Title: Sfumato (6/? - sequel to "The Marionette Rebellion") Author: supernova Disclaimer: Not mine; don't sue. Rating: R Category: MSR, Angst Archive: Not this time. Check out Ephemeral or my site to read this story. Thanks to Kat, for everything. http://www.angelfire.com/ms/KtblleStorage/main.html Feedback: feed me at supernova818@aol.com Author's Notes: Thanks to Beach for beta. Thanks to "G" for interesting debate and well-timed pokes. Much love to Snick. --------------- Sfumato ---------- Chapter 5 --------------- They are presently forty-four miles outside of D.C.. After calling the airlines and finding no immediately available flights to Washington National, they'd flung themselves in the car and begun the long drive. Silence has reined, the radio a muted distraction, the sounds of three people breathing the only other interruption for hundreds of miles. Paul sits quietly in the back seat; his bruised and battered face throbs, his discomfort obvious. Mulder's impatience and worry tap against the steering wheel. Occasionally, he casts sidelong glances at Scully. She remains steadfast in her resolve to watch the scenery blur by in a mishmash of colors and textures. They've only stopped once, for gas and an unavoidable bathroom break. They are without luggage, having had no time to pack anything before they left. It's just as well, Scully thinks to herself, she had planned on burning her clothes and replacing her wardrobe anyway. As memories flutter through her brain, all warm images of the last seven years that make her heart ache, she tries to focus on something else. Try as she might she can only replay the events of early morning, when the birds were chirping as dawn broke through the trees, revealing a brilliant blue sky, promising a gloriously beautiful day. After the call came, about her missing children and the gunshots fired in their vicinity, she saw the morning through a filter of desperation and barely concealed rage. Suddenly, as if someone had turned out the light on the earth, the sky wasn't as blue, everything seemed dark, and the only sound was that of her life crashing down around her. Ideally, morning brings with it hazy, blue light, lazy yawns, and a certain sense of peace. Everything is new in the morning; that fight you've had the night before is tempered by eight uninterrupted hours of sleep; the absolute fatigue you felt as a result of working for twelve hours straight, eight of which were spent standing, is replaced by awareness; frustration over things not going exactly right in the weeks before is replaced by opportunity; the past is lost in the night, the future found in glances across cotton sheets, heads resting on plump, down pillows. Essentially, mornings are new beginnings. That wasn't the case this morning, though. Scully and Mulder hadn't had time to rest, their bed is blood stained, and she hasn't looked across the white ocean of sheets at his morning-rumpled hair in over a month. Mulder spent the night burying for all intents and purposes, Scully's twin; they'd engaged in a kind of ritual where Mulder had tattooed forever where skin and hair collide; a facet of forgiveness, or at least understanding had been found; murder had been contemplated, and it had all ended or begun, depending on the view, with dawn bringing forth news of missing children. Scully is not sure she can survive if something happens to her children; not when she knows the joy of having children without tragedy shadowing their every move; not now that she knows the feel of William and Hope in bed with she and Mulder, an oversized, shared bowl of sugary cereal between them, Saturday morning cartoons enrapturing them with simplicity, giving way to the most innocent laughter; not now that she knows that William and Hope have made everything, every last horrific tragedy, worth all the pain when the end result was having them be safe, whole, hers and Mulder's brilliant boy, and sweet, sweet girl. Scully's murmured protests and Mulder's screams had found the other in the space that separated their physical beings, as always their pain and grief joining to become one, forming what heartache would sound like if it were an auditory thing instead of a simple word. Paul had sat and watched with wide eyes, his pulse pounding like a jackhammer beneath his skin; he had felt it in his stomach and in his skull. The unnaturally fast rhythm vibrating off his bones, fear pressing down hard, his pulse quickening as the screams turned to silence. Paul's handcuffs had clinked together, and sounded impossibly loud, when compared to Scully's mumbled "no, Oh God no, no." She had been on the brink of hyperventilating in her grief, although Paul had not even considered telling her so. Paul had hoped all this talk of misplaced children in danger, was a huge mistake, because there is nothing that incites anger like harm to a child. Fucking around with a grown woman had been one thing, but helpless kids are another, and he isn't without his principles after all. Mulder was on top of Paul like a bolt of lightening, blurry in the swiftness in which he crossed the room, and suddenly the situation had violently, irrevocably exploded into something beyond all manageability. Paul had been fearful for his life as well he should have been. Harming Scully was enough to make Mulder want to kill Paul even as righteousness had won over vengeance; threatening Mulder and Scully's children was enough for Mulder to kill Paul without question. Everyone has a breaking point. Fists had knifed through the air, an avalanche of anger unleashed on one man, threats reverberating in every direction. Paul had tried to fight Mulder, but Mulder's adrenaline had kicked in, and he was unstoppable in his wrath. Scully had risen from her chair, and gone to Mulder, reaction dulled by pain. The anger and despair radiating from him had been impenetrable. Scully had shifted back and forth to avoid his fists and elbows. "Damn you! If anything happens to them, I'll kill you! I swear to God I'll kill you!" "Mulder, stop it," she'd said calmly. He hadn't heard her. "Where are they? Tell me where they are! Who is after them?" "Mulder, listen to me, we need to see if he can tell us anything. Stop it, Mulder, for just a minute," she'd said, more forcefully than before. She tried to pull his arms away, and even though she is a strong woman, she had known she would have been unable to stop him from beating Paul to death if that had been his chosen path. His back had rippled underneath her hand, every muscle in motion, as she had continued to plead with him to stop his assault. A momentary pause, and Mulder had looked at her with a questioning expression, one that caused his forehead to wrinkle. She'd scowled at him, disturbed by his newfound propensity for violence, and the amount of anger in him. She'd calmed somewhat when she realized most of it was because of what had been done to her, to them. "You need to calm down, Mulder. We aren't going to solve anything this way." Gratefulness, or some close emotional relative, had passed over Paul's face. Scully had moved toward Paul, leaned down and whispered, "Don't think you're off the hook you son of a bitch. If I find out you had anything to do with this, I'll kill you myself." Mulder's voice pricks her consciousness, and the remembrance of early morning, joins the blur of roadside distractions. "Do you need to stop, Scully? Before we get to D.C.?" he asks. "No," she says. Going to the bathroom is not a top priority when her children are missing, undoubtedly frightened, possibly in the hands of mad men. His hand creeps across the seat, hesitant in its slow push toward her, and when it makes contact with her hand, and fingers clutch at her own, she feels a pang of guilt that she allows her hand to continue resting limply on her thigh. The clink, clink, clink of handcuffs reminds her Paul is in the car with them. Mulder continues to palm the steering wheel, his fingers intermittently tapping out an indeterminable rhythm, and Scully continues to stare out the window, the blur of their journey never-ending. -X- There are no witnesses, no leads, and no pathways to their children. Paul was handed over to the FBI, specifically Agent Browning, to be questioned for his role in Scully's kidnapping, and any possible knowledge about the whereabouts of their children. Paul maintains innocence on that front. Deep down Mulder knows he is a dead end, although he is glad to be rid of him, and hopes he will serve a long prison sentence for his role in Scully's month long captivity and torture. He hopes Paul will suffer, wherever he is, whatever happens to him. It has been a little over twenty-four hours since the call came that their children were missing. Twelve hours had been spent driving; three hours at the crime scene, or lack thereof, going over every room, questioning every person in the motel, searching the immediate area; four hours at the Hoover building in the confines of Skinner's office, questioning Paul, discussing a plan of action with Agent Browning; the remaining hours spent searching the streets of D.C. looking for a clue, hoping that Skinner, William, and Hope would materialize on a street corner, in a grocery store, anywhere, as long as they were safe. No one had materialized, and Mulder's cell phone had rung only once, Agent Browning wanting to inform them of Paul's official incarceration, booking, and continued cries of innocence in regard to William and Hope. Apparently, he had coughed up the location where Scully had been held for the last month, and Browning further informed Mulder that he had directed three agents, along with the local Bangor PD to investigate that building, now considered a crime scene. She had been just over ten miles away from their home. They hadn't wanted to stop, but their bodies had rebelled, and their eyes had begun to close of their own accord. After stopping by a twenty-four hour drugstore and buying the essentials, they'd checked into a motel, not wanting to rest but admitting they needed it. Scully has been in the bathroom for twenty-five minutes; Mulder is sprawled on the bed and idly clicks the remote; early morning television whirls by. He is trying to be patient, but he is also tired, which makes the attempt at patience even more challenging. Ultimately, he loses the battle. "Scully, you okay in there?" he calls out. She doesn't answer, not that he really expected her to. The motel curtains are drawn tightly together, the panels overlapping, the room immune to the light outside. He slowly rises from the bed, procrastinating, and rubs the edges of his skull with the tips of his fingers. He walks to the bathroom, leans against the door, and listens for movement. He hears none. So as not to startle her, he slowly opens the bathroom door, calling her name as he does so. He finds her, nude, sitting on the side of the bathtub, her head in her hands. "Scully," he calls to her softly. Still, she doesn't answer him. Her nudity reveals more of the horror of her abduction. Bruises, he thinks, cover her from head to toe. Her once fine-china skin is now purple and red and green and yellow, and wholly unrecognizable to him. He wonders about the square patch of skin missing from her hip. It is red, raw, angry. It physically hurts him to look at her, and so, he turns away. "Scully, are you all right?" he asks, looking at the floor. He is tired, scared, needy, and so his feet propel him to the side of bathtub, and he hovers over her. Standing becomes too much of an effort; the toilet provides an adequate respite. He is eye level with her now, or he would be, if she were looking at him. Her injuries beckon him, and he surveys her again, the sweep of his eyes over her battered body no less horrific the second time around. He touches her shoulder and she cartoonishly jumps off the tub. "Jesus, you scared me, Mulder," she gasps. "I'm sorry," he replies. "I'll be out in a minute, just give me a minute," she says, covering as much of herself as possible from view. He walks out of the bathroom, leaving the door cracked, the snick of it closing rings in his ears as he resumes his earlier position on the bed. When she finally emerges from the bathroom, she is wearing only the shirt she had on earlier, and she finds it hard to meet his gaze. "I'm not sure what to do," he confesses. She looks at him for a moment, and then lowers herself onto the bed, "Me either," she says, fumbling with the bedside alarm clock. "We'll rest for a few hours, then we'll go over everything again, try to figure this out," she says, putting the alarm clock down, turning it to face the bed. "Scully, what happened to your hip?" he blurts out. "Now is not the time to talk about this," she says. He nods and heads toward the bathroom. He stands under the spray of water until it turns cold, and by the time he exits the bathroom, Scully is asleep. He lies down beside her, their bodies inches apart, not touching. -X- John Denver is serenading her. They're in a warehouse, he's slouched on a barstool, smiling, singing, "come let me love you, come love me again." He frowns when she does not smile in return. She opens her eyes, John Denver disappears, but his song is still with her. She reaches over, slaps at the alarm clock, and his voice is silenced. She is not quite awake, and so she lies back down, curling up against Mulder's side. He pulls her tightly, desperately against him, and she basks in the sensation of it. That is when she remembers, remembers that she's been too long without his touch, and that Hope and William are missing. Her movements are quick and precise as she untangles herself from his embrace, sits up, and rubs at her eyes. She tries to be nonchalant when she finally looks at him, but his eyes are focused on her with extraordinary intensity. "Sorry about that," she says, waving her hand over the bed. "Why are you sorry?" he asks. "Now isn't the time, William and Hope are all that matter now," she says under her breath, moving to rise from the bed. "All of it matters," he says. His grip is strong on her forearm, and the pain in his eyes haunts her, as she jerks her arm away from him. "We need to get up, get dressed, and concentrate on finding our children, Mulder." "You told me twenty-four hours ago that we never deal with anything. You were right. You won't be able to avoid me forever, Scully," he says, getting out of bed, disappearing into the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower and try to wake up," he says, peering out of the bathroom, a towel haphazardly slung over his shoulder. She hears the water being turned on, strong at first, the sound changing as the showerhead leaks forth its pitiful dribble. Longingly, she looks at his side of the bed, picks up the pillow that cradled his head for five blessed hours, and buries her face in the yielding fabric that still contains some small part of him. Continued in Chapter 6