Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 5/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)  


Silently, they retraced their route of the previous night, having  
said little to each other all day. Scully had spent a couple of  
hours in the afternoon running errands, ostensibly to give Mary  
something of a public life. She'd even had her nails done,  
something the real Scully had avoided for at least a decade.  
  
Mulder suspected it was all more for the sake of getting out of  
their oppressive motel room, where the morning had been spent  
in such stimulating pursuits as reading, pacing, fidgeting and  
avoiding conversation.  
  
Ready to crawl out of his skin with the discomfort of it, Mulder  
spoke. "Will you be okay tonight?"  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Nothing. Just ... y'know ... can you handle it?"  
  
"What makes you think I can't?" Her voice was strained, cold.  
  
Damn. He wished he'd kept his mouth shut.  
  
"Of course you can. It's just that last night I was ..." His voice  
trailed away, and he just shrugged.  
  
"You did your job. So did I. And we'll do it again tonight."  
  
The job.  
  
Other people had jobs. They went to an office and typed on  
keyboards, or they went to a factory and put things together.  
They taught, they talked, they drove, they dug, whatever. And  
then they went home.  
  
What he had wasn't a job. More like a curse.  
  
They pulled up in front of the house and got out. Scully started  
up the walk.  
  
"Wait!"  
  
She stopped, and he caught up.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look ... whatever happens ... I ..."  
  
"Not here," she said firmly, quietly.  
  
"But I want you to know ..."  
  
"Not here!" Her eyes darted toward the house. He looked up and  
saw Flood's face watching them from a window.  
  
As he closed the distance to the front door, he had a sneaking  
hunch that he was about to learn the market value of his soul.  
  
__________________________  
  
It was getting late.  The evening had been grueling, not because  
the conversation had been strained, but because it hadn't. Flood  
had actually been rather amusing, talking knowledgeably about  
auto racing, Lemington gossip and his various hobbies:  
gardening, cooking, woodworking. He'd avoided asking them  
much about themselves. Mulder found it hard to stay in  
character when the conversation lulled him into complacency.  
That was probably the point, he reminded himself.  
  
Scully, he noted, had performed her part flawlessly. She'd  
laughed at Flood's jokes, complimented his dinner (his wife,  
who'd spent most of the evening on her feet serving, had  
apparently prepared none of it), and chattered on about food,  
cars and the boredom she found in towns like Lemington. All the  
while, she'd maintained a coarseness, an inarticulateness that  
were so utterly unlike her normal manner that he could almost  
forget who was sitting across from him.  
  
Flood's wife served coffee and disappeared into the kitchen, from  
where sounds of dishes being washed emanated. Mulder was  
beginning to think Flood had planned this evening merely to  
observe them when the older man wrenched the conversation  
around sharply.  
  
"So have you thought about what I said last night?" It came out  
of the blue, forcing Mulder to shift gears suddenly.  
  
"Not really," he said.  
  
Flood snickered. "Well, at least you're honest."  
  
There was a long pause. Wait it out, Mulder told himself. Let  
him lead. Don't appear eager.  
  
"We need people like you," Flood said at last.  
  
"Who's 'we'?"  
  
The conversation had become convoluted, like one of those  
video-game mazes, Mulder thought. If a player picks up the right  
items along the way, takes the correct route, has enough energy  
stored, the secret door will open.  
  
"A group I belong to. The White Hand."  
  
"So what is it?" Mulder asked, stepping through the suddenly  
revealed opening and into the game's next level.  
  
Flood began to speak, abandoning the cautious, cat-and-mouse  
cadence of clipped queries for long, mellifluous, almost poetic  
phrasing. Mulder let the tide of words carry him out, his mind  
skimming along phrases like "reclaiming the nation," "restoring  
the natural order," "defending racial honor."  
  
It wasn't all that difficult, really. Flood was indeed good at this,  
reminding Mulder of the first time he'd witnessed another classic  
-- Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the Nazi propaganda  
film so compelling it had the power to stir the heart of the most  
virulent anti-fascist. Like that film, Flood's words created  
compelling images of power, belonging, order, community.  
Mulder blanked his thoughts, dropped his guard, let the  
monologue soak through his porous mind.  
  
It took him a moment to realize Flood had stopped speaking.  
  
______________________________  
  
Scully was of two minds at the dinner table.  
  
One mind she kept firmly anchored, using it to gauge the  
meaning and intent of George Flood's words and to send  
instructions to her body to respond accordingly.  
  
"...wrest control of our lives from cowardly forces who murdered  
our allies at Waco..."  
  
Nod, head.  
  
"...when we will summon the masses to defend their birthright..."  
  
Lungs, take shallow breaths.  
  
"...united effort to restore the rightful place of white  
womanhood..."  
  
Shine brightly, eyes.  
  
Her other mind floated free, observing, measuring, calculating,  
interpreting, determining how much rehearsal such a monologue  
must have required, what effect it aimed for, the level of its  
author's intellectual powers. With this other mind, she also  
watched her partner resonate responsively, as though he were an  
emotional tuning fork humming to life with sympathetic  
vibration.  
  
When Flood stopped speaking, nothing remained in the room but  
a gentle hum in Mulder's mental key. He looked for all the world  
like a man whose soul had just been stirred -- probably because  
it had. He could open himself up to any experience. Ever since  
she'd figured that out about him, it had frightened her. But never  
more so than tonight.  
  
She glanced at Flood and saw that he, too, was keenly aware of  
Mulder's response. You've got him, boy.  
  
One mind was relieved. The other was horrified.  
  
"Join us," Flood was saying. "We are already soldiers in the  
same cause."  
  
"I wish I could put it like you do," Mulder said. "You just said  
everything I been thinking."  
  
"Then join us. Work with us. We could use you. Both of you."  
His eyes darted to include her as an afterthought. She realized he  
assumed she would follow wherever her man led.  
  
Love those old-fashioned family values, she thought.  
  
"If I say yes, what exactly would I be saying yes to?"  
  
Scully realized she was grinding her teeth in frustration. Christ,  
he was drawing this out. She wanted to get it over with, make  
the deal, learn the secret club handshake and get the hell out of  
there.  
  
"The same kind of work you've been doing -- like the service  
you did with that preacher. Only there'd be a purpose ... an  
organization. You'd be a soldier in a powerful army. An army  
that needs you."  
  
"I'd like that. I'd like to be part of an army that I could believe in.  
I want to believe."  
  
She couldn't help it. She sucked in her next breath so hard she  
coughed.  
  
"You all right, Mary?" Flood asked.  
  
"Yeah," she croaked, taking a sip of water. "It's just ... this is all  
so exciting."  
  
"Yeah," Mulder said, glaring at her. "It sure is." He turned his  
attention back to Flood. "So when do we start? What do we do?"  
  
"Something to symbolize the bright blaze of your new  
commitment. A fire..."  
  
Scully felt her stomach turn over.  
  
_________________________  
  
"What the hell were you thinking, Scully?" Mulder raised his  
voice as he paced the length of their motel room agitatedly.  
  
"Just doing my job." She hadn't meant to throw it in his teeth, but  
it came out that way.  
  
"We can't fake this. He'd catch on in a minute. He's not stupid."  
  
"I know that. We're not going to fake it. At least, not entirely."  
  
"We're not."  
  
"No."  
  
"We're going to torch an orphanage."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Mulder stared at her, and for the first time in a very long time,  
she couldn't read what was behind his eyes. Fear? Certainly a  
possibility. Mulder was terrified of fire. Anger? No doubt,  
although she wasn't sure why, exactly. Disgust?  
  
She forced her train of thought to derail.  
  
"It won't be enough to destroy the building, y'know. If no one  
gets hurt, he'll be suspicious."  
  
"So we make sure it doesn't look suspicious."  
  
"How?"  
  
"We make sure someone dies in the fire."  
  
"You want to plant a body."  
  
"Yes." She suspected he'd known what she had in mind all along.  
  
"And where do you plan to get it?"  
  
"Mulder, we're working with the CIA here. These guys have  
pulled off some of the biggest deceptions in history -- or so you  
would have me believe. You don't think they can provide the  
body of an African-American child and make sure the autopsy  
shows smoke inhalation as the cause of death?"  
  
He made no reply, just stood staring at her, his arms crossed,  
shoulders held high and tight, face drawn into a slight frown. His  
body language telegraphed a level of anxiety she had not  
expected. Why was he so shocked?  
  
Her own words came back to her. The body of a child. Of  
course. Mulder, who had lost an eight-year-old sister to an  
unknown fate, recoiled at the notion of intentionally desecrating  
the body of a child.  
  
It was ironic, she thought. She, with her Catholic-school  
upbringing, had less trouble with it than he. How could it bother  
her? She cut up dead people for a living, and all because she  
believed that science and pragmatism took precedence over  
personal belief or religious conviction. She'd long ago concluded  
that the attachment of any significance whatsoever to an empty,  
lifeless shell was mere superstition.  
  
But not Mulder, who lived every day of his life in terror that a  
small body would turn up somewhere and be identified as  
Samantha. In a way, the loss that lay at the heart of his character  
took the form of a child's body that was neither alive nor dead.  
Just gone.  
  
"It has to be done, Mulder," she said quietly. "You've hooked  
him. Now we have to reel him in."  
  
She saw him struggle to swallow, imagined the dry, choking  
sensation in his throat. She thought for a moment he might gag.  
  
"Fine," he said at last, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "Call  
the contact."  
  
____________________  
  
Scully lay on the motel room bed, one arm bent across her eyes  
to block out the glare of the bright ceiling light. She was tired,  
her body limp and slightly sweat-dampened.  
  
"Again," Mulder said from his place next to her.  
  
"I don't think I can," she said. "I haven't recovered from the last  
time."  
  
"You wanted to do this, Scully. It was your idea. We'll do it as  
many times as it takes to get it right."  
  
They'd been reviewing the plan step by step through most of the  
night, until the words had ceased to mean anything to her. They  
had no choice. Flood had given them very little time to prepare --  
just 24 hours. That had been clever of him. He obviously wanted  
to make it difficult for them to do exactly what they were doing - 
- organize a deception. She could only hope he underestimated  
the resources at their disposal.  
  
But even if they pulled this off, there was still so much left to  
chance. Would Flood confide in them the boy's whereabouts? If  
he did, then what? They'd have to...  
  
"Scully? I asked you a question."  
  
"Hmm? Oh, sorry. What?"  
  
Mulder glared at her evenly with the same cold eyes he'd turned  
on her ever since they'd started planning this little bonfire party.  
  
"We pull the alarm. What's our next move?"  
  
So it had been going throughout the night, drilling the details  
over and over. So it continued into the early-morning hours, both  
of them reciting their lessons mechanically, taking care to put  
into the exercise only as much thought as was required to get the  
job done and no more. More could be dangerous, and they had  
no time for that kind of danger right now.  
  
Except she was so tired, and her mind had started to wander.  
  
"I ... I ... For God's sake, Mulder, I need to get some sleep. I'm  
not going to be any good to anyone if I can't see straight."  
  
"Not until it's perfect." His voice was cold and sharp as a razor's  
edge.  
  
"But..."  
  
"Do it!"  
  
"All right!" she said, her voice raised nearly to a yell. "All right."  
She forced herself to speak more calmly. "After we pull the  
alarm, we go upstairs...."  
  
She doubted the invasion of Normandy was planned any more  
carefully than the attack on the First Baptist Home for Children.  
But she had to admit it -- Mulder was right. He had said with  
certainty that Flood wasn't likely to rely on media reports and  
word of mouth. He would be at the scene somewhere, hidden,  
watching. Any deception would have to be meticulously planned  
and flawlessly executed in order to succeed under his very nose.  
  
She took a deep breath and dug down deep, searching for some  
hidden reserve of energy.  
  
"I go upstairs to the main hallway..."  
  
The first sliver of red-gold sun peeked over the horizon at that  
moment, but neither agent noticed.  
  
________________________  
  
They walked the quarter-mile from the diner in silence, each  
carrying a small backpack. They could have parked closer, but a  
strange car on a semi-suburban street stood a much greater  
chance of being noticed than one in the parking lot of an all- 
night eatery.  
  
They arrived at their destination at 3:02 AM exactly, by  
Mulder's watch. The large, old house was dark, except for dim  
hall lights that glowed faintly through a few small, centrally  
placed windows. Just enough illumination to guide little feet  
safely to the bathroom and back to bed, Mulder thought.  
  
He glanced up and down the street. No sign of the observer he  
felt sure must be there. Still, he could almost feel Flood's eyes on  
him.  
  
The back door lock made easy picking. All was still and silent  
inside. Nothing suspicious. For a moment, Mulder felt a surge of  
panic. They had left instructions on the supposedly secure voice  
mailbox at the contact number. They had no way of knowing  
whether those instructions had been received, let alone followed.  
  
They moved toward the kitchen, twin, narrow flashlight beams  
showing the way. They had studied the blueprints carefully and  
could have found the basement door in the dark, had it been  
necessary.  
  
Scully reached it first and tried the knob. It turned easily. Mulder  
released a tiny sigh of relief. Under normal circumstances, the  
door would have been locked to prevent small children from  
wandering through and tumbling downstairs.  
  
They walked noiselessly down. Mulder could see nothing of  
Scully ahead other than the beam from the light she held, her  
black clothes blending in totally with the pitch darkness around  
her. She didn't hesitate at the bottom of the stairs but walked  
directly to a far corner of the basement. He followed.  
  
She stopped, shining her light left and right. It should be right  
here. Where...  
  
There.  Her light fell on a lumpy tarp covering something on the  
ground. Leaning down, he pulled it back to reveal the form of a  
small, lifeless child. A boy, he noted. Maybe five years old.  
Somebody's son.  
  
"Go," came a whisper in the dark. He realized he'd been standing  
and staring.  
  
She was right. He lifted the little body gently. It weighed  
nothing. Less than nothing.  
  
"Go," came the whisper again. He headed for the stairs. As he  
reached them, he heard a zipper being opened behind him, then  
the sound of a liquid gurgling from a can. The plan called for  
Scully to do the basement first. There had to be some smoke  
before the alarm went off to make it look convincing. And there  
was no point in him doing it. When they'd worked the whole  
thing out, Scully had stated it matter-of-factly: "I'll start the  
basement while you plant the body upstairs." He'd known what  
she was thinking. No point putting him anywhere near open  
flames any more than was absolutely necessary.  
  
And he hadn't argued the point. She was right.  
  
He reached the second floor and nearly dropped his small load  
when a nearby shadow seemed to move. He ordered his  
pounding heart to slow down as he recognized the shape to be a  
large, matronly black woman. She'd obviously been waiting for  
him. She nodded to him as their eyes made contact in the  
dimness.  
  
Good job, central casting, Mulder thought. He knew that what  
passed for large and matronly in a housecoat and slippers was in  
fact a strong, capable rescue specialist, in position and ready to  
move at a moment's notice.  
  
The dim hallway was lined with doors, all closed. He went  
straight to the third one on the left, shifted the slight weight he  
carried and turned the knob. This door, too, opened easily.  
  
This time, he didn't jump at the silent figure waiting inside -- a  
young man, also black. This home was, after all, sponsored by  
the black Baptist churches in the area. It was a place where kids  
with no families to care for them could find safe haven.  
  
Safe haven...  
  
He gave himself a mental shake. Stop it. No thinking. Stick to  
the plan.  
  
He noted with satisfaction that one of the two beds in the room  
was empty but rumpled. Later, it would be assumed that the little  
boy in his arms had occupied it. He could barely make out a  
small form breathing steadily in the other bed.  
  
He crossed the room and quietly opened the closet door, knelt  
down and gently laid the body in the corner. The closet had been  
Scully's idea. As a forensic pathologist, she knew that people  
tended to panic in fires and try to hide themselves in tight,  
enclosed spaces. Nice touch, he thought wryly.  
  
He stood, closed the closet door, nodded to the watching stranger  
and left.  
  
Downstairs, he ran into Scully coming up from the basement,  
their timing perfect. Together, they moved to the front room,  
which was used as the main play area. They had chosen this  
room as the only one they would ignite on the ground floor  
because it was farthest from both the front and back exits.  
Mulder took off his backpack and removed the can of lighter  
fluid. Scully still had hers out. They squirted the furniture  
carefully so as not to wet the floors or walls. The upholstered  
items would create a lot of smoke, but it would take a while for  
the room itself to catch, giving the house's occupants extra time  
to escape.  
  
When they were done, Mulder reached into his pocket for the  
matches. He pulled one from the book and stood holding it. Only  
when Scully came up and took it from him did he realize he  
hadn't yet struck it. His heart was pounding furiously. His  
darkness-adjusted eyes saw her head nod toward the hallway. He  
went and stationed himself by the alarm box.  
  
The sudden flare of light that jumped through the playroom door  
startled him with its brightness, and for a moment he felt a  
profound terror that Scully wouldn't be coming out. Her  
appearance in the doorway did little to still the rushing blood in  
his ears.  
  
He collected as much of his wits as he could muster and pulled  
the lever. A shrill whoop split the air, and bright emergency  
lights shattered the night. He imagined the fright on the faces of  
the suddenly awakened children upstairs.  
  
The last step had to be accomplished in the space of a minute.  
He and Scully ran for the stairs.  
  
The young man Mulder had seen earlier stood in the now  
brightly illuminated hallway, holding a small, crying boy tightly  
in his arms -- no doubt the one Mulder had seen earlier sleeping  
peacefully. Up and down the hallway, doors were beginning to  
open. An adult stood in each. Mulder heard snippets of clear,  
firmly spoken words. "Put your shoes on  now ... Put your  
sweaters on ... Wait for instructions ..."  
  
The two agents dashed into the third room on the left and  
emptied their cans. Quick as a flash, Scully struck a match. The  
bed went up in a lick of flame. Mulder was frozen to the spot.  
The next thing he knew, he was being shoved hard, and then he  
was through the door and out of the room.  
  
As he ran for the stairs, he saw the adults standing in the  
doorways, watching. Behind each of them, he knew, stood some  
terrified children eager to flee. They were being held back in  
order to allow the two arsonists to make their escape first.  
  
He and Scully were down the stairs and out the door in five  
seconds flat.  
  
Fifteen seconds later, they were crouched in the bushes.  
  
And ten seconds after that, people began pouring out of the  
house.  
  
"Oh my God! Fire! Help! Fire!"  
  
The men and women who had stood so calmly in the presence of  
the flames moments ago now sent up hysterical cries as they  
herded the children outside. Mulder noticed the contrast between  
the organized way they evacuated the children and the sharp  
panic in their voices.  
  
Damn, they were good. They might just pull this off after all.  
  
________________________  

END 5/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 6/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)  


The pavement pounded his body with every step. He focused on 
the pinpoint of pain behind his right kneecap, willed it to grow 
and envelop his body and his mind, to blot out all  memory and 
thought. His legs pumped like jackhammers, as though they 
would break the cement surface if it didn't break him first. Sweat 
streamed down his face and neck, the rivulets tickling his chest 
hairs beneath the soaked T-shirt. It had been dark when he'd 
started, but now a thin, watery light crept from the eastern sky, 
not so much an assertion of day as a recession of night. 
 
He had no idea how many miles it had been or what he had 
passed along the way. But now the glaring motel sign was 
coming up fast, and he knew it was over. He couldn't run 
forever. 
 
As he slowed to a walk and approached their room, he hoped she 
was asleep. He couldn't stand to see her as she had been when he 
left, looking at him with hurt betrayal as she realized he was 
going to run, to leave her alone again. He was supposed to be 
there for her, to be strong for her. To know her even when she 
did not know herself. You fucking hypocrite, he thought. You 
don't even know yourself. 
 
He opened the door and saw her sitting cross-legged on the bed, 
wet from the shower, wearing only panties and T-shirt. 
 
Looking at him.  
 
Stop looking at me. 
 
The television was on, and he gradually became aware of the 
images on the screen. Fire. People running. Flashing lights. He 
heard the urgent authority of the reporter's narration. Orphanage. 
Arson suspected. One victim. 
 
He crossed the room and turned it off. 
 
"I wanted to see it." 
 
"I didn't," he snapped. 
 
"Mulder, we should know what they're saying. Bobby and Mary 
would watch it." 
 
"Fuck Bobby and Mary." 
 
"Mulder..." 
 
"Stop it, Scully! Stop it!" He was yelling at her, advancing on 
her, edging closer to the bed, looming over her with his rage and 
his disgust and his shame and his panic. He'd thought he could 
do it. Whatever it took. But when the time came, where was his 
strength? Where was his confidence? 
 
Why wouldn't she stop looking at him like that? 
 
"What do you see, Scully? What are you looking at?" 
 
"What? Nothing." 
 
"Nothing? That's right. Nothing." There was a rage building in 
him, both blind and blinding. He felt it start with a twist in his 
gut and blossom out, knotting muscles as it went, making him 
rigid and hard. He stood glaring down at her and realized the 
hardness had crept into every part of him. 
 
His right hand shot out and grabbed her arm, gripping it hard. 
 
"Nothing!" 
 
His left hand followed, gripping her other arm, and he pulled her 
up onto her knees facing him. 
 
"Nothing." He was not shouting now. 
 
"Nothing matters," he hissed. "We didn't do a damn thing 
tonight. Nothing." 
 
And then he moved a hand to her hair and gripped it just as 
tightly as he'd held her arm, pulled hard, yanking her head back, 
and then he was kissing her, but it wasn't so much kissing as 
demanding, devouring. 
 
He felt her tense, try to struggle away from him. To his horror, 
he found his hands gripping tighter, pushing her backward onto 
the bed, following her down. He groped for her wrists and 
yanked them up over her head, gathered them into one strong 
hand and held them with all his might, pinning her. His body 
pressed down on hers, an immovable wall against which she 
squirmed. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of his fogged brain, 
he was mortified to find her movements aroused him even more. 
 
He brought his mouth back to hers and plunged his tongue 
inside, half expecting her to bite him. If his thoughts had been 
clear he might not have taken that chance, but he was beyond 
caring, beyond worrying. 
 
Nothing. 
 
He raised his hips slightly, opening a small space between them, 
slid his hand in and pushed her panties aside. Without pausing to 
think, he shoved three fingers inside her. The hot, soft walls of 
her cunt wrapped around half his hand and made him grunt 
urgently into her mouth. 
 
He rotated his wrist so his fingers moved inside her, pressing 
against the sides of her tight passage. He moved his head down 
to her breast, wrapped his lips around the tip through the thin 
cotton fabric, and bit. 
 
Her hips bucked against his hand, and a gush of creamy heat slid 
into his palm. 
 
It was more than he could stand. 
 
He pulled his hand from her and grappled with the string of his 
running shorts. His clumsy, wet fingers finally managed to undo 
the knot and yank the elastic waist down his hips. His erection 
sprang free. 
 
Don't do this don't do this don't do this don't do this his brain 
screamed, even as he yanked her panties aside again and pushed 
himself into her with all his force. 
 
Stop this now, he thought. This wasn't one of their little control 
games.  
 
But it was too late. Mind and cock both hardened by pure rage, 
he pumped himself into her. After the first, wildly uncontrolled 
few thrusts, he slowed somewhat, set up a deliberate, forceful 
rhythm.  
 
And he watched her. She lay beneath him like a taut rubber 
band, arms pulled up, legs splayed wide. Eyes wide open. 
 
Come on, he thought. Show me. 
 
Pump. 
 
Show me what you really think. 
 
Pump. 
 
Let me see it in your eyes. 
 
Pump. 
 
Give it to me. 
 
Pump. 
 
Hate me. Fear me. Pity me. 
 
Pump. 
 
Show me, damn it, show me, I dare you, show it to me. Throw it 
back at me the way I'm pumping it into you the way I'm pushing 
it into you the way I'm fucking it into you the way I'm doing it to 
you show me show me show me DAMN IT! 
 
He came inside her and still he watched her watching him. 
 
And then his balls were empty and his cock was done twitching 
inside her, and he realized one hand ached with the iron grip he'd 
kept on her wrists, and the fingers of the other hand were curled 
into the soft flesh of her thigh, holding her open, and his jaw hurt 
from clenching his teeth, and she was still looking at him, just 
looking, and... 
 
Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh God. Oh God. What have I done? 
 
He backed off of her and stumbled to his feet. 
 
"Scully ... oh my God ..." 
 
Reeling, he lurched toward the bathroom, barely making it 
before heaving the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet. 
It felt like he might regurgitate his own heart. He wished he 
could. 
 
__________________________ 
 
>From nowhere, a warm, strong hand touched Mulder's forehead, 
lifting it up and away from the toilet seat. He jerked away, 
rolling on his side into a corner of the bathroom. 
 
"Don't touch me," he rasped through a throat raw with the 
burning of his own stomach acid. 
 
"Mulder..." 
 
"Get out now. Go call the police." 
 
"Jesus, Mulder, you're such a piece of work. We can't call the 
police, remember?" 
 
"Then do it after. When we're done." He wasn't making much 
sense, and he knew it. But why wouldn't she leave? 
 
Scully sank to the bathroom floor, her back to the wall, legs 
crossed. He could see the wetness of what he'd done to her 
soaking through the crotch of her panties. 
 
"Get out, Scully," he mumbled. 
 
"No! I'm not going anywhere. Stop this, Mulder. Stop it now." 
 
"Stop what? It's too late. God, what have I done?" 
 
"What did you just do, Mulder? Go on, say it." 
 
"I ... Oh, God, Scully, what don't you just go?" 
 
"Say it!" 
 
"I ... raped you." 
 
"You raped me?" 
 
There was absolute silence as the words bounced off the tiled 
walls. He didn't answer. 
 
"Define it," she said at last. 
 
"What?" 
 
"Define rape, Agent Mulder. Come on. Can't your superman 
memory come up with something as simple as that?" 
 
"Rape..." He began to speak mechanically "...the crime of 
forcing another person to submit involuntarily to sexual 
intercourse..." 
 
"Involuntarily!" She threw it back at  him angrily. "Mulder, did I 
just resist you?" 
 
"You ... at first..." 
 
"If someone raped me, Mulder, do you think there would be any 
doubt about the involuntary nature of my participation? Do you 
honestly think I would just lie there? You know me better than 
that." Her voice had softened. She crawled across the floor to 
him, gently lifted his head and lay it on her lap. "The real 
question is, why is that what you thought it was?" 
 
His eyes slid shut as he soaked in her presence with guilty relief. 
"God, Scully, don't you see? It would have been. I couldn't have 
stopped myself." 
 
"Bullshit." She said it angrily, but even in his addled state, he 
heard a weary resignation behind it, as though she didn't really 
expect to convince him. "You don't know that, Mulder. The fact 
is, I wasn't resisting. Okay? I was willing. I consented. It wasn't 
rape." 
 
He sat up slowly, painfully, his gut still twisted with nausea, and 
faced her. 
 
"But why didn't you, Scully?" 
 
She wondered for a moment whether it was confusion or regret 
she heard. Did he really hate himself so much that he wished she 
had resisted him, just so he could punish himself with even more 
self-loathing? Just so she would abandon him, leave him alone to 
suffer? 
 
"Because I didn't want to resist. Because you needed something, 
and I gave it to you. Although I think maybe what I really did 
was take something from you. Something you would have used 
to hurt yourself." 
 
He sat staring at her, just staring, for a long time, until she 
thought his gaze would bore a hole through her head. 
 
_____________________________ 
 
They had barely fallen into an exhausted slumber when the call 
had come. At the time, they had had only the vaguest notion of 
what to expect. 
 
But the moment Scully entered George Flood's living room that 
evening, she knew. 
 
The banner on the wall. The circle of seats. The gathering of 
men. The table and chair at the center. The compressor. 
 
Mulder was whisked away by two men as soon as they arrived. 
She stood in the doorway, unsure what to do, when Flood 
approached her. 
 
"Welcome. You did very well last night." 
 
"Thank you." 
 
"I hope you won't be offended that Bobby will be the center of 
attention her tonight. It's not that we don't appreciate your good 
work, but we have no intention of turning our women into 
footsoldiers. You understand." 
 
"Sure." 
 
Oh God, she thought. Not this. Don't do this to him. Anything 
but this. 
 
"Won't you have a seat?" He waved toward a chair on the rim of 
the circle, and she sat. The others followed her lead. She was 
barely aware that Frank sat beside her. 
 
"This is a big night," he said. 
 
A dark night, she thought. But his words served to shake her out 
of her daze. She reminded herself there was still a job to do. 
 
She looked around the room. About fifteen men sat around the 
circle. She was the only woman. She forced her eyes to pause on 
each face, trying to commit it to memory. She wished she could 
do it as easily as Mulder did. 
 
The men were silent and wore serious expressions. Most were 
young, in their 20's, and looked like they belonged to a blue-
collar world. 
 
Her observation was interrupted by Flood's entrance into the 
center of the circle. He carried a plain, wooden staff, which he 
tapped three times on the floor. 
 
"Let's begin," he said. 
 
Two men appeared in the doorway and led Mulder into the 
circle. He was stripped to the waist, wearing only his jeans. The 
men left him there and went to stand against the wall. Scully 
wondered what the group would make of the gunshot scar in his 
shoulder -- the one she had inflicted on him when he'd been 
ready to shoot that rat bastard Krycek. They'd probably see it as 
an enhancement to his image as a formidably dangerous man.  
 
"Sit down," Flood said, indicating the chair by the table in the 
center of the circle. When Mulder was seated, Flood moved to 
stand before him and held the staff out. 
 
"Place your left hand on the rod of authority," he instructed. 
Mulder complied, grasping the stick just below where Flood held 
it. His face was blank. 
 
Rod of authority, Scully found herself thinking. Boys with toys. 
 
"Do you pledge yourself to your country?" Flood began. 
 
"Yes." 
 
"Do you pledge yourself to your race?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
"Do you pledge yourself to victory?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
"Do you pledge yourself to the White Hand?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
Four times Mulder said "yes," the word falling from him 
lifelessly, his tone and manner betraying nothing. 
 
"You have shown your loyalty in deed and pledged it in word. 
Now you will bear it on your body as a mark of honor." 
 
Another man entered the circle carrying a chair, which he set 
down to Mulder's left. He was a surprisingly mild-looking 
fellow, middle-aged, with crinkly eyes and thick glasses. He 
looked like someone's favorite teacher or the nice storekeeper 
who handed out free penny candies. He reached over to the tray, 
picked up a tool and set to work on the arm Mulder still 
stretched before him, grasping the staff. 
 
For nearly an hour, the room was dead silent except for the whir 
of the machine. For nearly an hour, Mulder stared straight ahead 
without moving a muscle. For nearly an hour, Flood stood 
before him, his hand resting on top of the staff. 
 
For nearly an hour, Scully watched in carefully veiled horror as 
the shape of an eagle formed on Mulder's skin, and on its breast, 
a swastika. 
 
When it was over, the other men surrounded him, offering hearty 
words of welcome and slaps on the back as though he'd just 
made it through a fraternity hazing and was now one of the boys. 
He said very little, just nodded and shook hands and drank what 
he was offered. 
 
Later, as they drove back to their motel, she tried to think of 
something to say. 
 
You can have it removed. The laser procedure is totally 
effective, especially when the tattoo is fresh. At least the needle 
was clean. I saw him rip the seal on the package. Thank God 
that's over with. It's just a tattoo, Mulder. It isn't you. 
 
In the end, she said nothing. Neither did he. 
 
___________________________ 
 
Boozing alone -- again. Whatever would your mother say, Dana 
Katherine? 
 
A couple of days earlier, she might have smiled at the thought. 
Now it was just unnerving. She was tired and anxious and sick 
to death of the whole damn thing. 
 
And worried. Really worried. 
 
Mulder had stayed out most of the night after his "initiation." He 
wouldn't tell her where he'd been when she asked -- just replied 
with a vague, "Around." She suspected that was true. He'd 
probably spent the night driving, listening to his inner demons as 
they fed noisily on the rotted remains of his self-respect. 
 
And then, with the daylight, four men had arrived who'd said 
they were taking him for "training." 
 
God knew what that meant. But it couldn't be good. 
 
So she'd come out alone tonight, if for no other reason than 
because that's what Mary would do. 
 
God, Dana Scully was getting to hate Mary Deene with every 
ounce of her being. Which was especially ironic considering that, 
at the moment, Dana Scully was Mary Deene. 
 
No. I'm not. 
 
Aren't you? She thought about that. Here she was, sitting where 
Mary would sit, drinking what Mary would drink, wearing what 
Mary would wear. If someone were to speak to her, he would 
address her as Mary, and she would reply as Mary. 
 
And, of course, given half a chance, she would espouse the white 
supremacist ideology that Mary held dear. 
 
So what difference did it make if she wasn't really Mary Deene? 
No one else knew that. 
 
Jesus, Dana, she thought, slugging back some more of Mary's 
bourbon. You're not making any sense. 
 
She hadn't really realized how hard this was going to be on her. 
How much of herself she'd lose in it. And if it was this difficult 
for her, how hard must it be for Mulder? 
 
Mulder, whose uncanny ability to internalize the thought 
processes of others made him a crack criminal profiler. 
 
Mulder, who had been forced to do things that terrified him in 
order to prove that he was in fact the homicidal racist he made 
himself out to be. 
 
Mulder, who was now branded with the mark of that person. 
 
Mulder, who was losing himself right before her eyes. 
 
God. The poor son of a bitch had actually promised to be her 
anchor through all this. And she fully believed that's exactly 
what he had intended to be. The only problem was that, as 
anchors went, he was a lightweight. In fact, once you factored in 
his self-doubt, low self-esteem and massive guilt complex, you 
were left with an acorn tied to a string. 
 
Not that she had expected anything different, she mused, 
polishing off the last of the bourbon in her glass. She knew all 
this about him, weighed it against his selflessness, his loyalty, his 
passion and his humor, and found in the mix a man she could 
accept and love despite himself. The trouble was that he couldn't. 
 
"Penny for your thoughts?" 
 
Scully nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice intruded on 
her very private musings, almost as if she were afraid she'd 
spoken them out loud. 
 
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Mind if I sit down?" 
 
Before she could answer, Frank slid into the booth. She was 
thankful he chose the bench across from her this time. 
 
"You worried about Bobby?" 
 
"Umm ... yeah," she stumbled, disconcerted. 
 
"Well, don't be. He'll be fine. We've all been through the 
training. It's just to make you feel a part of the whole thing, 
y'know?" 
 
"Yeah. I guess so," she said, recovering somewhat. "He's a big 
boy. He can take care of himself." 
 
"Yeah. Try not to worry. Bobby's not an ordinary guy." Scully's 
eyes snapped to his. There was something about the way he said 
it -- an odd sincerity -- that alarmed her. Had he meant anything 
beyond the obvious? Did he suspect something? 
 
Before she had a chance to think it through, he was speaking 
again, distracting her with idle chatter about some party that was 
planned for the weekend. She forced herself to make the 
appropriate responses. 
 
"Y'know, you and Bobby should come. A lot of people are 
gonna be there." 
 
"Oh yeah? Like who?" 
 
"Oh, y'know. A lot of the guys who were there last night. And 
some others." 
 
This was getting interesting. A party might be just the place to 
pick up some stray information. People drank, their tongues 
were loosened. 
 
"I suppose I could stand a little celebration," she said, trying to 
sound enthusiastic at the prospect. 
 
She figured she must have succeeded when Frank smiled 
broadly. "Great! Y'know, all the guys have been wanting to meet 
you. It's not like there are too many girls who can do what you 
did the other night. Especially not ones who look as hot as you." 
 
"Yeah, well, that's why I don't hang around with girls too much. 
They're wimps." 
 
"Yeah. I know what you mean. Like, I was just talkin' to this one 
guy, Joey Francis, and he was asking me about you. Wanted to 
know if a girl with balls is still a girl." 
 
Scully laughed. "What did you tell him?" 
 
Frank crooked a finger at her, inviting her closer. She leaned 
across the table, and he brought his lips to her ear. "I told him 
you was all woman," he whispered. "One hundred percent." 
 
She laughed again and leaned back. "Damn straight," she said. 
 
Frank suddenly turned serious again and looked her straight in 
the eye. "You'd like Joey," he said. "George likes Joey. Trusts 
him. Tells him stuff he don't tell the rest of us. Joey could really 
go for a girl like you." 
 
And then Frank was off on other topics, and the strange light was 
gone from his eyes. Scully wondered if she'd really seen anything 
there at all. 
 
_________________________ 
 
White is right. 
 
He'd repeated those three words at least a hundred times in a 
day. He'd shouted them on the top of his lungs, replied to a dozen 
questions with them, chanted them in time with the rest of the 
"trainees." 
 
Three stupid little words that now refused to leave his head. 
 
White is right through the obstacle course, pushing you up and 
over the wall, through the mud, across the rope. 
 
White is right in hand-to-hand combat, the reason you get up off 
the mat after slamming it really hard. 
 
And on the shooting range... 
 
BANG! 
 
White is right. 
 
BANG! 
 
White is right. 
 
BANG! 
 
Enough already. 
 
As a psychologist, Mulder had little difficulty recognizing basic 
brainwashing techniques. A message repeated over and over 
again while the mind and body are hammered to the point of 
exhaustion is wedged under the protective layers of 
consciousness and conscience. 
 
Mulder didn't believe the words now any more than he did in the 
morning, but he couldn't stop thinking them. The technique must 
be really effective with men who more or less already believed 
them, he thought. 
 
The ceaseless repetition of that infernal phrase hadn't even been 
the worst of it. Every step of the way, through each and every 
event of the day, Mulder had been battling the reflexes 
developed through years of FBI training lest he give himself 
away. After hundreds of hours of extensive weapons training, he 
was forced to handle automatic and semi-automatic guns as 
though he'd never used one. Despite endless practice in unarmed 
self-defense, he'd had to fight as though he'd learned everything 
he knew on the street. 
 
The constant self-monitoring had given him a nasty headache. 
 
All told, his day at the farm -- which was what the White Hand's 
"training ground" actually was, as evidenced by all the cowpies 
he'd managed to step in -- had been a waking nightmare. There 
had been moments when physical exhaustion and the barrage of 
hate-mongering had threatened to strip him completely of the 
thin layer of control he was working so hard to maintain. At 
those moments, an indefinable rage tried to surface, to take 
control of him and make him do something stupid. Something 
completely wild. Like what he had done to Scully two nights 
ago. 
 
Oh, God. The images were so vivid. The way he'd taken her, the 
way his possession of her body had become a blinding, urgent 
necessity, as though he were pouring all the turbulent emotion he 
couldn't control into her with every thrust. 
 
And she had let him. But what if she hadn't? 
 
Not now, he told himself, sitting on the ground with the other 
men, his lungs heaving with the exertion of a five-mile run. You 
can't think about this now. It's too dangerous. 
 
Someone was talking. Focus. 
 
"...proud of you, men. Today you've learned to defend 
yourselves, your race and your nation. Go home and think about 
what you've learned here today." 
 
Thank God. It was over -- for now. As he got up slowly, careful 
of his aching muscles, he wondered if and when there would be 
more of this hideous "training." 
 
"C'mon, Bobby, we'll take you back." One of the men who'd 
picked him up in the morning was approaching him. He forced 
his face to assume the neutral mask he'd worn all day. 
 
"No," came a voice from behind him. "I'll see to it he gets home." 
 
Mulder turned to face Flood. He hadn't seen the group's leader 
all day. What had made him turn up now? 
 
"I'd like to ask you to do something for me, Bobby," Flood said, 
as if in answer to Mulder's unspoken question. "We can talk on 
the way back." 
 
Mulder moved to follow the older man, praying his reserve of 
control would last just a little bit longer. 
 
_______________________ 

END 6/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 7/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)  


He paced the motel room in her absence, knowing full well his 
anxiety was grossly unfair. He had left her alone two nights in a 
row. And when he'd returned to her, he'd... 
 
No. He shoved the memory down yet again. 
 
A squeal of tires broke his train of thought. He pushed the tacky, 
flowered window curtain aside in time to see their Taurus 
coming around the corner and into the parking lot way too fast. 
It lurched to a crooked stop in front of their room. He watched 
Scully get out, drop her keys and fall over trying to retrieve 
them. He let go of the curtain, feeling the anger building again. 
 
"You shouldn't be driving," he said as she came through the 
door. 
 
"I know. It couldn't be helped." 
 
"Where were you?" 
 
She glared at him for a long moment, indignant at his hostility. 
"Five Spot," she said at last. 
 
He nodded. With a concerted effort, he managed to make the 
next words come out calmer, colder. "Turn up anything?" 
 
"As a matter of fact, yes." Scully kicked off her shoes, stumbled 
to the bed and fell onto it. "The damn room is spinning," she 
groaned. 
 
"What happened at the Five Spot?" 
 
"I met Frank," she said, keeping an arm bent over her eyes to 
block the light. "He told me about a party this weekend. And he 
told me about somebody who's going to be there -- Joey Francis. 
He says Flood confides in him. I figure he may know the 
whereabouts of the boy." 
 
"You think it's a solid lead?" 
 
"I don't know." She heard the urgency in his voice. "Why?" 
 
"Because we're running out of time. Something's going to 
happen, and soon." 
 
She lowered her arm and rolled on her side to look at him. 
"What?" 
 
"I'm not sure. But Flood says he wants me to come on a 'mission' 
sometime early next week. He wouldn't tell me what exactly. 
But he said it's in Washington. And he asked if I could drive a 
truck." 
 
"A truck?" This was not good. She knew exactly what Mulder 
was thinking, and she agreed. The White Hand was preparing to 
strike again. 
 
"Do you think you can get anything out of this guy?" 
 
"Maybe. Frank says Joey's dying to meet me." The implications 
of her statement were clear, clouding the air between them. 
 
"You'll have to go to that party alone. Bring him back here. Try 
to get him to talk." 
 
Scully didn't know whether to be hurt or relieved that Mulder 
saw the necessity of it. "All right." She paused. "But I don't want 
to..." 
 
"We'll arrange a signal. I'll barge in and play the jealous lover. 
That should get rid of him." 
 
"What if I don't get the information before he tries to get what he 
came for?" 
 
Mulder turned away, his shoulders slumping as though a sudden 
wave of exhaustion had overwhelmed him. "You'll have to," he 
said. 
 
In some reservoir behind the wall of stress and bitterness around 
her, she found the sympathy to ask gently, "How was the 
training?" 
 
"Horrible." 
 
"You should get some rest, Mulder. Don't go out tonight." 
 
He sighed heavily. "All right." Flopping onto the bed without 
further conversation, he was asleep in minutes. 
 
Scully stayed up and watched him for a while, wondering if they 
could ever rebuild what this nightmarish case seemed bound to 
destroy. 
 
___________________________ 
 
All eyes followed her as she walked through the crowded, smoky 
room. 
 
Her first reaction -- a natural one for her -- was to blame the 
dress. It plunged low, front and back, hugging her body 
provocatively. The skirt was loose and very short, it's filmy 
fabric swinging side to side with the sway of her hips. 
 
But when she looked around, she realized there were at least a 
dozen other women in the place dressed equally suggestively. 
Some of them even looked pretty good in it. 
 
The eyes were still on her as she approached the table where 
bottles of booze stood open for the taking. She poured whiskey 
into a paper cup. Country music blared from speakers set on 
milk crates on either side of the room. 
 
She spotted Frank crossing toward her. Here goes. This is going 
to be the performance of your life, she told herself. 
 
"Well, hello there, Spitfire." 
 
"Spitfire?" 
 
"That's what the guys have been calling you." 
 
"Oh, really?" 
 
"Sure. They're all pretty taken with you. Don't tell me you 
haven't noticed them looking at you." 
 
"Oh, I noticed. A girl always notices these things." 
 
"You must be right. Looks like the other girls here have been 
noticing you getting noticed." 
 
"Mm-hm." She took a long sip of whiskey and looked around. 
"Some of the boys seem kinda worth noticing." 
 
"I hope you're including me." 
 
Scully smiled coyly. "Do you even have to ask?" She swayed 
toward him, her body mimicking the seductive sound of her 
voice. 
 
He slid an arm around her bare shoulders, pulled her close and 
said, "You are a little spitfire, aren't you?" 
 
She laughed lightly. "Are you going to keep me all to yourself?" 
 
Frank licked his lips before responding. "It's tempting... but the 
boys would never forgive me. C'mon, I'll introduce you." 
 
With that, he took her by the arm and marched her to the nearest 
crowd. 
 
It wasn't long before the names and faces became a blur. She 
wandered from group to group, from suggestive comment to 
wicked leer. Every once in a while, someone would appear from 
nowhere and maneuver her onto the makeshift dance floor. Until 
tonight, she'd never have believed she'd be grateful to the college 
boyfriend who'd dragged her to country-western bars, where 
she'd learned to move to the twanging, my-baby-left-me-so-I'm-
cryin'-in-my-beer beat. 
 
But she had learned, and learned well. She let the music animate 
her like the touch of a lover, matching the rhythm of the music 
as she would match the steady strokes of a partner in bed, her 
hips thrusting in time, her torso undulating in counterpoint. 
 
With her seductive grace, she pulled each partner closer, so he 
danced with his hands on her hips, holding her crotch firmly to 
his. She had felt more erections in one night than in her entire 
life previously. 
 
And still she saw no sign of Joey Francis. 
 
It got later, she got drunker, her voice got throatier with the 
cigarettes offered, accepted and smoked. Her mind floated on a 
cloud of liquor. She'd stopped observing, evaluating or 
analyzing. She almost forgot why she'd come. 
 
She'd learned her lesson well. 
 
It must have been past 2 AM when a singularly unattractive, 
pock-marked youth barely out of his teens cornered her with 
pathetic pick-up lines about his fast car and her pretty dress. He 
leaned into her, gesturing wildly in a weak attempt to get a hand 
on her breast. She was just wondering whether throwing up on 
the pip-squeak would be overkill when two men appeared, 
causing the boy to stutter a lame excuse and leave. 
 
"Hiya, Spitfire," Frank greeted her warmly. 
 
Dimly, she realized she should probably be ashamed of herself 
for being so glad to see him. Proves that everything is relative, 
she thought. 
 
"Hi yourself." 
 
"Sorry 'bout him," Frank said, bobbing his head toward the 
young man who was now sulking near the potato chips. "The 
town virgin gets kinda horny when he sees a fine piece." 
 
Scully laughed. "Thanks for scaring him off." 
 
"Actually, I figured you'd wanna trade him in for a sportier 
model," Frank said. "Mary Deene, this is Joey Francis." 
 
Scully turned her attention to the man who had been standing 
silently at Frank's side. He was indeed a "sportier model" -- tall, 
muscular, sandy-haired, blue-eyed. She found it wasn't difficult 
to sound sincere when she said, "I'm glad to meet you." 
 
"Same here. Care to dance?" 
 
"Sure." 
 
He led her onto the floor just as a slow, syrupy ballad began. 
There was no pretense of working up to it. He just pulled her to 
him and started swaying. She noted with pleasure that he moved 
well. Really well. He danced from the center out,  not like most 
men who merely moved their feet. His body flowed and pulsed 
against hers, and she responded in kind, melting into him, letting 
him start the ripple that she built into a wave. 
 
When the music ended, he leaned over and whispered to her, "I 
want you." 
 
She felt her body respond to this total stranger with a rush of 
heat and an unmistakable surge of wetness. The sensation left 
her breathless and a little bit panicky. 
 
She pulled back. 
 
His eyes narrowed. "Something wrong?" 
 
You have him, Dana. You had him the minute he saw you. Don't 
blow it. 
 
Let it happen. 
 
Make it happen. 
 
Make it real. 
 
It is real. 
 
"No," she breathed. "It's just that you read my mind." 
 
He smiled. "My place is just a few miles out of town." 
 
She smiled back, a warm, sensual smile. "Mine is just up the 
street." 
 
"Let's go." 
 
She was glad they had separate cars. It gave her a chance to 
recover from the high-octane kiss they'd shared on the dark 
sidewalk. 
 
She had been vaguely surprised that he tasted good, with a hint 
of maple sugar behind the sharp bite of hard liquor. And even 
more unexpectedly, Francis had seemed to enjoy the kiss, savor 
it as a fine thing in and of itself and not just a means to an end. 
 
The drive was over before she knew it, and they were walking 
through the parking lot toward her motel room. 
 
"What happened to Bobby?" 
 
"Out of town. Taking care of some personal business." She 
opened the door and turned on the light. 
 
"You got anything to drink around here?" 
 
"Of course." Good. He wasn't going to jump her straight away. 
They would talk first. 
 
"I heard what you and Bobby done the other night," he said as 
she poured. "Weren't you scared?" 
 
"Scared? Nah. Not much." 
 
"Why'd you do it?" 
 
"Why do you do it?" 
 
"Me? Because I don't like it when niggers get feeling too 
comfortable." 
 
"There you go." 
 
"Well, ain't you the spitfire? I never met a woman with the guts 
to do something about it." 
 
"Yeah? Well, maybe you never met a real woman." 
 
She crossed the room to give him his drink. He took it with one 
hand and snaked the other behind her back, pulling her in for a 
long, smoky kiss. She could feel his hard-on pressed against her 
belly and realized she was running out of time. 
 
When the kiss broke, she backed away and sat on the bed. 
 
"So tell me, you trust the guys you're in with?" she asked. 
 
"You're in with 'em too now." 
 
"That's why I'm asking." 
 
"You shouldn't have to ask. It's all about trust." 
 
"Still, you never know. This is some serious shit. A lot of people 
would like to know what goes on here. How do you know no 
one's gonna tell 'em?" 
 
"George can handle it." 
 
"He can?" 
 
"You bet. George is a remarkable man." 
 
"I can see that." 
 
Damn. Maybe he doesn't know? 
 
"Besides," Francis said, putting his drink down on the dresser 
and edging toward her. "George has taken out some insurance." 
He leaned over her and placed a hand on each bare thigh, just 
below the hem of her dress. 
 
"Oh, come on, Joey," she said, laughing. "It ain't like you can get 
a piece of the rock for this. What's he do, pay a premium and 
keep it in a safe-deposit box?" 
 
"No, he does not," Francis replied, nuzzling her neck. "He keeps 
it in a little cabin in the woods." 
 
Scully turned her head to look him in the eye like a hunter sizing 
up her prey. What would it take to bring him down? 
 
She reached forward and put a hand on his stomach, feeling the 
hard ridges of muscle there. God, he was like a rock. A warm, 
flesh-and-blood rock. Her hand trailed its way down until the 
firm tip of the erection in his pants was cupped in her palm. A 
rock. 
 
"A cabin's a funny place to keep insurance," she said, barely 
recognizing the husky silk of her own voice. 
 
"Not this kind," he said, pushing her back onto the bed and 
easing himself on top of her. "This kind calls for lakefront 
property." His hands were on her breasts, squeezing gently. She 
moaned, letting the sensation of his surprisingly gentle touch 
spill over her, thrusting her hips against him in response. 
 
"Lake Suskatow is a pretty place," she whispered. 
 
"It's perfect," he growled, slipping a hand between her legs, 
pressing his fingers into the satiny fabric of her underwear. 
Dimly, she wondered at the fact that it was drenched with her 
response to the hard body that pressed her deep into the mattress. 
His cock felt huge against her thigh, and she felt her cunt twitch 
at the thought of taking it in and riding it. Lust and female pride 
washed over her at the thought of what she could do to this very 
male, virile body, the way she could make it moan and move and 
sweat and ache with need. He was hers if she wanted him. 
 
But... 
 
She swallowed hard. "Joey. Wait a minute. I gotta get 
something." 
 
"Yeah," he murmured against the skin of her neck. "You're 
gonna get something." 
 
"No, I mean ... protection." 
 
"Oh." He rolled off her. Shakily, she got to her feet and hurried 
into the bathroom. She was back almost immediately, foil 
packets in hand. 
 
Francis was on his feet. "Turn around." 
 
She did. With slow care, he unzipped her dress and slid it off her 
shoulders. It fell around her feet, and he reached around her to 
cup her breasts inside her bra. Her head fell back against his 
shoulder. 
 
"Oh, yeah," she murmured as he pinched the stiff tips between 
his fingers. She heard his breath quicken and felt him push 
himself against her buttocks, knowing that, in another moment, 
he'd unzip himself and she would feel him and see him, the effect 
she had on him, smell it on his skin. She would... 
 
The door burst open and Mulder came flying into the room. Joey 
Francis backed away. 
 
"Bobby! I didn't know you..." 
 
"Get the fuck out before I kill you." His voice was lethal. 
 
"She's just so pretty...." 
 
"Now!" 
 
Mulder's success at building Bobby a reputation for homicidal 
behavior became obvious as Francis grabbed his jacket and ran 
for the door. 
 
Scully was left standing there in bra and panties, her skin flushed 
and sheened with sweat, her breasts rising and falling rapidly  
with her breath. 
 
Mulder closed the door. "Are you all right?" 
 
"Fine." She turned and disappeared into the bathroom, returning 
a moment later in a white terrycloth robe. 
 
He took a step toward her. She backed away, clutching the robe 
closed at her neck. 
 
"Don't." 
 
"What? Scully, you..." 
 
"Don't!" He cringed as she slammed a mental door in his face. 
 
"Did he talk?" 
 
"A cabin out on Lake Suskataw. We have to go find it now. 
Tonight." 
 
"It's morning," Mulder said, waving toward the window where a 
pale glow could be seen. "We'll have to wait for it to get dark 
again." 
 
She nodded. "You're right." 
 
"Good work, Scully," he said as she got into bed, feeling the 
evidence of her arousal crusting in her panties. 
 
His words mocked her. Yeah, she thought. It's a living. 
 
_________________________________ 
 
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 
But I have promises to keep, 
And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep. 
 
Mulder closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of pine and 
mulch and moss, the gentle words of Robert Frost drifting lazily 
though his thoughts. 
 
He heard a splash and opened his eyes. He could barely make 
out Scully's black-clad form in a sleek, silver canoe. It made a 
gentle crunch as she grounded it. 
 
"Any trouble?" 
 
"No. It was there for the taking." 
 
"Get in front. I'll turn it." Standing in water to his knees, Mulder 
held the canoe steady as she moved forward. Then he swung it 
around and pushed off as he climbed in back. 
 
They paddled in silence. Scully took regular compass readings, 
speaking only to give him slight course corrections. The night 
was cloudy, and they'd decided to risk a straight route across the 
lake. Hugging the shoreline would have been safer but three 
times the distance, and they didn't know how long it would take 
to find the cabin and determine whether the boy was there. 
 
As it turned out, finding it was no trouble. Not only had the 
information gleaned from discreet inquiries at the local bait shop 
turned out to be accurate, but there was a dock in front that was 
visible even in the faintest of moonlight. 
 
They ran ashore about a hundred feet away, and as quietly as 
they could hauled the canoe into the sheltering underbrush. 
Approaching the cabin cautiously, they began a first circle to 
determine the layout. They were halfway around when Mulder 
grabbed Scully's arm and stood stock still, listening. 
 
Soon, she heard it too. The splash, creak, splash, creak of oars. 
More than one set, judging from the irregular timing. They 
retreated to the tree line, crouched down and waited. 
 
Minutes later, two dark shapes could be seen approaching across 
the lake. The rowboats bumped the dock, and a man jumped out 
to secure them before the rest came ashore. There were eight 
men in all. They carried flashlights, the beams swinging across 
them as they moved. 
 
"Flood," Mulder whispered. 
 
"And Joey Francis," Scully whispered back. 
 
Mulder took her arm and pulled her deeper into the woods. 
"Frank is here, too," he said when they'd put some distance 
between themselves and the cabin. "And several other men I 
recognize from the training camp." 
 
"What are you saying?" 
 
"Scully, all his top lieutenants are here. We may never get 
another opportunity like this. If we do it now, no one has the 
chance to run." 
 
"Do it? Do what?" 
 
"Nab the boy. Round up the leaders of the White Hand." 
 
"Are you crazy? There are eight of them -- probably more, 
because somebody must be stationed here to watch the boy." 
 
"We have the element of surprise. If we get the boy out, all we 
have to do is pin them down until the cavalry arrives." 
 
"Oh, is that all?" 
 
"Scully, we have no choice. They're probably meeting here 
tonight to plan an attack in Washington in a couple of days. The 
chance of our getting a better opportunity is nil." 
 
He watched her turn over the facts in that relentlessly methodical 
brain of hers, knowing she would not try to avoid the inevitable 
conclusion. 
 
"First, we have to verify that the boy is here," she said at last. He 
nodded. "If he is, I'll call for a SWAT team. We'll have to get the 
boy out and keep those men in until they get here." 
 
"If we can grab the kid without alerting his captors, that may be 
no problem," Mulder said. 
 
"Big if." 
 
"One thing at a time. Let's look for the kid." 
 
She nodded tightly and moved back toward the cabin. He nearly 
tripped over her when she suddenly stopped short and crouched 
down. Instinctively, he dropped beside her. 
 
"What?" he whispered. 
 
She pointed. A man with a rifle was standing outside the cabin's 
only door. He must have taken up the position when the others 
went inside. 
 
There were three windows in the side of the cabin facing them. 
Bright light streamed from two of them. 
 
"Kid's in the dark room," Mulder whispered. 
 
"You don't know that." 
 
"Has to be." 
 
"Not good enough. We have to be sure before we call for 
backup." 
 
Minutes went by as they watched and waited. The guard stood 
leaning against the doorpost, staring out into the darkness. 
 
"He's not going anywhere," Scully whispered at last. 
 
"He needs a reason. I'm going to draw him around back. You 
take a look inside." 
 
"Mulder..." He was gone before she could stop him. 
 
She didn't move, barely breathed as she waited for something to 
happen. It seemed like hours until ... 
 
Snap. 
 
That was it. One twig snapping. Not enough to raise the alarm. 
Just enough to make him take a look. 
 
As the guard disappeared around the corner of the cabin, she 
moved in, quickly but quietly. She was at the darkened window 
in moments, then back at their sheltered position in the woods. 
 
Minutes passed, and still Mulder hadn't returned. She was on the 
verge of going to look for him when he crept up beside her -- 
carrying the rifle. 
 
"What happened?" 
 
"Let's just say I took care of our friend." 
 
"You what? What if the kid wasn't here?" 
 
"But he is, isn't he?" 
 
Scully clenched her jaw in frustration. "Yes." 
 
"Make the call." 
 
She retreated deeper into the forest to use her cellular phone 
while he kept watch. He'd seen no activity outside the cabin 
when she returned. 
 
"Thirty minutes," she said. 
 
"Shit." 
 
"We're in the middle of nowhere. What did you expect?" 
 
"We have to move now," he said. "They could miss the guard at 
any time." 
 
She nodded. Without another word, they began their stealthy 
approach. Scully was ready with a small hook, which she used to 
slip through the crack between the two hinged windows and 
release the latch that held them together. The tiny click it made 
sounded like a gunshot to her sensitized ears, but there was no 
reaction from inside. 
 
Mulder handed her the rifle and climbed in. He could hear the 
murmur of voices in the next room. 
 
He regretted what he had to do next, but there was no 
alternative. He crept to the bed and clamped a hand tightly over 
the sleeping boy's mouth. Two shining eyes sprang open, 
radiating fear. Before the child could get his bearings, Mulder 
scooped him up and carried him to the window, handing him 
through to Scully, who replaced his hand with hers to prevent the 
child from screaming. 
 
As soon as she had him, she moved out as quickly as possible. 
Mulder climbed back out, grabbed the rifle off the ground where 
she'd left it and took off after them. They didn't stop until they'd 
put half a mile between themselves and the cabin. 
 
Only then did Scully take her hand from the boy's mouth. He 
was crying in terror, hiccuping and sobbing pitifully. 
 
She sank to the ground, hugging him in her arms and rocking. 
 
"Shhh... it's okay. We're here to help you. Shhhh." 
 
Mulder watched, fascinated, as she quieted the boy, who 
eventually responded to the strength and confidence of the 
woman who held him. 
 
"Give me your phone and go back," she told Mulder when the 
boy's weeping had abated. "I'll be right behind you." 
 
Her request baffled him, but there was no time to argue. He did 
as she asked. 
 
All was still at the cabin. Was it too much to hope it would 
remain that way for the next 20 minutes? He suspected that, with 
his luck, it was. 
 
"Do you think the two of us can hold them?" He hadn't heard her 
approach and was startled when she spoke. 
 
"Depends how they're armed." 
 
"I know. That's been worrying me. If they've got enough metal in 
there, this could get ugly." 
 
"Just what we need. Another Waco to feed the militia 
movement," Mulder whispered. "How's the kid?" 
 
"I left him talking to my mother." 
 
"You're kidding." 
 
"I didn't want him to get scared and wander off. I told her to keep 
talking to him, telling him to stay put." 
 
Mulder smiled. "You're a genius." 
 
"I'll go around the other side," she said, ignoring the compliment. 
"Remember, the objective is to keep them pinned down. Don't 
shoot to kill unless absolutely necessary." 
 
He nodded. "Here, take this," he said, handing her the rifle. 
"You're better with it than I am." 
 
He was right. She was. She'd learned when she was young, first 
with BB guns and, later, real rifles, though she'd never hunted 
animals with her brothers. Not since that first time, when she'd 
killed a snake with a BB rifle and learned what it meant to die. 
 
She took the gun and crept away into the darkness. 
 
Mulder felt the forest close in on him as soon as she was gone. 
He settled down to wait, sitting cross-legged on the damp 
ground. 
 
____________________________ 

END 7/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 8/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)  


Ten of the slowest minutes ever measured by a clock went by as 
Scully crouched behind a tree, rifle at the ready, and waited. If 
she could just make it through the next ten, a few dozen other 
people would show up to relieve Mulder and her of the burden of 
responsibility. That burden had become so heavy in recent days, 
like a physical thing strapped to her back, making every waking 
moment a torture. 
 
Ten minutes isn't so long, she told herself. The time it took to 
microwave a frozen dinner. Stay on hold for the next available 
representative. Spend a dollar on Sprint. 
 
Lose your virginity. Take your wedding vows. Die. 
 
Come to think of it, a lot could happen in just ten minutes. 
 
And suddenly, she knew it was about to. A voice was calling 
from inside the cabin. 
 
"Paul? Paul! Get in here!" Several minutes went by. Then a door 
opened and closed on the other side. She tightened her grip on 
the rifle and waited. 
 
A shadowy figure carrying a rifle appeared around the corner of 
the cabin. She kept him in her sights as he paused, obviously 
looking around. She was surprised he didn't call Paul's name. 
 
She was even more surprised when he started moving, heading 
straight toward her as if he knew she was there. Her finger 
tightened on the trigger as he approached, his rifle pointed at the 
ground. 
 
When he was no more than two dozen feet away, he stopped. 
 
"Agent Scully." Barely above a whisper. 
 
She froze, unsure what to do. But she recognized the voice. 
 
"Agent Scully, I need to talk to you. Now." 
 
"Put down the rifle." The man did so, then walked toward her. 
"That's close enough. How do you know my name, Frank?" 
 
"Art. Art Saunders. CIA." 
 
"You're kidding." 
 
"Look, we don't have time for this," he hissed. "Are you going to 
shoot me or not?" 
 
She relaxed her grip on the rifle. "Not immediately," she said. He 
crouched beside her. "If the CIA had a man inside, what did they 
need us for?" 
 
"Once the kid is rescued, your cover is blown." 
 
"So?" 
 
"So I can't afford that." 
 
"What do you mean?" 
 
"I'm deep cover. Long term. You'll find I'm going to manage to 
escape this mess and turn up in some other part of the country, 
with some other militia group. And impeccable credentials from 
the White Hand." 
 
"Jesus. You mean you live like this?" 
 
"Yeah." 
 
"But if you knew about this cabin, why didn't you just tell me? 
Why set me up with Joey Francis?" 
 
"I didn't know. Not until tonight. Flood brought us here because 
he was planning on moving the boy tomorrow anyway. He's 
getting ready for the next mission." 
 
"Which is?" 
 
"Truck bomb at the Holocaust Museum." 
 
"Jesus." 
 
"Yeah. Your timing is excellent. Look, I'd love to stay here and 
chat. But I have important information you need to know. I'm 
holding the only other rifle in this group. Two guys have 
handguns, but that's it. When Flood noticed the guard was 
missing, he called in reinforcements. There are a dozen guys on 
their way with automatic weapons and grenades. They're coming 
from the east by trail. You've got to..." 
 
A shot split the air. Almost instantly, Scully felt something warm 
and wet spray her face. Art Saunders keeled over in front of her. 
 
Another shot rang out, but she was already moving, rolling 
across the damp forest floor before the round bit the dirt she had 
just vacated. The rifle was braced against her shoulder before 
she'd stopped, and she squeezed off two shots without even 
identifying the target, aiming at the source of the gunfire that had 
felled the CIA agent. 
 
She saw a dark form drop as she stopped rolling. After waiting to 
see if it would move, she crawled over and turned the body with 
the rifle barrel. 
 
Joey Francis. Clean shot through the throat. Dead. 
 
She reached for her cell phone, hoping it wasn't too late to divert 
a team to the eastern trail. 
 
_________________________ 
 
Mulder heard a shot, then another, then two more in quick 
succession. They'd come from Scully's position. His heart raced 
as he resisted the urge to run toward the sounds, to see if she was 
okay. Instead, he forced himself to turn his attention toward the 
cabin. The light had gone on in the second room, and there were 
faces in each window. He considered firing some warning shots 
but decided to wait and see what would happen. 
 
To his surprise, nothing did. The faces remained in the windows, 
looking out into the darkness as if they were waiting for 
something. No shots were fired, and no one emerged. 
 
Five minutes slipped away in silence. Five minutes, during 
which Fox Mulder prayed with all his might to a God in whom 
he didn't believe that his partner was not lying on the ground 
fifty yards away, watering the ground with her blood. 
 
_________________________ 
 
"Congratulations." 
 
"Thank you, sir." 
 
There was no pride or satisfaction in the words, Skinner noted. 
Scully had just responded by rote. It was so unlike her. 
 
Then again, everything seemed wrong about the both of them. 
The two agents he'd sent out on this impossible mission had been 
angry, defiant, confident, united. The two before him now were... 
 
It was hard to put a finger on the right word. Tentative? Listless? 
 
Broken? 
 
He wasn't sure. But he had known them for four years, had seen 
them wade through every manner of hell on earth, and he had 
never seen them like this. They were somehow all wrong. 
 
They sat in their usual places, side by side across from him. 
Unlike the dozens of times they'd sat there frustrated by defeat, 
this time they were victorious. They'd accomplished the mission 
and now could name their reward. It meant the salvation of their 
partnership. 
 
And yet they sat there looking like they couldn't get away from 
each other fast enough. 
 
"The boy is safe with his family," Skinner said. "They've all been 
placed in the witness protection program." 
 
"I see." 
 
"The SWAT team leader tells me your handling of the situation 
at the scene, combined with the information you provided on the 
backup force, made it relatively simple to capture all the militia 
members alive, except for the two who were dead before the 
team arrived. I gather from your report that those deaths were 
unavoidable. Fortunately, they were not key members of the 
group." 
 
"No sir." 
 
Looks like Scully's doing all the talking today, Skinner mused. 
 
"Needless to say, you may both resume working on the X-Files 
immediately." 
 
"Umm ... can we have 24 hours to inform you of our decision on 
this matter, sir?" 
 
Mulder's sudden request struck Skinner momentarily speechless. 
He noticed Scully's eyes close. God, she looks tired, he thought. 
 
"Of course. Go home and get some rest. You've earned it." 
 
The two rose to leave. Scully paused at the door and turned 
back. "Sir? I'd like to be informed of the funeral arrangements 
for Agent Saunders." 
 
"Certainly. I'll have Kimberly call you." 
 
"Thank you." 
 
The door closed behind them and AD Skinner sat down to re-
read the report on his desk, hoping to find between the lines a 
clue that might explain the sorry spectacle he'd just witnessed. 
 
_ 
____________________ 
 
"Go away." Mulder said it coldly, firmly, loudly, as soon as he 
heard her key in the lock. 
 
She came in. "You asked for 24 hours to make a decision, 
Mulder. What were you planning to do? Make it alone?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
"You bastard." 
 
"Ooo, that hurt. Navy Dad teach you such language?" 
 
"Fuck you!" 
 
"I'll take a number." 
 
When her hand made contact with his face, it was loud and 
painful and singularly ungratifying. The tears in her eyes did 
nothing to disguise the pure fury in her voice. 
 
"If you must punish yourself, Mulder, I'll thank you not to do it 
at my expense." He made no reply, just turned his back. "How 
can you do this to me? I crawl through hell to get back to you, 
only to find you've just walked away." 
 
"Is that what it looks like from where you're standing, Scully? 
Funny, because from here it's altogether different." He spoke 
without facing her. "It's like I've been standing outside a closed 
door for an eternity. When the dark, cold, lonely hallway is 
finally too much to bear, you open the door a crack and ask me 
to wait a while longer." 
 
"I thought we were past this." The tears were still there, but a 
sorrowful tone tamed the anger in her voice. 
 
"So did I." 
 
"I guess we were naive to believe that becoming lovers would 
change everything." 
 
"I guess we were." 
 
Silence strangled the flow of conversation as Mulder's words 
struck them both with the threat of finality. 
 
Scully screwed up her courage to ask the question that had to be 
asked. 
 
"Do you regret it?" 
 
He turned to her, and the pain she saw in his face tore at her 
heart. "I don't know." 
 
She closed her eyes, squeezing two perfect little tears down her 
cheeks. "God, Mulder. Where did we pick up the habit of 
brutalizing ourselves and each other when it all gets to be too 
much?" 
 
He shrugged. "And now we have a new way to do it." 
 
There was no denying it, she realized with horror. They had both 
used sex to push each other away, just as surely as they'd ever 
used it to draw close. 
 
They'd done so much damage. The question was, could it be 
undone? She didn't know. But, ever the realist, she recognized 
one thing with certainty: The only thing worse than trying and 
failing would be not trying at all. 
 
She crossed the space between them and gently took his hand. 
"I'm not sure I know how to change this," she began quietly. 
"But I do know that I love you as much today as I did last week 
and last year. I crave your touch, your smile, your mere 
presence. I can't see anything getting better by giving up those 
things." 
 
His eyes fell to the floor, and she could barely hear him when he 
spoke. "Maybe we should go back to the way it was." 
 
"You mean, stop sleeping together?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
"That wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't make the emotional 
demands of this relationship any simpler. Besides, now that those 
lines have been erased, I don't even remember where they were." 
She reached out and lifted his chin with one finger, a gesture 
borrowed from his repertoire. "For whatever it's worth, Mulder, 
the door is wide open, and I'm truly sorry it hasn't always been 
that way. Do you want to come in?" 
 
One minute his eyes were locked on hers, the intensity of his 
love evident. 
 
The next minute, he jerked away and crossed his arms over his 
chest. 
 
"It's too late," he said. 
 
A painful, choking lump lodged itself in her throat. "Why? Why 
is it too late?" 
 
"After what I did..." 
 
"What you did? We're back to that?" There was such a raw, 
volatile mixture of emotions in her voice that it hurt him 
physically to hear it, like invisible hands were squeezing his 
lungs and heart. "Why must you see yourself as some kind of 
psychopath? Why? You nurture this image of the tortured soul 
always teetering on the edge of insanity, and you think it makes 
you so damn special. But it's just cowardice, Mulder. You're 
afraid that someday you'll wake up happy, and you won't have 
some big fucking quest that makes you different than the rest of 
the world. The trouble is that, in order to feed your mania, you 
have to rob yourself of joy. And to do that, you have to rob me 
of mine." Her voice cracked. 
 
"I'm sorry," he said so quietly she barely heard it. 
 
"If you couldn't do this, Mulder, why did you ever start it?" 
 
"I didn't think." 
 
"Don't lie to me!" The anger strengthened her, made it possible 
to swallow the lump in her throat and speak freely. "You never 
do anything without thinking. Before you came to me and told 
me you wanted me, you'd thought about it a lot. So if you can't 
tell me the truth, I'll tell you." 
 
She paused to catch her breath, look at him, size him up. "You 
started this because you had to. Your enforced emotional 
isolation from the rest of humanity was threatening to destroy 
you. Then one day it dawned on you -- you weren't alone, and 
you hadn't been for quite some time. I was there with you. And 
in a blessed, rare moment of emotional stability, you recognized 
that as a good thing, and you embraced it. Now those self doubts 
have resurfaced because of this damn case. Because you found it 
was so easy for you to lose yourself and become Bobby Gorman. 
And now you're going to try to protect me from the dark, evil 
force at your core that made it possible. But I don't buy it." 
 
Was he listening? Or had he just shut down? Damn it. She 
couldn't tell. But she sure as hell wasn't going to stop now. She 
reached out, took his hand and placed it on her chest, his palm 
resting in the space between her breasts. 
 
"What do you feel when you touch me? Is it dark and evil? Tell 
me the truth this time. That's what matters, right? The truth?" 
 
That was it. She'd called his bluff, played every card, risked it 
all. She could do nothing but let him show his hand. 
 
He shook his head slowly. "No, it's not," he said. For the first 
time since she'd arrived, he brought his eyes to hers voluntarily 
and let them stay there, let her see past the wall of fear and doubt 
he'd been hiding behind. "It's good and true," he whispered. 
 
She let out a long breath. "Then that's all that matters." She 
placed her hand on his chest so they stood face to face, palm to 
heart. "Make love to me." 
 
"Are you sure?" 
 
"Trust me." 
 
"I do, Scully. I swear I do. But I don't trust me." 
 
"Then let me do it for you." 
 
Taking his hand from her chest, he drew her down onto the 
couch so they were seated side by side. When his hands held her 
face, it was with the gentlest of touches. When he leaned toward 
her, his movement was measured and slow. And when his lips 
touched hers, it was like a prayer of thanks offered at the end of 
a long and dangerous journey. 
 
"We do know each other," she whispered as their lips separated. 
"You have to believe that." 
 
It was his turn to smile. His hand drifted to the buttons of her 
blouse and worked them free from their holes. When the garment 
hung open, he leaned in again to place a kiss on the spot where 
she'd placed his hand. 
 
It was exactly the same gesture he'd made so many months 
before on a night that had changed the course of their lives. "I 
want you," he said. 
 
"You can have me," she replied, using the same words she'd said 
then. 
 
He slid the blouse from her shoulders, opened the clasp of her 
bra and removed the undergarment. He lowered his eyes to her 
breasts and watched the nipples harden under his gaze. Turning 
his head to one side, he bent over to rest his cheek on the soft 
mounds. 
 
"Mulder?" she said minutes later. 
 
"Mmm?" 
 
"You okay?" 
 
"Mmmm-hmmm." 
 
And suddenly, with a swift, smooth motion, he wrapped his arms 
around her and jerked her hips forward so that she was flat on 
her back across his couch. He made quick work of the zipper on 
her slacks and yanked them down and off, then stretched himself 
on top of her. 
 
"Okay, Scully, if that's the way it is, I guess I'll have to make the 
best of it." He was smirking at her now, and she couldn't help but 
smile back. 
 
"Your best is pretty good." 
 
"Just pretty good? We'll have to work at improving my rating." 
 
He kissed her again, but not gently this time. 
 
"Take your clothes off," she managed to gasp into his mouth. 
 
He raised himself off her and stood. In a self-conscious 
striptease, he pushed each shirt button through its opening,  
slipped off the shirt, parted the zipper around the thick ridge of 
his erection, slid the pants and boxers down, each move effected 
with such calculated care that she found herself shifting her hips 
in anticipation. 
 
"You're too beautiful," she said, her eyes roving his body and 
coming to rest on the erotic spectacle of his full arousal. 
 
"You do that to me," he told her. "You always have." 
 
"I want it." 
 
He fell forward and caught himself on his arms above her. "Not 
yet," he said, his lips at her ear. "You seem to feel I torture 
myself too much. You're right. I should be torturing you." 
 
The commanding sexuality of his voice and words made her 
heart beat faster and her exposed flesh quiver. 
 
He kissed her neck and sucked at the soft skin until she was sure 
he'd left a mark before moving his mouth to her breast. Instead 
of taking her nipple in as she'd expected, he licked it, first in long 
strokes with the flat of his tongue, then in tiny, quick touches, 
the very end of his tongue buffeting the hard tip. Her breath was 
coming in ragged gasps before he moved to the other breast, this 
time engulfing it with the pull of his whole mouth, sucking at it 
as though she could nurse him. 
 
"I need you in me," she said, barely finding the breath to speak. 
 
"No." 
 
He slid back up her and brought his lips down on hers with 
hungry force as he wrapped his hands around her breasts, 
pushing them together beneath him and rubbing his chest against 
her sensitized peaks. His tongue swept through her mouth again 
and again, his hips taking up the rhythm so that his hard penis 
slid along the soft skin of her belly, up and down in time with 
hands and mouth. 
 
"Oh God, Mulder. Please..." 
 
"No," he rasped into her mouth as his thumbs flicked across her 
nipples, taking up the rhythm. She felt herself approaching 
impossibly close to the edge from the sensations in her mouth 
and breasts and skin. 
 
And then the rhythm changed. His hands slid from her breasts, 
down her sides to her hips, and his mouth followed, moving 
down her neck, her chest, her belly. Her hands clenched against 
his back, fingernails digging and raking long, red ridges into his 
skin, until she couldn't reach his back any more because his head 
was too far away, between her legs, kissing the soft flesh of her 
inner thighs as her hands clutched convulsively at his hair. 
 
When he brought his mouth to her clitoris, there was no gentle 
preparation, no soft, tickling licks. He sucked it into his mouth 
and grazed his teeth along it, his hand coming up to push two 
fingers inside her. 
 
White light exploded behind her eyelids instantly. It was as 
though he was sucking the orgasm out of her, his mouth and 
hands touching not the organs of her sensation but the sensation 
itself. Through the wrenching intensity of it, she felt his 
insistence that, if she would know him, he would demand that 
she make herself known to him, stripped of all pretense and lying 
naked, defenseless and writhing beneath him. He was nothing if 
not demanding, not content to accept her invitation, but probing 
the length and breadth and width of it, of her willingness to 
admit him. 
 
And still he didn't stop. As the wave of her orgasm crested and 
subsided, he withdrew his fingers but not his mouth. Now he was 
licking her, pushing through soft folds to taste the cream of her 
desire for him, to feel the twitching of her cunt around the tip of 
his tongue in a way his cock was not sensitive enough to do. And 
when those tiny convulsions stopped, his tongue moved up to lap 
at her swollen clitoris, sweeping over it again and again like a 
cat cleaning itself thoroughly, patiently. 
 
"Mulder, please... now..." 
 
"No." 
 
With his hands, he pushed her legs farther apart to give him 
better access. As he had done with her nipple, he did with her 
clit, changing his stroke so that now only the curled end of his 
tongue flicked back and forth against the tip of her, so that every 
bit of her consciousness was focused on one tiny, intensely 
sensitive point on her body. 
 
He felt the muscles in her thighs grow taut and he knew another 
wave was approaching. Instantly, his mouth was around her, 
sucking and pulling, his finger inside her, pushing and probing, 
and this time she groaned with the pleasure and intensity of it, 
her fingers twined painfully in his hair, the soles of her feet 
pressing down so that her hips and buttock rose clear of the 
leather surface of the couch. 
 
Again, he didn't stop, and this time he didn't change anything, 
just stayed with her over the top, sucked at her as her hips sunk 
back down, moved his hand back and forth so his finger 
massaged the sensitive spot inside her. He felt her body 
quivering with the extended orgasm he knew she was having, 
and he reveled in the way he could feel her having it, the way he 
could give it to her to have and have and have. He heard her say 
his name, then say it again and again so that it became a steady 
chant, and then the pitch of it and the volume of it changed and 
rose, and finally, finally he felt her climb to a new peak, 
convulse with a new wave of pleasure, her body writhing so hard 
he could barely hold his mouth to her center. 
 
And she screamed his name. 
 
His mouth left the point of her sensation, and for a brief moment, 
her body went slack. He slid up the length of her, brought his 
cock to her twitching entrance and slid himself inside her. 
 
"I'm here," he gasped into her ear. "I'm here. Can you feel me?" 
 
"Yes..." 
 
She bucked so hard as he entered her that he had to wrap both 
arms tightly around her to hang on. Her flesh inside felt so alive 
around him, moving against the organ of his pleasure, clenching 
on it and heating it. He let himself stay a moment planted deep 
within before pulling out and plunging forward again. Her legs 
came up around his back and he did it again, uniting his living 
flesh with hers so that they throbbed together in one seamless, 
shared sensation. 
 
"Can you feel that, Scully? Can you feel me inside you?" He 
didn't know he'd spoken aloud until she answered. 
 
"Yes...." 
 
"I can feel you inside me, too," he grunted, pushing into her 
again and yet again. "All the time. Christ, you feel so good. How 
did you get there?" 
 
She answered with an inarticulate cry, and he felt her close 
completely around him, her cunt on his cock, her legs on his 
waist, her arms on his back, her heart on his soul, and the heat of 
her called to his own heat, drew it from him so forcefully that he 
felt it surge through the length of his body before streaming out 
of him and into her so that there was no mind and body, no him 
and her, but just this perfect, single, boundless moment. 
 
Ten minutes later -- not such a long time, but long enough to 
change everything -- wrapped in each other beneath an old, wool 
blanket, they slept. 
 
____________________________ 
 
The piece of paper hadn't been there when he'd left the office the 
previous evening. It lay perfectly centered on the black, leather 
surface of his desk. Skinner strode across the room and picked it 
up. 
 
After a quick glance, he took off his jacket and hung it in the 
closet before sitting down to read it again. 
 
"Federal Bureau of Investigation Form 1598/B-1997. 
Notification of permanent assignment. X-Files division." 
 
At the bottom were two signatures. 
 
Fox Mulder. 
 
Dana Scully. 
 
Skinner smiled. "It's about time." 
 
___________________________

END 8/8 -- Write me! parrotfish@ibm.net