From: "Kirsten Kerkhof" Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:09:12 +0200 Subject: New story: "No Worse Evil" by Kirsten Kerkhof Source: direct TITLE: "No worse evil" AUTHOR: Kirsten Kerkhof * CLASSIFICATION: MSR, 2nd person POV KEYWORDS: S R A RATING: PG SPOILERS: None. Just enjoy! XD SUMMARY: It was the worst case you ever saw ... DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Why would I be the lucky one, huh? They belong to CC, DD, GA, 1013 and Fox and no infringement is intended. ARCHIVING: Sure. I'll do Gossamer myself, all others: you're welcome when you tell me where it's going, 'kay? FEEDBACK: Cherished and worshipped at . Mulders on offer for those who write! XxXxX "No Worse Evil" XxXxX You return to your room, silent. You haven't spoken at all since you came back here. There was no need. Besides, you wouldn't know where to get the energy from anyway. She is sitting on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes cast down. As you enter she raises her head and looks at you and you just about manage a nod. She blinks slowly in acknowledgement, then bows her head again as if the effort of just keeping her eyes upwards was too much already. It probably was. You've been defeated. Both of you. Honestly speaking you already knew this a few days ago, but the realisation crashed down on you when you saw her break down right in front of you. And you knew then and there that you had to quit. Quit this game or never leave it. The case you're working on is horrendous. Murderous, hellish, fiendish. It's every-thing bad and then some. You've seen your fair share of sickening things and more, but this tops it all. And when you saw her falter, stagger, then turn away to empty her stomach in the sink behind her, you knew it had beaten you. You knew it would happen someday. You just hoped that it -- ... Well, what did you hope? You don't really know, you just hope it won't damage the two of you beyond repair. So you called your boss this morning and asked him to be relieved from this investigation. He told you he'd have to talk it over with his superiors and really, you understood. You just made it exceptionally clear to him that, if he wanted either of you ever to return to work, he'd better get the permission. A few moments ago you received the phone call you were hoping for. You sit down beside her and look at her. She turns her face and meets your eyes and manages the smallest of smiles, flitting across her colourless face. God, this has impacted her so badly. You tell her you've been taken off the case and that you're flying home late tomorrow afternoon. She closes her eyes at the news. You know she knows it was the only smart thing to do at this point, but you also know she takes this as a personal defeat. And no amount of reassurance from you will ever change that. She will undoubtedly realise the inevitability of this decision rationally and how she was in no way to blame, but her mind won't accept it. So you don't push. You pull her into your side, slowly so you don't spook her. Then, when she's fully against you, you bury your face in her hair and revel in her being so close. You wish she'd cry but you can't fool yourself. At this moment you don't believe she's going to give in to her emotions. Doing so would be purging, but she'll have to decide when. Maybe you'll break down first, at this stage God only knows what will happen. Slowly you turn a bit so she lies against your chest. You've never been this close, you realise, but this time there is no doubt that it's the only right thing to do. She feels like the only warm thing in a cold cold world. You tell her to relax a little, tell her that she can't rest if she holds herself this stiffly and it earns you a hint of a smile, the second one that evening. All through this case she never smiled once and you're not surprised. But she does relax, moulding her soft lithe body against yours. You turn yourself towards her and pull her up so she's lying in your arms properly. At any other time she probably would have called you on it, but right now all you two care about is warmth and comfort. A little humanity amidst the cold bleak horror that is this case. And still she is not completely relaxed -- and she will not get sleep unless she is. When you tell her so, she closes her eyes, her face so blank that you know she's crying inside. So you let her go. She moves away from you, leaving a cold dull ache where she was only seconds ago. You follow her with your eyes, your body completely motionless. It couldn't move if it tried. Her leaving your arms has paralysed you, powerless to stop her from walking ever more away from you. You're falling to pieces with every step she takes. Your soul is screaming out, but she doesn't seem to hear it. Neither do you hear hers, wailing and pleading as it must be doing at this very moment. Through tear-filled eyes you watch her halt, stand still for moments at an end, then turn around. And when your eyes meet hers you both surrender, and your arms welcome her back as she throws herself into your embrace, knocking you both backwards onto the bed. You couldn't care less, all you care about is that she's in your arms, comforting you, allowing you to comfort her. Her sobs come hard and hitching, from the deepest parts of her soul. She doesn't cry loudly, or maybe she does, but you can't hear it. Your overflowing heart drowns out all sounds except those which reflect the sheer terror and anguish you've both experienced. You're clinging onto each other with desperate ferocity, limbs tangled, faces turned towards the other. An objective viewer might even perceive a hint of sensuality here, but you can't feel such a base emotion now. The world may laugh or sneer, but all you know is that she's the only one who can save you from total destruction. She wonders aloud why all this had to happen -- and you can't answer. Such evil, such depravity is too much even for seasoned agents like the both of you to comprehend. A split-second thought reminds you that it's a good thing you can't cope with it: it shows you're both still human, still sensitive to the matters of right and wrong. But, God, it makes this all so hard to handle! For the longest time you don't move, except perhaps to try and get even closer. You wish you could escape into a little bubble, safe and protected, until you're both well enough to venture out into the world again. The bubble may not be a possibility, but you are determined to hold her, show her that she doesn't have to bear this alone, pleading with her to confide in you and allow you to do this for her. Gradually she calms down, almost as though she's crying herself to sleep. Sleep -- wouldn't that be wonderful? You hardly dare hope either of you will get a resting sleep tonight, not after all you've seen over the course of this case, but your hope, although fleeting and unlikely as it may seem, is all you've got. You're clinging onto that hope as much as you're clinging onto her. You hear her whisper, but you can't make out the words. So you whisper your own formulations back, soothing, calming, basically nonsensible, but it helps a little. You're wondering who's the one being soothed and calmed by them, but God knows you can't waste time or energy over that now. Very slowly she moves her head and looks and smiles at you, berating you gently for talking nonsense while she was telling you about the case. It makes you smile as well. So that was what she was talking about. And you tell her she shouldn't be talking about the case, that it has no place here now, that all you want now is a safe place. That the world outside scares you to death, leaving you wondering how much a man is supposed to be able to take. Her smile fades and she closes her eyes for a long moment. She can't take this anymore, she tells you. This case has gone too far and she's afraid of what it might do to her if she continues. What it's already doing to her. What if she can't back off? What if she can't get out? You can't answer her questions, you only know that if she should fall, you'll be right next to her. It won't keep her from falling, but at least she won't be alone. You don't dare tell her this, though, scared as you are that saying these things will make them come true. At this stage, anything could happen and it's frightening you to death. You should probably try to get some sleep, both of you. Tomorrow you're going home, unsatisfied because of a case that hasn't been closed, a suspect that hasn't been caught, a community that is still not safe from a veritable demon stalking its inhabitants. But it's impossible for you to stay and you need to acknowledge that fact. Neither of you speaks for the longest time, you only embrace and comfort as much as you can. And then, with a smile, you notice how she has fallen asleep. You didn't even notice it, but that doesn't matter. You turn a little to make her a bit more comfortable, pull the thin blanket from underneath the pair of you and cover yourselves with it. Dressed as you both are -- you're even wearing your shoes -- it's enough. Because she's sleeping and there's even a chance you might get to ... XxXxX You wake up with her sitting next to you. So you've slept a little -- how about that for a miracle. Her face still looks dreadfully pale, but unless you're much mistaken her eyes are calm. She smiles gently when she notices you're awake and you can't help but return the smile. Then you push yourself up in sitting position, your back against the headboard, your legs still under the blanket. Somewhere during the night you took your shoes off, or maybe she did. She's sitting next to you, her stockinged shoeless legs on top of the blanket. You notice silver-painted toenails under the stockings and for some reason the normality of this fact makes you smile. She notices of course, and her eyebrows ask you what you're smiling about. So you tell her, making her smile as well. She slept, she tells you, her voice betraying her amazement. She slept really well. Good, because you didn't. Then again, you never slept well, even in the best of conditions, but this night your sleep was exceedingly fitful and interrupted, the horrors of the investigation pounding mercilessly on the inside of your skull, the victims' ghosts haunting your every sleeping moment, asking you why you couldn't save them. They wouldn't listen to your pleas, they weren't content with your apologies. No worse evil had ever struck a community and you're only human, but they didn't care. They blamed you just the same. You hate these nightmares. You wonder if she had nightmares, so you ask her. She had. Well, no real wonder there of course, with a case like this it's virtually inevitable. With a sigh you both fall silent. Absently she twists a lock of hair between her fingers and when she releases the tension but keeps holding the twist, it curls up into a spiral, like a rope, a little loop on the bottom. She doesn't seem to be thinking about it and you wonder whether she does it often, whether it's something she does when she's distracted or thinking. If so she must have done it thousands of times in your presence, but you can't recall a single instant when it happened. It seems like she can feel your gaze on her because she turns her head, letting go of the twisted hair. It doesn't even unravel. Somehow, you don't know why, it reminds you of a caduceus. And how appropriate that would be, too. You're about to tell her so, but she has already turned her head away again and a quick comb of her fingers untangles her hair. Biting her bottom lip, she sighs and turns her back to you. You can't see her face but she must be looking so forlorn, like she really doesn't know what to do or where to go to. Oh, damn it all, there's only so much distance you can keep in order to keep this thing between the two of you professional before you go completely insane with ... well, what? Desire? Need? Is it desire you feel? Are you needy? You are needy, you need so much. You need her touch, her warmth, her strength, you crave the comfort she can offer you, the steady support in a world that threatens to drive you over the edge on a daily basis. It's funny really, since you're the man and she's the woman. She should be leaning on you, you should be giving her support, guiding her along the straight and narrow. And all that crap ... You move closer to her, gently placing your hand on her shoulder so as not to alarm her. She stiffens for the briefest of moments, but then relaxes and rests her hand on yours, her fingers caressing your own. Taking this simple gesture as a sign of approval, you place your other hand on her waist and pull very gently. Basically, you're not even pulling at all since you have no desire of forcing her, instead you're just indicating you really want her closer. She looks over her shoulder at you, smiling a little, and she scoots back towards you, ending up with her back resting against you. She takes your hands and wraps your arms around her waist, letting your hands rest in her lap. You smile. Bending over a little you rest your head against hers, with your cheek next to her eyes. She feels good: warm, strong, and healthy, if a still little shaken by the events. And you start to rock her, slowly, you can't even stop yourself. It's that age-old gesture of comfort, that universal motion that soothes everything. Turning your eyes to the side you can just about make out that she has closed her eyes, but the tension in her body reveals that she hasn't fallen asleep. You wrap your arms and hers loosely around her waist, revelling in the contact. And then all rationality becomes simply too hard, too tiring for you. You close your eyes and you take a long, deep breath through your mouth. God, you're tired. Tired of being strung along, tired of keeping up facades, tired of simply the lack of sleep. You're tired of being tired. And you're tired of hiding, of stopping prematurely, tired of keeping it all under control. You turn your head ever so slightly and brush you lips across the corner of her mouth. There is desire in you, but you can -- hopefully -- keep it in check. And you will need to if she chooses not to respond. But she does, by turning her head as well so she can return the gesture. It's still not a kiss, your respective positions make a kiss anatomically impossible, but that can change, you think. Well, the positions that is, you'd love to see her face if you could change the rest. You smile at this little extra thought. Who would've thought it: a joke. It's a little one, but it's a joke nonetheless. She turns her body slightly as do you and you kiss, sweet and careful at first, testing the waters, then, after a quick glance at each other, deeper and warmer and truly loving. There are promises in this kiss, promises of a future you can actually look forward to. A future you will actually enjoy. You can't tell how much time has elapsed when you gently pull away, neither of you seems to really care about that. You pull her into your lap and, resting your forehead against hers, you just breathe, long deep cleansing breaths where your breath mingles with hers. Your hands weave through her hair, catching occasionally where it is tangled. Smiling with the memory, you twist a lock, trying to recreate that little spiral, that little caduceus, but no matter what you do, you can't get it. At first she's puzzled, but soon she's smiling widely and, taking the hair away from your fingers, she twists it like it's nothing. You must be wearing quite some expression on your face because her smile only gets wider. It's too much, you cannot possibly be expected to resist a gorgeous smile like that, and even if you were expected to resist it, well, you simply can't. So you take that beautiful face in your hands and you kiss her. You kiss her like you've never kissed anyone before. Which is fitting since you can't remember ever having loved anyone that much before. Sure, you've loved, and loved hard, but previous relationships were never this multi-facetted. They were more one-dimensional, more lust-driven. They were a lot simpler too, and God knows the complexity of your relationship with this woman has driven you up the walls more than once, when you were close to breaking- point over the indecision, when the complexity of your feelings for her confused the living daylights out of you, when the mere thought of not being able to love her the way you wanted drove you close to desperation. The person who'd thought up 'platonic love' ought to have been shot. But that doesn't matter anymore, because you've got real love now, proper love, bonafide, honest-to-God, worth-fighting-for love right here in your hands, all contained in a compact five foot two package and topped with a glorious head of fiery hair. And when your kiss ends, you find she has colour on her cheeks again and a sparkle in her eyes and the most mind-blowing smile poor little ol' you has ever been blessed with. You quickly glance at your watch and smile. Time to get packing and leave this God-forsaken town. Her face falls when you tell her so, almost as though she had momentarily forgotten. You caress her cheek: there is no shame in feeling the way she does now, but neither is there any shame in feeling the way she did only minutes ago, and she needs to know this. With one last brief kiss you get up from the bed. You have four hours before your plane leaves and there is no way you want to miss that flight. Watching her put her shoes back on, you start packing your suitcase, experience making this a fast and no-nonsense operation. You're both out of the door within twenty minutes. It's going to take some effort to explain all this when you get back to work, but that doesn't alarm you -- you're used to being fried over nothing. You're more concerned with the amount of time it will take for the both of you to get over this case personally. But at least you know you won't have to go it alone anymore. FINIS ? Kirsten Kerkhof 24 June 2007, The Netherlands 9