Day 11: Climbing Mount Everest (X-Files/Dollhouse)
Title: Climbing Mount Everest
Author: fides
Fandom: X-Files, Dollhouse
Pairing: Mulder
Rating: R
Summary: Mulder follows up on a lead which takes him to LA
Note: The title comes from the quote "You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls."
"Good afternoon Mr Mulder..."
Fox Mulder was amused to see the implacably dressed woman, Miss DeWitt he supposed, fall silent as she caught sight of him. Since he had found reference to this place amongst his father's papers it didn't surprise him that she had been expecting a much older scion of the family. Still Mulder couldn't quite hide his grin - it would be of little use Miss DeWitt denying knowing his father now.
"Miss DeWitt," he greeted her.
She drew herself together remarkably quickly, shaking his hand and drawing up a chair opposite him.
"What can we do for you Mr Mulder? Or should that be Agent Mulder?"
She knew about him after all and he wondered what his father had said.
"I'm not here officially," he admitted. He hadn't dared tell Scully, let alone Skinner, what he was doing. He'd had little enough to do with his inheritance beyond replacing his periodically destroyed suites and paying fines. He'd also inherited a financial adviser who dealt with it for him. It was the unexpected but, he was assured, totally natural, demise of that same gentleman which had inadvertently lead him to an urban legend. "I was going over my father's portfolio - it seems he owned a considerable number of stocks in your company."
"Our parent company," DeWitt corrected pedantically. "And how is your father?"
"Dead."
"Ah." Mulder waited for the insincere condolences but they never came.
"I believe you knew my father?" Mulder began.
DeWitt regarded him shrewdly. "We'd met."
"He was a client?" Mulder pressed.
"Our client list is completely confidential."
"Miss DeWitt, let's not play games. Your organisation would not survive an FBI investigation..."
DeWitt gave him a tight smile. "Whether or not we would survive, Mr Mulder, the instigator certainly wouldn't."
"Was that a threat?"
"Merely an opinion."
"It's an opinion I've heard before. One held by people much more dangerous than you. Now I know my father made use of your facility in the past. I want to know exactly what his interest was here and as someone who currently has a lot invested in your parent," Mulder sneered the word, "company and proof of your existence I think it is in your best interests to co-operate with me.
"Mr Mulder, we appreciate your position as a stock holder. But what you ask is impossible." She held up one perfectly manicured hand to stop his objection. "And I do mean impossible. Not 'I don't want to' although that is also true, but 'we can't'. I know you have not used our service before so I will explain it in a way I hope you can understand. Our client details their needs to the computer - not to a person but to a computer. In line with our strong policy on client privacy we do not record these sessions. The computer analyses his, or her, needs and tells our technician what profile would best suit those needs and alerts us if there are any... aspects to the client's requirements that would put our operative in more that the acceptable level of risk."
"So you had the profile and you know the risks involved in the assignment," Mulder jumped on the sliver of hope.
"No, Mr Mulder, we know the level of risk. There is a difference."
"But the profile?"
"We do store records of the profiles that our agents are assigned. For our agents well-being, naturally."
"Naturally." Mulder echoed sarcastically.
"Maybe if you were to tell me specifically what you were interested in, Mr Mulder," DeWitt said, there was the slightest edge in her voice and Mulder felt meanly glad he had got to her, "I could better assist you."
"I'm looking for my sister."
He thought he saw a flash of surprise cross her face but it was quickly replaced by scepticism. "And you think she is here?" The cultured disdain almost made him long for Oxford. In truth, that idea hadn't occurred to him although it made a certain kind of nasty sense. How long had the Dollhouse been running? How long had his father been involved? All those hints that Samantha had been experimented on...
"I think I want to meet the agent that my father was interested in."
"Mr Mulder..."
"Now." His sister - it could be her. He couldn't lose this chance.
He refused to look away as she regarded him keenly. He would not back down even if it destroyed him. After all what had he got left to lose that the Consortium hadn't already got their claws into. He would get his answers. DeWitt nodded once, slowly. She pressed a button on the intercom on her desk.
"Mr Dominic. Could you fetch Whiskey please."
There was something in the way she said the words that made Mulder sure she wasn't just asking for a drink. The intercom was silent.
"Mr Dominic?" There was a definite asperity to her voice that suggested refusal was not an option and tardiness would be equally unwise.
"If you're sure," the intercom conceded.
"I am." She took her finger off the button and turned back to Mulder. "Perhaps a cup of tea while we wait?"
Mulder blinked. That had been... too easy. He waved the tea away and waited, irritable and fidgety, while DeWitt sipped from her cup with all evidence of composure. He wanted to demand something, to rage at her, but now she had given in to his demands he wasn't sure what to say. The one time he opened his mouth to start the conversation back up she had just held up one finger and said "uhuh". He had subsided, obscurely rebuked and unhappy.
He jumped up at the knock on the door, impatient. Miss DeWitt put her tea cup down carefully before calling "enter".
The first man in, Mulder assumed he was the invisible Mr Dominic, looked at DeWitt for her nod before stepping aside and holding the door open. At the sight of the figure behind him Mulder went for his gun, scrambling backwards in shock. Miss DeWitt ignored him, ignored the gun Dominic pulled and aim levelled at Mulder in his turn.
"Whiskey, come in and say say hello to Mr Mulder."
The man named Whiskey looked at him with slight curiosity but nothing else. He seemed totally unaware of the gun pointed at him or the tension crackling in the room.
"Hello," he said obediently, voice frighteningly familiar. "Do I know you?"
Mulder stared at the blank, innocent eyes in Alex Krycek's face and found himself lost for an answer.
***
The knowledge stayed with him the next day, growing in his thoughts like a canker. He owned Alex Krycek.
Scully sent him home early - claiming his distraction and irritation making him even more impossible than normal. He walked back in a daze, the words repeating in his mind in time with the slap of his shoes on the pavement.
He ordered takeaway on auto-pilot wondering what it would be like to be able to order up Krycek with the same ease. When the delivery boy arrived he found himself surprised by the amount. Selecting one carton he put the rest in the fridge and settled on the sofa, flicking a video on as distraction from silence. To his dismay Plan 9 did not capture his attention as it normally did. The grey zombies seemed to look out of the screen with green eyes, their angry, soulless faces too much a combination of the Krycek he remembered and the man he had seen that day.
In final desperation to clear his mind he replaced the otherworldly invaders with a work wholly more worldly. Even then his mind wandered almost more than his hands.
He owned Alex Krycek. He could do anything... he could have his revenge. He could make Krycek confess. Make him reveal the truth to the world. Hell. He could have Krycek on his knees and begging for Mulder's forgiveness. He could have Krycek on his knees and make him pay...
His orgasm caught him by surprise, the semen splattering across his stomach with the clarifying shock of water to a sleeper.
It wasn't Krycek. It was just a man with Krycek's face and nothing more. Alex Krycek didn't exist. Had never existed.
Mulder curled up on the sofa, unaware of everything from the drying semen on his belly to the tears as they began to fall.
~ -*- ~
Author's note: This got jossed after I started writing it. I decided to go with it as it was for two reasons. Firstly I liked the callsign too much to change it and secondly I thought it made a good double bluff. My excuse is that the names are recycled and even if the Whiskey we see on the screen is Whiskey 1 (as suggested by one of her missions being Whiskey 1.1) Topher is a computer geek and therefore starts counting at 0!
Author: fides
Fandom: X-Files, Dollhouse
Pairing: Mulder
Rating: R
Summary: Mulder follows up on a lead which takes him to LA
Note: The title comes from the quote "You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls."
"Good afternoon Mr Mulder..."
Fox Mulder was amused to see the implacably dressed woman, Miss DeWitt he supposed, fall silent as she caught sight of him. Since he had found reference to this place amongst his father's papers it didn't surprise him that she had been expecting a much older scion of the family. Still Mulder couldn't quite hide his grin - it would be of little use Miss DeWitt denying knowing his father now.
"Miss DeWitt," he greeted her.
She drew herself together remarkably quickly, shaking his hand and drawing up a chair opposite him.
"What can we do for you Mr Mulder? Or should that be Agent Mulder?"
She knew about him after all and he wondered what his father had said.
"I'm not here officially," he admitted. He hadn't dared tell Scully, let alone Skinner, what he was doing. He'd had little enough to do with his inheritance beyond replacing his periodically destroyed suites and paying fines. He'd also inherited a financial adviser who dealt with it for him. It was the unexpected but, he was assured, totally natural, demise of that same gentleman which had inadvertently lead him to an urban legend. "I was going over my father's portfolio - it seems he owned a considerable number of stocks in your company."
"Our parent company," DeWitt corrected pedantically. "And how is your father?"
"Dead."
"Ah." Mulder waited for the insincere condolences but they never came.
"I believe you knew my father?" Mulder began.
DeWitt regarded him shrewdly. "We'd met."
"He was a client?" Mulder pressed.
"Our client list is completely confidential."
"Miss DeWitt, let's not play games. Your organisation would not survive an FBI investigation..."
DeWitt gave him a tight smile. "Whether or not we would survive, Mr Mulder, the instigator certainly wouldn't."
"Was that a threat?"
"Merely an opinion."
"It's an opinion I've heard before. One held by people much more dangerous than you. Now I know my father made use of your facility in the past. I want to know exactly what his interest was here and as someone who currently has a lot invested in your parent," Mulder sneered the word, "company and proof of your existence I think it is in your best interests to co-operate with me.
"Mr Mulder, we appreciate your position as a stock holder. But what you ask is impossible." She held up one perfectly manicured hand to stop his objection. "And I do mean impossible. Not 'I don't want to' although that is also true, but 'we can't'. I know you have not used our service before so I will explain it in a way I hope you can understand. Our client details their needs to the computer - not to a person but to a computer. In line with our strong policy on client privacy we do not record these sessions. The computer analyses his, or her, needs and tells our technician what profile would best suit those needs and alerts us if there are any... aspects to the client's requirements that would put our operative in more that the acceptable level of risk."
"So you had the profile and you know the risks involved in the assignment," Mulder jumped on the sliver of hope.
"No, Mr Mulder, we know the level of risk. There is a difference."
"But the profile?"
"We do store records of the profiles that our agents are assigned. For our agents well-being, naturally."
"Naturally." Mulder echoed sarcastically.
"Maybe if you were to tell me specifically what you were interested in, Mr Mulder," DeWitt said, there was the slightest edge in her voice and Mulder felt meanly glad he had got to her, "I could better assist you."
"I'm looking for my sister."
He thought he saw a flash of surprise cross her face but it was quickly replaced by scepticism. "And you think she is here?" The cultured disdain almost made him long for Oxford. In truth, that idea hadn't occurred to him although it made a certain kind of nasty sense. How long had the Dollhouse been running? How long had his father been involved? All those hints that Samantha had been experimented on...
"I think I want to meet the agent that my father was interested in."
"Mr Mulder..."
"Now." His sister - it could be her. He couldn't lose this chance.
He refused to look away as she regarded him keenly. He would not back down even if it destroyed him. After all what had he got left to lose that the Consortium hadn't already got their claws into. He would get his answers. DeWitt nodded once, slowly. She pressed a button on the intercom on her desk.
"Mr Dominic. Could you fetch Whiskey please."
There was something in the way she said the words that made Mulder sure she wasn't just asking for a drink. The intercom was silent.
"Mr Dominic?" There was a definite asperity to her voice that suggested refusal was not an option and tardiness would be equally unwise.
"If you're sure," the intercom conceded.
"I am." She took her finger off the button and turned back to Mulder. "Perhaps a cup of tea while we wait?"
Mulder blinked. That had been... too easy. He waved the tea away and waited, irritable and fidgety, while DeWitt sipped from her cup with all evidence of composure. He wanted to demand something, to rage at her, but now she had given in to his demands he wasn't sure what to say. The one time he opened his mouth to start the conversation back up she had just held up one finger and said "uhuh". He had subsided, obscurely rebuked and unhappy.
He jumped up at the knock on the door, impatient. Miss DeWitt put her tea cup down carefully before calling "enter".
The first man in, Mulder assumed he was the invisible Mr Dominic, looked at DeWitt for her nod before stepping aside and holding the door open. At the sight of the figure behind him Mulder went for his gun, scrambling backwards in shock. Miss DeWitt ignored him, ignored the gun Dominic pulled and aim levelled at Mulder in his turn.
"Whiskey, come in and say say hello to Mr Mulder."
The man named Whiskey looked at him with slight curiosity but nothing else. He seemed totally unaware of the gun pointed at him or the tension crackling in the room.
"Hello," he said obediently, voice frighteningly familiar. "Do I know you?"
Mulder stared at the blank, innocent eyes in Alex Krycek's face and found himself lost for an answer.
***
The knowledge stayed with him the next day, growing in his thoughts like a canker. He owned Alex Krycek.
Scully sent him home early - claiming his distraction and irritation making him even more impossible than normal. He walked back in a daze, the words repeating in his mind in time with the slap of his shoes on the pavement.
He ordered takeaway on auto-pilot wondering what it would be like to be able to order up Krycek with the same ease. When the delivery boy arrived he found himself surprised by the amount. Selecting one carton he put the rest in the fridge and settled on the sofa, flicking a video on as distraction from silence. To his dismay Plan 9 did not capture his attention as it normally did. The grey zombies seemed to look out of the screen with green eyes, their angry, soulless faces too much a combination of the Krycek he remembered and the man he had seen that day.
In final desperation to clear his mind he replaced the otherworldly invaders with a work wholly more worldly. Even then his mind wandered almost more than his hands.
He owned Alex Krycek. He could do anything... he could have his revenge. He could make Krycek confess. Make him reveal the truth to the world. Hell. He could have Krycek on his knees and begging for Mulder's forgiveness. He could have Krycek on his knees and make him pay...
His orgasm caught him by surprise, the semen splattering across his stomach with the clarifying shock of water to a sleeper.
It wasn't Krycek. It was just a man with Krycek's face and nothing more. Alex Krycek didn't exist. Had never existed.
Mulder curled up on the sofa, unaware of everything from the drying semen on his belly to the tears as they began to fall.
~ -*- ~
Author's note: This got jossed after I started writing it. I decided to go with it as it was for two reasons. Firstly I liked the callsign too much to change it and secondly I thought it made a good double bluff. My excuse is that the names are recycled and even if the Whiskey we see on the screen is Whiskey 1 (as suggested by one of her missions being Whiskey 1.1) Topher is a computer geek and therefore starts counting at 0!