DISCLAIMER: Not mine, never will be and as depressing as that is, it´s no
reason to sue poor me..
A/N: FINALLY!! Updating, I know it´s been a long, long, long while but you
know, better late than never...i am almost done. Thanks for the infinite
patience and keep the reviews coming.
Katya pushed the button for the elevator again. The people around her stared but she didn´t care. She turned to look at the stairs and considered taking them, but hesitated...the office was on the twelfth floor. It would do her no good to die of a heart attack halfway to the office. She pushed the button again. The elevator doors finally opened. She pressed 12. It seemed like an eternity went by before the damned thing finally reached her floor. She stepped out and turned to her left. The office was already open, but it was quiet. She walked inside, she was barely in when she felt it. Someone. She turned to leave, realizing what was going on. She was too late. She was grabbed from behind. She never got a word out before she was gagged and taken outside. At the end of the office, Dr. Pierce stood, looking terrified at Katya. He´d betrayed her. He could die of shame. He wanted to say something, but he was hit in the back of the head. The world went black and Katya was taken away, with little or no hope of ever escaping.
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They´d agreed to meet outside the building. It was easier that way. Neither Mulder nor Goren had to deal with each other outside the sight of the public, and that was probably best. They hadn´t actually fought over anything, but both Eames and Scully knew it was only a matter of time. Neither of them liked each other, and neither of them were going to hide their feelings. There was another advantage to meeting in the building, as soon as they were done with Dr. Pierce they would be able to go back to their own lives and their own cases.
It was strange that Dr. Pierce had asked to see all four of them at the same time, but maybe he was just trying to be organized and not waste too much time on police procedure. Still, something was bothering both agents and detectives. This was not normal, it made no sense, there was no explanation, no reason why Dr. Pierce would call them up and ask to meet them. There was also not much logic in their agreeing to meet Dr. Pierce, but nothing about the case had been logical and they did need to give it some sort of closure. In any case, they would soon be done with the entire case and be able to get back to work. This lifted Eames and Scully´s spirits, but it did little to encourage the men. In fact, it only seemed to give them even more ideas about the case. Both women thanked life in general when all four of them showed up, almost at exactly the same time.
They wasted no time, greeted each other briefly and walked in. Eames and Scully walked in front and Mulder and Goren in back. They said nothing to each other, and only briefly looked at each other as they waited for the elevator. Patiently, they stood there, in uncomfortable silence, until they reached the twelfth floor. They turned to their left and found Dr. Pierce´s office. It was open. They called out, no one answered. Before they got even more suspicious they opened the door at the end of the small hall, were Dr. Pierce´s desk was. They found him sitting up against the wall, he was bleeding from the back of his head and looked nausceous. He opened his eyes and saw them. Scully went to check his wound, it wasn´t serious, it would need a few stitches but he would be fine. Goren asked him what happened. The doctor´s eyes widened a little, he looked down and said nothing. After a minute, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, "They took her," he said, "they took Katya with them...they grabbed her and..I just..they made me.." He broke down after that and wouldn´t say any more. He didn´t need too, all of them had understood what he meant. Before they even said a word, Eames and Scully ran out the office and took the stairs. Mulder and Goren checked the rest of the floor.
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Eames followed Scully down the stairs. They had gone down four floors when they heard something. It was someone screaming. They reacted immediately. Guns out, they ran down the stairs as fast as they could. They never saw two men coming at them from above until it was too late. Eames was slammed against the door, Scully took a second to realize this and turn around. Eames fought the guy off, kicked him to the ground. A second man came at Scully, she fought him off too, but before they could continue, they found themselves surrounded by three more men. They punched Scully and Eames and took their guns. They mocked the other two men for being beaten up by women and gave the usual threats and insults to the women. Scully and Eames leered at them and tried to fight them off. It was of no use, this time they had them. With their own guns being pointed at themselves, they were taken out of the building. Before being thrown into a car, Scully managed to look up at the building, she prayed someone up there realized what had happened.
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If it been up to Mulder or Goren, they would not have of let both their partners run out of the office like that but it all happened so fast. They checked the rest of the floor, thinking that it would turn up nothing, it did. It was a little early for the rest of the doctor´s offices to be open, so no one had seen anything. There were no security cameras on the floor, which was just what both men did not want to know. They met back at Dr. Pierce´s office a few minutes after leaving it. They knew they´d found nothing, so they said nothing to each other. Mulder was the first to turn to Dr. Pierce.
"How many were there?"
"I don´t know..uhm.five or six maybe..but it was the two big ones that took Katya, I think one of them´s name is Tom or something like that.."
As soon as Dr. Pierce stopped talking both Mulder and Goren stared at him, then turned to each other, panic starting to set in. This time, Goren spoke before Mulder, "If two men took Katya, were where the others?"
Dr. Pierce didn´t look up and only shrugged. He looked like a man who´d just lost everything, but neither Mulder not Goren much cared at that moment. They ran out of the office, guns drawn, Mulder dialing Scully´s number, praying that he was just being paranoid. When they reached the stairs and found their badges lying in the stairwell a few floors down he knew he wasn´t being paranoid. Neither of them moved for a second, Mulder picked up Scully´s and Eames´ badges, Goren put his gun back in its holster and punched the wall...hard.
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It was another thirty minutes before they left the building. Mulder was quiet, too quiet for Goren´s liking but as he looked at the man he saw a glimpse of so many emotions in the man that he decided no to say anything to him. They had tried to question Dr. Pierce but they hadn´t been allowed, some other detectives had shown up and taken care of that. In Goren´s opinion, they hadn´t pushed him hard enough because they barely spoke to the man for ten minutes and had left with nothing of use. They were driven back to the station by some other man in a uniform who didn´t look at either of them. Goren wondered why it was no one liked to look at people whenever they were in some kind of crisis. He almost smiled at the thought.his partner was missing and he was in a state of crisis, he felt helpless, he didn´t know what to do or were to start. He did not enjoy this feeling.
Mulder, on the other hand, was completely void of feeling. He seemed to be stuck in some sort of memory loop were all he could see were all those times when Scully had nearly died on the job. All those times she´d gone missing. He didn´t even think about what he could do, all he felt he had to do was find her. He was led to the car in silence and he only barely noticed the look Goren gave him. He didn´t much care at the moment. It wasn´t until he realized that Goren´s partner was gone too that he looked up at him, and even then he seemed hard pressed to think about anything other than the fact that this time around, Scully might not be so lucky.
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It was amazing how simple it was to abduct three women. No one even turned to look at them when Tom carried out Katya with Scully and Eames leading the way and looking none too happy. They were put in the car and drove off, just like that, and the men had probably not even noticed yet. Tom smirked at them and glared at Katya, who, as fate would have it, woke up at the moment the car door was shut. She even lounged at Tom and got at least a couple of good hits before Scully heard her gun being cocked, right next to her left ear. Katya let Tom go and tried to put as much distance as she could between themselves, but it was of little use. It was, after all, only a car, and there wasn´t anywhere for her to go. In the end, Tom put his arm around her and continued to smirk, Katya looked revolted but said and did nothing. It wasn´t long before all three of them were blindfolded, it seemed these kidnappers were not as sloppy as they´d hoped. Their cell phones were taken from them and everytime they started to speak, they were threatened with the guns. The car ride seemed to last for ever, but finally, they stopped, their eyes were uncovered and they stood in the middle of nowhere, with not much hope of being found soon.
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Back at the station, Mulder and Goren were questioned separately. It seemed ironic to Mulder, the idiot detectives who´d questioned Dr. Pierce had barely spent ten minutes with him and yet he sat in a little gray room, feeling a growing need to take out his gun, for nearly an hour and a half. When he was finally let out, he found Goren sitting at his desk, looking through the case file. The look of death that was thrown Mulder´s way was not lost on him as he sat at Eames´ desk, but he chose to ignore it, in the interest of finding his partner. It wasn´t long before Goren took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, then he turned his attention to Mulder.
"Katya must´ve been raised somewhere out of town, with lots of fresh air and...space...the Sonns, they vauled their privacy..."
Mulder interrupted, rather rudely, "Well, if you wanted to keep a phsycic healer secret wouldn´t you move out to the country too?"
Goren tried his best to ignore the man, "The Sonns have no records of owning any property in this or any neighboring state...Dr. Pierce does, but he said that´s not where they would keep..them," he rubbed his eyes before dropping the case file, "we have no way of finding them quickly."
"So you do believe it was the Sonns?"
"Yes...whatever Katya believes it doesn´t change the fact that the Sonns were the only ones who would have any reason of doing this."
"But you don´t believe Katya."
"No, truth is as subjective as reality. Katya believes it, the Sonns believe it, that´s enough."
Mulder got up and walked away. Rationally, he should be putting his differences aside in order to find three missing people, he could, however, do no such thing. He felt like he would get nowhere with Goren, he would rationalize this and slap psychology on it until he was satisfied all was explained, but Mulder could not do that. He had believed Katya, he knew what she was saying was true and something inside of him made it very difficult to work with someone who didn´t agree with him. He realized then that that was also an absurd thought, Scully never agreed with him. That brought him back to reality, he opted to get a cup of coffee and go back to see if Goren was getting anywhere.
It was hard work, looking into your own partner´s missing persons report. Goren sat there and stared at it, he was supposed to fill it out, but all he could do was stare at it. He felt numb all over and opted for finally dropping the paper and going back to the case. This fact was not lost on anybody, but no one dared to say anything. Mulder came back with a cup of coffee and sat with an, almost, apologetic look on on his face. Goren didn´t even look at him, just barely acknowledged his prescence. After sitting there for a few minutes, Mulder spoke up.
"I can help you know."
It was all that was needed of him. Goren was about to loose it. He looked up at Mulder, giving him a deadly stare. Mulder responded with a stare of his own.
Katya pushed the button for the elevator again. The people around her stared but she didn´t care. She turned to look at the stairs and considered taking them, but hesitated...the office was on the twelfth floor. It would do her no good to die of a heart attack halfway to the office. She pushed the button again. The elevator doors finally opened. She pressed 12. It seemed like an eternity went by before the damned thing finally reached her floor. She stepped out and turned to her left. The office was already open, but it was quiet. She walked inside, she was barely in when she felt it. Someone. She turned to leave, realizing what was going on. She was too late. She was grabbed from behind. She never got a word out before she was gagged and taken outside. At the end of the office, Dr. Pierce stood, looking terrified at Katya. He´d betrayed her. He could die of shame. He wanted to say something, but he was hit in the back of the head. The world went black and Katya was taken away, with little or no hope of ever escaping.
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They´d agreed to meet outside the building. It was easier that way. Neither Mulder nor Goren had to deal with each other outside the sight of the public, and that was probably best. They hadn´t actually fought over anything, but both Eames and Scully knew it was only a matter of time. Neither of them liked each other, and neither of them were going to hide their feelings. There was another advantage to meeting in the building, as soon as they were done with Dr. Pierce they would be able to go back to their own lives and their own cases.
It was strange that Dr. Pierce had asked to see all four of them at the same time, but maybe he was just trying to be organized and not waste too much time on police procedure. Still, something was bothering both agents and detectives. This was not normal, it made no sense, there was no explanation, no reason why Dr. Pierce would call them up and ask to meet them. There was also not much logic in their agreeing to meet Dr. Pierce, but nothing about the case had been logical and they did need to give it some sort of closure. In any case, they would soon be done with the entire case and be able to get back to work. This lifted Eames and Scully´s spirits, but it did little to encourage the men. In fact, it only seemed to give them even more ideas about the case. Both women thanked life in general when all four of them showed up, almost at exactly the same time.
They wasted no time, greeted each other briefly and walked in. Eames and Scully walked in front and Mulder and Goren in back. They said nothing to each other, and only briefly looked at each other as they waited for the elevator. Patiently, they stood there, in uncomfortable silence, until they reached the twelfth floor. They turned to their left and found Dr. Pierce´s office. It was open. They called out, no one answered. Before they got even more suspicious they opened the door at the end of the small hall, were Dr. Pierce´s desk was. They found him sitting up against the wall, he was bleeding from the back of his head and looked nausceous. He opened his eyes and saw them. Scully went to check his wound, it wasn´t serious, it would need a few stitches but he would be fine. Goren asked him what happened. The doctor´s eyes widened a little, he looked down and said nothing. After a minute, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, "They took her," he said, "they took Katya with them...they grabbed her and..I just..they made me.." He broke down after that and wouldn´t say any more. He didn´t need too, all of them had understood what he meant. Before they even said a word, Eames and Scully ran out the office and took the stairs. Mulder and Goren checked the rest of the floor.
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Eames followed Scully down the stairs. They had gone down four floors when they heard something. It was someone screaming. They reacted immediately. Guns out, they ran down the stairs as fast as they could. They never saw two men coming at them from above until it was too late. Eames was slammed against the door, Scully took a second to realize this and turn around. Eames fought the guy off, kicked him to the ground. A second man came at Scully, she fought him off too, but before they could continue, they found themselves surrounded by three more men. They punched Scully and Eames and took their guns. They mocked the other two men for being beaten up by women and gave the usual threats and insults to the women. Scully and Eames leered at them and tried to fight them off. It was of no use, this time they had them. With their own guns being pointed at themselves, they were taken out of the building. Before being thrown into a car, Scully managed to look up at the building, she prayed someone up there realized what had happened.
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If it been up to Mulder or Goren, they would not have of let both their partners run out of the office like that but it all happened so fast. They checked the rest of the floor, thinking that it would turn up nothing, it did. It was a little early for the rest of the doctor´s offices to be open, so no one had seen anything. There were no security cameras on the floor, which was just what both men did not want to know. They met back at Dr. Pierce´s office a few minutes after leaving it. They knew they´d found nothing, so they said nothing to each other. Mulder was the first to turn to Dr. Pierce.
"How many were there?"
"I don´t know..uhm.five or six maybe..but it was the two big ones that took Katya, I think one of them´s name is Tom or something like that.."
As soon as Dr. Pierce stopped talking both Mulder and Goren stared at him, then turned to each other, panic starting to set in. This time, Goren spoke before Mulder, "If two men took Katya, were where the others?"
Dr. Pierce didn´t look up and only shrugged. He looked like a man who´d just lost everything, but neither Mulder not Goren much cared at that moment. They ran out of the office, guns drawn, Mulder dialing Scully´s number, praying that he was just being paranoid. When they reached the stairs and found their badges lying in the stairwell a few floors down he knew he wasn´t being paranoid. Neither of them moved for a second, Mulder picked up Scully´s and Eames´ badges, Goren put his gun back in its holster and punched the wall...hard.
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It was another thirty minutes before they left the building. Mulder was quiet, too quiet for Goren´s liking but as he looked at the man he saw a glimpse of so many emotions in the man that he decided no to say anything to him. They had tried to question Dr. Pierce but they hadn´t been allowed, some other detectives had shown up and taken care of that. In Goren´s opinion, they hadn´t pushed him hard enough because they barely spoke to the man for ten minutes and had left with nothing of use. They were driven back to the station by some other man in a uniform who didn´t look at either of them. Goren wondered why it was no one liked to look at people whenever they were in some kind of crisis. He almost smiled at the thought.his partner was missing and he was in a state of crisis, he felt helpless, he didn´t know what to do or were to start. He did not enjoy this feeling.
Mulder, on the other hand, was completely void of feeling. He seemed to be stuck in some sort of memory loop were all he could see were all those times when Scully had nearly died on the job. All those times she´d gone missing. He didn´t even think about what he could do, all he felt he had to do was find her. He was led to the car in silence and he only barely noticed the look Goren gave him. He didn´t much care at the moment. It wasn´t until he realized that Goren´s partner was gone too that he looked up at him, and even then he seemed hard pressed to think about anything other than the fact that this time around, Scully might not be so lucky.
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It was amazing how simple it was to abduct three women. No one even turned to look at them when Tom carried out Katya with Scully and Eames leading the way and looking none too happy. They were put in the car and drove off, just like that, and the men had probably not even noticed yet. Tom smirked at them and glared at Katya, who, as fate would have it, woke up at the moment the car door was shut. She even lounged at Tom and got at least a couple of good hits before Scully heard her gun being cocked, right next to her left ear. Katya let Tom go and tried to put as much distance as she could between themselves, but it was of little use. It was, after all, only a car, and there wasn´t anywhere for her to go. In the end, Tom put his arm around her and continued to smirk, Katya looked revolted but said and did nothing. It wasn´t long before all three of them were blindfolded, it seemed these kidnappers were not as sloppy as they´d hoped. Their cell phones were taken from them and everytime they started to speak, they were threatened with the guns. The car ride seemed to last for ever, but finally, they stopped, their eyes were uncovered and they stood in the middle of nowhere, with not much hope of being found soon.
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Back at the station, Mulder and Goren were questioned separately. It seemed ironic to Mulder, the idiot detectives who´d questioned Dr. Pierce had barely spent ten minutes with him and yet he sat in a little gray room, feeling a growing need to take out his gun, for nearly an hour and a half. When he was finally let out, he found Goren sitting at his desk, looking through the case file. The look of death that was thrown Mulder´s way was not lost on him as he sat at Eames´ desk, but he chose to ignore it, in the interest of finding his partner. It wasn´t long before Goren took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, then he turned his attention to Mulder.
"Katya must´ve been raised somewhere out of town, with lots of fresh air and...space...the Sonns, they vauled their privacy..."
Mulder interrupted, rather rudely, "Well, if you wanted to keep a phsycic healer secret wouldn´t you move out to the country too?"
Goren tried his best to ignore the man, "The Sonns have no records of owning any property in this or any neighboring state...Dr. Pierce does, but he said that´s not where they would keep..them," he rubbed his eyes before dropping the case file, "we have no way of finding them quickly."
"So you do believe it was the Sonns?"
"Yes...whatever Katya believes it doesn´t change the fact that the Sonns were the only ones who would have any reason of doing this."
"But you don´t believe Katya."
"No, truth is as subjective as reality. Katya believes it, the Sonns believe it, that´s enough."
Mulder got up and walked away. Rationally, he should be putting his differences aside in order to find three missing people, he could, however, do no such thing. He felt like he would get nowhere with Goren, he would rationalize this and slap psychology on it until he was satisfied all was explained, but Mulder could not do that. He had believed Katya, he knew what she was saying was true and something inside of him made it very difficult to work with someone who didn´t agree with him. He realized then that that was also an absurd thought, Scully never agreed with him. That brought him back to reality, he opted to get a cup of coffee and go back to see if Goren was getting anywhere.
It was hard work, looking into your own partner´s missing persons report. Goren sat there and stared at it, he was supposed to fill it out, but all he could do was stare at it. He felt numb all over and opted for finally dropping the paper and going back to the case. This fact was not lost on anybody, but no one dared to say anything. Mulder came back with a cup of coffee and sat with an, almost, apologetic look on on his face. Goren didn´t even look at him, just barely acknowledged his prescence. After sitting there for a few minutes, Mulder spoke up.
"I can help you know."
It was all that was needed of him. Goren was about to loose it. He looked up at Mulder, giving him a deadly stare. Mulder responded with a stare of his own.