33 : Demons
Title: Demons
Spoilers: "Daemonicus"
Rating: PG
Words: 3162
Summary: Post-episode, Stark's point of view on "Daemonicus": why she doesn't like mental hospitals and why she remains the safe place to run to.
Arlington, Virginia
"This one really got you pissed off, didn't it?" Stark asked needlessly, looking across the street at the parked cars and the well manicured lawns in her neighborhood. Perfectly, perfunctorily boring, but after a year of working on the X-Files it was almost too good to be true. She couldn't even look at normal without wondering about the abnormal anymore.
She turned her attention back to her partner, who sat beside her. They'd been sitting there in silence for a good five minutes, and he finally turned and looked at her. She could see the anger and discomfort in his eyes. He finally said, "I can't say I blame you for not sticking around for this one."
"Wasn't what I asked." She let out a slow breath, hanging her head slightly. Walking away was not something in her rulebook. "I feel badly about that."
"You've got nothing to feel badly about," he quietly reassured her.
"Oh, and you do?" she retorted.
"Kobold's still out there."
"Through no fault of yours, John. You did everything that you could," Stark replied, shifting as she settled her elbows on her knees. "You always do," she reminded him. She had never seen anyone more thorough than her partner. It was one of the things that she admired about him and tried to emulate.
He snorted. "I could have figured it out faster. Kept him from getting away."
"Yeah, and maybe I could have read her freaking mind. No thanks. If I can't blame myself, you sure as hell can't blame yourself." Stark shook her head. "You got beaten. It happens sometimes."
John arched an eyebrow. "You think that's what it was? I got beaten?" he asked, and she saw what he was really asking her in his eyes.
She bit her lip gingerly, thinking over the question, before she nodded. "I think there's always at least one who gets under your skin no matter how hard you try."
"You could have told me."
"I'm sorry, I didn't really think we'd be wandering through mental hospitals." Now it was her turn to give a derisive snort. "But you're right. I should have." She looked at her hands, once again avoiding his eyes. It was a nervous habit when she felt like she'd failed him.
****
Weston, West Virginia
"Not how I expected to spend my morning," Stark admitted as she and John stepped away from their conversation with the detective in charge.
Her partner snapped his notepad shut. "At least we didn't have to go that far," he said, before he glanced at his watch. "Monica should be here any minute."
"Good. Maybe she can shed some light on this one." She pursed her lips as if to say something else, then stopped and shook her head.
John had seen it, however, and eyed her. "What?"
"Does she have a thing for you?"
"Who, Monica?" He laughed then. "You've gotta be kidding me. And since when would you care?" he continued, giving her a curious look. "Relax. I've only got one partner and you better not be going anywhere."
This seemed to please Stark, who just chuckled. "Wasn't planning on it."
"Right answer. Maybe she's in the house," he replied, and she followed after him. Sure enough, Monica Reyes was standing in front of the dead bodies of Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy, studying with some interest the Scrabble board in front of the both of them. "Reyes!" he called, and they watched the other woman startle. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"They told me I'd find you inside," Reyes explained as the two of them moved to join her.
"We were out back talking to the detective in charge," Doggett continued. "You're the expert here, Monica. Everyone's waiting to hear what you have to say on this."
"What do we know?"
John didn't even have to consult his notes, having already committed the facts to memory, something that made Stark's lips quirk in amusement. It was one of his many talents she found amusing. "Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy, married thirty-two years, three kids, five grandkids. Not an enemy in the world. Just that dog out front. Neck's broken. Footprints in the mud. We're looking for two perps."
"Nothing's soiled in the house," Reyes pointed out. "Nothing at all to suggest motive."
"Well, it all fits the profile, right? This thing is staged to look like some kind of Satanic ritual."
"Placing victims in a suicide posture is ritualistic. And this word is undoubtedly Satanic."
"Worst Scrabble game ever," Stark deadpanned, trying to be somehow mildly funny in order to alleviate both the tension in the room and the insecurity that came with not having a damn clue what Reyes was talking about.
Her partner snorted in amusement, eyeing the board. "Daemonicus."
"It means Satan in Latin, or daemonicus - demon possession."
Stark eyed her partner, knowing that wouldn't go over well. It was his turn to deadpan, "And it's worth fifty extra points. That's why they were posed like this. You think these folks were possessed, right?"
Monica turned to face them both. "That would be the textbook explanation."
"Then I'll let 'em know." John turned to go, and Stark prepared to follow on his heels.
"This may be something else," Monica added.
Doggett turned back and eyed her warily. "Which is what?" he asked expectantly. Monica didn't answer right away, interrupted by the arrival of medical personnel ready to remove the bodies. John's skeptical expression hardened slightly in the resulting silence. "Hey, you say anything you want about Satanic ritual, but don't tell me you think the devil did this, because we've got prints from out there. This case ain't even close to being an X-File," he said firmly.
Reyes looked between the two of them. "Something strange happened in here just before you came in," she protested. "I can't explain it."
Stark opened her mouth to say something, but before anyone could speak the medical officer leaped back from the bodies in pain. It was enough to catch all their attention. Carefully looking at the body of Evelyn Mountjoy, they were all shocked to see two very live snakes writhe their way from her corpse.
That was all they needed to see.
They didn't speak again until they had left the crime scene and made their way back to their car. Stark watched her partner, annoyed at having been dragged out on what he presumed was an utter waste of time, lean heavily against the driver's door. "You think that's it?" she asked. "You think this is just some sick bastard screwing around?"
"Two of 'em, more like it," he replied. He glanced at her. "But I know somebody we can ask. Let's go pay Agent Scully an office visit."
****
Quantico, Virginia
Scully had taken a voluntary assignment to Quantico in order to care for William. It meant the X-Files suffered considerably with two skeptics running it, but it also made her easier to find. She was giving her introductory lecture on forensic pathology, and Stark had obtained the directions to the lecture hall, studying the campus map as she and her partner walked the hallways.
John glanced at her eyeing the map. "It isn't that hard to get around here," he deadpanned.
"Yeah, and when was the last time either of us were here? You, what, six years ago, four on my end. Things change, you know," she snarked, tucking the map into her jacket as she fell into step with him. "You think she can help us sort this out?"
"She can give us the cause of death. Maybe tell us how those snakes got in there, where they come from," he continued. "It's more than we've got right now."
She nodded toward the door of the lecture hall as they approached it, and he held it for her as they stepped inside and waited for Scully to finish her speech.
Scully had also finished the autopsies on Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy, and once she had dismissed her class, she took them down to the morgue and briefed them on what she had found. The idea of hard scientific evidence was a welcome one, and backed up their theory that there wasn't anything supernatural involved. It was honestly a relief, given how they were both still edgy from the last case they'd worked on. Stark was still a little reluctant to let her partner out of her sight.
"You think we can turn this over to homicide, then?" she asked Scully. "I mean, this isn't shaping up like an X-File. Just some...screwed up people getting a thrill out of torturing an elderly couple."
"Screwed up would be stating it lightly," her partner concurred.
"That's certainly an option, Agent Patrick, if that's a decision you and Agent Doggett feel comfortable with. I can't say that there's anything that would make me raise a significant objection to dropping this case." She paused then, and glanced over Doggett's shoulder. "Looks like someone else might."
"Who?" Stark asked.
"Agent Reyes is waiting for you," Scully replied.
Stark and her partner both turned around to see Monica standing outside the morgue. After a moment, she walked in and joined them. "What did you find?" she asked Scully curiously.
"I asked Agent Scully for expertise on this," Doggett explained needlessly. "Looks like we can rule out the Exorcist after all."
"And why is that?" Reyes asked. Stark bit her tongue to keep from asking why Monica was pushing this so hard.
Scully spoke instead. "There is adhesive residue on Mrs. Mountjoy's wrists and face," she explained, producing the UV light she'd used earlier to show Monica what she had shown the other two agents before. "Do you see that? She was taped and bound and then shot at a range of ten to twelve feet with her husband's handgun."
"The husband shot her," Reyes deduced. "He was tricked into it."
Doggett nodded. "That's what we're thinking. Some kind of sick game."
"Well," Scully continued, "There's also evidence of fingerprint bruising along his collarbone." To prove her point, she showed them the signs on the body of Darren Mountjoy.
"They held him down," Reyes deduced, "shot him in his chair."
"Again, we're looking for two guys," Doggett interjected.
Stark nodded her agreement with her partner's assessment. "Not that we know one damn person who should start our suspect list."
Scully lifted up a box containing the extracted snakes. "Snakes appeared to be purely symbolic. They're non-venomous species collected locally. They were sewn post-mortem into the body cavity with household thread, by someone who appears to have surgical skill."
"You've made a lot of headway," Reyes admitted with some reluctance.
Everyone eyed her for a moment. Stark had to admit that while she had nothing against Monica, this was starting to wear on her. After the entire fiasco with Shannon McMahon, one less X-File on her hands was one less chance for something else to happen to her and her partner. She normally didn't give up on cases but Stark was still spooked. Yet Monica kept insisting, and Stark was getting irritated. Scully finally allowed, "But there's something else. Something you're not saying."
Reyes nodded slightly. "When I was alone in that house this morning I had the strong feeling I was in the presence of evil."
Stark was standing close enough to her partner that she thought she could feel his entire body tense. He was in just as edgy a mood as she was, and with good reason being that he'd been the victim last time around. "Look, Monica, the only reason you were called in on this thing is you've investigated hundreds of these kinds of cases," he reminded her.
"And not once did I find anything to support evidence of genuine Satanic activity."
Doggett gave her a duh look. "...I'm saying."
"I've never felt this before."
Before her partner could answer, his cell phone rang. He excused himself and went to answer it, leaving the three women standing there awkwardly. Monica looked at Stark, but didn't say anything. She knew the other woman came from a similar background as Doggett -- a former cop who had no interest in the paranormal -- so her question was addressed to Scully as she asked, "Have you ever sensed what I'm talking about?"
"I've felt things that I couldn't understand," Scully admitted. "Things that I was afraid to admit even to myself."
"When there was good, solid evidence?" Stark clarified.
But Monica conveniently didn't hear her. "And what did you do?" she asked Scully.
Cautiously, Scully said, "I learned not to ignore it... to trust my instincts."
That was the exact moment that John turned back to them, with a somewhat expectant look. "What is it?" Reyes asked him.
"Mental hospital, hundred miles from here," he said. "They think one of their patients did this."
Stark stood there for a moment, saying nothing. She felt a headache coming on, between the bad taste left in her mouth from the last case and from all the nonsense Monica was talking. It was just not her day. After a slow breath or two in the silence, she turned and walked soundlessly out of the morgue, past her partner, and down the hallway. Whether or not they ended up giving up on this case, he had just said two words she didn't want to hear. Reaching the end of the hall, she leaned against the wall, tucked her chin to her chest and wondered if maybe this was not her best day.
It took less than two minutes for her partner to catch up with her. "Stark, what's going on?" he asked her, crossing to her and eyeing her, confused. "What are you doin' walking out on me? You're the one other sane person in this whole conversation."
That made her laugh, and she ran a hand through her hair. "Sorry, John." She bit her lip gingerly. "I don't do well with mental hospitals."
"What?" he asked, looking bewildered. "What are you talking about?"
She turned her attention away from him and to the window, to the activity on the campus below them. She swallowed hard, taking a moment to think back on something she really didn't want to. "You know how I became an agent, right?" she said needlessly. Of course he knew. He knew almost everything about her. He knew her better than she knew herself.
"Yeah. You had that shooting in San Diego that went bad," he supplied without missing a beat. "What's that got to do with mental hospitals? I'm not following."
"Marissa Haber spent some time in one. After we locked her up. Her lawyer tried to plead insanity." Stark laughed softly, bitterly. Now she felt every muscle in her body tense. "I was stupid enough to go down there and try and confront her. Try to figure out why she did what she did." A long, slow, burning breath left her lungs. "I was a twenty-six-year-old kid. She did a pretty good job of ripping me limb from limb."
He was just looking at her. "Bad memories you don't want to relive," he concluded. She didn't have to go into detail for him to get the idea. She'd had a traumatic experience, whatever that was, with the woman who had ripped her down, and she wasn't eager to revisit it. He understood. He always did.
After a moment, Stark eyed her partner. "Would you be okay if...I don't know if I can go with you on this one, John." A swallow. "I know I'm still worried about you but..."
"Don't worry about it." He shook his head slightly. "If you came down there with us I'd just worry about you. And then that'd make two of us."
She laughed softly at that. "I love you for always looking out for me," she admitted, pushing up off the wall. She crossed to him and gave him a quick hug, taking the keys to the sedan that he pressed into her hand. "I owe you one, John."
"No, you don't. Just keep your phone on," he advised, "in case I need to call you and vent about how insane this is."
Her phone had indeed rung; he was leaving Quantico, after explaining his theory of the crime to Scully and Reyes. Kobold was dead. And he needed to talk.
****
Arlington, Virginia
"...she knew what she'd done to me. She knew that I was losing all my self-confidence. The respect that I had for the job that she had done. She was very perceptive, and she held it over me. And that feeling...that someone could manipulate me so easily...especially for a kid like I was then, it was a pretty scary thing." Her hands shook slightly as she thought about it. "It still bothers me. That I let her get the upper hand the way I did."
She paused then, taking a long and slow breath as she forced the memories back into the compartment in her brain where they belonged.
"Are we done venting yet?" Stark guessed.
Her partner just laughed. "I've got no damn clue," he admitted. He reached over then, taking her hand and lacing his fingers through her own. A small show of the fact that he understood what she had been going through. "Think that's just another reason why I need you."
She sighed softly. "What's that?"
"You're my voice of reason in all this. So I'm not talking to myself." He snorted. "I was out there, fighting with Monica and Scully...they expect me to accept to consider these 'extreme possibilities.' You don't fight with me. You let me believe what I believe."
"Maybe 'cause I believe what you believe," she reminded him. "Maybe we can all just agree to disagree."
"That'd be too easy." He glanced at her. "How are you holding up? You thought about it, didn't you?" he asked, already knowing the answer before he asked the question. She couldn't bring up what she considered to be her darkest moment as a detective and not then have it sitting somewhere in her mind.
She nodded slightly. "Thought about calling to see where she is now but I realized I'm better off not knowing. Easier to try and forget her," she said, even though she knew that she never would. A pause. "And reflecting on the one good thing that came out of all that mess."
"Oh, yeah? What's that?" he asked, piqued.
Stark looked down at their hands and smiled a little. "If I hadn't left Baltimore, I never would have met you," she said. "Maybe things have a way of working out after all."
Her partner laughed softly, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. He held on to her as he eyed the sky above them. After a moment, he added, "Maybe we all have our demons."
She couldn't disagree.
Spoilers: "Daemonicus"
Rating: PG
Words: 3162
Summary: Post-episode, Stark's point of view on "Daemonicus": why she doesn't like mental hospitals and why she remains the safe place to run to.
Arlington, Virginia
"This one really got you pissed off, didn't it?" Stark asked needlessly, looking across the street at the parked cars and the well manicured lawns in her neighborhood. Perfectly, perfunctorily boring, but after a year of working on the X-Files it was almost too good to be true. She couldn't even look at normal without wondering about the abnormal anymore.
She turned her attention back to her partner, who sat beside her. They'd been sitting there in silence for a good five minutes, and he finally turned and looked at her. She could see the anger and discomfort in his eyes. He finally said, "I can't say I blame you for not sticking around for this one."
"Wasn't what I asked." She let out a slow breath, hanging her head slightly. Walking away was not something in her rulebook. "I feel badly about that."
"You've got nothing to feel badly about," he quietly reassured her.
"Oh, and you do?" she retorted.
"Kobold's still out there."
"Through no fault of yours, John. You did everything that you could," Stark replied, shifting as she settled her elbows on her knees. "You always do," she reminded him. She had never seen anyone more thorough than her partner. It was one of the things that she admired about him and tried to emulate.
He snorted. "I could have figured it out faster. Kept him from getting away."
"Yeah, and maybe I could have read her freaking mind. No thanks. If I can't blame myself, you sure as hell can't blame yourself." Stark shook her head. "You got beaten. It happens sometimes."
John arched an eyebrow. "You think that's what it was? I got beaten?" he asked, and she saw what he was really asking her in his eyes.
She bit her lip gingerly, thinking over the question, before she nodded. "I think there's always at least one who gets under your skin no matter how hard you try."
"You could have told me."
"I'm sorry, I didn't really think we'd be wandering through mental hospitals." Now it was her turn to give a derisive snort. "But you're right. I should have." She looked at her hands, once again avoiding his eyes. It was a nervous habit when she felt like she'd failed him.
****
Weston, West Virginia
"Not how I expected to spend my morning," Stark admitted as she and John stepped away from their conversation with the detective in charge.
Her partner snapped his notepad shut. "At least we didn't have to go that far," he said, before he glanced at his watch. "Monica should be here any minute."
"Good. Maybe she can shed some light on this one." She pursed her lips as if to say something else, then stopped and shook her head.
John had seen it, however, and eyed her. "What?"
"Does she have a thing for you?"
"Who, Monica?" He laughed then. "You've gotta be kidding me. And since when would you care?" he continued, giving her a curious look. "Relax. I've only got one partner and you better not be going anywhere."
This seemed to please Stark, who just chuckled. "Wasn't planning on it."
"Right answer. Maybe she's in the house," he replied, and she followed after him. Sure enough, Monica Reyes was standing in front of the dead bodies of Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy, studying with some interest the Scrabble board in front of the both of them. "Reyes!" he called, and they watched the other woman startle. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"They told me I'd find you inside," Reyes explained as the two of them moved to join her.
"We were out back talking to the detective in charge," Doggett continued. "You're the expert here, Monica. Everyone's waiting to hear what you have to say on this."
"What do we know?"
John didn't even have to consult his notes, having already committed the facts to memory, something that made Stark's lips quirk in amusement. It was one of his many talents she found amusing. "Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy, married thirty-two years, three kids, five grandkids. Not an enemy in the world. Just that dog out front. Neck's broken. Footprints in the mud. We're looking for two perps."
"Nothing's soiled in the house," Reyes pointed out. "Nothing at all to suggest motive."
"Well, it all fits the profile, right? This thing is staged to look like some kind of Satanic ritual."
"Placing victims in a suicide posture is ritualistic. And this word is undoubtedly Satanic."
"Worst Scrabble game ever," Stark deadpanned, trying to be somehow mildly funny in order to alleviate both the tension in the room and the insecurity that came with not having a damn clue what Reyes was talking about.
Her partner snorted in amusement, eyeing the board. "Daemonicus."
"It means Satan in Latin, or daemonicus - demon possession."
Stark eyed her partner, knowing that wouldn't go over well. It was his turn to deadpan, "And it's worth fifty extra points. That's why they were posed like this. You think these folks were possessed, right?"
Monica turned to face them both. "That would be the textbook explanation."
"Then I'll let 'em know." John turned to go, and Stark prepared to follow on his heels.
"This may be something else," Monica added.
Doggett turned back and eyed her warily. "Which is what?" he asked expectantly. Monica didn't answer right away, interrupted by the arrival of medical personnel ready to remove the bodies. John's skeptical expression hardened slightly in the resulting silence. "Hey, you say anything you want about Satanic ritual, but don't tell me you think the devil did this, because we've got prints from out there. This case ain't even close to being an X-File," he said firmly.
Reyes looked between the two of them. "Something strange happened in here just before you came in," she protested. "I can't explain it."
Stark opened her mouth to say something, but before anyone could speak the medical officer leaped back from the bodies in pain. It was enough to catch all their attention. Carefully looking at the body of Evelyn Mountjoy, they were all shocked to see two very live snakes writhe their way from her corpse.
That was all they needed to see.
They didn't speak again until they had left the crime scene and made their way back to their car. Stark watched her partner, annoyed at having been dragged out on what he presumed was an utter waste of time, lean heavily against the driver's door. "You think that's it?" she asked. "You think this is just some sick bastard screwing around?"
"Two of 'em, more like it," he replied. He glanced at her. "But I know somebody we can ask. Let's go pay Agent Scully an office visit."
****
Quantico, Virginia
Scully had taken a voluntary assignment to Quantico in order to care for William. It meant the X-Files suffered considerably with two skeptics running it, but it also made her easier to find. She was giving her introductory lecture on forensic pathology, and Stark had obtained the directions to the lecture hall, studying the campus map as she and her partner walked the hallways.
John glanced at her eyeing the map. "It isn't that hard to get around here," he deadpanned.
"Yeah, and when was the last time either of us were here? You, what, six years ago, four on my end. Things change, you know," she snarked, tucking the map into her jacket as she fell into step with him. "You think she can help us sort this out?"
"She can give us the cause of death. Maybe tell us how those snakes got in there, where they come from," he continued. "It's more than we've got right now."
She nodded toward the door of the lecture hall as they approached it, and he held it for her as they stepped inside and waited for Scully to finish her speech.
Scully had also finished the autopsies on Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy, and once she had dismissed her class, she took them down to the morgue and briefed them on what she had found. The idea of hard scientific evidence was a welcome one, and backed up their theory that there wasn't anything supernatural involved. It was honestly a relief, given how they were both still edgy from the last case they'd worked on. Stark was still a little reluctant to let her partner out of her sight.
"You think we can turn this over to homicide, then?" she asked Scully. "I mean, this isn't shaping up like an X-File. Just some...screwed up people getting a thrill out of torturing an elderly couple."
"Screwed up would be stating it lightly," her partner concurred.
"That's certainly an option, Agent Patrick, if that's a decision you and Agent Doggett feel comfortable with. I can't say that there's anything that would make me raise a significant objection to dropping this case." She paused then, and glanced over Doggett's shoulder. "Looks like someone else might."
"Who?" Stark asked.
"Agent Reyes is waiting for you," Scully replied.
Stark and her partner both turned around to see Monica standing outside the morgue. After a moment, she walked in and joined them. "What did you find?" she asked Scully curiously.
"I asked Agent Scully for expertise on this," Doggett explained needlessly. "Looks like we can rule out the Exorcist after all."
"And why is that?" Reyes asked. Stark bit her tongue to keep from asking why Monica was pushing this so hard.
Scully spoke instead. "There is adhesive residue on Mrs. Mountjoy's wrists and face," she explained, producing the UV light she'd used earlier to show Monica what she had shown the other two agents before. "Do you see that? She was taped and bound and then shot at a range of ten to twelve feet with her husband's handgun."
"The husband shot her," Reyes deduced. "He was tricked into it."
Doggett nodded. "That's what we're thinking. Some kind of sick game."
"Well," Scully continued, "There's also evidence of fingerprint bruising along his collarbone." To prove her point, she showed them the signs on the body of Darren Mountjoy.
"They held him down," Reyes deduced, "shot him in his chair."
"Again, we're looking for two guys," Doggett interjected.
Stark nodded her agreement with her partner's assessment. "Not that we know one damn person who should start our suspect list."
Scully lifted up a box containing the extracted snakes. "Snakes appeared to be purely symbolic. They're non-venomous species collected locally. They were sewn post-mortem into the body cavity with household thread, by someone who appears to have surgical skill."
"You've made a lot of headway," Reyes admitted with some reluctance.
Everyone eyed her for a moment. Stark had to admit that while she had nothing against Monica, this was starting to wear on her. After the entire fiasco with Shannon McMahon, one less X-File on her hands was one less chance for something else to happen to her and her partner. She normally didn't give up on cases but Stark was still spooked. Yet Monica kept insisting, and Stark was getting irritated. Scully finally allowed, "But there's something else. Something you're not saying."
Reyes nodded slightly. "When I was alone in that house this morning I had the strong feeling I was in the presence of evil."
Stark was standing close enough to her partner that she thought she could feel his entire body tense. He was in just as edgy a mood as she was, and with good reason being that he'd been the victim last time around. "Look, Monica, the only reason you were called in on this thing is you've investigated hundreds of these kinds of cases," he reminded her.
"And not once did I find anything to support evidence of genuine Satanic activity."
Doggett gave her a duh look. "...I'm saying."
"I've never felt this before."
Before her partner could answer, his cell phone rang. He excused himself and went to answer it, leaving the three women standing there awkwardly. Monica looked at Stark, but didn't say anything. She knew the other woman came from a similar background as Doggett -- a former cop who had no interest in the paranormal -- so her question was addressed to Scully as she asked, "Have you ever sensed what I'm talking about?"
"I've felt things that I couldn't understand," Scully admitted. "Things that I was afraid to admit even to myself."
"When there was good, solid evidence?" Stark clarified.
But Monica conveniently didn't hear her. "And what did you do?" she asked Scully.
Cautiously, Scully said, "I learned not to ignore it... to trust my instincts."
That was the exact moment that John turned back to them, with a somewhat expectant look. "What is it?" Reyes asked him.
"Mental hospital, hundred miles from here," he said. "They think one of their patients did this."
Stark stood there for a moment, saying nothing. She felt a headache coming on, between the bad taste left in her mouth from the last case and from all the nonsense Monica was talking. It was just not her day. After a slow breath or two in the silence, she turned and walked soundlessly out of the morgue, past her partner, and down the hallway. Whether or not they ended up giving up on this case, he had just said two words she didn't want to hear. Reaching the end of the hall, she leaned against the wall, tucked her chin to her chest and wondered if maybe this was not her best day.
It took less than two minutes for her partner to catch up with her. "Stark, what's going on?" he asked her, crossing to her and eyeing her, confused. "What are you doin' walking out on me? You're the one other sane person in this whole conversation."
That made her laugh, and she ran a hand through her hair. "Sorry, John." She bit her lip gingerly. "I don't do well with mental hospitals."
"What?" he asked, looking bewildered. "What are you talking about?"
She turned her attention away from him and to the window, to the activity on the campus below them. She swallowed hard, taking a moment to think back on something she really didn't want to. "You know how I became an agent, right?" she said needlessly. Of course he knew. He knew almost everything about her. He knew her better than she knew herself.
"Yeah. You had that shooting in San Diego that went bad," he supplied without missing a beat. "What's that got to do with mental hospitals? I'm not following."
"Marissa Haber spent some time in one. After we locked her up. Her lawyer tried to plead insanity." Stark laughed softly, bitterly. Now she felt every muscle in her body tense. "I was stupid enough to go down there and try and confront her. Try to figure out why she did what she did." A long, slow, burning breath left her lungs. "I was a twenty-six-year-old kid. She did a pretty good job of ripping me limb from limb."
He was just looking at her. "Bad memories you don't want to relive," he concluded. She didn't have to go into detail for him to get the idea. She'd had a traumatic experience, whatever that was, with the woman who had ripped her down, and she wasn't eager to revisit it. He understood. He always did.
After a moment, Stark eyed her partner. "Would you be okay if...I don't know if I can go with you on this one, John." A swallow. "I know I'm still worried about you but..."
"Don't worry about it." He shook his head slightly. "If you came down there with us I'd just worry about you. And then that'd make two of us."
She laughed softly at that. "I love you for always looking out for me," she admitted, pushing up off the wall. She crossed to him and gave him a quick hug, taking the keys to the sedan that he pressed into her hand. "I owe you one, John."
"No, you don't. Just keep your phone on," he advised, "in case I need to call you and vent about how insane this is."
Her phone had indeed rung; he was leaving Quantico, after explaining his theory of the crime to Scully and Reyes. Kobold was dead. And he needed to talk.
****
Arlington, Virginia
"...she knew what she'd done to me. She knew that I was losing all my self-confidence. The respect that I had for the job that she had done. She was very perceptive, and she held it over me. And that feeling...that someone could manipulate me so easily...especially for a kid like I was then, it was a pretty scary thing." Her hands shook slightly as she thought about it. "It still bothers me. That I let her get the upper hand the way I did."
She paused then, taking a long and slow breath as she forced the memories back into the compartment in her brain where they belonged.
"Are we done venting yet?" Stark guessed.
Her partner just laughed. "I've got no damn clue," he admitted. He reached over then, taking her hand and lacing his fingers through her own. A small show of the fact that he understood what she had been going through. "Think that's just another reason why I need you."
She sighed softly. "What's that?"
"You're my voice of reason in all this. So I'm not talking to myself." He snorted. "I was out there, fighting with Monica and Scully...they expect me to accept to consider these 'extreme possibilities.' You don't fight with me. You let me believe what I believe."
"Maybe 'cause I believe what you believe," she reminded him. "Maybe we can all just agree to disagree."
"That'd be too easy." He glanced at her. "How are you holding up? You thought about it, didn't you?" he asked, already knowing the answer before he asked the question. She couldn't bring up what she considered to be her darkest moment as a detective and not then have it sitting somewhere in her mind.
She nodded slightly. "Thought about calling to see where she is now but I realized I'm better off not knowing. Easier to try and forget her," she said, even though she knew that she never would. A pause. "And reflecting on the one good thing that came out of all that mess."
"Oh, yeah? What's that?" he asked, piqued.
Stark looked down at their hands and smiled a little. "If I hadn't left Baltimore, I never would have met you," she said. "Maybe things have a way of working out after all."
Her partner laughed softly, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. He held on to her as he eyed the sky above them. After a moment, he added, "Maybe we all have our demons."
She couldn't disagree.