over years took more than a few weeks of scut work to shift. Scully's latest brush with death and Skinner's little horror story had hammered at his nerves again. They were still there, tingling just below his skin, firing off irrelevant little warning shots, provoking nasty, wearing, little twitches of adrenaline.

He couldn't recall when he had last spent so much time sitting down, high school maybe?

Mulder lolled back in the chair, feet resting on the desk as he thought about going home, wherever that was.

"Hi."

He opened his eyes. "Hi."

Diana Fowley frowned at the outstretched figure and checked the clock. "It's almost nine."

"Worried about whether they are paying overtime?"

She smiled. "What's the score?"

"Just off home."

"Are you ok?"

"Fine." He knew the answer, he'd had a good tutor.

"How long can you keep this up?"

He raised an eyebrow.

She stared back.

He winced, still trapped in her gaze, recognizing that she would not let him off the hook so easily. "I can't. I need your help."

She softened her expression. "What do you need?"

"Dinner."

Mulder played with the remains of Diana Fowley's food, his own plate long since empty.

"Stop it. The last time you ate cucumber was as a bet."

Mulder sat up sharply. Sudden grin. "You shouldn't have let me do it. Not a whole one. I still get the shakes when I walk past the supermarket shelf."

Her eyes relaxed. "Ah. Fox Mulder is accepting visitors again."

"Sorry." He offered. "I've been pretty crap company."

"And then some."

"I know. Playing nursemaid isn't in your job description."

"Well, now you come to mention it, no. What's wrong?"

He took a deep breath, then struggled to form a sentence. "Gibson Praise. I need to find him."

The file on the table bore the characteristic X in its identifier. Distinguishable only from a "real" X-File case folder by the absence of telltale coffee stains, dog-eared corners. Pristine condition for a phoenix from the flames. Gibson Praise. This folder painstakingly reconstructed from the computer backups and burnt paperwork.

All that was missing were the comments, the mark ups, the casual speculative innuendo that Mulder routinely added. The expression on the witnesses' faces, the linguistic analysis of the pauses in their replies. Not that it mattered. The case was recent enough that Mulder had no need of memory prompts.

God modules. If you were going into battle against a superior enemy shouldn't you go looking for advantages? Didn't you need to start stacking the cards in your favor? Where there was a Gibson, what else might there be? Where there was an Eddie Van Blundht, what other genes might be available?

His heel kicked angrily at the floor. What if that was what they were doing, those people with their helicopters and their fires and their bombs and their things to hide? What if they were busily developing supermen, breeding extra powers into their clones and hybrids.

Except. Except that they were collaborators, they had already signed over the planet, declared resistance obsolete. Hadn't they? And if they had, what if they were wrong? Didn't someone, him maybe, need to gather up these natural oddities ready for the battle?

Slammed down the folder hard onto the table so the photos flew out to land on the floor like so much confetti. Great, so now he was going to play Noah, off to gather the human animals for the arc. What next? Play God and decide which ones should be allowed to breed?

Slow down, he ordered himself, let his head rock back and unwound his shoulders. Fed the fish, admired and was soothed by the orange swirls in the water as they enthusiastically rose to meet him. Poured another coffee. Tried again.

Gibson, a kid in Federal protective custody taken by unknown gunmen. Experimented on, traumatized, defenseless. Diana Fowley, a Federal Agent seriously wounded by the kidnappers. The kid, seized again, this time from Scully's care, while undergoing hospital treatment. If he couldn't look at that without backing himself into a corner of paralysis then what use was he? Of course he could do that. No big deal. Push anything to its so called logical conclusion and it was a mess. Why bother getting out of bed? After all, you'd be dead in a hundred years. Or tomorrow.

He shifted his position on the couch and settled down to read. He'd worked the X-Files unofficially before. He'd do it again. Carefully.

Escapism. Pure and simple. Fast and furious. Hell, he'd missed this. Well, not this exactly. The endorphin rush, the adrenaline buzz, feeling his body react. Reacting to anything felt good. Alive.

If your work defines you, then not working is a sure route to suffocation. To drown. Like the shark that stops swimming.

Wrong to take pleasure in such a simple thing. Some snide little protestant work ethic nagged at his feet, tried to nail him down. Only losing the ball kicked him back into action. Failing to win had become a fact of life. Losing, remained an option he wasn't willing to take lying down. Game on.

Took pleasure in the fact that the longer he played, the more energy he was finding. Probably some lesson in that. He shook the thought away before it had chance to take hold, no point spoiling a real now for a philosophical later. Not really fit enough for this, he'd pay for it tomorrow. But then paying tomorrow was a given, as well as a pessimist's slogan.

Mulder turned and saw her. Hell. First instinct was to run to her. Weren't bouncing, happy dogs supposed to rush up and greet their owners?

"Hey, Milk, play ball."

And Mulder remembered that he was the stray, out of place. As out of place here as he was at the Bureau.

"The rock."

Mind on the woman now, he turned his body back to the play. Flicked the ball into the basket, another offence against another set of standard operating procedures. Irresistible though.

Mulder tripped through the options as he walked towards her. Why was she here? Kersh? Skinner? Because she wanted to be? Kersh was number one suspect, either he'd ordered Scully to track him down or Kersh had come hunting and she had rustled up some cover story to buy him a few hours.

"I got game."

"Yeah, you got so much game, I'm wondering if you have any work left in you."

Sure. Not unexpected. Just how far could you lean before you fell off the Bureau merry-go-round? It was an interesting question. Surprisingly far, he'd decided. Was that what Scully was asking, or was she serious? "I'm ready to J-O-B, just not on some jag off shoeshine tip."

She had smiled. Thank God, she had smiled. Mulder felt the flicker as the air between them sparked for an instant, it was still there, buried, but still there.

A DAY OR TWO LATER

It didn't take that long for Mulder and Scully to walk into the Spender disaster zone. A few hours of blissful freedom, followed by the inevitable mistake of getting caught in the act. Bureau retribution followed swiftly after that. Mulder was impressed to note that, yet again, it was surprising just how fast the management could move when it suited them.

There's a price to be paid for walking into trouble. Even walking into trouble with your eyes open doesn't make you immune. Mulder could feel the tightening of muscles and tendons as he walked out of the Hoover building and towards his car. Suspensions were an occupational hazard when you played the FBI rule book the Mulder way. This time, it felt more real, he admitted that much to himself. Administrative leave as the apparently sure and certain prelude to dismissal.

Mulder studied Scully and was grateful for the stubborn certainty of her walk and the fixed set of her jaw.

Sentence pronounced but not yet dead, he turned to her. "How about we have that dinner tonight?"

She shook her head, soft movement but made without looking at him. "I can't, I've..."

"Yeah, things. Another time. Something we won't be short of." He walked quickly away without looking back.

If he had looked back, maybe he'd have seen her apologetic goodbye wave.

He loaded himself into the car, but found that something, maybe his car or perhaps his brain, had decided that it didn't want to take him home.

It suggested a search for anonymity. It told him that it was dangerous for him to be alone. So he searched for a suitable place, somewhere to think and not think.

Diana Fowley peered into the shadows of the barroom. It was a guess. But old habits die hard and she had this feeling that Mulder hadn't had that many opportunities to pick up a new selection of favorite bars.

It was second time lucky. Easy walking distance from her old apartment. Also an easy walk from her new one she noted, amused by her own predictability.

"Hey."

He raised his empty glass in salute. "Your timing is impeccable, Sir."

She smiled. "I see. Well in that case, Agent Mulder. I suggest you get them ordered."

"Sir." He offered, feigning a move to attention before slumping back down in his chair. He was effective enough at ordering the drinks. Fowley watched, half amused, half horrified. He didn't see, or chose not to notice, her stare. "How'd you find me?"

"Lack of imagination."

Snort of a laugh in reply. "There's a new one. I'll get them to add it to the charges list. Just after breaking and entering." Another sniff of a laugh that could have been a sob.

"I was referring to my lack of imagination."

A pause. "I don't know what to do."

"Been there, seen it, done that."

He turned to her, quizzical now. "And?"

"You're lucky to have got this far without crashing."

"This far?"

"How old are you?"

"So this is a mid life crisis?"

"Dunno, how long do you expect to live?"

Mulder couldn't resist the snigger that threatened to turn into a full blown laugh. He reached towards her outstretched hand and pulled her gently forward to sit on the stool next to his. Looked back down at the glossy polished surface of the bar, softly shaking his head. "Have you found anything about Gibson Praise?"

She flinched, thrown by Mulder's startlingly sudden return to sobriety. "Not really."

"What about that the man who died in the reactor, the one who had been escorting Gibson?"

"Nothing substantial. He had worked for the DOD, took medical retirement two years ago."

"Known associates?"

"Known nothing. He wasn't under surveillance."

"Friends, people he worked with at the DOD?"

"Only one that looked interesting and he's dead. Kritschgau." She noticed Mulder wince at the name. "You knew Kritschgau?"

"I met him. Ok. What about Cassandra Spender?"

"Cassandra? All I've seen is public domain. Jeffrey doesn't talk much."

"There has to be something on file, maybe her source of income. More on her husband. On her records, or Spender's."

"Jeffrey's files? He'll be suspicious. It'll take time. If I knew what you were looking for, maybe I could come at it from a different direction."

He sagged, suddenly tired, feeling the drink again. "Don't know. I just don't know." Sighed and slumped into silence. Until at last, with an excess of controlled effort he pushed himself back to his feet and headed to the men's room.

Diana Fowley studied his retreating form, soft sad smile playing on her lips. She looked down at the debris on the bar, a line up of empty glasses, a messy heap of scrap papers dragged from some search of Mulder's pockets, a cellphone with a blank display and a flat battery.

Dana Scully scratched at the itch on her arm where she'd taken the blood. Why the hell wasn't Mulder answering his phone? She cast the thought aside again and tried to focus on the report that she had been reading. He was ok, he didn't need a babysitter.

It wasn't the first time either of them had been suspended. If she could get some evidence from this work, then it probably wouldn't be the last time either. She allowed herself a brief smile at her own joke.

She had had no choice. Tomorrow, news of her latest bout of disciplinary trouble would be all over the Bureau. Carrie Collins was friendly, but not a friend. And Carrie was far too bright a career woman to play games with an agent who was about to get formally and finally chopped. She felt a little guilty at using Carrie like this, but it wasn't as if Carrie was doing anything wrong. Legally and morally, it was right. And if Carrie got into trouble for it, then Scully would do everything she could to clear her.

Carrie reappeared at the door.

Dana Scully made sure that she was wearing an unconcerned expression before looking up. "Thanks for your help."

"Are you ok?"

Scully forced a smile. "Sure. Just a little tired. You must be too, I hadn't realized it was so late."

"I'm a night owl. Besides, that sample was too weird to miss. Where did you get that blood?"

"Crime scene." Scully spoke quickly, swallowing as her throat tightened.

"Right. Well, I'd say goodnight, but I need to lock up..."

"Oh, sure, sorry. I'll be right there." Scully spotted just how late it was.

They left together and Scully tried to think of some way to reward the woman. Something. But not now. Another night perhaps. Tonight, she still had work to do. So did Mulder.

Dana Scully frowned at her watch. It had been nearly two hours since she had tried and failed to reach Mulder, first at the apartment, then on his cellular. She'd left a message every half hour since.

Damn it. She didn't need the distraction. She wanted Mulder at home, studying his books, watching TV even, but eager to see her. Waiting for her latest report. Maybe finding her a pizza and beer as a gesture of gratitude in honor of her long day and in commiseration for their joint misery. Fat chance.

Fear cut in. What if? What if when he asked her to dinner, it had been an excuse, a plea for help. What if he really had needed her. What if he was in trouble? She tried to recall his exact words, his precise tone of voice. She tried to distinguish between the version that her nightmares offered and what she actually remembered. He was ok. Wasn't he?

For no good reason, she told herself, she decided to check his apartment and discovered that she was oddly relieved to find it empty. That was ok, it was ok for him to go out somewhere.

She drove to the Lone Gunmen's office, half expecting Mulder to be there, disappointed when he wasn't. Licking his wounds presumably. Drowning them perhaps.

In for a penny, she decided. She gave in to Frohike's badgering and allowed them to order the food. She told them about Cassandra Spender and her husband. They set to work.

The neon fluttered green over the bar and Mulder's eyes worried at his reflection shifting in and out of focus in the mirrored wall. They talked and drank and wondered about a long time ago, until Diana wasn't prepared to drink or talk any more. "Come on, Fox."

He obediently followed Diana towards the exit, not a plan or a thought in mind. ready and willing he admitted to himself, to follow anyone who took an interest. Too much physical energy available and not enough mental energy to work out what the hell to do with it. The chill wind kicked him awake as he pushed the door open. He felt the sudden arrival of a vodka too many in his head, pulled his coat a little tighter, hunted his pockets for gloves that weren't there.

"Come on." This time Diana tugged his hand to emphasize the point.

He nodded and saw his car, headed for the driving seat.

"No. You are not driving anywhere. I'll take you home."

He tried to protest and talk about taxis, but couldn't quite work out how to protest convincingly enough to make a dent on her determined move for his car keys.

Mulder felt almost sober by the time they arrived at his apartment. "I can call you a cab, or you can take my car, I'll collect it tomorrow. Whatever."

"There's no rush. We could both use a coffee. Get a few hours rest. You can take me home in the morning, then I won't have to get a cab, and you won't have to play hunt-the-car" She smiled as he fidgeted at her words. "There's always the bed." She smiled again. "I'm assuming you still sleep on the couch. Learned about beds yet?"

He replied with a barely perceptible shake of the head.

He turned the key to apartment 42 and walked inside. Fowley followed, locking and bolting the door behind them.

The kitchen beckoned, so Mulder headed straight for it. Coffee, she had said.

Diana paused for a moment or two to use the bathroom before joining him in the kitchen. When she arrived, she got straight to business, readily fitting in to share the tasks of finding cups, spoons, milk, loading the coffee maker, tracking down the unopened packet of cookies from the back of the cupboard.

Mulder felt a prickle of tension as he watched her home in on the small plates in the cupboard and the crackers in the plastic box. Nearly eight years and she still knew her way around his apartment. He sighed. Maybe that just meant that all apartments were the same.

He saw her expression change from businesslike to amused. "Sorry," she offered. "Am I too forward?"

He shook his head, his eyes clouding to something that said tears or laughter or some combination of the two were bubbling close to the surface. Not quite visible, but there nonetheless.

Diana stepped forward and squeezed his hand, then ordered him to go and sit down in the living room. "I'll get these."

The couch creaked a little as he crashed heavily into place, his head falling back onto the cushion, eyes closed, breathing a little too deliberately. Diana arrived a couple of minutes later, put the cups on the table and sat on the floor directly in front of him, her back resting close to his knee. She leaned her head to press lightly against his fingers as they draped over the arm of the couch.

He exhaled. Touch was such a simple thing. The touch of another, such a welcome relief. His fingers moved of their own accord. So easy to take pleasure in the texture of another person. So good to enjoy the springy, soft hair below his fingertips. He could hear her breathing, could sense her pulse quicken. So familiar, so novel, so fucking welcome.

She shifted so the drift of his fingers could find her cheek, then moved to capture and kiss one fingertip. She listened and watched as his breathing lost its rhythm. She turned, more confident now, rising to her knees, shifting to kneel on the ground between his feet.

He studied her face as she looked up. She stretched and rubbed towards him, letting her chin brush lightly against his thigh. Shifting again so she could rest her hands on his waist.

His fingers trailed over her cheek, remembering, reminding himself of how it felt to touch, to feel a woman, to feel real. "I..." His words faded, lost in the confusion.

"It's not easy, it's not supposed to be."

He shook his head, confused.

"Life," she said, letting her face dance slowly against his fingertips.

He sat quiet, almost paralyzed, except for the hand that continued to stroke incidental circles across her cheek, over her ear, down her neck and back up along her throat. "Diana."

"Ssshhhh. Let's enjoy what we can."

The slightest nod as a reply, an accepting movement that even he hadn't noticed he was making. But Diana had. She captured his hand and held it as she straightened her body until she was there with him. Face to face, mouth to mouth. She let slow magnetism pull her the rest of the way, imperceptibly fine movement until her lips found his.

Tensing for the barest instant before he allowed himself to feel the heat, he relaxed into it, let his tongue trace a path around her lips. She pulled away and his body, running on instinct, followed her, chasing the warmth. She stood up and he moved with her, one hand still resting lightly on the side of her face.

"I'll straighten the bedroom," she murmured.

And again he marveled at it, the comforting domesticity. She knew him and he took pleasure in that idea. Nothing to explain, nothing to surprise. Just to be.

Awareness danced in mundane steps through his thoughts and he was oddly grateful that the bedroom was, at least, relatively tidy. Wonderful thing having nothing to do, he'd scarcely been in this room for a month. Even the laundry was in its basket. Another rogue thought crept in about the likely mustiness of the sheets. Too late.

"Come here." Her voice was even and soothing, as if she was trying to be careful not to startle him. And he saw her do that as well and was grateful for her care. To be known and understood. He looked into her eyes. Known and understood and wanted.

Wanted.

And the laughter and tears bubbled dangerously hot under his skin and he held them there as his breathing failed and forgotten nerve endings fired.

She stretched out a hand to remind him of her words and he went to her, grateful and wanted and alive.

The world was an alien place at 5 in the morning. Mulder shifted, startled to find that he wasn't alone. Consciousness took only a fraction of a second to arrive at full tidal force.

The suspension, the bar, Diana.

Cassandra Spender who had asked for him. So sure that he was capable and competent, that she had asked for him by name. As if he could go out and rally the troops to fight off the alien hordes. Couldn't even break into a bunch of fucking computer files without getting caught. And if he was supposed to be some great hope as the defender of the human race, the race was in trouble.

Was Sam out there like Cassandra said? Or was she safe and happy with a family of her own?

And if he mattered, then why wasn't he dead?

And he saw the strings again, nasty little marionette strings. Not dead, because he was more fun as a puppet. Pull the strings, watch him jump.

And when it came right down to it, if you cut the puppet's strings, it falls down.

All fall down.