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