Blood of Abraham - Chapter Seventeen
by Mik
The echo of an unanswered telephone hovered in my mind long after I'd pocketed my mobile and started walking back to the car. Scully was already inside, brushing snow from her hair, but she paused and looked up at me in expectation. "Well?"
I shook my head. "Still no answer."
"Maybe their battery's dead, or service is out in that area," she suggested, pulling her gloves off to blow into her little hands. "If it's this bad in Boston, it might well be worse in D.C."
I slid under the wheel. "I tried my house, as well. I didn't even get my machine."
"Well, you see? The power's gone." Scully put one of those little hands on my arm. "Stop worrying, Daddy. I'm sure everything's fine."
Daddy. That just made everything worse. This was the first time since acquiring the title that I'd been out in the field for more than one day. The Gunmen assured me they had no qualms about keeping Bram overnight, but overnight had turned into three days and nights. And I hadn't talked to them in almost twenty four hours. I was starting to rethink my position on the Gunmen as au pair. "Yeah," I agreed belatedly, and pushed the key into the ignition.
"Have you talked to Assistant Director Skinner?" she asked as, with more skidding than I would have liked, I managed to get the car back out onto the road.
"Skinner?" I repeated guiltily. "Why would I talk to him?" Why indeed? I'd been avoiding him for weeks. Things couldn't have gotten more awkward between us after spending a night wrapped up in his arms. If I'd had any doubts about the potential attraction, that night had crushed them. I went into full defense mode after that. I couldn't get out of his house fast enough. I refused his offer to share space a final time with such desperate nastiness that I think he considered smacking me. Not that I didn't deserve it. My words were probably like a slap in the face to him.
"Because he might be able to go by your place and make sure everything's all right," she answered levelly.
"Why should he go so far out of his way for - for us." I nearly said 'for me'.
"Because he cares about Bram as much as any of us," Scully reminded me, "and he's the only one in town we can ask."
"Oh, well...maybe." I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out my phone. "Here. Give him a call." I tossed it into her lap, and made a great show of keeping my eyes on the road.
Scully's brows pulled down, and her lips pushed out, a frown she was famous for. "You never told me how that weekend went," she said thoughtfully.
"Weekend?" I wouldn't look at her. Not directly. She must have known I was watching her from the corner of my eye. "Which weekend?"
The frown deepened. "The one you spent at his place. The weekend of the blizzard."
"Oh, that weekend. Fine." I shrugged. "Just fine. Look at these drifts, this snow must be six feet deep in places."
"Then why don't you call him?" She held the phone across the car.
"Because, Scully," I said impatiently, "I'm trying to negotiate twenty four hundred pounds of forward thrust along a track completely lacking the necessary friction to facilitate maneuvering and voluntary cessation of movement."
"What?"
"I'm driving in a snow storm."
I'm not sure if she laughed at me, but she did open the phone and started entering numbers that I was surprised she didn't have to look up. She listened. She frowned again. She hung up. "Just his machine. I wonder where Kim is?"
"You called his office?" I hit a patch of that lack of necessary friction and the car skidded and stuttered a moment before recovering its forward thrust.
"I don't know his mobile number," she answered, then paused thoughtfully. "Do you?"
I could truthfully say I did not.
She didn't look as if she believed me.
I hunched over the wheel and looked up into the blizzard making a direct assault on our car. "Where's all this global warming they're talking about?"
Scully started to laugh, but threw her hand up against the dash as the car jerked to the side sharply. "Mulder, we need to get off this road."
"Yeah, give me a minute, and I think we'll manage that," I grunted, trying not to give into my instincts and hit the brakes and jerk the wheel. "How does the nearest ditch suit you?"
"I was thinking more like finding a motel or a coffee shop, Mulder," Scully explained, prying her hand off the dash to tuck the phone back into her bag.
"Scully, tell the car that, will you? It seems to have a mind of its own at this - shit!" I barely missed sliding into a large dark object that turned out to be an eighteen wheeler which was evidently as contrary as our vehicle. I pushed my fist into the horn, in protest. "When did the lines in the roads become mere suggestions to motorists?"
Scully had both hands braced at this point. "There are lines in the road?"
"I fucking hate snow," I said through clenched teeth. It was snow that got me into that mess with Skinner. If it hadn't been for the blizzard, I would never have spent the night in his house, or found things in his closet … or in his past.
"There's an exit up ahead," Scully said, lifting her hand from the dash long enough to point for a second. "Do you think you can get the car over there?"
"I'll start negotiations now," I muttered. This wasn't the worst snowstorm I'd ever driven in, but...where the hell were the Gunmen? And more importantly, where the hell was my son?
Scully lifted her hand from the dash and pressed it against my arm. "He's fine," she said quietly.
She knows me so well.
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Scully was folding her phone into her bag as I brought coffees to our table. "Any luck?"
She shook her head, trying not to look too concerned. "I tried your place and theirs."
I slid into the booth opposite her. "I'm going to kill them. All three of them," I promised.
"Mulder, they wouldn't let anything happen to him." She stirred her coffee for a moment. "Maybe they took him to a movie or something."
"Since last night?" I looked at my watch. "Try Skinner's office again. I think our food's up." I pulled out of the booth again. I don't know why I'd bothered to order food. My stomach had been in knots since this morning. This wasn't the first time the Gunmen had vanished with Bram but this was the first time I'd been out of town and not able to track them down. And it was the first time they'd vanished overnight. Usually their excuse was they thought the place was under surveillance...and for all I know, it might well have been, but they were always back within a few hours, or called me with a meeting place they deemed 'safe'. This time felt different. This time was different.
"I talked to Kim," Scully told me as I brought the tray back to the booth. "Skinner left the office at lunch and called to tell her he wouldn't be back today. She has some faxes for us. She said she'd send them to your email." Scully pulled the tray toward herself and frowned. "Mulder, what is this stuff?"
"Food?" I suggested, staring out at the snow resentfully.
"Is it our food?" she asked.
"Isn't it?" Damned bloody snow. I should be halfway to Alexandria by now.
"I can't imagine you ordering a veggie burger."
"Didn't I?" Where the hell are they?
"Let me see that receipt."
I gave up the paper without a fight, and reached for my coffee. "Who ordered a salad?"
"Mulder, you picked up the wrong tray." Scully scooped up the tray and slid from her seat. "Don't worry, I'll take it back. Who knows what you'd bring back next time."
I pulled my mobile from my pocket and dialed numbers. And then dialed more numbers. And then more. And got a machine. "You guys better get your asses back to my place or I'm going to have all three of you audited...and anally probed." I hung up just as Scully came back with our usual fare; hamburgers, chili and fries. "Sorry, Scully. I guess I'm a bit preoccupied."
"No, really?"
"Kim didn't say where Skinner went?"
"No." She lifted the bun of her burger and sniffed cautiously. "But she didn't seem to think whatever he was doing was unusual." She reached for the catsup. "Just business as usual there."
"Scully, we work for the FBI...define business as usual."
She chuckled as she pounded the catsup bottle. "Eat your sandwich. I caught a bit of the Weather Channel while I was waiting for the right order. This is supposed to be letting up soon. We can be home by morning."
Home. What was it Skinner said about a home? That it was a place to have pride in? Take comfort in? Defend? I hadn't ever thought of 42 Hegel Place as any of those things, but after a weekend with Skinner, I'd taken to the concept with an almost ferocious need to prove to everyone (for everyone read Skinner) that I was capable of making a home, keeping it and defending it. I'd baby proofed the outlets and cupboards, and attached the bookcases to the walls with brackets so they couldn't be overturned. I moved stacks of books up high so they couldn't be pulled down by curious, sticky hands. I'd even gone so far as to put pictures of cartoon characters on the wall over Bram's crib … it was as close as I could get to actually decorating. Okay, it would never be featured on HGTV but it was a safe place to keep Bram.
If I could just keep Bram there.
A foot nudged mine. "Food's getting cold, Mulder."
I jerked my gaze away from the window. Scully was halfway through her burger, and watching me with that mother-knows-best frown between bites. "Haven't you got any other way to reach them?"
"No, unfortunately, I left the Batsignal at home this trip."
"This is so unlike you, Mulder," she said, after another bite. "But," she reached across the table to pat my arm, "kind of sweet."
"What do you mean, it's unlike me?" I bristled. "Are you suggesting I've never been capable of being concerned for anyone before? All I can say is you should have been around here a few years ago when you went missing. I nearly -"
"I'm not," she answered sharply, squeezing my arm. "I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. "I'm just saying that this paternal streak of yours is odd, but nice. I...like it."
"So, what you're really saying," I concluded, reaching for one of her cold French fries, "is that I'm being a pain in the ass, but you don't mind."
Her face softened. "Not too much."
I reached for another fry. "Thank you."
She slapped my hand away. "Still..."
I pulled my hand back, vaguely aware of some little thrill of alarm at the back of my neck. "Still?" I prompted.
She shook her head, and turned her attention to the madly whirling snow outside. "It must be hard for you...working all day, coming home to who knows what conditions, caring for him all night." Suddenly she was looking at me directly. "You really need someone else there. All the time."
Intruder alert! Danger! Danger! The klaxons and red lights were going all over now. I don't know how I kept my voice sounding so detached and calm. "Oh, it's not so bad, not now I've gotten used to him, and he's gotten used to me." Okay, that was a lie. I still walked the floor with him most nights 'til we both ended up in an exhausted heap on my sofa, and I woke up in the mornings with a stiff neck and baby goo all over my chest. But that didn't mean I was ready to make domestic arrangements with Dana Scully.
And that's exactly what she'd been angling for. I could see the disappointment drip down over her face even as she worked up a smile. "Well...well, that's good. I mean," she laughed weakly, "you'd have to get used to caring for him on your own, otherwise you might end up in Assistant Director Skinner's butler's quarters."
"Yeah." I reached for my coffee, as cold as her French fries and the pit in my stomach. "And we wouldn't want that."
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The place was dark and cold and empty. I dropped my keys on the dining room table, and groped for a light before calling out names. Groped, tripped, stumbled against a wall, found a light, and swore. I was going for my weapon even as I pulled myself upright.
The place was trashed. Not in their usual 'Oh, we were just playing with Bram' way of trashing my apartment, but in a full scale black bag job way of trashing. Furniture was overturned, papers were scattered, contents of drawers were dumped, and books were tossed everywhere.
My heart, which had started pounding in anxiety almost twenty four hours previous, went into a ceaseless thrumming that made my head ache and my entire body break out in a sweat. "Fro?" I whispered. "Langley?" I took steps toward my bedroom. "John!" I called, more loudly. "Bram!" My bedroom wasn't quite the shambles I'd found in the front of the place, but every drawer in the bureau had been rifled. "Fuck."
While I was still standing in the middle of this chaos, my mobile rang, and although I would deny it to anyone, I jumped and emitted a less than manly sound of alarm. "Mulder," I squeaked.
"Mulder, have you heard from them?"
"Scully," I said weakly, looking around the havoc which had been wrought, "they're gone."
"Yes, but have you heard from them?" she repeated.
"You're not listening to me...they're gone. The place has been tossed and there's no sign of them." I looked around again. Bram's sucky thing and Sam's lamb were not in his crib. "I should call the police -"
"You're not listening to me," Scully interrupted. "I had a message from them. It was slipped under my door. They said your apartment was being bugged so they took Bram to a safe place and -"
"You mean, they did this?" This was a new height in low. "There's no such thing as a safe place for them, now - just wait 'til I get my hands on them...geez, Scully, not even I'm this paranoid. You should see what they did here."
Scully was quiet a moment. "Mulder, why would anyone be monitoring your apartment now? The X-Files are closed...they won. Why should they care?"
"I have no idea." I sank down on my rumpled bed, the adrenaline draining out of me, leaving me feeling limp and wet and washed out. "But," I conceded with a sigh, "it's not something they'd lie about. If they said they found something, then they found something. They've been saying for weeks that there were suspicious characters hanging around and that they thought my mail had been tampered with."
"Mulder...could it have anything to do with Bram?"
I looked back at the crib and felt cold again. "I don't think...but why?" Weird suggestions began to burst in my head like popcorn. Clones. Genetic experimentation. Robotics. Spiders from Mars. And one question which, for the last few weeks I'd relegated to the bottom of my mental in basket...where did Bram really come from? "Where did they say I could meet them?"
I could hear Scully consult the message. "It doesn't say. It just said to assure you that they'd contact you and not to worry. They don't know you quite as well as they think, do they?"
I nearly said something vulgar. For the first time in our long partnership, I truly resented her smug presumption of intimacy. "Look, if I'm supposed to be waiting for their contact, I'm going to get off the phone. Besides, you should see this place. I'll be up all night putting it right."
"That bad? Do you need some -"
"No, no...thanks. I can manage." I couldn't let her think I was dependent upon her now. "I'll talk to you later."
"Let me know when they bring him back," she urged.
"I will." I hung up without further ceremony, and shrugged out of my jacket. As tired as I was, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep 'til my son was home.
My son.
Home.
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Three hours later, holding Bram against my hip like a professional parent, I was knocking on a door in Crystal City.
He opened the door, looking as if I'd dragged him out of a sound sleep, and a wonderful dream involving a vintage Bugatti, vintage wine and an anything but vintage companion. "Mulder," he pronounced, as if he doubted I knew who I was.
I licked my lips and hitched Bram a little more securely against me. "Is the offer still open?"
End Chapter Seventeen