Part 05/06
Fairfield, CT
11:35 a.m.
If Scully learned anything from her partnership with Mulder, it
was that when he wanted to do something, there was no stopping
him. She’d found him at her doorstep at 7 a.m. this morning,
duffel bag in one hand, his laptop and growing file of papers in
the other. He practically rushed her out the door; she was barely
ready herself. He spent the short flight reading file folders,
barely looking up at her, even when she called his name. Scully
didn’t know what he was up to, and that worried her a
little. Hell, it worried it a lot. But, Mulder was good. Afraid
he would totally disappear on her, she made him check into a room
in hotel a floor above her. He checked in, and ran out before
anyone from the VCS could see him.
That was about a half-hour ago. She was a little worried to see
him run of at first, but reminded herself that he was a grown man
and not a child. Though he sure acted like it sometimes. She
checked her watch and remembered she was supposed to meet some of
the team for lunch and a briefing. Her cell phone in her hand,
she left the hotel room, letting the cleaning woman as she did.
"I haven’t had time to mess it," Scully said to
her as she passed her by.
"Just doing my job," the woman replied.
The blond woman watched Dana Scully disappear down the hallway to
her briefing. She pushed her cart into the room and quickly shut
the door. Walking through the room, she eyed everything
carefully. Finally her eyes came to rest on a piece of paper on
the bureau. Picking it up, she let out a sigh of disappointment.
"Mulder, room 304 extension 2376," she read aloud.
Flipping open a cell phone of her own, she punched in a long
memorized number.
It only had to ring once.
"Well?"
"She’s here. And so is he. Room 304."
"Good. Go ahead with the plan."
The blond ended the call and leaned on the bureau, taking a long
look at herself in the mirror. Her brown roots still showed
despite the newly redone dye job and her blue eyes were filled
with nothing but sorrow.
"Oh, Fox," she said, still staring at her reflection.
"Why can’t you quit while you’re ahead?"
She turned away from mirror and went back to her cart, pushing it
out of the room.
Norwalk, CT
1:30 p.m.
Mulder pulled the keys out of the ignition and stared at the
building in front of him. Deserted and run-down, he would bet it
was clean. But still…..
It wasn’t deserted and run-down in 1971. In fact it was very
much in use. It was a building that belonged to a county club, a
very predominant one at the time. This was also known as the
gentlemen’s club building, and Mulder would bet his next
paycheck it was used for a lot more than poker.
His research told him a lot more about the club; how it
conveniently burned in 1973 and the country club had plans to fix
it, but funding fell through when the club almost when bankrupt.
So instead of a newly constructed building, Mulder was staring at
the surviving parts of a fire.
The fire in 1973 wasn’t bad; Mulder suspected it was more of
a cover-up then anything else. Make the club’s work
"disappear." Someone must have been poking around, but
who? All Mulder could do was stare at the building, knowing the
chances that it would be useful were slim. Slim was good enough
for him. He was hopeful. He wanted a break.
He wanted an answer. He wanted to know what happened.
He wanted to know where his sister was.
She wasn’t in that building, he knew. Not in a building that
burned on November 30, 1973. But something was.
He told Scully he needed to do something about this. He never
said what. Truth was, he wasn’t sure himself. Perhaps he was
only pulling on a thread, but he must have something if
"they" sent him a warning.
He must be close; close how? He pounded his fist against the
steering wheel in frustration. An Oxford education man, a
profiler for the VCS for years and he couldn’t figure out
how close he was. Somehow his college education seemed useless at
this moment. His mind strayed to Scully; at least if she were
here he could bounce crazy ideas off of her. She had been better
at this then him, he’d even be frustrated at that. It seemed
everyone thought he was getting close besides him.
After another pound on the steering wheel, Mulder felt another
headache coming on. He grabbed the aspirin he’d brought
(Scully’s last minute idea for him), tossed back a couple,
and opened the door, stepping out of the car for some fresh air.
Yes some fresh air would do him good.
Fairfield, CT
1:39 p.m.
Lunch went fast, as did the briefing. Scully had enough notes in
her head to fill a notebook. She had a full autopsy scheduled for
the latest serial murderer’s victim at 3, and tons of
paperwork after that. Hoping to get Mulder on his cell, she hit
memory one on her one phone.
She frowned as the phone rang and rang with no answer.
Town Hall
Norwalk, CT
1:40 p.m.
Finding the Town Hall hadn't been too difficult, but trying to
get a shred of information from the burly, intimidating,
eighty-year old lady behind the desk was another story. She gave
Mulder a phone number, supposedly the number of the former owner
of the Country Club, but Mulder wouldn't be surprised if it ended
up being the number of the local pizza parler. All he knew was
that he felt foolish arguing with the senile clerk, and wanted
out. He thanked her a bit less-than-politely and made his way
outside.
Walking to his car, he could see the parking lot's asphalt
heating up in the late April sun. Considering the amount of
stress he'd been under lately and the fairly long trip he had
endured up to Connecticut, Mulder was in a good mood. The air was
warm and he rolled up his shirt sleeves (he had removed his
jacket before entering the Town Hall) and took a deep breath,
savoring the sweet air. Sure, he hadn't accomplished alot, but he
had a phone number now, and some direction. He fingered the slip
of paper in his pocket, yup, still there. His photographic memory
told him (203) 227-5389. The lady had told him that it was a
Westport number, a town close to here, and that the man's name
was Gerald Metts. Mr. Metts and his wife, Sylvia, owned the
Country Club for years before it burned down. They would be able
to give Mulder some information.
Inside the car was hot, and the metal inserted part of the
seatbelt burned his fingers when he pushed it into its
counterpart.
"Ooh baby that's what I like," Mulder said. He rolled
down his window and pulled out of the parking lot. He got onto
the Merritt Parkway and headed North towards Fairfield. Under his
breath he sang the lyrics along with the Big Bopper, and when he
felt something hard against the back of his head, it took him a
moment to realize that it shouldn't be there. Slowly, he turned
his head around, only to be smacked back.
"Look straight ahead, keep driving." A woman's voice.
Somehow familiar. "Get off at exit 43. That's right, keep
driving."
Room 232
Hi-Ho Motel
Fairfield, CT
6:56 p.m.
Scully settled back on her bed and reached across to the bedside
table for the remote control. She flipped. Channel two, news.
Channel three, same news. Channel four, rerun of Frasier, Channel
five, Caught on the Job III. Channel six, news. Channel
sixty-one, rerun of the Simpsons. She settled for the CBS news
(channel 2), and watched police she didn't know catch a kid she
didn't know in a building she didn't know. It was nice to once
and a while be able to watch law enforcement do their jobs
without having to have any connection to it. A lady her blonde
hair swirling around her in the wind from a near-by helicopter
gave a short speech about kid and what was going to happen to
him, then winked off and was replaced by two men in business
suits sitting behind an oval counter. Sports news is next. Scully
flipped the t.v. off and threw the remote across the bed. It slid
on the beige velour hotel blankets (the nice thing about hotels
was they always gave you nice, thick blankets) and fell to the
carpet without a sound. She groped for the light, fumbled, then
managed to twist the grooved dial until the bedside lamp flicked
off. Without a single moment of worrying where her partner was
and what he was doing, Scully drifted off to a carefree nap.
Merritt Parkway
1:53 p.m.
Exit 43 was growing closer; the turn-off was straight ahead.
"Don’t miss the turn-off," the woman behind him
warned, keeping the gun right on the back of his head. Her voice
was very familiar, yet Mulder couldn’t figure out why. While
she held gun to the back of his head, she wasn’t rough.
He’d been held at gunpoint before; he usually knew what to
expect. But this time was different.
"There," the woman instructed and Mulder quickly turned
off the highway and found himself soon cruising through a
neighborhood of beautiful homes. Connecticut really was a
beautiful state; too bad he wasn’t really here for a
vacation.
"Make a right. Now a left." Mulder followed the
woman’s instructions to the tee. He’d learned the hard
way before how you shouldn’t piss of someone holding a gun
to your head.
"Turn into this drive, and ride all the way down. Then stop
the car."
Mulder turned the car down a long paved drive. To either side of
him, all he saw were trees. Green greeted him wherever he looked.
The driveway was a lot longer than one may think it was, but
finally Mulder found himself staring up at a grand house,
certainly bigger then any house he’d seen recently.
"Turn off the engine." Mulder heard the woman turn her
head either way. He could sense the nervousness in the sound of
her actions. Mulder did as he was told. If "they" sent
this person, she was awfully nervous. Not at like any other
run-ins he’d had with "them."
"Now get out of the car, slowly. Don’t make any fast
moves." A pause, and a gulp. "Don’t force me to
use this thing."
He heard her step, but she didn’t protest his turning toward
her. She still held the gun at him, though not as convincingly as
she could. He got a good look at her.
A blond. No, wait. She was a brunette with a dye job. He could
see the brown roots in her hair. Her hair fell just below hr
shoulder, in waves. While she tried to look serious and
threatening, he could tell she other motives in her blue eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked, as he took a step closer.
The woman didn’t move this time. Instead she lifted the gun
up higher. Maybe she knew how to fire a gun right after all. He
glanced back up toward the house and saw some people approaching
them.
"What’s going on?" he ventured to ask as he saw
men grow closer to them.
"Fox, when are you going to learn that asking questions only
gets you hurt?" the woman replied, her gun still held steady
at him as the men got closer.
"I won’t shoot," the women said, her voice
lowering. "But don’t try to flee. I’m warning
you."
The men had reached them. Some men in black, along with someone
familiar, leaving a trial of smoke behind him.
Mulder knew he was in shit this time. Casting a look toward the
woman, he took a step and turned the trees that sounded him. It
was broad daylight, yet nothing was around them. He would guess
this land and a great deal of land surrounding him, was their
property. Once again, his college-educated, high IQ mind was
drawing a blank, so he did the only thing that came to mind: he
ran.
He soon learned that was a stupid thing to do. He hadn’t
even reached the edge of the trees, when he felt a shot hit him
in the shoulder, sending him down to the pavement. As his head
hit the edge of the pavement, his last thought was of Scully at
the motel.
Place Unknown
6:45 p.m.
The first thing he heard as he came to, was a calm voice telling
him to stay down.
"Scully," he croaked, his voice dry. His shoulder felt
like it was on fire and his head pounded in time with his
breathing.
"No," the voice replied back. As Mulder came around
more the memory of what happened that afternoon came back to him.
He opened his eyes and tried to focus on his surrounding.
He was in a bedroom, he realized. He was laying on a bed, with a
woman sitting on the edge of it next to him. He frowned. He
remembered what happened, but had figured he’d probably be
dead now. Instead the woman was rifting through a bag next to
her.
He tested his voice again. "Who are you?" The woman
looked up at his inquiry. She sighed.
"That’s not important now. I’m sorry," she
confessed. "I’m the one who shot you. But I told you
not to run, Fox. If I didn’t shoot, one of them would have.
And they wouldn’t just hit your shoulder, either."
He frowned.
"I know you," he said, trying to push himself up.
"We’ve met before."
The woman smiled. "I guess you could say we have," she
replied, gently pushing him back down into the pillow. "You
need to rest. I’m not as great a shot as I used to be. No
where near as good as your partner. I had to dig the bullet out
of your shoulder. You lost a lot of blood, and to top it off, you
also have a concussion."
He looked at her. He had a million questions he wanted to ask
her, but his clouded mind wasn’t cooperating with him. He
heard footsteps near the door. The woman turned, a bit panicked.
She turned back to the bag she had been looking through and
withdrew a hypodermic.
"I think it’s better if you sleep now," she said,
adding an "I’m sorry" as she pushed the needle
into his flesh.
As he began to drift off, he heard the door open and footsteps
enter.
"Well, Doctor?"
"He’s sleeping."
"Good. Remember the plan."
A sigh. "Right, the plan."
Mulder heard a slap.
"Don’t get weak on us, Samantha. You know what will
happen then."
End Part 05/06