JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries Crossover 1a/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)
9/96

Synopsis: A architect visiting Washington DC is mistaken for
Special Agent Fox Mulder and kidnapped by a couple of very nasty
characters with revenge on their minds. 

Warning: This story is rated NC-17 for adult material, violence,
weird sex and really bad sex, rather gross anatomical
descriptions and general all around not niceness. There is also
nobility, determination, a rat, stupidity, luck, both good and
bad, and an unexpected and not entirely welcome visitor. 

Disclaimer: These characters of Mulder, Scully and Skinner
belong to the X-Files, Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen Productions
and are used here with respect and with no expectation of making
any money. The character of Jake (the last name I made up as
none is given), is the property of Red Shoes Diaries and Zalman
King productions and is similarly borrowed. 

Author's Notes: This is not a pleasant story. It started with
the premise of what would happen if Jake visited Washington and
was mistaken for Mulder. The rest evolved from there. If you
know what Red Shoes Diaries (RSD) is and you aren't allowed to
watch it because you're too young, then you shouldn't be reading
this story either. If you don't know who Jake is or RSD and you
are older than seventeen then read below. 

      There is, by the way, only the briefest mention of the
actual Red Shoes Diaries in this story. It is a story about Jake
and Mulder - how they are different and how they are the same.
There also some X-Files stuff going on and lots of Washington
travelogue stuff. I did actually walk the distance between the
National Building Museum, which is an actual place as described,
and the FBI building. The 'seedy' parts of town I've driven
through on spring evenings. The 'freeway' as described did
actually exist in the place mentioned for many years though it
may have been finished. Don't ask me, I don't drive in DC. If
God had wanted you to drive in DC, he never would have invented
subways. Oh, and excuse me for D.C. bashing but I live in the
Washington suburbs and it's rather a regional pasttime for us. 

      Who is Jake? A friend of mine I mentioned this story to
actually asked me who Jake was. So I guess I'd better explain.
If you already know, you don't need to read this. Red Shoes
Diaries was a pilot for a series made probably about a year
before X-Files came out. David Duchovny was hired to play the
male lead - Jake - who builds sky scrapers. Jake is a driving
and successful architect and a sexy, sensitive lover. He has
decorated a warehouse as his studio/eclectic apartment. It is
equipped with a Victorian bathroom complete with claw-footed tub
and stained glass windows and a complete 1/10 scale city scape
which he lights up to show how his buildings will affect the
skyline at sunrise. There's a basketball hoop in the studio. 

      On the series premier of RSD Jake is comfortably in love
with a beautiful but not completely altogether woman named Alex
who realizes that, though she loves Jake and that he is as good
to her as any man could be, he just knows too much about her.
She longs to have some secrets, to maintain some mystery. To
make a long story short she has an affair with a hunk of a
construction worker who induces her to buy expensive high-heeled
red pumps which she wears to their little rendezvous'. What Alex
finds is that she cannot break off from this purely animalistic
relationship even after she accepts Jake's proposal. Unable to
justify the two halves of her life, Alex slits her wrists. Jake
finds her floating in the Victorian bathtub. He is devastated.
While cleaning out her clothes he finds her red bound diary
which describes her affair in excruciating detail. Jake sinks
into a deep depression. This betrayal is even worse than her
suicide. 

      Unable to understand how she could have done this to him,
he places an ad in several newspapers asking for lovers with
similar experiences of love and betrayal to write to 'Red Shoes'
with their stories. This is the background for the series Red
Shoes Diaries. Every episode begins with Jake opening his mail
and ending with his making some comment. I have not seen very
many of the actual 'Diaries' other than the ones which were put
out on video (there were at least four with three episodes each)
but Jake's character is never developed in any detail except in
the pilot and one story called - appropriately enough, 'Jake's
Story' - in which we find out that Jake has finally gone back to
work but a year has passed since Alex's death and he still has
no desire to 'go out'. This is an excellent story which I would
recommend to any adult. I will summarize, however, that Jake is
left at the end of this brief affair in worse shape than when he
started. 

      And so here this unsuspecting architect is in DC and now he
has to deal with Fox Mulder's problems too. Poor Jake.


JAKE'S LUCK
By Susan Esty (AKA Windsinger)
9/96
Warning: PG-17

Chapter 1

      Footsteps echoed, rising to hang in the air of the huge
hall. A small, round fountain splashed soothingly in the center
of the hall which, though nearly the size of a football field,
had a beauty in balance and form and symmetry which made an
impression beyond it's sheer size. Beneath the cathedral-like
ceiling, two stories of office windows behind Roman arches look
down from high up on the clear story level. Marble squares in
the colors of earth and rock were set in intricate patterns in
the floor. Columns of golden-veined stone, eight feet in
diameter, some of the largest interior columns in the world,
marched elegantly row by elegant row along two sides of the
fabulous room. 

      Hazel Harwood stared to the right, to the left, up at the
ceiling more than six stories above her and then down at the
marble squares at her feet. And to think this had nearly been
lost. Neglected for many decades, left to rot, the building had
been saved only at the last minute from the wrecker's ball. What
a shame it would have been if that had been lost.

      "Miss Harwood?" A man with sparse, grey hair and a thick
beard asked.

      "Yes?" 

      "Senator Cranshaw asked for me to show you around. You're
his...?"

      "Cousin. I'm an art history professor at Ohio State. Sorry
if I'm a little breathless. I can scarcely believe this. I've
been to Washington half a dozen times and I never even knew it
existed. This is fantastic."

      "Yes, the National Building Museum is an unappreciated
treasure. You don't find it on most of the tours. The
neighborhood has fallen on some hard times but it's coming
back." They walked across the large open room to stand between
two of the columns just to get a feel for the mass. Everyone did
that. Their footsteps echoed staccato-like, softly mingling with
the gentle splash from the central fountain. 
      
      "It's a little awe-inspiring."

      The museum director smiled proudly. "You should hear the
acoustics when it's empty."

      The trim, middle-aged woman for the first time concentrated
on the exhibit booths. Two or three dozen of them were scattered
about the floor at the other end of the room in an artistic sort
of disordered harmony. 

      "What - ?"
      
      "That? A temporary exhibit on the architecture and
engineering of the modern city. It's affiliated with an
architectural conference just closing at the DC Convention
Center. Over the last week we had some of the country's leading
young architects showing off their works in progress here."

      Hazel Harwood smiled. "In the field of art history, most of
the artists we study are dead."

      "Oh, far from that here. They're beginning to pack up
today, but one or two might be available to talk to you."
      
      "I think I'd like that. Maybe a budding Frank Lloyd
Wright?"

      The older man gestured for her to precede him and began
wending his way through the displays. "I think there is an
incredibly talented young man who is still here. He's from
Portland. Ah, yes, here he is." A slender, dark-haired man
wearing a crisp, boldly striped shirt and suspenders with his
comfortably cut European trousers was just rolling a blue print.
All of the tools of his trade were scattered about on his
drafting table in various stages of being packed. "Mr. Simmons,
Ms. Harwood." 

      Ms. Harwood extended her hand and smiled broadly. Oh, if
only she were twenty years younger. 


      Hours later with the sun set long before, a tall figure
moved with an unhurried, rather forlorn grace down the wet,
glistening steps of the Building Museum. His hands were deep in
the pockets of his flowing black coat, his collar was pulled up
around his ears against the chill, March drizzle. The street he
crossed was deserted. The downtown section of Washington was
often that way once the office workers had all departed for
their safe bedrooms in the suburbs.

      Two shadows watched his passage from the darkness. The
smaller one made a gesture and the two moved forward much like
jackals closing in silently for the kill.

                             ********

      FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder rolled over on his couch. The
ancient leather creaked. Squinting, his eyes flickered over the
digital read out on his VCR. Three-sixteen. Something had
disturbed his sleep and not dreams, not this time. He had
actually been sleeping well lately. If not another nightmare
then what? His living room was lit by the soft blue glow from
the television which at the moment was showing only the-station-
is-off-the-air snow. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. He
listened. At the moment the only sound was the television's soft
hiss. No, that wasn't true there was another sound. A
scratching, metallic sound. Someone was at his door trying to
open it with a key but not hurrying. They were even fumbling a
little. 

      There had been no knock. One click on the controller and
the television went black. As his hand reached under the cushion
near his head for the gun he kept there, Mulder's brain raced
back over he and Scully's most current cases. Had he irritated
any of his regular stable of enemies enough recently to explain
this very early social call? Nothing particular came to mind.
Nothing more than usual anyway. There was no whir from an
electronic lock 'picker', the intruder was clearly using a key.
>From where? That was easy. There were copies in the rental
office and, of course, the resident manager had his. In the
microsecond that it took for all this to go through his mind,
Mulder hoped the little old man had not come to any harm just
because his tenant in apartment 42 happened to have pissed off
more people in Washington than the combined efforts of the
Democrats and the Republicans. 

      The door opened, light from the hallway spilling in as
Mulder trained his gun on the silhouette in the doorway, its
identity barely registering on his mind before his visitor did
something totally unexpected. The figure flipped on the switch
next to the door turning on the main apartment lights. 

      Mulder flinched, momentarily blinded, yet at the same time
he leapt from the couch into a protective crouch, gun raised. 
      
      There was frantic rustle, a shine of metal and a small
woman raised a gun which was a partner to his.

      "Mulder!"

      "Scully? What the... " Both guns came down, safeties
clicking automatically into place. "You just about scared me to
death! I could have shot you."

      Stunned, Dana asked, "Mulder, what are you doing here?"

      "Last time I looked I live here. Why?" Mulder looked down
at his wrinkled T-shirt and skimpy, faded jogging shorts. "If
you had knocked first I could have worn something a little more
appropriate."

      Dana Scully totally ignored the comment, not even a rolling
of her lovely eyes, an omission which by itself got her
partner's attention. She was more than pale, she was a rather
noteworthy shade of ghostly grey. "I didn't knock, Mulder,
because I didn't expect you to be here."

      "That's interesting. Where was I supposed to be?"

      Dana opened a manila folder she carried, pulled out a
photograph and handed it to him. It was the picture of a man
lying on his side either unconscious or dead. He was pretty
thoroughly beaten. Mulder estimated the age to be about thirty
if not younger, dark hair, lean, broad-shouldered and probably
tall from the length of his torso. His hands were bound behind
his back. His button down shirt hung open from his broad
shoulders and through the rents in the T-shirt beneath abrasions
and a great purpling bruise could be seen. Under normal
circumstances the man would have been clean-shaven but at the
time the picture was taken the face was heavily shadowed with at
least two days growth of beard. The one eye which was visible
was swollen and dark. From the cut on the forehead a trickle of
blood stood out of the fair skin. And then there were more
bruises.

      "All right. Some poor bastard's gotten himself beat up.
That's no reason I can think of for sneaking into my apartment
at three in the morning. Is this a case for us?" For about the
tenth time since their meeting, Mulder noticed that his calm,
collected partner was far from calm and collected. The hand that
had extended the picture had trembled. Her hair was
unaccustomedly mussed and her eyes, red-rimmed. Her voice when
she finally spoke was not that of the cool, professional Agent
Scully he had come to expect.

      "Skinner called me down to the office tonight at eleven. A
street person delivered an envelope to one of the night guards."
Dana gave a little shrug but she was so tight the gesture was
more of a jerk. "The woman's been cleared. She was given a
'five' for her trouble but can't remember much about who gave it
to her. Inside was a ransom note to the FBI and the picture."
Mulder's expression continued rather blank.  "Mulder," Dana said
her voice showing the strain of a hellish few hours, "the ransom
note was for you!"

      Mulder looked down again at the picture after a moment
absently placing a hand to his chest.

      "But, Scully, it's not me. I mean, it's obviously not me.
Why didn't you call?"

      Blue eyes burned. "I tried your cellular and got no answer
-"

      "It's in the shop."

      "- and then I dialed here." Dana walked over and with two
fingers pulled a damp sweat shirt from the top of his answering
machine. The red light blinked. Dana was not smiling.

      Mulder felt his face reddening. "Sorry. I took a late run,
longer than usual, and just as I came in I realized that there
was this Vincent Price movie on I wanted to catch..." His voice
faded out. "Well, you could have tried to call more than once."

      "I had every reason to believe you'd been kidnapped. I was
imagining all sorts of horrible things. I didn't really expect
you to have dumped your sweaty clothes on top of the damn
answering machine!" Her relief had switched into anger. Anger
for his having frightened her. Mulder understood. He would have
reacted in the same way if their places had been reversed. Hell,
he HAD reacted in the same way. 

      Mulder went back to studying the picture more closely this
time. "I don't understand how you and Skinner... I mean, this
doesn't even look like me."

      "Believe me, Mulder, when you're beat up that looks like
you."
      
      Mulder pointed to the slacks, then the shirt. "But look at
his clothes. That's a haute couture cut. Much as I like them, if
I have to spend a wad on clothes, I'll spend my hard earned pay
on whatever the well-dressed but nondescript FBI agent is
wearing this year. I've got enough problems without trying to
make a fashion statement."

      Dana looked at the picture again finding it difficult to
take her eyes from the swollen jaw, the beaten but familiar
face. Familiar? Dana forced herself to concentrate on the
subject's clothes. True enough. The incongruity had struck her
as well. Especially the dramatically striped shirt. "I noticed
that, but I thought you had just gone GQ on me off hours." 
      
      Mulder sighed. "Since when do I have off hours?"

      Dana nodded. It's true, she should have been more
suspicious. Mulder told her everything. Everything. If he had
bought such an outfit she would have been the first one he'd
have shown it off to. Between home phones, office phones,
cellular phones, e-mail and voice mail, sometimes she thought
they were joined by a permanent communications link. 

      Except at important times, like tonight.

      Dana sighed. "All right, it's not you. But then who is it?"

End of chapter 1a 


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:43:49 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).

           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 1b/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 1b
                             ********

      For his own protection Scully and Director Skinner decided
that Fox Mulder had to really disappear, even from the other FBI
agents on the case, and for her part Dana decided that he had to
disappear to somewhere where she could keep an eye on him. That
night Dana smuggled Mulder into the Bureau in the back seat of
her car which the focus of all this attention found vastly
amusing. Mulder flashed her a smile before pulling the blanket
over his head four blocks from their destination but the smile
never reached his eyes. Solemnly, Dana turned back to
concentrate on her driving reassured that her partner was not
taking the situation lightly. 

       Mulder spent his hours pacing the tiny walkway between his
cot and the wall which was all the space he had in the utility
closet in the basement which he now called home. Claustrophobic
as it was, worse was the helplessness of being forced to do
nothing and worse still the plain, old-fashioned loneliness for
Scully. Most of the time she was off leading the investigation.
She was after all the obvious choice. Ostensibly, she was
looking for her partner. Skinner was playing this very
carefully. Only her few select lieutenants knew that the man
they where looking for was not Fox Mulder. The more people who
knew the truth, the greater the chance that someone might slip
and make a joke that might be overheard by the wrong people. The
kidnappers could find out.  

      "Well, excuse me, SIR!" Mulder thundered on night two when
Skinner came down to visit -- to check on the prisoner was
probably closer to the truth, "but I'll quit being a pain-in-
the-ass when you give me something to do on this case!"

      Skinner was standing by the door, his expression
disgustingly sincere. It was the kind of expression Mulder hated
because it was the one Skinner wore when he was dead certain he
was right. "You know what we know, Agent Mulder. Which isn't, I
admit, a hell of a lot. If you can pull anything out of your hat
to add to this, I'll be more than happy to take a look at it. Do
you think we don't want to solve this thing? I'd pay the damn
ransom out of my own pocket if I could but these people don't
even really want to bargain. I've had teams posted to a dozen
locations for meetings but the kidnappers have never shown up.
I don't think it's primarily the money they're after at least
not yet. What they are doing is having a good time trying to
make us sweat."

      "I'd say they were doing a pretty good job of it," Mulder
replied in a surly tone.

      "If you have any better ideas, Agent Mulder, just let me
know. Until then like the rest of us, you'll just have to be
patient."
      
      Mulder threw himself down in the cot. "You thought I was
crazy before. Leave me down here a few more days and I'll be
certifiable."

      Skinner ran his hand over the end rail of the narrow bed.
The tone of his voice was as sympathetic as his expression had
been and just as intractable. "I thought you liked the
basement."

      "Not for forty-eight hours straight while some guy wearing
my face is getting himself transformed into hamburger on my
chit." 
      
      "You know you can't show yourself. If the kidnappers come
to realize that they've made an error, they'll be around to make
a try for their original target and they won't be so subtle or
so gentle next time. Even worse, they'll most likely kill their
'mistake' without a second thought."

      Mulder's face darkened. He knew this all too well. Dana had
certainly drilled it into him often enough in the last two days.
It was the only thing that held him here.

      Later that evening Dana arrived, hot, tired and with
another envelope. Mulder felt his hands begin to sweat as he
stared down at a new photograph. His double was not faring well.
The bruises were multi-colored now. The cuts untended. The good
cut of the clothes now indistinguishable. And they had sent
Agent Scully a special present.

      "Oh, my God!" she had whispered, opening the tiny box.
Inside was a small slice of pale skin and flesh which it took
even Dana a few minutes to identify. 

      "What is it?" Mulder snapped. He was becoming more and more
irritable as the hours passed.

      The hand that held the little box trembled a little and
those red lips began to look even redder as she paled. "I don't
think I should tell you. Besides, I'd only be guessing..."

      "Scully..." Mulder hissed between clenched teeth.

      She shuddered and headed for the door, box in hand. "I'm
going to have it analyzed." 

      "Scully..."

      Dana looked back. That was her partner standing there, her
friend, stress etched in his face, grief in his posture. 

      "This loss won't be debilitating. It's not anything the
poor man can't live without, but he might have gone into
shock... And to think as civilized people we do this to our
children." Mulder's hazel eyes were pleading. "Foreskin," she
admitted with reluctance. Before she vanished out the door, she
added, "At least now I know that there's at least one way in
which I can tell you apart."

      "Not any more," Mulder said into the empty room.

                             ********

      The lab results took another day to come in. The ransom
demands from the kidnappers were becoming nasty. Mulder wasn't
sleeping any more.

      Dana scanned the test results. "I was right about the
tissue, Mulder." She let the sympathy show through her eyes.
"Sorry. You can take some comfort in that he's not your clone
and not some long lost brother. Not even a cousin. Tissue typing
shows that though he comes from the same Northern European-
Jewish stock as you, there's no clear relation. Just a
coincidence."

      "JUST a coincidence," Mulder muttered, desolately dropping
onto the little cot for what seemed like the hundredth time that
day. "You're wrong, Scully. This poor bastard and I do share
something. More than our fair share of bad luck. So he looks
like me on a bad day. Other than that what do we know? That his
family wasn't Orthodox."

      Dana looked up from the report. "That occurred to me, too.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have had anything to - ah - remove."

      Mulder lurched to his feet and began to pace. "Scully, I
can't just sit here. We have an innocent bystander who's been
kidnapped because he's unfortunate enough to look like me -"

      "'Unfortunate' is a matter of opinion," passed unbidden
through Dana's mind. "More men should be so unfortunate."
Grimly, she acknowledged a touch of Mulder's gallows's humor in
the thought. She missed his jokes. There had been none for days.



      To keep from staring inanely at the same four walls hour
after hour, Mulder began analyzing other case reports. He knew
he wasn't making much progress but he had to have something to
occupy his mind. As the hours and days passed, there were no new
leads. Not one. If he really had been kidnapped he would be dead
meat. The FBI had a no ransom policy.

      Early in the morning on the fifth day Dana burst through
the storage room door, to catch her partner doing push ups in
the tiny spot of floor beside his cot. He was still unshaved and
had the tousled appearance of one who has not slept well, if at
all.  Mulder had only to look at her face. Finally, something.

      "What?" he asked rising rapidly to his feet, his face
slightly damp with sweat.

      Dana sat on the end of his cot and spread out the contents
of the file she was carrying. "We know who they've taken. Jacob
Simmons. 'Jake' to his friends and colleagues. From Portland,
Oregon. He came to Washington ten days ago to attend an
architectural conference at the Convention Center. As part of
that convention he had an exhibit on display at the National
Building Museum. He had a Thursday night flight but never came
into work yesterday which was Monday. His business partner
didn't give it a thought when he took Friday off but began
worrying when he didn't show up for work this morning. We know
Mr. Simmons checked out of the Washington Hilton Thursday
morning as planned. He had his luggage sent directly to the
airport."

      Mulder worried his lower lip. "Don't tell me. His luggage
is still there."

      "How did you guess? After checking out of his hotel, he
returned to the Building Museum to finish packing up his
exhibit. Late Thursday afternoon was the last time he was seen.
His partner also checked his residence, the teenager who is
looking after his dog and the diner around the corner where he
takes most of his meals and picks up his mail. Jake Simmons
never made his flight. He never came home."

      Mulder's expression blanked out for a moment as he accessed
a map of Washington in his head. "How far is the Building Museum
from the Convention Center, Scully? Four blocks?"

      "Five," Dana responded. She should know. It was part of her
power walking circuit when their case load allowed time for that
kind of exercise. Not all that far from FBI headquarters."

      "He probably walked that route at least twice daily during
the convention. I know I'd never pay Washington cab prices for
that kind of distance. That's probably where he was seen."

      "It is a transitional area," Dana agreed. "Safe enough in
the daytime but after dark when the vast majority of the
Washington business and government types scamper home to their
safe suburbs, it's not a particularly good area to be found in
alone. He may not have left the Building Museum until after
seven. His flight was not until nine. The sun would have set and
it was raining that night. Dark enough."  

      Mulder looked down at the other materials on his bed. There
was a slick company prospectus. The man was an architect Dana
said? From the look of it a good one. Built sky scrapers. Very
well heeled. The brochure showed a man who looked younger than
his years, confident, cool, professional, almost smug, with eyes
full of intelligence and life. A man with the world at his feet.


      How could Scully possibly think that I look like that?

      Mulder shook his head. "The kidnappers have made a really
BAD mistake. They should be trying to get money from this guy's
family or his company. Either has got to pay better than the
FBI." 

      Becoming interested in a different photograph Dana was
staring at, Mulder reached for it. She released it reluctantly. 

      "Why did it take four days for someone to realize this guy
was missing?" Mulder asked. Only after he had spoken did he
actually look at the picture. It was same man, the same face,
and, yet, not the same. A dark shirt. A dark coat. Eyes
downcast, and pain, oceans of pain. The smugness, the
confidence, the life was gone. This face Mulder saw in the
mirror all too often.

      Even though the second picture was in Mulder's hands Dana
could still see it just by looking at Mulder's face at that
moment. He saw it too, now. The similarity was agonizing. "That
one was taken at his fiancee's funeral two years ago. She
committed suicide. His partner says he took a deep slide. Very
despondent. Clinically depressed. If Jake had disappeared like
this last year, Paul, his business partner, tells me that he
would have expected suicide before anything else. He didn't come
back to work full time until a year after the suicide, but when
he did he worked hard. Very high quality work, too, or so the
organizer's of the Conference tell me, though his partner says
he's still not socializing to his knowledge. Oh, there was a
brief affair but that ended rather disastrously and he refuses
to talk about it. When he isn't at home and his partner needs to
locate him, Jake can usually be found walking by the docks near
his home with his dog."

      Mulder swallowed. No girl for this man then, either. No
girlfriend, no mention of parents, certainly no wife, no
children. If he was found too late, maybe that was just as well. 
  

      Mulder began to move. The chase had begun. Energy flooded
his body. He talked, talked faster, as he gathered his gun, his
second gun, his coat.  "Let's go. I need to see the hotel, the
museum, the Convention Center, walk the route. Did he have any
acquaintances in the area he may have contacted?"

      Dana stood in the middle of the room, a fortress. "Stop,
Mulder."

      He struggled into his coat. "What 'stop'?"

      "Just what I said. You're still out of this. Skinner says
so and, more importantly, 'I' say so."

      Mulder halted, cold flowing in, strangling. "Scully, you
know..."

      Dana closed her eyes then slowly reopened them. "I know
what this means to you, Mulder. But, please..." Her eyes were
pleading. "Don't do this to me, not again," then she turned on
her heel and left closing the door with finality behind her.
Mulder just stood and listened to the rapid sound of her rapid
footsteps on the stairs.

End of Chapter 1 


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:45:02 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).

           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 2/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 2

      Elbows on knees, Mulder stared at the black and while
linoleum squares on the floor at his feet.
 
      How could Scully say not go? She knew he couldn't just sit
here. She knew what it would do to him if he was forced to stand
aside and the man died. Died in his place. Especially now, now
that the victim was more than a face, had a name, talent, a
history, a life.  If she really wanted him to stay put, they
would have to handcuff him to this bed, better yet, put him down
in one of those holding cells in the annex.. Nothing short of
physical restraint would stop him. 
      
      Swearing he left his monk's cell and headed for the other
end of the basement and the X-Files office. There he collected
the extra ammunition clips from his stash in the little box
behind the skull on the bottom shelf of the bookcase - never
knew when you were going to need some fast. He was moving out,
moving fast before someone came down to stop him. Certainly
Scully knew by now that telling him not to do something was like
waving a red flag.

      Mulder stopped dead still, his hand on the knob of the
door. But she did know. She knew more than anyone. Just as she
knew he would jump on that train, run alone after that killer,
tear off to Alaska without a word, slip through the fence at
Ellens, meet Deep Throat and Mr. X anywhere and everywhere. She
knew he would not stay put during this. She had laid down the
letter of the law as Skinner had instructed. She knew her
irascible partner would understand just as he knew that she knew
that he would go. 

      And both were well aware that he could be walking into
Death's waiting arms. 

      And yet she had walked out, leaving him free, because she
knew he had no choice.

      Mulder rested his forehead against the door, feeling the
blood surging in his head. There it was again, filling him up
like sparkling wine in crystal. Her love. Their love. Not
romantic. Unconventional to say the least. Never spoken of,
hardly a touch out of place, but there nevertheless. Absolute
and complete. Waiting for the right time to be brought into the
light. Now the right time may never come. 

      Mulder turned and looked at this room. It held her
presence. Held the memories of all they had shared. More than
any other place their bed of exploration. He may never come
back. What could he leave her? Something. Some message, as
understated as the relationship that they shared.

      Twenty seconds later he was gone, the room unchanged except
that the framed picture of a dark-haired girl had been moved
from his desk to hers. 

                             ********

      The sun was actually warm. The slight breeze wound around
under the steam vent and came up under his long wide coat making
his first trip into the open air in days a pleasure. A pleasure,
that is, if it weren't for the smell. Mulder propped his beard-
scratchy chin up on his hand and nibbled a little more from the
thick stubby end of the carrot. Leisurely he scratched his ass.
Right in public. And liked it. When a passing businessman on his
lunch break threatened to look towards the grimy street person
hunkered down beside the Civil War Statue, Mulder added a
visible tremor, a few jerks as if he were being tortured by
unseen demons. Just for effect, of course. At least this time.

      How far the great had fallen.

      Mulder had never gone in for under cover work. This time
was no exception. He always felt ridiculous dressing up. Half
the time he even felt ridiculous just putting on a tie for work.
But the situation this time cried out for a disguise. After all
he had not only the kidnappers to hide from but Scully and, if
the activity here near the Building Museum was any indication,
at least half the local FBI force. Even Sherlock Holmes wore
disguises from time to time. Mulder cringed, blinking through
his one eye, trying to send that particular memory elsewhere.
Considering the unpleasant memories of Phoebe such thoughts
stirred up, he had best table further comparisons to Sherlock
Holmes for a later time. Like sometime a week after forever. 

      Mulder stared down the street. From his perch on the only
steam grate within visual range of the main door to the Building
Museum he had watched a steady stream of FBI and D.C. police
wander in and out since noon. A pair he vaguely recognized as
being assigned to the Philadelphia office were looking up and
down the street. 

      They went all the way to Philadelphia for manpower and just
about everyone but Scully and Skinner thought they were actually
searching for the FBI's bad boy? Mulder should have felt wanted
but didn't. He wished the circumstances didn't warrant this. The
sun lost its pleasant warmth. His throat tightened until he felt
he was going to choke and he wasn't even wearing the hated tie. 


      Where was Jake? What was the poor man feeling? He had
practically no one. A stranger in a strange, impersonal city. A
completely incomprehensible kidnapping, beatings, torture, and
for no discernible reason. He must feel like he had fallen into
the fifth ring of hell, abandoned and hopeless. Mulder knew all
about hell, abandonment and hopelessness, too. This was why he
was here.

      Mutt and Jeff from Philadelphia were wandering closer
looking for exactly what Mulder was looking for - someone who
had no business on this street, one of the kidnappers come to
gloat as the mighty FBI chased their tails with no leads.

      What would this pair of unimaginative, by-the-book agents
see when they saw him? Just another street person? The homeless
were a nearly invisible population in Washington. Like ghosts
they were everywhere you looked but no one ever admitted to ever
seeing one. 

      Ghosts? What ghosts? Homeless? What homeless? Naw...

      With forced calm Mulder brought the carrot up to this
mouth. Not nearly as good as sunflower seeds but less obvious,
at least to Scully, and she was bound to be along sooner or
later. Besides, he needed something to do with his hands or he'd
go mad. The pair of agents were coming closer, trying to appear
casual and unofficial as they questioned a bag lady, a street
vendor. Did they have any idea of how miserably they were
failing? Mulder could almost hear the mouths snapping shut all
around him.
 
      Mulder raised his nose a little into the air at the same
time pulling down the brim of his shapeless hat. Method acting.
A middle-aged man, Vietnam vet era, with a non-too-tight grip on
reality, badly in need of either his meds, a fix or a drink.
Just another former inmate of St. Elizabeth's who should never
have been released. He wore an ancient rain coat sizes too big
for him over even older fatigues and large, heavy-rimmed glasses
with a grey patch over one eye.  

      Remember, you're homeless and you like it, he told himself.
Just try not to wrinkle your nose against the acrid scent of
ammonia and decaying garbage. No self-respecting street person
would never let on even if he did find his surroundings and his
own body odor rather revolting.  

      Mulder sighed which reminded him not to breathe through his
nose on this case. He certainly found his surrounding and his
own body odor disgusting. Foul would be a more accurate
description. An acquaintance doing undercover work for the DEA,
who in Mulder's opinion was FAR crazier than Fox Mulder would
ever be, had fixed him up with all the trimmings. Odors
included. Ammonia, cheap wine, the dripping from the inside of
the undercover officer's long neglected garbage can and a little
doggie doo-doo just to top things off. 

      Mulder shifted feeling the stiff old cloth rasp against his
skin. He was absolutely coming to hate this idea. Scully
wouldn't sit beside him for a week. 'Eau du Skunk' would begin
to seem like French perfume if he spent much more time in the
sun. 

      One of the Bureau's innumerable blue cars pulled up in
front of the Building Museum. The two from Philadelphia turned
in that direction like a synchronized swimming team leaving the
remainder of the street unscrutinized, including Mulder's steam
grate. They had clearly been expecting somebody.

      Movement about the car. As the passenger emerged, a small
woman's red glossy head just barely showed from above the blue
car's roof. A casual turn. Ice blue eyes raked the street even
as, with back straight, she climbed the marble steps into the
museum.

      She knew he was there somewhere. Probably did not even need
to go back to the office to know that he would do something like
this. Probably was putting off checking just so she didn't have
to report to Skinner that he was gone. She wouldn't look too
closely, but she couldn't help looking at least a little. 

      Be careful. 

      He could hear the words even from fifty yards, even over
the traffic and noise from the passenger jet cruising in towards
National Airport. He could hear the words even though her lips
had never moved and their eyes had never met.

      Mulder felt for a moment the chill from a passing cloud
even though the sky was a rare, for Washington, robin's egg
blue. Even at the FBI he felt at times like the odd man out, but
he could not be much further from being on the outside looking
in as he was now. He did not like the feeling. As the agents all
moved inside the stately building, the heavy bronze doors shut
leaving him alone, separate.

      Scully, this was really a lousy idea.

      Mulder forced himself to lean back and casually cracked his
back. No more moping, he told himself. He had a job to do.
Carrot in his mouth like a cigar, he used the heavy cane he had
brought to rise stiffly to his feet as if just to stretch his
legs. But in truth his eyes were roving.
 
      His uncovered eye touched on each of the characters
lingering along the street, taking two-dimensional snap shots.
He had no doubt that just as he was here, so were the
kidnappers. They would have their gloat. They would have had the
Bureau staked out so would know exactly when the investigation
moved to the museum. 

      Scully? Yes, they would watch her, too, but only watch.
They would not move on her, of this Mulder felt confident. They
had stuck their head out far enough taking one federal agent and
were getting nothing but delays and rhetoric for their efforts.
They wouldn't dare try for two. Besides her hollow eyes and the
tired way she moved were probably making their day. 

      Mulder shuddered. This is the way it would be if he really
was the one who was missing. This is the way she would look and
act and move. That was a creepy sensation, even more so because
he knew Dana was not acting. In her mind these people were
perfectly capable of doing to Mulder exactly what they had
already done to Jake Simmons, and, given the opportunity, they
would. She refused to give them that opportunity.

      A delivery boy caught Mulder's eye, but more for the pizza
and subs he carried than any suspicious activity on the boy's
part. Mulder's stomach growled emptily. 

      Down, boy! Remember, the pinched look will be more in
keeping with your role than if a homeless vet were to be seen
ordering a pizza to be delivered to his heating grate. 

      A courier in day-glow orange and green sped by on his
bicycle, completely ignoring the traffic lights. Mulder had seen
him before but he moved too fast to be a serious suspect. A
'banker' for the street vendors made his rounds, picking up
receipts from the steam carts selling hot dogs and the Iranian
selling Washington DC and Redskins T-shirts. This was too close
to the wrong part of town to let too much cash just sit around.
The bag lady settled back in the shadow of her chosen spot
beside the subway entrance and seemed to be interested in
resuming her snooze now that the duo from Philadelphia had gone
off to hear Agent Scully's pep talk. 

      Leaning heavily upon his cane, Mulder was just stepping off
the curb which rimmed the steam grate when he saw the traffic
control engineer again, or at least what he had taken at first
to be a traffic control engineer - white, nondescript coveralls,
a painter's cap pulled down over his eyes, and a tool belt, but
no truck that Mulder could see. The man was middle-aged, stood
about five and a half feet tall, and sported light brown hair
with a splash of grey at the temples and a wiry build. For the
fifth time that day the man had pulled the panel off the switch
box of one of the two traffic lights but though he seemed to
fiddle with this and that, the rhythm of the lights never
changed. Running the previous views of the man over in his mind
Mulder realized that the engineer had always positioned himself
so that he would be facing the entrance to the Building Museum
as he worked. Supposedly worked.

      As if bored with the lack of law enforcement going in their
useless little circles, the engineer quickly finished his 'work'
and began leaving the area at a rapid pace. Too fast for any
salaried District worker. Mulder stared around in exasperation. 

      Damn, just when you needed a cop there was never one
around. He should tell Scully, but there was no time or he would
lose his suspect.

      He'd let her know later. Later? Yeah, right.

      I'll be careful, Scully, Mulder swore as the half-blind vet
hobbled on his one 'stiff' leg after a man in white coveralls,
a spot now a block in the distance. 

                             ********

      Four blocks from the museum the neighborhood took a turn
for the seedy. Not the sort of neighborhood the tourists took
pictures of when they came to Washington. As the blocks passed
under Mulder's feet he realized it was not even the sort of
neighborhood tourists would dare to be caught dead in during the
day, much less at night. Teenagers cutting class if not the
whole school day, street vendors selling Korean counterfeits of
name brands, the out of work or unmotivated clogged the
sidewalks. Mulder shuffled along, frustrated that in this crowd
he was not able to make any kind of time. It was nearly
impossible to keep the speck of white coveralls in view until he
conjured up a scene from one of his more recent nightmares.
After that a few explosive expletives and a fierce waving of his
free arm as if warding off the voracious attack of nearly
microscopic, phosphorescent, moisture-sucking bugs and he made
more rapid progress through the crowds.

      The closeness of the buildings and the crowds suddenly
vanished. Mulder lifted his head squinting into the sun. He knew
this area. A two block square had been leveled years ago to make
way for a new office complex which would have gone a long way
into revitalizing the area. But then came the office glut and
this part of town didn't look like such a good candidate for
urban renewal any longer and so it sat. An open smear of broken
concrete and weeds. Around it were other buildings barely saved
from a similar fate. 

      Up the steps of one of these buildings, a huge yellow-brick
apartment building, the man in the white coveralls trotted to
vanish through the front door. From the missing and cracked
windows and the number of broken door and window frames where
boards blocking use of the building had been repeatedly torn
down, it was obvious that the structure had been condemned
multiple times.

      Phone. 

      To give himself a moment to try to locate a phone, Mulder
paused at the corner of the block as if trying to shake a cramp
from his stiff leg. There were people going in and out of the
building, people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors, the same
types he had seen on the street before, but there was no phone
to be seen nor any business open which might have one. This had
been a rotten time for his cellular to be in the shop, but
Mulder doubted that he would have brought it anyway. Wouldn't
have gone with his image and it would have been just his luck to
leave the thing on and have it beep at a critical moment.

      Into the lion's den then if the inhabitants seemed remotely
friendly. Friendly would not explain these people. None looked
his way. Not surprising. The desperately poor were private
people. Paranoid but private, most not looking for a fight. Look
like you knew where you were going and it could get you far.
Appear to be too interested in business not your own, however,
and you're asking for serious trouble. 

      Mulder limped towards the stairs which led up to the front
door. His hand was on the knob when a voice, rough, good-natured
and male, called out from behind him, "Ask for Mabel."  

      Mulder forced himself to turn slowly. The man who had
spoken was a stocky black man with greying hair. He also wore
the remnants of fatigues. Another vet by the way his body moved
in little shell-shocked jerks. "Ask for Mabel. She don't make
too much noise. Know what I mean?"

      Mulder had no trouble responding with a grim smile of
understanding confident that the mouth appliance his undercover
friend had given him would hide the almost perfect teeth his
parents had worked so hard to pay for. The difficult part was
keeping it from being a broader grin of relief. 

      A long time before, perhaps as late as the turn of the
century, the building had been upper scale. There was a wide
lobby, yellow with age and brown with dirt like the brick
outside. There was old linoleum in green and white squares, at
least in the places where you could see it through the
incredibly rancid trash. Mulder's nose twitched. He'd be
surprised if the place had even a single working toilet. In
addition to the building manager's counter and office straight
ahead, both of which had long ago been smashed into almost
unrecognizable pieces, four corridors branched off, each closed
off by its own door though the doors were not in good shape and
barely hung on their hinges. There was a corridor to the far
right, the far left, and one on each side of what had been the
manager's desk. 

      Mulder heard footsteps behind and knew he couldn't be found
just standing here indecisive and, therefore, suspicious. He had
to at least look like he was hunting for something. Stairs to
the third floor? Good enough. What he found more quickly to his
right were two ancient caged elevators, no long functional, but
they were in a recess just before the door to the right corridor
and provided a much needed alcove of deep shadows.

      Luck was with him. The door to the corridor near the
elevators was ajar, just enough to give Mulder a view. Two men
came out of an apartment and one was the man in the white
coveralls.. The other was of lumberjack dimensions who towered
over his slighter companion. By his leg the new man casually
held a sawed off shotgun. At the moment two small children were
playing tag in the hallway. Clearly, they did not find the
presence of the gun exceptional. Their game took them back into
the apartment they had left but its door remained open.

      "Pete, we should be talking about this inside," the big man
was saying.

      "No way. The stench is making me sick," came out a Texas
drawl. "I can't stay in there. It reminds me too much of Marion.
What did Jackson keep down there anyway? Hog smell better."

      "Well, excuuuse me, Miss Prissy. And does this mean that
you won't be goin' downstairs again at all? Not even to put ol'
Jim Bowie to use?"

      There came the sound of a knife being drawn out smooth from
a sheath. Nausea rose in Mulder's throat as he pressed closer to
the comfort of the wall and its shadow. If these two were
talking about what Mulder thought they were talking about then
he and Scully knew all too well what the Bowie knife had last
been used on.  

      "I haven't forgotten," the Texan replied slowly over the
sound of metal drawn against cloth. "Patience. Macon will have
his revenge. You city people are always in such a hurry. I'd
have thought The Blockhouse would have taught you that. Besides,
keepin' 'em danglin', keepin' 'em fearin' that each mornin'
could be the one, makes it all the sweeter for us and all the
more hell for Pretty Boy downstairs. And hell is exactly where
I want to keep him. Which comes back to my point. I don't like
to be distracted when I work. I'd hate to gag on the stink. Who
knows what I'd cut off. Guess I couldn't talk you into cleanin'
the place up for me?"

      "Jeeze, Pete! What have you been shooting up? You don't pay
me enough for that. Nobody pays me enough for that. Just
thinking about it puts me on the edge of losin' my breakfast,
lunch, and everything I've eaten in the past week."

      The Texan's voice rose in volume jeeringly. "Well, if you
won't, Lawrence my dear, maybe one of the girls then. They'd 
love -"
 
      "No!" At least Mulder thought that was the word Lawrence
used. It came out more like a snarl. "No, not them."
Reluctantly, the big man's tone mellowed. "Besides, they're too
expensive."

      At that moment an apartment door just on the other side of
the partially open door to the corridor where Pete and Lawrence
stood opened and an old man with runny eyes stumbled out. Mulder
pressed tighter against the shadowed recess but the old man
tottered on down the hall in the opposite direction passing the
white-clothed Pete and the hulking Lawrence as he went.

      "Hey, Pops!" the big man called in an over-sweet, sing-song
voice. "Want to make a pint? Just a few minutes of toil for
hours of oblivion?"

      The old man muttered incoherently and produced a wet cough
as he shook off the big hand on his arm and moved on. 

      Pete blew his nose. Mulder knew it had to be Pete, the
noise was a much lighter one than the ape Lawrence would have
made. "You've got to be kiddin', right?" Pete asked incredulous.
"What if he took the job? What if he said anything?"

      "Would anyone we found around here really care?"  Lawrence
asked. "They look out for their own skin. Besides the Fed hasn't
talked for days. I must admit I expected a little more spirit."

      "Yeah, well, so did I. Maybe I don't remember him as well
as I thought I did. Arrogant. That I remember. He'll beg yet.
He'll drop that stupid story he's been trying to hand us and
he'll beg."

      Mulder felt a sweat of anticipation break out on his brow
and under his arms. He didn't know whose luck he was being given
today but it certainly wasn't coming from his normal supplier.
These guys were making things almost too easy. There was only
one person they could be talking about and with if the gods
continued to be so accommodating the big man was not only
willing to take him right to their prisoner but would then let
him out again. Out meant free to bring back help. 

      The delay would be irksome but even Fox Mulder knew it
would be irresponsible to attempt a frontal attack alone at this
point. One man against two? With the element of surprise, not
such terrible odds even if one of the two men he faced had shot
gun and the other a knife, but the man Pete mentioned a third
man - Macon - who could be anywhere. And then there were the
children. Mulder could hear their thin voices through the open
apartment door. They could come out into the corridor at any
time as could any of the other resident of the building. Mulder
frowned and reluctantly decided to listen to his gut for once
and his gut told him there was too much at stake here. If it
came to a shoot out, there were the innocent bystanders who
might be hurt not no mention that there were probably more guns
in this building than in the FBI itself.  And if by some chance
Mulder was forced to kill both of these two and Jake Simmons was
not simply 'downstairs', the architect might never be found.
There was also the possibility that Mulder could be killed
himself or injured badly enough so that the truth about the two
'Fox Mulder's' would come out. Either way Jake would suffer. So
play it safe for once, this was no time for heroics.

      By the book, Scully. 

      Realizing how he was dressed and that he was totally alone,
Mulder found it hard to suppress a self-depreciating smile. 

      Well, as by the book as I'm likely to get on this case.

      Blowing a stream of air over the disgusting mouth piece
Mulder reached deep into the inner pockets of his fatigues
pulling out his Sig and his ID. From his left boot he extracted
his little back up weapon. If he were accepted for the job, they
would certainly search him first, so he had to look as harmless
as a lamb or two lives could be forfeit. 

      Searching, Mulder spied between the elevators an old glass-
walled mail shoot from when the building had known far better
days. It was filled almost to the top now with trash.
Reluctantly, Mulder dropped the weapons and ID down behind the
trash watching them slip out of sight. They would be as safe
there as anywhere, for it was certain no mail carrier would be
coming. There was no doubt in Mulder's mind that if he did not
come back they would sit there until the wrecking balls came.  
 

      Hunched over, gripping the cane, a crippled, one-eyed vet
pushed more fully open the hallway door and shouldered his way
through.

      Simultaneously, Pete and Lawrence glanced up. For the first
time Mulder got a good look at the man Pete as he was standing
under one of the few yellow bulbs. This then was the ring
leader, the man who supposedly knew him well enough to recognize
him on the street.  Mulder got a shock. Even with the card
catalog in his head he could not bring up a memory of this man.
He had thought this enemy would be from one of his big cases
back from his violent crimes days. A rapist, a drug dealer, a
murderer - but nothing came to mind. There was, however, the
other name mentioned by Pete. Macon. 'Macon would have his
revenge'. Mulder's eidetic memory started work on the name only
he doubted that there would be time to come up with anything
soon enough to be of any use.

      "Hey, bud, you got business here?" Pete drawled
suspiciously.

      In his broadest Maine accent Mulder muttered through the
appliance in his mouth, "Looking for Mabel."

      Pete's mouth opened in a leer. "Ah. Third floor." Mulder
turned vaguely from side to side as if trying to see if any of
the doors nearby lead to a stairway. 

      "Candie's better though," Pete offered. "That's of course
just my opinion. Then ya have to be able to afford 'er."

      Mulder just let his head nod and made to move on but not
quickly. Bum leg after all. 

      "You know, buddy," Lawrence began his voice showing
interest, "they're all pretty accommodating if you bring a
bottle with you."

      Mulder turned his uncovered eye on Lawrence while
maintaining his stoop and keeping his face in the shadow. 

      Lawrence took a pint bottle from his pocket and waved it.
"You got a bottle, Yank?"

      Mulder shrugged stiffly.

      "Want one? They'll give you an EXTRA good time if you bring
a bottle."  
 
      "Don't have one," Mulder replied, adding the slightest
touch of longing to his voice.

      "I've got a little job that needs doing. Just a few minutes
of your time and it's all yours." Lawrence swung the bottle till
the clear liquid sloshed. Pete was frowning but didn't complain.
He was, after all, going to get what he wanted out of this.

End of Chapter 2 

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over  3a/9 
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 3a

      Dana Scully sat at her desk, the framed photograph of
Samantha upright and lonely in front of her. 

      Mulder had left her - again - and he had not only left her
but his most precious possession, the search for his sister. His
legacy, his insurance, just in case he didn't come back.

      I should be used to this, Dana grumbled to herself. No, you
never get used to watching those you love walk into danger. She
had seen him on that street with that ridiculous carrot. He
could fool the others but did he really think he could fool her?
Just the way he moved his hand, stretched out a leg, turned his
head. That was Mulder. She had known he would be there. She had
known from the moment she had laid down the ground rules of no
involvement earlier that morning - rules she had known he would
never adhere to. The question was how long had he waited? By the
complexity of his disguise not long. Ten minutes? Five?

      One of the hardest things she had ever done was straighten
her back and walk up the steps into the museum leaving him alone
on the street. Not for long though. She had kept the others
waiting for their briefing long enough to whisper hastily to
Edwards, her junior lieutenant.

      "I need two of your best surveillance men," she had told
him to the young agent's surprise. After a second of hesitation
Edwards had nodded. The word around the Bureau was that when it
came to Agents Mulder and Scully, if you don't want to hear the
answers, don't ask too many questions.
 
      "There's a vagrant outside across the street and to the
left half a block," Scully informed him. "He's wearing a hat,
has on an over-large tan raincoat and he's eating a carrot."
Dana had to give the young man credit, he didn't crack even the
hint of a smile. "I want him followed, followed like it was your
brother's life you were protecting. But he can't know. Do we
understand each other?"
      
      Edwards had. When the briefing ended, however, the young
agent approached Agent Scully crestfallen. "I had someone out
there within three minutes, but he must have gone. No one even
remembers seeing a man like that. I sent out six of my people to
comb the surrounding blocks and we couldn't find a thing." He
must have read something in her face, Dana had not meant to show
because he added solemnly, "I'm really sorry, Agent Scully."
      
      So where are you, Mulder? Dana asked the picture of the
young Fox behind his sister, captured for all time within the
frame. What have you found?

      There came a slight tap on the X-Files office door. It was
Skinner, no surprise there. Dana didn't even sit up straight
much less stand. She was too tired.

      "I take it he's gone."

      "What did you expect?" Dana asked with some bitterness. "We
both knew he would. It was either that or lock him up."

      "You know I couldn't have just given him my blessing.
Internal affairs would have had all three of  us for lunch.
That's not what he would have wanted."

      "So he's out there alone."

      There seemed no answer to that. Skinner cleared his throat,
a little nervous gesture Dana would not have expected. "I saw
your e-mail. Another message came from the kidnappers?"

      Dana picked up a poorly-penned note, now wrapped in
plastic, and tossed it in Skinner's direction. She didn't even
glance at it. The words had already imprinted themselves where
she would never forget them.

      Skinner read silently: "There'll be one less stud at the
old ranch come sun up. Sure you aren't ready to deal? If you
change your mind you know how to contact me."

      Skinner felt certain body parts begin to squirm. Uneasily
he shifted his shoulders. "I don't suppose the man is talking
about a vasectomy."

      Dana's expression was like stone. "Nothing requiring quite
so much finesse."

      Skinner winced. 

      "Tomorrow!" Dana exclaimed with irritation. "This monster
is going to mutilate a man at dawn tomorrow and the entire
resources of the FBI can't do a thing to stop it!"

      "There's no indication in the note that they realize their
mistake," Skinner said with some hope in his voice. "That may
mean that Mulder is still free."

      "True, but you know how dangerous that is. When Mulder does
blunder in they'll find out quickly that there are two and that
they don't have the right one." Dana suddenly sat up, her face
paling in alarm. "Unless -"

      "Unless what, Agent Scully?" Skinner asked not catching on.

      "Those glasses!" Furiously, Dana spread out Jake's file on
her desk, frantically shuffling through the photos. "Mulder was
wearing glasses when I saw him outside the Museum. I just
remembered. Glasses with the left lens blanked out. Oh, shit!"
Dana stared up at her superior, her hands empty. "They're not
here."

      Walter Skinner knew the direction of her mind now mostly
because he knew Mulder nearly as well as she did. "Some of the
photos are missing, specifically the pictures of Jake the
kidnappers sent showing his injuries."

      You fool, Mulder! Dana swore to herself. You noble fool!
"He's doing exactly what either of us would do in his place if
we could and he might even be able to pull it off." 

      Bring him home, Mulder. Bring both of you home. 

                             ********

      Lawrence led the way into the cellar. Pete had wanted no
part of it.  
       
      Mulder limped ahead of the big man who lumbered along in
his plaid wool coat, his sawed-off shotgun aimed at the floor
behind Mulder's back, loosely, but ready enough. Mulder added a
wheeze, a slight cough. Lawrence's breathing was deep, raspy
behind him. They descended old cement stairs that had long ago
lost most of their grey-green paint. The passage before them
stretched out long and narrow with a ceiling so low that both
had to stoop. The walls dripped from the remnants of the cold
spring rain. There was no light except that from a flash light
Lawrence carried. 

      Mulder felt naked, but not from the cellar's dampness. He
did not like being down here without a weapon while a social
deviant like Lawrence marched behind armed to his bad teeth. His
decision to rid himself of his own guns and his ID had been a
correct one, however. Lawrence had searched him well and even
Pete who clearly didn't like to get his hands dirty had taken a
half-hearted turn. Without a doubt the weapons would have been
found and then Mulder would not be on his way now to ascertain
how Jake Simmons was faring which at the moment was the task
uppermost on his mind.  

      As he continued limping stiffly down the passage, Mulder
reached under his coat and absently rubbed the spot on his ass
where Lawrence had the nerve to pinch him. Maybe it hadn't been
an intentional pinch, Mulder certainly hoped not, not for Jake's
sake or his own either, but the threat from this unforeseen
direction bore watching. 

      After more than a couple of long minutes the passage opened
up onto a large room filled with huge ancient furnaces and
boilers all dated no later than the turn of the century. The
human stench that had been in the hall upstairs was stronger
here. Lawrence went directly to the farthest furnace, the
largest one, and used his foot to push down the rusty valve
which opened the door through which coal had been shoveled
nearly a century before. The ancient hinges groaned. The stench
increased a hundred-fold.

      "In there," Lawrence commanded with a mirthless smile,
gesturing with the muzzle of the gun. 

      Not wanting to appear too eager Mulder bent down to peer
into the black cavity. "What's in there?"

       Lawrence thrust a small, dented dust pan, a brush, a heavy
plastic bag, a role of paper towels and a greasy spray bottle of
'409' in the vet's direction. "You've been in the service.
Latrine duty. Only you don't have to dig any holes. Just clean
up in there the best you can and you'll get the bottle I showed
you and an extra nice ride from the girls upstairs. Just don't
disturb the tenant or you won't live to enjoy your reward. Is
that clear enough for you?"

      Mulder took the supplies in the arm which didn't hold the
cane. "Tenant? It's not a dog, I hope. Don't like dogs."

      "No, it ain't no dog. Just my, ah, cousin. He's a little
crazy. You know crazy?" 

      Mulder made it clear from his stance he knew what crazy
was. 
      
      "Really took off last week so we put him down here for his
own protection. My aunt's coming in a few days to take him back
to North Dakota where he can run around and be as crazy as he
wants and no one will notice. There's so much empty space up
there, they're all crazy." Lawrence's voice lowered. "So you
don't listen to anything he says, you hear?"

      Mulder bobbed shoulders and head stiffly up and down and
with exaggerated effort knelt down, pushed the cleaning supplies
ahead of him through the opening, and then crawled after. It was
as black as a tomb inside, it felt like a tomb, every breath
echoing back hollowly from the blackened iron walls. Small, dark
places, were not Mulder's favorite choice in accommodations. At
the last minute Lawrence thrust in a flash light. 

      "You've got ten minutes. Make it good."

      And the shrieking door slammed shut with a thunderous echo.

End of chapter 3a 


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:51:37 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over  3b/9 
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 3b

      Immediately after the door closed, Mulder leaned back on
his boot heels and began to scan the interior with the flash. It
was a cube maybe six feet by eight but no more than five feet
high. Larger than one would expect from just the fire box. This
furnace must have been gutted at some time but still every
surface was covered with an ancient black soot that was more of
a crust now than dust. Across the floor ran rivulets of rusty
water leaking from who-knows-where in the building above. 

      A crematorium. Great. That would save those guys a lot of
trouble if he was found out. 

      At first Mulder felt a slight touch of consternation. The
furnace shell was empty. Or so he thought upon first inspection.
Then he made out the tiniest flash of paleness in the farthest
corner where some pipes snaked down. It was the figure of a man
crouched against the pipes, his back to the door, nearly
invisible because of the tarry soot that was everything. This
then was the black grim they had seen in the photographs, though
this was far worse.  

      As he crawled forward Mulder noted that the man was huddled
into as small a target as possible, head down, one arm raised
straight above his head. The reason for that was soon clear.  On
the wrist of that arm flashed bright, new metal. A handcuff. The
other end was fastened to a pipes that ran horizonal across the
wall on that side. 

      Gently Mulder placed his hand on the man's shoulder. The
shoulder, the entire body flinched violently. Something like a
whimper escaped unseen lips. An thin echo moved up and up and
up. Briefly Mulder projected the flash's beam onto the ceiling
and made out a one foot square duct rising. Every sound they
made would go up. If Lawrence was waiting, listening, in one of
the rooms above all would be lost. All Mulder could hope for was
that Lawrence was driven out by the smell as much as Pete had
been. A tracing of the light on the floor of the furnace showed
a small spot, obscenely close to where the man huddled, where
the prisoner had put his waste and other similar heaps, older
and drier, in other corners from earlier occupants. As the men
had hinted, this place had been used as a prison for more than
one poor soul.

      Mulder came as close as he dared to the prisoner and began
to clean up the mess liberally using lots of towels, all of
which went into the bag. 

      "Jake, listen to me. I'm not one of them," Mulder whispered
inches from the prisoner's ear in as clear of tones as the mouth
appliance would allow. "I'm with the FBI. You've got to believe
me, we don't have much time."

      There was a long moment of hesitation, then the broad back
before him turned, slowly, in jerks, with pain and stiffness.
One eye blinked in the unaccustomed light, the other, as the
photos had shown, was nearly swollen shut. 

      Mulder sensed fear in this man. That was the only word he
could use to explain the emotion that hit him in the chest. He
was reminded too vividly of pictures in his own medical records
after some close encounters of the nasty kind. Unexpectedly,
Mulder found himself experiencing a flash of embarrassment, then
anger, at the remembered whimpering. 

      Damn it to hell, Spook, this is NOT you! This is just
another one of the millions you have pledged to protect, only
this one just happens to have had the hideous misfortune to have
been born with a physical similarity to yours truly. 

      Mulder let out a long sigh. 

      Physical similarity? And bears shit in the woods and not in
old coal furnaces.

      The eye that stared back on him was narrowed in the light
of the flash and distrustful. He had every right to be wary of
the use of his own name. Lawrence and Pete couldn't have known
it unless Jake, during the early hours of his torture, had
shouted it out to them. Certainly, the two kidnappers had failed
to believe him.

      Mulder shifted the flash to shine partially on his own face
and began to remove the mouth appliance, then the glasses with
its grey patch over the left lens, and then the hat. 

      As each item was carefully removed and put to the side
Jake's one staring eye opened wider and wider, particularly when
the glasses came off. There was make up over the FBI agent's
left eye, latex and purple and red and black make up to made
Mulder's left eye appear to be nearly swollen shut.

      "Fox Mulder. As I said, FBI, and I believe you're in my
place, Mr. Simmons."

      The ruined lips, cracked for want of moisture even more
than in the photos, moved. Mulder pulled a flask out of his
pocket. Not liquor, just water. Jake took the fluid into his
mouth as if it were the first he had seen in days but he was
smart and drank little, mostly rolling it around, savoring it. 

      When he finally swallowed "Why?" came out in a forced
whisper.

      "Why am I here or why are you here? It's pretty obvious now
that we're face to face, isn't it?  Pete and I have a history
and he wants to change the ending, but he made a little mistake.
Pretty understandable mistake under the circumstances."  Mulder
raised his head listening. No returning footsteps yet though he
doubted he would be able to hear them. Reaching deep into a
space in his coat where the lining was thickest he slipped out
of some casing three small keys, his handcuff master set. He
kept the one that fit and replaced the other two. In seconds he
had Jake's cuff opened and was helping the man lower the blood-
starved limb. The touch of that cold skin was creepy, in fact
Mulder did not find the pallor of any of Jake's skin from what
he could see under the soot and bruises very encouraging.
       
      "Hold on. I can't afford for you to pass out of me. Are
they pretty prompt about coming back?"

      A slow nod, a weak voice. "When they say they will."

      "I'm only supposed to be the waste management engineer. Do
they plan another visit besides coming back to get the janitor?"


      Jake's one good eye dropped down into his lap. "One of
them, Pete, said he'd spent a summer castrating sheep and was
eager to take up the trade again." Mulder felt his own insides
flip over and, even in the eerie light from the flash, knew Jake
could see it. "Not an experience I've been looking forward to,"
Jake commented dryly.  

      Mulder stayed in his crouch, for several thumping
heartbeats as if deciding something. "Can you walk, at least
with a cane?"

      Jake stretched a leg, grimaced, then attempted a careful
flex of his entire lean body. His breathe caught sharply. "If it
means getting out of here, I can."

      Rapidly Mulder began peeling off his coat and the fatigues.
Underneath was torn and dirty dress slacks and a stripped shirt
in a similar state. As Jake watched wide-eyed Mulder picked up
handfuls of soot chunks from the floor and, one eye on the
architect, began to liberally smear more of the soot onto his
clothes and skin just where Jake was the dirtiest.

      "Take off your shoes," Mulder ordered. When Jake did not
move but only watched the agent take off his own boots, Mulder
hissed impatiently. "Move. Quickly."

      Slowly, Jake began to comply, the fingers of his throbbing
arm not manipulating the laces well. "We're not going anywhere,
are we? At least not together." He gestured to the fake wound
over Mulder's left eye, the clothes. "You planned this all
along, to take my place."

      "There you're wrong," Mulder muttered slipping on the other
man's shoes and not surprised to find they fit only a little
snugly. "You've got my place. I just want it back." Mulder
frowned. The architect was moving too slowly. "Look, finding you
was just a possibility I had to be prepared for. Something Fate
plays me some pretty odd hands. I've learned to go along for the
ride."

      "You should have said 'No, thank you' this time."

      Shoes changed, Mulder had been studying Jake's face. Now he
added a last bit of soot to his face, a large glob where Jake's
mouth was bruised. "I needed a disguise anyway."

      Jake's attempt at dressing, which had been progressing
slowly, stopped entirely. "That's because you're not only hiding
from Pete, you're hiding from your own, aren't you? You're not
even supposed to be here. At least someone at the FBI has two
brain cells to rub together."

      "That's my partner," Mulder muttered grudgingly.

      "Well, I hope he knows where we are."

      "SHE doesn't. That's your job. Get out of here and bring
the cavalry on the off chance that I'm not able to get out of
here on my own. And I would appreciate it if you hurried."

      Grumbling, Jake struggled with the boots. Mulder had gotten
them large to help but it was still taking the man too long. The
architect had managed the fatigue pants but that seemed to have
taken most of his strength. His breathing was not good. Mulder
knelt and began helping with the boot laces.

      There was quiet for long moment and still no sound of
Lawrence's return. "Are you married?" Jake asked softly. "No,
you couldn't be or you wouldn't have dared try this dumb stunt.
Girlfriend?"

      Mulder opened his mouth and then changed his mind because
he found in his heart that he couldn't accurately answer the
question. Scully... How does one explain both less and more at
once. "Something like that. She'll murder me if I let myself get
killed down here."
      
      Mulder had to push the boot on the architect's foot. As he
did so he heard a groan and sharp movement as an arm moved to
protect some injury in the area of his abdomen. "Sorry."
 
      Jake's voice was thin. "This is a stupid idea. I have no
one. Leave me here and go back for the marines yourself. It will
save your girlfriend from having to murder you."

      "No, way. Even if you weren't mistaken for me, I'd still
have my oath to protect the public. There goes what's left of my
reputation if I come back and find out they've maimed you or
worse."

      A long, dirty hand came down on Mulder's wrist, stronger
than Mulder would have expected and the voice was low but every
word distinct. "You can't force me to go through with this
insanity. You go. The only thing I ask is that you must promise
that if you don't make it back in time and something has
happened to me that you won't do anything rash. You have no idea
what that does to those who are left."

      Mulder had hesitated for a moment the boot laces in his
hands, remembering the suicide of this man's fiancee and tried
to convey through the intensity of his gaze that he knew exactly
what the architect was talking about. "YOU understand that I'd
feel worse if something happened to you and I stood by and did
nothing - not that it's going to come to that because you're not
going to be in the line of fire much longer. But just to let you
know, I have no intention of shuffling off this mortal coil any
time soon. To paraphrase Robert Frost: I have promises I need to
keep and miles to go before retirement."
 
      Boots on Jake now, Mulder stood as best as he could under
the low ceiling and held out the long-sleeved fatigue shirt for
the other man but Jake made no move to stand. 

      "This is wrong. You have obligations? Well, I don't. The
world can do without another building. Go back to your almost
girlfriend, Agent Mulder, and find out what she wants and give
it to her. Of course finding out what they want, that's the hard
part." The one green eye Mulder saw staring at him was pinpoint,
feverish and maybe just slightly delirious. Mulder began to have
more than a few doubts about his own plan. "Why do women leave?
Why do they wear your ring at night and then run off during the
day to be with another man? I loved her, I was gentle. What did
she want? I don't know. Passion? Danger?" 

      Calmly, Mulder moved to stand near where the cuff link
hung, the closed end still locked around the pipe, the open end
that had been around Jake's wrist dangling free. Mulder nudged
the other man firmly with his foot. When he had the architect's
glazed attention Mulder snapped the open cuff around his own
wrist. The sharp snap and the feel of the cold, confining metal
on his skin forced a fist of nerves to close in the pit of his
stomach.

      The desperate act did have its desired effect on Jake. The
webs cleared from the architect's brain, solidifying his
wandering mind into a single bolt of energy and outrage.

      "What in the hell did you do that for?" Jake demanded
hoarsely.

      "To stop this argument!" Mulder responded in a harsh
whisper. "There's no time for it. I'm staying and unless you
want them to kill us both when they come back and find the
Hardie twins going at each other, you'll put on that shirt and
the coat and hat I came in with, take up your sack of offal,
crawl out of here and head straight for the FBI."

      Jake hissed. Mulder wondered if he looked as totally
disagreeable when he was royally pissed. Grimacing against the
pain in his insides, Jake began reluctantly to button the shirt.


      "You at least have the key, I hope."

      "Where you'll never find it," Mulder glared.
 
      "Did anyone ever tell you that you were certifiably nuts?"

      Sitting on his haunches, back against the wall, the
shackled hand dangling above his head - he could not quite get
up the nerve to sit on the slimy floor - Mulder smiled a grim
smile of triumph. "More often than you could possibly imagine."

      As Jake worked on getting the coat on, Mulder watched with
some satisfaction. The man's hands were trembling in pain and
exhaustion and probably a good dose of fear. In any case a good
approximation of the DT's. He would fit in close enough with the
immediate world outside. "Answer me one question before you go,"
Mulder asked.

      "That's a switch," Jake replied sourly. "I thought you were
the one with the answers to everything."

      Mulder ignored the hurt and sarcastic bite in the other
man's voice. "Did those two tell you why they're doing this? I
don't recognize Pete who was the one who supposedly picked you
out - I mean, ME out - as working for the FBI."

      Jake keep struggling with the coat. "He didn't expect me -
YOU - to. He was in the courtroom the day you testified at his
cousin's sentencing. You recommended that the man be sent to a
federal penitentury. And that's where they sent him."

      Pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place. "Billy Macon.
Now I remember. I was thinking of Macon as a first name. That
was years ago, I was a fairly green analyst with Violent Crimes.
>From my profile I was convinced that Billy Macon needed to be
locked away somewhere very, very safe for a long time."

      "That's what Pete told me."

      "What he didn't tell you was that on my word alone Billy
Macon never would have been sentenced to Marion Federal.
Everyone else on the case seemed to want to give him another
chance and send him to a state institution. They would have,
too, if Billy hadn't leaped for my throat as I stepped down
after giving my deposition and then tried to take out a piece of
my face with a quarter-sized chunk of broken glass."

      Jake stopped fumbling with his buttons to stare to Mulder.
The matter-of-fact way the agent spoke told the architect that,
as much as they may look alike, they, in fact, lived and worked
in two entirely different universes.

      Mulder pointed to a small scar under his jaw which Jake
clearly didn't have. "It was very dramatic. He cut me once, just
a little, but I bled like a stuck pig. The press made a big deal
about it. It was Billy's attack that convinced everyone to lock
him up and throw away the key. Still, there has to be something
more. I can't believe all this is in retribution for that." 

      "I'm sorry I can't remember more. I was busy having the
shit beat out of me about that time." Jake's eyes went a little
glazed, Mulder could see the memory of all he had been through
the past few days trying to rise. This was not what the
architect needed to be thinking about now.

      "Are you going to be able to make it?" Mulder asked more
gently.

      "A little late to be asking that, isn't it?" Jake snapped
returning to the shirt buttons. "I'll make it. If I have to
crawl, I'll make it. Where am I going anyway?"

      Carefully, Mulder gave instructions. All the architect
really needed to do was get out of the building and a safe
distance away as quickly as possible just in case Pete and
Lawrence had a sudden change of heart about witnesses. After
that, Mulder showed Jake where his emergency twenty dollar bill
was hidden in his coat, more than adequate for a cab ride to the
FBI even at District cab prices. "Just ask for 'Skinner'."

      Coward, Mulder chided himself. Leaving it to Skinner to
break the news to Scully about what a dumb stunt he'd pulled
this time.      
       Reluctantly committed, Jake listened, asked intelligent
questions and generally showed he was still mostly all there in
his head. His strength, however, was in question. He frowned
when Mulder explained that the area of town he would find
himself in was not so very good. 

      "You're at 426 M. Street, N.W. Whatever you do, don't
forget that. Even the cavalry needs a map."

      Jake had finally finished with the shirt and coat. Now he
was fumbling with the glasses. Their one opaque lens would hide
his swollen eye as it had Mulder's fake one. "Where is the FBI
anyway?"

      "The Building Museum is at Fifth and F, NW. The monstrosity
that Hoover built is at Tenth and Pennsylvania. Not so far." 

      Bluntly, Jake pushed the hat down on his filthy hair and
even managed to stuff the offending mouth piece over his teeth
and not a second too soon. Both men jumped at the sound of
scratching at the door. Lawrence had returned. Jake jerked
desperately in the agent's direction, the rapid movement making
the tiny room spin. Mulder had crumpled his long limbs into a
close approximation of Jake's position when he had first seen
him. At the last moment before turning his head away Mulder
mouthed 'Good Luck'. 

      Lawrence shouted for the cleaning crew to crawl on out.
Grasping the cane and dragging the bag of filth behind him, Jake
pain-stakingly complied.



      Because he had turned to the wall as Jake had been Mulder
never knew that Lawrence looked in at the figure in the dark
corner after Jake crawled out. Nor did Mulder see the light in
the tiny dark eyes. He only knew that when Lawrence swung the
screeching metal door shut that he was left in the dark in a
tomb of utter silence. 

      How long would it take the architect to contact someone? In
distance even by foot the FBI was not so very far. Ten blocks,
twelve. A fast twenty minute walk for a healthy man. However,
Jake was far from healthy and a stranger in the city, directions
or no. Mulder stopped a shuddering breath, refusing to think
about what Pete could do with his sheep gelding knife while Jake
stumbled his way along some of the shadier parts of Washington
trying to find either a cab willing to pick him up, a working
phone, a friendly face or the FBI itself.
      
      One thing Mulder was determined to do - rid himself of this
damn handcuff. If Lawrence or Pete came back then at least he
would have some freedom to defend himself. His hand felt the
back wall. His mind pulled up the picture of the wall as it had
appeared in the light of the flash the one-eyed vet had been
allowed. Jake hadn't noticed where Mulder has stashed the key -
a small break in the iron casing just at the ceiling joint, a
space just large enough for a man's fingers. Mulder's probing
hand found the cavity quickly. His fingers closed onto the
welcome hardness of the key.

      With a cry Mulder's hand jerked away from the hole, cursing
as the key went sailing off into the blackness to land -
someplace - with a soft wet sound, certainly beyond reach, that
was for damn sure. The sounds of little paws and a squeaking
came to Mulder's ears as the rat that had bit him scurried away
to another black corner where it would not be so rudely
disturbed.

      In pure anger, Mulder dropped back into his crouch. His
left arm which was suspended above his head throbbed already and
promised to hurt a whole lot more in the next few hours.

      Mulder spent the next five minutes, cursing, forcing the
bite from the razor-sharp little rodent fangs to bleed clean,
and berating himself thoroughly for being such a stupid dumb-
ass. The only consolation he could find in this totally fucked
up situation was that he had just made Scully's week. She could
now look forward to administering not only tetanus shots but the
whole series of anti-rabies injections. Oh, joy.

End of Chapter 3 



From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:47:45 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 4a/9 
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 4a

      Jake swayed even though he gripped the yellow building's
rusted railing with all his strength. Twilight had crept over
the city while Mulder had been inside, but it had been a warm
day for March, one of those harbingers of spring, and the
sidewalks were still crowded with the prowling intercity
dwellers. Set free by the warmth of the sun during the day, they
had no desire now that night had fallen to return to their
winter haunts. 

      Jake had been liberated as well, but felt no joy at his
release. Instead he found himself trembling uncontrollably,
barely able to stand. Four days of utter silence, four days of
pain and all-encompassing fear, four days of being beaten again
and again and again with Pete screaming in his ears that he was
not who he knew he was, four days of not even knowing why he was
being tortured. None of that had prepared him for this, not for
this seething mass of poor, mostly unwashed, definitely jostling
humanity. The noise beat relentlessly into his skull. The blast
from a dozen Boom boxes, the hard laughing, the jeering voices
confused him, twisting his thoughts into unrecognizable shapes.

      He found the street jive which was raised to a painful
volume all around him terrifying, intimidating. Though from a
different culture, it was still too much like Pete and
Lawrence's. He was an alien amidst this ocean of colors, wading
through foreign seas where everyone knew their place but him.
Despite the extra double layer of clothes the FBI agent had
given him, he felt exposed and vulnerable.

      "Get away," Agent Mulder had told him looking dirty and a
little desperate at the end. "When you get outside leave the
area as fast as you can." But Mulder had forgotten the time.
That at this just-after-dusk time it was not so easy just to get
away. Jake grasped the handle of the cane, leaned on it
frantically for balance and forced his trembling legs to descend
the last steps. He raised his head, frantically searching for
something, anything to guide him. Having one eye blocked was
disrupting his perspective as well as his balance, yet between
two building far to his right he saw the gleaming pinnacle of
the Washington Monument more than a mile distant.
 
      That way. Civilization.

      How he had managed to stagger through the corridors of the
basement and then up the narrow, steep stairs with Lawrence
breathing like a bellows behind him, Jake would never totally
remember. It was all part of a dark haze. He had forced his legs
faster than they wanted to take him but then he had had the
walls on either side of the passage to dig his fingertips into
for balance. He had pulled himself up the stairway hand over
hand using the bannister as much as he had used his feet.

      After extracting his 'janitor' from the innards of the
furnace prison, Lawrence had been mercifully reticent asking
only if his 'cousin' had spoken. Threat was veiled but clear
enough if the answer had not been to his liking. Jake just shook
his head. 

      "Not surprised, he's really been out of it these last
couple of days," Lawrence commented with false nonchalance as
they began to climb the steep stairs, a task that had looked
like Everest to Jake. "Maybe he needs a little company. Yeah,
now that things smell a bit better down there maybe I'll just
pay my 'cousin' a little visit later. Just to be neighborly."

      The sick sound of that statement had cut through Jake's
exhaustion sparking a small surge of panicked energy. It
reminded Jake too much of how Lawrence had looked at him,
especially at the beginning before the pain of the beatings had
blotted out all thought.

      Having conquered the last cellar step, Jake had only been
able to stand, weaving and indecisive. Behind him Lawrence had
laughed at the vet's disorientation, putting it down to the
utterly disagreeable job he had just performed that would have
scrambled anyone's brains. As the big man extended the bottle of
vodka, Jake had at first just stood there, staring stupidly
until he remembered what Mulder had told him about the expected
payment for the job. Lawrence had laughed even louder as Jake
dragged himself unsteadily towards the front door. 

      "Hey, Sergeant! D'you forget your little planned visit to
the ladies? Maybe you don't have the stomach for it any more,
maybe you think they wouldn't be so friendly considering how
much you stink!." And Lawrence had howled.  

      
      That was before, this was now, out on the street and Jake
was convinced that Lawrence was following. Jake could almost
feel the con's hot breath on the back of his neck. Gracelessly,
he turned stumbling backwards for a few steps anxiously
searching the crowd, but Lawrence wasn't there. Only the echo of
his laugh. Jake had forced his legs to carry him off the steps.
He had crossed the street with the crowd too dazed to make sense
of the cross walk icons and now the yellow building was a block
behind him. Too close still. Off balance, still moving backwards
he bumped into a group of teenage girls in tight skirts who were
trying to act sophisticated beyond their years. Their laughter
was shrill, the gold of their necklaces and huge dangling ear
rings glowed in the night against their dark skins. They
shrieked recoiling as the filthy street loon blundered into
their midst. Their voices changed, disgust switching to anger,
became harsh and snappish.

      He spun forward again away from their group trying to move
more quickly, but they were going the same way as he and seeing
his confusion continued to jeer, their mocking cat calls
following him, driving him onward faster. Their ridicule, their
insults fueled his disorientation. A darkness opened to his
right. An alley. All Jake knew was that there were no people
there. No lights. A place to hide. He slid into it along the
wall of a building at its corner. The crowd of girls moved on,
their last few taunts already beginning to fade as they bemoaned
the loss of their game.

      Jake crawled along the wall, past dumpsters and pools of
substances that smelled even worse than he, but moved on,
escaping the people. Finally he sank to his knees in a pool of
grey shadow, where the noises of the city and its people was but
a distant throb. There he could listen to his heart pounding,
there he could feel the heat from within burning his eyes, there
he sought, mostly in vain, to pull together again the edges of
his sanity. Like an old scratched LP only tiny chunks of his
thoughts were clear and these repeated endlessly, visions of
interminable blackness, a lonesome dripping, abandonment. No
wonder none of this made sense. He had been delivered from hell
but to what? To this eternal night, these wet echoes, this
aloneness.

      From far down the alley came the sounds of laughing voices,
young male voices. Horseplay, slaps, hoots, the tinkle of glass,
their running, dancing footsteps all echoing as if inside a huge
bell. Jake froze. They were coming nearer moving along the alley
towards the party atmosphere on the farther street. A chilling
sweat trickling down his back, Jake forced his legs to bear his
weight and reeled in the direction of a blacker shadow but the
cane slipped on the greasy, foul ground. He fell into a stack of
rotting cardboard boxes left out too long in the rain. They had
that smell. His fall made a sound was like thunder in the quiet
street.

      "What we got here, man?" a young voice shouted with gleeful
menace.

      The footsteps scampered, came even closer and Jake found
himself suddenly blinking like a stunned animal in the glare of
a pen light fixed at his eyes. The small beam flickered away to
scan his clothes. The rain coat had fallen open revealing the
camouflage fabric of shirt and slacks.

      "Look lads, we got ourselves a 'nam cat!" one of the group
snickered. Slowly Jake's eyes were beginning to adjust. There
were six of them, slender and strong as young trees with
shining, feral eyes and skin that would have done a rainbow
proud.

      "Hey, GI Joe, you got a joint?"

      "Yeah, you guys always got joints. Spent four years just
sucking the air."

      One of them grabbed him held him up, not minding that
standing straight Jake was taller than any of them. "Hey, bud,
we're talkin' to you. We want to know if you got a stash of
grass, ya know?"

      Jake's mind went blank. His lack of response irritated the
punk who held him who hurled him backwards into the brick wall
of the building. Pain exploded at the back of Jake's head. He
didn't remember his legs giving out but they must have for the
largest of the punks had to come forward and haul him upright
again by his coat. 

      "We asked you a question," the fuzz-faced street thug
grunted. Jake only sank bonelessly to the ground, the world
spinning, his stomach heaving on empty air as the teen abruptly
released him just to watch him fall. 

      In the darkness above where Jake knew the boy's faces must
be, they were jeering, their laughter without mirth, but he
could only focus unsteadily on the legs of their torn and well-
worn jeans and that only from the knees down. "Well, we'll just
have to take a look for ourselves, hey, guys?"

      Two must have stood look out. Four pairs of hands began
swiftly and expertly to snatch at Jake's clothes turning out his
pockets, searching even in the top of his socks. Immediately
they found the Smirnoff's leading to whoops and cat calls of
joy. Then they found the twenty dollar bill. 

      Mulder's twenty. 

      A blaze of comprehension streaked through Jake's besieged
mind. All that he was honor bound to do suddenly returned with
agonizing clarity just as the means to accomplish it slipped
into another's pocket. Too slowly Jake made a grab for it but
his reactions were far too slow, his strength like water. The
boys laughed as they batted his hands away. 

      "Not a bad haul from this little piggy," one of the boys
said as they backed away from their downed victim, backed away
but not far enough, still within kicking distance, and at least
the feet of some moved restlessly. Too much energy, too little
to do. 

      "Oh, leave the drunk be," one of the elder boys said seeing
no sport and off he swaggered but not before three of the
younger ones lingered, seeing an opportunity for some practice,
relishing the solid, thudding sound, the flinch and grunt from
the man at their feet as a kick connected well. At least the
teens wore athletic shoes and not Lawrence's boots and they
didn't have his malice or experience at finding the most tender
spots but did well enough.

      A sharp, booming snap burst into the near silence, the
sound of a heavy stick bounding off the edge of a nearly empty
dumpster. The group jumped and spun at once, crouching on their
haunches like wolves. A harsh and ancient voice called out
sharply, "Children, what DO you think yer doin' there?" 

      There was a hasty scramble as young bodies stepped away
from where their victim lay twitching and moaning softly as he
curled around his injured stomach. The postures of his
assailants relaxed, softened, never returning to the tenseness
of their attack mode. 

      The eldest stepped forward with a swagger. "Hey, Mama!"

      "Don't ya Mama, me. Yer own Mamas would be ashamed. What
brave boys you are, six against one," the old woman's voice
grated with sarcasm. "You've got what you want and had your fun
now be off with you."

      With uneasy good humor they howled to each other across the
alley, added a few more dents to a few more trash cans, and
tossed their long locks disdainfully at the small, bent figure
of the old woman who stood staring after them. But they left. 

      At their leaving quiet descended upon the narrow, dark
alley like a cloak. A warm cloak of blessed silence. 

      Jake was aware of little of it, only that he hurt, that
more was torn and bruised inside. As soon as the feet had
stopped coming at him out of the dark, he had crawled off into
the blackest shadow he could find. There he huddled, his aching
back against the crumbling brick of one of the buildings. His
arms clasped about his knees, he waited for the new pains to
ebb. With dread he heard and tried to block out the sounds on
the busy sidewalk a block away, all those people with their hard
hands and cruel voices. A siren cried streets and streets away.
He knew he was on the edge of delirium when he almost laughed at
the sound. Even if he could find a cop, he couldn't picture
himself going up to one, not looking like this. The very idea
was ludicrous. Would they believe him? Would he if a bum on the
street told him this story.

      Despair washed over him, drowning out the hysteria. What
was he going to do? All the money he had was gone, Mulder's
money, the money that would have paid for the taxi to take him
out of here. He had lost even the bottle of liquor which was the
only thing of value he had to barter with. His head fell forward
unto his knees.

      And he hurt, he hurt so bad... It hurt to breathe, it hurt
to think, at the moment it hurt to live.
 
      A voice spoke near him. Jake jerked, startled, which sent
too many pains stabbing into that burning space just under his
ribs and through his limbs. Eyes stared into his, ancient, dark
eyes. There was an odor of mothballs and mildew strong enough to
overpower even his own stink. A wrinkled hand wiped his tear-
streaked face with a dirty scrap of what must have once been a
woman's slip. Jake had not realized until that moment that he
had been crying.

      "Hey, pretty boy," came the old voice. It was the voice he
vaguely remembered from before, the voice that sent his
tormentors away. She sat a little outside the densest shadow,
just far enough so he could see that the voice came with a face
as wrinkled as an old walnut. It shone benignly from beneath a
ring of cloud-white hair. "Don't cry, don't cry. Can't be as bad
as that."

      Jake opened his mouth but nothing came out. The old bag
lady patted his shoulder and settled down next to him, hugging
his side. "It'll be okay. It'll be fine. Mama Rosa is here, and
she'll stay right here with you will you feel better."

      "I've got to..."

      "Shhhh... quiet... sleep...."

      A voice. Too weak certainly to be his. "No, I've got to
go... help...."

      "Shhhh... Now you stay right here and keep Mama Rosa's old
bones warm for a while, you hear?"

      Her arm was strong for such an old woman. Her strength
insisted that he lie down with his head on her lap. "Can't..."
he whispered. She stroked his matted hair. "Tired... so
tired...." he muttered. He wanted to say other things, but what
exactly was lost in his body's cries for rest. Besides he felt
safe, for the first time in longer than he could remember. Safe. 

End of chapter 4a 


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:49:23 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 4b/9 
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 4b
                             ********

      Mulder jerked awake from his half doze, something had
touched his hair. Probably it had been just a stray breeze from
down the narrow shaft above his head, but the ache in his finger
brought up other possibilities all centered around images of red
and hungry eyes. Taut he raised his head, alert and listening
but heard no sound at all, much less the brush and scurry of
small rodent feet. The hour must be very late for even the
distant vibration from the street was gone as was the
intermittent sound of dripping water which only seemed to begin
after one of the toilets above was flushed.

      Time passed, stretched out like a physical thing, black and
silent and interminable. Mulder waited, his left arm aching from
its awkward position, his body shivering from the damp cold that
radiated from the metal of the dead furnace's iron walls.
Contemplation of the universe, his soul, the NBA stats, his
chances of getting out of this alive, passed and were gone.
Bored, Mulder allowed his head to drop slowly back against the
wall at his back. His distaste for the rats was real but so was
his exhaustion. There had been little sleep since Scully had
appeared with that first photo of Jake and the strength sleep
would give him he may need later. Under the circumstances he
wasn't going to be able to take either Lawrence or Pete by
surprise anyway.

      Mulder didn't know when consciousness slipped into dream.
Sleep wove itself into his thoughts slowly like a gentle dancing
breeze. A warm one. Blessed warmth. The discomfort in his arm
and shoulder also seemed to drift away with the gentle breeze.
It stirred his hair again but this time he did not wake, did not
want to. This was better than his cold prison. 

      A touch on his cheek, gentle, soft, hesitant...  

      Mulder stiffened, waited. He could have sworn... Another
touch, bolder, a finger, a woman's on his cheekbone trailing
whisper light down his cheek and along his jaw. 

      Mulder smiled ever so slightly in expectation. This had the
makings of a good one. Certainly the previews were auspicious.
He dared not move. 

      It's all this talk about the threat to your maleness, his
educated brain tried to tell him.

      Beat it! was Mulder's response. The last thing he wanted to
do was psychoanalyze why this was happening now. After all, like
a furtive wild animal which he wanted to lure closer to take the
treat from his hand, he didn't want to scare it away. The breeze
blew upon his face, stronger this time, with more presence,
sending a pleasant tingle over his body. 

      This was nice. 

      Lips touched his gently smiling ones, warm and soft, dream-
like. His heart picked up its rhythm. He felt warmer already. 

      This was very nice.

      More than one finger brushed against his closed eyelids,
smoothing his lashes as they lay upon his cheeks. The finger
moved on tracing the curves in his lips and jawbone, eyebrows
and cheeks. Two hands now, fingers combing through his hair, a
breath upon his upturned face smelling of musk and flowers and
woman. Kisses, soft as butterfly wings over his face, down over
his chin, along his throat. Teeth pressed down daintily upon his
ear lobe, tasting, first one than the other, unhurried. A stream
of warm air brushed against his ear, the sensation shimmering
all the way to his toes though it concentrated about half way
down, igniting a small fire of exquisite pleasure.

      Small, eager hands, astonishingly shy moved under his
shirt, soft, loving hands. A tongue licked the skin of his
chest, teeth closed in, just teasing, not nearly hard enough to
break the skin. He did not move. He welcomed her with pleasant
thoughts, with grateful little sighs. As if taking that as
encouragement she became bolder still, moving over his body,
licking, biting, scratching in little cat bits. Easily enough to
bring a shiver, not enough to drive him mad. Not yet.

      Lips and tongue lapped at a nipple then with an unexpected
pounce came down hard, sucking, drawing him in, forcing out a
moan of surprise and pleasure. More than his heart was throbbing
now, his blood was up and hot, rushing like white water down to
his nether regions. 

      This was working up to becoming the most intense wet dream
of his life. 

      Please, just don't let me wake up, not now.

      The pressure on his left nipple released, a woman's silvery
laugh, almost too soft to hear, came from below his chin.  

      A small, cold shock ran up Mulder's spine. What if this
wasn't just a very, very nice dream. Maybe Pete or Lawrence had
decided as a final bit of irony to hire the girls from the third
floor, maybe even the legendary Mabel, to attend their prisoner
before the final cut, like a last meal. If so, whatever she
charged, it wasn't nearly enough.

      The eager mouth clamped down again this time on his other
breast. At the same time somewhere low, a hand, warm and soft,
squeezed. All thoughts of dreams or not, of kidnappers and
prisons fled. There were no thoughts at all. Just pleasure,
guiltless, beyond depth, past perfection. There was no hurry as
if time had no measure. There was not fumbling, not a single
false move, not a one, as if the artist who played his body knew
exactly what he wanted even before he did. Before he could wish
for a little pressure here, some release there, a cupping of his
balls now, a sliding along the shaft this long and no longer, it
was done. His body shuddered as he struggled to hold it all in,
to make it last. The affect all this was having on his blood
pressure he didn't dare think about.

      Hands massaged his chest and his buttocks at once. The
throbbing in his veins inched up another level. Nails raked
along the inside of this thigh. Now this was approaching
madness. At the same time the claws on the other hand carved
blissful ridges down the skin of his back. Glorious. 

      In the tiny corner of his mind that could still reason,
there smoldered a shred of remorse for taking so much and giving
none in return, but he found, not entirely to his surprise, that
his arms would not lift, instead felt leaden as if he were
restrained by silken cords. The hands smoothed his brow, as if
comforting him, telling him not to worry. 

      We are sexual creatures, she seemed to say. Words are
extraneous. A few thousand years of civilization cannot erase
hundreds of thousands of years of nature's drives. Lie still, be
at peace.

      His head fell back as he she lowered herself onto him, warm
and wet. Peace was suddenly the farthest thing from his mind. 

      She rocked against him, slow but with presence and it was
all he could do to keep from flying away, but that would be
giving in too soon. With a shuddering breath he stayed with her.


      Very good, came the whisper and she kissed him, easing up,
letting him fall back gently only to bring him back to the
heights less than a minute later with just the tiniest movement
of her body. 

      It was harder not to come this time, every muscle in his
body, a special few in particular, were beginning to quaver in
little convulsions with his need. Jaw clenched, fists like claws
he stayed on the earth.

      She stroked his head as if he were a good beast to obey her
so well, to which he growled softly. This was becoming too much.
He had been patient. How long did she expect him to wait? Forget
the gentlemanly control, a little ravishing was beginning to
look better and better. 

      Only he could not move! His nostrils flared in his
frustration as his body began to oscillate furiously between
pleasure and pain.

      Hold on, she told him in a voice still soft but with an
edge beginning to creep in. The greatest prize goes to those who
wait. She moved again, lowered her mouth and sucked.

      His body tight as a drawn bow, stretched as if to breaking
between her outstretched hands. The center of his fire was the
arrow poised but not allowed to loose. His moans became cries,
become curses, but just before he might have sailed over the
edge her voice snapped in his ear.

      No!

      A moan burst from him which was more like a sob. In his
frustration he twisted in her arms trying to evade her but she
only teased with the greater art. Raving, cursing, thrashing he
wished himself rid of her, rid of this dream.  
      
      But she held him close, held him to the ground. Panic and
instinct, primordial and old as the world, rose in challenge.
With the strength of a cornered wild beast he wretched himself
free from her arms the only way he could - by flinging himself
skyward. As he slid past her, he was shocked by the savage,
harsh cry in his ears. This was his voice and, wondrously, his
body was as lithe and light and yet as majestically strong as a
falcon's. 

      Suddenly there emerged before him a massive shape, a
mountain, its lofty top high above him lost in the clouds.
Proud, free, powerful, he found this no obstacle. Soaring,
blazing like a comet, skimming over its rocky slopes like a
flare of light, like the storm's wind, he scaled its heights.
Effortless, magnificent, his body possessed at that moment a
strength beyond imagining. With every pounding thrust of his
heart, he seemed to grow larger and larger as higher and higher
he flew. The rush of the air behind his eyes was like thunder.

      Suddenly his eyes were full of sky. The highest pinnacle
lay at his feet. On the brink he paused and again came that
harsh, fierce sound, a near-to-bursting cry of defiance and
triumph, for he was free, his suffering at an end, and she could
not stop him. He would fly, would leap into the air to take the
most blissful fall of all. 

      Only once poised on the edge he erred. He looked down.

      The fall from here was far, too far, far too far, and in
that moment of hesitation, neigh onto panic, she had him. She
descended from behind. Her fierce, strong arms embraced him and
entrapped him, wrapped him round and round in golden chains to
hold him to the mountain. He screamed in his anger, the fire in
his loins threatened to flare across the sky. Every place the
chains touched on his body was like the touch of her hands, far
beyond pleasure. He raised his arms in his anguish and found to
his horror that he no longer had arms, but huge leathery wings
that when outstretched darkened the whole of the mountainside.
And looking down he found his body was immense, long and scaly,
a serpent beautiful in a golden red sunset.

      NOOOOOO!!!!!! But his scream had no human sound.

      Then she touched him where she should not, the way she
should not, the way she had which, he realized now, had driven
him maddened to the mountaintop. Is that what she wanted? To
drive him over the edge? If he fell from here he would die. 

      Golden chains biting deep and hard into his flesh, logic
shattering like glass, he roared, lashed with his tail, flailed
in his insanity around and around pulling the chains tighter and
tighter unable to find her. Yet he knew even through the scarlet
haze of his rage that she was there, had to be there. He could
still feel her teasing hands, the warmth and wetness of her
mouths, both driving him higher and higher, pleasure raking his
body, over and over, till there was no dividing line between it
and anguish. Shocks convulsed him and still she hung on refusing
to let him go. What else could she want of him? He had already
grown into this monster under her hands. He already burned. Did
she think he could go on burning and burning and burning
forever?

      I am dying. I will burst into flame and I will die.

      A cool hand fell down softly on the red gold of his breast.
 
      It is time, my lover. Open your eyes.
        
      With a last burst of will, he forced open his serpent eyes,
but he did so not at her bidding but to see his temptress one
time before she thrust the burning brand into his vitals and he
burned alive. 

      His hot, weary eyes opened upon his iron prison. He had
nearly forgotten, only it was no longer black, there was light
now, light where there should be none. Nevertheless, a thin
greyness like spider webs clung to all things, outlining the
shape of ceiling, floor, the pipes on the walls. And her. Her
face hung in the empty air, the glowing light dusting her
exquisite face, the nose and chin, her jaw. The light clung like
a fairy's breath to her masses and masses of black curling hair.
Then he looked deeply into the two black pools which were her
eyes. Through these he saw, outlined by the webs of light the
edges of the low door as if through her was deliverance. In
bewilderment he realized that he should not, could not, be
seeing this door. For it was behind her. 
      
      Enough! she growled, the sound coming from low in her
throat, rumbling in warning and the tiny window on the world she
had opened for him slammed shut.

      Around him sprang the mountain and the thunder of the wind,
the cries of the carrion birds and the screams in his ears as
the chains bit deeper and deeper into his serpent skin.  

      She was there this time, clearly there. Her white arms
reached for him. When he sobbed flinching from her touch, she
stroked his flanks and then almost tenderly she breathed upon
the fire she had left banked within him. 

      That was the end. There was no more containing. He burst
into flame. Uncontrollably, he blazed into a brilliant agony.
That brought a smile to her perfect lips, a smile which was much
of the kind which the devil smiles, as she pressed her warm
thighs around him. "Now you may fly," she whispered and crying
out she sank her nails deep into his hide all the way to his
soft and tender flesh. 

      He flew. Chains stretched to breaking before, the links
burst at the moment of their combined screams. Now and truly
free at last he soared one final magnificent time into the
insubstantial air - before he began to fall. 

      For he did not how to fly, not from this high above the
ground. Even if he did there was not enough wind for his huge
winds, instead he fell. Down, down, faster and faster, tumbling
over and over, he poured out his whole self, not only his seed
but all of his blood and bone, being and soul, too, poured all
out upon the thin air as he fell burning from the heights,
becoming smaller and smaller as his life flowed out.

      Only at the very last moment with blackness closing in on
his mind, as he heard his lungs gasping on the smell of his own
burning, did her strong arms catch him. Only in the final
seconds by the glow of the ghost light did he see again through
her dark window that he was a man, a man with his left arm
aching from the shackle, a man sitting on a cold iron floor
fully dressed, covered in sweat, his body convulsing in the
remnants of exquisite pleasure and agony.

      She held him. She kissed his senseless lips. She lowered
his limp body into a black and silken void and, greatly
satisfied, departed. 

End of chapter 4 


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:52:42 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 5a/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 5a

      Jake dreamed and for once he didn't dream of her. Didn't
dream of coming home from work, calling her name, and tossing
off his sports coat. Didn't dream of calling her name again more
frantically this time and then walking into the bathroom to find
her floating in the rust-stained water. He didn't dream of the
feel of her wet and cold in death, lifeless in his arms. Neither
was the red book in his dreams, nor the red shoes, nor any sign
of that mindless stud for whose caresses she had trod their love
in the dust.

      He dreamed of the dark, of the dripping water as his only
companion. He dreamed of that and the rats. Had he had time to
warn Agent Mulder about the rats? He dreamed of his kidnappers'
clubs and their hard hands and the knife. 

      "Why?" had been in the dream. His own voice crying over and
over again, "Why?" In cruel answer he had received only a new
punch to the groin, two more to his face, a kick to his thigh
and another and another on and on until there was no point to
asking any more because none of it made any sense. Just when he
thought he could bare it, the pain always got worse. This was
especially true the time they had dragged him, crying, out of
the horrible iron prison into the light where grinning Lawrence
had held him down so that Pete could wield his knife. There had
been no way of knowing what they were going to do. 

      He had screamed when they cut and he didn't mind who heard
or that Lawrence struck at him to shut up. He had screamed again
as the fire-heated blade cauterized Pete's handiwork. But that
scream didn't last long for after that he had passed back into
the blackness for a long, long time. 

      He was walking now, walking and walking and the world was
rolling around as if he were in the center of a carrousel on a
stormy sea. Pretty lights, but so cold. Cold wind in his hair?
Where was his hat, Mulder's hat and the cane? Lost the glasses,
too. Good riddance. Walk, put one foot down after the other.
Where was Stella? Stella, Stella? Here girl. My friend, my only
friend who only snuggles closer and licks my hand when I cry and
doesn't tell me like Paul and Alex's mother to buck up and get
over it and move on. Stella, who doesn't care if I don't talk
for days. Want some water, you shaggy monster of a dog? 

      "Water? Here's some water, child."

      Choking, Jake came up from some deep place. Had he almost
drowned? He was coughing up water that had somehow gotten down
into his windpipe instead of his stomach. The open palm of a
sturdy hand was pounding him on the back between his shoulder
blades. 

      "You gonna live, child?"

      Jake's eyes flew open and he stared wild-eyed around at his
surroundings. Nothing looked as it should. It was still night,
only much colder and, therefore, much later than his last
memories of the alley. He was sitting to a side of a broad, flat
plain of barren earth. He felt as if he were down in a long
hole, like an old dry riverbed, only this was too straight, too
flat and there were the soft sounds of a city. But the city
sounds were like those of a city in the deadest part of night,
the time just hours before the dawn. And the city sounds were
far way and somehow above him. Yes, there were the street lights
like rows of white-blue stars on the horizon.

      Mama Rosa was kneeling beside him holding an old but clean
Mystic Mist jar containing some water. She had been trying to
give him some to drink. That's where the water had come from. He
could still feel its wetness in his mouth.

      Rosa's old eyes crinkled under her snowy brows. "Welcome
back, child." She seemed genuinely pleased to see him.

      "Where are we?"

      She gestured to her right and to her left where the flat,
dry ground stretched out on either side as far as they could
see. "Why the freeway." 

      "Freeway?" Baffled, Jake stared again at the what he had
taken to be a peculiar riverbed. It very well could be an
expressway carved out below ground level. It had the width and
that would explain the straightness. It was obvious now that he
knew what to look for that this was a road that had never been
paved and on which over time a straggly collection of weeds,
some scrubby bushes and a few daring, gnarled trees had managed
to grow. Now the over head bands of lights made sense. Quiet,
nighttime city streets passed on overpasses above it.

      "Where does it go?"

      "I didn't think you'd been on the streets very long. From
here to there. I like it. It's a smooth ride for old Bessie here
and no one bothers me." Old Bessie seemed to be a rusted
shopping cart which Mama patted affectionately and which Jake
had not noticed before. His eyes were still not focusing too
well. Since he had been put into that black tomb, left and
forgotten, there had been so much darkness. Would he ever be
able to see right again? 

      Rosa was continuing, "They began this project, oh, ten
years ago now, but lost their funding and it never got finished.
As if I cared. I like it better as it is."

      The pieces were falling together, a least some of them.
This was clearly not even close to the alley where he had fallen
asleep with his head in Mama Rosa's lap. His muscles ached,
especially the sore spot on his stomach just under his ribs. He
felt damp and not just where the water she had tried to give him
had spilled. "How did I get here?"

      "Why you walked, child. Well, crawled, ran, stumbled -
anyway you got from there to here." Jake stared at her wrinkled
face unbelievingly and she explained very gently, "You slept
maybe an hour back there in the alley, then you started moanin',
soft at first and then as if all the demons of hell were after
you. And your skin! It did feel like Old Nick himself was giving
you a guided tour. Hot! I'll say. Could've scorched Mama's old
bones. But did you rest? Not you. There was somethin' you needed
to do and you needed to do it real bad so I just decided that I
might as well take you. Even if you were out o' your head, that
never made any mind to me. I've known sicker and crazier men to
move at a right good pace and never hurt them none." The old
woman proudly patted the shopping cart as if it were a good old
horse. "You leaned on old Bessie a good piece of the way. The
worst of the fever broke, oh, about fifteen minutes ago."

      Jake didn't see how he could have walked anywhere so
feverish and out of his head as she described, not without
remembering, but the proof of her story was here around him on
this barren, surreal plain, wherever here was. Groaning he
forced himself to his feet, the general bone-weary ache which
was over and above his known injuries made him ready enough to
believe her. As he stood, the world did the merry-go-round trick
again. Jake reached out and found that Bessie was indeed a right
steady conveyance. He stared up at the nearest row of street
lights. They seemed impossibly high, impossibly far away,
impossible to reach. As the fog had cleared from his mind Jake
felt again the frantic need to get Mulder the help he had
promised.

      "Rosa, I need to find a policeman -"

      The old woman spat. "Polic-y-man no good. On the make,
every last one of them. Spies. I don't talk to them, they don't
talk to me."

      "A phone then," Jake begged though there certainly was no
Ma Bell outlet down here.

      "Voices," Mama whispered warningly.

      "That's rather the point."

      "Nasty voices, demons. You know the demons. They had you by
the throat only a little while ago."

      Jake leaned his long body over the shopping cart with its
piles of old ratty blankets and clothes and for the first time
he really looked at Rosa or tried to for her image kept
shifting. She really was a tiny, wizened thing with a spark of
madness in her beautiful black eyes. What did Hamlet say, "I am
but mad North-North-West: When the wind is southerly I know a
hawk from a handsaw."  For all of her innate kindness, the wind
in her sails seemed more than a little changeable. 

      Anxious, Jake studied the skyline and was relieved to see
that his angle on the point of the Washington Monument was not
significantly different than when he had sighted it from the
steps at the foot of the building where he had been held
captive, and it did, in fact, seem closer. That was a good sign,
but would Rosa help him reach street level? She clearly didn't
trust many people in authority and Jake needed not a hole in the
ground but help: FBI, police, fire department, 911 operator,
minister, Salvation Army worker, good samaritan, butcher, baker,
candlestick maker - at this point Jake wasn't about to be very
picky.

      Jake took another reading of the sky, the sky to the east
this time. The night was still wearing it's black velvet cloak.
Not a hint of the dawn. There may still be time, but he needed
to hurry. Who knew what Lawrence had already done or planned to
do. And Pete had this obsession with sun up, an old west hang up
like his Bowie knife. Would this be the morning he began carving
again, this time on the real Agent Mulder? 

      "Rosa -"

      "Mama, dear. Call me Mama," she insisted sweetly though a
little vacantly.

      "Mama, you said when I was sick that I asked you to take me
somewhere? Where?"

      "Why the big, red building." 

      Jake knew his response to that was as vague as hers. 

      "The one with all the old soldiers - "

      Old soldiers? Jake wondered confused. An old soldier's
home?

      "And the horses," Rosa added. "Soldiers and horses."

      The lights went on in Jake's befuddled brain and he
actually smiled even though it hurt his bruised face. The
Building Museum was all blood red brick with the thick frieze
running around its entire exterior on which was depicted in high
relief a parade of Civil War soldiers on foot with their
commanders on horseback. The 'old' soldiers. It was not
surprising he would have told her to take him there. He had
found the building's symmetry comforting and had spent many
hours there contentedly drafting and explaining his concepts as
part of the exhibit. Even though he must have been close to
running on empty, he had managed to describe it near enough.  

      With an effort that nearly caused him a fall, Jake pulled
the old woman to her feet and hugged her. This brought an
embarrassed and beaming smile to her wrinkled face. "The red
building with the soldiers, you know where that is?" he asked.

      "Of course, child," Mama Rosa said grasping the handle of
old Bessie, "and we're nearly there. The freeway takes us almost
to the door."

                             *********

      "Agent Scully..." Dana raised her head from where it had
fallen into her arms. Skinner was standing in the doorway. Had
she been sleeping? How could she?

      "Sorry, didn't mean --"

      "Get some real sleep, Agent Scully," said Skinner softly.
"It's very late and we have nothing new to go on. Maybe
something in the morning."

      "I don't want to go home --"

      "I know, so don't. Sleep here." Her supervisor had already
unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie.
There were dark patches under his eyes. He had been working as
many long hours on this as she had. So he did care about Mulder
as she had always suspected.

      "Have the police been informed?" Dana asked, her words a
little slurred in her exhaustion. "If Jake gets away alone and
he's lost and hurt it's no telling where he'll end up."

      Skinner had begun nodding before she finished speaking.
"Yes, and the fire departments and the hospitals. The only
problem is there are not many police on the streets tonight.
There was an explosion with some follow up looting and, if I
hear correctly, a minor riot. City services are pretty much
booked up for the night."

      Dana smiled weakly. "Not a diversion of Mulder's I take
it."
      
      "Not this time. Construction too close to a natural gas
line. Just don't expect much help from the police tonight."
Skinner paused but could think of not much more to say. The
waiting was the worst. Probably better to be Mulder, certainly
in danger but with something to do. "I'm going to sack out on my
couch in the office. Someone will call me if anything happens."
He gestured down the hall with a tilt of his head. "I know where
there's a cot in a storage room down here." Dana's eyes went
wide. What Skinner was suggesting was almost -- intimate. "Get
some sleep," he urged her as he turned more heavily than usual
to head back towards his office. "I'll know where to find you if
you're needed."

      One more time Dana stared down at the picture of Samantha
and Fox. Sam outgoing, full of life. Fox a little thin, a little
shy, already the serious one.

      "Come back, Mulder," she whispered. "I don't want to find
Sam without you." 

      The distance to the small room where Mulder had spent four
restless days was not far but seemed to stretch as far as the
hours since she had last seen that distant, tattered figure
sitting on the steam grate. Nothing in the room appeared to have
been touched. There were the science fiction books she had
bought him but which he had not had the patience to read, the
stack of case files he had tried to focus on, his two changes of
clothes on a hook behind the door. Carefully Dana took off her
shoes and folded her jacket over the back of the one chair. Even
the cheap canvas cot felt good to her tired body. Only after she
had lain there for a few minutes did she notice the scent on the
sheets - Mulder's - and looking found a few short brown hairs. 

      After that, sleep was impossible. Sighing, Dana rose and
headed wearily back to the office. There had to be something
useful she could do. 

                             ********


      Frantically, Mulder's eyes flew open or he hoped they had.
He had been in and out of dreams enough for one night. The
question of the hour was: Was this reality or was he in a dream
still? Somehow, after what he had last seen in this place, the
complete absence of light was almost comforting. With his free
hand he reached out and, yes, the junction of the two walls was
where he thought it should be. His prison was cold, hard and
damp. His left arm felt as if it were going to separate from his
shoulder. He was thirsty, his stomach rumbled, and Scully wasn't
here. This then was reality. After his last 'dream', he hoped he
would have the sense to add Scully to his next one, at the very
least for the protection she would give him.

      On trembling legs Mulder forced himself to his feet, not
truly comfortable because he had to bend over under the five
foot ceiling, but at least a change in position. It was worth
the effort to remove the strain on his arm and the numbness of
his butt. All was silence. He could hear only a little drip,
drip, drip of water someplace high above. Someone must have
flushed recently. The breath of a breeze touched his damp skin.
He flinched, tensed, dreading that this might be 'her' coming
back. But it was only the faintest stirring of the air down the
air vent above his head. 

      Dread? The X-rated magazines he indulged in would have said
he was incredibly fortunate - all that passion, the kind of
climax other men can only lie about, no danger of AIDS, and no
chance of any little surprise on his voice machine a few weeks
later. So why wasn't he just counting the hours till his
batteries were sufficiently charged up so he could try it again?
Because despite the videos and the Playboy Calendars, the Sports
Illustrated swimsuit issue and his other reading materials of a
suggestive nature, Mulder longed more than anything for the real
thing. The homogamous relationship, the wedding, the wife and
kids. Normalcy. That these were unlikely ever to be his, at
least not for a long time, well, that was the price he had to
pay for this job and the promise he had made to himself so many
years ago not to rest until he had Sam home and safe.   

      Not to say that the kind of event he had just experienced
was not noteworthy - memorable - utterly amazing - but it
threatened to push him even further off the deep end of the
Gaussian Curve than before. Not the direction he wanted his life
to take.   

      So was he afraid of her, this - earthly spirit? Absolutely.
Was it a dream? From the feel of the dried sweat on his skin,
the shimmering ache in selected parts of his body that was a
special reminder of those kinds of activities, the stiff, sticky
dampness of certain parts of his clothing, Mulder knew that at
least part of it had been no dream. Other facets, particularly
the bestial transformation, however, were fading. Perhaps this
would not be a bad game to add to his wish list of fantasies to
try out some day with the right partner, but in this case that
twist had surely been her addition to the evening's
entertainment. 

      He had slept after the vision had left him. No, that wasn't
a truly accurate statement. He had passed out from the explosive
climax of it all - and the sheer terror of that glowing,
fantastically beautiful, incredibly sorrowful face. Even now the
memory of that face, that light, sent a shudder through him so
intense that he had to lean back against the wall or fall.
Scully was never going to believe this. Did he even believe it?
If he dared tell her she might just say that he had let his
imagination get away from him. 

      But Mulder was well acquainted with his imagination and had
never known it to be THAT good before.

      Mulder flexed his back till the vertebrae cracked and then
used his free hand to pull his shirt away from his skin. He
could still feel the touch of it, of her, moving in the most
incredible way under his clothes, all over his body. No, this
had been no simple wet dream. Mulder had had some doozies before
and none had been anything like this.

      A sound moved in the darkness, just a rustling at first and
then a wailing, a familiar shrieking of the ancient, iron
hinges. The firebox door. A wild hope flew up. Scully? The door
opened wider and a thin, artificial light showed around the
edges. There was no human sound. Unlikely Scully then. She would
have called out.

      Awkwardly, Mulder slid back to the ground. He rested his
head against the upraised shackled arm as he had found Jake,
providing again the appearance of weakness and injury. Not an
easy trick when every finger and toe and sinew in your body
wanted to attack. Automatically, Mulder did a quick mental
survey, a little meditation.  If there was going to be a
confrontation of some sort in the next few minutes it was best
to know where you mind was. 

      What he found was anger, no doubt about that, but it was
tempered with professional coolness. He was after all trained
for this and a little anger made for a good adrenalin mix. And
fear. Don't forget fear. This was not a good situation and he
had every right to be afraid only it must not rule him. Mulder
knew he had to cling to one thought above all others - that his
kidnappers had to continue to believe for as long as possible
that he was the prisoner they had had all along. 

      Men such as these did not like being made fools of. They
had to continue to believe that their rat hole had not been
found, that they were safe and could take time with their
cruelty. It was the only plan Mulder could think of - buy time
for Jake to get away, buy time for Scully to come.

      The small, low door swung suddenly all the way open. A
burning light burst through the darkness. Mulder clamped his
eyes shut, found it took precious seconds even through slitted
eyes to see again. A huge shape forced itself through what
seemed now a tiny doorway. More sounds as the figure dragged
something into the prison behind him. 

      The figure was Lawrence, the larger of the two, not the
knife wielder, and he was alone. The knot in Mulder's groin
loosened ever so slightly. Lawrence had brought what looked like
a crude wooden crate with him, not heavy but sturdy enough to
use for a seat for himself. He had clearly been in this iron box
before and was not about to sit on the filthy, damp floor or
crouch uncomfortably under its ceiling. He sat himself down
close to the prisoner. Far too close for Mulder's comfort.

      A new kind of fear began crawling about within Mulder's
empty stomach. 

End of Chapter 5a 


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:54:10 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 5b/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 5b

      Lawrence carried a flash, abruptly it swung around, leaping
out to play over the prisoner's face, lancing directly into the
agent's eyes. Mulder flinched and would have turned his head
away but one of the man's huge hands darted out and took an iron
grip on his prisoner's jaw.

      "I see you're awake. I wasn't sure you would be after our
last little get together. Case you're interested, Pete and Jim
Bowie are taking a little nap. He wants to be fresh for the
operation. Wouldn't want to slip and lose the patient. At least
not too soon."

      The thumb of Lawrence's hand which had a vise grip on
Mulder's jawbone moved slowly over the stubble on the agent's
face. Every muscle in Mulder's body contracted at once sending
his blood pressure soaring, his heart pounding. Hard to believe
Lawrence couldn't hear it. Every nerve ending screamed: fight,
bite, kick. Every one, that is, but the grey ones inside
Mulder's head which  reminded him in Scully's voice that the ex-
con probably had enough strength in one hand to snap one special
agent's neck. 

      Stall, Mulder. Time is life. 

      Somewhere beyond the glare from the flash Lawrence's
expression was puzzled but amused in his way. His often-broken
nose gave him a resemblance to an older Rocky Balboa. His second
hand came up to turn Mulder's head from side to side critically
examining his victim in the light. Mulder blessed the glaring,
uneven light of the flash. His make up job had never been
intended to stand up to this kind of scrutiny.

      Lawrence shrugged. "My aunt would call this 'plum amazing'.
Plum amazing, how even beat up you can look better than any of
new meat I was ever given when I was at Marion. I remember
saying that to Pete the first time I ever saw you. 'Now there's
a nice piece of ass I wouldn't mind a taste of.'" Mulder tried
to flinch away but Lawrence had a tight grip that only increased
in pressure. "You didn't know that I was the one who pointed you
out to Pete, did you? We had just come back from a 'night' job
and were leaving this little deli we know, when here you come
just walking along in those fancy clothes as if you didn't have
a care in the world. You had your coat over your arm and, oh, I
liked the look of that walk you had." Lawrence's free hand began
to stroke Mulder's hair, to touch it in a way that one person
does not touch another unless they are VERY close friends. The
fire that burned in the agent's hazel eyes did nothing to
dissuade the huge ex-con. Lawrence held all the cards and he
knew it. 

      Grinning suddenly as if amused exceedingly by his
prisoner's response, Lawrence ceased the intimate gestures,
dropping back into the manner of a man critically appraising a
horse or a dog he might buy. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of
your bleeding fags. The fairer sex are a pleasure I certainly
enjoy but when there is no alternative one does develop, as I've
said, the taste."

      The huge hand reached out as if to examine the injured eye
which if he probed too closely would reveal that its swelling
was fake and the bruises false. With a burst of anger he had no
trouble generating Mulder brought up his free hand to push
Lawrence away, a doomed move from the start but he needed the
distraction. Dismayed, Mulder found that Lawrence was not only
strong and clearly articulate, but fast. And a fast, smart,
strong enemy was the worst kind. 
      
      With a wide grin of triumph as if he had been expecting his
prisoner to make this kind of move, Lawrence caught the wrist of
Mulder's rising arm. At the same time, he dipped into one of the
pockets of his coat. The man's grip was so intense, numbing the
arm he held almost immediately, that Mulder barely felt the
coolness of the new ring of metal as it encircled what had been
his free wrist, but the all-too-familiar click of the lock he
certainly heard. Within three seconds, Mulder's second arm was
cuffed up above his head next to the first.
 
      A huge hand came around behind Mulder's back until Lawrence
had cupped the back of Mulder's head in his meaty palm and was
drawing the agent's face to within inches of his own. 

      "Now there's some spirit," Lawrence hissed. "I was
beginning to wonder. When I pointed out your swinging little ass
to Pete he took a second and, startled like, announced that, Jim
Daniel! but if you weren't that damn over-educated Fibbie who'd
sent his cousin Billie to Marion. I remember tellin' him 'Naw,
couldn't be. A Fibbie dressed like that? Your run of the mill
Fibbie has about as much fashion sense as the Secret Service.'
You can tell both of them a mile away. In fact it's rather hard
to tell them apart. But Pete said he was sure so we took our
opportunity."

      Without taking his one hand from the back of Mulder's neck,
holding it like a mother cat controls an unruly kitten, Lawrence
began with deliberation to unbutton Mulder's shirt, raising the
undershirt, tracing his finger over Mulder's skin. Throughout
this process the con's small, dark eyes were, thankfully, on
Mulder's face watching for the fear and the anger which were the
big man's rewards, and Mulder generated enough of both to ensure
Lawrence's attention. The con could not be allowed to notice
that Mulder's chest and stomach were certainly dirty but
uninjured. 

      "You know, Fox -- your Mommy named you well, didn't she --
when all of your ID seemed to indicate that we had gotten
ourselves the wrong man, I remember I was mighty suspicious. You
certainly didn't act like any Fibbie I'd ever met. I said so to
Pete. 'Are you sure we've got ourselves a Fed? Sure you haven't
got it wrong?' 'Oh, no,' he says, 'this one may be under cover
but he's Fox Mulder, for sure. That kind of name and your kind
of pin-up boy looks he remembered from the papers. I wasn't so
sure, but I went along. I admit I was really surprised when,
after receiving the first set of pictures, that your superiors
asked so sweetly after your welfare and wanted to arrange a
meeting to discuss 'negotiations'. Oh, they eventually denied
that we had you, but by then we figured it was just a ploy to
confuse us."

      Black spots were beginning to appear before Mulder's eyes.
The con's vise-like grip had to be pinching a host of nerves and
blood vessels. The spots cleared as with slow deliberation
Lawrence's other hand reached to loosen the agent's belt and
Mulder's adrenaline drip shot through the roof. "How are you
doing down here, by the way? Pete's a pro, you have to admit. No
anesthetic but he cauterized that little snip real good. Steady
hands, Pete has. I was real disappointed in you, Agent Mulder,
you shittin' like a pig and then passin' out on us. No
entertainment value at all." 

      Lawrence's hand was getting far too close to discovering
what he shouldn't. Mulder turned up the burn and let the hate
blaze through his eyes. "If talking a man to death is torture,"
he whispered in a raspy voice as if long unused, "then you
should be well entertained."

      Lawrence rocked back, small, beady eyes showing surprise
and delight. "Ho, ho, it talks. Three days. And here I thought
Pete's little snip had somehow cut the link between your brain
and your mouth. Women always do say that a man's brain is in his
cock. You got me almost believing it."

      As he had leaned back, Lawrence's grip on the back of the
agent's neck relaxed ever so slightly. Reason slipped through
Mulder's fingers. Somehow he found moisture in his dry mouth,
not much but just enough to send a stream of wrathful spittle
right into Lawrence's face. As the con hurled himself back
cursing, Mulder exploded kicking and twisting away from the
con's huge hands with every ounce of strength. A calloused hand
came out of nowhere to connect like a club against Mulder's jaw
and mouth. Pain erupted in his face, in his head, as his skull
snapped back against the iron wall. Light burst in Mulder's
skull that had nothing to do with what was coming in through his
optic nerves and he tasted blood. Lots of it. 

      "You're stronger than I expected but not strong enough. But
keep it up. I like the feisty ones." Lawrence was close to him,
very close, a hand down near Mulder's crotch again. 

      Though dazed, Mulder knew Lawrence was getting far too
close. He surged upwards, pivoting against his cuffed hands. As
his knee drove itself into what he took to be Lawrence's face,
he enjoyed a fleeting satisfaction. Another blow to his jaw left
Mulder with his head spinning but somehow he found the strength
to force his body to turn away from Lawrence, to partially show
his back as though seeking protection from another blow. It was
one of the hardest things Mulder had ever done in his life but,
as intended, the submissive posture was all that was needed to
spark the huge man's imagination. 

      With a roar from Lawrence which in Mulder's ears sounded
more like football cheer than anger, Mulder felt his stunned
body being lifted by a huge arm around his waist. While his
victim lurched and kicked to no effect, Lawrence roared with
triumphant laughter. There was a scraping sound and then Mulder
found himself flipped back to front and dropped down hard onto
his knees. The scraping sound had been the crate Lawrence had
brought in being moved to serve, Mulder soon realized, its
intended purpose. It was now against the wall so that the
prisoner could be stretched over it, cuff-linked arms shackled
high on the wall, the edge of the box cutting across his
stomach. All of this served to keep Mulder on his knees, hips
and particularly buttocks all too vulnerable to what Lawrence
obviously had in mind from the start.

      Lawrence moved with a frightening grace as if he had done
this time and time again. As he dropped his weight down on the
agent's legs, one dirty hand clamped itself over the agent's
nose and mouth while the other reached around his victim's hips
and began expertly to complete the release of Mulder's belt. At
the same time he lay along the agent's broad, young back letting
teeth and lips generously kiss and nip the skin at the back of
Mulder's neck.

      Furious at being barely able to move and not able to breath
at all Mulder struggled but his ineffectual twists and snarls
only further fueled Lawrence's laughter. Only when his
resistance weakened as blackness closed did Lawrence remove the
hand over his prisoner's mouth leaving both arms free to reach
around his prisoner's hips. Gasping, head hanging slack on his
neck, shackled upraised arms practically pulled from his
sockets, Mulder barely noticed what Lawrence was doing, only
that he could breathe again. Within seconds the con's large
hands had expertly manipulated both button and zipper, thick
fingers hooked inside the waist band at both of his victim's
sides and smoothly both boxers and pants were pulled down with
a single fluid yank.

      Furious, tears of anger and humiliation coming unbidden to
his eyes, Mulder fixed burning, unfocused eyes on the blackened
iron wall. He wondered if it were possible to will your body to
turn to stone. Setting his jaw, he waited for Lawrence's obvious
next move, but his tormentor did nothing for a full five seconds
except stare at his prisoner's cooling naked flesh. When the
huge, rough hands finally touched that skin Mulder lurched
backwards against his cuffed hands and felt the back of his head
impact with something soft. Mulder prayed it had been the con's
thick nose. With an almost leisurely destain, a huge hand
reached out and wrapped itself painfully around a fist-full of
Mulder's thick brown hair which put an end to that avenue of
resistance.

      "Naughty, naughty, and just when I was going to
congratulate you, Agent Mulder, on how much you surprise me. You
shat into your pants when Pete made his little cut. Like I said
I remember that vividly and I was going to ask you how your
diaper rash was doing but decided that was just a little - "
Lawrence leaned forward draping himself across Mulder's back to
whisper in his ear - "just a little personal. I figured I'd have
to clean you up a bit - a little '409' never hurts - but what do
I find? As clean and lily-white as ever I saw one." Lawrence
laughed again, deep and echoing. Mulder could feel the bellows-
like lungs heaving in mirth against his back. The man's weight
was pressing the prisoner's midsection against the edge of the
crate which limited each breath to one desperately inadequate
pant. 

      "My, but that one-eyed vet must really have taken his job
seriously. What did you give him to clean your bottom for you,
Agent Mulder? You know what they called me at Marion? Breaker
Lawrence, that's cause I've got a rod like steel and I can get
through the tightest little holes you can imagine. I was looking
forward to adding yours to my collection. To go where no man has
gone before? I do like that. Only looks like I may not be the
first one to make this particular voyage." One of Lawrence's
hands caressed the side of Mulder's right thigh moving up
towards where certain other body parts were hidden in shadow but
exposed enough to probing hands, just as a certain agent's ass
was currently against a certain ex-con's crotch. Pete's snip had
been small. There would still be a very noticeable difference
between Jake and Mulder in this respect.
 
      The hand moved on up towards Mulder's groin. Moved closer.
Mulder forced in enough air to grunt out, "No..."

      The exploring hand hesitated. Lawrence cuddled closer to
let his hot, stinking breath brush across Mulder's ear. "No?
Still a little tender are we? I think I'd like to hear you plead
with a bit more conviction though if you don't mind."

      Mulder wondered if hatred could drip like poison from a
man's lips. If so, then at that moment his bite would be lethal.
"P-Please."

      Lawrence chuckled in response as though he had seldom
enjoyed himself so thoroughly."Not bad, though as our little
visit together goes on you'll get better. As for not lettin' you
in on the fun? It's no sweat off my back. This is your last
chance to be a man is all, if you know what I mean. Only fair."

      Voice tight with bitterness, Mulder spat out, "This has...
NOTHING... to do with being fair."

      "Oh, but it does. If you knew what happened to Macon, you'd
understand. He died three years into his sentence from injuries
suffered in a small riot, a riot that started with a gang rape.
His. Course between you and me I know Pete's anger ain't all for
Macon's sake. How do you think a little thing like Pete survives
in the Pen. 'Petula' we called him. From the day he stepped into
that place, he didn't have a chance. He was younger then, too,
and prettier. Just look at you. You've got pounds and inches
over Pete and see where you are." Lawrence shifted his weight
slightly and Mulder was able to draw for the first time in
minutes something approximating a full breath. Probably the ex-
con hadn't liked the sound of the agent's strangled breathing.
No fun humping the dead or just as good as dead. Lawrence
shifted to get his hands on Mulder's smooth taut bottom again.
"Now let Breaker Lawrence see just what damage has been done."

      Rough fingers worked around Mulder's rear, strong and
demanding, stretching. Mulder dropped his head till it hung
limply down between his up stretched arms. He forced his mind
up, out, anywhere but here. Focus on the cold, the clinical...
Rape was violence, power, not sex. In this case it would buy him
time, maybe life. Torture? To the body, yes. Mulder could feel
the bleeding already, another wound added to his psyche, but
this kind of pain was nothing compared to the scars already on
his soul.

      Lawrence was softly humming, happy. If Mulder knew the
routine correctly the ex-con would be reaching now into his
pocket for the lubricant. 

      "Scully..." Mulder sighed soundlessly like a petition, like
a prayer, "this would be a real good time for you to show up."
 
      He tensed, listened, prayed.

      No rescue.

      Don't think then.

      But it was impossible not to. The gel from the tube was so
very cold.

End of Chapter 5


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:56:11 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 6a/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 6a

      Lucidity can be fleeting Jake discovered. After the
equivalent of only two blocks he could feel the fever back
behind his eyes. Closing them felt better, cooler. Besides, he
didn't need to see to navigate the freeway's straight and level
ground. Clinging to Old Bessie for balance as she rattled among
the ruts, the cold breeze battling with the sweat on his body,
reminded him of the fever dreams of his childhood which were
always filled with other worldly places and discordant sounds.
Suddenly the cart stopped and Jake found himself reaching for
empty air. Forcing open his hot, tired eyes he saw only darkness
until he looked up and up and realized that they had literally
come to the end of the road - or just as likely - the beginning.
Years before the project had either started or ended here. A
vertical wall of dirt and rock rose four stories before him to
meet the street level above. 

      Dazed, Jake turned at the sound of soft chiding on Rosa's
part. She had already maneuvered Bessie part way up a step track
which had been made by many before her in order to allow those
on the freeway to reach the 'real' world above. 

      Jake started. "You must be mad!" he croaked. "You can't get
that cart up there."

      "Done it before," the old woman wheezed, "I'll do it again.
Now don't go givin' me those patented, sad eyes, child. I'm a
tough old bird and I've been rattlin' around these streets
before you were born. Take care of yourself first. You're not
well. If you make it up before me, then you can turn around and
give old Rosa a hand. Now on with you and mind the prickle
bushes."

      Having discarded his dignity days before, Jake crawled up
the slope on his hands and knees. His hands reached out for
whatever he could find to pull himself along - a buried stone,
a hand hold of hard, packed dirt, the rough stem of one of the
few thorny bushes. Despite the cold, the fever sweat poured into
his eyes. By the time he forced his upper body over the top, his
legs quivering too violently to hold him, he had lost his coat. 

      But he had reached the street level, that was the important
thing. All his hopes of a quick rescue, however, rapidly
crumbled away. The street was totally deserted! Barely on his
feet, clinging forlornly to a handy light post, Jake squinted
down the empty pavement. To his right he saw chain link fencing
from a construction site. On his left a great, silent, grey
limestone Federal building gleamed ghostly in the halogen glare.
Eagerly he looked from floor to floor but all the offices were
dark at this hour. Staring down the silent street again he saw
only the alternately red and gold and green glow from the
traffic lights that had no traffic at this hour to direct. It
wasn't until he concentrated past the construction site that he
was able to make out the dark, blocky bulk of a massive
building, a building with a wide strip of much lighter stone
around it. 

      In that instant he knew where he was. That was the Building
Museum with its Civil War frieze. Rosa had been right. He could
scarcely believe that it could be so incredibly close. In this
town where so much was strange to him the sight of it was almost
like seeing the lights of home.

      Jake found his breath catching in his throat. Damnit he was
not going to cry! Instead he remembered Rosa, his strange guide
and benefactress. 

      "Rosa, here, let me help you." He reached his hand down the
steep path to aid the old woman, thinking to grab hold of Bessie
and help drag the cart like a stubborn old mule up the last few
feet.  Only Rosa's trusty shopping cart wasn't at the top of the
path where Jake had expected to find it. Taking a long study of
what he could see of the path leading crookedly down into the
dark, it appeared to Jake that Bessie wasn't anywhere on the
path and neither was Rosa.

      Perhaps she had never intended to take that path, but had
let him think so, so that he would not feel awkward about
leaving her. That was her realm below where she had presence and
a kind of grace and where she was clearly awarded a kind of
respect she would never be granted along the Pennsylvania and
Constitution Avenues of his country. After standing for a moment
on the edge of the eroded path, one hand raised briefly in
farewell, Jake turned without further hesitation to face the
empty street. 

      From somewhere he found the strength to run though it was
not a graceful gait. By the time he stood on the side walk
leading to the dark, double front doors of the museum his breath
was the loudest sound which could be heard in this silent city.
It didn't help that the pain under his ribs had blossomed to
include most of his left side which made movement of any kind
difficult and yet both were miseries he found he could almost
ignore so great was the pure relief he felt to be standing here.
Yes, the building was dark, unoccupied, locked for the night,
but it was also familiar and had been as much of a home to him
as any other in this city for the scant days he had lived here. 

      Lifting his eyes to the band of carved limestone he saw the
lines of ragged soldiers. On his first day he had walked around
the entire building which was more than a football field in
length on each side and he had never found a repeated soldier.
Feverish eyes eagerly scanned the contents of the display case
beside the door. Though slightly out of date now, the notice he
had hoped to find had not yet been removed. "Special Exhibit:
The National Building Museum welcomes America's Young Urban
Architects." Quivering fingers reached out to touch the glass
case. Running along the bottom of the poster were the names of
the juried exhibitors. And there was his own name. His name. His
world, not the dark and violent place where Fox Mulder lived.

      The good memories were coming back as if he were emerging
from a dark and horrible dream, the second such horror of his
life. At least he was finding this time, more quickly than he
had after the first, that nightmares do have a way of ending.

      Two steps and his hands came up to touch the door. He laid
his hot cheek against the cold bronze. How he wanted just to
rest here beside these walls which was the one tiny island in
this huge and powerful city where he felt safe. To lie on this
doorstep and sleep was all he desired at that moment. Let them
find him in the morning, pick him up and send him home. In the
hours between he would just sleep in the cool darkness...

      Jake's body suddenly jerked, swayed, but stayed upright. To
sleep in the dark... 

      Dark... Mulder, was still in the dark and waiting for him!
How could he have forgotten...

      Jake whirled and calling though his voice came out barely
above a whisper, "Mama Rosa, help me. Where...?" But, of course,
she wasn't there. He was alone. He had forgotten. The old woman
had gone her own way as the old tend to do. It didn't matter,
though he would have liked to have thanked her and maybe she
even knew the way to the FBI as she knew the way to this place.
In the end it didn't matter, most likely she would have refused
to take him anyway. She probably liked the idea of the Feds even
less than police and the voices that spoke to you over
telephones.

      Jake's fevered brain turned over slowly. FBI... where was
it? What had Mulder said? Pennsylvania Avenue and ... and what?
Some round number. Tenth? Tenth.  And this was... Fifth? His
tired green eyes, only one of which worked reliably, raised to
the street sign on the corner as if to reassure his flagging
memory. Yes, this was Fifth.  Not so far... 

      Wavering slightly, one arm hugging as always his stomach
and lower ribs, Jake forced his legs to carry him down the
deserted street. For just a second as he turned towards the east
he thought he heard behind him the distant rattle of an ancient
shopping cart rolling along the sidewalks.

End of Chapter 6a


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:57:20 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 6b/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 6b

                             ********

      Mulder shivered more from what the gel foretold than from
it's chill.

      Behind him, still humming, maintaining enough weight on
Mulder' calves so that Mulder had no use of his legs for
defense, Lawrence zipped down his own pants and then in one
practiced motion was up on his victim's back like a stallion on
his mare, or a ram on his ewe. For the moment he was just
rubbing skin on skin, generating a little excitement for
himself. He smiled in evil delight as he entwined one huge hand
in Mulder's hair while the other reached around to caress the
firm and lightly haired chest. He liked the feel of this one.
The huge body began to move faster, then faster still, harder,
his breath coming deeper, but not hurried. Oh, no, not yet.

      Mulder's thoughts were barely coherent through the panic,
the hatred. His world had narrowed down to two options. Fight or
surrender. Lawrence had said that he liked a good fight. Perhaps
it would be better to do so then and let the devil get hot and
pumped up all the faster. Then it would be over. Over and done
with. Part of his past like so many other horrible things. On
the other hand if he went passive and submissive perhaps his
tormentor would be turned off and settle for a simple beating.
Then Mulder felt Lawrence poised behind him, teasingly close and
easily as hard as the man had boasted, and suddenly his options
narrowed in crystalline clarity down to one. Mulder bucked with
every fiber of his being like a horse determined to rid itself
of an unwanted rider. Without effort Lawrence only settled his
considerable weight down with greater force crooning softly,
"Now there's my little Fed."

      It was clear Lawrence was more than ready now. He had only
to reposition himself after that last series of exhilarating
struggles and then he would begin his final assault. So intent
in fact was he upon the anticipation of the next few minutes
that Lawrence failed to notice that the air in the small,
enclosed space which had become close and warm since the con's
arrival had in the last few moments begun to chill, and more
notably to thicken, as if it were filling with a dense but
unseen fog. 

      Alerted by a prickling between his shoulder blades, Mulder
was acutely aware of the arrival of the chilling draft and
immediately after detected again the unmistakable scent of musk
and flowers. What could she want here? Did her appetite run to
finding pleasure in observing this kind of torture? At the mere
thought Mulder sent a blast of purest rage in her direction. As
if in reproof for his faithlessness, an icy pain shot through
the length of his body. There was no mistaking her touch though
it was not her gentle loving hands he felt this time, nor the
fire of her passion, but the merest backlash from her jealous
fury. No, she was not here as a voyeur to enjoy the sport. Far
from that.
  
      Lightening crackled, softly, unseen, thunder rumbled as if
from a rapidly approaching summer storm but oddly the sound was
low, felt more than heard and almost beyond the ability of a man
to hear. But Mulder heard and hearing wished fervently to be
just about anywhere at that moment than handcuffed to a pipe in
the shell of an old furnace with a sadist on his back and a
sensual, avenging spirit hovering far too closely nearby.

      That was the end of logical thought. Logic had no place
here. The heaviness and tension in the air had begun growing at
an incredible rate and had become a pounding, pounding in his
head. Quickly there followed a return of her chilling touch but
this time it stayed becoming a bitter cold which turned his
hands and feet to ice. And the cold spread like a creeping
glacier numbing his limbs as it crept along its icy path up his
legs, into his thighs, down his arms. It flowed on death's cold
fingers across his shoulders and down his back, as if purifying
all of the places that Lawrence had touched. But there was one
hint of grace to this. Just as a man who is freezing to death no
longer feels the cold, pain had became a sensation which was
far, far away and even farther away was any sense of Lawrence's
rough clothes and rougher skin.

      Amazingly, Lawrence was still oblivious to all of this. So
intent was he on his own pleasures that he completely failed to
notice the breath of December in the room, the electricity
building and growing dangerous in the thick, cloying air about
him. Nor was he aware that the skin of his victim had come to
more closely approximate that of a corpse than a man over the
last minutes. When a convulsive tremor ran through Mulder's body
as her cold touch crept near his heart, Lawrence only laughed
lightly assuming that his prisoner was simply experiencing
arousal from Lawrence's attentions. What further proof did he
need of his virility.

      But SHE was not entertained by Lawrence's immersion in his
own lust, and certainly not by his attentions to this one which
at least for the moment she considered hers. The temperature in
the room plunged another ten degrees in response to her wrath.
SHE would be loved or SHE would be feared but SHE would not be
ignored nor would she tolerate a transgressor.

      The thunder which had begun like the slow heavy strokes of
huge beating heart now merged to become a steady roaring like
the rushing of a mighty river just out of sight, like the ocean
plunging in waves against the rocks of home. Sensing something
ominous in the change Mulder forced open his eyes.
      
      The iron wall of his prison which was within inches of his
eyes had begun to move. 

      Feeling what parts of his body he could still feel go
rigid, Mulder blinked and stammered with numb lips whatever he
could remember in Latin at that moment from his humanities
classes and hoped it was a prayer. Couldn't hurt. A black film
was emerging from the soot of the walls, the ceiling, the floor.
It was the  color of ink and the consistency of honey. Mulder
cringed as it emerged within inches of his eyes but then,
mercifully, flowed off to either side absorbing into other
streams like mercury. As Mulder watched fascinated and yet
horrified, they twisted themselves within seconds into strands
and then into coils of sooty smoke as thick as a man's arm or a
woman's all of which slithered out of sight to gather in the
shadows.

      If it were possible, the air in the room became suddenly
even heavier, in its way, alive and nearly too heavy too
breathe.

      Scarcely able to feel anything and barely able to hear with
the roaring in his head, Mulder was still aware of Lawrence. The
man was now swearing and getting rougher. Even he was not
totally unaware to what was going on any longer, though all that
the icy chill in the room and his victim's sudden detachment
meant to him was that it affected his performance. He would have
his prize and if he had to let his anger fuel his desire then so
be it. To atone for the disappointment he was causing this one
would just have to be introduced to some of Lawrence's more
creative games in the future. Over the years Lawrence found he
had a knack for administering that sort of punishment. 

      But that for later. For now Lawrence was tired of waiting.

      Another power also sensed his sudden determination to
finish this and would have her own say. From the shadows one of
the coils of inky smoke struck out as quick and fluid as a snake
and closed in - hard - upon that bar of living iron of which
Lawrence took so much pride.

      The man's roar was like the bellow of a enraged bull cut
across the belly by the warrior's sharp, bright sword. "What the
hell...! Damn you mother-fucker!"

      Murder flared in Lawrence's eyes brighter even than his
agony certainly more than reason which would have told him that
his victim was in no position to initiate that sort of an
attack. Before the man's monstrous hands could close in to crush
and snap his victim's neck, the host of the black coils
materialized from all corners of the room and converging with
the cold charged air created a storm of which hell would have
been proud. Only at the last moment did Mulder see shadowed on
the wall above his head two forms, one was Lawrence screaming,
the other was an outline of a rearing column of darkness which
moved far too quickly for Lawrence or anyone to avoid. A thunder
clap exploded like a bomb in the small room and Lawrence was
suddenly - gone - the sound of his huge body hitting the farther
wall of the furnace shell like a thousand Chinese gongs. Mulder
found himself thrown through the air in the opposite direction,
not far, for there was nowhere to go, but far enough to end in
a burst of shattering pain from a face thrown into the wall and
the near dislocation of shoulders and wrists. 

      For long, long seconds the only sound Mulder heard was a
deafening silence such as that which follows the crack of the
lightening bolt, the only sensation that of freezing in the
cutting, brittle snow, the only sight of lights bursting behind
his eyes. Boneless, like a discarded toy, Mulder slid back along
the crate, falling back in roughly the same position where
Lawrence had held him. Though barely conscious, one tiny flame
still burned in his brain with questions for which he had no
answers. Wearily he turned to see as far over his left shoulder
as he was able. Lawrence's flash had shattered at some point
during the conflagration but there was still light. A thousands
points of phosphorescence glistened like a thousand fire flies
over every surface inside the iron cell. By their glow Mulder
was easily able to pick out Lawrence's body, now a crumpled and
twisted mound, his neck and limbs lying at angles never found in
nature except on the dead. 

      There were no shapes at all now to throw shadows upon the
wall. 

      Scully was going to love this, Mulder thought shivering
violently. More impossibilities for her to try to rationalize.
 
      The glittering lights began to dim. As the horrible frozen
numbness flowed from Mulder's limbs like water, feeling returned
which was not altogether welcome. Mulder blinked trying to shake
off a small flow of something slightly warm and sticky that
dripped down from where his forehead REALLY hurt. He tried to
raise his head, tried to move from this ridiculous position with
his hands cuffed above his head and his naked ass still sticking
out into the chill of the room, but he had no strength. It
seemed that the lights were beginning to fade faster and faster
but were those the lights in the room which were fading or the
lights inside his head. Both he decided though it scarcely
mattered. He was going to lose consciousness. At this point that
was inevitable.

      "You have got to work on your timing," Mulder whispered
into the darkness.

      Gently, a little apologetically, warmth settled over and
around him like loving arms. 

      Rest... nothing will harm you. 

      Tired beyond imagining, Mulder gave himself up to the
comfort of that warm, healing touch and when it came he embraced
the dark.

                              ******

      Time moves as it will and not as men would have it. Best
then that the lean man forcing his way painfully empty block
after empty block did not notice that the sparkle of the stars
in the east was gradually fading. He was angry enough but that
kept him moving. A cold breeze blew against his aching face, the
rough wire of the chain link fence that walled off yet another
huge, deserted construction site burned his fingers as he pulled
himself, swearing, along another block.

      Didn't anyone work at night in this city? he wanted to
scream into the black sky and he would have if he had had the
breath and the strength to spare and if he'd thought that there
was anyone out there to hear. Perhaps they all stayed up late
celebrating spring like the crowd on the street the evening
before.

      On his five block journey Jake had met with only
infuriating disappointment. Within a hundred yards of the
Building Museum he found a fire department but a notice
displayed on its door announced it would be closed on Tuesdays
as a budget move and the public was advised to seek assistance
at another location the nearest of which was blocks away. The
purely utilitarian structure was totally dark. Must be Tuesday.
The window glass covered in places with plywood, the cracked
concrete walls and dismal landscaping all pointed to a building,
and a city, in a sad state of disrepair. In front of the
National Portrait Gallery he found a water fountain in the
middle of a small park. His captivity, his fever, the walk had
left him parched, but the spigot only gave up the tiniest
trickle of its precious fluid. Enough to allow him to wet his
grimy fingertip and lick off the few clinging drops but little
more. Ironically, Jake had found three public phones - one was
out of order, one had its receiver cord cut and the other only
took credit cards.

      Braced against a utility pole to keep himself upright, Jake
blinked impatiently waiting for his good eye to focus on yet
another street sign. This anger was doing him no good, he told
himself. It drained him and he hadn't the strength to spare. It
scarcely mattered any more anyway. He was close. Had to be. This
was Ninth. He had traveled east far enough. South now. From here
he could not help but run into Pennsylvania Avenue. At least
there if he fell on his face in the middle of an intersection
someone was bound to notice. A stray thought tickled his brain
as he forced his leaden legs past another boarded up building,
more broken street lights. Maybe he should just walk up to the
White House and knock on the front door? He was close enough.
Now that might be get someone's attention. Probably the wrong
kind, but something.

      The first block south felt a mile long. There were
limitations to his strength and his will and he had exceeded
both blocks before. How much father could he go? How much
farther would he have to? E street, another street sign said.
But how far was Pennsylvania Avenue? Like the other state named
streets in D.C., it radiated out at angles from the Capitol like
spokes on a wheel, but where any could be expected to cross the
square grid of lettered and numbered streets was a riddle that
had baffled more than a century of tourists. 

      Across the street a huge building, squatting on what seemed
to be an entire city block, caught Jake's weary eye. Sixties
modern it was, in an unusually creamy color for poured concrete.
Automatically his eyes made sense of its form and design. Not a
bad example of its style. The large block-like windows were
deeply recessed giving it a dash his professional mind found
satisfying. 

      Jake wiped his perspiring forehead on the back of his shirt
sleeve. He must really be close to losing it if he was analyzing
buildings at a time like this. 

      But the building claimed his attention again or something
about the windows did. It came to his mind only slowly what that
was. Some were lit. Wonder upon wonders, office lights were
burning. Not many but a few. His heart picked up its faltering
beat and he scanned up and down the structure for an entrance.
The damn place was built like a fortress! One set of stairs was
even blocked by a steel barrier, a unoccupied security station
and gates guarded the access tunnel to an underground parking
garage. Jake took this all in as he hurried awkwardly across the
street, in his haste stumbling on the curb. Almost as an after
thought he saw posted a small plaque posted at knee level with
an arrow pointing up the block to his right. "Hoover Building,
E Street Tour Entrance."

      Hoover! Jake's fingers threatened to crack the concrete
barrier he was currently holding onto to keep on his feet. Then
he ran, reeling like a drunken man but he ran. Somehow he
managed the half block. The concrete steps he took crawling. He
threw his body against the double doors and pounded on the dense
glass with his fists over and over and over again. The lights
were dimmed in the tall lobby, there were signs everywhere
listing tour hours and stating 'No Food or Beverages Past this
Point', but not a living soul came.

      Nearly in tears, Jake slipped onto the ground, furious that
he hadn't even had the strength to trigger the building's alarm
system. Crawling to his feet he kicked at the useless door one
final time and turned to find his fury transformed to dismay as
for the first time he discerned the faintest greyness of
approaching dawn in the east. 

      Damn! Flinging himself recklessly back the way he had come,
Jake staggered down the sidewalk following the curve of the
building. There had to be a night entrance, a staff entrance
someplace! In his frantic haste he took a corner too quickly and
a sharp edge of concrete which jutted out from the wall caught
him directly on the swollen, aching space under his ribs.

      In agony he fell writhing to the ground, the lights
flickering on and off in his head. As the worst of the pain
passed, however, the light in his face steadied and Jake heard
a young and slightly unsteady voice. Squinting, he looked up
into the face of a young man wearing a uniform.

      "You hurt?" the security officer asked.

      Jake found no breath for the moment to speak and could only
stare in stunned amazement. Perhaps Washington wasn't a city of
phantoms after all.

      "Are you hurt?" the man repeated. "Do you need an
ambulance?"

      "I need..." Jake began in an entirely unsatisfactory voice,
as he searched his feebled brains. The name of the man Mulder
told him to ask for, what was it? An odd name.

      "Sk-Skin...Skinner."

      "What?"

      "Call Skinner."

      The young man shook his head more than a little uneasy in
this situation. "Sorry, I just got transferred from Treasury
yesterday. I don't know the staff. What I think you need is an
ambulance." 

      "No, I need to talk with someone at the FBI." Jake let his
head loll back against the sidewalk. He was too tired to try to
talk any more, too exhausted to move another step. He hurt, but
at least he was no longer alone. That stood for something. 

      The young officer drifted from his sight. In the quiet of
the city night even from a distance, Jake could hear the young
man make a phone call. Only it wasn't to the FBI! He was calling
the police, reporting that they might have need of a team from
St. Elizabeth's, the District's psychiatric hospital. 

      Raw panic broke through all. No! He would not let the
police have him and send him away to a place where no one would
believe his story, where everyone would assume he was crazy. At
the minimum there would be delay and the dawn was coming and the
dawn could very well bring Mulder a visit from Pete and his
sharp little friend Jim. For what he hoped was the last time
Jake forced himself to his knees and immediately into a
staggering run. As he stumbled away he heard an alarmed shout
from the guard. 

      It was a long block. Jake passed another set of stairs with
an iron barricade. Frantic despair was settling in as the guard
drew closer shouting his urgent demands for the running man in
the filthy army fatigues to stop. 

      Jake reached the corner, a broad avenue, and there was even
an occasional headlight moving here. Coming up through breaks in
the sidewalk in front of the Hoover Building, were three
straight rows of young trees. The street lights and the palest
silver of dawn tossed their shadows in a distractingly regular
pattern onto the ground like the bars of a cell. It was in
stumbling away from those confining shadows that Jake found
himself at the right angle to see into the corner of a shadowed
alcove. There he saw a door whose purpose was identified with
the simple words: "Personnel Entrance" in simple white letters
outlined in black. 

      Relief providing energy which little else could, Jake
sprang for the handle of the door - only to find the entrance
locked, accessible only by a passcard at night.  

      Throwing himself and his fists against the glass, Jake
roared in frustration just as the young guard came running
around the side of the building. The young man was so intent on
searching the shadows under the trees that he almost missed Jake
who had sidestepped into a shadow of his own. Eyes fevered, face
white and glistening with sweat, he stood defiantly with his
back against the locked door.

      The young guard dropped to a crouch, gun carefully raised.
"Quiet now," the guard said gently, seeing wild fear more than
anything in the glazed eyes. "No one is going to hurt you..."

      Like an animal Jake drew deeper into the shadowed corner
mere steps from the door and there his finger tips clutched
helplessly at the brick of the wall behind his back. Within him,
strength and will were shattering into a thousand pieces. 

      "Mulder, I'm sorry," he said his lips barely moving. "I'm
sorry ... I tried...." 

      Out of nowhere a voice spoke beside him, not the young
guard's voice but a different voice, an older voice. Jake spun
staring. A guard from inside the building had come to the door
in response to the pounding and now opened it, drawing his own
gun as he saw that the young security guard facing the entrance
had his weapon drawn. "What's going on here?"

      At the sight of a second gun, Jake had instinctively drawn
even further back into his shadow, but then he realized as he
stood here hesitating that his last chance was slipping,
slipping further away. Half-leaping, half-falling Jake lunged
for the partially open door. 

      The security guard outside shouted - something. A command.
Already in mid air Jake never heard. 

      The weapon in the young guard's hand fired.

End of Chapter 6



From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 02:58:58 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 7a/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 7a

      It was a night for bad dreams, Mulder decided, and he was
going to wake up from this one. He was. He would wake up and
open his eyes to total blackness and the all the aches and pains
in his body were going to scream at him for having been cuffed
in a cold, clammy iron crematorium in this ridiculous position
for who knew how long. It would not be pleasant but at least it
would be real.

      But Mulder had been telling himself this for an eternity,
which in real time was probably about ten minutes, and none of
this had happened.

      He had opened his eyes to utter blackness or he thought he
had. It was black, that part at least was true, like velvet, but
the opening of the eyes part was what he could not be certain of
for he could feel... nothing. 

      And the sensation, or lack thereof, was beginning to really
turn an understandable fear into total panic.

      Perhaps he was dead.
      
      Relax, he told himself. Take ten deep breaths. 

      Bad idea, don't try that because there was no way of
knowing if he had taken even one. He could take a hundred by
mistake and hyperventilate and then perhaps he'd die.

      That was a cheerful thought. Think of something else,
Mulder.

      How about this? Just before Lawrence died a pressure had
built up in his ears, in his head, that had been like dropping
fifty floors in an elevator only a hundred times worse. THAT he
remembered. When that kind of pressure is suddenly released you
can get nitrogen narcosis - in layman's terms 'the bends'. Now
that you could definitely die of. 

      Back to that subject again, eh, Spook? You have a one-track
mind. Concentrate. The only dead person around here will, 
hopefully, be Breaker Lawrence. 

      Oh, yes, and the black-haired ghost. She was dead and she
was certainly around here.

      Ghost then, not dream? Mulder considered. The explosion had
to have been real because Lawrence had been suddenly gone, no
longer clinging to Mulder's back like a really bad triple-X
rated S&M video. But the explosion had also driven Mulder's own
frail bones into the wall of the fire box as if he had missed a
turn in a subway station and run at full speed into a train. He
should be waking up to a cracked head at least. Until he had
passed out after the explosion, there had been some intense and
nasty stuff. But that was the problem, wasn't it. There was no
pain now. He felt as if he were floating in a black pool,
cuddled within a womb, safe and warm - and he found the entire
experience intolerable.
 
      Being safe and warm and without pain wasn't so bad until he
had decided to wake up and found he couldn't. Mulder didn't like
cages even if the cage was a pleasant one.

      "Listen" Mulder called in his mind instantly feeling
uneasily like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol addressing the Ghost
of Christmas Present. "Don't do this. Don't protect me, not like
this. If Pete comes, don't you dare leave me like this!" The
image of Pete with his experience of eradicating the lusting
impulses of a few hundred male sheep was not one Mulder cared to
dwell upon.
      
      His next plea was stronger, tinged with panic that was in
full surge now. "I need you to listen to me! I have to be able
to fight!" The womb contracted a little, like a mother's arms
reassuring a frightened child bringing disturbingly physical
memories of the exquisite pleasure earlier that night. 

      Mulder's temper erupted, he would not be coddled! "DAMN
YOU, LET ME GO!!!" He screamed in his mind appending a few dozen
expletives he thought a spirit would care a wit about. There was
suddenly a vision in his mind of a peevish expression on the
face of a black-haired sprite. She didn't like her will being
thwarted, even by him. 

      Very well, the black eyes seemed to say, you may have what
you want. Exactly what you want.

      And she did. In the space of one heart beat she ripped away
the velvet cocoon. Mulder could only compare it to the times
when, lying lazily warm on a cold winter morning under a huge
pile of quilts, Sam used to come and jerk off every one. After
she'd let the window stand open for five minutes, of course.
Only this time instead of sudden, heart-stopping cold there was
sudden heart-stopping pain.

      Pain.

      Pain that almost sent Mulder spiraling down into his own
private dark from the shock, pain such that for a second he
thought that Pete must certainly have already come, that the
deed the little man had threatened was done. No little Mulders
in his future, not even the sad solace of lonely Friday nights
with just himself and his video collection and his good right
hand. 

      Only after time and with concentration did the pain begin
to sort itself out. The suddenness of it after the lack of all
sensation had just been more than his stressed nerves were
willing to bear. He was, he had to sadly admit, in exactly the
same position he had been in when Lawrence had suddenly left him
-- kneeling with his upper body stretched out over the wooden
crate, his arms shackled to the wall above his head. 

      From having had half of his weight dragging on his
shoulders for hours, the cramps in those muscles were the worst.
His head throbbed from its impact with the wall. Added to that,
somehow the skin of his wrists had become raw from the cuffs.
Lawrence and Pete may even have sharpened the edges of the
metal. Sadistic bastards! 

      Mulder felt cut in half where the box edge was biting
across his stomach and his lower back was screaming in protest
for having been arched in the completely wrong direction for far
too long. From having knelt on the rough, cold, metal floor, his
knees ached like no ache Mulder had ever felt before all the way
up into his thighs. How did the old Catholics manage it?
Finally, there was the cold on the flesh of his buttocks
sticking out unprotected and still gelled to Lawrence's taste.
Mulder was not likely to forget either that the front side was
as equally exposed. 

      Having taken stock, and a pretty poor inventory it was,
Mulder began to unwind his cramped and blood-starved muscles and
joints. One muscle group at a time was stretched and
straightened. Somehow by grasping the chains of the cuffs in his
hands, he was able to pull himself to a sitting position on the
box. His back against the wall, his arms now cuffed at a height
even with his head, naked ass on the rickety pine -- oh, joy,
splinters -- Mulder drew up his legs so that his feet were on
the seat of the box. It was awkward especially with his long
legs, but all in all his exposed flesh felt considerably less
vulnerable than before. Besides, from this angle, even with his
pants pulled down around his knees, he was in a better position
to lash out at knee or groin, chest or throat.

      More blackness, more dripping water, a considerable amount
of dripping now, and shivering all the way to the bone. That was
all that was left now - that and the waiting. Mulder hated
waiting but as he resigned himself to it he did have one grim
consolation - that when Pete did come he would be hard pressed
to find anything to cut. Mulder had no doubt that his family
jewels had, in self preservation, taken a dive for his abdominal
cavity if only for the warmth. 



      Mulder did not have to wait long. Not this time. As if on
cue, the familiar rusty creaking of the furnace door announced
Pete's arrival. A pale, thin greyness came in through the open
door that could only be natural light. The interminable night
had passed and dawn had come. Mulder grasped the chains of the
cuffs in his fists and tensed.

      "Larry, you in there?" Pete's cheery, rested voice rang
out. "Come on, we got us an operation to perform."

      From the twisted heap of arms and legs out of the way to
the left of the open door, Lawrence didn't answer. This Mulder
hadn't thought about. What would Pete do when he found his
partner dead?  To augment the feeble light the harsh beam of a
yellow flash shot across the dark space from the open door and
struck the prisoner.  Blinking, Mulder managed to make out
Pete's form silhouetted behind the flash. The small man hadn't
tried to crawl in but huddled in the low doorway and clearly his
eyes were only for his prisoner huddled on the box in the
corner, white knees showing above the dark line of his pulled
down slacks.

      "Thought he'd be here, guess he's been and gone,"  Pete
dryly chuckled. "What did he do, teach you a few things about
your new 'position' in life and then take off to find himself a
bottle to celebrate? Damn it, I need him because I don't suppose
you'd be willing to lie still for this." Mulder responded by
staring directly back with an expression of venomous hatred. Not
for a second did he let his eyes flicker towards the crumbled
body in the corner. Until Pete actually put his head inside the
furnace he couldn't see Lawrence's body and Mulder didn't want
to give him any reason to be suspicious.

      "Hmmm, I can see you're not too thrilled about our plans.
Truth is, you couldn't stay still even if you were willing to.
I ain't gonna use any of that an-es-the-tic. That would take the
fun out of it. Well, I don't have to wait for him. He'd probably
be useless anyway after his celebratory bottle. I'll just call
on a couple of guys I know upstairs who've got more bulk than
brains. They'd probably enjoy the experience." The dark form in
the doorway began to pull away. "Now don't you go away. Ya
hear?" Pete joked. "I'll be right back. Jim and me, we're just
itchin' to begin."

      The flash switched off and, as Pete swung the stiff door
nearly shut, the inky dark returned. 

      Mulder jerked savagely in response on the handcuff chains.
He wanted to fight. Instead he felt so damn helpless! 

      But there was help. The scent was suddenly there all around
him, thick and sickly sweet with the flowers, heavy with the
undertone of musk and over all of her. Mulder greeted with a
mixture of both relief and dread.He had thought the pressure of
the air, of her gathering terrible anger was bad before, it
appeared far faster this time and was a thousand times worse.
The rapidly expanding pressure in his ears forced a sharp gasp
of pain from Mulder's gaping mouth. 

      He had the impression of her flinging wide her arms in her
wrath as if she were furious that she had lost her prey when
Pete had not actually entered the tomb. 

      She had known! Mulder realized struggling to breathe, to
think through the growing agony in his head and in his chest.
She had known that Pete was coming and that was why he had
awakened enclosed in that dark cocoon. She had meant to protect
him from what he experienced when Lawrence died.

      Clever man, came her thoughts approvingly.

      You could have bloody told me! 

      The biting lash of the storm was like a bludgeon pounding
his body. It was clear that she had expanded her vengeance
beyond his cell. He could sense it by the heavy metallic booming
and groaning of tortured metal, like horrible thunder, which not
only came from Mulder's prison but from the other furnaces in
the low outer, every one stressed almost to breaking by the
tense pressure of the storm. 

      Will you let me protect you now? she admonished him over
the thunder. 

      Mulder merely clamped his jaw down hard and huddled into a
tighter ball.

      Men! 

      And he felt her cloak of numbing warmth begin to wrap
snugly about his limbs. Beyond where he huddled on Lawrence's
very insubstantial crate of splintery boards, her anger raged,
but he sat in the eye, sheltered, shielded from all that fury.
The last sound he heard before the womb closed shut around him
was a thin, horrified wail from Pete that sounded far, far away.

End of Chapter 7a


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 03:00:07 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 7b/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 7b
                             ********

      Raising her head for the second time that night from the
pillow of her arms on her desk, Dana took longer than she should
have to wake from a groggy sleep. Fumbling with the receiver,
pushing back tangled hair, she eagerly answered the call, but
the voice that spoke to her was not Mulder's or even Skinner's.
It was an older voice, slow, unhurried, almost apologetic. It
was the night guard at the Ninth Street Employee's Entrance.
 
      "Agent Scully, I'm sorry to disturb you, but one of the
District's finer citizens just caused a commotion outside and
then stumbled in here and passed out on our floor. Nine-one-one
said they'll have a long delay before they can get any ambulance
here and asked if we had anyone who could hold the fort until
their arrival. I thought of you when I saw from the screen that
you were still in the building. Sorry, this one really is a
mess. From the way he was acting, he's probably on PCP or
something."

      Dana ran a hand over her face trying to wake up. "What have
you done for him?" she asked her thoughts still a little
muddled.

      "Well, at the moment, we're standing with our weapons
pointed at his back just in case, though he's out cold.
Breathing though."

      Well, that was a relief, Dana thought. She didn't want a
corpse on her doorstep tonight of all nights. 

      She pushed back her chair and by feel hunted in the knee
space down by her feet for the tackle box of medical supplies
she brought on cases for Mulder, the size of the normal Doctor's
bag not proving to be adequate. "All right, give me a couple of
minutes and I'll be there. Assistant Director Skinner is also in
the building. You'd better inform him too if you think there's
a possibility that our visitor may become violent and if he's
going to be staying with us for a while."

      The guard rang off. Without enthusiasm Dana took the tackle
box in hand and headed for the door. Only at the top of the
stairs did her head begin to clear. This was all she needed
tonight, a druggie to have to deal with.

      The stairwell door closed behind her and Dana walked slowly
for a moment across the echoing deserted lobby as her thoughts
came together. It was an odd coincidence to have a strange man
wander into the FBI just now when they had the police alerted
and dozens of agents out combing the city for a man who was
likely lost and a stranger in their city. Mulder didn't believe
in coincidences and in most situations Dana had to agree with
him.

      Dana began to run.

      Her low pumps sliding a little on the polished floor Dana
came to a halt inside the employees' entrance foyer. More than
a dozen people had gathered, probably staff just arriving for
early morning shifts who had lingered to see if they could help
and just because human nature was human nature even in the FBI
headquarters. So many of the curious were there that, initially,
Dana couldn't see their visitor, though she could smell him. He
smelled like a sewer. That better not be Mulder in disguise, she
thought, or she wouldn't let him near her for a week. That
actually wasn't true but she'd never let him know that.

      Murmurs increased in volume around her, there was a
shifting of bodies, and finally a pathway opened. A man was
lying face down at her feet.

      The man was tall and lean and dressed in filthy army
camouflage fatigues. His face was turned from her but the body
size and hair color were right and the top of the long, slender
hand spread out limply on the floor looked so familiar that
Dana's heart began to pound wildly.

      Dana dropped down on her knees and began checking for a
pulse at wrist and jaw. It was weak and a bit unsteady but
without a doubt he lived. The hand was ice cold and the skin on
his throat too warm.

      "Gently," Dana ordered, "help me turn him over." The
entrance guard who had phoned her leaped to assist after putting
his gun safely on. Another employee also bent to the task.
 
      "If there had been an ambulance available, would you have
sent this man away without calling me?" she snapped to the guard
as he stooped beside her.

      Confused, the man's mouth opened slightly but he said
nothing, not able to comprehend her sudden anger. As they waited
for the second man to get into position, Dana noticed Skinner's
gleaming pate just entering through the crowd. He must have had
the same suspicion as she because he had come just as he had
crawled off his office couch - no tie, white, wrinkled dress
shirt barely tucked in. Taking in the figure on the floor the
lines on his face deepened with worry.

      Dana found herself glaring up at him in a way she had never
allowed herself to do in public before. "We informed all of the
hospitals, all of the fire departments and all of the law
enforcement agencies in the District to look out for this man
and we don't inform our own people?" she accused.

      Jaw tightening, Skinner moved to the side of the young
security guard who stood just inside the doorway, his gun still
out and ready in case the unconscious man should suddenly awaken
and start causing trouble. 

      "I hope you didn't fire that thing at anyone, mister,"
Skinner inquired, a slight growl of displeasure in the back of
his voice

      Quailing more than a little before this older man of
obvious position and training, the young guard slowly put his
weapon away. "Only in warning, sir."

      "Only in warning," Dana repeated in ire as she and her two
volunteers prepared to turn the unconscious man.

      The young guard swallowed. "Sir," he began to the clearly
furious former military officer beside him, "this man was acting
very oddly when I encountered him outside. I thought he might be
psychotic - "

      "Psychotic? Really? What made you think so? Did he say
anything which would lead you to that diagnosis?"

      "Say anything? Not much. He might have been looking for
someone. Is there someone here called 'Skin' or 'Skinner'?"
      
      The Assistant Director made a gesture of irritation. "I'm
A.D. Skinner," Skinner said voice dripping with irony, "and
thank you for your very prompt attention in this matter. We'll
have words later after I've read your very thorough report on
this incident." Turning swiftly, Skinner found himself startled
in a way few events in his life had ever been able to do. 

      With help Dana had gotten the man on the floor turned over
onto his back. The face was chillingly familiar though the
combination of days of beard, dirt, dried blood, bruises and the
swollen eye would have made the figure unrecognizable to anyone
who did not know him well.

      Dana had opened the shirt. Underneath were the remnants of
another shirt, even dirtier, whose color and striped pattern
seemed to be the same as that she had seen in the kidnapper's
photographs. She was rapidly checking for injuries. 

      "Who is it?" Skinner asked gently.

      Dana knew. She had sensed it from the first second but,
needing confirmation, her hands quickly pushed away the ruined
clothing and moved to the left shoulder. Smooth, unbroken skin,
no neat round scar from the bullet from her gun. Her expression
was a mixture of relief, concern and grief as she gave her
report. "This is Jake Simmons."  

      Skinner's jaw tightened at the news. With no word from
Mulder all day and night, he was as aware as Dana of what this
meant. He stared down at the man on the floor. "Can he be
moved?"  
      
      "I'd say, yes," Dana said after taking a moment to
consider. "If what the guards say is accurate, he did walk in
here, generally speaking."

      Skinner glared around at the crowd now. "Well don't just
stand there. Let's see six of you put those first aid courses
you're required to take to some use and get this man to the
infirmary."

      With only a moment's hesitation, six of the arriving
morning staff hastily handed coats and brief cases to companions
and linking hands under the downed man's body smoothly lifted
him. 

      As Dana followed the group, her mind was spinning furiously
so that even before the six had carefully laid their burden on
the examining table in the Bureau's well stocked infirmary she
was on the phone.

      "Lina?" Dana asked. Lina Anu was the night supervisor in
the evidence lab.

      "Dr. Scully, you're either working very early or very
late."

      "A bit of both. Lina, I need a Class one trace evidence
team in the infirmary -" Dana looked over her shoulder where
Skinner was standing protectively by the unconscious man. "- and
I need it STAT."

      "The infirmary?" the woman's voice with the soft Indian
accent asked incredulously.

      "That is what I said. Can I have it?"

      "For you Agent Scully, always and with bells on. We're just
beginning to overlap shifts here anyway."

      Within five minutes six agents and two evidence clerks were
at the infirmary door. Dana had already covered Jake's eyes with
a light wrapping of two inch gauze. Better he should open his
eyes to a white fog than to wake up seeing six intense faces
hovering over him all holding plastic evidence bags or bottles
and going at his body with tongs, finger print tape, cotton
swabs and eye brow tweezers. The fact that the gauze wrapping
went a long way towards hiding his resemblance to a certain,
still missing special agent didn't hurt either.

      A graceful Indian woman entered first, her face serenely
professional showing no aversion to the intensely disgusting
scent rising from the form on the examining table. She went
first to the left hand lying alongside the lanky male body and
began inspecting the nails. Dana knew Lina Anu had a thing about
nails.

      Almost as soon as she had lifted the hand, the slender,
young woman dropped it with a tiny shriek of surprise.

      "It moved!"

      Dana looked up from her own examination of the bumps,
bruises and caked blood on the skull under the hair, hair
distractingly like Mulder's except for it being finer and a
little longer. "Good," Dana said simply.

      "I mean he's alive!"

      Scully allowed herself a tiny smile. "This is an infirmary
after all, Agent Anu, and not an autopsy bay in case you haven't
noticed. Now could you all get on with it. This is Mr. Jake
Simmons of Portland, Oregon and if in the next hour he's unable
to tell us where he's been, another man's life may depend on our
being able to figure that out without his help."

      After that the atmosphere in the room changed dramatically..
It was always a relief for the lab team to have a chance to work
on a 'live' one for a change. 

      Lina raised a sharp pair of clean shears. "I need to take
some clothing samples. Any instructions? Restrictions?"

      Dana hesitated only a moment before pulling out two clean
trash bags from the infirmary's storage cabinet along with a
blanket. "Take everything," Dana decided quickly as she finish
the unbuttoning of the two shirts which she had started earlier.
She didn't dare look in Skinner's direction who was leaning
against the wall in the far corner of the little room trying to
keep out of the way and let his specialists work.

      "Take everything?" Lina asked in astonishment.

      "Well, I don't want them here. Take the lot."

      Within thirty seconds the lean male figure was stripped,
each section of his body discretely covered as it was revealed.
The sight of the draped and solitary figure was so disturbing
that Dana felt a sudden overwhelming need to provide him with
some privacy. Mulder would have been embarrassed to his bones by
the probing, poking crowd. As if sensing Agent Scully's silent
wish, the team began to vanish one by one as efficiently as they
had entered until only Dana and the Assistant Director were
left.

      "I've seen some movement," Skinner observed. "Do you think
it's safe to rouse him?"

      Dana frowned at the reading on the temperature probe. "He
has a fever, low blood pressure and from the feel of his skin
I'd say he's dehydrated. I'll hazard some smelling salts but
that's all for the moment." But neither Skinner's commanding
voice asking questions nor the sharp, pungent smell from the
broken ampule brought any response from Jake other than a slight
fluttering from his good eye, an uneasy shifting under the
blanket, and a soft incoherent moan.

      Dana had pulled out a bag of Ringer's Lactate, a safe
volume expander of sterile saline and other electrolytes, and
thoroughly scrubbed the side of one lean hand. The dirt and soot
came off in rivulets. As she swabbed the large surface vein on
the side of his hand with alcohol, she was struck with a sudden
deep sadness. Poor Mulder had been hospitalized so many times
that the sight of his knobby, much-probed veins sent
phlebotomists into a sweat. Jake's veins were smooth and
unbroken. 

      "Agent Scully?" came Skinner's concerned voice. 

      Realizing she had been staring at that hand which was so
like Mulder's and that vein which was so unlike for too long,
Dana shook herself, smoothly slid the needle into the skin and
thumbed the gauge on the bag of saline for a fast flow. All the
while she kept staring at that hand, not daring to look at her
supervisor. "He'll feel a lot better once we get his blood
pressure up."

      "What can we do now?" Skinner asked, his voice several
tones softer than usual. "I just called the police. An ambulance
is still at least half an hour away."

      Dana stood back and studied the silent form all except for
the face. She wondered if she dare look at that face which,
without the gauze wrappings over his eyes, would be too much
like Mulder's. That would hurt her heart in ways she refused to
think about.

      "I've got the saline coming pretty quickly. Someone should
be gently manipulating his legs and arms to help his circulation
and we need to get rid of some of this dirt so I can finish
assessing his injuries."

      Skinner began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. "Sounds
like a bath to me."

      "Sir?" Dana's shocked turn of the head lit her supervisor's
face with an expression of the mildest expectation which was the
closest he ever allowed himself to a smile. "What's wrong? Do
you think I never bathed any of my men in the field hospital?
More often than you can possibly imagine and most far worse than
this. Believe me, he'll thank us for not having to wake up
little better than one of the untouchables." 

      Dana swallowed. For Mulder she'd done this cleaning ritual
several times but the thought of Skinner helping boggled the
mind. Worse still was the fact that in a way she was doing this
for Mulder, and yet was not doing it for him. To know he was
still out there somewhere was hard. Knowing Mulder he'd be in
danger, that went without saying. With sun up fast approaching
and the words of the kidnapper's note screaming in her mind,
Dana wasn't sure she could do this.

      "If you're worried about propriety, either yours or mine,
you can be my chaperon and I can be yours," Skinner reassured
her. That comment and the twinkle in her boss's eye got Dana
moving towards the sink as Skinner threw open cabinets looking
for what they might need. Skinner's professional yet matter-of-
fact attitude was like a balm over Dana's initial hesitation and
soon she was deep in sponges and water, soap and towels. They
didn't speak except that her lips moved automatically as she
enumerated Jake's injuries. 

      As the soot and dirt and worse rolled off, leaving patches
of black and green and yellow and red skin among the white, Dana
felt her eyes burning. Skinner's expression was also becoming
gloomier and gloomier. An elbow he was cleaning refused to come
clean. Another bruise. 

      Dana was shaking her head as she bent over the damaged left
eye. It was blood shot still, but with care and time it should
heal cleanly. An x-ray wouldn't hurt when they could get one,
but at least the bones in that area of the skull were thick.  

      "It never ceases to amaze me how inhuman human beings can
be," Skinner mused sadly. "How many times and for how long did
they beat this poor man?" 

      He didn't expect an answer and Dana couldn't trust herself
to give one. She had finished washing the architect's face and
had decided to give him a much needed shave, more than anything
so she could get a better look at some of the deeper cuts and
abrasions on his face Rinsing off the lather she saw for the
first time ... Mulder. The resemblance had always been there but
she had told herself that once cleaned up and shaved the
differences would become more apparent, but this was her
friend's likeness in almost every detail. Despite the cuts and
bruises and the swollen eye, the perfect duplication was almost
spooky.

      Skinner's eyebrows raised as she stepped back, startled.
He, too, had noticed. 

      They continued to work, cleaning down the long legs. There
was, of course, no scar on the upper thigh where the gunshot
under the white cross had almost cost Mulder his life. There was
a long scar on one knee Mulder didn't have. Most likely from
orthoscopic surgery following a sports injury, Dana suspected.
The Assistant Director held the man on his side, supporting the
head, while Dana cleaned the architect's back, down below his
waist and then some. When she was finished she generously spread
a soothing, bactericidal ointment over the inflamed buttocks. 

      Skinner shrugged as he let the figure back down. "He has
nothing to be ashamed of. I did it myself in Nam more than once
- we all did - and we volunteered for that little carnival. He
didn't."

      Dana took her patient's temperature again. She thought she
had noticed a change. The liter of below body temperature saline
inside and the cooling effect of the sponge bath outside had
practically dissipated Jake's fever. There was moisture on his
lip and in fact, there was the slightest bit of gooseflesh on
his arms and legs. Quickly Dana got another blanket. "When he
wakes up he's going to be cold. I can finish here, can you find
clothes somewhere for him?"

      Skinner dried his hands and pulled down the cuffs on his
wrinkled shirt as he headed for the door.  "I dare say I can
find something that will fit. I'll also get a map of the city.
If he walked here, he can't have come far." He paused in the
doorway to tuck in his shirt and roll down his shirt sleeves. It
didn't help much, but he did have an image to protect.

      Dana nearly smiled. She knew where Skinner would head
first, to the clothes Mulder had left in the little storage room
less than twenty-four hours before.

      "I've got to hand it to you, Mulder," Dana murmured as she
finished washing the area just under the rib cage, "no one else
could have brought back their man in so short a time. Now just
bring yourself back."

      Frowning, she bent to examine the swollen upper abdomen
which she had almost missed under all the dirt. There was
bruising here as well as swelling. Although she pressed it
gently, the man on the bed writhed. Dana liked this not at all. 

      Only now at the end did Dana attempt to wash the genitals.
Somehow she just had not wanted to do this in front of Skinner.
Her discomfort vanished to professional interest as she studied
the condition of the blackened wound on the section of the
foreskin where the kidnappers had cut and obviously cauterized
their handiwork. 

      "Will I live?" came a familiar, soft voice from above her.

End of Chapter 7


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 03:02:13 1996
I did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 8/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 8
      
      A wide smile on her face as she straightened up from her
examination, Dana took a step towards the head of the table
where one large green eye was opened drowsily in her direction. 

      "It's not pretty, so you might want to see a very discrete
plastic surgeon when you get back home, but from what I can see
ninety percent of what you had is still where it should be, Mr.
Simmons."

      The eye closed and Jake's breath came out in a sigh of
blissful relief. Someone knew his name. He was not nameless,
abandoned, any longer. "Please," came the voice so tired it was
barely audible, "call me 'Jake'. Mr. Simmons was my father."
Suddenly, the uninjured eye opened again but so wide that even
the swollen one showed a glimmer of light. "Where am I?" 

      There was such a dire need in his expressive face, both
hope and dismay at once, that Dana found herself gently stroking
the broad forehead, touching it with more gentleness than she
would ever have dared to do to Mulder unless he was unconscious.
"The FBI. You made quite an entrance. You nearly got yourself
killed."

      Jake barely heard the woman's words. At her gesture his
eyes had closed automatically like a contented pet. This was a
woman, a beautiful and obviously caring and intelligent woman
and her touch was like that of an angel. How blissful this felt
after Lawrence's hands and Pete's and the months and months of
his solitary existence before that. For a man who loved women,
who adored the touch and smell and feel of them, this touch on
his skin was like sheer magic. A wave of physical pleasure
washed through him that was shockingly arousing considering his
condition otherwise. 

      Dana had misread his reaction. To her the injured man
seemed to be fading out again and that was the last thing she
wanted. "Jake, please, I need you to stay with me here. I said
you're at the FBI, in our infirmary. The guards nearly shot
you."

      He heard her this time, her words and the urgency in her
voice that went beyond words. His brow clouded with that worry
and pain that the photograph taken at his fiance's funeral had
captured, the photograph that reminded her so of Mulder. 

      "We have to go," he told her. "We have to help Agent
Mulder."

      Even though Jake could not say that any muscle actually
moved, the face of the woman standing over him lit up at his
words with an almost spiritual glow. He had clearly said
something right. 

      "Relax, we will. Agent Mulder did take your place, then?"

      The eyes were darkly apologetic. "I'm sorry. I didn't want
to, but he was insistent."

      "He wouldn't have had it any other way. Can you just tell
us where he is?" she asked earnestly.

      Jake reached out for the bit of information, for the
address Mulder had drilled him on, the connecting streets, but
he had been so intent on just getting here...

      A spasm of alarm struck the familiar face. Dana was
startled. It was a kind of panic she never saw from Mulder who
would have kept it all inside. "What is it?" she asked.

      "I-I forget... No, no, it's there, I know it is I'm just a
little groggy - I walked so far."

      Disappointment can be like a sword sometimes, but Dana
seized on what she could. "You walked the whole way here from
where you were held in your condition? Then it can't be that
far. Can you remember landmarks?"

      The brow creased, but after several second he shook his
head. "I'm sorry. It's like a dream."

      Be calm, warned Dana's rational side. He's understandably
disoriented. 

      But Mulder doesn't have time! She didn't need a window in
this room to know that the edge of the sun must be nearing the
horizon by now if not already over it. 

      "Give yourself a few minutes," she forced herself to say
with patience she did not feel. "Assistant Director Skinner has
gone to get a map and some clothes for you." 

      Jake made a feeble attempt to rise. His body hurt
everywhere but especially that spot above his stomach under his
lower ribs. Dana reached for those broad shoulders, assisting
his struggle to sit up which he could not have managed on his
own.  "You shouldn't try to get up. You have bleeding there, a
little at least. An ambulance is on the way." 

      A thin smile came to the lips she knew, a smile that
couldn't hide what it was costing him to try to move. "I need to
wake up so I can think, besides - and I know they never show
this in the movies - but I honestly believe I could think better
if I could use your facilities. I feel like I've been holding it
for days."

      Despite everything, that made Dana smile. "Creature
comforts. Believe me, I've been in some bad situations and I
understand completely. The restrooms are just around the corner
in the hall. But first sit on the side of the table while I take
out this IV." The bag of saline was about empty anyway and his
movements were too awkward for him to be allowed to move around
with a needle in his hand. Besides, this would give her a chance
to see if he could sit without falling over before she let him
try to stand. 

      As she worked, Dana was all too aware of his eyes on her,
one wide, the other slitted open, but both penetrating,
evaluating, the way a man looks at a woman he finds attractive.
It was all Dana could do to keep her hands and her voice in
control. "When you feel steady I'll help you. I don't want you
fainting on me and suing the pants off the FBI." 

      That statement made them both distinctly aware that Jake
was wearing only a blanket and that item had slipped badly until
it was barely covering his hips. Casually, he picked up the end
of the cloth and tucked it in loosely low around his waist. No
boyish embarrassment here as Mulder would have shown, even if
most of Mulder's reaction, Dana had always suspected, was for
her benefit. 

      "Thank you for getting rid of those clothes and cleaning me
up." Before she was ready he was reaching out an arm for her
shoulders and she realized that he had no qualms whatsoever
about using her to help himself off the table. In a second his
feet were on the floor and his entire naked chest pressed up
against hers. 

      Dana found she couldn't move. Mulder never allowed himself
to enjoy physical contact, not like this. It was as if their
relationship was built on spirit and air, but this Jake had
almost wiggled into her arms, seeming to crave the body to body
contact as much as he needed her strength. He was relaxed and
comfortable in her arms, not tense the way Mulder always seemed
to be. She found herself staring into his eyes only inches away
from her own. Somehow, her shock must have conveyed itself to
him.

      "I-I'm sorry," he said but made no move to remove himself.
"Am I embarrassing you?"

      "Ah, well, no, not exactly."

      "I thought nurses were used to this sort of thing, after
all you cleaned me up." He inclined his head towards his lower
extremities. "All of me."

      "I'm not the nurse," Dana corrected him, without the least
rancor.   

      "Oh." Something about the way she had been trying not to
look at him transmitted itself across their skin. For the first
time he stiffened in her arms though not much. "Oh, my gosh,
you're the girlfriend."

      Dana stared. "Excuse me?"

      "You're Mulder's girlfriend?"

      Warm already from his closeness, Dana felt a pleasant
burning spreading all the way through her body that was so
poignant it was painful. "To my knowledge Mulder doesn't have a
girlfriend." Almost against her will she asked, "Did he tell you
he did?"

      This petite and lovely woman's obvious confusion made Jake
slightly uneasy but he liked the feel of her arm around him, of
her strong, small body, the smell of her hair. It had been SO
long. 

      I am out of it right now, he thought. Way too vulnerable.

      Still this was too nice and he didn't want to give up this
feel of her until he had to. "He said he had 'sort of a
girlfriend'."

      Dana felt herself blush, her heart had picked up its tempo
until it beat with a warm, unnatural rhythm. "He said 'Sort of
a girlfriend?'" Dana realized how stupid she was sounding
repeating everything he said. Perhaps she had better start by
clearing up some misunderstanding here. "I'm Special Agent Dana
Scully, pathologist. Though my patients are on the whole farther
gone than you, they called me when you 'dropped in'. I'm also
Agent Mulder's partner."

      A twinkle came into the eyes so close to hers that he
looked for a moment almost exactly like Mulder on a roll.
"Partner, almost girlfriend, same thing right?"       

      Dana swallowed, wanting to pull away and yet not wanting
to. He was physically weak, she told himself. He needed her
there to prop him up and keep him from falling. But it was more
than that, he definitely did not want to be separated from her
and even leaned into her more comfortably. Like Mulder he wanted
her there, but unlike Mulder he could enjoy this physical
sharing which she and Mulder had denied themselves. 

      Surprised at herself, Dana realized that she didn't want to
lose this either. This is the way Mulder would feel, she told
herself if they touched this way. This is the way he would be if
the tragedy of Samantha and his family and the grief and the
guilt and the coldness had not stripped away from him most
normal human reaction. It was with painful longing that Dana
enjoyed the relaxed male-hard leanness of Jake. She could easily
imagine him in bed with his lovers, entwined for hours even when
both slept. This was a snuggler - most definitely. And the
greatest sadness of all was the thought that Mulder may never
know that sweet physical abandon with her or anyone.

      Dana became aware that Jake was staring at her as if he
could read everything going through her mind. "I'm sorry, did I
let the cat out of the bag?"

      "No, I mean yes, I mean, we don't have that kind of a
relationship. We don't touch like this."

      He was bent down so she could take part of his weight which
brought his face very close to hers, his lips gently parted as
if he was within a breath of kissing her. "You should. He's a
good man. I didn't want him to take my place. I told him to go
and come back for me and not the other way around. I have no one
now. I told him he wasn't making a very good trade."

      "Mulder wouldn't have had it any other way."

      Not moving away, those familiar lips smiled all so gently
and it was a easy smile, unconscious and without Mulder's
sarcasm behind it. "A man of honor, eh?"

      "In his way, always."

      Jake looked into the lovely face before him, strong and
intelligent, beautiful and loyal. This one knew her place in the
world, was planted solidly in the earth. She would not go
running after - after whatever Alex had been looking for.
Whatever that was. What Jake was still trying to figure out. If
they were too late, this one would be left alone, but she would
go on, wounded and alone for a little while, but she would go
on. And he would have taken him from her.

      That was when he kissed her, soft and deep and loving, the
way Dana had always wished to be kissed, lasting just long
enough - not too short, not ridiculously long. A perfect kiss.
It left her literally breathless in a way Dana thought only
heroines in Romance novels ever experienced.

      "That's for Mulder," Jake whispered. "Just think of me as
a sort of a stand in." Then he briskly kissed the tip of her
nose. "And that's for me. You looked like you needed to be
kissed. I know I needed it."

      That broke the mood, sending an uncomfortable blush rising
up Dana's throat and onto her face. Hastily, she cleared her
throat. As she did so, she felt them mutually separating, not
enough that anyone watching could tell, but it was clear that a
moment had come and gone. 

      "Look, Mister, do you need to see to your bodily functions
or not? Assistant Director Skinner will be back any moment with
your clothes."

      "An Assistant Director? I'm impressed. And it's Mulder's
clothes he'll be bringing I take it?" Jake asked lightly.

      "Right, Mulder's."

      "Help me stagger to the bathroom then. That kiss went a
long way towards waking me up. I have a map to read." 


      Skinner arrived less than two minutes later with a District
map and some of Mulder's sweats. "I hope that's a clean set,"
Dana teased.

      Her comment and finding her standing guard outside the
men's washroom brightened even Skinner's face who vanished
inside with the clothes to reappear less than three minutes
later supporting Jake. Wearing those familiar clothes and with
hair and face slightly dripping as if he's tried to put his head
under the faucet, Jake looked so much like Mulder after one of
his morning runs that Dana felt the ground sway under her feet.
Luckily, however, all he had on his mind at that moment was
business. A thirty second examination of the map was all it took
for the three to pinpoint the area where he had been held even
though Jake could still not remember all of the address. 

      Fourth Street and - something - but more importantly he
brightened to see the dashed lines marking the uncompleted
'freeway' on the map along with the tracks from Union Station.
Jake remembered hearing and sometimes even feeling the vibration
of the trains. That and the description of the two block square
area of concrete that was cleared of buildings across the street
from an old yellow apartment house and the directions were clear
enough for Skinner. 

      As the Assistant Director was rounding up forces, neither
he nor Dana would dare risk an assault in that area of the city
without extensive backup, Dana sat with a pale, bruised, and
quickly tiring Jake near the guard's door he had come in
through. There was no mistaking the resemblance to 'Spooky'
Mulder now even though Skinner had found him a baseball cap from
somewhere which Jake had pulled down over his eyes.  They sat
waiting for the ambulance, Jake wrapped in the blanket over
Mulder's clothes against the draft. He leaned back in his seat
allowing his head to rest against the wall, eyes closed. The
fact that he was also partially leaning against her had not
escaped either of them.

      "I want you to go straight to the hospital," Dana whispered
to him, ignoring the startled looks from the other agents as
they entered to start their shifts. 

      "Not till you find Agent Mulder," he responded firmly. "I
can't be sure of my directions until I actually see the
building."

      "Jake, I think you have some internal bleeding. Something's
bruised at the very least. Probably your spleen. If it ruptures
completely you could go into shock." Gently she touched the spot
as if to bring her point across.

      A sharp hiss escaped his dry lips. "It's held together for
the past few days, it can hold for another hour." His gaze fixed
on her. "I won't go until you have him back."

      Dana smiled wryly and patted his knee. "That stubborn
streak reminds me of someone. Okay, but you stay in the
ambulance which I see pulling up front even now. You can at
least help us to positively identify the building, that will
save us time. Does that make you happy?"

      "I stay until you find out how he is."

      Dana's expression shadowed. She wanted to say 'no'. Jake
was a civilian. If Mulder was not found in good condition... But
Dana had taken the man's measure. He would find out eventually.
If he had been unable to reach the FBI fast enough with his
information and Mulder was badly hurt, he would blame himself
sooner or later. The two men were alike in more ways than looks.
      
      "I shouldn't do this..." she began.

      "But you will."  

                             ********

      Only when the paramedics brought in the gurney did Dana
grasp the full extent of Jake's injuries. He reached for her in
true need this time requiring her strong body to help him rise
from the soft chair. What strength he had left after his long
walk he had totally exhausted in his discussions with Dana and
Skinner. He moved as if his body was well aware that it had only
to hang on for a few minutes more. Dana rearranged the blanket
over him herself and rode with him slowly and silently through
the Washington streets, her hand wrapped inside his limp, sweaty
palm. 
      
      "Let me give you something for the pain."

      "No," came the curt response. "I need to be able to think."
That certainly had a familiar ring.

      Skinner rode with them, the map spread out on Jake's bed,
consulting him on the directions the architect had been able to
give them at the Bureau. It was a good thing he was with them.
In his dazed state with his fever returning Jake's memory for
his route was not good but from his raised bed in the ambulance
he was at least able to pick out some landmarks. Not
surprisingly most of these were buildings.
      
      When the sky opened up and the stripped blocks covered with
broken concrete appeared he relaxed back into the thin mattress.
"The yellow-brick Federal style," he whispered one hand raised
gesturing weakly. There was no doubt in his mind.

      Dana saw it and not giving a damn what Skinner thought
pressed a soft kiss on the familiar brow while the assistant
director gave instructions via his cellular to the four cars of
FBI agents traveling behind.

      Pulling out her weapon her face expressionless except for
its determination, Dana rose.
      
      "Remember your promise," came the soft voice behind her.

      Dana turned to gesture to the driver to go on to the
hospital before following Skinner out the wide back doors. She
had thought that after the positive identification of the
building Jake had faded into unconsciousness. 

      "We had a deal," he said without opening his eyes. "I stay
here till you come back. Besides, Mulder may need the ride more
than I do."

      Reluctantly, Dana nodded in agreement then fixed her stare
on the senior paramedic though she included Jake in her
instructions. "I want constant blood pressures taken until I get
back. Agreed? And if it starts to drop, I don't care what he
says, just go." With those instructions she turned and headed
out. Only at the last moment did she think she heard him say
something to the attendant in that familiar voice. The essence
of his comment was that he had never considered before that a
woman with a gun could be sexy.
      

      Dana was not the first agent in the building, though she
was only the second one down the stairs which from Jake's report
was where Mulder would most likely to be found. 

      "We're looking for a Furnace Room!" she shouted to her team
as they spread out. 

      "Here," called Edwards' voice a few seconds later from the
other end of a narrow, dank corridor. Then, "Oh, my god!" she
heard him gasp in horror.

      Dana's heart nearly lodged in her throat so that when she
finally burst into the huge, low-ceilinged room she couldn't
speak. 

      In a spot of faint light from a tiny, incredibly grimy
window, a slight man with stringy hair was propped up against
one wall. This could only be Pete from Jake's description. The
man was stripped nearly naked. His clothes were in tatters.
Between his hands was the handle of a long, very sharp, very
bloody knife and which was sunk almost up to the handle in the
man's own stomach.

      Edwards' hand was over his mouth as if he were going to be
sick. "Before he did that, he cut off his own..." 

      "Well we can't do anything about it now, so I could care
less. Find Agent Mulder," Dana snapped. Her head swung from the
dead man to search the rest of the room which sported half a
dozen monstrous iron forms - some old boilers, others coal or
perhaps even wood burning furnaces from long ago. "Furnace,
furnace..." she muttered to herself. "Jake said he'd been held
prisoner inside the firebox of an antique furnace. He also said
that there were two men to worry about - a large one and a
small. Seems we've found the little one."

      Dana's eyes quickly noted that the low door to the largest
of the furnaces was slightly ajar and that there were numerous
footprints on the dirty floor in front. Gun raised she advanced,
her blood pounding in her stomach and head and chest so that she
had to force each breath or stop breathing entirely. She stood
to the side, gun raised, nodding to Edwards who had pulled
himself together and brought over one of the big lights. As she
flipped the heavy door farther open with the toe of her shoe,
she shouted, "FBI! Come out! Hands in the air!" and Edwards
directed the flood into the doorway.

      All agents dread these situations. You try to anticipate
all the possibilities but there is never a time to be prepared
for everything. If the other kidnapper was inside, she could
expect one of three things: Gunfire? Always. Capitulation? If
you were very lucky. A hostage situation, if Mulder was also
inside? She hoped the hell not.

      If the kidnapper was not inside, Dana prayed for a tired
but welcoming, "I'm okay, Scully." If he were hurt badly, a
groan, some noise. If he were hurt very badly even - yes, even
as far as the silence that is eternal - then so be it. One less
star in the heavens, the second sun of her life gone cold. Dana
lived day to day with that possibility just as he did. The
kidnappers had only to take one look at his male organ stripped
down as most men's were from infancy and the switch would have
become obvious.

      Heart beating wildly, Dana waited and listened. What she
heard was:

      "Turn that damn light off!" in Mulder's echoing voice, a
strained voice bristling with anger and with an undercurrent of
-- something else.

      Awestruck, her eyebrows raised almost to her scalp line
Dana let her gun dip slightly though she hadn't released the
safety yet.

      "Excuse me?"

      "I said, turn off the fucking light!" Mulder barked from
inside. "And someone please get in here and bring a damn hand
cuff key."

      The gun dropped this time, safety on. Dana exchanged shrugs
with Edwards, glad that Skinner hadn't arrived in the basement
yet and pulled out her own key ring. Getting down on her hands
and knees she put her head into the black hole.

      "Mulder, it's pitch black in here."

      "Don't you think I don't know that!" During the
interminable minutes - maybe even hours - since he had awakened
free of his she-demon's 'protection', Mulder had had nothing to
do but sit on splinters, helpless and wait for Scully. With Pete
no longer a threat, that had given Mulder far too much time to
dwell upon how easily Lawrence and the spirit both had
manipulated him. The brooding had not sat well with Mulder's
temper. "Do you have the fu-... Do you have the key or don't
you?"

      "Just wait a moment okay? I'm bringing it in now."

      There came a strangled sort of sound from within then the
sound of a restless shifting. "Isn't there anyone else out there
who can bring it in?"

      Dana hesitated. Really confused. "You want someone else to
bring it in to you?" she realized only after she spoke how very
hurt her voice must have sounded. 

      "Oh, all right, come on in, but... please, no lights?" The
last was tinged with a bit of apology and more of that other
emotion she had not been able to place before. Embarrassment?

      Once inside, his voice directed her to his hands both of
which were cuffed uncomfortably high up on the wall of the
furnace but he wouldn't let her stay long enough to do more that
put the key in his cold fingers.

      The cool, hard object in his hand seemed to relieve him
considerably. "Ah, Scully," he said now most contritely, "would
you mind leaving for a moment?"

      Dana couldn't help smiling into the dark. He was fine but
it was clear to her that he had gotten himself into some
embarrassing predicament or other.

      "You want me to leave and after I just got here?" but Dana
knew that voice and crawled back out of the furnace where she
stood with sooty arms crossed over her ruined suit tapping her
foot and listening to the sounds within. The sounds of handcuff
locks opening that was unmistakable. The sharp moan as the arms
came down and the blood rushed painfully in, she could relate to
that. But after a few moments she heard the sound of cloth on
skin and -- a zipper being pulled up?

      A tiny, tiny smile crept over Dana's lips. Clearly, Mulder
had been a busy boy but it must not have been too bad or he
would have been other than angry and slightly embarrassed.

      "May I come in and rescue you now?" she asked finally when
there came only silence from within. "And may I bring some
light?"

      "Come on in," came the sulky reply, "but be careful and
don't trip over the body."

      Body? Oh-kay.....

      What Dana saw this time besides the body was an incredibly
dirty Mulder sitting on a box in the far corner one hand
partially covering his light sensitive eyes from the beam of the
flash light. The crumpled form of a large man lay in the
opposite corner of the fire box, his neck broken. His eyes were
no longer sensitive to the light, not now, nor would they ever
be again.

      Ignoring the dead man, Dana went to Mulder's side. He
looked perfectly awful. "You're hurt!" she said. He looked as
bad as Jake and Jake was in a bad way.

      "It's going to look worse than it is."

      Her fingers examined the swollen eye but the texture didn't
feel right and with prodding the whole mess came away in a lump
of theatrical putty, spirit gum and make up. "Are any of these
'injuries' yours?"

      He read her concern. Angry as he was he didn't really want
to her worry. On the other hand, she loved to doctor and it was
SO good to see her. 

      Lower lip pouting, he touched the spot on his forehead
where the equal but opposite reaction from the ectoplasmic
explosion which had killed Lawrence had ground his face into the
wall. "Here," he said softly like a child, holding up his
fingers sticky with blood, "That's mine."

      Her hands deftly examined the injury. Her touch was soft,
cool and, more than anything, real. And it had been a horrible
few days. As she worked, Mulder let the realization sink in that
it was over. He let that thought, like the comfort of her touch,
warm him. She was here and so Jake must have made it through.

      As the agony in his arms subsided, he became aware that his
lip throbbed. Lawrence had smacked him pretty good. "And here,"
Mulder said, touching his lip.

      He almost thought he saw her smile. Almost. 

      Dana rose from her crouch barely needing to stoop under the
low roof. "In your dreams, Mulder. I've got a really good
looking man with a potentially ruptured spleen to get to the
hospital. Now do you want to come with me so that you can have
that itty-bitty cut on your lip stitched up or do you want to
find your own way there?"  


      Jake found himself awakened from his doze by the metallic,
grating sound of the ambulance door. For a moment the fear
reached out for him that he was still - there - and he was
hearing the opening of the door to his prison. Instead he was
surrounded by light and brightest of all was the smiling face of
his own red-headed angel. A tall, lean, quite dirty and
disgustingly smelly figure bowed his dark head under the
ambulance's low doorway as he followed her inside. 

      Jake didn't care about the pull on the bruised parts of his
face. He smiled. It was good to see this Fox Mulder in the day
light. So everyone said he could be Mulder's twin. Given a bath,
not bad. Most importantly, the agent moved a bit stiffly but
otherwise seemed whole.

      Gingerly, Mulder sat his splintered bottom down on the seat
across from the gurney where his double laid. He sat close to
Dana but, in deference to the present state of his hygiene, not
too close.

      Mulder's hazel eyes glittered in Jake's direction as the
ambulance pulled away. "Thanks, you did well. And don't think
I'm not grateful but you really should have warned me about the
rats."
                                 
End of Chapter 8


From trevizo@utep.edu Wed Oct 30 03:03:40 1996
i did not write this. Please send all comments to the author at
(Windsinger@aol.com).
           __________
          / __    __ \
         ( (__)  (__) )
--------[[[---------]]]-------------------------------------------------

JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries X-over 9/9
by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

NC-17 warning for violence, good and bad sex and nasty stuff but
there are some very nice parts in here, too.
For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 9

      Three days later Mulder quietly pushed open the door to the
X-Files office and looked in with caution. Dana was leaning over
her desk her back to the door. Without turning she asked, "Are
you going to stand there all morning or are you going to come
in?"

      "Do I pass inspection?"

      "So far, but you're still ten feet away. The deal is no
sharing of transportation or office space until you pass the two
foot test."

      Mulder closed the distance by half. "How's that?"

      Still not turning around Dana raised her head and sniffed.
"Closer."

      He came within touching distance. This time Dana granted
him her attention. He looked nice in his grey suit this morning
and his hair actually seemed to have been recently cut. The
twinkle was back in his eye. It was good to have her old Mulder
back again. Jake was cute but he lacked Mulder's rough edges
that made him so -- The first word that came to Dana's mind had
been 'endearing' but she hastily corrected that to
'challenging'. Today he sported dark red scabs and a green and
purple patch of discolored skin on the left side of his forehead
which was all that was left of the head wound. This was in
addition to the four small black threads where the ER staff at
GW Hospital had sutured his lip. 

      "Swellings gone down I see." At least he didn't look like
he was perpetually pouting any more though on Mulder that didn't
even look all that bad.

      "Finally. So do I pass Agent Scully's I-guess-I-can-bear-
to-be-in-the-same-room-with-you test?"

      Dana came around the desk and on tip toe sniffed near his
jaw her eyes half closed in a way that made him go oh-so-
slightly weak at the knees. 

      "You tried the lemon concentrate wash I see."

      "Works for skunks, I hear." He bent down and let her get a
whiff of his hair aware that the situation was beginning to get
pretty kinky. 

      "And peach scented shampoo?" she asked. "Isn't that going
a little far?"

      "For you, Scully, anything."

      Dana stood back fists on hips. "Okay, but just for my own
curiosity, tell me what else I sense here. Something that
doesn't mix with lemon and peach, that's for sure."

      Hands went into the pockets. The adolescent pity-me ploy.
"It's the Brut your mother gave me for Christmas. I put on too
much. I tried to wash it off," he insisted.

      Dana made a brave attempt not to smile. "It's really not
that bad, it was the mixture that threw me. And now that that's
all cleared up you promised to shed some more light on this case
for me." Spread out on Dana's desk was a set of unpleasant
photos of Pete and Lawrence's autopsies. "You've been awfully
quiet on this, Mulder. I really need to close this out and your
saying 'I really wasn't in any condition to notice' doesn't buy
it. Remember who you're talking to here."

      "I doubt you would believe me if I told you." The thought
that passed through his mind was that he wasn't certain that he
believed it himself.

      Dana delivered the patented Scully-is-not-amused look
without raising her head from where she had been scrutinizing
the photos. "Mulder, this case is about as far from an X-File as
you can get."

      Want to bet? came to mind, but he replied mildly with,
"Believe what you will. If you want to report that Lawrence was
trying to be less than neighborly and that during our scuffle he
lost his balance, fell, and broke his neck I won't contradict
you. If you want to write that Pete came out of Marion
Correctional a little crazy and just went a little extra crazy
over the death of his friend I don't think there would be anyone
to contest that either."

      "So that big hunk Lawrence was being 'less than
neighborly', Mulder? I don't suppose you'd like to be more
specific."

      "No, I don't think I would." 

      In answer, Scully's eyes, usually skeptical of Mulder
stories, warmed him with her concern.

      "Nothing happened," Mulder assured her his voice softer.

      "Could have."

      "Didn't. Can you just drop it?"

      Dana shrugged and started putting the sections of the case
report back into their proper order. As she worked, a set of
smaller photos Mulder hadn't seen before slipped out of an
envelope. One caught his eye. His fingers trembled ever so
slightly as he held it. It was a woman's picture. A exquisitely
beautiful woman with a feline grace, lots and lots of thick,
curling, dark hair, and troubled, enigmatic black eyes.
"Scully?" Mulder asked, his voice oddly constricted, "who's
this?"

      "That's Alex Koritsky. Jake's fiancee." Dana finished
storing the other photos and reached for the one Mulder still
held. "The one who committed suicide."

      As she drew the photo from his hand, Dana detected that a
shadow had settled over her partner's bright spirits. Something
was here which he was not sharing. Not yet, at least, but Dana
trusted him that he would tell her when he was ready.

      "Isn't it about time to go see Jake off at the airport?"
Mulder asked, suddenly gathering his coat before Dana even had
a chance to answer. "I need to talk with him again."

                              ******

      They were waiting outside the private commuter terminal at
National Airport when a private ambulance pulled up. As the
attendant and driver carefully pulled the gurney out, Jake's
face, pale against the white pillows, brightened. 

      Mulder nodded towards the vivid yellow, green and purple of
the healing bruises on the new arrival. "I'm jealous. Your
colors are better than mine."

      "And I'm touched," Jake returned. "I hadn't expected to
have anyone here to see me off."

      At Dana's nod to the attendant she and Mulder took over
control of the gurney and wheeled their charge into a small
lounge to wait until the private plane, which Jake's partner had
hired to fly the architect back to Portland, was ready to
receive its only passenger.  As they entered, a sleek white jet
taxied up to the exclusive terminal.

      "Healing alright?" Dana asked.

      "So I'm told. They say I can live without a spleen."

      "It was in pretty bad shape. You're better off without it.
Your doctors in Portland can give you some symptoms to look out
for but there shouldn't be any problems."

      Out of the corner of her eye Dana watched Mulder, troubled.
He was the one who wanted to come but since his first comment he
had been quiet. At the hospital, after they had examined their
family histories and proven that as far as they knew they had no
common ancestors anytime this side of the Mayflower, they had
stayed a little aloof from each other. That was probably to be
expected. Mulder had lingering suspicions about his 'clone'.
Mulder's profession and his collection of 'enemies' naturally
scared Jake to death. 

      "Thank Assistant Director Skinner for me for assuming the
medical expenses," Jake offered into the awkward silence.

      "The least we could do," Dana replied. "I suspect that
they'll just put them down on Mulder's side of the balance
sheet. No one will notice the extra."

      Mulder's raised eye brows showed that despite his obvious
distraction he was still with them. She also got the gentle hint
from a flicker of an eyebrow that her presence wasn't wanted for
a few minutes.
      
      "Excuse me. I'll go check with the on-flight nurse to see
if he's all ready for you." As she stood in the doorway, neither
noticed Dana indulge in one final look at the two of them before
she left. If they could only see themselves, she thought. The
two men wore identical worried expressions. The attendant called
to her. Sighing, Dana headed for the plane. She'd get the gist
of their conversation out of Mulder later.

      Mulder had begun to wander, looking about the lounge. Real
leather. Certainly a couch he would die for. Polished wood and
chrome, no plastic, and thick quiet carpets.          

      "Fancy place. Private jet. It must be nice to know people
with that kind of money."

      Jake returned a firm, unapologetic gaze. "I'd rather have
peace of mind."

      Now that he was here Mulder had begun to reconsider not
bringing up what he had come to say and after this comment he
was even more undecided. Would knowing or not knowing bring this
man more of the peace of mind he sought?

      Uncomfortable watching the signs of tension in Mulder's
athletic grace as he prowled the room, Jake asked, "Agent
Mulder, I just don't see --"

      "Mulder, please. What don't you see?"

      "How DID Lawrence and Pete die? Under the circumstances I
don't see - "

      Mulder leaned against a wall, crossed his arms and
stretched out his legs. "I didn't kill them."

      "Then who --"

      "I had a little help from a friend. Though not a friend of
mine, a friend of yours." Confused, Jake waited. He had no
friends in this area of the country. Mulder debated with himself
but finally took the leap. "Jake, do you believe in ghosts?"

      Eyebrows rose even over the eye that was still swollen and
mostly purple. "I'm going to assume I heard you right. Do I?
Maybe..." Jake let that trail off. "Why? Are you trying to tell
me that a ghost killed those men? A ghost who's a friend of
mine?" Hesitation, then a terse nod from Mulder. Surprisingly,
Jake did not laugh. "Do you know whose?" he asked almost
fearfully.

      "Do I get a free question first? Would you say your fiancee
was a woman of singular passions?"

      Jake rose part way off the bed. Only a sharp, stretching
pain from the incision through which they'd removed his mangled
spleen held him down. "Alex? What could make you possibly think
that?"

      "I saw her ghost. Only once but clearly illuminated by -
Let's just say that the light didn't come from what you would
call a natural source. I remember the face, but I didn't have a
name. I saw my first picture of Alex just an hour ago. I assure
you, it was Alex I saw."

      Jake's eyes had turned inward and Mulder read not gladness
or sadness for her loss but a far deeper pain of abandonment and
betrayal. "I don't believe you. How could she be here? And why?
And why you?" He rose again, slowly this time almost to a
sitting position, aware of every throbbing muscle where hard
fists and kicks and bludgeons had connected and no one had come.
"Are you trying to tell me that she killed those men to protect
you? My God, why not me?"

      Mulder crossed the room and pulled a chair up close to the
gurney. "I've read most of what's out there on the subject of
the supernatural, hauntings and the like. Most of it is drivel
but some... Do you really want my theory?"

      "Would Dr. Scully buy into this theory?" Jake asked clearly
baiting.
 
      Mulder didn't flinch. "I haven't told her about this yet
and, no, she wouldn't agree, not without serious reservations,
but she's seen stranger things than ghosts."

      "Ghosts haunt buildings, cemeteries," Jake protested.

      "Reliving events or looking for objects, longing to finish
tasks that were left undone, that's true. My theory is that Alex
haunts not a place but haunts you. How else can you explain how
she could be here in Washington at all."

      "If she haunts me then why haven't I seen her? And again,
if she haunts me, why help you?"

      Mulder wasn't looking forward to this. "There's a lot in
your history the FBI collected about her suicide. You took it
hard but I think, if her actions are any indication, that she
took it worse. Her overwhelming guilt for what she did to you,
both while she lived and by the manner of her death, binds her
to you but also prevents her from making contact. With me,
however ---"

      A light came on in Jake's face. "You think she feels some
sort of remorse around me but feels 'safe' with you. You're me
and yet - not." The architect looked suddenly tired and, head
turned away from a face too like his own, sank back onto the
pillows. 
      
      "What can I say? If she killed two men then I don't know
her any more. If what you say is true, she not only protected
you over me but she left me, once again, in order to do it."

      "Jake, listen to me. Some parapsychologists feel that
ghosts are insane. In that case you're right, she's not the Alex
you knew, not entirely. But she's the real thing, an entity, a
conscious presence, not just a memory acting out some obsession
like a loop on a video tape. She's sentient, she can learn. She
can get into your thoughts. The time she killed Lawrence, I
don't think she was actually trying to kill Lawrence, just hell
bent on keeping him from hurting me." Mulder touched the purple
spot on this forehead. "That time I got a back lash. Later there
was a time when I felt nothing, as if she had completely
isolated me from my body. I was furious. I though she was
protecting me from the discomfort of my surroundings, but I'm
certain now that she knew Pete was on his way and that she was
trying to protect me from what would happen when she confronted
him. She didn't want to hurt me again. More importantly, when I
got angry at her and told to 'bug off' she was furious but she
did leave. Jake, I'm trying to tell you, this can be serious.
You're being haunted by something that is unpredictable, that
can be an angel or a devil, and only marginally controlled. It's
also smart and dwelling upon your betrayal only feeds its
attention."

      Throughout everything he had said Jake had kept his head
turned away, not moving. Mulder had begun to worry that the
architect had not heard a word, but without warning he spoke.
"Forget about what happened? How am I supposed to do that?"

      "You probably can't forget but you need to keep it from
consuming you." 

      Listen to me..., Mulder thought chiding himself. Me with my
obsessions.

      Mulder continued in a softened voice, a voice Scully had
heard more than once. It sprang from what she called, with
approval, his nurturing side. "Jake, whatever you're doing which
keeps this memory fresh in your mind, whatever that is, you need
to stop it."

      "Is this your psychologist degree talking?"

      "Ah, Scully told you about that. Indulge me."

      Jake turned suddenly, sitting again, one arm protectively
around his stomach, green eyes flashing. "I didn't sign up for
this. It hurts. I read the diaries because to know that there
are others like me gives me something to look forward to every
day, because it helps me forget about the pain for a while,
because it hurts, like it happened yesterday. Every day it's as
if I just held her dripping, dead body in my arms, that I just
read that horrible book for the first time. It's a stab, and a
stab and a stab in the gut every day!" He looked down towards
his incision one corner of his mouth curving ironically upward.
"Everyone is being so solicitous because of my injuries. This
surgery? This is nothing."

      Mulder knew what he meant. Sam's loss was like that. Maybe
that was why he was so sure that she wasn't dead, because she
was so much still a part of him.

      "Perhaps the wounds are so fresh because she never really
left you."

      Weaker than he wanted to admit, Jake lowered himself back
down onto the thin mattress, grimacing at the pull from his
stomach muscles. He looked up surprised to find Mulder at his
side, those strong familiar arms around his shoulders,
supporting him. "What I don't understand," came the barely
audible whisper, "is why she stays. She never loved me."

      "Never doubt that she loved you. That she still does."
Mulder's voice wavered just a little. This was the tricky part.
"And I assure you, she's still very much a sexual being."

      Jake's frown deepened. "Now THAT I don't believe."

      "No?" Mulder pursed his lips taking two steps from the bed
before turning. This was not something Mulder felt right talking
about even one man to another, especially to a man about what
his deceased fiancee was capable of, but Jake had to be warned.
A man could die of a heart attack from a haunting like this.
"Did she, or you, or the both of you ever indulge in a little
control fantasy involving -- uh, mastery of large winged
serpents?"

      Jake's green eyes opened as wide as eyes possibly could,
even the swollen one, as he watched the tips of Mulder's ears
turn red. "She didn't"

      "I swear on my lustful little heart, she did. And you, sir,
have my utmost respect. Clearly your control is better than
mine. I also see that I need to get a look at your library." 

      Jack was seeing no humor in the revelation. His expression
had become sullen. Mulder sat down again beside the bed.

      "Jake, remember I was just a surrogate. As you said,
safe... and in no position to resist her." Mulder let a roguish
smile touch his lips. "Handcuff yourself to a bed post one
night. You might be surprised."

      Despite the tears that had appeared from somewhere, Jake
almost laughed. "I might just do that."

      At that moment Dana returned, getting the cold shivers just
seeing the two of them. They looked like a guilty pair of twins
caught looking through a hole into the girl's locker room. Now
why was she so sure that they had been talking about women? More
specifically, sex. Because, Dana told herself, Mulder never
achieved that particular shade of red unless he was embarrassed
down to his toes.

      "They're ready, when you are," she told Jake a little
coolly.

      "Good, home sounds right, besides Agent Mulder has give me
a lot to think about and all the excitement around here makes
that hard." Jake paused looking carefully from one to the other
of the partners. "By any chance do you two get out to the West
Coast often?"

      With the memory of countless airline seats stamped into her
backside Dana answered with a smile, "Now and again."

      Jake focused on Mulder. "I'd like to talk about this again.
When you're out next will you come and visit?"

      Mulder's glance towards Scully was warm and relaxed. The
tension he had carried to the airport had somehow miraculously
vanished. "I think a little detour could be arranged."

      "Yes, that'll be easy," Dana offered. "I'll just let Mulder
navigate."

      Mulder wrinkled his nose at her as he stood stretching his
long arms. He'd been bent over Jake's gurney too long. Jake's
gaze traveled up the height, the germ of a pleasant idea
smoothing the lines of his face. "Agent Mulder, by any chance
would you be interested in a little roundball? One-on-one?"

      Hazel eyes lit up. "Any time, any place."

      "Time is when you make it out West. Place... well, I've got
a one-on-one court you won't believe. I have some rather bad
memories associated with it. I'd be interested in making some
better ones."

      "What do we play for?" Mulder asked, avariciously.

      "How about my ghost?"

      Mulder cast a look in Scully's direction whose jaw was
quite literally hanging open though in a nice way. The look
quite clearly shouted incredulously, "Mulder, I was only gone
five minutes!" Leave it to Mulder to leap frog to THIS sort of
topic in such a short time.

      Though he spoke next to Jake, answering the architect's
previous question, the wink was for Scully who did the slow burn
so well. "Does the winner get her or get rid of her? The ghost
I mean."

      "That all depends," Jake teased getting into the swing.

      "On?"

      "How good she is."

      Mulder threw back his head in a silent laugh and Jake
grinned. "Don't answer that," the architect advised gesturing to
Scully who was bestowing the evil eye on both of them. "I
already know how good she is."

      Dana glowered certain that there were two meanings to this
conversation and just as certain that she would regret
understanding either one. "When you two 'boys' are finished,
I'll be waiting outside," she told them, then turned on her heel
and did just that.

      "Is she angry?" Jake deliberately asked while she could
still hear them.

      "Not really - " Mulder begun until Dana spun back
momentarily towards them. 

      "Oh, by the way, Mulder. Just a little reminder. By the
time we get back to the office it will be time for your next
anti-rabies injection."

      Mulder grimaced as the door slammed behind her. "Well,
maybe she is just a little piqued. Let's return for a moment to
the terms of the game. I really don't need your ghost. I've got
enough of my own."

      "We could trade."

      "Believe me you wouldn't want mine."

      Scully tapped on the window and gestured towards the plane.
Clearly, the crew was eager to be off. Mulder began pushing
Jake's gurney towards the door.

      "Fox, can we be serious for a minute?" Jake began with a
solemn face, his eyes fixed on Dana's trim figure which could be
seen through the lounge windows.

      "Not if you use my first name."

      "'Mulder', then. May I offer you some advice?"

      Mulder had a feeling he knew what was coming, at least the
topic, and it made his mouth dry and his palms sweat.
"Considering what you went through for me, I guess I owe you
that much."

      "If you find a woman to love and who loves you, don't let
your relationship become stale, or too predictable. Keep some of
your mystery and let her keep some of hers."

      "I don't think predictability and lack of mystery on my
part is anything Scully needs to worry about." Mulder's head
jerked slightly making him miss Jake's knowing smile. Now where
had the use of Scully's name come from?

      Not knowing exactly how to continue on from there, Mulder
resumed maneuvering the gurney towards the door. Dana was
hovering just outside and came to help move Jake towards the
wheel chair lift, which was positioned like a small cherry
picker near the door of the plane. At their leave-taking Dana
bent and planted a sisterly kiss on Jake's cheek. If she
lingered a little longer than a sister would have, Jake knew it
was not a result of his charms. This brave, beautiful,
intelligent, but certainly frustrated woman had just been trying
out some possibilities, just to set in her mind how everything
fit. For one of the first times in almost two years Jake felt a
glow of interest. Oh, he would like to try out some
possibilities with this one... but, no, she was clearly taken.

      Jake watched the two of them from the window of the plane
as it taxied from the terminal. They were standing beside the
departure gate, one tall, one not tall at all. Red hair and
brown whipped in that gusty air that is omnipresent at busy
airports. They were standing close, too close for just friends.
They would find each other in time, of that Jake had no doubt
and maybe by taking the longer route it would make the finding
all the more precious. 

      Wearily, Jake closed his eyes. His in-flight nurse had
given him something to make him relax during the flight. That
numb glow and the rhythmic vibrations from the jet's engines
were soothing. As he faded out he started to dream of a soft,
warm hand, lighter than air, touching his bruises, taking the
pain away.

The End