Title: Not the Only One (1/1)
Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is
intended. 
Summary: This is what comes from watching 'Stir of Echoes' at two o'clock
in the morning with a bunch of friends....MSR/Weirdness

RATED R for some sex and blood

=-=-=-=
Not the Only One
=-=-=-=

Is this the last time I'll ever see you
Is this the last time I'll ever meet you
Is this the last I'll ever
make love to
you

--I'm Not the Only One, filter

=-=-=-=

"I think he slips in and out of time, Scully."

"Mulder, I think *you're* slipping in and out."

He shook his head angrily and crushed the report in his hand, the paper
making a hard crunching sound as it shrank under his anger. The police
department was humming and alive with activity, but the sound of that
paper was like a bomb to her ears. She could feel it papercutting her
soul, small and shredding but painful.

"It makes sense. The electrolyte imbalances. The blood count. I'm taking
your own scientific observations and applying them, Scully. He's supposed
to be 32, but he looks and *is* 20. Remember Einstein's Twin Paradox?"

"Mulder. I wrote a paper on Einstein. Of course I remember."

"Einstein could conceive of it. Why can't you?"

"Einstein acknowledged the certainty of men going into space for long
periods of time. Not of aliens coming through space to us. Not of
traveling in and out of time."

"Scully--"

"Mulder, where would he go? Between time, where does he end up?"

He just looked at her, knowing she had caught a snare in his theory but
unwilling to let it drop. So he had one hole, one unknown, it didn't make
the idea invalid. In fact, it agreed more and more with what they were
seeing.

"Scully. Jared Miller can do it. Somehow. But he's not our killer."

Her eyebrows rose dangerously and he could tell she was going to fight him
on this one.

"He's been at every single crime scene, Mulder. I found his fingerprints
all over his ex-wife's body and he admitted to being there."

"But he's not killing people, Scully. His wife is a victim of some other
murderer and I think Jared was trying to save her."

"Save her from what?"

Mulder shrugged. "Or who?"

The police station around them was still doing its busy humming thing that
drove her insane--trying to hold a conversation while a hundred people
pretended to work but actually stared. She needed some privacy for this;
she wanted to frown at his theory without feeling like she was being
dissected by the crowd.

"Let's find an office to talk about this, Mulder."

He nodded and they pushed their way through the small, cramped space of
desks and chairs and detectives. This was far from over.

=-=-=-=

"So how do you do it, Jared?"

Mulder was leaned forward far into the man's face, the bed rail digging
painfully into his hip as he talked. He seemed to be just a boy, with a
narrow face and startling grey eyes, neither colored nor bright. His
fingers were long and disproportionate to his palms, but they gripped the
Velcro restraints and worried at them. He wanted to leave the hospital. He
was under arrest.

"I told you--I didn't kill my wife!"

"You tried to save her. I know, I understand you. You knew it would happen
because it had already happened. You wanted to fix it."

"And if you don't let me go now, I won't be able to fix it!" He was
screaming now, but his voice was thin and reedy, like he'd collapse if he
set foot outside the room.

"Why not? How do you do it, Jared?"

He sighed and closed his eyes. He was resigned to the inevitability of his
wife's death, of his own. Perhaps he should agree to a guilty charge, be
put on death row, encourage his execution. After all, he had killed his
wife in way. He'd just been messing around with the streams, wanting to
feel powerful for a bit, but if he didn't get out of this place, he'd
never get it fixed--

But here was Agent Mulder.

"You have to catch the slipstream."

"What? How? What's the slipstream?"

Jared's eyes were closed but he talked as if he were vibrantly dead, so
filled with death and the aching release of it that he was nearly alive.
It was a strange thing to see.

"The current. The slipstream. In and out, back and forth. It's about to
disappear today. It's fainter for her everyday."

"For her? Does your wife have her own slipstream?"

Jared's eyes opened and he frowned. "Of course. I thought you knew--you
understood."

"I do. Just not the details."

"Every person has a slipstream. Everybody. If you're persistent, you can
start to see them, to slip into them. It's a current of life. Time is
nothing, time is something man has created to keep from insanity. I don't
need time."

"They think you're insane."

Jared raised his eyebrows. "See? Doesn't that make my point?"

"Are you insane, Jared?"

He was, but what would be the point?

"No."

"Then tell me how it happened. How it happens."

"UnVelcro me."

There was a pause, then Mulder ripped off the restraints. It sounded like
a branch was cracking and breaking under a load of ice. Jared's eyes were
still grey and dead.

Jared blinked and the world shifted and Mulder was back in the doorway,
standing over him, about to ask his questions, all of them brimming to the
surface. The Velcro straps dangled from the railing; he could move in and
out, not only in his own stream, but now in others' as well. 

It would be more impressive this way. The clocks were all back to those
first five minutes.

"You want to know how I do it?" he asked.

Mulder's mouth dropped and he hurridly stepped into the room, sitting in
the chair at the man's bedside.

"I'm not a murderer. But if you don't let me out of here, I won't be able
to stop it. . .her slipstream is slipping away from me."

"Slipstream?"

"Here's how it happens."

=-=-=-=

Mulder walked into the motel room with a changed body, a new desire, a
weak understanding. She could sense these things in him but not the
reasons; she did not know that this was not Mulder, not the Mulder that
usually came to her.

"Mulder--"

But she couldn't say anything because he was slipping, and when he
slipped, she was dead, bloody and bleeding on the floor. Bloodied and
bleeding and pure and stainless, all at the same time. He was slipping and
she was dying but not.

"Mulder?"

Mulder opened his eyes and he was in her motel room, the knife of
death-time in his hands but she was standing there, watching him
curiously.

"Mulder, what are you doing?"

She had these faint images of him with a knife coming to slit her throat.
She'd had dreams the night before that Mulder had gone crazy and dragged
that knife across her throat. Her throat. She touched it unconsciously.

"Killing you."

"What?"

"I just killed you, Scully, then slipped back and changed it, then slipped
back and killed you again. Now I slipped back and you're all right."

"You didn't slip, Mulder."

She wasn't comprehending; he said kill and she jumped and shied from the
word like a horse, shutting down the parts of his explanation that said
kill. 

"No. I slipped, Scully. In the slipstream. I slipped in and out of space
and time."

"And you used me?-me- as a test?"

He shook his head. "No. I tested it out four or five times. I killed a
bee first."

"Mulder. . .I-this isn't making any sense. You didn't do anything but walk
into my apartment without knocking or anything."

"Apartment?"

Mulder glanced around and felt his fingers freeze on his knife, still
clean, and licked his lips.

"Yes, Mulder. My apartment. Which you walked right--"

"No. No, I came in your motel room, Scully. Your motel room."

She stared at him, then slowly looked around the room. It was her living
room, it was her apartment--those were her slippers by the couch and her
book, The House of Mirth, lying on the end table.

"Mulder?"

"Your motel room. I came in your motel room. Jared didn't say anything
about this--"

"Who's Jared?"

=-=-=-=

This time when he slipped, he slipped back into her motel room.

She was dead on the floor with the knife sticking from her chest and
bouncing up and down on her breaths. Dead? Breathing? She was both dead
and breathing at the same time, in the same slipstream and he knew things
had gone horribly wrong.

Undo it. Undo it.

He slipped again and she was getting up from the bed, coming towards him,
looking frightened.

"Don't hurt me."

He gaped at her and tossed the knife outside, shutting her motel room door
loudly on the glint of the blade slinging through the air and landing in
the grass.

"I'm no going to hurt you, Scully."

"How do you know my name?!"

=-=-=-=

He slipped back and forth and back and forth and then she was there.
Scully. Her. His.

"Mulder! What's going on? You keep flickering...."

He nodded and sat her down, explained the slipping, the slipstreams of
hers and his. He was trying to slip in and out of her slipstream, like he
had with the bee he had killed, but he thought maybe he was accidentally
slipping in and out of his own. They were close like that, maybe.

"Where's the knife?"

"Knife?"

"Never mind. You're okay?"

"Yes."

"Stupid of me to experiment with it, with your life. I was sure. . .so
sure."

"Mulder?"

"It's okay."

He squeezed her hand in apology and she sighed, shaking her head.

"I don't understand you sometimes."

He grinned and sat down next to her on the bed, relieved at being back in
the right space and time.

She leaned over and kissed his lips, softly and knowingly. He was
surprised, but pushed into the touch and breathed with it. She wanted
something from him; her hands were circling his forearms and stroking. How
did she know that made him nuts? She was Scully. Perhaps that was answer
enough.

"Scully?"

"Hush Mulder. You talk too much. Slipping...."

He nodded and let his hands travel to her knees, stroking and soft and
gentle. She spread before him and shimmied into his lap, making love to
his neck with just her tongue. He wanted to feel her teeth but she kept
that from him for awhile, then opened his shirt. He liked her hands on his
chest but he wasn't sure where this had happened.

Slip?

Her hips bucked against his and he sort of forgot what was trying to push
through the haze of hotness, and he grabbed her waist and ground her hips
into his lap, tight and hard and animal-like. She laughed and clawed his
jeans down, then pushed off her own. He wasn't thinking; he was acting and
liking it.

Her fingers were hot on his thighs and he grabbed them as she settled on
top of him, tight and wet. He wound their hands together, pushing through
the fingers, clasping tightly as if they were going to pray.

He snagged his pinkie on her ring and felt his body go rigid under her,
tight and rigid and hard. She shifted her hips in a way that was familiar
and yet not and hooked her legs behind him. He rocked back, her hands
still threaded in his and his mind working now.

Ring.

"Scully?" he whispered, harsh and guttural and alluring.

She rocked once and he went off inside her, coming to pieces even as he
drew together, completely and utterly whole for the first time in his
entire life. Whole.

"Mmm," she murmured and came around him even as he was beginning to pull
away.

She was nearly silent, but her body was not, and he felt himself harden
again watching her and wanted to know about the ring on her finger, the
wedding ring on that one finger.

He pushed his hands into her hair, enjoying himself despite the betrayal
still running in his blood, singing in his blood, and kissed her lips,
hard and swift.

"Today isn't our anniversary, is it?" he whispered, playing a hunch.

She smiled and snuggled down into his chest. "No. That's in March--and you
with the photographic memory."

He slipped.

=-=-=-=

They were screaming and shouting and jumping and yelling things and he was
in the middle of their love making and trying to push out of the bed,
frightened by the sight. They both had blonde hair and the woman looked
cheap but not too diseased and her hands were hot on Mulder's thigh as he
pushed away....The couple screamed until he slipped again and he
wondered--

where was Scully?

=-=-=-=

Blood again. Was this her?

Yes. He was watching himself, for just a split instant, come to her and
slash that blade across her throat and then the other Him was slipping and
Mulder was stepping up to her, crying.

"Scully?"

She was struggling to get away from him, horror and fear and panic so
deeply imprinted on her eyes and he was shaking his head.

"Wasn't me, Scully. It wasn't me."

She was clawing to move away from him, even as the blood left her throat
and she bubbled air out between the blood gushes and she couldn't breathe.

He clamped his hand over the slit, it had been a small thing--he hadn't
really tried to kill her. Just the blood. Just needed the act of death and
the blood. That's what Jared had said. So Mulder had slipped into her
stream and killed her, except he had accidentally slipped into his own
stream.

And so she was dying in his stream. Every where dying. Every place. Not
knowing him was a death of her to him, being his wife was a death of her
to him as he knew her, all of it was different and not her as he knew her.
A death. He had taken her from his life.

He placed his hands around her throat, cutting off the bubbles of air,
hoping that would let her breathe. She was shaking and trembling and
crying and trying to get away from him.

"Wasn't me, Scully. It wasn't me. You have to believe me."

It wasn't him really. It was his slipstream time self. Now he was himself
again. Now he was the Mulder of her slipstream, trying to slip into hers
and get it right.

She was crying and blinking and her face was slowly getting white, blue
white, and she clawed at his hands, seeking air.

He bent forward and pushed breath between her lips, trying to get it down
her, even as he felt it seep through his fingers.

"Scully, please. . ."

He had called 911 twenty minutes ago, when he was slipped into a different
stream and he hoped they were still coming. Was this the same slip as
before?

The door was open and he glanced out, looking for the ambulance.

"I called for the paramedics, Scully. You're going to be okay."

She shook her head and he breathed air in her again, trying and trying,
not sure that his fingers plugging the slit were the right things to be
there.

"It was a slip, Scully. A slip self. It takes a death to slip and the
blood. That's why Jared's wife died--he messed up the slip. He had to kill
those other people, slip into their streams so he could try and get his
wife back. . .I wasn't going to kill you Scully. That wasn't me."

He looked back through the door and the paramedics were running towards
the door in the rain, wincing with the sting of it. Mulder cradled Scully
closer and wondered why he was doing this, where they would take her. If
he would see her again.

"Scully?"

She didn't seem to be able to listen. She seemed dead but he wouldn't let
himself believe that.

They pushed him away. He slipped. Unconsciously. Slipped.

=-=-=-=

"Mulder, stop it. You're freaking me out."

He blinked and leaned into kiss her again, pressing tight into her caved
form. She was still in his lap, still naked from the waist down and
rocking against him in gentle, caring movements. He leaned back on the bed
and pulled them down, under the covers.

"I can't help it, Scully. Sometimes it just happens," he said and tried to
remember where he was or what had happened or what was supposed to happen.

"I've admitted that you can do this, that somehow Jared did this too. But
stop sliding in and out all the time. You don't have to prove it to me."

"Sliding? It's slipping."

"Yes. You *are* slipping. Stop Mulder."

He nodded. "I'll try. It's become unconscious."

She shivered and kissed him hard. "Don't tell me that."

"Are we married, Scully?"

"Mulder, please, please, stop doing this--"

He blinked and shook his head. "We're not supposed to be married."

She was immediately sliding away from him, pushing out from his arms.

"Scully, wait no. I mean. . .I meant it differently. . ."

"I heard what you said."

"This isn't the right reality. This isn't right."

"It seems right to me."

"Oh. It *is* right. But it hasn't happened yet."

"Mulder. . ."

She turned around and grabbed his waist, pushing herself into his body
tightly. She felt his need and he felt it too.

"This has happened."

He gave her a silly grin and ducked his head, embarassed and pleased and
wishing this were the place.

This was her slipstream though and he didn't really have the right to be
playing around in it. He wasn't here to mess things up. He should leave
quietly and then she'd never know at all. Just a flicker and then she'd
have the Mulder that was supposed to be here. The married Mulder.

He closed his eyes and slipped.

=-=-=-=

"Mulder?"

He opened his eyes and he was sitting outside Jared's room, the knife in
his hand. 

"Scully?"

"What are you doing with that?"

He looked at the knife, then back at her, the thin line of white that was
her throat.

"Where am I?"

"Mulder--"

Immediately, Scully sat down next to him, probably getting her pantsuit
dirty on the tile hopsital floor, but pressing her hand to his head
anyway.

"Do you know what day it is, Mulder?"

"No. Where am I?"

"The hospital Jared Miller is at. You came here to interview him. . ."

He didn't mean it like that. He meant like. . .was he in her slipstream or
his own or reality? Had he killed her in the reality and slipped around,
or had he slipped and killed her in a slipstream version?

He stood up and pulled Scully alongside him, walking rapidly from Jared's
room, putting distance between himself and the knife still on the tile
floor.

"Are we married, Scully?"

"Mulder?"

He grabbed her hand and stroked the empty place on her finger, wondering.
He remembered them having sex, remembered the feel of her against him and
him in her, remembered also the feel of her bloody throat in his fingers,
the feel of the knife as it slit her skin.

"Would you ever marry me, Scully?"

She reacted violently, pulling from his hand's grasp and stepping back.

"Mulder, what's going on with you?"

"I was just wondering."

"Are you sick, Mulder?"

"Not usually. Sometimes a bit masochistic, but with the right kind of
help, I'm sure I could overcome it."

She smiled and shook her head despite the fear for him, then took his
temperature with her hand again.

"You seem a little flushed."

He wanted to say that was because he'd just made love to her, but she
wouldn't take so kindly to that.

"Agent Mulder?"

They turned as one back down the hall and saw a nurse running after them.
She had on large thick tennis shoes, like Air Jordan's or Shaq shoes, and
she was large boned. Mulder was trying to describe her nicely.

"Yes?"

"Jared is asking for you."

Scully frowned but Mulder headed back down the hall. He entered the room
silently and watched Jared lying there, simply watching him.

"You should thank me, Agent Mulder."

"Why's that?"

"You made a mess of slipping, you know. It took some exhausting hours to
get you back here and in your own slipstream."

"I didn't kill Scully."

"Somewhere, some part of you did. She's dead somewhere."

"So are you."

"Probably. And probably so are you. Does it matter?"

"I think it does. Not in any stream would I want her dead and me without
her."

"Even in the slipstreams where you have other wives, other girlfriends,
even other partners? Even in the slips where you don't know her?"

"Even in those."

He shrugged. "Well, now you know how it happens. Time."

"Somewhat. Not really."

"See. . .See you can't ever forget how easily manipulated time is. All it
takes is a second and she's bleeding on the motel room carpet from a knife
wound you gave her."

"I see."

"Don't forget it, right?"

Mulder nodded but felt disgusted with the man and with his murder of his
own wife, just to slip in and out.

"Did you kill Scully?" Mulder asked.

"Why do you ask that?"

"Because I couldn't possibly. You came into my own slipstream and killed
her didn't you?"

"It was all you, Agent Mulder. Just you."

"I would never do that to her," he said back and pushed out of the room.
Scully was waiting for him, her eyes round with sleeplessness. The knife
was gone from the floor and he guessed she had given it to a nurse to
dispose of. He was glad. He didn't want to see that knife.

"Let's go back to the motel, Mulder."

He nodded and looped an arm around her.

"Hey, Scully? Have you ever thought about us getting married?"

=-=-=-=

Jared slipped.

He was at home again. His wife was smiling. He had not killed her yet.
There were no agents knocking on his door, no hospital.

"Hey."

He smiled at her and kissed her and brought out Agent Mulder's knife.

She screamed.

=-=-=-=

end
adios
RM