Subject: Lessons 25 NEW
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998

*XXV*

12:35 PM, State Secretary's Office, Richmond, Virginia
"Oh shit-fuck-damn." Tina dug her knuckles into her eyes. Saw reddish
blotches mixed with glitterglobs from the copier's hard light. Okay, get
Zen. Imagine the spots as an inner lava lamp and maybe this bullshit might
turn groovy.

"Here, Jeffie." Thick, bundled paper thwacked against her belly and a
muscle twinged.

"Sadist." She took the file. "I'm fading fast here, kid."

Dana riffled the copies in the 'job finished' tray. Bloodshot pupils
glanced up at Hill. "You want more coffee?"

Tina eyed the cup on the counter next to her. Greasy, pale brown stuff
inside a circular Styrofoam boundary. Clots of creamer. "Coffee? Is that
what it said on the machine?"

"Uh-huh. My treat. You want the sucrose special again?"

"Shit," Hill groaned and turned back to the copier. "What kind of city
doesn't have a Starbuck's on every corner?"

"Richmond." Coins jangled as Dana shook her pants pocket, and Hill gritted
her teeth. "C'mon Tina. You want coffee or not?"

"What I want is to kiss off this Xerox machine." She dropped the lid over
another asshole's Article of Incorporation and thumbed the green button. "I
wasn't recruited for clerical services."

"What does that mean?" The question was flat. Predatory. The New Dana.

Tina sighed. "Look, I just want to figure out what fuckwad grabbed your
partner so I can get back to a city with iced latte and a secretarial
pool."

"This is not a waste of your time, Agent Hill--if that's what you're implying."

"Oh yeah? Well, let's talk about that--Agent Scully." Hill waved at the
stacks of documents and copies. "For four days you've been spouting
conspiracy crap and we've been nosing around every rathole in D.C. and
Virginia looking for crumbs. And now I'm running copies of the articles of
incorporation for a goddamned sex-toy shop! And--and it's--it's...." She
threw her hands out, mouth open, flailing for words. "Well, for shit's
sake, what do you expect to find here? This--this is insane."

The muscles along Dana's jawline flexed and one eye twitched. Looked like
frickin' Clint Eastwood and Tina wanted to giggle and smack her all at
once. Tried to keep from doing either as Tiny Dirty Harry reminded, "We're
here because Agent Mulder is gone, and is almost certainly in physical
danger. He may be dead already because we've overlooked something as simple
as one sentence on one page of these documents."

"You don't believe that." Hill shook her head, looked up to see the clerk
behind the counter filing with the kind of concentration used to ignore
drug dealers and bad dates. "And I'm not fucking around, Dana--being a lazy
agent. I haven't overlooked anything: not one page you wanted copied, not
that Mulder plays conspiracy games, not that you're scared and hurt. I just
don't think this the way to find him. Maybe our Mystery Date tonight can
help, but this is--this is a paranoia monger's wet dream. Mulder ordered
dirty tapes through DT Enterprises; he bought a week with an ass-kickin'
whore--I don't know--but the board of directors of some--what's this load?
Ophelia Diversified--okay, the board of some antique malls," she shook the
file, "has not got your partner tied to a Mission Style chair in the back
of Stickley's Many Splendored Things. It just ain't so."

"Are you finished?" Crimson hairline capillaries made pupils look bluer.

Hill shut her own eyes and let her head tip back. "Yeah. I guess I am."

"All right. I'm going to go buy us each another cup of coffee. We are going
to xerox every piece of paper here." Hill didn't open her eyes at the slap
of a palm on paper. "Then we'll drive back to Washington and I'll get you
reassigned."

"Dana!" Tina suddenly yanked herself upright, but Scully had already
wheeled and was stalking through the open door. Tina pointed at the paper
pile, shouting to the clerk, "This is ours. I'll be right back!" and was
out the door before the girl could answer. "Dana, wait! Goddamnit, Mutt!"

The little woman was walking as fast as she could, slapping her heels
against tile so hard that Hill winced in sympathy. Long legs and didn't
need to run. Ran anyway. "Dana, you're not getting rid of me. And
especially not before you meet this guy tonight. Don't even think about it.
You aren't going out to that overlook alone."

"I don't think there's anything else to say." Dana didn't stop, didn't turn
her head to look. "I'm running an investigation. I'm the agent in charge
and you just questioned my judgment."

"This is really a fine time to pull rank on me. Yes, I did question your
fucking judgment," Hill snapped, caught her friend by the arm and jerked
her to a halt. "I questioned the judgment of a stressed out, freaked out,
exhausted person who shouldn't be working this case. You're too close to
it, Dana. You've been down in that basement with Spooky so long that
everything looks like fairy tales. I don't think it would take much to
convince the AD of that either."

Hill watched Scully blanch. "Shit, Tina. Skinner pulls me off this case and
Mulder's dead. There's nobody else with a chance in hell of finding him."

"Listen to yourself. You sound like a codependent! '"

"Jesus Christ! What do you want me to say? You want to think that Mulder's
abusing me? You want to rescue me from him--is that it? Christina Hill, you
have no idea in hell what I have been through or what Mulder and I have
seen!"

"You're right," Hill sighed. "But I know what you've got on Mulder's
disappearance, and it's fuck all. I mean, realistically, what HAVE you got?
A couple of vile dirty videos and an e-mail deal for who knows what. Dana,
look at it. Really look at it. Believe it or not, I want to find Mulder
almost as much as you. But that means we start with procedure. Where do you
look when a cop disappears? It ain't where he bought his porn."

Scully was standing her ground, stiff body and shoulders squared. "No. We
won't find Mulder if we go by the textbooks. I know it sounds thin. I know
how hard it's to believe. God, don't I know that! But he needs--I need--you
to believe."

"But I don't." Hill glanced sheepish at the yellowed floor tiles. "I just
don't buy into this creepy little fantasy of yours."

"Then give me something better." Dana demanded. "Go on."

"I don't know." She looked up. Saw a feral snap in azure eyes. "Maybe
someone's on parole. Some asshole let Monty Props out for good behavior. I
don't know and I won't know until we look, and that's the point."

Dana drew a measured breath and Hill knew she was trying to sound sane.
"I'm telling you that we won't find Mulder looking where we've been trained
to look. If you can't believe in the conspiracies or the X-Files or any of
the other shit, please, can you believe in me?"

Tina Hill stared down at her friend, wanting to say no, and that emotional
arm-twisting was a piss-poor way to win an argument. Instead, Hill shut her
eyes, took her lies in her hands, and gave them to Dana, just like she was
supposed to. "All right. All right. I'll try to believe--"

A hand on her arm sent a shiver through skin. Tina hated Dana's small,
relieved smile. "Thanks, Jeff. Better get back to the machine before
someone else takes it over."

"All right." She sighed. "Five sugars in that swill. And you buy dinner."

"You got yourself a deal."

--lisby@earthlink.net
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"Do you want fries with that?"

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