The following is a work of FICTION (take note, lawyer scum). It is based on characters copyrighted by Fox Broadcasting and Ten Thirteen Productions. All other mistakes are my own entirely. ---------------------------------------------- THE SOUND OF WIND CHIMES Sarah Stegall "Mulder, you there?" the radio squawked. FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder jerked upright, then winced as his stiff muscles protested. He reached for the walkie-talkie on the dashboard of his car. "Yeah, Wallace, I'm here. What's up?" He peered through the windshield at the night. Nothing but fog in every direction. He couldn't even see the house he and Scully were supposed to be watching. "Cuevas called. He and Jurgen will be here in a couple of minutes. I'm sending Sharp and Franklin to relieve you. Go on home." "What, and miss the fun?" Mulder said sarcastically. "Nuts. Borger is gonna stay holed up forever. In any case, you done your ten hours. Go home." "Thanks. Mulder out." "See you tomorrow. Wallace out." The radio cracked briefly before Mulder turned it off. He checked his watch; it was after midnight. He turned to his companion in the front seat. FBI Special Agent Dana Scully was asleep in the passenger's seat, slumped against the rolled-up window with her head on her crumpled coat. In the faint light from the streetlight, her red hair looked black. Her lashes lay evenly along her smooth cheek. Her mouth was relaxed in sleep, and looked warm and generous. Mulder resisted the temptation to smooth that lock of hair back from her cheek, to lean into that mouth so inviting... No, definitely couldn't do that. He'd been able to hide his feelings for Scully from her pretty well. There was no point in blowing his cover now just because he was tired. It had been a very long, boring day. He hated stakeouts. He gathered up the trash in the front seat between them: foam coffee cups, wadded up napkins, hamburger wrappings. One of the hamburgers remained; thriftily, he put it in his pocket to eat later. Mulder wondered, not for the first time, whether FBI agents weren't the most malnourished bunch on the face of the planet. He turned to toss the trash into the back seat and came face to face with Dana, blinking like an owl. "Hey, wait! Those are my lemon drops!" she snagged a small plastic bag from his trash pile. "How long have I been asleep?" "An hour or so. It's okay. Wallace just radioed and told us to go home. He's got the relief set up." She yawned and stretched. "I take it you haven't had any sleep at all?" "What, sleep on duty?" he mocked. "Dana, I'm hurt." She aimed a lazy punch at him and smiled when he ducked. "I'll drive. I'm fresh and it's at least a ninety minute drive. You catch a nap and I'll drop you off at your place." He struggled with his pride for a moment, and then his better judgment won. He opened the door and slid out into the chilly night. Scully was already climbing out on her side. "Okay," he said. "But I drive tomorr--" Two things happened at once. An enormous weight came down on him, crushing the breath out of his lungs. And he heard wind chimes. Dana Scully woke chilled to the bone, lying on her side in pitch blackness. She moved her arms and legs, relieved to find that she was not tied in any way. The surface she lay on was cold; it had a slight give to it like an overfilled waterbed. An acrid ammonia smell reeked in her nose, making her eyes water. Cautiously she raised herself to a sitting position--and immediately flopped back down again as a terrific pain slammed between her eyes. It felt like someone had her head in a vise and was racheting it down. She clutched her head in both hands and groaned. A groan answered her. She jumped, despite the headache, and crawled away from the sound. She held her breath, listening intently. She heard, very faintly, noises in the dark. How far away were they? Where was she? How had she gotten here? She took a mental inventory and decided she was unhurt. But who or what else was here with her in the dark? The groan came again, and now Dana sighed silently with relief. It was definitely human, and sounded hurt. It was also about twenty feet away, if her night hearing was any good. Cautiously, she slid along the floor, listening. After a few feet she could hear harsh, ragged breathing ahead of her. Dana froze. There came another groan, and with it, recognition. "Mulder?" she whispered. A groan. "Scully?" came a faint whimper. "Oh, God, my head. Scully, is that you?" "I'm here. Are you all right?" Faint stirrings in the dark. "Yeah, I'm OK. Are you hurt?" "My head hurts like hell, but no, I'm not hurt." Dana slid her hand carefully along the floor, feeling her way in front of her. So alert was she for indications of a trap that it was a shock to suddenly find her hand on something warm and firm and yielding. "Scully?" She patted his hand. "It's me." "Where are we?" She could hear his voice, an arm's length away. She was glad to hear him, know her partner was near. She didn't want to admit to the fear she was feeling. "I don't know." "What's the last thing you remember?" She thought back. "I was getting out of the car to trade places with you. There was...I don't know. A sound. Then nothing. That's all I remember before waking up on the floor." "I was getting out of the car. It felt like an elephant fell out of the sky on me. And yeah, there was a sound of some kind. Like breaking glass. Or wind chimes." "Yes," she said, surprised. "That's right. That's what it sounded like. But it was a foggy night, no wind." "Have you explored any?" "No. I was sitting and holding my head when I heard you. I'm not sure we should move around unless we have some light." Mulder sighed again, sounding very tired. "It would be better if we could figure out where we were. Then maybe we can figure out how we got here." "Okay. Where are you?" she said. A hand smacked against her head, sending blazing stars through her vision. The hand steadied, felt her face, then moved downward. A thrill went through her when his hand rested on her shoulder. "Sorry. You okay, Dana?" Mulder's voice was close to her ear. She opened her mouth to tell him she was fine, and then realized it wasn't true. "I'm scared, Mulder," she breathed. It was true, more true than she wanted to admit to herself. "Me, too. But we have to use our heads. You've been cold before, and in the dark. So let's go on from there and start figuring this out." His hand moved down her arm to her hand and squeezed. She nodded, though she knew he could not see her. A detached part of her noticed that she could smell Mulder--a mixture of warm skin, soap, and a faint undertone of hamburger from lunch. He kept hold of her; they sat in the dark for a while, close enough to hear one another breathe, but not touching. "What time is it?" he asked. "My watch light doesn't work." A brief silence. "Mine doesn't either," said Dana. "It must have broken. Mulder, I still have my gun! How about you?" After a moment, he said, "Yeah. Why would anyone take us hostage and leave us armed?" "I don't know," she replied. "Maybe we're not hostages." "Well, I didn't come here on my own, did you? And if someone brought us here, that's kidnapping at least. Do you have your purse?" "No. It was in the front seat of the car." "I think we'd better have a look around," he said. "I think it might be better to crawl." she said. "We might walk into some low-hanging ceiling or something otherwise. Also, we can feel the floor ahead of us to see if there are stairs or openings or something." "We don't have any way to mark our trail," he said thoughtfully. "We could use some of our clothes." said Dana. "I'll take off my shoes. When I've gone twenty steps or so, we can leave another shoe." "Okay. But let's not shed too much clothing. It's freezing in here." "The walls can't be that far away." But so far as they could tell, there were no walls at all. It became obvious after the first few minutes that they had no way to keep oriented; they might be crawling in circles or going straight ahead. There was no way to tell. They didn't come to a door, a wall, anything. Nor did they cross their tracks, so far as they could tell; they did not encounter any of the shoes, Mulder's tie, or anything else they left to mark their path. It was as though they crawled across a vast, frozen plain, locked in the belly of night. Finally, exhausted, they stopped, sitting close in the darkness. "Dammit!" Mulder's voice was tight with frustration. "I don't know whether we've gone ten feet or ten miles. My knees hurt and I'm cold." Dana let go of Mulder's ankle. "It's hopeless." She felt him brush against her; the mildly resilient surface they were on gave with his weight as he shifted beside her. Her hand groped for his and found it. She shivered slightly and he stroked her hand. "Scared?" he said softly. "Cold, mostly," she said. "We'd both be warmer if we sat closer," Mulder suggested. "Well..." Dana said, hesitating. She heard the smile in his voice. "Don't worry. I'll be a perfect gentleman." "I never thought otherwise!" she exclaimed, pulling back. Mulder chuckled. "Then you have a better opinion of me than I have of myself. Come here, Scully." His arm curved around her shoulder, pulling her against his chest. She resisted at first, but then sighed and relaxed against him. He opened his overcoat and wrapped it around them both; it wouldn't stretch that far, but it held their warmth better than nothing. He was warm, no doubt about it, she decided. She felt safe and comfortable next to him. It gave her a peculiar feeling. Part of her wanted to snuggle, to burrow against him, put her arms around him...and another, cooler part of her warned against it. They were, after all, on duty. And anyway, this was Mulder, her partner. Snuggling with someone she worked with every day would be bad policy. Mulder yawned. He was so tired. It had been a long night on stakeout, and he'd been looking forward to getting some sleep. Now this. But his mind whirled, working at top speed despite his weariness. "What the hell happened?" he murmured. "Did Borger have closer ties to the Mafia than we thought?" Dana shifted against him. "I don't know. Do you think he hired men to snatch us? But that's not how the mob works. " "You're right," Mulder agreed. "They'd more likely have simply shot us." At the thought, his arms tightened involuntarily around the woman in his arms. "But why--" Dana began, but her stomach gave a sudden lurch. Mulder wobbled and she fell sideways. But she didn't strike the floor--she struck nothing at all. Panic shocked through her like a dash of icy water as she realized she was falling, falling...then a strong hand gripped hers and she realized she was screaming. "Dana! Dana, hang onto me! Here, hold my hand!" Mulder's hand gripped hers tightly, but still she was falling, whimpering... "Fox! We're falling!" "No!" Mulder was yelling in her ear. "Zero gravity! Scully, we're in free fall! Try not to move!" It was hard to concentrate on his voice through the primitive terror she was feeling. Her body knew, with the certainty of millions of years of evolution, that she was falling, and she fought wave after wave of panic. "Help me, Fox!" He struggled with her, groping in the dark for her arms. He could feel her windmilling in his arms, their motions moving them through space, further from the floor and whatever security that would give them. "Stop it, Dana! Be still, you'll--" "Fox!" Her voice was high-pitched, terrified. He had never heard such fear in her voice. He had no means to stop her rising hysteria, save one. Grabbing her shoulders, Fox Mulder pulled his partner to him and kissed her soundly. He had meant to shock her, and he did. He felt the surprise go through her like a jolt of electricity. She tensed in outrage, her lips stiff. But then, astonishingly, she relaxed into the kiss, her lips becoming warm and soft under his. Now the shock went through him and his body reacted with two million years of male imperative behind it. He slid his arm around her waist, slid his hand up behind her head and kissed her deeply, thoroughly, passionately. He felt her body respond to him, her breath coming short. It went on and on, far past the point where Dana's panic subsided. After a long time, he pulled his mouth away reluctantly. There was a prolonged, wondering silence between them in the dark. Whether it was the effect of weightlessness or the kiss, Mulder felt himself getting lightheaded. He wasn't sure he had done the right thing-- but he was extremely glad he had done it. He cleared his throat. "Well," he said hoarsely. "It was either that or slap you, and I didn't want to hurt you." "Th-thanks. I think," she said. There didn't seem to be anything to say, so he didn't say anything. But he didn't let go of her. "Mulder, what--what's happening? How can we be weightless?" "I don't know." "I mean, is this possible? Physically?" "Sure. Astronauts used to do it all the time. But I don't know how you can achieve free fall on Earth for this long." She was trembling, and she hadn't let go of him yet. "Mulder, isn't it possible to become weightless in an aircraft?" He forced himself to ignore her softness in his arms. "Yes, in a jet cruising at high speed, and only for a short time. NASA used the technique for astronaut training. They'd take someone up, do a steep dive, and they'd float off the floor for a few seconds. But never for this long." "Th--then maybe we aren't--aren't on Earth?" He could hear the tremor in her voice more strongly now. He fought to keep a similar one out of his voice. "I think you're right, Dana. I can't imagine any technology that could do this. I think...I think we're in a space craft." "One of...ours?" He felt the shiver that went through her. "I don't know, Scully. I don't know." She was silent a moment; he could feel her head against his chest. "I'm sorry for...for losing my cool," she said softly. "It's just..." "It's all right. I'm a little shook up myself." Mulder patted her awkwardly. "I'm here, Scully. I won't let go." "I hate this," she said abruptly. "I want to feel the floor under me again!" She was right, he thought. Whatever else their captors had in mind, if they were suspended here in mid-air very long, they would starve. For the sake of their sanity they had to reach a floor or a wall. "Look," he said. "We might be able to get out of this. We could swim." "Swim?" "Sure. For every action--" he swung his legs slowly toward her. "There is an equal and opposite reaction. If you stay still, I can use your body to push against, and the reaction should move us toward a wall or a floor." "What can I do?" "Nothing," he said, moving his grip on her. "Except make sure we stay joined somehow. I'm going to use your body as dead weight; the mass should be enough to force a reaction towards the floor." "How will you know what direction you're heading?" "I won't. We'll just have to hope." As he spoke, he was lifting her, hoping the movement was enough to push them towards the floor. Her skirt brushed his face. It was very hard work. After a few minutes, he was sweating freely, not from Dana's weight (which was nonexistent) but from the effort. He felt as though he were swimming through taffy, and silently cursed the darkness. He was about to give up, when one of his flailing feet struck something. "Here it is!" he said. "Where? I can't feel anything." Holding tightly to one of her arms, Mulder let go with the other and felt carefully below his knees. There! His fingers brushed against something cool and solid. It had the same light, springy resilience of the surface they'd been on earlier. Gently, he pushed some more, and felt the surface pressing up against him. With infinite slowness, he pulled Scully closer to him. "Here, reach out very slowly. You can touch the surface," he said, guiding her hand. A breathed a deep breath of relief when she felt the surface. He loosened his grip on her, preparing to let her go, but she clutched him, bouncing them gently upward again. "Don't do that!" he said. "Don't...don't let go of me!" "All right. Just relax. If you make any sudden moves, we might--" Light exploded in his face. The searing flash sent pain lancing through his head as he squeezed his eyes tight. Even through his clamped eyelids, the light burned. "Ow!" Dana cried. At the same moment, their weight returned suddenly and completely. Dana Scully fell against him, flattening him under her weight. Her elbow dug into his abdomen, but he said nothing, automatically rolling over until she was underneath him, protecting her from the searing light. "Oof! Mulder, get off me!" "Wait, there might--" A brief struggle ensued, at the end of which they sat side by side, rumpled and exhausted, squinting at each other. "Looks like someone turned on the light," he ventured after a moment. Holding his hand up to shield his eyes, he looked around the room. The chamber -- he couldn't call it a room -- they were in appeared to be an oval made of smoked glass: glass walls, ceiling, and floor. It was hard to estimate size without clearly marked walls and floors, but he estimated its dimensions at ninety feet square. The walls were transparent but he could make no sense of what he saw behind them. He felt like they were in a glass box inside a nest of glass boxes, with the dark reflections canceling one another out until the other side of the wall was only half- lit shadow and gloom. The ceiling appeared to glow uniformly with a faint light like candlelight. Although not bright, after hours in pitch blackness their eyes took time to adjust to it. There was no door, no opening of any kind. The chamber was as slick and seamless as ice, and nearly as cold. "Mulder," Dana exclaimed. "Oh, God! Mulder, there is no place like this on Earth!" He turned to look into her wide, blue eyes. The fear there cut his heart. "No," he said slowly. "No, I don't think there is." Her hand clutched his convulsively, and he held it tight. Her face was turned up to his, tear-streaked and disheveled. Her blue eyes looked frightened. Anachronistic as it was, the impulse to hold her, protect her, shelter her was overwhelming. She was a liberated woman, he told himself. She can take care of herself. The amber light burnished her copper hair and lent a glow to her fair skin. God, how he wanted to kiss her again. He swallowed and smiled down at her. "Feel better?" She smiled back at him. "A little." She looked away, across the chamber floor. Suddenly she frowned. "Our shoes!" He looked where she pointed, but saw nothing. "Where?" "That's just it," she said. "Where are all the shoes we left to mark our trail?" They were gone. In the empty chamber, the shoes and tie and all the other objects of clothing should have stood out like chessmen on a table, but the room was empty. Mulder suppressed a shiver. Where could they have gone? Had there been someone else in the chamber with them, in the dark? Was there some secret door, some hidden passage? Or was some totally alien technology at work here? "Well, at least we're rid of your tie," Dana said shakily. "What's wrong with my tie?" Her smile was wobbly, but it was there. "You've got to be kidding, Mulder. The first few weeks I worked with you, I thought you were colorblind." "I like that tie!" "I guess somebody has to. But you are definitely among the fashion impaired." He smiled at her. "Hey, I'm a crackpot, remember? I have to dress the part." She raised an eyebrow. "Look, maybe we should check out the walls again," he said. "It may be there's some kind of concealed passage, maybe some opening we can't see." He could see Dana was tired, but she got gamely to her feet and reached a hand down to him. "It's worth a try," she said. He stood, but didn't let go her hand. He held it in both of his, shy but unwilling to release her. "Let's not get separated," he said. "We'd better stick together, okay?" She nodded. "We can leave my watch here to mark our starting point." Walking slowly, feeling every inch they could reach, it took them a little over an hour to circle the room. It was slow going. The walls were not uniformly textured; now and then there seemed to be shadows embedded in them, as though the walls were thick yielding plastic with inclusions. Mulder pushed against them with all his strength, struck blow after blow, but the walls and floor remained smooth, strong, and seamless. The ceiling was twenty feet or more above their heads; neither of them could make out any light source. It merely glowed with a soft amber light, very much like candlelight. Neither of them mentioned the fact that they held hands throughout the entire exploration, but neither of them let go. "Mulder, we've been walking over an hour," said Dana finally. "I'm sure we've gone clear around this room at least once. Why haven't we come to my watch?" Mulder looked startled. "You're right. We should have come to it long ago." "Maybe we missed it." Quickly, they walked all the way around the room, but her watch was not to be found. A cold chill went over Mulder. "It's not here," he said finally. "I don't know how, but it's disappeared." "Along with the shoes, the tie, and everything," said Dana flatly. "If we go on like this, we're going to be stark naked pretty soon," said Mulder. He caught Dana's look and flushed. "Sorry. Bad joke." Dana sighed, leaning back against the wall. "I'm tired. Let's sit down for a while." He obliged, and she slid down the wall. They sat side by side for a while, not speaking. It was very silent, thought Mulder. He could almost hear his heart beating. In fact, he could hear his heart beating. Now it is a fact that no one's heart beats loudly enough to be heard by someone else without a stethoscope, and when this dawned on Mulder he sat up straight. "Scully, what do you hear?" Half-asleep, Dana blinked and straightened, too. "What? I don't hear anything." "Are you sure? Do you hear a heartbeat?" "Sure. Like everyone, I hear the pulse in my eardrums if it's quiet enough." "No, I mean outside yourself. Take your pulse and see if it's the same." It wasn't. "I don't understand," said Dana, puzzled. "I hear a heartbeat, faintly, as if it were my own. But it's not mine." She grabbed Mulder's wrist. "It's not yours, either. It's like--" She stopped and looked at him, white-faced. "Yes," he agreed. "It's like we're hearing someone else's heartbeat." "Like...like we're inside someone's...body..." she whispered. Dana suddenly felt her gorge rise. She flinched away from the wall, suddenly afraid of its fleshy resilience. "Oh, my God!" Mulder had never really believed anyone could die of fright, but now he wasn't so sure. His hair was surely standing on end as he heard the faint and unearthly beat. It pulsed just above the threshold of hearing, so indistinct as to be barely audible, but it was there. It was alive. He put his hand flat against the wall, feeling for a pulse, but felt nothing. It was as cool and glassy and elastic as ever, nothing like flesh. But that heartbeat... He turned at a hiccuping sound and saw Dana fighting for self control. Where on Earth--or off it--were they? What the hell was happening? It was like a nightmare he couldn't wake up from. "Jesus," he whispered. Instinctively, they stepped closer to one another, alert for any change in the walls or floor. Dana's arm brushed his and something crackled in his coat pocket. She jumped. "It's okay," he said. "It's just my hamburger." "Hamburger?" He pulled it out, and the smell of grease and pickles filled their nostrils. "Yeah. I put it in my pocket just before I got out of the car." "Always thinking of your stomach, Mulder," said Dana with a crooked smile. He tried to put the hamburger back in his pocket, but his hand was shaking so hard he dropped it. He let it lie. "So far nothing's hurt us," Mulder said. "Maybe we're not in such bad shape. Could be they're just curious about us. Let's put our heads together and come up with a plan, hey? You're good at plans," he smiled. She closed her eyes. "I'm so tired. I can't think. How long have we been here?" asked Dana thoughtfully. "Hours? A day?" "It couldn't be that long," Mulder replied, rubbing his chin. "I'd need more of a shave if we'd been here a whole day." "But how long were we unconscious?" "I don't--" Dana gave a gasp and jumped back, staring at the floor. "Mulder, look!" He looked and stepped back quickly. The hamburger he had dropped was disappearing into the floor. As they watched, it sank slowly out of sight, as though the floor beneath it had liquefied. A dimple remained in the floor for a few minutes, and then the floor was smooth once more. Gingerly, Mulder tested it with his foot; it was springy and elastic as ever. He turned on his heel and was quietly, thoroughly sick. As his stomach heaved in agony, he felt a cool touch on the back of his neck. He waved Dana weakly away, but she ignored him, holding his head until he was done. Then she led him several yards away and sat him down. He heard a rustling sound and then, "Here, this will help the taste," she said, handing him a lemon drop. She put the bag in his other hand. He took it without looking at her, face flushed with shame. Her hand remained on his shoulder, calm and comforting. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I think you need some rest, Mulder," she said. "I'll be all right, but you're at your limit. I'm beat, but you must be even more tired. I slept in the car, you didn't. How long has it been since you had any sleep?" He rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I don't know. I got up at six this morning...or yesterday morning, by now..." "Hush," she said firmly. "Lie down. I'll wake you if anything...new happens." "But you--" She placed a hand on his lips and he paused at her touch. "Doctor's orders," she said. "Lie down." "I'm afraid to touch the floor," he said hoarsely. "What if it...swallows me the way it did the hamburger?" "Lie on your coat," she suggested practically. "I'll keep one hand on the floor next to you, and if anything starts to change I'll wake you." They spread the overcoat out as far as it would go, and Mulder lay down cautiously on one half of it. After a moment, Dana knelt on the other half. They were quiet a long time. "I don't know what's going to happen, Dana," Mulder said quietly. "I don't know where we are or why or how we're going to get...home. But I'm damned glad you're here with me." He closed his eyes and was asleep in a few minutes. Dana sat for a long time, warily watching over the empty room. Nothing moved, nothing changed, and the floor beneath them showed no sign of dissolving under them. After what seemed like hours, she took a deep breath and relaxed slightly, allowing herself to lean against the wall. She was ashamed of herself for losing control so completely. She was a trained agent--why couldn't she remain as cool as Mulder? While she had never experienced free fall--and could hardly believe it now--she was supposed to handle surprises better than that. Maybe it was simply the primitive fear of falling, the most basic human dread, she told herself. Still, she wished it hadn't happened. She was especially embarrassed that it had happened in front of her partner. Which thought led directly to his kiss. Objectively, it made better sense than slapping her, and was a lot more humane. But the truth was it disturbed her. She remembered vividly the feel of his mouth on hers, the taste of him, the smell of his hair and his wool overcoat, and the sudden and dramatic reaction of her body to him. She had been taken completely off guard, and she didn't like that. She didn't like what it told her about her feelings toward her partner. It was hard enough to be a woman in law enforcement these days, fighting prejudice at every turn. It was harder when your partner, although brilliant, had a reputation for eccentricity. Among the conservative community that was the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox Mulder fit in like a clown at a funeral. And the scorn that he was held in reflected on her. More than once she had wondered whether sticking with Fox Mulder was a good career move. But she had never seriously considered a transfer. A gentle snore rose from the floor beside her, and she looked down. Fox Mulder was relaxed in sleep, his wide, generous mouth slightly open. His dark lashes lay along the high cheekbones; why, she thought irrationally, was it always the men who had great eyelashes? She gazed at the long, straight nose, the unkempt dark hair . A faint shadow covered his cheeks; time for a shave, she thought. Dana smiled and put her hand on his sleeve. He moved slightly in his sleep. She wasn't sure exactly when the feeling began, but sometime later Dana Scully became aware that she was being watched. It wasn't a feeling she could put a name to, but it was unmistakable. It had never led her wrong. She looked carefully around the chamber, but saw nothing. The walls, as usual, were murky and full of shadows. She had just about decided that she was imagining things, when one of the shadows moved. Holding her breath, she peered across the way. There was a vague rippling motion, almost too modest to be seen, but it was real. It moved to her right, in a direction that would bring it closer to her and her partner. Without taking her eyes from it, she placed a hand over Fox Mulder's mouth. He came awake instantly, but lay still. As soon as she knew he was awake, she pointed to the shadow. Mulder lay prone but turned his head to look. The shadow ghosted their way, moving as slowly as the hands of a clock. It changed shape constantly, with a liquid silhouette that held no distinct form. "What is it?" whispered Dana. "I don't know. Maybe it's what took us?" Fox Mulder barely moved his lips. "I can't reach my gun. How about you?" Slowly, Dana reached behind her to slip the gun out of her waist holster. "Got it." "Don't do anything rash," he whispered. "But be ready for anything." "I am," she said with determination. This time she would not make a fool of herself. The creature drifted closer; now the curvature of the wall made it hard to see. If they remained where they were, they would be unable to see it when it came up behind them. Without discussion, both agents began sliding cautiously away from the wall and out into the center of the chamber, keeping their eyes on the shadow all the time. "Do you think it can see us?" asked Dana. "I'm sure of it," murmured her partner. He had sat up and now carefully slid his own gun out of its shoulder holster. She heard the soft click of the safety. "Scully, move out to my left," said Mulder. "We're too good a target this close together." Obediently, she stepped to the left, her gun trained on the shadow now directly in front of them, about ten feet away (she guessed) through the wall. It was only a dark, semi-transparent blob. She could see no mouth, no eyes, no features of any kind. What was it? More importantly, what did it want? Could she shoot it? And where should she aim? She felt a sudden numbness in her legs. "Mulder, I--" She heard the faint sound of wind chimes, and everything went gray. Mulder spun just in time to see his partner fade in front of his eyes like a hallucination. "Dana!" He lunged for her but there was nothing but empty air where she had been. He whirled to face the shadow on the other side of the wall. "Bring her back! Dammit, don't hurt her!" The shadow remained motionless. Mulder steadied one hand with the other in approved Academy fashion and took aim at its center. With something like a prayer, he squeezed the trigger. The shot was deafening in the enclosed space, but he could not see that it had any effect. Cordite burned his nose, and when he stepped closer to the wall, he could see a faint indentation in the wall. And inside the wall, trapped like a fly in amber, was the bullet. "Jesus Christ!" he said under his breath. On the other side of the wall, unmoved, the dim shape remained. Dana woke in a narrow pink chamber. Her entire body was immobilized; strain as she might, she could not move so much as a finger. Only her eyes and tongue worked. She tested each muscle group separately, to no avail. Whether she was held in remarkably effective restraints or was paralyzed by drugs, she was helpless. She looked carefully at her surroundings but they told her nothing: pink, slightly transparent walls, diffuse overhead lighting, a smell of candle wax (or grease?). She could hear nothing, and could make no sound, but she believed she was alone. Where was Mulder? Where, for that matter, was she? Who could have done this? She closed her eyes. She was tired, so tired. She was a trained agent, but nothing Quantico had taught her had prepared her for the bizarre circumstances she found herself in. Try as she might to deny it, the conviction grew in her that this was no ordinary kidnapping. She had not hallucinated or imagined zero gravity. Where on Earth could she be rendered weightless in a moment? Nowhere. Dana Scully had worked with Fox Mulder long enough to know what his conclusions would be. She desperately wished he was here, that she could talk to him, hear that fine mind go to work on their situation. This time, she would not think him crazy, no matter what theory he came up with. She remembered the feel of his hand, anchoring her sanity when she floated up off the floor of that room... Suddenly there was a sound of wind chimes, and the room darkened. Dana's heart began to pound. The light did not disappear completely, but it was so low she could barely see. Her heart leaped as a shadowy form appeared just below her range of vision, about where her feet would be. There was a tingling in her left foot, and a sensation of warmth. She tried to wet her lips, to ask a question, but her tongue barely moved in her mouth. She strained in the semi- darkness to see who--or what--was standing (sitting? floating?) near her feet. The smell of candle wax grew stronger. So did the tingling in her feet. Nerve induction, she thought suddenly. The feet contained nerve endings that ran through the entire body, from the brain to the sole of the foot. Any being examining a human might look first to the nervous system, a detached part of her mind told her. Suddenly pain shot through her entire left leg; had she not been paralyzed, she would have screamed. Her eyes squeezed shut as stars shot past her eyes. She choked, feeling strangled as her heart speeded up but her breathing remained even. Partial paralysis of the voluntary muscles, she thought as the pain receded. She could not scream, therefore she could not pant and gain more oxygen for her laboring heart. If that happens again, she thought grimly, I will pass out from lack of oxygen. Or die. Fearfully, she felt warmth and tingling in her other foot. Oh, God, she thought helplessly. Not again... Fox Mulder sat hunched on the floor, holding Dana Scully's bag of lemon drops clutched in his hand. Anguish filled him: he had let Dana down. He had been completely helpless to stop the aliens--he was sure they were aliens--from taking her away from him. What were they doing to her? Was she dead? Would they hurt her? Would he ever see her again? His heart ached and his throat felt choked. He no longer looked at the shadow beyond the wall, no longer cared whether it was there or not. All that mattered was that Dana was gone and he didn't know where she was. I'm in an X-file myself, now, he thought to himself. Me and Dana. Who had taken them? Why? Worst of all, what had happened to Dana? He remembered his sister's cries, begging him to help her as he lay paralyzed, not understanding, on the night she disappeared from their bedroom. He had always known she'd been abducted by unearthly forces, always hoped he could find her some day. But he had never expected to become an abductee. Had they--whoever or whatever they were--taken him and Dana because of their investigations into X-file incidents? Were he and his partner getting too close? A chill went down his back. What were they doing to Dana? The thought of her, scared and alone and hurt somewhere, twisted in him like a knife in his guts. Mulder was hungry. In this place there was no way to count the passage of time, but he knew it must have been hours since they woke here. His stomach growled, reminding him that his body's clock was still set to Virginia time; it was probably at least morning outside. Or back on Earth. Mulder wondered if he and Dana had been missed yet. Was the Bureau looking for them? He had little hope that the FBI, which for years had looked askance at his work, would take it seriously enough now to go through his X-files in an attempt to find them. Hell, he wouldn't know where to look, himself. He heard wind chimes. Whirling, he looked eagerly around the chamber. On the opposite side of the room, the floor slowly bulged upward in a semitranslucent lump; within it was a shadow about six inches across. Over the next few minutes, the top layer thinned, and it dawned on Mulder that he was watched some object travel upward through the floor like a grape being pushed through gelatin. Finally the surface of the floor thinned and broke open and the object lay whole on the smooth floor. When he picked it up, he gawked in sheer disbelief, and then began to laugh. "A hamburger?" Holding the neatly wrapped hamburger in his hand, laughing wildly, he sat down on the floor. The wrappings, he noticed, were from Ned's Hamburger Stop, where he and Scully had picked up their last meal before settling down to the stakeout. Laughter turned to hiccuping, and then, a little calmer, he unwrapped the hamburger. The rich smell of hamburger grease and ketchup started his stomach growling again. It felt like a lifetime ago. God, he was hungry. So now he knew something about the chamber they were in; objects could be transported through the wall. Maybe, he thought, he had better stop thinking of it as a wall, as though it were solid. Maybe it was more like a membrane or a force field. Whatever it was, it was strong enough to stop a bullet. Hell, it was strong enough to catch a bullet. He bit into the hamburger, savoring the juiciness of it. It tasted perfect. Some part of him relaxed a little at its familiar taste, and the unacknowledged fear in the back of his mind--that their captors would starve them to death--receded a little. But hungry as he was, he did not finish the hamburger. Somehow, sometime he would find Dana. And she would be hungry. He wrapped up half of the hamburger. Then he curled up on his overcoat and slept again. Something in the room had changed. Mulder snapped awake. "Dana!" There was a whimpering sound on the opposite side of the space; he could see a hunched form. Heart beating fast, he skidded across the room and fell to his knees. "Dana!" She was lying on her side, facing away from him. And as far as he could tell, she was stark naked. Her skin was flushed and mottled in strange patterns; his heart clenched in him like a fist at the sight. He touched her shoulder gently. "Don't touch me!" She flinched away. "Go away!" "Dana, are you hurt? Did they hurt you?" "Yes! Now leave me alone!" "No, I won't leave you alone. My God, Dana, what did they do? Can I help? Are you...bleeding anywhere?" "No. No, I don't think s-so. P-please leave me alone," she sobbed into her hands, drawing up her knees until she lay in the fetal position. Mulder ran back for his overcoat and knelt by her again, looking her over carefully. He could see no bruises or cuts on her fine, milky skin; he noted distantly that the nape of her neck was smooth and silky, that her waist sloped deliciously to her round, exquisite bottom. Something stirred deep inside him, but he buried it ruthlessly as he spread the coat gently over her shaking torso. "Please," he said gently. "Let me help you, Dana." He lay down beside her and put one arm around her shuddering body. His heart ached in him and he pulled her tightly to him. She tensed, and then suddenly rolled over to him and buried her face in his chest, sobbing. "Oh, God, Mulder, it hurt!" He ground his teeth even as he wrapped his arms around her. Fury surged through him. If he ever got his hands on one of them.... But she needed comfort now, not anger. He stroked her soft coppery hair and pulled her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Dana," he said. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you. Sorry I couldn't stop them. Oh, God, I'm sorry." "They--they were doing some kind of--of test on me. I think it was a neurological exam. They kept shooting jolts of pain along my neural a-axes. It was like--like nerve induction. It was horrible!" she wailed. "Oh, God, I completely fell apart! I couldn't move, I could hardly breathe, I--I would have screamed if I could but I couldn't! Oh, God!" Her sobs increased and he felt her body pliant against him. Anguished, he heard the rising hysteria in her voice. He was achingly, keenly aware that he was holding a naked Dana Scully in his arms. He wanted to comfort her, soothe her. But he also wanted something else. He was staggered at the rush of blood to his head, the desire that flamed through him. His whole body melted towards her with the force of his longing; his cock leaped into iron rigidity. It took all his will not to allow his hands to roam down her back, to lift the overcoat and feel her warm skin, her breasts, her hip under his hand. His heart pounded like a wild thing in his chest. Dana rolled abruptly away from him, her mind in a whirl. So much had happened in the past hours. She felt she was coming apart, flying asunder in a shower of Dana- fragments. Pain, exhaustion, fear all warred within her, draining her of her will to go on. She didn't care that Mulder was her partner, officially off-limits to her. Right now she needed reassurance and a friend to lean on. To hell with protocol, she thought, and turned back to him. But Mulder was gone. It was very, very quiet. The light in this chamber was even lower than the light in the other, thought Mulder. It was so dim he could barely see, but he thought the walls of this room were semi-transparent, like the other. He tried to move his arms and legs, but he was held fast by invisible bonds. One moment he had been with Dana Scully, and the next he was here, immobilized and helpless. And very much afraid. They had hurt Dana, that much was clear. What were they trying to find out? What did they want with them? He tried to speak, but no sound came. It was extremely hard to move any part of his jaw or face; his eyes were the only part of him that moved freely. His chest felt tight, as well. There was a sudden coolness, and a faint jingling. Fear washed over him as a shadow moved near his head. He felt a prickle at the base of his skull and braced himself for pain, and so was totally unprepared for what happened next. Like a flood released by a breaking dam, pleasure surged through his body, wave after wave. His skin fairly glowed with the cascading animal sensuality of it. He couldn't tell whether he was erect or not, how his body was reacting to this sudden onslaught. He hung on the edge of orgasm for hours, it seemed, stimulated by a constant flow of images, feelings, sparks of sheer carnal lust along each nerve. He had felt nothing like it in his life. Surely his bones would melt. Surely it would kill him. He felt his heart pounding and gasped for oxygen, wondering when he would die, and not caring. Dana rubbed her eyes and huddled under Mulder's overcoat. It smelled of him; she closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against the lapel. It was cold in the room again, and she was hungry, but she didn't care. Bleary-eyed, she watched the walls. They were there, she knew, watching and waiting for something. She didn't know what. They had taken her, now Mulder. She knew what they were doing to him, how they were hurting him. Her own flesh remembered and her skin crawled. Why? Who were they? She was terribly, terribly thirsty. She had cried and cried for hours, it seemed, terrified and alone and worried about Fox Mulder. Now she was spent, and a sort of dull listlessness had set in. They were never going to get out of here, she thought despairingly. Someone, or something, had stolen them for its own purposes, and they were helpless pawns. She knew Mulder's gun was still in the coat pocket; she would use it if she had to. But Mulder might come back. She had. He had to come back... Since the room did not change, and the moments dragged on one after another monotonously, there was nothing for Dana to do but sit and think. Having exhausted the puzzle of their imprisonments, she thought about Fox Mulder. His behavior puzzled her. In all the time they had worked together, he had never shown any interest in her other than as another officer, a colleague. Oh, he had teased her now and again, but he was always correct and professional when they were alone. Never in her wildest dreams did she think he would hold her, kiss her! A shadow passed along the wall before her. She glared at it irritably. It didn't speak or act, it only watched. Damn them! She shifted, and something rustled in the pocket of Mulder's overcoat. With some astonishment, she drew out the other half of the hamburger she had seen disappear only a few hours ago. Where had it come from? She stared at it awhile, and then shrugged. What did she have to lose? She ate the rest of it and tossed the wadded up wrapping onto the floor in front of her. Moodily she watched the floor swallow it. Hours later, she was roused from a doze by the sound of wind chimes. Immediately her senses came to full alert, knowing that the sound usually warned of some action by the aliens. Did they announce themselves deliberately? she wondered. Or was it only a side effect. She saw a shimmer in the air before her, and suddenly Fox Mulder was there, curled into the fetal position, stark naked. "Fox!" She leaped for him, and caught him in her arms, ignoring the shock of bare skin on skin. "Fox, are you all right?" He was trembling all over, and covered with sweat, wound so tightly into a ball she couldn't see his face. "Are you hurt?" In a strangled voice, he croaked, "Go away, Scully! Get back!" "It's all right," she said softly, enfolding him in her arms. Her belly pressed up against his back, she cradled the back of his head against her breasts. "I know it hurts. Just let it--" "NO!" His jerk away from her was explosive. "Don't touch me! Oh, God!" "What's wrong? Did I hurt you? Let me look," she said with concern. Damn, she wished she had her medical bag. Firmly, she grabbed his arm and rolled him towards her. "No!--" he protested, but it was too late. Fox Mulder had the biggest erection she had ever seen in her life. It was huge and purple and glistening; detachedly, she decided he was probably already over the threshold of orgasm and couldn't imagine what was holding him back. "Fox?" He spun away from her, hunching his body protectively around his middle. "Please," he gasped. "Oh, God, Dana go away! I can't- -" "What have they been doing to you?" "I don't know. Just, please, I can't stand it! Don't come near me!" he cried. "It won't stop!" He shuddered with the effort at self control, and looked at her for the first time--his eyes were tortured. "I think...I think they're testing my...sexual reflexes," he said. "I don't know how, but they've got my...my body on overdrive or something...I can't come and I can't stop! Oh, Jesus!" Understanding dawned on her. Priapism--somehow, his body was locked into near-orgasm, unable to release. The aliens had done this to him? Why? And what should she-- what could she do? Bewildered, but unwilling to abandon him, Dana shrugged the overcoat off her shoulders and lifted it over him. As she did so, her bare breast touched his shoulder. All hell broke loose. He yelped, gave a smothered sob, and fell on her like a brick wall, rolling them both over and over until they came to a stop, with Fox Mulder on top of her. His face was pressed into her neck, his arms around her, and his cock was pressing into her belly with an urgency she could not ignore. The sounds he was making were inarticulate and hungry. "Fox, what are you doing?" He gasped, and she felt his shaft between her thighs; she could feel his pulse through it. "No!" she cried, but it was too late. He drove into her with one powerful thrust. He was so big he hurt her. He slammed into her, pounding inside her as though he meant to smash her to jelly. Her breasts were crushed against him, her breath was short. She struggled, but he held her in an iron grip. "No, please, Mulder, stop!" she was crying over and over. And then he was spasming against her, and a long moaning cry escaped him. Stunned and betrayed, Dana lay limply under him, weeping silently. He lay on top of her, breathing raggedly. Their bodies were stuck together with sweat and other juices. Then with a cry of horror, Fox Mulder rolled off of her. "Oh, my God," he whispered. "What have I done?" Dana crawled away from him, hunched into herself, tears running down her face. "Oh, my God," he cried, dismayed. "Dana, did I--Oh, God, I did! Oh, no!" Dana tried to speak, but her mouth was dry. She licked her lips and tried again. "Why?" He stared at her in open-mouthed shock. His face was as white as a sheet of paper. There was nothing he could say. He didn't know what had come over him. Loathing and self-disgust rose in him like a tidal wave, and he turned away to avoid her eyes. "I don't know. They...did something to me...no, that's no excuse. I won't excuse it. My God, Dana, I'm sorry. Oh, God, I'm so sorry!" He felt his life coming apart around him. How could he do this? How could he forget himself so far? He'd acted like a wild animal. He'd raped the woman he-- ---the woman he loved. And now nothing would ever make her trust him again. He'd never trust himself again. Groaning in despair, he flung himself on the floor and prayed that it would eat him. Dana crept further and further from him, dragging the overcoat over her to hide herself. She felt violated and humiliated, and her heart felt that it would break. How could he do something like that? She tried to calm herself, to force herself to think rationally, but her mind kept coming back to that driving, pounding assault. She was sore and bruised; her innermost domain had been invaded and taken. "Dana," came a whisper from Mulder's prone form. "Dana, my gun is in the pocket of that coat. Use it." She gasped. "What?" "Shoot me, goddammit! Please!" She was tempted for only a moment; rage and despair warred in her. But something in her refused to betray herself. "No. I won't do it." He extended a hand, still not looking at her. "Then give it to me and I'll do it myself." "N-no!" She scooted a few more feet, dragging the coat. "Stop it!" Dana Scully crept away and cried for a long time. Fox Mulder lay for a long time in a stupor. All he could think about was the faith he'd lost, the trust he'd betrayed. All he'd ever wanted or hoped for with Dana was shattered beyond repair. His fantasies about her, about her beautiful mouth, her ripe body, had been wild at times but never violent. He'd had lovers before, women who moaned in his arms, but she did something to him no woman ever had. And now he'd thrown it all away in a moment, for an impulse he couldn't understand even now. He'd never noticed the transition from the chamber with the alien in it to this one, he only knew that in the midst of that shattering orgiastic response he'd suddenly been confronted with Dana Scully, warm and beautiful and naked and touching him. And he'd reacted like a savage. He had hunted rapists in his career, knew them to be driven not by lust but by anger and fear. What had driven him to attack Dana? Could he blame it entirely on the aliens' manipulations? He was afraid they had only exploited what was already there in him. And he hated himself for it. He felt the tears start and wept silently for the man he had been, for the man he had betrayed. ---------------------------------------------- For what seemed like an eternity, they lay wrapped in despair at opposite ends of the room. Silence lay between them like a brick wall, impenetrable, impassible. Slowly, the air in the chamber turned cold, and the smell of ammonia, always present, grew stronger. Mulder's throat was dry, his stomach rumbled, but he was too dejected to pay any attention to them. He heard Dana's sobs subside, then stop. He wondered what she was thinking. Not for worlds would he have turned to look at her. He could never face her again. So wrapped up in his own misery was he, he at first missed the faintly musical susurration. As soon as he recognized it, he jerked around to find Dana. She was there, asleep under the overcoat on the other side of the room. But the floor between them was bulging upward as it had before; as he watched, the room 'delivered' three more hamburgers. But instead of subsiding, one bulge rounded itself, dimpled, and became a raised hollow that slowly filled with water. Or what might be water. Cautiously, Mulder tried it. It certainly appeared to be water. He tasted one of the hamburgers (noting again that it was done up in a Ned's Hamburger wrapping) and decided it wouldn't poison either of them. Then he gingerly deposited two of them next to Dana and hastily retreated to the other side of the room. He ate the remaining hamburger, watching Dana sleep. Dana Scully had no way to tell time, but she had slept several times for what seemed like a full eight hours. Maybe a whole week, she thought. He kept as far from her as possible, and mostly kept his face turned away. She slept poorly, waking suddenly at the slightest sound, or at no sound at all. Twice she had wakened to hear muffled sounds from his side of the room; she thought he was crying. She had not spoken to him at all. The only time he had spoken to her since the rape had been to tell her, in a ragged voice, about the water and the hamburgers. The food and water had appeared at regular intervals since then, giving her another means to estimate time. She decided that if they were being fed about every six hours, then they had been in this hell hole for ten days. But she couldn't be sure. Time distortion was a common feature of sensory deprivation, she knew. She didn't know as much about it as Mulder, but she couldn't ask him. Their physical needs were well taken care of, she was glad to discover. The first time she had shamefacedly relieved herself in a corner, she had been grateful to see that the floor removed it immediately. How did the floor know to distinguish between her body's waste and, say, Dana herself? she wondered. Was that what the examinations had been about? To program the chamber to absorb hamburger wrappings and bodily wastes but not to assimilate Dana and Fox themselves? She hoped the floor was a fast learner. She wore the overcoat all the time now, and it was beginning to stink of her sweat. Now and then she attempted a bath when she knew Mulder was sleeping, scooping up the water in the now-permanent dimpled basin to splash over herself under the coat. She wouldn't take it off, however, refusing to bare her body before Mulder again. He was still as naked as when he'd been returned the first time, but she could hardly bring herself to look at him. It did seem to her, however, that he was thinner than he had been. The trauma and shock of his attack had faded somewhat, but she was still bewildered and hurt. Physically, she was recovered, but nothing could repair her peace of mind. Once she had waked from a nightmare, reliving the violation, and was horrified to find herself across the room from Mulder. She had wakened him, and he was looking at her with unreadable eyes. He looked away immediately, a dull flush rising up his face. It was one of the few times he had looked directly at her. It was about the middle of the eleventh day, she guessed, that the shadow returned. She had been sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the wall, when a disturbance in her field of vision caught her attention. She gasped. The floating, nebulous silhouette was back, and it was directly behind Mulder. Without thinking, she cried out, "Fox! Behind you!" He looked up, surprised to hear her speak, and then spun around. When he saw the creature, he stood up and strode unhesitatingly to the wall. His back to Dana, he put both hands up to the wall and pushed. "Talk to me, you bastard," he muttered. "What do you want?" He jumped when Dana's voice sounded right behind him. "I don't think it can hear you," For a moment, they were their old selves again, partners investigating a mystery. "It may not have ears, but it has to communicate somehow," he said. "Light? Heat? Smell? Come on, buddy, give us a clue," he said to the shadow. The shadow only drifted, seemingly aimlessly, to their right. They followed it slowly around the chamber. "Mulder, there's another one," said Dana in a low voice. He looked where she pointed; another shadow had appeared directly opposite the first. "It's the first time we've seen more than one. Are they stalking us?" he wondered aloud. "Maybe they're trying to separate us." Dana's voice was cold. "No need, surely? You've done a pretty good job of that." His head whipped around to stare into her angry blue eyes. For a moment, he saw all her pain and fury laid bare in her eyes, then he dropped his gaze. "I only meant that for safety's sake..." "I know what you meant, Mulder," she said. Her voice was like ice. When he looked up, both the shadows were gone. Fox and Dana were standing within arm's length. She started to turn away from him. "Dana, wait," he said urgently. She turned slowly to face him. "I...I just want to say how sorry I am," he said cautiously. He forced himself to meet her angry glare. "You have every reason to hate me. I hate myself. I won't even ask you to forgive me or understand me; I don't understand or forgive myself. All I can say is that I'd give the world for it never to have...happened. Oh, God, Dana, I can't live with myself!" "My sympathy is worn a little thin these days," she said acidly. He nodded. "I know. I just want to ask--are you okay? I mean, did I...hurt you or anything?" "My pride is in tatters, but my body has healed," she said flatly. "If it matters." "It does," he whispered. "I have never been so confused, so humiliated, so disgusted in my life. I swear to God, I don't understand what happened. I would never, never....but you don't believe me, I know. Just please believe me when I say I'd rather die than have that happen again." "That makes two of us," she said. "Fox, why did you rape me?" Her voice was hard. He looked away from her. "I don't know," he said thickly. "I was in a room, they had me paralyzed." Briefly, he told her what had happened. "And then all of a sudden, there you were, and I was...was in agony. I mean, blue balls are one thing, but this was something else. It was like I was driven, out of control. The opposite of paralysis. If you hadn't been there, I think I'd have died." "So, you're telling me you're grateful?" she growled. He looked at her, startled. "No. No, I'd rather have died, believe me. I'd never want to hurt you, to...to betray you like that. You're my partner...my friend. Or, you were." "And you're telling me it was nothing personal," she said. "No. Yes. I mean..." he stopped. He was overjoyed that she was speaking to him, at least, but unsure how much he could reveal to her. She will never trust me until I trust her, he thought to himself. I've stripped away her sense of security, the least I can do is strip my own away. He drew a deep breath and looked her squarely in the face. "Dana, it was very goddamn personal. I don't know how many nights I've lain awake wishing, dreaming I could...m-make love to you. But to attack you, hurt you, take you like that, no, it's not in me. Or I thought it wasn't." "You...you dreamed about me?" she asked uncertainly. "I've been going crazy over you for the better part of a year," he said, dragging each word out. "I couldn't tell you. I know how you feel about me, how the whole Bureau feels about 'Spooky' Mulder," his voice turned bitter, but he went on. "You're the most beautiful, the most passionate, the most wonderful woman I ever saw in my life," he continued, watching her face. "I never wanted any woman the way I wanted--want you. But I didn't ever, ever want you like that. So yes, it's personal." There was a long silence, while Dana looked away and Mulder felt himself go hot, then cold, then hot again. "I...I didn't know," she whispered after a while. "You didn't say anything. B-but then you kissed me, when we were in zero gravity, and I couldn't think why. I thought....never mind what I thought." She felt the tears start and couldn't stop them. The grief and loss rose in her, past the barriers of anger. She'd believed in Fox Mulder too long, trusted him too completely, to lose it all in one blow. With a distinct sense of the absurd, she realized the person she most wanted to comfort her was the man who'd raped her. She looked up at him. "Oh, God, Fox," she wept. "I trusted you. I liked you. And now I don't have anyone to t-talk to." His heart breaking, Mulder forced himself to stand still. This was his punishment, he told himself. To stand here and hear her weep, and be able to do nothing. "Dana, I'm sorry," he murmured. "I don't know why you should believe me, but I'll never hurt you again. I'm sorry." Blindly, she reached to him. His hand closed on hers, strong and warm. His other hand touched her cheek, gently. "My God, Dana," he breathed. "Please, please forgive me. I'll die if you don't ever trust me again." She reached for him and he wrapped his arms around her, held her as delicately as crystal, as solidly as stone. She laid her head against his chest, ignoring the soft hair tickling her face, feeling the warmth and intensity of him, and sobbed out her hurt and fear and anguish. His tears fell silently into her hair. "Dana," he whispered over and over. "Oh, God, Dana." He felt a glacier in him melting, a long winter coming to an end. After a while she drew a long shuddering breath and straightened. She glanced up at him uncertainly, still held in the circle of his arms. Mulder smiled down at her. "I regret that I have no handkerchief to offer you, ma'am. Feel free to use the coat sleeve, however." She grimaced and wiped her nose on the sleeve. The front of the topcoat flapped open and shut as she did so, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of bare breast. "Let's sit down," he suggested, and they sat side by side, backs against the wall. He held her hand in his. They were silent awhile, at peace for the moment if a little wary. After a while they began to talk. Dana told Fox her estimate of the time they had been captive, and he pondered it a moment. "I suppose you must be right. I hadn't thought of it, myself," he said ruefully. "I haven't been thinking much at all. But there's one weird thing I've noticed." He ran a hand over his chin. "I should have quite a beard by now, but as far as I can tell without a mirror, I still only have a five o'clock shadow." She looked up at him, studying his face. "You're right. You look just the same as when I woke up in the car at the stakeout." It felt like a lifetime ago. "Maybe they're putting something in the food or water to stop it," he mused, rubbing his chin with a rasping sound. "There isn't any way to suppress beard growth, except by hormone suppressants or castration. Clearly--," she swallowed. "Clearly not the case with you." "Maybe it's a side effect of...of whatever they did to me," he muttered, looking away. "In any case, it's nice not to have to scrape my face every day. Although I'm sure it's no treat to look at. You know, this is the first time since I was, oh, fourteen that I didn't have to get up and risk scarring myself for life with a razor every morning. I kind of like it." "You started shaving at fourteen?" "Yeah. My voice changed the same year. It was embarrassing as hell." "Adolescence is a constant state of embarrassment," she agreed, remembering. He grinned suddenly. "Yeah, it's good for you. Keeps you humble." Dana smiled tentatively back, and felt a tiny glow start in the ashes of her heart. It would be nice to be friends with Fox Mulder again, she thought. If she could ever...forget. But suddenly she was flooded with the memory of him on her, in her, pounding, with his face gone gray and blank, eyes unseeing. She scrambled away from him,. "What? Dana? What did I do?" "N-nothing. I-I just...keep remembering," she said. "I...I can't forget what happened, Fox. What you did." He nodded grimly. "Me neither. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, Dana. First we're kidnapped, then tortured, then I--I raped you. It's a wonder you're not outright catatonic. But I swear to you, Dana Scully, you are safe with me. I won't touch you again. Unless...unless you want me to." Dana sat out of reach until after the next meal, and then, with several glances at him for reassurance, curled up in the overcoat and slept. Mulder stayed awake a long time, too keyed up to sleep. They played chess. Without a board or men, it took a great deal of concentration to keep the board in mind, but after a few 'days' practice it became a regular habit between them. Dana was beginning to worry about the length of their captivity, about the lack of stimulation. "Mulder, we've got to establish some kind of routine," she had said one day when they were playing chess. "King's pawn to Queen three." "What? Damn! Now I have to...eh?" he looked at her, distracted from the game. "King's pawn, King's pawn." "Mulder, you know what happens to prisoners kept in solitary," she said. "Isolation, deprivation, they can all damage the mind after a while. We need a routine, some anchor for our days. Otherwise we'll go nuts in here." "Hmm. Some of us already are. How come I didn't see that coming?" He looked at her thoughtfully. "You're right, of course. Any ideas?" She shrugged. "We don't have anything to write on or read. Let's see. We could set up an exercise program, to at least keep in shape. Although," she said slowly. "It looks like you're losing weight. I probably am, too." He glanced at her. "In that topcoat you could have gained fifty pounds and no one would ever know," he said conversationally. "Besides, a steady diet of hamburgers is not recommended by the FDA." "True," she said. "Do you speak any foreign languages, Dana?" he asked. "Spanish? French?" "Some French," she said. "A little Greek." "Greek?" "My dad was a naval officer. When I was eight we were stationed in Cyprus for a while and I picked it up from the neighbors. I can't read or write it but I can speak it." He smiled. "Okay. I studied Spanish in high school. We can have Spanish and Greek lessons once a day. How good are you at math?" "Pretty fair." "Any calculus?" "Of course," she said. "Why?" "We can do derivatives in our heads," he suggested. "Maybe you can," she smiled. "If I have to do trig in my head, you have to learn the names of all the muscle groups in the body." He groaned. "Latin, too?" "Sure. Then we'll move on to taxonomy. You know, Mulder, there are millions of really interesting fungus groups..." "Fungus? Jesus, Scully, you're going to teach me mycology?" He looked at her in amazement, to find her grinning at him. "Just kidding," she said. "But I do know a lot about bacteria. We can review the major groups." He groaned, but was secretly pleased. She was unbending enough to joke with him, at least. "All right. And then I teach you the entire roster of Major League Baseball." "This is going to be harder than I thought," she smiled. "Your move." Three days later Mulder disappeared, fading from sight in the middle of a pushup. Dana was sitting and trying to touch her toes, when she heard the chimes. Too late, she lunged to grab him but he was gone. Through seven meals she worried and waited. It was the longest he had ever been away from her. With mixed feelings, she tried to think what she would do if he didn't come back. She couldn't sort out her emotions; on the one hand, she was still wary of him, still wrestling with her anger. On the other hand, he had not so much as touched her after their reconciliation, going out of his way to make her comfortable without physical contact. He was very reserved with her, and she with him, but some kind of mutual companionship was growing between them. She didn't want them to hurt him. She had about decided, with despair, that he was dead, when the chimes announced his return. He dropped out of thin air to land heavily on the floor. He was covered with blood. "My God, Mulder!" she cried, but did not approach. Not after the last time, she thought. He sat up wearily, looking down at himself. "It's okay, Dana," he said in a rasping voice. "I'm not hurt anywhere. I think this is some kind of...ointment they put on me." "What did they do to you?" He looked at her grimly. "I don't want to talk about it. It was not...pleasant." She leaned forward but stayed put, wanting to help but afraid. "It's okay," he said, looking her in the eyes. "They haven't turned on my sex drive again. I won't hurt you." Relieved, she came closer and touched his arm. The blood appeared to be just that. "Lie down, Mulder," she told him. "I want to take a look and see if you're hurt." "Dana, I--" "Lie down, Mulder," she said firmly. "Doctor's orders." Impersonally, she gave him as thorough an examination as she could without instruments. She palpated his arms and legs, thumped his ribs. He made no complaint, but winced several times. "Your heart and lungs are okay," she told him afterward. "Nothing seems to be broken. Do you hurt anywhere?" "Thank you," he said, sitting up again. "Everywhere, but nothing serious." "So far as I can tell, this is your blood but it didn't come from a wound. My guess is that it's from broken capillaries in the skin. You are going to be terribly bruised, I think. Were you in any kind of vacuum chamber?" He shook his head. "No, I don't think so. But it was very cold." He shivered. "Well," she said. "Although I didn't think it was possible to actually sweat blood, that seems to be what you've been doing. So far as I can tell without tissue sampling, something has forced your epidermal capillaries to exude blood into the upper layer of your skin." He looked white around his eyes. "Yes. It was...pretty bad." He would tell her nothing more than that, and shortly went to the other side of the room and curled up. The next day she approached him. He was still covered with blood, now dried and flaking on him. He lay on his back, eyes open but with bags under them. He looked at her but said nothing. "God, Mulder," she said as she got closer. "Look at you!" He was mottled with bruises from neck to knees, ranging from a light rose to deepest purple. She stretched out one hand, to find it trembling. She snatched it back. "I'm so sore I can hardly move," he said. "I couldn't find any comfortable way to rest last night, so I haven't really slept. Is there...is there any way you can bring me some water?" She brought him water in her cupped hands and knelt by his head to let him drink. His lips on her hand were electric. When he had finished, she smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "It's okay," she said. "Just rest. I'll look after you." His eyes flew open. "Dana, you don't have to do this. You don't owe me anything at all, after I--" "Hush," she said, putting a hand on his lips. "We're still partners, Mulder, and I can't afford to let you get hurt or...or die. If anything happened to you, I'd be all alone. I would go crazy then." He sighed and smiled a small smile. "I feel better already," he said. The next time they took Mulder, he came back blind. Again, he had disappeared before her eyes, out of her reach as he was walking back with a hamburger in his hand. As his startled look of realization registered, she heard the chimes and leaped for him, but he was gone. This time it was eleven meals--three days, by her calculations--before he came back. She heard the crash of his body against the floor and was next to him immediately. "Scully?" he whimpered, flinching from her touch. "Scully? Are you there?" "Yes, I'm here." "I can't see you. Have they turned out the lights again?" She went cold from head to foot. Holding her hand before his staring eyes, she said, "How many fingers am I holding up?" "I can't see anything," he said frantically. "What happened to the lights?" "Mulder, the lights are on," she said firmly. "I can see perfectly well. What did they do to you?" He coughed and trembled, but sat up straight. His arms went out blindly and she grabbed his hand. He held tightly to her. "I was in a room with a bright light. Even when I squeezed my eyelids shut it was too bright, but I couldn't move, couldn't put my hands over my face." She shivered. "What else?" "That's it. It just went on forever. Once I felt heat on my shoulders and head, but most of the time it was just this enormous silence, and that goddamn light." "Do you see darkness or light right now?" "I don't...I don't know. I know that sounds stupid, but I can't tell what I'm seeing." "It might mean many things, but the simplest explanation is a mild retinal burn. You say you kept your eyes closed?" He nodded, gripping her hand. "Is it...is it permanent?" "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "We'll have to wait and see. Oh, God, Mulder." She leaned against him and he wrapped his arms around her, smelling her hair, her skin. He rocked gently back and forth with her. "Thank God you're all right," he whispered. "I was afraid that with me gone, they might....do something to you." She shook her head. "I don't know why but they only took me the first time. I guess you're more interesting." "Worst possible time to become popular," he said. "I'd just as soon they ignored both of us." Gradually, as time wore on, Mulder's sight returned. She refused to leave his side, except to fetch water and food. After a while, he blinked and squinted at her. "I can see you," he said. "God, what a beautiful sight!" She smiled and pushed her hair off her forehead. "I haven't had a proper bath in weeks, and my hair's a mess." That she should care about her appearance after what he did gladdened Mulder. It meant she was healing, returning somewhat to her old self. "You will always be beautiful to me," he smiled. To his surprise, she sat close to him and leaned into his shoulder. "Fox, do you think about...it? About what you did?" Mulder tightened his lips. "Yes. And I think you ought to press charges when we...when we get back." "No. I'm not as...angry as I was." She turned in his arms to face him, her face very near his. Her mouth was small and generous and red, and he wanted it very much. Hypnotized, he watched her draw closer, closer... "I...I'm trying to forgive you," she said slowly. "I've known you for years, Fox. You're just not the kind of man to...to do what you did. It's like you became someone else. I was afraid you would turn into that man again." "Never," he whispered. "I don't know what to think," she sighed after a while. "Before you...did that...I was starting to...to wonder. I mean, all of a sudden you had kissed me twice in one d-day. I didn't know what it meant, but I was starting to hope that- -that you were attracted to me. Now you say you love me, but I don't...don't know if I can believe you." "I do love you, Dana," he said quietly. "I have for a long time. I just couldn't say it. I was afraid you'd laugh at me. I'm only saying it now because...because I'd rather have you laugh at me than fear or hate me." He looked down at her upturned face, so near. "Do you hate me?" he whispered, mesmerized. "No," she said, her perfect lips making an O. "Fox, it was bad enough to be assaulted," she said softly. "It was made a hundred times worse because it was...it was you. You turned into a stranger. When you...when you were on me...in me--" She stopped, throat working. "It was so terrible. Not just because you were...hurting me, but because it was such a...a perversion of what I had wanted." "Wanted?" Dana blushed. "You aren't the only one with secrets." He felt everything--time, his heart, the universe--slow almost to a dead stop. She was here, alive and beautiful and so very, very kissable. He would have traded his hope of rescue for the courage to kiss that mouth, to show her how he really felt. But he would not. He had lost that privilege forever. So he just sat, and tried to breathe, and looked at her with his heart in his eyes. It had taken her a long time to come to this point, and her breath was tight in her chest. Days and nights of confusion and worry, of struggling to know her own heart, fell away when she looked in his hazel eyes. She forgot the moment he forced himself on her and remembered the long nights on stakeout together, the long talks, the smiles, the shared memories, the dangers they had survived together. She remembered the way it had felt the first time he had kissed her. Mulder took her hands, forced her to meet his eyes. "What are you saying, Dana?" She took a deep breath. It was time to tell the truth. "That I...I wanted you, too," she said. "I couldn't admit it to myself. I mean, we were partners, we weren't supposed to--" "And now?" She looked at him for a long moment, and then away. He brought her hands up to his lips and kissed each palm slowly, lingeringly. A tiny shiver went through her. "Whatever you want from me, Dana Scully, I give it to you," he said. "My friendship, my love, the heart out of my body. Name it, Dana." "Your apology is accepted," she said. For the first time, she touched him before he touched her. She put a hand up to touch his cheek; he turned his head and kissed her palm. Her other hand came up to frame his face; her coat fell open and Fox closed his eyes. The smell of her--skin and hair and a faint tang of sweat-- filled his head with the immediacy of her. He was acutely aware of every tiny movement she made. Dana had had lovers before, knew the boundaries of her own passion. But Fox Mulder stirred her profoundly, touching her in some hidden, private part of her she had opened to no man. She wanted very, very much to feel his hands on her. Slowly, deliberately, she leaned up and kissed him. The taste of her flowed through him like fire and honey. He was awash in pure sensation, pure lightness. He felt his body rousing, but it was almost an afterthought. Foremost in his consciousness was the fact that she was kissing him, on her own, not out of despair or fear or a need for reassurance, but because she wanted him. A fathomless silence fell on him. Her tongue teased him, unhurried and sensual. He let her take her time, forcing himself to be still, fighting the urge to roll her under him... Dana savored the warm male smell of him, skin and sweat and hair. His lips under hers were mobile and sensitive. She heard his breathing change cadence and knew he was hers; the sense of power it gave her was heady. She smiled into the kiss and felt him smile back. Her hands traveled from his face to his neck to the broad shoulders and strong arms, feeling the power held (trembling) in check. She closed her teeth gently on his full lower lip and felt him jerk in response. She ran her tongue down the full, strong column of his neck, kissing his Adam's apple in passing. He shivered and she felt the goose flesh rise on his skin under her hands. Lazily she trailed a hand down across his chest in a preliminary exploration; soft curling hair and skin stretched warm and taut greeted her hand. She studied the ripple of muscle over his stomach, and trailed a hand lower. He gasped when she found his cock, silk over steel in her hand, urgent against his belly. She slipped her hand lower, to cup the heavy balls in her hand. Fox made a strangled sound in his throat, and his hands clutched convulsively at her, but he didn't move. He let her explore his body as much as she wanted, determined not to force the moment. But it was costing him all of his self- control. Dana let go of him and straightened until she was kneeling, facing him. Leisurely, she slid one arm, then the other out of the overcoat and let it fall behind her. Fox's eyes widened as he took in her body, the milky skin glowing in the amber light, her nipples rosy and perfectly centered, bobbing only inches from his face. Her waist was trim, her hips flaring full and promising, while between her thighs the auburn thatch invited his hand. She basked in the look he gave her and reached for his hands, placing one on each breast. A shudder went through him as he cupped their warm weight, their softness. His thumbs pressed delicately against her nipples, rousing them into hard points. He bent his head forward and closed his lips on the left one, then the right. His mouth on her was intoxicating. She arched her back in pure delight. Tingles shot down her spine, goose flesh shivered down her whole body as his tongue tasted her breasts, her nipples, her skin. His hands went to her waist, stroking her skin. She felt his hands slide around to cup her bottom and she felt wetness flood her center. He kneaded her buttocks gently and she squirmed deliciously. The feel of his hands and his mouth, his tongue, his breath on her skin, built fires in her head. She took hold of his shaft and felt it leap in her hand, his whole body stiffened at her touch. She rose up and straddled him on her knees, leaning close in to him. His arms were around her, his hands on her bottom pulling her in to him. She felt his cock rigid at her entrance, felt her warm wetness anointing him, and wanted him in her as she had never wanted a man in her life. But she placed her hands on either side of his face, which was buried in her breasts, and lifted his face to look into hers. His eyes were wide, his lips parted, need and wonder written on his face naked and clear. She felt him trembling with his longing, his desperate need to thrust into her, but she kissed him softly, gently. "Fox, I want you," she whispered. "But we aren't going to do this." His head snapped back, his eyes dark. "What?" "No," she said seriously into those angry eyes. "I need to know I can trust you. I need to know you can stop when I say no. I'm saying no." His eyes squeezed shut with the agony of it. He opened his mouth, but then closed it tightly. Swallowing convulsively past the tightness in his throat, he nodded once and took his hands off of her body. Sweat was pouring off him now, but he put his hands flat on the floor and pushed himself away from her. He felt nauseated with the force of his desire for her, but compelled himself not to look at her. "I--I guess I deserve that," he choked out at last. "But I--I'd rather next time you just shot me, okay?" She looked at him, facing away from her, his whole body condensed into a taut, struggling line. Memory showed her the same man, newly returned from the aliens, gasping in the grip of an unyielding arousal. She remembered how he had struggled to keep her away, she remembered how the tide had broken him and thrown him on her as surely as driftwood is thrown on the shore. And here he was, as close to sexual frustration as he had been then, but he was moving away from her. He was obeying, moving away from her. And her whole being rose up in revolt. No, she thought. He is mine! Mine! And I will not lose him! Not even to my own pride! Lunging forward, she caught his arm. He turned his head and saw her coming just in time to catch her. And then she was above him, sinking down onto him, burying him in her soft and yielding flesh, and he cried out without words. He was enormous, stretching her, rough and warm inside her. She leaned down and her breasts flattened against his chest, her nipples brushing against his chest hair. His hands came up to tangle in her copper hair, to stroke her breasts, to slide down her waist to her bottom and back, over and over again. She raked the backs of her nails down his arm, his chest until the marks stood out on his fair skin. But he lay still, letting her move, rocking back and forth with an unhurried but steady rhythm. Dana looked down at him, her arms on either side of his head. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back. As she watched, a smile of purest joy spread across his face. She leaned down and kissed it, and his arms went around her, crushing her into him, linking them as he rose to meet her, giving himself over to the pace she was setting. Their bodies slid together in an urgent, liquid rhythm, in perfect harmony. With every stroke, she felt the tension below her belly building, pulling at her, waking her response. His hands broke free to roam over her body again, stroking, restless, clutching now at her breast, now at her buttocks, now sliding between their bodies to caress their joining. She was close, too close to stop now, and she rode him faster, feeling him rock-hard in her, his shaft stroking her, stroking her, urging her onward and inward, while the energy curled at the base of her spine. And then it shot upward to spark into fire in her brain. Her whole body shuddered with the force of the wave of pleasure that rolled over her again and again. She felt his hands on her head, bending her face down to his. "Dana, look at me!" he commanded. And she opened her eyes and looked at him and came, with his eyes on hers and their hearts naked. When she cried out, his hands came down and locked on her waist, holding her while he thrust deeper and deeper. He buried his face between her breasts and moaned. He arched under her and gasped, and she felt the tremor that ran through him at his release. He gushed into her in a hot flood; she immediately felt it wet and sticky on her thighs. He was tense for a few more minutes, then he relaxed utterly. She smiled and leaned down to him. He wrapped her round with his strong arms and they lay still joined. "Ah," he breathed in her ear. "So beautiful." His eyes opened and he looked deeply into hers. "I love you, Dana," he said softly. She smiled back at him. "I love you, Fox." "I thought you might," he grinned back at her cockily. "It was only a matter of time." Then his face grew serious. He stroked her cheek. "This is more what I wanted. Not like...not like last time." "We won't count that," she whispered, her lips on his ear. "No," he said quietly. "We won't count that. This--" he patted her bottom lightly. "This is where we begin." They were silent together, wrapped in a warm and companionable afterglow that had something in it of their old partnership but also something new, something deep, something rich. Neither of them wanted to break this precious new silence between them, but their hands could not be still--touching, stroking, exploring. Dana thought she would never get enough of his strong, long-limbed body, its grace and power hers to enjoy, obedient to her body's command. Fox could not stop kissing her; he kissed everything his mouth could reach. His hands stroked her constantly with a gentle soothing touch that held possessiveness and sensuality in it. This time when he rolled her over it was smoothly and purposefully. He had never left her, so when he began to harden again they were halfway there. He moved in her slowly, languorously, rocking them both in a lazy, unhurried motion. He needed to exorcise his shame and guilt in her, to redeem himself in her eyes and his. "This...and this..." He kissed her mouth, her neck. "This is what I wanted you to feel." His mouth moved down her body, trailing fire. "And this...and this..." She closed her eyes and stretched herself against him, feeling skin against skin, pulling his heat into herself, melding them. "Yes," she purred. "I want to make you forget what went before," he whispered. "I love you. I want to make you happy. I want to make you squeal and moan--" His hand dropped between her thighs. She gave a small squeal of delight. He laughed. It was the first time he had laughed since their capture. Dana felt a bubble of joy forming in her chest, rising into the light, unstoppable. He set himself the happy task of pleasuring her, making her forget all that had gone before. They drifted from pleasure to sleep to waking, back and forth, for hours. They forgot the chamber they were in, the alien presences they feared. They forgot the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They forgot Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. They were only a man and a woman alone and in love and touching each other for the first time. For a while, deep in each other's eyes, they could forget, and they did. -------------------------------------------------------------- They woke hungry and sore, to find a pile of hamburgers on the floor. "God, I am sick of hamburgers," complained Mulder, handing her one. "Why wasn't I carrying a steak in my pocket?" "A raw steak?" "Champagne," he answered. "Coq au vin. Pizza. A bag of dried apricots. Potato salad. Anything." "Shut up and eat," she said. "You're killing me." "Well, at least we have dessert," he said innocently. "Mulder! You outrageous--" "You don't mean you ate all the lemon drops?" Probably it was the first food fight in outer space. Now Dana really lost track of time. Sleeping and waking were only the boundaries of a country she was exploring with Fox Mulder. He proved to be indefatigable, practically inexhaustible. Surely they were setting a world's record for coitus, she thought. "You've made quite a study of this," she said at one point when they had stopped to catch their breath. "I wonder who taught you." He grinned. "Jealous, Dana?" "A little, maybe." "Don't be. I investigate mysteries for a living," he said, fondling her right breast. He licked a circle around it, observing that it seemed fuller, rounder than before. "Woman is the greatest mystery of all. I just did my research." "You learned -- Oh, God, Fox -- you learned this in the library?" "Sure," he switched to her other breast. "Librarians are experts at arcane research." "Oho," she said through clenched teeth. "I -- unh -- suppose they taught you everything they knew?" "No, you are teaching me everything I know about Dana Scully. The rest is just instinct." She whimpered as his mouth moved lower. "You have--Oh, Lord--fine instincts, Fox." Then she couldn't talk any more. It was not possible to separate; if they were apart for more than a few minutes, they found themselves gravitating toward one another immediately. "It's partly because I'm afraid they'll take you away again," admitted Mulder. He brushed a lock of red hair off her forehead and cupped her round cheek in his hand. "God, if they took one of us away, I would die. I swear it." "Me, too," she said. They clutched hands, sharing their fear. But the aliens left them alone, delivering hamburgers at regular intervals and continuing to supply water. The monotony began to wear on them but they passed the time. They eventually resumed their chess games and language lessons, but they sat side by side, touching constantly. One day -- or night, no one could tell -- Dana woke nauseated. She retched quietly against the wall, hoping not to wake Mulder, but felt his hand on the back of her neck. "Dana?" "It's...all right," she smiled weakly. "Something I ate?" But Mulder was not smiling. "I feel fine, and I had the hamburger too." He looked speculatively at the floor. "Maybe their--replicator or whatever--is out of whack. "Could it be the water? I mean, if they're recycling our...our body wastes without a thorough knowledge of human anatomy, they might be recycling pathogens right back into our drinking water." She turned a little green. "Thanks, Fox. That makes me feel a lot better." "Oh, God, I'm sorry, Dana. I didn't mean to upset you. I'm thinking out loud again." "It's okay. You know, I actually feel hungry now." She was surprised. "Okay, but I'll taste anything you eat first," he said firmly. She was too weak to argue. She ate the hamburger he had tested and was fine. But the next morning the same thing happened again. And this time a tiny suspicion grew in the back of her mind. "Fox, how long have we been here?" "I thought we agreed we weren't going to ask that question," he said. "I know. But it's important." He squinted at her. That fine brain of hers was at work again, he knew. "What are you thinking, Scully?" She glared at him. "Why do you always call me Scully when you are 'on duty'?" He looked surprised. "Do I? I hadn't noticed. Habit, I guess. When we first started working together, I tried to put as much distance as possible into our relationship. I knew if I didn't I would make a laughingstock of myself." "Why?" He looked at her askance. "You have to ask? I have already proved it three times in the last twenty four hours?" "Oh. Well, I mean, it's weird to have your...your lover calling you by your last name." He smiled. "I love it when you call me that." His hand came up to cup her head against his chest. She wriggled free, however. "You've changed the subject. How long have we been here?" "God, let me think," he said, closing his eyes. "Roughly, oh a couple of months, I guess. Why?" "A couple of months? Are you sure?" She was aghast. "Well, yes. Pretty sure. I mean, we know how many meals we get a day, and I've, well, I've been keeping track of the days. I used the chessboard as a calendar. At least of the days I was aware of." "How do you keep track of the days on a chessboard?" "There are sixty four squares on a chessboard. I started with the Black Queen's Rook and assigned a day to each square. I'm up to White's King's Pawn." "Oh, my God," she whispered, her face going white. His heart contracted when he saw her. Understanding and fear mirrored each other on her beautiful face. "Dana, what is it? You've figured something out." "Fox, I--I have a calendar, too," she gulped. She looked up at him, blue eyes staring into brown. "All women have a calendar." Realization hit him and he blanched. "My God. I forgot. And we've been--Oh, God. And you haven't--" "--had a period since we arrived," she finished. "Oh, no." He reached out and gathered her into his arms, his lap remembering the precise weight and feel of her. "It can't be, Dana," he whispered. "Look at me, I should have a beard to my knees by now. We know alien abductions include time distortions, it's one of the hallmarks. This is just like my beard not growing. Your body is...frozen in time like mine. It's not what you think." But it was. The nausea grew worse, being a regular occurrence. Dana found herself growing fatigued easily, and napped often in Fox Mulder's arms. He sat with her asleep in his arms and cursed life, the universe, the aliens, and his own potency. What had he done to her? Worse, was this why they had been taken? As breeding stock? It was demeaning, it was humiliating. It meant the aliens did not even care about his investigations, his curiosity, about the individuals that were Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. Any random mixed pair would have done as well. Most humiliating of all, it explained his sudden surge of libido, the arousal that had led to the rape. It dehumanized the act even more than it had been, and twisted his heart. Mulder's already deep anger was fueled even hotter. Dana was too miserable to be humiliated. As a doctor, she was well acquainted with the theory of pregnancy, but as a woman she had never experienced it. As her strength was sapped by nausea and restlessness, nameless fears swept across her mind. Once Mulder woke to find her sobbing quietly beside him. He held her and patted her wordlessly, waiting for her to calm. "What--what if it's not--human?" she gasped against him. "Maybe they--they did s-something to m-me--" He hugged her tightly. "No. It's not possible," he cried against her desperately. "No, don't think that. God, Dana, I'm sorry I did this to you, everything I do seems to hurt you. But I know, I know it's mine." And it was true. The conviction soared through him, lifting his heart, filling him with a strange and unaccustomed pride in his own virility. "It's mine, Dana, mine and yours." He placed a hand on her abdomen, warm under his hand. "Our child." She looked at him with wonder. "You don't care?" "Don't care? Of course I care. If I could, I'd marry you. Right now, right here." "M-marry?" He kissed her, lingering on her lips. "Yes. I love you. I will love our child." But after she slept again, he stayed awake, worried about the future. A thrill ran through him. A baby! His! Awe and wonder sang in him. He'd never felt so powerful, so curious, and so humble in his life. He cradled the woman and the child in her close to him. Dana's belly grew. A soft, rounded firmness gave way to a definite, mounded hump in her middle. Eventually the nausea ceased and her normal sleeping pattern returned. But with the return to normal sleep her mind cleared and she began to worry, too. "Fox, we have to talk," she said one 'evening' after he had made tender, careful love to her. "I'm going to have a baby, and there's no one to deliver it but you." "I know," he said, threading his fingers in hers. "I wondered if they would...would take you away. I don't know if I should try to stay with you or let them do it. They might...might have very advanced medical techniques. If I-- If I fought them, even if I was successful I might be exposing you and the baby to danger." "I want you there," she said with conviction. "And we can't rely on the aliens. They know so little about us," she said. "I'll just have to teach you everything I can. Can you do it?" His mouth made a firm line. "Yes. Yes, I can. I will. But I never wanted to pray so badly in my life." "Fox, what is the matter with you?" Dana struggled up onto her elbows, glaring at her partner who was tossing and turning beside her. He turned away from her. "Nothing. I can't sleep." "I know," she said with exasperation. "Neither can I. Neither can the baby, because of your wiggling." He inched away. "I'll be still. Go back to sleep." But something in the set of his shoulders, the way his hips drew in, made her suspicious. She peeked over his shoulder. "Oh, my!" she said mildly. "Very nice indeed. No wonder you can't sleep." He flushed deeply. "Well, I didn't want to b-bother you, with the baby and all." She smiled sleepily and reached her hand over his body. "I can help with that." "No, really, it wouldn't be fair." She cocked an eyebrow, which she knew he adored. "Fair?" "I mean, I can't--we can't--it's not fair to leave you- -" Dana pulled him gently, and he followed, rolling over to face her. "Idiot," she said affectionately. "There are other ways, as you know very well." "But the baby--" "Will not be hurt in the least," she said, turning her back to him and pressing herself backwards. "You don't have to do this," he said tightly. "That's right," she said with a voice like honey. "I don't have to. I want to." He slid one hand down her buttocks to her thighs, slid between them. She was wet and ready for him. With no further protest, he eased his stiff cock into her, letting his breath out in the relief of it, the warmth of her enfolding him. Gently, he moved against her, hands cupping her breasts, stroking her huge belly, rocking him and her and the child between them. "Fox!" Mulder shot out of sleep as though stung. Dana was hunched over, gasping. He gasped, too, at the bloody puddle at her feet. "My-my water broke! It's the baby!" "Oh, God," he croaked, feeling his knees go weak. White-faced, she reached for him as another contraction wrung her. "Help me!" He took a deep breath, summoning all his strength. If he had ever needed all his wits about him in his life, he thought, this was the time. He eased Dana down to a sitting position and brought her water in his cupped hands. She choked but swallowed some; he bathed her face with the rest. "It's all right, baby," he murmured. "I'm here. I'll be here the whole time. We can do this. You can do this. You remember the exercises?" She nodded, frightened. "I'm scared. It--it hurts." He pulled her face against his chest. "I know, baby. It will hurt a lot. But I'll be here. I won't let anything go wrong." He ran through the possibilities in his head, all the horrors she had tried to prepare him for--breech birth, twins, placenta previa, uterine rupture. He prayed, hard, to any god that would listen, not to take his heart from him. Dana Scully screamed with the force of seven banshees. She had been in labor for hours, breathing harshly through each contraction, concentrating on Fox's face, his voice, his hands soothing her, holding her, comforting her. Sweat poured off her, her hair was a matted mess, but the world had shrunk to her and the vise that held her lower body in its grip. It was huge, a pain out of all proportion to anything she had ever felt, a pain made larger by the fact that it was utterly, completely out of her control. Nothing, not the breathing exercises, not the walking, not the restless re-positioning, helped. The pain was raw and wild and shocked through her every two minutes like a tidal wave. Desperately, Fox Mulder bathed her face. He watched the woman he loved as his life struggling in a battle he could not help. He didn't care about the child, he only wanted her to stop hurting. It was going too fast, he thought. The child was coming too fast. No, he thought a moment later, it's too slow. He wished it were over, he prayed hopelessly for some relief for her. The spasm passed, leaving her wracked and limp. He took the opportunity to check her, carefully, sliding his hand into her to check her dilation. She was as wide as his fist, a good ten centimeters, he guessed. Maybe it will be soon. Please, let it be soon. It was. Dana arched her back and screeched like a fire engine, then panted like a horse. Her legs were thrown wide; looking down, Fox Mulder saw the huge bulge of her move, then saw the bulge between her thighs. "My God, it's coming!" he yelled. "Dana, it's crowning!" She didn't hear him, so he grabbed her hand and put it on the bulge of her perineum just before it receded. She opened her eyes. "F-Fox?" "Yes," he said exultantly. "This is it! Come on, baby, sit up. I'll hold you." As carefully as he could, he pulled her up. She knelt and locked her fingers around the back of his neck, slumping against him, panting. "Breathe, baby," he said, stroking her back. "Breathe with me." She grunted something he didn't hear, and then he felt her arms tighten. "Oh, God," she cried, and bit his shoulder till the blood ran. He never felt it. He felt the convulsion that ran through her; under his hands, he felt her belly shift and pull, felt the wrench that went through her. He reached lower and felt the bulge against his hand. "Push!" She pushed, making a noise he had never heard a human being make. "Push!" He felt something warm and slippery against his hand, for a moment. It retreated. "Once more, baby," he murmured into her ear. They were slippery with sweat, but she clung to him. "I can't," she sobbed. "Oh, God!" "You can!" he said strongly. "One more push, Dana. One more, I promise." The next contraction took her like a red tide. She rose up halfway to her feet with the force of it. She threw back her head and howled. Against his hand, Fox Mulder felt her flesh part, and suddenly his hands were full of his daughter's slippery, squalling body. Dana slumped sideways to the floor as she felt the baby leave her. Dimly, she was aware of Fox calling her name, but she could not respond. She felt him turning her over gently, cradling her head against him with one hand. Then something warm and wiggly and heavy was placed on her chest and she opened her eyes. The baby's head was soft and slightly lopsided, but her eyelashes along the tiny cheek were Fox Mulder's. The hair was matted against the head, but to her eyes it looked like it might possibly be the same fiery shade as her own. And the tiny, perfect hands clutched against the chin pulled at her heart. She looked up at Fox, tears streaming down his face, washing his smile. "She's beautiful," he whispered. "As beautiful as you are." The tiny mouth moved at her breast, and she gently led it to a nipple. It fastened painfully on to her, but she didn't move. Fox Mulder's hand covered hers where it rested on the baby's head. Fox looked down at Dana and his child with bottomless wonder. He had done this. His body and hers, reaching together for the pleasure that was between them, had brought this life into being. He felt a deep, deep peace descend on him, a peace that was tied with blood and tears to these two lives. And then he heard the chimes. It had been so many months since they had heard the tinkling, mocking sounds that at first they didn't recognize them. But when he did, Fox's reaction was explosive. "No!" he screamed with every atom of his being, and flung himself across the woman and her child. But it was already too late. Fox Mulder woke with the grate of gravel under his face, the feel of cold rain on the back of his neck. Carefully, he stood up and leaned against the car. Had he tripped? His head ached unmercifully; he must have fallen while he was getting out of the car. His shoulder hurt like hell. He pulled the heavy topcoat aside and looked at it; a bloody stain spread from his right shoulder. "What the hell?" he exclaimed. Had he been shot? "Scully!" He dashed around the car. The passenger side door was standing open, but at first he couldn't see his partner. Then his eyes dropped and he saw her lying prostrate, face upturned to the rain. His heart nearly stopped when he saw the pallor of her skin. "Scully?" He knelt beside her, taking her pulse. He heard a car pull up behind him but ignored it, feeling for the river of life that beat in her throat. "Hey, Mulder, what's--Hey, Frank, get over here! Mulder, is she dead? What happened?" Joe Sharp's big hands were loosening Scully's blouse, his voice was sharp and commanding. Mulder had found her pulse, but it was weak and pounding. "Get an ambulance," he rasped from a dry throat. "I don't know what happened." "What do you mean...ah, hell. Joe, call for a medical evacuation stat. And get Wallace." Then Mulder looked down, below Scully's skirt, and saw the blood pooled under her knees. They took her to Mercy General and put her in intensive care. After an eternity, a young intern came out to where Mulder leaned shaking and exhausted against a wall. "Are you Mr. Mulder?" He sprang upright from the wall. "Yes. How...how is she?" "She'll be all right, Mr. Mulder," he said slowly. "But I don't understand why you waited so long. She should have been in recovery, were you taking her home so soon?" Bewildered, Mulder shook his head. Behind him, Wallace and Sharp stood up. "Doctor, what are you talking about? Agent Scully was on a stakeout," said Wallace's heavy voice. "A stakeout? In labor?" Now the doctor sounded bewildered. "Labor?" Three shocked male voices rang out together. The doctor looked stern. "Ms. Scully gave birth not more than two hours ago. I delivered the placenta myself immediately after she arrived. It appears to have been a normal parturition, but I have to ask you gentlemen--where is the child?" "Child?" Mulder was staggered. Wallace protested. "What kind of a hospital is this? Doctor, you have her mixed up with someone else. I saw Dana Scully this morning, and she was fine. Are you telling me she's had a miscarriage?" "From the size and weight of the placenta and the size of the uterus, I'd say she delivered a full term fetus. She has stretch marks." Their voices went on and on, echoing in Mulder's head, but he didn't pay any attention. Something nagged at him, like an itch on his brain that he couldn't scratch. Something about a tiny face with red hair and dark eyelashes, and a sense of peace that was slipping, slipping away. And something, something about Dana that hurt to think about. But he couldn't remember. And his head hurt. "Jesus." Mulder's knees went out from under him and his head ached terribly. "Doc, this is crazy," Wallace towered over the beleaguered intern. "Dana Scully was not visibly pregnant at seven o'clock this morning when I saw her last. Is this some kind of weird joke?" A passing orderly bumped his cart against the wall. An empty test tube fell off and smashed against the floor with a faint tinkle. Mulder leaped to his feet and spun around, eyes wide and hunted. "What the hell? Calm down, Mulder. We'll get to the bottom of this." A hand came down on his wounded shoulder and he winced. "What's wrong with--Jesus, Mulder, you're bleeding! Doc, take a look at him." Unresisting, Mulder let the doctor strip him of coat and shirt. "This man's been bitten," he said immediately. "This looks like a human bite. Have you been fighting?" Bewildered, Mulder shook his head. "Fighting?" "You should have gotten this looked at right away," said the doctor sternly. "Bites can become infected very quickly. You won't need stitches, but I'm going to put you on antibiotics." Wallace stepped closer. "A bite? Mulder, what's going on here? Who bit you?" He shrugged and then winced. "I don't know." Wallace gave him a hard look. "Bullshit, Mulder. Nobody gets bitten in the shoulder without knowing it. And how the hell can Scully be--" He stopped for a long moment, then said with quiet menace, "Did Dana bite you? Did you attack her?" Mulder's jaw dropped, mirroring the shock in Sharp's face. "My God, Wallace! Are you accusing me of --?" Wallace's look measured him. "I don't know, Mulder. All I know is that when Franklin and Sharp go to relieve you they find you crouched over the bleeding body of Agent Scully with no explanation for her condition--" He waved at Mulder's bandaged shoulder. "Or yours, for that matter. And you say you don't know what happened." "I don't! I'm as confused as you are!" Wallace stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Look, Mulder, I didn't want you on this stakeout to start with. You're a nut case, and I think you've gone over the edge. For all I know, you've sold out to Borger and--" "I haven't--" "Shut up, Mulder. I've had enough of you. So help me, God, if you've done anything to Scully, I'll have your hide for a dishrag!" The two men glowered at one another for a minute, then Mulder passed a hand over his face and sat down. "Go to hell, Wallace," he said wearily. "I never laid a hand on her." At the back of his mind, a warning sounded, some echo of anger and fear and shame that he couldn't quite place, connected with Dana, but he ignored it. "When she wakes up, talk to her. She'll clear me. I can't believe you think I could do something so--" Wallace made a disgusted sound and walked out, followed by Sharp. Mulder slowly put his shirt and tie back on and sat down to wait. "Agent Mulder, you can see her now. She's still asleep, but the nurses have finished with her." Mulder shook himself and ran a hand through his unruly hair. His jaw itched and he wished he could shave, and then stopped short at the unfamiliarity of the thought. But why should it be unfamiliar? His head was beginning to hurt again, but he ignored it and followed the nurse to the recovery ward. Dana lay very still and pale. It was true, he thought. Her abdomen was distended under the green sheet. His hands shook as he picked up the chart at the end of her bed. He knew enough medical terminology to understand it: Dana Scully had given birth to a full term infant sometime in the last twelve hours. "How?" he whispered. "I was with you all day, since six o'clock this morning?" It was impossible. But he remembered the pool of blood under her when the paramedics raised her into the ambulance. And somewhere in the back of his pounding head was a memory of her screaming, crushing his hands, a brief glimpse of a great, heaving belly. Sweat broke out on him. "Mulder?" It was almost a whisper. He stepped to the head of the bed. Her hair was matted and dark, but it still held a coppery glint to it. He resisted the urge smooth it away, but he picked up her hand. "I'm here," he said. "You're in a hospital." "What happened? I feel--ow!" "No, don't try to sit up." Her face went even whiter. "What's wrong? I feel-- Have I been...raped?" "No!" Mulder shook his head. "Maybe I better call the doctor--" "Mulder, what happened?" He looked down into her blue eyes and felt a sudden rush of tenderness. "I...they say...here, read this." He thrust the medical chart into her hands. She scanned it quickly and looked up at him in stunned disbelief. "Is this a joke?" He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know." He quickly explained what he had found on waking up beside their car. "Wallace seems to think I had something to do with it." Knowing he had never touched her, Mulder could not account for the sudden feeling of shame when he said that. He knew he hadn't hurt Dana, so why did he feel guilty? Talk about free floating angst. "This says I had a baby, Mulder. I can't have! I'm not pregnant, I mean I haven't even--" She stopped, confused. He blushed slightly. "You don't have to tell me, but...I mean, maybe it was a miscarriage or something." Dana flushed, which almost brought her pale face back to a normal color. "No, of course not. In fact, I had my annual pelvic two weeks ago. My gynecologist can vouch for me. Mulder, for God's sake, I'd know if I was pregnant!" He felt distinctly uncomfortable discussing such intimate matters with her, and dropped her hand. "Well..." he said inanely. "Mulder, I'm a doctor, for God's sake. And I don't believe in immaculate conceptions, so this is just some kind of...of..." She trailed off and closed her eyes. "I'm tired. This is a nightmare I'm going to wake up from." He patted her hand. "Get some sleep. I'll be here." "No, go home," she said. "You were up all day while I catnapped in the car. Don't you have to be at the stakeout tomorrow?" "I'll come in and sit with you," he said. For some reason, it was very important that he stay by her. The curtain rings on the privacy curtain jingled suddenly as the nurse swept them back, carrying a thermometer. She started when she saw the two of them jump as though they'd been shot. Mulder's arm shot out to protect Dana before he knew what he was doing. "Time for your temperature," said the nurse, looking sideways at Mulder. He looked at his arm as though it belonged to someone else, and then drew it back. Why had he done that? And why was his heart pounding? And why was there a feeling of unshed tears at the back of his throat? Three unsettling pieces of news greeted Mulder when he got to the hospital next morning after a virtually sleepless night. Dana Scully's gynecologist, a man of thirty years' experience, confirmed firmly and with no equivocation that his patient had not been pregnant two weeks ago, and could not possibly have been carrying a full or near full term fetus. The bite marks on his shoulder fitted Dana's teeth. And the DNA match tests on the placenta the doctor had recovered from Dana matched Mulder's blood type. The Bureau read him his rights, and for the next few hours, they grilled Mulder unmercifully. They only let up when Dana Scully noisily protested that he had never laid a hand on her. They subjected him and Dana Scully to every medical test known to the profession. And after three weeks, they had no answer. Mulder had not seen Dana since he said good-bye to her in the hospital. They had not allowed him to contact her in the hospital, despite his loud demands. Afterwards, her telephone and front door went unanswered, and no one at the Bureau would answer his questions. "Where is she?" he asked Wallace. The big man looked levelly at him. "She's gone away for a few days." "Where?" "That's on a need-to-know basis only, Mulder. And you don't need to know." "The hell I don't! I--" Wallace lunged out of his chair and leaned forward over his desk, fists balled on the table top. "Fox Mulder, get out of my office and don't come back. I don't know what you did to Scully, or why she's protecting you, but something fishy is going on here and I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. You're off the Borger case. Go back to your damned UFOs and leave the rest of us to do some real work. And stay the hell away from Dana Scully." Mulder sat very still. "Is that what she wants?" Wallace sat down heavily and snorted. "Yes. She doesn't want to see you. Get lost." Mulder walked straight out of his office and out of the building. Across the street, he sat down on a park bench and took a deep breath, trying to still the pain in his soul and in his head. The park was in the middle of a craft fair. Up and down the sidewalk, people strolled hand in hand from one vendor to another, admiring the gewgaws for sale in the warm sunshine. But for Mulder it was a cold day, indeed. A woman sat down on the other end of his bench, maneuvering a stroller so that the cover shaded the sleeping infant within. Involuntarily, Mulder glanced over at it and froze. That cheek, those tiny fists, the sleeping, rosy mouth....An infinite sense of loss swept over him without warning, and he was astonished to find himself suddenly weeping. "Are you all right?" the woman asked suspiciously. "Should I call somebody?" "No, no." He rose quickly, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. "Your baby just...reminded me of...something. Of someone. I think." She looked at him with distrust as he walked away. What on earth was wrong with him? he wondered. One look at a stranger's child and he was awash in tears. His head was aching fiercely--maybe he was developing a brain tumor, he thought wildly. His mood swings, especially when he tried to think about Dana, were unexplainable. For the first time in his life, Fox Mulder began to doubt his sanity. He was pulled by tides that came and went with no explanation, ambushed by his emotions at the most unexpected times. As if to prove the point, he rounded the corner of the path to a new sales area. Before him was a booth hung with glass and wood and metal wind chimes. Even as he approached, a breeze swept them all into a musical jangle. His reaction was incendiary: before he could stop himself he screamed and threw himself off the sidewalk, rolling until he came to a stop against a tree, hunched and shivering. Several people came running over but, seeing the overcoat and the shivering man, backed away shaking their heads at yet another homeless nut case trashing up the park. Slowly, Mulder relaxed from the protective bundle he had made of himself. His heart, racing at ninety miles an hour, slowed to something like normal. And he remembered. Dana Scully returned from her mother's house in Baltimore somewhat calmer, determined to put this whole bizarre incident behind her. She had concluded that, doctor's opinions to the contrary, she had possibly had an undiagnosed case of endometriosis or even unterine polyps-- certainly not an unsuspected pregnancy! She had no explanation for, and refused to speculate about, the puzzling DNA match. Sheer incompetence, she told herself. In any case, she was bound to ignore it and take up her life again. But she kept taking the sleeping pills. She had asked for them because her nights were filled with dreams that disturbed her: dreams of a room that grew and shrank, terrifying dreams of falling free through space, dreams of pain and shame, and surprisingly vivid dreams of Fox Mulder. Mounting the steps to her townhouse, she saw something in her entryway. She unlocked the security gate and bent down to pick it up. It was a brown package, addressed to her in Fox Mulder's handwriting. A note was attached to the outside. Upstairs, she read it: Do you remember this? FM It was a set of cheap glass wind chimes. Perplexed, she sat and stared at it in her lap for several seconds. What was she supposed to remember? She turned the card over in her hand several times, but there was no more to the message. She shrugged and picked up the red hanging cord. And found herself huddled, drenched in sweat, in the opposite corner of the room. The sweet tinkle of the chimes had sent her there in a blind terror, fleeing from the sound as if her life depended on it. Why? she thought with deep confusion. What was going on? And then she remembered. Dana's phone rang hours later. She slowly unbent, stifling a groan at her tortured muscles stiff from hours spent huddled on her couch, refusing to go near the wind chimes sprawled on the floor of her living room. "Dana?" Mulder's voice was soft and hesitant in her ear. "I didn't know when you'd get back." Her heart leaped at the sound of his voice. "I...I just got back." "Did...did you get my package?" "Yes." There was a long silence at both ends, while a million unsaid questions went back and forth. "Would you like to talk about it?" he finally asked. "Yes," she whispered. She cleared her throat; it felt tight. "Yes, I would like that very much." He arrived only half an hour later, which meant he had come from the office, not his apartment, she thought. She had spent the time fighting the impulse to call him back, to tell him not to come. She didn't understand. Had she hallucinated? Had they really been abducted by aliens? Had she...had they...? When the doorbell rang, she jumped. She nearly didn't answer it, but finally took a deep breath and opened the door. Mulder stood on the doorstep looking at her with new eyes. "Dana," he said softly. And then it all came back to her, the love, the passion, the tenderness for him, and he saw it come back to her. He stepped forward and caught her in his arms as she collapsed toward him, crying his name. He carried her into the living room and sat down in the first chair that came to hand, gathering her into his lap and holding her for a long time. He remembered exactly the weight and feel of her in his lap, the way her head fitted under his chin, the smell of her hair. It was as though he had rediscovered something that he had forgotten, something very important. "They did something to us," he said after a while. "They tried to make us forget. They nearly suceeded." "Oh, Fox!" she said in a lost voice. "The baby! My God, they took the baby!" He nodded, feeling the tears on his own face, the immense grief and anger in him. "I know. That's probably the only reason they took us." For the life of him, he couldn't imagine why the aliens had returned him and Scully, instead of just killing them or keeping them to breed more babies. His anger was a white heat in him. Her arms went around his neck and he hugged her closer, remembering their love, remembering their child. "I'm glad I have you back again," she said. "I didn't know I'd lost you, but when I remembered, oh, God, Fox. I love you." "I love you," he whispered fiercely. "I will never forget it again. And I will remind you of it every day for the rest of our lives." She nodded, sadness in her eyes. "What do we do? How do we explain what happened?" His face was very serious. "I've been thinking about it. I don't think we can ever convince Wallace or anyone else in the Bureau about what happened. We can try to open an X-file on it, but I frankly don't think anyone would believe it. They'd probably have me up on charges. They'd love the excuse." "And what about....us?" He rubbed his chin along the top of her head. "I said it before, Dana. I love you. I want to marry you, if you'll have me." "I feel like an old married lady anyway," she said. "I may as well make an honest man out of you." She turned her tear-streaked face up to him and he kissed her, warm and deep. It was a renewal, a promise, a pledge for the future. Mulder looked down into her face solemnly. "We'll get her back," he murmured. "If it takes us the rest of our lives, we'll get our baby back." "Yes," she said, running her hand down the clean-shaven chin, so unfamiliar and yet so well-known. "We'll get her back someday." THE END 22,798 words -------------------------------------------------- There you have it. Please feel free to respond with comments, at whatever level of criticism you feel comfortable with. Don't worry about hurting my feelings; I have a tough hide. Please responde directly to sfsfs@fail.com. Thank you. I hope you enjoy it. **************************************************************** Sarah Stegall |"We all know what's out there!" sfsfs@fail.com |--Agent Fox Mulder, The X-Files DDEB, Ecolog, YSN|--"Fallen Angel" **************************************************************** =========================================================================== NOTE FROM THE ARCHIVIST: Sarah Stegall's current email address is munchkyn@netcom.com ===========================================================================