Chapter Text
The crisp air of fall hit her nose as the chilly Belfast weather surrounded her for the very first time. Fresh off an eighty-minute flight from London, Stella couldn’t help but feel as if she’d landed in an entirely different world. It had a quaint feel to it here; the buildings were old and dainty and there was an eerie feeling of calm that was inconsistent with that which she was here for. Thick green trees and the start of pattering raindrops were familiar, but as she was driven straight toward the police station she’d be working at for the next twenty-eight days, she knew, no matter how near or far she was from home, that when it came down to it, everywhere was all the same.
Whether she was in cloudy London, the oceanic climate of Belfast, or on a sunny beach in Los Angeles, there would always be death and murder hiding in the shadows. And here, in the capital of Northern Ireland, was where she was currently needed the most. Her expertise with inquiries and catching killers was well known throughout the UK–notorious, even–and Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson was going to do everything in her power to bring justice to its victims.
Being brought onto the case from the Metropolitan police to lead a review into an investigation on the murder of a young woman named Alice Monroe, she didn’t waste any time getting started. Stella was in her element, and she was going to give it everything she had. She watched as leafy trees passed by her window and clasped her hands in her lap, anxious to begin.
She was given her own private office as soon as she got to the station. Near the east end of the building, it was large and secluded enough for her to get her work done without the interruptions of others, lest she needed them. Stella learned right away that this particular group of officers and investigators were driven but were exponentially nosy and a little bit sloppy. Right off the bat they were asking questions and prodding her for details about her personal and work life, which she was not fond of in the slightest. Stella always found singularity to be her greatest necessity and was grateful to have been given the space to work how she pleased, so she spent most of the morning shut in her office, going over all of the necessary paperwork and statements.
After a lunch that consisted of a shitty cup of coffee, Stella eventually met a few people she wasn’t entirely unfond of. There was a PC that she liked, named Danielle Ferrington. She was another woman in a mainly male-dominated field and Stella saw herself in the young officer immediately. All the rest of the investigators were just the same to her, though. They’d smile and answer her questions, but when it came down to it, no one was helpful enough for Stella to feel as if she made any sort of leeway in the investigation.
After her long first day of what was mostly paperwork and questioning, Stella shut down her computer and was driven to what would be her home for the next month. She would have preferred to drive herself, enjoyed the alone time in silence, but for some ungodly reason she was having problems obtaining her rental car and was forced to find assistance to and from wherever she would be going. It wasn’t far, however, where she was staying, and for that she was relieved.
The Hilton Hotel was elegant enough to agree with her. Tall and beautiful, it lit the Belfast skyline in lights next to a long winding train track. But what lured Stella more than its gourmet room service and its close location to the police station, was its pool.
Her favorite–no, her most crucial–pass time and head-clearing exercise was her first thought as she unlocked her hotel door and dropped her bag to the floor. All of her luggage had been brought up earlier that morning, so she picked up her heavy suitcase and set it on the bed. The room was a little smaller than she initially imagined, if she were honest. Usually put up in nice hotels while she was away on inquiry, this wasn’t as lavish as she hoped, but that was okay. She found her black suit and didn’t bother grabbing anything else but her swim bag and her key before she was walking into the pool’s locker room with heel-tapping steps echoing all around her. She was in dire need of a swim.
Tiptoeing into the pool as if it were sacred, Stella slipped her goggles over her eyes and dove in. Immediately, she was overcome with a peacefulness she would never find anywhere else. Her lungs began to burn as she trudged through the water, seeking reprieve from the countless bodies she’d seen thrown in the back of cupboards or lying naked in sheets post-mortem, and she didn’t stop until her limbs were aching with overuse.
After showering and slipping into white lace pajamas and a cream-colored robe, Stella felt as if all of the blood had returned to her body after a grueling day that seemed to have drained all of it out of her drip by drip. The lingering scent of chlorine clung to her skin and the taste of red wine soothed her throat as she sat in her room with her laptop glowing in front of her. She ate dinner while going over a separate case shown to her by DCI Garret Brink–the only other person she took a liking to–and had a suspicion it was linked to the one she was currently investigating.
The room was cold as she worked and the minutes ticked on as she downed more wine. It didn’t feel close to home here, but then again, nowhere really felt like home to her.
When it was well past midnight, only after she’d been on her laptop so long her eyes stung, she tucked herself into bed and turned out the lights. However, woken an hour later by a dream, she sat up, turned on the lamp, and wrote in her dream diary everything she could remember.
The only place she trusted her thoughts to be, Stella would awaken almost every night to write down what she’d dreamt of. Whether it be a nightmare or an old memory, she would usually remember them so vividly. And tonight, though she’d thought the long day would trigger something dark, it was an old memory of her and her father. They were driving near the ocean, surrounded by palm trees and the smell of the ocean. He looked younger, and as Stella touched his arm, he looked over and smiled at her. It was one of her favorite memories of him and a most treasured dream.
He had died when she was fourteen, and ever since then, nothing had been the same. She’d been shuffled from one boarding school to the next following her fifteenth birthday, kicked out for good or suspended because of her behavior until she’d found the satisfaction of the swim team from a friendly teacher she took a liking to. Still, she hadn’t been kind to herself, much the same as her mother had been after her father died. Being left to be the sole caretaker of Stella and her sister, Stella’s mother was nothing but cruel, and when she left for university, she never went back.
She only ever thrived when she was in the pool or acing her studies, and had even made the team at Oxford University on an all-inclusive scholarship. Without it, she didn’t want to think of where she would have ended up. And though things got a little better each year after her father’s passing, the ache he left behind was unbearable and could never be filled, no matter how many laps she’d swim, nor how many men or women she invited into her bed.
It was only when she learned to write in her journal that the thoughts seemed to dull a little more. Starting as an investigative work tool, it had turned into her way of processing her trauma through her dreams, and since then, she always used it. Some nights were better than others, but some were too painful to even escape by way of words on paper. Fortunately for her, tonight was a good one. She could smell the salt in the air and feel the muscles of her father’s bicep ripple and knew, in that small moment in her subconscious, that she was okay.
Until the blaring of her alarm woke her before sunrise.
Pink cheeks and strong coffee, she dressed in white silk and a black pencil skirt and headed back to work with her chin held high. She called for a car and then picked up an incoming call from her supervising officer just as she was getting inside, asking her to meet him off the record.
And that’s when she found herself at the precinct a few hours later, riddled with frustration, albeit, not surprised. After an almost awkward meeting with Assistant Chief Constable Jim Burns, Stella was driven back to create a more detailed timeline of the two murders, if only for herself. Burns hadn’t believed for a second what she was proposing. Alice Monroe and Fiona Gallagher’s crimes were connected, and whether he didn’t believe it or didn’t want to, she had left with the gnawing feeling that being a woman, being an outsider brought in, was going to be a problem. Failing to see that the two crimes were linked was what was going to allow the killer to strike again. Burns was refusing to recognize the series and was carrying on regardless, and Stella, oh the master of self-reproach, was blaming herself for underselling it to him.
She needed to take her frustrations out in the pool, or perhaps, with something a little more self-indulgent. Or with some one for that matter. She needed to regain some control.
Stella left that night in the back of a squad car after rifling through paperwork all day. Not only had her superior officer pissed her off, but the fact that she couldn’t yet pick up her rental car was starting to take a toll on her as well. It seemed as if no one was listening to her, and that nobody wanted her looking in on everything they had fucked up on before she’d gotten there. So, as she crossed her ankles in the passenger seat of the car and watched as they suddenly approached a crime scene, Stella knew her thoughts weren’t as well-intended as they should have been. But what she didn’t know was that, within the next five minutes, her life was going to completely change.
Forever.
As the flashing of blue lights lit up the night sky, Stella peered out her window to see squad cars and a large ambulance appear on her right. Her first thought was that more than likely, there had been a serious injury or that there was a dead body. Maybe more than one. The entire street had been blocked off, which was another bad sign.
Stella looked over her shoulder as they pulled right up to the scene. Blues mixed with yellows and the sound of sirens rang as if what was to happen next wasn’t going to be the most life-altering few seconds of her life. For there, just a step behind the yellow tape, with long hair flaming red in the night, was the most beautiful woman Stella had seen in her entire life. Her heart rate spiked as she watched her and suddenly Stella felt so unbearably hot it was difficult to sit still. Sweat dripping from her neck, everything passed by in slow motion as she stared in awe at the woman on the other side of the glass window.
“Who’s that?” Stella asked, not even being able to take her eyes off of the woman on the street. She was short yet held herself high as if she were ten feet tall. Her auburn hair was blowing in the wind and her lips were perfectly sculpted and pillow-like.
“Doctor Dana Scully. She’s a forensic pathologist with the city,” said PC Danielle Ferrington, who was driving the car.
Stella looked at her once more. Dana Scully. The woman who was making her stomach spasm as if a thousand little butterflies were trying to flee from the confines of her body. She wanted to get a closer look, to walk up to Doctor Scully and see up close how she looked under the street lights. She wanted to kiss her.
“Introduce us,” Stella stated.
She closed her car door as it came to a stop, her heels tapping on the pavement . It was still a little chilly outside as the night air hit her, yet Stella was pricked with sweat as she strutted to the crime scene with confidence.
No, this city wasn’t home, and it wasn’t familiar, but right here, as she walked up to the alluring woman behind the police tape, Stella felt completely in her element.
“Doctor Scully?” Ferrington called as she approached the crime scene next to Stella. “What’s happened here?”
The other redhead in question turned her head, her loose hair whipping over her shoulder. She looked at PC Ferrington and then at Stella, and at that moment, with Dana Scully’s blue eyes drawing her in, Stella Gibson felt, for the first time, that she was suddenly out of her element. And the kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttered within her with wings of steel.
“There’s been a shooting at a house about a mile up the road. They already have someone in custody and I examined the body before it was taken,” Doctor Scully explained.
Stella watched as her mouth spoke words so soft, so American, and wondered how on earth she was standing there at the exact same time as Stella was. The pathologist was even prettier up close, and as she tried to form words, Stella found herself awestruck.
“Was the victim a woman?” she eventually asked, her throat tight with unexplainable nerves. Perhaps this was another strike from her killer.
Dana Scully looked right at her, giving Stella another jolt of exhilaration. “No,” she said. “White male, approximately thirty-five, strong build.”
Stella never felt more flustered by any other police jargon in her entire existence. She licked her lips to hide any physical traces that would show her less than completely composed.
Suddenly, as if breaking the tension and reminding Stella they weren’t alone, Ferrington interrupted with a long-overdue introduction. “Uh, this is Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson. She’s here to review the Monroe investigation.”
The doctor smiled at Stella and reached out to shake her hand, rippling tingling sensations through her hand outwards through her entire body. “Dana Scully, forensic pathologist. Nice to meet you.”
Stella smiled back, the slight upward curl of the corners of her lips. She wanted to hold onto this woman for the rest of the night, kiss her, make her moan with pleasure, taste, and touch every inch of her body.
“Are you from out of town then?” Doctor Scully asked when met with silence. She gazed at her quizzically.
“Yes,” Stella answered, continuing to hold and shake her hand for longer than was probably necessary. “For a week. Maybe more.”
Looking at her as if she might want the same–and Stella wasn’t quite sure, this woman in front of her was a delicious mystery. She had a cross around her neck and a confident exterior. And maybe the short nails were because of her job, but Dana Scully had an air about her that Stella thought she could sniff out, just by her body language alone–she let go of her hand and stared directly into her eyes.
“I’m staying at the Hilton. Room 203.”
Dana Scully peered further into her eyes, seeming to be hit with a loss for words, and then turned sideways as a few officers excused themselves and ducked under the police tape. The two women’s fervent gaze was lost, but as the redheaded one looked back over at the blonde with her own flushed skin, Stella smirked and excused herself to leave without a word. She turned around, walked back toward the car, and didn’t look behind her as she and the other officer departed toward the Hilton.
An hour later, after an annoying interruption by a journalist as she’d eaten dinner, Stella sighed to herself as she ascended in the elevator. Her feet were tired and she had the fleeting thought to just grab her suit and head down to the pool. There was only a slim chance that she was going to end up with Dana Scully in her bed tonight, so why not just cut to the chase. The woman had seemed taken back by the invitation, and not only that, Stella had no idea if she was actually into women. Also, the fact that she had a cross dangling from her chest was a sign that Stella should just forget about it.
But she couldn’t just forget about it and she couldn’t stop thinking about Dana if she tried. Slipping her key in the door, she locked it behind her and tossed everything onto the small table near the entrance. She wouldn’t leave this room tonight, she decided, even if there was the smallest chance Doctor Scully would show up.
She ordered another glass of wine to be brought up, changed her mind and ordered the whole bottle instead, and then ran her fingers through her slightly tangled hair. She’d need the alcohol regardless. If Dana showed up, she would entice her with a drink, and if she didn’t, Stella would turn on her laptop and sip away at it while she worked until the pull of inevitable sleep came her way.
When a knock rattled the door, she peered through the peephole and hummed in thanks as she opened it and took the bottle of wine, handing over a generous tip in place of it. Grateful that it was a twist-off so that she didn’t have to look around or call for a corkscrew, Stella twisted off the cap, and just as the sizzling sound of freshly opened alcohol hit her ears, there was another knock at the door.
Fingers pulling open the door slowly, Stella found on the other side two sparkling blue eyes and a tepid smile from that of Dana Scully herself. Chest held high, she looked from her eyes to her lips, and felt the anticipation of touching her, already pulsing through her body. It pounded through her veins and Stella stood in silence as she looked at her, waiting for the mysteriously alluring woman to speak first.
“I,” she finally began, tucking a chunk of red hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t sure if this was what you meant.”
Stella raised her brow. Taking the do not disturb sign and hanging it on the front of the door handle, she made her intentions clear. “It’s what I meant.”
And as Dana Scully took a deep breath and walked through her door, Stella closed it behind her, watching as her ass swayed in her tight little skirt. She locked it, and then made her move.