TITLE: I'll Be Watching You
AUTHORS: Laadolf & Kestabrook
E-MAIL: Laadolf@aol.com OR Kestabrook@yahoo.com--we promise to share!!
DISTRIBUTION: Archive if you'd like.
SPOILERS: Through sixth season and after "The Unnatural."
RATING: R (violence and sexual situations)
CONTENT: M/A; S/A; MSR; M/T
CLASSIFICATION: X
SUMMARY: While a serial killer runs rampant and captivates the FBI's attention, 
Mulder must also deal with a secret admirer whose affections are  getting out of 
hand.
DISCLAIMER: The X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter and the whole X-Files' 
gang. The others are ours.
COMMENTS: This one's all for Nicola Pearce who gave us the ideas and title, and 
then let us run with them.
FEEDBACK: Oh yes, please. But only if helpful or positive.

I'll Be Watching You
by LAAdolf and Kestabrook

Moans and whimpers came from the table in the center of the deserted room. 
Cobwebs streamed from the ceiling, and dust covered the floor and wafted up into 
the sun's rays slipping between the wooden slats that boarded the window. The 
room was warm, heated by the Arizona July temperature, and only the sound of a 
breeze outside mingled with his noises.

The man lay strapped with canvas strips onto an old oak eating table, his legs 
from the knees down dangling off the edge. He'd been like this for days, though 
he wasn't sure exactly how long. Didn't matter. His captor had starved him, had 
constantly berated him, had taken pleasure in jolting him with a stun gun any 
time he made a sound. The rag tied around his mouth and head had long ago become 
sodden, and he yearned to take a breath through his lips again, to taste fresh 
air, to taste anything other than his own saliva.

Sheer terror clutched his every muscle now. The stun gun's last blast had been 
hours ago, and presently, all he felt was pain from his muscles cramping, from 
his back which had been stiffened and in the same position since he'd woken to 
find himself here. And how had that abduction happened?

He'd never seen it coming. Had walked straight into it--straight into his 
darkened home in Phoenix, finding the lights, the electricity off. Instead of 
being suspicious, he'd taken a flashlight into the garage to find the fuse box, 
and then, the stun gun had hit him. He'd fallen, only seeing a shadow above him, 
only being aware of someone dragging him to his own car, putting him into his 
own back seat and then driving away as if the captor owned his car. He'd 
listened to the sounds of the tires on blacktop changing some time later to 
tires on gravel and sand. He'd made noises, trying to ask the driver why? where 
they were going? what was to be done? But only a shrill laugh had come from the 
front seat, and he'd stopped his pathetic excuses for reasoning and questioning.

Hunger gripped his stomach, and dizziness plagued his head. He'd long ago messed 
himself, but the captor had again only laughed, bitched at him a bit more, and 
then sprayed him with water, as if to cleanse him.

And now he moaned in fright and agony, knowing full well that it would bring him 
more pain, yet unable to stop himself due to the terror he felt.

He was right. He heard it: the voice he'd come to know as that of his captor. 
Out in the other room, but now coming toward him slowly.

"Benny? Oh, Benny, what's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

He sobbed, whimpered. Not a wimp, Benny Jones, but made into a sniveling coward 
by this hooded abductor.

"Well, Benny, I think it's time to let you go."

He stirred at the thought. He almost smiled. He couldn't believe it would be 
possible, but maybe his hopes had been answered.

"Yes, I think we can put you out of your misery now."

He stopped hoping. His eyes became huge as he caught sight of the long machete 
the captor carried in two hands, pointed down. And the hooded monster stopped at 
the side of the table, looking down at the twitching man subdued by the ties. 

"Yes, you bastard. You're going to suffer now for what you've done to me. For 
what you've done to all of us." The machete was raised.

Benny's eyes widened even more as he saw the machete drop quickly toward his 
heart. He screamed into the gag and then cried out when the knife stopped inches 
above his chest.

The captor laughed loudly and long. "Ha!! See? You fool!! Cut out others' 
hearts, but then cry when you're about to lose your own? Too bad, sucker!!"

The machete raised again, getting the same results--and stopping once again. 
More whimpers from Benny; more laughs from the captor.

The machete raised a third time. Benny saw it hover above him, saw the captor 
hold it even longer than before. Maybe the plan had changed. Maybe Benny was 
just being horrifically teased. Maybe...

The machete plunged wickedly fast. The machete pierced Benny's skin and then 
penetrated his chest cavity. His screams echoed in the deserted, dank room for a 
few seconds before they, like Benny Jones, died.

The captor's laughs continued as the machete was pulled from the corpse, and 
then used to slice off Benny's right hand at the start of his forearm. 

The captor tossed the severed part into a Wal-Mart bag and then completed the 
package by putting that into a Priority Mail box and sealing it with the 
adhesive strip. The address--to the FBI's Phoenix field office--was already 
complete, and the captor would drop the package off in some postal box on the 
way out of Arizona. Only an hour till dark anyway.

The captor wiped off the machete, put it in the suitcase, grabbed the package, 
and left the house without a last look at what was left of Benny Jones.

X    X    X  

"Agent Mulder, this latest murder happened two months ago in a rural area within  
ninety minutes of Phoenix," Special Agent Franklin Bennet said at the small 
group meeting inside Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner's office at the Hoover 
Building in Washington DC. "The M.O. is the same as it's been for nearly the 
past year--the past twelve deaths on record. I'm not in the habit of begging, 
sir, nor is the Violent Crimes Unit, but we're clueless on this. And-- well--
your reputation precedes you."

Fox Mulder sat at the conference table beside his partner, Dana Scully. He 
smoothed down his navy-with-red-stripes tie and shot a grin at the man sitting 
across from him. "Oh yeah? Which reputation is that?"

Bennet returned the grin, making his twenty-six-year-old, African-American 
features look more like they were ten. "Well, I'll admit there are quite a few. 
But the one of which I'm speaking, though, is your profiling ability and your 
uncanny knack for sensing the why's and who's of so many crimes. I remember 
hearing about you at the Academy. Never thought I'd be working with Spooky 
Mulder myself."

*Spooky* fixed him with a stare and then turned to his partner. "It's not always 
a good thing. See what happened to Agent Scully? Working with me turned her hair 
red."

He was rewarded with a petite's snarl perceptible only to himself, but another 
grin escaped his lips. Then he turned back to Bennet. "So fill me in on all the 
other murders this killer has committed. I've read files about them, but I'd 
rather hear what you know."

Bennet seemed to sit up a bit straighter, proud to be acknowledged by the 
legendary man who'd spoken to him with such respect. "They started in Snohomish, 
Washington. Funny thing is the murdered come from all walks of life, small towns 
and cities alike. And only one murder per state so far. We've tracked him--the 
perp, that is--to South Point, Ohio, to Fillmore, New York, to Austin, Texas, to 
Owings Mills, Maryland, to Stratford, Connecticut. Even to Oldbury, Wyoming. 
Never find the victim till long after the murder--earliest was nine days after; 
the latest was this Benny Jones out of Phoenix. Didn't find him till a month 
after his hand arrived at the Field Office there."

Mulder's nose wrinkled. "Must have been a pleasant discovery."

Bennet agreed with a wince. "I was real sorry I missed that one."

"What about the victims?" Scully's voice came through the men's banter. "What do 
they have in common with each other?"

"Race, sex, and age. All were single, white males between 30 and 40. Other than 
that, we can't tell you. Some were electricians; some, stock brokers; some, 
policemen; and some, like our friend Benny, were factory workers. Nothing found 
that could link any of them."

"How about visits to bars?" Mulder suggested. "Grocery stores? Banks?"

The younger man considered these. "We didn't feel that was necessary given the 
wide range of areas and professions. You think those things are important, Agent 
Mulder?"

"Yeah, actually. They had to meet this killer somewhere, somehow."

"Unless we're dealing with a copycat," Scully said.

"Unlikely," Mulder argued pleasantly. "We would need to look for someone who 
moves frequently or whose work requires lots of travel."

"That could be us, Mulder."

"I swear I didn't do any of these, Scully. Did you?"

"Yeah, right. In my spare time."

"Agents, if we could get back to the matter at hand," Skinner interrupted.

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea." Fred Hewson, the Assistant Director in 
charge of the Violent Crimes Unit, spoke for the first time since the meeting 
had convened. Hewson was a large man in his fifties whose clothes reflected a 
complete lack of style and an attitude that hadn't changed since his younger 
years. He ran his hand over his slicked-back grey hair.

Mulder ignored him--the two had a history. Hewson never minded asking for 
Mulder's consult on a case, yet he also never outwardly showed an ounce of 
respect for the younger agent. "In all those murders and in almost a year, no 
one has ever found anything these men had in common?"

Bennet shook his head. "Weird, huh?"

"They didn't all--I don't know--bowl? Use the same products? Drive the same 
types of cars?"

"Maybe, sir. But none of that has been documented as common facts. The things 
you're looking for may be in these case files, but none of the field agents ever 
put such things together."

"Well, I guess that's where we start," Mulder said, looking at his partner 
again.

Scully sighed. "What evidence is common?"

"All the victims were killed by what seems to be a machete. Stabbed through the 
chest and then some body part is cut off, stuffed in a Wal-Mart bag, and sent to 
the local FBI field office without even so much as a note. All of the victims 
had been tied down for days--
evidence of starvation and dehydration. Gagged. And left in that same state 
after their deaths."

"Where are the murders performed?" Scully continued.

"Abandoned houses. We have found footprints--shoeprints. But they're always 
boots, but different types or soles."

"Size?"

"Medium."

"In a shoe?"

"Yeah. Those kinds that supposedly fit various sizes. This one would be a 
medium."

"So," Mulder mused, "our killer is about average height and weight?"

"Yeah, though most of the time, the floor has been so traversed that it's hard 
to lift one good print. And with boots of that size, it's proved difficult to 
get an accurate hypothesis as to what size the foot actually is."

"What other evidence is in the M.O.?" Skinner asked.

"Stun gun." Bennet rubbed at the back of his neck without realizing it. "There's 
evidence that some of these men have been shocked dozens of times. The killer 
must help keep them quiet that way--or less of a threat."

"Hair and tissue samples?" Scully asked.

"Not really. We figure either the perp is bald or else he wears something that 
keeps his hair in. We have picked up fibers of wool or nylon, but nothing 
conclusive. He's a real careful killer and a real pro."

Mulder pushed back from the table. "These all the case files?" He indicated a 
stack of bulging manilla file folders in the middle of the table.

"Yes, sir," Bennet replied.

Mulder stood and took the folders underneath his arm. "I need to have a look at 
these for myself."

"I assumed you would."

"Ready, Scully?"

She stood, too, and dropped her notebook into her briefcase. "Yes. Off to the 
basement."

"We'll call you, Agent Bennet," Mulder said, "when we've got some ideas."

The younger man nodded, but Hewson spoke loudly. "Well, why don't you tell us 
some theories right now, Mulder? You're the wunderkin of the FBI, aren't you? 
Let's hear some magic ideas."

Mulder looked at his boss who seemed rather peeved, but Skinner nodded anyway. 
"I think it's obvious that this killer is having fun with the FBI--proving to us 
that he can outsmart us. The mailing of the body parts alone shows us that. You 
might want to start looking for anyone who's been turned down for Quantico for 
starters. Or any agent who's been let go any time before a year ago. Gee, maybe 
even anyone who's been turned down at Wal-Mart while you're at it. And, I think 
you can narrow your search to anyone within the M.O.'s age group. Other than 
that, I can't tell you anything at the moment." He walked from the room with 
Scully following him and stopped outside the outer office. "Well, Scully? Your 
thoughts?"

"Other than that Hewson is a jerk?"

"You get that impression, do you?"

"Agents Mulder and Scully?" Bennet had hurried out behind them as well. When the 
two turned toward him, he smiled. "I just wanted to thank you--for your help. 
A.D. Hewson--well, he's not my favorite person, but I have to work for the man. 
But I have to tell you I'm honored to have met you both. I've heard a lot about 
both of you, and--"

"Careful with that hero worship, son," Mulder interrupted. "Scully's head begins 
to swell after she hears too much of it."

"Speak for yourself, Mulder." Scully held her hand out to Bennet and greeted his 
with a firm shake. "Agent Bennet, it's a pleasure to work with you. You 
presented very well in there. You know your work. Thanks for making our job a 
bit easier."

Bennet beamed. His smile became even broader as Mulder playfully cuffed him on 
the arm. "Yeah, good work, Franklin. Better be careful, though, or the 
Academy'll be giving you a nickname soon, too."

X     X    X

"I'm surprised, Mulder," Scully said as she trailed Mulder into the basement X-
Files office, "that *your* head fit through the the door just now."

"Yeah," Mulder responded as he rounded his desk, sat the folders on the corner 
of it, and flopped down in his chair. "With an attitude like Bennet's he's gonna 
be joining us down here as the FBI's most unwanted."

Mulder's gaze dropped from a playful regard of Scully to a small package that 
sat in the middle of his desk. He regarded it quizzically, then picked it up and 
tossed it in Scully's direction.

"Must be for you--from one of your many admirers, I don't doubt," he said 
leaning back in his chair and bracing his feet against the edge of his desk.

Scully plucked the missile deftly from the air and turned it over in her hand.  
"No, Mulder, there's a tag. It's for you." She tossed it back. 

Mulder caught the itinerant parcel in both of his hands, and once again regarded 
it with curiosity.  

"What do you suppose it is?" he muttered, probably to himself, but Scully could 
not resist the chance to needle him a bit.

"Only one way to know for sure, Mulder. Open it."

He fixed her with a pained look and an exaggerated pantomimed laugh.  

"If it explodes Scully, my death will be on *your* conscience."  

"C'mon, you know they scan parcels for explosives and contraband. It's not going 
to explode. *Open* it." Scully's curiosity was fully engaged, her blue-
green eyes sparkling with inquisitiveness.  

Mulder put both feet on the floor and leaned forward, cautiously removing the 
outer wrapping of the  package. He took more care than was strictly necessary in 
unwrapping the mysterious item; partly out of natural caution, and partly to 
goad Scully. She was standing on the opposite side of his desk, arms crossed in 
that impatient stance he knew so well.

Finally, a long, slender jewelry box emerged from the wrappings. Mulder laid it 
on his desktop and eyed it warily.  Grabbing a pencil from his desk drawer, he 
flipped the lid off, and peered into the box itself.  

Scully was, by this time, bending over the desk, angling for a better look at 
the box's contents.  

"Been sweet-talking the secretarial pool again, Mulder? Looks like one of the 
ladies blew half a year's salary on that."

Mulder held up the watch, which, while not a Rolex, was high on the current list 
of yuppie gotta-haves. He eyed the accessory as though it were some type of 
exotic insect. 

Scully, in the meantime, reached for a small card laying on the bottom of the 
jewelry box.

"'I'll be *watch*-ing you'," she read aloud, fixing Mulder with an arched 
eyebrow. "Well? Who is she?"

Mulder laid the timepiece down with a trace of distaste. "I haven't got a clue,  
Scully. This your idea of a joke?"

"Not on my salary, buster," Scully teased. 

"Well, if it isn't you, I couldn't tell you. Honestly," Mulder replied, brows 
drawn. 

"Maybe Diana's idea of a joke?" Scully offered, finding herself choking 
unexpectedly on the name of Mulder's old flame.            

"Not her style," Mulder responded, frowning distractedly. "This is...weird."

"You really have no idea of where it could have come from?" Scully persisted.

"I told you I don't." Mulder's voice was impatient. "Couldn't you try believing 
me once, for the novelty of it?"

"Maybe we should have the package dusted for fingerprints--I could take it down 
to  the lab," Scully offered, concerned at Mulder's obvious perplexity.

Mulder swept the box and its contents off his desk and into one of the desk 
drawers.

"Never mind," he said, his tone dismissive, "it's not that important. Let's get 
going on those files."

Scully arched an eyebrow at his reaction, but pulled up a chair and began the 
ritual of going over the case evidence with her partner.   

X    X    X

Scully closed the file folder she had been studying, finding her gaze drifting 
up to her partner. Mulder was still bent over the folder he had been perusing 
for some minutes, his reading glasses reflecting the page before him. The effect 
hooded his eyes, and his expression betrayed nothing but rapt attention to the 
information spread before him. 

The parcel that Mulder had received was 
weighing with unexpected heaviness on Scully's mind. So much so, that the whole 
affair was coming dangerously close to interfering with her processing of the 
case evidence before her.

Mulder had seemed genuinely puzzled over the source of the odd gift, yet the 
gift itself and the accompanying note indicated a spirited play on some private 
joke. If the sender was *not* Diana Fowley--and Mulder's dismissal of the 
possibility seemed sincere--then who *could* the mysterious gift-giver be?  
Surely Scully would know if her partner had been seeing anyone...and there had 
been no indications that he had recently been distracted by anything other than 
their current caseload. 

That, to Dana Scully's mind, was exactly as it should be.  

Not that Mulder could not attract attention from any red-blooded female with an 
ounce of estrogen in her system--
if he would ever put his mind to it. His physical attractiveness was a reality 
Dana Scully had been perfectly aware of from her first day with the X-Files. 
That, coupled with his natural charm and humor, made him a *very* desirable 
package.  

If only he wasn't so single-mindedly devoted to his work, he could have had any 
number of females beating down his apartment door. But that in itself was also 
part of Mulder's charm, however much it took a special kind of woman to see and 
appreciate that--*if* Scully had to say so herself. To too many others, he was 
simply too much work.

"Ready for another folder?"

Mulder's voice startled her from her musing. She belatedly realized just how far 
away her rather school-girlish  reverie about her partner had carried her. And 
now that same partner was looking at her in quizzical amusement. 

She fought down her embarrassment. This wasn't like her at all. She hoped she 
could avoid blushing, especially since Mulder often gave the impression that he 
actually *could* read thoughts.

"Yes," she replied coolly. "I am. Has anything jumped out of these at you?"

"Figuratively? Or literally?" Mulder asked. "Only a couple things so far. One: 
how random these killings have been--even for someone on the road as much as you 
and I are. Maybe someone with a job with extremely high mobility--truck driver? 
But the choice of victims is unusual--all men--and single at that. The sexual 
component is missing. There has never been any evidence of sexual assault."

"Indicating?" Scully asked, focusing her attention on what Mulder was saying and 
trying not to notice how uncommonly attractive he was when he was "on the 
scent," those green eyes blazing with an inner fire.

"That--and the method of killing--would indicate someone with inordinate 
strength. We cannot categorically assume that the killer is male."

"But most serial killers *are* male," Scully commented, brows drawn.

"Yes, but not all. And as a wise man once said, the female is deadlier than the 
male. When women do serial kill, they are far more efficient at it and have a 
higher per capita body count than their male counterparts. *And* they escape 
detection for longer periods."

"But this killer has been advertising the kills, sending body parts to the FBI 
for heaven's sake. That kind of ego usually--"

"--Is confined to the male of the species. True. And there isn't really enough 
evidence to make a strong case either way at this point. But I feel more 
confident than ever that I was right to tell Hewson to check for people turned 
down or let go by the FBI. I'd better make sure, though, that he doesn't look 
only at the male candidates."

"Being the *enlightened male* that he is, that would probably be an excellent 
idea," Scully agreed, allowing her voice to be tinged with sarcasm. 

"Why Scully, I'm detectng a certain bias against the VCU director," Mulder 
teased.  "Whatever could have caused that?"

Knowing full well that Mulder knew exactly where her animus for Hewson 
originated, Scully rolled her eyes and reached for another folder from the 
stack. 

"And Scully?" Mulder's voice most charmingly interrupted her intention to focus 
her full attention on the next case file. "If you continue to look at me the way 
you have been over those files, I'm not sure how much longer I will be able to 
contain myself." Mulder's hazel-green eyes were sparkling mischieveously.

Scully fixed him with a look guaranteed to wilt the hardiest perennial. "Drop 
dead, Mulder," was all she said. 

X     X     X 

Dany Scully walked around the corner of Fox Mulder's desk. Her partner had 
stepped out of the office, ostensibly to check in with Skinner and advise him to 
make sure that Hewson included all
Quantico rejects and wash-outs in his search. It would sound better wrapped in 
the inner-office diplomacy that Skinner excelled at, rather than how Mulder 
might have preferred to inform Hewson of his early conclusions. 

Scully reached for the desk drawer into which Mulder had earlier swept his 
mysterious gift. She stood, paused, her hand poised on the drawer handle. She 
really had no right to be invading his privacy. He would not thank her for it. 
But the odd keepsake would not loosen its grip on Scully's imagination.  

She opened the drawer cautiously, as though expecting the timepiece to leap out 
at her in some form of attack. But it lay, innocuously, amidst its wrappings at 
the bottom of the nearly empty desk drawer.

Taking a deep breath, she picked it up.

Her intention had been to take the gift to the FBI lab for a thorough analysis, 
but reflecting now, she decided that given the circumstances, she had better 
make other arrangements. The FBI lab would doubtless assume that Mulder was only 
having her deliver the parcel and would consequently make any results they came 
up with known to him directly. The FBI was nothing if not a bureaucracy. 

No, this called for subtler handling. 

The Lone Gunmen. The equipment they hoarded in their secure little sanctuary 
rivalled what the FBI lab could offer anyway. And she could trust them to report 
to her and her alone. With any luck at all, maybe she could even get it to them 
and back before Mulder missed the timepiece.

Scully palmed the watch and tucked it into her suitjacket pocket. She then 
pulled out her cell phone and dialed the Lone Gunmen's number. 

X     X     X

Melvin Frohike's head appeared around the corner of the heavily fortified door; 
seeing Dana Scully standing outside the lair of the Lone Gunmen, made his elfin 
face split with a huge grin, and he swung the door of many locks back and 
gestured her in.

"The beauteous Agent Scully!" he exclaimed. "You made good time!"

Scully rolled her eyes at Frohike's superlative greeting and stepped into the 
apartment, her hand on the parcel in her pocket, as though checking to make sure 
it had not mutated into something else during the drive over. The jewelry box 
and its wrappings felt as they always had.

"So, where's the merch?" Ringo Langly asked from across the room. Scully glanced 
over and nodded her head in his direction and that of John Fitzgerald Byers, who 
stood nearby. She withdrew her prize and handed it to Frohike who scurried over 
to pass it along to Byers who set to work examining the wrappings.

"So, what is it this time? Candy? Cufflinks?" Langly asked as he watched the 
exchange.

"'This time'?" Scully responded, startled. She had briefly but accurately 
explained the circumstances surrounding the item she needed analyzed--she was 
sure she hadn't mentioned any other gifts.

"Yeah, Mulder's been bringing us things for the last few weeks," Frohike 
replied. "Always in wrapping like that."

Scully looked at the trio owlishly. This wasn't the first gift he'd received 
from this unknown admirer? She tried to recover her equilibrium. "It's a watch--
high end."

Byers gave a whistle as he withdrew the watch from the box. "I'll say. Very 
nice," he commented. 

"Mulder didn't tell you about the other gifts, did he?" Frohike asked quietly as 
he walked back over to where Scully still stood, just inside the door.

"No," Scully said simply, her expression resigned. "And he acted today like this 
was new and mysterious."

"Well, it may not have been new, but all of this junk has been pretty 
mysterious. The only fingerprints we've ever been able to scare up were Mulder's 
and the FBI mail room personnel. The wrappings are nondescript; the tags, 
generic manufacture; the printing, computer generated, universal font type, 
laser printed. We haven't been able to get anything more than that on any of it. 
This watch is the most expensive thing yet, though, so maybe we *can* trace it."   
Langly, too, walked over to where Scully stood as he spoke.

"How long will you need?" Scully asked, her unease at this situation growing. 
Her instincts had been truer than she'd realized; already there was a pattern of 
unsettling intrigue in place, and Mulder obviously felt disturbed enough to have 
kept the prior items' existence from her.

Damn him.

"Hopefully we'll know something by tomorrow. We'll give you a call when we have 
anything. Or nothing--as the case may be," Byers announced from across the room, 
still bending over the parcel and its wrappings under an ultra-violet light. 

"I'd better get back, then. He's apt to be looking for that--I'd better go 
confess," Scully announced.

"And kick his ass?" Frohike ventured as Scully moved toward the door. He 
followed her so he could work the many security devices which adorned the 
entryway.

Scully paused and regarded the elfin Lone Gunman with a wry smile. "You'd better 
believe it," she stated. 

X     X     X

Mulder had returned to the office to find the terse note from Scully in the 
middle of his desk: *Had to run an errand; be back in an hour.* His curiosity 
aroused, he had immediately gone to his desk and checked the drawer into which 
he had swept the most recent example of his secret admirer's largess. The watch 
and its wrappings were, indeed, gone.

Mulder sighed heavily. When the strange items had first started arriving, they 
had been innocuous enough that it had not been hard to keep their existence from 
Scully. It had been his misfortune to have this particular item arrive when and 
how it did--and to have been the first item of real value to do so. He had been 
so relaxed today, basking in the playful mood that he and his partner had shared 
in the wake of the meeting with Bennet and Hewson, that seeing the parcel on his 
desk had taken him completely off guard. Now the proverbial cat was out of the 
bag. If his instincts were right--and when weren't they when it came to Scully?-
-his partner would have taken the watchh to the Lone Gunmen, just as he had all 
the other items before it. She should be arriving back any time now--probably 
knowing the full history behind the anonymous gifts, primed and ready for an 
argument. 

His prediction was remarkably accurate. Scully stalked into the office some 
fifteen minutes later, her expression one of extreme frustration.

"Mulder, why didn't you tell me the truth about that watch? Why did I have to 
find out that this is just the latest in a series--and from the Lone Gunmen no 
less?" she exploded as she came to stand in front of his desk. 

If he wasn't such a masochist, he might
have gone home sick for the rest of the day, but that wouldn't have done any 
good; she'd just follow him home, and the scene would have played out there. And 
his fish had been traumatized enough in the last few months.

And there was a case to be solved, after all.

Mulder leaned back in his chair, regard-
ing her as dispassionately as he was able. She was always glorious when she was 
in a temper, and this time was no exception. 

"Scully, I have to have a few secrets. It adds to my mystique," he replied.

"Mulder, this is *not* a joking matter. If you honestly don't know who could be 
sending these things to you, then you need to report this to internal security 
and take standard precautions." Her blue-
green eyes were pinning him to the wall behind his chair.

"And tell them what? That my friends Frohike, Byers, and Langly have run 
exhaustive tests on these gifts, to no avail? Admit that I violated FBI protocol 
by taking the items to an outside source for analysis? That I'm frightened of my 
own shadow? You're making more of this than there is. It's probably one of my 
old *buddies* from the VCU trying to show me up on this new case, to unnerve ol' 
Spooky. Wouldn't be the first time, and it won't be the last. If I ignore it, it 
will eventually go away." Mulder attempted to keep his voice level and calm. 
He'd had such a nice day with Scully, until the blasted parcel had come between 
them.

"You don't know that, Mulder!" Scully retorted. "What if this escalates into 
something more sinister? You might be being stalked!"

"Why Scully, I might almost believe you care if you keep on like this." Mulder 
flashed her his most practiced charming smile--the same one he used to use on 
his high school English teacher when he was late with an assignment.

But Scully wasn't his high school English teacher. Thank God.

"Are you going to report this, or shall I do it? I can go to Skinner right now,"
Scully threatened. 

Mulder was up on his feet and around the desk before she could move a foot. He 
reached out, gently restraining her.

"Scully," he said with a vehemence that he did not truly feel while standing 
that close to her, sensing the depth and genuineness of her worry. "I will 
report this to the proper people if and when I feel that there is sufficient 
threat to do so. Thank you for your concern, but I'll also thank you to keep out 
of my personal business."

With that pronouncement, Mulder forced himself to glare at her as convincingly 
as possible, and left the office in what he hoped appeared to be high dudgeon.

He could not risk a glance back, not if he hoped to keep up the charade. If he 
had, he might have been interested and touched to see that along with the shock 
that registered on her pale face, tears of hurt welled in her eyes. 

X     X     X

Once he left his office, Mulder wasn't sure where to go, having done so more for 
effect than for any specific purpose. He couldn't turn around and go back--not 
this quickly--he needed to leave Scully alone to think about what he had said to 
her. He hated himself for taking that particular way out of the situation, but 
he could not afford her concern right now--not when there was a case to be 
solved.  

As to the idea of being stalked, Mulder had considered the idea and dismissed 
it. His cloistered lifestyle made the very idea seem ridiculous--he was usually 
in the office before dawn and often worked long into the night--who was he going 
to see, let alone interact with in some way that would make him a target? Of 
course, his profiling experience told him stubbornly that none of that mattered-
-he could be chosen for a newspaper artticle--
a Jerry Springer mention. The barrista who served him the occasional expresso 
when he needed the caffeine jolt could decide some day that there was something 
romantic in the way he put her tip into the paper cup.

But he wasn't Brad Pitt--hell, he wasn't even David Letterman. Fundamentally, he 
was probably the least likely soul on the planet to be stalked by anyone, except 
--possibly--Cancer Man. And a designer  watch didn't seem to be Smokey's style 
either. 

No, it was someone pulling his leg, trying to make him look foolish. The timing 
of the outpouring of "love-gifts" and the invitation to join the current serial 
killer investigation was just too damn convenient for it to be anything but. 

The part of his mind that was working tirelessly and ceaselessly on that self- 
same case came up with an anomaly in the files he and Scully had just been 
studying, which gave him the perfect reason to be away from his office for a 
while longer. 

The VCU was normally headquartered at Quantico, but Franklin Bennet, at least, 
had been assigned some temporary office space in the Hoover Building, along with 
other members of the immediate task force. Mulder allowed his feet to carry him 
to where he knew the unit was set up.

Bennet was hard at work at his computer terminal when Mulder approached. The 
unit was set up bullpen fashion in an area which had previously been home to 
inactive files. At least they were above ground, and not consigned to the 
basement, a la his own office--though even this group didn't rate being next to 
any windows.  

Feeling an overwhelming need to twig Bennet for his curious--if rather 
gratifying--admiration for himself, Mulder decided to approach the eager young 
agent from behind and without announcing his presence. This was aided by the 
fact that most of the unit was currently away from their desks, and those who 
weren't were busy working phones or at their own computer terminals. 

"Yo! Franklin!" Mulder said after he came to a silent halt behind the junior 
agent's chair.

Franklin Bennet responded by jumping instinctively several inches from his seat, 
in what seemed to be genuine startlement. He swivelled in his chair, dark 
features expressing his complete surprise. 

"Agent Mulder?!" Bennet's face split in a grin of pure pleasure after the 
surprise faded.

"Gonna have to work on those nerves, son," Mulder commented. He glanced beyond 
the younger agent to the computer screen, his attention drawn to his own name 
appearing in the display.

Bennet followed his gaze and grinned sheepishly.

"Now I know why you're nervous--e-mail? To your girlfriend or your mom? No one 
else could possibly care that you had met me today," Mulder continued at 
Franklin's silence. 

"Uh--yeah. Busted! I was just telling my mom. She likes to know who I work with, 
and she just got herself a computer. If I 
don't e-mail her every day she lays a guilt trip on me."  

"I could come back if you want to finish," Mulder offered.

"No!" Bennet exclaimed, apparently shocked at the thought of his "hero" waiting 
on his personal e-mail. "I was just getting ready to send it when you came up. 
There..." Bennet hit the transmit button, and the e-mail jetted off on its 
digital way.

"I was noticing that the victim files don't contain any crime scene photos. Or 
autopsy photos. Was that an oversight?" Mulder asked, remembering the errand 
that had, ostensibly, brought him here.

Franklin shook his head. "No, I had hoped to have both to give you--I know how 
visually oriented you are. But we're dealing with as many jurisdictions with 
this case as we've got victims, and I've been running into a real snag trying to 
get the locals to cough up the goods. I've also asked them to scare up some 
candid shots of the victims, too, since what the UNSUB does to these poor guys 
doesn't leave the remains in much shape to be compared to each other."

"Good thinking, Bennet. We can't get a grip on the victimology involved here 
until we know everything these men had in common--economically, socially, and 
even physically. Sometimes something as simple as eye color can make someone a 
potential victim," Mulder mused thoughtfully. 

"If you have any suggestions for lighting a fire under these police departments, 
I'd love to hear it. I've been about ready to tear my hair out," Franklin 
replied, looking at Mulder expectantly.

The expression didn't go unnoticed by the object of Bennet's attention. Mulder 
smiled ruefully.

"The only idea I've got is unorthodox, and if I told you, it would probably get 
you canned. Let me see what I can do through some 'unofficial channels'. 
Meantime, why don't you let Hewson use one of those heavy fists of his for 
something worthwhile. Nothing quite like a request from the head of the VCU to 
get the local police moving sometimes. I use my A.D. like that all the time. He  
*loves* me for it," Mulder replied.

Bennet regarded Mulder with a sly smile that indicated to the agent that 
possibly, Franklin Bennet had heard a few of the more colorful stories that 
circulated in the Bureau about the sometimes rocky relationship Mulder had with 
Assistant Director Skinner. "I'll do it."

Mulder regarded the young agent, amazed as ever at how *very* young Franklin 
Bennet looked. "Bennett--how old are you, anyway? Twelve?"

Bennet laughed out loud. "No sir, I'm 26, I'll be 27 in a few months."

"God, *don't* call me 'sir'--I'll feel really ancient. How did you end up in the 
VCU at such a tender age?"

"Well, si-Agent Mulder, I was recruited out of college. I had a double major in 
criminology and psychology, and had written some papers that apparently got some 
attention in the profiling unit. I felt very fortunate to end up where I did as 
fast as I did."

"I'm sure fortune had very little to do with it, more like raw talent, I'd bet. 
I'd like to read some of those papers some day, Bennet, if you wouldn't mind."

Bennet's face lit up like a sunrise. "I'd love that! You're even a headliner in 
one of them, you know."

Mulder was taken aback. "Me?"

"Yeah, I used some of your work during your tenure in the profiling unit and did 
an analysis of your methods. I think that was one of the papers that got the 
most attention here at the Bureau."

"Ah, used me as the example to be avoided, did you?" Mulder replied archly.

"No, sir." Bennet forgot Mulder's admonishment in the heat of defense.  "Quite 
the opposite! And I've tried to base my methods on yours, whenever possible 
since I've been with the VCU."

Mulder shook his head, ruefully. "Franklin, Franklin. We have *got* to get you a 
life. You'll do better to follow your own special instincts and talents than 
anything of mine. Otherwise, all joking aside, you *will* end up in the basement 
with the rest of the the FBI's most unwanted and with an even less flattering 
nickname than I've got."

The expression on Bennet's face plainly revealed that the young agent thought 
there could be worse fates. Mulder was at a loss at how to deal with such 
blatant admiration. He wasn't used to it. Better to get back down to the 
basement and a dose of reality. Scully would cut his ego down to size in no time 
at all.

Mulder slapped Bennet on the shoulder encouragingly and made his farewells. The 
VCU had a new wunderkind in its midst now, and that pleased him to no end. Maybe 
this serial killer case would be the last with which he would ever be asked to 
be involved. For all his boyish looks and idol worshipping ways, Bennet seemed 
an agent of great potential. To be that young and idealistic again--but no. 
Mulder really didn't want to go back to that time in his life. All that meant 
was that there was still a disillusionment on the horizon to be tripped over 
when least expected. He could hope for Bennet's sake that his turn would be far 
in the future. 

Mulder exited the elevator and walked down the corridor to the X-Files office.  
He braced himself--for what he couldn't be sure--a renewed assault on his 
intractable insistence about reporting the various gifts to Skinner, or flying 
furniture? It didn't really matter which.

But entering the office, he realized regretfully that his ego would have to go 
unchecked for now.

Scully was gone.  

X     X     X

The night was black, and only the slight sliver of the neighbors' porch light 
slipped into the alley by his apartment's side door. Rod Allen was home from 
work at 1:30 a.m. And the neighbors' sixteen-
year-old son was still out playing. Rod envied the kid, remembering for a moment 
what it was like to have been carefree and undirected. What it was like to have 
been without worries about rent and car payments and grocery bills. His teen-age 
years had been some twenty years ago.

Rod searched his jeans pockets for his house key, and he mumbled obscenities at 
himself for never putting the key in the same pocket twice. His hands moved to 
his jacket pockets, even drawing them out to prove to himself that they were 
empty. Again, he smoothed his hands down over his hips, then over his waist, 
trying to see if the missing item had simply slipped by his detection. But no. 
He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair, putting it back from his 
forehead as he liked it best. Where the hell was that damn key?

He listened to the night's quiet, hearing the distant shoosh of traffic on the 
expressway a distance from him. Trenton, New Jersey, didn't sleep in the middle 
of the night. He shook his head, noticing the smell of the rotting garbage in 
the dumpster, and he wondered if the idiot sanitation crew was going to pick it 
up this week. He hoped so. The scurry of rats that usually greeted him when he 
got home from work was starting to bother him. Starting to get on his nerves. It 
could scare a guy, after all, in the dark when he was tired.

And he was tired. They'd started working at five that afternoon. And he'd done 
well. Several had complimented him on his ability. And though trying to appear 
modest, he'd soaked up the praise like a sponge. For once, he'd felt he was 
getting somewhere, that he actually might have a chance to become someone after 
whose talents were sought.

And then he remembered: he'd put tomorrow's schedule in his plaid shirt pocket--
and his house key with it. His hand sought out the area over his left breast. 

And then he heard it. A slight scrape on the pavement. He whirled around in 
anger and surprise--and felt the zap to his neck. He yelled out in pain as his 
body crumpled to the doorstep. His eyes wide open, he searched the blackness 
above him, powerless to do anything but lay there, waiting, gasping for breath 
that wouldn't come. A bright light suddenly flashed into his face, and he 
squinted against it. A hand gripped his hair, pulling his head so that whoever 
held him could see his face better. Rod felt terror flow through his deadened 
body as he realized that whoever had done this to him was not about to be 
friendly. And there was nothing he could do about it.

"Oh yes," said a muffled voice. "Oh yes, you'll do nicely."

Rod felt a handkerchief come over his nose and mouth, and he had no choice but 
to breathe in what he knew would either knock him out or kill him. He wanted to 
struggle, wanted to scream. But instead, he breathed and felt his consciousness 
leave him.

X     X     X

Dana Scully was *not* having a good morning. First, her alarm had malfunctioned 
and she had overslept--only by fifteen or so minutes, but the delay had thrown 
her entire routine off. Then, she had cut herself shaving her legs, in her haste 
to make up for lost time. The resulting gash on her shin required another trip 
to the closet, since the suit she had laid out the night before sported a skirt, 
and the huge bandage required to staunch the bleeding would not have enhanced 
her professional look. 

By the time she crawled into her car and fired it up, she was in significant 
pain, and was grumpy to boot. The latter had more to do with lack of sleep than 
any of the morning mishaps, however, and she knew exactly why.  

Scully still felt, by turns, stung by Mulder telling her to mind her own 
business, and guilt-stricken that she had interfered in the first place. She 
*knew* how closely he clung to his privacy--and that there were places even she 
dared not stray, even after everything they had been through together. She also 
knew how he operated when on a case--and though they had just been assigned as 
adjuncts to the serial killer task force--he was already in full operational 
mode. He would give little thought to anything outside the parameters of the 
problem before him--even ignoring his own personal safety. 

Which was why, although she did feel badly that she had breached the rules of 
their long running "game," she did not feel *entirely* unjustified in her 
concern regarding the string of mysterious gifts that her partner had been 
receiving. He was her partner, and part of her job, professionally and 
personally, was to keep him safe--just as he had always done without 
condescension 
for her. The quandary this presented had made for an unsettled afternoon and 
evening and a nearly sleepless night. She had even left the Hoover building 
yesterday without her usual trip by Mulder's office--to make sure he was going 
home and to bid him goodbye.

She had missed that part of their daily ritual...

Scully was halfway to the Hoover building when her phone chirped insistently 
from her suit jacket pocket. She fished it out one handed and activated it.

"Scully," she said, negotiating a turn. 

"Good morning, Agent Scully, and how are you this fine day?" the voice of the 
inimitable Melvin Frohike said with maddening cheerfulness. 

"You really don't want to know, Frohike," Scully replied, trying to keep her bad 
mood under control. None of this was Frohike's fault after all. 

"I'm probably not about to improve anything," he admitted. "Byers spent half the 
night going over Mulder's latest love-gift, but he found nothing remarkable 
about the box, its wrappings, or its contents."

"No luck tracing the watch itself, then?" Scully asked. She had been hoping.

"Nope. Because it isn't a limited edition or anything, the best we could come up 
with is that it was bought sometime in the last three months and somewhere on 
the eastern seaboard. But these things are so hot right now--that was all that 
Langly could come up with on that front."

"Thank you and Byers and Langly for the quick turn around on this; I appreciate 
it," Scully responded, disappointed at the results of the analysis, but somehow 
not surprised. 

"Hey, Mulder called us late yesterday about tracking down some photos--I don't 
know if its related to this gift business--but I imagine you want to be copied 
on that, just in case?" Frohike offered.

"What kind of photographs?" Scully asked, her curiosity piqued.  

"Subjects are all males, looking for driver's license photos or other I.D. type 
shots from at least a half dozen states."

"Umm...that must be related to the case we've just been assigned to. Yes, 
Frohike, I would like to have my own copies of anything you come up with on 
that, too," Scully said, musing to herself that she should be safe, since they 
*both* had been assigned to the serial killer case, and it had nothing to do 
with "the other matter."

"Will do," Frohike averred. "So, Scully, *did* you kick Mulder's ass?"

Scully frowned, remembering her vow as she had left the Lone Gunman's lair the 
day before. "No Frohike, he actually kicked *mine*," she responded ruefully. 

"I'll maul the earth with him!" Frohike exclaimed, his temper fully engaged in 
spite of his abiding respect and affection for her partner. 

"No, no need. He was right. I overstepped my bounds; I deserved it. It didn't 
hurt. Much," Scully soothed. "Thank you all again. I'll be in touch if anything 
else comes up."

Frohike bade her farewell, and Scully cut the connection. It was disappointing 
that nothing had turned up from the analysis, but Scully doubted that the watch 
would be the last token that Mulder received. And like it or not, she wasn't 
going to sit idly by and ignore what could conceivably be a growing threat to 
Mulder's health and welfare. 

X     X     X

"What the hell would anyone see in you?" The question lingered in Fox Mulder's 
mind as he stared at his mirrored reflection in the Hoover Building's basement 
men's room. Five o'clock shadow lined his cheeks and chin, and dark bags had 
formed beneath his eyes. His crumpled white shirt was open at the neck, his tie 
long since removed, and his hair stood on end in a few places where he'd run his 
hand back through it time and again during the night. 

He dipped his hands into the water he'd drawn into the sink basin, and used them 
to splash the liquid onto his face, trying to startle himself into a fuller 
awareness before Scully arrived. As he felt drops of water trickle down his face 
or down his bared wrists to where he'd rolled up his sleeves, he winced at the 
thought of seeing her. He hoped she wouldn't still hold a grudge from the day 
before, and he hoped he wouldn't either. The change in things between them 
lately, had put them both on a different edge, and though he didn't want to 
return to things as they'd been for six previous years, the new territory into 
which they were wandering made working together that much more difficult. 
Difficult...but not impossible--or unwelcome.

After he'd called the Lone Gunmen the night before, he'd forced himself to 
settle in in his office--to banish all thoughts of Scully's hurt and worry, to 
eradicate all concern and befuddlement due to the unwanted gifts--and he'd gone 
through the case files over and over. Without the necessary photographs, he 
could not manage to do a full job--to get into the victimology as he needed to 
do. And as he pulled paper towels from the dispenser to dry his face and hands, 
he entertained a hope that today those photos would come--to Franklin or to the 
Gunmen didn't matter. But they had to come.

Mulder did a last run of his hand through his hair, and then he tucked in a 
shirt tail that had eluded the waistband of his suitpants. He again caught his 
image in the mirror and again shook his head in doubt that any secret admirer of 
him could exist. He opened the men's room door and exited.

"Good morning."

The sound of her voice coming from the elevator behind him, stopped Mulder in 
his tracks. He turned, sheepishly, to watch her near him. As always, Scully 
looked fresh, energetic, and professional, and he could not detect even a hint 
of anger from her. But he remained wary. "How're you doing?"

"Fine, Mulder. And you?"

He shrugged, his hands shoving into the depths of his pants' pockets. "Could be 
better, but it costs more."

She paused, her mouth open to respond, but she closed it in a mild smile and 
gave a knowing nod. "Good to see you're your normal self."

"Hey, Scully, about yesterday..."

"What about it?" She met his gaze, and her own seemed to be telling him he 
didn't need to go further. Her eyes then wandered, taking in his rumpled 
appearance. "Stayed here all night, didn't you?"

Mulder knew he didn't need to answer. "We need photos, Scully. There weren't 
even autopsy photos."

"Is Bennet getting them?"

"Trying. I called the Gunmen, too. Thought maybe they could dig up some license 
photos, if nothing else."

"Unofficial channels?"

"Have you ever known me to use anything else--at least if I needed to find 
something?" He felt relief as she shook her head and started to walk toward the 
office. He felt relief that yesterday's mishandlings and inappropriate words 
were at least not at the surface. He felt relief that they weren't at each 
other's throats--that they were friends and partners again.

"So, Mulder. What did your all-nighter at the Hoover show you?"

He opened the office door for her and then followed her in. As she took her 
accustomed chair, he headed for his own and sat on its edge, elbows and forearms 
propped on the desk in front of him. "Well, I've definitely ruled out the notion 
of a copycat. The M.O. is the same in each case--it never waivers. Each victim 
has at least a dozen stun gun burns, usually at the base of the neck. Each 
autopsy or crime scene report has also mentioned chloroform. And the machete 
wounds are the exact size on each victim. Has to be the same killer."

"But the cutting off of body parts--why are the parts never consistent?"

"Those are just our killer's signature, Scully. Just his--or her--way of telling 
us it's the same person responsible."

"What's your theory about the body parts, Mulder? Why are they taken? Why 
certain ones?"

He picked up a pencil and idly rolled it between his hands. "Can't really be 
sure till I see the photos--"

"But--?"

"But I'm thinking that maybe it's either of two things."

"And the first is...?" Scully looked genuinely interested. She was leaning 
forward, waiting to hear his ideas.

"The first is that maybe it's just a last thought--maybe even a second thought--
sort of an 'oh yeah, I've got to send them something' type of reaction. In other 
words, I'm not certain that our killer really puts a great deal of thought into 
which part to sever. Now this is just if the killer is using the amputation as 
only a signature."

Scully's eyebrow arched. "You're contradicting yourself, Mulder. You said it was 
just a signature."

"I'm not so sure. The second theory is a bit out there; I'm not sure I want to 
go with it until I see some photos."

"What is it?" she wanted to know.

The hands flattened the pencil onto the desk blotter. "Why these random men in 
random states, Scully? We said yesterday that our killer has to have incredible 
mobility. And yet, twelve killings in nearly twelve months--not all that rapid a 
rate of murder if the killer is merely blood-thirsty. There's something this 
UNSUB is looking for. And when it's found, the prey is pounced upon."

"That tells me nothing about the body parts," Scully reminded him.

"Gettin' to it," he said, standing and walking toward the inner office, pacing 
as if in deep thought. "Suppose this killer's looking for a certain type of man. 
He's single, white, between thirty and forty--but that could fit a few million 
men, right? So the victims have to be of a certain build, complexion maybe--
maybe even of a certain facial type. Maybe even hair color. Eye color. Who 
knows? But if we take that much, then we have to see a pattern developing here."

"And the body parts...?" Scully was rubbing her leg, as if soothing it, when 
Mulder turned back toward her.

He distractedly watched her hand's movement for a moment, and then brought 
himself back into the present. "The body parts--well, what if they don't 
perfectly match the ideal this killer has? Maybe on Benny Jones the fingers 
weren't long enough--or the nails were too well-
manicured? Too much hair on the knuckles? Or what if the reverse is true--
certain parts of the victims *do* match the ideal? I don't know these things--
yet. I need the photos."

"Why only one hand, then, Mulder? Why not both?"

He fixed her with a disdainful look. "Geeze, Scully, talk about overkill."

Scully stopped rubbing the shaving cut and returned her hand to the other in her 
lap. "That really sounds out there, Mulder." She looked up at him, and tilted 
her head to the side. "But I've heard worse from you--worse theories that have 
proven true. You're right: we do need those photos."

Mulder checked his watch. "I wonder if Bennet is here yet. He should be."

"I'm sure he'll call you if he has anything. Why don't you go home and get 
cleaned up?" Scully's voice showed concern. "Maybe even grab a few Zs? Wouldn't 
be a bad idea."

"Maybe. I'd like to see him first, though."

"Mulder, how can I put this nicely?" she asked, trying to hide an embarrassed 
smile. "You remember that pine-scented thing you had ages ago?"

"You're saying I need some now?" His smile fleetingly registered. "I'll think 
about it, Scully."

"And grab some breakfast--"

A knock on the open door interrupted her, and a young man from the FBI mailroom 
stepped inside. "Sorry, Agents. Had a few bigger packages to deliver this 
morning, and figured I might as well bring this one, too." He stalked to the 
desk, put a small, rectangular, brown-paper wrapped package on it, and left. 

Mulder stared at it in silence, streaks of ice, like chilled spiders, creeping 
up his back. The label was too familiar--
exactly like the ones that had preceded it. Another unwanted gift, another 
interruption or distraction to the case, another slam into his and Scully's 
relationship lay before him. As his shoulders lowered in dejection, he realized 
that Scully was as silent, fear-
ful, and reluctant as he. "Shit," was all he said.

Slowly, Scully rose from her seat, her eyes never leaving the package, and stood 
over the desk, staring down at the anathema. Unconsciously, she pulled a pair of 
latex gloves from her suit jacket pocket and snapped them on. "Shall we?"

Mulder also donned latex, and he picked up the package, noting it was actually 
two packages taped together. Both seemed to give away their generalized 
contents. "You suppose this is the Wayne Newton cassette and concert tape I 
ordered?" he asked without mirth.

"Either that or the FBI's Greatest Parties tapes."

Mulder used scissors to separate the two packages, and then he cut away the 
wrapping on the smaller box.

"You want me to leave?" Scully asked quietly.

Mulder paused, remembering his words to her the day before as well as his 
sadness when he'd found her gone from the office when he'd returned from talking 
to Bennet. He detested opening this package in front of her--of leading her 
deeper into what he still believed was some fool's jokes, but there was no 
hiding these gifts from her anymore. She'd seen it and them, and her outstanding 
investigator's mind would keep her working on them and their sender no matter 
how much he tried to keep them as his business. No. He supposed that to allow 
her to see this would save him some grief later on, too. "No," he finally 
replied. "Stay."

His fingers finally ripped through the brown-paper and stopped as they felt the 
cool plastic of an audio cassette case. "Memorex," he observed, seeing the 60-
minute tape inside its packaging. "Gee, wanna play it?"

Scully took it from him, and fed it into the cassette player on one of Mulder's 
many cluttered shelves. No sound but the player's wheels came at first, and then 
the strains of the Police's "Every Breath You Take" became evident. She looked 
in fear at her partner, who now stared at the other box.

Mulder heard the words: "Every breath you take/Every move you make/Every bond 
you break/Every step you take/I'll be watching you..." He sought the solace of 
his office chair as the song continued. If this was someone's joke, it had gone 
far enough. He was tired of it. Of the haunting distraction it brought him. When 
it had started several weeks ago, he'd been angered by the game but not so much 
that he couldn't work. But though he'd driven himself the night before to stay 
at the case files, his mind had still wandered to the gifts. The game. The 
threat.

"Oh, can't you see?/You belong to me/How my poor heart aches/with every step you 
take..."

He looked at his partner to find her face creased with worry--maybe even fear. 
"Turn it off," he instructed. "Please, Scully." He noticed she seemed surprised, 
but she did as asked. The quiet that flooded the room was eerie and thick. He 
tried to break through it. "We'll take it to the lab or to the Gunmen later. 
Maybe they can pick up some other, distinguishing sounds around the song."

"What if there's more on the tape?" Scully wanted to know.

"We'll hear it later. Let's see what other lovely gift my admirer sent." Without 
joy, he tore through the wrapping and felt what he'd assumed he'd find: a video 
tape. As the brown-paper fell away, though, he also noticed a card taped over 
the front of the video's jacket. "Hey, maybe we're gonna get lucky this time," 
he said, holding the gift at an angle so Scully could see the enveloped card.

"Really lucky," she replied, turning his hands so that Mulder could see her view 
of the back of the video. "At least it's finally something you can use."

His slight enlarging of his eyes was the only reaction Mulder gave to seeing the 
small porn photos on the back of the tape. He turned the item over, reading the 
"Eyes For You" title on the jacket. It was an actual prerecorded tape; that much 
was obvious. He peeled away the envelope, setting the video on his desk, without 
another thought. He gently tore the top of envelope open and removed the card--
which was merely a piece of copier paper folded in half. Glued onto the front 
was a cut-out of a fox. The hand-printed caption said, "Since you've been gone 
I've been lost without a trace." Sting's song again. Mulder opened the homemade 
missive and read, "Almost our anniversary, darling. I'll be watching you--in 
person--that night." He started to flip the card to his partner but saw that she 
was already engaged in checking out the video's front cover. But rather than 
amusement, her face registered deep fear and dread. He leaned on his desk to see 
the jacket more from her angle. 

Two unclad lovers were on the video's cover, obviously enjoying each other's 
*company*. The stunning detail, however, was that a trimmed photo had been 
placed over "Steel Rod's" face. The photo was a candid one of Mulder. 

He took the gift from Scully and brought it closer to his eyes. The photo was 
one he'd never seen before, one he'd been unaware of anyone taking. The lack of 
true definition in it made obvious the fact that it had been taken with a 
telephoto lens, but from how far away only experts could tell.

"At least Juicy Tidbits is a great 
looking gal." Scully's attempt at humor fell flat as the quiver in her voice 
became blatant. 

"Juicy Tidbits and Steel Rod." Mulder read the package mainly because he didn't 
know what else to say. Bad enough to have this sort of thing happening, but now 
to find that he was being staked out, photographed--a sick feeling started to 
form in the pit of his stomach. "You know, Scully, I think that idea of yours is 
a good one. I'm gonna go home and shower, change clothes. Get somethin' to eat. 
I'll be back in a while." He started from the office.

"Mulder? You want your coat and tie?"

He shook his head and came back to retrieve the items. "Thanks."

"What do--what do I do with these?" Scully asked--almost whispered.

Mulder shrugged. "Just leave 'em for now. We'll decide when I come back."

Scully covered the video with the torn wrappings. "Okay. I'll head up and talk 
to Bennet--see if he's got photos yet."

Her partner nodded absently. "See you in a bit."

"Right."

"And Scully? Don't play that video. I don't want you getting corrupted." He 
tried to flash her a reassuring smile, but it didn't make either of them feel 
any better.

X     X    X

Mulder tried to slow his pace as he moved toward his car. This couldn't be him--
couldn't be happening to him. He felt nervous--no, paranoid. And though that 
wasn't unusual for him, it was different in that for a rare occasion, he felt 
the paranoia for his own safety instead of toward the government, the FBI brass, 
or Smokey and his crew. He felt eyes on him even though the parking garage was 
void of humans--as far as he could tell. Sting's voice and words kept playing in 
his head, and the photo on the video cover remained in his mind's eye. And once 
inside his car, he felt no better. 

The drive to Alexandria seemed to take longer than usual as he headed home. He 
watched occasionally from the rearview, checking to see if he was being 
followed. But he found nothing to reinforce that idea. At each red light, his 
gaze swept the intersection and sidewalks, the passersby. And after he parked 
near his own building, he stood outside the car for a moment, glancing in every 
direction, trying to see photographers at windows or suspicious people peering 
at him from where they stood. Once he gave up such a notion, he moved into his 
building and felt relief flood him when he was the only person to ride the 
elevator.

By the time he reached the fourth floor, he'd nearly gotten ahold of his rampant 
paranoia. How silly he was allowing himself to be. Fox Mulder was not one to 
show emotions easily, and he would not be one to let some stupid albeit 
senseless prank to better him. As he opened the door of his apartment, he 
swallowed the fears that had raged in him since he'd seen the photograph on the 
video. And straightening his shoulders, he stepped into his home. 

He peeled off his suitcoat and tie--
surprised that he'd put them on; he didn't remember doing so. He tossed them on 
the table, listening without care as they slid off. He was tired. Too tired. 
That was the problem. None of this would have gotten to him if he'd had rest. He 
unbuttoned his shirt far enough so that he could pull it off over his head, and 
he let that drop to the floor, too. In the living room, he sat on his couch and 
tore off his socks and T-shirt. He propped his elbows on his knees and rubbed 
his aching, bloodshot eyes, then let his fingers pause there, covering them.

Something wasn't right. He could feel it. No sounds were different. The room had 
looked normal. But something troubled him here.

Reluctantly, he pulled his fingers from his face and allowed his gaze to wander 
over the living room. 

He rose and cautiously moved about the area, going into his dining room, his 
kitchen, his bathroom. He opened closets, the fridge, cupboards. And as he came 
back to check his fish, he noticed the bedroom door was slightly ajar. He'd not 
left it like that, he knew. 

Mulder drew his weapon and slowly, quietly approached the door. He stood outside 
the bedroom, doing his best to peep through the crevice between it and the 
casing, but he could see no one. He edged closer and pushed the door slightly. 
Still no one. Finally, he nudged the door till it opened completely, and he 
assumed the normal stance, his weapon pointed should anyone jump out at him. 

But no one did. Nothing moved. Nothing had changed.

Except one thing.

Mulder spied another envelope in the middle of his bed. Again, revulsion and icy 
spider legs crept through his body. Continuing to check to the sides of him, he 
went to the mattress, and without gloves, he picked up the offending object. 
Ripping it open, he pulled out another "card." Like the other, this, too, had a 
fox on the front. Inside, it read, "Agent Scully is holding you back. You must 
get rid of her. Or I will. And I'll be watching you."

Mulder sank to the bed, the card clutched before him, his need for a shower 
suddenly forgotten.

X     X     X

"So Agent Bennet, do you have anything new for us today?" Scully found the young 
man huddled over his computer keyboard, quickly typing with adept fingers.

He stopped, turning around fast to meet his guest. "Agent Scully! You're just 
like your partner--you want to scare me white, don't you?"

Scully shook her head, her smile coming despite the horror she felt inside. "I 
would never want such a thing, Bennet. Nor would Mulder."

"I know," came the reply. "It was an expression that got me plenty of laughs at 
the Academy."

"I can believe that." Scully pulled a chair from a currently empty desk beside 
Bennet's and sat down across from her fellow agent. "I'm hoping you have some 
photographs for me this morning, or at least a promise of such."

"I talked to A.D. Hewson last night, and he promised he'd get on that ASAP. But 
I haven't heard anything this morning yet. Geeze, Agent, it's only 7:45--we're 
not even working yet, are we?"

Scully nodded toward the computer. "Seemed like you were."

"Oh that. Another letter. To my mom. We e-mail all the time. I kind of wanted to 
talk to her early this morning. I figured it would be a busy day."

"Well, while I can understand that, I think maybe this case should take priority 
here." She chided herself for her words. Maybe they were a direct result of the 
packages she'd just seen her Mulder open, from the frustration of knowing he was 
in danger--of *feeling* it--and realizing that now even he felt a bit unbalanced 
because of it. 

"I'm sorry, Agent. It won't happen again on company time, I promise you." 
Bennet's big eyes were shamed.

Scully shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. None of my business what you're doing in 
your own time. I'm just a little--
unnerved this morning." She stood and returned the chair to its proper place.

"No, it's my fault. You're right."

"No, Franklin," she said, using his first name to reassure him when she felt no 
reassurance herself, "Me. My problem. Go write your letter till 8:00. And then 
find us some pictures."

Bennet stood, towering over her. "Agent Scully, is there something I can help 
you with? You seem upset."

Scully nervously put a strand of hair behind her ear before meeting his eyes. 
"No, thanks. I've had a bitch of a morning, that's all. Don't worry, Bennet. But 
photos--do worry about them."

She felt his eyes on her as she left the room, and she felt the weight of the 
morning heavily on her shoulders.

X     X    X

Mulder didn't know how long he'd sat on his bed, reading and re-reading the note 
his stalker had left him. Yes, now he was sure a stalker was watching him--no 
one else would have taken the pains to have broken into his apartment to leave 
the message. And no one else would have brought Scully into the situation. 
Before when his VCU "friends" had tried to get to him, it had always been at the 
Hoover Building and had only concerned himself. He'd never let Scully in on what 
they were doing, and Scully had never been included in their games. But the 
tapes and now this message on his bed made the picture a bit more clear, and he 
knew there was danger for real, now.

He hated what this meant for him and for his partner. He hated any threat to 
Scully--it repulsed him; it brought severe dread and acute watchfulness for her 
out of him. And he wanted badly to simply protect her, no matter what 
consequences came to him for it. But the stalker, in addition to the case he'd 
been asked to consult on--well, there were too many things distracting him from 
his wariness for Scully. Too many things that might keep him from helping her. 
But for now, he knew she was safe. Nothing too evil could happen to her in the 
Hoover; he was sure of that. Not even Smokey would try to harm her there.

He wondered about his stalker--who it was and why he was her target...he assumed 
it was a "her." What had she meant by "anniversary"? Just where or when had he 
met her--or even seen her--or been seen by her before? And how long ago? Just 
one year? Two? Five? For all he knew, she could have taken Padgett's apartment 
after the young author had died. There was a woman living there now, and he'd 
paid no attention to who she was or why she'd moved to this building. Had 
another threat to his partnership moved in, catching him, again, completely 
unaware?

He cringed once more at the memory of Padgett, particularly of Scully lying 
motionless, perhaps dead, on his own floor after being attacked by the Stranger. 
After being attacked when Mulder had so stupidly run out after Padgett, leaving 
Scully behind. She'd been going to come after him, and he'd merely assumed she 
would, but instead, he'd left her alone--and the Stranger had taken advantage of 
that. In fact, the Stranger and Padgett had so well-
manipulated Mulder, that he'd fallen right into their trap, leaving Scully 
unprotected. He couldn't afford to do that now, nor could he leave Franklin 
alone to work the serial killer case without consult. Mulder shook his head at 
the burdens now upon him and at the risks involved if he fell into any traps or 
neglected any threat, clue, or duty until either or both cases were closed.

But for now, he needed to check his own apartment--was it bugged? Being video-
taped again? Just how far would this stalker go to get photos of or information 
on him? Or Scully? He slowly got to his feet, letting the card drop to the bed 
behind him, and he set about checking all furniture, frames, ceiling, and phones 
for possible evidence of tampering or of surveillance devices.

X     X    X

Scully returned to the basement office, closing the door behind her and stopping 
just before her chair. In fact, she let her hands rest on its back as her eyes 
took in the essence of Mulder--the disheveled shelves, the random postings of 
clippings, photos, newsprint, and mugshots on the walls, another "I Want To 
Believe" poster which had been returned to a place of honor since the fire and 
since its sending from the recent case they'd worked.

This new threat to her partner worried her more, strangely, than did any serial 
killer. The latter, actually, took a back seat in her mind at this point, and 
she knew that for the FBI that wasn't good, yet putting Mulder's current problem 
behind her was nearly impossible. Was it only because she realized now--for 
certain--that she loved him? Or was it really because the threat was so huge 
that she couldn't overcome its formidability? Or was it a mixture of the two?

She sighed heavily, rubbing the back of the chair idly, and missing seeing 
Mulder no matter what his present psychological condition. He had looked truly 
bothered when he'd left--and showing emotion wasn't something he did often. But 
this admirer had hit home with him with her sending of the tapes, and it didn't 
take much for Scully to realize why. This stalker had gotten close enough to her 
partner to photograph him, and most likely, that hadn't happened on one 
occasion. Also, the tape that promised to be watching him was obviously true. To 
any person, such things were threats, but to an FBI agent, supposedly trained to 
always be aware--to be wary--finding that he'd been surveilled without realizing 
it was a bad revelation.

Scully pushed hair on both sides of her face behind her ears. After putting in a 
call to the Records Department for Mulder's whereabouts for April and May of the 
last five years, she pulled her latex gloves back on, and then she moved to the 
desk, carefully picking up the video and removing it from its jacket. On her way 
to the TV/VCR, she hit the "play" button of the cassette player and let Sting 
and the Police flood the room again--she shook her head slightly as she thought 
about the irony of the Police singing a song that now threatened an FBI agent. 
Then she put the video in and readied the equipment. Mulder had enough to worry 
about. She'd listen to Sting's tape to see what other information she might get 
from it, and watch "Eyes For You" in case the stalker was sending more clues 
through it. And after a morning of pop music and pornographic viewing, she was 
sure she'd be ready to face anything. She pushed "play" on the VCR and sat back, 
waiting for her education to begin.

X     X    X

Mulder stepped on the accelerator and forwarded his car across the intersection. 
The search of his apartment had turned up nothing, but had, instead, left him 
with yet another clean-up job that had taken longer than his actions of  
overturning furniture and taking shades from their lamps or wall plates from 
their sockets. From experience, he'd learned, though, that it was better to 
return the room to its normal condition just after the search than to wait till 
he'd come home again and been faced with the massive job. But when he'd 
finished, along with the gloom already plaguing him, frustration had filtered 
into his mind, and he'd felt an overwhelming need to get out, to leave his 
invaded home, and to work off the tension which had been building since the day 
before.

He felt as if a massive maple tree had fallen on him and pinned him beneath its 
horrendous weight. So many times he'd heard victims' cries of "Why me?" or "How 
could this happen to me?" He'd known similar thoughts when his sister had 
disappeared or even on other occasions, but for once, he was haunted by those 
same thoughts himself--but at an even more heightened level. It was as if a dark 
spot had entered his soul and was, even now, growing and devouring any light in 
his life. This was not something Fox Mulder normally allowed to happen, but try 
as he did to fight it, the darkness seemed all-encompassing, and he no longer 
felt able to hold it back.

As he slowed for another light, he heard the ring of his cell phone, and, hoping 
that Scully was at the other end of the line, he grabbed the phone and readied 
it for conversation. Maybe just to hear her voice would return him to normalcy, 
or bring him close enough to it that he could handle things more competently.

"Mulder? It's me."

The sweet sound in his ear. "Scully? Hey, how're you doing?"

"How are *you*, Mulder? I think that's the better question, isn't it?"

"I'm okay," he lied. 

"You've been gone for hours. I just thought I'd call to see if...well, if you 
were all right."

He allowed a brief smile. He had to have known she'd be thinking of him, yet he 
didn't like having caused her worry. "I'm fine. Thanks, though. I--I--fell 
asleep."

"That's good. You needed to rest." There was a pause, and then Scully resumed, 
"Where are you? It sounds as if you're in the car."

"Yeah, I am."

"Are you being followed?"

He re-checked the rearview mirror for the millionth time. "No, not that I can 
detect." But then, he'd not detected the stalker soon enough either. Maybe she 
was photographing him at the moment. His gaze took a quick sweep around him.

"Well, don't stop looking," she warned. "Are you coming back to the office now?"

Mulder moved the vehicle through the green light. "Actually...no. Scully, I need 
a few more minutes. I'm going to the track; I'd like to run for a while." 

"Going to *the* track?"

"Yeah." Mulder's mind already pictured the dirt track that now belonged to the 
D.C. Police Athletic League. It had once been owned by a public high school but 
had been lost when consolidation efforts had closed the campus. The DCPAL had 
bought the facilities for training, Children's Olympics, and other athletic 
functions, and Mulder had long ago secured permission from a D.C. cop-friend for 
himself and Scully to visit it whenever they wanted. He knew the track would be 
empty at this time of day. And to run out his tensions would bring some welcome 
relief. "Okay? Or do you need me back there now?"

"No, go ahead. Everything seems to be at a standstill. For some reason, no one 
can yet get photographs. No reports seem to be coming through. I've never seen 
such things take this long."

Mulder didn't think the delays were all that unusual; he realized, though, that 
his partner felt the same sense of heightened worry that he did. "They'll come 
in by this afternoon or tomorrow, Scully. I'll be back there around 1:00, okay?"

"Hey, Mulder--just thought I'd tell you: I listened to that whole cassette tape. 
All this stalk--person did was record the song over and over and over. I used to 
like Sting--I'm having doubts now. 'Every Breath You Take' heard 100 times in a 
row tends to do that to people, I guess."

He smiled again. Hearing Scully had raised his mood, and knowing that she'd done 
this for him made a bit of the blackness fade. "Thanks, Scully. You really 
sacrificed for me." He heard her give a nervous laugh. "Maybe if you play the 
tape backwards, it'll say 'Paul is dead'."

"Well, we can try that later. I want you to know, though, that that's not all I 
did for you, Mulder. I also watched that damn porn video."

Now an actual grin broke through Mulder's stoic expression. "You? Scully, I told 
you it would be corrupting." His mind flashed images of her face as she may have 
reacted to the scenes the tape had probably shown, and he tried to stop a laugh. 
"Did you get any good pointers? A refresher course, maybe?"

"As if I needed one," came her sarcastic reply. "Actually, I never knew that so 
much could be done in so many different ways. A real eye-opener, that film."

"I'm impressed that you got to the end of it."

"It was a great moment when I did, believe me."

"I think you should get a medal or something." He waited as she laughed again, 
and then he asked, more seriously, "Was there anything on it--any clues?"

"Not that I could see, really. Just lots and lots of down and dirty sex. But--
one thing--"

"Yeah?"

"Mulder, I suppose it could be my imagination, but I think this Steel Rod--the 
*actor* if you can call what he did, 'acting'--well, he resembled you."

"Yeah? Which part of him?"

Scully's reply took a few seconds. "His face, of course. What else would you 
think?"

"Well, you have seen me naked before..."

"Mulder, this guy is a porn star--"

"So?"

She sighed as if losing patience. "In your dreams, Mulder."

Again, he smiled, almost wishing he was going back to the office now just to see 
her. The darkness was still there, but it had been eclipsed by her vocal 
presence.
"How about--what was her name--Juicy--?"

"Tidbits."

He snickered. "Yeah, Juicy Tidbits. Do you think that maybe she's supposed to 
look like this stalker?"

"Only if the stalker is a blond bimbo with really big--tidbits."

"Well, I guess I can hope," he replied, wishing the amusement could overpower 
the rest of his black mood. But there wasn't time; he was nearing his 
destination. "Hey, Scully, look, I'll see you later, okay? And thanks for 
putting yourself out for me--don't take that the wrong way."

"It was my--I didn't mind doing that for you. Be careful, Mulder."

As the phone conversation ended, Mulder continued in traffic. For a few moments, 
he allowed the warmth of Scully's phone presence to comfort him, but issues were 
pressing. And the idea of a look-alike on a porn movie video entered his mind 
and wouldn't leave.

X     X     X

The day shone brightly as she exited the cab, paid the fare, and stepped slowly 
toward the set of bleachers which stood fifteen rows tall and ran parallel to 
the track. It seemed strange to find the early spring day so warm, yet it was 
not that much of a surprise. The cherry blossoms cheerfully exhibited their 
faces, and the green grass seemed a luxurious carpet. Birds chirped, nearly 
drowning out the sounds of the traffic she'd left behind her, and she could 
nearly block the real world from her mind as she came from behind the stands, 
waiting, hidden still, at their corner. 

He was there, of course. She'd seen his car, and now her eyes focused on him. 
His back toward her as he headed toward the farther curve, she could see he wore 
black sweatpants and a white T-shirt, and his strides seemed effortless and 
choreographed. She loved to watch him run, to watch him move. Fox Mulder's speed 
and agility could still rival any seventeen-year-old high school track star's, 
but he also had a fluid grace about him that few other runners she'd ever seen 
could equal. Watching him on this warm day could have been pure pleasure if 
other things weren't pending. But she enjoyed it while she could, and as he 
entered that upper turn, she started to climb up a few rows of the bleachers, 
packages in hand, until she found the level she preferred.

Careful to avoid the white splots left by birds, she sat and placed her parcels 
by her feet. Mulder was already on the way toward her, but he'd not seen her 
yet. She watched his face as he neared, and then felt joy as his eyes finally 
glanced her presence and squinted to be certain of what he saw. And his pace 
slowed, coming to a walk by the time he was in front of her. His hands went to 
his hips, then to his knees as he bent to stretch muscles and to help restore 
natural breathing. As he stood again, the hands returned to the hips, and he 
stared up at her.

"Scully, you didn't need to come."

She smiled, noting how worn he looked, the black half-circles beneath his eyes 
seeming no better for the nap he'd supposedly taken. Sweat droplets ran down his 
face, his hair was hopelessly mussed, and he'd still not shaved. But more than 
that, worry lined the countenance of her partner, and such a display did not 
coincide with the Mulder she knew. Scully wished, at this time, that she could 
have a few moments alone with his stalker--
that woman would never stalk anyone again if such a meeting could be arranged.

She saw her partner cock his head, and she finally answered, "I'll be honest 
with you, Mulder. I was sick of being in that basement office all alone. I 
needed some lunch, and I thought you might, too." She bent to lift the two 
parcels she'd brought with her from the cab.

His face seemed to brighten. "Burger King? Please say that one's for me."

"You got it," she replied. "You don't think I'd eat it, do you? Mine's from 
home. Yogurt, a banana--"

"No, please don't say anymore. You don't want to ruin my appetite, do you?" He 
walked to his gym bag which sat on the lowest bleacher, grabbed a white towel, 
and mopped his face with it. He then hung it around his neck and started up the 
bleachers to join her. "Nice day, huh?"

She noticed the flatness with which he said the words and nodded in agreement. 
How often had she thought about the incongruity of nice weather and tragedies 
happening within it? And now to be so involved in two ongoing tragedies... She 
handed him his bag and opened her own.

Mulder sat next to her on the bench, so close that as he moved to set a can of 
Diet Coke that she'd included in the bag on the seat in front of them, his leg 
brushed hers and stayed against it. As she winced, he looked at her. "Scully? 
Did I hurt you?"

She slid her hand between their legs and rubbed her own. "No, you didn't. I did. 
But it's all right. Just a bit of a sting."

His eyes showed worry. "What happened?"

"Mulder, I don't really want to talk about it." As she said this, she realized 
it didn't sound the way she had meant it. His face showed more concern. "No, 
nothing bad--just embarrassing."

Now a half-smile lifted the left corner of his lips. "You really got into that 
video, huh?"

Playfully, she cuffed his leg. "Don't get your hopes up. If you must know the 
truth, I cut myself while shaving this morning." She felt herself blushing even 
as she confessed.

He took a bit of burger as his gaze searched her face to be sure she wasn't 
lying. When satisfied she wasn't, he stored burger in his right cheek, and said, 
"Now I know why you sometimes wear slacks to work. From now on, when you come in 
in slacks, I'll say, 'missed again, eh?'"

"You do, and you'll be needing a band-
aid, too."

"Ah, the promises you make." He bit into the burger again. "Good stuff, Scully. 
Thanks."

"No problem." She reached up and wiped a bit of mayo from his cheek with her 
napkin. "I figured you hadn't eaten."

"Haven't done much of anything. Figured I'd shower and shave here...but I'm not 
so sure about the shaving now."

"Want me to help?"

He recoiled in mock horror. "No--stay away from me if you have razor blades in 
your hands. I don't need to be cut, I promise you. Especially by the woman who 
does autopsies--at least not yet."

Scully spooned some yogurt into her mouth and let her taste buds savor it. She 
knew Mulder meant the last bit as a joke, but it hit too close to her own 
worries. Stalkers weren't joking matters, and the one threatening her partner 
seemed quite assertive and obsessed. Such "qualities" could lead to much more 
dangerous actions than sending gifts. She knew that, and so did Mulder. But she 
realized his use of humor was his escape; he needed it to keep himself rooted, 
and so she tried to take his comment in stride. 

"Hey, Scully, tell me about the plot of that video."

She rolled her eyes. "Plot? Do you really think it had a plot, Mulder?"

"It was called 'Eyes for You', right? I'm trying to figure out why she--maybe a 
he--sent it. Any stalkers in it?"

Scully swallowed the rest of her yogurt and wiped her lips. "No. These two 
people--Steel Rod and Bimbette--both were in a bookstore. They saw each other, 
made eyes at each other, and ran off to her place--hell, maybe it was his place. 
And then they did the--what'd you call it? The 'naked pretzel'?--and did it, and 
did it, and did it. Watching it made *me* sore!"

Mulder chuckled. "Then what did they do?"

"'What did they do?' What else could they do? I honestly don't think there could 
have been any other ways to do *it*."

He shook his head. "I mean, did they live happily ever after? Do a murder-
suicide thing?"

Scully peeled her banana and noticed that her leg rested against Mulder's, and 
neither one of them seemed to mind. "They got dressed, left the apartment, and 
went back to the bookstore. The last shots of them showed their eyes on two 
other people--another guy for her; another bimbo for him."

"Why are you nicer in your monikers for the guys than you are for the women in 
these films?"

She gazed into his eyes. "Because I can't believe any self-respecting woman 
would agree to be in such a travesty of art. Porn videos are junk, Mulder. I 
keep hoping someday you'll realize that."

"They're entertainment, Scully. Different strokes for different folks, and all 
that."

"Please don't say 'strokes'. Brings very unpleasant images to my mind."

Mulder grinned. "Scully, it couldn't have been all that bad."

"Trust me, Mulder; it was. You owe me big-time for watching that thing for you."

He cocked an eyebrow. "How would you like to be paid?"

She cuffed his arm. "Stop it! Let's change the subject before I call this 
stalker and tell her you're all hers."

He popped the last bite of burger into his mouth and washed it down with the 
Diet Coke. As he lowered the can, he told her, "At least the stalker likes my 
kind of movies."

Scully sobered with his words, knowing the video probably showed exactly what 
the stalker's fantasies included for life with Mulder. Scully tried to keep the 
jealousy out of her voice when she told him, "I couldn't believe how much the 
guy in that flick looked like you, Mulder. I almost called you to see if you'd 
had a second life going all these years."

Mulder sobered, too. He seemed to be in deep thought. "Anything else in the 
video that would point to clues as to who this woman is or where I supposedly 
met her?"

"The only other place they were in other than that apartment was the bookstore. 
I know you do patronize such places. But other than these characters being 
there, the only thing that was shown was that humping marathon."

Mulder looked at her with amusement. "Dr. Scully! How you talk! Does your mother 
know you say such things?"

"Shut up, Mulder." She saw a wide grin spread across his face, and she smiled, 
too, glad to have relieved some of his tension. She relished the grin, knowing 
that shortly it would fade, and they'd be plunged back into the reality of the 
day. And that was a necessity. 

She looked at her watch and tossed the banana peel back into her now empty bag. 
Quietly, she said, "Mulder, we have to have those tapes analyzed--and not by the 
Gunmen. Not this time. And the tapes, the packaging, the card--they'll all have 
to be examined for prints. I'm assuming that handwriting analysis might turn up 
something helpful, and perhaps DNA analysis can be done if there's saliva on the 
envelope." She watched as his face resumed its stoicism, and as his eyes closed. 
"This stalker is serious--and dangerous. We're going to have to go to Skinner 
about her."

Her partner set his feet on the bleacher in front of them and propped his elbows 
on his knees. He then gazed out across the track for a long time, his eyes 
squinting this time against the mid-day sun. A light breeze ruffled his already 
mussed hair, and he finally let a long exhalation flow between his lips. "I 
know, Scully. You're right. I just--I just..."

"Just what?" She slowly slid her right hand along the skin of the inside of his 
left arm, eventually reached his hand, and intertwined her fingers with his. 
Mulder looked at their now joined hands and gave hers a squeeze--more for his 
own reassurance, she thought, than for hers. She returned the grip, glad to know 
he needed her, glad to know he wanted her there with him.

He continued to stare at the track. "I just can't believe," he finally said, his 
voice low, embarrassed, "that this is happening to--me. Who the hell would want 
to stalk me? Somebody truly desperate?"

She turned to him, searching his face, though she could only see its left side. 
Her partner was one of the least vain people she knew. Oh, he could be pretty 
damned sure of himself when it came to theories--usually, the further out, the 
more confident he could be. But about his own looks, about his own charm--she  
believed he truly had no idea that he possessed either. And he had both in 
abundance. 

"I can understand why," she told him, softly. She let her left hand replace her 
right in his grip, and she slid her now free hand over his shoulder and back, 
letting it hook around the right side of his waist. And she lay her head against 
the sleeve of his T-shirt. She noticed that Mulder didn't shy away from her 
touch, and she hugged him closer. "You just don't see what others see in you, 
Mulder. Believe me, you're a--" she searched for words that would convince him, 
but realizing that no matter how much she tried to make him understand, he 
wouldn't believe any compliments about himself anyway.

"A what, Scully?" he asked, waiting. "A pain in the ass?"

She squeezed his hand. "Well, that, too."

He chuckled. "So what else am I? Finish your thought."

She sighed. "Oh hell, Mulder. You're a--you're a real babe magnet."

This time he laughed aloud, and he put his left arm around her shoulders, 
hugging her back, as she laughed as well. "You'll have to tell Skinner that, you 
know. I doubt that he sees any redeeming qualities in me. But that one will sway 
him for sure."

"I'll do that." She looked up at him, wishing they could stay like this for the 
rest of the day. She liked being in his embrace. She'd known it for a long time, 
but the batting lessons he'd given her a few weeks before had shown her that his 
embrace was now more than just a friendly action. And though she had 
reservations about starting *that* type of friendship, she knew there was no 
other course of action that they could take. They'd long ago become more than 
partners; they'd just never admitted it to each other--or to themselves. And 
though she loathed the memories of Phillip Padgett, she had to admit that had it 
not been for the now deceased young author, perhaps she and her partner would 
still be in their states of enforced ignorance. And there was no way she'd want 
to be going through this stalker horror without the relationship they now had. 
There was no way she'd want him going through it without his knowing how she 
felt about him either.

Slowly, Mulder took his arm from around her. He touched her leg gingerly, 
lightly rubbing the bandage he could feel through the material of her slacks. 
"You sure this isn't infected?"

"Yes. I'm a doctor, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Okay. Just be sure it doesn't get any worse. Wouldn't want to leave 
you without a leg to stand on."

She stood and pulled him to his feet. "One more lousy joke like that, and I'll 
be sure you have that pegleg you once said you wished you had."

He nodded and turned toward her. His gaze locked with hers, and his hand came up 
to lightly trace the line of her jaw, to caress the skin of her cheek. For 
moments, his eyes searched hers.

She expected him to kiss her, and she wouldn't have minded. If he had tried, he 
would have been met with willingness, but he resisted. And she knew why. She 
knew Mulder too well. Distractions. Their budding relationship was one of those 
already--at least with a stalker-threat and a concurrent serial killer case. She 
could read him--at the moment--easily. He did want to kiss her. Did want--and 
need--the physical contact. But he was denying himself that pleasure. Was he 
afraid to lead her into something that would be more painful to her if he should 
be hurt or killed by this stalker? Afraid to endanger her career because of 
himself? Afraid to reveal to himself that he *could* be loved? 

Scully reached up and touched his face, then let her arms surround him, pulling 
him to her in the sort of embrace she now craved. As his arms wrapped around 
her, holding her tightly, she closed her eyes, and felt her own shudders from 
the fear of losing him. "Don't leave me, Mulder," she whispered. "Don't you let 
her take you from me." She felt him nod against her hair, and then he released 
her. She stood before him, eyes still closed, head downcast. She was aware of 
him turning and stepping down the bleachers.

"Did you bring your car, Scully?" he asked, barely audibly.

"Taxi," she replied.

"Good. I'll be out in a few."

She opened her eyes to watch him, gym bag and valise in his hands, as he walked 
toward and into the locker room. And her gaze didn't leave the doorway until he 
emerged again.

X     X     X

Walter Skinner stared across his desk at Mulder and Scully. The pair sat in 
their accustomed chairs, pulled close together as though subconsciously 
presenting a united front. Neither agent seemed particularly eager to speak. 
Looking at them, he tried to divine what the "urgent" matter might be that had 
brought them unexpectedly to his office this early afternoon. 

Mulder was staring intently at his hands folded in his lap. He seemed, 
uncharacteristically, to be avoiding direct eye contact. While immaculately 
dressed as usual, there was something about him that indicated a disordered 
state. When finally the agent raised his eyes to meet Skinner's, the Assistant 
Director was surprised and more than a little concerned at what he saw. 

Mulder's face was lined with exhaustion; his expression, especially around the 
eyes was haunted. It reminded him eerily of the Mostow case of over two years 
before, and Skinner found himself regretting that he had allowed the Violent 
Crimes Unit chief to talk him into the loan of Mulder. If this is how badly 
Mulder was reacting to the profiling assignment a mere day into the 
investigation...

Skinner glanced in Dana Scully's direction, hoping to read something more in her 
expression than he did in Mulder's carefully wary one.  

She was looking at Mulder, her expression one of expectation tinged with more 
than a small degree of upset. In fact, her very heart seemed to be in her eyes--
and Skinner found himself glancing away, so poignant was the depth of the 
concern he read there.  

"Agents," he said finally, "you requested to see me. What can I do for you?"

Mulder opened his mouth as though to speak, then cast a glance at Scully. For 
one of the only times since Skinner had known Mulder, the younger man seemed to 
be at a loss for words. 

Scully returned her partner's look for the barest of moments, then turned to 
face Skinner, the professional mask she so often assumed within these four 
walls, falling automatically into place. 

"Agent Mulder has recently been the recipient of some anonymous gifts, and it 
has caused us both such sufficient concern that we wanted to bring the matter 
before you."

Skinner raised an eyebrow. "Go on," was all he said. He allowed his gaze to 
range from Scully to Mulder and back again. 

"At first the gifts were innocuous. Minor items--"

"Which I threw away," Mulder finally spoke, casting a quick glance at his 
partner, who met his gaze with what appeared to be surprise. "I have, in the 
past, been the butt of practical jokes among my fellow FBI agents, and at first, 
there seemed to be no reason to doubt that this was anything else. Especially 
since all the gifts were received here, at the Hoover building, not at my 
apartment."

"Then," Scully spoke again, quickly after casting a look at Mulder which 
promised that she'd interrogate him further about that bit of information later. 
"Very recently notes began appearing with the gifts, and in the last few days, 
the notes have taken on an ominous tone. And the last item received, this 
morning, had attached to it a photo of Agent Mulder of which he has no 
recollection of having been taken. Sir, we're very concerned that Mulder might 
have become the target of a stalker."

Skinner allowed the announcement to sink in for a moment before he spoke. "Where 
is this latest gift now?"  

"I took the liberty of delivering it to the lab, sir, along with an audio 
cassette received in the same mail run, unmistakably from the same source. We've 
asked them to analyze the items and their wrappings for any clues that might 
allow us to trace from where the gifts are coming."

"Good. Excellent work, Agent Scully. Agent Mulder, do you have any idea--does 
anything come to mind from past cases that might give you some kind of insight 
into where you might have encountered this person?"

Mulder shook his head. "Stalkers can be 
drawn to a target without that target knowing they've caught some unwanted 
attention. It could be almost anyone--and no one. Someone I've passed on the 
street. I am, of course, continuing to search my memory for any likely suspect."

"And to aid that end," Scully added, glancing at Mulder, "I've requested 302s
on Mulder's cases. Since one of the recent notes mentioned an 'anniversary', 
I've concentrated on April and May cases for the last five years."

"Good work. I'll take it from here. The first thing we had better consider is 
getting you some protection, Mulder. I can arrange for a safe house while we 
sweep your apartment. I'll personally contact your building superintendent about 
changing your locks--just to be on the safe side. You said that you haven't 
received any of these gifts at your apartment? Just here?"

It might have been Skinner's imagination, but Mulder seemed to fidget for the 
barest moment before he spoke.  

"Just here," Mulder stated flatly, looking directly at Skinner as he did so. 

"Still, it can't hurt to play it safe. And since these items have been received 
here at the Hoover building, we can't even be sure that this alleged stalker 
doesn't have access to this building. Might even be someone employed by the 
Bureau--as much as I hate to think about that. You'll be on authorized leave for 
the next few days. By the end of the day, I'll have the safe house location for 
you. I'll arrange for some protective surveillance as well. "

"Sir," Mulder spoke after a moment's silence, "I don't think that this much 
security is warranted. I can't take a few days off now, I have Bennet's serial 
killer case to work on. And the idea of a safe house--"

"We'll provide you with files and a computer to access the VCU mainframe, so you 
can continue to work the serial killer case. I won't have you going to your 
apartment for anything other than a change of clothes until we've had a chance 
to go over it, Mulder. Consider that an order," Skinner replied in his best 
drill sergeant tone.

"Sir, with all due respect--" Mulder began. 

"How about a compromise?" Scully interjected as Mulder and Skinner eyed each 
other with testosterone-charged stubbornness. "I've got a spare bedroom, and my 
building has more security than Mulder's does. I also have a computer which is 
already capable of linking to any number of Bureau mainframes. I would be 
willing to offer my apartment as the safe house, and my own services as a body 
guard."

Both Skinner and Mulder shifted their gazes to Scully. Skinner nodded 
thoughtfully, even while Mulder looked at Scully with surprise.

"That will work for me. How about you, Mulder?"

Mulder looked for a long moment at Scully, his expression guarded, unreadable. 
Finally, he nodded. "Some people will do anything to get a few days off, I 
guess," he muttered.


X     X     X
 
Skinner watched as his agents traded a look with each other--one of those 
unreadable exchanges that the pair often made and apparently only they could 
read--and then excused themselves and left his office. He stared after them for 
a long time. 

His professional relationship with these two subordinates had undergone 
incredible changes since he had been assigned as Assistant Direction over the X-
Files. It had been adversarial at the beginning and at times still could be. It 
had taken on paternal overtones as he'd seen the pair persecuted time and again 
for the dedication they showed to their work and to each other. It had finally 
settled into a quasi-fraternity of amazing complexity and depth--and at times, 
he could not have distinguished where the professional relationship left off and 
where the personal one began.  

This was one of those times. 

Years before, long before Skinner had achieved the rank of Assistant Director 
within the Bureau, he had known a young agent not altogether unlike Fox Mulder. 
Dedicated, driven. That young agent had not only been an exemplary law 
enforcement agent, but a devoted family man as well. He had worshipped his 
lovely wife, and been the kind of father to their two children that most FBI 
agents could only dream of being--somehow finding that balance between the 
demands of the job and the needs of his young family. 

His had seemed the perfect life--the envy of all who knew him. And then one 
morning, he had not shown up at the Bureau. His children had not appeared at 
school; his wife had not kept a lunch appointment with her sister. Alarm bells 
rang out in the minds of all who knew the family--these were dependable steady 
folk who always kept their commitments. 

Family members had gone to the lovely suburban house and discovered a grisly 
scene. Father, mother, and both children had been hacked to death as they slept-
-
their murderer still in the house--dead by her own hand.  

As the investigation was pursued--all the more fervently for the victims being 
one of the Bureau's own--it evolved that the agent had been stalked for some 
time by someone he had met casually and perfectly innocently during one of the 
Bureau's fitful attempts at public relations. Baffled by the unwanted and 
unwarranted attention, the agent, not unlike Mulder, had first dismissed it. 
After all, wasn't it usually women who were stalked, and as a law enforcement 
professional, shouldn't he be able to defuse the situation? Later as the threat 
had seemed to escalate, he had done all the right things--taken all the 
recommended precautions. But nothing, ultimately, had been able to save the 
agent or his family.

Deja vu. Watching Fox Mulder come into the office and report the harassment he 
had inadvertently attracted had brought forth in Walter Skinner the distinct 
sensation of having been through this before. It was a horror he did not want to 
repeat.  

The agent of long ago had not been a subordinate as Mulder was. He had been 
partnered with Skinner for going on three years at the time of his death. Walter 
Skinner had not even been aware of the 
threat to his partner--so closely had the man attempted to keep his privacy. 

As Fox Mulder's superior, the agent's health and well-being were part and parcel 
of his personal duty. As Mulder's friend, Skinner did not want to consider the 
possibility of history repeating itself. 

He had the power of being an Assistant Director behind him now. It was a power 
he would use.  

Skinner picked up his phone and began the unpleasant business of starting an 
investigation into Mulder's stalking. He would do what he had to to keep his 
agent--his friend--safe. 

X      X      X

"'Geeze, Scully, if you wanted me that badly, I would have just come to your 
house. All you had to do was ask. And *not* in front of AD Skinner."  

Fox Mulder was eying his partner with a jaundiced look. He had kept an uneasy 
silence until he and Scully had gotten a respectable distance away from 
Skinner's office.

Scully stopped dead in her tracks, favoring Mulder with a look which somehow 
managed to mix affectionate amusement with sheer exasperation.   

"Right, lover boy," she said with false sweetness. *Like it ever has worked to 
ask you over* she thought further to herself. "I had to do something to break 
the tension in there. And it is a good solution. You really should think about 
moving to a more secure building, Mulder--then Skinner would feel better about 
letting you go home. But since your apartment is about as secure as Grand 
Central Station at rush hour, what choice do we have?"

"This is all just so damned..." Mulder began at a seeming loss for words.

"Frustrating? Distracting? I know." Scully reached out and put a hand on 
Mulder's arm, stilling the agitated movement he was making--understanding his 
need to physically confront the problem, but realizing the futility of it. 

Mulder hung his head and took a deep breath, then looked at her. "Stupid. It's 
stupid. I should be able to deal with this."

Scully squeezed his arm reassuringly. "We will deal with it. Together, okay? And 
we just took the first step. I think there is another one we--you--should 
consider."

Mulder made no response, but looked at her questioningly, his free hand touching 
the back of her hand where it still held his arm. 

"Remove ourselves from this serial killer case. I'm sure AD Skinner would even 
be willing to make the request himself at this point."

Mulder took her hand in his, and shook his head. "Scully, I can't do that. Not 
now."

"Why not, Mulder? We've only just been assigned; they haven't even been able to 
get us full dossiers on the victims yet. Let the new wunderkind of the VCU earn 
his stripes on this alone. I'd don't really understand why they've brought you 
in on this. When are they going to realize that you quit the unit and stop 
trying to drag you back?" Scully realized belatedly that her voice was becoming 
strident, and glanced around to make sure she had not attracted any unwanted 
attention.

Mulder was smiling at her gently, and squeezing her hand. He shrugged. "I don't 
know. But what I do know is that *I* would have been grateful for the kind of 
help I can give Franklin Bennet on this case. He's gonna hit the wall someday on 
his own, doing that work--no reason why it can't be later rather than sooner."

Scully looked at Mulder pleadingly for a long moment. Then she sighed. "And when 
the case is cracked and he takes full responsibility for *your* achievement, how 
are you going to feel?"

Mulder smiled at her and chuckled softly. "Like a proud daddy to a bouncing baby 
agent, Scully."

Scully smiled in spite of herself. She had known the argument would be futile, 
but she had had to try. 

"So, are we going back to the office, or to your apartment to pack a bag?" she 
asked. 

"I've got all I need in a bag in the trunk of my car. I never know when you're 
going to ask, after all. And we're not doing either," Mulder replied, contiuing 
to hold her hand and leading her on down the hall. 

"Where are we going then?" Scully asked, not concerned--oddly enough--if any of 
their fellow agents noted the warm clasp that urged her onward. 

"To see Franklin Bennet. Maybe Hewson has managed to scare up some of those 
photos by now by sheer force of his charming  personality."

Scully shook her head wonderingly. To protect her partner--the man she also 
loved--she would much rather have wrapped him in cotton batting and seen him 
taken to Fort Knox to reside in security next to the nation's mythic gold 
supply. But that wasn't Mulder. He'd deal with his personal trauma just as he 
always had--
by diving headlong into the problem before him.  

She just hoped that Franklin Bennet appreciated the gift of Fox Mulder's single 
minded patronage. 

X     X     X

They found Bennet pouring over a stack of files on his desk. Mulder moved 
forward to make his presence known, while Scully hung back. The young agent 
looked up, nodding at them both and favoring them with a wide smile.  

"Agent Mulder! Agent Scully. Got the autopsy reports and photos, at least. 
Hewson's raising the roof with the local authorities over the other photos as I 
speak," Bennet reported, looking beyond Mulder for a moment to Scully, who 
smiled pleasantly and nodded. 

Mulder noticed the distance that Scully kept from Bennet, and wondered at it; 
she seemed less than impressed with the personable young man--and that was not 
like her. He would have to ask her about it later. 

"Good work, Franklin. I'd like copies of those reports and photos if I could--
before the end of the day?"  

Bennet seemed unfazed by Scully's puzzling behavior, so Mulder put it out of his 
mind for now--there were more important issues pending. 

"I already have the request in, sir. They are duplicating the autopsy photos 
right now. It shouldn't take too much longer. I'll make sure they are delivered 
directly to your office," Bennet stated earnestly. 

"What did I tell you about the 'sir' thing?" Mulder warned with mock sternness. 
Then turning serious, he added, "Something has come up, Franklin."
Mulder cast a quick glance to Scully, then turned to look at Bennet. "And it 
requires some creative working arrangements for a few days. I can't tell you 
anything more than that for now, but Agent Scully and I will be working from her 
apartment for the next couple of days. I just wanted to let you know where to 
reach me if you need to. We'll be doing some computer work and going over the 
files, and exploring a few leads on our own. Skinner will give you specifics on 
how to reach us--he's coordinating everything."

Bennet raised an eyebrow, but did not further comment on the unusual 
arrangements, but a decided sparkle came alive in his eye. Mulder groaned 
inwardly at the train of thought that the young man was probably following even 
now. Well, Scully would just have to deal with the potential damage to her 
reputation--
the suggestion of using her apartment as a "safe house" was all hers, after all. 

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Franklin!" Mulder said lightly and in an 
undertone that he hoped would not carry to his partner. She had excellent 
hearing, however, and cleared her throat rather loudly in response to his 
comment. "I wish I could tell you more, but it involves a potential security 
issue, and rather than jeopardize this investigation--"

"No need to explain, Agent Mulder!" Bennet gave one of his hundred-watt grins 
again. "If the photos that Hewson is screaming for do come in, I'll talk to AD 
Skinner about messengering them to you, okay?"

Mulder nodded, regretting that security and his own personal embarrassment over 
the situation, made any mention of his stalker "need to know" only.    

"Great job on getting those autopsy records, Franklin, and remember, I'll just 
be as far away as a phone call."  

Mulder glanced again at Scully, who, after remaining uncharacteristically silent 
during the exchange, was already turning to leave. He cast a glance at Bennet, 
and sketched a quick farewell.

Mulder wasn't sure, but he thought he saw Franklin Bennet wink.   

X     X     X

Assistant Director Skinner walked into the X-Files office with what he hoped was 
a convincingly casual air. He had men combing Mulder's apartment even now, 
making sure that the apartment was as secure as it could be. The landlord had 
been contacted and had promised to have locks changed and keys delivered within 
twenty four hours. And surveillance on the apartment had been ordered, in case 
the stalker made a move before that activity could be completed. 302s were being 
pulled, and a team of threat management specialists were meeting, coordinating 
strategy for the investigation into Mulder's stalker. This was a threat the 
entire Bureau had to take seriously, and not only because any of them might come 
under similar harassment. Bureaucracies were not known for humanitarian 
concerns, but the bottom line was that investigations with years of effort and 
millions of dollars invested in them might be compromised by the obsessions of a 
few unbalanced individuals. 

Mulder was at his desk, feet braced against the edge of it, talking on the 
phone. The agent looked up as Skinner approached, straightened to a more 
professional posture, and looked at his superior, his hand over the receiver.

Skinner gestured his willingness to wait.  Mulder nodded and returned to his 
conversation.  

"I'm sorry Mom, but you're going to need to take some precautions...No there is 
*nothing* to what that woman said! You shouldn't let it bother you...You'd be 
the first to know if I had any intentions...okay...Okay...I'll call you later."

Mulder hung up the phone, his expression even more haunted--if that was 
possible-- than it had been earlier that afternoon in Skinner's office. "*That* 
was my mother. She has apparently been trying to get ahold of me all day. She 
received a phone call this morning from someone claiming to be my fiancee. She 
wanted to know why I hadn't even told her I was seeing anyone, let alone about 
to be married."

The feeling of dread that had been plaguing Skinner since earlier in the 
afternoon intensified. His eyes widened behind his glasses.

"The stalker? I've already ordered some discreet protection for your mother--as 
a precaution. I'll redouble that and order a tap on her line--if the stalker 
calls again, we just might be able to trace her."

Skinner helped himself to Mulder's phone and began dialing. Within a few 
minutes, 
the orders were issued, and bureaucratic wheels were grinding with a little more 
alacrity than before. Skinner sat the phone receiver back in its cradle and 
studied the object of all the activity. 

Mulder gave the sudden impression of someone who would be physically sick, if 
only he weren't in a formal office setting and staring his superior directly in 
the face. But the fleeting  expression faded quickly enough, replaced by 
Mulder's usual mask of non-emotion.  

"Where is Scully?" Skinner asked quietly  "I think you two should just go ahead 
and get out of here for the day. We're already checking your apartment. And the 
landlord will have the new keys to the new locks to me by tomorrow sometime."

"She--she went to pick up the autopsy files from Bennet. She'll be back in a few 
minutes." Mulder paused; then, his voice low, he said, "I don't feel right about 
this, sir." His gaze was fixed at nothing in particular.

"If you'd rather go to your mother and stay with her until this blows over, I'll 
work out the arrangements," Skinner offered.   

"No, it's not that. If I stay away from her, she'll probably be better off--
safer. And thank you for ordering protection for her. No, I don't feel right 
about involving Scully in this either. Being with me will put her in more danger 
than if I went off somewhere," Mulder responded, his voice flat.

"Not an option, agent," Skinner ordered. "We're not about to lose sight of you 
for the foreseeable future. I know you don't have much reason to, but have some 
faith in the Bureau's ability to protect you both in this instance. This sort of 
thing isn't taken lightly. I've even got an escort to see that you both arrive 
safely at her apartment. And," Skinner continued ironically, " *I * wouldn't 
want to try to be the one to tell Scully that the deal is off."

For what seemed like the first time that day, Mulder's expression lightened 
fractionally. "She's got a mean right hook," he noted.

"Exactly. Soon as she gets back, the two of you are out of here." Skinner turned 
to leave, then glanced back. "And Mulder? Try to get some rest. You look like 
hell."

Mulder gave a mirthless laugh. When Walter Skinner finally left the office a 
minute later, Mulder was staring down at his hands, his expression as hopeless 
as Skinner had ever seen it. 

X     X     X

Scully stood just inside her apartment door, waiting impatiently. She had 
returned to the X-Files office to find Mulder readying to leave. She had not 
been sure at first that he hadn't intended to leave before she got back. By now 
she should know the signs.  

Seeing her, his facial expression carefully unreadable--even to her discerning 
eyes--Mulder had announced that Skinner had dismissed them for the day, that 
they were to leave the Hoover building immediately. Before she'd known what she 
was about, they were out the door and on their way to the parking garage, arms 
full of files, and conversation carefully avoided.  

Scully had suggested that they leave Mulder's car at the Hoover garage and take 
only hers, but Mulder had demurred, preferring, he said, to have his own vehicle 
at his disposal. There had been little chance for further conversation; by this 
time, they had reached the garage, and their escort was waiting for them. On the 
drive home, she'd been tempted to call Mulder on his cell phone and quiz him 
about what *had* happened. She had even gotten as far as pulling her cell phone 
out of her suit jacket. But she knew this wasn't something she could trust to an 
electronic conversation; she had to be able to see his face, to read his mood, 
to look into his eyes and see the truth. 
  
And now Scully waited, waited for him to come to the door, waited to let him in. 
Just as she had, in one sense or another for most of the last six years.

"Mulder?" she said softly as she opened the door. He was standing outside, arms 
laden with gym bag and files.  

"Sorry, Scully. We lost you at that light  a few miles back," he replied, 
looking at her, his expression almost wary. 

"Here, let me help," she responded, relieving him of the files, shifting them to 
one arm, while she led him into the apartment by tugging on the shoulder strap 
of the gym bag.

"Scully--uh--I have been here before. I know the way through the front door," 
Mulder was saying, even as he didn't resist the steady tension of her hand on 
the bag strap.  

Scully ignored the comment, dropping the files down on the coffee table next to 
the couch, alongside the stack of autopsy reports she had brought in some 
minutes before. Instead, she stood, indicated that he should release the bag to 
her, and hustled off to drop it into the spare bedroom.  

When she returned, Mulder was still standing where she had left him.

"Okay, that takes care of those distractions. Now tell me what happened while I 
was off getting those files," she prompted. Her voice was not adversarial, but 
quietly matter-of-fact.  

"Nothing, Scully. Skinner dropped by and told me that we could take off." 
Mulder's voice was carefully modulated. He would not meet her eyes.  

He was not telling her the truth. 

Scully walked up to him, until they stood only inches apart. She looked up into 
his face, forcing his eyes to meet hers. "Tell me the *truth*," she said 
levelly.

"I got a call from Teena," Mulder began. He used his mother's Christian name, 
something he rarely did. In fact, he hadn't mentioned her much at all for a very 
long time.  

"And?" Scully urged, gently. The expression she read in the hazel-green eyes was 
disturbing, more than haunted--
almost tormented. 

"She got call from someone claiming to be my fiancee this morning. And she was 
calling--had been all day, apparently--to ask why I hadn't told her I'd met 
someone. Unless you've been making calls to my mother behind my back, I daresay 
our stalker has her number. And address no doubt."  

Scully felt a sudden wave of revulsion and nausea, knowing that her reaction 
could only be a pale reflection of what Mulder must have felt. She moved closer 
to him, putting her arms around him, laying her head against his chest.  

"I'm so sorry, Mulder. Skinner *has* ordered protection for her?" she asked, her 
voice anguished.  

His arms were encircling her now, returning the embrace. She could feel him rest 
his cheek against the top of her head.  

"Yeah. He came in when I was talking to her," he said quietly. "I shouldn't be 
here, Scully. I'm putting everyone I know and love in danger." 

She pulled away from him slightly, engaging his eyes again with her own, 
allowing the intensity of her emotion at this moment to pour out of her. "You're 
right where you belong, Mulder. Don't even think of trying to leave. I won't 
have you out of my sight. Do you understand me?" Mulder looked at her for a long 
moment. She had read him correctly: he had wanted to bolt back at the Hoover 
building, and only her timely return had probably kept him from doing so. 

And now, if she dared let him go, he would do it again. To protect her. Why 
couldn't he realize that she wasn't the one who needed protection?

"Do you understand me, Mulder?" she repeated, her gaze never wavering.  

He nodded finally, as defeated as she had ever seen him. She gathered him close 
once more.  

She wouldn't let go. 

X     X     X

They stood in the shelter of each other's embrace for a long time, before Mulder 
finally stepped back. Acquiescent for the moment, Scully glanced up at her 
partner again.

"Pizza or Chinese?" she asked quietly. 

Mulder looked at her for a long moment, as though confused. Studying his face, 
she realized another truth. Whatever Mulder had been doing that morning, he had 
not slept. 

"Dinner, Mulder. You're going to eat. Which would you prefer? Or shall I whip 
you up a little something tasty from yogurt and tofu?"

Mulder scowled, finally getting the message. "I'm not hungry, Scully."

"I didn't ask if you're hungry. And I repeat: you *are* going to eat."

Mulder sighed and wearily made his way to the couch. His lanky form seemed to 
collapse onto the piece of furniture, his head lolling back against the 
cushions. "Surprise me."

Scully cast a concerned look at him, then reached for the phone. She dialed the 
number of her favorite Chinese restaurant and ordered dishes she knew would 
tempt Mulder. She next rang the number of the surveilliance team and told them 
to expect the delivery boy within the promised time. 

That task accomplished, she moved back to the couch, back to Mulder. He did not 
move when she sat down next to him, did not acknowledge her presence. She might 
have hoped he was sleeping, but she knew he was not.  

He was trying, as was his sometime habit, to close out everything around him, 
including her, as though by going deep into himself he could deal better with 
the chaos erupting around him. Perhaps it worked; more often than not, he could 
stay amazingly calm and focused in a crisis. 

But Scully was not going to allow it. Not now. She reached over, took his hand 
and held it between both of hers. She did not demand his attention, merely 
offered the contact of her flesh against his to let him know that she was there.

Eventually, her strategy worked. Mulder turned his hand over in hers, and 
returning the grasp, he gently pulled her over to him, tucking her comfortably 
under his arm. She relaxed into him, and  the silence, which had held tension 
moments before, transformed into something more companionable. 

X     X     X

He was a coward, and he knew it. And through knowing, it should have been easier 
to accept. But it was not. 

He should have stood up to his principles, and refused to retreat from the 
threat that faced him. Instead, he was hiding away, and in so doing, he was 
risking the one person in the world he had never wanted to hurt. He should not 
be here.

But the warmth of Scully's body against his, the solace that contact offered, 
the concern and love--yes, love--that she radiated mesmerized and captured him. 
What they had now, inconceivably was more than he had ever hoped for. He had 
known his own feelings for her for quite some time; it was still a source of 
fathomless wonder to him to find those feelings returned. 

But that didn't make it any less wrong. 

He had nothing to offer her. Nothing but an empty quest, and a constant 
unremitting risk to the precious commodity that was her life.  

Fox Mulder had learned at an early age that his love was not a blessing--not to 
anyone close to him, not to himself. It was a curse that had repeatedly claimed 
victim after victim. His sister Samantha had been the first innocent sacrificed 
on that altar. His parents' marriage had been the next. The line of victims was 
long, too painful to recount. He had been determined for a very long time that 
Scully would not join their number. 

Fate had, of course, had other plans. The memory of her abduction years ago was 
still a raw wound; her months' long disappearance was yet a void that would 
never be filled. Her cancer, the memories of her fragility, her agony, how very 
close to death she had travelled, was a sin against his soul which could never 
be redeemed. Which he never *wanted* redeemed. It would be with him forever, and 
it was nothing less than he deserved.  

He should leave. Right now. Get up and leave Scully and her apartment. Remove 
himself from her life before he irrevocably destroyed it.  

But he was weak. He was a coward. So for this moment, timeless, precious, he 
savored her nearness, the feel of her softness against his weary body.  

And he would make sure that he paid for 
the iniquity, that the long line of victims would end.  

With him. 

X     X     X

When the doorbell rang, Scully debated the wisdom of answering it. Their meal 
had arrived, but Mulder had just dropped off to sleep. Her head laying on his 
chest, she had recognized the rhythmic breathing and the slower heartbeat. He 
looked so worn; this reprieve was what he needed.  

But the doorbell rang again, and she rose to answer it, carefully extricating 
herself from the secure cradle of his arms. 

"S-scully?" Mulder murmured her name as she drew away.

"It's all right," she soothed, and she leaned over once more, kissing his 
forehead tenderly, her hand caressing his cheek. Then she moved toward the door, 
scooping money already set out for the purpose from the coffee table. 

Scully was back in moments, arms laden with takeout boxes. Depositing these on 
the coffee table, she moved off to the kitchen, retrieving napkins, plates, and 
eating utensils.

Mulder roused at the smell of food, slowly sitting forward and looking at the 
spread before him with a look that betrayed his earlier words about not having 
been hungry. 

"Go ahead; dig in. Lunch was a long time ago," Scully urged, depositing two 
bottles of Evian water on the coffee table and returning to the couch.  

And so it seemed. Lunch in the spring sunshine earlier that same day, suddenly 
seemed eons ago. 

Mulder was hesitating, looking at her.  "You first."

Scully smiled and shrugged and reached for an egg roll, making as though to 
nibble it herself. Playfully, at the last moment, her hand veered, and Mulder, 
faced with either opening his mouth to receive the morsel or ending up with it 
smashed against his face, did the only logical thing. His expression, a cross 
between surprise and outrage, was so suddenly comical, that Scully could not 
help but laugh.

Mulder chewed for a moment, then swallowed, taking a long minute to regard his 
partner. 

"You don't do that enough," he stated, his voice low, serious. 

Scully, who had picked up an egg roll of her own and popped it into her mouth, 
turned to look at him. "Do what? Feed you?"

"No, laugh." Mulder's eyes held a regretful light. "You have a wonderful laugh. 
You should always be laughing."

Scully smiled, heartened to see him reaching to spoon up a helping of moo goo 
gai pan without further urging although concerned at the expression in the 
hazel-green eyes.

"That is hardly the way for any woman, let alone an FBI agent, to be taken 
seriously," she replied, serving herself from the open containers. "A woman who 
always laughs is perceived as an empty headed bimbo, not as a responsible 
professional."

"No one could ever make that mistake about you, Scully," Mulder replied. "You 
need to be some place, with someone who makes you laugh."

The words were innocent enough, but Dana Scully detected the meaning behind the 
assertion. Mulder believed that that someone was anyone but him. 

"You've always made me laugh, Mulder. It was one of the first things that 
attracted me to you. The way you can always make me laugh." It was the truth, 
pure and simple. 

"How come I don't remember it?  Why don't I remember you laughing more often?" 
Mulder's confusion seemed genuine.

"Well, I *have* stifled it quite a bit. I didn't want your ego to get any bigger 
than it already is," Scully responded playfully, dipping a deep-fried wonton 
into sweet-and-sour sauce and offering it to Mulder. He hesitated for a moment, 
then allowed her to give him a bite. He took what was left from her and reversed 
the process, and she nibbled obligingly.  

"You've got sweet-and-sour sauce on your face," Mulder observed quietly.

"Really?" Scully responded. "Where?"

Mulder leaned close, as though inspecting her face for telltale smudges of 
sauce; then before she realized it, his lips were on hers. She responded, 
without hesitation, without reserve. It was a moment for which she had been 
waiting, she realized, all her life. 

The food was forgotten for a few minutes, as Scully melted into Mulder's embrace 
and he into hers. 

X     X     X

He'd only been conscious for what he assumed was an hour. There had been other 
times, but each was met with more stuns from the handheld gun or more snorts of 
the handkerchief the hooded captor would hold over his face. Rod Allen was tied 
to a table, his legs dropping off it at the knee, and his muscles burned with 
pain as they awoke from the trauma inflicted on them by foreign electrical 
impulses. His mind fought to focus on what the hell was happening to him--on why 
he'd been taken, why he'd ended up in this horrific fantasy which was all too 
real.

He was being held in a dank room with rays from a kerosene lamp illumining the 
slats of boarded up windows. The walls had once held white wallpaper which had 
blue, yellow, and red vertical lines running from ceiling to floor. But the 
wallpaper was cracked and faded now. Much of it had soiled brown, and cobwebs 
filled the ceiling like in a stereotypical haunted house. No noises came from 
outside, only from another room he couldn't see. He'd tried making contact with 
that noise before, but had only suffered for his efforts. Now, he just lay in 
his prison, waiting for whatever horrors might await him.

"Mr. Allen?" 

The voice was husky, perhaps performed for his confusion. But it startled him 
into an awareness that froze his body. The captor was coming again, and Rod 
Allen's body started to shake from the fear that realization caused. His 
breathing was already erratic, but now that the torturer arrived in the room, he 
found himself gasping around the sock stuffed in his mouth, fighting for breaths 
of air.

"Mr. Allen? I see you're awake again." 

Brown eyes peered down at him through the outlined slots of the knit face mask. 
The hood was black, and the outlines were red, giving the captor an even more 
cynical appearance.

"You're being good now, aren't you? Don't want to be hurt anymore."

Rod nodded quickly, hoping his acquiescence might just make his kid-
napper have pity on him, and to at least let him breathe. What did this dork 
want, anyway? Sick sex? Some kind of brainwashed participation in a crime yet to 
be performed? 

The captor stepped closer, hands moving over Rod's face, feeling cheekbones and 
jawline. Then the hands moved down to Rod's blue denim shirt and unbuttoned it. 
Lay aside the fabric. The brown eyes seemed to sweep over the torso, not for 
appreciation, but as if looking for something. The hands moved to the captor's 
hips, and the eyes returned to Rod's face. 

"You're wondering why I'm doing this, aren't you, Mr. Allen?"

Rod's head nodded as he continued to gasp.

"Well, I need you. I need your help. You're going to be visiting the J. Edgar 
Hoover Building for me. Would you like that?"

Rod managed a shrug. Anything to get out of this predicament.

"I'll take that as a yes. And I appreciate your help. You're a link for me to 
some very important business."

The captor moved away from him and out of his line of vision briefly, returning 
seconds later. But as a machete was lifted in front of Rod's eyes, he began to 
struggle, futilely fighting against his restraints.

"Now, now, Mr. Allen. You may still help me. I must admit, however, that your 
help has to come a bit sooner than I first imagined. For reasons beyond my 
control, and all that. In fact, I've had to change several of my plans today." 
The captor raised the machete over Rod's chest, the blade pointed straight down 
toward his heart. "The only problem is, you have to be dead to help me."

Rod's eyes bulged as the machete plunged, impacting his skin with great force 
and piercing his heart in one swift motion. The urge to scream died in his 
throat as quickly as the life ebbed from him.

The captor watched as the victim's limbs spasmed momentarily and then rested. 
The machete was pulled from Rod's chest, and then put horizontally on his neck. 
And the sawing began.

X     X     X

Scully mused dreamily that it was a very great pity to have to interrupt such a 
deeply satisfying moment for something as significant as air. But she *was* 
feeling light headed, and so, with just a small noise of protest, she did not 
fight him when Mulder pulled back and away from their kiss. 

She opened her eyes and looked into the face of the man she loved and was more 
than a tiny bit surprised to find him bracing himself as though he expected to 
be slapped. 

"Mulder?" she asked as dumbfounded as she was short of breath, "what are you 
doing?"

"Go ahead, Scully. I deserve it," Mulder was saying. 

She shook her head, puzzled at the incongruity of the the activity of a moment 
ago with what was happening now. 
Scully took a deep breath and lifted up her hand, even while Mulder closed his 
eyes in readiness for the blow. 

It never came. Instead, Dana Katherine Scully reached one small porcelain hand 
behind Fox Mulder's head, slipping it languorously to his neck, exerting a 
gentle pressure to bring him closer.  

"You worry too much, Mulder," she said
softly, and hungrily sought his lips once again. 

X     X     X

He had fully expected her to respond to that stolen kiss as he remembered her 
OSS doppelganger had on that cruise ship in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.
Mulder was still dumbfounded that not only had she not struck him for his 
impudence, but that she had returned his impulsive action with one equally as 
impulsive and significantly as ardent. His beautiful Scully was certainly full 
of surprises lately.

He pulled away briefly once more, taking her face and cradling it between his 
hands, looking at her as deeply as he dared, trying to read in the lustrous 
blue-green eyes the truth of what was happening between them. They had danced 
around this moment for so long, that the activity itself now had taken on a 
certain measure of illusivity. It was suddenly important to reassure himself 
this this was *real*, and not merely some fever-dream.  

The steadiness of her loving regard was like a beacon in a storm, and it 
communicated to him the utter truth of this moment.

He was surprised by the joy that swept through him, the strength the knowledge 
brought with it.   

They might not have forever, but they certainly had now. And he could store away 
this memory against the day when fate might tear them assunder.

X     X     X

"I don't suppose this is what Skinner had in mind when he okayed this 
arrangement," Mulder said lazily as he stroked Scully's hair.  

Scully lifted her head from Mulder's chest. She was curled against him again, 
enjoying this new level of closeness that they had discovered. The stalker and 
the serial killer case seemed very far away this evening. Almost as if they had 
intruded in someone else's life.  

"Probably not," she agreed quietly, gazing into Mulder's face. Though he was far 
more relaxed than he had been, the lines of exhaustion were still there, 
haunting her. "But we're on our own time now."

Mulder's mouth curved into a smile, and he looked down at her, his expression 
one of tender regard.   
 
His beautiful, beautiful mouth...

"Franklin *is* counting on us to give him a leg up on this case," Mulder 
commented, quietly, bringing his hand to her cheek, stroking it gently.

"Umm," Scully replied, momentarily distracted by the touch. "But surely even the 
amazing Mr. Bennet pauses to eat dinner. And we *haven't* finished ours yet."

Mulder gave a soft chuckle and drew her head down on his chest once more, "Yeah. 
So many interruptions."

"Nice interruptions," Scully commented, listening to the heart that beat 
steadily, comfortingly, beneath her ear.

"Very nice interruptions," Mulder countered. "We should finish dinner then, so 
we can get some work done."

"And after dinner, we have fortune cookies for dessert," Scully offered.

"Fortune cookies?" he repeated. "I *love*
fortune cookies." His hand was still caressing her cheek. 

She reached up with her own hand, cradling his. "It's conceivable, Agent Mulder, 
that we may not get to those files until very late," Scully responded, turning 
her head slightly, so that she grazed his palm with her lips.

Mulder moved his hand under her chin, bringing her face up very close to his 
own. 

"Umm-hmmm," he murmured. "If at all, Agent Scully."

X     X     X 

"I could have helped." Mulder watched as Scully returned from the kitchen, 
holding a white paper bag. He loved to watch her move--he always had. 

"All I did was dump the empty take-out cartons in the  trash, Mulder. Besides, 
you're a guest."

She sat down next to him once again, holding the bag out to him. "Fortune 
cookie?"

Mulder reached in and took one, looking at her. "Are you this hospitable to 
*all* your guests?" he asked, inserting a bit of mock jealousy into his tone. At 
least he *thought* it wasn't genuine. 

"Every damn one of 'em," Scully answered playfully. She indicated the cookie he 
held. "What's yours say?"

Mulder looked down and deftly cracked the cookie into two pieces with one hand. 
Scully was leaning close, as though she wanted to read the fortune before he had 
a chance. He snatched his hand back and away, nodding his head toward the bag of 
cookies. "Uh-uh, you first," Mulder warned, sternly.

Scully cocked her head and pulled another cookie out of the bag. She used both 
hands to break it apart, and pulled out the tiny strip of paper from between the 
two halves. Her eyebrows raised as she read her fortune.  

"'You will attain your heart's desire',"  she quoted, her blue green eyes 
dancing with an almost devilish amusement. "Now yours. Come on."

Mulder extended his palm upward and snatched the fortune strip away from the 
remnants of his cookie with a small flourish. He cast his eyes at the impossibly 
small print, allowing his vanity to override his natural desire to reach for his 
reading glasses.

The words settled into focus.

*Love can raise a dragon's head.*

Mulder's memory flashed back to earlier in the day, to finding the card in the 
middle of his bed. To its words:*Agent Scully is holding you back. You must get 
rid of her. Or I will. And I'll be watching you.*

The icy spider legs were back, creeping steadily up his spine, his heart 
thumping painfully in his chest. 

Mulder's stalker had warned him. And stupidly he had allowed himself to dismiss 
the threat--if only for the space of an evening. He should leave--stop this 
madness now, before it reared up to engulf them all.

"Mulder?" Scully's voice reached him finally, her concern stretching out to 
touch him through her words. "Mulder, are you all right?"

He looked up and into his Scully's eyes. Those beautiful, beautiful, expressive 
eyes. He had to try to keep this evil from touching her, try protect her as best 
he could. He put on his best Mulder 
face and smiled at her reassuringly. 

"'You will meet with success in all your endeavors,'" he fabricated on the fly, 
hoping he had sufficient control to make the lie believable. 

Scully continued to look at him for a long moment, then smiled. He hadn't truly 
fooled her, he knew. But she didn't seem willing to make an issue of it, and for 
that small favor he was deeply grateful.

Mulder took one of his cookie halves and offered it to Scully, surreptiously 
wadding the fortune into a tiny ball with his other hand. 

Scully took the cookie, only to set it aside. She grasped Mulder's hand and 
pulled him toward her. 

He didn't resist, even though he knew he should. Instead, when she reached with 
her other hand, putting it on his far shoulder and exerting a gentle pressure, 
he yielded to her guidance. Soon he was laying on his side, his head in Scully's 
lap. She stroked his cheek tenderly.  

"Rest now, Mulder. You need to rest," she said softly, bending briefly to graze 
her lips against his temple.  

Quite against his better judgment, Fox Mulder relaxed into slumber, his last 
conscious memory the crooning softness of his Scully's voice. 

X     X     X

Scully watched Mulder sleep for a very long time, grateful that his slumber was 
deep and peaceful. If anything could induce nightmares, the events of the last 
couple of days certainly could--she marveled that they had not. Perhaps she 
could claim some credit for that; she hoped so, but she knew, too, that her 
partner possessed reserves of resilience for which few would give him credit. 
He'd had to, to survive this long. 

She stroked his cheek tenderly, content to be where she was at this moment in 
time, wishing that she could extend this instant indefinitely. Here, with Mulder 
asleep in her arms, she felt strong, capable of protecting them both from any 
threat. 

And sitting here, she prayed that Skinner's investigation would resolve the 
stalker issue before it proceeded any further--that they could emerge from this 
crisis and resume whatever passed for normal lives. What had passed between them 
this magical night meant that things could not be the same, and for the first 
time in many days, Dana Scully was looking forward to what the future might 
hold. 

X     X     X

It was late, and Scully had not had the heart to interrupt Mulder's peaceful 
slumber. He wouldn't be pleased that she had let him sleep the evening away 
instead of waking him after a decent interval to go over the case and autopsy 
files. The investigation, however, would do far better with Mulder rested and 
focused, and he would be better able to deal with any further emotional shocks 
with this respite behind him. 

Scully stirred, bending over to kiss her Mulder softly on the cheek. "Mulder," 
she said softly.  

He did not stir, so deeply had he drifted into slumber. She sat for a moment, 
debating if she should try a more forceful approach. He really would be far more 
comfortable in a bed, where he could stretch out to his full height.

Experimentally, she shifted until she found a way to slip from beneath his head, 
replacing herself with one of the large sofa pillows. She'd allow him a few more 
minutes of uninterrupted sleep; in the meantime, she could go have the nice soak 
in bubble bath she had promised herself this morning when it had seemed that 
nothing in the day was going to go right.  

Scully paused, standing over Mulder, looking down on him, her heart filled to 
bursting with emotions she had once wondered if she was even capable of feeling. 
He seemed not to have missed her in the awkward exchange of lap for pillow, and 
she tried not to take that personally. Exhaustion had rendered him completely 
insensible. She was a doctor; she knew that was for the best. 

But the woman in her would not allow her to turn away. At least not without 
kneeling down before the couch, until her face was level with his.

She kissed him, as deeply as one can kiss a sleeping man, and sat back for a 
moment, her hand smoothing his tousled hair away from his forehead. 

"I love you, Fox Mulder," she said quietly, bending once more to place her cheek 
briefly against his own.

"'Love you too, Scully," came the sleepy reply. "Always have...you know."

She straightened in surprise, smiling in a combination of surprise and a deep 
sense of pleasure. He was looking at her, his expression one of drowsy 
tenderness.

"Shhh," she soothed. "Go back to sleep. I'll be back in a few minutes." She 
touched his cheek again with the back of her hand.

He nodded, and the green eyes closed again. After a moment of quiet 
contemplation, Scully rose and went to see to her bath.

X     X     X

There must be a deep-seated, species' memory of the soothing effects of a warm, 
languorous soak in a tub full of fragrant bubble bath. Whatever residual tension 
Dana Scully might have felt from the day that preceded this singular evening had 
drifted down the drain with the last of the bubbles.

Scully didn't want this evening to end, she realized, but as with all good 
things, it must. She found herself lingering, though, drying herself off with 
her favorite fluffy towel, making sure not to miss a single water droplet or 
vagrant bubble. She decided to pamper herself with the luxuriant freesia- 
scented body lotion she had bought on a whim. She blotted her damp hair with 
another towel, deciding at the last minute not to wrap the cloth around her 
head. She now reached, not for the pajamas that hung on the hook on the back of 
the bathroom door, but for the oversized, white terry cloth robe hanging next to 
it. She savored the feeling of warmth and security the robe brought with it, the 
sensual feel of the fabric against her bare skin. She had a drawer full of 
nighties she could crawl into later, after she had roused Mulder and seen him 
safely settled. 

Opening the bathroom door, she emerged and walked back into the living room area 
of the apartment. 

X     X     X

She sneaked a last glance in either direction before picking the lock on number 
42 and entering. Getting past the FBI surveillance outside hadn't been that 
difficult. In fact, it had been damn easy. Agents who had little or no respect 
for Fox Mulder were sitting in their cars, passing the evening away, talking of 
their latest sexual conquests or of the baseball season. And not one of them had 
taken notice of the tall, slender figure dressed in dark clothing as she made 
her way into the building. No one had questioned her approach into the elevator, 
nor had anyone even been in sight on the fourth floor. Her trained eyes had 
searched for hidden cameras in case she arrived undetected, but no such objects 
came to her view. And Mulder's lock hadn't been changed or tampered with since 
the night before.

Inside, the apartment was dark, lifeless. Just as she'd expected. Tears welled 
in her eyes as she felt the difference that 24 hours could make in her plans, in 
her life. What she must do now had been her plan of last resort, but that scheme 
had become necessity, and no reason existed as to why she shouldn't plunge ahead 
with the task, no matter how aversive it was.

With a flashlight, she scanned Mulder's apartment, noting a few pieces of 
furniture moved inches from where they had rested before. She knew he must have 
searched his apartment when he'd found the note. She knew this because that's 
what any FBI agent would do. And Mulder was no exception. In fact, she was sure 
Mulder would have given the apartment a more thorough going over than would his 
idiot counterparts outside in the car. He was far more than a typical FBI agent, 
after all. She admired him for that. She loved him for that. But alas, all 
things had to end, and today, that had been decided for her.

Moving into the living room, she relished the feel the surroundings gave her. So 
him. She'd been here before, felt this before, sensed him before. And to know 
that these visits and her hold on him  would soon be over, now shot panic and 
despair through her body and to her heart.

She quickly sat on his couch. Grabbing his pillow, she embraced it, clutching it 
to her as if it were the man himself. The tears streamed from her face and onto 
its fabric. What could have been seemed only a faint dream on this dark evening, 
and that pained her deeply. Her long, dark hair fell into her face, obscuring 
her vision, but she took no notice. Not for a while.

She lay down on his couch, rolling slightly back and forth, hearing the leather 
squeak beneath her movements, and she continued to clutch the pillow  tightly to 
her. And the tears still  flowed. Mulder. Her Mulder. He had slept here. Had 
been here. She brought the pillow to her face, crying into it, sniffing its 
fabric to see if she could detect his scent. And she could. She could. Her eyes 
squeezed closed; she basked in the attractive smell filling her nostrils, 
breathing it into her lungs as if it might stay there forever. She let her body 
warm to the indentions that his back or hips or legs had made in the couch, and 
she imagined him there with her. She revelled in the dream, feeling him touching 
her, wanting her, making her his own. She imagined his lips, his hands exploring 
her, and she clutched the pillow even more tightly.

But it had to end.

Slowly, she rose to a sitting position, picked up the suitcase she'd brought 
with her, and tucked the pillow inside. After zipping the case closed, she ran 
her gloved hands once more over the black leather of the couch beneath her, and 
feeling Mulder's hands still caressing her, she stood.

The anniversary was nearing. No time to waste. She knew what had to be done.

With the help of the small flashlight she'd tucked into her pocket, she entered 
Mulder's kitchen and began checking the cabinet drawers to find what she needed. 
As she did, the feel of Mulder's hands on her body faded as she thought of Dana 
Scully taking her place. Dana Scully--
one of the reasons Mulder's reputation had been so besmirched at the FBI. Dana 
Scully--the tramp who'd already had an affair with Jack Willis, another fine 
agent. Willis, with Scully by his side, had been shot and had later died. And 
working with Scully, Mulder faced the same dangers, the same fate. 

She smiled sadly. Saving him from Scully and from the idiots at the FBI was her 
job. She had to do that for him even though he had fallen, had already sullied 
himself in her eyes.

And now, the idea of Mulder's hands on that tramp partner of his sickened her 
even more. She could no longer bear the image, and she frantically searched 
through his silverware for an implement worthy of her needs.

Her hand closed around the end of a bread knife. Lifting it, she saw it gleam in 
the glow from the flashlight, and she watched the light play on the silver, 
seeing it caress the blade like a lover.

And she thought of Scully. And her hand tightened till it hurt.

She tossed her head, sending the long hair behind her shoulders. No one would 
ever know it was her. No one would ever figure it out. How could they? She was 
too good, too careful. 

She knew the way to the bedroom and walked there quickly. The bed was unmade, 
the blanket and sheets thrown back, exposing the wrinkles on the fitted sheet 
that had held his body. Had Scully been there? She had no doubt. The knife in 
her hand, she nervously stuck it into the fitted sheet. With hysterical 
whimpers, she pulled the knife through the mattress, causing jagged tears as she 
plunged the knife in again and again, faster and faster as her rage erupted. 
Particles from the mattress flew onto the bed, littering the sheet that was 
barely recognizable as a whole piece of fabric anymore. She stabbed the knife 
into the pillows as well, cutting them even as feathers soared around her head 
in confused patterns. And as her fury heightened, she pulled the other sheet and 
blanket from the bed, throwing them against the wall, hardly hearing the crash 
that some object made as the bedclothes caused it to shatter on the floor. 

Finally exhausted, she dropped the bread knife and hung her head, alternately 
sobbing and panting, trying to reclaim her composure. And when she had, she 
returned to the living room.

Clicking Mulder's computer on and waiting only a few moments, she sat down at 
his keyboard and found his e-mail service. Addressing a letter to him, from him, 
she typed him a message and clicked "send." And moments later, she put the 
computer on "sleep" and watched as the monitor then faded to black.

She stood, her hand lingering on the desk that he had touched so many times, her 
eyes lingering on the things that were so his, so much a part of him. And then 
she gathered her feelings, gathered her suitcase, and stepped toward the door, 
reluctantly ready to begin the final stages of her plan.

And as she left his apartment as stealth-
ily as she'd entered it, the message she'd written to him played in her mind: 
*I've been watching you. And if I can't have you, Fox, no one will.*

X     X     X

Mulder sensed Scully's return before he ever heard her approach. The radiant, 
loving light she projected everywhere she went reached him just before the scent 
of freesia and soap bubbles. 

He opened his eyes, just slightly, and surreptitiously watched her approach. She 
was a vision in a white robe, her skin aglow with warmth and health, rosy from 
an apparent bath.  

"Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Time to get you to bed," she said softly, bending 
close. He could feel her warm breath on his ear.

"Oh, Scully," he murmured, "the promises you make."

She laughed again--the delightful sound he knew he had not heard often enough in 
the past. That would have to change. 

He sighed, hugely, and sat up, opening his eyes wide and looking at her as she 
stood before him, her hands held out, as though she were offering him help up. 
He took her hands, but made no effort to rise; he enjoyed the feel of her soft 
skin against his, those small hands disappearing into his own larger ones.  

"I don't mind the couch," he said  lazily. "I like this couch. Lots of good 
memories."

Scully was looking down at him, smiling fondly. "Yes, but the bed in the guest 
room is less likely to stunt your growth." 

She pulled, and he stood up, lurching forward. "Sorry, don't seem to have my sea 
legs yet, captain," Mulder apologized, regaining his balance with her gentle 
assistance.  

"That's okay; you're dead on your feet. Gotta quit trying to pull all-nighters, 
Mulder. We're none of us as young as we used to be," she commented, ducking 
under his arm, putting her own around his waist and guiding him in the general 
direction of her spare bedroom.  

"Hey, you've re-decorated," he observed conversationally as Scully leaned around 
him to flick on the light, then urged him forward again.  

"Not lately. And not much. You weren't in any condition to appreciate the 
furnishings last time you were in here," Scully responded. Mulder felt her 
shudder slightly.  

The last time he'd slept in this room, he'd been fresh from his father's 
shooting, sick from the drugs with which his apartment water had been fouled. A 
brief respite in a chaotic time, which had ended with him shot by his partner, 
then transported to the Southwest--and given up for dead not long afterward. She 
had to be remembering that.  

"'s okay, Scully. Just so long as you don't shoot me in the morning," he 
reassured.

She looked up at him then, and he could tell by the surprise in her expression 
that he had accurately read her thoughts. The surprise gave way to amusement 
after a moment.

"Then you'll just have to behave yourself tonight," she teased gently. She moved 
away from him then, reaching for the small lamp that sat on the nightstand, and 
turned it on. It cast a warm, soft glow over the room.  

"Can you manage, or shall I help?" Scully asked as she straightened.

Mulder looked at her, one eyebrow cocked. "Why, Agent Scully, whatever do you 
mean?"

Scully laughed again. "Your clothes. You look like you're about to fall asleep 
where you stand. You'd better hurry before you keel over."

"Been dressing myself for years. Ten at least," he responded, obediently 
unbuttoning his shirt front and cuffs. He had shucked the jacket hours before, 
when he had first collapsed onto the couch. He'd have to remember to retrieve 
that later, after Scully was asleep. 

"Okay. Good night, Mulder. Sleep well," Scully was saying. She gave him a 
lingering look and moved around him, toward the door. 

He had shucked the shirt, kicked off shoes, removed socks, and dropped his pants 
in the time it took her to walk to the door. He stepped away from the riot of 
clothes piled haphazardly on the floor, watching her as she paused, her hand on 
the overhead light switch. Silently, he moved closer behind her, until he was 
barely an arm's length away.  She was still standing there, her hand on the 
switch, not moving. He reached out, his hand pausing a few inches from her 
shoulder. He wanted to touch her once more, before he slipped away to find and 
face the dragon.  

"I've set out clean towels for you in the bathroom." Her voice drifted over her 
shoulder, and she finally closed her hand over the light switch, until the only 
light remaining in the room came from the lamp on the nightstand behind them.  

"Mulder--"  

It happened so quickly; it was only later that Mulder figured out the chain of 
events. In turning, she'd grown careless of the gym bag that lay very near the 
bedroom door, and her bare foot had caught in the strap, throwing her off 
balance. Instinctively, he moved forward, and scooping her up in his arms, saved 
her from the fall that had been imminent.

In two strides he had her to the bed. Carefully, he set her down on the edge of 
it, dropping to his knees to inspect the damage done.

Her ankle was small and delicate between his hands, the skin soft and warm. He 
chafed it tenderly, looking up at her in concern.

"Did you twist it?" he asked, seeking out her eyes. "Does it hurt?"

She looked at him, her eyes large, pupils dilated in the low light. She didn't 
speak, just shook her head.

The robe had fallen open to reveal the day's earlier mishap, only now the 
bandage that covered the cut of that morning had been replaced with something 
smaller, less cumbersome. He allowed--and so did she--his hand to drift up the 
flesh of her leg to that spot on her shin. His fingertips touched the wound 
gingerly.

"Poor leg," he said softly, looking up into Scully's eyes again. The expression 
he saw there was filled with longing, with an invitation to which he now 
hesitated to respond.  

This wasn't the right time or the right place. It was too soon; they needed the 
time to get used to the new level of intimacy they had already reached this 
night. To become comfortable with the idea before it became a reality.

Scully sensed his hesitation, and looking at her, he knew she knew why--that she 
had faced similar fears and had somehow conquered them. He bent to kiss the cut 
on her leg, continuing to caress the injured ankle. The skin beneath his lips 
was still moist from her bath, and it felt wonderfully smooth and inviting to 
his mouth.

He felt her shift, and his eyes raised--
and stared. Scully was opening the white robe, revealing herself to him, 
exposing her vulnerability. His senses, his desire, took over his mind. His hand 
moved up, slowly skimming the soft skin of thigh, of hip, of breast. His lips 
followed the trail of his hand. And then he rose and came to meet her, lips upon 
lips, searching, hungry, insatiable.

As Scully's mouth opened beneath his, Mulder's hands tantalizingly smoothed down 
her neck, pushing the robe from her naked shoulders and off her silky arms. And 
as she let it fall from her, her hands slid around his waist, urging the boxers 
from her lover's hips, letting them slide to the floor soundlessly.

And then the invitation could no longer be denied. 

X     X     X 

*And now Scully waited, waited for him to come to the door, waited to let him 
in. Just as she had, in one sense or another for most of the last six years...*

Not the door to her apartment this time, though, but the door to her very soul; 
she had laid the core of herself bare, ripe and ready.

In these first few precious moments of their lovemaking, she knew what it was to 
be desired, to be cherished, adored. With slow deliberate lassitude, Mulder's 
mouth and hands played over her body, stimulating her to heights of ecstasy she 
had never reached before. One moment she felt as fragile as glass--as if one 
more touch would shatter her completely. The next, she felt as strong and 
resilient as steel, invincible. In those moments, she sought to return, with all 
the passion blossoming within her, the exquisite pleasure she was receiving, her 
hands and mouth exploring the strong, virile body above her. 

The line from an old wedding ceremony that she had heard years ago, echoed 
through her head. The words had always seemed quaint; she had not truly 
understood the beauty of their meaning. But now, blissfully, sensually, she knew 
the essence of the words with every fiber of body and soul...

*With my body I thee worship...*  

X     X     X

He had, he knew, never ceased to think of her as fragile. A legacy of the time 
when cancer had ravaged her body and he had watched, helpless, from her bedside, 
powerless to stop the onslaught. Impotent against a faceless monster.  

Now, her small, delicate body beneath his, Mulder worried again about fragility, 
tempering the surge of desire he felt with concern that in loving her he would 
not hurt her. He had done too much of that already. He sought, therefore,  to 
impart the preciousness with which he regarded her through his every touch, 
every deliberately tender movement of his body against hers. 

He had long ago convinced himself that this moment would never be realized, 
would forever remain unattainable. By whatever miracle this had come to pass, he 
humbled himself with the knowledge that they might never have this chance again. 
And if he had to leave his beloved Scully, he wanted her to know with absolute 
certainty the depth of the love he felt for her--had always felt for her.  

This one night, this one chance, he would not waste.

X     X     X

He had, she knew, never ceased to think of her as fragile--not since the cancer 
that had come so close to killing her.

She had tried to prove, time and again, that she was strong and whole once more, 
to convince him that in that danse macabre she had emerged the victor--
stronger and more resilient for the experience. It was, she knew, the only way 
she could make sense of it having happened to her at all. 

And now, having taken her to brink of a sensual abyss, he was worried about her 
fragility again, somehow reserving his own pleasure--and therefore, 
paradoxically, her own--in an effort not to hurt her. 

As though he ever had, or ever could.  

He had always been her strength, the core of stability that had sustained her 
through the years of their eventful partnership. He had been a rock upon which 
she could rebuild her security in the wake of her abduction. He had been her 
surcease from pain--her burning hope--as she had fought the cancer that had 
ravaged her body. He had been her salvation so many times that she had long ago 
lost count.

She couldn't remember now when the playful attraction they had always shared--
from the first day she had been assigned to the X-Files--had matured and 
blossomed, and she didn't care; it no longer mattered. What did matter was here, 
and now. This night had proven that there was no longer any need for barriers 
between them. And now, breathless from the building desire that was threatening 
to consume her, she prepared to break down the last one that remained.

X     X     X

"Mulder," Scully said, breathlessly, her voice in his ear. "I...promise you...I 
won't break."

And as if to prove her assertion, she shifted beneath him, indicating her 
readiness by a sensuous gyration where their bodies had met, but not yet fully 
joined.

He looked down at her for a moment, reading the plea in the blue-green eyes.

He had never been one to deny her anything she had ever asked. And he didn't 
now. As she arched up to meet him, her movements strong and focused, he heard 
her murmur something else, but he would lose the memory of it in the exquisitely 
earthy moments that followed. 

"With my body, I thee worship..."

X     X     X

Dana felt herself shatter, into a millions tiny pieces, each of which shattered 
into a million more, the cascading effect of which carried her to the brink of 
insensibility.

And in that moment, when two souls separated before birth returned once again to 
become one, she understood, as never before, the essence of the man she loved. 

As she floated, insensate, above her satiated body, she saw herself through his 
eyes, understood in the flash of an instant, the pain, the fear that had 
accompanied his actions this night. She saw, as though reliving her own life, 
the flash of Mulder's life before her eyes. The disappearance of Samantha, the 
loss of his parents as loving protectors, the years of self doubt, the epiphany 
of finding the X-Files--all images played against the screen of her mind's eye.  

Her heart, her soul opened to him, as never before, her mind touching his, 
offering the solace of her presence.

Somewhere, in a timeless moment, in a place far removed from the reality of the 
physical, the offer was received and accepted.

X     X     X

He managed, at the last moment, not to collapse onto her with his full weight, 
easing himself instead until he rested against her as lightly as he could. He 
felt a strange sense of disconnectedness to his physical self, a lassitude he 
had neither the strength or will to fight against. He let himself go, drifting 
away.

Scully's presence would not let him go far, he realized; the soft glow that was 
her soul was surrounding him as he floated above his body, riding the currents 
of non-sensation. This must be what sensory overload was like, he imagined 
quixotically; perhaps his mind had finally snapped. It didn't really matter.

He felt himself--his very atoms scattered now to the ether--mingling with the 
essence that was Scully. He saw through her eyes, felt through her heart the 
images of the first day they had met--over six years ago now; grieved with her 
as her father died; felt with exquisite torture, the terror of her abduction. 
Images of her life played out before him--his coming to her in the hospital 
after her return and near death; her sense of profound loss when he had been 
presumed dead, lost to a fiery boxcar in the southwest; her indomitable courage 
as she strove to fight the cancer.   

And through it all, he sensed her strength, the core of love, faith, and 
compassion that was her most vital essence, her life force. She was extending it 
to him now--offering up the very quintessence of herself. 

He could do nothing else but offer her himself in return, and accept what she 
gave him with a humble heart. 

X     X     X

They came back to themselves gradually, breathless with the momentousness of 
what had happened between them.  

Scully returned to awareness first, and  cradled her lover in her arms, stroking 
his face gently. 

Mulder responded to her touch, making as though to shift away--and out of her. 
She held him close, forbidding the movement.  

"I wish we could stay like this forever," she whispered huskily into Mulder's 
ear.

He smiled at her, languidly, a sparkle in the hazel green eyes. "Wouldn't that 
be a little awkward, Scully?"

She smiled in return, and indolently, as though they had all the time in the 
world, searched out his mouth with her own.  

X     X     X

Strands of freshly  dyed red hair fell onto the towel stretched across the 
bathroom sink. Each measured roughly five to seven inches in length, and each 
had been severed with a pair of kitchen scissors which were held in a shaking, 
clenched fist.

As she gazed in the mirror, her eyes surveyed the final look--not professional, 
of course, but passable. Turning her head from side to side, she could see the 
straight lines of her artistry, the once-long hair curling naturally toward her 
neck.

Lifting the photo from the countertop, she glanced again at the twosome it 
showcased. And she remembered the day she'd sat outside Mulder's apartment, 
waiting in the car so that when the two emerged, she could photograph him. It 
had been cold, but she'd ignored that, needing another Mulder fix more than she 
needed comfort. More photos would supply that craving. And she loved to 
photograph him, loved to watch him move, loved to see his face, his build, his 
hands, his hair, loved to see his image come into focus as she developed her 
films in the homemade darkroom at the end of her hallway. She resented having to 
always take his picture or to see him from afar. But afar was better than not at 
all.

Now, she tore her eyes from Fox Mulder and concentrated instead on his tramp, 
Dana Scully. With a curling iron, she could match that hairdo easily. And then 
he'd see that Scully was no match for her beauty, nor for her intelligence. But, 
of course, he was a man. He wouldn't even begin to fathom her intelligence until 
he'd become mesmerized by her face, her hair, her body.

Her nervous fingers began to slowly rip the photograph in two, deftly dividing 
it so that no part of Mulder's image was harmed, but so that Scully was torn 
from him. The Scully half was immediately crumpled and tossed into the toilet 
which was quickly flushed. And the Mulder half was set into the corner of the 
mirror's wooden frame. 

She next sorted several strands of the cut red hair, lining them up in a neat 
bundle. And then she tucked them and the note inside the padded envelope which, 
after tearing off its adhesive strip, she then sealed. She'd already filled in 
the address and was ready to mail it. She only needed to drive to a nearby post 
office and to toss the package into a night deposit slit. Not a problem. She'd 
do it soon.

She then lifted the curling iron and set about turning the ends of her hair 
under, taking only minutes for the process to be finished. And then she lightly 
shook her head, enjoying the feel of the shorter hair as it bounced around her 
chin and face. Maybe he would enjoy the feel of it against him as well.

She took the towel and dumped it into her clothes hamper. The laundry would have 
to be done at some point, but there were other priorities. 

Her tweezers lay on a shelf to the left of the counter, and she took them in 
hand and began the painful task of plucking her eyebrows. Enduring what she 
considered necessary and even welcome pain, she took them out one by one, and 
when finished, she clutched a washcloth to her face, letting the coolness of it 
sooth her burning skin. And then she used a deep red eyebrow pencil to sketch on 
herself, the eyebrows of Dana Scully.

Finished, she looked at herself in the mirror and when satisfied the proper look 
had been achieved, she lifted her shirt over her head. Her large round breasts 
bobbed as she brought her arms down. Her slacks and panties were pulled off, 
too, and then she left the bathroom, going into her bedroom. Removing his pillow 
from her suitcase, she again clutched it to her, feeling its fabric against her 
naked skin, imagining it to be his body. She kissed the pillow and then, still 
hugging it, lay down on her satin sheets and began to rock in the darkness. And 
she listened.

X     X     X

Fox Mulder awakened to the soft glow of early morning light. He came to full 
consciousness with an indefinable sense of...wholeness and serenity; two 
commodities with which he had had rare experience.  

Scully, his beautiful Scully, was curled up to him, their bodies as intertwined 
in sleep as they had been in lovemaking much of the night just past. Her head 
was on his chest, her red hair splayed across his skin. It looked like spun gold 
in the early morning light.  

She was sleeping deeply and peacefully; he could sense as well as see it. He 
spent several silent minutes just looking at her in repose, his heart as full of 
emotion as he could remember it ever having been. 

It hadn't been a dream....

Unbidden, a mental image formed in Mulder's brain, just behind his eyes. William 
Scully, Jr. was looking at him with hate-filled eyes while shouldering a shotgun 
leveled right at his chest.

*What have I done?*  Mulder's cry was silent, his body clinging to the sense of 
completeness and peace to which he'd awakened.

It wasn't just the image of Bill invading his thoughts. The night before, as 
surprising and delightful as it had been, as precious a treasure as it would 
always be in his memory, had not gone quite as he had anticipated. It had been 
his intention to slip away from Scully's apartment after he was sure she was 
asleep. He had plotted to do what he should have done to begin with, to find and 
go after the mysterious stranger who had turned his never peaceful life into 
another living hell. 

It was what he had to do to protect Scully.

She would have been angry, had his plan succeeded, but she would never have had 
to become any more deeply involved, in any way effected by this horror in which 
he found himself enmeshed.  

But his careful planning had not taken into consideration the turn their 
relationship would take in the course of one magical evening. 

Even after they had both fallen asleep, after the hours of lovemaking had 
exhausted them both, there had been no way to execute the plan. To move his body 
away from hers meant wakening her, and even if he had been able to find a way to 
do so physically, he could not have gone. He could not leave her alone, with no 
explanation. It would have seemed a rejection of the night they had just passed, 
and he loved her too much to allow that misconception to blossom. 

Scully stirred against his chest, her head lifting, her drowsy eyes focusing on 
him questioningly.  

"Mulder," she said in sleepy concern,  "what's wrong?"

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. While his mind *had* been reeling with  
ramifi-
cations, he had successfully willed his body not to mirror his mental state. He 
had not wanted to disturb her at all, had made every effort not to. 

"Nothing, Scully," he soothed softly. "What makes you think anything could be 
wrong?" He reached out to lovingly brush a strand of hair away from her eyes. 

"I heard you. You said, 'what have I done?' What's wrong?" she repeated. 

Mulder's tender regard turned into a disbelieving stare. He had *not* spoken. As 
anguished as his thoughts may have been, he had not lost his outer control.  

"Scully," Mulder responded. "I haven't said a word."

Scully's brows were drawn together in that mesmerizing way of hers, the same 
movement they always made when she was about to hold forth on some scientific 
principle to counter one of his paranormal theories. "But you had to have, 
Mulder. I heard you very plainly."

She was moving up so that her face was very near his, looking at him with such 
tender concern, he almost had to look away to keep himself collected. 

"I didn't *say* that Scully. I *thought* it," Mulder replied. 

Scully cocked her head at him. "Are you accusing me of being able to read your 
mind?"

Mulder wanted nothing to spoil the accord they had established in the last few 
hours.

"I don't know, Scully--what other explanation is there?" he ventured cautiously.  

"Sounds like an *X-File* to me." She smiled a secret smile. "You still haven't 
answered me. Why would you be *thinking* 'what have I done'?"

She was so close now, her lips so near his own. He lost himself for a minute in 
the depths of those enchanting eyes.

"I had," Mulder began wryly, "a vision of your brother Bill and a shotgun," 
Mulder admitted. Hopefully, she'd focus on that part of the mental musings and 
not press further. 

Scully laughed suddenly, an action which brought a wide grin to Mulder's face in 
automatic response. Her laugh was so full and joyful, he had been right to 
believe she should laugh more often. 

"He'd better not try anything like that. I'd hate to widow Tara and orphan my 
nephew," Scully said emphatically. She was drawing a line along his collarbone 
with her forefinger and looking him straight in the eye.

"You'd go that far?" Mulder replied wonderingly, trying not to let the 
sensuality of her touch distract him from the matter at hand.

"In a heartbeat, Mulder. *This* is none of Bill's business," Scully replied.

"But you should stop and think for a minute, Scully--what...we've done...
changes everything."

Scully looked at him, her expression thoughtful. "Yes," she allowed, "it changes 
everything. Of course it does. And it changes *nothing* Mulder. We're still who 
we are and have always been."

"Even if you can read my mind?" Mulder queried.

"Even if," Scully replied reasonably. "I'm thinking, by the way, of having this 
bed bronzed."

Mulder raised an eyebrow. "Ouch. Don't want me sleeping over any more, eh?"

Scully cuffed him playfully and so gently it was more of a caress. "There *is* 
another bed in this apartment, buster. I'm just thinking of a way to commemorate 
the best investment I've ever made--even if it did take a while to pay off."

"Dr. Scully, how you talk," Mulder teased. "So tell me something."

"Anything," Scully responded, resting her chin for a moment on his chest.

"Was I as *good* as Steel Rod?"

Scully looked at him for a minute, and he was unsure of whether she was ready to 
burst into laughter again when he looked at the sparkle in her eyes. His fragile 
male ego braced itself for a trammeling.

At the last moment, the sparkle in her eyes was eclipsed by the lovely, tender 
smile that spread across her face. "Mulder," she began, leaning in close, her 
lips almost on top of his. "Steel Rod? Well, he might as well be *dead*. There 
was *no* comparison."

Her lips were on top of his now, and in the next few minutes the concept of 
comparisons between Steel Rod and Mulder  were put firmly, irrevocably, to rest 
once again.  

X     X     X

Mulder was dozing.  

He looked so very peaceful in repose. The exhaustion--paradoxically, considering 
the  rather *active* evening and early morning they had just passed--was 
blessedly gone. In its place was a sense of peace and contentment she could not 
remember seeing so profoundly expressed on those features before.

Scully laid her head carefully over Mulder's heart, listening to the comforting 
cadence beneath her ear. They were so in tune, so connected now, she knew--the 
scientist in her be damned--
that they shared the same heartbeat, the same pulse of blood pounding through 
their veins. 

She had, she realized, made good on her promise. Something had told her that if 
she held on and didn't let go, she could keep him safe, secure from the threat 
that awaited outside these four walls. She hadn't anticipated the turn the 
evening would take, but she did not regret it; it had been as natural as 
breathing, and now experienced, just as necessary. 

And she knew her Mulder well enough to know that if she had not kept and held 
him so close, that he would have been gone in the depths of the night, absent-
ing himself to protect her. Those thoughts had been in his mind, even as he had 
made such delicate love to her.  

Mulder had told her just minutes ago,  that she had been able to read his 
thoughts. And he'd been right, although  Scully did not find this at odds with 
her natural skepticism. Her parents had possessed that ability, too, to such a 
remarkable extent that Dana had once asked her mother about it. Margaret Scully 
had given a secret smile, and cupped her hand to her daughter's cheek, assuring 
her that one day, when she fell in love, she would understand.

Dana Katherine Scully finally understood
and saw nothing paranormal about it. To some extent, she had been able to read 
Fox Mulder's mind for years. That should have told her something. 

Fox. Mulder.  

She wondered, lazily, as she watched her lover slumber, if now she could join 
the ranks for those who called him by his first name, if he would finally allow 
it. 

Phoebe Green had. Diana Fowley did.

Scully had tried once, and been firmly told that: "I even made my parents call 
me Mulder." And "Mulder" he had been ever since.

And, she realized, the thought making her smile at him goofily--good thing he 
was asleep and couldn't see--he always would be Mulder.  

Her Mulder now. 

He was stirring, as though her private joke had reached him. Perhaps it had. 

"Scully...what time is it?" the hazel green eyes opened, regarding her groggily.

Scully glanced at the bedside clock. Time seemed a foreign concept; it took her 
a minute to remember how to read hours.

"Almost seven, Mulder. Why?" she asked softly. "We have a few days off, 
remember?"

Mulder was smiling. "Gotta get to those files sometime, Scully. Bennet is count-
ing on us."

So like her Mulder to be so concerned about his work at the damnedest moments. 
But that was part of his charm.  

"All work and no play makes Fox Mulder a dull boy," Scully paraphrased the old 
adage, trying to keep the smile that threatened at bay, working instead for a 
moderately stern expression. She'd never know how miserably she'd failed. 

Mulder was reaching out to touch her cheek, cupping his hand against her face. 
"If that's so, then I'm sharp as a tack, Agent Scully,"  he replied laconically.  

"So I've noticed," Scully replied, smiling brightly. 

X     X     X

The abrupt ringing of the phone interrupted what had promised to be an 
intriguing variation on a lovely theme.  

Mulder reached for the phone, cursing under his breath, then thought better of 
it. He cast Scully a quick look. 

Scully, sprawled over the top of him, caught the look and nodded. He scooped up 
the receiver and handed it to her as she rolled and sat up, bracing her back 
against the headboard.  

"Scully," she said into the receiver, incredibly irritated and wondering who 
would be calling this early in the morning. She could have let the answering 
machine pick it up, if only she had remembered to activate it. The events of the 
evening before *had* interrupted the usual nighttime rituals. 

Skinner's voice identified itself on the other end of the connection. 
Unconscious-
ly, she sat up a bit straighter, as incongruous as the action was in her state 
of undress. 

"Yes, sir. He's--still asleep, sir, in the guest room. I was just getting some 
breakfast going."

Obligingly, Mulder picked up the  bedside lamp and banged it back down on the 
table--producing a passable facsimile for pots and pans thumping together. 
Scully flashed him a grateful smile and mouthed Skinner's name to him silently. 
He nodded. 

"Yes, sir. He was up all night--night before last, working Bennet's case," 
Scully hastened to elucidate.  

Mulder had pulled himself up and was sitting back against the headboard. He put 
his head next to hers, as though he could make out the conversation.  

Or maybe not. He was nibbling on her ear.  

"I'll call him, sir. Hang on." Scully put the receiver to her chest. "MULDER!!!" 
It was a bellow worthy of a fishmonger, she realized, as Mulder winced at the 
volume, and nearly fell out of the bed. She glanced at him apologetically. He 
was recovering magnificently, those kissable lips wandering from her shoulder 
back up to her ear.

"IT'S A.D. SKINNER, MULDER!" Scully shouted again. Prepared this time, Mulder 
didn't miss a beat. Scully tried to ignore the distraction by putting the 
receiver back up to her ear. 

"He'll be here in a second, sir; I heard unmistakable signs of life...yes...No, 
actually we didn't. Mulder fell asleep almost as soon as he got here...
completely exhausted...yes... We were going to start in on them today, first 
thing." 

Scully unconsciously fingered the cross around her neck, hoping that what she 
said was close enough to the truth so that she wouldn't be burning in hell for 
lying at least. 

After what seemed a suitable interval, during which Mulder had continued his 
maddeningly tantalizing exploration of the area between her ear and shoulder, 
Scully continued, "Here he is, sir...all right. It's okay...sir. I was up."

She passed the phone over to Mulder, who cast her a suggestive glance before 
bringing the receiver to his ear.

"Mulder," he said in a suitably sleepy tone of voice. "Yes..."

There was an intangible change in Mulder as he listened to Skinner at the other 
end of the connection. Even as Scully returned the favor of trailing kisses up 
his shoulder and neck, she could detect the return to the professional agent and 
erstwhile profiler. She paused, putting her ear next to the receiver.

"I understand, sir. I'll be there in ...give me an hour?" Mulder was saying. 
"Right." Mulder reached over and placed the phone back on the table.

"What is it?" Scully asked as he collapsed back against the headboard, the tired 
lines somehow returning to his features. She reached out instinctively as though 
by touching his face, she would be able to smooth them away again. 

"The serial killer has apparently struck again. They've received an interesting 
item at the x-ray desk. From the looks of it, it fits the profile. Skinner wants 
me--us, if you'd like--back in this morning when they open the package."

Scully heaved a heavy sigh. "So much for a few days off. Of course I'll be going 
with you. I'm your body guard, remember?"

Mulder was smiling at her. "Of course I do." His expression became serious. 
"Scully, I don't want you to take this wrong. But what we've done..."

"It's called 'making love' Mulder," she said softly.  

He inclined his head briefly, nodding, then looked at her apologetically. His 
expression was vulnerable as he contin-
ued. "I know what they say behind our backs. I've never wanted that to touch 
you, and I especially don't now that it is the truth. Your career and reputation 
have suffered enough through association with me..."

She knew what he was going to say, and so she placed her fingertips to his lips, 
to still them, to save him from having to say it. 

"Shhh," she soothed. "None of that matters. I don't care. I'll shout how I feel 
from the rooftops, if I choose to."

"But--" Mulder began, his lips moving against her fingers.  

"We are who we are and who we've always been, Mulder," She repeated her 
sentiment from earlier to him, emphasizing the words as her fingers traced the 
outline of his lips. "Nothing has changed."

Mulder kissed her fingers, then took her face between his hands. "And everything 
*has* changed. Please know that."

Scully rested her forehead against his, nodding, willing into that stubborn head 
of his the idea that her loving him did not demean her, but instead completed 
and exalted her. It would take some work, but he would know it. And soon.  

She willed her mood to lighten. Smiling impishly, she offered, "If we shower 
together, we'll save time."  

Mulder drew back, as though in profound surprise. "We Will?" 

She laughed and was reaching for him when he winced and gave a small gasp of 
pain.  

"Mulder?" her alarm was genuine, and the doctor in her elbowed the love-smitten 
woman aside. "Are you all right?!"

He was reaching for a spot on his back, awkwardly, twisting slightly. "Just a 
spasm," he said somewhat tersely.

Her medical instincts were instantly in overdrive, her mind automatically 
ticking off the negatives and positives that began the ritual of case 
assessment.  

"Lie back down and try to relax," Scully ordered sternly. She reached for his 
wrist and started taking his pulse.

"I'm okay, Scully," he began, only to be hushed to silence as she mentally did 
the calculations, converting pulse beats to heart rate. 

"It's just--" he was continuing weakly, "that I haven't--"

"Haven't what, Mulder?" she asked distractedly, as she checked neurological 
responses and breathing rate.

"Haven't made love to such a little person in a while." His voice was suddenly 
back to normal, and before Dana Scully realized it, she was being grabbed and 
pinned down to the mattress, recipient of such an ardent kiss, that she knew she 
had been suckered. 

"Had me. Big time," she said breathlessly, as their lips parted for a moment. 
"We're gonna be late."

Mulder's response was an inarticulate mumble, and a renewal of his intentions.  

All Scully could do was to remind him as best she could through her best non-
verbal means that sometimes wonderful things came in small packages.

X     X     X

Too soon. Too much. Too wonderful. Too wrong.

Fox Mulder steered his car into a left turn as he headed from Scully's street 
and toward downtown D.C. And his mind whirled in a bevy of thoughts, chaotic and 
troubling, as fast as the car's tires whirled on their hubs. Only 24 hours 
earlier, he'd headed home for rest and for a change of clothing, only to find 
his life further complicated by the stalker who'd visited his apartment and left 
threats to Scully and himself. Only 12 hours earlier, he'd been at Scully's for 
an evening that turned into far more than he'd anticipated. And the 
complications that now brought to his life were as troublesome, in some 
respects, as what the stalker had brought forth.

Mulder's body still felt warm lingering effects of the shower from which he'd 
stepped only moments before. A long shower. Full of Scully caresses with hands, 
mouth, and tongue. Full of soap lather and the fingers spreading it. Full of 
love and acceptance and desire. Allowing himself that one extra bit of pleasure, 
though, had put him behind in getting to the Hoover in an hour, and he hoped 
Skinner would somehow not recognize that fact. 

He checked the rearview, seeing Scully's car not far behind him. She'd shortly 
turn off and head toward the Lone Gunmen's hideaway. Frohike had called to say 
the Gunmen's search had supplied photos of most of the UNSUB's victims, and 
though Mulder had wanted Scully to go straight in to work, her argument that 
Skinner expected him more, had won. She would be only slightly delayed in 
arriving at headquarters, and then, hopefully, with the photos in hand, his 
partner, Bennet, and he could forward the  investigation.

Even now, though, he worried about Scully, wanting to have her near him, 
protected at all times, but she was a more than capable agent, and she also knew 
the gravity of the cases on which they were currently working. Though he hated 
leaving her alone, he knew she could handle herself.

Mulder also hated the fact that he'd not perused the files as he normally would 
have. Reasons existed as to why agents weren't supposed to get close to each 
other, other than the normal partnerships. And Fox Mulder also had a code of 
ethics for himself which included not getting close to anyone. Closeness  
brought with it pain and suffering for the other person, and it brough diffusion 
of energy and thought for him. But when he'd unconsciously devised this code, 
Scully hadn't been his partner. Scully hadn't been his friend. Scully hadn't 
been his lover.

Everything had changed. And yet nothing had changed.

He still had to help Bennet. He still had to research and profile in more detail 
the serial killer. And to some extent, he still had to research and profile the 
stalker even though Skinner had people on that case already. But Mulder had to 
know her. Had to know why...and how...she'd become attracted to him.

As he headed through a green light, he again checked the rearview, seeing 
Scully's car turning. He raised his right hand, waving at her, and then he saw 
her return the wave. Inwardly, he smiled and then let the smile fade.

What a revelation Scully had been. So guarded during the day. So professional, 
so formal. He'd known her vulnerabilities for years, but he'd respected her 
privacy in regard to them. But the intense, feral passion she'd exhibited the 
previous night--which had come after their first intimacy--still left memories 
of exploring hands and lips, still left the feel of these on his body. He 
doubted now that there was any part of him that she had not touched, caressed, 
or kissed. And Mulder looked at his partner in a completely different light this 
morning. Respect still existed, as did appreciation and admiration, but love and 
further devotion now clouded the picture. 

He still wasn't sure it was a good thing. Not for her. And if he was going to 
perform on Bennet's case, maybe not for him either.

Mulder tried to reel in his thoughts. Serial killer. Skinner's call. Blood on a 
Priority Mail box delivered to the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania 
Avenue in Washington, D.C. Not delivered to some FBI field office in Podunk, but 
right to the heart of the operation. Perhaps the UNSUB was simply in town? No, 
he was certain this latest move had significance--and defiance. And Skinner had 
said that the x-ray of the box showed an object--he hadn't wanted to say what it 
resembled or most likely was, over the phone--but he had requested Mulder's 
presence when the box was opened. And Bennet had requested his presence. 

Scully's hands covered with lather, smoothing over his chest...

Mulder's reverie was broken by the tinny ring of his cell phone. He nearly 
smiled. Scully had been out of his sight for merely a few moments, and she was 
calling him already. He reached into the inside breast pocket of the suitcoat 
he'd worn the day before, brought out the phone, and with his mouth, pulled the 
antenna out so he could receive the transmission. But before he touched the 
button that would bring the caller's voice to his ear, he paused. He wanted to 
say some-
thing funny or seductive or downright sexy to her, but for once, his mind was 
blank to those options. He shrugged, hit the button, and said, "Mulder."

A slight pause ensued. Then a breath was drawn. And words were emitted. "You 
fucked her, you son of a bitch."

The voice was smoky, angry, controlled.

Again, Mulder's mind swirled, but not with pleasant thoughts. The words stunned 
him, and he felt his mouth go dry.

"Fox? Are you there?"

He tried hard to focus on the road before him, on the fact that traffic had 
stopped at a light, and that he was traveling far too fast to stop without 
screeching the car's  brakes. Signal from brain to foot sent the brakes into a 
major scream, and the car came to a halt within inches of the SUV in front of 
it. The SUV's driver flipped him off, but Mulder didn't notice.

"Fox? I know you're there."

Struggling with confusion and dread, Mulder found his voice. "Wh-wh-who is 
this?"

Slowly, she said, "Oh, you know."

He swallowed. His instinct had been correct. "What the hell--how did you get 
this number? What do you want?"

"For starters, I want to know how you could screw that whore."

He shook his head, as if doing so would clear his mind. "I don't know what 
you're talking about." He could no longer feel Scully's hands caressing him in 
the shower, or her mouth pressing his the night before, her body wrapping around 
his as their love was consummated. "I don't know..." he heard himself repeat.

"Yes, you do. Don't pretend with me."

Mulder tried to bury the man in him, tried to bring to the fore, the 
psychologist, the FBI agent, the stoic profiler and investigator. "Look, this--
obsession--you have with me, it's got to stop. You can get help, find some way 
to overcome this illness before this situation turns tragic."

She allowed a pause. "Fox, I have no desire to have it end. Not in the way 
you're suggesting anyway. Our anniversary is approaching. You know that."

Mulder resumed acceleration as the light changed, and in spite of the fact that 
he now felt physically ill, he vowed to keep better watch of the cars in front 
of him so that he might actually make it to the Hoover alive--even if that 
option didn't sound inviting at the moment. "Look, you claim to know me. How is 
it that I don't know you?"

"You don't remember me?" Her voice sounded genuinely hurt.

"Remind me."

She chuckled sarcastically. "Oh, there will be time for that. Later. I promise 
you."

"Wonderful," Mulder said, his own sarcasm waking.

"And in the meantime, Fox, you should know that I *am* watching you."

"Yeah, sure. You've said that before. Tell me, where am I right now?"

"In your car."

He shook his head. "That's not too difficult to discern, is it?"

"You just left your--*partner's*--house. Tell me, did you enjoy your evening, 
Fox? Did you enjoy being in that hussy's arms?"

Too close. He didn't like this at all. He didn't answer, waiting to see if this 
woman was merely guessing.

"You were supposed to be going over files on some case you two are working. But 
instead, you had a sex-fest, didn't you? All night long. Was it as good for you 
as it was for me?"

The icy fingers from the day before crawled viciously up Mulder's back. "I don't 
know where you're getting your information, lady, but your sources are wrong. I 
don't know what you're talking about."

"Amongst other things, you screwed her, Fox. But you made love to me all night 
long."

"I've gotta be one heck of a man to do that, don't I? Superhuman, in fact."

"You were superhuman as far as I'm concerned."

He clutched the steering wheel till the skin of his knuckles turned white. He 
waited, hoping the rage would level. But it didn't. "Look," Mulder spat, "I 
don't have time for this. If you must play this game--"

"Do you want proof, Fox?"

He snorted. "Proof of what?"

"Just wait..."

The line was quiet, though he knew she was still at the other end. He dodged a 
car swerving into his lane and hit the brakes again for another surprise stop at 
a light. He was beginning to wonder if he could survive the load upon his 
should-
ers. Never before had he felt the weight of pressures as he did these.

"Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Then listen to this," she told him. 

Mulder heard a click and then static and then faint sounds--of panting and of 
moaning. Unmistakable sounds. A couple  making love. He was ready to accuse the 
stalker of stealing from a porno movie when he froze. A voice so lovingly 
familiar. So close to him now. A voice on the tape: "'With my body, I thee 
worship...'"

Mulder's free hand covered his eyes as his head bent toward his chest. 
Ramifications of all sorts echoed in his mind. Regret, horror, rage, contempt 
seared through him. He didn't notice the change of the traffic light. He didn't 
hear the cars behind him whose horns honked politely, then angrily when his car 
didn't move. He didn't see the middle fingers raised toward him as drivers 
maneuvered around his vehicle so that they could continue their journeys.

Another click, and the sounds of lovemaking stopped.

"Is that enough evidence for you, Fox?"

Mulder found it difficult to breathe. As quietly as he could, he endeavored to 
pull himself back to the present, back to a calm he could at least feign if not 
feel. "What do you want from me?"

"This isn't blackmail, Agent Mulder. I simply want you. I was with you last 
night--vicariously, I suppose you'd say. I loved you, too, but *I* really love 
you. Not like that tart. She will only lead you astray. She will only ruin your 
career. I won't. I wouldn't."

"We'll find you soon. You know that, don't you? You've already made some 
mistakes. It won't be that hard to put you down."

"Bullshit. And you know it. I know FBI tactics. I'm not stupid."

"This whole thing--is stupid."

"Look, Fox, you're entirely too negative toward me this morning. I'll contact 
you again soon. Maybe you'll be more willing to accept me as I am by then. Maybe 
you'll be ready to begin our anniversary celebration at that point. If not, I 
have ways to make that happen. I'd hate for your slut to get hurt. Wouldn't 
you?"

He swallowed hard and was about to answer when he heard her disconnect, and the 
line went dead. He let the phone drop into his lap, let the car ease ahead, 
though he paid no attention to whether he stayed in the lane. Again, Scully had 
been threatened. Degraded. Wronged.

And the tape--life uprooted. Cheapened. Tenuous.

He retrieved his phone, his hands shaking, and clumsily pushed the speed-dial 
for Scully's number. Relief gushed through him as he heard her familiar answer.

"Scully."

"Hi--" He found it difficult to speak. 

"Mulder? You even have to call me before you get to work? Wish we were in the 
shower still."

The shower had occurred in another lifetime. "Scully, are you okay?"

Her pause indicated a knowledge that all was not okay with him. "I'm fine. 
What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just wanted to tell you to watch your back. We can never be too 
careful." Realizing his tone showed his worry, he tried hard to change it to 
pre-empt her concern. "And yours is such a nice back. I don't want anything to 
happen to it."

"Yours isn't so bad itself. I wouldn't mind seeing it again." She waited for an 
answer, but none came, she asked, "You sure that's all you wanted?"

He hoped she couldn't read his thoughts now. "Yeah. And to tell you--it--you--
last night--um--it was all great, Scully." He heard her chuckle.

"It was."

Her laugh. It merely touched the darkness that had invaded him. "Tell 
Frohike...no, never mind. I'll see you at the office."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

He continued to listen even though he knew she had ended the call, even though 
he knew that keeping the line open would not keep her protected. But finally, 
Mulder readied himself to make his next call, wanting to be sure he betrayed no 
deeper worry than he might usually. But at this point, he wasn't certain of his 
own name, let alone how his manner would be perceived by his closest friends. He 
slowly dialed the number of the Lone Gunmen.

"Hello?"

Mulder recognized Frohike's voice immediately. Another welcome sound. "Hey, got 
a job for you."

"Mulder! I'm just making brunch. I hope you're coming to join us. Breakfast 
tacos. You'd love 'em. All the salsa you can eat over a delicious combination of 
eggs, cheese, peppers--"

"Sorry. I'll have to miss that." He allowed a slight smile at his friend's 
inventiveness. "Look, can you fellas do something for me this morning? Top 
secret. For our knowledge only?"

Frohike's demeanor changed instantly. "When called into duty by you, absolutely. 
Just name the task."

Mulder nodded his relief. "Long story, okay, but suffice it to say that I stayed 
at Scully's last night--it was deemed sort of a safehouse by Skinner. This 
stalker has really..."

"I can imagine." The concern in Frohike's voice was evident. "Go on, please."

"I have reason to believe that maybe this sick--woman--bugged Scully's 
apartment. I need you boys to get in there and sweep. Scully will be there--with 
you--to get the photos in a few minutes. But when she leaves, can you go to her 
place and--de-
bug it?"

The pause that ensued was lengthy. Mulder assumed that Frohike was not only 
digesting the information but also looking forward to being in Scully's 
apartment, perhaps a bit too much.

"You got it, Mulder." The little man's affirmation finally came. "We'll do a 
top-notch job for you, rest assured."

"And again, Frohike. Scully *can't* know about this--not at all."

"Our lips are sealed."

"Okay." Mulder knew his friend's word was trustworthy. "And Frohike? Stay out of 
her underwear drawer."

"Mulder, you think I'd do something like that?"

Mulder again heard the dead of the phone as the other receiver disconnected. And 
as he plunged back into the loneliness of his car and the nightmare that his 
life had become, he drove on, nearing the Hoover. He knew that distraction from 
Bennet's case was becoming insurmountable. And he knew that once again he'd 
endangered Scully in new and horrid ways. 

And he knew what he'd have to do to alleviate that danger to her.

X     X     X

Dana Scully found herself standing, staring at nothing in particular in the 
hallway outside the lair of the Lone Gunmen. She should just march right up, 
knock on the door, pick up the photos, and hightail it to the Hoover building. 
But her feet did not seem to want to cooperate, her mind at least several miles 
away with Mulder as he arrived at FBI headquarters. 

Something was wrong. She could feel it, just as yesterday she had known about 
the call Mulder had received from his mother, without knowing precisely what it 
was that had upset him. It was more than the strained quality of his voice when 
he had called her, minutes after she had turned off to come here; more than the 
words he had spoken. She needed to go to him, to find out what had happened. 
Whether he wanted to tell her or not.  

But first, there was business to which to attend. Mulder was counting on her to 
pick up the victim photos for Bennet's case.

She lifted her hand and knocked on the door and awaited the obligatory paranoid 
perusal of her through the peephole by whichever of the Lone Gunmen was closest 
the door. She heard the locks being thrown, and waited quietly as the door 
opened a crack.  

"Agent Scully!" Frohike's bespectacled eyes regarded her as he threw the door 
open wide and gestured her in. "May I tell you that you look especially 
ravishing this morning?"

Scully smiled. He was actually the second person to tell her that today. The 
memory of where and under what circumstances the first compliment had been 
uttered now caused her to blush slightly. "Thank you, Frohike."

She walked into the apartment, exchanging greetings with Langly and Byers. 
Frohike, she noticed, was wearing his favorite chef's apron and was now 
approaching with a plate in his hand.  
 
"Breakfast taco?"  he offered pleasantly. 

Scully looked at the proffered dish, a riot of eggs, cheese, peppers, and salsa. 
It *did* look appetizing--what breakfast she and Mulder had managed to eat had 
been scant and rushed. But the more time she spent here, the longer it would 
take her to get to the Hoover, to Mulder. To finding out what, if anything, had 
happened. 

"No thanks, Frohike; I just ate. Looks great, though."  

Frohike beamed at her, then shrugged, taking the dish back to that portion of  
the lair that served as a kitchen.

Byers approached her, holding out a file folder. "The photos that Mulder asked 
for. Mostly they're from drivers' licenses, so the quality is not going to be 
the best. One or two we were able to get from professional licenses, so they are 
slightly better in quality, but not by much," he explained. 

Scully reached out and took the folder from him, flipping it open. As promised, 
the photos that stared back at her were the typical licensing office Polaroid 
type, which may or may not have borne adequate likenesses of their subjects. She 
flipped through the stack, pausing to peruse especially the licenses that were 
not for vehicle operation.  

"Thanks, Byers. Mulder will be very grateful for these; we seem to have run into 
a brick wall with the local agencies providing us anything beyond autopsy 
photos," Scully found herself saying as she flipped back and forth between the 
various pictures. There was something vaguely disquieting about them.

"Something wrong, Agent Scully?" Langly was looking at her, his face concerned 
as Scully raised her eyes from the folder.  

"N-no, Langly." She was surprised that she stammered. "Just trying to reconcile 
these faces to the remains in the autopsy photos." She *had* managed a quick 
glance through most of the files this morning as she had organized the folders 
into her briefcase for the trip back into the Hoover building. 

But she wasn't telling Langly the truth, and she wasn't sure why. The faces that 
smiled back at her from the folder bore a remarkable likeness to each other--as 
though someone had taken a matrix photo and manipulated it time and again, 
changing one feature or another just enough to individualize each new iteration. 
Of itself, that wasn't surprising--serial killers were often drawn, as Mulder 
had mentioned time and again, to a particular look or type.

What was surprising was the *type* all these men seemed to fit. Tall men with 
dark hair, high cheekbones, angular jawlines.  

Surprising because she knew at least one other person who also fit the type and 
looked enough like these men to have been at least distantly related to all of 
them.

Scully looked up at Langly, then at Byers, and finally at Frohike. "Did anything 
strike you about these men?" she asked.

The Lone Gunmen looked at each other, then back at Scully. They shrugged, almost 
in unison.

"Not really," Byers replied, a sentiment echoed in turn by Frohike and Langly.

They didn't see it--perhaps her imagination *was* playing tricks on her. While 
not normally given to delusional flights of fancy, perhaps today she wasn't 
entirely *normal*. She was a woman  so deeply in love that perhaps she *was* 
prone to seeing things that weren't really there.

Closing the file folder, she pasted a cheerful smile on a face she could not 
know had gone more pale than usual. With a studied calm, she bade the Lone 
Gunmen a quick farewell, barely hearing the locks on the door engage 
automatically behind her. She hurried down the hall, clutching the folder of 
photos to her chest.

She had to get back to the Hoover Building. Mulder would be waiting. And he 
needed to see the contents of the folder.  

And maybe, in the same room with him, with the photos arranged in a row and 
Mulder standing looking at them, she'd be able to convince herself that she 
didn't see in them what she thought she saw. That she could look at his face and 
laugh, realizing that being so completely absorbed in her devotion to him had 
played tricks with her eyesight.

That the twelve victims whose faces had  stared back at her from the photos in 
the folder really *didn't* look like Fox William Mulder at all. 

X     X     X

"Mulder?" Skinner's voice greeted him as he plodded through the busy FBI 
hallway. The Assistant Director's normally calm face appeared harried, even 
though his attire was pressed and looked as if he'd just donned it. "Come with 
me."

Mulder changed route, wishing he could have a few minutes to collect himself in 
his office before viewing the box's contents. But he'd already kept Skinner 
waiting, and the look on his boss's features made it quite clear that to do so 
again would be very inappropriate. 

He noted the faces turned toward him as he neared Skinner. Men and women who'd 
worked at the Bureau for years or for months watched him. He hated this: the 
gauntlet--knowing that most of those who stared now, did so with laughter 
running through their minds. That wasn't what bothered him, though, for he'd 
never let that sort of taunting get to him. But his mind was on Scully. If only 
these people knew what had happened between Scully and him last night, the 
laughter would be aimed even more in her direction now than it had been in the 
past for her mere partnership with him. But for the moment, he tried to push 
Scully thoughts from his mind. And stalker thoughts. Skinner's frown demanded 
it.

"You're late," Skinner reminded him as they walked among the bevy of other 
agents.

"Had a hell of a time in traffic."

"Uh-huh. Where's Scully?"

Mulder shot a gaze at his boss, but no sign was present that Skinner suspected 
anything unusual between the X-Files partners. Mulder chided himself for his 
paranoia. "She'll be along shortly," he mumbled. "There were some things she had 
to pick up."

Skinner turned, leading the way through an empty hallway--toward one of the 
rooms the FBI kept for a crisis control center. The door was already open, and 
bright white light spilled into the hall in the corresponding rectangular 
pattern of the door frame. Inside, the room's walls were a dull yellow, and on 
the large oak table which was surrounded by eight chairs, sat only a Priority 
Mail box big enough to hold a bowling ball. The bright red, white, and blue 
markings on the box seemed to mock the horrific contents scanned by the x-ray 
machine. 

As Mulder came further into the center, he noticed Bennet and Hewson standing or 
leaning by the table. Hewson's frown turned into a smirk as he saw the X-Files 
agent, and Bennet tried to keep his grin from becoming a full-blown smile. 
Mulder ignored both of them and turned his attention to the box.

"Nice you could join us, Mulder," Hewson sneered. "Not like this is important."

"Leave him alone, Fred," Skinner warned. "He has enough on his shoulders at the 
moment."

Mulder's gaze flashed at his boss, seeing for the first time that Skinner's eyes 
showed immense worry--aimed at him. "I'm okay, sir. What do we know about this 
box?"

"X-ray showed a mostly cylindrical object inside," Bennet told him, his voice 
taking on importance and seriousness. "But it's hard to make out exactly what it 
is. I think we can all guess, but opening that cardboard is the only way to know 
for sure."

Mulder stepped to the table. He bent, peering at the box, swaying so that he 
could see all the way around the package. "The bloody print?"

Bennet pointed at a mark of dried blood near the address label. "Almost 
definitely a fingerprint--without the actual print. Whoever put this package 
together was wearing gloves. Latex, most likely. No print--other than that 
mark."

"But--and correct me if I'm wrong--that's more than we've ever had before on a 
package--"

"Yes, you're right," Bennet replied.

Mulder surveyed the mark again. "Our killer is getting sloppy." 

Bennet shrugged. "Or maybe he's giving us clues."

Mulder shook his head, his lower lip clenched between his thumb and forefinger. 
"No, Franklin, I don't think so. Not like this. If a clue was to be given, then 
there would be an actual print. I think this is a mistake."

Bennet frowned, looking a bit hurt. "I guess the lab'll help us out more on 
that."

Mulder nodded. He looked at Skinner then, and sensing the older man's readiness, 
he told Bennet, "Let's do it. Open it."

Bennet looked at each of his superiors, his eagerness for a lead, a 
breakthrough--and a little fame--clearly showing from his dark eyes. "Me?"

"It's your case, isn't it?" Hewson seemed quite annoyed. "Hell, why don't we 
wait another hour or so. Just look at the pretty way it's all done up, or maybe 
we could play catch with it for a while--"

"Fred." Skinner's voice stopped the other man's remarks instantly.

"I'm sorry, sir," Bennet replied quietly. "I just thought that rank would have 
the 'privilege'."

Skinner produced a metal utility knife and handed it to the young agent. "All 
yours, Bennet. Your case, your move. Just be careful of the evidence."

Mulder watched as Bennet's fingers gripped the knife as if it was a lover's 
hand. The young man's thumb moved gingerly to rub the slide that would allow the 
blade to emerge. And when the point of the razor cleared the knife case by an 
inch, Bennet's gaze absorbed it. Mulder then saw the younger man plunge the 
knife toward the box, letting the razor sever clear packaging tape, then slide 
along the seams of the top and the sides of the package. The tape sliced easily, 
and shortly, the flaps of the box rose as their restraints were removed.

Mulder stepped even closer to the box. In the back of his mind, he could still 
hear the stalker's voice. Her words. But it amazed him how he could still keep 
her at bay while his interest in seeing the box's contents mounted as did his 
eagerness to find to whom the body part suspected to be inside had belonged. He 
noticed that Skinner and Hewson had approached, too, and the four men stood 
closely around the box, each vying for a view inside.

Bennet reached into the package, remov-
ing a blue, plastic Wal-Mart bag. Hewson made way for him to move down the table 
a bit and to place the bag in the middle, a distance away from the box. With a 
quick check to be sure he was correct to be the one to display the contents, 
Bennet then  carefully undid the bag's loosely knotted ties. And then he slowly 
peeled back the bag from the object.

The three older men were FBI veterans. But each flinched as he saw the bloodied 
skull which now sat before them. Mulder felt his stomach lurch as he wondered to 
whom that skull had belonged and how much torture that person had suffered 
before--
or during--its removal. He was suddenly glad that Frohike's breakfast tacos 
hadn't passed his lips.

Once his shock had worn off, he glanced around the room. Skinner had gone pale, 
but that was the only effect obvious on the ex-Marine. Hewson, however, simply 
shook his head, his gaze not leaving the skull. And Bennet--Mulder re-checked 
his impression of the young agent's reaction. Bennet seemed to be smiling--even 
in his eyes. Mulder was certain the young man wasn't happy--at least, he thought 
he was certain.

"Whoo-ee!!" Bennet breathed. "We got ourselves the big one, didn't we? Before, 
it's always been hands or feet, fingers, toes, ears--but not the head. Nothing 
like this skull."

"Wonderful," Hewson spat sarcastically. "Heck, it should only take *hours* to 
see whose it is."

"That's the plan," Mulder observed, concentrating more on the skull than on his 
counterparts' words. "Look at the blood on the bone. That's not been dry that 
long. Our UNSUB must have skinned and disem--brained?--this victim within the 
last day or so. The lab could tell you that better than I can."

"What do you mean, 'the plan'?" Skinner wanted to know. "This body part removal 
and mailing is the killer's signature, but--"

Mulder was nodding. "So far our killer has delighted in being several steps 
ahead of us. This person is a show off, flaunting his or her expertise, making 
the perfect crimes. The head--this head--is a final step of some sort, a way to 
show us that whatever he or she has been building up to is about to happen. 
That's why the skull was delivered here and not to some field office. It's the 
ultimate challenge--deliver the evidence right to headquarters. But still, the 
UNSUB has to be careful--can't give us too much, too soon, or we'll be on the 
path more quickly. Our UNSUB is still ahead of us--still knows that it'll take 
those *hours* to find out whose head we're looking at here. You were right, 
Franklin. The fingermark was intended to get us looking at that till we saw it 
would give us no clues--other than this victim's blood type. It's still all a 
game. A vicious waiting game, and so far, we're on the losing end."

The other three men stared at Mulder, absorbing his logic, and nodding in 
agreement.

"We need to get this to the lab right away, Bennet," Skinner said, breaking the 
silence. "Order computer imaging, stat. The postmark's from D.C., so we need to 
have a list of missing persons from around the area--"

"Bigger area," Mulder corrected. "In the other cases, the victims have been 
missing for days before the body parts arrive in the mail. Who knows how long 
this person has been missing? Could have been abducted from Virginia, West 
Virgina, Pennsylvania--"

"Maryland--" Bennet chipped in, but he was immediately interrupted by Mulder.

"Can't be Maryland, Franklin. There's already been one from that state. New 
Jersey and Delaware are possibilities as are Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia-
-"

"Okay, Bennet--and Fred," Skinner agreed, "you've got your work cut out for you. 
Get your people working on those missing persons lists from wherever you think 
they might be helpful. Let's get them by yesterday, and let's analyze them even 
sooner."

Bennet carefully scooped the skull and its bag from the table and nodded. "Will 
do, sir. I'll get to work on it right away." He maneuvered around the room's 
other occupants and was out the door in seconds.

Hewson nodded, too, and started out of the center, pausing only to grab the 
opened box on his way to his own team.

Mulder stayed, gripping the chair back before him, finding it difficult to meet 
Skinner's eyes. Guilt over Scully plagued him, but so did the embarrassment 
brought by the stalker--he was certain the conversation would now turn to her.

Skinner moved toward the door and swung it closed softly. "Sit down, Agent," he 
instructed. "We need to talk."

Mulder's grip tightened. "I'd prefer to stand. I need to get down to my office, 
to get moving on those files. Scully should be here soon--"

"That's what I'm wondering about, Agent Mulder," Skinner told him. "About you 
coming back to work right now. I'm not so sure it's a good idea."

"Sir?"

Skinner sighed, giving up the request to have his agent sit. "You look 
exhausted. Maybe a bit unnerved. I don't blame you--the gifts in the last few 
weeks, the call to your mother, these threats. Putting you on this serial killer 
case while you're dealing with the stalker--
maybe it's just too much to ask you to handle right now."

"You called me in." 

"I shouldn't have."

Mulder shook his head, forcing his gaze to meet the Assistant Director's. "I can 
do this--"

"Resting and being away from this might be more helpful--"

"I need to be here, sir," Mulder said earnestly. "I need to work, and I need to 
find the bastard who would kill an innocent person and then decapitate him. I 
need to help Bennet, and if anything is discovered about the stalker, I want to 
be here to be informed about that." He saw a look of doubt cross his boss's 
features. "I've never found stress to be too hard to handle in the past, sir; 
you know that. I think I've proven that fact many times. But if you see my 
performance here slip, *then* we can have this talk."

Skinner's eyes remained locked with Mulder's, and then the older man shook his 
head slightly. "All right. When Scully gets here, let her know that the various 
body parts from the other cases have been shipped to Quantico. If she thinks 
examining them would be of help, she might want to take a trip out there."

"I'll do that."

"And Hewson said that list you requested the other day--of Academy and FBI drop-
outs and ejectees will be ready shortly."

"Can you have it delivered to my office?" Mulder asked, edging toward the door.

"I think Bennet said he'd bring it to you so you could go over it together."

Mulder nodded. "I'm sure that's our answer--one of those people wanted to prove 
him or her self to us, to show us our wrong in forcing them to leave."

"I hope you're right," Skinner replied. "It'll be a long list, but even that 
group of names will be easier to work with than the entire population of the 
country." He eyed his agent once again, then jerked his head toward the door. 
"Okay, Mulder, go find this son of a bitch."

Relieved, Mulder nodded and left the room.

X     X     X

Mulder exited the elevator, looking forward to entering his office, to returning 
to the security of its con-
fines, to being "home." He knew Scully would arrive shortly as well, at least he 
hoped she would. Seeing her again wasn't at all aversive to him either. In fact, 
he missed her stabilizing presence and realized that he wouldn't be truly "at 
home" until she was with him. He fought the urge to call her to assure himself 
of her safety; two such phone calls in the space of less than an hour would give 
his worry away more than he feared the first already had. He kept his hand from 
the  pocket of his suitcoat.

The hallway seemed a bit darker to him as he wandered along it. And nearing his 
office, he could almost begin to relax. From behind him, though, he suddenly 
heard the heavy fire door of the stairway open and footsteps emerge from its 
passage. Mulder felt a chill wrest his near-calm, knowing the person who owned 
the footsteps was looking for him. No one else down here but the FBI's Most 
Unwanted.

"Agent Mulder? That you?"

Though Mulder recognized the voice, the chill didn't leave him. But he turned to 
face Thad Vassel, the usual mail deliverer.

"Yeah, I thought that was you." The young man was dressed in a grey suit, his 
daily apparel even though the FBI would have tolerated him wearing merely a 
dress shirt and slacks. He approached Mulder, holding the small manilla package 
out toward the agent. "This just came in, and I was about to start sorting. I 
figured maybe you'd want it before I made all the rounds this morning." 

Mulder's hand felt reluctance to reach out and take the envelope. Without 
looking at the address label, he knew from whom the missive had come. But Thad 
was waiting, after all. The agent's fingers closed on the padded paper. 
"Thanks."

"No prob." Thad spun and headed back up the stairs.

Mulder waited. Watched the door close. Then slowly, his gaze lowered to the 
package held between his thumb and forefinger. It was lighter than the others 
had been, and as he began to knead it lightly, he wondered if anything were in 
it at all. As the fire door's latch finally clunked, he remembered Scully could 
arrive at any moment. No way existed that he would let her see this package, 
that he would even let her know he'd received it. He would spare her the worry. 
He would prevent her knowing she might be in danger, too. And he would not let 
her interfere with his plan. 

He checked the hallway again, and then he darted into the men's room. A quick 
glance beneath the stalls' doors assured him that no one else was present there, 
and he thought again of the previous morning when he'd come in here to refresh 
himself before Scully's arrival. So much had happened since then. So much.

Without regard to FBI procedure, he tore open the new package, then cringed when 
he emptied the contents into his hand. 

Red hair--countless strands of it--lay in his open palm. Mulder closed his eyes, 
knowing the threat before he lifted the note which had also come from the 
envelope. He exhaled deeply and then let his gaze return to the paper. And to 
the stalker's latest message. He steeled himself and read: *This will be her 
hair if you don't keep our date. I'll be watching you, Fox.*

Mulder felt the icy spiders once more and shuddered, but then he felt something 
else. He was tired of this woman's threats, of her invasion in his life. He felt 
now the flames of anger as they crept into his soul and made his hands clench in 
fisted rage. Enough was enough. 

He entered the nearest stall, tore the envelope and the note into tiny bits, and 
then tossed them into the toilet. Without looking at the hair again, he also 
dropped it into the water, and then he pulled the lever and listened to the 
blessed sound of the flush as it consumed the stalker's latest attempt to 
destroy his happiness.

As he washed his hands and dried them on a paper towel, he felt a sense of 
relief. He was ready to fight, to face the enemy and to defeat her. The hair, 
the threats to Scully--they had merely renewed his resolve. 

And as he heard clicking heels in the hallway outside the bathroom, he quickly 
tossed the towel into the garbage and straightened his shoulders. Then he left 
the bathroom so he could walk Scully "home."

X     X     X

Melvin Frohike listened as the lock mechanism gave a satisfying click; then he 
turned the knob on Agent Scully's door. 

Stealthily, he entered Scully's apartment, Ringo Langly and John Fitzgerald 
Byers close behind him. Once inside the apartment, and with the door closed 
behind them, the three men fanned out, bristling with electronic equipment. 
Their expressions were serious; their concentration, complete.   

They carried on their search in silence. Byers paused by the living room couch 
as his detection equipment alerted him to an electronic bug. He bent, and 
feeling under the lip of the coffee table, he gave a satisfied grunt, retrieving 
the tiny device. He looked it over for a moment, then dropped it into the vial 
that contained a solution which would short out the bug as well as preserve it.

Langly, meanwhile, was finding similar success in the kitchen area. Beneath one 
of the overhead cabinets, behind the  under-cabinet mounted toaster oven, he 
located another listening device. Performing the same ritual of annihilation as 
Byers, he exchanged a look with his compatriot. Both men grinned and flashed 
each other a "thumbs up" sign. Then, silently, they began to sweep the rest of 
the apartment.  

Melvin Frohike headed for the bathroom and found yet another listening device 
tucked under the lip of the formica surrounding the washroom sink. He clucked 
and shook his head as he deactivated the bug and tucked the vial into one of his 
coat pockets. Assuring himself that the room contained but one surveillance 
device, he ducked into Scully's bedroom.

Frohike's eyes lingered on her chest of drawers, and he remembered Mulder's 
warning of a scant hour ago. His second favorite fed really should *not* have 
put the idea in his head.  

He passed the detector over the furniture piece, assuring himself that it was 
clean. It was. 

Frohike turned, noting that the device was now picking up electronic signals 
from the nightstand next to her bed. He moved toward it, and, feeling under the 
drawer of the stand, he located and deactivated yet another electronic bug. He 
noted in passing that Scully's bed was immaculately made, pillows lined up with 
geometric precision. He had no doubt that were he to pick up the corner of the 
coverlet and blankets, he'd find the sheets tucked into neat hospital corners.  

She was a doctor after all.  

Frohike swept the room again. Satisfied that he had found all the devices 
planted there, and feeling virtuous for his strength of will concerning Scully's 
lingerie drawer, the elfin Lone Gunman headed for the last room to be searched: 
the guest bedroom.  

He entered it, his detection equipment extended before him. Narrowly, he avoided 
a collision with a gym bag that carelessly lay just inside the doorway. He 
paused to move it further to the side, reflecting that Mulder was no better a 
housekeeper as a guest than he was in his own apartment.  

Intent on the signal he was now locked in on, Frohike walked directly to the 
nightstand next to the guest bed, and within moments, he had retrieved yet 
another listening device. He dispatched it, then turned, his gaze falling for 
the first time on the bed.  

In stark contrast to the almost military precision of the neatness of Scully's 
bed, the one in the guest room was a riot of sheets, blankets, and pillows. 
Melvin Frohike, fascinated, walked around the bed, eying it from several angles.  

"All clear?" came a voice from the entrance to the room. Frohike's head swiveled 
to meet the gaze of John Byers.  

Frohike nodded. "All clear," he confirmed.  

"Mulder's stalker must have been in a hurry. One bug per room," Byers observed. 
In a moment, the two men were joined by Langly.

Frohike nodded again, even while he noted a white terry cloth robe pooled with 
abandon at the foot of the bed and half- covered by a bedspread more on the 
floor than on the mattress. A pair of boxer shorts lay near them both.  

"Does this suggest anything to you, gentlemen?" Frohike ventured, casting a 
significant look in the direction of the bed that gave "unmade" a whole new 
meaning. 

Byers followed his gaze, his expressive eyes taking in the discarded garments 
and the disordered bed. He reddened slightly in the next moment, opened his 
mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it.  

Langly stepped forward, his bespectacled eyes glued to the guest bed as he 
approached it. "Damn," he cursed softly. "Sex."

Frohike nodded, beaming. The elfin man doffed the fedora he had worn throughout 
their methodical search. He placed it over his heart with a small flourish, and 
cast his eyes heavenward for a scant second, before dropping them again to the 
tangle of sheets and bedclothes.  

"Amen. And about time," he announced loudly. "That's my boy, Mulder." His 
expression was tender with an almost paternal pride.  

"Pay up, Langly." Byers pulled his notebook out of his suitcoat pocket.  

Ringo Langly scowled and reached for his wallet, extracting two crisp bills. 
"Six years..." he mumbled, extending one of the bills to Byers and the other to 
Frohike.  

"Cheer up, Langly, you might be able to recoup on the 'date closest' pool," 
Frohike soothed, placing his fedora back on his head, his smile taking on a 
feral edge as he regarded his shaggy haired partner.   

"Have to wait on that one. Until we get back to our place. I've got the calendar 
on my hard drive," Byers announced.

Langly shrugged. His expression grew serious. "Mulder's stalker overheard this." 
It was less a question than a statement of fact.  

Byers closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded, "Presumably."

Frohike scowled. "And taunted Mulder with it. Damn. I don't like the feel of 
this at all."

He cast a glance at his fellow Lone Gunmen. Byers was shaking his head sadly, 
his empathy for Mulder written plainly on his face. Langly seemed lost in 
troubled thought.  

For himself, Melvin Frohike would gladly have torn Mulder's stalker into tiny,  
bloody bits, if only he had some idea of who she was and where she could be 
found.  

"Whose gonna call Mulder? And break the news to him?" Langly asked.  

Melvin Frohike looked at Langly owlishly.
"I will. Then we need to get back to the lair and get some stuff ready."

"Ready?" Byers asked, confused.

"Yeah. We're gonna start our own surveillance--one that doesn't leave when 
Mulder and Scully leave, like the FBI detail did. Twenty-four. Seven. Until the 
bitch gets nailed." Frohike's tone indicated to his friends that he would brook 
no argument as did the expression on the elfin features.

As Frohike reached for his cell phone, Byers and Langly turned to gather their 
equipment and to make sure the room was exactly as it had been left.

Looking at each other, Byers and Langly knew that when Frohike was in bulldog 
mode, there was no arguing with him. But then they didn't want to. He was 
absolutely right.  

X     X     X

Emotions haunted Dana Scully as the elevator descended to the basement and the 
office she shared with Fox Mulder. Parts of her body held soreness from the 
night she had spent with her new lover, but the aches didn't classify as pain to 
her since creating them had been so pleasurable. And the memories of his body, 
of his lips, of his tongue, of his fingers...even now caressed her as he had. 
Those memories embraced her, and she couldn't help but smile shyly and look down 
to hide her unexplained blush from the other elevator riders.

But fear also held her captive as did anger and dread. In her hands were autopsy 
reports, case files, photographs. In her mind were Mulder's words and tone of 
voice from their earlier phone conversation--where just minutes after leaving 
each other, he had called, and she had known something wrong had happened. 
Getting the truth about that "something" out of him would be nearly impossible. 
She yearned to be back at home, safely in his strong arms, waiting out the 
horror created by a human monster who needed to be put down, who needed to be 
eradicated from their lives, the sooner the better.

The elevator slowed, and a "ding" ensued as the doors opened onto the dim 
hallway of the basement. She could feel the other passengers' eyes on her as she 
stepped from the confines and into the corridor that was almost as welcome as 
her own front door nowadays. She could already see that the door to hers and 
Mulder's office was closed, and she sighed heavily, sorry that he must still be 
upstairs with Skinner. Seeing him would make her heart lighten no matter how 
ephemerally.

Her heels clicked, and the sound seemed to bounce from the walls around her. In 
a way, she liked the noise her shoes made; that click-click-click reminded her 
of being in school--teachers' shoes always did that, and she'd long ago admired 
the authority teachers had. Clicking heels now symbolized that authority, that 
feeling that whoever clicked knew what to do in any situation. But at the same 
time, she wondered why it seemed impossible for shoemakers to make a noiseless 
woman's shoe. She'd often reasoned that men made the shoes that way so they'd 
know when to turn and ogle the wearer.

Scully shook her head at her own musings. Time for this stalker case to be 
finished. She welcomed the idea of being able to return to her normal thoughts.

As she clicked past the restrooms, her head tilted at what she thought was a 
sound from inside the men's. But before she could realize what the sound was, 
the door opened. Suddenly, a hand reached out. She gasped as it grabbed her 
shoulder, gently yet quickly pulling her inside. She panted in shock, her mind 
and body flying into self-defense postures and modes. Her leg came up, ready to 
kick--but she stopped it abruptly, her mouth open in a laugh, as her gaze found 
Mulder grinning at her. She was now in the men's room, and she allowed herself 
to be pulled into an embrace which she happily returned as well as she could 
with her hands full.

"Mulder, if someone comes in here--"

His mouth covered hers with a force that caught her by surprise, but she gave in 
to it, her lips separating to allow his tongue to invade and search her. She 
felt her muscles constrict as her body remembered his nearness from the night 
before, remembered his body and its touches, its caresses, its thrusts. She 
melded into his arms, let her head rest against the cool tile wall as Mulder's 
kiss deepened. She found breathing  difficult, yet with her senses fully 
ignited, she had no intention of letting his exploration end. But after several 
more moments, she felt his mouth pull away from hers, and just as quickly as he
had initiated the embrace, his arms also left her.

"C'mon, Scully." He grinned at her. "We can't play all day, you know." He opened 
the door to usher her out. "Do you have all the reports?"

She looked at him, stunned, still reeling from the stolen kiss in the bathroom. 
"Uh, yeah, of course." She shifted her little legs into gear and followed him 
toward their office, noticing that the clicking of her heels had become more 
rapid even though she couldn't feel her feet.

Mulder inserted his key into the lock, threw the door open, and turned on the 
lights in the office. Stepping back, he held out his hand for Scully to enter 
before him, and after she had done so, he followed her and closed the door 
behind them both. 

Scully paused by the chairs that fronted Mulder's desk. Her still full hands 
hung at her sides, and she waited for him to repeat his bathroom performance, 
but he suddenly seemed all business as he shed his suitcoat, threw it on a file 
cabinet, and took his seat behind his desk. He busied himself at clearing a spot 
on his blotter, and she turned toward him, putting her briefcase into the chair 
on her left. She realized that perhaps he was wary of the office. Who knew who 
might be listening to or watching them? She didn't have much faith in either 
Bennet or Hewson--or in the Smoking Man or Diana Fowley or...the list went on. 
She shrugged and sat, trying to calm the excitement her body felt from the 
surprise it had had a few minutes before.

"So you want to guess what was in that  package?"

She exhaled and turned to him. "No, not really. What was it?"

"A head. Skull, actually. Devoid of brain and skin. But there was some dried 
blood on the bone. And a bloody glove-print on the box. I think our serial 
killer's getting antsy, Scully. Making mistakes. Still has the upper-hand, but 
if we can get closer, he or she may screw-up and give us a major clue."

"I don't suppose we have any idea to whom the skull belongs...belonged?"

"Nah. But Bennet took it to the lab for a  computer-generated likeness."

She nodded, shuddering as she thought of some poor man getting his head taken 
off so it could be sent to the FBI.
 
"So did you look at the photos?" Mulder wanted to know. He was staring at her as 
if her face was as pale as it now felt.

Scully immediately put her hands on the envelope that the Lone Gunmen had given 
her less than an hour before. "Yes, here." She handed it to him and held her 
breath as he opened it, took out the photos, and flipped through them slowly. 
She watched his eyes, hoping to see some sign that either he did or didn't see 
the resemblances she had. But as usual, Mulder's features exhibited stoicism, 
his eyes moving only to take in every essence of a victim's face before going on 
to the next photo. And then he put down the pictures and looked into the 
envelope, but finding nothing more, his gaze connected with hers.

"That's it, huh?"

"Yes. And you missed breakfast tacos. Frohike's been experimenting. They 
actually looked and smelled quite good."

Mulder nodded. "Let's have a look at the autopsy reports and case files. I think 
it's about time we did, don't you, Agent Scully?"

She fished them from her case, too, just as quickly, and she looked up in time 
to see him wink. She smiled, noting that she saw no evidence in his eyes of what 
might have plagued him earlier. Could he have merely still been feeling guilty 
for having slept with her? Was he still imagining her brother aiming a shotgun 
at him? She decided to wait before deciding whether Mulder was hiding something. 
She knew he could put on a great act to hide things from her. He'd done it 
before. 

"By the way, Skinner wanted me to tell you the body parts have been shipped to 
Quantico. He thought you might want to take a look at them today."

She nodded. She did want to see them. She did want to see if, in some way, they 
resembled her partner, too. "Okay. I'll do that when we're finished here. Want 
to come with me?"

He shook his head and patted his stomach. "Don't think I want to do that, 
actually. I've had enough body parts for one morning. Thanks anyway."

"Fine. I'd hate to mess with your stomach, after all," she teased.

"Why? You messed with everything else," he replied softly. He favored her with a 
sly grin.

"I seem to remember you doing the same." She suddenly wondered at their 
conversation. Since the morning she'd come into the office and found him reading 
about old baseball players in an ancient newspaper, their conversation had been 
downright flirtatious, but now, after lovemaking, it had worsened in that 
regard. She liked it. She loved it. But somehow they had to get business done, 
too. She sobered. "Mulder, tell me what you thought of those photos, would you?"

He looked up from the files again, expression blank. "I thought they were 
photos, Scully. Bad driver's license photos for the most part. Too late for the 
victims to do anything about that now, though."

She raised an eyebrow and clasped her hands in her lap. "What similarities did 
you see between them?"

Mulder shrugged. "Dark hair. Cheekbones maybe. Why? What did you see?"

Scully sighed and let one hand gesture in the air. "Same as you, but didn't they 
remind you of someone?"

Mulder seemed perplexed. "You're saying these guys all look alike?"

"No, not exactly--alike. But *like* someone. But you don't see it?"

He brought the photos in front of him again and leafed through the pile 
carefully, as if the first time of sifting through them hadn't been long enough. 
"I can see resemblances to each other, I guess. The UNSUB seems to have chosen a 
particular type, yes. But as to looking like someone--who do you think they look 
like?"

She found it difficult to believe that he couldn't see the similarities. Yet, 
maybe it was only she who saw them--and maybe they weren't there at all. Maybe 
she'd thought too many Mulder thoughts this morning or was feeling too paranoid. 
"Never mind. I must be seeing things, Mulder. Forget that I said anything."

"No, Scully. Tell me what you see here."

She shook her head. "No, you'll think I'm crazy. Maybe I am."

"Please. Tell me. I won't think any less of you; I promise."

Scully knew he wouldn't give this up until she confessed. And his eyes, now 
connected with hers, seemed to demand a response. Quietly, she said, "I think 
they look similar to you, Mulder."

He stared at her for a few moments, his jaw dropping open slightly. Then he 
looked at the faces before him again, checking and re-checking them. 

Scully watched him, afraid that he would laugh, that he would use some dry 
remark to end this line of thought. But he seemed to genuinely be studying the 
photos and to be giving credence to her suggestion.

"I don't see it," he finally replied, his tone and eyes serious. He continued to 
look at the photographs. "Why do you think they look like me?"

"Never mind," she said, embarrassment creeping over her. This wasn't her usual 
demeanor. She had to get ahold of herself. If Mulder couldn't see the 
resemblances, then they must not exist and were the children of an over-sexed, 
in-love mind. The professional agent in her had to return if she was to do her 
job.

"No, seriously. Why do you think they look like me? Just 'cause of the hair? 
Tell me."

"No, Mulder. I think you're right. There is no resemblance. I--maybe I'm too 
tired. I have my reasons for that, you know."

He allowed a brief smile, but he continued to study the driver's license photos. 
"These guys are fairly good-
looking, Scully. I suppose I should consider your thinking I resemble them a 
compliment. Thanks."

She shook her head again--as if he should have to be told he was handsome. And 
yet, she realized, he did. "Mulder, you *are* good-looking. Apparently, your 
stalker thinks so." She instantly regretted bringing the topic into the open 
again. She saw his face cloud, and she saw him push the photos away and return 
to the case files before him.

"Yeah, I guess she does." 

She watched him read and then scribble a few notes on a legal pad. But the 
subject of the stalker suddenly seemed off limits, and she wondered why it had 
brought such a reaction from him now. "What happened this morning, by the way? 
Before you called me?"

He looked up, and she was sure she saw him pause to think of a response. 

"Nothing. Why? I just wanted to know you were okay, that's all."

"You'd just seen me. And seen me...and seen me..."

Again, a grin. "I missed you."

"Uh-huh. What else?"

"That's it. C'mon, Scully." He tossed her a file. "Get to work. I can't do all 
this by myself."

"Mulder, I want to know--"

"Please. Nothing happened. Help me read these. We've got to be sure we know 
everything about this UNSUB's methods and victims. Can't miss anything. I think 
we're getting closer to a climax in this case, and I don't want this killer 
besting us on it."

She opened the folder but found concentrating on the contents difficult. The 
uneasy feeling that Mulder was hiding something crept into her mind again, and 
she fought hard to keep frustration and annoyance with his secrecy under 
control. But as she turned a page of the police report on the victim from 
Austin, Texas, and realized she didn't remember one thing she'd just read, she 
decided to deal with those emotions. "Mulder?" She waited for him to look up, 
and when he didn't, she called his name again. "Mulder."

"Yeah--" he offered distractedly.

"Be straight with me, would you, please? After last night, we shouldn't have any 
secrets. What happened this morning?"

"Scully, I told you," he replied without raising his eyes. "There was nothing. I 
simply wanted to be sure you were all right."

"I don't believe you." While she realized his hiding something was in effort to 
protect her, she also felt hurt that he wouldn't open to her. But when he didn't 
respond again, she pushed harder to bury the inner turmoil she felt, to bury the 
luscious memories from the night gone by, and to make herself study the words 
before her. No doubt relationships could be built better when serial killers and 
stalkers were out of the way. And she was eager to start the construction.

X     X     X

"Wow. So this is *the* basement office," Franklin Bennet's voice came from the 
doorway. "Quite spacious for a room where they put the less respected of the 
Bureau."

Mulder had looked up quickly at the vocal disturbance and now found himself 
indicating that Bennet should take the seat by Scully. "Took you long enough to 
find it." He checked his watch. "We've been waiting for you for two hours."

Bennet let himself drop into the offered chair and loosened his tie. "Couldn't 
tear myself away from that imaging. Sorry. That is fascinating stuff."

"Is there an image yet?" Mulder asked.

"They're getting there. Measurements take a while, you know."

"Agent Bennet, what brings you into the land of the FBI's Most Unwanted?" 
Scully's tone barely hid her doubts about the young agent.

"Franklin has the list of people who've left the FBI for less than voluntary 
reasons," Mulder told her. "Unless I'm mistaken."

Bennet held up his hand which grasped a set of papers about a half-inch thick. 
"Delivered in person." He tossed a stapled third of the set to Mulder and handed 
a like one to Scully. "These are the same, but I figured two other sets of eyes 
might see something one set might miss."

Mulder nodded and began to peruse the stapled papers in his hands. "How many 
names?"

"I didn't count," Bennet confessed. "Twenty-five pages in all."

"And very small type." Mulder produced his glasses and put them on. "These 
represent--what, about two years' worth?"

"Yes, sir," Bennet replied, forgetting Mulder's earlier requests for leaving the 
"sir" out of his address. "Not everyone is good enough or fortunate enough to be 
in or to stay with the Bureau."

"Maybe not everyone's fortunate enough to leave it either," Mulder mused. 

Bennet's strained smile tried to be  polite. "I always wanted to be in and to 
stay." He shot a glance at Mulder. "Did you two have a chance to look at those 
autopsy photos and reports?"

"I did," Scully announced. "The bodies had fairly rapidly decayed. The autopsy 
reports didn't tell us much that was new. The stun gun and chloroform do seem to 
be the ways our UNSUB kept victims subdued or punished. Some of these men 
suffered badly. They must have been tortured with the stun gun for days."

"They were tied to tables," Mulder added. "And had been probably from the moment 
the UNSUB got them to their destination. Many had soiled themselves, so they 
must have been denied the chance to get up at all."

"Really?" Bennet asked. "What would be the purpose of that? To lessen dignity?"

"Possible, I suppose," Mulder said. "Or perhaps the UNSUB wants to prevent being 
overpowered."

Bennet cocked his head. "So our guy isn't very big--or strong? Is that what 
you're implying?"

Mulder shrugged. "I'm not *implying* anything. Just suggesting. But I don't 
think our UNSUB had any intention of ever letting those victims walk again."

"The table--" Scully began. "It's as if the UNSUB had them there for display or-
-
or for ease in the last act, the signature."

"Display," Mulder mumbled quietly, considering her words. He held out to Bennet 
the photos Scully had brought from the Lone Gunmen. "Have a look at these, 
Franklin. And don't ask how we got them. They're the victims in happier times, 
though I've never found a visit to DMV something that makes me happy."

Bennet's mouth grinned, then dropped open as he gladly took the pictures from 
the older agent. His practiced eyes surveyed them quickly, and then he more 
slowly re-checked what he'd seen. Mulder and Scully both watched him, noting 
that his eyes seemed to widen or narrow as he concentrated on different aspects 
of the faces. And then he quickly put them back on Mulder's desk, faces down.

"Do you think this guy's gay?" 

Bennet's question made Mulder gape. "Why would you think that?"

Franklin shifted uneasily in his chair. "They're all men. Not bad looking 
either. Maybe our UNSUB likes this type of man, and he feels inadequate around 
them. That's why he ties them down; that's why the men have never been sexually 
violated. And use of the knife--it's sort of phallic, isn't it? That plunge into 
a victim's chest..."

"It's a possibility, I suppose," Scully answered before Mulder had a chance. 
"What similarities do you see in these men, Agent Bennet?"

Mulder sat back in his chair, arms behind his head as he waited for the younger 
man's answer. He noticed in Scully's expression, her extreme interest in 
Franklin's opinion, too. 

Bennet squirmed. "Dark hair. High cheekbones. They all seemed to resemble each 
other in those ways. Something similar about the mouths, also."

"Do they remind you of anyone?" Mulder asked. "Anyone you know, for instance?"

Bennet was shaking his head. "Nah, I can't say as they do. Maybe I should look 
again--"

"No need." Mulder put the photos back into the manilla envelope of their 
delivery. His gaze flashed at his partner, noting that she briefly shook  her 
head, self-doubt fleetingly crossing her features. He would say no more about 
her observations about the victims' resemblances. Instead, he addressed both of 
the other agents in the office. "Let's look at this list. See if there are any 
people on it that we should investigate. Scully needs to get out to Quantico as 
soon as she can, and we're holding her up."

"Mulder, no you're not--"

"It's okay, Scully. The body parts are important, and the sooner you get there, 
the better." He watched his partner question him silently, and he feared he was 
putting her off too much. But he needed to get on with his own plans and to send 
her in one direction while he went in another. It was for her own good, and with 
any luck, he could lure the stalker with him and away from his lover.

"Well, I looked at several pages on the way down here," Bennet said, oblivious 
to the looks the partners shared. "Most of these people had medical problems 
which were either discovered at the Academy or were received in the line of 
duty. Only two on page one--Anderson, William and Andrews, Mary Kathleen--were 
dismissed because of discipline problems. Andrews because of her failure to play 
nice with others, and Anderson because he bad-
mouthed an instructor. But both of those have happened since January of this 
year, so I doubt they're our UNSUB."

Scully nodded. "Page two." She flipped the page over rapidly, making a crack 
with the paper. 

Mulder watched her, knowing she'd not bought his earlier lie as to why he'd 
called her. And his sudden expressed wish to get her out to the Academy hadn't 
been eagerly accepted either. But he consoled himself with the idea that his 
actions were ultimately for her. And he forced his eyes back to the pages.

"Yeah, page two," Bennet observed. He scanned the information as he tapped his 
thumb on his thigh. "Appell...Aprest...
Askrig...Atwan...Atwater..."

"Bennet," Scully snapped, "could you read to yourself, please?"

"Sure--" Franklin's response dwindled as his gaze found Mulder flipping through 
the pages, the X-Files' agent reading quickly and making occasional checkmarks 
on the papers before him. "Geeze," the younger man said in astonishment, "you 
sure you won't miss something that way?"

Mulder kept reading until it dawned on him that he'd been addressed. He looked 
up, somewhat distracted. "What? Well, it's not too difficult to find 'dismissed 
in 1998' if you scan. The first serial murder was committed in--what was it--
July of that year? So I'm looking for anyone dismissed and pissed off in the 
preceding months."

Bennet shook his head. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Now you know why *you* don't have an office--yet," Mulder joked. Then he again 
turned his attention to the report in his hands. "Check out pages seven, eleven, 
and--" he flipped through a few more sheets of paper, "and seventeen," he 
instructed Bennet and Scully. "I'm looking at Easton, Donald; Grant, Elizabeth; 
and Stronson, Thomas. Easton was dismissed in February, 1998, from the Academy 
because he couldn't pass the physical requirements. Stronson left the Bureau in 
March because of evidence tampering, and Grant, Elizabeth left in January--"

"Betty."

Both Scully and Mulder looked at Bennet as he uttered the name.

"Excuse me?" Scully asked first.

"Betty. She prefers 'Betty' instead of Elizabeth. She went by the latter in the 
Academy because she thought it sounded more professional, and she used it in her 
first few months here, but as soon as they kicked her out, she reverted to 
'Betty' because she said it suited her."

Scully studied him closely. "You obviously know this woman," she prompted.

"Yeah. She and I had mutual interests in profiling. We both thought of Agent 
Mulder as the best, and we both did papers on him and on his methods and cases. 
She was a lot of fun, and we had some real great conversations. I was really 
sorry to see her go."

Mulder was re-reading the information on Betty Grant. "Says here she was 
dismissed for insubordination. What can you add to that?"

Bennet made a face that showed his disapproval for the FBI's wording. "She went 
up against Hewson--do I need to say more?"

Scully pursed her lips. "Yes."

Bennet shot her a glance that left no doubt that he was beginning to find her 
attitude toward him annoying. "Agent Mulder, you know what a jerk Hewson can 
be."

"Yeah, Franklin, I do. But I'd like to hear the details on this case that got 
Ms. Grant ousted, if you don't mind."

Bennet's face contorted into a grimace, as if remembering this would inflict 
pain upon him. "Betty and I worked for Hewson, but we weren't partners. Still, 
we talked." He took a deep breath, then swallowed before continuing. "She had 
this case where a guy in Florida was attacking co-eds, stalking them, raping 
them, and then doing some mutilations that I'd rather not discuss in mixed 
company." His eyes took in Scully's stare and then turned to the papers now in 
his lap. "Betty had some good theories about the perp, and she wanted to check 
'em out, but Hewson and her partner shot her down. Wouldn't even listen to her 
reasoning. She--and I--always thought that was crappy of them; they didn't even 
seem to want to give her the benefit of the doubt--they sure as hell didn't 
treat her like an equal or as an agent or even as a law enforcement officer. 
They went ahead with their own investigation and assumed Betty would work with 
them."

"She didn't?" Scully asked.

"For a while she did. But she kind of--
well, she used to obsess over her cases. And those theories she had sort of 
overwhelmed her judgment. She went after the guy she thought was the perp. And 
Hewson came down on her hard when he found out."

"How did she go after this guy?" Scully had edged forward in her chair.

"She followed him. All around the campus--into his classes even. Into his dorm. 
Heck, she even followed him home one weekend and parked her car right in front 
of the guy's parents' house in suburban Tallahassee. When Hewson found out, he 
yanked her back here and let her have it with both barrels. Then he threatened 
her by saying that if he heard of her doing that again, he'd throw her out of 
the Bureau that very day."

"And...?" Mulder saw the hurt creeping into Franklin's eyes.

"And...I told her she'd better do what he said--to keep her job--and she said 
'Mulder wouldn't.'" He dipped his head back toward his chest. "That's what she 
and I used to say at the Academy. I know that sounds really dumb now, but geeze, 
Agent Mulder, you really were a hero to us. Your mavericking was something we 
admired."

"I'll gag if I hear anymore of this hero worship," Scully murmured.

"Me, too," Mulder agreed. "C'mon, Bennet. Get on with the story."

The young agent sighed heavily. "Next thing I knew, Betty was back in Florida, 
and she had a restraining order against her from this perp. She'd waited for him 
in his dorm room, and I guess what she did to him there wasn't pleasant. I never 
heard the details; I didn't want to. But as soon as Hewson got wind of it, she 
was out. And then the perp dropped the charges he was going to bring against 
her. She cleaned out her desk, and that's the last I saw of her."

"Did Hewson ever get the Florida rapist?" Scully wondered aloud.

Bennet nodded, his expression now turning sardonic. "Oh yeah. Caught him in the 
act one night. And guess what? He was the same guy Betty was after. She'd been 
right all along."

Mulder sat forward, idly playing with a pencil. "Where's Betty now?" he asked, 
though the report before him listed a few somewhat current details.

"Based in Philadelphia."

"'Based'?" Scully asked.

"She became a stewardess shortly after leaving the Bureau. Betty wasn't one for 
sitting still. But I honestly don't know where she lives."

"Do you ever talk to her?" Mulder wanted to know.

"Yeah, we chat every now and then."

"I thought you said you haven't seen her," Scully pressed. "How, then, do you 
chat?"

"Computer, of course." Bennet's reply was curt. "And we e-mail each other."

Mulder let the pencil lay still, his mind spinning on rewind and recounting bits 
of accumulated information. He barely noticed Scully leafing through the report 
again.

"Easton, it says here," she observed, "is now a truck driver for a national 
moving company. He currently lives in Baltimore when he's home. And Stronson," 
she turned pages again, "is a factory worker in Oregon."

"Easton must be our guy," Bennet said, eagerness renewing his confidence. "If he 
couldn't pass the physical requirements at the Academy, that is in keeping with 
our profile--with the idea of having to keep the victims tied down so they don't 
overpower him."

"You're forgetting that he's now a mover," Scully replied. "I would imagine that 
maybe his physicality has improved."

Bennet again flashed her an annoyed sneer. "Well, then, that also gives us 
motive, doesn't it? To prove to the FBI that he *is* capable of meeting its 
requirements. He also has the means by which to move around the country, thereby 
answering the question as to why the murders were all committed in different 
states and why they were in both cities and small towns alike."

"What airline does Betty serve?" Mulder suddenly interrupted. He didn't see any 
need to let Franklin and Scully duke it out over a truck driver. 

Bennet now turned the annoyed look on his idol. "Why? You're not seriously 
thinking it could be her, are you? Betty only went after that one guy, and 
that's because she *knew* he was guilty. Otherwise, she wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Which airline, Franklin?"

"States' Air. But I'm telling you--"

Mulder shoved his legal pad toward the young agent. "Give me her e-mail 
address."

"You gonna write to her?"

"Maybe." 

Bennet's lips curled back toward his teeth and into a snarl. "I can't believe 
you would even think like this."

"Agent Bennet," Scully replied, her voice becoming that of a nearly impatient 
instructor, "as a trained and respected member of the FBI, you yourself know 
that we cannot leave uninvestigated anyone who has the characteristics for which 
we're looking. While Ms. Grant may be a personal friend of yours, surely you 
must realize the need to check out her background, current whereabouts, and 
relevant activities. And if you've studied my partner as much as you say you 
have, you must know that he doesn't look into the people he has no good reason 
to suspect."

Bennet fidgeted, straightening creases in his suitpants and then tightening his 
tie. "Yeah, but there must be others on this list who could be more suspect than 
Betty Grant."

"Maybe so," Mulder observed. "But we must first look into those who best fit the 
profile. You know that, Franklin."

"And Betty fits that how?"

"Prevention of being overpowered, reason to prove to the FBI that she is more 
than capable than we," Scully stated. "Do you need for me to continue?"

Bennet snatched the pen Mulder had left on the legal pad and hurriedly scribbled 
an e-mail address. Then he threw the pen down in disgust, and rose. "I just 
can't believe this. And if you find her place and go to it, then I don't want 
any part of it; you got that?" His eyes burned into Mulder's, and then he turned 
on Scully. "I don't remember in my research that Agent Mulder was ever this 
heartless, but then, my research never included the time when *you* were his 
partner." He stormed toward the doorway, then paused. With his back still 
turned, he spat, "I'm sorry that I ever asked for you on this case, Agent 
Mulder. I'm sorry I ever trusted you. And you can bet that I'll be watching you 
from now on--for Betty's sake." He reached for, then slammed the door as he 
left.

Mulder stared after him, and from the corner of his eye, he could see that 
Scully was staring as well. "What the hell was that all about, Scully?" he 
mumbled, his finger and thumb pulling at his lower lip. "Guess Bennet was a bit 
sweet on Betty Grant, eh?"

She shook her head and turned back to her partner. "Maybe so. Or maybe she 
accepted him more than the others in their class."

"Or maybe she used him." Muder pulled the legal pad back to his blotter, reading 
Bennet's scrawled handwriting. "Her screen name's 'Phoenix'."

"Figures. The bird for the plane. Rising from the ashes of the FBI to make 
something of herself--"

"Or to prove herself."

"Or to prove herself," Scully repeated, nodding, agreeing. "Mulder, Bennet's 
last words--did you notice?"

"Yeah. But the stalker's a woman, Scully. Unless Bennet's a damn fine female 
impersonator."

"At this point, Mulder, I wouldn't find that an impossibility."

He smiled slightly, suddenly feeling for the first time in days, the accustomed, 
emotional solace created when theories began forming behind his eyes. Pieces of 
the large puzzle were fitting together now, and like being "at home" in his 
office, he relished the feel of being "at home" in his own mind once again. He 
just needed time and concentration to formulate those theories, to refine them. 
And to plot. 

"So what's our next step?" Scully asked. "Shall I call Hewson or Skinner and 
start investigations of Easton, Grant, and Stronson?"

"Leave Stronson out of it," Mulder replied. He began to shuffle the papers and 
files on his desk, pushing aside all but the report Bennet had left, and the 
photos obtained from the Gunmen. "Stronson is not our guy. But Easton and Grant, 
absolutely." He tore off the corner of the paper on which Franklin had scribbled 
the e-mail address and handed it to Scully. "States' Air can give us Betty's 
address, but we might want to check out just how often she receives e-mail from 
the Hoover, too. As well as check out others from whom she gets mail."

Scully took the paper and studied the address. "States' Air might require a 
warrant before we get them to reveal her personal information."

"Ah," Mulder said in a badly faked accent, "but we have ways of making them 
talk."

Scully smiled at him. And for the first time in over two hours, Mulder saw her 
again as more than his FBI partner. He remembered her smiles from the night 
before. He remembered her closed eyes and opened mouth at the moments of climax. 
He remembered her. All of her. He now returned her smile. "I love you, Agent 
Scully." And he saw her blush.

"Mulder, I--here?" she whispered.

"Why not? In the confines of this office? Who would be listening?" He winked.

Scully favored him with a reproachful expression, but her feigned sternness 
melted. She sat up, reached across his desk, picked up his pen, and scribbled on 
his legal pad as Bennet had. 

Then she stood and gathered files and reports into her briefcase. She kept the 
e-mail address in her hand. "I'm going to Skinner's office, and then I'll head 
out to Quantico. What are you going to do?"

"Stay here and dream of you," Mulder replied.

"Yeah, right. Why don't you get some food. Build up your energy. You'll need it-
-if you know what I mean." She turned aand left the office, pulling the door 
closed behind her.

Mulder watched her go, but with a new appreciation of the way she moved and a 
new awareness of certain parts of her which were shielded by her clothing--but 
which he could now remember in infinite detail. Sometimes it paid off well to 
have an eidetic memory.

He checked his watch so that he could time his leaving the building to happen 
after he was sure Scully would have left. And he removed the photos from the 
manilla envelope once again.
 
But suddenly, he was startled as his cell phone rang. He took it out as if it 
were a hated object. He stared at it, wondering if *she* was calling him again 
to play more of that tape. Wondered if *she* were calling to threaten his lover 
or to finally reveal the "anniversary." He steeled himself, then unwillingly 
answered.

"Mulder? That you?"

Relief flooded him as he heard a familiar  voice. "Frohike. How's it going?"

"Well, my friend. We have successfully fumigated the premises. And not only did 
this place have bugs, but it was infested."

Mulder shook his head at how stupid he'd been the night before to not have 
suspected as much. "Thanks. You and the boys did well."

"I'll pass the word on to my staff."

Mulder heard the catch in his friend's voice, and he waited for Frohike to 
reveal whatever was causing him this hesitation.

"Mulder, I don't want to pry. I don't even want to imagine what may have 
happened--that's none of my business. But I thought you should know that I found 
a mike in--the guest bedroom. Along with some clothing which I doubt was all 
yours." Frohike's voice quieted as it revealed the last bit of information. 

The FBI agent closed his eyes. The secret was out, but at least it was in fairly 
good, reliable hands. "Okay. Thanks," he replied softly. "Keep it under that hat 
of yours, would you?"

"Will do," Frohike replied. "And Mulder," the little man continued, his voice 
now seeming to mix cheer with concern, "congratulations. I hope it works out for 
you this time."

"Me, too." Mulder turned off the phone and put it away. He knew full well what 
Frohike had meant, but he didn't want to think about that now. That was for 
another time--when this business was over. Right now, more than enough other 
issues crowded to the fore.

Mulder settled back in his chair to study the photos, to allow his theories to 
develop, and to plan the next hours. But as he adjusted his glasses, he allowed 
his eyes to now read Scully's message on the legal pad. And for the moment, 
warmth flowed through him, and joy overtook the stalker's morning's revelations, 
the two current cases' pressures, and Frohike's knowing concerns. And Mulder 
smiled as his mind absorbed the words:

*I love you, too, Agent Mulder.*

X     X     X

The first thing he noticed was that the lock hadn't been changed. Fox Mulder's 
usual key was inserted, and it allowed the door to be opened as it always did. 
No locksmith had visited, and the stalker could easily have let herself in as 
she had before. Skinner's plans for protection had already been breached.

But as he entered his apartment, Mulder felt the same nagging feeling in his 
gut. The same feeling he'd had the day before when he'd found the card--from 
her--on his bed. Therefore, he was denied the comfort, the security that 
returning to his own home should have brought. And, on edge, he proceeded toward 
the living room, dread creeping into his muscles, keeping him tense.

In his hands were the photos given them by the Lone Gunmen, as well as the 
information Scully had requested from Records--the 302s that would tell him 
where he'd been in the months of April and May in years previous. The log sheets 
that might tell him where he'd met her--or, at least, where he'd been seen by 
her. 

But as he neared his couch, he stopped, his shoulders drooping, his head hanging 
as if a tremendously strong hand were forcing it down. His pillow was gone. And 
Mulder knew he'd not misplaced it. She'd been in his apartment again. Despite 
FBI surveillance. Despite promised protection. 

All the way to Alexandria, he'd watched in his rearview mirror for any signs 
that she might be following him. He'd called Scully to be sure his partner had 
made it to Quantico, and upon finding that she had, he'd breathed in relief. But 
as he'd continued to his building, he'd easily seen the FBI stake-out cars and 
their occupants. And if he'd seen them, so had she, and she--the stalker--had 
easily gotten by them.

He tossed the envelopes onto his couch, reluctantly deciding he needed to tour 
his small apartment to see what other surprises she'd left for him. And his 
first stop was his bedroom. He paused as his hand hovered over the doorknob to 
that room. She'd been there. He could feel it. And to be safe, he drew his gun 
and inched forward after he carefully and quietly twisted the knob to enter.

As Mulder had suspected, the room was vacant. But his gaze fell upon his bed--or 
what was left of it. Staring, oblivious to the motions his hand made as he re-
holstered his weapon, he saw the remnants of mattress and sheet. The loose 
feathers from his shredded pillows. The bread knife on the floor. And when he 
could look no longer, he idly bent to retrieve the sheet and blanket that had 
been saved from the intruder's wrath. But he winced instantly, a sharp pain 
slicing into his finger. 

Shaking his hand in reaction, Mulder brought the finger closer to his face, 
staring at it, now, in the half-light of the bedroom. Blood oozed from a small 
cut. And as he sucked at it, his eyes swept the floor to see what had caused the 
injury. Broken glass. Tiny shards. He knelt and slowly picked up each one, 
dumping them into a nearby waste basket. And then he searched through the 
discarded bedclothes to find the small picture frame that had suffered the 
damage. The picture frame which housed the photo he'd never shown anyone.
A photo taken by Agent Pendrell at some FBI gathering. A photo of Dana Scully 
smiling and laughing. A photo he cherished. 

And the photo was still in the frame, though only a few pieces of glass remained 
around it. Jagged edges pointed toward Scully's face, looking menacing. Mulder 
traced the image of her hair with his uninjured forefinger, remembering the real 
feel of the silky tresses as his hands had smoothed it, sifted through it, owned 
it. And then, coming back to the moment, he returned the frame to its rightful 
place on the shelf, and he stood and left the bedroom. 

The kitchen was clear of signs of the stalker's presence, though he was certain 
the knife had come from its confines. The bathroom held no surprises either. He 
paused by the table and realized the only other place to look--was the computer. 
He returned to the living room, realized his computer had been left on "sleep," 
and hit a key to "wake" it. The feeling of violation weighed heavily upon him as 
did the knowledge that his life's intruder had not even been interrupted by the 
FBI's presence. A thought occurred to him, and he quickly dialed a number on his 
cell phone.

"Hello?" a voice said after the phone had rung three times.

"Frohike? It's me again. I need you to do something more for me."

"Name it."

Mulder allowed a sad smile as he pictured his good friend's concerned face. 
"This stalker--she's been to my place again. I don't want anyone to know that, 
okay? But what I do need is to take a look at this on my own."

"How can we help?"

"Two things. There's an Elizabeth Grant who works as a stewardess for States' 
Air. She's based in Philadelphia, but she must live somewhere between here and 
there. I need an address."

"She works for States' Air? Piece of cake. We'll call you when we find out. What 
else?"

Mulder rubbed at his eyes. "Watch Scully for me. Could you do that? I don't know 
what this other woman might do--"

Frohike's sympathy was evident. "We've already set up our own surveillance 
outside Agent Scully's house, Mulder. We've planted a few outside cameras, and 
we've set up a stake-out schedule. We'll be here around the clock."

Mulder shook his head, the gratitude he felt overwhelming him. "Thanks. I owe 
you."

"No, not this time. We'll take care of your lady, Mulder. You do what you have 
to do."

As the line went into silence, Mulder put his phone away and turned back toward 
the computer. As he'd assumed, a message alerted him to the fact that he had e-
mail. Taking a deep breath, he clicked the link, and shortly, a list of messages 
flashed before him.

His scanning gaze found it immediately. A letter to him--from his own address. 
And as he read, he exhaled heavily. The message was not one unfamiliar to anyone 
who studied stalkers. In fact, had anyone read former FBI profiler John 
Douglas's *Obsession*, he would have seen the message in a chapter title: *If I 
can't have you, no one will.* A threat to Scully? Yes. And to him. A way of 
making sure that Mulder would come to the stalker on his own. To save his 
partner. To save his lover. And the stalker was right. He would do just that. 
But first,  she had to call him again.

He grabbed the envelopes he'd brought with him and sorted till he found the file 
on Elizabeth Grant. Opening it, he found a photo of her, a face not unfamiliar. 
He *had* met her before. And he had remembered correctly. A quick glance through 
the 302s confirmed it. A year before, on May 10, he had flown on States' Air by 
himself. He'd gone from D.C. to Chicago to investigate claims made at 
VinylRight. Feeling rather disillusioned back then, he'd complained for quite a 
while on that flight about being the FBI's "Monster Boy." And he remembered that 
a particular stewardess had seemed more than happy to listen.

Mulder closed his eyes, chiding himself for his stupidity. His actions. They had 
caused too much death already.

He let his eyelids slowly raise, and he checked the date on a nearby, small 
calendar. This was May 9. He now knew more than even before that he needed to 
act. And to act alone.

He sat at his desk and went to the e-mail  "compose" screen. Recalling an 
address, he typed it into the box, and then he told the stalker he was ready to 
observe their anniversary.

X     X     X

Dana Scully ran the water in the sink, mentally berating herself for her 
reaction to the sight that had awaited her in the Quantico morgue. She had not 
had such a strong physical reaction to anything since she had been a first year 
medical student, looking at her first dead body.  

The evidence from the serial killer case had been lined up neatly on a counter--
in pyrex jars filled with formaldehyde, each containing a grisly remnant of what 
had once been a human being--a man. This was nothing she hadn't seen before--not 
even particularly gruesome--set up as those jars were. Why, then, had she lost 
what little breakfast she had managed that morning after she'd gazed at the body 
parts for a few minutes? She, who could see the pizza inside the stomach of a 
body she was autopsying and develop an instant and overwhelming hunger for that 
same item? It didn't make sense.  

Scully pulled a paper towel from the dispenser near the sink, dampening it and 
pressing it to her face. The nausea still threatened; the rough coolness of the 
paper towel against her cheek and forehead gave her another physical sensation 
on which to focus, and she strove to control herself. 

The jars, merely feet away, had struck her almost immediately as less-than-usual 
jarred specimens and more of a house of horrors display, intended to bring forth 
just the reaction she had instinctively felt.  

The hand in one jar, the forearm in another, the foot in yet another--each 
screamed out a message to her, causing her gaze to switch from clinical 
detachment to a growing sense of terror.

She could dismiss--no matter how little she wanted to--perceived likenesses in 
photographs as being a figment of her overworked and lovelorn imagination, but 
this--was different. 

Long before the intimacy of the previous night, she had had personal knowledge 
of her partner's body in far greater detail than perhaps was seemly in the eyes 
of some, for partners of opposite sexes. But physical necessity--the result of 
injury, exposure, environmental conditions--had conspired to create a years' 
long familiarity with every part of her partner's corporeal self. And though she 
knew that these body parts, grotesque though they were, were *not* those of Fox 
Mulder, the immediate impression--
reinforced by last night's minute exploration of his body--shouted otherwise.  

The long, slender fingers of the right hand of one of the victims were surely 
the same appendages that had explored her own body so sensuously, bringing such 
exquisite pleasure. The arm, tapering down into the familiar bony wrist, was 
certainly the same that had sheltered her in an adoring embrace as she'd slept 
this very morning.

It was something out of one of those impossibly silly horror films for which  
her partner had such an endearing affinity. It was as though this serial killer 
were trying to build him or--
more likely--herself a Frankensteinian version of Fox William Mulder. Mulder had 
said it himself--had it just been
yesterday?  

*Certain parts of the victims *do* match the ideal...*

Scully snapped her head up, out of the cool dampness of the paper towel.

The ideal was Mulder.

X     X     X

"The cellular unit  you have just dialed is either out of the service area or 
turned off," the monotoned, recorded voice said for the millionth time.
 
Scully controlled the urge to throw the cell phone in her hand out the window of 
the car. Just barely.

She had been dialing Mulder for the better part of the last hour and a half.  
First from the autopsy lab at Quantico; she had wanted him to see the serial 
killer's handiwork for himself, to recognize the danger that faced him from not 
just one apparent source, but two. Failing to reach him at the office number
--where he had claimed he would be--shee dialed Skinner's office, even Bennet's 
bullpen--Mulder was apparently nowhere in the Hoover building. She had then 
called the Lone Gunmen, only to discover that they claimed to have neither seen 
nor heard from her wayward partner for several hours.

With each dead end, Scully's panic 
had grown. It was not a sensation she relished, nor was it particularly familiar 
to her. She had always 
prided herself on her ability to 
keep her head in a crisis. Even when she'd been told about the cancer she had 
kept her cool, calmly accepting the reality, if not the inevitability, of the 
prognosis.  

No. She could clearly recall other moments of panic. They all had a common 
thread. The first had been on a dockside in North Carolina a little over six 
years earlier as her feet had skidded to a halt next to her partner's prostrate 
body, and she had immediately recognized the signs of arterial hemorrhage. The 
next time had been in the emergency room of the military facility on Eisenhower 
Field in Alaska, as she had watched Mulder 
flatline. The time after that had been in 
the southwestern desert, not far from 
the remnants of a burned out, half buried 
box-car, the echo of her voice calling out his name bouncing back at her from 
the red rocked wall of an eerily empty canyon. 

That common thread tying those moments 
of panic together was, of course, Mulder. 

Because of Mulder, she was now racing back to F.B.I. headquarters at a less than 
prudent speed, expecting at any moment to see the flashing lights of a traffic 
cop in her rearview. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except 
getting back, finding Mulder.  

Hopefully her panic would have been for 
nothing--she'd find him sitting at his 
desk with some entirely plausible excuse 
for having been out of the reach of the 
very best in communication technology 
for the last couple of hours. Then her 
heart could resume its normal beat; her endocrine system could stop pumping 
adrenaline into her blood stream. She'd be able to breath again.

And just maybe she could convince him, 
as she had not been able to before when the evidence was merely photographic, 
that the danger to his safety--to his life--had doubled. 

X     X     X 

As the afternoon sun began to wane, Mulder left the Lone Gunmen's apartment. In 
the left pocket of his black leather jacket, he carried a scrap of legal pad 
paper on which Frohike had scribbled  Betty Grant's address. In his right pocket 
was the scrap from which the other had been torn--the scrap on which Scully had 
written her feelings for him. It was this paper which Mulder's hand clutched 
inside his pocket. 

He'd decided to drive to the Gunmen's place rather than to wait at his own. He'd 
wanted to avoid phone calls. Scully had already left one message on his machine 
before he'd departed his invaded apartment, and he knew she would still be 
trying to reach him. He'd debated about turning his cell phone back on or even 
about answering his apartment's phone, but to do so would be to allow 
distraction to again interfere with his plans. The night before, he had 
capitulated readily and eagerly each time Scully was near him. Plans to leave 
her in order to protect her had disappeared as he'd melted into her embraces. 
All day he'd feared that even her voice on the phone would grab him away from 
what he knew had to be done. 

So he'd turned off his cell phone and had left his apartment and its landline, 
and had hustled off to the Gunmen's place. Once there, he'd found that Langly 
had been dispatched to the first shift of "Scully Watch" and had already 
discreetly tailed her back to the Hoover. The scraggly haired Lone Gunman would 
stay with her till Frohike took his turn in a few hours. So Mulder had settled 
back to await the result of Byers' and Frohike's hacking into States' Air's 
records. 

And Mulder had found that even without Langly's presence, watching Byers and 
Frohike at work within their domain and expertise never failed to amaze and to 
entertain him. Those whom the world would call "geeks" could instantly become 
collective genius and could find information while the FBI was still awaiting a 
warrant. And when the time was right, these same friends would let Scully know 
his whereabouts and Betty's address. And Mulder would already be safely on his 
way.

And he'd been aware of Frohike's occasional glance and smug, knowing smirk. In 
fact, Mulder was surprised that the little man hadn't given him a wink and a 
nudge while, as an adolescent might, he asked Mulder, "So how was she?" But 
Frohike had refrained, though Mulder was certain it was only from the gravity of 
the current, serious and potentially tragic situation.

He now unlocked his car door and allowed his gaze to sweep the neighborhood. He 
wasn't absolutely certain, but he thought he recognized an FBI tail parked 
across the street. From Mulder's perspective, though, it looked as if the young 
agent was dozing, and Mulder shook his head at the reprimand a superior would 
later unleash on the young man. But the agent's nap worked to Mulder's 
advantage--evading a tail was one less thing about which he'd have to worry. 

Once in the car and on the street, he watched for a few blocks to be sure the 
young man's nap hadn't ended, and when satisfied that it hadn't, Mulder tried to 
focus on the evening ahead. But it was difficult. In his mind swirled memories 
and images. How well he remembered every moment from that flight the year 
before--of his own stupidity and blatant betrayal--his complete failure to 
control his own mouth. And it had led to all this: to the deaths of others. To 
the suffering of them and of their families. To what might be his own self-
sacrifice, and most importantly, to his possibly permanent separation from his 
lover.

From Scully and Bennet, he had mostly kept secret all that he theorized. But he 
knew it to be more than theory. He knew it. All the pieces fit. He even knew 
without talking to Scully what she had discovered at Quantico. And now it was up 
to him to get his stalker before anyone else did. Before she could hurt Dana 
Scully either physically or professionally--by playing that tape for the Bureau.

He allowed himself a few moments to think of Scully. He knew that most likely, 
she was in their office, pacing holes into the floor. She would have put her 
hair back behind her ears and then brought it back out countless times--without 
knowing about even one of them. She would have alternately damned him and then 
perhaps whispered his name in woeful worry. Maybe she'd let her mind wander back 
to the night they'd shared, or maybe, like him, she was trying to keep those 
thoughts from her consciousness. To keep away that distraction. 

But oh, what a distraction. The memories  of her skin touching his, of her body 
beneath his, of her fingers and lips and tongue exploring him--of six years of 
sexual tension between them finally culminating in a glorious night of 
intimacy...

No. No more. He was on his way to Baltimore. But...

Mulder could not stop himself. She deserved to at least know he was all right.

X     X     X

The office was empty.

Mulder's suit jacket, usually tossed 
carelessly across some surface or 
another, was nowhere to be seen, and his overcoat was missing from the rack.  

*Damn you, Mulder!*

Scully quelled her rising anger, and 
gave in to the wobbly sensation that 
rendered her knees something less than dependable. She dropped into her 
accustomed chair and forced herself to breathe normally. She would not give in 
to the panic anymore than she had those other times. She would collect herself 
and do what she had to do to locate her partner. There was nothing else she 
could do.

The snick of the office door opening suddenly startled her, and she stood 
and spun in the direction of the sound, 
her heart in her throat.  

Mulder entered the X-Files office, his 
overcoat thrown over one arm. He 
looked up at her, their eyes locking 
for a timeless moment.

Scully forced herself to rise and walk 
sedately to where Mulder stood, just 
inside the door, the expression on his 
face alternating between a hooded 
wariness and a certain sheepishness.  

"Where were you?" she said, softly, 
quietly, hoping that her voice did not 
betray the intense mixture of emotions 
she felt. She was relieved, but also 
angry, and the hours of adrenaline infusion had left her nerves raw--
unreliable.

"Um...I took your advice. Got 
something to eat," Mulder offered.

"You take your overcoat to the cafeteria?" Scully commented calmly.

"No...it's mystery meat day in the 
cafeteria; I did the prudent thing and ran out to Burger King. At least I'm 
acclimated to their adulteration of ground beef," he replied. 

Scully looked Mulder in the eyes again, 
reading the lie and deciding to ignore it. He was back, and the important thing, 
was that he was safe.

Even as her mind accepted that, her 
body craved reassurance. As though it had a mind of its own, her hand was 
reaching out, taking Mulder's left hand in her two smaller ones. Her fingers 
skimmed over the long fingers, brushed the palm, paused at the protuberance his 
wrist bones made. Her hand glided up his arm to his shoulder, touched the shell 
of his ear.

He was whole. Warm. Alive. The constriction that had gripped her chest eased. 
She took a long, slow breath.  

"Scully...? Are you all right?" Mulder was asking her, his face showing genuine 
concern, his hand reaching out to cup her chin, to tilt her head up so that her 
eyes met his again.

Scully shook her head slightly, and gave in to the impulse that had gripped her 
when he had stepped into the room; the 
desire to run to him as fast her her legs would carry her was nonsensical now, 
but she could act on the other part of her urge.  

Dana Scully collapsed against the solidness of her partner's--her lover's--
chest and gripped him to her in a fierce embrace.

Her eyes suddenly flew open at the sound of her cellphone's ringing. She quickly 
looked around the office, finding that somehow she'd fallen asleep at Mulder's 
desk, that somehow her body had given in to its worry and exhaustion and 
demanded that her mind rest, too. Dejection flooded her as she realized Mulder's 
return had only been a dream, and that the warm touch she'd felt, merely a wish 
that wouldn't come true.

And now she sat in the cold, empty office, angrily watching her fingers fumbling 
to flip open the cellphone so she could answer a call.

"Scully," she finally managed to breathe into the receiver. 

"Scully?" Mulder's voice nearly whispered. "It's me. I just want you to know 
that I'm okay. And that I love you."

"Mulder!!" Her mind raced. The call for which she'd waited into the evening had 
finally come, and yet she could not hold him. "Mulder?!" 

Her face contorted in its despair as she realized the line had already gone 
dead. He had ditched her again, and was going off to fight the battle by 
himself. That couldn't happen. She wouldn't let it.

All grogginess instantly left her, and she bolted from the chair and into the 
hallway, headed for A.D. Skinner's office.

X     X     X