Gold, Fire, Ice 3/?
Title: Gold, Fire, Ice
Rating: M15+ (overall rating)
Fandoms Crossed: Blood Ties/The X-Files
Pairing: Vicki Nelson/Dana Scully
Spoilers: Set post-Wrapped, somewhere around S3 of XF
Summary: Vicki's been out hunting an ice demon, by herself. When she saves two hapless FBI agents from the creature, she gains a pair of mysterious allies. But when has a little mystery ever put Vicki Nelson off?
Author's Notes: Started this a while ago, when I was just getting into XF, but it was put away when I hit a difficult bit and gave up. Oh, fickle muse! etc etc Anyway, started it all up again and I'm hoping a bit of encouragement might spur me to finish it promptly and in good form. Hurrah!
Vicki sat with her feet up on the edge of the fountain, watching the stars and blinking away her tiredness. After tracking down her client's unfaithful husband at a hotel in Vancouver (convention in Minneapolis, my ass) and billing her for 6 gruelling days work, she'd managed to doze off for about 40 minutes before Mike called to confirm the suits flashing their IDs at him did, in fact, know her and weren't a couple of Coreen's friends trying to pull a fast one. Knowing the type of people her assistant hung out with and not forgetting that incident with the stolen FBI facial recognition software, Vicki couldn't really blame him for checking but she'd had roughly 8 hours sleep in the past three days and she was grumpy after being woken up.
After a rather heated exchange with Mike (which she apologised for after realising she'd called him an "ungrateful fanged bastard" which kind of indicated there was some misplaced anger there, sleep deprivation notwithstanding), she cleaned her rifle and hauled out the last few salt cartidges she had left from her bottom drawer. Putting her smallest flashlight in her jacket pocket and slinging her gun over one shoulder, she headed out for some Chinese before hailing a taxi to the park.
Vicki thought about the two FBI agents she was waiting for. It was an amazing stroke of luck, them showing up at her office. With Mike snowed under at work, Henry not speaking to her and Coreen working herself into an early grave, Vicki was just about to give up on solving this latest demon problem. Which would have royally sucked for its next victim. But Agents Mulder and Scully had stepped in with very little persuasion to her cause (and sanity), even filling in some of the blanks in her investigation. She wondered what kind of cases they were pulling for the Bureau, to be so accepting of her supernatural conclusions about their winged suspect. Something about X-Files? She shifted against the cold stone of the silent fountain. If they're into weird and freaky, they can take some of my caseload, Vicki thought, rubbing absent mindedly at her demon brands.
They were an interesting pair. That Agent Mulder was pretty unique, talking about aliens and the conservation of murderous ice demons. As far as Vicki was concerned, they could all go straight to hell, where they belonged. But she liked the smile that tugged at his lips when he made an unexpected joke and although she'd usually cut down any man who stood in her office, telling her what they were going to do about one of her cases, she was grateful for his unthinking support. They could have just demanded information from her and left. They probably would have been turned into US federal popsicles but they could have done it.
Agent Scully was something of an enigma. Vicki remembered the way those blue eyes watched her, considered her, gathered information to catalogue for later use. They were very intelligent, those eyes. And unsettling. Very unsettling. She was a walking contradiction, that woman. Absolutely tiny, even by Vicki's standards (she herself only came up to Mike's chin, something he would hold over her, very literally, whenever they got into an argument about who could take who in a fight), and pale as cream but with those piercing blue eyes and that flaming red hair. She seemed almost quiet, reserved, compared to her partner's innate energy. But when she looked up from Coreen's research right into Vicki's eyes, she knew Agent Scully was not all she seemed. Call it a cop's gut instinct.
Just as Vicki was about to check her watch, a car pulled up thirty yards away. The FBI agents exited the dark sedan and Mulder retrieved something from the back seat before they approached Vicki. She swung her legs over the concrete ledge and stood, brushing her jeans off. She glanced at her watch - 9:30.
"Ready for some demon hunting?" she threw across the grass. Scully gave her an almost smile and Mulder chambered a round in the pump action shotgun he'd retrieved from the back seat. Vicki looked at him sceptically. "Unless that's a cleverly disguised flamethrower, I have absolutely no idea what you're doing with that." Mulder grinned.
"Secret weapon. First, we did some scouting around today. Your friend Celluci was very helpful, once he was convinced we weren't impersonating US federal agents. He managed to get us these before his boss dragged him back into interview. Nice lady." Mulder held up a couple of printed pages showing topographical maps of the area they were in. He shone a flashlight on the paper and Vicki noticed a few red dots were scattered over both pages.
"The dots are especially low points in the geography and a couple of abandoned warehouses Celluci pointed out to us. We checked half of them out before getting to Moore Park Ravine." He his teeth flashed white in the torchlight. "We found its hideout." Vicki stared in surprise.
"Nice work."
Of course, she couldn't have found its newest nest herself, she was exhausted and had no time. But it was still a little annoying that a couple of Americans could come in and make a huge jump in her case in just a few hours. Hmm.
"It’s using a cave at the bottom of the ravine for its current habitation. But we have no way of knowing if it will return there or to a new location, correct?" Scully looked to Vicki, who nodded. "That's where Mulder's secret weapon comes in." She smiled a little indulgently at her partner, who waggled his eyebrows.
"We obtained a couple of tracking devices that can be fired from this shotgun. They're located inside specially designed ammunition that shouldn't break down impacting anything under the integrity of a steel door. Let's hope this creature is just animated frozen water." It was obvious Scully had her doubts.
"How do we do this?" Mulder asked, folding the maps up and sliding them into a coat pocket. Vicki glanced up at the sky.
"Well, I've been tracking it on foot. That's the most effective way, so long as you can keep up. It stops, sometimes, but you have to run. I'd say one of you in the car, one with me. We should keep in contact..."
Mulder pulled out a walkie from one pocket and Scully pushed back her coat to show another at her waist.
"Good thinking. So..." she looked from one to the other, "Who's the lucky one?"
"And that's my cue to call driver." Mulder jingled the keys above his head and turned to walk back to the car. Vicki rolled her eyes.
"Real nice, G-man." she called after him. Scully gave a fully fledged smile at that and Vicki paused, returning it with one of her own. Wow. That was unexpected. And bright. And... nice. The two women moved back to the fountain's edge, craning their necks to look up at the blanket of stars above them. A good night for demon hunting, clear and light.
"So, Ms Nelson, I understand you were a police officer before you became a private investigator." Scully left her gaze drift from the stars down to Vicki's face, head tilting slightly, auburn hair sifting forward. Vicki readjusted the strap of her gun slung diagonally across her shoulders.
"Call me Vicki. Yeah, I was a cop. I had to leave the force, it wasn't working for me." Avoiding Scully's eyes. A lot. She heard her shift on the gravel that surrounded the fountain.
"Medical reasons, wasn't it?" Vicki's head jerked to the side. She took in Scully's calm, ever so slightly concerned expression and snorted.
"Mike shooting his mouth off again? That patronising, egotistical..." Scully interrupted her rant before it could really get started.
"Retinitis pigmentosa. I asked because we'd already checked out your service record before we spoke to Detective Celluci and it didn't mention the nature of your problem. I'm a doctor and an FBI agent - I guess I'm just naturally nosey." Blue eyes bore into Vicki's green ones and the blonde felt something pull in her chest.
"I'm sorry, Vicki."
There was a long pause where Vicki just couldn't think what to say. A unique event.
"Uh..." Vicki suddenly realised how paranoid she was being (and cynical and snappy and insulting but chalk one up to Mike, definitely paranoid) and laughed. "No, I'm sorry. I'm just a little touchy about the whole blindness thing. It's frustrating..." She smiled. "...and frightening and depressing." Scully smiled with her, pink lips twitching gently. "And I'm not usually one to talk about myself but listen to this, I just keep going." She glanced at the redhead, trying for a reassuring look.
"If you don't mind me asking, do you usually spend this much time out in the dark? Given the night blindess?" Scully asked casually, scanning the sky again. Vicki pulled her leather jacket closer around herself.
"Yeah, actually. I usually have someone with me. Well, he's usually the reason I'm out at night anyway." An unreadable look passed across the FBI agent's face. Another unreadable look, she was good at those.
"Lovers quarrel?" Vicki smirked, worrying the seam of her jacket with a thumbnail. Henry would get a kick out of that. If he ever spoke to her again.
"No. Definitely not. I kind of... stabbed him." Scully looked at her with an eyebrow raised, inviting an explanation. "Well, long story short - he's a vampire, so he's okay. I just, kind of, stabbed him. With his own sword." She figured she could leave the dark magic and blood drinking out for now.
"A vampire?" Scully stared at Vicki, like she was waiting for the punch line. Vicki shrugged a little and nodded. Scully looked like she was about to ask another question (or twenty) but she crossed her arms instead, clearing her throat. "You seem to live a very complex life."
"You have no idea, Agent Scully." Vicki sighed, scanning the horizon. The redhead regarded her with a look of incredulity and empathy, the ratio of which remained unclear.
“Please call me Dana, Vicki.” The smaller woman looked heavenward, searching for a shadow blocking the starlight, listening for a screech. She pondered the silence that slid between them, before pushing it aside.
"I was one hell of a shot. Now I'm a lucky shot. Eventually, I'll just miss. I usually use my night stick but asking a demon to fly a little closer so you can hit it probably wouldn't yield as successful results as our special ammunition." Scully tilted her head in acknowledgement. Vicki's eyes were drawn by the movement. The quarter moon didn't give them a great amount of light to see by but enough that the pale woman's skin seemed to glow against the shadows of the park. Vicki had always been glad of her bronzed colour, less worry in protecting it from the sun, but there was something about warm ivory that reflected the moon. Scully caught her staring and the corner of her mouth twitched, the hint of a smile.
"So... federal agent, huh? How's that working out for you?" Vicki made a show of turning and sitting at the fountain's edge, appearing extremely serious and interested. Scully rubbed the back of her neck, thinking.
"It's very stimulating. The cases we take aren't exactly... what I envisioned myself being involved with at the FBI. But I do enjoy my job." Vicki leant her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands together.
"Helps having a good partner." Scully nodded, with some hesitation. Vicki didn't miss it and the investigator in her filed it away for later.
"Mulder is a very singular agent. I've seen a lot because of him and I've learned a lot from him, too. I'm lucky in many ways. He's a great partner." Vicki looked about to say something when she cocked her head and listened. She stood and looked straight up into the sky.
“Did you hear that?”
Rating: M15+ (overall rating)
Fandoms Crossed: Blood Ties/The X-Files
Pairing: Vicki Nelson/Dana Scully
Spoilers: Set post-Wrapped, somewhere around S3 of XF
Summary: Vicki's been out hunting an ice demon, by herself. When she saves two hapless FBI agents from the creature, she gains a pair of mysterious allies. But when has a little mystery ever put Vicki Nelson off?
Author's Notes: Started this a while ago, when I was just getting into XF, but it was put away when I hit a difficult bit and gave up. Oh, fickle muse! etc etc Anyway, started it all up again and I'm hoping a bit of encouragement might spur me to finish it promptly and in good form. Hurrah!
Vicki sat with her feet up on the edge of the fountain, watching the stars and blinking away her tiredness. After tracking down her client's unfaithful husband at a hotel in Vancouver (convention in Minneapolis, my ass) and billing her for 6 gruelling days work, she'd managed to doze off for about 40 minutes before Mike called to confirm the suits flashing their IDs at him did, in fact, know her and weren't a couple of Coreen's friends trying to pull a fast one. Knowing the type of people her assistant hung out with and not forgetting that incident with the stolen FBI facial recognition software, Vicki couldn't really blame him for checking but she'd had roughly 8 hours sleep in the past three days and she was grumpy after being woken up.
After a rather heated exchange with Mike (which she apologised for after realising she'd called him an "ungrateful fanged bastard" which kind of indicated there was some misplaced anger there, sleep deprivation notwithstanding), she cleaned her rifle and hauled out the last few salt cartidges she had left from her bottom drawer. Putting her smallest flashlight in her jacket pocket and slinging her gun over one shoulder, she headed out for some Chinese before hailing a taxi to the park.
Vicki thought about the two FBI agents she was waiting for. It was an amazing stroke of luck, them showing up at her office. With Mike snowed under at work, Henry not speaking to her and Coreen working herself into an early grave, Vicki was just about to give up on solving this latest demon problem. Which would have royally sucked for its next victim. But Agents Mulder and Scully had stepped in with very little persuasion to her cause (and sanity), even filling in some of the blanks in her investigation. She wondered what kind of cases they were pulling for the Bureau, to be so accepting of her supernatural conclusions about their winged suspect. Something about X-Files? She shifted against the cold stone of the silent fountain. If they're into weird and freaky, they can take some of my caseload, Vicki thought, rubbing absent mindedly at her demon brands.
They were an interesting pair. That Agent Mulder was pretty unique, talking about aliens and the conservation of murderous ice demons. As far as Vicki was concerned, they could all go straight to hell, where they belonged. But she liked the smile that tugged at his lips when he made an unexpected joke and although she'd usually cut down any man who stood in her office, telling her what they were going to do about one of her cases, she was grateful for his unthinking support. They could have just demanded information from her and left. They probably would have been turned into US federal popsicles but they could have done it.
Agent Scully was something of an enigma. Vicki remembered the way those blue eyes watched her, considered her, gathered information to catalogue for later use. They were very intelligent, those eyes. And unsettling. Very unsettling. She was a walking contradiction, that woman. Absolutely tiny, even by Vicki's standards (she herself only came up to Mike's chin, something he would hold over her, very literally, whenever they got into an argument about who could take who in a fight), and pale as cream but with those piercing blue eyes and that flaming red hair. She seemed almost quiet, reserved, compared to her partner's innate energy. But when she looked up from Coreen's research right into Vicki's eyes, she knew Agent Scully was not all she seemed. Call it a cop's gut instinct.
Just as Vicki was about to check her watch, a car pulled up thirty yards away. The FBI agents exited the dark sedan and Mulder retrieved something from the back seat before they approached Vicki. She swung her legs over the concrete ledge and stood, brushing her jeans off. She glanced at her watch - 9:30.
"Ready for some demon hunting?" she threw across the grass. Scully gave her an almost smile and Mulder chambered a round in the pump action shotgun he'd retrieved from the back seat. Vicki looked at him sceptically. "Unless that's a cleverly disguised flamethrower, I have absolutely no idea what you're doing with that." Mulder grinned.
"Secret weapon. First, we did some scouting around today. Your friend Celluci was very helpful, once he was convinced we weren't impersonating US federal agents. He managed to get us these before his boss dragged him back into interview. Nice lady." Mulder held up a couple of printed pages showing topographical maps of the area they were in. He shone a flashlight on the paper and Vicki noticed a few red dots were scattered over both pages.
"The dots are especially low points in the geography and a couple of abandoned warehouses Celluci pointed out to us. We checked half of them out before getting to Moore Park Ravine." He his teeth flashed white in the torchlight. "We found its hideout." Vicki stared in surprise.
"Nice work."
Of course, she couldn't have found its newest nest herself, she was exhausted and had no time. But it was still a little annoying that a couple of Americans could come in and make a huge jump in her case in just a few hours. Hmm.
"It’s using a cave at the bottom of the ravine for its current habitation. But we have no way of knowing if it will return there or to a new location, correct?" Scully looked to Vicki, who nodded. "That's where Mulder's secret weapon comes in." She smiled a little indulgently at her partner, who waggled his eyebrows.
"We obtained a couple of tracking devices that can be fired from this shotgun. They're located inside specially designed ammunition that shouldn't break down impacting anything under the integrity of a steel door. Let's hope this creature is just animated frozen water." It was obvious Scully had her doubts.
"How do we do this?" Mulder asked, folding the maps up and sliding them into a coat pocket. Vicki glanced up at the sky.
"Well, I've been tracking it on foot. That's the most effective way, so long as you can keep up. It stops, sometimes, but you have to run. I'd say one of you in the car, one with me. We should keep in contact..."
Mulder pulled out a walkie from one pocket and Scully pushed back her coat to show another at her waist.
"Good thinking. So..." she looked from one to the other, "Who's the lucky one?"
"And that's my cue to call driver." Mulder jingled the keys above his head and turned to walk back to the car. Vicki rolled her eyes.
"Real nice, G-man." she called after him. Scully gave a fully fledged smile at that and Vicki paused, returning it with one of her own. Wow. That was unexpected. And bright. And... nice. The two women moved back to the fountain's edge, craning their necks to look up at the blanket of stars above them. A good night for demon hunting, clear and light.
"So, Ms Nelson, I understand you were a police officer before you became a private investigator." Scully left her gaze drift from the stars down to Vicki's face, head tilting slightly, auburn hair sifting forward. Vicki readjusted the strap of her gun slung diagonally across her shoulders.
"Call me Vicki. Yeah, I was a cop. I had to leave the force, it wasn't working for me." Avoiding Scully's eyes. A lot. She heard her shift on the gravel that surrounded the fountain.
"Medical reasons, wasn't it?" Vicki's head jerked to the side. She took in Scully's calm, ever so slightly concerned expression and snorted.
"Mike shooting his mouth off again? That patronising, egotistical..." Scully interrupted her rant before it could really get started.
"Retinitis pigmentosa. I asked because we'd already checked out your service record before we spoke to Detective Celluci and it didn't mention the nature of your problem. I'm a doctor and an FBI agent - I guess I'm just naturally nosey." Blue eyes bore into Vicki's green ones and the blonde felt something pull in her chest.
"I'm sorry, Vicki."
There was a long pause where Vicki just couldn't think what to say. A unique event.
"Uh..." Vicki suddenly realised how paranoid she was being (and cynical and snappy and insulting but chalk one up to Mike, definitely paranoid) and laughed. "No, I'm sorry. I'm just a little touchy about the whole blindness thing. It's frustrating..." She smiled. "...and frightening and depressing." Scully smiled with her, pink lips twitching gently. "And I'm not usually one to talk about myself but listen to this, I just keep going." She glanced at the redhead, trying for a reassuring look.
"If you don't mind me asking, do you usually spend this much time out in the dark? Given the night blindess?" Scully asked casually, scanning the sky again. Vicki pulled her leather jacket closer around herself.
"Yeah, actually. I usually have someone with me. Well, he's usually the reason I'm out at night anyway." An unreadable look passed across the FBI agent's face. Another unreadable look, she was good at those.
"Lovers quarrel?" Vicki smirked, worrying the seam of her jacket with a thumbnail. Henry would get a kick out of that. If he ever spoke to her again.
"No. Definitely not. I kind of... stabbed him." Scully looked at her with an eyebrow raised, inviting an explanation. "Well, long story short - he's a vampire, so he's okay. I just, kind of, stabbed him. With his own sword." She figured she could leave the dark magic and blood drinking out for now.
"A vampire?" Scully stared at Vicki, like she was waiting for the punch line. Vicki shrugged a little and nodded. Scully looked like she was about to ask another question (or twenty) but she crossed her arms instead, clearing her throat. "You seem to live a very complex life."
"You have no idea, Agent Scully." Vicki sighed, scanning the horizon. The redhead regarded her with a look of incredulity and empathy, the ratio of which remained unclear.
“Please call me Dana, Vicki.” The smaller woman looked heavenward, searching for a shadow blocking the starlight, listening for a screech. She pondered the silence that slid between them, before pushing it aside.
"I was one hell of a shot. Now I'm a lucky shot. Eventually, I'll just miss. I usually use my night stick but asking a demon to fly a little closer so you can hit it probably wouldn't yield as successful results as our special ammunition." Scully tilted her head in acknowledgement. Vicki's eyes were drawn by the movement. The quarter moon didn't give them a great amount of light to see by but enough that the pale woman's skin seemed to glow against the shadows of the park. Vicki had always been glad of her bronzed colour, less worry in protecting it from the sun, but there was something about warm ivory that reflected the moon. Scully caught her staring and the corner of her mouth twitched, the hint of a smile.
"So... federal agent, huh? How's that working out for you?" Vicki made a show of turning and sitting at the fountain's edge, appearing extremely serious and interested. Scully rubbed the back of her neck, thinking.
"It's very stimulating. The cases we take aren't exactly... what I envisioned myself being involved with at the FBI. But I do enjoy my job." Vicki leant her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands together.
"Helps having a good partner." Scully nodded, with some hesitation. Vicki didn't miss it and the investigator in her filed it away for later.
"Mulder is a very singular agent. I've seen a lot because of him and I've learned a lot from him, too. I'm lucky in many ways. He's a great partner." Vicki looked about to say something when she cocked her head and listened. She stood and looked straight up into the sky.
“Did you hear that?”