[X-Files] Fanfic: Variations on a Theme, Chapter 1 (PG)

Oct 11, 2010 11:17

Title: Variations on a Theme
Author: colebaltblue
Artist: TLynnfic
Word Count: 21,000 (this chapter 2,800)
Rating: PG
Warnings: no specific ones
Summary: Alternate universe. Dr. Dana Scully is a medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco when she is assigned the Jane Doe #19292. In Washington, D.C. behavioral sciences unit FBI agent Fox Mulder becomes interested in Jane Doe #19292 and heads out to San Francisco to investigate. The rest, they say, is history.
Author's Notes: Written for the X-Files Big Bang 2010. Many, many, many thanks to Tracy and Cass for their comments, critiques, and corrections.




3:31am
May 10, 1993
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA

He bent over the shallow trench, measuring with his eyes, what would become a grave for the small body wrapped in black plastic lying beside him. There was nothing manic about his movements, nothing sensational, nothing Hollywood. Instead, he was mechanical, detached, and emotionless - he had a job to do and he was doing it. The trench wasn't deep enough, he decided. A dog or something else would smell the body too quickly and attract attention to it too soon. Digging a grave was a science, he told himself as he tightened his grip on the worn shovel handle. Too deep and he risked the body not being found when it needed to be found. Too shallow and he risked the loss of crucial evidence; evidence his employers wanted to be found along with the body.

He rammed the shovel into the dirt again. This wasn't the ideal site to bury a body, the earth was too hard-packed to make digging easy, it was very public and he risked exposure at any second. If it had been up to him, the body would have simply disappeared, tucked away where no one would ever find it. But, his employers were insistent, we want the body found, they had told him, not like some of the others. So, like the depth of the grave, the risk of exposure and dirt were calculations too. If the right investigator caught the case, he would seem cold and calculating, exact and methodical. Then, the investigator would ask why, which was exactly what he wanted.

The bushes rustled and he paused, breathing shallowly through his mouth. The night was moonless, dark, and this part of the park not lit. The bushes held a few transients, long since fallen into drug and alcohol induced stupors. At best they wouldn't remember a thing, at worst they were such unreliable witnesses and no investigator would listen to what they had to say - even if it was the truth. Still, it wouldn't do to have a drunk and lost person stumble across him while trying to take a short cut through the park. While he was far enough away from the well-lit paths to reduce that risk, but the necessity of the body needing to be found quickly dictated he was still fairly close. Accidents happened. He shoveled a little bit harder, sacrificing stealth for speed.

A short while later he was satisfied with the trench. It was just long enough for the contents of the black plastic tarp laying on the ground next to him, just deep enough to keep from being discovered tomorrow and shallow enough that the smell would be noticeable to any human nose within a day or two.

The man carefully spread a new black plastic sheet on the bottom of the grave, and then picked up the fifty pound body laying next to the grave and carefully laid it in, arranging the sheet covering it so that elements could creep in, making a few tears. He was careful not to look at the body though as he tore the plastic. He hated the plastic that wrapped the innocence of the little girl, hated what it did to her, encasing her in a temporary body bag.

He quickly shoveled the dirt back over the body, and packed it down as best he could. He tossed some leaves and a few broken branches over it, brushing away the spots where his shoes had left impressions in the ground. His shoes had been disguised, melted treads and the wrong size, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. He wanted the body found, not him.

Stepping back, he looked at the grave; it blended in well enough to fool the casual passerby, but would glaringly obvious to a person looking for it. The recently disturbed dirt would give away the gravesite as much as the smell. Just before turning away, he paused and said a quick prayer in his native Russian over the body. It was one he had been taught as a child, a prayer for strength in the face of a dark world.

He slipped out of the park, blending into the shadows in a way that spoke of long practice. It was early enough that people were beginning to stir on the street, preparing to start their days. San Francisco was an odd city, only truly asleep between three and four am, after last call and the drunks made it home and before the financiers and those that served them were up in time to be at their desks in time for the opening of the markets in Europe. He had done his work well and timed it perfectly. They would be pleased with him.

An hour later he let himself into his small rented room in a residential hotel in the Tenderloin neighborhood and carefully removed the clothes he was wearing, bagging them up. He would burn them later, but first he reached for some tinfoil, his lighter, and a bit of smack. This work didn’t come naturally to him and he needed the release of something else before he called his employers. He felt the warmth suffuse his body as he inhaled the smoke rising from the foil. His mind let go and he let the waves of euphoria wash over him. He felt his consciousness slipping from his fingers and smiled to himself, the heroin wouldn’t let him panic as it moved throughout his body, stealing his life one drowsy happy moment to the next.

8:07 am
May 13, 1993
San Francisco City Medical Examiner's Office
San Francisco, CA

"Hey, Doc, we had one come in overnight for you."

Dr. Dana Scully's looked up from the reports in her hand as she walked into the room. Her assistant George was standing at the only occupied autopsy table holding another file in his hand. She glanced at the body and noticed the small size almost immediately, her lips pressed together briefly. A kid, she thought to herself, those are always the hardest, the kids.

“She was found in Golden Gate Park last night by a couple of drunk kids most likely looking to check a few off their been there done that list,” George said with a smile as he placed the file down on the end of the table. Scully allowed herself a brief quirk of the lips, acknowledging the dry humor of George’s tone. His rough British accent and dark curly hair made his gallows humor seem charming rather than dark and he used it to his full advantage.

She walked up to the deceased still encased the body back and tried to distance herself from it. George moved about behind her, prepping for the autopsy. That's why she liked George; he worked smoothly, quietly and without fuss. His quiet professionalism would be an asset today.

"Thank you, George," she said, returning to the shelves near the door and depositing her coffee cup there, next to George’s rapidly cooling cup of tea. She reached for the yellow smock from stack beside her on the lower shelf and pulled it on, tightening the strings around her waist. She sighed as she rolled the sleeves up, wondering yet again why they didn’t make the smocks in anything other than a ‘universal’ size that was anything but. It didn’t help that she was the only female medical examiner there either.

She caught George’s smothered grin out of the corner of her eye. Unlike most of her colleagues, his amusement wasn’t condescending so she just ignored it. She tucked her red hair into her cap, tying the strings tightly as she turned to face George.

“How many today?” she asked, striding over to the autopsy table with purpose. It was always easier to face the kids when she had her hair up in a cap and layers of scrubs and smocks on. It was a sort of armor that disconnected her and allowed her to simply do her job. George appeared at her side, setting out the trays. She gloved her hands and reached out to assist him, noticing her small hands next to his larger ones, both covered in latex.

“Four, Doctor, three in the locker and then this one.”

She sighed, not looking forward to a day spent alternatively on her feet or crouched over her desk scribbling notes. “Right, well,” she answered, gesturing to the body. With any luck, everything would go smoothly and she’d be home and in a hot bath at a reasonable hour.

George nodded, understanding and handed her the file.

"Jane Doe, Caucasian, eight to ten, partially decomposed, found in Golden Gate Park yesterday evening, wrapped in plastic in a shallow grave," she murmured to herself as she read. Scully pressed her lips together. She made a notation to send out the medical examiner investigators first thing so survey the scene and take pictures.
Taking a breath, she fortified herself. Kids are always the hardest, she thought as she unzipped the bag and folded it away from the body. Jane Doe had curly brown hair, and the awkward limbs of an active little girl. George began making notes, gleaning information for a description to try to match to the missing persons database: height, weight, and physical features. He examined the body for birthmarks as Scully clicked on the microphone hanging above the autopsy tray and began her external examination.

"Jane Doe, number 19292, eight to ten years of age, body shows signs of limited external trauma, bruising present at wrists and ankles, perimortem lacerations," she flipped the arms over, exposing the insides of the arms and felt her throat constrict, "evidence of IV lines in arms." The girl had been treated, somewhere, with something intravenous around the time of her death. Either a hospital would have record of recently treating her, or this case would turn out to be worse than she thought.

They moved to flip the body over and she saw George pause, with his hand under the girl's neck. Scully leaned over to move the girl's hair out of the way. Her neck was a raw and open wound. It looked partially healed and then reinjured, indicating it occurred while she was still alive. Torture, she thought to herself. She glanced at George and he met her look briefly. He had the same thought, she knew. This was going to be harder than she thought. She was a medical examiner, she thought, she had chosen this career to give a voice to those who could no longer speak. But some days, days like today, it was hard enough she occasionally thought about that cushy job in research she had turned down. Days like today, she thought about calling up Daniel, cashing in on her favor, and getting that teaching job. Some days, it was just hard.

An hour later she clicked off the tape recorder. There was no obvious cause of death, no fatal wound, but plenty of small ones. There were bruises on the body, but none finger-shaped. There were cuts and burns, but the cuts looked clean, as if made by a scalpel and the burns looked electrical in nature. Her stomach had almost betrayed her as she had done her examination for sexual trauma, but calmed slightly when she found none.

At first glance, it was a classic case of an abused child, body broken and shut down by just too much trauma at too young of an age. But the lack of a fatal wound puzzled her. Some of the wounds looked older, but all were inflicted within the last few months and there was no scarring to indicate long-term abuse. In her experience, child abusers didn't start at eight years of age and sexual abuse was almost always present.

There was something else about the wounds that were bothering her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

The internal examination had revealed little more than the body of a probably healthy little girl with no traumatic internal injuries, healed or otherwise.

"Cause of death?" George asked.

"Undetermined, but please run a full screen on her blood work with a note to check for an extended panel, maybe we'll learn what those intravenous lines were for," Scully responded gesturing at Jane Doe's arms.

"George, can you also check hospital records, private and public, for a girl matching Jane Doe's description? Police records as well. Some of these wounds…" she trailed off, George nodded, thinking the same thing. "Please check the police databases and contact the FBI as well. Jane Doe had a home and family at some point."

6:32 pm
May 14, 1993
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Washington, D.C.

Special Agent Fox Mulder clicked on the desk lamp, illuminating his desk in a warm yellow island of light. The last agent leaving for the day had turned off the overhead lights twenty minutes before and the sun was on the other side of the building. He leaned forward, typing in the search query terms to the FBI database. His research was done for the day on his assigned duties. The next few hours would be spent looking for his sister in databases and police reports. She had disappeared two decades ago and he had never stopped looking for her. With the Internet and computerized databases, he spent his Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays following leads online.

His phone on his desk began ringing. He looked at it, knowing exactly who it was, visualizing her standing in his apartment even though he had changed the locks, with a take-out dinner in one hand and his phone in her other. He debated picking it up, not sure if he wanted the argument that would come. Mulder sighed, knowing if he didn't pick up, she'd just keep calling.

"Diana," he said.

"Fox, please don't tell me you are still there." Mulder rolled his eyes, she knew very well where he was, why he was there, and that he'd be there all night. The conversation went like this nearly every Friday night. He didn't respond.

"I brought you dinner, why don't you come home," she continued.

"I'm not hungry, Diana."

"Fox, you need to eat."

Would they ever say anything different? He knew how'd it go from here. They'd exchange a few terse words and he'd hang up the phone. He'd come home around midnight and find her sitting on his couch, plates of cold take-out in front of her. She'd stay if he didn't physically shove her out the door, but usually he just ignored her and fell asleep on the couch and she'd leave on her own in the middle of the night.

To an outsider their relationship looked unhealthy and full of passive aggressiveness - one would never know it had ended two years ago when Diana had left for Europe. She had returned suddenly a year ago and had been trying to do whatever she was trying to do ever since. She was nothing if not persistent.

Not feeling like having the discussion tonight he just simply hung up without answering. He then messaged his friends, asking for a spot on the couch to sleep and perhaps a pizza when he got there. He then got back to work and put Diana out of his mind. With any luck she'd be gone when he stopped in to feed his fish tomorrow.

He entered a description into the database and to his surprise, it flagged a report, he clicked on it. It was this morning by the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office. Jane Doe #19292 was her designation. The technical medical terms used in the report distanced Jane Doe from Samantha in his mind, but he couldn't help but feel for the little girl as he read the report, wondering if Samantha had been treated the same.

On a hunch, he entered a few more search terms into the database and he was rewarded when two more cases were flagged. Two were a coincidence; three was a pattern. He began a report for Patterson and checked the name of the medical examiner on the report. He'd contact the San Francisco medical examiner's office Monday morning regarding Jane Doe #19292 about the case. With any luck, he'd be there by Tuesday.

Chapter 2

fanfic, x-files, xfbigbang2010, scully, fandom, mulder/scully, mulder, alternate universe

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