TITLE: These Ungodly Hours AUTHOR: aRcaDIaNFall$ FEEDBACK: arcadianfalls@yahoo.com.au RATING: PG SPOILERS: none, really, but I have partially drawn from Quagmire, Never Again, and some early season 1 episodes. CLASSIFICATION: AU, UST SUMMARY: sequel to 'Meeting This Way' AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, the threats and bribes paid off... I haven't done as thorough an edit as I usually did due to time restrictions - finished now with two minutes to spare. I'm off to the beach for the week! A whole inbox full of feedback would be a lovely welcome home gift, though.. *hint hint* --> http://www.geocities.com/arcadianfalls/ (NEWLY REDESIGNED SITE!!) These Ungodly Hours by aRcaDIaNFall$ MARCH 1996 Sirens, flashing lights, the muffled buzz of voices and machines from through the swinging doors, the traffic around me outside. I shifted in the shadows on the cold stone steps, trying to keep feeling in my quickly numbing backside. A burst of static from the ambulance parked by the entrance. "Copy that, three-oh-two," a nasal voice crackled loudly. Distracted, I tried to get a glimpse of the EMTs to see who was on duty. I knew most of them by sight, by now. Footsteps, the door swinging shut, voices. I swung my gaze back to the entrance at the top of the steps. Tall, balding guy and beside him a small redhead in dark pants, shirt and jacket, satchel at her side. I grinned, relieved to know my decision hadn't been entirely a foolish one. Seeing me, she stopped. Surprised, then amused. "Mulder." I stood, giving her a sheepish grin. "Scully," I countered coolly. She smiled widely. Her companion touched her arm, murmuring something, and she nodded. "Sure. See you Thursday." Facing me again, she came down a few steps, one at a time. "You didn't call me." How can a guy admit he's too chicken to leave messages on a girl's machine and still maintain a macho image? "Thought I'd surprise you." "By turning up at the ER? All that surprises me is that nobody's had to start an IV and chart yet. How did you know I was working tonight?" "I took a gamble." "Pretty big gamble." I grinned. "Paid off, didn't it?" Still that amused smile. "You could have gone inside and asked, you know." "I know." "So.." She came closer again, so that we were only a few steps apart. She did that intentionally, I thought. Close enough to talk, but the elevation giving her some equality - we were eye to eye. "What are you doing here, Mulder?" "I'm here to take you out." "It's two a.m." "I know that." "I just finished a twelve-hour shift in the ER." "I know that too." "And you want us to go out on a date?" "We can talk, to keep you awake." She smiled widely. "Look where that got me last time." "What was wrong with last time?" "Nothing was wrong, but..." She looked a little embarrassed, admitting, "I don't know what happened to me. I never talk about myself to strangers." "I'm not a stranger, remember? I'm Mulder." She rolled her eyes, amused. "Right." "C'mon, we'll get some coffee, sit and talk." "You know, traditionally that would be done during the day." I didn't answer, just gave her my saddest pout. With my broken nose and black eye, I couldn't go wrong. She smiled. "Fine. But I want to be home by dawn." There was an all-night diner down the street. We ordered two iced-teas to go. I saw the wonder in her eyes as I dug in my pocket for change. She handed me my iced-tea as we stepped outside again. "You're armed, even off duty? Is the world that dangerous?" "Yeah." I took a sip. "It is." She glanced at me, curious. "Have you ever fired your weapon?" "Yeah." "Have you ever shot somebody?" "Yeah." A pause. "I thought most federal agents never had to fire their weapons," she admitted, still curious, wondering. "I'm not most federal agents." "Yeah." Small smile. "I kinda got that." She gazed at me, searching me. "So. Where are we going?" We drove the ten minutes to observatory hill. I was surprised the trust she put in me, knowing little more than that I was armed and had an emergency medical file six inches thick. We sat in the car in the outdoor gravelled parking lot, gazing at the stars through the front windscreen, sipping the iced-tea. "I know why I'm awake at this ungodly hour," she mused, "but why are you?" I shrugged. "Take your pick. Insomnia. Nightmares. I work through the night, sometimes." She glanced at me silently, and though she didn't voice the question I read her face. Nightmares? I shook my head. Forget it. I cleared my throat. "Anyway, that's just one of the many reasons why I can't keep any relationship. You do night shifts. You know how it works." She nodded. "Yeah." Another sip. She gazed ahead, thoughtful. "It's hard to have a normal relationship with somebody when you're pulling graveyard shifts every other week. Most guys aren't willing to put up with it." "Your last guy didn't seem to mind so much." An ironic smile. "He would have talked me out of the ER, soon enough. Some boring nine-til-five job." "I can't see anybody talking you out of anything, if you had your heart set on it." She glanced at me quickly, as if doubting my sincerity. Convinced by what she saw, she half-shrugged. "Well, they've tried. All my life, they've tried." >From her sudden, sober quietness I gathered this was a touchy subject. I smiled, trying to brighten things up. "I'm apparently too narcissistic to live with." "I can't imagine why." The ironic smile had returned. "I've been told I'm too neat." "Fastidiously precise, huh?" "So the story goes." "I take too many risks." "I think your hospital records vouch for that." She considered it for a second. "I don't take enough risks." "I've been called obsessive about my work." "My nickname at the hospital is 'ice queen'." "I sleep on a couch." "Maybe that's why your girlfriends don't stick around." I smiled, watching as she took another sip, just enjoying the silence. "What do you expect from a relationship?" she wondered. "In general, I mean." I thought it over. "Somebody to trust, I guess. Somebody who thinks like I do. It's not easy to find." "Somebody who thinks like you?" she echoed dryly. "I can't imagine why." "What about you? What do you look for?" "Somebody to be comfortable with... Somebody who lets me have my own mind. Somebody I can see myself raising a family with." "And the last two guys failed on those counts?" "I don't know," she admitted. "I loved them... I could imagine being with them. But it was the same old trap, I guess. They were authoritative. I liked that, liked somebody strong, liked gaining their approval, but..." "They didn't let you have you own mind." "In a nutshell, yeah." I pushed on quickly. "So, keeping those failures in mind, what are you looking for now?" "Who says I'm looking for a relationship?" "Because you know where you're going." "Oh I do, do I?" She was amused again, an eyebrow raised. "Sure. You've got it all mapped out." "You seem to think you know me pretty well, Mulder." "Did I mention I was a psychologist?" "Yes, you did." "Well...?" "'Well', what?" "What are you looking for now? You want something different, right? Somebody interesting, somebody a little unpredictable." "Oh, and I suppose this person is you, is it?" I gave her wide grin. "Well, I admit I can be unpredictable." "You're certainly different," she agreed, smiling. "So, what about you? What are you looking for, now?" "Somebody intelligent and compassionate." "That's it?" I chuckled. "And female." "Right. And none of the woman in the past have met all three criteria?" "Nope. They've either been ruthless or stupid or both." "Sounds like you have great taste in women," she said wryly. I shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, I know." She glanced at me, suddenly curious. "What are we doing here, Mulder?" Caught out. I grinned again. "There's been UFO sightings in the area," I admitted. "UFO sightings?" Oh, precious skepticism. "Yeah. You know, Unidentified-" "I know what UFOs are. So you're some kind of UFO nut, are you?" She seemed amused. "It's my job." I flipped my badge for her. "Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI, X-Files division." "X-Files?" "Yeah. I explore paranormal phenomena." "Isn't that out of FBI jurisdiction?" "Isn't what?" "Outer space." "It's not all outer space," I protested. She put two and two together. "So that's where you got your reputation. So, if it's not all outer space, what is it, Spooky?" "Abnormal creatures, people displaying psychic and other unusual abiltities, alien abduction,-" "And alien abduction isn't 'outer space'?" "Kidnapping somebody and taking them across state lines is a federal crime, right? Whether they're taken to a different part of the country or a different part of the cosmos doesn't matter, except in that the case is thrown in my lap." "Yeah, but there's no such thing as alien abduction. I mean, it's all just a hoax." "You're a skeptic." Her eyes sparkled, challenging. "Do you have a problem with that?" "No. I like somebody to sound off again-" I broke off, seeing a flash of moving light in the sky. "Look at that. What is that?" "What's what?" I climbed out of the car, moving around to her side to tug her out. We stood side by side on the grass, gazing up at the shooting light. Not a UFO, but still a magnificent sight. "That's a shooting star," she murmured. I glanced at her, impressed. "You know something about astronomy?" "I studied it in college for a semester," she admitted. She folded her arms, gazing up. "It's amazing, isn't it? So incomprehendably vast, wider and deeper than any ocean." I took a few steps up the grassy slope and then sat. She followed and joined me, sitting close but not touching, still gazing up. "Another question," I declared. "Biggest emotional flaw?" She thought for a second. "I avoid emotional attachments. I don't allow myself to get close to people. Maybe that's why I keep dumping perfectly good boyfriends." "Or maybe they just weren't so perfect." "You?" "You tell me." She gazed at me appraisingly. "I think that you use sarcasm to mask your feelings." A pause, then she gave me a small, wistful smile. "You're too good at it." "You're pretty good at deflecting any advances." Still, the smile. "Guess we've both gotten in lots of practice." She broke eye contact, rubbing her arms. "It's freezing out here." "Hold on." I went back down the slope, pulling a blanket from the trunk of the car. She raised an eyebrow, but smiled thanks as I shook it unfolded and draped it around her. I sat back down again and she offered me the end of it. I shook my head, and she gave me a look of tolerating skepticism. "The last thing we need is you catching pnemonia." I grinned. "I don't know. Wouldn't be too bad with you around to nurse me back to health." I took the blanket, wriggling a little closer to her so that we were both wrapped up warmly. Resettling and rearranging the blanket, though, I winced, catching my breath at the stabbing pain in my chest. She looked at me, doctorly concern in her eyes. "Rib still causing some pain?" she queried. I shook my head, getting my breath back. "A little, but it's fine now." She nodded. "You should take better care of yourself, Mulder." I shrugged. "I do okay." "Sitting out in the cold watching for UFOs with a broken rib is an invitation to pnemonia, not 'doing okay.'" I brushed that off. "Favourite extreme sport?" "What's yours, wrestling with crocodiles?" "Jumping onto a speeding train. You?" "I went skydiving, once. Doesn't sound so extreme, in comparison." "Favourite type of animal?" "For a pet? Dog." "Big dog or little dog?" "Little dog. You?" "Big dog. Person you admire most?" "Eleanor Roosevelt." "That's so boring." She looked at me tolerantly. "Well, who do you admire most?" "Elvis." She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Favourite holiday?" "Halloween." "Should have guessed." "Yours?" "Christmas." "Big family?" "My mom, two brothers and a sister. My dad died eighteen months ago. You?" "My parents are divorced." "No brothers or sisters?" "No." I hesitated. "I had a younger sister. She was abducted, when she was eight." "Abducted?" "From our home, one night. I was supposed to be looking after her. My parents were never the same." "I'm sorry." I shrugged it off, pushing myself up off the ground. "Come on. I've seen your workplace, let me show you mine." She glanced at her watch. "It's quarter past four in the morning." "Good. We shouldn't hit any traffic." She gazed around my basement office, disbelieving, fascinated. "This is your office?" "All mine." I gestured. "My files, my desk,-" "Your basketball?" she queried, pointing to the half-deflated ball I'd stashed on a high shelf. I grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. That one's seen better days." She moved around the office cautiously, taking it all in. "This is unbelieveable. You work down here?" "Yeah, well.. I travel a lot, too." "By yourself?" "If I'm between partners, yeah." "Doesn't that get lonely?" I shrugged. "Gets lonely here by myself, too. Guess I'm used to it." I touched her elbow. "I want your advice on something." "My advice?" "Medical advice." "On what?" "I'll show you." I pulled out the slide projector, flicking it open, tugging down the screen. A few seconds rearranging slides and the first one clicked onto the screen. "This body was found off the Florida coast three months ago. Note the bite marks? This second body two months ago, same thing, except that it was found two hundred miles away. This third one, same thing, forty miles north of the second, same day. And finally this one, three weeks ago, another eighty miles north." "Shark attacks?" "The bite marks don't match. I've talked to a dozen expert marine biologists and nobody can say for sure what did this. The way the body was Plus there's something that seems a little outside of the bell curve." She glanced at me, realising. "They're all male, late-twenties to mid-thirties." "Exactly." "Of course, that could be explained... All young and fit, strong swimmers, they're more likely to venture further out than their female counterparts or older men." "It's possible." "So what do you think did this? Do you have a theory?" "Oh, I have a theory..." I settled comfortably in my desk chair. "But I want to hear your ideas, first." She moved closer, examining the slide. "The wound edges are clean, the bone and tendons completely severed, the flesh gone... A vicious, powerful aquatic predator. What do you think it was?" "A plesiosaur." She stared at me, silent for a moment. Her lips quirked, amused. "A long-extinct aquatic dinosaur. You're kidding, right?" "The concept of prehistoric creatures existing underwater is not entirely far-fatched," I protested. "Yeah, but a plesiosaur? Mulder! It's crazy! It's not possible." "A fishing boat pulled up a rotting carcass off the coast of New Zealand in nineteen seventy-seven. The description was clearly suggestive of a plesiosaur." "And the fact that there's been no sightings since then indicates that they were mistaken." "Are you always this stubborn?" It's not possible," she repeated, adamant. I grinned. "You sure you don't want to come work at the FBI?" Her watch beeped. "Five a.m." She moved closer, leaning against the edge of the desk. "I really should go home and get some sleep. I'm back on again tonight." She touched my hair. "You should go home, too. You need your rest to make a proper recovery." "Quicker I get fixed the sooner I go do something crazy." "Well, hold off on the crazy for a while, huh? There's easier ways to see me." "So I'm allowed to call you again?" A smile. "You didn't call me in the first place," she pointed out. I grinned. "Yeah, well.." Her smile widened. "How about I call you?" "That sounds like a brush-off." "No. Just saving you from freezing your butt off waiting for me." She was stifling yawns as we drove back to the hospital. We parked I scrawled my number down for her. She took the slip of paper with a smile, folding it neatly and slipping it in her satchel. There was a second's pause as we looked at each other, then she opened her car door, climbing out and moving around to my wound-down window. "Tonight was ...interesting." "Is that a good thing?" "Yeah." "Call me?" "I will." She raised an eyebrow. "Maybe we can do something during waking hours, next time." "Goodnight, Scully." A wide, tired smile. "Goodnight, Mulder. Go home to your couch." "I do have a bed, you know." "Maybe you should try sleeping in it." "By myself?" Tolerant smile. "Goodnight, Mulder," she said again. "You'll call?" "If you promise not to do anything crazy in the meantime." "Cross my heart." "Then I'll call." "Goodnight, Scully." She smiled, then turned, swinging her satchel up onto her shoulder and moving toward her own car. "Hey, Scully!" I called after her. She turned back. "Yeah?" "Did I toss out your map tonight?" She paused, confused. Then her face cleared as she understood. A small smile. "Yeah, I think you did." "You okay with that?" "Well..." She half-shrugged, taking a few backward steps. "As I said, maybe it's time I started taking more risks." A grin. "For the last time, Mulder..." "Yeah, I know, I know. Goodnight." fin. ===== : VISIT aRcaDIaNFall$' X-FILES FANFIC : http://www.geocities.com/arcadianfalls/ http://my.yahoo.com.au - My Yahoo! - It's My Yahoo! Get your own!