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LAWS OF MOTION

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by syntax6

Chapter seven: Score That a Balk


Mulder stood there, still wearing his overcoat, and looked 
dumbly at the cigar she had handed him.  "I don't 
understand," he repeated.

Scully reached down and retrieved a pair of gels from his 
coffee table.  She held first one and then the other up to 
the nearest floor lamp.  "This is Emily," she said, "and 
this is you."  She slid the two together so that half the 
bars overlapped in a perfect match.

Mulder took a step forward, mesmerized.  He stretched out 
his hand but did not quite touch the gels.  "Oh my God," he 
breathed.

Scully snatched them away.  "Why didn't you tell me?"  Her 
voice was raw with hurt.

"Scully, I had no idea.  I swear."

"Oh, cut the crap, Mulder.  All that talk about' where's 
the father? Why doesn't anyone ever care about the 
father?'" She thrust the gels at his chest, shoving him 
back slightly.  "You never said one damn word to me about 
what happened between us."

His heart started beating so fast it felt like it was 
vibrating.  Blood rushed to his ears; his mouth went dry.  
"I...are you saying you got pregnant?"

Scully threw up her hands and stalked away from him.  "You 
tell me!  You must have a far greater recollection than I."  
She turned at the window, folding her arms across her 
chest.  "Were you ever going to tell me, Mulder?  Was this 
going to be the next little secret you sprung on me -- 
sorry, Scully, I meant to tell you about the ova.  Oops, I 
guess I didn't mention we slept together!"

"I was going to tell you a million times," he said quietly.  

"And yet you never did.  Pardon me if I don't believe you."

Mulder cradled the gels to his middle as gently as if they 
were an actual child.  "I'm sorry," he said.

"That's not good enough this time," she replied, turning 
from the window to snap at him.  "You can't always be sorry 
after the fact, Mulder.  Sorry doesn't make everything okay 
again.  All these years, you knew, and you never said 
anything.  God, I'm such a fool."

"No, Scully.  Never that."

She sniffed hard and glared at him.  "I must be the biggest 
joke to you, showing up to work every day and not having a 
clue about what happened.  I must be a walking punch line.  
Was it funny, Mulder?  Did you get a good laugh?"

He recalled the days after her return when he had walked 
around on eggshells, half hoping she would remember and 
half dreading that she would.  He hadn't eaten for a week.  
"You think this was easy for me either?"

"I don't know!  I don't know what it was like for you 
because *you never said*."

"I didn't know what to say."  He sunk down on the sofa with 
the gels in his lap.  "You were gone, and then you were 
back.  You nearly died.  And then there was Ethan."

"That was four years ago.  You've had four years to say 
something."

"Say what, exactly?  Hey, Scully, you don't remember this, 
but we slept together one time.  Pass me that file?"

"Yes, for instance."  She put her hand over her eyes.  "I 
can't believe this.  I can't believe this is happening."

Well, that right there was one reason he had kept his lip 
buttoned.  No one was better than Scully at denying what 
she didn't want to know.  He figured there was a damn good 
reason she remembered the Flukeman and not him.  If she 
were repressing this particular incident, he wasn't about 
to force the issue.  Hell, there were many times he wished 
he could repress it himself.

"Is there anything else?" she demanded, stalking towards 
him.  The lamp light cast her large, angry show across his 
wall.

"Anything else?"

"Yes.  Any other secrets, any other things you've been 
meaning to tell me but just haven't quite gotten around to 
mentioning yet."

"No."  He couldn't look at her.

"You're sure there's nothing.  Absolutely sure.  Be very, 
very sure, Mulder."

All of a sudden he wasn't sure.  His head hurt.  He was 
still reeling, and Scully was looming over him, demanding 
answers.  "I...I don't think so."

Scully just stood there staring at him.  He waited out the 
terrible silence for a long minute.

"What?" he asked, finally meeting her eyes.

"I'm trying to remember," she said as she looked him over 
searchingly from head to toe.  "I know there was rain."

Mulder leaned back and closed his eyes.  "Yes, rain," he 
said.  "We were in Arecibo."  It felt strange to hear 
himself say the words out loud.  He had been keeping the 
memory quiet for so long.  "We didn't plan it.  It just 
kind of happened.  We didn't exactly talk about it 
afterward, and I think we both knew it was a mistake."

Scully's jaw quivered and she turned away from him again.  
"You must have been relieved then," she said, and he caught 
her wiping at her eyes.  "All the mess just went away.  No 
wonder you never said anything."

"Hey, I was trying to save you a mess," he said, an edge 
creeping into his voice for the first time.  "You were the 
one with a fiancé at home, remember?"

Scully shook her head broadly, refusing to look at him.  
"You should have told me."

"It wasn't exactly a happy memory," Mulder said.  

"But it's a memory you have and I don't," she said.  "A 
memory you've kept from me for years."  She turned and 
faced him.  "Please tell me no one else knows about this."

Mulder blanched, and Scully looked horrified.

"Oh, God," she said.  "You didn't tell Ethan, did you?"

"No, no."  He hesitated.  "I may have mentioned something 
about it to Byers."

"Byers?  You mean Byers knows more about my sex life than I 
do?"

"He doesn't have any details."

Scully clutched her head with both hands.  "I've got to get 
out of here.  I can't think."

He pushed off the couch and tried to block her exit.  
"Scully, wait a second.  Don't leave yet.  Sit down and 
let's talk about this."  He had a panicked feeling that if 
he let her leave now, she might never come back.

"No."

She made an effort to dodge him, but he stepped in front of 
her.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "Really I am.  You're right 
that I should have told you.  I'll tell you now, if you 
want.  Anything you want to know, just ask me."

"I want to know how you could do this to me."  She sounded 
broken and lost, stamping one small foot like a little 
girl.

His heart constricted.  He reached for her, but she brushed 
him off.  "I never meant to hurt you," he said.  "You have 
to believe me."

"All this time, I've been searching for these memories, to 
try to get back some of what was taken from me, and I 
thought you were helping me in that search."

"I am," he said with feeling, but Scully shook her head.

"You've been hiding the truth from me, Mulder, just the 
same as they have.  I--I don't know how to forgive that."  

She broke away from him, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, 
and hurried for the door.  Mulder stood rooted in his 
living room until the sound of her angry slam jolted him 
awake again.  Slowly, as if his limbs were made of lead, he 
returned to the couch.  He still hadn't taken off his coat.

He covered his face with his hands to still their shaking 
and tried to think.  Rain pattered against his windows, 
making it easy to call up that long ago night.  When he let 
himself, he could still feel her body moving under him, 
felt her hair sticking to his cheek.  It all seemed 
dreamlike after all these years, as if that happened to two 
other people and not the pair of them.

He rarely looked at Scully and thought: I had sex with her.  
That wide-eyed innocent had disappeared from Skyland 
Mountain and never returned.

How he could explain this to her, he did not know.  She 
seemed to think he had devised the whole unfortunate scheme 
as some big joke at her expense, as if he had gotten his 
rocks off over the fact that he had seen her naked but she 
could not remember.

Mulder sat forward and contemplated the gels on his coffee 
table.  He slid one atop the other and back again, watching 
the truth click into place over and over.  In his memory, 
he heard Scully panting and felt himself pouring into her 
body.  He wondered, if she had reappeared pregnant, whether 
he would have found the words to tell her what had happened 
between them.

But now they would never know.

~*~*~

At home, Scully stripped naked and stepped into a blazing 
hot shower.  The water needles stung her skin, slicing away 
her outer layers as she turned her face to the water and 
gasped for breath.  The rushing sound was all she knew; 
that and Mulder's body on hers.  If he had not told her, 
she would never have known it happened in Puerto Rico.

She had no context.  No details.

She punished herself with the pain, for it was easier to 
take than the humiliation she felt every time she 
remembered her four years of ignorance.  She had been to 
bed with him, performed the most intimate of human acts, 
and then shown up for work every day like nothing had ever 
happened.  To think she had wondered all these years what 
it might be like to make love with him.  She had been 
fantasizing about something that had already happened.

Scully scrubbed her skin raw, barely holding back the sobs.

In her mind, it was always beautiful, this coming together 
after a slow, inexorable slide into each other.  Instead it 
had been some tawdry encounter that left Mulder so shaken 
he hadn't even mentioned it.  And Ethan.  She had been 
unfaithful to him, and for what?  A night she barely even 
remembered.

Scully covered her face as tears of shame mingled with her 
shower water.  She slid to the bottom of the tub, her spine 
pressed hard against the porcelain.  She bent her arms over 
her knees and wept.

Mulder had been the one person she was sure of, her one 
true thing.  For the first time since she had met him, 
Scully felt totally alone.

~*~*~

Sitting at his desk, Mulder gnawed the yellow off a number 
two pencil and did not even pretend to work.  He kept 
checking first the clock and then the door, but Scully had 
not shown up yet.  He was beginning to wonder if she was 
upstairs handing in her resignation to Skinner.

Part of him was terrified.  The other part was annoyed.  
Okay, so now she knew they slept together.  Nothing had 
really changed.  Hell, he had been working with this 
knowledge for four years and it hadn't affected their 
ability as partners. 

She's just weirded out, the same as you were, he told 
himself.  She'll come around.

But his stomach sank when he picked up his phone to find 
Skinner on the other end.  "Mulder, I need you to come up 
here right now," he said, sounding unamused.

Mulder screwed his eyes shut for the bad news.  "Yes, sir."

"And bring Scully with you."

Mulder opened one eye to look around, in case he had heard 
correctly.  "Sir?"

"Now, Mulder."

"Sir, Agent Scully isn't in yet," Mulder said with some 
relief.

"Then bring a pad to take notes, because I don't want 
either of you to miss a word."

Mulder wisely decided not pursue the discussion further, 
instead grabbing his suit jacket and the prescribed pad of 
paper.  He almost ran into Scully on his way out the door.  
"Hey," he said, drawing up short.

Scully hugged her briefcase to herself and barely looked at 
him.  "Sorry I'm late."

Mulder contemplated pretending like nothing had happened 
but then considered where that had gotten him the first 
time.  "No problem," he murmured, his voice low.  He tried 
a smile.  "I was afraid maybe you weren't coming at all."

She looked right at him then.  "If you ever lie to me 
again," she said, "I won't come back."

"I won't," he promised.

"I mean it."

"So do I."

She gave a stiff, business-like nod, and her gaze slipped 
away again.  From inside the office, his phone gave a 
particularly shrill sounding ring.

"Uh, I bet that's Skinner," Mulder said.  "He wants us both 
upstairs now."

"About what?" Scully asked as he hit the elevator button.

"He didn't say.  That's usually bad, right?"

"The worst," Scully said pointedly, and Mulder fell silent.  

They shared an awkward twenty seconds alone in the 
elevator, both looking at the lighted numbers overhead as 
Mulder willed the car to move faster.  When the doors slid 
open, Scully stepped out without a backward glance.

Kim looked up from her paper work and grimaced at the sight 
of them.  "I don't know what you've done this time," she 
said, "but he is not happy."

Mulder leaned down to Scully as she opened Skinner's door.  
"What have we done this time?" he whispered to her.

Scully did not answer him, instead entering the office and 
greeting their supervisor.  "Sir?  You wanted to see us?"

"No, actually I didn't want to, but I wasn't really given a 
choice."  He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with 
one hand.  "Sit down, agents."

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances before settling into 
their usual chairs.

"The Director was waiting for me when I got in this 
morning.  It seems two of my agents are interfering in 
active investigations by the D.C.'s District Attorney's 
office.  Surely not, I said.  My agents know better than to 
badger witnesses, demand access to prisoners after hours 
and harass a Senator who isn't even a suspect in either of 
these investigations."

"The hell he isn't," Mulder said, and Skinner shut him up 
with a scowl.

"Do I not give you two enough work to keep you busy?  You 
have go ambulance chasing after ordinary homicides?"

"Sir, with all due respect to the Director," said Scully, 
"the District Attorney's office is not investigating.  
They're busy railroading an innocent man."

"He's innocent," Skinner said.  "You know this how?"

Mulder risked a look at Scully, who faltered.  He guessed 
she didn't have much better to say than, "because he said 
so."

"I know him," she said finally.  "He would never do this."

"There are things that don't add up," Mulder said as he sat 
forward.  "Ethan Minette's motive is extremely weak.  There 
is a missing witness, the person who called in the 
disturbance.  Ethan and Melinda were investigating Rachel 
Campenella's murder when all this went down.  We think 
there may be some possibility that Melinda was killed and 
Ethan framed to shut them up."

"Evidence?"

Scully shifted in her seat.  Mulder sat back and let out a 
long breath.

"Someone followed me from the prison the other night and 
ran me off the road," she said.  "I could have been 
killed."

"It's probably the same person who called and told me to 
back off the case before we got hurt," Mulder added.

"Maybe it's not bad advice."

"Sir," Scully said, but Skinner cut her off.

"You have no authority in either of these cases.  You think 
you're helping, but all you're doing is distracting 
everyone from doing their jobs.  If Minette is innocent, 
they will find that out soon enough."

"Not if the same person complaining to the Director is also 
complaining to the District Attorney."

Skinner squinted at him. "Stay away from Ryerson.  This is 
none of your business."

"Someone tried to kill Scully.  That makes it our 
business."

"I have an answer for that, too," Skinner said.  He turned 
to Scully.  "You won't be allowed into the prison anymore, 
either of you.  If you go near this investigation again, it 
will be a two week suspension without pay."

"So he gets away with it," Mulder said, disgusted.  "And we 
help him."

"Do you have even one piece of evidence linking Senator 
Ryerson to either of these murders?"

"No, but--"

"Stay out of it.  Period."  He picked up his pen and bent 
over the papers in front of him again.  "Dismissed."

Mulder and Scully lingered in shocked silence but Skinner 
ignored them.  At last, they got up in unison, pushing 
slowly from their chairs and walking out without a word.  
Back at the elevator, Scully took out her aggression with a 
vicious stab at the button.

"For a man who supposedly isn't even a suspect, Senator 
Ryerson certainly spends a lot of time patrolling this 
investigation," she said.

Mulder agreed, but he was also somewhat relieved to have 
her angry at someone other than him for a few minutes.  
"What do you want to do next?"  he asked her as they 
stepped into the elevator.

"I can probably still get messages to Ethan through his 
lawyer.  He is not going to like this latest development."

"Staying away from Ryerson shouldn't be a problem.  It's 
not like he was going to break down and confess if we went 
back there and grilled him some more."

"I don't know what else to do.  Ryerson is our best lead 
right now."

"I was thinking about that," Mulder said as they returned 
to the office.  "I think we should talk to his wife."

"And she'll talk to Ryerson and we get a mandatory two week 
vacation."

"Maybe not."  Mulder sat behind the desk and put his feet 
up.  "From the sound of things, she's been putting up with 
his bad behavior for years.  Beatings, other women -- she 
might be waiting for the opportunity to stick the knife in 
when given the chance."

"She's been sticking by him for years."

"Yeah, but now he may be a murderer.  Everyone's got to 
draw the line somewhere."

"What makes you so sure this is hers?"

Mulder studied his chewed-up pencil for a second and then 
launched it at the ceiling.  He stuck the landing.  
"Because maybe it's occurred to her," he said to Scully, 
"that she might be next."

~*~*~



~*~*~

They did a little surreptitious checking and discovered 
that Ryerson would be out of town Friday night, leaving his 
wife available for interview.  Mulder drove them to the 
house after work.  It was the first time they had been 
alone together in such an enclosed space since their 
confrontation, and Scully was having a hard time 
concentrating.

She looked at his hands on the wheel and imagined them on 
her body.  The memory for her was like a word on the tip of 
the tongue -- present but just out of reach.  

It was exhausting to be angry with him.  She had not slept 
well in three days.  Dream memories clung like spider webs, 
wrapping her tighter the more she fought them.
Mulder spoke only when spoken to, as if he were afraid to 
say the wrong thing.  Instead it only reminded her of his 
silence.

"This is it on the right," she said in clipped tones. 

Mulder pulled up to a brick mansion with a long, half-
circle drive.  "You want to be the bad cop or the good 
cop?" he asked as they got out of the car.

"Let me talk to her," Scully said.

They rang the doorbell and a young man opened the door 
eating an apple.  "May I help you?" he asked them.

"Agents Scully and Mulder from the FBI," Scully said as she 
flashed her ID.  "We would like to speak to Julianne 
Ryerson."

"I'm her son, Seth.  Is there some sort of problem?"

"No problem," Scully said in a neutral tone.  "Is your 
mother at home?"  

They knew the Lexus in the driveway registered to her said 
she was.  But Scully made nice with a smile.

"Um, sure, come on in."  He widened the door and showed 
them to a sitting room off the front hall.  "I'll just tell 
her you're here.  What should I say it's about, exactly?"

"Just a little security matter," Mulder replied.  "We do 
this all the time."

Seth did not look like he quite believed him, but he left 
the room to fetch his mother anyway.  Scully sat while 
Mulder checked out the mantel.  "I think this is real," he 
remarked of the Picasso hanging over the fireplace. 

"It is real," said a voice from behind him.  Mulder turned 
to find Julianne Ryerson standing in the doorway.  She 
looked younger and blonder than the pictures in the paper 
made her appear.  

He could see she wasn't a great beauty.  Her mouth spread 
too wide; her forehead sat too high.  Her eyes were a 
striking shade of blue, similar to Scully's, but they stuck 
out a bit, giving her a vaguely bug-like look.  Still, she 
was approaching fifty with a slim figure and a great head 
of hair.  

Money, Mulder thought, let you accentuate the positives.

"Mrs. Ryerson," Scully said as she stood to shake 
Julianne's hand.  "Thanks for agreeing to see us."

"I wasn't under the impression the FBI allowed much room 
for debate on that issue," she replied.  "What can I do for 
you?"

"We're following up on a lead your husband gave us," Scully 
said, "about Rachel Campenella's murder."

Julianne's courtesy smile faded.  "I don't believe my 
husband knows anything about that."  She smoothed her skirt 
over her knees.  Even from a distance, Mulder spotted a 
bruise on her right wrist.

"That looks painful," he remarked, pointing.

"It's nothing.  You were saying about my husband?"

"He mentioned that he believes Rachel was killed by the 
same person who murdered Melinda McKenn."

"Yes, that TV journalist.  Thank the Lord they arrested him 
before he could do it again."

"Actually, we don't think he's the killer," Scully said.

"We think he might have been framed," Mulder added.

Julianne blinked rapidly and her hand fluttered to her 
chest.  "What makes you say that?  Did my husband say 
something to you?"

"He said he saw Rachel the night of her death," Scully 
lied, and Mulder turned his head sharply.  This was a 
rather large gamble.

"That's not possible.  Chris was with me."

"The whole night?" Scully asked.

"Yes."

"You know, you might want to have Agent Scully take a look 
at that bruise," Mulder said.  "She's a medical doctor."

Julianne covered it with her other hand.  "Really, I'm 
fine.  And I don't think I can help you.  I'd like you to 
go now."

"What if I said there was a witness who could place your 
husband's car outside of Rachel's apartment that Saturday 
night?" Scully asked.

At that moment, Seth Ryerson stuck his head in the room.  
"Everything okay, Mom?"

"Seth, go back to your room."

Mulder thought this was maybe an appropriate order for a 
six year-old, but not a college student home on break.

"If they're bothering you..."

"Now, Seth.  I'll talk to you later."  Her pale face had 
colored, matching her rosy sweater.

Scully went in for the kill.  "About the witness who saw 
the car," she began.

"There was no witness!" Julianne snapped.

Scully's eyes were guileless.  "Are you sure?"

From upstairs, they heard a door slam.  Julianne jumped.  
"I guess..." She paused to lick her lips.  "I guess if you 
say there was a witness, then maybe he was there."

"Was he or wasn't he?" Mulder asked.

"How should I know?"

"You said he was with you."

She screwed her eyes shut, clearly frustrated.  "I need you 
both to leave.  Any further questions you have, you can 
direct to my husband or our lawyer.  I'd ask you not to 
come to the house again."

She walked them to the front door and opened it to the cold 
night.  "Good night, Agents."

They stood on the lighted stoop with their breath turning 
to frost in the air.  "I can't tell if she was defending 
him or throwing him to the wolves," Scully said.

"She's certainly ambivalent," Mulder agreed as they started 
down the front path.  "Maybe not surprising for a woman in 
her position.  She's used to covering for him, after all, 
but I think this goes further than that."

"How do you mean?"

"I think she knows something about the murders.  I think 
maybe the ass she's covering is her own."

Scully paused at her car door.  "You think she killed 
Rachel and Melinda?"

"I think maybe she knows who did.  She was afraid to keep 
talking for fear it might slip out.  If she somehow helped 
Ryerson cover up for the murders, poor Seth there might end 
up a prison orphan."

He drove Scully home in relative silence after that.  But 
at her door, he reached to hold her hand as she tried to 
get out of the car.  Scully looked down to where he touched 
her but she did not pull away.

"Let me come in," he said.  "Just for a minute."

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"You have to understand, every day that went by, it became 
harder for me to say anything.  I couldn't see a way to 
bring it up, and if I did, I would also have to explain why 
I never said anything."

"I'm still waiting for that answer."

He squeezed her hand.  "So let me come up."

For a moment, he thought she might agree.  Her mouth parted 
in the shadows; her eyes searched his.

"I don't think so," she said at last, and pulled her hand 
free.  "Good night, Mulder."

~*~*~

The next morning, Mulder spent some of his nervous energy 
playing basketball.  Since it was gray and drizzling, he 
had the court to himself.  The hard slap of the ball 
against the wet pavement echoed around the empty lot.  
Mulder found himself hurling the ball at the net rather 
than through it.

After his sixth miss in a row, he smashed the ball 
deliberately against the backboard.  "Fuck," he muttered.

"That's what got you into trouble in the first place," said 
a voice behind him.  He whirled and found Scully standing 
in the rain.  She had a look of dangerous purpose in her 
eye.

"Scully, hey."

She walked closer and he could see the wet tendrils of hair 
sticking to her chin.  She had apparently been watching him 
for some time.

"I've tried everything," she said.  "I can't remember 
anything more."

"Truly, it's a memory I would give up if I could," he said, 
and she flinched.  "I mean--"

"I know.  You said it wasn't great."

"Parts of it were.  It's just, Scully--"

She waved him off.  "You would want the memory if someone 
else took it from you, Mulder.  You would want it more than 
anything in the world.  Pieces of my life keep disappearing 
on me and I'm powerless to stop it."

She might have been crying again; in the rain he couldn't 
tell.

"I would do anything to give that back to you," he told 
her.

She swiped at her wet cheeks with the cuffs of her sweater.  
Her mascara was running now.  "Anything?" she asked him.

"You know I would."

She nodded as if she had expected this answer.  "Okay 
then," she said, sounding a little shaky.  "We need to do 
it again."

Mulder choked.  "What?"

"One night, no strings." She looked deadly serious.

"Scully, that won't bring your memory back."

"Maybe not, but it would put us on a level playing field 
again.  I think it's only fair."

Fair, she said, as if they were trading baseball cards and 
she wanted his Don Mattingly for her Wade Boggs.

"One night," he repeated, still dumbfounded. 

"Just sex."

God help him, the words from her mouth stirred his 
traitorous body.

"Just like before," she said, turning to leave.  "I'll give 
you the day to think about it."

And then she left him alone to play with his balls.

~*~*~*~

End chapter seven.  Continued in chapter eight.

Many thanks to Amanda!

No, they can't all come this fast.  If only!  

Please feed the writer: syn_tax6@yahoo.com

Thanks as ever for reading!

Cheers, syn