TITLE: "The Seventh Side of the Triangle"
AUTHOR: Susan Jameson
WARNING: Slash
RATING: Mostly PG-13, but rises to R in parts for m/m and m/f sexual
situations.
SPOILERS: Everything through "El Mundo Gira" (no, I'm not kidding).
CONTENT: M/other slash. S/other. M/S friendship, UST, and even a
little offbeat MSR. Oh, and just for Isa -- a dash of M/K.
SUMMARY: The untold story of Tunguska and Terma.
CLASSIFICATION: SRA. AU.
ARCHIVE: Go for it.
FEEDBACK: No anti-gay flames. Otherwise, yes, please.
DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully other characters from "The X Files" are the
property of 1013 Productions. The Reilly clan is all mine.
NOTES: I've made my own decisions about the confusing, sometimes
overlapping timelines of "Tunguska/Terma" and "Paper Hearts," and I
have fuzzed some events dealing with the abduction arc.
DEDICATION: To the real Daniel: I kept five petals from the last rose
you sent me, and the message you left on my voice mail. I kept the
picture of us on New Year's Eve, and the card you wrote. I wish to God
I could keep you just a little longer.



The Seventh Side of the Triangle
by Susan Jameson

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

If you are the desert, I'll be the sea,
If you ever hunger, hunger for me,
Whatever you ask for, that's what I'll be.

So when you remember the ones who have lied,
Who said that they cared but then laughed as you cried,
Beautiful darling, don't think of me ...
Because all I ever wanted
Is in your eyes.

"Father Figure"
George Michael

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

The file is in storage, correctly programmed, neatly categorized and
easily referenced. Within are the official reports of an FBI
investigation into the illegal importation of a toxic substance, a
substance which caused the deaths of an international courier, a U.S.
Customs official and a scientist at NASA's Goddard facility.

The file is available through the Freedom of Information Act to anyone
who knows to ask for it. There is little reason for anyone to bother,
however; the information within is pure fiction, having little in
common with the reports filed by the investigating agents.

Those reports -- far more alarming than anything in the "official"
report -- will never see the light of day. They are long since ashes.

Yet even that file did not tell the real story; not all of it, anyway.

The real story is known only to the people who lived it.

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

Martha's Vineyard
November 24, 1996
Saturday

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

As Scully Saw It

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

Someday, when I look back on Thanksgiving 1996, I suppose I may find
reason to be thankful.

But that will take years; indeed, it may never happen.

It's not that there was nothing for which to be grateful. There was,
and not least that Daniel was alive and recovering from his wounds. He
still had some distance to go before he could put in a full day of
surgery at Bethesda again, but his military career, and his life --
either of which could so easily have been ended by the shooting --
would go on.

In the meantime, Daniel was staying with me. His former wife, Jill, is
a registered nurse and she was staying there, too, using her
considerable professional skills to care for him.

Jill's attitude toward Daniel was perhaps more impersonal than I would
have liked. Yet night and day, she was there, quiet, calm and
professional, as though it were an everyday thing to give up her time
and income to care for the man who'd broken her heart so badly just a
few short years ago.

It was all quite polite and civilized -- well, Daniel had a few fussy
moments, but that's what happens when a physician becomes a patient.

I myself was extremely busy: I had house guests, I had my regular work
to do, and I was also heavily involved in getting Daniel well.
Mulder... well, Mulder needed my attention even if he didn't seem to
want it. He'd been in low spirits even before Daniel was shot, and the
fiasco known as the Paper Hearts case hadn't improved matters one bit
--for him, or for our partnership.

There was no open warfare between us; there seldom is. No, this war
was a war of attrition: Too much silence and too little trust ruled
the day.

The man who shot Daniel remained an unknown subject. The local police
were working on it, and Mulder and I were giving them as much FBI
assistance as we could, but no real leads had surfaced. Even Mulder's
attempts to come up with a profile of the shooter proved fruitless.
There simply wasn't enough evidence on which to construct anything but
the most generic of profiles.

With all that going on, I was definitely looking forward to the
holiday, and not just because it meant I had some time off. Daniel's
brother, Lt. Jim Reilly, was joining us for the holiday. Jim's
submarine, the USS Dallas, made its homeport in Groton, Conn., around
midday Friday, and I had invited him to stay with us so he could spend
some time with Daniel while he was on leave.

And I wanted to see Jim, too. We'd had a pleasant evening together
while Daniel was still in the hospital, and I liked Jim well enough to
pursue the friendship. Nothing more, though. I had no time for it, and
neither did Jim. There was no point starting something we couldn't
finish.

With the new addition to our temporary household, we decided to move
the infirmary to Mulder's father's home on Martha's Vineyard for the
holiday week; we were fast running out of room in my apartment.

Jim took Daniel to the Vineyard Saturday afternoon, and Jill followed
later. She and Jim got the house aired out while Daniel supposedly
rested from the drive. I say supposedly, because when I got there late
Saturday afternoon, after having spent the morning consulting on an
autopsy at Quantico, Jill told me that Daniel had been difficult all
day long.

"He's doing really well physically," she said. "He just can't wait to
get back in battery, and he's not only wearing himself out trying,
he's getting more impatient and short-tempered by the day. I asked him
if he wanted lunch and he just about bit my head off."

"I'm sorry he's been so ..." I began, but I stopped, realizing how
inappropriate that was. Daniel wasn't mine to apologize for; Jill was
telling me this not because he was my responsibility, but because she
is a professional nurse and it's second nature for her to report her
observations to the physician in charge.

For me to act as though she was doing _me_ a favor by caring for him
would be a slap in Jill's face.

Jill, however, took my abortive apology as calmly as she'd been taking
everything else lately.

"Don't worry about how Daniel behaves, Dana," she said. "I lived with
him for 12 years and I've been a nurse longer than that. There's not
much Daniel Reilly is going to do that I haven't dealt with before."

I didn't doubt that. I also didn't doubt that this was extremely
trying for her, emotionally as well as physically, so I asked her to
go grocery shopping with me again, as I had last Friday. Jim was
napping in one of the spare bedrooms, but he'd be there if Daniel
needed anything, and I thought Jill could use a break from The Thing
That Wouldn't Rest.

She accepted so quickly that I felt a little guilty for having left
her cooped up for an entire week.

We had a pleasant enough trip, though, and even managed to laugh a few
times. In spite of a somewhat rocky beginning, it seemed that Jill
Reilly and I might become real friends, and I was all in favor of
that. She seemed to need one and frankly, so did I.

When we got back to the house about 45 minutes later, Mulder was just
emerging from the master bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him.
His hair was mussed, and he was blinking in the light.

I suppose that description is my attempt to find a delicate way of
saying he looked ... well, he'd been in bed with Daniel and it showed.

I, of course, didn't think anything of it -- I'm used to being around
them.

Jill, however, got very quiet and wouldn't quite meet Mulder's eyes.
She smiled and said hello, but then she said she was feeling just a
little tired all of a sudden and would I mind getting dinner while she
rested for a minute?

"That's fine," I said, setting the grocery sacks down on the kitchen
table. "I'll call you when it's ready."

Mulder followed me into the kitchen and leaned against the wall, arms
folded across his chest, watching as Jill walked away. He knew
something was wrong; he doesn't miss much.

"Something I said?" he asked, turning toward me.

I shook my head. "She just hasn't seen you and Daniel together
before," I said as I took the salad ingredients out of the grocery
sacks and began washing the lettuce. "It's something of an adjustment
for her."

"I didn't know she'd seen us together yet," he said.

"Well, not _together_, together," I said. "Just ... based on
circumstantial evidence, you know ..."

I stopped there. I was fairly certain Mulder wouldn't need much more
explanation.

He didn't. "Oh, shit," he said, shaking his head. "Should I go say
something to her?"

"I wouldn't," I said. I piled the lettuce into the colander and shook
it over the sink before dumping it onto a clean dishtowel to drain.
"I'd let Daniel talk to her."

"Yeah, well, that would work if they were talking about anything other
than medical matters," Mulder said, straightening up and walking over
to the sink. He grabbed a cherry tomato and popped it into his mouth
unwashed.

"Mulder, how many times do I have to tell you ..." I began.

"Not to eat unwashed vegetables," he finished for me. "Scully,
somehow, given all the dangers you and I encounter on a daily basis,
an unwashed tomato just doesn't frighten me the way it should."

"Fine, kill yourself with E. coli," I said, dumping the rest of the
tomatoes into the colander just as he was reaching for another one.
"No, you don't, not this time," I said, swatting his hand away. "I'm
washing these. Mulder, speaking of dangerous situations, I called
Skinner's office yesterday evening looking for you and Kimberly said
you were before OPR in the Paper Hearts case. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't need you," he said, then caught himself. "I'm sorry,
I don't mean that the way it sounds ..."

"It's all right, I'm sure you're speaking in a legal sense," I said,
but I'm not sure I really believed that. God knows, it hurt to hear
him say it.

I spread another dish towel on the counter and dumped the tomatoes
onto it, trying to behave as though nothing at all was wrong. "Would
you get the salad bowl down, please?" I said, not looking at him. "So
what happened that made OPR willing to forego the testimony of an
eyewitness?"

"The testimony of the assistant director," he said, as he opened the
cabinet over the refrigerator and got the wooden bowl down. It must be
nice to be tall -- not that I'd know.

"Thank you," I said, taking the bowl. "What did Skinner say?"

"Skinner told OPR -- and the shooting board -- that I got Roche out of
prison on his orders, that I had a lump the size of a turkey egg on
the back of my head when you found me clipped with my own cuffs, and
that he sent me on this case without you because Roche refused to talk
if you were present," Mulder said, leaning against the counter again.
"He told OPR I'd been less than perfectly careful, but that he'd
already dealt with that by suspending me and giving me an oral
reprimand, so there was no need for further action."

For a moment I was speechless. "That's ... Mulder, that's utterly
amazing," I said. "Why on earth did he do that?"

Now it was Mulder's turn to go silent. He pursed his lips for a
moment, almost as though he was thinking he might not tell me. I
waited, hoping he would tell me, hoping enough time had passed for him
to get over his guilt and open up to me the way he used to.

Evidently, that time was not now.

"I don't know what his reasons were," Mulder said, finally. "And it
doesn't really matter, does it?"

I started to protest, but he turned away from me -- slowly, as though
this was just a casual thing, meaning nothing, which it was anything
but.

"Mulder," I called out, but he just shook his head.

"I've got to make a couple of phone calls," he said, without turning
around. "I'll be through in a few minutes."

"Mulder, please," I said, but he didn't answer.

He just walked away.

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

As Mulder Saw It

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

West Tisbury, Mass.
6:47 p.m.

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

Of course, my encounter with Skinner was much worse than what I told
Scully.

Actually, there was a lot I hadn't been telling her. Things had been a
little strained recently. I'm damned if I know what I was doing to
shut her out, but I was sure as shit doing it.

Hell, she was sitting in the kitchen with Jill and Jim right now,
while I sat in the living room alone, reading over all the mail that
had piled up at the office. She could have come in here and sat with
me, asked me more about the meeting with Skinner, but she didn't. She
wasn't going to risk being turned away again.

It's just ... there was a lot I didn't want her to know just yet, a
lot of things that added up to a pretty heavy burden, and one that I
was prepared to carry forever in silence rather than dump one ounce of
it on her.

Oh, Skinner bailed my ass out, all right; he just gave me a thorough
and rather unsettling reaming out before he did it. According to
Skinner, my behavior in the Paper Hearts case was "asinine, idiotic,
unprofessional, foolish, foolhardy and reckless, displaying an
arrogant, unjustified and contemptuous lack of regard for Bureau
regulations, federal law and the safety and security of the American
people."

And that's the short version. The short, cleaned-up version.

The worst part of that encounter wasn't the reprimand, although it was
an official reprimand and would be entered on my record. Big deal.
Like my FBI career was going anywhere anyway?

But I'd been expecting that. What I hadn't expected, would never in my
wildest dreams have expected, was what he said after he got through
delivering a harangue that would have made his Marine Corps drill
instructor proud.

"Agent Mulder," he said, "I know you've been under considerable stress
lately, and I know it's affected your judgment. And I know why."

I goddamn near fell over. Panic time. "You do, sir?" I managed to
croak out.

"Yes, Agent Mulder, I do," Skinner said, looking me in the eye. "I
understand that things were very much touch-and-go with Lieutenant
Commander Reilly for a while, and I know that it was a very difficult
time for you, particularly given the secrecy that the two of you are
forced to maintain."

Oh, shit.

For just a second I thought about denying everything, telling Skinner
I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about and threatening to
knock the crap out of him for what he was implying.

Except I didn't. I'm sick of being in the closet, sick of pretending,
sick of denying and hiding what I am and what Daniel means to me.
Hell, I can't even admit what I feel for Scully, not without blowing
our cover story. There are times that's almost as painful as having to
hide my feelings for Daniel.

So if Skinner was telling me I didn't have to pretend around him
anymore, then by God, I wasn't going to pretend anymore.

I mean, hell -- I trust him, even if I don't always act as though I
do.

I looked up at him. "Thank you, sir," I said. "I appreciate your
sympathy. It means a lot to me."

He just grunted at that. Well, shit, he's still Skinner.

"I've known about your relationship with Lieutenant Commander Reilly
for some time, Agent Mulder," he said. "I have kept that knowledge to
myself and I intend to go on doing so. I can see no reason to destroy
a Navy career that by all accounts has been exemplary."

"Thank you, sir," I said again, looking down at the floor to hide the
sudden rush of relief I felt. Skinner, however, went on as if I hadn't
spoken.

"As for you, Agent Mulder," he said, "henceforth, I expect to be
informed when you have personal problems that could impact your
ability to do your job. Otherwise, your personal life is your own
business. In short, Agent Mulder, as long as you get your work done
properly and don't break any laws worth enforcing, I don't care if you
fuck the entire offensive line of the Washington Redskins on
Pennsylvania Avenue at rush hour. Am I making myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear, sir," I said.

The Redskins thing was an enticing mental image, I must admit,
although I was only half listening to Skinner at that point. It was
beginning to sink in just exactly who must have told him about Daniel
and me.

So I asked him. At first, he hedged, said he'd just suspected for a
long time, and I'm sure that's true. Skinner was, and still is, a
great agent. He'd still be a hell of a good investigator if he hadn't
set his sights on rising through the FBI hierarchy and thus become so
much of a political animal.

But I'm not going anywhere in the FBI hierarchy no matter what I do
from now on, so I wasn't in the mood to be diplomatic. And I've been

an agent long enough to know when someone's not telling me something.

So I asked him again, and I named names.

Oh, yeah, I knew who it was. I haven't forgotten everything I ever
learned as a behavioral profiler. I didn't need Skinner to tell me
that I'd become an untidy little detail in someone's life, someone who
would do whatever it took to clean up that little detail.

That time, Skinner didn't lie. I guess he knew it was pointless. He
confirmed my suspicion: It was Daniel's mother who had outed me --and
by extension, outed her own son.

I tried to make myself believe that she just didn't understand what it
meant to out Daniel to an assistant director of the FBI. I mean, maybe
she doesn't know that Naval Intelligence likes to keep a close eye on
anyone who might be around any of their spooks while they're under
anesthesia.

Shit, it didn't even have to be an assistant director: Anyone in the
Bureau might have felt duty bound to inform the Navy that Daniel, by
virtue of being a surgeon at Bethesda, had access to classified
information, but was gay, hence susceptible to blackmail and should be
considered a security risk.

Sure. Of course she didn't know. She's just married to a captain, the
daughter of an admiral and the mother or mother-in-law of five Navy
officers.

Like hell she didn't know.

At first, I'd thought about telling Daniel, but I immediately
dismissed the idea. His mother had hurt him enough already; he didn't
need the extra burden of knowing that she'd outed him to the very
people whose job it is to investigate him for security clearance.

Understand, now: If I thought Daniel was a security risk, I wouldn't
ignore it. I'd be violating my oath if I did. It's part of my job to
prevent that kind of risk, and as a profiler I'm pretty good at
spotting the people who'll break under pressure.

Daniel's not one of those people.

Skinner apparently agrees with me, too, and he's not influenced by a
personal relationship like I am.

Speaking of Skinner -- he told me something else that day, something
I'm going to do my damnedest to take to my grave, because I don't ever
want Scully to know. I'll keep it to myself if it kills me.

Someday I'm going to get that motherfucker in my sights, and when I
do...

Jesus, I'm a sick bastard. Sometimes it makes me physically ill to
realize what a cold-blooded killer I am, not to mention a reckless
incompetent who constantly puts innocent people in danger. I don't
know why Scully or anyone else stays around me, given how careless I
am of their safety and happiness.

I knew I needed to let all that shit go and just enjoy the weekend, to
relax with Scully and Daniel -- and Jill, as much as possible,
although now that Daniel was out of danger, she and I were back to
tip-toeing around each another, being carefully polite whenever we
chanced to speak.

I had actually had some hope, at first, that she and I might get to be
friends. I'd known from the start that Daniel still loved her, that he
still felt like a shit for having lied to her and walked out on her.
If it would make him happy, then I was perfectly willing to have her
come back into his life.

That was a sacrifice, too, let me tell you. She is a very pretty lady,
after all, and unlike me, Daniel's not utterly devoid of heterosexual
attraction. It's a very small part of who he is, but it's there,
nonetheless.

I know he loves me. I don't doubt it at all. I also know that he'd do
just about anything he could to heal some of the hurts he's caused
her. But there was no way for me to ask him about that; no way even to
bring the subject up without causing trouble, and I wasn't in the mood
for any more trouble right now.

No. No way I was going to enjoy much of this weekend. Too much going
on; too many things that I couldn't tell anyone, not even Scully, much
as I wanted to.

I was mentally resigning myself to spending the weekend in splendid
emotional isolation when the bedroom door opened and Daniel came out.
I hadn't really expected him to reappear before morning. He'd been
pretty tired after dinner; actually, he was already pretty tired
before dinner, thanks to me, but goddamn it, I hadn't seen him for a
week. I wanted to be with him.

And of course, he didn't make me wait. He never does, not even now
when he's still so tired and weak from the shooting.

Daniel was exactly what I needed to stop me from sliding further into
despair. He doesn't even have to do or say anything: Life is easier to
take just because he's there.

"What's all the racket?" he said, looking toward the kitchen. I
followed his gaze; Jill and Scully were convulsing with feminine
laughter over something that -- to judge from his expression -- had
gone completely over Jim's head.

"Your ex-wife and my partner seem to be having fun at Jim's expense,"
I said.

"God, look at them, Fox," Daniel said with a laugh. "They've got the
poor kid outnumbered, two to one. We ought to go in as
reinforcements."

"Yeah, but do we belong with him or with the girls?" I said, smiling
back at him, and I reached for his hand.

But instead of taking my hand as he usually did, Daniel took a small
step backward, casting a quick glance toward the kitchen. Not in front
of them, his body language was saying. Not here and not now.

He was right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to take --
especially not now, when I needed him so much. But then, Daniel had
needs, too, one of which was not to look like a fag in front of his
brother and his ex-wife.

"Sorry," I said, dropping my hand back to my side. "I wasn't
thinking."

"Fox ..." Daniel began, looking guilty as hell, but I interrupted him.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Go visit with your brother. I'll be
there in a minute."

Daniel nodded slowly and started to walk to the kitchen, but then
stopped at the side of the couch.

"I am sorry, Fox," he said, quietly. "I shouldn't be such a coward."

"You're not a coward," I said, just as quietly, looking up at him.
"You're just trying not to upset your brother and Jill. Go on, now;
you can hold my hand later."

"I'd like to do a lot more than that," he said, still speaking low,
but his eyes showed his relief.

I smiled up at him. "I don't think that'll be a problem," I said.
"There's still a lock on the bedroom door. Go on, get out of here."

Daniel smiled, and for just a moment he looked as though he was going
to kiss me, but he caught himself. He started to say something else --
some new apology that would have started the whole thing over again --
so I just shook my head and smiled, and nodded in the direction of the
kitchen, and Daniel nodded back.

And then he left, and the room felt cold and unwelcoming again, just
the way it had when my father lived here.

I, on the other hand, felt utterly rejected and unwanted --just the
way I had when ...

Oh, that was crap. Daniel wasn't rejecting me; he was just being his
usual reserved self when there's company around. Daniel's never been
one for public displays of affection, in or out of uniform; shit, it
took him forever to feel comfortable just sitting next to me when
Scully was around. This was just Daniel being Daniel.

That was all ... of course it was.



END "The Seventh Side of the Triangle" (1/13)
by Susan Jameson (DrBarnBarn@aol.com)