Value & Honor
by Forte
(Forte1354@aol.com)
Please see Chapter 1 for rating, summary, disclaimer, etc.
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- Chapter 3 -
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Washington, DC
12:30 p.m.
The sun was out, and the sky clear, but Mulder would have sworn that
a rain cloud was trailing his partner like paparazzi stalking a
celebrity. Scully had not uttered a word since they'd agreed on a
restaurant: a small, dark hole in the wall that they hoped would be
relatively unpopular on that beautiful November Friday afternoon.
As they trekked along the Washington sidewalk, she kept her chin
tucked, her eyes downcast.
Had he asked, she probably would have claimed to be watching for
cracks in the pavement so she wouldn't trip, and then she would
utter Those Words.
<"I'm fine, Mulder.">
Damn.
So he didn't bother asking, and worried instead about what was going
on inside of her head. And whether any of it was his fault.
#-#-#-#-#-#
Scully's mind raced as she sat at her desk.
She was preoccupied with Fowley's comments.
With Kersh's words.
And with the autopsy reports stacked in front of her like shrunken
coffins.
#-#-#-#-#-#
The restaurant wasn't crowded, as they'd anticipated. Scully
remained silent throughout their brief wait for the table they
requested, one tucked away in a corner that would afford them some
privacy. After they had been seated and given menus, Mulder's
patience wore out. He decided to start with his usual dry humor,
and work up from there.
"Nice little meeting this morning, eh, Scully?"
"What?" His partner seemed startled to hear him speak.
"Scully, have I lost that magic touch? I don't seem to be holding
your attention today." He smiled at her, but not without concern.
Scully nodded, but kept her gaze on her menu. "Sorry. Headache's
really interfering with my concentration. I was... just trying to
decide what I want to eat." She paused. "Yes, Kersh was unusually
irritating."
one half of his brain joked in relief, but the other
half, still worried about her, squelched the thought.
"He didn't seem too impressed with me, but you certainly charmed
him," Mulder teased. "Maybe in our meetings with him you should do
all the talking from now on."
"I don't think you should let yourself fade into the background,
Mul-- "
Scully was interrupted by the arrival of the waitress. She took
their orders and menus, leaving Scully nothing with which to shield
herself.
Mulder crossed his arms on the table and leaned toward his partner.
"You were saying, Scully? Why shouldn't I let myself fade into the
background?"
Scully sucked in a breath as anger tightened its grip on her
stomach.
#-#-#-#-#-#
<"Valuable opportunities may present themselves to you in the future
that involve -- individual responsibilities. You would be doing
yourself a favor to take advantage of them regardless of your
current loyalties.">
Scully ran her fingers along the pencil that she'd been tapping on
the file in front of her. Without thinking, she twisted and
squeezed it as hard as she could.
#-#-#-#-#-#
"Scully?" Mulder's voice shook her from her reverie. He studied her
as she stared down at her clasped hands lying on the table.
As though she'd sensed his thoughts, she chose that moment to clear
her throat and continue. "Kersh seems to be of the opinion that I
will not always be making fertilizer calls."
"=You=?"
"Me."
"Oh." Mulder's tone was calm, but his piercing eyes gave away his
intense focus on her words. He leaned a little closer to her.
"He implied that, at some unspecified time in the future, I would be
made an offer too good to refuse."
"Did he?" Mulder tried to continue sounding nonchalant while
ignoring his growing panic. What had happened to his ability to put
together sentences of more than two words?
"Yes, he... hinted rather broadly that my loyalty to you is
misplaced."
Now Mulder cleared his throat. He needed to know; to be sure. "Do
=you= think so?"
#-#-#-#-#-#
Scully stared down at the autopsy report, unable to concentrate.
<"It's a good thing you're married to your work, Agent Scully. Who
would want a woman in your situation?">
Scully closed her eyes and took in a slow breath, willing her jaw to
unclench. Repeating her actions of earlier that morning, she
massaged the muscles over her eyes with her thumbs. At least her
tension headaches were different from the ones she'd had with her
tumor; she had a course of action to take, even if it didn't always
work.
She glanced up. Mulder's chair was swiveled so that he faced the PC
on the corner of his desk, allowing her to see him in partial
profile. She studied his features for a moment, then returned her
gaze to the file on her own desk.
#-#-#-#-#-#
Only half a heartbeat had gone by since Mulder had posed his
question.
Did she think her loyalty to him was misplaced? Could he really not
know the answer to that question? Yes, he ditched her sometimes.
Yes, they fought sometimes -- OK, frequently -- over explanations
for the cases they investigated. But he never -- =NEVER= -- put his
interests ahead of hers. Even when he ditched her, or withheld
information from her, his intent was to protect her. Not that she
appreciated when he did it, but at least his heart was in the right
place.
Unlike other people they had to deal with, most of whom seemed to
have no heart at all; never mind whether it was where it was
supposed to be.
During their partnership she and Mulder had been to hell and back
together, over and over. Her abduction...the deaths of his father
and her sister...his mother's stroke...the cancer...Emily...Dallas.
They'd held each other up, kept each other sane. At other times,
he'd snatched her back from Satan's minions: Tooms, Pfaster,
Schnauz. He'd gone to the =Antarctic= for her, for God's sakes, to
take her back from the Devil himself. She knew without question
that if something happened to her, he would do =anything= to save
her. Just as she would for him.
Were there words in the English language expressive enough, potent
enough, to do justice to what they shared?
If he wasn't deserving of her loyalty, then who was?
she asked herself again.
Another half a heartbeat went by.
The corners of her mouth turned up. She looked her partner in the
eye, holding Mulder's gaze with a fierceness she knew he'd never
seen in her before. Her voice held equal strength.
"I think my loyalty is right where it should be, Mulder. Nice try,
but you're not getting rid of me that easily."
"So, as long as no one mentions Salt Lake City, I'm stuck with you?"
Mulder clamped an imaginary hand over his mouth, and felt his eyes
go wide with horror.
Scully gazed at him evenly. "Mulder, I explained my reasoning to
you about that. After that meeting with OPR, right after Dallas, I
felt like there was nothing that I could do at the FBI that would
make a difference any more. Besides," she looked down at the table,
"if I'd gone to Salt Lake City, that would have effectively ended
our partnership."
She looked back up at Mulder; he felt his heart pound in his chest
as his pulse rate accelerated.
"Mulder, there is still so much that we can do, that we =have= to
do. With the X-Files, or without them. This case with Morse," she
gestured to imaginary files in front of her. "The vaccine." She
paused. "Samantha." She leaned across the table and placed her
slender, pale hand over his larger one. Mulder's eyes flicked down
to look at their joined hands, then rose to meet hers again. Her
countenance became grave. "After all we've been through, I think
we've come to rely on each other so we can keep going, keep getting
up when we get knocked down. We work better together than we ever
could separately." She paused again, taking a slow, deep breath.
"After we got back from the Antarctic, Mulder, you told me to go be
a doctor. My answer was 'no' then, and it's still 'no' now."
Mulder stared at her, unblinking. When he spoke, his voice was
quiet. "Good. That's good." He smiled at her. "I wasn't looking
forward to eating my lunch alone."
Scully gave him a smile in return, but one he could see was tinged
with sadness.
The waitress approached with their food, breaking the spell of
solemnity that had fallen over their table. Scully dragged her hand
off Mulder's and sat back in her seat.
As they ate, Mulder did his best to not look over at her too often,
concerned about making her uncomfortable or anxious about his
attention. But her reticence told him that something was still
troubling her.
And he was pretty damn sure he knew what it was.
#-#-#-#-#-#
Scully glanced at her watch.
She closed the autopsy report for 4-year-old Matthew David
Forrester, shuffled it to the bottom of the pile, and opened the
next folder.
Diana Theresa Robertson, age 3.
Scully stared at the first name, willing herself to not replay the
confrontation with Fowley in her head, but unable to escape the
thoughts.
she
wondered, not for the first time since she'd returned to her desk.
The theory she kept returning to was the one that had first occurred
to her in the kitchen -- Diana was trying to cause more friction
between her and Mulder. Did that mean that Diana had approached him
as well?
Mulder was still at his desk, and had neither moved from it nor used
his phone since they'd come back from Kersh's office. If Diana had
spoken with him, it had to have been before the "kitchen incident",
probably within the last week. But they had spent most of the
previous week in Rhode Island, and had been together almost every
waking moment. Besides, wouldn't Mulder have acted...
differently... if Diana had contacted him, tried to create tension
in their partnership? She'd been so wrapped up in the Morse case...
but she would have noticed a change in her partner's behavior.
Wouldn't she?
Her head throbbed again.
Scully decided.
Mind made up, she returned to the autopsy report for the younger
Diana.
#-#-#-#-#-#
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- continued in 3b -
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