Title: Turf War (An XF Halloween Story)
Author: XochiLuvr
E-mail: xochiluvr@surfacing.com
Category: VH, MA, MSR, but Scully-lite, M/O <past>
Spoilers: None, but considering the time of year, obviously Post-Req.
Archive: Ephemeral, Xemplary, EMXC, Gossamer, Spookys. I'll say yes, but all
others please drop me a line so I can wave at my offspring.
Rating: R for nudity and spiky shoes. No sex, but you'll be happy about it.
Feedback: Please.
Summary: So this, I suppose, would be a tale about my dreams and nightmares
fighting for control. A turf war, with me as the turf.
Heartfelt thanks to M. E. Cieplinski for beta.



---------------------------------



It's a bitch, my job. Not much chance for anything other than work and
sleep, usually. Not many people can say they carry a gun for a living. Far
fewer can say they chase ghosts and aliens on the government's dime. Ghosts
and aliens. They don't allow for much spare time.

Women? Hell, no. Well, one. My partner. Scully. But I can't just say she is
a woman. Strong enough to stand up to me and for me, yet soft enough to love
me even when I fall apart. No, not simply a woman. My dream woman.

So this, I suppose, would be a tale about my dreams and nightmares fighting
for control. A turf war, with me as the turf.

I've been in the FBI for what, not too far from two decades? It's the only
job I've had since I graduated Oxford. While most of my class climbed the
corporate ladder or distinguished themselves in their various careers, I
actually moved down the ladder. Straight to the basement. Must've been
something I said.

Scully and I were on stakeout duty, monitoring a bugged apartment from the
floor above. Skinner called us to quietly investigate a Senator with
possible mob ties, and as luck would have it, we got stuck with night duty
on Halloween.

Of course, being the night of the dead, we were in the Watergate apartments,
where Diana lived. And died.

Inevitably, the question arose: "Tell me about her, Mulder. Tell me what
happened between you."

I personally believe the greatest prophet the world has ever known is not
Nostradamus, but Douglas Adams. The world may not go out on an ordinary
Thursday, but it will go with a whimper, not a bang. Unless it can be
stopped, a few tin cans tolling for thee, a good bit of nonsense, and
-poof!- Game Over. See? Even I think of it in terms of a joke. I have to, or
I'd go insane.

Cosmic insanity is my life's work, and my life's story follows accordingly.
What's worse than not having sex? Having sex with your partner. What's worse
than having sex with your partner? Having her leave you, and the country,
supposedly for a better job. What's worse than having her leave you for a
better job? Discussing that relationship after you and her professional
replacement have fallen in love.

Taking my silence as a refusal to answer, Scully was about to change the
subject, but I waved her off, letting her know it wasn't reticence, but
woolgathering. Just as I was about to reply, a brief flash of light erupted
on the surveillance monitor. The night vision camera went nuts. Thinking it
a possible gunshot, we bolted out the door. We called it in and ran down the
nearest stairwell.

Reaching the door, we pulled our guns, announced ourselves, and everything
went dark.


-----


When I came to, I was in a large room. Moving slowly until the dizziness
passed, I looked around and noticed it was the X-Files office in the Hoover
basement, but it was empty, except for a desk and work table. Then I
realized it was the old office, before the fire.

"But it hasn't looked like this since..."

"Since you cleaned out and reorganized it before moving in, Fox. This is the
beginning."

I turned to the voice, and found a stunning woman, somehow familiar and yet
unrecognizable. Young, beautiful, lightly tanned skin. Rich, luminous hair
and penetrating eyes. She was perfect. Too perfect. Right down to the dress
suit and heels, both of which were entirely too flashy. Too... sexy for the
everyday work clothes of a Special Agent.

"Who are you?"

"Who do you think I am?" she breathed at me. Something about her eyes
frightened me. They were dark, ominous. Not human. At least, not anymore.

"Where's Scully?"

"Don't worry about her," the creature cooed, sliding her hand under my coat,
trailing her manicured nails down my chest and over my shirt. The sensation
was erotic, but overwhelmingly eerie.

Stepping around her, I left the office and took an elevator upstairs. I
found it strange that there were no people, and sunlight was coming through
the windows this late at night. In the lobby, all the doors were locked.

"They're locked. We're all alone, Fox."

I turned, and she was again before me, close enough to feel her breath on my
skin, smell her perfume in the air. Why hadn't I heard her coming?

"What do you want?" I yelled, more in surprise than anger.

Without replying, she simply turned and walked back to the elevator, swaying
her hips from side to side as sexily as possible. Without looking back, she
called, "Coming, Fox?"

I realized that whatever was going on, I really had no choice. There didn't
seem to be any other way to get out of this - situation, for lack of a
better word. I had no intention of stepping into the elevator with her,
though, so I took the stairs.

Returning to the basement office, I found her sitting on the side of the
desk, fingers gripping the edges lightly. The way her legs were crossed
would have been considered demure, save for the fact she was now naked,
stiletto pumps dangling off her toes.

Silently, gracefully, she recrossed her legs, exaggerating each movement,
giving me an unobstructed view of her most private parts. Even if Scully and
I hadn't declared our love for each other, the offer before me was one any
man couldn't easily refuse. However, it was a temptation to which I had no
intention of giving in. If Scully was the dream, this was the nightmare.

"Dana is nothing!" she spat, leaning forward and pinning me with her eyes.

Dropping from her perch she circled behind and wrapped her arms around me,
untying and discarding my tie, loosening the top three buttons of my shirt.
Sliding a leg up the outside of my thigh, pressing her breasts into my back,
she whispered in my ear: "You know who I am. Your true love, your greatest
desire."

I had to get away, but she now stood between me and the door, refusing to
allow me passage, tightening her grip around me.

"You're not Scully," I growled, removing her arms from around me and moving
to the other side of the desk.

"Of course I'm not that bitch," she spat, stepping towards me, her rage
apparent. She paused for a second, considering, and her body language
reflected her shift in strategy. She moved closer again, but the obvious
menace so recently displayed was gone, replaced with a sexy smile and a
slight wiggle of her shapely hips.

"Oh, Fox, of course I'm not her. I'm better than her. I saved your life, I
traded my life for yours, remember?"

How the hell? It couldn't be. She's... "You're..."

"Yes, Fox. I'm here. I still love you, and want us to be together again.
Come with me," she whispered, stepping ever closer to me, forcing me to
retreat until my back pressed into the wall.

It can't be Diana. Even _I_ didn't believe this could be possible. I felt a
coldness that wasn't real, but shivered nonetheless.

"No. nononono. It can't be you. I went to your funeral. I sat through the
autopsy."

"Don't you want to believe?" she giggled, taking one final step before I
held out my hand.

"NO. Get away from me. I don't love you, and I know you never felt that way
for me. It was just a game to you, and in the end you lost everything. I've
made my choice, and I chose Scully a long time ago. I will not betray her
like you did me. Why don't you just go back to hell?"

Well, that certainly stopped her. Still naked, she lost all her undead
glamour, now looking no different than she must have in her last moments of
life. Lines reappeared around her eyes, the hair lost much of its sheen,
muscle mass dropped visibly, her whole body aging twenty years as I watched.
Yes, now it really was Diana, no better or worse than she was alive.

"You bastard. I died for you. I killed for you."

"No, Diana. You made your choices a long time before that. You betrayed me,
you left me, you used my trust in you to hurt Scully. Any decision after
that was tainted, and any before that are suspect. You gave Scully the
passcard to redeem yourself in whatever comes after; a selfish intention,
not an honest one. Scully saved me, not you. Not for brownie points in the
afterlife, either, but because I am her partner, because she trusts and
loves me. As I do her."

"I know you desire me, Fox. We can have it all back. I'll do anything for
you. I loved..."

"The control you thought you had over me. You played both sides against the
middle Diana. You had my trust and Spender's ear. You lied to us both, and
look where it's gotten you. I'm tired of this."

"I want what was taken from me!" she yelled. "If you won't come to me, I'll
just _take_ what I want!" With that, she lunged...

... and stopped inches from me, held at bay by some unseen force.
Nevertheless, I knew what it was.

"What is it you want, Diana? To trade my life for escape from wherever you
are? It's not going to happen. My soul is no longer yours to steal. It
belongs to another, and you will never defeat her. To get to her, you have
to go through me, and to get to me, you have to go through her. You wouldn't
even know where to start, because you couldn't even begin to imagine the
level of trust and love we share."

Rather than stopping her, my words seemed only to further her anger.
Collecting herself, she stood, closed her eyes, and tensed.

All of a sudden the room got colder and colder, worse than Alaska, more
debilitating than the Antarctic. I could literally feel the warmth and life
draining from my body, fueling her, empowering her more completely to
destroy me. This would be one nightmare I couldn't even hope to defeat
alone.

Come on, Scully. Fight. Help me. Come on, come on. Do it...


-----


"... do it, Mulder, wake up. Please. Come on. The paramedics are coming. You
have to wake up. You can do it."

"Scu... wha?"

"He killed himself, Mulder. He lit a fire in the fireplace. That's what
screwed up the night vision camera; it was in the fixture over the mantle.
He also must have turned on the gas stove. The door stayed intact but
exploded outward off its hinges and you were hit by the blast. The
paramedics'll be here any second. You've got a concussion and a dislocated
wrist, and maybe a couple of broken ribs. Just stay still."

-----

I finally answered her question about a week after I got out of the
hospital. We were eating lunch near the Reflecting Pool. The clouds were
high and sparse, and the sky was as blue as Scully's eyes.

"About Diana."

"Yes?" Just the right note of interest, tinged with wariness.

"How about I just say it was a nightmare, and one best forgotten?"

I never did find my tie.


-----


End.