From: DashaK@aol.com
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:45:25 EDT
Subject: Submission- The Professional
Source: direct

They had dinner at Trattoria Ottavio-- veal marsala for 
him, pasta primavera for her.  They ordered a bottle of 
Barolo, and finished it between them.  Dinner conversation 
meandered from topic to topic: the snorkeling they'd done 
on their vacation in Cozumel, global warming, the demise of 
drive-ins.  Finally they got into a spirited discussion of  
martial arts movies, Mulder defending the entire genre and 
Scully expressing incredulity that anyone could compare 
Jackie Chan to Cary Grant.

"Well, at least admit that Steven Seagal is wooden," she 
said.

"Not wooden -- just the laconic loner fighting overwhelming 
odds, like Gary Cooper in High Noon."

"Now Steven Seagal is Gary Cooper?"  She shook her head in 
disbelief.  "Whatever planet you're living on, Mulder, I'd 
like to live there too.  I'd be Rita Hayworth."

In his car on the drive to his apartment, Scully kicked off 
her heels.  She tilted her head back against the seat, 
sighing with pleasure at the freedom of bare feet.  It was 
a totally relaxed sound, he thought -- something he'd 
missed since the night he'd told her about Amy.

It was still early, and so when they got to his apartment, 
they turned on the television set.  "Witness" was on, and 
the prospect of Harrison Ford in Amish clothing enticed 
Scully to stay.

"Harrison Ford," said Mulder, sitting down beside her and 
putting his feet up on the coffee table, "is the Western 
Jet Li."

She ignored him.

They watched the movie together in companionable silence.  
"I could do that," Mulder said during the barn raising
scene, as Ford's character proved his prowess with a hammer.

Scully snorted.  "Yeah, you'd really fit in with the 
Amish."

He turned his head and regarded her quizzically.  "Do I 
detect a hint of scorn there, Scully?"

"Mulder, they don't have cell phones.  Or television.  I'd 
give you about forty-eight hours, and then you'd be up in 
the top of the closest bell tower, stark raving mad and 
picking off civilians with a high-powered rifle."

"They don't have high-powered rifles either," he reminded 
her.  "I'd have to use a slingshot, or maybe throw an ax or 
something."

She started to chuckle.  "I know that's supposed to be a 
joke, Mulder, but somehow I can see you doing it."

They were sitting side by side, and he had his arm around 
her shoulder.  As the credits rolled he began to rub his 
hand in slow circles on her arm.  She looked across at him, 
and gave him a half-smile.

He leaned over and kissed her softly.  Scully turned toward 
him and her arms circled his neck; they kissed for what 
seemed like forever.  His tongue slid smoothly in and out 
of her mouth.  She caressed the back of his neck, sending 
little shivers down his spine.  He moved lower and kissed 
her throat, and the hollow at the base of it.

She began to rub her hand over his chest slowly, and then 
her hand dropped to the button of his jeans.  They kissed 
as he caressed her breasts outside her clothes, like some 
teen-ager making out in the backseat of a car.  In fact, he 
felt rather like a teen-ager, kissing her furtively on the 
couch in front of the television.  He let his hand slip 
down her waist to her legs, and softly stroked the side of 
her thigh.  She did the same to him, her hand sweeping from 
the outside to the inside of his leg to tease gently 
against his balls.

He tipped her back into a lying position, half-covering her 
with his body.  Both of them were still completely dressed.  
He was surprisingly turned on -- he had flashbacks to being 
seventeen, and steaming up the car windows because the girl 
in the front seat with him had worked him into a state of 
trembling excitement.  If he listened hard enough, he 
thought he might even be able to hear the car radio playing 
"Magnet and Steel":  <<With you I'm not shy, to show the 
way I feel...>>

Her palm rubbed his erection through his jeans.  He slipped 
his hand under her silk shell, and stroked her breast 
outside her bra.  Scully assisted him by reaching around 
and unhooking the clasp -- more shades of teenage years.  
He pushed her bra up and kissed her breasts through the 
silk of her blouse, sucking lightly on her nipples.

"Let's go in the bedroom," she said breathlessly.

"Un-unh," he said, looking up and grinning at her.  "I want 
to make out on the couch."

She laughed but did not offer any argument.  Instead she 
went to work unbuttoning his jeans.

He unfastened her pants, too, and slid his hand past the 
waistband of her underwear.  She was wet, and felt hot and 
slick against his fingers.  Scully lifted her hips a 
little, and he pushed her pants and underwear just far 
enough off her pelvis to give his hand some room to work.

Her cool fingers slipped inside the fly of his boxers, and 
freed his erection. She wrapped her hand around his cock 
and stroked firmly up and down.

"Oh, Scully," he moaned against her mouth.

There was something wonderfully paradoxical about this -- 
the fact that they were still fully clothed lent what they 
were doing an air of both innocence and misbehavior.  Here 
they were, two responsible adults in their thirties, and 
they were giving each other hand jobs on the couch like two 
eager high school kids.

It made sense, though.  This was how they'd begun, one 
winter night a few months ago.

Scully seemed to be getting a kick out of it, too, because 
she didn't wiggle closer or pull him atop her.  Instead she 
was doing a surprisingly good job of pumping her hand up 
and down his cock in an even rhythm, rubbing her palm 
strongly against the underside, reducing him to the same 
mindless incoherence in which he'd always found himself as 
a teenager.

He, for his part, was doing his best to give as good as he 
got.  His fingers, slick with her arousal, worked in 
determined circles on her clit.  From the happy little 
whimpering sounds she was making in the back of her throat, 
he suspected he wasn't doing half bad.

Finally her rhythm on his cock faltered slightly, and her 
muscles tensed in the way that told him she was on the 
verge of coming.  He bent lower and took her nipple in his 
mouth again, licking at it through the silk of her 
clothing.  She shivered and made a soft cry, arching 
against him.  Drawing back to see her face, he slid two 
fingers inside her, and felt her pulsing around him.

When she opened her eyes again, she smiled rather bashfully 
at him.  They kissed, long and slow.  In the middle of the 
kiss he felt her hand begin its skillful work on his cock 
again.  He chuckled, and when they both came up for air, he 
was lazy enough just to lie back and enjoy what she was 
doing.

It didn't take long before he was breathing hard.  "Stop," 
he said suddenly, and laid his hand on her wrist.  Instead 
she kept going for a stroke or two, then swooped down, her 
hand still moving, and took him in her mouth.  He closed 
his eyes and groaned loudly, pumping into her again and 
again, seeing stars as he came.

When at last she pulled away, they both sighed contentedly.  
She straightened her clothes, tugging her pants back up on 
her hips, and he did his best to tuck himself inside his 
jeans again.

She stretched out beside him with her head on his shoulder.

They both sighed a second time.  It felt comfortable, lying 
with her like this on his couch.  Scully's smell lulled his 
senses, that combination of soap and chamomile shampoo and 
Paris perfume.  She was soft and warm against him.  He was 
sleepy, too; he didn't remember feeling quite so sleepy 
afterward when he'd been a teen-ager.  He was getting old, 
he thought drowsily, his eyes starting to close...

"Mulder?"  Scully's voice was soft and tentative.  "Mulder, 
I'd like to ask you something."

This couldn't be good, he thought, the relaxation leaving 
him in an instant. Women never warned a man that they were 
about to ask him something unless the question was one he 
wasn't going to want to answer.  "You would?

She sighed.  "You said going to Amy was like a 
compulsion..."

He drew a deep breath.  "Yes," he said, wondering with a 
sinking feeling why he'd ever thought this was all behind 
them.

"And you said you kept seeing her even after I came 
back..."

He nodded mutely.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his 
eyes.  "So what changed?  Why did you stop?"

He drew her tighter against him.  Why had he stopped?

He could still remember that last time with Amy.  Scully 
had been so sick.  He'd spent the early part of the evening 
in the hospital with her, pretending he couldn't see the 
wasted way her skin stretched over her bones or the dark 
circles under her eyes.  He'd thought going to see Amy 
would make him feel better.  Instead as she'd touched him 
he'd thought only of Scully -- the real Scully, the sick 
Scully, the Scully who was weak from cancer and from chemo. 
When he'd come, surging into Amy, he'd called Scully's 
name.

He'd been embarrassed.  Amy wasn't supposed to hear 
Scully's name.  It made him seem weak; worse, it tainted 
Scully somehow.  For a second, the world of Amy and the 
world of Scully had merged in a way he'd never intended.

For the first time, the let-down -- that awful feeling of 
guilt and shame-- hit him even before he left the hotel 
room.  Riding the elevator down, he'd wished more than 
anything that he could take the last hour back.  When he'd 
gotten in his car, he'd sat behind the wheel in the dim, 
low-ceilinged parking garage, and fought for long minutes 
not to cry.

He failed miserably.

"I don't know why I stopped," he said finally, his voice a 
little rough.  "When I started it felt like something I 
needed.  I pretended you were alive, Scully, and that made 
me feel alive again.  The sex was exciting.  Even if it was 
based on a fantasy -- a lie -- it still felt good enough 
that I was able to ignore the rest, that I was paying Amy 
and that she was essentially a stranger.  In fact, in some 
twisted way, I actually liked that she was a stranger.  I 
couldn't fuck up a stranger's life.  A stranger wasn't 
going to judge me.  That alone gave me a feeling of relief 
that, at that time, I don't think any other kind of sex 
would have given me."

Scully slipped her hand into his.

"But then," Mulder continued, "you came back, and time 
passed, and you got sick. And I started to realize how much 
you meant to me.  I started to recognize how much I needed 
to be with you, and how different it was going to be if 
you" -- he choked on the words, but kept going -- "if you 
died.  Amy wasn't going to make that better.  Nothing was 
going to make that better."

She squeezed his fingers.  "I'm okay now, Mulder."

"I know, but at that time . . . Every time I saw you, I 
tried to store the memory up: this is what Scully was like 
when I cracked a joke, this is what Scully was like when 
she was exasperated with me, this is how Scully looked 
sitting on the bed.  That's when it hit me, how important 
you were to me."

She pressed his hand tightly in both of hers.

"Anyway," he said after a little while, "I guess I'd known 
it all along, but had just never thought about it 
consciously.  When I did think about it, the guilt and the 
emptiness of seeing Amy started to outweigh the thrill.  In 
fact, the thrill wasn't so thrilling any more.  I didn't 
want to be with just anyone.  I wanted to be with you."

Scully didn't say anything, but she reached up and brushed 
the hair back off his temple.  He turned his head and 
kissed her brow.

A long silence stretched between them.  Neither felt like 
breaking it.

Finally Scully said, "You're not a bad person, Mulder.  
You're not even a weak person.  You've just had a few weak 
moments in your life."

He pulled her close.  "Thanks, Scully," he said into her 
hair.  "I think I needed to hear that."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning, Scully woke and found the other side of the 
bed empty.

She got out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her 
teeth.  She found Mulder in the kitchen, a towel wrapped 
around his hips, making coffee.  He turned around and 
smiled at her.

Scully yawned and stretched, sitting on the edge of the 
kitchen table.  "Do I take this early morning liveliness to 
mean that you're planning to make breakfast?"

He grinned.  "Only if you're a very, very good girl."

She leaned back on her elbows, well aware of the way it 
made her breasts push against the thin material of the t-
shirt she'd worn to bed.  "What, precisely, does being good 
entail?"

He stepped up to the table and flashed her a wolfish look 
that reassured her immensely.  While she appreciated the 
fact that he was feeling guilty and remorseful about Amy, 
she was getting a bit tired of the hangdog look he'd been 
wearing ever since.  She wanted her old Mulder back-- 
sarcastic, silly, sexy, horny Mulder.

Mulder grabbed one of her thighs in each hand and tugged 
her so she was sitting near the edge of the table.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm going to have some breakfast," he said, chuckling.

She smiled in anticipation.  Come to think of it, the 
kitchen table was one of the few pieces of furniture they 
hadn't defiled in their short time together as a couple.

Mulder leaned down to kiss her and she nearly smiled 
against his lips, happy to feel him touching her and making 
love with her for nothing more than just for the hell of 
it, for fun.  It had been a while since they'd had one of 
those times together.  Since Amy, to be perfectly precise.   
She reached with her hand and pulled off his towel.

"What do you want?" he whispered in her ear.  "Whatever you 
want this morning, I'll do it for you."  She shivered at 
his words, and the way he started running his tongue along 
her earlobe.

"I want--" she whispered and Mulder looked at her in 
anticipation.  "I want blueberry pancakes and a half 
grapefruit."

He groaned in annoyance, and mock-swatted her cheek.  "Just 
for that, you don't get to pick anymore."  His fingers slid 
down her body and found her panties, and he pulled them off 
without preamble.  

"I think what you're doing will be just fine," she gasped 
as he spread her legs apart and began teasing and circling 
with his fingers in the way he knew drove her insane.

"You like that?" he said and pushed up her t-shirt to suck 
at her nipples with an eager mouth.

She nodded and gave a small yowl of pleasure in response.

Mulder smiled.  "Good, because I love to make you feel 
good, Scully.  Nothing gets me as hot as watching your face 
when you're hungry for it.  The way your cheeks get pink 
and your lower lip pouts."  He moved still closer and she 
felt his erection brush against her leg.

"You know what gets me hot, Mulder?" she whispered.

He leaned closer and she took a deep breath of his sleepy 
morning smell.  "Tell me," he growled.

"When you fuck me, really hard."

Mulder tipped his head back, moaning at that, and she 
smirked in triumph.  She wasn't one to talk dirty to him a 
lot, since it wasn't really in her nature to do so, but the 
right words, used judiciously from time to time, could have 
a powerful effect indeed.

His response was the correct one, though, and that was to 
pull her right to the very edge of the table and wrap her 
legs around his waist.  One quick thrust later and he was 
buried to the hilt in her, still standing.  She brought her 
arms around his neck and hung on as best she could, as 
he moved in and out of her in long, quick slides that made 
her bite her lower lip and cry out with each stroke.

"So good," he hissed in her ear.  "No one, Scully, no one 
feels like you do."

And no one could possibly feel like Mulder making love to 
her, she thought.  She loved watching his face when they 
had sex in the daylight, especially the dazed and blissful 
look in his eyes as he neared his orgasm.

Scully reached between their straining bodies and found her 
swollen clit with her middle finger.  Mulder's eyes 
followed her hand and he licked his lower lip.  "I love 
watching you do that," he said.

She would have thought up a snappy comeback for that one, 
but it was impossible as her climax started approaching and 
she was caught in its pull, bucking against Mulder as it 
hit her.  

He began to really lose it, she happily noted through the 
post-orgasmic haze, as he shut his eyes and softly swore 
under his breath.  

"Come on," she said breathlessly, "you can let go now."

And presto, he came with a groan of the agony of relief.  
She felt like a goddess, with her ability to make him come 
with her words.  I am woman, hear me roar, she thought and 
started to laugh.

As soon as he stopped panting, Mulder said, "What's so 
funny?"

Her smile was small and secretive.  "Nothing you'd find 
amusing."

He kissed her with the soft and giving lips of a man 
exhausted by his exertions.  "You're something else, Dana 
Scully."

With her foot, she playfully poked at his bare ass.  "I 
know," she said.

They separated and he helped her down off the table.

"So," Scully said, "You were saying something about 
breakfast?"

Mulder rolled his eyes.  "I can never satisfy you, can I?"

"Nope."

And in the distance she heard the ringing of a cell phone, 
most likely in the living room.

"Yours or mine?" he asked.

"I think it's yours." 

He padded off to the other room and she heard the low hum 
of conversation.  

A minute later he returned and set the phone down on the 
kitchen counter.  "Breakfast is going to have to wait, 
Scully."

"How come?"

"Detective Watters called.  A body was found, in Richard 
Haskell's car."

Her hand rose to cover her open mouth.  "Oh God, it's not 
Amy, is it?"

Mulder shrugged.  "An identification hasn't been made, but 
a credit card receipt in Amy's name was found in the coat 
pocket of the victim."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After setting a land-speed record for showering, they 
headed off to the crime scene, wet heads and all.  "We'll 
catch colds," Mulder muttered, gulping coffee with one 
hand, and switching on the ignition with the other.

Scully slammed her door shut.  "Colds don't come from wet 
heads in chilly weather, Mulder.  They're caused by 
viruses," she said, stating the obvious.

They drove through the gray morning in tense silence.  The 
whole way, Mulder was berating himself for not finding the 
killer before it was too late for Amy.

Her reappearance had posed problems for Scully and him, but 
he still shuddered at the thought of her dying at the hands 
of a madman, alone and terrified.

It wasn't a long drive.  The body had been found in the 
parking lot of Grace Episcopal Church, only eight blocks 
from Scully's apartment, in another quiet, residential end 
of Georgetown.

The tableau was an eerie repeat of Friday morning -- a 
waiting ambulance, several police cars and a gathering of 
trench coats.  Mulder parked the car on the far end of the 
lot and they walked over to the crime scene.

Detective Watters was standing by a teal Lexus SUV, smoking 
a cigarette and talking to another man, clearly another 
homicide detective.

"Thanks for calling me," Mulder said.

Watters nodded.  "I thought you'd be interested in this, 
since the MO is the same . . ."

"Have you identified the body?" Scully asked.  He was 
almost surprised to note the tone of anxiety in her voice.

The other detective nodded and looked down at the clipboard 
in his hands.  "Name is Lisa Horton."

Mulder felt the air hiss out of lungs.  He hadn't even 
realized he'd been holding his breath.

"I recognized her," Watters said, stubbing out his smoke 
with his wing-tip.  "I interviewed her on Friday morning 
about the Maitland murder.  She's a call girl friend of Amy 
Callahan's."

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder spotted the familiar 
figure of Richard Haskell.  He was intently talking to a 
tall woman with blonde hair in a French twist.  Mulder 
jerked his thumb at the couple.  "What's the story with 
Haskell?"

"He reported the car stolen late last night.  He and his 
wife drove down to Richmond in his wife's car on Friday 
afternoon for a family party and came back to find the car 
stolen.  Guy's got an air-tight alibi; he was seen by 
approximately seventy-five relatives on Friday and 
Saturday."

Watters' cell phone rang, and he turned his back slightly 
to engage in a brisk conversation.  Mulder realized Scully 
was no longer standing by his side.  A quick glance found 
her on the other end of the Lexus, peering through the back 
windows with a man by her side.  A tall young man with 
light brown hair and glasses, just Scully's type.  And 
standing much closer to her than professional etiquette 
would advise.

Mulder grimaced at his thoughts.  He was jealous -- now 
wasn't that rich, given the circumstances?

He walked over and Scully looked up.  "This is horrible," 
she said.

"What do we have?"

"Maybe you'd better ask John."  She gestured toward the man 
standing at her side.  "John McMillan, I'd like you to meet 
my partner, Fox Mulder.  John was the coroner on the 
Maitland case, and so he was called out on this one, too."

McMillan shook hands with him and nodded.  "Without an 
autopsy, I'd say we've got the same perp here.  It looks 
like another clean cut to the neck and anal rape.  But he's 
done more this time . . ."

Mulder tilted his head.  "More?"

"Yeah," the coroner said.  "He cut the word `whore' into 
her thigh.  And looking at the rigor mortis, it looks like 
she was killed sometime on Friday or early Saturday 
morning, not last night."

Steeling himself, Mulder looked in the window and saw a 
slender young woman, nude and lying in the nest of a 
reddish fur coat, sprawled in the back of the car and rigid 
with death.  More unseeing eyes, he thought, more garish 
display of killing.  The gray interior of the car looked 
like an abattoir, splashed with baroque red blood.

"That's consistent," Mulder said.  "He's trying to get his 
message across.  The killer wants to rid the world of 
immorality and he believes he needs to label his victims."

Scully shook her head, as if in disbelief.  "Even after all 
this time in law enforcement, I just cannot understand that 
state of mind."

Mulder grimaced.  "Unfortunately, after all this time, I 
can . . ."

Watters came stalking across the asphalt, hitching his 
baggy pants as he went.  "Hey Mulder, we've been trying to 
reach Amy Callahan.  You got any idea where she is?"

"We had her in a hotel room to protect her and she took 
off," Scully said.  "I think she went to New York to be 
with her boyfriend."

"You got a name?"

"Michael Corey," Mulder said.  "But I don't have a phone 
number."

The pudgy detective made a face.  "Damn stupid hookers.  
Why would she think she's safe in another city?  I'll try 
to get his number up there and talk to her.  If this dude 
is targeting her friends, she's not safe anywhere."

Two attendants rolled a stretcher over to the car.  The 
coroner unhatched the back and leaned inside to attach bags 
to the body's hands to preserve any possible skin or hair 
samples.  "Hey Dana," McMillan called out, twisting his 
head around.  "There's something reddish under her 
fingernails."

Her eyebrows rose.  "Blood, you think?"

"Possibly.  It certainly wouldn't hurt to get more DNA 
samples to match with the ones we got off Vanessa 
Maitland."

Scully moved closer to the coroner and they began to talk 
rapidly in medical gibberish that Mulder couldn't possibly 
follow.  Standing around the corner of the car, Mulder felt 
incredibly ineffectual.  It was all very well and good to 
be able to profile, but it wasn't exactly helping much, now 
was it?

He wished he hadn't left his coffee in the car as he shut 
his eyes and tried to fit the jagged pieces of the puzzle 
together.  Something nagged at him, but it wasn't coming to 
him.

Think of the obvious, Mulder.

The obvious refused to come.

He started at the light touch of Scully's hand on his arm.  
"I'm going to go downtown with John for the autopsy."

Mulder nodded.  

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm frustrated," he said. 

Lisa Horton's body was lifted from the back of the car and 
loaded on a stretcher, covered in a blanket.

"I can understand that," Scully said.  "We don't have 
anything solid right now."

"Maybe the autopsy will shed some light."

She smiled, her eyes almost gray in the dull morning light.  
"Let's hope so, for Amy's sake.  And Vanessa and Lisa."

For a moment, she looked like she was about to kiss him, 
but shook her head as if remembering where she was.  

"Go on," he said, pushing her away.  "Go perform your 
scalpel magic."

"Call me if anything comes up," she said and walked off to 
John's car, where he was already behind the wheel.

Detective Watters looked over at him.  "Hey Mulder, we're 
gonna canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone saw anything.  
Grunt work, but you wanna pitch in?"

Mulder nodded.  Why the hell not?  It wasn't as if his 
profiling was working miracles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"On the run from the FBI . . ." Amy mused as she finished 
unpacking her suitcase.  "I feel like we're Bonnie and 
Clyde."

He stepped up to her, and wrapped his arms around her 
waist.  "I'm just glad you're here with me."

"Me, too," she said.  She tipped her head back and smiled 
up at him.
 
Yesterday she'd met him outside the Sheraton, where he'd 
had a rental car waiting.  They'd sped off to the airport, 
grinning and with their hearts pounding, as if they really 
were two fugitives on the run.  On the shuttle from DC, 
they'd held hands while she'd told him about Vanessa and 
the hotel room and how much she had missed him.  When 
they'd gotten back to his apartment, they'd fallen 
immediately into bed and made love wordlessly in the dark 
for what seemed like hours.  She'd slept like a baby beside 
him all night.

Michael cupped her cheek in his palm.  "I'm not letting you 
out of my sight again," he said.  "Until you called me I 
was going crazy, wondering where you were and whether you 
were okay or not."

"I'm okay now," she said.  "No one's going to find me 
here."

He kissed her, his lips soft on hers.

She was so glad to be back with him.  It was where she 
should have come in the first place, she thought.  Mulder 
and Scully meant well, but she had felt so cooped up in 
that hotel room, she might as well have been in prison.  
With Michael, she had both safety and freedom. 

Michael let her go, and walked over to the foot of the bed.  
"That man I met . . ." he began hesitantly, reaching out a 
finger and tracing the pattern on the comforter.  "That FBI 
agent . . ."

"Mulder?"

"Yes, Mulder," he said without looking at her.  "He was one 
of your clients, wasn't he?"

There was something odd in Michael's tone, Amy thought.  
Jealousy?  Insecurity?  That wasn't like Michael.  

"He was," she said calmly, "but that was a couple of years 
ago."

"I thought you said the men you saw were mostly older -- 
married businessman and middle-aged politicians."

She noticed the tense set of his shoulders.  She walked 
over and set a hand on his arm.  "You're not going to get 
all weird on me, are you?  It doesn't matter to me what 
they look like.  You know that."

"I'm not jealous," he said, still not looking at her.  "I 
don't really care what they look like either.  It's just . 
. .well, I'd hate to think you've been lying to me, on top 
of everything else . . ."

His voice was soft, but she drew back in shock.  "Lying to 
you?  I'm not a liar, Michael."

He turned to face her.  "No, I know you're not.  Except 
that your family thinks you're an art dealer, don't they?" 

She felt stung by the sly insinuation in his words. "That's 
different.  I don't want to hurt them."

"I see.  You lie to them because you don't want to hurt 
them.  Does that mean you do want to hurt me?"

She looked at the floor and said tightly, "Michael, don't 
be like this.  You know the difference.  They would never 
understand, and you do."

He was quiet for a minute, then he sighed.  He reached out 
and took her hand in his.  "I'm sorry, Amy.  You're right.  
I do understand."

She breathed a sigh of relief.  She didn't think she could 
face an argument with Michael just now, after all she'd 
been through in the last week -- first Jess's death, then 
Vanessa's.  She knew Michael was only human, and that 
everyone had insecure moments, but part of what attracted 
her to him was his open-minded acceptance of her work.

"We just need to take some time for ourselves, I think," 
Michael said, a little sadly.  "We need to forget about 
Tiger Lilies and this stalker business for a little while, 
and let things get back to normal."

She nodded.  "I'm not going back to Tiger Lilies, at least 
not any time soon.  Not after what happened to Vanessa."

He smiled, a warm, genuine smile that touched his eyes.  
"I'm so glad to hear that, Amy.  Judging from everything 
that's happened lately, it's just not safe."

"I know," she said.  "I'll start asking around, and see if 
I can find an agency here in New York."

His smile vanished, replaced by a look of disbelief.  "You 
mean you're going to work here?"

"Of course," she said.  "We still need money for the 
gallery, don't we?"

"But what about the danger -- " 

"Please, Michael."  She held up a hand.  "Let's not talk 
about this now, okay?  I'm just not up to it."

He frowned, and turned away.  He was worried about her, she 
knew.  But she simply couldn't handle arguing about it 
right now.  After the awful week she'd just endured, she 
didn't have the emotional resources left to discuss it with 
him.

Besides, she knew Michael would come to realize that she 
was right about working here in New York.  Cape Cod was a 
nice dream, but it was his dream, not hers.  This way, they 
would be together, and she could keep saving. 

He sighed, his shoulders slumping.  "I'm going to my 
studio, Amy," he said in a defeated voice.  "My show is 
coming up and I have a lot of work to do."

Her heart sank.  It wasn't like Michael to avoid her.  "Can 
I come with you?" she asked, the request tentative.

He stood still for a minute, then turned to her with a 
gleam in his eye.  "You want to come to my studio with me?"

She was touched by his obvious eagerness to spend time with 
her.  "Of course," she said.  "It's been a while since I've 
seen you work.  Besides, even if DC is a couple of hundred 
miles away, I still feel safer being with you."

"I think that's a really good idea," he said.  A smile 
spread slowly over his features.  "I would love for you to 
come to my studio.  In fact, I have a few surprises I'd 
like to show you."

She took his hand.  "Let's both go, then," she said, and 
kissed his cheek.  "You know how I love surprises."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Halfway to the morgue, the drizzle that had been plaguing 
the city started up again and John turned on the windshield 
wipers.  This is the most pathetic excuse for an April in 
the history of Aprils, Scully thought, sipping at the 
coffee she and John had stopped for on the way.

"So," John said, turning left, "you and your partner, huh?"

Scully's back stiffened against the car seat.  While she 
and Mulder hadn't been keeping their new relationship a 
secret, they hadn't exactly been advertising it, either.  
"What about Mulder and me?" she said in a guarded tone.

He turned to her and smiled, that sunny, amused smile that 
had attracted her to him in the first place.  "Just that 
he's the one you're seeing.  Is it tough, spending all that 
time with him as your partner and then being involved?"

"Why do you think we're personally involved?" she asked.

John switched the radio from NPR to a jazz station.  "Dana, 
I'm not blind.  You both show up at the crime scene with 
matching sets of wet hair.  Hmmm, what would *you* think?"

"I'd probably think what you're thinking," Scully said, her 
mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile.

"Well, it's what I get for not acting on my first impulse, 
which was to ask you out that day we met last year.  I kept 
steeling myself to go over to you at the reception and just 
do it, but I chickened out.  My divorce had just become 
final and I was feeling out of practice."

She took another sip of the strong coffee and looked at the 
moving cityscape through the rain-misted windows.  "John," 
she said in a gentle voice.  "Don't take this the wrong 
way, but I probably would have said no a year ago, too."

He pretended to bang his fist on the steering wheel.  "So, 
is it my personality, or were you guys already involved 
then?"

"Neither."  She shook her head.  "But let's just say that I 
had already made the commitment all the same."

It was true.  Even if she hadn't been able to admit it to 
herself at the time, she'd loved Mulder then.

"Well, I'm just relieved to hear it's not me," John 
chuckled.  "And Dana, I am happy for you.  It's hard to 
find someone these days."  He pulled into the parking lot 
adjoining the building.

She nodded her head.  It was hard, but she'd been lucky.

Mulder was an imperfect being, but then again, so was she.  
She was going to have to learn to let go of her idea of the 
perfect relationship, the ideal man, because there was no 
such thing. 

Two hours later Scully hustled out of the autopsy bay.  
She'd stripped off her latex gloves, but was still wearing 
her blood-daubed surgical gown as she marched down the hall 
to the locker room, her heart beating madly.

As she unlocked the locker door with shaking hands, she 
could hear her cell phone echoing in the metal walls.  

She grabbed the phone.  "Scully," she said breathlessly.

"I've been trying to reach you," Mulder said, in an equally 
out of breath voice.  "I was hoping you'd finish up soon, 
because we had a major break here, canvassing the 
neighborhood.  We found--"

Scully interrupted him.  "We found something, too.  
Remember how Lisa Horton had something reddish under her 
nails?  We thought it might be blood, but it's not.  It's 
an oil-based paint, the kind used by artists.  Are you 
following me?"

Judging by his sharp inhale, he was.  "That just confirms 
what we found out.  An elderly woman who lives across the 
street from Grace Church was taking her dog out at 4:30 am 
on Saturday and she saw a young man park the Lexus in the church 
parking lot.  He walked out of the lot and right in front 
of her house.  She described him as in his late twenties, 
dark hair, handsome, and with a stud in his nose."

She nearly dropped her phone.  "Does Michael Corey have a 
nose ring?"  She'd never met the man, but Mulder had.

"Exactly.  And I got busy and woke Frohike up.  He found 
airline records of Michael's trips to DC, all jibing with 
the murders.  And he found a record of Amy and Michael 
taking the 7:00 pm shuttle to New York last night."

"Oh shit," she breathed.  "That is not good news."

"Watters has contacted NYPD and they're getting a search 
warrant for his apartment."

Don't let it be too late, she silently prayed.  Don't let 
the monster strike again.  

Mulder interrupted her thoughts.  "Scully, I think we 
should go up to New York."

"There's not much we can do up there, Mulder," she said.  
"It's really more for the NYPD to handle."

"I know, but I'd feel better if we were there, too."

"You're probably right," she said.  She and Mulder were 
alike in that way, hating to be out of the loop of the 
action.  And she bore some of the responsibility for Amy 
being in harm's way, having let Amy slip out of her fingers 
with such a ridiculous ruse.  "Book us a flight and I'll 
meet you at the airport."

"I'm on my way right now and I'll meet you at the United 
counter."

"I'll be there," she said, and turned off the phone.

Oh Amy, why did you go back to him, she frantically 
thought.

As quickly as she could, she changed and then charged out 
into the hallway.  Halfway down to the exit, she spotted 
John, talking to another staff member.

She hated to ask him for a favor, she truly did, knowing 
how he was attracted to her, and how she'd had to turn him 
down.  But desperation was desperation.

"John," she said, "is there any possible way you could give 
me a ride to the airport?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy finished reading the last page of Michael's copy of The 
Village Voice and returned it to the neat stack of 
magazines beside the futon.  "How's it coming?" she asked.

Michael glanced up from the canvas he was working on, an 
expression of complete absorption on his face.  "What?"

She laughed.  "Sorry, didn't mean to break your 
concentration.  I just asked how the painting was coming."

"Really well," he said.

She got up, and came to stand behind him.  They gazed 
together at the canvas.  "Nice work," she said approvingly.  
"I love the way the light seems to flicker across the 
torso." 

She liked it here in Michael's studio -- it seemed so 
*Michael*.  There were paintings all around, and the 
mirrors he used when working with a live model, and the 
smell of paint.  Yet the overall impression wasn't merely 
that of an artist's workplace, but of impressive order and 
organization.  Everything was arranged just so: the neat 
row of canvases, the art brushes in their box, the easel 
turned to the sunlight.

"So when are you going to show me my surprises?" she asked 
with a smile.

He put down his paintbrush, and wiped his hands on the 
towel beside his palette.  "In a little while," he said, 
standing and turning to face her.  "Right now I've earned a 
break, don't you think?" 

She grinned as he took her in his arms.  "Definitely."

He began unbuttoning her blouse as they kissed.  She helped 
him, her hands competing with his for the buttons.  When 
they broke the kiss, she reached around and unzipped her 
skirt.  It fell to the floor and she stepped out of it.  
The rest of her clothes quickly followed.  

She looked over her shoulder at him as she walked back to 
the futon.  He was tugging off the rowing sweatshirt he was 
wearing.

"Michael!" she said.  "What happened to you?"

Long red scratches marred his chest and upper arms.  Some 
of them looked ragged and deep.

He glanced down at himself as he tossed his shirt on the 
floor.  "I guess I must have scratched myself up, 
stretching canvases the other day."

He shed the rest of his clothes, and they lay down together 
on the futon.  As they kissed and touched each other, Amy 
remembered the promise she had made to herself in the hotel 
room -- that when the two of them were together again, she 
would make love to him, long and slow. 

It was long and slow.  And sweet.  The sunlight spilled 
through the studio windows, bathing their skin in light as 
they made love.  She moved atop him with a gradually 
building rhythm, enjoying every moment, drawing it out as 
much as she could.  She stared into his eyes, feeling the 
connection with him that she never felt with her clients.  
He gazed back, his green eyes grave and unblinking.

"I love you," she whispered.

When it was over, when she had shuddered into orgasm above 
him and he had rolled her underneath him and finished in an 
intense burst of passion, they lay together, flushed and 
sweaty.

"There's something I want to show you now," he said 
quietly.  "Your surprise."

She turned onto her side and watched as he reached for his 
jeans, pulled them on, and got up.  He went to the drafting 
table between the windows and, reaching under it, retrieved 
a brown expanding file folder.  He unwrapped the elastic 
closure, and took out a sheaf of papers.  

"What are those?" she asked, sitting up as he walked with 
them back to her.  

"Drawings of you."  He sat down on the futon beside her, 
and passed her the first one.  "Look.  This is you, the 
night I first met you.  Do you see how beautiful you are?"

She examined the drawing -- a charcoal sketch of her, her 
hair a little longer than it was now, an expression of 
wistful happiness on her upturned face.  She *was* 
beautiful in it, she thought.  Michael was an extraordinary 
artist and he had captured a charm and a vulnerability in 
his drawing that made sudden tears well up in her eyes.

"And now this one," he said, taking another drawing from 
the thick stack.  "I drew this the night after I found out 
what you did for a living."

He passed it to her, and her breath caught in her throat. 

It was drawing of her, her face contorted in an ugly mask, 
her hair whipping around her features like snakes.  She was 
naked in the picture, sprawled obscenely with her legs 
spread wide.

And her throat was cut. 

Her heart began beating wildly against her ribs.  
"Michael," she said, her mouth suddenly gone dry, "what is 
this?"

He looked down at the drawing she held in her shaking hand.  
"I tried to make you stop," he said.  "I tried everything I 
could think of -- reasoning with you, offering you a better 
way to live your life, trying to open your eyes to the evil 
of what you were doing . . ."

"No," she said in a whisper.

"This is one of you fucking some other man," he said 
dispassionately, handing her another drawing.  "And here's 
another one just like that.  I didn't draw their faces 
because their faces don't really matter, do they, Amy?  You 
don't care who it is."

She heard herself moan.

"And this one -- see how you're bleeding, here?  And this 
is another one of you with another man.  And in this one, 
you're dying, choking on your own blood . . ."

Stunned, she did not look down at the drawings he kept 
pushing mercilessly into her hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They did not talk much until the airplane was off the 
ground.  Mulder sat in the window seat, staring out at the 
diminishing landscape below, while Scully leafed 
distractedly through the in-flight magazine.  They were 
both too preoccupied with their thoughts about Amy and the 
deaths they had already witnessed to feel up to talking. 

Something else was preoccupying Mulder, too.  He kept 
thinking of John McMillan, and the way Scully had smiled at 
the coroner as she'd stepped out of his car at the airport 
curb.  He'd thought she was more or less past her 
resentment over Amy.  Now he wondered just how much he'd 
screwed things up.  Maybe she was already looking for 
someone else, if only subconsciously.

He checked his watch.

"The New York police are working on it, Mulder," Scully 
said beside him.

He sighed.  "I know.  I just hope they're not too late."

"At least we should have some good evidence to convict.  
John was able to recover semen from both the previous 
victims."

Mulder winced, the suggestion that Amy might join the ranks 
of "previous victims" only compounded by Scully's casual 
use of McMillan's first name.

"In fact, John was the one who ID'd the paint under Lisa 
Horton's fingernails."  Her expression turned pensive.  
"He's a nice guy . . ."

Well, there was the perfect opening if ever there was one, 
Mulder thought.  "So," he said, clearing his throat, "have 
you known him long?"

She tucked her magazine back in the seat pocket in front of 
her, and shook her head.  "Not that long.  We met about a 
year ago, at a conference.  We talked a lot.  I think he 
was a little lonely.  His wife left him and his divorce had 
just become final."

Mulder frowned.  The guy was good looking, a fellow 
pathologist, single, and Scully knew all about his personal 
life.  Wonderful.

"He asked me out at the Maitland crime scene," she said.

Mulder wasn't quite sure how to respond to this.  For one 
thing, it seemed like only half a sentence to him.  "He 
asked me out at the Maitland crime scene" ought to end with 
something more, something like "but I said no."  He waited, 
but she didn't elaborate.  

"And?" he said finally.

"And what?"

"Scully," he said, suddenly feeling tired and depressed, 
"if you want to go out with him, don't let me stop you."

She sat in silence for a moment, apparently stunned by his 
words.  At last she said, "Do you want me to go out with 
him?"

He laughed shortly, a sound that had nothing to do with 
amusement.  "What do you think?"

"I have no idea, Mulder.  Why would you say something like 
that?"

"I don't know," he said, his stomach twisting.  "It just 
seemed like the right thing to say.  You like him, don't 
you?"

"Of course I like him."

"Well, then . . .I wouldn't want to stand in your way." 

He meant it to come out sounding noble and mature, and yet 
it sounded so...petulant.  Jealous.  Insecure.  He sat 
there, listening to the dull roar of the jet engines, 
wishing he could take back the words.

Finally he felt Scully's hand on his arm.  "Mulder..." 

He turned his head away and stared out the window.  "What?" 
he said, hoping for reassurance, and hating himself for 
being so needy.

"Mulder, I like John, but I have no intention of going out 
with him.  I love you.  I'm with you now."

"But he might be better for you," he argued, wondering even 
as he did so what awful impulse was making him say these 
things.  Was he really trying to talk her into going out 
with another man?   

Brilliant, he thought, wanting to kick himself.  Tell 
Scully you've been with a prostitute one week, then push 
her into the arms of someone else the next.  No wonder he 
had never excelled in the relationship arena.

But she seemed to understand that he didn't really want her 
to agree with him.  "I'm with you now, and I have no 
intention of being with anyone else," she said, firmly.  
She gave his arm a quick squeeze before turning it loose.

He merely nodded.  On the outside, his expression was 
restrained, but on the inside he felt a flood of relief.

When the plane landed, a uniformed officer met them at the 
gate.  He led the way to a waiting squad car, a level of 
cooperation neither had expected, especially since they 
were working unofficially.  Apparently the New York police 
appreciated a tip as concrete as the name and address of a 
wanted serial killer.

"Any news?" Mulder asked, once they were in the squad car 
and on their way out of the airport.

The policeman riding shotgun shook his head.  "Last we 
heard they had a warrant and were searching the apartment, 
but the suspect wasn't there, and they hadn't found 
anything helpful."

"We know she's with him," Scully said.  "We have to find 
them."

Mulder was on edge the whole way into Chelsea.  He could 
sense that Scully was, too, from her tense posture and 
controlled breathing.  They stared out the car windows at 
the city, counting the seconds.

Fortunately, it was a Sunday and traffic in Manhattan was 
at its lightest.  They reached Michael Corey's Chelsea 
neighborhood in good time.  Several police cars were parked 
in the street, their lights flashing. 

They produced their badges for the policeman guarding the 
door to Michael's apartment, and went in.  Inside, the 
search was already winding to a close.  They found the 
detective in charge, a stocky man with a weary attitude.

"Nothing," he told them glumly.  "He's not here.  We'll 
station a unit on the street to watch for him, but for now 
we've come up empty handed."

"What about Amy Callahan, the woman he had with him?" 
Mulder asked.

"We found a suitcase in the bedroom with her name on the 
luggage tag, but all of the clothes had been put away in a 
nice orderly fashion.  There's no sign of foul play."

"She's got to be with him," Mulder said.  "If she's still 
alive, it's just a matter of time before he kills her."

Detective Rinaldi held up his hands in a helpless gesture.  
"What can I do?  Look at this place.  This guy is more 
organized than Martha Stewart.  He didn't leave anything 
for us."

The apartment was tidy and uncluttered -- eerily so, Mulder 
thought.  In the kitchen, identical plastic containers of 
cereal, rice, beans, and pasta lined the shelves in a 
perfect row.  The countertops were spotless and bare.  In 
the living room, magazines were spread on the low coffee 
table in a fan, arranged alphabetically from left to right.  
Nothing was out of place.  

"I thought this guy was an artist.  This place looks more 
like a laboratory or a hospital or something," the 
detective said, looking around him with a frown.

"It's part of the profile," Mulder mumbled, with a growing 
sense of frustration.  "He's someone who wants to impose 
order on the world."

Scully held out a hand, and pointed at a framed poster 
hanging on the wall over the couch.  "What's that?"

Rinaldi glanced at it.  "Poster for a gallery exhibit 
of some kind."

"No, I mean what's that address on the bottom?"

Mulder drew closer to the poster.  The boldest caption 
displayed Michael's name, the gallery address, and the 
dates of the show.  In the lower right corner, however, an 
address appeared in smaller type.

The detective peered over Mulder's shoulder.  "Not a very 
swanky neighborhood," he remarked, taking in the Lower East 
Side address.

"An artist would have a studio," Mulder said, realization 
dawning.  "That's Michael Corey's studio."

"He took her there," Scully breathed.

Mulder nodded grimly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael pushed her down roughly onto her back, ripping the 
sheaf of drawings from her frozen hands.  "Why'd you have 
to do it, Amy?" he said, looming over her.  "Why'd you have 
to turn out so bad when I loved you so much?"

She tried to twist away, but he clamped a hand down on her 
throat, pinning her to the futon.

"I was waiting for you to change, Amy.  I gave you chance 
after chance," he hissed, his eyes glittering feverishly.  
"But even when I inherited that money from my grandfather, 
you wanted to keep on working.  It wasn't the money that 
really mattered, was it?  You're a whore.  You do it 
because you want to be fucked by anyone and everyone."

"No -- "

He clapped his free hand over her mouth and pushed down 
savagely.  "Don't talk.  I don't want to hear the lies and 
the excuses.  I loved you so much, Amy.  It almost killed 
me when I learned what you were."

She stared up at him, her eyes stark with terror.  Oh my 
God, she thought to herself, over and over.  Oh my God.  
It's Michael.  Michael's the one who's been stalking me. 
Michael killed Vanessa.

He gazed down at her with a flushed face.  "I gave you so 
many chances -- first patience, then trying to reason with 
you, then hoping to scare some sense into you with the 
photographs.  But none of it worked, did it, Amy?  You were 
a whore then, and you're a whore now.  You didn't even wake 
up after what happened to Jess.  You went running right 
back to your whore friends."

Oh God -- Jess.  She flashed on a sudden picture of 
Michael, brutally slashing her dog's throat.  Jess had 
loved and trusted him.  It would have been easy for Michael 
to let himself in with his key.  Jess would have come 
running.

She squeezed her eyes shut in horror.

"You thought I was in New York then, didn't you, Amy?" 
Michael hissed above her.  "You thought you could come 
trotting up whenever you liked, and I'd be waiting for you.  
I came at the bottom of your list of priorities.  At the 
bottom of your list of men to fuck..."

He took his left hand from her mouth, while his right dug 
brutally into her throat.  She tried to scream but he 
shoved his palm down harder, cutting off her air. 

"Well, I wasn't in New York," he said, as he stretched out 
his left hand and groped under the futon for something.  "A 
cell phone is a very useful thing.  All I had to do was 
stay one shuttle ahead of you, and you never even guessed 
about Jess.  Or Vanessa.  Or Lisa."

Lisa?  Oh God, Michael must have killed Lisa too.  A jolt 
of renewed terror shot through her and she clawed at his 
hand, battling for breath.

Michael showed no sign that he even noticed her struggles.  
"You never knew because you're a stupid whore," he said 
with a frightening calm, still searching blindly under the 
futon with his left hand.  "You think you're so smart, 
don't you, Amy?  'I went to Northwestern, I'm going to open 
a gallery.'  How much brain power does it take to fuck men 
for money?"

Finally he found whatever it was he had been groping for 
under the futon.  With fear-wide eyes she watched as he 
drew out a long, white shape -- something about six inches 
long, with a short silver hook on the end.

A razor, she thought in the same breathless instant as he 
unfolded the blade from the mother of pearl handle.  A 
straight razor.

He laughed when he saw her eyes fixed on the gleaming 
blade.  "The money wasn't the only thing I inherited from 
my grandfather."  

This couldn't be happening, she thought in disjointed 
terror.  This couldn't be real.  Her terrified gaze 
followed the razor as he brought it closer and closer to 
her face.

He touched the sharpened edge to her cheek.  She froze, 
afraid to move.

"So pretty on the outside," he said, and she gasped in pain 
as he sliced her cheek lightly with the razor.  He moved 
the blade to the other side.  "And so ugly on the inside."  
With a light flick, he sliced her face again.

She tried to stay absolutely motionless, but her cheeks 
stung, and terrified sobs shook her body.  She felt 
something trickle down the side of her face, inching toward 
her ear, and wondered if it was a tear or a rivulet of 
blood.  It was hard to think at all.  She was terrified, 
and she was growing dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

He slashed her arm deeply with the razor, then leaned down 
so that his lips were barely inches from her ear.  "I'm 
going to kill you," he whispered, "and then I'm going to 
fuck you like the dirty whore you are." 

She shook with wordless sobs.

He straightened, a look of relish giving his handsome face 
an almost demonic glow.  "Remember -- you made me do this."

She closed her eyes as he raised his arm to strike.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seemed to happen so quickly.

They gathered on a run-down Lower East Side street in a 
neighborhood that had clearly chosen to ignore Mayor 
Giuliani's clean-up campaign, since the sidewalks were 
strewn with fast-food wrappers, crushed cigarette butts and 
the odd broken bottle of malt liquor.  Michael Corey's 
studio was in a six story brick building that housed an 
occult bookstore and a kosher butcher shop on the first 
floor.

Four squad cars and two unmarked vehicles were gathered in 
front of the building.  There was a huddle in the chilly 
air as Detective Rinaldi laid out the game plan like a 
football coach.

"You two know Corey, so I want you going in first," he said 
in a voice redolent of deepest Bensonhurst, pointing at 
Mulder and Scully.  "Officers Lin and Young will back you 
up and everyone else waits out here for a signal.  We got a 
call in to SWAT, in case he decides to take her as a 
hostage."

If Amy's still alive, she thought.  Scully took a deep 
breath, trying to calm the adrenaline rush coursing through 
her bloodstream.

Detective Rinaldi took Mulder and Scully aside.  "If the 
girl is alive, try to talk him down, keep him calm."

Mulder nodded.  "We both have hostage negotiation 
training."

"Good," said the short, squat detective.  "And I want you 
two going in wearing vests.  No telling if Corey has a gun 
or not."

She slipped on the Kevlar with practiced fingers, all the 
while praying Amy and Michael were inside, and that Amy was 
still unharmed.

For all they knew, the two of them were eating Chinese and 
discussing the return of Art Deco.

She nodded to Mulder, who nodded to the uniformed officers.  

"Let's do it," she said, patting her holster for 
reassurance.

The four of them climbed the stairs of the building, going 
up four flights of stairs past walls scribbled with 
graffiti and covered with flyers for punk shows and gallery 
events.  They were silent as they went, each intent on the 
task at hand.

The hallway on the fourth floor was deadly silent, lit only 
with a few ineffectual light bulbs.  

"It's too quiet," Mulder whispered to her as they traveled 
down the corridor to #402, which belonged to Michael.  "I 
don't like this."

"Don't project," she hissed back.

Outside the door, the four of them stood and pondered their 
options.  "Knock or break the door down?" Lin said, sotto 
voce.

"How about trying the knob?" said Scully.

She and Mulder drew their guns.  She reached out and 
grasped the doorknob.

One, two, and . . .

To her surprise and relief, the knob twisted in her hand 
and the door opened.  Weren't New Yorkers supposed to be 
fanatical about locking doors?

She jerked her head at Mulder for him to follow her and 
walked into a narrow hallway.

And then she heard it, a low moan in a woman's voice.

Her skin broke into goose bumps when she heard the 
terrified noise coming from down the hall.

The inhuman moan became words, "No, Michael, don't do this, 
no, no, no!"

Scully's stride accelerated into a run and she reached the 
end of the hallway, Mulder at her heels.  An open doorway 
led to a large room with huge windows that let in the 
fading light of the day.  Her eyes rapidly scanned over 
several large canvases daubed with paint, a mirror, and, in 
the corner, a futon.

Amy was there, alive.

Thank God.

Amy was lying on the futon, nude, with a tall dark-haired 
man straddling her.  He wore only a pair of jeans, and his 
back glistened with sweat.  A glint of something caught 
Scully's eye and she realized it was a straight razor and 
he was holding it to Amy's neck.

She raised her gun and trained it on Michael.  Without 
looking to her side, she knew Mulder was doing the same.  

"Drop the razor, Michael," Mulder said in a loud, firm 
voice.  "FBI."

The man turned his head and his dark eyes widened at the 
sight of the two of them.

That was the precise moment when things began to speed up 
with the herky-jerky quality of an old movie from the 
1920s.

She saw Amy's head shift and her mouth open, blood running 
in streaks from two livid slashes on her cheeks.  A look of 
sudden hope lit her eyes.  And then Amy's leg rose and she 
caught Michael square in the crotch with her knee, just as 
he was distracted by Mulder's words.

The young man roared in pain and fell back onto his knees 
on the futon.  Amy scrambled out from under him and ran 
across the room, right into Mulder's arms, bursting into 
tears.

"Get out of here," he hissed at Amy, and pushed her toward 
the hallway.  Her pale arms clung to him for a moment 
before finally letting go.

"The blade," Scully said to the man gasping in pain.  It 
was still gripped tightly in his right hand.  "You've got 
two guns pointed at you and a dozen law officers in and 
around the building.  Give up the blade and it'll all be 
over."

Michael sat up and shook his head, as if trying to clear 
his head of the pain.  He looked straight at her, and she 
noticed the sudden look of shock in his cool eyes.  "Amy?" 
he said in confusion, staring at Scully.  His eyes narrowed 
as he worked to puzzle out the obvious resemblance.  "You 
look so much like Amy," he breathed.

He staggered to his feet, holding the straight razor 
loosely in his hand.

"Drop it now," Mulder said in a voice that was meant to 
sound soothing, but she could detect the tightness 
underneath it.

Michael smiled and ran his left hand through his short, 
straight hair.  "I recognize you," he said, addressing 
Mulder.  "You're one of the men who fucked Amy.  You 
understand, don't you?  She's bad.  She has to die."

"No one has to die today," Scully said through clenched 
teeth.  Her arms were beginning to ache from holding the 
gun on him.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, still smiling.  "You 
can't arrest me.  I'm only doing what needs to be done.  
Amy's a whore.  Ask him."  He gestured with his head toward 
Mulder.  "He knows."

"Put the blade down, Michael," Mulder said.

Taking a step closer, Michael continued, "You should be 
thanking me.  He can tell you how dirty she is.  She tempts 
people.  You think you're a good person, but then she 
tempts you, and before you know it, you're dirty, too."

"Put the blade down," Mulder said again, exaggerating each 
word.

He raised his hands in surrender.  "I'm dirty," he said, in 
a dazed voice.  "Amy made me that way."

He took another step closer.

Then, with a sudden motion, so quick that neither of them 
had time to prevent it, the blade flashed as Michael drew 
it swiftly across his own throat.

"Ah!" Scully gasped, jumping back involuntarily as a spurt 
of blood splashed across her Kevlar vest.  In the same 
instant she heard the thump of Michael's body as he 
crumpled to the floor in a heap.  The blade dropped from 
his fingers, falling with a clatter on the wood 
floorboards.

They ran to his body and crouched by his side.  Mulder 
pulled out a handkerchief and picked up the razor blade, 
setting it carefully off to the side.  

Michael twitched on the floor, his eyes open and his dark 
lashes fluttering.   "Amy," he choked as blood bubbled from 
his mouth.  "She's bad . . ."

The two NYPD officers burst in.  "What the fuck?" Young 
said.

"He's down," Scully shouted.  "Call for an ambulance."

"Already done," Lin said.

The razor had severed Michael's carotid artery, Scully 
could see at once.  Fresh blood pumped from the open wound.  
Mulder tossed her the sheet he'd ripped off the futon, and 
she pressed it to Michael's throat in an attempt to slow 
the flow of blood.

"Amy," he said in a strangled voice, his eyes fluttering 
closed.  

Normally this was the part where she desperately prayed for 
the victim to live, but this time she found herself 
heartlessly wondering if perhaps death wasn't the fate that 
Michael deserved.

Blood poured through the white cotton and stained her 
hands.  She pressed harder, despite her feelings for the 
man.

Behind her, she could hear Amy's sobs over the rattle of 
Michael's labored breathing.  She turned her head just long 
enough to see Amy, huddled in a blanket she must have 
gotten from the police, weeping brokenly.

Scully crouched over Michael's body for what seemed 
like an eternity.  

Finally, the EMTs arrived and bundled him onto a stretcher.  
Scully stood, her knees popping from having knelt on the 
floor for so long.

Amy hugged the blanket tightly around her, her hair wildly 
tousled and tears streaking her bloody cheeks. "Will he 
live?" she whispered.

"I don't know," Scully said, shaking her head.  She looked 
down at her hands, stained with the killer's blood.  "It 
doesn't look good."

An eye for an eye, she thought for some reason.

Mulder was talking intently with one of the officers.  He 
turned to her and gave her a strained smile to reassure 
her.  "Amy's safe," he said.  "That's more than we really 
expected to find."

"He slashed his own throat," she said dully.  

Mulder nodded.  "He was sick."

Behind him, Amy burst into a fresh torrent of weeping.  She 
came stumbling forward and leaned against Mulder, 
inconsolable.

Hesitantly, Mulder closed his arms around her.  He looked 
over Amy's head at Scully, an apology in his eyes.  I can't 
help it, his expression seemed to say.  She needs someone 
right now.

Scully turned away, and lifted her blood-spattered Kevlar 
vest off over her head with exhausted arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy clutched Scully's hand as the ER doctor put ten fine 
stitches in her arm.  "I guarantee you that you'll only 
have a tiny scar," he said in a West Indian accent.

Scully peered at the sutures.  "He's doing good work, Amy."

Closing her eyes, Amy nodded.

Michael.  Oh God, he'd been the one all along.  Her stomach 
rolled with nausea, even though it was empty from vomiting 
at Michael's studio.

How could she have missed the signs?  Had there been any?

Her brain was too muddled look back at it properly.  The 
doctor had given her a dose of Valium before injecting her 
arm with Lidocaine to do his suturing.  It dulled the pain 
somewhat, took the edge off the bite, but the raw hurt was
still there.  It would probably always be there, she 
thought as Dr. Kingsbury applied gauze to her arm.

She'd been with Michael for five years, good times and bad.  
After they'd spent their second or third weekend together, 
she'd never doubted that he was the man with whom she'd 
grow old.  He was so loving, so gentle with her.  He seemed 
to understand her fully.

Now she wondered about that, wincing from the internal 
pain, not the pain in her arm or on her face.

Was it truly her fault?  Had her professional life turned 
him this way?

She winced again, feeling fresh tears flowing down her 
face.

Scully squeezed her hand.  "Are you still feeling a lot of 
discomfort?" she asked.

Amy shook her head.  "No, I'm thinking about Michael."

A look of sympathy crossed the face of the pretty agent.  
"This must be so difficult for you," Scully said.  "I can't 
imagine what you're going through."

"I don't understand it," Amy said.  "I never thought for a 
moment that he was the one doing those horrible things.  I 
thought I knew him."

"Amy, the kind of killer that Michael is, it's often hard 
for anyone to know.  They can appear to be the most normal, 
loving people on the outside, but there's something wrong 
with them on the inside."

She sniffled.  "I just thought he loved me."

Scully nodded.  "I'm sure he did in his way," she said.  
"But something inside him just snapped."

What do I do now, Amy thought.  She'd never thought of 
herself as beholden to any man, even Michael, but she now 
understood how much of her vision of the future was filled 
with the plans they'd made together -- the gallery they 
would open, the house in the country, the city apartment, 
the children they'd have after they married.

She was going to have to start all over again.

The doctor stepped back and nodded at her.  "All done now, 
Ms. Callahan.  You can go home.  Just make sure you keep 
the area on your face clean and no foundation makeup until 
the scabbing heals.  Go see a doctor back home in a week to 
see how your arm is shaping up, okay?"

Nodding, she thanked the doctor and he handed her a 
prescription for Tylenol 3 for the pain.

"What are you going to do tonight?"  Scully asked.

"I called my friends Kate and Simon.  They live on the 
Upper West Side and Simon is coming to pick me up.  I can 
stay with them tonight."

"Good," she said.  "I don't want you to be alone tonight, 
Amy."

But now she'd be alone for a long time, perhaps forever.

I got what I deserved, she thought, I'm nothing but a 
whore.

She hadn't realized she'd spoken those words aloud until 
Scully squeezed her hand even tighter than before.  "Amy," 
she said in a firm voice.  "I don't want you thinking like 
that.  Nothing you did could possibly justify what Michael 
did.  The blame belongs to him, not to you."

Amy shrugged.

"Listen to me, Amy," Scully went on.  "I don't want you 
blaming yourself.  Please promise me that when you go home, 
you'll find a therapist to talk to about this.  It helps 
after a traumatic situation like this.  Believe me, I 
know."

"I'll do that," she said softly, "because I don't want to 
feel like this for the rest of my life."

Scully got off the examining table and helped her down.  
"Come on," she said.  "Let's go out to the waiting room 
until your friend comes."

"Thank you," Amy said.  "You've done more for me than I 
have a right to expect.  You saved my life."

"Just doing my job, ma'am," Scully said in a horrible 
impression of an old movie detective.

Amy almost, but not quite, laughed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning they got coffee and bagels and wandered down 
Fifth Avenue, looking in the windows of the exclusive shops 
and at the parade of Monday morning New York humanity.  
They really should have taken the first shuttle home, but 
Mulder had called Skinner and explained to him that they 
wouldn't be in the office until Tuesday.

After all, they hadn't had much of a weekend off.

They'd slept in until 9:00 am, the two of them exhausted by 
a draining night of dealing with giving statements to NYPD 
and taking Amy to the hospital.  After midnight they'd 
checked into the midtown Hilton and fallen asleep almost 
before hitting the sheets.

Surprisingly, neither of them reported bad dreams upon 
waking.

Now Mulder felt like a tourist on vacation as he and Scully 
walked down the street holding hands.

They reached the majestic structure of St. Patrick's 
Cathedral.  Scully stopped and looked at him.  "Do you mind 
if we go in for a second?"

The cathedral was dark and smelled of the musty scent 
unique to churches.  Scully dropped his hand and went 
inside the nave.  He watched as she genuflected and entered 
a pew.  She sat down for a moment and bowed her head, and 
he knew she was praying.

Mulder wondered what she was praying for.

Not for the first time, he envied the way she believed.

After a few minutes Scully rose and rejoined him at the 
back of the pews.  "Let's light a candle," she whispered.

She stuffed a few dollars in the collection box and lit two 
candles.

"What are you lighting them for?" he asked.

She turned to him, her blue eyes luminescent in the glow of 
the many candles.  "One is for Amy," she said.  "The other 
is for you and me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Amy's request, Mulder stopped by her apartment on his 
way home from work.  He hadn't seen her in almost a week, 
not since the bloody encounter in Michael Corey's studio.  
As he drove through the rain to her apartment, he wondered 
if something else was wrong.  When she'd called and asked 
him to come see her, her voice had been firmer and more 
confident than he remembered it, but tinged with sadness 
too.  

She answered his knock with a slightly breathless air.  She 
was wearing a gray cashmere sweater set and a snug pair of 
jeans, and her feet were bare.  The cuts on her face where 
Michael had slashed her with the razor were already
beginning to heal.

"Oh," she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her 
ear.  "I didn't expect you here quite so soon.  You caught 
me a little unprepared.  Come on in."

He stepped into her apartment, wondering why she'd asked 
him over.  

She turned and started walking down the hall.  "This way," 
she called over her shoulder.  "I'm afraid I'm in the 
middle of packing."

He followed her down the short hallway to her bedroom.  A 
suitcase stood open on her bed, already half full of 
clothes.  A little pile of lingerie -- bras, underwear, 
silk slips -- lay on the bed beside it.

She moved to the bed and quickly began folding the clothes 
in the pile, packing them neatly in the suitcase.

"So why did you ask me here?" he asked, standing in the 
doorway, feeling a little awkward.  He wished he'd brought 
Scully with him.  Being alone with Amy reminded him too 
much of the times he'd met her at the Marriott.  Without 
the business of sex to conduct, he wasn't sure quite how to 
talk to her.

"I wanted to thank you for your help."

He felt a small flash of annoyance.  "You could have done 
that over the phone."

She looked up from her packing, and smiled slowly.  "That 
would hardly have been adequate thanks, now would it?" 

He watched as she deftly folded a black slip, the smooth 
silk shimmering in her hands, and laid it in the suitcase.  

"No," she said softly.  "When I think of how close I came 
to dying  . . . and about Vanessa, and Lisa  . . ." She 
shook her head.  "I just can't believe all that really 
happened to me, little Amy Callahan from Evanston, 
Illinois."

There was no mistaking the look of pain on her face.  "So 
what now?" he asked her.

"I'm moving to San Francisco.  There are just too many ugly 
and sad memories here.  There's a flourishing art community 
out in San Francisco, and I can get a new start."

"Are you planning on . . ." -- he groped for a tactful 
phrase -- "on working out there?"

She stopped packing and gave him a forthright look.  "Yes."

His forehead creased in frown.  "But you could be so much 
more, Amy."

"I know that."  A faint smile curved her lips.  "But at 
heart, I'll always be a professional."

He felt a sense of disappointment at the words, and 
wondered why her choice should bother him.  Before, in 
those days when he'd paid for his sessions with her, he had 
never really stopped to think about her life outside the 
hotel room.  He gave her money; she gave him sex.  They 
both got what they wanted.  It had seemed to be a 
convenient and satisfactory arrangement on both sides.

It didn't really seem that way to him any more.  He'd seen 
too much of her life now to be able to separate Amy the 
professional from Amy the intelligent, vulnerable woman. 

"Is everything going to be okay between you and Agent 
Scully?" Amy asked.

He looked away.  "I think so," he said.  "I hope so."

"I liked her," Amy said, placing the last piece of loose 
clothing in the suitcase.  "You make a good team."

He nodded but did not comment.  He didn't like talking 
about Scully with Amy.  It seemed disloyal, somehow, 
talking about Scully with the woman he'd once pretended was 
her.

Amy walked over to him.  She laid a hand on his arm, and 
picked a speck of lint off his jacket.  "You know, I owe 
you a great deal," she said, looking up at him through her 
lashes.

He shrugged.  "You needed help."

She smiled enigmatically.  He could smell her perfume -- 
Paris, the perfume he'd given her.  Scully's perfume.

"I know, but I like to pay my debts."  Her voice had 
shifted to a sexier, more inviting register.  "What would 
you like, Mulder?  Anything you want -- it's on the house."  

"Amy, don't," he said, with a slight shake of his head.

"No?  You must know that's why I asked you here.  I want to 
thank you properly."  

"I didn't know."

She smiled and looked up into his face.  "It's okay, I 
wouldn't tell Scully.  Whatever you want.  Just name it."

He shook his head.  He was not even tempted.  "No," he 
said.  "No, Amy, that's not what we were about.  I wouldn't 
do that to Scully."

She gave him a questioning look.  "You did it plenty of 
times before."

"I wasn't with her then," he said.  "And I was wrong."

She shrugged, and turned around.  "Whatever you say."  She 
went back to the suitcase and resumed her packing.

It bothered him that she thought she owed him something.  
He'd helped her because she needed him, because she'd been 
in danger.  Why should she think he expected payment?  She 
didn't have to offer him sex to settle the score.

To compound matters, he sensed he'd offended her by turning 
her down, maybe even hurt her feelings.  She was 
transferring clothes into her suitcase with a rigid back, 
not looking at him even though he was standing in some 
confusion not six feet from her.

Poor Amy, he thought.  She'd let so many men buy her that 
even she had begun to believe her worth depended on what 
she could give them.

He cleared his throat.  "Thanks for the offer, Amy," he 
said.  "If things were different . . ."

She nodded.  "They wouldn't be the same."

What a strange association, Mulder thought.  It was 
completely backwards: they'd started out with sex, then 
she'd come to depend on him, and now they had a slightly 
distant, awkward acquaintance.  Soon she would be the width 
of a continent away, and he wouldn't even know her any 
more.  It was like traveling through a normal relationship 
in reverse. 

"Good luck in San Francisco," he said.

She smiled.  "Thanks, Mulder.  Good luck to you, too."  She 
took a wooden jewelry box from a top drawer, and slipped it 
into her suitcase.  Then she turned to him with something 
in her hand.  "Here," she said.  "I want to give this 
back."

He looked down at the cool little puddle of gold she'd 
pressed into his palm.  It was the cross necklace he'd 
given her, the one he'd once asked her to wear when they 
were together.

"Now there are no loose ends," she said.

He looked up at her, and smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder ran, his mind a blank except for the rhythmic slap 
of his running shoes on the wet pavement.  The muscles in 
his legs were starting to burn, and so were his lungs.  He 
sped up.

He was heading east along Prince Street.  It was raining 
lightly, and now and then he caught a watery glimpse of his 
reflection in the puddles which lined the road.  When he 
reached the intersection with Fairfax, the traffic light 
had just turned red.  He checked over his shoulder for 
oncoming traffic, and crossed the street without slowing.  

It was his favorite part of running -- clearing his head of 
all other thoughts as he hit his stride.  He liked to feel 
the ache of lactic acid in his muscles, the harshness of 
the cool air in his lungs, the jarring impact of bone 
against pavement.  It took his mind off things: his 
problems, his shortcomings, his doubts.

Finally he reached his goal -- the Potomac.  It stretched 
before him, its waters glittering gray in the wet early 
spring evening.  He drew up short, breathing hard, his 
hands on his quadriceps.  When he'd caught his breath a 
little, he straightened, and dug in the pocket of his 
sweatpants for the necklace Amy had given him.

He held it up, letting the cross on its thin gold chain 
dangle from his fingers.  In the cloudy outdoors, it was a 
dull thing, the metal pale and cold.

"I won't be needing you again," he said.

He balled the necklace up in his fist.  With a wind-up 
perfected in his childhood baseball days, he sent it arcing 
through the overcast sky, sailing out over the river.  It 
fell into the water with a barely perceptible plop, so far 
out he couldn't even hear the splash.

Then he turned and began running for home again, feeling 
freer than he'd felt in a long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain had stopped and the sky cleared by the time she 
parked down the block from Mulder's apartment.  Scully got 
the grocery bags out of the backseat and stopped for a 
moment to breathe in the fresh scent of rain.  It smelled 
warmer, somehow, as if spring had finally arrived after 
dragging its heels.

When she reached his building, she saw Mulder, dressed in 
sweats, unlocking the front door.  He'd clearly been for a 
run-his hair was damp and sticking up in places, and his 
face was flushed from his exertions.

"Hey," she said and he turned around to flash her a 
surprised and delighted smile.

"What are you doing here?"

She juggled the bags in her arms.  "I'm a woman of many 
surprises."

Mulder held the door open for her and they walked inside 
the lobby and towards the elevator.  "So, what do you have 
in the bags?"  He punched the up button.

"I felt like cooking, so I thought I'd make dinner for the 
two of us.  I still owe you after all the meals you made 
for me during my recovery in January."

The elevator door slid open and Mulder grabbed the bags, 
Scully following behind.  He hit the button for the fourth 
floor and the elevator began to rise with a creak.

He set down the bags and patted his belly.  "What are you 
making?"

"I can't cook many things, but I can make a great pan of 
lasagna.  And I got a couple of bottles of Chianti to go 
with it."

Mulder's eyebrows rose.  "Oh, I don't know what I did to 
deserve all that, but I'll gladly do it again . . ." He 
reached over and punched the emergency stop button and the 
elevator shuddered to a halt.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He grinned and moved a step closer to her, so their bodies 
were nearly touching, and she could smell the unique scent 
of his sweat.

Many mammals can instinctively recognize the scent of their 
mates, she thought.

Mulder's hand strayed in her hair.  "It's an emergency," he 
whispered.

"What is?" she asked, playing dumb for once.

His response was to lean over and kiss her, his lips, warm 
from exercise, a pleasant contrast to her chilled flesh.  
She shut her eyes to block out the dinginess of the 
elevator and let herself be lost in the sensation of 
kissing Mulder-the sweet-salt of his mouth and tongue, the 
touch of his hand on the back of her neck, the pounding of 
her heart under layers of wool and cotton.

He pulled away and she stared at him, still breathing hard.  
"Do I get a kiss like that every time I decide to make 
dinner?"

"Yep."  Mulder grinned and nodded.

"Well, I'm warning you, I only know how to make three 
things: lasagna, stir-fry and grilled tuna."

He applied a gentle kiss to her neck.  "I'll buy you a 
cookbook, Scully."

"How about if *you* cook?"

His answer was to push her against the elevator wall and 
give her another crushing kiss.

"Oh," she sighed when they finally separated.  "I think we 
need to eat out less."

Mulder switched off the emergency stop and the elevator 
again began rumbling upward.

Once inside his apartment, Scully dragged the bags off to 
the kitchen while Mulder unlaced his wet running shoes.  
The ice cream went into the freezer and she began looking 
for the frying pan.

With her head in the cupboard, she felt him come up behind 
her and gasped as his cool fingers slid under her sweater 
to cup her breast.

"I was thinking," he panted in her ear, "that we could put 
off dinner for a while."

It was a tempting thought, especially with the way he was 
gently squeezing her breasts and pressing his erection into 
her back.  But she was a sensible woman at heart.  First 
things first; they had all night to make love.

Scully extricated herself from his grasp and turned around.  
"If I don't get the lasagna started we won't eat for hours.  
And I'm hungry."

"So am I," he whined.

Pushing him away with a playful hand, she said, "Go take a 
shower so you'll be nice and clean for me."

He made a chagrined face and looked down at the hard-on 
tenting his sweatpants.  "I suppose it'll keep . . ." he 
muttered.

"Good," she said and turned back toward the counter.  
Sometimes it was in a woman's best interest to make her man 
suffer, she thought, remembering the giggly high school 
night when Melissa had told her that after returning home 
from a date.

It was fast work making the lasagna.  The sauce had been in 
her freezer, made by her mother with the last of her garden 
tomatoes the summer before.  She quickly browned some 
crumbled spicy Italian sausage and added it to the sauce.  
Then she set to work assembling layers of uncooked noodles, 
ricotta cheese mixed with egg and basil, sauce and pre-
shredded mozzarella cheese.

Scully was just assembling the last of four layers in the 
pan when she heard the padding of bare feet across the 
carpeting of the living room and then on the kitchen 
linoleum.  Mulder was still damp and glistening from his 
shower, wearing only his boxer shorts.  She smiled to see 
him with his hair wet and slick as a seal's.

Mulder sniffed the air.  "Mmm . . . it smells good in here.  
It's nice to have the little woman where she belongs, in 
the kitchen and cooking for me."

She snorted derisively and turned back to finish sprinkling 
the last of the mozzarella on top of the lasagna.

The cheese fell out of her hand in one unsightly clump as 
she felt his warm breath on the back of her neck and his 
hand snake around to unbutton the fly of her wool trousers.  
"I'm still trying to cook here," she warned, but she knew 
that nothing would deter him at this point.

"It looks delicious," he murmured, and undid the zipper on 
her pants.  "But if we're having an Italian meal, don't I 
get some antipasti?"  Her pants slid to the floor in an 
untidy heap and she briefly worried about wrinkles until 
she felt his fingers fan out over her behind.

"Ooh, black lace, Scully," he breathed.  "You know how I 
feel about you wearing black lace."

Scully turned and smiled at the expression on his face, 
oddly reminiscent of a wolf licking his chops over a fresh 
kill.

"Sorry to interrupt your cooking," he said and let his 
fingers move over to the front of her panties.

"It's okay," she said.  "I'm done now."

One dark eyebrow cocked.  "Good, cause I'm ready to eat."

Her eyes widened and she felt the telltale signs of growing 
arousal-- her breasts felt heavier and the thin sweater she 
wore suddenly felt far too warm for her taste.  "Do you 
have some kind of . . . thing . . . about this kitchen, 
Mulder?" she teased, remembering the morning not so long 
ago when they'd enjoyed the dubious comforts of his kitchen 
table.

Mulder's answer was to tug off her sweater and send it 
flying in the direction of the refrigerator.  She stifled a 
laugh at the sight of his eyes nearly popping out of his 
head as he took in her new black lace bra, which was cut 
nearly down to the tops of her nipples.

"I'll admit it," he said, pausing to kiss each of the twin 
globes pushed up and out by underwire.  "I have a thing for 
this kitchen and I especially have a thing for you in black 
lingerie.  Go ahead, call me a pervert."

"At least you don't have a foot fetish . . ." She gasped as 
he pulled down the lace of one of the bra's cups and drew 
her nipple in his mouth, running his tongue along the 
stiffening flesh in circles.

He raised his head.  "Nah, if I have a fetish of any kind, 
it's for your breasts."  The other cup was tugged down and 
he repeated his ardent attentions with lips and tongue on 
the second nipple.

Scully leaned against the counter, her hands grasping his 
neck for support, and hoped she wouldn't knock over the 
lasagna pan as he took his sweet time sucking her breasts.  
Her entire center felt heavy and swollen with need and she 
pushed his head to signal him to go lower.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" he said, laughing.

She nodded.

"Good."  He kissed her, plunging his tongue in her mouth 
with hungry authority.  "But first I have to tell you a 
secret."

"Don't you think we've shared enough secrets lately?" she 
groaned in dismay and frustration.

"This is a good one," he whispered.

She nodded and reached to stroke his hard cock through the 
thin cotton of his shorts.

"I-I can't think when you do that, Scully," he stammered.

"Good, you tend to think too much," she said and freed his 
cock from the confines of his boxers, enjoying his groan as 
she did so.

"Oh, that's good," he muttered as she wrapped her fingers 
around him and began to stroke up and down the length of 
his hard shaft.

"You were saying something about a secret?"

"Yeah," he said, his fingers sliding between her legs and 
into her panties to twine in her pubic hair.  "We've talked 
before about how we fantasized about each other before we 
were together like this."

"Mmm-hmmm," she said, unable to say anything further as his 
fingers moved between her wet folds.

"My biggest fantasy about you was always about going down 
on you."

For some reason, a flush began to spread across her face.  
"It was?" she said, as he slid a long finger to the hilt 
inside her.

"Yeah.  I pictured you spreading your legs for me and 
tasting you for the first time.  I can't tell you how many 
nights I touched myself and thought of you, Scully, 
straddling my face and letting me lick you until you came 
again and again."

Scully cried out as one finger became three and the index 
finger of his other hand circled her clit.  "Oh my God . . 
."

"So many times I just wanted to hike up one of your little 
skirts, pull down your panties and eat you right there in 
our office."

A dark thought crossed her mind and threatened to short-
circuit the orgasm she felt sparking to life.  Her voice 
came out in a raspy whisper.  "Did you think of me when you 
did that to Amy?"

Mulder violently shook his head.  "I never went down on 
Amy, Scully.  Never.  For that there was no substitute."

She let out all her breath and he sank to his knees on the 
floor.  "Only you, Scully."

His tongue ventured out and licked her where the line of 
her pubic hair met her belly.  "My tattooed lady," he said 
with a smile, brushing the fingers of his left hand on the 
phoenix character on her hip.  With swift fingers, he 
pulled off her panties.

Scully felt her knees turn watery with her desire and she 
grasped the edge of the counter harder.  She lifted one leg 
over his shoulder to give him better access.

"God, you're wet," he said admiringly, beginning to deeply 
thrust his fingers into her again.  "It makes me feel so 
good to know I can turn you on like this.  I always 
wondered, all those years . . ."

And then his mouth began its skilled journey of her most 
private areas, his tongue traveling up and down her folds, 
making detours to circumnavigate her clitoris.

"You do," she hissed, pushing herself into his face.  "From 
the beginning you've been able to make me feel this way."

Even in her most private moments of Mulder fantasy in the 
past, alone with her vibrator, she'd never been able to 
picture him with his dark head between her legs, tasting 
her with such abandon.

One strong hand grasped the curve of her ass and he began 
to suckle at her clitoris.

Never, never had she imagined this.

With one last push of his fingers into her, she tipped back 
her head and moaned, the sound echoing around the kitchen 
as she shuddered with the overwhelming force of her orgasm.  
She nearly collapsed onto the lasagna, but managed to right 
herself at the last second.

Mulder looked up at her, his full lower lip still 
glistening with her juices.  "Sometimes fantasies are 
disappointing in real life, but in your case, my fantasies 
pale next to the real thing."  He stood and kissed her and 
she tasted herself on him, remembering how odd, yet 
exciting, it had been the first time he'd gone down on her 
and kissed her.

She leaned against his strong body.  "Wonderful," she 
crooned, her eyes still shut.

His fingers run through her hair.  "When we're together, 
it's always wonderful, baby . . ."

Baby.  She smiled at the unaccustomed endearment.  
"Mulder," she whispered.  "I'm glad we're together."

She pulled him closer and felt the strong beating of his 
heart against her cheek.

"Hey Scully?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Yeah?"

"How about we get the lasagna in the oven . . ."

"Are you still hungry?" she said, enjoying the feeling of 
his chest hair next to her skin.

"I just thought it would be a good idea to get it cooking 
before we go off to the bedroom and I take my time making 
love to you."

The breath caught in her throat.  Sometimes it still seemed 
unbelievable that they were together.

Scully looked up and smiled to see the joy on his face.  
"It's a good idea, indeed," she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In his bedroom, he stripped off his boxers and high jumped 
onto the bed in a Fosbury Flop that would have made any 
track coach proud.

Scully moved a bit more deliberately, walking with heavy-
lidded eyes toward the bed.  She took off the black lace 
bra that was the last of her remaining clothes before 
joining him there. 

She pressed her nude body along the length of his, smiling.  
"What do you want?" she said in a low, sultry voice, 
echoing his words from the Sunday before, when they'd 
christened the kitchen table.  "Whatever you want tonight, 
I'll do it for you."

He grinned.  "Whatever I want?"

"Within reason, of course," she amended, and wrested a 
laugh from him.  Even when she was trying to be abandoned, 
Scully would always be Scully.

She trailed her hand up his bare thigh, and his eyes 
fluttered closed as an ecstatic shiver ran over him.

"Do you know what I'd really like?" he said.

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"I want this," he said, and pulled her eye-to-eye with him. 
The eagerness he had been feeling in the kitchen was giving 
way to a different feeling, a yearning to be close to her.  
He lowered his voice and whispered, "I really want to be 
inside you, and watch your face, and make you come again."

She swallowed.  "I think maybe we could do that..."

Her drew her lips down to his.  They kissed, their tongues 
twining.  He caressed her face.  He was aware of how warm 
she was, how soft, how sweet she tasted.

He rolled her under him, so that he was atop her.  "I love 
you," he said quietly, at the same moment as he entered 
her.

She sighed and he began to move -- gently, with long, deep, 
slow strokes.  He could feel her breasts, her nipples hard, 
pressed against his chest.  He could feel her hair, as fine 
and smooth as silk, spilling over his hands.

He stared down into her face as they made love.  It was 
actually making him ache, how good it felt.  She was so 
soft and slick, and it felt so good to be buried inside 
her, to be this close to Scully, to actually be joined with 
her this way.

She smiled tenderly at him.  He did not smile.  For some 
reason it seemed completely serious to him this time -- 
something that, for God knew what reason, was actually 
bringing a lump to his throat.

"Relax, Mulder," she whispered, apparently mistaking the 
look of awe on his face for worry, or guilt, or one of the 
many other emotions she was probably all too used to 
seeing.  She stroked his back.

He swept his hand down between the two of them, finding her 
clit, touching her, catching her moan in his mouth.  He 
wanted to hold back, he wanted it to last, he wanted the 
sort of leisurely passion that would not burn itself out 
too soon.  A line from a poem kept repeating in his head:  
"Pray love me little, so you love me long."  He wanted this 
moment to go on forever. 

But he couldn't make it go on forever, however much he 
wished it.  Soon they were both trembling.  Her fingers 
tightened on his shoulders, and she made a soft, breathless 
sound with every stroke.

When she came, he came too.  She moaned and shuddered 
against him; he held still, sighing against her face as he 
gushed deep inside her.

Afterward, he kissed her, lifted himself off her, pulled 
her onto her side against him.  They lay spooned together, 
quiet and relaxed, as their heartbeats slowed.

"I'm going to fall asleep," he mumbled.

"That's okay."

"The lasagna is going to burn."

She started to laugh.  "I forgot all about the lasagna."

Her head was on his arm; his other arm was draped across 
her.  He liked the warmth of her body tucked securely 
against his.  "Wake me up when the apartment catches fire."

She chuckled.  "When it does we're going to look funny, 
running out in the hallway naked."

"I'm going to look funny," he said sleepily.  "You're just 
going to look unbelievably beautiful."

She snuggled back against him.  "Your neighbors are 
probably past being surprised by anything you do anyway."

She was joking, but for some reason it seemed much more 
than a joke to him.  It seemed -- it seemed to mean she 
accepted him, just as he was.  She had never made the sort 
of mistakes he made, and yet she understood him.  He felt 
his eyes grow hot with unshed tears, and thought, at the 
same time as he fervently hoped he wasn't actually going to 
start to cry, that she was the best thing that had ever 
happened to him.  The best thing that would ever happen to 
him, more than likely.

He kissed her hair.  "Are we okay?" he whispered quietly.

"Yeah," she said.  "Yeah, we're okay."

END


Dasha:  Margarita, PD?
PD:  I think you mean several, don't you?


Author's notes:

Writing can be a lonely business.  You walk around in the 
real world, going to meetings and spending time with 
friends and family, while in your brain, characters are 
talking and plots are spinning.  Even if you have writing 
friends, being immersed in the world of your story can feel 
rather isolating, since you have no one with whom to truly 
share the development of your story.

This is why collaboration with another author can be so 
rewarding.  You have someone who understands the minute 
details of the plot, who can tell you if your latest idea 
is awful or not, and the instant gratification of being 
able to send off the latest chapter and get their feedback 
on it.  It can be frustrating at times-- outlines can spin 
wildly out of control and there can be disagreements on 
plot and character development, but in general, there is 
nothing so wonderful as a collaborative co-write.

Writing "The Professional" has been a wonderful experience 
for us.  Sure, it's taken up nearly all of our already 
limited free time, but we had an enjoyable time telling 
this tale.

Forgive us for inaccuracies in law enforcement procedure 
and the world of prostitution.  Neither of us is a cop, 
pathologist or call girl, and while we did research, there 
are limits . . . <g> Dasha *did* make a pan of lasagna
strictly in the interest in research. It was tasty.

It wasn't just the two of us working on this story, though.  
We were helped by a veritable fleet of wonderful 
reader/editors who spent their time offering their 
suggestions and insight, and thanks to them, it turned out 
to be a far different and better story than we'd started 
with.  Becky kept us, and especially our Scully, honest.  
Betsey was kind enough to read for us while in the north 
woods, and had a multitude of helpful suggestions. Blueswirl 
came to the rescue with some insight on the early chapters.
Gwen was our doyenne of fine grammer and style advice.  
Lisa helped us, in a most crucial way, to raise the angst 
meter.  Shari served as a generous cheerleader and advocate 
for story spooning.  We don't know how to properly thank 
these fine women except to say that this story would not
have been written without their assistance. They were
gracious about holding the hands of two people intimidated
by writing their first semi-casefile.  

Thanks to our families and friends who tried to understand
as we spent a month writing like crazy.  And this story most
definitely would not be here without the moral support and
good humor of our darling friends in the root cellar. <g>

Dasha would also like to thank Michaela for some special 
support when it was definitely needed.  You're better than a 
therapist, baby!

If you enjoyed this story, how about dropping us a line?

dashak@aol.com and pdeniabililty@hotmail.com

Thanks for spending time with this story,

Dasha K. and Plausible Deniability

August, 1999