I go down to his office; a short elevator ride, then an even shorter walk down the hall. The door is partly open, but I knock anyway. "Come on in," he says. I push the door open and walk in.
"Agent Mulder?" He looks up from some papers on his desk, and I can’t take my eyes off him. The years have been both good and bad to him; he is an attractive man, but an observant person can see the small lines of stress and worry, the quiet pain in his eyes.
"Yeah?" he asks, breaking my reverie.
I smile and extend my hand. "I’m Agent Kara Brawn. I’ve been assigned to work with you while Agent Scully takes her extended vacation."
He stands up and shakes my hand. His is warm and smooth. "Yeah, I got a note from AD Skinner." He sits down again and waves toward a chair, and I sit down. "So, how long have you been with the Bureau?"
"Only a couple of years," I say. "I’m assigned to the Intelligence Division, but I guess they feel they can do without me for a couple of months."
He grins. "It’s so nice to be needed, isn’t it?"
I laugh.
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Agent Brawn. Agent Kara Brawn. I wonder what I would find if I looked up her background. Is she a real agent, or a spy, like Krycek was? Her bright smile and easy laugh almost make me suspicious after working with Scully’s conservative manner for so long. Maybe I should check the Intel records to see if she’s telling the truth.
"So, are you ready to jump into the mud puddle and sully your reputation?" I ask.
She smiles. "I don’t listen to gossip, Agent Mulder. All I know is you are a good agent, and that I’ll probably learn something from you."
Doesn’t listen to gossip? Learn something from me? Who is this woman, anyway? "Uhh...yeah," I say. "Okay, let’s get to work." I hand her the case file I’d been reading. She skims over it quickly, then goes back and reads a few things more in-depth.
"But it doesn’t seem like there have been any UFO sightings at all, just the crop circles," she says. At least she sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.
"There aren’t any listed in the report, anyway."
"So are we leaving tomorrow or later this afternoon?" I blink, a little surprised, and she smiles at me.
"This afternoon," I say. "It’s in a couple hours, you probably need to go home and pack."
"Yeah," she says, standing up and handing the case file back to me. "Should I come back here, or just meet you at the airport?"
"Why don’t you come back here, and we’ll go to the airport together."
"Okay." She walks a few steps, then turns and smiles at me again. "Oh, and Fox--" She breaks off abruptly as I stare at her. She puts one hand over her mouth, and she looks as startled as I feel. "I’m sorry," she says at last. "I didn’t mean to do that."
"It’s okay...I’m just not very fond of my first name...I’d prefer you call me Mulder," I say lamely. "What were you going to say?"
"I like the poster," she says in a rush, then turns and hurries out of the office.
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Fox? Why did I just call him that? Did I want to give myself away? I turn and practically run out of the office before I say something even more stupid. I have to remember they were watching me all the time, especially when I was with him. I drive home and pack quickly but neatly. I’m done in ten minutes. What should I do for two hours? I don’t want to go back to the office. How could I ever have thought working with him would be easy? From the moment he looked up and met my eyes, I wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him the truth...but I can’t. They’re watching.
I sit down in front of my computer and hook into the Internet, finding information about the little town we’re going to, crop circles, and a few other UFO related things. I need to do something, anything, to make me forget how I almost blew it.
The phone rings, and I jump. It rings again, and I stare at it a moment before picking it up. "Hello?"
The voice on the other end chills me. "You’re slipping up already," the man says. There’s a pause. I can imagine him taking a puff on his cigarette. "Be more careful."
"I will," I say, and he hangs up. I slowly put the phone back in the cradle, my mind awash with what I could forget so easily while in Mulder’s presence. The real reason why I was with him. What would happen to him on this trip. Then the tears come. How could they make me do this?
I look at the clock, and with a start realize it’s time to head back to the office to meet Mulder. I pick up my suitcase and my carry-on, lock the door to my apartment, and drive back to the office.
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For some reason, the words "I like the poster" keep circling through my head. I can think of a million reasons why she would know my first name, but in this case even I would choose the normal over the paranormal. If she read a case report by me, she’d know my first name. It was on the door. It was on the desk, for crying out loud, a cheap plastic imitation wood-grain nameplate.
I close the case file and stick it under my arm, then go out into the hall and lock the office door. At that moment she comes down the hall, panting slightly, a suitcase in one hand and a carry-on in the other. My stuff is already packed and sitting in the trunk of my car. "Sorry I’m a little late," she says.
"That’s okay. I’m always late."
We walk side-by-side to my car. I open the trunk, and she unceremoniously throws her things in. For some reason I can suddenly see her apartment in a state similar to mine: orderly to us, a complete mess to everyone else.
I like her already, and from the smile she gives me, I think she can tell.
We get in and I drive to the airport. We chat about mundane things, music and sports and hobbies. She likes classical and rock, playing soccer, watching baseball, and curling up in a comfortable chair with a good book. I remember Samantha was a bookworm, too, and I have a memory flash of her sitting entranced in front of a radio that was playing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #2. I glance over at Kara--now when did I start thinking about her on a first-name basis?--noticing the slightly upturned corners of her mouth, the sparkle in her eyes, as she looks out the window. I wonder if she’s amused by some private thought, or by the world in general.
I manage to find a parking spot not too distant from our plane terminal, and we grab our bags and go inside. We check our suitcases in and get onto the plane. We find our seats and settle in, and she opens her carry-on and pulls out a book, something by Dean Koontz. She notices me watching. "I’ll put it back if you want to talk," she says.
"No," I say. "Go ahead. I need to get some sleep."
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I glance over at him from time to time, watching him sleep. His face is more youthful in repose, taking on a few vestiges of the boy I knew. I look away before I start sobbing. I can’t do this, I think, I can’t. But someone has to, and they picked me.
I put down my book, pick up my carry-on, and go down to the bathrooms. I lock myself in one and open the bag. Hidden carefully among the few items of clothing and other junk I have in here is the plastic gun, which I now unearth and assemble. I stick it under my chin and put my finger on the trigger. It wouldn’t even hurt, I tell myself. Boom, it’d be over with, your brain wouldn’t know what hit it. Then I sigh. Even though it’s unloaded, I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger. I take it apart again, hide it again, and go back to my seat.
In what seems like too short a time, we’re landing in Kentucky, Mulder sleepily staring out the window. We collect our suitcases and get a rental car, and set out on the long drive to a little town in the middle of nowhere.
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She’s quiet as we drive, when she’s riding and driving both. For some reason, it worries me. She seems like she would be a talker.
We finally reach the little town and drive out to the old farm. An elderly woman greets us at the door. "I’m Hannah Carpenter," she says. "This is my farm."
We go to see the crop circles. Kara talks to Hannah while I do some investigating. Then she walks out to me. "She says she saw a UFO the night before the crop circles started, up by the moon. She said the morning after she saw it, she went into town and told the sheriff. She drove to his house."
"And you think that’s significant?" I ask, trying to get a glimpse of her thought processes.
"The sheriff has two teenaged boys, twins. ‘Delightful children,’ according to Mrs. Carpenter."
"And they overheard her tell the sheriff about her UFO, and they decided to play a trick on her." I look out over the field and notice that there seems to be more space between two rows of wheat. I walk over, Kara following me. "Look at this," I say. "All the wheat ears have been torn off the sides of these two rows."
She points to the ground, where a footprint is clearly visible in the sunlight shafting through the stalks of wheat. It’s from a tennis shoe. I look at her, and she smiles, her eyes warm. She’s a sharp woman, like Scully. I wonder if she’d want to stay on with the X-Files after Scully gets back, and if they’d let her.
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I hate it when he looks at me. I hate that suddenly admiring gaze. I hate him, because he’s making it harder and harder for me to think about the job I have to do, and do very soon. While I’m happy on the outside, on the inside I’m screaming. Screaming for mercy, for justice, for someone else to come and do this horrible job they’re making me do.
I know what he’s thinking. His eyes express it so clearly, and I wonder if he knows they do that. I wish I could, Fox, I really wish I could. I turn away from him before he sees my eyes go dark with pain.
Hannah offers us two rooms in her huge farmhouse. We accept, and she cooks a magnificent dinner. When darkness comes, we go out into the field and wait to see if the boys will show up tonight. We’re not disappointed, as we soon hear stealthy whispers and the sounds of someone pushing carefully through the wheat.
They come out into the open area of one of the crop circles, giggling to each other. That’s when we step out of the tall wheat. "Doing a little harvesting, boys?" Mulder asks.
They try to run, but I’m right there. "Agents Mulder and Brawn, FBI."
"FBI?" one of them asks, his voice squeaking on the last letter.
"Yeah, FBI," Mulder says.
We take their shoulders and march them up to the farmhouse. Hannah comes out onto the porch. "Nathan and Jonathan, I’m so disappointed! Why’d you go off scaring me like that?"
"Sorry, Gramma," the other says.
"You boys are in for a whipping when your daddy finds out about this." They wince, looking as pathetic as possible.
But Hannah isn’t looking at them anymore. She’s looking up into the sky. "There it is!" she cries, pointing.
I look up. Next to the moon is a brilliant white spot that doesn’t twinkle like a star. Mulder glances at me, and I try to think of some way to tell her without making her feel like an idiot. "Mrs. Carpenter..."
She looks at me. "Yes?" She must have seen something in my eyes, because she suddenly starts laughing. "Old Mother Nature fooled this old woman, eh? Which one is it?"
"I’m pretty sure it’s Venus," Mulder says.
"Venus," she says, looking up at it again. "Well, Venus, you’re certainly a pretty planet to the eyes of this earthling." Mulder smiles, and I giggle.
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As we turn to go into the farmhouse, Kara says, "Mulder, can I talk to you?"
"Sure," I say, and she turns and walks back into the wheat field. I follow with a little trepidation. What’s going on?
We go out beyond the crop circles, weaving our way through the wheat. Suddenly she turns, and a silencer-equipped gun is pointed at my chest. "I’m sorry, Fox," she says, "but I have to do this."
"What are you doing? What are you talking about?"
Her hand begins to shake, and I can see her finger tightening on the trigger. Then the first sob bursts from her lips, and her arm drops, the other hand going up to cover her mouth. "They told me--I had to--or they’d kill me instead--" I walk over to her, putting my arms around her, but she shoves me away violently. "Don’t you get it, Fox! Don’t you get it yet!" she screams, her dark tear-filled eyes reflecting the moon.
Dark hair, dark eyes. A reader. Loves classical music. Suddenly all the pieces fall into place, and it leaves me breathless. "S--Sam--Samantha?" I stutter.
She starts to cry openly now, nodding her head yes. I step toward her again, and this time she lets me hold her.
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As Fox pulls me into his arms, I turn the gun so it’s facing me, pointing up under my ribs. "Fox?"
"Yeah?" he asks, his eyes closed, tears streaking his face.
"I love you, big brother." I close my eyes, telling myself that it won’t hurt, it’ll be over fast...I pull the trigger and the gun goes off. I can’t contain my cry of agony as I collapse.
"Samantha!" Fox cries, holding on to me, lowering me to the ground gently. "Samantha, why?"
My voice is faint. "They’d...kill me anyway...I didn’t want...to give...them the pleasure..."
"Samantha..." His voice is the last thing I hear as the world fades away into blackness.
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Mulder jerked awake, startled by a knocking on his half-open office door. It had only been a dream... Whoever it was knocked again, softly. "Come on in," he said. He looked down at the case file on his desk.
"Agent Mulder?"
He looked up, and felt his eyes widening in surprise. "Yeah?" he managed to say.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman smiled and held her hand out. "I’m Agent Kara Brawn. I’ve been assigned to work with you while Agent Scully takes her extended vacation."
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