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colebaltblueTitle: Variations on a Theme
Author: colebaltblue
Artist: TLynnfic
Word Count: 21,000 (this chapter 2,100)
Rating: PG
Warnings: no specific ones
Summary: Alternate universe. Dr. Dana Scully is a medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco when she is assigned the Jane Doe #19292. In Washington, D.C. behavioral sciences unit FBI agent Fox Mulder becomes interested in Jane Doe #19292 and heads out to San Francisco to investigate. The rest, they say, is history.
Author's Notes: Written for the X-Files Big Bang 2010. Many, many, many thanks to Tracy and Cass for their comments, critiques, and corrections.
2:23 am
July 12, 1993
SleepTite Inn, room 112
Omaha, Nebraska
It was something straight out of a Douglas Preston novel, Mulder decided. At first it seems almost paranormal in nature, but there is always a logical explanation at the end of the rabbit hole.
It was another night in another hotel room in another city in America. Serial killers were still on the loose and each case just seemed to weigh more heavily on his waking mind. Tonight, his mind was calmed by a glass of scotch and pay per view porn on the television. He'd seen this one before – the scotch was more help in quieting his brain than the hairy man and no-tan-lined woman gyrating fuzzily on the screen.
There had been no more Jane Does since the case in San Francisco months ago. Scully had taken him to the site where Jane Doe was found, but the police tape was long gone and there wasn't any sign or indication of what had occurred there beyond some recently disturbed dirt. There weren’t even stuffed animals or photos that usually memorialized missing children and it was disconcerting to both of them. He remembered the way that her small frame had shifted, head bowed with her hair obscuring most of her face. Her lips had been moving gently in a soft prayer for Jane Doe. That was the first glimpse he had of Scully beyond the no nonsense exterior of a medical examiner and he kept it with him.
Blinking shiny eyes up at him, she had asked about the case from 1973, and he had given her a rough overview, leaving out the important details that Samantha was his sister and some of his crazier theories about the nature of her disappearance. Then, she had probed him over what he thought the connections were and he discussed cases of other abducted children who were never discovered, or discovered children who were never abducted. He had told her of his suspicions that she'd never find Jane Doe's identity because she didn't have one.
They had chatted over a late dinner at an Italian bistro after their stop at the park. He had asked her why someone with her interest in physics had chosen medicine. Scully had been surprised and suspicious to discover he had read up on her, but she had answered candidly, and refused to be intimidated by it. He had been charmed by her forthrightness and unconventional good looks, but completely bowled over by her outright intelligence and willingness to work with whatever he threw at her.
He had left town a few days later when the toxicology report had predictably been inconclusive and he had run out of excuses for Patterson. Before he had left, Scully had met him at his hotel's bar to give her a copy of the report, but hadn't stayed long, keeping her distance from him. He had asked her for a copy of the final report and with a notation of where in the pauper's grave Jane Doe would be buried. Scully had given him a small and sad smile before nodding her head. The last image he had of her was watching as she gathered up her things and put on her coat before striding out of the bar only ten minutes after she had walked in. Two weeks later he had received a fax at the FBI.
He hadn't heard from the medical examiner since then. Mulder wasn't sure if that was because she hadn't seen anything, or because she hadn't bothered to call him if she did. He hoped it was the former and not the latter, but he wasn't sure why. Sometimes, late at night, he thought about sending her an email or leaving her a voice mail, but he never got any further than thinking about it.
She was cute, he decided, in a cute sort of way, but not conventionally attractive, and certainly not his type. First of all, she was younger than him, he thought sardonically. The scene on the TV shifted and he watched as the two actors on the screen stumbled through a few lines of bad dialogue before it faded out to a scene of the girl clutch the doorway and the guy fucking her from behind. The actress’ face once again froze into something she probably thought was sexy. The guy just grunted. Physically, Dana Scully wasn't his type either. It was strange, he thought as he stared at the two actors on the screen, he wasn't what he'd call attracted to her, but he also couldn't quite stop thinking about her either. He liked her because she was forthright and honest, not because she was attractive he decided.
Mulder leaned over and hit a button on his open laptop, starting the modem again, hoping that this time he might have an email to distract him from the bad porn he was using to distract him from the photos that were spread out around him on the bed that were somehow making him think of Scully.
He looked back at the pictures as the modem whined away. This current case was frustrating. They had a serial killer out in the cornfields outside of Omaha, but he seemed to be more interested in mutilating cattle than people. Or at least that seemed to be the pattern. Cow kills in between human kills. They only thing that made him think they were linked was the patterns of the cuts – and the fact that both were skinned. Serial killers usually began with animals, small ones, before moving on to humans. They didn't kill cows, then humans, and then humans and cows at the same time.
At least he was able to explain the skinning, figures that he'd catch a serial killer interested in making a human/bovine leather three-piece suit. They had found the suit this morning, being prepared in an old barn behind an old farmhouse they had connected to their suspect's family. It was almost textbook perfect, yet so strange. Unfortunately, the suit they found contained only old kills in its material, they were still searching for a killer and what was probably a brand new three-piece leather suit. Maybe with matching loafers, Mulder mused.
For him though, the case was largely over. He'd written the profile and set the FBI team on the right path to the killer. It was obvious now who they were hunting and he seriously doubted it'd take longer than a day or two to close in and find him. In fact, if they had listened to him, they'd be raiding the site right now. It was time for him to move on to his next case, probably before he had a chance to go home, if past experiences held true.
The modem had stopped and he glanced at the screen. A new email. From his friends. He clicked on it. Another Jane Doe, this time found just north of San Francisco in Muir Woods. He sat up and read the notes in the email again, copied directly off the database they had hacked. Jane Doe had been discovered a few days ago in a shallow grave not far off of a path in the woods.
Excited, he shut off the lights and shoved the pictures over. He fell asleep a few minutes later as the scene on the TV shifted again, this time to two girls on the kitchen counter.
8:02 am
July 12, 1993
San Francisco Medical Examiners
San Francisco, CA
The phone was ringing as Scully let herself into her office. She managed to set her coffee down without spilling it and reached for her phone.
"Doctor Scully," she answered.
"Hi, it's me."
She paused for a second, wondering whom "me" was.
"Agent Mulder," she said, smothering a smile. "How are you?"
"Fine, Scully, I've got another one for you."
Normally she was annoyed when whomever she was conversing with automatically assumed she was already in on the conversation. Usually it was a tactic of intimidation in her male-dominated field, but she knew that wasn't Mulder's intention or purpose.
"Another Jane Doe?"
"Yes, in Mill Valley."
"That's not my jurisdiction, Mulder," she responded.
"Can you look into it, see if there are any similarities to Jane Doe 19292? ME to ME?"
That wasn't the way it worked, but she sensed the enthusiasm in his voice and she remembered the gentle and respectful way he treated her own Jane Doe. He was the first and last person to show any interest in that body and for that she felt she owed him a little more than an immediate and quick dismissal.
"I'll call," she conceded.
She could hear his grin through the phone. "Thank you," he replied. He checked to ensure she had his contact information at Quantico and quickly hung up. She looked over the files on her own desk before sighing and picking up her phone to call the Marin County Medical Examiner despite the fact that she knew she should probably wait a few days first. She called anyway.
They had been guarded when she had asked to see the case files, but had agreed to have final reports couriered to San Francisco after she explained the possible connection to a Jane Doe of hers and had promised not to do any independent investigation of the case. Scully wasn't sure if she'd ever understand territorialism.
She wouldn't have the reports for a few days though, so she put it out of her mind and got back to the work at hand.
The report had arrived a few days later and she eagerly opened it and read it over. Jane Doe #013139 was, on the surface dissimiliar to Jane Doe #19292. So much so that Scully wondered if anyone would have ever thought to connect the two cases. But, as she read the report she noticed that the similarities were there, subtle, but there. She wondered more than once if she was even making connections where they didn’t belong after listening to Mulder a little too much, but she was sure she wasn’t. She had typed up a copy and emailed it to Mulder. He had responded a few days later with a report of a missing child in Sacramento. As far as Scully knew, everyone but Mulder was still treating all these cases as unrelated.
That evening, news of the Emily Sims case broke. Emily Sims had disappeared from her family home the night before when her parents were out at party. Mr. Sims worked in the Silicon Valley for an Internet start-up and Mrs. Sims stayed at home. The investigation had initially looked into the babysitter, especially when all she could remember was bright lights, what felt like an earthquake, and then blackness. Scully started when she read the quotes by the babysitter, a band tightening in her chest as she recalled Mulder’s description of the night his sister disappeared. She wondered when coincidences ceased to be coincidences any more.
She had mentioned the case to Ethan and he had responded that interviewing the Sims family had been more than impossible for news reporters since the initial story and that it seems Mr. Sims had hired a family spokesman to speak to the press. Scully emailed Mulder that night about it.
The next night, as she stood at the microwave reheating yesterday’s Indian food, Ethan casually mentioned that Mrs. Sims had been found dead of an apparent suicide that afternoon. Scully was lying awake next to a snoring Ethan when her phone rang. She glanced at the clock, wondering who could be calling at that hour and caught it before it rang again.
"Hello?" she asked softly.
"Hey, it's me." Scully smiled when she heard his voice. "Did you hear about Mrs. Sims?"
"Yeah. What do you think it means?" Scully asked.
"I think it means that she was a liability and they had to get rid of her."
"What?" she was puzzled at his response.
He sighed and they were both silent for a moment.
"Mulder, it's late."
"I know," he responded softly. "I'm coming out there, I'll see you in a few days."
He hung up without saying goodbye. Scully replaced the phone and stared at it in the blue light of night. Ethan shifted beside her.
"Who was that?" he asked.
"No one," she answered.
Chapter 4
Author: colebaltblue
Artist: TLynnfic
Word Count: 21,000 (this chapter 2,100)
Rating: PG
Warnings: no specific ones
Summary: Alternate universe. Dr. Dana Scully is a medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco when she is assigned the Jane Doe #19292. In Washington, D.C. behavioral sciences unit FBI agent Fox Mulder becomes interested in Jane Doe #19292 and heads out to San Francisco to investigate. The rest, they say, is history.
Author's Notes: Written for the X-Files Big Bang 2010. Many, many, many thanks to Tracy and Cass for their comments, critiques, and corrections.
2:23 am
July 12, 1993
SleepTite Inn, room 112
Omaha, Nebraska
It was something straight out of a Douglas Preston novel, Mulder decided. At first it seems almost paranormal in nature, but there is always a logical explanation at the end of the rabbit hole.
It was another night in another hotel room in another city in America. Serial killers were still on the loose and each case just seemed to weigh more heavily on his waking mind. Tonight, his mind was calmed by a glass of scotch and pay per view porn on the television. He'd seen this one before – the scotch was more help in quieting his brain than the hairy man and no-tan-lined woman gyrating fuzzily on the screen.
There had been no more Jane Does since the case in San Francisco months ago. Scully had taken him to the site where Jane Doe was found, but the police tape was long gone and there wasn't any sign or indication of what had occurred there beyond some recently disturbed dirt. There weren’t even stuffed animals or photos that usually memorialized missing children and it was disconcerting to both of them. He remembered the way that her small frame had shifted, head bowed with her hair obscuring most of her face. Her lips had been moving gently in a soft prayer for Jane Doe. That was the first glimpse he had of Scully beyond the no nonsense exterior of a medical examiner and he kept it with him.
Blinking shiny eyes up at him, she had asked about the case from 1973, and he had given her a rough overview, leaving out the important details that Samantha was his sister and some of his crazier theories about the nature of her disappearance. Then, she had probed him over what he thought the connections were and he discussed cases of other abducted children who were never discovered, or discovered children who were never abducted. He had told her of his suspicions that she'd never find Jane Doe's identity because she didn't have one.
They had chatted over a late dinner at an Italian bistro after their stop at the park. He had asked her why someone with her interest in physics had chosen medicine. Scully had been surprised and suspicious to discover he had read up on her, but she had answered candidly, and refused to be intimidated by it. He had been charmed by her forthrightness and unconventional good looks, but completely bowled over by her outright intelligence and willingness to work with whatever he threw at her.
He had left town a few days later when the toxicology report had predictably been inconclusive and he had run out of excuses for Patterson. Before he had left, Scully had met him at his hotel's bar to give her a copy of the report, but hadn't stayed long, keeping her distance from him. He had asked her for a copy of the final report and with a notation of where in the pauper's grave Jane Doe would be buried. Scully had given him a small and sad smile before nodding her head. The last image he had of her was watching as she gathered up her things and put on her coat before striding out of the bar only ten minutes after she had walked in. Two weeks later he had received a fax at the FBI.
He hadn't heard from the medical examiner since then. Mulder wasn't sure if that was because she hadn't seen anything, or because she hadn't bothered to call him if she did. He hoped it was the former and not the latter, but he wasn't sure why. Sometimes, late at night, he thought about sending her an email or leaving her a voice mail, but he never got any further than thinking about it.
She was cute, he decided, in a cute sort of way, but not conventionally attractive, and certainly not his type. First of all, she was younger than him, he thought sardonically. The scene on the TV shifted and he watched as the two actors on the screen stumbled through a few lines of bad dialogue before it faded out to a scene of the girl clutch the doorway and the guy fucking her from behind. The actress’ face once again froze into something she probably thought was sexy. The guy just grunted. Physically, Dana Scully wasn't his type either. It was strange, he thought as he stared at the two actors on the screen, he wasn't what he'd call attracted to her, but he also couldn't quite stop thinking about her either. He liked her because she was forthright and honest, not because she was attractive he decided.
Mulder leaned over and hit a button on his open laptop, starting the modem again, hoping that this time he might have an email to distract him from the bad porn he was using to distract him from the photos that were spread out around him on the bed that were somehow making him think of Scully.
He looked back at the pictures as the modem whined away. This current case was frustrating. They had a serial killer out in the cornfields outside of Omaha, but he seemed to be more interested in mutilating cattle than people. Or at least that seemed to be the pattern. Cow kills in between human kills. They only thing that made him think they were linked was the patterns of the cuts – and the fact that both were skinned. Serial killers usually began with animals, small ones, before moving on to humans. They didn't kill cows, then humans, and then humans and cows at the same time.
At least he was able to explain the skinning, figures that he'd catch a serial killer interested in making a human/bovine leather three-piece suit. They had found the suit this morning, being prepared in an old barn behind an old farmhouse they had connected to their suspect's family. It was almost textbook perfect, yet so strange. Unfortunately, the suit they found contained only old kills in its material, they were still searching for a killer and what was probably a brand new three-piece leather suit. Maybe with matching loafers, Mulder mused.
For him though, the case was largely over. He'd written the profile and set the FBI team on the right path to the killer. It was obvious now who they were hunting and he seriously doubted it'd take longer than a day or two to close in and find him. In fact, if they had listened to him, they'd be raiding the site right now. It was time for him to move on to his next case, probably before he had a chance to go home, if past experiences held true.
The modem had stopped and he glanced at the screen. A new email. From his friends. He clicked on it. Another Jane Doe, this time found just north of San Francisco in Muir Woods. He sat up and read the notes in the email again, copied directly off the database they had hacked. Jane Doe had been discovered a few days ago in a shallow grave not far off of a path in the woods.
Excited, he shut off the lights and shoved the pictures over. He fell asleep a few minutes later as the scene on the TV shifted again, this time to two girls on the kitchen counter.
8:02 am
July 12, 1993
San Francisco Medical Examiners
San Francisco, CA
The phone was ringing as Scully let herself into her office. She managed to set her coffee down without spilling it and reached for her phone.
"Doctor Scully," she answered.
"Hi, it's me."
She paused for a second, wondering whom "me" was.
"Agent Mulder," she said, smothering a smile. "How are you?"
"Fine, Scully, I've got another one for you."
Normally she was annoyed when whomever she was conversing with automatically assumed she was already in on the conversation. Usually it was a tactic of intimidation in her male-dominated field, but she knew that wasn't Mulder's intention or purpose.
"Another Jane Doe?"
"Yes, in Mill Valley."
"That's not my jurisdiction, Mulder," she responded.
"Can you look into it, see if there are any similarities to Jane Doe 19292? ME to ME?"
That wasn't the way it worked, but she sensed the enthusiasm in his voice and she remembered the gentle and respectful way he treated her own Jane Doe. He was the first and last person to show any interest in that body and for that she felt she owed him a little more than an immediate and quick dismissal.
"I'll call," she conceded.
She could hear his grin through the phone. "Thank you," he replied. He checked to ensure she had his contact information at Quantico and quickly hung up. She looked over the files on her own desk before sighing and picking up her phone to call the Marin County Medical Examiner despite the fact that she knew she should probably wait a few days first. She called anyway.
They had been guarded when she had asked to see the case files, but had agreed to have final reports couriered to San Francisco after she explained the possible connection to a Jane Doe of hers and had promised not to do any independent investigation of the case. Scully wasn't sure if she'd ever understand territorialism.
She wouldn't have the reports for a few days though, so she put it out of her mind and got back to the work at hand.
The report had arrived a few days later and she eagerly opened it and read it over. Jane Doe #013139 was, on the surface dissimiliar to Jane Doe #19292. So much so that Scully wondered if anyone would have ever thought to connect the two cases. But, as she read the report she noticed that the similarities were there, subtle, but there. She wondered more than once if she was even making connections where they didn’t belong after listening to Mulder a little too much, but she was sure she wasn’t. She had typed up a copy and emailed it to Mulder. He had responded a few days later with a report of a missing child in Sacramento. As far as Scully knew, everyone but Mulder was still treating all these cases as unrelated.
That evening, news of the Emily Sims case broke. Emily Sims had disappeared from her family home the night before when her parents were out at party. Mr. Sims worked in the Silicon Valley for an Internet start-up and Mrs. Sims stayed at home. The investigation had initially looked into the babysitter, especially when all she could remember was bright lights, what felt like an earthquake, and then blackness. Scully started when she read the quotes by the babysitter, a band tightening in her chest as she recalled Mulder’s description of the night his sister disappeared. She wondered when coincidences ceased to be coincidences any more.
She had mentioned the case to Ethan and he had responded that interviewing the Sims family had been more than impossible for news reporters since the initial story and that it seems Mr. Sims had hired a family spokesman to speak to the press. Scully emailed Mulder that night about it.
The next night, as she stood at the microwave reheating yesterday’s Indian food, Ethan casually mentioned that Mrs. Sims had been found dead of an apparent suicide that afternoon. Scully was lying awake next to a snoring Ethan when her phone rang. She glanced at the clock, wondering who could be calling at that hour and caught it before it rang again.
"Hello?" she asked softly.
"Hey, it's me." Scully smiled when she heard his voice. "Did you hear about Mrs. Sims?"
"Yeah. What do you think it means?" Scully asked.
"I think it means that she was a liability and they had to get rid of her."
"What?" she was puzzled at his response.
He sighed and they were both silent for a moment.
"Mulder, it's late."
"I know," he responded softly. "I'm coming out there, I'll see you in a few days."
He hung up without saying goodbye. Scully replaced the phone and stared at it in the blue light of night. Ethan shifted beside her.
"Who was that?" he asked.
"No one," she answered.
Chapter 4
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Date: 2010-10-16 05:00 am (UTC)