TITLE:         That Shotgun Shine (3/?)
AUTHORS:       Paige Caldwell, David Stoddard-Hunt
CATEGORY:      S, C/o, A
KEYWORDS:      M/S, T/C, mytharc
RATING:        NC-17, in parts
SETTING:       Follows "The Truth" (XF), and "The Army of One" (S)
SUMMARY:       Desperate times beget desperate measures. 
ARCHIVE:       Take first, ask later, but please do ask.
DISCLAIMER:    Characters within are the property of either
               1013 and Chris Carter or HBO and David Chase.
               Both flavors used with neither permission nor
               profit.     
FEEDBACK:      paigecaldwell@hotmail.com, dmstoddardhunt@yahoo.com
WEBSITES:      http://www.geocities.com/mattersofbelief
               http://www.cchg.net/paige


*************************
Rest Away Motor Lodge
Bloomfield Avenue
Verona, New Jersey

There was just no way to achieve a fully satisfying slam
with a cheap, balsa wood motel room door. Nevertheless,
she tried. Once, twice, three times.

"I get it, Scully! I get the damn picture. You're pissed
off," he yelled over the din. She'd fumed in total silence,
arms tightly crossed over her chest, during the entire
drive to the motel.

"Instead of taking it out on this defenseless piece of...
of plywood, why won't you just talk to me?" Mulder waited 
a heartbeat, two, just to make sure she wasn't going to
go for a fourth slam before he reached for the door
knob to let himself in. Four feet in front of him,
Scully stood, hand slightly outstretched, chest heaving,
eyes arcing with electricity.

"Damnit, Mulder! Are you nuts?" Scully marched defiantly
right up to his chest, backing away only to prowl around
the room like a caged tigress. Mulder imagined he could
see the steam trailing her like an overheated wake. Of
course, it could have been haze from the greasy walls 
of the motel room. Emancipation from the financial
shackles of expense reports and Bureau auditors had not
raised the level of their accommodations in the least.

"I thought we'd reached an understanding, Scully. I
thought we'd agreed that, in spite of the risks, we 
really have no other option here. Are you backing out on 
me? Nothing has changed since we discussed this in the 
car, except that we've successfully gained entrance into 
the target family. And he's listening."

Scully eyed the tops of the furniture in the room as
she paced, picking up motel bric-a-brac, hefting each
piece to determine its suitability as either anchor or
projectile. 
 
"Did you look at his eyes, Mulder? Did you? Soulless.
He'd as soon kill you as breathe. Kill us both. And
then what?"

From an excess of wretched experience, he recognized
the onset of his body's progressive responses to threat.
The tingling in his scalp, a galvanic "D.E.W." line. The
flexing of palms and soles of feet, symptomatic of other,
subconscious preparations toward fight or flight. Mulder
knew as well the responses to come as the threat level
heightened. Contraction of the long muscles of the thigh,
which, if not released, would eventually knot painfully
in the middle of his back. Finally, at the moment the
threat became reality, danger made kinetic, he would
become loose limbed, fluid, acting on informed instinct.
 
"What the hell were we thinking? What the hell was I
thinking agreeing to this?"

One day, perhaps, just for his own edification, he would
codify these responses, put word and number to theory.
Bounding upon him uninvited and then away like a frightened
deer, the thought occurred that "color coding" this system
would likely be in bad taste. But where was the threat here?
This was Scully, for Christ's sake, literally the only real
ally he had in the world.

Whatever shreds remained of the Temple curtain of his soul,
weren't in his keeping but in hers. What they shared was
beyond love, deeper, desperate and primal. She was his
salvation in a universe of infinite possibilities in which
all but one seemed turned in upon him. If Scully was a
threat, then he was lost.

"I know we need help, Mulder, and that, even then, it's
an uphill battle. But, with this? We're just buying
trouble. Not even you can expect to come back from the
dead on a regular basis. If they kill us, then colonization
is a fait accompli. What kind of future will that leave
for... for... the children?" Mulder knew that she had one
specific child in mind, but could not, had not, in fact,
been able to speak of him in weeks. Scully's energy seemed
to wilt at the mere thought of their helpless son.

"Scully, it's a process. Tony Soprano is as wary of us,
at this point, as we are of him. But, he's listening, which
is more than I expected." She flared at that admission, so
he hurried to cover, moving on. "We just have to establish
our bona fides, build trust."

"There isn't any trust to build, Mulder!" Scully shouted,
flinging the ashtray softly onto the bed. Mulder smiled
briefly at the realization that, even in the throes of anger,
Scully's basic nature would always tend toward moderation
and reason.

"...listening to me?" She had hold of him, now, by both
ears. What was that he'd been thinking about her moderate
nature?   

"Ow! Yes!" He shrugged out of her grasp. "I'm listening."

"But are you hearing me?" Her voice took on a pleading note
that riveted his attention. Panic wasn't simply unusual with
Scully. It was, to his knowledge, inconceivable. Until now.
Something more was going on than met the eye, Mulder realized.


"Scully?" He reached out to touch her shoulder comfortingly
and she flinched. "Did something happen between you and Carmela
Soprano that I should know about?"

She was only a foot in front of him, but her stare was miles
away. "It's a nice kitchen, big," she began," with lots of
windows and light." She sputtered to a halt.

"C'mon, Scully," he prodded, "you're scaring me."

She shook her head, reassuring him and clearing her own thoughts.
"It started off blandly enough, with small talk," Scully said,
taking a deep breath, before continuing. Mulder was relieved to
see a little bit of the fire come back to her face. "She did
just as her husband had ordered."


**************



"How do you take it, Miss Scully?" Carmela asked, pouring
steaming coffee from a glass carafe into two small porcelain
cups, turning to hand one to Scully and placing her own on
the counter of the crescent shaped island in the center of
the room.

"With cream, please," Scully replied as her host opened the
refrigerator door. "Oh! Is that soymilk? May I have some of
that, please?"

"Really?" Carmela's expression revealed teeth brilliantly 
well cared for. "You drink this?"

Scully looked down at the counter with a mere wisp of a smile,
saying "Well, just in my coffee."

Carmela stared at her, surprised. "You ought to meet my
daughter, Meadow. Went off to Columbia and came back with more
than just an education. A new outlook on life and a whole list
of demands to go with it. Soymilk was among the least
worrisome."

Scully lifted the cup to her lips and sipped gingerly.

"I hope it's still good," Carmela said, staring pointedly
at her.
 
Scully tried to cover a cough, holding a hand up to forestall
Carmela's concern. "No, no. It's fine."
 
"I'd never even heard of soy milk until Med came home from
school on a laundry run and acted very affronted that we didn't
stock any," she chuckled at the memory. "You're the first person
outside of Med's crew whom I know that drinks the stuff." 

"Actually, I used to drink my coffee black," Scully offered. "I
started drinking it this way a couple of years ago. Doctor's
orders."

Carmela raised her manicured eyebrows at this, but Scully said
nothing further. She took up station directly across the island
from where Scully sat, taking a sip of coffee and busying herself
with preparations for that night's gravy, pulling Roma tomatoes
from a glass bowl and peeling each one with precise strokes.

"So, are you married?" she asked, indicating both the foyer
and Mulder with a glance.

"No." 

Scully's curt reply was automatic. For a time, there
was just the metallic snick of the peeler as it stripped
the skin off of the tender red flesh of the fruit. From
elsewhere in the house rose the muffled sound of men's
voices. Scully was unable to decipher any of what was
being said. As a distraction, she found herself speaking.

"Not officially, anyway."

"How long have you known him?" Carmela dumped the skinned
tomatoes into a pot of water simmering on the stove, washed
and dried her hands and, grabbing a knife from the block,
began dicing a dozen garlic cloves.

"Ten years, more or less," Scully replied, watching as
Carmela scooped the garlic onto the knife blade and
deposited it into a small sauce pan to roast in hot oil.
"We were partners at the Bureau."

Carmela looked up, unsmiling. "And now?"

"And now we're just partners."

A voice, familiar to Carmela and discernable to Scully as
other than Mulder, roared from below, "how long?" Scully
started, recomposing herself with effort. Carmela continued
to chop peppers, the impact of her knife on the butcher's
block as solid and resounding as a woodsman's axe.

"You Catholic, Miss Scully?"

"What?" 

Carmela gestured down toward Scully's collarbone. Scully
reached up unconsciously, taking the small gold ornament
into the protective shell of her fist. She looked up at
Carmela, nodding mutely.

"Practicing?" Another nod.

From down in the basement, they could hear Tony continuing
to shout.

"Look," Carmela said, "I don't know what you and your... your
'partner' have come to see Tony about, nor do I want to know.
But, I can tell you that my husband takes his business
dealings very seriously, Miss Scully. He doesn't react
well" Carmela said, lining up another pepper under the
gleaming knife's edge, "to being played for a fool."

From below, the men's voices had ceased. The sudden silence
made Scully all the more uneasy.

"So, as a fellow practicing Catholic, you'll understand how
serious I am when I say that, for your sake, I pray to God that
that's not what you and your partner are here to do." With one
decisive stroke, Carmela split the pepper in half and began to
gut the seeds from inside.
  

***************


"That's not what we're trying to do, Scully. You know that."

"It doesn't matter what we know, Mulder, only what he believes."

Mulder's phone shrilled, startling them both. After staring at
it for several rings, Mulder said, "It's him. We'll know in a
second whether he takes us seriously or not." He pressed the
on button and held the phone away from his ear so that they
could both hear the voice on the other end. It spoke without
preamble.

"Be ready in an hour. We'll pick you up."

"We'll meet you," Mulder challenged. "Just tell me where."
 
"Where ain't important. Just be ready in an hour. There are
some people I want you to meet."

The connection ended. Scully looked aghast.

"Could be worse, Scully. He could have said that he was
taking us for a little ride," Mulder joked lamely.

"It's not funny, Mulder. None of this is funny! You're joking
around with our lives! This isn't some television show. This
man gets what he wants and nothing, not the law, not morality,
not man nor God gets in his way. I should never have agreed
to this plan. It's idiotic, crazy! Your lunacy is going to
get us both killed!"

She spun smartly on a heel and stormed to the back of the
small room. The sink and mirror, Mulder knew, were situated
outside the actual bathroom. The room itself was barely
large enough for the toilet and stand up shower. His warning
about the claustrophobic exile she was heading for died with
the report of a sharp and, he suspected, very satisfying slam.

In the silence that followed, her accusations of recklessness
echoed in his soul. Had he miscalculated? Scully had certainly
summed up Tony Soprano correctly, he realized. Under a thin
veneer of bonhomie lay a core of ruthlessness as hard, sharp
and black as obsidian.

Doubt began to eat away at his well-reasoned resolve. Was
Scully's parting shot as accurate? It would certainly be
ironic at this late date for his many detractors to finally
be proven right. Ironic and, quite possibly, fatal. He had
to consider the possibility seriously. Their lives depended
on it. To the air in the empty room, he voiced one of his
deepest, oldest fears: "Am I nuts?"


*****************


Office of Jennifer Melfi, M.D., Ph.D.
Bloomfield Avenue
Montclair, New Jersey

"I don't know. What do you think? Are you?"

"Aw, Jesus! There you go with the questions again. What the
fuck? Didn't they teach you any of the answers up there at
Tufts?" Tony groused. "You're the expert on who's crazy and
who's not. You tell me!"

Jennifer Melfi tilted her head to one side, which diverted
Tony's attention from her slender legs.  She was a looker,
this one, from her gray suit to her suede pumps.  She
dressed smart.  Sexy.  But what held Tony's fascination
were her eyes.  She tried to hide them behind a pair of
wire rim glasses, but there was no disguising the window
to her soul.  In them, he saw intelligence.  Compassion.
Beyond the hazel depths, he saw hope.

"Answers only come to those willing to hear them," she
responded in a neutral tone. "It could be that you are
finally in a position to listen, to consider possibilities
that you wouldn't necessarily have considered before."

"Is that the best you got?"

"No, but this opportunity may be the best you're going
to get," Dr. Melfi offered.   

"Are you talking about these Feds?" asked Tony. "Because
if word of this gets out..."

"From what you tell me, these two agents are no longer
employed by the FBI," she said.  "What does that tell
you?"

"That they're either stupid fucks or smarter than I
think."  Tony answered, scratching the side of his head.
The question was nagging at him like a mosquito bite.
The harder he scratched, the more irritating it became.

"Anthony, what it tells you is that they have more at
risk," Dr. Melfi explained.  "It tells you that they
are motivated by something stronger than ordinary fear."

"This alien abduction bullshit," groused Tony. "Like
I have time to worry about little green men in my line
of work."

"Waste management?"

The question never caught Tony off guard.  Although
she had explained doctor-patient confidentiality during
their first session, he had little faith in legal
mumbo jumbo.  So he spoke in a language she was sure
to understand.  Truth by innuendo.  It worked, but only
because both of them made a conscious effort not
to jeopardize the other.
  
Besides, Dr. Melfi was Italian.  She lived by the old
rules.  Honor.  Decency. Integrity.

Three years ago he had come to her office because of panic
attacks. He had expected little... a prescription for
Prozac and the back door.  But this woman didn't turn
him away. Even in their most heated moments, where he
insulted her profession or lashed out at her personally,
she didn't flinch.  She was the cool voice of reason. He
wanted to fuck her. Who wouldn't?  Of course, she had
dismissed his attraction with some psychobabble about
transference.  But that didn't stop him from wanting
her, or wanting his mistress to dress like her....

Be like her...  

A strong woman.  What had Carm said about his attraction
to powerful women?  How fucked up was he to be totally
in love his wife yet still crave others? 

"Anthony?"

"Waste management," agreed Tony.  He casually crossed
one leg over the other knee and picked lint off the
cuff of his slacks.  "What about it?"

"Nothing," she said, shrugging.  "But I don't think
your occupation is what they're interested in."

"Then what is it?"

Dr. Melfi lowered her glasses to give him a directed
gaze.  Her eyes sparkled like emeralds.  "The fact that
you have no fear."


*******************


Rest Away Motor Lodge
Bloomfield Avenue
Verona, New Jersey

Scully had her gun drawn as Mulder opened the door. Standing
unfazed in the open doorway was a tall, broad shouldered man
with a ponytail, dressed in a silk shirt and dark slacks.
Though squarely in the sights of Scully's three-point stance,
he said nothing, merely gestured calmly out toward the parking
lot. As the man turned and walked toward the stairwell, both
Mulder and Scully noted the butt of his gun protruding
discretely from the waistband of his pants. This would be
their only introduction to Furio Giunta, Soprano family
enforcer.

Scully scanned the lot trying to select the car that had
come for them. There were two possibilities, one Lincoln,
one Cadillac, both black, both wrong. As they drew up
along side a red Chevy Suburban, Tony Soprano got out
of the passenger's side door. Scully was clearly astonished,
looking back and forth between the mob chieftain and the
truck.

"What?" Tony looked at her curiously. "Wait! Lemme guess.
You thought I was gonna roll up in a black stretch, didn't
you?" He chuckled and, wanting to share this amusement,
glanced over at Furio who just smiled dutifully and shrugged.
"You been watching too many movies, Agent Scully," Tony
said, opening a door for her.  "Winda rolls down, a voice 
says 'get in' ?" Scully nodded once. "Oh, that's beautiful!" 
he crowed, light mood in contrast to his heavy features.


Tony helped Scully up into the truck. Even though his smile
seemed genuine, something in it made her shiver. His manner
had an old fashioned, proprietary air. As he eased his
muscled bulk into the front seat, Tony continued, "This
is New Jersey. We're a little less formal out here." He
mimed lifting his nose in the air, laughing at his own joke. 

"Oh!" He rapped on Furio's arm to get his attention. "You
know who's gonna love this one?" It wasn't clear whether
Tony was speaking of Scully, her misconception, or both.
"Sil." Furio looked away without saying a word, his glance
in the rear view along the way meeting Mulder's eyes squarely.
If Tony was aware of the interaction between the other
two men, he made no mention of it. "Fuckin' Silvio," he
repeated, chuckling at some memory as yet unrevealed.

"You two can talk Godfather movies until the sun comes
up." He shook his head once more, laughing, but said
nothing in explanation.

"We gotta make a stop first," Tony said to his passengers.
"It's just a little ways up from here." To Furio, he added
"Christopher, but at her place."

As they pulled out onto Bloomfield Avenue, Mulder leaned
forward to speak to Tony, jerking a thumb at Furio. "Does
he speak?" Mulder asked, dryly.

"Yeah," Tony replied, without so much as a smile or a
glance back at Mulder.

For a block or two, there was dead silence. Suddenly,
like a tape rewound, Tony's voice bellowed out as jovial
as before.

"Oh, yeah. Silvio is going to love you!"



-end- (3/?)