48 : Something To Save (Part 1)
Title: Something To Save
Spoilers: "Nothing Important Happened Today" (Part 1)
Rating: PG
Words: 5504
Summary: Who do you serve, and who can you trust? Stark is forced to make a drastic decision when her partner's integrity is put to the test.
Falls Church, Virginia
48 Hours Later
"You know, there's this thing called a bed upstairs, you ought to try usin' it," Doggett pointed out as he walked by.
Blinking her eyes open, Stark gave her partner a dirty look from where she was sprawled out on his couch. "Yeah, well, they were running an old basketball game and I didn't want to wake you," she muttered, shoving herself up and trying to fix her hair.
The two of them exchanged a look. They both knew that what she was saying was bullshit. After what had happened in the parking garage, she had been in another of her protective moods. The only reason she'd been sleeping downstairs instead of in his guest bedroom was because it was a defensive tactic putting her closer to the front door.
He decided to let her play innocent for the time being. "C'mon. We're gonna be late."
"I'm never late," she replied breezily, disappearing from the room to change her clothes and figure out what the problem was with her hair.
He just snorted in amusement and turned his attention back to breakfast, only half listening to the news report about the death of the EPA worker.
Stark hadn't been kidding, either. Like most old-fashioned types, she prided herself on her punctuality and she hadn't been late for work in her life unless there was a very good reason. She quickly borrowed his shower, changed into a fresh suit, and when next he laid eyes on her, was pulled together and ready to go. She slung her backpack over her shoulder and it was her turn to give him a look. "Ready to do this?" she asked as he threw his jacket on.
He grabbed his keys off the table by the door and shrugged. "Ready as I'll ever be."
"Good enough for me," she said, and it was. She knew that her partner was more than capable of taking care of himself, better than she was. That didn't mean that she was going to stop worrying about him. That was just what partners did.
The writing had been on the wall from that night in the parking garage. If she was honest, it was making her skin crawl, just a little. She had seen fierce division among the ranks before; the Mahoney drug cartel had split the police department in two, especially after Kellerman's shooting of Luther Mahoney. She'd been gone from the BCPD by then but there had been no mistaking the damage done. Now she was standing on the verge of seeing the same thing happen within the FBI. Surprisingly, though, her fear didn't change her mind. She had never liked Kersh. And when in doubt, she trusted her partner. No matter what.
Even if the day only got more awkward when they ran into Kersh in the elevator. "How's your investigation going, John? Have you turned up any incriminating evidence on me yet?" the Deputy Director asked, smugness dripping off his words.
Doggett kept his cool much better than his partner would have. "It's only Monday morning, sir. It's nothing personal, Deputy Director. I hope you know that."
"I know, John. I think we've pretty much always seen eye to eye," Kersh replied. "I'm sure if you can't find anything on me, John, nobody can."
Stark was considering opening her mouth, not in the mood to listen to the bastard bait her partner, but she felt John's hand lightly on her arm, his way of telling her to not bother. Instead, he settled for seething and glaring at the back of Kersh's head as the other man stepped off the elevator. Stark knew he was going to explode and she couldn't blame him in the slightest.
"And you didn't let me tear into him why?" she asked as the elevator resumed its decent into the basement.
"Cause it wouldn't solve a damn thing." He glanced at her, looking both pained and annoyed. "That's the difference between you and me, Stark. You shoot your mouth off and it works for you. I may not say much, but he's sure as hell gonna feel something hit him."
She laughed humorlessly. "I never doubted that. Where do you want to start?"
"Same place we start with everything else. Sit down and see if we can fit the picture in the frame," he told her. The two of them stepped out of the elevator and made their way to the tiny basement office that had become home. Somehow, Stark wasn't that surprised to see that Monica Reyes was already there.
Reyes just glanced up as they both walked in. "Hi. How you doing?" she said casually. Almost too casually.
"Kersh is a bastard," Stark decided to state the obvious, wondering how many times she'd said that or some variation of it over the course of her five-year career with the Bureau.
She had no desk to go to, so she just perched herself on the edge of her partner's desk as he hung up his jacket. He stalked over to join her, rolling up his sleeves as he felt compelled to elaborate. "I didn't ask to be put down on the X-Files. Deputy Director Kersh put me down here. I'm just doing my job. What did they think? That I'd be thankful? That I'd do anything less?" he said, and it was the most frustrated Stark had heard him in a long time.
Monica arched an eyebrow. "It's not gonna be easy, John."
He gave her an incredulous look. "Hell no it isn't. I'm going after the Deputy Director, one man removed from the head of the FBI."
"No, I mean it may be impossible," she corrected.
That earned her a look, and Doggett and Patrick moved over to see what she was looking at. It was security footage of an empty parking garage, and given what had been on her mind for the past two days, Stark's stomach lurched a little. She had to hope that this was not what she thought it was.
"What's this?" Doggett asked Reyes.
"A security tape from two nights ago. You're not on it."
"What are you talking about?" he retorted. Incredulous, he grabbed the remote and began scanning the tape. There was no sign of him, of Assistant Director Skinner, Stark, Krycek, Knowle Rohrer or anyone else that should have been there. "No," he insisted. "This is the wrong damn tape."
"I've been backwards and forewards on it," Reyes replied. "There's nothing there."
He just stared at her in complete disbelief. "We were chased. AD Skinner and I were attacked and chased. This man - Knowle Rohrer - drove his car into the garage wall and it blew up in a ball of flames."
"Not on this tape," Monica said, and Stark got her hidden meaning.
So, too, did her partner, who ejected the tape from the VCR while staring at it like it was the target of all his pent-up frustration over the last two days. "Where'd you get this?" he asked her, an extra chill to his voice.
"From someone who wanted to give me a heads-up."
His gaze hardened. "They can't just make this all go away. There's evidence down in that parking garage, there were victims."
"I went down to that garage, John. Whatever happened, they've had 48 hours now to clean it up."
"There were witnesses."
"Witnesses who're going to stand up to this tape?"
He stared at Reyes another moment longer, before he turned on his heel and started back out of the office. Monica knew she was the last person he wanted to see right then, so she didn't bother stopping him. She also knew he wouldn't be alone. Stark followed right after her partner, who grabbed his jacket and walked right back out of the office. They walked along for a moment, he with his frustration and she with her resignation, before he spoke again. "Sonofa..."
"We knew they were inside the FBI," she pointed out, shaking her head. Knowing that, it was starting to get uncomfortable coming to work every morning. Knowing the enemy was a few floors upstairs. "We had to know they might try something."
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to let them get away with it," Doggett replied brusquely.
"I never said you would. What's our next move?"
"We're gonna go see Mulder," he told her, finally looking at her as he hit the button for the elevator. "He was there that night. He's a witness. And maybe he can tell us what to do when things start disappearing."
****
Stark had never been an exemplary agent, aside from one perfect score at the Baltimore City Police Academy and a perfect attendance record (before she'd turned up on the X-Files, anyway). However, what she lacked in talent she made up for with street smarts and sharp instincts. As they arrived at Mulder's apartment building, she had to admit that she had a bad feeling about the entire situation.
"I don't know, John," she said as she walked down the hallway with him. "I've seen it happen before. The year after I left Baltimore, there was a full-out war between the Homicide squad and the Mahoney family. Junior Bunk Mahoney lit the squadroom up. Two cops died, two more were shot. Ugly situation. Same thing happened there. People lie. People cover things up. Even our guys."
"Shouldn't be that way," he replied. "This badge is supposed to mean something, Stark. And we wonder why people hate cops."
She thought about reminding him that everyone was human, but considering they were talking about aliens, that seemed ludicrous. Instead, she sighed. "We'll get to the bottom of it," she said. "You know whatever happens, you've got me."
His lips quirked in a grim smile, his way of telling her that he already knew that, before they reached Mulder's apartment door and he knocked. No one answered. The two of them waited it out a minute or two more, before her partner reached for the door handle and when it turned, Stark put her hand on her gun.
"Stay here," he told her, and she did, clicking the safety back on the handgun just in case. She kept her eyes on him as he disappeared into the apartment, calling for Mulder.
Stark was still mulling over the Mahoney case when Doggett's return jolted her back into the present moment. Her partner's face was both stricken and embittered. "He's gone," he said simply. "The whole place is cleaned out."
"What?" she blurted, clicking the safety back on her gun as he closed the apartment door behind herself. "You've got to be kidding me." She'd just seen Mulder only two days ago and he hadn't seemed ready to run. Though not as if he'd tell her, or she knew how to read him, when they hardly knew each other.
"Wish I was," he replied. "But now I know the next person we need to talk to."
Scully wasn't answering her phone, however, and that only fueled his panic. The two people who understood what had happened to them better than anyone and both of them were suddenly out of contact two days later. That was enough to send them driving to Georgetown to turn up on her doorstep. The fact that Scully could tell Doggett was not in a good mood was a testament to how badly the day was going; her partner was not that kind of man.
"What?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
"What's the matter? I've been trying to call you."
"Yeah, the phone's off the hook because of the baby."
He exhaled. "I got panicked that you're not going to be here, that you left, too."
There was an uncomfortable pause between all of them as Scully looked from his face to Stark's concerned one and back again. While the two women might not exactly be drinking buddies, they were friends, and Scully knew that both Patrick and Doggett had done well more than could ever have been asked of them since the search for Mulder what seemed like a lifetime ago. "Come in," she finally said quietly, closing the door behind them.
"I've been looking for Mulder," he explained. "I went to his apartment."
"I know."
"How do you know?" Stark replied, looking a little confused.
"Because if you've been there and seen it, then you would come looking for me," Scully replied.
Stark opened her mouth to concede the point, but her partner cut her off. "Where'd he go?" he asked, the more important question. It hit Scully dead on: she looked as if she might cry. That only made John more interested in the answer. "Dana," he insisted firmly. "Where'd he go?"
She looked at the floor. Then she met his eyes. "He's gone."
Stark looked at her partner, who looked equally as shocked as she did. They knew the implication. Even for someone who didn't know him that well, Stark had always figured Mulder for the 'go down fighting' type, not to just take off on the run and leave. Especially not with Scully and the newborn baby to worry about. That didn't seem like him at all.
"He's just...gone," Scully told them. She knew they'd deduce it.
Doggett glanced at Stark for a moment and she just swallowed. She wanted to say or do anything that would reassure him, like she had been trying to do all morning. But she had no idea what to do next. She watched her partner look at Scully again as if to hope it was all wrong, and she felt her heart sink. Things weren't over. Far from it.
****
They'd gotten the news right when they'd walked back in the door two hours later: A.D. Skinner wanted to see them both in his office.
"This meeting is gonna suck," Stark decided as the two of them made their way upstairs and toward the assistant director's office. "You know what he's gonna say. He's gonna tell us to watch our backs. It's all bureaucratic runaround."
"Maybe he knows something we don't," John suggested. "Or maybe at least him givin' us the runaround will tell us what they're trying to keep us away from." He glanced at his watch, keeping time in his head. "I want to see if Monica found anything."
Imagine his surprise when he held the door to Skinner's office for Stark, and the two of them stepped in, only to see Reyes already sitting there. She turned and looked at them both. "I checked with movers, airlines, car rental agencies...no Mulder."
"Somebody get to him, that it? That doesn't seem possible, does it?" Doggett ruminated aloud, before turning his attention to Skinner. "Okay, so where does that leave us? Just me and you, our word against Kersh and the FBI."
"You'd better sit down, John," Reyes cautioned. "It's more complicated than that."
"No offense, Monica, but when did you become the expert?" Stark replied. "You weren't the one that was here."
"What's more complicated?" her partner added warily.
"This investigation."
"What about it?"
Skinner spoke up, if up meant he was looking down at his desk. "I wanna ask you to drop it."
Aghast didn't even begin to cover the look on either of their faces. Stark was appalled; she was an old-fashioned cop and that meant never backing down when she knew that she was in the right and a crime had been committed. "What?" she blurted. "You have got to be fucking kidding me." The expletive slipped past her lips before she could stop it; it was a habit when she was truly upset.
Her reaction, however, paled in comparison to that of her partner. "No, not from you," he said, in vehement denial of what he was hearing. "Not from you. Not, not after what we've been through. I mean, we barely escaped with our lives."
Skinner gave him an even look. "That's something worth thinking about."
"I'm sorry, you're not that reasonable. What, did they get to you too?" Doggett retorted, getting angrier by the second.
"No one got to me, John. They didn't have to. That's the point."
But at this point Stark only watched as her partner closed the remaining distance between where he was standing and the assistant director's desk, expression hard. "You're afraid of them," he said, stating it as a fact.
"I'm not afraid of them," Skinner replied, but the fact that he'd leaned back in his chair to give himself more space said he was at least concerned about John Doggett.
Doggett, however, could have cared less. "Well, you're afraid of something. What? The real tape showing up, them calling you a killer for you having to shoot Alex Krycek?"
"No, I'll stand by my actions, Agent Doggett, but I won't stand by yours if you're gonna continue to push and push until you get somebody killed." Skinner finally stood from the desk, looking Doggett in the eye. "You wanna know what I fear? I fear for Mulder and Scully. I fear for the life of that child if you don't stop pushing it, John."
The former Marine didn't back down. Instead, he just looked somewhat taken aback as he said, "You don't think I fear for those things, same as you?"
"If you did, you'd let it go."
"Don't make it sound like this is some sort of personal crusade of ours at whatever cost," Stark pointed out, pushing off the wall to join her partner at his elbow. "There's no getting back what we lost. What anyone lost. I got my revenge on Kersh when I took myself down in the biggest fireball I could manage. This is about the fact that there is something wrong going on here and we're not supposed to stand for that."
"It's not that simple," Skinner told her, turning on her.
"Yeah, it is." She shook her head. "We don't get to pick and choose which laws we uphold or which cases we deal with. What's wrong is wrong and we took an oath."
"Obviously you haven't been around the X-Files long enough to understand that logic doesn't always apply, Agent Patrick." Skinner let out a tight breath. "You pick the wrong fight with the wrong people, and you don't wake up to see the next one."
"But at least you go down standing up for what you believe in."
It didn't take a genius to know that she was talking about her father, and the last thing John wanted her to do was drag up those uncomfortable memories. He cut her off before she could say anything else, and took a deep breath. "So what I'm hearing is...if we don't drop it, we're alone in this."
No one said anything for a long moment. That said all he needed to know. Both of them turned around and headed for the door, and they were half out of it when Monica spoke.
"John," she said, and they turned back. "You're not."
She stood from her chair and rose to catch up with them, Doggett holding the door until the two female agents had exited Skinner's office. When the door shut behind them, Stark couldn't help but shoot Reyes a slightly dirty look.
"Any particular reason it took you so long to make up your mind?"
****
That particular sentence was probably the reason that, hours later and after everything had come to a lull, her partner asked her, "So you wanna tell me why you're picking a fight with Reyes?"
Still tucking her Maryland track T-shirt into her jeans as she perched herself on his living room couch, Stark barked out a laugh. "I'm not picking a fight," she corrected. "I'm just a little edgy about the fact she wants to play both sides. She just sat there in his office with her mouth shut, and then she wants to act like she's helping us? What is that?"
He closed the fridge and tossed her a beer. "At least she's helping," he replied, cracking his own open as he moved back into the living room. "She has been looking for Mulder. She'll see what she can get out of this source of hers. And it's not like she's some stranger we don't know."
"It still pisses me off," she replied, settling her elbows on her knees. The notebook she jotted all her thoughts down into was sitting spread on his coffee table, along with all the other documents they were going over. "So where do we start? You wanna worry about Mulder or you want to focus on Kersh?"
"Mulder could be anywhere. Scully's not gonna give him up. I don't even know how much of a case we have right now, Stark." He sighed. "We've got no videotape, one witness who's gone and another keeping his mouth shut. I'm pretty sure there aren't gonna be bodies to find either. We got you and me against the FBI and that isn't going to be enough."
"Then we gotta figure out something else to come up with." She ran a hand through her hair. "Let's go through it again. Step by step, minute by minute. Then maybe we might know what we're looking for and where to look for it."
"That might be the sanest thing I've heard all day." He nodded slightly, reaching for one of the files on the table, before he looked at her. "You sure you're up for this, Stark? You haven't even seen your own house in three days."
"I'm fine, John," she said dismissively, reaching for her notebook and a pen. "There are more important things to worry about."
Hours went by and nothing changed. They went over every single moment that had happened surrounding the super soldiers and the birth of Scully's baby. Every fact they knew and every name remotely involved. But the missing pieces were all too glaring. There would be no bodies for autopsy. No witnesses willing to testify. And that videotape would be taken as fact by anyone who didn't know better.
It was closing in on midnight when he finally stood from the couch. "I'm gonna go out," he told her. "Stay here, keep your phone on in case I need you."
"Where are you going?" she asked, watching him as he went toward the front door to grab his jacket.
"I'm gonna go see if I can lean on Scully a little harder." He turned back and looked at her. "You might want to consider getting some sleep in an actual bed."
Before she could retort, he was already gone.
****
Doggett's visit to Scully's apartment was shorter than he expected. When he returned to the house, everything was neatly organized on the coffee table. His partner was nowhere to be found. Not in the living room and not in the kitchen either.
He headed up the stairs and stuck his head into the spare bedroom. Stark was passed out cold, her head gently resting on the corner of her notebook, snoring contently. He smiled to himself, then quietly closed the door and left her be. She needed the rest, and he had phone calls to make.
****
"You might as well just move in," he told her the next day, after Reyes had shown them the copy of Carl Wormus' obituary that had turned up practically on their doorstep.
"Please. This is still less time than I spent with you when Lisa died," Stark pointed out, sharing her partner's mirthful look. She knew he didn't really mind at all, and he knew she wasn't going to let him out of her sight until she felt everything was okay. With all the people jumping ship, it was good to have someone who wanted to stick around.
Reyes watched them banter with some interest, but the ringing phone interrupted everyone and she snatched it up. "Monica Reyes. Dana, are you all right?" Now she glanced at Doggett, who was looking at her. "Yeah. He's right here with me."
She handed the phone over to John, who would have taken it anyway in about thirty seconds. "Dana. Something wrong?" he asked. As he listened, he turned and gave Stark a look. "Well, I didn't drop it," he explained. "As a matter of fact, we found something that sure as hell fits with what we are working on. A body."
That was how they found themselves at Quantico, with Doggett and Reyes explaining to Scully how they needed a definitive answer on how Wormus had died. Stark, with her aversion to autopsies, elected to pace the hallway outside. Wormus had died in Baltimore, which gave her an advantage no one else had. She was trying to think of who she could call and who she could trust. Her colleagues at Fugitive, certainly, but they weren't in the right department to give her any help. Still, she dialed her old partner just in case.
"Mansfield," he said briskly, picking up the phone.
"Always before the second ring."
That made him laugh. "What can I say? I'm a creature of habit," he replied. "What's got you calling out of the blue, Stark?"
She winced at that. It reminded her that it had been at least a year or more since she'd even bothered to check up on her former colleagues. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that," she muttered quickly, stopping only to glance in and see her current partner on the phone and looking pissy. "Just...I've got a case that looks like it might head us your way and I wanted you to know."
Victor's tone became instantly more serious. "So I can buy you dinner or so I can help?"
"I don't think it's something you can help with, Vic. We've already got a body." She exhaled. "Just...in case something goes wrong...so someone knows."
He caught on instantly. He wasn't a twelve-year veteran of the Baltimore City fugitive team for no reason. "I hear you loud and clear," he said. "I've got you covered."
She thought about saying something else, anything to make up for the past year, but that was when Doggett and Reyes were finishing up. "Thanks, Vic," she said instead, and hung up, eyeing her partner as he emerged. "What's going on?"
"She's gonna do the autopsy," he explained. "And somebody at the FBI's already got word that we have his body. We're running out of time." He eyed the cell phone in her hand. "Who'd you call?"
"An old friend at the department." She tucked the phone back in her jacket. "You can trust him. Who were you talking to?"
"A.D. Skinner," he said brusquely as they began to walk away. "Apparently I'm no longer part of the popular crowd."
****
It was deja vu all over again. After leaving Reyes behind at the end of the work day, the partners had regrouped in Falls Church. They'd stopped only to change and get something to eat, before they went back to trying to figure out what Carl Wormus had to do with the things that they had been privy to over the last week. They'd even called in a favor.
"You think they'll find anything?" he asked her.
Stark, now in her Maryland softball T-shirt, which was about as red as she was starting to see, shrugged. "I think if anyone can, they can. I might have minored in Information Technology but I'm not that good." A smirk. "Not at that, anyway."
"No, you're just good at finding people and then outrunning them," her partner mused. He was interrupted only by the knock at the door that signaled the arrival of the Lone Gunmen.
Some time later, they were all huddled around a laptop, examining what remained of Carl Wormus' life and career with the Environmental Protection Agency. Byers looked between the two of them. "What exactly was it you are looking for, if we may ask?"
Doggett shrugged. "I don't know. I was hoping you'd find something."
Langly didn't look up from the screen. "Well, if he had any secrets he took 'em to his grave. Nothing hinky in these files except for some rabid obsession with water."
"With water?"
It all began to fall into place after that. The emails, the encrypted files. Connecting Wormus to Roland McFarland, who happened to work at a water reclamation plant in none other than Baltimore. The mere mention of the city made him turn to his partner with a distinct crackle in his eye.
"We're going down there. I wanna know what this guy was into," he said decisively, pushing back from the desk. "This is your turf, Stark. I want you right by me on this."
"Always, John." She eyed him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna call A.D. Skinner. At this point, I'll take all the help I can get," he admitted. She nodded, moving to the closet where she'd set her bag so she could collect her badge and her gun. She knew that look in her partner's eyes and she was glad to see it again.
It was something called hope.
****
Of all the places that Stark had been in and around Baltimore, and she had seen much of it in her five years with the Baltimore City Police, the local water reclamation plant was not one of them. She had to admit, as she moved with her partner and A.D. Skinner through the mess of pipes, wires, and corridors, this wasn't a place she particularly wanted to be either. They moved quickly through the plant and to what they had deduced, thanks to a bit of hacking into floor plans, were the administrative offices.
"This is madness," Skinner insisted dourly. "Even if you're right and this guy can actually help your investigation, we don't know if we're in the right area."
"This has got to be McFarland's area," Doggett insisted while he and his partner searched every available work surface.
After another minute or two more, Skinner spoke up again. "This might be his desk," he said, showing the both of them the small piece of paper with Wormus' email address on it when they moved to join him. He was increasingly anxious as he said, "Let's just grab the computer's hard drive and get out of here."
"We're not sure if it's his," John replied.
"Someone could walk in one of these doors any minute and it's not gonna matter."
"Still a little gunshy?" Stark couldn't help but point out.
"I don't want to get arrested," Skinner told her, before he moved toward one of the office doors.
"Just keep an eye out," Doggett told him as he pried open the file cabinet and began searching all the paper files kept therein. "What's chloramine?" he asked no one in particular.
"What?" Skinner asked in return. "Why are you asking me about chloramine?"
"If this is McFarland's desk, he's got tons of files on chloramine in it."
Skinner saw something he didn't like: Assistant Director Brad Follmer and a herd of FBI agents. Now he had definite reason for the worry in his tone as he turned to the two younger agents. "Agent Doggett - grab the files and go," he insisted.
No one needed to tell John Doggett twice. He grabbed all the files that he could, and the three of them fled the office. Stark was glad that she had been a former university track athlete as they ran across the catwalk and down a flight of stairs. It would be impossible to keep quiet in a place practically built to echo with all the metal and high ceilings, so she knew they didn't have much chance to escape undetected. It was going to come down to speed. Thankfully, she had that in spades.
Her partner obviously had the same idea. Behind them, Skinner cried out after having caught himself on some pipe. "Assistant Director?" John called, but got no response. He knew that meant Follmer had probably already caught up to Skinner. Thinking quickly, he thrust the files at his partner. "Take these and go."
"What?" she asked, staring at him incredulously, as much as one could while running for cover.
"Stark, you're the fastest person I know. You've got the best chance of makin' it out of here. You take those files and you go back to my place. Wait for me there."
"What about you?"
"Don't worry about me. Go. Now," he insisted, knowing if he didn't practically shove her, she wouldn't move. It always pained her to leave a man behind especially when that man happened to be her best friend and partner of the last five years.
Stark did as she was told. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she ran, using the same instincts she'd honed as a fugitive-chasing cop to navigate her way through the facility. She only looked back once, and what she saw wasn't encouraging. Her partner was gone.
Spoilers: "Nothing Important Happened Today" (Part 1)
Rating: PG
Words: 5504
Summary: Who do you serve, and who can you trust? Stark is forced to make a drastic decision when her partner's integrity is put to the test.
Falls Church, Virginia
48 Hours Later
"You know, there's this thing called a bed upstairs, you ought to try usin' it," Doggett pointed out as he walked by.
Blinking her eyes open, Stark gave her partner a dirty look from where she was sprawled out on his couch. "Yeah, well, they were running an old basketball game and I didn't want to wake you," she muttered, shoving herself up and trying to fix her hair.
The two of them exchanged a look. They both knew that what she was saying was bullshit. After what had happened in the parking garage, she had been in another of her protective moods. The only reason she'd been sleeping downstairs instead of in his guest bedroom was because it was a defensive tactic putting her closer to the front door.
He decided to let her play innocent for the time being. "C'mon. We're gonna be late."
"I'm never late," she replied breezily, disappearing from the room to change her clothes and figure out what the problem was with her hair.
He just snorted in amusement and turned his attention back to breakfast, only half listening to the news report about the death of the EPA worker.
Stark hadn't been kidding, either. Like most old-fashioned types, she prided herself on her punctuality and she hadn't been late for work in her life unless there was a very good reason. She quickly borrowed his shower, changed into a fresh suit, and when next he laid eyes on her, was pulled together and ready to go. She slung her backpack over her shoulder and it was her turn to give him a look. "Ready to do this?" she asked as he threw his jacket on.
He grabbed his keys off the table by the door and shrugged. "Ready as I'll ever be."
"Good enough for me," she said, and it was. She knew that her partner was more than capable of taking care of himself, better than she was. That didn't mean that she was going to stop worrying about him. That was just what partners did.
The writing had been on the wall from that night in the parking garage. If she was honest, it was making her skin crawl, just a little. She had seen fierce division among the ranks before; the Mahoney drug cartel had split the police department in two, especially after Kellerman's shooting of Luther Mahoney. She'd been gone from the BCPD by then but there had been no mistaking the damage done. Now she was standing on the verge of seeing the same thing happen within the FBI. Surprisingly, though, her fear didn't change her mind. She had never liked Kersh. And when in doubt, she trusted her partner. No matter what.
Even if the day only got more awkward when they ran into Kersh in the elevator. "How's your investigation going, John? Have you turned up any incriminating evidence on me yet?" the Deputy Director asked, smugness dripping off his words.
Doggett kept his cool much better than his partner would have. "It's only Monday morning, sir. It's nothing personal, Deputy Director. I hope you know that."
"I know, John. I think we've pretty much always seen eye to eye," Kersh replied. "I'm sure if you can't find anything on me, John, nobody can."
Stark was considering opening her mouth, not in the mood to listen to the bastard bait her partner, but she felt John's hand lightly on her arm, his way of telling her to not bother. Instead, he settled for seething and glaring at the back of Kersh's head as the other man stepped off the elevator. Stark knew he was going to explode and she couldn't blame him in the slightest.
"And you didn't let me tear into him why?" she asked as the elevator resumed its decent into the basement.
"Cause it wouldn't solve a damn thing." He glanced at her, looking both pained and annoyed. "That's the difference between you and me, Stark. You shoot your mouth off and it works for you. I may not say much, but he's sure as hell gonna feel something hit him."
She laughed humorlessly. "I never doubted that. Where do you want to start?"
"Same place we start with everything else. Sit down and see if we can fit the picture in the frame," he told her. The two of them stepped out of the elevator and made their way to the tiny basement office that had become home. Somehow, Stark wasn't that surprised to see that Monica Reyes was already there.
Reyes just glanced up as they both walked in. "Hi. How you doing?" she said casually. Almost too casually.
"Kersh is a bastard," Stark decided to state the obvious, wondering how many times she'd said that or some variation of it over the course of her five-year career with the Bureau.
She had no desk to go to, so she just perched herself on the edge of her partner's desk as he hung up his jacket. He stalked over to join her, rolling up his sleeves as he felt compelled to elaborate. "I didn't ask to be put down on the X-Files. Deputy Director Kersh put me down here. I'm just doing my job. What did they think? That I'd be thankful? That I'd do anything less?" he said, and it was the most frustrated Stark had heard him in a long time.
Monica arched an eyebrow. "It's not gonna be easy, John."
He gave her an incredulous look. "Hell no it isn't. I'm going after the Deputy Director, one man removed from the head of the FBI."
"No, I mean it may be impossible," she corrected.
That earned her a look, and Doggett and Patrick moved over to see what she was looking at. It was security footage of an empty parking garage, and given what had been on her mind for the past two days, Stark's stomach lurched a little. She had to hope that this was not what she thought it was.
"What's this?" Doggett asked Reyes.
"A security tape from two nights ago. You're not on it."
"What are you talking about?" he retorted. Incredulous, he grabbed the remote and began scanning the tape. There was no sign of him, of Assistant Director Skinner, Stark, Krycek, Knowle Rohrer or anyone else that should have been there. "No," he insisted. "This is the wrong damn tape."
"I've been backwards and forewards on it," Reyes replied. "There's nothing there."
He just stared at her in complete disbelief. "We were chased. AD Skinner and I were attacked and chased. This man - Knowle Rohrer - drove his car into the garage wall and it blew up in a ball of flames."
"Not on this tape," Monica said, and Stark got her hidden meaning.
So, too, did her partner, who ejected the tape from the VCR while staring at it like it was the target of all his pent-up frustration over the last two days. "Where'd you get this?" he asked her, an extra chill to his voice.
"From someone who wanted to give me a heads-up."
His gaze hardened. "They can't just make this all go away. There's evidence down in that parking garage, there were victims."
"I went down to that garage, John. Whatever happened, they've had 48 hours now to clean it up."
"There were witnesses."
"Witnesses who're going to stand up to this tape?"
He stared at Reyes another moment longer, before he turned on his heel and started back out of the office. Monica knew she was the last person he wanted to see right then, so she didn't bother stopping him. She also knew he wouldn't be alone. Stark followed right after her partner, who grabbed his jacket and walked right back out of the office. They walked along for a moment, he with his frustration and she with her resignation, before he spoke again. "Sonofa..."
"We knew they were inside the FBI," she pointed out, shaking her head. Knowing that, it was starting to get uncomfortable coming to work every morning. Knowing the enemy was a few floors upstairs. "We had to know they might try something."
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to let them get away with it," Doggett replied brusquely.
"I never said you would. What's our next move?"
"We're gonna go see Mulder," he told her, finally looking at her as he hit the button for the elevator. "He was there that night. He's a witness. And maybe he can tell us what to do when things start disappearing."
****
Stark had never been an exemplary agent, aside from one perfect score at the Baltimore City Police Academy and a perfect attendance record (before she'd turned up on the X-Files, anyway). However, what she lacked in talent she made up for with street smarts and sharp instincts. As they arrived at Mulder's apartment building, she had to admit that she had a bad feeling about the entire situation.
"I don't know, John," she said as she walked down the hallway with him. "I've seen it happen before. The year after I left Baltimore, there was a full-out war between the Homicide squad and the Mahoney family. Junior Bunk Mahoney lit the squadroom up. Two cops died, two more were shot. Ugly situation. Same thing happened there. People lie. People cover things up. Even our guys."
"Shouldn't be that way," he replied. "This badge is supposed to mean something, Stark. And we wonder why people hate cops."
She thought about reminding him that everyone was human, but considering they were talking about aliens, that seemed ludicrous. Instead, she sighed. "We'll get to the bottom of it," she said. "You know whatever happens, you've got me."
His lips quirked in a grim smile, his way of telling her that he already knew that, before they reached Mulder's apartment door and he knocked. No one answered. The two of them waited it out a minute or two more, before her partner reached for the door handle and when it turned, Stark put her hand on her gun.
"Stay here," he told her, and she did, clicking the safety back on the handgun just in case. She kept her eyes on him as he disappeared into the apartment, calling for Mulder.
Stark was still mulling over the Mahoney case when Doggett's return jolted her back into the present moment. Her partner's face was both stricken and embittered. "He's gone," he said simply. "The whole place is cleaned out."
"What?" she blurted, clicking the safety back on her gun as he closed the apartment door behind herself. "You've got to be kidding me." She'd just seen Mulder only two days ago and he hadn't seemed ready to run. Though not as if he'd tell her, or she knew how to read him, when they hardly knew each other.
"Wish I was," he replied. "But now I know the next person we need to talk to."
Scully wasn't answering her phone, however, and that only fueled his panic. The two people who understood what had happened to them better than anyone and both of them were suddenly out of contact two days later. That was enough to send them driving to Georgetown to turn up on her doorstep. The fact that Scully could tell Doggett was not in a good mood was a testament to how badly the day was going; her partner was not that kind of man.
"What?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
"What's the matter? I've been trying to call you."
"Yeah, the phone's off the hook because of the baby."
He exhaled. "I got panicked that you're not going to be here, that you left, too."
There was an uncomfortable pause between all of them as Scully looked from his face to Stark's concerned one and back again. While the two women might not exactly be drinking buddies, they were friends, and Scully knew that both Patrick and Doggett had done well more than could ever have been asked of them since the search for Mulder what seemed like a lifetime ago. "Come in," she finally said quietly, closing the door behind them.
"I've been looking for Mulder," he explained. "I went to his apartment."
"I know."
"How do you know?" Stark replied, looking a little confused.
"Because if you've been there and seen it, then you would come looking for me," Scully replied.
Stark opened her mouth to concede the point, but her partner cut her off. "Where'd he go?" he asked, the more important question. It hit Scully dead on: she looked as if she might cry. That only made John more interested in the answer. "Dana," he insisted firmly. "Where'd he go?"
She looked at the floor. Then she met his eyes. "He's gone."
Stark looked at her partner, who looked equally as shocked as she did. They knew the implication. Even for someone who didn't know him that well, Stark had always figured Mulder for the 'go down fighting' type, not to just take off on the run and leave. Especially not with Scully and the newborn baby to worry about. That didn't seem like him at all.
"He's just...gone," Scully told them. She knew they'd deduce it.
Doggett glanced at Stark for a moment and she just swallowed. She wanted to say or do anything that would reassure him, like she had been trying to do all morning. But she had no idea what to do next. She watched her partner look at Scully again as if to hope it was all wrong, and she felt her heart sink. Things weren't over. Far from it.
****
They'd gotten the news right when they'd walked back in the door two hours later: A.D. Skinner wanted to see them both in his office.
"This meeting is gonna suck," Stark decided as the two of them made their way upstairs and toward the assistant director's office. "You know what he's gonna say. He's gonna tell us to watch our backs. It's all bureaucratic runaround."
"Maybe he knows something we don't," John suggested. "Or maybe at least him givin' us the runaround will tell us what they're trying to keep us away from." He glanced at his watch, keeping time in his head. "I want to see if Monica found anything."
Imagine his surprise when he held the door to Skinner's office for Stark, and the two of them stepped in, only to see Reyes already sitting there. She turned and looked at them both. "I checked with movers, airlines, car rental agencies...no Mulder."
"Somebody get to him, that it? That doesn't seem possible, does it?" Doggett ruminated aloud, before turning his attention to Skinner. "Okay, so where does that leave us? Just me and you, our word against Kersh and the FBI."
"You'd better sit down, John," Reyes cautioned. "It's more complicated than that."
"No offense, Monica, but when did you become the expert?" Stark replied. "You weren't the one that was here."
"What's more complicated?" her partner added warily.
"This investigation."
"What about it?"
Skinner spoke up, if up meant he was looking down at his desk. "I wanna ask you to drop it."
Aghast didn't even begin to cover the look on either of their faces. Stark was appalled; she was an old-fashioned cop and that meant never backing down when she knew that she was in the right and a crime had been committed. "What?" she blurted. "You have got to be fucking kidding me." The expletive slipped past her lips before she could stop it; it was a habit when she was truly upset.
Her reaction, however, paled in comparison to that of her partner. "No, not from you," he said, in vehement denial of what he was hearing. "Not from you. Not, not after what we've been through. I mean, we barely escaped with our lives."
Skinner gave him an even look. "That's something worth thinking about."
"I'm sorry, you're not that reasonable. What, did they get to you too?" Doggett retorted, getting angrier by the second.
"No one got to me, John. They didn't have to. That's the point."
But at this point Stark only watched as her partner closed the remaining distance between where he was standing and the assistant director's desk, expression hard. "You're afraid of them," he said, stating it as a fact.
"I'm not afraid of them," Skinner replied, but the fact that he'd leaned back in his chair to give himself more space said he was at least concerned about John Doggett.
Doggett, however, could have cared less. "Well, you're afraid of something. What? The real tape showing up, them calling you a killer for you having to shoot Alex Krycek?"
"No, I'll stand by my actions, Agent Doggett, but I won't stand by yours if you're gonna continue to push and push until you get somebody killed." Skinner finally stood from the desk, looking Doggett in the eye. "You wanna know what I fear? I fear for Mulder and Scully. I fear for the life of that child if you don't stop pushing it, John."
The former Marine didn't back down. Instead, he just looked somewhat taken aback as he said, "You don't think I fear for those things, same as you?"
"If you did, you'd let it go."
"Don't make it sound like this is some sort of personal crusade of ours at whatever cost," Stark pointed out, pushing off the wall to join her partner at his elbow. "There's no getting back what we lost. What anyone lost. I got my revenge on Kersh when I took myself down in the biggest fireball I could manage. This is about the fact that there is something wrong going on here and we're not supposed to stand for that."
"It's not that simple," Skinner told her, turning on her.
"Yeah, it is." She shook her head. "We don't get to pick and choose which laws we uphold or which cases we deal with. What's wrong is wrong and we took an oath."
"Obviously you haven't been around the X-Files long enough to understand that logic doesn't always apply, Agent Patrick." Skinner let out a tight breath. "You pick the wrong fight with the wrong people, and you don't wake up to see the next one."
"But at least you go down standing up for what you believe in."
It didn't take a genius to know that she was talking about her father, and the last thing John wanted her to do was drag up those uncomfortable memories. He cut her off before she could say anything else, and took a deep breath. "So what I'm hearing is...if we don't drop it, we're alone in this."
No one said anything for a long moment. That said all he needed to know. Both of them turned around and headed for the door, and they were half out of it when Monica spoke.
"John," she said, and they turned back. "You're not."
She stood from her chair and rose to catch up with them, Doggett holding the door until the two female agents had exited Skinner's office. When the door shut behind them, Stark couldn't help but shoot Reyes a slightly dirty look.
"Any particular reason it took you so long to make up your mind?"
****
That particular sentence was probably the reason that, hours later and after everything had come to a lull, her partner asked her, "So you wanna tell me why you're picking a fight with Reyes?"
Still tucking her Maryland track T-shirt into her jeans as she perched herself on his living room couch, Stark barked out a laugh. "I'm not picking a fight," she corrected. "I'm just a little edgy about the fact she wants to play both sides. She just sat there in his office with her mouth shut, and then she wants to act like she's helping us? What is that?"
He closed the fridge and tossed her a beer. "At least she's helping," he replied, cracking his own open as he moved back into the living room. "She has been looking for Mulder. She'll see what she can get out of this source of hers. And it's not like she's some stranger we don't know."
"It still pisses me off," she replied, settling her elbows on her knees. The notebook she jotted all her thoughts down into was sitting spread on his coffee table, along with all the other documents they were going over. "So where do we start? You wanna worry about Mulder or you want to focus on Kersh?"
"Mulder could be anywhere. Scully's not gonna give him up. I don't even know how much of a case we have right now, Stark." He sighed. "We've got no videotape, one witness who's gone and another keeping his mouth shut. I'm pretty sure there aren't gonna be bodies to find either. We got you and me against the FBI and that isn't going to be enough."
"Then we gotta figure out something else to come up with." She ran a hand through her hair. "Let's go through it again. Step by step, minute by minute. Then maybe we might know what we're looking for and where to look for it."
"That might be the sanest thing I've heard all day." He nodded slightly, reaching for one of the files on the table, before he looked at her. "You sure you're up for this, Stark? You haven't even seen your own house in three days."
"I'm fine, John," she said dismissively, reaching for her notebook and a pen. "There are more important things to worry about."
Hours went by and nothing changed. They went over every single moment that had happened surrounding the super soldiers and the birth of Scully's baby. Every fact they knew and every name remotely involved. But the missing pieces were all too glaring. There would be no bodies for autopsy. No witnesses willing to testify. And that videotape would be taken as fact by anyone who didn't know better.
It was closing in on midnight when he finally stood from the couch. "I'm gonna go out," he told her. "Stay here, keep your phone on in case I need you."
"Where are you going?" she asked, watching him as he went toward the front door to grab his jacket.
"I'm gonna go see if I can lean on Scully a little harder." He turned back and looked at her. "You might want to consider getting some sleep in an actual bed."
Before she could retort, he was already gone.
****
Doggett's visit to Scully's apartment was shorter than he expected. When he returned to the house, everything was neatly organized on the coffee table. His partner was nowhere to be found. Not in the living room and not in the kitchen either.
He headed up the stairs and stuck his head into the spare bedroom. Stark was passed out cold, her head gently resting on the corner of her notebook, snoring contently. He smiled to himself, then quietly closed the door and left her be. She needed the rest, and he had phone calls to make.
****
"You might as well just move in," he told her the next day, after Reyes had shown them the copy of Carl Wormus' obituary that had turned up practically on their doorstep.
"Please. This is still less time than I spent with you when Lisa died," Stark pointed out, sharing her partner's mirthful look. She knew he didn't really mind at all, and he knew she wasn't going to let him out of her sight until she felt everything was okay. With all the people jumping ship, it was good to have someone who wanted to stick around.
Reyes watched them banter with some interest, but the ringing phone interrupted everyone and she snatched it up. "Monica Reyes. Dana, are you all right?" Now she glanced at Doggett, who was looking at her. "Yeah. He's right here with me."
She handed the phone over to John, who would have taken it anyway in about thirty seconds. "Dana. Something wrong?" he asked. As he listened, he turned and gave Stark a look. "Well, I didn't drop it," he explained. "As a matter of fact, we found something that sure as hell fits with what we are working on. A body."
That was how they found themselves at Quantico, with Doggett and Reyes explaining to Scully how they needed a definitive answer on how Wormus had died. Stark, with her aversion to autopsies, elected to pace the hallway outside. Wormus had died in Baltimore, which gave her an advantage no one else had. She was trying to think of who she could call and who she could trust. Her colleagues at Fugitive, certainly, but they weren't in the right department to give her any help. Still, she dialed her old partner just in case.
"Mansfield," he said briskly, picking up the phone.
"Always before the second ring."
That made him laugh. "What can I say? I'm a creature of habit," he replied. "What's got you calling out of the blue, Stark?"
She winced at that. It reminded her that it had been at least a year or more since she'd even bothered to check up on her former colleagues. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that," she muttered quickly, stopping only to glance in and see her current partner on the phone and looking pissy. "Just...I've got a case that looks like it might head us your way and I wanted you to know."
Victor's tone became instantly more serious. "So I can buy you dinner or so I can help?"
"I don't think it's something you can help with, Vic. We've already got a body." She exhaled. "Just...in case something goes wrong...so someone knows."
He caught on instantly. He wasn't a twelve-year veteran of the Baltimore City fugitive team for no reason. "I hear you loud and clear," he said. "I've got you covered."
She thought about saying something else, anything to make up for the past year, but that was when Doggett and Reyes were finishing up. "Thanks, Vic," she said instead, and hung up, eyeing her partner as he emerged. "What's going on?"
"She's gonna do the autopsy," he explained. "And somebody at the FBI's already got word that we have his body. We're running out of time." He eyed the cell phone in her hand. "Who'd you call?"
"An old friend at the department." She tucked the phone back in her jacket. "You can trust him. Who were you talking to?"
"A.D. Skinner," he said brusquely as they began to walk away. "Apparently I'm no longer part of the popular crowd."
****
It was deja vu all over again. After leaving Reyes behind at the end of the work day, the partners had regrouped in Falls Church. They'd stopped only to change and get something to eat, before they went back to trying to figure out what Carl Wormus had to do with the things that they had been privy to over the last week. They'd even called in a favor.
"You think they'll find anything?" he asked her.
Stark, now in her Maryland softball T-shirt, which was about as red as she was starting to see, shrugged. "I think if anyone can, they can. I might have minored in Information Technology but I'm not that good." A smirk. "Not at that, anyway."
"No, you're just good at finding people and then outrunning them," her partner mused. He was interrupted only by the knock at the door that signaled the arrival of the Lone Gunmen.
Some time later, they were all huddled around a laptop, examining what remained of Carl Wormus' life and career with the Environmental Protection Agency. Byers looked between the two of them. "What exactly was it you are looking for, if we may ask?"
Doggett shrugged. "I don't know. I was hoping you'd find something."
Langly didn't look up from the screen. "Well, if he had any secrets he took 'em to his grave. Nothing hinky in these files except for some rabid obsession with water."
"With water?"
It all began to fall into place after that. The emails, the encrypted files. Connecting Wormus to Roland McFarland, who happened to work at a water reclamation plant in none other than Baltimore. The mere mention of the city made him turn to his partner with a distinct crackle in his eye.
"We're going down there. I wanna know what this guy was into," he said decisively, pushing back from the desk. "This is your turf, Stark. I want you right by me on this."
"Always, John." She eyed him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna call A.D. Skinner. At this point, I'll take all the help I can get," he admitted. She nodded, moving to the closet where she'd set her bag so she could collect her badge and her gun. She knew that look in her partner's eyes and she was glad to see it again.
It was something called hope.
****
Of all the places that Stark had been in and around Baltimore, and she had seen much of it in her five years with the Baltimore City Police, the local water reclamation plant was not one of them. She had to admit, as she moved with her partner and A.D. Skinner through the mess of pipes, wires, and corridors, this wasn't a place she particularly wanted to be either. They moved quickly through the plant and to what they had deduced, thanks to a bit of hacking into floor plans, were the administrative offices.
"This is madness," Skinner insisted dourly. "Even if you're right and this guy can actually help your investigation, we don't know if we're in the right area."
"This has got to be McFarland's area," Doggett insisted while he and his partner searched every available work surface.
After another minute or two more, Skinner spoke up again. "This might be his desk," he said, showing the both of them the small piece of paper with Wormus' email address on it when they moved to join him. He was increasingly anxious as he said, "Let's just grab the computer's hard drive and get out of here."
"We're not sure if it's his," John replied.
"Someone could walk in one of these doors any minute and it's not gonna matter."
"Still a little gunshy?" Stark couldn't help but point out.
"I don't want to get arrested," Skinner told her, before he moved toward one of the office doors.
"Just keep an eye out," Doggett told him as he pried open the file cabinet and began searching all the paper files kept therein. "What's chloramine?" he asked no one in particular.
"What?" Skinner asked in return. "Why are you asking me about chloramine?"
"If this is McFarland's desk, he's got tons of files on chloramine in it."
Skinner saw something he didn't like: Assistant Director Brad Follmer and a herd of FBI agents. Now he had definite reason for the worry in his tone as he turned to the two younger agents. "Agent Doggett - grab the files and go," he insisted.
No one needed to tell John Doggett twice. He grabbed all the files that he could, and the three of them fled the office. Stark was glad that she had been a former university track athlete as they ran across the catwalk and down a flight of stairs. It would be impossible to keep quiet in a place practically built to echo with all the metal and high ceilings, so she knew they didn't have much chance to escape undetected. It was going to come down to speed. Thankfully, she had that in spades.
Her partner obviously had the same idea. Behind them, Skinner cried out after having caught himself on some pipe. "Assistant Director?" John called, but got no response. He knew that meant Follmer had probably already caught up to Skinner. Thinking quickly, he thrust the files at his partner. "Take these and go."
"What?" she asked, staring at him incredulously, as much as one could while running for cover.
"Stark, you're the fastest person I know. You've got the best chance of makin' it out of here. You take those files and you go back to my place. Wait for me there."
"What about you?"
"Don't worry about me. Go. Now," he insisted, knowing if he didn't practically shove her, she wouldn't move. It always pained her to leave a man behind especially when that man happened to be her best friend and partner of the last five years.
Stark did as she was told. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she ran, using the same instincts she'd honed as a fugitive-chasing cop to navigate her way through the facility. She only looked back once, and what she saw wasn't encouraging. Her partner was gone.