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chapter seven

He does not sleep with her. Not that night. She lies beside him on his narrow bed, her small frame curled into his, never fully relaxed. Even when she drifts off to sleep there is a frown line between her eyes that he smooths his thumb over. 

He kisses her again when she wakes around 18:00 and she looks up at him sleepily. 

“Sleep well?” he asks, and she smiles. 

“Well enough. I don’t get to, often, so… thank you.” 

He nods, watches as she sits up and turns from him, notices the ridge of her spine, sharp, her body almost too thin. A bruise under her shoulder blade, mottled and green, at least a week old. 

She turns and catches his eye. 

“I would tell you not to ask, but you’re going to, aren’t you?” she says quietly. 

“Only because I care about you,” he says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he knows they’re true.

She turns sharply then, faces him. “Do you?” 

“Yes,” he says. 

“You shouldn’t.” 

“Why not?” 

She shakes her head, stands up. “Because of Der Natter.” 

“What exactly...” Mulder’s voice trails off, he can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. 

“What exactly is my relationship with him?” She asks, then laughs, narrowing her eyes at him. “What’s yours with Krycek?” 

“Nothing,” Mulder says. “I—hell, I know he’s spying on me, but I’m not... I haven’t—I won’t sleep with him or anything.” 

Scully nods, like she expected as much. “Be careful with him, Mulder. He’s got Der Natter’s ear, I imagine anything you say to him goes straight back.” 

“You think I don’t know that?” Mulder says, then sighs. Without thinking he reaches out, caresses down her back. She stiffens, but she doesn’t move. 

“Did he do this?” he asks. 

“Mulder...” she sighs. He runs his hands down her back, comforting. Waiting. “You already know that answer,” she says quietly, and his heart sinks just a little more. “He owns me, he can do what he likes.” 

“Owns?” 

She turns, fixes that icy gaze on him. “I have a contract with him. I perform in his club, I bring in his patrons, I... service them when I’m asked, service him when I’m not.” He watches the tense lines of her body. “And if I do that, he doesn’t turn me in to the SS for being here without papers.” 

He thinks back to their conversation the other night, when he first met her, when she first found him shaking in that alley.

Your German is very good.

It has to be.

“Why don’t you... why don’t you just leave?” He asks, and Scully laughs. 

“Where would I go? I have no skills, I have no money—anything I earn goes back to the club—I have no papers, no passport. I certainly can’t go back to England. There’s nothing left for me there.”

“There’s nothing for you here, either,” Mulder says, and Scully turns to face him. 

“There is now,” she says quietly. She leans her head on his shoulder. 

“I promised you a story, once,” she says. “Of how a nice English girl ended up in a club like this.” 

“You don’t have to tell it,” he says. “Not now.” 

“We might not get another night for me to tell it,” she says. 

“We will,” he says, and runs his thumb over her knuckles. “I’ll make sure of it.” 

He feels her body sag as she sighs. “Fox Mulder,” she says, “if I didn’t know any better I would think you were a little in love with me.” 

He chuckles, but he doesn’t answer her. He knows he is not in love with her, not fully—

Not yet. 


Dana leaves around 18:30, well before she is supposed to be back to Der Natter. The translated documents are under her arm, and his cheek is warm from where she kissed him, her words still lingering in the air. 

If I didn’t know any better I would think you were a little in love with me.

 Mulder wonders what she’ll do with her few minutes of freedom. He hopes she’ll do something for herself. 

He wishes he could take her away from here, for both of their sakes. And maybe he is a little in love with her, but then again, who wouldn't be?

He makes the club in good time. Der Natter is sitting closest to the stage and when he sees Mulder, he beckons him over. Mulder finds himself wedged between Krycek and Der Natter. 

The dark haired woman, Monika, is up first. She throws Mulder a wink, which makes him smile. Monika, it seems, can do what she likes, which is flirt with half the men in the audience. 

Scully is next. She is radiant, but Mulder sees the emptiness in her face that she’s trying hard to hide. 

And then— 

She stumbles in her dance, catches herself, and offers a smile to the audience that definitely doesn’t reach her face. He tries hard not to react, not to show any concern, because Der Natter is on one side of him and Krycek is on the other. He thinks he’s concealed his emotions, he thinks he’s done well, but—

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Der Natter staring at him, and he fears he’s given himself away.

Mulder wrenches his attention back to Scully, trying not to act like he’s still aware of every movement of her body. She finishes her act and saunters offstage to thunderous, if slightly confused, applause. 

Mulder can feel his heart beating fast in his chest, suddenly too aware of Der Natter and Krycek next to him. 

He needs to get out of here or he’s going to panic, he’s going to give everything away.

But what is he giving away, really? He hasn’t done anything wrong. 

His body twitches in his seat, and he moves to stand, but Krycek and Der Natter do, as well. 

Pause,” Der Natter says, and for a moment Mulder wonders if he’s telling him to halt, before he dimly remembers that it’s the word for a break, an intermission. 

He can’t stay here. 

“I’m afraid, gentlemen,” he says, “I’m not feeling well. I think I’m going to have to cut the show short tonight.” 

He makes himself look at both of them, nod, and then turn. 

When he leaves, he does not look back. 


Late at night as he’s lying in bed trying to sleep, trying not to think about Dana, he hears a commotion. 

He forces himself out of bed and looks, and this time in the alley it’s Frau Schmidt, Der Natter towering over her small form.

“Don’t,” she’s saying to Der Natter, “don’t tell them, please, my husband—my husband is a good man.” 

“Your husband should join the Party, if he is such a good man.”

“I…” 

“Madame. I have been generous with you because your husband owns the building over my club. But I will not take no for an answer.” He leans in and Mulder finds himself straining to hear, but he catches the word Kommunist.

He knows that much. 

“Heil Hitler,” Der Natter says and Mulder does not hear if Frau Schmidt says it back. 

Mulder hides out in his apartment for three days, only leaving occasionally to get food, once, to call Skinner. He tells Monika to say that he is ill so he will not have visitors. 

But on the third day there’s a knock at his door, and Mulder’s stomach sinks, because he knows it’s going to be Der Natter.

Sure enough, when he opens the door, it is. 

“We have a new owner of this building. I am going to have to raise your rent my friend. Seventy-five marks,” the man says.

“I…” 

“We could use your help. In the club. Write some new routines for the show. When you feel better, natürlich.” 

“I don’t—I’m not that kind of writer.” 

“You will have to be, mein Freund, says Der Natter. “Wenn Sie überleben wollen.” 

He knows Mulder doesn’t understand him, but one look on Der Natter’s face tells him all he needs to know.