Title:       Serendipity
Author:      Tim Scott
Email:       TScott2533@aol.com
Website:     http://www.geocities.com/timmscott.geo/

Archive:     This story was done specifically for the "Scullyfic
             at the Improv" group.

Summary:     I don't do summaries, I don't work weekends and I
             don't do windows.  Not even Windows '99.  I do do a
             hell of a Mickey Mouse impression, though.

Thanks:      to Binah for giving me Spender's name.

Disclaimer:  "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is
             vanity."  Particularly the conceit that anyone is
             paying much attention to us.  But just on the off-
             chance that they are, this story is unauthorized and
             is not making me a dime.




10/13/99
4:38am
Washington DC
Walter Reed Hospital
The morgue


"It was a dark and stormy night..."  Mulder's voice echoed off the tiles of th
e chilly room, prudently trailed off and fell silent due to the thoroughly 
unamused look on Skinner's face.  He glanced to his right, but his partner 
had that constipated look on her face again.  "Well, it was!" he said 
defensively.

Skinner took his glasses off and squeezed the bridge of his nose.  With 
closed eyes he intoned, in the ultra-patient voice Mulder had grown to detest 
so much, "Agent Mulder.  My sense of humor is not at its best before sunup.  
So please tell me, as clearly and succinctly as you can, why you dragged me 
out of bed at oh-dark-thirty."  He put his glasses back on and regarded the 
rather battered-looking agent.  Mulder had been perfectly healthy the last 
time the AD had seen him, three days ago.

Mulder cleared his throat.  "Yes, sir."  He looked at his partner, who 
shrugged back at him, clearly leaving the ball in his court.  The taller 
agent winced as he tried to settle his right arm more comfortably in its 
sling.  "It's over, sir."

Skinner blinked for a moment before narrowing his eyes.  Mulder returned his 
boss' stare blandly.  Succinct you want, succinct you get.  The clarity might 
have left something to be desired but the A. D. couldn't fault him for his 
brevity.  Besides, he hurt all over and Skinner's lost slumbers were not his 
primary concern just now.

The glasses went back on the Assistant Director's face, he blew out a careful 
breath and said, "Fine.  Tell it your way.  What is going on here, Agent 
Mulder?"

Mulder smirked and nodded to his partner, who shook her head and walked to 
one of many small doors set into the wall.  She tugged on the handle, swung 
the door wide and dragged out a long tray.  There was a sheet-draped form on 
the slab.  Mulder, too wired to stay still for long, joined his partner and 
pulled out the next one over.  They glanced at each other before 
simultaneously baring the faces of the bodies.

Skinner staggered back.

One was Alex Krycek.  The other body they knew by many aliases, mostly 
epithets.  Earlier this year his birth name had finally come to light: C. G. 
B. Spender.  Formerly the chief assassin of a global conspiracy of 
undetermined purposes, now probably working out the most efficient way to 
take over Hell.

Slowly his balding boss approached the two bodies.  He took his time 
examining them, finally looking at Agent Scully with raised eyebrows.  She 
nodded.  "It's confirmed, sir.  It's really them."

The A. D. nodded back and slowly pushed both slabs back into their 
receptacles before turning to face his subordinates.  He closed his eyes, 
took a deep breath and let it out slowly before opening them again.  He fixed 
Mulder with a stern look.

"Start at the beginning and don't leave anything out.  None of the exercises 
in fiction you enjoy making me read.  The truth, Agent Mulder."

Mulder nodded and tried to settle his arm comfortably again.  He opened his 
mouth, then closed it again as Scully approached him.  She dug a small bottle 
out of her pocket, unscrewed it and handed him a pain pill.  He made a face 
but accepted it, dry-swallowed it and grimaced before turning to face their 
boss again.  Scully absently noted the time and settled back against an 
autopsy table as her partner told the tale.

"We finished our shift of the stake-out you assigned us to last night.  
Miller hasn't been apprehended yet, by the way, but it's just a matter of 
time.  We've got all the evidence we need to close the case and he doesn't 
know it yet so all we have to do is pick him up when he comes home.  Anyway 
we got back to the Hoover building at 12:18am, to be precise, and Agent 
Scully surprised me with a birthday cake."

Mulder paused to give his partner a fond glance.  She smiled back at him, saw 
the A. D. noticing and looked back at him defiantly.  Skinner said, "Happy 
birthday, Agent Mulder.  What happened next?"

Mulder shook his head, forcibly returning his mind to the topic at hand.  
"Actually it wasn't a cake, it was a cupcake with a candle in it.  One of 
those un-blow-out-able things where the flame keeps coming back no matter how 
hard you blow?  Anyway.  The janitorial crew sang the song for me and we 
left.  Then she took me to a nice restaurant and bought me a late dinner and 
a real birthday cake.  The waiters sang that time."

Skinner ground his teeth together.  Mulder looked innocent.  "You said not to 
leave anything out!"  Skinner nodded and gestured for Mulder to continue.

"Anyway, we were headed for the car when I turned to make a smart remark, 
something like 'who are you and what have you done with my partner' when I 
slipped in a puddle of rainwater and fell down the stairs.  I got this black 
eye and broke my arm in two places..."

Behind her professional face Dana Scully relived that moment.  It wasn't a 
pleasant memory.  Mulder tossed the statement off like it was no big deal.  
He'd disappeared like going down a trapdoor.  One moment wising off, as he 
had all through dinner, making her laugh so hard her face hurt, the next 
just... gone.  By the time she got to the top of the stairs he was already in 
a heap at the bottom.

She went down the stairs in nearly a controlled fall, her hands reaching for 
her cell phone to call 911 as her eyes scanned his still form.  She checked 
him one-handed as she called it in, then dug out her mini-flashlight to check 
his pupils.  He was breathing normally.  The rest could wait for the pros.

While she held Mulder's hand and spoke reassuringly to him, even though he 
was obviously unconscious, she thought how ridiculous it was.  All the 
incredible dangers they'd faced through the years and now *this* had to bring 
him down?  He would almost certainly  recover but, dammit, it wasn't a sure 
thing.  

Nothing was a sure thing.

For some reason it suddenly came home to her, like a bomb going off, that she 
could lose him.  She'd always known it, she wasn't some kind of unthinking 
child to ignore the realities of the life they led, but for some reason the 
knowledge had taken up residence in her gut now.  Mulder was the one in shock 
but she was doing the shaking.  He'd always seemed so alive, so 
indestructible before.  It hit her like a speeding truck.

Then the EMTs arrived and she busied herself with giving them the necessary 
information, getting their destination and chasing them to the ER.  Through 
the endless five minute drive she chanted oh  please, oh please, oh please...

She filled out his paperwork, as she'd done a dozen times, smiled when the ER 
nurses recognized him and joked about him being their best customer.  She 
wrapped herself in his trench coat and quietly trembled until they told her 
she could see him.

Dana entered the curtained alcove on wobbly legs and watched the orderly help 
her partner stay upright while a nurse slid the jacket over his shoulder.  
The sling was very blue against his white shirt.  She remembered the last 
time she'd seen him in a similar situation, how he'd blurted that he loved 
her.  She grimaced as she recalled her reply and wondered yet another time if 
the drugs had made him say what he said or if they just gave him the nerve.

He was concussed again, she could see that from the way he fought to stay 
upright.  That meant another sleepless night for both of them.  She reviewed 
her mental file of 'ways to amuse Mulder' as the nurse instructed her about 
the care and feeding of head trauma cases.  When Dana was satisfied that he 
was oriented in all three spheres she thanked everyone and led him out to the 
car.

She got him buckled in, climbed behind the wheel...

... and couldn't make herself turn the key in the ignition.  They sat that 
way for a moment.

"Um.  Scully?"  He sounded confused, which was only natural.

"Yes, Mulder?"  Her own voice sounded calm enough.  Good.

"Is it just me, or are we not moving?"

She turned to face him, unsure of what she was going to say and knowing that 
it probably wasn't the best time to say it, but she knew herself well enough 
to be sure that if she didn't say it now she might not ever tell him how she 
felt.  And he deserved better than that.

Not only that, but she deserved to tell him.  But before she could open her 
mouth the phone rang.

"We got a call from DCPD about a double homicide at a health club not twenty 
minutes from the hospital,"  Mulder said.  "I had to stay awake anyway so we 
headed on over to see what was up."

Skinner held up a hand to halt the narrative.  "Why did they call you for 
something like that?  It's not your department."

Mulder nodded, then winced at the pain the head movement cost him.  "After 
the immolations at El Rico Air Base we requested to be notified whenever 
certain names hit any police database in the nation.  When their 
fingerprints" --  Mulder gestured at the wall -- "turned up we got the call."

Mulder put a hand to his head and reeled a bit.  Scully took his arm and led 
him to a wall without drawers, something he could lean against.  She took up 
the story to give him a moment's rest.

"The towel boy at the health club called it in.  It seems he was making his 
rounds and found a body wearing a purple speedo, if you can believe it, 
floating in the pool.  When the body was removed from the water it was found 
to have three .22 caliber bullet holes in the head."  She paused to gesture 
at the drawer containing the remains of the Cancerman.

Skinner shook his head.  

Scully continued.  "When the officers went to search his locker for ID they 
found Krycek's body."  She shook her head.  "I can't believe he'd do 
something so stupid but it seems that, in the course of his own search of Mr. 
Spender's locker, he found a box of mint green tic-tacs and ate one.  These 
tic-tacs seem to have been part of Spender's exit strategy.  They contained 
cyanide."

Skinner's jaw dropped.  He seemed unable to come up with a reply that fit the 
situation.  Well, neither could she.  To cover this Dana picked up a box 
containing Krycek's personal effects and set it on the autopsy table.   She 
reached into it, produced what appeared to be a hand-held computer and gave 
it to her boss.

"This device contains a great deal of information.  Some friends of ours 
hacked into it.  They are confident that they can find the algorithm that 
will deactivate the nano-mechanisms infesting your body.  I would guess that 
you will be your own man again in under a week."  

She raised an eyebrow at his look of surprise.  "Oh, come on, sir.  You 
didn't really think we'd stop investigating it just because you told us to, 
did you?"

Skinner squinted at her, weighing the device in his hands.  "Yes, actually, I 
did."

She reddened.  "Well, you're half right.  I wanted to move on to other 
things.  *He*..." here she gestured at her partner, "... in his usual 
pigheaded manner, refused to let it alone.  Mulder gets the credit for this 
one, sir."

Mulder, eyes still closed, smiled at this.

"Goddammit, Mulder, will you quit that?  You're going to cut your own throat!"

He turned to face her.  "Goddammit, Scully, *look* at me!  I look like a poor 
grade of salvage!  He's gonna be here any minute, we are about to give our 
final report.  Let me at least be clean shaven when that happens."

She stared at him.  "What do you mean, 'last report'?"

He turned back to the mirror and tried once again to shave left-handed.  He 
nicked himself a second time and swore.  She snatched the razor out of his 
hand, spun him around and pushed him back against the sink.

"I'll do it!  Now tell me what you're talking about."

With a forefinger she turned his head to the side and, using long clean 
strokes, began to depilate her partner's face.

"He was the last one, Scully.  Krycek was never a mover and shaker except in 
his wannabe mind, he was just muscle with delusions of gender.  Spender was 
the last one who really knew what was going on.  With him dead, my last 
chance of finding Samantha is gone.  The conspirators are all dead, the Plan 
is finished.  It's over.  Finito.  Ended.  Time to take my marbles and go 
home while I still have a few left."

The razor paused for a moment, then continued another straight swath through 
the lather on his face.  She turned his head and began working on the other 
side, giving herself time to get her voice under control.

"You're quitting?"

"That word has such negative connotations.  I prefer 'retiring'."

"What will you do, Mulder?  The work has been your life."

He decided to wait until she was finished.  No sense aggravating a woman who 
has a razor at your throat.  It took her a moment to do the last stroke to 
her own satisfaction, then another while she cleaned his face with paper 
towels.

What to tell her, though?  The truth was the first thing that came to mind.  
On the other hand, Scully never seemed too happy to hear his version of the 
truth.  Oh, well.  He'd try one last time.

While Skinner was still mulling over the implications of what he'd heard 
Scully picked up a second box from the floor and set it down next to the 
first one.  She removed a sheet of paper and gave it to Skinner, too.  The 
man's eyebrows climbed.

"Cain Gideon Barnabas Spender?  You're shitting me."

Mulder smiled, his eyes still closed.  "Finally found someone with a worse 
name than mine.  No wonder nobody ever called him by name.  They were 
probably afraid he'd kill 'em."

Scully chimed in.  "His first name was appropriate, anyway."

Mulder finally opened his eyes, squinting against the fluorescent lights.  He 
made his unsteady way over to the other two living occupants of the room.  
With his left hand he produced his pistol and credentials from inside his 
sling and placed them on one of the boxes of personal effects.

"I won't be needing these any more.  Put them someplace... safe."  He 
delivered this sentence with a razor-edged smile from the other side of the 
autopsy table, then nodded his head less astringently.  "You were a better 
boss than I had a right to expect.  Thank you for all your help.  Goodbye."

Mulder limped out of the room without another word or a backward glance, 
leaving his former boss stunned.  He turned to Scully in confusion.  She 
seemed to be taking it pretty well.  Not a blink, not a twitch.  Incredible.  
He'd been so sure they were...

The redheaded woman produced her own weapon and ID and placed them atop the 
other box.  Then she put both hands on the table and leaned toward him, her 
eyes an icy blue.

"Mulder has been a lone wolf all his life.  He never expected much from the 
system, from the FBI, and so he was never disappointed when he got no 
support.  I, on the other hand, am a Navy brat.  I worked the system for us, 
partly because I've been doing it all my life and partly because, even if it 
did occur to Mulder to do it, he'd be terrible at it."

Skinner nodded, waiting for the rest of it.

"We put our trust in you and you failed us.  Worse than that, you betrayed 
us.  Both you personally, the FBI and the government as a whole.  I could 
enumerate all the times it's happened but you know them as well as I do.  Now 
that we're no longer useful to you I can just imagine what you will all feel 
free to do."

Ah.  Now they were getting to it.  He'd seen her claws come out before, of 
course, but never all the way like this.  She'd always left herself an out 
before.  She really *did* know how to work the system!

"This being the case, I think you should tell your corporate masters to think 
several times before they bother either of us.  During the course of my own 
investigations, while Agent Mulder was searching for aliens, I learned many 
things about the entirely human men who conspired to experiment on people 
without their consent.  Just working by myself I documented enough to know 
what a firestorm would begin if I made it public.  The Nuremberg trials were 
nothing in comparison, and you can look back on Kenneth Starr with fond 
memories.  Am I making myself clear to you, sir?"

He nodded carefully.  "I will convey your message, Miss Scully."

She turned and left the room, her heels decisively click-clacking up the 
hall.  Toward the elevator leading up from the basement of the hospital.  
Toward the rain that was still falling.  Toward her freedom.

That evening, as she carried a tray laden with sliced fruit and other finger 
foods toward her bathtub, she was still waiting for the fact of it to sink in.

She was free.

No more living at the whim of bureaucrats.  No more phone calls at ungodly 
hours to chase mutants or aliens or what-have-you.  No more denying herself 
the things she wanted and (let's admit it, Dana) needed.  No more Old Boy's 
Club!  Now there was a reason to celebrate!

She bumped the bathroom door open with her hip, slipped inside and set the 
tray down on the tub, reaching back to kick the door shut as she did so.  She 
raised one corner of the wet washcloth that hid the eyes of the tub's 
occupant.

"Mulder?  You still in there?"

"Jeez, Scully, how can you stand the water this hot?  I'm afraid to move," he 
mumbled from behind his cloth screen.

"Oh, don't be such a baby.  Admit it, you feel better."

"I feel like someone surgically removed my bones.  This is great, Scully.  
Thanks for doing this for me."  He sighed contentedly.  Well, she was 
assuming he was smiling under there, the muscles of his face -- the ones she 
could see, anyway -- were contracting in the proper ways.  She picked up a 
slice of apple and lifted the bottom of the washcloth, exposing his mouth.  
Yes, that was a smile.  No question about it.  She took a second to admire 
that mouth openly.

"Open wide, Mulder."

"Why?"

She scolded him.  "Don't be so suspicious, Mulder.  Just shut up and do as 
you're told."

His right arm was propped up safely away from the water.  He used his left to 
remove the washcloth so he could see her.  "You've gotten mighty bossy all of 
a sudden."  But he opened his mouth in acquiescence.  She popped the food in 
and watched him chew.  Maybe that was her key to peace and quiet?  Keeping 
his mouth occupied?

"Did you really mean what you said earlier, Mulder?"

It took him less than a second to figure out what she meant.  His gaze 
softened and he nodded.

"Say it again."

He chuckled.  "You're such a girly girl, Scully.  It's cute."  Her face must 
have changed because he swallowed quickly and said, "Okayokayokay!  Jeez!  
Take it easy, will you?"

She relaxed, sat back on the little stool next to the tub.  He sighed.

"I take it you're referring to what I said I'd do now that I no longer work 
for the Bureau?"

Dana nodded.  Mulder sat up straight in the tub.  With his left hand he 
reached over, took a grape and popped it into her mouth before taking another 
for himself.  They watched each other as they chewed.  Mulder seemed 
entranced by her face.  Finally he sighed again and repeated what he'd said 
earlier.

"I have no idea what I'm going to do, Scully.  Probably I'll take a year or 
so to just think about all that's happened, try to make some sense of it.  
I'd like to some traveling for pleasure while I do so, see some of the places 
I've always wanted to see.  What I do really doesn't matter to me right 
now... as long as can do it together."

She closed her eyes, leaning into the sensations that this speech called up 
as though it were a strong wind.  His voice continued, filling her ears with 
wonder.  Mulder *never* talked like this!

"I have money of my own, Scully.  I never have to work again if I don't want 
to.  Or I can work until my dying day if that pleases me.  Come with me.  Or 
tell me where you want to go and I'll come there if you'll let me.  We can 
get married or not, it's entirely up to you.  Just so we're together.  Take 
as long as you need to make up your mind.  It will probably take a week or so 
to wind up my affairs here in DC.  If you haven't decided by then, the Gunmen 
can always find me."

She kept her eyes closed for a moment, enjoying the way the words echoed in 
her mind, enjoying the heat from the steam and from the man in her tub.  She 
gasped when that man's fingers began tracing lines over her face.  The 
sensations were so intense!

Her eyes popped open, along with her mouth, and Mulder sat back in the tub 
again.  His hand went with him, damn it.  She grabbed it before it got away.

"You're turning into a prune, Mulder.  Time to get out."

She could see him considering several smart remarks.  She turned to get a 
towel from the rack so she didn't see his face but the smirk was evident from 
the false submission in his voice.

"Yes, dear."

She flipped the switch to drain the tub before she helped him get vertical 
again, the whole lovely length of him.  My, my, my.  He held her shoulder 
with his good hand as he stepped out of the tub and stood patiently while she 
patted him dry.

They spent the day alternating naps with glorious sex.  Sometimes it was slow 
and almost sleepy.  Sometimes it was hot and hard and fast and furious.  And 
the thought that kept echoing in Dana's mind, again and again, was that if he 
could do this to her one handed...!

Shortly before midnight, as they spooned hot fudge sundaes into each others' 
mouths, Mulder rocked his hips forward every now and then.  Like the tide he 
slipped into and out of her, just enough to maintain his erection as he fed 
her ice cream and caressed her face while she gasped his name and threatened 
him with a dire fate if he stopped.

Finally she rolled him onto his back and climbed astride, keeping one eye on 
her bedside clock.  As midnight approached she moved faster and faster until, 
just before the numbers clicked over, he shouted wordlessly as his whole body 
*thrummed*!

He blinked up at her in stunned shock as she grinned at him and tried to get 
her breath back.  As sleep rose up to take him she leaned down and whispered, 
"I love you too, Mulder.  Happy birthday."

And his smile was something to see.


The End


Story elements were supplied by:

1)  jjordao -- Scully shaving Mulder because he has a broken arm
               and nicked himself when he tried to do it alone

2)  spicedrum -- a box of minty green tic-tacs laced with cyanide

3)  the_wt -- CSM in a purple speedo (and you'll pay for this,
               Mel...)

4)  haphmeth -- trick birthday candles, the kind that re-light

5)  fabiana -- Mulder & Scully sharing a sundae, feeding each 
               other