Some fic, if I can ever get it to *#*&^@ post - One
Title: Two-Two-One-Ex-Eff (221XF)
Or:
The Game? It's a Foot
---------------
Author: MaybeAmanda (Amanda Wilde)
Email: maybe_underscore_a at rocketmail dot com
Categories: Crossover (X-Files/Sherlock BBC)
Word Count: ~3500
Rating: PG? Wow - maybe G even.
Timeline: 2010 - so, post-IWTB (XF) & post series one
(Sherlock BBC)
Spoilers: For IWTB a tiny bit and TGG a lot more.
Archive: Sure.
Provenance: I said I wasn't going to write this. So, instead,
I did. I'm sooooo changeable!
Disclaimer II: Disclaimed With A Vengeance: Chris Carter invented
M&S; Fox owns The X-Files. A.C. Doyle invented Holmes and Watson,
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss turned them into Sherlock and John,
and the BBC is involved in some nefarious way. No infringement
intended.
Thanks & notes: At the end, or these headers will go on forever.
Summary: Scully visits the mortuary at Barts.
------------------------------------------------------------
"And this," Dr. Hooper says, "is the - oh."
Scully comes to a stop just in time to avoid running into her
tour guide. There are two men in the mortuary - three if you
count the dead one on the slab that the two live ones are
hunched over. The dead one is naked, save for a strategically
placed rectangle of surgical draping; the live ones are wearing
surgical gloves and tuxedoes.
Slightly odd, she thinks, but she's wearing an evening gown, as
is Dr. Hooper, so not all that odd, not tonight anyway.
Granted, she and Dr. Hooper aren't peeling the skin off anyone's
foot, while the men in the tuxes appear to be doing just that.
The blond man looks up. "Oh, Molly, hi," he says. "Sorry, um,
Lestrade called - and then we were just - and um - we just um -
"His eyes narrow slightly. "Molly, are you all right?"
Scully looks at Dr. Hooper. No, Dr. Hooper is not all right.
Dr. Hooper, who had been animatedly showing Scully around her
department a few moments before is, in fact, green. Scully
looks around for a chair to push Dr. Hooper toward before Dr.
Hooper falls down, but there isn't one. "Molly?"
The blond man clears his throat pointedly, glaring at the foot-
peeler. He's compactly built, this man, clearly not at home in
his tuxedo, although it fits well. He's vaguely familiar, not
in an 'I know you' way, but in an 'I know people just like you'
way.
The other live man - the dark-haired one doing the actual foot-
peeling - doesn't look up. "You said she'd be at the ceremony,"
he mutters.
The blond gives an exasperated sigh. "And yet, here she is."
Silence stretches for a brief eternity, then the dark haired man
speaks.
"Right then, yes. I'm very sorry, Molly," he tells the dead
man's foot. "I should have seen what he was about. I should
have stopped him. I am attempting to stop him, and I will stop
him. I hope you'll forgive me for all this, this bother and,
and inconvenience. Eventually." All of it said with the
enthusiasm and sincerity of a third-grader reciting his lines in
a poorly-written Christmas pageant.
Then he does look up, gives Dr. Hooper an appraising glance. He
frowns slightly, as if he doesn't like what he sees. "Tea, hot
and strong and at least three sugars, four if you can stomach
it." He waves, turns back to the corpse. "Now, Molly. Go!"
"Sherlock -" the blond man warns.
"Well, look at her. She hasn't eaten in at least three days in
an effort to fit into that frock," his eyes flick in the
direction of said frock, "which is absolutely lovely and a very
nice colour for you, Molly, you should wear blue more often," he
continues, "but clearly, 'Doctor,' she's either going to faint
or vomit - perhaps both - in the next minute or so, and you
prescribe sweet tea for everything from the flu to myocardial
infarction to Armageddon, ergo - "
The blond man, arms crossed over his chest, says nothing. He
doesn't have to; staring daggers seems to be working just fine.
Scully gets it then, his familiarity. Tux or no tux, he's law
enforcement, maybe military.
The dark-haired man, whose name is apparently Sherlock (of all
things), ignores him for a solid twenty seconds, then his head
shoots up. "Shut up!" he snaps.
The blond doesn't move a muscle. Oh yeah, she thinks.
Definitely military.
Next to her, Molly sways, and Scully decides whatever Beckett
play is in progress across the room can go on just fine without
her. "Molly?" She touches her arm, gently. "Can I-"
Before she finishes the sentence, the blond man has come over
and is leading Dr. Hooper by the elbow through the doors. "Come
along, Molly. Back in a minute," he says. His eyes go to
Scully. "Bring you tea? Coffee? Arsenic for you, Sherlock?"
"Don't tempt me," Sherlock drawls.
"Ah, no thank you," Scully says, but the doors have swung shut
before she answers.
She wonders what the hell just happened.
Sherlock is back to concentrating on the foot.
Okay, then.
She looks around. As mortuaries go, this seems like a nice one.
It's clean, bright, spacious, well-equipped, well set up for
teaching. Smells not bad, considering. It lacks chairs,
however, and her feet are killing her, so she leans against an
unoccupied table. She remembers living in heels, actually
running after suspects in stilettos a good two inches higher
than the ones she's wearing now. Tall, sexy power-heels.
Now? Not so much.
She's getting old.
"Look at this," Sherlock says.
"Excuse me?"
"This." He nods toward the foot, steps away from the body.
"Look at it."
She wonders why she'd want to do that. She's standing there in
an obscenely expensive silk gown (Mulder had insisted he needed
'something' to spend part of seven years of back-pay on), so she
wonders why this man even thinks she'd want to do that.
"Second opinion, obviously," he says, answering the question she
didn't pose.
Scully frowns. The way he says 'obviously' is odd. Of course,
he'd probably think the way she says it is odd, too. "Um, Dr.
Hooper seems upset," she says.
"Upset?" He sniffs, appears to weigh this. "Yes, well, most
likely. Not a month ago, her insane sham gay criminal
mastermind boyfriend tried to murder my colleague, blew up
several buildings, including much of my flat, killed at least a
dozen people in the process, and annoyed - and continues to
annoy - the hell out of me."
Scully blinks. "Excuse me?"
"And he may or may not have poisoned her cat," he adds. "The
cat seems to have recovered, at any rate. But yes, she probably
is still upset. Molly's that way."
Scully is not sure how to respond. "Maybe I should check on -"
"John's got her." Sherlock gives a dismissive wave. "In seven
to ten minutes, she'll be fine."
"Seven to ten?"
"Look at this?" he tries, pointing. "Please?"
Hmm. Well. Hmm.
She has no idea where John - presumably the blond military man -
has taken Molly, so she can't really follow them. She could
find her way back to the reception, she supposes, but she
doesn't quite know the etiquette for just leaving Molly after
whatever it is that just happened. Also, she has to admit,
she's kind of curious now, as she always began an autopsy with a
y-incision, not a foot massage. And she never conducted one
while wearing formal attire, either.
Oh, what the hell, she thinks, and steps out of her painful
shoes, because she's never done an autopsy in heels, either, and
isn't about to start now. And what else is she going to do for
the next seven to ten minutes?
She peers at the foot. "It's a foot, a man's left foot." She
points to the corpse. "Probably his."
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Yes, Doctor, thank you, I am well
aware of that."
For about half a second she wonders how he knows she's a doctor.
But then, she's been standing in a hospital mortuary watching
someone peel a corpse and not throwing up, so 'doctor' is a
good, solid guess, and probably the one she would have made.
That, or 'ghoul,' which is what Mulder would no doubt opt for.
She looks at the body. Male, about 6'2", 6'3", aged
approximately 25 to 35, but probably somewhere nearer the
middle. 165 to 170 lbs. Blond, very blond, so very likely
blue-eyed, and that's easily checked. Well-muscled. Very well
muscled, actually, particularly the legs and calves, but there's
a good deal of abdominal and upper body development, too, so he
might actually weigh more. There's not an ounce of fat on this
man. Possibly some steroid use, but that's not her concern at
the moment, since they appear to be concentrating on the foot.
Hasn't been dead long, judging by lividity. And no obvious
signs of trauma, lethal or otherwise, so why is he dead?
She looks at the un-peeled foot. The toes are heavily
callused, bent, bruised; the nails, thickened, slightly
deformed. Oh, she's seen this before; Melissa's feet had looked
like this for about five years. Well, like they were heading
this way, at least.
"Dancer?" she says. "Ballet?"
"Yes," impatiently. He points to an x-ray hanging on the light
box on the wall. "And?"
She looks at the x-ray, a single old-fashioned film, studies it
carefully, looking for anomalies, then she examines the foot
again. She holds out her hand and, after a brief pause, this
Sherlock person makes an 'oh, right' sort of sound, drops a pair
of gloves in it. Gloved up, she lifts the foot, looks at the x-
ray, looks at the foot again.
"Do you have?-"
He hands her a magnifying glass.
"Thanks." She rotates the toes slightly, flexes them, squints.
Squints at the x-ray. Toes. X-ray. Toes.
Finally, she says, "Not the same foot."
"Why?" he asks, voice neutral.
She strips off the gloves, crosses to the light box. "Here,
here, here and, yes, here," she points. "Obviously," she adds
for good measure. It's not obvious, though. You have to know
what you're looking for, really know, and luckily, she does.
"Precisely! Yes!" Sherlock says, adding a completely
incongruous fist-pump. "I knew it wasn't him!" He pulls out
his phone and starts texting furiously.
"Him whom?" she asks, removing the gloves and stepping back into
her shoes.
"Hmm? What?" Sherlock looks up from his phone, blinks like
he's surprised she's still there. "Oh, Aleksey Vetkov, the man
to whom this x-ray belongs. I am fairly certain this is his
brother, Andrei." Sherlock frowns. "But it could be Anton."
"Oh."
"Triplets."
"Right. Of course."
He's studying the x-ray again. "Robertson is such an
incompetent idiot that's he's bound to miss it, so I will email
Molly, get her to point it out to him. Why he hasn't been
sacked yet..." He shakes his head, lets the thought trail off,
and he's silent for a moment. "Oh," he turns back to her.
"Inbreeding," he says.
"What?"
"You were looking at my eyes before, and now you've been looking
at my hair."
"I -"
"At the roots, which you've concluded, correctly, aren't dyed."
"No, I -"
"You were wondering how someone with grey eyes and a startling
lack of melanin gets hair this colour."
"I don't think I was," she asserts.
"I think you'll find you were," he says, self-assuredly.
"Inbreeding. Generations of it."
She's about to protest again, but now that he mentions it, it is
an unlikely combination. Very unlikely, really.
Before she can give it any thought, John returns. "Sorry, all
sorted now, more or less. Brought you tea, hope that's all
right." He hands her a cardboard cup. "I'm John, by the way.
John Watson. Hello. Molly'll be along to collect you in a few
minutes. She's just, um -" His eyes narrow. "Has he been
deducing you?"
She blinks. "Has he what?"
"No, you don't look to be in a murderous rage, so I guess n- "
"It's not Aleksy, John," Sherlock says while he texts.
"Molly's fine," John answers.
"It might be Anton."
"Molly's fine," he repeats.
"But I really think it's Andrei."
"Molly is bloody fine, Sherlock," he says forcefully.
Sherlock turns around. He looks extremely put-out. His voice
is flat as a board. "And how is Molly, John?"
"Gutted," John says.
Sherlock exhales loudly, rolls his eyes. "I. Apologized."
"Yes, yes you did." John holds out a cup. "But she's still
gutted."
Sherlock's face goes blank.
John sighs. "Drink this," he tells Sherlock.
"I don't want to drink that."
"It's tea, just tea and sugar, they were right out of arsenic."
Sherlock glowers.
"Three day rule," John says. "Drink it."
"Fine." Sherlock relents, takes a sip of his tea, then another.
"Must I apologize again?" He sounds both extremely annoyed and
utterly bewildered. Scully hadn't been paying all that much
attention, but the apology he'd offered Dr. Hooper by way of Mr.
Vetkov's feet had been feeble at best, insulting at worst, and
inadequate all around.
Well, maybe she had been paying attention.
"Probably for the best if you do," John says. "Only, remember
the time Mycroft made you apologize to that Duchess?"
Sherlock's lip curls. "Unfortunately."
"More like that. Eye contact and everything."
Sherlock scowls. "But I was lying through my teeth, then. I
was sincere this time."
"I know," John says. "But mere mortals can't always tell the
difference."
"Fine," he spits out, clearly disgusted. Sherlock takes another
sip of his tea. He's quiet a moment, then he says, low and
lethal, "When I find him, John, and I will, you are going to
have to let me kill him at least twice."
"Sure" John nods. "No problem. Me, too. At least twice."
"Good. Glad that's settled." Sherlock grins. And, oh, it's
disturbing, that grin.
He's disturbing, now that she's paying attention. He's tall and
lean and white as a sheet of printer paper. He looks about 12,
maybe 13, like he couldn't grow a beard to save his life, but
his voice is so deep. His eyes are grey, which she hadn't
consciously noticed, but she's unlikely to ever forget it now.
Unlike John, he looks perfectly comfortable in that tux, and
she'd bet good money that he owns it. Those cheek bones - those
are deadly. The air around him all but crackles with nervous
energy, and it's pretty damned clear, even from the little
interaction they've had, that he's very, very smart. Arrogant,
too - oh lord, arrogant. And dangerous. Several bad kinds of
dangerous.
So he reminds her of someone, too. A very specific someone, in
this case.
"So, not Vetkov, then?" John asks.
"Not Aleksy, at any rate." Sherlock is texting again. "Doctor,
um,-" He looks at her pointedly.
"Scully," she supplies.
"Oh. Oh, right, of course. Yes, Doctor Scully confirmed that.
Took her no time at all."
John looks surprised. "Right, then. Thanks."
The cup is half-way to her lips when Sherlock says, "She used to
be a pathologist. Good one, too, I'd wager."
How did he - "Excuse me?" she asks.
"Likes her new job well enough, but I think she misses
pathology, just a bit, judging by her willingness to get her
hands - and feet - dirty."
John looks at her, gathers something from her expression that's
not quite as neutral as she'd like it to be. "Right," he says.
"So he was, then? Deducing?"
"Um -"
"Don't mind him; he's always like that."
She lifts the cup the rest of the way to her mouth, takes a sip,
hoping to cover her confusion. Who the hell are these people?
"Good news for Lestrade, bad news for Petrovic," Sherlock says.
"Very bad news, indeed. I've texted Donovan. That should - Oh,
Molly. You're back. Feeling better?"
And yes, Molly is back. She's no longer green, which is a good
thing, but she isn't quite a normal human colour, either. She's
tidied her hair, reapplied lipstick and mascara, but it's still
evident that she's been crying.
Molly takes a deep breath. "I want to apologize," she says
stiffly.
Sherlock looks at John. John is very deliberately not looking
at Sherlock.
"To whom?" Sherlock asks. "For what?"
"To you," Molly says. Another deep breath. "For Jim."
Sherlock's brow furrows. "Hardly your doing, Molly."
"You were right about him," she says.
Sherlock's head tilts slightly to the right. "No. No, I
wasn't."
"You were," Molly insists, looking at her feet. "I was just -"
"No," Sherlock cuts her off. "I was not right about him. I was
clearly as wrong about 'Jim' -" he spits out the name "- as it
was possible to have been."
"But -" Molly begins.
Sherlock takes three strides, grips Molly by the shoulders. "I
was wrong about Jim, and Jim was wrong about me, Molly. He used
my friends, you and John both, and he thought, he honestly
thought, I wouldn't mind. He thought I'd love it!" He pauses.
"Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how angry that makes
me?"
Still looking down, Molly shakes her head.
Sherlock places two fingers under her chin and none-too-
gently tilts her head up so she's looking him in the eye. "Very.
Very. Angry."
"We're planning on killing him four times," John says cheerily.
"Two of those are in your honour."
"That number is subject to change," Sherlock assures her. "It
could go higher. Much higher." He smiles. His smile is
nothing like his grin, Scully sees, but it's still disturbing,
just an entirely different kind of disturbing. "Where's your
bag?" Sherlock asks Molly.
"What?" Molly replies, flustered by the sudden shift in topic.
"You and Dr. Scully need to return to the reception, or Dr.
Scully will miss receiving her award. You had your bag, now you
don't have your bag, so you've left it somewhere, probably your
office. You should go fetch it."
Molly's still confused, but she nods. "Okay," she agrees and
leaves again.
Sherlock waits a beat, looks at John, face blank now. "How was
that?"
"Oh, stellar," John says. "BAFTA-worthy, really. All the
mortals have been fooled."
Sherlock scowls. "Shut up."
"You need to work on your segues, a bit."
"Quite certain I told you to shut up, John."
Scully turns to John. "My award? How-?
John shakes his head, shrugs. "No idea. Don't ask; you'll
regret it."
Something buzzes, then, and something beeps. Both men reach
into their respective pockets.
"Mycroft," John says.
"Lestrade," Sherlock answers.
"Oh shit," John says.
"My thoughts precisely," Sherlock replies.
Everything is still for about 2 seconds, then John runs one way
and Sherlock runs the other, both of them collecting things that
have been scattered around the room.
Her own phone buzzes. "Sry. Ran late. 5 mins. Where? M."
the screen reads. She tells Mulder to let her know when he
actually arrives, that she'll meet him by the front door.
"Body?" John asks as he grabs some papers.
"Robertson's on call," Sherlock sneers. "Let him deal with it."
"Right. X-ray?"
"Bring it."
"Dimmock?"
"Texting him as we speak," Sherlock replies. He finishes with
his phone, then twirls himself into a trench coat that probably
cost as much as Scully's first car. "Thank you for your
assistance, Dr. Scully, and congratulations. Come along, John."
And he's gone.
"Yes, nice to have met you, Dr. Scully," John says as he shrugs
his own coat on. "Sorry about um - well, just sorry, really.
Tell Molly that Mycroft called, if you would. She'll know what
that means."
"Sure, yes. Nice meeting you, too, Dr. Watson."
From the hallway, "John!"
John picks up the last of his things, shaking his head.
"Right. Evening," and he's gone, too.
Scully watches the doors swing shut.
Well, she thinks, that was different, and finishes her tea.
Molly returns with her bag not long after, scans the room,
frowning slightly.
"Mycroft called," Scully says. "Dr. Watson - John - he said
you'd know what that means."
"Oh. Right. Yes." Molly sighs. "They left the body out. I'm
not really dressed to move a body."
"Sherlock said Robertson should deal with it," Scully says, and
then thinks to ask, "Sherlock - is that his first name or his
last?"
"First," Molly says. "His surname is Holmes." She looks
embarrassed suddenly. "So, I suppose you're wondering what all
that was about, then."
She should be, really. She'd only met Molly in person for the
first time just over two hours ago - they've corresponded
intermittently by email for about a year after Molly had posted
some questions about anomalous findings on a professional
bulletin board and Scully had shared some ideas and insights -
and what a busy two hours those have been. But Scully knows she
walked right into the middle of something, and in a few
minutes, if things go according to plan, she'll be walking right
back out. She's okay with that. She wouldn't have been, once,
but today, she's really okay with it.
Her phone buzzes again. "Here. U? M." She tells him she'll be
there in five minutes.
She wonders, briefly, if this is how her life had looked to the
strangers who'd blundered into it all those years ago - corpses
and death threats and raw, kinetic madness. It probably had.
Some days, she supposes, it still does.
"Well, from what I can tell, two very strange men want to kill
someone for you. Twice."
Molly looks down, blushes. "Uh, yes."
"And I get the feeling that, if you tell me exactly why they
want to do that, they'll probably have to kill me, too. So,
thanks, but I'll pass."
"Yes," Molly says, "that's probably for the best."
------------------------------------------
The End
------------------------------------------
Thanks to: Circe for beta, encouragement (and saying "Hey, have
you watched..."), Benedict Cumberbatch for having a name way
better than yours, Martin Freeman for being the BAMFist Watson
ever, and David and Gillian for continuing to inspire me even
after all this time.
Notes:
(1)Yeah, you gotta know stuff.
(2)If you haven't, do. Really. You'll thank me.
(3) This story apparently drove someone from fandom.
All fandom. Forever. I'm so proud!
