The Prelude Series - The Collector's Edition
By 
Helen Wills
(Helen@wills2.demon.co.uk)

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     Contains:
         Prelude to an X
         Prelude II: Toomed
         Prelude III: Flying Saucers
         Prelude IV: Here's the Season ....
         Prelude V: Dark Forest
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SPOILERS: The Pilot/Squeeze/Tooms/Fallen Angel/Deep Throat/Jersey Devil/Lazarus/Beyond The Sea/Duane Barry/Darkness Falls
OVERALL RATING: R
CONTENT WARNING: Alternate Universe/MSR
CLASSIFICATION: S,X,R 
SUMMARIES: Part I - Mulder's a freelance journalist and Scully's just been assigned an "X" file to work on, when they
meet. Part II - Scully's asked to officially take over the X Files Division, and her first case involves a man with ten
inch fingers ....  Part III - Mulder and Scully investigate a few aliens and meet a few contacts.  Part IV - Mulder and
Sam finally get introduced to the Scully family.  Part V - A nice trip to the forest goes hideously wrong.

DISCLAIMER: "The X Files" and all the characters etc. associated with it are the property of 20th Century Fox and 1013
Productions.  I am not making any profit from this story, and no infringement is intended.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I could not have written the Prelude Series without the enormous help, encouragement and assistance of
Gerry Hill, who patiently proof-read and commented on them throughout the writing and editing process.  Suggestions and
encouragement were also given by Danielle Culverson; and Part 4 in particular owes its accuracy to Cheryl, who advised me
on all things Jewish.  Many thanks to these three ladies.  

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PART I
PRELUDE TO AN X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

   Special Agent Dana Scully unfastened her seat belt, and took 
a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.  She *hated* flying, 
but once she'd been promoted to Field Agent status, it had 
become an almost daily necessity.  She would have to get used to 
it.

   She opened her briefcase with fingers that shook just the 
tiniest bit, and pulled out the case file.  Nerves were no 
excuse for wasting valuable investigation time, and Assistant 
Director Skinner had barely given her time to snatch her 
overnight bag before throwing her onto the plane to Oregon.  She 
needed to catch up on the case she would be investigating. She 
flipped open the file and began to sort through the assembled 
papers.  Three kids at Bellefleur High School had died in 
mysterious circumstances after a graduation party in the local 
woods some four years ago.  The FBI had been called in, but 
after several weeks of fruitless effort, had returned to 
Washington claiming a lack of evidence.  Two years later, two 
more kids from the same year group had died under similar 
circumstances, and once again the FBI investigated, only for the 
agents concerned to be recalled.  Now a sixth kid had died, and 
Scully was taking on the case.

   *Third time's the charm,* she thought dryly, well aware that 
she was being despatched in the main because she was new to the 
Violent Crimes Section.  Pacify the locals with an FBI presence, 
and hope she either solves the case or the whole thing dies down 
again.  She wondered how it would look on her record if she 
failed.  Or maybe she, like the last set of agents, would be 
recalled before any conclusions could be drawn.

   She examined the autopsy reports and was interested to note 
that while the first five victims had no apparent cause of 
death, the latest had thrown up a few anomalies.  Scully checked 
the names of the medical examiners and discovered that the 
latest victim had been autopsied by a different pathologist.  

   Well, that was a good starting point.  Maybe something had 
been missed in the previous exams; in which case, it was 
fortunate that she'd had the foresight to request exhumation 
orders on two of the previous bodies.  In addition, two more 
kids from the same year were currently residing in the 
psychiatric ward of Bellefleur's hospital; one, a girl, was 
periodically released, only to be re-admitted with severe mental 
disturbance, while the other, a boy, had been in a persistent 
vegetative state since the night of the graduation party.  
Scully made a note to check on them too, and see if it was 
possible to talk to the girl; if her mental condition went back 
to the party too, she might be able to shed some sort of light 
on events.

   Deep in her thoughts, Scully was unaware of the man in the 
next row, two seats back, who was watching her with shrewd-eyed 
interest.

XXXX

   *This investigation,* Scully thought, *is going to be even 
less of a party than I originally thought.*

   Arriving in Bellefleur, she got herself a motel room and a 
rental car and headed straight to the local coroner's office to 
see what was happening about the exhumations - only to discover 
that one had been cancelled, thanks to the family getting a 
court order.  The second, that of a boy called Ray Soames, was 
still okay to go ahead, although the Coroner himself didn't seem 
terribly happy about it.  They drove out to the cemetery, only 
to be met by an angry delegation of townspeople, headed by the 
County Medical Examiner who was indignant at the suggestion that 
he might have been remiss when conducting the previous 
autopsies.

   Scully, watching the digger slowly emptying out the grave, 
closed her eyes briefly.  After a short and rather snappy 
exchange between herself and Dr. Nemman, he had been persuaded 
to leave by his young daughter - who, Scully had been interested 
to note, appeared to be one of the same year group as the 
victims - and after that, the rest of the crowd had been 
persuaded to break up by the sheriff.  But there was no 
mistaking the animosity towards the agent that was hanging over 
the entire town.

   Almost as if they didn't *want* to know what had happened to 
their kids.

   Scully flipped open her file again, trying to pass the time, 
and ran over one part of the saga which was particularly curious 
in light of the townspeople's behaviour.  After the first three 
deaths, one of the year-group, a boy called Danny Doty, had 
handed himself in to the police and confessed to the killings.  
He was found to be severely psychotic and immediately locked up 
in the psychiatric wing of the state prison, and the case was 
apparently closed despite the fact that he had been unable to 
explain how his supposed victims had died.  And for some reason, 
no one had questioned this, even when two more kids had died 
while he was locked away.  This latest murder - of a girl named 
Karen Swenson - underlined the peculiar attitude of the 
townspeople, given that Danny Doty had hung himself in his cell 
six months ago.

   Scully was abruptly dragged out of her reverie by a sharp 
creaking and tearing sound.  The workmen had just begun to lift 
the coffin out of the grave with a hoist, but one of the straps 
holding it was fraying, and as Scully watched, it was strained 
too far ... and snapped.

   The coffin, violently released from its bonds, burst loose 
and crashed down the bank for several metres before it was 
brought up sharply against the headstone of another grave.  
Scully, the sheriff and the coroner all rushed after it.  
Already tilting at an odd angle, the shock of the final blow 
burst open the coffin's lid and exposed it's contents to the 
three onlookers who were just slithering to a halt beside it.

   The smell from the corpse was appalling, but that was not 
what brought three simultaneous gasps from Scully and the 
others.

   Scully hoped to God that this was just someone's idea of a 
sick joke, because if what was in that coffin was the late Ray 
Soames, then something utterly beyond her experience had 
happened to him either just before or after death.  The body was 
wizened and shrivelled, the skull abnormally large and shaped, 
the feet and hands huge and malformed.  Ray Soames's records 
stated that he had been well over six feet tall and athletic, 
the picture of health just before his graduation.

   "Sweet Jesus!" the coroner muttered, covering his nose with 
his sleeve and trying not to turn away in disgust.

   Scully pulled herself together quickly and indicated to the 
shocked sheriff that he should help her try and replace the lid 
of the coffin.  It was just starting to rain.  "Mr. Truit," she 
said firmly to the coroner, "I want this sealed up - I don't 
want anyone touching the coffin or it's contents until I've 
performed the autopsy on it."

   The coroner was together enough to realise the significance 
of this statement.  "An autopsy - you?  But Dr. Nemman - "

   "This is an FBI matter now," Scully cut him off.  "I'm a 
qualified pathologist, and I'll be performing any examinations 
necessary to this case."

   Her sharp statement was appreciated by only one person; a 
tall, lanky, dark-haired man with sharp eyes who was watching 
and photographing the entire affair from behind some trees a 
short distance away.

   The same man who had watched Agent Scully on the plane to 
Oregon.

XXXX

   Up close, the corpse was even more disturbing than during the 
brief encounter in the cemetery, and Scully only got herself 
through the autopsy by virtue of sheer grit and professionalism. 
 Examining it, she was more than ever convinced that someone had 
switched the bodies - for what purpose, she couldn't imagine - 
but while her mouth was saying calm, reasoned, scientific things 
into the recorder, her brain was in a whirl.

   "Subject is one hundred and fifty-six centimetres long, and 
weighs fifty-two pounds.  It is in an advanced state of 
decomposition, consistent with the length of time it has been 
interred; and it has large ocular cavities and an oblate 
cranium, which indicate that the corpse is almost certainly not 
human.  My guess is that it's the corpse of an ape of some kind, 
possibly a orang-utan."

   Scully switched off the recorder and surveyed the body 
uneasily, before glancing up at a set of x-rays she had taken 
before starting the post-mortem.  Whatever it was, she still 
needed to open the body up, unpleasant though that necessity 
was, for the x-ray had revealed two unidentified objects buried 
in the tissues - one embedded in the nasal cavity, and one, 
slightly smaller, at the base of the neck.  The one in the nose 
at least looked too big to be buckshot, and was worth 
investigating.

   She said as much into the recorder, and set about the grisly 
task.

   Several hours later, and very much tireder, Scully had 
completed her preliminary examination and prepared the body for 
shipping back to the FBI laboratories for further tests.  The 
locals being singularly reluctant to help her, she had done all 
the prepping, examination and clean-up herself, and was now 
heading back to her motel, x-rays, recorded observations and 
other bits and pieces stashed in her briefcase for examination 
later.  Tomorrow, the tiresome round of questioning would have 
to begin, and Scully was under no illusions about how difficult 
it was going to prove to be.

   Right now, she didn't care.  She wanted a bath and something 
to eat - always supposing she could swallow anything after 
*that* autopsy - and some sleep, if her imagination would let 
her.  But the day had one further trial in store for her.

   Halfway to the motel, as she was driving through down a road 
surrounded by thick woodland, the car abruptly gave up the ghost 
and died on her.

   Scully wanted to weep.  *Goddamn rental cars!*  Instead, she 
took a deep breath and twisted the key in the ignition.  The 
engine turned over wheezily a couple of times, coughed, 
spluttered, and gave up again.

   Muttering a few choice phrases learned from her Naval Captain 
father, Scully secured the handbrake, pulled the hood-release, 
and climbed out.  She didn't know much about the innermost 
workings of automobiles, but taking a peek was better than 
sitting around waiting for inspiration.  There was no ominous 
steam or smoke escaping, at least, but that reduced her ideas of 
what was wrong to nil.  

   Scully sighed and went back to get her cell-phone out of her 
bag, but as she was doing so, another sleek silver-grey Taurus 
passed her and pulled up a few metres ahead.  A tall, rather 
lanky dark-haired man, dressed in weathered jeans and a dark 
turtleneck sweater, got out and smiled at her.

   "Broken down?" he asked, surveying the insides of the engine. 
 His voice was pleasant, sort of silk-on-sandpaper.

   "I don't know.  It just died on me," Scully admitted.  "Do 
you know anything about Tauruses?"

   "Not much.  Any strange noises before it gave up?"  

   "No, none - it just slid to a halt."

   He nodded thoughtfully, leaning on the edge of the hood, then 
glanced up at her, an odd smile on his face.  "You're the FBI 
agent, aren't you?  Here to investigate Karen Swenson's death?"

   Scully eyed him warily.  "Yes - how did you know?"

   He shrugged.  "Pretty obvious.  Guess this isn't a good end 
to the day for you."

   "That's an understatement," she sighed, thinking of the 
autopsy.

   Warm hazel eyes surveyed her thoughtfully, before turning 
back to the engine.  "Well, the only thing I can think of is 
that the battery's gone.  One sure-fire way to find out - "  He 
walked around the driver's seat, leaned in and switched on 
the radio.  

   The high-pitched, varying whistle that suddenly blasted out 
made them both jump and wince, and Scully grimaced.  "Looks like 
it's not the battery either," she commented, but the man wasn't 
listening to her.

   He was staring at the radio with a sudden look of fierce, 
concentrated thought.  Abruptly, he abandoned her car and jogged 
back to his own.  To Scully's bewilderment, he switched his own 
radio on, and she could hear the same nerve-crawling, high-
pitched squeal coming from it.  He went to stand between the two 
cars, staring around, lost in thought.

   "What are you looking for?" Scully asked finally.

   The sound of her voice jerked him back to reality with a 
start.  He stared at her for a few seconds, then gave her an 
oddly sweet smile.  "Probably nothing," he admitted, "but all 
the same - "  He went back to his car, and rummaged through the 
trunk until he came out with a large can of spray-paint.

   To Scully's increasing perplexity, he found a spot precisely 
between the two parked vehicles and sprayed the tarmac with a 
large orange X.  He looked up, caught sight of her open-mouthed 
expression and grinned almost mischievously.  "Well, you never 
know," he explained.

   "Never know *what*?" she demanded.

   "If I knew, I'd tell you," he assured her.

   *Oh, great!* she thought wearily.  *He's some kind of nut 
after all.  And he seemed like such a nice guy - *  Proof, if 
she had ever needed it, that you should never judge people by 
appearances.

   She watched him stash his can of paint back in the trunk of 
the car, and viewed his return with some trepidation.  He seemed 
to read her expression, because a look of mingled resignation 
and sadness crossed his otherwise smooth features.  

   "I'm not crazy," he told her, but his tone said he didn't 
expect to be believed.  Scully kept a neutral expression, and he 
sighed.  "Look, can I give you a lift back to your motel?  I 
promise you I'm not going to turn into a rapist or mad axe-man 
on the way."

   Scully closed her eyes.  She was very tired, and wanted to 
put today behind her; tomorrow was going to be bad enough as it 
was.  "I don't even know who you are," she said finally - and 
hoped her voice didn't sound as feeble to him as it did in her 
own ears.

   He looked more than a little relieved, and offered his hand.  
"Fox Mulder," he said.  "I'm a journalist - well, part-time.  I 
teach as well."

   Scully took his hand after a moment.  It was warm and the 
grip reassuringly firm, like her father's.  "Dana Scully," she 
replied.  

   He smiled tentatively.  "Grab your stuff, Agent Scully."

XXXX

   The first few minutes of the journey were stiff and 
uncomfortable.  Finally, Scully decided she couldn't stand it 
any longer, and broke the silence.

   "So ... what paper do you work for?"

   "Huh?"  He shot her a startled look.

   "You said you were a journalist."

   "Oh yeah.  No, I'm freelance.  I work for a couple of 
specialist magazines, generally, but mostly I teach."

   "Oh.  Here in Oregon?"

   He half-smiled.  "No, Georgetown University, actually.  I 
teach psychology and - related subjects."

   Scully blinked.  *Georgetown?*  "So what brings you out 
here?"

   "The same thing as you - Karen Swenson and the other high-
school kids."  He flashed her a quick grin.  "My turn, Agent 
Scully.  Can I buy you dinner?"

   Scully stiffened slightly.  Tired she might be; stupid she 
was not.  "Thanks, but no.  I've got a lot of work to be getting 
on with."

   He seemed to accept the rebuff philosophically, pulling into 
the motel car park.  "As you wish.  The offer'll still be open 
if you change your mind."

   Scully accorded this a perfunctory smile, supposing that as a 
journalist he had to try and pump her for information.  She 
grabbed her stuff and got out of the car.  "Thanks for the lift, 
Mr. Mulder."

   "Mulder," he corrected her.  She raised a brow, and he gave 
her an embarrassed smile and shrug.  "Just - Mulder.  Really."

   She accepted this with a bemused look and set off toward her 
room, trying not to think about the orange X in the road.

   "Don't work too hard," he called after her.

XXXX

   After a leisurely bath and quick snack, Scully went back to 
her x-rays and recording of the autopsy; by 1.00AM she had begun 
the first draft of her report, and was beginning - finally - to 
sag from exhaustion.

   The last couple of sentences on the screen of her laptop 
computer were mocking her, though.

   ".... X-rays confirm that the corpse is that of a mammal, but 
they do not explain the presence of two small implants found in 
the nasal cavity and at the base of the neck.  Both are grey and 
metallic; the one in the nasal cavity is approximately one 
centimetre long, the other approximately two millimetres long.  
They are as yet unidentified ...."

   She picked up a small glass vial containing the two pieces of 
metal and stared at them thoughtfully.  The one she'd found in 
the nose was particularly odd, about the size of a small plug 
fuse with rounded ends.  The other one could easily be mistaken 
for buckshot, but *this* one was smooth and polished and looked 
manufactured.  As though it had been put there for a purpose.

   Which was ridiculous.

   Abruptly, Scully decided she'd had enough and began to tidy 
up the scattered x-rays, photos and assorted sheets of paper 
around her.  A good night's sleep was what she needed; she was 
tired and her mind was starting to conjure up fantasies.

   But at the last minute, she paused in the act of shutting 
down her laptop.  There was one last thing she could clear up 
tonight ....  She found the telephone socket, jacked in her 
modem and called up her e-mail programme, sending a quick 
message to a colleague at the Bureau.

   Just for her peace of mind, she could find out just who Fox 
Mulder was.

XXXX

   The morning saw Scully driving out to the hospital in the 
hopes of seeing Billy Miles and Peggy O'Dell, the two kids 
receiving psychiatric care.  She took her time about it, telling 
herself that it was important to become familiar with the town's 
layout, but the truth was rather more basic; Scully hated mental 
illness.

   She wasn't afraid of it; nor did she have anything but the 
utmost compassion for it's sufferers.  But the helplessness, and 
the loss of both control and dignity suffered by the mentally 
ill was something she found difficult to tackle.  It was similar 
to at least some of the reasons for which she had specialised in 
pathology, much to her family's horror; totally aside from the 
fascination of persuading the dead to give up their secrets, 
Scully had discovered early on in her medical training that 
while healing the sick was a rewarding career, being *unable* to 
heal them was too traumatic.  She hated to see suffering she was 
unable to alleviate - hence her distress at mental illness.

   But the Bureau didn't pay her to be sentimental.  Six of 
these two kids' yearmates had died in suspicious circumstances, 
and she was here to find out what had happened.  They might be 
able to help her.

   Not that Billy Miles would be saying much, but his condition 
alone might be a pointer, and there was still Peggy O'Dell.

XXXX

   Fox Mulder stayed in his car, parked carefully out of sight a 
short way away from the hospital.  He watched Agent Scully park 
and walk up the to entrance with interest, but not much 
surprise.  He had seen all this before.

   He had been intrigued when he'd heard that the FBI was re-
opening the case, intrigued enough to poke his nose in again, 
for he had thought it had been permanently buried after the last 
investigation.  But when he'd followed the agent in question 
aboard the plane to Oregon, he'd begun to feel angry.

   Oh, not at her!  At the Bureau, for saddling a young, lone, 
obviously inexperienced Field Agent with a case which had 
managed to defeat several seasoned hands in the past and which 
would bring her few kudos even if she managed to solve it 
successfully.

   After observing her brisk, purposeful actions upon arrival in 
Bellefleur, and her skilful annihilation of both the County 
Medical Examiner and the Coroner, he revised his opinions 
significantly in her favour.  She might be young, she might be 
inexperienced, but she was gutsy - and if that was what she 
could manage after a tiring flight from DC (which, if he wasn't 
much mistaken, she hadn't enjoyed in the slightest), then God 
help the locals when she *really* geared up into investigative 
mode.

   And it got better still, for she had actually performed the 
autopsy on the late Ray Soames herself.  If it *was* Ray Soames. 
 Mulder paused, cracking a sunflower seed between his teeth 
pensively, and wished once more that he could have got a close 
look at the corpse.  He'd got a pretty good view through the 
telephoto lens, but it was no substitute for a close-up.  

   It was enough, though.  And she hadn't even flinched!  He 
thought of one or two FBI agents he'd known in the past, men 
who'd talked like Mafia hit-men and passed out colder than the 
corpses every time they had to attend an autopsy, and grinned.  
She'd coolly ordered the Coroner to seal up the coffin, and 
practically rolled up her sleeves and got the scalpels out there 
and then.

   He'd waited discreetly outside the police morgue until she'd 
finally reappeared, and was pleased he'd done so, for the 
breakdown had given him a prime opportunity to introduce 
himself.  He'd wondered briefly if she'd recognise his name - it 
was a ticklish moment, considering his reputation - but there 
had been nothing but weariness and relief at the offer of a 
lift.  

   It wouldn't last long, he thought ruefully.  If she was as 
smart as he thought she was, she'd have done a background check 
on him by now, and all the unfortunate details would be dredged 
up.  Which was a shame because, totally aside from getting the 
story, he'd rather hoped she might accept his help on this case. 
 She was going to need all the help she could get, if the 
investigation followed the pattern of the previous two.

   He cracked another sunflower seed and watched her mounting 
the hospital steps thoughtfully.

   She was a pretty woman, although like all female FBI agents 
she wore the almost-uniform of severely tailored suits that 
deliberately downplayed her femininity.  She was short, barely 
5' 2", with a pleasantly curved, rather delicate-looking figure. 
 Her softly rounded face was dominated by a pair of penetrating 
blue eyes and a head of magnificent red hair which she wore 
shoulder-length in a severely practical style.

   On the face of it, she was nothing particularly special, but 
there was something about her ....

   Mulder caught himself up sharply.  *Don't go down there,* he 
warned himself.  He had travelled that path only once before in 
his life, but it had rebounded upon him with extraordinary 
vengeance, and he wasn't sure he wanted to risk making a mistake 
like that again.

   *Help the nice lady agent out, then get back to your own life 
again,* he told himself sternly.  *She thinks you're a nut 
anyway - or if she doesn't, she soon will, and small blame to 
her.*

   He settled down to wait for her to come out of the hospital 
again.  He doubted she would be long.

XXXX

   Scully hoped that if she ever, through some terrible 
mischance, ended up like Billy Miles, someone would have the 
kindness to shoot her and have done with it.  Death had to be 
better than this.

   If she had just stumbled in off the street and knew nothing 
about him, first glance would suggest that there was nothing 
wrong with Billy.  He was propped up in bed, clean and neatly 
dressed, he was physically healthy and his eyes were open.  
There wasn't a drip, monitor or other piece of medical equipment 
in sight to suggest that there was anything wrong.  But the most 
Billy Miles did in a day was blink.  He was in a waking coma. 

   "Are there *no* prospects of him coming out of this?" Scully 
asked the man stood next to her, Dr. Glass.

   He shook his head, apparently unaffected by the sight.  That 
was something else Scully hoped would never happen to her.  A 
certain detachment was necessary in all branches of medicine, 
but the level necessary in Glass's area, the ability to view 
even Billy Miles as just another number on his roster, wasn't 
something she was comfortable with.

   "He hasn't responded to stimuli since the day he was brought 
in here, and it's unlikely he ever will," Glass told her.  "A 
terrible shame - he had a promising career ahead of him.  His 
family visit perhaps once a month now.  His most constant 
companion, as you can see, is Peggy O'Dell - when she's with 
us."

   Scully looked at the pale young woman in the wheelchair  by 
Billy's bed dubiously.  Peggy didn't show signs of being much 
more responsive than him at the moment.  "And she was diagnosed 
with post-adolescent schizophrenia shortly after the incident in 
at the graduation party?"

   Glass nodded.

   "According to notes taken by previous agents who investigated 
the incident, she wasn't the only one," she observed.

   "That's right," the doctor acknowledged.  "I've treated 
several of the class for schizophrenia since, although of course 
I can't go into individual cases with you."

   "On a general basis, though, what would you say caused it?" 
Scully persisted.

   Glass looked her straight in the eye.  "I honestly couldn't 
say, Agent Scully.  If I was forced to make a guess - a terrible 
shock of some kind, perhaps.  But you'll understand that that's 
a theory with no real basis.  Whatever caused it - whatever 
happened at that party - my job is to sort out the messed up 
heads of the kids.  The investigation is yours."

   Scully inclined her head in acknowledgement and looked at 
Peggy O'Dell again.  "Would it be possible to speak to her?  
Would asking her about what happened be a problem?"

   "Go ahead," he shrugged.  "I doubt you'll get much sense out 
of her at the moment, though.  She's going through another bad 
patch."

   Scully didn't honestly think she'd get much from Peggy 
either, but she had to try.  She followed Glass over to the 
girl's side, observing dubiously the almost instant tension 
their approach provoked in the thin figure.

   "Peggy, honey, this nice lady's come to talk to you and 
Billy," Glass was saying kindly.  "Are you going to say hello?"

   Peggy neither moved nor raised her head, but Scully could see 
her eyes moving restlessly.  "I'm reading to Billy," she said in 
low, nervous voice - and indeed, they could see that she held a 
book open in her lap.  "Billy *needs* me to read to him."

   "Why is that, Peggy?" Scully asked, striving to keep her 
voice level and gentle.  "Does he like you to read to him?"

   Peggy said nothing, but her fingers began to grip the book 
tightly in a white-knuckle grip.

   "You went to school with him, didn't you?" Scully persevered. 
 "Can you tell me about him?"

   Peggy shook her head sharply.

   "But you're friends, aren't you?"

   "Billy needs me," the girl said tensely.  "Billy knows I 
understand."

   Scully's brows drew together in a slight frown.  "Understand 
what, Peggy?"

   "The light."

   "And what light is that?"

   Glass shifted slightly, from one foot to the other.  "She 
often talks about lights, but - "

   "Billy and I have seen the light," Peggy interrupted him, 
"the light that came down out of the sky and ...."  Abruptly her 
voice erupted into a high-pitched scream, and she flailed out 
with her arms and legs.

   Scully and Dr. Glass hurried to try calm her, but before they 
could even move, the wheelchair was tipped over by the violence 
of the girl's actions.  Orderlies appeared out of nowhere, and 
Scully was gently pushed to one side as they swarmed to control 
Peggy before she could hurt herself.  Scully got one quick 
glimpse of the thrashing body on the floor before it vanished 
from sight - and saw something that made her eyes widen in 
surprise and sudden thought.

   In the small of Peggy O'Dell's back, revealed when the top of 
her pyjamas rode up, were two small but livid raised bumps.

XXXX

   Scully almost ran from out of the hospital, her mind in a 
feverish whirl of speculation.  She had left the original case 
file in her car - a replacement rental car she had got by a 
combination of threats and cajolery early that morning - but she 
badly wanted to get it out and re-examine all the previous scene-
of-crime photographs, to see if she really did remember seeing 
similar lumps on the backs of the other victims.

   "Did you see the bumps on her back?" a voice said suddenly, 
somewhere in the region of Scully's right ear.  It was so 
unexpected and she was so keyed up, that Scully jumped 
violently, dropping her keys and her bag in the process.  The 
owner of the voice leapt back hastily, raising his hands in 
apology at once.  "Hey, relax!"

   It was the journalist, Fox Mulder.  Scully leaned back 
against her car, taking a couple of deep calming breaths, while 
he picked up her things.  

   "Kind of nervous, aren't you?" he joked as he handed them 
back.  Then he saw her expression and, bizarrely, a slow flush 
began to work its way up from his neck.  "Look, I'm sorry," he 
said more quietly.  "I thought you saw me, or I wouldn't have 
done that."

   "What do you want?" Scully demanded, fumbling with her keys 
to unlock the car door.

   "I was wondering how you were getting on."

   "No comment!" she snapped icily, finally getting the door 
open, and was stunned to hear a wry chuckle from behind her.  
She turned to look at him, and found him giving her a very 
mocking look.

   "Oh, come on!" he said, seeing her expression.  "Don't give 
me that crap about being the press - I know you know about me."

   Scully stared at him blankly.  "What?"

   "You ran a check on me last night," Mulder reminded her.  
"You e-mailed Danny Vallodeio at the Bureau."

   Scully closed her eyes.  *God, I must be cracking up.*  She 
hadn't remembered to check her e-mail that morning.

   "Danny's an old friend of mine," Mulder was saying.  "He 
mailed me straight after.  You'd be amazed what you can do with 
a Psion - "

   "I didn't check my mail today," Scully interrupted, "so I 
don't know what you're talking about."

   There was a pause, and when she opened her eyes, he was 
regarding her thoughtfully and with some sympathy.  "Didn't 
sleep well, huh?"

   It seemed pointless to deny it.  "Not really," she muttered.

   "And you didn't eat last night or have breakfast this 
morning."

   Scully gave him an outraged glare.  "I suppose you know the 
colour of my underwear as well," she remarked sarcastically.

   "Nah, you pulled your drapes too tight," Mulder chuckled. 
"Come on, get your stuff.  I'm buying you breakfast."

   "I don't - " she began, but he cut her off.

   "I mean it, Agent Scully.  Since you didn't read your mail 
this morning, I think we need to have a serious talk."

XXXX

   In the end, they headed back to the motel.  When they got 
there, Scully made an excuse and stopped off at her motel room; 
and when she met up with Mulder in the restaurant twenty minutes 
later, her expression was grave and wary.

   "You read your mail."  It wasn't a question, and at her tight 
nod he sighed inwardly, even though he'd been expecting this 
reaction ever since he first spoke to her.  "Danny told me what 
he told you," he offered.  "We've been friends for a long time - 
we still talk sometimes, and when you started asking questions, 
he let me know.  I was surprised you hadn't already heard about 
me, to be honest."

   "He didn't tell me exactly why you were thrown out of the 
Bureau," Scully replied curtly.  "He said there was an internal 
investigation, though."

   "He didn't tell you because I wasn't thrown out: I resigned," 
Mulder replied.  There was a tense pause while the waitress took 
their orders.  When she was gone again, he looked at Scully, but 
she was avoiding his eyes.  "Danny couldn't tell you much 
anyway," he continued quietly.  "Most of the investigation was 
hushed up, and the details about my resignation are probably 
buried in my personnel file.  I wasn't forced to leave, though - 
I went voluntarily."

   "What difference does it make?" Scully demanded.

   "Actually, it makes a lot of difference.  But are you willing 
to listen?"

   There was a tense silence; then finally Scully sighed and 
nodded.  She leaned her forehead on one hand tiredly, and was 
surprised when Mulder shoved a packet of Advil towards her.  She 
looked up at him in and saw his faint smile.  

   "Most of the time I live on Advil and fresh air," he 
explained.

   "Thanks," she mumbled, and downed a couple of the pills dry.  
Fortunately, the waitress chose to return at that moment with 
their orders; the black coffee did wonders to make her feel 
better, as did two toasted teacakes.  Mulder had chosen a cooked 
breakfast; when he saw her meagre portion, he shoved two of his 
slices of fried bread, all of his bacon and his second egg onto 
her plate.

   "Eat it!" he said firmly, when Scully protested.  "You didn't 
eat last night - two teacakes won't get you very far.  Besides, 
I've eaten once this morning already."

   Scully blinked, wondering where in his lean frame he'd put it 
all, but didn't argue.  She didn't normally eat fried stuff, but 
she had to admit that the bacon smelled pretty good.

   He grinned devilishly at her as she dug in.  "And I'm 
Jewish."

   Scully choked, making him laugh.

   "You realise the bread and bacon were probably fried 
together," she warned, when she'd got her breath back.

   Mulder shrugged.  "If you don't tell my mother, I won't," he 
smiled.  Seeing her brows rise, he explained, "Mom's pretty 
strict, but I don't bother much.  I eat kosher at home to please 
her, but I'm not religious myself."

   "You live with your mother?"

   "For now.  It's easier."

   There was a more comfortable silence while they both ate, 
then when Scully had finished, Mulder shoved his plate to one 
side and looked down into his empty coffee cup for a moment or 
two thoughtfully.  "The investigation wasn't into me really," he 
began abruptly.  "It was my wife."

   "I didn't realise you're married," Scully said, surprised.

   "Divorced.  I married an agent in Serious Fraud - we were old 
friends, we went to Oxford together.  It was a big mistake 
though."  Mulder kept his eyes on his cup.  "She started seeing 
other guys - and a lot of them were other agents - and then we 
separated."

   Scully began to feel uncomfortable.  "You don't have to tell 
me this."

   He looked up sharply.  "Yes I do.  Believe me, it's relevant -
 I wouldn't tell you otherwise."  He took a deep breath. 
"Anyway, after we'd been separated for a while, I got called in 
by the OPC and given the third degree.  What did I know about 
Phoebe's activities outside work hours, who were her friends, 
what guys had she been seeing - I had to give them a list.  Then 
they started asking about *me*, about what I did outside work, 
who my friends were and what my relationship with Phoebe was.  
They went into everything - and I do mean *everything*."  

   He took a shaky breath and, encouraged by Scully's startled 
and sympathetic silence, continued.  "So then they suspended her 
and confined me to office work pending the results of an 
internal investigation.  At that point, I didn't know what the 
hell was going on, which is probably the only thing that saved 
my neck, because the next thing I knew, I was called in by the 
Assistant Director and informed that Phoebe had vanished.  
They'd been investigating her in connection with drugs and the 
Mafia.  They put me through the third degree again, this time 
with AD Skinner in attendance, and then I was put on paid 
suspension - not because they thought I'd done anything, but 
because they had to be seen to be taking all possible measures 
until they caught her.  But it was the worst thing they could 
have done from my point of view, because when I went home that 
afternoon, she was waiting for me."

   "What happened?" Scully asked after a moment.

   He looked up at her.  "I honestly don't know," he replied.  
"I have no recollection of that afternoon whatsoever - I woke up 
in Georgetown Medical Centre two days later.  My former partner, 
Jerry Castamir, had tried to raise me all evening and came round 
when he couldn't get a reply.  He found me in the bedroom, 
stoned out of my mind - they had to pump my stomach when they 
got me to hospital."

   Scully opened her mouth to say something, then saw his 
desperately uncomfortable expression, and shut it again.  There 
was a veiled warning in his eyes; this was obviously something 
he didn't want to discuss in too much detail.  "So then what 
happened?" she asked.

   "Oh, it was a mess.  There's no point in going into much 
detail, but basically when I was allowed to return to work, 
there was a big question-mark over my head.  Despite the 
evidence to the contrary, there was this idea in some people's 
heads that I'd maybe colluded with Phoebe after all, or that 
even if I hadn't, I knew where she was and I was holding back 
out of some remnants of sentimental feeling for her."  His 
sudden smile was bitter, almost a sneer.  "Which is a joke, but  
never mind.  I was working with Violent Crimes at that point; I 
was initially put on desk-work, and then side-lined into a low 
priority area of the Division.  But that involved field work, 
and some of the higher-ups still weren't happy with letting me 
out on my own, so they started talking about transferring me 
back into Behavioural Sciences and profiling, which is where I 
started out."

   Scully's brows drew together in a tiny frown.  "Profiling is 
a high prestige area," she observed cautiously.  "I was under 
the impression that there are only nine or ten profilers in the 
BSU at any one time."

   "It is," he nodded, "but what you probably *don't* know, 
because they make a point of keeping quiet about it, is that 
that most profilers are borderline basket-cases."  She looked at 
him, and he smiled back.  "It took a nervous breakdown and a 
three-month stay in a private psychiatric clinic - paid for by 
the Bureau, I might add - to convince me that I'd be better off 
being shot at by the perps while I worked for the VCS.  No way 
was I going back there.  Besides," and he looked down at his 
hands, "by that time there'd been a serious domestic 
complication which made leaving the Bureau a sensible move."

   He didn't elaborate, and Scully felt it would be tactless to 
ask.  "So you quit and started teaching instead?"

   He looked up and the smile was back, this time much more 
genuine.  "Yeah.  The journalism's a sideline - I've got friends 
who run a magazine, and now and then I do an article for them.  
Makes life interesting."

   Scully smiled, but decided it was time they got back to the 
point.  "So what exactly's got you so interested in this case?"

   "Well, if you remember, I said I was pushed into a low-
priority area of Violent Crimes for a while.  It's called the X 
Files Division."

   She stared; then rummaged in her briefcase and pulled out the 
case file.  The number - #X-1.01-091093 - stared up at her from 
the front of the large, heavy-duty manila envelope which held 
the file folder and other materials pertinent to the case.  
"There's a significance to it being numbered "x"?"

   "Uh-huh."  Mulder dug out his bag of sunflower seeds, and 
fished one out, cracking it between his teeth and discarding the 
shell before continuing.  "The X files are all cases which were 
initially investigated by one department of the FBI or another, 
but were deemed unsolved because of unexplainable phenomena, and 
quietly stashed away in the basement.  Periodically, one will 
float to the surface again - like this one - and they assign 
someone to investigate it as a PR exercise."

   Scully began to feel a burning sensation of anger in her gut. 
 "A *PR exercise*?  But something really happened to those 
kids!"

   Mulder nodded, his eyes grave.  "That's the real issue for 
me, too.  The press got hold of the story, which is why the 
Bureau sent someone out here.  But in case you hadn't noticed, 
Agent Scully, the people here aren't exactly desperate to find 
out what happened.  If you *really* want to get something out of 
this, to close the case, you're going to have to move fast, 
because I can guarantee you that if you don't, in a couple of 
days you'll be recalled to Washington willy-nilly.  That's what 
happened to me."

   She looked up sharply, blue eyes questioning.  "You - ?"

   He nodded, smiling faintly.  "I was the last agent to 
investigate this case."

XXXX

   "I was pulled off the case before I really got to do much 
in the way of interviews," Mulder explained.  He offered his 
bag of seeds to Scully, who took one rather absently.  "I got 
to see Peggy O'Dell and Billy Miles, though, and I saw the 
marks on Peggy's back."

   "Karen Swenson had them too," Scully told him, and pulled 
out the autopsy report.  

   Mulder's eyes widened in interest.  "They turned up in the 
autopsy?  There was nothing on the others."

   "Different medical examiner."

   He grinned at her dry tone.  "Ah, you share my opinion of 
the loveable Dr. Nemman.  Lovely daughter, by the way - if she 
wasn't as unstable as the rest of her classmates, she'd have a 
great future in the diplomatic corps."

   Scully looked up sharply.  "What do you mean?"

   He had the grace to look a little guilty, but not much.  
"Let's just say I have a very long telephoto lens."

   "Bet you say that to all the girls," she retorted before 
she could stop herself, and received a chuckle and exaggerated 
leer for her pains.  "So how did you know about the marks on 
the other kids' backs?" she asked.

   "Well, when I investigated this case, I'd had the 
opportunity to go through a lot of the other X files, and I 
found several other cases which bore a remarkable similarity 
to the Bellefleur kids," he explained.  "If you're interested, 
you'll probably need to dig the files out of storage again, 
but I can give you the case numbers and Danny'll be able to 
help you.  Take a look at the analysis of those marks on Karen 
Swenson, though."

   Scully flipped hastily through the papers until the 
chemical analysis sheet surfaced.  Her eyes widened.  "What is 
*that*?"

   "You tell me."

   Scully considered.  "Well, it's organic, but it's nothing 
I've ever seen before.  Some sort of synthetic protein?"

   Mulder nodded cheerfully, inwardly delighted by the look of 
fascination on her face.  "Beats me, too.  And the Crime Labs 
at the Bureau when they saw it."  He considered telling her 
about how all the samples at the Bureau had mysteriously 
vanished, and his personal theories on the subject, but 
decided - reluctantly - that he didn't want to damage his 
credibility with her too soon.  

   At least she was really interested in solving the case - 
all the other agents previously involved had been only too 
happy to be recalled to Washington.

   Except for him, of course.

   "And this was present in all the other autopsies from the 
other cases?" she was saying.

   "Apparently."  Mulder helped himself to another seed.  
"What are you going to do next?"

   Scully looked up, for the first time looking a little 
uncertain. "Well, I was going to interview the parents of the 
other victims first."

   He nodded.  "And then?"

   She gave him a thoughtful look.  "You sound like you don't 
think I'm going to find much out."

   "*I* didn't," he acknowledged, "but there's no saying that 
it might not be different for you.  You're a woman - they may 
respond better to you."  

   He didn't sound convincing, and Scully sighed.  "Okay, 
maybe I won't find anything out, but it's what I'm expected to 
do - "

   "Do you always do what people expect?"

   She ignored that.  "And if I don't, there'll be questions 
asked when I return to Washington.  After that, though, I was 
planning to take a look in the woods, especially the crime 
scene.  I want to know what Karen Swenson was doing out there 
in her nightwear."

   "Good idea," Mulder approved.  He eyed her thoughtfully, 
before adding rather tentatively, "Like some company?"

   Scully hesitated.  They'd reached a truce, sure, and she 
was fairly certain at this point that he wasn't really here 
for the story, but she still wasn't sure exactly how to treat 
him.  He'd been out of the Bureau for a while, after all, and 
she was on official business.  

   "Look," she said finally, "what's your interest in this 
case?  Because if it's just journalistic - "

   "It's not," he said at once, interrupting her.  "I'm 
interested because I never got a chance to solve it myself, 
and I was curious to see if the Bureau really was reopening 
the case or just pacifying the press again."  His hazel eyes 
were earnest, fixing on Scully's and holding them in an 
attempt to convey his sincerity.  "And I genuinely want to 
know what happened to those kids.  I want to know why the 
agents sent here keep getting recalled before they can do 
anything, and why everyone seems to want to cover up what 
really happened, whatever that was."

   "Okay," Scully said, taking a deep breath, "okay.  But 
you've got to level with me, Mr. Mulder - "

   "Mulder," he corrected, smiling.

   She stared at him, momentarily distracted.

   "Mr. Mulder was my father," he explained, a little self-
consciously."

   "What's wrong with your first name?" she demanded.

   "Look, if you had to go through high-school with a name 
like Fox, you'd be using your surname," he retorted, and she 
smiled in spite of herself.

   "Okay, *Mulder* - level with me.  I know you must have some 
sort of theory about this case, and I want to know what it 
is."

   "I have plenty of theories, Agent Scully," he acknowledged 
reluctantly, "but I don't think you're ready to hear them."

   That earned him a raised brow and a look that told him to 
quit dancing around the subject.  "Try me," she suggested 
dryly.

   Okay.  She wasn't going to let it go, so maybe it was time 
to shock her out of her standardised FBI thinking.  And he 
admitted to himself that there was a tiny little devil inside 
him somewhere that was itching to see the look on her face.  
"Tell me, Agent Scully - do you believe in the existence of 
extra-terrestrials?"

   *He's kidding me, right?*  Scully peered at him 
uncertainly, but although it was quite obvious from the quirky 
smile on his lips that he was teasing her, his eyes were dead 
serious.  *Extra-terrestrials, riiiight.*  For no particular 
reason, the orange X on the road swam back into her mind.  
"Logically, I would have to say no," she said finally.  "The 
distances from the far reaches of space are so vast, the 
energy needed alone would exceed - "

   "Conventional wisdom," Mulder interrupted impatiently.  
"Agent Scully, Karen Swenson was the *sixth* kid in her class 
to die under mysterious circumstances.  Conventional wisdom 
has so far offered no explanations.  Now, if science doesn't 
have the answers, shouldn't we start looking towards the 
unconventional  - the fantastic - for answers instead?"

   Okay.  That almost sounded like a challenge to Scully, and 
it was one which, as a scientist, she couldn't ignore.  "What 
I find fantastic is that there are any answers which lie 
outside the realms of science," she retorted sharply.  "The 
answers are there, Mulder - you just have to know where to 
look."

   He sat back in his chair, with an unfathomable look on his 
face.  He didn't seem at all offended by her opposition - 
rather the reverse, as if he enjoyed arguing with her.  
Finally, a wicked smile crossed his lips.  "Well - I'm told 
that's why they put the 'I' in FBI, Agent Scully.  What's your 
*scientific* explanation of what happened to those kids?"

   Crunch time - and Scully had to admit that she didn't have 
even a working theory which was particularly plausible.  "I 
started out with the idea that maybe the kids in the class 
were taking some kind of drugs at that party in the woods," 
she admitted, wishing it didn't sound so feeble.  "It might 
explain the schizophrenia, and Billy Miles's condition, but -"

   "But it doesn't explain the deaths or the marks on their 
backs," Mulder finished for her, nodding.

   "No, or ...."  Scully hesitated, and he leaned forward, his 
eyes alert.

   "Or what?"

   She fished in her pocket reluctantly, and pulled out a 
small glass vial containing the two metal implants from Ray 
Soames's body.  "It doesn't explain these, or the condition of 
Ray Soames's corpse - if it *was* Ray Soames, which I doubt."

   Mulder took the vial from her fingers, and stared at the 
two bits of metal in fascination.  "Where were they?"

   "The small one was in the base of the neck, and the larger 
in the nasal cavity."

   A wild excitement began to build in Mulder's stomach.  This 
was more than he'd ever hoped to find.  "Do you know what they 
are?"

   Scully shook her head, viewing his obvious delight 
dubiously.  "No - do you?"

   He shook his head cheerfully.  "Not a clue.  I wonder what 
they're made of?"

   "That's for the Bureau crime labs to find out," Scully 
said, firmly taking possession of the objects again, and 
stowing them safely back in her pocket.

   "And what did you make of Ray Soames?" Mulder prodded.

   "I didn't," she replied shortly.  "That body was someone's 
idea of a sick joke, Mulder - it's probably the corpse of an 
ape or something similar."

   "Sure about that?"

   "No," Scully snapped, nettled, "but the crime labs will 
be."  She started packing all her bits and pieces back into 
her briefcase.

   He nodded, apparently accepting this.  "And how's the 
head?"

   Scully paused, and in spite of herself she softened a 
little.  "Better, thanks, much better," she admitted, with a 
small wry smile.

   "So, are you going to head out and start questioning the 
good citizens of Bellefleur?"

   She grimaced.  "'Fraid so."

   Mulder nodded.  "Best of luck," he said dryly.  "The 
Advil's with me, when you've finished."

XXXX

   It was just beginning to get dark when Scully finally 
returned to the motel, and she felt drained, frustrated, and 
short-tempered.  What was the matter with the people in this 
town?  Six of their kids were dead, one was a vegetable, and a 
number of others were suffering serious psychiatric disorders. 
 Any normal town would be screaming at the Bureau's doors, 
demanding answers.

   Not the good citizens of Bellefleur.  They were keeping 
their collective mouth shut tighter than a rusted lock.

   Mulder was waiting for her outside her motel room door, but 
as she'd been expecting that, she wasn't particularly 
surprised.  He was wearing a sympathetic expression and 
holding the bottle of Advil, which she waved aside wearily.

   "No, it's okay, thanks. I'm just tired - I could do with a 
coffee though."  

   He produced the other hand, which held a bag containing a 
thermos flask and something else.  "Coffee and sandwiches," he 
said, watching her dump her briefcase and jacket on the bed.  
"Are you going to get changed?"

   She looked at him blankly.  "What for?"

   "Our trip to the forest," he reminded her.  "The crime 
scene - remember?"

   "Oh, that.  The area's on private land, so I've arranged 
for an official search warrant for tomorrow."

   "Yeah, I tried that too," Mulder nodded, "and the next day 
all that was waiting for me were orders to ship back to DC.  
Case closed."

   Scully closed her eyes.  *God, I hate this case,* she 
thought fervently.  She wished she had some shred of evidence 
which would prove him wrong, but the attitude of the sheriff 
when she spoke of getting a warrant told her all she needed to 
know.  "Mulder, it's going to be dark by the time we get 
there," she protested feebly.

   His response was to produce two high-powered torches.  
"I'll say this for Bellefleur - they have a really good 
hardware store," he commented cheerfully.

XXXX

   Wandering around the forest, torch in hand, Scully wondered 
when exactly she had started seeing Mulder as some sort of 
unofficial partner on this case.  The man was nuts, no doubt 
about it.  He was an *ex* FBI agent, and despite the fact that 
she believed his story, she still had no real evidence to 
substantiate it.  If her superiors found out she'd been 
working with him on this case - especially since he was a self-
confessed freelance journalist - she'd almost certainly be in 
hot water.  And on top of that, she'd allowed him to talk her 
into searching a site which was on private property, where 
*she* had no business being without a search warrant, and *he* 
had no business being, period.

   Yet here they were, searching the forest in classic FBI 
style, one partner taking one half of the site, and the other 
partner taking the other half.

   Something told Agent Scully that ex-Agent Mulder missed his 
old job more than he would admit.

   Seeing a large clearing ahead, she increased her pace, 
pushing through the undergrowth eagerly.  After all, the 
sooner she found what she was looking for, the sooner they 
could get out of here.  Breaking through into the clearing, 
she played the torch around her, trying to get a decent look 
at the place.

   It was bigger than she had originally imagined from the 
crime reports, some thirty or forty paces at the widest point, 
and the ground appeared to have been cleared of all 
vegetation.  Scully scuffed at the earth beneath her boots, 
and was interested to note that it seemed to be deeply 
scorched all over.  Crouching down to get a better look, she 
picked up a sample of the surface and peered at it - fine grey-
ish ash.  Not having any evidence bags on her person, she 
finally shrugged and put a reasonable handful in one pocket 
for later analysis.

   As she stood up, another torch flashed directly in her 
eyes, making her flinch.  "Mulder, is that you?" she demanded.

   But it wasn't Mulder.  It was the sheriff, and when he 
spoke his tone was distinctly hostile.

   "Just what exactly do you think you're doing on private 
property at this hour, ma'am?"

XXXX

   Scully flung her torch into the trunk of the Taurus under 
the watchful eye of the sheriff, and strode hastily around the 
driver's door, biting her lip angrily.  She wondered where the 
hell Mulder was, but daren't wait to find out.  As far as the 
sheriff was concerned, she was out here on her own; and she 
wanted it to remain that way for *both* their sakes.

   She started up the car and set off down the road, wondering 
what to do about the journalist.  She couldn't just leave him 
here, miles from anywhere -

   "Did he chew you out?"

   Scully let out a muffled shriek and the car almost swerved. 
 "JESUS CHRIST, don't DO that to me!"

   "Sorry," Mulder said, quite unrepentantly, hanging over the 
back of the passenger seat.  "I keep forgetting you're the 
nervous type."

   "Two days in your company would drive any woman insane!" 
Scully snarled, furious.

   "Ooooh.  And we hardly know each other ... yet."  Mulder 
grinned at her, and rummaged in a pocket, producing a packet 
which he thrust in front of her.  "Seeds?"

   At which point, Scully lost it completely and told him, 
with great medical precision, exactly what he could do with 
his seeds, and his torches, and his theories of extra-
terrestrial abductions.  And where he could do it, and with 
what parts of his body.  It took several minutes, and 
impressed Mulder no end.

   "Feeling better?" he asked, at the end of it.

   "Yes," she grumbled, wondering if he was completely 
insensate.

   "I'm sorry I startled you, but I thought I ought to play 
least in sight, just in case he wasn't aware I was with you."

   "Well, I think he was suspicious, but he couldn't prove you 
were around, so it was probably a good idea," she conceded 
wearily.

   "I didn't find anything," Mulder continued.  "What about 
you?"

   "Hm.  I'm not sure."  Scully dug in her pocket, and found 
some of the ash, which she passed back to him.  "There was 
this - the clearing where they found Karen Swenson was covered 
in it, as though the entire area had been subjected to 
intense, localised heat."

   While he was examining the gritty sample, she flicked on 
the windscreen wipers.  It had started to rain as she and the 
sheriff had emerged from the forest, and now it was 
threatening to become a downpour.  *Just what we needed,* she 
thought sourly.  *Rain to cap off a perfect investigation.*

  "Well, what do you think?" she demanded, when Mulder didn't 
voice an opinion of the sample.

   Mulder wasn't looking at the ash; he'd got a small compass 
in the palm of his hand and was staring at it like it held the 
secret of the Holy Grail.  "Scully, try the radio," he told 
her distractedly.

   *Scully?*  Oh well, he couldn't really call her Dana; they 
weren't well enough acquainted.  She reached out and fumbled 
with the knobs until the radio hissed and screeched into life. 
 

   The abrupt high-pitched squeal it emitted made her flinch 
and protest, and Mulder jumped but didn't react otherwise.  He 
was still staring at his compass, the needle swinging and 
jumping erratically.

   "Mulder, what's going on?" Scully demanded, her face 
screwed up painfully against the radio noise which refused to 
get any lower despite her frantic twisting of the volume 
control.  "Mulder ...?"

   There was an abrupt flash of glaring white light, and the 
car died, sliding to a halt in the middle of the road.

XXXX

   For a moment there was silence.  Then Scully broke it, her 
voice tense with the many strains of the day.  "What the hell 
was that?"

   "We lost power," Mulder replied.  His voice was tense too, 
but for an entirely different reason.  "Everything cut out."

   "But what was that flash?"

   He wasn't listening.  Instead he was staring at his watch.  
"We lost nine minutes."

   "What?!"  Scully was getting more than a little tired of 
all this.

   But when he looked up at her, Mulder's eyes were glowing 
with excitement.  "We lost nine minutes, Scully!  *Nine* 
minutes!  I checked my watch just before the flash."  And he 
was out of the car  and into the pouring rain before she could 
pummel her brain into framing a question.

   There was nothing to do but follow him, so she did, and 
found him standing a few yards in front of the car, staring 
raptly down at the road.

   "Look at this!" he shouted to her over the noise of the 
hammering rain.  Scully obediently looked.

   And froze, wide-eyed.

   Between them, glowing amiably in the meagre moonlight, was 
a bright orange X spray-painted on the asphalt.

   "Nine minutes!" Mulder yodelled jubilantly.  "Oh YES, thank 
you, God!"  He seized her shoulders, obviously sensing her 
confusion.  "Abductees, Scully, and people who've made 
sightings of UFOs - they all report strange time loss."

   "But - "  This was all getting too much for Scully.  "But 
time doesn't just disappear, Mulder!  It's a universal 
invariant -"

   As if to make a liar of her, the car engine abruptly 
started up again of its own accord, and the headlights flashed 
on.

   Mulder burst out into excited laughter.  "Not in this 
zipcode!"

XXXX

   The relief Scully felt at being back in her normal, dingy 
little motel room was too great to be measured.  Stripping off 
her sodden out layer of clothes, she wrapped herself in a 
towelling robe, roughly dried her hair, then forced herself to 
methodically set out her job again; retrieving the last soggy 
handful of ash from her coat pocket and putting in an evidence 
bag for analysis, and setting up her laptop to continue her 
field report.

   This was all getting way to weird for her.  She needed 
something normal to cling onto, something that definitely 
wasn't tainted by Mulder and his theories, and with that in 
mind she set about trying to put the evening's unauthorised 
venture onto the crime scene into some form her superiors 
wouldn't suspend her for.  

   Which was just about when Fate decided things were getting 
to easy for her, and the lights decided to cut out.

   Scully stifled an unprofessional and almost hysterical 
scream of frustration.  What *was* it with this hateful little 
backwater of a town, with its psycho kids, and Stepford-like 
residents, and its own personal time zones, and its power 
outages of one form or another?

   She rummaged around for a while, wishing she'd remembered 
to retrieve her torch from the trunk of the car before she 
came to her room, and finally found a chunky stub of a candle. 
 Okay, so she wasn't meant to finish her report - or at least, 
not if she wanted to have any eyesight left at the end of it.  
She could at least maybe have a shower.

   Taking the candle into the bathroom with her, Scully set it 
down in a reasonably safe spot, pulled the curtain across and 
set the shower going.  Then she slipped her robe off, and was 
pinning her hair up out of the way when she thought she saw 
something.

   Twisting her upper body about so that she could see her 
back in the mirror, Scully finally gave way to the pressures 
of the case and screamed.

XXXX

   Scully was fumbling frantically with the ties of her bathrobe 
when there was a loud hammering on her door.

   Her nerves were completely shot, her hands shaking violently. 
Where had she put her gun?  She rummaged around the bedroom 
blindly, wishing desperately for lights.  The candle had gone out 
while she was flailing around in the bathroom.

   More hammering.  "Scully, are you okay?  What's going on? 
Scully!"

   Mulder.  

   Scully gave up the search for her weapon, and stumbled to the 
door, yanking it open.  Mulder almost fell inside.

   "Scully, what on earth - did you scream?"

   "Yes, I ...."  She pushed her hair back with a trembling hand. 
 "Look, I need you to look at something for me."

   He stared, concerned at how pale her face was.  "Sure.  Let me 
put the lights on a second."

   She looked at him blankly, then registered the fact that he 
was in running shorts and a sweatshirt, and looking flushed and 
sweaty.  He must have been out running when the power went out.  
"There's been a power-cut, but I've got a candle in the bathroom -"

   Mulder didn't look particularly surprised.  He retrieved the 
candle and lit it.  "Okay, what's up?"

   Scully hesitated, then turned her back to him and dropped the 
robe.  "Look," she said over her shoulder, and gestured to her 
lower back, "what are they?"

   Mulder was seriously grateful that she was at the wrong angle 
to get a good look at his face, for he was sure it must be a 
picture.  All the air had suddenly escaped his lungs, and 
something in his stomach  began jigging about nervously.  Somehow 
he forced himself to crouch down and bring the candle closer to 
the spot she was pointing at just above - he swallowed 
convulsively - the elastic of her oyster-coloured silk panties.

   There were three small raised lumps standing out in relief 
from an expanse of smooth, creamy skin.

   Mulder was just about successful in preventing himself from 
using them as an excuse to touch her.  He swallowed again.  This 
was *not* a good situation for him to be in, as a small but vocal 
and rational part of his mind kept pointing out.

   "Mulder, what ARE they?"

   Her voice, raised and panicky, managed to snap his attention 
back into focus, and he grinned in spite of himself.  "Mosquito 
bites," he said, straightening up again.

   "Are you sure?" Scully quavered, beginning to pull her robe 
back around herself.

   Something inside Mulder bade a mournful goodbye to the vision 
of velvet skin in oyster satin, but he ruthlessly stamped it 
down.  "Yeah - I got eaten alive myself out there," he began 
nonchalantly - and staggered slightly when Scully abruptly flung 
herself into his arms.  She was shaking like a leaf.  He 
awkwardly rubbed her shoulders, trying to rein in his galloping 
hormones.

   *Control, dammit, control.*   "Are you okay?" he asked, and 
was amazed at how calm his voice sounded.

   Scully suddenly realised what she was doing, and began to 
extricate herself.  "Yeah - yeah, I'm fine.  I just - need to sit 
down for a minute."

   He steered her towards the edge of the bed.  "Take your time."

   She nodded and sat, drawing her feet up under her and pulling 
the top blanket over her lap, while Mulder dragged a solid wooden 
chair by the window closer and straddled it.

   "Are you cold?" she asked, belatedly remembering that he was 
only half-dressed too.

   Cold?  At any other time, Mulder might have laughed.  God, he 
was anything *but* cold right now - in fact, it might justifiably 
be argued that he had a serious case of hot.

   "No - no, I'm fine," he managed.  His eye fell on a white 
plastic bag propped against the table where Scully's laptop was 
set up, and he suppressed a sigh of relief.  At last - a neutral, 
harmless topic.  "You know, we never did drink that coffee, or 
eat - do you think it's still hot?"  

XXXX

   "How'd you end up in Violent Crimes, Scully?"

   She blinked at him through the thin steam of her coffee.  
"Haven't you started in the middle there?"  Mulder tilted his 
head on one side questioningly, and Scully smiled.  "The usual 
question is 'how'd you end up in the FBI, Scully?'", she 
explained.

   He smiled back.  "Okay.  How'd you end up in the FBI, Scully?"

   "Post-adolescent contrariness.  My parents wanted me to be a 
paediatrician, but I wanted to be a pathologist.  We had a major 
bust-up about it, and I went my own way - for the first time 
ever, I might add - and the Bureau recruited me out of college."  
Scully looked down at her mug thoughtfully.  "It seemed like a 
really good idea - I thought I'd be able to distinguish myself 
there.  So ... I taught at Quantico after I graduated.  Dad still 
wasn't happy about it, but he didn't mind so much.  And it felt 
right for me."

   Mulder noticed the wistful tone in her voice.  "You liked 
teaching."

   She nodded.  "And it was interesting when I actually got 
called to do autopsies."

   "That's one word for it," he commented wryly, and she 
chuckled.

   "Each to his own."

   "So how *did* you end up in Violent Crimes?"

   Scully fell silent.  This was territory she'd rather not go 
over, or at least not in any detail.  "I asked for a transfer," 
she replied evasively.

   "Got bored at Quantico?" he hazarded.  He fished around in the 
plastic bag and found a packet of sandwiches.  They looked a bit 
dry and sad after all those hours, but he shrugged and unwrapped 
them anyway.  Like most single men, food quality was not a big 
issue with him.

   "No, I ... had a few problems with a fellow instructor, and in 
the end it seemed better to move on.  And I wanted to move into 
field work anyway," she added quickly.

   Mulder apparently accepted this, to her relief.  "Can't 
imagine your father being happy about you working in the VCS, 
though.  My mom nearly went through the roof when I transferred." 
 He grinned briefly.  "Just as well she didn't know what I did in 
Behavioural Sciences."

   Scully smiled.  "Dad's just overprotective.  He doesn't come 
out and *say* it, but the FBI is no place for a woman."

   Mulder's face changed ever so slightly in the dim candlelight. 
"You're lucky," he said after a moment.  "Have you got brothers 
and sisters?"

   "Two brothers, one older, one younger, and an older sister," 
she nodded.  "What about you?"

   The sandwich lost its appeal.  "I had a younger sister," 
Mulder said after a moment.

   Scully didn't miss the past tense.  "What happened to her?" 
she asked quietly.

   "Died in a car crash when she was eight."  Mulder looked up at 
Scully, and his half-smile was bitter.  "My father was driving - 
he was drunk.  Still is, I should imagine.  A drunk, I mean."

   "Oh."  Scully looked down at her mug, saddened for him.  He 
didn't seem to have much luck in his life.  "I'm sorry.  You must 
miss her."

   "Yeah."  Mulder re-wrapped what was left of the sandwich and 
tossed it back into the bag.  "But it was a long time ago and I 
can't change what happened."

   The silence which followed this was abruptly ruptured by the 
phone ringing.

   Scully leaned over and picked it up, listening for a couple of 
minutes.  When she put it down again, her face was grim.

   "Peggy O'Dell is dead."

XXXX

   "Who was on the phone?" Mulder demanded, as Scully started the 
car.

   "I don't know - whoever it was was disguising their voice," 
she replied.  "Apparently Peggy was found dead at a railroad 
crossing in the forest."  

   "You know, this could just be a ruse to pull you away from the 
motel," Mulder pointed out.

   "What for?" she demanded.

   "I don't know - to grab your stuff, or the evidence maybe.  
It's just a thought."

   "So stop thinking," she advised him tartly.  "If it bothers 
you that much, why did you come with me?"

   "Must be your overwhelming charm."

   The crossing was a sea of squad cars when they arrived.  There 
was a freight train halted on the tracks, and police swarming 
around it.

   Scully groaned softly.

   "What's up?" Mulder asked.

   "That's the sheriff.  I'm sure he's going to be delighted to 
see me again tonight."

   He sized up the situation, and came to a decision.  "Look, the 
paramedics are still here, so it looks like they haven't moved 
the body yet.  I'll cause a diversion, while you slip around the 
side and take a look."

   "What are you going to do?" Scully demanded, alarmed.

His grin as he grabbed the door handle was not reassuring.  
"Scully, surely you know how popular the press are at crime 
scenes?"  And he was gone.

   Cursing him softly, Scully waited until she saw him jog up to 
the sheriff and brazenly demand his attention, then slipped out 
of the car and skirted around the squad cars.

   Mulder was right; Peggy O'Dell's body was still lying across 
the tracks, although someone had covered her decently with a 
blanket.  The paramedics were just laying a body-bag out on a 
stretcher for her.  

   Scully touched the nearest one on the shoulder and flashed her 
ID.  "What happened here?"

   The woman shook her head sadly.  "The girl just walked out 
onto the tracks.  Train never had a chance to stop."

   Scully's eyes widened.  "*Walked*?"

   The paramedic looked puzzled.  "That's right."

   "But this girl was in a wheelchair when I saw her this 
morning.  This *is* Peggy O'Dell, isn't it?"

   The woman shrugged.  "Beats me.  But there's no wheelchair 
around here, Miss, and from the condition of her feet, it looks 
like she walked a fair distance barefoot."

   "Do you mind if I take a look?" Scully asked, and the 
paramedic nodded.

   "Make it quick, though - we've got to bag her and take her to 
the morgue."

   She knelt down by the side of the body, dimly aware of 
Mulder's  voice in the background, upraised in argument with 
someone.  She tuned it out and gently drew back the blanket.  It 
was definitely Peggy O'Dell, although she had suffered terrible 
injuries.  The girl was dressed in a night-dress - *Like Karen 
Swenson,* Scully thought - and the paramedic was right; Peggy's 
feet were coated in dirt and scraped, as though she had walked 
over a rough surface.

   She noticed something else.  Peggy was wearing a watch.  
Scully gently turned the cold wrist until she could see the 
cracked face.  The digital display had frozen at 9:03.

   "Excuse me, we've got to take her now," the paramedic reminded 
her.  Scully stepped back, and let them zipper the body up and 
carry it away to the waiting ambulance.

   There was some significance to 9:03, but she couldn't put her 
finger on what.  

   An escalation in the arguing voices, followed by a scuffle, 
snapped her back to the present; Mulder was in the process of 
being forcibly removed from the scene.  Scully quickly scooted 
back around the squad cars, and slid into the passenger seat 
moments after he'd hopped in the driver's side.

   "Find anything?" he asked at once, apparently unabashed by the 
violence with which he'd been ejected from the sheriff's 
presence.  He started up the car and reversed back out onto the 
main road.

   "Other than the fact that Peggy O'Dell walked all the way to 
the crossing and out in front of the train in her night-dress?" 
Scully replied.

   "Without her wheelchair?"  Mulder sounded interested, but not 
especially surprised.  "What else?"

   "Her watch was frozen at 9:03."

   *That* was almost productive of a swerve.  "Seriously?"  He 
sounded genuinely excited, and Scully's brow furrowed.

   "Yes.  What's the significance?"

   "It was 9:03 when the car cut out on us on the road tonight," 
Mulder replied.  "I checked my watch just before the flash - 
remember?"

   "I repeat: what's the significance?"

   "How should I know?  But it's interesting, don't you think?" 

   Scully didn't think she could answer that one in good 
conscience, so she ignored it.  "So, did you find anything out?" 
she asked dryly.

   "Actually, I did," he replied, grinning at her tone.  "While 
the good sheriff was bawling me out, I overheard one of the local 
boys answering a call from the Coroner.  Apparently the civic 
offices - including the Coroner's office - got trashed tonight by 
person or persons unknown."

   "Let me guess," Scully said tiredly.  "The paperwork on Ray 
Soames's body is gone."

   "No idea, but it's a good bet."

   "Then it's a good thing I got the body itself packed and sent 
off to the crime labs yesterday.  *With* copies of all the 
relevant paperwork."

   Any comments Mulder might have had were stalled by the scene 
that met their eyes as they pulled up at the motel.  The place 
resembled the scene they had just left, with one major difference 
- the squad cars were replaced by fire engines.  

   The motel was a mass of flames.

XXXX

   Scully was sat on the low wall enclosing the motel's parking 
lot when Mulder found her.  He'd been talking to a couple of the 
fire-fighters.

   "They think it's arson," he told her, taking a seat beside 
her.

   Scully nodded morosely.  "Of course."  She watched the flames 
for a while, then turned to look at him.  "You guessed this would 
happen, didn't you?"

   Mulder rubbed his chin, a little embarrassed.  "Actually, I 
thought they might trash your room.  This," he waved at the 
burning building, "is going a hell of a lot further than I 
expected.  They really want to stop this investigation bad."

   "You realise all the portable evidence - my report and laptop, 
the case file and the crime scene photos - were all in there."

   "Yeah, but at least you weren't."  Scully's eyes widened, and 
Mulder smiled faintly.  "Hopefully they wouldn't have gone *that* 
far," he added, although in his own mind he was none too sure.

   The sheriff hadn't known Scully was with him at the railroad 
crossing.  And Mulder felt fairly certain that the sheriff had a 
good idea what was going on in Bellefleur.

   "So, what next?"  It was a rhetorical question, for Scully's 
main concern was finding a bed for the rest of the night, but 
unfortunately for her, Mulder had an answer.

   "Next we talk to Dr. Nemman's daughter."

   "Huh?"  Scully blinked, and followed his gaze.  Standing a few 
metres away was the drooping figure of the County Medical 
Officer's daughter.

XXXX

   "Was it you who called Agent Scully?" Mulder asked the girl, 
over a coffee in the nearby diner.

   Theresa nodded mutely, cupping her hands around the coffee mug 
as though she were chilled, despite the heat of the room.  She 
was dark haired and eyed, and would have been a pretty girl had 
it not been for her almost anorexic thinness and the dark circles 
around her eyes.  She had a slightly unkempt look about her too; 
although her clothes were obviously good quality and expensive, 
they were rumpled and too big for her, her hair was lank and her 
skin dull.

   And she was obviously scared, of someone or something unknown.

   "How did you find out about Peggy, Theresa?" Scully asked.

   The girl seemed to shrink in on herself.  "I heard my dad 
talking about it to someone on the phone," she replied.

   "Do you know who that was?"

   "Sheriff Miles ... I think."

   Well, that made sense.  "What made you call and tell me, 
though?" Scully wanted to know.

   Theresa's eyes filled with tears.  "Because I didn't think 
they'd tell you about her until it was too late," she said, "and 
because I don't want it to be me next.  I want you to make it 
stop."

   Mulder leaned forward on his elbows, regarding her 
thoughtfully.  "Theresa, what is "it"?  Can you tell us what 
happened to your class in the woods that night?"

   She shook her head, fumbling in her jacket pocket for a 
handkerchief.  Scully silently offered her a couple of paper 
tissues.  "I don't remember, really I don't.  We were just having 
a party, then there was this really bright light, and then I woke 
up in hospital."

   "And the others were the same?"

   She nodded.  "All except Billy.  He never woke up at all."

   "What about Peggy?" Scully asked quietly.  "Was she always in 
a wheelchair?"

   Theresa began to cry harder.  "No - no, she was worse.  There 
was something wrong with her, and they took her away for months.  
And when she came back, she couldn't walk.  My cousin said she'd 
had a baby, but something had gone wrong, something weird, and 
the baby had died."

   Scully saw Mulder's eyes widen in interest, but mercifully he 
didn't question the girl any further on that point.  For herself, 
she felt reasonably certain that the baby story was just one of 
the horror tales teenagers liked to pass around when one of their 
number had anything odd happen to them.  It was more likely that 
Peggy had suffered a back injury during whatever had happened at 
the party.  Maybe.  Scully wished she could shake off that one 
niggling doubt at the back of her mind.

   A choked cry from the girl snapped Scully's attention back on 
her.  There was blood pouring from Theresa's nose.

   "Mulder, get some napkins!" she exclaimed, dragging the last 
couple of tissues from her pocket and trying to staunch the flow. 
In the scramble to help the girl, neither she nor Mulder heard 
the door to the diner swing open.

   "I'll take care of this, thank you," Dr. Nemman's sharp angry 
voice said.

XXXX

   Scully slumped back into the moulded plastic diner seat, and 
contemplated her third coffee.  She glanced at her watch; 2:34.  
God, it didn't seem possible that it could still be so early, 
after such action-packed events.  

   Their talk with Theresa Nemman had wrapped up quickly after 
her father's arrival.  He had been accompanied by the sheriff, 
whom Scully had fast taken an unswerving dislike to.  Between 
them, they'd ushered the resisting girl out of the diner without 
saying much to Scully and Mulder, but the sheriff's parting words 
had stung her.

   "You should be more discriminating in the company you keep, 
Agent Scully," he had said, casting a venomous look at an 
unimpressed Mulder.

   "I am," she'd retorted.  "That's why I'm getting out of this 
town as soon as possible."

   But the words had annoyed her all the same.  They'd been a 
threat.  *Well don't you worry, Sheriff Miles,* she thought 
sourly.  *When AD Skinner sees my report, Mulder's presence will 
be the least of his concerns.*

   "Here," a voice said at her shoulder.  Scully looked up and 
found Mulder offering her some sort of cake in a plastic wrapper. 
It was covered in sticky chocolate topping, and looked 
horrendously calorific.  "Sorry it's not homebaked lasagne with a 
crisp side-salad, but this place isn't as well-stocked as their 
hardware store," he added.

   "Thanks," she smiled.  She made a mental apology to her 
bathroom scales, and tore the wrapper off.  To hell with the 
calories; she needed food.  Mulder slid into the seat opposite 
and dug into his just as heartily.  "You know," Scully said after 
a moment, swiping futilely at a rim of chocolate sauce on her 
upper lip, "I don't think I've seen you stop eating yet."

   He looked up and grinned.  "I've got used to eating and 
sleeping at odd times," he told her.  "You know, I've been 
thinking about Theresa's nosebleed.  Do you think - "

   "It could have been caused by an implant like the one in Ray 
Soames's nose?" Scully finished for him.  "Please, I'm trying 
*not* to think of that."

   "It's logical, though."

   "Well, there's no way of finding out short of an x-ray, and if 
you think Dr. Nemman's going to let us come within fifty yards of 
her again, you're even crazier than I first thought."

   Mulder paused and lowered his cake.  "You think I'm crazy?"

   Scully sighed and leaned her head on one hand.  "No," she 
admitted, "I don't.  But I think this entire town is 
certifiable."

   Mulder shrugged.  "Selected members of it, maybe.  But I think 
the rest are mostly scared - so scared that they'd rather risk 
pissing off the FBI rather than face up to what's going on."

   Scully fiddled with her discarded cake wrapper.  "What do you 
think of that story she spun us about Peggy O'Dell having a 
baby?"

   "I don't know," he said honestly, "but it's not the first time 
I've heard a story like that, so I can't just discount it as 
teenage hysteria.  There are cases in the X files of perfectly 
rational adult God-fearing women who claim to have been abducted 
by aliens and impregnated by them.  And they also tell of being 
whisked away afterwards by persons unknown, only to return months 
later with no knowledge of where they've been, but with the 
foetus missing.  Doctors put it down to post-abortion trauma, but 
I find that unlikely when so many women in so many different 
places should all have had identical experiences."  Mulder 
studied Scully's uncertain face, and reached across to squeeze 
her hand reassuringly.  "Look, I'm not asking you to believe all 
of this - I'm just asking you to keep an open mind."

   "Okay."  Scully took a deep breath, and smiled at him weakly.  
"Quite frankly though, Mulder, I don't know where else I can take 
this investigation.  Most of the evidence is gone, and I've 
already hit a dead end with witnesses.  And something tells me 
that I'll be getting instructions to fly back to Washington 
tomorrow, if the sheriff has his way."

   Mulder was about to admit that they were probably defeated, 
when an idea struck him.  "Most of the evidence is gone," he said 
slowly, "but there might be one last place to look ...."

   Scully's brows rose in confusion.  "What do you mean?"

   But he was already getting to his feet, and searching in his 
pockets for the car keys.  "Come on!"

XXXX

   "Oh my God," Scully said blankly.

   They were back at the cemetery, not far from where Ray 
Soames's grave had been exhumed only the day before.  The grave 
this time was that of the other highschool kid Scully had taken 
out an exhumation order on ... and it looked like someone had 
finally executed her original instructions.

   The grave had been dug up, and the coffin thrown out.  The 
body was missing.

   "This is sick," she said angrily, but Mulder was shaking his 
head.

   "No, it makes sense, Scully.  It's the last piece of evidence, 
if you don't count Peggy, Billy and Theresa.  Someone's making 
sure you don't get a look another of their dead kids."

   "But who the hell would do this?" she protested.  "These are 
their own kids!  I swear to God, if I find out it was Nemman or 
Sheriff Miles who did this - "

   But Mulder was shaking his head.  "Can't have been.  We know 
where both of them were - Miles was at the railway crossing, and 
Nemman was at home, because Theresa saw him take the phonecall 
about Peggy O'Dell."

   "Okay - then maybe it was the Coroner, Truit!"

   "And he was in town," he reminded her.  "The offices were 
trashed, remember?"  There was an excited look about Mulder, 
though.

   "I give up," Scully sighed.  "You obviously have some idea who 
it was.  Who?"

   "Billy Miles."

   Scully looked at him.  "Billy Miles the vegetable, who hasn't 
so much as twitched in God knows how long."

   Mulder nodded, his enthusiasm undampened.

   "I take it back.  You're crazy," she informed him.

   "No I'm not, Scully.  Think about it - Peggy O'Dell, who 
hadn't walked in over three years, somehow walked nearly ten 
miles unaided out to the railway line tonight and threw herself 
under a train.  If she could do that, despite being paralysed 
from the waist down, why shouldn't Billy be able to get up and 
about?"

   Scully could think of a number of answers, but something told 
her that Mulder wouldn't be listening.  "There's one way to find 
out," she said reluctantly.

XXXX

   "If Billy had moved," the orderly informed Mulder flatly, 
"believe me, I would have known about it.  They pay me extra to 
keep a very close watch on this boy, just in case he ever *does* 
move.  But trust me, it ain't going to happen."

   "So you always look after Billy?" Mulder asked.  "You would 
have been here at 9:00?"

   The orderly paused.  "I would have been at the nurses' 
station, watching TV," she admitted.

   "Do you remember what was on?"

   Another pause.  That one had got her.  "Well ...."

   Scully wasn't listening to this exchange.  She had briskly 
flipped up the sheets at the end of the bed while Mulder was 
distracting the woman, and was examining Billy's feet.  And what 
she found disturbed her.

   The boy's bare feet were covered in dirt, just like Peggy 
O'Dell's.

   Which was impossible.

XXXX

   Mulder caught up with Scully out in the corridor.  "Scully, 
where are you going?"

   "I don't know," she replied tensely.

   "What did you find?"

   "Dirt.  The same dirt that was on Peggy O'Dell's feet.  They 
were *both* out in the forest tonight, Mulder.  But that's 
impossible."

   Mulder caught hold of Scully's arm and gently pulled her to a 
halt.  She wouldn't look him in the eye and he recognised the 
wooden expression on her face; this case wasn't just calling her 
beliefs into question, it was tearing the whole system of them 
apart.  And she didn't like it one bit.

   He sympathised entirely.  "Look Scully, I know this is hard to 
take, but you've got to hang in there just a little longer."

   "Why?" she demanded.  God, she felt exhausted to her marrow.

   "Think about what you just said," Mulder urged.

   "I don't understand ...."
  
   "Yes, you do.  They both had dirt on their feet from walking 
in the forest."

   Scully paused.  Dirt from the forest ....  She dug in her 
jacket pocket and pulled out the last pinch of the ash she'd 
picked up from the Swenson crime scene hours earlier.  She 
smeared it across her palm ... it was black and gritty, like the 
dirt on Billy Miles's feet.  She looked up at Mulder, sudden 
comprehension flooding her eyes.  "They were both out at the 
crime scene tonight."

   "I think we should take another look," Mulder nodded, relieved 
beyond measure to see the animation returning to her face.

   "But won't the sheriff or Dr. Nemman have cleaned it up by 
now?"

   "They've been busy bees tonight, Scully, but hopefully they 
won't have had time yet - or they won't think we've made the 
connection."

XXXX

   *Good thing we left the torches in the car,* Scully thought 
absently, as they made a careful approach towards the crime scene 
through the forest.  This time they stuck together, largely 
because only Scully was armed ("Had to give up my Sig when I left 
the Bureau," Mulder had said wryly).  It was a good thing she'd 
remembered to strap on the holster when they left the motel 
earlier, too - especially considering the hell she would have to 
pay for losing the laptop.

   Funny how expense reports went through your mind at a time 
like this.

   Mulder halted suddenly, and Scully almost ran into him.  
"What's wrong?" she hissed.

   "Look at this," he hissed back and crouched down.  There was a 
bare patch of mud in front of him, with a faint imprint of a foot 
in it, half washed away by the earlier rain.  A bare foot.

   Scully squatted down to take a closer look.  "It's a woman's," 
she said.  "Peggy O'Dell's?"

   "Who knows.  But at least we're heading in the right direction 
- I was beginning to wonder.  The trouble with this forest is it 
all looks the same."

   "What happened to your compass?"

   "It got a little scorched."

They carried on, and few minutes later came to the clearing.

   "More footprints," Scully observed softly.  "Bare, both male 
and female.  What were they doing out here?"

   "Looking for Peggy's 'light' maybe."  Mulder paused, and 
raised his head, listening.  "Scully, did you hear something?"

   Scully listened.  Nothing.  She opened her mouth to say so, 
when something hit her hard in the middle of her back, sending 
her flying into the rain-sodden dirt.  She hit the ground hard, 
knocking the breath out of her, and saw a pair of bare feet 
hurtling past her.

   "HEY!" Mulder yelled.

   The figure ran off into the forest at a seemingly impossible 
speed for someone who was barefoot, and Mulder gave chase.  
Scully dragged herself upright with an effort, spitting dirt out, 
and tried to follow them more slowly.  She could see Mulder's 
torch bobbing ahead of her somewhere, but it soon became obvious 
that she wasn't going to catch up, and she turned back to the 
clearing.

   *This really is a pig of a case,* she thought sourly, no 
longer capable of surprise.  Then she noticed something strange.

   There was a light coming from the clearing.

   *What the ...?*

   Scully quickened her speed to a run, the light growing 
stronger as she got closer.  But when she finally broke into the 
clearing, the sight in front of her eyes brought her to an abrupt 
halt.

   The light was almost painfully bright, so much so that she had 
to shield her eyes with her hand.  Something was happening - she 
couldn't tell what, but there was a curious low humming sound and 
the leaves of nearby undergrowth were whipping as if in a strong 
breeze.  

   In the centre of the clearing stood Billy Miles still in his 
hospital pyjamas, with Theresa Nemman in his arms.

   Scully wanted to shout out or something, but couldn't.  She 
was frozen to the spot, her vocal cords numb.  From behind her 
she could hear a crashing sound, as if someone were running 
towards her; then whoever it was stopped.

   Scully heard a shout, and what sounded like a shotgun being 
fired; then there was a sharp flash of brilliant white light.

XXXX

   "Scully?  Scully, come on, wake up!"

   Scully groaned.  "Oh God, my head ...."

   Mulder was raising her into a sitting position and gently 
supporting her.  "I'm afraid the Advil's back at the motel," he 
told her.  "What happened?"

   She blinked at him for a few moments in the reflected glow of 
his torch.  "I'm not sure ....  There was another flash."

   "Do you remember what happened before that?"

   "No - yes -  It was Billy Miles!"  Scully sat up sharply, her 
head forgotten.  "Billy Miles was stood in the clearing!  He had 
Theresa Nemman with him ...."

   Mulder's eyes widened.  "Are you sure?  Because ...."  His 
voice trailed off, and he moved out of her line of sight.

   Sheriff Miles was crouched in the centre of the clearing, a 
shotgun by his side.  It took a few seconds for Scully to 
register that he was crouched over the body of his son, weeping.

   "The sheriff shot him," Mulder said quietly.  "He said he had 
to stop him - had to stop whatever he was doing.  But there's no 
sign of Theresa Nemman anywhere, Scully."

XXXX

   "So what are your conclusions on this case, Agent Scully?"  
Assistant Director Skinner asked.  He hadn't given any overt 
reactions either one way or another while he read her report, but 
that didn't mean a thing.

   Scully, once again neatly dressed in a tailored suit, was 
outwardly calm as she sat in front of his desk, but inwardly 
tense.  "I am still of the opinion that the Class of '89 at 
Bellefleur Highschool were the victims of some sort of incident  -
 perhaps drug-related - which caused extreme shock and mental 
imbalance, Sir," she said steadily.  "That may account for the 
atypical behaviour which led a number of them to wander outside 
their homes in the night and meet with accidents which caused 
their deaths.  However - " she took a deep breath, "that does 
not, in most cases, explain the lack of a cause of death.  Nor 
does it explain the condition of the corpse found in the grave of 
the late Ray Soames, or the attitude and actions of the sheriff, 
the County Medical Officer, or the Coroner.  Nor does it explain 
these."

   Scully dipped one hand in her pocket and drew out a small vial 
containing the two metal implants.  She put it carefully down in 
front of AD Skinner.  

   Skinner picked it up and held it to the light, looking at the 
two objects thoughtfully.  "These are the two implants you 
mentioned in your report?"

   "Yes, Sir.  I had them in my pocket all the time, and they are 
the only surviving pieces of evidence."

   "What are they?"

   Scully shook her head.  "We haven't been able to determine 
that yet, but the crime labs have established that the metal 
they're constructed of is an unknown substance."

   Skinner sat back in his seat, the fluorescent striplight 
reflecting off his glasses, and passed one hand over his balding 
head.  "Off the record, Agent Scully - what do you believe 
happened?"

   But Scully shook her head again.  "I don't know, Sir."

   Skinner picked up his pen and studied it thoughtfully.  "And 
what does your friend, *ex*-Agent Mulder believe?"

   Scully hesitated.  "Mr. Mulder believes we are not alone, 
Sir," she offered finally.

   Skinner nodded.  "That will be all, Agent Scully."

   She got up and went to the door.  But just as she was turning 
the handle, Skinner added, "Agent Scully?"

   She turned back nervously.  "Sir?"

   "You did a good job.  A very good job."

XXXX

   The address was in a pleasant residential area of Virginia, 
and it had cost Scully two tickets to the Redskins game.  Just as 
well she hadn't been planning to use them after all - but Danny 
Vallodeio wasn't to know that.  She mounted the steps to the 
front door, casting an appreciative glance around her, and rang 
the bell.

   There was a significant pause, then the door opened to reveal 
a rather harassed-looking Fox Mulder.  His face broke into a 
delighted smile when he saw her, though.  "Hey, Scully!  What 
brings you to this neighbourhood?"

   Scully hesitated.  "Have I arrived at a bad time?" she asked 
doubtfully.

   "Not at all.  Come on in."

   The house was very neat, but with a curiously old-fashioned 
feel, and not at all the kind of place Scully would have expected 
to find Mulder living in.  It didn't seem very ... him.  Then she 
remembered that he lived with his mother, and was consumed by a 
sudden desire to meet Mrs. Mulder.

   "My mom's out at the moment, visiting some friends," Mulder 
said, as if reading her mind.  "Can I get you a coffee?"

   "That would be lovely."

   He ushered her into a small sitting room, and promised to be 
back shortly, leaving Scully to look around her in fascination.

   In fact, it wasn't a sitting room at all, but a small library. 
Scully put her bag down on a little table and went to study the 
bookshelves.  She was abruptly reminded, looking over them, that 
Mulder was Jewish; there was an old and beautifully bound copy of 
the Talmud, alongside other books.  Scully wracked her brains, 
trying to remember what little education she had received in 
other religions at her convent school.  Some of them were prayer 
books, she knew.  There was a small glass cabinet in between two 
of the bookcases, containing various beautifully wrought articles 
in silver, including a Menorah.

   A sudden rattling noise on the polished wooden floor of the 
hallway made her turn ... and stare in surprise.

   In the doorway of the library, staring back at her, was a 
toddler seated on a sturdy wooden train.  He had dark hair which 
stuck up a little in an endearing tuft at the front and big hazel 
eyes; he looked to be about eighteen months old.  Probably he 
couldn't walk properly yet, but he obviously had no problems 
getting where he wanted to go on his toy train.

   Mulder appeared behind him carrying a tray with a coffee pot, 
cups, cream jug and a squat plastic baby-mug on it.  He looked 
down at the toddler, who was tipping his head back to look up at 
him.  "Well," he said chidingly, "you can say hello, can't you?  
You were talking enough earlier."

   The little boy looked at Scully again, but obviously decided 
against speaking, eyeing her dubiously.

   Mulder stepped around him and put the tray down on the coffee 
table.  Something about his expression told Scully he was 
nervous.  "I hope you don't mind," he said, setting out the cups. 
"He's going to bed in a moment, but if I don't give him his 
milk, he'll take forever to settle down."

   Scully smiled in spite of herself. He sounded like her sister-
in-law.  But she was alive with curiosity.  "He's cute," she 
said, watching the little boy propel himself further into the 
room, "but whose is he?"

   There was an uncomfortable pause in which she instantly felt 
like an idiot; then Mulder said awkwardly, "He's mine.  And 
Phoebe's."

XXXX

   "I'm sorry, but I couldn't tell you before," Mulder said 
quietly.  "It was hard enough telling you the rest."  He got a 
firmer grip on the squirming toddler and sat him squarely on his 
lap, before offering him the baby-mug.  "Sit still, you little 
terror!  Besides," he continued, "I don't know if I could have 
explained in a way you'd have believed at that point, even if I'd 
wanted to.  It still seems pretty fantastic even to me."

   Scully wasn't sure what she was feeling at the moment, but the 
curiosity still seemed to be predominant, fortunately.  "You're 
saying that he wasn't born before you separated from her?"

   Mulder nodded.  "I told you she drugged me.  Well ... when I 
came out of hospital, she was gone and I thought that was it.  
The divorce still went ahead, and although I've never been able 
to hand her the 'get', legally speaking we're divorced.  But 
about a week after the decree nisi came through, I got a call 
from a guy in Denver who'd been at Quantico with me.  He was 
visiting his sister in hospital after she'd had a baby, and while 
he was there he thought he saw Phoebe in the next room.

   "So he thought about it a bit, and went back to the Denver 
field office and checked up, and when he realised she was wanted, 
he hot-footed it back to the hospital with his SAC and a couple 
of other agents.  Only to find that Phoebe was gone - leaving 
behind the baby she'd given birth to the day before."

   "Oh God," Scully murmured, beginning to feel slightly sick.

   Mulder paused and looked up at her.  The toddler, oblivious to 
the conversation, continued sucking on the baby-mug as though his 
life depended on it.  "This is the bit of my file which Danny 
couldn't tell you about," he explained.  "They classified it, so 
that half the Bureau couldn't go taking a look when they felt 
like it.  So, anyway ...

   "Simon's SAC contacted Washington, and when AD Skinner heard 
what was going on, he threw me and Reggie Purdue - who was my SAC 
at the time - on a plane to Denver.  Where they did emergency DNA 
tests and established that the baby was mine.  And that's when 
the huge mess I told you about started."  Mulder smiled suddenly, 
in spite of himself.  "Parts of it are quite funny, in retrospect 
- like Reggie phoning my mother to tell her what was going on.  
She went absolutely nuts, and had him running around trying to 
find a Rabbi to get Sam circumcised.  I've got to hand it to him -
he was really organised, and just took over and dealt with 
everything, which is just as well, because I couldn't have 
ordered a coffee from a drinks machine at that point."

   "It must have been a shock," Scully observed, fascinated.

   He looked wry.  "That's an understatement.  I never expected 
to have kids, I hadn't got a clue what to do with a baby.  Reggie 
wasn't much better.  Sam kept crying on the plane home, and 
neither of us knew what to do, so we ended up with one of the 
Flight Attendants sat with us.  I kept wondering what I was going 
to do with him when we got home, and how I was going to manage, 
which was stupid because - "

   "Your mother had already picked out which room you were going 
to have, and which one would make a good nursery," Scully 
finished, grinning, and Mulder snorted a laugh.

   "You have a mother like that too?"

   "You have *no* idea."

   There was a companionable silence for a while.  Scully drank 
her coffee thoughtfully, and Mulder patiently mopped his son's 
face and front clean of the inevitable spills.

   One thing was niggling at Scully, though.  "Mulder ... why did 
she do it?"

   He didn't pretend not to understand what she was asking.  "I 
honestly don't know, Scully," he said bluntly.  "Phoebe never 
wanted children, and she was the last person alive to have 
scruples about abortion.  I can't imagine why she let herself get 
pregnant like that, let alone carry it to term and then give 
birth.  The only remotely characteristic part of the whole thing  
is that she abandoned him."

   "Cup," Sam interrupted suddenly, and offered his father the 
baby-mug.

   Mulder took it. "Yeah, it's your cup," he said affectionately. 
 "Have you finished?"  The toddler nodded.  "And are you ready 
for bed now?"  Another nod.  "Okay, say goodnight to Agent 
Scully."

XXXX

   When he returned, Scully was gazing once more at the Menorah
in the glass cabinet.

   "My great-grandfather made it," he said, seeing her interest.  
"He was a silver-smith.  My grandparents brought it with them 
from Holland just before the War; this house was theirs too.  Mom 
and I rent it from one of my uncles."

   She nodded, but her mind was elsewhere.  "Mulder," she said 
abruptly, "I thought you'd want to know - all the evidence has 
disappeared."

   He looked at her thoughtfully.  "You mean Ray Soames's body?"

   Scully nodded.  "The crime labs never received it."

   "It's a good bet it never actually left Bellefleur," he 
pointed out gently, and watched the anger and frustration cross 
her face; the same anger and frustration he'd felt two years 
before.  "What did AD Skinner say?"

   She snorted a rather humourless laugh.  "That I'd done a good 
job."

   "You *did*," he said sharply.  "Don't beat yourself over this, 
Scully - you did the best job anyone could possibly expect of 
you, but you were never meant to win.  That's not your fault."

   "But if I'd moved faster, maybe Billy Miles and Theresa Nemman 
- "

   "Theresa Nemman turned up in her bed two days later," he 
interrupted.  "She survived, which is more than Karen Swenson and 
Peggy O'Dell did.  As for Billy Miles - he was already dead.  
They'll charge Sheriff Miles with manslaughter, and he'll 
probably get a suspended sentence on compassionate grounds.  End 
of story."  Mulder reached out and gripped her shoulder.  "Let it 
go, Scully.  There'll be other occasions with better odds."

   She smiled in spite of herself.  "You think?"

   He nodded wryly.  "Believe it."

   Scully accepted this with a nod, and picked up her bag.  "I'd 
better be going."

   But as Mulder showed her to the door, she remembered one other 
thing.  "Oh, I nearly forgot - I had those implants analysed."

   Mulder's brows rose in interest.  "And?"

   "The crime labs couldn't identify the metal, let alone what 
they were for."  Scully patted her pocket, looking for the vial, 
then checked in her bag.  "I could have sworn I ... no, dammit, I 
must have left them in Skinner's office.  Looks like I can't give 
you a souvenir from Bellefleur after all."

   Mulder grinned.  "Hey, I still have my torch," he reminded 
her, and Scully laughed.

XXXX

   The room in the basement of the Pentagon was very large and 
stacked high from floor to ceiling with row upon row of shelves,  
and the door to it had a complex lock which buzzed faintly before 
releasing to allow a tall, dark-haired woman to enter.  

   Pausing briefly to switch the lights on, she scanned the 
shelves before heading down one narrow walkway, trailing her 
fingertips across the locked steel boxes stacked there as if she 
was she was searching for something.  Apparently she found it, 
for a moment later she stopped, pulled out a key and unlocked one 
particular box.

   Inside were rows of little glass vials.  The woman brought out 
a similar vial from her coat pocket and compared it to the 
others.

   It was the two metal implants from Ray Soames's body; and the 
box contained dozens of identical vials containing identical 
implants.  Satisfied, the woman added the Bellefleur evidence to 
the box, and locked it up again.

   That done, she headed down another walkway between two sets of 
shelves until she came to a huge bank of filing cabinets at one 
end.  Pulling out a slender case file marked "FBI", with the 
number #X-1.01-091093 hand-written in the corner, she selected a 
cabinet and opened it, putting the file inside very precisely, 
and locking the drawer again.

   The woman turned to leave - and paused.  She turned back to 
the cabinets again and scanned the identifying labels on the 
front of the drawers, then selected one, unlocking and opening 
it.  For a moment, she hesitated again, but came to a decision 
and began looking through the tightly-packed files there.

   After a moment, she half drew one out and checked the label.

   MULDER, WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER.

   She put it back and pulled out another.

   MULDER, SAMANTHA ANN.

   And another.

   MULDER, FOX WILLIAM.

   She paused, and pulled that one out fully.  For several 
minutes she flipped through it, a half-smile on her face, then 
she slapped it shut and put it back.  She pulled out the next 
one.

   MULDER, SAMUEL JOSEPH.

   It was a very small file, but that was hardly surprising for 
the subject of it's contents was also - as yet - very small.  The 
woman opened the file and examined the birth documents and tissue 
samples thoughtfully.

   From the expression on her face, it would be hard to say 
whether Phoebe Green-Mulder actually felt anything at that 
moment, but her actions a few minutes later laid to rest any 
doubts.

   Shrugging her shoulders, she closed the file and shoved it 
back in the filing cabinet, locking the drawer briskly.

   Then she walked back out of the room, switching off the light 
as she went.  The door clunked shut behind her and the lock 
buzzed briefly.

   Just another day's work.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PART II
PRELUDE II: TOOMED
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


   Scully arrived at work in a positive mood, which was not 
diminished by the unattractive prospect of spending the day 
sitting opposite her colleague, Agent Colton, while she sorted 
out her expenses and paperwork from her latest case, an 
official request for assistance on a multiple homicide in 
Cleveland.

   Colton had been a classmate at Quantico, which perhaps 
helped a little when dealing with him.  Scully had become 
inured to his vaulting ambition and casual ability to use 
others for his own purposes, while making it seem like he was 
doing it for their benefit; these days she filtered out ninety 
percent of his conversation - if you could call it 
conversation, one-sided as it was.

   He was reading a newspaper when she arrived, and glanced up 
at her briefly over the top of it.  "Morning, Dana," he said 
distractedly, and vanished again.

   Good; he wasn't in a mood for talking or - more likely - 
didn't have some tidbit of gossip to pass on.  That suited 
Scully fine.  "Morning, Tom," she replied, dumping her coat and 
briefcase before booting up her computer.

   By the time she'd returned from hanging up her coat and 
getting a coffee, the e-mail icon was blinking impatiently in 
the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.  She clicked on it, 
and the programme sprang to life.  Three messages.  Scully 
clicked on the first.

   From:    FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
   To:        DScully@fbi.net
   Subject: Mostly Harmless.
   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
   So, Sherlock, is the game afoot?  Or do you have time to
   share a cup of something almost, but not quite, entirely
   unlike tea with me this lunchtime?
      I'll meet you at the Restaurant at the End of the
   Universe.
   M.

   Scully grinned in spite of herself.  The man was a nutter.  
The last time she'd seen him, he'd wanted her to accompany him 
to a psychic convention in Baltimore, but the multiple homicide 
got in the way.  He'd probably picked up some horrible Outer 
Mongolian herbal remedy for veruccas, and wanted to palm it off 
onto her.  

   She'd have to meet him for lunch just to find out.

   The grin vanished when she clicked on the second message, 
though.

   From:    JWillis@quantico.fbi.edu
   To:        DScully@fbi.net
   Subject: -
   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
   D -
   This is stupid.  We need to talk.  I'll meet you at
   Valchera's for lunch, okay?  1:00.
   J.

   Scully angrily shoved the cursor-arrow towards the 'delete' 
button, and consigned the message to the recycle bin.  He had a 
damn nerve!  He hadn't even bothered to ask if she was 
available, just casually assumed she'd fall in with his plans.  
Well, she most certainly wasn't meeting Jack for lunch, and she 
made a mental note to avoid Valchera's like the plague for the 
next few weeks.

   She wheeled the cursor to the third message, and clicked.

   From:    KManton@fbi.net
   To:        DScully@fbi.net
   Subject: Meeting.
   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
   Assistant Director Skinner has asked to see you at 10:30     
   this morning.
      Please contact me immediately if you will be unavailable
   for this interview.
   Kimberley Manton
   A.D.'s office.

   Scully glanced reflexively at the clock, but knew she had 
over an hour yet.  What could the AD want?  She hadn't seen him 
since the Bellefleur case, although she knew he'd been behind 
her being sent to Cleveland two weeks ago.  Maybe it was 
another of those 'special' cases, like Bellefleur.  Mulder had 
warned her that others tended to surface once in a while ....

   Then she smiled.  Mulder also believed in *aliens*, for 
God's sake.  She thought about the dark, lanky, good-looking 
college lecturer-cum-part time freelance journalist for a 
moment.  They met up for coffee or lunch once in a while; 
Mulder claimed that he was on a self-imposed mission to broaden 
her mind, but Scully suspected it was simply because he missed 
his old job at the Bureau and wanted to talk to someone who 
spoke the same language.

   Well, if AD Skinner *did* want to hand her one of the so-
called "X" files, she'd be able to ask Mulder's opinion of it.

XXXX

   "Agent Scully, please take a seat."  

   Assistant Director Walter Skinner's voice embodied the term 
"gravelly".  He was a tall, muscular man, an ex-Marine in his 
early- or mid-forties, balding and wearing glasses, but was 
otherwise impressively fit and youthful; a man who gave a 
strong impression of energy held in check and complete control 
of his surroundings.  He was also rather good-looking, but 
Scully noticed this only in the abstract, having long ago 
schooled herself into an unawareness of such things in her male 
superiors.

   It was a trick some of her fellow female agents could have 
stood to learn, if half what she overheard in the washrooms was 
true.

   Skinner waited until she was seated before sitting down 
behind his desk and picking up a file; it was thick and vaguely 
familiar to Scully, which was hardly surprising, as it was her 
personnel file.

   "I've been reviewing your performance during the Cleveland 
case, Agent Scully," he said, without preamble.  He flipped a 
few pages over in the file, but wasn't really reading them.  
"SAC Shinton was very impressed with your work, and his report 
was highly favourable."

   Scully murmured a few confused words of thanks, unsure what 
this was leading to, and Skinner looked at her over the top of 
his reading glasses.  

   "I've been looking over your work on the Bellefleur case 
again as well.  Considering the unusual circumstances, your 
performance was exemplary and produced a better result than was 
originally expected.  All in all, Agent Scully, and considering 
the rather - unfortunate - nature of your transfer out of 
Quantico, your record has so far been very good with Violent 
Crimes.  Agent Blevins speaks very highly of you, and your work 
has been consistently high quality."  Skinner closed the file 
and leaned back in his chair, fiddling with his fountain pen.  
"It's been suggested that you might like to consider taking on 
a more challenging project, something which will make better 
use of your abilities as both a pathologist and an 
investigator.

   He paused for a few moments, considering, and Scully strove 
to look suitably interested, whilst wondering just who had done 
the "suggesting".

"I'm aware that you are acquainted with a former agent 
named Fox Mulder," Skinner continued abruptly.  "Has he ever 
mentioned a project known as the X-files to you?"

   "Only in passing, Sir," Scully said carefully.  "I believe 
they have to do with unexplained phenomena."

   "In part," Skinner agreed, "but - well, you'll see.  Mulder 
worked on the X-files in the period leading up to his 
resignation, but since then they haven't been touched.  It's 
been suggested that you would be a good candidate to continue 
the work.  How do you feel about that?"

   There was only one possible response to such a question.  
"I'll give it my best shot, Sir," Scully said, doing her best 
to mask the melange of thoughts and emotions racing through 
her.

   "Good."  Skinner stood up, and so did she.  "You'll want to 
check out the office they're kept in and get started.  I 
suspect," he added dryly, "knowing the way Mulder worked, 
there'll be some tidying up to be done.  I'll require regular 
reports on your progress."

   It was a dismissal of sorts, and Scully took it as such.  As 
she went to the door, however, his voice halted her again.

   "Oh, and Agent Scully - you'll be reporting to me directly 
in future."

XXXX

   The office was in the basement; she'd had to ask Kimberley, 
the AD's secretary, where to find it, and then retrieve the 
keys from Security, who'd been incredulous that anyone was 
going to work down there again.

   Their reactions didn't give Scully a warm, fuzzy feeling 
about the project, and nor did the poorly lit corridor leading 
to the room in question.  She stared around her at all the 
abandoned equipment from previous eras in the Hoover building, 
and wondered what she'd got herself into.

   She unlocked the door, noting the scratched and faded sign 
on it that said "Photocopier", and pushed it open warily. 
Darkness.  She fumbled around on the wall until she found a 
switch and pressed it.  The light that flickered on was nothing 
like as bright as the fluorescents up in the VCS offices, but 
was adequate to give her a good look at the room.

   It was bigger than it looked, but the piled steel shelves  
and filing cabinets around the walls, and lack of an adequate 
window to provide natural light, made it look dark and cramped. 
 Everything was swathed in plastic sheeting.  

   Scully hesitated, then stepped confidently forward and 
pulled the huge plastic cover off the desk, to reveal in-trays, 
out-trays, assorted rubbish and paperweights ... and a sturdy 
brass name-plate.  She smiled suddenly, and picked the latter 
up, running her fingers over the engraved letters.

   Special Agent Fox Mulder.

   She put it down again, feeling less like an outsider, and 
walked around the desk.  Her shoes crunched something on the 
floor; looking down, she saw a scattered mass of sunflower seed 
shells.  Looking up again, her eyes fell directly on a Unipart 
calendar, two years out of date, with an improbably busty Miss 
August staring back at her.  She smiled wryly.  Typical.

   She pulled up the chair, wincing at the squeal of the 
wheels, and began to turn over the contents of the two trays on 
the corner of the desk.  Most of the stuff was fit only for the 
wastepaper basket; ditto the contents of the drawers.  There 
was a computer on a table behind her which looked as if it had 
received some serious abuse in the past, and a poster on the 
wall opposite which had a picture of a so-called UFO with the 
legend "I Want To Believe" underneath.

   It was all very Mulder, right down to the faint scent of his 
cologne which still clung to the chair she sat on.  The latter 
kept distracting her ... much to her irritation when she 
realised.

   An hour later, Scully was cleaning out a percolator in the 
corner, in the hopes of making some real coffee, and wondering 
if the computer was still linked into the FBI network.

   Her desk upstairs had been forgotten.

XXXX

   The rude clatter of something metallic hitting the formica 
table-top jerked Mulder out of his perusal of the Washington 
Post's sports section.  

   "What the - "  He looked up, and saw a pair of smiling blue 
eyes.  "Oh, hi!"  He tossed the paper to one side and picked up 
the brass name-plate which had been tossed on the table.  
"Scully, where did you get this?"

   Scully dropped her bag into the corner of the cubicle and 
slid into the seat opposite him.  "Where do you think?" she 
smiled.

   "Last time I saw it, it had crawled under a pile of files to 
die."

   "In a certain basement office?"

   "That'd be the one."  Mulder suddenly registered what she'd 
said, and looked at her sharply.  "What were you doing in the 
basement?"

   "Cleaning up.  Can't you tell by the layer of dust on me?"  
Scully grabbed the menu from where it was propped up by the 
salt and pepper shakers.  "God, I'm starving!  By the way, 
Mulder, you have filthy habits."

   "Have you been talking to my mother again?" he joked, but 
his eyes were fixed on her steadily.  "Come on, Scully, give - 
what were you doing in the basement?"

   "Like I said - cleaning."  She scanned the menu 
thoughtfully. "The vegetable lasagne sounds good ...."

   "Scully, if you don't start talking, I'm going to pin you to 
the floor and tickle you, right here in front of all your 
fellow agents."

   "The gossip network would love it, I'm sure."  Scully sighed 
and put the menu down.  "Okay, it's quite simple.  Skinner 
called me in this morning and said that I was to take over the 
X-files project."

   Mulder stared.  "You're kidding me, right?"

   "'Fraid not.  I spent half the morning sweeping up sunflower 
seed shells and persuading the computer to work.  From the 
looks of it, I'd say you dropped coffee on the keyboard the 
last time you used it - the right cursor key keeps sticking."

   A waitress approached, and there was a brief pause while 
they both ordered.  When she was gone again, Mulder shifted 
uneasily in his seat.  "Scully," he began uneasily, "are you 
sure you want to do this?"

   She stared at him for a moment, wondering at the sudden 
change in his attitude.  "You've spent the best part of the 
last three months trying to get me to believe in aliens," she 
pointed out, "and now you're saying I shouldn't get into this 
stuff?"

   "Talking you into going to a NICAP meeting is a far cry from 
proving - *officially* proving - that the Government is 
covering up alien abductions," Mulder replied.  He did not look 
happy.  "I don't think you realise how risky this is."

   Scully peered at him, her brow furrowed.  "You know, just 
for a moment there I could have sworn it was my father sat 
opposite me."

   "Scully - "

   "Mulder, I'm a big girl, I can look after myself!  And 
you're talking like I had a choice in the matter."

   "You can refuse an assignment like this."

   "Not after already making a prejudicial transfer once in my 
career," she retorted sharply.  "Besides, what makes you think 
I want to refuse it?  At least it means I don't have to work 
with Tom Colton anymore."

   Mulder snorted in spite of himself.  He'd never met Colton, 
but Scully's descriptions were colourful enough to make him 
wish for a chance encounter, just to see if the guy really was 
as pushy as she said.

   "Anyway," Scully added, as the waitress hove into view with 
their orders, "from the looks of things, I'll be spending 
ninety percent of my time debunking the hoaxers."

   "It'll look good on your solve rate, but don't be too quick 
to consign them to the bin, Scully," he warned her.

   Scully's eyes narrowed.  "Mulder, I've been looking through  
some of the files and - please tell me you don't really believe 
in Bigfoot."

   Mulder grinned; they were back on common ground again.  
"Show me the proof that it doesn't exist," he challenged her.  

   Scully opened her mouth - and shut it again.  She began to 
pick nonchalantly at her pasta.  

   "I had some great casts of its footprints somewhere in the 
office," he added, delighted with her reaction.

   "I know," she retorted.  "I'm using one of them as an 
umbrella stand.  And by the way, Mulder, I don't know what you 
did to the filing system, but it's going to take me months to 
sort it out.  How you ever found anything is beyond me."

   He shrugged, smiling.  "I have a good memory.  Speaking of 
which - "  He rummaged around in his coat pockets and pulled 
out a couple of packages.  "I got you this at the psychic 
faire."

   Scully smiled as she unwrapped it, unable to repress an 
inner chuckle.  "Mongolian cures for veruccas?" she asked, 
pulling out a nondescript muslin bag of what looked like fine 
gravel.

   "Close," he grinned.  "Ground dragons' teeth.  The woman who 
sold it to me swore it would bring you health, wealth and 
lasting happiness."

   Scully looked at the little bag dubiously.  "I'll take it in 
the spirit it was intended, then.  But I have to tell you, 
Mulder - I have this lovely bridge I'd like to sell you, with 
marvellous views of Brooklyn."

   He laughed, and handed her the second package.  "Sam bought 
you a present too."

   Scully's face creased into a broad smile.  "You took him 
with you?  How is he?"

   Mulder glowered.  "He's driving me nuts.  He found Mom's 
purse this morning and posted all her money into my PC's disk-
drive.  Looks like I'm going to spend tonight trying to pick it 
out again with a pair of tweezers."

   Scully couldn't help it; she laughed helplessly.  "It could 
have been worse, Mulder," she managed, when she'd got her 
breath back a little.  "My nephew put a peanut butter sandwich 
in the VCR once, and no one knew until they tried to play a 
brand new copy of "Dances With Wolves"."

   He grinned in spite of himself.  "Well, I wouldn't have 
minded, but when I told one of the other lecturers this 
morning, all she could say was that he was "exploring his 
environment", and I shouldn't stop him doing things like that 
or he'd grow up repressed and resentful.  Which does nothing 
for how repressed and resentful *I* feel at spending an evening 
fishing $10.26 out of my PC."

   "Well, he's not two yet, Mulder," Scully said reasonably, 
smiling.  "He doesn't understand."

   "Don't be too sure of that.  He knew enough to hide after 
he'd done it."

   The image this conjured up made Scully laugh again.  She 
began to carefully unwrap the second parcel, and was delighted 
to find a delicate little bracelet, made of a fine copper chain 
with tiny crescent moons and stars hanging from it.  

   "It's lovely!" she exclaimed, putting it on and then 
twisting her wrist to watch the charms.  Seeing Mulder's smug 
smile, she couldn't resist prodding just a little, though.  "So 
Sam chose this, huh?"

   The smile didn't slip, but a tiny hint of a flush climbed 
Mulder's cheeks.  "Yeah, well ... he may not know much about 
PC's, but he's got good taste.  It's been painted with 
something so it won't tarnish."

   "That was going to be my next question."  Scully finished 
the last couple of bites of her lunch.  "So - any advice before 
I throw myself headlong into your filing system?"

   "Mind the wobbly wheel on the chair?" he offered, grinning.  
He took another forkful of his own meal, and looked at his 
plate for a moment.  The grin slipped.  "Just - be careful, 
Scully.  And - "

   She raised a brow questioningly, and he shrugged, his smile 
a little uncomfortable.  

   "Well, you know where to find me."

   "Mulder, you can have any newsworthy stories I dig up, just 
so long as you keep my name out of them," she replied with a 
smile, deliberately misunderstanding him.

   He knew what was really being said, though.  She'd tell him 
what was going on, and involve him if she possibly could.  A 
relieved smile crossed his face.

   Mulder missed his old job badly.  Being a lecturer and part-
time journalist, while being steady and more reliable work for 
a single father of an eighteen-month-old son, did not provide 
the excitement levels he thrived on.

   Scully picked up her bag.  "Look, I've got to go.  I'll give 
you a call if anything interesting comes up.  In the meantime 
... give Sam a big hug and kiss for me."

   A devilish glint entered Mulder's eye.  "Oooh, Scully, I 
don't know if I'll be able to replicate that accurately without 
first-hand knowledge."

   Scully gave him a look, and patted his cheek as she passed 
him.  "In your dreams, Mulder, in your dreams."

   He twisted in his seat to watch her as she walked out of the 
door, and smiled wistfully.  "Scully, if only you knew."

XXXX

   Two days later, Scully had beaten the filing system into 
submission and had begun the painstaking job of working her way 
through it, trying to find a case worth re-opening and working 
on.  Despite the comments by AD Skinner, she wasn't entirely 
sure exactly how she was to proceed - whether he was going to 
actually assign her cases, or if she was supposed to find her 
own.  For the time being, she was working on the latter 
assumption, guessing that a good portion of what she did would 
be sifting through old case files and seeing if they could be 
closed on technical grounds, details that had been overlooked 
in previous investigations.

   Despite that decision, it still wasn't easy to decide where 
to start.  She suspected beginning at 'A' and working her way 
through would not be particularly helpful; nor would shutting 
her eyes and opening a file drawer at random.  In the end, she 
chose a promising subject - poltergeists - and dragged all the 
files out on the subject.  There were a lot, especially when 
she finally worked out Mulder's weird system of cross-
referencing.

   She was sat in the middle of the floor with them piled 
around her, when there was a knock on the door.

   It was Tom Colton, and he was looking around him with a 
wrinkled nose.  "So this is where they've buried you.  Who did 
you tick off to get *this* detail, Dana?"
  
   There were a lot of possible answers to that, but Scully 
chose the diplomatic one, aware that there was little point in 
aggravating him unnecessarily.  "I've no idea.  How can I help 
you, Tom?"

   But Colton wasn't ready to talk business yet.  "Someone told 
me this was Spooky Mulder's old office.  That true?"

   Scully's ears pricked up in spite of herself.  "*Spooky* 
Mulder?"

   "Yeah.  The guy was some kind of nut - believed in aliens 
and things that go bump in the night.  He got thrown out of the 
Bureau a couple of years ago."

   Scully couldn't tell from Colton's expression or tone 
whether this was genuinely what he'd heard, or whether he was 
just fishing to find out what she knew, but she couldn't let it 
pass without trying to set the record straight.  "That's not 
what I heard," she said evenly, as she picked up a small stack 
of files and deposited them on the desk.

   "Oh?"

   "I heard he resigned from the Bureau to look after his son, 
after his wife left him."

   "Really."  The tone was just a little too casual.  "Well, I 
heard you knew him."

   "Really?"  Scully recovered another pile of files from the 
floor, and feigned disinterest.  "Says who?"

   "Says Jack Willis."

   Scully stiffened slightly.  

   "He says you're pretty cosy with Mulder - you had lunch with 
him the other day at Rosenthal's."  Colton came up behind her 
and took hold of her left wrist, examining the delicate copper 
bracelet with apparent interest.

   *Damn!  How did Jack find out about that?*  Scully pulled 
her hand away and turned, leaning back against the edge of the 
desk.  "Okay, Tom, what's your point?"

   He smiled amiably at her.  "Nothing!  I just thought you 
could lay the rumours to rest about him."

   *Bullshit!* she thought sourly.  "I don't think he'd thank 
me if I tried, and besides, he's just a friend.  Is that all 
you came down here for?  To do Jack's dirty work for him?"

   But she knew as soon as she said it that it wasn't true.  
Tom Colton never did anyone's dirty work unless it was to his 
own advantage; and there was no advantage to be had in annoying 
Dana Scully.  Besides, Jack did his own dirty work.  Scully 
mentally resigned herself to another round of e-mails and 
answerphone messages from him.

   "Actually," Colton replied quickly, "I came down here to see 
if you were too busy to help out with a case of mine."

   Scully raised a brow, and glanced at her files.  "Well I'm 
busy, but it's nothing that can't rot for another couple of 
years.  What is it?"

   "Baltimore PD have asked for our help.  They've had three 
murders, the first of which happened six weeks ago.  The 
victims have no known connection to each other."

   Scully's interest was caught almost immediately.  "So what's 
the pattern?"

   "The killer's point of entry."  Colton paused, then added, 
"Or lack of it, rather.  The first victim was killed in her ten-
foot-by-twelve-foot college dorm.  The windows were locked, and 
the door bolted and chained from the inside.  The latest 
killing occurred in a high security office block.  There was 
nothing on the security cameras; the guy was working late, and 
had locked his office from the inside.  No one was seen 
entering or leaving."

   "So could they just be suicides?" Scully asked reasonably.

   But Colton shook his head - and to her surprise, he actually 
seemed to pale slightly, although that could just have been an 
effect of the weak fluorescent light in the office.  "The 
victims' livers were removed," he said, and offered her a stack 
of photos he'd been holding all along.

   Scully's eyes widened as she looked through them.  "My God 
... what tools did this guy use?  They look as if - "

   "He used bare hands," Colton finished for her.  "That's the 
conclusion we've come to, anyway - there's no evidence of any 
other tool being used."

   She took a last look at the pictures and handed them back.  
"So what do you want me to do?"

   Colton looked slightly uncomfortable, although he tried to 
hide it.  "Since you've taken on Spooky's mantle, I thought you 
could maybe come down to the crime scene - take a look - check 
over the case histories maybe."

   Scully gave him a thoughtful look.  "I've only been working 
down here a few days, Tom.  It's hardly my area of expertise 
yet."

   "Yeah, well ...."
   
   There was a pause in which he looked anywhere but at her.  
Finally, Scully asked carefully, "Do you want me to ask Mulder 
if he can help out at all?"

   Colton twitched irritably.  "Look, let's not get carried 
away here," he warned her.  "I'm going to solve this case.  But 
... if Mulder wants to do you a favour - "  Scully did her best 
to ignore the thinly veiled insinuation in this, " - and knows 
any background information which might help, then great."

   He paused, examining a plaster cast of a footprint which was 
holding up a row of books on a shelf.  "If I can solve this 
case, I'll get my boost up the ladder," he said abruptly.

   *At last, we come to the nitty gritty,* Scully thought 
wryly.

   He turned to face her.  "And if you help me out, Dana ...."  
His voice trailed off suggestively, and she tilted her head to 
one side questioningly.

   "Maybe you won't have to be Mrs. Spooky anymore," he 
shrugged.

   When he was gone Scully slumped down in her chair, uncaring 
of the slight list the wobbly wheel gave it, and stared 
pensively at the "I Want To Believe" poster opposite.  

   *What if I want to be 'Mrs. Spooky'?*

XXXX

   What struck Scully first about George Usher's office was how 
neat it appeared; the murderer of the businessman was amazingly 
tidy, given the method of the killing.  In the few minutes she 
had to herself at the crime scene before Colton arrived, she 
studied the room, correlating the visual evidence with the 
conclusions of the examining pathologist.

   Security in the high-rise office block was impressively 
tight, and there had been no security camera evidence of an 
intruder.  Usher had arrived late, at around 7.30pm after a 
meeting, and after getting himself a drink from the machine 
just down the corridor, had locked himself inside his office 
and telephoned his wife to let her know he would be late home.  
During that brief absence from the room, the camera opposite 
the door had recorded no signs of anyone else entering or 
leaving.  

   The camera had, however, recorded a violent impact against 
the inside of the door some ten minutes after Usher had locked 
himself in there.  Scully looked at the back of the door and 
noted a decided dent in the flimsy plywood, which would appear 
to be the cause of a fractured right humerous bone in the 
deceased and bruising along the right side of the face.  Usher 
had been flung against the door during a struggle ... if there 
had been much of a struggle which, judging by the condition of 
the office, Scully doubted.

   The rest of the visible evidence comprised a large patch of 
blood on the carpet at the side of the huge pine desk.  Given 
the wound left after the attacker had removed the liver, the 
quantity of blood was hardly surprising.

   "Dana, hi."  Colton arrived in a rush, anxious (Scully 
suspected) to lay claim to his case before she could.  "Have 
you taken a look around?  What do you think?"

   "I think your killer knew what he was doing," she replied 
diplomatically.  She looked around her thoughtfully.  "The 
windows can't be opened and the door was locked from the 
inside.  Has there been any progress on the point of entry?"

   "None," Colton admitted gloomily, "just like the other two 
crime scenes."

   Scully's eyes wandered over the room again, searching every 
corner for some hint or clue.  The only other opening into the 
room beside the door, however, was an air conditioning vent 
covered by a fine grille.  And that was barely a foot square - 
impossibly small to permit entrance to an attacker capable of 
taking out the six foot tall and heavily built George Usher.

   Nevertheless ....  Scully couldn't help but remember her 
training at the Academy.  She herself was barely five foot two 
and lightly built, but had succeeded in making fools of men 
twice her size during unarmed combat lessons.  The memory made 
her smile inwardly, but she looked again at the vent 
thoughtfully.  It *was* the only other opening in the room.

   And in her head, Fox Mulder's voice was whispering that she 
should take nothing at face value.

   It wouldn't hurt to look.

   Tom Colton thought otherwise, when he saw her walk over to 
the vent and look up at it.  "Dana, you can't be serious!  That 
opening's barely a foot square - "

   "You're probably right," Scully agreed absently, but her eye 
had been caught by something glinting in the pile of the carpet 
directly below the vent.

   To her relief, Colton was called away then by one of the 
local police officers.  She quickly fished a thin surgical 
glove out of her pocket, and crouched down to take a closer 
look.  There was a faint scattering of what looked like iron 
filings on the surface of the carpet.  Scully carefully pressed 
a finger to one of them to pick it up, and examined it more 
closely.

   It was more like a tiny twisted shred of metal.  Scully 
looked up again at the vent.  The grille was screwed down at 
each corner, and it seemed likely that tightly-fitting screws 
being turned could have produced the filings.

   Why would Usher have been unscrewing the vent cover?  And 
with what?  There was no sign anywhere of a screwdriver or 
other tool that could have been used for that purpose.  *Had* 
it been Usher at all?

   Perhaps ....  Scully looked around, and found the finger- 
printing kit left on a chair by the forensics team while they 
searched the other offices on the floor.  Then she hesitated.

   Colton was right, after all - no one could get through this 
air conditioning vent.

   But Mulder's voice in her head pointed out that there was 
still the mystery of the metal filings.  Someone had touched 
the vent and might have left prints.  If it was Usher, there 
was the question of why he had done so.  If it wasn't Usher 
....

   Scully grabbed the brush and powder from the kit.  She had 
to stand on tiptoe to reach the edge of the grille, but when 
she had carefully dusted all around it, the effort was 
rewarded.

   Scully's eyes widened in satisfaction as a single print was 
revealed by the fine black powder ... only to become round with 
astonishment a second later when the shape of the print became 
clear.

   It was a finger-print all right.  But Scully doubted if 
George Usher had made it.

XXXX

   "Hi Bill!" 

   The duty officer, manning the security desk at the J. Edgar 
Hoover Building's main entrance, froze at the breezy greeting.  
*That* voice he hadn't heard in nearly two years.  He hadn't 
expected to ever hear it again after it's owner had, according 
to rumour, been drummed out of the Bureau in disgrace.

   It couldn't be.  He looked up warily.

   It was.

   The smooth, blandly amiable face of Fox Mulder beamed back 
at him happily.  But it wasn't the smile that bothered Bill.  
It was the lurking twinkle in the shrewd hazel eyes.

   Mulder leaned on the desk with folded arms, smiling sweetly 
at the guard's sour expression.  "Got a pass for me?"

   "And why would I have a pass for you, Age - " Bill caught 
himself up sharply, and chomped on the inside of his lip for a 
couple of seconds irritably.  "*Sir*," he finished finally, 
with sullen emphasis.

   "Because I'm here to see someone," Mulder pointed out 
helpfully.

   Bill restrained himself.  "And who would that someone be?  
*Sir*."

   "Special Agent Dana Scully."

   Of course.  Bill had been on duty when Agent Scully had 
collected the keys to the basement office less than a week ago. 
 Rumour said (Bill listened to rumours, because a good member 
of Security needed to be up to date with events in the Bureau) 
that Agent Scully had taken over *former* Agent Mulder's job.

   The Spooky Patrol, as it was casually known around the 
Hoover building.

   Bill thought it was a pity - she had always seemed like such 
a nice young woman.  "Do you have an appointment?" he demanded 
disapprovingly.

   Mulder's brows rose and his face assumed a well-feigned "who, 
me?" look of hurt.  "Of course."

   The guard dragged out the visitors' book from under the 
counter, and slapped it and a pen in front of the former agent. 
 "Sign in," he snapped.  "I'll let Agent Scully know you're 
here."

   The implication was clear: pass or no pass, Fox Mulder was 
not going to be allowed to roam the Hoover Building unescorted.

   Mulder accepted this with unruffled equanimity, and signed 
the book with a flourish.  Then he pocketed the pen, and turned 
away casually to watch the milling crowd of tourists waiting 
for a guide to arrive.

   Bill gritted his teeth and tapped Mulder on the shoulder, 
holding out a hand menacingly when the younger man turned with 
raised brows.  "My pen."

   "Oh, did I - ?"  Mulder fished in his pocket, feigned 
surprise when he found the pen there, and handed it back.  "I'm 
so forgetful," he smiled.

   Since it had been common knowledge in the Bureau that Spooky 
Mulder had a photographic memory, the only possible reply to 
this was a searing glare and retreat.  Mulder grinned at Bill 
and returned to his people-watching.

   "Mulder, what are you doing?" a voice asked, and Scully 
appeared in his line of vision, one auburn brow raised 
admonishingly.

   Mulder permitted himself a quick five-second appreciation of 
her tailored burgundy suit with two regulation inches of knee 
appearing from the hem of her skirt.  "Waiting for you," he 
replied, smiling and ignoring the stern note in her voice.

   Scully gave him a Look, and leaned over the Security desk.  
"Do you have a visitor pass, Bill?"

   Bill grudgingly handed one over, and Mulder made a show of 
pinning it to the lapel of his jacket.

   "Come on," Scully sighed, and tried not to notice as he 
waved a coy goodbye to Bill.  She led him over to the elevators 
and punched the "call" button.  "Mulder, what *were* you 
doing?"

   He blinked at her innocently.  "Huh?"

   "What is it with you and Bill?"

   "Oh - nothing.  Bill and I go way back."

   "I noticed," she commented dryly.  "How to win friends and 
influence people ...."  

   The elevator doors opened and she pushed him inside.  "Come 
on, I've got something to show you."

   "I gathered that much from your message."  Mulder eyed her 
curiously as the doors shut and she pressed the basement 
button.  "What's so urgent?"

   Scully stalled, unwilling to talk about the case in the 
lift.  "Was it inconvenient for you?"

   "No, but - "

   The lift stopped, and the doors opened on a group of 
chattering agents from Serious Fraud.  They piled into the 
elevator car and as the doors shut, the temperature seemed to 
drop by several degrees.  There was a deafening silence.

   "What floor?" Scully asked, and her words seemed to drop to 
her feet dead as she said them.  She looked around, astonished, 
and realised that everyone else was staring at Mulder.

   Mulder himself had suddenly discovered an acute fascination 
for the floor.

   The hostility was tangible, and Scully felt a sudden surge 
of anger.  "What floor?" she snapped sharply.

   "Lower ground two," one agent said finally.

   Scully punched the button viciously and proceeded to stare 
that agent in the eye icily until the doors opened again and 
the lift disgorged the entire group.  Even so, she heard 
someone whistling the theme to "The Twilight Zone" as the doors 
closed again behind them.

   There was an uncomfortable silence as the lift proceeded on 
to the basement.

   "Mulder - " she began finally.

   He looked up and gave her a wry little smile that did 
unnerving things to Scully's insides.  "Nice to know I'm still 
news around here," he observed.

   There wasn't much she could say to that.

XXXX

   For Mulder, stepping back into the basement was a surreal 
experience.  It didn't feel like nearly two years since he'd 
left.

   There were still piles of old office equipment littering the 
corridor - old metal shelves, chairs, desks stacked one on 
another, an old computer monitor or two - and the tired old 
fluorescent strip-light on the ceiling still fizzed and 
flickered a little, as if it was about to give up the ghost.  
The label on the door to the office still said "Photocopier" in 
faded letters.  And the air-conditioning still didn't work.

   The office had changed a little inside, though.  His desk, 
the chair with the wobbly wheel, and the metal shelves and 
filing cabinets, were all still in their places, as were all 
his weird posters and pictures on the pinboard.  But Scully had 
already made an impact of her own; there was a much better 
angle-poise lamp on one side, the computer looked - well - as 
though the IT technicians had finally taken the time to come 
and give it an overhaul, and he could actually see the blotter 
and trays on the desk.  His old Unipart calendar was gone, to 
be replaced by a very functional-looking pharmaceuticals one, 
and the perennially-dying Swiss Cheese Plant which was balanced 
on one of the filing cabinets had obviously been given a stiff 
dose of something it liked, because it was looking unfeasibly 
perky.

   Although how it had survived this long anyway, was an X-file 
in itself.

   Mulder felt uncomfortably like an intruder.  Coming here 
hadn't been such a good idea, after all.  "You've cleaned," he 
said to her accusingly, to cover his discomfort.  "Don't you 
realise the only thing that holds this part of the building up 
is the dust?"

   Scully raised a brow at him, unimpressed.  "If you mean I 
got rid of the fine layer of seed shells coating everything, 
then you're right," she told him calmly.  "I emptied your 
drawers too."

   Mulder gave her a sharp look - her tone had an odd note in 
it.  "I don't recall leaving anything behind - "

   "Not even in the bottom drawer?  There were some videos in 
there ...."

   It was hard to tell in the chancy lighting, but Scully was 
convinced she could detect a slight flush on his face.  His 
tone remained casual though.  "Any videos you found in that 
drawer aren't mine."

   "Good.  Because I've put them in that big box of rubbish 
over there, along with the calendar and magazines which 
probably aren't yours either."

   Scully gave him a look of mingled amusement and superiority, 
and went to the desk, grabbing the case file and an assorted 
pile of materials on top of it.  "Did you get the case details 
I sent you?"

   "Yeah.  Did you say three murders so far?"

   "That's right - no obvious point of entry in any of them."  
Scully put the file and other stuff on top of a light-table in 
the corner and switched it on.  "The forensic team supposedly 
didn't come up with anything when they went over the crime 
scenes, but I found this print in the last victim's office."

   She produced a photographic slide and put it on the table.  
The dark image of a strangely elongated and attenuated 
fingerprint showed up starkly, and she silently handed Mulder a 
magnifying glass so he could take a closer look.

   "Where did you find it exactly?" he asked, fascinated.

   "On an air-conditioning vent cover, about five feet off the 
floor.  The team hadn't looked at it because it was barely a 
foot square."

   "And what made *you* look at it, Dr. Scully?"

   Silence.

   Mulder paused in his intense scrutiny of the slide and 
grinned up at her.  "Please don't say I'm rubbing off on you at 
last - "

   "Can I plead the fifth?" she returned blandly.

   "What does the good Agent Colton think of this?"

   "Nothing much.  He thinks it must be a smeared print, 
probably left by a workman recently."

   "Really," Mulder drawled, "and what does he think of you 
finding it?"

   "That I'm shaping up as a worthy *Mrs.* Spooky."

   Mulder glanced up at her sharply, no longer amused.  "I'd 
avoid a reputation of that kind like the plague, Scully," he 
observed rather dryly.  "The last Mrs. Spooky wasn't someone to 
model yourself on."

   For some reason, Scully hadn't expected quite that reply - 
she'd expected some sort of leering come-back from him.  Then 
she scolded herself for being self-obsessed.  Given Mulder's 
past, and the former Mrs. Fox Mulder's transgressions in just 
about every conceivable area, it was hardly surprising he 
should put that particular interpretation on Colton's 
sobriquet.

   Perhaps it was just as well.  After all, did she really want 
Mulder to know that Colton thought they were having an affair?

   "I've got to admit, that's the first time I've heard that 
particular nickname in connection with you," she commented.

   "Well, you've led a sheltered life up until now."  Mulder's 
tone was slightly sour.  "Get used to it, Scully - if "Spooky" 
is the worst they call you, you'll be getting off lightly."  He 
straightened up and put the magnifying glass to one side.  
"I've seen something like this before," he told her abruptly, 
and went to the filing cabinets.

   Scully waited patiently for the explosion, which came almost 
a minute later.  

   "Scully!  What have you done to the filing system?"

   *At least he didn't call it 'his' filing system,* she 
thought philosophically.  "What are you looking for?"

   "The two files covering the previous murders."  Mulder 
slammed a drawer shut, frustrated.

   Scully gave him a perplexed look.  "Colton has all the files 
on this case."

   "Not the current three murders," he replied impatiently, 
"the other ten."

   "*Ten*?"  Scully was stunned.  "Tom didn't say anything 
about ten other murders - what are you talking about?"

   "He probably doesn't even know about them," Mulder admitted, 
leaning back against the file cabinet.  He pointed to the slide 
still lying on the light table.  "Prints like that one were 
lifted from five crime scenes in 1963.  Same MO - no 
discernible point of entry, and the liver was removed from each 
of the victims.  The killer was never caught."

   "You said ten," she reminded him, and he nodded.

   "Five identical murders were committed in 1933, with the 
same prints being found again.  All in the Baltimore area.  
When the killer wasn't caught in both cases, they were buried 
in the X-files, where I found them a couple of years ago.  In 
fact, there was at least one similar crime committed in 1903 on 
record, but fingerprinting hadn't come into its own then, so 
evidence was thin on the ground.  Five murders every thirty 
years."  He looked gravely at her.  "That's three murders down, 
Scully - two to go."

   There was a pause as Scully struggled to assimilate this 
information.  Then: "So you're saying these are copycat 
crimes."

   Mulder gave her an old-fashioned look.  "What's the first 
thing we both learned at the Academy?  Every fingerprint is 
unique.  All eleven prints here are identical - this is the 
same killer."

   "I have a meeting with Colton and the Violent Crimes team 
assigned to this in ten minutes," she said dryly.  "Are you 
suggesting I should tell them that these crimes were committed 
by an alien?"

   "Of course not," he replied, amused.  "I find no evidence of 
alien involvement."

   Scully glowered.  "So, what - that this is the work of a 
hundred-year-old serial killer, capable of overpowering a 
healthy six-foot businessman?"

   "And he should stick out in a crowd, with ten-inch fingers."

   She slapped the surface of the light table in frustration.  
"Do you think this is some kind of joke - "

   "No," Mulder replied gently.  "The X-files are about 
unexplained phenomena, Scully, things that don't necessarily 
have a rational or scientific explanation.  I haven't met Agent 
Colton, but based on what you've told me, do you honestly think 
he can handle the unconventional?"

   Scully folded her arms and looked at the floor for a moment. 
 "Bottom line, Mulder," she said quietly, "this is *Colton's*  
case."

   "Your case file - if I can find it now you've revolutionised 
the system - was first opened in 1903," he pointed out.  "That 
gives you jurisdiction.  But to make it easier on the touchy 
Agent Colton, why don't you leave him to his investigation, and 
conduct your own?"

   "I have a meeting to go to," Scully said, avoiding the 
question.  "Is it safe for me to leave you down here on your 
own while I'm gone?  I shouldn't be more than half an hour or 
so."

   Mulder knew when to fight and when to back down, and judging 
by the look on Scully's face this was one of the latter 
occasions.  He grinned at her good-naturedly.  "Well, I don't 
make any promises about the file cabinets, but ...."

   When she'd gathered up her materials and gone, he went to 
the cabinets and began rooting around for the two case-files 
he'd told her about.  Perhaps if she saw the evidence, she'd 
think about it a little more ....  Once he'd worked out her 
system, it was a piece of cake finding them.  Mulder dumped the 
files on her desk and began looking around for something to 
mark them with, a highlighter pen or even some sticky Post-It 
notes.  Scully's preternatural tidiness extended to the surface 
of her desk, though; there wasn't even a paperclip in sight.  
He pulled open the top drawer.

   No pens, paperclips or Post-It pads, but a small stack of 
personal bits and pieces whose very untidiness told him that 
she'd dumped them there when she moved offices and hadn't had 
the time to sort them out.

   Mulder paused.  

   Like any good investigator, he'd been born with more than 
his fair share of curiosity, a desire to know that bordered on 
nosiness.  There was no question where his son Sam came by his 
enquiring mind.  But that aside, Mulder had noticed a while ago 
that while he had told Scully quite a bit about himself, for 
one reason or another, and those being things that were often 
quite personal, he still knew very little about her.

   Her father was a retired naval captain; her mother, to use 
an old-fashioned and politically-incorrect term, a housewife.  
She had two brothers and a sister.  Scully herself had joined 
the FBI Academy straight out of medical school, to the apparent 
dismay of both parents, and she'd taught at Quantico until 
circumstances - according to her, in the form of a falling-out 
with a colleague - had forced her to make a prejudicial 
transfer.

   And that was about the sum total of his knowledge - or at 
least, it was as far as she had told him.  Mulder actually now 
knew more than he had a week ago, although he suspected Scully 
herself would be mortified if she knew about a certain ... 
informative encounter he'd had after she left him at 
Rosenthal's three days ago.

   And Mulder, being both human and curious, wouldn't mind 
knowing if what he'd learned from that encounter was borne out 
in any way by Scully's personal belongings.  To do him justice, 
he did struggle against the impulse for a moment or two.  But 
then curiosity won out.

   It was mostly photographs, a handful of which were in 
frames.  The first was a rather formal, posed picture of a 
distinguished older man in naval uniform and a charming older 
lady with dark hair.  Mulder would have known this to be 
Scully's parents without being told; aside from the man's 
uniform, there was a marked facial resemblance between Scully 
and her mother.  Another picture showed Scully stood beside a 
Christmas tree with two younger men, one also in a naval 
uniform and the other with unmistakable red hair.  A third 
showed her with another red-headed woman, slightly taller and 
with a more flamboyant dress style.  These were presumably her 
brothers and sister.

   The next one was a group photograph of her Academy class, 
and the one after that, bigger and framed rather handsomely, 
her Academy graduation picture.  Mulder smiled a little as he 
examined those, then put them aside.  

   The next half-dozen or so were, unfortunately, what he had 
half been expecting to find.  Various pictures of Scully with 
another agent Mulder knew slightly from his time in Violent 
Crimes, an older man called Jack Willis.  The same man who had 
accosted Mulder in Rosenthal's three days ago.

   Mulder laid all the photos down on the desk top carefully, 
and thought about this.  Scully had mentioned falling out with 
an instructor at the Academy once or twice, but although he had 
never called her on those facts - which she was obviously 
reluctant to talk about - he knew better than anyone that a 
simple "falling out" would not in itself be adequate reason to 
transfer out of a section of the Bureau.  If, however, she had 
had a relationship with an instructor at the Academy which had 
turned sour, then any resultant transfer would indeed be 
prejudicial.  Personal involvement with a colleague you worked 
closely with was professional misconduct in itself.

   Jack Willis had been injured in the line of duty while 
Mulder was still with Violent Crimes, and had been offered a 
job as an instructor at Quantico.

   Mulder abruptly scooped up the photos and pushed them back 
into the drawer.  *They say listeners never hear any good of 
themselves,* he thought guiltily.  *Snoops probably never find 
anything to their own benefit, either.*  He shut the drawer 
decisively and opened the one underneath, intent on finding a 
pen.

   Apparently the Imp of the Perverse hadn't finished with him 
yet, though.  The middle drawer was a mad tangle of pens, 
pencils, message pads, rubber bands and assorted other detritus 
which had apparently been tipped in there in a hurry and had 
yet to be sorted out.  Mulder rummaged around, searching for a 
highlighter pen - there *had* to be a highlighter pen in there 
somewhere - and instead pulled out a small, velvet-covered box.

   He didn't need to open it.  He knew what was in there.

   He opened it anyway.

   And shut it again with a snap of the spring-fastened lid, 
shoving it back into the depths of the drawer grimly.  *At 
least she's not wearing it,* he thought, trying to convince 
himself that this was a good sign.  *But why has she still got 
it at all?* a traitorous part of his mind whispered.

   "Looking for something?" a dry voice enquired from the 
doorway.

   The highlighter pen finally surfaced from the murk, and 
Mulder fished it out.  "Just a pen," he replied, shutting the 
drawer.

   And he looked up to meet the gaze of Assistant Director 
Skinner.

XXXX

   When Scully returned to her office three quarters of an hour 
later, there was no sign of Mulder.  On her desk were two 
files, and a brief note.  

   I had to go.  Let me know what 
   happens with the case.  
                               M.

XXXX

   Two days later, Scully was on stakeout with the rest of the 
Violent Crimes team assigned to catching George Usher's killer. 
Based on a profile she had written - and which Colton had 
taken a large part of the credit for - they were waiting in the 
underground parking lot of Usher's office block to see if the 
killer would, as she had predicted, return to the scene of the 
crime to recreate the emotional high of the killing.

   Scully's feelings on these events were mixed.  She was not 
feeling charitable towards Tom Colton right now, not just 
because of the business over her profile, but because of his 
proprietorial and somewhat condescending attitude toward her.  
He wanted her help: fine, she was prepared to extend it.  He 
had offered to help her out in return: she hadn't decided yet 
if she wanted the help he was offering, but she was willing to 
go along with the idea for now.  What she didn't need were his 
wisecracks about the X-files, or the snide remarks he 
occasionally dropped which the other members of the team 
apparently felt free to join in with.

   Like Agent Fuller at the meeting the other day.  "I know 
you're assigned to another area," he'd said, "but if you don't 
mind some overtime, you're welcome to join us.  That is, if you 
don't mind working in an area that's a little more down-to-
earth."

   It wasn't so much the comment, as the sneer it had been said 
with, and the snickers from the rest of the agents.

   And Scully was getting more than a little tired of Colton's 
continual jabs about Mulder.  She was beginning to rethink her 
original assumption that he hadn't been Jack's errand boy 
earlier in the week.  No less than twelve messages on her 
answerphone from Jack in the last four days hadn't helped; the 
content of some convinced her that Tom must have been talking.

   She hadn't heard from Mulder since he'd left her office the 
other day, either.  She'd e-mailed him to let him know what was 
going on, but hadn't received a reply.

   *Life,* she thought gloomily, *was a lot simpler back at Med 
School.  At least all I had to worry about there was passing my 
exams.*

   Her radio suddenly let out a soft crackle of static.  
"Position Ten, this is a station check."

   Scully grabbed it quickly.  "Position Ten, I copy."  She put 
it back on the dashboard and peered out into the gloomy 
lighting of the parking lot.  Nothing moved.  She wasn't sure 
whether to be glad or disappointed.

   Mulder's two files kept floating in front of her mind.  He 
had highlighted a number of points for her to look at, 
including the fingerprint analyses and another detail which had 
initially escaped her, the fact that the killer took a trophy 
from each crime scene.  Examination of Colton's files had shown 
that an article had indeed been lifted from each victim's 
belongings; and the fingerprints were all identical to the one 
from Usher's office.

   The sudden sound of footsteps roused Scully from her 
confused reverie.  She leaned forward in the diver's seat and 
peered out into the garage.

   Nothing.

   All the same ....  She drew her gun from its holster, picked 
up a flashlight from the seat beside her, and quietly got out 
of the car to look.

   Silence.  She looked around, aimed her flashlight into some 
of the gloomier corners, but saw nothing.  

   Then she heard it again; quick purposeful footsteps coming 
in her direction.  Scully put the flashlight down and pressed 
her back against the wall, gun at the ready.  The footsteps got 
closer ... closer ....  She rounded the corner fast, her gun 
aimed directly - 

   - At Mulder's chest.  He raised his hands reflexively, a bag 
of sunflower seeds still clasped in the right, but didn't look 
in the slightest bit fazed.  Scully jerked the gun away 
hastily, and half-turned away for a second, taking a couple of 
quick, steadying breaths before turning back to fix him with an 
angry glare.

   "You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you, Copper?"

   "Mulder, what the hell are you doing here?" she demanded 
sharply, in no way pleased to see him.

   "He's not coming back here," Mulder told her placidly, 
ignoring her question.

   "*What*?"

   "The killer - he's not coming back.  The stakeout's 
pointless, Scully.  He gets his thrill from the challenge of a 
seemingly impossible entry.  Now he's conquered this building, 
he'll move on - if you'd read the notes I left for you, you'd 
have come to the same conclusion."

   Scully wondered if shooting Mulder right now would be 
considered justifiable homicide.  "Mulder, you are jeopardising 
my stakeout," she snapped.  "And in any case, you shouldn't be 
here."

   "Seeds?"

   She ignored him, holstering her gun and retrieving the 
flashlight before returning to her car.

   "You're wasting your time," he called after her.  "I'm going 
home."  He turned on his heel and began to walk back through 
the abandoned parking lot.

   Mulder wasn't exactly sure why he'd come down here.  Aside 
from the risk of being picked up by the VCS team, he'd vowed to 
stay away from Scully for a while, judging the situation 
between them to be too complicated; but her e-mail, enclosing 
both a copy of her profile and details of the stakeout, had 
proven too tempting.  He had to be there, to know first-hand 
what happened, even though he was certain nothing would come of 
it.

   So it came a something of a surprise when, as he was passing 
a fenced off area of the basement containing the air 
conditioning pumps, he heard several sharp clangs and thumps 
coming from somewhere inside the large pipes the circulating 
air was pumped through.  For several seconds he paused, staring 
at the pipes and telling himself that it was just random 
mechanical noise.  Then there was a particularly loud bang, and 
Mulder's eyes widened in disbelief as something dented the 
metal air conditioning shaft from the *inside*.

   Shock held him for barely a second; then he was off, running 
through the parking lot.

   "Scully!  Call for back-up and get over here!"

XXXX

   Watching the oddly youthful, if grimy, man emerge from the 
air conditioning vent backwards was an eerie feeling, Mulder 
reflected as he concentrated on keeping out of the FBI agents' 
way.  Even more peculiar for him were the feelings running 
through him as he watched Scully, Colton and company bustling 
about and reading the suspect his rights, but having no part of 
the activity.

   It felt lonely.

   Not that he hadn't often felt quite lonely even when he was 
working for the Bureau and supposedly part of the team, but 
this was worse; not just the feeling of being an outsider, but 
knowing that he actually *was*.

   *Get a grip, Mulder!* he thought acidly, catching himself in 
the act of self pity as he watched the innocuous-looking vent 
crawler being taken away.  Then he saw Scully approaching, and 
straightened up.

   For a moment they stared at each other, Scully at least 
being unable to think of something to say.  Then Mulder spoke 
up, driven by a need to have the first word if not the last.  

   "You were right."

   It was the nearest he would get to saying he was wrong, and 
it had the additional benefit of acknowledging that her work 
was valid on its own merits, without any help from him.  Mulder 
felt pleased with himself for having successfully conveyed that 
without any sour undertones.

   Scully tried to smile, but it wasn't a total success.  She 
didn't know why, but she felt almost guilty.  "Will you come 
down to the precinct while we question him?"

   Mulder gave her a wry look.  "You think Colton's going to 
want me there?"

   "I thought you might want to know what happens - they're 
going to do a polygraph."

   "Not tonight - they won't get that fixed up until tomorrow 
at the earliest," he pointed out logically.

   "So come down then," she persisted.  "Take a look over the 
interview transcripts - you might be able to suggest something 
we've missed."

   He doubted it, but the look on her face melted his resolve.  
"Okay.  Let me know what time they schedule it for, and I'll 
see if I can't shift classes."

XXXX

   When Mulder arrived at the police precinct, he had about 
five minutes to speak to Scully before she was whisked away by 
Colton and Agent Fuller.

   "I'm sorry," she told him tensely.  "I tried, but Fuller and 
Colton won't hear of you being in on the polygraph."

   Mulder grinned at her.  "Did you honestly expect anything 
else?"

   Scully sighed.  "No, I guess not.  Did you get a chance to 
look at the interview transcript?"

   "Yeah, but don't say that too loud - Colton could drag you 
in front of the AD for spilling that to me."

   "I'd like to see Skinner's face," she retorted.  

   *No, you wouldn't,* Mulder thought wryly, still smarting 
from his encounter with Skinner a few days ago, but he said 
nothing.

   "Any ideas before I go?" she asked him.  "You'll stay, won't 
you?"

   "Seems like a reasonable idea now I'm here.  What sort of 
questions are you asking him?"

   Scully handed him a sheet of paper, and he scanned it 
quickly.  Then he whipped a retractable pencil out of his 
pocket and leaned the paper on the wall while he added a couple 
more.  "See what happens with these."

   Scully looked.  And blinked, getting a sinking feeling in 
her stomach.  "Mulder, you've got to be kidding."

   He smiled.  "Honestly.  If Colton gets antsy, you can always 
say they're control questions."

   Someone called Scully's name then, and she gave his arm a 
quick squeeze.  "Stay out of trouble, Mulder, and I'll see you 
in a minute."

   "Me, trouble?"  Mulder watched her go with a smile, then 
looked around for something to do.  His eye fell on a young 
female officer working at the Enquiries desk.  Maybe ....

XXXX

   Twenty minutes later the suspect, Eugene Victor Tooms, was 
led out of the soundproofed room where the polygraph had been 
conducted.  Mulder looked up, and watched as Colton and Fuller 
walked in there, then Scully emerged from the observation room. 
 She looked up at him, and the tension in her face was obvious. 
 

   "Well, do you want to take a look at the results?" she 
asked.  He nodded and followed her into the room, where the 
technician was beginning to put her equipment away.  

   Colton and Fuller were bent over a long strip of printout 
from the polygraph, and as Scully and Mulder walked in, Fuller 
let out a frustrated exclamation and pushed the paper away.  

   "Well that screws *that* up," he said angrily.  "Tooms is 
clean."

   Scully bit her lip, but Mulder quietly reached around her 
for the printout.  "Mind if I take a look?"  No one answered, 
so he took it to a free area of the table to examine it.  

   "If it wasn't Tooms, what was his explanation for being 
inside the ventilation system?" Scully demanded of her two 
colleagues.

   "He's a vermin control officer," Colton replied, in a calmer 
voice than she'd expected.  "Someone complained about a smell 
in the air conditioning system, so he was investigating it.  We 
checked his story and there was a dead rat inside the system."

   "He was doing that at nearly midnight?" 

   "So he's one of the few civil servants with initiative and 
we busted him for it!" Fuller snapped.

   "Tooms was in that building by himself without alerting 
security - "

   "Dana," Colton said, his tone one of exaggerated patience, 
"he passed the test.  So he was the wrong guy; it happens.  It 
doesn't mean your profile was wrong."

   "Oh, so it's *my* profile now, is it?" Scully noted 
sarcastically, her temper rising, and Colton flushed angrily.

   "Scully's right - Tooms is the killer," Mulder interrupted 
suddenly.

   Fuller rolled his eyes impatiently.  "What have you got, 
Mulder?" he asked, in a tone of exaggerated patience.

   "He failed the test on questions eleven and thirteen - the 
readings nearly go off the scale."

   There was an ominous pause, in which Mulder raised his head 
to look at the three agents with an expression of mild inquiry. 
 He knew what was coming.

   "If those are the questions about him being a hundred years 
old or being alive in 1933," Colton said in a poisonous tone, 
"then let me tell you, *Spooky* - I would have had a reaction!"

   "Tooms is the guy," Mulder replied steadily.

   "Well, I'm letting him go," Fuller said flatly.  "I don't 
need that machine to tell me that Tooms wasn't alive in 1933 - 
whatever the relevance of *that* might be - so we've got 
nothing on him.  Nothing we can use, that is!" he added acidly, 
and he walked out.

   Colton paused, pointedly ignoring Mulder, and looked at 
Scully.  "Are you coming?"

   She straightened slightly, looking him in the eye.  There 
was a brief silence, during which something unpleasant seemed 
to hang in the air between the two agents that even Mulder 
couldn't analyse.  Then Scully's back stiffened.  "I'm 
officially assigned to the X-files, Tom."

   Surprisingly, Colton persisted.  "I'll see what I can do 
about that - "

   "Thanks," she retorted, "but I'm well able to look after 
myself."

   "Dana - "

   "Let it go, Tom," she warned him.

   Colton's restraint finally snapped.  "You know, I'd heard a 
lot of stories about how "out there" this guy Mulder was," he 
sneered, "but I'm beginning to think maybe Jack Willis is 
right."  Scully's eyes flashed murderously, but he ignored it, 
leaning toward her and stabbing one finger in the impassive 
Mulder's direction.  "He isn't just "out there", Dana - the guy 
is *insane*.  And it says something about you, that you hang 
out with him!"

   He stalked out of the room, leaving a deathly hush behind 
him.

   Scully felt a twinge of sick alarm, for Jack Willis was not 
a subject she particularly wanted to discuss with Mulder, and 
yet questions seemed inevitable.  But when Mulder met her gaze, 
to her relief his expression was as smooth and non-committal as 
ever, and he showed no signs of wanting to pursue the topic.

   "Nice colleagues you have," he commented amiably.

XXXX

   "You know," Scully said, as they walked out of the room, 
"you must have realised they wouldn't believe you, so why did 
you push it?"

   "Maybe I thought you'd caught the right guy," Mulder 
offered.

   Scully gave him a look.  "*And*?"

   "*And* ... maybe sometimes the urge to mess with their heads 
outweighs the millstone of humiliation," he acknowledged wryly.

   Scully still wasn't convinced.  "I don't know ...."  She 
studied his face, looking for some clue to help her, but all he 
offered her was his perfected, patented bland smile.  She took 
a risk.  "It seemed like you were being almost ... territorial 
back there."

   "Of course I was," he said at once, surprising her.  
"Scully, you're not a fool, but Colton is.  You're not afraid 
to take a risk on the unconventional if you think it might 
possibly yield the answers you need, but in case you hadn't 
noticed, Colton is terrified to do anything that might make him 
look an idiot or spoil his chances of climbing the ladder.  
Unconventional isn't a word in his vocabulary."

   "I think you're seeing something in me that isn't there," 
she said doubtfully.

   "You took a risk on me, didn't you?"

   Scully smiled in spite of herself.  "Yes, but - "

   "No buts.  I'm an unacceptable risk to most guys at the 
Bureau."  Now she was silent and when Mulder saw the troubled 
look on her face, he thought perhaps he'd pushed her too far.  
"Look, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to drop this," he 
said gently.  "Like you said, it *is* Colton's case.  And if 
I'm honest with both of us, you'd be a fool not to take him up 
on his offer to get you out of that basement.  It's a crying 
shame that someone of your abilities should be stuck with the X-
files, because believe me, Scully, you're unlikely to make  any 
spectacular career moves from down there - it's a dead-end 
job."

   "AD Skinner doesn't seem to think so," she replied 
neutrally.

   She got him there.  The one unfathomable detail in the whole 
business was Skinner's involvement - as it had been when Mulder 
himself had been given the assignment.

   Scully saw that she'd confounded him, at least temporarily, 
and pressed her advantage.  "Look, Mulder, I'm not taking this 
crap," she told him bluntly.  "You're not fobbing me off - I 
know you know something more than those polygraph results, and 
I want to know what it is."

   Something sparked in his eyes and a small grin appeared.  
"Okay ... prepare to be unconventioned."  He went over to the 
Enquiries desk and Scully watched disapprovingly as he charmed 
the young female officer there into handing over a visitor pass 
and a key.  

   *Quite a mutual admiration society,* she thought sourly, as 
the girl and Mulder flirted shamelessly with each other.

   Then she told herself off for being catty.  After all, what 
did it matter to her whom he flirted with?

XXXX

   The key turned out to have a purpose; Mulder had somehow 
persuaded the young officer to let them borrow a room where 
there was a computer with some sophisticated software for 
matching fingerprints to suspects.

   "I did some thinking after you showed me the print from 
Usher's office the other day," he told her, expertly 
manipulating the programme to call up Eugene Tooms's arrest 
sheet, "and I used a computer at the college to try something 
out.  It has a similar programme to this one."

   "So?" Scully asked, not getting the point.

   Mulder pushed his bag of sunflower seeds toward her, and 
highlighted one of Tooms's finger prints.  Then he called up 
the print Scully found at the crime scene and laid them side by 
side.  "I tried it on one of my own prints, just to satisfy my 
curiosity.  But anyway; look at this - "  He set the computer 
to scan both prints and it bleeped almost immediately.  
"Obviously no match," he said calmly.

   Scully helped herself to a seed and popped it in her mouth.  
"I could have told you that."

   "Indubitably, my dear Watson.  However, what if you were to  
do this ...."  Mulder punched another command into the computer 
and they both watched as the programme stretched Tooms's print 
vertically and superimposed it on the one from Usher's office.  
The machine bleeped again - but this time it was a hundred 
percent match.

   Scully stopped chewing and stared.  Then she turned to look 
at Mulder, wide-eyed.  "But ... how can that be?"

   He shrugged.  "Beats me.  All I know is - they let the guy 
go."

   "Shit!" she muttered angrily, and went to stand up, but 
Mulder restrained her with a hand on her arm.

   "What do you think you're going to do?"

   "I've got to see Colton and Fuller, and - "

   Mulder shook his head tiredly.  "Scully, haven't you learned 
yet?  They don't want to hear it.  As far as Fuller's 
concerned, Tooms cleared the polygraph - he's clean.  They're 
not going to listen to you telling them that Spooky Mulder used 
computer graphics to fix the prints!"

   Scully sat down again, opened her mouth to say something, 
then changed her mind.  She looked thoughtfully into mid-air 
for a moment or two, and Mulder was entranced by the sight of 
some steely resolve appearing in her eyes.  

   *Whoa!,* he thought, watching her with a kind of awed 
delight.  *No doubt about it - this is war.  Better watch your 
ass, Colton.*

XXXX

   The next day started badly for Mulder.  Sam, having slept 
most of the evening, awoke at just after two with a formidable 
amount of energy in his small body and proceeded to keep his 
father awake until nearly five.  After that Mulder went off to 
sleep like a dead thing, and when the alarm re-awoke him at 
seven, he was in a foul mood, exhausted and feeling like hell.

   His son, however, still managed to be impossibly lively at 
breakfast, creating havoc among the cornflakes until the time 
came to get dressed ... and then the real fun began.  Four 
small outfits and twenty minutes later, Mulder finally wrestled 
the toddler into the car seat and strapped him in.  He mentally 
reviewed one or two really select profanities from his days 
with the VCS (all of which were now strictly prohibited from 
his vocabulary, lest certain small, sharp ears picked them up) 
and hit the road, acutely conscious of morning traffic and a 
class which was due to start in less than half an hour.

   Just under three quarters of an hour later, he finally 
pulled into his parking spot - miracle of miracles, no one had 
taken it - and glanced at Sam in the rear-view mirror just 
before he opened his door.

   The round, deceptively cherubic face was relaxed and 
peaceful; the little monster had finally fallen asleep.

   Aggrieved, Mulder set about the next monumental task - 
gathering up both Sam and the extraordinary amount of baggage 
he seemed to need for a few hours in day-care.  Sam himself 
never stirred.

   "He's fast asleep."

   Mulder jumped and dropped a bag, which Scully calmly 
retrieved, her face alight with mischief.  "Payback time, 
Mulder," she told him, shouldering the bag herself and taking 
another out of his hand.

   "Huh?" he asked intelligently, wondering what she was doing 
there.

   "You did the same to me, in Bellefleur," she reminded him.  
He still looked blank, so she filled in the gaps for him.  
"When we met, remember?  In Oregon.  You nearly gave me a heart-
attack."  

   "If you say so," he grunted, and headed for the faculty 
entrance.

   Scully fell in beside him, studying his face with a mixture 
of amusement and sympathy.  "Bad night, huh?"

   "You have no idea."  He headed straight for the day-care 
centre, intent on handing the child over to someone who 
actually got paid to put up with pre-school psychopaths.  The 
level of noise and activity coming from the suite made him 
grateful that Sam wasn't twins, even though it sometimes seemed 
that way.

   Scully silently handed over the extra luggage at the door, 
and watched Mulder grimly giving the toddler to a woman wearing 
a large badge that had the University logo and "Hi! I'm Mandy!" 
printed on it.

   "Poor Mandy," she commiserated, when he reappeared.

   "Tell me about it," Mulder snorted.  "Bosnia's a tea party 
compared to what'll happen in there when he wakes up."

   "He had you up all night?"

   "Most of it.  I need a caffeine drip this morning - no, make 
that two."  He rubbed his face vigorously - then it finally 
dawned on him that this really was Scully stood next to him in 
the college corridor.  "Scully, what are you doing here?" he 
frowned.

   "How are your classes fixed this morning?" she asked.

   The frown deepened.  "I'm late for them - *very* late. Why?"

   "There was another murder last night."

XXXX

   It was past midday when Mulder's car finally drew up outside 
Thomas Werner's house.  Scully was waiting for him by the 
official yellow tape which prevented any stray members of the 
public invading the crime-scene, and when he looked her cool, 
collected smile, he had the feeling that she'd only just 
arrived herself.

   He was right.  Scully had spent the morning persuading AD 
Skinner to sign the paperwork which would allow her to bring 
Mulder in on the investigation - or her investigation at least -
 in a semi-official capacity.  It hadn't been easy, and the 
interview had left her feeling almost as bruised and battered 
emotionally as the 'unofficial' reprimand she'd received from 
AD Hill before leaving Quantico.

   Skinner had had one or two things to say regarding Mulder, 
and her connection with him.  But she'd got the documents, and 
that was all that mattered right now.

   "How's the demon-child?" she asked, as Mulder climbed out of 
his car.

   He smiled wryly.  "Wreaking havoc still.  What have you got 
here?"

   "Thomas Werner, age 52, a senior exec with a plastics 
company.  No wife or family; he lived alone.  His secretary 
raised the alarm when he didn't arrive for an important meeting 
this morning."

   "I guess he's hepatically challenged now, huh?"  Mulder 
scanned the building curiously.  "Where's Colton?"

   "Still inside," Scully smiled, "going crazy, trying to think 
up plausible reasons for the liver being removed and driving 
the forensics team nuts."

   Mulder gave her an uneasy smile.  "How welcome are we going 
to be at this party?  I mean, it's not that I don't enjoy going 
a couple of rounds with old colleagues, but I'm not exactly on 
form this morning."

   She looked at her watch pointedly.  "This afternoon, you 
mean."

   "Told you so."

   "It's okay - Skinner's okayed my investigation and your 
involvement.  I've got the paperwork if Colton gets difficult."

   "It'll take more than paperwork to shut that guy up," Mulder 
sighed, but followed her up to the house.  They could hear 
Colton's voice before they ever entered the door.

   "... And I want a check done on liver transplants - this 
could be black market, someone selling livers privately to 
people desperate for treatment ...."

   In spite of himself, Mulder began to grin at the idea which 
was, in his book at least, as bizarre as any abduction theory 
*he'd* ever cooked up.  Apparently someone else on the team 
felt the same way, because there was a mumble of dissent just 
before Colton came barrelling out to see who was invading his 
crime scene.

   "Yeah I know it's a long shot, but I'm ready to give any 
theory a run at this stage," he retorted.  Then he stopped, 
seeing Scully and Mulder, and scowled.  "Any *sane* theory, 
that is," he bit out, and moved to block their path.  "I'm 
sorry, Dana, but I want only *authorised* members of my team 
here."

   As an attempt at politeness it wasn't bad, Mulder judged, 
considering how Colton obviously felt about them.  Besides, 
he'd received brush-offs like this for years, even before his 
reputation became so unsavoury, so it didn't bother him.  

   But Scully saw it differently, smelling condescension in the 
other agent's tone, and her eyes flashed.  "We *have* 
authorisation, Tom."

   "*We*?" Colton snapped, the facade of politeness slipping 
almost at once.  "I see only *one* federal agent here, Dana!"

   Scully had been prepared for this, and thrust the 
authorisation papers she'd wrung out of Skinner into Colton's 
hands contemptuously.  "*We*.  Mulder's working with me as a 
consulting criminal psychologist."

   For a moment, Mulder thought Colton might actually stamp his 
foot in temper - the tension in the young agent's body was 
almost palpable and his face turned a most unattractive shade 
of crimson.  As it was, the poisonous look he gave Scully 
should have killed her where she stood.  "Whose side are you 
on, Dana?" 

   Scully's eyes turned cold as ice.  "The victim's," she 
replied, and pushed past both men into the house.  

   Mulder was left to take the full weight of Colton's fury, 
but fortunately for him, the agent couldn't seem to think up a 
thing to say.  "What's the matter with you, Colton?" he asked 
finally.  "Are you really so afraid she'll solve your case?"

   Colton stalked away without answering, and after a moment 
Mulder followed Scully into the building.

   When he walked in she was already crouched by the side  of 
the body, talking medical jargon to one of the forensics team, 
so he left her to it and began to look around the room.  He'd 
had time, during his sleepless night, to do some thinking about 
the fingerprint revelation and had begun formulating a theory, 
so after a quick look around the living room he headed straight 
for the fireplace.  The opening was wide, but one look told 
Mulder that the actual chimney flue could never give admittance 
to an adult human, or even a fairly robust child.

   But the fingerprinting team had been more thorough with this 
crime scene, and when he straightened up to examine the wide 
white marble mantelpiece, the elongated smudge of a print stood 
out in sharp relief.

   It matched the other prints in the X-files.  Not that Mulder 
was in the slightest surprised.  He was merely pleased to have 
clear evidence of something he already knew - that Eugene Tooms 
had been in Thomas Werner's house last night.  His eyes drifted 
long the mantle, noting the few personal effects on display 
there, when something else caught his eye.

   Werner had been a bachelor, and like most bachelors he was a 
little careless in the household tidiness stakes.  Possibly he 
had a regular cleaning service to help out, but whatever the 
case, this mantelpiece hadn't been dusted in perhaps as much as 
a week.  And among the dust at one end, Mulder could see four 
small marks, as if something which had been stood there 
recently had just been moved.  He looked down the mantelpiece 
again and saw that at the opposite end there was a small 
crystal jar with four short curvy feet.  It was positioned in 
such a way as to suggest that there *could* have been a second, 
matching jar at this end.

   Scully appeared at his shoulder, her expression grim.  "It 
was an identical M.O.," she told him.  "The was liver ripped 
out, apparently with bare hands, and there was no obvious entry 
point; the house was locked tight from the inside, and the 
police had to break a window to get in."

   "It was Tooms," Mulder said simply.  He almost - but not 
quite - touched the marks in the dust on the mantelpiece.  "He 
was here, and he took something away with him besides the 
liver."

XXXX

   *Finding out information on Eugene Victor Tooms could become 
a competitive sport,* Mulder thought with some amusement, an 
hour later.  He was taking a break in his own allotted task and 
 watching Scully do battle with the officers of the Baltimore 
PD for details of the case.  What made the scene all the more 
entertaining for him was that he was watching it through the 
glass window of the office he was sat in, with Scully on the 
other side.  He couldn't hear a word being said, but the 
visuals were stunning.

   Definitely a hell of a lot more fun than sitting in here 
with a microfiche machine for company, but as he'd been the one 
to suggest combing the records for details of Tooms's past, he 
supposed he had only himself to blame when Scully had smilingly 
told him to enjoy himself.  God, she was a cruel woman.

   He loved it.

   Mulder sighed, adjusted his reading glasses and turned back 
to the reader, preparing to start again.  

   A sharp click of the door saved him from certain boredom.  
Scully came in quickly, her face alight with triumph at having 
finally vanquished the enemy.  

   "Baltimore PD checked out Tooms's apartment after the 
arrest," she told him, and waved a sheaf of papers.  "The 
address was false - no one ever lived there.  And Tooms himself 
hasn't turned up for work since we pulled him in."

   Mulder wasn't surprised.  "I've found out a few things," he 
offered.

   "Oh?"  Scully dumped the papers on a nearby desk and came to 
stand beside him.  "What have you got?"

   He smiled.  "'How do we learn about the present?  We look to 
the past'," he quoted, and she groaned softly.

   "Not the Thoughts of Patterson, Mulder.  Spare me, at least 
until I've had a strong coffee."

   Mulder chuckled.  "What do you expect from me?  I worked 
with the guy for four years."  He nodded to the microfiche 
reader.  "In this case he was right.  This is where it all 
began, in 1903 on Exeter Street."

   Scully's brow rose.  "Tooms gave his address as Apartment 
103, 66 Exeter Street."

   "Exactly.  He may not have been lying after all.  Look at 
the census form for that year."

   "'Eugene Victor Tooms ... Date of birth: unknown ... 
Apartment 103, 66 Exeter Street, Baltimore, Maryland ... 
Occupation: dogcatcher.'"  

   Mulder handed her one of the older X-files.  "Now check out 
the address of the first murder."

   Scully gave him a suspicious look, but opened the file.  
"'Apartment 203, 66 Exeter Street - "  Her head jerked up and 
she stared at Mulder, wide-eyed.  "He killed the guy above 
him!"  Then she paused and reconsidered.  "It's not him, of 
course."

   "Of course not."

   "It's a relative maybe.  His what? - grandfather?"

   "Great-grandfather more likely," Mulder supplied obligingly. 
 "There's just one problem with that - the prints are 
identical."

   "Genetics could explain that, and the sociopathic 
behaviour."

   He looked at her, both amused and amazed, and realised she 
was serious.  "How?" he demanded.

   Scully knew she was stretching credibility a little, but 
surely no more than he was.  "It's conditioning," she 
explained.  "It begins with a parent who raises a sociopathic 
child, and the pattern repeats itself in the next generation, 
and so on and so forth.  It's been proven in violent, anti-
social families - "

   "So what are we dealing with here, the anti-Waltons?"

   "Mulder - "

   He raised a placating hand.  "No, look, we aren't going to 
get anywhere like this.  What we need to do is track Tooms, 
find him before he kills again.  He has a definite pattern of 
five killings every thirty years, which means he's got one more 
to go this year, and if we don't catch him now, the next chance 
we'll get will be in - "

   "The year 2023."

   " - And by that time, you'll be the head of the Bureau with 
a high court judge for a husband and half a dozen kids.  So I 
suggest that you take over going through the census records and 
I'll start ploughing through the marriage, birth and death 
certificates.  And ...."

   "And what?" she asked, beginning to smile.

   "You wouldn't happen to have some Dramamine on you, would 
you?"  He gave her a pathetic look.  "These machines make me 
seasick."

   The smile widened.  "I think I can find some."  She headed 
for the door.

   Mulder watched her go.  "That smile had better not be for 
the high court judge," he muttered ruefully.

XXXX

   It seemed to take forever.  It was at times like this that 
Mulder cursed his photographic memory, for although the 
microfiche was moving too fast most of the time for him to 
actually *record* what he was seeing, it was still enough to 
guarantee that he would be dreaming of legal forms for the next 
three or four nights.  Always supposing Sam let him sleep long 
enough to dream - 

   Hell!  He'd left Sam with the day-care centre.  Mulder 
checked his watch hurriedly and huffed a sigh of relief when he 
saw that he still had an hour's grace before collecting the 
kid.  

   Scully looked up at the sound, and smiled wearily, 
stretching her back stiffly after sitting in one position too 
long.  "Found anything?"

   "Nah.  I swear the guy was never born, never married, and he 
sure as hell never died.  How can someone just not *exist* in 
this day and age?"

   "Beats me.  I've found out one useful piece of information, 
though."

   Mulder felt some of his fatigue flow away at her pleased 
tone.  "Sock it to me."

   "The current address of the officer who investigated the 
Powhatan Mill murders in 1933."  She passed a slip of paper to 
him with the information on, and stood up to try and relieve 
one stubborn kink in the small of her back.

   "Lynne Acres Retirement Home," Mulder mused.  "That's not 
far from here."

   "We could go see him now," Scully suggested.  "I'll give the 
home a call and see if it's convenient."

   Mulder hesitated.  "I'll have to fetch the Terror of the 
West from day-care and hand him over to my mother first."

   "Okay.  Tell you what; you go pick up Sam and take him home, 
and I'll pick you up in - what?  Hour and a half?"

   "Fine."  Mulder grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, 
grateful just to be leaving the microfiche behind.

XXXX

   *I knew I should have just opened a vein this morning,* 
Mulder thought bitterly, an hour later.  *Life was obviously 
out to get me the moment the clock struck midnight last night.* 
 At least Sam was behaving himself for now.

   That was probably the only good part of the scenario.  
Mulder had arrived home with his son, after battling rush-hour 
traffic, only to discover a note from his mother on the kitchen 
table announcing that she was meeting friends and wouldn't be 
back until much later.  Experience had taught Mulder that "much 
later" inevitably meant some time around midnight.

   Fortunately, the early stages of his crash course in single 
parenthood had taught the former FBI agent the benefits of the 
old Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared".  Sam was now happily 
shovelling an emergency dinner of baked beans and fingers of 
toast into his mouth and down his front, while his father tried 
frantically to get hold of Scully on her cell phone.  Finally, 
he gave up and returned to the table to try and keep the chaos 
there down to manageable levels.

   "Grandma would have a fit if she knew you'd had something 
out of a tin twice today," he told Sam, gently wiping a splotch 
of sauce from the front of the toddler's hair.  Spaghetti 
shapes had been on the lunch menu at day-care.  "Never mind; 
Grandma's not here.  Again," he added under his breath.  

   Sam paused, looking at Mulder anxiously, and offered him a 
spoonful of beans.

   "It's okay, Sunshine, Daddy's not hungry.  You eat them."  
Mulder stroked his soft, dark hair gently and absently tried to 
flatten the obstinate cowlick at the front which so closely 
mirrored his own.

   It was weird, he mused, how quickly you adapted to new 
situations.  Three years ago, if anyone had suggested he'd be 
here with an almost-two-year-old son, no longer an FBI agent 
but a college lecturer in post-graduate psychology, he'd have 
laughed in their faces.  

   He'd never wanted children.  It was something he and Phoebe 
had agreed upon right from the beginning, she having no 
maternal instincts and he having a mortal horror of fatherhood. 
 His experiences with his own father's drunkenness (among other  
things) had proved to be the best contraceptive ever devised.  
And when he'd stood in the maternity wing of that hospital in 
Denver and seen the product of what had, in essence, been 
Phoebe's rape of him, he'd nearly thrown up there and then.  
'Fear' didn't begin to describe the melange of emotions running 
through him at the sight of the child he'd planned never to 
have.

   Things had changed quickly, though.  They had to.  Despite 
his mother's initial energy in moving both him and the baby in 
with her - ostensibly so she could help out - Mulder had fast 
discovered that she was in fact almost no help at all.  She 
showed him how to do things, then left him to it.  Everything 
was fine while the baby was clean, quiet and presentable, and 
could be shown off to her friends, but when Sam started to fret 
she couldn't hand him back fast enough.  And although she 
tended these days to have a lot of opinions on how the boy 
should be raised, fed, dressed, whatever, she was often short 
on practical assistance.  

   *I suppose I should have guessed,* Mulder thought, as he 
cleared away the dishes and mopped up before taking Sam to get 
changed.  Mrs. Mulder had never been a 'close' parent herself; 
he could remember he and his sister Samantha having a nanny at 
one point, and later they'd spent a lot of time with his Aunt 
Rachel.  It had seemed normal at the time, although his mother 
had never worked and he was hard put to discover exactly what 
she *had* done with her time.

   His initial plans, of leaving Sam with his mother while he 
went back to work at the Bureau, had been blown apart almost 
immediately.  She'd had no intention of taking on the full-time 
care of a baby, which left him with few options.  Desperate, 
and unable to conceive of giving up a job he loved and had 
worked so hard to achieve in, Mulder had reached the stage of 
considering giving his son up for adoption.  He couldn't see 
any other way of managing, and actually consulted an uncle who 
was lawyer on how to proceed.  A cousin had come forward and 
offered to take Sam herself, to be raised with her children.

   But at the last minute, he hadn't been able to do it.  
Despite six weeks of sleepless nights, bitterly resenting the 
noisy, messy, demanding intrusion into his life, and being 
unable to look at the baby without seeing his mother, Mulder 
had suddenly realised he simply couldn't give him away to 
someone else.  This, at least in part, had its roots in the 
fact that he had spent most of his own life abandoned by his 
parents, and he couldn't do that to his own son.  But it also 
had a lot to do with something a lot less tangible; something 
which had made it physically impossible to hand Sam over when 
Annie and her husband arrived to take him.

   Mulder remembered that moment very vividly; the feeling that 
it would have been easier to take a knife and hack off a limb, 
than to give his son to someone else.

   The next day, he'd handed his resignation to AD Skinner, and 
thereafter Sam had always come first on his list of priorities. 
 As he changed the toddler into a clean shirt and pair of 
dungarees now, Mulder wondered if Scully would take this 
particular manifestation of those priorities philosophically.

   Not for the first time, of course, he was underestimating 
Scully.

XXXX

   "My son moved to Florida with his wife and kids two years 
ago," Frank Briggs said.  The former detective was happily 
holding a rather sleepy Sam in his lap.  "They visit now and 
again, but - you miss them.  How old is he?"

   "Twenty months."  Mulder gave him a concerned look.  "Are 
you sure he's not too heavy - "

   "No, he's fine."  Briggs transferred his attention from the 
toddler to his other two guests.  "I've been waiting for you 
for twenty-five years," he said abruptly.

   Scully's eyes widened, surprised.  "Sir?"

   "I called it quits in 1968," he explained.  

   Mulder was less fazed.  "Can you tell us about the 1933 
murders at Powhatan Mill?"

   Briggs paused, and for a moment the look in his eyes was far 
away.  Finally, he sighed and looked down at Sam, before 
meeting their eyes again.  "Powhatan Mill was like nothing else 
in my career," he said quietly.  "There were other murders, 
some of them equally horrific in their own way, but I could 
always put it behind me and go home to play with my kids.  I 
mean, you've got to be able to do that when you're a cop.  
You'd go crazy else, right?"

   Scully nodded in silent agreement.  Detachment was something 
you had to learn in law enforcement work, the ability to 
separate your work from the rest of your life.

   "But those murders at Powhatan Mill ....  They were 
different.  As soon as I walked into that room, my heart went 
cold, my hands went numb ....  I could feel *it*."

   "'It'?" Scully questioned.

   Briggs paused, searching for the words to explain.  "It was 
like all the horrors mankind is capable of, condensed into one 
space," he said finally.  "When I heard about the Nazi 
concentration camps ... and the atrocities in Bosnia, I was 
reminded of those murders.  It was as though all the horrible 
acts people are capable of somehow gave birth to a human 
monster.  That's why I've been waiting for you.  That ... 
*thing* ... has killed again, hasn't it?"

   "Four times so far," Mulder confirmed.

   Briggs nodded, and carefully moved his wheelchair slightly 
so that he had a clearer view of the room behind him.  "There's 
a box in that trunk over there," he said to Mulder, pointing to 
a corner by the head of his bed.  "Get it out for me, will 
you?"

   Mulder opened the trunk and retrieved a strong cardboard 
box, setting it down on a small table at Briggs's elbow.  The 
retired detective pulled the flaps open, then gestured to 
Scully and Mulder to take the contents out.  It was packed with 
file folders, surveillance photos and other bits and pieces.

   "This is all the evidence I collected, officially and 
unofficially."

   Scully raised a brow at him.  "Unofficially?"

   He smiled faintly.  "I knew the murders in 1963 were 
committed by the same person, but by that time I'd been retired 
to desk-work.  The sheriff's department didn't want me there, 
said I was too old.  But I couldn't let it go, so I kept tabs 
of my own.  I knew someday someone might need it."

   Mulder pulled out a glass jar filled with clear liquid and a 
chunk of ... something.  "What the - ?"

   Scully's eyes widened.  "Is that a piece of a liver?" she 
demanded.

   Briggs nodded.  "Left at one of the crime scenes.  Livers 
weren't the only trophies he took, though."

   "What do you mean?"

   "In each case, the families of the deceased reported 
personal items missing - a hairbrush in the Walters case, a 
coffee mug in the Taylor murder.  Something small."

   Mulder put the jar down carefully, and looked at the old 
man.  "Have you ever heard the name Eugene Tooms?" he asked.

   The faint smile returned.  Briggs tapped on one of the files 
with a finger.  "Take a look in there."

   Mulder opened it, pulled out a sheaf of photos - and stopped 
cold.  "Scully, look."

   "Like I said, when they wouldn't let me on the case in 1963, 
I did some of my own work," the Briggs's voice continued dryly. 
 "But that was Tooms thirty years ago, of course."

   If it hadn't been for the black-and-white pictures, and the 
anachronistic clothing worn by the man in them, no one would 
have known they hadn't been taken yesterday.

   "Oh my God," Scully murmured, staring at the familiar boyish 
face in the photos.  "He hasn't aged a day."

   "Doing pretty good for a guy of over a hundred," Mulder 
agreed, a little shaken himself at this unexpected confirmation 
of his theories.  He turned the next picture over and they were 
confronted with a photo of an old, rather ratty-looking 
apartment block with a large sign over the front saying "Pierre 
Paris and Sons".

   "That's the apartment block where Tooms lived," Briggs put 
in grimly.  "It was at - "

   "66 Exeter Street?"

   "That's the one."

   Mulder looked at the photo again silently, then looked up 
and met Scully's determined gaze.

XXXX

   By the time they got back to Mulder's house it was dark, and 
Sam was dead to the world in the back seat.  Mulder looked up 
at the windows of the house and noticed that they were still 
dark; and his mother's car wasn't in the drive.

   Scully noticed too.  "Does your mom often stay out this 
late?"

   "Yep."  Mulder changed the subject quickly.  "Will you stop 
for a coffee?"

   She noticed the evasion, but decided not to mention it.  
"That would be nice," she smiled.  

   "Okay.  I've just got to put the car away - "

   "Give me your key and I'll take Sam in if you like."

   He looked surprised.  "Are you sure?"

   Scully chuckled at his tone.  "In case you hadn't noticed, 
I'm a fully paid-up member of the Maiden Aunts' Society, 
Mulder.  I've been handling pre-school psychopaths since I was 
sixteen and my eldest brother got married.  I think I can 
manage Snoozy back there."

   "Okaaaay ...."  Mulder gave her the key.  "Though I have to 
warn you - he snores.  I think it's a family trait."

   "I'll remember that for future reference," she smiled, and 
got out of the car.

   It wasn't until Mulder had got the car into the garage that 
he suddenly registered what she'd said.  *What the hell is 
*that* supposed to mean?* he wondered, staring at himself wide-
eyed in the rear-view mirror.

   For the sake of his sanity, he decided not to consider that 
question too closely right now.

XXXX

   "I'll see you tomorrow, then," Scully said as Mulder 
escorted her to the door an hour later.

   "Yeah, okay."  He paused and added quietly, "Always 
supposing he doesn't strike again tonight."

   The small frown on her face showed that Scully had 
considered this possibility herself.  "Would he be that 
reckless?" she asked finally.  "With all the other killings, he 
left at least a few days in between each."

   "That *is* his pattern," Mulder agreed, "but we still don't 
know what he wants the livers for, or how urgent he considers 
the need to take them.  And even if we did - there's nothing we 
can do tonight.  There's no way I can come with you to search 
that place now, and even if I could, I don't constitute proper 
back-up anymore.  You won't get that kind of back-up at this 
hour even if you could persuade Colton and Fuller to let you 
have it, and if you so much as consider going in tonight 
without back-up, Scully, I'll - "

   "Call Skinner and denounce me as a Republican?"

   He chuckled.  "Something like that."

   "Don't worry, it's not an option," she assured him.  "I'm 
not interested in unnecessary heroics."

   "Good."  Mulder shuffled his feet slightly.  "You need a 
partner," he said abruptly.  His tone was constricted and 
uncomfortable.

   "That too is not an option," Scully grimaced.  "I don't 
think you'd get anyone to work with me right now."

   "Yeah.  Besides ... anyone who *wants* to work with you is 
suspect, Scully, and anyone who doesn't could be a liability.  
It's the same problem I faced, and I can't see any easy way 
around it."

   "All the same, they won't let me work solo for long."

   Mulder knew it.  And it worried him, not just because the 
projected partner was statistically likely to be male.  
Irrational jealousies aside, he meant what he'd said: anyone 
willing to work on the X-files had to be viewed with caution in 
his experience.  There were too many potentially 'sensitive' 
areas of investigation on file.

   Scully was so damn vulnerable, and there wasn't a thing he 
could do about it except be there for her, in whatever role she 
would permit.

   "Anyway, I've got to go," she said, breaking in on his 
thoughts.

   "Okay ...."  Mulder walked out to her car with her and 
watched as she strapped herself in.  At the last minute, he 
leaned in through the window.  "Hey, Scully, tell me 
something."

   She raised an enquiring brow.

   "How come you aren't married with six kids?"

   For a brief second, so fast he thought he'd imagined it, 
Mulder saw a shadow cross her face.  Then Scully was giving 
him her usual wry half-smile.  

   "Obviously I haven't met that high court judge yet, Mulder." 
 And she slipped the clutch, letting the car pull slowly out of 
the drive.

XXXX

   66 Exeter Street looked more like an abandoned warehouse 
than an apartment block.  Stacks of refuse and rubble were 
piled up in the street outside and the building itself had been 
condemned for some time; although whoever was responsible for 
the actual act of demolition had apparently forgotten the 
place, as the shell of it at least was still standing.

   Scully judged that no one could possibly have lived in this 
place for a good twenty years; and judging by Detective 
Briggs's photographs, it had been in a pretty ropy condition 
even in the 1960s when apartments were still being let out 
there.  The whole area was a slum, but there was a curious feel 
about this building in particular, as if the rot had somehow 
started here and spread outwards through the streets.

   It was not the most enticing prospect on a bright sunny 
morning.  She glanced sideways at Mulder who was also viewing 
the block with disfavour.  "Ready to go?" she asked.

   He grunted.  "Did we bring any bug repellent?"

   "Mulder, I don't think even cockroaches would live in this 
place."

   "Not with Tooms for company, they wouldn't."  Mulder dragged 
himself out of the car and winced in the bright sunlight.

   Scully almost winced in sympathy.  He looked terrible; 
exhausted and more than a little grumpy, although he'd seemed 
relieved when she'd arrived, as though he wanted to get out of 
the house.  She was reluctant to ask questions, but she was 
beginning to wonder if all was not well between Mulder and his 
mother; aside from the incident the day before when Mrs. Mulder 
hadn't been around to take care of Sam, Scully had been to the 
house half a dozen or so times since she'd met him, and his 
mother had never yet been in.  Comments he'd dropped once or 
twice suggested that this was a bone of contention between them 
and that Mrs. Mulder was not the devoted grandparent she liked 
to portray herself as.

   But then, Mulder's family was difficult for her to fathom 
anyway.  Scully herself came from a large Catholic family of 
Irish descent, and they were all almost oppressively close.  A 
situation like Mulder's could never have happened to one of the 
Scullys; there would have been a whole host of female relatives 
positively panting to take over the care of little Sam while 
Mulder himself got on with his job and his life.  

   But Mulder's family ....  Scully knew he had a large 
extended family and that they were Jewish, but he seemed to 
have very little contact with them and received almost no 
support.  This seemed extraordinary to her; it ran contrary to 
everything she knew of Jewish families.  His mother, despite 
giving the appearance of supporting him, was never there.  His 
father ....  His father was out of the picture, but according 
to his son, William Mulder was a drunk who had killed his 
daughter in a road accident and then abandoned the rest of his 
family.

   And then, of course, there was Mulder's ex-wife Phoebe, of 
whom Scully knew almost nothing except that she was on the 
FBI's most wanted list.

   'Dysfunctional' was not the word to describe the Mulders.

   But the one Scully was most concerned about at the moment 
was the one who had obviously spent most of the night sat up 
with a fretful little boy, and yet was still determined to help 
her track down a serial killer this morning in spite of it.  
She worried about him disproportionately.

   She would have been extremely surprised to discover that 
part of his sleepless night had been spent worrying about her.  
Mulder had come with her today at least in part because he was 
concerned at the idea of her investigating a man like Eugene 
Tooms alone.  But he knew better than to air his worries aloud; 
she wouldn't appreciate it.  Instead, he focussed on the matter 
at hand.

   "You think we should have some sort of safety gear, hard-
hats or something, going in here?" he commented as they entered 
the building.

   "Probably, but I think it's a little late to worry about it 
now."  Scully eased her way around the semi-boarded-up doorway, 
and coughed a little as her feet stirred up clouds of dust.

   Emerging through the hole with a little more difficulty, 
Mulder straightened up beside her in the gloom and flicked on 
his flashlight.  There were in what had once been the hallway 
of the building: to one side were the heavily secured doors of 
two elevators, and opposite the entrance was a narrow 
staircase.  He cast the light around, scanning the small area, 
noting the graffiti on the walls and general vandal damage.

   "That's weird," he said softly.  Crossing the wooden floor 
cautiously, Mulder examined the graffiti with his fingertips.  
"Scully, look how old this is.  None of it's recently done."

   "There's no sign of habitation by transients either," she 
agreed, flashing her own light into the corners.  "You'd think 
this place would be a safe haven for drug users and tramps, but 
...."

   Mulder's expression, when he turned around, mirrored her 
own.  Neither of them was really surprised at the level of 
desertion here.  There was a curious feel to the building, 
something ... not right.  It was too silent.  Too abandoned.  
And Scully had been unwittingly right about the cockroaches; 
bizarrely, there was no evidence of infestation, by rats or 
anything else.

   "I guess we'd better check out apartment 103," he said, 
gesturing towards the stairs.

   "I guess so," Scully agreed unenthusiastically.

   "After you?"

   "No, really - age before beauty."

   Mulder grinned weakly and started up the staircase.  "Mind 
your feet, Scully, some of the steps are a bit rickety."

   The feeling of wrongness grew as they reached the first 
floor and peaked when they stopped outside apartment 103.  
Mulder hesitated, glancing at Scully who had drawn her gun, 
then pushed on the door.

   It wasn't locked or even closed properly, and swung open 
under his hand.  Scanning the room warily, they edged inside, 
but there was nothing to be seen.  The 'apartments' of 66 
Exeter Street had obviously never been more than bedsits in the 
first place.  The single room was stripped bare of furnishings, 
with nothing left but a filthy, dried up sink in one corner.  
The window was boarded up, with only a few narrow strips of 
sunlight filtering through it; what paint and paper there had 
ever been on the walls was peeling away; the floor was bare, 
rotting boards; and generally there was nothing left to show it 
had ever been inhabited, but an old mattress propped against 
one wall.

   But something *had* been here.  They could both feel it, 
even Scully, who had been trying to deny the sickening 
sensation the building was giving her ever since they stepped 
through the front entrance.  

   "Briggs was right," Mulder said, breaking the tense silence. 
 "You can feel ... *it*.  Something really bad happened here 
sometime, Scully."

   She nodded.  "I'm not denying that, Mulder, but I can't see 
anything of relevance here.  There's no sign of habitation, and 
Tooms obviously isn't around."

   "I don't know ...."  Mulder looked around him uncertainly, 
until his eyes came to rest on the mattress by the wall.  
Grimacing, he gingerly pulled it forward and was rewarded by 
the sight of a large-ish hole in the wall behind.  "Hey, 
Scully, look at this!"

   She helped him pull the mattress away completely, then 
leaned carefully into the hole, flashing her light around.  "It 
seems to lead down through the gap inside the walls," she 
reported, "and - " she paused and tested something with one 
foot, "there's a metal ladder here."

   She looked back at Mulder and saw the expression on his face 
- a combination of excitement, curiosity and apprehension.  
"What do you think's down there?" he asked.

   In answer, Scully holstered her gun safely and picked up her 
flashlight.  "Only one way to find out," she replied matter-of-
factly.

   The ladder was short, only a handful of rungs down, and when 
Scully reached the bottom she found herself in what appeared to 
be the building's basement.  Shining the light around, she saw 
heavy-duty pipework everywhere and what looked like ancient 
electrical fuseboxes on the walls.  It was cold, damp, dirt-
encrusted and pitch black, her flashlight barely making an 
impression on the gloom.

   "Mind your head, Mulder," she called quietly.  "The 
ceiling's pretty low down here."

   He appeared beside her and added his light to hers.  "What 
have we got?"

   "A basement, by appearances."

   "Okay, let's take a look."

   Scully stepped forward slowly and cautiously panned the area 
with her light.  The basement spread out in front of them, with 
nothing much worthy of note except what appeared to be a table 
against the far wall with a number of objects on it.

   "Somebody having a garage sale?" Mulder commented, and went 
to look.  

   It was an old packing crate, the top loaded down with a 
bizarre assortment of trinkets and personal belongings.  Scully 
peered over Mulder's shoulder as he picked one particular 
object up: a small crystal jar with four squat little feet.  He 
glanced up at her.  "Werner's?"

   She pointed to something else: a photo cube.  "That's 
Usher's."

   "I think we've established that the killer has a connection 
to this building," Mulder nodded grimly.  "And I think we can 
safely say, based on the evidence, that it's Tooms.  Do you 
think he lives down here?"

   Scully looked around her again.  "There's no sign of 
anything to suggest he sleeps here."  Her flashlight 
illuminated the far wall, revealing something odd.  "Mulder, 
look at this - there's something wrong with the wall."  He 
followed her over to take a closer look.  

   "It looks like it's deteriorating," she frowned.

   "No ... someone made it that way.  Look - "  Mulder fingered 
a piece of old rag sticking out from the mottled surface.  
"It's mostly paper and stuff, like papier mache.  Jesus, 
Scully, I think it's a nest."

   Scully stared at the mess.  "It's been stuck together with 
something - look at this yellow stuff."

   Mulder saw what she was looking at and touched his fingers 
to it gingerly.  "Stinks," he commented.

   "I know.  It smells kind of familiar."  She wrinkled her 
nose in disgust - when suddenly it dawned on her what the 
substance was, and she tried not to gag.  "Oh God, Mulder!  It 
must be ... I think it's *bile*."

   He jerked his hand away from the structure as if it was 
burned.  "Shit!"  He looked at her with a queasy expression.  
"Is there anyway I can get it off my fingers fast without 
betraying my cool exterior?" he asked with feeble humour, and 
tried to wipe his hand on a small section of rag sticking out 
of the fake wall.

   Then he stood up quickly, his brain gearing into rapid 
thought.  "You know, Scully, I don't think this is where Tooms 
lives as such - I think this is where he *hibernates*."

   She blinked at him in the chancy torchlight.  "Hibernates?"

   "Yeah.  In your profile, you said that the source of 
fascination with the livers could be their rejuvenative powers 
on the human system, the cleansing of blood and so forth, 
right?"

   "Yes, but - "

   "I don't think you were so far wrong," he interrupted.  
"Scully, what if he *eats* them?"

   The nausea in her stomach grew at the idea.  "What do you 
mean?  Why would he want to do that?"

   "Suppose this isn't just a serial killer with a particular 
kink," Mulder said intensely.  "Suppose he actually has a 
physiological need he has to satisfy to survive.  Hibernation 
could explain both this nest and the thirty year cycle, Scully. 
 He wakes up, consumes five human livers to satisfy his bodily 
needs, then holes up in this structure here and sleeps for 
thirty years.  It probably explains the lack of ageing, too, 
because the hibernation process would slow down all bodily 
functions to nearly nil."

   Scully stared at him.  He had definitely flipped.  "Mulder, 
we're talking about a man here, not a B-movie monster."

   "I'm not suggesting he is, Scully.  What I'm suggesting is 
that he's some kind of genetic mutant, a freak of nature like 
albinos."  God, he *had* to believe that Tooms was a one-off 
event, for his own sanity's sake.  "I think when Briggs 
suggested that all the horrors in humanity had given birth to 
an inhuman monster, he was closer to the truth than he  
realised."

   "That's one hell of a leap, Mulder," Scully retorted.  "This 
... this structure and a lot of bile do not provide even a 
shred of evidence to support such a theory.  The objects on 
that crate over there, though - those, and the fact that this  
apartment belonged to Tooms at some point, are evidence enough 
to suggest that he's behind this."

   Mulder didn't waste his breath arguing with her.  "Okay, 
fine.  In that case, you have to assume that Tooms will come 
back here, so you need a warrant for his arrest and a 
surveillance team out here to wait for him."

   Scully smiled wryly at this.  "That'll take some finagling," 
she told him, thinking of Colton's likely reaction when she 
demanded VCS agents to watch a condemned building for a man he 
was convinced hadn't committed a crime.

   Mulder knew it too, but there wasn't a lot he could do about 
it.  "I'll keep watch while you go finagle," he offered.

   "Okay.  Let's get out of here."

   They headed back to the ladder, Mulder in the lead.  He had 
just put his foot on the first rung when Scully let out a sharp 
breath.

   "What?!"

   "I'm caught up on something - no, wait - it's okay."

   "Sheesh, don't do that to me!  This place gives me the 
heebies as it is."

   She chuckled and they headed out.

   Behind them in the darkness, a hand appeared out of the 
pipework in the ceiling holding the copper charm bracelet 
Mulder had given Scully a week before, and a pair of curiously 
yellow eyes glared ferally out of the boyish face of Eugene 
Tooms as he watched Scully leave.

   Four victims down.

   One to go ....

XXXX

   Mulder shifted restlessly in the front seat of Scully's car 
while he waited for the official surveillance team to arrive.  
*Damn Bureau-issue Tauruses are all the same,* he thought 
irritably.  *Never enough leg-room ....*

   That wasn't strictly true, though, and he knew it.  The real 
issue was his growing discomfort over Scully.  Sat here, he had 
far too much time to think.

   It wasn't just the fact that as a lone agent she was 
vulnerable, although that did bother him.  The true issue, 
however, was something more personal - his growing attraction 
to her.  He had sworn that after Phoebe he would not, 
absolutely *not*, get involved again, and that went double for 
any female agent.  Sam's arrival had helped cement the resolve, 
and in fact Mulder had discovered that most single women, while 
finding the idea of a single father rather cute and New Man-
ish, did not generally want to get involved in helping raise 
another woman's baby; an attitude he was more than happy with.

   But when he met Scully in Bellefleur, he'd had to repeat his 
resolve to himself quite sternly on a couple of occasions.  And 
the number of occasions thereafter had grown steadily; in fact, 
until the day she'd walked into that bar and announced she was 
taking over the X-files, he'd almost forgotten his resolve 
altogether.  She was young, she was intelligent, she was 
beautiful, she was on his wavelength - more or less - and most 
importantly, she was happy to mother Sam when he was around.  
He'd started to view something happening between them as not 
only being inevitable but something to be anticipated.

   Five minutes after she'd walked out of the bar, the daydream 
was shattered.  Jack Willis had appeared beside the table where 
Mulder was finishing his iced tea, and sat himself down in 
Scully's vacated seat uninvited.

   Frustrated, and not wanting the run that conversation in his 
head again, Mulder rummaged in the glove compartment for 
something, anything, that would take his mind off it.  A bag of 
boiled sweets fell out and, oddly, a guide to the pubs and 
clubs of London.  He tried to interest himself in an out-of-
date description of Stringfellows and the Hard Rock Cafe, but 
it wasn't enough.

   Willis's voice had been cold, almost threatening.  "Dana's 
going up the ladder, Spooky.  She doesn't need her reputation 
in the Bureau wiped out because you won't stay off her back."

   "You mean *you* don't want *your* chances with her ruined 
because I won't stay out of your way!" he had snapped back 
unwisely.

   But Willis had been perfectly calm.  "I'm not worried about  
where I stand with Dana.  We've been seeing each other for the 
better part of eighteen months now - or didn't she tell you 
that?"

   No, she hadn't.  She still hadn't.  Although why should she? 
 And yet ....  Mulder wanted to discount the things Willis had 
said, simply because there was no evidence to support them and 
a number of indications to suggest that Scully was interested 
in him.  

   And that was the problem.  Mulder had been caught out once 
before by a woman who played husband off against lover.  He  
had thought Phoebe loved him; perhaps once she *did*, but she 
also loved playing with his mind and playing with his loyalty.  
Every instinct screamed that Scully was different, not like 
that, but experience and the memory of that ring with its 
square-cut diamond solitaire in its velvet box in Scully's 
drawer, coldly warned him to be wary.

   *I wish I really knew what was going on,* he thought, 
staring blankly at the decrepit facade of 66 Exeter Street.  *I 
wish I had the nerve to ask Scully outright.  I wish ....  I 
wish my life was different.  I wish my father wasn't a drunk, 
that my sister hadn't died, that my mother was everything she 
appears to be, that I hadn't screwed up my life by marrying 
Phoebe, and that I didn't have to give up my job at the Bureau. 
 I wish ....

   *I wish I'd never met Scully, then I'd be at home playing 
trains with Sam, not sitting here waiting for a serial killer 
to appear - 

   *No, that's not true.*

   He couldn't regret having met Scully.  He didn't regret 
having got into this investigation.  But he had to get over 
this attraction to her, which was going to get him into trouble 
if he wasn't careful.  They were good friends; they could stay 
that way, and there would be no damage done.

   Mulder was jerked out of his reverie by the sound of another 
car drawing up behind him.  A few minutes later, two male 
agents he was vaguely familiar with got into the car with him.

   "Okay," the one in the front passenger seat said, without 
preamble.  "We've got the warrant, but what are we looking for 
again?"

   Mulder found the arrest report and mug shot of Tooms Scully 
had left with him.  "Eugene Victor Tooms.  He's unarmed, but 
consider him extremely dangerous."

   Both of them studied the picture, and the man next to him 
shrugged.  "Okay.  We'll take over from here."

   Mulder handed the picture and report over.  "Scully will be 
back with someone else to relieve you in eight hours, if he 
doesn't show."

   "You got it ... Spooky."

   His companion in the back seat choked back a laugh, and 
Mulder got out of the car with a sigh.  He didn't think he'd 
ever get used to that name.

XXXX

   Eight hours later, Scully was impatiently waiting at the 
Baltimore police headquarters for the agent who was supposed to 
be partnering her on the stakeout.  He was late, very late, and 
she was getting angry.

   Abruptly, the door opened and Tom Colton walked in.  His 
face was flushed and he was wearing an expression of combined 
anger and excitement.  "We have to talk," he told her.

   "Damn right we do!" Scully snapped.  "Where's Esgrave?  We 
were supposed to be relieving Kennedy and Kramer half an hour 
ago!"

   "Esgrave won't be joining you.  I've called off the 
stakeout."

   Scully stared at him in disbelief.  "What?!  But - "

   "What the hell are you playing at, Dana?" Colton 
interrupted.  "I got called in this afternoon but the Regional 
SAC to be told that you'd got a warrant out for the arrest of a 
suspect we'd already eliminated from our enquiries!"

   "If you'd looked at the evidence Mulder and I collected - "

   "Mulder, Mulder, Mulder," he snapped.  "That's all I hear 
from you!  When I asked you to join me on this case, it was 
because of my respect for you as an agent.  But now I've seen 
how you've been brainwashed by that guy - I couldn't have you 
far enough away."

   "My investigation is separate from yours, Tom," Scully said, 
trying to keep her voice level, "and it was approved by AD 
Skinner.  You had no right to call off that stakeout."

   "No," he agreed, a nasty smile appearing, "but SAC Claymont 
did, especially when he heard about the waste of his manpower.  
I understand he'll be filing a report with the Assistant 
Director in the morning."

   Scully stared at his smug expression, fuming, but knew she 
was defeated.  There was nothing for it but to go home and wait 
for the fifth and final murder to occur.  She picked up her bag 
and coat.  "Is this what it takes to climb the ladder, Tom?" 
she enquired coldly.

   "All the way to the top, Dana."

   "Then I can't wait to see you fall off and land on your 
ass!" she snapped and stalked out of the room, slamming the 
door behind her.

   Her temper was not helped during the drive home by getting 
caught in the traffic, so she was in an evil mood by the time 
she pulled up in front of her apartment block.  Walking into 
her apartment, she threw her bag, coat and gun down on the 
coffee table and stood for a moment, trying to physically rub 
some of the tension out of her shoulders.

   This was no good.  She had to calm down.  

   Scully walked through to her bathroom, deciding that a long  
soak was just what she needed, and set the taps running.  Then 
she went into the bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and picked up 
the cordless phone by her bed and dialled Mulder's number.  She 
felt he had a right to know about Colton's actions.  The line 
was engaged.  She sighed, and put the phone down.

   Back in the bathroom, she tested the water with her fingers -
 still running cold.  She went into the kitchen to get herself 
a drink, then went back to the bedroom and began to unbutton 
her blouse.  She tried Mulder's number again; still engaged.  

   Scully went back to the bathroom again and tested the water. 
 It was running hot, so she shoved the plug in and selected a 
bath oil, tipping in a generous measure of the herb-scented 
liquid.  *I need something soothing,* she thought wryly.

   She was just capping the bottle again when something 
splattered on her hand.  Scully stared uncomprehendingly at the 
yellowish fluid for a second, then her brain suddenly kicked 
in.

   *No ....*  Slowly, reluctantly, she raised her hand to her 
nose and sniffed.

   It was bile.

   Her head jerked back reflexively as she looked up at the 
ceiling.  There was a grill above her head, an air-conditioning 
vent less than a foot square, and the yellow liquid was 
dripping from the bars.

XXXX

   Mulder had spent the afternoon playing with Sam and getting 
his papers ready for a test in class the next day.  By six-
thirty he'd fed the boy and put him to bed, and then he had 
dinner with his mother.  Afterwards, some friends of Mrs. 
Mulder's had arrived and, feeling decidedly out of place, 
Mulder decided to call Scully and find out what was happening.  
A call to her cell phone got the message that it was switched 
off; and there was no reply from her home number.  When he 
checked the clock, he realised that by now she was probably 
heading out to take her turn on the stakeout.

   He was restless and had little to do, with his mother 
monopolising the study and Sam asleep, so in the end he put his 
head around the door and told his mother he was going out for a 
while.

   He headed for 66 Exeter Street, thinking that he might as 
well spend some time swapping banter with Scully - and whatever 
bonehead she had with her - on stakeout.  But when he arrived, 
the alley was dark and empty, with no sign of a Bureau-issue 
Taurus.

   "What the hell - ?" he muttered.  He parked the car, and got 
out.  Definitely no one about.  Had they caught Tooms already?  
But if they had, Scully would have called him - she promised 
she would.

   Mulder had a bad feeling about this, though.  He headed for 
the trunk of his car and dug out his flashlight.  Much as he 
hated the thought, he had to pay a visit to Tooms's hideout and 
see what was going on.

   Entering the building was twice as bad in the dark and alone 
as it had been that morning in Scully's company, but Mulder 
forced himself to make his way up to apartment 103 and through 
the hole in the wall.  

   The basement was as still and empty as before.  Mulder 
checked the wall, but it didn't seem to have been disturbed, so 
 he turned to the packing crate and looked over the objects 
gathered there.  And when he did, his blood ran cold.

   Among all the other trinkets was something new, hanging from 
the neck of an ornate crystal vase and glowing richly in the 
beam of the flashlight.

   It was the bracelet he'd given Scully, its little moon and 
stars charms twinkling.

   Mulder let out an explosive breath as the sense of something 
being wrong peaked.  

   "Oh Jesus - Scully!"

XXXX

   It would be inaccurate to say that Scully didn't panic, but 
she controlled the impulse sharply.  Moving swiftly, aware that 
Tooms could be anywhere in her apartment already, she went 
through to the living room and retrieved her gun from the 
coffee table.  Having the cool metal of the Sig Sauer in her 
hands restored her confidence, but she was by no means out of 
the woods yet.

   Scully knew she had to get help and fast, because she had a 
strong notion that shooting Tooms wouldn't necessarily stop 
him.  She grabbed the phone on the sideboard and dialled 911.

   It was then that she discovered the phone was dead.

   This time, when the panic set in there was little she could 
do to hold it back.  With no help from the police, her 
colleagues or even Mulder, she was a sitting duck in her own 
apartment - she had to get out.

   Without stopping to take anything with her, Scully ran for 
the door, but as she ran through the hallway leading to the 
kitchen, a ventilation grill down by the floor burst open.  A 
filthy hand shot out, grabbing her ankle and yanking hard, 
bringing her crashing to the floor with a muffled shriek.  The 
gun was knocked from her hand and went skittering out of reach.

   He was monstrously strong.  Scully kicked out frantically 
and succeeded in freeing herself, but her triumph was short; 
she barely had time to pull herself back across the floor a 
couple of feet before his other hand slithered through the hole 
... then both arms and elbows ... and his head ....  In front 
of her shocked and terrified eyes, Tooms's whole body seemed to 
ooze out of the vent at high speed.

   She just had time to drag herself into the bathroom doorway 
before he was out and leaping onto her, his boyish face 
contorted and bestial.  Scully scrabbled for her gun 
desperately, but in vain.  Tooms flipped her over onto her back 
like a playing card, and straddled her thighs.  Her blouse, 
which she had unbuttoned in preparation for undressing for her 
bath, gaped open; he planted his left hand solidly on her 
chest, pinning her to the floor, and raised the other, fingers 
stiffened like claws, above her stomach.

   Scully closed her eyes, aware that nothing she could do 
would save her now.

   Then, like a gift from God, she heard the front door 
crashing open.  

   "SCULLY!"

   Tooms jerked his head back, staring at the doorway, and 
suddenly the pressure on her chest and thighs was gone as he 
made a leap towards her bathroom window.  But the glass was 
reinforced, defeating his first attempt to break through it, 
and giving Scully a chance to drag herself to her feet and hurl 
herself after him.

   Mulder burst through the bathroom door as she did so, and 
flung himself into the fray.  Tooms fought like a madman, 
tossing Scully to one side with ease, but Mulder was a tougher 
opponent.  

   There was a confused tussle after that, in which Mulder was 
later convinced he'd got a close-up of just about every nook 
and cranny of Scully's bathroom, before Scully herself 
reappeared, seizing one of Tooms's flailing arms.  There were 
two sharp rasping clicks, and Tooms found himself handcuffed by 
one wrist to the cold tap of Scully's antique, claw-footed 
bath.

   Mulder dragged himself to his feet, panting and feeling as 
though he'd just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.  He looked at 
Scully; she'd sunk down onto the lid of the toilet, her hair 
wild and her blouse in shreds, but she was alive and relatively 
unharmed.

   Thank God.

   Then he looked at Tooms, who was glaring back at him 
balefully, panting and tugging futilely at the handcuffs.  

   "You won't get your quota this year," Mulder told him, with 
concentrated venom.

XXXX

   The aftermath of the incident seemed to take forever to 
clear up.

   Mulder went to Scully's neighbours to borrow their phone and 
call Baltimore PD, and within twenty minutes the building was 
swarming with police and FBI agents.  Tooms was taken away, 
heavily handcuffed, statements were taken from the two of them. 
 The Regional SAC appeared to find out what was going on, calls 
were made to the Bureau headquarters, more statements were 
taken, and then a medical examiner appeared to check both 
Scully and Mulder over.  Fortunately, neither had more than 
bruising and scrapes.

   Finally, about three hours later, the last of the officers 
and agents vanished again, leaving the pair of them alone.  
Mulder, who had forgotten what a long-drawn-out pain in the 
rear the aftermath of a case was, was glad to see the back of 
them.

   He shut the door, and went to see where Scully was.  She was 
flaked out on her sofa, looking exhausted.

   "You look like you could do with a strong coffee or 
something," he said gently, concerned at the worn look on her 
face.  

   "Or something," she admitted.

   "Stay here and I'll go make coffee."

   Scully elected to follow him into the kitchen, though, and 
sat at the pine table, watching him rummaging through her 
cupboards, measuring coffee out and boiling the kettle.  She 
found the mugs for him, and after a pause, went to one cupboard 
and rummaged around at the back of it until she found a bottle 
of Navy rum her father had given her a couple of years back.

   "Here," she said, and poured a stiff dose into each mug.  "I 
think we need it."

   Mulder didn't argue.  He felt numb right now, a state he 
recognised from cases in his past as being a form of shock, and 
he knew that while he would be fine tonight, and possibly for 
as much as a week, sooner or later he was going to suffer for 
this incident in the form of nightmares - it was always the 
same, especially after the close call Scully had had.  His 
brain would be running and re-running the scenario, pointing 
out what *could* have happened.  He took a deep swallow of the 
strong black coffee and felt the rum burn the back of his 
throat.

   "How did you know to come here?" Scully asked suddenly, 
startling him.

   "What do you mean?" he returned blankly.

   "Mulder, you turned up just in the nick of time.  How did 
you know Tooms was here?"

   "Oh ....  Well, I didn't have much to do so I thought I'd 
join you on stakeout, but when I got there, there was no one 
around.  So I took a look in his hideaway, and saw - " Mulder 
paused, and suddenly remembered that he had something for her.  
He rummaged in his pocket and found the delicate little 
bracelet, which he held out to her mutely.

   Scully stared for a moment, then slowly went to take it from 
his hand.  But instead, his fingers closed around hers tightly, 
shaking a little.  Her vision blurred, and she scrambled from 
her seat to go to him, almost throwing herself into his arms.  
Mulder grabbed and held her tightly, burying his face in her 
hair, and felt her nose rubbing his collarbone.  She was 
trembling ever so slightly.

   There was nothing platonic about the embrace.  He could feel 
her breasts pressed against his chest and smell the very female 
scent of her body, and all the good intentions he'd made before 
lunch flew straight out of the window.  The physical reaction 
was almost instantaneous, and there was no way he could hide it 
from her.  But Scully didn't care; this was exactly what she 
wanted.  She reached up on tiptoe and captured his lips with 
hers.

   For several minutes, Mulder made no attempt to resist, so 
engrossed as he was in the taste and feel of her mouth.  But 
when he felt her beginning to ease his shirt from his jeans, 
reality suddenly zoomed back into focus with a vengeance, and 
he remembered with bitter clarity that she was not free to do 
this with him.

   Mulder broke the kiss and gently eased her hands away from 
his body.  He was shocked at how cold the room suddenly seemed 
with the cessation of physical contact.  "Scully ... no ...." 
he managed, trying to get his breath back.

   At once he was confronted by a pair of very bewildered and 
rather hurt blue eyes.  "But Mulder - "

   She reached out again, and he took her wrists, holding her 
gently but firmly away from him.  "No, Scully, we can't do 
this."

   "Yes, we can - "

   "No, we can't," he insisted quietly.

   Scully swallowed hard, blinking rapidly, and it twisted his 
heart to see that she was trying not to cry.  But she looked 
him straight in the eye nevertheless.  "Why not?" she demanded, 
trying to keep her voice steady.

   Mulder let go of her wrists and backed away slightly.  
"Because you're not free to do this with me."

   She looked surprised.  "What do you mean?"

   "I mean that you're seeing someone else."

   For a moment she looked blank, then understanding suddenly 
flooded in and she straightened up, folding her arms.  "How did 
you find out about Jack?" she asked, the sharpness of the 
question at radical odds with her breathy voice moments before.

   *Oh God.*  Mulder felt a horrible leaden lump of dread and 
depression settling in his stomach at her tone.  This was 
suddenly shaping into one of his fights with Phoebe, back in 
the days before he'd summoned up the courage to leave her.  *I 
don't need this, I don't want this, not again ....*  "He told 
me," he said flatly, and wondered how fast he could get out of 
her apartment and avoid this conversation.

   His bald statement actually gave Scully a pause, though.  
"How?" she demanded finally.  "When?"

   "Does it really matter?"  *Where's my jacket, dammit?*

   "Yes," she retorted, "it matters to me.  What did he tell 
you?"

   "Look, Scully, I really don't see the need for this 
conversation," Mulder stated, growing desperate.  He pushed 
past her, out of the kitchen and into the living room.  

   "Mulder - "

   His jacket was on the sofa; he grabbed it and headed for the 
door.  *Let me out, let me out, let me out - *

   "Mulder, please don't leave."

   The simple statement was so sad and quiet that it halted him 
in his tracks.  His hand was on the door handle, and he was 
dimly conscious of it shaking.  

   Scully stepped up behind him quietly, close enough that he 
could smell her distinctive perfume, but far enough away that 
she wasn't invading his personal space.  "Mulder ... I know it 
must be hard for you to trust women after what Phoebe did to 
you, but if you leave now you'll never know if Jack was really 
telling you the truth."

   "You could have told me right from the beginning," Mulder 
replied, disgusted with the way his voice was shaking but 
unable to stop it. "There were a dozen opportunities when you 
could have."

   She sighed.  "Yes, I know, and with hindsight I should have. 
 But it wasn't something I wanted to talk about, Mulder - I 
don't exactly come out of it with much credit myself, and when 
I transferred from Quantico, it seemed like too many people 
already knew why."

   Mulder swallowed, his throat dry.  That was one thing he 
could empathise with; he too had stood under the glare of his 
colleagues' scrutiny when his personal life was dramatically 
made public to what seemed like everyone working for the 
Bureau, right down to the lowliest cleaner.

   There was a long pause, then Scully said gently, "Please 
come and sit down.  We need to talk about this - no strings, 
just talk."

   Mulder sagged, feeling very tired.  He nodded.  "Okay."

XXXX

   "For the record, I haven't dated Jack in nearly eight 
months," Scully stated, from where she was sat curled up on the 
sofa.  Mulder was sat in an armchair opposite, cradling his 
coffee mug in his lap.  "We got involved just before I 
graduated from Quantico, but it didn't get serious until I took 
a teaching position there.  It was okay for a while, but we ... 
had differences that just never seemed to get resolved and 
eventually we had a pretty acrimonious bust-up, as I'm sure 
you've already worked out.  We both got called on the carpet  
by Assistant Director Hill - "

   "Gerry Hill?" Mulder interrupted.

   "Yes - you know her?"

   A wry smile crossed his face.  "Yeah, we've had a few run-
ins in the past."

   Scully stared, bemused but not especially surprised.  "Is 
there anyone you *haven't* had a run-in with at the Bureau, 
Mulder?"

   "I'd have to plead the Fifth on that ...."

   She shook her head and decided to leave it.  "Anyway ... 
with Jack unable to return to field duty, and there being no 
other openings available in Forensics or Pathology for me at 
the time, I took a voluntary transfer which allowed them to 
move me without putting an official reprimand on my record.  
And when I moved to the VCS, I decided that was the end of it 
between us.  Aside from it being over anyway, I didn't need to 
give the gossips any more encouragement than they already had 
to talk about me.  But Jack wouldn't leave it there."

   "He seems to think you're still dating," Mulder commented 
blandly.

   "Is that what he told you?"

   "Words to that effect."

   "I'm not surprised."  Scully looked down at her hands for a 
moment, and then back up at him.  "He never really let go.  I 
think there was a space of about a month after the initial 
split, then he started calling me - "just to talk", he said.  
He seemed quite resigned to what had happened, and I didn't 
want to be on bad terms with him, so I went along with it.  
Then one day it was "how about lunch?" and like a fool, I 
accepted.  Next thing I knew, it was flowers, e-mails, three 
and four calls a day ... so I cut him off pretty sharply again, 
and thought that was it.  But no such luck.  Now I can go for 
two or three weeks without hearing from him, then I'll get a 
rash of messages on my answering machine.  He e-mailed me the 
other day, when I met you for lunch at Rosenthals, demanding to 
meet up somewhere."

   Mulder suddenly became very interested in the arm of his 
chair.  "That was when I ran into him," he said after a moment.

   Scully's eyes widened slightly.  "When?"

   "Five minutes after you left.  He was there all the time, 
watching us, and I guess what he saw really pissed him off, 
because he had a lot to say."

   Her eyes narrowed.  "Such as?"

   Mulder shook his head.  "Doesn't matter."

   "Yes it does.  To me."  Scully uncurled herself and went to 
his side, crouching beside the chair.  He wouldn't look at her, 
staring into his coffee mug instead, so she reached out and 
gently lifted his chin until he was looking her in the eye.  
"Mulder, please don't let Jack come between us.  I value what 
we have, and I could kill him for making you think I was 
playing with you.  I would *never* do that, do you understand?  
I couldn't hurt you that way."

   He let out a long breath and relaxed, leaning back in the 
chair rather limply.  After a moment he gave her a faint smile. 
 "I'm too tired for all this, Scully."

   She smiled back, a little sadly.  "Yeah, so am I."  She 
stood up and held out one hand.  "Here, let me have your cup."
He handed it over, and she took it out to the kitchen, rinsing 
both mugs under the tap.

   After a moment, she heard him come up behind her and was 
surprised to feel his arms snaking around her waist from 
behind.  She turned in his grasp and ran her hands lightly over 
his chest, looking up at him with a small smile.  "I thought 
you were tired?"

   The returning smile held a hint of mischief in it.  "Maybe, 
maybe not."

   Scully swallowed a grin and brushed her hands over his 
chest, shoulders, throat and then gently over his chin and 
lips.  When her fingertips met the latter, she felt him press a 
kiss to them, and was surprised to feel a sudden powerful surge 
of heat through her body.

   *Yes ....*  "Stay with me," she whispered, "just for a while 
at least."

   For a moment Mulder hesitated, remembering his 
responsibilities at home.  But they would be alright for a 
couple of hours.  He bent and kissed her, hard.  "I'd like 
that."

XXXX

   Perhaps half an hour later, Scully's phone rang in the 
living room.  It continued for a few rings, then the answering 
machine picked it up.

   "Hi, this is Dana Scully.  I can't come to the phone right 
now; please leave a message and I'll get back to you."

   There was a pause, then a male voice spoke rather roughly.  
"Dana, it's Jack.  I heard what happened tonight - if you're 
there, pick up ....  Dana, come on, I know you're there - "  

   Neither of the two in the bedroom heard.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PART III
PRELUDE III: FLYING SAUCERS
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


   As cages went, he supposed it could be worse.  Not that he had a lot of
experience of cages, but it had a cot with some folded blankets and a
pillow on it and there was a small chemical toilet in one corner.  It might
be constructed of heavy wire mesh and situated in what looked like a small
aircraft hanger, but it could definitely be worse.

   Fox Mulder, a phlegmatic man by and large, accepted the situation
philosophically and tested the cot by sitting on it.

   Not bad.  Not bad at all.  Frankly, he was more concerned about the fate
of his new camera, which the military goons outside had handled with
unnecessary roughness while trying to extract the film.

   Mulder stretched out full length and decided he might as well take a nap
until his captors had decided what to do with him.

   "You MUFON or CUFOS?"

   One eye popped back open and squinted in the direction of the voice.  A
figure loomed up against the wire division opposite; a short man with long
hair, beard and spectacles and a baseball cap on backwards.  He looked to
be in his early thirties at most and was shifting from one foot to the
other nervously.

   Mulder opened both eyes and sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the
side of the cot to the floor. He studied his cell-mate with interest, but
didn't say anything, waiting on developments; his natural caution made him
wary of speaking, even to someone who was apparently in the same place for
the same reasons as him.

   "Oh, let me guess; you're with that new group, SICARP, right?"  the
other man continued, almost babbling with nervous excitement.  He cleared
his throat and smiled hesitantly at Mulder, but was a little unnerved by
the lack of response.

   "Er - say no more, you're a cautious man - trust no one, very wise!"  He
let out a laugh that was almost a giggle, and his eyes slid away from
Mulder's for a moment, as if shy of direct scrutiny.  Then he sobered.
"After what happened to JFK, I understand completely.  Oh, let me introduce
myself - the name's Max Fenig, I'm with the National Investigative
Committee of Aerial Phenomenon."  He pulled his baseball cap around the
right way and tilted his head forward so that Mulder could see the legend
stitched on the front in bold letters.  "NICAP!" he proclaimed proudly.
Still getting no more reaction than a slight lift of the brows, he stumbled
on.  "Er - pleased to make your acquaintance.  Wish we could shake on it -
you know, firm grip, look you right in the eye - you learn a lot about a
guy that way!  Can - can I ask you a question?"

   "Go ahead," Mulder replied, watching the jumpy little caricature of a
man curiously.

   "Did you see anything - did you get close?  Me, I saw *nothing*."  He
raised his voice slightly, his eyes behind the thick pebble glasses
scanning the ceiling as if they were being watched, although Mulder doubted
it.  "I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING!"  He lowered his voice  again and turned back
to Mulder intensely.  "Nada, zip - hundred yards past the roadblock, they
nailed me - I've no idea how they did it.  I'm telling you, it's like the
Roswell cover-up all over again."

   Mulder stared at him thoughtfully.  "What makes you so sure there's
something out there?" he asked after a moment.

   Max laughed again nervously.  "Same thing that makes you so sure?"

   That gave Mulder a pause, and he eyed Max more warily.  "What's that
supposed to mean?"

   Max blinked at him in surprise, then chuckled again.  "Well, looking at
you ... you're Fox Mulder, right?"

   "I am?"  The question was asked more out of surprise that Fenig would
know him than the sarcasm it implied, but Max was a little stung all the
same.

   "Sure," he said, rather indignantly.  "I've seen you at a couple of
MUFON meetings before - that's why I thought you were here."

   "I'm not a member," Mulder said curtly, and laid back on his cot again.

   "No - no, I know that.  But everyone knows - "

   "Knows *what*?"

   Max backed away from the fence.  "Th-that you were with the FBI," he
stammered.  "We followed some of your cases.  Everyone knows you quit
because of the cover-ups in the Government."

   Mulder stared at him for a moment, then he let out a snort of laughter.
"Then "everyone" is wrong," he advised Max, amused, and shut his eyes
again.

   And people thought *he* was a nutcase!

XXXX

   The wake-up call was somewhat ruder than Mulder had expected; a sudden
harsh groaning of metal as the door was roughly pulled open, followed by a
blinding shaft of light pouring directly down onto his face.  He jerked
himself upright sharply, squinting briefly at the figure which had appeared
in the doorway, and tried to rub some sense into his eyesight.

   Then the door was shut again, and the figure coalesced into a neatly
dressed, five foot two woman with auburn hair whom Mulder would have been
delighted to see under any other circumstances.  One glance at her glaring
blue eyes this morning, though, convinced him that he would be unwise to
display any premature signs of pleasure.

   So he fell back on his usual routine; flippancy.

   "I didn't order room service."

   Special Agent Dana Scully folded her arms over her chest and pursed her
lips angrily for a moment.  "This isn't funny, Mulder."

   No, it certainly wasn't.  What was she doing here anyway?  No way would
her superiors have authorised an investigation of *this* as an X-file.
Mulder searched for a way to deflect her until he could properly get his
head sorted out.  "Did you see Max?"

   "Who?"

   Her tone was like the crack of a whip, and he winced inwardly.  Yep, he
was definitely in the brown smelly stuff this time, but he continued
doggedly.  "Max, from NICAP."  Mulder looked across to Max's cage, but it
was empty.  "They must have released him."  He  turned back and offered
Scully a small smile.  "Another intrepid soul in search of a close
encounter."

   "Is *that* what this is about?" she demanded, staring at him.

   "What else?"  The blue eyes were like lasers; Mulder was almost
surprised not to feel scorch-marks left behind as they flicked over him.

   "Try explaining that to Skinner for me."

   "Huh?"  Mulder blinked up at her in surprise.

   Scully's expression was angry and let down.  "He told me you were here,
and sent me to pick you up.  They contacted your *mother*, for God's sake,
and she didn't know who else to ask for help."

   "Shit - "  Mulder instantly felt nauseous at the thought of his mother's
reaction.

   "I don't understand you, Mulder!" Scully burst out.  "Why the hell do
you keep taking these risks?  It's not like you have even a shred of
official sanction anymore - they could put you away for two years for this,
and where would your mother and Sam be then?"

   Mulder, not liking to examine this idea too closely, shied away and
dragged the conversation back to his reasons for being there in the first
place.  "Oh, c'mon Scully!  Don't tell me you believe that "toxic spill"
crap they were putting out?"

   "Oh, you don't?" she retorted sarcastically.  "Why not?"

   "Because I know what I saw, Scully!  There weren't train tracks anywhere
near that site, so how could it have been a de-railed container?"

   "Because it wasn't," Scully stated flatly.  "What you saw was not a
toxic spill.  But it wasn't a UFO either."

   Mulder's head jerked up at her tone, and his eyes raked over her.  "I'm
all ears - what was it?"

   "It was a downed Libyan jet with a nuclear warhead."

   He began to laugh in spite of himself.  "Over *US airspace*?"

   Scully's temper began to rise.  "They've been picking up low-grade
levels of radiation, indicating that the plutonium casing may have cracked,
so to avoid mass panic - "

   "You really believe that story?" he interrupted scornfully.

   "That story happens to be highly classified!"

   "A highly classified lie."  Mulder glanced up, hearing a helicopter pass
overhead.  "Listen to that, Scully - they're searching for someone."

   "If they're searching for anyone, it's probably the pilot," she told him
tiredly.

   "Oh, you think they'd roll out all this material for one Libyan
fighter-jock?"

   Scully began to pace in front of his cage, trying to keep her anger at
him under control.

   "Besides," Mulder continued, losing interest in the argument, "no human
pilot walked out of the wreckage I saw."

   "Well, maybe he ejected," she snapped.

   "Maybe."  He rubbed his faced tiredly, and looked up at her.  "So, are
you going to get me out of here?"

   Scully's expression tightened, but she turned and banged on the door for
the guard.

XXXX

   The flight back to Washington was almost painful.  Mulder tried in vain
to initiate neutral topics of conversation, but Scully wasn't having any;
she sat rigidly in the seat next to him and stared out of the window
without saying anything.

   Finally, in frustration Mulder sat back and closed his eyes, reviewing
what had happened mentally.  Which was when one detail, which had passed
him by during the heat of the moment, suddenly lit up in his mind.  His
eyes popped open in surprise.

   "Scully."

   No reply.  He tried again.  "Scully, why did they contact my mother?"

   For a moment he thought she wouldn't answer; then she turned to stare at
him.  "Because she's your next of kin, I suppose.  Who else would they
contact?"

   "How about the military police?" he suggested dryly.  "After all, I'm
such a dangerous criminal."

   Scully sighed and turned away again.  "Mulder, quite frankly I don't
care.  All I know is that it was your mother who contacted Skinner.  I
don't know the exact sequence of events."

   Even that seemed odd to Mulder.  Why would she contact Skinner and not,
for example, his father or the uncle who handled all her legal affairs?
His mother didn't know Skinner.

   As far as Scully was concerned, though, the subject was closed.  She had
more pressing concerns.  "Mulder, you might as well know - Skinner had
something else to tell me while I was there.  He seemed to think it was
particularly relevant under the circumstances."

   Instantly, Mulder's entire attention was fixed on her.  "Go on."

   "I'm being assigned a partner."  There was a deafening silence at her
side, which Scully hastily took advantage of.  "Skinner ... didn't actually
say so, but I got the impression he isn't happy that you're involved so
much in my work.  So he's assigning a guy from Violent Crimes to partner me
whenever I have to go out in the field.  It's not full-time - just back-up
I guess."

   Mulder found his voice again, but his mind was reeling.  "Do you know
who?"

   "Not yet."  Scully looked down at her lap.  "I got the feeling that
detail hadn't been sorted out yet."

   "Jesus."  Now Mulder had something else to worry about at night; the
very real possibility that whoever was assigned to Scully might have a
hidden agenda.  In a world where the Government actively sought to cover up
evidence of extraterrestrial life, with deadly force if necessary, one lone
female FBI agent was very vulnerable.  Especially to someone who worked
closely with her.  "You should ask for a transfer out of the X-Files," he
heard himself say.

   Scully turned her head to fix him with an incredulous look.  "*What*?"

   She got a very sober look in return.  "Scully, being attacked by
liver-eating mutants and closing a dozen files a day on bogus poltergeist
reports is not worth your time or expertise, and getting killed over
supposed UFOs and illegal Government experiments is pointless.  You could
do so much better - "

   "Oh, so it's okay for you, a college lecturer and lone parent of a two
year old boy, to risk your life chasing supposed UFOs, but it's pointless
for me, a female FBI agent?" she interrupted.

   He winced.  "No, I just - "

   "Or is it just that seventy-five percent of agents are male, and
therefore my new partner is statistically likely to also be a man?"

   "Hey, what?"  Mulder blinked at her, genuinely startled.  "Where did
*that* come from?"

   Scully stared back at him coolly for a minute or two, arms folded and
one brow raised.  The look of confusion on his face was probably genuine,
she decided, and let him off the hook.  "Forget I said that," she said,
with a slight smile.

   Now he looked perplexed and slightly worried.  Good.  She hadn't
forgotten their trip to the Taj Mahal Restaurant a month ago, even if he
had.  Halfway through the meal, the management had discreetly swapped the
waiters so that a woman was serving them; Mulder's behaviour towards the
first one had been ... chilly to say the least.  Scully was prepared to
admit that the man had been almost uncomfortably attentive, but then, so
had Mulder been once he'd got a look at the cleavage revealed by her new
frock.

   He was just as bad as any other man, once you managed to drag his head
out of the latest paranormal publication.

   Still, she didn't think he was the type to get jealous for no reason,
but it was worth raising the subject just to see the look on his face.  And
she genuinely didn't need another Jack Willis in her life - the original
was causing a big enough nuisance as it was.

   "Mulder, if you're planning to get over-protective of me, you can drop
it now," she warned, only semi-humorous.  "Let me remind you; *I'm* the one
carrying the gun and the badge.  And *you're* the one who just spent the
night in a pre-fabricated military jail for criminal trespass."

   "It wasn't criminal trespass, that land is public property!" he
protested.

   "It was quarantined," Scully retorted, exasperated, "and for good
reason."

   "Yeah, so they could stash any possible evidence before Joe Public got
an eyeful!"

   She stared at him, amazed for the hundredth time at his inability to
consider any explanation but the irrational one.  "Mulder, would *you* want
the good citizens of Wisconsin to know that a Libyan fighter pilot was
roaming at large in their vicinity?"

   Mulder glared at her.  "I don't know, Scully, but I guess if I was
someone high up in the Government or the military, I wouldn't want
Chewbacca galumphing around the locality in an uncontrolled manner," he
snapped back sarcastically.

   Scully tried unsuccessfully to stifle a snort of laughter at the image
this conjured up in her mind.  "Bigfoot is an alien after all?"

   "Fine.  Laugh."  Mulder folded his arms and stared ahead stiffly.

   His expression reminded Scully irresistibly of his son Sam when he threw
a tantrum, but she hastily buried the thought.  "Oh Mulder, come on - I was
just teasing."  No response.  He glowered at the back of the man's head in
front.  "You haven't told me what brought you out here in the first place,
anyway."

   "I had some information from reliable friends of mine."

   "Oh?"

   Mulder didn't respond to the question in her voice, and Scully was
disappointed but not entirely surprised.  He'd declined to tell her about
his sources before, and she wasn't entirely sure whether it was because he
didn't trust her or they didn't.  Not really wanting an answer to that
question, she'd never pushed the issue, although it had occurred to her a
long time ago that although he claimed to be a freelance journalist, and
appeared to spend considerable time pursuing that activity, she'd never yet
discovered who he sold his stories to.  Come to that, she'd never yet
*read* one of his stories.

   Maybe it was time she did.

XXXX

   Nearly a week passed before Scully saw Mulder again.  This wasn't
unusual; given their respective schedules and the fact that she was apt to
be out of town a lot these days, meeting up tended to be a little hit and
miss.  All the same, she was beginning to wonder exactly what he was up to,
for it was unusual for her not to find at least one message on her
answering machine from him, and more commonly two or three.

   Arriving home at 6.30 in the evening on the Friday, Scully dumped her
bag and coat and pushed the 'play' button on the answering machine in
passing, as she went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.  To her
surprise, there was only the one message from her mother, and nothing at
all from Jack Willis for once.

   No Mulder either.  She briefly debated calling him, but was daunted by
the prospect of getting his mother again; on two previous occasions she had
spoken with Mrs. Mulder and left messages with the older woman for him to
call her back.  Neither message had reached him.  And although he did
actually possess a cellphone, for some reason it was almost always switched
off.

   Scully sighed.  Okay, maybe she would e-mail him after she ate.  He was
probably just piled up with work.

   She changed out of her suit into an outsized sweatshirt and leggings,
washed off her make-up, pulled her hair into a tail, and went to
investigate the contents of her fridge.  The remnants of a pasta salad and
a carton of skimmed milk stared back at her forlornly.

   Fortunately, at that moment the doorbell rang.  Scully answered it, and
to her surprise Mulder stood outside.  They stared at each other for
moment.

   "Hey," he said finally, rather nonplussed by her stare.

   "Hey," she managed in return.  "I was going to e-mail you."

   "I can go again ...."

   Scully pulled the door open wide and gestured for him to come in.
"Actually, you came at a good moment.  I was just going to order take-out."

   Mulder didn't appear to hear her; he was staring at her chest.  "So
that's where my shirt went."

   She peered down at herself, surprised, and registered the crest of the
Oxford University ... Polo Team?  "You must have left it here sometime -
I'll change it - "

   "No - no, it looks better on you than me.  Did you say take-out?"

   "Uh-huh ...."

   Mulder nodded.  "We'll pick it up on the way back."

   Scully blinked.  "Way back from where?" she demanded.

   He shifted under her sharp gaze uncomfortably.  "There's some people I
want you to meet."

XXXX

   "Mulder," Scully began, eyeing the locality they were in with disfavour,
"there are three points I think you should consider before we go any
further."

   The corner of his mouth twitched, but otherwise his expression remained
serious.  "Shoot."

   "If this is another UFO/Government conspiracy theorists' meeting, forget
it.  If we're here to speak to a group of down-and- outs who saw a flying
saucer land in the locality, forget it.  And if this is your idea of a
great place to start spicing up our relationship, you can forget that too."

   Mulder grinned.  "You rate spicing up our relationship third on the list
of things you won't do?"

   She gave him look.  "Does it need spicing up?"

   He made a show of considering the matter.  "Maybe we should discuss this
elsewhere."

   "Fine.  I'm ready to leave here."

   "Oooh, so keen."  He unbuckled his seatbelt.  "But I'm afraid you'll
have to wait; we have a prior appointment."

   Scully peered out of the windshield again at the rather run-down
industrial estate.  "Here?" she asked doubtfully.

   "Here," he confirmed.

   "And who do we have this appointment with again?"

   "I didn't mention who they were," Mulder grinned at her.

   "That's what I thought," she muttered, disgruntled, and reluctantly
unbuckled her own seatbelt.  "There'd better not be rats or roaches around
here, Mulder."

   "Scully, you used to do autopsies for a living; how can you be bothered
by something like a roach?"  Mulder locked the car and began to lead the
way through the buildings.

   Scully followed him, treading gingerly around puddles and heaps of
refuse.  "I don't know, you're the psychologist," she returned
distractedly.  "What is this place, anyway?"

   "Just an industrial estate.  They rent some space here for now."

   "'They'?"

   "Patience!"  Mulder guided her through a door in what looked like an
abandoned storage warehouse, and through another door and down some dimly
lit stairs.

   Great - a basement.  As if she didn't already spend large portions of
her working life in a basement, albeit a more hospitable one than this.
"What's the big secret?" she demanded.

   "Let's just say that these people value their privacy."  At the bottom
of the stairs was another door, with a video camera positioned above it and
an illuminated key pad to one side.  Mulder pushed a button for a couple of
seconds, then stood back to wait, arms folded.

   Scully began to get annoyed.  "I was right, wasn't I?  These people
*are* some kind of UFO nuts after all."

   Mulder pursed his lips noncommittally.  "They run a magazine," he
offered.

   She eyed him narrowly.  "This is the magazine you work for?"

   "One of them."

   "UFOs?"

   "Some of it, but not exclusively.  You'll see."

   "Hm.  And why do I want to meet them?"

   Mulder shrugged.  "Information," he replied cryptically.

   Scully gave him a frustrated glare.  "Are they going to let us in this
side of the year 2000?"

   He smiled at her.  "Actually, I think the delay is because they're
checking you out.  Why don't you smile for the camera?"

   She took in the lurking twinkle in the hazel eyes and promised herself
revenge later.  Then the door clunked open and she forgot all about it.

   "After you," Mulder said gravely, holding the door wide.  She gave him a
wary look, but stepped cautiously inside.

   The basement room was large but economically lit and seemed to be
stacked from floor to ceiling with an extraordinary range of electronic
equipment.  Scully stared wide-eyed at it all, trying vainly to identify
the more unfamiliar parts ... which included most of it.  The best she
could come up with was that it was surveillance equipment of some kind, and
apparently as high-tech as any military base.  But who and what were these
people watching with this stuff?  What kind of magazine needed this?

   Then she felt Mulder's hand in the small of her back, gently propelling
her past some stacked crates and into a more brightly lit area full of
computer monitors and CCTV screens.

   For a moment, Scully was completely caught by all those screens; links
to the Internet, weird computer graphics, black-and-white shots of the
stairs outside, the warehouse, Mulder's car, someone's office ....

   "Hey, that's my office!" she exclaimed, before she could stop herself,
and suddenly three pairs of eyes were fixed on her.

   "So it is," Mulder agreed, peering over her shoulder.  "Guys, I thought
I told you to quit surveilling there when I left?"

   "It's not ours," one man said.  He was neatly dressed in a suit and tie,
which seemed rather incongruous to Scully considering the surroundings, and
had a beard and earnest eyes.  "We're just piggy-backing the security
system there.  Someone else put that camera in place."

   "Seriously?"  Mulder leaned closer to the screen to scrutinise it.  "I
wonder how long it's been there?  Looks like it's behind those racks on the
wall to the right of the door when you come in."

   "We've been monitoring it for nearly three weeks now," the second man
volunteered.  He was tall and lanky, like Mulder, but had long straggling
blond hair and thick pebble glasses which gave his eyes a perpetually
wide-eyed look.

   "Oh yeah?"  Now Mulder's tone held just a hint of menace.  "See anything
you like?"

   The third man, who had been sitting with his back to them in a swivel
chair, gave a rough chuckle and swung around to look at them both.  He was
a little troll of a man, short, overweight, balding and scruffily-dressed,
and he gave Scully what he doubtless thought was an ingratiating smile -
although it looked more like a leer to her.

   "Let's just say it's made me a happy man," he confirmed with a grin.  He
picked up a camera from the table next to him and snapped off a couple of
shots of Scully before she could protest, and winked at Mulder.  "She's
hot."

   Mulder suppressed a grin and turned back to Scully, who was giving him
the evil eye.  "Byers," he said, gesturing to the bearded man, who nodded
gravely at her, "Langly," he pointed to the blond one, "and the creep in
the chair is Frohike.  They call themselves the Lone Gunmen, after the guy
in the Kennedy conspiracy."

   "Charmed, I'm sure," Scully muttered, and wondered how soon she could
leave.

XXXX

   "So this is the lovely Agent Scully - in the flesh at last?" Frohike
commented, swinging his chair around a little so that he could prop his
feet up on the table.

   Scully ignored him, having more pressing concerns.  "Why is there a
camera in my office?" she asked Mulder.  She wasn't sure she wanted an
answer, but she had to ask. "And why are they monitoring me?"

   "To the second question, all I can say is - why don't you ask them?"
Mulder replied blandly.  "As to the first, I don't know but get used to it.
I was pulling cameras and bugs out of that office twice a week by the time
I resigned, and I never did find out who put them there."

   Scully digested this for a moment, and began to get an uneasy feeling in
her stomach.  She looked at Byers, who seemed like the safest of the bunch.
"Okay, so why were you watching me?"

   He glanced at the others, and shrugged.  "You took over the X-files; we
wanted to see what sort of person you are."

   "A lot of people are interested in what happens to the X-files," Langly
put in.  "People not in the FBI.  We had the means to get them that
information."

   "Great, so now they all know what stores I buy my suits at," she
retorted sardonically.

   The polite laughs she got in response to this were not reassuring.  Even
less reassuring was the wicked sparkle in Mulder's eyes as he sat back and
watched the confrontation.  Scully eyed him thoughtfully.  "And just how
much of this information came from you?" she demanded.

   He grinned at her maddeningly.  "Naturally I told them when you took
over the X-files."

   "Naturally," she nodded.  "And ...?"

   "And when he wouldn't give me your e-mail address, I hacked into the FBI
Intranet and pulled your personnel file," Frohike put in.

   Scully stared at him disbelievingly, then saw the look on Mulder's face.
"He's kidding, right?" she asked, horrified.

   He winced.  "Well, it wasn't your personnel file, but - "

   "Mulder, no one can just hack into the FBI network!"

   The laughs this time were genuine, and bordered on sniggers.

   "Scully, I hate to break this to you, but people can hack into virtually
*anything* - all it takes is a little know-how, persistence and luck.  A
teenager in England hacked into the US defence systems recently; beside
that, the Bureau network is kindergarten stuff."

   Scully began to get angry.  "And just what, exactly, is so fascinating
about me to your readers?" she demanded of Frohike.

   He didn't answer, but Byers seemed to take this as a challenge to their
integrity.  "We didn't print anything about you," he said rather
defensively.  "We just ... checked you out.  There are people within the
Government who'd like nothing better than a good reason to set a light to
the X-files.  We needed to know if you were there just to keep important
issues buried."

   Scully shot Mulder a glance, but his expression was noncommittal once
more, so she turned back to Byers.  "Poltergeists and Bigfoot are important
issues?" she asked dryly.

   "It's not the supernatural stuff we're interested in," Byers replied
dismissively.  "It's the evidence of extensive Government involvement in
cases of suspected alien abduction, and the cover-up of cases of downed
aircraft of possible extraterrestrial origins - "

   Scully looked at Mulder.  "*This* is why you got yourself locked in a
cage in Wisconsin?"

   "You were right, Mulder - she *is* sceptical," Frohike observed.

   Mulder ignored him.  "Why don't you just hear what they have to say?" he
asked Scully reasonably.

   "I heard it all before, at that whacked-out meeting you took me to after
Bellefleur.  And I wasn't impressed with it then."

   He regarded her steadily for a moment, then sighed.  "Okay - you carry
on believing it was a Libyan jet, if that makes you feel more comfortable."

   Frohike looked up at this and gave Scully a look of genuine surprise.
"You don't believe that story, do you?"

   "And why wouldn't I?" she asked irritably, tired and fed up.

   He exchanged curious glances with his colleagues, who both looked
equally startled.

   "Because it's the most transparent story they've come up with since
"hey, folks - it was just a weather balloon"," Langly managed, after a
moment.  "If it was a Libyan jet, they'd have been jumping up and down on
every news broadcast across the country by now, and selling pictures of the
wreckage to the papers.  Instead - nada."

   "Maybe it's not a good idea to let the residents of the area know there
was possibly a fractured nuclear warhead in the area - "

   "That aircraft wasn't carrying a nuclear warhead, Scully," Mulder sighed
wearily.  He'd never met anyone so stubborn.

   "Oh yeah?"

   "Frohike, have you got those pictures I took?"

   Scully eyed him suspiciously.  "I thought you said they confiscated your
camera?"

   He smiled.  "They did, but they didn't get the film."

   "Excuse me, but wouldn't they have noticed if the film was missing?  And
I thought you were searched?"

   "You know, I had a bulldog like you once," Frohike told her admiringly.
"He never let go of anything either."

   Mulder swallowed a laugh, seeing death in Scully's expression.  "The
only film they got was the one with the pictures of my cousin Nathan's bar
mitzvah on it," he told her, "and as for the other one ... well, let's just
say I was very creative.  Fortunately, they didn't strip-search me."

   As he'd thought, the implication was enough to keep Scully occupied for
a moment, and in the meantime Langly whipped out a bunch of black-and-white
pictures.  He presented them to Scully and waited hopefully as she scanned
through the pile.

   Mulder was less hopeful; he could see her expression, and while it might
look blank to some, he knew better.

   Finally she sighed and looked up at him.  "What I see here, Mulder, are
a lot of shots of guys suited up in safety gear, performing standard
hazardous waste containment procedures on a pile of anonymous wreckage.
There's nothing here to say *what* the wreckage was, because it's too
damaged."

   "So it doesn't *have* to be a Libyan jet," he prodded gently.

   "No," she agreed mildly, "but it doesn't *have* to be a downed UFO
either, and on the balance of probabilities - "

   "Scully, do me a favour, will you?  Take another look at that wreckage."

   She pursed her lips, but complied.  "Okay.  What am I looking for?"

   "The size of the pieces of fuselage.  If it *is* what we would call
fuselage."

   Now her lips twitched, but she did as he said.  "And?"

   "*And* look at the size of it.  You said they quarantined the area
because there was possibly a fractured nuclear warhead on board.  Does
anything you see in those pictures look big enough to disguise the said
warhead?"  Mulder folded his arms, watching her.  "Scully, if there was a
warhead on board that 'Libyan jet', the whole world would know about it by
now, because no way could it have survived that kind of impact in one
piece, let alone be 'fractured'."

   Scully put the photos down and folded her own arms, staring back at him
uncompromisingly.  "Mulder, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but
science doesn't stand still.  Nuclear devices, especially armaments such as
a jet would be carrying, are getting smaller every day - "

   The collective groan that met this statement heated her temper, although
Mulder merely sat back, resigned.

   "Then what can I say?" he asked her.  "If you are so determined not to
see ...."

   Scully shook her head.  "Mulder, it's not my inability to see that's the
problem here.  It's *your* desperate need to believe."

   "Or desperate need for something," Frohike suggested - and let out a
startled 'oof' as Mulder thumped him.

XXXX

   "Those were the most paranoid people I have ever met," Scully told
Mulder half an hour later, as she unlocked her apartment door and flicked
the lights on.  She walked straight through to the kitchen, leaving him to
juggle a bulging plastic bag from the supermarket and a small stack of
take-out cartons.  "I don't know how you can find anything they say
remotely credible."

   "Oh, I don't know," he replied, managing to shut the door behind him
with one foot - but carefully, knowing how sensitive she was about her
paintwork.  He had noticed that it seemed to be a universal female trait.
"I think it's remotely credible that someone might think you're hot."

   She gave him the evil eye as he dumped the groceries and take-out on her
kitchen table, but he only grinned.  "You're just sore because Byers ripped
up your money."

   "Mulder, it was a twenty!  They don't grow on trees, you know - some of
us work for a living.  Besides," and Scully began to decant the contents of
the bag into the fridge and various cupboards, "I do not believe the
Government is
keeping track of the general public's money and movements via the scanners
at the airport.  I mean, what's the point, for crying out loud?  And come
to that, why on earth am I keeping your favourite brand of iced tea in my
refrigerator?"

   Mulder blinked at the sudden change of subject and tried to kick his
brain up a gear.  He had a hard time keeping up with Scully when she was in
this kind of mood.  "Because you love me?" he suggested, a little rashly.

   She paused, a bottle in each hand, and raised a quelling brow.  "That
isn't the first answer that comes to mind, Mulder."

   "Well, if you feel like that - "  He reached over and made to take the
bottles from her, but she pulled them back out of reach.

   "Uh huh.  I paid for these."  She stashed them in the fridge, then went
to one of the cupboards and pulled out a couple of plates, which she put in
front of him.  "You know where the cutlery drawer is - dish up while I
check my mail, will you?"

   "Yes dear," he replied meekly.

   Scully snorted and left the kitchen.

   When Mulder followed her with the Chinese food ten minutes later -
having paused to give the food a quick blast in the microwave for good
measure ("No sense in being blamed for cold food," he told himself) -
Scully was standing by the reading lamp with her glasses on, fiddling
pensively with the mouse from her computer.

   He slid the two plates carefully onto the coffee table, and looked
across at her.  "What's the problem?"

   "Oh, nothing."  Scully was unscrewing the base of the mouse carefully.
"This thing's been giving me trouble for a couple of days now - either it
doesn't run smoothly or ...."

   Her voice trailed off and Mulder's brows drew together in a slight
frown.  Scully's face had gone blank with shock.

   "Scully?"

   She turned mutely and held the palm-sized device out to him; he stood up
quickly and went to look.  Inside the plastic cover of the mouse was a
small piece of electronic gadgetry which was most definitely not part of
its usual workings.

   A bug.

   Two hours later, the two of them wearily slumped down on the sofa amid
the random disorder of what had been Scully's neat little apartment.  On
the table, between two forgotten and congealed plates of lo mein, was a
small pile of disassembled circuits.

   They'd found five listening devices in all.  The one that bothered
Scully the most had been inside her bedside reading lamp.  It bothered
Mulder to find one in the bedroom too, although he would never admit it.

   "Do you think we found them all?" she asked in a small voice, at length.

   Mulder opened his mouth to reassure her - and realised that he couldn't
bring himself to voice what would more than likely be a lie.  "I can
arrange for the place to be swept," he offered instead.

   That she agreed almost immediately was an indication of how rattled
Scully was.  She knew who the 'arrangement' would be with.  There was a
dismal silence for a moment, then something else occurred to her.  "What
about my office?"

XXXX

   Monday morning found Scully walking as confidently into the VCS bullpen
as she could.  It wasn't easy; her departure from the mainstream dealings
of the Bureau hadn't been smooth, despite her best attempts to keep her
relationship with her former colleagues friendly.  The Tooms case had put
Tom Colton against her for a start, and he was not a man to keep his
grievances to himself.

   Scully wondered what the reaction to today's little visit would be.
Under the circumstances, she imagined it would add quite a bit to the
rumour mill.

   Her new partner.  That had been the last subject on her mind when she
entered the building this morning, but Skinner had caught her on the way to
the elevator and diverted her into his office to give her the good news.
Such as it was.

   Scully had very real reservations about this; not least that this guy -
an Agent Castamir - could be a complete jerk, with an eye to the main
chance like Tom Colton.  He could be a disaster, someone no one else in the
Bureau wanted under their command.

   Or he could be someone planted to keep an eye on her and report back to
their superiors on her work.

   She grimaced.  Mulder had pointed out once that if they saddled her with
a partner, the chances were he would either be a plant or someone who
wouldn't take the work seriously, and either one could get her killed in a
situation like - for example - the Tooms case.

   Mulder, of course, was paranoid.

   Scully gave herself a mental shake and strode into the VCS offices
confidently.  There was only one way to find out what this guy was like,
and that was to meet him.

   She ignored the stares and muttered conversation as she crossed the
room.  She knew where he'd be; all newcomers to the VCS got shoved into the
smallest, most poorly lit corner of the room when they first arrived, the
idea being that you worked your way out into a better seating position.
Scully herself had been put there when she first arrived at the Hoover
building from Quantico.

   Sure enough, the rickety desk was already sporting a cardboard box full
of personal items, only a few of which had been laid out as yet, and a dark
navy suit jacket was slung over the back of the ancient chair.  Of Agent
Castamir himself there was nothing to be seen.

   Scully hesitated, glancing around at her former colleagues, none of whom
made a move to greet her or even acknowledge her presence, and decided
she'd better wait.  She sat down gingerly on the chair, not having yet
forgotten the dangerous list it developed for the unwary - really, it was
worse than Mulder's old chair down in the basement, with its wobbly wheel -
and glanced casually at the few bits her new, if part-time, partner had
managed to set out on the desk before he was called away.

   There was a small desk calendar, with a picture of Magritte's "The
Future of Statues" on it.  A coffee mug with Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.
And a couple of photographs in studio cardboard frames, one of which was
instantly recognisable as an Academy class photo.  Scully picked it up and
studied it curiously.

   Then she felt a sudden jolt in her stomach and looked closer.  She had
no idea which of the men in the picture was Agent Castamir, but one face in
the back row jumped out at her.

   It was Mulder, fresh-faced and improbably earnest in his standard
Bureau-approved suit.  His hair was shorter, and he was some six or seven
years younger, but she would have known him anywhere.

   Mulder and Castamir had been classmates?

   "Pretty criminal line-up, huh?" an amused voice said at her elbow.

   Scully jumped and looked around.  A tall man with very short, very
tightly curled blond hair was grinning at her amiably; he had a pleasant
face and rather piercing grey eyes, but two other details struck her most
forcibly.

   He had an indefinable air of ... mischief about him, which was
particularly noticeable in that grin; and he had the most diabolical taste
in ties.

   Just like Mulder.  Oh God.

   Scully got a grip on her composure with an effort, and stood up,
offering her hand.  "Agent Castamir?  I'm Agent Scully.  AD Skinner said
you'd be working with me occasionally."

   He clasped the hand firmly, looking impossibly cheerful for someone
who'd been shipped into the VCS, apparently in some disgrace wherever he
came from.  "Nice to meet you - and please, it's Jerry."

   Scully smiled uneasily, extricating her hand from his grip, but did not
reciprocate with her own name.  She honestly wasn't sure what to make of
him yet, and didn't feel like getting too chummy too soon.

   He didn't seem to notice her unease, but instead gestured to the photo
on the desk.  "See anyone you know?"  He raised a brow at her.

   That sounded suspiciously like fishing.  "Only my predecessor in the
X-Files Division," Scully replied coolly, deciding to be blunt.  She might
as well find out his opinion sooner rather than later.

   Castamir wasn't fazed.  "Fox Mulder?  Great guy - pity he had to quit."
Oddly enough, his regret sounded genuine.

   "Did you know him well?" she asked curiously.

   Jerry Castamir smiled wryly.  "Pretty well.  We were partners for about
six months while he was here in the VCS, and I knew him before from the
BSU."

   Only practice kept Scully from gaping at him, and a thousand questions
ran screaming around her mind.  Fortunately, it was the single intelligent
one which made its way to her mouth.  "You're a profiler?  Then what ...."
She shut her mouth hastily before a really rude and intrusive question
popped out, but the rest of the sentence hung between them.

   *Then what are you doing here?*

   Castamir's eyes sparkled wickedly.  "I'm a bad boy," he murmured
confidentially, and his eyes slid around to scan his fellow agents.

   Several heads quickly vanished back behind the low partitions which
surrounded some of the desks.

   Scully beat down the urge to ask in what way he'd been "bad" and told
herself sternly that she was clearly going to have to keep an eye on this
guy, for her own peace of mind.  She folded her arms and got back to
business.  "Have you been told anything about this assignment?" she asked.

   He straightened up and his expression became serious.  "Officially - no.
Unofficially, I've been told to watch the sky for visitations."

   "Hm."  Scully eyed him warily, and decided she couldn't resist just one
little tweak of his tail.  Associating with Mulder had given her some bad
habits.  "Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, Agent
Castamir?"

   Castamir eyed her back as though he suddenly wasn't quite sure what to
make of her.  He gave her a nervous grin.  "You're kidding me, right?"

   Scully heaved an inner sigh of relief.  *Thank God, he's not a UFO
loon.*  "Come on," she smiled.  "If you're not busy, you can come take a
look at the office.  And there's a job I'd really appreciate your help
with."

XXXX

   "This was Mulder's office before he left?" Castamir asked in a slightly
disbelieving tone.

   Scully glanced across at him as she switched the lamp on her over desk
and
dropped her bag onto the chair.  "Yes - why?"

   He was looking around with some amusement.  "It's too tidy."

   "I've been here for a few months now."

   "That explains it."  He found the cast of Bigfoot's footprint and
examined it interestedly.  "Mulder could never work in anything short of a
crap-heap, at least when I worked with him.  The only time I saw his desk
clean was when we had some new desks delivered and he had to move
everything.  Half an hour, and it was buried under paper again."  Castamir
put the cast back on the shelf and wandered over to look at the "I Want To
Believe" poster opposite Scully's desk.  "I never did break him of spitting
seed shells on the floor," he added over his shoulder.

   "If it's not an indelicate question, Agent Castamir - "

   "Jerry," he corrected absently.

   "Okay ... Jerry," Scully agreed, although she still wasn't sure she
wanted to be on first name terms with him.  "If it's not an indelicate
question, how come you're in the VCS at all if you're a profiler?"

   "Because I was really only an okay profiler," he replied equably enough.
"I was never brilliant, like Mulder was, and the mighty Patterson only
wanted the really bright boys on his team.  So I transferred out.  I've
been in Denver for the last three years, but I had ... a little trouble
recently and took a prejudicial transfer."

   Fair enough.  Scully decided against prying any further; she'd done a
similar thing herself not long ago and had preferred not to discuss it.
Castamir's career was his own business.

   Besides, she still had a very important matter to deal with, and two
heads - and pairs of hands - were better than one.  She dug a small
penlight out of her drawer and went over to the shelves near the door.  As
she recalled, the perspective had been from this angle ....

   "Can I ask what you're looking for?" Castamir asked after a moment,
watching curiously as she stood on tiptoe and peered between a pile of
files at the wall behind.

   "If I find it, you'll see," Scully replied, her voice a little muffled.

   "Had you considered switching the main light on in here?  It might
help."

"Can't, I'm waiting for Maintenance to bring a new strip-light."

   "Oh."  He watched her, with a perplexed look on his face and a slowly
dawning twinkle of amusement in his eyes.  "Can I help?"

   "I just - ah!"  Scully stood back, breathless and triumphant, clutching
something in one hand.  "Found it."

   "Found what?"

   She tossed him the device and waited to see what his reaction would be.
She was not disappointed.

   Shock and bemusement crossed Jerry Castamir's face in equal measures.
"Is it ....  It's a video camera.  Isn't it?"

   "That's right," Scully said grimly.

   "But - why was it behind your shelves?"

   "I don't know.  I'm open to ideas.  Mulder tells me he was pulling them
out of this office all the time."

   It was about that time that Agent Castamir began to wonder if he wanted
to be involved in Agent Scully's work ... not that he actually had much
choice in the matter.  He put the little camera down on the corner of her
desk and gave her an uncertain look.  "You said there's a job you want my
help with."

   Scully nodded.  "I need you to help me search this office for any more
little hidden surprises."

XXXX

   An hour or so later, they'd put the office back to rights and Scully was
brewing coffee in the little percolator she had inherited from Mulder.

   Jerry was looking over the small collection of bugs they'd found rather
pensively.  "Does this kind of thing happen often?" he asked, with a feeble
attempt at cheer.

   "No," Scully sighed.  She felt rather discouraged herself.  "This is a
new development for me.  Mulder and I fished half a dozen of the things out
of my apartment Friday night - I guess it makes a change from going to the
movies."

   He looked up at her a little sharply when she said that.  "You must know
him pretty well."

   Scully smiled in spite of herself.  "Stick around, and listen to the
rumour mill."

   Jerry flushed.  "I didn't mean - "

   She put a mug of coffee in front of him.  "It's okay.  Did you know his
wife?"

   "Thanks.  Yeah, I knew Phoebe, though not in the Biblical sense.  I was
about the only guy who didn't, mind you."  He changed the subject quickly.
"I've never seen the kid - do you know what he's like?"

   "Sam?"  Scully felt a silly grin beginning to cross her face.  "He's ...
well, he's a lot like Mulder, really.  To look at, I mean."

   "Nose and all, huh?" Jerry grinned.

   She chuckled in spite of herself.  "I guess.  He's a sweet little boy,
really cute."

   "Nothing like his mother, then," her new partner grunted.

   Scully was suddenly sobered by this sour comment.  She looked at Jerry
thoughtfully.  "You know, I've heard bits and pieces about Phoebe, but I
don't really know much about her.  What was she like?"

   He looked her straight in the eye, and Scully was stunned at the depth
of remembered disgust and anger she saw there.

   "Phoebe Green was one of the most poisonous bitches I've ever met," he
said quietly.  "I mean that.  What she put Mulder through was unforgivable,
and I swear to God if I ever get my hands on her, I'll break her neck.  It
never surprised *me* that she was bent - what does amaze me is how long it
took them to find her out."

XXXX

   Across the city at Georgetown University, Mulder had just finished his
first class of the morning and was heading for his small office to grab a
coffee and pick up his papers for the second.

   He was running a few minutes ahead, so he took the opportunity to stop
and log into his e-mail programme.  Lunch with Scully was a tempting idea,
since he had the hour straight after free, and he wanted to find out how
her de-bugging session had gone that morning.

   But when he opened his mail, all thoughts of lunch abruptly left his
head.  There was a message from Frohike waiting for him.

    From:    Crazihorse@notthere.com
    To:      FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
    Subject: Stuff.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Some people should get themselves less obvious e-mail
    addys, if they want to avoid their mail being hacked.
    By the way, your work-related mail is very boring,
    did you know that?
       Have got something that will blow your mind, see
    attachments, and will swap for intimate details of
    certain hot red-heads; i.e. is it real or Clairol?
       See you later.
    F.

   Mulder shook his head ruefully and wheeled his cursor to the 'open
attachments' prompt.  The machine thought about it for a moment - it wasn't
as powerful as the one he had at home - then brought up the attached file.

   It was a portion of a newspaper article, and Mulder's mouth went dry
when he saw it.

   Lunch with Scully would have to wait.

XXXX

   Making time to go and see the Gunmen meant that Mulder was decidedly
late home from work that night, which was not a good thing given the state
of his son's temper when deprived of his evening meal.  A chocolate chip
cookie from Frohike had only gone so far towards pacifying the little boy,
and now the need to get home and feed his offspring was getting pressing.

   Pulling the car into the driveway, Mulder hopped out and went to unlock
Sam's door and get him out.

   "Mr. Mulder."

   Mulder jerked around, his hand going automatically to his hip for a
weapon which he hadn't carried in over two years.  Obviously some habits
died really hard.  "Who - "

   A man stepped out of the shadows beside the garage and into the beam of
the security light over the front door of the house, which had flicked on
when Mulder got out of the car.  He was middle-aged, some five or six
inches shorter than Mulder, with a craggy face, greyed and receding hair,
and was wearing a nondescript beige trench coat which he kept firmly wrapped
about himself against the cold.

   Mulder was struck silent for a moment, wondering who the hell he was and
what he was doing lurking casually around his mother's rhododendrons at
this time of night.  Whoever the man was, he seemed perfectly at his ease.
His appearance and demeanour looked vaguely official, reminding younger man
of some of the higher-ups at the FBI; but he doubted anyone within the
Bureau hierarchy would be contacting him these days, least of all in this
cloak-and-dagger manner.

   The man made no greeting nor any attempt to introduce himself; his first
words were blunt and to the point.  "Leave this case alone, Mr. Mulder."

   Mulder's brows snapped together at once in consternation.  "*What*?"

   "The military will not tolerate a journalist poking his nose into their
affairs," the man warned, "least of all one who is a former FBI agent with
connections to a decidedly dubious section within the Bureau."

   "Who are you?" Mulder demanded, wondering what the hell this guy thought
he was playing at.  And how did he know about the information Byers, Langly
and Frohike had passed to him less than an hour ago?

   The question was met with a faint, world-weary smile.  "I - ah - can be
of help to you, and I've had a certain interest in your work in the past,"
was the reply.

   "How do you know about my work?" Mulder wanted to know, suspicious.

   The man's brows drew together.  "Let's just say I'm in a position to
know quite a lot of things - including things about our Government."

   Not very reassuring.  "Who are you?  Who do you work for?"

   "That's not important.  I came here to give you some valuable advice.
You are exposing yourself and Agent Scully to unnecessary risks.  I advise
you to drop this case."

   Mulder's suspicions grew.  "I can't do that," he replied.

   The man shook his head regretfully, and began to turn to go.  "You have
much work to do, Mr. Mulder.  Don't jeopardise the future of your own
efforts."  He began to walk away down the driveway.

   "Hey, wait a minute - !"  Mulder made to follow him, but was briefly
distracted by a very restless and disgusted Sam who was kicking his feet
and banging on the inside of the rear passenger door, wanting to be let
out.  "Hold on, Sam!"

   He turned to follow the mysterious stranger, but the man was gone.

   "What the hell - ?"  Mulder ran down the drive and looked up and down
the street, but there was no sign of anyone around.  His visitor had
apparently vanished into thin air.

   "Shit!"  He turned back and jogged up the drive.  Sam had now added his
voice to his protest, and Mulder didn't want the little menace bringing the
neighbours out.

   "Alright, alright!"  He unlocked the door and unfastened the buckles
that strapped Sam into the child-seat.  The little boy scrambled out and
ran up to the front door while his father scooped up a stack of papers from
the back seat and locked the vehicle up.

   "Hungry, Daddy!"

   "Yeah, well you'll have to wait a little longer.  Fish doesn't cook
itself in five minutes."

   Mulder found his door key and let them in.  The house was in darkness;
evidently his mother had decided to go out for the evening - again.  He
flicked on the lights and dumped his papers in the study, then went to the
kitchen and switched the oven on to warm up.

   Working for the FBI, and then single parenthood, had taught Mulder to
deal with a number of things at once.   He made short work of preparing
potatoes, peas and Sam's favourite parsley sauce; the microwave made short
work of the fish he'd forgotten to put out to defrost that morning.
Meanwhile one half of his brain was keeping an ear out for Sam, who was
rattling around in one of the other rooms, while the other half was
constantly turning over the conversation he'd had with the man outside.

   Two points stuck out most clearly; that the enigmatic stranger appeared
to know about the information passed to him by the Lone Gunmen - although
it hadn't taken Mulder long to note that he had, in fact, spoken only in
generalisations - and that he was warning Mulder that he was placing
himself and Scully at risk.

   Mulder chewed on his lip, examining that second point again.  The man
had seemed perfectly serious.  He had also seemed ... non-threatening, even
by Mulder's rather paranoid standards; disturbingly genuine.

   He suddenly became aware that Sam was being very quiet - always a
warning sign.

   "Sam, what are you doing?"

   No reply.  Mulder took a quick look at his pans, decided he could safely
leave them for a minute, and quickly went to see what his son was up to.

   In the living room, Sam was balancing precariously on a chair, while
trying to reach the telephone where it stood on cabinet which was too high
for him to reach from the floor.  He loved the telephone, and had recently
run up an enormous bill by dialling random numbers before Mrs. Mulder
caught him.

   "What are you doing?!"  Mulder snatched him off the chair
unceremoniously; Sam squealed indignantly and got a swat on the rear for
his pains.  "Don't ever let me catch you doing that again!"  He put the
little boy on the floor and Sam retreated behind the arm of the sofa, his
full lower lip - so much like Mulder's own - wobbling ominously.

   Mulder checked the telephone, but it appeared to be untouched.  Then he
noticed that the light on the answering machine was blinking steadily.
Giving Sam an admonitory glare, he rewound the tape and set it to play
back.  There were two messages, the first being from a friend of his
mother.

   The second was nothing but a full minute of silence, followed by a
couple of odd clicks ... and then nothing.

   Mulder stared at the machine for a moment, aware that every muscle in
his body had suddenly gone rigid.  He wasn't sure why, but the oddity of
that recording made him very nervous; and for some strange reason it
reminded him of Scully's unexpected discovery of a bug in her PC's mouse.

   Stiffly, he picked up the receiver of the telephone and examined it
carefully, before unscrewing the mouthpiece.  There was nothing there - but
then, he supposed, there wouldn't be.  It was the most obvious place in the
world, after all.

   But just because the telephone wasn't bugged didn't mean the rest of the
house wasn't.  He could have kicked himself for not thinking of that long
before now.

   Mulder replaced the receiver grimly, and turned to see Sam peering at
him apprehensively from behind the sofa.  And in a well-timed reminder, the
oven's buzzer sounded.

   "Come on, Sunshine, dinner's ready."

   But although Sam wolfed down his fish, mashed potatoes and peas with a
healthy appetite, it was all his father could do to force his own portion
down.

   *You are exposing yourself and Agent Scully to unnecessary risks.*

   Mulder didn't feel he could give up his investigation this quickly.  And
in all honesty, he didn't see any reason for this particular inquiry to be
any riskier than, say, the one in Bellefleur where he'd met Scully.

   But he wasn't sure, and so for that reason he decided to abandon his
original plan to show Scully the information the Gunmen had passed to him.
Besides, after what had happened in Wisconsin, he wasn't sure she'd be
interested in helping him out anyway.

XXXX

   Not hearing from Mulder for a few days in a row was something Scully was
used to, so it didn't bother her much when he didn't contact her for the
better part of a week.  She was pretty busy herself, what with introducing
Agent Castamir to the X-files, acquainting him with the details of some of
her recent cases, and struggling with a small mountain of paperwork which
had mysteriously landed on her desk while she was in Wisconsin retrieving
Mulder.

   The weekend came around again before it occurred to her that she hadn't
seen him in a while, and then it was only a passing thought; she sent him a
brief e-mail, and arranged to meet her sister for shopping and lunch on
Saturday when he didn't reply.

   Scully didn't see much of her sister Melissa now they were adults,
which - she had to ruefully admit - was probably a good thing for both of
them.  Missy was without a doubt the family rebel; two years older than
Dana, she had noisily abandoned the catholic faith at fourteen and
proceeded to follow a course which brought her into endless conflict with
their father and never failed to set the entire family by the ears.  She
had left home shortly after graduating from college, to 'travel', and
thereafter only alighted on the family doorstep at irregular intervals.
For the moment she was back home, probably even for Christmas, but for how
long after that was anyone's guess.

   Given that Melissa was heavily into New Age philosophies, and also
strong-minded and rather opinionated, she and Dana only got along for
limited periods before they inevitably brushed each other up the wrong way.
Then there would be a dignified parting of ways, the cause of which was
generally forgotten by the time they next met.

   Scully had consequently forgotten what had caused them to come to blows
the last time they met, and was eager to meet up and just natter for a few
hours.  They spent a long while trawling through the malls and spending
money on early Christmas gifts for family and friends, then landed up in a
cafe for some much-needed tea and pastries.

   "So ...."  Melissa Scully broke off a small piece of her almond danish
and looked at her younger sister over the teapot.  "What will you be doing
at Christmas?"

   Scully toyed with her own sweet pastry, smiling a little.  "I'll go to
Mom and Dad's, of course, to do my duty as a maiden aunt and take care of
Bill's kids while he and Tara relax for a while."

   Melissa made a disgusted noise.  "Honestly, Dana ...!  Get a life, find
yourself a man, and tell Bill where to get off this year.  You're not an
unpaid nanny they can dump the kids with whenever they feel like a break.
It's *Christmas*, for crying out loud - it's your holiday too."

   "I don't mind!" Scully protested.  "Really - I love seeing the kids - "

   Her sister made a rude noise.  "Bill makes use of you, and tells himself
he's doing you a favour," she pointed out brutally.  "You know as well as I
do that he thinks - "

   "Melissa, please."

   Melissa paused, frustrated, but seeing Dana's tight expression, she
reluctantly abandoned the touchy subject she'd been about the raise.  "I
still think you need to get yourself a man," she pointed out irritably
after a moment.

   Scully laughed in spite of herself.  "I think I can manage that without
anyone's help, Missy."

   "Huh."  Her sister stared at her broodingly.  "You're not still seeing
that jerk Willis, are you?"

   Scully's eyes flicked up, surprised.  "I haven't been out with Jack in
nearly two years."

   Melissa grunted.  "Good.  That guy was a freaky experience waiting to
happen.  I wouldn't be surprised if you told me he was stalking you."

   "Well ...."

   "Please don't tell me he did!"

   "Not quite, but he got pretty pushy."  Scully saw her sister's
expression and quickly sorted through the various incidents that had dogged
her break-up from Jack Willis, trying to find a few examples which would
illustrate the events sufficiently without alarming Melissa.  If she was
honest with herself, Willis's endless telephone calls and e-mail messages
almost constituted harassment, but she didn't want to worry her family.

   Before she could speak, however, there was an unexpected interruption.

   "DAY!"

   Scully looked around, startled by the shriek of a familiar voice, and
found little Sam Mulder hurtling towards her.  He threw himself into her
lap, giggling excitedly, and instantly began to size up the contents of the
table with a complete lack of concern for the company.

   "Sam!"

   Familiar with his behaviour, Scully quickly wrestled him into a sitting
position on her lap, where she could keep control of his inquisitive hands,
and looked around for Mulder himself, convinced that he couldn't be far
behind.  But there was no sign of him.

   "Sam!  Sam, what are you doing here?" she asked the little boy.

   Melissa, who was watching wide-eyed and amused as the dark-haired cherub
investigated everything within arms length, quickly moved the hot water jug
out of his reach and gave him a paper napkin to shred instead.

   "Come shopping," Sam announced happily, rapidly reducing the napkin to
confetti.

   Scully's brows drew together, and she looked around again.  Still no
Mulder.  He was probably tearing his hair out somewhere in the mall,
looking for the tyke.  "Where's daddy, sweetheart?" she asked.

   Sam craned his neck backwards so he could peer up at her.  "Gone."

   "Gone where?"

   The small brow furrowed as he considered the question.  "Gone to see the
flyin' sawzers," he told her, and made a curious sweeping gesture in the
air with his hands.

   It took Scully a moment to realise that he must be mimicking Mulder's
own explanation to him.  Then she felt a sharp jab of alarm in her stomach.
What the hell was Mulder up to now?

   "Flying saucers?" she repeated.

   "Yep.  Gonna take pictures for Uncle Fro."  Sublimely unconscious of the
effect his words had had on his audience, Sam helped himself to the rest of
Scully's danish pastry.

   "SAMUEL!"

   Melissa looked at her sister with an expression of alarm combined with
amusement.  "Dana, I think the nursery patrol just arrived," she warned.

   A slender, dark-haired woman appeared out of the crowd, dragging a
little girl behind her.  When she saw that Sam was in the company of two
quite respectable females, she relaxed a little, but not much.  Seeing her
expression, however, Scully moved quickly to forestall trouble.

   "It's okay," she said hastily.  "I know Sam's father."  She scanned the
other woman's familiar features and remembered Mulder telling her once or
twice that his cousin sometimes babysat for him.  "Are you Annie?  Mulder's
cousin?"

   Annie Rosens paused, a little thrown by this.  "Yes, but - "

   "I'm Dana Scully.  Mulder's a friend of mine, so Sam knows me quite
well."

   Sam looked up, covered in icing and pastry flakes, and nodded
vigorously.  "Day," he said, as if this explained everything.

   Annie's expression relaxed into one of curiosity.  "You're Dana?"  She
hesitantly took the spare seat Melissa obligingly pulled out for her, and
pulled her little girl - who looked to be about four years old - into her
lap.  "Oh, I'm so pleased to meet you at last!  Fox has told us so much
about you."

   Scully could feel the colour flooding her cheeks, and tried to ignore
her sister's look of avid enquiry.  "I wish I could say the same," she
replied, embarrassed.

   To her surprise, Annie laughed.  "Oh, Fox wouldn't tell you about the
family - he says we should all be certified and locked away."

   "He's a fine one to talk!" Scully retorted before she could stop
herself, but that only made the other woman laugh more.  "So," she said,
trying to sound casual, "where is he?  Sam says he's hunting flying
saucers.  I was wondering why I hadn't heard from him in a while."

   Annie nodded, her expression rueful.  "Someone gave him a newspaper
clipping, about experimental aircraft I think, and he was off again.  He
brought Sam to stay with me, because the last time he went off, he got into
some kind of trouble and Aunt Rachel - that's his mother - got a little
hysterical about it."  She looked amused.  "I don't suppose it was anything
nearly as bad as she said, and besides, Fox is a grown man - he can look
after himself."

   Scully thought it prudent not to say anything at this point.  It was
obvious Mulder's cousin had little idea what he really got up to when he
"went off", which was probably just as well.

   She, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea what he got up to, and
suddenly every nerve was itching with the need to chase after him ...
despite her not having a clue where he'd gone.

XXXX

   It was a sign of just how much Melissa was trying not to offend Dana
that she managed to *not* ask her any questions until they got home, even
though she was bursting to do so.  Scully, for her part, was desperately
praying her mother had a houseful of guests so that she could dump Melissa
and skulk away before the inquisition started.

   She was in luck.  Maggie Scully was drinking tea at the kitchen table
with two of the Scully aunts, and with any luck Missy would remember to
keep her tongue between her teeth while the nosy old biddies were in
earshot.

   Cries of pleasure resounded as the two young women walked in, burdened
with purchases.  Melissa's eyes shot meaningful daggers at her sister even
as she fielded the rather tentative queries from Aunt Rose and Aunt Claudia
over what she had been doing with herself over the past year.  Dana avoided
the looks and prepared to spend a *lot* of time talking to her aunts -
forever if necessary - so Melissa settled down and resigned herself to a
couple of hours of meaningless chatter.

   Scully's mind was only half on what was going on; the other half was
frantically engaged in making and discarding plans to discover Mulder's
whereabouts.  She was disinclined to wait for Skinner to inform her a
second time, and the prospect of knocking on Mrs. Mulder's door was
unappealing despite the distinct possibility that the clues she needed were
somewhere on Mulder's hard-drive at home.  That left only two possible
avenues that she could see.  The first was going to Georgetown University
and flashing her badge around until someone gave her access to Mulder's
work PC.  The second was trying to contact the Lone Gunmen.

   *Go with option one,* Scully told herself, shuddering inwardly.

   "Dana?"

   "Huh? - Oh, I'm sorry."  She gave herself a mental shake and met the
enquiring eyes of both her mother and two aunts.  "What did you say?"

   "I *said*," Aunt Claudia repeated, "are you going to be on your own this
Christmas, Dana honey, or will you invite a friend?"

   That was a loaded question if ever she'd heard one.  Scully hesitated,
uncertain exactly what she could say that wouldn't set the pair of them
twittering or exchanging meaningful looks; and Melissa, who had been
waiting for just such an opportunity, stepped neatly into the gap.

   "Maybe you should invite Fox," she suggested blandly.

   Aunt Rose actually dropped her maccaroon in surprise; and three pairs of
eyes fixed on Scully with varying degrees of surprise and sudden interest.
Melissa merely smiled sweetly at her sister's outraged glare.

   *Next time, tell me,* the look said.

   *Next time I'll kill her,* Scully thought bitterly.

XXXX

   Finding Mulder proved to be even more difficult than Scully had
anticipated. Visiting Georgetown University elicited the information that
he'd taken three days of personal time, starting on the previous Friday,
and that he hadn't told anyone what he had planned.  Examination of his
office had proven fruitless, and his PC, although easily accessed, had
contained nothing of value - it was nearly all work-related.

   Scully returned to the office, discouraged and worried.  Mulder had gone
off like this before, even prior to Wisconsin, but he generally left her a
message giving some sort of explanation, even if the details were sketchy.

   Jerry Castamir was waiting for her.

   "Say, are we ever actually going to pick a case and work on it?" he
asked, as she dumped her bag and coat.  "It's just that whenever I go back
upstairs, Craythorpes keeps muttering about people who do no work."

   When there was no reply, he took a good look at her and his brows
snapped together.  "Are you okay?  What's up?"

   Scully hesitated for a moment, then decided she might as well tell him.
"Mulder's gone off somewhere - I don't know where, but he's chasing UFOs
again.  Something to do with experimental aircraft."

   Jerry's brow furrowed.  "Doesn't he do this all the time?  It's his
hobby, isn't it?"

   "Yes, but ...."  Scully rubbed her forehead wearily.  "The last time he
did this, he got arrested by the military for breaching a quarantined area.
And this time, he didn't even bother to tell me he was going off.  He
usually does, even if he doesn't tell me where."

   The other agent gave this some thought.  "You don't have any clues where
he might be?"

   "No.  I tried his office at Georgetown, but there was nothing there.  In
fact, I only know what he's up to because I ran into his cousin over the
weekend and she told me he was looking into something he'd found in a
newspaper clipping."

   "And you think he's going to get himself into trouble again?"

   Scully gave him a wry smile.  "Jerry, I *know* he's going to get himself
into trouble."

   He grinned back.  "Okay, obviously a stupid question.  But it's not a
dead end.  Experimental aircraft, did you say?  We can check the recent
publications and see if anything comes up.  And if all else fails, he keeps
a PC at home, doesn't he?  Had you considered asking his mother if you
could take a look?"

   Scully bit her lip, recalling her earlier decision to avoid Mulder's
mother.    She'd ruled it out partly because she'd never even met Mrs.
Mulder before, but also partly because some things Mulder had said in the
past suggested that his mother wouldn't ... approve of his relationship
with a gentile.

   "I'd rather not do that unless I have to," Scully replied, after a
moment.  "Let's see if we can't find something in the newspapers first."

XXXX

   "Mulder told me once that his mother had a nervous breakdown after his
sister died, and she's been a bit flaky ever since," Jerry observed
quietly, as they pulled up outside the Mulder residence.  "Something to do
with the medication prescribed her.  Have you ever met her?"

   Scully shook her head as she checked her gun and ID were in place.

   "Me neither.  I'll be honest; I'm surprised he moved in with her.  I
don't think he had contact with her from one year's end to the next when I
worked with him, because they couldn't really get along."

   "The idea was that she would help him with Sam," Scully replied.  "I
wonder if she's in?  She never has been when I've been here before."

   "Let's go see."

   Looking at the carefully maintained lawn and rhododendrons lining the
driveway, Scully wondered if Mrs. Mulder did the gardening herself or
whether someone was hired to do it for her.  One thing was for sure -
Mulder didn't do it.  He was never here long enough for that.

   She couldn't imagine him weeding anyway.

   Jerry rang the doorbell and they both stood awkwardly on the steps,
looking around and trying not to look conspicuous.  It was hard not to in
the rather uniform regulation suits they wore - as far as the neighbours
were concerned, they might just as well have "FBI" painted on their backs.

   At length, the door opened and Scully was confronted for the first time
by Mrs. Mulder.

   It was obvious where Mulder got his looks from.  She was tall and
slender, like her son, with the same nose - although it was rather less
noticeable on her - and the same deep-set hazel eyes.  Her hair was pure
white and neatly styled, and her clothes were well-tailored; Scully got an
impression of mature elegance rather than age, which was reinforced by an
aloof and wary manner.

   She didn't ask who they were, but merely waited.

   Scully wondered if Mrs. Mulder would connect the Dana Scully who had
telephoned for her son once or twice with the Agent Scully in front of her.
There was only one way to find out, so she dug out her ID and displayed it.
"Mrs. Mulder?  I'm Agent Scully, this is Agent Castamir - we're looking for
your son.  Do you know his present whereabouts?"

   Something flickered in the woman's eyes, but was gone before Scully
could identify it.  "No," she said, after a pause.  "No, I've no idea where
he is.  Why, is there a problem?"

   "We've reason to believe he may be in trouble," Jerry said smoothly,
"and we need to find him.  Does he have a desk - somewhere where he might
keep papers and important documents?  There might be an indication of where
he's gone."

   Mrs. Mulder hesitated, then opened the door and stood back.  "In the
study," she said, and indicated the door.  "Help yourselves."

   She didn't actually follow them into the room, but stood in the doorway
watching as they rummaged through Mulder's rather untidy collection of
papers, magazines and books.  The PC was switched on, though powered down;
Scully glanced at Mrs. Mulder for permission and booted it up.

   When she clicked on the e-mail icon, it demanded a password.  Scully
hesitated, wondering what on earth someone with a personality like Mulder's
might use as a password.  She tried SAMUEL.  It didn't like that.  Nor did
it like ELVIS or PRESLEY, which were Jerry's suggestions, based on Mulder's
musical preferences.

   Finally, Jerry gave her an odd look and typed something else.

   DKSCULLY

   The machine beeped and the e-mail programme opened up.  Scully prayed
Mrs. Mulder wouldn't notice she was blushing.  Then she noticed something
herself and all thoughts of embarrassment faded away.

   There was just one message in Mulder's in-box and its subject was her
name.  Clicking on it, she glanced at Jerry, and he pretended to busy
himself with a bunch of promising-looking cuttings he'd found in a drawer.

   The message opened up, and it was addressed to her.

      ***************************************************
      Scully -
         Frohike's right, you *are* like a bulldog if
      you've found this.  Chances are you won't; with any
      luck I'll be back before you've noticed I'm gone,
      but just in case I'm not and you've started looking
      for me, I've gone to the Spud State to investigate
      a little kidnapping.  The Bureau had this case, but
      decided not to pursue it, which is why I guess it
      didn't land on your desk.  Or maybe it has by now,
      who knows?  It's probably not worth your time,
      Scully, although when you find the file in my desk
      you'll see why I just *had* to take a look.  I'll
      tell you all about it when I get home.

      M.
      XXX
      **************************************************

   Scully stared at this breezy note and felt a surge of rage.  What the
hell did he think he was playing at?  If he wanted to leave her a note like
this, why didn't he just e-mail it to her properly, instead of hiding it in
a programme he knew perfectly well she wouldn't attempt to get at unless
she was at her wits' end?  And what -

   "Scully, look at this," Jerry said suddenly, interrupting her train of
angry thoughts.  He was holding a cardboard file folder stuffed with blurry
photographs, bits of paper and print-outs from the internet.  He held up a
small newspaper cutting.  "Exhibit A," he said dryly.

   She took it, gesturing for him to read the e-mail message while she was
reading, and took a look.  The cutting was a tiny story about a woman
married to aircraft pilot at Ellens Air Base in South West Idaho, who
claimed her husband had been kidnapped by the military.  It was dated two
weeks previously, and it was no wonder they hadn't seen it in the
publications they'd searched before coming here; the article had been a
small story in a regional Idaho newspaper which appeared to have only one
issue per week.

   Scully frowned over the scrap of paper.  Okay, it explained Mulder's reference to "a little kidnapping", but it didn't explain his interest.  Then
she looked at a few of the other items in the folder and the pieces began
to fall into place.

   Ellens Air Base was reputedly a mecca for UFO enthusiasts; rumour had it
that some of the wreckage from the alleged crash at Roswell had been taken
there, and that unusual aircraft were frequently spotted flying over the
nearby town.

   Scully slapped the folder shut and tapped Jerry on the arm.  "Come on, I
need to get back to the office."

   He saw the grim look on her face, and didn't argue.  "What's back at the
office?"

   "Hopefully, a file on the alleged kidnapping of one Colonel Robert
Budahas," she replied.

XXXX

   Mrs. Mulder watched broodingly out of the living room window as the two
FBI agents got into their car and drove off, then quietly went to find her
purse.  She rummaged in it for a couple of moments until she found her
address book, then spent another ten staring at one particular telephone
number she kept hidden at the back of it.  The number had no name or
address attached to it.

   She preferred it that way.  A name might trigger too many ugly memories.

   Finally, she summoned her courage, took the telephone off the cabinet,
and dialled the number.  It was answered almost immediately.

   "It's me," she said without preamble.  No fear that the person on the
other end of the line wouldn't know her; no such luck.  Apparently they
said something to that effect, for she flinched and her voice hardened.
"Don't tell me you weren't expecting me to call - I know you better."

   Silence as the other person spoke at some length.  Rachel Mulder's
fingers tightened on the handset, her knuckles white.  "I don't want to
know!" she snapped.  "You listen to me.  I didn't call you over that
business in Wisconsin because I have never asked you for anything, and I'm
not about to start now.  Do you understand?  I'm not calling you now
because I want something.  I'm calling because I ... have information.  And
I'm not selling.  I want nothing in return.  Is that clear?  There are no
favours involved here."

   Another pause; and her lips grew pinched with anger.  "I'm not the fool
you think me.  I wasn't twenty years ago, and I'm certainly not now.  I'm
giving you this, and I don't care what you do with it - you probably know
anyway, but I'm not giving you an opportunity to say *I* knew and withheld
it from you.  So.  Are you listening?  My son's gone off on another of his
little goose-chases.  To Idaho - you know where, don't pretend you don't
....  What do you mean, how do I know?  *She* was here less than half an
hour ago, that Irishwoman he's been sniffing around.  Obviously he didn't
bother to tell her where he was off to again.  What?  A newspaper cutting,
I think - I don't know, she took a folder full of his stuff away with her."

   Another silence, and then her voice became cool, indifferent.  "Frankly,
I don't care.  If he's poking his nose in where he shouldn't, then I
suppose you'll have to take action.  No, I don't want to know anymore about
it.  I've told you what I know - now stay away from me."

   She put the telephone down decisively and stared at it for a moment.
Then she tucked her address book away in her purse and went to make herself
a coffee.

XXXX

   The next morning Jerry Castamir found himself on a plane with his new
partner, on their way to South West Idaho.  He still wasn't sure how Scully
had managed to persuade AD Skinner to let them go.  He wasn't sure he
*wanted* to know.  What did intrigue him was how she had managed to make a
case out of a flimsy accusation of kidnapping which had already been deemed
unworthy of investigation by another section of the Bureau.  And he
wondered just how much the case was an excuse to look for Fox Mulder.

   Not that he was complaining ... yet.  It got him away from the bullpen
and some of his less charitable colleagues for a while.  All the same, it
seemed prudent to examine the 'case' a little more closely, so he flipped
the file open and began to look through its contents.

   "That's Colonel Robert Budahas," Scully said quietly, watching as he
examined a picture of a stocky man in Air Force uniform. "That photo was
taken last year when he was a test pilot stationed at Ellens Air Base in
South West Idaho.  Four months ago, Colonel Budahas experienced a psychotic
episode and barricaded himself inside his home.  The military police were
called in; Budahas was removed and apparently hospitalised for the
treatment of his condition."

   "Which was what exactly?" Jerry asked, interested.

   Scully shrugged.  "The military won't comment on the cause, nature or
status of his case - in fact, the military won't comment on Colonel Budahas
at all.  Mrs. Budahas hasn't seen or heard from her husband in over four
months, and her enquiries to the military have gone unanswered.  Last month
she contacted the FBI and reported it as a kidnapping."

   His brows rose.  "What reason would the military have to kidnap one of
their own pilots?"

   "That's the big question, Jerry.  I've been looking into this a little,
besides reading Mulder's notes.  Since 1963 six pilots have been listed as
missing in action from Ellens Air Base.  The military only say that these
pilots accepted the risks of flying experimental aircraft."

   Jerry flipped through the papers rapidly.  "It says here there were
rumours those pilots were shot down at high altitudes, while they were
routinely penetrating Russian airspace."

   "Maybe that's so, but none of this explains what happened to Colonel
Budahas, or why no one has set his wife's mind at rest as to his
condition."

   "I guess we try and find out then."

   "I guess so.  But first, we need to find Mulder."

XXXX

   "You know, I didn't think of this before," Scully commented absently, as
they drove through the small Idaho town that housed most of the Air Base
staff's dependants, "but I've no idea how we're going to find Mulder, even
if he *is* here.  It's quite a big place."

   Jerry glanced at her and chuckled a little.  "Trust me, Dana  -*finding*
Fox Mulder won't be the problem."

   She raised her brows questioningly.  "Oh?"

   "Sure.  I know Mulder from way back - we just find the rattiest motel in
town, and he's sure to be holed up there.  He loves dives.  The one thing
the Bureau never reprimanded him for was accommodation expenses.  Or food -
if he's not at the motel, he'll be at the nearest roadside diner."

   Scully had to admit the justice of this observation.  While it was true
that she had been to a couple of extremely classy restaurants with Mulder,
they were vastly outnumbered by a large range of down-at-heel cafes, bars,
diners and hot-dog stands which for some reason seemed to have a siren
allure for him.  It came as no surprise that his taste in accommodation
should be similar.

   Sure enough, when they pulled up at a rather weathered little motel on
the outskirts of town - called, rather implausibly, The Beach Grove Motel -
neither agent was disappointed.  Mulder's name was ahead of theirs on the
booking-in register, although when they knocked on his door, he was
apparently not around.

   "Okay ...." Scully sighed, having dumped her overnight bag in her room.
"Any suggestions?"

   Jerry looked a bit dubious.  "What do you want to do - find Mulder or
get on with the case?"

   "I'm not sure there *is* a case, quite honestly."

   "All the same, that's the pretext we came out here on.  We're going to
have to put something in our reports when we get back."

   Scully gave her new partner a narrow look when he said that; it sounded
*almost* like a rebuke.  On the other hand, he had a point.  The Bureau
wasn't paying her to be a wet-nurse to Fox Mulder.  "In that case, let's go
see Mrs. Budahas."

XXXX

   "I don't think I'd want to live here," Jerry muttered to Scully as they
stood on the doorstep of Mrs. Budahas's house, waiting for her to open the
door.  There was a low background rumbling - the remnants of a jet
screaming past seconds before which had made him nearly leap out of his
skin.

   Scully, however, smiled faintly.  "You get used to it," she assured him,
remembering her childhood spend on Naval bases, where assorted noises day
and night were a feature of the general background.

   "Huh."

   The door opened before Jerry could pass an opinion, and Mrs. Budahas
stood before them - a small woman with short curly dark hair and a worried
expression.  "Hello?"

   They glanced at each other and Scully stepped forward.  "Mrs. Budahas?
We're from the FBI."  She produced her badge, and the woman gave her a
wavering, hopeful smile.

   "Oh - yes.  Please, come in."

   It was a nice little house, very homelike, but typical of the houses the
military built for servicemen's families.  Scully was once again reminded
sharply of her own upbringing in a selection of houses not unlike this; you
could decorate it as you wished, spray it with personal effects, but it
remained a military home.  Mrs. Budahas had apparently declined to even
attempt to disguise that fact, and her husband's medals and so on were
proudly displayed on the walls of her living room, including, rather
remarkably, a Presidential Commendation.

   Jerry opted to remain standing, for the better examination of these
honours, but Scully sat down, guessing that Mrs. Budahas would feel easier
talking to her.

   "I started noticing it about two years ago," Mrs. Budahas began.   She
was sat nervously on the edge of the couch, her hands twisting  in her lap.
Outside, Scully could hear her two children playing in the garden.  "Bob
developed this rash under his arms.  We'd been doing some renovations to
the house, so we thought it was a reaction to the paint stripper.  But
then - everything just went crazy."

   "How do you mean?" Scully asked gently.

   "Bob's whole personality just became unpredictable.  He started ...
doing things."

   Jerry looked around at this.  "What kind of things?"

   "It was kind of embarrassing at first," she said, her voice high and
nervous.  "We were having a dinner party once and he started sprinkling
fish flakes all over his food."  Her eyes darted from Scully to Jerry and
back again, but their expressions remained neutral and sympathetic.

   "Did you ever talk to him about this?" Scully asked.

   "I tried - it was extremely difficult.  Bob would get so angry; he'd
yell at the kids for no reason, and then he'd shake like he was having a
seizure."

   "Did you ever talk about his work?"

   Mrs. Budahas shook her head quickly, decisively.  "That was never
discussed - even before the problems," she replied firmly.  "I knew he
worked on top secret projects - word gets around - but Bob was always a
patriot first."  Her mouth suddenly trembled.  "He took loyalty to his
country as an oath - and now they treat us like strangers ...."  She looked
down at her hands, fighting for control.  "I just want my husband back,"
she muttered finally.

   Scully bit her lip sympathetically.  "You know, the Government is not
above the law.  It cannot withhold information."

   But Mrs. Budahas was not reassured.  She had first-hand experience of
what the Government felt it could do; and in any case, a greater spectre
haunted her.  "Wh-what if he's - ?"  She swallowed, unable to continue the
thought.  "How will I support the family?"

   There was no answer to that, and Scully realised that any further
attempts at reassurance would only be an insult to this woman under the
circumstances.  After all, she wasn't sure exactly what they could do,
although she intended to find out.

   It was only when Mrs. Budahas was showing them out again, that Scully
remembered her original reason for following this case.

   "Mrs. Budahas," she said, turning back on the steps.  "Has anyone else
been here in the last couple of days, asking you about your husband's
disappearance?"

   "Why yes," she said, a little surprised.  "There was a man - he said he
was a journalist.  I sent him away."

   "Which begs the question of where Mulder is now," Jerry observed dryly,
when they were back in the car.

   "And, more to the point, what he's doing," Scully agreed, with a sigh.

   But both questions were answered less than ten minutes later, as they
drove through a quiet suburb filled with larger houses that appeared to be
the homes of the more important individuals at the base.  Passing one
rather neat and well-ordered-looking abode Scully noticed two men arguing
in the driveway - and abruptly realised that one of them was a certain
delinquent university lecturer of her acquaintance.

   She swerved, which brought the matter to Jerry's attention rather
forcibly, and pulled up a few yards further down the road.

   "Sorry, Jerry," Scully managed, fighting a recalcitrant seatbelt.

   "It's okay.  What the hell's he doing?"

   The answer to that became fairly obvious as they hurried up to the two
men.

   "Why won't you talk to me about Colonel Budahas?" Mulder was demanding,
as the other man, a uniformed officer from the air base, retreated into his
home.

   "Why don't *you* get the hell out of my face!" the other man retorted
angrily, and slammed the front door behind him.

   "Mulder, what the hell are you doing?" Scully called from the driveway
entrance.

   No way was *she* going to be accused of trespass.

   Mulder spun on his heel, surprised, and his face - previously a mask of
exasperation - broke into a delighted smile.  He jogged back down the drive
to her.  "Hey, Scully, you made it!"

   "I repeat," she snapped, eyes blazing, "what the hell are you doing?"

   "Oh, you know - the usual."  The smile vanished.  Mulder had registered
her companion, and his eyes were wary.  "Hey, Jerry, what are you doing
here?"

   "By the looks of it, pulling your ass out of the fire," Jerry replied
rather acidly.  "Quite like old times."

   Apparently this didn't go down very well.  Scully could sense what
remained of Mulder's good-humour dissipating, although his expression
remained blandly amiable.  "Isn't that my tie?" he asked his former partner
in passing, as he began to head back to his car.

   "You left it in your desk drawer - I assumed you didn't want it," Jerry
retorted.  "Where are you going?"

   "Isn't that Scully's line?"

   "Mulder."

   One word; but the deadly note in it brought him up short with his hand
on the door of his rental car.  He turned to face her, his expression
polite, but his eyes had a dangerous glint in them.

   "I think you owe me an explanation," Scully said, her voice lethally
soft.

   Mulder's voice was equally soft and dangerous.  "I am not accountable to
you for my actions, Scully."

   The atmosphere between them was suddenly so tangible and bad that Jerry
Castamir almost looked around to see if a skunk had wandered by.  And quite
suddenly he realised that he didn't want to be anywhere within a radius of
a square mile when the *real* fight broke out.

   "Don't make me make this official, Mr. Mulder."

   Oh shit.

   "What exactly are you suggesting, Agent Scully?"

   "I suggest that you come with us now."

   "There's just this minor difficulty of my car.  How about I meet you
back at the - "

   "Get in our car.  Now.  Agent Castamir - "

   Jerry stepped forward very warily, trying to avoid looking at Mulder.
"Agent Scully?"

   Scully held out her hand to Mulder peremptorily and after a significant
pause, he handed her his car keys.  She handed them to Jerry.  "You drive
his car back to the motel, please."

   Which suited Jerry just fine.  No way did he want to share a car with
that pair right now.  He watched Mulder resignedly following Scully to the
other car, and sighed.  It was going to be a long afternoon.

XXXX

   When they reached the motel Jerry vanished, muttering something
unconvincing about making a phonecall.  His reluctance to get involved in
the impending quarrel between his current and former partners was so
obvious that it tickled Mulder's ever-ready sense of humour and wiped out
any annoyance he was feeling at the earlier confrontation.

   Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Scully, who was
tight-lipped with suppressed anger.  She waited only long enough for the
flimsy door of Mulder's motel room to be shut behind them before she vented
it.

   "Just what the hell do you think you're playing at, Mulder?" she
demanded.  "Who was that officer you were hassling back there?"

   "His name's Colonel Kissel," Mulder replied blandly, watching her pace
the room with wary eyes.  "He's on the staff at Ellens Air Base and he's
one of the guys Colonel Budahas's wife has been trying to talk to for the
last four months.  As you can see, he didn't particularly want to talk to
the press either."

   "I'm not surprised!"  But Scully wasn't really interested in why Mulder
had been trying to talk to Colonel Kissel.  "Perhaps you could explain to
me why you're here at all, though?"

   "If you saw my message, you know why."

   "Your message was no more informative than you're being now," she
retorted.  "And was I even supposed to receive it?"

   Mulder raised his brows innocently.  "It was addressed to you, wasn't
it?"

   "Yes - and then left in a place where I might reasonably be expected not
to find it!"

   "But you *did* find it," he pointed out gently.

   Scully stared at him for a moment and saw the beginnings of a smile
quivering at the corner of his mouth.  Suddenly she realised why some women
were driven to hit the men in their lives; her palm itched to slap that
infuriating smile off his face.  She barely mastered the impulse by folding
her arms tightly across her chest.

   "No thanks to you," she said coldly.  "I found out you were gone purely
by accident.  Tell me; would you have bothered telling me where you'd been
afterwards, if I *hadn't* found out?  Or maybe I'd be springing you from
military custody again, who knows."

   "You're not going to let me forget that, are you?" he muttered.

   "Why should I?  I'm not going to forget it in a hurry."  Scully eyed him
resentfully for a moment, then transferred her gaze to the view out of the
window and forced herself to take a couple of calming breaths.  Nagging was
an unattractive trait in any woman, and one guaranteed to be
counter-productive.  "Okay," she said in a milder tone, after a moment.
"Perhaps you'll explain to me why you are here."

   Mulder sat down on the end of the bed.  "Like I said, I'm just
investigating a little kidnapping."

   "Come on, Mulder," Scully sighed.  "I saw your notes, remember?  The
real reason, please."

   He looked up warily, and saw from her face that the worst of the storm
was over.  "Okay.  Maybe the words 'experimental aircraft' have this
curious allure for me, especially when spoken in conjunction with 'Ellens
Air Base'."

   "You don't really believe this stuff about wreckage from Roswell being
brought here, do you?  You don't seriously think that the military are
using scrap metal from UFOs to build aircraft?"

   "Let's just say that I'm keeping an open mind."

   "Oh, Mulder ...."

   "Scully, according to the local people Colonel Budahas was displaying
psychotic and repetitive behaviour patterns before he vanished.  So are
several other pilots who were working out of Ellens Air Base.  What exactly
do you think caused that?"

   Scully looked at him.  "Seriously?  There's a stress-related condition
called steryotopy which produces those symptoms, Mulder.  I'd say flying
the kind of aircraft which have been screaming overhead all afternoon would
be stressful."

   He gave her an incredulous look.  "Oh, come on, Scully!  A guy like
Budahas?  Look at his record - this guy lives on stress.  It would have to
be a pretty extraordinary aircraft to freak him out."

   Scully squeezed the bridge of her nose wearily.  "I'm not going to argue
with you, Mulder, especially not when I haven't eaten since we flew in."

   "Okay," he said obligingly.  "Let's go get something to eat.  There's a
place up the road I know you'll just love."

   "Hm.  Where have I heard that before?"

   He grinned, recognising from her tone that the status quo had been
re-established.  "I don't know what you mean."

   She grinned back tiredly.  "Fine.  We'd better find Jerry first, though.
He probably thinks we've killed each other by now."

   "He's the new partner, huh?"

   "Yes ....  He told me you two worked together."

   "Briefly.  He's a good guy - you got luckier than I thought you would."
Mulder's expression was difficult to read as he said this.  "What do you
make of him?"

   "He seems okay - I haven't spent that much time with him yet.  But on
first impression, he reminded me a lot of you."

   This did not produce the reaction she had expected.

   "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" he asked softly.

   Scully wasn't sure how to answer that, so she didn't even try.

XXXX

   "I might have known," Scully murmured resignedly when they pulled up
outside the diner.  The sign above her head proudly proclaimed the
establishment to be "The Flying Saucers" in cheerful neon lights.

   "Pretty neat, huh?" Mulder enthused.  "I only found out about it today."

   "I'm not sure I believe that."

   Jerry merely sighed as he unfolded his long legs from the rear passenger
seat and looked at the place.  Then he looked at Scully.  "What did I tell
you?" he said wryly.  "Bad food and bad motels."

   She chuckled in spite of herself, and Mulder gave him a later-for-you
look.

   "As I recall, you were the one who booked us into that pay-by-the-hour
joint in Chicago, where all the local transvestites hung out," he observed
musingly.

   "But you were the one who wanted to stay," Jerry shot back.

   "I'd like to eat sometime today," Scully interjected plaintively,
recalling them to the present.

   Watching both Jerry and Mulder putting away hearty mixed grills fifteen
minutes later, she couldn't see any evidence of finer culinary tastes in
either of them and had to smile inwardly.  They were bickering like a pair
of children over cases past and incidents at the academy which each
strenuously asserted the other had precipitated, while Scully sat back and
listened in amusement.

   *This* was a Mulder she had never seen before; the man he had probably
been in his early days with the Bureau, before he married Phoebe and
everything went wrong.  The only thing she couldn't understand was why, if
he got along so well with Jerry, he hadn't kept in touch with him; it might
have made his isolation from the FBI easier to bear ... for there was no
doubt in her mind that he missed his old job.

   Of course, one did lose touch with one's academy classmates remarkably
quickly, and Jerry had already told her that he'd transferred out of
Behavioural Sciences after a relatively short stint there.  And it was
quite possible that during his troubles with Phoebe, Mulder had
deliberately isolated himself from any friends he might have; that would be
like him.

   Well, if such a mixed blessing as her being saddled with an unwanted
partner reaped the unexpected benefit of him being able to reconnect with
an old friend, then - so be it.

   Mulder happened to glance up at that moment and caught the affectionate
look on her face.  He raised a questioning brow, and she gave him a
deliberate Mona Lisa smile, but just as he began to ask her what was on her
mind, another jet went screaming overhead, rattling every glass on the long
shelves behind the bar.

   The landlady, a sturdily-built and laid-back character, rolled her eyes
as she dumped another tall glass of Pepsi down in front of Jerry.

   "F15 Eagle doing about 4 g's," she commented dryly, seeing his rather
ruffled expression.  "Those boys think they are *such* hot shots.  Get a
few drinks in them - you'd think it was them up there flapping their
wings."

   Mulder snorted a laugh.  His eyes fell on a long row of photos pinned to
the shelf behind her, which had probably (Scully thought) been on his mind
ever since they walked in, and he gestured to them.  "Who's the
photographer?"

   The landlady took a casual look at them.  "Various and sundry.  I took
the one on the end there."  She pointed out a rather blurred picture of a
something triangular shaped apparently hovering over a stand of trees.

   It was Scully's turn to roll her eyes, but Mulder was impressed.

   "You're kidding?  Where?"

   "Out on the back porch.  Taking out the garbage - and there it was, just
hovering.  Quiet like a hummingbird.  For a minute there I thought it was
going to land in the parking lot, and I was going to have to serve them
lunch."

   Scully looked at Mulder disbelievingly.  Surely he wasn't going to fall
for this ...?  But apparently he was, and worse still, Jerry appeared
equally agog.

   "I'm selling limited edition prints - $20.  I'm down to the last five if
you're interested."

   "Put it on my tab," Mulder told her, without hesitation.

   This was too much.  Scully leaned over as she got up, and gave him the
full benefit of a raised and sceptical eyebrow.  "Sucker!"

   But he merely took that as a challenge and turned back to the landlady.
"What would be the chances of someone like me seeing a UFO?"

   "Catch you outside," Scully told him, and headed for the ladies' room,
shaking her head.  Mulder watched her go then turned to the landlady and
shrugged deprecatingly.

XXXX

   A few hours later, having abandoned the case temporarily in favour of a
good night's sleep, Scully was sat on her bed studying a map of the area
with a small frown on her face when there was a light tap on her door.

   It was Mulder, of course.

   "Whatever you want, you can't have it.  Jerry's only next door, and the
walls are paper-thin," she told him as she let him in.

   "You keep making me these great offers in the most uncomfortable
places," he grinned at her.  "What are you doing?"

   "Checking out the lay of the land.  Want to see something weird?  Ellens
Air Base isn't even on my USGS Quadrant Map."

   "I know," Mulder nodded.  "Do *you* want to see something weird?"

   She eyed him suspiciously.  "Such as?"

   "Get your coat."

   Scully balked.  "Hold on a minute, Mulder - where are we going?"

   "To see the local floor show."

   "I'd better go get Jerry - "

   "*Leave* Jerry," Mulder interrupted, a little impatiently.  "Two's
company, three is definitely kinky.  Nothing's going to happen that you'll
need official back-up for - I just want you to see something really neat.
You can tell Jerry in the morning."

   Still Scully hesitated, for his expression suggested he wanted Jerry out
of the way for another reason altogether.  "Mulder," she said
uncomfortably, "I'm on Bureau time, and - "

   He sighed.  "Relax, it's case-related.  Now, are you going to come?
We'll miss it if you don't make your mind up soon."

   Scully hesitated, but the temptation of playing hooky with Mulder for an
hour or so overrode caution.  She grabbed her coat and followed him out to
his car.

XXXX

   It was a nice clear night, although a little chilly; that was Mulder's
excuse for dragging a blanket from his motel room out with them and putting
on the ground.  Scully wasn't going to argue with him, since it undeniably
stopped the cold from striking up from the grass.  As for the apparently
non-existent 'floor show' he'd mentioned, she was curious but less inclined
to argue about that too.

   After all, she hadn't done anything like this since she was a teenager,
and there was something very enticing about breaking the rules just this
once ....  Mulder apparently agreed with her for his grin, when he flopped
out beside her and slung an arm around her shoulders, was very little-boy
wicked.

   "See?  I told you - two's company."

   Scully pretended to give it serious consideration.  "Hmm - maybe.  I
don't know though - maybe Jerry would have enjoyed this."

   "With Jerry you never know, but I don't intend to find out.  Seeds?"

   "Thanks."  She helped herself.  "So tell me, Mulder - why are we stuck
out here on a hill above the base?"

   He smiled.  "Other than for the joy of each other's company?"

   "I'm sure we could have had that in more comfortable locations," she
replied mildly.

   "Be patient.  With any luck, you'll see what I dragged you out here for
shortly.  You're not cold, are you?"

   "No."

   "Pity."

   Scully chuckled.  "Come here."

   "Oooh!"  Mulder took the invitation and wrapped his arms around her,
resting his chin on top of her head comfortably.  "You're nice and warm,
Agent Scully."

   "So are you, Mr. Mulder."  Scully snuggled up shamelessly, enjoying the
warm male smell of him.  Just as well they were out here, where the cold
made certain activities less than inviting.  If they'd been back at the
motel, poor old Jerry would have been getting an earful in no time at all.
Her attention began to wander.  "I met your cousin Annie the other day,"
she murmured into his chest.

   "Yeah?"

   "Hmm.  She was chasing Sam around the mall."  Scully felt the chuckle
deep in his chest, and smiled.  "That's how I found out you'd run off
again - Sam blew the whistle on you."

   "He's reached the stage where he blurts out whatever's on his mind,
regardless of how secret or embarrassing it is."  Mulder shifted slightly,
getting more comfortable.  "So - what did you make of her?"

   "Annie?  She seems really nice.  She had a little girl with her - "

   "Sarah, her youngest.  She's four.  The other two are boys."

   "She said you'd told the family all about me."

   Mulder raised his head and gave Scully a look of consternation.  "I have
not!"

   Scully laughed softly at his tone.  "So when we got home, my sister
Melissa told my mother and two of my nosiest aunts about you.  In revenge
for me not having told her all about you before, you understand."

   He gave her a look of trepidation.  "Is that good or bad?"

   She squinted thoughtfully and waggled one hand in the air.  "Debatable.
I could have done without the aunts in the equation, because the whole
family probably knows by now that the confirmed old maid of the family has
a man in her life, but I don't mind my mother knowing.  She's keeping a
tactful silence until I decide to unburden myself to her voluntarily."

   A humorous note entered Mulder's voice.  "And your sister?"

   Scully snorted and burrowed back against his chest.  "Missy'll make a
pest of herself until she meets you - which, as far as I'm concerned, will
be when hell freezes over, after the way she stitched me up."

   Mulder chuckled - and suddenly noticed something.  "Hey, Scully, I think
we're on!"

   "Huh?  What?"

   He released his hold on her and pointed out over the base.  Scully sat
up, a little disappointed at the interruption, and suddenly saw what he was
referring to.  She scrambled to her feet to get a better look.

   Two brilliant white lights soared up into the air and seemed to dance
with each other way above the air base.  They moved faster than anything
she'd ever seen before, performing seemingly impossible aerial manoeuvres.

   "What are they?" Scully murmured, transfixed.

   Mulder pulled himself upright beside her.  "I don't know.  Just keep
watching - it's unbelievable.  I've been watching them for the last couple
of nights."

   Above them, the aerial display continued, the two lights breaking apart,
zipping across the sky at incredible speeds, coming to abrupt halts and
making startling changes of direction in split seconds, then coming
together again.

   "That's unreal - I've never seen anything like it."

   "They were going at it like that for almost half an hour last night,"
Mulder breathed in her ear.

   "They can't be aircraft - aircraft can't manoeuvre like that," Scully
pointed out, ever prosaic.

   He merely smiled.  "What else could they be?"

   "I don't know.  Lasers, maybe, being shot from the ground and reflecting
across the clouds."

   Abruptly, the two lights met, swooped upwards into the clouds and
vanished from sight.

   There was a loud crash, as if two planes had collided mid-air.  Mulder
and Scully looked at each other, wide-eyed and stunned.

   "Oh - my - God!"

   There was a long pause, and suddenly another light appeared, apparently
heading straight towards them.

   "Here comes another one ...." Mulder observed - and did a double take.
"Scully, that's a helicopter - "

XXXX

   Motels - especially the cheaper ones - tend to be busy places, even at
the oddest hours of the night.  Consequently, Jerry Castamir wasn't
particularly suspicious when he heard a car leaving the parking lot
outside, or several others arriving.  However, perhaps by an association of
ideas, he did decide to pay his partner a visit and find out what she was
intending to do the next day, in the vain hope that it might involve
hopping on a plane back to Washington DC.

   He was realistic enough to recognise that leaving anytime before Scully
was good and ready - which probably meant before Mulder was good and
ready - was unlikely.  But it was worth a try.

   Finding Scully's room unlit was a mild surprise, but when he thought
about it a little it made sense.  Jerry sighed a little irritably, and went
to check his premise ... so it was something of a surprise to discover that
not only was there a light on in Mulder's room but the door was also open.

   Jerry had no cause yet to be a paranoid man, like Mulder, nor was he a
fraction as wary as Scully had become over the past few months.
Nevertheless, he was an FBI agent of considerable experience, and finding
the room the such a condition sent his hand under his armpit for his gun.

   The door wasn't just open, it was wide open, and when Jerry stepped
cautiously inside he was shocked to see the room in complete turmoil.
Mulder was no one's idea of a tidy man, but this was something else
entirely.  Someone had turned the place over, and that someone was
apparently completely unconcerned about evidence of their activities being
discovered.  Mulder's few possessions had been spread over the maximum
possible area and the furniture turned over and inside out.

   Jerry hesitated for a moment, trying to decide the best course of
action.  This break-in put an uncomfortable new idea into his head about
the current whereabouts of both Mulder and Scully; he turned, intending to
check and see if Mulder's car was still in the parking lot, when he felt
something cool and chillingly familiar pressed against the back of his
neck.  He stiffened and cursed silently, but there was nothing for it but
to wait and see what happened next.

   What *did* happen was completely unexpected.

   "Hello, Jerry," an amused-sounding female voice said in his ear.  A
voice he recognised.

   Jerry had a fraction of a second to register astonishment and disbelief
before a sharp blow to the head put an end to him registering anything for
quite some time.

XXXX

   Scrambling down the steep side of the embankment was a deal more
difficult than climbing the gentle slope Mulder had led Scully up half and
hour before.  On the other hand, heading down, towards the perimeter fence,
which surrounded the air base, was also a better option than being out in
the open where the people in the helicopter could see them.  There were
trees and bushes lining the dip below thickly, providing better shelter to
hide in - for there was no doubt in either of their minds that the
helicopter was looking for them.  Scully slipped several times and resigned
herself to getting covered in mud and grass stains.

   The fence was a huge 20 foot wire construction.  The top was bound in
barbed wire and had another single length of narrow cable running through
the upper edge, which was possibly electrified.  Mulder kept a wary
distance from it just in case, and dragged Scully into a stand of trees,
far enough that they would be hidden from sight but not so far that they
couldn't see what was going on.  Interestingly, the helicopter pilot was
combing the area with a strong beam of light, but not the area where they
had been sat.  Instead, he appeared to be concentrating on an area just
inside the fence, which was covered in tall weeds, some of them taller than
Mulder.

   Scully pulled his head down so that she could speak into his ear over
the noise the chopper was making.  "What are they looking for?"

   "Not what," Mulder told her.  "Who!"

   He pointed and she turned to see a couple of small figures sudden break
out of the weeds by the fence.  Now that Scully's attention was drawn to
it, she could see that there was something wrong with the section of fence
in that area.  One of the two figures bent and grabbed hold of the bottom
edge of the wire and held it up for the other.  In a second or two they
were both through, and Mulder was already running to intercept them and
drag them into the trees.

   It was two teenaged kids, a boy and a girl, and to Scully's amazement
neither seemed to think more of what had happened than that it was a good
joke.  The fact that they had both been trespassing on military property
and had been within minutes of being apprehended for a serious offence
didn't seem to have occurred to them; they were both giggling and
congratulating each other on the close shave.  Nor did they seem to find it
at all odd that they were sharing their current refuge with two adults.

   Then Scully looked at them both again more closely, aware of a peculiar
sweetish smell clinging to their clothes, and realised that they were both
high.  They'd probably been smoking hash.

   If Mulder was aware of this fact - and given how observant he was, it
was unlikely he'd missed it - he chose to ignore it.  Scully was not
surprised to discover that he was more interested in the hole in the fence
and where it led.

   "What were you guys doing in there?" he demanded.

   "We didn't do anything!" the girl said, her eyes wide.  She had long
blonde hair, and looked to be about sixteen.  Her companion looked to be
about the same age, but had shoulder-length brown hair and the rather
uncertain teenaged beginnings of a goatee beard.

   "I didn't say you did," Mulder replied patiently, "but what were you
doing in there?"

   They looked at each other, and the girl giggled.   "We've got this kind
of spot," the boy explained, looking vaguely pleased with himself.  Looking
at his glazed eyes, Scully wondered just how much junk they'd smoked
tonight.  "We go there and we kind of kick back and listen to some tunes,
and watch the air show."

   Mulder glanced across at Scully, and couldn't resist a ghost of a grin
at her.  She pretended to ignore it, and he turned back to the two kids.
"What're your names?"

   "Emil," the boy said, "and Zoe."  He indicated the girl, who nodded.

   "Were you ever chased out before, Emil?"

   "No!  First time, right?  Our friend showed us the hole in the fence
about a year ago."

   "One time they dropped these bombs," Zoe interjected enthusiastically.

   "That was *heavy*," Emil agreed.  "There's this base, right?"  He
gestured towards the area behind the fence some distance away.  "It's
called the yellow base, or some shit like that.  That's where they're
supposed to store all this stuff, and my friend says that there's land
mines all around it and junk like that."

   Mulder was staring at the hole in the fence in a speculative way that
alarmed Scully.

   "Mulder, what are doing?  Come on, we've got to get out of here before
they send out people to look for us on foot!"

   He glanced at her blankly for a moment, then suddenly seemed to register
what she'd said.  He shook himself, and nodded.  "Yeah, of course.  Let's
get out of here - come on, you two, we'll give you a ride back into town."

   Emil and Zoe looked a little uncertain about this.  "We brought our
moped," Emil pointed out.

   "We'll put it in the trunk.  Come on - you lead the way."

   With Zoe leading, they pushed their way through the bushes and tall
grass, Mulder bringing up the rear.

   Which was Scully's big mistake.  It wasn't until they got out onto the
road and found both the car and the moped, that she turned around thinking
Mulder had been awfully quiet - and found him gone.

   For several minutes, she was too speechless with anger for words.

   "Where'd he go?" Emil asked stupidly, and the agent rounded on him
furiously.

   "Back through that damned hole you made the goddamned fence!"  She
stared at the two kids, who were staring back apprehensively, and for a
moment she toyed with the notion of abandoning them here and going back
after Mulder.  But a second's reflection told her how stupid that would be.
She had no idea when he'd left them and turned back, but he had a head
start on her and with his long legs he could cover the ground at
considerable speed.  She'd never catch up with him.  Also, once inside the
fence she had no idea which direction to go in.

   And leaving these doped up kids here on their own would be downright
irresponsible.  Scully had no choice; she sighed and gestured to the moped.
"Here, help me get this in the trunk," she told the two of them tiredly.

   She was better off heading back to the motel and waking Jerry.

XXXX

   Mulder had an idea that he should be feeling remorse for having ditched
Scully again, but he had known the minute he saw that hole in the perimeter
fence that she would never countenance a foray onto the base to see if they
could get an eyeful of what was going on.  Rather than have the argument
with her there and then, wasting time, he'd acted.  He'd ride out the storm
with her later.

   After all, what was the big deal?  Those two kids had been coming in
here for months and hadn't been seen until tonight - and Mulder was willing
to bet that that had only been because of the explosion he and Scully had
witnessed.  If the chopper hadn't been out anyway, no one would have been
the wiser.  And he wasn't going to try and enter any of the buildings or
anything like that; he was just going to ... look.  See what was going on.

   Oh, temptation ....

   Mulder ploughed through the tall grasses and other vegetation, following
a roughly trampled track made, presumably, by Emil and Zoe during one of
their expeditions.  Despite the darkness, he was glad that the weeds
reached above head height, offering some sort of protection.  The
helicopter was still cruising the area, although the pilot seemed to have
given up on the area nearest the perimeter fence.

   After a walk of about fifteen or twenty minutes, Mulder found himself at
the end of the tall weeds and on the edge of what looked like an airfield
of considerable size.  He eyed the cruising helicopter warily, but it
seemed to be concentrating on a corner of the field some distance away.
Mulder scanned the area and in the distance saw a cluster of lights.  He
began to walk in that direction, keeping close enough to the tall weeds
that he could duck back into them should the need arise.

   Less than five minutes later, the lights began to move.  Mulder strained
his eyes, trying to see what was happening, but he was at the wrong angle.
So, throwing caution to the wind, he moved out into the middle of what
seemed to be a kind of runway ... and was rewarded, moments later, by
something swooping through the air towards him.

   Stunned, he stood stock still, staring up at it as it came to an
incredibly swift halt above him and hung there.

   It was difficult to tell in the darkness, but it appeared to be roughly
triangular in shape and was about the length of a juggernaut.  It had three
*things* on its dark underside - lights, landing equipment, whatever -
which glowed in the dark, and as Mulder watched, breathless with amazement
and awe, it seemed to rotate itself gently in the air above him.  It was,
as the landlady of "The Flying Saucers" had so descriptively said, as quiet
as a hummingbird, despite being only a matter of two or three metres above
Mulder's head.

   Then, as fast as it had appeared, it was gone again, racing away in the
darkness and leaving Mulder craning his neck and fighting the urge to shout
"come back!" after it.

   For several minutes he stared after it, panting from the adrenaline
surging through his body and straining his eyes to see where it had gone.

   It was real.  He'd seen it.

   Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh wow -

   Mulder was suddenly conscious of a noise.  He spun around, and saw the
headlights of a truck coming straight for him.

XXXX

   The drive back to the motel was an uncomfortable one.  The two kids
seemed to be pretty much off on their own planet somewhere, which was just
as well for Scully was acutely conscious of her stomach roiling with anger
and anxiety.  This was the first time Mulder had actually ditched her in
person, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it - 'angry' didn't begin to
describe her emotions.

   She dropped the two kids off in town, and drove back to the motel,
debating what she was going to say to Jerry.  She wondered how he would
take the news that she had clandestinely gone off with Mulder and somehow
lost him, and suddenly felt ashamed of herself.  When had she become so
damned unprofessional?

   *It's not unprofessional,* she tried to rationalise. *It's not like I
would have been doing anything constructive towards the case tonight
anyway.*

   But she couldn't convince herself.  The fact was, she was in town on a
case, on the Bureau's time and money, and running around at night with
Mulder was downright unprofessional.  And if the trip out to the base *had*
been connected to the case - which was debatable - then she should have
taken her partner with her.

   In fact, she could hardly complain about Mulder ditching her when she
had done the self same thing to Jerry.

   Damn, this was all so complicated ....

   Scully squared her shoulders.  Okay, it was time to face the music.  She
needed to find Jerry, confess to the evening's activities, and take the
situation from there.  And in future, she would regulate her own behaviour
more strictly, no matter what carrot Mulder waved under her nose.

   She wondered if she would be able to keep to that resolve.

   She pulled into the motel's parking lot and parked her car in front of
her room.  The lights in Jerry's room were blazing, and she wondered rather
queasily if he already knew she'd been out and was waiting for her to
arrive back.  That made him seem like her father, but Scully had a gut
feeling that he would take a rather dim view of her stretching regulations,
and she couldn't really blame him.  They both had first hand experience of
the Bureau's ideas of revenge when agents stepped out of line.

   Thinking of that made Scully wonder absently what Jerry's particular
crime had been.  He tended to pass the matter off with a joke, but she was
aware that he was a little sensitive about the issue.  Then she put it out
of her mind again, and got out of the car.

   At once, she realised something was wrong.  The lights in her partner's
room were blazing, but the door was half open and for some reason she
couldn't pinpoint, that seemed odd.  Also, the curtains weren't drawn at
the window and she couldn't see him at all, even though she could see the
bed quite clearly.  Jerry was a big man, almost as tall as Mulder; he
should have been visible even if he was sat down.

   Scully groped for the gun holstered in the hollow of her back and
approached the room warily.  Easing the door open, she looked around
quickly and realised at once that Jerry wasn't there.  She glanced around
searchingly, but there was no sign of disorder or forced entry.  She backed
out of the room again, and looked around the parking lot.  He hadn't gone
anywhere by car; their rental was still there and she was driving Mulder's.

   Then she became conscious of another set of lights blazing brightly -
further down the row, where Mulder's room was.  Her nerves beginning to
jingle with alarm, Scully jogged down there quickly and burst into the
room.

   She almost fell over Jerry's prone body in her haste.

XXXX

   For a few precious seconds Mulder stood frozen, pinned like a rabbit in
the beams from the oncoming vehicle.  This he came to himself with a jolt,
and turned, starting to run.  Behind him, a second set of headlights joined
the first, and an increasing hum overhead, plus a powerful light being
shone directly down on him, warned that he was being tracked by a
helicopter.

   Shitshitshitshit -

   Running had to be futile; Mulder was a passionate advocate of running as
a healthful activity, but he couldn't fool himself that it was going to get
him away from here tonight.  All the same, the attempt had to be made.  If
he could just get to the weeds, he might have a chance ....

   One truck speeded up and cut across his path.  Mulder ducked to one
side, stumbling a little, but was swiftly cut off by the second vehicle,
and before he could decide what to do next, he was tackled from behind and
brought crashing to the ground.  Then the breath was really knocked out of
him by someone landing heavily on his back.  He yelped as his arms were
forced up behind him and his face pressed down in the gravel surface of the
runway, and he was conscious of shouted orders and the noise of yet another
vehicle swerving to a halt nearby.  There was a pause, then a startling
crash next to him as a gurney was dropped to the ground.

   A gurney?  What - ?

   Hands seized him, jerking him upwards quickly.  Before he knew it,
Mulder was stretched out the gurney and was being strapped down by a number
of hard-faced individuals in uniform.  He protested and struggled, but was
ignored, and the gurney was swiftly transferred to a waiting military
ambulance.  Once inside, the doors were slammed shut and the vehicle sped
off again.

   It was all so neatly and precisely done that Mulder had to wonder if
they'd done all this before to some other foolhardy snooper.

   Then all thoughts of *that* were driven out of his head by the sight of
one of his captors testing a hypodermic in mid air above him.

   "Hey, what - NO!"

XXXX

   It took several hours for Jerry to come around, a fact which Scully knew
had nothing to do with the lump on the back of his skull and probably
everything to do with a fresh needle mark on the inside of his left elbow.
Since she strongly doubted that her partner was an intravenous drugs user,
the only conclusion she could come to was that the mark had been inflicted
by whomever had coshed him; but the combination of the two had almost sent
her to the phone for paramedics more than once.  If he hadn't been
reasonably responsive to being pinched in a sensitive spot, she would have
done so for sure; as it was, she sat most of the night beside him, fretting
and wondering what on earth had happened.  He had a number of bruises and
abrasions, which suggested he had been dragged somewhere, and all in all he
was in miserable shape.

   Mulder's room was also in miserable shape, and Scully wondered what the
hell Jerry's attackers - if they were indeed one and the same people, which
seemed overwhelmingly likely - had been looking for.  More to the point,
she wondered if they had found it.   She hadn't stopped to look in her own
room, but she was half expecting to find similar signs of destruction when
she got the opportunity to check it out.  For some reason, parts of this
case reminded her of that first "X" file she had investigated in Oregon,
including the unhelpful locals and disappearing evidence.

   Except that there wasn't much in the way of evidence in this case,
unless there were things Mulder still wasn't telling her.  The idea ate at
her.

   By the time Jerry stirred, Scully had almost eaten her nails down to the
quick, and the first hints of dawn were creeping over the horizon.  He was
groggy, nauseous and decidedly vague.

   Scully felt guilty for being relieved at this; at least she wasn't going
to have to undergo the 'why did you ditch me' speech just yet.

   "Jerry?  Jerry, what happened?  Do you remember?"

   Jerry blinked up at her, squinting a little, and she reached out to pull
the bedside lamp away so that it didn't shine on his face.  He swallowed
dryly and Scully found him a glass of water, thrusting down her impatience
as he sipped.  "Jerry?"

   "I was lookin' f'r you," he rasped after a moment's painful thought.  He
reached slowly to the back of his head and winced as his fingers brushed
the painful lump there.  "Ow ....  I - went to Mulder's room, an' they'd
trashed it."  His voice became a little stronger, and he began to look
around, seeing that he was still in Mulder's room.  "What happened?"

   "It looks like someone coshed you," Scully told him slowly.  "I found
you on the floor beside the bed, but I think you were taken somewhere and
brought back, Jerry - you've got a needle-mark inside your left elbow, and
you look like you've been dragged halfway around the parking lot."

   Jerry's eyes widened, and he tried to sit up.  His stomach protested
sharply at once, and he lay back down again in a hurry.  "Where's Mulder?"

   "Never mind that for the moment.  Do you remember who hit you?"

   He was silent, and Scully had the oddest feeling that he was in two
minds about telling her something.  "You said I've got a needle-mark on my
arm?" he temporised.

   "Yes, and you were out for hours.  I think they must have doped you up,
but on what I don't know.  You've almost certainly got concussion as well,
so you'd better stop here for a while.  What time did you come looking for
me?"

   "About 10.30."

   "It's nearly 5.00 am now."

   "Shit!"  Jerry stared up at the ceiling for several moments, then turned
his head - cautiously - to look at Scully, and she was dismayed to see what
looked suspiciously like a note of sick alarm in his eyes.  "Scully ...
look, this is going to sound as crazy as hell, but just before I got
coshed - "

   "Yes?"

   He swallowed.  "I was looking around the room, wondering who the hell
had turned it over, when somebody came up behind me and spoke to me."

   Scully looked at him narrowly, wondering where this was going.  "Male or
female?"

   "Female," he sighed.  "Scully - Dana - look, where is Mulder?  It could
be important."

   Scully suppressed a sudden urge to add a second lump to the one on his
head.  "Jerry, will you just get to the point, and tell me what the hell
happened?" she demanded sharply.

   "The woman who spoke to me - I didn't see her, but I'd know that voice
anywhere.  It was Phoebe."

XXXX

   Things were becoming very confused for Mulder now.  The ambulance had
drawn up in front of what looked like a large, floodlit hanger building and
he'd been neatly decanted, protesting weakly all the way.  Whatever they'd
injected him with, though, was certainly effective for his vision was
extremely blurred and he was feeling decidedly queasy, a sensation which
wasn't helped by the speed at which they were towing his gurney through the
hanger.

   His eyes were open, though, and he was doing his best to use them,
fighting their natural inclination to slide closed.

   The hanger was mostly a blur to him, but he was conscious of an
extraordinary number of people running around, many of them in some sort of
protective clothing.  There were assorted mechanical noises, and what
sounded blaringly like a klaxon alarm; and whole of the inside of the
hanger seemed to be draped in clear plastic sheeting which allowed light in
from the high windows but semi-concealed vast areas of the building.
Mulder blinked and desperately tried to focus his vision as they passed a
huge, vaguely triangular shaped object which was swarming with people, but
they were moving too fast for him to get any clear idea of what it was.

   Then he was dragged through more doors, down a corridor and into a room
that looked horribly like an operating theatre.  He was swiftly and
efficiently transferred from the gurney to a table, where his arms and legs
were strapped down tightly, and there was a pause while a medic prepared
yet another injection.

   Mulder tried to summon the energy to protest, to fight the confining
leather straps at his wrists, waist and ankles, but it seemed too much of
an effort.  He was watching dully as the medic fired the hypodermic into
the air, when something happened that provided him with enough incentive to
struggle, albeit futilely.

   The doors to the theatre opened and a new figure walked in, who leaned
around the medic to take an appraising look at the captive.

   Phoebe.

   The sudden, violent surge of adrenaline which coursed through Mulder
cleared away most of the fog clouding his mind.  He let out a yell of
fury - surprising even himself - and fought the straps binding him.  One
must have been weak; his right arm tore free of it and he lunged clumsily
at the face of his tormentor, missing her by several feet and hitting the
medic instead.  The two MP's who had accompanied him into the room leapt to
hold him down, as the medic recovered himself and dove in to apply the
injection.

   It took nearly a full minute for the jab to take effect, during which
time Mulder cursed up a blue streak and fought the two soldiers like a
madman.  He had only one thought in his mind - to get to that woman and
break her neck, a fact which seemed to amuse her.

   Eventually, though, his struggles began to weaken, until the soldiers
cautiously let go of him.  His right arm was strapped down again, but the
fight had gone out of Mulder, along with most of his thought processes.  He
stared dully at Phoebe, trying desperately to make his brain function
enough just for one coherent phrase, but when it finally came out it would
be hard to say exactly what answer he was hoping for.

   "W-why?"

   Phoebe folded her arms across her chest and strolled casually over to
his side.  She tilted her head, looking down at him, and her expression
held the same kind of curiosity a collector might display for a butterfly
on the end of a pin.

   And after a moment her lips moved in reply, but Mulder was too far gone
to hear her.

XXXX

   It took another hour or so, but the nausea eventually subsided enough
that Jerry felt he could get up and move to his own motel room.  By that
time, the sun was well and truly up and Scully was beginning to seriously
worry about Mulder's whereabouts.  Even if he'd had to walk back from the
base, he should have been back by now.

   Supporting Jerry back along the row of chalets to his room, she decided
she'd better get herself cleaned up and go take a look for him, and said
so.

   "I'll go with you," was Jerry's immediate response.

   "No!" Scully told him forcefully.  "Jerry, you can hardly stand up on
your own - you should be in a hospital, not here, and - "

   "So I'll stay in the car!" he exploded.  "For crying out loud, Scully,
why the hell am I here if you're just going to abandon me whenever there's
a problem?"

   Scully bristled and opened her mouth to snap back at him - and paused,
fuming.  There was a tense silence for a few seconds, broken eventually by
Jerry pointing out rather dryly: "You still haven't told me where the pair
of you went last night ... or is that something I shouldn't be asking?"

   She flushed, aware that she had no real grounds to object to the
insinuation.  "Mulder turned up on my doorstep saying he had something he
wanted me to see," she muttered.  "And it's not what you're thinking,
Jerry, despite appearances."

   "I don't think you have any idea how it appears," he retorted.

   Scully's temper snapped.  She abandoned him by the door of his motel
room and headed for the car, unlocking the driver's door with a hand that
shook slightly.  Once inside, she had to stop and breathe deeply, gripping
the steering wheel.

   She had to get a grip on herself.  She had a job to do, and she still
didn't know where Mulder was.

   Then the passenger door was flung open and Jerry threw himself into the
seat beside her.  She shot a look at him, and realised that he was battling
with his own anger, for his face was white and his eyes blazed.

   But when he spoke, it was with surprising mildness.  "So what *were* you
doing?"

   "Watching lights above the airbase," she replied curtly.  "I don't know
what they were - they moved too fast for aircraft, but Mulder was convinced
they were some kind of plane or something.  We watched them for about ten
minutes from a hilltop just outside the base perimeter fence, then there
was a crash and the next thing we knew, there was a helicopter heading
straight for us."

   Jerry suppressed a sigh.  He wasn't sure he needed to hear the rest of
the story, and his head was aching miserably.  "And?"

   "*And* when we hid under some trees, we ran into a couple of kids coming
out of a hole in the fence.  They'd been going in there and watching the
lights for months."

   "So, let me guess.  Mulder went straight through the hole in the fence,
leaving you to baby-sit the kids."

   Scully started up the car with a vicious twist of the keys.  "Something
like that."

   "Great," Jerry muttered.  "You realise they probably caught him?"

   "That thought *had* occurred to me.  But I want to check the spot where
he went in anyway."

   "And if he's not there?"

   Scully bit her lip.  "Then we go round to the base entrance and ask."

   Jerry leaned his head back on the rest and closed his eyes.  "Logical."

   Silence reigned after that.  Scully drove out of the town and took the
road leading out to the base that Mulder had taken the night before.  They
were perhaps halfway to the base, and Scully's mind was less than half on
her driving, when she became aware of another vehicle approaching from the
opposite direction at speed.  The road was quite narrow; two vehicles could
pass each other, but only if they were driving carefully, and she quickly
realised that the truck coming towards her had no intention of slowing
down.

   "Jerry, brace yourself!" she warned, and swerved just in time to avoid
being hit.  They ended up nearly in a ditch at the side of the road, and
Scully hit the horn in an angry rebuke to the other driver.  "Are you
okay?" she asked her partner.

   He gave her a rather shaken nod and tapped the strap of the seatbelt
across his chest.  Scully sighed with relief and twisted in her seat to get
a look out of the rear window.  Then she blinked, for the truck had stopped
a short distance up the road.

   "They've stopped," she said in surprise.

   "Uh-oh," Jerry muttered.

   For a moment, nothing happened.  Then the rear doors of the truck were
flung open and something was shoved out onto the road by two uniformed
figures.  The doors were quickly pulled shut again, and the truck was
turned around with a squeal of tires, before being driven back down the
road at speed.

   Scully nearly fell out of the car in her haste to get to what had been
thrown in the road - the battered and unmoving body of Fox Mulder.

XXXX

   "How is he?"

   Scully glanced up at her partner and pursed her lips.  "Still out of
it."

   Jerry stepped over to the bed and looked down at Mulder searchingly.
"Head injury or drugs?"

   Her mouth tightened and she pushed Mulder's left sleeve up to show him a
couple of needle marks.  "He might have had a bump as well, but nothing
significant compared to this."

   Jerry leaned over and brushed his fingers over the unconscious man's
wrist.  "Hullo - he's been restrained ."

   Scully nodded.  "Wrists and ankles.  He's been knocked about a bit, like
someone got him in a flying tackle - he has gravel marks on his face and
palms - and look at this."  She lifted Mulder's right hand and showed Jerry
the bruised and scraped knuckles.  "Seems like he got a bit of payback
somewhere along the line."

   "His life's never dull, is it?" Jerry commented sourly.  "I could handle
mine being a little less exciting, come to that."  He touched the lump on
the back of his head gingerly.

   Scully's eyes searched his face.  "How is it?"

   "Sore.  I'll live.  Can I have a word with you a sec?"

   She nodded and the stepped outside into the brilliant morning sunlight.
Jerry winced again a little, but turned to his partner.  "I just got a call
from Mrs. Budahas.  She says her husband has come home."

   Her eyes widened.  "When?  How?"

   "She didn't give me any details, but I understand he turned up on her
doorstep at about ten or eleven last night.  She sounds pretty shaky, Dana,
and she wants to see us."

   "I'll get changed - "

   Jerry caught Scully's elbow quickly, holding her back.  "What about
Mulder?"

   *Damn.*  Scully looked at the motel room indecisively.  *He shouldn't be
left alone ....*

   Jerry nodded.  "It's okay - you stay here.  Someone should.  I'll go and
see Mrs. Budahas, and find out what's going on."

   "No, Jerry, it's okay - "

   "Dana."  He sighed and gave her a rueful smile.  "Look, don't take what
I said earlier too much to heart, huh?  I'm sorry - I had a crack on the
head and I'm always cranky after something like that.  I had no business
saying that stuff.  I don't want you to think I don't trust you to do your
job - "

   "No, you were right," Scully interrupted.  "I've not been behaving in a
particularly professional manner with this case, Jerry, and you were right
to get mad at me about it.  It's just that ...."  She paused, choosing her
words.  "It's just that I've got used to working ... not exactly alone, but
on my own with Mulder looking over my shoulder.  And I've got to break that
habit.  This case - hasn't been a good one for you and I to start on
together.  If there *is* a case, and I'm beginning to doubt it."

   "There's a case alright.  Mulder and I both seem to have had a head-on
collision with it, in case you've forgotten."

   She studied his face thoughtfully.  "True - but on the other hand, the
Military authorities often don't have give an explanation for their actions
around experimental bases."

   His tipped his head to one side quizzically.  "Huh?"

   Scully gave him a small smile.  "At the risk of sounding like Mulder -
think of the security measures permitted at Area 51.  And Mulder and I
*were* trespassing last night."

   "*I* wasn't.  And that doesn't explain what Phoebe was doing here."

   She frowned a little.  "No ....  But are you sure it was Phoebe?"

   Jerry's shoulders slumped a little.  "No," he admitted, "although it
sure as hell sounded like her, and she knew my *name*, dammit!"

   "There are plenty of women working for the military, Jerry, and our ID's
must have been picked up by the base security pretty quickly.  And I have
no difficulty in believing Mulder's done something since he arrived here to
warrant them wanting a closer look at his room - hassling Colonel Kissel
for a start."  She sighed.  "That doesn't explain why they coshed you and
doped you up, though, and it doesn't explain what they did to Mulder
either."

XXXX

   In the end, Jerry got himself cleaned up and went to investigate Mrs.
Budahas's call, while Scully stayed to keep an eye on Mulder.  It hadn't
been easy to persuade her to do so, but the clincher had been her medical
training; if anything untoward happened, she would be the one in the best
position to help him.

   Sitting by his bedside, watching his pale face, Scully wondered absently
if this was becoming a habit - hanging around by one man's bedside while
the other ran off to do the real work.  Then she told herself sternly to
stop being fanciful.  After all, aside from the fact that Jerry had been
the logical choice to go and talk to Mrs. Budahas, it wasn't like she was
in some bizarre menage a trois situation with him and Mulder ....

   The idea was enough to keep her entertained for nearly fifteen minutes
though, and the idle speculation was only brought to a halt by the sound of
a faint rasping cough from the bed.  Mulder was coming around slowly,
shifting his head a little and moving his limbs stiffly.  Scully picked up
a glass of water from the bedside table, remembering Jerry's dehydration,
and gently touched one shoulder.

   "Mulder?"

   His reaction stunned her.

   "NO!"  He jerked upright, eyes wide, and took a swing at her which
Scully only just managed to avoid.  The glass of water went flying and with
his balance affected by the drugs, Mulder promptly tumbled to the floor.

   Scully said a word which her mother would have been horrified to know
she had learned from her father, and hauled him back upright.  He was
blinking dazedly and had only just missed hitting his head on the corner of
the bedside table.  "Mulder?  Mulder, are you okay?"

   He stared up at her, confused, and swallowed dryly, coughing slightly.
Scully sighed and propped him up against the bed before going to find more
water.  When she returned he seemed to be more himself and gulped the cold
liquid gratefully.  She crouched beside him and gently checked his eyes.
His pupils seemed to be the normal size, and he acquiesced to the
examination docilely enough.

   She sat back on her heels finally and looked at him.  "Do you know who I
am now?" she asked.

   He nodded.  "Yeah.  Sorry about that."

   "What happened just then?"

   He shook his head, searching his mind, but it was blank even of the
reason for his panic upon awakening.  "I don't know, Scully."

   Scully gave him a frustrated look.  "What happened to you at the base,
Mulder?  Where have you been all night?"

   Mulder looked at her blankly.  "All night?  I don't ....  Scully, what
happened after the helicopter appeared?"

   She stared at him.  "You don't remember?"

   "I ... no.  Why - ?"  His eyes widened in horror.  "How long have I
...."

   "Jerry and I picked you up about two hours ago," Scully told him
bluntly.  "You were unconscious and had been thrown out of a jeep into the
road by people I assume to be personnel from the base.  As to where you
were all night, only you can answer that.  You ditched me shortly after we
saw the helicopter and got into the base via a hole in the perimeter fence.
I'm assuming you got caught - judging by the marks on you, you've been
physically restrained and drugged."

   Mulder looked at his wrists blankly.  "I - I don't remember."

   Scully sighed in frustration and stood up.  "You're in good company
then, because Jerry got knocked on the head while we were gone and given a
dose of something too.  And they turned your room over - you'd better take
a look and see if anything's missing."

   He slowly climbed to his feet and propped himself up against the end of
the bed.  "Jerry got done over too?"

   "That's what I said," she replied dryly.

   "Where is he?"

   "He's gone to see Mrs. Budahas.  Apparently her husband turned up again
last night."

   Mulder nearly fell over in his sudden attempt to get to the door.
"Colonel Budahas?  Scully, we've got to - "

   "No, we *haven't*!" Scully snapped, losing patience.  She told herself
she was allowed one outburst, given a sleepless night and two injured men
on her hands.  She grabbed Mulder's arm and forcibly pushed him down onto
the edge of the bed.  "Listen to me, Fox Mulder," she said clearly, bending
slightly to look him in the eye, "you are in no condition to go anywhere
short of a hospital, so you either sit still and do as I tell you, or I'm
taking you to one now!  Is that understood?"

   "But Scully - " he protested.

   "No 'buts', Mulder!  Is that understood?"

   He fumed for a moment or two, but was quelled by the dangerous light in
her eyes.  "Okay," he muttered.

   "Good.  Jerry is perfectly capable of handling the situation.  Now, help
me check your stuff and see if anything's been taken.  Then we're packing
up and getting out of here."

   Mulder, aware that he was feeling decidedly queasy and ill, decided it
would be better not to protest.

XXXX

   Jerry arrived back less than half an hour later, impotently fuming.

   "What happened?" Scully demanded, as he flung himself down in the chair
beside Mulder's bed.

   "Mrs. Budahas refused to let me in," he said curtly.  "She swore she
never called us - in fact, from the way she was behaving I'd say that if
you asked her right now, she'd swear she never called the FBI in to look
for her husband at all.  She was acting as if there was someone holding a
gun to the back of her head, Scully."

   "She's been got at," Mulder said at once.

   Jerry gave him a weary look.  "No shit.  Anyway, she's not talking.  Her
husband is home, he's fine, everything's fine - now please piss off."

   Scully pursed her lips for a minute or two, thinking.  Then she shrugged
and made a decision.  "Fine, that's it," she said.

   Both men looked up at her, and Mulder raised a brow.  "What is?"

   "The case.  That's it.  We came here to look for Mrs. Budahas's husband.
He's now home, and she's clearly doesn't want our assistance anymore.
There's nothing more we can do, so we get our stuff and go.  There's no
point in hanging around here, upsetting the military anymore, and waiting
to see if *I* can get a blow to the head and matching set of needle marks
too.  Go get your stuff together, Jerry, and I'll phone the airport."

   Mulder opened his mouth to protest, and Scully pinned him with a glare.
"No arguments, Mulder."

   He shut his mouth again.  She was probably right.

   "And no trying to run off while our backs are turned.  I'm watching
you."

   Damn.

XXXX

   Their rather hurried departure from Idaho was uneventful.  Aware of
Scully's watchful eye, Mulder behaved himself impeccably, and when they
arrived back at Dulles the partners gave him a lift to his cousin Annie's
home, so that he could collect both his car and his son.

   After that, Scully didn't hear from him for nearly a month - except for
a medium-sized, anonymous brown envelope landing on her mat one morning,
which contained two slender magazines and a printed note:

       Our mutual friend asked us to put you on our mailing
       list.  This year's subscription's on him.
            Would you consider meeting me for lunch next
       week?
       F.

    Scully puzzled over this for a moment, then examined the two
publications.  One was a neatly produced broadsheet newspaper titled "The
Magic Bullet"; the other was a glossy magazine called "The Lone Gunman".

   Enlightenment dawned.  She flipped quickly through them, noting that
they were chock-full of conspiracy theories and alien abductions, then
tucked them under her arm to read over breakfast.  It was only when she was
halfway through her blueberry bagel that she found the article about the
downed plane in Wisconsin, complete with inconclusive photographs and a
mention of "unlawful" detentions of US citizens by the military.
Forewarned, she was less surprised when the next piece - "by an anonymous
investigator" - related the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of
Col. R. Budahas but Scully still nearly choked on her breakfast as she read
the account of the "FBI-sanctioned investigation" and the "suspicious
actions" of the local military at Ellens Air Base.

XXXX

     To: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     From: DScully@fbi.net
     Subject: Your article.
     *****************************************
     I saw your article in TLG.  I suppose the best that can be
     said for it is that you mentioned no names.  But I don't
     recall telling you that you could do a story on this
     investigation anyway.  What are you playing at?
     S.
     *****************************************

     To: DScully@fbi.net
     From: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     Subject: Huh?
     *****************************************
     I was onto that 'investigation' before you were, and
     I seem to recall that in fact, the Bureau had already
     *closed* the case.  You had to re-open it.
     Let's not get pissy about this, Scully - you knew what
     I was the first time we met.  And I thought we agreed
     before the Tooms case that I could write up any
     investigations we were both in on?  What's the
     problem all of a sudden?
     M.
     *****************************************

   Scully stared at the message on the screen in front of her, and bit her
lip.  Mulder had a remarkable way of transmitting his little-boy-hurt look
and pouting lower lip via e-mail - the surprise and injury coming off the
note were palpable.  She already regretted sending such a sharp message,
but she'd arrived back in DC feeling pretty grim about the entire affair,
and when she and Jerry arrived in at work the next day, they'd endured a
chewing out from Skinner that still made her feel hot with embarrassment.
On top of that, his parting words had been "I sincerely hope, for your
sakes, that the press doesn't get a hold of this or we'll never hear the
last of it".  The minute they'd got out of his office, Jerry had turned to
her and said "Can you shut Mulder up?"

   Things had been a little tense between them for an hour or two over
that, but Scully had forgotten about it until the two magazines arrived at
her apartment.  She'd rattled out the message without thinking about it.

     To: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     From: DScully@fbi.net
     Subject: Sorry.
     *****************************************
     Sorry.  I ... had some trouble from Skinner over it.
     He's concerned the press may find out, and have a
     party.
     S.
     *****************************************

     To: DScully@fbi.net
     From: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     Subject: Re: Sorry.
     *****************************************
     S'okay.  What kind of trouble?
     M.
     *****************************************

     To: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     From: DScully@fbi.net
     Subject: Re: Re: Sorry.
     *****************************************
     The usual.  Forget it.
     How's Sam?
     S.
     *****************************************

     To: DScully@fbi.net
     From: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     Subject: Re: Re: Re: Sorry.
     *****************************************
     Sam's fine.  Stop changing the subject.  What kind
     of trouble?
     M.
     P.S.  We really need a new subject title here ....

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

     To: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     From: DScully@fbi.net
     Subject: Let it drop, you a*****e!
     *****************************************
     It was just the usual!  Slapped wrist, "don't do it again"
     - you know the routine.  Forget it.
     S.
     *****************************************

     To: DScully@fbi.net
     From: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     Subject: Wash your mouth out!
     *****************************************
     <Shocked look> Agent Scully! <g>
     Will you have dinner with me tonight? My mom's
     looking after Sam for me; she's having friends over so
     she can play Grandma of the Year.
     M.
     *****************************************

     To: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     From: DScully@fbi.net
     Subject: I have a better idea.
     *****************************************
     No way - I've studied your behaviour patterns and
     I know we're due for a trip to MacDonalds.  Why
     don't you come over to my place, and I'll cook dinner?
     S.
     *****************************************

     To: DScully@fbi.net
     From: FMulder@georgetown.edu.net
     Subject: Re: I have a better idea.
     *****************************************
     It'll break Frohike's heart - you're on.
     <Sigh!> All this, and she cooks too!
     M.
     *****************************************

   Scully smiled, and made a mental note to leave a few minutes early and
do some shopping.

XXXX

   Mulder gingerly poked a plate sticking up out of the hot soapy water.
"Can't I dry instead?"

   "No.  I'm not sure I trust you with my favourite china."  Scully fished
a clean tea-towel out of a drawer and shook out the crisp folds.

   Mulder wondered idly if she was the kind of woman who ironed her towels.
"But there are floaty bits in the water," he objected.

   "I'm sure a dedicated New Man like you can handle it, Mulder."  She gave
him an amused smile, and went to rummage in a cupboard.  After a moment or
two she found the packet she wanted and waved it enticingly under his nose.
"Be good, and I'll make popcorn," she wheedled.

   He gave an exaggerated sigh.  "It's a sacrifice, but I'll do it."  He
rolled up his sleeves and plunged both hands into the water.  "Although
won't the popcorn make an uncomfortable mess on the sheets?" he added.

   The end of the tea-towel slapped his shoulder.  "Get washing!"

   "Yes ma'am!"

   "How's Jerry?" Mulder asked after a while, handing a dripping plate to
Scully.

   "He's okay," she shrugged.  "I don't see a lot of him - he's working
with the VCS at the moment.  And I'm stuck sorting through the files again.
Really, he's only supposed to join me on active cases."

   Mulder considered this.  "What happens if he's involved in another case
elsewhere at the time?"

   "I don't know - why?"

   "Just wondering."

   Scully studied his face for a moment, but he didn't elaborate; his
expression seemed to be rather far away for a moment.  "Mulder," she began
hesitantly, "can I ask you something?"

   He looked at her in surprise and smiled.  "Sure."

   "When Jerry and I first arrived in Idaho ... you seemed to have mixed
feelings about him being there.  Why was that?"

   Mulder hesitated, then shook his head slightly.  "I don't know, Scully.
Jerry's ... changed.  I can't put my finger on what it is, but there was
something just a little off-balance about him."

   Scully's brows drew together.  "Are you sure?"

   He let out a little frustrated puff of breath.  "No!  I wish I was."

   "Mulder, you haven't seen him in some time," she pointed out reasonably.
"People do change -  I don't suppose you know what's been going on in his
life since you left the Bureau, do you?"

   "No ...."

   Scully polished the plate thoughtfully for a moment or two.  "He's had
some sort of reprimand recently," she said finally.  "They sent him to work
with me because he got thrown out of the Denver office.  He seems to treat
it pretty lightly but he won't tell me what the big deal is, and I can't
find anyone who knows what happened."

   "They probably found out he's gay," Mulder said casually.  The startled
silence at his shoulder made him look up, and he grinned at Scully's
expression, reaching out to gently shut her bottom jaw with the tip of one
finger.  "I guess you didn't know either - so much for the myth that says
women always know these things!"

   "But ....  You knew?"

   "I just said so, didn't I?"

   "How?"

   "He hit on me when we were partners.  Kind of gave the game away."  He
handed her a wine glass.

   Scully leaned her rear against the worktop and studied his face for an
incredulous moment.  Then her brain started to turn the matter over at its
usual efficient speed.  "Mulder - being gay is not against the regulations
at the Bureau, so how ...."

   Mulder shrugged.  "I worked at the Denver office on a case once.  Is
Schwartz still the SAC there?"

   "I don't know - I think so."

   "He's pretty old-fashioned, Scully - he wouldn't want a goddamned queer
on his team, trust me.  He'd have been looking for a reason to get rid of
Jerry the second he found out."  Mulder swirled the water with one hand for
a moment, staring into the suds.  "All the same, that's not the feeling I'm
getting," he told her abruptly.  "I know Jerry - he'd have accepted a
reprimand philosophically.  This is something else."

   "Mulder, you're paranoid," Scully told him.

   "From you, I'll accept the compliment," he grinned.  He fished around,
found one final tumbler, rinsed it and handed it to her with a flourish.
"There - all finished."  And he pulled the plug before she could find
anything else for him to wash.

   "Since you've been so good, I'll put the popcorn on."  Scully turned
away to put the tumblers up in a cupboard.

   Suddenly, two wet hands seized her around the waist.  "No, don't
bother," Mulder murmured into her hair.

XXXX

   Jerry Castamir wasn't much of a drinking man, but he'd been doing more
of it lately, and tonight he would be the first to admit that he'd had a
little too much.  He dragged himself back to his apartment, trying to
remember if he had any aspirin in the bathroom cabinet, and leaned himself
against the wall as he sorted out his door-key from the bunch.  It took a
couple of minutes, because his fingers weren't entirely co-operative, but
eventually he managed to find it and insert it into the lock.  He pushed
the door open wearily, and when he'd managed to get inside, he leaned back
against it to shut it.  His head was pounding, and he dimly wondered why he
shouldn't just let himself slide to the floor and sleep there.

   "Good evening, Agent Castamir."

   Oh shit.  Jerry opened his eyes and looked at the man sitting in the
chair on the opposite side of the dark room.  The street lights shining
through the uncurtained window illuminated his profile, and the
cherry-coloured tip of his cigarette burned a single point of colour into
the inebriated agent's brain.

   "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

   "I thought I'd pay you a little visit," the quiet, unnervingly cold
voice replied.  "I thought we should discuss your trip to Idaho, for a
start."

   "There's nothing to discuss," Jerry replied curtly.  "If there ever was,
you dealt with that when you blanked Mulder's memory and mine.  But since
you're here, you can damn well answer a few questions."

   There was a pause as the visitor took a leisurely pull on his cigarette.
"Well?" he asked finally.

   "What the hell was Phoebe Green doing there?" Jerry demanded, pushing
himself away from the door with an anger-induced effort.  "Is she one of
your 'operatives' too, like Alex?"

   The man was unmoved.  "Was she there?" he asked, raising one brow.  "How
... odd."

   "It's not odd, it's sick!  And she damn well coshed me and doped me up
with Christ knows what! But given her track record, I guess I shouldn't
have expected anything else, should I?" Jerry sneered at the other man.
"What I want to know is why it was necessary for me to get the same
treatment as Mulder."

   "My dear fellow, I can't possibly answer all your questions.  Some
things are better for you not to know, especially since - under the
circumstances - you can't really be considered a reliable operative."

   Jerry went very white about the mouth.  "I've given you my word," he
whispered.  "I'm not doing this willingly - for Christ's sake, Mulder's a
friend of mine - but I'll do it.  Do you really think I'd endanger - "  He
stopped and swallowed.  "I still don't understand why Phoebe is in on
this."

   The smoking man stood up.  "Let's just say that she has certain skills
which are valuable to us at the present time.  I assume you didn't mention
her presence to anyone?"

   Jerry hesitated.  "I mentioned it to Scully, but she didn't believe it
was really Phoebe."

   "Hm.  Let us hope for *your* sake that she doesn't decide to change her
mind.  Meanwhile, I suggest you get about whatever normal business a man in
your position has.  I'll let you know when I have need of you again."

   Jerry watched mutely at the man calmly walked to the door and let
himself out, then collapsed onto the sofa and put his head in his hands.

   "Like I have a choice," he muttered bitterly.

XXXX

   Mulder came awake suddenly, with a sickening feeling that he'd
overslept.  He raised his head slightly, but the room was in darkness.  For
a moment he wondered if he'd actually had a disorientating dream and was
really in his own bed, but almost at once he was aware of the warmth and
weight of Scully lying against him.

   Damn.  He rolled onto his back carefully and disentangled both arms
enough that he could operate the tiny light on his watch.

   03:12.

   Shit!  Adrenaline burned through his veins and into his stomach.  He
should have been home hours ago.  Mulder began to ease himself out of
Scully's grip, wondering if he'd be able to find his clothes without
putting the light on.

   "Mulder?"  Her voice was soft and sleep-fogged.  "What's wrong?"

   "It's really late, Scully.  I've got to go."

   There was a rustling of the sheets and suddenly the light snapped on.
Mulder blinked and squinted; Scully was propped up on one elbow, looking at
her clock.  She gave him a concerned look as he found his jeans and pulled
them on.  "It'll be okay, won't it?"

   "I hope so."  He scooped up his shirt and yanked it over his head,
uncaring of the fact that it was inside out.  He found his boots under a
chair near the door and pulled them on, stuffing his socks into his pocket,
then remembered that he hadn't put his boxers on either.  Too bad; a
cursory sweep of the room failed to reveal them, and they'd just have to be
left there.

   He paused and looked back at Scully.  She was sat up in bed, the crisp,
pale blue sheet tucked modestly around her, and her hair tousled and blue
eyes concerned.  Mulder quickly went back and bent to kiss her.  "I'll call
you," he promised.

   "You'd better," she smiled.  She watched him hurry out, scooping up his
black leather jacket on the way, and waited until she heard the door shut
with a quiet *snick*.  Then she flopped back onto the pillows with a sigh.

   Sometimes it felt like she was having an affair with a married man.

XXXX

   Mulder wasn't entirely sure why he felt the need to rush home like he
had demons on his tail, but one thing he did know; if he'd given way to a
very powerful impulse and stayed with Scully all night, there would have
been hell to pay with his mother in the morning.  She had already made one
or two barbed comments about his relationship with the FBI agent, and she
was not afraid to express her opinions, despite the fact that she had never
met Scully before the trip to Idaho.

   Life with his mother was not easy for Mulder, and he suspected that it
was going to get more difficult.  She had never been the same since
Samantha's death, and after that tragic event Mulder had spent a large
portion of his life being looked after his grandparents.  After her
divorce, Rachel Mulder had lived for several years under the influence of a
variety of tranquillisers, and at one point had become incapable of looking
after her son.  The teenaged Fox had run wild and eventually been picked up
by the authorities.

   Mulder flinched at the recollection, but one of the curses of his
excellent memory was that once an event was called up, it was hard to
banish again.  He'd spent the larger part of two weeks in a home for
juvenile offenders before his grandparents had been given the okay to come
and fetch him.  The time was not ill-spent however; he'd learned a lot from
the experience and it was one of a number of incidents in his life which
made him determined to raise Sam properly.  After that, he'd only spent
short breaks with his mother, and they were always supervised by one or
other of his watchful relatives.  His visits to his father were even
briefer and more closely supervised.  And Mulder was in no doubt of the
reasons for *that*.

   With an effort, he managed to switch off those particular memories, and
turned the car into his mother's driveway.  Parking up and switching off
the engine, Mulder divested himself of his seat-belt and glanced up at the
windows of his grandparents' old house, expecting to find them dark.  But
to his surprise, the windows of the study on the ground floor were dimly
lit.

   That was unusual.  Surely his mother wasn't waiting up for him?  It
would have to be the first time in his experience that she'd done such a
thing.

   Mulder locked the car up and ran up the front steps, letting himself in
quickly.

   "Mom?" he called softly.  No reply.  She'd probably just forgotten to
switch the light out.  Mulder pushed the study door open - and stood,
transfixed, in the doorway.

   Given that Sam was a restless child - hardly surprising in an active and
well-developed two-year-old - Mrs. Mulder kept a large playpen which she
erected whenever she had guests, and popped the little boy inside with his
favourite toys.  That way, they were both in each other's eyesight, but not
getting in each other's way.  Mulder had no argument with this - in fact,
he sometimes used the same method to keep Sam under control himself, when
they were alone in the house together and he was trying to work.  Sam was
usually quite happy to play on his own, provided he knew where his father
or grandmother was.

   The sight that met Mulder's eyes was of his small son still inside the
playpen, fully dressed and sprawled across a fat cushion, asleep.

   For a moment he couldn't breathe; then his instinct was to go running
upstairs and shake his mother within an inch of her life.  Mulder leaned
limply against the door post, fighting the impulse; it wouldn't achieve
anything, and hearing his father and grandmother fight would frighten Sam.

   After a moment or two, Mulder dragged himself away from the lintel and
mechanically took his jacket off, throwing it over the arm of a chair.  He
bent over the side of the playpen and woke Sam enough to pick him up, then
switched the light out and carried him upstairs.  The little boy was very
tired and fretful, but he managed to change him into his sleepsuit without
much difficulty.

   Then Mulder carried Sam into his own room and settled himself into the
reclining chair there, which had been a gift from his cousin Annie and her
husband when he'd decided to look after Sam himself instead of giving him
up to them for adoption.  He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep himself
tonight, but he wanted the boy with him while he thought.  While Sam
slumbered peacefully in his arms, his father sat staring into the darkness,
wondering what to do next.

XXXX

   When dawn came, Mulder had reached a kind of emotional plateau.  He
gently put Sam into his crib without waking him, then changed into his
shorts and battered sleeveless sweatshirt and went for a run.  He felt a
need for the physical exercise to get him into the right frame of mind to
deal with his mother when he got home.

   He arrived home nearly an hour later to find that someone was waiting
for him; his visitor from the prior to his trip to Idaho was stood at the
corner of the driveway.  Mulder slowed from a jog to a walk until he came
to standstill in front of the man.  For a moment they both studied each
other in silence, then the older man spoke.

   "Your lives may be in danger."

   Mulder didn't pretend not to understand him.  "Why?"

   "You've seen things that weren't meant to be seen.  Care and discretion
are now imperative," the man told him.

   Mulder frowned, considering this.  "I saw - " he began, but he was cut
off impatiently.

   "As I said, I can provide you with information, but only so long as it's
in *my* best interests to do so."

   "What *is* your interest?" Mulder demanded, frustrated.

   He got a sad smile in return.  "The truth."

   "I *did* see something!" Mulder stated, seeing confirmation in the older
man's resigned and weary expression.  "But it's gone - they took it from
me, they erased it.  You have to tell me what it was."

   The man's brow rose almost mockingly.  "A military UFO?"  His tone
changed then, became almost fatherly.  "Mr. Mulder - why are those like
yourself, who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life on this
earth, not entirely dissuaded by all the evidence to the contrary?"

   "Because ...."  Mulder hesitated.  "Because all of the evidence to the
contrary is not entirely dissuasive," he said finally.

   Their eyes met, and the older man gave a short, soundless laugh.
"Precisely!"  He turned and began to walk away.

   Mulder watched him go, puzzled by the encounter, then suddenly called
after him, "They're here, aren't they?"

   The man paused, half-turning, and shook his head tiredly.  "Mr. Mulder,
"they" have been here for a very long time."

  Mulder watched him go, debating on whether he should follow him, but a
recollection of his responsibilities stopped him.  Besides, he had a
feeling this wasn't the last he'd seen of this man.  Aware that his muscles
were beginning to cool and stiffen, Mulder forced himself into a slow jog
up the driveway and let himself into the house again.  He needed a shower
and clean clothes before he faced his mother.

XXXX

   Upstairs, Mrs. Mulder stepped back from the bedroom window as her son
came up the driveway, and forced herself not to watch the other man's swift
retreat down the street.  Her hands were shaking at witnessing the
unexpected encounter, and she wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her
fingers under her armpits in an attempt to stop the tremors.  This was bad;
this was *very* bad.  But she didn't think she could handle another
phonecall to *him* again.

   Rachel Mulder had had enough of this.  She was tired of having her
efforts to remain distant from her past thwarted, and she wanted it to end.

  Now.

XXXX

   When Mulder emerged from the shower, he swiftly dried himself and got
dressed.  He popped his head into Sam's room, but the little boy was still
fast asleep - which was hardly surprising, considering the night he'd had -
so he quickly headed for the stairs.  His stomach was turning somersaults,
but this had to be got over with before the boy awoke.

   He found his mother sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in an elegant
dressing gown and sipping black coffee.  Her back was ramrod straight and
her gaze focussed somewhere in the middle distance; she didn't acknowledge
his arrival, and indeed Mulder had to wonder if she even noticed he was
there.

   Too bad.  She wasn't getting out of this by pretending he didn't exist.
A vague sense of injustice stirred at the very back of Mulder's mind as he
paused in the doorway and stared at her; a remembered hurt.  She'd got
herself out of a lot of arguments and situations during his childhood and
teens by behaving just as she was now; pretending that it wasn't happening,
that the world around her was vague and incorporeal.

   "Why didn't you put Sam to bed last night?"

   For a moment, it seemed as though she hadn't heard him; then her gaze
shifted to look at him, although she didn't reply.  Her eyes were far away,
as though she was looking at him from the other side of the street.

   Mulder began to feel the burn of acid, white-hot anger, and he wrestled
with it fiercely, determined not to lose his temper and start shouting as
he remembered his father doing.  Apart from anything else, he knew it would
have no effect on her, and besides - he never wanted to be like his father.

   "I said - "

   "I heard you."  Mrs. Mulder slowly and carefully put her cup on the
saucer, and folded her hands in her lap.  "Where were you all night?"

   "I wasn't out *all* night," Mulder retorted.

   "Don't lie to me, Fox.  You were with her again, weren't you?  I'm
surprised you even bothered to come home."

   "What the hell does it matter where I was?" he demanded, incredulous.
"This isn't about me, it's about Sam."

   "Yes."  Her eyes fixed on him coolly.  "He's your son and you have a
responsibility to him."

   That stung.  A lot of people had been going on about Mulder's
responsibility to Sam lately.  "What about *your* responsibility?  You
agreed to look after him last night.  I told you I might be late back, but
you still agreed.  But when I did arrive home, I found him still in his
playpen, at nearly four in the morning!  How could you just go to bed and
leave him there?"

   "He's not *my* responsibility," Mrs. Mulder replied, her tone still
level and cool.  Indifferent.  "I agreed to mind him during the evening,
Fox, not all night.  If you can't come home at a reasonable hour, that's
your problem."

   Mulder stared at her, his brain whirling.  He couldn't believe he was
hearing this.  "He's your *grandson*," he said, his tone stunned.

   Her shoulders lifted in the tiniest of shrugs.  "Perhaps.  I don't see
what difference that makes.  He's still your problem.  And if you'd rather
spend time with that Irishwoman, then perhaps you should be making
different arrangements for him."

   Mulder nodded slowly, still staring at her.  "Maybe you're right.  This
arrangement obviously isn't working anymore."  He watched as she calmly
picked the cup and saucer up and took them over to the sink to rinse out.
His eyes drifted blindly over the kitchen for a moment, noting almost in
passing that she'd quite deliberately only made enough coffee this morning
for one, and slowly came back to rest on her back.  "Okay.  I guess I'd
better go see Uncle Max this morning."

   *That* drew her attention.  "What?  Why?"

   Mulder's eyes met his mother's grimly.  "It's obviously time Sam and I
found a place of our own," he told her quietly, "and since you and I lease
this place from Max jointly ...."

   She recovered her poise almost immediately, and nodded with
ill-concealed relief.  "Very well.  I'll come with you."

   He nodded, and then, because he couldn't bear to look at her any longer,
he turned sharply on his heel and left the room.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PART IV
PRELUDE IV: HERE'S THE SEASON ....
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


  Fox Mulder was up to his knees in it again; although on this
occasion 'it' was merely tiring and mildly depressing, not boring,
annoying, dangerous or downright terrifying.

   Which made a change.

   On this particular occasion 'it' was not the doings of
liver-eating mutants, aliens both seen and unseen, Government
conspiracies, or even the serial killers of his FBI past which now
and then rendered his nights sleepless.  'It' on this occasion was
newspaper, and lots of it.

   He paused in his labours for a moment, mentally calculating how
much more he had to do, and smiled suddenly as his two-year-old son
solemnly dragged a very large and much-abused teddy-bear into the
room and struggled to put it into a packing crate which was nearly as
big as he was.

   "Not that one, Sam - your stuff's in the other room."

   Sam gave up on the crate and turned to give his father a disgusted
look.  He huffed a melodramatic sigh and dragged the teddy out of the
room again.  Mulder grinned, and turned back to his own crate.  The
bulk of the packing was done, but the study was taking almost more
time than the rest of the house entirely.  He wondered absently how
his grandfather had managed to collect so much stuff, and grabbed up
another couple of sheets of newspaper.

   The doorbell interrupted him, and the newspaper went flying as he
made a dive to get to the front door before Sam did.  The little boy
had recently discovered he could reach the lock and Mulder hadn't got
around to putting a more secure latch higher up yet.  Nothing
entertained Sam so much these days as using the telephone and
answering the doorbell.

   "I get it!"

   "Sam - !"  Mulder tripped on the abandoned teddy in the hallway
and only just caught himself on the doorframe.

   Sam stretched up on his toes and nimbly managed both lock and
door handle, pulling the door open a few inches and peering around it.
"Yeeeeesss?"

   Mulder had to swallow a laugh at the exaggerated voice, but got
hold of the boy's hand very firmly and drew him away from the door.
He pulled it open a little further, and met the amused gaze of Dana
Scully.  His face broke into a smile.  "Hi!  I wasn't expecting to
see you."  He pulled the door open completely and let her in.  "I
called you the other day, but you were out of town."

   "I was in Atlantic City - "

   "Hold on a minute, Scully."  Mulder shut the door, and turned to
his son sharply.  "What have I told you about opening the door?"

   Sam backed up against the wall, his mouth going into instant droop
mode.  He turned heart-melting puppy eyes on his father, only to meet
a pair of nearly identical hazel orbs gazing back at him unbendingly.

   "What have I told you?" Mulder repeated.

   Having lost the first round, Sam resorted to a chin wobble.
Mulder crouched down in front of him.  "I said not to open the door,
didn't I?  Not everyone behind it is nice like Dana - you could open
it and let someone really bad in.  Couldn't you?"

   The little boy nodded dolefully and a finger crept into his mouth.
His father took him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake.
"You don't open the door, okay?  You wait for Daddy to come."

   He stood up and gave Sam a little push.  "Go on - go put Bear in
your box before he gets lost."

   He watched as the boy scampered away, then turned to Scully with a
rueful look.  "He'll be the death of me yet."

   Although her face was suitably grave, her eyes were mischievous.
"I had no idea you could be such a ... hard taskmaster, Mulder."

   He didn't miss the deliberate emphasis.  "Oh no?  Don't tempt me
to show you so early in the day."  He slung an arm around her
shoulders and pulled her close, kissing her.

   But Scully only allowed the contact for a few seconds, before
gently pushing him away again.  "Where's your mom?" she demanded
breathlessly.

   Mulder choked on a laugh and released her, leading the way into
the study.  "She moved out nearly a week ago.  That's why I was
calling you."

   Scully stopped short in the doorway and stared at the bare walls,
scattered newspaper and packing crates.  "What in the world - ?"

   "Fast job, huh?"  He stood in the middle of the room, hands on
hips, looking at the self-made devastation.  "Sam and I have to be
out by Friday."

   "But what happened?"

   "Mom and I failed to reconcile our differences, so we had an
emotional meeting with my Uncle Max and the upshot is - she's gone
back to live with Aunt Esther in Chilmark, and I've got Sam and I an
apartment in Alexandria.  Max wants to put this place up for rental,
so I've got to clear all my belongings and the stuff left by my
grandparents.  Most of the furniture's going into storage."

   Scully was stunned.  "When did all this happen?"

   "Last Monday.  I spent most of the evening with Max, trying to
sort it all out."

   "Well, that explains why I couldn't reach you to tell you I was
going out of town.

   "Yeah - I called you Tuesday morning and got your answering
machine."  Mulder looked at her curiously.  "What took you to
Atlantic City?"

   Scully took her jacket off and slung it over the nearest chair,
and picked up a sheet of paper.  "Reports of a Neanderthal killing a
father of three on the highway after his car broke down.  Come on,
I'll give you a hand here."

   Mulder obediently opened the glass-fronted cupboard where his
grandfather's prized Menorah was kept, but wasn't distracted.  "A
Neanderthal?  Seriously?"

   "The fabled Jersey Devil no less."

   "And was it?"

   "Hard to say.  The local Ranger shot the first suspected culprit,
but the body went missing before I could look at it.  The second one
was a woman, though, in her early thirties at most.  Led us quite a
chase, but the police finally shot her in the woods and when I
examined the body, there was human bone in her digestive tract.  An
anthropologist at the Smithsonian is still trying to decide what
exactly she was, but my guess is she was a normal modern human."

   Mulder handed her a small pile of prayer books, his brow furrowed.
"Any chance there were others?"

   Scully hesitated.  "Examination of the woman's uterus would seem
to suggest she'd given birth at least once, but that's all I know.
We searched those woods for hours and didn't see any sign of a lair
at all.  I've closed the file for now."

   He nodded, giving her a small smile.  "Good stuff, huh?"

   She smiled back.  "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

   "So what's next on the agenda?"

   "I don't know."  Scully helped him wrap the Menorah carefully, and
then they stored it next to the embroidered bag containing his
grandfather's tallit.  "That one came from Skinner, but he didn't
hand me anything else when I gave him my report, so I guess I'll be
looking through the files again on Monday."

   "Got a few days off?" he asked a little wistfully.

   "I could take a couple - why, you want help moving into your new
place?"

   "It'd be nice."

   There was an awkward pause, then Scully said in a different,
quieter voice: "So what really happened, Mulder?"

   He shrugged, knowing what she was referring to but not wanting to
go into it.  The details of what had caused the rift between him and
his mother were too difficult to discuss, at least at present.  "Oh,
stuff ... the usual, you know."

   "Was it because of me?"

   Mulder gave her a startled look, then laughed softly.  "Scully,
she only met you once, and that was business!"

   "I know," Scully said steadily, watching his face, "but I'm not
stupid, Mulder.  I know she wasn't happy about us."

   "It wasn't that.  Well," he amended, recalling something his
mother had said and wincing inwardly, "not only that.  Mostly it was
other stuff - stuff about Sam, stuff about me.  The same kind of
things we've been fighting about for years.  Scully - Mom and me,
we've never really had a lot to say to each other.  I hardly ever saw
her when I was a kid, and after ... after Samantha died, she spent
most of her time in la-la land, thanks to the doctor giving her
enough pills to keep a regiment quiet.  It's just the way it is with
us."  He gave her a searching look.  "Look, you mustn't think all of
this is because of you.  Maybe my seeing you didn't help, but it was
waiting to happen right from when I first moved in with her."

   Scully tried to smile but still looked a little depressed.  "All
the same, Mulder - "

   "No, seriously - don't start imagining it's some kind of Greek
tragedy!  I'd have had to move out sooner or later, it's just
happened a little more abruptly than I expected.  We ... had a row
about Sam.  There's been friction about him for some time, and I
honestly think it's better we move away from her now, before he gets
old enough for it to be a major trauma for him."  Mulder brought out
a beautifully engraved Passover seder plate and gave that to Scully
to wrap.  She was neater with the piles of tissue and newspaper than
he was.

   They continued packing in companionable silence.  After a while,
Scully screwed up the courage to ask a question, which had been
bugging her for a long time.  "Mulder, where's your father these
days?"

   "Martha's Vineyard," he answered shortly.  "We had a house there."

   "What did he do?  For a living, I mean."

   "Worked for the State Department - I don't know exactly what he
did there."  Mulder forced himself to try and loosen up over the
questions.  It was perfectly natural for Scully to ask, after all,
but somehow it would have been easier to talk about his ex-wife.  "We
didn't see him a lot, and when we did see him, he always had other
men with him, people he worked with.  It used to bug Mom a lot,
especially when they turned up at the summerhouse during vacations.
He drank a lot even then, and they'd have business - he didn't have
much time for Samantha and me.  Then when Samantha got killed, Mom
packed up and we went to live with my grandparents and Aunt Esther."

   "What - you lived here?"  Scully looked around her.

   "Yeah.  This house belonged to Mom's parents.   We lived here for
a while after the divorce.  My other grandparents lived in Chilmark
and I can't recall ever meeting them."

   Scully debated how to put the next question.  "You told me once
that your father's given name was William."

   Mulder looked up in surprise at the apparent non sequitur.  "Yes?"

   She smiled.  "I've been curious about how you came to have his
name.  I mean, you're Jewish and if I remember my lessons at school,
it's against custom to give a child the name of a living relative."

   Mulder smiled.  "It is, but I'm only half Jewish.  Dad was a
lapsed Presbyterian or something like that  ....  Actually, I don't
know how my mom came to marry him, because my grandparents were
fairly strict and traditional - not Orthodox, but going that way.  No
way did they approve of him ...."  He paused, his expression turning
inwards for a moment.  "Thinking back, I think there were a lot of
fights when I was small, especially about how Sam and I were brought
up.  I wasn't circumcised until I was seven or eight, and I don't
think Dad was present even then.  But Mom wanted it, because she
didn't want to completely lose contact with her family.  Must have
been one of the few times she ever stood up to him," he mused.  "Most
of the time he got his way, and he never let her forget that *he*
wasn't Jewish and he didn't want to know about that side of our
heritage."

   Scully looked at him, fascinated.  "Why didn't your mother make a
fuss?  I thought she was very devout."

   "She is - now.  She only really started getting that way after
Samantha was born, though, and after Sam died and she had all the
fuss of the divorce straight after, I guess it was something for her
to hang onto.  Up until then, she only kept the traditions to please
Grandpa."

   Mulder went back to his excavation of the cupboards, a little
uncomfortable with the memories this was stirring up.  This
conversation with Scully reminded him of the ruthless questioning
he'd put his maternal grandfather through after he'd finally been
circumcised and introduced to the synagogue.  It had all been
fascinating to him back then, and a welcome distraction from the
discord at home.  They'd stayed here in this house, he and Samantha,
for a period of nearly six months at one point.  He remembered the
way his grandmother had clung to him and how his grandfather tried
not to weep when they had to go home to Chilmark again.

   He hadn't really understood why at the time - too many nuances of
his parents' relationship were beyond a child's understanding and
didn't make sense until he was in his teens, after his grandfather
had successfully sued for custody of him.

   "Mulder?"

   He started, and turned to see Scully staring at him anxiously.  He
managed a smile.  "Sorry.  Just remembering something ...."

   "Bad?" she asked softly.

   Mulder waggled one hand in the air.  "So-so.  There's some stuff
from back when I was a kid that's ... kind of uncomfortable, Scully.
After the divorce ... well.  My dad was a drunk, my mom was spaced
out for most of the time, and her parents were old.  So I guess I got
out of hand for a while.  I ended up living here until I went to
college."

   Scully studied the look on his face and decided that the subject
should be dropped for now, fascinating as it was to her.  "That's
where you met Phoebe, isn't it?" she smiled.

   "Yeah.  She had dual nationality - her father was a British
diplomat but her mother was a US citizen and Phoebe was born here.
Hence her coming to live here in the end and joining the Bureau."  He
put a couple of books in the crate, and gave her a quizzical look.
"Scully, all this is old history.  It's kind of late to be vetting
me, isn't it?"

   She chuckled.  "I'm not trying to check your pedigree, Mulder, I'm
just curious.  I don't know so much about you really."

   "Hm - I could say the same thing."

   Scully had been waiting for an opportunity like this.  "Well
there's a remedy for that.  Both my brothers are home for Christmas,
so the whole family's together.  Come and meet them."

   Silence.

   She looked up and saw a look of concern on his face.  "What?"

   "Scully, does your family know you're seeing me?" he asked
uneasily.

   "My family - no.  My parents, yes.  They'd like to meet you, and
Sam."

   He ran a hand over his hair and tried to think of an inoffensive
way to phrase the next question.  There wasn't one.  "Do they - do
they know I'm Jewish?"

   That got him the raised eyebrow.  "Yes.  Why?"

   "How do they feel about that?  I mean, I know you're Catholic
and - "

   "Mulder," she interrupted firmly, "it's not an issue."

   His mouth opened and shut again as he tried to think of a way to
express what he was thinking, but nothing suggested itself.  Scully
watched his expression with a rather sinking feeling, and decided
finally to put him out of his misery.

   "It's okay," she told him as lightly as she could.  "You don't
have to come if you don't want to.  It was just a suggestion."

   Despite her best efforts, the disappointment showed through and
Mulder instantly felt like the world's worst heel.  "It's not that,"
he said uncomfortably.  "It's just that - I don't want ..."

   "What?"

   "I don't know."  Mulder sat down on the edge of the packing crate
heavily.  He risked a look at her face, and decided to be blunt.
"Look, Dana, don't take this the wrong way, but I've got a gut
feeling your father won't like me.  And if that's the case, Christmas
is the wrong time for me to be introduced to him - I don't want to
upset him on a day when you should all be having a good time
together."

   There was a pause, then Scully perched herself on a corner of the
crate next to him.  "You think he won't like you because you're
Jewish?"

   Well at least she didn't sound insulted.  "No.  I think there are
other reasons he won't like me, and that will just make things
worse."

   "What other reasons?"

   Mulder had to smile slightly.  "From things you've said to me,
I've come to the conclusion that your father and I have radically
different world-views."

   Scully's brow furrowed.  "That wouldn't annoy him, Mulder.  What
*might* annoy him was if you didn't stand up to him for what you
believed in.  He might think you're a crank for believing in aliens,
but he wouldn't hold it against you.  Being Jewish won't come into
it.  Besides ...."  A smile suddenly threatened.  "My sister Melissa
abandoned the Catholic Church years ago and took up New Age
philosophies.  After spending Christmas Day with her and her Wiccan
boyfriend, Chris, trust me - Dad will be welcoming you into the
family with open arms."

   Mulder let out a tiny snort of laughter and Scully's smile
widened, at least partly with relief that the intense atmosphere was
lightening.

   "Anyway, as for people getting upset - that's a family Christmas
for you.  There's a whole pile of relatives coming, and half of them
can't be in a room together without tearing each others' eyes out, so
I don't know what you're worrying about."

   "Are you trying to break it to me that you have family like mine
after all?"

   "Mulder, I hate to break your bubble, but everyone has *some*
family like yours.  You just ...."

   He raised a brow at her.  "I just have more so?"

   She gave him a devilish smile.  "I could say that about a number
of things."

   Mulder gave her a look of mock horror.  "Agent Scully!  Not in
front of the children!"

   Scully looked around and found Sam regarding her soulfully from
the doorway.  "Hey, Sam!  Would you like to come have tea with me and
my Mom and Dad on Christmas Day?"

   The little boy's eyes brightened immediately.  "Yeah!"

   "That's a low down trick," Mulder stated indignantly, but Scully
only laughed.

XXXX

   The move itself provided more excitement than Mulder felt he
really needed in his life, with Sam racing around excitedly for most
of the day and all sorts of confusion occurring over which crates
went where.   Perhaps it was just as well that in the event, Scully
was unable to help out; she was called away on a case at the last
minute, but Mulder had to admit that he was grateful for her sake.
His temper was a little short, which would have been unfair on her.

   It took a couple of weeks to get fully settled in, and by that
time it was getting perilously close to Christmas.  Mulder viewed the
coming seasonal festivities with some trepidation; during his early
childhood, the period around Chanukah and Christmas had been an odd
one, where his family had enjoyed a curious mixture of both festivals
without actually supporting the religious aspects of either.  They
had had a Christmas tree and decorations; given and received eight
gifts; brought the Menorah out, but not used it.  Later, his mother
had slowly begun reintroducing the Jewish celebrations, until he
eventually reached adulthood and left home.  Left to himself, Mulder
would never have bothered with either festival, especially during his
short-lived marriage and just after.  He was himself agnostic at
best; Phoebe, although also Jewish by birth, was equally uninterested
in religion.  But the advent of Sam and moving back to live with his
mother had brought Mulder back into contact with the religion his
grandparents had tried so hard to instil in him.

   The question of exactly how to handle Chanukah was fortunately
taken out of Mulder's hands.  He had been concerned for Sam's sake,
for his mother had been assiduous in introducing the child into the
Jewish faith properly, and he was reluctant to change that.  On the
other hand, he did wonder how he was going to manage to raise Sam
properly when he wasn't really a believer himself.  However, Chanukah
would be spent with his cousin Annie and her family, which solved at
least part of that problem.

   Christmas had also been taken care of, thanks to Scully.  But that
raised the problem of a Christmas present for her.  And that meant a
trip to the mall.

XXXX

   Actually, it wasn't as bad as Mulder feared, although the mall was
very crowded, especially since it was a Saturday.  Wiser to Sam's
tricks than Annie, he had the little boy on a set of reins which
prevented him wandering more than a few steps away, and he was
careful to steer a wide berth around any potential problem areas -
such as large toy shops with enticing displays.  Aside from Sam's
probable reaction, Mulder knew himself too well to suppose that he
would be able to resist anything particularly neat.

   Only one minor hiccup occurred in this area.  Mulder was debating
over a display of lockets in a jewellery shop, when a small hand
tugged on his jeans, demanding attention.

   "Daddy, look at the tree!"

   The mall boasted a considerable number of very large, very
brightly decorated Christmas trees, most of which they had already
passed, but given how small Sam was next to most of them, Mulder
supposed it wasn't unreasonable of the boy not to have taken a lot of
notice yet.  He turned to look through the floor-to-ceiling shop
window, preparing to admire the lights and tinsel dutifully, and
clapped eyes on a whole display of artificial monstrosities out in
the aisle.  It was clear why these had caught Sam's eye, though - for
one thing, they were about his height, and for another, several of
them were musical; the electronic jangling could be heard over the
general hubbub outside.

   Mulder wondered how he'd missed hearing the 'music', even as he
winced at the flashing lights and glitter.  No one could call him a
man of great taste, and being colour-blind didn't help, but even he
recoiled from these festive abominations.

   Sam, with a true child's taste, was gazing at them raptly, utterly
enchanted.

   "No, Sam, we're not having a tree," Mulder told him firmly, and
repressed a shudder.

   The small face tipped back to look up at him.  "Please, Daddy?"

   "No, Sam."

   Sam's face dropped.  "Why?"

   *Rats,* Mulder thought ruefully, wavering.  *The one question
which is nearly impossible to answer!*  "Because they're horrible,"
he said finally, aware even as he said it that it was a losing
argument.  Sam would not understand the distinction at his age.

   The little boy's lip began to wobble.  "Please, Daddy?  Please?"

   Mulder sighed, knowing he was doomed.  He rapidly debated the
question in his mind, wondering if this was a precedent he could
afford to make.  It was a *Christmas* tree, after all.  On the other
hand, the tree wasn't really a Christian thing - it was one of the
many pagan additions to a celebration which was questionable as a
religious event in any case, date-wise.  And it was such a small
thing, really, something that would make the boy happy.  They could
decorate it together ....  "All right," he conceded finally.  "But
just a *small* one, Sam, okay?"

   That matter settled, the tree was subsequently purchased and
arrangements made for it to be delivered, and they continued on their
way.

   In the end, they wandered the mall for nearly two hours.  They had
lunch - which went off, amazingly, with none of the mishaps generally
associated with Sam during meals - and he considered the problem of
gifts soberly.  The trouble was that he wasn't really familiar enough
yet with Scully's tastes to know what she might appreciate.  He had
to be careful, because much as he might like to give her something
very personal, he had a feeling she might not appreciate it - at
least not in front of her family.

   Tricky.

   They set off again, Mulder carrying Sam now, as the child was
tiring out.  They passed a branch of Victoria's Secret (Mulder
pausing to look wistfully through the window at some silk items,
which he thought would look particularly, attractive on a certain
redhead of his acquaintance) and carried on.  Nothing inspired him.
Finally, aware that the time was running on and he had grocery
shopping to do, he headed for the exit.

   Which was when he came across one rather modest establishment
selling rare books.

   Touchdown.

XXXX

   Scully presented herself at Mulder's new address three days later,
tired and in a state of mild but restless depression.  The case she
had been called away on had been, in her opinion, something of a red
herring and was inconclusive in any event.  She felt a low-level
irritation and unease in the pit of her stomach, and was desperately
hoping that spending an evening with Mulder and Sam would take her
mind off it.

   She was in luck.  When Mulder opened the door, she was amused to
see that he was liberally splashed with water and soapsuds, and had
splotches of dried poster paint here and there on his shirt and
jeans.

   "Do I need to ask what you're doing?" she laughed, as he closed
the door behind her and took her coat.

   "We can do better than that - come and join in," he grinned.  He
raised his voice slightly.  "Sam!  Look who's here."

   Accepting her cue - and her fate - Scully did the same.  "Hi Sam!"

   Happy shrieks and the sound of water splashing.  "DAY!"

   "Coffee?" Mulder smiled, raising his brows.

   "Sure," she smiled, and followed the sound of Sam singing through
to the bathroom, while Mulder ducked into the kitchen. The apartment
was very Mulder, she decided, taking a quick peep into each room on
her way.  Quite plain and simple; none of the fussier, more
feminine-style textiles, which was probably wise.  Fancy rugs and
cushions don't last long around boisterous little boys.

   Sam was sitting in the bath, splashing the water happily and
pushing a couple of small plastic boats around amid the bubbles.  He
let out a shout of excitement when he saw Scully and stood up,
stretching his chubby arms out to her.

   For a moment, Scully had to swallow an unexpected lump in her
throat at such a simple but warming gesture.  It was just the lift
her spirits needed.  She dropped to her knees beside the tub and
gathered him up for a hug, uncaring of getting her clothes wet.

   "Hi Day," Sam said in her left ear, and planted a sloppy kiss on
it for good measure.

   "Hi sweetie."  Scully sat back on her heels, and managed a
reasonably normal laugh.  "Sam, you're all wet!  What have you and
Daddy been doing today?"

   "Painting!"  Sam sat down in the water again and found one of his
boats.  "Look!"

   "Oh, that's a nice blue boat - "

   "Coffee," Mulder's voice said in her ear, and his hand appeared
over her shoulder holding a mug.

   "My hero!"  she told him fervently.

   Mulder perched on the edge of the bathtub.  "So, what do you think
so far?" he asked, making a sweeping gesture to the apartment at
large.

   Scully smiled.  "I only got a quick look, but it looks great," she
told him.  "I'm sorry I wasn't here to help - "

   "That's okay, don't worry.  I was like a bear that day anyway."
Mulder took a sip of his coffee, studying her face thoughtfully.  "So
what happened?"

   Scully's smile abruptly vanished, to be replaced by the slightly
pinched, anxious look he'd caught on her as he opened the door.  She
shrugged.  "I got pulled away on a wild goose chase."

   "Some goose chase to take you to New York for nearly three weeks.
Not an x-file, I take it?"

   She shook her head quickly.  "Nope.  I was called in, supposedly
to take a look over the ME's findings in four homicides.  Skinner
finally pulled me back yesterday, since the case was going nowhere
and my input wasn't really required."

   Mulder was at a loss to account for her unease.  "Was it bad?" he
ventured, careful not to ask for specifics in front of Sam.

   "No - no, it wasn't that."

   "So what's the problem, Scully?"

   "It's just - "  She broke off and sighed.  "It's just that I never
needed to be there in the first place.  The stuff about the autopsies
was a ruse to get me there."

   His brows shot up in surprise.  "By who?"

   She looked down at her hands for a moment, then up at Mulder
reluctantly.  "Jack."  At his blank look, she elaborated.  "Jack
Willis."

XXXX

   "Why didn't you tell me he was harassing you?" Mulder asked curtly
as he slapped pans around in the kitchen.

   "Because I knew you'd react like this," Scully muttered.  She
dropped wearily into a chair by the kitchen table and watched as he
yanked jars and packets out of different cupboards and slopped water
around.  Sam had been put to bed nearly half an hour before, after
which Mulder had demanded a full explanation.  His reaction to her
reply had been predictable.  "Look, Mulder - what was the point?  He
was just doing the usual Jack stuff.  He's been bugging me with phone
calls and so on since we split up.  You already knew that."

   Mulder bit back a sharp retort.  He stared down at the packet of
pasta quills in his hands for a moment, and struggled to get a grip
on his temper.  "Hasn't it occurred to you yet that there's something
not right about a guy who can bug you with phone messages three days
out of every seven for a year or more?" he asked as mildly as
possible.

   "Mulder - "

   "No, Scully!  This is *harassment*.  There are laws against it.
What if it doesn't stop at phone calls?"

   "Oh, don't be ridiculous!" she snapped back.  "You said it
yourself - he's stuck to messages for two and a half years.  Why
should he change now?"

   Mulder turned to stare at her in disbelief.  "So that makes it
okay with you?"

   Scully closed her eyes briefly.  "No, of course it doesn't, but -"

   "No 'buts'.  And in case you hadn't noticed, he just started to
escalate his behaviour.  He cooked up a half-baked case to drag you
out to New York!"  He flung the bag of pasta down on the counter with
suppressed violence and turned to face her fully, leaning back
against the edge of the sink, gripping it tightly.  "So tell me - was
it just business as usual, agent to agent, while you were there, or
did he pull the "let's discuss this over dinner" routine?"

   "I'm not listening to this."  Scully got to her feet and stalked
through to the living room, snatching up her coat and bag angrily.

   Mulder never moved, watching her grimly.  "Fine, go," he called,
as she made her way to the door, "but do me one favour, Scully.  You
think about this carefully.  You think about his behaviour while you
were in New York and ask yourself if it was really professional, and
nothing else."

   Scully paused and turned back.  Then she walked back into the
kitchen, her face rigid, and put her bag and coat down on the table.
"What do you want me to say?" she demanded.  "Yes - he took me out to
dinner every night?  Do you want me to tell you he was knocking on my
hotel room door after I'd gone to bed?"

   "That depends on what kind of answer you're expecting from me,
doesn't it?" Mulder said quietly.  "What do you think I'm saying this
for - because I'm jealous?"

   "Isn't that it?  Because it sounds like you don't trust me to have
behaved myself while I was gone, Mulder."

   "If that's what you really think, then there's no point in us
continuing this conversation," he told her, suddenly a little pale.

   There was a tense silence.  Then Scully's shoulders slumped a
little.  "I don't think you're jealous," she admitted, "but I do
think you're over-protective."

   "If it's over-protective to worry, because a guy who can't let go
of you has suddenly started blurring the boundaries between your
personal and professional lives, then I'm over-protective," Mulder
said steadily.  "And I refuse to be ashamed of that."

   "Oh, Mulder ..." she sighed.  "Jack's no threat to me.  He's just
... sad, I guess.   It's pathetic and irritating that he won't let
go, and I know his behaviour over the case was unprofessional, but I
won't drag his name through the mud at the Bureau unless I'm forced
to.  For one thing, I'm damned if I'm going to remind everyone of all
that mess between us, just as I'm finally starting to scrape together
some professional respect again.  And for another, it would look
petty and vindictive."

   Mulder bit back a tart retort and reminded himself that he didn't
want to fight with her.  Her expression was tight with weariness and
tension; pushing the issue would just create a rift between them.
"Okay.  I'll drop it - for now.  But Scully, for Christ's sake keep
an eye on him.  Don't let it get any further out of hand than this."

   "It won't," she told him, and slowly sat down again.  "Let's
change the subject a little."

   "Okay."  Mulder went back to his pans and began sorting out the
pasta again, this time a little more calmly.  "What do you want to
talk about?"

   "Actually, I wanted to ask you a favour."

   He glanced over his shoulder at her, raising one brow slightly.
"Oh yeah?  And what would that be?"

   "Will you be my escort to the FBI Christmas ball?"

   There was a sharp yelp of pain as Mulder nearly scalded himself in
the pan of boiling water.  "Ow!  - What?!"

   Scully smiled tiredly.  She had expected a reaction of this sort.
"You heard me.  I want you to strap yourself into a tux and trip the
light fantastic with me at the Watergate Hotel on December 18th.  I
need an escort, and so far Jack has been the only contender."

   Mulder gave her a look of profound unease.  "What about Jerry?"

   "He's not going - he's pleading a prior engagement, and given his
behaviour when we picked up a car a couple of weeks ago from the
motorpool, I'd guess it has something to do with one of the
mechanics."

   Mulder rolled his eyes.  "Great.  Tell me, does that mean he's
going after all?"

   Scully laughed in spite of herself.  "I hope he does!  It should
makes things a little more interesting ....   Look, Mulder, if you
really don't want to - "

   "It's not that, Scully."  He paused, trying to find the right
words.  "Are you sure you really want the kind of excitement my
appearance is likely to cause?"

   "Flattering yourself, aren't you?" she smiled.

   "Not particularly.  There's going to be a hell of a lot of brass
there, and some of them aren't exactly fond of me.  Totally aside
from all the 'friends' I made during my time."

   "Well, I'm not exactly popular myself these days.  I don't want to
go with Jack, Mulder, and I don't want to go on my own.  And it's
been hinted to me that it might be a good idea for me to attend.  So
...."

   "Okay."

   In spite of everything, Scully's eyes widened a little.  "Okay?
You mean you will?"

   He threw her a tiny grin over his shoulder, and rolled his eyes,
sighing exaggeratedly.  "If I must ...."

   "Thank you," she said, relieved.  "You have no idea what a weight
that is off my mind."

   "You're welcome."  Mulder tipped the pasta into the water and
found another pan for the carbonara sauce.  "You've reminded me;
there's been something I've been meaning to talk to you about,
Scully."

   "Hmm?  What's that?"

   He glanced over his shoulder at her.  "That particular week is
also Chanukah."

   "Oh!  I didn't realise it fell so close to Christmas this year."

   "Yeah, it's on time for once."  Mulder saw her bemused expression
and smiled.  "Sorry - joke.  Jewish holidays are never on time.
Anyway, Sam and I will be staying with Annie's family on the Friday
and Saturday, which is when the family all get together."  He paused,
lighting the gas under the second pan, then turned to face her fully.
He looked uncomfortable.  "Annie wanted to invite you as well."

   "That's kind of her," Scully said, not sure what answer he was
looking for.

   "I've said no."

   "Ah."

   "It's not because I don't want you there," Mulder said quickly,
"because I do.  But my mother's going to be there, and I don't think
it would be a good idea .... "

   Scully gave him a wry smile.  "Mulder, it's okay, I understand!"

   "And in any case, I had a better idea," he continued doggedly.
"Sam and I were going to set up the Menorah anyway, and I'm going to
give him his presents here, so I thought one evening you might like
to come over when we light the candles."

   "I'd love to," she smiled.

   It was his turn to look a little wry.  "You can listen to me
making a complete mull of the prayers."

   "How long is it since you last did anything like this?" she asked,
amused at his pensive expression.

   "Oh, I go to Annie's or Max's house almost very year for Chanukah,
but I don't think I've actually gone through the service myself, out
loud, since ...."  He paused, considering.  "Probably since the year
I got married.  And I'm not sure why I bothered then, since
you-know-who had other places she wanted to be during Chanukah."

   His tone was calm and off-hand, but Scully instinctively knew that
it would be better not to touch on this subject any further, so she
changed it.  "Aside from eight presents, is there anything else I
should bring?"

   "Well, it's a party, so if you feel you want to cook ....  Latkes
are traditional."

   She rolled her eyes.  "I'll have to ask my mother about that - I'm
sure she knows how to make them!"

   Mulder grinned.  "I was kidding!  You can get the Gelt - the
chocolate coins - if you like.  And I wouldn't go overboard on eight
presents, Scully - we only open one each night, so one would be
enough.  Sam's going to be spoiled enough when we go to Annie's.
He's the youngest kid in the family, so everyone goes mad buying him
stuff."

   Scully gave this some consideration for a few minutes, then
smiled.  "Okay ..."

XXXX

  Scully drummed her fingers nervously and looked up at the office
clock.

   4:30.  Late enough.

   She jumped up and locked the office door, then plunged under her
desk and pulled out the huge plastic garment bag she'd hidden under
there after a lightning spree at lunch-time.  She had just kicked off
her shoes and was unzipping the bag, when there was a knock on the
door.

   Scully swore softly, draped the bag carefully over her chair and
spun it around so that the back was facing the door.  Then she
unlocked it and opened up a crack.

   Peering back at her were the wide eyes of Agent Pendrell, a goofy
but endearing denizen of the Crime Sciences team.  He had a rather
obvious crush on her, which Scully tried hard not to encourage while
being reluctant to tread on his feelings in a way he would notice.
He hadn't actually made a move on her yet, but one look at his face
told her he had suddenly gathered his courage.

   She hoped she was wrong.

   "Er - Agent Scully?"

   Scully pinned a neutral smile on her face.  "Hi, Pendrell - can I
help you?"

   "I was wondering ...."  He hesitated, and to her quickly
suppressed amusement, he actually shuffled his feet slightly.   "I
was wondering if you had a date for tonight?" he blurted out in a
rush.

   *Rats.*  On the other hand, she couldn't help but feel sorry for
him - the poor man's face was almost as red as his hair, and that was
saying something.  He had hair redder than hers.

   Scully hoped her tone was light an inoffensive.  "Oh Pendrell - !
That's really kind of you, but I do have a date.   It's sweet of you
to offer though."

   "Oh."  He looked crestfallen, compelling Scully to say
apologetically that she was sorry.

   "You will be going, though, won't you?" she added hurriedly.
"Save one dance for me."

   *I must be nuts,* she told herself as she closed the door on his
ecstatic smile.  Then she quickly locked the door again and hurried
back to her garment bag.

   The telephone rang.  Scully swore again roundly and seized the
receiver.  "Scully," she barked, in her best imitation of AD Skinner.

   There was a startled pause, and then Mulder chuckled into her ear.
"*Major* Scully," he corrected, and she sighed, relaxing.

   "Oh, it's you. "

   "Hard day, sweetness?"

   "It wouldn't be nearly so bad if people would go away and leave me
alone for half an hour," she retorted blandly.  'Sweetness' indeed!

   "Ouch!  I can take a hint.  There's just one problem, though, and
I'll leave you alone."

   "My nerves won't take a problem right now," she grumbled.  "I'm
fending off rejected dates left, right and centre here, Mulder!
Where were they all last week, when I didn't *have* a date?"

   "Hush!  A lady doesn't brag about her conquests," he admonished,
stifling a laugh.  "Seriously, Scully, I've got a problem.  Annie
can't look after Sam tonight.  Do you know any handy - and
trustworthy - babysitters who can take him at a couple of hours'
notice?"

   Scully paused, considering.  "Give me twenty minutes.  I think I
know someone who'll look after him for us."

   "I'm on the move.  Call me back on my cell phone."

   "It had better be switched on, Mulder, or I swear I'll kneecap
you!  I *know* you and your cell phone."

   He rang off with a laugh, and she reluctantly smiled as she
pressed the cut-off.  Then she dialled her mother's number.

   "Hi, Mom?  It's me ....  Dana.  Yes.  Look, Mom, could you do me
an enormous favour ....?"

   Ten minutes later, Scully put the phone down with a smile.  Then
she glanced up at the clock again and swore for the third time in
half an hour.  She seized the garment bag again and all but tore the
zip fastener open, fumbling the contents out with nervous fingers and
holding it up against herself.

   The sleek black velvet draped to her ankles, and Scully wondered
briefly if she'd made a big mistake.  Only one way to find out.
Wondering absently if there were any new cameras hidden in the office
since she checked two days ago, she quickly stripped off her suit and
blouse, and wriggled into the dress.

   There was another knock at the door.

   "Oh, get real!" she exclaimed, annoyed.  "Who is it?"

   "Jerry," a rather bemused voice said from the other side.  "Why's
the door locked?"

   Scully flipped the lock over and jerked the door open,
exasperated.  "Why do you think?"

   He raised a brow at her attire.  "Nice frock."

   "Well?  Now that you're here, you can zip me up."

   He performed this service, still a little perplexed.  "Isn't it a
little early to be getting changed?"

   "I wanted to make sure I hadn't made a really crucifying mistake,"
she admitted, and turned around to face him.  "I forgot there isn't a
full length mirror here.  What do you think?"

   He studied the dress thoughtfully.  "Nice."

   Scully's brow furrowed.  "Nice?  That's it?"

   "Well, it depends who you're trying to impress, doesn't it?"

   "No comment," she sighed.  "Can you hop outside for a minute while
I take it off again?"

   "It's okay, I only came to pick up that CD ROM Wilcox lent me the
other day."  Jerry picked up the case from the spare desk he used
when he was working with Scully, and gave her a thoughtful look.  "Is
Mulder going with you?" he asked abruptly.

   "It was him or Jack Willis," she told him frankly, "or Agent
Pendrell."

   Jerry snorted.  "As if Lab-boy would ever get up the courage to
ask you!"

   "He did, half an hour ago."  Scully began to straighten out the
garment bag.  "So, are you going?"

   "I wasn't, but if Mulder's going to be there maybe I'll go anyway,
just to see the fun."

   Scully eyed him suspiciously.  "Meaning?"

   Jerry grinned at her.  "I wouldn't dream of spoiling the
surprise."

XXXX

   By seven-thirty, Scully began to feel like she was setting out on
a second prom, although without all the careful preparations and
success of the first one.  Last minute delays at work had made her
late leaving; then she'd had a sudden crisis of confidence in the
shoes she'd selected, which meant she was also late leaving to go to
her parents' house.  And once she got there, she discovered she'd
left her jewellery box at home.  It was enough to make her want to
scream, only she didn't have the time to waste.

   Under the laughing eyes of her sister Melissa, who was still
staying with their parents, Scully fought flyaway hair and a satin
slip that was charged with enough static to light up Manhattan.  It
took their combined efforts to persuade the latter to stay in place
while she slid into the black velvet dress, but once it was zipped up
and draping as it should, Scully felt calmer and more confident.

   It wasn't exactly an original style, but it was a classic.  The
skirt was long and narrow, with a back slit to the knee; the waist
was slightly higher than usual, and the bodice, low enough to reveal
a modest amount of cleavage, was cut straight across the bosom.  It
was sleeveless and had broad shoulder straps that criss-crossed at
the rear to midway down her back.  Revealing enough, but not too
revealing.

   "You look good," Melissa approved, after some consideration.

   It was hardly an ecstatic response, but given the gulf between
their tastes, Scully was relieved.  "It's not a mistake, is it?" she
asked, turning from one side to the other as she frowned at herself
in her mother's full-length mirror.  "I bought it in a rush."

   "Don't be silly.  Black always looks good on you - I can't imagine
why, because it makes *me* look like a nun.  It's hardly a
thunderclap of daring, though, Dana - you might just as well be
wearing a sign saying "FBI Official Function" on your back and be
done with it."

   "Thanks a bunch," Scully sighed.  "Why don't you just come
straight out with it?  You think it's boring, don't you?"

   "Well .... "  Melissa tilted her head to one side.  "What about
him?  Wouldn't he prefer to see you in something a little more ...
adventurous?"

   Scully glared at her sister as she picked up her hairbrush for
another assault on the auburn tangle roughly pinned in the nape of
her neck.  "He has a name, Missy.  And for your information, he'd
probably be happy to see me wearing cling film."  She seized a
tortoiseshell comb and tried to put her hair up into a respectable
pleat once more.

   Melissa stifled a giggle, and snatched the comb out of her
sister's fingers.  "Here - sit down, and I'll do that."  She tossed
the comb on the dressing table.  "Pass me some pins, and we'll see if
we can't make your hair look something, if nothing else."

   "I can't believe I forgot my earrings," Scully grumbled as she sat
down.  "I could get away with just my cross, but without earrings - "

   "You can borrow a pair of mine."

   "Missy - "

   "Relax.  They're a pair of Grandma Scully's Mom gave me a couple
of years ago; gold half-hoops.  I never wear them anyway, they don't
suit me."

   "Thank you," her sister sighed gratefully.

XXXX

   Mulder arrived nearly fifteen minutes later, having had nearly as
exasperating a day as she had.  He mentally cursed the inventor of
the tuxedo, even as he unobtrusively eased his bow tie with one
finger, and eyed Sam in the rear-view mirror with misgiving.
Cherubic hazel eyes peeped at him innocently from the back seat,
disguising the little monster's true demonic nature, and Mulder
wondered if it was fair to hand his son over to Mrs. Scully for an
evening, since he was fairly certain he would never be welcome in
this neighbourhood again after tonight.

   The words "rock" and "hard place" came to mind.  With a sigh, he
heaved himself out of the driver's seat and opened the rear passenger
door.

   "You behave, Sam, do you hear me?" he admonished the little boy as
he unstrapped him.  "You be nice to Dana's mom, or there'll be
trouble when we get home."

   Sam wasn't impressed.  "Where you goin', Daddy?"

   "I'm taking Dana to a party," Mulder sighed.  He grabbed the bag
of items necessary whenever Sam stayed with a babysitter.

   "Wan' to come *too*."

   *Here we go,* his father thought grimly.  "You can't, kiddo - it's
a grown-up party with lots of boring people.  You wouldn't enjoy it."
*Neither will I, come to that.*

   "Yes, I would!  I would too!"

   "You'll enjoy it with Dana's mom much more," Mulder said
persuasively.  Sam gave him a sceptical look that was so bizarrely
like Scully's that he had to grin.  "Come on, Sam, please?  We'll be
back later, I promise."

   Sam shut up, but his lower lip protruded in an ominous way and
when his father held the door open for him to jump out, he held his
arms out to be picked up instead.  Mulder tried to view this as
positive, however, praying it was a sign that his son was too tired
to make much of a fuss.

   *Fat chance,* a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his
mind.  He scooped the boy up and slammed the car door shut.

   *Nice house,* he thought, as he trudged up to the door.  He glance
d over the white painted brickwork and little portico with roses
growing around it, and could almost hear his mother sniffing
dismissively.  What the hell, though!  It looked downright homey to
Mulder, with lights shining invitingly from nearly all the front
windows, and when he considered the number of times he had arrived
home in the past to find his house in darkness, cold and uninviting
....

   He wondered what Scully's parents were like and felt a twinge of
apprehension as he mounted the steps and tapped on the glowing brass
knocker.  The sight of that made him smile nostalgically, as he
remembered visiting the houses of friends while he was at college in
England.

   Consequently, when Margaret Scully opened the door she was treated
to a sight of Mulder at his best, dressed up with unusual care,
holding his son on one arm and smiling a little shyly at her.

   Not that she was ever fooled by appearances, but she was still a
sucker for a good-looking family man.

   A broad smile threatened as she took in the pair of them.  "Let me
guess," she teased gently, "you're here to try and sell me a set of
encyclopaedias."

   Mulder's nervous smile turned into a grin.  "Got 'em out in the
trunk, Ma'am, if you'll give me five minutes of your time!"

  She laughed softly.  "Fox and Sam?"

  "Mulder - it's just Mulder," he said quickly, "and *he's* Samuel
today because he's been driving me nuts ...."

   "Oh, I don't believe that!"  Mrs. Scully smiled encouragingly at
Sam, who was eyeing her dubiously, and stood back so that they could
come inside.  "I'm Maggie Scully, by the way.  Dana's still upstairs
getting dressed, but she won't be long."

   Mulder quickly put Sam's bag down and shook her hand.  "Nice to
meet you, ma'am.  Look, are you sure you don't mind keeping an eye on
him?  He's being really wild today."

   "Not at all, I've been looking forward to it," she assured him,
and looked at Sam, who had pulled his head out of Mulder's shoulder
and was peering around him.  "Do you like cookies, my little man?"
Sam's eyes lit up, and he nodded enthusiastically.  Maggie gave
Mulder a conspiratorial smile.  "I thought you might.  We'll go and
have a look in my kitchen in a minute, and see what we can find in
there.  Come inside, Fox, and put him down - he must be heavy for
you."

  "You get used to it," Mulder observed wryly, following her into a
neat and inviting living room.

   Five minutes later, when Melissa and Dana entered the room, they
found Maggie showing Sam her ornaments in a sturdy cabinet.  Mulder
was watching with interest and a certain air of relief as his son
behaved impeccably.  How long it would last he didn't know, but it
was a promising start.

   Then he turned and saw Scully.  His brows shot up and there was a
pause.

   "Well?" she demanded finally, unnerved by his gaze.

   Mulder began to smile.  "Very nice, Scully.  *Very* nice."

   She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, chewing this over, then a
reluctant smile dawned.  "Ditto, Mulder - though your tie looks like
someone tied it with their teeth."

   "Who the hell invented the bow tie anyway?" he said feelingly,
running his finger around his collar again.

   Scully slapped his hand away and tugged the knot undone.  "Someone
with more manual dexterity than you, obviously.  Oh, this is my
sister Melissa, by the way.  Stand still."

   Mulder gave Melissa an embarrassed grin, and tried to roll his
eyes around far enough to see what Sam was up to without moving his
head.  Mrs. Scully was talking to the little boy in an undertone, and
whatever she was saying was apparently agreeing with him because he
was nodding vigorously.

   "We might actually get out of here without a fight," Mulder
observed softly to Scully.

   She smiled, concentrating on the tie.   "There - I think that'll
do.  Where on earth did you get a bow tie with Marvin the Martian on,
though?"

   He grinned.  "That's nothing - look at this!"  He unbuttoned his
jacket to display a matching cummerbund.  Scully rolled her eyes.

   "And I was worried people might notice my earrings were missing."

   He gave her a blank look.  "But you're wearing earrings."

   "They're Missy's - I forgot my jewellery, because I left home in a
hurry."

   "Oh."  For a moment he looked like he might say something else,
but he obviously changed his mind.  "Okay, we'd better get moving or
we'll be late."

   A small hand tugged on the skirt of Scully's dress and she looked
down to find Sam giving her a solemn look.  "I's comin' too," he told
her firmly.

   "Oh sweetie ...."  Scully scooped him up, and grunted a little
under his weight.  "You *are* a big boy now, aren't you?  I'm not
going to be able to do this for much longer."

   He wasn't diverted.  "*Want* to come too," he stated, a quiver
appearing in his lip as he looked from her to his father and back
again.

   "But I thought you were going stay and play with me?" Maggie
reminded him.  "It'll be so much more fun here," she added coaxingly.

   "Our party's going to be so boring," Scully told him.  "Just
grown-up people talking.  Not fun at all.  You don't want to go to
that, do you?  Not really?"

   He wasn't convinced, but allowed her to hand him over to Maggie
and Melissa.

   "We'll be home very soon," Mulder promised him.  "You be a good
boy for me, Sam, okay?"  He ruffled his son's dark hair
affectionately, and Scully leaned over to kiss him.

   "Okay, guys, see you later," she said, straightening up.

   Mrs. Scully smiled.  "You look beautiful, honey.  Have a good
time."

   Scully and Mulder gave her nearly identical harassed looks.
"You've got to be kidding," the latter said wryly, making Melissa
grin.

XXXX

   The initial stage of the journey, as Mulder manoeuvred to join the
beltway, was performed in relative silence. Scully nervously poked at
the carefully arranged knot of curls on top of her head, and Mulder
tried to keep his hands occupied on the steering wheel so that they
wouldn't wander to his bow tie.

   "Did you have problems with Sam tonight?" she asked finally.

   Mulder's face flashed into a rueful grin.  "Did I ever.  I held
off telling him I was going out because I knew he'd have a tantrum,
but he drove me nearly crazy while I was getting dressed.  He lost my
watch and cufflinks, by the way.  I found a spare pair of cufflinks,
but try not to ask me the time because I'm wearing an old Mickey
Mouse watch someone gave me for a joke a few years ago."

   Scully let out a soft snuffle of laughter.  "Oh my God!  What a
pair we are - you with a Mickey Mouse watch and me with no jewellery
but a pair of borrowed earrings."

   "That reminds me ...."  Mulder suddenly pulled off the road and
onto the hard shoulder.

   "What are we stopping for?" she asked, surprised.  "Mulder, we'll
be late."

   "Us, and the Director."  He switched off the engine and leaned
over to rummage in the glove compartment.  After a moment he grunted
with satisfaction and pulled out a small gilt plastic bag.  "I bought
you a present; let's just hope it matches your sister's earrings, for
tonight at least."

   "Mulder, you shouldn't have - "

   He gave her a look that shut her up and brought an unexpected
blush to her cheeks.  Then he produced a small, delicately wrapped
box, which he placed in her hands.  "No fuss, Scully.  Please accept
it."

   She played with the tiny little bow on it for a moment.  "I should
be giving *you* presents, for agreeing to come tonight," she smiled
at him.

   "You could always have gone with Agent Pendrell," he replied
blandly.

   Scully gave him a startled look.  "How did you know Pendrell
asked?"

   Mulder gave her a noncommittal look.  "I have my sources!"

   She relaxed.  "And are they still making use of the various
devices planted weekly in my office?" she demanded, raising a brow.

   He only grinned.  "Just open the box, Scully."

   She paused a moment longer, admiring the paper and narrow satin
ribbons, before carefully easing the bow off the package and
delicately picking the paper undone.  It was a jewellery box the size
of her palm and marked with the name of an unfamiliar shop.  Then she
opened the lid.

   And drew a sharp breath.  "Mulder ...."

   It was a small, delicate, heart-shaped locket, flat and plain
except for the tiniest filigree rose standing out from the surface in
sharp relief.  It was made of red gold and glowed in its dark nest of
jewellers' padding.

   "If you dare say anything about the expense ...." he threatened,
only half-joking.

   "I've got better manners than that," she managed, "but Mulder, you
shouldn't have."

   "Yes I should.  Call it a Chanukah gift if you like ....  Now, are
you going to put it on?"

   "Just try stopping me."  Scully carefully unclipped her cross and
curled it up in the lid of the box, then undid the clasp of the
locket.  "Can you give me a hand here?"

   Mulder reached over and helped her put the locket on, fumbling
with the tiny clasp awkwardly.  "Is the chain the right length?"

   "It's fine."  Scully pulled the sunshield down to look at herself
in the little mirror.  The locket went nicely with the earrings, but
it wouldn't have mattered if it hadn't; she would have worn it
anyway.  "Mulder, it's beautiful."

   "Matches the wearer, then," he said casually, then saw her
expression.  He raised a brow.  "Didn't I tell you?  You look
fantastic tonight."

   Scully reflected, smiling, that Mulder was probably the only man
who could make such a statement in such a tone and not only get away
with it, but somehow make it seem more of a compliment than something
more effusively expressed.

XXXX

   Mulder found himself surreptitiously wiping his palms against each
other as Scully presented herself at the reception desk of the
Watergate Hotel and got them checked against the guest list.  At any
other time he would have been interested in his surroundings - how
could any conspiracy theorist *not* be? - but on this occasion, the
butterflies in his stomach were overwhelming all other sensations.

   Then Scully was returning to him, a rather lopsided smile on her
lips.  "Relax, Mulder!  You look like you're waiting for a hidden
sniper to take a pot-shot at you."

   He snickered nervously.  "What makes you think there *isn't* one?"

   "Lighten up!" she admonished him, and took his arm.  "Come on.
Couple of hours, and we'll be out of here again."

   "Hngh."

   "And don't mumble at me."  She pointed down a corridor.  "That
one."

   As only one door to the function room was open, Mulder managed to
hang back enough to let her go first, but it was a pretty paltry
delay and not nearly long enough for him to steel his nerves.

   Then he was inside the door and face to face with -

   - Bill Patterson.

   It was true; there was *no* God.

XXXX

   Scully had never met Patterson, the fabled head of the
Investigative Sciences Unit, but she knew him by reputation - as did
all agents - and his handbook on serial killers and profiling (known
to the irreverent as "The Thoughts of Chairman Bill") was standard
reading at the Academy.

   She had spent long enough in Jerry Castamir's company now to know
that Mulder had once been tipped as Patterson's chosen successor.
Rumour suggested that Mulder's abrupt and undignified departure from
the ISU - first to the VCS, then the x-files, and finally from the
Bureau entirely - had not only robbed Patterson of the one person who
could have taken over from him, but also of the coveted title of
Assistant Director.  Consequently he'd been unable to leave the Unit.

   Five minutes in his company served to convince Scully that rumour
was way off the mark.  Personally, she doubted very much whether
Patterson would ever have been able to relinquish his hold over the
ISU; he was a man who not only liked to be in charge, but also liked
to personally supervise every detail.  He would never have been able
to tolerate anyone, even a trusted lieutenant, taking his place.  He
had made the ISU; it was his creation, his baby.

   And for the same reason, he would never forgive Mulder for
leaving.  In his eyes, Mulder was also his creation - the bright boy
he had mentored and who had raised the ISU's reputation above the
crank status it had held for years in the FBI; his chosen right-hand
man and hand-picked successor.  Leaving would be an unforgivable act
of ingratitude, which Patterson would take personally.

   Consequently, their meeting here tonight was a disturbing
experience.

   Patterson's expression was inscrutable; he was a balding man in
his late forties or early fifties, a couple of inches shorter than
Mulder and reasonably fit for his age and position.  He wore small
round-lensed spectacles that hid his eyes under the glare of the
artificial lighting, and it was hard to tell what precisely was going
on in his head when he clapped eyes on the younger man.  Mulder's own
reaction was less opaque to Scully, however; he stiffened slightly,
and a kind of impassive mask slid over his face.  His eyes alone
betrayed him; they were wary.

   Then Patterson promptly betrayed himself by opening his mouth.
"Well, look who's here!" he said, to a much younger male agent stood
at his elbow.  "If it isn't the boy-wonder himself!"

   From the uncertain look on the agent's face - Scully rummaged in
her memory and came up with the name Nemhauser, someone she had met
once or twice at similar functions - he'd never met Mulder and
consequently didn't have a clue what his boss was referring to.  Nor
did he apparently care; his eyes were riveted to Scully's bosom from
the moment he saw her.

   Then Patterson's voice turned unpleasant.  "What the hell are you
doing here, Mulder?  Two years ago, you told me to my face that you
hoped you never set eyes on anyone from the Bureau again!"

   Scully winced, wondering if the man had been drinking too heavily
already.  It seemed likely.  Things Mulder had told her in the past
suggested that most of the profilers at the ISU hit the bottle at one
time or another.

   "How are you, Bill?" Mulder asked levelly.

   Patterson didn't answer.  His gaze shifted to Scully, and she
instantly felt as though she was wearing a see-through dress.  His
eyes, suddenly visible through the thick lenses of his glasses, were
like lasers.

   "You must be Agent Scully," he commented, and his lip curled
slightly.

   She felt Mulder tense angrily, and pinched his arm hard.  She was
used to older male agents behaving something like this, although it
was rare for someone in Patterson's position to be so blatantly
offensive.

   "That's right, Sir," she responded neutrally, and applied enough
pressure to Mulder's arm to let him know that she wanted to move on.

   Obedient to the signal, Mulder nodded to Nemhauser and made to
move off, but Patterson hadn't quite finished with him yet.

   "So, Mulder, when are you coming back?"

   A rather bemused smile lit the younger man's face.  "Bill, you
know the answer to that."   He turned away, smiling faintly into
Scully's concerned eyes.

   Patterson's voice followed them as they eased their way through
the crowd.  "I know you, Mulder.  You *will* come back."

   "Yeah, me and King Arthur," Mulder muttered, and Scully squeezed
his arm gently.

   "Is he always like that?" she asked, in a low voice.

   "No," he sighed, "he's usually worse."

   "Come on, let's get a drink."

   By dint of smiling and gently easing past people, they managed to
make it to the bar at the back of the room, where they found Jerry
making inroads into the punch.  This was a rather disturbing sight
for Scully; she hadn't thought her sometimes-partner was inclined to
drink much, but apparently he was getting into the spirit of
Christmas rather easily.

   It was worrying for Mulder too; the Jerry he'd worked with almost
never touched alcohol.  They'd been alike in that regard.  "Having a
good time?" he asked him, raising a brow.

   "Almost as good as you," Jerry retorted.

   "That's debatable."  Mulder eyed Jerry's companion, a younger man
with the regulation haircut and overly clean appearance of someone
not long out of the Academy.  He was dark-haired and fresh-faced, and
straightened up when Mulder and Scully approached, waiting to be
introduced.  Unlike Jerry, he wasn't trying to drink the bar dry, a
point in his favour in Mulder's book.  He sincerely hoped that if he
*was* Jerry's companion for the evening, he was the one driving.

   "I don't think we've met," Scully prompted gently, when it became
evident Castamir wasn't going to introduce them.

   The man glanced quickly at Jerry, smiled wryly and extended a hand
to her.  "Alex Krycek.  You must be Agent Scully."  Then he turned
almost eagerly to Mulder.   "I don't need to ask who you are.  Fox
Mulder - I heard all about you at Quantico."

   It was the wrong thing to say, although Krycek couldn't have known
it.  Mulder knew precisely what rumours had gone around the Academy
about him, and he doubted very much that they'd improved in the two
and a half years he'd been out of the Bureau.  He wondered how the
hell Jerry had picked up with this boy scout.

   "Nothing good, I hope," he said flippantly.

   Krycek grinned with unexpected humour.  "So-so.  You were still a
role model for most of the guys when I was there."

   "In that case, they're probably all in padded cells by now,"
Mulder observed dryly.

   "Nah, they're all here, sucking up to Patterson," Jerry said
maliciously.

   "Jesus, Jerry!"  Mulder leaned over between them and signalled the
bartender.  "What'll you have, Scully?"

   "Something non-alcoholic.  I don't think I want to get muddled in
this crowd," she smiled.

   "After the way that guy with Patterson was looking at you, I guess
not."

   "Nemhauser?"  Jerry snorted.  "He wouldn't have the spine!"

   This was said a little too loudly, getting them sidelong looks
from a handful of people nearby, and Mulder looked at his former
partner measuringly.  "Easy," he said, a gentle warning in his tone.

   Jerry shrugged this off irritably, but shut up.  Scully saw Krycek
giving him a concerned and speculative look, and willed him to keep
his own mouth shut.  She had an uncomfortable feeling that her
partner would create a scene if anyone tried to persuade him to stop
drinking or go home.

   This evening was turning into a nightmare rapidly; everywhere she
turned it felt like there was another patch of quicksand waiting for
her.  Scully briefly wished she had never suggested this to Mulder;
or that she'd had the presence of mind on the way here to suggest a
detour to the nearest all-night diner.  A greasy burger and fries in
run-down surroundings would have been infinitely preferable to
*this*.

   Then Mulder turned back to her, offering her a long cool glass of
fruit-juice, and gave her a quirky little grin.  In spite of herself,
she grinned back.  Knowing him, he was probably waiting with joyful
anticipation for a full-scale brawl to break out.

   "Throw the first punch and you'll be in deep trouble," she told
him, eyes sparkling, and Mulder laughed.

   "Me?  I'm a peaceful man - "

   "Yes," a cool feminine voice interrupted.  "That's what makes the
chaos you create so astonishing."

   Mulder's eyes widened, and a rather sickly smile appeared on his
lips.  Scully hid a smile behind her glass and turned to greet the
woman who, until about eight months previously, had been her direct
superior: Assistant Director Geraldine Hill, the AD in charge at
Quantico.

   If Bill Patterson *had* been thwarted in his ambition to become
AD, this was the person who had done it.  Although only Scully's
height and build, Gerry Hill was a formidable personality; she was in
her late forties, and had worked her way up through the ranks at the
Bureau to become one of the first female SAC's, in charge of
Forensics.  Nowadays she shared command of the entire Quantico
facility with the military authorities who ran the Academy, and
Scully knew from personal experience that she ran it with a strong
grip and an eagle eye.  Her personal qualifications were similar to
Scully's own, with the addition of about twenty years more
experience.

   Someone like Mulder wouldn't have fazed her in the slightest, for
her inability to be caught by surprise was legendary.  Scully
watched, fascinated, as the woman fixed him with her razor-sharp
gaze.  Predictably, he lost several inches in height and a decade off
his age almost at once.

   *I hope I can do that when I'm her age," Scully thought
admiringly.  Even more amusing was the fact that Jerry had sobered up
and made himself scarce, Krycek in tow, as soon as he could.

   "So ...." AD Hill said musingly.  "Fox Mulder."  A small smile
tugged at the corner of her lips, and she stretched out one hand.
"How are you these days?  How's the little boy ... Samuel, isn't it?"

   Mulder managed to relax and produce the smile which he had used
with such effect on Scully's mother less than an hour ago.

   *Charmer,* Scully thought, amused, and turned to put her empty
glass back on the bar.  A hand touched her arm, and she turned to
face her boss, AD Skinner.  The brass were evidently turning out in
force tonight.

   "Good evening, Agent Scully; I'm glad you could make it," he said
formally.  His eyes slid over to where Mulder was standing, but he
didn't seem surprised to see him.  "While your ... escort is
occupied, perhaps I could borrow you for a few minutes?"

   Scully hesitated, and glanced over at Mulder; but he hadn't missed
the exchange and gave her a tiny nod of encouragement.  So she sighed
inwardly, and allowed Skinner to sweep her away to meet some of the
other major players in the Bureau hierarchy.

XXXX

   An hour and half later Scully found herself sitting in a corner,
nibbling half-heartedly at a vegetarian selection from the buffet and
listening while several other female agents around her gossiped with
rather less restraint than usual - which was saying something.  Truth
be told, she was bored and beginning to think that she might like to
go home.  She had danced once with poor nervous Pendrell, who kept
tripping over her feet; once, very formally, with Skinner; and twice
with Mulder, but the rest of the evening seemed to have been spent
moving from one group of people to another and listening until her
ears ached to anything from horror stories of impending family
Christmases, to the coming year's budget constraints on various
departments.  Her time spent with Mulder had been minimal, as they
were each seized by old acquaintances and dragged away into the
crowd.

   At least listening to gossip didn't require brainpower and
diplomacy, two things which she felt she was fast running out of.
Scully fixed her eyes on Agent Henderson's face and tried to
concentrate on what the woman was saying, rather than keeping a
watchful eye on Mulder, where he stood half the room away and
listened as a couple of older agents talked at him.

   Henderson, a vivacious brunette wearing a red dress that left
nothing to the imagination, had a rather poorly disguised personal
interest in Mulder, and was trying to draw Scully out on the subject
by giving her a detailed account of his personal life prior to
leaving the Bureau.

   "I'm surprised you never heard about it," she was saying, stirring
her Martini gently with the cocktail olive.  "But then, you were at
Quantico, and I guess the rumour mill isn't so active out there.  It
was quite a big deal when they finally separated.  I mean, *everyone*
knew what she'd been up to, but nobody really thought he'd go ahead
and leave her.  He seemed like such a patsy where she was concerned."

   Scully grimly suppressed her reaction to this artless assessment
of Mulder's character, and forced a look of interest onto her face.
Not that it mattered.  Henderson didn't need active audience
participation; just an audience.

   Besides, Scully had to admit she wanted to hear this, avid and
gossipy as the speaker was.  She knew relatively little about his
marriage, really.

   "It was a really nice wedding," the other agent went on,
judiciously.  "Not huge or over the top, but nice.  Three of the
Assistant Directors went, including AD Hill and the guy before
Skinner.  Jewish, of course, and a really lovely traditional
ceremony, which seemed a little strange at the time because no one
could say Phoebe Green was religious.  I didn't even know she *was*
Jewish."

   *Neither did I,* Scully thought, *but it explains a few things.
And flippant though he is, I suspect there was a time when things
like that meant a lot to Mulder - or else he wouldn't be so
determined to raise Sam the Jewish way.  I'm willing to bet Phoebe
agreed to the wedding because it looked good for her to be married to
the Bureau's top profiler.*  This was a rather biased opinion, and
she readily admitted as much to herself, but Scully was beginning to
build a picture of Mulder's ex-wife, and it wasn't a pretty one by
any means.

   Henderson all but confirmed her suspicions with her next words.
"The guys she had wrapped around her finger," she said, lowering her
voice slightly.  Her eyes sparkled with enjoyment as she related the
story.  "I heard she even had a try at Patterson himself!  You know,
career advancement.  She was desperate to get into the ISU, you
know."

   Scully gave her an astonished and disbelieving look.  "Seriously?
Why the hell didn't he report her?"

   "Oh!"  The other woman shrugged.  "You know Patterson."

   "No, I don't.  I met him for the first time tonight."

   "He probably just blasted her out," Henderson said casually.  "He
hates women - I mean, how many female agents are there in the ISU?"

   Scully already knew the answer to that one; none.  There was only
ever a dozen profilers in the ISU at any one time, as it was.

   "Patterson believes women have one use, and trust me - being a
functioning member of the FBI isn't it."

   That explained a lot.  Scully looked across at Mulder again, and
wondered how on earth he had survived, working with that man for so
long.  According to him, he hadn't - or at least, not well.

   Henderson drifted onto other topics, and after five minutes or so
Scully excused herself, making her way out to the Ladies' Room.  It
was cooler out there - the function room was appallingly hot and
stuffy, probably because of the sheer number of people crowded into
it - and she paused to fan overheated cheeks, and to check if her
make-up and hair were still in place.

   The bathroom was temporarily empty of clients except herself.  She
looked into the long mirrors over the hand-basins and caught sight of
the delicate little locket around her neck.  Smiling softly, Scully
touched it, wondering what had suddenly prompted Mulder to buy her
such a beautiful gift.

   "Pretty," a rough voice said, and she nearly leapt out of her skin
as a tall figure stepped out of the shadows behind the swing door
leading into the room.

   "Jesus, Jack!" she gasped, taking a step back and suddenly wishing
that she wasn't alone in there.  "This is the Ladies' Room, for
crying out loud!  What do you think you're doing?"

   "Trying to get a moment alone with you," Willis retorted.  He
pushed the door shut and stepped towards her.  "You've been avoiding
me all evening - "

   "No, I haven't," she said, quite truthfully.  She'd forgotten he
was even going to be at the ball.  She eyed his stocky figure warily
and prayed for someone, anyone, to come in and give her an excuse to
get the hell out of there.

   "Yes, you have.  And you turn up with *him* ... although I might
have known!"

   *He's talking like a bad novel,* she thought wonderingly.  *And
he's drunk.*  She could smell it on his breath, even from a few feet
away, and felt a niggle of disgust.

   "Did *he* give you that?" he demanded.

   "Did who give me what?" she retorted, suddenly feeling very tired.
She didn't need this.

   "*That* - "  Willis reached out sharply and grabbed the locket.
"I didn't give you that."

   Scully slapped his hand hard, but daren't do anything rougher to
free the little pendant in case he snapped the delicate chain.
"Strange as it may seem, Jack, I *do* possess jewellery you didn't
give me.  Let go - "

   He ignored her, roughly fumbling the tiny clasp undone so that the
locket sprang open.  This angered Scully more than anything else, for
she suddenly realised that she hadn't even had a chance to open the
locket and see for herself what was inside.  It might be nothing at
all, but that wasn't the point.  She dug her nails into the back of
his hand, forcing him to release it, but not before he'd got a look
and let out an exclamation that was mostly a jeer.

   "Aw, sweet!  Half-man Mulder sends his love and kisses!"

   That was it.  Before she even knew what she was doing, Scully
swung her hand and gave Willis a resounding slap across the face that
sent him staggering.

   And right on cue, Henderson and a bunch of her cronies walked in
on them.  There was a stunned silence as six pairs of wide and
intrigued eyes fixed on the scene in front of them.

   Scully didn't care.  She was tired and overwhelmingly angry,
infuriated that Willis could have precipitated a scene like this.
Well, he might have started it, but she would finish it and in a way
he wouldn't like.

   "I've had it with you, Jack!" she snapped, uncaring of her
audience.  "I've had it with your endless phone-calls and e-mails,
and phoney cases.  Quit trailing me like a bad smell and get the hell
out of my life!  It's over, do you hear me?  It was over two years
ago, and I'm fed up with you harassing me.  If I get one more late
night call from you, just *one*, I'm going to go straight to Skinner,
and to hell with what anyone says!"

   She turned on her heel and pushed past an open-mouthed Henderson,
all but running out into the lobby.

   Mulder was standing outside the function room door, looking for
her.  When he saw her hurried exit from the bathroom, he quickly
approached, concerned.  "Scully?"

   She discovered to her increased annoyance that she was shaking
slightly.  "Mulder, I want to go home - *now*."

   He took one look at her face and nodded.  "Sure.  I'll get your
coat; you go wait by the main entrance."

XXXX

   To Scully's relief, Mulder didn't ask any questions.  He retrieved
the car and ushered her into it like a princess, then quickly pulled
away from the hotel.  While he was occupied with that, Scully tried
to wrestle her emotions back under control.  She couldn't believe
that Willis had actually accosted her like that in a relatively
public place, and felt irrationally angry that he'd laid hands on her
locket.  Against her will, her fingers kept sneaking to it, stroking
the satiny surface of the gold as though wiping away an actual stain.

   When she'd failed to say anything for almost ten minutes, Mulder
shot a concerned glance at her and made a decision.  He wasn't going
to deliver her back to her parents' house in this state, so he took
the next left turn and drove on until he spotted somewhere promising.

   Scully started out of her reverie to discover that they were
pulling up in front of an all-night diner of the kind she'd briefly
fantasised about earlier.  She turned to look at him, surprised.
"Mulder - ?"

   "I don't know about you, but I could do with something a little
more substantial to eat than a couple of breadsticks and a lettuce
leaf," he said gently, and she was surprised to feel a hesitant smile
on her lips.

   "Good idea."

   Despite it not being quite midnight, the diner was nearly half
full with a varied assortment of customers.  It wasn't a particularly
prepossessing place, but Scully sank into a corner booth with a
feeling of intense relief and watched with a half smile as Mulder
energetically divested himself of both bow tie and cummerbund, and
undid the top two buttons of his dress shirt with a sigh of relief.
A tired-looking waitress appeared, and took his order of two
cheeseburgers with double fries and coffee, without blinking at their
unusual dress.

   When she was gone, Mulder leaned over the table and took Scully's
hands gently.  "Are you okay?" he asked.

   She looked down at their linked hands, and felt him squeeze her
fingers gently.  Scully bit her lip.  "I'm fine."

   "What happened?"

   She shrugged, but the look on his face said that he wasn't going
to drop it, so she sighed.  "It was Jack."

   To her surprise he merely nodded.  "I thought so.  I saw him
follow you out of the room, but I was stuck by the bar with Patterson
and Skinner or I'd have come after you sooner.  What happened?"

   "He made a grab for my locket - " her fingers went to it again,
"so I hit him.  That's about it, really."

   Scully felt a surge of anger again as she remembered, but when she
looked up she was surprised to see Mulder grinning at her.  "What?"
she demanded, bewildered.

   "I hope you broke the bastard's nose," he told her, eyes dancing.

   For a moment, she stared at him incredulously; then a reluctant
giggle surfaced.  It wasn't funny, really, but on the other hand ....
"Cathy Henderson and some others heard me chew him out," she told
him.  "I guess it'll be all over the Hoover building by Monday."  She
leaned back in the plastic seat with a sigh.  "Damn!  I should have
just kicked him in the balls while I had the chance."

   The choke of delighted laughter from Mulder dragged another weary
chuckle out of her, and by the time their burgers arrived, she was
feeling considerably better.

   "He didn't damage it, did he?" she asked Mulder, polishing her
fingers fastidiously on a paper napkin after finishing her meal.   "I
was afraid he'd snap the chain."

   Mulder wiped his own hands and leaned over to take a look.  "No,
it's okay ....  He didn't hurt you?"  His index finger traced a
gentle line around her neck under the chain.

   Scully's eyes met his for a pregnant moment, but she merely said,
"No, he just opened it.  I was mad because I realised I hadn't looked
inside myself yet."   She reached around the back of her neck and
pulled the clasp around so she could get at it.  "If you'll help me
undo this ...."

   Mulder's hand gripped hers gently.  "Leave it," he told her
quietly.  "Look at it when you come to us for Chanukah."

   There was another pause, longer this time, and Scully began to
feel decidedly warm.  Mulder took both her hands in his and stared
down at them for a moment; and when he looked up at her again, there
was a look in his eyes which she'd never seen before.

   "Scully," he began awkwardly, "I know this isn't exactly the best
place or time, but ...."  He hesitated, looking away for a moment,
then turned back to her again, swallowing hard.  His eyes, normally a
warm hazel, had turned a curious dark green in the dim light of the
diner.  Scully stared into them, mesmerised, and for a moment didn't
register what he said next.

   "Scully - will you marry me?"

XXXX

   Scully rubbed weary eyes and drearily watched as coffee slowly
dripped from the filter into the jug below.  She dragged herself out
of the kitchen chair briefly, to collect a mug, sugar and cream-jug
from the refrigerator, then poured herself a cup of the comfortingly
dark and aromatic liquid.    It wasn't going to help her sleeping
problem any, but she needed the bite of mocha on her tongue.

   "Pour me one as well," her mother's voice said gently and Scully
started, staring up at Maggie Scully surprise.

   "Mom, what are you doing up?"

   "I heard you moving around and couldn't sleep myself."

   Scully didn't believe the latter part of her mother's explanation
in the slightest, but went to fetch a second mug anyway.  Maggie sat
down at the kitchen table and watched silently for a moment as her
younger daughter poured coffee and cream.

   "So," she said finally.  "You didn't get around to telling me how
your evening was."

   Scully shrugged, sitting down again and picking up her mug.  "It
was the usual flat, boring, FBI affair.  Poor Mulder got picked on by
every agent he ever offended and Jerry got embarrassingly drunk."

   Maggie raised a brow.  "Is that why Fox looked so worn out when
you both got back?"

   "I guess," Scully replied, after a tiny hesitation.

   Her mother cocked her head on one side.  "You didn't seem very
happy either, sweetheart.  Was everything okay?"

   Scully forced a smile onto her lips.  "Oh, it was nothing, Mom!  I
ran into Jack, that's all, and he upset me a little.  Mulder brought
me home straight after - it was getting late, anyway."

   Given that the FBI Christmas Ball had been known to linger on into
the early hours of the morning in the past, and that Dana and Mulder
had arrived back not long after eleven, Maggie was understandably
unconvinced by this explanation.  She was reluctant to be nosy, but
something had to be bothering her daughter seriously for her to be
losing sleep over it.

   "Nothing's wrong between you and Fox, is it?" she asked finally,
deciding to be blunt.

   "No, of course not!"

   "It's just that you seemed a little ... uneasy with each other
when you came in.  And you seemed to spend a long time talking to him
outside before he left."

   Scully sighed.  There was no point in trying to hide anything from
her mother; she could smell trouble a mile off.   "Mom, really - it's
nothing."

   "I don't think it is, Dana," Maggie told her gently, "but if you
really don't want to tell me, that's okay."

   "No, I just ...."  She hesitated again and looked down into her
mug, tracing her fingertip lightly around the rim.  "Mom - he asked
me to marry him, and I had to say no," she said in a rush.  "And he's
not very happy, as you can probably guess."

   Well!  Maggie leaned back in her chair, and tried to think of
something to say.  "That's - quite a surprise," she ventured finally.
"I guess you weren't expecting it?"

   "I wasn't, but I should have been," Scully admitted.  "It wasn't
likely while he was still living with his mother, but now he and Sam
are on their own and she's out of the picture ....  I should have
realised he was beginning to think along those lines."

   "You can't know people inside out, honey."

   "No, but I know Mulder, Mom.  In retrospect, I can see that he was
building up to this; he has a really old-fashioned streak, and I
think having Sam has domesticated him."  Then she grinned in spite of
herself.  "As much as someone as independent as Mulder *can* be
domesticated," she added ruefully.

   Maggie gave her a thoughtful smile.  "Do you really think he's
independent?" she asked.  "I would have said he was rather the
opposite."

   Scully gave her a wide-eyed look.  "Mulder?  You've got to be
kidding!  Mom, this is the man I seem to spend large amounts of
Bureau time fishing out of military custody and defending to my
boss - and he doesn't even work for the Bureau himself!"

   "Yes," Maggie agreed tranquilly.  "It's nice that he knows he can
rely on you like that."

   Scully shut her mouth, unsure what she could say which would
counter this.

   "You haven't told me why you turned him down yet," her mother
added, after a moment.

   "Lots of reasons," Scully sighed, "but mostly because I don't
really know whether it would work.  I've known him for less than a
year, and although I'm very fond of him - although I *think* I love
him - I don't know if it would be such a good idea to be married to
him.  There are issues I don't think we've even considered yet.  It's
too soon."

   *Easy to say all that now,* she added to herself silently.  *Why
wasn't it so easy to say earlier, to him?*  Trying to convince Mulder
that her rejection of his proposal wasn't a total rejection of him as
a person and lover had been so difficult.  His ego, so far as
personal relationships was concerned, was very fragile.

   Maggie considered her daughter's downcast face and wondered what
she could say.  She didn't know Fox Mulder well enough to venture an
informed opinion ... although having spent an entertaining evening in
the company of his son, she certainly felt well disposed towards him.
Although it cost her a guilty pang to admit it, Sam Mulder was a
pleasure to take care of and wholly unlike her own two grandsons in
that respect.

   "You say there are issues you haven't considered yet - what do you
mean?" she asked finally.

   "Well, there's Sam for a start," Scully said candidly.  "Much as I
would love to be his stepmother, would it be the right move for
*him*?"

   "I don't see how it could be the wrong one," Maggie protested.
"Fox may be doing a wonderful job of raising him on his own, honey,
but there's going to come a time when that little boy wants to know
why he doesn't have a mommy like everyone else.  There's no
substitute for two parents."

   "I know - but Mulder's raising him Jewish, Mom."

   "Would that be a problem for you?"

   "No - but I don't know whether having a Catholic stepmother might
be a problem for Sam later."

   "Well, I'm not convinced about that," her mother told her frankly.
"It sounds like you're looking for excuses to me."

   "Maybe I am," Scully admitted, sighing.  "I'm looking for rational
excuses for irrational feelings that I can't express."

   Maggie leaned across the table and squeezed her hands gently.
"That's different, then.  If it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel
right, and there's nothing more to be said."

   Scully smiled faintly.  "It's not that it doesn't feel right,
Mom - it's that it doesn't feel right *now*.  Maybe later ...."

   "Does he know about - ?"

   "No."  Scully winced.  "There's never been a good time to tell
him."

   "There probably never will be, you know," Maggie said softly,
sympathetically.

   "I know, but now most definitely is the wrong time.  He'll assume
that's my main reason for saying no, and I'll have double the
problems convincing him otherwise."

   "Well, I can't argue with that."  Maggie sat back again, and tried
to think of a way to turn the topic.  Dana's face was getting a
familiar pinched look of distress.  "So ... will he still be coming
at Christmas?" she asked finally.

   Scully's face looked a little blank.  "You know, I hadn't thought
of that," she said, after a moment.  "I'd better find out."  It
occurred to her that this might disrupt Mulder's plans for Chanukah
as well, and she felt a fresh wave of depression.

   "I hope they will come," her mother said softly.  "That little boy
is a darling, and I wouldn't mind getting to know his father better
too.  Under the circumstances."

   Dana smiled faintly, getting the message.

XXXX

   Mulder was lying on his couch, watching a Chinese movie on cable
with the sound off and the subtitles on, when he heard a light knock
at his door.  Surprised, he looked at his watch and was amazed to
discover that it was nearly 3 am.  Who the hell ...?

   When he dragged himself to the door and opened it, he found Scully
outside.  She was dressed in leggings and a huge sloppy sweater with
a steel grey parka over the top, and looked apprehensive.

   As for Mulder, he wasn't sure how he felt about her being there.
They had parted on rather strained terms, despite Scully's best
efforts, and the events of the evening had been the cause of him
being wide-awake at such an hour.  He blinked at her uncertainly, and
she bit her lip.

   "Mulder ....  Can I come in?"

   "I - of course."  He stepped back to let her pass him, then
secured the door again.  They stood just inside, staring at each
other.  In spite of himself, he felt a surge of warmth and affection
for her, seeing the anxiety and distress in her eyes.  "It's okay,
Scully," he told her.  "I'm not sitting in here with a gun to my
head."

   "I know, but - "

   "Hold it a second," he interrupted.  "Come inside, and let me take
your coat."

   When she walked into the living room, Scully glanced around her,
unsure what to say.  Her eye fell on the TV.  "What are you
watching?" she asked rather lamely, but he seemed glad of an excuse
to make small talk for a moment or two.

   "Some Chinese thing - "Raise the Red Lantern"?"

   "I've seen that, it's good."

   "I don't know - there's not a lot going on.  A girl just pretended
to be pregnant and got caught out, so they covered up all the
lanterns outside her house."  Mulder gave her a nervous grin.  "Beats
me why.  It's got to be the most original pro-life demonstration I've
seen yet."

   She smiled, but it was weak.  "Mulder ...."

   "No, Scully - please."  His tone was strained.  "Let's just forget
that I said anything.  It was a stupid thing to do, anyway."

   "No it wasn't."  She reached out and took his hands firmly.  "Look
at me, Mulder.  Please."  He reluctantly obeyed, and she tried
desperately to put all her sincerity into her face and voice.  "It
wasn't stupid at all - it was the most wonderful thing you could have
asked, and I so want you to realise that I didn't say no because I
don't love you.  It's not that I don't want to marry you, do you
understand?  It's just that now is the wrong time."

   "Why?"  Mulder tried hard not to make that sound bitter, but he
genuinely didn't understand what the problem was.

   "Because nothing is settled for either of us, least of all you.
You've just had a bust-up with your mom and had to move out.  You've
got Sam to consider, too, and you know he hasn't settled yet.  And as
for me ...."  Scully sighed.  "I don't know where my job is going
right now, and I've got an ex who seems hell-bent on making trouble.
It's not a good mix."

   He still didn't look totally convinced, though, and she wondered
what she could say to make him see.  "Mulder - where do you see
yourself in five years' time?"

   "I don't ...."  He looked uncomfortable.  "I don't know.  The
same, I guess, except that Sam will be at school, but - "

   "Be honest with me," Scully interrupted.  "Do you still see
yourself teaching at Georgetown?"

   She hit a tender spot there, because they both knew that Mulder
didn't really find teaching satisfying.  He gave her a look of weary
amusement.  "What's your point?"

   "The point, Mulder, is that you never really wanted to leave the
Bureau, did you?"

   "Scully - "

   "*Did* you?"

   "No," he admitted.

   "And I think in your heart of hearts you always hoped you'd be
able to go back there someday.  Probably when Sam was at school."

   "I - "  Mulder gave her a frustrated look.  "Dammit, I don't know!
I never thought about it in that much detail."

   "Think about it now," Scully told him quietly.  "If you went back,
where would you want to work, ideally?  Not with Patterson, that's
for sure."

   "You *know* where I'd want to work," he told her wearily.

   "And you know it would be impossible if we were married.  It would
probably be impossible even now."

   "You think I'd change my mind about marrying you because of that?"
he demanded.  "Dana, you're more important to me than the damn
Bureau!"

   "I don't think that at all," she replied steadily, "but I think if
we allowed ourselves to become carried away now, it could become an
issue later.  If you want the unvarnished truth, Mulder, I think we
don't know each other well enough yet to take such a big step as
marriage.  There are probably other things that could be a problem
between us that we simply don't know about yet.  We need time - time
to get to know each other better, time to work out any potential
difficulties.

   "Which is why I said no.  I'm not turning you down forever, just
for now."  Scully paused and looked at him searchingly.  He had that
hurt little boy look on his face, not in a manipulative way, but
simply because that was how he felt.  He was probably still feeling
rejected, but there wasn't much she could say that would change that.

   The silence built between them for a few minutes until Scully
finally realised that Mulder wasn't going to say anything else.  Her
shoulders slumped and she reached for her coat.  "I'd better go
home."

   She reached the door before a miserable voice said, "Scully -
don't go .... "

   Scully paused and sighed inwardly.  For the first time, she began
to wonder just how needy Mulder might really be.  Her mother had
observed that he wasn't as independent as he seemed, and although her
mother didn't even particularly know Mulder, Scully had to wonder
just how right she was.  Emotionally, he was difficult to fathom;
although he maintained a wall of glib, black humour and apparent
unconcern, underneath he was a seething mass of insecurities.
Although he would undoubtedly deny it, his proposal to her was almost
certainly a part of this; it wasn't just his old-fashioned streak
prompting him to do things the 'right' way, but some desperate need
to know that he wasn't going to lose her.

   And Scully, already strung out and tormented by one possessive
lover, began to wonder what she was getting herself into.  Jack
Willis was prompted almost entirely by alpha-male ideas of ownership;
Mulder would never be so arrogant, but his need for reassurance might
prove just as selfish and insidious.

   Or it might not.

   There was only one way to find out.  She turned around with a
sigh, and looked at him.  "Mulder, we've got to get past this," she
told him quietly, but with a determined note in her voice.  "You've
got to realise that just because I said no, it doesn't mean it's all
over between us.  And you've got to get used to the idea that I'm not
going to walk away from you."

   He twitched.  "I never - "

   "You didn't have to say it," she interrupted gently, "but it's
definitely there, believe me."  She walked back to him and reached
up, gently pulling his head down until their foreheads were resting
against each other.  "I'm not Phoebe, you know," she told him
conversationally.

   Mulder breathed a tiny, shaky laugh.  "No, that you're not."

   "I'm not going anywhere.  We have plenty of time."

   "Don't go."

   Scully drew in an exasperated breath.  "Mulder - "

   "No, I mean don't go tonight.  Stay here."

   "I'm not going anywhere.  Not even tonight."

XXXX

   The countdown to Christmas had started, as far as Scully was
concerned, when her mother announced that both her brothers had
confirmed they would be coming home for the holiday, complete with
wives and families.  That meant two things to Scully: firstly, that
she wouldn't have to worry about buying the kind of presents which
could be trusted to the mail; and secondly, that she *would* have to
get shopping now and that the choice had consequently become more
difficult now that she couldn't use weight constraints as an excuse.

   On top of that, she had to get presents for Mulder and Sam.  Which
meant a trip to the mall.  In the end, Scully scooped up her sister
and made what she hoped would be a flying visit there the last
Saturday before Christmas.

   In the event, of course, it wasn't nearly that quick and simple.
She and Melissa spent hours trawling in and out of various stores,
looking for that perfect gift, and once they got into the toy shops -
filled with shrieking, squalling children - all hope seemed lost.

   "Doesn't it make you want one of your own?" Melissa said
sarcastically at one point, firmly detaching a fair-haired toddler
who apparently thought her knees were a climbing frame.

   Scully looked wry.  "I can only assume that you must feel
differently about your own kids."

   "Or your boyfriend's," her sister suggested, amused.

   "You make Mulder sound like someone a bit shady, who I met behind
the school bike sheds," Scully told her irritably.

   "Meeting him in a cheap motel in Oregon, during a UFO
investigation, *isn't* shady?"

   "It was not a UFO investigation!"

   "We're drifting from the point here," Melissa said.  "The fact is
that you're quite besotted with that guy's kid.  It's got to be love,
because you only tolerate Bill Junior's boys."

   Scully grimaced.  "Matt and Jimmy are spoiled, Missy.  Even Mom
admits that she's not looking forward to spending three days with
them *and* the rest of the family.  I feel so sorry for Tara when
they come over - every time she says no, Bill says something
different.  The boys are never going to mind her when they get older.
They only take notice of me because they know I'll stand up to Bill
if there's trouble."

   "Which is what Tara ought to do," Melissa pointed out, "although
if she'd ever shown signs of standing up to him, Bill would never
have married her in the first place."

   Scully couldn't disagree with that.  She hoped she valued all her
family the way she should, but Bill was enough to make her scream.
Where the hell he'd got his attitude from, she couldn't imagine, but
he was every inch the stern and unbending patriarch her father had
never been.

   Not surprisingly, Bill Junior and his father didn't see eye to
eye.  Scully had had a number of heated arguments with her father in
the past when her views clashed with his, but she infinitely
preferred the arguments to the stiff disapproval that he bestowed on
his oblivious eldest son.

   "So Mulder is coming on Christmas Day?" Melissa broke in on her
thoughts.

   Scully nodded, wondering if her sister knew about the 'situation'
with Mulder.  She knew better than to ask her mother not to say
anything, but hoped she'd exercised the option of saying nothing all
the same.  Not that she minded Melissa knowing; so much as she feared
Bill Junior or her aunts finding out.  "They're coming after lunch,"
she said.  "I think he's trying to minimise the excitement Christmas
might give Sam, and seeing all our family unwrapping presents
wouldn't be kind.  He'll be getting a lot of stuff at Chanukah after
all, so obviously Mulder isn't giving him anything else."

   "But you are?"

   "I'm doing both, although it'll be something small for Chanukah.
Mulder and I agreed that, although he doesn't know I'm getting Sam a
Christmas present as well."  She smiled at her sister.  "I've got an
idea about that, but I need to talk to Ahab first.  The Chanukah
present is the one I haven't solved yet ... this cross-festival gift
giving is a problem!"

   "Hmm.  Oh, hey - how about this!"  Melissa picked up a small
clockwork caterpillar made of wood.  It had five separate, rounded
sections, big eyes and a pair of thick antenna, and when she turned
it over, Scully could see that it ran on wheels.

   "Sam would love that!" she exclaimed, pleased.

   Eventually they left the shop and tried hunting around for
presents for the menfolk in their lives.

    "What kind of stuff does Mulder like?" Melissa demanded after
about an hour, fed up of brooding around menswear stores.

   "Aliens," Scully told her absently.  She was staring at a rack of
novelty ties, but something told her that even if he hadn't got one
or all of these monstrosities, he probably didn't wear a tie much
these days anyway.  And in any case, he didn't need encouragement in
the bad-taste area.

   "Get him a copy of a sci-fi classic," was the impatient response
to this.  "'Close Encounters' or something like that."

   "He already has most of them."

   "Tickets to a Planetarium?"

   "I think he already gets subsidised access because he's a
lecturer," Scully replied doubtfully.

   "Sheesh ....  Then just buy yourself a new silk teddy and tell him
to enjoy unwrapping his present!"

   "Melissa!"

   "We're going to be here all day and probably all night if you
don't make your mind up, Dana," her sister complained.

   "Haven't you got to buy something for Chris?" Scully suggested
pointedly.

   "I've already got his present," her sister shrugged.  "Anyway, I'm
starving.  For Christ's sake, let's at least get something to eat
before we go any further."

   Scully scanned the crowded mall doubtfully.  "We're never going to
find anywhere in this crush," she observed pessimistically, and she
was right.  Most of the cafes and fast-food bars were crowded to
bursting point, and some even had growing queues outside.

   "I know a place," Melissa sighed finally, "but whether you'll like
it is another matter.  Let's get out of here - we can come back after
lunch."

   The place in question turned out to be a tiny little New Age shop
in a back alley, with a restaurant at the back of the store.  It was
vegetarian of course, but Scully was hungry enough not to care and
she had to admit that the mixed pepper salad with feta was delicious.

   They finished up with tea and slices of rich carrot cake, then
took a look around the shop.  There was a surprisingly large
second-hand book section where Scully was pleased to find a copy of
the original 1970 edition of "Chariots of the Gods" that Mulder had
been talking about a few days previously, and Melissa found a few
chunks of crystal which she wanted; then they exited onto the street.

   It was when they were passing the shop next door that Scully had a
sudden brainwave.

   It was a tropical fish dealer.

XXXX

   "Think he'll like it?"

   "God, I hope so! I haven't a clue what else to get him if he
doesn't."  Scully stepped back to view the fish tank, and flipped a
smile over her shoulder at her father.  "Thanks for letting me put
them in here for now.  You're sure it's not a bother?"

   "Be something to look at."  Captain Scully stooped to peer at the
Angelfish swimming languidly around their new, if temporary, home on
his bookcase.  "Hell, if I get used to them, I may just get a tankful
myself!"

   Scully chuckled, watching him affectionately.  "Ahab, if you ever
feel the need for a fish tank, just let me know and I'll buy you one,
but I'll make sure to fill it with toy boats, not fish.  You'd be
much happier with those."

   "You may just be right."  He straightened up and gave her a
reminiscent smile.  "We had fun on your grandmother's pond, didn't
we?"

   Scully tucked her hand through his arm, nodding.  "Spent hours
sailing that old boat of Bill Junior's - do you remember him breaking
the mast and throwing it away?  You fixed it for me and we repainted
it - "

   "And you renamed her 'Mary-Lou' after your rag-doll.  We had that
grand christening with a bottle of Pepsi ...."  Captain Scully stared
into space for a moment, then gave her a sudden, oddly saddened
smile.  "I gave Bill's boys a boat each for their birthdays this
year, you know."

   Scully did know.  "Mom told me."

   "They weren't really interested - didn't have motors," he said
wryly.

   "Kids are different these days, Ahab," she said gently,
irrationally angry with her elder brother - as if he could do
anything about the fickleness of children, even his own.  But it hurt
her to see the look on her father's face.  It would have been a slap
in the face to him, that his grandsons weren't able to appreciate the
toys he gave them, toys that had given their aunts and uncle so much
enjoyment.

   "So ...."  Captain Scully quickly changed the subject,
uncomfortable with too much emotion being displayed.  "Your mother
seems to like this Mulder.  The boy certainly seems to be sound
enough."

   Scully gave her father a sideways look.  "You met Sam?"

   He gave a soft hrumph of laughter.  "He introduced himself!"

   "Sounds like Sam!  He's not backwards in coming forward."

   "Marched in here like he owned the place."  But Captain Scully
looked amused, and she wasn't surprised; he would like Sam's
self-confidence and energy.  It was another disappointment in Bill
Junior's boys, for they were both in awe enough of their grandfather
that they would never consider entering his study, let alone
uninvited.  "We chatted for quite a while."

   "Ah!  Did he tell you the saga of moving out of Grandma's house,
or did he give you the life story of his Christmas tree?" Scully
smiled.

   "Both."  Captain Scully chuckled reminiscently.  "I wondered
though - I thought your mother told me they were Jewish.  What's he
doing with a tree?"

   His daughter fought a losing battle to hide a soft smile.  She'd
asked Mulder the same question, and he'd looked so guilty ....  "Sam
wanted one," she shrugged, "and Mulder couldn't think of a way to
explain properly to him - not that Sam really cares what it's for, he
just wanted a tree with lights on.  And that's literally all it is!"

   Her father laughed at this, then patted her hand and released it.
"Come on, let's get that pump working before your mother serves up
dinner."

   "Just a minute, Ahab - you've reminded me, I need your advice on
something ...."

   Captain Scully raised a brow at his daughter, but allowed her to
draw him back into the room.

XXXX

   "You'll be sorry you came," Mulder observed darkly, as he took
Scully's coat the next day.

   "Why?" she smiled, amused at his expression.

   "He knows he's got a present," the long-suffering parent
explained, "and he knows he'll get it after we light the candles, so
he's been pestering me to light them all afternoon.  I had this all
yesterday and the day before, too ...."

   Scully stifled a laugh.  "You'd better find me somewhere to put
this quickly, then!" she told him, displaying a brightly-wrapped box.

   Mulder groaned in alarm and hastily stuffed it behind the coats
hanging in the hall closet.  There was a sudden scrambling noise, and
he barely shut the door before Sam came hurtling out of the living
room.

   "Day!"   He hurled himself at her, and Scully pretended to
stagger, laughing.

   Another small face appeared around the edge of the door; a little
girl with long dark braids who looked startlingly like a picture
Scully had once seen of Mulder's sister, Samantha.  She saw the
stranger, and retreated shyly.  Scully shot Mulder a look of
surprised query, and his expression managed to become even more wry.

   "That's Sarah.  Annie's here," he explained.

   "Oh!"

   "Sam told her you were coming, and she doesn't think men can make
latkes like Grandma could, so ...."

   Scully grinned.  Mulder's cousin Annie was clearly a woman after
Maggie Scully's heart - although she'd kind of worked that out when
she met her previously.  "Where is she?"

   "In the kitchen, doing something to a pile of potatoes with a
grater - "

   Scully walked through to the kitchen, to be greeted effusively by
Annie.  "I'm going to have to introduce you to my mother," she
commented, accepting an invitation to take control of the grater.

   "Any time you like," Annie said cheerfully, as she searched the
cupboards for a mixing bowl.  "Does she make latkes?"

   "I don't know, but she's always up to a challenge."  Scully peered
at the heap of rapidly discolouring potato mush under the grater.  It
looked vile.

   Annie saw her expression and laughed.  "I know, it looks like
hell!  But it doesn't matter.  I hope you're handy with a frying pan,
Dana, because you're going to have to cook these."

   "Me?!"

   "You don't think she's going to let me cook in my own kitchen, do
you?" Mulder commented sourly from the doorway.

   "You - out!" his cousin retorted, waving a tablespoon
threateningly.  "Do something useful, and wake my husband up.  The
pair of you can take the kids out for half an hour while I show Dana
Grandma's secret recipe."

   "The creaking sound you can hear is Grandma turning in her grave
at Annie's cooking," Mulder advised Scully, but he wisely retreated
all the same.  She heard mumbled conversation in the living room, and
after a few minutes a tall blond man appeared in the doorway, wearing
a similar expression to Mulder's.

   "We're taking the kids over to the park," he sighed.

   "Good," Annie said absently.  She was measuring flour carefully.
"Say hello to Dana."

   He grinned at Scully and rolled his eyes.  "Hello Dana!"

   "My husband, Simon," Annie said in an aside to Scully, and she
made a shoo-ing gesture at him.  "Go on!  And no longer than half an
hour, mind - don't forget we've got to get home before sunset."

   "Like I'll forget," he grumbled, and wandered off.

   "Men," his wife said acidly.  "No use at all!"

   Watching her energetic perambulations around the kitchen with a
fascinated eye, Scully tried not to laugh.

XXXX

    When Mulder, Simon and the children returned, they found Scully
flipping a latke in the frying pan with a fair appearance of
confidence.  Annie was watching critically.

    "See?  Nice and thin," she was saying.  "There's nothing worse
than a stodgy latke."  She looked around and caught Sam stretching up
on tiptoe to see what was on the kitchen table.  "Here - try it out
on Sam," she told Scully.

   "Proof of the pudding?" Scully asked humorously.  She dished up
the pancake and watched as Annie spooned apple sauce onto it.

   "Here, Sammie, see what Dana made?"

   Sam didn't have to be asked twice.  In short order, there was
nothing left but his sticky fingers and a splotch of sauce.  This was
enough to lure shy Sarah into the kitchen with a protest of "Me too!"

   "You've got the hang of it," Annie confirmed to Scully with a nod.
Then she turned to her offspring, all three of whom were crowding
into the small kitchen hopefully.  "No, kids, get your things.
Grandma Rosen's promised to make latkes for you later."

   "You aren't staying?" Scully said, surprised.

   "I'd love to, but we've promised Simon's family we'll be going
there tonight.  I just wanted to make sure Fox didn't poison you!"
Annie threw Mulder a roguish look, to which he sighed exaggeratedly.

   "Strange how healthy Sam and I both are, considering how terrible
my cooking is ... in *your* opinion."

   "It's a mystery to me too," Annie agreed.  She took her coat and
scarf from her husband and put them on, then gave Mulder a hug.
"Have a good party, and we'll see you and Sam tomorrow.  Dana, you're
coming to us for dinner sometime soon, you hear?  And remember - keep
the oil really hot!"

   Simon just gave Mulder and Scully a look of wry apology and
bundled his wife and children out of the door.

   Mulder heaved a sigh of relief.  "Sorry about that.  She just
*arrived* and took over.  She has this urge to manage things."

   Based on some of the comments Annie had made while the men were
absent, Scully suspected her motives were more ulterior than that,
but she merely smiled.  "Do I make the rest of these latkes now, or
do we wait until later?" she asked.

   Mulder glanced at the clock.  "We've got just over half an hour
before we light the candles ....  Let's do them, it'll keep Sam
occupied.  I'll give you a hand."

   "You can't cook," she pointed out mischievously.

   "Hah!"   He wrinkled his nose at her then made a quick grab for
his son, who had climbed on a chair beside the kitchen table and was
enthusiastically stirring the bowl of apple sauce with his hands.

XXXX

    "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast
sanctified us by thy commandments, and commanded us to kindle the
light of Chanukah.  Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the
universe, who wroughtest miracles for our fathers in days of old, at
this season."

   The graceful silver Menorah, Mulder had told Scully, had been made
by his great-grandfather in Holland at the turn of the century.  It
was one of a pair that his grandparents had brought with them to the
US when they emigrated just before the war; the other one was in the
keeping of Annie's father, his Uncle Max.

   Having spoken the blessing, Mulder lit the shamas or 'servant'
candle, taking care to keep both it and the taper out of Sam's reach.
The little boy was standing on a chair in front of him where he could
get a good look at what was going on and Scully, standing to one
side, smiled as she saw Mulder gently discouraging Sam's attempt to
reach out and touch the flame.  She glanced briefly out of the
window, across the street, and noticed interestedly that amid a
myriad of windows decorated with fake snow and flashing lights was
one other sporting a newly lit Menorah.  Mulder obviously wasn't the
only observant Jew on the block tonight.

   Mulder had other things on his mind.  He lit the first candle from
the shamas.  "We kindle these lights on account of the miracles, the
deliverances and the wonders which thou didst work for our fathers,
by means of thy holy priests.  During all the eight days of Chanukah
these lights are sacred, neither is it permitted us to make any
profane use of them; but we are only to look at them, in order that
we may give thanks unto thy name for thy miracles, thy deliverances
and thy wonders."

   For Scully's benefit he said the prayers in English, and secretly
felt a little guilty for being grateful for that; he heard the Hebrew
version every year when he visited his family for Chanukah, but
hearing it and *saying* it were two different things, and he wasn't
sure he would remember the Hebrew correctly.  He lit the second and
third candles, and carefully replaced the shamas in the central
bracket of the Menorah.

   However, the following chanted hymn Mulder remembered quite well,
it having always been a favourite part of the ceremony when he was
younger.  To his surprise Scully joined in with this, which quelled
any embarrassment he might have felt about his rather rough voice,
and the hymn was rendered even more enjoyable by Sam happily humming
an off-key accompaniment.  The significance of Chanukah might not
mean a lot to him yet, but he knew a singalong when he heard one.

   Afterwards, Sam brought out his wooden dreidl to show Scully, and
she produced a couple of bags of chocolate coins so they could play
with it.  He pestered Mulder for his present, which reminded her of
the parcel languishing in the hall closet, and as she was retrieving
it she remembered the other, smaller package hidden in the pocket of
her parka.

   "What, you thought I wouldn't get you a present too?" she said,
seeing his look of surprise as she handed it over.

   "It's just ... I haven't got anything for you," Mulder replied,
embarrassed.  "I was going to wait until Christmas Day."

   Scully seated herself back on the floor beside him.  "Yes you
have.  You've already given it to me."  He looked at her blankly, so
she pulled down the collar of her high-necked sweater and touched the
locket he'd given her the night of the FBI ball.

   He flushed.  "I forgot that.  Did you ever open it?"

   "Not yet - "

   "Daddy, look!"  Sam had torn the wrapping-paper around his present
to confetti and was trying to make the wooden caterpillar move by
pushing it along the carpet.

   "No, sweetie, like this."  Scully found the discarded key in the
mound of paper scraps and fitted it into the winding slot underneath
the toy, giving it a couple of firm twists.  The caterpillar began to
roll across the floor, nodding its head and chiming.  Sam shouted
with excitement.

   Scully smiled and turned back to Mulder.  "You haven't opened
yours."

   "Neither have you," he pointed out reasonably.  "After you."

   "No, I insist - after *you*!"

   He sighed exaggeratedly, and began to peel the paper off.

   "It's only second-hand, I'm afraid," Scully confessed, "but you
*did* say you were looking for a copy, and that it had gone out of
print."

   Mulder fingered the copy of "Chariots of the Gods" delightedly.
"Scully, where did you find this?  I've been looking everywhere."

   "I have my sources," she smiled, "although I can't imagine what
difference the earlier edition makes ...."

   He looked up, eyes glinting wickedly.  "You'll just have to read
both versions, then, won't you?"

   She gave him a look of mock-horror.  "I'll pass!"

   "So," Mulder said, putting the book to one side for a moment, "are
you going to open that now?"  He nodded towards the locket.

   Scully fingered it, considering.  "Do you want me to?"  She hadn't
forgotten that he'd given her the locket on the same evening he'd
proposed.

   This point had apparently slipped his mind though, for he was
giving her a bemused half-smile.  "Of course."

   "Okay ...."  Scully took the locket off and fumbled with the tiny
catch.  "You didn't mean me to get into this, did you - Oh!"

   The locket only had one compartment for a photograph, and into
that Mulder had put a picture of her, himself and Sam, taken some
months previously when they'd gone to the park on the next block.
Scully was sitting on one of the swings with Sam on her lap, and
Mulder was pushing them both.

   She looked up at Mulder, a startled question in her eyes, and he
shrugged, smiling.  "Frohike gave it to me.  God knows when he took
it - or even if he was the photographer.  He wouldn't tell me."

   Scully shook her head, smiling, and examined the picture again for
a few moments before moving on to the other half of the locket.  On
that was a very simple inscription: To Dana, love Fox.  She gave
Mulder a sly sideways glance.  "'Fox'?"

   He reddened a little.  "There wasn't room for Mulder," he mumbled.

   "Uh-huh?!"   Scully grinned, but decided not to tease him any
further.  She closed the locket carefully and fastened it around her
neck once again.  Then she leaned across and kissed him, catching him
by surprise.  "Thank you."

   For some reason Mulder reddened even more.  He made to scratch his
head, but encountered the yarmulke and let his hand drop.  "You
hungry?" he asked her abruptly, and suddenly he was on his feet and
heading into the kitchen.

   Scully stared after him, bemused, then turned and encountered an
equally quizzical stare from Sam.  "What was that about?" she asked
him rhetorically in a soft voice.  The little boy took this as an
invitation and climbed into her lap, planting a kiss on her chin.

   Scully shook her head, smiling, and let the matter drop.

XXXX

   "Where we goin', Daddy?"

   Mulder knelt in front of his small son, concentrating on the fine
art of getting Sam's arms into the right sleeves of his coat and his
hands into the attached mittens.  "You know where we're going.  We're
going to tea with Dana's family."

   Sam's face lit up.  "Day!"

   "Yeah."  His father looked around, found the knitted woollen hat
that matched the mittens and pulled it over the fine, tufted brown
hair.  It probably wouldn't stay put for longer than it took to get
him to the car, but that was better than nothing.  Finally he zipped
the front of Sam's coat up and looked around him.  He picked up a
brightly-wrapped parcel.  "Are you going to carry her Christmas
present for me?"

   "Yes!"  Sam held out his arms and Mulder gave it to him.  "Try not
to drop it, Sunshine."  He stood up and began to put his own coat on.

   "Daddy?"

   "Hmm?"

   "Why don' we have Kissmuss?"

   Mulder paused.  *Rats.  He had to choose now to ask!*  "Because we
have Chanukah."  Sam squinted up at him, perplexed, and he tried to
think of a way to phrase it that the little boy would understand,
without going into the birth of Christ in detail. "Christmas is a
Christian thing, Sam, and we're Jewish.  Christians believe in God
like we do, but they worship Him differently."

   *Probably not the explanation Rabbi Neuberger would give him,* he
thought ruefully, *but hopefully it'll do for now.*

   Sam was happy with that, though, and was really more interested in
getting into the car and going.  "Let's go!"

   Mulder shut the door firmly behind him and followed Sam's skipping
figure down the passage and stairs and out to the car.  He had to
admit to himself that he was a little nervous about this visit to the
Scullys.

   *Be calm!* he told himself sternly.  *How bad could it be?*
Unfortunately, he had an idea just how bad - Christmas being the
season of family battles ....  *I've got to snap out of this idea
that all families are as weird as mine,* he thought.

   He strapped Sam into the back of the car, and got into the
driver's seat himself, beginning to warm up the engine gently.  There
wasn't any snow - yet - but it was still hellaciously cold and
although he'd been out in the car once today, it had been standing
long enough to become cold again.  He didn't much fancy a breakdown
on Christmas Day.

   "Daddy!"

   "Yeah?"

   "The dragon," Sam stated, rather plaintively.

   "What - ?  Oh, Sam!  Why didn't you say before we came out?"
Mulder looked in the rear view mirror at his son, but the little boy
merely looked puzzled at the question.  He sighed.  "Have you got the
one I gave you?"  Sam nodded.  "Okay, wait here a minute.  I'll go
get the other one."  He switched the engine off again, checked the
handbrake *very* carefully - Sam liked to fiddle with things - and
hauled himself out of the car again.

   This trip *could* have started out better ....

XXXX

   Scully had spent most of the day so far trying to avoid huge
swathes of family.  She was almost beginning to regret having invited
Mulder over today - aside from her own parents, her sister, her
sister's new boyfriend, her two brothers, their wives and a few
assorted children, there were her Aunts Maureen, Claudia and Rose,
her Uncles Peter, Giles and Fredrick, and a handful of stray cousins.
It was a madhouse, and it had just occurred to her that coming from a
rather different family situation, Mulder might not be prepared for
this.

   It was a bit late to put him off, though, and besides - she rather
selfishly wanted him here, if only to provide a certain amount of
leaven from the overwhelming Irishness of the occasion.  And she
wanted him to get to know her parents, in any event.

   There were one or two sticky situations to navigate, though.  One
was the aunts: having been balked of prey in the form of Melissa (who
at lunchtime had crushingly announced over the goose and trimmings
that she was absolutely, categorically *not* getting married, ever),
they were now desperate to size up "Dana's young man".

   Scully winced at the idea of Mulder being referred to in those
terms.

   Then there was her elder brother, Bill Junior.  The less said
about *that*, the better.  He'd been sour ever since he, his wife
Tara and their two sons had arrived three days ago.  Scully had
actually been driven back to her own apartment until Christmas Eve;
ever since her mother had told him about Mulder and Sam, he'd been
making pointed comments.  God only knew how he was going to behave to
Mulder's face.

   Scully was debating retiring to her room with a set of worry
beads, but she didn't really have time.  When she'd once told Mulder
she was a fully paid-up member of the Maiden Aunts' Society, she
hadn't been joking - she'd been taking care of her brother's kids for
years now when the family got together.  It felt like a full time
occupation, and she was convinced the only reason her sister-in-law
agreed to come for Christmas year after year was the relief of
handing her kids over to good old Auntie Dana for a couple of days.

   She acknowledged the injustice of this thought even as it sprang
to mind.  Scully was very attached to both her sisters-in-law, but
she couldn't help feeling that Tara at least was 'taking pity' on
her.  She was probably wrong, but Bill Junior's attitude was so
indicative of this, that it tarnished her relationship with his wife.

   No such accusation could be levelled at Charlie or *his* wife,
Melanie, fortunately.  Scully just hoped that her younger brother's
good nature would balance out the elder's attitude when Mulder
arrived.

   *Next year,* she promised herself,  *if we're still seeing each
other, Mulder and me - and Sam - are going to spend Christmas
elsewhere.  Anywhere would be good, so long as it puts a few miles
between Bill and me ....*

   Feeling a hundred years old, she chased the kids, including three
younger cousins, out into the garden for half an hour to play ball
with Charlie, and hid in the kitchen with her mother.  Half an hour
of decorating trifles, with a bottle of sherry between them, suited
her mood right now.

   Maggie Scully watched her younger daughter with amusement.  "Your
father gave up an hour ago and locked himself in his study," she
commented, handing Scully a dish of maraschino cherries, "and when
your Aunt Rose got the playing cards out after lunch, Maureen decided
she suddenly needed an afternoon nap.  Missy and Chris have gone for
a walk."

   "I guess the rest are vegging out in front of the TV?"

   "Giles and Bill Junior are in the basement, playing pool."

   "Oh God ...."

   Maggie topped up her sherry glass.  "So when's Fox arriving?"

   "Mulder," Scully corrected, smiling.  "I'm not sure, but probably
any time now."

   "Good.  Your father's looking forward to meeting him."

   "I'm glad someone is."

   Mrs. Scully's eyes met her daughter's for a pregnant moment, but
all she said was "Well, your aunts are nearly dying of curiosity by
now.  Given that he's tall, dark and handsome, he should get quite a
good reception!"

   Scully smiled wryly.  "I don't think he knows what he's in for, so
if he tries to escape, don't blame me."

   Her mother smiled - and cocked her head to one side, listening.
"That sounds like a car pulling into the drive now."

   Scully got up and went to look out of the window.  "It's them."
She pulled the door open and went out to meet Mulder.

   The impromptu soccer match going on in the garden had come to a
temporary halt as Charles Scully went to greet the new arrivals.
Scully paused in the doorway for a moment, wanting to see what her
brother and lover would make of each other.  It was difficult to tell
from a distance, because she couldn't hear what was being said, but
Charlie's smile was cheerful and she saw Mulder grin slightly as they
shook hands.  There was a pause, some talk, and Charlie half turned,
waving an arm at the kids who were standing a little distance away,
watching.

   *Probably explaining what he's doing out in the freezing cold,*
Scully thought, aware of the bite in the wind.  She stepped out from
the doorway and began to approach them unhurriedly.

   "....The hoop got blown down last spring, so we're trying soccer,"
Charlie was saying.  "It's better than being indoors at the moment,
believe me."

   "I played soccer for a while at Oxford," Mulder observed casually.

   "Sounds like a volunteer!" Charlie grinned, and winked at his
sister.

   "Don't you dare, Charlie!  Mom was about to call you all in,
anyway; it's too cold out here."  She looked up at Mulder, smiling
slightly.  "You're earlier than I expected."

   "Do you want me to drive around the block a couple of times?" he
smiled back, raising a brow.  "I warn you, Sam will be *very* put
out."

   Scully looked through the rear door window and saw Sam staring
back at her, his lower lip protruding rather obviously.  "He's
looking pretty put out now, Mulder," she said, amused.  "Better let
him out."

   "He's got something for you.  I just hope he doesn't crush it in
the excitement ...."  Mulder opened the door and Sam scrambled out,
all arms, legs and loud voice.

   "DAAAAAAAY - "

   His father winced.  "Keep it down, Sam - "

   Scully braced herself for impact as Sam hurled himself at her, and
scooped him up in her arms, then submitted with every appearance of
enjoyment to a very wet kiss.  She wasn't given long to enjoy it,
though; seconds later, Sam was wriggling out of her grip and racing
for the side door of the house where he could see Mrs. Scully was
standing.  His greeting to her was even briefer, and he disappeared
inside almost immediately.

   Mulder gave Scully a mute look, and she gave a little snuffle of
laughter.  "I guess he knows where he's going, Mulder!"

   "The *nerve* of the little tyke - !"

   Mrs. Scully was also laughing as she joined them.  "I know where
he's gone," she chuckled, and exchanged knowing looks with her
daughter.

   "Dad's room?" Scully asked and her mother nodded, amused.

   "He'll be disappointed, though; your father's locked the door."

   "That won't stop him," Mulder said, alarmed.  "He'll hammer on the
door until someone opens it.  I'd better - "

   "Leave it," Scully interrupted, smiling.  "Dad won't mind in the
slightest - he likes Sam."

   Not sure what to say to this, Mulder wisely let it go. "I'd better
bring his thing in - he'll never forgive me if *I* give it to you,
but I don't feel like trekking out to the car when he finally
remembers it."  He rummaged around on the back seat of the car and
came out with a long, knobbly package wrapped in assorted fragments
of Christmas paper.

   Mrs. Scully gave it an experimental poke, and gave Mulder a
knowing look.  "Is this what I think it is?"

   "I couldn't possibly comment," he said, straight-faced, and
quietly slipped a much smaller, squarer parcel into his jacket pocket
while Scully wasn't looking.

   "Come on, let's go inside everyone," she said, shuddering.  "The
wind's like a knife."

XXXX

   Scully reflected that Mulder had probably arrived at the best time
of the day, all things considered.  Her sister was missing; the more
objectionable of her two brothers was otherwise occupied, along with
the most irritating uncle; the nosiest aunt was taking an afternoon
nap; and the rest of the adults were bickering around a card table in
the living room.

   Having confiscated his jacket, she dragged Mulder through to meet
her father, while her mother and Charlie attempted to occupy five
restless kids ranging in ages from six to thirteen.

   Captain Scully was enjoying himself.  As Scully predicted, he
hadn't minded in the slightest when Sam had knocked imperiously on
the door of his study, and no sooner had the little boy been let in
than he'd homed in on the aquarium in the corner.  They were
currently identifying the fish together, with the aid of an
encyclopaedia from Captain Scully's bookshelf.  Sam was standing on a
chair, where the captain held him warily.  The boy was too energetic
to be trusted on a wobbly chair by himself.

   "That one there's a catfish," he pointed out now.

   "Ca'fish," Sam repeated, peering into the tank.  "Why?"

   "Because he's got whiskers like a cat - see?"  Captain Scully
showed him the picture in the book.  "And you know what?  He's a kind
of shark.  Do you know what a shark is, Sam?"

   "Iss got teeth an' eats people," Sam nodded, with gruesome
enjoyment.  "Do ca'fish eat people too?"

   Captain Scully chuckled.  "No, he's not big enough!  Look - what's
that one there, then?"

   "Angelfiss," Sam said, pressing his nose against the cool glass.
"Swim, swim, swim ...." he murmured, watching the delicate fins
waving in the water.

   "You've stolen my thunder," Scully said from the doorway.  When
Captain Scully looked up, she was smiling and behind her was a tall,
dark man who needed no further identification; the resemblance
between him and the little boy ogling the fish tank was unmistakable.
He straightened up

   "Well," Captain Scully said amiably.  "You must be this Fox I keep
hearing so much about."

XXXX

   When Mulder emerged nearly an hour later, there was no sign of
Scully or his son.  He went looking for them and found Mrs. Scully in
the kitchen with Sam.  In the centre of the table was the egg-box
dragon the little boy had laboured over for several days (with some
help) to give Scully, and the heap of wrapping paper it had needed
was in the process of being smoothed out and folded carefully,
presumably for re-use later.  Mulder watched for a second or two,
with some amusement, as Mrs. Scully held each piece of paper down so
that Sam could press the creases out.

   True to form, the kid was showing *no* signs of tiredness yet,
despite having had an exciting day so far.

   Then Mrs. Scully looked up and smiled.  Mulder came a little
further into the kitchen.  "He's not bothering you, is he?  Can I
take him off your hands?"

   "You dare!" Maggie Scully told him.  "While I'm in here with Sam,
I won't get dragooned into playing gin rummy."

   Mulder chuckled.  "All the same - "

   "Daddy look!" Sam commanded, interrupting them.  He dragged a box
over the table and pointed inside.  "Look what Day gived me!"

   Mulder grinned at Maggie, and peered into the box.  It was a boat;
not quite a foot in length, it had two masts and sails, and when
Mulder very carefully lifted it out of the box, he could tell that it
was made of wood and had a proper lead keel.  It was a proper little
ship, intended to be sailed on a pond, with a dark red hull and crisp
white sails.  There was even a tiny red pennon on the main mast, and
when he turned the boat around Mulder saw that although there was a
space on the stern for a name, it was blank and ready for its new
owner to name it.  A long length of waxed twine had already been
attached to a ring on the prow, ready for its first venture onto the
water.

   "Hey, Sam, this is really cool!"  Mulder fixed his son with a
stern eye.  "Did you thank her?"

   Sam nodded, unimpressed by the implied threat, and patted Maggie's
hand imperiously.  "More paper please," he stated clearly, and Maggie
pretended to stand to attention.  "Yes, Sir!"

   "Is Scully - Dana - around?" Mulder asked her.

   "I think she went up to her room," Maggie replied, after a
moment's hesitation.  "Go take a look, Fox - upstairs, first on the
left."

   He hesitated, then followed her instructions.

XXXX

   She was in her room, sitting in the window seat, and when Mulder
knocked on the door she smiled a welcome.  It was a rather melancholy
expression though and Mulder, taking a seat beside her, was uncertain
at first what to say.

   "I didn't get a chance to thank you for the fish," he said, after
a moment's silence.  "I've been trying to think what I could put in
the living room to liven it up a little - I'm not good with
houseplants, and the room's a little small for pictures.  And I'm not
into art anyway.  An aquarium never occurred to me, though."

   Scully gave him a small smile.  "It was a spur of the moment
idea," she admitted.  "I was pretty much at a loss what to give you."

   "You didn't have to give me anything," he said softly.

   "I know.  But I wanted to."

   Another pause.  Then Mulder remembered, and handed her a square,
heavy-ish package in gilded foil wrapping paper.  "Tit for tat," he
smiled.  "Merry Christmas."

   "Muld-er ...."  Scully smiled, and gave him a mock admonitory
look.  "You've already given me this beautiful pendent - " she
touched the locket in the hollow of her throat, "you didn't have to
give me anything else."

   "That wasn't a Christmas present.  This is.  Go on, open it!"

   After a moment, Scully peeled the wrapping off and found an old
book.  The cover was worn, tooled leather, dark and anonymous, and
when she looked at the spine, the title had been rubbed off with age.
But when she carefully opened the front cover, releasing a familiar
musty smell of old paper, her eyes widened.  "Mulder!  How did you
know "Moby Dick" was my favourite?

   He shrugged, pleased by her reaction.  "I heard you call your
father "Ahab" once or twice, and leapt to one of my infamous Spooky
Mulder conclusions."

   "Good guess - he used to read this to me when I was a kid."
Scully ran a loving hand over the covers.  "It's not a first edition,
is it?"

   "Second.  They had a first edition, but I thought you'd prefer a
copy that actually had its covers and most of the pages," was
Mulder's wry reply, and Scully chuckled softly.

   "I should thank you for the boat you gave Sam, too," Mulder
continued after another brief pause.  "He's really pleased.  You'll
come with us when we launch it, won't you?"

   "I might even know a really good pond for it," she smiled.

   "Somewhere not too deep, because if there's any water around he'll
jump in it and then I'll have to jump in after him .... "  Mulder
trailed off, because it was obvious Scully wasn't getting into the
spirit of this conversation.  "What's bothering you?" he asked
softly, studying her face.  She'd been so cheerful when he and Sam
had arrived, but now she was the complete opposite.  Despite her
delight over the book, and Sam's enjoyment of his present, she looked
almost miserable.

   "Oh, it's nothing!"  Scully tried to force a smile, but he wasn't
fooled.

   "You don't have to tell me," he began carefully, "but - "

   "Mulder, really ...."  She sighed, and stared out of the window
for a moment.  When she turned back to him, her expression was a
little wry.  "I had a spat with my brother while you were talking to
Ahab.  It's nothing major - Bill and I are always fighting.  He gets
a little much after a while, and I have to scream."

   "All the same ...."  Mulder wasn't sure how to proceed.  He didn't
have much personal experience of sibling spats, but this didn't look
like just a minor matter to him.

   "He just said a few things that touched a raw nerve.  He has a
gift for it."

   Mulder made no reply, but raised a questioning brow, and Scully
acknowledged that he was not going to be put off with half stories.
Perhaps it was as well.  They were going to have to have this
conversation at some point, and there was never going to be a good
time for it, as her mother had pointed out recently.

   "Mulder ....  Look, he was laying down the law as usual.  Bill has
... some funny notions about Missy and I, and he's not afraid to
express his opinion.  And Bill is always right."

   Mulder considered this.  "I haven't met him yet, but surely ...
well, if anyone has a right to express an opinion about you and your
sister, isn't it your father or mother who should be doing it?"

   Scully smiled in spite of herself.  "They do, when they really
feel it's necessary, but they don't like to interfere.  Bill, on the
other hand, doesn't see it as interfering.  Actually, I'm glad we're
having this conversation now, because when you do meet Bill, you need
to know that he's the ultimate authority on anything."

   Mulder's eyes began to twinkle.  "*Anything*?" he drawled.

   "And everything," she confirmed.  "Just ... don't argue with him,
Mulder.  It's a hell of a lot easier to let him think he has the last
say, and everyone will bless you for not setting him off.  He's
almost certain to try and draw you out on your politics, for a start,
and whatever you say, he'll take the opposite position."

   "Nice guy," he commented, beginning to grin.  "So, what did he say
to get *you* mad?"

   Scully's smile abruptly vanished.  She should have known better
than to try a diversionary tactic with Mulder; he always came back to
the original point of the conversation eventually.

   "Well, he started on you for a start," she told him, deciding that
frankness was the best approach at this stage.

   "He won't be the first," Mulder observed philosophically,
"although it's kind of cheeky when we haven't even been introduced
yet.  What particular detail gets his goat?"

   "You're divorced."

   "Ah!"

   "And you're Jewish, although he didn't actually say that."

   "Mixed marriages?"

   "Something like that."  Scully took a deep breath.  "He was good
enough to tell me that the mixed marriage bit was less of a problem
than the divorced bit, though."

   Mulder's brow furrowed.  "Go on.  I would have thought the mixed
marriage would have been a bigger problem, because of raising the
kids one way or the other, but - "

   She sighed.  "Mulder - that was what he meant.  I ... I can't have
children."  She looked away and hurried on.  "Actually, I'm not
putting this very well - "

   "Scully - "

   "His problem was with Sam, you see - he thinks I'm making a grab
at motherhood whatever way I can, and - "

   "Scully!"  Mulder grabbed hold of her hands.  "Hold up a minute!"
He took a shaken breath, and tried to decide what to say.  "Back up a
little - I thought you just said - "

   "I can't have children," she repeated, and tried to tell herself
that it was no big deal, that she'd known for several years, and
shouldn't be getting emotional about it now.  Then she looked at
Mulder and saw the stricken look on his face.  She tried to smile.
"Mulder, really - it's no big deal anymore."

   "No big deal, she says."  He tried to get a grip on himself, but
it was hard to know what to say.  "How long have you known?"

   Scully shrugged.  "Since my late teens.  I always had a problem
with my - "

   "Uh-huh."

   His discomfort over 'woman stuff' made her smile inwardly, but she
continued.  "And eventually I had a whole battery of tests.  There's
something wrong with my ovaries and fallopian tubes, and the chances
of conceiving naturally are pretty much non-existent.  It didn't
bother me at the time.  It doesn't now, really."

   *Liar,* he thought, but chose not to challenge her on that.
"Scully ....  I don't know what to say really.  But are you telling
me your brother actually threw that in your face?"

   "He thinks he's doing her a favour," a dry voice said from the
doorway.  Melissa Scully walked in and pulled her heavy outdoor coat
off, tossing it across one of the twin beds.

   "Missy, let it go," Scully said uncomfortably.

   Melissa ignored her, looking at Mulder.  "Bill thinks Dana is a
great nanny for his kids.  He'll hate you, because you've got a kid
of your own - after all, Dana should accept her fate and not go
hankering after what she can't have when she's got nephews she can
dote on."

   "Melissa!"

   "Speak the truth and shame the devil, Dana."

   Scully rolled her eyes.  "He's not *quite* that Victorian."  She
gave Mulder a wry look, her normal good-humour beginning to
re-emerge.  "God knows what kind of image you're getting of Bill
Junior, Mulder - really, he's just got an attitude, and after a while
he starts to look like a charicature of someone worse."

   "Ignore her," Melissa told Mulder.  "He's an ass - a pompous ass."

   "You're only saying that because he made fun of your crystal
ball."  Scully got to her feet.  "Come on, you guys.  Mom's going to
wonder what's going on up here."

   Mulder looked at her face and saw her fixing her walls in place,
but now was no time to challenge the change of subject, not with her
sister present.  He got up reluctantly.  "We'll talk about this again
some other time," he said to her softly as they walked down the
stairs.

   Scully nodded reluctantly.

XXXX

   It took about half an hour of listening in a half-hearted way to
the adults talking, before Sam became bored enough to get restless.
After they'd finished putting the wrapping paper to rights, Mrs.
Scully had assembled a tea tray and taken it through to the various
family members playing cards.  Sam had gone with her, and for a short
while had enjoyed being cooed over and admired, but now he was
looking for something else to do.  Day had given him a present, a
really good wooden boat that was red with white sails and had a
string to pull it along by, but now everyone had seen it and they
didn't seem to be terribly interested anymore.

   Sam knew someone who hadn't seen it though, someone he knew would
be interested.  He wriggled off Mrs. Scully's lap, clasping the boat
to his chest with both arms, and trotted quietly out of the living
room.  No one paid a great deal of attention to where he was going;
there wasn't much trouble he could get himself into without an adult
being near to hand.

   Outside in the entrance hall, it was quiet.  He paused to look at
the evergreen boughs decorating the walls, entranced by the little
sparkling ornaments hanging from them, then continued on to his
destination.

   The door was closed again when he found it, but shut doors were
never a problem for him unless they were locked; and in that event,
Sam had discovered that shouting to be let in or out was a pretty
effective approach.  He gave it an experimental push, but it was
definitely *shut*.  So he put his boat down on the floor carefully -
he was always very careful with his toys - and stretched up until his
fingers reached the handle and pulled.

   The door unlatched very nicely and opened up a few inches.
Pleased, Sam picked up his boat again, and pushed his way inside.
Peering around the edge of the door, he could see Day's daddy sitting
at the desk, and rushed over to show him his boat.

   Captain Scully never moved, though, and that seemed a little odd
to Sam, because the latch on the door had made quite a lot of noise
when he'd opened it.  Adults were, in his experience, pretty quick to
react when he made a noise, even when he tried to be really quiet.

   Okay, maybe he hadn't heard.  "Cap!" he said hopefully.  "Cap" was
the best he could manage for "Captain", which was what Day's mommy
had called him.

   No response.  Sam shifted from one foot to the other, trying to
work this out.  The boat was getting a little heavy, so he decided to
put it down.  Then he walked hesitantly over to Cap's chair.

   "Cap?"

   Then he saw that Cap had his head on the table.  Maybe he was
asleep; when Sam got tired at day-care, Mandy would let him sleep on
the table sometimes.  But Cap didn't have a cushion to lean on, and
Sam knew how uncomfortable that was.  He moved a little closer, to
see if Cap really was asleep.

   He wasn't.  His eyes were open, and they moved a little when Sam
came into view.  But his face looked funny to the little boy, and he
made a strange croaking noise.

   Something wasn't right.  Sam hesitated, unsure what to do, then
turned and ran out of the room.

XXXX

   Mulder had paused in the hallway to admire the same evergreen
boughs his son had, when Sam came hurtling out of Captain Scully's
room.

   "Hey, hey, hey!" he said sharply, catching the boy.  "No running,
Sam - you could hurt yourself or someone else."

   But Sam had other things on his mind, and tugged at his father's
arm insistently.  "Daddy, come see."

   "Not now, Sam.  It's nearly time for tea - show me later."

   "No, Daddy!   Come see *now*," Sam said firmly.

   "Sam ...."  Mulder sighed.  "Come see what?"

   Sam seized his hand and all but dragged him out of the room and
down the hallway.  Mulder's brow knitted when he found himself being
pulled into Captain Scully's study - then he saw the man at the desk
and the way he was slumped over.

   "Oh no - "  He hurried to Captain Scully's side, and to his horror
saw the blank eyes and blue lips.    "DANA!  Sam, go get Day!  Go on,
run!"

   Sam, his eyes wide, turned and scampered from the room, but Scully
had heard Mulder's shout and came running, with one of her brother's
close on her heels.  She took one look at her father, and turned on
Charlie.

   "Charlie, get my bag from my room NOW."

   Mulder was gently leaning Captain Scully back in the chair,
loosening his collar and feeling for a pulse.  "He's still with us,
Scully, but the pulse is weak - "

   "Is he breathing?"  She was already checking as she spoke, and
answered her own question.  "Just about ....  Dad - Ahab - can you
hear me?"

   There was a cry from the doorway; Mrs. Scully.

   "Mom, call for the paramedics," Scully told her, without turning.
"Tell them he's having a heart-attack - "

   Charlie reappeared and had to fight his way through the sudden
crowd of Scully relatives who were gathered outside the door,
babbling questions.  Scully snatched the bag out of his hands and
began to rummage in it frantically.

   "Scully, I think - I think he's stopped breathing - "

   The bag was equally quickly thrust back into Charlie's hands.
"Let's get him on the floor.  Charlie, there should be a bottle of
diamorphine in there.  Find it."

   "You're not going to be able to help me lift him," Mulder said
sharply.  "Someone bigger ...."

   "Here," a voice said curtly, and a bulky but younger replica of
Captain Scully appeared.  Mulder had no idea who he was, and didn't
really care.

   "You get him that side ....  Lift - "

   They laid him flat and Scully pushed them both out of the way,
beginning CPR.

   "Has someone called an ambulance?" Mulder heard the other man say
sharply above his head.

   "They're on their way ...." Mrs. Scully's voice faltered in the
background.

   "How long has he been like this?"

   "It can't have been long," Mulder interrupted, seeing the distress
on Maggie's face.  "I only left here about twenty minutes ago, and he
was fine then."

   "Mulder, can you take over from me?" Scully gasped.

   He nodded and took her place, ignoring the other man's glare and
sharp comment of "Who is he?"

   "Shut your mouth, Bill.  Mulder found him; and if he hadn't, Ahab
would probably be dead."  Scully's voice was measured and even, but
the lash of anger was still unmistakable.  She looked around at the
doorway, wondering if her mother had managed to get the paramedics,
and saw a tight crowd of relatives outside the door.  Her eye fell on
Sam, who was clinging to the doorpost with one hand, with his thumb
in his mouth.  His eyes were wide and frightened.

   She nearly swore.  This was *not* something any of the kids needed
to see.  "Will someone *please* exercise some sense and take Sam and
the other kids out of here?"

   Her sister pushed through the gaggle of cousins, white-faced, and
quickly snatched Sam up, carrying him away.  Scully turned back to
Mulder, and tapped his shoulder.  "Lean back, Mulder, and let me take
a look - "

   There was a tense pause as she checked respiration and pulse; then
she let out a shaky sigh of relief.  "Okay - he's holding in there.
Now, where's that Goddamned ambulance?"

   As if her words were a cue, Mulder heard the faint sound of sirens
in the distance, and let out his own sigh of relief.

   With a little luck, there might just be *one* miracle this
Christmas.

XXXX

   It was nearly one in the morning when Mulder heard the knocking at
his door.  Casting a wary eye over the bundle of blankets on the sofa
that was Sam, he went to the door and answered it.

   It was Scully, her face lined with exhaustion.

   "You look a wreck," he said softly, in an undertone.  "You haven't
been at the hospital all this time, have you?"  He didn't know how to
ask the most important question, but fortunately she made it
unnecessary.

   "He's in the ICU now, and he's stable and comfortable," she told
him, shedding her coat.  "They kicked everyone out but Mom a couple
of hours ago.  I went home with Missy to organise the house, but my
sisters-in-law have got everything covered."  A brief flash of her
usual humour showed.  "First time they've agreed on anything this
Christmas - usually they fight like cats, but I'm not looking a gift
horse in the mouth right now."

   Mulder gently steered her into the kitchen and dug out his tin of
cocoa.  "Was it a heart-attack?" he asked, busying himself with the
kettle.

   The strain and worry reappeared on Scully's face almost at once.
"It was - they're not sure about the extent of the damage yet, but it
was big."  Her voice cracked slightly.  "Thank God you found him,
Mulder - he would have died for sure if we'd been even two or three
minutes later."

   "Thank Sam, not me; he found your father, and had the sense to
fetch me when he thought there was something wrong."

   "Oh God - Sam!  - Is he okay?  He saw everything that happened
...."

   "He's fine," Mulder cut in gently.  "A little clingy and scared,
maybe.  He's sleeping on the couch right now, because he kept waking
up earlier, but I think he's sound enough asleep to be put back to
bed in a minute."

   Scully relaxed back into her chair at the kitchen table, but the
worry didn't leave her face.  "Mulder, I'm so sorry ...."

   "For what?"

   "I wouldn't have had Sam see that for the world, but - "

   "Scully!"  Mulder added hot water to the cocoa and put a mug in
front of her.  "It's no big deal; he's pretty resilient, you know.
Besides, think what would have happened if he hadn't found your
father."

   Scully's face suddenly crumpled, and Mulder cursed himself for his
lack of tact.  He quickly put his own mug down, and pulled her to her
feet, wrapping his arms around her.  She was resistant for a moment,
then buried her face in his shoulder.  Mulder rubbed her back
soothingly, much as he did Sam's when his son was upset, feeling her
much smaller body shake convulsively for several minutes; then she
pulled free again, pretty much as he expected she would, and rubbed a
hand over her eyes.

   She gave him a wavering smile, a little embarrassed.  "Sorry - I
didn't mean to turn into a waterfall on you."

   Mulder shook his head silently, but respected her need to be in
control of the situation.  "It's okay ...."

   "Look - I'd better just ...."  She waved a hand uncomfortably,
aware that her mascara had streaked, and he smiled.

   "Bathroom's where it's always been."

   She nodded, her smile wavering a little, and slowly went to clean
her face up.  A few minutes in the bathroom also helped her get a
grip on herself and reassert a little self-control.  When she
emerged, she felt better than she had since Mulder had shouted for
her help that afternoon.

   When Scully returned to the kitchen, it was to see Mulder holding
Sam on one hip while he prepared a glass of milk and put it in the
microwave.  She paused for a second, just out of sight, watching.
Sam was sprawled bonelessly against Mulder's shoulder, probably half
asleep, and she could just about hear Mulder murmuring softly to him,
although the words were impossible to hear.

   *He is such a good father,* she thought, and felt a sudden pang of
remembrance of the conversation she'd had with him earlier that day.

   Then Mulder turned and saw her, and smiled.  "Look who's here," he
said softly to Sam, and Scully smiled.  The boy gave her a sleepy
smile and held a hand out, so Mulder surrendered him to her while he
got the milk out of the microwave, tested it carefully and added a
straw.

   Sam managed less than a quarter of it before he fell asleep again
in Scully's lap.  The transfer to his crib was achieved with relative
ease, and after a few minutes of watching the two adults left him to
his slumber.

   Out in the living room, Mulder ran one hand over his hair in a
reflexive gesture and looked at Scully.  "Will you stay tonight?"

   She gave him a weak smile.  "If it's okay."

   "Sure.  You look done in - why don't you go and get ready for bed
while I clean up the kitchen?"

   For some reason this tickled Scully's sense of humour.  "You are
sooooo domesticated, Mulder!" she told him, rubbing one hand
affectionately over his chest.

   He grinned, catching her hand and stilling it.  "Yeah - I'm some
catch, huh?"  Instantly he regretted saying it, for her expression
was stricken.  "Scully, I didn't mean it like that - "

   "No, Mulder," she told him quietly.  "It's not you who should be
apologising.  I obviously haven't dealt with this situation as well
as I could, or we wouldn't be treading on eggs around each other."

   Mulder sighed and let go of her hand, turning away.  "No, it's not
you - it's me."  He went into the kitchen, and after a moment Scully
followed him.  He began slowly washing up oddments of china and
cutlery, his expression troubled.

   "I don't handle relationships well," he said abruptly.

   "I wouldn't have said that myself."  Scully leaned back against
the worktop, watching his face.  "I would rather say that you don't
handle the ups and downs of relationships well.  It's not like you're
some serial monogamist, always running away."

   "Yeah well, maybe ....  I could give you all the psychotherapy
crap about my childhood affecting the way I look at relationships,"
he gave her a humourless smile, "but that's just looking for excuses.
All I can honestly say is that every relationship I've been in so far
has gone wrong for some reason, and right now I keep looking around,
trying to work out what's lurking around the corner for me *this*
time."

   "I can't say there's nothing, Mulder," she told him gently.  "I
can't predict what's going to happen to us a month or six months down
the line.  All I can tell you is that I want to be with you, and I'm
doing all I can to ensure that I'll stay with you.  Okay, you jumped
too soon and proposed, but that's not a crime; you've done nothing
wrong.  At least now we both know we're thinking along the same lines
and that we're committed to this.  More than that, what can I say?"

   "Not much," he admitted.  He rinsed Sam's milk glass and turned it
upside down on the drainer, then dried his hands.  "It's just ...."
He hesitated.  "It's just when you told me today - "

   "I was afraid you'd think that," Scully interrupted, sighing.
"That's not why I turned you down, Mulder.  I've been looking for a
good time to tell you about it, but it's not like there are ready
opportunities in everyday conversation.  And then you sprang that on
me ....  I still don't really know how you feel about it."

   Mulder turned out the kitchen light and gently steered her back to
the living room sofa.  "I feel bad for you," he said.  "I don't know
what else to say, actually, other than that I'm still astounded your
brother can treat it in such a cavalier manner."

   Scully laughed softly.  "I can deal with Bill's attitude, Mulder,
because it's just an irritation, an extension of how he's always
treated Missy and me.  What irritates me more than anything is
Tara's - his wife's - behaviour.  I hate being *pitied*."

   "I'll bear that in mind."  He leaned back against the sofa
cushions, and grinned contentedly when Scully pulled her feet up
under her and used his chest as a pillow.  He wrapped his arms
loosely around her and felt her sigh.  "Scully ...."

   "Hmm?"

   "This problem ... you're not actually infertile, are you?  I mean,
could you have IVF treatment or something if you wanted?"

   "Actually, yes," she responded, her voice a little muffled in his
sweatshirt, "but I didn't want to scare you off."  And she gave him a
gentle poke in the stomach, making him snort a laugh.

   "Nothing scares me, Scully."

   "Not even my father?"

   Mulder grinned, remembering his doubts when she first invited him
to spend Christmas Day with her family.  And he recalled the
conversation in Captain Scully's study, which had been more like a
mutual sounding-out session than anything else; each of them trying
to get the measure of the other without causing offence.  "Well ...
maybe a little," he conceded, sensing rather than seeing her smile,
"but I like him."

   "Good."  Her good humour melted away.  "God, I hope - "

   "He'll be okay," Mulder told her quickly.  "He's a tough man."

   "Yeah, but it's times like this when it's suddenly brought home to
me that even tough old sailors are mortal."

   "Don't think like that.  You've got to be positive - he survived
against some pretty stiff odds this afternoon, and now he has the
best possible care.  He's going to be okay.  The doctors wouldn't
have told you and your sister to go home if they thought otherwise."

   That was true enough, and Scully began to relax a little as she
mentally reviewed all the treatments and precautions being used in
her father's case.  Coronary care advanced in leaps and bounds these
days and his room had looked, even to her experienced eyes, almost
like something out of "Star Trek" with the levels of technology
commonly in use.  He couldn't possibly be in better hands, and her
mother was with him.

   "I should be at home, making sure my sister isn't fighting with
Bill," she mumbled sleepily.

   Mulder rubbed her back soothingly.  "No you shouldn't.  Your
sister's a big girl; she can handle him herself.  Besides, it's
nearly two a.m. and if they've got any sense, they'll be in bed."

   There was no reply; Scully had fallen asleep.  He smiled wryly,
dropping a kiss on her hair, and dragged Sam's blanket off the back
of the sofa to cover her with.

   Morning  - and the everyday anxieties of real life - would come
soon enough, dragging them apart again.  Meanwhile, if she was
comfortable here, he was more than happy to play mattress for her for
a few hours.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PRELUDE V: DARK FOREST
By Helen Wills
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Dana Scully dumped her overnight bag on the floor, tossed her trench
coat over the frilled, rose-coloured bedspread, and laid her laptop on
the bedside table.  Then she slumped down onto the bed and looked
around the room resentfully.  Delicate rose-coloured curtains at the
window and a fairly nice view.  Clean appointments around the room,
pot pourri in a jar on the table, the usual fresh towels and wrapped
soaps in the bathroom augmented by a basket of complimentary lotions
and shampoos and a hairdryer on the wall.  A mini-bar in the main
room, and a TV with cable.

Okay, so it was a nice room in a nice hotel.  That didn't change the
fact that this was not where she wanted to be.

It just had to be *this* Friday that the judge decided to adjourn the
case until Monday, just before *her* evidence was due to be given.
She was stuck in Seattle over a weekend when she should have been at
home, enjoying a third birthday party with a little boy and his
family.  She should have been participating in an afternoon of mayhem
at MacDonalds with seven kids and two other adults, and spending the
evening with a man who ....

Scully sighed, and kicked off her shoes.  No point in thinking about
it; thanks to the Bureau accountants, who had decided it was cheaper
to put her up in this admittedly nice hotel for the weekend instead of
flying her home for two days, she would be fending off the unwelcome
attentions of the local SAC all weekend and going out of her mind with
boredom.  She pulled off her suit jacket, flinging it carelessly at
the chair in the corner, wriggled out of her skirt and pantyhose, and
sprawled across the bed.  She glared up at the ceiling for several
minutes, then rolled over and reached for the telephone.

XXXX

Fox Mulder was typing furiously at his computer, surrounded by open
text books and scattered papers.  He had a deadline to meet for his
latest article, and he wanted to get well ahead with the first draft
before spending the next day chasing around after his son and several
other small boys at MacDonalds and the local cinema.

Behind the sofa, Sam was making "vroom vroom" noises and talking to
himself.  Mulder paused for a moment, listening to him with a grin.
Yesterday, his new printer had been delivered, encased in a cardboard
box several times larger than was strictly necessary.  While he'd been
sorting out cables and attaching it to his computer, Sam had quietly
appropriated the box, so that when his father turned around the box
had become a truck.  Sam had expressed, in his own terms, a desire to
go into the road haulage business when he grew up, and Mulder - hoping
that the box wouldn't be needed again - had agreed with this ambition,
even going to far as to draw some wheels on the box.

Amazing.  Sam had a perfectly good wooden train, with a proper seat
and wheels that worked, which he hadn't yet outgrown, but he preferred
to shuffle himself around in a cardboard box.  Kids.

The noise suddenly stopped, and Sam appeared around the edge of the
sofa wearing a baseball cap one of Mulder's friends had given him.
Mulder watched, entertained, as the boy stopped, heaved an exaggerated
sigh, removed the cap and wiped his brow.

"Sure is hot here!" Sam chirped, and Mulder fought the desire to
laugh.  "Mister, is this bar open?"

Okaaaay ....  He could do with a break himself.  Mulder took his
glasses off and sat back in his chair.  "Sure is.  What can I get
you?"

The boy's brow wrinkled as he tried to think of something suitably
trucker-like.  "A Pepsi would go down cool," he stated after a moment,
with remarkable precision for a three-year-old.

His father blinked, wondering which diabolical TV show he'd picked
that up from.  Although he supposed he shouldn't really be surprised;
Sam was a bright child, already well in advance of his age verbally,
as Mulder himself had been as a kid.  "Coming right up," he replied
and headed for the kitchen, Sam at his heels.  "You want a cookie with
that, fella?"

"Yup!"

Mulder fished the bottle of decaffeinated cola out of the fridge and
poured Sam a glassful, adding a couple of candy-striped straws, and
found him a couple of chocolate-chip cookies.  When he turned around,
the boy was gravely offering him three Tiddly-Winks counters in
payment, which he accepted with equal gravity.

"You have a nice day, now," he told him, and watched with amusement as
Sam trundled back into the living room with his snack.

He was making himself a coffee when he heard the telephone ring, and
by the time he got there, Sam had already discarded his trucker
persona and was answering it.

"Hul-lo!"

"Sam!" he called, exasperated.  The little boy's fascination with the
telephone still endured.

"Day!"

Mulder slowed his rush to grab the receiver.  "Sam, let me have
that - "

Sam wasn't listening.  "Day, are you coming to my party?"

Mulder firmly detached the boy's grip on the phone.  "Give me that,
you tyke -  Hey, Scully."

"He's getting too quick for you," her voice said, amused.

"Tell me about it.  So - you want me to come pick you up from the
airport?"

There was a sigh.  "Mulder, I'm still in Seattle."

"Uh-oh."  He picked up the whole phone and went to sit on the arm of
the sofa.  "Let me guess - the case got adjourned."

"Right before my evidence, too.  I tried, but they wouldn't fly me to
DC just to fly me back here again on Sunday night.  So I'm stuck here
with three other agents, and the local SAC is an octopus."

Mulder snorted.  "Who is he?"

In her hotel in Seattle, Scully smiled and rolled onto her back.  "Who
said it was a he?"  She revelled in the startled silence at the other
end of the phone.

"You're kidding me - aren't you?"

"I am, but it was worth it to hear you chewing the idea over."

Mulder looked at the receiver in his hand with a surprised grin.
"Scully, are you trying to suggest I'm kinky?"

"What's "kinky"?" Sam suddenly demanded, reasserting his presence.

Scully laughed softly in Mulder's ear.  "Get out of that one!"

"Daddy, is Day coming to my party?"

Mulder heard Scully sigh.  "Mulder, put him on and I'll have a go at
explaining to him."

XXXX

"I thought you'd be at home tonight, keeping the luscious Agent Scully
warm," Frohike observed, dropping a can of beer into Mulder's lap.

"Scully's out of town."  Mulder cracked the can open and craned his
neck around the monster PC monitor that was blocking his view of Sam
and Langly.  The pair of them were suspiciously quiet over in the
corner, and he wasn't entirely sure he trusted the long-haired hacker
with his son's moral welfare - an incident involving a potted cannabis
plant named Delilah was still fresh in the ex-FBI Agent's memory.

"They're playing Pacman," Byers reassured him.  "I think Sam's
winning."

"She up to anything juicy?" Frohike persisted.

Mulder gave him an amused look.  "You tell me.  *You* trace her
expenses claims for a hobby."

"Sure, we know she's staying at the Royal Grange Hotel in Seattle.
The Bureau's local office is picking up the tab this time.  But what's
she *doing* there?"

"Testifying.  She's the expert witness."

The troll-like little man chuckled.  "Now *that* I can believe ...."

"Cut it out, Frohike.  Besides, I don't know that I'm talking to
Scully.  She left me to fend for myself today with six pre-school
terrorists.  Ronald MacDonald may never recover from the assault - not
to mention what happened to Barney."  He grinned reluctantly.  "Not
that I haven't wanted to drown Barney myself before, but the
strawberry ice cream and M&M's were just plain sadistic."

"You've got to hand it to kids," Frohike agreed.  "They're born with a
real gift for torture.  So ... Scully's not looking up that abductee
in Tacoma?"

Mulder raised a brow at him.  "What abductee in Tacoma?"

"I sent you the file last week," Byers told him.

"I've got a stack of stuff I haven't looked at yet.  We were three
lecturers down last week, and I had to cover for two of them."

"Man, you've got to get your priorities right," Langly observed from
the corner, proving that his mind wasn't totally on his game.

"Yeah - and feeding my son and heir comes pretty high on my list of
priorities," Mulder retorted amiably.  "I've got an unfashionable
interest in keeping my rent paid, too."

"If you live on the high side of Alexandria, what do you expect?"

He forbore to answer this.  Mulder didn't consider that he lived on
the "high side" of Alexandria, if there was such a thing; when he'd
rented the apartment, his main considerations had been the area's
marginally better crime rate and its proximity to a good school.  It
was also closer to where his cousin Annie lived.  But it was pointless
to say this to Langly, whose priorities lay in entirely different
areas.  He probably thought Mulder and Sam could manage in a trailer
park, so long as they had access to a decent computer.

"Did you finish that piece on crop circles?" Frohike asked.

"Nearly.  I'll e-mail it to you on Monday, before I go to work."

Byers looked doubtful.  "Cutting it close."

Mulder sighed.  "I know, but I don't have limitless time like you
guys.  I have to do *some* prep-work for my lectures.  Besides, if
you'd just let me have the e-mail address of the real editors, I could
send it to them directly, instead of using you as intermediaries."

It was plain that this viewpoint didn't go down well.

"Sorry - no can do," said Langly, suddenly appearing beside Byers.
"These people are very jumpy about direct contact with their
contributors.  *Very* jumpy."

"Even more careful than us," Frohike nodded.

Mulder was tempted to ask what an article on crop circles could
contain that warranted such paranoia, but he had a notion that he
didn't really want to know.  Some of the people the Gunmen worked with
were even weirder than he could handle.

"Show him the Tacoma stuff," Langly told Frohike.

"Do I really want to know?" Mulder asked doubtfully, but they weren't
listening.  Frohike was rummaging around in a huge cardboard monitor
box beside his computer desk, and he wondered how the little man ever
found anything in there; it was stuffed full of papers, magazines,
unlabelled floppy disks and writable CD's.

Eventually he re-emerged with a video cassette, which he brandished
triumphantly.  "The evidence!"

"Evidence of what?"   Out of the corner of his eye Mulder saw Sam
appearing around the stacks of equipment and other clutter, and he
picked him up, settling the boy on his lap.

Byers switched on a TV and slipped the cassette into the VCR.  "This
man is a multiple abductee," he explained.  "The last time he was
returned, his brother video-taped his injuries and - "

"Hold it right there," Mulder said sharply.  He grabbed the video
remote and snapped the machine off.  "Not with Sam here - what are you
thinking of?"

Byers and Frohike had the grace to look abashed, but Langly merely
looked bemused.  "It's educational," he said, and Mulder gave him an
annoyed look.

"That's what you said about Delilah.  Here - give me the tape and I'll
look at it later."

"I'll make you a copy," Frohike agreed.  "The editor of one of our
sister magazines was hoping you'd consider going out there and talking
to this guy.  He claims to get a warning just before he's taken - a
signal transmitted to a computer chip in his neck."

Mulder was interested in spite of himself.  "*Has* he got a chip in
his neck?"

"We don't know," Byers admitted, "but what makes his claims so
interesting is that a number of abductees in MUFON have small pieces
of metal which were removed from their necks after they were
returned."  His expression was fleetingly wistful.  "We've been trying
to get our hands on a sample to examine, but it's difficult to obtain
anything from MUFON without them becoming ... suspicious."

"Have you ever considered just asking them, instead of all this cloak
and dagger stuff?" he asked, amused.

The horrified looks he got told him everything he needed to know.

"Serious breach of security!" Langly said, his eyes almost popping out
behind his thick-lensed glasses.

"We might have to divulge our sources," Frohike added.

"And besides - most of them are women," Langly concluded, as if this
was the biggest problem they could face.

Mulder looked at Byers, who was looking only fractionally less
disturbed than his comrades.  "Are you with them on this?" he asked.

The bearded man shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  "Well ....
They're a little too keen on publicity for our comfort," he offered.

"So you'd rather I fly out to Tacoma and interview a guy who probably
has a shotgun pellet lodged in his back from a hunting accident, and
who sees fairies at the bottom of the garden."

There was a pause, and Frohike gave him a narrow look.  "You know,
you're even beginning to sound like her," he observed.

Mulder was nettled.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

The three men exchanged speaking glances.  "Scully's rubbing off on
you," Langly commented acidly.  "A year ago you'd have been on the
next plane out there."

"A year ago I was sharing accommodation and expenses with my mother
and could afford to jump on the next plane.  These days I have trouble
just finding a babysitter when I have an evening lecture."  Mulder
sighed  and rubbed his face with one hand.  "Look, let me see the
video and any other stuff you have, and I'll think about it.  But
they'd better be paying good money for the article, or no deal, no
matter how good the story looks."

XXXX

Mulder leaned back against the sofa cushions and stared thoughtfully
at the TV screen, which was showing a frozen image of a man in his
late forties.  The individual in question was bare from the waist up,
displaying a pale and malnourished-looking torso, but Mulder wasn't
interested in the physique.  He was staring contemplatively at a
number of scars on the man's chest and abdomen, most notably the
navel.

He clicked the remote and the screen sprang to life again.  The man
slowly rotated and the camera zoomed in on the back of the neck.
There was another faint scar there.

Mulder clicked the TV off and looked at the small sheaf of
hand-written notes in his lap.  Several pieces of metal had apparently
been removed from the man's chest and navel, and x-rays showed another
tiny fragment lying subcutaneously at the base of the neck.  This was
the so-called "chip" he claimed received messages warning him when he
was going to be abducted.  Mulder wondered absently at the purpose of
this - why warn the victim in the first place?  But that was something
presumably only the man himself could answer.

Of course, this could all be hokum.  The abductee - Duane Barry - had
made claims of extensive experimentation on the part of his
kidnappers, involving surgical incisions with no anaesthetic.  There
was no physical evidence of this whatsoever, but claims that his teeth
had been drilled had proved to be true.  More importantly, the holes
left behind appeared to have been made with an unidentified implement,
something which on the face of it was far in advance of any current
dentistry techniques.

Interesting.  Very, very interesting.

Mulder tossed the papers to one side and leaned back, staring up at
the ceiling thoughtfully.  Langly had been right - a year ago this
would have had him on the plane as soon as he could pack an overnight
bag.  But this was now, and he simply didn't have the finances to
cover it.

The phone rang, and he leaned over the arm of the sofa to reach it.
"Mulder."

"It's me."  On the other side of the continent, Scully leaned back
against the pillows and smiled.  "I thought you'd like to know I'll be
out of here by Wednesday."

"That's good news.  Hold on, I'm switching to the mobile ...."  Mulder
switched phones and sprawled back on the sofa, kicking his shoes off
and stretching himself out.  "Are you coming straight back, or will
you stop and take a look around?"

"Oh, I think I'll come home.  Not that I wouldn't like to take a look
around while I'm here, but it's kind of boring on my own."  She
sighed.  "Besides, I don't know that I want to hang around in Seattle.
Agent Dubois has gone from being mildly irritating to seriously
annoying.  He'd probably think I was staying on just to see him - the
guy has an ego the size of the Empire State Building."

Mulder's brow furrowed.  "This is the octopus SAC?"

"Correct.  I had to have dinner with him and the other agents
tonight."  He could hear the combination of annoyance and amusement in
her voice.  "I thought I was going to have to stab him with my fork if
he didn't keep his hands to himself."

"And did he?"

"Did he what?"

"Keep his hands to himself."

"No."  She blew out a frustrated breath.  "It was difficult, though -
I didn't really want to make a fuss in front of three senior male
colleagues, and he's the kind of creep who ....  Well, never mind.
I've barricaded my door now, just in case."

Mulder sat up sharply.  "What?! ....You're okay, aren't you?"

There was a sudden smile in her voice.  "Mulder, I'm fine.  He's just
a nuisance - you can meet them anywhere.  Sorry ... I haven't really
barricaded my door, unless you count mentally."

"Okaaaay ...."  He blew out a relieved breath, and leaned back again.
"How about your testimony?"

"That's fine too, even if I *haven't* practised it with Dubois at his
place this evening."

Mulder was startled into a burst of laughter, although it was mostly
relief.  "You've got to give the guy credit for trying!"

"Yeah - in a cheap and obvious way."  Scully dismissed SAC Dubois
without another thought.  "So - how did the party go today?"  Mulder
groaned, and she laughed.  "That bad?"

"I may never be allowed in MacDonalds again - although that may not be
a bad thing.  Scully, it was a real food-fight.  And even with Annie
to help me, it was hell trying to keep track of six little boys and
one five year old girl.  Where do they get all their energy from?
There was ice-cream and fries everywhere!  And I swear if you turn
your back on them for five minutes, they try to kill each other."

Scully began to giggle.  "Did his "bestest friend" turn up in the
end?"

"Which one?" Mulder asked in a long-suffering voice.  "He had a
massive falling out with Martin over the popcorn bucket at the movie,
and by the time the mothers came to pick them all up from my place, he
was hob-nobbing with a kid called Li-Weng ... who wasn't even one of
our party."

"Huh?  Where did he come from?"

"His family just moved in upstairs, and the kid was mooching around
the staircase looking lonely.  I can see that I'm going to be spending
a lot of time escorting Sam up and down the stairs in the near future,
when he visits."

"Poor baby!"

"Yeah, it's a hard life.  And I'm not sure I've forgiven you yet for
abandoning me to my fate."

He could hear the smile in her voice.  "How can I make it up to you?"

"Oh, I don't know ....  What are you wearing?"

Stretching against the pillows, Scully's smile became wicked.  "Well,
I *was* wearing that pale lemon-coloured dress - you know, the
sleeveless one with the round neckline."

Mulder did know.  It was very simple, and the hemline was three inches
above her knee.  At least.  "You wore that dress for the Federal
Octopus?"  He was a little hurt, for he felt that he had first claim
on Scully's knees.

"No," she said mildly, "I wore it for me.  I needed the confidence
boost."

"Oh."  Suddenly he caught up with her and blinked.  "Hang on - you
wore it, past tense?  Aren't you wearing it now?"

"No."  Scully stretched again, a very satisfied smile on her lips.
Now she really had his attention.  "I took it off just before I called
you.  It was ... a little confining."

"Oh.  So you're what - in bed already?"

"No - I'm lying on top of it.  I only took my dress off, Mulder.  And
my shoes, of course."

A pause.  "Do you still wear that ivory-coloured satin slip under that
dress?" he asked finally.

"Not this time.  I had a new cream lace merrywidow I wanted to try for
size, and it seemed a shame to wear too many layers when it's been so
warm here for the last couple of days.  Not so warm that I went
without stockings, of course ...."

Mulder swallowed.  "You're wearing stockings?"  He liked it when she
wore stockings; there was something indescribably feminine about them
as a garment, and it was an outward display that although she was a
very tough individual, she was still all woman.  Besides, he liked the
sound they made when her legs brushed together.

"Hm."  Scully idly raised one leg and ran her hand caressingly down
her thigh from the knee, tracing the lacy top of the stocking with her
fingertip.  "Hold-ups.  Not that I've got anything against garters,
but the hold-ups seemed more ... convenient.  They're cream, with two
inches of lace at the top."  Her tone was musing.  "I wasn't really
sure when I bought them, but they're kind of nice.  They match my
lingerie."

Mulder's eyes drifted shut.  The woman was a witch, without a doubt,
and would probably have been burned at the stake three centuries
previously for what she was doing to him now.  He shifted restlessly
on  the sofa, aware that his jeans were becoming uncomfortably tight
in one particular area.  "So ... they match your lingerie?" he
parroted, unable to think of anything original to say.

It probably had something to do with all the blood rushing south from
his brain.

"Yes - it's a cream lace merrywidow.  I *told* you so a few minutes
ago," she replied.  There was a tiny hint of reproach in her voice, as
though she thought he hadn't been paying attention.

"Yeah, but you didn't give me a *full* description."

"Didn't I?"

"No," and he shifted again, wondering if he should just go to his
bedroom and get rid of the confining jeans.

"It's mostly lace," Scully was murmuring in his ear.  She looked down
at herself contemplatively, and ran her fingers lightly over the
underwired bra cups.  "The legs are cut quite high and it fits
snugly - "

She was cut off by a groan.  "Scully, you're killing me here."

Her voice became a purr.  "Oh, Mulder ....  I haven't even *started*
yet."

Mulder fought a losing battle with himself, and finally gave in with a
sigh.  "In that case, give me a minute to move this to my
bedroom ...."

XXXX

The telephone was an annoying buzz in Mulder's ear.  He groaned and
swatted at it with one hand, but the noise wouldn't go away.  Strange
how it seemed so loud ....  He peeled back one sleep-fogged eyelid and
realised that the mobile extension was actually in bed with him.
What - ?  Oh yeah ....

He reached out and blearily thumbed it on.  "Yeah?" he mumbled
thickly.

"Mulder, what the hell have you been doing?  We've been trying to get
through to you for more than an hour!"

"Huh?"  Mulder rolled onto his back and peered at his watch.  "Give me
a break, Frohike - it's one-thirty in the morning!"

"Yeah, and you were on the phone steady from eleven-thirty onwards!
We gave up at twelve-fifteen ...."

"So why are you ringing me now?" Mulder snarled indignantly.

"Have you looked at that tape?" Frohike demanded.

"Actually, I did."  Mulder sighed, and hauled himself into a sitting
position, hampered a little by the embarrassing fact that his boxers
were still wrapped around his knees and his tee-shirt was trying to
twist itself back to front with him still inside it.  "Interesting,
I'll admit, but why hasn't the guy had the chip in his neck removed?"

"Our source says Barry prefers to know when he's being 'summoned'."

"Even if the information is useless?"  His brows rose.

"Abductees.  Go figure."

"The bit about his teeth was what really caught my eye.  Can anyone
account for that?"

"Not so far, but no one's really done an in-depth interview with him
yet.  He's kind of paranoid, but he's heard of you and he's expressed
a willingness to talk."

Mulder sighed again.  "Great.  I'm interested, Frohike, but the
original objection still stands.  What's the fee?"

The little man's grin was almost visible down the telephone.  "That's
why we were trying to get hold of you.  The editor's going ape - his
main story this month got blown by another publication.  Apparently
the writer sold it twice, and did a runner, so they're relying on
you."

"Not so fast - you haven't answered my question.  I repeat; what's the
money like?"

"Still the standard fee, but they've offered to pay for your flight
out there."

There was a pause as Mulder considered this.  "Frohike, between you
and me - how desperate is this editor of yours for the whole nine
yards?"

Frohike began to chuckle.  "Between you and me?  Pretty desperate - he
can't get anyone reliable to take it, or not anyone he trusts anyway."

"Okay.  Ask him if he'll stump up for me *and* Sam, return tickets to
Seatac Airport.  *Open* return tickets."

"Wicked," was the appreciative reply.  "I'll get back to you, but I
think he'll go for it."

"You know, sometimes you sound just like my manager," Mulder yawned,
as he dragged the quilt up around his neck again.

"No way - you're too much of a primadonna," was the quick reply, and
the line went dead as Frohike hung up.

XXXX

Two days later, Mulder and Sam arrived at Seatac Airport, to be met by
Scully in a hired jeep.

"Let me guess," Mulder said, dryly humorous.  "You were a Girl Scout."
He hefted his bags and Sam's into the back of the jeep, then paused
and leaned on the side of the vehicle, looking down at Scully with a
lurking twinkle.  "You're going to regret this, you know."

"Why?" she demanded.

"You've never yet spent more than a few hours in Sam's company in one
go.  And now you're *volunteering* to spend three days in a tent with
him?"  He shook his head in mock sadness.  "You're nuts, Scully."

"Where did you get this idea that I'm a shrinking violet?" she shot
back, chuckling.  "You've seen my nephews, Mulder - trust me, Sam is a
lamb by comparison.  And I'm looking forward to this.  I haven't been
camping in years."

"I would never dream of calling you a shrinking violet," he assured
her.  "In fact, I'm so convinced of your machismo, that I'm even going
let you drive."

"That's big of you, considering that I rented this thing."

Mulder grinned, and jumped in the passenger side.  He glanced into the
back seat, where Sam was strapped into a child's seat already.  "You
okay back there, Sunshine?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Good boy."  Actually, the kid looked tired to Mulder, which was no
surprise.  He'd been active all through the flight out to Seattle, but
with any luck he'd crash now and sleep for a few hours.  They had a
drive of something like three or four hours to Olympic National
Forest - with a stop over in Tacoma first to interview the paranoid
Duane Barry - and keeping him occupied for that length of time would
be a full-time job.

"This could be a long drive," Scully observed, as she got behind the
wheel.  "I checked the driving conditions earlier and Interstate 5 is
pretty busy."  She started the car and pulled out.  "How was the
flight?"

"Busy.  Is there something going on that we don't know about?"

She shrugged slightly.  "Might be a game on."

"Huh."

There was silence for a short period while Scully manoeuvred in and
out of the morning traffic, then she glanced sideways at him.  "So
what's the interview about?"

"The guy's an alleged multiple abductee," Mulder replied readily
enough.  "He claims to have undergone a variety of medical procedures
during his experiences, one of which involved the implantation of a
number of metal devices in his body.  He says he still has one such
device implanted at the base of his neck and furthermore, he claims
that he receives signals from it warning him when he's about to be
taken away by "them"."

""Them"?"

"Presumably the little grey Reticulans, although I won't know for sure
until I talk to him."

Scully spared enough attention from the road to give him a curious
look.  "Mulder, you almost sound blasé about this.  Don't you believe
his story?"

"Well ...."  He rubbed the side of his nose reflectively.  "I've done
a little research on this guy - as much as I can do, given that I
don't know a whole lot about him to begin with - and there's some
suggestion that he might have mental problems.  Now granted your
average alien abductee isn't always totally stable, due to his or her
experiences.  But I still feel a little wary about *this* guy.
There's stuff that strongly suggests he's genuine, but just because he
really *was* taken up into spaceships by the Greys doesn't mean he
can't be a total loon as well."

"Do you want me to come along, just in case?" she asked, concerned.

"Not really.  In fact, I think you and Sam should stay well out of the
way.  The guy's completely paranoid, and he's only expecting to see
me - if you come along, and he *is* a nut, he could flip entirely."

"Now I'm worried," she told him quite seriously.

Mulder chuckled.  "Don't be!  He's probably just a harmless conspiracy
freak, but since I'm out here to interview him - and screwed two plane
tickets out of the magazine on the strength of it - I don't see the
point in scaring Barry off before he talks.  I might as well do the
job properly."

"Hm.  I'm not going to argue with you but be careful, Mulder."

His grin was untroubled.  "Aren't I always?"

"Hm ... let's not go there."  She gave him a look of mock admonition,
which he only smirked at.  "Okay ....  Let's change the subject.
How's Annie?"

"Ouch."  Mulder looked a little wry.  "Can we change *this* subject as
well?"

Scully blinked in surprise.  "Why?"

"Let's just say that I'm not Annie's favourite person at the moment."

"Mulder ... what have you done?"

"It's not exactly what *I've* done," he said defensively.  "It's how I
reacted to something she did."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."  There was a pause, and Mulder seemed to be preoccupied with
watching the scenery out of the side window.  Scully sighed.

"Okay, fine.  Don't tell me."

"Scully ....  Sheesh!  Okay - she invited you and me to dinner with
her and Simon.  On Shabbat."

Scully was puzzled.  "What's so terrible about that?"

"I refused, and she got a little bent out of shape.  She'll get over
it, Scully."

There was another pause as Scully switched lanes.  After a moment, she
asked in a level voice, "That's the second time you've refused an
invite to Annie's on my behalf.  Want to tell me why?"

"Simon tipped me off about one of the other guests."  Simon was
Annie's husband.

"Mulder, this is like pulling teeth - "

"She invited Rabbi Neuberger," he interrupted, a little desperately.
"You know what Annie's like, Scully - she's got this idea in her head
...."  His voice trailed off briefly as he glanced over his shoulder
at Sam.  The little boy was fast asleep, and Mulder warily lowered his
voice.  "She's got this idea that you and I might be considering
getting married.  And Annie being Annie ... well, I don't think it's
occurred to her that you might not want to convert.  She tends to
think in straight lines, and anything other than a conventional temple
wedding would be inconceivable. So ...."

"So she invited the Rabbi along to discuss it with me?"

"Something like that."

Scully suppressed a grimace.  "Mulder, I wouldn't want to upset her
but you do realise that even if we were thinking of such a thing - "

"*Scully*."  She looked at him, and he was grinning at her.  "I can't
think of many things that would persuade me to have another
traditional wedding at this stage in my life," he told her, amused,
"and Annie doesn't have what it takes to change my mind, trust me.
Nor would I want you to convert.  Even if I *did* want all that, I'd
have to track Phoebe down and hand her the 'get', the final bill of
divorce, before I'd be free to go through with it.  And since we both
already know where we stand on the subject of marriage anyway ...."

"But she won't see it that way, will she?"

"Oh, she probably will, but it'll take time for her to get used to the
idea.  We'll probably have to sit down with her and discuss it at some
point - but now isn't the right time.  She's a little aggrieved at
being thwarted."

Scully smiled reluctantly.  "I can imagine- she's a masterful person."

"Actually, I was thinking "interfering", but you're kinder than I am."
There was another pause, and Mulder dug into his pocket for his bag of
sunflower seeds.  Cracking one between his teeth, and offering Scully
the bag, he asked, "Did Skinner make any objections to you taking a
few days off?"

"Not after the trouble with the adjournment.  In fact, he suggested I
should take a little longer since I've got some vacation time stocked
up, so I've got next week free as well."  Scully glanced at him.
"You're working, I guess."

"Yeah."  He grimaced.  "I've got a couple of evening classes too ...
my punishment for coming here, probably."

"You want me to take Sam off your hands next week?"

"Ask me that again when we're flying out of here on Sunday," Mulder
suggested, amused.

Scully looked at Sam in the rear view mirror.  He was fast asleep with
his mouth open, head lolling against one of the 'ears' of his seat,
and looked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.  Her nephews
looked exactly the same when they were asleep, and she had long ago
privately decided that Matt and Jimmy were possessed.

Mulder was watching her with a tiny, wicked grin on his face.

"Hm," she said, and left it at that.

XXXX

Mulder had arranged to meet Duane Barry in the centre of town,
somewhere that was presumably busy enough that the man would feel
secure.  Although Mulder had his doubts that *anywhere* would be
secure enough for this guy.  All the same, he couldn't help feeling,
when he finally set eyes on Barry, that his precautions were wasted.
The man was so jumpy that people were eyeing him warily as he passed.

*Great,* Mulder sighed inwardly.  "Duane Barry?"

The man gave him an unnerving five second stare.  He was painfully
thin, and decidedly unkempt, with collar-length greasy hair and
clothes that had seen better days.  But this barely attracted Mulder's
notice; he was more concerned by the grimly manic light in Barry's
eyes.

He'd been right not to allow Scully and Sam to come along to the
meeting; this man was definitely unhinged.

"You Fox Mulder?" Barry demanded finally.

Mulder fished in his pocket, grateful that he'd thought to bring along
an old White House press card he'd been issued during one of his more
respectable assignments.  Barry accepted it at arms length and
examined it minutely.  "This is out of date," he said suspiciously.

"Yeah, I'm not welcome at the White House these days."

Again, the hungry, penetrating stare.  "They try to shut you up?"

"Not exactly.  But they weren't keen on the questions I was asking."
Mulder grinned inwardly at the memory.  "Neither was the editor I was
writing for."

"Huh."  Barry handed the card back, and there was an uneasy silence.

Finally Mulder gave up and made the next move.  "So ... where do you
want to talk?"

"Somewhere where there's people - lots of people.  They won't take me
in front of witnesses."

*This is going to be a long afternoon,* Mulder thought.   Out loud, he
merely observed, "Okay, how about we get a beer?"

XXXX

When Mulder caught up again with the others, Scully was trying to
discourage Sam from chasing birds outside an ice cream parlour.  Her
efforts were only meeting with marginal success, he was amused to
note; Sam had inherited his father's ability to become selectively
deaf when he chose (although Mulder would never have admitted that the
trait came from him).

Scully greeted him with an apologetic smile.  "Sorry, Mulder.  I tried
to keep him clean, but he still managed to get ice cream down his
front."

Mulder chuckled and swooped down on his son, scooping him up firmly.
"I don't know," he replied, surveying the damage to the boy's shirt
philosophically.  "You've done pretty well, all things considered.  He
usually manages to get it in his hair as well."  He swung Sam up and
blew a raspberry on his neck, making him giggle.

"I uh ... washed it out when I was trying to clean him up."

He grinned at her wry expression.  "I did warn you."  He put Sam down
again.  "So, what do you want to do?  Get something to eat now, or buy
something to eat on the road?"

Scully glanced at her watch.  "I think we should pick something up and
get moving," she decided.

"Okay ....  Sam!  Come on, kiddo."

Scully hid a smile as Sam, who had rapidly edged away from them,
stopped and eyed Mulder speculatively, clearly weighing up how serious
his father was.  He took an experimental step toward the flock of
birds pecking up crumbs and rubbish thrown by the tourists nearby.

"Sam - "  Mulder's voice took on a warning note.  "You come now, or
I'll put the reins on you."

Sam's chin instantly began to jut out stubbornly.  "No!"

Mulder took a step towards him, and at once the little boy scampered
off.  There was a brief chase amid a cloud of panicking birds, making
Scully snort with laughter; then a young woman, gripping her own
two-year-old firmly by the hand, grabbed the tail of Sam's shirt as he
passed her.

Sam was red-faced and bawling with temper when Mulder carried him
back, kicking his feet in the air.  "Ignore him," Mulder said mildly
when he saw Scully's raised brow.  "If he wants people to stare at
him, that's fine with me!"

She nodded and proceeded to change the subject.  "How did the
interview go?"

"Pretty much as I expected," Mulder sighed.  Sam continued to vent his
feelings as he was carried bodily along.  "Barry is a seriously
disturbed individual, Scully, but a lot of the things he came out with
I've heard other abductees say."

"Which probably means he's well-read on the subject.  Obsessive ...."

"You could say that about me."

She gave him an amused look.  "You said it, Mulder; not me."

He gave her a mock glower, but his mind was really elsewhere.  "He
doesn't look to me like the kind of guy who sits and reads for
pleasure, Scully," he commented after a moment.  "He's manic, jumpy -
he was on the twitch the whole time we were talking.  I would expect
someone with a UFO fixation - as opposed to a supposed abductee - to
be more intense, more knowledgeable.  Someone more educated, to be
honest.  I could be wrong about Barry, but that's not the way he
presented himself.  Hell, he had a hard time stringing a coherent
sentence together, although verbal dysphasia could easily be a symptom
of his mental problems."

"I think you're crediting UFO freaks with more mental acumen than they
deserve," Scully told him sceptically.  "Remember, I've read some of
those publications you've forced onto me.  I'll grant you that the
Gunmen can produce logical, credible arguments with considerable - if
dubious - evidence to back them up.  You can't say that about a great
many of the others.  And some of the people you've introduced me to
are pretty poor in the verbal communications department too."

Mulder had to give her that.  Some of the publications produced by UFO
groups he'd encountered would lead no one to believe that fully
educated adults were behind them; nor did meeting these people
engender much confidence.  But long term association with them at
least fostered a belief in their sincerity if nothing else.  And he
had no doubts about Duane Barry's sincerity.  The man might be
mentally unsound, but he fervently believed what he was saying.

And there was still the implant to be explained.

Sam had finally given up yelling, when it became obvious that the two
adults were going to ignore him.  "Daddy!  Want to walk."

Mulder stopped and looked at his son.  "Oh, you do, do you?  Well, I
think you'll go on the reins all the same, mister."

Sam pouted, but obediently stood still while he was buckled up.
Mulder straightened up.

"Okay, guys, let's get something to eat and hit the road."

XXXX

Having spent the first night at a larger campsite relatively close to
the outer edge of the forest, they decided the next day to keep on
driving to another site further in, with the objective of doing a
little hiking.

"We could do with stopping at the Ranger Station and seeing if we
could get a better map," Scully frowned, as she rummaged through the
glove compartment.  Mulder was taking his turn driving.  "The one
we've got is okay, but it would be good to have something a little
more detailed.  How far do you think we'll manage, anyway?"  She was a
little doubtful about their chances, given that they had Sam with
them.  Little legs would only be able to manage so far.

"If you're thinking of Sam, don't worry.  I've got that problem
covered."

Scully glanced back at Sam, who was entertaining himself with his
Marvin the Martian toy.  She smiled.  "How far can you walk, Sam?"

"All the way!" he asserted, and Mulder grinned.

"Yeah, sure you can, Sunshine, with me carrying you."

Sam temporarily lost interest in the adventures of Marvin the Martian,
and began taking an interest in the view out of the window.  "When are
we stopping, Daddy?"

Abruptly, there was a jolt and a bang, making the little boy squawk
with alarm.  The vehicle skidded, and with some difficulty Mulder
wrestled it into a controlled swerve.  They jolted to a halt, and
there was a tense pause.  "I guess we're stopping here," Mulder said,
shaken.

"What the ... holies was that?" Scully gasped.  She unfastened her
seatbelt and opened the door, sliding out.

When she met Mulder around the other side, he was examining the front
tire.  "Look at this," he said, touching the jagged edge of a tear in
the thick rubber treads.  "Clean through the side wall."

Scully crouched beside him, and peered at the ground behind the front
wheels.  "Oh my God ...."  She dropped onto her knees and reached
under the vehicle, pulling out a chunk of metal the size of her hand.
It was a spidery contraption made of thick iron prongs welded
together, which were razor-sharp and bent out at angles.  The device
couldn't lie flat on the ground but was designed so that any object
such as a tire catching on one of the spikes would drag it over,
either embedding it more securely or ripping it free.

Mulder took it from her and examined it grimly.  "I've seen something
like this before," he commented after a moment.  "Did you take the
basic course with Domestic Terrorism?"

She nodded.  "It's a ... caltrop?"

"That's right.  Real caltrops were a medieval device designed to lame
horses.  *These* things are made by terrorists to take out rough
terrain vehicles."  He sat back on his haunches and looked around.  It
was a beautiful day ... but suddenly the shine had been taken out of
the trip for him.  "From the locality, I'd guess this was laid by
so-called 'ecoterrorists'.  We'd better take a good look up the road
and make sure there aren't any others, because we can't afford to lose
another tyre."

Changing the wheel took the better part of an hour, and left both of
them dirty and short-tempered.  Then Scully hopped back into the jeep
and drove slowly up the road behind Mulder as he scouted it out.  The
road itself was pretty good, and fairly wide, but the surface showed
the inevitable wear and tear made by heavy trucks - probably logging
lorries, although this part of the forest wasn't currently being
felled as far as Mulder could see.

He found two or three more of the vicious little metal traps before
they reached the next junction, all of which had been near the side of
the road and were showing signs of weathering.

"Probably been there some time," he grunted to Scully as he climbed
back into the vehicle.  "Guess it was just our bad luck."

"Not much of a consolation," she sighed.  "Okay, let's hot-foot it to
the Ranger Station.  If nothing else we need to let them know what
happened."

XXXX

"Monkey-wrenchers," Ranger Moore said succinctly, and without much
surprise.  He fingered the tear in the wall of the damaged wheel, and
whistled slightly through his teeth.  "Won't be able to fix that with
a patch.  I've seen upwards of two dozen wheels done like that in the
last six months, but this is the first one on that particular road.
I'll get one of my men to go and check it out, just in case there's
any more of those things."

Mulder's brows rose at the man's matter-of-fact tone.  "This happens a
lot?"

Moore grinned humourlessly.  "That?  That's nothing!  Come take a look
at this."  He led them outside to where three trucks bearing the
Federal Forest Service badge were parked.  Moore gestured to the
windscreen of the nearest one.  "Check it out."

Mulder stepped a little closer and examined the roughly circular chip
off-centre of the shield.  "Is this a bullet hole?"

"Point two-two calibre," the ranger nodded.  "Lucky they were too far
off for it to do more than crack the glass, huh?"

"Was it a hunting accident?" Scully asked, uneasily aware of Sam
clinging to her hand, his eyes very round.

Moore glanced at her.  "Not much to hunt out here but Freddies, Agent
Scully."

"'Freddies'?"

"Employees of the Federal Forest Service - it's what the ecoterrorists
call us."

"Oh."

"And you're sure it's ecoterrorists?" Mulder asked, curious.  "Seems a
little extreme."  Although he didn't seem too surprised either, Scully
noticed.

Moore shrugged.  "There's not much I reckon they'd stop at."  He
rubbed the back of his neck wearily.  "Let's get this straight - I
have no quarrel with these guys in principle.  I'm as much in favour
of saving the environment as anybody.  Hell, that's why I became a
ranger.  But I can't condone their methods.  And out here, I'm stuck
in the middle of the argument."

"You have to work with the lumber companies as well," Mulder nodded.

"Right.  And right now I've got a dozen loggers missing out there,
every man of them with survival experience.  I'm not saying the
monkey-wrenchers have anything to do with it, mind, but ...."  He let
his voice trail off significantly.

"How long have they been missing?"  Scully asked quietly.

"Two weeks.  We got a radio message from them saying that a couple of
the known terrorists had been on a spree up there - spiking trees,
sabotaging equipment, etc. - then nothing.  I sent two guys up there a
week ago to take a look, one of my own men, and one from
Schiff-Immergut Lumber, the logging company, and we haven't heard from
them since either."  Moore turned abruptly on his heel and walked back
into the station.

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances and followed him inside.

"I can provide you folks with a map, and I'll mark the areas to
avoid - areas where the lumber companies are in operation," the ranger
said.  "I'm afraid we can't do much about your spare wheel, but if you
stay on the main roads and drive carefully, you should be fine.  There
are a couple of good campsites not too far away, not much used at this
time of year, and the trails shouldn't be too hard for the little
fella to manage."

"What are you going to do next about the missing men?" Mulder asked as
Moore escorted them back to their vehicle.

"I'm escorting Steve Humphreys, Schiff-Immergut's head of security, up
there in a couple of days' time.  We'll see what we find."

"Good luck," Mulder said soberly.  He turned to go, then suddenly
turned back.  "Say, have you got a phone here I could borrow?"

"Sure.  There's a public phone around the side there."

"You weren't surprised by any of this," Scully said to Mulder in a low
voice as she and Sam followed him to the phone.

"Well, you've heard of ecoterrorists too, haven't you?"

"Yes, but nothing recently."

He gave her a thoughtful look.  "You know, I hadn't thought about this
before but ....  When you moved into my office, did you get the
computer fixed?"

Scully looked at him for a moment, debating whether it was worth
challenging the possessive "my office", then decided to leave it for
another occasion.  "I got the gummed up keyboard sorted out, if that's
what you mean, but the computer itself was really ropy.  After I'd had
a couple of complete crashes, they replaced the whole thing."

"Did they copy all the software over?"

"Not after the hard-drive fried itself completely the second time.
There was nothing left, although fortunately I'd backed up all the
files to a zip disk - "

"That explains it," Mulder said, satisfied.

"Explains *what*?" Scully demanded indignantly.

"Why you aren't intercepting a lot of stuff coming into the Bureau
which should really be classified as x-files but aren't."  Mulder
located the phone and began to rummage in the pocket of his jeans for
change.  "I had a piece of software on my computer that the Gunmen
designed for me - basically it monitored the network drives and made
copies of any files loaded which fell into certain parameters.  I had
it monitoring Central Records and the VCS files all the time.  That's
how I found most of my contemporary cases."

Scully was speechless.  When she finally found her voice, it was a
whispered explosion of outrage.  "Mulder, you can't do that!  Most of
those files are confidential - "

"So?  I was an agent loosely attached to the VCS - I was hardly
hacking in from the outside.  It's just a useful tool, Scully - you
have to be ahead of the game.  I'll get Frohike to make you a copy."
He shoved a few coins into the slot and dialled a number.  "Speaking
of hacking, though ....  Byers, it's me.  You can turn off the tape
....  Yes .... What?  No, it's not about that.  Look, can you get
Langly to check something out for me?  It's probably in the disks I
gave you a couple of years ago, but you might have to hack into the
Bureau network.  There should be an x-file on loggers going missing in
the Olympic National Forest about sixty years ago ...."

XXXX

"You've been spending too much time with the Gunmen," Scully told
Mulder severely.  She shot him a condemnatory look in the rear-view
mirror, but his eyes only twinkled at her mischievously from the back
seat.

"Funny.  They think I've been spending too much time with you," he
commented mildly, returning his attention to the device in his lap.
"You *have* got your laptop with you, haven't you?"

"I thought you said your Psion Organiser can do everything a laptop
can?"

"It can, but it'll be quicker on your laptop.  Here, Sam - hold this
for Daddy."  Mulder gave his son a heavy-ish box-like piece of
equipment - a separate 3.5 inch disk drive that was bigger than the
miniaturised computer he was holding.  "I'll transfer this stuff to
disk - that is, if you've got Winzip loaded."

"I can't believe what you did to that payphone," Scully muttered,
ignoring him.  "I didn't even know is was *possible* to use a payphone
line as an Internet link ...."

"I put it right again afterwards, didn't I?"

"And using Sam as a look-out while you did it - "

"Anyone would think I robbed the coin reserve on it.  Relax, will you,
Scully?  It's not like I didn't pay for the call."

"*I* paid for the call, Mulder, after you ran out of quarters."

"So that makes you an accessory to the crime.  All you had to do was
refuse to stump up the cash."  Mulder rummaged in the case he kept the
disk drive in, and found a couple of clean, high density disks.  He
slotted one into the drive Sam was patiently holding, and began
transferring zipped text files.

"So what is this stuff?" Scully asked finally.

"Not long before I left the X-Files, the guys helped me scan most of
the files onto disk, so I had a back-up copy if anything untoward
happened.  Of course, at that point I didn't realise I was going to
leave the Bureau, but I won't deny it's been handy having a spare copy


of everything."

Scully made a slight huffing sound.  "And you leave a copy of
confidential Bureau files with the *Gunmen*!"

Mulder raised a brow at her.  "Sure.  Let's face it, Scully - who
would you rather leave them with?  The Gunmen, who are friends of
ours, or someone like Tom Colton?"

"Point," she admitted, and let the subject drop.

XXXX

"Here, take a look at this," Mulder said later, after they'd pitched
their tent for the night.  Sam was already fast asleep in his
Spiderman sleeping-bag inside the tent, but neither of the adults had
felt inclined to bed down early on such a pleasantly mild night.

Scully took possession of her laptop and peered at the JPEG file
displayed.  "What am I looking at?"

"Thirty loggers working a clear-cutting contract in this very forest.
Rugged, manly men in the full bloom of their manhood."

"Right, but what am I looking for?"

"Anything strange, unexplainable, unlikely ... new boyfriend?"

"Ha ha.  I still don't get it."

"Oddly enough, neither did the Forest Service."

Scully looked up at him curiously.  "Past tense?  Isn't this the
current file on the loggers Moore was telling us about?"

Mulder cracked a sunflower seed between his teeth very casually.
"Look again."

"Huh."  Scully scrutinised the picture again.  "Okay, so it's kind of
old ... 1960s?"

"Good guess.  1962."  He leaned over her and manipulated the touchpad
mouse until another picture file appeared.  "What about this one?"

The picture was black and white, making Scully blink.  "Well, it's
definitely pre-War."

"Right again - 1934.  These are both groups of loggers - tough,
survivalist types - who went missing in this forest without a trace."
Mulder leaned over again and switched the picture once more.  "Meet
Steven Teague and Doug Spinney, monkey-wrenchers extraordinaire.  They
drive spikes into trees, sabotage logging equipment and otherwise make
life miserable for lumberjacks  and lumber-mills.  Generally
considered to be the prime suspects in the current disappearances,
although there's little more than some very dubious circumstantial
evidence.  Not enough to charge them with, and none of it explains
what happened to the other two groups.  Ecoterrorism was a non-issue
in 1934, of course, because there was less of an environmentalist
movement centred around the forests."

Mulder sat back.  "According to the guys, there *has* been an official
request from Schiff-Immergut Lumber for the FBI to investigate, but
the Bureau have one or two other things on their mind at the moment
and haven't given it a very high priority.  Hence Ranger Moore and the
company's head of security taking a trip up to the site themselves."

Scully shut down the laptop.  "You think these ecoterrorists had
something to do with the disappearances?"  She didn't think it was
likely Mulder would; it was far too mundane an answer to interest him.

"Not really," he replied readily enough.  "Think about it, Scully -
these guys are taking a radical approach to protecting the
environment, but taking out the loggers and Rangers would put them on
a par with the kind of animal rights activist who bombs scientists'
families.  It would lose them public support.  And there's just no
hard evidence ."

"So you suspect what?" she asked tolerantly.  "Bigfoot?"

He grinned.  "That's a hell of a lot of flannel to choke down even for
Bigfoot."

She chuckled softly, but her mind was already moving on.  "Mulder ....
Do I need to remind you that (a) you are not with the FBI anymore, (b)
I'm on holiday, and (c) even if I wasn't, this is not my case?  We
have no jurisdiction here, and Ranger Moore will not be amused at our
intrusion."

He shrugged.  "It's a big forest, Scully, but the site of the 1962
disappearances is only a few miles from here.  We could drop past
tomorrow, just to take a look, and then be on our way."

Scully looked at him for a moment.  "There's got to be a catch," she
said doubtfully.

But his eyes were sincere.  "Just a look out of curiosity.  There's
probably nothing left of the site by now anyway.  Besides, I don't
particularly feel like getting embroiled in a disappearing persons
case with Sam tagging along."

She almost sighed with relief.  "Okay, it's a deal.  We take a look at
the previous site and go our own way."

XXXX

The logging site had not been touched since the previous camp had been
found abandoned in 1962.  The trees had been re-planted and were
re-growing strongly, but the cabin which had served as living quarters
for the logging team had been shut up and left.

Mulder eased the back-pack he carried Sam in to the ground - there had
been a reasonable hike from the road and the little boy had tired out
before they'd gone a third of the distance - and looked around him,
while Scully scouted around the cabin itself.

"Is the door locked?" Mulder called softly, aware of an uneasy kind of
stillness around the site.

"Yes, but ...."  There was a pause and a rattling sound.  "The lock's
corroded.  Give me a hand here."

"Agent Scully, you're not attempting an illegal forced entry, are
you?"  But Mulder joined her and between them they managed to persuade
the lock to give way.

"I'm surprised  they didn't board this place up properly," Scully
observed, fumbling on her keyring for the tiny penlight Mulder had
given her for her birthday.  The cabin was shrouded in gloom from
tightly shuttered windows.

Impatient to get a look, Sam pushed between the two adults and ran
inside.  His nose wrinkled in disgust and he sneezed as a faint cloud
of dust arose from under his feet.  "It smells, Daddy."

"No kidding."  Mulder followed him in and took a quick glance around.
"I'm surprised the people who shut this place up didn't clean up a
little before they left.  It almost looks like they just left it the
way they found it."  There were still dishes and mugs on the table in
the middle of the main room, covered in dust and a dark layer of
dried-up mould.  The ceiling was festooned with enough cobwebs to make
Scully watch them a bit sharply as she walked underneath; and on the
far wall was a row of hooks still bearing the mildewed remains of
lumberjacks' jackets.

"Hardly 'home sweet home'," Scully commented.  She crossed to the
stove in the corner and peered gingerly into a couple of rusting pans,
then equally warily opened the store cupboard next to it.  "Maybe they
just got tired of franks'n'beans?" she suggested, swinging the door
open wide enough to display row after row of tin cans in peeling,
mildewed labels.  She pushed it shut again, and absently wiped her
fingers on her jeans.  The surface of the door had felt slightly
greasy.

"What are you lookin' for, Day?" Sam wanted to know.  His small brow
was furrowed and he had cobwebs in his hair.

"Some people who got lost when Daddy and I were little like you,
sweetie," she replied absently.

"Maybe they didn't like it here, an' went home," he said.  This place
wasn't very interesting to him and was just a little bit creepy.

"You never know, Sunshine," Mulder agreed, brushing the webs off his
son's head.  He exchanged a look with Scully as he did so, though.

Neither of them thought it was very likely.  In their experience,
people who were going home didn't leave all their gear and their dirty
dishes behind them.

XXXX

Despite the ample re-growth of trees, there was plenty of evidence of
the forestry work that had been carried out in the area during the
early- to mid-1960s.  Mulder found one huge tree still lying where it
had been felled, half obscured by thick undergrowth, covered in
lichens and slowly decomposing under the attentions of many tiny
forest creatures and the forces of natural decay.  The size was
staggering; he estimated that the trunk was as much as a hundred and
fifty feet long.

"I don't know much about the felling laws in this forest," Scully
commented from the other side of the trunk, "but it seems wrong that a
redwood this large should have been cut down for the lumber trade.  It
must be pretty old."  She surveyed the dead tree sadly.

"What do you think - a couple of hundred years?" Mulder asked.  He was
bent over, peering at a faded orange mark on the blackened and
crumbling bark.

"At least. What a waste."

He nodded and straightened up, turning away.  "Sam?  Kiddo, where are
you?"

"Here!"

Mulder followed the piping voice and blinked; his son had apparently
grown over a foot taller in the past five minutes.  Sam had discovered
the stump of the tree where it was surrounded by some thick leafy
plant life and was standing on it.

"My God, it's like a table," Scully said, gazing at the stump.

"Yeah.  Makes you wonder how many more trees like this were felled
illegally."

She looked up at Mulder sharply.  "What do you mean?"

He nodded towards the trunk.  "There's a Forestry Service mark on it -
an orange cross.  According to those information leaflets we picked up
at the Ranger Station, only trees marked with a blue cross can be
felled.  The orange ones are supposed to be left alone."

"Are you sure?" she asked, incredulous.

"Unless the marks have changed over the last thirty years, but I don't
think that's likely."

Scully let out a disgusted puff of breath.  "If that's the case, let's
hope the lumber company responsible has cleaned up its act since
then."

"Probably," Mulder admitted.  "Conservation has become a bigger issue
over the last fifteen or twenty years, just because of incidents like
this."  He reached out to Sam.  "Come on, Sunshine - jump!"

Sam allowed himself to be lifted down.  "Daddy, is this tree *very*
old?"

"Sure is, kiddo."  A conscientious parent could not allow an
educational opportunity like this to pass by.  Mulder dug his penknife
out of his jeans pocket and cut back some of the vegetation around the
stump, then crouched beside it and began to scrape the flat surface
clean of dead leaves and lichens with a twig.  He drew Sam a little
closer.  "Look at this."  He pointed out the weathered rings in the
stump.  "You can tell how old a tree is by the rings - do you see?
You can count them ... a year for each ring, is that right, Scully?"

"That's what I learned at school," she agreed, smiling.

"So if we counted these rings," Mulder continued, "we'd be able to
tell exactly how old this tree is."  He paused, running a finger from
the centre of the stump outwards.  "This is a *very* old tree, Sam,"
he said, and the note of respect and awe in his voice wasn't just for
the little boy's benefit.  "There are almost too many rings to count."

Scully leaned over too, and drew a measuring finger over the dead
wood.  "I'm no expert so this is a guess, but I'd estimate this tree
was anything up to five hundred years old when it was felled," she
said after a moment.

Five hundred years was probably too big a period for Sam to imagine at
his age, and Mulder struggled to think of a way he could make the boy
understand.  "Five hundred years ago, our ancestors were still living
in Holland, Sam, and Dana's family were still living in Ireland.  Five
hundred years ago, there were no white people in America."  That was
stretching history a little, but it would be good enough for Sam.

"I wonder what this is, here?" Scully said suddenly.  She ran her
finger over a spot in the wood, a ring that was different.  Pulling
her own knife out, she knelt beside the stump and scraped carefully at
the surface, cleaning away the decaying upper layer of wood from a few
inches across.  The rings were exposed more clearly and Mulder saw
that one of them, perhaps two thirds of the way into the middle of the
trunk, was a deep yellowish-green colour.  "Looks like something
happened to this tree early on in its life," she commented.

Mulder was intrigued.  "Such as?"

She shrugged.  "I don't know - like I said, I'm anything but an
expert.  But it's possible there was some kind of localised
environmental event which led to it drawing up some unusual material
during its natural feeding process."  Her brow wrinkled.  "Perhaps I
could take a sample ...."

Mulder gave her a look of mild surprise.  "Why bother?"

She shot him an amused smile.  "Curiosity, Mulder!  Besides, what
happened to exploring the unknown?"

He grinned.  "Okaaaay ....  What are you going to put it in, though?
It's not like we have any nice, sterile sample vials with us."

"I'm not going to be sending it to the labs at Quantico, so a plastic
bag will probably do.  Have a look in my lunch box, will you, while I
dig out a chunk of this wood."  She proceeded to attack the tree stump
with the point of her blade, while Mulder obediently rummaged around
in her pack for a plastic bag.

"There!"  She dug out several thick shavings of the discoloured wood
and put them in the bag Mulder waved under her nose, knotting it
tightly.  Then she put it into the empty lunch box, pressing the lid
shut tightly.  "I'll take a look at that when we get back to DC."

They stood up, Scully brushing off the knees of her jeans.

"We'd better be getting back to the car," Mulder decided.  "We've
still got to get to the next campsite before dark."

XXXX

The next day they left the car at the campsite and hiked into the
woods, Mulder carrying Sam in the back-pack again when the boy got
tired.  They were following one of the main trails, but by lunchtime,
despite both their efforts, it became evident they had somehow strayed
from the path marked on the map.

"Great," Scully sighed finally, coming to a halt and flapping the map
defeatedly.  She took another look at her compass, but it was clear
from her expression that she wasn't very hopeful.

"Relax."  Mulder took the map out of her hands.  "Where's the last
spot on the map where we *know* we were still on the trail?"

"Here - that's the last trail marker."

"Okay ....  I don't think we can have gone more than about five or six
miles since then, so we must be around here somewhere - " he drew a
circle with his fingertip.  "If that's the case, we just need to keep
bearing right as much as possible and we should come back onto the
trail at some point."

"We've been bearing right for nearly an hour now," she grumbled, but
she started off again, following the narrow and overgrown path to the
right.

When he knew she wasn't looking, Mulder grinned at her petulance.  He
wasn't particularly worried about having lost the path, since he was
calmly confident that they would find it again long before nightfall;
and even if they didn't, a mild night out in the open was hardly the
worst thing that could happen to them.  He and Scully were both
healthy, adaptable individuals, and Sam had all the bouncy resilience
of a boisterous childhood.

But he had noticed over the last couple of days that despite being an
apparently experienced camper, Scully was not really the outdoorsy
type at heart.  She could build a camp fire and pitch a tent with the
best of them, but she also liked the comfort of being in a properly
maintained campsite.  Roughing it was not her style, as he had
discovered the night before when the campsite they arrived at turned
out to be one of the lesser-used ones.  Its facilities had been
decidedly crude and Scully had been put out to say the least.

Hitching Sam and the back-pack up a little, Mulder set off after her.
"You know," he observed, perhaps fifteen minutes later, "it's pretty
quiet here."

"That's the beauty of the forest," Scully returned, her tone
suggesting that, right now, the beauty of the forest wasn't doing much
for her.

"No, I mean it's *really* quiet."  So much so, in fact, that Mulder
was beginning to feel a little uneasy.  "There's no bird noise
anymore.  When we set out, you couldn't hear anything else.  And I've
noticed something else."

"What?"

He stopped and gestured to one of the trees.  "The trees here are
marked, Scully.  Fresh paint."

She looked around and realised he was right.  Several of the nearest
tree trunks bore blue crosses, the Forestry Service mark for a tree to
be felled.  She halted.  "Looks like we've strayed into a felling
area.  That's probably why we can't hear much in the way of wildlife.
Still, if we can find the loggers, they might be able to direct us
back to the main path."  The thought cheered her.

Mulder was less enthusiastic.  "I don't know - I can't hear any
chainsaws, can you?"

"Mulder, it's midday.  They've probably stopped for lunch."

"I'm hungry!" Sam piped up at the mention of a meal.

"You're always hungry," Mulder informed him, but he had to admit that
his own stomach was reminding him how long it had been since
breakfast.  Scully had doled out some snack bars made of dried fruit
and nuts just before they started out, but the confectionery didn't
rate highly with his tastebuds.  Sam, of course, had practically
devoured them wrappers and all - but then, no one had ever accused
Mulder's son of being choosy about his food.  "We could do with
finding someplace to stop and eat, though."

"If there are loggers here, then there's probably another cabin
nearby.  Let's take a look."

"Hungry!" Sam reiterated more energetically.

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, and she produced a rueful
smile.  "Okay, let's eat first," she agreed.

Mulder winked at her and began the awkward process of unhitching the
back-pack with Sam in it, while Scully found a convenient tree stump
and dumped her own pack on it.  Rummaging around, she found the
plastic box containing the sandwiches and fruit she'd packed up
earlier, and for the next half an hour the three of them munched in
near silence.

Crunching into a pear, Scully glanced around herself and had to admit
that the area seemed almost ominously quiet.  Mulder was right; there
was no bird noise and it wasn't until you couldn't hear it that you
realised just how much the sounds contributed to the comfort of the
surroundings.  The towering trees seemed a whole lot less friendly as
a result.  Sam had noticed it too; up until now it had been hard for
them to keep him within a safe distance when he was walking on his own
two feet, but now he seemed content to stay close and was looking
around himself uncertainly.

"We should try and find that cabin," Mulder said finally, throwing his
apple core into the undergrowth.  Scully nodded and began to pack up
the debris of the meal.  Meanwhile, Sam had latched onto Mulder's hand
and was whispering.  "You what?  Oh ...."  Mulder straightened up.
"Scully, we've just got to take a trip into the bushes, okay?"

"Sure, so do I.  I'll just go up here, and meet you back on the path."

When Scully same back to the path five minutes later, though, there
was no sign of Mulder and Sam.  She sighed, swinging her rucksack onto
her back, and walked back down the path a short way.  "Mulder?"

"Over here," he called quietly.

Scully frowned and followed his voice until she found him and Sam
standing in a small clearing just off the main trail.  Mulder was
looking up at something in the branches above his head.

"What are you doing?"

"Come and look at this, Scully."  Mulder pointed upwards.  "What do
you make of it?

She tilted her head back and saw that there was a large greyish mass
hanging above them from one of the lower branches of a sturdy redwood.
For a moment or two, she thought it might be an old piece of sheet or
a grey blanket wrapped around the branch; then she felt her throat go
dry.  Whatever it was, it looked *spun*, like a spider's web or the
cocoon of a moth ... only it was far too large to be an insect
structure.

"What do you think it is?"  Mulder asked her.

Scully shook her head, her eyes riveted.  "I don't know.  Is it - can
it be natural?"

"I was hoping you could tell me - "

"Aren't you folks a little far out of your way up here?"

All three of them jumped, and Mulder nearly fell over a log in his
haste to turn around.  It was Ranger Moore, and he was accompanied by
a heavy-set older man.

Moore looked at them curiously.  "This is a fair way off the route I
showed you," he commented.

"Yeah, well we got a little lost this morning," Scully admitted.  "I
didn't realise this was the area where your loggers went missing,
though.  Have you found them yet?"

"Not so far."  Moore indicated the other man.  "This is Steve
Humphreys, the head of security at Schiff-Immergut.  We reached the
site cabin this morning, although we had to hike part of the way up
here ourselves - we got wheel-spiked, like you did."  He glanced at
Humphreys.  "This lady here's an FBI Agent, Steve.  These people got
spiked further down in the forest a couple of days ago."

Humphreys grimaced.  "Damn monkey-wrenchers spoil this forest for
everyone," he said curtly, but his gaze as he took in the three of
them was not unfriendly.  "FBI, huh?  We've been waiting for you
people to help us out for weeks."

"Not my department, Sir," Scully said briefly.

"Any signs of what happened to your people?" Mulder asked.

"Nope.  We found the cabin abandoned, their truck's fuel tank full of
rice, and the generator trashed.  Monkey-wrenchers again.  I'd like to
know what they did with my men, though - I've got families back at
home wanting to know where their bread-winners are."

Mulder grimaced, and looked at Moore.  "We were just wondering what
this is," he told him, and gestured to the object in the tree.  "What
do you make of it?"

Moore squinted up at it and shook his head.  "Never seen one of those
before.  Looks like some kind of nest ... fairly heavy by the looks of
it."

"How about we take a look?" Mulder suggested, and gave Scully a
meaningful look.  She sighed, only too aware what *that* meant.

Moore nodded his agreement, and although Humphreys looked for a moment
as though he might question the relevance of checking out an old sack
in a tree, after a second he shrugged and acquiesced.

XXXX

Moore - by this time he had dropped the formality and told them to
call him Larry - retrieved a long coil of rope from the loggers'
cabin, and between them they managed to fashion a sling harness.  The
three men then hoisted Scully up the tree, encouraged by Sam's
delighted shouts.  Scully was less enthusiastic, but was fully
cognisant that, being the lightest of the adults, it should be her who
took a closer look at the cocoon in the tree.

Viewed more closely, she found she liked the look of it less and less.
Reaching the branch, she grabbed hold of it to control the movement of
the sling and manoeuvred herself a little closer.  It was definitely a
nest or cocoon of some kind, being formed of a myriad of tiny
silk-like threads, and there was something dark inside it.
Unwillingly, she reached out and touched the edge of the thing, making
it shift slightly ... and jerked backwards.

"Can you see anything?" Mulder called.

Scully swallowed.  There was a gap in the fibres and something dark
and dry was poking out.  It looked like a finger.

"Scully?"

"There's something inside it," she managed.  She glanced down and saw
the three men and Sam all staring up at her expectantly.  Sam - she
had to remember Sam.  "Hold on - "  She fumbled at her waist and found
the sturdy hunting knife Mulder had bought her while they were
provisioning for the trip a few days before.  With some difficulty she
was able to get herself close enough to the cocoon to widen the hole.

Oh God.  Peering back out at her from the hole was the unmistakable
eye socket of a skull.

*Sam - remember Sam.  He mustn't see this.*

"Mulder, it looks like there might be the body of an animal in here,"
she called and sent him a look which she hoped was full of meaning.

For a moment he stared back up at her, his face immobile.  Then he
nodded.  "Okay ...."

"I'm going to cut it down," and she determinedly turned her attention
to the thick rope-like extensions that were fastening the cocoon to
the branch.

The bundle of fibre landed on the forest floor with a dry thump, and
Moore immediately left Mulder and Humphreys to the job of lowering
Scully down, while he went to check the object out.  Seeing Sam at his
heels, Mulder said quickly, "You might want to wait, Larry - Scully's
a pathologist.  Sam, leave it alone."

Perhaps something in his voice warned the ranger, but he instantly
abandoned the cocoon and steered Sam away.  A few minutes later,
Scully was back on her own two feet and shedding the ropes as fast as
she could.

"There's a body in there," she said to Mulder and Humphreys in an
undertone.  "I don't know how the hell it got up there, but it looks
for all the world like some gigantic spider parcelled it up for a
meal."

"That's impossible!" Humphreys stated disbelievingly.  "You said it
was an animal - "

"Shut up!" she hissed, furious at him for saying it where Sam could
overhear.  From a short distance away she was aware of Moore watching
them, concerned, his hands firmly on Sam's shoulders.

"Let's get it opened up," Mulder interjected quietly.  "I'll keep Sam
occupied for now."

Doing that was easier said than done, but he achieved it by popping
the boy into the rope harness and giving him a ride up and down the
tree in it.  And after a few minutes, Humphreys volunteered to take
his place, looking pale under his weathered tan.

Scully and Moore had cut the cocoon open and spread the fibres apart
as much as they were able.  Ignoring its contents for a moment, Mulder
examined the thing, struck by how much the material was like
fibreglass; there were umpteen layers of the stuff, none of them
looking thicker than a single-ply paper tissue, and every one of them
was as stiff as sized canvas.  The contents, when he finally looked,
were grisly.  It was undoubtedly a human corpse, but it was less than
two thirds of the size of a normal adult due to shrivelling of the
soft tissues.  It was curled up into a semi-foetal position and it was
impossible to judge age or sex.

Scully had donned her impassive doctor's mask and was dealing with the
matter with professionalism.  She reached inside the cocoon and felt
the body's neck and face.  "It feels ... desiccated and dry, like it's
been preserved," she observed after a moment.

"Like it's been embalmed," Moore suggested rather hesitantly.  From
the look on his face, Mulder guessed he was holding back his nausea by
sheer strength of will, and felt a strong twinge of sympathy.  Apart
from anything else, there was a peculiar odour drifting up from the
body which was utterly unlike any smell of human decomposition he
could remember, and it was making the lunch he had consumed less than
an hour previously sit heavily in his stomach.

"No ...."  Scully felt the corpse a little more.  "It's more like the
fluids have been drained from the body - like it's been cured.  I -
uh - I think it's a male.  Yes, it is."

"Barely," Mulder shuddered.  "What do you think of this stuff it's
encased in, Larry?"

The ranger swallowed hard.  "I'd say it's some kind of spider's nest
or insect cocoon."

"What kind of insect could have got a man all the way up into that
tree?" Scully objected.

Mulder stood up and looked up at the tree.

"Itsy-bitsy spider," he muttered, and tried to fend off the feeling
that the forest was suddenly closing in around him.

XXXX

The group that headed back to the loggers' cabin was a sombre one,
even Sam catching the uneasy quiet of the group and hopping along next
to his father in silence.  They had closed the cocoon up once more as
best they could, binding it up with the rope, and Moore and Humphreys
carried it between them.  No one had dared voice the question of the
dead man's identity yet.

"We were hoping one of the logging team here could point us back onto
the right path to the campsite," Scully said to Moore at one point,
"but under the circumstances, perhaps you could do that."

"I can give you directions when we get to the cabin," he replied, and
there was silence again until they got there.

The cabin was a sturdy wooden structure not unlike the older version
Mulder and Scully had investigated the day before at the other
loggers' camp, and was a matter of a hundred yards from where they'd
stopped for lunch.  There was a battered flatbed truck parked in front
the building, but other than that there was little sign of habitation.
Without a word, Humphreys and Moore   loaded the cocoon into the back
of the truck and covered it with a sheet of tarpaulin.

"How are you planning on getting back to the ranger station when
you've finished here?" Mulder asked Humphreys.

The older man hesitated.  "We were going to hike back to our Explorer,
and take a couple of the wheels from this vehicle to swap with the
damaged ones," he said.

"Except that all the wheels have been slashed on this truck too,"
Moore put in grimly.  "Besides, we'll have to take - that - with us
when we go, now."  And he nodded at the tarpaulin in the back.

"We could give you a ride," Scully offered.  "We daren't risk bringing
the jeep up here, though, with more of those caltrops lying around.
We don't have a spare ourselves anymore."

"Could we take a wheel from your Explorer as a spare?" Mulder
suggested.

"That's a good idea," Moore nodded, "but if you're camping where I
think you are, our vehicle's too far in the opposite direction for you
to reach today and get back to the campsite before nightfall.  In
fact - " he glanced around, " - chances are you won't make it back to
the camp before dark now anyway.  Better let me check your map, but
you might want to consider stopping here overnight.  Hiking through
this forest in the dark is no joke, especially with a kid."

"I'll see if I can get the generator fixed," Humphreys grunted, "or
we'll be cooking over campfires tonight."  He headed off around the
side of the building.

Moore cleared his throat slightly.  "Look, don't take Steve's manner
the wrong way," he said quietly.  "He's worried about his men, and
this latest development must have been a shock."

"Well, he's not alone in that," Mulder admitted, trying to banish the
image of the wizened corpse from his mind.  "Larry, has it occurred to
you that the thing we found must be ...?"  He trailed off
significantly, and watched the ranger's adam's apple bob convulsively.

"Surely it's too old - been there too long?"  He looked at Scully, who
wasn't sure what to say.

"We don't know, Larry," she admitted finally.  "Without a proper
autopsy ... lab tests ....  But the cocoon didn't look particularly
weathered to me, and it was in a fairly exposed position."

"Jesus."  The ranger paused, then shook his head.  "I guess we won't
know until we get back to civilisation, and since that depends on your
jeep now ...."  He held out his hand.  "Let's take a look at that map.
But I'm pretty sure you're camped too far out to start out now.  You
must have really come off the beaten track."

A sudden noise inside the cabin made them all turn, and then
Humphreys' voice rang out.

"Don't move!  Who the hell are you?"

Moore started.  "What the - ?"

"Doug Spinney!  I ought to shoot you where you stand!"

Moore grabbed up his shotgun from where he'd propped it against the
wheel arch of the truck and headed for the cabin entrance, with Mulder
and Scully at his heels.

Just inside the cabin was a stand-off, Humphreys partially blocking
the doorway and holding another man, thin and bedraggled, at the point
of his shotgun.  The other man - presumably Doug Spinney - was
apparently unconcerned by the weapon and was methodically stripping
the kitchen table of leftover food, despite it being covered in mould.

"Might as well shoot yourself too," he observed in a colourless voice,
and headed for the refrigerator.  There was a half-empty bottle of
what looked like orange juice in there; it must have been stale to the
point of fermentation, but he drank it down in several quick gulps
nonetheless.

"You're in a hell of a spot to be testing my temper," Humphreys
grated.  "What happened to my men?"

Spinney eyed him with casual contempt.  "What men?"

"The men who were working this camp."

"I don't know what happened to them.  Probably the same thing that'll
happen to us when the sun goes down."

Moore stepped into the doorway behind Humphreys.  "What's going on
here, Steve?" he asked warily.

Humphreys snorted.  "This animal's Doug Spinney."

"The ecoterrorist?" Mulder asked, surprised, from behind Moore.

"The goddamned murdering monkey-wrencher," the man spat.

"I'm no murderer," Spinney said, and ran a curious eye over the people
crowding into the cabin behind the Schiff-Immergut man.

"You're a liar."

"Maybe we should hear what he has to say," Moore told Humphreys in a
warning tone, and took hold of the barrel of the gun, pushing it down.
"Pointing that at him won't get you anywhere, Steve, and could just
land *you* in a whole lot of trouble instead of him."

"If we stand around here talking, there'll be nothing left for any of
us to say," Spinney stated  laconically.  "We should be getting that
generator started.  Darkness is our enemy."  He pushed past them all
and stalked out of the door.

"What the hell?"  Humphreys stared around at the others.  "What is he
talking about?  And where the hell is he going?"

>From around the side of the building came the sound of someone trying
to work the generator.

"Whatever he's talking about, it sounds like he's serious," Mulder
said.  "I'll go give him a hand."  He shot a cautious look at Scully,
and followed the other man out.

Humphreys was incensed.  "Why the hell aren't you arresting this guy?"
he raged at Scully.  "The man's a proven terrorist, and he's probably
single-handedly responsible for the disappearance of my men!"

Scully gave him a long, cool look before she spoke.  "Putting aside
the matter of concrete evidence, and the fact that as an off-duty
agent this is nothing to do with me," she observed, "it doesn't look
like he's in a hurry to go anywhere, Mr. Humphreys.  So what do you
want me to do?  Handcuff him to the nearest tree?  Well, I'm sorry to
disappoint you, but I left my handcuffs back in Washington DC.  And we
still haven't heard this man's story."

There was a rattling roar as she finished speaking, and the generator
came to life, albeit temporarily.  Then Spinney appeared in the
doorway again.

"Where's the spare gas kept?"

XXXX

"Why did you say that darkness is our enemy?"

Mulder's question fell into a sea of quiet which was otherwise broken
only by the sounds of Spinney scraping his plate.  Once the generator
had been topped up with gas, the group had somehow come to a truce -
threatened only by Humphreys' muttering - and a meal had been put
together from the non-perishable goods Scully and Moore had been able
to find in the cabin's store cupboards.  That had consisted largely of
beans, beans and more beans, enlivened by a few tinned sausages and
potatoes, but Spinney fell on the meal as though eating was going out
of fashion.

Scraping the last smear of tomato sauce from his plate with a finger,
Spinney looked up at Mulder where he was sat opposite with Sam in his
lap, and sucked the sauce off his finger with deliberation.  "That's
when they come."

"When who comes?"  Scully asked.

"I don't know what it is. They come from the sky, take a man right off
his feet and devour him alive. I saw it happen."

"To who?" Mulder wanted to know.

"What kind of a bull - " Humphreys broke off, remembering Sam's
presence, and modified his language if not his tone.  "What kind of a
stupid story is this?  You can't tell me you believe him?"

"You saw that cocoon thing," Moore said quietly from the other end of
the table.

Spinney's eyes moved from one person to another.  "'Cocoon thing'?"

"Go take a look if you want," Moore told him, in the same controlled
tone.  "It's out in the back of the truck."

The other man tensed.  His eyes were already showing the signs of
long-term strain, and his hands had not been quite steady ever since
he'd arrived.  "I'll pass," he replied curtly.  "Besides, I've already
seen something like that.  Don't want to see another if I can help
it."

Humphreys' lip curled contemptuously.  "What, you're afraid of the
dark?"

Spinney eyed him with dislike.  "You don't want to go out in the
night, take my word on that.  It's out there."

"What? If I go out that door, something's going to attack me, eat me
alive and spin me in its web?"

"That's right."  Spinney didn't look like he cared if Humphreys
believed him, or anyone else, and Scully felt a sudden tightening in
her gut at the expression on his face.  She looked across at Mulder
and the look in his eyes when they met hers was worried - very
worried.  Since it took a lot to overtly rattle his nerves, she was
anything but reassured.

Humphreys was still mocking Spinney, though, and Scully wondered how
the man could so easily put aside what he'd seen in the cocoon.

"What - it's too polite to come in here and get me, Spinney?"

"It's afraid of the light," the ecoterrorist said wearily.  "We'll be
okay in here so long as we keep the lights on."

"First I ever heard of an insect that's afraid of the light - "

"Drop it, Steve, will you?" Moore snapped finally.

Humphreys exploded into rage.  "I don't believe you're taking this son
of a bitch's word on this!" he shouted.  "Whose side are you on,
Larry?  This murdering fuck and his friends have probably topped a
dozen of my men, and you sit here like a bunch of schoolgirls
listening to dorm-room horror stories!"

Sam cringed in Mulder's arms, and Mulder drew him close.  "It's okay,
Sunshine, it's okay."

"Sit DOWN, Steve," Moore barked, "and if you can't watch your
language, keep your mouth shut."  He shot a meaningful look across at
the little boy, and Humphreys hissed between his teeth impotently.

"Jesus Christ, what kind of parents bring a kid that age up into a
forest like this anyway?" he snarled, and turned away.

"What, you don't think kids should see the beauty of the forest you
and your company are destroying?" Spinney asked, snidely amused.
"Better to bring him up here now - if the lumber companies have their
way, there won't be a forest here for him to visit when he's an
adult."

"Don't you start," Moore warned him.

"Why not?  You afraid I'll tell these good people how the Freddies are
letting Schiff-Immergut take out marked trees?"

There was a pause, and Moore's brow darkened with anger.  "Just what
the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Spinney shrugged.  "What I said."  He looked at Scully.  "Any of those
beans left, ma'am?"

"Now you hold on one minute!"  Moore was on his feet and grabbing
Spinney's arm roughly.  "What do you mean by "taking out marked
trees"?"

"Just that - those loggers were taking out trees marked with an orange
cross."

Moore stared.  "Old growth trees?"

"That's what I said."

"He's talking a crock of shit!" Humphreys snapped.

"No, he isn't," Mulder said quietly.

The three men turned to stare at him.  "What do you mean?" Moore
demanded.

"Scully and I passed through a previous loggers' camp two days ago.
We found a felled tree, a huge old redwood, with an orange mark on the
bark."  Seeing Moore's horrified expression, he was compelled to add
honestly, "Mind you, that one was felled twenty-odd years ago.  It was
an old camp."

"They haven't changed," Spinney drawled, eyeing Humphreys.  "There's a
felled tree not five hundred yards from here I could show you, if I
cared to risk my neck against what's out there.  Orange paint, not
blue."

Moore looked across at Humphreys.  "You know anything about that,
Steve?"

"No."  Humphreys looked from one face to another and saw barely masked
disbelief - overt in Spinney's case.  "You're going to take his word
over mine?"

"I'm taking no one's word until I see this tree he's talking about in
daylight and can judge for myself," the ranger said heavily.

"I see."  Humphreys' breathing quickened with anger, but there was no
further explosion.  He walked to the door and grabbed his jacket from
the pegs there.  Then he stooped and scooped up his shotgun and a
heavy flashlight from where he'd stowed them inside the doorway
earlier.

"Where are you going?" Moore demanded.

"I'm heading back to the Explorer," the other man told him shortly.

"Don't be stupid!  Two of the tires are blown out - "

"You don't want to go out there right now," Spinney interrupted.  His
tone was bland, but Mulder noticed he had suddenly lost what little
colour his skin possessed.

"Yeah, right."  Humphreys looked at Moore.  "I don't like the company
you're keeping," he stated deliberately, "and I'm heading out of here
tonight if I have to drive that old Explorer out on the wheel-rims.
Maybe someone at the FBI field office in Seattle will be prepared to
do what *you* - " and he stabbed a malicious finger at Scully, " -
should be doing but aren't, and that's arrest that son of a bitch!"
And he turned on his heel and stalked out of the cabin.

"I sure hope they know how to hold seances at the FBI," Spinney
observed, blackly amused.

Moore slammed one fist into the table impotently ... but made no
attempt to follow the Schiff-Immergut man out into the dark.

XXXX

Under the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that the tension in
the cabin should rise more than a notch or two.  Moore began pacing at
intervals, possessed by an itchy kind of cabin fever, and Mulder -
only too aware of his own jumpiness at being confined - sought to find
a way to distract them all.

Having bedded Sam down on a small folding camp bed, he helped Scully
make another kettle of tea and sat down opposite Spinney.

"What happened here?" he asked.

Spinney eyed him wearily, but dragged himself more upright from where
he was slumped in his seat.  "There were four of us - three now.  We
camped out two valleys over.  Our truck has a dead battery, so we drew
straws to see who would make the hike over here to steal one from the
loggers."

"Why not just hike out?" Scully asked, pouring the man a mug of tea.

"It's more than a day's hike from where we are.  No way did any of us
want to be caught out in the forest after dark, not after what
happened to Teague."

Mulder recognised  the name; it was Spinney's cohort from the photos
he'd shown Scully.  "What happened to him?"

"Same as what happened to the guy you've got out in the truck, I
guess," Spinney said, and gulped the hot tea down.  His hands shook
slightly.

"What were you guys doing out here in the first place?" Moore
demanded.

Spinney's lip curled slightly at the ranger's tone.  "Camping."

"Right.  The kind of camping you do is a federal offence."

"They can take it out of my hide if we ever make it back to
civilisation - "

"Let's just take the argument about the rights and wrongs of this as
read, okay?" Mulder demanded, exasperated.  "I'm more interested about
this ... menace ... we're all cowering from in here.  Spinney, did you
see it?  What did it look like?"

"Insects," the man sighed, and put his empty mug down on the table,
pushing it away from him.  "Little green insects - clouds of them."

"There isn't an insect in this forest that can suck a man's body dry
of fluids and string it up in a tree," Moore objected.  "I've worked
in the Olympic National for eight years and I've never seen anything
like you describe."

"Yeah, well a couple of weeks ago I'd have agreed with you, but now
....  Don't ask me how they do it, Moore, I've no more idea than you.
But I saw those ... things ... land on Teague thicker than a swarm of
bees, and by morning he was - "  Spinney suddenly retched and
struggled up from the table to be noisily sick in the kitchen sink.
It was several minutes before he could return, and when he did his
eyes were haunted.  "There was nothing we could do to help him," he
muttered thickly as he slid back into his seat.

"Wait a minute," Scully said, her quiet, calm voice falling soothingly
into the sudden silence.  "There have been logging teams working in
this forest for decades, and from the looks of things, this particular
team have been up here for some time."

"Four months," Moore confirmed, and Spinney nodded.

"So why should these ... insects ... suddenly become a problem now?
How long have you and your people been up here, Mr. Spinney?"

"'Bout as long as the logging team," he admitted.  "Things only
started going wrong a couple of weeks ago."

"So what's the common factor?" Mulder wanted to know.  "What changed
around here two weeks ago?"

Spinney thought about it, but shook his head.  "Nothing that I can
tell."

"Think, Spinney!" Mulder said sharply.  "You're the only one of us who
was up here at the time.  What changed?  It could be anything - even
the most insignificant thing."

The other man shrugged.  "The only thing that changed was the loggers
started cutting down old growth trees."

There was a pause, and Scully saw from Mulder's expression that his
brain was suddenly working overtime.  Then he looked up and his eyes
met hers.  "Maybe it's something to do with those trees being cut down
then."

She cocked her head to one side, questioning.  "What - you think
Bigfoot got peeved about the violation of nature after all?  Or is
this the work of rogue hamadryads?"

He smiled briefly, but his mind was already chasing other ideas.  "I'm
thinking about the climatic event that caused that green ring in the
trunk of the tree we found," he said patiently.

Moore was looking from one of them to the other.  "What are you
talking about?  Green ring?"

Mulder glanced at him.  "That tree Scully and I found was near to the
remains of a former loggers' camp - a camp that had been mysteriously
abandoned, the same way this one has, only twenty years ago.  The FBI
has records of the event.  When we examined the tree stump, Scully
found a green ring just over halfway through its growth period.  We
thought maybe there had been some huge climatic event that had
affected the growth, and now I'm wondering if the two things are
connected."

"You think cutting the tree down released some kind of insect from the
inner rings?"  Moore rubbed his chin, considering, then shook his
head.  "Unlikely.  Anything caught up in an old growth ring would be
dead.  Organisms can only live in the very outer layers of the tree,
under the bark and so on."

"That we know of," Mulder pointed out.

"Well, we'd need a sample to be sure, and that's kind of out of the
question right now."

"But we have a sample," Scully told him.  "I took a small amount of
wood for analysis later, to satisfy my curiosity."

The ranger stared at her, and a faint impressed smile crossed his
lips.  "Do you have it with you?"

XXXX

They had no microscope, but Moore had the next best thing: a
high-powered magnifying glass set into a frame with a small steel
specimen dish fixed underneath and a couple of manoeuvrable clamps for
holding things in place.  "Useful for quick, on-the-spot
examinations," he commented to Scully.

Scully dug the plastic bag out of the pocket on the side of her
rucksack and carefully emptied out the chunk of wood.  Moore clamped
it in place and took a look through the glass.  There was a pause, and
even Spinney showed signs of interest.

"Well?" Mulder demanded impatiently.

Moore looked a little green.  He sat back and pushed the magnifier
towards Scully.  "Take a look."

Scully shot him a suspicious glance, and bent over the glass herself.

The chunk of wood jumped out at her, the resolution far less than that
of a microscope but still sufficient to show the fibres of the wood
... and the tiny pale green insects crawling among them.  The fact
that they were not visible to the naked eye told Scully that they were
far smaller than aphids, and it seemed incredible that these creatures
could even be conceived of enacting the horrors Spinney and Mulder
were suggesting.

Scully sat back and pushed the magnifier over to Mulder, and looked at
Moore.  "What do you make of this?"

He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably.  "They look like
woodmites.  But that's impossible - the central rings of a tree are
essentially dead wood, with the vascular system limited to the outer
rings.  Surely these things can't live without water?"

"They appear to be eating the wood," Mulder observed, peering through
the glass.

"And from the look of things, they're still hatching out," Scully
added.  "Maybe by cutting into the trunk of that tree I disturbed a
nest.  Creatures that small still couldn't do the kind of damage we
saw done to that body, though."

"I don't know about that," Moore admitted reluctantly.  "A nest of
ants can overwhelm a man and kill him."

"They don't string him up in a tree."

Moore shrugged, having no answer.

"It doesn't explain how they got into the tree in the first place,
either," Scully pursued.

Mulder sat back and looked at her.  "What do you know about insects,
Scully?"

"Just what I learned in my biology courses - they're the foundation of
our ecosystem, and there's something like 200 million of them per
human being on this planet."

"And they've been around for a long time, right?"

"Something like 600 million years - pre-dinosaurs certainly."

"And we already determined that this tree had to be over 500 years
old, didn't we?"

"If it was a marked tree, it could have been considerably older than
that," Moore interjected.  "There are redwoods in this forest that are
anything up to 800 years old.  But I don't see what you're getting
at."

Mulder rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  "Well - this whole chain of
mountains running from Washington to Oregon is still active.  Look at
Mount St. Helens, for example.  The last time it erupted, all sorts of
radiation was released and weird things started to grow in the local
area."

"Mutant bugs?" Scully asked, sceptically.

"Don't laugh, Scully.  There was actually a lake where they discovered
a kind of amoeba that could literally suck a man's brains out."

"A brain-sucking amoeba," she sighed.  "Why didn't I work that one out
for myself?"

Spinney looked at her in surprise.  "No, it's true.  Spirit Lake.
There's documented cases of swimmers being affected."

"But an amoeba is a single-celled organism - it can be mutated
relatively simply.  An insect is a complex creature which would take
years and years to evolve!"

"Maybe what we're dealing with isn't a mutation at all," Moore
offered, surprising himself.  "Maybe it's some kind of ... extinct
insect larvae in that ring, deposited during a period of volcanic
activity and brought up through the tree's root system.  Ancient
insect eggs lying dormant until the loggers cut into the tree and
provided them with the right conditions to hatch."

Mulder gave him an admiring look.  It was a theory worthy of himself.

The idea seemed to please Spinney too, although for entirely different
reasons.  "That would be rather poetic justice, don't you think?
Unleashing the very thing that would end up killing them and your
friend Humphreys?"

"We don't know that Humphreys is dead," Scully said quickly, seeing
Moore's expression.  "All this is just speculation."

"All the same," Mulder sighed, pushing the magnifier away from him, "I
think I'd prefer it if we slept with the light on tonight."

"Too damn right," Spinney muttered.

Abruptly, as if to mock them, the rattling of the generator outside
seemed to hitch and pause, and the single light bulb above them
flickered in response.  There was a tense silence as they all looked
at each other.

It flickered again, and steadied once more.

Mulder swallowed, and looked around the cabin.  Humphreys had taken
the only flashlight, but by the stove in the corner stood a tall,
old-fashioned hurricane lantern, the kind that used paraffin for fuel.
He picked it up and dumped it on the table, giving it a slight shake
to judge the fuel levels.  The faint splashing inside was not
reassuring, and neither was the condition of the wick inside the glass
dome.

"Mulder, what are you doing?"

He glanced sideways at Scully.  "I was hoping there would be enough
paraffin in here to use it as an alternative light if the other one
fails, but there isn't.  Still, it should be enough to let me check on
the generator and see what's up with it."

"You're planning on going out there?" demanded Spinney.

"Someone's got to," Mulder retorted.  "Unless you'd rather sit here
and watch the light bulb all night, wondering if it's going to go out?
With the light from the lamp and the windows, I should be okay - and
if I won't, we'll soon find out."  He closed up the lantern again and
rubbed his fingers together, frowning.  "That's weird - it's greasy,
like someone gave it a coating of gun oil or something."

"Everything over in that corner was like that when we arrived," Scully
said.

Mulder looked over at the stove.  Whoever had wired up the cabin
hadn't placed the light quite centrally; instead, it was hanging over
the table, which left the far corner in a slight shadow.  There was a
thought tickling at the back of his mind, but he let it go with an
inner shrug; it was more important that he check on the generator.

"I'll come with you," Moore offered, and he produced a box of matches
to light the hurricane lamp.

XXXX

The trip outside was brief and nerve-wracking.  The generator was
naturally in a spot where the glow from the cabin windows didn't fall
on it, so Moore held the hurricane lantern up high to cast the maximum
possible pool of light, while Mulder examined the rattling piece of
machinery.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with it that we can do anything
about," he said, straightening up and wiping his hands on the seat of
this jeans.  "When Spinney and his friends trashed it, they did a good
job - hopefully it'll hold out until the morning, but no way do I want
to risk a second night here with it in this condition."

He and Moore exchanged grim looks, and the ranger suddenly blurted out
a question that had been bugging him for hours.  "Do you seriously
believe Spinney's story?" he asked softly.

Mulder hesitated.  "I've seen a lot of weird things," he said finally,
his voice equally soft, "enough that I won't count or discount his
story without further evidence.  Unlike your friend Humphreys, I'm not
prepared to risk my own skin to find out if these bugs really *do*
kill.  I say we keep the light on tonight, and get the hell out of
here tomorrow morning."

Moore nodded.  "Agreed."  He turned around ... and gasped.  "Jesus
Christ - !"

Perhaps ten or fifteen metres away from where they stood was the dark
shape of a tree - only it wasn't dark anymore.  The trunk was dimly
outlined in a faint greenish glow which shimmered with the motion of
thousands upon thousands of tiny creatures smaller than the eye could
see.

Mulder felt his chest constrict and pulse begin to hammer with fright.
He looked around, scanning the area in front of them, and counted five
or six similarly illuminated trees, all of them just beyond the light
cast by the cabin and the hurricane lantern in Moore's hand.  None of
them should have been visible at this distance and in this light.

"Get back in the cabin," he managed, and heard his voice catch
slightly.

When they bolted through the door moments later, they ran smack into
Scully, who was shaking slightly.

"We went into the back room to get more cot-beds for the night," she
stammered, and gestured towards a doorway which Spinney was in the
process of barricading with a chair, however futile the act might be.

The ecoterrorist's face was grey.  "We can't go in there," he stated
flatly.  "The place is covered with them ... like a green carpet over
everything."

"They're out of the light," Mulder nodded, "but we still need those
cots.  It should be okay if we take the lamp in with us and bring the
cots out into the light."

Nevertheless, it took all the nerve he possessed to enter the back
room and haul out cot-beds that were covered in a menacing green glow.
He was right, however; the glow vanished under the light.

The cot-beds had the same oily coating as the hurricane lantern.

"The cupboards in the other camp were like this," Scully mentioned, as
she scrubbed at the frame of her cot with the cotton lining torn out
of a logger's discarded jacket.  "I wonder what it is?"

It occurred to Mulder that it had to be something to do with the
insects, like a trace left behind wherever they'd been.  It also
occurred to him that since they had to sleep on these beds, it would
probably be better not to mention this to his companions.

Bedding down under thin, slightly greasy blankets was not a
comfortable experience.  Having found only three cots, Mulder folded
himself into the one occupied by Sam, but despite the additional
warmth of the little boy snuggled against him, it was a long time
before he or any of the others could sleep.

XXXX

A faint scraping noise dragged Mulder out of an uneasy doze; it was
daylight again, and the light streaming through the windows was bright
enough to suggest that he had slept longer than he should.  He raised
his head and saw that Scully and Moore were both still fast asleep.
Spinney's cot, however, was empty.

It was tricky climbing out of the cot without waking Sam, but he
managed it and slipped out of the front door, blinking slightly.

Spinney had the hood of the loggers' truck open and was unscrewing the
battery.

"What are you doing?"

The man jumped and spun around.  When he saw it was Mulder, he relaxed
and turned back to the truck.  "I'm taking what I came here for in the
first place," he said shortly.  "We need this battery to get our own
truck back on the road.  Any objections?"

Mulder wasn't quite sure what to say.  "You think they're still
alive?"

"They should have had enough gas to get them through the night, but
there won't be enough for tonight as well unless they drain the
truck's fuel tank.  That'll only buy them another night, and leave
them without a way out of this damn forest, so I've got to get back
there."  Spinney dragged the battery out, grunting slightly under the
weight.  Then he turned back to Mulder.  "I've left it late as it is.
Are you going to try and stop me?"

Mulder shook his head slowly.  "No, I don't think so.  Where will you
guys be heading when you get out of here?"

"Home," Spinney replied.  "None of our people can risk hanging around
here while this thing is on the loose - and maybe this forest is just
capable enough of looking after itself after all.  There are other
causes.  I'd rather be alive to fight them."

"You'd better go then."

"Yeah."  Unexpectedly, Spinney balanced the battery on the corner of
the truck and stuck out one  hand.  "Pity we didn't meet under better
circumstances, Mr. Mulder.  I hope you and Miss Scully and your kid
get out of here okay."

Mulder shook his hand gravely and watched as the other man hefted up
the battery again and headed off into the forest.

XXXX

Moore looked disgruntled when Mulder told him half an hour later that
Spinney was gone, but made no other comment than to observe that
they'd better get hiking themselves if they wanted to at least get
back to the ranger station before nightfall.

"How far is the campsite from here?" Scully wanted to know.  She was
testing a small pot of beans on the stove as she spoke; they couldn't
start out without feeding Sam some kind of breakfast, and it was
agreed that they'd be better for the hike if they all ate first
anyway.

"Four or five hours, depending on how fast we can go with the kid,"
Moore replied restlessly.

"I'll carry him," Mulder told him.

"All the same, it's going to slow us down.  It rained heavily in the
night too - parts of the trail are going to be treacherous."

Scully decided the beans were as warm as they needed to be, and
quickly dished them up.  Mulder lifted Sam onto his lap at the table
and put a spoon in the boy's hand.  "Come on, Sunshine, eat up."

Sam, however, was not at all pleased by any of this, for it contained
none of the routines he was accustomed to.  He had slept in his
clothes, the same clothes he was wearing now, and had not had his
morning wash or brushed his teeth.  And now he was being offered
something for breakfast which he had already had for dinner the night
before.  He didn't like it.  This wasn't the way things were supposed
to be done.

"No," he stated firmly, and dropped the spoon.

"Yes," Mulder told him, equally firmly, and handed the spoon back.
"Eat up, or go without, Sam.  We don't have time to discuss it."

Sam scowled, taking a very reluctant spoonful of the beans, and from
the expression on his face, you might have assumed he was being fed
worms.  When it was clear that this approach wouldn't garner him any
sympathy, however, he dropped the sulky lip and cleared his plate.

A few minutes later, Scully was tossing the dirty plates into the sink
and they were all zipping up jackets and strapping on rucksacks.  Sam
was inserted, protesting, into Mulder's backpack and they were off,
abandoning the cabin without a second glance.

The sun was already climbing too high above the forest canopy.

XXXX

Moore had been right; thanks to the rain, the trail paths were
slippery and treacherous, and in places there had been minor
landslides, with piles of mud and forest trash making it difficult to
pass.  It was a problem enough for Scully and Moore who were
relatively unencumbered, but for Mulder, burdened down with a
three-year-old child, it was a serious problem keeping his footing.
There was an unspoken agreement between the three adults that they
should move as fast as they could; in practice, it was hard to keep up
even a normal hiking pace without placing themselves and Sam at risk
of a dangerous fall.  No one could afford a sprained or broken ankle
out here.

After a couple of hours, Moore called a halt and insisted that Mulder
let him take Sam for a while.  The former FBI agent was sweating and
tired, tired enough that he didn't argue, although Sam grumbled a
little at being handed over to someone else when he wanted to get out
of the backpack and walk.

It must be bliss, Scully thought as she helped Mulder try to distract
him with I-Spy and other games, to be a child and not have the
obligation of understanding the dangers that were lurking out in the
world.  She was painfully conscious, as she knew Mulder and Moore must
be, of the eerie silence of the forest, the lack of animal and bird
noises and the feeling that there was something out there just waiting
for dark to fall before it struck.

She was so busy with her own thoughts that she suddenly missed her
footing, skidded in the mud and landed on her backside, hard.  The
wind was knocked out of her for a second; then Mulder was hauling her
to her feet.

"Are you okay?" he demanded, checking her over.

"I'm fine," she gasped, and took a cautious step or two.  No damage.
"Where's Moore?" she said suddenly, aware that the ranger had vanished
out of sight ahead of them.

"Here," he called, and there was relief in his voice.  "We've reached
the road."  When they pushed through the undergrowth, he was stood on
the edge of a tall bank just above the road.  His face was wreathed in
smiles.  "Another hour, and we'll be at the campsite," he told them.
"It'll be easy going from here."

XXXX

*Easy going?* Mulder thought wryly an hour or so later, as they
tramped into the campsite.  They were all liberally mud-splattered and
exhausted, the road having not proved the sinecure Moore had
predicted.  A couple of hours of heavy rain had produced some sizeable
drifts of mud and silt in places, which almost made Mulder grateful
that they hadn't tried to traverse this route by car.

The campsite was as they'd left it, with the jeep parked to one side
of the site cabin out of the sun.  There was a fair amount of mud
hanging around, and Mulder knew he wouldn't be sorry to see the back
of this place.  This was one of the rougher camps off the beaten
track - the little cabin was nothing more than a hut with a large map
and a list of instructions on respect for the forest pinned to the
wall, a rack of old leaflets and a couple of taps outside for water.

"Damn!" Moore muttered, circling the building.  "This is one of the
places that doesn't have an emergency radio yet.  No generator
either - we'd better get out of here fast if we're going to get to the
station before dark."

Mulder helped him unstrap Sam's harness and they got the boy into the
jeep.  Scully was already climbing into the driver's seat, and as
Moore and Mulder climbed inside, she twisted the key in the ignition.
There was a wheezy grinding from the engine, but after turning over a
couple of times, it failed to start.  Scully took a deep breath and
reminded herself that panicking would not help.  She twisted the key
again.

Nothing.

"Jesus ...." Moore hissed.

Scully tried once more, her heart in her mouth ... and the engine
roared into life.

Mulder let out a shaky breath.  "Let's get the hell out of here."

Scully needed no second prompting; she let the brake out and put her
foot down on the accelerator.  Meanwhile, Moore was pulling a map out
of his jacket pocket.

"There's a secondary road that the loggers use, which cuts about five
miles off the trip out to the main road," he told her, unfolding the
map and studying it.  "It's near here - Humphreys and me, we came up
by that route on the way in.  Take the next turning on the right."

She nodded, and glanced in the rear view mirror at Mulder.  "Buckle
Sam in, Mulder - I'm going to try and keep up the stiffest speed I can
without crashing this thing."

"You're just thinking of your deposit," he joked, but he was strapping
Sam into his seat as he spoke.

The track Moore referred to was rough and interrupted by the same mud
slides as the one they'd walked into the camp on.  Most of Scully's
concentration was taken up with preventing them landing up in the
trees, so it was hardly surprising that she didn't see the vehicle
ahead until she was nearly on top of it.  She swerved with a curse,
and brought the jeep to a shuddering halt.

"Christ, it's my Explorer!" Moore swore.

"Don't - " Mulder began, but Moore was already fumbling his door open.

Humphreys had not made it more than five hundred yards in the crippled
vehicle.  The heavy Explorer had swerved into a tree, but the damage
was minimal and this was not what had killed him; Moore found his body
hanging half out of the driver's seat, covered in a thick spidery
webbing.

The ranger gagged and turned away; then stumbled back to where Mulder
and Scully were waiting.  "We'd better get out of here," he muttered
thickly as he slid back into his seat.

Scully revved up the engine again without a word, and steered them
away from the grisly scene.  There was silence for a good twenty
minutes then, until Mulder finally plucked up the courage to ask the
question that had been on everyone's mind.

"Are we going to make it to the station before dark?"  It was already
late afternoon, and the going was rough enough that Scully could not
drive as fast as they'd hoped.

"If we can keep up this pace, we should make it with maybe an hour to
spare," Moore replied after a pause, but he too was glancing out of
the windows in concern.  The weather was chancy, and Scully had
already switched the windscreen wipers on twice to clear a light
coating of drizzle.

On a day like this, it would probably get dark early.

And as if to mock them, there was a sudden loud bang, and the jeep
lurched horribly to the right.  Scully fought with the steering wheel
as the jeep skidded on a slick patch of mud, and the vehicle spun to a
halt.

Silence.

"Tell me that wasn't what I thought it was," Mulder whispered.

Scully was gripping the wheel with white-knuckled hands, but Moore
reacted with adrenaline-induced speed, seizing his rucksack.

"Everybody out!" he snapped, throwing open his door.  "We're going to
have to run for it."

"You've got to be kidding!" Scully gasped.  "It's nearly thirty miles
to the station, and we've got Sam to carry - "

"There's another campsite around here somewhere," the ranger broke in.
"With any luck it'll be one of the ones with a radio and we can call
for help.  It beats the hell out waiting here to die, anyway."  He was
fighting with the unfolded map as he spoke, scanning it for signs of
the campsite.

Mulder was already ripping the buckles on Sam's car seat undone, and
hauling out the backpack.  "Come on, Kiddo, quickly - "

Scully threw her own door open and jumped out, running to help him.
Between them they managed to get Sam into the pack, the little boy
co-operative out of sheer fright, and hauled it up onto Mulder's back.

"Let's go," Moore said grimly, and they abandoned the jeep, setting
off at a fast jog.  The rain was closing in again, and Mulder knew
with despair, even as he tried to concentrate on keeping his footing,
that they were not going to find help that night.

Then, like a gift from God, he heard the faint sound of a truck in the
distance.

XXXX

Spinney barrelled to a halt beside them.  "Get in!" he yelled, and was
gunning the engine even as he spoke.  Somehow he looked even
wilder-eyed and more dishevelled than when they'd first set eyes on
him the night before, but no one was about to question his appearance

The three of them piled in without a word, Mulder struggling out of
Sam's harness as he did so.

"I'm low on gas," the ecoterrorist grunted as he set off again at a
wild speed.  "Hang on tight because I'm going to coast down the easier
slopes if I can, to save fuel."

"Be damned careful!" Moore snapped in alarm, as they lurched horribly
over a pothole.  "We were on foot because we lost a wheel to one of
your damn tyre-spikes - "

"Don't you worry, Mr. Forestry Service Man, I aim to get out of this
forest alive - "

"Oh yeah?  So where are your pals, Spinney?"

"Same place as your friend Humphreys, my friend!  I got there too
late."

"Could be too late for all of us, you maniac - "

"I radioed for help," Spinney snapped.  "If we can just make it to
your precious ranger station - "

"Look, can you guys swap witty repartee later?" Scully demanded,
feeling Sam trembling against her side.

"Don't like it, Daddy!"

Spinney barked what might have been a laugh under other circumstances,
and swerved to avoid a fallen branch.  The light was already growing
dim; he flicked on the headlights, increasing the tension in the
vehicle tenfold, and applied the foot-brake slightly as a sharp corner
came into view ahead.  The worn tyres of the truck spun on the surface
of the sodden dirt track, temporarily got enough grip for him to turn
into the bend, and then lost the grip again entirely over another
pothole.

Spinney was no driver.  Faced with a dangerous skid, he did all the
wrong things; braked hard and failed to turn into the swerve.   The
engine screamed, the truck spun out of control, and less than ten
seconds later they fetched up in a ditch on the side of the road, the
truck listing over at ninety degrees.

Moore swore violently as he fought to open his door and climb out.  He
slid out with some difficulty, and ran around the other side,
wrenching open Spinney's door and dragging the other man out.  "Come
on, you son of a bitch, we've got to get this thing out of here and
back on the road!"

"You've got to be kidding," Mulder retorted grimly.  "How do you
suggest we manage *that* little miracle?"  He was easing himself out
as he spoke, and it was obvious that the situation was disastrous.

The truck was nose-down in the ditch, and it was impossible to see the
off-side front wheel in this light, but Mulder suspected it was
damaged.  On top of that, the ditch itself was half full of filthy
water and deceptive in depth, with unknown hazards lurking beneath the
surface - something that could be "small, sharp and pointy" as a
humorous Defensive Driving instructor had put it at Quantico Academy
when he'd still been a green recruit.  Even if it hadn't been, it was
going to be hell trying to get this bulky, ageing vehicle out of the
ditch without tow-ropes and other truck to haul it.

Nevertheless, they had to try.

"Okay, guys, I guess we're all going to impress Agent Scully with a
display of masculine muscle," he commented, and tried to swallow the
gnawing fear in the pit of his stomach.

"Just make it fast," she advised him as she lifted Sam out of the
truck, and hoped no one had heard the slight quiver in her voice.
"The light's definitely beginning to go."

That thought was all that was needed to goad the three men into
action.  They climbed into the ditch, sloshing through the water,
braced themselves against the radiator grill of the truck and began to
heave, without much success.  It was hard for their feet to get a grip
on the uneven and slippery bottom of the ditch, and the truck was
nearly the twice the size of an ordinary saloon car; it shuddered and
grated against the jagged lip of the road, but every time it seemed
like it was going to shift, it slipped back again, and Moore expressed
the opinion that something on the chassis must be catching on the edge
of the ditch.

Scully put Sam in a safe position with instructions to stay put, and
joined the men in their efforts, hoping that one extra person might
provide enough extra leverage to make the difference.  Certainly the
truck seemed to shift with slightly more alacrity, but it was still
stubborn in its refusal to be ejected from the ditch.

Finally, Moore's chancy temper snapped and he swore roundly, thumping
the hood of the truck in frustration.  Mulder couldn't blame him, even
as the father in him deplored the interesting new vocabulary Sam would
be picking up.

"What the hell ever happened to hysterical strength?" he asked Scully
helplessly, and she shrugged, too breathless to reply.

In the silence that followed, he was suddenly aware of the ominous
stillness of the forest around them.  The rain had stopped.  It was
now getting difficult to make out individual trees more than a few
hundred yards away, and the landscape was beginning to take on grey,
washed-out tones as the light faded.  Mulder looked toward the horizon
in alarm, and saw a thin blood-red rim over the forest canopy.  The
sun had gone down.

He looked at the others, and without a word they all put a shoulder to
the truck again and began to heave desperately.

Feet slid in the muddy water, breath gasped, and the chassis grated
horribly on the edge of the road.  The truck tilted backwards once
more, the back wheels connecting with the road.  The grating sound
grew louder.

"Don't stop now!" Spinney gasped, and they all tried to feed almost
non-existent strength into a final effort.

The truck lurched back, and the front wheels were suddenly back on the
road surface, to the accompaniment of Sam cheering.  The speed of the
unexpected move made Scully lose her grip and fall virtually face down
in the water.  Mulder and Moore seized her, dragging her upright, and
the three of them scrambled after Spinney, who was already out of the
ditch and climbing into the driver's seat.  Mulder grabbed Sam and
swung the little boy up into the back seat, and clambered in after
him.  Scully had already jumped in on the other side.

Spinney turned the key in the ignition, and they listened to the
engine turning over fruitlessly.

"Oh Jesus God - " the ecoterrorist moaned, and tried again.  Still
nothing.

"Shit!" Moore whispered, and Mulder saw him staring at the windows.

Around the edges was a faint greenish glow, flickering, moving.  He
looked down and saw a luminous carpet moving slowly over the floor of
the truck.

Spinney let out a choking moan, and fumbled at the handle of his door,
only to recoil in horror when he saw the handles were covered in the
slick green presence of the insects.  Beside Mulder, Sam began to
whimper, and when the former agent looked at Scully he could see her
eyes were wide with fear.

Spinney tried once more, desperately, to start the engine but with no
success, and Mulder made a decision.

"Scully, give me your jacket," he said, surprised at how steady his
voice was.  She stared at him, but he was already struggling out of
his own, and after a moment she followed suit.

"What are you doing?" Moore demanded.

"We've got to protect Sam."  Mulder spread his jacket out and looked
down at his son.  The little boy's face was white and his lips were
quivering in a prelude to tears.  He tried to smile reassuringly at
him.  "Come on, kiddo.  I want you to get under my coat, and Dana's,
and don't come out, all right?  It'll be okay."

It was manifestly a lie, and the first time Mulder had ever lied to
Sam, but as he glanced across at Scully, he knew there was nothing
else he could say.  She spread her own coat out and helped Mulder lay
the two jackets carefully over Sam, worrying even as she did so that
the little boy might actually suffocate before anything else could
happen to him.

Would that be worse?

That thought was uppermost in Mulder's mind too, even as he felt Sam
curling up into a tight ball beneath the layers of cloth, his head
butting against his father's knee.  Nevertheless, Mulder tucked the
coats around him tightly, and - for the first time in many years -
began to pray.

His last conscious image was of Scully's lips moving silently in
similar prayer, even as a cloud of insects swarmed from every crack
and crevice in the truck and settled around them.

XXXX

By daylight the truck was still and silent.

Three jeeps pulled up a few metres away, one of them a Forestry
Service Explorer.  The ranger  stayed put in his cab, however,
watching as the occupants of the other jeeps - four men in white
anti-contaminant suits - jumped out and cautiously approached the
seemingly abandoned vehicle.  One of them held a square device,
similar in appearance to a Geiger Counter, with a kind of microphone
attached.  He waved the handset in front of the truck, checking dials
as he did so.

"I'm getting heartbeats," he called, his voice muffled inside the
helmet of his suit, and one of his colleagues instantly turned to the
ranger.

"Radio in for a helicopter!  We need emergency evacuation with
quarantine facilities."

The other men had got the doors of the truck open and were examining
what they found inside.  The cab of the truck was a solid mass of
fibreglass-like webbing, and as they tried to decide the best way to
remove it and the people trapped in it, there was feeble movement
underneath.

"Tell 'em we need quarantine for four individuals with undiagnosed
infection or exposure to unknown biological vectors," one of them
stated.  Then he did a double-take as they peeled back the first layer
of webbing and felt the bodies for signs of life.  "No, make that
five - I think there's a kid in here!"

XXXX

The high containment facility was part of Winthrop Military Base in
Washington, and that was about all Mulder knew of his whereabouts.  He
suspected it was all he was ever going to know, but for once he
couldn't give a damn.  He was simply grateful that such a facility
existed.

The medics in charge had told him when he woke up that he'd been there
for nearly three days, undergoing treatment for severe dehydration,
and chronic irritation to the skin and airways.  He was also,
naturally, under the most careful observation and numerous tests had
been done to determine the nature of irritant - Luciferene was
suspected, an enzyme usually found in fireflies.

Both he and Moore were now awake and mobile, although still receiving
oxygen through tubes in their noses and still in some discomfort from
the extensive bites they had suffered.  Their injuries had been
relatively minor in comparison to Scully, though, who was in a great
deal of pain from the burn-like rashes on her face and upper body and
consequently under light sedation most of the time.  Spinney had
suffered a minor case of anaphylactic shock from the bites, and was
under observation in the intensive care section of the facility.

He was sharing the ICU with Sam, in whom the dehydration had been
considerably worse due to his smaller body mass.  The boy's breathing
was also being closely monitored, and the medic in charge of his care
had told Mulder bluntly that burying him under the coats was probably
the only thing that had saved his life.  As it was, his airways had
been swollen enough to stop his breathing twice, and they were
currently keeping him under sedation, like Scully, in order to control
the pain from the rashes that covered 80% of his body.

They were allowing Mulder to visit him briefly twice a day, and it was
there that the medic in charge found him on the sixth day of their
treatment.

"The tests have confirmed that Luciferene is the main irritant," he
told the former agent.  "We can now start a more aggressive form of
treatment for the inflammation.  You'll soon see an marked improvement
in your son."

Mulder nodded acknowledgement of this news, but his attention did not
waver from Sam's unnaturally flushed face.  The medic was used to this
lack of reaction, and calmly went about checking the monitors attached
to the child's small body, and adjusting the flow of the drips
attached to him.

"Agent Scully is also showing considerable improvement, and we'll
probably cease the sedation this afternoon.  You're none of you
entirely out of the woods, of course - if you'll pardon the pun - but
it's looking pretty good.  Provided there are no setbacks, you'll only
be here for the standard forty-day quarantine."

Mulder looked up at this.  "Sam too?"

The man nodded.  "So long as he keeps doing as well as he is.  Kids
are resilient, Mr. Mulder - the hard part will be keeping him occupied
when he's up on his feet."

"Then he'll be okay?"

"I don't see why not.  The main concern was kidney damage from the
dehydration, but we've seen no evidence of it - although we'll keep
monitoring him for that for some time to come."

The relief Mulder felt could not be measured.  On the fourth day of
their treatment, a senior officer from the base had come in, fully
suited up, and talked to him and Moore at some length about what had
happened.  The suggestion from this officer had initially been that
they could all have somehow prevented what had happened, and despite
his later retraction of the statement, a confrontation had ensued
which - in retrospect - Mulder was embarrassed about.

But the insinuation had been made, and since it was in his nature to
blame himself for things he couldn't help, Mulder had begun to turn
over the events in the forest obsessively, trying to see if there was
some way he could have prevented what had happened to them all.  He
was particularly distressed by what had happened to Scully and Sam; he
tended to be a little cavalier about his own safety, but Sam's welfare
was of the utmost importance to him and this was the first time that
his obsession with the paranormal had put his son at risk.

Hopefully, it would be the last time.

"What measures are being taken to control the outbreak in the forest?"
he asked the medic finally, trying to drag himself out of the
depression that kept taking a grip of his spirits.

The man finished his alterations to the drips around Sam.  "The
government has initiated eradication procedures, Mr. Mulder," he said
after a moment.  The words sounded careful, measured.  "They're quite
certain that by using a combination of controlled burns and
pesticides, they'll be successful."

Mulder glanced reflexively across at Spinney's bed, but the
ecoterrorist was fortunately asleep with his back to them.  It was
hard to say how he would take the news of "controlled burns" at that
point.  "What if it doesn't work?" he asked, turning back.

The medic was halfway to the door, and merely glanced over his
shoulder.  "That is not an option, Mr. Mulder," he said with a note of
finality, and left the room.

Mulder digested this for a moment, wondering what other measures the
Government would feel it was appropriate to employ should the
pesticides and burning not be sufficient to control the insect swarm.
Then Sam stirred a little, and he dismissed speculation from his mind,
turning instead to stroke his son's hair gently.

"So much for our nice trip to the forest," he muttered bitterly.


FINIS (for now)