El Quinto Sol
OneMillionAndNine

It was time to have that talk with herself. Again.

The furnace was broken, stuck on high, so the basement was hot. Humid. The two of them sweating in that tiny space. He'd lost his jacket hours before. He'd loosened his tie and undone the first two buttons of his shirt. He was standing in front of the file cabinet with his back to her and he was stretching.

It should have been against the law. She wished agents would come in and taken him away. "Sorry, Agent Mulder," they'd say. "You're too sexy for the FBI. Regulations require you either lose most of your hair or gain fifty pounds." They'd shake their heads sadly as they snapped the cuffs on his wrists.

It was time to have that talk with herself again. The talk about how it didn't mean anything, how it was all biology. An involuntary response to countless generations of humans struggling to secure survival for the species. The reason she saw the lines of his broad shoulders and the hint of his muscular back and felt herself softening like chocolate in the sun wasn't personal - just simple evolutionary expediency.

A male with shoulders like that could bring home more game than, say, someone with a frame like Langly's. The long muscular arms and legs were further indication of hunting prowess. Big feet ensuring superior balance. She was imagining him naked on the savannah, clean shaven and short haired. With a spear. A very big spear.

Careful, Agent.

The primary reason to desire a large, healthy male was that a large, healthy male was likely to produce large, healthy offspring and she could no more help perpetuate those fine genes than she could sprout wings and fly to the top of the Washington Monument. But her body remained blissfully unaware.

The instinct to reproduce with a specimen like him might seem emotional, but it was really just simple biology. The imperative was strong because the continuation of the species depended on it. No different than salmon swimming upstream and dogs in heat - they desired blindly. She desired blindly, and against her best judgment. The want took place in the primitive underside of her brain. The stupid part.

{Fuck you, Mulder.}

She was uncertain whether that was an epithet or an honest expression of desire.

He turned his head slightly and even the face was designed by nature to appeal. Jaw, cheeks, forehead, all heavier boned to minimize injury in the event the male was required to fight for the right to mate with the object of his desire. Same reason the male proved on average 20 percent larger than the female of the species: same proportional difference as in other mammals where willingness to commit violence on other males sometimes determines the male's access to the female.

The eyes next. The eyes were small, heavy lashed, heavy lidded. The merest hint of an epicanthic fold. To what end? A characteristic like that would evolve to protect the individual from harsh winds and blowing dust. Where? The Steppes, maybe? She envisioned him in a yurt for a moment and smirked involuntarily. It was a puzzle.

His name was Dutch, clearly Dutch, and his mother's maiden name, Kuipers, that was Dutch, too.

When did he turn around?

She found her speculation boring and pointless when she realized she was staring at his crotch. A long, thick penis to increase likelihood of fertilization.

She tried to force herself to think about Anne Frank - the ultimate an anaphrodisiac - but she couldn't do it: Poor Anne kept being replaced by Mulder. She wished she didn't know the penis thing for sure.

Okay, time for a different tactic.

{Let us enumerate his flaws. Us? Using the royal we now, Dana? Yoohoo, Agent Scully? Remember? His faults?}

Oh yeah; his many personal flaws. A's first. He's self-absorbed, arrogant, alienated, angry, arbitrary, and finally, an asshole.

It wasn't working. If anything, she was getting more turned on. Aroused - another A word. She was angry and aroused. It sounded like a demented children's reader - A IS FOR AN ANGRY AND AROUSED AGENT.

Time to pull out the big guns: dissect and disparage him physically. She didn't relish the thought, but it had to be done. Did he ever do this to her? Tell himself he really didn't want her because her tits were disappointing and she had an ass the size of one of the lesser Baltic states? Sure he did, he had to. And she would, too.

His hands were small. Okay, not really small (much bigger than hers, of course) but not as big the rest of him. Small in relation to his feet. There, that was something - not exactly a wart, but an imperfection, nonetheless.

Okay, next: upper lip. The man was without an upper lip. Okay, not true. No fair lying. His upper lip was just thinner than its ruby, pouting counterpart. If they matched, he would be positively Jaggeresque. So maybe it wasn't really a flaw.

Weak chin. . .Jackpot! He definitely had a weak chin. And an overbite. That, too. See? He wasn't nearly as devastatingly handsome as everyone seemed to think. And she wouldn't even start with the nose. It could go either way. An excellent secondary sexual signal, on one hand, and on the other. . .there was no other hand.

At that moment, she could have strangled Desmond Morris with her bare hands.

"What are you thinking about Scully?" He was rubbing his eyes and smiling. It really sounded more like, "Whacha thick i bou Scuuuully?"

Shit. He 'was' as handsome as everyone thought.

"For a member of the ruling class, you certainly do mumble, Vineyard Boy."

He looked shocked for a minute, then his eyes narrowed and he decided to play. "Over-exact enunciation is an indicator of a lower middle class or upper lower class social climber, like an excessively precise watch. A gentleman does not NEED a second hand."

She smiled at him in the way she knew tended to leave him unbalanced. It was only fair, really, after the way he'd been tormenting her that day. "Then you could be a freaking Kennedy."

He was doing his my-aren't-you-slow head shake at her. "The Kennedys ARE lower middle class social climbers, Scully." He glanced down at the floor. "It's almost time to see if Skinner approved those 302s."

"Got any live ones?"

"Just in my pants."

Was he trying to kill her? "Cases, Mulder. Anything likely to warrant further investigation?"

"One, maybe." He held back his quip for once, but it looked like it required great physical effort.

"Want to share with the rest of the class?"

His head was tilted and he seemed wistful. "Just a little of this, a little of that."

She did her best impression of a penetrating stare. "The case is a little of this, a little of that?"

"Yeah."

"Mulder?"

He just smiled.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

One three minute phone conversation later and he was dancing - actually dancing. He grabbed her arm and spun her, accidentally running her into the edge of the file cabinet.

"Ouch! What was that about?"

"One: Skinner was otherwise engaged and we don't have to meet with him. Two: He authorized our 302. Three: The suspect's estranged wife contacted the bureau and not only personally requested the X-files division be involved in the investigation, but she also asked that we fly into Albuquerque first thing in the morning so we could take part in an important magical ritual. She asked for US, Scully."

It was all she could do not to kick him in the shins in retaliation. "You mean she 'asked' for you." She rolled her eyes. "And what's this about important magical rituals on a Tuesday night in Albuquerque?"

"The ritual is at sundown Wednesday in Taos, actually, and according to Kimberly, you were mentioned very specifically."

"Me? How would that be? I don't lecture at UFO conventions. I don't write articles for scientifically dubious magazines. I'm not a cult figure. I don't have fans."

"I'm your fan?" He did his sheepish look. "I'm pretty sure Frohike is your fan."

"Frohike wants to see me staked out like a gazelle at a watering hole." Where the hell did that image come from? Clearly, she had spent much too much time with her partner. "That doesn't necessarily mean he idolizes me, and even on the slim chance he is my 'fan,' it still fails to explain how this woman knows who I am."

He shrugged. "I dunno. I suppose a world-renowned pagan priestess is bound to have a few tricks up her sleeve."

"World-renowned?"

"She wrote a book."

"Have you read it?"

"Not yet. But that doesn't mean. . ."

"Give already, Mulder."

"I'll fill you in on the plane. Our flight to the Land of Enchantment leaves bright and early. And it's snowing in the mountains, so pack your longjohns, G- Woman"

She was not turned on any more. No, now she just wanted to strangle him with his obnoxious tie.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

She always hated night time flights. All these years together and she and her partner had yet to reach a mutual agreement as to what constituted morning. As soon as the plane strayed beyond the lights of the coast, it was as if the entire planet had been sucked into the void and she found herself stranded in a tin can full of bimbettes. And Mulder. Mulder in a can with bimbettes. . .and heavy syrup.

She'd just leave that thought on the shelf, thank you very much.

It was times like these that she was relieved not to be involved with him romantically. She hated the way he looked at women. Like a Tex Avery cartoon wolf. She could almost hear the sound effects, see his tongue roll down to his feet and his eyes fall out of his head. If they were intimate, she knew she'd end up shooting him again. As things were, she was just overcome with unreasoning fury.

"Hey, partner. Wanna hear about the case or not?"

"I thought maybe you were trying to encourage me to develop my psychic skills."

He just raised an eyebrow at her. She wished he'd stop it -- that was her expression, dammit!

"The year was 1982. . ."

"It was a dark and stormy night," she interrupted him.

"No, it was sunny afternoon in L.A., and stop interrupting." He settled into his seat and trained his gaze on her. It might as well have been a gun. He might as well have had a scope.

"Ruth Goldstein was a serious doctoral student from George Washington University attempting to compile a definitive work on the use of Scandinavian runes in the pre-Viking era. She'd come to interview one Morton Ivers, rather a Crowleyesque sort of a figure. The old man devoted fifty years trying to revive the worship of the old gods."

"Which old gods?"

"The Aesir and the Vanir."

"The who?"

"The Northern European gods."

"Like Thor and Odin?"

"And Freya and Tyr and Bragi and Idunna and Heimdal," he nodded.

"So what happened?"

"No one knows, but eighteen months later she abandoned her doctoral program, moved to the west coast, married Morton Ivers' 19 year old protege, Viggo," - he punctuated this with some very Vanna White hand gestures - "became Frigga Iverson, and did more to popularize the worship of Odin than anyone else in the last several hundred years."

"Outside of the Third Reich . . ."

"Interestingly, and as may be guessed, Frigga has been an outspoken opponent of the racist garbage that has become associated with her particular religion. Despite these obvious ideological problems, the fact remains that several white supremist groups have made overt attempts to court her favor over the years, always to be summarily rebuffed. Until a year ago. Ace Jackson got smart and went after the weak link."

She was dancing to his investigative song now, anticipating the story. "He went after Viggo, right? What did he use to seduce him? Money? Power? Or was Viggo a closet Nazi all along?"

"According to Frigga, it was sex."

"The lure of an UberWoman?"

"Nope. Lieutenant of Jackson's named Ed LaGrange."

She answered him with a tilted head and an eyebrow.

"And according to custody court transcripts, he's a cross dresser, to boot."

"There are children?"

"A child, singular - Wunjo Iverson, age 7."

"So where do we come in? I see some seriously bad judgment, and some plain stupidity, but I have yet to hear account of a single crime."

"All in good time. Three months ago, LaGrange and Viggo kidnapped Joe, as he is more commonly known, and brought him to Jackson's Camp near the Colorado border. Now Viggo and LaGrange have gone on a killing spree."

"Still, it doesn't sound like an X-file, just some depressingly confused people and an innocent boy."

"Oh, but I haven't gotten to the best part. Viggo has publicly taken responsibility for the murders, even made a list of intended victims and posted it on flyers around Santa Fe and Taos."

That was confusing. "And he's not in custody because...?"

"There is no possible way to tie him to the crimes by traditional means. Two victims were killed by a dog on a bridge outside of town, one knifed to death by invisible hands in front of a bar full of people, one shot by a leggy blonde in the supermarket and three cases of spontaneous human combustion."

"The blonde could have been Iverson in drag. . ."

"Except that she was arrested at the scene processed, fingerprinted, and given a very thorough physical examination, which proved her female, by the way, and yet . . ."

"Yes?" She couldn't believe she was actually on the edge of her seat.

"Around 3 a.m. the mystery blonde disappeared from her cell and was replaced by. . ."

"Viggo Iverson?"

He shot her with his finger. "Miss Scully gets it and the crowd goes wild!"

"But why hasn't he been picked up for kidnapping?"

"The boy can't be located. Viggo claims to have rendered him invisible."

"Physical evidence?"

"Mom's girlfriend was babysitting - she was apparently killed by a large dog with whom the son went willingly. The boy even turned on the alarm when he left the house."

"So the perp could have a trained dog and the boy could be at another location. Depressing a thought as it is, he could even be dead."

"What about the other murders?"

"There's the dog, and we already know he has accomplices."

"And the invisible assailant in the bar?"

"A thrown knife can turn into an invisible assailant pretty easily with a little alcohol and a vivid imagination." She sighed. "Or maybe he hasn't killed anyone at all and he's just taking credit for a series of unfortunate accidents. Maybe the boy's a runaway."

"He's taking credit for a series of unfortunate accidents BEFORE they take place?"

All she could do was shrug.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

There were some things he knew about Scully but consistently left unsaid, but not because he was overly decent. More like, he was afraid of what previously unspoken things she'd say to him in response.

He knew, for instance, that she got as excited as he did about going into the field on a case; she just felt compelled to protest every trip out of town on general principles. He also knew that where he saw magic, she saw either a)utter bullshit or b)the yet-to-be-scientifically-explained. He knew that, in her own way, she had begun to believe. But her way and his way were still very, very different.

He knew what she'd do on this case. First she'd exasperate him by exhausting every rational explanation before moving on to trying to quantify the unquantifiable. She'd use science to explain magic, or at least she'd try.

There were other things he knew about Scully. He knew she wasn't flawlessly rational. He knew she had chinks in her armor.

He also knew that packed in her ever-present medical supplies were the following items: one baby bottle with unopened package of bottle liners, three diapers of various sizes, one can of powdered infant formula, one set of baby pajamas-size very, very small-with feet. She kept these things in a paper sack near the bottom of her kit. The receipt was still in the bag.

If he said anything, she'd tell him it was for emergencies - 'you never know what's going to come up in the field' - or something equally sensible. And they had run into babies now and then, but that's not what those things were for. His partner just wanted to be sure that if destiny decided to answer her prayers, she wouldn't be caught unaware. She wanted to be ready.

To tell the truth, the whole thing made him uncomfortable. Conflicted. On one hand, he wanted Scully to be happy. On the other, he wanted to be happy, too. He sincerely believed that happiness for Scully would require a baby at some point, possibly some point soon. He knew for a fact that happiness for Fox Mulder required Dana Scully.

Now, there was the rub: a baby would ruin his life.

As soon as Scully got a baby, she'd have less time for him. She'd take a leave of absence, she'd stop flying and driving around the country with him. He'd be jealous and behave badly. She'd hate him, and rightly so. He'd probably be a bad influence on a baby anyway, and wind up banished on general principles.

Of course, they could get married, and then he wouldn't have to be so afraid of losing her. Sometimes he thought that would be nice, waking up with Scully every day. Other times he thought it would be a new circle of Hell.

After careful consideration, he decided what he was probably most afraid of were the points between here and there. He would probably have done it by now if he could just wake up one day married without actually having to talk to her about it or make the first move. He was so fucked up that it would probably end badly, anyway. And he'd still be apathetic about the baby and she'd be pissed off.

At least he imagined he'd be apathetic about the baby. He didn't like to think he could actively hate it. But since every scenario he ever imagined ended with Scully hating him, the best feeling he could conjure up for her imaginary baby was apathy.

Nothing.

Lack of feeling.

Emotional vacuum.

No.

The truth was, he wanted to be Scully's baby; he just didn't think he could fit into those pajamas.

He peered over at her. She was looking through the file, her headphones effectively shutting him out. He could hear the song faintly. She had this CD at home. There was a line, "I see the light at the end of the tunnel, someone please tell me it's not a train". If it didn't hit so close to home, he would have laughed.

He knew some things. He knew Scully. He knew if she had an inkling that he made his initial travel request hoping to see ancient religious ritual likely to include live sex acts she'd make the pilot stop the plane mid-flight. No, she'd just shoot him in the other shoulder. If he didn't stop irritating her, she might aim lower.

Suddenly he was curious again and he looked over to see what she wass studying so closely. A statement? Autopsy? Crime scene photos?

Nope. Family portrait.

Scully sighed.

Photogenic duo, he had to admit. Father and son. They looked happy, too. What a difference a year made.

Viggo didn't seem anything like Mulder imagined he would, nothing like Dolph Lungren. He looked more like some familiar seventies guitar god, long hair in a mass of snaky black ringlets stopping a few inches past his shoulders. Beautiful face. There was something distressing about having to say that about another man, but there was no way around it. That face was beautiful and it bothered Mulder to realize Viggo looked something like Scully.

Same eyes. Exactly the same. Large, round, wet, and the strangest pale blue color, like the water in some cheesy brochure for the Bahamas. He was attractive in all the ways Mulder was not, his features straight and fine and even, bordering on feminine. Someone could have conjured him out of a pre-Raphaelite painting. Mulder would have hated him even if he wasn't the perpetrator.

Usually pictures of perps revealed something to him, some hint of mania or evil, something discomforting, however subtle. But this one revealed nothing. Viggo gave off none of these things. In fact, he appeared pliant, sweet even, like he should be contemplating a single fucking perfect blossom in a silvery twilight garden, not planning to bury Fox Mulder and all the rest of the mongrel races in a mass grave somewhere.

Mulder had always considered himself ethnically challenged. He generally thought of himself as a Standard New England White Guy, unless there's a Nazi in the immediate vicinity. He was never Bar Mitzvah'd; Hebrew classes fell by the wayside when Samantha was taken and his emotional life ground to a halt. His parents had almost seemed relieved. It had all been for his grandmother, anyway; his mother was never even slightly religious. Hell, come to think of it, his grandparents were only tenuously observant.

But this case made him feel like he might as well be Hasidic, like he might as well have had a mezuzah on the door frame at good old apartment 42.

He wished he were someplace else. He wished they both were.

He wished he hadn't lied to her.

Skinner had never approved the 302. Both the feds and the locals agreed with Scully's assessment that there was nothing to this case but a string of coincidences.

Mulder knew better, but he wished he didn't.

He'd dipped into his ill-gotten inheritance to fund this trip, as per his standing agreement with Skinner who had just okayed the work. But he wished he had left bad enough alone.

Once again, Mulder the Paranoid, in the grips of ball- twisting fear, with no real concrete reason.

Once again.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Schadenfreude, also known as shameful joy. Pleasure at another's misfortune. She definitely had it.

Albuquerque rush hour traffic was snarled to the point of hitting dead stop and Fox Mulder had practically hopped out of the car and bought a burrito out of the back of a station wagon a few cars a head of them. She had made an honest effort to dissuade him but he said it was either a burrito or her arm. Threatened with cannibalism, she left him to the mercy of one of his less brilliant impulses.

Bad winner to the core, he then proceeded to declare said burrito delicious beyond words, veritable manna from heaven, most likely the best thing he had ever eaten. He couldn't possibly spare her a bite.

Twenty-five minutes later they were pulled over to the shoulder of the road while the burrito and Agent Mulder had what seemed to be a rather rushed and painful parting amidst the sagebrush.

A weak voice called out to her. "Can I have that toilet paper you keep in your suitcase? And, um, I think you need to put a call in to the CDC."

"I think I need to call out a hazmat squad."

"How was I supposed to know?"

"Mulder, did you look at that guy's fingernails?"

"That doesn't m..."

"Save it, partner. I just think a sign written in ball point pen is a most likely a good indicator of pride in workmanship."

She was definitely feeling better since the great state of New Mexico decided to work its enchantment for the greater good and put a tight rein on her partner's appeal. It almost made up for having to pull over to every fifteen minutes. She even enjoyed the way his fingers gripped the dash.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Fox Mulder never once considered the fact that being greeted by a cadre of friends from his adolescence in a bar thousands of miles from where he grew up could frighten him more than facing zombies or sewer dwelling mutants. But it did. And in response, he simply froze.

It had been a very long day and this last development left him in a strange blank state. The much-vaunted 'panic face' unfolded across his features and goosebumps rose across his skin. He was seized by the fight-or-flight instinct and the only thing he could think of as it suddenly occurred to him to stamp his feet to knock the snow off his Bruno Maglis, was swimming. Sooner or later, he was sure, his ability to form words would resurface. For that moment, he was still swimming.

Bright sun. Whipping wind. 1975. Wondering when the summer girls would start to arrive and he would have a little company, someone his own age who didn't think he was crazy or a murderer or both. Too bad Ruth wasn't going to be on the island that year.

Ruth White inhabited a gray area between being a summer girl and someone more tied to the Island. Her grandmother was a year-round inhabitant who had coffee with his own formidable granddame at 11 every morning, rain or shine. Bill Mulder and her dad, Greg White, were a matched set, though personally, he found Mr. White's drinking a lot more pleasant. But because her dad was with the foreign service, Ruth and her sisters always came in during the summers from some place unbearably exotic, like Tehran, Iceland, or Budapest.

It was too much that year to expect Ruth to be coming. At 20, she probably wouldn't want to spend the summer being followed around by a fourteen year old boy any more than she'd want to spend it languishing at her grandmother's cottage. He remembered the sheer cold adrenalin of hearing her call to him from the beach.

"FOX!!!!!"

Forty four year old Ruth shouted from across the bar. With her in the booth sat two women who bore disturbing resemblance to Samantha's friend Shannon Carver and Emily Ambrocini, the first girl he had ever, among other things, kissed.

He had to fight the overwhelming urge to turn around and run. The Land of Enchantment was conspiring to rip away his cool exterior no matter how hard he fought.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

He was baffled. Truly baffled. It had to be the weirdest thing he'd seen in his life. Scully, in a lesbian bar, dancing with the Priestesses of Odin. Weird weird weird.

Maybe he exaggerated a little. It wasn't strictly a lesbian bar - they didn't ask for their lesbian ID cards at the door or anything, and fully one-third of all the groupings seemed to be of mixed gender. 'Groupings,' because the common grouping of two, the couple, seems to be fairly out of favor in that place. Scully was actually dancing happily with a little group of women the way he'd seen little clusters of teenaged girls dance together sometimes.

That was what seemed so weird. Scully, who was so removed from other women most of the time (when she was not actively hating them) snapped into place with these women he'd grown up with as if she were some sort of human Lego. No one else who knew her would ever believe it. He didn't believe it, himself.

At least they weren't slow dancing. If they had been, he'd be forced to gouge his eyes out with a spoon.

If he didn't know better, he would never believe she was coming up hard and fast on forty. She was. . .a betty. That was the only word for it.

She had not been a betty back in the day. Of that, he had proof, cold, hard photographic evidence. Melissa had given him the picture when Scully was missing. It showed her, fat and fifteen, braces behind protruding lips, sitting with her back to what must have been her locker. She wore a look he had seldom seen on the adult Dana Scully: defeat.

Every time Mulder dug that photo out from between his couch cushions, he wished there were some way to go back and give her a little shove in the direction of his teenaged self. "Here," he'd say, "you two prop each other up, will you?"

He would have been 19, so he knew that, in reality, it would never have worked. He never would have given her a second look. Sounded terrible, but it was true. He had been, after all, not only a geek, but a damaged, shallow, arrogant geek.

Some things never changed.

Even when she started with the X-files, she had not been particularly appealing to him. Sure, he had noticed that she was pretty, but he hadn't felt any particular attraction. He remembered thinking she looked like some Midwestern farmer's daughter, like she should have a few errant pieces of straw dangling from her hair while she milked the cows.

She hadn't looked like she belonged in an autopsy bay. She certainly hadn't looked like she belonged with him.

She still didn't.

And she was getting more beautiful by year. Pretty soon she'd be like Moses and have to wear a veil everywhere because mere mortals would be unable to look at her directly. Especially the mere mortal named Fox Mulder.

Mulder snorted, wondering where he came up with this horseshit.

She was smiling and dancing and she looked good.

That was all.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

For her part Dana Scully was both amused and intrigued to be afforded such an open window into her partner's early life. She wasn't at all surprised to hear that uninvited entrance to young Fox's room was punishable by death. She was floored, however, to learn that his first girlfriend had been ultimately won over by his ability to dance.

At five, she discovered, her partner had carried the tiny plastic sow from his farm set around in his pocket. At six he had proposed to his twelve year old babysitter and dubbed her 'Snow,' a name that would apparently stick with her for the rest of her life.

It was sweet. And it amused Scully to no end that he found it all so mortifying.

'Snow' bore no resemblance whatsoever to her namesake. She was a shade away from platinum blonde and improbably tanned. Her eyes were pale green and her nose looked like Scully's would have if it had bit more attitude - essentially the same, but bigger, bolder. There was a stickishly thin quality to her body that was incongruous when compared to her most striking feature - a wide, sensuous heavily lip- sticked mouth. Scully kept flashing on Carmen Miranda even as she considered the woman's question.

What was the worst thing Mulder had ever done to her? He'd done so much. He'd done so little.

Angela White? Dr. Bambi? Even The Fowley Thing?

No. The more she thought, the more convinced she was that the worst thing he had ever done was force her to autopsy his mother.

Scully's stomach had always been cast-iron but she had thrown up several times during the procedure. She had shaken with cold, her teeth chattering. She hadn't been able to stop herself from imagining Teena Mulder's body, young and pregnant, imagining him growing inside her from a single cell, imagining what it must have been like for her the first time she felt him turn inside of her, or what it felt like to give birth to the center of the universe and then be unable, or unwilling, to love him. Scully had cried into the Y-incision, and when it was all over, she had sealed her tears inside the body.

She had thought about it. Maybe Teena had loved him but had somehow been frozen out of the intimacy of love.

She wished, sometimes, that she knew for sure.

But she also wished he hadn't made her do it. And she wished there had been someone else to be with him afterwards.

She knew the facts. They had arrived at the death scene, he requested she perform an autopsy, she attempted to decline, he persisted, she acquiesced, she performed the autopsy, she went to his apartment, she confirmed the initial ruling of suicide, she comforted him.

He had done nothing but reveal himself to her, but she felt violated.

Maybe it was a sign of how truly emotionally stunted she was that when he had trusted her first with his mother, then with his pain, his raw, human agony, all she felt was violated.

Honestly, he hadn't come to her. She had gone to him, stayed with him through it all, let him cry all over her. She had listened to him scream, swear, had watched him throw things, then smiled when he told little stories. She had rested her arms on his back when he clung to her, kissed his forehead, said nothing when his nose ran all over her shirt. Said nothing when, despite his uninterrupted sobs, his touches had become more intimate.

She wished she could chalk it up to stoicism or wisdom or something - anything - but the truth was less appealing. She had been stumped.

There were some things she knew about Mulder, things she would never tell him for fear of what he'd reveal in turn. She knew he masturbated a lot. Teenaged- boy, a lot. At work, even. They were both careful to make sure she never walked in on him. She doubted it was even really sexual anymore. She knew its function was to soothe him. He had become so used to not getting his needs met that masturbation had probably become one thing he could do to make himself feel a little more human.

In any other situation it would sound insane, but she wasn't sure if his sucking her breast through her shirt was personal or not. She hadn't known if his crying while curled in a fetal ball yet managing to frantically rub his erection against her stocking- covered foot had indicated anything more than sorrow.

She still couldn't bring herself to ask. And it was pathetic that she was so afraid. She still hadn't washed the pants she'd been wearing when he came on her ankle. Every few days she just took them from the laundry hamper and stared, trying to figure it out. Ironically, she felt a certain sympathy for Monica Lewinsky now.

He had apologized. Of course he had apologized. He apologized for everything. His apologies meant nothing.

Frigga spoke. "Well?" she asked.

"Well," Scully echoed, not sure what to say.

"The worst thing he'd ever done failed to severe the bond between you. Like Viggo and me." Frigga sighed. "I don't know what it will take. I'm beginning to think I am going to have to do it myself."

"How?"

"I wish I knew."

For several minutes the two of them sat listening to the live music.

Finally, Scully spoke. "It's not the same with Mulder and me."

"Why is that?"

"We aren't lovers. We aren't in love."

"Romantic love exists only in the imagination, darling. It's a construct."

"Maybe," Scully tilted her head slightly to one side. "But Mulder believes in it."

"With you?"

Scully thought it over. "I don't know." She steeled herself for the inevitable go-for-it-girl-he-loves- you speech, but it never came.

Instead, Frigga straightened in her seat. "Well, either way, it could seriously fuck things up."

Scully nodded, surprised. "Sometimes I think, as much as I want him sexually, it would be like stacking plates."

"The more layers you add, the easier it is to knock down? That's always a risk."

Scully stifled a sigh. "Exactly."

"When I told you I don't believe in love, I told the truth. I don't. But in many ways, I miss Viggo. Before all this, he was my best friend, my truest ally."

"Why did he give it up, really?"

Frigga exhaled markedly, shook her head. "I'm not sure I can explain it. I have always been the one people took seriously, the one with influence. And being younger, too, I think people tended to look at him as my, well, I suppose the word is 'pet.' But we had always been partners. I think, you know, I took him for granted. For his part, I think he's just too susceptible to flattery. He'd been with Morton since he was a very young man."

"How did he come to be with Ivers? Was he a runaway?"

"Oh no," she laughed, rolling her eyes. "He was eighteen, but just barely."

"So, do you think it's a fair to say he's seeking to recreate a his relationship with Morton Ivers?"

"Actually, I think what he would like now is to recreate OUR early relationship with Morton."

"Why?"

"Apart from the fact that it was good, I think all this crazy hunting he is doing is wearing him out. He can't play the woman's part forever."

"What do you mean?"

"What, hasn't Fox told you anything about our magic?"

Scully shook her head. "Almost nothing."

Frigga nodded slowly. "Does Fox often withhold information in order to attempt to control your actions? Is this normal for the two of you?"

Scully had really liked Frigga until that moment.

Now she hated the other woman for seeing the obvious, and hated herself for being weak enough to let Mulder manipulate her. For that, and for too many other reasons to enumerate at that moment.

"Dana, I just want to understand exactly what the two of you would do together before I ask you to get more deeply involved. My son is at stake."

"What do you do?"

"Viggo and I, using personal experimentation as well as archaeological and literary research, have very successfully revived an ancient Nordic magic called Seider - it was a European sister to certain Tantric and Taoist practices."

She couldn't help herself. It was classic Mulder. Before she realized it, she was laughing hysterically, if a little bitterly. "Frigga, this case may be my partner's idea of a dream come true."

Frigga gave her a puzzled frown.

"Every other word he says to me is some sort of innuendo, but in seven years of spending at least 80 hours a week together, he's kissed me exactly once. And immediately after, he apologized."

Frigga said nothing. Hating the empty space between them, Scully started trying to explain. "He keeps porn in his desk at work." The words tumbled out then, spilled out of her mouth before she could throw up her filter. She went on and on, trying to explain the anomaly that was Fox Mulder. She went through everything - Fowley, Phoebe, all his stupid comments balanced on the other hand by an almost Victorian circumspection. Laid out like that, she realized it was sickening, juvenile. He was like some awful 13 year old boy.

"So what was it, anyway?"

"What was what?"

"The worst thing."

"His mother committed suicide. He made me autopsy her body." She slumped backwards in the booth, forced herself to stare at the ceiling, tried not to cry. "And then afterwards, he. . ."

"He what?"

"He was more intimate with me than ever before."

"Did he fuck you?" Frigga's expression was so flat it reminded Scully of him.

"No." She shook her head vigorously. "No. And I don't really feel comfortable talking about this."

"With me?"

"With anyone."

"Dana, maybe the two of you should go home to Washington. I don't think you can help get Wunjo back, and staying will probably only put you in danger."

"Because I don't want to share the particulars of our dysfunction with you?"

"Look, I threw runes over and over, looking for a way to stop this and everything pointed to you. I believe you have the ability to power a strike against Viggo, and I know that together you and Fox are even stronger. But you have too many cracks - too many secrets between you. You'd just wind up getting killed."

"I don't even know if it would work anyway ... I'm not exactly a believer."

"This isn't Peter Pan, honey. You don't have to clap your hands and promise to believe in fairies."

Scully gnawed at the inside of her cheek for a moment. "He, um,...he sucked my breast through my shirt, and um, followed with assorted...frottage, culminating in ejaculation on the cuff of my pants."

"Oh."

"He cried the whole time."

Soon they were laughing. "I don't think this changes anything."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

End 01/03