Categories > TV > X-Files > Incarnations of Immortality
Title: Incarnations of Immortality
Author: TheBear!
Crossover: XF/HL/FK
Pairings: M/S N/N T/V
161,428 words
15-Apr-02
Disclaimer—I don’t own any of it.
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Chapter 11
Nick’s Loft
12:00 p.m. Thursday December 14th
He had slept all of four hours. He spent another thirty minutes watching his Scully sleeping. Of course there wasn’t much to see. She didn’t breathe, she didn’t move. If it wasn’t for the slight link they had, he might have thought she was dead. He reflected on the way their lives had changed in less than a week. Last week he was an FBI agent obsessed with aliens, conspiracies, the supernatural and the occult. Today he was supernatural- an immortal that was shacking up with a vampire.
In the end, the whole immortality/vampirism thing was minor. More importantly, last week he was desperate, alone, and hopelessly in love with his partner- with no real hope of ever being with her. Today they were one in more ways than he could ever have imagined. “Life is sweet. Weird, but sweet,” he whispered to himself.
Mulder still hadn’t decided exactly what to say to Skinner, yet. It depended on how difficult he was going to be about this. It also depended on why he and Scully had been sent up here in the first place. Other things had occupied his thoughts and kept him from wondering why they were really there.
As Kimberly answered the phone, Mulder reflected that maybe he should have spent a little more time wondering about these things before calling his boss, “Hi Kimberly. It’s Mulder, is he in?”
“One minute, I’ll see if he is available,” she said, putting him on hold. She came back on after a few seconds, “Ok, Agent Mulder. I’m transferring you now.”
“What is it, Mulder?” Skinner sounded slightly annoyed. “What could have possibly happened at a simple conference, for Pete’s sake?” he asked, rhetorically.
Mulder’s mind was filled with a few dozen different scenarios where he answered that question honestly- none of them worked out in his head so he said, “Uh, nothing… that is nothing to be worried about with the conference.”
“What did you need to speak to me about then?” Skinner asked.
“Well, uh, that is I want to request some vacation time. Actually we need to request a couple weeks, Scully and I.” Mulder said, stumbling through the answer.
“Fine. Email a request in and I will approve it. Anything else?” Skinner replied brusquely.
Mulder could not have possibly imagined it would go that easily. “Uh… No sir.” Something was definitely up, but he was going to take advantage of it while he could. “Thank you,” he said.
Skinner replied, “You’re welcome Agent,” and hung up.
“That was too easy.” Mulder muttered to himself
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Natalie woke up feeling extremely thirsty and very sore. However, it was definitely the good kind of sore. She had received more physical gratification in the last 5 days than she had in the rest of her life combined. “Of course, that isn’t saying much” she reflected.
Even without the knowledge that came from the link when Nick drank from her, she would have had no doubt that she was beautiful in Nick’s eyes. It was as though he had worshiped her body. He had touched and stroked and kissed every square inch of her body this morning. She looked like she had been wrestling with a thorn bush, there were little scratches and bite marks spread over her entire body. “As if he was marking his territory,” she thought with amusement. She unequivocally did not mind being marked as his. He could put a big sign on her back that said ‘Property of Nicolas Knight’ as far as she was concerned. She belonged to him, just as he belonged to her. Feeling wanton and decadent, she covered herself in nothing but a silk robe and went downstairs to get something to drink.
As she left the bedroom she heard the television. “Mulder must be up. No way it’s Dana,” she thought. She was no expert on vampires, but it was hard enough to get Nick up and out of bed before sundown, she didn’t think a fledgling would be anything less than dead to the world. She saw him sprawled out on the couch surfing through the channels, not landing on one for more than a few seconds before moving on. “Definitely a guy thing,” she thought. “Nick does the same thing, when he watches TV at all.”
Mulder heard her coming down the stairs and stopped surfing for a moment, “Hey, Natalie. Good Morning?” he asked.
“I think we have to go with ‘good afternoon’ Mulder. How long have you been up?”
Mulder resumed surfing, “About an hour or so.”
“What’s the matter, Mulder? Nothing worth watching?” she asked as she walked to refrigerator.
“Mostly soaps. I have enough intrigue, tragedy and suffering in my life without watching that crap,” Mulder responded. He noticed her destination and asked, “Hey Natalie, could I impose on you to bring me a bottle of whatever you’re having?” He smiled, slightly embarrassed at her knowing look.
“Oh? Are you thirsty, Mulder? Feeling a bit… drained?” she teased as she collapsed into the chair facing the couch Mulder was sprawled out on.
Mulder noticed that her legs looked like they had lost a fight with a dull razor, “I’m lucky, I guess. Mine all healed,” he said, gesturing toward her legs.
It was Natalie’s turn to blush as she handed Mulder his bottle of orange juice. She had brought herself a glass to go with her bottle. She got tired of refilling it after the 3rd time and joined Mulder in drinking straight from the bottle, upending it and not putting it down until it was empty. “Wow. I was really thirsty!”
Mulder smirked at Natalie and said, “I hope you two weren’t planning on waiting very long before you come across. It doesn’t appear that you’ll be able to hold out much longer.”
Natalie blushed furiously at that, but all the same, she was quite happy that she and Mulder could tease each other like that. She hadn’t had a close friend outside of Grace and Nick in what felt like ages, and for her and Nick to have another couple so close, and not have to hide anything at all, “Well, it feels wonderful!” she mused. “I hope you and Dana hang around for a while, Mulder. I really like you guys.”
Mulder’s smile faltered slightly at that.
Instantly concerned, Natalie leaned toward him asked, “Mulder? What’s wrong?”
Mulder sat up and put his face in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees, “I don’t know what we are going to do, Natalie. For the last seven years, the X-Files were my whole life. Scully’s too. I have spent years searching for the answers to certain questions. There are conspiracies that we have been trying to crack for just as long. I am not sure how I feel about giving up on that, even for a year or two that Duncan says I would need to take to train. Not to mention that Scully has a whole new life that she needs to prepare for as well.” He leaned back into the couch and sighed heavily. “On the other hand, I’ve spent most of the last 7 years pining away after my partner too. If I had to choose between the two, Scully would win hands down every time.”
Natalie nodded her head. “I always knew Nick would have to leave someday. He can’t stay in one place for more than a decade or maybe fifteen years at the outside before people notice that he isn’t getting any older. I dreaded that time, not knowing where our relationship would be when it came.”
She stopped for a moment and smiled, wistfully. “I will miss my career, and my friends. In the end though, being with Nick is more important than being the youngest coroner in Toronto history, not to mention being one of the best despite the ‘handicap’ of being a woman.” She stood up and went to the refrigerator to grab two more bottles of OJ and returned to the chair, passing one bottle to Mulder. After draining it in two long pulls, she said, “You know, Mulder- I can be a coroner anywhere I go. Just because you leave the FBI, if that is what you decide, that doesn’t mean you can’t continue your search for the Truth. You already have resources outside of the normal channels, and now you have a couple of key advantages, especially with Dana’s newfound skills and abilities. The two of you could investigate people and places you could never touch before.
“I hadn’t really thought of it like that,” Mulder said in wonder.
“How do you think Nick managed to have the highest solve rate in Department history?” Natalie smirked. “He’s a very good cop, but being essentially impervious to bullets, being able to hypnotize suspects and witnesses, and preternaturally acute senses all stack the deck in your favor.” She laughed, “If I had a dollar for every bullet I’ve removed from Nick in the years I’ve known him, I would be almost as rich as he is.”
“Well, that’s definitely one more thing to consider,” Mulder said. “When Scully and Nick wake up we need to talk.” Mulder closed his eyes and clasped his hands on top of his head, sinking down into the couch, “I need to figure out what I am going to do about my new status. I am not sure I want to spend eternity going around chopping off people’s heads. I know I don’t want to spend eternity on holy ground, not to mention it might be a bit painful for Scully.” He opened his eyes and smiled at Natalie, “I do know that despite all of the uncertainty regarding our changes, I am happy… content. You have no idea how big of a change that is for me. I haven’t been at peace like this since I was a young boy. I am happier right now than I have ever been in my life. However we move forward, so long as it is together, I will adjust to whatever else comes.
Natalie felt almost exactly the same way. Definitely content, whatever may come. She was suddenly struck with a thought, “Aren’t you supposed to be flying back tomorrow?” she asked.
“I called our boss and arranged a couple of weeks off,” he responded.
“I need to do that, too. Nick suggested a couple of months,” she said.
Mulder raised his brows at that, “Can you get that much?” he asked, surprised.
Natalie smiled, “We both have tons of leave accrued. We never really take any,” she said. “Besides, we have a good excuse,” she said, waggling her left ring finger at him.
“Yeah? When are you guys tying the knot?” Mulder asked.
“We were thinking about the weekend before New Years,” she answered.
“What about the… other event?” Mulder asked slyly.
Natalie blushed slightly, “Saturday… I can’t wait!” she confessed, sounding like a little kid two days before Christmas.
Mulder laughed out loud. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I am starved. How about I buy you breakfast to celebrate your impending immortality?” He added, “It’s not as if our significant others will feel left out.”
“Ok, let me leave a note, Nick might actually wake up,” Natalie said getting out a piece of paper and a pen from a kitchen drawer and scrawling a few words. “Ok, let’s go.”
“Uh Natalie? You going in that?” he asked, gesturing at her robe.
“Oh… I guess I’m a little distracted,” she said, blushing again. “Let me go throw something on,” she said running up the stairs.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Nick slowly achieved consciousness. He could feel that the sun was still up, and wondered what had awoken him. He rolled over to look at Natalie and saw that she wasn’t there. “That must have been it,” he thought. Remembering that they had guests, he put on both the top and pants of his pajamas. He was about to head out of the bedroom when he heard Natalie running up the stairs. She swooped into the room and suddenly stopped short when she saw him up and dressed, sort of.
“Oh, Nick! I didn’t think you would be up already,” she said.
“What’s the matter, Nat?” Nick asked, concerned.
Natalie went over to her bag and took out a pair of jeans and a sweater, as well as a bra and panties, and began getting dressed. “Nothing’s wrong, Nick. Mulder and I were going to go grab some breakfast. Want to join us?” she asked, pausing with her arms crossed above her head, about to pull her sweater over her head, and looked at him for a response.
Nick stared at Natalie, clad in jeans and a bra with her hands semi-confined above her head and started to get some ideas he wanted to explore Saturday night prior to her conversion.
Natalie noticed the predatory look he was laying on her and blushed head to toe, “Nick… Breakfast?”
“Thanks Nat- I’m tempted, but I think you had better eat something first. I don’t want you getting anemic!” he replied, deliberately misconstruing her question.
She blushed even harder and pulled her sweater on. “Nicolas de Brabant! You are incorrigible!”
“Nat, after you guys eat, why don’t you go in to the morgue and see if you can arrange that time off. If you can keep Mulder out of Dana’s and my hair until about midnight, I think we can complete the preliminary stuff and she would be able to move out and among mortals without me babysitting her.” Nick suggested.
“Isn’t that awfully fast? Just a couple of days and she is good to go?” Natalie asked, concerned.
“I don’t know what it is, Nat. Maybe it’s the immortal blood she is feeding on, but she’s advancing faster than I’ve ever heard of. Even with the deep link training I’m using, it should take a several days for the basics, and she had them mastered the first night.” Nick shook his head in wonder. We just need to cover a couple of things and practice them a little and she should be ok.”
“And that’s it?” Natalie asked.
“No, she will still need time and practice to master some of the more challenging skills, but she won’t need to be attached to my hip. First of all, those lessons will be intermittent, and second, those lessons can wait. Until we get you caught up to her level.” Nick smiled tenderly at the love of his life. “If things go normally, it won’t take more than two or three weeks at the outside, and who knows? Being filled with your very own supply of immortal blood may accelerate your progress as well.”
“Or I might not come across at all,” Natalie said, somewhat glumly.
Nick refused to let the possibility bring him down, “Then sword lessons for you, young lady! Now, go. Eat. Keep Mulder occupied. I’ll see you tonight.” Nick laid into her with a searing kiss, giving her a taste of just what he had in store for her tonight.
Natalie kissed him back just as thoroughly, letting him know she was more than ready for whatever he had for her tonight.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Natalie and Mulder had each consumed 2 entrees and about a gallon of orange juice before they felt sated. The bemused waitress had stopped even asking if there was anything else she could get them, and just brought them a pitcher of juice.
Mulder was laughing at Natalie’s stories, sharing things with her that he had only shared with Scully. He was suddenly struck by the fact that he hadn’t sat and talked with a friend, about nothing special, for… “I can’t remember doing this since I joined the FBI.” No conspiracies, no aliens, no work at all. It was almost like he was exhaling after holding his breath for years. No angst, no emotional investment, just a nice chat with a friendly person who had no political interest or reason for betrayal.
Natalie noticed Mulder drifting off into another world and smiled at him. He looked relaxed. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you relax this week, Mulder,” she observed.
That was exactly it. He felt relaxed. In his anal-retentive obsessiveness, now that he could put a name on it, he could quit thinking about it. “Yeah,” he said with a kind of satisfied sigh. “Actually, I think it’s been quite a while longer than a week.”
Natalie leaned back and smiled at Mulder. Outside the sun was setting, and she could see part of the sunset between the buildings. She was enjoying the peaceful companionship. She suddenly started at the look of utter shock on Mulder’s face. He looked like he had sat on a tack, or been touched by a live wire.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Nick’s Loft
4:45 p.m. Thursday December 14th
Scully came back to life with the setting of the sun. She could feel it slipping over the horizon with her newfound senses, “That’s strange,” she thought, she felt as though she had just lain down. She remembered the last thing she had done before falling asleep- drinking Mulder’s hot life’s-blood as she rode out her own orgasm and, through the link, felt his as well. “That’s definitely the way I want to fall asleep from now on!” she thought.
[That can be arranged] she heard Mulder say. She rolled over to look at her lover when she noticed she was alone in bed. She immediately sat up and looked around for him, but he was nowhere in sight. “Mulder! Where are you?” she asked out loud.
[Actually Scully, I am downtown having breakfast with Natalie.]
“What?!” she almost shouted. She suddenly realized that she wasn’t hearing him with her ears, but rather in her head. She closed her eyes and saw a table full of empty dishes in front of her and a very concerned looking Natalie leaning forward and asking her ‘what’s wrong, Mulder?’
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Mulder answered Natalie’s question, “Nothing, Natalie. Scully just woke up, that’s all.”
[Tell her that her theory of the blood exchange was apparently right] Scully thought to Mulder with a sense of wonder at this new sensation.
“Scully says your theory was right. What theory was that?” Mulder asked.
Natalie’s train of thought was completely derailed. “You… She???” Natalie paused and scrubbed at her face with her hands and swept them up and through her hair, taking a moment to put her thoughts together. “You can hear her?” she asked, still trying to reorganize mentally.
Mulder was starting to feel very hungry suddenly. Very hungry. He closed his eyes and groaned at the hunger pangs. As his eyes closed he suddenly found himself in Nick’s guest bedroom, but only for a moment and then the scenery whizzed by and he found himself, not half a second later, wrenching the refrigerator door open, grabbing a bottle, tearing the cork out and chugging it down.
[Sorry, that was me.] Scully thought. [I felt how full you were and my own hunger didn’t hit me for a moment.]
Mulder was momentarily lost in the sensation that came from the blood. He had a faint impression of a young man laying on a table at the Red Cross, donating for his school’s blood drive. As he opened his eyes he came back to himself and noticed that Natalie was looking a little green, “Actually, everything looks a little green,” he thought.
Natalie was about to ask Mulder what was wrong when he opened his eyes and she saw that they had changed to the green/gold of a vampire. Her hands flew to cover her mouth as she gasped out loud. “Mulder! Your eyes!” she whispered loudly, looking around to see if anyone else noticed.
“What?” he said, blinking rapidly until the greenish tinge everything had was gone. “What just happened?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. He focused on Natalie who was still staring at him, stunned. Abruptly he stood up and pulled out his wallet. Throwing two fifties on the table he said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He growled.
Natalie silently stood up, grabbed her stuff and walked out with Mulder. As they got outside she explained what she had seen.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Scully had her eyes closed, listening in, but not commenting. She didn’t know what to think- Mulder’s eyes vamping out? Was it an echo of her, or was he changing? What did it mean? Suddenly she felt something she had never felt before- like fire in her head and a buzzing in her ears.
[Oh, no. Not now!] she heard Mulder think.
She saw through his eyes an intense man striding through the parking lot towards Mulder and Natalie with violence written all over him.
[It’s not Froag. I don’t know who it is.] she heard Mulder tell Natalie. [Go get in the car, get it running and I’ll jump in.]
She heard Natalie answer ask him what he was going to do without a sword.
[I don’t think he will try anything here, it’s pretty public. Just go!]
Scully saw him pull a sword from his coat and felt Mulder’s fear blossom. “NO!” she screamed.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Natalie jumped into the driver’s seat of the Caddie and started it up. She pulled out of the parking spot and dropped it into drive with her shaking hand. She headed to where Mulder was and saw the immortal cocking a sword back over his shoulder, getting ready to swing it at Mulder. What she saw next almost caused her to wreck the car.
Mulder moved faster than the eye could see- he struck the other immortal in the neck with the edge of his hand like he was trying to crush his larynx, but he struck with such force that he took his head almost entirely off. It remained connected by only a little bit of skin and muscle on the right side of the neck. Apparently it was enough, because within several seconds of the body hitting the ground, the light show began.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Nick was drying off when he heard, and felt, Dana’s angry/fearful yell. He had the impression through the link that she felt threatened with deadly force, but he couldn’t sense anyone else- vampire or mortal. That didn’t stop him from flying down the stairs at top speed. He was just in time to see Dana floating, bathed in a crackling blue aura and screaming like to tear out her throat. He tried to reach through their link and it felt like he was opening his mind to an electric current. He immediately clamped down on the link and watched, helplessly, as she convulsed in… actually she didn’t look like she was in pain anymore, and suddenly the aura collapsed and she crashed to the ground.
“Dana? Are you alright?” Nick asked softly. He gingerly reopened the link between them and felt… He smiled at the feeling. “Dana, do you need a cigarette?”
Scully sat up and looked at Nick, confusion written on her face, “Nick, you know I don’t smo…” she suddenly caught the almost smile on his face and the humor through their link.
Nick suddenly laughed out loud, “Now there is something you won’t see again anytime soon. A vampire blushing!” he crowed. Suddenly he got serious again. “What just happened, Dana?”
In the afterglow of the quickening Scully had momentarily forgotten herself. She pressed into the link with Mulder and saw him tossing the body into the trunk of the caddie and yelling at Natalie to drive. He was looking around for any witnesses but didn’t see anyone. Natalie gunned the engine and squealed the tires as they left the parking lot, on their way back to the loft.
Nick only caught about a third of all of that through his link with Dana, but he could tell that she was completely immersed. “Wow, Dana. Wow. I mean… Wow.” Nick was shaking his head in amazement. “I’ve never heard of a link like that, not even legends. The master/childé link is usually as strong as it gets, but it’s never like this. Never like becoming the other.” He sat down at the table and just stared at his childé. “It’s like you are in a bloodkiss. Total immersion!”
Scully just said, “We tried out your suggestion.”
“Well I’d say it worked,” Nick said with a loud exhale. “So I take it Mulder took his first head? Was it Froag? How did he do it? He doesn’t even have a sword… Does he?”
Scully levitated herself up off of the floor and went over to the fridge and pulled out a couple of bottles. “That really made me hungry,” she explained at Nick’s raised eyebrows.
“Tell me what happened, Dana,” Nick said.
Scully drained about half of a bottle and began, “Well, I woke up and was talking to Mulder when I noticed that he wasn’t in the room,” she began. She recounted all of the events up until the feeling of the quickening and seeing the unknown immortal.
“Who was it?” Nick interrupted. How did Mulder beat him without a sword?
“We don’t know who. As to how… I’m not sure, Nick. It’s almost like when I… That night, when I watched Mulder get shot- it was like that. I was seeing through Mulder’s eyes, and everything around him slowed to a crawl and we hit him in the throat… but it was too fast. Our hand didn’t crush his larynx, it went through his neck…” She looked up at Nick with worry in her eyes. “Mulder shouldn’t be able to move that fast! It’s not possible, is it?”
“What’s not possible, Dana?” Nick asked.
“He can’t have come across? He ate Pancakes! I could taste them. And he was in the sun, I could feel it and it didn’t burn at all! He can’t be a vampire. Can he?” She asked, ranting and throwing her hands in the air.
Nick replied honestly, “Calm down, Dana. This is new to all of us. We will figure it out.” Nick reached over and took her hand, “The important thing for now is that Mulder is alive. Focus on the positive, Dana.”
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
They had driven about 5 minutes when Natalie finally asked the question. “Ok Mulder, you want to explain what just happened?” She continued to stare straight ahead, made sure she had both hands on the wheel and tried very, very, hard to keep her voice calm and even. It was the only way to keep from falling into a complete panic.
Mulder started to laugh, becoming a bit manic before he shut himself up. He could feel a nagging little thread of panic itching to break free. “Sorry Natalie. I would really like to tell you. I really would. But I don’t have a clue. I don’t know if that was Scully acting through me, or if I somehow took some of her attributes, or… I don’t even know where to begin.” Mulder paused for a moment as if waiting for an answer and then said, “Nick and Scully don’t have a clue either.”
Natalie gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and her voice was just a little more brittle as she asked, “You can hear Nick too?”
“Yeah… I mean I can’t hear him, but Scully can and I kinda hear what she hears.” Mulder started to notice that Natalie was more than a little freaked out and hastened to clarify, “I don’t have a link with him if that is what you’re asking. I mean that I can hear him with Scully’s ears. They are talking. Out loud, I mean.” Suddenly he sobered as both the topic of Nick and Scully’s discussion, and the memories that he could sense Scully recalling came through, “She caught part of the quickening.”
“Natalie was distracted from the weirdness of the situation by the thought of an innocent bystander being injured, “Innocent? Bystander?” she wondered. “Maybe kind of ‘not directly involved’, ‘semi-bystander.’ Maybe.” she thought. “Is she ok?” she asked Mulder.
“Yes. Nick is razzing her about the… Well, it kind of starts off really painful, but it ends… Well… Let’s just say I can see how someone might get addicted to headhunting,” he said, blushing.
Natalie saw the blush creep up his face out of the corner of her eye and barked out a short, but genuinely amused laugh. “Do you need a cigarette Mulder?”
Mulder stared at her goggle eyed for a second, “Do you and Nick have a link, Natalie?”
Confused by the apparent non sequitur, Natalie just gave Mulder a puzzled look.
Mulder said, “That is exactly the same question Nick asked Scully.”
Now Natalie began to laugh out loud, dispelling all of her tension in a virtual celebration of the ridiculousness of the entire situation.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Room 1013, Plaza Hotel
Methos was standing on the deck outside the sliding glass door of the hotel room Mulder had ‘loaned’ him when he saw the quickening in the distance. He focused on where he could see it, about a quarter mile away. As soon as he thought he had the landmarks committed to memory he ran back into his room and through the door to Mac’s room. He saw him coming out of the bathroom, pants on and sword in hand- his hair still damp from the shower.
“What the bloody hell?” Mac demanded. “Methos, I told you I would be over when I was ready!”
Methos interrupted him, saying, “I just saw a quickening, MacLeod. Not a quarter mile south of us.”
MacLeod didn’t even pause, “One minute” was all he said as he quickly finished getting dressed.
They were in the car and on the road within 5 minutes. They both knew whoever was involved would be long gone, but if it was Froag, he might leave the body behind. At least they might be able to tell if it was Mulder who was involved. Maybe there would be witnesses from whom they could find out something.
“Here Mac, I’m sure it was here,” Methos said, indicating the parking lot beside a little diner.
They parked and began to walk around the parking lot, looking for anything. Strangely, there was no one milling about; no police cars, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If this was the place, there must not have been any witnesses.
“Methos.” Mac called. “Look here.”
Methos went over to where Mac was standing and looked down at the large blood puddle at his feet. “Someone or something died here.” Mac said.
“I see a few scorch marks, but no broken glass,” Methos added. He noticed something lying between two cars across the drive aisle and went over to it. “Somebody lost their blade,” he said, bending down to pick up the short, broadsword.
“Froag’s?” Mac asked.
“Could be, I know he uses a broadsword, but I’ve never seen it. The question is who else is in town?” Methos frowned. “Froag is a prick, but he’s pretty darned good. If someone took him they had to have done it quickly- you would think the sounds of a prolonged sword fight would bring someone else out of the diner.”
“We can’t be positive, Methos. He could have lost his sword and had to leave quickly,” Mac said.
“But he had time to grab the body?” Methos answered. “Not bloody likely.”
MacLeod thought about it for a moment, “Well, Somebody had time to grab the body and leave the sword. We shouldn’t assume who it was. We need to try and find out.”
“Yeah. I’ll see if his watcher has caught up with him yet.” Methos said, resignedly.
“I have to run an errand across the border. There’s a dealer who claims to have a 13th century kogarasu-zukuri,” MacLeod began.
Methos started laughing, “You were going to come out here anyway! And you want me to feel guilty about ‘dragging you across the continent!’ you…”
“I didn’t plan on dragging myself out of bed and rushing to the airport to catch a plane! I was going to fly in this weekend.” MacLeod said, indignantly.
“Sure, right, whatever.” Methos dismissed MacLeod’s protest. “When will you be back?”
“I told Mulder I would meet him Sunday night at the Raven,” he answered. “I’ll be there about ten or so.”
Methos said “Ok,” and walked away.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Halfway to the loft Mulder said, “Nick wants you to call him.”
Natalie wasn’t angry, but she was getting a little tired of this silent communication. “Alright Kreskin, it’s getting a little old already,” she said as she hit the speed dial.
“Yes Nick? The Amazing Kreskin said you wanted me to call?”
“Actually, I was telling Dana that I should call you. Apparently speaking to one, is the same as speaking to both,” he said as he shot Scully a dirty look.
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled impishly back at him.
Natalie shot Mulder a dirty look and received the same impish grin. “Why were you going to call me?”
Nick said, “Dana said that you’re coming back to the loft?”
“Yeah, why?” Natalie asked.
“I think you should go ahead to the morgue, try and get the vacation. I want to wrap up Dana’s training and…” Nick began
“Nick- there’s our passenger to think about… Remember, he can’t stay long.”
As macabre as it was, Mulder couldn’t help but laugh at Natalie’s delicate description. Of course, that set Scully off and both Nick and Natalie had to listen to laughter in person, and over the phone.
Nick sighed at the ‘children’s’ antics. “Natalie, go to the Raven. I’ll call LaCroix and tell him you’re coming.” Nick added, “Be back here at Midnight and I’ll take you for a ride,” he said suggestively.
This, of course, caused Natalie to blush, while Scully laughed at the suggestion, and Mulder laughed at Natalie, and then Mulder and Scully each laughed even harder at what each other was hearing and seeing. After a few moments they settled down, wiping the tears from their eyes.
“All right Nick,” Natalie said. “I think in the future we will have to avoid phone conversations in these two’s presence. It’s distracting.”
“Absolutely,” Nick agreed. “I will see you at Midnight, Love.”
“I can’t wait!” Natalie replied and then disconnected the call. She found the next turn and headed toward the Raven.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
They drove for about 10 minutes before getting to the alley behind the Raven. As they stepped out of the car they were almost simultaneously struck by the situation.
“I never thought I would be doing something like this,” Mulder began, quietly.
Natalie agreed, saying, “I handle bodies all of the time, but this is definitely different. I’m usually trying to catch a murderer, not helping cover one up and disposing of the body.”
“I didn’t really think of it as a murder, Natalie.” Mulder said somewhat defensively.
“Mulder, ritual combat is still murder in the eyes of the law,” she began, but then relented at the hurt look on his face. “I know you would have avoided this if it were possible, Mulder. But you have to accept that your life now includes behavior that civilized society calls murder. Two hundred years ago duels might have been an accepted and even celebrated activity. Today, they are considered murder.
Times change, but it seems that immortals don’t.” She heaved a big sigh, “It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person Mulder. If things don’t go the way I want them to, I will be joining you in this ‘game.’ Don’t think for a moment that I won’t take someone’s head if it comes down to them or me, but it is still murder in the eyes of the law, and I have always been on the other side of the fence.”
Mulder sighed himself. “Yeah. I don’t think I can live like this and stay in the Bureau. I don’t think they would look kindly on having a head-chopping agent in their employ,” he said leaning against the car and scrubbing at his face with both hands. “Not to mention a mass murderer with a literal taste for blood,” he added with a smile.
[Hey!]
“Sorry, Scully, but you did kill a dozen men. It doesn’t make you a bad person.” He said, quoting Natalie and chuckling. He looked at Natalie and saw the worried look on her face. “Don’t worry Natalie. I’m not loosing it, at least I don’t think so. I am just trying to accept my new reality. Scully and I are murderers. We didn’t do it out of malice, or because we are evil, but because it was all we could do under the circumstances we were in. And, we will both kill again, for the same reasons. So will you. Watchers, Hunters, the ‘Game’; to protect ourselves- and our friends- in our new reality, we will kill. I think I will be better able to accept that if I don’t try to deny it or dismiss it. I will kill to live, but I don’t have to live for the kill.”
[Boy, talk about ‘paradigm shift’.] Scully added. [Whoops! Got to go, Mulder. Nick’s going to try and block our link so we can finish training. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while, Ok?]
“Ok Scully,” Mulder said and then felt their link quiet down almost to nothing.
“Ok, Mulder. I’d just like to go on record saying that this whole ‘mental conversation’ thing you’ve got going with Dana is starting to be really exasperating,” Natalie said, facing him with her hands on her hips and giving him an annoyed look. “Come on, let’s get LaCroix and get this over with. I’ve got to get to the morgue and arrange time off,” she said, heading toward the door to the club.
Author: TheBear!
Crossover: XF/HL/FK
Pairings: M/S N/N T/V
161,428 words
15-Apr-02
Disclaimer—I don’t own any of it.
=====
Chapter 11
Nick’s Loft
12:00 p.m. Thursday December 14th
He had slept all of four hours. He spent another thirty minutes watching his Scully sleeping. Of course there wasn’t much to see. She didn’t breathe, she didn’t move. If it wasn’t for the slight link they had, he might have thought she was dead. He reflected on the way their lives had changed in less than a week. Last week he was an FBI agent obsessed with aliens, conspiracies, the supernatural and the occult. Today he was supernatural- an immortal that was shacking up with a vampire.
In the end, the whole immortality/vampirism thing was minor. More importantly, last week he was desperate, alone, and hopelessly in love with his partner- with no real hope of ever being with her. Today they were one in more ways than he could ever have imagined. “Life is sweet. Weird, but sweet,” he whispered to himself.
Mulder still hadn’t decided exactly what to say to Skinner, yet. It depended on how difficult he was going to be about this. It also depended on why he and Scully had been sent up here in the first place. Other things had occupied his thoughts and kept him from wondering why they were really there.
As Kimberly answered the phone, Mulder reflected that maybe he should have spent a little more time wondering about these things before calling his boss, “Hi Kimberly. It’s Mulder, is he in?”
“One minute, I’ll see if he is available,” she said, putting him on hold. She came back on after a few seconds, “Ok, Agent Mulder. I’m transferring you now.”
“What is it, Mulder?” Skinner sounded slightly annoyed. “What could have possibly happened at a simple conference, for Pete’s sake?” he asked, rhetorically.
Mulder’s mind was filled with a few dozen different scenarios where he answered that question honestly- none of them worked out in his head so he said, “Uh, nothing… that is nothing to be worried about with the conference.”
“What did you need to speak to me about then?” Skinner asked.
“Well, uh, that is I want to request some vacation time. Actually we need to request a couple weeks, Scully and I.” Mulder said, stumbling through the answer.
“Fine. Email a request in and I will approve it. Anything else?” Skinner replied brusquely.
Mulder could not have possibly imagined it would go that easily. “Uh… No sir.” Something was definitely up, but he was going to take advantage of it while he could. “Thank you,” he said.
Skinner replied, “You’re welcome Agent,” and hung up.
“That was too easy.” Mulder muttered to himself
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Natalie woke up feeling extremely thirsty and very sore. However, it was definitely the good kind of sore. She had received more physical gratification in the last 5 days than she had in the rest of her life combined. “Of course, that isn’t saying much” she reflected.
Even without the knowledge that came from the link when Nick drank from her, she would have had no doubt that she was beautiful in Nick’s eyes. It was as though he had worshiped her body. He had touched and stroked and kissed every square inch of her body this morning. She looked like she had been wrestling with a thorn bush, there were little scratches and bite marks spread over her entire body. “As if he was marking his territory,” she thought with amusement. She unequivocally did not mind being marked as his. He could put a big sign on her back that said ‘Property of Nicolas Knight’ as far as she was concerned. She belonged to him, just as he belonged to her. Feeling wanton and decadent, she covered herself in nothing but a silk robe and went downstairs to get something to drink.
As she left the bedroom she heard the television. “Mulder must be up. No way it’s Dana,” she thought. She was no expert on vampires, but it was hard enough to get Nick up and out of bed before sundown, she didn’t think a fledgling would be anything less than dead to the world. She saw him sprawled out on the couch surfing through the channels, not landing on one for more than a few seconds before moving on. “Definitely a guy thing,” she thought. “Nick does the same thing, when he watches TV at all.”
Mulder heard her coming down the stairs and stopped surfing for a moment, “Hey, Natalie. Good Morning?” he asked.
“I think we have to go with ‘good afternoon’ Mulder. How long have you been up?”
Mulder resumed surfing, “About an hour or so.”
“What’s the matter, Mulder? Nothing worth watching?” she asked as she walked to refrigerator.
“Mostly soaps. I have enough intrigue, tragedy and suffering in my life without watching that crap,” Mulder responded. He noticed her destination and asked, “Hey Natalie, could I impose on you to bring me a bottle of whatever you’re having?” He smiled, slightly embarrassed at her knowing look.
“Oh? Are you thirsty, Mulder? Feeling a bit… drained?” she teased as she collapsed into the chair facing the couch Mulder was sprawled out on.
Mulder noticed that her legs looked like they had lost a fight with a dull razor, “I’m lucky, I guess. Mine all healed,” he said, gesturing toward her legs.
It was Natalie’s turn to blush as she handed Mulder his bottle of orange juice. She had brought herself a glass to go with her bottle. She got tired of refilling it after the 3rd time and joined Mulder in drinking straight from the bottle, upending it and not putting it down until it was empty. “Wow. I was really thirsty!”
Mulder smirked at Natalie and said, “I hope you two weren’t planning on waiting very long before you come across. It doesn’t appear that you’ll be able to hold out much longer.”
Natalie blushed furiously at that, but all the same, she was quite happy that she and Mulder could tease each other like that. She hadn’t had a close friend outside of Grace and Nick in what felt like ages, and for her and Nick to have another couple so close, and not have to hide anything at all, “Well, it feels wonderful!” she mused. “I hope you and Dana hang around for a while, Mulder. I really like you guys.”
Mulder’s smile faltered slightly at that.
Instantly concerned, Natalie leaned toward him asked, “Mulder? What’s wrong?”
Mulder sat up and put his face in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees, “I don’t know what we are going to do, Natalie. For the last seven years, the X-Files were my whole life. Scully’s too. I have spent years searching for the answers to certain questions. There are conspiracies that we have been trying to crack for just as long. I am not sure how I feel about giving up on that, even for a year or two that Duncan says I would need to take to train. Not to mention that Scully has a whole new life that she needs to prepare for as well.” He leaned back into the couch and sighed heavily. “On the other hand, I’ve spent most of the last 7 years pining away after my partner too. If I had to choose between the two, Scully would win hands down every time.”
Natalie nodded her head. “I always knew Nick would have to leave someday. He can’t stay in one place for more than a decade or maybe fifteen years at the outside before people notice that he isn’t getting any older. I dreaded that time, not knowing where our relationship would be when it came.”
She stopped for a moment and smiled, wistfully. “I will miss my career, and my friends. In the end though, being with Nick is more important than being the youngest coroner in Toronto history, not to mention being one of the best despite the ‘handicap’ of being a woman.” She stood up and went to the refrigerator to grab two more bottles of OJ and returned to the chair, passing one bottle to Mulder. After draining it in two long pulls, she said, “You know, Mulder- I can be a coroner anywhere I go. Just because you leave the FBI, if that is what you decide, that doesn’t mean you can’t continue your search for the Truth. You already have resources outside of the normal channels, and now you have a couple of key advantages, especially with Dana’s newfound skills and abilities. The two of you could investigate people and places you could never touch before.
“I hadn’t really thought of it like that,” Mulder said in wonder.
“How do you think Nick managed to have the highest solve rate in Department history?” Natalie smirked. “He’s a very good cop, but being essentially impervious to bullets, being able to hypnotize suspects and witnesses, and preternaturally acute senses all stack the deck in your favor.” She laughed, “If I had a dollar for every bullet I’ve removed from Nick in the years I’ve known him, I would be almost as rich as he is.”
“Well, that’s definitely one more thing to consider,” Mulder said. “When Scully and Nick wake up we need to talk.” Mulder closed his eyes and clasped his hands on top of his head, sinking down into the couch, “I need to figure out what I am going to do about my new status. I am not sure I want to spend eternity going around chopping off people’s heads. I know I don’t want to spend eternity on holy ground, not to mention it might be a bit painful for Scully.” He opened his eyes and smiled at Natalie, “I do know that despite all of the uncertainty regarding our changes, I am happy… content. You have no idea how big of a change that is for me. I haven’t been at peace like this since I was a young boy. I am happier right now than I have ever been in my life. However we move forward, so long as it is together, I will adjust to whatever else comes.
Natalie felt almost exactly the same way. Definitely content, whatever may come. She was suddenly struck with a thought, “Aren’t you supposed to be flying back tomorrow?” she asked.
“I called our boss and arranged a couple of weeks off,” he responded.
“I need to do that, too. Nick suggested a couple of months,” she said.
Mulder raised his brows at that, “Can you get that much?” he asked, surprised.
Natalie smiled, “We both have tons of leave accrued. We never really take any,” she said. “Besides, we have a good excuse,” she said, waggling her left ring finger at him.
“Yeah? When are you guys tying the knot?” Mulder asked.
“We were thinking about the weekend before New Years,” she answered.
“What about the… other event?” Mulder asked slyly.
Natalie blushed slightly, “Saturday… I can’t wait!” she confessed, sounding like a little kid two days before Christmas.
Mulder laughed out loud. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I am starved. How about I buy you breakfast to celebrate your impending immortality?” He added, “It’s not as if our significant others will feel left out.”
“Ok, let me leave a note, Nick might actually wake up,” Natalie said getting out a piece of paper and a pen from a kitchen drawer and scrawling a few words. “Ok, let’s go.”
“Uh Natalie? You going in that?” he asked, gesturing at her robe.
“Oh… I guess I’m a little distracted,” she said, blushing again. “Let me go throw something on,” she said running up the stairs.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Nick slowly achieved consciousness. He could feel that the sun was still up, and wondered what had awoken him. He rolled over to look at Natalie and saw that she wasn’t there. “That must have been it,” he thought. Remembering that they had guests, he put on both the top and pants of his pajamas. He was about to head out of the bedroom when he heard Natalie running up the stairs. She swooped into the room and suddenly stopped short when she saw him up and dressed, sort of.
“Oh, Nick! I didn’t think you would be up already,” she said.
“What’s the matter, Nat?” Nick asked, concerned.
Natalie went over to her bag and took out a pair of jeans and a sweater, as well as a bra and panties, and began getting dressed. “Nothing’s wrong, Nick. Mulder and I were going to go grab some breakfast. Want to join us?” she asked, pausing with her arms crossed above her head, about to pull her sweater over her head, and looked at him for a response.
Nick stared at Natalie, clad in jeans and a bra with her hands semi-confined above her head and started to get some ideas he wanted to explore Saturday night prior to her conversion.
Natalie noticed the predatory look he was laying on her and blushed head to toe, “Nick… Breakfast?”
“Thanks Nat- I’m tempted, but I think you had better eat something first. I don’t want you getting anemic!” he replied, deliberately misconstruing her question.
She blushed even harder and pulled her sweater on. “Nicolas de Brabant! You are incorrigible!”
“Nat, after you guys eat, why don’t you go in to the morgue and see if you can arrange that time off. If you can keep Mulder out of Dana’s and my hair until about midnight, I think we can complete the preliminary stuff and she would be able to move out and among mortals without me babysitting her.” Nick suggested.
“Isn’t that awfully fast? Just a couple of days and she is good to go?” Natalie asked, concerned.
“I don’t know what it is, Nat. Maybe it’s the immortal blood she is feeding on, but she’s advancing faster than I’ve ever heard of. Even with the deep link training I’m using, it should take a several days for the basics, and she had them mastered the first night.” Nick shook his head in wonder. We just need to cover a couple of things and practice them a little and she should be ok.”
“And that’s it?” Natalie asked.
“No, she will still need time and practice to master some of the more challenging skills, but she won’t need to be attached to my hip. First of all, those lessons will be intermittent, and second, those lessons can wait. Until we get you caught up to her level.” Nick smiled tenderly at the love of his life. “If things go normally, it won’t take more than two or three weeks at the outside, and who knows? Being filled with your very own supply of immortal blood may accelerate your progress as well.”
“Or I might not come across at all,” Natalie said, somewhat glumly.
Nick refused to let the possibility bring him down, “Then sword lessons for you, young lady! Now, go. Eat. Keep Mulder occupied. I’ll see you tonight.” Nick laid into her with a searing kiss, giving her a taste of just what he had in store for her tonight.
Natalie kissed him back just as thoroughly, letting him know she was more than ready for whatever he had for her tonight.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Natalie and Mulder had each consumed 2 entrees and about a gallon of orange juice before they felt sated. The bemused waitress had stopped even asking if there was anything else she could get them, and just brought them a pitcher of juice.
Mulder was laughing at Natalie’s stories, sharing things with her that he had only shared with Scully. He was suddenly struck by the fact that he hadn’t sat and talked with a friend, about nothing special, for… “I can’t remember doing this since I joined the FBI.” No conspiracies, no aliens, no work at all. It was almost like he was exhaling after holding his breath for years. No angst, no emotional investment, just a nice chat with a friendly person who had no political interest or reason for betrayal.
Natalie noticed Mulder drifting off into another world and smiled at him. He looked relaxed. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you relax this week, Mulder,” she observed.
That was exactly it. He felt relaxed. In his anal-retentive obsessiveness, now that he could put a name on it, he could quit thinking about it. “Yeah,” he said with a kind of satisfied sigh. “Actually, I think it’s been quite a while longer than a week.”
Natalie leaned back and smiled at Mulder. Outside the sun was setting, and she could see part of the sunset between the buildings. She was enjoying the peaceful companionship. She suddenly started at the look of utter shock on Mulder’s face. He looked like he had sat on a tack, or been touched by a live wire.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Nick’s Loft
4:45 p.m. Thursday December 14th
Scully came back to life with the setting of the sun. She could feel it slipping over the horizon with her newfound senses, “That’s strange,” she thought, she felt as though she had just lain down. She remembered the last thing she had done before falling asleep- drinking Mulder’s hot life’s-blood as she rode out her own orgasm and, through the link, felt his as well. “That’s definitely the way I want to fall asleep from now on!” she thought.
[That can be arranged] she heard Mulder say. She rolled over to look at her lover when she noticed she was alone in bed. She immediately sat up and looked around for him, but he was nowhere in sight. “Mulder! Where are you?” she asked out loud.
[Actually Scully, I am downtown having breakfast with Natalie.]
“What?!” she almost shouted. She suddenly realized that she wasn’t hearing him with her ears, but rather in her head. She closed her eyes and saw a table full of empty dishes in front of her and a very concerned looking Natalie leaning forward and asking her ‘what’s wrong, Mulder?’
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Mulder answered Natalie’s question, “Nothing, Natalie. Scully just woke up, that’s all.”
[Tell her that her theory of the blood exchange was apparently right] Scully thought to Mulder with a sense of wonder at this new sensation.
“Scully says your theory was right. What theory was that?” Mulder asked.
Natalie’s train of thought was completely derailed. “You… She???” Natalie paused and scrubbed at her face with her hands and swept them up and through her hair, taking a moment to put her thoughts together. “You can hear her?” she asked, still trying to reorganize mentally.
Mulder was starting to feel very hungry suddenly. Very hungry. He closed his eyes and groaned at the hunger pangs. As his eyes closed he suddenly found himself in Nick’s guest bedroom, but only for a moment and then the scenery whizzed by and he found himself, not half a second later, wrenching the refrigerator door open, grabbing a bottle, tearing the cork out and chugging it down.
[Sorry, that was me.] Scully thought. [I felt how full you were and my own hunger didn’t hit me for a moment.]
Mulder was momentarily lost in the sensation that came from the blood. He had a faint impression of a young man laying on a table at the Red Cross, donating for his school’s blood drive. As he opened his eyes he came back to himself and noticed that Natalie was looking a little green, “Actually, everything looks a little green,” he thought.
Natalie was about to ask Mulder what was wrong when he opened his eyes and she saw that they had changed to the green/gold of a vampire. Her hands flew to cover her mouth as she gasped out loud. “Mulder! Your eyes!” she whispered loudly, looking around to see if anyone else noticed.
“What?” he said, blinking rapidly until the greenish tinge everything had was gone. “What just happened?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. He focused on Natalie who was still staring at him, stunned. Abruptly he stood up and pulled out his wallet. Throwing two fifties on the table he said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He growled.
Natalie silently stood up, grabbed her stuff and walked out with Mulder. As they got outside she explained what she had seen.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Scully had her eyes closed, listening in, but not commenting. She didn’t know what to think- Mulder’s eyes vamping out? Was it an echo of her, or was he changing? What did it mean? Suddenly she felt something she had never felt before- like fire in her head and a buzzing in her ears.
[Oh, no. Not now!] she heard Mulder think.
She saw through his eyes an intense man striding through the parking lot towards Mulder and Natalie with violence written all over him.
[It’s not Froag. I don’t know who it is.] she heard Mulder tell Natalie. [Go get in the car, get it running and I’ll jump in.]
She heard Natalie answer ask him what he was going to do without a sword.
[I don’t think he will try anything here, it’s pretty public. Just go!]
Scully saw him pull a sword from his coat and felt Mulder’s fear blossom. “NO!” she screamed.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Natalie jumped into the driver’s seat of the Caddie and started it up. She pulled out of the parking spot and dropped it into drive with her shaking hand. She headed to where Mulder was and saw the immortal cocking a sword back over his shoulder, getting ready to swing it at Mulder. What she saw next almost caused her to wreck the car.
Mulder moved faster than the eye could see- he struck the other immortal in the neck with the edge of his hand like he was trying to crush his larynx, but he struck with such force that he took his head almost entirely off. It remained connected by only a little bit of skin and muscle on the right side of the neck. Apparently it was enough, because within several seconds of the body hitting the ground, the light show began.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Nick was drying off when he heard, and felt, Dana’s angry/fearful yell. He had the impression through the link that she felt threatened with deadly force, but he couldn’t sense anyone else- vampire or mortal. That didn’t stop him from flying down the stairs at top speed. He was just in time to see Dana floating, bathed in a crackling blue aura and screaming like to tear out her throat. He tried to reach through their link and it felt like he was opening his mind to an electric current. He immediately clamped down on the link and watched, helplessly, as she convulsed in… actually she didn’t look like she was in pain anymore, and suddenly the aura collapsed and she crashed to the ground.
“Dana? Are you alright?” Nick asked softly. He gingerly reopened the link between them and felt… He smiled at the feeling. “Dana, do you need a cigarette?”
Scully sat up and looked at Nick, confusion written on her face, “Nick, you know I don’t smo…” she suddenly caught the almost smile on his face and the humor through their link.
Nick suddenly laughed out loud, “Now there is something you won’t see again anytime soon. A vampire blushing!” he crowed. Suddenly he got serious again. “What just happened, Dana?”
In the afterglow of the quickening Scully had momentarily forgotten herself. She pressed into the link with Mulder and saw him tossing the body into the trunk of the caddie and yelling at Natalie to drive. He was looking around for any witnesses but didn’t see anyone. Natalie gunned the engine and squealed the tires as they left the parking lot, on their way back to the loft.
Nick only caught about a third of all of that through his link with Dana, but he could tell that she was completely immersed. “Wow, Dana. Wow. I mean… Wow.” Nick was shaking his head in amazement. “I’ve never heard of a link like that, not even legends. The master/childé link is usually as strong as it gets, but it’s never like this. Never like becoming the other.” He sat down at the table and just stared at his childé. “It’s like you are in a bloodkiss. Total immersion!”
Scully just said, “We tried out your suggestion.”
“Well I’d say it worked,” Nick said with a loud exhale. “So I take it Mulder took his first head? Was it Froag? How did he do it? He doesn’t even have a sword… Does he?”
Scully levitated herself up off of the floor and went over to the fridge and pulled out a couple of bottles. “That really made me hungry,” she explained at Nick’s raised eyebrows.
“Tell me what happened, Dana,” Nick said.
Scully drained about half of a bottle and began, “Well, I woke up and was talking to Mulder when I noticed that he wasn’t in the room,” she began. She recounted all of the events up until the feeling of the quickening and seeing the unknown immortal.
“Who was it?” Nick interrupted. How did Mulder beat him without a sword?
“We don’t know who. As to how… I’m not sure, Nick. It’s almost like when I… That night, when I watched Mulder get shot- it was like that. I was seeing through Mulder’s eyes, and everything around him slowed to a crawl and we hit him in the throat… but it was too fast. Our hand didn’t crush his larynx, it went through his neck…” She looked up at Nick with worry in her eyes. “Mulder shouldn’t be able to move that fast! It’s not possible, is it?”
“What’s not possible, Dana?” Nick asked.
“He can’t have come across? He ate Pancakes! I could taste them. And he was in the sun, I could feel it and it didn’t burn at all! He can’t be a vampire. Can he?” She asked, ranting and throwing her hands in the air.
Nick replied honestly, “Calm down, Dana. This is new to all of us. We will figure it out.” Nick reached over and took her hand, “The important thing for now is that Mulder is alive. Focus on the positive, Dana.”
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
They had driven about 5 minutes when Natalie finally asked the question. “Ok Mulder, you want to explain what just happened?” She continued to stare straight ahead, made sure she had both hands on the wheel and tried very, very, hard to keep her voice calm and even. It was the only way to keep from falling into a complete panic.
Mulder started to laugh, becoming a bit manic before he shut himself up. He could feel a nagging little thread of panic itching to break free. “Sorry Natalie. I would really like to tell you. I really would. But I don’t have a clue. I don’t know if that was Scully acting through me, or if I somehow took some of her attributes, or… I don’t even know where to begin.” Mulder paused for a moment as if waiting for an answer and then said, “Nick and Scully don’t have a clue either.”
Natalie gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and her voice was just a little more brittle as she asked, “You can hear Nick too?”
“Yeah… I mean I can’t hear him, but Scully can and I kinda hear what she hears.” Mulder started to notice that Natalie was more than a little freaked out and hastened to clarify, “I don’t have a link with him if that is what you’re asking. I mean that I can hear him with Scully’s ears. They are talking. Out loud, I mean.” Suddenly he sobered as both the topic of Nick and Scully’s discussion, and the memories that he could sense Scully recalling came through, “She caught part of the quickening.”
“Natalie was distracted from the weirdness of the situation by the thought of an innocent bystander being injured, “Innocent? Bystander?” she wondered. “Maybe kind of ‘not directly involved’, ‘semi-bystander.’ Maybe.” she thought. “Is she ok?” she asked Mulder.
“Yes. Nick is razzing her about the… Well, it kind of starts off really painful, but it ends… Well… Let’s just say I can see how someone might get addicted to headhunting,” he said, blushing.
Natalie saw the blush creep up his face out of the corner of her eye and barked out a short, but genuinely amused laugh. “Do you need a cigarette Mulder?”
Mulder stared at her goggle eyed for a second, “Do you and Nick have a link, Natalie?”
Confused by the apparent non sequitur, Natalie just gave Mulder a puzzled look.
Mulder said, “That is exactly the same question Nick asked Scully.”
Now Natalie began to laugh out loud, dispelling all of her tension in a virtual celebration of the ridiculousness of the entire situation.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Room 1013, Plaza Hotel
Methos was standing on the deck outside the sliding glass door of the hotel room Mulder had ‘loaned’ him when he saw the quickening in the distance. He focused on where he could see it, about a quarter mile away. As soon as he thought he had the landmarks committed to memory he ran back into his room and through the door to Mac’s room. He saw him coming out of the bathroom, pants on and sword in hand- his hair still damp from the shower.
“What the bloody hell?” Mac demanded. “Methos, I told you I would be over when I was ready!”
Methos interrupted him, saying, “I just saw a quickening, MacLeod. Not a quarter mile south of us.”
MacLeod didn’t even pause, “One minute” was all he said as he quickly finished getting dressed.
They were in the car and on the road within 5 minutes. They both knew whoever was involved would be long gone, but if it was Froag, he might leave the body behind. At least they might be able to tell if it was Mulder who was involved. Maybe there would be witnesses from whom they could find out something.
“Here Mac, I’m sure it was here,” Methos said, indicating the parking lot beside a little diner.
They parked and began to walk around the parking lot, looking for anything. Strangely, there was no one milling about; no police cars, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If this was the place, there must not have been any witnesses.
“Methos.” Mac called. “Look here.”
Methos went over to where Mac was standing and looked down at the large blood puddle at his feet. “Someone or something died here.” Mac said.
“I see a few scorch marks, but no broken glass,” Methos added. He noticed something lying between two cars across the drive aisle and went over to it. “Somebody lost their blade,” he said, bending down to pick up the short, broadsword.
“Froag’s?” Mac asked.
“Could be, I know he uses a broadsword, but I’ve never seen it. The question is who else is in town?” Methos frowned. “Froag is a prick, but he’s pretty darned good. If someone took him they had to have done it quickly- you would think the sounds of a prolonged sword fight would bring someone else out of the diner.”
“We can’t be positive, Methos. He could have lost his sword and had to leave quickly,” Mac said.
“But he had time to grab the body?” Methos answered. “Not bloody likely.”
MacLeod thought about it for a moment, “Well, Somebody had time to grab the body and leave the sword. We shouldn’t assume who it was. We need to try and find out.”
“Yeah. I’ll see if his watcher has caught up with him yet.” Methos said, resignedly.
“I have to run an errand across the border. There’s a dealer who claims to have a 13th century kogarasu-zukuri,” MacLeod began.
Methos started laughing, “You were going to come out here anyway! And you want me to feel guilty about ‘dragging you across the continent!’ you…”
“I didn’t plan on dragging myself out of bed and rushing to the airport to catch a plane! I was going to fly in this weekend.” MacLeod said, indignantly.
“Sure, right, whatever.” Methos dismissed MacLeod’s protest. “When will you be back?”
“I told Mulder I would meet him Sunday night at the Raven,” he answered. “I’ll be there about ten or so.”
Methos said “Ok,” and walked away.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
Halfway to the loft Mulder said, “Nick wants you to call him.”
Natalie wasn’t angry, but she was getting a little tired of this silent communication. “Alright Kreskin, it’s getting a little old already,” she said as she hit the speed dial.
“Yes Nick? The Amazing Kreskin said you wanted me to call?”
“Actually, I was telling Dana that I should call you. Apparently speaking to one, is the same as speaking to both,” he said as he shot Scully a dirty look.
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled impishly back at him.
Natalie shot Mulder a dirty look and received the same impish grin. “Why were you going to call me?”
Nick said, “Dana said that you’re coming back to the loft?”
“Yeah, why?” Natalie asked.
“I think you should go ahead to the morgue, try and get the vacation. I want to wrap up Dana’s training and…” Nick began
“Nick- there’s our passenger to think about… Remember, he can’t stay long.”
As macabre as it was, Mulder couldn’t help but laugh at Natalie’s delicate description. Of course, that set Scully off and both Nick and Natalie had to listen to laughter in person, and over the phone.
Nick sighed at the ‘children’s’ antics. “Natalie, go to the Raven. I’ll call LaCroix and tell him you’re coming.” Nick added, “Be back here at Midnight and I’ll take you for a ride,” he said suggestively.
This, of course, caused Natalie to blush, while Scully laughed at the suggestion, and Mulder laughed at Natalie, and then Mulder and Scully each laughed even harder at what each other was hearing and seeing. After a few moments they settled down, wiping the tears from their eyes.
“All right Nick,” Natalie said. “I think in the future we will have to avoid phone conversations in these two’s presence. It’s distracting.”
“Absolutely,” Nick agreed. “I will see you at Midnight, Love.”
“I can’t wait!” Natalie replied and then disconnected the call. She found the next turn and headed toward the Raven.
===== X-FILES ===== FOREVER KNIGHT ===== HIGHLANDER =====
They drove for about 10 minutes before getting to the alley behind the Raven. As they stepped out of the car they were almost simultaneously struck by the situation.
“I never thought I would be doing something like this,” Mulder began, quietly.
Natalie agreed, saying, “I handle bodies all of the time, but this is definitely different. I’m usually trying to catch a murderer, not helping cover one up and disposing of the body.”
“I didn’t really think of it as a murder, Natalie.” Mulder said somewhat defensively.
“Mulder, ritual combat is still murder in the eyes of the law,” she began, but then relented at the hurt look on his face. “I know you would have avoided this if it were possible, Mulder. But you have to accept that your life now includes behavior that civilized society calls murder. Two hundred years ago duels might have been an accepted and even celebrated activity. Today, they are considered murder.
Times change, but it seems that immortals don’t.” She heaved a big sigh, “It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person Mulder. If things don’t go the way I want them to, I will be joining you in this ‘game.’ Don’t think for a moment that I won’t take someone’s head if it comes down to them or me, but it is still murder in the eyes of the law, and I have always been on the other side of the fence.”
Mulder sighed himself. “Yeah. I don’t think I can live like this and stay in the Bureau. I don’t think they would look kindly on having a head-chopping agent in their employ,” he said leaning against the car and scrubbing at his face with both hands. “Not to mention a mass murderer with a literal taste for blood,” he added with a smile.
[Hey!]
“Sorry, Scully, but you did kill a dozen men. It doesn’t make you a bad person.” He said, quoting Natalie and chuckling. He looked at Natalie and saw the worried look on her face. “Don’t worry Natalie. I’m not loosing it, at least I don’t think so. I am just trying to accept my new reality. Scully and I are murderers. We didn’t do it out of malice, or because we are evil, but because it was all we could do under the circumstances we were in. And, we will both kill again, for the same reasons. So will you. Watchers, Hunters, the ‘Game’; to protect ourselves- and our friends- in our new reality, we will kill. I think I will be better able to accept that if I don’t try to deny it or dismiss it. I will kill to live, but I don’t have to live for the kill.”
[Boy, talk about ‘paradigm shift’.] Scully added. [Whoops! Got to go, Mulder. Nick’s going to try and block our link so we can finish training. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while, Ok?]
“Ok Scully,” Mulder said and then felt their link quiet down almost to nothing.
“Ok, Mulder. I’d just like to go on record saying that this whole ‘mental conversation’ thing you’ve got going with Dana is starting to be really exasperating,” Natalie said, facing him with her hands on her hips and giving him an annoyed look. “Come on, let’s get LaCroix and get this over with. I’ve got to get to the morgue and arrange time off,” she said, heading toward the door to the club.
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